//------------------------------// // Moving Day // Story: The Princess's Bit // by Mitch H //------------------------------// A large shadow fell over Purse Strings' desk, and he looked up from his loadout checklists.  "Captain Bell!" he squawked, surprised to find the wrong oversize female darkening his door. "You weren't the Crystal Guard I was expecting. What can I do for you?" "Hey, there… you," the big beefy pegasus said. Big Bell was nominally Major Shield's executive officer, but Purse had hardly dealt with her at all. She and the other officers - those that existed, the organization being somewhat lacking in adult supervision on that front - had been off in garrison, and out on the training fields outside of the city, while Purse Strings and various non-coms had handled most of the running about inside the city. Well, aside from Trixie Lulamoon and her explosively odd starts. The point being, he'd not really dealt with the big light-purple mare, not directly anyways. And here she was - when he'd been expecting Sergeant Gilda.  "Hey, there, captain," Purse said, trying for an easy charm. Her lip twitched, and not in a good way. "Uh, I'm getting my ponies ready here, We've got a lot of pallet loads, and I think I've got enough hoofs to make it light work, but have you seen the sergeant and the rest of the-" "Yeah, Ah've got all these heavy carts with me. Also, two lances of troops in full armor. Also Martin Gale. Hey! Martin! Get in here!" The dull-colored head of a stern-looking mare stabbed into the doorway of his now-almost-crowded office. "Captain?" "Purse Strings here is our quartermaster, he's in charge of the loading. Mister Strings, the lieutenant here is in charge of security. We don't want these carts or the stuff in 'em to go a-wandering in the chaos. Can the two of you handle this end of the mess?" "Er… yeah?" Purse looked between the heavy-featured captain and the sharp-muzzled lieutenant with poisonous disapproval already brewing in her eyes, and quailed at the prospect. "Where's the master sergeant? Or the major?" "They are very busy mares, Quartermaster Strings!" the lieutenant - Lieutenant Martingale? - snapped out. "We are here to lighten their load, not assuage your feeble insecurities. Is that the plan? Let me see it!" She pushed past her superior officer and started poring over Purse's paperwork.  "Ah'll leave you two to it, Mister Strings. Ah gotta run back to the ship. Tailwind's got her docked out at the airfield outside of the city. You two know where that is, you can get loaded carts in convoy out that way?" "I can read a map, captain, and I trust that this colt knows his job and his kit. Don't waste any more time on us," the darker, smaller pegasus said, absently, her eyes darting over Purse's work. "Tell the major when you see her that we've got it under control." And with that, the squadron's executive officer left Purse alone. Trapped with this pony he neither knew… "Your penmareship is atrocious. What is this word, Mister Strings?" Nor particularly liked. He looked to see what she was sniffing at, and wondered where all the fun mares were today. "Come on, can't you tell me where Shield-kins has got to?" "The major's not here, Magus Heartstrings. I haven't seen her in hours," said the griffon corporal in charge of the guard on the Princess's Bit, which was sitting on the tarmac of Trottingham Air Field, all of her hatches open, and swarming with activity. He didn't even blink at Lyra's new nickname for Twilight Sparkle, edgemare extraordinaire.  "Well, who has seen her?" asked Lyra, silently vowing to find something to call Twiggles that would make her minions react. "I saw her taking Bob out of the stockade, just before leaving the garrison," came wafting down from above.  Lyra looked around her hat and up into the hatch leading into the Princess's Bit. A batpony was hanging there, lifting a sack of something or other - even after more than a month with the air cavalry, Lyra didn't always have the right words to go with the day to day stuff in use. Like those big heavy haversacks the troops were carrying around today. "What was she doing with poor Bob?" Lyra asked, a bit perplexed. "I dunno, magus. You could ask her, herself." "And where would I do that? I thought she'd be here!" "It's a big ship, magus. I barely got here myself." "You said you saw her in the stockade!" "Ain't no stockade no more, I was packing it up when I saw the major." "Well, I'm not wasting an entire trip out here!" Lyra shifted her own bags on her back, her hooves aching from the weight of carrying all of her stuff the several miles between the garrison and the airfield. "Does anypony know where my cabin is?" The griffish corporal exchanged glances with the thestral trooper leaning out of the ship overhead, and they shrugged at her. "Gah!" Trixie stared at her table full of disordered paperwork, and wondered if any of it meant anything. She was ensconced in a small nook beside the main foyer leading into the squadron's half-emptied portion of the garrison, trying to not tap her hooves in anxiety as the vigilant batpony guards allowed their fellow troopers to pass in and out of the open gates.  Theoretically now was the exact moment when security should have been at its highest, as ponies and griffons and other creatures scampered here and there, with half-lances, and pairs, and singletons tromping all over the place. Theoretically everypony was supposed to be sticking together with their units, and packing up in a nice, organized fashion.  Theory could go suck on a sack of white phosphorus. Every time a pony forgot her iron, or her dirty laundry, or her photographic apparatus, another lance lost another mare to the spreading chaos. Out in the crowded courtyard lances, not being able to find free carts, were leaving on hoof with less than half their files, lugging their kit bags, bedding sacks, and assorted luggage piled high on their backs. Others, having grabbed the carts intended for full-roster lances, were leaving with partially-empty cart-beds, the rest of their ponies or griffons having been left behind or gone missing. A more organized unit in a more civilized country would have cab ranks of baggage carts lined up in the courtyard outside, so that they could haul the troopers' effects out to the airfields in a nice, organized fashion.  Instead, the troops were trickling out by file, wobbling as they went, interspersed with the few that had gotten their luggage-carts before somepony else could steal them.  The best that Trixie's guard detail could do was make sure that the ponies and griffons leaving with carts were actually in the right uniform, and at least looked vaguely familiar. The squadron wasn't so large that you couldn't remember every face, but it was young enough that not everypony had met everypony else, yet. If it was this bad out by the gates, Trixie couldn't imagine the mess they must be leaving behind upstairs… Trixie cringed at a horrendous clattering crash, and looked out into the corridor to see the mess made by a griffish trooper having apparently lost her load all over the middle of the passageway. Trixie watched the hen's fellow-griffish troopers move out of the way of the rest of the traffic and set their bags down in a more controlled fashion against the far wall. They all bent over the mess their fellow had made, picking up the spilled armor, tools, and dishware. Had it been their lance's designated cook? Trixie got the broom out of the corner of her little officer's nook - which in better times had served as a janitor's closet - and went out to go help clean up the broken crockery and glass. The glamorous life of a mare in the Guard! And so it went.  Trixie was still out in the corridor when the reliefs for her bat-ponies arrived, and she looked up from her brooming to find a skinny crab-back with a lance corporal's stripe looking at her. She dumped one last dust-pan's worth of broken dishes into a nearly-overflowing trash bin, and returned to her actually assigned duty.  "Ma'am? Have you seen the officer of the watch?" the tom asked. Trixie looked behind the junior NCO, and saw he had a full file and a half behind him, in garrison gear. Behind them, the batponies were looking anxiously at her, restless and no doubt eager to go upstairs and clear out their own lockers. "You found her, lance corporal… name?" "Er, excuse me?" "I'm the officer of the guard. What's your name, soldier?" "Giles, ma'am. Reporting for duty." "Dried Durian, your ponies are dismissed," Trixie said over the back of her replacement lance corporal, to the lance corporal commanding the originals. "Go rejoin your-"  And they were gone, like that. "OK, then," Trixie said, trying to figure out how a half-dozen ponies could disappear like that without smoke bombs. "Giles, I'm Lulamoon, is this all of your troopers?" "No, ma'am. The rest are back on the Bit, claiming our billet, and protecting our gear until everygriff settles down." "You have your stuff stowed?" "For the most part, yeah. We're yours for the next eight hours." "Hopefully not, we were supposed to be out of these quarters by nine," Trixie said, putting away her broom and dustpan, and looking out into the gathering darkness. "Who sent you?" "Sergeant Gustav said to come back here and find you, ma'am. Make sure you had replacements and anything you needed to expedite your end of the move." "Ha! My end of the move was done before we took the blasted ship! I've been sleeping on the Daddy- the Princess's Bit for the last five days. And I got my ensigns and corporals to pack up their shit last night. Tonight's for the ponies who can't organize themselves to save their lives." "As you say, ma'am. We're squared away, and yours for the night. Do… you have any idea where the other officers are?" "Trixie thinks we have two or three ensigns running around upstairs like chickens with their heads bit off," Trixie sniffed. "At least, I let them through several- no, that was four hours ago. Including the pony responsible for those guards you just replaced. I don't know where she got to. For all I know, the mare just teleported right past me. Walked through shadows. I have no idea. Her bat-mare went by about… an hour ago? It might be a bit - make room, there, Giles, here comes another batch." A small cavalcade of support ponies and griffons came thundering out of the mess hall, weighed down with sacks of food and clanging saddlebags full of pots and silverware. Trixie suspected that more than half of that actually belonged to the facility itself, but she wasn't going to shake down the squadron's own cooks. She had to eat, too, you know? Trixie eyed the overburdened cooks as they streamed by her and her corporal's guard. "Say, you didn't bring any baggage carts back with you from the airfield, did you?" "No, ma'am. I hear that the quartermaster and the lieutenant disappeared with everything we had piled up by the Bit an hour or two before Sergeant Gustav sent us your way." "Well, that doesn't sound like a good sign. And might explain where the major and the other officers disappeared to, maybe?" Trixie squinted, trying to figure out what was going on. "Ma'am, where do you need us?" "Oh, right. You and one other here at the doors. Two more out at the gate on the other side of the courtyard. The rest keeping some sort of order out there. Try and keep them from bashing each other's heads in, people? Thank you." And as the lance corporal got his griffons sorted, two ponies Trixie didn't recognize emerged from the murk of the courtyard, and tried to get past the doors into the half-emptied squadron's quarters. The doors her troopers were supposed to be guarding. "Whoa, whoa, whoa there, partners!" Trixie squealed, stepping in front of the two stallions in EUP greens and ensigns' bars. "Where do you two think you're going?" "Reporting for duty, obviously - what are you, an idiot?" snapped the little one, and Trixie craned her neck to look him in the face.  "Look, you inflamed little hemorrhoid, I know I don't look like an officer, but you will respect the bars, you hear me? Stand to attention!" "Wh-what?" "You heard me, brace, you little red twat! You too, ginger. You made the mistake of bringing short and smart-mouthed into my house!" The commotion had brought half of her guard detail into supporting distance, behind the two stallions now desperately trying to look like they weren't complete and utter buck-ups. Somehow, the traffic from upstairs had died off, so Trixie had some time to blow off some steam and haze the new colts. She tried not to smile, and only managed to convert it into a sneer. "Names! Now! You first, Ginger-Can't-Find-A-Razor!" "Ensign Sunburst, ma'am! From the 12th Tail Highlanders!" "A Vale colt! What is a Vale colt doing in Trixie's house? Who sent you!" "Personnel, ma'am! I'm a transfer!" "Well, we don't need more ensigns. We've got plenty of them, more than we can handle! You smell like Academy to me. Are you an Academy pony, Sunburst?" "Gifted Unicorns, ma'am!" "What's that? That's not a real school, is it?" Celestia, Trixie hated horn-knockers. What was a PCSGU alum doing in a grotty provincial highlanders regiment? "Ma'am, yes ma'am! I'm a dropout, anyways." Oh, hey, a fellow buckup! Trixie was sure they'd be best friends! Not. "Why is Trixie not in the least surprised? Well, it isn't her problem, is it?" "Ma'am? Who's Trixie?" asked the orange unicorn with the pronounced five o'clock shadow.  Trixie ignored the dropout, and turned to the angry-looking little pegasus. "And?" she demanded. "Short Fuse, ma'am! Ensign! 14/3rd Air Cavalry!" Trixie blinked at the name, and wished that the uniforms didn't hide cutie marks. Was he artillery material? Pegasi rarely were, but with a name like that… "And? Who sent you?" "Command, I guess?" The other stallion elbowed the little ensign. "Oh, right, I guess personnel. They transferred me." "At least you can't be another PCSGU horn-knocker. Why has G-1 gifted us with your cut-rate presence?" "Uh… they said you needed officers?" Sunburst said, looking confused. "I was told to get over here if I didn't want to be on the next boat to Baltimare," Short Fuse said, looking like he was working himself up again.  "You're actually assigned to us?" Trixie asked, feeling skeptical. "Where's your kit? Why did you show up without your batmares?"  "Our what?" asked Short Fuse.  "Your officer's servants. There's supposed to be somepony that keeps you from soiling yourselves and embarrassing the uniform. Where are they?" "Ain't no such thing in the air cavalry, ma'am," Short Fuse said, looking suspicious. Like he thought she was having him on. He looked at his fellow ensign, who shrugged in shared confusion. "Squibs take it!" Trixie cursed. "Look, here comes another rush, go over there, there's a bit of space through that door." She moved out of the way of the bat-ponies as they started streaming down the passageway. "Don't touch my papers, and wait until Captain Bell shows up. Do you at least have your shit packed and piled somewhere accessible?" They nodded, looking a bit nervous as they pressed against the corridor wall, streams of thestrals heavily burdened with bags and spears and spare javelins and every other thing under the moon thundering by.  "Trixie supposes that it's Captain Bell's problem. She should be back… sometime. Stay out of trouble until then." As Trixie worked her way through the crowd, she faintly heard from behind her, "Who the hay is 'Trixie'?"  She smiled. Sometimes there were perks to the job, weren't there? Lyra had just stolen a bunk and a pair of lockers in an unclaimed corner in the forecastle deck, and was looking for someone senior in the Bit's crew to ask forgiveness, when she came out into the night air and found Lady George crouching in the middle of the main deck, her crested head stooped low to keep it from catching in the ropes and stays leading up into the balloon overhead. Overhead being a more constrained resource when you were an eighteen-foot-tall turul, of course. Lyra looked up, and estimated that the royal bird had at least six yards' extra space under the balloon, but George was still cringing a bit in the unfamiliar space. "Look, I'll do what I can, sergeant, but letting that great pony-eating monster nest on my open decks is beside enough! Are you sure your friend can't… just stay here in Trottingham? They're not part of the squadron, right?" Lyra looked around the turul's flank, and spotted the ship's master and the griffish sergeant looking mulishly at each other. "Look at it! I don't have space to carry something like that, let alone the food we'll have to haul!" The other griffish sergeant.  "Ship Master Tailwind, Lady George and 'er charge are why we're planning this run east. We cain't 'leave them in Trottingham', they're the bleedin' reason we're leaving at all!" The Trottish sergeant looked down at the bristling pegasus mare with a perplexed look on his beak.  "Gertie here can feed herself, Mistress Tailwind," the big turul rumbled in an amused tone. At least George was taking this well. "She can hunt the open seas, so long as we're over open seas. What she can't do is roost herself. This is a big ship, there must be a garage or a stable available?" "Well, yeah, we have that converted cargo hold they knocked an airhatch through my damn deck on the first- wait, is that why they did that?" "Most likely, Mistress Tailwind. My bits did contribute to this ship's refit, I'd hoped that they had remembered to include quarters for one of their biggest investors. Oh, hello, Lyra. Have you seen Sergeant Gilda or Major Shield? The ship's master here has some questions." "Gyongyike my dear, if I'd seen either of those mares, I'd be the first pony I've found tonight who had seen either of them. I was sort of hoping you had." "Rumor 'as it that the major's still at the garrison," Sergeant Gustav said, turning around with a slight frown to stare at Lyra. "Corporal Ping was 'andling most things around 'ere for the big 'en and the major up to about thirty minutes ago. 'E was goin' back to garrison to straighten some kinks back in the line somewheres, last I heard." "Well, I'm not stumbling back to the walls in this," Lyra said, looking out into the abyssal dark beyond the ship's blazing lights. "All of my shit is here, now. I just want to know why they both decided to disappear in the middle of all this confusion?" "Lance Corporal Giles, have you seen Major Shield or Sergeant Gilda?"  Giles looked up from the manifest a harried teamster was waving under his beak, to see Corporal Ping staring glowing-eyed at him in the half-darkness.  Giles would never get used to the way the thestrals' eyes shone in the dark. "No, corporal. There's a rumor that the major is above stairs somewhere, but I've not been able to get away from the front to investigate. Assuming the major's whereabouts were any of my ruddy business. And I'd 'ope that somegriff knows where the master sergeant is, but I've been taking my orders from Sergeant Gustav today. As I ought to, being' a lowly lance corporal and all." "Well, dreamnuts. I've been handling things out at the airfield, but I need to finish getting my desk and the files packed up and shipped over to the Bit. Can you reserve me a cart for the office?" "No, corporal, I cannot. You'll have to take Hobnob's choice like all the rest." "Darkness take it, where's Sergeant Gilda?" screeched the frustrated little batpony.