Homeworld: Equestria - The Silent Hunters

by hiigaran

5: Training

Hello Void,

I figured I’d update you on what’s happening on my end, though I’m uncertain whether this letter will actually make it back home in the first place. The post office’s supervisor said only one mailmare was willing to take a letter anywhere near our home, but the cross-eyed pegasus’ navigational skills seemed dubious at best. I was assured otherwise, however … Shortly before the pegasus flew through a billboard like it was cheap toilet paper.

I’ve only been here a few days, and I can say without doubt that basic training—or what passes for it amongst ponies anyway—is one of the more irritating experiences of my buzzing life. The recruits are obnoxious; your stereotypical, overconfident types I’ve found comparable to gym rats. Already two of them were involved in a brawl over something or other. Don’t know why, don’t really care. One of our drill instructors gave them an earful, which was admittedly entertaining to watch.

Regardless, our instructors Ballast and Cutlass are absolute cretins. Surprise, surprise, one has already taken to calling me Roach. I’m going to take a wild guess and conclude based on the lack of creativity, his insults to other recruits must have been taken from some generic drill instructor’s manual. Still, none of the other recruits understand why I’ve been named as such, given the instructors are the few aware of my identity. To the others, I’m some random pegasus with a slight pectoralis muscle deficiency; a story I had to come up with to explain why my wing-ups were so poor during PT. Still, wiping the floor with ponies on pretty much anything else filled me with great satisfaction, so I guess you were right when we had our conversation.

You should have been here when I had my initial medical examination though. As soon as the first physician looked at my file and read what was written beside ‘Species’, I had to fight to keep a straight face when he started sweating up a storm. Dentist straight up refused to get anywhere near me, and just marked me off as healthy. The immunologist gave up with the vaccinations after breaking her fourth needle, and simply accepted the vaccination records I brought from home, which she initially dismissed. I suppose I could have told her where we take our injections, but this seemed more amusing.

You’ve already seen the GCU I showed you when I got back from Aurora. I didn’t realise this at first, but the fabric has illusory enchantments that swap between urban, woodland, desert and aerial camouflage patterns. It’s a far cry from how we blend in of course, so I’m not too impressed with it. Our side bags were also issued, pre-loaded with individual first aid kits, survival kits, and navigation aids. Later on, we also received our thinner back pack and vest combos, containing a water bladder, and rations, along with ammunition pouches and explosives underneath.

As a side note, even the royal guards use some variation of this pack. I now understand why they always had such weak spots on their backs. The armour worn above it all needed to be thin enough, so the pack would not bulge and stand out.

I’ll admit, for a changeling not used to wearing anything other than armour and blades, I definitely need to work on my wing strength. You’d have been the star of the show with your wings around here, though.

Speaking of armour, the ones worn under our GCUs and BPSes are odd. Some thin, flexible material incorporated into the linings, but little else. I think they called it a gold silk, or something. Apparently it’s effective against energy fire such as plasma strikes, and even magic. Kinetic protection, however? Not so much. I get the idea of remaining mobile, but I prefer to stick to my own armour. Call me old-fashioned. Or perhaps I’m biased, since our Queen had it custom-made as a farewell present. Either way, I know what I’ll be using once I’ve finished training. If any officers have a problem, I’ll just disguise myself to look like I’m wearing what they want me to wear. Unless they perform a thorough physical inspection, they won’t tell the difference.

Managed to knock out a couple of theoretical assessments already. Basic military structure, chain of command for the thirteen different ranks, some drill theory and military tradition. It’s run rather differently compared to our own forces, but there’s still some familiarity to it.

I suspect half the things here will be a humiliating waste of time for one of the Queen’s personal guard, but if this is what She wishes of me, so be it. Still, I miss home, being this far away from my kind. If you’ve got the time to write back, please do. I suspect it will be the only feeling of normalcy in this foreign environment.

Obsidian

P.S. Considering I’ve used ultraviolet ink here, I think you’ve already figured out you can ignore everything I wrote in black ink on the other side of this paper. They like to read and censor outgoing mail. Keep that in mind with any replies you send.

---

Void,

Apologies for the delayed response. Ballast took away all our letter privileges for a week due to some lazy Recruit refusing to get out of bed. “Let the drill instructor come, I don’t care,” the waste of space kept saying. Well he did, and the barracks turned into a shouting arena, with insults flying about. Again. “Why is this useless sack of protoplasm still in my bed?”, “You’ve got five seconds to get your flank up, before I dump you into the lake,” etcetera, etcetera. He actually went through with it though. When he didn’t get up, Ballast blasted a foghorn in the pegasus’ face, then dragged him all the way to the lake by his tail.

He got leeches in places you don’t even want to know about.

Afterwards, Ballast announced our punishment due to the pony’s actions and threatened worse for the next offence. I’m not sure if that punishment was worth watching the pony freak out, but as far as entertainment goes, that has been the most hilarious thing I’ve seen here thus far.

In other news, our standard weapons were issued recently. All the unicorns, diamond dogs and griffons were given pulsar rifles. Theirs were named Lamaat Rokn 68, or LR-68. Apparently it means Light Gun if translated literally from the Hiigaran language. I guess I got interested with the technology. Boxy, triple-barrelled firearms that are essentially portable particle accelerators. They seem to suffer from overheating if fired faster than twice per second or so, however.

The rest of us were provided with a hoof-mounted carbine variant. These shorter weapons were LR-48s. Not as powerful as 68s, but the recoil is not as bad, even with triple the firing rate. Regardless of which pulsar was used, they’re certainly easier to hit moving targets with, compared to spells. This was especially so, when combined with the heads-up-display integrated into our helmet visors. I think the technical term was ‘combat and navigation scanners’, or CNS.

As you can tell, they love their abbreviations here.

Still, for all the additional training I received at the firing range, my accuracy was semi-decent at best. Was irritating to say the least, and it certainly earned me a few petty insults from Ballast. Despite that, we all got some time to fire the LR-98s as well. Elongated. Single barrel. Drains the energy canister in one shot, but buzz me, whatever it hit just … vaporised and exploded, all at the same time.

While we had our fun, I noticed a few diamond dogs on the range holding some larger equipment by their sides, which I later found out were plasma bomb launchers. Haarniska San J8, or Armour Seeker, though the instructors just referred to the HS-J8s as ‘Jait’s. Just like the 98s, the J8s made for some spectacular light shows, though in their own special ways.

One of the Recruits somehow managed to destroy his 68 earlier on. From what I could tell, he did not follow instructions correctly when reassembling it after a field strip, so when he loaded the energy canister and attempted to fire downrange, the canister popped. It didn’t explode in any remarkable fashion. It just … popped. Ruined the internal components of the rifle with it. Cutlass then slapped the Recruit on his back, congratulating him on a new academy record for the shortest rifle lifespan. I’m not sure what academy he was talking about, though. If that was some sort of reference, it’s lost on me.

Ballast ended up redeeming himself with his lack of creativity, however. During a drill session, another unicorn continually mixed up orders, and Ballast finally had enough after the idiot mistook his left for his right when we were ordered to turn on the spot. The conversation went word for word like this:

“Recruit, do you have a problem differentiating between your left and your right?”

“Sir, no sir!”

“Then you mind telling me why you are facing the opposite direction?”

“Sir, I wasn’t thinking, sir!”

“You weren’t thinking? Tell me, Recruit, are you always this stupid, or do you have to work at it?”

“Sir, no sir!”

“No, what? No, you’re not always stupid, or no, you don’t have to work to be that stupid?”

“Sir?”

At this point, we were all instructed to stand at attention for the next half hour, while Ballast went off on his own. He returned with an object he threw at the unicorn, explaining he made a cloak and completely covered it with moss, claiming it would replenish the oxygen the unicorn had stolen from others. He is to nurture it and wear it permanently until further notice.

Still got a week to go before moving on to advanced training. Some final PT test, a few survival lessons I’ll probably end up teaching the instructors more things about, and at some point obtaining the Navy’s formal white and blue service uniform. You can add NSU to the ever-growing abbreviation list while you’re reading this.

Will need to come up with a new unicorn persona by the end of basic, though. Advanced will involve courses on a wide range of spells from many fields of magic I’ll need to be present for. Would draw too much attention as a pegasus in a class full of unicorns. Not so sure I’ll perform so well with anything other than illusion magic, though.

I’ll send you my new contact details as soon as I have them. Bye for now.

Obsidian

---

Void,

Well, advanced training is certainly different to basic. Seems to be a more mature environment, but I still can’t help being uncomfortable around all these ponies. For some reason, I imagine this is what my shipboard life will feel like, except without the luxury of disguises. The closer that day comes, the more I think this whole collaboration thing is a bad idea. What else can I do, though? I’m hoping I can just keep my distance, and not have to worry too much about ponies being ponies.

Except if I ever have to rely on them to keep me alive. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m not exactly filled with confidence. Not a comforting thought in the slightest.

After the end of the first week here in advanced, I’ve already had to binge through several assessments. Ship classification and identification for all major galactic powers, associated subsystems, basic space warfare tactics, shipboard safety and emergency procedures, and two of four basic assessments for infiltration operations. With everything else expected of me, it’s a miracle I’ve had enough time to revise. Makes me wonder if this ‘accelerated training course’ is designed to make me fail and humiliate changelings. If it is, I’m certainly not giving them the satisfaction.

Still, at least the topics are more interesting than ‘Recruit, Deckhoof and Specialist are your junior enlisted ranks, followed by Petty Officer and Chief Petty Officer NCOs’. That, or constantly having to listen to another Recruit being berated for trigger discipline on the firing range.

Almost lost my disguise during one of the sessions on magic. The instructor was pushing us as far as we could go with channelling energy through our horns, and I just had to be the one who performed the worst. Of course, they weren’t aware I was already putting energy in to keeping a buzzing disguise up. Whatever the case, I know my illusion had to have flickered when I tried a little too hard to get to every other unicorn’s level. Good thing I was at the back of the group where I wasn’t seen. Not that I was forbidden to roam the place without a disguise or anything, but I just want to avoid the unnecessary drama.

I still have no solid information on who my squad-mates will be. These ‘Infiltrator’ teams are supposedly six-member parties, yet I haven’t come across another potential Infiltrator in training yet. Perhaps it’s because I’m on the accelerated course, but I’m sure I would have seen or heard something from others in different courses. I wonder if I should impersonate one of the staff and look through some files. I may or may not already be doing that for fun and out of curiosity during my free time. Perhaps some additional reconnaissance wouldn’t hurt.

Anyway, I’ll have to keep this letter short. Ended up writing this out of boredom while my laundry was drying. I’m hoping the next week will have a few interesting stories to tell. High-G training will have us all in a centrifuge, and from what I’ve heard, things tend to get messy there.

Give our Queen my regards,

Obsidian

---

Void,

It’s done. I am now a fully qualified member of the Equestrian Navy, for what that’s worth. Will keep this letter brief, as I’ll be heading home in the next couple of days anyway. Will have a few days to myself before I have to return to Canterlot and ship out to the orbital crew station. I guess I’ll have to describe the flight into orbit for you when the time comes, won’t I?

My attempts to look through files yielded no useful answers about other Infiltrators. Looks like I’ll just have to wait and see who I’ll be with. I wonder if the Navy has multiple training bases. It crossed my mind that perhaps each nation has its own places to train crew, but considering the multicultural batches of Recruits, it seems unlikely. I guess I could ask one of the instructors, but I prefer to keep my contact with others to a minimum, for obvious reasons. I’m sure a couple of griffons around here could help, though.

Regarding your question about ‘what things go pew-pew on the battleships’, I think I’d need to write an essay to properly cover weapon systems on capital ships. One frigate, or ‘frig’ variant has rapid-fire flak cannons, which seem to be most effective on small fighters. Some have torpedoes for anti-corvette or frigate operations. Then you have the ion cannons; basically giant LRs that can maintain a beam for several seconds. Larger ships typically have a combination of these, but none match your description of ‘pew-pew’.

Actually, perhaps the pulsar cannon point defence weapons mounted on some larger destroyer and super-capital-class ships come close. Now that I think about it, those are probably best described as giant LRs, rather than the ion cannons, since they fire a single flash of light, rather than a beam. None of the super-capital-class ships were referred to as battleships, however. Battlecruiser would be the closest term, I believe. Something about design philosophy, I think it was. A battleship would have the firepower and armour, but a battlecruiser would have speed at the expense of armour and some firepower.

I can fill you in on the all the different ships when I get back. I should be able to swipe a few images of them from a book or something. In the meantime, I’ll just need to focus on avoiding this one Recruit who seems to think I’d make a good friend for him. Got stuck with the damn pegasus in some team activity and now he’s following me around like a duckling with an imprint gone horribly wrong. Even invited me to some group to play those ridiculous role-playing games with the dice.

Whatever. I’ll see you soon.

Obsidian

Comments

[Mocha Star]

I love this chapter a lot. It's so accurate for how training is. Lol