//------------------------------// // Recieving the Commission // Story: Rise of the Steel Fleet // by Storm Seas //------------------------------// To: Captain (Sr. Gd) Storm Seas From: First Lord Blue Blood Dear Sir, You are hereby requested and instructed to board Her Equestrian Majesties Ship Schornhorse, and complete what work is yet to be done shipping her complement of Sea-ponies and Mareines, and preparing her in every respect for Sea. It is Her Majesties' express Orders that you employ the most vigorous Exertions to accomplish these Objects and put your Ship as speedily as possible in a situation to sail at the shortest notice. I look up from the parchment. I knew this day would come but never so soon. The Schornhorse! the newest ship from the Manehattan ship yard! I magic the paper back to my desk. Emotions and memories of my past careen through my mind as I move to the door. of my office. Ten years ago I never would have wanted to join the Armed Forces. My family was a military one and my elder brother had taken that path, I didn't. I would have been content to study at the Canterlot College and spend hour upon hours studying the scrolls of Great library. I wanted to become a historian, but my hopes were dashed and my destiny altered when the Changelings attacked. It was at that moment when I was holding my dad's guard rifle that I knew I was a warrior. So I joined the newly created Royal Equestrian Navy. My father ranted but my brother hooved my mane and, well my mom just had the smile that confirmed to me i had done my family proud. The last ten years have been a blur since I entered the Officer Training Academy. I used my study skills to their full advantage and blew my classmates out of the water. I got my Commission to serve on the E.N.S. Harmony for my middy-cruise and from there on I jumped the rating scale like it was a game of hop-scotch. And now I'm a Captain Senior grade, with a commission to make any officer green with envy. The Schornhorse! I could wait any longer, I had to see her! Manehattan Naval Ship Yard. Slip 5 I could say that I cantered the distance from the Admiralty house to the docks but I would be lying. A full Gallop is better equated with my pace. A quick straighten of the four gold bands around my neck, and I'm ready to go. I pace myself as I wind through the myriad of guards and yard dogs. So much has happened in ten years its amazing. We jumped the tech tree as fast as we could but the changelings just adapted their armory to match ours. I knew we had to find a new way to counter their advantage but nopony knew where to look or how to begin. That is until a certain somepony from the town of Ponyville, a mare by the name of Lyra Heartstrings found a scroll in the Great Library. She joined the Navy two or so years after I did, and climbed the rating ladder as best she could. I ran into her my last year at the Academy. She was a strange pony, going on and on about "humans" and their world. She was always digging around the Library for materiel on them and we ran into one another many times. I was looking to history to find an answer to our military problems, she was looking for more "human" records. And that is what gave us the edge. Humans apparently were masters of combat, building bigger and greater weapons, ships that could fight enemies over the horizon, ones that flew in the sky, and some that roamed the land on strips of steel. The R&D Department Snatched her out of training and made her a Lieutenant fast then you could say Celestia. All that only leads to the one thing that held my gaze. Floating mere meters in front of me was the newest Battleship of the Royal Navy. As much as I would have loved to go on-board, I wasn't her Skipper yet. She was every thing the Papers said she was. At almost three hundred meters and nearly forty across she was the largest single warship in the whole fleet. And the heaviest too, weighting in a astonishing 58 thousand tonnes at rest she would top 70 thousand fully loaded, and she didn't stop there. All of her stats blew every ship we had in commission to the side, and I got to be her first Captain. I reached out a hoof in longing to touch her sides, and didn't notice the sound of approaching hoof steps. "Good Evening Captain Seas," A melodious voice said from beside me. I started when I saw a brief glimmer of sky blue mane and instantly reacted, bowing low with one hoof extended in formal greeting. "Your Majesty, I'm sorry I didn't hear your approach!" I said quickly. "No need to grovel here, Captain, I am just a visiting civilian at this moment." Her eyes smiled as she looked back towards the behemoth of steel that floated in the darkness. "i figured you would be here so I came to give you your informal orders." "My Orders?!" I took a half step back in amazement. "Yes Captain, you see when Admiral Blue blood said he was trying to find a candidate for this post I put forth your name," I couldn't believe this, I got nominated by the Princess herself?! "I had seen your work and your ethics and believe you would and will be the most fitting for this job. you see the war we hoped would never fully develop is, I'm afraid, going to very soon. The Gryphons and Dragons have signed a pact of non aggression and the Changelings are gathering forces. We will need strong and brave stallions and mares to keep them at bay, but also ones who know what the fight is really about. this isn't just a battle for our lives and that of our friends, its a fight for Equestria and all she stands for. That's what I want you to remember, Storm Seas." "Yes, Princess," I manage weakly, "I will remember." "Well then I suggest we both retire for the night, Its a big day tomorrow!" "Yes Ma'am!" I say with all the soul I posses "Oh and one more thing, Storm, Your ship's motto." She pauses for a brief second and magics a small scroll to me. I take hold with my magic and unroll it slowly, "Read it aloud." She prompts me. "Schornhorse Immer Voran." I say slowly, the words are strange to my tongue, "what does it mean?" She smiles briefly and responds, "It means Always Proceed Schornhorse. a fitting Motto I believe?" "Yes Ma'am." I gently put the scroll in my carrying case and when I looked back she had gone, as silently as she had arrived.