//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 // Story: The Blueblood Papers: Royal Blood // by Raleigh //------------------------------// The problem with success is that ponies start to take notice, and while the praise helped to bolster my efforts in making my temporary desk assignment permanent, the increased scrutiny did not. The very last thing that I needed to cement my position was for some inquisitive little busybody with nothing better to do to say ‘hold on there, this Prince Blueblood chap isn’t actually doing an awful lot there’, thus bringing this precarious little house of cards crashing down on itself and setting it on fire. One should instead aim for a certain level of mediocrity that rises just above the base minimum to accomplish the job in hoof, but not so much that other government ponies start poking around. Being a prince of the realm hardly helped matters on that front either. I was able to keep these organisations at an appropriate distance through Cannon Fodder, as his peculiar literal-mindedness and unappealing aroma strong enough to linger on any correspondence ensured that any civilian or military official eventually ran out of patience and gave up on their inquiry. Those few who were under the delusion that whatever it was they were worried about was more important than my coasting along could just as easily be diverted with a few agreeable words from my desk; after all, I was merely the pony who brought this team together and any inquiries were best directed towards those relevant ponies. Thus I was able to keep this racket going, by putting in the effort that some would say might have been better employed in performing the job I was getting rather desperate to keep. Or rather, protecting my dedicated employees from undue scrutiny, as I publicly put it in a pre-written press release conjured up by a publicist I’d already hired. We were getting results, and that’s what truly mattered. The basic physical needs - food, water, and shelter - of these ponies were being met, and exceeded even, in the space of a few weeks. Their medical state was improving day by day, and as I wandered around the tent cities, making my usual public appearance so that everypony knew that all of this was my idea, I did notice markedly fewer visible ribs in the natives that I saw. There was, however, one department of state that I simply could not divert or ignore: the EEA. They felt they had a vested interest in what I had arranged to be done here in the Badlands, education of all types being their entire remit, and the seemingly disproportionate fiscal, material, and magical wealth bestowed upon the Association meant that they, unlike the departments of health, foreign affairs, magic, and so on, had the capacity to circumvent my bureaucratic stalling. Not that I didn’t try, of course. I had received a curtly-worded letter, written on premium parchment with an embossed watermark bearing the EEA’s great seal, informing me that as I had set up (or arranged to be set up, as it was actual educational staff who did the work I was taking credit for) a new institution for the purpose of educating ponies, that we were to be subjected to the usual inspection process. I had Cannon Fodder craft the usual vacuous response letter; that we would be all too happy to accommodate their queries but given our proximity to the frontline, the very real threat of Changeling infiltration, and the rather dire state of the native ponies themselves that we had rather more pressing priorities occupying our collective attentions. Most reasonable bureaucrats would understand this, or would simply realise that perhaps what they wanted out of us was not worth the time, effort, and risk to travel to here, when my aide could just as easily order copies of the relevant, and sometimes irrelevant, paperwork to be mailed north to Canterlot. With that, and the fact that our courses were largely being administered by EEA-approved staff anyway, I was quite satisfied that this would be the very last time I would have to deal with them directly. Or so I thought, up until later in the afternoon of that same day in fact, I heard a knock on my office door and a severe-looking stallion in a luxurious burgundy robe stormed in before I had even had the chance to get off of my bed, conceal the lingerie catalogue that I was absently flicking through under a pillow, and invite him in. He stood there at the doorway, flanked by two guardsponies who wore the all-too-familiar expressions of soldiers who had been yanked from a cushy, comfortable duty to escort this supposedly very important pony through security checkpoints and across the entire encampment, through the city, and up the several flights of stairs to my office. When he arched his eyebrow imperiously at the sight of me, lying on my bed ‘reading’ a glossy magazine with its lurid cover of a mare presenting her silk-clad rear, a sudden strike of recognition took me. I was unable to place it until I imagined the stallion there perhaps a decade or two younger, with a much happier expression, wearing a rowing club blazer and a striped repp bow tie. “Professor Nosey?” I said, sliding off the bed and placing the magazine neatly on my pillow, arranged so that he could see it just past me. “Is that you?” His left eye twitched fiercely, and his lips drew back like a snarling tiger. “Neighsay,” he said in a voice that was somewhere between a snake-like hiss and a growl. “Chancellor Neighsay, of the Equestrian Education Association. I am here to inspect your educational facilities.” “Oh.” Oh dear. I had a sudden and unwelcome flashback to being seven years old, standing up in a gloomy classroom with this stallion trying to impress upon me that, although I was a prince and would never have to work a day in my life, it was still important that I have a fully-rounded education. This stallion, you see, had the misfortune to be my prep school teacher, until a particular incident that I now felt more than a little guilty about had encouraged him to leave the profession for a more administrative role. However, it hadn’t put that much of a damper on his career, being the Chancellor of the EEA and all that. “What do you mean, ‘oh’?” “I’m afraid I’m terribly busy right now,” I said, just about stopping myself from adding ‘professor’ to the end of that. “There’s a war on, after all.” Neighsay looked at the lovely pair of flanks on the cover of the magazine I’d left on the bed and then back at me. “Clearly.” He had one of those voices, peculiar to ponies from certain strata of old Pranceton alumni, where it was nigh-impossible to detect sarcasm as everything they said sounded as though it was soaked in it. “Well, Your Highness, I shan’t take up too much of your precious time, but the EEA did notify you of our inspection.” “You mean that letter I received this morning?” I asked. “How in blazes did you get here so quickly?” When I say that he ‘smiled’ I mean that the muscles in his face pulled his features into something approximating a smile, but was about as friendly as that of a timberwolf. He tapped the golden medallion on his chest, emblazoned with that rather pompous symbol of the EEA, and said, “A simple matter of portal magic. I could explain it, but having written your third grade report I know that I would be wasting my time.” I have to admit, that did sting a little. “Am I to take it that you’re still upset with me for that little thing with the ukulele? That was years ago!” “That ‘little thing with the ukulele’ put me in a coma for a week!” he snapped, stamping a hoof. His left eye twitched harder, then, closing the both of them, he sucked in a deep breath, held it for precisely ten seconds, and exhaled. That calmed him down slightly, just enough for him to carry a conversation. “It took another week for me to re-learn how to walk, something foals do straight out of the womb! Thanks to you I never taught in a school again.” And foals everywhere should be thanking me. “I am sorry about all of that,” I said, while making a mental note that should this inspection not go the way that I’d hoped, which was scraping away with a ‘pass’ so I could be left in peace, to appeal that decision by claiming that the undue bias of Chancellor Neighsay here had affected his professional decision. Knowing full well, having done this myself when I ‘worked’ in Supply, that such things invariably fail as it’s tantamount to marking one’s own homework. It was quite clear that he didn’t want to be here any more than I did, and having gotten the pleasantries over with, he declared that he would like to view one of the classes and peruse some of the teaching material. If it was any other petty bureaucrat I would have sent him on his way with the guards and gone back to bed to leer at the silk-clad mares in the catalogue, but owing to his position and our prior history, I felt it best not to leave him out of my sight, despite being rather tedious company. In fact, it was most unusual that the head of such a prestigious organisation as the EEA, which enjoyed the highest level of royal patronage from Princess Celestia herself, would come out here, mere miles from enemy territory, when they could have sent any number of expendable underlings instead. As we made our way under guard escort to the closest classroom, which was little more than a large marquee out in the desert, I questioned Neighsay on just that topic. “I insist on conducting all inspections personally where possible,” he said. “The business of educating Equestria’s future is much too important to be left to just anypony. Not even Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns is beyond my remit.” “I see,” I said, wondering if he was as curt and ill-mannered to my dear divine Aunt as he was to me. “Forgive me, I didn’t think what we did here warranted the personal attention of the Chancellor of the EEA.” “Your work here has attracted the attention of prominent ponies in the government.” Neighsay shot me a look, arching his eyebrow again. “I’d have thought you would be aware of that by now.” “I haven’t had much of an opportunity to return to Canterlot,” I said; feigning complete ignorance works wonders when the other pony assumes one is a simpleton. “Canterlot has invested a lot of money in your efforts here, taxpayers’ money, and a not-insignificant proportion of that comes from the EEA.” And judging by his fancy robe and fancy magic medallion I was sure Neighsay’s organisation could afford it, I thought to myself as he carried on. “And from what we’ve been able to ascertain from reports you’ve mainly spent it on these native heathens.” We came to the ‘classroom’, where about two dozen ponies of all three tribes and of varying ages, from small foals through young ponies and up to the elderly, were being led slowly through a foal’s picture book. An old, kindly-looking mare with half-moon spectacles and a knitted jumper despite the heat stood before them, encouraging each of her students, young and old, to stumble their way through a sentence or two of that unassailable classic of Equestrian literature Clipboard the Big Redwood Timberwolf. There was another such marquee just beyond this one, a little further out into the desert but closer to one of the tent encampments, where I could see that a more advanced lesson consisting of the former clerk class of native ponies and a couple griffons of the PGL was being held under the tutelage of an officer in the dress uniform of RASEC. [The Royal Armed Services Educational Corps, which provides for the general education of enlisted personnel and officers in all branches of the Equestrian military as well as more specialised military training, is under the authority of the Ministry of War. However, its general education materials and staff are required to be approved by the EEA, making the Corps subject to EEA regulations.] “Just what is your intention with these classes?” asked Neighsay. A few of the students turned to see the odd stallion watching them, but the teacher managed to draw their attention back to the book. I shrugged; one of the ponies I’d hired to fix Virion Hive and the ponies in it had suggested that we ought to educate the locals, and I’d signed off on the proposal thinking it was what was expected of me. “Educating ponies, I’d say.” Neighsay rolled his eyes and shook his head, and his slicked-back mane slithered like oil down his neck. “To what end, sir?” he said, turning to face me. At least he still had some manners. “The only possible reason we would have to educate them is if Equestria was to annex this land and bring these ponies under the rule of Harmony.” “That’s the first I’ve heard of this,” I said, shrugging again. Annexation -- I didn’t much like the sound of that. Colouring bits and pieces of a map could only lead to more trouble with the natives, I thought. “I don’t know what the suits and tiaras in Canterlot are discussing, and I don’t much care to, frankly. I’m a soldier, not a politician.” “You’re a political officer, sir.” Neighsay glared daggers at me; this feigning idiocy business had the added effect of annoying him, which, I’m sure readers who might have had the misfortune of meeting this dour old stallion before will appreciate, only encouraged me further. “And a prince, too. What is the purpose of expending the money and effort in civilising these ponies if they’re not going to become productive subjects of Equestria? Education is an investment, sir, on the future of our great country, and we will not see a return on that investment if it is spent on these foreign heathens. What’s to stop them from using what your ponies have taught them against us?” I looked past him to watch an older stallion awkwardly sound out the letters to make out the word ‘tree’, for which he received a gold star sticker on his exercise book. He seemed very proud of himself for that. “We won’t teach them the letter ‘Q’ then,” I said. “That’s the most dangerous letter in the alphabet.” Neighsay stood silent for a moment, his eyes narrowed and his sharp, beak-like muzzle pointed at me like a knife, and I imagined that he was trying to work out if he could still put me in detention. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you fail to see the big picture,” he carried on. “However, everything appears to be according to reg-” He stopped, squinted at something in the next marquee over. “Prince Blueblood,” he snarled, “are those griffons attending classes?” I followed his gaze to where there were indeed a couple of the aforementioned lion/eagle hybrids attending a lecture of some sort, but I couldn’t make out the subject from over there. “Ah, so they are,” I said. “Need I remind you that ‘EEA’ stands for the Equestrian Education Association?” “They are soldiers of Equestria, yes.” Neighsay opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hoof, interrupting him. “They’ve fought and bled for Equestria as much as any pony in this war, so I don’t think it’s too much to allow them the same opportunity to learn something as their equine comrades.” “Very well,” scoffed Neighsay, his snarl turning into the sort of grin that made me wonder just how this pony was ever allowed near schoolfoals in the first place. “I believe I’ve seen enough, thank you. You’ll be hearing from me soon.” In fact I never did hear from him again, at least not in this capacity. I imagine he rose a stink back in Canterlot and somepony, perhaps Luna I’d like to think, told him where to get off and the matter was quietly dropped as it should be. I would have loved to have been there to see it. At any rate, the guards who had accompanied us escorted him back to wherever he needed to go to use his portal magic medallion thing to go home. I didn’t quite understand it, but from what I could gather this enchanted lump of inanimate gold had a memory of sorts and could only send ponies between places it ‘remembered’. Otherwise, we could have used this thing to send an assassin, if Equestria still had them lying around somewhere, straight to Chrysalis and end this war in a matter of minutes. He took one of the supply airships back to Dodge Junction, and from there zapped himself home to waste somepony else’s time. Speaking of airships, the burden of logistics restrains an army as a leash with a dog, and both will strain against that lead to reach their objective, be it the opposing army or a squirrel. The railway that served as the vital artery through which food, water, arms, ammunition, armour, mail, and all the myriad things that are required to sustain the increasingly vast numbers of troops at the front (that could not be scavenged from the land), had only extended as far as Fort E-5150, and from there on it was a matter of pony-drawn wagons and airships. I’ll give General Market Garden due credit here; other generals might have become over-confident with our admittedly-costly success at Virion Hive and pushed onwards, and indeed a number of her generals of division were chomping at the bit to advance deeper into enemy territory in search of the next battle, but she insisted on not only allowing her army time to recuperate but to also ensure that when the time came for another offensive that her ponies were well-prepared and equipped for it. It was not the sort of flashy manoeuvre and tactical sleight-of-hoof that gets armchair generals all hot and bothered, but I could appreciate this cautious, business-like approach, if only as the lesser of two evils. Even then, she was not about to sit and wait for the railway extension to be built. It was on one such airship that this quiet respite was ultimately shattered. The lack of any appreciable Changeling activity behind our lines had lulled us into a false sense of security of sorts, though Second Fiddle was busy throwing his weight around with his RAID-thing going on and getting into other ponies’ business with little to show for it. In hindsight, the Changelings were likely waiting for such a relaxing of our guard for the prime opportunity to strike, which they did in spectacular fashion. The folks at RASEA had decided to organise an extravagant show for the troops at Virion Hive, and instead of the usual assortment of failed comedians, tone-deaf singers, and psychotic stage magicians with delusions of grandeur (I had dismissed the Great and Powerful Trixie’s request to have her ban rescinded), they had somehow acquired the one and only Countess Coloratura. In contrast to the usual flamboyant manner she usually arrived in, the singer and a tiny fraction of her usual entourage of dancers, roadies, and hangers-on were forced to hitch rides on a convoy of airships bringing all sorts of stuff to Virion Hive. I, being the gracious host that I am, accompanied the star in the hold of one such cargo airship, just to make sure that she was comfortable, of course. We’d found a nice, relatively secluded spot on the starboard side, by a large window that commanded a lovely view of the Badlands, surrounded by a number of wooden crates filled with Faust-knows what. The engines droned on in a continuous, monotonous hum that one could almost get used to, were it not for the occasional sputtering misfire. While I dislike flying (for if unicorns were meant to fly, Celestia would have made us all alicorns), having spent the pre-flight checking time reading the safety instructions on the emergency parachutes, I have to admit that the view from a thousand feet up in the air made the otherwise drab, dreary, monotone landscape of the Badlands look rather pretty. I might go as far as calling it ‘majestic’, with the wide open plains and rugged hills as far as the eye could see. That sight paled in magnificence compared to the lady who stood by that window and stared out at it. The mare whose image adorned the bedchamber walls of adolescent colts across Equestria was right there, close enough to touch. She was tall, but quite slim for an earth pony mare, but delightfully plump where it counted. Though Coloratura was known in those days for elaborate outfits, she had wisely toned down her dress for the climate with a more suitable and tasteful black top and a veil draped over her flanks. Her mane and tail were still made up with sweeping, cascading curls, dyed with a streak of striking opal. It occurred to me then and there that the only mares that I had seen for the past month or so were soldiers, impoverished natives, and prostitutes. She was the first ‘real’ mare I had seen since, and if you, dear reader, imagine that I was about to let her slip through my hooves then I can’t imagine how much my reputation has been warped beyond all recognition in the intervening time. “I’m sorry that we could not provide for all of your requirements,” I said, easing my way next to her by the window. Her staff had sent a list of things, a ‘rider’ as I believe is the correct industry term, and the mind boggled to think how one could possibly accommodate such demands even if there wasn’t a war on. “Oh!” She seemed a little startled, as though she hadn’t heard me approach. In person, her whole demeanour was quite far removed from the confident image projected on stage, being somewhat shy and quiet. “It’s fine, really. This is for our brave ponies at the front, after all.” “They’re all looking forward to the show,” I said, and then, with what I hoped was a charming, dashing grin, “as am I. If there’s anything else I can do to accommodate your-” Her manager, a pony wearing a slim three-piece suit of fine worsted wool that he was already starting to sweat through (apparently he had yet to hear of linen suiting), somehow wedged himself between us. “It most certainly is not fine!” Svengallop shouted, a mere few inches from my face. “This is Countess Coloratura for pony’s sake, and you’ve put her inside a cargo ship!” It’s quite rare that I take such an instant and intense dislike to another pony. The unreasonable demands were a part of it, yes, but more than that was his entire demeanour - haughty, with nothing at all to warrant it besides being the manager of a highly successful popular singer. I can deal with true haughty, in fact, I’ve ‘haughted’ with the best of them, but this I found especially galling. “Yes, I read your stipulation that we must charter a luxury private yacht, amongst other things,” I said blithely. “The Equestrian Army lacks such yachts in its airship fleets, and it was impossible to find a company willing to lease such an expensive airship to somewhere mere miles from Changeling territory, much less a crew willing to pilot it too.” And there was no way I was about to risk losing the Sunfish in a like manner, thought I, and given what happened next I’ve been more than vindicated on that account. [The Sunfish was Prince Blueblood’s personal yacht, though he rarely used it owing to his aversion to flying. It is currently on display in the Aeronautical Museum in Canterlot.] “I could look past the airship issue if you had fulfilled the rest of the list,” said Svengallop, stamping his hoof with the petulance of a foal who has been forced to admit that his position is irrational. “Where are the cherries I requested for Countess Coloratura?” I nodded in the direction of the offending bowl of cherries, which had been placed atop a crate of oat rations draped over with a sheet of off-white cloth. My aide, Cannon Fodder, might have had a knack for scrounging things that would have been otherwise impossible for me to acquire through the official channels, namely fine liquor, literature, and eau de cologne, to help make life somewhat bearable at the front, but even he struggled with the list. Not that I told him to put much effort into fulfilling it, mind you, but I think he did as good a job with it as one could possibly hope for. In addition to the aforementioned cherries, he had requisitioned, through whatever arcane means he uses to acquire such things, bottles of spring water, eclairs, a collection of gems, and a rather tasteful flower arrangement. Whether or not they were exactly what Coloratura wanted was another matter, but I doubted she or anypony else would be able to tell otherwise. “You know,” I said, stepping around Svengallop and turning my attention back to the lovely mare before me, “I’ve always wanted to attend one of your concerts, but-” Svengallop, however, persisted. “And did I not specifically ask that they be separated red from yellow?” “You did.” When I saw that he was not about to let this go, I called out to the cavernous cargo hold around us, “Cannon Fodder!” My call was responded to with an atrocious noise that sounded somewhere between a cat being strangled and a large balloon being deflated. From that direction, I saw a pair of hooves emerge over the top of a nearby crate, shortly followed by my aide’s head slowly rising from behind it like some sort of deep sea creature. He looked far worse than usual; being carried by Rainbow Dash in flight before had demonstrated that his physiology had as much a disagreement about flight as I did philosophically, but somehow this airship, flying quite steadily as it lumbered through the heavens like a skyborne whale, had a worse effect upon him than that stunt flyer. The skin under his grubby, stained coat had turned a distinct shade of green, and his lips were tightly shut as he tried to hold down the urge to vomit. “Sir?” he said, halfway between a coherent word and a belch. His unique aroma had only ripened with his air sickness. “Would you mind separating out the cherries for our guests, please?” Cannon Fodder slowly rotated his head to look at the cherries, then back at me. There was no room in his simple mind for even the slightest notion of questioning me, but the look he gave implied that he was at least starting to get the germ of the idea. He briefly disappeared behind the crate, and then stumbled out, staggering as if drunk, to the cherries, where he started to bend his head down to pick them up with his mouth. “On second thought, don’t bother,” said Svengallop. My aide gratefully disappeared from view behind the crate, and the only indication of his presence there was the occasional sound of dry heaving. I pulled an apologetic sort of face, but that didn’t seem to help matters. Svengallop glared at me as only Purestrains have dared to before. “Can I have a word with you, Prince Blueblood?” Saying ‘no’ was always an option, but if I didn’t put this windbag in his place now then I would have to put up with this sort of thing for the duration, which would invariably scupper my chances with the Countess here. So I went along with him, past the crate topped with refreshments where Cannon Fodder curled up in a foetal position clutching his stomach. “This is completely unacceptable!” said Svengallop, as he rounded on me abruptly. “Booking the one-and-only Countess Coloratura for your little show comes with certain requirements that must be fulfilled. Now, I can overlook some of these, but I insist that at the very least our accommodations are sufficiently elegant and well-stocked as I have already requested.” I glanced behind me, where Coloratura seemed quite happy gazing out of the window, and it occurred to me that not once had she made any of these demanding requests herself. They had all come from this Svengallop chap, and if anything the supposed diva had been rather shy, retiring, and perfectly reasonable in managing her expectations of performing in what was only a few weeks ago the site of a horrendous battle. “You and the Countess have a room each in the castle,” I said, “and I have secured additional rooms for your dancers and crew, when they arrive.” “And they better be up to her exacting standards!” he continued. “It’s bad enough that we’ve had to come all this way to this dirty, smelly part of Equestria just so Countess Coloratura can perform for a bunch of soldiers. Because if it isn’t, then I will have no choice but to pull our star performer from your little show, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?” I smiled, which seemed to unnerve him a little. “Fine.” Svengallop squinted at me through his slim pince-nez. “Fine? What do you mean ‘fine’?” “I simply mean to say that if you choose to withdraw Countess Coloratura from the show then that is your prerogative as her manager. However, I must inform you that it will leave a significant gap in our schedule of events, which I intend upon filling by forcing you on stage in front of hundreds of bored soldiers at sword point.” I grasped the handle of my sabre with my magic and tugged it out with a steely rasp, just enough for him to see a few inches of polished Trottingham steel. “Either way, our brave stallions and mares are getting a show.” “Oh!” Svengallop stared up at his reflection in that glimpse of steel, before I slid the blade fully back into its sheath again. “When you put it that way, sir, I’m sure I... I mean, Countess Coloratura and I can suffer this arrangement just this once. For our troops, of course.” “Jolly good, then,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. Sometimes ponies just needed a small reminder of their manners, I find. With that sorted, at least for now as I fully expected to be assaulted with more irritating demands when we landed, I trotted merrily back to Coloratura’s side by the window. Still, at least it beat being shot at by a wide margin, thought I, as I took up my position leaning nonchalantly with my elbow up on the windowsill. “If you don’t mind me asking,” I said, leaning in a little closer to Coloratura and getting the faintest scent of a light perfume, “what are you the Countess of?” She smiled, mirroring my stance as she too leaned against the windowsill, as the vast stretches of the Badlands, with its wide open plains and craggy hills and ridges receding seemingly into infinity beyond. “Glitz, glamour, the spectacle,” she said, in a stilted, rehearsed manner. Her hoof raised, frog facing inwards, and dramatically pulled over her face as though bringing down a veil. “It must look silly to a prince, but it’s all part of the image -- the mysterious Countess of Pop.” We all have our masques, and few ever get to see the pony beneath. At least the one I was wearing there and then, in the company of an attractive mare, was the rather more comfortable one of the young, dashing, debonair prince with a playfully caddish streak. I dared to lean in a little closer still, and said softly, “I could make you a real countess.” “Sir!” Svengallop’s voice demolished the mood like a cannonball tearing through a birthday cake. “What is it now?” I snapped my head round with no attempt to disguise my irritation at having my advances interrupted so, all but growling like a teased cat, to see him pointing out the window with a hoof. There, slightly below us, the city of Virion Hive continued to drift by. That was when I felt the frogs of my forehooves start to itch, signifying my hindbrain had picked up on something that my forebrain had yet to piece together properly. “Shouldn’t we have stopped at the city already?” He squinted down at his wristwatch. “At this rate I won’t have time for a spa treatment!” He was right, as much as I hated to admit it; we were drifting straight past the city and heading south, directly towards enemy territory. That all-too-familiar sensation of my stomach plummeting through the floor was back. There was very likely a perfectly rational explanation for this, and given the sheer number of airships that floated on their merry way to and from Virion Hive each day, it was entirely possible that ours had been ordered into some sort of holding pattern to stop the strip from being overwhelmed. Still, now that the thought had been firmly implanted in my mind and had started to grow roots, the only way to kill that weed before it fully took over was to go up and check with the crew, of whom I had seen precious little on this airship. [Cargo transports typically operate with minimal crew, with the loading and unloading duties managed by the ground crews.] “I’ll have a word with the Captain,” I said. “I’ll be back shortly, Countess.” We were in the hold, and the deck where the Captain and crew were presumably engaged in the job of ensuring we don’t fall out of the sky or crash into the side of a mountain was up top. Two sets of stairs connected the hold to the deck at either end of the gondola. There was also a cargo lift intended for moving the heavy boxes of supplies between the hold and the deck, but as neither Twilight Sparkle nor Starswirl the Bearded were on hoof to work out how to operate the exceedingly complex array of buttons, toggles, switches, and dials on the control panel where a simple ‘up’ and ‘down’ ought to have sufficed, I elected not to risk meddling with technology I barely understood. That meant crawling up three or four flights of stairs from the base of this cargo hold, located at the front, right up to the very top, which I tell you was a damned tiring task even with Doctor Breathe Easy’s alleged miracle cure for being gassed. I emerged through a door onto the top deck, and instantly the wind at this altitude plucked at my sweat-soaked jacket and blew my blond mop in something that might look very dramatic if it didn’t cover my eyes. My hat nearly flew away too. The deck stretched out before me, and this being a simple, utilitarian design intended purely for transporting vast amounts of things from one place to another meant it was quite a barren and unattractive place, as opposed to the more glamorous and well-apportioned cruise liners I had been on before. The floor was plain wood, with a raised platform at the back where the wheel and other bits and pieces that controlled the ship were. The engines were at the back, spinning the propellers that thrust this ship forward through the sky. The scant crew were lingering around at first, but the moment I stepped out on the deck they instantly jumped into frantic activity - scrubbing the floor, fiddling with the mass of ropes and chains that held the gondola attached to the big bag-thing that held the gas-bags that kept us afloat, and peering out into the distance on watch - which I found very strange and only heightened my anxiety. The captain would be at the wheel, I assumed. I have to confess that most of what I knew about airships largely came from stories about pirates I used to read as a foal, which, after having spent time with these skyborne criminals later in my career, I now know to be severely over-romanticised. As I trotted on in that direction, I could not shake the sensation that I was being watched rather more closely than is usual for me, as the airship crew quickly averted their eyes when I glanced in their direction in a manner that felt decidedly conspicuous. Directly above the gondola, the vast grey structure of the ‘envelope’, as my valet has just told me is the technical term for it as I write this, loomed like an enormous, skyborne whale, about to belly flop directly on top of our ship. Unlike the pretty, elegant designs typically seen in pleasure craft and cruise liners across Equestria, as a mere cargo vessel commandeered by the military it was a drab and grey oval. What little actual knowledge I had picked up about airships from those silly pirate stories told me that the structure roughly the size of the east wing of my summer mansion was filled with highly flammable gas, for no such adventure story was complete without at least one of these going down in flames. Now, as much as ponies in the industry like to explain that one is more likely to die choking on breakfast than in an airship accident, the fact that there was what amounted to an enormous bag or collection of bags containing a substance known to burst into flames at the slightest spark trumped all of the statistics they could present before me. The Captain, identifiable by the cap worn at a jaunty angle, was indeed at the wheel. He held onto it with his hooves, with a look of steely determination that never left the southern horizon to which we were headed. “I say!” I said, shouting above the roar of the engines and wind. The Captain didn’t look at me, but grunted to show he’d heard. “Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but don’t you think you’ve overshot our destination?” There was a pause before he responded. “Passengers are to remain below deck, sir.” Every ‘pony’ had stopped working and stared at me. One did not need to be a master detective to work out exactly what was going on, but out here on the deck I was alone and surrounded, with no clear avenue of escape but to leap over the side and hope a passing patrol of pegasi could catch me before I smeared myself on the ground like strawberry jam on toast. “Well,” I said, doing my utmost not to squeal in terror in the face of dawning realisation. “I’ll just head back down there, shall I?” The Captain nodded his head robotically, and I turned on my hooves and marched unsteadily back towards the door I came out of. I knew the Changelings would strike eventually, but I’d hoped that when it did that it would happen to somepony else. Having two high profile ponies on board a single airship drifting unescorted through the sky was simply too big an opportunity for the Changelings to miss. We had tried to be discreet with this, but, as I had learned quite recently, secrets are almost impossible to keep out here. I reached the door and stopped to think, pretending to look as though I was admiring the scenery. We were still quite close to Virion Hive, I thought, though I couldn’t see it for it must have been somewhat below us, and still within sight of our airborne patrols. They must have noticed that we were wildly off course by now, drifting straight into enemy territory, and dispatching at least a company’s worth of pegasi and/or griffons to assist, I hoped. But by the time that any spotters realised that anything was wrong and organised our rescue, it could be too late. There was only one thing for it, and that was to do one of the few things that I actually excel in -- attracting attention. It was a damned risky thing, as there was a member of the ship’s ‘crew’ standing by the door and observing me with an unblinking stare, but I was not about to let myself become a source of food for love-starved Changelings; I didn’t much like the process the last time, and it was only with an infant. I summoned a burst of magic in my horn and aimed over the side of the ship -- a little trick that I’d picked up from the unicorn companies for signalling purposes. The ‘pony’ by the door stretched his mouth unnaturally wide in a snarl, bearing sharp fangs, and the cruel hiss that rose from his throat was the one that had haunted my nightmares since I first heard it in the catacombs under Canterlot. That it came from an otherwise normal-appearing ‘pony’ only made it more disturbing. He leapt forth, shoving me forcefully in the shoulder, but I discharged the flare. I had aimed out over the side, but being pushed had caused me to snap my head up. The Changeling and I watched with a mutual sense of helpless dread as the bright red flare, trailing smoke, rose upwards like a rocket, and struck the underside of the airship’s envelope above us. The burning charge seemed to stick to the fabric there, and for a moment I hoped that I had been exceptionally lucky. Of course not. It seemed to sink, or rise, rather, through the fabric, which smoked and smouldered, and then caught alight. Small orange and yellow flames licked the sides of the crater, which slowly expanded across the fabric. It was rather slower than I expected, having previously thought that such a discharge would have caused an immediate and terrifying explosion, but the growing ring of fire and the roiling black smoke emanating from it was nevertheless very alarming. [Contrary to popular belief, specific design features including compartmentalised cells, anti-flash screens, and fire retardant materials prevent the sort of massive explosion ponies imagine when they think of airship accidents. At first, Blueblood had only set fire to the outer membrane, but the fire would spread to the gas cells if not extinguished.] “Oops.” Even the Changeling looked shocked at this sudden turn of events, and stared at me with the sort of expression of disgust and disbelief a pony might give if they saw me kick their dog across the park. Feeling somewhat embarrassed I could only give an apologetic grin before the full gravity of the situation re-asserted itself, and so I turned on my forehooves and lashed out with my hindlegs. My hooves connected with the drone’s barrel with a hefty, satisfying ‘thud’, and it sailed backwards through the air and disappeared over the safety railing. A second later, just enough for me to feel satisfied at getting the bastard, the drone, having shed its disguise, rose back up on buzzing insectoid wings. It grinned horribly. I darted through the door and slammed it shut behind me with a burst of magic. It rammed into place with a loud, resonant crash that echoed in the cavernous hold. There was no bar or locking mechanism on this side, so I stood there on my hindlegs and pressed my scarred back against it. With my heart pounding away in my chest like those Prench war drums, I remained there, forcing my back against the rough metal surface of the door, expecting the pounding of hooves against it as the drones tried to force it open. I was under no illusion that my failing strength would be insufficient to hold them, but under the influence of adrenaline I thought I ought to at least make an effort. Due to the awkward way I was positioned, my sabre’s guard jabbed into my side quite painfully. It did, however, make me consider using it to jam the door shut, but given the circumstances I’d rather not lose my only weapon. Besides, I’d probably make a mess of it anyway. There was a minute of nothing, except the drone of the engines, my panicked breathing, and the pounding of blood in my ears. It at least gave me time to think, not least trying to work out why I wasn’t having to fend off a small horde of Changelings by myself, and I remembered the emergency parachutes in the hold. I’d read the safety pamphlet a few times over already, and once again it appeared that my habitual paranoia had paid off again. I tentatively stepped away from the door, charging my horn with lethal magic for when the first love-starved drone burst through. Still nothing happened, which only heightened my worry, and I cautiously made my way backwards down the stairs, stumbling a few times, to the bottom as I never took my eyes off that door. When I reached the bottom I was alarmed to find that the floor was tilted slightly down in the direction of the front of the airship, where the fire was spreading. That quickened my blood, and I all but galloped around the labyrinth of boxes, each of which was much too heavy to start sliding around the gradually sloping floor just yet, to where I’d left the two passengers and my aide. Needless to say, Coloratura and Svengallop were somewhat alarmed when I rounded the corner, skidding on flailing hooves. I immediately threw open the overhead compartment to grab the packed parachutes. Cannon Fodder greeted my arrival by lifting his head from the floor and suppressing a loud belch. “Sir!” shouted Svengallop, as I frantically counted those life-saving bundles of silk cloth. There were enough for each of us, thank Faust. “What’s going on?” “Changelings,” I said breathlessly, tossing a parachute bundle at Svengallop, which he skillfully caught with his face. “What?” blurted out Coloratura, rushing to my side. “They’ve replaced the crew,” I said, as I more gently gave her the second parachute bundle. Then, just to make sure I got my side of the story straight before anypony else could say otherwise, “And they have set fire to the airship. It’s going down in flames.” That was enough to spur everypony into frantic action. Svengallop was in hysterics, struggling with the straps on his parachute until Coloratura had to swat his hooves and mouth out of the way and do it for him. I gave the third one to Cannon Fodder, who appeared to have overcome the worst of his air-sickness with the news, and I took the fourth for myself. As I prepared to strap the bundle to my back, a paranoid hunch told me to check it first. I undid the various latches and opened up the bundle like a backpack. It took a bit of tugging, but I managed to pull the white silk sheet out. Huge rents had been torn in the fabric. I was no expert on these things, not being the sort of pony who would do this for fun, but one did not need to be to see that if I was to leap out of the window with this on my back then I would drop to the ground like a lead balloon. Holding up the ribbons of silk, my fellow passengers did the same to their parachutes and discovered that they too had been likewise sabotaged. The Changelings had clearly planned this; it was not a spur-of-the-moment thing, but they knew that we would be on this airship and therefore ripe for the taking. That also explained why they didn’t rush in after me through the door, now in the hold with ripped parachutes we had nowhere to go. “Now what are we going to do?” Svengallop shrieked, voicing my own thoughts and feelings on the matter in a way propriety and reputation forbade. He turned on Countess Coloratura. “I told you this charity show was a mistake!” “I just wanted to do something nice for our ponies at the front!” shouted Coloratura. She seemed to be holding herself together much better than her manager, though the quiver in her voice and her ears pinned back betrayed her fear. Svengallop let out a frustrated snort and stamped his hoof, then rounded on me, thrusting his face towards mine. “Prince Blueblood, do something!” Heaven forbid other ponies take the initiative for once, and I could not help but wonder what they would be doing if I had been absent for this. Perhaps the Changelings would have ignored this flight if I’d stayed in the castle, but no, I wanted to meet Coloratura and see how receptive she was to tall, dashing, and sensitive military types in sharp uniforms. I had spent the past minute or so wracking my brain for some sort of way out of this, and the only plan I could cobble together that didn’t involve giving up and hoping the Changelings were feeling merciful after I’d set fire to the ship was so absurd that I knew I would feel embarrassed if I pulled it off. “The gasbags,” I said, merely repeating the thought running through my head. “What?” Svengallop exclaimed. “We can use one of the gasbags to float down to the ground.” Svengallop exchanged a worried glance with Coloratura. “You’re a gasbag, they’re called cells!” he shouted, at length. “And that’s a stupid plan, you said the airship’s on fire!” In truth I couldn’t disagree with that assessment of the plan, but it was the only chance we had that didn’t involve either burning to death or being captured, which, after having seen first-hoof how the enemy treated their prisoners, seemed almost as bad a fate as the former. By now, the tilt of the floor had become impossible to ignore. Further away, I could hear the sound of lighter and smaller crates and barrels sliding on the wooden surface. It might have been fear, but I could almost certainly feel the sensation of falling in the pit of my stomach. “If you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it,” I said tersely. None were forthcoming. “Only the front of the airship is burning, the ‘cells’ at the rear might still be intact, for now at least. We’re wasting time arguing about this.” “What about the Changelings?” asked Coloratura. “They’re fanatics, but I don’t think they’ll hang around on a burning airship for long. With a bit of luck they’ll have buzzed off by now. If not, Cannon Fodder and I will protect you.” I looked Svengallop and Coloratura up and down, appraising the two of them. The former, despite being an earth pony, was a thin, wiry sort who probably lifted nothing heavier than the clothes on his back, while the latter seemed to have a bit more of the traditional earth pony physique under her make-up and dress. “You may have to fight.” Coloratura nodded grimly. “A friend taught me how to buck apples out of trees.” “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” I said. “We’ll do our damnedest to get the two of you out in one piece, so stick with me and we’ll all have a good chance of doing just that.” I was babbling, but somehow I managed to project it as the sort of brash, military confidence ponies expected of me. Even Svengallop’s hysterics had calmed down. Inwardly, however, I was positively shaking with fear. Faust, if I do get out of this alive, I thought, I will never fly on an airship again. With not a moment to waste, we pushed on up the sloping floor around the cargo. Some had crashed into one another, having slid as the airship continued to tilt nose-down, necessitating us to clamber awkwardly over the piles of smashed boxes and crates of oats and grain to get to the other side. It was damned awkward going, and by the time we’d reached the stairs at the rear of the gondola I was already feeling the strain. Fear and adrenaline, however, continued to be powerful motivators, at least as far as Yours Truly was concerned. As for my companions, they mostly seemed to be under the delusion that I had everything under control. Even Cannon Fodder seemed to have gotten over his crippling air-sickness, as the prospect of more Changelings to kill seemed to thoroughly invigorate him. Only the pale green tinge around his neck and cheeks and his more frequent belching indicated his discomfort. We trotted up the stairs as fast as we could manage. The smell of burning became thoroughly apparent, and if I strained my ears to hear past the noise of our hooves hammering on the metal steps I could make out the too-familiar roar of flames. When we reached the top, panting for breath and my muscles aching, I still wasted no time in bucking the door down. A wave of heat rushed in, stinging my face and bringing tears to my eyes, as though the door I had kicked down had been to a kiln. What had been a small but spreading fire when I fled earlier had grown into a vast, consuming inferno that swallowed up almost the entire front third of the envelope, the membrane peeling back like burning skin. Sheets of yellow and orange flame danced and writhed over the twisted steel skeleton, licked up alongside the sleek length of the envelope to stain it, and a churning column of black, oily smoke poured blasphemously forth into the heavens. I stared, dumbfounded, as my mind was pulled backwards to when I stood in the burning hall of a fortress, and I saw dark figures writhing in a macabre dance in the flames, and one reaching out to pull me in... “Sir!” Cannon Fodder shoved me into the side of the doorway, and the jab of pain in my ribs broke me out of my stupor. A Changeling drone had lunged towards me, fangs bared for my throat. My aide thrust his spear forwards, impaling the creature mid-leap. The momentum of its charge forced it a good few feet down the length of the spear, where it then twitched horribly, bleeding ichor down the shaft, and fell limp. Behind me, I heard a thud as Svengallop fainted, which was the most useful thing he could do in this situation. Two others came on. Acting on instinct, I fired a magic shot into the first one’s face. Its entire visage imploded, leaving a horrid, smouldering crater. The creature continued to gallop two more steps before collapsing in a heap. With the second one I made the mistake of trying to aim first, and the drone nimbly dodged it with a side-step. With it directly upon us, I had no time to draw my sword and Cannon Fodder was still trying to extricate his spear from the dead drone. Coloratura pushed her way forwards, then turned and struck out with her hindlegs, and her hooves landed squarely on the drone’s head. With the force of an earth pony buck and the momentum of the Changeling’s charge, its neck was twisted to an angle not intended by its creator and snapped with a sound like a wet bundle of sticks breaking. Its body arced gracefully through the air and landed a few yards from us on the deck, dead. There were still more Changelings standing around on this side of the deck, and much fewer in number than the ‘crew’ I had seen there earlier. I imagine most had wisely escaped the doomed airship and this was merely a sort of rearguard. There couldn’t be more than half a dozen of them, I thought, but I was hardly in the best frame of mind to give an accurate count, and none of them seemed particularly enthused by the thought of fighting. Even a brainwashed drone who had been indoctrinated from hatching that their lives meant nothing except in service to the Hive held some iota of self-preservation, and the threshold appeared to be somewhere below a burning airship. The remaining drones all took to the air, and at first I thought they were fleeing, but instead they merely lingered in mid-air away from the burning airship. They probably thought we’d see sense and surrender. A slim chance of success is better than none, so at my frantic instruction the three of us picked up the unconscious Svengallop, loosening his tie and shirt top button, and with Cannon Fodder and I taking his forelegs and Coloratura his hindlegs we proceeded towards the rigging. The Changelings must have thought us mad, because they took no action to stop us. Even with the three of us, carrying a fully-unconscious pony was difficult. Dragging him up the netting would have been damned near impossible if I did not have magic to take much of the burden of his weight. From there it was a matter of placing one hoof after another on each ascending strip of rope and pulling my lumpen, ungainly frame upwards, one at a time. Cannon Fodder was by my side, as always, pulling up the dead weight by his forehoof and phlegmatically enduring the ordeal as usual. Coloratura lagged behind, alternating between pushing the unconscious Svengallop upwards and climbing, but she did so with minimal complaining -- would that all RASEA entertainers were as tough as her. The heat from the flames was unbearable. With my back to it, the skin there stung painfully, and sweat poured over my body. My lungs burned with every breath, where I could take one without coughing. My eyes were stinging, but each time I tried to blink away the sweat and the smoke I caught glimpses of that gas-soaked hellscape in my mind. Coloratura’s make-up had melted and sloughed down her face like candle wax. It was only by single-mindedly focusing on the need to put one hoof in front of the other and climb that we could carry on. I avoided looking up or down, so I only knew I had reached the top when the peak of my cap struck the trap door above. Cannon Fodder shoved it open with his nose, and with little cause for delicacy or refinement we simply hurled the limp form of Svengallop inside before following. Inside the envelope was curiously cooler than the outside, and though not by much it was at least enough to be noticeable and to clear my head somewhat. Looking back at the front of the airship, the inferno raged with the fury of the sun. The roiling flames seemed almost hypnotic to watch. Then I saw about equidistant from us and the fire itself the air shimmered with a pale blue glow, and I remembered reading something in the safety pamphlet earlier about anti-flash magic fields separating the different compartments of the envelope in the case of a fire. It would buy us time, but it would inevitably fail and collapse with the intense heat. We could at least take stock now. The trap door had deposited us on a walkway that ran across the entire length of the bottom of the envelope. All around we were surrounded by these gas cells -- huge grey sacks inflated like balloons, each roughly the size of a large wagon. These were lashed into place by ‘cages’ of netting and straps. It was then that Svengallop came to. “Oh Tartarus, am I still here?” he whined, before a look from Coloratura shut him up. I set Cannon Fodder and the newly-roused Svengallop to cut one of the gas cells free from its mooring, which really meant that my aide had to do most of the work while the manager ‘managed’ him by shouting pointless platitudes that were ignored. That left Coloratura and me to rip a hole in the side of the envelope in order to provide a means of egress. We found a gap in there between the compartments, and so at the popstar’s direction I focused a beam of magic to slice through the fabric there like a knife. I tried not to think about what might happen if I jerked my head and struck one of the nearby gas cells by accident, but intrusive thoughts have a tendency to stick where they’re not wanted. But before long Cannon Fodder and Svengallop were dragging a full gas cell behind them, the vast balloon wobbling like a jelly behind them, and a hole in the envelope was big enough for it to slip through. [Blueblood does not give the precise model of the airship here, but from these descriptions we can infer that it was a semi-rigid construction, in which only the keel or truss of the airship is rigid and supports the envelope. This would likely be the ‘walkway’ that Blueblood described earlier. We can narrow down the possibilities to either the Beluga-class, Humpback-class or the Sperm-class cargo airship, which were in use by the Equestrian Army for supply. However, knowing my nephew he would not have been able to resist commenting on the name of the latter.] That the gas cell was fully intact and still covered in netting that we might easily cling onto might be taken as proof that there is a benevolent Faust looking out for me, but I would counter that such a purportedly kind deity would not have allowed such a useful substance as airship gas to be so damned flammable in the first place. With our escape prepared, we set about wrapping our limbs around the tough netting as tightly as we could manage, and with the four of us so bound, we propelled our intrepid bag of gas towards the hole by means of awkward, restrained jumping. It took a few tries, but after bouncing off the adjacent cells a few times, we lucked out and our gas cell, with us still clinging to it, slipped through the gap like a coin through a worn pocket. I felt a sudden lurch in my stomach and the sensation of falling, but it was rapidly arrested and I found myself facing the ground. A pony shrieked, and I can’t be certain that it wasn’t me. With four adult ponies, one in heavy armour and me still in need of a diet, tethered in place close together, gravity asserted itself and the gas cell rolled in the air until we were at the bottom, facing the dizzying drop hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet to the earth. My vision swam, as the landscape below seemed to spin and rotate with the churning in my gut. I lifted my head with great difficulty to try and find the horizon, expecting to see the Changeling drones hovering to watch us drift helplessly to the ground with faint amusement. Instead, the skies were clear as far as I could see, except for a few clouds and the burning airship, of course; the enemy must have thought that capturing us was no longer worth the effort and retreated before our pegasi could come to our rescue. Speaking of which, I don’t know for certain how much time had passed in that ordeal, but I would have assumed that an airship catching fire, vomiting bright flame and black clouds of smoke into the sky, must have attracted at least some attention from our patrols. Even then, given the sheer number of ponies who lived and worked nearby, one must have looked up at the sky to see that something was clearly amiss and warranted extra attention. Unless, that is, something else was going on at the same time. I didn’t know that at the time. In fact, I had very little capacity to think except to consider that it was a terribly long way to fall, and if I did I could only hope that I might pass out before striking the ground. All four legs were burning in agony, not to mention my ruined back and my shoulders for good measure. Even Cannon Fodder, whose facial expressions scarcely expressed more than an admirably stoic resolve, had clenched his jaw in pain. Our two civilians still held on, having entwined their limbs tightly through the netting so that dropping was impossible but merely staying there was still painful. That Svengallop had given up on complaining was enough to tell me that he was truly struggling. It didn’t help either that our descent was agonisingly slow, which, on balance, was immeasurably preferable to the alternative. There was nothing that could be done except to cling on for dear life and watch the barren, pale ground of the Badlands, being a simple flat plain out here interspersed with the odd shrubbery and patch of grass eking out a miserable existence. When the ground finally rushed up to greet us like an overbearing aunt it was something of a surprise, and not least because we were about to do so face-first. I bruised my snout when we impacted, and earned a few scuffs there and on the front of my uniform when the bag was dragged across the ground by the wind. Once I wriggled my limbs free of the netting I fell in a battered heap on the dusty ground. Cannon Fodder was next to liberate himself, followed by Coloratura and finally Svengallop, whose nice suit was utterly ruined by the experience. Our intrepid gas cell continued to drag along the ground a few more feet, and then, having accomplished its purpose, deflated. I sat there, dazed and confused. Coloratura all but collapsed next to me, and I held her in something of an embrace as we watched the airship continue to burn high above. There was a peculiar sort of majesty to the spectacle, as the loosely whale-shaped envelope tilted further and further onto its nose, then, at a forty-five degree angle, the anti-flash screens inside failed to hold back the fire, and flames blossomed at the very tip of the tail. That spelt the final end of our gallant airship, as the remaining gas cells were consumed in the conflagration, the withered husk dropped out of the sky, trailing choking black columns of smoke, to crash into a ruin of steel upon the ground some distance away. Virion Hive was a large, dark mound on the horizon. At the altitude we fell from and with the wind we must have drifted quite far, and by my guess it would take much of the afternoon to walk back even if we weren’t so exhausted by our ordeal. Yet I saw the silhouettes of pegasi high in the air drawing closer, the sunlight glinting brightly off their silver armour. I was about to curse them for taking so long, when I looked past them and noticed for the first time since landing, that amidst the silhouette of the walls and towers of Virion Hive, here and there, sparse but noticeable and certainly worrying, dark smoke rose like the leafless tree branches of midwinter. The Changelings had certainly been busy that day. Cannon Fodder summed up the feeling better than I could with words, by finally vomiting on Svengallop.