//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 - Build Up // Story: Whistling Rain // by Schwabauer //------------------------------// “Admiral Malik Von Morovia, please, have a seat. I would like to congratulate you on the success of the Prussian Airfleet program. It has been a long seven years, hasn’t it” “Thank you, Herr. Krämer. It has been. I am happy to report that we have successfully industrialized the manufacture of airship crystals, growing them by powering other crystals with mechanical energy, and have already begun construction on the Crystal fleet.” “Good to hear, Admiral, but that is not why I called you in. I have just received word from the Kaiser. He has decided that your merit in developing the program that has revolutionized our occupation of South America and the Indonesian Islands is worth assigning you to a combat role in the coming invasion.” Von Morovia sputtered, leaning forward in his chair, “Sir, you are certain he meant I, and not my partner Malik Von Moravia? He has more experience on the front line, and has contributed just as much.” Herr Krämer paused, pulling out the letter and rereading it. After a moment he said, “Ah, so it was. My apologies Von Morovia. As a consolation I will appoint you rear admiral of the fleet. Please don’t mention that Moravia got the promotion until I can tell him. And again, apologies for this.” Von Morovia smiled gracefully, bowing slightly to Herr Krämer as he did, before standing and making his leave. Herr Krämer quickly turned back to his desk inside his office, the Department of Industrialization, and quickly began to fill out a summons for Von Moravia. Once filled out he jumped up and rushed out the door, searching for an aid to take the message. To the utmost of strangeness, there were none of the usually ever prevalent ponies dotting about his office, sending him looking all through the seat of governance. As soon as Herr  Krämer was a corridor away from the room a unicorn uncloaked herself, revealing her dull gray coat as she trotted into the room. She immediately began sifting through the papers on the desk using magic and a camera to capture what information there was and setting it onto a dragonfire scroll. She did the same through his cabinets and drawer. Granate Spotter was an experienced intelligence soldier, but not an experience spy, and her shifting of papers and drawers was clunky, inefficient, and made soft noises. Her rustling did not go unnoticed, and two Crystal Royal Guards marched towards the room, the heavy footsteps of their boots following the rhythmic ticking of a clock. The Unicorn’s window of opportunity was closing. She began to frantically, desperately rip through the drawers, shredding some papers as she took messy photographs, flinging the documents every which way as she did. The ticking of her clock sped up, the soldiers marching slightly faster as her noise increased. And then, the alarm rang, jolting Granite Spotter to the present and away from her work. The Royal guards were shouting into the castle and advancing on her, halberds at the ready. Without a moment’s hesitation she began burning the dragon fire scroll and sending the pictures with them.  The sight of fire launched the guards into action, who leapt forward and stabbed her, piercing her chest and bringing her to the ground. Granite Spotter’s magic clicked the button as she fell, camera flashing one last time before the dragon fire scroll consumed it. The guards stepped abc, and their reinforcements arrived, thundering into and around the room, sealing off any possible exit. But it was unnecessary, as the spy was well and truly dead. The most prominently featured documents that were splayed about were fresh, some addressed from the Kaiser, others recently written by generals, and more written by Herr Krämer. All of them regarding a planned invasion.  The fire burned and the smoke magically whisked away, floating through the magical aether, twisting and twirling their contents along peacefully and playfully, uncaring of their ownder’s demise. When they burned back into the world of the corporeal, they hadn’t even left the building they’d departed it from.  Cadence and Shining sat in their private study, studying the copies of the documents they had received from their employee. Compiling reports and organizing the contents into something more readable. Had it been eleven years ago, and Shining been in his office, he’d have had a dozen aides to do it for him. Now they did it hunched in dim light, trusting none with the information. As soon as the documents were prepared they were once again sent by dragon fire, and the rest was burned. The rest except for one, which captured the final moment of their spy, the image of two humans contorting their faces into monstrous facimilies of even the worst of rage Shining had seen on the battlefield killing her in cold blood. That photo was kept always and forever by Shining’s breast pocket, to remind him of the final duty of one of Granite Spotter. Admiral Kozlwalski sat in port, his shaggy and unkempt hair dripping onto the torn rags he called a uniform. Seven years of piracy had not been kind on him, inflicting itself until he and the rest of his fleet was no longer acting the part, and were instead acting as Navy Men while in port. Except now it was to no longer be acting. The Piracy was over. But the raiding was not. He was to get his men back into Naval order, clean shaven and well mannered when not engaged, in just a month. Then they would head back out towards the Equestrian sea to raid in the name of the Prussian Crown, along with the ‘anti-piracy’ fleets Prussia had sent out, caving to the request of Zebrican, Equestrian, Parrot, and Minotaur nations to have a large fleet waiting for the war. With a deep sigh, Kozlwalski stood and made his way out into the streets of the New Prussian port, glaring at the bright light. The finely cobbled streets were white, reflecting the mid afternoon sun offensively at anybody who dared to look down. They were wide and expansive, with trees dotting either side. Perhaps the nicest city the Admiral had ever been in since graduating from the Academy in Amsterdam. It felt wrong after so long only visiting pirate islands to barter. Eventually Admiral Kozlwalski found what he was looking for, a barbershop. More specifically, a barbershop with a good view of the port. He walked in, the room dark and soothing on his eyes. He sat in a chair, swiveling it to look out at the docks, identifying his ships and checking the time, already aware of it, to ensure he knew who was on shift at that very moment.  “What should I get you today, sir?” the barber asked with a very thick polish accent, his nose turned away from the Admiral in slight disgust that such a disheveled man would dare enter and take the prime seat for himself. “Close cut, whichever is regulation for the Navy right now.” the Admiral replied, switching to fluent polish part way through. Once the barber heard his home tongue spoken he softened, setting to work with a well practiced hand.  The barber took nearly an hour, going beyond the quality the Admiral expected, ensuring that there was not a single hair out of place. Once he was finished, he asked the Admiral, “What is this haircut for? You’re much too old to join the navy now, and you look nothing like a sailor.” The Admiral laughed, a big bellowing laugh, shaking his entire body as he rolled forward, “It has been many years since I was last in a proper port, barber. I’m an Admiral, if you'd believe it. I’m just preparing for life back home.” Suddenly the barber’s arms went slack, his face paling. He stepped back, setting his tools on the counter  and rushing to apologize, just to be waved off by the Admiral. He attempted to refuse payment, only to again be waved off by the Admiral, who offered him a bonus for the job well done. He then calmly walked back out into the sunny street, heading for the tailor he had his fresh uniform sent to.  Twilight Sparkle did not regret her decision in the slightest. Ever since the slaughter seven years ago she had been running a small village in the Protectorate, secluded in the mountains. She was the headmare, the village elder. Her ponies came to her for everything, and she did her best to guide them. A completely isolated life was impossible, unfortunately, as they needed to go trade for seeds and clothes in the early days. So now they were regularly checked up on by Prussiand and Protectorate patrols, who collected taxes, built infrastructure, and various other governing duties. Whenever they came she had to hide her cutie mark, disguising it so she would look like somebody else. The ponies from the Protectorate would always assume she was Twilight, only to immediately apologize when they saw the cutie mark. She thanked her luck stars that not one pony had considered that she may have altered the mark, and that she was not just a distant relative or coincidental pony. A sudden shout from a small foal, five at the oldest and one of the foals born after the start of the village, jolted her from reflection and he waddled up to play with her, bringing a smile to Twilight’s face. The foal wasn’t Twilight’s own, although she was now heavily expecting her husband, a Crystal Guard in exile that had stood by her and been a pillar of strength and support in the early days. Now she could not imagine living without the stallion, Flash Sentry, and looked forward to raising a family with him. Once the foal had gone back to play with the other foals Twilight began preparing lesson plans for the school, where she was teaching the foals the very basics of reading, writing, and village life. While she also dabbled in almost every subject, the only thing she absolutely avoided was history and war, elected to avoid it and hope they grew to not yearn for adventure like she and her friends had. Once she had finished the lesson plans she trotted into the attached kitchen and bedrooms, where Flash was waiting with a smile and a hot bowl of oatmeal at the ready. He had put down the sword and picked up the plow shod, and was now spending long days sowing and reaping the fruits and grains of his labor. He always had a smile on his face, and nuzzled Twilight every change he had.  AS Twilight shut the door to the school and settled down for dinner Flash, she shut the door on her past, instead laughing and talking of the present. They talked of town gossip, issues with farming and what the students would be learning in school.  This was perhaps the happies Twilight had been in years, and she wouldn’t go back to change it for the world. The war room of Equestria was bustling with dozens of generals and their staff as the chaos of planning a war unfolded. Every arm of the EEF was being mobilized and prepared for war. The largest armed force Equestria, perhaps their entire world, had ever seen was going to be assembled for the liberation of the Empire. Over three hundred thousand ponies spread across the army. Another hundred thousand spread across the Air Fleet.  The logistics and early stages of the plans were being laid, the most crucial stages as well. There was a single railway into and out of the Empire, and the region around it was only passable during late summer and early fall. A rapid two month period. That was what the entire campaign hinged on. Being able to secure a single rail station within two months. Simple in concept, and possibly hard in reality. The swampy marsh was unclaimed and undeveloped outside of the railway. Neutral ground. Neither side could march into it without clearly signaling their intent to invade, and they both knew it. Celestia and Luna had been brainstorming and planning missions for weeks now, and were deciding ultimately that the only option would be an imperfect plan executed violently and rapidly at the start to allow them to go on campaign in the spring without starving in the harsh tundra wastes that were largely uninhabited for two hundred miles. The airships of the EEF were another issue. Despite all of the best attempts of the R & D branch of the EEF they were unable to make an economical way to have cloud airships. When they enchanted all the clouds to allow earth ponies to walk on them they were so fragile that they would come apart in a gust of wind. If they enchanted just the weapons then the crew would have to be entirely pegasi, defeating the purpose of airships in the first place. Ultimately it was settled upon that they would act as a kind of landing boat for pegasi dragoons and lancers. Not as useful as Celestia had been hoping they’d be. The Kaiser stood from his breakfast meeting with the generals he was sending for the upcoming invasion. Seven hundred and fifty thousand. It was going to be the single largest assembled armed force. He was sending a variety of veteran and purpose trained units for the campaign, with troops hailing from all corners of his empire. They would have everything from twenty thousand Hindi marksmen to harass enemy formations to a hundred fifty thousand Scandinavian reservists to bring up the rear, acting as logistical staff and border guard while the veterans in the Protectorate marched across Equestria.  The generals were all coming up with plans, or most of them were. The Scandinavian was frustratingly absent, despite being the third closest. He had been delayed by something innocuous and would be showing up late. This wasn’t the first time the Kaiser had seen this general be late, and he doubted it would be the last, but he trusted General Balthasar Buus’s ability to maintain law and order in a territory, as he had been in northern Europe for over three decades now. General Halbach, on the other hand, was the best general Prussia had produced to date. He had single handedly led the offensives across North America and South America, crushing thousands of natives and integrating them nigh flawlessly into the Empire. He could coordinate dozens of generals at once without issue, and was a natural choice for the Chief Commander of the Equestrian Invasion Force, or the EIF as they were calling it in the papers and plans.  The sheer scale still amazed the Kaiser, despite him having a hand in creating it. The EIF was less of a single army and more like eight. Each army had their own Commander in Chief, and then corps and divisions and brigades. Each had their own names and history, and operated as the single largest unit in their area of operations. And now they would all be unified under a single command. The sheer Might of it was soul rending.  The Kaiser knew he would have to see the campaign camp before the invasion began in person, for this was truly a once in a lifetime experience. The Kaiser figured that while he was in the brave new world he should tour the new territories of his empire.