Thirty Minutes Later…
The small torpedo boat approached an archipelago of floating islands, and on the edge of said archipelago lied several navy ships, including a pair of warsloops, another torpedo boat, a decorated heavy escort ship, and a trio of Fast Frigates. The ponies on board the RLS Comet looked at the amazing ships in awe.
“Mr. Hawkins, thank you for joining us this morning.” said the leader of the heavy escort ship, projecting her voice over a naval communication channel. “For those of you coming from other training academies, I am Admiral Amelia and it is my job to usher you into full service with this final series of exercises.”
“Well… here we go.” said Jim, with a look of concern on his face, standing in front of the captain’s quarter’s doors.
“All vessels are to use dummy loads in their weapons and pay strict attention to my commands.” said the Admiral.
“Hey, Spike would have been useful here…” commented Rainbow Dash.
“Hey! He might not be the brightest pony, but he’s… helpful.” said Twilight.
“Mr. Hawkins, what is that commotion on board your vessel?” asked the Admiral.
“Nothing mam!” he answered nervously. “We… umm… rescued a lifeboat of civilians. We couldn’t leave them behind, and if we dropped them off at the Crescentia we would have been late for the exam.”
“Very well, Mr. Hawkins. But keep them in check for the duration of the exam.” she said.
“Yes mam!” he replied nervously.
“Now, you may have noticed the three fast frigates from Her Majesty’s 32nd Strike Flotilla.” she informed the group of vessels. “These distinguished ships have volunteered to be your targets for the first scenario. You students will set a course to bring your flotilla to the west of the Montressor Archipelago.”
“Heh, wish them luck…” said Jim.
“Swing south below the archipelago, then attack the frigates by cutting through the small islands to engage them on the other side. This exercise will test how well you’ve learned to use the speed and maneuverability of smaller craft. Consult your maps and set course now.”
“You heard the Admiral, Mr. Onyx! Let’s get out there and be the first to hit them!” said Jim.
“Aye sir, bringing the engines to full power.” said Mr. Onyx. “Helmsman, set the course! Riggers, open the solar sails!” The ship’s engines began to kick in, and accelerated to a steady speed.
“Can we start speaking again, Mr. Rock Guy?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“Yes miss, the communication channel is closed…” he said, looking at the pony awkwardly as she was directly behind him, then gone in an instant.
“Alright, remember men; this is our final exam; we should do this easily, and hopefully without error.”
“Umm… Mr. Hawkins, was it?” asked Twilight as she walked up to him.
“Yes?” he asked in a slightly irritated tone.
“I was wondering if I could look into some of the books in your quarters, as I believe it will allow me to understand this world better…”
“Very well, in fact that would probably be a better place for you all right now, as I am extremely tense right now. I am rather worried…”
“I understand that testing feeling, I always had it when I was a student…” said Twilight.
“It’s terrible isn’t it? Anyway, you can go now. I am afraid my crew and I have to focus…” he said, walking towards one of the riggers. “Good job on the rigging!”
“Well he’s not exactly nice.” said Applejack as she walked towards Twilight.
“He’s stressed out, you know I get the same way when I take tests.” she replied.
“Yeah, only you get ten times worse partner.” Applejack said in response.
Before Twilight could react, however, a certain pegasus was giving the first mate of the vessel a hard time.
“Please, stay on the ship miss!” he said.
“Pfft, Why?” she asked.
“Because, the other ships might mistake you as one of the various hostile birds that inhabit the islands!” he shouted. “All ships are equipped with equipment to blast such creatures out of the etherium!”
“Please, I’m the fastest flier in Equestria. I can outrun a…” she said before a laser lancer from a nearby warsloop grazed her wingtips. “AHHH!!!” she screamed as she started to fall.
“Ah shit, I got ya!” he said. He already had experience before, as their spotter had a good eye, but terrible coordination, causing him to fall regularly. He quickly caught her in his arms as she fell, praying to God it was just a minor wound.
“Gah…” she said.
“My god…” he said, seeing how the wing was scorched by the lancer. The laser lancers had never been tested directly on a person; the only known targets they had ever been pointed at were ships and hostile wildlife. “Sir!!! SIR!!!! MR. HAWKINS!!!!!” he yelled for Mr. Hawkins.
“Vessel spotted sir!” said the spotter, noticing the fast frigates in the distance. “Oh my…” he said as he looked down at the scene below him.
“What is it now-” he said, before seeing the scene before him. “What the hell happened?” He rushed towards the pair.
“I flew a little too high and got shot at…” she said, somewhat embarrassed.
“Rainbow Dash!” shouted Twilight and Applejack, both galloping towards their friend.
“Luckily we have an onboard doctor in case of these accidents. Take her to the infirmary, fast.” said Jim.
“Yes sir.” he responded, carrying her down one of the hatches on the deck.
“And as for the rest of you…” said Mr. Hawkins. “Before any more of you get hurt, please go into my personal quarters. A ship this small doesn’t have a real room where I can receive visitors. So please just stay there… If something arises, I shall get all of you-”
“There are the frigates from the 32nd now. Students, attack! Try to get as many torpedo strikes as you can in two minutes.” interrupted the admiral over the communication channel.
“Great…” said Jim. “All hands, battlestations!” said Jim.
“Fire!” said the torpedoman on the starboard side.
“Quick…” said Jim, talking out of the side of his mouth. “Get inside my cabin. Now.”
“Alright…” said Twilight, and the rest of the group got the message soon enough.
“Aww… I was just starting to have fun.” said Pinkie Pie as Twilight had to drag her away from the the man who was charging the lancer at the front bow.
The group went inside the captain’s quarters, which luckily was not fully apart of the communication channel; various commands of the Admiral went through to the ponies, but not all of the course and the group could not be heard from within the room. The cabin itself was small, with several bookcases along one side. The room was notable for several framed maps on the wall, alongside a desk with an ink pen and more stacked maps and star charts. Regular books and holo-books lined the shelves, and there was one framed picture on the desk. But it wasn’t like the rest of the room, which seemed almost entirely lawful and civil. The picture showed a strange being, clothed in pirate attire and equipped with a tricorn hat. That, however, was where the objects the ponies recognized ended, as a strange black flag with a white alien skull and rings blew behind him. But the strangest thing about him was his appearance. He was a bit like a humanoid diamond dog, just without canine teeth. He also appeared to be part machine, with a strange laser device where his left eye should have been, a strange mechanism with a sword attached where his arm ought to have been, and an odd compression device where his leg was missing.
“Who is this…” asked Twilight, but something seemed to have stirred. A rattling noise was heard.
“Oh dear… not something else…” said Fluttershy, completely shaken by the events of the past few hours.
“Eyehe!” gurgled a small creature that flew out a nearby cabinet. A cabinet that Rarity was a little too close to.
“KILL IT!!!” she screamed, as it flew around the room at a fast pace.
“Kill it, kill it!” it screamed as it… turned into a miniature Rarity.
“Okay… That’s weirder than most stuff we deal with on a regular basis.” said Twilight.
“Regular basis.” it said as it turned into a miniature Twilight.
“The hay?” Said Applejack as it turned into her simultaneously and said the exact same thing. “Stop that!” she said as it turned into what was apparently its regular form: a small, gelatinous pink blob with a pair of white eyes with black pupils.
“Woohehehe!” it said.
“Aww… it’s actually kind of cute…” said Fluttershy as it made a soft noise.
“I heard a scream, what is it?” asked Mr. Hawkins as he walked into the quarters. “Ah, I see you’ve met Morphy.”
“Who?” asked the ponies.
“Morph, he’s a… well, morph.” he said.
“Awah!” said the gelatinous blob.
“You couldn’t have warned us that that was here?” asked Rarity.
“Hey, when you live with him you get used to it.” replied Jim. “He was a pet of an old friend of mine…” he said as he picked up the picture on his desk.
“Who is that?” asked Twilight, naturally curious about who the strange being was in the picture.
“A rather amicable pirate I met five years ago. He was almost like a father to me…” he said as he reminisced.
“A pirate?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah, I was on a crew of the ship piloted by the Admiral when she was a captain. The cook on board was planning on leading a mutiny, and I was on board because I had a… actually, I believe it’s better to show you the device that I barely managed to save from that trip.” He reached into the same cabinet that morph was hiding in, and pulls out a small bronze sphere. He pushes a few buttons, and spins some of its cross sections before it erupts into green light. The light eventually settles down, revealing many green holograms of stars, planets, and what appears to be a hole in the hologram. The hologam also showed a flat, holographic 'table' towards the center of the room, with small projections of ships on it along with various islands and a nebula.
“This… is a map that a dying man gave me on his last breathe.” he started to say. “He gave me it, and me and the doctor on board this vessel went off on an adventure to get to the planet where a secret treasure was. The cook had made sure every person on the vessel, minus the first mate Mr. Arrow, the Captain, and of course me and the Doctor, knew that the mutiny was going to happen. The crew made a few mistakes, and sprung the mutiny early because of a few problems caused by me. Mr. Arrow was killed by one of the crew members just before the mutiny, and he pinned it on me not securing his lifeline. This was a lie, and eventually one thing came to another and we barely managed to escape with a portion of the riches of the planet before it imploded. The cook wasn’t fully on board with the mutiny and ended up saving me, the captain, the doctor, and a castaway robot we found on the planet. The cook left the ship on the way back on a lifeboat loaded with treasure to make himself a new crew and left me Morphy and the remainder of the treasure.”
“Red and Blue teams, engage! And remember, when a flag turns black, it means that ship is considered destroyed and all its systems will deactivate until the end of the battle.” could be heard from outside the cabin.
“I’m sorry, there’s a lot more to the story than that, but I am afraid that will have to wait. All I really did was give you a basic gist.” He shifted the sphere back to its original form. “I’ll get to you all later…” he said, rushing out of the quarters.
Meanwhile, below deck in the infirmary…
“Doctor!” shouted Mr. Onyx as he carried Dash into the infirmary. The edges of her wings look blackened but the rest was fine. She was slightly whimpering at this point, but other than that fine. The infirmary itself was a room with various medical cabinets, an operating table in the center of the room, and three tables with diagrams and supplies sprawled across them. A man was sewing a gash on another man while a robot was writing in a leather bound book at one of the tables.
“What is it now Mr. Onyx? I was just finishing patching up a crew member.” said the man, not looking up from the man he was inspecting.
“We have an a civilian injury we need you to fix.” he replied.
“What is it? Laser musket, by the sword, or accident?” he asked again.
“I presume you would call it accidental discharge of a laser lancer. Also, the civilian isn’t exactly, erm... ordinary.”
“Well, what type of being is it?” asked the doctor. “Couldn’t be any type of species I am unfamiliar with.”
“Well I don’t presume you know how to take care of a cyan, rainbow maned pegasus with a burnt wing.” he said in a gruff voice.
“Did Mr. Hawkins slip LSD into your coffee again?” he asked, starting to look up.
“That was one time Mr. Doppler, one time. And it was not a trick I hope that Mr. Hawkins and B.E.N. repeat.”
“Hey, don’t bring me into this,” said B.E.N, as he finished writing. “You know we work… is that a pegasus? Or has the memory chip from the back of my head been yanked out again?”
“Yes, there is an injured cyan pegasus in my arms right now. In fact, there are five other equines on his ship in Mr. Hawkin’s cabin as we speak. This one flew above the ship and was mistaken for one of the hostile avians of the nearby islands by a warsloop. The warsloop reacted by firing a light laser lancer that grazed her wing.”
“You know I hate the medical profession, but at least I get to adventure with Mr. Hawkins again. Too bad they didn’t need an on board navigator.”
“Yes yes, we’ve been through this before Dilbert. Please, she needs immediate medical attention.”
“Alright, B.E.N, I am finishing the stitches on this poor fellow’s arms, please help Miss…?”
“Dash.” said the injured pegasus.
“Miss Dash with her injury.”
“I got it, Doctor.” the robot said, taking her from Mr. Onyx. “Don’t worry, you will be okay…”
“This all so new…” said Twilight as she looked through the pile of books she had amassed from Mr. Hawkin’s library.
“I don’t know if Mr. Hawkins would appreciate ya making a mess out of his bookcases like that…” said Applejack as she fiddled with the bronze sphere Jim left behind.
“Don't worry, I will put the books back when I am done...Ugh, some of this print is just way too small to read, though. Wished I could read it…” she said.
“Okee.” said Morph as he turned into a magnifying glass.
“Wha- well, thanks.” Twilight said, picking the Morph-magnifying glass up.
“Well he sure is interesting.” said Applejack. “And apparently practical.”
“Blast and bother, cease fire." could be heard from the communication channel. "I’ve just gotten word that Royal Navy Tender Providence is under attack by pirates. We’re the only group close enough to stop the blackguards from running off with the Tender! Break off and head due south at full speed. Engage any pirate vessel you see and show them what it means to poach this close to Crescentia! But be careful, this is not an exercise any more -- the pirates will be firing real laser cannons!”
“Umm… that does not sound good.” said Applejack, eyeing Twilight as if she was going to do something.
“Well… I think we should leave the professionals to their jobs.” she said.
“We were the professionals back in Equestria. You know how idiotic the military was back there, the royal guards were basically… what d’ya call’em? Those suicidal rodents?”
“Lemmings?” asked Twilight.
“Exactly. Lemmings. Only ten times more stupid.”
“Okay, first of all: the lemming suicide thing is a myth that was made up to amuse less intelligent ponies and to make readily available anecdotes for beings that die easily,” she corrected. “And secondly, the guards aren’t entirely incompetent. Just the vast majority of them.”
“Well, I’m going to go make sure they don’t need any help out there…” she said.
“Enemy vessel destroyed sir!” could be heard through the channel.
“See, they are competent enough.” said Twilight.
“They are competent enough!” said Morph, turning into a small, five years younger Jim, a spitting image of the lad before he joined the navy.
“Well... I guess we should go see what's going on out there anyway.” said Twilight, opening the door with her magic.
“Alright, let's get a headcount…” said Mr. Hawkins as a prison barge came alongside the boat.
“What happened out here?” said Twilight, staring in awe as a ship was floating past them as it disintegrated into the Etherium.
“Pirate vessel was stealing a Naval Tender. Had to save it, we just collected their lifeboat. We're conducting a head count right now.”
“Okay... so what about your test?” asked Twilight.
“We passed, and the Admiral commended me and my crew for saving the tender. I am officially a Lieutenant of the Royal Navy. Anyway… wait, is that… TurnBuckle?” he asked as he looked at a cephalopodan helmsman that was calling for his name.
“Jim! Jim, I am not going to ask for favors, but I have to tell you: Silver says, ‘Beware!’” he said as he pressed a lump of black stone into Jim’s hand. He then immediately walked back into the line of prisoners.
“TurnBuckle, wait!” he shouted before the alien went aboard the barge with the rest of the prisoners. “That was… odd.”
“Sir! I have a small amount of news…” said Mr. Onyx, walking up from the interior of the craft.
“Yes?” asked Jim.
“I just finished a private conversation with the Admiral… and she apparently had three beings warp onto her ship as well. They want to speak with the ponies soon…”
“It must be the royal sisters and Spike…” murmured Twilight.
“Very well, send them in a little bit. I am going to record a data log entry before I do so.”
“Also, we’ve managed to secure space in the crew’s quarters of the ship for the ponies… They actually want them to stay.” said Mr. Onyx.
“Well… I don’t see why not now that the Admiral has approved them.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hawkins.” said Twilight.
“You’re welcome.” he said as he went inside the ship’s cabin.
Datalog Entry Number 58:
“In a day full of surprises, I found the strangest one after the battles were all over. As we hauled the last of the pirate prisoners aboard, I was surprised to hear my name called out. It was TurnBuckle, one of John Silver’s old crew; a face and form I hadn’t seen since my adventure to Treasure Planet, five years ago. I thought he was going to ask to be set free because we knew each other, but all he did was stumble up to me and press a lump of dark matter into my hand. “Silver says, ‘Beware!’” was all TurnBuckle told me. Before I question him further, he ducked back into line, and was herded off to the prison barge with the rest of the prisoners. By the time I found a moment to get back to my quarters with the ruckus these ponies caused and examine the rock, my mind was filled with a thousand thoughts of the old pirate I hadn’t seen in so many years. I had heard rumors of him from time to time… some whispers of his ship being seen on smuggling runs, or even that he had turned privateer, and was preying on Procyon shipping fleets in the name of Queen and Empire. I was still deep in thought when little Morphy, the pet Silver had given me all those years ago, jumped up on my desk and began to chirp and spin. To my amazement, he suddenly changed into a miniature version of old John Silver and croaked, ‘Beware! Beware!’ as if he had understood something that had evaded me. Despite Morphy’s tricks, I am no closer to an answer about either problem, the ponies and what has happened to Silver. Could Silver have been trying to warn me about those strange, new, iron ships on the frontier, or some sort of new pirate threat closer to home? Without Silver here all I have is more questions. And so, I’m left with these ponies to try and understand this message -- the one word Silver had to say -- and I can’t know whether it is a threat or a warning from the cyborg that befriended me years ago. Silver says, ‘Beware!’ and I would have to be.”