"I'm sailing away; set an open course for the virgin sea."
The noontime sun shone brightly onto the bright yellow box-shaped airtaxi. Powered by twin streams of compressed air expelled through small ports in the back, it slowly putted through the air with its six passengers. Its pilot, a grizzled old tan stallion, sat in a small cockpit at the back, shielded from the sun by a painted cloth roof. He gripped a pair of levers in his hooves, controlling the power and altitude, and pushed on two pedals with his rear legs to turn the vehicle. He kept his eyes glued to the sky ahead of him and to his sides, only occasionally glancing at an arcane screen inlaid into his dashboard.
Steel Wind and her crew sat in the taxi. Cross Eisewel, the ship's cook and cargo manager, looked out over the side, her head nearly half a foot out from the railing. At first glance, many Equestrians would consider her an oddity; a petite unicorn with a white coat, a blonde mane, blue eyes, and an Iron Cross on her flank, with such a peculiar name, certainly would attract some attention. It became slightly more manageable when they learned that she had been born and raised outside Equestria -- in the Reich, actually -- where names like hers were far less uncommon, generally being two words with the latter one being passed down through the family. Lysander Addis, the ship's spotter and also born and raised outside Equestria, suffered much the same wonderment. A pale-green pegasus with a dark yellow mane, he had been born in the Kingdom Isles, a chain of about twelve islands off the north coast of Gaelia, a nation bordering the Reich to the west. The rest of the crew were far more mundane, although still unusual in their own rights. Rosebud, the ship's weapons specialist, had been born in Lower Canterlot, and had lost her hoof in a factory accident. She'd decided to leave the worker's life, and had joined up with Steel Wind shortly after spending all her savings on a replacement hoof that doubled as a club and arcane cannon. Broadhoof, the face of the ship, had a much more mundane existence, having decided that the farming life of his parents wasn't for him. He had, with his parents' blessing, left home and headed to Canterlot, where he had become infatuated with the air-sailor's life and had joined up with Steel Wind almost immediately, taking advantage of the art of speech that was marked by a microphone on his flank. Sefe Lywell, the ship's primary engineer and radio operator, had simply been an immigrant's son and had been hired by Steel almost at random.
This crew of six sat in the airtaxi, conversing, as it flew forward. It was quite slow, being one of the cheapest methods of travel between the two parts of the city, but it was nonetheless still moving at a rather respectable speed of nineteen knots. Occasionally, Steel would look out at the city, at the gleaming white spires, at the rows upon rows of buildings. The Winterleaf District, the largest part of the Upper City, sprawled along the mountainsides all the way down to the docks, thousands of middle-class houses providing some of the highest-quality living in Equestria. Near the docks, more commercial and industrial buildings stood, selling everything from toys and food to high-cost, high-power arcane components to even, occasionally, entire airship hulls waiting to be equipped and used. Out of the corner of her eye, Steel saw a familiar building; a large, white structure with a dark blue roof. Signalling to the airtaxi's captain, she had him turn the vessel until it was pointing straight to the small wooden landing pad that sat just outside of the chainlink fence surrounding most of the structure.
The small vessel turned towards these structures, a hissing sound escaping its stern as it pushed through the air as fast as its very weak propulsion would let it. Its rudder turned slowly, making slight adjustments to its course, as it flew over the docks. The sounds of crew, longshoremen, and the many merchants who set up shops and stalls on and along the piers filled the air as the taxi soared over the metal-lined wooden structure. Some ships were docked even here, mostly merchants but also the occasional warship, generally a frigate or destroyer. It came over the streets of the city, over the streets filled with fillies and colts playing their games without a care in the world, over the rows of neatly arranged houses and large, green lawns.
The airtaxi slowly approached the berthing station next to the large building, its landing gear down. Steam hissed out of its belly as it descended towards the wooden surface, ready to unload its passengers. As soon as it touched down, making a thump against the thick surface, six ponies jumped out and walked towards the shipyard's front office. It was a small building, a fraction of the size of the hangar. Its walls were the same white and its roof the same blue as the larger structure behind it, however. Two large windows allowed a view into the relatively well-decorated room. A portrait of the shipyard's owner sat in the rear of the room, framed in gold. A bored-looking earth pony in relatively expensive-looking clothes sat behind a desk, a novel in his hand as he waited. The group of six entered, the door jingling as it opened. The pony looked up, instantly dropped his book, and drew a pen and binder out of somewhere behind his counter and dropped them on his desk.
"Hello! Welcome!" His pale blue face looked at each of the ponies, his green mane shaking slightly as his head moved. A pair of deep-blue eyes looked up and down each of the crewmembers, almost as if sizing them up. After about a second, he nodded and sat back into a more relaxed position. "What can I do for you?"
Steel Wind just placed a slip of paper on the desk, turning it so that it faced the attendant. He took out a pair of spectacles from the counter, and raised his eyebrows slightly. "An Admiralty seal? Ah, wait. Nevermind," he said, as he continued down the paper. "So, you're Ms. Wind then? Your ship is in the main hangar. The engineers said they just finished with it; besides missing a few preflight checks, it should be in perfect condition. I must say, whatever hit you did quite a number on her. I'm surprised you didn't just drop out of the sky; generally, pilots can't survive anywhere near that much damage."
Steel just smiled at the thinly-veiled complement; with a quick nod, the attendant nodded his head quickly before continuing to speak. "Right, then. Shall I lead you to your ship?"
"Yes, please." she said politely, accompanying it with a slight curtsy. Her weather-worn garments shook slightly as she did so, and she took a moment to straighten them before the attendant started moving. They followed him out through a rear door of the structure and into a small, grassy courtyard with a cobblestone path winding slightly through it. Some chatter went between the crew and the attendant, but for the most part it was rather silent save for the fall of hoof on stone. They came to another, slightly larger door within half a minute; this door, however, was on the large hangar building. The attendant knocked twice, and the door opened. A tall, stout unicorn stallion opened the door, looking at the attendant for a moment before noticing the grey pegasus.
"She's here!" he shouted, turning his head back towards the interior of the hangar. The attendant stepped aside, shaking slightly, as the tall pony stepped forward. He was dressed in the off-duty uniform of the Royal Engineering Corps; a burgundy coat with golden trim. "I assume you're here for your ship, Ms. Wind?" he said, eying the pegasus up and down. It was probably the handkerchief she always wore half-tucked into her coat's front pocket that gave her identity away; regardless, he had known who she was. She sighed as she replied.
"Yes. It's fully operable, right?" Her affirmation was immediately followed by a question, so quick that many ponies would have missed the "yes" entirely. However, it did not avoid the stallion's ear, and he came with his own reply.
"Yes, ma'am." The stallion's quick reply, combined with his gravelly voice and the somewhat intimidating stature he held, seemed to make the word reverberate through the air.
Steel Wind nodded. While she didn't enjoy the formalities so often displayed to her, she had quickly learned to dismiss them as just a side effect of her father's position; the Admiralty had a habit of attracting a great deal of respect, even for those only associated to it by blood or by proxy. The stallion moved aside, and Steel entered the building followed closely by her crew. The engineers that had been making last minute checks on the vessel waved before either jumping off the side or, if they were on the interior, walking through the door in the stern.
Once the engineers had cleared, Steel had an unblocked line of sight to her vessel. It was a rather small airship compared to some of the ones that sat out on the docks; that wasn't to say that it didn't dwarf the ponies, however; at eight meters tall, ten wide, and twenty long, it was still far larger than most other small merchant ships. Its hull was a nearly-grey color, tinged slightly with red. It was a rather fat ship for its length, and its bow was a rounded, flattened hemisphere instead of neatly curving to a point like most other vessels; one of the quirks of the Renau-class merchant vessel. Its stern, unlike its hull, turned sharply upward at an angle. The majority of the flat plate at the rear of the stern was a massive door, which opened downwards into a ramp perfectly usable for loading cargo. A massive window was just above the cargo door, providing the pilot of the merchant ship with a perfectly-clear, almost uninhibited view of the sky and land behind the ship -- or, in this case, the hangar wall.
Three landing legs jutted out of the bottom of the vessel; essentially telescopic, retracting poles with flat metal pads stuck onto them, they provided the ship with a relatively safe, secure way of touching down without breaking anything important. They kept the ship about a meter off the ground, a good margin of error for most terrain types without requiring longer, sturdier landing gear. The ship's deck was made out of wood; while usually dirty and dull, it had been polished to a shine by the engineers that had been working on it. There was no above-deck balloon; instead, there was only open sky. A single pony-operated 20mm cannon turret was the only armament the ship itself had, although it was still definitely a weapon to be feared against even the newest monoplane designs of the Airfleet, assuming that it could hit an aircraft before the plane hit it. Twin engines sat on either side of the hull, attached by a complicated web of pipes, struts, and metal beams. The engines shone a brass color, the finish having been applied by personal request of Steel when she left her ship in the shipyard's care.
Within the bowels of the ship, there were a variety of rooms arranged along two decks. The more commonly-used rooms, such as the kitchen, mess hall, crew quarters, observation room, armory, etc. were all located on the upper deck, on either side of a narrow corridor that ran the length of the ship and terminated in a forward stairwell, while the more engineering-based rooms, such as the fuel tanks, the batteries, the arcane-balloon banks, and the ship's power routing system, as well as the cargo bay, were on the lower deck. The piloting cabin was in the stern of the ship, an odd arrangement until one notices the arcane screens displaying live feeds of the bow, stern, side, and bottom views of the ship. The only part of the ship that didn't have a screen dedicated to it was the top; it only took a quick peek through the multitude of windows in the top of the piloting cabin to realize why, as the massive window, held up by a lattice of steel conforming to the curved glass, provided a more-than-apt view of the sky above. Besides the windows and screens, there were many gauges and levers for controlling the ship, as well as two levers and a throttle that controlled altitude, heading, and throttle. On the left of the room, there was an arcane map; points of light identified every major city while a single red dot identified the ship's position. It was very useful for navigation; displaying both Equestria and the entire continent of Euroa, it was helpful for navigating anywhere from the mountains of Central Russe through the Reich and Gaelia, all the way to Las Pegasus on the southwestern Equestrian coast.
Painted on the side of the ship, in golden letters that stood out against the dull background of the hull, was the name "Katyusha." It was a simple name for a simple ship, given when the vessel was first launched a decade and a half earlier in Stalliongrad. The letters were old, faded, but still easily readable.
Steel Wind and her crew clambered excitedly into the ship. They trotted through the familiar corridors quickly and easily, all reaching their stations as fast as they could and checking up on what they needed to. It took a good portion of an hour for all the information to be gathered and all the pre-flight checks to be completed, but in due time, the ship was ready to take flight.