//------------------------------// // The Minor Hope // Story: The Retaking of Canterlot // by Charles Rocketboy //------------------------------// The sky had been lit green and night had fallen and news was spreading of only ten ponies returning uninjured, ten out of forty. That was when, mysteriously, all of D Company were doing practice drills and Iron Will had started bellowing slogans at them. Amethyst Star was torn between going with the flow & letting herself get in the rar-rar groove or going oh crap oh crap in her head. Maybe everyone else felt like that too and was just hiding it. Well, not Thunderlane and Cloudchaser, who were practicing mid-air punches and dagger thrusts and yelling “I WRATH AT YOU!” loud enough that Queen Krissy-Something could hear them. “Hayseed, stronger stance there!” called out Filthy Rich, walking down the lines. “Britelight, you’re swinging to the right a bit, just – that’s good, keep that up! Amethyst Star, shield up!” She dropped into a crouch and flared up a white half-shield of energy around her front. Rich whacked it hard with his left hoof; it wobbled. “I’m scared too, Amethyst,” he said quietly. “There’s no shame in it.” And now, of course, there was shame. “The Dragoons and Royal Guard were the pros and we’re—“ “We’re a platoon with citations for our commando raid and demolition trainings,” he said, a bit of his salespony work creeping into his voice, “and we’ve got thousands of ponies backing us up. And we have something to actually fight for and the changelings don’t. Your sister, Dinky wasn’t it? Now, shield up!” It held this time. ***** One changeling had refused to talk, except for his constant refrains of “I don’t talk to food” and “Long live the Changeling Nation!” and “you’ll never get anything from me!” that came out every time the interrogator said anything. The other prisoner was visibly nervous, so they’d left him to stew in his cell for the best part of an hour. Careful Reading had advised a ‘special’ second interrogator and an amber earth pony with a beehive cutie mark had been ushered into Cloudsdale soon after, looking scared and irritated in brief measure. The standard remote-viewing spell was set up in the prisoner’s cell for the War Cabinet and the interrogators sent in. Blueblood peered into the viewing globe, not realising he was blocking other pony’s view. “That mare doesn’t seem like she’s Watch Intelligence or military,” he said to Careful Reading. “Honey Doo is entirely civilian, sire. We’ve temporarily drafted her because, well, you’ll see in a second.” From the globe came the tinny sound of a pegasus interrogator saying: “I believe it’s customary for name, rank, and number?” No response. “Okay son, I realise I look and sound like I’m going to hurt you. My name’s Hard Boot, this is Honey Doo. Does that help?” No response. “Ms Doo?” The amber mare sighed and, in a flash of green light, there were two changelings in the room. Blueblood was sickened but said nothing. Salad Daze spoke instead: “And you’re sure of her?” “She was thoroughly questioned when we picked her up ten days ago,” said Careful. “No sign of any wrongdoing, three years of normal life in Trottingham. She also has a foal. That will keep you—“ “They can breed with us?” asked Blueblood, horror and disgust in his voice. “Tartarus! Do we want that?” “Hardly matters if you do or don’t,” said Hottrot, terser than normal. In the cell, while they’d talked, the prisoner had been freaking out and had now just finished calling Honey Doo “traitor” over and over. With great, deliberate calm, she asked: “Where are the civilians of the Changeling Nation?” “Everyone fights for the Nation, pony! There’s no dead weight!” “You surely don’t make the larvae fight.” The prisoner didn’t look as defiant anymore. “There are no larvae, not yet. Chrysalis says we have to wait until their future is secure. Once Canterlot is ours, then the next generation can be born.” “The Nation was formed out of hives, wasn’t it? There are always larvae and elderly in hives: the future that we need to care for and the past we need to revere.” Everyone saw the prisoner flinch when the elderly were mentioned. “They have to be somewhere.” “The larvae are in the old hives,” said the prisoner, defensive. “One hive, it’s near Vanhoover, that’s where we keep a few women and the ones too young to fight yet. They’re not part of the Nation – I mean, every changeling is in the Nation but they’re, uh, not quite yet. They’re not properly, uh---“ “The elderly?” The prisoner turned his head away. “Chrysalis said we need to make sacrifices—“ Hard Boot had his wings stretched out in front of Honey Doo before she could move. “Is that really how a new country should be founded?” he asked quietly. There was more but it was covered up by the Cabinet’s reactions – Hottrot’s enraged scream and expletives most of all, and Blueblood’s snarl of “savages!”. Greyjoy raised a hoof: “We can instruct the Vanhoover Lancers to start searching but this will delay their deployment to Canterlot.” “I think we should do it,” said Stoutheart. “If we do force a retreat from Canterlot, we don’t want them falling back to the north-east. No, we find this hive and ask for a conditional surrender.” “And I think we should tell the press that Chrysalis had her followers kill their elderly and abandon their young,” said Salad Daze with a snarl. “We already knew she’d culled every changeling who wouldn’t play ball but this will get ponies right in the emotions. This says we need to take her down, no damn mercy – yes, what is it?” This last comment to a military runner; a Dragoon, out of breath. “Ma’am, sire, we have multiple fliers and an airship inbound, they’re requesting landing clearance. They appear griffon and they’re flying the right flags, but considering the enemy can shape shift--” Blueblood was about to speak but Geldmore cut him off: “Grant permission. I know exactly what this is.” ***** The airship was cloud-grey and ornately armoured, the front curving into a huge beak; gold writing marked it out as the Last Argument. Hundreds of griffons peeled off from around it, each clad in dark blue-grey armour and wicked steel claws on each paw; they landed hard, predator crouch position in three-strong rows. In the front row, in the silver helmet of command, one griffon snapped off a salute. “Superior-Chief Grizalda, Rapid Response Alpha battalion, Griffon Kingdom Air Army! Under the mutual defence clauses of the Treaty of Tall Tale and the order of His Majesty, I place myself and all three hundred and fifty of my command under Equestrian direction. Our main expeditionary force will be arriving in three more days.” She finished the salute and let herself smirk. “We’re counting this as your Solstice present.” Blueblood stepped in before Geldmore could and flashed his most dazzling smile. “Charmed, my dear. Consider your present accepted and approved.” Grizalda blushed. Still got it, thought Blueblood and then he let Geldmore forward. ***** News of the Griffon advance reached Midway Greens and caused a mix of cheering and bemusement. As Thunderlane said: “So we had a minotaur on our side and now we’ve got griffons, who’s next, freaking Discord?” Amethyst pictured changelings turned into cotton candy. “That would be cool.” ***** “With the griffons, we’ve got an extra group of professional soldiers and support, and furthermore the Griffon Air Army trains for air and ground combat,” said Geldmore. “We planned to use pegasi to break out the holdout areas, with severe casualties: the griffons will drastically reduce that. “ He jabbed at a map of Canterlot, marked out with little pony modules and black stationary to represent changelings. “Two of the holdout zones are in the south, near enough to the station. We concentrate on them, unite those forces, establish a zone. Then we fight our way to Central Station.” “And then we send in our whole force by train!” cried out Blueblood. “Marvellous species, the griffons! If any country club in Equestria dares exclude them from now on, they’ll have me to answer to!” “The changelings will throw everything they have at the zone,” said Greyjoy. “We will still have severe casualties from that.” “It may take a day, two days even, to take the station,” said Geldmore. “The changelings will have numerical and positional advantage. It depends on how long the other holdouts and the North’s Watch diversionary attacks can last. Unfortunately, it’s our only option at the moment. At least we know the bulk of the changelings’ positions from our prisoner, and their battle doctrine of overwhelming melee attacks from the recce, Celestia bless them.” “Anything else beyond fine tuning?” asked Salad Daze. When the answer came back as no, she abruptly got up and began walking out the door. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s almost midnight. If we start nodding off in the middle of battle plans, we’ll be idiots. Four hours minimum and a ton of coffee and brandy.” Blueblood, his mood collapsed after Geldmore’s words, nodded. “Maybe all this will look better in the morning anyway.” ***** Changeling and enemy positions had been marked out using, of all things, the cutlery and condiments from the wedding dinner. Commander Strect bet the Self-Defence Forces had nice shiny models of every possible species. When the Changeling Nation was established, so would he. He’d have a proper war room instead of having to use the Queen’s throne room, and every changeling that mattered would have an equally grand room and just as many cocooned lunches to snack on. That was the promise. “The North’s Watch, their elite arctic regiment, they’ve got ponies being tracked down to the north face here. We have control of all of Canterlot’s mountain siege defences but the Watch are skilled mountain fighters, we have to be careful here. The land forces are gathering at Midway Greens here, no sign of movement but they’ll be waiting until the train station is in pony hands again.” “Good luck with that,” sneered the Queen. “Exactly. The griffons will make this harder but the same principle applies: superior numbers in the air, and with any breakouts we bomb them back. By the time their full force shows up, we’ll have inflicted so many casualties they’ll think twice—“ ”And we’ll have a chance to gorge.” The Queen looked at the cocooned Cadance and waved. “The entire centre of Equestria gets to be ours.” She glanced at the map. “And that town there, Summit – that’s a suburb around Mount Canter, you wouldn’t have heard of it. All my time in Canterlot and it only came up in very unfunny jokes by rich people. Check there are no forces sneaking in there.” “Your highness.” Damn, he should have spotted that. Maybe he’d burn Summit once they’d driven the invaders off, that’d show the dump. ***** Tired as she was, Billie wasn’t sure she could sleep in a room on the clouds. The magic keeping her walking around should last two more days, or so the unicorns claimed. It was still freakish. It was like the first time she’d gone to Canterlot, the subtle feeling that she didn’t belong. Waiting for her in the corridor was a bat-pony (thestral, she corrected herself) clutching paperwork. That was worrying – what did the military want with just her? “Hi, Minister. I tried to see you earlier, it’s about sewage.” He pointed a wing at a badge. “Cavehang, director-general of the Canterlot-and-Summit Sewage Works.” “The what? I thought all you thestrals worked in the forces.” “I thought all you goats were farmers,” he said coolly. Oh hells, I did sound like… well, like a pony. “I apologise, Mr Cavehang, it’s been a busy day. Can this wait until the morning?” “I just want to know – right, sorry, context. We process the sewage from Canterlot out through the mountain and Summit and we didn’t know what we were supposed to do. Are we meant to shut down the pipes or not? The changelings are all using the toilets but so are the ponies up there, so do we want to stink both out or—“ Something clicked in her mind. “Wait, the pipes?” “Yeah.” His voice had cooled again. “Sewage goes through pipes.” “How big are these pipes?” “Pretty big, otherwise we couldn’t fix blockages—“ “Right, I’m going to bed now and you, you are going to get me the maps and schematics of the entire system and get it back up to Cloudsdale as soon as possible, and you will wake me up as soon as you have, and I will wake up the Prime Minister and Prince Blueblood because if this means what I’m thinking it does—“ -- “The mutual defence clause – specifically, 3(3) of the Treaty – was an innovation of Celestia’s, which is believed to have come from a candid conversation with ‘the Good King’. The Griffon Kingdom put a great deal of stock in its military strength and while humiliation was necessary to prevent a second Great War, too much humiliation could do the same again. Hence, it was written and publicly declared that both nations would defend the other, without question, if they were attacked. The griffons were explicitly being called equals and told that Equestria wished to be friends, if the Kingdom followed the Treaty. Mutual defence pacts would become a key feature of every victory until the last war against the Taurus States… - Excerpt from Steel Hoof in a Velvet Boot: Equestrian Foreign Policy by Clever Cloggs Too long have we hid and pretended and schemed and using mewling subtlety – I say, why do that when we have the power to take? - Queen Chrysalis’ coronation speech to her hive