With Her Majesty's Coast Guard

by SockPuppet

Four: Autumn

Captain Blue looked across the ocean, his back to the Coast Guard station and Manehattan Harbor. The horizon was black and peppered with lightning. It was around nine in the morning, the sun just rising above the eastern clouds.

"Tonight," Admiral Glider said. "It'll be tonight."

Blue nodded. The hurricane, born in the tropical heat off Hippogriffia and too large to be broken up by any number of pegasi, wasn't expected to make landfall, but its outer bands of rain and wind would thrash the entire Equestrian coast.

"We're ready," Blue said.

"We're not ready enough."

"What commander ever feels her ponies are well trained enough, Admiral?"

She grunted.

Blue watched her as she closed her eyes and flared her wings, ears swiveling forward, face-on to the distant storm. The barest tingle at the base of Blue's horn told him she was summoning deep pegasus magic. In his fifty-three years under Celestia's Sun, she was the only non-unicorn he had been able to feel summoning her magic.

Her damned and banished great-grandmother's alicorn blood was still strong within her.

"The eye will come within ten miles of shore," Gale said, eyes still clenched, "near Pone Island Shoals."

"That's one of your fiefs."

"My husband will be there, along with my steward. They will have been battening and sandbagging since yesterday. I'll visit after things are secure here."

"Yes, ma'am."

Gale's eyes opened and she looked at Blue. "Moonglow is likely to be terrified and giving his nannies fits, but Storm Squall will find the storm a lark. I got a letter yesterday, did I tell you? Squall manifested her cutie mark! Thunderhead and lightning bolt. I'll use inspecting the damage as an excuse to see her and give her a hug."

"An excellent idea, Admiral. I hope your fief holds up well against the storm. Is your little one not young for a mark?"

"Our family manifests early. We think it is because we have so much work to do for Equestria." Gale sighed and walked to the brick headquarters building. Blue went to the docks to check on the preparations.

The cutters Borealis and North Star were ready, fully crewed and provisioned, and with an extra team of medical orderlies stationed on each on the assumption any civilian ship rescued would be full of injuries or hypothermia cases.

The offshore wind would easily drive the cutters out of the anchorage, although they would be forced to beat through the channel between Manehattan Harbor and the open ocean before they could turn north, east, or south to their eventual destination. Rescues directly east, out to sea, would be nearly impossible in this wind, although their schooner-rigged sail plans would let them easily beat north or south along the coast.

The caravel confiscated from the smuggler Venal Gladhoof was also tied alongside the two cutters. Blue grinned. The Admiralty court had, indeed, condemned the ship, allowing the Coast Guard to take it into service. The prize money, spread across all the ponies and officers, had been equal to a week's pay for the enlisted. When the admiral refused her forty percent share, it almost doubled the prize money to each enlisted pony.

The cheers had nearly broken the windows of the enlisted mess hall, Blue remembered.

A skeleton crew battened down the caravel, now rechristened HMCGC Dawn's Light, preparing it to ride out the storm tied to the dock. A steady stream of water gushed from a hose tossed over a bulwark as ponies pumped the bilge. It leaked badly and needed dry-docking to reseal its seams with fresh pitch, but that would probably have to wait for spring. It would also be fitted with a more modern sail plan at the same time. As it was today, the regular cutters could sail two full points closer to the wind than the caravel.

After checking with the officers aboard the cutters and the senior petty officer aboard the caravel, Blue also returned to the brick headquarters. The rain was falling in large drops by the time he reached the building. It was a cold rain, having forgotten the tropical waters of the hurricane's birth.

---

Captain Blue startled awake with a pop of sparks from his horn.

"Sir," whispered the rating, shaking his shoulder. "Sir, we've got one."

Blue sat up and rubbed his face. He was on a cot at the edge of the operations room. Petty officers and enlisted clustered around a map table under the eye of Commander Full Larder.

On the cot next to Blue's, the admiral snored, a thin blanket covering her torso, flat on her belly, a wing covering her face. Her feathers ruffled and relaxed in time with something in her dreams.

Blue shuffled to the map table, cursing his middle-aged knees, and straightened his rumpled uniform tunic. He slipped spectacles on his nose as he looked at the petty officer in charge of the map.

"Scroll just came in, sir." The petty officer winged it to Captain Blue. "Cargo galleon off the Stony Island Point lost its mainmast. They've hung storm canvas on the foremast and mizzen but they're not in good control. Half a dozen injured, one dead."

Blue nodded. One of the cutters could easily tow the galleon into the lee of Stony Island to anchor and ride out the storm.

Blue looked around and spotted Master Steward Proper Place. "Wake the admiral."

"Aye aye."

Less than a minute later, Gale stood next to Blue, yawning into her wing and accepting a mug of cocoa from Proper Place. "Captain?"

"Merchant ship... hmm... the Pelican," Blue said, looking at the scroll. He explained the situation. "I think we should send Dead Reckoning and the North Star."

Gale shuffled to the far side of the headquarters room, gesturing for Blue and Full Larder to follow. Once the three officers were huddled together away from other ears, Gale whispered, "Can she do it?"

Blue nodded. "Commander Reckoning can. This is a simple enough job. We'll hold me and the Borealis back in case something worse comes in."

Gale looked at Full Larder. Besides running the shoreside portion of the Coast Guard, he was also Gale's Chief of Staff.

"I concur," Larder said.

Gale stared out the window at the heavy black clouds. Moderate wind blew the trees and fallen leaves, the sky darkening with evening. Fat drops of rain hit the glass. Her feathers ruffled. After about fifteen seconds, her feathers smoothed down. "Do it. So ordered, by my authority and responsibility."

She sat her cocoa mug on a stool, returned to her bunk, and flopped down, instantly back asleep.

Blue momentarily resented her ability to order ponies into mortal danger and then fall back asleep. He was going to be awake and pacing as nervously as a one-headed hydra until North Star returned.

But then Blue considered: Gale had risen to be the youngest admiral in history as the Navy's premier combat commander, her rank, her decorations, and one of her peerages earned in gunsmoke, cold steel, and blood. She no doubt knew the value of sleep to an officer's decision making more than most ponies.

He donned his rain slicker and personally took the scroll to the North Star. Within half an hour, the cutter and Commander Dead Reckoning disappeared into the mist, the cutter's huge ensign and commission streamer the last to disappear into the mist. Blue returned to the command center and looked at the clock: four in the afternoon.

Two more hours until twilight, and perhaps twenty-four or more hours of storm.

Blue wished he could sleep.

---

It was sometime around midnight when a second scroll appeared with a blue magic flame. The petty officer instantly opened and read it.

"Bad one, sir."

"Wake the admiral," Blue said before even reading it himself.

Admiral Glider was at his side, instantly awake. "Situation?"

Blue read, his ears wilting. "A deep-draft merchant got pushed onto the mud flats off Gurnsey Shore. The Sea Sow."

"What an unfortunate name," said Gale.

"They're stuck fast and the wind is backing. They're carrying five hundred tons of wheat, and their back will break once the wind gets on their beam. Ninety souls."

"You'll have to use boats or pegasi relays to move the crew off, sir," Chief Salt Spray said. "You won't be able to approach beam-to-beam on the mudflats."

Gale looked at the clock. "Damn. Officer-Cadet Red Sky isn't due back from leave for another thirty-six hours. Small boats are his bailiwick."

"Yes, ma'am," Blue replied. "Lacking him, permission to grab some extra pegasi from the shoreside crew?" Blue asked.

"Granted." Gale's voice turned formal. "Captain Blue, I order you to sortie with the Borealis and take the crew off the merchant. Do not risk lives or Her Majesty's cutter to save the ship. Only attempt salvage if it appears easy. Lives first, property second."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good luck."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Full Larder nodded at Blue. "Sir."

Blue donned his rain slicker and hustled to the Borealis. The rain now lashed the grounds of the station and he leaned low to keep the wind from blowing him off his hooves.

He gave a last wave to the admiral through the window. She raised a mug of cocoa in farewell.

It was the last time he ever saw Gale.

---

His Lordship, the Second Baron MacIntosh Hills, who still thought of himself as merely Officer-Cadet Red Sky, squinted his eyes as he flapped into the gale-force winds. He was already exhausted from the hard cross-country flight, and the storm struck him full in the face as he reached Manehattan and the coast.

The glow of the lights of the Coast Guard station were barely a blur in front of him, but his flight senses kept him on course. He flew as high as he could, just below the cloud deck, where sudden downdrafts would be harder-pressed to slam him into the ground.

Crossing the breakwater, Red Sky noticed that both the Borealis and the North Star were gone. That was—that wasn't good. It was early hours in the storm, yet, and both cutters had already sortied?

Tucking wings, he dropped from the sky and splashed four-hooves-down in a large puddle outside the headquarters building. The sentry, miserable despite oilskins, saluted as Red Sky stormed through the door.

Heat and light washed over Red Sky as he entered the main map room. Commander Full Larder looked up from the map table. Red Sky saluted the commander and Full Larder gave a sloppy return salute before pointing to the bathroom.

Everypony spoke in whispers and tiphooved silently, and Red Sky noticed the admiral asleep on a cot in the back corner, a wing over her face.

Dripping rainwater and leaving a soaking path across the floor, Red Sky trotted to the bathroom. One of the stewards brought him towels, a dry uniform from his quarters, and a hot coffee.

"Thank you."

"Yes, milord."

Red Sky fought back a sigh. The admiral was always 'Admiral,' never 'Highness,' to the enlisted ponies, yet they all called him 'milord' now. What was the difference? He would have preferred to be merely another officer—and a junior one at that—to the enlisted, not a Peer of the Realm from the most rarefied heights of the aristocracy.

Still damp, still shivering, he re-entered the map room. The admiral was awake and standing, staring at the map table and sipping a steaming mug of chocolate. A sailor was mopping up Red Sky's wet hoofprints.

"My Lord," Gale said.

Red Sky ground his teeth. She was milording him, too! He deliberately refused to use her Court titles: "Admiral. I report for duty."

"Your barony's harvest festival is today and tomorrow, yet you've returned from leave early."

Oh, Red Sky thought. It is Court business. "Yes, Princess. An itinerant musical company brought word of the storm. I excused myself immediately and flew back here."

"Should not a new baron oversee his barony's most important yearly event?"

"I am an officer in the Crown's uniform, and my cousin is an industrious and expert steward of my fief. By this same logic, Duchess, should you not be at your duchy on Pone Island, supervising the storm preparations?"

She smiled. "An excellent point. And I, too, have a steward I trust. As the officer-cadet no doubt observed, both cutters have sortied. I would expect them both to return sometime after dawn."

"Yes, ma'am. With the Boeralis sortied, I cannot take my assigned action station, so I place myself at the admiral's disposal."

"Commander Larder is due for some sleep," said Admiral Glider. "Take the map table."

"Aye aye, ma'am." Red Sky moved to the map table and tried to look calm, competent, and officer-ly. Thanks to the actual work being performed by well-trained ratings and petty officers, there was no work for him.

Full Larder flopped onto one of the cots in the back of the command center and pulled the blanket over his head. Gale moved to the window and stared at the stormy night.

It was an hour later, and the wind was rising to a new and severe pitch, when the third scroll appeared in a flash of blue magic.

"Shit," said half the ponies, including Gale and Red Sky.

A petty officer grabbed the scroll and read it, his face turning pale. "It's a passenger liner. The Safe Harbour, under Captain Pleasure Cruise, out of Trottingham and inbound for Manehattan. It's—Celestia! It's only a few miles north of us, aground on Windward Rocks."

"Oh no," said one of the ratings.

Full Larder was off his bunk and rubbing his eyes, leaning over the map.

East End, the Trottingham pegasus assigned to the admiral's entourage, approached from behind and whispered into Red Sky's ear. "Beggin' the young Baron's pardon, milord, but Bonfire Night was last week. A passenger liner from Trottingham will be right full of families heading back to the mainland after the holiday."

Red Sky turned and stared at him, his jaw dropping open. "Say that louder."

East End repeated it.

"What do we do?" Full Larder said.

Gale looked at Red Sky. She asked, "You were outside an hour ago, Officer-Cadet. Boats?"

"No, no chance, ma'am. The waves are too much."

"The Dawn's Light, then," said Gale.

"Ma'am," Full Larder replied, "it's not ready."

"It's what we've got."

"We have no officers for it."

"What are we?" Gale snapped, gesturing around the command center.

"He's a cadet," Larder said, pointing at Red Sky, "and one officer alone can't handle a caravel. I'm an army logistician transferred to the Coast Guard. I don't know how to sail a ship on a clear June day, much less into a hurricane!"

"I'll do it myself."

"Ma'am," Full Larder said. "Ma'am, the Dawn's Light isn't ready."

Gale looked at Larder. "This is a grounded passenger liner. We have to go out."

"We won't come back."

She turned to the window, staring at the waxing fury of the storm. "What good is a Coast Guard that won't even try?"

Larder swallowed. "Yes, ma'am. Ma'am, in that case, I volunteer to act as executive officer for you. The young baron can mind the store here ashore."

Red Sky gaped at Full Larder.

The admiral laughed, turning back to face them. "The Officer-Cadet is a trained ship handler. You are not, Commander, by your own admission. Officer-Cadet? Volunteers only. This isn't suicide, but it's dangerous. Extremely dangerous. I need a trained seagoing officer as my exec. Will you take this assignment?"

Red Sky swallowed. He thought about earlier that day, at the harvest festival. Two months before, at Grandfather's funeral, decorum had been formal and stern as the pyre returned Grandfather to the sky, where pegasi belonged for eternity. This time, instead, after word about the small boat rescue Red Sky had assisted, with the beautiful autumn sunlight shining down and with bumper crops to fill the silos and larders for the winter, the mood was celebratory, ebullient. The wandering musicians' word of the hurricane stunned the celebration, quieting the crowds, stilling the bands and dancers, and every head turned to stare at him.

Red Sky hesitated, hesitated a good fifteen seconds, feeling the questions behind all those thousands of eyes. The ponies of the barony—his ponies, whom he held in Celestia's sacred trust as their Baron—obviously wondering if their young baron really had been the officer who led the transfer of the passengers and crew off the ferry, or if that story might have grown in the telling, if it might have been a one-off moment of lunacy. Wondering if the Young Baron really was made of the same stuff the Old Baron had been made of, the sort of pony who had bled with Tranquility at the Battle of the Bridge.

Red Sky declared, "I must return to my duty," and flew for Manehattan, leaving his barony in his cousin's charge again. He left half a mug of mulled cider and a plate of uneaten food, left his bags and spare uniform in his foalhood room—he had refused to move to Grandfather's baronial suite as yet—simply leaping into the air and turning east with nothing but the dress uniform on his back.

Cheers followed behind him as his wings had beat for altitude.

Now, he glanced past Gale, standing at the window. Sheets of rain pounded against the glass and the wind waxed even stronger. A poorly maintained caravel like Dawn's Light wouldn't do nearly so well in these heavy seas as either of the modern cutters. To stay behind was no dishonor, for some officer must stay at the station for continuity of command. The most junior and supernumerary officer could do that job just as well as a full commander—

No. No. What would those ponies of his barony think once they heard he had shirked his duties? For they would hear. The ponies who had cheered their brave Young Baron, dashing in his smartly tailored black-and-jade uniform as he rushed towards his duty. No. No. No! A second generation of the Barons of MacIntosh Hills would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with another Princess of the Blood. Today would be rescue, not battle, but it would be a stain on his family's name to refuse. It took generations to build the honor of a Noble House, and only a single word to destroy it.

"As my grandfather fought at your aunt's back, I shall sail under your flag."

Full Larder grimaced, as if tasting rancid fruit, and said, "A young barony should not lose a young baron who has produced no heir."

Red Sky flared his wings and whirled on the older officer. Wind swirled as uncontrolled pegasus magic, strong with teenage ire, stirred papers and map markers. "Be damned to any barony whose baron refuses duty!"

"You are a sixteen-year-old cadet."

"I," Red Sky hissed, "am an officer of the Royal Equestrian Coast Guard, by the oath I swore of my own free will."

"A hurricane is no place for a foal!"

"How many foals on that passenger ship?" Red Sky shook, his ears flattening to his skull. He swallowed down his rage and spoke in a cold whisper: "You may be my superior officer, Commander, but I am a Peer of the Realm and I will not have my honor, my courage, or my fealty questioned. Celestia expects her vassals to stand between her subjects and danger. I will die before I disappoint Celestia and dishonor my House."

The ratings and petty officers all looked as if they wished to disappear between the slats of the floor.

"Officer-Cadet," the admiral intoned.

He tucked his wings tight to his sides and snapped to the best parade-ground attention he could manage. Something in her voice—the admiral's voice seemed deeper and slower than her usual.

The voice of somepony speaking to history, somepony knowing that dozens of ears would remember every word, and spread the story until every ear in Equestria heard it.

Somepony speaking with the Honor of the Crown, and with generations of the Royal family's blood and sacrifice behind it.

Somepony speaking to future generations.

"Baron MacIntosh Hills," she said, looking into his eyes, "Go tell the crew on the Dawn's Light to be ready to sail in fifteen minutes. Only volunteers will be accepted. Anypony may disembark to shore without prejudice. I will be along presently to sail the ship to succor those ponies in need or to die trying, and I will accept nopony on my crew who doesn't wish the same."

"Aye aye, ma'am." He started for the door. A steward helped him don heavy oilskins.

"Commander Full Larder," the admiral continued, "you will be the officer-in-charge while I'm gone. Please send a messenger to Surgeon-Lieutenant Soothing Wave to put a detachment of her ponies aboard the Dawn's Light before we sail. Additionally, I need you..."

Red Sky stepped into the storm and galloped for the ship. He passed Gale's orders and only two ponies disembarked, both middle-aged fathers to large families. Their shoulders slumped and tails hung low as they slunk down the gangplank.

Ten more volunteers from the shoreside base boarded, including the Surgeon-Lieutenant and five of her medical orderlies.

---

It was an hour later when they tacked out of harbor and into Pone Island Sound. Red Sky stood next to the helmsmare, a young petty officer. She looked at the rigging, adjusting the rudder to keep the sails full of the wind. A massive earth pony, her thick muscles fought the action of the waves to keep the rudder under control. Red Sky felt a bit embarrassed by his scrawny legs and lanky frame in comparison. When would he get his growth spurt and stop looking like nothing but ears and wings?

Dawn's Light pressed north under storm canvas, oilskin-clad ponies in the rigging and lashed with double safety harnesses. The admiral herself was in the bow, shouting her helm orders to Proper Place, who used a signal lamp to blink the orders to Red Sky and the helmsmare at the stern.

"Wind's not as bad as I anticipated, Baron," shouted the helmsmare.

"The storm's swung farther to sea," Red Sky shouted back, "and Pone Island's taking the brunt of it for us. Be glad we're not in the open ocean!"

He looked east, Pone Island's bulk invisible in the night, despite the strobing lightning. Had the passenger ship run aground on the ocean side of the island, and not in the sound, the Dawn's Light would surely have stood no prayer.

Looking at the admiral, he knew the Dawn's Light would have gone out, anyway.

Surgeon-Lieutenant Soothing Wave struggled onto the deck from a hatch, snapped her storm suit to a safety line, and was copiously seasick on her own forehooves. The rain and spray quickly washed the mess away. She approached Red Sky and shouted into his ears to be heard above the storm: "My ponies and I have the cargo deck as squared away into a receiving station as we can get it, XO!"

"Thank you, Doctor. Shouldn't you be below deck?"

She laid a hoof on his withers. "I puke slightly less up here!"

Proper Place's lamp blinked: one and half points port. Red Sky repeated the order and two chiefs gave the necessary commands to the sail handlers as the helmsmare brought the ship slightly left.

Steady on their new course, wind strong off the starboard stern, the Dawn's Light fought up one wave after another.

Red Sky's heart pounded and his stomach churned. Tears welled in his eyes, hidden by the rain and spray. He had meant every word he said to Full Larder, but a hot ingot of fear seemed stuck deep in his guts. Knowing what duty required didn't make the storm any less dangerous.

He stood at his station and fought to keep the appearance of fear hidden, so that he could play the roles of Officer of the Crown and Peer of the Realm that carried so little truth, but were so vital for the crew to see.

---

A rogue wave had swept away the helsmare's wind-up clock, but Red Sky estimated they were two hours, and between seven and ten miles, north of the harbor's mouth.

"Flare!" shouted a lookout high in the rigging. "Flare dead ahead!"

Red Sky wiped salty spray from his eyes and stared forward. Wind stung his eyes and he squinted. Indeed, a green streak of light rose into the rainy sky. It detonated above the cloud deck, lighting the undersides of the storm with an eerie auroral light. One green flare was the standardized signal for I am in distress.

"Fire two yellow flares, Bosun," Red Sky ordered. Two yellow flares: I am coming to your aid.

"Milord." A few seconds later, the flares detonated forward of and high above the Dawn's Light.

A minute later, a white and a green flare streaked up in the distance ahead of them. White and green flares: I await your aid.

And then, about fifteen seconds later, the flare Red Sky feared blossomed over the still-invisible passenger ship: red.

A red flare, of course, meant I have injured aboard.

"Surgeon-Lieutenant?" Red Sky asked. "Do you see that?"

"I'll have my ponies don their storm gear, Baron," Soothing Wave said before disappearing below deck.

A messenger passed the word from Gale in the bow: "All pegasi don rescue gear!" Red Sky tore off his oilskins. The wind and rain chilled him to the bone instantly, soaking his black uniform, but he donned a bulky lifejacket and thin steel helmet, both bright orange. The lifejacket made his wings sit awkwardly on his flanks, but it would have been impossible to fly in the storm gear. Rain beaded on his waterproof feathers.

Dawn's Light turned slightly to starboard, the wind shifting broader on their beam. They lost speed, the caravel's obsolete sail plan struggling to tack anywhere close to the wind.

Worse, the scratch crew of the Dawn's Light didn't have enough sail handlers and the maneuver was sloppy, the ship hogging deep into a wave as they lost headway.

"Milord!" shouted the helmsmare as the wheel tried to rip itself from her hooves. Red Sky leaned into it, adding his own rather minimal adolescent weight to hers until the wind refilled the sails and the ship steadied on her new course.

The admiral trotted from her place at the bow to Red Sky's position near the stern. "Exec, come speak with me."

They huddled to the side, near the helmsmare but far enough away that wind and rain would let them speak privately. Gale had already abandoned her storm gear, donning her own lifejacket and helmet.

"Admiral," Red Sky began, shouting to be heard, "if you lay us along their port stern, that will—"

"You lied to me."

Red Sky blinked. "Ma'am?"

"At dinner last spring, at the Delmarenico. You told me you didn't know why you volunteered to transfer from the Navy to the Coast Guard."

"Can this not wait until later, ma'am?"

"The most dangerous part of this sortie approaches. Tell me now in case we're dead later."

"M—ma'am, I admire your grandmother. My mother read me the story of the plague fifty times. I wanted to be a surgeon. But the schooling is too long, too intense for an heir. The heir to a peerage can either be a Canterlot fop, attending elegant parties and chasing elegant tails, backstabbing and intriguing, or an heir can wear the Crown's uniform and get as far away from Canterlot as possible. You know this, a princess of the blood has the exact same two choices! When the Coast Guard requested Navy volunteers—well, rescues seemed more appealing than artillery."

She smacked him on the back with a wing. "Thank you for the truth, My Lord. What were you saying about the port stern?"

"The wind will be shifting to the north as the storm runs its course. It'll be on our bow by the time we're done with the galleon, but the waves will still be on the beam. If we cut our anchors on the downswell after we're done, go hard port into the swell, we'll stand the best chance of missing collision with their stern and the rocks, get turned around and run for home."

She looked forward, over the bulwark.

After about ten seconds, she said, "Good thinking. Go organize it, Exec. I'll take the deck."

"You have the deck, Adm— Skipper."

"Never thought I'd be called that again, after I got my commodore's flag nine years ago." She smiled and wing-smacked him on the back again. "You will lead the boarding team."

Red Sky swallowed and forced his ears to stay erect instead of wilting in terror. "Yes, ma'am."

"You are a Peer of the Realm, so I expect much. You are also an officer of Her Majesty's Coast Guard, so I expect even more."

"I will be the last pony off the ship, ma'am, or else I will go down with it."

"Celestia expects nothing less." She nodded curtly. "To the bows with you, I'll handle the helm orders, you take the anchors and sails."

"Aye aye, Skipper."

---

The sails strained as the Dawn's Light tacked as close to the wind as it could, barely making headway against the swell. A continuous stream of illumination flares arced up and exploded, the hurricane blowing the flares hither and yon as they fell on their parachutes.

In the actinic light, the shadows and glare jumping at random, Red Sky could see passengers and crew huddled on the galleon's deck. Its mainmast was snapped and the bow crunched onto a prominent rock, the bowsprit askew. Storm-driven waves hit the rocks and the ship, exploding upwards in spray. It faced roughly south, and the Dawn's Light crossed its bow, driving east-northeast.

He estimated the time—between three and four in the morning—and recalled the day's tide tables. The tide was rising toward a peak at half-past eight. As the tide refloated Safe Harbour, the ship would be pushed farther onto the rocks and its keel ripped out. They had two or three hours to rescue the passengers and crew, if his estimates were accurate.

Sails shifted and the Dawn's Light heeled to port, running up the other ship's port side, from their bow towards their stern. The cutter accelerated, the wind now on their own stern.

Ponies waved desperately at Red Sky as they passed less than a cable's distance from the Safe Harbour. Their features were sharp and pale in the harsh flarelight.

He cupped his wings around his mouth and bellowed, "We're the Coast Guard and we're here to take you off!"

Ponies on the deck held up foals, beseeching Red Sky to take them to safety.

Red Sky looked at the other ship, the waves, and the Dawn's Light's sails. Soon— soon— soon— now! "Dump the wind, bosun! Anchors!"

Chiefs and petty officers, in turn, bellowed orders and the Dawn's Light spilled her sails, losing headway as the stern anchor dropped, biting into the rocky bottom of Pone Island Sound, slowing the ship, and then the bow anchor. The ship lurched and staggered as the anchors caught. It knocked Red Sky off his hooves, slamming him into a bulwark and winding him. His helmet prevented a nasty head wound.

Standing up, he watched the petty officers playing out anchor lines from the windlasses. The wind pressed on their stern and the waves pressed on their starboard beam. When the Dawn's Light was about one hundred yards from the Safe Harbour, he shouted, "Firm on the anchors! Boarding party, rally to me!"

Dawn's Light halted, just off the stricken liner's port stern, and he trotted to the middle of the weather deck. Twenty-one pegasi—every pegasus of the complement except the admiral—and one unicorn formed up on him. Ten pegasi stood in five pairs, each pair with a canvas rescue hammock harnessed between their torsos. The others had individual rescue slings, carpenter's tools, or medical kits snapped to their lifejackets. The single unicorn, Chief Petty Officer Reef Knot, stood with them, also in life jacket and helmet. East End snapped his harness to her, ready to carry the chief to the galleon.

The princess, standing by the helmsmare's wheel, met his eyes and nodded once. Regulations forbade the master of a vessel from leaving it; rescue sorties were the executive officer's duty, and the regret was clear in her eyes.

Baron, she mouthed silently.

Princess, he mouthed back with a nod.

The team—all soaking wet and miserably cold in life jackets and helmets instead of storm suits—looked at him. Shouting over the wind, his voice making its damned adolescent cracking again, "Foals and injured first, then teenagers, then adults, crew last. We're saving every single pony. Follow me."

Leaping into the air, fighting the hurricane's wind, he flew to the Safe Harbour.

He flew to danger.

He flew to his duty.

---

The wind was to Red Sky's rear, so the flight was short, nauseating, and dangerous. He tucked wings and landed hard, skidding on the soaking-wet deck planks.

The others landed, barely two wingbeats behind him. The orderlies immediately began to triage the wounded. Desperate parents shoved foals at the sailors, who strapped the little ones to their chests and began shuttle flights, carrying the smallest ones back to Dawn's Light and the medical team there. The paired-up pegasi took wounded into their hammock slings and carried them to the cutter. Red Sky didn't give a single order. Those ponies knew their duties, and Chief Reef Knot bellowed at the top of her lungs to organize the civilians.

A teenage filly, sopping wet in her sailor's uniform rather than oilskins, ran to him.

"Take me to your ship's master," snapped Red Sky. "Now."

"Sir." She double-timed to a hatch and slipped belowdecks, Red Sky following her. Dim oil lamps cast desultory puddles of jaundiced light. The wooden beams and planks of the ship creaked around them with every wave, and the sharp smell of salt and the sickening reek of scummy bilge water told Red Sky that the Safe Harbour was flooding.

"I'm Deck Swab, sir. Sailor third class."

"Officer-Cadet Red Sky."

"They didn't have any real officers to send us, sir?"

"You're our third customer of the day. The cupboard was bare, and they found me under the bottom shelf."

"Nasty storm, sir," Deck Swab muttered. She brightened her horn, illuminating their way. She was about his same age, Red Sky noticed, and looked just as scared: face pale and ribs heaving. But she, too, stuck to her duty, leading him down another narrow stairway to a lower deck. They splashed through rising pools of oily bilge water that stank to the moon. From ahead of them, toward the ship's bow, came the sounds of sawing and hammering.

A dozen carpenters worked in the dim light of candles and spells to shore up a smashed passageway. Foals cried from beyond the crumpled and broken bulkheads, and a large earth stallion in a white officer's uniform—now stained with blood and tar—strained to hold a shoring timber while carpenters nailed it into place.

"Sir! The Coast Guard's here!" Deck Swab shouted.

The stallion craned his head to look at Red Sky.

Red Sky saluted. "Sir. I'm Red Sky, executive officer of—"

"Executive officer? Of what? Kindergarten?"

"—executive officer of Her Majesty's Coast Guard Cutter Dawn's Light. My ponies are beginning evacuation and medical triage. How may I render aid, Captain Pleasure Cruise?"

The stallion snorted and spoke in a strong Vanhoover accent. "The 'captain' flew for shore the instant the mainmast broke. We won't see him again. I'm the first officer, Silver Sail. We have ponies trapped in the bow. Have you any carpenters aboard your cutter?"

Red Sky looked at the sailor, Deck Swab. "Message to my ponies on deck. Bring carpenters from the cutter, and the carpenter's mates in my landing party down here double-time."

The filly repeated his message and sprinted away.

"We have a dozen passengers trapped forward," Silver Sail said.

Carpenters got the beam shored up and Silver Sail dropped to all fours, stretching a shoulder painfully. He squinted at Red Sky's lifejacket, which bore no insignia; Red Sky's usual lifejacket, marked with his name and rank, was with the Borealis. "Kindergarten or not, I'm glad to see you... Sub-Lieutenant?"

Red Sky grinned. "Officer-Cadet." His usual lifejacket had also been painted with House MacIntosh Hills' crest, sledgehammer and pickaxe crossed in front of an apple tree growing on a knoll. Entirely against regulations, but the crew acted so pleased with their surprise to him that Red Sky simply accepted the gift with thanks, and neither Captain Blue nor the Admiral took cognizance of the illegal flourish. He was glad he didn't need to explain a baronial crest to this officer! "The seas are too rough to bring our cutter alongside, but my pegasi are running relays, foals and wounded first. We have a surgeon and orderlies aboard the cutter. What are your casualties?"

"Six crew and ten passengers dead, five crew and fifteen passengers injured, mostly broken legs or bashed heads from the impact."

Red Sky nodded. "Unsurprising. We might not have time to recover bodies, sir."

Silver Sail grimaced and spat, but then nodded. "Understood. I—"

Deck Swab returned with the two carpenter's mates from Red Sky's landing crew.

"Assist these ponies," Red Sky ordered.

"Yes, milord."

"Aye-aye, Baron."

Silver Sail's eyes bugged out. "Baron?"

Red Sky held up a silencing hoof. "What other assistance can Her Majesty's Coast Guard render you?"

---

"Breathe, milady," Proper Place whispered to Gale. "Calm."

She whirled, sending a fulminating glare at him. "Counting the carpenters, I now have twenty-six ponies and one officer aboard that deathtrap. I should be there myself."

"Your duty is this cutter," Proper Place said. "As you bloody well know, child."

Gale tried to glare, but cracked a smile. Proper Place had been her personal armspony since she was ten years old, and was the only pony who could curse at her. Or call her 'child.'

"My duty," she said, "is far deeper than that, and you know it."

"Not tonight, it's not. Stay focused."

Another relay of pegasi flew over from the Safe Harbour, landing on the deck of the Dawn's Light and unsnapping their carry harnesses. The wounded passengers and crew were all already below deck, being treated by the surgeon and her ponies. Pegasus crew and passengers from the ship were working with Red Sky's boarding party, shuttling passengers to the cutter. All the foals were across; now teenagers and foals' parents were being transferred. Soon, the adults would be moved, then the crew, and then...

And then what? The ship didn't look salvageable, so once the crew was off, the Dawn's Light would head for home, leaving the abandoned galleon to break up on the rocks as the tide rose and the storm raged.

Gale didn't see Red Sky; presumably he was below deck, dealing with something. Chief Reef Knot was organizing the relay flights from deck to deck.

"I don't doubt the Young Baron's bravery," Gale said to Proper Place, "but I hope he's doing something that requires an officer and is not distracted by some shiny trinket."

"Young officers, especially officers who are also young nobles—or young royals—are bad at delegation, ma'am. As you well know."

"I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about," Gale said primly.

---

"Milord," said Carpenter's Mate Ripsaw, one of the crew carried over from the Dawn's Light, "we aren't getting this bulkhead freed, not before the tide rises and breaks her back. Sir."

"Not acceptable," Red Sky replied, tapping a hoof in the fetlock-deep pool of bilge water that was rising as the ship settled and seawater seeped in through broken seams. "There are ponies in the bow."

A foal's sobbing percolated through the mass of broken and jumbled wood.

"We'll rip out the decking," Ripsaw said, "and bring them out through the bilge."

Red Sky's eyes narrowed. That was a revolting thought, but it was the only approach that could possibly be fast enough. First Officer Silver Sail was elsewhere, dealing with one of the other crises, so this decision was Red Sky's alone.

The price of being an officer, he reflected. Make life or death decisions and then hope to live with the results.

Cocking his head, letting his pegasus magic reach out, he judged the depth of the rising water in the bilge. They would have to work fast. "Do it. Do it now."

"Aye aye, milord," Ripsaw said.

Carpenters, both from the passenger ship and brought over from the cutter, moved from attacking the shattered bulkheads to ripping up floor planks.

"Messenger!" Red Sky shouted.

"Here, milord." Deck Swab saluted.

Oh, to the moon with it! Even the merchant sailors were milord-ing him, now, too! "Check with the chief on deck and get an estimate on the time needed to finish the transfer."

"Aye aye!" She ran off.

Red Sky paced. He wanted to help, but the carpenters took up every hoofs-breadth of the corridor. With crowbars and hammers, they tore up deck planks. Icy bilge water, greasy and rancid, burst from the floor when they levered up the first board. He snarled in disgust as the bloated carcass of a bilge rat bumped into his right hoof before the current swept it away.

Flapping, he lifted off, hovering with his hooves tucked up, out of the disgusting tide. After about a minute, the gush turned to a trickle, and the carpenters continued ripping up planks. Deck Swab returned with an update. Just over half the passengers were now aboard Dawn's Light, but the pace was slackening as the pegasi wore out.

"All right," Red Sky said. "Give me a crowbar."

"Milord?" said Ripsaw.

Red Sky shed his helmet and life jacket. "I'm the smallest."

"Milord," Ripsaw said in a use-small-words-for-the-stupider-than-average-child voice, "the bilge water is oily. You'll foul your feathers and ground yourself."

"Somepony will just have to fly me back when we're done, here."

"Milord, let me go," Ripsaw said, levitating up a crowbar. "I don't have feathers to foul."

"You're coming with me," Red Sky said. "I'll need help to break into the underside of the passenger's cabin."

"My Lord," Ripsaw said, "I don't think that—"

"Your objection is noted. My order stands. Are you going to help me save those passengers?"

Ripsaw was silent for a few seconds. "Let's go, Baron."

Red Sky grabbed a crowbar from one of the other carpenters, tucking it under his right wing, and slid through the gap in the deck. The bilge water was cold beyond imagining and he gasped, nearly dropping the crowbar. His body clenched and his tail tucked. The water soaked his coat and his instincts screeched in the back of his head as the tarry, oily muck soaked into his feathers. Magic tingled up and down his wings as the contamination displaced his natural oils, his feathers clumping up and losing their well-preened alignment. It would be days before he could fly again.

Shaking his head, he looked up at the gathered ponies. "Light one," he said.

Deck Swab used her horn to ignite one of their precious few torch crystals and passed it down to him. He grabbed it in his teeth and started forward, the teal light bright and steady, the crystal cold on his lips. His hooves scrabbled against the scum-slicked bottom of the bilge. The water was about as deep as his withers, and Red Sky half-waded, half swam the six or seven pony lengths. He slipped and fell, dousing himself and dropping the crystal. It disappeared under the black water. He got back to his hooves, spluttering and cursing, blinking as his eyes burned. Slime coated his face and the sulfurous stench gagged him. Strings of algae hung off his right ear. At least, thank Celestia, he still held his crowbar.

Ripsaw, horn lit bright, was a step behind him. Red Sky pounded a forehoof on the decking above his head, trying to judge the distance, and a stomp answered him.

He extracted the crowbar from under his wing, balanced it on a hoof, and slammed its blunt edge in between two of the deck planks. Wood and pitch shattered, sawdust pattering down into his eyes, and he heaved.

Ripsaw joined him, levitating his crowbar, and nails shrieked as they ripped a plank free. The adults in the cabin above them used bare hooves to help rip the plank up and away, and soon, the first swaddled infant was passed down to him. Red Sky passed his crowbar up to the trapped passengers and then grabbed the scruff of the infant's neck in his teeth. He waded through the dark bilge, carrying the screaming, bawling precious cargo to the flickering oil-lamp light where the others waited above the far gap in the floorboards. Ripsaw continued expanding the hole into the trapped passengers' compartment.

The entire ship lurched and the sounds of shattering wood echoed. The bilge water splashed his face, its freezing cold setting the infant screaming louder.

Reaching down to him, Deck Swab took the infant from him. Red Sky turned around, returning up the bilge, to take the next foal. Ripsaw continued enlarging the hole, one of the trapped ponies using Red Sky's crowbar to assist from above, widening the hole enough for the adults.

---

Proper Place looked at his admiral, his princess, and wished he could give her a hot cocoa, but Dawn's Light had sailed without so much as a bread crust in its galley. There were casks of drinking water, but no stove fuel to heat it with. The unicorns were exhausting themselves to boil water for the doctor to clean wounds; they could spare no magic for luxuries.

Such was the nature of this scratch-built, last-minute mission.

"The pegasi are wearing out," Gale said to him. "The pace of rescue is half what it started at."

"They'll be done soon."

"More physical training," she mused. "I thought we were in shape, but now I see better."

"The ponies will love you."

"If this rescue succeeds, morale will be so high the earth ponies and unicorns will fly for a week."

"Indeed, milady."

As a new illumination flare arced upward and exploded, shedding its harsh light over the stricken Safe Harbour, she cocked her head. "It's inching into the rocks with—"

The Dawn's Light shifted, a particularly large wave dragging her anchors a yard or two.

"Shit," Gale said.

"Indeed," Proper Place agreed.

East End landed and unhooked an infant from his chest. Another sailor cradled the infant and carried her below deck to the medical team. East End turned to fly back to the wreck.

"Petty Officer East End, wait one," Gale shouted.

"Yes, Your Admiralness?"

"Why are foals still coming over? I thought we evacuated them first?"

"The Baron's in the bow, ma'am, where a group of ponies are trapped. He and the carpenters are getting them one at a time out through the bilge."

"What?"

East End described the work Red Sky and carpenters were involved in.

"Tell the Baron to report to me in person immediately."

"He's fouled his feathers, Admiral. The bilge water was oily."

"He's in the bilge himself?"

"The Baron is our smallest pony, ma'am. He can fit himself through the gaps. Shall I carry him to speak with you? I expect I'll need to knock him over the head, first, and carry him unconscious."

Gale fumed silently. "No, return to your duty."

Once East End was away, Gale turned to Proper Place. "That young idiot."

"Princess, he's doing the right thing. You've spent almost a year inculcating an attitude of 'save the civilians at all costs.' You've been doing that on purpose. We both know your eye isn't on today, or tomorrow, but it's on ten, fifty, one hundred years from now."

Gale turned away, unable to meet his gaze.

"And the Baron took your lessons to heart," Proper Place continued. "If he saves those passengers, your lessons will be vindicated. If he dies trying... then you've made an example to hold up. A martyr to be revered and emulated."

"No wonder Aunty Celly cries when she thinks nopony can hear."

"Not to wish the Young Baron a misfortune, but a Peer and an officer? That would be a resonant martyrdom story to tell the next cohort of officer-cadets and recruits. And you bloody well know it."

"You make it sound like I did this on purpose."

"You know damn well, Princess, that we will suffer fatalities sooner or later, and you've been working to ensure they will not be in vain."

"If he dies trying," Gale snapped, "I'll have killed a young stallion of great potential, whom I have come to see like a kid brother. I will have denied the Coast Guard a future leader."

"There are already dead bodies tonight," Proper Place said. "And there will be more before we tie up at our wharf again. Ma'am."

---

Red Sky pushed the last passenger, a large mare, up through the hole in the planking. Her flanks bled where she'd scraped through the narrow gaps. He heaved with all his strength against her ample backside to get her high enough for Deck Swab and the carpenters grab her forelegs and pull her to the deck.

"After you, milord," Ripsaw said once she was clear.

"Officer's prerogative. You first."

"Aye aye, milord." Ripsaw leaped, the others pulling him from the bilge. Red Sky looked around, cocked his head and perked his ears, listening.

All he could hear was the steady moan of the ship's timbers and the slosh of the bilge water. That, and the chattering of his own teeth. A massive shiver wracked his body and he leaped, got his forehooves onto the edge of the deckplank above him, and the others hauled him up. Algae, sludge, and indescribable scum poured off him and puddled on the planks and he shivered, body so wracked it was all but immobile. Deck Swab helped him back into his life jacket, but he couldn't stand the thought of putting the helmet back on his mane and feeling the scummy water squish against his head. He kicked the helmet into the bilge.

One of the medical orderlies led the last passenger away, to the weather deck to be flown to the cutter and safety. Red Sky grinned at his team: merchant sailors and Coast Guards; earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi; mares and stallions; officer and enlisted; noble and commoners. Their uniforms were soaked with sweat, grease, tar, blood, and greenish-black bilge water.

The ponies grinned back, crowbars and saws held over their shoulders or under their wings.

"We saved twelve lives. Beers are on me back in Manehattan."

The cheer was small and exhausted, but heartfelt. "Baron Kindergarten and his carpenters!" said Ripsaw. "That sounds like a drinking song."

Red Sky just chuckled, then followed as Deck Swab led them up topside. The storm's lashing rain was as brutal as before, but now came from the northeast instead of the southeast. The fast-moving storm's eye was probably only a few dozen miles to port, just on the other side of Pone Island, and driving north fast.

Red Sky found his deputy, Chief Petty Officer Reef Knot. "How long? How many left?"

"We got the last passenger off, milord," shouted Chief Reef Knot, over the sounds of the storm, her voice hoarse. "We're carrying the crew off, now, but the pegasi are all dragging their tails, just exhausted! The cold rain and the headwind sap their endurance."

Red Sky said, "How much time longer?"

The chief looked left and right and rubbed her chin. "Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen? The fliers are spent."

"Push faster." Red Sky went to smack her on the back, but stopped at the last second, not wanting to transfer any of the slime that still coated his own feathers.

Silver Sail walked up to him. "We're doing a final headcount, milord. The shift in the wind and the rising tide are starting to yaw the ship. We'll be gone just in time! We'll have to leave the bodies, as you feared."

Red Sky just nodded. He squinted across the gap and, in the light of the flares, saw the admiral and Proper Place whispering desperately.

Red Sky spread his wings to let the storm wash the vile bilge muck off of him. Safe Habour's crewmembers lined up at the starboard rails for their evacuation.

"Officer-cadet," Silver Sail said, voice low. "My Lord. What are you the baron of?"

"I'm sorry?" Red Sky snapped out of a reverie, where he had been mentally calculating the time remaining to get the last crewmembers off.

"What is your barony, milord?"

Red Sky took a deep breath and recited the ancient formalism: "By Celestia's grace and Parliament's consent, I am the second baron entrusted to safeguard and protect MacIntosh Hills, and the ponies there residing."

"Indeed? We studied your father's poems in school."

"My grandfather."

"Ah. Well, My Lord, have my thanks that you're here and not in a townhouse in Canterlot with a flagon of ale, a wench, and a warm blanket. Most Peers your age would probably choose that option. You saved my passengers, and my crew, and— and—" Silver Sail turned away and wiped his eyes. "When we hit that rock, and the captain flew for shore, I thought we were doomed."

"It's nothing but my duty, Sir. I'm an officer of Her Majesty's Coast Guard. And our skipper—" Red Sky pointed a wing at the cutter "—is a Princess of the Blood."

"Indeed? The line of the Sun or the Moon?"

"The Moon."

"Well, I'm pleased to see her, too. Say, milord, I don't suppose the Coast Guard is looking for officers disillusioned with their previous employers?"

Unable to help himself, his emotions brittle from the hours and hours of stress, Red Sky burst out into a belly laugh. "We're always looking for good ponies and officers."

"Almost everypony is off," Silver Sail said with a sweep of a hoof. "You'll be second last, My Lord Baron. I will be last."

"Absolutely not, sir! I already promised Her Highness that I will be the last pony off the wreck."

Silver Sail shook his head. "My ship, my responsibility."

"Not to be last would dishonor my uniform. Would dishonor House MacIntosh Hills, created by Celestia on the blood-soaked field after the Battle of the Bridge. I must be attentive to my House's legacy."

"So adorable to hear that from Baron Kindergarten," Silver Sail said with a chuckle.

Red Sky flared his wings at the indignity.

"I am Master of this ship," Silver Sail continued, "therefore my honor requi—"

East End tucked wings, landed, and interrupted the two officers. "Count of passengers aboard the cutter is three hundred forty-four, milord. Forty-two crew on the cutter, thirty remaining here."

"What?" Silver Sail said. "That's wrong."

"No, sir. Three hundred and forty-four, seventy two."

Silver Sail looked at Red Sky. "We're short one passenger. The manifest was three hundred and fifty-five. Ten dead. Missing one."

"We'll search the ship again," Red Sky commanded. "Chief!"

Reef Knot came at a run. "Milord?"

"Chief, get everypony to the cutter except for me and First Officer Silver Sail. That includes you. Leave behind the three freshest pegasi ready to take us and the missing passenger across. If the ship founders or breaks up before we return, the pegasi are to save themselves."

"Milord Baron—" Reef Knot began.

"Sir—" East End started.

Red Sky flared his wings and a flash of lightning crashed close above their heads. "You have your orders."

"The Princess won't be happy, milord," East End said.

"My duty is not to make the Princess happy. My duty is to save that pony. I am the officer in charge of this rescue, and you have my orders."

"Aye-aye, Baron," East End said, with a much sharper salute than was his usual.

Silver Sail and Red Sky ran to a hatch and headed below decks. Out of the howling wind and driving rain of the hurricane, the sound of the rocks slowly chewing out the keel filled the ship's abandoned passageways with echoes and reverberations.

It sounded like a dragon gnawing a pony's bones to find the sweet marrow, Red Sky thought.

---

Proper Place stood at his princess's back, shivering under his oilskins. He didn't have a sailor's talents, but he'd picked up enough from tagging along behind Gale for three decades to understand the stricken galleon didn't have much time left.

The rising tide wasn't obvious to him, but several of the sailors had mentioned it. The wind was now coming from east-northeast and the waves smashing into foam against the rocks were noticeably larger.

The Safe Harbour shuddered as a wave hit it. The snaps of shattering keel planks echoed across the sea separating the two ships. The galleon settled visibly, one or two feet at the stern. Hull planking floated in the water, illuminated by the latest flare.

East End landed, carrying Reef Knot.

"Admiral!" shouted Reef Knot.

"Where's Officer-Cadet Red Sky?" Gale snapped.

"Below decks, with the ship's master, ma'am. The manifest is one short."

"What?"

One of the passenger ship's crew approached, eyes darting from Gale to Proper Place and back. "I—I—I think..."

"I'm Admiral Glider. Have you something to say?"

"I'm Common Sailor Deck Swab, uh, um, ...Admiral. The one short—he's a toddler. I looked for him. He's not below."

"Hell," Proper Place said. "Begging your pardon, Admiral. And sailor, are you sure? The lower decks are packed snout to rump."

"I—his mother, she was traveling alone," Deck Swab continued. "Young thing, not much older than me. I played with him, to give her breaks. So I looked for him below. And I asked the bosun, and the bosun said—"

East End and his two assistants approached. "His Baronship ordered three pegasi to stay behind, to take him, the master, and the last passenger off."

"The young idiot," Gale snarled.

"'Tis naught but his duty, ma'am," East End said, "and with your pardon, we three shall get back to our duty on the galleon."

"Wait, Petty Officer," Proper Place interrupted. He looked at Deck Swab. "What did your bosun say?"

Deck Swab swallowed. "Said his mother was one of the dead. I bet... I bet the toddler's hiding, waiting for his mum to... to... but she can't, so..."

The wind shifted more, now steady from the north-east, and increased. The Dawn's Light shuddered as her bow anchor dragged.

"I—I think I know where the child might be hiding," Deck Swab said, forcing herself to make eye contact with the tall aristocrat. "Under the bed in his mum's cabin. He crawled there when the creaking of the ship's timbers scared him."

Gale pointed at the nearest pegasus, a carpenter's mate, then at East End. "Take her back. You four stand ready to retrieve her, the Master, the Baron, and the child."

"Aye-aye, ma'am," East End said and gestured to the other three, East End carrying Deck Swab, and flew back across the howling winds and whitecapped seas to the Safe Harbour.

---

Red Sky opened yet another cabin door, tore the sheets off the bed, looked in the tiny closet, under the bed, and then backed into the corridor again. The ship shuddered, adding another degree or two of port list. Silver Sail emerged from one of the cabins on the opposite side of the corridor.

They looked at each other, shook their heads, and barged into the next room on their respective sides of the corridor.

"Baron! Skipper!" came a young voice, muffled and echoing around corners. "My Lord Baron! Skipper!"

Red Sky and Silver Sail looked at each other. Silver Sail asked, "What's she doing back?"

Deck Swab hustled around the corner, horn glowing, and fell as the ship lurched. The sound of the keel twisting echoed through the ship and all three of them staggered as the ship listed even farther to port. "The missing passenger! It's Starry Night."

"Who?" Red Sky asked.

"Wait." Silver Sail frowned. "The toddler?"

"Yes. Follow me, Sir, Milord." Deck Swab said and hustled to the end of the corridor. The two officers followed.

They opened the door to a particular tiny cabin and immediately heard the sobbing of a tiny voice. Deck Swab knelt and looked under the empty bunk. "H-hi there," she whispered. "Can you come with me?"

A tiny horn poked out from under the bunk, and then a face, red with tears. "M-momma?"

Deck Swab's face went blank. "Momma wants you to come with us," she said, scooping up the tiny colt with her magic. He struggled and his horn sparked, but Deck Swab's magic held him tight to her chest.

With the shudder of a massive wave, the sound of the keel finally breaking rumbled and shuddered through the ship, almost too deep to hear. The ship rolled and the four ponies spilled out the cabin's door and into the hallway.

---

The wreck was preparing to capsize. That much was clear to Red Sky as he emerged from the hatch, out of the bilge-stinking claustrophobia of the galleon's interior and into the howling wind and stinging rain of the hurricane. He squinted against the harsh light of the flares.

He hung, one foreleg grasped around the lip of the hatch, and heaved to pull Deck Swab through. She cradled the foal to her chest, her horn glowing to hold the precious cargo tight.

"Capstan," Red Sky said. Near them was a large capstan for raising the mainsail. Three times the size of a pony, it would support them while they evaluated their next step. Red Sky swung Deck Swab twice, like a pendulum, and tossed her. She scrabbled on the slick, tilted deck and landed against the capstan with a scream of agony and the snap of breaking ribs.

Silver Sail stood in the hatch, just below deck, and craned his neck. "I'm too big. I'll wait here for a pegasus. Save my passenger and my sailor, My Lord Baron."

"Go with Celestia," Red Sky said, and leaped, hooves scrabbling and wings flapping ineffectually. He grabbed around one of the large bitts, a heavy steel stanchion, just starboard and above the capstan and Deck Swab.

East End and his pegasi swept down toward them, but the mizzenmast let go, breaking free of the Safe Harbour's shattered hull as the list increased. Stays and shrouds snapped, as loud as thunderclaps. Red Sky covered his head with his wings and Deck Swab curled her body around the foal, sobbing against the pain of her broken ribs but without hesitation. The pegasi flew away, dodging the deadly whip-cracks as the tensioned ropes and hawsers sliced the air.

A whip-cracking rope struck one of the pegasi, breaking his wing and spinning him head-over-tail toward the water. His comrades dove and grabbed him in mid-air and hauled him toward the Dawn's Light. East End, carrying the wounded pegasus's left side, looked back at Red Sky and winked, perhaps a message he would return quickly.

With the mizzen collapsing and the cables and stays snapping, there was nothing else the pegasi could do. To approach on the wing was death. Best to save their fellow while the stays snapped, then return in a minute once the cables were done snapping.

The mizzen finally broke free, ripping through the stern planking and out the starboard beam. Red Sky hugged around the bitt as the entire ship shuddered, trying to throw him clear.

---

Proper Place watched through a spyglass, his teeth grinding.

The Safe Harbour's back broke, the sound like cannon shots across the hurricane-churned water. The bow crunched against the rocks, grinding forward and rolling toward capsizing, as its keel ripped out. The stern wallowed, dragging itself to starboard and listing twenty degrees to port.

East End and the other pegasi flapped from the listing deck into the air, flapping hard to hold their place above the wreck against the brutal northeast wind. From a hatch, Red Sky emerged, dragging Deck Swab. Adjusting the spyglass's focus and wiping its objective lens with a spell, Proper Place saw that the teenager cradled the toddler close to her chest, wrapped in one foreleg and her aura.

The mizzen snapped and breaking stays smited one of the pegasi on lifeguard duty, smashing his wing, sending him spinning towards the churning ocean. His comrades dove, grabbed him, and hauled him toward the Dawn's Light.

Ponies shouted and pointed. Gale flared her wings and dipped her knees.

"Princess!" Proper Place shouted. "Your duty is here. That's no longer a derelict, it's a deathtrap."

"There's at least one foal still over there," Gale snarled.

"You won't come back," Proper Place said.

She leaped into the air and gestured to several of the exhausted pegasi. "Follow me!"

The sailors heaved themselves to their hooves and took to their wings.

Gale turned to Proper Place. Her voice loud enough for everypony on deck to hear, she declared, "We are Her Majesty's Coast Guard. We have to go out. We don't have to come back."

She and four pegasi turned and flew toward the wreck.

Proper Place focused his spyglass again. Several new flares exploded above them, casting actinic light and fuligin shadows across the Safe Harbour.

He saw Red Sky, the civilian sailor, and the foal still huddled against a capstan as the ship slowly, agonizingly, capsized.

So. The Young Baron had done it after all. Now to see if they could escape the deathtrap.

---

A dark shadow landed on the bitt opposite the one Red Sky grabbed around. "Give me the foal!" shouted Gale.

Red Sky and Deck Swab looked up at her tall, aristocratic shape, looming over them in the hard light of the flares, frigid rain beating them as she leaned down and reached a foreleg out, holding against the increasing list.

Deck Swab nodded and levitated the bundle of precious cargo up to her. Gale grabbed the child, clenching him tight to her chest, and flared her wings. "I'll be right back!"

"Aye aye, skipper," Red Sky said.

The remaining stump of the mainmast went, stay lines breaking with snaps even louder than when the mizzen went. One of the shroud lines broke and snapped across the open decking like a bullwhip, carrying a heavy pulley block, and struck Gale on the back of her neck, just below her helmet.

The sound of shattering vertebrae was even louder than the snapping ropes, and her dead body fell, past the listing deck, and into the sea, the child tumbling after her, tail-over-snout.

Deck Swab and Red Sky looked at each other.

Red Sky leaped after Gale and the child. He flared his wings, the oily feathers doing little good, but he was able to aim just enough to hit the water, rather than floating debris, and tucked into a ball at the instant of impact.

Perhaps he had thought the bilge water was freezing, but Pone Island Sound was far worse, like a necromancer's spell consuming his very soul as his body plunged under. He kicked and flapped, the life jacket buoying him, broke the surface, and swam toward where he'd seen the child hit.

The child thrashed, an instinctive shield spell holding enough air to keep him afloat, and Red Sky grabbed him before swimming for a floating piece of debris. The waves and wind were still opposed to each other and he fought hard against the current, fighting away from the foundering hull before the Safe Harbour could capsize over him.

East End swooped down, hovering against the wind, and a piece of debris glanced off the sailor's helmet. Red Sky treaded water and held up the child.

With a quick "Milord," East End grabbed the toddler and flew for the cutter, leaving Red Sky alone in the water. The galleon listed more and Red Sky could feel the sounds through his chest as the jagged rocks of the shoal tore out her planking, the deep bass notes vibrating his guts.

He swam towards the cutter, knowing such an attempt was doomed, but preferring to die of hypothermia in the open sea than to be smited by the ship as it rolled over on him.

Above him, he saw two pegasi carrying Deck Swab and Silver Sail. The Safe Habour was now a ship of the dead, not a single soul remaining. As Red Sky swam, he caught a glimpse of an orange life jacket and helmet, a few dozen yards to his left.

The Admiral floated face-down, unmoving, her head twisted at an unnatural angle on a snapped neck.

Two pegasi swept down, both carpenter's mates who had been in the bow with Red Sky as they freed the trapped passengers. They grabbed the rescue loops on his life jacket and heaved, lifting him into the air and hauling him towards the cutter.

He stared behind, watching as the Admiral's body was lost in the sheets of rain.

Then Safe Harbour finally rolled over, capsizing, and crushed the body of Duchess Pone Island against the rocky floor of Pone Island Sound.

---

The two pegasi dropped Red Sky at the stern, just at the helm, and then landed next to him. All three ponies collapsed to the deck, Red Sky wracked with shivering, completely hypothermic from the swim in the autumn waters. Red Sky curled into a ball, sobbing into his tail with exhaustion and pain.

Proper Place ran up. "My Lord Baron! Can you stand?"

Red Sky heaved himself to his hooves, teeth chattering.

Proper Place smacked him, hard across the muzzle, with a wicked backhoof.

Red Sky staggered backwards, skull ringing from the blow, blood filling his mouth, and flared his wings in anger and shock. "I'll have you court-martialed!"

"My Lord Baron! The Princess is dead. That makes you the senior officer. Act like it!"

Red Sky stared at him, mouth agape.

"Are you an Officer of the Crown and a Peer of the Realm, My Lord, or a crybaby little foal?"

Red Sky nodded and drew himself up to his full height. His jaw hurt—it burned from Proper Place's slap—but he shouted: "Hooves to sheet and braces! We're going to cut the bow anchor, let the wind swing us around on the stern anchor, and then cut the stern free as we hoist sail and run for home!"

East End, tears in his voice, said, "Sir! The admiral's body!"

Red Sky just shook his head sharply. "Where's Silver Sail?"

The merchant officer trotted up. "Here, My Lord."

"Go to the bow and time the cutting of the anchor to the swell."

"Aye aye, Baron."

Proper Place faded into the shadows. The Young Baron was still wracked with shivers, his voice weak with cold and exhaustion, but the chiefs and petty officers listened to his orders and organized their sections, preparing to execute the maneuvers. Merchant sailors and even civilians from the Safe Harbour joined the teams unprompted.

They cut free the anchors and hoisted the sails, the wind on the stern as they made for Manehattan Harbor.

In the pouring rain, where no one could see the wetness, Proper Place cried for the Princess he had kept alive for thirty years, and whom he had always feared would never live to see her foals grow up.

She hadn't even seen Storm Squall's cutie mark in person, only seen the letter from her husband.

As dawn's light broke, illuminating the thick clouds of the hurricane, wiping his eyes of tears, Proper Place looked around. The Dawn's Light was crowded with ponies—ponies whose lives would have been forfeit without Gale's decision to sail.

Tranquility and Equinox would have been proud.

---

"And I say," countered the Interior Minister, "that your tax revenue projections are in error!"

The Chancellor of the Exchequer reared up in her chair and ruffled her feathers. "In error? How dare you!"

Celestia sipped at her tea as the conversation swirled around the cabinet table. It was easy enough to follow; they hadn't changed their arguments in weeks and were repeating from the same script, with only minor variations, that they used every cabinet meeting.

The Everfree Oak doors to the conference room opened with a resonant bang and her majordomo, Mr. Sparkle, hustled in. The ministers glared at him.

"You eternal pardon, Your Majesty, but a messenger arrived from Coast Guard Station Manehattan. The messenger claims 'utmost urgency' and in light of the hurricane, I felt it best that..."

Celestia nodded. "Of course, we'll see what my niece has to say. Bring the messenger in immediately." And, she thought with a glance at the Chancellor, it will be a break from this tedium...

Mr. Sparkle shuffled out and returned a few moments later, with the same messenger from a few months before.

"Ah, Petty Officer Post Card. I trust your wife and new daughter are well? Have you had a chance to visit—" Instead of the formal dress blacks that were appropriate for an audience with the Sovereign, he wore a salt-stained and sweat-stinking ship suit. His mane was mussed, his feathers unpreened, and a bandage on his cheek was soaked through with blood and needed to be changed. "—give me the message now."

He reached two long feathers into his shoulder bag and passed her a thin envelope. He snapped to attention.

The silence of the room was so total that Celestia heard her own heartbeat clearly. A sour taste in the back of her throat formed in anticipation of the news that the message must contain.

The cabinet ministers all stared at Celestia. She broke the wax seal on the envelope. The penmareship on the letter was unfamiliar—not her niece's.

Celestia read out loud:

Your Majesty,
It is with great pride I inform you that Your Coast Guard has met its first true challenges and the sailors and officers brought honor to your most regal Name. During the just-passed storm, Coast Guard cutters made five sorties and saved the passengers and crew of five ships. Over one thousand of Your Majesty's subjects were saved from death on the water, and one valuable ship and its cargo was saved.

It is, however, with bitter regret that I must inform Your Majesty that Your Coast Guard has suffered its first pony killed in the line of duty. Her Royal Highness, Vice Adm—

Celestia choked and closed her eyes. "Everypony out. Everypony except the petty officer."

"Your Majesty..." said Mr. Sparkle.

Very quietly: "Out."

Eyes scrunched shut, she listened to the sounds of horseshoes on marble and waited for the door to slam. She opened her eyes. "I can tell you are many hours without food, Petty Officer."

"I'm fine, Majesty."

"How many hours since you last ate? Don't lie to me."

"Thirty-five or forty, Majesty."

"There are refreshments on the side table. Then be seated."

He grabbed a pastry and bolted it down with the ferocity of a diamond dog before sitting in the Interior Minister's chair.

She continued to read, her voice surprising herself with its steadiness:

—has suffered its first pony killed in the line of duty. Her Royal Highness, Vice Admiral Glider, took our reserve cutter to sea when word of a stricken passenger vessel arrived at the Station. Approximately four hundred and thirty lives were saved, but she was killed during the final moments before the vessel foundered, as the final passenger, reportedly a small foal, was carried to safety. I am currently convening a Board of Inquiry—my Cutter had sortied in the opposite direction and I was not personally privy to these events—and I will report to Your Majesty in detail once I have discovered all the facts.

In the interim, Your Majesty, duty requires that I request that Your Majesty assign a new commanding officer to Station Manehattan. I have assumed the solemn and regretful duty of Acting Commodore until such time as I am relieved by a superior officer.

I have the honor to be Your obedient servant,
𝒞𝓇𝑒𝓈𝒸𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝐵𝓁𝓊𝑒
Captain (Senior Grade), HMCG
Commanding Officer, HMCGC Borealis
Acting Commodore, HMCG Station Manehattan

PS: Please let me express my personal condolences, pony-to-pony, on the loss of your niece. I have already spoken to several witnesses, and there is no doubt in my mind that her sacrifice was in the greatest tradition of the Royal House, and that her heroism will be remembered as long as ponies go to the sea and face storm and wind.

"On your sacred honor," Celestia whispered, remembering the dry formalism of the written orders above her own signature that had originally sent Gale to her death, "fail not at this Royal charge."

Face stinging, tears finally trickling down her face, Celestia looked at the petty officer. "What happened?"

"Your Majesty, I don't know. My cutter, the North Star, was the first to sortie. We were towing a merchant into the lee of Stony Island when all this transpired. When we returned to the Station, the Admiral and the Dawn's Light were gone. Then, a few hours later, mid-morning, well..."

He poured a glass of ice water from a carafe and took a long drink. "Around mid-morning, the Young Baron sailed the Dawn's Light back into the harbor, packed to the gunnels with passengers and crew saved from the passenger galleon."

Celestia's eyes widened. "Baron MacIntosh Hills?"

"Aye, ma'am, the Young Baron. He took command after the Admiral—after. He was the last officer aboard. He got the Dawn's Light home. Between the passengers, the merchant's crew, and his own crew, he brought over five hundred souls through to safety. 'Twas a feat of seafaring, indeed, in that worm-eaten antique, instead of a proper cutter, to get through the storm."

Celestia looked at Captain Blue's message again. Her tears flowed, unstaunchable.

"Y-your Majesty?"

"Hmmm?"

"The Admiral... the princess... your niece... she took the Young Baron under her wing. We all saw she had a special interest in him. And that's probably what saved those five hundred ponies. Six months ago, the Young Baron wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit. He's a baron now, of the old style. The kind of baron who says 'follow me' and ponies follow, into the maw of Tartarus itself, and that's your niece's doing, ma'am. That's the kind of officer she was, and he chose to be, in emulation of her. Your niece forged the sword that saved five hundred lives."

"Y—you are dismissed. Return at ten tomorrow morning for my return message to Captain Blue. Commodore Blue, he's earned it. Can you find lodgings for the night?"

Post Card stood and bowed. "Aye aye, ma'am. I take my leave."

"Visit the infirmary before you leave the Palace. Have the dressing on your wound replaced, Petty Officer. I do not wish you to suffer an infection."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

He saluted and shuffled out the door and left Celestia alone—once again alone—with her grief.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Not finished reading yet, but I have to say, 'as nervous as a one headed hydra' is a simply incredible expression.

[Blik]

I never cry at what I read. But THIS.

I love your Baron Red Sky MacIntosh. Thank you for writing this.

[UrsaMajor]

The mizzen snapped and breaking stays smited one of the pegasi on lifeguard duty, smashing his wing, sending him spinning towards the churning ocean.

smote

He swam towards the cutter, knowing such an attempt was doomed, but preferring to die of hypothermia in the open sea than to be smited by the ship as it rolled over on him.

smitten

That hits hard, even knowing (more or less) what was coming.

[Wolfman]

VAdm. Glider has her choice of Valhalla or Sto’vo’kor after the way she went to her death…