//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Sea State // Story: Stormriders: Dead Seas // by PonyMarine //------------------------------// Flare and Clanky's home 0341 (Song 1) Flare woke in a cold sweat from a fast jerking motion, barely able to keep himself from crying out in terror. He looked over at Clanky, her one remaining foreleg was draped over him as she murmured something softly in her sleep. He hadn't woken her up, a small favor from one of the goddesses this morning. It'd been over a year since the day he got shot down now, coming up on a year since they were rescued from the hell hold they'd been struggling to survive in. Still the nightmares came to him every night, lashing him with his failure to evade capture with his best friend and the mare he was now married to, the pain of the torture, the whispers of the interrogators filling his mind. Flare was an excellent pilot, well regarded within and without the unit. The best psychologists in the realm had been personally contracted by Princess Luna to "fix" the three of them after their ordeal. They'd cleared them all as fit and healthy, but the nightmares still came for him. Even marrying Clanky and having her there to hold him close every night couldn't banish them completely. Flare slid out from under the sheets, moving as little as possible so as not to disturb the now softly snoring grey mare. He quietly moved out on to a moonlit patio just outside their bedroom and sat down, hard hooves splaying slightly as weariness crushed him towards the ground. "Goddess.... will this ever end?" "All things end eventually, we'll get through this." He hadn't been expecting a response and near jumped out of his skin when he got one, but the pair of grey downy wings enveloping him and pulling him back in to Clanky's warm embrace calmed him instantly. They stood there like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other. Time passed slowly and they watched as the waning moon became the rising sun. "Everything is going to be alright." 368th Night Fighter Wing Squadron Briefing Room 1300 Major Cloud Dancer was pacing the front of the briefing room like a caged predator, occasionally snarling through her teeth at a pilot who was anything other then the picture of perfection at their desks. Captain Stormhoof was much the same with his Marines, though the only Marines in the room besides himself and his platoon leaders were Gunnery Sergeant Reckless and her Force Recon squad. Freshly promoted and returned from Marine Force Reconnaissance school on the west coast. Her recon Marines were the best. They knew it, and they acted the part. The only way you could tell they weren’t statues is they breathed occasionally. Cloud Dancer and Stormhoof had reason to be nervous however. It wasn’t every day the First Sea Lord gave your unit a briefing. Especially when the Princess was involved. Especially when a diplomatic mission after the TMS Courser incident was involved. All in all, both officers were extremely concerned about the behavior of their troops and whatever mission was coming. Suddenly the young Marine MP stationed at the back of the room snapped to. “Attention on deck! Admiral on deck!” The Admiral strode in unceremoniously with a few aides and an obvious Naval Intelligence officer trailing behind him. He had the grandfatherly air of an affable old sea captain, not the hard line officer and incredible naval tactician his service record book proclaimed him to be. “As you were, folks, no need to get all keyed up for me.” He moved up to the front of the room and let his aides shuffle around setting up a laptop and hooking it to the projector. He turned to the sentry at the back of the room. “Lance Corporal, secure this room immediately, highest classification, weapon to condition one.” The young Marine saluted, chambered a round into his sidearm and stepped out side, locking the door externally. The Admiral looked out at the assembled group, and the formerly fatherly voice went cold and steely. “Everything you hear in this briefing is classified top secret, revealing anything from this brief will constitute an act of treason and result in a court martial. Does everypony understand?” Receiving enough of an acknowledgement the old sailor signaled his aide and a large satellite view of the Coral Shoals presented itself on the screen. “Right then, as you may or may not know the cruiser TMS Courser was lost thirty nautical miles outside of sea pony territorial waters last week. This happened right before the first formal meeting between the sea ponies and any outsiders at all for just short of a millennium. Naval Command and Their Majesties find this highly suspicious. Princess Luna has chosen to continue with opening relations with the sea ponies and shall be proceeding to the summit in a little over a month. Instead of the single cruiser we were going to send as a sign of good faith, their majesties have ordered that we deploy a light carrier battle group and that we supplement the usual ship’s compliment with Selene squadron and the 368th’s Force Recon squad which shall be Princess Luna’s personal security detail for the duration of the visit.” The slides begin to go through photos of several several vessels. “We’re running with a slightly smaller strike group then normal centered on the TMS Rooseblood one of our most recent carriers and the flagship of the strike group. If any of you heathen land dwellers care her nickname is “The Big Stick” if you don’t understand the nickname or know the name you are what’s wrong with the Equestrian education system.” A chorus of chuckles fill the room, when you’re dealing with Admirals and Generals, their jokes are always funny. Or else. “Accompanying her shall be the TMS Warlander, TMS Destrier, and TMS Charger. Two cruisers and a heavy cruiser respectively. The final portion of our merry little flotilla shall be the TMS Shade, a Darkside-class attack submarine and the TMS Lunar Shadow, an experimental submarine carrier that carries the new Trident-class subsurface fighters.” The admiral paused taking in the faces of the assembled mass; everypony looked slightly stunned by the barrage of information. He grinned, pleased with himself for still being able to properly steam roll a bunch of young officers and Marines and get them off balance. ‘Still got it.’ “Of course, this means Selene squadron will have to become carrier qualified in under a month. Considering your unit’s reputation and it’s rather impressive collection of battle decorations I’m sure you’ll handle quite ably. The recon unit will also have some extra training to supplement the dive training you’ve all already received.” He turns to Major Cloud Dancer and motions to an aid who passes her a typed letter and a thick folder marked “classified”. “Official orders transferring you to Naval Airstation Oceanus for training then on to the Morning Star battle group the second you’ve been signed off as carrier operations qualified.” Major Cloud Dancer nods and quickly scans the loose document. “Yes, sir, I’ll have my ponies all transferred south no later then seventy two hours from now.” “Excellent, I see your proficiency reports didn’t exaggerate a word about you, Major. I look forward to working with you on this cruise. Now then I have to return to Naval Command. I leave you in the capable hooves of Commander Datapoint of the Office of Naval Intelligence. “ The Admiral quickly vanished taking about half the entourage with him. Cloud Dancer envied him more then a little. She could tell without the spook from ONI saying a single word that this was going to be the kind of intelligence briefing that made getting sucked through an engine an attractive mental prospect. ’LtCol Windsheer knew this was going to happen when he gave me command of this detail. That bastard... what won’t he do to avoid an intell brief?’ She suppressed a sigh and pulled out her note pad, settling in for what was sure to be a long and painful experience. Two Days Later NAS Oceanus VMFA(AW)-127 Flight Line 0430 The collection of airforce flyers were feeling decidedly out of place on the bustling flight line, everyone else seeming to have a place and purpose except them as the Marines of VMA-127 continued final preparations to embark the squadron in just a few short weeks but this is where their instructors had wanted to meet them. A pair of extremely crisp looking ponies walked toward the group. In the lead was a very powerfully built pegasus stallion, and just a step behind him was a slender unicorn mare. "I'm Captain Stormcruiser, call sign King. The lovely mare with me is Captain Spark Bloom, call sign Queen and my Wizzo or Weapons Systems Officer. To translate for you airscouts, she sits in the backseat of our bird and helps me kill bad guys as effectively as possible. She's also my wife so you can decide for yourselves which roll she's more lethal in. Spark Bloom gives her husband a gentle punch on the shoulder. "They can decide, but you're the only one who deals with the consequences..." "Ha! True enough, you're better with the speech making, brief the dodos for me?" Spark Bloom turns to the assembled airforce pilots. "We're going to give you all a crash course in carrier aviation, mostly doing test traps on the "test carrier" set up land side here at NAS Oceanus. Fillies and colts, you are not in Ponyville any more. Carrier aviation, especially launch and recovery procedures is the most difficult flying on the face of the planet. If you don't bring your A game every single second, you're just gonna end up as a smear for some squid to mop off the flight deck." Her husband gestured with a quick jerk of his neck towards the hangar behind them. "Follow us into the class room, let's get the ground portion of this knocked out so we can get flying."