//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: Ghostlike Counterstrike // Story: Spellscribe // by Solaris Vult //------------------------------// Everyone worked throughout the night… The communications officer was made the new captain of the Nephilim, first thing she did was march over to the newly repaired radio, “This is Staff Leftenant Aria Night, Captain Winter Snows is KIA, hostiles had attempted to board but were unsuccessful, target is neutralized. Aft-starboard engines are down, attempting field repairs, requesting permission to return to Cloud Forest for repairs.” The voice on the other side sounded annoyed, sightly angry, “Very well, Aria Night you are now receiving a field-promotion to Captain, return to Cloud Forest asap, Raptor Iodine will be dispatched to take over for continued operations once Raptor Nephilim’s damage is assessed…” The pegasus smirked, “Yes sir!” And with that, closed the connection, “He bought every word,” The bridge was being rapidly repaired by the Steel Rangers scribes, unicorns were carefully pulling apart machinery to replace or fix the broken gemstones that kept everything functional, and every arcane fuse system was being double-checked, the flaw that helped cripple the Nephilim in Enclave hooves wouldn’t again be a problem for it’s new masters. Aria and Crescent had settled on a plan late last night, “I have no doubt that most of the pegasi up in Cloud Forest, oh, that’s our home by the way, used to be a small military cloud-outpost, would join up with us if they knew what the GPE was trying to do down here…”     “Can’t you just fly up there and tell them? Raise a revolt?”     “No, you can’t fly up without permission from Enclave High Command… Around our bases and cloud-outputs we got all sorts of automated security, and even in places far from Enclave bases we got patrols going out night and day, no doubt more now that this operation is underway.”     “Once we get the radio working you could try and convince your superiors that you were damaged and require a return to base for repairs?”     “That… Could work, but what do we do once we’re up there, if we come in for a landing they’ll search the ship, we’ll be interrogated about the events, someone will crack and they’ll just kill us all. And before you ask, they got all sorts of cannon emplacements, if we try to attack more directly they’ll just blow the ship out of the air… More likely they would immobilize the ship and send in boarding parties, Raptors are few in number and impossible to make from scratch.”     “It sounds like we just need to tear a big enough hole in the clouds that enough pegasi would see the surface, they would see all your cloud-ships bombarding settlements and slaughtering wastelanders.”     “That is possible, but it comes with many other complications, if we were to fire our weapons randomly to try and blow away the clouds, Enclave Security would quickly catch on to what was going on-”     “How do you keep the cloud cover stable, I imagine you use some form of automated magical machine?”     “The SPP towers, yes.”     “So, that’s what they do?”     “Correct, but any attempts to break into the tower and disable the cloud generators would be stopped- Wait… I think I have an idea.” With that, Aria quickly filled in the rest of the pegasi and rangers in on the plan. The unicorns and pegasi had been liberally repainting the ship, it now featured plenty of Steel Ranger and Dashite imagery, it seemed that the pegasi had a sudden change of heart about being called dashite after seeing what they had seen in the ship’s files. Of course, part of their new mission relied on stealth, so Sparkweld had crafted a simple illusion talisman and wired it up to a switch on the bridge, “Unfortunately I am not skilled enough to make the entire ship invisible, but I can put a basic color-changing spell over the hull, flicking this switch will turn it from what it actually looks like, to simply a dull dark grey like it had been. It will draw some power from the reactors, but your ship’s power systems are more than powerful enough.” The hardest repair was the starboard tri-beam cannon, but the ship had detailed blueprints in it’s files, with every single pony present, it took most of the night and early morning, as the sun was rising the beam cannon was finished… Unicorns had been taking metal from anywhere they could find it and had magically morphed the plates into shape, less important electronics were scrapped for wires and cables and gemstones to be recycled into components for the beam cannon, it was constant and extremely difficult work, but soon the beam cannon was back in a state to function. The ship wasn’t their most powerful weapon however, Ghost had been made an honorary member of the Steel Rangers, it was clear that no one quite trusted her, but she would follow Harry’s orders, and so she was given a pair of silenced pistols, a pair of combat knives sharpened to near monomolecular levels, and some armor. “We’re going to be flying directly toward the Cloud Forest Drydocks, but we’ll try and get as close as possible to the Unicorn Range SPP tower, you get in there and start cutting it up as best you can… Do not be detected, whatever you do, they cannot know what we’re trying to do until it’s too late.” Below, the engines were already closed to fixed, new propellers were being constructed as unicorns bent, cut, and cast metal into shape with their horns, and fitted the propellers into spare engines the ship had, it didn’t have many, but every ship had some spare parts. In just a few more hours Nephilim Victorium would be ready for flight. “Well, what do you think about the Enclave now?” Calamity shouted as the Sky Bandit made another hard swerve to avoid a near-hit from a beam cannon. “Can we please not talk about this now!” Glory spat back as she was nearly clipped by a magical plasma pulse from an Enclave soldier on their tail. The sudden swerve jerked around the passengers inside, they were flying with all their might toward New Appleloosa, but they were still only half-way there. P-21 Tried to catch one of his grenades that had flown from his pack, but only managed to grab the pin in his teeth as gravity pulled it away “Whoops” He muttered as the now live grenade rolled around the cabin, Littlepip turned around to grab it with her magic but another sudden swerve and rammed her into the side of the hull… Luckily, that also took care of the grenade problem as it flew out a window and detonated behind them, with any luck it hit one of the enclave soldiers. Rampage and Steelhooves were at the back, returning fire, Rampage having borrowed one of Littlepip’s backup guns, and Steelhooves spraying grenades from his auto-launcher, the pegasi were fast though and amazingly good at dodging. Another near-miss from one of the airship’s beam cannons made Calamity and Glory continue their evasive maneuvers… And then, with the sound of ripping metal, Steelhooves and Rampage were thrown to the side, their combined weight ripping a hole through the back of the Sky Bandit…     “By Celestia’s holy shits!” Littlepip shouted. Down below the two were falling right down toward the airship that was chasing them… Rampage went splat against the hull, and then promptly started to reform with a cry of “Fuuuuuck!” that could even be heard up in the Sky Bandit despite the rising wind and gunfire. Steelhooves on the other hoof was a little more lucky, in that he got tossed through a window, and judging from the crashing sound, probably through one of the interior floors.     “Should we go back and get them?” Said Velvet, mane tangled from the sudden motions swaying the cart back and forth.     “They’ll be fine on their own P-21 muttered.”     “Yeah, and with any luck they’ll get that damn ship off our tails!” Calamity shouted from the front of the Bandit. Raptor Tempest had been dispatched to New Appleloosa, and was on its way when the captain spotted priority target one, and started chasing them… Then there came a crashing sound, a tremor that rocked the ship, and the sound of gunfire from somewhere on the lower decks “Boarders! All Enclave Security to sub-deck eight!” The sounds of gunfire didn’t stop though, the entire ship shook with constant blasts from somewhere below them, still, the captain tracked his target. Suddenly two figures from the flying wagon were tossed out the back, two ponies, one splattered against the hull dead, and the other one fell through a window, also dead. At least two of the priority targets were terminated… Then, with horror, the captain watched as one of the external camera feeds caught the splattered pony reforming, and there suddenly came reports of a power-armored stallion in upper deck five. The captain swore as he redirected some of his troops… He checked another video feed- Dead… All his security teams on sub-deck eight were dead, and trotting among them was a horrifying monster, a mass of metal and guns in the shape of a pony. Below, Deus had been sweeping through floor after floor, he had no clue how to control this thing or where the controls were but he was going to find them! He shouted obscenely as he blew apart pegasi mares and stallions, had he the time he would have fucked a few first but he was angry. He stomped up stairs and through doors, they tried to lock them but his guns were the perfect key, one pony got caught behind the door before it closed, Deus didn’t waste ammo and simply stomped over the mare before kicking down the door and moving onward, he didn’t want to run out of shells until he found that cunt. Above, Steelhooves shook himself free of debris, a few pegasi with pistols and utility barding shouted “Don’t move, or we’ll shoot!” then Rampage came falling down the same hole Steelhooves had punched into the ship with his body, and came down on top of the two pegasi, killing them.     “So,” She breathed, “What do we do now?”     “Find the bridge, take control of the ship, crash it into enemy ships, escape before everything blows up.”     “Nice and simple, I like it… Now let’s get going…” Rampage, for the first time Steelhooves had known her, was out of breath. The two made their way through corridors and hallways encountering very little resistance, most just surrendered or ran, some tried to fight but got torn apart. Then they heard the sounds of cannons and a horribly loud stomping coming forward, Steelhooves at first thought that they were about to run into a security bot but then why would it already be shooting, it sounded more like it was also attacking the crew. Finally they opened up a door and stood face-to-face with a mass of metal in the shape of a pony. “Oh fuck it’s this asshol-” Rampage started to say when suddenly a burst of cannon fire lit up the corridor, the two ponies took cover behind heavier bulkheads.     “You know him?” Steelhooves said.     “Yeah, you could say that.” The captain frantically typed keys up in the bridge, showing damage reports, the entire midsection of the ship was flashing red, “We need to abandon ship, all pegasi, abandon ship!” He finally shouted realizing the extent of the damage to both the ship’s structure and magical support systems. In the middle of the ship the battle raging was quite a spectacle to behold, assuming you lived to see it, all the pegasi caught in the crossfire were atomized by the rain of explosive death from both sides. Rampage charged forward and kicked Deus over, who fired wildly and sent shells into the ceiling and walls, ripping open large holes and gashes in the internal structure, some shells went as far as two or three floors. Steelhooves fired burts from his grenade launcher, not worried about Rampage getting hit, his grenades tore smaller holes and the fragments perforated weaker structural steel. Deus fired another series of concussive blasts but Rampage leapt on to his head, making his guns fire downward into the ship. The barrage of explosives and shockwaves made electronics and magical gems break and shatter across the ship, cables caught on fire and gems started cracking and snapping as magical energy started to swirl around uncontrolled, radiation was going wild, and it gave Steelhooves an edge up in the radioactive storm created by some broken magical machinery. He charged forward and fired point-blank into Deus, which knocked him downward through the floor, unable to support the weight of the two ponies fighting on top of one another. Rampage followed, and Steelhooves rolled out of the way to avoid getting crushed as Rampage stomped on Deus’ back, sending him through another floor. The ship groaned around them from the damage it had received as it was torn apart from the inside. The two backed away from one another and Deus fired another burst of shells that blew up some important-looking device in the corner of the room…  They realized with horror that they had landed in an armory, and Deus’ blasts had started to set off all kinds of mines, grenades, and ammo inside the room, Rampage rammed into the metal stallion and knocked him into a stack of spark batteries that exploded violently and filled the room with gem dust that sparked with energy and made radiation meters click wildly. Deus launched himself forward, the metal plates on his back partially slagged, and knocked over Rampage, breaking every bone in her body, which quickly started to reform. Steelhooves leapt down and the two ponies stared at one-another for a moment, then a storm of clicking followed as they both tried to shoot at each other, but their ammo had just run dry. Then Rampage knocked Deus over again, the two started a bloody hoof-fight, one where Rampage was a softer but more resilient target, and Deus couldn’t regenerate. Finally Deus got on top but was knocked over by Steelhooves delivering a harsh buck to the stallion’s side.     “Rampage! Where is the security cunt!” He shouted.     “Ha!” Rampage laughed, “You’re still after her, guess what asshole, she’s fucking dead! Back in Flank you killed her and you didn’t even know it, and before she went she blew up her own Celestia damned pipbuck, so guess what Doofus, you lose!” She shouted before ramming into him and smashing the stallion into a reinforced door that buckled under the impact. The entire ship started shaking… Freakishly, that was the last straw as the sounds of snapping wires and exploding machinery and tearing metal echoed throughout the vessel. They felt the ship start to break apart under their hooves, cracks formed in the metal, everything was suddenly ripped to shreds, and the ship split in two, Deus on the aft-section, Rampage and Steelhooves on the fore-section, and the two watched each-other fall further away as rushing wind became the only sound they could hear, then they braced for impact as the two halves of the ship started to fall down to the ground. “What was that all about?” Steelhooves shouted.     “Tell you later!” Rampage replied right before they smashed into the earth with a deafening BOOM! The hangar doors opened but only just enough for Ghost to fly out, she held her invisibility tight around herself and flew silently through the sky, it was kinda beautiful, this high up, above the clouds. She saw the tower she was supposed to infiltrate… With the kind of single-mindedness that only an alicorn on a mission can muster, she flew around behind the tower and identified a section of wall without any electronics or magical equipment inside, jammed her knives into the metal and started cutting a way in… She needed to be careful, one wrong move and they would be alerted to her. She sharpened her knives again with a small press of telekinetic magic, and started perforating the walls and cutting apart support pillars, she had to avoid damaging any magical or electronic equipment. Ghost moved her way downward. Once she nearly ran into a pegasus guard, but fired into his neck with the silenced pistol before moving on and continuing her work of destroying the tower’s supports, most of the security here was automated anyway and as long as she didn’t do any serious damage to the machinery they wouldn’t activate. As she moved she planted explosive charges from a sack the Rangers had given her, she didn’t need to plant them on every floor, but still just frequently enough that they would do their jobs. Outside, the Nephilim had breached the cloud cover and was rapidly approaching the Cloud Forest outpost, a sprawling series of bunkers and warehouses and quarters for the pegasi, around Cloud Forest were huge fields of clouds where farmers worked to grow fresh produce for the Enclave, those were restricted airspaces as a clumsy Raptor pilot could do untold defistation to those farms. It was that reason why they weren’t able to get closer to the SPP tower to drop off their secret weapon. Captain Aria Night watched carefully as, from one of the drydocks, another Raptor, the Iodine, departed to go and continue their horrible mission no doubt. She just hoped they didn’t notice the new, and very illegal, modifications the Rangers had made… The surviving air-tank had been mounted to the top of the ship to act as a turret, the Rangers’ beam howitzers were mounted into what remained of the old Observation Deck before one of those beam howitzers had removed it. Several holes were cut in non-important sections of hull to make way for smaller plasma and beam turrets, just gatlings or anti-machine rifle posts to help give supporting fire for when this turned into a fight. Everyone was ready for it. On both the lower and upper decks the Steel Rangers had set up cameras and were recording everything that was transpiring, the key to victory would be to turn the hearts of the Enclave’s civilians against the tem.     “This is Raptor Iodine, Raptor Nephilim, continue to Drydock Five, any deviation from projected course will have the vessel immobilized.” Aria swore under her breath, they were on to them, she just hoped they weren’t completely on to them, she raised the short-range radio to her lips and whispered, “A to G, situation green?” From the other side she heard Ghost quietly whisper back “G to A, situation red.”     “A to G, go now.”     “G to A, understood.” Ghost hadn’t worked fast enough, Aria just hoped that what the alicorn had done was enough. She shut off the comms channels, flicked a switch that sent the alarms blaring across the ship, now was time to go, and then finally ticked off their camouflage device… There was a slight ripple and suddenly the Nephilim was displayed in all it’s traitorous might, and Aria prayed to Celestia that she had caught the Enclave by surprise with this sudden demonstration.     “All crew open fire! Target only confirmed hostile targets, avoid non-hostiles at all cost!” With that, the tri-barreled beam cannons on the sides of the ship let loose hell on the Iodine, targeting its own guns before they could get a shot off, the anti-machine beamguns and plasma guns on the hall started firing at Enclave weapon emplacements built into Cloud Forest, while the beam and plasma gatlings let loose on the enclave soldiers swarming toward the ship. As the battle begun she clicked a button and pressed the comms speaker to her mouth, a loudspeaker mounted to the vessel’s hull echoed across the sky, “ This is Aria Night,” She passed the speaker to her other pegasi crewmates, all of whom had friends and family in Cloud Forest. “This is Cyan Strike-”     “This is Strange Choir-”     “This is Red Wind-”     “This is Ironwing-”     “What we have to tell the pegasi of Cloud Forest is very important, you have been deceived, the surface below is not a lost wasteland inhabited by monsters and savages, there are still very real and very sane ponies beneath our hooves who need our help, they are starving, they are dying, because of us… And our own leadership is trying to exterminate them like pests! Look below you, and see!” With that, she shut down the speaker. In the SPP tower, Ghost had just tossed her remaining explosives into the frame of an important looking machine, she descended down a floor, not bothering with the invisibility.. There were two pegasi, who raised their rifles “What-” They were both shot down by blasts of electricity from Ghost’s horn, the automated security activated, and turrets turned to track her, but she let loose all restraints on her magic, and just let it flow randomly from her horn. Arcs of deadly energy melted the turrets, they blew out magical gems and caused electronics to overload, they melted chunks off the walls, she pointed her horn toward the wall the moment she started detonating her explosives, and blew a hole in the wall to escape through as the rapid chains of booms got closer and closer. As she flew off and made herself invisible once again, she flew toward the Nephilim, to join the fight. Around her, the destroyed supports failed, the perforated walls tore. Under the explosions everything shifted, structural beams split apart and collapsed, the remaining power cables and computers and weather-managing machines were unable to support the weight, it all started to come crashing down. Aria watched with a sense of justice as she saw the SPP tower come crashing down, as it fell the shockwave took the clouds immediately around the tower with it, every pony would catch a glimpse of the surface, and they had some luck too, below, one of the Raptors was laying waste to a surface village clearly visible through a hole in the cloud cover. A blast from the mounted beam howitzers blew out the Iodine’s engines and it quickly fell through the clouds, ripping another hole in the cover through which the pegasi could see the truth, and without the SPP it wouldn’t fill back up any time soon. From the bridge, she could already see riots growing in Cloud Forest, time to add fuel to that fire… The Nephilim closed in, coming in for a landing in the drydock, it landed with a thump, and pegasi were flocking around the edges of the city to get a look at the fight, and what was below the clouds, Security tried to stop them, in some places they were successful, in some places they failed, and pegasi were escaping below the clouds, in some places Security tried a bit too hard and ended up shooting the unarmed and unarmored pegasi… Riots were breaking out. Several Enclave Soldiers marched up toward the docked ship, ready to shoot whatever came out, but got gunned down by the newly mounted gatling turrets, so they took cover, meanwhile civilian pegasi approached the ship cautiously, but were not fired upon. It was clear Security was losing control of the situation, and Aria could only imagine the look on Cloud Forrest’s Colonel at this moment. Steel Rangers and Enclave Pegasi came marching out of the hangars, one of the pegasi waved at one of the civilians on the drydock, who waved back. “Hey Dad, just in time to see the show!” An older pegasus flew forward, “Didn’t think my son would go dashite on me, what are you doing!” He sounded angry.     “How about you take a look down there for yourself and you tell me… Anyway, come-one come-all, and grab yourself a gun from Nephilim Victoriam’s own armory!” He said, pulling off the top of the crate of supplies the rangers were wheeling out on to the drydock. Up on the ship, Harry was just handed a modified memory orb, coated in electronic probes and switches “Got all of them?”     “Yep,” Said Victory Flame, “uploaded and spliced together all the footage we’ve gathered from the battle so far.”     “Alright…” Harry put the modified memory orb into the hatch on the radio equipment that had been hauled down to her bay, she pressed the ‘transmit’ button and the screen flared to life, showing the recordings of the battle, and of the events below the clouds, she put her lips to the microphone and spoke “This is Junior Scribe Harry Potter of the Las Pegasus Steel Rangers, what you are seeing are scenes from a battle that I am a part in this very moment, near the Enclave outpost Cloud Forest… The Enclave has been attacking pony settlements, both friend and enemy, on the surface as part of their Operation Cauterize, let these words sink in as I show you the events of the battle-” With that, Harry began reading the Enclave’s file on their operation as the device transmitted on all frequencies, electronic and magical, the scenes of the battle, and of much more importance, the camera feed focused on the holes in the clouds.     “Celestia fucking damn it!” Colonel Sunglider swore as she looked at the tactical map, they were losing control of Cloud Forest… “Shutterflight protocol, now!”     “We can’t” A stallion’s voice echoed from the terminal, “We don’t have enough pegasi to deal with the riots and close the clouds.”     “Bullshit! Close the cloud cover up right this instant, ignore the rioters, we will deal with them later!” She closed one window of the terminal and then opened another. At that moment however, a new signal appeared on every device, broadcast on all frequencies. “This is Junior Scribe Harry Potter of the Las Pegasus Steel Rangers, what you are seeing are scenes from a battle that I am a part in this very moment, near the Enclave outpost Cloud Forest…”     “Someone! Shut down that signal!” Sunglider shouted, angrily, this was a huge breach of security!     “We can’t, it’s coming from Raptor Nephilim!”     “Then destroy it! We cannot risk anyone listening to this signal, it’s sharing classified data!” She paused, seeing the tactical map again, and then sent a signal to one of her soldiers, “Swamp Fly! Go to Warehouse 181 and find the box labeled ‘Flux Bomb’”     “You can’t!” One of the ponies in the command center shouted, “My daughter is down there!”     “In all likelihood your daughter is now a traitor to the Enclave, Breezy Fresh, I will not risk the safety of the Enclave, now sit back down, or I will have you shot!” From the Colonel’s terminal came a voice, one that was distinctly not Swamp Fly’s “Thanks for telling us where you were holding your megaspells… They will soon be property of the Dashite Army, PS. Fuck you, from Staff Sergeant Minty Fresh.” Somepony else on the comms was muttering “Wait, since when were we called the Dashite Army?”     “Since just now!” The Colonel put her hoof through the screen of her terminal. Meanwhile, in the distance, not too far, another big green explosion tore a hole in the clouds, a sonic rainboom, and with the state Cloud Forest was in, there was nothing they could do to close it.