The memory progressed, and the monotony of the rhythmic marching and jingling of equipment soon gave way to unadulterated silence. The darkness began to fade, and the distant horizon began to glimmer with the first rays of the rising sun. As shadows began to be replaced with light, Gale's radio buzzed to life with the tenor voice of Lieutenant Avon, the unit's second in command.

"Celtic actual, this is Celtic 2-1. We've got our jammer set up; so does 3-1. Radio use authorized?"

"Affirmative 2-1. What's the status on your unit? Over."

"All squads in Celtic 2 are dug in and ready. We've taken up over watch positions in the tree line at your four o'clock. We'll stand by until the assault starts."

"Roger 2-1," answered Gale, quietly whispering into his mouthpiece with a hoof cupped around the microphone, "Celtic 3, what's going on up there?"

A gruff, baritone answered through the slight static.

"Ready and rearin' sir. All squads are good to go on the hilltop. We've got a good angle on the kill zone from up here; we're just waitin' for your go. Still 0600?"

"Affirmative 3. We'll co-ordinate the op so everything's in sync when the time comes. Until then, sit tight."

"Ay sir."

Gale looked behind him, where he knew the other Celtic units to be. He couldn't see them in the tree line, or on the hilltop at his eight o'clock, but he knew them to be there; they were Recon, professionals, and everything so far was going according to plan.

He lifted his face from the dirt of the berm he, along with Celtic 1, the group that was to actually take the fortifications, was pressed against. He peeked over the edge of the small ridge, making out the outlines of the two enormous bricks he knew to be the bunkers, one to the north, one to the south, about one hundred meters apart.

There was just enough light to make out some movement, and he knew the shadows in the distance to be the enemy griffons.

He slid back down the side of the berm, concealing himself behind its earthen wall, and again, hissed into his radio's mouth piece.

"Archer actual, what's the status of your sniper teams, over?"

While waiting for a response, Gale looked to his left, where his brother Miles lay; he was imitating the others' posture, pressing his belly up against the berm with his rifle over his back, and looking back and forth a bit nervously at the dozens of other stallions preparing for the attack.

It took the white Pegasus a few seconds to realize Gale was smiling down at him, and with his old, silent, nervous grin, responded. His white teeth matched his coat, contrasting with the dark soil of Germaneigh that they were lying in, and a few strands of his curly, golden mane protruded out from underneath his helmet.

Suddenly, the radio buzzed again.

"Celtic actual, this is Archer actual. All sniper teams have made it to their F.F.P.'s, and are standing by."

"Roger that," Gale muttered into the radio, and then sighed heavily, leaning against the berm as he waited on the impending attack.

He looked to his right; Flash was there. It was no coincidence that the three of them were together. They were always like that, and the characteristic pang of love tweaked at Gale's heart as Flash shot a sly grin of anticipation his way.

He looked back to Miles, his nervous grin betraying the sparkle in his ice-blue eyes. The Pegasus, though his coat was tainted with dark dirt, was still as pure as Gale remembered him as in foalhood. Quietly, in a voice a bit higher than Gale's, he spoke.

"Cap, do you think they're out of earshot?"

"Yes; we're at least two hundred meters out, no way they can hear us, so long as we keep it at a whisper. And for the last time, stop calling me Cap. I'm your brother first Miles."

"Sorry sir," Miles said to receive a comical, disapproving look, after which he corrected to "Gale."

Miles briefly looked away from his siblings, and seemed to gag as his breathing quickened.

"Hey," muttered Flash, prompting his brother to turn to him, his face growing a bit pale, "You alright?"

"Yeah," forced Miles, and gagged again, lifting hoof to cover his mouth, "I'm just getting butterflies."

"You'll be fine," Gale said, patting him on his shoulder, but Miles seemed to not have received the gesture.

"Hey," he said, shaking Miles a bit to bring him out of the trance he was in.

Miles turned his glossy, blue eyes to meet his brother's. He held a look all too familiar to the two who had been in the war for far longer.

Miles was terrified.

If the hyperventilating and gagging wasn't enough to give it away, he was near to tears in fear, something that had been common throughout the war among all the soldiers, Gale and Flash included.

"Hey," Gale whispered paternally, and brought his brother closer to him with an extended wing, the closest thing to a hug the two of them had shared in a long time, "You'll be fine. I promised I'd bring you back safe, remember?"

Miles nodded, wiping at his eyes before their moisture overflowed.

"How did you guys do it when you landed at Normanedy. This won't be so different, I think."

Flash was the first to respond.

"Just remember your training."

Gale gave a comforting, cool smile, and further explained.

"Move fast, move together, keep your head down, stick to cover, and just follow my lead. Like I said, you'll be fine."

Miles nodded a bit, trying to slow his breathing as he rested against the berm. He closed his eyes, and Gale checked the time; 0550.

"If we make it,..."

"When we make it," corrected Gale, and even he could see the grimace of doubt develop on Miles' face.

"When we make it," Miles said, lifting his face from the earthen wall, "What do you guys want to do?"

Gale peeked over the berm again, confirming that several of the fortifications' defenders had come out of the bunkers, apparently for inspection, as they stood in formation.

Behind him, Flash gruffly answered Miles.

"I'll stay in the Corps until they kick me out," he said, turning a pair of rich, brown eyes below a perpetual determined glare to his brother.

Gale's voice came in, but he wasn't joining the conversation.

"Archer actual, select targets. Prioritize officers. At 0600, engage; you have the initiative of when to start the attack. The assault will follow your shot."

"Roger Celtic, we'll have them zeroed."

"All Celtic units, weapons free after Archer's shots. Celtic 1 will attack while 2 and 3 provide covering fire."

"What about you Gale?" asked Miles, somehow innocently oblivious to the fact that he had a battle to orchestrate.

Gale ignored him, and checked his watch again; 0555.

"Well, I want to move to a small town. Work a nice job outside, find a nice mare, have a small house; just live quietly. What do you think Gale?"

"I think that sounds nice Miles," he answered half heartedly, and began looking through his rifle scope, scanning the targets about two hundred meters out.

A single griffon, his feathery head adorned with a scarlet beret was pacing back and forth between the others, oriented in columns and rows in front of their respective bunkers.

"We should all move to the same town when we leave this place," said Miles, still lost in his daydream.

"Archer teams, target of opportunity; you've got what appears to be a high ranking enemy official in front of the griffons there. He's first priority. If we can eliminate the leadership element, we'd gain a tactical advantage."

"Roger that," answered Archer actual's feminine voice through the static.

"Gale," muttered Miles again.

the silvery stallion checked his watch again, ignoring his brother; 0558.

"Gale," Miles said a second time, a bit louder.

"What," he snapped, "What could be more important than this moment? You need to focus up Miles; we're about to go into a free fire zone, and you need to be all here right now. Not lost in some fantasy. Now do you need to speak, or can it wait?"

His brother had a long pause before speaking again.

"I just wanted to say..."

A sudden whip crack overhead marked the shots of Archer team, and the sound of their bullets passing overhead faster than sound was followed by the report of their rifles, eight of them at once.

Gale's head snapped front, and he darted over the berm, as the rest of Celtic 1 did so as well.

He soared just off the ground, and he saw the griffons scatter, eight of them, including the leader, lying on the ground motionless. Before he could cover ten meters, the rest of Celtic opened up, and tracers rained down on the fortifications from the over watch positions. They caught a number of the griffons in the open, preventing them from getting back to the bunkers or trenches. However, a substantial amount of the hybrids did enter their defenses.

Gale heard panting behind him, and he turned slightly to see every member of Celtic 1 on his heels.

"Spread out!" he bellowed, "Keep moving! Don't get pinned down!"

He neared the trench, and as he leapt down into its depths, he heard the nearby roar of the griffons' machine guns opening up.

When he hit the bottom of the trench, he didn't hit earth; he hit flesh. He looked down to see he had landed atop a griffon, and the hybrid was now reaching for a rifle, knocked away by the force of their impact. Gale raised his own rifle, and a muffled burst came from its suppressed barrel.

The griffon lay dead, riddled through its chest and abdomen with bullets, their casings smoking in the trench's mud, and blood mixed with the water in the entrenchment's base.

Suddenly, he heard something else land behind him. He spun around to see Miles picking himself up out of the mud, his eyes wide but that characteristic nervous smile across his chin. Gale returned the smile, but his eye caught a movement behind his brother.

"Down!" he yelled, tackling his brother instinctively so as to try and protect him from the squad of griffons rounding the corner with guns raised.

Gale grimaced when he heard the shots start, but no bullets hit near them. Rather, he felt a burning sensation on his back, and he reared up and away from the sting to see the source; a shell casing.

Above him, Flash was standing on the edge of the trench, firing into the squad of falling griffons with his machine gun. They screeched and tried to flee, some attempting to fly, others trying to run, but none escaped. After a prolonged fifty round burst, each of the hybrids lay still, riddled with bullets, and Flash jumped down into the trench along with four others from Hotel squad.

"Thanks," said Gale, picking Miles up out of the mud, and Flash nodded while he reloaded.

"Seven more nocks in my stock," he said proudly, laughing a bit, "I'll have to carve 'em when we get back."

"Yeah, I'll put one more in mine later," agreed Gale, barely peeking over the edge of the trench.

While he observed the battlefield, he heard Miles say something, but it was obscured in the deafening noise of the griffons and the equines exchanging fire. The gun ports in the bunkers were spitting out flames with each belching burst of lead, and several sand bag nests lined the flanks of the bunkers.

Gale ducked back down beneath the lip of the trench, and screamed over the gunfire for Flash and Miles to take a look. The group peeked over the earthen wall, and Gale pointed to a trio of gun nests on the southern flank of the northern bunker that had Golf squad pinned down in no man's land just behind the second berm.

One of the stallions from Hotel looked over as well, and stood up slightly to see better, and pointed at something.

"They're setting up in the mortar pi..."

A bullet from where the stallion had been pointing snapped by, tearing through his throat and spraying those around him with blood.

"Sniper!"

Gale and Flash ducked to avoid a second shot from the concealed marksman, but Miles was frozen.

His eyes were closed, his face painted with the stallion's blood, and his mouth open in a silent, horrified scream.

Miles started to stand, panicked, but Gale tackled him to the bottom of the trench as a second bullet snapped by, and the metallic *ping* of the round striking a helmet resounded in the trench.

Gale's helmet flew a few meters away, and he lay in the mud, squirming as he grabbed at his face, and Flash turned him over in a panic.

"How bad is it? How bad is it?" asked Gale frantically, feeling for an inevitable wound.

"You're fine!" yelled Flash, "It bounced off! You're clean!"

Flash picked up both of his brothers, one with each hoof, and lifted them to the ground with ease, the undamaged muscles in his shoulders flexing and bulging. Miles was still breathing heavily, furiously scrubbing at his face and eyes, trying to rid himself of foreign blood.

"Your luck's holding!" yelled Flash.

"We'll see for how long," he said sarcastically, and again, cupped a hoof around his mouthpiece.

"Archer actual!" he yelled, holding the marines from lifting any part of themselves over the edge of the trench, "Situation update! We've got a sniper keeping us from moving up! Possible location; northern bunker's mortar pit!"

"Roger Celtic!"

A few seconds passed before a shot, much louder than the hundreds of others going all around, rang out from behind them. They stayed still until the radio came back to life.

"Celtic actual, this is Archer Beta. The hostile sniper has been eliminated; you are clear to move up.

"Let's go!" he said, and started running as he shouted into his mouthpiece again.

"Archer actual, the gun nests on the bunkers' flanks have got my stallions pinned down! Can you silence those guns?!"

"Roger Celtic, we'll send some AP rounds downrange. Let's see how many days we can ruin."

Gale lead the way down the trench, heading the newly christened squad of his brothers and the trio from Hotel squad, and the definitive report of Archer's sniper rifles resounded from behind them. They sprinted forward, miraculously not seeing any griffons, but gaining ground nonetheless, making their way towards the northern fortification from beneath the bunkers' angle of fire.

"Hold up!" yelled Miles suddenly, looking to the sky, "What's that?"

"What's what?" asked Gale as Flash set up to cover one side of the trench with his machine gun.

"That sound?"

A sound like a tea kettle started to come within earshot, and Gale hit the deck.

"Mortars!"

The land above the trench began to be torn apart by the exploding rounds, and a shower of dirt started coming into the trench.

"We have to keep moving, before they zero in!" yelled Flash, picking Gale up and heading the advance down the trench.

As they ran, Gale again yelled into his radio.

"Celtic 1-2, what's your status?!"

"We've entered and cleared the first floor of the southern bunker! We're placing charges now!"

"Do you have anything on 1-3?"

"They didn't make it. India squad got caught in the open when the griffons opened up. Presumed total casualties."

"Roger 1-2! The remnants of 1-1 and some of your guys are making a push to the northern bunker! Once you level that building, use the trenches as cover and fall back to the over watch positions! Our orders are to take out the bunkers, not the mortar pits or the base west of here; leave those for the rest of the First!"

"Roger that 1-1."

Another tea kettle sounded above, and a shell hit a few feet from the lip of the trench, sending a downpour of dirt, as well as a body, into the trench.

"Shit!" yelled Miles as the casualty fell on him, and he scrambled out from beneath the corpse, emptying the contents of his stomach into the mud.

"Come on!" yelled Flash, and again, picked him up off of the ground, and lead the way farther down the trench.

They came to a corner in the trench; it appeared to continue down both directions once rounded. Gale came to a stop, and listened; he heard voices.

They weren't speaking Equestrian, and their tone was high and shrill. Then, the voices were replaced with machine gun fire.

Gale motioned to Flash's grenades on his vest, and pointed around the corner. Without hesitating, he took off a grenade, bit out the pin, and rolled it around the corner. The squad covered up, bracing, and when the explosive went off, they charged around the corner.

Three hybrids lay motionless and charred, but one made a move for a shotgun. Flash went to shoot, but his gun jammed.

"Shit!" he yelled, and began repeatedly cocking the weapon in an effort to clear the jam, but it remained as it was.

Flash flinched when the shot came, but it didn't come from the shotgun. It came from his side, where Miles was standing, holding a smoking assault rifle.

The brothers didn't say anything, but looked into each other's eyes, still breathing heavily and trying to calm down after passing yet another trial together.

Gale grabbed the three stallions from Hotel, and shoved them into the position previously occupied by the griffons.

"Stay here, and suppress those gun ports!" he yelled, pointing to the northern bunker.

"Ay sir!" the three of them yelled in unison, and began firing away at the bunker's openings.

Gale started back to his brothers, pulling a dead griffon down off of an ammo crate and into the mud. Then, he flinched as he heard a deafening explosion behind him.

"What the hay was that!" he yelled, turning around to the three he just stationed in the griffons' nest.

"The southern bunker sir!" yelled one of them, pointing at a rising plume of smoke and crumbling concrete.

A small group of marines were running from the wreckage; Celtic 1-2. Bullets kicked up dirt all around them, and mortars hit at their heels, but they all made it to the trench without being hit.

"Alright," yelled Gale, excited by their sudden success, "Cover us! We're going for the other one!"

Gale turned, and led the others farther down the trench, making their way closer and closer to their objective. They came to another corner in the trench, and rounded it with haste. They found themselves face to face with another squad of griffons; griffons without weapons. They had caught them off guard.

Gale started firing his rifle from the hip, spraying the group of hybrids with bullets as they rushed him. He diminished their numbers down to one when his gun went *click*. He dropped the rifle and went for his pistol as the griffon lounged with a raptor's scream.

He was tackled, and dropped the pistol, and was miraculously able to hold the griffon's razor sharp beak from his face with an extended hoof.

"Get him off of me!" he yelled as Flash struck the griffon in the head with the stock of his machine gun.

Miles emptied five rounds into the griffon's squirming body as Flash did so as well with his pistol until it stopped moving.

"You good?" asked Miles as Flash picked him up again.

"I'm fine!"

Gale took a second to recompose, and looked into his brother's eyes. The fear in Miles had been replaced with determination, and Gale couldn't help but feel a bit more confident.

Gale looked over the edge of the trench ever so quickly, and saw that they had reached the point closest to the fortification. The trench continued in multiple directions, but this was where it was only about forty meters from the bunker, which was still firing away, regardless of the thousands of equestrian bullets that were hitting all around the gun ports and chipping away at the concrete.

"Alright!" yelled Gale, descending back down to the bottom of the trench, "On my mark, Flash, use your rocket launcher to blow the door off its hinges; we've got nothing else that will get through that barrier. After you shoot, drop the tube and fly as fast as you can go to the wall. We'll stack up outside and breach from there."

The two nodded, and Gale again cupped a hand over his mouthpiece.

"Celtic actual to all units, on my mark, I need suppressing fire on the sandbag nests surrounding the northern bunker."

"Roger Celtic actual, we'll light 'em up."

Gale turned around to see Flash gripping his launcher with a focused scowl on his brow.

"3...2...1...mark!"

Flash jumped up to the lip of the trench as tracers began pounding the sandbags around the fortification. The nests were effectively neutralized, and the rocket left Flash's launcher with a *fwish*.

The warhead punched through the door, a metallic crash reverberating though the valley before it exploded within the confines of the bunker, and the brothers charged forward, the amount of lead in the air sufficiently decreased. Dust and smoke blew out through the gun ports as they crashed up against the outer wall, and stacked up, preparing to clear the room.

"Grenades!" yelled Gale, trying to occupy as small a space as he could with his back against the concrete/

"Frag out!" yelled Flash, and a second explosion rocked the bunker's interior.

They entered the bunker with weapons ready, and found all of the occupants on the first floor dead.

"You guys hear that?" asked Miles, looking at the ceiling, "There are more upstairs."

"Can we get up there?" asked Flash.

"Nah, they've got the only way up and down blocked," said Gale, pointing to the large room's only ladder, its summit obscured by a thick steel hatch.

"What do we do?" asked Flash.

"We can blow the floor out from under them and bring the building down on top of their heads."

Miles grinned as he spoke, opening an olive green duffel bag after relieving its previous owner of the burden, and tossing its contents, semtex explosives, to Flash and Gale.

"Good find," complimented Gale, and Miles only gave his old go-to smile.

Flash and Gale started planting the charges on the ceiling, and Miles got busy rigging the planted plastic explosives with detonators.

Suddenly, a frantic, feminine voice came over the radio.

"Celtic actual, this is Archer team Alpha. You've got tangos closing on your six, get out of there."

"How many hostiles?"

"At least one hundred foot mobiles, possibly more! It looks like a counter attack!

"Roger Archer! Hurry up Flash, we're leaving!"

"What for?" asked Flash as he activated another charge, "We could stay here. It's a bunker, it's designed to be defensible."

"We've got griffons upstairs and more on the way! One grenade would end our run right here! We need to fall back!"

"You're wrong."

"This isn't a debate Flash, it's an order. Now you've got ten seconds to plant those charges, and then we're falling back."

Flash grudgingly turned his attention back to the explosives, and Gale and Miles made more preparations to leave.

"Can you get us some covering fire?" asked Miles.

"All Celtic units, concentrate your fire on the northern hillside!"

Through the doorway, Gale could see a down pouring of tracers from the over watch positions, hammering the land behind the bunker.

"You've got the detonator?" asked Gale as Flash joined them.

He held up the remote like a trophy.

"On my mark, make for the gun nest!"

The three braced, ready to sprint outside to the relative cover of the sandbag emplacements. Gale locked eyes with Miles; he had the same glossy, terrified look as before the assault, and all Gale could think to do to console him was to nod.

"Three...Two...One.........Mark!"

They darted from the bunker, and slid behind the unoccupied gun nests amidst rounds and mortars impacting the earth. Bullets snapped by overhead, and mortars came whistling down from above. They dared not move out from the safety of the sandbags.

"Alright, on my count, pop up, empty your mag, and go for the trench!"

"Gale," said Miles, trembling as dirt kicked up all around them.

"We'll be fine Miles!" rumbled Flash, gripping his machine gun tightly.

"Don't fly, run! If you fly, we expose ourselves to more fire! Stay low!"

Gale yelled over the sounds of gunfire, trying to make himself heard; apparently he did, as his brothers nodded understanding.

"On three. One... Two.......... Three!"

They stood in unison, firing into the oncoming horde of griffons until their guns were empty. Once Miles and Gale ran out of bullets, Flash turned as they did, and they ran as fast as they could to the trench.

Despite moving like the wind, the trench only seemed to be getting farther and farther away. Bullets snapped by all around them, cracking like whips, but all that sound seemed to fade in the focus they held on their goal; the safety of the trench. Everything seemed to fade away, the blurred world passed by, and they drew nearer and nearer to the trench, running three abreast.

They came to the trench, only a few meters from its edge, when something above them whistled.

Gale felt the ground shake, and the world turned around him as he felt himself being lifted higher into the air.

He felt himself land with a wet sound, and shook off the haze he was in to see he had landed in the trench.

"Ughh," he groaned, trying to stand, but he stumbled and fell back down.

He looked where he saw movement; Flash was in the trench too, picking himself up, and looking around, gauging everything except his brother.

"You good?" asked Gale.

"I'm hit," grumbled Flash, trying to shake off the blood on his shoulder and right his skewed wing, "How about you?"

"I think my leg is broken," answered Gale, sitting up with great effort, and looking down to see the damage done to his leg; only it wasn't broken.

What had once been a limb was a mangled stump of flesh and bone, hemorrhaging blood into the mud of the trench.

"Ah," he said, partially in shock and partially in confusion.

"What is it?" asked Flash, apparently having shaken off his wounds.

The black Pegasus turned around, one wing hanging limply at his side, and limping, refusing to put pressure on his right front leg.

"Oh shit!" yelled Flash, and rushed to his brother's side, "You need a medic! Now!"

"I'll call them in. First, detonate the charges."

"Celtic actual! You need to get out of there ASAP!"

Gale heard the click of the detonator, followed by the thundering boom of the bunker falling in on itself, and responded.

"Archer actual, you'll need to cover us; we've sustained casualties. Send in medical teams, over."

"How many casualties Celtic?"

Gale looked around; Flash and himself made two, but...

"Where's Miles?"

Gale and Flash looked around frantically trying to find their brother.

"Where's Miles?!" he said a second time, louder.

He was nowhere in sight, when suddenly, they heard a weak, familiar voice from above the trench.

"Gale?"

The brothers' eyes went wide, and Flash hopped to his feet, Gale trying to do the same, but he stumbled again due to his recent absence of a limb.

"Can you see him?!" yelled Gale as Flash grabbed his machine gun and proceeded to the lip of the trench.

"Gale?!?" asked the voice again, panicked and in pain.

"Where are you hit!?" yelled Gale.

"Everywh-ere!" sobbed Miles, crying for help.

"Flash can you see him?!"

"He's just beyond the trench," shouted Flash as he rose above the lip of the entrenchment, only to have a line of bullets smack into the earth in front of him, "I could get him if it weren't for all the damn fire!"

"Help me! Gale?!" cried Miles, pleading.

"You'll be fine Miles!" yelled Gale from the bottom of the trench, unable to stand, "I'm going to get you out of here! Just don't move!"

"Gale, please!" he sobbed from beyond the trench.

"How bad is he?" asked Gale.

"He's messed up! His legs are mincemeat and he's bleeding out of his mouth! They're not shooting him; they're using him as bait!"

"Can you get him?" Gale yelled desperately.

"We'll soon find out!"

Flash started out of the trench, firing with his machine gun raised, but a bullet hit off of his weapon. A fragment from the shattering projectile streaked across Flash's eye, and he fell backwards.

"Ough," he grunted, and fell to the bottom of the trench, unconscious.

"Miles!" yelled Gale desperately.

He received no response.

"Miles! Can you hear me?!"

He could feel himself fading.

"Gale," came the whisper from beyond the trench, followed by nothing.

"Miles!"

Silence, and everything seemed to grow dim.

"Miles, stay with me!"

The world turned dark, and Gale felt the warmth of consciousness leave his head.

"Celtic actual; Celtic actual come in! Get the medical teams in there! Celtic actual, come in...