With each deck full of galloping, clamoring workhooves, the Lightning Bearer turned about, pivoted northeast, and bore down on the lone, unsuspecting freighter. The Xonan colors were soon blotted out by the Ledomaritan battleship’s massive hull.
Roarke watched all of this from where she clung to ship’s hull. She had crawled along to the vessel’s jutting bow, and from here she watched as the smaller aircraft drew closer at an alarming rate. Her eye-lenses scanned the quietly puttering vessel, then traveled back up towards the sky where the fog was the thickest. She studied how the mist collected most prominently in a patch of air due northeast of the Lightning Bearer, where the freighter had emerged just two minutes before. The metal mare’s brow furrowed in deep thought.
Up on the deck, Rainbow Dash panted. She pivoted about on her haunches, trying her best to make sense of the sudden movement as the battleship zeroed in on its target. Just a few feet to the afflicted pegasus’ side, Nightshade stood with the very book that was paralyzing her. Past the brooding mare, Prime Enforcer Fortis stood next to three fellow officers, levitating a pair of binoculars before his eyes.
“Keep the approach at sixty degrees high!” Fortis shouted. “With our luck, we’ll run them into the mountain without having to fire a shot! Just like the encounter at Gray Hills.”
One officer chuckled. Another shouted commands into a sound stone, and Rainbow could feel the mana thrusters of the huge ship thrusting so that the Lightning Bearer loomed just above its target.
“Wow, they don’t stand a chance!” Basso’s voice could be heard, filtering through the noisy shipwork.
“I know,” Zetta replied in a dull tone. “I’m rarely above deck when a battle happens. I didn’t realize it was this easy.”
Rainbow Dash blinked. She glanced from soldier to soldier, then at Straker’s figure.
The stallion stood still and quiet, his eyes calmly aimed at the horizon. While everypony scrambled around him, he remained eerily unmoving.
The mare’s lips pursed. Before she could dwell on the subject, however, the most intense wave of dizziness hit her. She almost squealed in pain, doubling over and sprawling out onto the deck. She hissed through waves of nausea, then gasped in shock when the sensation ended just as quickly as it began. She still felt weak, but it was as though a solid wave of stormy weather had passed. Her eyes felt sharper, and she could feel a fire behind them flickering boldly as she gazed towards the northeast.
Nightshade had witnessed all of this. With a trembling gait, she rushed over to Fortis’ side and murmured, “Prime Enforcer…”
“Load the forward cannon array!” the stallion was shouting. “Aim for the ship’s upper dirigible struts! Make every shot count!”
“Sir…” Nightshade leaned in further. “I believe something is amiss. Perhaps we should rethink our strategy--”
“Please, good Madame, not now.” Fortis waved her off. “I’m in the middle of vanquishing this blight from our skies.”
“The vessel doesn’t pose a single threat to us. Something isn’t right.”
“I would most certainly agree.” Fortis turned and briefly glared at the mare. “You are sticking your fair muzzle into military protocol. I’ve allowed you several luxuries so far, Madame, it would be most fitting if you showed gratitude by remembering your place--”
“Movement sighted!” a voice shouted towards the starboard side. “Off the starboard side!”
“Northeast! Forty-five degrees!”
Several officers gasped and stammered. Fortis spun--along with Nightshade--to squint at the foggy sky above the mountains.
Rainbow Dash turned, peering into the mist in time to see a near-indescribable event. Several rivulets of shadow danced through the air, more and more progressively outlining a spherical shape looming just above the Lightning Bearer. Just then, several loud shrieks pierced the heavens, like the ghosts of dying cats. The fog vented in several places, like a tea kettle cracking randomly along its ceramic surfaces. The shrieks doubled, tripled, then turned into a prolonged banshee siren as the sphere unraveled like living yarn. Writhing, squirming shapes flew out of a dense formation, fanning out like a murder of crows. The midday light glistened off of sharp fins, polished scales, and pale fangs.
At first, they looked like serpents. But the more the creatures spread apart and split up, they resembled giant floating manta-rays with extra-long tails twirling like the ends of living kites. Each abomination had six slitted eyes and two separate mouths with razor sharp teeth. They chirped with otherworldly resonance, twirling about like coordinated swimmers as they suddenly all dove at once, gliding like gray reapers towards the Lightning Bearer below.
It was only during their murderous attack that Rainbow Dash spotted colorful figures mounted on the backs of each of these monsters. She realized that ponies were riding them, ponies with brightly glowing horns that contrasted with the dark lines etched across their velvety coats like barbed wire sewn into the skin. As they spun about in the dim sunlight, alabaster slivers of metal glinted under each of their necks. They raised scimitars into the air, shouting in a tongue that ran shivers up the spine of every gawking workhoof across the battleship’s top deck.
“What in Spark’s name are those…?” a pony stammered.
“They’re riding beasts!” Zetta’s voice cracked. “Flying serpents and living monsters! Just like the Xonans in the report from Seclorum’s outpost!”
“Look!” Another pony shouted while pointing skyward. “Do you see?”
As the dozens upon dozens of serpents dove towards the Lightning Bearer, their spreading numbers revealed three massive blue shapes high above. A trio of huge Xonan battleships suddenly loomed, each bearing the same color as the helpless frigate below.
“An ambush…” Nightshade stammered.
Fortis gritted his teeth and shouted, “Turn about! Hard to starboard! Target the enemy vessels!”
“Sir, we can’t until we gain altitude!” a soldier shouted from below the platform. “They have us in their sights!”
“Then raise the ship and arm every cannon--”
“Sir! Bogeys incoming!”
The siren shrieks in the air magnified. The serpents dove low, sweeping the deck with their glistening jaws. Ponies scrambled left and right as the leathery bodies blurred overhead. Several unlucky stallions shrieked at the top of their lungs as the creatures’ sweeping jaws bit onto their legs and hoisted them clear off the deck of the Lightning-Bearer. Their mangled bodies were chewed up and spat onto the mountains below as the Xonans rode the serpents in a wide arc, coming about for a second attack.
And while they took their time to angle back, several percussions of thunder sounded off from above. Rainbow Dash jerked her eyesight up in time to spot multiple flashes of light. Mana-propelled missiles were sailing down at the Lightning Bearer as the vessel struggled to rise up and turn about.
“Incoming!” Basso shouted.
An officer besides Fortis’ flinching figure bellowed, “Brace for impact!”
Nightshade was already diving to the deck, covering the book with her body.
Rainbow Dash gripped onto a nearby wooden piece of railing.
As the whistling noise hit a fever pitch, Roarke found herself in the shadow of the diving missiles. She kicked off the hull of the Lightning Bearer with a grunt and skimmed its surface towards a relatively “safe” spot.
When missiles hit, the mountains below echoed with explosions and screams, through which the shrieking serpents effortlessly sliced, tripling in numbers.