Part of the Job
“Captain, we would like to know why you thought it necessary to beat up our grandson?”
Raj looked up from his bowl of cereal at the blue alicorn that had burst into the library. He set his meal down and stood up into a proper salute. “Ma'am, you caught me off guard.”
Luna let out a sigh and massaged the bridge of her nose with a hoof. “At ease.” Raj fell to rest. “You have our apologies, it has been a long night for us. A great many issues appeared during the night court and our patience is quite frayed.”
“You run the night court?” He asked with a grin. “What's your bailiff name? Please tell me it's Nostradamus?”
Luna raised an eyebrow at his odd question. “Neigh, it is not. Is this an honest question or some inane pop culture artifact from my time absent or is it of your own world?”
“The... the second one.”
“Excellent. Now enough of your foolery, answer our inquiry Captain.”
Raj set his bowl down. “Your grandson challenged me to a duel and I unwisely accepted. We fought, he hit me a bunch and I hit him once. It was a tie. All in all, a pretty crappy evening.”
Luna nodded. “We had heard conflicting reports from many sources as to his and thine success. We desired the truth of the matter.”
“Many sources? The whole thing was maybe thirty hours ago. How many sources can there be?” he asked incredulously.
“Thou underestimates the power of Canterlot's gossiping machinations. Within the hour of mine Grandson's declaration the whole of the city's upper echelons knew of the contest. Indeed, were we not occupied with matters of state we would have been at attention to observe.”
Raj cocked an eyebrow. “Isn't Canterlot supposed to be your capitol? Don't you people have anything better to do that worry about me?”
“Seemingly not Captain, seemingly not.” she replied flatly.
“Fine. I assume you did not come all this way just to ask after your many times great grandson. What do you need from me Princess?”
“Straight to the heart of things then. We come bearing two matters of concern to you.”
“Lay it on me.”
Her horn lit and an unfurled scroll popped into existence. “We were coordinating with our sister to send a team of guards and rangers to transport the Bandersnatch thou and Pinkamena defeated to Tartarus. We will not permit one of Auberon's children to plague Equestria again when that river trickles to nothing centuries on.”
Raj gave her an impressed look and said “Awful forward thinking of you Princess.”
“We are ageless Captain. What is forward thinking for thine kind is simple sense to us.”
Raj nodded. “Right, forgot. I don't interact with very many ageless pony gods. Still getting used to the etiquette.”
Luna hummed slightly before continuing. “A report came in yesterday that they had located the creature and were preparing to extract it. Thine guess seems true. Submersion stays the beast's regeneration and renders it inert.”
“Pinkie's idea, not mine.”
“Regardless, we shall catalog their weakness for when the remaining three are found.”
“Hopefully that will be someone else's job. But Pinkie was right about there only being four of those things?”
Luna cocked her head. “Of course, how could there be more?”
“Well, they seem mammalian. I assumed the usual method.” Raj shrugged.
“Ah, we perceive. It slips our mind that thou art still ignorant of the true nature of things. We hoped you would hath taken the initiative and educated thineself with the tome entrusted to Twilight Sparkle's care.”
“It's a giant book banded in iron, made of copper, and written in a foreign language Princess. It's not exactly a light read.”
Luna snorted slightly before continuing. “The Bandersnatches are not natural creatures Captain, they are Trueborn Titanspawn. Creatures formed from the direct will of a Titan, like myself and Princess Celestia.”
“Oh... wow. Really?” Raj asked.
“Indeed. T'would be a task to understate the danger even one of those creatures presents. Each of the four were gifted with a ceaseless hunger and something very near true immortality. Unchecked, they would predate upon everything in their vicinity for all time. The capture of one is not a minor thing, for there will never be more in this iteration of existence.” the princess explained.
“Huh.” Raj muttered as he leaned back in his chair. “Some luck running into a wandering godspawn randomly like that.”
Luna paused. She cocked her head and hummed in thought for a moment before saying “Indeed, foul fate that. However, commending your actions tis not mine purpose here.”
“That's a shame.”
She let that go and continued. “A crisis made itself apparent during this most recent court. Tell us, what do thou know of dragons?”
Raj rolled his eyes up in thought for a moment before replying. “They're reptilian creatures that breath flame, vary wildly in size, and get super mad at you when you go out with the ponies they have crushes on.”
“Pardon?”
“Spike headbutted me in the knee when I got home the other night. That crest of his is surprisingly rigid.” He reached down and rubbed the joint.
Luna quietly stared at him for a moment before saying “Very well. They are also large and powerful creatures prone to recklessness and territoriality, hence the issue. It hath been confirmed that a Dragoness is nesting within the Everfree forest. One awaiting a clutch of eggs no less.”
“She's pregnant too?”
“Indeed. It seems the recent draconic migration bore some fruit. If the creature is permitted to make her roost in the Everfree, she will claim much of the forest as her territory, driving the native beasts out.”
“Ah, that would be bad.”
“Indeed. Dozens or more villages would be subject to the depredations of these ousted monsters.”
“And Ponyville would suffer the worst of it, on top of having an ornery, draconic mother-to-be as a new neighbor.” Raj sighed and ran his hand along his head. “Great.”
“Thou understands the gravity of the task then.”
“So I need to find her this lady and beat her up then? Is that it?”
“Incorrect. We do not wish to inspire malice on her part or, far worse, cause a termination of her brood. Such a thing could be disastrous if she is as aged as we believe. Thou shalt need to convince her to re-locate to another locale that we are preparing, one better suited to her needs. Violence is a last resort, as always.”
Raj shook his head. “I'm not too keen on the idea of fighting a dragon if it comes to it. I don't really have the know-how or the tools for it.”
Luna smiled slightly at him. “Captain, from perusing your report of the battle with the Bandersnatch, you combated the creature in close quarters. Was this a preference or did you lack other means?”
Raj cocked his head at the sudden change in topic but answered nonetheless. “If you're asking if if I have other weapons, the answer is no. The best ones I have are the Apple Axes and a stick made of Ironoak. Nothing else is available to me.” he said with a shrug.
“We believed as much. Hence, we brought this.” Her horn lit up and a long case popped into existence.
“Oh, cool.” He responded, still a little stunned by the spontaneous item. “What is it?”
“A weapon I forged long ago when Titans still strode Equestria, one I wielded to battle those debased beasts for decades.” She undid the latches and grabbed the item within in her horngrip. “Behold, Crescent.”
Luna lifted from her case a polished silver bow carved with detailed filigree and strung with a red string. Raj raised an eyebrow as Luna lowered it into his hand and he wrapped his fingers around the cool mid-staff. He twisted it around in his hand a few times, testing the weight and heft of it and realized that the thing hummed in his hand. “It's... I think it's vibrating? Is that normal?”
Luna nodded. “Very. We wrought Crescent from the molten silvers that lie at the core of mine moon and forced shape upon them. It is strung with hairs plucked from the mane of the Faustmare herself and still hums with the memory of her song of Creation. It is the finest weapon of its kind.” She said with finality, certain that her words were the truth.
Raj blinked at her and looked down at the thing. “Huh. So, why give it to me if it's such an important thing?”
Luna cocked an eyebrow at him “It is a weapon Rajrishi. No weapon is more important or valid than its potential for combat. 'Tis but a tool. An ancient, powerful tool, but still just a tool. Leaving it languish unused is naught but a foolish waste of potential when it could be used by warriors such as thou.”
“That's awfully irreverent of you Luna.”
She shrugged. “We are of a practical mind Captain. Thine report noted your incapability to meaningfully combat at range and this remedies that nicely. If it comes to it, you shall find it quite helpful when battling the dragon.”
“And I'm sure that this spontaneous gift has nothing to do with the fact that I, the Captain of the Lunar Guard, almost exclusively use a pair of axes made of orichalcum, better known as sungold? I'm sure that confusing little note doesn't factor into it at all?”
Luna smiled slightly, a tiny sparkle of amusement behind her eyes. “We are insulted that thou believe royal power dynamics are so petty Captain. Now then,” her horn sparked and a quiver or midnight fletched arrows arrows appeared in the air. “come show your Princess what thou art capable of.”
* * *
When his twenty-eighth arrow struck the post broadside and bounced into the dirt, Luna hummed her disapproval and said “To put it in the modern parlance, thou sucketh Captain.”
“You're real encouraging, you know that? I can see why you're Equestria's favorite princess.” he muttered at her as he drew another arrow back. He paused to aim and loosed. He managed to hit the target, albeit a good two feet lower than his intended point.
“Mine own relative unpopularity aside, we expected greater skills Captain. Were you not a member in good standing with your world's military?”
“I was, yeah. But my training did not cover the bow and arrow. That would have been ridiculous.”
“Ah, we perceive. Your armies focus on close quarters battle to better make use of the strength and ferocity of your warriors. Tell, me what weapons are you versed in? Ax, sword, spear?”
Raj lowered the bow and sighed. “M4 Carbine.”
She cocked her head. “We are not familiar with that tool. Is it some sort of polearm?”
“No. No it is not.” he drew the bow back again and fired, this arrow somehow going into a spiral that managed to miss everything in it's path. Raj growled his frustration and stomped a foot. “Okay, this bow is bullshit.”
Luna scowled. “We labored on that weapon for a full year Rajrishi, working the rebellious metal with care and focus. We would ask that you not declare it to be bovine feces.”
“It moves when I use it Luna. Every time I loose it flexes in my hands. At least half of those shots should have hit.”
Luna looked at him squarely and sighed. She held out a hoof and said “Allow us to show you.”
Raj handed the bow over and she pressed her hoof into a hook at the mid-staff, affixing it to her limb. She floated an arrow onto the nock and bit the fletching, straining her neck back to bend the arms.
Raj barked out a short laugh. “Oh, that's how you do it. I was wondering.”
“Silence. Observe.” she said through gritted teeth. She let out a steadying breath and opened her stance, taking aim at the post. She held there, not quivering even slightly, before tilting back to angle up and loosed.
Raj jumped, thinking he heard a gunshot for a moment. He looked around for the source of it before realizing it had come from Luna. The bow had snapped forward so fast the arrow had broken the sound barrier.
“Holy-” he started to exclaim before Luna halted him with a hoof. She pointed skyward and Raj followed her direction. Squinting, he was able to follow the vapor trail after it blew a hole in a cloud, but beyond that it was gone. Raj shook his head “Lost it.”
“The arrow should have landed in a lake we know of in the Everfree Forest, some twelve kilometers distant. The last time we used this bow, twas the furthest we could reasonably engage.
“There was not that much tension when I was pulling it. Nowhere near.”
“We hope not. If Crescent gave such resistance to a first time user we would be sorely disappointed.” She saw the look of confusion on his face and explained. “Crescent is a living thing Rajrishi, and will re-form itself to your needs over time. Alas, centuries sequestered in the vaults beneath Canterlot have left it laconic and it will require time to accustom itself to your grip. We did not expect it to so readily remember our own in fact.” She un-clipped the weapon and floated it back into his hands.
Raj stepped back in surprise. “Your magic bow is aware?”
“To an extent. That is our reason for gifting it to you. We expected a certain degree of competence, but as thou are lacking, Crescent shall make up the difference. Archery is complex and difficult discipline to learn and we have no reasonable expectation that even the most learned pony archer could bridge the gap in biology such lessons would face. Crescent, however, can adjust itself to however you use it, effectively allowing you to... freestyle the skill. Thou simply needs to use it enough that both of you can learn. That is why we gifted it to you.”
Raj looked down at the weapon in his hands. “You know, you could have told me that before I stood out here getting frustrated for the last half-hour.”
“Yes, we suppose we could have.” She said flatly, face betraying nothing.
They stood in mutual silence for a minute before Raj added “But, if you had done that, you wouldn't have had the chance to embarrass me like this nor would you have had call to show off like you just did.”
“Your implications wound us Captain.” she spoke with well-practiced scorn but once again the amusement behind her eyes gave her away. “Regardless, bring it along on your task. We are certain that it will prove useful to you.”
“Yes, ma'am.” He replied monotonously.
“Excellent. Now then, we are not deploying you by yourself. A detachment of the aerial corp known as the Wonderbolts are being deployed to assist in finding-”
A scream of elation tore through the air and a cyan blur knocked Raj back from the Princess. Rainbow Dash looked around excitedly and sputtered “W-Wonderbolts! Here, Ponyville! Where, where?!” She looked around furtively, as if they were hiding just out of sight.
Luna stepped back in surprise and sputtered “R-Rainbow Dash? What is the matter?”
“Well, I was on my way over here cause some jerk punched a hole in one of my clouds and I heard somepony say the W-word! And not, like, idly or whatever either, like they're coming here! Which is impossible, cause I would know about it cause I'm their biggest fan, but you said it like they were!” She bounced back and forth on her hooves, excitement bubbling out of her.
Luna placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Calm thyself Rainbow Dash. Calm. Captain, be thee well?”
“I bit my tongue.” he muttered as he sat up.
“But are thee well?”
“Yes, of course. God.” He dusted himself off and shot a glare at the Pegasus.
She squinted at him and then looked surprised. “Oh, wait, are you that thing I ran into? It did feel too soft to be a tree. Sorry, things kinda blur out when I'm going that fast. I'm Rainbow Dash.”
Raj stood up. “Rajrishi.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Um, no dude, it's Rainbow Dash, not whatever you said.”
He turned on her sharply. “No, my name is Rajrishi. Seriously, it isn't hard to say.” He paused in thought for a second. “Wait, does that mean you planning on taking a header into a tree?”
“Enough.” Luna stomped a hoof. “Too much time hath been wasted already. Captain, if thou art well it is imperative that you go forth posthaste.”
Raj rolled his shoulder a few times. “Eh, no worse than what Blueblood did to me. I can get going right away.”
“Wait, what's going on?” Rainbow Dash asked as she floated in between the two.
“There's a cranky, pregnant dragon in the Everfree Forest looking for somewhere to nest. I have to find her and convince her to find somewhere else to settle.” Raj answered.
“If the Dragoness lays her clutch, she will be impossible to convince to leave. And if she claims territory, the displaced natives of the Everfree Forest will be forced beyond its confines and into pony controlled lands.” Luna finished.
Rainbow Dash's eyes went wide. “Oh... wow that sounds pretty serious. Maybe I should go get Twilight and the others and we can-”
“Neigh, that will not be necessary Rainbow Dash. The Captain and the Wonderbolts will be able to resolve this crisis.”
“So the Wonderbolts are helping!” She smiled with a brief squee sound.
“Correct. They will be providing the Captain with reconnaissance of the Everfree and communications.”
Rainbow Dash scooted closer to the Princess. “Well, hey, I can do those things too. I've been in the Everfree before and I'm as fast as any Wonderbolt. Watch!” She disappeared in a rainbow streak and re-appeared a few seconds later holding a small, confused Angel bunny, plucked from Fluttershy's cottage more than a full kilometer away. The rodent hissed at everyone present before falling to the ground and hopping away. “I can kick some serious flank too. Check it!” She then started doing some exaggerated kicks and swings punctuated with loud cries of effort.
Raj watched the display with a bemused look on his face before rolling his eyes towards Luna. “Princess?”
“She speaks truth. Rainbow Dash is quite capable and would likely be an aid to your task.”
He watched her perform karate for a few more seconds before saying “If you say so.”
She smirked slightly and turned back to the Pegasus that was in the process of some sort of midair bicycle kick and said “Rainbow Dash, the Captain has considered your capabilities and has opted to include you in this task.”
Rainbow paused in midair for a second before her face split into a wide grin and she started to shake. With a cry of elation she shot upwards in a brilliant streak, the sky erupting into an expanding ring of color that dove for the horizon in all directions, a great wind shaking small tornadoes of autumn leaves from the trees for miles all around.
After a few second she drifted back to the ground and coughed as she nonchalantly rubbed her hoof on her chest. “Um, I mean, oh, uh, that's cool.”
Raj didn't hear her, he just kept staring at the widening band of color and said “Why did she explode?”
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"Why did she explode?"
Why did she explode... Heh. Great chapter I lover reading some humor for the poor fool for a change.
Taking Rainbow Dash to a dragon.
Let's see if she's has any capability from learning after the last time.
...I watch too much youtube, my mind went STRAIGHT to TeamFourStar Vegeta at the end there.
So, Luna gave Raj a magical railgun bow... This can only end well!
So...Luna just gave him an ancient equivalent of a railgun...
Raj made a funny.
Cheeky little bugger.
7144849
I originally wrote the first fifteen or so chapters in present tense before changing it. I went back to fix it, but I realize I missed a lot.
7181999 To look sexy? Who understands even half of what females do?
But who cares, the key phrase was Big Mac. Fancy shirt for family weddings and such? Sure! Overalls for farm work that you wouldn't want to do naked and would involve way too much clean up, like painting a barn or working with greasy wagon wheels? No problem!
The shorts though made no sense and really jarred my disbelief.
7182701
A gauss rifle (provided you had a battery the size of a small laptop battery or smaller capable of putting out about 10x or more energy than your standard car battery to power the thing) could easily match modern firearms, and with a copper ring around the projectiles, the wear on the barrel and inner workings would be the same if not significantly less than that of modern firearms as well.
I don't know how feasible a hybrid rail/gauss weapon would be though, seeing as how the principle for a rail gun is two straight, parallel electromagnetic forces pulling the projectile along a rail, where as a gauss weapon has a coiled element, causing the electromagnetic force to change position along the length of the barrel as it draws the projectile along.
The two electromagnetic forces could ~possibly(?)~ conflict with eachother, and TBH, they really aren't needed.
Keep in mind, newton's third law. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. So more force per bullet isn't necessarily better.
For every bit of energy you put into the bullet (no matter the method used), you'll have an equal amount of force pushing against the weapon in the opposite direction.
So no matter what method you use to make a gun, it WILL have recoil.
The major difference is that, when a fire arm goes off, it's a small explosion that kicks the opposing force back through the weapon into the shooter holding it.
But with a gauss or rail gun, the energy doesn't all get thrown at you at once.
It'll still hit you in a fraction of a second, and you won't really notice the difference as far as the timing, but the physics of it WILL be slightly noticeable.
That is to say, rather than feeling like getting punched, it'll feel like a short burst from a high pressure hose.
Kinda like the kick when you use a car wash and that pressure nozzle pushes back with a surprising amount of force. Imagine that, but WAY stronger, and only for an instant.
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Info dump on how the recoil would differ incoming:
With a firearm, +80% of the force the exploding powder produces hits you in about 1/12,000ths of a second (this is a highly approximated number, as powder burn rates vary drastically based on granule size, purpose, and brand... but I think this is a decent average for a ballpark guess), with the other ~20% slowly pushing back as the bullet goes down the barrel.
With a gauss weapon, you'd get 100% of the recoil energy pushing back on you per millisecond that the projectile is in the process of accelerating down the barrel, rather than a huge ~80% kick all at once, with only ~20% "slowly" pushing back into you.
Everyone loves the AK-47, so let's use that as our example.
Let's take the average velocity of an AK-47 (715 m/s) and barrel length (0.369m)
I'm too lazy to figure out the rate at which the bullet accelerates from 0 m/s to ~715 m/s as it exits the barrel.
So we'll assume it has a flat speed of ~65% the max speed in order to approximate that. 65% of 715 is 464.75 m/s, but we'll round that up to 465 m/s, as we're dealing in approximates for the sake of time.
With a projectile traveling at 465 m/s down a 0.37m length barrel (again, I rounded up), the bullet goes from starting down the barrel to leaving the barrel in 0.0008 seconds.
Assuming you built a Gauss-AK (with matching barrel length and designed it to match the same energy and velocity as it's chemical propellant predecessor), you'd get 100% of the recoil spread out evenly over 0.0008 seconds, as opposed to the regular firearm AK's 80% recoil hitting all at once in 0.0833333333 miliseconds, with the remaining 20% drawn out over 0.8 milliseconds.
TL;DR to this info dump is, with a Gauss rifle, you get the recoil energy pushed back at a (relatively) slower rate, noticeably reducing the jarring effect of each bullet's recoil, making recoil slightly more manageable.
It won't be much, but it will definitely be enough that a skilled marksman would be VERY happy about this benefit.
End info dump.
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For infantry purposes, a gauss rifle design would be PLENTY capable of throwing each round in the energy range that your average human could comfortably facilitate.
If you really wanted to, I could see a high caliber sniper rifle (packing the punch of a 50 cal BMG round, for example) being designed as a rail gun, but I'm fairly confident it'd be easier just to base a similar rifle off a coilgun design (and if needed, give it extra battery power and a larger coil to drive the rounds).
Please keep in mind though, I'm no electrical weapon's engineer.
).
Most of my weapon's knowledge is based off personal experience with firearms, book smarts, and some home-built hobbist coil guns (essentially home made gauss BB guns
I'm no expert on electromagnetic weapons platforms.
I just like messing around with my (rather basic) knowledge of coil guns (also keep in mind, I know more about gauss coil guns than I do about rail guns).
Neat, after this raj is going to go on an adventure with fluttershy I expect
7183921
The force of recoil you're going to experience with any gun is going to match the force the projectile will experience, which is F=ma.
The actual muzzle velocity of the bullet from an AK47 is 715 m/s. Wiki doesn't have a mention of what the acceleration the bullet endures going through the barrel, but let's keep your .8 ms for sake of simplicity. As the bullet is 4.9 grams, from this, we can conclude the Force the bullet experiences is (.0049 kg)*(715 m/s)/(.0008s) = (.0049 kg)*(893750 m/s^2) = 4380 N. Likewise, the recoil going into the gun is 4380 N. And since the minimum mass of the gun (without a full magazine) is 708 times the mass of the bullet, the acceleration the gun experiences is 1262 m/s^2, which if the gun were freely hung in such a way to sway when fired, by the above numbers, you should expect to see it move nearly 1 m/s back when firing--assuming there weren't other factors involved.
Now, those numbers don't sound like much, but they're surprisingly significant--and if they were delivered to the shooter, the gun would likely break anyone's shoulder firing it.
What's not evident is there's a portion of the design (with springs and the bolt action) that causes a significant portion of the force to really be either diverted away from or greatly delayed getting to the shooter. The gun isn't a single, solid device delivering the recoil back to the shooter. The bolt is what receives the entirety of the recoil from the bullet. This recoil is greatly delayed going into the rest of the gun by the main spring. A portion of this force is redirected back into the bolt to chamber the next round (if there is one in the magazine). There's also a venting aperture as the bullet reaches the end of the barrel, which also has a set of springs to work as a shock absorber. As a result of those springs and venting, the impulse time the gun is recoiling is much greater than .8 ms, which reduces the acceleration of the gun stock into the shooter.
You're quite correct about 100% of the recoil of a rail gun or guass rifle would be completely delivered into the shooter, unless they build in such shock absorbers into the system somehow.
7321186
Shock absorbers can be made with recoil hydraulics, tubes containing air and liquid that will compress and reform with every shot. It will be quite big though, so the better option will be to use a counterforce like what those recoilless rifles did.
Essentially, redirecting some of the shot's force backwards will reduce recoil by quite a bit.