December 3rd, 1009
Torsti was moved to a normal-looking room last night, one fitting that of what he could assume was for a military officer. It had some draws that could be locked, which he was instructed by Lauri to keep any documents he had at any time inside of when he wasn’t reading them. There were a few other normal room accommodations like a bed and dressers but it was simple. There was still no window in the newfound room.
Torsti was dazed upon waking up. Being in an unfamiliar bed for the first time typically did that to him. The first thing he noticed was Admiral Lauri was standing before him, pushing on him with a hoof as he tried to awake Tor. Once Lauri saw his efforts had worked, he stopped and walked over to the table on the other side of the room and said, “Tor!” He then waited for a response of any kind from the deer.
“I-- Uhh- What?” Torsti said as he clenched his eyes shut to prevent the brightness of the lamp from blinding him further.
“Documents. More. Everything else you’ll need to start doing your job. And paper, notes, writing utensils. Whatever else you might need to start making decisions.” Lauri said.
Torsti was slowly getting used to the lit room by not, able to keep his eyes open, but squinted, as he watched Lauri, “Hold on. Wait.” Torsti said. He rubbed his eyes and was about to ask something but Lauri spoke up before he could.
“What is it? Everything here is all you need for the next six days before we go to Hjortland. All the documents you’re being given are going to be destroyed so any time you have awake is for looking them over. Now that you’re awake--” Lauri was cut off by Torsti.
“I said wait! Fucking dammit! Just let me ask some questions for fucksake! You’re the one who just rudely woke me up…” Torsti looked at the Admiral now, his eyes finally adjusted to the light, “You can’t just kidnap me like this and force something like this on me without giving me the chance to ask some.” Torsti held his ground with his demand now, trying his best to stare down the Admiral.
“Gods dammit,” Lauri said as he held a hoof to his head in frustration. After seeing the determination of Torsti, he sighed and asked, “What do you want to know? Why is an Admiral dressed in an army uniform at a base inland? Why do we have to ration food when we have an entire city we could eat from? Why did the Changelings decide to attack our country? Why is Equestria just sitting on their asses not doing anything to help us?”
As Lauri asked each question, he got progressively more angry and loud. He paused at the end of his questions and said, “Why does any of that matter to you! What questions do you want to ask! None of it will help you! Just sit here and accept your face!” Lauri pointed to the desk with the new documents and said, “By the queen's word, just fucking sit at the desk and look at whatever document we give you! Just look at the damn operation you’re in charge of and read its FUCKING WORDS! WORD FOR WORD! AND FOLLOW IT TO THE FUCKING LETTER!” Lauri calmed down a little after breaking and said, “That’s your fucking job. Do it or you’ll be executed. You don’t need to know anything else. That’s all you need to know. That’s all I want you to know.”
Lauri sighed and walked to the door of the room and turned to Torsti one final time and said, “So sit the fuck down and get to work.” After saying that, Lauri quickly made his way out of the room and left the shaking Torsti alone to himself.
That was Torsti’s first new day in the military, and it started off with him being left to himself, on his bed, with his thoughts to think over everything that had just been yelled at him by the Admiral.
*Click*
The door to the room was locked.
The next few days, Torsti looked over every document he had accumulated so far. Each day he’d be given more thought.
He was confined to his room, only being let out to use the bathroom. Each time he did, Admiral Lauri would have to come by to search Torsti for any hidden papers he might try to smuggle outside and to watch over the documents that hid inside his room while he was escorted by four deer.
Despite the role that Torsti had, anyone could easily see that he was pretty much being held, prisoner. One that had access to military information nonetheless.
The documents that Torsti was being given were the current front lines of the war, losses, logistics, size of the military, even foreign relation documents regarding Equestria.
In the file that was “OPERATION: OPERATION”, Torsti had learned that he was to take all information available regarding the Kingdom of Olenia in its state of war and use that to constantly come up with a changing plan on how Queen Velvet was to be taken out of the country.
The only major information that Torsti was told from Admiral Lauri was OPERATION: OPERATION would be carried out sometime between the time of the fallback to the Hjortland Peninsula and the fall of Hjortland itself.
Despite that, he had still come up with some basic plans to execute the operation, only out of fear that he would be punished or executed for not having any during the stay at the base.
The plan so far was to simply use one of the remaining navy boats to take the queen to Equestria, being that all airplanes had nearly all been destroyed, only single-seat fighters being left. It didn’t help that production of planes had been halted so more supplies for ground forces could be made.
Torsti hadn’t gotten anything beyond that as he was still taking his time to look over every document he had while also questioning everything about what led him to this point.
December 8th, 1009
There was snow. Not a lot but a constant fall of it so it had piled up. That was what Torsti was able to figure out in the few brief moments that he had seen the outside world.
Torsti had slowly grown used to his daily schedule in the past 6 days, despite it not really being one as an unexpected rummage of the door started to take place before it finally opened.
Admiral Lauri came in and instantly said, “Torsti.” Lauri walked over to the table that had a bigger mess of papers and documents on it and started to collect them all and said, “We’re destroying everything in this room.”
Torsti hadn’t been expecting this, but he didn’t waste his time helping the Admiral collect every last document. The Admiral’s outburst his first day there was enough to make him do whatever he said now.
Lauri was ripping up all the documents and tossing them in the trash can that was in the room, making sure each one was shredded to the best he could with the speed he was going.
It only took a few minutes for the two to finish tearing up everything and throwing it in the bin before Torsti noticed something. Lauri had left the door to the room open, which he had never done before. He didn’t chance anything but looked back to the Admiral who was taking out a jar from the bag that he had brought with him and opened it, dumping the liquid that was inside into the bin with the shredded documents.
Torsti had the guts to ask what he was doing, “Admiral?”
“We’re burning this whole place to the ground.” Lauri said quickly.
He then took out a matchbox from his uniform, took out a match, lit it and tossed it into the bin, which would instantly flame up and start burning.
Torsti was shocked at what had just happened and looked worried as he looked between the bin and the Admiral, “Wait? Wait! Wait! What? What about me?”
“What about you? Grab a jacket and get moving.” Lauri said as he picked his bag up and turned around towards the door and started to leave, “Quickly now.”
Torsti didn’t move for a few seconds as he was still shocked at what the Admiral had just done, but it clicked in his head as the warmth of the fire in the bin reached him. He quickly ran over to his bed where an army uniform jacket was and grabbed it, putting it on and following the Admiral out.
Torsti had been given a change of clothes, the same that a normal deer could be seen wearing on the base. The same as the Admiral had.
“Come on Tor! God damn Changelings broke the front lines down here and are pushing quickly for the city.” Lauri said. He was in the hallway outside Torsti’s room, where there were two other deer dousing everything they could with a jerrycan.
“That’s good enough, should light the building up!” Lauri yelled out to the other two deer.
The other two quickly halted and made their way out, at which Lauri and Torsti followed.
That’s when Torsti stepped outside and saw it.
The whole base was busy. Everydeer he saw was moving about with speed to some location. Trucks were driving around, trucks were being loaded, a few buildings were already burning.
“What-” Torsti asked.
“Evacuating Tor. We’re getting the fuck out of here.” Lauri said.
Just then, the building that they had just come out of was ignited and it went up in flames. Red was all he could see inside the building from the door Torsti had come out of. It’d take a bit for the building to fully become engulfed.
“This truck Tor!” Lauri said in a distant voice.
Torsti looked around until he finally saw Lauri, who was handing his bag to a deer on the bed of the covered truck nearby, before finally coming over.
Lauri was quickly helped up into the back and the deer who had helped him was at the ready to help Torsti as he came up, which Torsti would accept.
Once in the back and getting seated, the two who had been inside the building with Torsti, had made their way into the back of the truck as well. The deer helping everyone hopped out of the back and quickly ran out of view towards the front. After only a few more seconds, the truck started up and quickly started to move.
Torsti, Admiral Lauri and three other deer were in the back. There wasn’t a lot of room though as there were bags and boxes of things in the back with them, which could only be assumed to be supplies. Leaned against a few of the boxes were a few bolt action rifles. A rare find if you weren’t in the military.
The truck Torsti was in was moving quickly, behind, out the back of the bed of the truck, there were more trucks following. More deer hurrying about around the base as they drove by and more buildings with smoke rising from them, others engulfed.
Torsti sat quietly in the back as two of the other deer started to talk between themselves. The third was making sure some boxes and bags were moved so they were better supported.
“Fun ain’t it?” Lauri asked.
“What?” Torsti asked.
“Just like that, we’re leaving. One day ahead of schedule and we’re leaving.” Lauri said.
“Just like that?” Torsti asked.
“Yeeeep.” Lauri said.
Neither said anything else. Lauri started to rummage through his bag he had brought and pulled out a notepad and pencil and started to write in it. He leaned into the corner of the bed so Torsti or the other deer couldn’t see what he was writing if they looked over.
Torsti was left with himself. He didn’t grab the clothes he had worn when he came to the base, just the basic uniform he was wearing and the jacket.
Thankfully he grabbed the jacket as the weather was only getting colder. Snow was starting to fall more as well. Double thankful though, it was a clear day today. Snow littered the ground but it wasn’t falling.
Torsti looked past the other deer to the left of him, out the back of the truck again and watched everything. He didn’t see any more deer running around, or anything that looked military-related. Just roads and some naked trees. In the distance, he saw the city of Vaverfront getting further away.
“Wait.” Torsti said as he turned to look at the Admiral, “Where are we going?”
A smile grew across Lauri’s face as the answer came to him, “Hjortland Tor! We’re going to Hjortland! We’ll drive to Heinä and then take a ferry across the bay to the closest point of Hoof Peninsula and then drive the rest of the way there. Road trip! It’s going to take a few though so I hope you didn’t forget anything!”
Torsti swallowed and looked back outside, “What about Vaverfront?”
“Probably panicking. They’re all probably trying to evacuate somewhere. Staying? Fighting? I don’t know. The sudden breakthrough the Changelings did, didn’t let us figure any of that out. Not like we planned on it. You already knew though. We would abandon everything to defend the Hjortland Peninsula. A secret that we didn’t tell anydeer though, but still. Shitty world, shitty decisions.” Lauri shrugged, “Guess yourself lucky you were drafted.”
Torsti stared out the back still, but he heard everything. He continued to watch the white landscape go past as he thought.
“Am I not u--” Torsti was asking.
“Not a word Torsti.” Lauri said. He finally finished writing in his notepad, at which he tore the page out and handed it to Torsti, “Here, switch with me.” Lauri said as he moved and made little room for Torsti to move down the bed and sit in the corner Lauri was. He then motioned to the note before leaning back and closing his eyes.
Torsti looked down at the note and started to read it.
“Don’t speak about anything.
You’re a Captain now. You will be told more at Hjortland.
Don’t do anything out of line or you’ll be executed. You know a lot.
Put this paper in my bag when done.
Enjoy the ride.”
Without hesitation, Torsti crumpled up the paper and tossed it into Lauri’s bag.
He looked around the back of the truck, Lauri looked like he had fallen asleep, the other three were calming down and also looking out the back.
Torsti was stuck at the back of the bed with four deer in front of him and a wall of supplies on the other half.
There was nothing to do now but try and not to be cold.