When Wiz arrived that morning, most of the team was asleep. Báistí was actually sitting at the radio intercept equipment, guided by Flash. She had volunteered to help out in any way she could, and the team had grown to trust her enough for direct involvement.
Shining roused himself from sleep, scratching at the buildup of stubble on his chin. He talked with Wiz, the young cop’s eyes widening as he heard the evidence that had been gathered. There was quite a pile of it.
“It’s a lot,” Wiz said, “but you may not have enough for arrests. We just have radio records, not physical evidence. Still, I think that might be enough to take a look. And maybe if a group of cops or Guards approaches their hideout, they might give us a reason to arrest them.”
He and Shining spent a few more minutes discussing strategy and Wiz left to speak with the Police Chief. Based on numbers and resources, Shining wanted the Guards to go after location SMALL.
By midmorning, the team had begun to wake up and gather together in the planning room. The first priority was intelligence. Going in blind was a terrible idea.
“Now that it’s daytime, we may want to get some overhead imagery,” Mag suggested.
“Can we do that without being spotted?” Rough asked.
Skydancer stepped forward, grinning. “I used to be a Wonderbolt high altitude instructor. My personal record is seventy-one thousand feet. Even on a clear day like this, there’s no way they could see me even directly overhead.”
Shining frowned. “Can anypony else on the team match that? We don’t want to send you directly over their base alone.”
“At that altitude, they can’t intercept me if they can't see me, sir.”
Skydancer seemed confident, so Shining authorized the operation. She spent a few minutes with the intel staff preparing the camera and getting a firm fix on the locations that the radio signals pointed to.
“I can help with the lay of the land,” Báistí volunteered. “I may not know the bases themselves, but I know the general area and the state of the ground. I wouldn’t want you to get stuck in mud or anything on your way there.”
Shining nodded. He could feel the plan coming together. “All right, let’s do this.”
By the time Wiz showed up again, designs for a raid were well underway. He stepped in, followed by an older griffon: Stormfeather.
“I'm still on restriction,” Stormfeather lamented, “but I heard there was something brewing.”
The team welcomed him back. Wiz deferred to the more experienced officer and let him handle the conversation. Stormfeather appeared impressed by the preparations so far.
Skydancer came back panting for breath, but with a full camera. Dim hurriedly developed the film, laying out glossy color prints on the table within a few minutes. Everypony gathered around. Skydancer pointed out what she had seen and Báistí added details she knew of the local terrain.
Both bases were carved from the center of large cornfields. They were well concealed, using angular shapes and terrain masking to hide their true size and location. In addition, they were well off normal routes and in places travelers would not normally frequent. Much like their radio traffic, BIG was significantly larger than SMALL.
Stormfeather touched a few of the pictures of location BIG. It was not the target the team was aiming for, but they had gotten recon on it anyway. “You’ve done a lot of preparation. I wonder…let me go talk to the Chief.”
Shining wondered what the cagey old griffon was up to. The team carried on with its plans. When Stormfeather showed up later, he had two police Sergeants with him. He introduced the pair and said, “They’re very interested in anything you can offer.”
The Guards were more than happy to let more police into the planning. They offered a few suggestions and by the time the afternoon was up, two simultaneous operations had been planned. The Guards would tackle SMALL. Port Talon Police would take BIG.
“It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a little help,” Stormfeather remarked to Shining as the two of them pored over the data one last time. Basically gifting the police with all their information and recon made it a no brainer for the Chief to authorize a few officers to check up on BIG.
They didn’t have a specific arrest warrant, but the criminals’ reactions to bunch of police showing up could almost provide reasonable suspicion all by itself.
Wiz and Stormfeather would accompany the Guards to SMALL. Stormfeather was still supposed to be off duty, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed defend himself if a fight broke out. Shining was a little worried about the legality of it, but the look on the old admiral’s face said it all. He was overjoyed to be back in the good fight.
The team caught a nap and woke up refreshed that evening. They left Port Talon in groups of three and four, meeting up at an old barn on the farm road south of location SMALL.
All twelve team members were there. Shining had weighed his options and decided that it was best to bring the intel staff along. If they got into the base and discovered something valuable, this would speed up the exploitation of the information.
After a long talk, he’d also let Flash kit up. The young guard was still not back to one hundred percent, but the knife wound he’d endured was well bandaged and covered by armor.
Báistí made sure they all had their armor adjusted properly and gave a few last tips about local flora and fauna. She waited at the barn with the intel staff as the others moved away.
Night had fallen by the time they were ready to go. Stormfeather checked his watch, synchronized with the police who were on their way to BIG, and gestured for the Guards to begin.
The ponies slipped quietly through the dark cornfields. Shining kept his head low, letting the leaves roll off his armor. He waited for the ground team to fan out around the base and for the air team plus the griffons to get into position.
The base was little more than a few tents and portable equipment that could easily be moved. There were a few lanterns and Shining could smell food and alcohol.
A couple of griffons were on obvious guard duty, but that didn’t stop them from being surprised as the team emerged from the corn.
Wiz dropped to the ground and showed his badge. “Police.”
Pandemonium broke out, but the team was ready. The griffons already asleep didn’t stand a chance as their tents were merely rolled up around them. The rest put up a fight.
Shining saw one grab a flare from a box and light it, tossing it deep into the cornfield. He hit the griffon with a mild force spell, enough to unbalance him so Stormfeather could tackle him. Stormfeather slapped a pair of cuffs on, but looked up in alarm at the sudden fire that had sprung up from the flare.
“Somepony grab a cloud and put that out,” Shining directed. He turned to see that the rest of the pirates had been accounted for. All told, eight of them had been caught.
Skydancer and Airborne put out the blaze with a burst of rain. Quick thinking and weather manipulation had saved the day, otherwise the entire field might have been lost. Shining considered that. Was that the reason for the flares in the first place?
Shining had all the pirates sit in a line shackled while the intel staff swept the camp. They found the radio, as well as a few interesting documents. None of the griffons were in the mood to talk, and Soft mentioned that interrogations would go better when she could get each captive one-on-one.
“Ponies,” spat one of the griffons, a male with leaden, blue-grey coloring.
“Just who did you think would come after you for attacking pony ships?” Shining shot back.
Báistí had tea waiting back at the barn, and Shining sent a few of his Guards at a time for refreshments as the camp was swept. Finally, Mag announced that every bit of valuable information had been gleaned.
The team moved their prisoners back to Port Talon. The police who had gone after BIG had only taken four pirates captive, and an unknown number had escaped. That was unfortunate, but both bases had been sacked.
“Looks like the end of their operations here,” Stormfeather commented as he and Shining watched the prisoners from BIG being brought in by police.
“Hopefully,” Shining replied. “If nothing else, we…” He trailed off as he spotted a grey griffon with red feathers being led into the jail. “That’s Gaston!”
He and Stormfeather hurried over and managed to get the griffon put into an interrogation room away from the others. After that, Shining found Soft and asked her to grill the pirate lieutenant for everything he knew.
In a matter of minutes, she came back out. “He told me which one was Hookbeak. We’ve already got him in custody.”
It turned out that the mouthy grey-blue griffon was the pirate leader. He begrudgingly confirmed that when interrogated.
A palpable air of celebration went through the Guards as the news came down. The mission was complete.
Further interrogation revealed a few more interesting details. Now that they had all the top leadership behind bars, the whole organization would come crashing down. Equestrian merchant ships were safe again.
The matter of the flares turned out to be a long-running economy manipulation ploy. The pirates had been hoarding corn, and when it came to a vital time, they would torch the fields and have theirs as the only supply of grain in the area, creating a veritable monopoly on the market. The citizens had to eat, and if pirates controlled the source of corn it could have put a serious dent in food supply. It was a good thing that the same tactic hadn't been tried in a herbivorious nation like Equestria, where a lack of corn could have meant literal starvation.
Shining left the police station, still wearing his armor. Standing on the sidewalk, he looked as the sun started to come over the horizon. It had been another long night. He could feel fatigue in his bones, but it had all been worth it.
The team could not have performed better. They’d really shown what the Royal Guard was capable of, operating out of their element and in a faraway land, but had still managed to nab the crook.
Shining looked at the sun, one of the few things that had stayed constant on this trip. He smiled to himself and gave a quick salute. “We did it, Princess.”
It took a few days for the transfer paperwork to come through. It was almost like a vacation for the guards. They still didn’t go out alone, just in case, but having a chance to thoroughly explore the city was welcome.
Báistí gave the grand tour and showed them all a bit of heartfelt hospitality. They had, after all, helped clean up her home city.
The order to extradite Hookbeak had to come from national law enforcement, but it eventually filtered back down and the Royal Guard took him into custody. After making sure he was securely locked up aboard the ship, Shining went back down the gangplank to speak with Stormfeather one last time.
“Good working with you.” They shook.
“You do impressive work, Captain,” said Stormfeather. He clapped Shining on the shoulder and they parted company. The ship set sail soon after. Stormfeather had arranged for an old friend in the airship service to escort the ponies to safe water.
Shining stood on deck as the breeze pushed the ship away from the shores of the Griffon Kingdom. The adventure overseas had been interesting, but there was nothing better than going home.
Several days later, Shining was back in Princess Celestia’s office. He was back in his golden armor and he was well groomed. The polish and uniform felt good to be wearing again, but he found himself slightly missing the casual deployed regulations.
Celestia put down the report Shining had written on the trip back. “The expeditionary force was a great success. Hookbeak will stand trial for his crimes. You’ve done Equestria proud.”
“There were plenty of challenges, but we overcame them,” Shining replied mildly.
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Celestia. “It goes to show that the Royal Guard is capable enough to operate in any environment, any place. It takes a certain kind of group and a certain kind of pony to lead them. I daresay the Guard is the best service of its kind anywhere in the world.”
She smiled. “Now, I’d like to talk to you about the matter of Zebrican extremists…”