//------------------------------// // Strategy and Stratagem // Story: Of a German and American soldier in Equestria // by redspark //------------------------------// Chapter 7 Strategy and Stratagem Great metal doors now stood in front of princess Celestia and Louis. The princess of the sun looked at the german soldier sympathetically before opening the door with her magic, revealing a large, circular room with a large rectangular table. All around it stood five ponies, clearly in a disagreement. they didn't noticed the princess as she made her way towards them. Louis waited a little before following her inside. The german took some time as he walked to look around. The room seemed to be at the base of one of the smaller circle-shaped towers that were throughout the palace. The ceiling stood many stories high, with a large chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling,  lightened  up by hundreds of candles. He was surprised at how high it was and how ponies had managed to light the candles... then he remembered that they had magic. That made it far more simple and made him sigh at the simplicity of magic. He was not against it, only that it seemed to make things that would have been otherwise challenging and worth an effort into something simple and unaccounted for. He saw that the room was technically empty, apart from the center table, a couple of chairs on it (thought the ponies were too busy fighting to bother to sit down), some bookshelves clearly unused since there were not many books and they seemed dusty, and three large color-tinted glass on three side, the door side being the one without one. Celestia cleared her throat, getting everypony's attention. The bowed before her, some saying out loud "your highness,' and others simply nodding or whispering those same words. The princess nodded, keeping her natural smile all the while as she walked over to a large, golden seat at the head of the table. Louis nodded that there was a dark-blue one on the other side. Celestia looked at Louis and nodded him to step forward. The ponies followed Celestia's gaze, their faces showing their surprise and, soon after, fear at this unknown creature. One of them, a light blue earth pony stallion with a yellow mane and a golden helmet cutie mark, said "what is that!?" Louis felt slightly pressured by their stares, so he instinctively stopped. "That..." Celestia began "is one of our new military and technological advisors, so I suggest you treat him as such, general SeaStorm," she said, frustration clear on her voice. The pony, one of the generals apparently, seemed slightly taken back as he looked at Celestia in confusion. "That 'thing' can't be it!" said another one, a pegasus, this one with a red coat, silver mane and arrow cutie mark. Louis noticed that he had placed a strange tone while saying 'thing'. He felt his knuckles closing as anger began to build inside him. He had not been with those ponies more than a minute and he already hated them. Celestia stood up. "He is a HUMAN Silver Ink, and I won't take any more insults to him." Her voice was still the same as ever, but this time she allowed her anger to be slightly noticeable. She didn't really liked doing that, but it was marking her voice tone or using the Royal Canterlot Voice, and she preferred the first option, especially at his generals. Silver Ink looked down and nodded. "Sorry princess," he said, his eyes suddenly finding the floor to be much more interesting than the human. Seconds later, Celestia sat again. "Come forward, Louis," she said. The german soldier walked towards her. She nodded at a chair, clearly telling him to sit down or take place there. He nodded slowly and took position there, in between two of the three ponies he hadn't yet met. One was a unicorn stallion with a dark yellow color with orange mane and an opened book with a pen cutie mark. The other one was the only other mare in the room. She was a pegasus as well, like Silver Ink, with a light pink coat and dark yellow mane. He couldn't see her cutie mark as it was covered by a black cape she was wearing. Celestia looked around. "The session will begin as soon as our other advisor arrives," the princess said, clearly trying to ease the tension on the room. Louis wasn't sure if it worked, for all the ponies seemed to be either looking at him disapprovingly or, as Silver Ink was, interested in the arrayed marble tiles of the floor. Only one seemed to be looking at him not disapprovingly, but rather in a more serious way. The mare beside him lifted her hoof, clearly saluting him. "Hello, my name is FireStrike, but most call me 'Striker'." her voice was friendly as he shook her hoof. "Meine pleasure," the german said. Clearly, the mare had noticed his accent. "Are you from somewhere around Germaney?" she asked him. He looked at the mare surprised. FireStrike almost looked away at the intense stare of Louis. "Germany, you mean?" he asked, confused at her way of calling his mother country. "How do you know about it?" FireStrike opened her mouth to answer when the sound of the large doors opening stopped her. Everypony turned their attention back there, trying to see who was coming. Twilight and Davis entered the room beside one another. If Davis was intimidated by the looks of the five pony generals, he didn't show it. Louis felt a little ashamed he had not managed to hold his face as the American had. Maybe it was because he was obviously from a higher rank and was used to hiding his face? Although Louis doubted that, he still considered that, as much as he knew that was something irrelevant at the moment. Maybe he should think of those things later. Twilight took one of the two empty seats. "Sorry for taking long, we were very far-off on the castle and I'm sure you all know how difficult it is to move around this place." That earned a couple of smirks and chuckles from the ponies present. Davis sat beside her and Silver Ink. Clearly the pegasi general was uncomfortable, but Davis took no notice of it. "Alright my little ponies, this is Davis, military and technological advisor as well. As with Louis, I expect full respect and treatment as his position demands." Her words were kind but firm. Everypony nodded. "Perfect, now I declare this session open, “What news from the south, general FireStrike?" she asked, turning to the mare. The pink mare cleared her throat and looked at the table. Suddenly the table was enveloped in a pale-blue aura as a 3D map of Equestria and surrounding lands appeared. Both Davis and Louis looked startled and surprised. The ponies took notice. "What? Never seen a tactical strategy table before?" asked Silver Ink. Davis shook his head. "Uh, well... I guess it was to be expected from a pair of hairless ape..." He didn't finished as Celestia's magic closed his mouth and sent him stumbling backwards as he hadn't been seating. He looked angry, but calmed himself. "I'm sorry my princess, I..." "No, leave my sight until you've recapacitated your words deeply on your mind." It seemed that the pegasus was about to complain. "OUT." He quickly went out, closing the huge door behind him. All the gathered ponies and humans looked a little troubled at that but said nothing. The princess cleared her throat. "Sorry, go on." FireStrike nodded slowly. "Alright..." she moved her hoof above a dotted line the indicated Equestria's frontier with the Griffon kingdom. "The changelings have plenty of troops here, more than those we had thought they had. We estimate in between one thousandth and two thousandth strong. We have stationed there a force of one hundred royal guards, which, should the changelings attack, won't help and they will be crushed in no time." Celestia nodded. The mare continued. " Now, on the griffon capital we know now for certain that there are over twenty thousandth enemy troops. Griffonia has the same amount, as most of the griffin troops are scattered on forts along the eastern and northern parts of their kingdoms. The changelings have taken all the west and almost all the south. The center is only remaining free because of a fort that is right now heavily under siege and won't hold for more than a month." With that, the mare sat down. Louis looked at the princess who, clearly, was very troubled. "And what do you suggest?" Fire Strike shrugged. "I think it'd be wise to reinforce our frontier with the griffon kingdom, send all the spare royal guards..." she stopped as her gaze stopped on the small part of the border that was not facing the griffon kingdom, but rather another kingdom labeled as /southern kingdoms' that consisted of four small territories divided in dotted lines. All were slightly tainted red. "As for our frontier with the southern kingdoms... I suggest send at least a hundred to fortify out garrison there." Celestia shook her head. "But that would leave only a very small amount of guards to patrol Canterlot and the rest of Equestria. We would be left unprotected." She looked around at the generals that were assembled. "General Ace..." she said, turning to the only general Louis didn't knew his name. "How are the training for the army?" The unicorn looked down. "They are still very bad, princess. We need at least one year to have them trained properly for a war." The generals began to whisper around with each other. Celestia lifted her hoof. "How many ponies enlisted for the army?" Ace scratched his chin. "If I'm correct, this morning we had thirty thousand enlisted and in camp. Right now I estimate that a couple of thousand more joined since my last report." Alright... that doesn't sounds that bad. Louis thought. He considered that probably armies weren't that big after all on Equestria. "Excuse me princess..." Davis said, raising his hand slightly. "How many soldiers do we have in total?" Celestia turned to Fire Strike. The general then turned to her and shrugged. Celestia nodded. "We have a total of five thousand, all of them royal guards and the great minority night guards," he said. Davis nodded. "How many does the enemy has?" The generals turned to each other, clear signs of worry and frustrations in their faces. Fire Strike looked at Davis strait in the eye. "two hundred thousand, and more each passing day." Louis almost fell back from his chair as he heard that. What! Five thousand against that number was... nothing! They couldn't possibly do anything with that, not serious damage at them at least. He looked at Davis. He seemed exactly the same as the moment he had been told the number of soldiers on both sides: deep in thought. Celestia turned to general Ace. "What are the plans so far to secure the frontiers?" Ace looked at the map and he touched the side of the table. Immediately, three miniature banners appeared in the map, obviously indicating presence of troops. "We have our forces divided in three so far: one thousandth on the east of the frontier, other thousandth on the west. The center has a number of two thousandth, with the rest back here in Canterlot and other cities." His voice sounded professional, but Louis caught some doubt as he spoke. "We were planning to wait for the army to complete training with the first recruits. That will greatly increase our numbers to thirty thousand. We... discussed this and decided that we should take upon a defense. We were about to begin preparations for forts and other military encampments so that the enemy can't come into Equestria." Celestia seemed to consider that. "Sounds good, though I'm not the strategist here." She looked at Davis, who had stopped to look down when he heard the plan. "Any suggestions?" The american soldier stood up and leaned with both hands on the table. Immediately, the table flickered and he retrieved his hands, obviously not having expected that. He looked around and cleared his throat. "We can't wait for the enemy to come to us." Those were the first things that left his mouth, and only that was necessary to have an angry Ace standing up as well. "Not to wait?! Then what, jump to slaughter?! I'm not going to do that, not ever," he said angrily. Davis shook his head. "You don't understand, we can't let the enemy control the course of the war. We need to be the ones that move things, not them..." he stopped and reviewed the map. "They are surely expecting us to do that, and they'll have, though maybe not the advantage of an easy attack, the control of how things are going. We can't let the enemy move us, but we must move the enemy," the american officer said calmly. Louis was slightly surprised how he had answered the general, who by now was looking back at the mpa and obviously assessing the situation Davis had said. "Are you sure it would be wise? I mean... we are heavily outnumbered. We can't go in and help the griffons, even less fight against the changelings openly on their ground." Fire Strike said. Davis shook his head. "There are ways to achieve that." He turned to see everypony around the room. "Tell me, how well do we know the enemy?" That question hung in the air for seconds... then minutes... finally, Fire Strike shrugged. "Not well. We have yet to meet it on battle, and we don't know what there tactics are, but we know a couple of things, why?" Davis looked down and then at the mare. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat,” he quoted. “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” That made everypony's ears to stand up straight. Even Celestia seemed surprised. "Those... those are wise words," she said. Davis nodded. "They were told by one of the greatest minds in the strategy, if not the best, in my world. He made it very clear: You can't win a war without knowing what you're getting yourself into, nor without knowing what you have yourself." Ace was looking at his fellow generals as they took in what he had just said. "That supports our decision then," Ace finally said. 'We don't know our enemy, we can't fight them, even less with our strength. We don't have sufficient troops." Davis shook his head. "We can make the unexpected. I don't know our enemy, but I am damn sure they won't expect an Equestrian offensive." Apparently the word 'damn' wasn't commonly used, as the ponies seemed to get slightly tense when he said it. Davis, however, didn't minded. He used strong words sometimes, yes, but he wasn't scared of them at all, as many seemed to be. He waited for the ponies' reaction. Celestia stood up. "I believe we have extended this meeting by far longer than anticipated," she said, breaking the frozen silence. That eased the tension that seemed to have been hung by the word. How such a simple word seemed to cause that, Louis was not entirely sure. Surely these ponies knew swearing. Ace stood up first, followed by the rest of the generals. He bowed at princess Celestia and walked away without turning to look at the two humans. The rest followed suit, except for Fire Strike. She looked at Davis. "Wise words, though taken from somepony else." She walked away, looking back at Davis and making a playful smile. She turned beside the door and was gone seconds later. Louis and Davis stood up as well. "Wait," Celestia said. The two soldiers turned to her. "You seem to know a lot about how war is won, more than I thought you did." She walked to them. "Why?" Davis cleared his throat. "I studied at a military academy back in the States... that's how I sometimes call my country," he pointed out the last after seeing Celestia look in confusion. "Its name is West Point, and I was to become a general, but I refused." Celestia frowned. "Why did you refused?" Davis shrugged. "I just didn't liked to think about myself being in a command post while men were dying out there. I joined the marines and got a high rank, which I told them I didn't wanted to change, not even for a promotion." Louis was surprised. "So then you know much about warfare," the princess pointed out. Davis nodded. ''Perfect. You will be of great help." She smiled. "Now let's get something to eat, I'm starving..."