//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 
// Story: Ponyville-class 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	“We have it in the budget, so we can buy this ship.”  Calm Seas finished his presentation to the Princess.  She displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
“Um, if you’d like to put a media spin on it, you can say we cut two ships from the deal to save money,” the stallion tried again.
“How much money?” asked the Princess.  Calm Seas told her.
Celestia shook her head.  “Not good enough.  For the sake of your job, I hope you haven’t finalized the deal yet.”
The Equestrian Secretary of the Navy gulped, thanking his lucky stars he’d decided to wait until after talking to the Princess.  “Ah, yes.  Exactly what points should I make with the U.S. Navy to drive the price down?”
“The ship is damaged goods,” said Celestia.  “I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with the situation.”
Calm Seas nodded.  He knew it was some kind of magical issue, although not the specifics.  “I’ll bring it up.”
“Perhaps you could give your Undersecretary some practice in price haggling,” suggested the Princess.  “Ms. Crosswind seems to have a fine head on her shoulders.  Maybe she’ll even have your position someday.”
The Secretary promised to take care of things and left Celestia’s office.  Now that the Princess mentioned it, Crosswind was the pony for the job.  Calm Seas had more important things to do, like naming the ship once the Equestrian Navy had received it.


★


The clean passageways and painted bulkheads of the destroyer were a far cry from the rusty old fishing boat.  Star Show led the way, shielding his companions.
They all heard some kind of commotion.  A battle stations alert was called.  Smith swore quietly to himself.  The boat the four of them arrived on had probably been discovered and they had to move faster now.
A sailor appeared, running towards his duty assignment.  Smith didn’t get his elbows quite tucked, and brushed the man as he went by.
The Navy man stopped, knowing he’d touched something that he couldn’t see.  Smith cracked the sailor in the face with the butt of his rifle and kicked him hard in the stomach.  He quickly ran after the three ponies before the bloodied man could pick himself up and sound the alarm.  Star homed in on the pent-up magic of the sphere, leading the four of them further into the bowels of the ship.
A few decks down, Shining Armor watched the lead researcher from the Royal Magic Institute work.  The unicorn named Solar continued to prod at the glowing object that clung stubbornly to the steel.
Through the open access hatch at the end of the bilge, Shining could faintly hear some kind of alarm going off, and instantly became more alert.  He may have been a soldier rather than a sailor, and assigned to a desk job, but the stallion knew klaxons were never a good sign.
It was frustrating, really.  Nothing so far had worked to remove or negate the malevolent orb, and all Shining had gotten out of being in the bilge was covered in dirty water.  A pump ran continuously to remove the excess liquid, but a little was always present.  Currently, it was up to Shining’s fetlocks.  He sighed.  At least it wasn’t knee-high anymore.
Over the sound of the battle stations alarm there came the distinct staccato of gunfire.  Shining’s head jerked up.  There was no way it should be that close.
“What was that?” asked Solar.  The other stallion shoved him aside, staring at the only entrance to the bilge.
The access hatch to the upper decks was a couple of meters away, on the other side of the red-glowing ball.  Shining was between Solar and the hatch.  Seconds passed, and then all Tartarus broke loose.
Three unicorns and one man dropped into the bilge, firing spells and bullets.  Shining threw up a magic shield, protecting himself and the stallion behind him.  The man with the assault rifle tried banking bullets off the steel surrounding them, but Shining sealed his spell to the bulkheads.  His special talent was protective magic, and some human with a gun wasn’t going to kill him so easily.
Under cover of the unicorns’ spells, the man swung a backpack off his shoulders and threw it down.  He reached for something inside the pack, appeared to find what he was looking for, and straightened up, backing away from a flashing light inside the bag.
Shining had gone straight to the bilge after meeting with Bryant, and was still carrying the dagger that the sailor had given to him.  The stallion whipped it forward, passing through his shield and straight into his enemy’s neck.  The man clawed at his throat and fell to the deck.
The ponies kept firing magic as they backed away.  Shining extended his shield, keeping himself protected while putting a hemispherical dome over the backpack.  If that was a bomb inside, he wanted it to be contained.  The protective bubble fell just barely outside the crimson sphere.
Shining hadn’t wanted to kill, but he also needed the fight to be over as quickly as possible.  He desperately searched for another weapon.
The first of the retreating ponies had just made it to the hatch and turned to go up when the bomb went off.  Shining felt the tremendous strain against his magic, but he also saw a solution.  While he didn’t have time to actually think in the first instant of the explosion, the stallion instinctively opened a pinprick in the other side of the shield.  The enormous pressure forced a jet of hot gas out at high velocity, decapitating the first pony in line and punching holes in the other two.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough release for the unfathomable force produced by the bomb, and the hemispherical shield over it concentrated all that power straight down, punching right through the keel as if it were made of paper.
Shining grunted with the effort of keeping the shield up.  Instead of holding something in, he was now holding the ocean out.  The magic had muffled the sound of the blast, but the steel around him still vibrated with the aftershock.  Shining’s ears vibrated, too.
The entire ship seemed to shudder, flexing slightly along its whole length.  Cushing had taken a blow to her very core, something that stressed the structure more than it had been intended to withstand.
Solar shouted something.  Shining couldn’t hear well enough to tell if it was helpful or just something about being scared.
“We need to get out of here!” shouted Shining.  “They can seal the bilge and the ship should survive.”  He began to concentrate, slowly shoving the bubble of water down so the two of them could cross it and make their way to the hatch.  His eyes went wide as cracks slowly began to spread up the bulkheads from the original damage.
Shining quickly expanded his shield, sealing up the new places water was leaking in.  The fissures continued to spread, looking like zippers opening up.  As the ship settled from the explosion, the center section where he stood was beginning to pull apart, threatening to split the destroyer in half.
Had he stopped to think about it, Shining might have realized what he was about to do would take as much power as he could muster.  He reached out with magic, grabbing anything he could get a hold of, and began pulling.
Damage control crewmen began dropping through the access hatch.  They stopped in awe at the sight of the pony struggling to hold the entire ship together.