//------------------------------// // Interlude: Helmare Province Part 1 // Story: Homefront // by Pyramusandthisbe117 //------------------------------// “Dude, how long have we been here for?” “Eight days.” “Seriously? Eight days and still nothin’?” “Yup.” I sat down in the wadi, staring at the sunny afternoon sky. If there wasn’t a war here, it’d be a nice vacation spot. Rifle was cleaned, my MRE was already finished. What else was there to do other than pull security? “This fuckin’ sucks.” “Yup,” said Strong, as he carefully watched the valley below, machine gun poised and ready to strike at a moment’s notice. With nothing else to do, I began flinging rocks at Strong’s helmet in an effort to save myself from boredom much to his annoyance. “Knock it off, Coban.” “You don’t tell me what to do” I said as I threw another rock at his helmet. “Throw another one and I’ll be swinging mah damned gun at yer head.” Hey, I don’t back down from a challenge. The moment the rock left my hoof, Strong roared as he swung the butt of his machine gun into the side of my helmet. Celestia, I just saw stars. My face crashed into the ground from the withering blow. I could hear Strong chuckling. Spitting blood from my mouth, I grimaced. “You’re on, colt-cuddler…” “The fuck did you just say?” “You heard me!” I said with a confident smirk. This was going to end badly. Strong was just rolling his sleeves when Top showed up at our position, tobacco in cheek. “Celestia on a cracker! What is you, some kinda goddamn hippie colt cuddler?” Whipping his head toward Strong, he began screaming. “The fuck is this? Ranger, why the fuck is your sleeves out of your regulation?!” “Top!” I snapped to parade rest, “Is there a problem? Specialist Strong has been monitoring the valley all morning.” Top then brought all attention to me with the most intense glare I had ever seen. “Doc, I don’t care if this Ranger has a suckin’ chest wound! He will NOT traipse around on post with his fuckin’ sleeves lookin’ unprofessional like! Might just article 15 both your asses!” “Yes…Top” I sputtered. “Specialist, you’re expected to conduct all business on post with the grooming standard, under direct orders from Top himself.” Strong hurriedly unrolled his sleeves while rolling his eyes discreetly. Top nodded his approval and then looked back at me. Oh shit, when did I last shave? “Doc, your berd hairs is in violations…growin’ far beyond the corner of yer fuckin’ mouth.” “…uh…” “PO-LEECE THAT BERD! ALL Y’ALL IS STARTIN’ TO LOOK LIKE HIPPIES!” Top screamed at full volume, destroying some of the hearing I had left. With a loud huff, Top stormed off, searching for some other unsuspecting fuckers to harass. With lower morale, we resumed our duties; which included (but were not limited to) sleeping, pissing off the wall, making fun of Top (when he wasn’t around), and singing pop songs. After the second song, we went back to talking shit on Top. “How the fuck did that squared away bastard get into the Rangers?” I wondered aloud. “Cause his shit was squared away, dumbass” retorted Strong. “Fuck off dude, I know that” I snapped back. “But Rangers are hard-chargin’, no shit givin’, unruly, raggedy-ass motherfuckers. And we get the one Top who has a massive hard-on about the fuckin’ grooming standard?” Strong shrugged and spat some tobacco on the ground. “Yup.” “I mean, come on. What does he think, that it’s the one thing that we can fuckin’ count on being there for us at all times?” I rambled on, while Strong brought his dominant eye down to the sights on his gun. “Shut up.” “Don’t tell me to shut up. You shut up, Specialist!” Strong knocked the safety off his weapon. Fuck, this might be for real. I could feel the excitement building in the back of my throat. Hurriedly I grabbed my rifle and brought it to bear. “What do you see, dude?” “My one o’clock, four hundred meters. Foot mobiles, three of ‘em.” I swung my rifle to the directions he called out. “Yeah, I fuckin’ see ‘em. Can you make out any weapons?” “Negative, but S2 said there weren’t any civvies out here, right?” “Keep watch on those asshats. I’ll radio it in” I whispered. Grasping the earpiece, I checked comms before sending. “Viper One-Six Actual, this is Viper One-One. Copy, over?” “Roger One-One, send it.” “Eyes on three unidentified foot mobiles in grid Mike Sierra four three niner two, one one six five. Requesting eyes in the sky, over.” “Roger. Stand by, One-One.” Strong nudged me in the side. “Hey, they’re carrying something. Might be weapons.” I shook my head, “Wait for confirmation from One-Six. Last thing we need is dead-ass civvies.” Strong scoffed and turned his attention back to the foot mobiles. My headset crackled back to life. “One-One, we’ve confirmed no civilians in the area. Your sector is a free fire zone, over.” “Roger, Actual.” “One-Six out.” “Hey Top!” I called over comms, “You get all that?” “Well I ain’t hearin’ no fuckin outgoing, send that shit!” came the angry reply. I sighed. That stallion needed a hobby or something. “Well?” called Strong. I nodded, that was all he needed to loose hell on those three fuckers moving below us. Thinking they were all ninja and shit. I chuckled a bit as I watched them drop like rocks from the barrage. “Nice, dude.” I said, offering Strong a hoof-bump He shook his head. “C’mon, don’t leave me hanging,” I protested when a small thump was heard in the distance by the both of us. “You hear that?” Strong’s eyes narrowed as he stared into the distance. “I think I see something.” “Like what?” His eyes suddenly grew large before he shouted at me, “INCOMING!” Instinctively we both dropped behind cover as rocket trail flew over our heads. And another, closer this time and hitting the wadi next to ours. “Holy shit!” I shouted. Incoming fire started coming in from every sector and comms started blowing up with chatter. “Dude, I think we just stirred ‘em up!” “Ya think?” shouted Strong as he hefted his gun back toward the valley. “Now help me out here!” I stumbled over to his position as more and more incoming started cracking over our heads. I loaded a new magazine and looked up to see three rounds hit the wall just millimeters from Strong’s head. “Dude!” I shouted to him. “What?” he called back, completely oblivious to his brush with death. Alright then. “Nothing! Keep fuckin’ shooting!” That was a little too close for comfort. Top resumed his screaming over comms. “Y’all better git yer heads down right about now! Fast movers in one mike!” “Got air support inbound!” I screamed over the chatter of Strong’s machine gun fire. “Get the fuck away from the window!” Strong stopped firing and fell back further into the wadi as I stuck my rifle out the window and fired off a few rounds of forty mike-mike into the valley and surrounding hills to keep NLR fire off the birds. Top came back over comms, “Ten seconds!” I dropped and crawled to the back wall and tried to get a view out the window from where we sat. I could hear the rumble of the engines as our birds screamed in from the east and rained hell on the NLR positions. Fuck yeah. “Aw yeah! Get some!” I shouted. “Think they liked our bombs?” asked Strong. “I don’t know,” I laughed. “Let’s go ask ‘em.” ●●● As we slowly moved down the hillside, our progress was hampered from time to time by sporadic gunfire. They'd shoot in our general direction, we'd hit them back harder with accurate fire. Was a sort of cat and mouse game for us at this point. Most of the time their bullets would miss, thanks to the natural inaccuracy of saddlebag firearms. The only time we would get concerned was when they started shooting rockets. Didn’t need to be precise or well trained to kill somepony with one of those. “Assholes,” muttered Strong. Looking at my battle buddy, he seemed to be getting pretty tired of this whole ordeal. After all, we were supposed to exfil the area today. But mission plans never survive initial contact, do they? “Just think, Specialist,” I said matter-of-factly. “After this, we’ll be on our way back to the FOB, eat some hot chow, rack out in an actual cot, and hit on those cute nurses we saw last week.” Strong smirked as he slid down into a small draw in the hillside. “Yeah. Well at least I’ll be hitting on them. Your track record with the mares is, not great.” “Shut-up!” I snapped back in frustration as I proceeded to tumble down the same draw. “I’m quite a catch, I’ll have you know.” “Right.” A few rounds snapped by. Damnit, they were at it again. Strong groaned in exasperation, “Contact, front. Two hostiles” he said almost in a bored manner. I could feel the shock wave as one of the rounds zipped past my muzzle. Nope, can’t have that now. Raising my rifle, I put one of the two silhouettes in my sights and squeezed. Boom, down. I double tapped as it slowly fell to the ground. Could never be too sure. Strong, dropped the other one who had seemingly been taken aback by what had just transpired. “You idiots, okay?” called Top over comms. Strong still had his weapon raised at the two bodies, making sure they were dead. “Yeah. We’re good,” I called back. “Two dead hostiles. We’re going to conduct PIR's. Over.” “Sounds good, Doc. Two and Three will be maintaining overwatch.” I motioned to Strong for us to move in. The bodies couldn’t have been more than fifty meters from our original location. How the hell did they miss us? I mean, for fucks sake, we were sliding down a fuckin’ hill. My thoughts raced as we got closer. “They seem a little small, don’t they?” asked Strong. I narrowed my eyes, oh shit. “Foals, dude” I said, stunned at what lay before us. That’s why they didn’t kill us. These were fucking foals. Strong’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “What the fuck” he managed to stammer. Shakily I called over the radio again. “Hey, Top. You might wanna see this.”