//------------------------------// // 19. Rules of Engagement // Story: Millennia: Beginning // by Thunderblast //------------------------------// Sunrise came just a few hours after I woke up, but of course, there was no visible sunrise. Just gradual increase in light, thanks to the amount of clouds that were stationed above and around us for miles. Over the course of the morning and afternoon hours, intermediate and brief rain showers rolled overhead without signs of stopping. Each time seemed to gain in intensity as well, starting off with a light drizzle or a misty rain, then stopping, followed by actual rain showers and then another area of calm air, then finally a heavy downpour with stronger wind gusts than normal. And as much as I loved rainy or cloudy days, they made me drowsy. There was something about the rain that made me want to roll over and fall asleep no matter where I was. Thankfully, the bridge had a coffee machine between the stairwell down to the flight deck or lower levels and the restroom. Whenever it was emptied, everypony took turns to refill it for everypony's convenience. Up until about one that afternoon Manehattan time, I hadn't poured myself a cup of coffee until I felt the effects of waking up at half past four hitting me like an oncoming freight train. No matter what anypony said, coffee was a lifesaver to those working long shifts like I was starting today. The only downside was there was no actual creamer, just small packets of sugar and a few gallons of milk in the small refrigerator built into the counter the machine sat on. It was also where Shadow kept his lunch from what I found out. Never in my life did I expect to find myself drinking coffee with just two small packets of sugar and maybe a sixth of a cup of milk. It was extremely bland and I missed having actual coffee creamer to go along with it. But it was something to keep me awake, and quite possibly, alive as well for the remainder of deployment. Despite the awful coffee, I managed to keep awake once I the boost of energy from the caffeine kicked in and I was back to my usual alert self. Then, once my cup was empty, I went back for a refill. I had a shift to finish, not a nap to catch. Lunch came and went in the blink of an eye, and even then I still had a while before my shift is supposed to end. When it did end, it was raining. Again. For the next couple weeks, it was the same routine over and over again. *** Three weeks into deployment, the sky outside had magically cleared for the time being but storm clouds could be seen in the distance. By this time, we were halfway through our course after turning back towards home. It was much relief knowing in just a week, we all would be back home. I couldn't have been more happy myself. That Saturday evening, I was sitting at my station with my eyes very gradually looking back and fourth between the weather and ocean traffic radar screens. As expected, there were storms west of us moving in our direction. It was going to be a bumpy night, that was for sure. Another sleepless night it seemed. I sipped a cup of fresh, hot coffee that still had its bitter taste. After three full weeks of at least four cups a day, my taste buds had grown completely used to the awful taste, and to be honest—it wasn't really bitter and awful anymore. Still to this date, coffee is a lifesaver that I cherished with every drop. Shadow and the rest of the crew would agree it seemed, seeing how much they drank over the sixteen hours we all spent in the same room, staring at the same computer monitors. As time slowly passed, clouds did build back up overhead and the last air patrol was brought back in due to the deteriorating weather. From the bridge, watching the jets land and take off was an awe-inspiring sight. The Eclipse was literally a floating airport used by our own aircraft. The thought that somepony came up with the idea of mixing a naval vessel with an airport was preposterous in itself, but they made the idea a reality. And it had been for over a decade. I snapped out of my trance of thought when I heard the faint ping of something coming from one of my screens. There had been passing ships over the weeks we had been out that were within a 15 mile radius of us and they kept their distance, but this seemed...off. A small blip was picked up to our south—in reality, the northwest of our position on the globe. As a few minutes passed, it kept its course and was still approaching the Eclipse from behind. "Captain? I'm picking up a small vessel about fourteen clicks northwest of our position and closing in at a speed of about..." I stopped to check. "Thirty one knots." "Is it following us?" Shadow got up from his seat and walked over to my station to examine the radar. "It appears so, sir," I replied right as the radar updated. Whatever it was and whoever was driving it, they were after us. Shadow kept staring at the screen for a moment. "Let me see if we can contact it to warn it of our position." "Yes sir." He walked back up to his seat and stood beside it, picking up the radio and scanning a 15-mile radius around the Eclipse, which was as far as both radars went. "Unknown vessel, this is the L.R.S Eclipse, please state your identity and change course immediately or action will be taken," he spoke into the microphone. For a minute, nothing but static came back, and he repeated himself but in a more stern voice. More silence, until a foreign voice returned the call minutes later. "Eclipse, das sind unsere gewässer. Wenn sie es wagen zu kommen näher an unser land, werden wir handeln!" "What...?" I tilted my head in confusion. Shadow listened closer as the voice on the other end continued. "Wir werden maßnahmen ergreifen, Eclipse. Merk dir meine worte." "What are they saying, cap?" asked one of the sailors who stood beside him. At that point, we were all staring at Shadow. "It's one of the Griffon languages. They are threatening to take action if we do not stay out of their waters." "With all due respect, sir, we are not in anyone's waters. We're in the open ocean. Even in our furthest position from home, we still weren't halfway to their coastlines." Shadow sighed and sat down on his chair. "They are likely Griffonian pirates. They think the whole ocean belongs to them when it doesn't. For some reason, the Griffon Kingdom still has yet to handle the situation. We've already lost many shipping vessels to them." "You think they're pirates?" I looked down to my screen to see the blip on the radar moving away. "It's safe to assume so. As far as we know, they're the only ones to this day that still use the Gerffin language. Today they use what everybody calls Grench. The Kingdom changed their language about two centuries ago and today, even the princesses have trouble communicating this one fluently. Most do. It's a dead language basically." "How do you know it so well, sir?" Asked the navigation officer. "Training. Take note boys, if you ever look to be the next captain of this ship or another one, you're expected to learn world languages to communicate with other vessels if needed. For now, I suggest we forget about this for the rest of our journey. Not a word to the others. There's no need to cause a panic. For all we know, it was probably some mischievous fisherponies." "Yes, sir," we all replied and carried on. Needless to say, there was already a bit of a panic kicking in inside of me. Unless Shadow was right, and there was no need to worry about it. It was then where the rain began to pour down seemingly out of nowhere with the crackles of thunder and lightning all around us. Yep, a bumpy night ahead indeed. By the end of my shift and dinnertime, the storm was still raging and the Eclipse was bobbing up and down in the large waves that came with the heavy rain and howling winds and was making it somewhat harder to focus straight. About halfway through our meal, I felt seasickness trying to work its way back to me and I did my best to hold it back. One thing Anchorage had suggested was whenever I felt my stomach beginning to swell and ache, that closing your eyes and counting to 10 would drive it away, even if it was for a few minutes. Over the week I knew the tip, it was working better each time and gradually I was driving it all away. "So, anything new?" Ashfall asked the both of us with a mouthful of food. Anchorage rubbed his temples and then snapped his head to stare at the manner-less earth pony, hitting his hooves on the table and shaking it briefly. "For the love of Luna, could you nawt talk with your mouth open?!" Ash rolled his eyes and then swallowed the whole ball of chewed up mush down his throat. "I'm a Marine, I don't play by the rules of a sailor." "This is my ship you're on, buddy, a ship run by sailors," Anchorage poked his hoof at his own chest. "It would be much appreciated by me and our shipmates that you use manners!" With the light accent Anchorage had, it made their argument even funnier. "Soooo?" Ash leaned closer with a smirk crossing his muzzle. "Should I remind you that your branch is just a department of mine?" Anchorage leaned back a few inches. "So?!" "So, we must respect their rules. This is, after all, their ship that we are on," I jumped in and winked at Anchorage. He just blinked and stared at me as if he didn't get why I was winking to him. "Yeah, sure, whatever you say," Ash grinned at the both of us and resumed eating. "So anyways..." he once again spoke with food in his mouth. Anchorage then proceeded to slam his face right into the table and nearly into his half-empty tray. This only made me and Ash laugh, except Ash nearly choked on his food. Then, unexpectedly, everything slid towards the back of the ship and most of us were knocked off of our seats. Astoundingly, our trays remained on the tables. Well, most did. Others weren't as lucky. Once everyone was back up and everything shifted back into place, the chatter in the room picked up again. "Damn these storms..." Anchorage said flatly. "No kidding," I replied, adjusting the cover on my head. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a good storm once and a while, it's the waves I can't stand," Anchorage motioned his hoof, his focus shifting back down to his tray of food where he picked up his metal spork and kept eating. "Thank Luna we'll be home in a few days..." I said before taking the final swig of my water. And just like that, I was hit by a rush of weariness from my long day. "Alright, I'm out you guys. See you tomorrow," I stood up off of the table-long attached seat and took my empty tray and glass in my teeth and began walking back to the kitchen to drop them off. "See you," Anchorage nodded once, while Ash waved a hoof, motioning 'peace out' with it while still eating like the hungry stallion he somehow still was. Exhausted, I made my way back to our sleeping quarters where I hoped to go drop right down onto my bed and go right to sleep. Thankfully, Nightpath wasn't back from his shift just yet which meant, for once, I could go to sleep without dealing with his drama. And just as I hoped, I fell right down onto my bed and was out like a light. *** Despite the ship constantly shifting about in the grip of the raging storm outside, I slept throughout the night without stirring once. And admiringly when I did wake up the next morning, I found the storm to have let up some but rain still poured outside the small rounded hatch the room had for a window that was placed perfectly above the wooden desk. Another day of drowsiness it suggested. Subsequent to breakfast, I immediately went up to the bridge only to find the coffee maker was down for the time being. A supposed lightning strike on the bridge fried the few appliances on it and a couple of the unimportant computers and temporarily left one of the crew members without a reason to sit on the bridge until the system was fixed. Even on my end, I found my monitors somewhat off as well with the weather radar feeding information five minutes behind what it normally did. Thankfully, the traffic radar was up and working functionally. Prior to yesterday's brief incident with the threat from possible Griffonian pirates, watching the radar wasn't nearly as nerve-racking as it was today. Though, we were now further west than where we were when the threat was received, and hopefully us on the bridge wouldn't receive a similar message today. With the winds somewhat dying down, we finally gave the go-ahead to the flight deck to launch the first air patrol of the day. First one jet, then another. Eventually two more went up and that was usually the most to be on patrol at one time, covering different sectors of water around the Eclipse. And especially following yesterday's events, Shadow and the rest of us decided it was a better idea to cover as much area as possible and keep on the lookout for any suspicious activity—for all we know, that vessel could have been still following us but from beyond our radar distance. Surely those manning it couldn't have been that stupid to not know we had eyes in the sky as well. Each minute that ticked by perceived to move slower and I couldn't understand completely why. It was until I heard another ping noise that made me immediately snap my eyes over to the traffic radar monitor. I scanned over it, only to find nothing was registering on the screen. I then look up to see Shadow walking back with a coffee mug, and a moment later, began pouring himself a steaming cup of coffee. That was going to have to be fixed somehow so I wouldn't mistake the coffee machine for something appearing on radar. But then I was relieved that it wasn't something coming into view. As he poured his coffee, a new noise filled the room above the constant low hum of the engines. It was a fast ticking, mixed with faint beeps at every click. It caught all of our attention and we instantly turned to the source of the noise—the Morse code machine on the far right side of the bridge, on the same long desk that Shadow and one other sailor were seated. All of us, including him, stared at it as the lever moved on its own, letting off the noises. It was an incoming message of some sort. "We haven't had to use this machine for years..." Shadow said as he walked up to it. The machine paused for about a minute before continuing in a similar pattern as before. "It is only meant to be used in an emergency by our own fleet." "Then... what do you think it is?" asked the bluish-green earth pony that was always stationed beside him. "No idea, Sea Watch. Let the automatic translator do it's job since our living one is absent today." "That could take a few minutes to an hour, sir." "We have plenty of time. We're still a good six-hundred miles from home," he walked back to his seat and sat down, sipping from his coffee mug. "With all due respect, sir, it could be something important and you expect us to do nothing about it?" Sea asked. "Yes, I am. It would take too long to locate our own translator when the automatic one does its job just fine. Until then, I suggest we carry on and hope it is not a distress call." Yeah, let's hope. I said mentally and returned my focus to my radar monitors while waiting for the Morse-code translator to type up the message it picked up. As expected as it was, the computer finally did print a small piece of paper with the message on it and the navigation officer took it to read. Once his eyes met the piece of paper, his head cocked back slightly in confusion. "We are come for our vessel, warned be. Run, run, little ponies. What...?" He tilted his head. "Okay, this isn't humorous anymore. Whoever is sending these messages to us is either doing it just to throw us out of focus of our jobs, or it's a legitimate threat," Shadow said, setting his mug down and leaning down below the counter top and opening a small cabinet filled with many hoofbooks of instructions on different subjects. The one he pulled out was black, and the title read 'Rules of Engaging'. "It says right here, the first rule when threatened is to tighten up the ship, and increase air patrols. Second rule—keep close eyes on your radars," he then threw a glance towards me and I nodded once. "Third rule—if the threats continue and no action from whomever gave them is taken, the threat can be considered non-credible and us as a crew are advised to carry on. Fourth rule—if action is taken by whomever threatens our ship, I, the captain, must call for all hooves on deck and to man our battle stations for an attack. And the fifth rule—" Shadow then stopped and gulped. "—if we are boarded, the ship must go under complete lockdown and a special team aboard the ship will go after the attackers." He then closed the book and put it away. "When we are back within radio contact with port, we'll advise them of what is going on. But that is still at least two and a half days away, meaning we're all alone out here for the time being. That being said, if the threat is credible, we are closer to our own land than theirs. And we will take action if they do. We are much stronger than they are." "Hooyah, sir," Sea Watch smiled and turned back to his computer screens. "Now carry on, everybody." And so we did.