My Little Destroyermen: Walker on Water

by The Atlantean

Chapter 16

Using what fuel she had remaining in her bunkers, USS Mahan sailed alone. With an injured crew and broken hull, she limped into the harbor where Tjilatjap was supposed to be. Scarred and depleted further, she fled back out to sea and edged closer to the Indian Ocean. Eventually, she found shelter in a secluded bay. As her exhausted crew scouted the shoreline from afar, they spotted an unbelievable but welcome sight.

Resting on the beach, its floats filled with sand and electronics partially corroded by sea spray, was a fully loaded PBY flying boat. Mahan’s crew immediately filled its tanks and began repairs.

Once it could fly, they were going to find Walker. Her captain needed to know what happened to Tjilatjap. What happened to Captain Kaufman when he went ashore.

What happened to them.

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Matt, Twilight, Gray, Bradford, and Spanky trudged along the muddy path that had been carved through the Borno jungle to where Bradford had told the Mice to drill for oil. The two firemen were reluctant to lose their fireroom pallor, but had told Spanky that they were willing to drill if it meant filling Walker’s bunkers. Currently, the engineering officer was explaining the concept of oil drilling to the princess.

“So you just carve a big hole in the ground and it comes up?”

“Yes and no. We still have to pump it up. Once we do, we refine it to something Walker can use. That’s what the number three torpedo mount is being modified to do--refine crude oil into fuel.”

“Why can’t we just use the stuff that Nakja-Mur told us about, a bit farther up the coast? He said it bubbles from the ground.”

“We need more than that can supply us at a time. Pumping it from underground gets us more bang for our buck, and faster. As you can see, the main pipe is gonna come down from the drill site down to the refinery by the river, and then to our fueling pier once we build it. By comparison, we’d have to collect it in buckets and haul it back if we went up the coast.”

“Oh.” Her face became downcast.

Spanky patted her back. “It’s alright. I didn’t expect you to know. Ah, the rig!”

Isak Reuben snapped to attention and saluted, nudging Gilbert to do the same as they came closer. “Captain!”

Matt returned the salute. “Rig looks good.” He turned to Courtney. “Are you sure that there’ll be oil down there… here?”

“Of course, Captain! Back home, this entire archipelago was the perfect spot for oil reservoirs to form--so they did. Given that the general topography we’ve seen so far differs mainly in sea level, there should be no reason for oil not to form here. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Of course you did.”

Twilight’s arm grew goosebumps. She nervously rubbed them, her eyes darting around the drill site. Something was stalking them from behind the trees.

Isak saw her apprehension. “Don’t worry, Princess, there’s no threat. We haven’t seen one of the big meat-eaters in a few days. They know to keep away for now.” He looked down to hide the surprise he had over speaking to royalty without being spoken to first.

“Alright,” she said, accepting his explanation but still wearily scanning the trees. Her highly sensitive ears pricked to a rustle in the leaves. It became louder and had the faint sound of drooling carnivore. She whirled around and extended her hand, blasting a small fireball in the direction of the sound. It was a bush.

The bush erupted in magic flame accompanied by a terrifying roar of fear. Beyond the bush, trees crashed to the ground as a massive animal sprinted the hell out of dodge. Twilight’s sixth sense stopped freaking out, and she relaxed. The flame died without leaving so much as a burn mark. Around the group, Lemurians flinched with curious dread.

Naturally, Courtney rushed to the bush. He pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and began scribbling. “I really must carry a satchel of supplies,” he muttered to himself as he ran out of space to write.

“Mr. Bradford,” Matt called, “please stay inside the perimeter, if you will.”

“Of course, of course,” Courtney replied.

Matt turned to Twilight. “Did your magic tell you there was something?”

“No. I guess I’m still Equestrian at heart. Ponies are prey, aren’t they?”

“Indeed!” Courtney had returned from the bush. “Being a herbivore does that, I’m afraid. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Of course you did.”

Again, the captain’s attention moved, but to the Mice this time. “How is the drilling going, ah…?” He trailed off, not knowing exactly how he was going to refer to them face-to-face. He waved it and moved on.

“It’s as good as it’ll get without the proper equipment, sir. As you can see, we’re driving a brontosarry around the drill to turn its gears. It drives the bit down--which we have to sharpen every so often since it’s copper--and gives us a few more feet. Should reach Mr. Bradford’s oil in a day or so, weather permitting.” As Isak talked, Gilbert was busy driving the bit again, the sharpening complete.

“Excellent! Although I may tell you, the reservoir may be somewhat deeper than back home due to the changing sea level,” Courtney interjected.

“We’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

“Why don’t we just use a digging spell?” Twilight asked.

Gray’s mood internally dropped.

“What do you mean?” Matt’s tone was weary.

“A standard Equestrian digging spell. Miners use it all the time. I don’t see a reason not to now, especially since you’ve already built the pipe and refinery.” She gestured down the path, where Walker’s Swiss cheese of a torpedo mount had morphed into small refinery stacks. From the drill to the refinery, a large tube of giant bamboo trunks and leaky amber joints rested on the hill to transport oil. For now, it was empty.

“I mean, we could, and it’d save us a hell of a lot of time,” Spanky thought aloud. “I say we go for it, sir. The sooner we can refine that oil, the sooner we can fill our bunkers and search for Mahan.”

Matt’s eyes flickered to the other members of the group. Bradford was beyond excited, naturally. Gray’s neutral face didn’t betray his apprehensiveness. Spanky wasn’t as pumped as Courtney, but he was willing.

“Alright. I think most of us will head back to the ship. Give us five minutes before you start. Mr. Bradford, you can stay if you like. Just, Twilight--” his eyes turned dark-- “don’t get anyone killed.”

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Twilight could feel the magic flow through her veins as she reached down and took a handful of dirt. The ground itself pulsed with power. Good. The more conducive the channel, the more control she had, and all the better if the target material was an excellent conduit, too. More control meant less power was needed to do the same thing.

She snapped her fingers, and a massively tall chunk of rock floated out of the pit. It dripped with oil as the bottom hundred feet reached the surface. Bit by by bit, she let the pressure of the trapped oil push the rock higher, and her spell changed to cut the rock into manageable chunks. In the distance, she heard Walker’s alarm bell ring, but she paid it no heed. The final few feet of rock exploded into the sky in a fountain of black, sticky crude oil. Then she realized that her levitation spell was pulling the oil with the rock, and she let go. The fountain died, but not before everyone was covered in the tarry liquid.

The Lemurians scrambled to finish the drill and connect it to the pipe. In a few minutes, they took the brontosarry rig apart and began to replace it with the actual well and pump, which they rigged to the brontosarry again. Twilight helped with the heavy stuff, while the Mice directed construction. Courtney did his best to memorize the events so he could put them to paper later.

Down the pipe, the amber joins sprayed crude all over the ground. It was leaky as hell, but it worked, and the Lemurians down at the refinery lit the fires as they were instructed. Black, thick smoke billowed from the stacks for a few minutes before dying down to a steamy wisp.

Twilight brushed her clothes, pulling all of the oil off, and took flight to check on Walker. The GQ bell still rang in her mind. She cast a scrying spell to watch over the bay and found found several Grik warships. Walker was firing at some of them, but one was escaping. Without a second thought, she picked up a chunk of rock in her magic and threw it as hard as she could. It flew like a javelin and speared the Grik ship at a speed similar to Walker’s 4-inch-50 deck guns, sending splinters of stone in every direction. Even as its impact finished, a second and third slammed into the “Indiaman” at the waterline, puncturing the hull in dozens of places. The ship sunk in minutes.

As Twilight landed, she felt the magic in the ground reach out to her, rejuvenating her. She patted Courtney’s shoulder, materializing magical paper in her hand. The two walked down to the refinery, where a boat would be there to take them back to Baalkpan, and told him that her magic paper had all the data he would want to record for himself.

Author's Note:

I'm back from the dead! I have so many projects going on that I completely forgot (excuses, excuses...), so a very big thank-you to ScarletRhine for the wake-up call last Wednesday.

The FRC build season is over, so that's out of the way (as is Mardi Gras), but as I've probably mentioned before, world-building from scratch is harder than it sounds, especially when you're the only one who actually understands what's going on. The fact that it's a space opera based in an alternate history doesn't help. So I gave it some overdue love and forgot literally everything else.

Hopefully, I'm back on track with this story. Sorry about the wait.

Comments

[Yutah123]

Well, someone's getting a dose of power.

Let's just hope it doesn't get to her head.

[The Atlantean]

9492725

en.meming.world/images/en/1/17/Monkey_Puppet.jpg

[Yutah123]

9492948
...

Ominous?

[Seawolf]

Pretty good, ah it's actually right around here that my little omake involving Princess Twilight and a soul of a different sort happens.