“Privates Crimson Dawn, Platinum Starlight, Northern Lights, Southern Lights, and Batrocious Nightmane, you are to report to Colonel Silvercrest in five. Down the row, seventh on the left. Next!”
As the group walked away from the career trainer Sergeant Rolling Plains, known by everypony as the Sarge, Crimson stole a glance towards the hospital tent and saw a dark pink Unicorn. Her hooves were green with flames licking up her legs, and her mane and tail had quite the leaf-green appearance. She looked back at him as if she knew the direction his gaze took him and smiled sweetly. Those deep green eyes…
He shook his head, but his eyes wandered to her again. A simple red cross with a green border and an odd-looking army helmet sitting at an angle on top was her cutie mark. Again, Crimson shook himself. As a young stallion, he had to try to keep certain… emotions from controlling him.
A dazzling white Pegasus mare saw the look on his face and walked over. “You lookin’ at Nurse Lieutenant Thorn, recruit?”
“Nurse Lieutenant Thorn?” he asked in reply.
“Yeah, recruit. Nurse Lieutenant Rose Thorn, to be more specific. She’s the hottest gal this side of the Celestial Sea, according to The Nautinia Stallion’s Magazine. I was lucky just to get her name. The mare’s shyer than one of my classmates in Cloudsdale, Fluttershy. And that’s sayin’ a lot.”
“You went to Cloudsdale, ma’am? What for?”
“To study their cloud factory three years ago. Oh, where are my manners? I’m Colonel Moonshine Silvercrest, commanding officer of the Second Coastal Regiment. You?”
“Private Crimson Dawn, ma’am, Second Coastal. These are Privates Platinum Starlight, Northern and Southern Lights, and Bats.” He gestured to his friends as he introduced them. “We’re all in the Second, and we were supposed to report to you about now.” Then, in a spur of memory, he saluted as best he could.
“No need for the salute, kid. Come on, you and your buddies. I’ve been trying to round up the regiment all morning, and you guys are the only ones to have checked in with the fearsome Sarge. I think the rest are chillaxing in the mess. Help me out and you’re on your way to lookin’ fancy with an insignia.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The five followed Colonel Silvercrest to the mess tent. Sure enough, a whole bunch of recruits lazily lounging around, munching on sandwiches. Crimson looked at the officer, who grinned. The next thing to happen was pure hell for the eating ponies.
“Anypony here in the 2nd Coastal? If you are and don’t check in with Sergeant Plains in TWO MINUTES, you’ll be marked AWOL!” she bellowed with a voice that must’ve carried all the way to the musket training grounds on the other side of the camp.
Immediately, sixteen ponies jumped to their hooves with the sandwiches falling to the grass floor in varying stages of eating. They ran to their gear, neatly stacked to the side, and bumped around.
“Ma’am, do you know where Sergeant Plains is?” one asked worriedly.
“Show them, will you, Private Dawn?” she asked, and turned around, calling, “Private Dawn will help you.”
“Who?”
Crimson raised his hoof. “Me. Now follow if you don’t want PT duty tonight!”
They scrambled after the now-striding red Pegasus. Silvercrest watched with amusement as their light trainee armor clanked louder than gunshot. He’s been under my command for less than five minutes, and he’s already looking like a good NCO, she thought to herself. Private Dawn might refuse the promotion, preferring to stick with his friends, but that’s okay. He’ll do fine either way.
A few minutes later, Crimson returned to his commanding officer with twenty extra lost ponies on top of the sixteen he’d been guiding. Silvercrest smiled when she saw Platinum and Bats getting the nervous ponies’ spirits up with a pun about seafood diets. She could just barely hear it:
“I am on a new see-food diet. I see food, and I eat it!” A few smiles appeared for a moment.
“This it so far, Private Dawn?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll go look for more.” With that, he was gone.
Silvercrest looked around at the forty-odd Atlantean recruits before her. “He’s gonna be your first NCO as greenies in this regiment, and he’s been here for less than half an hour! Now, sure, the 2nd Coastal has seen some action. As far as I’m concerned, the other five hundred you’ll be serving alongside are busy keeping the Dominion just outside the border. But that kid’s a natural-born leader, whether he sees it or not, and he already outranks you guys!”
Shocked gasps went through the forty recruits. The local mathematics teacher’s kid was getting a promotion after less than a hour? What was this madness?
Crimson quickly returned with the sixty others being sent to the 2nd Coastal. When he did, Silvercrest gave him an insignia representing E-2. with a questioning look in his eyes, he accepted it and tried to pin it on his uniform. The colonel eventually ceased his struggle by helping him pin it.
“All of you greenies are witnesses. Private Dawn has been promoted. I don’t have any Warrant spots open yet, but you’ll act like he is one. Got it?”
“Yes, Colonel!” came the chorus of replies.
“Good. Get your stuff and follow me to the train station. Your training will be closer to the actual fight so you can be a reserve for the rest of my boys. Ten minutes!”
-----------------
Crimson sat in the aisle seat next to Silvercrest. She preferred the window seat, and rank let her have it. Across from them sat Platinum and Bats.
“So, Private Nightmane, why is your first name Batrocious?” she questioned.
“It’s a pun on the word ‘atrocious,’ Colonel.” he replied. “My father is the ‘old haggard running all the boats’ and my mother’s a thestral. Her ancestors served as Princess Luna’s personal guard before the NM incident. They fled Equestria rather than changing the ages-old family name directly after because of the paranoia around anything starting with ‘night’.”
“Not to mention ‘Nightmane’ sounds a tad too much like ‘nightmare.’” Platinum interjected. “Ma’am.”
“So, you’re half thestral, half pony. I’ve met one before. He was a crazy thing, always doing something to get out of flight school. But judging by your apparent lack of wings, I can assume you won’t do the same in my regiment?”
It wasn’t a question even if it sounded like one. It was an order. “Yes, ma’am.”
She galnced at Crimson. “Private Dawn, you seem to be upset about going to war for your training.”
“Ma’am, we had this adventure-ish excursion a few days before signing up. We took Bats’ boat and sailed around ‘till we saw an iron vessel sitting on a sandbar. I don’t want to think about what was inside.”
She sensed fear. “Right.” She then turned the conversation to her own life, trying to keep a friendly attitude towards those under her command.
-----------------
The crack of gunfire rang out on the training field. Crimson and his friends were getting some live-fire practice with the rest of the recruits. Yelling at them over the projectile-blasting explosions was a grumpy, graying stallion called ‘Martian’ for so long nopony even remembered his actual name anymore. He called for a ceasefire and to form ranks for a charge. In the two minutes it took for the ‘greenies’ to ready, he ordered them to reform behind the earthen mound.
“Too slow, dammit! They’re coming again!”
After several grueling hours of insulting torment, they finally did it in a speed that satisfied the Martian. At one point, Silvercrest came to watch during a lull in the distant fighting, and saw Crimson trying to encourage the others to go again. He even kept them at it after Martian left for the mess tent.
“Come on! We can do it faster than he trains us! Up and at it, fellas!”
It was another hour before Crimson was done. “Good job. Now let’s get some food!” He had to run to make sure he got some of the good stuff before those thinking they could give him orders took it. Most of the others despised them for it, and believed they’d go AWOL and return home the first chance they got.
Silvercrest joined him after he sat and began eating. “I see you’re pushing them.”
“The war’s coming whether we’re ready or not. I just want us closer to the former.”
“It wasn’t a reprimand, nor a compliment. Your reasoning is sound, just not the execution. We can work with that. I want you on the lines, though. Not so that you have a high chance of dying, but for the experience. But the Queen’s order is a full month of training before they set hoof in a trench. Since she never explicitly said where that training took place, I brought you recruits here for it. It’s as close as I can get without breaking the law.”
“Thanks, ma’am.” Crimson picked at a spinach leaf. Something was clearly on his mind.
“Spill it, Private. You’re worried.”
“My sister. I just hope she stays safe behind our armies. And what’s the point of this ‘shoot and countercharge’ thing if the Dominion gets to the line? We haven’t trained for that, and we started two weeks ago. There’s less than a week left.”
“By Harmony, you’re right! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll have the Martian drill it in the others. But all my NCO’s get schooled by me in that. It’s a technique I’ve used time and time again, and my devotion to such has saved me on many occasions. Meet me on the grounds at the top of the hour, and we’ll get started.”