“Rise and shine you lazy sacks of shit!” Came the barking voice of our Drill Sergeant, a steel grey stallion by the name of Iron Sides who woke us all up before dawn at four A.M sharp every morning for the same song and dance we had all committed to muscle memory years before.

I snickered softly to myself as myself and the four others in my Squad already stood at attention with neatly made bunks ready for inspection while the other Rangers, Recruits and even some of the other Veterans were rudely roused from yet another four hours’ worth of sleep. While Iron Side’s attention was focused on berating a particular Ranger Recruit who was a notorious heavy sleeper, I snuck a subtle wink to my fellow Squad mates for being as flawless as ever and we all seemed to bask in an unspoken glory of being the best Squad in Barrack 21. After all, we had all agreed that we were going to be the best the Desert Rangers had to offer and so far we had delivered just that. Unfortunately our superiors hadn't seemed to have caught on yet and we were ranked as second in the Corps. Incentive enough to keep trying our damndest.

“Rollllll call!” The familiar voice of Lieutenant Colonel Horn boomed through the P.A system with the same deafening tone as usual, my Squad and I already halfway through the door and into the central grounds where only one other Squad stood at attention before us, the faint look of smug victory shadowing each of their stony faces.

Just as we had all basked in our glory inside Barrack 21, we yet again shared in our mutual derision of Alpha Squad from Barrack 06. Raised from military stock and trained for Veteranship within the ranks of the Desert Rangers from birth, Alpha Squad was a veritable legend even amongst the Desert Rangers. Despite my dislike for their perfect animatronic and punctual obedience for being all too creepy, even I wouldn’t go so far as to ignore what the ribbons and patches on their uniforms signified. Honorable service in major battles such as Shattered Hoof, Dragonback Mountain and the Big Plains and seeing no less than ten tours of duty in the Zebra Empire as well as nearly twenty in the Badlands to the far south, the Desert Ranger's primary romping grounds. Fucking legends each and every one of them and me and every mare and stallion in Beta Squad were going to be their betters…someday. All we needed was a solid chance with even odds between our two Squads but who was I kidding? If the odds in War are even then your side isn't trying hard enough to win and turn the odds in your own favor using any means necessary.

I bit my lip in silent annoyance at the Zebras for starting this fucking War in the first place. The screams of the poor defenseless civilians in the Badlands when the Zebras first dropped from the sky like fucking bats out of hell, raining Necromantic Fyre on the villages below still haunted me. Hell…I don’t think anyone, including the high and mighty Griffin Airborne Rangers that had been present there would ever forget the horrors wrought by Zebra magic the first time any of us had seem them for ourselves. Since then, Beta Squad had served nearly fifteen tours in the Badlands alongside Alpha, Delta and Gamma Squads fighting in the harsh deserts and in the trenches of the Southern Front and we all felt another tour was nigh upon all of us. Our upcoming leave had been cancelled across the whole Corps so naturally something big was upon us. Only question was...how bad was the situation down south...? News tended to be relayed on a need-to-know basis to prevent any chance of bad press for our struggling nation, a situation that made it maddening for most to try and make sense of our status in the war when we weren't actively fighting in it.

As the roll call commenced, I took little comfort in seeing all Squads (barring those who were already deployed to the Badlands) arraigned before Lieutenant Colonel Big Horn. My heart sank lower in my gut the more faces I saw in the crowd…the Rangers only called out every Squad from every Brigade when shit was hitting the fan and hearing the scraps of the latest intelligence reports from the Eastern and Southern Fronts only made my suspicions worse. In the end I could only settle on one conclusion: we were losing again. Bad.

“Ya’ll are probably wonderin why we have ya’ll gathered all here tahday.” Colonel Horn boomed in his strangely commanding southern accent, an Appleloosa native himself. “Those of you who’ve been here long enough know what’s happenin’ next. I ain’t gonna bullshit any of yew…Equestria’s ‘n big trouble boys n’ girls…an’ we need every last one of ya on th’ Southern Front takin’ th’ fight back tah them Imperial asshats! Now, those of yew who’re Veterans’ll get deployed at 0600 hours followed by the rest of ya’ll at 0615. I want ya’ll tah get everythin’ on ya that yew can carry inta th’ field ‘cause it’s gonna be a helluva long time befo’ ya’ll be seein’ ya’lls nice n’ comfy bunks ya hear?”

There came a thunderous “SIR, YES SIR!” from every mare, stallion, Griffin and the few Dragons who had made it into the ranks before Colonel Horn continued.

“Very well then. Then report tah yer C.O’s and get yer asses ready tah kick some fuckin’ Zebra ass!”

It was the appropriate time for everyone to let loose with every single Zebra slur, vulgar mantra and profane shit they had in them and the entire base seemed to rumble with the whoops and hollering of the terrifying might of the Desert Rangers. This was going to be a great tour, I could just feel it.

Camp Macintosh was the largest military base on Equestria's west coast and looked the part well. An enormous complex of barracks, command centers, intelligence huts, hangars, workshops and all the other trappings of a thriving military encased in an eighty foot wall lined with enough watch towers and anti-airborne turrets to classify as a modern fortress. The Desert Rangers had called this place their home for over seventy years now and only within the last thirty had we been forced to share our space (and even expand it) to house the three other branches that made up the Equestrian Armed Forces of the modern era. As a result, we were parked in the eastern side of the Camp with the Steel Rangers on the west, the Engineers to the north and the venerable Airborne Forces taking up the center and south with their many runways, hangars and flight endurance courses to keep all those with wings to flap in peak condition. My home away from home for what felt like a lifetime...every day spent here was as good as a stay at a luxury resort compared to the hard living experienced on the Southern Front where the heat made Las Pegasus seem like a spring morning.

Ponies, Griffins, Wolves, Buffalo, Cougars and so many other species fleshed out this rather bland landscape of monochrome military buildings, recruits and draftees alike all forced together in Equestria's greatest time of need since the legends I had grown up hearing about its earliest years. It was ironic that the most binding force of shared identity that the Ministry Mares had once championed so enthusiastically in their younger years came in the form of overwhelming nationalism in the face of a world war. An irony that was not lost on me of course but it made one pause to consider on the events that lead to the hellish timeline that one finds themselves caught up in. In some ways, many of us here had grown up with the world being some sort of shitshow be it the old timers who could still remember the heady days when Equestria wasn't short on natural coal and the Zebra Empire had kept to themselves across the ocean or the younger cynical assholes like myself who were born into a world born of the mistakes of our parents and grandparents. To be a mare in the military when my mom was my age was a rare sight indeed and required veritable balls of steel to be able to make it somewhere. Now...with the war growing bleaker with every passing year, what you had under your tail mattered a hell of a lot less than if you could be a cog in the war machine.

Everywhere I looked I could see the gender disparity native to Equestria becoming ever more present with more and more mares taking up arms alongside their fellow stallions and making quite a name for themselves as warriors worthy of note. A point of pride for me as the beginning of my career had been much rougher than theirs was becoming with hazing from the stallions becoming less and less of an issue. We outnumbered the stallions 3:1 in civilian life, it only made sense to pull from such a large resource in a war once about a shortage of natural resources in the modern world. Hell, my own Squad of five was made up of three mares including myself and each of us kicked as much ass if not more than the two males in the team. We had answered the need and more than proven our worth to the populace and command alike casting aside outdated social ideas in favor of the pragmatism the times demanded.

I had to get to my office to set my affairs in order before it was time to leave. The downside of being a soldier of rank was the unfortunate pile of paperwork and mundane boringness that came with the office work side of my job. Had barely been back in Camp Macintosh five weeks and I was only just getting to the halfway mark on back-catalogued work load that had accumulated while I was dancing with death in the south. A decent enough effort by my standards as far as I cared but now it was time yet again to put everything on hiatus with no pause button on the back-catalogue of files, emails, and other notarized army stationary with my name stamped on it somewhere.

“Ma’am?”

“Hmm?” I hummed, looking up from the maps and battle plans littering my desk at Huckleberry Crisp, my second in command.

“Package arrived for you.” She said in a flat professional tone though the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her excitement. “Postmarked this morning from Ironshod Firearms.”

“Close the door please.” I instructed, the door to my small office clicking shut leaving just the two of us alone in my office, my horn already flashing with the muffling spell I had picked up in college from my roommate.

Once we were alone we were immediately all over each other, hooves tracing each other’s bodies in places they shouldn’t and mouths and tongues going everywhere else. It had been far too long since we had been alone together like this…far too long. And the War only kept us further apart, a constant weight of anxiety and fear keeping everypony pent up with all manner of emotions. Thankfully for me…Huckleberry knew where all my buttons were to calm me down.

She was a drop dead gorgeous mare of deep velvety purple fur and a long curly mane of lavender/violet that reached her neck just above the shoulder. Unfortunately due to the War she and I had both been forced to cut our manes short to fit into our helmets leaving her beauty with a bit of a crew cut. What the Army couldn’t get rid of? The lovely taste and flavor to be found between those nicely toned hind legs of hers. Better than any fruit I had ever tasted and sweeter than any jam or dessert could ever hope to achieve. My mare was my dessert.

Just as she was tracing her way down my admittedly fluttery stomach towards my nethers was when the intercom on my desk buzzed sending her to the floor with a squeak and myself backwards over the desk to answer the call.

“Yes?” I barked, quietly slapping myself for coming off much more like Sargent Iron Sides than my usual perky self. That being said, whoever the hell this was had just deflated any of the genuine build up happening between me and Huckleberry so I felt that at least in a private sense I had every right to be mad.

“Major Crete, the Lieutenant Colonel is here to see you.” Came the perky and youthful tones of Bongo, the secretary whom I specifically requested watch and announce whoever came to my door just for situations like these.

“Tell him I will see him in one moment please.” I instructed, pulling up the panties of my uniform along with my standard issue tan Ranger pants with great reluctance.

Huckleberry looked as miffed as I was but the LC was the C.O at Camp Macintosh and would more than likely discharge Huckleberry and myself from the Rangers for our less than professional approach towards each other. He was a good stallion...I knew that he wouldn't throw her and I to the wolves if word got out about us. It wasn't our fault we felt attraction towards each other and the government had declared that sort of love illegal... Once we were both adequately dressed enough and I was plopped back in my chair to give off the appearance of being busy did I tell Bongo to send the Colonel in.

As the Colonel’s unmistakable shadow approached the cloudy glass of my door, I caught the strong aroma of Huckleberry’s musk, my heart sinking to my ass when I realized it was way too strong and sweet to be explained away as perfume. Especially given the fact that perfume was not allowed to be used due to Bongo’s allergy to any and all perfumes and colognes.

I shot a worried look to her and she squeaked, “Sorry! You just really turn me on! What else can I do...? Not get wet?! You fucking try that I dare you!”

And with that phrase barely escaping her lips the Colonel strode boldly into my office, my years of learning a convincing poker face being put to the test as I could tell by the way his nostrils flared slightly he could smell it just as much as either of us could.

“Ah, Major Crete! Was wonderin’ if Ah’d be able to see yew at all. Are ya busy?” he asked, looking between me and Huckleberry with his usual upbeat smile.

‘Maybe he’ll forget about it if we get him talking…’ I thought to myself as I returned his smile. “No sir! Huckleberry was merely delivering me a package from Ironshod for me.”

“Oho?” he exclaimed excitedly, starting forward towards the large parcel wrapped in boring brown paper. “This here th’ ‘special order’ ya asked fer like three months ago?”

I inwardly punched the air in triumph. Praise be to Celestia for Huckleberry bringing in that goddamn gun at this very moment. Some goddamned privacy was all I wanted from the universe...

“Mhm!” I said happily as he lifted it up to me and simply begged to see how my specialty revolver order turned out, he himself is a crazed gun enthusiast and collector like myself.

The paper was a straight up bitch to remove (the damned postal service and their ‘Anti-Theft Packaging’) but eventually we got the damn thing off to reveal the beautifully carved, dark red mahogany case engraved with the symbol of the Desert Rangers inlaid with gold and silver leaf where appropriate. A roaring black Dragon clutching a scoped Anti-Machine Rifle in its talons, a crescent moon to the left of its head and a stylized sun to the right. I drooled with anticipation as I undid the bronze clasp holding the lid closed and slowly revealed the contents all nestled in the finest Trottingham red velvet.

“Holy sheet…” the Colonel whistled as I levitated out my new baby. “Now tha’ there’s ah gun.”

My Sequoia was simply stunning in every way. The barrel was eight inches long (a full inch longer than everyone else’s) and three inches wide spanning the full height and width of the six round cylinder in a block of blackened Celestium steel making my weapon extra thick against the pressures exerted on the frame and latch from the beastly rounds it took. And as a bonus, the extra weight on the barrel ensured the auto-ejector would work with minimal effort on my part speeding up reloading; a factor that might be all the difference in the trenches. The grip was a ‘hybrid’ design meaning I could shove it into my mouth and pull the trigger if I absolutely needed to in the event my magic somehow gave out, something that happened to Unicorns more often than other ponies realize due to the stress of combat on the concentration needed to hold shit. Along the barrel, engraved with silver rather than the usual gold as it looked better to me against the black, was the age old Ranger mantra, ‘Against All Tyrants’, while the dark red cherry grip was engraved with the symbol of the Rangers. Truly a work of art worthy of a damn museum if I could bear to be parted from it.

Whereas everypony else was fine with the swing-out cylinder design as was standard for Ranger Sequoias, I was much more picky. Growing up with my grandfather and learning to shoot using his old .32 caliber top break revolver set me up for an undying love of the design. Call it vanity but there was something about watching the auto-ejector spit out your spent rounds for you, showering you with gleaming, tinkling brass that just couldn’t be matched by a swing-out revolver no matter how hard you tried. The damn gun cost me two years’ worth of my salary but seeing it there before my eyes was worth more to me than any amount of gold bits could ever hope to achieve no matter how many were offered. (Though I’d probably take a few just to support the cost of the rather expensive .45-70 Celestia rounds.)

“Now Ah know tha’s yer gun n’ all but…mind if Ah send ah few rounds down range with her sometime…?” Colonel Horn asked sweetly, the tone of his voice authoritatively begging.

“Aye aye, Sir…just make sure I get my fair share first.” I replied, looking over every centimeter of my new baby and feeling giddy, tingly feelings that could only be described as a fangirl mental orgasm.

After a few more moments of everypony including Huckleberry ogling the gun (she herself having a vested interest in the thing, even suggesting the use of silver engravings rather than gold) did we finally set it and ourselves down for business. The Colonel continued to shoot glances the revolvers’ way as he tried to gather his thoughts and remember whatever he had come to tell me in the first place.

“Aw shucks, tha’s it.” He finally chuckled to himself as his eyes brightened in light of his remembrance. “Ah wanted tah ask yew if yew and yer Squad would like tah be th’ first tah drop into th’ Badlands.”

Huckleberry and I shot confused glances at each other. Alpha Squad was always the first to drop into any-fucking-where, especially the front lines. I mean hell, there’s a reason they’re called Alpha and we were Beta. They’re the fucking first at everything, including dropping into an active combat zone as we were on the cusp of participating in once again.

“Why…?” I asked slowly, looking down at the map of the Badlands with all its complex markings of enemy and friendly troop movements and then back up at him.

He sighed in reluctance than said lowly, “Alpha Squad’s unda suspicion by th’ Ministry of Morale fer bein’ covert Zebra spies…”

I looked back at Huckleberry trying to see if she too heard the bullshit I just heard.

“Fucking what…?” We both asked in hushed disbelief. “You fucking serious…?”

He nodded sadly and looked down at the floor mumbling, “Th’ Ministry’s sendin’ out folks tah take ‘em inta custody any minute now…Ah guess nopony’s safe from suspicion these days. Somethin' about 'suspicious conduct' tha' happened ah few years back er somethin'. Ya know them spooks...ahlways speakin' in vague terms so nopony is in on th' loop but the Mare herself.”

I had only met the Ministry Mare for the Ministry of Morale once during a ‘morale party’ she threw for the Desert Rangers a few months prior. She was a rather eccentric mare, even for my taste, with a neon pink coat and cotton candy mane though her age was definitely showing by the grey streaks of hair that ran through her mane giving her a more candy cane like appearance. What she lacked in looks (because believe me, I always check any mare out just in case), she made up for in unmatched enthusiasm. The very laws of physics (which are beat into your skull through concepts like the Coriolis Effect if you were a sniper) didn’t seem to apply to her by the way she seemed to stand on air at times after one of her many, many jaw dropping leaps into the air as she laughed her way to infamy bordering on insanity. Pinkie Pie may be many things (amongst coming off as completely fucking insane), but she hardly came off as the suspicious type. The Ministry under her rule though? I had never seen anything quite like their methods of sniffing out supposed traitors. If Alpha Squad of all groups was under their suspicion, what with their extremely colorful and successful career in the field, then nopony was safe. Everypony minus maybe newborns knew to fear their watchful eyes and ears as they were literally everywhere. Always looking for the next traitor in our midst, hovering over everyone's thoughts like a bird of prey looking for the slightest movement below.

I snuck a glance at Huckleberry who seemed to share my silent sentiment of deep concern. For all we knew even my well-practiced muffling charm and my constant search for bugs in my office space weren’t enough to keep the all-seeing eyes of the Ministry from seeing our…proclivities. The last thing either of us needed was to be the next public spectacle of ridicule for disobeying the law and face the rest of our lives in prison cells on opposite sides of the country. It gave me shivers to even consider that fate but as omnipresent a threat as it was to our happiness, it wasn't enough to break us apart. Pinkie Bye or not, we were dedicated to each other and that would never change.

“So…the reason you’re asking us if we want to go first is because we have to go first now?” I asked, looking back at him with a mixture of anxiety and what could be called disappointment.

“Ah’m ‘fraid so, Crete.” He responded in a slightly sour tone, glancing over his right shoulder towards the door. “Ya’ll are th’ best of th’ best now. Ah dun’ know when, if ever, we gonna be gettin’ Alpha back. If shit be like Ah heard...this is th' last any of us will be seein' them in this lifetime.”

As I opened my mouth to reply, my intercom buzzed once more which made us all flinch, the building tension in the room snapping just as quickly as the passionate tension between me and Huckleberry not ten minutes earlier by the same means.

“Yes, Bongo?” I replied, pressing the ‘Talk’ button on my desk.

“Representatives from the Ministry of Morale are here Ma’am, looking for the Lieutenant Colonel.” He replied, his normally chipper voice sounding on edge like the rest of ours did.

“Tell them tah meet me in mah office, Bongo. Ah'll be there in three minutes sharp.” Colonel Horn sighed as he got to his hooves.

“I don’ envy ya’ll headed out there.” He said as he turned to leave. “Latest reports ain’t a happy read, Ah’ll tell yew tha’ much. Zebras be everywhere down there. You watch yer back out there Crete…Ah don’ wanna have anotha closed casket funeral fer somepony Ah call a friend.”

Huckleberry looked at me with a pained expression of fear at that thought as I replied, “Neither do I sir…I won’t make a promise I can’t keep but I’ll do my fucking best not to get my ass blown up by some Imperial fuckwad.”

He grinned as he opened the door, the noise outside in the main office almost deafening compared to the muffledness of my office and said, “Damn straight! Kill ‘em all Major Crete! Don’t let ah single one of them bastards through, ya hear meh?”

Huckleberry and I both said with no little amount of zealotry, “Kill all sons of bitches, sir!”

He nickered with a chuckle and shut the door behind us leaving Huckleberry and I alone once more to hug each other as close as we could though the earlier feelings of passionate lust were long gone. Now all that was left between us was an unspoken fear of losing each other out on the battlefield. Sure, we had fought side by side and had gone through this same feeling dozens of times before…but something felt different this time. The War with the Zebra Empire had only gotten more and more fucked up as we went along and it felt like more and more body bags were being shipped home than troops being flown back out. The Desert Rangers had the best armor and weaponry a pony could get aside from our true rivals the Steel Rangers who primarily lorded over the east side of Equestria on what was known as the Eastern Front. While we relied on good old-fashioned wearable armor with perhaps some advanced optics and technology built into the Veteran Ranger’s helmets, those cocky fuckers trotted about in magic power armor, courtesy of the Ministry of Wartime Technologies.

They were the well favored Steel Ranger Corps that Princess Luna and her Generals almost exclusively relied on which festered some pretty nasty rivalries in the Desert Rangers Corps, though I suppose not without good reason. That being said, we had more skill, training and experience than most of the Steel Rangers including even some of their ‘legendary’ Star Paladins. But, due to their heavy armor and weaponry, they were much more highly favored than we were and were sent into any battlefield the Generals could get them onto whereas the Desert Rangers were sent off on stupid ass missions down south where the fighting was less intense than on the east coast where the main Zebra invasion was occurring. From time to time though, both Steel and Desert Rangers had to fight side by side in the trenches of the Empire to the far, far east. Even then though, we Rangers outshined them when it came to prowess and survival. Technology was a luxury we knew to employ but not rely on. The T-45 could make a relatively scrawny guy a veritable monster on the battlefield but the moment his armor starts having power issues or he loses his helpful HUD he'll be as helpless as a tortoise on its back.

I had seen for myself just what a Steel Ranger in full T-45 power armor could do on the battlefield on many, many occasions over the years since its glorious introduction five years prior. One-pony tanks packing an assload of firepower that could almost be called excessive although when in War, it’s better to overkill the enemy than underkill; particularly when it involves tasty calibers like 5.56mm or 40mm. Part of my list of obsessions, alongside guns, food, sleeping and sex, was armor…and boy could I talk anyone’s ear off about how much I fucking loved it. And despite my animosity towards the Steel Rangers melding with everyone else who called themselves a Desert Ranger, I had to admit that their armor made me green with envy. Not that I would ever consider joining up with them just to wear it but if I so happened to find one of them dead after a battle, I might just be tempted to get my buddy in the Engineers Corps to whisk it away to my private home in Las Pegasus for a small fee.

“So this is really it isn’t it…?” Huckleberry asked softly as we continued to hug each other close. “The end of the world…?”

“Ah geez, common’ Hucks!” I giggled as I playfully spanked her ass causing her to giggle a little. “We’re fucking pros! End of the world my ass. We’ll win this War, you and me, you’ll see.”

Deep in the pit of my stomach and heart and mind…I knew no amount of bravado was going to save us from what we all knew was coming. The only question left was ‘when’? Maybe I was just being overly paranoid...but it felt like all signs were pointed to the same thing: complete global destruction by Balefire and the classified Megaspell projects going on behind sealed doors in the Ministry of Arcane Science. Having been witness to both small-scale Balefire bombs on the Southern Front and the only open use of a Megaspell on a battlefield...I was unsure of which was the more terrifying weapon born of unbridled arcane power molded by the brightest minds of the century. One thing was for certain...were one of them to occur in the near future...I prayed to Celestia I could put a bullet in my head if I got the chance so I never had to witness what happens in person during detonation.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three: Gold Amongst the Sands Estimated time remaining: 31 Hours, 26 Minutes