Somewhere…
Far away…
Over a quiet and unassuming mountain range…
The darkening evening flashed with unnatural lightning. Sparks and shrapnel flew as a hulking metal battleship veered hard to port. Several massive chunks had been blown out of its blue armor, sending emblems of a giant serpent sailing towards the yawning chasms of the uneven landscape below. Equines scurried across the deck, fumbling towards their emergency stations. A set of magically-glowing sails billowed in the heated air as the vessel attempted in vain to pull away from the looming mountainside.
Another flash of lightning: a stream of cannonballs flew through the air and impacted the ship’s stern, sending a ruptured wave of destruction up the central body of the craft. Screaming ponies flew over the edge, engulfed in flames.
As the ship swayed towards the granite peaks ahead, a ship twice its size roared through the heavens. It bore Ledomaritan colors, and its double dirigibles pivoted as the full weight of the vessel’s brown steel hull bore down on the smoldering target. A pair of turrets pivoted towards the bow, aimed at the enemy ship’s plight, and fired four massive shots.
The cannonballs flew true, impacting the heart of the veering craft. The blue ship cracked in two, and both halves grinded against the mountainside. The glowing sails tore to shreds, and the remnants of its hull rolled down the granite slopes, bursting into flames with the shrieks of the unfortunate occupants within.
The Ledomaritan ship hovered to a stop while its deck rang with uproarious cheers. Crew members jumped in place, telekinetically waving their berets and rifles and cannon loaders. Towards the bow of the ship, atop a command platform, a decorated stallion stood, calmly staring out a pair of binoculars. He lowered the item from his weathered eyes and sighed out through his nostrils.
“That will teach those tattooed bastards to dirty our skies.” He hoofed the binoculars to a fellow officer. “May they choke on the Spark’s dust in the eternal abyss.”
“That couldn’t have gone more perfectly, Prime Enforcer Fortis,” an officer said. “They barely even put up a fight.”
“You saw the way it went up in flames when it finally ruptured?” Prime Enforcer Fortis pointed towards the burning debris below. “The ship’s got three times more supplies in its belly than corpses.”
“Then it was restocking the enemy front?”
“More than likely, lieutenant.” Fortis marched slowly down the steps of the platform while the deck rang with cheers around him. “Which explains the lack of otherworldly mumbo jumbo at their disposal. These weren’t fighters; they were deliverers. But it matters little. Xonans are deluded fools, all the same.” He turned with a flash of a rapier hanging at his flank. “With the extra firepower the Council gave us, I was hoping we’d see more of a fight. Still, not a bad way to start our maiden voyage.”
One of the officers glanced at the continually cheering crew members. “Should I… order this crowd into silence, sir?”
“Don’t stifle the enthusiasm, lieutenant. However, it would do us good to salvage whatever we can find from this wreckage.” Fortis motioned with his hoof. “Bring the Lightning Bearer into a lower hover at the base of the mountain. Send two teams on skiffs to inspect the rubble. Look for anything resembling polished white silver or brittle bonestrips.”
“Sir…?”
“We need to get to the heart of the Xonans’ secret weapon, lieutenant,” Fortis said with a slightly growling tone. “The Lightning Bearer might be the best ship in the fleet, but that doesn’t mean we’re at liberty to fly the skies, murdering weak enemy vessels at luxury. Prime Enforcer Seclorum is depending on us to choke the enemy line, so we cannot linger here forever.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Nnnngh. While we’re at it, somepony fetch me a drink. A victory is a victory, no matter how meager.”
Basso was a big, big stallion, though his face’s complexion belonged to an equine easily three times smaller. He wandered down the decks of the Lightning Bearer, bumping awkwardly into one equine or another with his massively thick fetlocks.
“Oh… uhm. Sorry. Excuse me. My bad.”
“What’re you so nervous about, Basso?!” A stallion grinned, stopping at one spot in the corridor to brohoof the other crew member. “We just sent a bunch of tattooed freakjobs to their graves!”
“Uhm… yes!” Basso adjusted the beret atop his sandy brown mane and tried to punch his hoof back. “Go us!”
“Gaah!” The stallion stumbled backwards from the sheer force of Basso’s forelimb. “Whew! Heheh. Dude, next time we find a dreadnaught, we oughta launch you at them instead. We’d take the enemy out in one shot!”
Basso frowned. “Very funny.”
“Where you headed to in such a hurry?”
“My C.O. has asked me to check up on Zetta’s progress with the eavesdropping. Have you seen where she went?”
“Pfft. Where else could she be?” The stallion pointed down the hallway. “Communications. Deck C.”
“Er. Right.”
The stallion galloped off with several others. “I’m off to do a checkup on the mana conduits in the starboard auxiliary chamber. Catch me in the mess hall at twenty-three hundred! We’ll have drinks!”
“I’ll… uh… I’ll think about it.”
“Ha! Come on, Basso. Throw your weight around!”
Basso snorted once the fellow crew members were out of earshot. “I try not to…”
Deep in the bowels of the Lightning Bearer, where the hallways and corridors were increasingly tinier, a mare sat at one of several brightly-lit stations. She leaned a glowing horn forward, positioning it within the space of three alternatingly strobing crystals lowered on an adjustable metal arm. Her eyes were closed beneath her beret as she focused on a myriad of different noise frequencies squelching through the maddening array of sound stones before her.
“Zetta?” Basso’s voice dripped down into the Communications room, joining the white noise. “Zetta, I--Guh!” The large stallion winced, stumbled, slid, and shuffled his way into the cramped interior. His muscular limbs squirmed together as he finally found a “comfortable” place to stand. “Whew. Ahem.” He smiled. “Zetta, Lieutenant Straker wants to know how the project is coming along.”
Zetta’s forehead tensed. “Mmmmff… Basso? Has anypony ever told you that your voice has the tonality of a brown bear when it finds honey from a tree?”
Basso blinked towards the confining bulkheads on either side of him. “Uhm. No.” He smiled. “However, if I try really hard, I can do a spot-on impersonation of Hugoats Weaving.”
“Liar.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Basso hung his head.
With a sigh, Zetta tilted the metal arm with the crystals away. She pulled her beret off, tossed a red and gold mane, and rubbed her scarlet forehead. “Sometimes I get so immeshed in the noises, I think I’ve already joined the Spark.”
Basso squinted. “You think eternity is a bunch of white noise?”
“It’d be a relief from this stupid war.” Zetta turned and glanced calmly at the stallion. “As for the report Straker wants, I’m afraid I’ve not got much to bring to the table. There are definitely Xonans out and about in these clouds, but where they’re coming from--I’ve no idea. Their language is so garbled that sometimes it’s easy to get mixed up with background noise. Also, it doesn’t help that… well…”
“What?”
Zetta’s petite figure squirmed in her seat. “There has been a recurring noise, something new and somewhat disturbing. I noticed it as soon as the Lightning Bearer made it into the east skies after its initial deployment from Blue Summits.”
“Could it be an enemy base?” Basso asked. “Maybe we’ve finally found the Princess of Tattoos?”
“Who? Lasairfion?” The corner to Zetta’s lips curved. “What, you want to ask her out on a date or something?”
“What?!” Basso jolted back, banging his horn against the bulkheads. “Ow! Nnngh. No! No way!”
“She’s kinda sorta the leader of the Xonan detachment that has been slaughtering Seclorum’s forces left and right. You sure she’s your type, Basso?”
“I want nothing to do with her! She’s the enemy!”
Zetta giggled.
Basso frowned, his muzzle taking on hard lines. “Darn it, Zetta…”
“I’m sorry, Basso.” Zetta leaned back in her seat with a calm smile. “You’re just too cute to tease, ya big lug.”
“Can you please give me something to go on? I don’t want to face another one of Straker’s angry lectures.”
“Pfft. Please. You could eat the tiny enforcer whole.”
“And spend the rest of my career making gravel in Blue Yards? No thank you.” Basso nodded towards the communications array. “This strange new noise you keep hearing. What is it?”
Zetta’s face scrunched up as she gazed at the array of flickering sound stones. “It… it’s so odd. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it resembled whale song.”
Basso did a double-take. “Whale song?”
“Deep sonar reverberations undulating through a dense medium. Honestly, I think it’s just a massive leyline entanglement causing feedback off the soundstones. But if that’s the case, it’s a supremely large entanglement. The biggest I’ve ever witnessed. I’d not pay it much attention, save for the fact that it’s increasing in volume and… and…”
“Yes?”
Zetta shuddered slightly. “It almost feels like the noise has emotion. Severe, painful, loathsome, remorseful emotion…”
Basso took a deep breath and said, “I think you’ve had your horn used as a tuning fork for far too long, Zetta.”
“Mmmm. Maybe.” She smirked up at him. “You wouldn’t happen to know a strong, handsome stallion who knows how to make a mare relax, do you?”
“Uhhhhh…” Basso shuffled backwards, fidgeting and sweating. “Uhmmm… I… I…”
“Hmmm?” Zetta giggled. “Well?”
Just then, a corner of the soundstones glowed red and began flashing. A loud buzz echoed over the soundwaves.
Zetta spun towards the console. Her lips pursed. “Hello. Who’s a pretty songbird?”
“What is it?”
“It’s an automatic alarm.” Zetta lowered the metal arm so that the crystals aligned with her horn once more. Her hooves swam across the console in a flurry of twisted dials and yanked levers. “The energy manifold is alerting me to a specific signal being picked up.”
“Huh?”
“I wasn’t here when the console was built, Basso. Somepony must have engineered the leylines of this thing to flash an alarm as soon as it picked up a particular signal.” The stones flashed before her in a sudden pattern, and her features paled. “And now I see why.” She gulped. “It’s Seclorum’s Beacon.”
“Seclorum’s Beacon?” Basso struggled to inch forward for a better listen. His face was washed over with concern. “What’s that mean? He needs help at the front?”
“No. It’s something I was briefed on before I was even stationed on the Lightning Bearer,” Zetta said. “Seclorum’s Beacon is a specifically coded frequency meant to convey a message.”
“What kind of message?”
A stallion’s raspy voice spoke from the entrance to the Communications Room: “That we at last have what we need to end this war.”
Zetta and Basso looked over. Basso stood up straight with a gasp. “Lieutenant Straker--!” Bonk! “Ow!”
A uniformed stallion with a smokey coat and a straight black mane trotted forward, icily glaring at the two. “Well? Is this truly it? The signal that Seclorum has been waiting for all these years?”
Zetta cleared her throat, adjusting the diodes of the communications array. “Without a doubt, sir. From what I can tell, it’s been broadcasting only as of recent. This must have been activated not that long ago. Maybe less than a day, even.”
“Where is the signal situated?”
“Due west. I’m getting the coordinates as we speak.”
“Good. Once you’ve come up with an estimated source of the broadcast, meet me on the top deck. Prime Enforcer Fortis needs to hear about this.”
“Sir?” Zetta glanced aside. “Shouldn’t I get another expert in here to cross-check and analyze--”
Straker’s eyes narrowed. “Are you deaf, soldier?”
“Ahem.” Zetta gulped and shook her head. “No. No, sir. I’ll report to the top deck, right away, sir.”
“Good.” Straker made to leave, but paused to glance at Basso. “Basso, you come too.”
“Sir?”
“You’re a part of this discovery. It’s only fitting that you assist in delivering the report. I expect to see you with your beret on.” With that said, the lieutenant spun about with a billowing black tail and was gone.
Basso nervously placed his article back onto his head. “Just what did I do? This was all your work?”
“You took up space,” Zetta muttered.
“Hardy har har…”
“And from tracing the leylines back to their source and calculating from the frequency of the manastream fluctuations surging back and forth, I’ve determined that the source of the signal is the Blue Marshes, just north of the Azure River Junction along the Great Sea’s coast.”
Prime Enforcer Fortis nodded. “Very good job. Very good job indeed, Enforcer…”
Zetta stood up straight alongside Basso. “Zetta, sir. And Enforcer Basso here, to my left, assisted in the discovery.”
“What? But I--”
“He helped,” Zetta grumbled forward, stealthily swatting the stallion’s thick fetlock.
“I see the academy has been training our new soldiers well,” Fortis said with a proud grin. He turned towards Straker. “Lieutenant? How far away are the Blue Marshes for the Lightning Bearer?”
“Thirty-six hours, sir. But half that if we engage top speed.”
Fortis stroked his chin as he gazed out on the granite mountains around him. “I would have wished to demolish more Xonan supply vessels, maybe even a dreadnaught or two. But if Seclorum finally has his Beacon, then it would be indescribably damaging to the war effort to ignore it.”
“There will always be Xonan ships to destroy, Prime Enforcer.” Straker’s eyes jerked towards him. “This Beacon is a one-time thing.”
“Hmmm. Indeed.” Fortis swiveled about and shouted across the deck. “Bring the ship about! We’re heading west! Set course for the Blue Marshes!” He glanced aside at Straker. “Set manathrusters on high burn. We cannot afford to lose the source of this. Especially if she’s wanting to bestow her gift to Seclorum.”
“Aye, sir.” Straker trotted down the steps and began shouting commands at the flurrying crew members.
Zetta and Basso continued standing stock still, until the stallion muttered towards the mare, “Who’s ‘she?’”
“I don’t know, Basso.”
“Sounds like somepony close to Seclorum.”
“Why?” Zetta’s lips curved slightly as she stared forward. “You jealous?”
“Yeah, well--Hey!”
“For the love of the Queen, Basso, put a cork in it. You can’t have every lady in this war.”
“Grrrrrr…”
She chuckled into the windy air as the Lightning Bearer turned about, then roared its way westward.