Previous Chapters Next
Close
Chapter 12,177 words
Chapter 22,085 words
Chapter 31,652 words
Chapter 41,496 words
Chapter 51,605 words
Chapter 61,600 words
Chapter 71,600 words
Chapter 81,500 words
Chapter 91,592 words
Chapter 101,501 words
Chapter 111,553 words
Chapter 121,593 words
Chapter 131,584 words
Chapter 141,637 words
Chapter 152,270 words

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Summer had to admit, even with the lieutenant and Colour Sergeant Gunmetal here, Corporal Wheatley's descriptions of how bad things were here on... however you were supposed to pronounce the name of this island, Sarawak, or whatever, made her reconsider just how prepared she was. The lieutenant was nervous, Corporal Wheatley was nervous, Colour Gunmetal was nervous. Summer? She was scared.

Lieutenant Wolsey had spent the first few days getting what was left of the company organised, normal force organisation went right out the window, oh but did Wolsey try to keep it like it was supposed to be. She discovered quickly that it quite simply could not be done. There were many appointments to lance corporal over those first few days. Fortunately, with Thunderchild over head, it made the harimau think twice before approaching their camp, three days in Salaya, and Summer had still not seen one.

Apparently though, this was a common experience amongst the hoofers of B Coy, the harimau had been particularly stealthy, and had rarely engaged them openly, preferring instead to silently stalk them from hidden locations, laying traps and catching the rest in surprise attacks. Anyone who went out on patrol either came back without seeing any action, or didn't come back at all. Summer had only talked to one private who had seen a harimau and came back alive. He'd been out taking a piss, when he came across a lone harimau eating on a recently killed soldier. He'd been able to take him out and come back in one piece... sort of.

Said soldier had been disturbed very much by what he had seen. Who wouldn't? Fucking commie bastards were munching on someone you knew for dinner. Otherwise, things had been pretty light.

Summer struggled to keep up hope, and Lieutenant Wolsey wasn't making it any better. She was in charge of the whole company by default now, and she was quick to assert her authority. Summer had been witness to an event between the lieutenant and Corporal Wheatley that made her stop and think.

'Corporal Wheatley. You are out of uniform', Lieutenant Wolsey said.

'Ma'am?' Wheatley asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. 'What do you mean ma'am?' he asked again, looking around at his uniform to check and see if he was missing anything.

'Where are your smart targeting goggles, Corporal?' Wolsey asked, pointing towards the earth pony stallion's head.

Wheatley glanced around, offering the lieutenant a frown. 'They're in my pack... ma'am', he said simply.

'Why are they not on your eyes, soldier?' Wolsey asked.

Wheatley frowned and glanced around the camp for a moment before answering the question with another question. 'Permission to speak freely, ma'am?' he asked. Summer could already tell that he didn't have anything good to say.

Wolsey thought about it for a moment before nodding her head and allowing him to do so. 'Go ahead corporal', Wolsey said.

'Smart targeting goggles don't work for shite out here, ma'am. The harimau are just too good at staying hidden, and the jungle foliage and the heat gives off too much interference, targeting boxes don't even form...' Wheatley began to say before being interrupted by the lieutenant. Wolsey would have none of it, and ordered Wheatley to put them on and keep them on. Not particularly having a choice, in the matter, Wheatley did as he was told. He would never be granted permission to speak freely again.

Summer didn't know what to think about that, but now she was starting to have doubts if Wolsey knew what she was doing or not. When she really thought about it, no one had seen any action in the last sixty years; Wheatley had been one of the first out here and had first hoof experience on how things worked out in the field. If anything that should make him valuable, but here Wolsey was throwing away everything that he was saying because it went against training. Training was good, yes, but field experience... that was something else.

Summer kept an eye on the situation for the next couple of days, and she determined very quickly that Wolsey did not like Corporal Wheatley for some inane reason. Summer had talked to him a couple times and he seemed like a good colt. Corporal Wheatley was 27, and had lived in Fillydelphia all his life. He'd joined the regiment out of a sense of civic duty, feeling like everyone should serve their country in some manner, for a time, at least. He'd been in almost three years when the Emergency broke out and he'd had the option of taking his papers and walking, but he'd decided that that wouldn't be the right thing to do. He re-enlisted, and was promoted to corporal soon afterwards, his preferred nickname was Cereal, which he had been dubbed thanks to his barley coloured coat. He'd given Summer permission to call him Cereal if she'd like. Everyone else though had to use Corporal Wheatley, especially Lieutenant Wolsey.

'Listen lance corporal and this is very important. Do not rely on your targeting goggles out here, it will get you killed. I meant what I said earlier, even if the lieutenant tells you to take out your eyes and implant the goggles instead, got it?' Wheatley asked, after having pulled Summer aside.

Summer nodded her head in agreement. She still did think that Wolsey was their best hope, she did have her doubts, yes, but that's all they were at this point. Doubts.

As time went by, more doubts formed as Wolsey found more and more to butt heads with Cereal about. She was doing her best to try and reform the company into some semblance of what it was supposed to be. She wanted uniformity, with every rifle pony using an E85 or E86. Wheatley however, had other ideas.

'Corporal... is there any particular reason that you're using an E1A1?' Wolsey asked as she did her usual inspection of the troops before morning patrol.

'Actually ma'am... it's a W1A1 that I scavenged out in the jungle off a dead harimau. They've got a significant amount of Welaran weapons, and I picked it up', Wheatley said with a shrug.

Wolsey looked like she was going to blow a gasket. The E85 series of weapons were co-designed by Emerald Ordinance in Welara, and FutureTec in Equestria, both weapons used a significant number of shared internal components, and had only a few minor differences, those rifles with the differences were of the W85 series in Welara. This had not been the first cooperative venture between Welara and Equestria. Emerald Ordinance and FutureTec had cooperated on the previous generation of weapons alongside Nederlander arms manufacture Nationale Fabriceert. To produce the E/W1A1 Self Loading Rifle. Compared to the E85, the E1A1 was self loading only. No automatic function at all and the reasons were simple enough. The E1A1 fired an 8x60mm bullet; recoil was significant, self loading only helped to keep the weapon under control. 8X60mm had a lot more stopping power then the 6x40mm round that the E85 currently used. Summer could see why Wheatley had switched to it. A bigger round wasn't going to get stopped by thick jungle terrain as much.

'And where is the E85 you were issued when you were deployed?' Wolsey asked, gritting her teeth.

'I turned it back in to the Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant, told him I wouldn't need it', Wheatley said with a shrug. Wolsey struggled to keep from flying off the handle; the Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant was stationed with A-Coy, meaning that there was nothing she could do about it.

…

'I'm telling you, Wolsey's fine. She's just trying to get everything sorted out is all!' Summer said, coming to the lieutenant's defence over breakfast.

'And that's all fine and good. The company is in a mess, and it needs all the help it can get. Still she's stressing the little stuff', Wheatley said as he adjusted the smart targeting goggles on his eyes. 'I hate these things...'

Wolsey had ordered the corporal to put his goggles on and keep them on. In protest of the order, he intended to do exactly as she said to the most literal interpretation of the orders. Five days since the order had been issued and he had not taken them off once. He slept in them, he showered in them, and he did all of his assigned duties around the camp in them, even so far as going to forward all of the raw tactical data from his time wearing the goggles to the lieutenant even when it wasn't needed, especially when it wasn't needed. Like when the lieutenant was sleeping.

Summer couldn't help but giggle each morning when the lieutenant walked into the mess hall each morning fuming from looking over the tactical data of Wheatley's last piss break. Summer was sure that she would bring the corporal up on charges of insubordination, and she had almost done so... before Wheatley reminded her that she had ordered him to put the goggles on and to leave them on.

Wolsey grumbled in annoyance at hearing this, and ordered the corporal to carry on.

'I don't like her', Wheatley said over breakfast. 'She acts like she's in control of the situation, but you all just got here. I tried to help in the beginning but now... now I'll just watch her squirm'.

Summer felt that this really wasn't the right way to go about this and was about to voice her opinion on the matter before Cereal reminded her that Wolsey had started on this nonsense.

He had a point. It was a lot of stupid for no real reason, especially considering what came next.

1,187 views

Previous Chapters Next

Comments ( 38 )

The Emergency - Wheller

Stats

FIMFiction

Follow & Support Us