None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.

~Paulo Coelho, Brida

Chapter 3: LocStat: Unknown

My eye twitched in uncontrolled annoyance at yet another unexpected twist this strange new world had thrown at me. Taking a step back and adopting the low ready position, I glared at her with the gaze of a marching NCO. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said evenly, before letting out a long exhale, asking “Got anything else up your sleeve?” I give up. Reason can go fuck itself.

“I’m not wearing sleeves.” she replied, a touch of befuddlement coursing through her voice before she winced as if struck. After bracing for an impact that never came, she slowly turned her head back towards me, the chitinous rise over her right eye raising as if questioning why I wasn’t hurting her.

“Right.” I said monotonously before looking at her wound. There was a crack in her exoskeleton which I had taken in stride due to the lack of reason and logic in the world I now inhabited. I could see a dark green liquid oozing from the crack in her sternum, trying to crawl free from the skin underneath. I furrowed my brow, trying to puzzle out how a cracked shell would cause internal bleeding.

The shell must have got lodged in her skin. I thought idly, ignoring most of my instincts as they screamed at me to run away from the deceiving creature. After I shrugged in the most noncommittal manner I could muster, I grabbed my gerber from my belt, expertly flicking the plier head out of its resting place. “Well, I’ll be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

The changeling’s eyes widened in panic at my honesty, and by the time I reached her position she had frozen in fear. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I examined the wound closely, looking for protrusions or fragments. Eventually, the changeling opened her eyes again, fear mixed with curiosity, as again I denied her the pain she was expecting. “So...” I began asking, causing her to flinch again. Ignoring her bodies natural reaction to seemingly everything I did, I continued to ask my question with the same tone of mild annoyance I usually saved for talking to shit-pumps. “Do you have any idea how to fix this?”

“I... I could just use my magic...” she mumbled, hiding behind her teal hair. How in the fuck does she have a full head of hair on a completely chitinous body?

“And you didn’t do this before... because?” I asked, extremely displeased at the turn the conversation had taken.

“I didn’t think of it, ok!?” She shouted frustratedly, scaring several birds that had settled in the aftermath.

“Not so loud!” I hissed as the green aura enveloped her wound. Slowly the shattered chitin began to reform itself, bubbling near the wound, and becoming smooth as glass. “Seriously though, are you okay?”

“Yah...” she looked to her hooves and seemed to shrink into herself. “Why are you here?” she asked shakily.

I replied with a silent blank stare, not really knowing how to answer. “I... uh...” I looked to the tree canopy, hoping I would find an answer somewhere within their depths. “Classified.” I said with sudden resolve. “You don’t have the security clearance to know that.”

“Riiiight...” she replied sarcastically, obviously having seen through my pitiful ruse. “What do you plan on doing then?”

“Finding civilization.” I stated. “Or at least an open field…” I scanned the area around me one last time before breathing a sigh of relief. Nothing else had come out to kill us while we had our guard down. The local wildlife had probably been scared off. Catching her looking apprehensive, I shook my head and headed towards my bivouac site.

“Seriously?” she asked, sounding more frustrated than curious. “That’s a horrible plan… If these guards wanted you dead, then why wouldn’t the others?”

I didn’t correct her. Instead I started the annoying task of taking down my lean-to and packing it into my rucksack. After a silence that was dragged well past the point of discomfort, I finally took a deep breath and turned to face the chitinous quadruped with a small grimace on my face. “It’s all I really can do.”

An even longer silence passed as I continued packing before I heard a feminine cough, as if she were clearing her throat. “It isn’t.” she said demurely.

At this, I stopped packing my ‘luggage’ and looked at her with a raised brow.

Catching my expression, she promptly started stammering. “Er, what I mean is, you could, I mean, you could come with me?”

My stony expression remained while I stared at the giant bug in front of me.

“If, you know… you wanted to that is?” she said shakily. If I looked hard enough, I could even make out a sheen of sweat forming around the crown of her head. Which should have been completely impossible for an arthropod. “I mean… My people are much friendlier to other species than the ponies!” she continued.

So, she gets kicks from asking people who have just killed four members of ‘The Fuzz’ to her house? I thought before replying, “Why would you,” I pointed to the changeling with an eyebrow raised, “want me,” this time I pointed to myself to add emphasis, “to come back to your people?”

“I, er…” her cheeks seemed to be flushing, which again should have been impossible due to her chitinous exoskeleton. “We’ve never seen one of you before…” she finally admitted, hanging her head in shame. “And it would bring my family a lot of honour to be able to study your magic.”

Study my magic? Quickly contemplating if I should tell this still pre gunpowder era how to make explosives, I made up a quick excuse. “Classified.” I said, mentally facepalming at using the same line twice. And this is why I didn’t join IntOps… Quickly realising I just ‘classified’ on impulse without answering the rest of her question, I coughed to cover up the hesitation. “Er, but sure.” I stammered, “I’ll follow you. But know that if you slight me at all, I’m gone.”

She looked on in disbelief for several long seconds before her face lit up like a Christmas tree. Her smile started to stretch to other-worldly proportions, causing me to flinch and reflexively reach for my rifle. Her smile faltered a little at my action, but it didn’t deter her. “Do you need help packing?” she asked moving towards my rucksack.

“No.” I said swiftly, before returning to the process of shoving my sleeping bag into a compression sack.

“Why not?” she whined, “If I helped, we could be out of here so much faster!”

“One soldier, one kit.” I said, speaking with the monotonous drone of a non-commissioned officer. Jesus… when did I get promoted to sergeant? I thought with a dry chuckle at my monotonous one liners. I could almost hear her smile deflating as I continued to work alone.

After shoving the compression sack into the bottom of my rucksack and sealing it, I opened the top compartment and pulled out one of my IMP’s.

“What’s that?” the insect asked innocuously.

“Breakfast.” I said, holding up the fruit pouch contained within the omelette IMP. After ripping it open and quickly slurping down the contents, I buried the aluminum packaging with the casing of yesterdays omelette and started to move.

“That was the fastest I’ve ever seen anyone eat…” She said, tension leaving her body as she realised I wasn’t going to cook my meal. Eventually her looked changed to awe at the fact I ate the contents of the package in under twenty seconds. “Like… ever.”

As the creature continued to blather on, a thought occurred to me; I had no idea what this creature's name was. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, right… introductions. My name is Kania.” She extended a hoof towards me with a smile.

“Private Hein.” I replied, grabbing her hoof and giving it a shake. She twitched in what I presume was fear, so I released her hoof far earlier than a handshake had any right to. “Lead on.” I said, as I threw my rucksack over my shoulders and did up the auxiliary straps.

I readjusted my rucksack while she lead me on a short jaunt through the forest to what looked to be a well traversed path. I mentally face palmed again at the irony of how there is always a road somewhere near you if are lost and decide to camp. Eventually, the sound of us crushing the underbrush was replaced with Kania’s voice, asking even more innocently annoying questions.

“Where are you from?” she asked, eyes alight with curiosity and wonderment.

“Canada.”

“How far away is that?”

“Don’t know.”

“What do you mean by—”

“I don’t fucking know!” I yelled, interrupting her question. I could feel a small crack form in the emotional wall I had built. “I don’t fucking know where I am.” I said with exasperation.

Her ears had fallen to her head in a rather cute display of what I presumed to be apology. “Sorry, I didn’t know…” she mumbled demurely. “Do you not know how you got here?” she asked again, head low and eyes hopeful.

Five seconds of silence passed, then ten, then fifteen before I finally deflated with a massive sigh. “No. Last thing I saw before I ended up here was a desert.”

“A desert?” she asked, a little happiness returning to her voice. “There’s a desert not too far south from here… In fact, that’s actually where we’re going!” She had, for all intents and purposes, returned to her usual cheerful self.

“Oh. Good.” I stated in as dull a tone as humanly possible. “And here’s me, thinking I just got out of the sandbox.”

“Well, there’s nowhere called ‘Sandbox’, but The Badlands are only about seven thousand paces south from here.”

I looked at her like she just grew an extra head. “You measure things in paces? Seriously?”

“Well…” she said, starting to lose her freshly gained confidence, “I just thought… that you might not use hooves, or miles…”

“Erm… How do you get miles out of hooves?”

“Well, ‘mille’ is Ancient Equestrian for one thousand, so… one thousand paces is one mile.” She smiled as she gave me a small lecture in etymology.

“Huh.” I was left with a complete lack of anything intelligent to say. “I can work with miles…”

The next hour was passed with a rather undirected stream of chatter, with her doing most of the talking.. She would ask an incredibly asinine question and I would give a very brief answer. Through the nigh endless ordeal, I learnt that her favourite colour was crimson, she enjoyed spicy food, and she really wanted to go to Las Pegasus.

By that point however, I could feel my feet protesting the march over the uneven terrain and decided it was time to call a halt. We moved a short distance into the bush to avoid detection. When I found a suitable stump-chair, I promptly took off my rucksack and pulled out my two litre canteen along with the drink crystal mix from the Omelette IMP.

“What’s that?” she asked, still overflowing with curiosity as I pulled out a constant stream of items she’d never seen before.

“Juice.” I said, opening the soft canteen and holding it between my legs.

“What flavour?”

I checked the light blue inscription on the package before I shook it several times and tore it open. “It’s Ice flavoured.” I said, nonchalantly, just wanting to down the sport drink.

“Isn’t ice… flavourless?” her expression was rather dumbfounded by this point. It reminded me of the first time I saw the light blue package myself. I poured some of powder into my mouth, then drank some water, swishing the mixture in my mouth for taste. I called this the ‘combat coffee’ method based on the stories my father told me.

“Fuck if I know,” I responded after swallowing. “Tastes pretty good to me.” She offered no response as she watched me drink the crystals directly from the package. I was unsure if she was amazed, amused, or just anxious to get going.

After I finished the pouch, I drank about a quarter of the canteen before placing it back in my pack. “You still haven’t said where we’re going.”

“Oh, umm… no I didn’t,” she said, evading the statement made question.

“And…” I said, drawing it out a wee bit more than necessary and waving my hand in a circular motion, to prompt her to continue.

“We're going home,” she said, a nervous smile adorning her face.

Thoughts of my family pushed through the wall in my head.

My mother's smiling face.

My father’s approving nod.

My brothers in arms, and the bonds we shared.

“I’m not going home anytime soon.” I said with finality, far harsher than I intended. Oddly enough, I felt bad for the poor little creature whose ears were now stapled to her skull.

“Fuck.” A simple word. A word of many applications to the military. In this context, I used it to convey an apology. Short, and with a sigh at the end. Based on the fact she was cowering slightly, whimpering in fear, my word had been taken grossly out of context.

“Look, I didn’t mean to yell at you like that.” I said after a lengthy silence. “It was unprofessional of me, as I let emotion control me.” She let out a small sigh as I droned robotically. Noticing this tactic not working in the slightest, I decided to engage her in conversation.

“Tell me about your home.” I said simply, a small crack of a smile coming onto my face as hers lit up at the prospect of up-talking her people. Rule one of interacting with others: Let them talk about themselves.

“It’s a wonderful place.” She began timidly, her voice barely above a whisper, but with faint hope that I was actually interested. “It’s a little dry, but Changelings don’t really need moisture to live, so we don’t mind it.”

“Well, you can tell me all about it while we walk more.” With that, I grabbed the straps of my rucksack and brought it back to my body, silently enduring the pain of the last hour of marching. My shins were still ablaze with pain while the small of my back felt like snapping at any second, but I persevered.

As we continued our journey she began speaking again, apparently far less reluctant than before. “Our home is on the inside of a mountain.” As the first thing she told me, it was not very promising. I had yet to take my mountain ops course and had no idea how to fight in mountainous terrain.

“The Home Range is in the middle of the desert I mentioned earlier.” I let out an involuntary shudder as she offhandedly mentioned that I would be going back to a desert.

“Of course it is…” I mumbled, causing her to quirk a non-existent eyebrow at me. Truth be told, this really freaked me out. Insects shouldn’t be able to move solid chitin like that.

After several seconds of not getting an answer, she continued with the internal geography. “The corridors are huge, large enough for twelve ‘lings to trot abreast, and just as high. There are vertical tunnels for winged creatures such as us to speed up travel times, but all of the levels are interconnected for our ground faring guests.”

That one took a moment to process as I looked over the changeling’s wings, before just assuming her race was like the Zerg from Starcraft and had different mutations for genetic versatility or something along those lines. I honestly didn’t care at the moment.

It was at this point in the conversation when the ruck march took over, and I could feel my mind slowly turning off. She kept talking which was fine, but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. It was quite common practice for lower ranking soldiers to just shut down on endurance runs like the one I was on now and it was a hard habit to break.

We walked for another half hour. I could feel the toll it was taking on my body and knew I was going to be stopping soon. Maybe I’d get another hour out of my body, but I didn’t plan on making any unnecessary risks.

A branch broke in the woods to my right, interrupting my train of thought. Instinctively, my gun swept over the area while I took a knee. Seeing the very confused looking civilian in my line of fire, I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her behind me.

While she screamed at the way I manhandled her, I pushed all thoughts of her out of my mind as I felt the sudden rush of adrenaline fill my body. Focusing all of my attention on my surroundings, I scanned the bush, right to left, trying to discern where the perpetrator was. After seeing no movement for ten seconds, I lowered the stabilizing hand on my Carbine and undid my rucksack straps, letting the massive contraption fall and hit the ground with a dull thud.

Taking cover behind the oversized clothing packed sandbag, I yelled “Come out with your hands up!”

“There’s nothing over there,” the Changeling stated plainly. “What’s wrong with you?”

Out of my peripheral vision, I could see her glancing at me with a puzzled expression. I could also see a winged lion jumping for her fully exposed form. Acting fast, I swung the muzzle of my rifle to meet the attacker and fired several shots into the creature’s side, forcing it a few millimeters off its course. Just enough to save its target. The Changeling ducked with a scream as the creature of myth stumbled into a prone position. It stood up and stared at me with a look of pure unbridled rage.

Taking aim for the creatures head, I fired several more times, slamming into its shoulders and the side of it’s jaw. As the lion was almost eating the barrel of my gun, I felt and heard the most alarming sound any soldier can hear: Nothing.

The weight of the massive creature came down on me, throwing me backwards and my carbine in the opposite direction. I attempted to roll with it, but the weight was too much. Rather than ending up in a position of control, it used my own momentum against me, continued the roll I tried to start, and landed us over a small clearance ditch, the creature on top.

My mind was clouded with fear. My gun was gone. My platoon couldn’t help me. The only thing I could think of at the time was my bayonet. Drawing my bayonet, I plunged it into the creature's neck. The first time it looked surprised. The second it time scared. The third time, it looked dead.

As I lay under the now unmoving body of the lion-bat-thing, I took some time to blink. Finding I quite enjoyed the feeling of blinking, I did it several times to fully experience this ‘new’ sensation. It was as if I was a newborn, taking my first steps into the world again. The world around me seemed to just light up with wonder at the fact that I was still alive. I could feel my heartbeat. The rhythm was off, though.

Taking a moment to count the beats, it just didn’t add up. It was almost as if I had two hearts. Both of which were slowing down at an equal rate. The weight atop me moved. My heart rate skyrocket again as I suddenly made sense of the situation. It was still alive. My eyes popped open, a sensation I did not enjoy nearly as much as blinking and grabbed for the knife again, only to find it missing from the neck of the creature. Again I felt the harsh rocking of its movement until it ended up rolling off of me.

Rushing to scramble away from my pursuer, I scrambled up the ditch and looked over my shoulder, knowing my ass would be delicious prime beef any second. What I saw shocked me into inaction.

I saw a scared black bug on top of the beast, my bloodied bayonet wedged in the creatures spine, held in her hooves and tears streaking down her face.

At this point, my brain received a little too much blood and my vision faded to red.