Three, two, one...
»RELEASE!« Captain Blackstone shouted to the Royal Guards holding the mooring ropes as the massive airship began its ascend to the sky. His voice was barely heard over the fizzing noise of the enchanting engines as they gained energy, orange glow emanating from them.
»I SAID RELEASE THE LANYARDS!«
The guards at the very front of the machine had no way of hearing him. As the other five released their grip the Captain was already in full gallop, shouting all the way. But the two white stallions who were tasked with keeping the nose of EQX Stomper pointing dead straight during the first phase of take-off were too focused and too stunned at the miracle unfolding in front of them to notice.
The six engines glowed with foggy orange from every cooling outlet on the sides and the main openings at the back, as bright strings formed out from the engines and moved across the ship as if drawn by an invisible pencil. A slanted grid of paper thin lines soon enveloped the ship, illuminating the ground beneath it before infusing itself into the very skin of the ship, giving it a barely visible glow that only enchanted metal could have.
The platoon of unicorns standing an all sides of the launch site had gotten it off the ground, but now it was time for the machines to continue what not even an army them could hope to achieve. Sustained flight of the metal-clad airship.
A sobering moment followed as the ropes started pulling with ever greater force on the harnesses of the two leading guards. The voice of the captain pierced through their mind just soon enough for one of them to glance at him as they took flight.
A few unicorns tried to summon the last reserves of magic to release their harnesses while they were still close to the ground, but after the effort of lifting the behemoth they were struggling to stand on their own hooves. The captain was left on the ground frozen in place as two of his loyal guards went to certain death. One of the remaining guards galloped with all the force his hooves could bear to the command facility in a desperate attempt to halt the airship. It was a valiant but hopeless effort.
Stomper climbed eerily through the night sky and into the natural camouflage of the cloud layer. The twin symbol of the Sun and the Moon over thriving fields, already barely visible on the ground, disappeared from view first. The glow followed, leaving behind only a dark silhouette with spots of orange at the engines before even that disappeared. A single bright dot pierced the clouds and fell to the ground. A few seconds later, another followed.
Neither the captain nor the guards let out a voice. They knew the risks when they accepted the assignment. They knew there was a very real chance of not coming home. That their families would receive letters from Princess Luna saying they had died in a terrible training accident or a surprise attack of the Kingdom’s forces. But none of them had imagined a death like this.
A moment’s silence for the two dead guards. A quiet return to the barracks. One part of the mission accomplished.
Blackstone escorted his stallions to the door of the barracks then turned back to face the launch pad and made his way to the command center. While the others rest, he would have a debriefing with the commander of the base and get new orders for tomorrow.
He walked slowly, taking in the cold mountain air and trying to keep his mind busy. In front of him was the barely lit stone structure of the command center, rising only two stories high and covered in camouflage from all other sides. The night helped in concealing it with the surrounding small hills and large bushes. Behind it, the mountain ranges separated the cloudy sky from the rain soaked earth below.
For a moment he wondered how many ponies here really knew where they were. He sure didn’t, but sometimes he couldn’t help speculating – only in his mind, of course. Everypony here was sure they were as far away from civilization as possible to ward off any curious visitors or stray Pegasi. But how do you build an entire airship hangar and research facility with all the supporting structures so far away without drawing attention? How do you feed the thousand or so ponies living here?
No, those mountains were growing more familiar with every passing day. They looked so much different from this side, but they were Filly Hills, between Baltimare and Dodge City. The vast – and inappropriately named – mountain range was the last place anypony would look for a top secret defense facility. The cities were just too close.
The smaller mountains of the range encircled the base perfectly, providing a panopticon-style observation platform for the base in their midst. The rest was down to the military engineers and strategists. And they made it work.
Even during daytime the entire base was only visible from ground level and even then some structures could appear as boulders or weirdly shaped trees, camouflage nets tactically strewn between them to conceal personnel movement. The greatest risk factor was the launch pad next to the hangar. Unlike the massive structure, which was covered in treetops and painted to look like a forest, the launch pad was barren straight patch of concrete the size of a football field. The best they could come up with was to have it flooded with a hoof’s length of water and shape it to look like a lake from a distance.
At least they emptied the “lake” for takeoffs and refilled it before sunrise, or there would have been a lot more broken bones than the records stated. But that was always a risk, even if this was the first real launch of an airship of this size. Before that, it was months of practice.
Smaller models were tested even before the captain arrived here with his guards, to see if such a design could even work. After all, this was uncharted territory. And while the scientists and engineers finalized the designs and crews of workers painstakingly constructed the rest of the base, the guards practiced.
Their position was two-fold; to patrol and protect the base and, for a select group, to moor and guide the airships. Nopony was sure why they chose the guards for that, even if the official explanation related the selection to their superior physical strength and hoof-eye coordination. The cynical part of captain’s brain wanted to chime in with words such as expandable, but he quickly blocked that out with a replacement word: brave. After all, they were given as much preparation as possible.
In the early practice runs unicorn magic supplied the force to a tethered balloon to simulate the forces involved during takeoff and landing of the Majoris project, as it was called at the time, but that could only achieve so much. The unicorns were bound by the provided test protocol in terms of what they could do and, in the end, everypony knew these were only exercises. The first time any of them would see the airship for real was the day it would take off. For two of the guards, it would also be the last time. Such was the cost of secrecy.
The fate of Equestria was in their hands, they were told. The best of the best chosen by Princess Luna herself to aid in this project, even if they had no idea what it was about until they first saw it that night. And even then its real raison d'être remained hidden. But none of them cared. If the princess thought they could better serve the war effort here than having them shipped over the border with orders to take out King Antares, then so be it.
Then again, some military tactics were forbidden from the start. Even in rebellion some rules of war were sacred. At least nopony remembered to mention anything about giant floating death-machines in those rules and the princesses were nothing if not clever. But then they had to be.
There’s an old military maxim that claims a ratio of three to one is necessary in terms of the number of ponies needed for a successful invasion against the defenders. The two princesses were outmatched five to one. One army for each of their sisters, one for both the King and Queen, all combined to face the single army of Celestia. Luna was simply too young to have one of her own at the time, but she made up for that with projects like these – making machines do the work of hundreds of soldiers and workers.
Equestria also had all of the elements of harmony. To this day Blackstone never doubted the justification of the way in which the two sisters gained them. Yes, they used the annual Gathering of the Elements, when they were all in Equestria at the same time, and then seized them, but what could be achieved without that?
No airship like these could be built, that was for sure. Or any of the other mechanized magic devices that started appearing within days of the war. At least that was the most logical explanation, seeing how the enemies could only dream of creating something like that. Heck, before the war, nopony could have even imagined seeing something like that at all.
And besides, it’s not like the princesses ever wanted war, they just wanted freedom. To secede from a kingdom that united ponies with zebras and griffins under a single rule. To give ponies their place in the world again. These machines will bring victory and those made later will bring prosperity. Then the defeated will flock to Equestria and beg forgiveness.
He hadn’t even noticed how far he left his mind wander until the train of thought ended, delivering him back to reality. For at least a few minutes he had to have been standing in the same place, in front of the door to the command center, his hooves sunk into the muddy grass beneath him. But it helped.
With the newly found feeling of righteousness flowing through his veins, he extended his right foreleg to open the steel door of the command center when his eyes caught sight of the small poster hung on the wall. He had seen it a hundred times, but at that moment he needed to see it again.
On the poster, a determined-looking Royal Guard was standing on a hill, saluting to nopony in particular and to all the ponies in Equestria at the same time. Not far behind him stood the great stone castle of the princesses, rising high above Everfree forest in the background. An inscription below the picture read:
Discovered by ponies, transformed by ponies, ruled by ponies. Equestria is yours!
A wide smile appeared on Blackstone’s face and his eyes gleamed with pride, the hardship of the night buried under the memories of what had been achieved and the thoughts of what could still be achieved. He gave the poster a long salute and stepped inside the command center, eager to receive new orders.