//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Thirteen // by Wheller //------------------------------// The rumbling of engines drowned out all other noise of the cold morning, the sun has only just risen over the landscape as tracked vehicles rolled over the hill. It was in their sights, the town of Zevilla. A disembodied voice crackled to life over the radio. All Kampfpanzers report status, came the thickly accented voice of the unit commander. Prospekt Six standing by. Called another voice. Prospekt Three standing by… said another. This was it, this was the moment that they’d all been training for, and every bit of experience in combat was culminating in this event. It was nerve wracking to say the least, and terrifying to say the most. Zevilla… This was what they had been waiting for. The earth pony mare fumbled with her headset and pushed the button on the radio to speak, having waited for the other members of the armoured platoon to finish reporting in before finally speaking aloud. ‘Prospekt Five… standing by.’ This wasn’t what she had signed up for. No, not anywhere close, she was in the middle of a war. To be sure, but she had not expected to do any fighting—No, she had signed up to treat those wounded on the field of battle. Funny how things worked out, and now she of all ponies, one who abhorred violence above all else, who had sworn to do no harm at one point in her life was now sitting in the commander’s seat of a PT-26 Light Infantry tank. How had Nurse Redheart’s life come to this? That was a long and complicated story. Nevertheless, now was not the time to dwell on it, even as she looked down at her trembling white hooves, still wondering how she had ended up in this position. She was scared, not a single member of the platoon wasn’t—except maybe their leader, Redheart was sure that he’d never been afraid of anything in his life. We are about to reach their first defensive line. Load high explosive! Watch for enemy Paks! the thickly accented voice called out. That was him. Dietrich Olbrich, their fearless leader. Redheart didn’t know much about him, at least not on a personal level, but she would follow him into combat any day of any year. Unlike almost everyone else in their unit, Dietrich Olbrich was not a pony; instead, he was of a race of Dire Wolf like creatures, called Schäferhund. Dietrich, or as he was usually called, but rarely to his face, Dieter, was the odd one out. A contradiction in terms. Because as far as his own countrymen were concerned, he was on the wrong side. He was a communist. Redheart didn’t care about that in the least bit, but for a Schäferhund, that made you worse than the devil. It was at odds with everything his people stood for. The Schäferhund, of Bundesrepublik Schäferhund, were highly nationalistic. Devoted to their fascist regime as if it was their life blood. Which, as Dieter had once explained to her, it was. Schäferhund thought nothing of valiantly sacrificing themselves for the good of the state. Without the state, they were nothing. If it came down to it, a Schäferhund would martyr himself selflessly, and without hesitation, if it was for the good of their Bundesrepublik. That of course, didn’t mean that they needlessly threw themselves away. No, quite the opposite. They were well trained, more organised, and far a better equipped fighting force than any other on the planet. Save perhaps, the Præsidium’s Red Army. She peered into the periscope and spotted Dieter’s tank driving forward, several metres in front of hers. The PT-26 Light Infantry Tank wasn’t pretty; in fact, it was pretty much an ugly flat box with a rounded turret on top. An unimaginative design from the mind of some nameless engineer in the Præsidium, but just like everything else produced in the Præsidium, it got the job done well enough. They’d gotten closer to the target, and she spotted them, a flash. The unmistakable flash of an anti-tank gun, Redheart could only watch helplessly as a 3.7 centimetre shell from the gun struck Prospekt Four squarely in the turret, punching right through the armour. Prospekt Four slowed, and smoke began to billow out of the hole blown in the turret. Redheart grimaced, and keyed in the radio. ‘Valkov? You alright over there?’ she asked. No response. Prospekt Four continued to roll forward, but had slowed significantly, it was falling behind out of formation with the rest of the group. Redheart frowned. Despite the fact that Prospekt Four was still moving, it was clear that its crew was gone. The PT-26’s transmission was designed in such a way, that even if the driver’s hoof was off the gas pedal, the tank would still move forward, so long as it was still in gear. A second shot from the anti-tank gun clipped the inside drive wheel of Prospekt Four, shattering the roadwheel, and causing the tank to lurch to a halt. Redheart rotated the periscope to look, and watched as the turret began to rotate, making a full revolution every ten seconds. The shock of the hit must have caused Valkov to fall against the controls. Redheart turned the periscope back forward. It was at this point, she saw them, a line of the Schäferhund Pak 37s that they hadn’t even bothered to hide any more. They opened fire in succession. Redheart watched in horror as the shell from one of them flew straight towards her own Prospekt Five, and slammed right into the turret. The Thirteen One It was morning, the alarm clock sprung to life as the hammer began to swing wildly back and forth between the two bells. The clock rattled around on the bedside table for a few moments before falling onto the floor with a clang. Either way, the clock’s job was done, its intended target now lie fully awake, looking up at the ceiling from her spot on the bed. Nurse Redheart let out a quiet sigh as she slipped from her bed, letting out a yawn and placing her hooves on the mahogany floorboards. She bent over and picked the alarm clock up with her teeth and placed it back on the bedside table, turning it around and resting her chin on it before reaching up with a hoof and depressing on the winding key on the back. One turn, two turns, three turns, done, the alarm clock would wake her tomorrow at the same time, five o’clock. She shook her head, sighing profusely at the strands of bright pink hair that dangled in front of her eyes. She shook her head again, but it was only making it worse. She let out a low growl before brushing the hairs aside. Some good it would do; her mane was a monster in the mornings. She'd slept poorly that previous night. As she had for the past several nights. The nightmares, again plagued her, as they did from time to time. She glanced around her bedroom. The room was fairly plain, sterile white walls on all sides of her, the mahogany floorboards below her, the simple night stand beside her bed, this was the bedroom of somepony that, from the perspective of an outsider looking in, was either poor, or boring. Most would have picked the first option, were it not for the centre piece of the room, the bed itself. The bed was quite large and excessive for a room that was otherwise so plain. Boring, however, was also the incorrect judgement for the room’s owner. The fact of the matter was that this room was only rarely used, so what was the point of having such lavish decorations for something that was only going to be used once in a blue moon? The exception was the bed; it was lavish for a reason. Its owner was subject to quite a bit of stress, and even though the room was only going to be used every once in a while, she wanted to make sure that when she did that she did not have to worry about not being comfortable. She turned and walked out of the room and in to the washroom turning on the water at the sink, filling the basin before reaching in with a hoof and splashing icy cold water on her face. Nurse Redheart looked into the mirror, only her ice blue eyes looking back at her. She moved over to the shower and turned the water on. She immediately stepped in, as a rush of cold water doused her. Some would have waited for the water to warm up a bit before stepping in. There wasn’t much of a point thanks to the fact that her water heater’s pilot light had decided it didn’t want to work anymore one week prior. Redheart was rarely ever at her house except to sleep, so she had simply not gotten around to getting it fixed yet. If anything though, it was an encouragement to finish quickly. Quickly washing herself up, she turned off the water and shivered in the open air as she stepped from the shower, grabbing a towel and tossing it around herself, rubbing herself down to dry off before hanging the towel back up. She stepped back in front of the mirror and reached with her mouth to grab an oversized comb commonly utilised by earth ponies to brush their manes. She slowly ran the comb through her mane a few times before using it to aid her in tying her mane up in a neat bun. She looked into the mirror, and frowned at what she saw looking back at her. A tired looking, pale grey earth pony mare who should, under ordinary circumstances, be refreshed and ready to start her day. She trotted back into the bedroom, and glanced at the bed. Despite its lavish comfort, it didn’t help. She opened her bedside table and pulled out her nurse’s cap, and placed it on her head, before turning around and trotting down stairs and into her kitchen. The rest of Redheart’s home was just as plain and simple as her bedroom. She rarely entertained guests, or even used the other rooms in her house. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d gone down into the basement, or used the dining room. She moved quietly throughout her own home as she walked into the living room and let out a yawn as she walked over to the calendar hanging on the wall. It was one of those with an individual page for each day. She reached out with her teeth and took hold of the top page, and gently pulled it off, discarding the old day’s page for later recycling, and took a look at the current date. December 16th, Year 1001 of the Reign of Celestia. Redheart’s ears drooped. Could it truly have been that long already? She let out a sigh and stepped towards the front door, slipping on a set of snow boots, tossing a simple red scarf around her neck, and adopting a pair of earmuffs before stepping outside into the cold winter air. The sun had yet to rise in Ponyville, but it wouldn’t be too much longer at this point. Redheart walked along the road towards Ponyville’s clinic. She glanced over to her left as she walked past the construction site of the new South and West Canterlot Province General Hospital. The work was coming along quite nicely, and Redheart figured it wouldn’t be too long before it was time to shut down that stuffy old clinic for the new hospital. Redheart sighed quietly as she turned away from the site and continued to walk along the road towards the clinic. Ponyville had been quite the last couple of weeks, and that was certainly a welcome change. The town’s biggest troublemakers, Twilight Sparkle and her friends, were off on some hiking trip far to the north. They could stay there for all Redheart cared. No, that was mean. It wasn’t that Redheart disliked any of them; it just seemed that when Twilight Sparkle and her friends were off doing something around town, some crisis wasn’t far behind. Redheart had seen some insanity in her life, plenty of it, and she wasn’t particularly willing for any more. Although, she did suppose that whenever something insane did happen around here, Twilight Sparkle and company were quick to clean up after it. She didn’t even want to think about Discord again. Honestly though? Compared with what she had seen in her life, Discord had been nothing. Redheart closed her eyes as she walked along. There was something to be said about silence in the cold winter’s morning. Suddenly, a crack rang out, Redheart’s eyes shot open and she immediately took a dive on the ground. ‘Sharpshooter!’ she cried out and quickly crawled around on the ground before taking cover behind a building. She was breathing heavily, her heart racing, it was a terrible feeling that she was all too familiar with. She glanced around the corner, taking care to not expose herself too much as she glanced around, looking at rooftops and windows, hoping to spot any glint of light as the sun began to rise. It took her a few moments before she realised where she was. Redheart began to calm herself. The fact of the matter was, that there wasn’t anything actually threatening her. She let out a frown, the more she thought about the sound she had heard, the more she realised that it was most likely the sound of somepony else doing something in the early hours, possibly dropping a ceramic pot or… something. Redheart felt silly, but the fact of the matter was, old habits die hard. She placed her hoof on the wall of the building she’d taken cover behind, and took a deep breath. Five years, five years had already gone by since that fateful day when Redheart became swept up in a conflict that should not have been the concern of anypony in Equestria. She brought herself to her hooves and continued her walk through the quiet streets of Ponyville. She glanced around to see if anypony had noticed her making a fool of herself, to her relief, there was no one to be found. … Redheart made it to the clinic a short time later, fortunately not having made a further fool of herself. Her early morning walk in the cold December air meant that there had been no witnesses to her foolishness. Everyone sane was still at home, in bed, curled up under the warm covers. She entered, quietly, and nodded at the night nurse as they were walking out. Redheart was embarrassed to admit, that she did not know the night nurse’s name. She’d been working at the clinic since before Redheart had come back from the War two years ago, but still, Redheart did not know her name, and it would be simply too awkward at this point to try and find out. To admit, after all this time that she didn’t actually know anything about her co-worker was far too embarrassing, and worse still, it was downright socially unacceptable in Equestrian society. You might not be friends with your co-workers. Or even know them very well, but you should at least have the decency to know who they are. To know their name. That was another side effect. Redheart didn’t want to get to know anyone new, for fear that once she did get to know them they’d just end up getting killed. Preposterous, of course, in Equestria, but as she’d always said, Old habits, they die hard. Redheart could barely remember the circumstances that had lead up to her getting involved in the Espanya Civil War. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. She knew perfectly well how she’d gotten wrapped up in it. Blind idealism. When Dietrich Olbrich had showed up in the summer of 996, looking for volunteers, Redheart had been dumb enough to let him talk her into it, that she would be caring for the injured. Well. Dieter had never lied, in that regard, but he didn’t tell the whole truth either, and that was what had changed her life forever.