18 March, Y.C. 970
Blackacre
The line of ponies crossed the makeshift bridge slowly, cautiously. The construction was solid enough; huge supports driven deep into the shore on either side of the river held up a bridge bed sturdy enough for a half-dozen abreast, if need be. Under them, the river was already starting to swell at the thought of incoming spring rains, but the turbulent waters weren’t much of a problem. After all, the forty of them had already been through worse; between the basic training and endurance tests, each one of them could have crossed the river on a tightrope, at night to boot.
No, they were distracted by the mound of debris a hundred feet to the south, where the Remaregen Bridge used to be.
Off to either side of the river, the remnants of massive pylons each held a cradle of blackened steel. They had all heard about the bridge, of course. How could they not have? After losing thousands of ponies in a tooth and claw battle to hold the damned thing, not two weeks later an ursa major rampaged straight through their front lines and knocked the bridge down just by jumping on it.
That was the last thing the outsized bear would ever do, as they managed to finally kill it a few moments later, but the damage had been done. Even now, two months later, its frozen and bloated carcass still blocked much of the river. A good portion of it had sublimated away, purple and white flesh flecking off like ursine snowflakes, but enough of it remained to put a good dent in the river’s flow. Between the bridge wreckage, the frozen corpse, and the debris washed downriver from fighting further north, the frozen mound was still there, giving no indication of going anywhere soon.
The new ponies knew that things were bad down here and had been drilled to cope with almost anything, but actually seeing it all first-hoof was something else entirely. As they finished crossing over, still somewhat awestruck by the devastation in the river, let alone that in the forest, one of the brownish ponies on the other side of the river detached and came to meet them, the colonel’s epaulettes on her shoulders about the only clean thing on her.
“Ho there,” she said, waving down the pony at the head of the line.
“Sir!” said the pony at the head of the line, stopping short with a crisp salute. “Lieutenant Sand with the three fifty-first, reporting to Blackacre forward command, as ordered —”
“What are you doing?” demanded the colonel, waving him off. “Get down from there! You’re totally exposed!”
The young lieutenant blinked once, then quickly shouted at the rest of the ponies, ending any thought of lollygagging to take in the sights. For her part, the colonel rolled her eyes. Another crop of greenies; just what she needed.
“All right,” she said, once they were all safely on the other side. She briefly flirted with the idea of inspecting them, but decided against it. Knowing greenies, they had probably read the regs backwards and forwards before coming out here. Didn’t want to make a bad impression on the new brass, after all. Bits to bananas each and every one of them had the regulation three-meter-long strand of floss. Regs; how did they work?
Well, they’d break useless habits easily enough.
“Welcome to Blackacre forward command,” she said, glancing down the line. “I’m Colonel Marston, and I’ll be your brass for the next… oh, twenty minutes or so.
“I’m sure you got a bit of this information before leaving Foal Mountain, but it’s worth a refresher,” she said, perfectly well aware that they hadn’t gotten anything. For some reason, the desk brass who shuffled cadets thought sending them out into the world without at least a broad idea of how the chain of command was organized was a good idea.
She suppressed a snort. Of course they wouldn’t. To do otherwise would be a good idea, and when’s the last time command had one of those?
“General Pommel is commanding this operation personally,” she started, with a nod towards Ponyville. “Regional command is right next door. The theatre is split to five local commands: Saddle to the north, Ridge to the east, Dodge and Appleloosa to the south, and Ponyville right here. We’re attached to Ponyville local command, which for all intents and purposes means we’re directly under Regional.
“None of this matters to you, but you should probably know it.” She gave a slight smile. “We’re all on the same side, so if somepony gives an order, you’ll be following it anyway. Just know the authority derives from different sources.”
Crisp nods down the line. Bless their little hearts; they were paying attention.
“As you may have heard, right now the broad strategy is a slow and steady push. We’re halfway to Froggy Bottom Bogg, downhill all the way, and it’s not easy digging for fresh trenches. We’re in a holding pattern right now; with the equinox in a few days, there’s no sense starting any major operations. Once the thaw hits, we’ll reassess. Until then, you’ll get a few days to break in.”
A pair of ponies were walking up behind the platoon; she gave them a little wave.
“Look sharp, colts,” she announced. “Those are the two most important ponies we’ve got.”
Backs stiffened through the ranks; she could just about imagine their green little minds whirring, trying to find the rank insignas on the slightly bemused ponies in front of them.
“Platoon!” came Sand’s voice. “Ten-hut!”
To their credit, the two ponies kept straight faces. Marston solemnly raised her own hoof in salute, and she could see them straining. After a few moments she waved them off.
“At ease!” she barked. “Those two gentlecolts are from the logistics corps, and they’re directly responsible for keeping us stocked on non-magicked firewood and grub.”
Sand deflated slightly.
“Which means that saluting them is the exact right thing to do,” she added. “Celestia knows they’ll affect your life more than the brass will.” She shrugged. “Anyway. That’s all I have for you. You’ll be reporting to Captain Malachus for duty assignments in the second-line trenches.”
Marston waved a hoof over at one of the many entrances to the trench network, most of which had little stripe patterns on their sides. “Take the third entrance, go straight. Just follow color code red white red. He’ll be down there somewhere.”
She took a last look over the forty new faces. Most of them looked young. Too young. Well, they would age soon enough. Either that, or they would age all the way out, and much quicker too.
“Move out!”
“All right!” called Sand, glad to be able to do something to soothe his embarrassment. “Two by twos! Grab your battle buddy and let’s go make a good impression on the new CO!”
She couldn’t help but smile as they trudged past, through the dirty snow and into a tunnel leading deeping into the blasted forest. Even here, after seeing what they had seen, they still seemed to be… not in good spirits, per se, but almost eager, almost hopeful.
What were the latest survival figures? One in five?
Idly she wondered how many of them would make it through. She probably wouldn’t recognize any of them, even if they did make it. Oh well. It happened.
Marston turned back to the little tent pitched in the shadow of a crater. There’d be a new group here in an hour, and she needed to figure out who needed the bodies most.