//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Squall // Story: Stormriders: Dead Seas // by PonyMarine //------------------------------// TMS Rooseblood - Bridge Naval Base Star Harbor - Sea Moorings Background Music Cloud Dancer walked onto the bridge with Stormcruiser and Spark Bloom in tow and presented herself to the Captain with a sharp salute. While in any other circumstance a Major saluting a Captain would go in the reverse, the Navy in their contrary and ancient ways that are utterly incomprehensible to the land bound referred to their version of a Colonel as Captains. Simply to confuse everypony per the legends on the Army and Air Force. “Major Cloud Dancer of the 98th Night Fighter Squadron reporting, sir.” The Captain turned and returned the salute briskly. “Welcome aboard, Major. Captain Bowsprit, commander of the Rooseblood. My compliments to your ponies, some excellent traps out there today. Sorry one of them had to get his nose bloodied earlier, my Marines play rough. Any actual damage?” “Just to his ego, sir. He’s young and still getting his saddle worn in; he’ll be squared away in time for regular flight ops tomorrow.” The Captain laughed and cuffed Cloud Dancer’s shoulder lightly. “Excellent, Major, just what I like to hear. Maybe the little lesson in humility from the Captains here will be just what the lad needed! Now then, before we get down to business we have a little work to get to so we can get under way from the port. Master Chief Hard Tack!” A graying stallion in immaculate working khakis stepped up from his position near the helmscolt and saluted sharply. “Yes, sir?” “Have we received clearance from the harbor to depart?” “Yes sir, the Admiral and the Princess are aboard and flight operations are secured.” “Excellent, sound general quarters, all hands to the rails.” “Aye sir!” The Master Chief grabbed the speaker for the intraship intercomm and pressed down hard on the General quarters alarm. “All hands, stand to for departure. Man the rails!” The ship’s decks were suddenly alive with activity as sailors in their dress whites poured out of every available hatch, several large groups coming up from below decks on the aircraft elevators. All headed to predetermined positions along the rails of the ship and came to an solid looking position of attention, all eyes outwards towards the surrounding harbor and the sea before them. “Helm, ahead one quarter, take us out!” “Aye sir, ahead one quarter.” TMS Shade - Fifty miles out of the bay “Conn! Communications, message from fleet command.” Commander Manecuso grabbed the naval message from the young rating who’d brought it forward and gave it a quick once over. Just as he’d thought, time to get moving. “Alright ponies, exactly what we expected, the fleet is leaving port and we’re going along to play shadow and surprise any underwater threats. Chief, are we secured for dive?” “On your order, skipper.” “Very well, Conning officer, dive the boat!” “Aye sir! Helm ahead one third, ten degrees down bubble!” The dive was a quiet and simple one, what had been visible of the Shade’s conning tower slipping below the waves with barely a bubble to mark her passing, unlike the rest of the ships in the fleet, who were even now rigging themselves to defend themselves against any incursions the Shade was following an all together different mission. She was sliding beneath the waves to go hunting. TMS Roosenblood - A Week Has Passed Background Music The dinner and informal staff meeting in the wardroom had been going quite pleasantly. Even the presence of the Princess and Twilight Sparkle couldn’t deter the various flight teams and ship’s officers from getting a little bawdy and relaxed. Everypony had been tense with the ships rigged for combat all day with very little stand down time, so the Admiral had decided to take the opportunity to let the crews relax a little before the fleet left blue water and entered Merian territory. Flare and Zephyr were in the corner with a couple Navy and Marine fighters recounting their adventures at the northern border while Luna was trying to get more blackmail on Twilight as a foal from the Admiral to the purple unicorn’s horror. Captain Bowsprit was engrossed in a book in “The Captain’s Chair” which was a comfy armchair somepony had smuggled aboard for the Skipper’s personal use. No one was expecting the battle stations alarm to start sounding. “Unknown fighters detected coming in from the south east, refusing to respond to hails. All hands, battle stations! Launch the alert five fighters! This is not a drill! All pilots to your planes; Captain to the CIC!” The wardroom was already empty as pilots and officers rushed to their respective aircraft and duty stations. TMS Shade “Conn, Sonar! Contact bearing 45 degrees off the nose, identify contact as possible submarine!” “Comms, alert fleet command. All hands to battle stations. Firing officer, tube status?” “All tubes loaded, sir.” “Very well, flood tubes three and four. Sonar, tell me you’ve got something more!” “Yes, sir, feeding data to... Oh shit, transients transients, they’re flooding tubes... fish in the water! Repeat, spread of three torpedoes in the water same bearing as previously reported!” “Dammnit! Warn the fleet, and match bearings on that sub and shoot!” A tense moment as the sub’s outer doors opened and two torpedoes leaped from their firing tubes guided by wire towards the last known location of their target. “Conn, Sonar, fish away and running hot, time to target two minutes.” “Very well, Helm, three degrees down bubble and get us moving.” “Conn, weapons, fish released and beginning to ping.” “Conn, Sonar, sounds like the fish have it, sir. We’re getting a strong return off the projected coordinates of the contact.” Silence reigned on the sub, tense and sweaty as the sonar officer occasionally counted down the projected time to impact. Each sailor and officer imagined the torpedoes tearing through the water seeking out the metal skin of a submarine very much like their own, hoping to rip and rend its metal flesh with their high explosive warheads. “Conn, Sonar, we have detonation, breaking up noise...we have a kill.” “Good work, ponies. Report to the fleet and continue at battle stations. Let’s see if he had friends.” TMS Rooseblood - CIC The Admiral was extremely pleased with the battle group’s performance and, at the report of a sub kill, hammered the planning table with a hoof. “Hah! That’s more like it. Cocky bastards thought they could catch us napping again, eh? Stupid sons of a bitch are really getting it now! Captain Bowsprit, what’s the status of the fighters?” “All fighters are away and engaging the enemy planes just south of the Fleet’s anti-air defenses.” “Damage reports from the fleet?” “The Warlander took two missile hits amidships but is reporting only light casualties and no loss to combat effectiveness. The Charger took a torpedo to her “Trixie” decoy but no other damage reported. Of the other two torpedoes reported by the Shade one apparently took out a helo dropped sonobouy and the other was shot and detonated by a crewpony on the Charger” “Celestia’s mane that’s a hell of a shot! Put that colt in for a commendation! Any report from the Lunar Shadow?” “She just made her regular SatComm report, she should be joining the fleet as scheduled tomorrow.” “Very well... keep Anti-Submarine Warfare parties at full alert and move the fleet to engage the enemy air assets at maximum range. Solar Light keep the pilots; this is their fight now, but I’ll be damned if we don’t give them a helping hoof.” Selene Twelve - Flare Flare had never been in an air battle like this before. The Rooseblood was carrying a full compliment of ninety aircraft plus Selene squadron. Only about sixty of those were fighters, but it still made for a crowded sky. They had started the fight almost immediately after launch cutting to afterburners and engaging the enemy fighters at knife fighting range to keep them from dropping into missile range of the carrier. Flare was hot on an enemy plane’s tail and couldn’t help but notice the odd, vaguely aquatic design of the thing. It looked almost like a fish. ’Gah, the hell am I doing? This is no time to admire the enemy aerospace engineering.’ Flare flipped a switch and brought his cannon tight and in-line with the enemy’s tail. “Fox four!” The stream of 20mm cannon shells tore out into the enemy fighter and paneling and fluids flew off him as the pilot jinked left and with a roll tore into a screaming dive straight down with Flare following hard behind him, lining him up for a missile shot with bursts of cannon fire. The enemy plane tore into the water with an extra burst of speed and Flare was forced to pull hard out of the dive in a high g turn. His arc gave him an excellent view as the fighter that had just vanished beneath the waves popped out of the water a good half mile away and rocketed back towards the main engagement. Flare’s mind froze for a second as he tried to process exactly what had just happened. ’Oh bucking hell...’ “Selene Twelve to Selene Six, priority communication.” “Six here, I’m slightly busy, Twelve, so make it fast.” “Six, enemy fighters are trans-aquatic.” “Say bucking WHAT, Twelve?” “Repeat enemy aircraft are trans-aquatic; they can go underwater.” “....Oh sonofabuckingwhore, keep in the fight, Twelve. I have the feeling the fleet’s about to have serious problems.” Flare grimaced and banked hard back towards the main of the engagement, looking for a straggler he could donate a missile to, worried about what was happening in the world beneath the waves. Beneath the Waves “The surfacers are fighting back well, my lord, better then we have expected.” “I have noticed that you, simpleton.” The odd looking sea pony cringed, expecting a blow from the shadows. His dark master was not one to cross. Even amongst their people his reputation for cruelty and ferocity was legendary... which is why he would have caught the attention of the queen of course. The expected blow didn’t land however. The commander was obviously thinking. “What’s the status of the missile cruiser?” “Close to surfacing, my lord. She’ll be in firing position shortly.” “And the fighters we’ve infiltrated?” “Standing by to make their attack run, my liege.” “Excellent, we shall take victory from this yet!” Rooseblood Group The warning from Selene Six barely came in time to warn the battle group about dangers coming from below, the cruisers immediately kicking off a hard active sonar ping dubbed “yankee search” immediately the contact screen lit up with dozens of underwater contacts. The order to begin dropping depth charges was almost instant in response, but by then the fighters had begun to emerge from the water. A slightly stunned radar tech in the Warlander’s CIC watched smaller radar contacts separating from the larger contacts that had appeared from no where and grabbed the radio in a panic, getting on the fleet wide channel. “Vampire, vampire! Missiles inbound!” Across the fleet, Valiant Defender CIWS anti-missile systems spooled up their gatling guns and began to spew fire out at the incoming missiles marked by their radar, the thousands of rounds filling the air with a wall of lead. The cruiser’s SAM batteries began to rotate too, sending volleys of missiles screaming back towards the enemy fighters that had snuck through the fleet’s defensive perimeter. Despite the best defenses the fleet could muster a couple missiles did manage to penetrate the defenses and slammed home onto the hulls of the ships, sending damage control teams scattering to put out fires and reroute any vital ship’s systems that may have been effected. The surviving enemy fighters attempted to slide back beneath the waves, but were mercilessly hounded by the fleet’s ASW forces, torpedoes and depth charges reaching into the inky black and rending machine and flesh alike with the power of their detonations. The powerful sonars of the ships at full power lashing out like blows marking the targets for the hunting helicopters. Selene Eleven and Twelve - Zephyr and Flare They’d reformed as a wing pair shortly after Flare’s discovery of their enemy being able to fly beneath the waves as well as above them. It was standard doctrine for the Equestrian armed forces to never go into a fight alone if you can help it. Two fighters together, with pilots who know each other and have trained together can be easily be the most lethal thing in the sky. Zephyr was scanning the sky with a hard eye, hunting for more fighters, the Equestrian fliers had managed to thin them out significantly, she banked right with Flare above and to the left of her when she saw a glint from the ocean’s surface a couple miles off. “Twelve, Eleven, possible surface contact, want to go check it out?” “Sure, not enough bandits up here to go around, Eleven. You have the lead.” Zephyr led them through a tight turn and burned hard towards the bright spot on the water at high speeds, the spot staying slightly reflective no matter the angle of the sun. There was definitely something out there and, given the current climate, the good money said it wasn’t likely to be friendly. Intuition was quickly confirmed as the glare slid away revealing a slightly bulbous and organic-looking submarine. Its open missile hatches and the large cruise missiles beneath them looked normal enough however, and the pair dove to engage with nary a word between them. Cannon fire and a pair of missiles arced out, lashing at the tender skin of the submarine. The missiles alone were lethal blows, the first landing amidships at the water line and the other slamming home into the conning tower. The now dying submarine managed to get it’s final revenge, a single cruise missile cleared it’s tube and arced off into the sky. Zephyr pounded a console. “Dammit! Twelve, we have to take that missile down before it hits the fleet. Who knows what kind of payload that thing’s carrying!” Zephyr didn’t wait for a response. She pulled the fighter up in to a high-g arc rolling into level flight. Pushing the throttle to the stops she went supercruise well inside twenty seconds after completing her maneuver. Noting she still had a ways to go, she wet her engine. Flare was left in her dust as she bore in on the missile, tracking it’s arc across the sky with clinical precision and plotting a mental intercept course. A flick of a switch set her targeting system’s radar to high gain as she bore down on the missile that was heading towards the top of the arc that would bring it down on top of the battle group. A tone and a flash of light was all Zephyr needed. “Fox three!” It was actually two missiles being launched, not one, but one would have been enough. The pair of semi-active radar guided missiles burned off their rails and accelerated to mach seven in a heart beat, burning in towards the swiftly accelerating cruise missile in front of them. Zephyr fought to keep up as best she could, already tracking for another missile shot, or a last ditch engagement with guns if necessary. Zephyr rode her throttle hard, pushing her engines well into the red line, the aircraft straining and screaming around her to obey it’s master’s demands. “Come on dammit just a little faster... just a little more Celestia moonit!” Right then, the two missiles she’d just fired closed with their target and detonated spectacularly shredding the missile in front of them. Zephyr couldn’t maneuver to escape the expanding ball of fire and shrapnel and instead chose to punch it, main cannon firing at it’s full automatic rate, the pilot praying to sun and moon that it would be enough to clear the skies of major debris. Another flash, a second of intense heat and she was through. “Hahah! That’s what I’m talking about!” Then she noticed the magic energy that had formed around her aircraft, the arcane bubble twinkling merrily in the sunlight, and Knight Seven pulling up to her aft and left. ’Let nopony ever say the King and Queen don’t have an excellent sense of timing’ She switched her comm band to the intrasquadron frequency. “Thanks for the assist Knight Seven that could have been hairy.” There was a pleasant tone of merriment in King’s voice as he responded. “Heh, you think the fire ball would have been bad? I promise you that your mechanic’s wrath would have made that look like a fire cracker.” “Hah, copy that, what’s the status of the engagement?” “We just drove off the last of them and have orders to recover aboard Stick, time to go home Selene Eleven.” “Copy that Knight Seven, heading for the carrier.”