Tedious as usual, my walk up to the bridge went without a hiccup. Seeing as my shift was due to begin in a few short minutes, just before dusk, my routine desire for caffeine grew ever so gradually. It would have to wait for a bit longer until I can use the machine in the control room.
After the drama that went on in the captain's quarters, I didn't hesitate to spend the immediate time to catch some sleep after essentially being up for twenty-six hours straight, thus functioning on three hours of sleep will prove to be a challenge tonight, for sure. Having bore witness to Silver's moderately impressive but also terrifyingly powerful burst of magic, neither of us were allowed to relax anywhere while Rondache was taken to sickbay to be treated for the injuries sustained.
In all reality, the force of him being blasted through six bulkheads almost simultaneously should have killed him. Miraculously, they didn't, although that is a good thing as much as I hate to admit. I am also not about to say earth ponies have the advantage when facing physical trauma, yet evidently that is what aided him take the full brunt of slamming through two-inch thick steel plating that the bulkheads consisted of. We can be thankful Silver didn't go all out and forced him out the ship entirely, which would have flooded this deck in turn.
I hadn't much a clue of what to expect heading up to the bridge. Tacimo would not be present, that is for sure. Not anymore, that is. At least, I had not prepared to see his face walking through the door. Surely he cannot simply hand over his devices and call it quits; we are out here for another ten days whether or not the mission continues, and in spite of that there is still much to do, even if we are still dead in the water.
The walk up three flights of stairs was a short one, bringing me directly to the entryway at the top that led into the shadowed room. Only computer monitors and round radar screens illuminated the control room and, much to my surprise, only two ponies manned the bridge: Sea Watch and Vernon, and both remained at their usual stations, except Sea bounced back and forth between his map table and the forward windshield to scan the horizon.
They were both petty officers, compelling no proper reason for requesting permission to step into the room. I did knock on the door frame to get their attention, receiving a couple of silent glances and nods in return. While it struck me as odd to not have somepony of a higher rank on watch, I chose not to question it initially and aimed for the coffee maker.
Pouring in the pitch black beverage, mixing in a spoonful of sugar afterward and stirring slowly with a thin straw, my attention shifted over to the quartermaster. "No watch on duty?"
"We are the watch, Corporal," Sea Watch responded immediately, not once lifting his gaze from the table he hunched over and made markings on with a red-colored pencil. "Senior chief is absent, captain is absent, we're all we got other than the watch outside."
I sat at my station, savoring a refreshing swig of lukewarm coffee, placing the paper cup containing it on a little coaster a bit off to the side and out of the way of my keyboard and mouse. A quick refresh of the system showed no activity nearby apart from our fellow ships, having held their circular "shield" formation around us quite well. That is how I hoped—how we hoped—it would remain for the duration of our wait.
All was strangely quiet for the first half hour after the sun vanished below the horizon to our immediate eight o'clock. I impulsively looked around a few instances in that time, always expecting the captain or the senior chief to be there. The feeling of their absence unobtrusively bristled every follicle of my coat under my uniform, recognizing in such circumstances one or the other would never show up or assign somepony else to get the job done instead.
It occurred to me that Shadow might have possibly been spending time attempting to coerce Tacimo into retracting his affirmation. Being acquaintances and all, that would not surprise me. That isn't to say concern wasn't also present. Should something happen, we need the captain up here to throw out orders.
After a second flight in under a day, flown by the Airborne Early Warning crew of ten, the E-2C Hawkeye aircraft—a twin-engine prop equipped with an enormous radar disk attached above the fuselage—touched down on the flight deck picture perfectly, folded its wings, and began the process of deboarding.
Because the ship's communications between us and the plane itself were handled in the operations room, we wouldn't know what is going on until that information is relayed by phone from below deck. Judging by the nonchalant on the flight deck, however, it was safe to assume there was nothing out of order that we needed to be made aware of.
***
Local time, it was somewhere near four in the morning. Even in the middle of the ocean, time zones do exist. Thank goodness for that. Because it was my night shift, this counted as lunch. The overnight sailors buzzed like bees in the passageways and inside compartments.
A line of hungry ponies waiting to eat stretched out beyond the entryway of the mess deck and down the corridor opposite of the direction I came. It was mildly discouraging finding the place to be this busy, although my stomach could not wait much longer. It rumbled and snarled every few seconds, begging to be fed.
I filed into line at the very end—five compartment lengths away—and sighed. Who would have known the galley to get so busy this time of night? That in itself is practically unheard of. With the ship's alert level still elevated, it made only a little bit of sense that there were more sailors up and about than average.
My limbs trembled with weakness, low on energy as consequence of an empty tank. Three cups of coffee didn't help, either. They each combined maintained a healthy blood sugar level and sharp alertness, all at the expense of a churning, hungry belly. I craved something real to eat, whatever it may be. Feed me rotten tomatoes and mustard-caked asparagus for all I care.
Every so often I would peer around the barely-larger physique of the sailor in line ahead to count the ponies remaining to the door. Although we were advancing gradually, it felt as if no one was moving anywhere. I couldn't abandon the line now as there were a few more who joined up behind.
I had the option of seeking out the onboard convenience store and just purchasing the hell out of whatever snacks there were available. Not my ideal type of lunch, but if it fills me up... I'd take it!
About halfway to the door, a dizziness began to set in. My breath grew somewhat short, unnoticeably at first until it grew audible to where I found myself as the source and proceeded to lean against the bulkhead on my right, gently resting my head against the cold steel.
My sight became blurry after a minute or so. I saw the line had stopped entirely, and despite my strange posture, no one seemed to take notice, especially nopony behind me. They simply gazed forward, still as can be, and weren't even blinking. That or the state of mind caused by this surge of hunger and weakness prevented me from noticing, or I was hallucinating it all. I needed to eat something.
A deep, nasal sigh slipped out, blinking sickly and pressing a hoof to my now-aching barrel. Not often do I become peckish to the threshold of sickness, nor did I feel that way moments ago. In fact hunger had only developed a bit before I walked off the bridge some five minutes prior, so this was new. Perhaps I came down with something for the second time in over a month. Whatever the case, it hit like an oncoming train, this nauseousness. By seemingly the moment it worsened and my insides desperately yearned to cry out in agony to make at least somepony present aware of my situation.
Just as I believed it could not get any worse, I was poorly mistaken once more. My hooves gave out entirely, and I fell sideways to the floor. Upon impact, everything went pitch black. I could no longer feel my hooves, my wings, anything for that matter. Numbness spread all over, from head to tail and every place in between. To my immediate relief, not even the ache that plagued my stomach existed.
When I woke, it was a whole new landscape. Or shipscape, whatever you might want to call it. The passageway was dark; I'm talking black as night, no light whatsoever from anywhere except in a very short circle around me where I could at least make out myself and the floor. It took a minute or two to get back on my hooves, which strangely had the strength to prop me up. I could not have been out for long, though there was no way of ascertaining.
Upon closer inspection of the area around me, no sailors occupied the hall. None. It was the weirdest thing conceivable. My first thought was another power outage, maybe we were a step closer to regaining propulsion; maybe we were further.
But, as I took my first step since waking, I froze in place. Jerking my hoof up from the floor, my gaze studied a cold, thick, crimson fluid slicking beneath it. I shifted to the floor in front of me and lurched back with a sharp inhale of shock. Adjusting to what light was available—if any—I'd discovered there to be not one, but copious collections of paste-like ichor puddling like polka-dots where there were at one point sailors occupying the passageway in those precise spots.
Two steps back, my hind leg dipped briefly into another puddle before I yanked it up out of reflex. It sent a shiver running up my spine seeing the tendrils of congealing blood stretch between my hoof and the floor, sticking to it like a wad of chewed gum spat out on a city street. I scraped it and my forehoof along the untouched areas, only leaving streaks of crimson in that attempt.
While my focus set on removing the cold, sticky fluid from both hooves, a lukewarm breath swept down the back of my neck. My eyes went wide with immediate alarm, turning slowly to look over my other shoulder. A second breath stroked my cheek in that time, just before my gaze lifted and locked with a pair of purple irides, glowing in the dark, the silhouette of a dreadful, greyscale stallion stood in place off my immediate left.
My throat tightened and every ounce of blood in me ran cold, essentially frozen in place right in front of this horrifying figure. The look in those forbidding eyes told of sinister intent, scrutinizing my terrified form and calculating his next move. Then came the realization—I was the last one alive, or so it seemed. I muttered, audible between the two of us, "A-Arc? What are you doing here? You... y-you should be at home!"
His eyes blinked slowly, fixated solely on me. Next thing I could make out was a red-matted stream of dried blood originating from a neatly-sliced laceration an inch below his right eye; from a knife fight, more likely. Presumably when somepony fatefully attempted to bring him down and caught his cheek with the tip of the blade, judging by how shallow the gash appeared to be under what little light there was.
I granted myself a bit of calming, letting my muscles ease up. Beside him menacingly looming over, as if he had physically grown all over, he seemed to pose no definite threat. Not to me anyway, as far as I could tell.
Then, he thrust his hoof up out of the blue. It cuffed right into my shoulder and actually tossed me a short distance until I struck a beam separating bulkheads. The wind was torn from my lungs upon slamming my back against the hardened steel support, emitting a deep and pained grunt at the same time. Dazed for a split second, I fought my senses until they came rushing back, predominantly between my wings and an ache at the back of my head from striking it.
When I went to open my eyes, a strong pressure shoved into my collar bone and forced virtually my whole self into the bulkhead I rested against. A steep breath drew in, shifting concern up to the grey stallion who shadowed my form darker than the corridor's overall pitch itself. My breathing became quick and heavy at that moment, and my heart continuously pounded in my ears.
My gaze steadily fell to a glare in his other hoof. Against impossible light reflected the sharpened steel of a combat knife, twisting ever so slowly in the stallion's blood-splattered, tactically-gloved hoof. Its tip pointed elsewhere at first, but eventually settled on me; precisely around my throat. He wasn't about to slit it and leave me to bleed out. The way it sat in his hoof, he was bent on full-on stabbing.
His blade, in its entirety, penetrated flesh and plunged straight into my shoulder. Peculiarly enough, no blood spilled. Not from what I could make out, anyhow. The feeling of warm fluid running down the cloth of my blouse and dampening added with the darkness in the passageway made it impossible to confirm. The icy steel chilled my body far beyond the insertion point, and pain sprung from the wound as deep if not deeper than the knife went. My maw opened wide, but no scream emerged, as if it had caught in my throat.
When my breath became short and heavy, I looked right into this demon's unkempt purple irides. That is what I settled upon calling him, a demon. He could not be classified as a normal stallion anymore. The ones he mercilessly slaughtered would agree.
With a dying breath, my last words to Arc were, "If you are going to kill me... just do it."
"Corporal."
Gentle tears formed in my eyes, teeth grit. "Put me out of my misery. Please," I begged.
"Corporal!"
Arc's hoof drew back from the handle, leaving the blade jarred in my shoulder. His arm coiled back, holding for a mere moment, until all ultimately went black upon his hoof meeting my face.
"CORPORAL!"
At a hard tap on the shoulder, my head shot up from the desk surface, eyes dashing elsewhere in a panic. I was back on the bridge, at my station, with an angry Shadow looming over me.
"Corporal! Are you sleeping on the job?!" he snarled, honed in on me while I sat up.
My spine swiftly straightened and I placed my hooves on the desk in front of me, now completely alert. "M-me? N-no, Captain, of course not!"
"You better not be," he groused, continuing to his seat with a heavy step to his pace. "Now is no time for sleeping, nor any day of the week on duty. Do I make myself clear, Corporal?"
"Aye, Captain," I nodded comprehensively. The whole of my face grew hot in embarrassment. Had I dozed off at my station, especially after four cups of coffee? As long as what I dreamt of wasn't reality, I suppose I will take the brunt of Shadow this morning if there is any.
"Perfect. We'll need all hooves on deck at once," Shadow said, sitting down. "Received word straight from engineering, we are going dark again soon. Not completely, though, but we will be completely radar blind, so we shall rely strictly on the Gibbous for regional detection and our watch for visual contact should the Ajerstanian fleet drop by for a second round of pissing me off."
All of us could share his feelings there. Really, at this point it seemed as though the Ajerstanians were pulling their shit for their own amusement, likely relaying it all back to their capital for their prime minister to get a good chuckle at. Fact is, for anyone, it wasn't a laughing matter. It would have been a disaster if the submarine surfaced a moment too soon or too steep; one more reason on my list of reasons never to step hoof on a damn sub.
On the contrary, Equestria's subs are probably far more stealthy and safer than what Ajerstan has. The sanctions we have placed on them hamper their ability to build functional weapons of war, though not altogether. We only made it more difficult for Ajerstan in the arms race.
Although, what they as a country cannot accomplish in weaponry, they compensate for in tactics. Past conflicts between them and other nations among the Eastern Kingdoms prove they take war to the T. They want us to blast off a warning shot so they have reason to fire back upon us with full naval force, which was precisely what we hoped to avoid.
It wasn't long after where my monitors froze as the signal dropped, and the power flickered once or twice, but did not shut off completely, a sign the sailors below deck were taking leaps to getting us moving much to our consolation.
After a half an hour, our systems came back. At the same time, a call from the Gibbous came in through the VHF. "Eclipse, Gibbous. We are tracking a formation of six closing on our position, fifteen nautical miles due south-southwest of our current location. How are you holding up?"
Shadow picked up the receiver and responded. "Gibbous, Eclipse. We are making steady progress, should be up and running by the end of the day. Hooves crossed. Repeat, we—"
"Missile lock! Bogey incoming, we need countermeasures up now!"
Origin unknown in the chaos of the moment, the transmission came so abruptly that everypony jumped into action. We watched as one of the four cannons aboard the Aphelion turned rapidly and shot off a chaff vertically. Within seconds, a previously unnoticed missile racing a couple hundred feet above the water changed course and struck the chaff.
The explosion, being so close above us rattled every ship. The three of us instinctively ducked, watching the smoke disperse in the air. We could wipe off our foreheads knowing the Aphelion went unharmed, but it was not over. I looked at my screen, finding all monitors to be flashing with alarm. My gaze lifted to Shadow, who looked right back at me.
"Those motherfuckers were waiting, I knew it," grunted Shadow.
Before any of us knew it, we were all done for.
***
I lightly jolted, passively staring at the rack above from where I lay. A cramped space, no more than twenty inches vertically each for ponies to sleep in. My eyes darted about for a moment, head turning sideways to look across the compartment to an empty, made rack. A sigh of relief let off, realizing my surroundings then. It was just another dream, I reassured myself.
A hoof stretched to my forehead, running with care across the bandage. The pain was minuscule, and the area still bruised. By now it tinted a faint green against the night-blue of my coat and still very much discernible to whomever might glance my way.
While the cuts themselves caused by slamming my head so roughly into the wall had since closed up and healed, the bruising is due to remain for about a week longer. A nuisance for sure, but, let's face it, I've dealt worse than a head injury. Besides, the bottle of painkillers still had a couple of tablets left at the bottom out of the ten that once filled it. Speaking of which, it dawned on me. Why must pharmaceutical companies use such large containers and only put ten or eleven little pills in them, and then charge an arm and a leg for it? That just makes no sense to me.
Regardless, selling them at all aboard a navy ship was a blessing by whoever authorized it. That pony I will have to buy a cider for—next year, that is; when I turn 21.
I got up carefully and slipped out of my rack, onto my hooves. A negligible ache throbbed in my head as soon as I stood up straight, bringing a groan out of me as a result. Coffee should suffice, seeing as these painkillers I have been on don't typically treat any form of migraine, surprisingly.
I looked out the porthole from where I stood, and there I could make out overcast skies above a placid bluish-grey horizon. Better than last deployment, I'm certain of that. The first couple of steps I took were to a little wall locker where we kept our uniforms on hangers, separated neatly to inhibit confusion caused by morning lethargy, because everypony knows how little sleep we get on this ships.
As soon as I had my blouse on and buttoned up, I went out to grab a bite to eat before the start of my shift for the day.
It was a second relief walking on that bridge after breakfast and finding Shadow there, along with Sea Watch and Vernon, as well as two of the watch ponies occupying the helm and a secondary radar. Routinely, Shadow granted permission on the bridge and I went for my station.
"Good morning, Corporal," Shadow nodded my way, binoculars in-hoof. "Sleep well?"
I paused to excuse a gentle yawn, slowly blinking. "As good as four hours allows, Captain," was my reply. "I see we've got company again."
That brought a scorning grunt out of Shadow, who gawked out through his binoculars. "Fuckers found us despite our low profile. They dropped anchor about an hour ago and haven't done much since."
Well, maybe that dream wasn't entirely off. "Hear anything from them?"
"Not. A. Word," he said, scrutinizing the distant ships. "Frankly I would prefer not to hear his horrid voice again. But, I will be damned if they decide to check up on us any other way. Shouldn't raise my expectations, though, they could care less if we sank right on the spot."
I had managed to catch a rough glimpse of the nearby fleet out one of the window panes that encompassed the room on three sides. While not as far as the horizon's edge itself, they maintained a sizable and respectable gap between themselves and us, although that did little to mitigate the trepid anticipation circulating among us in that room.
Looking down at my primary radar monitor, the screen in center of the three I operated, what I took immediate note of was a stationary signature cluster, off near our eight o'clock port. I already needed to look up to confirm their presence, seeing how close the group of vessels were already.
Shadow delicately slapped his binoculars on the counter before him, mustering a weighted nasal exhale. "I feel obligated as your commanding officer to announce at utmost importance, as well as deepest regret, that Senior Chief Petty Officer Tacimo shall no longer join us on duty throughout the remainder of deployment."
I felt the gazes from four individual ponies shift up to the captain, two of which puzzled, the rest shocked. The silence that fell upon the bridge was moderately tense on account of Shadow's lowering head, hunched over and propped by his forehooves with heightened shoulders. His posture showed manifest dejection from withholding the news overnight, the burden of his unsuccessful attempts to persuade a friend against his sorrowful decision aching him to the core.
With ostensible reluctance, the greenish-grey stallion sustained a level tone in spite of his blatant concern on the matter. "As such, Lieutenant Lackey shall replace the former senior chief as officer of the deck effective this afternoon. In respect of Tacimo's requests, he wishes to leave his reasoning between him and I."
Once more, a period of quiet pervaded following the captain's conclusion, where he released his clutch on the plastic lip below the transponder. A discomforting scowl held strong as his expression, as noticed when he turned his head a bit and spaced out across the flight deck.
The stares of four different sailors fixed on Shadow from the start and failed to waver for minutes after. They dared not query the distressed superior and mutely shifted focus back to their respective duties. Arguably it may have been the preferable option to do so, considering the affairs extending beyond that subject in particular.
For some time, everypony worked without a word spoken. It was... oddly serene. It established a peace of mind for once. Perhaps the key to combating a tense situation really is tranquility.
Yet, like all good things, the calm undercurrent of the bridge had to reach an end. At that moment, Vernon quickly threw on his headset and began scribbling on a piece of paper. Nopony but myself really quite noticed him go to work, watching him rub the pencil along his temple in contemplation, before jotting as fast as his hooves could move.
My attention soon adjusted back to my monitors. After around a minute, it returned to the COMMO. He had finished writing, checking over what he noted. Vernon shook his head, as if in two types of disbelief. "Captain."
"Go ahead." Shadow responded, posting up near the communications officer's station.
"It... this doesn't make any sense." Vernon shot a look of bewilderment up at the superior, swiveling his chair to face him. "Captain, we are being ordered by Central Command to engage on the Ajerstanian fleet."
The stallion standing there simply blinked. "What?"
"It came in through morse code. I... am severely confused, sir. The message is patching through our command frequency," said Vernon, shuffling a small mess of papers in front of him.
"That is absurd. Central Command would not give such instructions under that method." Shadow asserted. "Not unless primary modes of communication are unavailable, that is."
It was awfully uncanny. Orders from the head of chain usually come through a phone designed for that particular purpose. Something was terribly erroneous here, I knew that much.
Vernon shrugged, puzzled as the rest of us. "I'm afraid I don't know, Captain."
Shadow softened his posture and moved to VHF, switching frequencies to address the Gibbous. "Gibbous, Eclipse. How are your comms holding up? We've got orders of engagement coming through morse code, can't confirm if straight from Central Command. Over."
"Eclipse, Gibbous. Was just about to call in to you. It is coming through our command channel, similar message. Any word from Canterlot?"
"Negative. Stand by," Shadow responded, hooking up the receiver. He redirected his attention to us. "We're going to wait and see if they make a move. Until then, we are elevating to alert level two," he decreed, picking up the intercom to announce this to the rest of the ship.
The tension rose gradually, more than ever preceding this very moment. Despite the fact that we could not yet tell for certain if the transmission was legitimate, we had a right to stay on edge as the minutes ticked by.
For once I managed to quell any inhibition from bubbling up all at one time. Sure, it was fairly unsettling, although it became my goal to make sure the stress doesn't break me at the worst possible moment. Like a gears on machine, every sailor on the Eclipse had their appropriate duties. I was one of those 2,500 moving, breathing components. One wrong move on my part would spell disaster.
To do just that, I replenished my coffee and watched the screens carefully, keeping tabs on the unlabeled signatures on radar. Of course, that submarine will still be an issue. Unless it breaks surface again, it is virtually blind to my detection systems.
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shadow dart over to the right side with his binoculars. With a mildly panicked tinge to his voice, he shouted into the radio, "What the hell are you doing? Disengage!"
Everypony looked out the same window, seeing the forward mounted gun of the Lacus, another one of our destroyers, beginning to rotate in the direction of the opposing fleet. By then, they began to move in the water once again. Along with the Lacus, the guns on the Gibbous and the Aphelion also showed signs of activity.
"Orders from Central Command are to stand by for orders to fire upon the Vulher. We are at war with Ajerstan."
A sense of grief and horror swept rapidly across every soul present, which only then strengthened the contemplative, pensive looks on our faces brought with this sudden shift from circumspect straight to full-on attack mode.
By instinct, Shadow snatched up his phone and called below deck within seconds of the thought hitting his mind. "Fire the scramblers, on the double!" he decreed hastily.
Sixty long seconds of tension followed his order before every mechanical and technical object on the bridge went dark. A whine, steadily increasing in pitch to a nearly unfathomable intensity reverberated off the antenna mast above us, compelling every pony but Shadow to peer up toward the ceiling. This noise later doubled from the Gibbous some six-hundred yards off our starboard, then tripled and quadrupled only moments after by the other destroyers and cruisers in our vicinity.
Like an energetic breeze, a wave of transparent distortion in the air pulsed out from the mast of the Eclipse, seconded by our fellow vessels. This dispersed as it moved further away at an almost supersonic pace, yet its aftermath withstood like a potent blanket of crippling electromagnetic matter had been draped over the surrounding expanse.
Through his binoculars, Shadow watched intently as the surge grazed the opposing fleet by whom we now call our enemies. What few electronic devices he could make out flickered out simultaneously, and sparks rained from numerous positions across the Vulher. The visible crew members exploded into disarray, scurrying to figure out what was now faulty with their ship mere minutes after the order to strike was given.
"What did that do, Captain?" solicited Sea Watch, right as screens began humming again, as well as what lights on the bridge brightened once more.
"The systems on the Ajerstanian ships is all outdated. We stand about twenty-five years ahead of their curve technology-wise, so we can hit them without inflicting permanent damage. Our mast is built with an electromagnetic drive that can temporarily disable everything they have. Weapons, targeting, but not propulsion. They can ram us if they are that hate-bent, but we won't sink. Completely. Besides, I can't be certain about their sub's operational status," Shadow answered, moving over to a phone and ringing up all of the ships in the fleet. "All ships, hold position. Do not engage. Repeat, do not engage!"
I turned down to my station monitors, finding them to be rebooting with a blank screen on all three. My hoof tapped along the table surface, impatiently standing by for at least sonar to come back online. Damn these slow ass computers...
Glancing up briefly, I noticed the enemy ships had covered ground—or water in this case—rather quickly. My heart pumped with adrenaline. This was the real deal now. Shadow, on the other hoof, snatched up his phone receiver and attempted to dial whom I could only assume to be the high ranks in Canterlot and figure out what the hell is going on. To his dismay, the line was rendered useless by the pulse. "Fuck!" he shouted, slamming it down.
Shadow watched from where he stood, a discernible look to his frame displayed the tension in his muscles. "Now, hold on a second. Why for the love of Celestia's glowing ass would they authorize engaging through morse code?" The question came off as more of a statement, mostly in doubt. It seemed illogical to all of us.
After a few more seconds, radar and sonar were up and running flawlessly again. I observed the movement take place on my primary screen, even as it flicked and glitched peculiarly. The Ajerstanian ships maintained formation for a while before they split up, beginning to loop around and spanning out in two different directions, circling around from either side of us.
No shots were exchanged for the first ten minutes, although I think it is safe to say a few of us expected one or two to pop off at any given moment. Surely the Ajerstanians deciphered by now that we were the ones to jam their hilariously inferior systems which, in turn, delays their ability to effectively fire their mounted cannons at one of us and be the ones to kick off the war. Holding fire didn't, at the time, seem to be the more preferable option if they now have viable reason to attack.
"Less than a nautical mile, Captain!" I announced, concerning the nearest vessel to our own. My screens were malfunctioning here and there, practically rendering them useless at this point. No matter what I would do, I was lucky to get maybe one or two seconds of accuracy on radar. "Sir, my systems are going haywire."
"Run troubleshoot procedures," he called. In the midst of the mayhem, Shadow proceeded to address the ship. "All hooves, battle stations. Await further instruction. Repeat, all personnel, go to your battle stations and await further instruction. We are at alert status one, threat condition two!"
Hearing his words resulted in my stomach beginning to churn in anticipation. In just a couple short minutes, jets on the flight deck were prepared preemptively should the captain give the go-ahead to launch an offensive. At such close proximity, the likelihood of success diminished greatly and continued to do so as long as the Vulher and her acquaintances were on the move.
This isn't good... I went in my mind. Alternating between my computer monitors and the scene outside, the deep red accent of my cores precisely tracked the leading destroyer on its approach. It made a hard left turn, narrowing the gap and coming within maybe twenty yards of the Gibbous. There were numbers of Ajerstanian sailors rushing out onto their ships' weather decks, all armed to the teeth, lining up along the edge and beginning to unload their bullets along the port hull.
Some of those orange-glowing cartridges zipped past the island, posing no particular threat to us inside but still causing quite the scare. Thus their recent tactic reinforced motive to defend ourselves, but Shadow persisted against it. "They're desperate! They're making close passes so they can get shots on our ships," he remarked, clenching his teeth in anger.
Within that very instance the majority of us present silently questioned the captain's choice. There was no rhyme or reason to sit back and let this happen, especially knowing the jamming signal will wear off eventually. Here I am restraining myself from running below deck to the armory and stocking up. First they will attack, then they will board and start taking numbers. It's too obvious of a strategy.
We watched helplessly as the glass on the Gibbous shattered pane by pane by a storm of bullets from a pack of twelve sailors in position on the Vulher's weather deck. Once the pass had completed, it veered left again to bring it full circle for a second pass. In our formation there was no possible way it could come up between the Gibbous and the Eclipse and not come in contact once, so they focused on it as a target for the time being.
In the calm, chaos erupted across the main fleet frequency. Commanding officers of their ships demanded orders left and right, some even going as far to threaten declaring mutiny if the situation fails to deescalate. At this rate, such seemed far fetched.
Just then, a deep voice came through the frequency to be heard by all, loud and clear. "This is the L.R.S. Gibbous, we are initiating strike against Volgrad. Ajerstan has made it clear that we are now at war."
It was soon after seconded by a similar voice. "This is the L.R.S Lacus, initiating launch sequence. Target set for the Ajerstanian capital."
A collective chill crept up every pony's spine simultaneously, and all of our breaths caught at once. Shadow swiftly picked up the phone and gave one more try, only to slam the receiver down in frustration and snatch it up again moments later. His eyes opened up noticeably as he seemingly acquired a connection and thus began speaking to a pony on the other end of the line.
"Launching in three... two... one."
"WAIT A MINUTE!"
It was too late. By the time those three words left Shadow's maw, not one, but three ballistic missiles blasted from the forward bays of either destroyer. The resulting launch blanketed the afts of both ships in a white fumes, a trail stretching up into the heavens in the rocket's wake. At that moment, a pin dropping could compare to the burst of a cannon in that room. Everypony watched in shock and awe as the four projectiles vanished above the grey blanket cast over the ocean, connecting the low-hanging bar with the water surface itself.
Static of a garbled voice incoherent to our ears filtered through the speakers, abruptly breaking the silence that overwhelmed the bridge. Shadow, still with the phone in his hoof held with one end to his ear and the other to his mouth, was staring with a hanging jaw. Even a stallion of his dignity could not shake the virtually unreal event unraveling right in front of him.
It would only take six minutes until the missiles reach Ajerstan's shores. Six minutes the residents there will have to take shelter, assuming they are not within a mile of ground zero. Depending on where at least one of them lands, let alone a trio, thousands if not millions will perish instantly.
Yet in the midst of everything I felt the need to question that. Without the captain's instructions to do so, they would not have launched. But they did, going against a strict command. I could tell in the discord of Shadow's emotional expressions, it left him fuming. To me, something did not seem right.
"Commander—P-Princess!" Shadow practically gasped out. His tone of surprise shifted dire in a moment's notice. "Your highness, we have launched a direct strike on Volgrad, ETA five minutes to detonation. Orders delivered by Central Command via morse code."
The female voice on the opposing end of the phone, while inaudible, was loud enough to project her rejoinder. Shadow's response in the form of an expression exceeded the limits of fear, unlike any I have seen from him. "Roger that, your highness."
Whirling straight to the communications officer, Shadow barked a desperate command. "Vernon, order the Gibbous and Lacus to destruct their missiles. No permission to strike has been granted, and instruction to revoke on behalf of Princess Celestia herself is granted."
Vernon nodded affirmatively, holding a hoof to his ear. He addressed through the microphone on his headset. "All ships, orders have been given by Princess Celestia. Orders to strike were a false alarm. Disengage missiles at once!"
"Copy that, Eclipse. Missile destruct in three... two... one!"
The brief moment of shared silence that fell as we all waited was utterly traumatizing, nervous that the safeguards implemented on the missiles would not do as they are intended to and continue east on a supersonic path for Ajerstan's capital.
Then, as if by miracle, three bright flashes of alternating yellows burst in the sky off near the horizon line and spanned out in a fiery shockwave, where the missiles had remotely self destructed in response to the quick-thinking actions of those to have flicked the launch confirmation switches, by which we could collectively breathe an enormous sigh of relief. Not just us, but those on the Ajerstanian ships, too. A nuclear strike carried out against a country we were never at war with had narrowly been averted in a span of just two minutes, and it was all right before my very eyes.
Shadow alleviated a heavy breath, slumping into a chair, as did Sea Watch off to the side. He took the VHF in his hoof and brought it closer while swapping channels, speaking into it.
"Ajerstanian fleet, S.A.F Vulher, cease fire imposed. Repeat, a cease fire is now in effect."