Chapter Seven - Above It All
The dock lines were cast off and Fluttershy eased Nebula off the slipway cradle so gently that, not only didn't I feel the slightest bump, but I couldn't say for certain exactly when we lost contact.
The engines were barely ticking over in reverse, but Ralf was rushing from one mounting pedestal to the next, cocking his large ears at each engine for a few seconds, and then trotting to the next to repeat the process. I suppose he was listening for any sounds that would betray an imperfection in their operation. I had no idea why he thought it necessary after the stressful runup he'd put them through, but he'd proved his competency, and I wasn't about to second guess him.
The speaking tube from the cupola whistled. I unplugged it, said, "Blackmane here," and then put my ear to it.
Applejack's voice sounded clear and strong despite the long distance it had traveled through the small tube from the lookout position on the upper surface of Nebula's envelope near her bow. "We're clear of the gantries. Ain't no traffic above us."
"Thank you, AJ." I replaced the stopper and turned to Fluttershy. "We're clear, Ms. Fluttershy. Take us up."
Fluttershy's delicate hooves moved over the engine telegraph controls and flight surface console with practiced ease. The props spun up, and the engine pods pivoted in a complex pattern that lifted Nebula and rotated her away from the mountain at the same time.
On the main deck, Ralf was trying to monitor all four engines at once—and somehow managing it.
A few minutes later Fluttershy announced, "We're at altitude and on our correct heading, Captain,"
"Very good. Three… No wait." I smiled. "Would you like to give our new engineer a heart attack, Ms. Fluttershy?"
She looked back at me over her shoulder and frowned. "You're a mean old mare, Captain Blackmane." Her frown wobbled slightly, almost as if it were struggling to turn into a grin.
"That I am, Ms. Summer Breeze,[1] that I am! Ring for emergency ahead on all engines!"
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[1] We all had our disguise amulets on since before leaving Canterlot, of course. Aside from making us look like different ponies, no matter what we called each other, eavesdroppers would only hear our noms de guerre. My emphasis was for her sake.
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"All engines emergency ahead aye, Captain." She giggled under her breath, I swear she did.
Ralf stood quietly, watching the engines as they rumbled up to 120% of their rated capacity, pulling us forward with smooth and steady power. I could feel the vibration of the deck below my hooves, but it was lighter and more even than it had been since the engines were brand new. "I think that pup is more than worth his pay," I muttered.
Rainbow Dash appeared before we were above the foothills of the Unicorn Range, and gave me a full wing salute before she had even touched down on the quarter deck.[2]
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[2] I have no idea how she does it. I once spent a whole afternoon (in a very private place, of course) trying to replicate the stunt, and all I got for my trouble was several bruises and a lot of sod between my teeth from several ungainly faceplants.
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"Didn't see anything else in the air, with or without running lights," she told me.
"Good," I said. I pulled a notebook out of my pocket and flipped to a particular page of notes. "We should see a passenger liner from Tall Tale headed to Dodge Junction off the larboard bow in a quarter hour or so, unless she's off her schedule or—" I glanced at the engine telegraph. "—we cross her course early."
Dash followed my gaze. "Huh. Yeah, Nebula's kinda cookin’ along, isn't she?"
The engines hadn't caught fire or exploded by then, so—I just couldn't resist. "Wanna see her really move?"
Dash frowned at me. "What? Since when—"
"Ms. Fluttershy!" I said in my best quarterdeck voice. "Disengage all engine governors and ring all forward."
"Aye-aye, mean old mare," she repeated. She pulled the telegraph handles back to full stop, lifted the protective cover off of a set of bright red switches, flipped all four to the positions marked with red skulls and lightning bolts, and then jammed the telegraph handles as far forward as they would go.
Airships are big and heavy and they don't usually make abrupt maneuvers, but as the engines bellowed like outraged ursas, Nebula surged forward suddenly enough that Dash had to shift her stance to stay on her hooves.
"Whoa," she said. "Awesome!"
Thoroughly satisfied with her reaction, I turned to see how Ralf was taking it. He was standing aft of the mainmast, forepaws on hips, gazing calmly up at me with a huge, serene, smug smile plastered across his pointy little snoot. He didn't seem at all concerned that a ragged, unrestricted flow from the power crystals was tearing through his precious engines. I gave him a reserved, captainly nod in return and made a mental note to advance him two pay grades in the morning.
"That'll do, Ms. Fluttershy. All engines ahead three-quarters."
A second or two later, Tempest rushed on deck and began quickly scanning the sky. When she saw nothing immediately, she called up to me. "Trouble, Your Highness?"
"Just shaking the dust off. And while we're aboard, use 'Captain' if you please."
She considered me silently for a moment and then said, "Of course, Captain." She walked to the rail near the #4 engine mount and gazed at it for a while. "These crystal engines are incredibly quiet for the amount of power they put out, aren't they?"
Given that I could actually hear what she was saying when she was standing less than three pony lengths from it, I had to agree, but I didn't bother to reply.
But there was someone present who was more than happy to talk about the quality of Nebula's engines. "Noise is mostly from turbulence caused by the props," Ralf told her, suddenly appearing at her shoulder. "If Ralf had time to insulate the cowling and fit new props, or shape the old edges correctly, they would be even quieter!"
One wouldn't have thought Tempest would be all that interested in the details, but she stood listening to Ralf and sometimes offering comments for long enough for Rainbow Dash to make another patrol sweep.
When Rainbow returned and reported that she'd sighted the liner right where she ought to be, I told her that we could make do with regular lookouts for the rest of the night. Once we were across the Unicorn divide and above the western watershed, we wouldn't cross any other air lanes before we got to Twilight Town.
"You should go get some sleep," I told her. "We rang seven bells[3] just before you landed, so the watch is almost over, anyway."
"Sounds good to me, Cap!" She lifted into the air again, wing-saluted,[4] and glided down to the main deck where she almost collided with Tempest who was headed for the fo'c'sle[5] ladder as well.
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[3] Timekeeping aboard both air and naval ships is noted by a pattern of bell strikes, starting with one at the first half hour into each watch, and adding one each half hour (struck in groups of two) until the bell is rung eight times at the end of the watch, when the pattern starts all over again. That is, except for the First Dog Watch, which has only four bells because it only lasts two hours, and the Second Dog Watch, which also only lasts two hours, but ends with eight bells being struck, even though only three bells were struck the previous half hour. Simple, really.
[4] I swear she knows how envious I am of her ability, because she does that every chance she gets.
[5] The correct abbreviation of "forecastle," the forward section of a ship. Pronounced sort of like "folks-ull." No, really. Look it up if you don't believe me.
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Tempest stopped and made an "after you" gesture with her forehoof. Dash evidently didn't like passing right under Tempest's muzzle, because she didn't walk by, but stared up at the (much) taller unicorn for several seconds, frowning.
Tempest cocked her head, but otherwise didn't move.
Finally Dash snorted and said, "Size isn't everything, you know."
"Oh, that's certainly true," Tempest said, agreeably. "I can easily defeat much larger opponents." And with that, she slipped down the ladder to the crew deck, leaving Dash sputtering behind her.
I sighed. "It's going to be one of those voyages, isn't it?" I muttered.
Fluttershy carefully checked the compass while Ket made a few minute adjustments to our ballast controls, and neither made any comment.
Ao took command at midnight, and shooed Fluttershy away from the wheel, even though she volunteered to stay on into the Middle Watch. "This one believes we will go to sails at the Forenoon Watch when there is a chance of a good wind on our beam. You will want to be well rested for that."
Fluttershy fairly (but not literally. This is Fluttershy I'm speaking of, after all) flew for her hammock while I informed Ao of what had passed during my watch before going below. I took a few minutes to make an entry into the log, and then tumbled into my bunk. I took in a long, deep breath, and was asleep before I had entirely let it go.
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Luna snuggled up to me, a serpentine, not quite corporeal presence in my dreamscape. "All is well, my love?" She wrapped herself around, and around, and around me.
I snuggled right back. "Mmm… nearly perfect so far."
"I cannot remain long, I fear," she said sadly. "The Storm King's attack has had a lasting effect on the dreams of the ponies of Canterlot, and legions of hairy terrors yet stalk their slumber."
I kissed her pointy snoot and got a flickery kiss in return. "We each have our duties," I agreed reluctantly. "You'll check in every night though?"
"When I can."
"I'll have Spike send you letters when there's anything of substance to report."
"I look forward to accounts of your exciting victories in exquisite detail."
I chuckled and stroked her long, long back. "I intend them to be boring and unremarkable."
She gave me a little squeeze and said, "Two things thou never art," and dissolved into coiling darkness.
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Spike woke me with a mug of fresh coffee plunked down on the little shelf near my bunk. I blinked and mumbled, "Thank you," before checking the compass, log, and clock set into the overhead[6] above my bunk. We were on course and at speed.
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[6] "Overhead" is aeronautical-speak for ceiling. It's like a different language that only sounds similar to Equuish. Walls are bulkheads, stairs are ladders, downstairs is below, halls are companionways, windows are ports or lights (or deadlights if they can't open), and the log mentioned above isn't a log book, it's a speed indicator. Maybe I should just append a glossary to this thing?
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I sat up and floated the mug over, inhaling the rich scent of my special Tanzebran blend. The voyage hadn't felt real until that moment. I'd been mostly reacting, dealing with all the myriad details of my frankly sketchy plan and burying myself in the work so I wouldn't have to think about it too much.
I had a ship full of creatures depending on me to make the right decisions, and it was high time I stopped letting my brain skitter away from its responsibilities. I rolled out of my bunk and scrawled several lines in my pocket notebook while sipping my coffee, drawing neat little squares next to each entry to be checked off later.
There were several ponies busy on deck when I went above to relieve the morning watch. Some were flaking out the sheets and readying the halyards in anticipation of switching over to sails, others were climbing the ratlines to get to their stations aloft. Fluttershy was already on the quarterdeck, standing with her forehooves hooked over the starboard rail, her eyes shut, and her wings half-open, testing the wind.
"Good breeze for a sail, Ms. Fluttershy?"
"Oh yes," she sighed, without opening her eyes.
Clove Hitch (Nebula's Second Officer) turned the hourglass and rang eight bells. "Nothing to report. The watch is yours, Captain."
"Thank you, Ms. Clove Hitch, I have the watch. Fluttershy, you have the helm."
She slid in behind the wheel as Clove Hitch and Hawser went below for breakfast.
I cast the keel spell, and Fluttershy brought out her silver bosun's pipe that she used to give orders to the deckhooves. Even though she tried her best, and had improved remarkably over the years, her best quarterdeck voice was barely a sixteenthdeck voice.[7]
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[7] Yes, it's an old and not-that-funny joke, but it's traditional, and that's really what matters to sailors.
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The changeover went perfectly, and soon Nebula was sailing along nicely on a beam reach with "clouds in her teeth", as the old saying goes
I opened the little door on the binnacle that concealed a set of controls and readouts for each engine, and did some quick mental calculations. It seemed that our power consumption rates were easily within their normal range—maybe even a bit below average, though I wanted a larger dataset before I called that for sure. I closed the cover and said as much to Fluttershy.
"I'm so glad! About Ralf, I mean. I never felt all that comfortable with Nebula's engines, and I've always felt guilty that I didn't know more about that part of her anatomy."
It was Fluttershy that had talked me into taking him on. She knew Nebula better than anyone, and claimed that the airship behaved exactly like a living, breathing creature. "Nebula feels better under sail," she once told me. "The engines are—useful, I suppose, but she likes riding the wind much better."
Ralf, unlike most of his semi-subterranean tribe, had nothing against sailing or flying, and had arrived in Twilight Town looking for engineering or mechanical work. He said he preferred crystal-powered engines, as he did have his tribe's notorious knowledge of gemstones, but he claimed to be able to work with steam or oil machines as well.
The only reason I had hesitated about taking him on was that he was, to put it bluntly, unbelievably cute, and I had originally suspected that his appearance had unduly influenced Fluttershy's judgment. I should have known that she would have never let anything like that sway her when her beloved Nebula was at the heart of the matter. Fairly atypically for a Diamond Dog, he was considerably shorter than an average pony when standing on all fours, which he claimed was an advantage when working in crowded engine spaces.
Now, with the engines shut down, he was climbing over the rails and walking the narrow rotating beams to open the pod hatches and inspect each engine in turn. As he clambered back aboard, he pulled a cloth from his many-pocketed vest and carefully wiped the rail in case he had left any bit of grease there, just as he'd done on the day I decided to hire him.
I glanced over the larboard rail at the mountain peaks below. We were nearly at the Hydra Pass, well into the Undiscovered West. "Come right to Northwest by west and a half north," I told Fluttershy.
"Northwest by West, aye," Fluttershy acknowledged, and whistled orders to the crew to shift the sails as she turned Nebula closer into the wind. It was just at the limit of how high Nebula could point, and I expected to see a bit of shake in the windward edges of the sails, but Fluttershy spun up engine three enough to even us out while we crossed over the ridgeline of the mountains into more favorable air. The compass needle never wavered from the line once she'd made the turn.
Once we were well north of the mountains, nearing the coastal forest, I ordered Fluttershy to change course to West by South and shorten sail. I wanted to shed some speed so we’d arrive in Twilight Town in the middle of the night.
While we were ghosting along, I used my spyglass to scan the woods to the north of us. We were over one of the wildest areas of the Undiscovered West; one of the bits that remained unexplored to any extent, and for a very good reason. Parts of that deep forest made the Everfree look like a rose garden in comparison. Pre-Discordian ruins lurked beneath the tree canopy and only an insane pony would go anywhere near them, let alone enter any of them.
Which was why I was a little bit surprised to see a lone pony galloping flat-out away from the treeline. I immediately thought of Daring Do. She was one of the few ponies I knew who might be crazy enough to risk being in the area, but she had been in Canterlot for the festival, and wouldn't have had time to get all the way out there and into deadly peril. I mean, she's good, but not that good.
Besides, the pony running for her life was a unicorn. I couldn't see what was chasing her, and I adjusted the focus of my spyglass a bit. Still nothing, but she seemed to be wearing some sort of weird, flapping green cape. Oh well; rescue first, questions later.
"Clear the waist! 'Port onboard!" I called out to warn the crew on the main deck what I was about to do, and the crew scrambled out of the way with satisfactory speed. A moment later, with a pop and flash of my magic, the pony appeared amidships. The twin mysteries of her pursuers and fashion sense were both answered: She was covered with grass snakes. I leaped down to where I'd winked her aboard and began slicing away with my short blades. Rainbow Dash was there a second later, adding her cutlass to the task. It was only a couple of seconds before the mare was cut free of the nasty constrictors and the deck smelled like a freshly cropped lawn.
I wiped my blades and put them away while ordering a crewpony to get a mop and bucket. "Get that—juice, sap, whatever it is, get it cleaned up before it stains my deck, and heave the clippings overboard."
I had been very much afraid of snakes until Luna cured me of the irrational part of that fear, but creatures like the grass snakes still creeped me out. Ponies should eat vegetables, not the other way around.
The mare caught her breath enough to gasp out, "Thanks! Thanks a lot! For a minute there, I thought I was going to… Well…"
"You got a lucky charm or something?" Dash asked her. "'Cause it was, like, a million-to-one chance that we were here right when you needed us."
"Uh…" The mare suddenly became nervous and looked down at the deck while shuffling her hooves. "Yeah… I…"
I briefly puzzled over why anypony would be embarrassed about being outrageously lucky. I decided that introductions would be a good way to smooth over any awkwardness. "I'm Blackmane, captain of the airship Nebula. Welcome aboard. This is Rain Storm. And you are?"
She ducked her head again and shyly gestured to her rump. Her cutie mark was a 4-leaf clover surmounted by a golden horseshoe with a huge central diamond. "H-hi," she said, giving us a sheepish grin. "I'm Lucky Charm."
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