//------------------------------// // The Pacifist // Story: Summer of My Human Soldier // by KFDirector //------------------------------// Comrade Foggy Night, Per your request, I have carefully reviewed the psychological and security analysis of the human detainee Christopher George Dexter. I was as surprised as you to learn that one of my subordinates, Doctor Spring Steel, had approved a “minimum risk” status for an active mobile human subject. I personally have designated no humans capable of leaving a bed a lower status than “moderate risk”. Indeed, more than half of all captured humans refuse to answer the evaluations in any way and so are automatically classified “high risk”, or even “maximum risk” if the circumstances of their capture or their behavior in the processing centers so suggest. However, as you know, psychological examination, particularly of human subjects, is as much art as science, and there is a high level of subjectivity, gut instinct, and horse sense involved. The human Dexter’s profile is not inconsistent with criteria I myself have said constitute the approximate borderline between minimum and moderate risk. Among other factors: he is a conscript, not a volunteer; his time in service has been very brief; he does not appear to have forged particularly strong connections with his fellow soldiers; he does not seem to have fully adapted to military life; he was denied an application for conscientious objector status; he revealed under multifactor scrutiny no enmity for ponies or ponykind in general (he demonstrated some fear-aversion to unicorns, with perfectly rational explanations). His spirituality, desire for self-preservation, lack of dependents, and tendencies towards introspection and introversion are all factors that can be either positives or negatives in terms of security risk, and so required interpretation from the interviewing analyst. Depending on how he interviewed, it is quite conceivable that under current guidelines he was indeed properly adjudged “minimum risk”. I have had no reasons to question the political reliability of Doctor Spring Steel, nor have I detected any pattern of unreasonable lenience in his security classifications. However, for future reference, if you wish for us to make a policy of no longer classifying any active mobile humans whatsoever as “minimum risk”, please inform me promptly so that I can revise the guidelines. Sincerely, Doctor Mental Block Bureau of Mental Hygiene 18 May 1977 Comrade Doctor Mental Block, Your prompt and detailed response is appreciated. No changes to policy are required. Sincerely, Foggy Night Pony’s Commissar 19 May 1977 Dexter pumped the red iron handle a few times, and waited for well water to emerge into a bucket. With a deep breath, he felt the cool dawn air in his lungs, and looked across the horizon. One great mountain—Canterlot—dominated, but like home, dozens of smaller peaks were scattered around the horizon. A tint of pink along the eastern sky said the sun was soon on its way. With a mechanical clunk, the bucket began to fill with cold, clear water. He splashed some in his face, a temporary substitute for the coffee he expected from the Red Cross parcels. He looked up towards the farmhouse—and saw a sleepy-eyed orange earth pony watching him from a window. Dexter waved at her, and shut off the pump once the bucket was full, carrying it towards the front door. “Ya sleep okay?” Applejack asked, as he brought the bucket into the kitchen. He nodded. “The pallet’s a lot better than the floor. And I can fit on it.” He warmed his hands for a moment on the heat from the stove. “Pancakes, ma’am?” Applejack yawned. “Sounds fine.” He wasn’t a fantastic cook as far as instincts or training went, but he could do lots of simple tasks faster, as long as you told him what order to do them in. Besides, he genuinely seemed to want to help cook—not least so he could be sure that everything that went into the meals was something he could digest. “Dexter, you wake up before us every mornin’, and it ain’t like you’ve been chained up out in the barn. So tell me—why are you still here?” “Where would I go, ma’am?” Dexter asked, matter-of-factly. “That mountain south of here is Canterlot, right? I paid attention in Geography class—I know where Canterlot is.” He cracked open a few eggs into a bowl with some flour and water, and started beating. “If I go south or west, I’m going into more and more of Equestria—and eventually the Pacific Ocean. If I go north I’m heading into the Everfree. Sure, if I kept going far enough through the most dangerous non-tropical forest on the planet, and didn’t get shot, mauled, poisoned, eaten, or blown up by a land mine, I guess I’d eventually reach American lines. And east? Over a mountain range, through a long nasty stretch of desert, past who knows how many army bases, and up into the Rocky Mountains right back to the same place I was captured.” He poured the batter out onto a hot griddle, carefully regulating the size of the cakes. “The whole time, I’m dodging pegasus patrols and hoping not to have any nasty run-ins with ponies who are frankly, on average, a lot less kind and understanding than you and your kin.” “I see you’ve thought about this. And you don’t think you’ll give it a try? Aren’t soldiers supposed to try and escape?” While the pancakes sizzled, Dexter started dicing apples with a knife. He sighed. “I am not a courageous man.” Applejack regarded the human, as she sniffed the pancakes and mouthed a canister of her preferred spice blend to flavor them. “You never wanted to be a soldier at all, right?” “No, ma’am.” “Well, I can understand that. Big Macintosh is like that, too.” “He’s one of the only stallions I’ve seen around. They didn’t draft him?” “Well...I’ll tell you that story over mornin’ chores.” “Y’all shoulda seen them—the three ponies from the draft board. There was an old green pegasus, and I mean old. I’m pretty sure his first combat mission would’ve been in the Mexican-Equestrian War.” “That was in eighteen thirty-something.” “Yup. Anyway, he didn’t say much. Then there was this fat blue earth pony, a native of these parts, always was good at kissin’ up but not much else. Finally, this real witch—tall skinny yellow unicorn gal, always had this look on her face like someone had tipped an outhouse on her mornin’ oats.” “This is absurd,” Honey Silk said, as she trotted with distaste on the main path through Sweet Apple Acres. “He disobeyed a conscription notice, we should have just had him arrested and put an end to it.” “I’m sure...there’s a reasonable explanation,” River Ripple sputtered, as he looked around the farm nervously. “Big Macintosh is no criminal.” The pegasus said nothing at all. He obviously was aware enough of his environment not to trip over stones in the path, but otherwise was entirely disengaged from the situation. They saw the big red earth pony in his field, as Comrade Applejack had promised. He was pushing with his head a cart into position underneath a tree plump with ripe apples. “Comrade Big Macintosh!” River Ripple shouted. The red stallion turned and looked at the approaching three, putting his back to the tree. “Good afternoon!” Big Macintosh looked up at the sunny sky, then back down to the blue pony. “Eeyup.” “Comrade...” River Ripple raised his hoof, and coughed. “Did you, by any chance, receive a notice from us, vis a vis conscription?” The big stallion considered this. “Nope.” “He lies!” Honey Silk hissed sharply. “Well, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. We’ve known for some time that the mail mares around Ponyville, while dedicated, are not, eh-heh, without their handicaps.” River Ripple coughed and chuckled all at once, doing neither convincingly. The yellow unicorn rolled her eyes, and spoke imperiously. “Comrade Macintosh, every pony is required to give their all to the present conflict.” Big Macintosh looked at the vast orchard around him, at the cart nearby him, and the apple tree behind him. “Eeyup.” The unicorn’s eyes became a hard glare. “The New Lunar Republic has need of you.” The farmpony nodded again. “Eeyup.” “In battle.” “Nope.” River Ripple coughed again, in shock, while Honey Silk stomped her hoof. “Ah hah! Treason!” “Comrade...” River Ripple tittered, “perhaps you can explain yourself in more detail? Surely you will not ‘yup’ and ‘nope’ your way to a gulag...” Big Macintosh looked the blue earth pony hard in the eye, and then nodded solemnly. “Y’all have plenty of ponies for yer war. ‘fact, by mah reckonin’, yah’ve drafted nine and two tenths of every ten able-bodied stallions in Ponyville, and got enough mare volunteers for the rest and then some.” “That—” “And them soldiers all still need to eat. Take them bachelor herds and Stalliongrad scrappers if ya must, but somepony’s got to make food happen.” “How dare you!” Honey Silk dug at the ground with her hoof in consternation. “You think being a farmpony exempts you from service? Why, you’re not even educated!” “Indeed, Comrade Big Macintosh, your sister is an admirable mare—she’ll certainly be able to handle things here. The Republic needs you at the front!” “I don’t like fightin’.” Big Macintosh snorted hard, and on an only slightly cooler day one might have seen the steam from his nostrils. “Are you a traitor, a coward, or bo—” Honey Silk started. “I.” Big Macintosh stamped his front left hoof. “Don’t.” Then his front right. “Like.” He learned forward on his front hooves. “Fightin’.” His back legs bucked. Two of the three draft ponies looked on in silence with wide eyes. The pegasus burst into hysterical cackling. “Now that’s a pony who’s earned his exemption! Let’s get dinner.” “And with that, the three little ponies from the draft board walked away, never to return to Sweet Apple Acres.” “So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say—that was the tree he bucked?” Dexter pointed. “Sure as sugar is.” Dexter shook his head in amazement. “That’s a lot better than my story,” he muttered, continuing to pour out chicken feed while marveling at the tree trunk sticking out of the side of a windmill forty feet off the ground. It was early in the afternoon, and the sun was coming down strong and hot. Without an orchardist’s eye, Dexter wasn’t much use to Applejack or Big Macintosh in assessing the trees for June thinning—so his task was weeding the fields; a task done without shade. This he was starting to feel, especially in comparison to the cool of the morning. “Hey,” a somewhat scratchy mare’s voice called. Dexter looked around him, left and right, forward and back, seeing no one. “Hey!” Dexter rectified his error and looked up. The light blue pegasus pony was fluttering above him. He twitched involuntarily. “You don’t have to be afraid of me! As long as you haven’t done nothing.” She lowered herself to look him at eye level. “You haven’t, have you?” “If I had, would I still be here, weeding this field?” “I guess not. Hey, I’m bored.” “I’m...sorry?” Dexter asked. “Tell me about the war.” “I’m sorry. I really need to keep at work.” Rainbow Dash sighed exasperatedly. “Okay. I’ll make you a deal. If I bring you some shade while you work, then will you talk to me?” Dexter shrugged. “As long as you can keep the shade up with me, I guess.” “Great! Be right back!” The pegasus pony disappeared in a flash. Dexter shrugged and went back to his work, attacking thistles with a hoe. A few minutes later, he involuntarily sighed in relief as the sky darkened a touch, blocking some of the sun. “Alright! Let’s get to it!” He shook with a start, and looked up. There was indeed a cloud—about ten feet over his head. He stepped to one side, still looking up, and saw that the pegasus was laying calmly atop it. “You...really can do that.” “Of course! Don’t they teach humans anything about ponies?” Dexter chuckled. “Do you want to hear what the army taught me about ponies?” “That’d be awesome!” She grinned widely, still the embodiment of relaxation. “Alright, here goes,” Dexter said, as he returned to his work, the cloud following him as he made his way down the rows. Private Dexter's eyes wandered across the screen while the designated AV geek wrestled with the equipment. Somewhere behind him, Staff Sergeant Meyer bellowed encouragement. The classroom instruction was the only part of boot camp that felt at all right to him, as his curiosity hungrily devoured what little knowledge the Army would provide to an enlisted serviceman. There were more intellectual parts of the military—but draftees did not get to be officers. Withers, back, loin, hip, croup, dock—so those were the parts of a pony... The next slide flicked onscreen, and the sergeant strode boldly to the front of the room again. "There are three kinds of ponies you will encounter on the battlefield—and most of them will look like this. This is an earth pony. Equus sapiens terra, say the eggheads." The trainees nodded. Everyone had learned by now not to make sarcastic comments like "Yeah Sarge, we can read, too." "They don't fly, they don't do anything unexpected, and they don't have hands. Consider those handicaps the only mercy they will show you. They are tougher, faster, and stronger than you on your best day and me on a bad day. Most of the ones you see on the battlefield will be wearing a Type 72-A Battle Saddle—pictured. Jaw-activated, very rugged—if the shape reminds you of anything, it should. It was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russkie responsible for the AK-47, the AKM, and the AK-74—all found in the hands of everyone else in the world who hates us. "The 72-A has a very large magazine but does NOT reload quickly for earth pony or pegasus pony users. Take advantage of that. But do NOT close to melee range, thinking you can use a knife or bayonet or a point-blank-shot to finish the job. Any trained earth pony is capable of a quick pivot and a savage back kick. The best case scenario for you is instant death when the hoof goes through your face into your brain. The worst case scenario collapses your rib cage onto your vital organs, forcing your buddies to get you on a medevac where you probably die in agony anyway." The next slide clicked over. "This is a pegasus pony." Everyone nodded. "Equus sapiens ala. As in 'wing', not as in Arab for 'God'. The average pegasus pony is not as strong or tough as an earth pony, so on a good day even you can beat them. But they can fly, so never mind, you're screwed anyway. A well-trained pegasus pony with a sophisticated Battle Saddle can function as an air-superiority fighter, an attack helicopter, and a crack paratrooper all in one. They're the only reason our cousins in the Navy even have to think about Equestrian naval capabilities, and they give the Air Force nightmares—it takes highly specialized missiles to track a pegasus pony in flight, much less bring one down, and all the while the flier is closing to point-blank range where he can put a mini-missile straight up the engines or a burst of fifty-cals right through the canopy. "The good news is most pegasus ponies do NOT do all three of those things—and even if they're trained to do them all, they have to run out of ammo sometime. If they've got mini-missiles to deal with air support, then they don't have as many bullets to shoot at you. The other good news is that the wings bend surprisingly easily—they don't shatter or break, so it’s damn hard to cripple one permanently, but even a bad landing can ground a pegasus for a few days. Shoot them then, before they can fly and terrorize you again. Next slide." Now the trainees viewed a unicorn in profile. They preemptively nodded even as the sergeant read the caption for them. "This is a unicorn. Equus sapiens cornu. And they are the scariest freaking enemy you will ever meet in your all-too short lives." The sergeant's use of the superlative quickly seized the trainees' attention. "That horn lets them cheat. What the eggheads call ponykinesis is nothing short of god-genuine-damn magic. For the civvies, they're mostly one-trick-ponies: they pretend they have hands—and that's good enough for them: having hands makes you a freaking aristocrat in Equestria. But you're not going to be fighting civvie unicorns. You're going to be fighting battle-trained unicorns. The only thing you do know is that you do not know what they are capable of. Force fields might appear to deflect your bullets. Enemy wounded and dead might get back on their feet. Every one of their guns might instantly reload. Your weapon might misfire for no reason. The pins might pull out of your grenades while they're still on your pack! Fighting a unicorn is like fighting a mad, sadistic, demon." Private Dexter's eyes were wide, but he was not singled out for any abuse this time, as his were no wider than the rest of the trainees'. "And the good news? Sorry, there is no good news. You see a unicorn, you shoot it. I don't care if the earth pony next to him has got five stars and a picture of Joe Stalin on his flank—you shoot the unicorn first." “Wow! When you put it that way, we sound awesome!” Rainbow Dash had finally left her cloud, pulling a few loops around it. “Air superiority!” She shot forward, making ‘pew-pew’ noises with her mouth, and made a tight Immelmann back toward Dexter and the cloud. “Attack helicopter!” She screeched to a midair halt, hovering in place, pointing her hooves at an imagined tank and then waving them over her head while she made the sound of an explosion. “Crack paratrooper!” She dropped down to the ground, and trotted faux-menacingly towards Dexter. “Hands in the air, human scum!” She stopped, seeing a distant stare in Dexter’s eyes. “Uh, I may have pushed it a little far there. Sorry. You don’t have to be afraid of me.” She fluttered upwards, and pulled the cloud—which had been disturbed by her takeoff into aerobatics—back over his head. “Sorry. So any other war stories?” Dexter shook his head, clearing a mob of thoughts from it. “I wasn’t in long. I got drafted, had my arguments with them, lost them, trained to be an infantryman for fourteen weeks, and then they sent us right off into the Rockies. I was six days out of training when my platoon got wiped out.” “Oh, wow.” Rainbow was silent for a while as she pushed the cloud forward, keeping pace with Dexter. “Rainbow Dash, right?” “That’s my name. Captain of the Ponyville Civil Pegasus Patrol.” “Why are you so interested in the war?” “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s awesome!” “But you’re still here. Why didn’t you volunteer for it, if it’s so exciting?” Rainbow Dash blew a raspberry. “Any stallion who’s fit is drafted. But mares have to meet all kinds of standards if they want to get accepted. Especially pegasus ponies! Earth ponies, who cares, they just have to slog a battle saddle up to the fighting and then not die for a while. Unicorns, well, like you said, they got their freaky magic. But pegasus ponies! ‘Ya gotta beat these time trials!’ ‘Ya gotta follow our rules!’ ‘Ya have to actually graduate from flight school!’ It’s a load of horse apples.” “That does sound like the military, yes.” “If they just let me fly, and that was all that mattered...I’d be the best there was. Speed, agility, I’ve got it. More than anypony.” “But they want warriors, not athletes.” “Yeah. Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said brightly. “That’s the problem. But there’s not a lot for an athlete to do right now. Not cool to have a sporting event when there’s a war to fight and all, you know? So I just run the weather around here, keep an eye out for wayward humans and cow stampedes, other CPP things. Someday, though, there’s gonna be peace, and we athletes will get to show the world what we’re made of again.” Dexter smiled, both from the turn in the conversation and from reaching the end of the field. “Peace. That sounds nice.” “So how do you think it’s gonna happen?” “Huh?” “Peace.” “Hmm.” Dexter thought for a long moment. “The last time America and Equestria went to war, you guys were allied with the Germans and the Chinese. The Chinese collapsed into civil war, the Germans starved and got rolled up when the British blockade kept your food from getting to them, and then we and the Brits and the Canadian landed a hundred miles from Canterlot. Your nobles revolted, Queen Celestia abdicated, and some unicorns signed an armistice.” “Yeah, and?” “I don’t think that’s going to happen this time.” “Of course it’s not!” Rainbow Dash said with pride. After a moment, she followed up with curiosity. “But why do you think that?” “Premier Luna seems a lot crazier than Queen Celestia. Celestia made the allies she had to make and then she got dragged into a war she didn’t really want, and she didn’t do what it really would’ve taken to win it. Luna seems committed. I don’t know if Equestria has the bomb, but if you do, she’ll definitely drop it if it came down to it. And the Soviets are definitely backing her up—and they’re not going away anytime soon, not like your allies in the First World War did.” “So you think we’re going to win?” she asked, hopefully. “Ah hah hah. No. If General Tear’s rants back home about ‘better fried than foaled’ are any indication, I’d think any American city that falls into Equestrian hooves would vanish in atomic flame. Followed shortly by a dozen Equestrian cities.” He shook his head, laughing ruefully. “No, this war has to end in a non-stupid way. I just don’t know what that is yet. But I guess I’ve got time to think.” He put the hoe up on his shoulder. “This may be hard work, but it’s not what I’d call mentally taxing.” The sun had vanished completely before the horizon, and the Apples, plus Dexter, were sitting down to dinner. “I had a look over the fields. Y’all did a lot of good work today.” “Thank you, ma’am.” “Also noticed a little cloud followin’ you around for a few hours.” “You do have funny weather around here, ma’am.” Applejack smiled. “Well, tomorrow’s Saturday. I’d like to get as much done as we can, so y’all can have your day off Sunday without no problems. Think you can fix up a few miles of fence whilst Big Mac and I finish markin’ up the trees that need thinnin’?” “Guess I’ll just have to give it my best, ma’am.” The orange earth pony and the human looked over at Apple Bloom, who was squirming in her chair. “Ya need something, honey?” “Granny Smith gave me the photograph today! I want to show it to Mister Dexter!” Dexter raised an eyebrow. Applejack sighed. “Finish your greens and at least half of the hay, then you can go get it, okay?” The filly tore into her assigned food, choking it down with almost disgusting alacrity. “Alright!” Applejack sighed again. “Sorry ‘bout that. You weren’t...actually alive back then, were you?” “I’m still eighteen, ma’am.” Apple Bloom trotted back to the table with an old black and white photograph in her mouth. She set it up on the table next to Dexter’s elbow. “So that’s not you, right?” Dexter’s eyes were wide, though he was able to shake his head, establishing that indeed, that was not him. The photo showed a couple of cute young fillies, including one with pigtails that seemed to be Granny Smith in her long pre-Granny days, sitting next to a couple of humans in front of a homestead. The Colorado Rockies loomed in the distant background behind them, and a couple of notes were scrawled next to the faces of each of the two ponies and two humans. The male human, who was a little younger than Dexter, with brown hair, a stoic look in his eyes, and a nose Dexter could identify from a thousand yards, looked exactly like Dexter’s great-great-grandfather, mother’s side. The name scribbled next to it was a match. The man was a legend in the family tree. The legends didn’t all make a lot of sense, like the time he used a sledgehammer to fix a wagon wheel and broke the leg of a witch a mile away, but there was no end to them. And apparently, as a young boy in 1861, he had been friends with ponies in the Colorado Territory. After Applejack prodded him sharply in the side a few times with her hoof, he finally snapped back to reality, and explained as much. Except for the witch-sledgehammer thing, since even in context that story never made much sense to him. “Well! Now you definitely gotta meet Granny! We’ll have to get you down to the Ponyville Senior Center real soon.” “I’d...” Dexter croaked. “I’d like that.” My Most Faithful Student, Make contact with the human at the earliest opportunity without risking your cover. The party you describe being planned by Pinkie Pie sounds like an excellent time. Determine if he is indeed the candidate I selected and report back to me. I must again reiterate the importance of your making friends in Ponyville. I speak not only as your mentor and teacher but as your friend. There is more to a young revolutionary’s life than study. Finally, your equation was in error because you were not in fact assigning a prime number to the variable x but a semi-prime. That this error caused the target to explode into a pile of orange chicken feathers is somewhat inexplicable, but in any event, better factorization checks should prevent future problems of this sort. Sincerely, P.C.