Disclaimer: I do not own anything related or mentioned in this draft, except for the characters I thought up myself and that goes for the entire story; chapter for chapter. I am also not making any money off of it.

Advance Wars: Mind Games

Sitting at her computer, Sonja rubbed her eyes. Having read practically all of her books well over five times each, she was on the internet trying to find some new material to study. That was a task all in itself. She had studied virtually every great commander history had to offer, and was just now starting to feel incredibly frustrated that there wasn't at least one more battle to study. Suddenly, for reasons that she couldn't understand, she found herself looking over the Black Hole war archives. She was looking through scores of battles, many of which she had personally taken part in, when suddenly, a topic perked her interest: Black Hole- battles of the civil war. Civil war? Sonja never recalled a Black Hole civil war. She wasn't totally surprised: after all, Black Hole wasn't even on the map until the Macro Land wars. Feeling that she may have found what she was looking for, she clicked on the link. She was soon met with various war clips, databanks, image files, and a complete list of the commanders on both sides of the war. She began sorting through the list of battles until she found one that was right up her alley. Two battleships were escorting a large group of landing forces. However, they were soon met with an entire sector fleet. Two battleships escorting ten landers stuffed to the gills with tanks, infantry, artillery, etc. battling it out against three battleships, five cruisers, and five submarines. As Sonja watched the battle unfold, she was left speechless. The battleships began to attack the enemy ships: a suicidal move. Sonja paused the video and placed herself in the commander's position. Does she order a retreat, or use the battleships to act as a decoy as the landers make a desperate escape? She chose the latter option and unpaused the video to see if this was the course of action that the commander would take. Much to her surprise, the commander did neither. The battleships assumed attack formation and charged into the fight as the landers stayed back and watched as the battle began…

(Flashback)

"Enemies transmitting!" the comm. officer exclaimed. "We need to either retreat, or try to make a run past them," the C.O. Admiral Henson said. "But sir, our chances of a sneak attack are slim and none!" Captain Grant said. "Should we consult with the advisor before proceeding?" The admiral curled his lip and made a sound of displeasure. Henson was never a fan of having some hot shot tactical advisor telling him, a seasoned commander of ten years experience, what to do, but the situation did look very grim. At the very least, if the high command was displeased with his decision, he could pin it on the advisor. "Go ahead Captain." The advisor was not a social man, but had an amazing reputation, as well as nothing but good reports from the senior officer staff. He had a somewhat imposing figure, complete with the Black Hole Advisory coat. The long, black coats were part of the advisory uniform, and made the advisors instantly distinguisable from the rest of the crew. The advisor stepped onto the command deck and with a quick sweep of his eyes, summed up the situation. "Captain, would you mind bringing my student here? I would not want her to miss this lesson." The captain left with a nod. "I must say, this is quite a situation you are in Admiral. I greatly anticipate the opportunity of getting to hear how you successfully managed to not only miss an entire sector fleet, but also how you plan to express to the war committee you deepest apologies for minimizing our chances of a surprise attack and throw Operation Killjoy into a tailspin," the advisor said with a cold, calculating, yet calm voice. "Very well, I shall try to make the most of the opportunity that has unceremoniously presented itself. " The admiral made a perplexed face. "Opportunity?" By this time, the advisor's protégé had made her way to the bridge, dressed in a black coat similar to her superior. She, like her teacher, assessed the situation, and proceeded to tell the admiral in a very mocking tone, "Ooh, you are so busted!" That sent the admiral over the edge, and his pride began to get the better of him. "What opportunity do you see here?! All I see is a catastrophe waiting to happen!" The advisor picked up on his desperate attempt at reasserting himself. This made the advisor laugh mentally. The admiral was trying to stare him down. This only made him look even more ridiculous as the admiral was not aware that behind the dark shades, the advisor wasn't even paying attention to his ranting. "We have an opportunity to not only land our forces, but to eliminate one of their entire sector fleets." The admiral stared at him in disbelief. "You are not really considering a confrontation with those ships are you?"

"I see no other alternative. If we turn to run, they will shoot us in the back. We have only one choice: break through their lines."

"If you want to get yourself killed, then be my guest. I, however, will not commit some kind of honorable suicide for king and country. If you think that your good enough to take on this force, then we shall just see. I bet you don't even know who we are fighting."

"Very well. I hereby assume command of the fleet. You may consider your objections noted. To answer your question, we are fighting the supreme commander of the rebel forces, Lord Sturm. I recognize his deployment techniques. Now in order to put your reservations at ease, I shall tell you a few secrets that you should know about naval warfare. As I went through college, and the advisory academy, I was taught to identify structural weaknesses in war machines," he explained.

He then turned to his young student. "Now then, it is time to see how much progress you have made by learning from me. Tell me, what do you notice about the battleships and cruisers?" The young girl studied the ships for a while, trying to find the right answer. When she felt that she had found what he was looking for, her face lit up and she said, "The hull on the ships are angled so that they deflect battleship shells downward." A great sense of satisfaction swept over her when her superior smiled. "Very perceptive. What do you suggest we do now?" He said challengingly. She thought about the new question. "We should adjust the angle of the cannons so that it alters the trajectory of the shell so that it punctures through the top deck of the ship as opposed to bouncing off the angled sides of the ship's hull."

"Excellent. Now I know that the ammunition magazines and weapons locker of the Harrison class battleship and the Hudson class cruiser is located on E-Deck, corridor 12, and room 78B. Where that would be located would be right about … here," he said pointing to a part of the ship's bow. "Approximately thirty meters behind the front cannons. Firing control, this is the acting commander, we will be providing coordinates for you to target. Fire on my mark. Comm. Officer, transmit this information to the The Shroud."

"What good will targeting the ammunition storage do?" the admiral asked

"The enemy out numbers us by a considerable margin. By firing on the ammunition storage, we can level the playing field by destroying a ship that could normally endure all but the most perstitent of barrages, with only one well placed shot.

"Con., firing control. The cannons are waiting for your command"

"Turret one, target the command ship, Turret two, target the ship off the starboard bow. Turrets three and four, give The Shroud some covering fire. Comm. Officer, transmit the target solutions to The Shroud and tell them to respond with targeting solutions of their own. This will prevent us from wasting ammunition attacking the same ships twice."

The student watched her teacher in disbelief. He took control of the situation with little difficulty. He seemed to have done this before. She held her breath as the thundering of cannon fire signaled that the battle against impossible odds began.