//------------------------------//
// Hearts of Iron 
// Story: On the Road to '63 
// by niBBoi 
//------------------------------//

The changeling general looked through the reports on his desk once more as he let his thoughts flow freely, the cold wind blowing through a broken window in his improvised office.

To say the situation was dire would be an understatement. The changeling defense of the hives had already pretty much collapsed days ago after the Equestrians launched another devastating push that effectively wiped out an entire army corps. Vesalipolis had fallen, Lyctida was under siege, Ditrysium was being threatened with encirclement, and entire divisions and battlegroups were just gone within the span of a week. It was clear that the changelings were on their last legs.

The general sighed as he put down the papers and took another drink from his flask. He sat back on his chair and mulled over his next course of action.

Yesterday, the general received orders from changeling high command. He was told to disengage from the fighting in Lyctida and Phantine, rally his troops, and attack Equestrian forces forming up around Ditrysium in order to break the blockade there and reach the queen before the Equestrians did. Afterwards, he was to link up with reinforcements coming from Soryth and then... somehow cobble together some kind of counterattack to relieve pressure from changeling forces fighting on other fronts.

However, the general had chosen to ignore those orders. Considering that it would've meant going up against a superior force twice the size of his already battered field army for an amount of time which they no longer had the ability to sustain, the plan was simply not feasible. He was in command of elite and battle-hardened units - some of the changeling army's last remaining regular forces - but a majority of his army was made up of conscripts, hastily formed militia, and emergency units pulled from the navy and the air force. Any real counteroffensive of the size that high command was demanding the changeling general to carry out would very quickly be stopped dead in its tracks and pushed back by the overwhelming tidal wave that was the Solar Army.

Even if the general possessed the troops to be able to pull off such an insane maneuver that far into the war, he had his reservations about throwing away his soldiers' lives in order to save the queen and her cronies' asses. They have already lost his and many others' respect long ago after the disasters that were Las Pegasus and Shire. So many changeling souls left to suffer and die in the hooves of Daybreaker and her soldiers...

No. If the general was to sacrifice the lives of his troops, it would be to save his fellow people from the rampaging Equestrian army and not some Vesalian queen who had stupidly led the hives into its imminent downfall.

The plan that the general had conceived seemed as insane as high command's pipe dreams of a grand counteroffensive, but it was their only hope of rescuing the soldiers and civilians still trapped in pockets of resistance all along the southern front. Instead of a full counterattack to break the blockade that cut the south from Ditrysium and the northern hives, the changeling general planned to divide his forces up into multiple battlegroups that would disperse all along the front. Some would be part of the push into Ditrysium and Lyctida while others would launch diversionary attacks to draw Equestrian forces away from the main force.

Meanwhile, the changeling troops that made up the main force were to open up a corridor into Ditrysium as well as another corridor into Lyctida, and hope against all hope that they would be able to hold them long enough for soldiers and civilians to escape through. The general also hoped to encounter the reinforcements from Soryth that high command had promised even though he seriously doubted that they actually existed other than on paper. After all that, they would regroup, reorganize, and make a mad dash southwest towards the Olenian border and the resistance forces that were stationed there. The Olenians no doubt still absolutely hated the changelings' guts, but they were much more preferable to a cruel fate under the Equestrians.

The general let out another sigh and got up from his seat in order to convene with his officers outside. The plan needed some work, and although he knew that what he was about to do was right, he couldn't help but feel like he was still abandoning his country despite the daring rescue operation that he had conceived. Perhaps it won't be the end for the Changeling Lands. He had heard about Harmonist sentiments starting to crop up in Equestria again now that Chrysalis' regime was about to fall.

Either way, as the end of the war drew near, the general had decided that it's now or never. They were going to be heroes or die trying.