"Personal Log, Commander Stormy Seas. Royal Equestrian Navy, Western Fleet. Vanhoover Naval Station. September 4, 1023, Anno Lunaris."
The tired voice of a stallion spoke into the still air while a gently humming terminal dutifully recorded every word to a tape disk. "This is my first official entry as Commanding Officer of the HMRS Leviathan following her armament refit. I also have to admit that I've never been good at this sort of dictation stuff." A brief round of dry, scratchy coughing interrupted Stormy. The fit subsided, and he cleared his throat loudly before continuing. "I have my doubts that anypony will listen to these logs unless I screw up, but the shrinks working for MoM keep telling me I need to get my thoughts out in the open. It's supposed to help with the stress. Maybe they're right, but I'll be damned if it isn't tedious." Stormy paused thoughtfully. "Maybe the beginning, but not quite the very beginning is good enough."
Stormy shifted uncomfortably in his metal chair, desperate to find a more desirable position to support his fatigued body without the benefit of a seat cushion. The worn springs of the chair offered a shrill creak in reply. "There was a time when even the worst problems imaginable between ponies could be solved in a day," he mused. "Even seemingly unstoppable villains could be handled with a short speech and a burst of rainbow-colored magic. But that was before it all happened. The war changed everything." Sliding the microphone closer, Stormy licked his dry lips. "I wish I could explain exactly how hooves that used to plow fields are now crafting the activation talismans for spells of mass destruction. If I really knew what happened, if any of us knew, maybe we could warn future generations to steer clear of the same mistakes. But at this point, I don't know it really matters. I want to believe there's still time, but..."
The chair creaked again as Stormy exhaled deeply. "The War has been going on for too many years, and if there was ever a peaceful end to be found, I never could see one. We build better armor, and the Stripes counter with an armor-piercing weapon. We create megaspells, and they make balefire bombs. We're all just circling the drain as the whole world gets flushed with the rest of the filth. Maybe it was always meant to happen this way. Otherwise, what sense does any of this make?"
The tape disk diligently recorded the gurgle of coffee being poured into a mug, and Stormy enjoyed several quiet sips before his voice returned with a growl. "Whatever world comes after all this would be better off without those damned Stripes in it, too. They're the problem. They've always been scheming, soul-sucking savages." Three more loud gulps made it into the recording. "Too many striped-types are still hanging around Equestria. Spies and saboteurs, the lot of them. They're all the same. Better wiped than striped."
Another weary sigh elicited another brief round of coughing. A deep breath steadied Stormy once more. "But they're the reason I'm even here, aren't they? They're the reason I have her." He turned in his chair and cast a proud look out his office window at what lay on the other side. "My ship." He chuckled with genuine levity. "Compared to vessels like the Celestia, she doesn't get much time in the spotlight, but it's what you don't see that makes her special. She's a submersible, after all, and not being seen is the point."
The office fell silent, save for the soft hum of the terminal, as Stormy continued to stare out the window, his eyes fixated on the name that was painted on the ship's hull. "The Leviathan." The levity in his voice faded, becoming cold and distant. His vision lost focus, as though his thoughts were drifting into an unpleasant memory. "There used to be another ship with that name. An old armored cruiser that sank just before the war started. Sailors say it's bad luck to use the name of a vessel that was lost at sea. Especially when all hooves but three were lost."
Stormy turned back and leaned closer to the microphone as though he were sharing a secret with a co-conspirator. "I was there, you know. On the first Leviathan. So was my best friend, as well as the mare who I later married." The weariness in Stormy's voice suddenly kindled into startling ire. "I've been a part of it all from the beginning. This whole blasted war! From the first shots the Stripes fired to this day, it's been nothing but fighting for two decades. If the bureaucrats in Canterlot had done something before the shooting started, it might never have come to this." He let out a shuddering sigh and leaned back, the anger in his voice draining into resignation. "But, talking about lost opportunities or how we should have handled those striped savages from the start isn't going to bring the dead back to life. Or erase the memories. The only thing that matters now is the mission. The rockets are almost finished being loaded. Tomorrow, we can finally do what should have been done years ago."
Three sharp knocks on the office door broke Stormy out of his musing, and he turned to glare upon the unwelcome interruption. "Come in!" he yelled. The door opened, and a soupy racket of shouts, metallic groans, and growling roars abruptly filled the office. In the doorway stood a honeydew green earth pony stallion dressed in formal naval officer attire. The stallion did not say a word but instead gave Stormy a pointed stare and sharply tapped the timepiece strapped to his foreleg.
"Yes, I know," Stormy said dismissively, turning back to face his terminal, still dutifully recording every word and sound. "Don't get your tail in a tangle, Bowsprit. I'll be there on time." Before the other stallion could leave, Stormy offered a final glance back at the pony. "But thank you for the reminder," he added apologetically. Frowning, Bowsprit silently shook his head and retreated, shutting the door behind him. With the background din once again muted, Stormy resumed speaking.
"I'm going to have to remember to thank whoever thought to install sound-dampening talismans in this office." He waved a hoof at the door. "That was my executive officer. Bowsprit is a good pony and a good officer, but too tightly wound sometimes." Stormy glanced at a sheet of paper nearby and slid it over to himself. "The ceremony to officially launch the Levithan's refit and read our orders starts in an hour." He looked over the list on the paper. "And by the names on the guest list, every politician with their hooves in funding or design was invited. Why can't they just give me the damn boat and let me do my job? Maybe we should strap all the bureaucrats to the rockets we're launching. That would get rid of both of our problems." Stormy chuckled darkly. "The Ministries can fire me for saying that after I get back. End log."
A few taps on the keyboard saved the log entry to the disk, and Stormy cleared the monitor. The face that looked back from the blank screen's reflection frowned deeply before snorting and pushing away from the desk. Stormy Seas then stood and strode purposefully to a full-length mirror propped up in the corner of his office.
He looked his reflection up and down while tugging at his haze grey jacket until it was taut against his own dark blue coat. The gold bands around his fetlock cuffs received a cursory brushing, and he straightened one of his shoulder epaulets that had somehow become slightly skewed. Stormy ran a hoof through his unruly slate mane and picked at the silver strands that had crept into his cerulean highlighted tips. With one final tug, the stallion stepped back, reviewing his reflection. The uniform, the posture, and stature were satisfyingly fitting for a Commander in the Royal Equestrian Navy. He stood still and locked his gaze with that of his reflected doppelganger as if to silently ask for a second opinion. Cold, steely eyes, void of emotion, stared back, fixated upon the flesh and blood pony that had doggedly served his country as it learned to reforge Harmony itself into a fierce weapon.
Stormy shook his head as if to offer resistance to some imaginary spell. He blinked, shutting his eyes to ward off the imagery. When he opened them, in the mirror stood not an equine warrior but a weary, middle-aged earth pony. Creases from years of frowns were worn into the skin around his muzzle, and tired lines stretched across eyelids that sagged over ceylon green eyes. It was not the face of a grizzled leader that looked back, but that of a ragged soul upon whose shoulders rested a great many years of constant, weighty responsibility. Despite the array of ribbons that spoke of years of meritorious services and praise, the reflection that looked back faltered like it had just drawn potato peeling duty for the remainder of his career.
Stormy's right eye twitched, and he hissed through his teeth, bringing a hoof up to massage his temple and breaking the reflection's hold over him. On the nearby desk, next to the terminal, sat a steaming carafe and his nearly empty mug of darkly roasted coffee. He returned to his desk and reached for the cup, draining the reminder in a single bitter gulp before turning back to the mirror, muttering coarsely about headaches.
"Twenty-four years, Stormy," he said to his reflection. "Not exactly the 'poster stallion' you saw on the recruiting billboards. You should be retired by now and working at some desk job or driving tugs in and out the harbor instead of volunteering for another combat cruise." He glanced out of the office door window at the sleek, curving wall of bluish metal and let a wistful smirk pull up one corner of his lips. "But, lucky for me, they can't pluck just anypony off a duty roster and drop them into a command chair." A quick glance at the wall clock revealed that there was still over thirty minutes till the top of the hour. A pitcher of water stood on a small filing cabinet near his desk, and Stormy used it to splash a little of the cool liquid over his eyes, soothing some of the fatigued strain that afflicted them, before grabbing his officer's cap and opening his office door.
Although the sound-dampening talismans' nestled within the door and walls had muted the noise outside to a great degree, it now rolled over Stormy in waves of discordant sound. The low purr of generators and rumbling growls of engines. Clanks of metal on metal. Ponies shouting over the noise of machinery and each other. A dissonant choir that rose and fell like waves beating against a shoreline inside of an artificial cavern.
Stormy followed the wall of his office to the nearest corner of the immense enclosure and scaled a narrow set of spiraling metal stairs that led to a network of catwalks spanning the entire area's length and breadth. The whole of the cavernous space was awash with feeble light from ceiling fixtures, each pitifully straining in an attempt to extend their glow to far further than they were designed to reach. And yet, they offered enough illumination to each of the four flooded, murky berths to keep workers from stumbling into the dark, foreboding waters that lapped unabated against the quay walls of each berth.
The entire structure was an almost solid dome of concrete except for the catwalks, support beams, and suspended lighting. Atop the walkways, the racket that had assaulted Stormy down below now lost some of its deafening power. He cleared his mind of the noise as best he could and surveyed the activity below. Everywhere he looked, he could see ponies scrambling and hustling to finish their tasks. Containers passed from hoof to hoof, cranes squealed up and down, and shouts beneath hardhats barked with authority. The four spacious pens, three of which were empty, could have each fit a pair of large vessels end-to-end. Yet everything seemed to melt into the background when he looked down and beheld the entirety of his ship.
The Levithan's presence, nestled alone in its own berth, was enough to dominate the entirety of the pen. The vessel was wrapped in a dull blue-ish metal from bow to stern, faintly aglow in muted swaths of weak light from the fixtures far above. As the water in her pen gently played off the stark hull, undulating patterns of faint reflections flowed over the submersible's surface, giving life to an otherwise lifeless object. It was as if the ship was already below the surface of the sea. And unlike her surface-bound sisters, Levithan's skin was unblemished, all the rivets and panel lines having been polished down flush to the outer hull.
Curling back from either side of the wedge-shaped nose were manta-like wings that extended several meters horizontally. Rising from the forward third of the ship's spine was a short, sleek tower crowned by an open-air conning and lookout station nestled over a hatch that led into the interior. A pair of sweeping, V-shaped fins rose out of the water at the stern, and an identical, horizontal fin could be glimpsed just below the surface to the port and starboard of the aft section. The entire vessel appeared like some amalgamation of a predatory whale and a colossal squid with its maneuvering surfaces and flowing hull.
Stormy allowed his eyes to wander over every inch of the vessel. A small smile spread across his face until the ship's name, boldly stenciled on the side of the conning tower in white paint, grabbed ahold of his gaze and refused to let go. It read: LEVIATHAN 103.
The stallion's mane quivered as a shiver crept up his spine. Somewhere within the subterranean pen, a poorly maintained gear screeched and squealed like the scream of a dying animal. The pungent stench of lubricant oil and hot metal hung in the air. As Stormy massaged the pain of his tension headache away, he breathed in the labors and machinations of the naval service. His eyelids drooped and focused on memories far, far away in the past.
Distracted by his reverie, Stormy barely noticed the catwalk beneath him tremble as somepony strode across its length. Wrenched away from the sights, sounds, and smells emanating from below, Stormy suddenly clutched at the railing as he doubled over, seconds before a fit of ragged coughing racked his body. Through gasping breaths, he glanced up to see a young unicorn mare quickly trotting to his side.
She was dressed in a similar uniform, her straw-colored coat and thistle mane sharply contrasting the darker fabrics. A simple motif of three pink butterflies was sewn into her left sleeve. Putting her shoulder against his, she held Stormy steady on his hooves until the fit had passed and his breathing returned to normal. Stormy relaxed, and he nodded his thanks, hooking both forelegs over the railing. His legs were trembling.
"Are you alright, Captain Seas?" the mare asked worriedly.
Stormy nodded and spat. "It's just the usual headaches and some old complaints acting up. I blame all that crystalline powder from the old deck cannon designs back in the day. This kind of thing happens when you get older. You'll find out. And you can call me uncle when we're away from the rest of the crew, Adelia."
"Noted, sir," Adelia replied, stepping away from him and sitting at a respectful distance. "And may I remind you that as your medical officer, it's my job to make sure the crew, and especially the captain, are healthy and fit for duty."
Stormy grunted and ran a hoof through his mane. He shifted his gaze to a crane as it roared to life and hoisted a long, pale white cylindrical object from the back of a trailer bed and positioned it over the ship just aft of the tower. Beneath the hoisted cylinder, two hunched, ovoid blisters ran parallel to one another down half of the ship's dorsal length. The starboard blister was open, revealing a pair of end-to-end, retracting rails with a single rail elevated to allow it to be loaded.
"Tired of mingling with the bigwigs?" Stormy asked Adelia nonchalantly. "A young officer could use friends in high places if she wants to make it to admiral one day."
Adelia flipped a stray lock of her mane from my eyes and shrugged. "Too much paperwork, sir. And I've got about as much stomach for politicians as you and my dad have yourselves."
"It's true that my brother's disdain for playing political games within the aerial corps is almost legendary within the family," Stormy chuckled. His countenance briefly became stern. "But watch who you openly snub. I'd trade that whole bickering lot of civvies in the Ministries for a handful of stout griffin squads in a heartbeat, but ignoring the politicians is a quick way to ensure you have enemies on both sides of this war."
"And you should be careful you don't say that within earshot of a sprite-bot," Adelia cautioned. "You could get in a lot of trouble for saying anything perceived as anti-war rhetoric."
Stormy openly grinned for the first time that day, his eyes taking on an almost predatory sheen, and pointed at the tall cylinder that was being lowered onto the awaiting rail that rose out of the starboard blister. "Just so long as they don't dismiss me from the service before we have a chance to deliver our gifts to the zebras." Stormy's eyes never drifted from the operation below him as he beckoned Adelia closer. "Come, take a look."
The walk shuddered slightly as Adelia obeyed and joined her uncle at his side, her eyes playing over the weapon. It was two meters wide and almost fifteen meters long. An identical one already lay snug on the other rail. Each was painted a pale metallic eggshell except for colored bands marking various seams, and the Equestrian flag was proudly plastered to the side of the nose. Crude epitaphs and slogans were scrawled across the weapons, but Adelia's eye was quickly drawn to the glowing tip of the nose cones. They shimmered with a dull inner fire, flickering with bright orange and purple whirls.
Adelia glanced at her uncle questioningly, and he answered with a touch of reverence, "Tactical megaspell rockets. Four of them."
Adelia gasped. "I heard they were being considered, but I didn't know that's what we were taking on board." The pair observed the waiting launch rail together as the crane finished lowering the rocket into place. "Do the ceremony guests know about this?"
Stormy shook his head. "Their existence isn't widely known. For all our guests know, these rockets are purely conventional. And we can all thank the Stripes for this little innovation." Adelia frowned at her uncle's use of the slang term. Stormy shrugged, and a breeze of recycled air from ventilation ducts overhead ruffled his mane. "Think whatever you want about my opinions, but we both know how this war can only end with one winner."
He chuckled dryly. "What those savages lack in manners, they more than make up for in madness." The newly loaded launch rail retracted with a hiss as technicians scurried across the hull and checked on the rocket. He pulled a crumpled piece of newspaper out of a pocket and gave it to his niece. "Read this."
She took the clipped article and quickly scanned an editorial titled "Zebra Fanatics Threaten Disaster." Stormy watched Adelia read the article, mumbling to her herself as so did. She paled and looked up to her uncle after reaching the halfway point. He nodded in confirmation. The mare shook her head and quickly finished the remainder of the page.
"I didn't realize things had gotten so desperate," Adelia replied quietly, giving the crumpled article back to her uncle.
"The Ministries won't use megaspells because Roam will retaliate with a hailstorm of balefire missiles," Stormy said. "And Roam can't attack us outright because we'll do the same with megaspells." He casually waved a hoof at the weapons below them as the final checks were conducted.
"Did you know those delivery frames were reverse-engineered from captured plans for balefire missiles? And the integrated targeting talismans gets rid of the need for shoes on the ground to mark the casting site." He leaned over the railing to peer down at the work surrounding the final inspection. "It's poetic justice. Pony and zebra technology in one package. With these weapons, we can wipe out military facilities, industrial infrastructure, and entire armies with a preemptive strike, and they'd never know from where the attack originated. You outfit a single squadron of ships with these weapons, and we could get rid of them all without giving the Stripes any warning whatsoever."
Adelia took a step away from her uncle. "But that also means we have to be the ones that pull the trigger first. I'm not convinced that's a good thing. Don't you think the threat alone of weapons like these will be enough to convince the zebras to commit to peace talks without having to contemplate genocide?"
"These weapons are not a threat," Stormy growled. Something in his eyes sparkled, and his earlier scowl returned. "They're the key to ending the war." The barest hint of a tight smile crossed his face before it was swallowed up by the frown. "This isn't another part of the mutually-assured destruction gambit that the analysts like to quote. One complete strike from off the Zebrican coast, and we send Roam and most of Zebrica back to using rocks for tools. Even just one ship would be enough to wipe out half of their reported stocks of missiles one salvo. The stalemate would be broken, and we would be the ones holding an ace."
"The megaspell chambers," Adelia deduced. She sat down gingerly, shaking her head. "You think we should reverse the parity of both sides having doomsday weapons by making sure Equestria is the only one holding enough of them to annihilate the other side."
Stormy continued without looking up at his niece. "Peace talks could resume in earnest. Roam would have to surrender." His body seemed to deflate with a haggard sigh. "Then we can all go home and try to justify the cost of this war and if we actually gained anything."
Adelia risked sidling a bit closer to her uncle. "You're still not sleeping enough, are you?" Stormy refused to respond. "Okay, forget that kind of talk for now. What about Aunt Twinkle? I haven't seen her in a while. Will she be here for the ceremony? Or that counselor you're friends with...Light Shine, I think was. You haven't seen him in a long time."
The tired stallion shook his head. "Light Shine retired from the bureaucracy after the megaspells were revealed and joined his family in Barnstable. He couldn't condone that kind of power being used for war. As for Twinkle...I don't know. We had another fight a couple of nights ago. I haven't been home since." He pulled himself away from the railing and gave his niece a waning smile. "How's your dad?" he redirected. "Windshear and I don't get to talk as much as we used to with homeland patrols from Cloudsdale getting called up more often."
"He's home with Mom on leave for a couple of weeks. She pulled out his old vegetable smoker for the homecoming." Adelia chuckled. "The house probably reeks of smoked peppers by now." Stormy smiled, and his nostrils flared as though he were inhaling the deliciously acrid string of peppers mingling with the scent of aromatic woods. Adelia noticed the look in his eye and nudged his shoulder. "You should go visit."
"Maybe after this cruise is over." Out of the corner of his eye, Stormy saw Adelia glance at the assembly of ponies congregating near the small dias that had been set up close to his office. Several rows of folding chairs had been set up in a half-moon crescent facing a short wooden stage and podium that had been erected for the event. The whole affair had been wedged into the space available between Stormy's office, several stacks of supply crates, and a sizable self-propelled crane and trailer that lay silently in the backdrop.
"I think the ceremony is about to start, sir."
Another small smile shone through the stallion's fatigue and cynicism as he laid a gentle hoof on his niece's shoulder. "How many times must I tell you that I'm only a 'sir' in public. Otherwise, just plain old Uncle Stormy will suffice." He doffed his captain's cap and ensured it was affixed snugly to his head. "We'd better get down there then, Lieutenant. We wouldn't want us to miss the MWT representative's speech."
~~*~~
"Today, in the ongoing presence of a world crisis, my mind goes back many years to a fateful night amid another plight. It was another time when darkness threatened Equestrian peace and prosperity. A day when the whole of our nation stood frozen in fear of Nightmare Moon's return. And just like that apparition of evil, the zebra masters of Roam have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country but also…"
Stormy sighed inwardly and, from his chair in the front row of the audience, unsuccessfully tried to use his peripheral vision to read the wall clock visible through his office window without success. An itch began to work its way along the back of his neck, and his mane twitched in sympathy. On the podium, the bespeckled pony from the Ministry of Wartime Technology paused and glanced at a timepiece produced from a suit pocket. Hope and anticipation built in the air around the ceremony attendees.
"It appears I'm running a tad over my allotted time," he said flippantly.
"A tad?" an unidentifiable voice from within the mass of crewmembers muttered in response. A muffled chuckle ran through them, and more than a few of the guests in attendance.
The speaker grumbled to himself and put his watch away, stowing his speech papers in another pocket. "Well then, in the spirit of timeliness, which I know our military services prize, allow me then to introduce the commanding officer of the HMRS Leviathan: Commander Stormy Seas."
The speaker grinned in a self-satisfactory manner and bowed once to the gathered attendees as healthy applause broke out. He motioned for Stormy to take his place and stepped down from the podium. The applause began to die down as Stormy stood and strode up the short set of stairs to the stage, glancing back at his crew in time to catch a wink and a smile from his niece.
Settling in, Stormy cleared his throat. The built-in voice amplification talisman squealed harshly for a moment, a slight bit of magical feedback causing the audience to wince. It died down, and Stormy let his eyes wander across the assembled ponies. His gaze flicked toward the Levithan when movement at the far end of the western catwalk, near to the giant sea gate that led to a tunnel that opened into the ocean, caught his eye. A worker in a hooded hardhat and long jacket, mostly concealed by the shadows created from a malfunctioning lighting segment, cantered across the catwalk with surprising speed and urgency.
"The loading is finished," he muttered, the talisman making his voice easily audible to all of the attendees. "No one should be up there." Most of the attendees turned to follow Stormy's gaze. Pointing to the worker in question, who suddenly picked up his pace, Stormy glanced at his executive officer. "Bowsprit, find a supervisor and have somepony..."
The rest of Stormy's order died in his throat when the sound of a wailing siren rose and fell in a steady, mournful warning. Everypony in the submarine pen froze. A loudspeaker situated near the center of the berths crackled to life and added its own buzzing klaxon. As one, the vessel's crew surged to their hooves while the civilian attendees, their faces pale with fear, looked to their uniformed compatriots for instruction.
"Emergency sortie!" Stormy shouted, the fatigue on his face instantly hardening as he moved to the stage stairs. "Everypony to your—"
Then, in a flash of blinding light and scorching heat that catapulted Stormy off his hooves, sending a spray of fire and shrapnel shredding into the crowd, the dais exploded.
Stormy's world shrank into an unfathomable void that held him in its grip. He saw, felt, and heard nothing except the beating of his own heart. In that void, he floated, without sense or sensation, until garbled words reached for him through the throbbing darkness. He pushed against an intangible current that grew hotter as he strove against its force. Harder and harder he pushed, and more and more the heat built until it burned inside his very bones. Through a muddled wash of expanding shadows and distant flashes of color, Stormy strained until he could clearly make out two words in a familiar voice.
"Wake up!"
Flailing against a torrent that threatened to drag him back down into the depths, Stormy swam back into the conscious world. His eyes fluttered open and immediately slammed tightly shut as a pained hiss escaped his dry, cracked lips.
"Thank the Princesses," said the same voice that he had heard in the void.
Stormy cracked open his eyes and found himself sprawled out on his back with Adelia kneeling over him. Puzzled, Stormy attempted to rise to his hooves, but a potent combination of dizzying pain that clouded his vision, tremendous pressure on his rear legs, and Adelia's insistent hoof kept him prone.
"What...happened?"
A dull thudding boom from somewhere outside the pen shook the floor in response. "Zebras," Adelia answered tersely. "They're attacking the city, and they got inside the base somehow. We didn't see many there were, and we don't know—"
Gunfire burst from somewhere near one of the further berths, and Adelia threw her body over Stormy, covering his exposed head and chest with her own body. Return fire answered from somewhere much closer, barking out with crackling shots in bursts of three. Glancing behind her, Adelia pulled herself up and shoved a length of lumber from the stage off of her uncle's stomach. She sucked in a breath through her teeth at what she saw.
"The ship?" Stormy asked through gritted teeth, ignoring his niece's frightened stare. "The crew?"
Adelia shook her head and refocused. "At least a dozen died in the explosion," she replied, her horn glowing with soothing, emerald magic. "Probably more. I stopped counting once the shooting started. The ship is fine." Stormy's body relaxed as she waved a diffused glow over the lower half of his body. His body relaxed slightly, and the anguish upon his face softened.
Steeling himself, Stormy hazarded a look at what had given Adelia a fright. The explosion had thrown him clear of the stage and over the top of the crane's cab. Stormy could not see what remained of the ceremony seating area because the explosion had also toppled the crane over on its side. He swallowed hard when he saw that his rear legs disappeared beneath the bulk of the cab's upper portion and part of the main boom.
Worse still, a twisted spear of metal had pierced the meaty portion of his left haunch and had punched out the other side. He grimaced as Adelia deftly packed the edges of the wound with strips of cloth and secured them in place with the belt from her uniform. Stormy could not help but stare at the pool of blood that had collected around his flanks and mixed with oil and fuel from the wrecked vehicle.
"How long ago?" he asked, coughing and blinking away some of the fumes from the spilled fluids.
"Not long. Now hold still, sir," Adelia said. She braced her shoulder against the cab and, straining with muscle and magic, tried to lever the machine far enough for Stormy to scoot free. The emerald glow from her horn quickly faltered, and sweat broke out across her brow. Panting from the effort, she tried again, but the crane refused to budge.
"Get aboard," Stormy said as Adelia glanced around frantically.
Ignoring him, Adelia clambered around the cab and waved to somepony. "I need help! The captain is pinned, and he's injured!"
Stormy heard several voices shouting something, and he lifted himself up as much as he could manage. Through the boom's lattice of steel frames, he saw two of his crew come galloping at Adelia's behest. Beyond them, he could see the Leviathan's bow and the open sea gate that led to the ocean. It was still clear. More crew were scrabbling over the vessel's hull, casting off lines that held the ship fast to the shore.
A small smile crept onto his face at the sight of his crew. Then, two thunderous retorts from an unseen rifle wiped the smile from his face in an instant. Adelia dove back behind the cab, and Stormy saw the pair of crewponies that had been galloping to his aid drop from view. They did not rise.
Visibly fighting back tears, Adelia desperately resumed her attempt to free her uncle, but, again, her magic faltered, and her hooves slipped over and over in the puddles of oil and fuel.
Another burst of gunfire rattled off the concrete walls, and Stormy waved off his niece's attempts. Painfully tilting his neck far enough to reach his collar, he bit down on the shreds of what was left of his lapel. A brass apple blossom insignia was still tenuously pinned to the fabric, deep scratches marring its surface. The scrap of uniform quickly submitted to Stormy's teeth, and he ripped it free with the pin still attached. Stormy paused long enough to wipe the pin on his uniform before he dropped it into his hoof and admired the sheen that was still evident despite the damage.
Stormy pulled Adelia in close. He pressed the pin into her hoof. She stared at it wide-eyed, as though it were a grenade, before glancing back up to meet her uncle's eyes.
"Give that to Bowsprit. Get the Leviathan to sea," Stormy ordered with a grimace. "Keep the crew safe, but finish the mission." He pressed the pin into her hoof harder. "You have to finish the mission."
"We can't leave you here, Uncle. You're the captain. If the captain goes down, it has to be with his ship."
Stormy shook his head. "The Stripes attacked because they didn't want us to leave. They must know about the weapons. You have to go. That's an order, Lieutenant." His grimace softened. "Get to safety, Adelia. You need to be safe, so you can come back when the mission is over. Help your family rebuild."
She looked at Stormy, tears welling up in her eyes. "Yes, sir." Blinking away the moisture, she held up the badge of rank. It gleamed golden in the light. "I promise," Adelia swore, chest heaving to control her barely suppressed sobs. Then, she was sprinting as fast as her hooves could manage under the cover of rifle fire to the Leviathan as it began to slowly creep forward, dragging the still attached pier brow as it moved.
"Everypony, get below! Diving stations!" the voice of Bowsprit yelled through the sounds of gunfire and distant explosions.
Stormy lifted himself again to watch through the lattice with satisfaction as his niece scrambled up the rapidly accelerating brow, the small bridge squealing its protest at still being attached to a moving vessel. She leaped just as the ropes tying the brow to the ship snapped, sending it tumbling into the murky waters. With a sigh of relief, Stormy let himself drop to the floor.
Another detonation, this one far louder than the previous one, resonated through the subterranean pen. A spiderweb of cracks raced across a section of the concrete dome overhead, and Stormy weakly followed their advance through half-lidded eyes. Where the myriad of cracks met, they widened, and gray dust rained down across the trapped stallion. Stormy covered his face to keep the worst of the dust at bay, but the assault on his throat and lungs sent another tremor of weak coughing through his body.
"Hautatoroka."
The strange word sent a shiver down Stormy's spine, and his body went rigid. He turned as much as his pinned leg would allow to find a zebra standing only a couple of meters away. It was wearing the same long jacket and hooded hardhat as the figure that Stormy had spotted on the catwalk just before the explosion.
The zebra was standing on its hind legs in their unusual combat style. It cradled a rifle in its hooves. The stripes along its exposed legs and fetlocks had been enhanced with sweeping whirls and cryptic patterns. Its face mainly remained obscured by the hooded flaps, but Stormy's own hard, green eyes locked with cold, blue irises when they glanced in his direction.
"Wewe ni mwingine," the zebra said in a cool baritone to the trapped stallion, swinging the rifle's folding stock extender into place, and reached into his jacket. From an interior pocket, the zebra pulled out a small egg-shaped item attached to a thin cylinder. A glyph mark was carved into the egg, and it shone with a very faint orange hue. Smoothly, the zebra slid the cylinder into the muzzle of the rifle barrel.
Stormy followed the zebra's steady gaze as the barrel with its deadly attachment was leveled at the Leviathan, whose bow had only just entered the tunnel that would lead to safety. As Stormy heard the zebra muttering something unintelligible under its breath, a quiet chant of sorts, the stallion's hooves scrabbled against the wreck of the crane truck. One hoof connected with something hard and loose. Stormy curled his hoof around the object and hurled it with all the strength he could muster without looking.
The broken work light somersaulted through the air and clanged against the zebra's rifle as the intruder squeezed the trigger. The zebra recoiled as the egg whooshed from the barrel and flew off towards the ceiling.
Dropping his rifle, the zebra dove for cover at the same time Stormy turned his face away and covered his ears. Blistering light exploded across the ceiling, and a deafening pressure wave drove the air from Stormy's lungs. Curling flames crawled across the domed ceiling, blackening everything their grasping fingers touched. Stormy opened his mouth to scream, but nothing could be heard over the detonation.
The carnage lasted only an instant. Dust rained down from every pore in the concrete ceiling, and the sight of the egg's explosion was obscured in a sticky, brown smoke, but the writhing flames dissipated quickly. When his vision cleared and his ears stopped ringing, Stormy levered himself partially upright with a pained grunt and was rewarded with the sight of the sweeping tail fins of the Leviathan disappearing into the dark waters and gloom of the tunnel, escaping to the freedom and safety of the sea.
Clearing his dry throat, Stormy spat out a thick wad of dust and saliva. Then he heard a sudden snap followed by a grating noise almost directly above him. Blinking dust from his eyes, Stormy focused on the spot above him where all the cracks had merged earlier. There, outlined by the fissures' dark lines that had been scorched by the flames of the egg's detonation, was a large, irregular piece of concrete slowly sliding away from the dome.
"No, no, no," Stormy grunted, his hooves slipping as they tried to find a better position with which to try and pull himself free, the damage to his legs be damned. He pushed, pulled, and strained till fresh blood flowed from his wounds, but the mass of metal refused to release its captive. With a final, sharp pop, the chunk of concrete separated and plummeted. With a terrific crash, the piece of dome slammed into the truck, and a single cry was all Stormy had the chance to utter before he was drowned out by the tortured squeals of bent metal.
The wreck, now tilted at a severe angle beneath the concrete block's weight, settled, and the submarine pen was momentarily quiet. Stormy slowly opened his eyes, and he blinked in amazement. The dome ceiling section that had ruptured and fallen had smashed into the machine's lower cab and front wheels, narrowly having missed landing directly atop his legs. The portion of the cab and crane mechanism trapping him had been lifted and was held in place by the concrete's weight.
The stallion gingerly tried to move his rear legs. Through a burst of fresh pain that caught his breath in his throat, Stormy felt his right leg gently kick. The other did not even so much as twitch. Chancing a glance down at his legs, Stormy immediately looked back away, groaning at the sight. The right rear leg was intact, but his left was a mess. Keeping his eyes from drifting to the punctured muscles, Stormy took several short, gasping breaths. He grabbed his useless leg, braced the other leg against the floor, and pushed.
"Gah!" he screamed briefly before clamping a hoof over his mouth. Muffled cries escaped his tightly sealed lips as he scooted, inch by inch, out from under the twisted wreckage of the truck. Once clear, he lay sprawled out on the ground, taking slow, ragged breaths. He was free.
"Thank Luna and the stars," he said gratefully.
"The stars of Nightmare Moon?!"
Stormy rolled away from the voice just as a striped hoof slammed into the concrete where his head had been. He bit back a yelp of pain as another hoof kicked him in his side. The stallion flopped over onto his back and tried to roll again to get his hooves under him just as a hefty weight bodily pinned him to the ground.
"That pepo mchafu!" The zebra had ditched his jacket and hardhat, and the rifle was nowhere to be seen. Though less stout than his earth pony opponent, hard cords of muscle bulged across the zebra's body as the two wrestled. Stormy's furious counter-blows managed to land a few strikes on his attacker, but the two were not evenly matched, and the zebra had the advantage of leverage.
From a narrow sheath that Stormy had not noticed, the zebra drew a stiletto and plunged it down towards the pony's heart. Stormy grabbed the zebra's wrists and halted the blade's deadly descent with inches to spare, but the zebra leaned in and pressed down with his full weight.
"The last days are upon you, mzushi," the zebra taunted. The thin blade crept closer to Stormy's chest. A corner of the zebra's mouth pulled up into a smug smirk when Stormy's muscles trembled, and the tip closed the gap another quarter of an inch. "But you will not be alive to see them."
Stormy's eyes were glued to the knife. His breaths came into short, pained gasps as he resisted the weight pressing down above him, but the tremors in his legs announced their inevitable failure.
Hastily glancing at his impaled leg, Stormy's eyes briefly locked onto the sharply tipped spear of metal that protruded from his haunch. His face contorted into a grimace at a thought, and he grunted some unintelligible curse under his breath. Baring his teeth, Stormy eased his resistance to the zebra's weight a fraction. The attacker, sensing the change, leaned further into the thrust.
"You will be consumed by the stars of your dark princess," the zebra mocked when his face was close enough for Stormy to smell the unusual mixture of herbs from his attacker's last meal. "And your soul will rot in the place you call Tartarus."
Stormy snorted and gave the zebra a toothy, lopsided grin. "I look forward to seeing you there."
The zebra's constant pressure faltered at the retort, and Stormy jerked the zebra's wrist to the right. The blade slid into Stormy's right shoulder, and he growled through clenched teeth. The zebra froze and blinked, surprise clearly plastered across his face. He did not see Stormy's free left hoof grasp the base of the metal shard that stuck out of his leg and yank it out with a sickening squelch.
The spear-like tip plunged into the zebra's throat, all the way to Stormy's hoof, and the earth pony twisted the shard. The look of surprise on the zebra's face turned into pained shock and alarm, even as he tried to pull his knife free of Stormy's shoulder, but Stormy kept a firm grasp on his enemy.
The zebra's life spilled out across Stormy's chest and neck, splashing his face as the invader's efforts to continue fighting faded with every passing second. Finally, the light in the zebra's eyes dimmed to gray dullness, and his lifeless body slumped atop Stormy's chest.
Gulping down air, Stormy lay on the hard floor with the dead body sprawled across him for several long moments. When he had his breathing under control, Stormy rolled the corpse off of him and wiped the blood from his face with a sleeve. He shivered and pressed his lips together, fighting against the jerking spasms his gut was making.
Swallowing hard, Stormy reached down and stuffed all but one of the makeshift bandages Adelia had wrapped around his leg further into the puncture, staunching the fresh flow of blood. Taking the leftover strip, he tied them down around the wound and repositioned the belt to just above the ragged hole. Taking several deep breaths, he pursed his lips and bore down on the belt, tightening it into a tourniquet. His cry echoed without restraint.
With the bleeding in his leg stopped, he moved to the knife in his shoulder. Stormy yanked the blade out and muttered his thanks when the thin wound oozed rather than gushed. He discarded his jacket and used a piece of his sleeve to stop the flow. Then, he lay still and rested.
A slight tremor ran through his spine, and his right ear twitched. Stormy hissed and shook his head. He made to rub his temples with a hoof but stopped short when he saw both were covered in blood. Stormy's breath quickened. His ear twitched again, his eyes unfocused, and his gaze grew distant. Shaking his head again, Stormy shut his eyes, and he hugged his still working legs to his chest.
"I'm not there," Stormy whispered to himself, his breath coming in short gasps. "This isn't that Leviathan." A low, throaty sound, barely audible, rasped past his lips. It rose and fell slowly, then returned with slightly greater volume. Stormy hummed a few simple notes to himself. "That song," he muttered to himself. "The one she sang the first night after we met." And then, he began to quietly sing to himself.
"As I walked by the dockside, one evening so fair,
To view the saltwater, and take the sea air.
I heard an old fisherpony, singing a song.
Won't you take me away, colts, my time is not long."
Stormy's breathing slowed. He opened his eyes and softly continued.
"Wrap me up in my old coat,
No more on the docks I'll be seen.
Just tell my old shipmates, I'm taking a trip,
And I'll see them someday in that pasture, Evergreen."
He unfolded his legs and took several deep breaths, taking care to keep his eyes from wandering to the dead body that lay next to him. After a few more moments, his muscles relaxed, and the twitch in his right ear ceased.
Another detonation, somewhere in the world above, sent more sheets of dust raining down from the concrete overhead. Sharp cracks pierced the air from somewhere in the distant gloom. Stormy eyed the section of concrete that had already broken free from the ceiling with unease. He rolled over onto his stomach to face the gaping gash in his office wall that had been opened up by the explosion during the ceremony.
"My terminal," he grunted. "Maybe it's still connected to the network." He hauled himself to his hooves and gave the body of the slain zebra a final glare. After pulling himself upright, his hobbling hoofsteps were accompanied by the sound of his useless leg scraping across the ground. The distance was not great, but injury and fatigue slowed Stormy's progress.
Rounding the wreck of the crane, Stormy passed through the wreckage of the stage. The floor was charred and cracked where the bomb had gone off, and only splinters remained of the dias and podium. When he reached the remains of the seating area, Stormy paused long enough to let his gaze sweep across the victims of the explosion. The bodies of the civilian attendees lay strewn and heaped atop one another. Mixed in among them were the darker uniforms of his own crew. He spared only a brief moment to allow himself to mutter his thanks to them.
As he finished, Stormy's eyes lingered on a uniformed body that was lying directly in his path. He was a young stallion, probably only a year or so out of the Academy. Despite the carnage around the body, his face was unblemished save for dust and the blood from his wounds. His face even looked peaceful. Many of the others whose bodies lay quietly on the floor were not as recognizable. Stormy stepped around him and gingerly picked through the minefield of lifelessness. He hummed to himself some more, the volume rising and falling each time his eyes found a familiar face. Blinking away a bit of moisture, the stallion approached his office door.
Keeping his gaze level, Stormy trod towards his office, every window shattered from the explosion. The door had been violently ripped from its hinged and hurled into the room. Many of the fragments had smashed through cabinets and pictures. Scattered piles of the wood, drywall, and plaster that made up the wall's interior lay everywhere. Shards of glass littered the ground everywhere. Stormy limped forward, avoiding the worst of the glass, and crossed the debris-strewn room to his mostly intact desk.
The lone living pony dropped heavily into his desk chair, which was missing the upper portion of its backrest, and winced with the impact. He jabbed the power button on his terminal, and the ruggedly-built machine whined and ticked. Within seconds, the smudged screen hummed to life. It was still functional, if dinged, scratched, and slightly askew. Blinking a few times to clear his head, Stormy keyed in a request to connect to the central command bunker's terminal.
As the terminal waited for a reply to its request, Stormy pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and, muttering a sigh of thanks, retrieved a small tin box emblazoned with a trio of butterflies across the lid. Inside was a gauze roll, bandages, tape, a small potion flask, and two full syringes. Stormy reached for the potion, broke the seal, and gulped it down. He then grabbed the two needles and quickly jabbed them into his leg just above the tourniquet.
Relief flooded Stormy's face, and he let the first aid kit fall from his grasp. Then, his computer terminal beeped twice. The connection request had timed out. Stormy keyed in a command to try the connection to the auxiliary command center. That, too, was denied. Slamming his hooves down upon the keyboard, Stormy cursed at the machine.
In response, the terminal chimed. A message had been received, but not from headquarters. The timestamp showed it had arrived just before the ceremony had started.
His shallow breath caught in his throat when he saw from whom it had come. Stormy numbly tapped a key to display the text. There was also an audio file attached to the text. He pressed another button, and the voice of a mare crackled to life over the tiny speakers.
"Stormy, right now, you're probably being bored to tears by some speech, so I hope hearing this helps out once you get it. You have an important part to play today: accepting your first mission on the Leviathan. And as much as I wish you were here with me instead of in that cramped base, I want you."
"Twinkle," Stormy whispered, a sad smile on his lips. He slumped in his chair, and the spring protested its abuse once more with an irritated squeak. "My star." The stallion closed his eyes and let the voice of his wife fill his ears.
"What I can't be, however, is there with you right now. I'm sorry, but it's still hard to sleep without seeing and hearing everything that happened to us on the last ship that carried that name. I-I don't even want to think about what might happen to me if I had to even see that name again. It's... there's something wrong with the world, Stormy, and it's more than just the war. It's all this...hatred that's been growing and festering for so many years. It started on that ship all those years ago. I'm sure of it. You never used to call the zebras by that horrible slang word until after that mission."
His smile faltered, and it stretched into a frown. "It's hard not to hate a Stripe when they've been trying to kill us for this long," Stormy retorted, another explosion outside echoing his sentiment.
"All I want is for you, for us, to be safe and happy. I should never have let you leave the other night after the argument, but I got scared. The possibility of not being able to live up to the image you built up around me was too much. I panicked, and I lashed out. That's not an excuse, but I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me. And since you plan on retiring after this tour, I...I can start making plans. Real plans. For us."
Stormy's eyes flew open. The frown vanished, and he grunted, leaning forward in his chair with a sparkle of desperate hope in his eyes.
"This will be a chance to start over. Once you get back, everything will change. I'll see you soon, Stormy. Oh, and before I go, there's something else that I shouldn't have left unsaid last week. It's a little dramatic to wait like this till the end, but let a mare have her moment. I knew the answer to your question right after you asked that night. I really did! But I didn't have the courage to say it until now."
Stormy's breath quickened, and he swallowed hard.
"I know you said to forget about it when you left the house, but I couldn't do that. I want what you want, dearest: a real family. So, if you still want to, the answer is yes! I do want to have a—"
The screen and audio abruptly jittered, hissed with static, and froze as somewhere outside, a sharp crack followed a quaking boom, bringing down more of the ceiling outside his office. Bracing for another attack, Stormy waited. And waited. The abrupt, eerie silence was deafening. Puzzled and wary, Stormy pushed back from his desk.
He was suddenly thrown to the floor by a force that struck the submarine pen with the strength of an earthquake. The air suddenly grew warm, rapidly heating up with every passing moment. Then, Stormy saw it: a sickeningly green glow filtering in through the cracks in the overhead concrete. An emerald haze began to coalesce in the air with the dust and smoke.
"Balefire bombs," he croaked, coughing up a wad of phlegm and blood. "They actually did it. They've blown it all up." Sweat beaded up on Stormy's face and body as the heat rose to a sweltering temperature. The hairs on his coat and mane tingled with strange, foul magics. His stomach twisted and writhed with building nausea. Stormy pulled himself back into his chair, leaving a bloody smear on the wood and panting from the exertion. He turned back to the screen and reread the last paragraph, burning the words into his memory just as megaspells and balefire seared the world above.
"I'm sorry, Twinkle. I'm sorry I couldn't make the world safe for you." He reached over and put a trembling hoof to the terminal screen, not even trying to staunch the flow of tears that streamed down his face. Clutching his stomach and wounds, Stormy tried hissing the words he needed to say through clenched teeth. "You would have been the best mother. I love—"
The world abruptly shook though it was a toy tossed about by a dog, and Stormy was again hurled to the floor. A great roaring scream, like that of a thousand ponies crying out in terror and anguish, drowned out the rest of the world. A sickly green light that matched the sun for intensity pierced through the damage in the ceiling. An identical glow emanated from the waters of the sea gate that led to the open ocean.
The heat came again, and Stormy found that he could barely form words in his throat as he felt his life being burned away in the angry magicks of balefire that writhed overhead like a crazed serpent.
"Wrap me up in my old coat."
As Stormy picked up the song again, the words growing steadily more difficult to vocalize with each passing moment, an eerie hush like that of a tomb fell over the pen. He coughed, and bright blood sputtered past his lips.
"No more on the docks I'll be seen.
Just tell my old shipmates, I'm taking a trip."
A final, savage explosion thundered overhead, and this time the wretched green blaze came pouring into the sub pen through fissures and openings in the concrete dome. Stormy watched the flames, hungry for another victim to consume, lick down towards his body. The world roared—lurid, green light and stifling heat reached for his limp body like a ravenous scavenger. And as the necrofire and radiation raced down his throat and over his flesh, Stormy, weeping yet defiant, finishing the final verse.
"And I'll see you someday in that pasture, Evergreen."