Millennia: Eye of the Storm

by Thunderblast

14. Crisis - Part III

"Anchor, check your side. There might be more over there that are out of view. Check everywhere," Ash said through comms, eyeballing each of the explosives individually.

A silence followed on their end as we both assumed him and the others began searching their corridor for bombs. It was not for a few minutes before somepony responded.

"Clear on our side," Sergeant Sunset declared.

"Good. We might need you three back over here. We need to disarm these things before they go off," I said, standing a short distance from the wall.

"What is going on over there, Hummingbird? Are you in need of backup?" called the sailor back on the Eclipse, who we only just came to the realization that he had been listening as well.

"Stand by, Eclipse," Sunset responded in his brisk reply, the breathing in his speech evident that he was running.

In less than a minute, him, Anchorage, and Silver rushed into our room. Out of them, Silver appeared most terrified and overwhelmed at the sight. Beside him, a more cool and collected sergeant, who tore into his field pack that now sat on the floor and yanked out a small box. In it were compact tools, such as a miniature screwdriver, a pair of pliers, among other little utensils.

Returning back to the explosives, Sunset moved his gaze carefully over each one, honing in on their appearance and muttering. "Now, which one is the primary..."

"The p-primary?" Silver shuddered, backing behind me.

"Bombs like these, the ones that are wired together, they rely on one explosive that, when it is triggered, they are set off a second or two after the first. Disabling that deactivates the rest, but they can be tricky," Sunset explained, standing on his hinds in order to reach one.

"Wired-explosive primaries can be placed wherever, whether that be in the middle, left, right, or anywhere in between. The whole point of them is to throw EODs off and cut the wrong wires," Ashfall commented, heading to the other end of the trail for a closer look.

"Precisely. I will need to open up all of these, get a good look at them. One little misplacement and we all go up in flames," Sunset remarked, reaching up his little screwdriver and twisting slowly, carefully removing two tiny screws holding the plastic cover over its hazardous contents.

"Wouldn't it be a better idea to cut them off the beams and throw them overboard or something?" I questioned, watching the sergeant move over to the second explosive and begin removing the cover.

"Negative, these are remotely triggered, meaning somepony else can discharge them at their will using a separate device," he answered.

"If they can be detonated at the touch of a button by someone else, why haven't they already?" Anchorage posed, running a hoof across his chin with question.

"Whoever is responsible must have a valid reason not to just yet," Sunset said, removing the third device's cover and stopping there, scanning over the inside. "I think I've found it!"

"Sergeant, are you trained in bomb disposal?" Ash blinked, striding back over to him.

"To an extent," he frankly replied. That was reassuring. He set the screwdriver in his box on the grate-plated floor, replacing it with the pliers, bringing them up to the collection of wires looped around one another, like a strand of DNA.

Stopping just a hair from the wires, the sergeant inhaled sharply. "If this doesn't kill us, I'll treat you all when we're back home," he stated aloud, the famous last words spoken a mere two seconds before he squeezed the pliers and severed the green wire.

A cold shock ran through my entire body the very instant the wire had been cut. Not one of us didn't let out some sort of relieved breath and eased our muscles as the red lights on each of the explosive devices ceased to flash altogether, and for the sole fact that we were all still here.

Speaking into comms, Sergeant Sunset calmly announced through a sigh, "This is Hummingbird, bombs disarmed."

Letting off a groan, Silver removed his helmet and wiped a hoof over his forehead to clear it of nervous sweat, his body trembling from top to bottom. I couldn't help but to empathize with him. As bad as we'd previously thought the situation to be, it very well almost was far, far worse.

"All right," said the sergeant, bringing out his knife and unfolding the black stainless-steel blade, lifting it to the primary explosive. "Now we can..." pausing while he put pressure on the knife, "...get these down," he finished with a mild grunt in his tone, slicing the glue sticking the device against the wall.

As if by knowing he would order them to do so, Ash and Anchorage followed suit, aiding the sergeant in taking down the array of bombs and bunching them together carefully, ensuring to cut each of the wires connecting each other.

Now with room in his little backpack used to carry the signal transmitter, Anchorage proceeded to stuff the collection with caution into it, sealing the leather flap tightly and once more throwing it over his shoulders.

Getting back to work restoring the ship's power could not have been the first thing on anypony else's mind for the moment at the very least. My head sat divided between the two thoughts, one contemplating just how we were supposed to pull it off, while the other kept on the many questions, who planted the explosives? What were they waiting for, and what were they trying to accomplish?

Without a doubt did it tie in to the puddles of blood in the corridor earlier. That still did not provide any sort of inkling of who did it, other than the fact that griffons of unknown origin were most certainly the masterminds of the plan, what ever that plan may be.

Just before anypony else could even open their maws to speak, the clinks of bullets striking against metal forced instinct into action. Like the others, we each hit the deck, ducking down with some of us placing hooves on our helmets as holes riddled the walls with bullets flying in our direction, zipping past our ears and striking the pistons, walls, even where the bombs previously were.

"Contact, hallway!" Sergeant Sunset shouted, aiming his rifle out as he lay flat across the floor. He began blindly returning fire with minor bursts every other second, being the only one in any proper position to aim out through the open bulkhead hatch.

"Who the hell's shooting at us?!" Anchorage cried, diving behind a generator for extra cover. Strangely enough, out of the six of us—five excluding Nightpath, who remained on the bridge—he ended up being the one pony who came unarmed.

I suppose it was our duty to protect him at all costs. After all, he carried the beacon device with him.

"I can't see shit!" the sergeant responded, rolling sideways and out of the line of a trail of bullets as they struck the metal grate where he previously laid. "They've got us pinned!"

Rushing beside Anchorage, I began frantically looking around. To my left I noticed the outline of a closed door, and within a moment's notice, I was up on all fours, making the short run for it and diving into narrow cover beside an electric panel.

Placing my gun down against the corner, I took quick hold of the lock lever and lifted it up until it pointed straight-vertical and pushed inward, leading into another room. Turning back, I called. "In here!" waving a hoof rapidly.

Almost as soon as I had given the word, three Marines and one sailor zipped past, their heads low as they crossed into the other room with me entering last, ensuring to close the hatch and lock it from the inside.

The narrow room full of mostly pipes glowed beneath an emergency light, painting the hot and sticky space entirely with a shade of red comparable to my own eye color.

"Where the hell do we go now?!" Silver said in panic, both in question and statement, darting his head all over the place.

"This way!" Ash shouted, shoving through a partially jarred-open door into a larger room, around a corner, and out into another darkened hall where a thin, hissing steam plume shot diagonally downward from a pipe on the ceiling.

We rushed through the steam, ducking once more as bullets riddled the wall to our right while shooting directly through the opposite wall until we reached a catwalk in an spacey room.

The curve of the floor on the level beneath the pony-width bridge definitely confirmed us to be in the far bottom of the hull. Hell, above the metallic clinking behind us, the eerie rumble of the water on either sides and below us on the outside of the ship was the more dominating ambience.

At a fork in the center of the catwalk, Sunset stopped, snapping in either direction. Behind him, Ash shouted, "What are we doing?!"

My ear swiveled, catching on to muffled shouts from another corridor leading to this one, among faint scratching of talons and thumps of what sounded like paws almost galloping, coming up from behind.

"Go, go!" commanded the sergeant, charging forward again with the rest of us tailing perhaps a foot behind each other and hurrying into a stairwell just as more suppressed bullets flew.

To the level above we ran, not once stopping once we entered the hall and hurried to the next flight of stairs. Why, oh why, whoever designed this blasted ship, decided it was a cool idea to individually separate the stairs and place them randomly around the ship?!

"Night, Night! Are you there?!" Anchorage called, his voice echoing in comms through a one-second delay.

"What's up?" Night responded.

"We have enemies on the lower deck, we're making our way up t—"

Just before he could finish, an enormous jolt knocked the five of us to the floor. A booming thud shook the hall simultaneously, with a second jolt causing the entire ship to tilt a few degrees off the port side. The sudden force threw us against the wall, sliding across the floor from initially collapsing in the first impact.

We jumped right back on all fours, picking up our guns or anything of ours that may have fallen from our vests. The first thing I realized when standing up was that the ship had angled itself sideways and rocked incrementally side to side. What used to be a level floor now turned into an incline, making it difficult to remain still on without slipping.

"Nightpath, talk to me, what the hell just happened?!" Sunset radioed in. The channel was immediately filled with faint static, among quiet groans in the background.

"I don't know, Sergeant, we've struck something!" he responded, panting.

"What could we have hit out here? Driftwood?" Ash said in more of a confused statement than a question.

"Shoal, maybe," Anchorage answered. "We aren't moving, that's for sure."

A brief, shrill noise returned through the channel, startling the five of us, disappearing no longer than second after, followed by muffled static feedback. I raised a hoof up to my earpiece, tapping it. "Night... Nightpath, you there?"

No response.

Ash suddenly grunted with pain, leaning against the wall with his teeth clenched. The first thing I noticed when turning to him was a gaping hole in the rear of his vest, but no blood or any sign of a wound for that matter.

"Bloody hell, man!" the white-grey pegasus lurched to him, placing a hoof on his shoulder to check him over.

"I-I'm okay," he groaned. "It got me in the plates..."

"Sluta, upphöra eld!" screeched someone from behind us in a language I did not understand.

More brief, incoherent speech came not a moment after, before my ear swiveled to the noise of metallic clinks of an object bouncing and rolling across the floor. Without any warning, a blinding light exploded before my very eyes, jolting enough to knock me backwards. I stumbled off-balance, falling onto my back on the floor, my rifle still in-hoof and falling beside me.

An ear-piercing ringing left in the wake of the flash reverberated throughout my head, throwing the remaining senses of mine completely out of wack. Despite reopening my eyes, a fading image of what I'd seen a split second before obscured my vision momentarily. When my vision did finally return, my head was sideways, with my entire form flat across the floor with either forehooves straight out on both sides.

The high-pitched buzzing in my ears faded out over a few lengthy seconds, though my hearing remained shot for the most part. Incoherent voices came from behind and almost directly above me. Someone shouted, yet still, not a word of it I could make out.

I felt my gun be lifted from the barrel, my hoof slipping from its hold around the handle behind the trigger and falling back to the floor. An alarming shadow loomed over, a silhouette above me moving across my body. Inches from the tip of my muzzle, a talon planted itself on the floor. On it was a black tactical glove of some sort with holes for the claws to fit through.

My gaze gradually lifted from the floor, briefly squinting my eyes and opening them wide afterward as I tried to snatch a better glance at the figure. He or she wore a matching short-sleeved shirt beneath a heavy vest over their chest. In the opposite talon, they held a modified rifle, fitted with a scope, laser, and a suppressor, pointing upward.

Ear swiveling to a groan beside me, opposite of the figure, my head fell, jaw smacking sideways into the floor. With my eyes facing directly forward, I took note of another figure on the floor—Ashfall—moving his hoof not more than two inches closer to his side, but otherwise motionless.

Another talon suddenly clenched around my throat, lifting me up. I winced, eyelids tightly closing as a soft grunt emit through grit teeth. The claws squeezed only gently, not nearly enough to cease blood circulation nor deprive me of oxygen, holding my upper half up about a foot above the ground.

Shakily cracking my eyelids, narrowing my gaze on the griffon's golden beak inches from my muzzle. His eyes were shielded by a visor a few shades darker than the color of his maw inside his light grey helmet, above it sat a single goggle attached to the NODs mount above the rim.

"Do me and all of your friends a favor. You forget a thousand things every day, how about you make sure this is one of 'em," he muttered, before releasing my throat and the back of my helmet striking the floor with me letting out a second, more audible grunt.

In the two seconds it took to return to part of my senses, the griffon absconded, as did the others among him who had been shouting between each other.

With just enough strength, I rolled myself onto my back and pressed a hoof into the floor, grunting. Despite taking no physical hits, the flash grenade showed to have stunned me enough to knock much of my energy out, or do much more than affect my sight and hearing.

The others seemed to have suffered the effects equally. No one was unconscious, then again, nopony knew what just happened. Apart from myself, that is.

Silver held both of his ears down with his hooves, pressing them into his temples and covering them while laying on his back. His teeth bared, grit in response of the horrid, deafening sound released by the grenade. He hadn't yet opened his eyes, which may or may not have been the brightest idea without readjusting after the blinding flash.

Among him, the others either lay on their sides or in prone position, individually wincing still after a full minute had gone by. I hurried to Silver's side and slid a hoof behind his back and gently began sitting him upward, saying, "S-Sil—Silver, get up!"

Evidently he could not hear me still, even after prying his hooves away from his ears. His eyes shot wide open, his pupils severely dilated, a definite signature of blindness, although it would be temporary.

"S-STAR?!" he cried, squinting as he attempted to see properly.

"It's me, Silver! I'm right here!" I shouted right back, loud enough for him to hopefully make out what I said.

He pushed a calm hoof into my upper chest, just beneath my larnyx, using the other to prop himself upright. In spite of his lack of sight, the beige unicorn continued to study the space around him, noting the others as they finally began to stir.

"Damn it," Ash wheezed, only just now catching his breath from the shot he took moments prior. "What the hell was that? Flashbang?"

No one responded immediately, rather initially concentrating on rising back to their hooves. From the moment he stood, Anchorage stumbled, practically hugging the wall to catch himself. Catching a quick glance in his direction, I noticed him cover his muzzle, his cheeks puffing out and turning a sickly-green color along with the majority of his face.

"Everypony good?" the sergeant grunted out, rubbing a hoof in his earlobe. A nod from myself and Silver came in reply, as well as a wretched sailor whipping around and hurling up his lunch into an opened door with the awful splatter perceptible to all, leaving none of us without uneasy stomachs afterward.

As soon as Anchorage had finished, he motioned a hoof outside of the door from which he stood half in to, before grasping the steel frame and grossly puking a bit more, panting as he turned to face us with his helmet off and against his chest, held in his other hoof. He plopped it back atop his head and clicked the strap buckle to secure it.

Returning the pegasus with a nod, Sergeant Sunset announced into comms. "We are on our way to you, Night. Five minutes."

"Copy," he responded, slightly muffled by radio distortion caused by the storm.

Immediately after, the sergeant switched frequencies, this time calling in to our ship. "Eclipse, this is Hummingbird. In need of fast extraction. We have friendlies on board to transport."

"Hummingbird, copy, hang tight. Extraction is on its way. We are closing distance to save time, over," responded the sailor at the other end of the mic.

"Copy, over," Sunset replied, switching frequencies once more, this time to address everypony. "Chopper's on its way, be ready."

***

A second violent lurch to the left threw the five of us off balance as we closed in on the bridge, where Nightpath and the remaining crew of the ship stood by. Now, the ship was leaning at an angle almost impossible to walk properly on. Any further, and for the first time in my life, I would have to use a wall as the floor.

"The waves are grinding us along the shoal," Anchorage huffed out, his wings out for stability along the crooked floor. "Last thing we need is a hundred-footer coming along and overturning us. We're screwed then."

"I appreciate the play-by-play, Petty Officer," the sergeant grunted, throwing open a hatch into a stairwell leading into the bridge tower. "That just might not be necessary right now!"

We hurried in a tight-knit in a line without a moment to stop for a breath up the multi-story staircase. About a flight of stairs beneath the control room, the pilots of the helicopter called over our channel for all to hear.

"Hummingbird, this is Raven. Two minutes 'til extract, over."

In frustration, Ashfall took helm of the mic. "May not be here two minutes!"

Although no voice returned, not even a 'copy' by the pilots, the message evidently still went through, setting forth the motion of the situation. By the ticking moments, I felt the weight of the ship begin to turn over on its side but with still a ways to go.

A rumbling vibration shook the vessel, confirming Anchorage's statement that we were, in fact, raking the area of shallow ocean floor. Faint, yet terrifying screeches of metal below our hooves as the hull tore away, among the echoing roar of flowing water as it had begun to fill the lower decks further pushed the mutual idea that it was imperative for us to get off the ship whenever possible.

Total darkness filled the stairwell as all power in the ship ceased, forcing Sunset to switch on his rifle's flashlight to guide the way, even as we rushed into the control room, the Alder's captain, and a few other crew mates waited, each wearing life vests, minus Nightpath who accompanied them.

"My ship, she has run aground," the captain somberly said, calm as ever, apart from the evident grief in his tone. "We have spent years with each other. It saddens me to acknowledge this to be her final voyage."

"Yeah, those bastards in Trottingham will pay us good in reparations for this!" added the sullen crew member from earlier, receiving nods from the other three.

"Where's the chopper, sergeant?" Night stepped up to him, silhouetted by a flash of lightning, the only other means of seeing properly.

"About a minute out now," he answered hastily, moving around the larger pony to the captain. "Traditionally, captains either go down with their ship, or they are the last one off. Not this time. You and your ponies will board first, is that clear?"

"Well, what about the rest of my crew?" the captain blinked, eyes briefly darting down and up as he eyeballed the sergeant.

"I'm afraid if there is anypony left below deck, it is too late for them. We found blood a few levels down, no bodies. Whoever planted those explosives in the engine room have to be behind it," Sunset replied sternly.

"Helo inbound!" Ash shouted from the front corner of the bridge, looking out as spotlights from the chopper swept across the lopsided deck of the ship.

Focus shifting to the stallion and back, Sunset nodded once. "It's go time. Everypony, on me!"

At his word, the captain and the remaining crew lined up behind the sergeant, with us taking the end to surround them in case of a second ambush, and the eleven of us speedily made our way down the same flights of stairs before reaching the deck, where the blackhawk hovered above at about forty or fifty feet.

In the form of blinding rain and rough surf, water splashed across the steel deck, making for a slick surface to run across and resulting in most of us having to take hold of the railing so as to not unintentionally slide off into the ocean on the other side of the ship, which held itself mere feet above the water surface while our side remained unevenly higher, all while the entire vessel continued to shift.

Rather than ropes used earlier, a basket fit for laying a single pony down in for rescues dropped down steadily, rocking vigorously back and forth in the gusty winds before Night and Ash grabbed hold to plant it flat on the deck, in it loading the captain and two of his crew mates, who each hung on for dear life as they rose up toward the helicopter.

The second all three were safely inside, the basket dropped again, this time crashing against the side off the edge of the ship and narrowly out of reach. In order to bring it back over, Silver ignited his horn, grunting as he lifted the heavy steel cage-like stretcher over the railing, where the final two civilian ponies boarded, along with Anchorage, as ordered by the sergeant.

Atop the slicing blades of the chopper above, as well as the roar of the storm in all directions up or down, one particular noise caught my attention. Ear swiveling, I snapped in the direction further down the deck, where the metal grate walkway had buckled upward among with a gaping hole in the ship that swayed ever so gently, with water pouring in.

Another jolt startled those of us still down here, even as the basket lowered for a third pickup. Silver and Night loaded up, being only them due to Night's sheer size, weighing him as much as two ponies combined and leaving myself, Sunset, and Ash.

Part of the winch lifting the basket up gave way, causing it to dip, and the two inside it to grab hold as a Marine in the chopper cabin reeled the rope in manually to level it out. That sent a shock through all of us at once.

I fell to the ground, sliding on the wet surface against another railing along with the sergeant and Ashfall as the whole vessel moved again. With a grunt silenced by the noise all around, I pressed up on all fours, pulling Ash up, who did the same with the sergeant, each snapping our gazes in the direction of the growing crack in the deck.

"It's going to give way!" I shouted, my voice only heard through comms.

At last, the basket lowered again, but took a sudden swing in a gust that threw it toward the three of us. Ash and I ducked just in time, yet the sergeant did not, and was struck directly in the face by the basket.

We pushed it off of Sunset so it no longer pinned him against the railing, finding his body to be limp and muzzle soaked with blood that dripped down onto his vest. My eyes shot wide open, as did Ash's.

"I got it, get him on there!" Ash yelled, grunting in effort as he bore the basket's weight from the opposite end.

I crouched slightly, looping a hoof behind Sunset's shoulders, the other around his back, lifting steadily until he lay flat in the basket, head turned to the side and eyes shut.

"Get in, get in!" Ash ordered, hopping inside the basket above the sergeant's head without sitting on him in the tiny space, with me following suit a second after. "Pull us up!"

The winch on the chopper's side began reeling in the rope, lifting the basket with the three of us in it gradually, right as a massive wave swept across the deck where we had just stood.

Upon reaching the opened cabin door, the Marine waiting pulled the bloodied, unconscious body of the sergeant inside, with me and Ash climbing inside and seating against the wall as the marine slid the door shut, locking it. Glancing out one of the windows, I gazed right back down at the vessel, throwing off my rain-drenched helmet and panting.

Ear-piercing metallic screeching and ripping, along with the horrifying straining of steel bending and breaking, all as the gaping crevasse on the port-side hull grew wider and soon met the opposite side.

The Alder began to turn by the force of a strong wave sloshing against the hull near the bow. With an enormous snapping noise, the forward half of the ship broke free, dipping beneath the high surf and bobbing for a full few moments before disappearing, the stern soon following with bits and pieces of debris breaking off and crashing down into the water.

Rolling on to its starboard side, the remains of the Alder capsized over the edge of the reef, vanishing beneath a final, gigantic wave that took it under in seconds. Those of us on the right side of the helicopter watched in pure shock and awe as the hundreds of thousands of pounds of steel passed from sight instantly.

A final, relieving message addressed through all comms channels.

"This is Raven, returning to base."

Author's Note:

Who are the mysterious squadron of griffons? What were they doing on the Alder? Why was Star and his unit spared? So many questions...

Either way, I'm happy to finally finish this mini arc in the story. A smaller one shall come within the next few chapters, but will not nearly be as action-filled. Stay tuned!