Contagion Zone Equestria

by Gearaxis

Naval repairs

Chief Warrant Officer Cog Axis and his 21 pony detachment had just barely been able to get to a lifeboat before the Cadenza sank entirely, he and his crew had been on deck repairing several anti-air guns before the fight had broken out. He ordered every pony to simply take cover until the fight was over but when the ship began to tilt, he deployed a lifeboat and got everypony on it. When the ship exploded, he and his detachment went around picking up survivors, 35 in total, and began paddling over to the Celestia. Most of the ponies he'd picked up were deck crew, five were in the front gun and had managed to climb out through a hole before the explosion. Nine more had been below decks and had somehow managed to swim out before getting trapped.

He had no idea why the Celestia had fired on them and it made him angry, he decided to yell at whoever was in charge until his voice gave out. As the life raft neared the Celestia, four ponies on deck threw ropes to them to grab onto. Cog made sure everypony was off the raft before boarding the ship himself. He hoisted himself up the ladder and looked around once on deck, it was almost completely ruined, the entire front of the ship was either missing deck or was too damaged to walk on safely. He frowned up at the conning tower which was now half of its original size and cleaved in half, a single pony was looking down at the oncoming survivors.

Three ponies were attempting to toss a rope ladder up to him so he could get down, but he was fairly high up. After a couple of tosses, they finally managed to get the ladder up, Ensign Wave made his way down onto the deck to greet the newcomers. Cog walked up to him and glared at him furiously. "What in Celestia's name were you thinking?! You just destroyed an allied ship!" He yelled at him.

Wave frowned. "I didn't have a choice. I warned you three times to abort but you just kept going." He said. Muffled gunfire took their attention away from each other. There were a couple of shouts followed by more gunfire, then two ponies came up from below decks. One was backing up the stairs, firing down with his M14 rifle while the other clutched his side, he'd been bitten.

"What's going on?!" Cog demanded as the injured pony made his way over to Wave. The other ponies had begun to disperse and the pony firing into the stairwell was joined by two others. The pony stopped next to Wave.

"Ensign, sir, the infected broke into the engine room. Everypony's alright but they could really use assistance getting up." He said. He looked at his hoof, seeing a fair amount of blood on it, then went back to clutching his wound.

"There're infected on board?" Cog asked in shock. He looked at the man's wound. "You were bitten! You need to be euthanized before you turn!" He said, beginning to panic slightly.

"No pony's euthanizing any pony. What's your blood type?" He asked the sailor.

"B- sir. I know, I'm immune. Doesn't mean I can't get killed though eh?" He said, looking at his bloodied hoof again.

"You should have told us your ship was full of infected! We could have gotten you on board the Cadenza!" Cog exclaimed. Nothing was making sense to him.

"You don't know why we opened fire? The Cadenza was en-route to destroy a city full of potential survivors against orders. Your captain wouldn't turn back so we stopped him forcefully." Wave said. The pony from the engine room wandered off as the two of them talked. More gunfire made Cog flinch before he could continue.

"I didn't know that. I'm sure if the crew had known, we would have put a stop to it..." He looked back at the area the Cadenza had sunk. Debris floated around in the water, some on fire.

Wave nodded. "I'm sure you would have, however, given the circumstances, there was no other option. Unfortunately we can move, but can't steer so that needs to be fixed before we can get anywhere. Reinforcing the hull under guns 1 and 2 is what we need to focus on right now." He told Cog.

Cog looked at him in confusion. "Ok, but, you don't sound remorseful, do you even regret sinking the Cadenza a little? You killed almost everypony on board!" He said.

Wave sighed and walked to the railing, Cog followed him curiously. "It is unfortunate that I had to kill so many innocent ponies, but in times of emergency sacrifice is expected. The ship, MY ship, is falling apart and needs to be fixed. I can't afford to let anything distract me until the ship is completely out of danger. That includes clearing the entire ship of infected. You can remain angry at me, or you could suck it up and help me salvage the situation. It's your choice." He said. Cog nodded and awaited instructions. Wave was only one rank above him, but he still had to follow the orders of his superiors.

It didn't take very long to free the trapped ponies below deck, by which point Cog and his detachment, along with ten armed guards, had started reinforcing the ship's hull. They welded long strips of metal to the inside and outside of the damaged areas of ship to ensure it wouldn't split any time soon. While they worked on that, Wave and the rest of the crew began clearing the lower decks of infected. First they fought their way to the armory to get supplies, then cleared every room one at a time.

Three hours later, the hull repairs were done and the lower deck was full of more than 2000 corpses. They had almost completely depleted the armory, leaving them with only enough ammunition that everypony would have two clips for their gun. The only problem on the ship now was that it couldn't currently be steered. It would be dark soon.

Author's Note:

sorry about how rushed it is and it being late. I didn't have long to write and I was too depressed to do much yesterday.

Comments

[Iron Comet]

Well they might be able to pick up and transport refugee's but thats about it. Ship is essentially a barge now. Best hope is to find some tugs or something to tow the battleship.