//------------------------------// // The Great Chase // Story: On a Sea of Glass.... And Ponies // by JustAnotherHistoryBuff //------------------------------// April 17th, 1912 50 miles east of Manehattan The great chase has just begun. The Equestrian Flotilla was now chasing it's prize, the Titanic. By now, it was clear that the Titanic spotted the Equestrians, a sudden change of speed makes things all too obvious. The fleets cruisers and destroyers by now are being pushed to their limit. The Baltimare had capped off at nearly 27 knots and was beginning to be left behind before a few unicorns cast a spell which allow the propellers to spin faster in the water. By now the fleet was moving at a combined speed of 30 knots, slowly closing in on their target. *** *** *** Smith and Lightoller stood at the Titanic's elevated stern helm, eyes peering through the borrowed lookout's binoculars. Behind them, a fleet of six warships we upon the horizon directly aft of the ship. "Lightoller, what do you recon those ships are, American?" Smith said. Peering through the binoculars Smith handed to him, Lightoller made his reply. "From what I can see Sir, I can make out what looks to be 2 St Louis Class cruisers. The destroyers, I cannot tell. They are still far out..." "They won't be for long. Lightoller, I need you to get Mr Andrews and whoever else he needs to speed this ship up. I know that what I am saying sounds rash, but at this point, it may be our only hope." "I will do that right away Captain." Gazing back at the ships, Smith could only hope the Titanic could steam faster. *** *** *** The wireless room was a mess. Messages coming from the unknown ships chasing them kept coming through, demanding that the Titanic stop and prepare to be boarded. Each passing second, the signals from the unknown ships grew stronger as the ships grew closer. Suddenly, without warning, Chief Officer Wilde barged into the Marconi room in a near frenzy and began to speak to the overworked telegraph operators. "Alright gents, those messages still coming through?" "Aye Sir, they won't stop bloody coming. Its like those other operators are out to get our heads Sir." Phillips responded. He was still very annoyed by all the messages. "Well, Captain wants us to send them a response." "A response Sir?" "You heard me right Phillips, a response." "Well... what do I give them." "Tell them that we will not stop until we have reached our port of destination. If you wish to add to that, you may. Just make sure you don't antagonize them." "Alright Sir." With that, Bride was already writing out the message for Phillips to send when Wilde walked out. *** *** *** Manehattan Port was a mess. News came in from the navy that a large unidentified ship only know as the "Titanic" was steaming towards Manehattan with intent to dock. The harbormaster, Rusty Chain, was in his own little dilemma. From the constant messages coming from the fleet and now the questioning from the Manehattan police, his nerve was beginning to run very thin. Suddenly, as if it was supposed to make him burst in anger, his office door flew open with his secretary Golden Dawn rushing in with photos in her hooves. "Sorry to interrupt gentlecolts but these just came in from the Baltimare." she said waving the pictures. "Put them on the table so we can all see it." He said as he cooled his nerve. Golden Dawn placed the pictures on the desk and Rusty and the officers leaned in to look closely at what was on them. Turning to his secretary in shock, he grimly asked, "Golden dear.... what the bloody buck is this right before my eyes?" Shaken by her employer's use of language and near temper flare up, Golden Dawn shakily uttered the words, "S-ss.... Sir... it just c-came from th-th... the fleet Sir. Thats the... the ship." Immediately one of the officers asked "Ma'am, when were these pictures taken." "Officer... th-those pictures were taken b-both last night and.... today." "Are you sure these are real photogr..." Rusty interjected immediately "Oh for Celestia's sake officer... you can see that the mare is shaken up. You, I, and the rest of your colleagues may discuss this by ourselves." Turning to his secretary, he gingerly said "Ms Dawn, I am sorry for my temper. You are no longer needed here and you may go." His secretary merely nodded and walked out the door somewhat calmly and shut it with a slight slam. Turning his head back towards the officer, Rusty began to ask him questions. "Alright, now that I see you have shut your mouth Officer, I will ask the questions. Firstly, what the heck do you intend to do with this here vessel and its occupants." "Well we obviously must detain them and impound the vesse..." "And how do you intend to do that. What, you are just gonna waltz on board and say "by the power invested in me by the good graces of Celestia and Luna, I hereby place you under arrest and shall detain your vessel"? You don't even know where a ship that size can even fit." "Well, you are the harbormaster, that is your job to figure out." "Alright then, you'll have your place to detain the ship. But after we find our place, you get your bucking officers out of the rest of the port. You are slowing everything down here." "Well your workers just need to adapt then." Under his breath, Rusty muttered "Adapt my Rear" and studied the ship. It was long for a start, quite long. Could be no less than a thousand feet though. The ship was quite slim so it shouldn't have a problem fitting into one of the larger docks. Rusty now had his Pier. "We can direct them to Pier 54. It is used for docking multiple ships at a time but it is one of the only piers we have that can fit that bucking behemoth." The officer simply stared at Rusty as if he were waiting for me. "Well... you have you bucking dock. Move your men and your rear before I have you kicked out of my damn office... and before you say a damn thing, I don't give a changling's ass if you are a police officer. Get out!" The officer was clearly pissed but he walked out of the room. Now all Rusty had on his mind was to fine medicine for his headache. It felt like his head was going to burst. *** *** *** "That ship said what??!!" "They said that they will not heed our calls for them to stop and shall continue onto port." Now Iron Hoof was worried and angered at the same time. He had probably the largest ship in Equis sailing into the largest port in Equestria with Celestia knows what on board. He had to act now or never. "Captain, how far is that ship off from reaching Manehattan?" "About 20 miles Admiral Sir." the Captain replied. 20 miles was all he had. He needed to think fast but not rash. It was clear the ship was not escorted so he could send a couple of his destroyers up to intercept the rogue vessel. "Captain, I want the Stallion and the Iron Grail sent up to intercept that damned ship. They will not fire but merely sail as escorts beside her. Make sure that their weapons are ready though, is that clear?" "Aye Admiral." "Also, tell Canterlot to deploy the Manehattan garrison." For a moment, his Captain hesitated and then replyed "Yes Admiral." before making his way to the wireless room. For once in his nearly 30 years in the navy, the grand old admiral was afraid. *** *** *** Manehattan was a pure Metropolis. Compared to Canterlot, this was truly the city in which Equestria is based around. The tower skyscrapers and paved streets add to the sense of modernity not found anywhere else in Equestria... well... other than Fillydelphia and Baltimare. Said to be the city that never sleeps, at night... its lights shine brighter than those of the Prench capital. In the day, the streets are alive with workers and tourists. 6 such tourists being the friends of Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. The 6 friends decided to take a well needed vacation after quite a few annoying instances with two particular scam artists. Walking in Manehattan was always somewhat of a challenge for non-natives of the city due to the risk of being ran over by taxis. Even though it was midday, the streets were still busy. Pinkie Pie, as quick as she can be when she is alert and actually focused, herself nearly got ran over by a Taxi when she almost done crossing 5th Avenue. Such was the life of tourists in Manehattan, always falling behind the city's native population. Making their way down to lower Manehattan, the group decided to walk down the west side of the city as it was the most direct route to the lower part without substantial traffic. Coming up to the Manehattan docks, Rarity was in the midst of a (very annoying) conversation with Pinkie Pie when she noticed a large commotion. "Girls, look over there, what do you think is going on?" She asked. "Ah dunno, looks like somethin serious though." Replied Applejack. "Well, this is Manehattan so something is always happening." Twilight tried to explain. "Twilight darling, for all your book knowledge, you certainly don't know Manehattan. I mean look at it! It looks like have the police force is present!" "Oooooh, maybe its some famous pony arriving!" Pinkie exclaimed, clearly excited. "Pinkie, even if a famous pony came to Manehattan via the docks... the entire police force would not be present." Came Rarity's reply. "Alright, well then we will just go see for ourselves... Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, could you fly above the crowd to see what is going on?" "Sure thing we can, c'mon Fluttershy..... Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash was confused, one second her friend was next to her, next second she wasn't. It wasn't long before she spotted Fluttershy feeding a bunch of Pigeons. "Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash yelling caused all the pigeons to fly away in a frenzy and Fluttershy flinched at her friend. "Y-yes?" Fluttershy finally responded, still shaken up by the pigeons flying away in their frenzy. "Look, sorry for yelling but something is going on at the port, mind flying with me to see whats happening?" "Al... alright." With that, they both flew off in the direction of Manehattan docks while the rest made their way over to the crowd to see what happened. *** *** *** "Lightoller, I need you to see this, now!" Smith yelled. Immediately, his subordinate came rushing over to his superior's aid. "Yes Sir, what is it?" "It looks like two of their destroyers broke off from the formation and are gaining speed. Take a look." Smith said handing Lightoller the binoculars. "They look American Sir, something like a Paulding Class if my memory serves me right." "How can you tell?" "Seen those ships many times before at New York Sir, but look at the Ensigns they fly Sir. I have never seen them before in my sailing years." Lightoller said handing Smith the binoculars back. The Ensigns of the ships were off. Rather than the typical American 46 Star Ensign that would usually fly, these ships had odd... rather colorful... ensigns with two Equines on the flag. One white and one dark blue. "Aye, that is quite off... What is our speed Lightoller?" "Sir, we are pushing 26 knots, that is 2 more than she was built for Sir." "I trust Mr Andrews is the reason for this." "That man can provide miracles Sir, that is something we both can agree on." "I can't disagree to that. But now back to those ships... you said they were Pauldings, right?" "Aye." "They will catch us unless we reach land, come... let us check on the Bridge." *** *** *** "Sir, we have too much steam! If we don't get rid of it the bloody ship will blow!" The report did not surprise the Chief Engineer. For the past 6 hours, he had the stokers and firemen build up steam while he and the Engineers were hard at work trying to increase the ship's speed. Even though they were accomplishing this job, they had too much excess steam and the stokers had to begin to remove coal from the boilers to stiffen the overflow. All he could do now was try to divert more steam to other resources other than the Engines. "Tell the electricians to get flip all the damned breakers up. I don't care what, we need to blow off some steam now. I can't get the engines to go any faster so go tell the bridge as well. Got it?" "Aye Sir!" "Well don't bloody stand there, get moving!" *** *** *** "Pick up you bloody bastards." Frederick Fleet said as he cursed through the crows nest telephone. As if it they purposely waited, the bridge finally answered. "Moody here, what do you see?" "Tell the Captain that land is on the horizon. About 15 miles out by the looks of it." "Alright, keep us posted." "You bloody bet I will." Fleet scolded the officers at the bridge. "As if a bloody iceberg wasn't enough to get their heads out of their ruddy asses" he thought. Now to top that, the Titanic was being chased by an unknown Fleet. *** *** *** "They said 15 miles Sir." "15 bloody miles, we might not even make it that far if those ships keep on chasing us Moody." "Murdoch, the only thing we can do is try and keep going." "We still have to slow them down." "How do we do that, we cannot even make con...." "What?" "Excuse me for a moment." *** *** *** "Let me get this straight Sir, you want us to lie to these warships to get them to slow down?" "Yes, that is exactly what I want you to do." "Pardon me for asking but how the bloody hell do we do that? It's not like we can feign engine trouble Sir." "Phillips, Bride, do you know the max speed of the ship?" "21 knots Sir, why do you ask?" "Right now this ship is going 26 knots... well over her limit." "What does thi.... oh." "You see what I mean?" "Aye Sir, we know what you mean. We will send that message right away." "Good. Make it believable though." "It is Morse Sir, even logical men can take fake messages for serious things." *** *** *** Staring at the note in his hoof, Iron Hoof was now royally pissed. "Are you fools daft? They have lied to you all!" He screamed at his bridge crew. Because they had believed such a message such as Engine failure, the destroyers up at the front slowed down in anticipation of the Titanic slowing down, which it did not. Now his ships were further behind from the Titanic and the Titanic was almost 7 miles away from Manehattan. Now nearly out of options, the admiral had no choice but to send a telegram to the Manehattan Royal Garrison. *** *** *** "Captain, we have gotten orders from the admiral!" The news made Captain Gilded Spear of the Manehattan Royal Guard Regiment jump up from his chair. He had thought the navy and police would handle the disturbance so that the guard would not have to be mobilized. Now it seemed like all had failed, and the guard was all that was left between this... Titanic... and Manehattan. "Send word to the Lieutenant of the Pegasus company, I want him to intercept that ship NOW! Get the rest of the men to the port, I need to make a call to Canterlot. Is that clear?" "Yes Sir!" His aide said as he scurried away with the orders. Picking up the receiver, Spear made a call to an old colleague in Canterlot. *** *** *** The day had started out fine in. The usual business of dealing with the ever annoying nobles and day court was going well until Captain Shining Armor came dashing in with word from Manehattan. The navy had failed to halt the large ship and now the Royal Guard Regiment in Manehattan was moving to intercept. Immediately, Celestia ended day court and took the message to her sister Luna. When her sister woke up from her rest and saw the paper, Celestia could sea the fear in her sister's eyes. "Sister, do they not know what they are about to do? Has that Admiral and Captain gone mad?" "They think that this "Titanic" could be a danger to Equestria Luna." "It is a passenger ship! They do not know what they are about to do! Sister, are we able to get into contact with the Manehattan Guard Captain?" "Alas sister, it appears that Guilded left his post to join his men at the docks. He informed Shining Armor of this when he made his call." "Blast... sister, we must get to Manehattan before anything worse happens." Knowing his own sister's tone, Celestia knew she was serious and fearful. The dreams she had saw 2 nights before still stuck with Luna, it was obvious. After seeing one tragedy that could had been avoided, both sisters knew they had to avert another one from happening. "I will go get the carriage ready Luna. It should be ready when you are." "Trust me Celestia, I will not take my time... just because I seem weak does not mean I am slow." "You know I know that Luna." Within minutes, the diarchs of Equestria were in the air making haste towards Manehattan.