Chapter 3: It's who you know.
It feels so nice to sleep in a real bed for a change. Soft sheets, soft pillow, soft marshmallow... hard... un-marshmallow? Pip opened his eyes and hit the ceiling, or at least he would have hit the ceiling if he hadn’t been playing teddy bear for Horsecules the midget unicorn. “Um, Dinky, hon... muffin, can you let go please?” Pip pleaded, trying to dislodge Dinky from her death grip on his midsection. Dinky just burbled.
There was a soft knocking at the door. “Pipsqueak, Sweetie Belle?” Fluttershy's quiet voice was somehow audible through the door. “I know it’s early but, are you awake yet?”
“Grm. Just a sec. Nerrf.” Pip managed to free his, now numb, foreleg and scoot Dinky onto his back before hobbling to the door and opening it a crack. “Yes, Fluttershy? Is something wrong?”
“Oh, um, yes. Something is wrong,” Fluttershy said to the increasingly distressed Pipsqueak. “You see, Twilight will be patrolling through this pass on the Zwielicht Funkeln soon and, well, if she sees you or your ship it could be very, um, unfriendly.”
Pip's command voice came out like a wrathful wendigo. “Sweetie Belle, Ditzy Doo, we need to get back to the ship posthaste! Ditzy, if you could get Dinky off me please.”
“Uh, ya sure.” Ditzy complied, rubbing the sleep from her eyes before flying over and somehow dislodging Dinky with nearly no effort.
Sweetie Belle was already at attention. “Should I get Apple Bloom, Captain?”
“No, we'll have to make do. I won't pull her off knight watch.” Pip spun on his hooves. “Fluttershy, thank you for your hospitality and hospitalization. We'll return in one week. Where will you be?”
Fluttershy instinctively shrank away from the imposing visage, but contained herself. “Um, well, we'll be in this area for five more days. If you can be back by then-”
“I'll see you in five days, miss Fluttershy. Good wind and be safe.” And with that they were off.
*******
“Pip, all the cargo is stowed and ready to go!” Dinky called from the cargo bay down the hall.
“Sir, all systems are green. We are ready for lunch,” Sweetie announced. Pip completely missed the joke, as usual.
“PIP! WAIT!” came a bellow from the other side of the retracted gangplank.
Apple Bloom? She was on knight watch, Pip thought. “Ditzy, can you find out what she needs, please?”
“Yes, Captain.” Ditzy flew out from the hangar. Pip watched them through the bridge window. They chatted for a moment then Ditzy picked Apple Bloom up and flew back.
“Apple Bloom, I thought you were on knight watch?” Pip called through the echo.
“Ya, well, when Fluttershy told us what was up Scoots said ah otto go. Y'all need me so, here ah am,” Apple Bloom explained from the hangar's echo.
“Well there’s no turning back now,” Pip said, shifting back to 'captain mode'. “Control, this is the C.M.C. Regenbogen Flitzen, we are go for launch.”
“Acknowledged, C.M.C. Regenbogen Flitzen, releasing clamp in 3, 2, 1, release.” The ship shuddered as the docking clamp disengaged, setting them adrift for a moment, before the engines took control.
“Thank you, control, C.M.C. Regenbogen Flitzen is away.” The birds parted, forming an impromptu departure tunnel, as the ship drifted away from the dock. “Apple Bloom, give us speed.”
“Aye, capm'.” And off they went, sailing into the everfree, with no escort.
No escort... Pip thought, resting his chin on his hooves, huge gun. “Ditzy,” he asked into the echo, “can you and Dinky handle the role of an escort fighter?”
“Ya, we can do that,” Ditzy responded with a satisfying degree of confidence.
“Good,” Pip acknowledged, “hopefully, we won't need it.”
*******
“Captain, where are we headed, if I may ask?” Sweetie Belle asked from today’s chair.
The bridge had nine stations, including the captain's chair, and Sweetie did every job on the bridge, other than captaining of course, and would often sit in a different seat each day just for fun.
“Salvage,” Pip replied semi-cryptically
“Come again?” Sweetie looked up with a quizzical expression.
“Originally, the reason I was looking for the Glänzend Schicksal was to steal one of its guns,” Pip explained in a 'story time' sort of tone. “I later discovered that Blue Blood had on his yacht a stolen prototype, of some sort, from the Canterlot Earth Science Foundation. I want that prototype.”
“Um, Captain, is this confidential information?” Sweetie Belle inquired with that 'I have the best crazy plan' sort of expression that Pip so enjoyed the usual results of.
“Not as such, Sweetie. If you think you have a lead, follow it, but I don’t want to lose that prototype...” Pip trailed off and his eyes started to glass over.
“Captain, I'll keep an eye out,” Sweetie said with her rarely used authoritative voice. “You need breakfast.”
A smirk grew across Pip's face and he stood from his seat. “Yes, ma'am,” he said with a brisk salute followed by an about face march sending him down the hallway towards the gravity lift.
*******
Apple Bloom was already done with Pip's dandelion sandwich and was starting on Sweetie's spinach salad when Pip arrived. “Got your sandwich right here, Capm.”
“Thanks, Apple Bloom,” Pip said as he carried the sandwich to the dining table and took a seat on the finely upholstered aftermarket bench.
“Ah'm gonna take Sweetie her breakfast, be right back,” Apple Bloom announced, balancing the half filled breakfast tray on her back and walking out the door.
“Captain Pipsqueak?” a section of bench said in an ominously friendly voice a short while later.
“GAHAHAAA!!!” Pip replied aptly, falling onto the floor and launching his sandwich across the room.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Are you ok?” A crimson haze apologized as it materialized from thin air and hopped off the bench, coalescing into the image of Ruby Pinch. “I didn't mean to startle you. I... sorta forgot I was invisible.”
“Wah, Ruby?” Pip sputtered, lying on his back and staring up at his new guest. “When did you get on my ship?”
“Oh,” Ruby replied shyly, “I've been here since the fight with Blue Blood. Sorry, I kinda forgot to tell you.”
“Wait, you've been on my ship since yesterday morning and never said anything?” Pip asked, clearly annoyed. “And it never struck you as strange that nopony noticed you?”
“Well...” Ruby began, bowing her head and laying her ears flat in embarrassment, “I was afraid I'd be in the way so I just, you know, made myself scarce.”
You hid on my ship for a day and a half, without saying a word to anypony, because you didn't want to be in the way? Really? Your older then I am, act like it. Pip realized he was getting a bit worked up and took a breath to calm himself down. “Ok, Ruby, I really need something to eat,” he said as he righted himself and began to stand. “Have whatever you like from the kitchen. I'm gonna finish... I'm gonna make another sandwich, then we can talk.”
“Capm', what happened t' yer san...” Apple Bloom trailed off as she stepped through the door, seeing food scattered across the floor, and an unfamiliar unicorn staring awkwardly at the ground. “Howdy, ma'am. If ah may ask, who are ya' and what are ya' doin' in my galley?”
*******
“Thanks, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle said, levitating her breakfast from Apple Bloom's back to a nearby console. “Did Pip make it to the galley?” she asked jokingly, taking a bite of her salad.
“He he, ya he made it,” Apple Bloom confirmed with a smile. “Anyway, ah’m gonna go make something for myself,” She said as she turned back towards the hallway. “Oh, ah'm gonna hafta make something for Dinky ‘n Ditzy too.”
Sweetie chewed her breakfast slowly, watching clouds and birds drifting and flying by. What a lovely morning. From the captain's chair she could see everything on the bridge and had a commanding view through the extra large main window. Now let's find that salvage.
A gentle haze of swirling pink and lavender spread through the room enveloping everything in Sweetie Belle's line of sight. Two and three ahead one quarter. The ship decelerated to a more normal cruising speed. Twenty degrees to starboard. The ship turned towards the sight of yesterday's battle. Decrease buoyancy three percent. The ship began to descend. “And that's the art of the bridge~” Knobs, switches and buttons all moved in perfect rhythm, an orchestra of efficiency.
Sweetie Belle could operate every station on the bridge from here. On a good day she could control the entire ship. Today she could almost feel the wind on her hull and the steam in her engines. Today was an exceptional day.
*******
“Ok, I think that'll just about do it,” Ditzy said as she set a box on top of a stack in the cargo bay and strapped it down.
“Thanks, Mommy,” Dinky replied from a room just down the hall.
They had set about rearranging some ammo and food supplies to make themselves feel useful and discovered a disused armory. Dinky insisted they clean it out so she could work on her gun, so they did. All the munitions were now in the same place, sorted by caliber, and the food was more organized now as well, though Ditzy made a mental note to ask Apple Bloom if she wanted things to be any particular way.
“Hey, Mom?” Dinky said just cautiously enough to put her mother on edge.
“Yes, Muffin?” Ditzy replied as she flew into the room and landed on a couch they had found behind some spare parts.
“Are we gonna stay on this ship for a while? Or are we just passing through again?” Dinky asked, looking more like a normal teenager then she had in a long time.
As much as they both enjoyed it, the years of restless wandering had taken a toll on Dinky, and now she wanted to slow down and make some long term friends. Fortunately, Ditzy had finally found a way she could do that and still continue investigating her harmonious resonance theory.
“We can stay as long as you like, Muffin,” Ditzy said with a smile. “I think it's time you made some lasting friendships.”
“Thanks, Mommy. I like this ship,” Dinky said, smiling at the ceiling. “I think it likes me to.”
*******
Early afternoon in the everfree mountains. It was warmer than yesterday. The clouds hung lower as well, because that's just how the everfree worked that day evidently. There were more birds too, though they may have followed them from the Flattern Schüchtern. All in all it was a good day for ground operations.
Way down on a distant hillside, a thin plume of smoke rose from the smoldering wreckage of the Glänzend Schicksal. Sweetie Belle adjusted her heading towards the wreck. “Captain,” a slightly ethereal voice called through the echo, “our destination is in sight.”
“Roger that, Sweetie. I'll be right there,” Pip replied before quickly finishing an impromptu inventory of the cargo bay and hoofing his clipboard to Apple Bloom for further analysis.
As Pip approached the bridge he could hear soft singing and caught the faint smell of lavender drifting in the air. He snuck through the ever open door to the bridge and just watched for a moment. He loved to see Sweetie Belle at her best, and this was a rare treat. She was levitating about half a hoof off the captain's chair, humming a familiar tune. Her eyes and her bell cutie mark glowed soft silver, like the full moon. Her mane and tail drifted in the magical currents. Every panel in the bridge was alive with swirling magic, rippling with Sweetie's commands. Pip felt like he was inside somepony's head watching their brain in action.
“Sweetie, you're amazing,” Pip complimented softly.
Her trance broken, Sweetie Belle slowly drifted down and her eyes cleared. “Oh, ahem, hello, Pip,” she said, blushing and stepping down from the captain's position.
Pip took up his position, donning his hat and draping his coat over his withers. “Let's go get some new toys.”
*******
The Regenbogen Flitzen came in low over the smoldering wreck and slowed to a stop.
“Altitude is ten fathoms. Cloud cover satisfactory. Firing anchor,” Sweetie Belle provided with practiced professionalism.
There was a muffled bang as the forward cannon fired. The anchor spike found easy purchase in the rocky mountain side, securing them against the wind.
“Excellent. Thank you, Sweetie,” Pip replied with satisfaction. “Ruby,” He called into the echo, “can I assign you to defend the ship while we collect salvage?”
“No problem, Captain Pipsqueak,” Ruby replied, materializing uncomfortably close to Pip. “You can count on me,” she finished with an adorably sloppy salute.
Pipsqueak and Apple Bloom descended from the ship on the gravity lift. Ditzy flew and Dinky just jumped, landing in a pulse of magic that looked like a miniature sun. She looked both proud of herself and a bit surprised for some reason.
“Alright,” Pip said with a smirk, starting towards the wreck, “let's go see what we find.”
The debris was scattered over a wide area. Most of the bodies were gone, taken by the fire or the creatures of the everfree. Salvaging it would take time but it should be relatively safe, and cleaner than expected.
“Ok, lets get started!” Pip bellowed in his field operations voice. “If you see anything of value bring it to the lift! Dinky, you're on guns! Apple Bloom, see if you can find any usable engine parts! Ditzy, check the cargo hold; see if you can find anything potentially valuable!”
They spread over the wreckage looking for anything sufficiently undamaged to be called salvage instead of slag. There wasn’t much.
Dinky made for a section of the prow which had rolled down the slope from the rest of the crash, machine gun in tow. About half of the Glänzend Schicksal's cannons were forward mounted so the best chance for salvaging one was there.
As expected, it was a mess. The once immaculately polished wooden deck was now burnt black and splintered, still partly aflame, and the steel hull was bent and broken from the fall.
Telekinesis was the only way to go when clearing potentially dangerous debris fields, and Dinky's high force, low control magick made speedy work of quenching the flames and flattening everything out for inspection.
Seven canons lay amongst the wreckage. Three were completely blasted apart, the feedback rockets had done a spectacular job of ruining the magitech, but the rest were mostly intact.
Dinky lifted the remaining four into the air and began pulling them apart. These two barrels look fine, she observed, taking a seat on the ground and setting her gun beside her. Three of the heatsinks are fixable. Those lenses don’t look to safe though. She floated the cracked lens arrays in front of her to get a better look. Neat! These must be Bell and Diamond force cannons. No wonder Pip wants one, these things are hot.
After all was said and done Dinky figured she could rebuild two of the cannons, plus a few spare parts. She would need new lenses and magick capacitors, but those were not even close to the most expensive components.
“Hay, Pip!” she hollered across the hill side. “I think I can rebuild two of them, but we'll need new lenses and capacitors!”
“Excellent!” Pip called back excitedly. “Get them on the ship!” He turned towards the body of the wreck, “Apple Bloom, any luck yet?”
Apple Bloom's job had been a great deal simpler than Dinky's. The main battery had liquified most of the inner workings of the ship when it exploded. She managed to find some valves and piping but everything she found could fit in her saddle bags.
“Na, the battery wrecked everything!” she called back.
“Alright,” Pip called, “let's get packed up!”
He had turned back to follow Dinky up the lift when Ditzy flew over. “Hey, Pip!” she called cheerfully, “look what I found!” She was carrying a large, ornate looking box. she set it down with a proud look on her face and landed next to it.
The box measured twelve hooves long by nine wide and two and a half tall. It was made of steel with intricate gold and silver inlays. Clearly whatever was inside it was important.
“Well done, Ditzy,” Pip complimented. Then he noticed the lock. “Horse apples,” Pip cursed, “it's magically sealed, even after the feedback.” This must be it; I should have expected a lock.
Ditzy deflated slightly.
“Well, we'll take it anyway,” Pip decided. “Could still be worth something.” And maybe I can find a locksmith.
“Movement!” Dinky shouted, dropping out of the gravity lift and galloping to a patch of open ground with her weapon in tow.
She reared up and telekinetically strapped her gun's leather bracers around her forecanons. Her whole body glowed with the bright gold of her magical aura. A small switch on her gun went from 'SAFE' to 'AUTO' as she swung it around to aim up the mountainside.
For a moment, nothing happened. The four ponies just stared, waiting. Tension filled the air. Apple Bloom and Pip took defensive postures, digging their hooves into the gravel and slate. Suddenly a grassy knoll beyond the wreck erupted. Large, bipedal creatures clad in crude armor and wielding a variety of improvised weapons burst from the ground like a tide of metal and fur, barking loudly as they charged down the slope.
“Dogs!” Dinky screamed, opening fire. All around her, small rocks and bits of debris lifted off the ground, released from the bindings of gravity by the force of her magic. A plume of dust kicked up behind her from the redirected recoil and her eyes began to glow.
Her weapon spoke like the wrath of Celestia. Bullets wrapped in golden magic cut burning trails through the air and shattered into showers of metal and sparks as they met their targets.
“Everypony get on the ship!” Pip commanded, shoving the fancy box towards the gravity lift.
The Regenbogen Flitzen joined in with its forward cannon, firing alchemical incendiary rounds to form a wall of liquid fire in front of the dogs. The side guns closed off the flanks, helping to keep them at bay.
Then, from around the side if the mountain came the dog's ships. Hulking masses of rusty, salvaged plating suspended under patchwork envelops. Their snub nosed cannons aimed forward, just waiting to get in range.
Dinky shifted her fire up across the closest of the ships. She shifted the magic around the bullets, giving them an ablative coating of magic to help them punch through her target's armored shell. After several seconds of fire it lost its grip on the sky and began to fall.
“AAAHAHAHAHA, CRY SOME MOOORE!!!” Dinky roared in a fantastic rendition of Royal Canterlot Voice as it fell from the sky, and shifted fire to the next ship.
Unfortunately, while they were distracted, the dogs had dug under the fire and were now bursting forth from loose patches of rock all around them.
Apple Bloom braced herself. Ghostly, white tendrils of lay energy rose from her body as she prepared to fight.
The first dog came into range and she bucked it with both hind legs, sending it skittering across the ground and knocking several others over. Snapping her legs back under her she charged forwarder, trampling one dog and headbutting another to the ground.
Now amongst a half dozen or more, she reared up to her full height, pulling all the ley she could into her forehooves. She slammed them into the ground, sending dust and gravel high into the air. The rocky mountain side around her buckled and split under the assault and levered inwards in sheets, sending several dogs soaring over Apple Bloom's head and others tumbling to her hooves, ready for a trampling.
Dinky caught sight of Apple Bloom's airborne adversaries and brought them down with a short burst from her gun. Another hole opened in the nearby ground and she refocused fire on it, preventing any dogs from climbing out, and quickly collapsing the entrance.
Before she could celebrate her small victory another dog rushed her from behind. She spun, jamming the barrel of her gun into its belly and fired. Another came at her from the side and took her weapon's reinforced barrel to the face, falling unconscious.
She brought her focus back to the second ship, but before it fell, her ammo ran out. So much for winning, she thought, releasing her, now useless, firearm focused spells in favor of a shield.
Pip raised his head in prayer. “Luna, if you're seeing this, we could really use some help.”
At that very moment, the sky split open. A withering barrage of capital ship ordinance and precision sniper fire from some unseen benefactor rained down on the battlefield. Glowing hot shells whistled through the air like angry phoenixes. The earth shook and the only sounds anypony could hear were screaming magic and falling rubble. The dogs on the ground flew into the air, not just from explosive force, but from randomly realigned gravity. The ships flipped, spun and twisted apart, shattering in the magical haze of butchered physics from the Tom class gravity cannons.
Pip looked up at the sky as Sweetie Belle descended on the gravity lift and bolted to his side. There was a barely visible distortion in some of the clouds. Then the distortion sharpened and gained color, shifting into the unmistakable, sleek, purple and gold image of the Seltenheit, or 'The Resplendent Barque of the Phantom Sea' as its captain, the legendary Pirate Queen Rarity, sometimes called it.
It had no envelope, floating instead on an ethereal sea of raw magic projected by some unknown mechanism deep in the never seen heart of the ship. It was regarded as the third most beautiful thing in the sky, after the sun and the moon, and was without a doubt the most technologically advanced ship in the known world.
“Well hello, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity cooed from her perch on a no longer invisible, hanging palanquin suspended under three armored pegasi. “It's been too long. Are you still enjoying riding around in that little bathtub?”
Sweetie Belle blushed and nopony else knew why. “Thank you for the rescue, Rarity. It's so good to see you again,” She replied, “I've missed you. What brings you to this little corner of the world?”
“Well,” Rarity responded as the palanquin touched down, “I was on my way to go visit Fluttershy when who should appear but Twilight Sparkle herself! I do so miss dear Twilight, but her duties to the country seem to be more important to her then old friendships. It makes me so sad, Sweetie, it really does,” she said.
Rarity was, as usual, dressed to the nines. A large, gem encrusted, silver crown was perched on her head at a jaunty angle and a luxurious purple cloak lined with white fur was draped over her withers and down her back, covering the seat of the throne she was reclining in. Earrings, hoofrings and all manner of other jewelry and accessories accentuated every part of her body. She was truly a sight worthy of the ship she commanded.
“I guess I'll just have to wait until she moves on,” Rarity finished mournfully. “By the way, what are you doing here, if I may ask?” she queried, completely shifting gears.
Dinky was having a tremendously difficult time not giving Rarity stink eye as she walked over to Pip and the rest with her mother. Stupid, rich mule. Why does she have to insult our ship. It's a good ship.
“Well, yesterday we were passing through this area on our way to get some supplies,” Sweetie began as the self designated speaker. This was her sister after all, “when we found Blue Blood. As you can see, we won. But Scootaloo was injured. She is in Fluttershy's care now.”
“Really?” Rarity said with surprised joy, “do you happen to know what became of Blue Blood himself?”
“Paralyzed, riddled with bullets, filled with shrapnel and burned to a crisp,” Dinky said with an arrogant smirk and a predatory glint in her eye, hefting the large gun still strapped to her hooves for emphasis.
Ditzy cringed at the description. Battle always seemed to put Dinky in the creepiest moods.
“Well,” Rarity began, taken aback by the little unicorn's force of personality, “I guess I owe you for that little favor. Have you a request of the illustrious Queen Rarity, little one?” she finished, unconsciously sticking her muzzle in the air.
Dinky thought for a long moment before a grin came to her face. “Yes. Four days escort. We need to stop by the Everparty. Then to your appointment with miss Fluttershy.”
“Just you, or will we be bringing your ship as well?” Rarity inquired, glancing up at the little, blue zeppelin.
“Well, I can't exactly go floating around the everfree with no escort,” Pip said, trying not to grumble too much. And, on a lighter note, it will be nice for Sweetie to have some sister time.