"I'm dead sorry you missed Cid. Again. We owe the captain and Lady George more'n you'd know, but there's more business come in sudden-like than we can deal wif, y'know?" The griffon was a substantial bird, not fat, precisely, but solid in the gut. Older, too. "Cid and the others, they think they know what went wrong with th' Duchess Cadance's first few trials. T'last flight, wern't 'ardly any beakin' problems 'tall. Now everybird wants one. On order."
"Shame, that," Purse Strings said, looking over at the beautiful cruiser, crawling with a swarm of griffons and ponies and lit up with the dazzling sparkle of power tools in operation. "I got the impression the bossfolk wanted to ship out on the Duchess or something like her."
"Oh, yeah, Captain Shield's concept drawings! Fascinating project. Nothing like what we've been working on, ov course. Bigger than what the powerplant can supply. Cid says maybe two plants in tandem? But us, we barely have the current plant driving the train without crossgraining. Two in tandem! A project, a project it'll be. So! We'll be retrofitting this 'ulk you're bringin' in?"
"The' Daddy Longlegs ain't a hulk! Nor a nag, neither. She's a good long hauler! Better than the lug they hired me off of, leastways..." Purse tailed off, not sure how to get it across. "This here is the beauty I told the bossfolk would do. It will do, Grov, won't it? She's a bit shaggy in the stays and the paint ain't the best, but Daddy's got good bones!"
"Well, we'll see. Your ship master's bringing 'er into slip #3 over by the new building. Come on, let's go."
The two passed out of sight of the kicked-over bee-hive which was the main production floor of the Tenpenny Collective Cooperative, picking over the details of the crash retrofitting project that Purse Strings' new employers had somehow talked these busy griffons into. It felt rushed and overlarge in its demands, but the machinist didn't seem cowed.
Purse Strings was a bit worried. Some of the refittings were pretty ambitious, especially the gig hangar conversions, which felt like half of a good idea. The schedule had it written out in red, in the captain's fussy, copperplate horn-script: Deadline, June 1st. Zero leeway for slippage. On every page. And there were so, so many pages. There were two remaining copies in Purse Strings' saddlebags; he had delivered two others to Grov and his assistant.
So much to do, so little time…
As they came out into the sun, Purse blinked twice, as the bright May sky was almost immediately eclipsed by a vast, dull yellow cloud floating overhead.
Right on time.
"What I don't get," Master Machinist Grov said, looking up at the troop carrier, "Is why a ship callin' 'erself th' Daddy Longlegs 'ad to be canary yaller. Ain't daddy longlegs brownish?"
They were grey in Hocklyn. "What can I say? The last captain liked her yellow. Maybe a bit too much, y'know? Meant we got the Daddy cheap. And she's already rigged for troop carrying! Almost no internal refitting at all!"
"Aside from all the yaller?"
"Ah, well. It'll take time to repaint, and stink up the holds for Celestia knows how long." Not to mention Purse had had enough repainting troopships to last a lifetime. "Paint fumes, you know? Maybe they'll put the new recruits to scrapin'. She's older than she could have been, there should be some better base colors under all of that canary."
"'Ow long you say this yaller-obsessed captain 'ad her?"
"Uh, I think since they put her on the Baltimare-Trottingham run? So, eight years? But she was purpose built as a troop hauler. She's only nine years old. Younger than my old billet…"
"Yeah, so she 'ad 'er since she was laid down, or close as can be, leastwise. You haint gonna find anyfing under there but more yaller."
Purse Strings felt his ears sag at the prospect. The damn griffon laughed at him, as the big yellow hauler settled down into the external docks that laid on the far side of the big loose-seamed building on the north side of the property.
Purse had the impression that the building had been retrofitted from some sort of mass-production fabric plant, but when they'd ducked through earlier, whatever equipment was in there had been ripped out, and replaced by a lot of block and tackle, and the north wall of the facility had been crudely cut out, so that most of a ship could fit inside where the elements couldn't get at the workers.
Purse found himself staring at the peculiar apparatus hung far overhead. Beyond it, the tiny figure of the dockmaster could be seen coaxing an even tinier ship-master at the wheel of the big ship, encouraging her to push the envelope into the spiders-web of rope and planks and assorted delicate-looking ephemera dangling far overhead off of gantries.
"I don't get what that all is about, though," Purse said to the master machinist. "Usually when they put a ship in for refitting, they deflate the envelope or even replace it."
"Pshaw! As if we could do that, and not add a week to the refit! Yon mare in a 'urry, yer boss, says no slippage, so we're not slippin'. And Cid & the Stingin' Needle says they want to test out the envelope enhancement appyratus, so's we're testin' it out. On you-all."
"It looks like a crib mobile!"
"Kinda, don't it? Trust me, my stallion, she'll be faster than anyfing else in the air when they're done wif the enhancement appyratus!"
"I hope not, we're supposed to be getting a bunch of hot-stuff flyers to base off of ol' Daddy."
"Yew know wot I mean, Strings! Fastest thing 'er size! Or even a little smaller'n 'er! Ships and birds, we're two different beasts, we are. The day I can build a ship can outrun a racin' pegasus, is the day I declare myself king of the Pennies, and build myself a big castle right on th' corner of Guillaume and Flotilla, fer all to see!
"So, let's look at these gun decks you wanna rip out for gig 'angars…"
Ping was hiding from the other batponies.
Well, technically he was withers deep in work, and getting things done. But he didn't need to be here, watching the new quartermaster quarrelling with the civilian ship master they'd hired. Purse Strings was technically a civilian, too, but he had the look of a lifer to him. Ping had seen enough of the service to know a pony who'd taken the bit and run with it. Purse Strings had the bit between his teeth, and he was bunching like he was about to run.
And that's the thing about ponies who took the bit. They ran towards things, not away. The new pony was tall - ish. And gangly. And kinda ugly, even by day-pony standards.
But Ping knew the look.
"Look, you nag, I don' wanna hear about it. You have your money, and you have your contract, and ifn you don't want to fulfil your bits-damned contract, you won't have your bits, you savvy? I know this business, I can find the bossfolk a new ship's master almost anywhere."
"But! But my gundeck!~"
"What is it with captains and ship's masters and gun decks? Ain't none of the civvy ships ever fire off those heavy pop-guns in a proper broadside, and we'll be keeping the chasers and the swivels like we talked about. The bossfolk need this space for the hangers, Tailwind."
"It ain't a real warship without a gundeck!"
"It weren't a real warship to begin with, ya daft twat. You were a troopship! You hauled ponies for the princess on a civvie contract! Tartarus, at least my ship had a damned gunner's mate, you didn't even have that! Just the blasted guns!"
"I liked polishing them!"
"You were supposed to be helming your damn ship! Who ever heard of a ship's master with a fetish for carronades?"
"So shiny…."
"Ugh, she's going to be hopeless. Tailwind! Go moon over the chasers, I gots to talk to my colt Pings here."
The pegasus ship's master wobbled off astern somewhere, as the shipyard griffons boiled around them like a tide of industry. The master machinist sighed as he saw the little comedy skit break up, and rejoined the conversation.
"Oi can get you top bits for the scrapped guns, Strings, Corporal Pings," the griffon said.
"It's either Ping, or Two Pings," Ping corrected him. "And ordnance will be coming to take the broadside. It's against regulation to release properly registered heavy weaponry into civilian care, let alone in a technical warzone like Trottingham."
"Oh, heh. I didn't think about that'un," the griffon said, looking rueful.
Like hay he hadn't.
"So, no Sergeant Gilda or the rest of the bossfolk today?" asked Purse Strings, looking around hopefully.
"No, just me and the ship," Ping said, straight-faced.
"I saw you with the bosses yesterday. Two Pings, right? Why just 'Ping'?"
"I prefer Ping, actually."
"I heard those other dragon-eyed ponies calling you th' other thing."
"Yes, well. It technically is my name. I just don't like it."
"Yeah? This is Equestria, you can call yourself anything you want. Just go down to the hall and re-register."
"If you haven't noticed, Mr. Strings, you and I live in different worlds. You live in Equestria. Even though we're in the Griffish Isles. You carry your world around you as if it's hidden in your saddlebags. You could be in a Wasteland bog, or a freezing slope somewhere north of the altiplano, and you'd still be neck deep in Equestria."
"Yeah? So? Ain't that true for you, too? Last time I checked, batponies is still ponies."
"What you don't understand, Mr. Strings, is that I am a pony in Her Majesty's military service. We serve the realm, we aren't part of it." Moon and stars, listen to me. I sound like the uncles. "We keep our names, and those names are what we wrote down on our enlistment papers."
"Except yours is Two Pings?"
"Yes," Ping said, failing to keep the ice out of his words.
"You seem confused, Two Pings," the civilian observed, a devilish look in his slightly off-kilter eyes.
"It's a confusing world, Mr. Strings, can we talk about the refit now?"
"Hey, I'm easy. So, I'm thinking 'expanding the gangways', and that 'gundeck to hangars' refit, you with me?"
"The project is already planned, Mr. Strings," Ping observed.
"Yeah, but between the specs and the ship is many a slip, y'know?"
Yes, Ping was very aware of that. But he'd seen the ship in his dreams. He knew exactly how it was going to come out.
I don't need to be here. Ping was suppressing his irritation, when the day pegasus who'd come along with the ship came stumbling back into the conversation three-hooved with a crude schematic shakily drawn out in an uncertain mouth-script.
"Please, sirs, just look at this. I can get you your hangars, without mutilating my gundecks. It'll even work ten times better! Your designs for these flying gun-gigs will be nasty, and cramped, and they'll get no airspeed to speak of out of the hangars the way you have 'em cramped out and up on the sides where the gun decks'd be torn out of the frame."
Ping glanced at the crude drawings of the mare's beloved ship, gundecks intact, and the fore hold hatches replaced by honeycomb-shaped patchwork, from which two little bee-like chariots were falling downwards. Bees, or hornets?
Ping's dream-memory of the finished airship wavered in his minds-eye, and he felt the quiver of change. What had she done? He looked closer at the ship master and her drawings.
Tailwind wasn't exactly a big mare, but she had some meat to her, and now that Ping looked past the day-pegasus flightiness, maybe more substance than he'd thought at first. He looked closer at her crude sketches, which had replaced the fore cargo hatches with segmented drop-doors, two on each side for the four planned gigs of the flying battery, and two more for the 'officers' gigs' that wouldn't have fit in the current plans for tearing out the gun decks.
Ping exchanged an astounded look with Purse Strings and the machinist, Grov. "How," asked the purser, "did nopony else see that? They just drop right out, like shit out of a chicken. That's…"
"Beautiful!" said the entranced Grov, looking at the gun-mad ship's mate with new eyes. "That's bloody brilliant. It eats up yer entire fore 'old 'atchframes, but then, you were plannin' on makin' that permanent livin' quarters anyhoo. And puttin' the gigs to th' fore gives you yer balance for the extra weight of th' retained guns an' gundeck!"
"The whole'll be an extra couple tons, won't it?" worried Purse Strings.
"Nah, those 'old 'atches are over-engineered to a fare thee well, 'eavy as 'ades, ta keep 'em from springin' free in flight. The 'atches we'd be replacin' would be 'eavier than this mechanism. Although I'm not sure if I got anyfing I can - nah, we can repurpose th' springs 'ere an 'ere, steal a couple more from the supplies we 'ave on 'oof, I knows a mare wot got a supply up on Eight Penny, can make that 'appen easy enough…"
They spent the rest of the afternoon tearing apart the ship master's crude drawings as Grov freehanded professional-looking schematics based on Ping's captain's meticulous plans and the new idea, Purse Strings arguing back and forth with the guild griffon over cost over-runs and 'the cost of bloody brilliant ideas'.
Ping forgot entirely about prophecies, and expectations, and the others. It was fun just watching a great idea come together.
"So," Purse Strings said afterwards, as they walked back to the office in the garrison. "That was a ball. It's always nice having a deep bag of bits to make things happen, and not have to cheat every pony I lay eyes on."
"Hmm," sang the little batpony in that two-tone way the thestrals had when they were in a good mood. "The captain will have kittens when she sees what we did to her perfect plans."
"She'll get over it when she sees the drawings for those new hangar doors. And be kicking herself she didn't think of it herself."
"In my experience, officers aren't particularly enamored of clever ideas that waste their time, that they didn't think of first."
"Don't be an ass, Ping," Purse said, smirking. He was almost certain he'd gotten Ping pegged. Well, not that he'd peg the little cutie. He wasn't actually into colts. Even cute little ones with their tails flaggin' and the widest eyes… Damn, I gotta get laid. Damn near anything is gettin' me goin' here.
Purse cleared his throat. "I think I got the measure of the new boss. She'll love the idea more than the hassle. And we'll make our deadlines, wait and see. Ponies work harder when they're being clever. This is clever."
"We'll have to all be on our hooves. Speaking of which, why are you following me, Mr. Strings?" The batpony was snarking at him, but hadn't taken wing yet to get away. "Don't you have places to be?" Was he actually flirting back?
"Colt, I got all the places to be, but why not pass the time with new friends?"
And that made the little pony's eyes widen in mild alarm.
Mebbe dial it back a tick.
"An-anyways, you know Captain Shield'll want her report in triplicate. Especially when we spring something like this on her."
"I am the captain's clerk. I can take care of that for you. I have my notes right here," Two Pings said, pointing at his head with a forehoof. "No need to clutter up the office with your presence, Mr. Strings,"
Hmm. Not actually trying to keep me with him, but isn't taking to his wings or hurrying back to the office. I wonder…
"Corporal Ping… are you trying to avoid somepony?"
"What? No! Of course not!"
"Then you just enjoy my company!" Purse Strings leered at the little cutie.
"Gah!" the bat pony grabbed his copy of the revised design documents, and shoved them into his own saddlebags. "Good day, Mr. Strings!"
And with that, Corporal Two Pings took to the air, leaving Purse to amble along by himself down the boulevard, the fizzle of new ideas and new possibilities bubbling in his head.
There was a mountain of requisitions in the left side of his panniers weighing him down, and three different appointments with suppliers, at least two of which he just remembered he was late for.
Damnit, I'd forget my own cock if it weren't stapled to my balls. Time to stop thinking with either of them!
Purse Strings ran off into the Trottish crowds, busier than he ever had hopes for, whistling a jaunty tune that might have sounded innocent if you didn't know the foul and obscene lyrics that usually accompanied it when sung aloud.