//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Corsair // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// Story two in the Sail Canvas trilogy. Thanks for reading. CORSAIR The fishing was slow. I hadn’t planned on the impromptu angling from my backyard dock, but I had finished far too many cups of coffee and needed to do something until I was able to go to sleep. I had been down at the shipyard visiting the night crew. Since they were working on a personal project of mine, I was showing up a lot more often to have a look around. Everywhere I went, I was offered coffee. It’s just part of working late hours. Not wanting to be rude, I’d accepted every time, and now I wished I hadn’t. When I got home, I’d left my keys and wallet inside. Dress code on my dock was strictly casual, which was good because as a pony I was naked anyway. I thought about having a refreshing swim, but I had caffeine jitters, not a hangover. After all, it wasn’t even my night to get drunk. I probably spent too much time at the club anyway. Even if I wasn’t a seafoam green stallion with a sailboat on my hip, they would know me there. Since I wasn’t drunk, I sat out on my dock and fished. There was no bait on the hook. Since I wasn’t going to eat what I caught, there was no point in catching in the first place. Yes, kind of counter-intuitive, but I found it relaxing. At around two in the morning, I heard a crash that sounded like it came from somewhere inside my house. I turned, trying to figure out what the noise was. Through the darkened windows, I saw some dim lights moving around. Coupling that with the noise I heard that could have been my front door breaking down, it was not a situation that I wanted any part of. I had no idea who had just broken in, but it was sheer dumb luck that I hadn’t been inside the house at the time. I grabbed my fishing pole and jumped aboard my boat, tied up to the dock. I looked back. It didn’t appear that anyone had yet realized that I wasn’t inside the house. I went up to the bridge to start the engine. That was when I realized that the keys to the boat were hanging on a hook near the back door of the house. Fortunately, I did have a spare set, but they were in a magnetic key holder below decks. It took fifteen long seconds to remember where I put it and get back topside with them. I jammed the key in the slot and twisted. The engine started with no hesitation. Before I engaged the propeller, I remembered that the boat was still tied up. My cell phone rang just then. I fumbled for the phone while I was going down to the deck to take care of the mooring lines. I realized I couldn’t untie them with only one free hoof, so I dropped the phone on the deck. I got the lines untied and the phone was still ringing. It must have been an important call. I put it to my ear as I went back to the bridge and started the boat moving. “Mr. Canvas?” asked an official sounding female voice. “Speaking.” “I’m calling from your security company. Did your home alarm just go off?” “Yes! There’s someone in my house." I figured it was someone. Somepony doesn't usually break down your door. “Shall we send the police?” “Please do. Could you give me a call back when they arrive?” She said she would and hung up. I went out about a quarter of a mile and slowed the boat down. I picked up the binoculars that I kept near the control console and looked back at the house. From that far away, and at night, I couldn’t see much. I settled in to wait, snacking on a few stale animal crackers I’d found on board. About ten minutes later, I got the call telling me to go home. A couple of uniformed cops met me on the dock. Checking the house, my front door had indeed been smashed open. From the imprints in the carpet, it looked like heavy boots had tramped through the entire house, but nothing had been taken. I may have been rich enough to afford a house on the water with a security system, but not paranoid enough to have cameras. I suddenly regretted that decision. Luckily, a few of my neighbors were that paranoid, and a day or two later the police were able to compile a few pictures of a nondescript van. Detective Martin Wade showed them to me in his office. It wasn’t technically his territory, but I knew the man so I was able to get him to take a look. Wade was a trim-looking black man in his forties. Being an engineer by trade and a smartass by nature, I would have joked about the aerodynamic efficiency of his shaved head, but I was still sore about having my house broken into and was not in a joking mood. “They had time to walk through the entire place but they didn’t take anything, not even your cash,” said Wade. “That tells me that they didn’t find what they were looking for. I’m going to guess that was you. So tell me, what does anyone want with Sail Canvas?” “I wish I knew. I don’t recall pissing anyone off lately.” “The scene analysts figure that there were between four and six of them. I think you got damn lucky.” We talked a little more and I thanked him for his opinion, though he hadn’t told me much I didn’t know. I left his office and went off to my next meeting that day. I used to be an ordinary rich trust-funder, but then I started owing too many favors to the wrong people and the CIA kidnapped me. Well, they didn’t really. It just felt that way. I had to do things that could pretty well be considered black ops. It wasn’t that I had any special set of skills; I just had access to boats and the ability to move around the world under the false pretense of doing business. Sometimes that’s all it takes, but it didn't help that I was a pegasus with a U.S. passport. Sometimes, a complicated backstory is better. If asked about it, I could simply explain that my parents came from Equestria when the dimensional portals opened in the early nineties. Now in the summer of 2016, I was twenty-three, had inherited the family shipbuilding company, and was theoretically stinking rich. In reality, that wealth hung by a thread and I had to depend on the CIA not to bury me. I won’t deny that I got my fill of adventure working for them, including shots being fired at me everywhere from Russia to Libya. My yacht was taken over and turned into a wolf in sheep’s clothing with sophisticated weaponry. There was also a Russian agent that I’d become friends with. We planned to meet again soon. Playing spy was still not what it cracked up to be, though. I had tried to find the limits of what they would allow by various methods. I had once brought a complete civilian—my friend, Andy Newhart—on an operation by passing him off as an experienced astronomical navigator from a different branch of the CIA. That had ended badly. The CIA had me on a short leash and had threatened my money and social life if I didn’t play along. Carl Hanley was an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was my handler, although I disliked that term. It made me feel like a circus animal or something. He was somewhat overweight with a round face and a bowl haircut, and didn’t look like your average CIA spook. “I heard someone broke into your house,” Hanley said to me from across the table. We were meeting at a small café near my home in Norfolk, Virginia. If I were to go up to Langley to meet him at the CIA headquarters, someone might get suspicious. “That’s right,” I said. “They broke in, but didn’t take anything. I wasn’t home.” “I heard that, too.” I didn’t ask where he heard it. He probably wouldn’t tell me. I said, “Do you know anything the local police don’t?” Hanley looked around and leaned closer. “We’ve heard things from Libya.” I frowned. “How do they know about me?” Hanley shrugged. “The way we figure, it’s probably members of Ali Al-Azhem’s cell.” Al-Azhem was a terrorist leader who had been assassinated during a CIA operation several months before. I personally didn’t do anything, but I was there with my boat. “What am I supposed to do? They know where I live.” I did a lot for the CIA for relatively little compensation. They didn’t want to lose my services, though, and would want to protect me. This was the upside of owing my soul to the government. “We could move you into a safe house.” “I’d sooner set up a cot in the dry dock than stay in one of those.” My yacht had worked pretty well for the mission we had taken it on, but I had convinced the CIA to fund the construction of a new boat built for the purpose. It was being constructed at a secure dry dock at my shipbuilding yard. Hanley shrugged. “We’ve got to do something about this. If you wind up dead, someone is going to ask why, and that might lead back to me.” No, Hanley didn’t actually care for me. That that was okay, though. I didn’t care for him either. I had to go to the airport next. On my way, I called Andy Newhart. It was a convenient time between teaching his Japanese classes at Old Dominion. “Sail, how’s it going?” he said, answering the phone. “Not so great. My house was broken into.” I filled him in on the details. “Well,” he said after I had finished, “that certainly is strange.” “That’s what everyone keeps saying.” “Well, take it easy Sail.” “Sure.” I hung up. Talking on a cell phone and driving wasn’t illegal in Virginia, but I tried to avoid it when I could. It was difficult to do with hooves. If anything, working for the CIA had taught me to be more careful. That afternoon, I was at the airport to pick up Nika Ivanova when she arrived. The woman worked for the Russian FSB, the modern equivalent of the Soviet KGB. We’d met a few months earlier on a joint CIA/FSB project. Somehow, Nika had gotten away from work for an entire week. I wondered if her office was abuzz with talk of her American boyfriend. Probably, if the FSB was as good of an intelligence agency as they were supposed to be, they knew I was actually just a friend. And a pegasus. Still American, though. I hadn’t been born and raised in Virginia just to call myself Equestrian. Nika had been to the United States a few times, but had never done any traveling. She mentioned this to me, and I suggested we take a drive. Neither of us had anything better to do. “Which direction?” I asked. “You pick.” Her English was good, yet accented. I knew the area pretty well. Going north meant city and more city. Going west for any length of time would put the setting sun in our eyes. To the east was the Atlantic Ocean. So we went south. In not too long, we were rolling through the Virginia countryside. My BMW had been designed for the Autobahn, so interstates were no problem. Nika seemed content to sit and look out the windows, so with nothing stopping us, we continued on into North Carolina. I saw a sign showing the way to Kitty Hawk and pointed it out. “Is that the name of an aircraft carrier?” Nika asked. From her job, she probably knew more about the U.S. military than many people who were in it. “Yes it is,” I told her, “but the reason the place is famous is because it’s where the Wright brothers made the first airplane flight.” She seemed interested so we decided to stop by, but it was too late in the day and the visitor’s center had closed. We decided to find a place to eat, instead. At a small restaurant the waitress seated us, and said, “Can I get ya’ll somethin’ to drink?” Virginia had been part of the Confederacy, but many people had decided to drop the southern drawl in order to fit in with the rest of the country. A lot of the South, though, didn’t give a damn what the North thought. I was all right with it, though. You can’t get good sweet tea anywhere else in the world. Nika didn’t seem to understand the waitress’s accent, but got the idea when I ordered. I wondered if there was a Russian equivalent to a southerner. A Ukrainian, maybe? We talked about the Outer Banks a little while waiting on the food. Nika said that the islands looked even smaller than the intelligence photos had indicated. I grinned. “I love it when you talk shop.” Leaving the restaurant later, the summer sun was still up. We decided to keep driving. I had always thought that the Outer Banks of North Carolina didn’t seem like a good place to live. It was sandy and featureless, and the wind never stopped blowing. Despite that, the road was lined with the houses of people who had incomes like mine. We got to Hatteras in time to see the old lighthouse turn on for the night. Before they died, my parents sailed on pleasure cruises all around the world. My father once told me that in all the travel he did, the roughest seas he ever encountered were off Cape Hatteras. The lighthouse was old, but still useful. We got rooms that night in an old house that had been converted to an inn. The place looked like it had withstood dozens of hurricanes, and while I’m not usually a fancolt over civil engineering, I appreciated it. The next morning was bright and clear. We drove north with the sunroof and windows open. I actually preferred the blowing wind to air conditioning. It’s a pegasus thing. The trip seemed to pass more quickly than the day before as we chatted about defense contracts. Merging onto Interstate 64 near Norfolk, I accelerated to pass a welding supply truck and a bus. I saw a van zoom by in the left lane, clearly above the speed limit. Suddenly, the van slowed and the back door opened. I found myself staring at the business end of a rocket propelled grenade launcher. I jerked the car hard to the left and saw the exhaust trail of the flying grenade miss the car, but not by not very much. There was an explosion somewhere behind us as my car left the road and dropped onto the grass median. I cranked the steering wheel back over. The sudden transition was too much for the electronic stability control to handle, and the car spun back onto the pavement, facing the wrong way. I quickly checked the mirror. The van hadn’t stopped. Nika’s pistol was in her hand. I didn’t know how she’d managed to bring it with her on an airplane. Through the windshield, I could see the wreckage of several vehicles. The RPG had hit the welding truck in the side, right behind the cab. The back of the truck was full of tanks of fuel, oxygen and other welding gasses. The resulting explosion had ripped the truck apart and spread debris all over the road. A public transportation bus had been following the truck and plowed into the wreckage, spreading the flammable material around. A couple of cars had then piled in. There were a few smaller detonations as undamaged welding tanks exploded in the heat of the fire. We started to get out of the car. Another boom and flying shrapnel ended any thoughts we had of trying to approach the wreck. Nika and I both sat there for a few seconds. The fire carried with it a particular smell. There was the scent of burning rubber and plastic, but also something else, like roasting meat. “Do you smell that?” I asked. Nika’s face went white. “It’s people.” We left the scene before any police showed up. I figured that was the way Hanley would want it. I called him to confirm that. A news helicopter had arrived quickly, and the burning wreckage was all over TV. He didn’t know that I had been involved until I told him. Hanley demanded a meeting as soon as possible. I wasn’t planning to tell him Nika was with me, so I dropped her off at a library before I went to see him. We met at the same café from a few days previously. Hanley looked nervous. He evidently realized that if terrorists were willing to take me out on a crowded interstate, he wasn’t safe sitting across the table from me. “Sail, you really need to lay low for a while,” he advised. “What good is that going to do? They found me here.” “We can protect you.” “I think I’d like some time to think about it.” “No, you’re coming with me.” “Come on, with the failed attack today, it’ll take them a little while to regroup. If I’m going to disappear, I need some time to set things up to run without me.” “All right, I’ll give you two hours.” “No, I need twenty-four.” “Why?” “I’m being conservative. If I get done early, I’ll give you a call.” Hanley didn’t say anything. “Come on,” I prodded, “you can track my cell phone. Heck, have someone follow me in a car.” Hanley nodded. “I’ll give you twelve.” I got up and walked out without waiting for him to say anything else. It would take a little time for Hanley to get the cell phone track set up and get a surveillance team on me. I went back and got Nika. “Sorry,” I said. “You’re going to have to spend some time lying down in the back seat.” I explained the situation to her. I phoned Dave Hillenburg, the shipyard superintendent. “What’s the status on my project?” “We’re just a couple of days from done,” he told me. “It needs paint and some interior fixtures.” “Can we float it tonight?” I asked. “Sure.” “Do it. Do it as fast as possible. Get it ready for a shakedown cruise. I’ve got some guests that I want to impress.” Dave said that he would and hung up. I needed to give him as much advance warning as possible because the dry dock where the boat was being built required some time to let the water in and get the boat floating. After that, I went to see my lawyer, David Goldstein. We had worked together for quite a while and he knew me pretty well. I usually dropped a few hints about what was going on with me, and he took precautions to protect himself from any backlash of my actions. In return, I paid him. We had a good system. I told Nika about how long she would have to wait on me, and went into David’s office. I actually hadn’t been there that often, because we usually met over drinks. It was about the kind of place you would expect from a man who filed his taxes with a high six figure income. “I’m going to be leaving town soon,” I said. “Maybe for a long time.” “Business or pleasure?” he asked. “Maybe a little of both. I’d appreciate it if you kept things running around here while I’m gone.” He nodded. “I can do that.” We talked a little more business. I was careful what I told him, and he didn’t ask questions. Coming out of the office, I spotted a car across the parking lot with two men in it. They were casually dressed, and had I not been expecting them I probably wouldn’t have noticed. They followed when I pulled out of the parking lot. I took a winding route back to my house, trying to kill time. I pulled into the garage and shut the door. As I went through the house and shut the blinds Nika took herself on a little tour of the place, looking impressed. It was too bad that if our plans worked, neither of us would ever see the house again after that day. Nika helped me collect my things. You don’t really know how much junk you have until it’s been pulled out of the closets and spread all over the floor. I realized that there was no way I could fit everything into my car. I had a pickup truck that I didn’t drive very often, usually only to pull a trailer with my small boat on it. I was glad to have it now. I packed about half of my clothes, some of the kitchen supplies, food, a few small electronics, my diving equipment, bedding, and all of my weapons. Everything fit under the truck’s bed cover, so it didn’t look like we were carrying half the house with us. Once again, Nika had to hide in the back seat. I drove to the shipyard and pulled up to the security checkpoint. I had come to know the gate guards pretty well. A middle aged man named Maurice was on duty when I pulled up. “Good evening, Mr. Canvas.” “Hello Maurice. Listen, I think I have someone following me around. Corporate spies, maybe. If they show up here, could you call the police?” I gave him a description of the car. “I’ll do that, Mr. Canvas.” I thanked him and drove through the gate, telling Nika it was okay to show herself. She sat up and looked around. “This place looks bigger than I imagined when I looked at the surveillance intel.” Spying on your friend with satellite images? Kinky. Hillenburg was waiting when we pulled up to the drydock. He appeared to be a little surprised to see a pickup truck crammed with stuff and a young woman departing from the back seat, but didn’t say anything. I introduced them. “This is Nika Ivanova of the Russian Federal Security Service. She’s come to inspect the project.” One of the reasons that I liked Hillenburg was that he didn’t ask questions. He shook her hand and opened the door to the structure built around the dry dock. We had used that particular dry dock over the years for secret projects because it was covered and the ships within could remain unseen. Inside, the boat floated on the water of the dry dock, which was almost level with the water outside. I had seen the boat that I designed take shape over the last few months. I usually wasn’t very sentimental, but seeing it nearly completed was a somewhat emotional moment. We hadn’t come up with a name for the boat yet. The traditional christening with the bottle of champagne usually occurred at launch, but that time had come and gone. The boat was 160 feet long. It was somewhat odd looking, with a large flat foredeck that helicopters could land on. The stern had a narrow walkway around it, but the rest was occupied by the superstructure. The vessel had been coated with red oxide primer. The plans called for that color to remain on the lower hull, while the upper portions would be painted white with black accents. The work crew had started to splash some white over the decks, but hadn’t managed to complete it before I had requested the boat be floated. The result was an ugly patchwork. Oh well. I enlisted the workers to help carry everything from the truck to the boat. They all must have wondered what was going on, but no one said anything. Hillenburg got a call on the radio clipped to his belt. He spoke to it for a few minutes and came to me. “There’s something going on at the front gate. Two men claiming to be with the CIA showed up.” “That’s weird. I didn’t invite them for this.” I checked the time. “We’re going to need to take it out for sea trials right now.” Hillenburg called for a tanker to bring some diesel fuel. I did my best to remain calm while we waited an agonizing five minutes, and then waited a few minutes longer while workers primed the engines and finally managed to get them started. The watertight doors at the end of the dry dock began to open. All the gear Nika and I had brought was onboard. Hilenburg walked up the gangway with us. “Do you need anything else?” he asked. “I’ll take it slow and get the hang of driving it. Can I ask you something?” “Sure,” he answered. “How long have you been working for the company?” “Thirty-two years.” “You’ve been doing a great job. I think you deserve a bonus.” I handed him the keys to my truck. “Sorry the driver’s seat is pony-spec. It shouldn’t take too much to get it changed back. Now if you don’t mind, Agent Ivanova and I are going to go for a little cruise.” Hillenburg nodded, and walked down the gangway, slipping the keys into his pocket. He called for the gangway to be removed and the lines holding the boat to be untied. Up on the bridge, I put one hoof on the wheel and used the other to slowly edge the throttles backward. The boat was a little larger than I was used to and didn’t respond immediately. It slowly began to slide out of the dry dock. As the boat edged out from under the dry dock roof, I saw the car with the CIA agents in it pull up. Apparently, they had managed to get someone to verify their credentials and force the gate guards to let them in. As the boat cleared the dry dock, I engaged the bow thruster to help turn it around and get it pointing out to sea. The two CIA men were both on their cell phones, probably calling for backup. I didn’t rush. If they were truly intent on catching us, they would find a way. I steered eastward, the sun setting behind us. The first indication that we had company was when a pair of jets made a low-level pass over the boat. Night had fallen since we left, and I couldn’t make out what kind of airplanes they were, but based on the glow of the twin engines each of them had, I figured they were F/A-18 Hornets that had been sent from Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. A call came over the standard maritime channel on the radio. It asked for me by name, so I picked it up. The radio was a small portable model because the boat’s main radios hadn’t been installed yet. “Sail Canvas here. What can I do for you?” “You are ordered to return to port immediately.” It was a female voice that sounded familiar. She added, “I don’t know what you did, buddy, but you sure pissed a lot of people off.” “Let me explain the situation,” I said. “I’ve committed no crimes, but certain people are mad at me, and they really want to get their hands on this boat. Sorry, but I’m not coming back.” “We could blow you right out of the water.” The pilot sounded angry. “They want the boat back. You aren’t going to get orders to fire.” The Hornets circled the boat for a few more minutes. On the radio, I asked, “Would your name happen to be Rainbow Dash?” “Captain Rainbow Dash,” she corrected. “And what’s it to you?” “From one pegasus to another, I admire how much you’ve accomplished.” I threw a little awe into my voice. “All it takes is hard work and determination,” she said. As the first native Equestrian to join the US Navy and to go to outer space, she would know. Rainbow Dash was a name that was well regarded in both dimensions. “I don’t know much about hard work,” I said. “I own one of the largest shipbuilding companies on the east coast, and the money just pours in. If I wanted, I could buy that Hornet out from under you. Heck, I could even afford an F-35 if I liquidated some assets.” The remark was intended to piss her off, and it worked. Captain Dash quit talking to me. We waited a little more before I saw a set of slower moving aircraft lights approaching. It was a helicopter. The pilot brought it in for a smooth landing on the foredeck. As it touched down, I stepped out to meet the guests, squinting in the rotor wash. The side door slid open and half a dozen armed men jumped out. Carl Hanley got out after them. “We were worried that the boat had been hijacked,” he shouted over the helicopter noise. I motioned for him to step inside the superstructure where it was quieter. A few of the men came in with us. “It was hijacked,” I said. “By me.” Hanley nodded. “Trust me, we really can protect you. You don’t have to do this on your own.” “You don’t get it,” I said. “I’m not running for my life. I’m taking this boat.” Hanley’s face slowly changed as realization came over him. “What makes you think you can do that?” “I’ve been collecting information about what you’ve had me doing. I think it’s the kind of thing that you wouldn’t want me to release to some newspaper reporter.” He glared at me. “Tell me why we can’t just kill you and dump you out here.” “I’ve got things set up to work without me. As long as I get what I want, the public doesn’t need to know.” Hanley crossed his arms. “So you’re blackmailing us.” I shrugged. “I’d really like to get back to a working relationship with you. I’m willing to keep doing what I’ve been doing, on the condition that you pay me on a freelance basis.” “So you have the choice to turn jobs down?” he said. “And take jobs with other countries,” I added. He shook his head. “We can’t have you out there like some kind of mercenary.” “I don’t like that term, but don’t worry. I’m still a patriot, I just don’t like you.” Hanley gritted his teeth. “Prove to me that you have damaging information.” I led him down through the ship to one of the piles the stuff from my house had been left in. Nika and I hadn’t had time to put it all away. I found the file I was looking for and showed it to him. It was filled with pages and pages of text and a few pictures. His face went through a couple shades of red as he read it. “There’s more where that came from,” I said. “Some audio and video.” “There are national security leaks in here.” “Not big ones. I made sure it would be more embarrassing than damaging.” “What if we decide to just not pay you?” he asked. “Then I’ll sell the boat and the information to the highest bidder. Let’s face it; you have more to lose on this than I do.” He stared daggers at me for several seconds and then turned and walked out, taking the file with him. All the CIA people got back on the helicopter and left. Shortly after, the jets also departed. One of them passed overhead at low altitude and high afterburner. I went back up to the bridge where Nika was holding the wheel. “Did it work?” she asked. “Yes, it did.” She let go of the wheel and turned to me. The boat tracked straight and true without any steering input. “We should celebrate.” “I forgot to bring any alcohol.” “Shame.”