“You wanted to see me, Captain?”
First Mate was a tall, roan earth pony, whose height had caused him to duck slightly under the doorframe to enter the quarterdeck. Square Sails rose to meet him, urging him to shut the door.
“Indeed, sailor. We have a predicament. You’re aware of the situation with the rudder, yes?”
“Aye, Captain. Seaweed let me know when he passed your message along. Deliberate sabotage?” He shook his head. “Never in my life would I have expected such a thing.”
“Indeed. We are at least lucky enough to have it be fused straight. Drop portside anchor and prepare a drogue. Due North?”
“Aye Captain?”
“Establish a corrected course to Dove Island. It should take a couple hours to build the emergency rudder, have it done by then.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” She stood up and immediately went to the windows, picking up a spyglass as she went.
“Applejack?”
“Yessir? Er, aye Captain?”
Square Sails hid a smile before continuing. “Watch your flank about the ship. There’s no lock on your cabin, so if you retire to it, I would recommend not having a nap without barricading the door. If necessary I recommend you sleep with the crew in the fo’c’sle. Less privacy, but less chance to do anything suspicious. We don’t know who the traitor aboard the ship is, so we must remain vigilant.”
“Traitor, sir?” First Mate asked, taken aback as he reached for the door.
“Of course, sailor, who else would fuse the rudder? Off with you now, we can’t afford to waste any more time.”
“Anything else I should do, sir?” Applejack asked, looking around. “Maybe I can find out who could have done this?”
“I appreciate it, but I don’t want anypony going about seeding distrust amongst the entire crew. I believe you can likely handle yourself in a fight, and if a scuffle breaks out there’s the rest of us to intervene. Best we can do now is wait for whoever it was to make their next move, and hope to catch them in the act. Perhaps this was the extent of their tactics, seeking merely to delay you. In the meantime, continue on as normal. We will be back in action in due time. Dismissed.”
Applejack stood up and bid the two goodbye, feeling strange. A barrage of emotions ran through her heart but they all seemed to even themselves out to nothing; the anxiety of a traitor aboard seemed nullified by the continued absence of the Source’s push on her. Impatience at the delay rallied, only to be beaten down by the acceptance she had no idea how long the trip was supposed to take in the first place. She was worried, but calm; angry, but apathetic. If somepony did try anything with her, she’d have them bucked off into the water faster than you could say “candied apple”, trained Royal Guard or not.
She opted to mill about above deck, staying closer to the fore side of the ship to avoid the bustle of activity around the back. As she watched, ponies had assembled an almost sort of mini sail and were fastening a number of lines and pulleys to it around the ship. It was almost an hour in when she realized that she had been watching all of this happen while the ship rocked back and forth the entire time and hadn’t felt the least bit nauseous. She considered finding Stewaway and seeing if he couldn’t procure more ginger for her for later, when a shout came from above the main mast.
“Sail Ho!”
To say the energy amongst the crew had changed would have been an understatement. Applejack watched as a ripple of ponies stopping and stiffening up spread out from the mast, ears perked and alert, eyes wide. All of the shouts and coordinated grunts that had been the soundtrack to her morning had cut short like somepony had knocked the needle off the record. In the quiet, there was only the splashing of waves and the creaking of hull, before a door slammed open.
“Report!” Square Sails demanded up to the crows nest, as all eyes snapped onto him.
“Sail off the starboard bow, Captain! Looks to be a brigantine, heading right towards us.”
Square Sails pulled a small telescope from a pocket in his uniform and flicked it, snapping it out to its full extent and bringing it to his eye all in one fluid motion. After a moment he collapsed it back down and rubbed his muzzle, thinking.
“Orders, Captain?” First Mate asked. He had been in the middle of keeping tension on a line while a pulley was being attached to it, and spoke from a tilted back position.
Square Sails dropped his hoof and then looked quickly around his crew before nodding sharply. “As you were, sailors. Get that rudder set up. Lookout!” he shouted, craning his neck to stare above the main mast again.
“Aye Captain?”
“What are her colours?”
“Blue cross on a black background, Captain. I don’t recognize it.”
The hoof came back up to the muzzle again, though Applejack thought for a moment that it was obscuring a smirk. When he stood still again and his face was still stoic and serious, she decided she had imagined it.
“Me either. But they’re flying colours regardless, so I’m liable to hope it’s a western country. Back to work!”
The petrification amongst the crew lasted for just a moment longer before washing away as if it hadn’t occurred, and the sailors immediately went back to their jokes and teamwork. The unease on their faces hadn’t left though, and at this Applejack felt a chill run down her back. She looked around her and then stepped up onto the fo’c’sle, watching the oncoming ship, and thinking.
She hadn’t prepared for any interaction at sea, and didn’t know what to even expect. Sure, there were the tropes about cannons blasting back and forth, swashbuckling ponies swinging in on ropes with swords and magic cracking, romance, adventure, all that extravagance… But that was fiction, embellishment, nothing more than a tall tale told to thrill audiences.
Right?
She heard a heavy hooffall on the steps, and broke her gaze from the oncoming ship to see who it was. Recognizing Captain Square Sails, she gave a half-hearted nod and then looked back out while he stood next to her.
“What’s a brigantine?” she asked, picturing a cartoonish rogue in her mind. “Some sort of war thing?”
“It’s a type of ship. Two masted, fully rigged. Smaller than ours, but not by much. They’re used for anything from mercantile to privateering, and sometimes pirates, of course.”
Applejack gulped.
“Are uh, pirates a common issue at sea?”
“Not for the Royal Equestrian Navy, Applejack. Those cowardly types wouldn’t come near a ship as trained and armed as ours. No pirate would be so insanely dimwitted as to try.” He smirked, his eye trained upon the now-quickly approaching vessel. “Some creatures say it can’t even be done, even if they did.”
“That’s a relief,” she muttered. “I’m hardly used to sleeping at sea. Wasn’t much looking forward to fighting.”
A strong hoof clapped her back, coinciding with a loud, barking laugh. “Worry not, Applejack. I can promise there’ll be no fighting today.”
“Captain!”
The two looked to see Due North, accompanied by First Mate, walking up the steps.
“Done already, First Mate?”
“Er, ah, no sir, Due North was looking for you, so I—”
“Felt the need to escort her in case she got lost, did we?”
“Ah, er…” He blustered for a moment longer before simply shutting his muzzle, saluting, and racing back to the quarterdeck. As he crossed past the mast, he stopped and spun around.
“Oh, right! That ship’s approaching fast, Captain! Orders?”
“I have the new heading, Captain,” Due North muttered, stepping back a bit.
“You have your orders, First Mate! The rudder, on the double!”
“About the ship, sir! Should we prepare the cannons?”
“By the hounds of Cloudsdale, on the rudder, sailor! I’ll not threaten a merchant ship and plunge Equestria into an international incident with a country we haven’t even got diplomatic relations with! Step to!”
“A-Aye Captain!”
“I swear, that pony’s going to find himself in the brig, he keeps questioning me… Yes, Due North?”
“Uh, well, we’re luckily not actually too off course. We’ll have to correct to the southeast, though the wind is blowing north and we will face a delay for the time being.”
“Captain!” It was the lookout again.
“Celestia’s beard, what is it?”
“She’s turned to broadside and coming up fast!”
“Well are their gunports open?!”
“N-no sir—”
“Then stand down! If luck has it they’ll check if we need assistance, and perhaps we’ll be able to get that rudder fixed on time.”
“Aye Captain.”
Square Sails shook his head, walking around Due North to look at the map she was holding up with her. In the meantime, Applejack watched as the new ship slowly slid neatly next to them, coasting to a relative stop. So far as she could tell, she could only see two ponies, both earth ponies—though one of them was almost comically small—standing at the helm. The rest of the ship was clear.
“Ho there!” came a shout from the larger pony, who waved. “Rudder problems?”
In a flash, Applejack’s life turned upside down. When the earth pony finished speaking, all six gunports on their ship slid open and huge, blackened cannons slammed fully out, the clattering as they connected with the hull of their ship echoing in the corners of her mind and knocking her back from the rails.
“A shame, that, ‘cause yer bout to have a lot more!” he concluded, slamming his head back with a bellowing laugh.
“All hooves to stations! Ready the guns!” First Mate shouted, almost tripping in place as he started to run towards the stairway down.
“Belay that, sailor!” Square Sails shouted.
“Captain Square Sails! Are you mad?!”
“No,” he replied, before a blinding explosion of green flame shot out around him, causing Due North to shriek. Applejack stumbled again, back towards the railing. Where just a moment ago Square Sails had been, there was now a huge, scarred changeling, baring razor sharp canines, hissing tongue, and wearing a pegleg.
She wasted no time, using her movement into the railing to swing two legs up into it before bucking and pressing off, leaping towards the changeling with forehooves outstretched. Before she could reach him though, he sidestepped out of the way, picking Due North up in his moth-eaten legs and cackling.
“Ah ah ah! Steady now, lass.” His horn lit up, and a crackling blade of vibrantly green energy sparked and snapped into existence, right against Due North’s now taut and shaking neck. “One more step from any of ye and the mare gets to chart a route to Tartarus!”
“You son of a bugbear,” Applejack seethed, standing up slowly but holding her place.
“She was more bug than bear, I assure you,” he spit, before taking a step, causing Due North to squeak. He cast his purple, empty eyes across the ship, and smiled as every pony stayed perfectly still.
“Ah, fantastic, ye all can take an order. Now, I’ve just finished promising this spunky filly over here that we all won’t be fighting today. It would be a real shame,” he emphasized, pressing the staticy blade into Due North. She whimpered as fur singed black around it, muttering a prayer that Applejack could not make out. “...if any of ye were to make me break that promise. Comply and ye shall be saved! Ar ar arr…”
No pony spoke.
“Right then! Allow me to sum up yer current situation. I have a hostage. We have yer ship dead to rights, with cannons loaded and crew ready to light the fuse. The location of yer actual Captain is unknown, and I’m sure he’d really appreciate ye finding him before he runs out of air. This leaves us all with very little time, no?”
“Get to it!” First Mate snapped.
“A week ago we all had a dream! Ancient temples rising from the depths, beckoning out to all of us to seek it! I expect there be an incredible treasure, some priceless item meant to be kept out of evil hooves or stowed in a dusty museum. Why else would a Royal Equestrian Navy ship,” he said, drenching the word Royal in sarcasm, “be so far from the coast? We suspected ye ponies might know more than we did, and rightly so!
“My demand is simple. Give me the map, and ye’re free to go. Pursue us and ye’ll be destroyed without quarter nor mercy. Simple, no?” He laughed, a rough arr arr arr that had the situation been different, would have made Applejack laugh. It was very much like any pirate story she had been told.
Except now she was in one, and it was much less campy to hear it come from an actual cutthroat.
There was an extended silence again, broken only by the bobbing and rocking of the two ships.
The changeling slumped his withers, sighing.
“Or if ye’d like, we could martyr your friend before we begin? I need an answer, ye dogs!”
It seemed very clear to Applejack that there was only one option being presented.
“Nopony’ll get hurt?” she asked, fuming at him.
“Aye lass, not a scratch befallin’ one of ye.”
“And what do you plan to do with it, once you’ve found it?”
“With what, ye fool?”
He didn’t know that it was the Source they were after, Applejack realized. All they knew was they were after something valuable.
“The treasure, you parasprite! What else?”
“It be simple. We ransom it back to yer dainty princesses for a handsome sum, and then drink and ‘ore ourselves out until we croak. Isn’t it nice? Ye still get to keep whatever trinket yer after, and keep yer lives.” The creepy grin on his face snapped shut, and he straightened back up, bringing his blade just slightly into Due North’s neck. She shouted in fear or pain or both, and Applejack made her decision.
“I’m the map. You promise to let these sailors go, and I mean go, back to sea, and I’ll come with you.”
The changeling rolled his head, presumably along with his eyes. “Yer a horse, lass. Not a map.”
“The map is a set of directions only I know. If you want it, you need me, and I ain’t giving you nothing until the rest of this ship is safe from harm.”
His eyes narrowed, and the forked tongue came out, licking his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, but Applejack continued, interrupting him.
“And you need to tell us where Captain Square Sails is!”
He laughed again.
“A clever horse, even. Mayhaps I clarify our accord, then?”
Applejack sneered at him.
“Excellent. Me crew there will extend a gangplank over here, which ye shall cross slowly. Once yer aboard the Infiltrator, I let yer companion go. Once I safely make it onto me ship, and we start to make it underway, I’ll tell ye where Square Sails be. Savvy?”
“How do I know you’ll tell them?”
He rolled his eyes—maybe—again. “Ye don’t! But I ain’t giving no more a bargain than what ye got! Ye ain’t in much of a barterin’ position, lass! Do ye agree, or not?!”
Applejack took a deep breath in, trying to control herself. Righteous anger flared within her, burning her nerves and itching her hooves. She wanted nothing more than to spin around and buck this bug halfway to Equestria, but knew if she moved, Due North was dead.
“Fine!” she shouted, tears starting to form in her eyes.
“Brilliant! Ye make a fine negotiator, lass. I like that in a sailor. Bilge Rat!” he shouted, not turning his head from the earth pony in front of him. “Prepare our new guest transportation!”
“Aye Captain!” came the reply, and the pony leapt off their own quarterdeck and ran to the side.
“Do vermin like you even come with a name?” Applejack seethed while the long plank was slowly slid up towards the bow.
“As a matter o’fact, it do,” he replied, smiling. “The name be Captain Keelhaul, and ye’ll do well to remember it! These waters are owned by none and ruled by me. Any who disagree shall taste blood and blade, by me word!”
Drama queen, Applejack thought, stepping up onto the board. She looked back at Due North. Her eyes were slammed shut, still whimpering, her breathing rapid. She turned her eyes forward, looking at the two earth ponies awaiting her on the other side. She looked down, past the gangplank to the deep green water between the two ships.
And then she crossed.