The Other Counsel
Onboard the U.C.P. Starbase Harmony: Inside Commander Hirkain’s personal office
“Pansy!” the commander barked, sitting behind his desk.
He had one of the largest private rooms on the ship. His honors and medals were proudly displayed along the walls. Behind his desk, stood a portrait of the commander, standing triumphant on a cloud, rearing on his hind legs.
His desk had been hoof-carved with depictions of the famous battle of Ponoppoli, where his Pegasus ancestors triumphed over the Unicorns, despite their magical abilities. One image showed a unicorn being slain with an arrow through his chest, launched from a Pegasus soldier’s bow in the sky. What few non-Pegasus visitors there were, who would enter his office, they would often be highly offended at the desk's carvings.
“Yes Sir!” Private Pimsey flew to his commander from across the room and saluted. Pimsey had a little desk, tucked away in the corner. It was only one fourth the size of the commander’s desk, with six times the number of pads scattered about.
“Private, I have a special assignment for you.” He looked down at his runt of a subordinate. "This counsel meeting is going to get ugly. And it’s going to be closed doors. You and the other servants are going to have to wait outside the counsel chamber doors.”
“Yes Sir!” The private saluted. “I will stand guard and keep a close eye on-”
“No you won’t,” Commander Hirkain interrupted. “With the other servants waiting outside, you will have a unique opportunity. I need you to get to know the other servants. Befriend them. Listen to them. Whatever tidbits of information you get, I want you to report back to me. Are we clear?”
“But Sir!” the private protested. “I’m not qualified for espionage! They’d suspect something in an instant!” He was genuinely terrified at this idea.
“Nonsense. Because you’re so weak and pathetic, no pony would ever suspect you.”
“But Sir…”
“No buts, Private! You have your orders. Now get out there!” He pointed his hoof towards the door dismissing the private from his office.
Pimsey sighed and flew over to the door and out into the hallway, toward the counsel chambers. The counsel meeting would be starting in a half an hour. Pimsey waited off to the side for the other counsel members and their staff to arrive. He nervously thought how he could ever pull off what he had just been ordered.
Onboard the R.U.S. Prominence, docked with the starbase:
“I am so furious at that stupid brute of a Pegasus!” Princess Platinum shouted in frustration. “If Daddy wasn’t still bedridden, he’d have had this moron executed by now!”
The Unicorn King was nearing the end of his life. He was an old stallion, his mane grayed with age. He could no longer rule, leaving his daughter to fulfill his duties. She hated ruling, because it was taking so much time she could have been spending enjoying herself. She secretly wished he would either get better or put someone else in charge.
Clover walked alongside the princess as they made their way toward the airlock.
“But your Majesty,” she started, trying to get the princess to calm down before the meeting, so she would be able to think more rationally. This was extremely difficult however, as the princess seldom ever thought rationally.
“We need to hear him out and then convince him to stop what he’s been doing. If we don’t, it could mean war!” Clover desperately tried to get the princess to focus on what needed to be done.
“Well, I don’t know about war, but I do think it’s time this silly counsel ended. I see no need for it, if idiots like the commander are on it!” the princess said, much to the horror of her assistant.
The airlock on the ship opened, revealing the hatchway between the two ships. The hatchway was a small walkway that extended from the ship latching on to the starbase. This allowed passengers to successfully embark/disembark from the ship. Its size was large enough to allow dozens of ponies to cross at time.
As the princess entered the hatchway, along with her servant and guards, the door closed behind them as the room pressurized to match the station. Depending on the difference in pressure levels between the ships, this would often be an uncomfortable process.
As their ears popped from the pressure change, the princess tried hard not to let anypony see the pain in her eyes. She hated space travel for this very reason. The hatch to the station opened and they were able to board the station.
The counsel chamber was only a few hundred feet away from the port they docked with. As they approached the chamber doors, they saw the commander’s subordinate waiting outside the chamber.
The princess quickly leaned in to Clover’s ear and whispered, “Watch out for that one! He’s that idiot’s puppet!” She pointed a hoof over toward the sick-looking Pegasus soldier with thick glasses.
“I know I can’t go in with you, your Majesty, but please…I think if you try, we can stop this from getting even worse than it already is.”
“Clover, you may be clever, but you are not royalty. Do not pretend to know what is best for our ponies. I know. Now wait here. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Princess Platinum left Clover standing outside the chamber doors as she went inside for the meeting. Clover looked over at the Pegasus, who immediately averted his eyes the second they made contact with her. The awkward silence in the room rapidly built up.
After several minutes, the Earth Pony chancellor and his assistant appeared, walking toward the chamber. The look on the chancellor’s face made clover think a war may very well erupt in the chamber room itself. As he passed her he could hear him muttering.
“Blasted commander, made me skip my favorite Call-Mare for this!”
Clover thought for sure she must have misheard him. The chancellor continued to mumble as he walked straight into the chamber without so much as a word to his assistant.
Sun Beam parted from her boss and joined the party outside the doors. As soon as the chamber doors were closed with the guards inside, she made a straight line for the Pegasus soldier. She grabbed him and pinned him against the wall.
“Alright! I wanna know what’s going on!” Sun Beam glared down at the private as he shriveled before her.
“I um..I can’t…it’s…you know…classified,” he whimpered out.
“Horse-Dung!” Now tell me! Why in the hell did your commander feel it was necessary to slaughter thousands of Alicorns and imprison millions more!”
“I can’t…that is, I don’t know...He’s just…um…
“Nuts!?” Sun barked. “That’s about the only excuse I’d buy at this point. Couldn’t you have stopped him?”
“I..uhm…I couldn’t…”
Clover joined the conversation and tried to get Sun to ease up a bit. “Sun, give him a chance. It’s not his fault.” She tried to pull Sun back, who had pinned the Pegasus to the wall with her hoof in his neck.
Sun and Clover had met several times at various meetings. They regularly chatted and even made small deals here and there, without their leaders’ knowledge, to try to ease relations behind the scenes. They often tried to engage the Pegasus soldier in conversation, but he was always too nervous to do more than just stand at attention and not speak.
As the Pegasus gasped for air, he started to talk. “I-I…tried to…stop…but, he...saw and…did…anyway.”
Clover and Sun weren’t entirely sure what he was trying to say. Sun eased her grip a little allowing him to breathe.
He took a deep breath, gasping for air. When he could speak again, he quietly whispered. “I tried to stop the attack, but he saw the report of violence had broken out and seized on it. There was nothing I could do.”
Sun let go of him. Pimsey slid down the wall to the floor. Sun looked at Clover who was thinking rapidly in her head. To the outside observer, she looked like a screenpad that had too many programs running. Finally something clicked in her head. She stared down and the private shriveled on the floor.
“Will you help us?” she whispered. “Work with us to help avoid a war?”
Pimsey squeaked with fear. “Um, I couldn’t! I’d be caught. I’d…I’d…I’d be executed for treason!”
“Who knows what’s being talked about in there!” Sun said, pointing toward the chamber doors. “We could be looking at a war that could wipe out everypony!”
“We just want to keep lines of communication open to avert disaster,” Clover continued. “If we work together, we may be able to help end this crisis.”
“I…um…I can’t…I…” Pimsey sighed and whispered, barely audibly, “okay.”
“We’ve already seen each other dozens of times now,” Sun said, “but what’s your name?”
“Private Pansy..err..Pimsey! Harmon Pimsey,” he corrected himself.
“It’s nice to know you Harmon. I’m Sun Beam, and this is Clover.”
Clover nodded and helped the private to his feet. They continued to talk in whispers, while the counsel meeting progressed. Since it was a closed meeting there were no other ponies who might eavesdrop on their conversation.
“Commander Hirkaine!” Chancellor Puttinghoof started off the meeting. “I want you to explain each and every one of your actions over the last two days, starting off with what you were thinking when you attacked a peaceful march!”
Commander Hirkain didn’t bat an eye. “What you call a 'peaceful march' resulted in the deaths of four police officers!”
“Then that was a police matter and should’ve been left for them to deal with. They were already on the scene and prepared to handle and contain any outbursts. Your soldiers turned a single incident into a massive catastrophe! You had no jurisdiction here commander!”
“Oh didn’t I?” The commander stared down at the chancellor. His expression almost revealed a smile behind his serious demeanor. “If it was a simple matter of some rowdy Alicorns, it would have been left for them to handle. But when they killed a cop, they violated the terrorist law, which gives the Pegasus military full authority to intervene and bring order to the situation.”
The chancellor was growing more furious. “You didn’t bring ORDER! You brought CHAOS!! After your military just opened fire into a heavily populated area of the city, you not only killed thousands of Alicorns. You killed many innocent Earth ponies as well!”
“Civilian casualties are always to be expected when getting the job done. There’s nothing we can do about it,” Commander Hirkain dismissed the charge.
“I noticed no Pegasus civilians killed or even injured that day.”
Again the commander simply scoffed at the chancellor’s charges. “No Pegasus civilian would have been anywhere near that march. They know better!”
Now the chancellor was fuming. “Are you saying that Earth ponies aren’t smart?”
“I didn’t say that. But I will note that some of those ‘civilian casualties’ your claiming, involve Earth ponies who were marching in the parade. By definition, they became enemy combatants, not civilians.”
“You had no right…” the Chancellor tried to rebut.
“I had every right! This counsel gave me that right: ‘For ALL our peoples’ protection.’”
As the two bickered back and forth over the details of the Commander’s attack and detainment of all Alicorns and Alicorn supporters, the princess paid little interest. She remained quiet while they fought, her mind drifting off from the boring subject at hand. When she could finally stand it no longer, she interjected.
“Gentleponies. That’s enough!” she yelled causing the pair of them to abruptly cease their arguing and look at the princess.
“What I want to know, Commander, is what you intend to do with these ‘detainees’? We can’t afford to have millions of ponies out of work and pay to feed them. How can you detain such a large number of prisoners?”
The Commander sat back into his chair and pulled up a screenpad. He was apparently looking through figures for an answer.
“Let’s see now…” he said as he perused the information. “‘The Alicorn labor force will be used in the assisted construction of materials for relocation ships. The labor camps have been rapidly deployed throughout the planet with abilities to house and feed its workers until the planetary evacuation is complete.’ All the details are contained in this pad here and can be transferred to you if you wish.”
He put down his screenpad looking back at the pair ponies in front of him. They were almost in shock at the apparent level of detail the commander had for this situation. This was clearly thought out long before the parade.
“How long have you been planning this commander?” The chancellor asked, one eyebrow raised in suspicion.
“Chancellor, we all agreed to limit the evacuations to our three tribes, to help reduce the number of ponies that need to be relocated. Sooner or later, the Alicorns were going to figure it out and start rebelling. I foresaw this and planned for their detainment, before they could organize against us.”
“You can’t just enslave millions of ponies,” the Chancellor said.
“Tell me something Chancellor, Princess, how many ponies do you still have to relocate?”
The princess’ facial expression turned rigid. She knew her quotas were not being met to evacuate before they ran out of food. The chancellor’s jaw also locked from his figures. The Earth ponies were probably in the worst state, next to the Alicorns.
Commander Hirkain could read their faces and smiled. “You see, with the Alicorn labor, it saves us in the long run. They will help rapidly ramp up ship production, limit their food intake to basic nutritional requirements, and keep them from forming any resistance.”
The other two counsel members were still locked in serious contemplation. They never liked the commander, but now they were starting to hate themselves as much as he.
“Commander,” Chancellor Puttinghoof started to reply, chewing the doubt in his mind like a spoiled sandwich in his throat. “I want every last Earth Pony in those camps released immediately!” He tried to muscle as much strength into his words as possible to compete with the commander’s demeanor.
“The same goes for Unicorns!” Princess Platinum added.
“I see,” the commander sighed. “Very well, I shall put out the word that any non-Alicorn prisoners shall be released into their respective tribal authorities.” The chancellor could sense there might have been something hidden behind the commander’s words, but he pushed it from his mind.
Both the chancellor and the princess agreed to keep the detention camps in exchange for percentages of the ships being produced. War had been avoided and the new source of ship building labor helped push the relocation efforts back on track.
Onboard the U.C.P. Starbase Harmony: Inside Commander Hirkain’s personal office
“So Private, were you successful in your mission?” the commander asked.
Pimsey nervously squeaked, “Um…YES…sort of…”
“Well? Spit it out! Did you establish a link with the servants or not?”
“I…um…yes…YES. I was successfully sir!”
“Good! What did they tell you?” The commander leaned over the private greedily listening for the response he wanted to here.
“They…um…that is…they want to. They want me to talk to them from time to time.”
“Excellent! Good work Pimsey! Keep it up and you’ll be a Lieutenant with a few months!”
Pimsey looked up in surprise. Not only had the commander gotten his name right, but there was even a possible promotion in his future. Since he was so startled he couldn’t speak, he simply nodded.
“Now get back to your work and keep me informed. I want regular reports on their leaders’ activities. Got it?”
“Y-Yes Sir!” Pimsey saluted. The chancellor returned the salute, and the young private flew back to his desk to continue his massive work pile.