//------------------------------// // One. Nine: Total Stalemate // Story: Sins Never Die // by CodenameOne //------------------------------// One. Nine Total Stalemate -=-=-=-=- Tap. Tap. Tap. “What about the river to the left, could we try-- No? Damn.” Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. “The mountains! We could sneak Pelicans through the passes and-- Swarming with Dragons? Son of a bitch.” Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Stealth forces. Under cover of night they would sneak into enemy cities and then-- You’re right, we wouldn’t be able to get them out and they wouldn’t be able to do much damage.” Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. “ODSTs!! We could drop them literally right into-- Oh, right, we wouldn’t be able to get them out without getting spotted by dragons.” Taptaptaptaptaptaptap. “Well Goddamnit, Excalibur, we gotta think of something!” Adam Kuyaki declared, taking his hand from his desk in his quarters, ceasing rapping his fingers against it. He had sat in the room for the past hour, thinking over plans of attack with Excalibur, to no avail. “Sir, in layman’s terms; we are currently screwed. I suggest finding a way to drain the Equestrians of supplies until they surrender” the AI suggested. “Hmm, what’s the ammo count for our weapons?” “The MAC currently has seven rounds. Archer pods C7 through Z9 are intact, leaving us with a little over 1,000 missiles. Hyperion count is four” the AI explained. “And Shiva?” Adam asked, leaning back in his seat and putting his boots up on the desk. “Sir, I believe the technical term is ‘overkill’. Nonetheless, we have three SHIVA tactical nukes.” “Excal, comb over the Equestrian cities for valuable strategic targets for the nukes. Let me know what’s up” Adam stated, getting up from his seat to head to the bridge. “Again, sir, I believe--” “Just do it, Excalibur.” “Complying.” -=-=-=-=- Dink. Dink. Dink. “So Manehattan is down, Cloudsdale is crippled, and the humans have pushed on the absolute edges of the Kingdom. There aren’t many more cities in the way of their onslaught. Fillydelphia, Ponyville, Canterlot” Princess Celestia declared to her sister. “Aldurmaax and his dragons are fighting bravely, but I believe the humans will make a breakthrough soon. It’s just a matter of when” Luna replied. “Aldurmaax is demanding that all who can walk and fly fight for the honor of Equestria. The mating parties keep producing dragons but at the incredibly slow rate they age it will be decades before any one of the newborns are ready to fight.” “There’re still plenty of dragons around to fight the humans, at least. We don’t need replacements yet” Celestia said. Dink. Dink. Dink. Dink. “The good news though is that Aldurmaax and his dragons pushed the humans back from Cloudsdale, giving what remained of her population time to evacuate. The city was absolutely wrecked, though. It’ll take the Pegasi years to rebuild it all” Luna stated. “Hehm, maybe they’ll update the architecture” Celestia humorlessly joked. The Princess of the sun stopped tapping her hoof against the marble and tucked it under her prone body, curling up. It was a little cold in her room, and the fireplace could only help so much. “You think we're losing this war, don't you?” Luna asked. “Do you think we’re--” “I know we’re losing, Luna... I just want to know if we’ve lost.”* -=-=-=-=- Thud. Thud. Thud. “I believe they call it a stalemate” Aldurmaax declared to his shrampe; diminutive assistant, as they lamented the war. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. “De’mah will guide us, won’t he? There’s still hope, right?” the shrampe asked. A dragon of unquestioning faith Aldurmaax rested his busy talons and looked up at the shrine to De’mah in his throne room, silently wondering if the God really would help them in the end. “I believe he will.”