Blazing Muzzles

Chapter One: Enlistment

By Blaze Spectrum

I've always hated orders, you know that?

I almost failed the entry exam for the UPSN for that reason.

On that day, I had just turned 18, and so, I was eligible for entry. The war with the AR had already started about a year ago. And since I wasn't old enough when I started, I had to regularly hide in bombing shelters, and the food in them is crap. But the Fillydelphia public bomb shelters at least had better food than those at Las Pegasus, I should have went for Ponyville as soon as I got my driver's lisence. It was pretty much the country so nopony would really want to bomb it.

First for the entry exam participants, we had to go to the UPSN outpost in our town. The Fillydelphia outpost took up only a quarter of its block, small enough to be a random department store, too big to be a corner shop. Once we had filed in the building's entrance for recruits, we were instantly adressed by a lieutenant, who checked us off to make sure we were all here. If we weren't there before 8 am sharp, then you were automatically dismissed.

After he finished, without explanation shouted,"Target practice stations now! Line up and grab ammunition!"

It was the kind of voice that was used to being obeyed.

Of course I obeyed, I was the first to spot the rather obvious sign that read "Target Practice". I dashed through the door, and was the first to grab a pistol with two clips. There was also a belt with ten magnetic spots. (Probably for holding clips) I stuck the spare clip into the weapon. Once I went to target range, I awaited for a command to start. He never said anything about it, but it was a good idea. Several then poured in the line behind me, in fact the one behind me told me to start shooting, but I told him to shut up.

"START!"

Those words caught me off guard, but I quickly got a grip on the current events. There was a timer with five seconds, probably for each shot. It took me two seconds to aim. I pulled the trigger, allowing the bullet to hit the 50 area. I was surprised by the recoil of the shot, it almost flew out of my hands. But I quickly put it back into position and blew a hole in the bulls eye. I did the same with the next shot, then the other. I got bulls eyes with the next five shots, then the others hit a 20 and 50.

After those eight shots, I noticed the timer go to ten, and now noticing that the clip was empty, I found a switch. We read a manual on reloading the HP Pistol in the registration form and I memorized it all. I slid the lock backwards, and the clip simply fell out. I wrenched the spare one from my belt and tried gently sliding it into the chamber. It stopped halfway, so I wrenched it out. And that, unfortunately made my hoof hit the young stallion in the face, he shot me a look of death my eyes simply stayed blank in response. So now, I shoved it into the chamber, that seemed to work. So I took aim and began using up my ammo on the target again.

By the time my clip was empty, a feminine voice said, "Turn over, next one starts in 5 seconds." I hated how the voice lacked any emotion. I sat down on one of the benches with a sign above them that said,"Finished participants here." I apparently had previously ignored the sign.

The rest didn't do great, one even had the pistol fly out of her hoof as soon as she fired. On closer observation, I noticed the    

target boards changed every time somepony finished. And a camera probably identifies which recruit wannabe was shooting. Of course there were standouts, and some were awesome, one even hit with every round a bulls eye.

The whole session took about twenty minutes, then, they got us ready for the next stations.

Next up, running.

The lieutenant took us to a large indoor running track. 400 metres long. Again, only giving a vague explanation, barked,"run ten laps on all fours, then five on your rear legs! Going below jogging speed will make your score ZERO!"

Well we all started as soon as he shouted that.

I began a trot down the track, apparently one mare got cocky and started with a sprint of forty miles per hour. as opposed to my speed which was roughly ten.

My hooves felt like they were stepping on tiny rubber spikes placed on random places. Well I WAS doing that but it left some marks on my hooves. I didn't feel the pain until the forth lap. My throat was burning, it had a cramped feeling just begging my legs to stop. My leg muscles were exhausted to the point where they felt like they were being burnt inside out. My lungs were pretty much being incinerated. They had this cramped feeling just crushing my chest. To put it simply, it was pure torture.

After what seemed like years I passed the tenth lap. The lieutenant shout clearly at us,"NO STOPPING LAZY SECOND HAND RECRUIT WANNABES!"

Well, that was insulting enough. I went up to my feet and began an awkward jog. This time, I was slowed down to half speed. And being drained of energy didn't help. I hated that feeling. I personally thought it made me feel vulnerable.

At this point, my front legs sighed in relief. In contrast my rear legs flared even more, probably due to the fact they were supporting my whole body weight. It was far worse than on all fours. But I guessed I'll have to get used to it because my front hooves were required when holding two handed guns or just firearms in general. The lieutenant seemed ignorant to our pain and suffering. In fact, he seemed to be just enjoying it. That sadistic thing.

After two whole kilometres of pain and suffering, I finally finished. I resisted the urge to just collapse onto the ground. It probably wouldn't make a good impression on the lieutenant. Panting? I tried to resist that but if you looked closely you could see me sucking in as much as oxygen as possible with my nose. At the corner of my eye, I could see a water fountain. Checking to see if nopony was looking, I made a run for it. They lieutenant was dozing.

Once I had reached it, I took just one sip. But it was instant relief. It soothed my throat. Although I was still thirsty, I had to get back to the group.

Once he woke up, he took one look at us, oblivious as ever to the recruits' pain. Finally, he ordered for us to be taken to receive our test scores.

The pass was 2000 points. I was almost shocked when I got over 1.5 times more than that. 3150 points. Half of them, unfortunately, failed. The pass for space marines was 3000, so that meant I wouldn't be a plain old marine.

I resisted the urge to yell out,"HELL YEAH!"

The ones who had passed, were brought over to the out post hanger. 121 had attended. 60 passed. And there was exactly four HPM-3 Dropships parked inside. Each one was 20 metres long. We were slit up into groups of twenty. And we were guided by who appeared to be the pilot of the dropship to the leftmost one. Walking under the 9 metre long tail, I noted that it was the shape of a airline's rear. He pressed a few switches on his left wrist and the rear door opened.

Neatly piled was twenty black seats, 10 at each side. The total length of the troop bay was six metres. (clearly marked) Two defibrillators were at each side, near the pilot's seat. The pilot stepped in first, and walked up to his seat, which was in the middle of the front. I shrugged and went to the front left seat. The rest decided to copy me and soon everypony poured in. The seats had a velvet exterior, and it was pretty comfortable overall. Each was forty centimetres long, as clearly stated in a manual below every seat.

The pilot pressed a button, which closed the door. A small light went on it the middle of the troop bay as soon as the door closed, so we weren't in the dark. After that, the pilot literally stomped one of three pads on the floor.

The dropship shot upwards. I could feel the force against my head. After a few seconds, he flipped a lever forward and hit the accelerator. I barely had time to buckle my seat belt which was like backpack strips, but with a buckle in between.

The thing shot forward like a bullet. No exaggeration. After two seconds, I peered over to see the speedometer was already at 970 mph. It took only another second for it to be 1240. And it didn't seem to be going faster. A small sentence popped up saying that we had reached top atmosphere speed. The altitude chart said we were already ten miles in the air. It grew at roughly a mile a second.

Nopony said a word. It wasn't long before I could spot the glass getting hot. And I mean REALLY HOT. The outside temperature sign showed over a thousand degrees Celsius. However, after only ten seconds there was a sudden temperature drop outside. The speed almost doubled instantly. The pilot noticed this and released the accelerator and hit the brakes. I had no idea how to make brakes work in space but if I asked then I probably would just get a boring lecture in return.

Once we had slowed to only thirty miles per hour. We were roughly two miles from an absolutely gargantuan space station. The hanger door was already open. After a minute, we were much closer.

It wasn't until now I noticed how beautiful space was. As the glistening stars, the whole thing was pretty much indescribable with words itself. I snapped back into reality when the dropship turned to face the hanger. The thing was slowing down drastically. I could almost hear the landing gear pull down. We touched down with a soft thump. Well, it wasn't actually soft.  Cause it still shook me slightly. Apparently we were the last dropship to arrive. Cause the hanger door closed.

The rear door opened, allowing us to pour out. We were escorted by the pilot, of course, who brought us to a door. After swiping a tag he produced from one of the pouches embedded into his armour, the door slid open. We followed his every move. Until he arrived at a door labeled 'Armoury'. He led us in. Brought us over to the Space Marine armour area. He, explaining while slapping our armour on, said,"You got into the space marines, but there's a rapid response mission for you all. With next to no training, we are sending you down to Manehatten."

Long story short, he let us pick custom armour colours, and I picked dark blue. We got a boring lecture about how all UPSN weapons work and how to use them. How to use AR weapons in case of emergency, and how to do just about everything. But I listened to every word of it. I knew I would be needing this information or I could lose my life. I don't know why, but every single word was burnt into my head.  

If that was "right next to no training" then I shuddered about how long regular training would last.

We were told that we would all be going down there together, and we weren't even a proper squad. We were all given the same weapons, RFK3 Assault Rifle, SMR Battle Rifle, and a HP Pistol. No grenades. We were given very simple instructions, go to the drop pods, go inside, close the door, and press the drop button.

We went to the pods, the walk altogether took ten minutes, and we had to follow signs to find the pods. Easier said then

done. We never said a word, so we didn't get to know each other any better. It was almost creepy how we closed our doors in unison.

I took a deep breath and pressed 'drop'. Next Chapter: Chapter Two: Drop Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 6 Minutes