//------------------------------// // VII - As the Islands Float // Story: Empty Horizons: Sea of Stars // by Insipidious //------------------------------// The Admiral knew it was night. She had just been on Sanctaphrax and had already regained an appreciation for the cycle of day and night. Looking up and out of the Algol’s observation deck, there was nothing but darkness. Last night she had seen the stars and had watched a machine rise to be with them. No beauty as they traveled through the ocean now. Just darkness. And Rook. Staring at her. Creepily.  “What do you want?” Rook pressed her ear to the glass and motioned for the Admiral to repeat herself.  The Admiral waved dismissively. “Doesn’t matter.” Pressing her hooves to the glass Rook opened her mouth and scraped the outside of the glass, making one of the most shrill noises the Admiral had ever heard.  “Don’t scratch her!” she shouted.  Rook pointed to a much larger and glaring scratch made by a deepfish three months ago when they’d been particularly unlucky. The Admiral’s only response was a huff and a return to staring at the inky blackness outside.  Slowly, Rook drifted back into the Admiral’s field of view.  “What?” Rook shrugged.  “You don’t know what. Great.” “She’s just missing her favorite stallion in the whole wide world!” Granite declared, trotting into the observation deck, rolling into a slide he probably thought was suave when, in reality, he looked like he was doing a slug impression.  Rook rolled her eyes, though she pressed her ear to the glass anyway. “See? She likes me! I’m what she needs to keep her boredom stave-” With a scowl of rage that came seemingly out of nowhere, Rook swam out of sight.  “Remind me to try hitting on her to get her to go away next time,” the Admiral deadpanned. “You’re no fun. Either of you.” Granite sagged against the back wall, looking out at the same dark murk as the Admiral. “I bet it was nice, seeing the sun for once.” “I’m partial to the stars myself, but it was freeing,” the Admiral admitted. “...When was the last time you went to the surface?” “Lost track at this point. A year?” He chuckled sadly. “It’s always ‘dive this’ or ‘dive that’ and then I don’t really need to go up anywhere. No action in Sanctaphrax, no action in Fellis…” He stretched his wings while he paused. “Maybe I should have gone up in Leviathan Wakes. Probably coulda got something at Jester’s. Ho humm.” “I can probably get you surfaced next place we stop at.” “Nah. I wanna get to lil’ Rook’s prize more than anything.” “Then when we return to Sanctaphrax, remind me to take you up. The Captain doesn’t need you to keep everypony in line like he needs Orange.” “The Captain keeping us in line? Hah. You’re funny. We all know Orange has us tied up in his web of cold hard logic. The moment he takes his hoof off the knot everything explodes.” “I ran this ship just fine before he came around, thank you very much.” “Oh yeah? Then why’d you need me?” The moment the words were out of his mouth he clamped his hooves over his face. “Th-that is to say, uh, well,” “Whatever you two were about to argue about, we’ve got a situation,” Sparkler said, poking her head into the observation deck. “And by ‘situation’ I mean ‘Baltimate’s finest’.” “For the love of…” The Admiral let out a sigh. “How far out are they?” “Far enough we can outrun them. Not far enough to avoid radio contact.” “Have they found us?” “Do you hear incoherent babbling on all the public radios? No? Then they haven’t found us y—” “HEEEEEEEL-LO my sweets!” One of the highest-pitched voices any of them knew screamed through the various radios. “Looky looky looky at the batty’s entourage, in our waters again!” “...Respond?” Sparkler asked. “Hell no, that’ll just give her reason to keep talking,” the Admiral muttered. “Aww, no hello? Nothing at all? Why are you so ru-u-ude?” An exaggerated sniff came from the other end. “And here I am spending my Gift to talk to you! I wouldn’t want any magic to go to waste, would you?” “Does she do this to everypony, or just us?” Granite asked. The Admiral sagged. “Everypony, but we’re the only ones she can identify easily.” “Why don’t you drop by Baltimare? It won’t be that much of a diversion on your… southbound course? My my, Admiral, what have you found? Swimming past the borders of Equestria? Let me check the maps…” “Can we shoot a torpedo at her? Please!?” Sparkler asked. “Pretty please?” “Tempting, but no,” the Admiral said.  The annoying rant continued. “...Yeah, nothing down there but Lynx Isle, and that’s a worthless hunk of nothing. Barely large enough to stand on. Planning on some more flying practice, little bat?” She paused, expecting a response.  The Admiral kept her expression as level as possible. “Well, you certainly seem determined to keep swimming into the abyss. Have fun down there, and do tell me all about it when you get back! Hailing Fog, out!”  After a few seconds of silence, Sparkler let out a groan. “I hate that radio-filly’s guts! Next time I see her I’m gonna wrap her little neck and snap i-” “Oh, and do tell Sparkler to stop all those filicide fantasies, can’t be healthy.” “SHE WANTS A PIECE O’ ‘E!” Sparkler shouted. “LEMME AT ‘ER! I’LL DRIVE THESE HAIRS RIGHT THROUGH ‘ER EYE-HOLES I SWEAR BY ME-” The Admiral let out a shriek right in Sparkler’s ear, stopping her short.  “You’re letting her get to you. That’s what she wants.” The Admiral trotted back to the bridge. “Let’s just try to forget her for now, hmm?” ~~~ The next day, Sparkler found something.  She didn’t know what it was, except that it was in the middle of the ocean and teeming with wyrds and kinds of minds she had never before encountered. She had no idea what to make of it.  They’d asked Rook if it was what they were looking for. Rook responded in the negative—their goal was on the seafloor quite a ways further south. She had no idea what this could be. She had taken it… well when the Admiral had decided to take a slight detour to investigate. Which was to say she had created three new scratches on the observation deck’s glass and growled at nothing for a while before deciding to do a mixture of sulking and pouting on the Algol’s hull.  Algol’s Shadow sped off at a brisk pace through the unchanging sea until it arrived. Turning on the Algol’s massive main spotlight, they solved Sparkler’s little mystery. They had found an island. One completely submerged and floating in the depths of the ocean. Upon realizing this, the Admiral glanced around at her crew, finding all of them to be wearing similar baffled expressions.  “Orange, let me pick that brain of yours,” the Captain grunted. “You know of every island we’ve discovered, right?” “Yes,” Orange confirmed.  “Any of them so much as touch the water?” “Not without artificial measures, such as Sanctaphrax’s, no.” “Right. So, I know we’re south of all maps at this point, but we are not the first to be down this far. I find it very unlikely that none of the ships that passed through here had some kind of scanning spell or something.”  “Implying those ships are all unlucky…” the Admiral frowned. “Or they never made it back to tell anypony.” “There are a ton of wyrd on the island,” Sparkler said, wrapping up another ping spell. “Hundreds, though they’re mostly coalesced in the center of the surface.” “Must be something there…” the Admiral muttered. “Permission to take Granite’s boys to find out?” Sparkler asked.  “Sure you want that, lass?” The Captain leaned forward in his chair. “Any one of those nasties could bite you in half, and then where would we be?” “A normal submarine?” Sparkler scoffed. “I’ll be fine. We’ll take a mini-sub and everything!”  The Admiral nodded. “Go ahead. Granite’s in charge, you supervise. Don’t let him charge into the open maws of any giant reptiles.” Sparkler giggled. “He is never going to live that down.” She jumped to the ladder and slid down to the lower deck.  The Admiral cleared her throat and pressed a button on her desk, leaning in to the radio pick up. “Granite, get two of your boys and Sparkler, you’re taking a mini-sub to the rock.” “Yes’m! Soon as Sparkler gets down here.” “HERE!” Sparkler called from the other end. “Let’s do this! Which one we taking?” “Hex,” Granite explained. “Been a while since she’s been out…” his voice trailed off as he left the lower radio station to enter the sub. The Admiral took the moment of quiet to lean back into her seat, letting out a sigh. “Wish you were going?” the Captain asked. “A little,” the Admiral admitted. “You’re still young. You should take some while you can.” The Admiral didn’t respond, instead focusing intently on the lights on the console in front of her. Hex had just been connected to one of the air tubes.  “Launching…” Granite said over the radio. “Four crew accounted for. Heading to the rock’s top.” “Surface,” Sparkler corrected. “Doesn’t matter. Going ‘up’, and there are four of us. Done and done.” “There’s actually five.” “Five? How in- oh.” Granite laughed. “Seems like Rook wants to come along!” “She could be useful,” the Admiral admitted. “Watch her.” “Oh I will,” Granite chuckled. “Anyway… Up up up…”  ‘Up up up’ continued for a few minutes. As it became obvious that the air tube wasn’t long enough to give the Hex full range of motion, the Aglol ascended slowly. Still relatively far from the sub and the island’s surface itself, but getting closer all the time.  “It’s a jungle up here,” Granite reported. “And I mean that literally. It looks like an actual jungle. Trees and everything. So far, nothing else of note. I—” his voice was overcome with static for a moment. “—ook looks happy.” “Connection issues,” Orange said.  “What was th—” Granite cut out.  “Connection issues! I repeat, connection issues!” “—come bac—” “Remain in the sub, stay near the edge,” the Admiral ordered. “I repeat, remain in sub. Stay near edge. Remain in sub. Stay near edge.” “—ube stuck on tre—k-k-k-k-k—’s wrong w—k-k-k-k-k—wh—k-k-k-k-k.  His voice didn’t return.  “Start winding it back,” the Admiral said.  “...Trying,” Orange said, frowning. “Something’s pulling on it with a lot more force than the Hex should be able to produce.” “They’re stuck in a tree! How could something be pulling them?” “The island could be moving,” the Captain offered. “Don’t be ridiculous.” The Captain pointed down the hall to the observation deck where, even from their distance, it was pretty easy to see the island’s rocky side moving up, past them. “That’s impossible,” Orange said, eyes narrowing slightly. “Islands don’t move.” “This one is!” the Admiral shouted, jumping out of her seat. “Captain, you have the Algol. Take us up as fast as you can.” She slammed a button on her console. “Crew! Prepare to go vertical! This is not a drill!” She removed her hoof. “I’m going to access port two. Be prepared to blow it on my signal.” Without waiting for a response, she slid down the ladder and jumped to one of the access ports. Before she arrived, already she could feel the floor tilting out from underneath her as the Algol pointed its tip upward. Granted, the propellors didn’t offer anywhere near as much buoyant force as the ballast itself, but using both at once ensured maximum speed.  With a wing, she latched around the door to the access port. She made sure to pop the door open first before even considering grabbing her dive suit. Carefully, she tossed the helmet into the door, the rest of her suit and a harpoon gun following shortly thereafter. When she threw herself in, she slammed the door shut behind herself and sealed it shut.  Speed. She jumped into her suit. Legs first. Don’t adjust the tail. Fold wings back. Roll to seal the back. Snap front. Helmet. In her job, she was one of the fastest. It still took her a solid minute to place the helmet on her head and seal it. “Report!” “No contact,” the Captain answered. “Island’s starting to move faster. We’re faster right now, though the engineers are panicking about overtaxing the engines.” Needed more ponies with me. No time now. “Blow the port. Don’t pressurize, blow.” “Aye, Admiral,” the Captain said. “Hold on.” The Admiral latched a rope to one of the access port’s walls. “I’ll try.” The manual hatch that led to the sea could not be opened in these pressurized conditions. However, in emergencies, there was a system in place to cause a purposeful breach around the circular exit. The Admiral heard a sharp hiss, followed by a pop and gallons of water rushing in with enough force that she was not only tossed to the hatch she’d just sealed moments before, she was also torn back out and tossed into the sea—only the rope keeping her attached to the Algol.  “I’m… out…” the Admiral managed, hoping that the pain in her wing didn’t mean it was broken. She let herself drift until the rope was taut, leaving her near the ‘stomach’ of the Algol, where the air hose was affixed.  “They’ll be surfacing soon,” the Captain reported. “We won’t be able to follow for much longer.” The Admiral let out a shrill hiss. Using her suit’s air jets, she leaped for the air tube, wrapping all her hooves around it as tight as she could.  “I’m on the tube. Sever it!” The Captain sputtered. “Excuse me?” “Sever it! We can’t drag the Algol above the surface!” “...I’ve given the order. But Admira—” “Do your best to find what Rook’s been looking for and give Silver something unique so he’ll give Meteor one of his eyes.” “Admiral—” “Captain, Orange, I have every intention of coming back, but we don’t have much time, so I’m covering my bases.” The Admiral felt the tube go slack. Looking down, she saw Algol’s Shadow receding into the depths as she was pulled higher by the tube, now connected only to the island.   “What are our orders?”  “Hang around here for… two days before continuing on. Loop back to Lynx Isle to get word to… Baltimare about a moving island. Then continue on Rook’s path, follow the seafloor.” The Admiral noticed the water was turning blue. They really were close to the surface, now. For all she knew the top of the isle had already breached.  “...Understood.” “With any luck, we won’t have to wait long.” “You’re being irrational,” Orange offered. “And that’s why I’m in charge and not you,” the Admiral chuckled. “I’m going to have to ditch the suit. Salvage it if you can. I won’t be able to talk to you after.” “Luna’s Speed, Admiral,” the Captain wished.  “Thanks.” Judging by the brightening of the water, she was probably safe to remove her helmet now, even though the pressure still wasn’t going to be pleasant. “See you soon!” Wrapping the hose tightly around her back leg, she placed her hooves to her helmet and took a deep breath.  The helmet popped off without too much difficulty. She tossed it to the side quickly—it would be best if she could get out of the suit before she breached. It would be heavy enough to cause problems in the open air, especially when dangling from a hose. She popped the chest lock first, allowing her to worm her front legs out. Tying her now free front hooves into the tube, she untied her back hoof so she could squirm out of the rest of the suit.  For a moment, she stood naked in the ocean save for a harpoon gun and the necklace that held her fang. The bright blue of the sea spread out before her framed by strands of her amber mane.  She breached, rising out of the water with only the air tube keeping her from falling. The sun had recently risen on a calm ocean. Behind and above her, the massive island soared higher and higher, dripping vast amounts of seawater onto the water below, essentially raining on the Admiral in the middle of a sunny afternoon.  Eventually, though, the dripping stopped. The motion of the island slowed.  The Admiral was hanging from a floating island by what amounted to a rope.  Looking at the fang around her neck, she sighed. Instead of waiting for somepony to pull her up, she started climbing. Her wings turned out to not be broken, so she used the extra limbs to their full extent, scrambling up the tube as fast as she could.  She’d save herself this time.