Part Two: Checkpoint Charlie
Chapter 1
Privates Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle of the Equestrian Expeditionary Force hustled through Checkpoint Charlie, searching for an Ensign Riggs who would give them further orders. It was clear that the checkpoint was on high alert; the two hundred odd ponies stationed there were hurrying about frantically, carting deforestation tools, ammunition and defensive armaments to the tall wooden palisade. Awkwardly weaving their way around all these busy ponies, the two teenage mares made their way to the wooden bridge across the Everfree River near the middle of the checkpoint.
They had little difficulty in finding the ensign. His size rivalled Big Macintosh’s. The drab green expeditionary uniform complimented his caramel coat and uneven, dark brown mane. His face was cracked and worn, the affect of a life of hard work under the sun. He was a southern workhorse, and he looked very out of place wearing an officer’s peaked cap in the cold forest. Apple Bloom squinted at his insignia and read words “EXPEDITIONARY ENSIGN RIGGS”. This was the stallion they wanted. As they approached, they heard him issuing orders to one of his sergeants in a smooth, deep drawl.
“-I don’t give a damn if it does take you all night,” he said in a thick accent that echoed the southern colonies, “the Major wants a good twenty-five metre clearance, and we can’t light it up ‘till there’s a good five metres between anything flammable and the palisade. Take your squad and get to work. We’re only as strong as our laziest pony, and I don’t want to be picking up your slack!”
“On it, Riggs,” replied the chief sergeant before trotting off and preparing the speech to her own insubordinates.
Satisfied that all the squads in his platoon had their orders, the ensign prepared to report to his senior officer. He was stopped by the two new arrivals that trotted up in front of him and saluted stiffly.
“Private Belle reporting for duty, sir!”
“Private Bloom reporting for duty, sir!”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, the officer clapped his hoof to his face before replying, “Am I running a kindergarten here? No time for the formalities, children. Head out the west gate and find Chief Sergeant Whistle. She’s best to sort out all the practical stuff with you. We’ll sort out the paperwork tomorrow. Dismissed.” Without waiting for a reply, the officer trotted off on some apparently much more important errand.
The two young mares shrugged at each other before heading down the road to the gate. They weaved through the hurrying soldiers, struggling to find their way in the busy camp. Every pony was ignoring the two rookies, going about their business as if they didn’t even exist. With the base on high alert, no pony had the time for the young mares.
They eventually managed to find the west gate, which was flung wide opened. It didn’t pose much of a security risk. An ununiformed pony would stand out like a sore thumb on the sea of green. There was a line of about fifty ponies working at the forest, all along the outside of the western palisade. They were attacking it ferociously with axes, machetes and bare hooves. It didn’t look like they were making much progress against the thick dark green. The vegetation couldn’t have been more than a metre from the edge of the wooden wall.
Luckily for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, Chief Sergeant Whistle had a way of standing out in a crowd. She stood tall over any mare, and stallions seemed to shy away from her as she patrolled up and down the line of working ponies, surveying them intently, making sure no pony slacked off. Her coat was violet and her mane fell in an unkempt gray mess. She waved a hoof about confidently whenever she took a moment to stop and issue orders to her insubordinate NCOs, revealing the insignia on her leg bands: three chevrons atop a bar. Above this were the words “EXPEDITONARY CHIEF SERGEANT” and beneath it, “WHISTLE”. A cigarette hung out of her mouth. The two Ponyville mares pushed their way to the chief sergeant and reported for duty in the same manner they had to the ensign.
“Duty? Look around you! Find a free spot and get logging. See that sergeant there?” here she waved a hoof at a yellow mare with a hatchet gripped between her teeth, “Her squad is two ponies short, so Riggs will probably put you with her when we finally make your welcome official. It’s squad four. May as well get to know them.”
“Der I lerk-” the sergeant spat out her axe before continuing, “Do I look like I’m running a kindergarten over here, chief?”
“We’ve been getting that a bit,” muttered Sweetie Belle.
“You still here?” the chief sergeant tilted her head and paused, before bellowing “GET TO WORK!”
As if the booming voice of the NCO had stirred them to action, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle scrambled to join the line of ponies labouring away at the impossibly thick forest.
***
Apple Bloom stood almost shoulder to shoulder with her comrades, Sweetie Belle to the left and a corporal who hadn’t said anything yet to the right. She raised her hind legs and struck the tree in front of her, thinking that years of apple bucking might finally pay off. It shook lightly and lost a few leaves, but other than that there was no damage. She bucked again and again, but quickly realised that the method she’d been taught over the years was designed specifically to avoid damaging the precious trees.
Cocking her hindquarters back like the hammer on a revolver for one final smash, she took aim and released all the energy she could muster at the tree. This time, the tree gave way with a light crack. She grinned in triumph before inspecting the damage. She had managed to chip away a small splinter of wood. Her smile quickly faded.
A chuckle came from her right. “Come on dearie, we’ll be out here all night at that rate,” the corporal said to her in a cheerful tone.
He was a light brown stallion with a tall, lean build. His mane and tail were an orange-red which, along with his freckles, no doubt caused him endless grief during his foalhood. Rendering his eyes invisible to any pony who might try to read his face was a pair of reflective aviators. His mouth seemed to be twisted into a perpetual smile, but it was impossible to tell if it was good natured or mocking.
“My name is Corporal Whisk,” he continued, “but you can call me Whiskey, it suits me much better. Now, if you’ve got a notion to work on the foliage here with yeh bare hooves, that’s fine. Leave the tools for the ponies who know what they’re doing, am I right?” he paused and held the hatchet strapped to his hoof aloft before continuing, “but we’re not pickin’ cherries here. You won’t even be able to get to the poor end of nowhere fast if you go on like that. Your best bet is to clear all this little crap,” he waved his axe at the vines and bushes between the trees, “so that the big ponies can go to town on the trees. You got that?”
“Yea, I got it,” Apple Bloom replied. She opened her mouth again, wanting to say more in response to the corporal who she would be serving with. Just as she turned to make a witty quip, she was cut off.
“Sweet Celestia’s flank,” remarked Whiskey, “do my eyes deceive me or is that, genuinely, a unicorn. In the expeditionary. Without a commission,” he paused for dramatic effect before finishing his statement with exaggerated emphasis, “doing MANUAL LABOUR?!”
Sweetie Belle, using her magic, teeth and hooves, uprooted a large bush and dragged it aside before smiling at the corporal.
“Oh, indeed,” she replied in the most overly pompous voice she could muster, “I enlisted into this pony’s armed service in order to experience the plight of the common mare. Father wished for me to follow in his footsteps and study at the University of Manehattan and become a prosperous job creator, but I promptly disregarded his thoughts as to follow my own inclination.”
“Go easy on the sarcasm,” said the yellow sergeant, who was standing to the right of her corporal, “Corporal Whisk here will smile and shrug it off, as he does with everything, but some of the other ponies here might somehow take it as the unicorn acting superior. Welcome to the squad, by the way. My name’s Sergeant Avalon.”
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom paused and looked at the sergeant peculiarly for a moment. It was the weirdest name either of them had ever heard. What talent would an “Avalon” have?
Avalon rolled her eyes. She was used to explaining her name at this point. “My name comes from west coast mythology,” she said, “Myth is, there’s an island out west that’s more or less perfect called Avalon. Anyway, I was left at the doorstep of an orphanage, and one of the nuns named me Avalon after that myth. It represents hope, in simplest terms. You know, when I was growing up in Los Pegasus I’d sit by the coast and look out to sea, convincing myself that out there was a really perfect place. A place I could call home. A new world. Anyway, as I grew older I stopped believing in those mare tales. I lied about my age to join the marines when I was fifteen. They found out I lied and kicked me out two years later. Ironically, by then I was old enough to enlist, but they said my dishonesty must be punished. Well, I just went off and enlisted in the expeditionary. Did a three year stint, went back to Los Pegasus and remembered there’s nothing for me there, so I enlisted for another three years. Now that that’s almost over, I’m getting ready to enlist for another stint.”
“You know, you’re a regular patriot, sarge. It’s a truly noble thing to...” The corporal trailed off before he could finish his statement. He sensed a powerful presence behind him. He looked at the two newcomers and mouthed “She’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?” before twisting his mouth into another smile.
“Whiskey, stop corrupting the youth,” Chief Sergeant Whistle said incredulously before turning to the privates, “don’t let him fool you. Sure he seems like a nice enough guy, but all’s he trying to do now is get you in a false sense of security, so he can rob you blind when he offers you a hand of poker later on. Now get back to it, all I wanna see is asses and elbows, every pony! I’ll keep you here all night if I have to.”
Stirred back into action by their chief, all the ponies in the platoon suddenly laboured on with renewed vigour. Satisfied, Whistle decided that they could work without her breathing down their necks for a while and began attacking the forest herself. She chose a spot next to Whiskey, who cursed under his breath and made sure to look busy.
The other soldiers knew she wasn’t being serious about keeping them outside the palisade after dark. She wasn’t a sadist. Even the well armed, well trained, hardened soldiers of Checkpoint Charlie feared the Everfree at night. The fear was amplified by a growing sense of anticipation. This wasn’t standard procedure.
Something big was going down. The senior officers wouldn’t say what, but every pony knew that their job was about to get a lot harder. Like animals, their fear grew from each others fear. One soldier would see something; a sympathetic look from the major, a distressed communications officer, or an unusual order, like clearing the impenetrable Everfree Forest, and start jumping to conclusions. They would be quick to share their thoughts with their comrades, and, as they are wont to do, the rumour would snowball into something outstanding. It was the herd mentality in a nutshell. Even with the overimaginative minds of 200 young ponies, they couldn’t anticipate what was to come.