//------------------------------//
// chapter 1 
// Story: Riverponies 
// by JandT 
//------------------------------//

   It was three in the morning, way before Celestia rose the sun when my alarm clock started beeping. I stirred a little and my eyes popped open when my marefriend's orange diesel scented hoof bumped into my muzzle while she was stretching. Looking over at her in the little light in the room I could make out her horn sticking out from her wild brown mane. 
"Time to get up, Propwash" I said as I gently shook the orange unicorn mare. 
"Errhhgg, aw, do I have to get up Twin Screw?" she asks groggily already knowing the answer.  
"Yes, we gotta take a barge to Maresburg today" I say shaking her with my yellow hoof. 
"Ok, fine" she says as she slips out of the white covers revealing her wrench cutie mark. 
I get out of the bed and look at my self in the mirror. My bright yellow coat looked dull in the low light and I could barely see my cutie mark of a towboat. The day I got my cutie mark my uncle Mudwater Screw was letting me help take a barge to Maresburg on the towboat the M/V River Mare. He trusted me enough to let me slide the two barge tow around a bend, I guided the two, three thousand ton barges and the River Mare through the curve without hitting any sandbars. 
The moment we got through the curve he said "Congratulations Twin" as he pointed to my flank. It was a wonderful day that day. A few months later he let me name a boat he had just bought so I named it the M/V Mud Apple. 
Propwash trotted back into the room and she asked "Are we going to get breakfast on the way to the boat or...?". 
"We'll stop and pick up some donuts, I packed our lunches last night" I said as I brushed my green mane. 
"Ok, got it" said the beautiful mare.
"Yup" I replied. 
I've known that mare since we were fillies, she was a born to an engineer and a waitress and we met on a summer day watching towboats pushing barges on the Ponyville river. 
Flashback 
She was trotting along the riverbank chasing one of the tows when she bumped into me that summer day. 
"Oh, sorry, are you ok" she asked shyly. 
"Oh, I'm fine, what's your name" I asked the orange filly. 
"It's Propwash, what's yours" she asked with a smile slowly appearing. 
"My name is Twin Screw, are you watching the boats?" I asked. 
"Oh, yeah, my daddy is a deckhand and chief engineer on Mudcolt" said the filly. 
"Cool!, my uncle is captain of the River Mare" I said with excitement. 
"Maybe I could ask him if he could let you come for a Maresburg trip, wanna be friends?" I asked. 
"I'd love to be your friend" she said. 
End Flashback 
"Are you ready Props?" I called to Propwash from the front door. 
"Yeah I'm ready" she said as she galloped to the door. 
We exited the double story timber framed house and walked under the early morning moon. Few ponies were out at three-thirty in the morning except the occasional shop owner or late night partier. We arrived at Joe's Donuts 24/7 to purchase donuts and coffee. 
"What can I get ya this morning?" asks a brown stallion.
"I'll have two glazed donuts and some coffee" I respond in a confident tone. Donuts line the pastry shelves and around the donut shop chairs and tables sit a top the white tile floor. 
"I'll have three glazed donuts and three chocolate ones plus some coffee" says Propwash. 
"That'll be ten bits please" says the stallion. I pull the bits out my saddlebag and place them on the glass counter, the brown stallion hands us two bags and waves us off. 
We eat our breakfast before we arrive to the tin roofed building that serves as the Mudwater Marine office. It's four o'clock in the morning and sun don't rise until about five. I unlock the door and rush to my slot. In my slot there are papers with orders for the barges that we needed to pickup. After reviewing the orders I step out the office and lock the door. 
"Looks like a rock run today" I say flipping through the papers in front of Propwash. 
"Well, it'll sure make them turboes whistle" replied Propwash. 
I unlocked the gate and we trotted onto the dock. The M/V Mud Apple slowly bobbed up and down in the gentle swells of the river, silently, waiting for us to start her engines. Propwash was first to step on deck, as soon as I got on the feeling of floating was immediate and I thought "Ah, back at my secondary home". 
We headed down to the engine room where two steel behemoths resided. The lights were on because the boat was plugged into an outlet on the dock but while we were running the power came from the main or backup generators. 
"Looks like we got a full tank of fuel, now lets fire 'em up!" said Propwash in a somewhat raspy voice. 
"Let's make 'em roar" I say. 
The unicorn puts her hoof on the starting switch for the main generator, the high pitched squeal of the starter motor is follow by a rumbling hum. After a few minutes it was time to start the twin one-thousand horsepower engines built by the Equestrian Locomotive Works. 
Propwash couldn't start both of the engines at the same time because it would blow a fuse with all the amps it would take to start them. She put a hoof on the starting switch and there was a high pitched squeal, then a loud rumble pierced the still morning air surrounding the vessel. Following the same sequence the second engine started up, the engines were loud at first but after fifteen to thirty minutes of idling they would quiet down. 
I waved to Propwash gesturing that I was going up to the helm because the roar of the engines in the engine room drowned out all other noises. She nodded and then turned away to check the various gauges and things that needed to be monitored. The helm was the highest place on my boat. It was a stilt mounted helm, which means it was mounted atop trusswork which was bolted to the top of the second deck. I had trotted up the stairs to the helm when I saw a brown colt wearing a life vest trotting to the vessel. 
"Hey Winch your late!" I yell. 
"Yeah, I know, we ain't gotta shove off 'til five and I'm here at four-fifty though" the brown colt yells back. 
The brown colt with a darker brown mane boards the boat. By now the engines have warmed up and the sun began to show on the horizon. Propwash came out of the engine room and on to the main deck. I signal to her and Winch to take off the mooring lines.