Of Aerial Dominance

by Sorren


Chapter 3 - Never Bluff Twice

The engines of the two battlecruisers filled the air with a diesel-fueled roar, trails of putrid, black smoke fanning from the exhausts in the turbulence of the propellers.

Five hundred yards.

“Ready yourselves for fire,” she growled, one hoof on the transmit button and the other on the main throttle lever. “There’s no doubt about it—we’re going to get hit.” She turned back the the colt stationed on the elevator wheel. “Be ready.”

Four hundred yards.

The enemy vessels emulated her, forming a straight line that flaunted their dominance in in firepower and numbers. A pitch reached Slipstream’s ears—a different type of sound, a different type of engine—as the enemy, as one, throttled down.

Three hundred yards.

Slipstream watched the bow cannons mounted below the dirigibles’ framing swivel to align with the Equestrian forces’ battlecruisers. She hesitated a grab for the radio. If they were aiming for the big guns, then they were afraid of loss... They would dodge. Still...

“Battlecruisers,” she instructed brashly. “I know you’re out of range, but aim and estimate. Set thirty percent lift on the elevators! You’re primary targets!”

Two hundred and fifty yards.

The two Equestrian battlecruisers were the first to shatter the air, the frontal cannons discharging with a throaty bang that sent a small shockwave over the surrounding vessels. Smoke rings tried to form against the wind, but where whipped away and immediately decimated by the propellers. Slipstream clenched her teeth as the elevating flaps fitted within the tails of both ships folded up thirty degrees. The streamlined shapes caught the fifty mile-per-hour headwinds and the vessels groaned as aerodynamics and the pull on the flaps lifted the noses.

The enemy returned fire, the cracks and bangs of their assorted cannons slicing the air as they doubled the number of projectiles fired at them. The opposing projectiles reached one another in mid air, smoketrails crossing as the six-inch rounds hissed by each other at the three-quarter-way mark.

The Equestrian’s eight rounds were the first to strike. Four from the left airship completely lacerated the gondola and cabin of a Longcoat battlecruiser, blasting the streamlined aluminum to streamers. The four rounds from the right vessel weren’t as lucky; one slashed a trough through the envelope of a battlecruiser, splitting the steel framing before shearing away and whizzing into the abyss. The other two missed completely and the last tore through the gas chamber of a gunship hanging around behind the rest of the fleet.

Slipstream prayed her last-minute bellowed instructions had saved their own airships as the smoking projectiles from the enemy dirigibles arced through the sky towards them. She had been right about one thing—the enemy had been aiming for the battlecruisers and the battlecruisers alone. Perhaps they weren’t aware of the two, six-inch, forward-facing cannons mounted within the lower, forward cabins of her own vessel; perhaps they disregarded them as a high threat.

The enemy’s first six shots completely missed the left battlecruiser as it made its twenty degree and steepening climb. The remaining, however, hacked at the lower envelope and tore sections out of the elevating fins, blasting entire panels of the fragile fins to smithereens. Still, the gasbags located within the airship remained unharmed.

The Equestrian’s right cruiser never achieved the steep climb effectively. The crew of sixty never had time to flee.

Every round hacked through the vessel lengthwise, blowing out the internal workings and setting flame to the hydrogen gasbags. The tailfins blasted apart like shattered glass as the rounds burst out the tail end. The captain abandoned the wheel and beelined for the exit hatch, never making it. The gondola and cabins further back blasted apart like an overpressured steam pipe as a slow-moving round hacked through it in a casual ark. Aluminum flew, peppering the side of the Departure, and the sky grew bright as the airship went up in a ball of flame. In mere seconds, the fabric stretched over the metal skeleton was scorched away and the smoldering frame began to drop, cabin still aflame.

One down, five remaining.

Things were worse. The wall of maroon ahead of her that she had been expecting to break, did not. The plan had been to break them up and shoot through, maintaining the same speed and direction; the chances of that were completely gone. Now she had been left with a single option: turn or crash headlong into the enemy. Considering the maroon airships’ lack of forward momentum, they probably couldn’t maneuver fast enough to dodge if they wanted to.

She’d been called.

“Orders, Captain!?” Thrush half-yelled, half-squeaked.

Breath stabbing at her chest, she grabbed for the mic. “Break formation!” She cranked the wheel around to the left and waved for the buck behind her to raise the elevators. “Take evasive maneuvers to avoid collision!”

Their attack had just gone from a coordinated advance, to every crew for themselves, a giant free-for-all of shoot and don’t get shot.

The enemy’s four, winged aircraft had now circled back around as well, all focussing on the Departure—the commanding vessel. The four aircraft formed a line, banking directly towards the wheelhouse.



Slipstream could only pray her topside gunner would shy them off. There was no coordination to either side’s attacks. As the Equestrian forces scattered—the worst possible thing for any fleet commander—the enemy airships moved in clumps to compensate, banking left and right to intercept the airships’ headways.

She drew back on the throttle, judging with how many yards she would be able to clear the maroon battlecruiser off the bow.

“Captain!” Briar yelled. “Incoming!”

“Run!” she yelled to Briar, hearing the machineguns on the enemy’s winged propeller as they chattered to life. She kept an eye on them, praying they would shear off, but it was their job to single out the commanding vessel—it was airship warfare one-o-one. “Abandon wheelhouse!” The two, twelve millimeter machineguns mounted under each wing were no joke, and she wasn’t about to treat them like they were.

Frantically, Slipstream grabbed the radio box and yanked it out of its port, slinging the satchel strap around her neck, and right then, the panel before her went up in a shower of sparks, bullets hacking the equipment to scrap. She stumbled back at the close encounter, then hitched to the back of the wheelhouse and scaled the ladder behind Briar.

Spark and flame lit up the little room she had just left, tearing holes in the floor and blasting apart the Captain’s wheel. Slipstream sat just above the hatch, wincing at the metallic sound of destruction. Worry welled up in her throat more and more as the roar of the third flying machine subsided to be replaced by the fourth and final. The clatter of the machineguns grew loud, then quiet again once it had ripped past. What followed was an eerie silence, broken only by the protestant groan of metal.

Slipstream shook her head, eyes stretched wide as saucers as she looked down through the hatch that should have lead to means of controlling the airship. Now it was chicken wire. She took two astounded steps back, then sprinted the distance towards the gunnery cabin, calling out to the radio in the process. “This is the Departure; we’re a dead fish.”

“Acknowledged,” Wiltings said glumly. “I can see you from here. Your rudders are waving in the breeze and you’re starting to drifting to starboard... You might want to hang onto something. It looks like your tailfins are gonna’ take a bite of maroon envelope.”

Slipstream didn’t have time to brace. The jarring smash knocked her against the railing and she grasped it to avoid falling from the catwalk, wincing at the stinging in her shoulder. A dizziness took over her head as the Departure changed direction at the tail end, spinning slowly. Ignoring the juicy jaws, she pushed on.

She burst into the cabin to the sight of thirty ponies in a frantic. Smoking brass shells littered the aluminum floor; ponies dashed about carrying heavy weapon ammunition. The cabin was fogged with smoke, and the whole place choked her with the odor of gunpowder, so thick she could taste it. Two ponies staggered by under the weight of a wooden box full of four-inch ammunition, one of them shouting directions to the other around clamped teeth.

“Captain!?” An orange mare smeared with gunpowder residue thundered up to her. It was the Trottingham mare. “I just lost all control from the gondola an’ I was coming to—”

“We’ve lost the gondola,” she said, interrupting the mare. “It’s swiss cheese; the wheels are gone and the cables have snaked down the line,”

The orange mare’s features went from flustered to horrified in less than a second. “You sayin’ nopony’s flyin’ this lug!?”

The battle had begun to rage around them, the throaty blasts of high-caliber cannonfire and raucous roars of dozens of diesel engines drowning the air. Slipstream threw constant glances out the gunports. They were drifting slowly now, sideways, tilting ever so slightly to starboard. For every Equestrian airship amidst in the close-proximity battle, she spotted two more maroon ones.

“Enemy battlecruiser crippled and losing altitude!” Wiltings yelled blissfully over the radio.

“We’re sittin’ ducks here, Captain. Shall I give the order to abandon ship?” The Trottingham mare looked at her expectantly. “Captain?”

The body of the airship jarred violently as they were struck by something. The Trottingham mare ducked and looked up around her horn at the ceiling like she feared it would fall.

“Orders, Captain?” It was Wiltings. “We’ve got to take up some sort of formation!”

“I have no orders, Wiltings,” Slipstream replied in emotional agony. “I can’t see what’s going on from here... Asses the situation and give them yourself!”

Slipstream slammed her hooves on the floor. She couldn’t go out this fast and this early without having fired more than a few shots. Only half of the ponies about this airship were pegasi... an abandon ship now would spell their death’s.

“Captain!” the Trottingham mare hollered. “Can’t ya’ hear me yellin’ at ya’!?”

The Departure no longer held any of its previous heading. The remaining momentum had faded off, and now the crippled airship was floating in the midst of the chaos.

“Captain! We need to abandon ship, now!”

Slipstream put the Trottingham mare aside, racking her mind for anything that could aid the situation. Airships would always battle close and stay in tight clusters; the tactic was to try to keep as much of the enemy around you as possible in a compromising situation; nopony wanted to shoot at you and accidentally punch a hole in another ship of their own fleet. This often resulted in tight clumps of enemy ships all purposefully sticking close to one another, both sides afraid to fire upon the other with anything more than short-range weapons. This usually led to the trained pegasi crews leaving the vessels and battling it out in the air, the primary objective to reach sabotage or destroy the enemy vessel.

“This is Captain Minnow!” The radio crackled. “We’re being boarded!”

And, at times when airships battled in close proximity to one another, one side would often try and board the enemy’s airship.

The realization hit her like a train.

Starboard of the cabin, a maroon battlecruiser hovered, spinning slowly as the guns on all four sides pounded. The ship was at the same altitude as the Departure, and no more than a hundred yards away, showing them its starboard side.

Slipstream didn’t realize she was leering until the Trottingham mare gave her a hard nudge, having read Slipstream’s intentions from her eyes. “Better than half the ponies here falling to their deaths?” she asked. “It’s worth a shot if any.”

Slipstream could only nod, running ideas and outcomes through her head.

“Stop firing on the battlecruiser!” the orange mare yelled to the cabin. “We’re chanin’ airships!”

“Better do it fast!” a stallion yelled, “or that ship’ll have us shredded in a minute’s time!”

Slipstream keyed the radio. “Do not fire on the Longcoat battlecruiser beside the Departure. We are boarding!”

“You’re mad!” Thrush laughed.

The orange mare lolloped to a long, tubelike weapon mounted starboard center of the cabin. “How’re things going up there?” Slipstream asked, eyes tracking the progress.

Thrush’s tone switched. “We’re getting our tailfins handed to us! They’ve got us all spread out!”

“Well regroup!”

“We’re trying to! They’re holding us apart!”

Slipstream growled. “Well stick to them like glue so they can’t use their big guns.”

The orange mare let loose with the harpoon gun. Gunpowder banged as the packed barrel fired, flinging the five-foot, clawed hook towards the cabin of the enemy gunship. The desired effect was perfect, the steel hook plunging into the side of the cabin, the woven steel cable snaking violently after it as it unwound from the spool mounted below the barrel of the harpoon rifle.

The orange mare pumped a hoof triumphantly and set the cable lock. “Best shot in my class.” She unfolded the handle and locked it into place. Placing both hooves on it, she began to turn. “Don’t know why they never put enchantments on these blasted things,” she said with a grunt, the wheel locking device clicking madly as she pulled the slack out of the line. The cable went taut and the grappling claw’s reverse hooks stabbed back through the cabin wall.

“They’re hooked, Captain!”

The cable groaned dangerously as the captain of the enemy airship tried to pull the vessel away. Frantically, Slipstream scrambled for the other harpoon rifle starboard front of the cabin, dodging between ponies and stacks of empty cartridge boxes. Practically falling onto the device, she yanked back the arming mechanism and took aim for the front of the enemy’s cabin. She pulled the firing lever and the clawed harpoon exploded from the barrel. Just as the first one had, it stabbed through the side of the enemy craft, leaving a tendril of heavy cable in its wake.

Slipstream set the locking gear and began to yank the handle round, drawing out the slack to take the weight off the first cable. Another pony at the other end of the Departure’s cabin fired a third harpoon.

More ponies began to flood to the cabin as word crossed the ship of their plans to board the enemy vessel, their yells and shouts reaching mostly-deaf ears from cannon blast after cannon blast. “Can I help you, Captain,” a pegasus stallion with a deep voice asked.

“Yes.” Releasing the handle, she left the weapon to the stronger stallion and went back to trying to focus on everything at once. “Do that!” she yelled over her back.

“Arm yourselves!” Briar voiced, setting an unsteady gait to a crate set up against one of the supports. By the woven handle, he yanked away the lid and it clattered to the floor to reveal rows of 7.8 millimeter, bolt-action rifles, all fitted with seven inch bayonets.

It never made much sense why ponies decided to measure cartridges in both inches and millimeters. Slipstream rolled her eyes with a little shake of her head.

The entire cabin rocked as the enemy battlecruiser fired upon the Departure, blasting holes through the cabin walls and skewing a few unlucky ponies through the air. Slipstream ducked her head to the shrapnel, feeling it pepper her face and neck where the aviator’s jacket provided no protection.

The clumsy weapons went up for grabs; the unicorns, best at handling them effectively, took first pick.

Briar trotted out of the throng of ponies with a rifle slung under either wing and tossed Slipstream one. She raised her forehoof and reared up to catch it, the weight of the weapon taking her a little off guard. “How long’s it been since we’ve been in a real fight?”

A cannon barked from close range and the Departure shook violently, some of the metal panelling ripping free of the roof.

Slipstream hefted the rifle’s weight experimentally, rearing a little onto her hind legs. “Last time we were using swords,” Briar replied smugly. “I think we’re getting old.”

Leaving him, she rushed to a starboard firing slot and propped the rifle in the large, steel frame, sitting down and bracing it awkwardly against her shoulder; unicorns made it look easy. She hated these things. You shot cannons at airships, that didn’t mean you downsized the cannon to something you could hold and shot it at a pony.

The others with weapons followed her example, bracing themselves in the windows and taking aim. She lined up a purple unicorn with a scraggly main and coat operating a four-inch cannon, and fired. The rifle bucked her like a mule and shot out a puff of smoke. From this range, Slipstream could still hear the meaty ‘thwack’ as the bullet struck him square. With hardly a yelp, he went down.

Slipstream winced. It wasn’t very often she actually shot ponies, and she wasn’t particularly enthralled to start again. It didn’t seem like much of a difference, but it was a very big leap from giving the order to shoot a pony, and doing it yourself.

Small-caliber gunfire filled the air, snapping like popcorn in the kettle as the crew of the Departure opened fire, peppering the side of the enemy battlecruiser. A few shots of multi colored magic bolted from both vessels, concussion and disorientation spells fired by unicorn crew members. The pegasi didn’t dare disembark early, not with the enemy armed and ready for confrontation.

“Form up on me!” a stallion said sternly over the radio box slung from her neck. It was Darius, rallying forces. “Target the battlecruiser with the damaged tail!”

Clumsily, Slipstream jacked a new cartridge into the rifle and took aim at a stallion trying to hack at one of their javelin cables with a saw, but another pony nailed him before she could shoot. The stallion slumped and flopped out the window of the battlecruiser, wings unfurling limply as he twirled towards the ground.

Although the battlecruiser’s engines rumbled and the propellers spun, the lighter airship could not pull away from the much-heavier Departure. Now, there was only ten yards of open air spanning the gap between the two airships, that space slowly closing.

“We’re on fire!” A stallion yelled, stumbling out of a hatch in the roof. “It’s spreading through the envelope!”

The dirigibles’ two frames clashed as they met with a bang and a groan of steel. There was a groan as the framing settled and the grappling cables pulled taut, leaving only five yards of space between the two cabins.

Slipstream hoisted her bayonet and cantered to the loading ramp center of the long cabin. Reaching up, she yanked on the ramp lever. The mechanism released and the ten foot boarding ramp dropped and slammed into place right below a small landing pad for pegasi on the adjacent ship. The same sound reached her from further down on either side as the other two ramps were deployed.

Her breath heaved from her lungs, adrenaline surging through her body. It had been years since she had left the cockpit, so to speak. And now, as a sign of loyalty, she would lead her crew to battle.

“For Equestria!” She reared and charged, tucking the rifle into the crook of her foreleg and leading with the bayonet. Fueled by rage and fear, she pounded across the ramp, the rest of her crew flooding out behind her. A red stallion blocked her path, hefting a steel pipe, but she parried it and lead the bayonet into the side of his neck. His eyes stretched wide and her looked at her, face reading a combination of shock and annoyance. She yanked the rifle to the right, and tossed him from the bridge.

A large buck charged her, leaping the gap with a short sword in his mouth. Thinking fast, she hopped back and braced the butt of the rifle against the ramp. His momentum didn’t allow him to stop in time. The bayonet disappeared into his chest with the sickening-familiar sound of steel on flesh. She pulled the trigger and the rifle blasted him backwards, toppling two of his comrades.

The adrenaline may have well made her invincible. She raised her head and screamed as the ponies aboard the Departure surged around her, charging into the enemy cabin. It was a feral outburst, a release of hate and anger that also served as motivation for her crew, and fear in the state of the enemy. Bayonet clashed bayonet, and the havoc unleashed. Ponies of both parties dropped from fatal wounds, Longcoats and Equestrians alike hurled from windows. Above her, the pegasi of her crew soared over the gap, sieging the ponies occupying the top-mounted turrets.

Lost in shock, she jumped from the Departure’s ramp to the enemy vessel and cast a look back at her wounded airship. Six years. Six years, and here it was now, flames licking from inside the envelope, burning away the fabric layering. The once-proud vessel began to sag, and the cables began to groan as they increased tension.

 The battle behind her didn’t matter, at least not for the moment. “Goodbye old girl,” she whispered, flaring her wings and bowing her head.

The flame reached the hydrogen chambers and the whole front end of the Departure went up in a brilliant flame of orange and light-green.

Six years...

“The Departure is down!” Wiltings informed on the radio. “Slipstream, tell me you made it off!”

She hesitated, but eventually took the receiver. “We made it off.” The first cable snapped like a massive, over-tuned piano string and shot back towards the Departure like a whip, slashing a clean line directly through the side of the cabin. The others followed seconds later. With the release of the final cable, the enemy battlecruiser rolled back to balance.

The Departure fell away in a ball of flame.

She snapped back to attention, becoming once-again aware of the raging battle within the ship’s quarters. She grabbed for the radio. “To all forces! The crew of the Departure is onboard the enemy battlecruiser with the golden swirl painted on the fins and we are attempting to seize control! Do not fire!”

“Three of our gunboats remaining!” the accented stallion screeched into his radio receiver.

Slipstream tensed as the deafening bang of the mothership’s cannon split the air. Seconds later, the abandon ship alarm cut through the air. She recognised the two-tone cry—it belonged to one of their battlecruisers.

Darius confirmed her fears. “Airship down!”

Slipstream threw her rifle aside, tired of the burden, and scanned the foreign cabin. Everypony was engaged with everypony, the crew of the Departure outnumbering the Longcoat’s two to one. Bayonet and blade battled it out and rifles fired in the small space, only adding to the smoke and choking scent of gunpowder.

She picked out a single, gray-coated Longcoat, slinking around on the edge of the battle. He tossed a sly gaze out the window and wrapped his hooves around the handles of a three-inch cannon, just small enough to be operated by a single pony with the use of a few weight-reduction enchantments. A quick look told her the target was the Friendship, which was currently locked in a battle with two smaller airships fifty feet above and three hundred feet away

Hollering, she hurled herself at the longcoat. Her yell startled him, and he reared up to meet her. Throwing all of her weight into the air and flaring her wings, she drove all four of her hooves into the stallion’s chest. Het let out a ‘oof’ and collapsed backwards under the force of her impact. Taking advantage of his shellshock, she wrapped her hooves around the heavy cannon’s handles and steered the long barrel away, attempting to sight in one of the airships engaged in battle with the Friendship.

The longcoat struck her from the side and tackled her to the floor, wrapping a foreleg around her neck and the opposite sided hind leg around her belly. She choked, trying to pull away, but he held her tight against his body, rough, wiry coat rubbing hers like sandpaper. She flared her wings, forcing against his forelegs and managed to relinquish his grasp on her neck. She spun on him and tackled him to his belly, placing a forehoof on his back and using the other to yank his foreleg around. His wings beat haplessly as she held him down, smacking her across the face. Trying to still him, she bit down near the base of his wing and pulled. He actually screamed, like any pony would scream, and for a second she was sure she would lose her nerve.

He tried to roll away, but she didn’t budge, instead, his wing did. She felt the bone in the wing her jaws were clamped down on shift in her mouth, and the humorous let out a dull pop as it dislocated. He screamed again, this time in agony.

Unbinding his cutlass and taking it, she left him there, writhing. Going back to the cannon before anypony else could catch her off guard, she heaved it around to line the distance sights up with the airship circling the Friendship.

The cannon nearly knocked Slipstream to her tail as it discharged, leaving her senseless for a second as the sound around her was lost to sound-shocked ears. The projectile arced beautifully through the air and blasted diagonally through the gunnery cabin of the Longcoat airship, taking with it out the other side an entire cannon and firing crew. The ammunition stored in the gunship fired off, and the cabin blasted apart, raining ponies and debris like confetti, setting the gasbags inside the canvas fuselage aflame.

“Whoever that was, thanks for the assist,” Wiltings breathed over the radio channel. “Blast the other one while you’re at it!”

It was all a blur as she threw herself into the battle, fighting alongside her crew for control of the cabin. She swung and slashed, seeing nothing more than blank faces of the living and soon-to-be dead. Blood ran from a cut upon her forehead, and another on her flank. Once they were gone, still, she spun, looking for more through blood and tears.

“The ship is ours!” the Trottingham mare yelled, hefting her rifle into the air. A series of jeers called back to her as others joined in.

“Go on! All of you!” The orange mare danced happily over to one of the massive starboard-side cannons. “Clear the rest of the vessel!”

Slipstream’s hoof brushed against something and she looked down. It was a sword, the blade thin and curved and polished to perfection, probably dropped by one of the longcoats. Almost lazily, she stooped down and lifted it by the handle with a forehoof, surprised at how expertly balanced it was. How many ponies had this blade alone killed? How many more would it kill?

“Captain!” It was the orange mare. “They still have control of the gondola. We have to seize control before they attempt sabotage.”

She shook her head, reaching back and sliding the blade into one of the pockets on her jacket and stabbing it through the back end, creating a makeshift sheathe.

There was a ship to clear.

“You sure aren’t going to believe this,” said Thrush over the line. “One of those buzzlies took a bite of our tailfin and lost. One down, three to go!”

Slipstream wasted no time in mounting the ladder bolted center of the cabin. Briar right behind her, she pushed through the hatch in the roof and into the envelope of the battlecruiser.

Four hundred feet of steel framing and supports spanned around her in the semi-gloom. The maroon paint adorning the outside of the battlecruiser blotted out what little was left of the sunlight after its trip through the clouds, and what light did make it through was a menacing crimson glow that provided only just enough illumination to see. She was unaccustomed to this; the sun shone through the Departure’s skin, only filtered of the heat and harsh rays that could heat the gasbags to dangerous temperature.

This ship contained four gasbags, two on both ends of the vessel, providing an equal distribution of weight between front and rear. Slipstream started out over the steel plank running along the bottom of the cylindrical envelope. Trembly ladders ran up to catwalks crossing to and fro above, which were nothing more than one-sixteenth inch steel planks welded to a lightweight frame which in turn, was welded to the support struts. The walkways, barely a half a foot wide, served unsuitable for any race but pegasi, who preferred to use them over flying. One thing most non-pegasi did not understand was that flying around inside the envelope of an airship while spoken airship was moving, was the most disorienting thing one could imagine—kind of like running around in a circle looking up a broom handle then trying to fly between girders and spiderwebs of steel cable that could snap a wing in two; it wouldn’t end well.

She could hear fighting above, most likely the ponies of her crew battling with the few ponies set at gunning stations upon the envelope. On this type of battlecruiser, a frontal cabin hung near the nose, just behind the gondola, and as counterbalance, another was mounted at the bow. Hopefully, these stations had already been commandeered, and if not, hopefully the crew of the late Departure were in the process of doing so.

She set a canter towards the stern of the airship, towards the gondola. By now, it was obvious the captain knew that the ship had been boarded—he was probably attempting to disable the ship at the very time.

Reaching the hatch she knew would be there, she braced one hoof on the handle and looked back at Briar, the only one who had followed her. “What do you say, wingpony?” she asked, attempting humor.

He turned his head back and pulled out a bayonet detached from the front of one of their rifles, and clamped the base in his teeth, giving her a brief nod.

Slipstream took a breath, readying herself, giving the hatch the lightest of pulls to make sure it wasn’t secured; it would be rather silly to yank on the handle only to fall flat on her face because the door was locked from the inside.

It was unlocked.

Before she could think of an excuse to hesitate, she drew her adopted sword, hurled open the hatch, and jumped.

Three ponies jumped as her hooves crashed to the floor, two stallions and a really bulky mare that looked like she had gotten a very large dose of testosterone. Both stallions drew swords and the mare, lacking a weapon, smirked; her body seemed weapon enough.

Slipstream charged stupidly at the first stallion, the sword in her mouth jittering. Behind her, Briar dropped and hit the ground running. The stallion wearing the captain’s hat parried her charge and immediately swiped downward at her head. Slipstream dodged just in time for the captain's blade to pit the steel where she had been.

Briar went directly for the mare, letting out a growl between his clenched teeth as he charged with the bayonet. The mare, while bulky and intimidating, was not fast. She tried to dodge, but the bayonet stabbed into her shoulder and buried to the bone. She let out a howl of pain and swung her other leg, beating Briar across the head with it. The stallion stumbled backward, leaving his weapon stuck in the mare’s shoulder.

The captain of the battlecruiser barked something to the other stallion, but it was so heavily accented that Slipstream couldn’t make a word of it. Trying to use his distraction as a benefit to her, she stabbed with the sword, but again, the captain blocked her.

“Captain Slipstream!” Wiltings yelled at her from the radio. “If you’re behind the wheel of that hijacked battlecruiser I’d suggest you turn, now! You’re about to broadside us!”

Slipstream couldn’t go for the receiver. The captain was looking at her with narrowed, amused eyes. “No kill,” he said in an accent so foreign it was barely understandable.

Briar yelled something along the lines of a battle cry and lunged back at that big mare, who was more or less cringing, attempting to avoid him as she searched for time to pull the blade from her front shoulder. He crashed into her front and bit down on the bayonet. With a tug, he pulled the bloodied tip out of the mare, and lashed out again almost immediately. This time it stuck in her neck. The mare’s eyes went wide as the gray steel disappeared into the side of her neck, buried to the last two inches.

While Slipstream tried to defend herself from the captain, Briar backed away from the mare as she slumped. The other stallion in the gondola howled something, probably profane, and lunged at Briar, cutting the air with his curved blade.

“Slipstream!” Wiltings screamed, voice breaking up on the radio channel. “Change course!”

The captain stood between her and the wheel. Out the window ahead, she could see the port side of the Friendship, locked in a grapple with a slightly-larger enemy dirigible.

That had been the captain’s plan. He would kill every Equestrian on his ship and take down one of the leading vessels as well.

Sucking up her fear, she charged the stallion, not even bothering to lead with the sword. He stepped aside to try and swipe at her legs, and she dodged the best she could. The tip of his blade skimmed across her side, sharp as a razor, slicing a thin line from her right side middle all the way to her rump and through her cutie mark of a lead balloon.

She screamed—somehow managing to hold onto her sword—as her hooves wrapped on the wheel. Immediately, she drew back on the throttle, and had barely cranked the wheel around a quarter turn when the captain tackled her to the floor. Before she could even blink, Slipstream found herself on her back, the raggedy-looking battlecruiser captain holding a sword against her throat. She pinched her eyes shut as the thin pressure increased on her neck. He wasn’t going to hesitate or gloat like they did in the movies.

Right when she was sure her skin would break, or would come the ‘shlick’ of the blade as it slashed through her windpipe, the pressure released and the blade fell away. Something hot and wet dripped onto her belly, driving a shiver from her. Slipstream dared open her eyes. The captain glared down at her, only his eyes were distant as the life faded. Briar stood above him, face contorted in a scowl as he tried to pull the sword from the captain’s back. Slipstream glanced down. The tip of the sword gleamed from the captain’s chest, drizzling blood like a slow faucet.

Slipstream threw the captain off her. “Thanks.”

Briar held out a hoof to her. “I couldn't go and let my captain die, now could—” There was a wet, tearing sound, and he stopped suddenly and gasped. His hoof dropped back to the floor.

The stallion who had managed to pull to his hooves behind Briar, fell back to the ground, one hoof still clasped over a stab wound in his chest, trying to quell the flow of blood.

“No!” Slipstream screamed, scrambling to her hooves.

Briar’s entire diaphragm heaved, and his eyes rolled. He coughed and blood ran from his lips, staining his chin. All at once he slumped and dropped to the floor like a flour sack, revealing the last inch of a bayonet protruding from his right flank.

Slipstream wasn’t sure what drove her to pick up the captain’s sword and stab it through the injured Longcoat’s belly, or what caused her to do it ten more times, each one more violent than the next. On the eleventh, the blade stabbed through the aluminum flooring and stuck fast, pinning the stallion to the floor.

“Slipstream!” Wiltings screamed, so loud that Slipstream might have been able to hear her without the radio. “Turn the damned ship!”

Shaking madly, she crossed to the wheel and yanked it the rest of the way around. A quick eye of the distance told her that the battlecruiser would clear the Friendship, five more seconds, though, and they would have had themselves a well-done, dirigible T-bone steak.

Abandoning the wheel, she rushed to Briar’s side. He lay on the floor in his own blood, beside the stallion Slipstream had made mince out of. His eyes had already glazed over and his chest heaved up and down in the occasional, quick jerk. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. The edges of her vision began to shimmer.

He was alive, but not really.

He tried to lift his head, but failed after the first inch. Slipstream winced at the fact that she could do nothing for him. Slowly his lips parted, and his sightless eyes rolled a little in their sockets. “F-f...” He drew a rattling breath. “Don’t s-sc-screw... this... up.”

Weeping silently, she stood up straight and gave Briar a stiff salute. “I won’t.” The words had been Briar as he always was—crude and straight to the point.

His chest heaved, then he was still.