//------------------------------//
// EAS Mane 
// Story: Blackacre 
// by Princess Woona 
//------------------------------//

21 December, Y.C. 969
Saddle Lake

“Captain on the bridge!”
At the sound of the call, the dozen-odd ponies in Air Patrol blue on the bridge sat up somewhat straighter. One of them detached from his station and moved to intercept, snapping a quick salute.
“Lieutenant Sammt,” said Captain Bee, acknowledging the officer. “Report.”
“On course and on schedule,” said Sammt, gesturing at the chart table off to one side. “Actually, two minutes ahead of schedule, but the wind picked up on this side of Canterlot; we’ll lose that by the time we get in.”
“As long as we arrive on time,” mused Bee, moving up to glance over the instrument panels. “We’re the grand entrance, after all. Wouldn’t do to be late.”
“No sir,” he said with a smile. The lieutenant hesitated for a moment. “Any word from our… passenger?”
“The Princess is still in her quarters,” nodded the captain. “Presumably, preparing for signing the agreement, and then for the winter solstice ceremony afterwards.”
“Right.”
“Speaking of which,” mused Bee, turning back to the charts, “what word from Ponyville?” He traced a hoof along their course, which seemed to wind over half of Equestria. “Their landing facilities aren’t rated for us. I know that we could put down in a field and batten down the old-fashioned way, but I’d rather tie up to a proper mast.”
Sammt nodded hearty approval. They had taken on personnel just west of Fillydelphia, and though they were supposed to have a proper mooring mast, it had apparently been struck by lightning and fused in place… against the wind. It had taken the better part of an army division to hold the ship down, even for just a thirty-minute personnel transfer. He didn’t even know if there were enough personnel in Ponyville to do it, much less if any of them had ever handled something as big as the Mane before.
“No word yet, sir,” he said, but again hesitated slightly, this time with a meaningful glance out the windows. “At least, we haven’t received any.”
“Hmm.”
Bee followed his gaze outside, where a half-dozen pegasi were flying in loose formation around them. All wore the formal blue and yellow uniforms of the Seventh “Wonderbolt” Air Wing, and none of them looked particularly happy to be there. Not that he blamed them — they had been flying at what was undoubtedly well below the pegasi’s top speed for the better part of two hours now, since picking up the honor guard along with the Princess at Canterlot — but there was something more to it.
“Captain Bauer!” called Bee, turning towards the back of the bridge.
A large pegasus stepped forward, yellow wings feathered lightly against the blue Wonderbolt uniform. Like the rest of his wing outside, he didn’t look particularly thrilled to be there.
“Captain Bee,” said the pegasus flatly.
“Have your couriers picked up any communications from Ponyville?”
“Several,” he said in a thoroughly disinterested tone. “Final copies of the diplomats’ speeches. Bunk assignments for my personnel.”
“Anything else?”
“Bunk assignments for your personnel,” he went on, dismissively. “Hospital, second floor. You have the wing to yourself.”
“Lovely,” said Bee, doing his very best to keep level. “And what about landing arrangements?”
“I assume my personnel will continue to fly until they are roughly at ground level,” said Bauer, looking him in the eye, “at which point they will stop moving their wings, bringing them to rest on the ground. This operation can be safely completed with a minimum of twelve square yards.”
Bee glared at him.
“Assuming my people meet minimum requirements, of course,” he said with the thinnest of smiles. “All of them can do zero-angle landings, in which case we only need two square yards per pony.”
“And what about my personnel?” he said icily.
“Landing preparations for the Mane are complete. I am told there is a rough but functional mooring mast located half a mile to the west of the town.”
Containing his anger was becoming more and more difficult now.
“And why was this not conveyed to me or my personnel?”
“The message was addressed to the Mane,” said Bauer calmly. “I am on the Mane. I received it.”
Bee shook his head, using the motion as cover for a string of curses under his breath.
“Thank you,” he shot at the pegasus, turning away before he said something he would regret.
He understood the reasons for the animosity; for a pony in his position, it was hard not to. The Air Patrol had been operating airships of some sort forever, or so it seemed; though all the flyers were pegasi, they still found the occasional need to have an aerial platform where clouds wouldn’t do the job. Even so, the vast majority of their airborne capability was on wing. Why use anything else?
When the Royal Army had introduced an airship program, it wasn’t hard to see why the Air Patrol took it the wrong way. There were perfectly good uses for airships in military operations — moving large quantities of troops or materiel, providing airborne command posts, and generally being useful where transport capability was a priority but speed was not.
The idea hadn’t been a bad one, per se. Pegasi couldn’t always be on site to take care of aerial observation, and even if they were available to get a picture from the air, they weren’t necessarily trained to spot the important bits. A pegasus might report two particularly good spots to use for cover, and neglect to mention the river between them.
It had worked out fairly well in trials, despite a series of high-profile failures which had never quite been traced back to Air Patrol involvement. A full line of airships had been put in production; by the time the Skirmishes broke out, there were nearly a dozen vessels ready for combat duty. Unfortunately, nopony had quite thought out the implications of deploying giant airborne gas bags against dragons. Fireproofing could only go so far, and they weren’t too good at fleeing combat with anything resembling speed. Within weeks, the deployed airships had been withdrawn to cargo duty, and the remaining airframes were scavenged for materials.
After the Skirmishes, the program was mothballed, and the few attempts to restart it met with abject failure; after an unsuccessful deployment attempt to relieve Bearlin, the Army quietly scrapped the remaining ships.
All, that was, except for the Mane. She had been the last-completed of the little fleet, and had seen no combat. Being in the best shape, she was kept operational, though it was more for the principle of the thing than anything else.
A full wing of pegasi was one thing to see, an army division another, but when it came time to impress the true might of Equestria to any onlookers, the EAS Mane stood above the rest. A shade under two hundred and fifty yards from nose to rudders, she was blue and white, eschewing camouflage for clean lines and the golden crest of Canterlot emblazoned on one side. With a crew of forty-nine, an additional hundred combat ponies, and thirty thousand pounds of lifting capacity, she was a mountain of a ship. Armed with a dozen forty-millimeter party cannon and howitzers for hardened targets, she could level a small city. It wouldn’t dent dragons, but then again what could?
For this mission, though, she was relying on her presence alone to do the job: the Mane was a floating fortress, a symbol of Canterlot’s unity and might. The Princess could travel to Ponyville in any one of a dozen chariots. She could teleport or even fly there herself if she wanted, but arriving on the Mane sent a message.
Captain Bee hadn’t read Celestia’s speech — nopony had; hers were never released to the public until after she gave them — but he could imagine what she would say. Canterlot might effectively have given Blackacre the concessions they wanted, but at the end of the day they were all part of Equestria. All part of something bigger, something more important… something that stood between them and the dragons.
Speaking of the Princess….
“Time to arrival?”
“Twelve minutes,” said Sammt crisply.
“Perfectly on schedule,” acknowledged Bee with a glance at the bridge clock. “Please notify the Princess of our immediate arrival. She’ll want to see the landing herself.”
“Aye sir,” said the lieutenant with only a hint of trepidation. He couldn’t blame him; talking to the Princess was always a bit nerve-wracking. This job was easy, though. Watching the Mane come in to land was always an impressive operation; watching it from within the bridge, underslung towards the front of the airship’s long body, was a remarkable experience. She would like it.
Outside the window, they could see the far shore of Saddle Lake, Ponyville visible just beyond it. He could almost make out the platform in the center of town, where, even now, various ponies with inflated senses of self-worth would be giving speeches, trying to cash in on the Princess’ appearance. The weather was even clearing up a bit; here and there stray sunbeams lit ripples on the lake. Yes, it would be a good day indeed — a good day for good work.
And if Bauer didn’t appreciate that? So be it. He was present on the Mane at his own request; the old codger didn’t believe in attaching his wing to an Army division without an Air Patrol officer on site, and so he had taken the job himself.
Well, sour grapes or not, there wasn’t too much more for him to obstruct. They were minutes away now, and soon he would be gone and out of their mane entirely.
“Ready the ship for landing,” he called to the bridge duty officers. “Gear down, eyes up. Somepony get a fix on the landing mast. I hear tell it’s a half mile west.”
“Got it, sir,” said one of the observers at the fore windows. “Bearing… three twenty-eight.”
“Three twenty-eight, acknowledged,” echoed the pony at the helm. “Captain?”
“Take us in,” nodded Bee. “Right over the stage; let’s give them a good show.”
“Three twenty-eight, confirm,” sang the helmspony. “Bringing us in.”
The view outside the windows shifted ever so slightly as the Mane started its long approach. They could hardly feel a thing inside, but that was to be expected with their top pilot at the helm. With royalty on board, a bumpy ride just wouldn’t do.
“Where is that pony?” wondered Bee to himself. Then, more loudly: “Airpony Lehaymann?”
“Sir?” said a reddish brown pony, springing to attention.
“I think Lieutenant Sammt may have gotten lost. Please find him for me.”
Lehaymann smiled. The Mane’s internal volume might be huge, but the VIP quarters were located in the main gondola, just like the bridge, and not even a dozen paces away.
“Sir.”
Bee turned back to the charts table, but a movement out of the corner of his eye stopped him short.
“Captain!”
“Lieutenant?” he asked, somewhat bemused as the young pony rushed onto the bridge. “Glad to see you’re back, but aren’t you forgetting someone?”
“She’s not there, sir.”
Bee blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“The Princess isn’t in her quarters, sir,” he said, breathing heavily; he sounded like he had run half the ship!
“She’s twelve feet tall, alabaster white, and her mane glows in the dark.” Captain Bee raised an eyebrow. “And you lost her.”
“Not in her quarters, and none of the gondola guardsponies saw her leave.” Sammt shook his head again, clearly agitated. “I don’t know what to tell you, sir.”
Bee frowned. “That’s impossible.”
If he had been thinking straight, he would have realized that, regardless of his opinion on the issue, the fact that it happened was proof enough of the event’s possibility. Fortunately for Bee, that problem was only a few seconds away from not mattering any more.
Unfortunately for him, so was everything else.