Chapter 11
Say what you will. Looking at the Thunderchild from the outside made it look huge, but on the inside it was cramped as hell. Summer had never had any problems with claustrophobia before, but being aboard the Thunderchild was slowly turning her into one. The Thunderchild wasn't exactly a troop transport ship, but it wouldn't have mattered even if it was. On a dedicated troop transport ship, they would have just packed more ponies in. You couldn't go anywhere and be by yourself because there was someone hanging out in literally every open spot on the ship.
Worse still, they'd only just left Cloudsdale when the first fight between airheads and hoofers broke out. Summer had groaned instantly when she had learned what the insults meant. The navy personnel assigned to the Thunderchild had been dubbed airheads thanks to their serving aboard airships, and hoofers, in turn had been declared by the sailors to refer to them, since they'd be 'hoofing it', through the battlefield.
Summer didn't know when or where this started at, and she didn’t really care, but it was getting on her nerves. Everyone was bitter and irritable. The tight, enclosed quarters, were just making it worse, and as Summer sat in the mess hall eating her morning oatmeal in silence... or, at least, that's what she was trying to do, she could see that Joker was once again picking a fight with one of the sailors, a pegasus, Able Seaman Starhawk who had apparently insulted Joker's mother.
Summer had tried to ignore the bickering, trying to drown out the noise as best she could. What they were saying didn't matter. It was all just stupid. Then she saw it, Able Seaman Starhawk rose his hoof to strike at Joker, and she knew that this had gone on far enough. If that blow landed, the entire mess hall would erupt into an all out brawl.
Summer leapt from her seat, and immediately pushed her way between the two pegasi, separating them from each other before things got ugly. 'Alright! That's enough! I don't care what you two are fighting about. I haven't even been listening to what you were saying, but I don't need to have had to know that it's stupid. Now! Joker! You go over there', Summer said with a huff of annoyance, pointing to the starboard corner of the room. 'And Starhawk, you go over there!' she added, pointing to the port corner.
Both of the two grumbled in annoyance at being told what to do.
'Do it or I'll knock both of your teeth out!' Summer said, threateningly.
The two continued to grumble, but listened to her, heading off to their respective corners where they wouldn't bother anyone. Summer finished her oatmeal in peace and left the mess area to return to her bunk to read a book or something and keep herself from strangling Joker in the future.
As she left the mess hall, she stopped as she heard the sounds of two hooves clapping together slowly. She turned to discover Lieutenant Wolsey sitting on the deck behind her, clapping her hooves together.
'Ma'am!' Summer said, snapping to attention and saluting the lieutenant.
'At ease private... Lightfall? Is it?' Wolsey asked, as she rose to her hooves and returned the salute.
'Yes ma'am!' Summer said, nodding her head.
'I saw what you did in there, private, and I liked what I saw', Wolsey said, offering her a small smile. 'Everyone is on edge, and these cramped quarters aren't helping, but you know what I see? Ponies listen to you, that makes you valuable. We're going to need ponies like you to get through this campaign. I'm appointing you lance corporal. Once we get into the field, you'll be bumped to second in command of your infantry section. Congratulations, Lance Corporal Lightfall, you've earned it', Wolsey added with a smile, and tossed Summer a foreleg band with a single chevron on it, pointing down.
Summer stared at it a moment in disbelief, before putting it on her left foreleg just above her knee. 'Th... thank you ma'am!' Summer said, snapping a salute to her commanding officer.
Wolsey returned the salute. 'Do us proud, Lance Corporal', Wolsey said, and dismissed her back to her bunk.
…
'Wheatley! Turn that shite off!'
Corporal 'Cereal' Wheatley frowned. He liked this song, it had a catchy tune. He didn't even care that it was an anti-war song. He reached out to the holographic display of the rover’s radio and turned off the music. 'You're a real hard arse, aren't you Morningstar?' he asked.
'Heh, like that's ever changed, and out here, it's “sergeant”', Morningstar said with a stern look on her face.
'Uh huh, whatever Sarge', Wheatley said, brushing her off.
'You sassing me boy?' Morningstar asked.
'What are you going to do, court martial me?' Wheatley said with a grin.
Morningstar let out a chuckle and grinned back at him. 'Maybe I will. I most certainly could', she said, turning her eyes back to the road.
Wheatley grinned. He was lucky that Sergeant Morningstar would never go through on her threats. She was a violet coated unicorn mare with a long pitch black mane, tied back in a bun underneath her helmet. She and Wheatley had been friends since they were foals, you couldn't split them up if you tried.
Here they were driving an all terrain rover through the jungles on the island of Sarawak, loaded down with supplies, heading deeper into the jungle to support the regiment’s forward firebase. They were still clearing the trees, and there wasn’t enough room to bring them in by carryall. Not yet anyway. They would be by the time that the greenhorns fresh from training showed up though.
Wheatley wasn’t looking forward to it. Casualties had been pretty heavy over the last fortnight. Lieutenant Dusk had taken a hit not five minutes off the carryall, and one by one their platoon had been whittled down to a handful of people. Too few to send out on patrol, too many to justify rolling them into another platoon, so they’d be littered with replacements who didn’t have a clue what they were doing.
Wheatley made no pretences that he was any better. Still, he’d been out here for two weeks and was still among the members of the living. That had to count for something. So far, the insurgency was isolated to Sarawak, and they’d been working to keep it that way. The last thing they wanted was for this to turn into an island hopping campaign; otherwise they would never get home.
If it did turn into an island hopping campaign, then that was it. Not even worth trying after that, the entire archipelago would fall to communism, and that would be it. Too many places for rebels to go, too many places to hide, and the harimau being natural predators made them particularly effective at hiding and launching sneak attacks.
Kind of like the one they had just driven into. A land mine exploded underneath their rover, throwing both Wheatley and Morningstar from their seats, the two of them landed on the ground with a hard thump. His ears were ringing, and everything seemed to be moving slowly around him, but otherwise, as far as he could tell, he was okay.
Morningstar, on the other hoof... she was missing her front legs. Wheatley struggled to get to his hooves, and looked around. There were no harimau to be seen, didn’t mean that there weren’t any around, but if they had been planning an attack, they’d have been all over them already. Meat eaters love a fresh kill. That had just been a land mine that their sappers had missed.
He looked back down to Morningstar, and to his relief, saw that her chest was still moving up and down. This instance, as messed up as it was, was what the soldiers of the Fillydelphia regiment called a lucky break.
Wheatley struggled to pull Morningstar onto his back. They weren’t far from the forward firebase. Their medics would be able to do something... stop the bleeding, and Morningstar would be shipped on home to be fitted with a new pair of cybernetic legs and otherwise live out her life in some degree of normality. The ironic thing here is that cybernetics had almost completely fallen by the wayside in favour of newer technologies like organ cloning, and here this war was going to revive the Equestrian Cybernetics Industry like no other.
‘Wheatley?’ Morningstar called out weakly.
‘You’re going to be fine sarge!’ Wheatley said.
‘Don’t call me sarge...’ Morningstar said, her voice trailing off.
‘Since when have I ever listened to you?’ Wheatley said with a smirk.
‘Make... a fair point...’ Morningstar said again, before falling unconscious.
Like no other.