//------------------------------//
// Rainbow Dash Part 1 
// Story: My Little Underlevels 
// by zero_hour 
//------------------------------//

	A bell echoed throughout the barracks, prompting Rainbow Dash to cover her head with a pillow. She lay in a small but comfortable bed in a room that was, for the underlevels at least, spacious and well-kept. The mare tried to drown the noise out for a few minutes before crawling out of bed and leaving her quarters. She yawned, stumbling down the hallway until she reached the barracks’ recreation room. In the center of the room, three stallions and a mare were gathered around a folding table playing cards. Judging by her grin, the mare was winning. The stallions’ angry scowls were replaced with mocking smiles when they noticed Rainbow Dash.
“Hey look guys, it’s Rainbow Crash.”
“You’re late again, Crash.”
“Nice bedhead, Rainbow Crash.”
Rainbow Dash ignored the stallions. She had known them since she was a filly, and they had never grown out of insulting her. Smiling, the blue pegasus pointed to the white mare who was sitting with them.
“I see you’re losing to Redheart again.”
Redheart, the squad medic, glanced up from the game. “We’re not actually playing for credbits. I don’t think they have any left from our last game.”
Rainbow snickered as the frowns returned to the stallions’ faces and they turned back to their game of pazaak. She looked around for the rest of the squad and saw Sergeant Silverstar sitting on an old sofa reading a holobook, as well as a dark brown pegasus walking towards her from the mess hall, balancing a styrofoam cup of coffee on each wing.
“You sure do like your sleep, Rainbow. Silverstar thought he was gonna have to get you out of bed himself.” The stallion nodded towards the coffee. Take one before I burn myself. They’re hot.”
Rainbow Dash took a cup. “Thanks Leeroy. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
The stallion chuckled. “You need to forget about all this ‘leaving the underlevels’ stuff. Be content with what you have.”
The cyan mare looked over towards the card game, which was breaking up as Redheart was accused of cheating. 
“Yeah, right. Be content with this?”
He nodded, walking back towards the mess hall. “Well, I guess there’s nothing wrong with striving for more. Don’t set goals you can’t reach though.”
Rainbow Dash walked over to the couch, sat next to Silverstar and began to sip her coffee. The card game had erupted into a shouting match, and she guessed that it would’ve become an all-out brawl if Redheart hadn’t outranked the other three. Sergeant Silverstar, clearly annoyed at this disturbance of his reading, tried to yell over the other ponies. He remained unsuccessful until he resorted to throwing his book at them. They grew silent and turned to the stallion, who was glaring at them.
“Corporal Redheart, y’all should know better than ta fight over somethin’ dumb as a card game. An’ as for you other three, Ah know y’all are too stupid ta know better, but shut up anyhow. We’re goin’ on patrol in ten. Go get ready.”
The four ponies gave each other a final glare before heading towards the locker room. Rainbow Dash and Silverstar followed them, joined by Leeroy as they passed the door to the mess hall. Once in the locker room, the squad split up, each going to their respective lockers. Rainbow Dash pulled her armour off of the shelf where it sat, moderately free of carbon scoring from the last time she cleaned it. She slipped into the black body glove, which covered her from her neck to her hooves to her flank, even encasing her wings. She then fastened greaves onto all four of her legs, strapped on her breastplate and corresponding back armour, put on her flank plates and stepped into her boots. She grabbed a small black bottle, squeezing some of the contents onto her tail, which protruded from the back of her suit. Part of the standard stormpony uniform was a black dyed tail, and while some more drab-coloured ponies didn’t have to dye their tails, thanks to the leniency in the rule’s enforcement, Rainbow Dash was definitely not drab-coloured. Once she had finished rubbing the dye into her tail, she donned her helmet, slung her blaster over her shoulder, and walked out the door into the street with the rest of the squad.
To the average observer, the seven soldiers were identical. Even the pegasi didn’t stand out, their wings being concealed under their armour. But the squad was able to identify each other. Years of working together had taught them to recognize each other’s height, size, and even walking styles. Failing at that, they could always check the identification number that each pony had printed on the back of their helmet. Rainbow stood in line next to Leeroy as Sergeant Silverstar addressed the squad.
“Alright now y’all know the drill. We’re gonna split up and look for trouble. If any of y’all sees something, report it on the comm. Now, Ah want Private Hoops an’ Private Score with me.”
The two stormponies stood to attention and saluted.
“Corporal Redheart, you get ta keep an eye on Private Dumbbell.” The sergeant received two more salutes.
“An’ that leaves Private Wingkins an’ Private Dash. The two of you better not be slacking off without a superior ta watch y’all.”
The two pegasi saluted before the squad split into their assigned groups. Rainbow turned to her partner, who was giving his rifle a final check-over.
“So Leeroy, where are we gonna patrol? I heard that there’s been gun running going on near the corner of streets Whiskey and Seventeen.”
The stallion shook his head. “Silverstar’s group is checking that out already.”
“How about the theatre then?”
Leeroy shrugged. “Might as well.”
The two soldiers set off down the street, receiving half-scared, half-angry glances from the ponies they passed. Rainbow sighed. She hated police work. She joined the army to fight, not to walk around writing tickets and drinking coffee. The closest any of the squad had come to a real fight was at the bar, and unruly ponies there always calmed down the second they saw a uniform. There was always the chance of a transfer, but it wasn’t very likely that the Empire would want to bring rookie stormponies all the way from the underlevels when they could just recruit locally. Still, if she ever got the chance to prove herself…
“Hay, we’re here. You okay?”
Rainbow jumped slightly as her thoughts where interrupted by Leeroy tapping the side of her helmet. “Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go see how Pinkie‘s doing.”
Leeroy nodded, turning to the building that the two had just arrived at. “This early in the morning? I doubt that there’s going to be anypony here.”
As Rainbow stepped inside, she found that Leeroy had been correct. The building, which was little more than an old warehouse with a projector showing a movie on one wall, was empty. Well, nearly empty anyways.
“Hi guys! What’s up? Here to see a movie?”
Rainbow shook her head as a pink earth pony bounced into view from a back room. “Just a routine patrol. Everything quiet around here?”
“Quiet as a drunken stallion taking candy from a foal!”
The two stormponies exchanged a glance before looking back to Pinkie.
“So… it isn’t quiet?”
Pinkie laughed. “Of course not, silly! It’s a theatre!”
Rainbow groaned, rolling her eyes. Pinkie could be so obtuse sometimes.
Leeroy sighed. “We’re glad to see that everything’s fine, Pinkie, but we should probably get going. We’ve still got places to-”
He stopped abruptly as a voice sounded on his and Rainbow’s in-helmet comlinks.
“This is Corporal Redheart to squad. Private Dumbbell and me are seeing some flashes coming from a building over here on Mike Street that we think might be from blasters. Could we get some backup?”
“This is Sergeant Silverstar ta Dash an’ Wingkins. What’s your location?”
Leeroy was the first to answer. “We’re on Hotel Street, sir.”
“Well Ah want y’all ta get over to the corporal an’ back her up. We’ll be on our way too, but it might take us a while.”
“Got it sir. We’re on our way.”
Redheart’s voice came back on the comm, accompanied by the sound of blaster fire. “Make it fast, we’re taking fire!”
Rainbow couldn’t suppress a grin as she galloped down the street with Leeroy, ponies scrambling to get out of their way. This was more like it. Her first real fight since she joined the army.
Rainbow turned the corner onto Mike Street, stopping in her tracks as she saw the situation. Redheart and Dumbbell were pinned behind a derelict landspeeder by a hail of gunfire coming from a building across the street from them. Reaching over to Leeroy’s utility belt, Rainbow grabbed a pair of binoculars and took a closer look at the building.
“Looks like they’ve got a heavy repeater of some sort… backed up by some small arms. Piece of cake.”
Redheart looked over at the two from her place on the ground. Her voice crackled inside Rainbow’s helmet. “You know I can hear you, right? We’ve been stuck here for five minutes, this is serious. Don’t try anything stupid.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll bet we could clear that building in ten seconds flat. Right Leeroy?”
“Yeah, LET‘S DO THIS!”
The two stormponies started running towards the building, firing wildly at the open windows.
Redheart and Dumbbell stared for a second before emerging from behind the landspeeder and opening fire in an attempt to cover Rainbow and Leeroy, who were now stopping in front of the building. Rainbow fired a few shots at the door, her reckless confidence dissolving as they bounced off.
“It’s magnetically sealed!”
Redheart’s voice sounded on the comm again. “I could’ve told you that if you’d waited for thirty seconds!”
“Y’all stop squabbling! We’re here!”
Sergeant Silverstar galloped around the corner of the street, followed closely by Hoops and Score.
“We called for backup, an’ it should be here soon. Y’all sit tight an’-”
The stallion cut off as he caught sight of Rainbow and Leeroy huddled against the side of the building. “What in the hay are you two doing? Get out of there!”
Rainbow took a deep breath before getting up and sprinting towards Silverstar, followed closely by Leeroy.
“Cover those two idiots!”
The fleeing stormponies reached their sergeant, diving to the ground next to him. The gunfire stopped abruptly as the rest of the squad dropped back into cover.
After a few moments of silence, Silverstar stepped out into the open.
“Alright you lot in there, y’all need ta drop your weapons and come on out. If y’all don’t, we’re gonna have ta-”
The stallion was cut off as a burst of plasma erupted from the building, hitting him squarely in the chest and knocking him on his side.
“Sarge!”
Rainbow sprinted the few meters to Silverstar and grabbed him, pulling him to safety under the cover of Hoops, Score, and Leeroy. She scrambled to pull his breastplate off, sighing with relief at the sight of his chest, unscathed apart from some bruising. The stallion grunted. 
“It’s going ta take a bit more’n some smuggler’s toy ta punch through Imperial armour. And speaking of armour…”
The squad looked up as a rhythmic clanking noise started up in the distance, becoming louder and louder until the stormponies were forced to yell over the comm in order to hear each other.
“What the hay is that?”
“I don’t know, but I wish it’d shut up!”
“This day is just going from bad to worse, isn’t it?”
An earsplitting screech of feedback sounded in Rainbow’s helmet, followed by a new voice.
“This is Captain Octavia checking in with squad 406-Bravo. Did somepony here order a raptor?”
Rainbow stared as the clanking became louder than she thought possible, and an AT-ST walker stomped around the corner of the street, the impact of each step shaking the groud.
Silverstar stood, putting his chestplate back on. “Yeah, there’s a building here that’s givin’ us all sorts of trouble. We’d all be mighty grateful if y’all could take care of it.”
The walker continued down the street, stopping near the squad. Almost immediately it started taking fire from the building.
“Hay, this is Octavia again. Which building is it?”
Rainbow laughed. “The one that’s shooting you.”
“I can’t see anything from in here. Hang on, I’ll take a look.”
The hatch on top of the vehicle opened, and a grey helmeted mare peeped out, ducking back in as a blaster round narrowly missed her.
“Okay, got it. Hold tight, this should only take a minute.”
Turning towards the building, the walker made a humming sound before firing its chin gun into the building. The gunfire from the building quickly stopped, but the tank continued.
“406-Bravo, this is Octavia. tell us when to let up, I can’t see anything.”
Silverstar watched the building start to break apart under the continuous pounding if the heavy gun.
“Keep ‘em coming, Captain.”
Finally the building gave in, crumbling and crashing into a heap of twisted, burnt metal.
“Alright, that should do it. Y’all can stop.”
“I didn’t copy that, louder please.”
“Ah said stop!”
“You got it.”
The guns made a humming noise again as they stopped firing.
“Do you need anymore help, or have we saved your flanks enough yet?”
“Ah think y’all have done plenty. Thanks.”
The walker turned, tromping back off down the street. As the noise of its steps receded, Octavia’s voice came onto the comm.
“This is Captain Octavia to 406-Bravo again. We’re checking out of your block. You ever need divine intervention again, don‘t hesitate to give a call.”
Rainbow waited another minute before speaking. “What a snob. Armour always thinks they’re all that.”
Redheart trotted over to Silverstar, checking his wound despite his protests. “You should be more appreciative, Private Dash. They did save us after all.”
“We would’ve been fine on our own. The door was sealed, but we could’ve gone in the windows or something.”
Silverstar chuckled. “That kind of attitude is gonna get you in trouble. Well, more than you already got in. Next time y‘all listen ta Redheart.”
Rainbow laughed nervously. “Yeah… Sorry about that, Red.”
The corporal nodded to Rainbow before turning back to the sergeant. “You seem fine. You’re lucky that it hit your armour just right.”
“Thank you Corporal. Now Ah think that we should be gettin’ back ta the barracks. We’ve had plenty of action for one day.”
The squad followed their sergeant as he trotted away from what was left of the building. Rainbow hesitated, looking back at the wreckage. This was what she signed up for. Action. Not walking around telling civilians what to do. She sighed, trotting after the other stormponies. One of these days, she told herself. Somehow, she was going to get transferred. She was going to see action like that every day, and she was going to make something of herself.