Trauma wiped sweat from his brow. Why he had allowed Whisper to convince him to climb the unnecessarily steep hill was beyond him. He’d seen the topographical layout of the area and knew that this rise only offered a miniscule increase in visibility from some of the more easily traversed ones in the area.
The particular mound of dirt they had chosen to traverse was vegetated primarily with grass and there was little in the realm of shade. What had started out as a chilly morning had slowly metamorphosed over the last few hours to a temperature that he was beginning to think was somewhere between scorching and Celestia’s wrath.
He had lowered his binoculars to hoof sweat away again. Whisper was laying prone in the tall grass that graced their little sniper nest. When he glanced over to her, she was watching through her long-las’ scope as the squad worked its way somewhere through the valley below.
They’d spent most of the day infiltrating deep into enemy territory. The patrols and scouts they had managed to run into so far had either been avoided or quietly dispatched with incredible efficiency. Trauma distrusted when missions went too well. In his experience, luck always ran out at the worst time.
Supposedly they were less than ten kilomares from the target, at least according to both Nutmeg’s maps and, apparently, nose. Despite the reassurances Trauma couldn't, for his life, see any sign of the facility.
He wiped more sweat away and put the binoculars up to his eyes again. “When Nutmeg assigned me to the rear guard with you, I didn't think I’d be working on my tan. Remind me what was wrong with the southern rise, it had shade at least.”
Whisper responded to his grumbling with deafening silence. His ears were perked up but the only sounds to be heard were the light rustling of the wind through the grass and the muted sound of distant weapons fire.
He continued to scan the lightly forested valley floor and came upon the mostly concealed form of a navy-blue pony crawling through the underbrush. A short distance away, he caught the barest flash of chestnut coloration. Trauma refocused his binoculars and managed another brief glimpse of Point before the skillful scout suddenly disappeared again.
“Two o’clock, about three kilomares out, two friendly contacts,” he reported to Whisper, or possibly nopony in particular, based on the amount of noise she was making.
He heard her shift position. “Confirmed contact, but only on Owly…” He heard her move again.
“Point is about fifteen mare-lengths forward and to the left-” Trauma adjusted his focus and his estimate, Point was tearing through the underbrush faster than he expected. “-wait make that twenty.”
“Got ‘im… Who lit a fire under his flank?”
Trauma angled his view up and felt his eyes widen. “Five Tangos, fifty mare-lengths ahead of him, loose formation-” He held his breath as Point moved in a straight line towards the enemy. “-I think he’s trying to get to cover but I can't tell from this angle-” He alternated his view between the blur that was Point and the heretics.
The surprisingly well armed seditionists were following what could laughably be called a path through a stand of hoof diameter trees. Four of the ponies were carrying lasguns. From the look of the filed-off, or otherwise defiled, sun and moon symbols the weapons were most likely looted from fallen Guardsponies. The largest of the group had a large tube attached to their combat saddle. “Celestia’s bowels, they have a grenade launcher.”
“Yep, I’ll wager the manure is about to hit the air handler in a few ticks here,” Whisper casually observed as she adjusted her position again. “If dumb-flanks one and two down there aren’t careful, it’s going to get messy.”
Trauma held his breath as Point pressed himself up against a small boulder that was interposed between his lithe form and the dangerously close patrol.
Owly had stopped moving entirely and had flattened himself in a patch of shrubs. Trauma did not have high hopes for the navy-blue pony evading detection, the color didn't exactly lend itself towards camouflage purposes. Trauma could easily see Owly, even through the thick vegetation.
Trauma heard a loud sigh from Whisper. “Looks like blue-colt over there has attracted our new friends.”
Trauma confirmed the observation with his own eyes. While he could not hear it, he definitely saw the sudden motion of the heretics and saw several of their mouths open in silent shouts.
The traitors had moved to the side of the trail and began to work their way through the underbrush. Thankfully the big one with the grenade launcher was in the rear. Trauma took small consolation in the fact that if he fired the weapon he’d kill his own troops as well.
The group was clumped so close together that they were practically on top of each other and the overgrowth was forcing them to push through in single file towards Owly’s prone form.
“Heh.” The sound that had escaped Whisper’s lips was less a laugh and more a statement of fact.
Before Trauma could ask her what in Celestia’s name she found so funny about the situation, he was suddenly shocked, about half a standard mare-length into the air, by the deafening report of Whisper’s weapon firing.
Trauma scrambled to juggle his binoculars, which had also gone airborne, back into his grasp. He somehow managed to fumble them back up to his eyes.
His magnified gaze quickly found the two scout ponies. Point had hopped out behind the patrol and Owly had sprung to his hooves in front. They were both wielding combat knives in-mouth, though it looked as if the weapons might fall out at any moment. They were both staring, slack jawed, at the line of five seditionists who had mysteriously developed a fatal case of head and/or chest perforation.
“Never had five line up perfect like that before,” Whisper managed before chuckling to herself.
Trauma lowered the binoculars and stared at the prone mare. “Remind me to never line up with those two while I’m in front of you. You are a murder machine.”
Whisper looked at him and winked. He felt a flush across his muzzle as she smiled at him. “Flatterer.”
His look of surprised embarrassment was briefly interrupted by a short-lived look of understanding. “So that’s why you chose this Celestia-forsaken hill... We’re a good ten minute trot from the others.”
Her cat-who-ate-the-canary grin widened. “Fifteen, there's a creek and that impassable deadfall a kilomare out. Who knows what I could do to you in that much time?”
He replied to her bedroom eyes with an exasperated look. “You want to snog on a mission?”
“What’s the matter? You worried that Nutmeg is gonna find out and assign you to a more dangerous mission?”
“That is besides the point. You just killed five ponies, for Celestia’s sake!”
She pounced, knocking him onto his back and pinning him. “I know, got me in the mood, too.”
He stared up at her. “I don't think I'm ever going to understand you.”
She leaned down so their muzzles were almost pressed together. “Well, we should change that, shouldn't w—”
Pip.
He saw that Whisper’s ears had perked at the same burst of static as his had. The corners of her mouth dropped precipitously.
Pip. Pip. Pip. It was the signal for “eyes on me, now.”
Trauma flinched as Whisper swore loudly and made a comment about the legitimacy of the Commissar’s parentage.
He sighed, unsure of whether he was relieved or not. “Better get the binoculars. If he’s breaking his own radio silence order, it can't be good.”
She rolled back to her rifle. “There's something else of his I’d like to see broken,” she muttered as she adjusted her scope.
Trauma rolled back onto his belly and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. He almost jumped out of his skin when Commissar Nutmeg came into focus, glaring right at him.
He hoofed his earpiece twice to indicate an affirmative. Pip. Pip.
Trauma watched with mounting tension as Nutmeg performed a series of convoluted hoof signals.
There was another swear from Whisper. “Why in Tartarus does he need you down there, double time? Nopony on our team appears to be hurt.”
Trauma lowered the binoculars and hoofed another affirmative with his earpiece. Pip. Pip “Well, I guess I'll know in fifteen minutes.” He stuffed the binoculars into his saddlebags.
“Seven,” Whisper corrected, her eye still looking through the scope.
Trauma considered saying something before he left, but thought better of it.
Whisper had no such reservations, however. “To be continued,” she said as he started down the hill.
Thankfully, the terrain was more forgiving than his binoculars had shown. The stream was shallow enough that Trauma was able to cross it without wetting anything above his cannons, and avoiding the deadfall only added a minute to his slow gallop. A quick glance at his chronometer showed that it had only taken him five minutes to reach the glade where the rest of the squad had assembled.
Trauma was greeted by the barrels of everypony’s weapons as he entered the clearing. Tension practically radiated off of the other squad members. Even the normally conversational Point was scanning the surrounding trees with a spooked look in his eyes.
Once the assembled weapons had been lowered, Nutmeg quickly approached him and put a hoof to Trauma’s shoulder, pulling him close. Nutmeg looked conspiratorially around before whispering into his ear. “Come with me, I need you to look at something.”
The Commissar led him from the clearing into the brush that had been trampled when the seditionists had spotted Owly. The five ponies were still in line and four were still practically on top of each other, but the largest of the group had fallen into the shrubs to the side.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but realization and revulsion worked their way through Trauma as he observed the corpse. The body itself was light but wiry; Trauma had mistaken a huge saddlebag, attached only by two loops at the front shoulders, as the stallion’s back. Most of the stallion’s actual back, and entire spinal column, had been completely replaced with a metal prosthesis that was stamped with the symbol of a lyre.
The reason the stallion appeared so tall made Trauma sick to his usually stalwart stomach. He didn’t dare look at the pony’s forehooves.
“Is that what I think it is, Trauma?”
Trauma’s throat and mouth had gone dry but he still managed to spit in disgust upon the forest floor. When he spoke his voice was filled with the loathing he felt for this gross perversion of the pure pony form. “Full bipedal conversion. The bastard’s a Lyranite.”