1 - "Tougher than Sensible"
IT WAS DARK. That didn’t bode well, because the worst things happened in dark rooms. And the worst memories were made tied to chairs in those dark rooms. Kraft would know. He had developed a phobia of the particular situation, all because of what the caribou had done to him in a chair in a dark room.
He saw shadows move about in the dark corners of the room. He could barely see them at first, the only source of light a fly-stained bulb above his head casting a puddle of murky illumination across the bare cellar floor. He just about caught the sight of wine racks off to one side and above he could hear the bustling of activity. Hooves and high heels on wood matched by the marching of boots and dress-shoes.
Stepping forward to reveal themselves were his tormentors. Caribou, three of them, chestnut furred beasts with razor edged antlers. The caribou soldiers had been on guard duty, so much was evidenced by the batons and pepper spray on their weapon belts. That meant these warriors had plenty of pent up aggression and frustration to take out upon their two captives.
One of the caribou had an electronic means of venting. The taser hissed venomously like a snake before he moved forward and pressed the arcs of electricity to Kraft’s chest.
His mouth was agape with agony but he didn’t make a sound. Kraft never made a sound. Not at the heights of ecstasy nor in the worst pain known to man, never a peep out of him.
It seemed ironic that six months ago the caribou had done this to him and taken his voice away from him. And now they were doing all the same things, trying damn hard to get a sound out of him.
The taser kissed him again, in the neck this time. Kraft convulsed. Still not a sound.
He may not have been able to talk, but he could still hear. And the sound of his fellow captive spitting and cursing brought him a little bit of comfort.
He’s not screaming, Kraft thought to himself. Sandman is not screaming in pain because they’re focusing on me. Sehr gut. Let them come. I can take i-…
The pain of the taser was coupled by his teeth gritting down on the inside of his cheek. Pennies flooded his mouth as the force of that last shock nearly threw him sideways into the ground. The structure of the plastic chair creaked and part of the backrest cracked. His wrists were zip-tied to the metal parts of the chair though, so no matter how he pulled and yanked with each convulsion he was only cutting into his own wrists.
He wanted to scream. By god he wanted to scream, and shout, and curse, and bring the sexual conduct of his captors into question. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
And he was thankful to hear Sandman had a voice plenty for the both of them.
“Leave him alone!” the other human yelled. “You leave him the fuck alone! Kraft! Kraft, stay with me!”
Kraft blinked away tears and tried to shake off the haze of crimson descending over his vision. His fellow was seated right opposite him, right on the edge of the light, also bound to a chair and bloodied from the beatings he’d received. It was impossible to tell where the blood was seeping into his dark camouflage print of his fatigues. Kraft figured it looked the same on him.
“Look at me! Kraft, look at me!” Lieutenant Reece “Sandman” Sanderson screamed desperately trying to draw his friend’s focus. “You’re fine! You hear me? You’re gonna be fi-…”
Sandman was cut off by a fist to the face and he rocked heavily to one side. His chair tipped, teetered, then righted again with a clack of the metal feet on the bare concrete.
Kraft yanked at his restraints and was hit with the taser one more time.
Sandman went ballistic. “You motherfucker! I’m gonna tear your fucking arms off and beat you to death with them!”
The caribou ignored him. The one with the taser groped a hand full of Kraft’s beard and pulled his gaze up to meet his eyes. Taser Boy was a typical enough caribou soldier; they all looked the same, Kraft thought with some amusement. Then again, perhaps all humans looked the same to the caribou too.
He had to admit, when all those extra-dimensional anthros marched through the Tears half a year ago he’d been pretty speechless. Kraft wished he hadn’t been. It had been his last chance to say something before his voice had been taken from him.
Taser Boy pulsed his weapon dangerously close to Kraft’s eyes, searing multi-coloured spots in his vision. “Are you ready to talk yet, baldy? Hmmm?”
Kraft laughed soundlessly, giving the fucker a blood stained smile. The caribou didn’t think it was very funny and juiced him again.
“He can’t talk!” Sandman screamed, hopping his chair with rage. “He’s mute you fucking cocksuckers!”
One of the other caribou hit Reece in the face again. His chair teetered like before, then clacked back down onto all fours again.
“Then why don’t you sing us a little song, human?” the caribou who’d hit him spat venomously. “Who sent you!? What was your mission!?”
“Pull it out your ass motherfucker!” Sandman raged through blood and tears. He didn’t have anything else to give them. Except a mouthful of blood and saliva that he spat into the caribou’s face. The soldier recoiled, then with a bout of fury back-handed the lieutenant. This time the chair teetered past the point of no return and Sandman slammed into the ground on his side.
The caribou with bloody spit on his face – Knuckleduster – tried to wipe some of the viscera from his fur and shook his head angrily. Turning to Taser Boy he drew a folding knife from his belt and threw it to his fellow.
“Take them out back and dispose of them,” Knuckleduster ordered. “We have to report back to the banquet.”
Flicking open the knife, Taser Boy knelt beside Kraft and began sawing through his bonds. At the same time Sandman let out a long gargling laugh. Knuckleduster stopped mid step then crouched down beside the pony.
“And what’s so funny then, monkey-man?” the caribou demanded.
Sandman spat again, this time just to clear his mouth instead of make a spiteful move. “I managed to slip out of my restraints.”
“Wha-…” Knuckleduster’s eyes widened as he reached for his baton. It was too late.
Sandman put a fist in his face and when knuckleduster had turned the human wrapped the caribou into a stranglehold. Only one of his wrists had been free, the chair still dangling from the other to hinder movement. But he still snaked an arm around the anthro’s neck and pulled with all his might to crush the windpipe.
At that exact same moment Kraft felt the zip-tie on his wrist split open. He had a hold of Taser Boy’s wrist before the caribou knew what was happening and the human forced the blade up into the anthro’s throat.
Taser Boy gagged, his eyes wide with shock before Kraft caught the handle and yanked the blade free. The bleeding caribou was on the ground by the time the human sliced through the remaining zip-tie holding him down, and he connected with the last caribou dashing to help Knuckleduster out of the chokehold.
He had the caribou by the antlers, pulled him away from Sandman and ventilated his lungs with two lightning quick jabs. Wheezing the creature fell while Knuckledusters kicks and twitches weakened.
“Just go to sleep,” Sandman cooed softly in the caribou’s ear. “Just go to sleep you fucking bitch.”
The caribou gagged, gasped and kicked, then went limp with his tongue rolling out the side of his mouth. He kept his droopy eyed stare fixed on the cellar rafters as he slumped to side and Sandman angrily kicked out from under the corpse.
Kraft knelt by his friend to wipe the blood from his blade on one of the corpses then cut Sandman from his restraints. The knife was still sharp, even though he was sure he’d accidentally nicked a few bones there. The point was still good, so it’d serve well enough to get them out of here.
“You had me worried for a second there,” Sandman chuckled and beckoned the silent operator to follow. “Good thing we’re tougher than we are sensible.” Cracking the door on the far side of the cellar and satisfied the stairwell was clear Sandman took the lead towards the upper floors.
“No time to hide the bodies,” he whispered as they climbed. “Let’s try to keep things quiet until we find our gear. Then I think it’s high time for some payback.”
The top of the stairwell opened out onto a flanking corridor overlooking a grand marble ballroom. Above the heads of the guests bustling at the banquet below was an enormous shimmering crystal chandelier that looked like a set of caribou antlers.
Crouching at the wrought iron railings the operators were able to look down between the twisted metal patterns at the guests. The humans stood out pretty strongly among the caribou who were clad in what looked like Prussian regal attire, complete with ivory toggles and a mixture of white and red silks. The humans were in common enough suits and bowties, still the go-to formal wear of 2020.
It quickly became obvious the only ones dressed were males. In fact, the men were the only guests to the party. Edging about among the well-dressed men were naked females of every race and either species. The thing the human and caribou women had had in common was their subjugation and objectification.
They weren’t looked at despite their nakedness, not even sideways by the men. And when they were noticed, they were seen as part of the furniture.
Their role was a bastardisation of waitressing. Their nipples pierced and hung from a set of chains from their chests were boards upon which tall flutes of champagne were balanced. The red collars not with their arms bound behind their backs, painfully passing around drinks were forced on their knees or half-hidden under tables, orally servicing their masters as the men joked, laughed and chatted.
Through the din of the party there was a woman with a purple collar around her neck shrieking, “Do it, do it, I can't wait anymore, master! Please, do it, do it to me!”
It was followed by some haughty laughter and the smack of a hand across a fragile face, followed by more laughter.
Kraft’s stomach turned as he looked desperately to Sandman. He looked just as uncomfortable, but shook his head.
“Nothing we can do for now,” he whispered. “We can only… oh, fuck!”
Down the corridor a door swung open and Kraft turned in time to see a caribou hoof step out of a room a dozen metres away. He and Sandman were either unnaturally quick or just very lucky. Forcing open the nearest adjacent door the duo tumbled into a bedroom that seemed fit for a king and hid around the doorframe.
The caribou lurking outside, a guard going by the weapon belt and armoured loincloth, casually patrolled the walkway none the wiser. Sandman watched carefully, then ducked his head back when the guard paused just outside. With his back to them he leaned on the railing and watched the banquet progress below.
Nodding to the guard, Sandman ran an index finger across his throat.
Kraft understood perfectly.
Brandishing his knife in an ice-pick grip he closed in on the caribou guard with his hands raised high. It was over in a second. His hand covered the guard’s mouth and the blade sank through his chest into his heart. By the time Kraft had dragged him back into the bedroom the guard had stopped twitching, and he rolled the caribou under the bed.
With their coast clear Sandman led the way again. He’d studied the floorplan before their arrival and their visit to the wine cellar. The operator knew exactly where he was going. He got them there behind the backs of several more guards too risky for Kraft to “remove.” The deeper they moved into the building the stricter security got.
Those guards out by the ballroom were the PR guys. They just had batons, utility knives and maybe a can of pepper spray. The closer they got to their target deeper in the building’s utility sections the armoury seemed to upgrade. Some of the caribou were carrying firearms, mostly assault rifles. Just one of the many destructive tools they had adopted when Earth was enveloped by the Caribou Empire.
Seeing them carry the weapons like toys almost made Kraft want to walk up and show them how it was really done.
In the back end of the second floor the rich carpeted corridors with mahogany wall panels and luxurious hangings gave way to linoleum and sterile white walls. Ducting and wiring was exposed across the ceilings. Sandman led the way purposefully until they reached a room lined with weapons lockers and racks with tactical gear.
The armoury had several work benches running down the middle, upon one of which lay a stack of familiar looking tac-vests and rifles. The gear the caribou had confiscated from Kraft and Sandman upon the humans’ capture.
Sandman made a bee-line for the gear and picked up his tac-vest. Their tac-vests were midnight black material like the black-multicam material that made up the rest of their uniforms, and home to armoured plate inserts that would help stop small calibre projectiles. While Kraft was securing his FAST helmet and double checking his primary weapon Sandman was clicking his radio.
“This is Spyglass calling to Thestral.”
“Go for Spyglass. What have you got for me?” a woman’s voice answered.
Sandman belted out his report with an air of visible relief on his face. “Spyglass is compromised and in need of immediate extraction. More to follow.” Kraft whistled, getting his attention and Savvy walked over to look out the window the other human was checking. Outside the street was packed with lines of cars and Kraft gestured them with the hand-signal for ‘obstacles.’ “Thestral, we can get into the open for you but still need fast evacuation, how copy?”
“Go for evac. Scrying places you in central Rotterdam. Traffic is going to blow. Give me fifteen mikes, copy?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Sandman relayed to Kraft who nodded firmly. They could work with fifteen minutes. “Roger, Thestral. We’ll see you in…”
He was interrupted by a sudden ringing of an alarm. It was a standard ring, constant and aggravating that normally indicated a fire or fire drill. Had the duo not left a bunch of bodies in the wine cellar they would have believed it were a fire alarm.
They’d been made. The longest fifteen minutes of their lives began now.
Sandman quickly hammered out, “See you in fifteen, Thestral. Spyglass out!” and pocketed the phone again. And just as he did the armoury door burst open.
A quartet of caribou moved in with no sense of plan or organisation. Clearly the true origin of the alarm hadn’t reached the armed guards as they were momentarily stunned at the sight of the escaped prisoners.
It gave Kraft enough time to push the lieutenant to the ground before the caribou opened up with all guns. Rounds exploded through the air and hissed over their head, shattering loose gear and cratering drywall. A haze of dust and cordite fumes filled the space, burning in their sensitive nostrils and eyes.
Kraft moved like he was bullet-proof and shouldered his weapon. The sleek black “HK416” was as familiar as it was simple. No frills, no window dressing, just three-kilogrammes of death delivery in a modular little package.
He yanked the ambidextrous charging lever with his off hand while turning; shouldered the ratty-ass butt while sighting his targets; and finally let loose a full automatic barrage as he moved to hard cover. The caribou tried to track his movements, but the way they fired from the hip made it impossible to score a hit. Instead they blasted pretty much everything other than Kraft and Sandman.
The human on the other hand connected his rounds with their faces. His finger didn’t let up on the trigger, and even as he moved and sprayed he managed to rake rounds from left to right, then back again at eye level.
Caribou dropped in puffs of pink mist as Kraft slid under the line of fire. And by the time his weapon clicked empty all four caribou were sprawled awkwardly across the deck.
Kraft knew full well the caribou were well organised and a force to be reckoned with on the field of melee combat and magic unless caught by surprise. But they were still grasping at the subtle nuances of handling firearms. It was the one advantage over them he intended to milk for as long as possible.
Sandman secured his own helmet and grabbed his weapon, yanking the charging lever of the long barrelled “MK.14” while Kraft reloaded with choreographed ease.
Readied up, they beat feet. The same way Sandman had led on the way to the armoury, Kraft took point to extraction. Lieutenant Sanderson’s job was generally designated marksman. His weapon was semi-automatic, putting him in the advantage in open spaces where those long-range shots with accuracy were critical to turning the tide of a firefight. It was all Kraft for the moment, the duo following the barrel of their only assault rifle.
Lowering his weapon to check behind him, Kraft turned back to face a pair of armed caribou who had wandered into their path. He froze, jaw gritted in frustration. His own assault rifle was pointed downward while the caribou had him and the lieutenant dead to rights.
Sandman saved the day though with some quick thinking.
“Um… all hail King Dáinn!” Sandman cried out with a half hesitant salute.
The caribou lowered their rifles slightly, looking at each other bewildered. Kraft and Sandman had a split second, which was more than enough for the humans.
His “HK416” snapped up and he let loose two single shots in quick succession. The double-tap put a pair of rounds in the bare chest of the caribou to the left. Sandman twisted his rifle counter-clockwise, peering through the off-side iron-sights before he let loose a single shot. The last guard’s head snapped back nearly hard enough to break off his antlers.
“Why would that work?” Sandman asked with some bewilderment as he put his hand on Kraft’s shoulder and was led onward again.
The ballroom loomed back into view, and moving onto the upper hallway overlooking the open space the duo were treated to a big empty space. Guests and slaves had been evacuated already; a process probably accelerated shortly after the first pops of gunfire broke out.
Kraft had just enough time to spot the stairwell that led down to the fire escape exit when bullets suddenly filled the air around them, guns on the far corridor across the ballroom letting loose their explosive fanfare.
It was like fighting warlords in Somalia, or pirates on some rusty bucket of a freight-ship. The caribou treated their guns like accessories rather than extensions of their being. Guns were tools, a high precision piece of equipment designed and developed for a single purpose. They had to be used correctly, not like toys.
But the caribou treated them like a cudgel. Their rifles were decorated with beads and streamers that blocked sights and sometimes interfered with moving parts. They had no idea what they were doing when it came to using them, but generally speaking the caribou didn’t much care for projectile weapons. They relied on their blades and their magic, the latter which was actually already putting them at an advantage over humans. The guns were just scary devices that made a loud noise and a mess of whatever the pointed it at. They were items of intimidation, which was all the caribou needed them to be.
Kraft counted his blessings that human operators trained in warfare loyal to the caribou were rare enough. Humanity was still a new friend and hadn’t earned enough trust to enter the caribou armed forces just yet. Those roles were reserved for caribou mostly.
Back to the bullets flying about, Kraft decided they had to move and led Sandman forward. But the lieutenant was very familiar with the basic rule of move or die; move out the way or risk one lucky bullet finding its mark.
He kept Sandman behind him, putting his body between the officer and the enemy fire. If Kraft took a bullet, then so be it. He tried not to think about it, but his contingency was in place. He’d patch himself up if possible, but he’d draw enemy attention above all else. Get Sandman clear so he could complete extraction. Sandman was a fine officer and a skilled warrior. The human Resistance would be at a loss without him.
Kraft cradled his own rifle at chest height and returned fire without looking. It was like they were retards exchanging fire, neither side taking the time to focus or aim. Kraft didn’t much care. He was suppressing, belting enough ammo at the enemy in the hopes it would make them falter and buy him some time to find hard cover.
Hard cover was the game changer in a firefight. He hugged the corner of an adjacent corridor with some relief, putting a bit of brick and mortar between him and the enemy shooters. Some rounds still penetrated and spat dust and grit in his face, but he had broken line of sight. The chances of taking a hit had been halved.
But the caribou were filling the air between them and the stairwell leading to their exit with ammunition. At least, they had been…
Weapons clicked and all the caribou stumbled for a moment to reload.
Kraft on the other hand had already clicked a fresh magazine in place and Sandman was holding a narrow black cylinder in one hand. Pulling the pin he flashed Kraft a cheeky wink and tossed the flashbang.
The device lived up to its name, flashing and banging loud enough to put the caribou off balance. Not permanently, but they were plugging and covering for a good few seconds, time enough for Kraft to charge into them.
Slipping around the corner he sighted his targets and methodically tapped from right to left. His gun let out single pops of gunfire, but caribou didn’t twitch. The caribou downrange weren’t the bare chested guards they had faced earlier. These were caribou soldiers, the general infantry bread and butter of the caribou armed forces. The Caribou Empire emblem cresting their silver chest-plates glowed with white light and the bullets howling in their direction evaporated into dust several inches before striking targets.
Kraft kept firing though as the caribou were shaking off the effects of the stun-grenade, hoping at least one round would punch through. But hope was like prayer now-and-days. From previous experiences Kraft knew it simply wasn’t going to happen. So they rushed.
He tore open the stairwell door, firing one handed as Sandman dove rifle-first down the first flight of steps. Kraft backed in after him, then turned to jump down three steps at a time.
“And we’re out!” Sandman cried, pushing open the emergency exit at the bottom and checking his watch. “Just in time. Thestral should be… aw, fuck!”
The fifteen minutes to extraction had ticked by quickly. The duo had been expecting to run out into the street where the extraction team would have been waiting, but they ran out the alleyway into an empty street lined with abandoned cars. There were few bystanders, most having scattered at the sound of gunfire with a few daredevils standing across the street filming the developing scene on their phones.
Guards on the façade of the building were ushering guests into their limousines when they spotted the human and the stallion. Some brandished sidearms, others went for batons. One of the caribou shouted something, but Kraft wasn’t listening.
He fired off the rest of his magazine and dove to one side, following Sandman behind a car parked along the curb. Bystanders screamed and bolted. The retort of gunfire echoed through the night sky over the Rotterdam skyline while a deadly hail peppered parked cars.
The car Kraft and Sandman hid behind rocked from side to side and the hazard lights flashed, alarms wailing deafeningly. Dumping his spent magazine he pushed the next in place before pressing the bolt release hidden in the trigger-guard.
Half standing, the humans popped some return fire, but like with the caribou soldiers inside, their bullets hit air.
While they fought, pushed back into the lines of stationary traffic the only lanes in the road that were moving had screeched to a halt. People abandoned their cars and bolted. There was plenty of cover for their little firefight, but the caribou also had plenty of flanking opportunities.
It was somewhere between switching to his next magazine and sliding over the bonnet of a still running corvette that Kraft admitted they were losing initiative. There was no escaping on foot, the caribou controlled Rotterdam like any other big city on Earth. They’d be picked out, isolated and gunned down in seconds. They needed to move fast.
And fast they would move when their extraction arrived on pretty much literally a wing and a prayer.
The stark white transit van rocketed towards them, smashing aside a parking meter as they pulled up onto the curb to skirt by the traffic. Pedestrians were long gone and the van ran right up beside the two human operators. The doors popped open, side door slid aside and five figures piled out into the fight.
The team Sandman had referred to as “Thestral” joined in guns blazing.
These gals were a mixture of the Resistance’s most valued allies. They were mostly ponies, led by a thestral and backed by a machine-gun toting griffon.
Caribou weren’t the only anthropomorphic creatures to come out of the Tears. Months later the Resistance had come into contact with the allied citizens of nations in the alternate dimension the caribou came from. Equestria, Zebrica, Griffonia and the Crystal Empire had formed together to fight the caribou advances in their own dimension, and were now on Earth to lend a hand… well, hoof and claw, really.
Kraft didn’t fear any tactical or language barriers between their people. The fighters in the Resistance all spoke one common language; war. And the ladies of Thestral were very articulate.
The two unicorn mares in the team unleashed shining rockets of light from their horns that arched through the air and whacked with devastating accuracy into the caribou forces. One minute they were black x-rays of themselves, the next moment the caribou soldiers were gone. It was suddenly no surprise why Equestria hadn’t fallen victim to the Caribou Empire yet.
The pegasus in their group flapped her wings and joined the bat-pony leader in the sky, zipping a rain of bullets upon the faltering enemy while the griffon set up “the pig.” The almighty machine-gun propped up on the roof of a sedan began chugging, pissing empty shells and bits of ammo-belt out the side as tracers filled the air between them and the caribou. Lines of death traced up and down the enemy lines forcing the caribou soldiers to cower.
The thestral mare landed with a thud on the roof of a nearby truck, rolled over the side and hit the tarmac beside Kraft and Sandman. All the while she moved like her sleek eldritch looking armour weighed nothing. Then again, they were talking anthro equines from a dimension where magic was very prevalent. It could have been made of cotton and enchanted to be imbued with the strength of kevlar for all any human knew.
“So typical. Always cleaning up after you boys.” Major Velvet Comet turned her amber gaze until she spotted the bloodied humans, then changed her tone with distinct concern in her eyes.
“Are you guys okay?”
“We got thick skulls!” Sandman assured before pointing to her firearm. “Getting the hang of those I see!”
Velvet Comet smiled again hefting the Earthling designed and produced “SCAR-H” rifle. “I’m learning to love ‘em. But you can’t beat the classics,” she added patting the sword on her belt. “Say, how about we blow this popsicle stand?”
“Roger the fuck that!” Sandman nodded, then glanced with a small grin to Kraft. “Blow this popsicle stand? Who says that anymore?”
Kraft shrugged.
Standing, the team broke ranks into pairs and made for the van. They took turns covering each other, making sure there were always at least three guns unloading on the caribou, until finally the griffon was the last operator to move.
“Gilda, lets go!” the unicorn Sky Buster yelled before joining fire with one of the unicorns to cover the griffon’s movements.
Gilda folded her machine-gun’s bipod on the move. Brushing between Sky Buster and Starry Smooch, she dove headlong into the van before the ponies backed in after her. While Velvet Comet was sitting shotgun and shooting out the open window, Sandman reached over and punched the backrest of the driver, the last unicorn on the team named Scarlet Blade.
“Let’s get the fuck outta here!”
Scarlet was going as fast as she could, her hooves clumsily working the clutch as her hand rammed the vehicle into first gear. “Give me a second, eh!”
“We don’t have a second!”
Kraft held on just in time as Scarlet Blade threw the van down the sidewalk and off the curb back onto the road. As they started their fast escape he fingered the magazine release catch of his weapon and whipped the spent mag out the back of the vehicle.
As he was going for the last of the ammunition on his tac-vest one of the operators on board screamed.
“Contact, six o’clock!”
The human had just about enough time to look up and spot a vehicle with full-beam headlights race up behind them. Through the glare he didn’t spot the shooter, but it was impossible to mistake the shooting for anything else especially with rounds raking the inner walls of the van’s cabin.
As they dropped to the deck for cover, Kraft shoved himself on top of the nearest operator. That was the difference between heroes and villains. The villains used human shields; the heroes made themselves human shields. And it wasn’t any sort of male instinct that drove Kraft to shield the griffon. It was simple tactical common sense.
Gilda’s gun was bigger and she had more ammunition. She’d be more useful in a firefight than Kraft. If anyone had to take a bullet in that instance it made most sense Kraft should take it.
Thankfully it didn’t come to that though.
When the enemy fire subsided, Kraft rolled off Gilda and ripped his sidearm from its holster. Laying on his side he managed to line up his sight and let loose two shots. The enemy vehicle’s headlights shattered and the operators blinked away spots.
Gilda recovered first, rising to a knee and unloading her machine-gun into the enemy vehicle. Judging by the way the vehicle moved with some stability the driver may have been human. Hanging out the passenger side window the caribou shooter barely managed to slip back inside before Gilda’s rounds nearly tore him in half.
The caribou guard flinched and slipped out of the window completely, smacking into the road and rolling like a rag-doll. The griffon’s line of fire then traced left and splashed the car’s windscreen. The driver was obscured by spiderwebs of cracks in the glass, but the way he veered off into on-coming traffic indicated pretty clearly Gilda had scored a hit.
The car slammed headlong into another car just as they turned onto another street.
As they were racing between the other bewildered road users with no sign of slowing, Velvet Comet patched their comms into the Resistance inter-squad frequency. “Swick, this is Thestral! Message, over!”
“Go for Thestral.” Crackled a male reply. “Send message.”
“We are moving to extraction now! Prepare for hot extraction! Repeat, extraction will be sizzling!”
“Swick copies all. We have you on scry. Get to the water and we’ll do the rest, Thestral.”
“There!” Velvet Comet shouted pointing out the windscreen at an upcoming bridge. “We can cross there to the waterside-…”
The van suddenly jerked hard to the right and the window on Velvet’s side shattered into grains. The sudden force of the turn threw the operators in the back sideways as Scarlet Blade was forced off the main road and onto a side-street. She yanked the steering wheel from side to side to bring the drift under control before the tires finally found purchase with a squeal and the smell of burnt rubber.
As Kraft righted himself he looked back to see a land-rover fall into pursuit position, the bumper frame chipped and warped where it had t-boned them. He counted his blessings that they hadn’t been thrown upside down or run off the road completely.
“We got more contacts! Bust ‘em!” Sandman ordered and all operators snapped up their weapons.
The hail of their fire weaved as Scarlet weaved between traffic. Cars they overtake fell in behind then either hit the brakes hard or swerved hard into the path of the pursuing land-rover. The hostiles ploughed through several of the civilian vehicles, but didn’t slow.
Torsos slipped out the passenger windows and submachine gun wielding caribou returned fire.
Kraft steadied his aim and cracked out a few single shots with his scope reticule dead centre on the caribou, but his bullets seemed to go wide anyway. The distinct glow on their chest plates made him want to curse out loud.
“Soldiers with shields. I think I got another magic missile in me,” Starry Smooch offered, charging her horn, but Sandman quickly waved her off.
“No, save it.” He slid a pair of fragmentation grenades from his gear and threw one to Kraft. “On three!”
Kraft readied the grenade and waited.
“One!”
Small calibre rounds peppered the side of the van as they curled south trying to find the water front again.
“Two!”
The enemy vehicle drifted hard sideways and slid into line of sight again.
“Three!”
The humans dropped their grenades at the same time. As they did they rolled over, tucked and covered. Bullets hailed the inner wall of the van just above their heads. Kraft lifted his gaze just a little to see the twin blooms crater the road.
He wasn’t sure which grenade got them. The first blast forced the driver to bank hard right. The second explosion caught then right under the front axle. The nose of the land-rover lifted straight up, she rolled and they smacked into the road on one side, crushing the shooter hanging out the window before he could retreat.
The wrecked vehicle fell out of sight as Scarlet put them back on a main road crossing the Maas canal. The Euro Tower raced past on one side as they slipped through the sparse traffic at a speed that would have normally had them skipping the ticket phase and land them a one-way trip into the slammer.
The least of Scarlet Blade’s worries though as they tore onto the bridge crossing the water and set of piers lit by floodlights slid into view on the far side. But between them and their access to a water extraction was a hubbub of activity.
Both lanes of traffic were blocked with barriers. Armed caribou soldiers with glowing breast plates took up covering positions with their rifles paointed at the approaching van. But behind them stood a force much more terrifying.
The caribou warbeasts were like giant pitbulls from hell. Their serrated tusks could cut men in half with one swing, they had clawed feet that could trample an armoured convoy; but even more terrifying was that the fire breathing monsters were modernised. Angular plates of armour protected key boints of their bodies from incoming fire, and mounted on their backs were the long barrelled cannons of weaponry Kraft normally would only see mounted on a tank.
The caribou pairs riding on the hulking beasts’ backs loaded up shells and readied the targeting systems as the warbeasts lumbered into firing positions.
Scarlet Blade slowed the van, but didn’t dare come to a complete stop. “Yeah, we’re not gonna make it to the waterfront!”
Sandman edged to the front of the vehicle looking between Velvet and Scarlet before glancing back at the younger unicorn mare on Thestral team. “Still got that magic missile in you?”
Starry Smooch cringed hard. “Not one that big!”
“Then just get us in the water!” Sandman pointed out the side of the bridge.
“This bridge is thirty metres off the deck!” Scarlet Blade cried.
“Just details!” Velvet Comet agreed grabbing the wheel. “Just poxy buckin’ details!”
She turned hard right before anypony could do anything about it and they veered off their collision course with the warbeasts. The guns roared and heavy shells that could have gutted them with just one clean hit screamed right past the van.
The van jolted, ploughing through concrete dividers along the edge of the bridge and they plummeted over the side. gravity seemed to have been turned off as everyone drifted off the deck and their gear suddenly weighed nothing.
Looking forward they saw the Rotterdam skyline slide upward, giving way to a view of the dark water below. Looking back there was only sky.
“Brace-brace-brace!” Sandman and Kraft threw themselves into a corner and braced.
The mares and the griffon huddled against them and they all held on tight. A second later gravity returned and they were sucked forward. Cold water bubbled up around them and invaded through the cracked windows and the open cargo compartment doors.
The crew bailed as quickly as possible. Undoing belts both Scarlet and Velvet clambered over their seats and floated upwards with the others as the van sank to the inky depths around them.
While they bobbed on the surface the operators looked up to the bridge above them. Dust crumbled from the gaping hole in the roadside barrier their tumble had left behind. And any second now they expected caribou to lean over those barriers and begin shooting down at them.
Only one of them wasn’t looking up.
“Please have seen it,” Velvet Comet prayed desperately as she scanned the dark water. “Please have seen it.”
Her prayers were answered by the roar of gunboats and the buzzing of support weapons.
Tracers exploded through the night air, sizzling overhead and slamming into the bridge. More clouds of dust crumbled and debris splashed the water next to Sandman. Kraft couldn’t see if there were actually any caribou aggressors up there, but the buzzing of guns didn’t stop.
And out of the darkness they came.
Two powerboats raced forward fast, then braked at the last possible second spraying up two enormous curtains of water along their flanks. The supporting vehicle veered off to one side, the high calibre support weapons and multi-barrelled mini-guns belting out a cloud of fire that would suppress a god. Even the mixed human-pony crew on the far side of the powerboat were firing off in the opposite direction just in case.
Because overkill was underrated.
The second powerboat drifted alongside Thestral and Spyglass with the crew leaning over the sides to help the operators up. The Resistance extraction team had done this a thousand times before on water, land and even in the air, and the hot-extraction was performed faster than the caribou could think of scrambling an aerial pursuit.
Within seconds the two extraction craft were ploughing through the waters towards the edge of Rotterdam where an aircraft would take them the final leg of their journey home to headquarters. Sitting on the edge of the boat Sandman dared take off his helmet and enjoyed the wind whipping across his face.
In the calm the pain of the beatings they’d received earlier returned. Beatings received because they wouldn’t, they couldn’t sit idly by and watch their world fall to patriarchal madness.
Kraft looked back on the mission and back to the fading line of lights that was Rotterdam with a little sourness. It was like that across the globe. The caribou were everywhere. And men like Sandman, Kraft and the other fighters of the Resistance were few and far between.
Their resistance meant Earth was still in the process of falling. But humanity had fallen long ago.
THE FALL OF EQUESTRIA EARTH
As much as Kraft appreciated the opportunity to rest, he hated sitting about doing nothing. And unfortunately life in the Resistance was no different than his time with the bundeswehr. It wasn’t all missions and cool-guy stuff. There was a fair amount of waiting about on standby too.
And after extraction, having caught plenty of sleep on the osprey-ride back to headquarters, Kraft didn’t feel like sleeping anymore. He wanted to get back out there. The world still needed saving, and it wasn’t going to save itself.
But what he wanted more than getting back out into the field was just something to do. Sitting still meant he was alone with this thoughts.
And his thoughts raced all the time.
He thought about what a future that could have been. What would have happened if he’d broken? If he’d given into the caribou? Where would he be now? Relaxing in some mansion with a hundred women at his beck and call? There wouldn’t be any need to fight. No need to suffer. No need for war.
It wasn’t a bad life.
He shuddered just thinking about it. But it wasn’t good either. Kraft believed in freedom of choice. He believed in freedom of mind and spirit. He believed that nobody should be oppressed. Especially not over trivial things like gender, race or religion. Everyone had the right to live the way they sought fit.
The Caribou Empire were an exception to the rule though. Their way of life interfered with everyone else’s.
Kraft had held on to that belief. It was what kept him sane. It was what prevented him from breaking.
The human was trying to blank his mind when a figure slid past his bunk. The gold-armoured pony paused, checking he was awake and nodded a greeting.
“Hey, Kraft. Lieutenant Sanderson was looking for you. He’s in command,” the stallion informed.
Nodding, Kraft eagerly slid out of the cubby that served as his sleeping quarters and slid his pistol into the holster mounted to his hip. Standing orders were for all combat personnel had to remain combat effective at all times. They were, after all, in a constant state of war.
Kraft just pitied personnel who hadn’t been issued sidearms, forced to lug assault rifles, DMRs or support guns around with them all day. But pushing aside all thought and glad to be focusing on something to do, he the navigated well-lit bunker hallways that snaked through the mountains they had been set in with concrete.
As he walked through the Resistance Headquarters he couldn’t help feel a little chilled. And it wasn’t the bare stone and general lack of heating that did it.
The sprawling mountain bunker was built and manned by Kraft’s countrymen in World War Two. Although he used the word countrymen as loosely as possible. The less he associated himself with the fascist Nazi Party the happier he was.
History was history though. Yes, it happened. Nothing he could do about it really. It was a shame his country had to put up with. But now at least something good came of it. The base that once housed the axis of evil was now among the last bastions of hope and freedom on the Earth.
Not too shabby, really.
On the way to the command centre Kraft passed by a long window looking down over a large cavernous hangar. Once upon a time the space would have served as storage for war machines and aircraft. At the moment it was packed with tents and shanty quarters. Down there was the refugee camp for non-combatants who defected against the caribou. Most of them were women emotionally and physically too broken to do anything other than breathe really.
Kraft had almost been among them. He honestly wasn’t sure what made him cope differently from the thousands of others out there.
Pony doctors and nurses were down there tending to the injured with aid workers from Equestria’s allies bringing victims food and other basic supplies. Several glistening Tears were open among the tents, portals between Earth and the dimension that housed Equestria. The humans who were fit enough and passed medical screening were lined up and led through the Tears to rehabilitation camps in Equestria where they would receive the medical and mental care they needed. Caribou indoctrination had affected nearly everyone. They had applied it easy enough, reversing it was a chore-and-a-half.
Unfortunately it wasn’t help everybody could receive. Some humans were simply too weak to pass through the Tears. On the Equestria side of the portals magic hung heavily in the air. Magic was apparently in Earth’s air too, allowing ponies to recharge their reserves well enough – albeit slowly – in Equestria magic was very prominent. It was enough to make humans sick enough the initial symptoms could be mistaken as radiation poisoning. There was on average a month long adjustment period for humans entering Equestria, considering the transition didn’t kill you outright.
That was the main reason the Resistance didn’t pull out of Earth entirely then use Tears to strike vulnerable caribou positions. Even ponies were disoriented by Tear transition, making insertion into the field by Tears very dodgy.
Kraft only paused for a moment to watch a line of young girls in tatty rags that passed as clothes pass through the Tear. One of them wore a red collar around her neck, seemingly frantic about keeping it. Like she was only taking a short leave of absence and in the morning she would return to pleasuring her caribou master.
Two young women with purple collars were restrained and blindfolded as they were assessed by a nervous looking stallion in a lab-coat. Both he, Kraft and the restraining mares knew full well if any of those purple collars so much as caught the scent of a male they’d go into a sexual frenzy. A frenzy Kraft had sometimes seen turn quite violent.
The purple collars represented the worst the caribou had done to humanity, and even their own women. There were some caribou women in the camp as well, but every single one of them wore a red collar they had refused to remove. And all of them were kept under lightly armed guard so they wouldn’t do anything stupid.
After an eternity of oppression and slavery, the concept of resistance and uprising was still extremely new to caribou women.
Kraft reached the command centre a few minutes later. The room was everything you’d expect the words “command centre” to represent. Server stacks lined one side of the room. There were hastily erected desks lined with computer terminals manned by UAV drone pilots, tactical liaisons and communications officers of all races and species. There were even a few recognisable politicians and former world-leaders working together on Resistance recruiting and propaganda in one corner.
The centre of the room was dominated by a waist high electronic map table. The surface glowed a cool purple colour and rippling across it was a three dimensional map of an alien landscape. There were vast woodlands, rolling hills and quaint little postcard hamlets in the countryside. Slapped against the side of an impossibly tall mountain overlooking the entire landscape was a shimmering cosmopolitan city of artificial plazas, towers and walkways with a towering palace at the very heart of it.
It didn’t take three guesses for Kraft to realise he was looking at a map of the pony homeland, of Equestria.
Standing around the map were several familiar faces. First and foremost was Sandman.
Across from him were two ponies, one a unicorn stallion with a white coat and a nappy blue mane that better suited a surfer than a royal officer. He was clad in white fatigues over which the sleek plates of purple and gold armour were slotted to protect his forearms, shoulders and centre-mass.
The mare standing beside him was a lavender coated alicorn, part unicorn and part pegasus as was traditional for most Equestria royalty. Princess Twilight Sparkle almost seemed too young a princess to hold any sort of responsibility. But then on Earth princesses weren’t held in as high a regard as they were in Equestria.
She was college age with a fancy pink streak running through her dark mane and tail. Her attire was similar to that of Captain Shining Armor, white fatigues with light, sleek purple and gold armour plates crested with a six pointed star. Her leggings were missing though, replaced by a purple skirt that fell from the belt resting on her hips.
Two more princesses stood with them, although not in physical presence. Above the map table hung a shimmering Tear, and projecting through the rip between dimensions were semi-transparent Princess Cadance of the Crystal Empire and Princess Celestia, the ruler of Equestria.
But although she was a holographic avatar, Princess Celestia’s present was still majestic enough to make Kraft miss a step. She stood beside Lieutenant Sanderson, standing taller than him by about a head as one would expect a Godess to do. She wore a long flowing dress with golden ornaments decorating her wrists, fetlocks and slender neck. Her grand feathered wings were half opened with intrigue as her warm eyes watched the human officer.
With a goddess like Celestia on their side it was a shock that humanity hadn’t kicked the caribou out yet. After all, the Caribou Empire had moved on Equestria first, and when their invasion had failed miserably against the might of the nation’s princesses and protectors they turned their attention to humanity.
Caribou rune-magic was just as powerful on Earth as it was in their home dimension, escalating their superiority over humanity. To make things worse, pony magic was highly limited on Earth complicating humanity’s liberations. It wasn’t as simple as Princess Celestia hopping through a Tear and banishing the caribou in one end-all spell. She’d actually tried.
And it had nearly killed her.
Sandman had his hands resting on his belt looking down at the map of Equestria. “You got a beautiful place, princess,” he finished saying as Kraft came in. “I look forward to seeing it when all this is over.”
Princess Celestia smiled and asked, “Why wait? You’ve been fighting for a long time, Lieutenant Sanderson. Nobody would hold it against you if you took some personal time.”
Sandman chuckled. “Four weeks quarantine and recovery for a round trip? I’d never forgive myself for being out the fight that long.”
Celestia nodded, but she didn’t seem satisfied with the answer. She seemed to struggle refraining from bringing it up again.
“Kraft, you’re up I see,” Sandman commented when he saw the silent operator approach. “Good. Princess, would you do the honours?”
Twilight Sparkle nodded and leaned over the map table. She waved her hand through the holographic representation and Equestria vanished, replaced with a slowly turning globe. The familiar land-masses and stretches of water forming distinct patterns identified the globe as Earth.
She flicked a gesture across the globe and the image suddenly blew up to reveal the ocean floor. Cringing and muttering a curse under her breath, Twilight Sparkle quickly zoomed out, but went too far. The solar system was suddenly a sparkling display across the map table and she sighed frustratedly.
“Oh, for crying… Dutch, a hand please!?”
A young man about Twilight Sparkles age chuckled. Walking over from where he was working on the servers the human she called “Dutch” quickly took her place by the map table. He was clad in camouflage fatigues like Sandman and Kraft, only wore a patch for technical support on his shoulder instead of field operations. He had the look of an operator down right though, having remembered to tuck in his shirt and clipped his hair short and manageable.
“Infinite cosmic power, and the alicorn princess can’t even operate a map,” the technician teased. “Didn’t you design this system?”
She was muttering to herself about his dodgy implementation when the holographic Princess Cadance leaned over to Twilight Sparkle, eyes fixed on the back of the human’s head. “That’s your new technical liaison?” Twilight nodded, and Cadance gave a small giggle. “He’s cute.”
Twilight immediately blushed, twirling a lock of her mane between her fingers. “F-for a human, I guess,” she said with feigned obliviousness.
Kraft’s shoulders heaved with a silent chuckle as he looked to Dutch who wasn’t any wiser to the conversation about him being held no thirty centimetres away. As per usual he had his face stuck into technology, lost in a world of his own.
The globe that was Earth returned on the map table. Dutch span it then zoomed in on the Eurasia continent before he moved south-east. He settled over Syria then highlighted Damascus.
“Alright, everypony!” Captain Shining Armor announced to get the room’s attention. “This is the update on Operation Thunder Hoof.”
“The horse-puns, they burn,” Dutch deadpanned.
“Lock it down,” Sandman ordered before fishing a thumb drive out of his pocket and showing it to those around the map table. “Our last op may not have been perfectly smooth, but we managed to secure the access codes to the caribou global mainframe. Now we have to do something with them before the caribou realise what we took and lock things down.”
“We are going to use those codes to hack into the caribou slave registration database,” Shining Armor stated.
Twilight Sparkle was the first to knock the plan. “No good. Dutch and I have been trying, but we can’t get by their firewalls.”
“That’s why we’re going to plug directly into the source database,” Dutch explained. When everyone was on the same page he pointed at the map he had pulled up. “This is the capital of Syria. The caribou have been turning cities in the region into training centres. Damascus isn’t a city anymore. It’s a fucking compound dedicated to breaking and training slaves. They use the environment to their advantage. Women who don’t work or obey go hungry and thirsty. They break individuals into persuasion by locking them in boxes and leaving them in the sun for a while. The entire old city?” Dutch pointed out what was once the main tourist attraction or Damascus. “That is now a shanty where black collars are thrown in and left to suffer. Anyone who wants out can either put on a red collar or die.
“Worst thing about it is that it seems to be working. But it works for us too. There are small Resistance cells among the black collars there. They’ve secured a hard comm-line and they’ve been feeding us requested intel on the layout of the city, enemy troop strength, etcetera.”
“Now the mission is to get into the slave registration database. The central database is maintained at the Damascus data centre somewhere here.” Dutch pointed at the newer parts of the city. “We can get into the old city using the tunnels the black collars have been digging, then synchronise our assault with a riot they’re cooking up.”
“When the ladies go full riot, we breach and secure direct access to the data centre,” Sandman finally added. “With some luck the riot coupled with our strike will help the locals capture the city at the same time.”
“Just be clear, lieutenant. The mission is the data centre,” Shining Armor added with graveness.
His tone seemed to confuse Twilight Sparkle. “Shiny, if we have a chance to save the people trapped in there we should take it.”
“The captain is right, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia interjected. “Our hearts go out to the women trapped in Damascus, but the data we seek is of grave importance. It could dictate the outcome of this war.”
Twilight Sparkle pondered this for a moment, then finally nodded. She trusted Princess Celestia illicitly, and if the princess said the data was the priority then she had to set the data as the main objective in her mind.
Shining Armor added, “That being said we will have a gunship orbiting the night sky for support and little-birds will be ten minutes out on request if you can disable Damascus’ anti-air defences. Regardless, Operation Thunder Hoof is greenlit.”
Dutch didn’t seem as convinced though. “With respect, to hell with that. I’ll go with Spyglass. Once you get me into the data centre I can focus on grabbing what the ponies want; and Sandman and Krafty can make sure that riot gets an encore.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle widened her eyes with shock and rounded her gaze on her technical liaison. Cadance opened her mouth, glancing between her sister-in-law and the young human as if she wanted to say something in protest, but wasn’t sure how to without embarrassing the young princess. The only one who didn’t seem phased was Sandman.
The lieutenant nodded firmly. Dutch was a civilian through and through, but he’d breezed through Resistance boot-camp. He was a decent operator and could take care of himself well enough. “Sounds like a winning plan to me. Have your gear ready to go in an hour.”
“Fuck yeah, sir!”
Dutch eagerly logged off his workstation in passing and hurried out to sign his equipment out of the armoury. As he was moving though, Twilight Sparkle followed like a lost – and semi-angry – puppy.
“You can’t go!” she objected. “What if I need help on this side of the remote session?”
“It’s a standard data heist,” Dutch scoffed. “I’ll open the firewall, connect you in and you start pulling anything that interests you. You’ve done this before!”
“Aren’t you always talking about Murphy’s Law?”
“Oh, now you pay attention to what I say?”
Their arguing faded off down the corridor and Kraft assumed it went on all the way to the armoury. He rolled his eyes as if to say “kids, eh?” and Sandman chuckled.
Looking from the map to Celestia, Sandman offered her a warm smile. “This seems like a messy one. I might snap after all and take some time to see Equestria after this op.”
Princess Celestia seemed pleased. “I’ll hold you to that, lieutenant.”