Fourth squad hit the main force just before we did. The sudden confusion must have overwhelmed enough of the Lunar Republican commanders that they jumped the gun, so to speak, and flooded their western extensions with whatever reserves had been hanging around in the immediate rear. They still weren’t any better trained but there were enough there that fourth and fith got all sorts of hell. They said that anypony who survived the first few waves found themselves wading chest deep through dead, trotting over anywhere between dozens and thousands of Loonies depending on who you ask. Part of me’d like to believe the latter, given how rough a time we were having just pressing through the left. We were probably fifteen to thirty minutes off the mark, leaving the other assault high and dry while we crept past the patrols that the rebels’d sent our way.

Most of them went like the first few, they’d get the jump but we’d toss a few good shots their way and they’d fall or fall back and we’d keep cantering forward trying not to catch one in the muzzle unless we really needed to. They got wise enough to start setting up machine gun nests at chokepoints, least that’s what Sgt. Bucking thought. I think they’d had them set up the whole time, but I guess the ego boost of thinking we were kicking enough flank to warrant that sort of reception is nice. I was still on point for most of it, though I’d switched off with Private Glaze right after the first hold up and shifted back to cover the rear of our squad and keep in sight with second squad and Corporal Sprouts.

He was a good pony, one of the few Pegasi that hadn’t been born around Cloudsdale or any of the other air cities. We’d talked a bit, on other ops and during our layups at the air base. Apparently he’d helped till a few orange groves out by Manehatten for some big company, making sure the weather systems around the groves were kept in check for maximum growth. When he’d joined up with the Air Corps they’d tossed him in with the Weather Recon and Environmental Control Squadrons. WRECS was rough work, he told me, but apparently it was a heck of a sight easier than Air Assault. Not having ever having been on a WRECS crew I took it with a bit of salt and only slight reservations.

Sprouts nearly bought the farm right before I switched back up to point. First had passed through the wreckage of a barrier that looked to have been hit by one of the long range shots the Guard artillery was tossing at random, probably blasted long before we’d taken the field. When he and second squad started inching forward though the Loonies dropped down on them. It was like they were coming through the trench itself, buried in the walls and digging through. One of them that had been creeping up top dropped down right behind me and tried to slash with her bayonet, but she missed and sent my scattergun clattering off into the mud. I backhoofed and tripped all overmyself, rearing up on my haunches and trying to hoof at her face while I whinnied and neighed like a foal. My hoof got stabbed but the ironshods bounced the blade away, and I managed to land a hit across her muzzle that sent her clutching for her face.

I finished the job with the battle saddle, opening up on her before she could get back up and try my life again. First squad started pulling back and settling in to see what in the hay was going on, but it was already over. Sprouts was next to me, blood in his mane, a mare and two stallions crumbled up around him. One of the company medics that had come in with us helped patch a wound where the bullet had grazed his skull but he was good to keep moving, though not up front. He got pushed back to the rear and I got pushed up to the front and then we were underway again, though this time I was a bit shakier in the nerves and trying to keep lower the ground.

My wings were still itching to get up and out, twitching as the feathers got ruffled against the battle saddle harness. Sergeant Bucking knew it, knew we were all itching for the air no matter how brief it might be, and up to that point it seemed like hoofing it wasn’t doing us much good. A smaller force facing heavier resistance had already cleared up to the objective point, and there we were only a little over halfway to the mark and already nearly losing ponies left and right. He ordered us to stop after a few more minutes and another close run in, this time with another gunner nest that opened up on us but thankfully missed everypony long enough for me to buck a grenade it’s way. A radiopony trotted up next to him and he got on the horn with some of the Guardsponies out in the rear and the rest of Apple Company hitting the anti-air batteries. After a few minutes he turned back to us and told us all to take a seat around him while he began drawing with his hoof and a stick in the dirt.

“Alright everypony, listen up.” he said, after glancing around to make sure all the squads were close by. “Talked to the colts over in the tanks and our troopers out in First Platoon. They and the Second have gotten it fierce, but they’re reporting that some of the 88s and a few of the quads are down already. Skies are open enough now that we can risk a quick jump.” That bit got most of us to give up a worried, questioning cheer. Sure, we’d be getting up in the air again but there was still the very disheartening chance of getting shot to pieces in the process. I choked down the fear rising in my throat and offered to go first, but the Sergeant shook his head and shuffled up the order. The third was moving in first, then the first and then the second.

“Remember, bellies to the dirt. Curl your hoofs up so they don’t snag, and don’t go for a straight shot. If you need to hit the dirt and hole up. We’re in a hurry but I’d rather you not die to stay punctual.” That got a real laugh out of us, and helped put us at some ease. The Sergeant was good like that, not a hardflank like some of the other Platoons like the fifth had. I’d only met Sergeant Fritters once, but he’d put the fear of Celestia in me right quick. One of the old breed, as some would say. A stallion that’d been through the grinder longer’n Celestia had reigned somepnoy had once joked. He was tough as nails and ate ironshod for breakfast, and I was infinitely thankful that I’d been drawn in with Bucking’s lot.

Third squad went over and things were going fairly well. Wings were unfurled and seeing it made my own do so subconsciously. If anypony noticed they didn’t say anything. Wings are an elephant in the room like that. Everypony knows it but you learn not to point it out because all Pegasi are in the same boat when it comes to the embarrassment. Unicorn and Earth Ponies tended to make jabs about it, but there was a bit of safety in the almost exclusively Pegasi Air Corps. I was still stiff when Bucking raised his own wings and a hoof up and signaled for first to make the leap. I was in the middle of the flight, scattergun holstered over my back near my saddlebags with the 7.62s’ firing bit in my mouth.

When I took flight and crossed over the lip of the trench all hell had already broken loose and punched us in the throat. The AA was a sight weaker than it was when we’d first fell down to the soil but it was thumping away in earnest at us, aiming low to the ground and trying to hit us with the shrapnel falling down. I looked back and saw that Corporal Sprouts had taken some to the wing but he was limping through the flight and doing his best to keep pace. Ahead of me Bucking dodged an airburst shell that had buried itself in the dirt, and I got a face full of the smoke trail from it that sent me coughing and sputtering and reaching for my mask in case it had been gas.

My flight wobbled but I managed to secure it, someponies that had noticed me doing the same. When the Loonie spotters up in the artillery line got sights on us and started sending down burst and actual gas shells our way I was relieved, the seals already pressing tight against my face. Bucking issued an official order for it over the comms, his voice coming in strained and distorted from all the fragmentation interference in the air. I think we’d lost somepony to the early shelling, and a good part of third squad got knocked out of action by the sustained fragmentaries, but it was the incendiaries that really played hell with us.

The first of second squad managed to get into cover at a trench a lot closer to the artillery lines than the Lunar Republicans would have liked when they started landing them in the growing gas fields. A hoof full of shells were all they really needed for everything to get blown sky high, and my own flank was singed by the backblast. I immediately hit dirt, landing hard against a trench wall and nearly breaking my shoulder, sprawled out in a pile of a few other ponies that had taken cover. Sprouts slammed into me right after that, head slamming my stomach and nearly making me vomit from the sudden pain, but he was the only one from third squad that seemed to make it in with us. Overhead a whooshing tail of flame jetted by and then dispersed.

I was still a little woozy when I got up on my hooves, but I was a sight better than Sprouts was doing. He’d bumped his head on me and the ground enough to daze him, and somepony who’s name I think was Private Dancer was hoofing the side of his face trying to snap him back into it. He started to come to right in the nick of time too. We’d turned up a mess of dirt and dust and raised all sorts of hell and thunder when we’d crashed, and I’m guessing that half the Loonies knew exactly where we’d gone to ground.

Artillery shells were starting to creep closer from behind us, the barrage marching back towards the Lunar lines trying to clear out any of us that had gotten away. Sprouts had rank but he wasn’t in any position to lead so I took up control of the squads and we pushed forward, dodging through the partially collapsed trench walls and communications tunnels they’d dug in. We only ran into two patrols, both of them huddled up in cover facing the wrong direction. We got the drop on them and didn’t lose anypony, thank Celestia. Sprouts was doing better all the time, but I was starting to worry he might have gotten a concussion.

We ran into the fringes of second squad mixed with some brave ponies from the third that had managed to hoof it over the nopony land and get there before us, but the numbers weren’t looking too good. By our guesswork the third had lost more than half, the first had lost one or two and the second had lost about that just in the AA and artillery barrage alone. Hay, we hadn’t even started hitting the lines yet, and that didn’t count anypony we’d lost up to that point. The Lunar Republican positions were tough nuts to crack, I’ll give them that, but it just wasn’t right what they were doing to us.

I managed to get us into position right behind where second squad had holed up, and I was greeted by the sight of Corporal Punishment in more or less one piece. He used to head up fourth squad, but got switched out to head second once Sergeant Steedly was promoted up. Bad deal with the Corporal, never getting promoted. He’d been in longer than most of us and had enough experience to put even Lieutenant Glider to shame, but nopony wanted to lose a chance to crack “Corporal Punishment” jokes up at HQ. He took it in canter though, and never let us hear his complaints though I’d heard rumors that he used to raise hell about it back when he’d first been passed over for Buck Sergeant.

Corporal Punishment was telling me that they’d been pinned down by heavy gun nests from a trench or two over, but that Bucking was leading a party through one of the cracked open communications lines to try and undermine the positions. Radio contact with them was sporadic, but we kept up fire enough to make sure that the Loonies couldn’t get out from under their holes and notice them sneaking up. At least, that was the plan. Somepony up in their lines must have been trying to do the same because they ran into each other in the middle. They made a real mess of themselves, and wounded ponies from the team started trickling back towards us after a while. Only about half that went out came back, but Sgt. Bucking’s luck had held out and he was one of them, though he was limping from a grazing shot that had taken out a bit of one of his hooves.

He nodded at me as he filed past and another the reconstituted second/third and the remainder of the first moved up, Bucking taking up the rear despite the complaints of our only remaining medic. The wounded were left behind, huddled together to wait for any of third that tried to link up with us. Over on the other flank, the fourth and fifth came back into contact. They were all ready to smash the western extension, and we were just about in position to do the same. Bucking gave the word, and we charged in.

I’d thought the jump down and the short flight over had been rough, but now they really were letting us have it. The artillery was coming down in sheets, literal sheets, razing everything across the nopony’s land. Bits of wreckage from skycarts and fragmentation from all the shells was spread out all around, bits of shredded wood and strips of barbed wire wrapped around fallen ponies, puddles of water and geysers of black dirt kicked up next to leafless sticks they called trees. I could see the Loonies, gasmasked as we were through the fog, wisps of gas still clinging low to the earth. Tracer rounds too bright to see in the daylight whizzed past, winging ponies next to me and dropping the ever luckless Sprouts to his haunches. Cries for medics and covering fire went unheeded, and we did all we could just to gallop past the carnage and get to the target without buying the farm.

Bayonets fixed, we dropped into their trench line with all the organizational skill and coordination of a newborn foal. It was a melee down there, a bloody brawl that was joined in from all sides, frenzied and violent beyond reason or comprehension. Everypony was kicking and hoofing and bucking every which way, and the few shots that were fired tended to go wide or hit comrades and enemies alike. I only got a single shot off with my scattergun before it was torn from my mouth and tossed to the ground again, some Loonie stallion slamming into me and bowling me over immediately afterwards. Ironshods fell on me, kicking into my sides and winding me before the body mercifully seized up and fell onto my bruised chest, a hole through his light blue head. Bucking pulled me up and handed me my fallen gun, nudging me forward to the other side of the trench as he followed after.

A mare fell on me as I turned a corner, stabbing forward with a long bolt action she was levitating. She missed and went wide, stabbing into my filter and making me rear up in fear and anger, stomping down on her rifle and cracking it’s walnut stock in two before I pushed forward and caught her in the throat with the bayonet on my own weapon. I fired, and she fell off, tears pricking at my eyes from the sudden flashes of chemical release. I was shaking and Bucking was pushing ahead alone, the rest of the battle calming down around us as the Loonies fell dead in droves.

I found myself on my curled up into a ball on the floor of the trench, clutching around my bloodied and muddied scattergun next to the Lunar Republic Unicorn I’d dropped, rocking back and forth and trying not to scream. That’s about the time I realized that it doesn’t ever start to come easier, not when it’s that close, despite everything they’d told me in training and even before that. Sergeant Bucking came back, a new cut on his muzzle, gave us all a few minutes to tend to ourselves while the medics from our newly reunited squads tended to our few wounded and tagged our many dead. “Fifteen minutes,” he said, “Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em, then we’re out.” before he called the radiopony back up to get on the line with Glider and tell the mechcolts they could start pushing up.

While I was recovering, someone was pulling Sprouts out of a ditch and finding that he still had a pulse, and somepony else was going from gun to gun packing the barrels with explosives.

When Sergeant Bucking called the Platoon to fall in on him, the guns were already primed and ready, Private Privy holding a detonator switch in his mouth and looking expectantly towards the Sergeant for word to blast them. Behind us the mechanized infantry and armored columns were pushing up and slamming whatever resistance remained, working in a pincer to take out the rest of the trench fields behind us and work on hitting the AA to the side.

Bucking nodded to Privy after we’d gotten a good while out into the wheat fields beyond, and hot air brushed against my flank and mane when he pushed down with his tongue and sent a line of Loonie artillery right back to the moon where it belonged. Privy had a pleased as punch look on his face and was nearly prancing in such excitement that I didn’t bother to tell him to bring it down a notch and keep his eyes on the wheat for ambushes. With all the hits we’d taken I found myself folded out of the firth squad and put into temporary command of the third, Private Privy, Private Hoofser and Lance Corporal Trotsky beneath me.

For a while after we’d hit the trench we didn’t get much resistance. Bucking figured it must have been the loss of the outer lines, the Loonies freaking out and pulling back to their inner fortifications in a panic so that they wouldn’t get caught out in the open with the Air Corps ready to hoof them in the bits. We laughed, to help put our minds at ease, but the unspoken and more likely story was that they were still out there, hiding, waiting. I found myself getting jittery, swinging my 7.62s from side to side and trying to get a bead on every wind-swept bit of wheat that dared to move in my periphery. I noticed that Trotsky was really nervous a few minutes into the brush. He was whimpering a bit under his breath, still shaken up from what’d happened during the assault, and the sounds of the battle around us on the breeze weren’t helping to calm him down.

He was chewing on the bit and ready to pull, and when a field mouse scurried past he opened up with his 5.56 battle saddle and tore the poor thing to pieces. The colt wouldn’t emptied his box mags into the dirt around the body if I hadn’t have clopped him one between the ears and snapped him out of it. Trotsky was blubbering and Bucking was yelling, all piss and vinegar trying to figure out what was going on as second squad starting to shooting rounds off in every outbound direction thinking we were getting hit. Somepony yelled out a ceasefire, Bucking or the Corporal Punishment in the second.

I spat at the ground and walked up, raising a hoof muzzle high towards Bucking and making a small hand signal to him. “Misfire, our bad.” I said, and he nodded and stalked back off towards point. I had Privy help me take care of Trotsky, slap him around a bit and douse him in some water from the canteens to get him back to us. After about half a minute he was good enough to walk, and I had the Private keep a close eye on him in case he’d start cracking up again. Someponies just couldn’t be trusted with combat, a sad fact of life in the Corps, but Privy was one of them and so was Hoofser. I took point and had Hoofser in the rear, Privy and Trotsky pulled up close in the center while we followed the rest in.

To our right and our left First Platoon was wiping out the rest of the AA with the support of the now in-range Guard cannons, and to our right first squad from Fourth Platoon was setting up to help up in the sweep, keeping our flanks secure from anypony trying to hit us. Unluckily for us that’s not what they tried. They just waited, shut up in spider holes for us to get right in the middle before they opened up. Third squad had just entered into the kill box when they jumped up, firing wild and half blind through the wheat stalks trying to hit as many ponies as they could.

Bucking was hollering up in the front for suppressive fire, everypony hitting the dirt hard and trying to to get a line of sight out. Rounds burst the cover around me, kicking up dirt and splashing me with a bit of blood when Trotsky got hit next to me. It wasn’t a lethal wound, just a through and through on a rear hoof but he freaked out and started rearing up and neighing, crazed from all of it. Somepony jumped out of cover in front of him and ran him through with a bayonet on one of those cruddy 7.62 bolt actions the Loonies were using, but I hit the firing bit hard and shredded him even as Trotsky was falling back. Privy was trying to inch forward, get close enough to see what he was shooting at when a few stray rounds buried themselves an inch away from his face.

I bucked a grenade off into where the bolt action pony had come from and Privy did the same, hoofing his away near where mine had gone. It burst a few seconds later, sending up a jet of red dust and the scream of somepony badly hit. A dizzy and soot-faced Loonie rushed us right after, limping along on bloodied limbs before Hoofser put her down for good, making her drop the levitated grenade she was holding. It went off next to Trotsky, blasting away whatever chance we had of getting him to a medic and making Hoofser nearly sob. Privy was already moving next to him and trying to push him forward to finish clearing the hole when I pulled away and called out to the fringe of Fourth Platoon, but from the sound of things they were in the same sort of hell we were.

Bucking came rushing back towards us with the rest of first squad while I was trying to find the Privates, whinnying out of breath and turning to fire his Cheery Lake back where he was running from, the incendiaries hitting home and burning whole sections of the field before sputtering out in the wet wheat. “Zebras! Zebras!” he was yelling, trying to get everypony to pull back in for a defensive block. Sure enough I looked up back and there were stripes in the smoke trails, shapes that looked like rough, more angular Earth Ponies fading in and out and opening up with those damned 7.62 ZKs they loved so much.

I did my best to suppress their movement, firing in wide arcs with my own saddle-mopunted 7.62 heavies, but they were good at hiding and they knew when to move. At some point Privy moved up behind me and started hoofing out grenades from my bags and his, Hoofser crouching up to my side and plinking off shots with his 5.56 service rifle on semi-auto, trying to make every round count and getting good results for it. Sergeant Bucking was near the center of the unsteady square of ponies, alternating between reloading and firing his Cheery Lake and yelling into the radio for “Some thrice-damned fire support!”

We’d finally found out where the Loonies were keeping their betters, and they were giving us all hell for the trouble.