//------------------------------//
// The History of Equestria Under Alternia Part 8 (589 AR): The Battle of Blackwake, Ch. 5 of the Saddle-Arabian War arc 
// Story: Princess Celestia The Changeling Queen:  Stories Behind the Mask 
// by vren55 
//------------------------------//

Even as the Equestrians were celebrating the new year and the new victory that Rear Admiral Dreadnought had achieved against Eric Raider, head of the Saddle Arabian navy, Vice-Admiral Sea-Tack of the Saddle Arabian Home Fleet was scheming on how to turn the tables on the Equestrian 2nd and 3rd Fleets that were shadowing him.

In hindsight, Sea-Tack should have been a serious concern for the Equestrian forces for the simple fact that he was an unknown to most Equestrians. Admiral Eric Raider had been leading raids on the Equestrian shoreline for years. Admiral Ironsides was a famous veteran of an earlier conflict between Saddle Arabia and the Zebrica. The Equestrians knew next to nothing as to why Sea-Tack had been made Vice-Admiral of Saddle Arabia’s Home Fleet. They knew he was a veteran at sea, having achieved a long career of twenty years in various ships, with ten of those years being as an admiral. He never seemed to be the head commander of any fleet, though, so the Equestrian Navy under Admiral Whitehead didn’t presume much of him.
 
However, Jade Glimmer and Winding Sheets, finally reunited after months apart, saw Sea-Tack as a dangerous threat that had to be eliminated. They knew Sea-Tack was a friend of King Iosef and one of his most loyal and ruthless subordinates. Despite being highly intelligent and never one to underestimate another species, he was also a patriot and a believer in the effectiveness of the caste system in preserving Saddle Arabian superiority.  Furthermore, he was also an excellent naval commander and secretly the mastermind behind numerous the Saddle Arabian victories that most thought his superiors Ironsides and Eric Raider, had achieved.

Jade Glimmer and Winding Sheets thus did their very best to start trying to get the Equestrian government to issue an assassination order on Sea-Tack. The problem was that while coming home certainly meant they were free, and no longer had to be worried about being hunted they had both returned to a world that was decidedly alien to them. It didn’t help that they themselves had been changed by their ordeal

They also had nothing. As valuable sources of intelligence and as excellent propaganda tools, Jade Glimmer and Winding Sheets had food, an allowance and a place to live, but they lacked a job and the friends and connections that had escaped to Equestria now had limited sway over the war’s outcome, and in Equestrian society. The intelligence they gave was up to the analysts that spoke with them. As for these analysts, while they believed the intelligence they told them about the Saddle Arabian Navy, didn’t trust their opinion on Sea-Tack, especially since this was impossible to verify, and only based off of their personal interactions with Sea-Tack. The pity, and sometimes, outright disgust that many Equestrians viewed the former slaves only made it more difficult for Winding Sheets and Jade Glimmer to get their voices heard.

Sea-Tack was thus free to do his best to destroy the 2nd and 3rd Equestrian fleets under Vice Admiral Fair Winds and his second-in-command, Vice Admiral Warspite. Not push back, not outmaneuver, destroy.

The issue was that Sea-Tack was confronted with the largest of the Equestrian forces, and one that was slightly outnumbered his. The 2nd Fleet had been combined with elements of the 3rd Fleet, creating an armada of 2 first rates (100+ gun warships), 5 second rates (75-98 gun warships), 12 third rates (74 gun warships), 15 fourth rates (64-73 guy warships), 10 frigates (38-45 guns) and 8 sloops of war/brigantines (18 guns).

In contrast, Sea-Tack only had 2 first rates, 5 second rates, 12 third rates, 8 fourth rates, 10 frigates and 8 galleasses. The Equestrian Admirals Fair Wind and Warspite had four more fourth rates than Sea-Tack did, and despite only being fourth rates, they were still ships of the line that gave the Equestrians a small, but definite advantage.

But the Equestrian force also had their own problems. Ones that Sea-Tack was quite aware of thanks to his Hassassin informants who were in Equestria, picking up and intercepting some of the messages being passed from Fair Winds and Warspite and back to Equestria.

The main problem was that Fair Winds and Warspite were not getting along. Both were technically of equal rank, but the younger Warspite was expected to report to the older Fair Winds, and yet, this wasn’t in writing, but a naval tradition. Warspite was also of unicorn nobility whilst Fair Winds was a pegasus who had risen through the ranks. It wasn’t that Warspite was dismissing of commonfolk, or that Fair Winds disliked the arrogance of the nobility, but dinners between the two admirals never went well on the account of table manners, habit, ways of speaking, hobbie, and political views.

The two also had very different command styles. Warspite was a disciplinarian. Stoic, unsociable and prone to making sarcastic comments. She was cautious, hated putting her ships and ponies into unnecessary danger and preferred to win engagements through maneuver. And although she didn’t show it in her reprimands, she cared deeply about the welfare of her crew and officers, and they in turn, loved her for it.

Fair Winds was a risk taker and a pony who wanted to win glory and fame for himself, and for his ponies. He wasn’t self-aggrandizing or one to take stupid risks, but he was far more willing to do so, and less concerned about the casualties he might take if the result seemed worth it. His crew and officers praised his friendly nature, loved his glory-seeking dashiness, and swore their loyalty to him.

Thus, the pair had very different interpretations over the order that Equestrian Fleet Admiral Whitehead had given them in 580 AR after Rear Admiral Dreadnought captured Eric Raider at the Battle of Dreadnought’s Catch. Whitehead had amended an earlier order, and now he asked the pair to “continue to shadow and restrict the movement of the Saddle Arabian Home Fleet, but should the opportunity arise to engage the enemy, take it.”

Fair Winds interpreted this as permission to bring the Saddle Arabian Home Fleet into battle. Warspite interpreted it as a simple reminder for them to watch for opportunities. The pair bickered and argued over what to do and their requests for clarification and their arguments as to what to do were what Saddle Arabian Hassassins read.

Sea-Tack decided he could work with this and decided that he could bring the Equestrian Fleet into battle on his terms and in a way favorable to him.

Now, Fair Winds and Warspite expected two different strategies from Sea-Tack and had ideas on how to counter them. Fair Winds thought that Sea-Tack would try his best to lure the Equestrian fleet into a favorable advantage and then turn the tables on him. He expected that Sea-Tack would try to make his line of warships seem like he was fleeing, and then attempt to turn his entire battle-line to cross the T of the Equestrian ships. As the warships of the time mounted most of their guns on the left and right sides rather than the front and back (cause that was the only way to mount so many guns hydrodynamically on a ship), crossing the T of the Equestrian fleet would allow Sea-Tack to inflict considerable damage.

Fair Winds thus planned that if Sea-Tack crossed his T, he would then charge his fleet, all lined up in a long column of ships, through the Saddle-Arabian battle-line, where he could then have his ships rake the front or back of the Saddle Arabians with gunfire. As the Equestrian fleet outnumbered the Saddle Arabian fleet slightly, this strategy would work quite well.  

It was for this reason that Warspite didn’t think Sea-Tack would try this strategy. Instead, she expected that Sea-Tack would try to surprise the Equestrians. He would be the one to seize the initiative and launch a surprise attack, probably by splitting his fleet into two and attempting to “double” the line of the Equestrians. This “doubling” was a tactic exploiting the narrow single-line formation that warships used at this time and involved the attacker pulling two lines of ships along part of the single line of the enemy. She thus wanted to actually split the Equestrian Fleet into two parallel lines to prevent this from occurring, which got her into frequent arguments with Fair Wind who wanted to keep the fleet in one column to achieve the breakthrough he wanted.

Sea Tack decided to employ something entirely different in an attempt to exploit the aggressiveness of Fair Winds, and the defensiveness of Warspite.

A feint.

…

Sorry, yes, he decided to try to feint them. And yes, it sounds the most rudimentary of military tactics… but I haven’t explained to you how bloody difficult this is with sailing ships. The warships of the time could move up to 11 knots with a good wind behind their sails and under ideal conditions (calm seas, etc.). 11 knots is 20 kilometers per hour or 12-13 miles per hour. And given that both fleets were staying well out of the maximum range of each other’s guns - which was about 800 meters - they’d be about two kilometers or maybe even further apart.

So that meant it took, if the fleets were stood off at about 2.8 kilometers, at least six minutes minimum to close the distance between fleets, which would give quite a bit of time for the other commander to react and decide if this was a feint or an actual engagement. And this is all under ideal circumstances if the wind is in the direction of the fleet that wants to engage or feint. Most likely the ships would be going at about six or 11 kilometers per hour, which would meant they’d only able be able to engage after twelve minutes of reaction time.

That being said, feinting was a viable tactic for an admiral. This was because of the lack of communications between ships and their slow maneuverability. While the Admirals on the Equestrian side possessed crystal balls for “task-force to task-force” or “fleet to fleet,” messages they had to communicate to their ships by signal-flags and pegasus couriers.

And so Sea-Tack tacked. He tacked his fleet into the wind and feinted at the Equestrian fleet, making it look as if he was trying to cross the T of the pursuing Equestrian ships. Again, and again, he feinted at the Equestrians. He feinted at night, he feinted at the daytime. He continued to feint at the fleet, and more importantly, he watched.

He couldn’t see it, but he knew what was going on. Fair Winds and Warspite were having a row so large, it was a wonder that the crystal balls they were using to communicate didn’t shatter. Fair Winds was absolutely sure he could break through the Saddle Arabian line, but Warspite was becoming just as certain that Sea-Tack was going to try to attack and double their line.

With the rift between the two Equestrian Admirals a certainty and confirmed by intercepted messages from the Hassassins, all Sea-Tack had to do was wait for his opportunity.

And that was when Sea-Tack realized he might have a hiccup in his plans.

Back at Equestria, Jade Glimmer and Winding Sheets were doing their best to try to get an audience with the Princess and Rapier Apple. They had compiled their experiences with Sea-Tack and that of numerous other former slaves into a large intelligence dossier and planned to use it to convince Rapier Apple and the Equestrian military to stop pursuing Sea-Tack’s Saddle Arabian Home Fleet. Instead, they wanted either Warspite or Fair Winds’s fleet to shadow the Saddle Arabian Grand Fleet that was following the Equestrian 1st Fleet. That way, Sea-Tack would be forced to pursue the Equestrian fleet, but be unable to execute any offensive plans.

The problem, was that they were still being barred by a multitude of Equestrian military and civil service staff who said they needed to make their own appointment, which was going to be months later. Their case was certainly not helped by the fact that the military ponies and the lower intelligence officials kept seeing the pair as mere former slaves at best, and at worst whores.

In their desperation, Jade Glimmer and Winding Sheets considered seducing members of the Equestrian government and military to achieve their goals, but Stalwart Pike and Scarlet Silk talked them out of it.

Instead, Scarlet smuggled Jade Glimmer into a war-bond fundraiser that Rapier was attending, whilst Stalwart introduced Winding Sheets to Marquessa Aventail Armour, Major-General, and commander of the Equestrian 1st Army’s 2nd Division.

Jade Glimmer was nearly unable to meet Rapier privately as he was too surrounded by courtiers and nobleponies for her to even approach. So she smuggled herself into his bedchambers via a rolled up carpet that was delivered by friendly servants, and confronted him before he slept. Luckily she managed to prevent him from calling his guards in surprise, and after a long, tense, but gradually becoming far more friendly discussion, Jade convinced Rapier that the Royal Equestrian Intelligence and Naval Service (REINS) had really miss-stepped and were in danger.

Meanwhile, Winding Sheets had a more complicated time. Aventail was sympathetic, and worried about Sea-Tack’s reported abilities, but wasn’t sure if she could trust the intelligence analysis of a former courtesan. Additionally, she was an army general, not in the navy, and did not want to interfere in another military organization’s activities.

However, Lord Barding, Aventail’s youngest son, was a former REINS intelligence operative who had worked with Winding Sheets to smuggle slaves to Equestria. He vouched for Winding Sheets’s credibility, which convinced Aventail enough to introduce Sheets to the Lieutenant General of the Equestrian 1st Army, Princess Blueblood the Fifth (Yes, Princess, not prince). She took one look at the dossier the two mares had put together and immediately convened an Emergency War Council.

Rapier promptly arrived, backed Princess Blueblood and after a heated debate, Rapier used his executive powers as Prime Minister of Equestria to order Admiral Whitehead to redistribute Vice-Admiral Fair Winds and Vice-Admiral Warspite’s fleets

But it was too late.

With news that elements of Equestria’s navy and government were slowly realizing he was dangerous, Admiral Sea-Tack had decided that he had driven enough of a rift between Fair Winds and Warspite, and embarked on the final part of his plan.

The Battle of Blackwake began when Sea-Tack’s fleet, lined up in a column, pursued by the Equestrian fleet, also lined up in a column, made a hard turn to port (left), all ships following Sea-Tack’s flagship, the Scylla, as they seemed to try to cross the Equestrian line.

Fair Winds ordered his ships to flank speed (full speed ahead), changing his course slightly to try to split the Saddle Arabian fleet between its first quarter and the next three/quarters. The Equestrians responded. However, although Warspite’s command of  sixteen ships of the line (1 first rate, 15 fourth rates) followed the head of the Equestrian line, she had ordered her ships to slow down slightly. Her thinking was that she could still support Fair Wind, but she could also prevent what she anticipated as Sea-Tack’s attempt to double the Equestiran line.

As Warspite anticipated, as the column of Equestrian ships headed into the middle of the Saddle-Arabian line, Sea-Tack split his ships. He had been deliberately holding back his ships from going too fast, and now, suddenly, the second half of his line of ships split from the fleet and charged forward.

But they weren’t trying to flank the Equestrians and double the line. They were targeting the centre of the Equestrian column, the thinnest part of the line of ships, weakened by Warspite’s command to slow her ships down. Now, the Saddle Arabians were going straight into the middle of the Equestrians, even as the first half began to engage.

Warspite immediately realized her mistake, and where Sea-Tack was going to break the Equestrian line in the centre, out positioning their fleet and probably managing to rake most of the Equestrian ships. She tried to contact Fair Winds with her crystal ball and signal his ship with her flags, but his command was in the thick of the action and Fair Winds had just been wounded. 

Warspite thus did the only thing she could do, she ordered a fleet-wide withdrawal. She herself though led her 100 gun 1st rate flagship, The Princess Celestia to blunt Sea Tack’s pincer, with the two 4th rates Thunderstruck and Blackjack as support, all the while issuing frantic orders by magic crystal ball and by signal flags for all Equestrian ships to disengage. 

For a good hour, it began to work. The Equestrian Fleets responded, pulling back, fleeing their disadvantageous position. They regrouped with the 4th rates of Warspite’s command who managed to hold a line formation stable enough for the wounded ships of Fair Wind’s command to withdraw behind.

Then Sea-Tack ordered the first part of his line to collapse on the Equestrian fleet, and led the Scylla and the 2nd rate Charybdis to attack Warspite’s Princess Celestia. At this point, the Princess Celestia’s escorts had long been sunk. The two Saddle Arabian warships were thus able to concentrate their fire on the beleaguered Equestrian flagship. Pounding shot after shot, from the snipers in the high tops on the masts, to the guns in the bellows of the ships, the Saddle Arabian warships cut the Princess Celestia open, even as the ship slowly tried to extricate itself. Warspite was wounded when a well-placed chain shot broke the mizzenmast of the Princess Celestia, carving a bloody scar across her barrel with wood splinters. The Saddle Arabians would have boarded her warship and captured her.

Except, The Ark Royal came barrelling out of the smoke, full sail, crew mostly dead or having evacuated, the dying Vice-Admiral Fair Winds at the helm. He rammed the battered 2nd Fleet’s flagship into starboard of the enemy 2nd rate Charybdis, and lit the fuse he had planted.

As the dazed Saddle Arabians boarded the ship to capture it, the Ark Royal exploded, it’s magazines having been set to blow. The shockwave creaked the sails of nearby ships, sent wood splinters flying everywhere and even set the nearby Scylla on fire. Sea-Tack had to abandon the pursuit to see to his own ship, whilst Warspite used the falling darkness to manage an escape with the rest of the Equestrian fleet.

In total, the Saddle Arabians had lost 2 - 2nd Rate warships, 4 - 3rd rate warships, 2 - 4th rates, 4 frigates and 4 galleasses. All of their ships suffered moderate damage.

But the Equestrians had suffered worse. They had lost 1 - 1st rate, Vice-Admiral Fair Winds’s flagship. They also had lost 3 - 2nd rates, with one to capture, 8 - 3rd rates with three to capture, 2 - 4th rates, 6 frigates and 6 sloops of war/brigantines. More than two thirds of Vice-Admiral Fair Wind’s fleet was lost, and he and Warspite had outnumbered the Saddle Arabians. It also didn’t help that Admiral Fair Winds’s fleet was all heavily damaged and needed time in the drydock and that the Equestrians had lost one of their most experienced admirals, and a number of their best captains and ships.

Suffice it to say, the Equestrian public were in uproar. Such a naval defeat had never occurred in their history. When news came out through rumors and speculation that the Equestrian Admiralty could have avoided this if they listened to information offered by the escaped Jade Glimmer and Winding Sheets, the public began howling for blood, despite their preference for grass and hay. 

Even the Princess was not immune to anger. It was said, (and later confirmed to this author by Alternia herself) that the Princess broke her writing desk upon her hearing of how the negligence of her admiralty had contributed to the defeat.

Sea-Tack on the other hoof, was hailed as a hero by Saddle Arabians. When he returned with the captured Equestrian ships and captives, he was welcomed by his friend King Iosef and made the commander of all of Saddle Arabia’s navies.

Equestria… no, Princess Alternia, was determined to ensure that he would not hold the position for long.