December 2nd, 1009
The wait for the military was a while, so Torsti passed the time by talking with the other officer he was assigned to guard the bedroom door with. Unfortunately, it turned out that the two didn’t have much in common and weren’t a good fit for each other so they ended up staying quiet for the entire time. The only useful thing Torsti found out from him was his name, Olindo.
Occasionally another officer would wander up to see what was upstairs, only to be shooed away by the two. Eventually, they were just left alone once the curiosity of every officer on the scene had been fulfilled.
The hour-plus-long wait finally came to an end when a new officer came up the stairs, quickly followed by three uniformed soldiers. Torsti quickly came to realize that two were military police from the markings they bore and the third being some high-ranking military officer of some sort.
The police officer pointed at Torsti and Olindo before making their way back down to leave the five alone.
“So it seems you boys have found something that has required our attention it seems.” The military officer said.
“General Eilert. Yes. General.” Eilert said. He looked between the two before asking, “Which one is Torsti?”
Torsti looked a bit shocked that he was being asked for personally but he raised his head to get Eilert’s attention, “I am sir.”
Eilert looked at Torsti and asked, “Are you armed?”
Torsti was confused by the question but nodded, “I do sir.”
Eilert sighed and said, “Give your weapon to your bud here. Don’t be slow please.”
Torsti was once again confused by the request but he searched himself for his revolver, finding it in its normal place and taking it out and handing it over to Olindo, “Uhh--?” He didn’t really know how to respond.
Eilert then sighed, stepped out of the way, and motioned to the two military police, at which the two walked past him and towards Torsti, grabbing him from both sides and saying, “Don’t struggle. You’re currently being arrested and are going to be taken to base for some questioning.”
Torsti naturally resisted the sudden arrest but stopped himself before the two had to stop him, “What? Questioning for what?”
Eilert said to Olindo, “You can head out. We won’t be long now.” Eilert then waited for them to leave before shaking his head while looking at Torsti. He then walked past him, opening the door to the bedroom and looking around, “Are these the documents? On the bed?” He asked.
Torsti was quite a second before realizing the question had been asked to him, at which he finally responded as the two MP deer held him, “Y-” He sighed at the whole predicament he was currently in, “Yeah. They are.” He had no reason at the moment to lie or give anything but straight answers.
Eilert had made his way over to the bed, straightening the pile more before spending a few more minutes looking around the room for any other potentially hidden ones not found yet. After his search concluded, he picked up the documents under hoof and walked out of the room, asking, “That was everything? All on the bed?”
Torsti nodded his head in response. The few minutes of quietness as he heard Eilert search the room had demoralized him.
“Ok then. Take him out and load him into the truck. Once I have a word with one of the other officers outside, we’ll be heading off.” He shook his head and muttered, “Such a waste of time this was.”
Torsti wasn’t given any time to talk to any of the other officers who had been outside as the two M.P. deer rushed him to the truck, wasting no time to get him aboard and inside the covered part. He was then searched by one of the soldiers. A knife was all that they took. Everything else he had on him was kept in place. Then he was cuffed to one of the railings inside.
The ride was uncomfortable. Hard wooden benches. The constant gaze of one of the four soldiers and the bouncing of the truck. How were these in service for the military was a question for another time.
None of the soldiers in the back seemed bothered by the ride though. It seemed like something they were used to.
The view out the back was limited due to the cover only being opening in the back. No vehicle followed behind but it could easily be assumed the other military officer’s car was leading the way if it was still there.
Torsti didn’t have a clue on what he was supposed to do besides constantly adjust himself in the limited area of movement he had while cuffed. He also didn’t want to ask any of the soldier’s questions. They all seemed annoyed by the whole situation that it would be better to just leave them be.
The journey in the truck seemed like it was coming to an end though as the truck stopped for a moment before starting back up. The view out the back showed familiar surroundings. It seemed they had made it to the military base that Torsti had visited twice already in the past week.
After a few more minutes the truck stopped again, but this time after a few seconds the engine died out and went quiet.
At that, the soldiers in the back with Torsti got up, grabbing the little belongings they had brought, and started to get out. Only two remained, who uncuffed Torsti from the truck and led him out the back where he was met with only a few other uniformed deer.
They brought Torsti to one of the nearby buildings and took him inside. They quickly brought him to a room inside that had no windows and threw him in. They closed the door and locked it from the inside.
The room had a table and a few chairs for Torsti to sit at, which he would reluctantly sit at after a few minutes after determining he wouldn’t know how long he’d be in there for.
Time passes slowly after that. Having nothing to pass the time with didn’t help. All he was allowed to do was think.
He could only prepare himself for whatever potential questions were going to be asked of him.
Torsti only went through half the questions he was able to think of before the door to the room opened up and two deer walked in. One of them was General Eilert. Eilert and the other deer both looked at Torsti to make sure he wasn’t doing some surprise attack at them before making their way to some of the few open chairs left.
Torsti had no clue what was happening, he didn’t want to interrupt whatever the two had in plan as they made themselves comfortable. The other two, were just taking their leisure time getting seated, being quiet the whole time.
Finally, though, the two looked up at Torsti again, “Ok.” Eilert said.
The other deer took out a folder and slid it onto the table in front of themselves and opened it. They took the top paper that was inside and slid it across the table to the front of Torsti and said, “Your draft papers. Sign on the line near the top.” The deer also slid a pen over for Torsti to write with.
They were really quick and to the point. No introduction or anything. Torsti tilted his head down to ready the paper, but kept his eyes on the other two for a second before finally looking down.
“Under special orders of General Eilert and Admiral Lauri Virta, you, Torsti Soini, are hereby selected to join the Olenian Armed Forces. Failure to do so will result in the execution of you for the learning of classified information regarding the safekeeping of Queen Velvet.”
It was no ordinary draft paper. Everything about the letter seemed correct to Torsti based on the few draft letters he had seen in the past 5 months but this one was special.
“The only thing you’ll learn reading that is we’re going to execute you. Now please sign it if you wish to live.” The other deer said impatiently.
Torsti choked on something he was about to say before he realized it was best to continue to stay quiet. He looked down, concentrated on the paper, and signed his name on the line. Once he was done, he placed the pen down and looked back up at the other two.
Eilert sighed with relief after Torsti signed it and the other deer reached over and slid the paper back towards himself.
Eilert then spoke up, “Torsti, you are probably wanting to know a lot right now, I thankfully won’t be telling you.” He motioned to the deer next to him and said, “Admiral Lauri Virta here will though.”
After talking, Eilert pushed himself up and said, “He’ll be informing you about everything today, but enough talking from me, I have a war to get back to.” After that, and saying nothing else, he left.
As Eilert left, Lauri watched the door close and waited a few seconds before turning back to Torsti and saying, “Your position is to be kept secret. They’re still weeding out the mess that Lieutenant made once we found out they knew about this whole ordeal. Somehow found out about it and told you.” He shook his head and moved some of the files around in the folder he had put on the table.
“Listen Tor. Everything you’ll be learning here in a bit is going to be so secret that if you tell anydeer, you, along with any deer you told will be executed this time around. A tough decision we decided on, but along with a few other things you’ll learn, are the best we came up with with the current situation we all find ourselves in.”
“But first thing first.” Lauri moved another file over to Torsti and said, “You’ll be allowed to view this during your time at the base. Memorize it to heart as you won’t get a copy once you leave, or not. They’re more of guidelines and the basics.”
Torsti looked down at the file that was slid in front of him. It was a familiar one.
“OPERATION: OPERATION” was written in big letters on the front and everything else as before.
“You don’t need to look now, but those are the files you found earlier today. They’re still for the last deer we had selected but the details are still the same regardless of who's in charge of it.”
Torsti looked back up at Lauri and opened his mouth to talk. He was stopped really quickly by the Admiral.
“The last deer, Preben Stina, he’s dead. We sent one of the soldiers who initially went to his house after that whole police operation with another officer to the hospital they sent him to. We just got word before we came in here that he died while being transported. Suffocated on his own blood it seems. Do what you want with that. He would’ve been executed by firing squad if he had lived anyways.”
Lauri shifted some papers on the desk, looking down at them, “We decided to choose you after one of your officer buds told Eilert about you learning about the documents, though it was only learned by accident. Some random deer who was just unlucky. But we decided to use that to our advantage.”
Lauri looked back up, “We know nothing about you other than the fact that you’re an Olenian born deer. You aren’t a spy, you have no connection to Equestria, the Changelings, or anyone else. You’re cleared by the government to work as a detective in the police. You did your job to what was required. Not doing anything more or anything less. You have just the mind for us.”
“You’re going to be in charge of figuring out the way of getting the queen out of the country.” Is what Lauri stated blankly.
Lauri stared at Torsti with a look, one that begged for questions.
Torsti took in everything he was told and the first thing he asked was, “And I’m going to be killed if I don’t?”
Lauri scrunched his face at the question but answered with a sigh, “Correct.” He looked around the room for a moment before saying, “Look. We, Olenia. We’re going to lose. Everydeer in the high command of the military knows it. The only thing we’re doing at this point is stalling the Changelings while we figure out how to preserve our country. We’re trying to give it the best chance of survival and the only way we figured it out is by removing the queen from Olenia and sending her to Equestria.”
“Velvet doesn’t know this. We’ve kept this operation a secret from her this whole time. Just me, Eilert, and Einair know about it. Should know about it. We’re the ones who came up with it. No other General or Admiral knows. No deer in the air force, no one ranked below us. None of the politicians. Just us three. Now you. Any creature who learns outside of us four is supposed to know about it. Besides the few who might as I mentioned earlier.”
Lauri looked down at the documents and shook his head lightly at the mess before saying, “Tor. The army plans on falling back to the Hjortland peninsula. They have fortifications from Cervus to Hovenhamn. They’re going to put the entire front-line army on this line and let the Changelings take the rest of the country. Coastal defenses have been made around the whole peninsula as well. They’re putting untrained draftees on coastal defense from any potential naval invasion.”
“We have 17 ships in the navy left. We plan on holding enemy ships from passing into Cervus Bay or passing past the Rich Sea. 17 ships Tor.” After saying that, the Admiral leaned against the table and looked down while holding hoofs to the side of his head and continuing, “Anything left of the air force will be aiding us in the ocean. We plan on lasting as long as possible on the peninsula…”
“We’re giving up our whole country, letting so many deer be subjected to the bugs, all to purely buy time to figure out how to preserve the country. No.” Lauri paused and took a deep breath as he personally got emotional, “We’re doing it to just save the queen from being killed.” He then went silent for a few seconds.
The few seconds were very long as Torsti listened to the Admiral speak. He was then paused from any thought processing as he started to hear the Admiral breakdown and cry.
Lauri didn’t start weeping but he kept his face looking down as he quietly cried. After a few seconds, a few tears fell down his face and dropped down onto some documents.
Torsti had no clue what he was supposed to do now. He was watching one of Olenia’s Admirals cry right in front of him. What was any deer supposed to do with someone like that crying in front of them?
Torsti just sat quietly, awkwardly though, but quietly as Lauri cried.
It finally ended after a half a minute and the admiral finally collected himself, rubbing his face on the sleeve of his army uniform.
“One week Tor. We’re abandoning most of our country in one week.”
Lauri shoved the rest of the documents towards Torsti while taking the draft letter he had sighed and put it into a pocket. He stood up himself and said, “Torsti. You will be locked here in this building until then. You won’t have any contact with anydeer for the next week. The only thing you’ll be doing is memorizing everything here if you want the best chance at this job. I’ll be coming back around throughout the next few days to tell you more. I just-” He took a deep breath, “I just need a moment for now.”
Lauri then moved to the door but stopped, not turning back but saying, “Dinner tonight is rationed sugar cubes… Most of the military's food is being moved to our fallback line. They’re saving what can’t be sent for the day before our retreat. Be sure to learn to enjoy the sugar cubes though, the food will only get worse once we fall back.”
With that, Lauri left, leaving Torsti with a pile of documents to look over and the dread of everything that was to follow.