The Black Squirrel Brigade

Should you listen closely,

You might hear something,

That could change your life.

It was like any other generals meeting, just minus the assistants, lower ranking officers, and everything else. Though I guess that makes it the truest ‘generals meeting’ there is if it’s only generals at it.

Besides Captain Sparkle and the two SMILE Agents.

The two agents sat at the table, silently, as they listened to Sparkle give the report to the group. He went slowly, making sure every part of the report was said clearly and out loud, which was similar to how he had done it for August back in Crystalville, only slower now. The other generals had to hear everything as clear as possible. That was by order from General August herself.

Besides General August, the other Generals were Sun Marble, Caltrop Decay, and Tempest Wind. They all sat at the table, listening to the report Sparkle was giving.

While there were a few other generals that couldn’t make the meeting due to various reasons, the biggest reason was it being on short notice, every General here was present when Luna announced she had a brigade that could come help the 22nd. This brings up another important thing. All of the generals here also had some form of concern regarding that decision. They had all been selected by August to attend the meeting if possible.

Sun Marble came because she was the general of the 22nd, along with her also having concerns regarding the Black Stripes after they left. Caltrop Decay had concerns regarding Luna being secretive about the brigade. Tempest Wind also had concerns regarding the secrecy, which she pointed out as being odd from Luna’s normal behavior. Tempest had spent most of her time during Luna’s reforms as one of her advisors.

August's concerns had only grown bigger once Sun Marble requested for the investigation. It was that request that prompted August to be the one who invited the other generals together for the meeting prior to Sparkle arriving.

While the two agents had the report just as much memorized as Sparkle did and had no reason to listen, they couldn’t slack while sitting there with Generals of the military, so they at least sat there with proper form, ready for anything that might happen, which would just be questions.

“-but with conclusion regarding the 22nd’s quartermaster, Captain Anker, there isn’t any evidence that points to her complaints or request for equipment for the arrival of the Black Stripes as suspicious. Because of this, we see no reason for an investigation into her for connection to the Brigade, as they were simply fulfilling their duty.”

Sparkle caught his breath for a moment before moving onto the final part of the report, which simply concluded the entire thing. Once Sparkle did that, he lowered the report down and placed it on the table so the generals could take a look at it if they so desired.

At this point, August let Sparkle sit, who promptly did so as the other generals looked at the report and began thinking about what it all meant.

“So, nothing,” Caltrop was the first to speak up after the report. She let out a sigh and went for a cigar, lighting it up as she didn’t have to entirely focus solely on Sparkle now. Caltrop took a single suck in and breathed it out before reaching for the report to flip through it.

Sun Marble slammed her hoof onto the table so everypony looked at her, “Why don’t we just ask Luna herself?”

“Just straight to the point?” August asked.

“Well, nopony pushed to ask at that meeting with Luna, but we can’t be having some secret brigade of hers going around burning our own bases down. If they’re attacking our own base, we have to put a stop to that instantly,” Sun Marble said.

“What about Chicoltgo? They were still helpful with taking the city from that report,” Tempest said, pointing at the report Caltrop had.

“I think there’s a connection. The number of complaints I received, and continued to receive after requesting for the investigation was high. It was nonstop,” Sun Marble said, “Those, paired with everything else the captain learned about, makes it look like they did everything. Here’s the thing we need to know, why did Luna keep this all away from us at this point. She never should have from the beginning either, but now that she’s revealed this brigade, what point does she have any more to keep it a secret.”

“What does she have to gain from having our own intelligence burned? It wasn’t just the investigation that was lost, but other intel. I don’t know what was lost, but any intelligence lost in sabotage like that is entirely deliberate. Unless security was slacking, there shouldn’t be infiltrations like that.” Caltrop said. She just finished giving the report a quick glance and shoving it to the center of the table for anypony else to take.

“It was right there in the report,” Sun Marble pointed at the report, “The red eyes, the journal, the ghost. That all pointed to it being an enemy of the Changelings. I don’t think Changelings are known for having red eyes. Just as the Captain said, all of this happened after the Black Stripes showed up. So, following the timeline of the red eyes and ghosts happening the same night the 22nd was alerted while in the trenches, what direction do the Black Stripes then leave? West to Whinnyapolis. The captain then comes in to investigate and a few days later, and when he’s west of Chicoltgo at Crystalville, he is ‘attacked’ by his own set of red eyes. You have to follow the timeline. Those Black Stripes have to be the ones behind it. They just weren’t all seen.”

“I agree with Sun on this, we should just ask Luna. She will tend to keep things to herself unless you ask about it. It was one of the few negative things about her during the reforms,” Tempest said.

“What if it wasn’t Luna or the Black Stripes?” August asked.

“Then she tells us,” Tempest said, “She’s not going to lie about it if we confront her. It wasn’t exactly a priority to talk about when she originally brought it up.”

“And if she does lie?” Sun Marble asked.

“I don’t see why she would lie. Luna, or any of the princesses, have no reason to lie like that,” Tempest said.

While August wanted to say something regarding the ‘princess’ comment, she kept it to herself. Obviously, Tempest wasn’t one of the selected generals to know about it, or the others it seemed.

“In the event that Luna does lie, or not tell us the full truth, then what? Are we supposed to just accept it? The report didn’t exactly get us much in terms of closure for this mystery,” Caltrop said.

“We will continue the investigation then. Do you think Luna will only bring that brigade up for a single assault? She will have them appear again, and I’m sure more incidents like these ones-” August pointed at the report, “-will appear again, but we should keep investigation a secret. The one we’ve already had done, along with anything else we need done. We should also push the investigation into the fire sabotage to further figure out what caused it and who caused it. That, and we should wait for the brigade to make an appearance again and then investigate them again. So, I believe that for now, we should keep this quiet from Luna until further notice.”

“Confronting Luna would get us answers sooner, which could help push the investigation into the sabotage and figuring out who did it. If it turns out it wasn’t the Changelings or Luna, then we need to start looking into other countries that might have something to gain for meddling with us,” Tempest said.

“So, if we have further evidence that it was Luna who burned down an intelligence building, what does that mean? As I had said, what do we gain from Luna destroying it? Once there’s evidence that Luna is going against us, that would plummet the entire country- Continent into Chaos. That’s only something Ni–” Caltrop was then cut off.

“Luna is not Nightmare Moon! There has been no evidence of such a thing. All Chiropterra cells have been fully dissolved, and all officers are screened for connection to Lunarists.

Besides small, insignificant circles of Nightmare followers that are Equestrian based, there is nothing currently pushing her in that direction,” Tempest had been quick and firm with saying all of that, “So don’t accuse Luna of doing something Nightmare Moon would. Luna has full loyalty to the country and anycreature that supports harmony and friendship.”

“That does not mean we should not prepare for a scenario where Luna abandons all of that, or become Nightmare Moon again. Since the beginning of the war- No, the first Changeling invasion of Canterlot, there has been a massive change in how everyone views the world. I would not put it against anycreature if something of this scale changed them in some way. We have already seen it throughout the world and within our own ranks. Ponies won’t be the same after the war, who says Luna won’t either?” Caltrop said.

Before the two generals started bickering between one another more than they were, August spoke up again, “And nothing says we can’t monitor the situation. Investigate what we can and act on what intel we learn. I don’t see Luna becoming our enemy, but we still need an answer of some form. That’s why Captain Sparkle is still present,” August motioned over at Sparkle, who had been quietly listening to everything, along with the SMILE agents.

Uh-oh, Sparkle though. Being at the center of attention of this many generals wasn’t something most officers, or enlisted, probably wanted to face.

“I want him to lead the investigation into the Black Stripes. He will be under my authority and will only report to me, but I will in turn bring every report up to all of you, and anything regarding the Black Stripes we need done will be something we- Well I- will tell him. The investigation for the current information was loosely kept small and flexible with what they could do, but because bringing attention to themselves and the investigation from the Black Stripes and Luna herself isn’t something we want, they would operate with stricter requirements. One thing we don’t want ourselves, is Luna finding out we’re probing into her and then making her worry about what we’re up to. For how much we want her to be innocent, we don’t want to make it an issue that makes our structure seem weak. That will drop morale across the fields and among the other officers. We can’t have the entire command structure not trusting one another. We won’t survive another year if we resort to how we were at the beginning of the war.”

“We have to have something about asking Luna, even if it’s just through simple conversation,” Tempest said.

“I can see why we shouldn’t ask Luna, but at least not aggressively. It should be- Natural. We can also get information from her if we wait for her to bring the Brigade out again and ask questions then. One time, maybe it’s something we didn’t know about, but a second time? Other generals will also ask questions eventually,” Sun Marble added in.

“Ok, so here’s my question; What if they never appear again? What then?” Tempest asked.

“Then the Captain here wastes his time searching for a ghost that doesn’t exist until finally, the war ends and all knowledge regarding the existence of them is lost to the piles of papers this war produces, until finally, they fade away from even the localized legends that existed of them,” August answered.

“So, I need to know, if you go through with having this investigation happen no matter what, what’s the name of it going to be?” Tempest asked.

There was a moment of silence as August thought it over, “Operation Black Squirrel,” There was then another bit of silence from August as she looked at the other generals, “Now, we all seem to be on the same page of wanting to do something, but if we want to continue discussing it, is anyone against such a plan? Regardless of what we do, we will be doing something. Whether it accomplishes anything or not is something we’ll find out.”

When none of the other generals disagreed with what August said, they all continued with the discussion.

The discussion didn’t last for long though, as each general still had more important matters to deal with.

Sparkle sat through the entire thing, listening to the generals speak. He was allowed to stay for the entire thing after his report on August’s orders, since he was the one August had planned to lead the investigation personally.

At the end of everything though, after Caltrop and Tempest left, Sun Marble was present for Sparkle’s promotion to Major, which was directly done by August. The two SMILE agents were also present for it, though that’s because they were also a part of the whole operation at this point. August would just have to do some more paperwork regarding their assignment, along with all the paperwork that would be required for Major Sparkle and his new position.

Once August finished with all the paperwork that day, it was official;

Operation Black Squirrel began.