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The Chronicles of Swarm: The Equestrian Front

by kildeez

Chapter 59: Chapter LIX: Dress Rehearsal

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Uris looked himself over in the mirror and tried to smile. The fresh change of uniform and shower had done him some good, but there was only so far it could go. He still looked like a man that had been through hell and back again without a wink of sleep. His pale, saggy skin, the bags under his eyes, and the strange angle his leg was torqued at didn’t help any. At least the painkillers were helping. He could only thank God that Command had thought to bring some more of those along when they finally got around to tracking down their lost boys. He whipped out the little orange bottle in his pocket and downed a few pills straight from it. “Surprisingly smart of them, actually,” he muttered, fingering the bottle.

“You can thank the Major for that,” his father announced behind him. Uris turned just as the aging Marine strode into the little room in full dress uniform, cleaned and pressed with impeccable precision down to the polished insignia on his officer’s cap. Ducking to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe, he nodded to the bottle in Uris’s fingers. “I had him put in a special order once he caught up with us, just for you.”

“Well, don’t I feel special,” Uris sighed, adjusting his own cap. “Hey pop.”

“Hey son,” the old man smiled as he brushed a bit of lint off his son’s olive-drab dress jacket.

“I thought you were busy with the prisoner transport back home-sorry, I meant stateside.”

“Don’t worry about it, and really, prisoner transportation becomes simple when your superior can blink a few guys anywhere in reality with a snap of his fingers,” he chuckled. “I hafta say, them boys probably got the shock of their lives when they blinked and found themselves in Gitmo.”

“Yeah, wish I could see the looks on their faces now,” Uris grinned.

“Now, did you get any sleep like I asked?”

“Tried,” Uris motioned to the tiny, pony-sized bed in the middle of the room. “Wasn’t very successful. Managed a shower by squatting in the tub, though.”

“Well, at least there’s that. You should count yourself lucky. Most of our guys are still just set up in cots, even the ones back stateside.”

“Yeah,” Uris said, his eyes suddenly darting away from his father’s. “The ones who even made it back stateside…”

“Son…” Vance said, concern growing in his eyes.

“Welp, prolly shouldn’t keep the Princesses waiting!” Uris said suddenly as he took a step towards the door, instantly stumbling. He managed to catch himself before slamming face-first into the wood-paneled floor, but not before tweaking his heavily-damaged leg. “Sunnuva…”

His dad sighed, holding up the medical crutch he’d found leaning next to the door when he walked in. “You need to use this, and you know it.”

“I’m fine,” Uris grumbled, straightening up.

“No, you’re not. You can’t fool a Captain, son, especially when that Captain spent a few years of his life wiping your ass clean.” The old man’s smile turned sour and quick, morphing into a grimace of disapproval. “I saw the doc’s prescription after you got checked out. You’re gonna be limpin’ for the rest of your life if you don’t use this, and that’s IF your leg doesn’t just give out beneath you and leave you in a wheelchair!”

“I said I’m fine! I don’t need it!”

The old man sighed, hands squeezing around the crutch. “We both know this ain’t about the crutch, or some misplaced sense of masculinity.”

Uris looked up at him, his eyes growing massive and wet.

“You think you deserve this, dontcha? That you’re somehow doing right by your dead buddies by punishing yourself?”

Uris blinked back a few tears, snorting, yet still acting carefully to not get any errant mucous on his uniform’s sleeve. “Huh-how?” He blubbered.

“You don’t spend a couple decades with a bunch of jarheads without finding out how a grieving warrior’s mind works,” Vance took a seat on the tiny bed in the room, allowing it to creak and strain under his weight. He patted a spot on the sheets, and his son obliged by hobbling over and settling in next to him. The pair stared at each other expectantly, each man expecting the other to start. Eventually, Vance started: “Son…”

“It’s my fault!” Uris suddenly gasped, startling his father. “Ramirez took my place! I shoulda been the one who got torn to pieces, not…not him! I wasn’t fast enough, though! He…”

“Son, shhhhh…” his father immediately embraced the pilot, cradling him like he was a baby as a few quiet sobs escaped his body. “Don’t you think like that. Ramirez did what any one of these men woulda done, and so did Parker, and Bannon, and Miller, and every other man we lost or almost lost.”

“I know that, dad, but Ramirez…” the pilot choked. “I was the one who shot scissors, dad. I was the one who shoulda gone. Ramirez…he only had to do what he did because I wasn’t strong enough.”

The image of Rainbow streaking past his fingertips played over and over in the pilot’s mind, right next to the feeling of terror he felt watching the SEAL snatch her out of the air and disappear into the abyss. “Just a little higher…if I coulda jumped just a li’l higher…”

“Don’t talk like that, with your leg it’s amazing you jumped at all.” Vance said sternly, pulling back to look his son right in the eye. “I know you feel all sorts of guilt, but I need you to look at me right now.”

Uris turned his big, wet eyes on the old man as he continued: “This is survivor’s guilt, and that’s all. Somewhere in you, you know that. I’m sure of it.”

“Bu-but…”

“And even if you don’t, just answer me this: how is a lame pilot supposed to serve the memories of the ones he’s lost any better than a healthy one?”

Uris choked up instantly. His eyes darted away into a small corner, unable to contact the old man’s.

“C’mon son, Ramirez gave you the rest of his life so you could have yours, and for that we can both be grateful. But is this how he would want you to spend that life?”

“Nuh-no,” Uris blubbered, bracing himself against the tiny bed’s frame for support. “No, if he was here, he’d be…he’d be facing this down the right way. He’d be pushing on, getting himself ready for the next fight.”

“Exactly,” Vance smiled knowingly as he held out the crutch.

“But dad, I’m not him!” Uris shook his head. “Ramirez was a damned SEAL! He was a thousand times the man I’ll ever be! I can’t fight on like he could, I can’t…”

A backhanded smack across his face silenced the pilot instantly. He felt the place on his cheek with a growing red mark on it, touching at it with his fingertips. “What in the fuck are you talking about!?” Vance barked as Uris looked back at him, a hand tracing over the red mark on his cheek in shock. “You’re saying you’re not strong!? You’re the man who protected six ponies from certain death against an entire squad of the most well-trained and terrifying soldiers the enemy has to offer! You fought on despite a near-crippling injury, protecting the six most important beings in this land even when your own life was in mortal danger! You nearly died for those six and for what they represent so many times in the past couple days it scares the living hell out of me to try and think back on it! Hell, when we’re back stateside, I’m putting you in for a medal, maybe four!”

Uris couldn’t believe what he was seeing: tears, actual tears, in his father’s eyes! Old man Vance didn’t cry! He couldn’t! The Hero of Fallujah wasn’t capable of crying! Yet, here he was, crying because his boy was in pain, because he didn’t want to see someone he loved in anymore pain than he could imagine. “I nearly lost you so many times these past few days and…and it scares me!” He screamed. “You had so many times when you could have bowed out and given in, but you didn’t, because like it or not, that IS the man you are, Pete! You CAN fight like Ramirez could, and I know because that’s all you’ve been doing for the past two days!

A few moments of silence passed before the Captain embraced the pilot, hugging him close to his chest and squeezing as if his son could be pulled out of his arms at any moment. “I love ya, son,” Vance whispered, a few tears drifting into the shoulder of his son’s uniform jacket. “And don’t you ever forget it.”

“I…I love you too, dad,” Uris choked, slowly embracing the aging Marine. A few moments of silence followed, only interrupted by an occasional sob from father or son. It was a full five minutes before they managed to release each other.

“Now, nobody else has to hear about this, alright?” The aging Marine said, smiling through the tears. “Everybody’s already getting their doubts about ol’ man Vance since he agreed to ship off to a land of talking cartoon ponies. If they hear he broke down and sobbed like a babe when it was all said and done…”

“Yeah,” Uris said, wiping at his face. “That might destroy you even worse than everyone finding out you serenaded the Princesses at some point.”

“Still, not as bad as the image of you cuddling with a bunch of ponies until the sads went away.”

Uris’s eyes went wide. “You’re right. Nobody ever has to find out what happened here. Ever.”

“Yeah, holy shit…” Vance grimaced as the full weight of the past couple days’ activities started to press down on him. “I’m gonna need a drink or seven when we’re outta here.”

“Heh,” Uris snickered. “Maybe Applejack can setcha up with some cider before we leave.”

“Alcoholic cider?”

“What do you think?”

“That’s what I thought,” Vance grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Talking goddamned ponies, man.”

“MAGICAL talking goddamned ponies, dad,” Uris chuckled.

Vance couldn’t help but snicker at that. Soon Uris joined in, the sheer absurdity of where they were hitting them simultaneously. “God, I love this job!”

“That makes two of us!” Uris clapped his father on the back as their laughter rolled off the walls, only to be interrupted by a low creak.

“The hell was that?” Vance wondered aloud in the moments before the bed collapsed from the combined weight of two fully-grown men, hitting the ground as a mattress atop a pile of splinters.

“Aww…dammiittt…” Uris moaned, clenching at his freshly-tweaked leg. “As if we couldn’t fuck-up this town anymore.”

“Eh, one busted bed’s not so bad,” Vance groaned, clenching at his back. “Besides, I think it fucked up my spine more than we fucked it up.”

A quick knock at the door sounded and a hot-pink pony mare with a goldenrod mane poked her head in, eyebrow arched. “Sirs, is everything alright in here?” She asked.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine.”

“Oh, well Princess Celestia sent me up here to tell you things are ready for you outside. Everypony’s expecting you.”

“EveryPONY?” Vance asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“It’s a pony thing,” Uris wheezed as he pushed himself to his feet, picking up the crutch and limping along with it. “You should be used to it by now.”

“Yeah, well there’s some things you don’t get used to,” Vance smiled as his son helped him to his feet. “C’mon, our adoring fans await.”

“You make it sound like a show.”

“Because it is, son,” Vance sighed, allowing the mare to usher them out the door. He looked so old just then, as if he’d aged ten years in the time it took him to walk from the bed to the door. The wrinkles in his face seemed that much deeper, the bags and wrinkles under his eyes becoming a spider web of cracks and crevices. “One of the greatest acts in history, pulled over and over again through the years. We should be getting Oscars for the shit we gotta do.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You will, son, you will.”

Next Chapter: Chapter LX: The Greatest Show in History Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 19 Minutes
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