17 April, 1003 Celestia’s Reign
North Equestrian Sea, P.S. Equestria
1:30pm
Four days into the voyage, it's been clear skies and smooth sailing for the crew of the Equestria and Captain Calm Seas was enjoying his new vessel quite a bit. Captain Seas was an experienced Captain and the Equestria wasn't his first command, but it was his finest. Seas was 8 hooves tall, he had a light brown coat and a blonde mane, his cutie mark was a ship's wheel and compass, he was young for a Captain at age 27 but he spent his whole life sailing and joined the Sunard Lines at 13 as a midshippony, slowly working his way through the ranks. Seas was a good Captain, always vigilant, and never taking risks that could endanger his ship, crew or passengers. Today was no different; he stood on the bridge, located amidships between the paddle boxes, watching for any possible dangers but so far today was a peaceful, sunny day. The Equestria was making 12 knots with the stiff tailwind pushing the vessel along, the ship currently had 240 hands in total, 90 crew and 150 passengers, most of which were on deck enjoying the mild Spring day.
The trip had been going great for Seas, although he had to talk to a certain midshippony Sea Breeze for complaints by some mares that he was flirting with them. Seas had to smile at the young stallion's schemes, he would always manage to get into trouble somehow, flirting was one of the lesser evil's Breeze was known for; his most common being fights whenever they made port and he was unsupervised with alcohol consumption. Seas let the Boatswain deal with young Breeze, being that the Boatswain was far more intimidating than he was; and being that Breeze was part of the deck crew, under the Boatswain's command. The Boatswain was a stallion named Able Strong in his late forties, he was the oldest and most experienced crew member on the ship, the stallion was burly, and stood 9.5 hooves high, his brown mane showing the slight streaks of grey from age. Not that he showed any signs of slowing down, the stallion was a powerhouse, he could best anypony on the ship in hoof to hoof fighting and did wonders with a spear, he was also sharp and a natural leader; most of the crew looked up to him for support and guidance. His cutie mark was an anchor.
"Requesting permission to enter the bridge Captain." The voice came from the Chief Engineer Lieutenant Strong Iron. The Lieutenant's grey coat was matted with oil and grease in areas and his face was nearly black, his green eyes stuck out from behind the equally oil matted dark brown mane with a shocking sharpness. The pony knew more about the workings of a steam plant than anypony else Seas knew, he could make a working engine out of a few pie tins and bobby pins if he had enough time. The current look he had on didn't spike confidence in the Captain however.
"Permission granted, what seems to be bothering you Iron?" Seas asked the Lieutenant with a barely noticeable touch of concern for his ship's inner workings.
"One of the piston rings on the number two engine had a defect and the ring failed before we shut down the engines and I came to inform you that if you need engine power that you'll only have the one until we can replace the ring. It should be no longer than a few hours, and what's the worst that can happen in that time span?" The Chief Engineer stated with a confident smile knowing he had some of the best engineers the Sunard Line had to offer: this was the Line's flagship after all. Replacing a piston ring wasn't complicated, but it meant taking the cylinder apart, and when the cylinders are large enough to walk two ponies side by side, it's a pretty big undertaking.
"I trust you and the other engineers can get it done in a timely fashion, anything else you care to share while you're here?" Seas questioned making sure there was nothing else that could hinder his vessel's abilities, having only one engine didn't make him feel as comfortable as he'd liked, but as long as the sea was calm and the skies stayed clear he shouldn't need the extra power.
"No sir, everything else is working fine; the ship is the finest I've served on and I'm sure she can handle anything we may encounter on the North Sea, large storms aren't a given for this area, as you well know." Lieutenant Iron stated, with more than a hint of cockiness. Seas was believing that being on one of the most advanced ships in service was going to the Lieutenant's head, but he did have a point: the ship was sturdy and the North Equestrian Sea tended to remain calm most of the year.
"Well Lieutenant I'd have to agree with you; the Equestria is a fine ship indeed. As to handling anything, that depends on how imaginative you can get with the word 'anything'." He smiled knowing that the Lieutenant was going to mull over that statement for a good hour or so trying to think of every possible situation they could encounter.
"I'd better be going, they may need me in engineering, and it certainly couldn't hurt to make sure they don't break anything taking the cylinder apart on number two." Iron said with a thoughtful expression, pondering the problems the ship might be trapped in with only a single engine, and how far the crew has gotten in terms of removing the connecting rods from the piston rods on the number two engine. 'Maybe they already have the cylinder head off...' he thought to himself as he started to head back down to the engine room.
Captain Seas went back to watching for any possible threat to his vessel and enjoying the mild day. The wind cooling the fur around his face, it was a very pleasant day. He took a closer look at his crew and passengers on the deck; the crew was mostly making minor trim adjustments to the sails to make sure they caught as much wind as possible, and the passengers either talked amongst themselves or would crowd around one of the more well-known Canterlot ponies. He noticed the same two mares he saw on deck when they left port; the grey mare was on the left and the cream coloured mare to her right, they were both on the forecastle talking animatedly to each other and having an overall good time. 'I could go for a nice wine and salad about now...' he thought, but he couldn't overdo it with the wine; he had to remain professional. His expression remained stoic while he focused on his duty and after another half hour he retired to his quarters going to take a quick rest and fill out a log entry for the afternoon.
Octavia and Rose were both on the forecastle watching the prow cut through the smooth seas speaking about Twilight becoming an alicorn Princess. Octavia was keen in observing the occasional dolphin pace the ship and break the surface in a long arc-like movement blowing water from their spouts. They'd been on the forecastle for about an hour now; the sounds of the waves against the hull and the dolphin's clicking were soothing and the day was as peaceful as ever. The Equestria's bulwark was painted a clean white and the gunwale was a crisp golden yellow to complement the black hull paint.
Some days Octavia and a few other musicians on board would get together on the deck and play a few songs to the enjoyment of the crew and passengers; the bits they'd get didn't hurt the practice either. She saw that midshippony again; he was watching her play and gave her a generous amount of bits after she finished before complimenting her performance and talent. She returned the compliment with a soft smile before packing up her cello and returning it to its chifforobe, after every performance she'd have a small glass of wine as her own little "job well done" gift to herself. Rose would come down often after she played to tell her how much she enjoyed her playing and her company on this long trip. Even with Octavia's gentle probing she never got Rose to tell her why exactly she was taking this trip in the first place, it was always "It's just something I needed to do." and then she'd change the subject. Octavia wasn't going to press her friend too much, but she really did want to know what it could be that warranted the secrecy.
Octavia had noticed that it was growing darker rapidly, looking up her eyes widened with surprise; a truly massive storm cloud was forming overhead seemingly out of nowhere. She nudged Rose to get her to look up as well, Rose stood with her mouth slightly agape; this was not a normal storm. The cloud covered the entire horizon and it was growing darker by the second; then the rain came, a little at first but in less than a minute it was a downpour. As the wind picked up so did the waves and the ship started to roll and pitch with the sea.
"Octavia we need to get below decks now!" Rose shouted over the ever increasing wind to her friend, but Octavia was frozen in shock at the unnatural storm radiating an aurora of danger. Thinking quickly she grabbed her friend's tail in her mouth and dragged her full gallop to the companionway, about a third the way there Octavia finally snapped to and started her own mad dash to safety. The two burst through the companionway at full stride and nearly ploughed over a seapony on his way to secure the deck and furl the sails before the turbulent winds damaged them and their masts.
The two mares were dripping water as they went to Octavia's quarters, being the closest, and stared out the porthole, fear starting to creep into their minds. The storm was massive, the waves were at least 30 hooves high and it was getting worse, the clouds seemed to have no end as the whole sky was a dark grey blob being lit by the occasional lightning bolt. The ship started to roll violently and they had to clutch anything secured to the floor to keep from being thrown around the cabin, the sound the hull was making wasn't the most reassuring sound in the world as the wood creaked and groaned its protest to the sudden stress.
"Octavia I-I'm scared." Rose sputtered, fear taking control over her.
"I am too Rose...I am too." Octavia was trying to keep calm but even she couldn't keep the fear from her voice and facial features. The storm was bad, really bad, they thought they were going to die; that there was no way the ship could survive. Then they heard the loud crack of something large and made of wood breaking, shortly after there was a groan and thud followed by shouted commands and panicked screams...
3:28pm
"Full steam ahead! If we lose the engines we lose the ship! We need ponies clearing the debris of the mainmast before it capsizes the ship!" Captain Seas was shouting to his frightened crew desperately trying to save the Equestria. The mainmast had snapped from the combination of roll and wind, if he couldn't get the crew to cut it free and roll it over the side of the side it could mean the end of everypony's life he was in charge of. He would not let that happen, not as long as he was in command of this vessel. The sound of axes and stallions working the fouled rigging trying to cut the debris lose and get the ship to ride properly met his ears, the once beautiful paddle steamer resembled a disaster zone, yards, lanyards, blocks and other debris that once held a purpose scattered throughout the entirety of the deck. The bulwarks were splintered from where the mainmast crashed upon them and lanyards were ripped from the wood. The ship had a very noticeable list to port as the weight of the mainmast threatened to capsize the vessel and the uneven thrust this caused the paddle wheels made keeping steerageway very difficult. Captain Seas replaced the helmspony knowing that his experience was needed at the wheel to keep the bow straight unto the waves; if the ship were to lose its bow on approach and heave to the side the waves would capsize the vessel quickly. He had no choice but to continue in a straight line and hope for the best. 'Celestia save us.' he thought as the storm took its toll on the Equestria.
The ship still only had the use of one engine and if Seas couldn't break through the storm soon the ship and all hands will be lost; the storm wouldn't allow the lifeboats to be deployed. But just as the ship started to lose speed and steerageway something happened; a bright greenish glow erupted directly in front of the vessel, the glow spread outward and engulfed the Equestria. Captain Seas shielded his eyes against the light, but it dissipated as fast as it appeared and when he opened his eyes he was still in the storm; like nothing happened. Then the storm started to clear, rapidly; the rain stopped, the winds slowed and the sea started to calm down, soon it was quiet; the only sound the paddles thrashing against the suddenly sedate sea. The crew had stopped what they were doing to stare in utter awe at the light and the sudden clear skies, but the ship was still listing from the weight of the fallen mast. They were safe...at least they thought they were.
Maybe I shouldn't have written the first half of this chapter at like 1am, it didn't turn out as great as I wanted, mainly the OC's and their names.
I like battleships.
But I am also down with cruisers and packet steamers. Old ships make me happy.
Take this gold favorite star. It's just for you.
2380139 Thank you, I've read your story with the Iowa class battleship and thought it was pretty good, maybe a little on the fast paced side but still good. Although the first part of this chapter may need to be revised since I'm not too happy with it, and that I wrote the total amout of passengers completely wrong. The human ship I based this off of held more than I first thought, I ended up taking the total amount of combined passengers and crew to be what really was only the crew.
I've fixed it now, although a little lower passenger count to make for the extra luxury but still, if I was off by 275 on the complement count I wonder what other major mistakes I made.
oooooooh.... snap.... sail out of a storm and into the middle of a war... great
2381376 And from next chapter on is where the story takes the... unexpected road.
2379954
I have to agree with you on coming up with names for ponies: they are a pain to come up with. Funny thing though, I came up with a name that I would want to use for my OC ('cause flyingfox just ain't gonna work for a pony) if I were to make a story, which I have thought about doing. Don't expect me to create a story though, I am absolutely awful when it comes to original ideas. The name that I came up with 2 months or so ago is Sea Breeze. I could go on but I don't want to take up much more space on this.
Anyways, good story thus far and I look forward to future chapters. I've always had an admiration for sea vessels, more so traveling on one rather than working on one.
flyingfox
2381698 Sea Breeze sounds quite familiar now where have I heard that name before?
Also have you seen how many stories there are here? It's quite hard to be original at this point. People have covered like every possible concept.
Also don't trust Sea Breeze with anything, he'll manage to screw it all up somehow.
Damn dude, people really like this story. Good on ya
Totally not a bit jealous, nope not at all.
2381924 I'm surprised at it, I hope it doesn't get too popular, because I know I'll screw up sooner or later and if it's really popular when I do screw up, it'll be that much worse.
I'm also kind of scared they set the standard for featured stories too low, I saw one up there with only 64 likes and like 200 views, at the rate this is going that'll mean this gets featured in like a week. At which point I'll have to hide.
2381949
I know that feeling. I want my story to be featured because come on, who doesn't? But at the same time the moment it does is when I'll probably go hide under a rock or something.
2382020 Should we look for a rock with central air and heating, clean water and a decent water heater, maybe a flatscreen and PS3?
2382162 Yes you got the Sunard/Cunard although I think I put others in but I don't remember which ones were which.
One internet cookie for you.
Is Octy going to become the new Forces Sweetheart then or something?
2382311 I don't follow... being up all night/morning for the past week has started to take its toll on my mind.
2382338
Vera Lynn, The Forces Sweetheart. Toured a bunch of places during WW2 playing songs for the troops, hence her name. Pretty popular to boot.
2382345 Too tired mind doesn't want to work couldn't even get my own referance.
But umm no, it'll be spoilers to tell you what I'd meant with the Vera Lynn though. (Although it is such a small role it wouldn't be that bad.) Although since you know who that is you get another internet cookie.
2381729
If you've played Sonic Rush Adventure for the Nintendo DS, then the name would sound familiar. Sea Breeze is a name Tails gives to one of the water craft in the game, the hover craft I think. The Sea Breeze I came up with is different than the one you came up with. To me, Sea Breeze sounds more feminine than masculine.
And yes, I have seen how many stories there are. A crazy large number.
flyingfox
2383492 Meh I can't think of names worth a damn so Sea Breeze may sound more suited for a mare, but oh well. Also I haven't played any Sonic games really, I'm more of either fps or naval simulators. (Big surprise there eh?)
very good story so far.
So I decided to look up the Minekaze class destroyer and I am little confused on how the crew of the Enterprise could mistake a steam boat for a destroyer. What could the Equestria possibly have on it that would look even remotely like guns?
Just a thought.
flyingfox
2397006 Errrr no, the destroyer was a destroyer, look at the time-stamps, anywho it was an act the crew did that will come to play later on in the story.
Dear lord, you thought that the crew did...oh god no way would trained sailors of the Royal Navy confuse a paddle steamer that looks British in origin with an enemy vessel. There most certainly wasn't mass pony deaths do to 6inch HE rounds.
2397742
Well, that was just me making connections with what is available to the readers reading the story. In the prologue, it says that the ship was slow moving and the Equestria being a steamer alone makes it slow and being at less than half power makes it even slower. The prologue also doesn't mention what the sailors saw or found in the wreck and certainly not expected. With that, they may have found ponies as ponies aren't what one would expect to find. What I typed was the connections my brain made. Idk, maybe it was just me.
flyingfox
2397805 Those are some pretty interesting connections, and they do hold some merit, but at the same time there are plenty of reasons to tell it wasn't so. The main being the Captain states the class of the vessel, but you thought he was mistaken, the second being that the destroyer tried to turn and run full steam. Something the badly damaged Equestria wouldn't be able to do, also why would the ponies run from an unknown ship? They never met any hostiles before and they need repairs ASAP.
Also the Enterprise and other WWII ships are in-fact, steamers too, not paddle steamers though. Paddle steamers are slow, steamers with screws and turbines can be quite fast.
2397851
With the running away part: would you think an unknown vessel coming full steam towards you would be friendly? I'm sure there are some pirates somewhere on the ocean and a paddle steamer is an easy to catch target if your ship has the speed. Also I realize the thought 'Pirates? Pfft, yea right. Like ponies would become pirates.' The pirates don't have to be ponies. With the cruiser catching up to the destroyer, the engines of the destroyer must be either really out dated or in really bad shape. I know the class of the destroyer is from the 20's but I would assume that maintenance would be kept up on it and refitting it with modern gear. The paddles on the Equestria did not come to mind when I typed that last comment, so my mistake.
flyingfox
2397934 Well no, if you read the prologue carefully you'll see I said by the time the ship turned around and range up Flank the Enterprise's guns were already in range, or else the Enterprise would've tried to get closer to the Destroyer. Closer you are the less ammo you waste after all.
And in all honesty the ship's both have about the same speed of a little over 30knots, the Destroyer may have been a whole 2knots faster max.
2397934 What I'm really confused about though, is how in the hell does my Microsoft Word copy of this story have more words than this version of the story, I mean I just copy and pasted it...ugh I really don't wanna read through both versions to see if I left out some words from this version, or if MW is trolling me.
2397967
The prologues says "The destroyer had obviously spotted the fast approaching cruiser because she had practically turned around and was steaming full speed..." This makes it seem that the destroyer's captain hadn't noticed the cruiser before the cruiser open fired.
On a different note that's about the wording of the paragraph.
What you have:
...full speed, but it was too late for her, the Enterprise open fired, a salvo of six inch High Explosive rounds leapt from her guns and screamed toward the Japanese destroyer. The guns of the Enterprise had a maximum range of around 21,500 yards, but Andrews wanted to get as close to the destroyer as he could without entering her own 4.7 inch gun’s range, at 18,500 yards the gun crews fired, the first salvo fell short, the gun directors were adjusted and another salvo rang out. This second salvo would create the hell Andrews wanted, the rounds must have hit the magazine because as the crew watched the Japanese destroyer practically blew clean out the water, the orange glow of the fire spreading the length of the ship as the fuel oil leaked out of ruptured tanks and ignited.
What I think would look better:
...full speed, but it was to late for her as she was already in the range of the Enterpris's 6 inch guns at 21,500 yards. The Enterprise open fired at 18,500 yards in order conserve ammo while staying outside of the range of the destroyer's 4.7 inch guns. The first salvo of high explosive shells screamed towards the destroyer and fell short with a large splash in the water. The gun directors were adjusted and a second salvo was fired. A massive explosion and fireball indicated that the shells hit home this time and by the looks of it, they hit the magazine. The crew watched on as the destroyer was practically blown out of the water. Leaking fuel was ignited by the fire and set the surface of the water and parts of the ship ablaze.
flyingfox
2398083 You're right that is better, a little bit of spelling errors on your part, only a couple missing letters or so, but I'll update it tomorrow. It's finally nice to hear criticism, it's the flaws that are pointed out that are important, so they can be fixed. Thank you. (As I change that paragraph I might as well re-read both stories to see the so called extra words MW has. Also I noticed a little time-line glitch that needs to be fixed as well.)
2398151
Eh, sometimes I go too fast to notice that I miss a few letters. Sometimes my fingers don't move fast enough either so a word or 2 might get left out.
flyingfox
When will there be more to this story? You gave it a good start and it would be a shame to let it be for nothing.
flyingfox
2473738 When I finally get off my lazy rump and write the other 2/5ths of the chapter... it's at 2.3k words but it should only take me 2-3 days to write a 3-4k chapter... I've just been quite lazy and youtube isn't helping... I really hope this weekend or before then, but I said I would do it last week and the week before... Someone needs to slap me over the head whenever I start watching like 50 youtube videos at a time, also newly upgraded gaming PC that can handle Arma II on max settings is distracting too...
Now I'm just making excuses, I've just been really lazy. So sue me.
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This is the best shipping story I've ever read!
Sorry, had to be done. Though you are off on some of the nautical terms, but I'm to lazy to correct you.
2702316 I blame you. Rereading this chapter I've realised that I have a ship that's only 210ft long with 400 people/ponies on it... So yeah, I've put in more reasonable numbers, but hands will still stay. Because hooves doesn't sound right, no matter how you play with it.
when talking about how many crew and passengers are on a ship, i believe the term is "Souls", such as, "400 souls" instead of "400 hands".