In a world of technology, strife, and war, some ponies in Equestria play larger roles than others.
350 C.E. Three hundred and fifty years after the Banishment of Nightmare Moon. Three hundred and fifty years after the founding of the Equestrian Empire in response to the new shift in power. Three hundred and fifty years during which Celestia has held absolute power over Equestria and, indeed, the entire world, albeit in the shadows.
Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Airships held up by small solid steel balloons instead of massive canvass behemoths, once a thing of only fantasy and fiction, now commonly roam the skies. Soldiers equipped with rifles powered by either powder or magic, firing either metal bullets or beams of pure energy. Massive dreadnoughts capable of leveling entire cities.
But the world is a changing place. Tenuous alliances and non-aggression pacts in the face of war and destruction. A Reich so mindlessly infatuated with their leader that they have lost sight of everything beyond their world. A General obsessed with utter annihilation of any enemies of the Crown. An Admiral afraid to throw his ships at the enemy. A Princess afraid of unnecessary loss of life. A student controlling the vast majority of the economy.
And in the middle of it all, an airship captain just trying to make a living for her and her crew.
Thick, black smoke filled the air, accompanied by coal dust and gasoline vapors. The dirty, narrow streets wound, sometimes in circles, sometimes straight, through the sea of sprawling urbanity. Factories, houses, shops, and apartments, all at least five stories high, lined each street; pipes, tubes, bridges, and even some roads ran between them, elevated from the ground either by stilts or just bracing to the walls. This was Canterlot, in the year 350; or at least, Lower Canterlot.
A decade after the banishment of Nightmare Moon, the city Canterlot was founded on the side of the tallest mountain in the Cloudpeak range, Mount Faust as it was called. Since its inception, the city had been divided into two parts; the clean, immaculate white spires of Upper Canterlot, populated by the wealthy and powerful, and the dirty sprawling mess of Lower Canterlot, populated by the poor working class. Their names were suggestive of their placements; Upper Canterlot was high up, near the peak of the mountain and close to the Royal Palace, while Lower Canterlot occupied the lower part of the mountainside. At first, Lower Canterlot was simply a place for poorer ponies to work, situated on one of Equestria's main roads. The Industrial Revolution had started there, however, when some unicorn had figured out how to use Pegasus weather magic to turn machinery and produce textiles and mill steel; from there, another pony discovered that heating water by burning coal was cheaper and easier, and another discovered that the water didn't have to be wasted. It was a neat, closed cycle powered by nearly two hundred years of scientific development; and it was as ugly for the lower city as it was for the poor pegasi and ships that flew over it.
One of the most redeeming features of Lower Canterlot was its airship port. The largest in Equestria, it served as a cargo port for the entire city and a passenger port for the poorer ponies. It was also where the Royal Fleet docked; their flagship dreadnought, a massive, nine-hundred-meter metal behemoth called Sol, was floating there, tethered to the dock by a massive number of ropes. The port itself had been built and expanded over a very long time, and it showed. The earliest docks, near the center, were supported by large wooden pillars and could generally only fit ships about eighty meters long. As technology expanded, so did the docks; for a short span, they were supported by reinforced steel, before switching to being floated by balloons. There was great variety between the early and later balloons; the first ones, capable of only holding relatively low pressures and completely unenchanted, were massive, tall cloth rectangles that rose up to a hundred meters above the dock's surface; as the docks had continued, however, the balloons had gotten smaller as higher pressures were used. Then, the magically enchanted balloons started appearing. No more were they made out of soft, unprotected cloth; they suddenly switched to heavy steel, made magically lighter and filled with enchanted air, able to lift far more with less volume. As magical research into these technologies continued, the balloons became smaller and smaller, until they were only small spheres lining the dock platform. It was to a berth suspended like this that most ships were docked; anything larger than a private yacht had to stay at least in the balloon area, and only dinghies were allowed at the column-levitated area. The docks had become brittle in the past decades, and it was in everypony's interest to avoid them being damaged or destroyed.
Of course, airships and docks weren't the only things benefitting from industry. All along the thin concrete road that connected Upper Canterlot to the main freeway - it bypassed Lower Canterlot completely, as per request of the nobles who had originally funded the construction - the black shapes of personal cars were visible, inching their way along at least twice as fast as a normal pony's running speed with none of the physical exertion. They were far cleaner than the factories and production only five or six miles away; many of them ran off of arcane engines or batteries, both developments by the Princess' own student, a young unicorn mare named Star Sparkle. She had founded her own company, and within ten years had made more headway into the arcane power arts than everypony else combined over the past fifteen. She had developed levitation banks capable of completely obsoleting balloons; she had developed engines capable of producing vast amounts of energy off of the latent magic in the air; she had developed devices capable of "mining" leylines for near-limitless power. She was, by and large, the best technomancer in Equestria. Her creations were all over the nation, and production was massively up. In fact, the only limiting factor was cost; each individual enchanted component needed a team of highly trained, skilled, and talented unicorns, able to perfectly apply the right amount of magic every time.
In the Lower City, of course, cost was the only limiting factor needed. Many of the factories, operated by ponies who lived in Upper Canterlot, found themselves far more focused on minimizing cost than on minimizing defects or minimizing worker casualties. It wasn't rare at all to read about a pony who lost a hoof, or a leg, or their tail in one of the massive coal-fired machines. Many were, unfortunately, too poor and too uneducated to treat or find treatment for their work wounds, and paid dearly. But, life went on; some ponies survived their wounds, many didn't. And while life in Lower Canterlot wasn't as good as many other places in the nation, it was home to nearly eighty thousand ponies, the vast majority of whom were part of the industrial base.
The streets of the lower city were bustling. Ponies went about their day-to-day lives, doing whatever they normally did; some peddled their wares to passers-by, others carried carts full of material, and other just walked by, or stopped to watch for a few seconds before moving on. As miserable as their lives may have seemed to an outsider, many of these ponies were genuinely happy; the quality of life had been steadily improving, and with production and business booming, it seemed like the good times were here to stay. There would be no more war, either; only a decade and a half ago had combined forces from Equestria and the Kingdom Isles beaten back the Reich who controlled the eastern continent, and, while that war was terrible, it was called the war to end all war for a reason; after that insanity, no reasonably pony could ever want to start another conflict. This, combined with the good business and the recent proclamations from the Palace that they would do everything in their power to increase the average pony's quality of life, meant there was an air of happiness, joyfulness, and general thankfulness for life and peace in the air.
A small bar occupied the first floor of one of the many skyscrapers lining the road. Large glass windows let the sparse natural light flood in, illuminating the tables closest to them. A glass door provided the only entrance and exit to the establishment, other than climbing up the stairs off to the side. It was a fairly busy place; situated near one of the city's main intersections, it saw a lot of traffic from merchants, travellers, and anypony else who had a reason to be near the docks. Conical arcane lights, dangling from the ceiling on thin metal wires, provided illumination for the rest of the interior. Booths lined two of the walls; the third was occupied by the bar itself, which had a tired-looking, grizzled earth stallion and a young unicorn mare working it. The last wall was bare, except for a door that connected to the rest of the building. The walls were twin shades of off-white and a bright red, tinged slightly blue by the glow of the lights.
The bar was filled with ponies of all races, genders, and walks of life. A pegasus filly nursed a milkshake at one table; on another, an old unicorn stallion looked intensely at a piece of metal with a shot of whiskey right next to him. A young-looking grey pegasus mare walked inconspicuously into the bar. Her brown mane swayed slightly as she looked around, her yellow eyes narrowing as she saw a certain group of ponies sitting around a table. Her left wing was covered in white gauze, with parts tinged slightly red. Her cutie mark was that of a map, with a compass and quill overlaid onto it. She wore a dark brown trenchcoat with a white shirt underneath, hiding strength-enchanted metal armour. Her mane was unkempt and messy, as was her tail; strands of loose hair stuck out from the brown mass.
She made her way to the table, expertly navigating through the mess of ponies. She took a seat on one of the stools, gaining the interest of the five other ponies seated around it. They all turned to face her with blank looks on their faces. One of them opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a brass cannon-hoof crossing his muzzle, muffling him. He just looked at it with a blank expression; his green eye widened slightly momentarily before calming down. He had a dark-blue coat and darker hair; his face was square and chiseled, and his mane was neatly kept. One of his eyes was perfectly normal, with a green iris; the other was a contraption built of brass and steel and powered by magic, a replacement for one he'd lost before. A dark blue horn stuck out of his head, between the folds of his mane. He let out a sigh as the piece of metal retreated from his face.
The pony who'd silenced him was a young-ish earth mare, with a pale red coat. She had a small smirk on her face as she brought her hoof back to the table, where it landed with a thump. Her mane was a cream colour, falling around and behind her face in long strands. Her rust-red eyes quickly shifted from the blue pony next to her to the pegasus before her. Her cannon hoof moved quickly, the bolted-together contraption of brass, iron, and a bit of gold dragging along the table. She pointed it at the pegasus, her face straight, before breaking into a smile and speaking.
"Hey, Captain, my captain!" the mare bellowed, her voice loud and clear. "It's been a while!" she continued with a grin. "What've you been up to? Did you try to attack another group of random bandits again?" Her grin faded slightly. "Hopefully not. Getting your other wing broken wouldn't be good."
The pegasus, faking offense, retorted, "Hey! I broke this wing on purpose! I meant to get hit by that pipe!"
A few scattered laughs came around the table. Another voice spoke up; this one belonged to a pale green pegasus, with a yellowish mane. His emerald green eyes looked up and down her body; a puff of steam escaped his metal wing as he shifted slightly. "Well, anyway, Steel. The ship's almost out of drydock; she's going to be ready to launch by tomorrow morning."
The pegasus, Steel Wind, almost spat out the water she'd been drinking from a small canteen. "Already? Didn't we lose the balloon, the port engine, and half the cargo bay against that cruiser?"
The iron-winged pegasus nodded. "Yeah. It did a number on us. But Sefe was able to get military engineers working on it; if we'd gotten them sooner, it would probably have only taken a week or less." He nodded to the blue unicorn, who smiled slightly.
"I do my best, Lysander," the unicorn said as he smirked. "But, hey. You helped, too."
"Pshh, no I didn't."
"Yeah, you did. Without your old connections to the Fleet, none of this would've happened."
A soft voice spoke up. "Uhh... guys?" A small white unicorn mare spoke up. Instantly, the entire table turned to look at her. Her coat was a dull white, and her short mane was golden blonde. She had bright blue eyes that constantly darted around, and on her flank was the mark of her homeland; an iron cross.
"What is it, Cross?" Steel Wind asked. The grey pegasus finished her cup and set it down on the table, continuing to stare at the unicorn.
"Do you hear that?" Crosswind said. "It almost sounds like... like cannonfire."
The Palace's war room was a large, elongated rectangular affair. Its walls were made of white stone bricks, gilded in some places with ornate golden decorations. One of the walls was covered in massive windows, overlooking the entire city and the country for tens of miles onward. The opposite wall was covered in a large map of the world, with small dots detailing the position of Equestrian airship fleets and the last known position of the other nations'. In addition, a small grey dot in the middle of the Atlanna Ocean represented the location of one of Equestria's many lesser-known mutual benefactors. A long, dark oaken table spanned the length of the room, with a large, ornate chair crested with an image of the sun at one end.
Sitting in that seat was none other than the Princess of the Sun herself, Celestia, Daughter of Faust. She wore an elegant dress of many shades of yellow and white, her regal golden tiara, and a large necklace of gold. All of them were, of course, enchanted with many wards and protective spells, in case of the off chance of an assassination attempt. Her long horn poked into the air as she waited for the leaders of her military to appear. Her highest-ranking general, Lord Blueblood, had called for a meeting to address the threat to the east; the ponies and gryphons of the Reich had begun making dangerously offensive statements to the nations around them, and many of her leaders were worried that Equestria could come under attack.
The door behind her opened; a white unicorn, dressed in a finely tailored suit with the symbol of Equestria's flag, a circle half-sun and half-moon, walked in, his hooves clopping against the marble floor. He grunted as he tossed his blonde hair aside, before taking his position on the seat to the right of Celestia. He was soon followed by an old grey-coated, white-haired pegasus. The pegasus made his way to the seat opposite the unicorn, left of Celestia. These were Blueblood and Fairwind; her General of the Army and her Grand Admiral of the Airfleet. Blueblood had a picture of two swords crossed over a shield on his flank; the symbol of the House Blueblood since before the Nightmare Moon incident. Fairwind, on the other hand, bore the image of a hot-air balloon; a testament to his age, for he was born in a time when most ships still had canvass balloons.
The rest of her staff filed in shortly afterwards. Seastar, the Admiral of the Navy, sat in his chair, sulking as always. The head of Equestria's research division, a young unicorn by the name of Telltale, sat in grave silence, staring blankly forward. And, of course, her own student Star Sparkle sat near the end of the table, patiently awaiting the beginning of the meeting. The Princess rose from her seat and walked over to the tactical map, gesturing at some of the features.
"Fillies and gentlecolts, General Blueblood has brought to my attention some most concerning news." she began, her gaze firm as she looked over the ponies assembled in the room. Content with what she saw, she continued. "The Reich has reportedly begun mobilising for war. We don't know who it is against, and for what reason they are doing it; all we know is that our allies across the sea could be in great danger."
"We must go on the offensive." General Blueblood stated bluntly. "We outnumber them five to one. Our ships are vastly superior to theirs, thanks to Ms. Sparkle's technology. We have far more and better aircraft than they do. Our soldiers are better trained and equipped. We are the only nation to have perfected arcane energy into a focused, weaponizable beam. We are the only nation to have lifting bodies so small that can lift an object so large. We are the only nation with a dreadnought of any decent size. In fact, if we wanted to, we could probably capture the entire world! I don't, actually, see why we shouldn't; bringing everypony under --"
"Enough!" The Princess said sternly and bitterly. "Your suggestion is... appreciated. But why don't we get somepony else's opinion? Do you have anything to say, Fairwind?"
"Yes, Your Highness." The pegasus bowed as he rose, quickly giving Blueblood a short glare. "I believe we should retain our neutrality and try our best to stay on the defensive. As Blueblood said, our military far outclasses everypony else's without our spending more than ten percent of our budget on it. And that is a very effective deterrent; no pony, griffin, centaur, taurus, minotaur, or anything else with a decent brain would ever want to go to war against us; they quite simply wouldn't stand a chance. I say we sit back and let it play out; if the threat becomes too great, we send a portion of our main battlefleet to deal with them."
The Princess mused over this for a moment, before looking up at the table assembled before her. "This sounds like a very reasonable idea. Any objections?" she asked, looking around the table. When no pony dared to object to her statement, she nodded with a slight grin. "Good."
As she turned to leave the room, the doors slammed open. She was too surprised by the sight of a young pegasus courier sprinting into the room to ask why her guards had let him in; soon, however, she didn't need to ask. "Princess!" the courier shouted, his voice tainted with worry. "I have a message, from Stormfall."
The Princess raised an eyebrow at this. "Stormfall? Isn't that where..."
"The Eastern Scout Fleet is based, yes." he said. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. "I should probably tell you in private, first." he said nervously, before approaching the Princess. She lowered her head and he whispered something into her ear; her face instantly paled, becoming an even brighter shade of white than it already was, as her eyes widened.
"What?" she silently whispered.
"You heard me. They're moving west, straight towards Gaelia."
The Princess sighed as she straightened herself up and regained her composure to turn around to the ponies of her military, who were watching with mild interest. "Fillies and gentlecolts..." she said, sighing once more. She steeled her gaze and looked straight down the table. "Mobilize the First Fleet."
"I'm sailing away; set an open course for the virgin sea."
The noontime sun shone brightly onto the bright yellow box-shaped airtaxi. Powered by twin streams of compressed air expelled through small ports in the back, it slowly putted through the air with its six passengers. Its pilot, a grizzled old tan stallion, sat in a small cockpit at the back, shielded from the sun by a painted cloth roof. He gripped a pair of levers in his hooves, controlling the power and altitude, and pushed on two pedals with his rear legs to turn the vehicle. He kept his eyes glued to the sky ahead of him and to his sides, only occasionally glancing at an arcane screen inlaid into his dashboard.
Steel Wind and her crew sat in the taxi. Cross Eisewel, the ship's cook and cargo manager, looked out over the side, her head nearly half a foot out from the railing. At first glance, many Equestrians would consider her an oddity; a petite unicorn with a white coat, a blonde mane, blue eyes, and an Iron Cross on her flank, with such a peculiar name, certainly would attract some attention. It became slightly more manageable when they learned that she had been born and raised outside Equestria -- in the Reich, actually -- where names like hers were far less uncommon, generally being two words with the latter one being passed down through the family. Lysander Addis, the ship's spotter and also born and raised outside Equestria, suffered much the same wonderment. A pale-green pegasus with a dark yellow mane, he had been born in the Kingdom Isles, a chain of about twelve islands off the north coast of Gaelia, a nation bordering the Reich to the west. The rest of the crew were far more mundane, although still unusual in their own rights. Rosebud, the ship's weapons specialist, had been born in Lower Canterlot, and had lost her hoof in a factory accident. She'd decided to leave the worker's life, and had joined up with Steel Wind shortly after spending all her savings on a replacement hoof that doubled as a club and arcane cannon. Broadhoof, the face of the ship, had a much more mundane existence, having decided that the farming life of his parents wasn't for him. He had, with his parents' blessing, left home and headed to Canterlot, where he had become infatuated with the air-sailor's life and had joined up with Steel Wind almost immediately, taking advantage of the art of speech that was marked by a microphone on his flank. Sefe Lywell, the ship's primary engineer and radio operator, had simply been an immigrant's son and had been hired by Steel almost at random.
This crew of six sat in the airtaxi, conversing, as it flew forward. It was quite slow, being one of the cheapest methods of travel between the two parts of the city, but it was nonetheless still moving at a rather respectable speed of nineteen knots. Occasionally, Steel would look out at the city, at the gleaming white spires, at the rows upon rows of buildings. The Winterleaf District, the largest part of the Upper City, sprawled along the mountainsides all the way down to the docks, thousands of middle-class houses providing some of the highest-quality living in Equestria. Near the docks, more commercial and industrial buildings stood, selling everything from toys and food to high-cost, high-power arcane components to even, occasionally, entire airship hulls waiting to be equipped and used. Out of the corner of her eye, Steel saw a familiar building; a large, white structure with a dark blue roof. Signalling to the airtaxi's captain, she had him turn the vessel until it was pointing straight to the small wooden landing pad that sat just outside of the chainlink fence surrounding most of the structure.
The small vessel turned towards these structures, a hissing sound escaping its stern as it pushed through the air as fast as its very weak propulsion would let it. Its rudder turned slowly, making slight adjustments to its course, as it flew over the docks. The sounds of crew, longshoremen, and the many merchants who set up shops and stalls on and along the piers filled the air as the taxi soared over the metal-lined wooden structure. Some ships were docked even here, mostly merchants but also the occasional warship, generally a frigate or destroyer. It came over the streets of the city, over the streets filled with fillies and colts playing their games without a care in the world, over the rows of neatly arranged houses and large, green lawns.
The airtaxi slowly approached the berthing station next to the large building, its landing gear down. Steam hissed out of its belly as it descended towards the wooden surface, ready to unload its passengers. As soon as it touched down, making a thump against the thick surface, six ponies jumped out and walked towards the shipyard's front office. It was a small building, a fraction of the size of the hangar. Its walls were the same white and its roof the same blue as the larger structure behind it, however. Two large windows allowed a view into the relatively well-decorated room. A portrait of the shipyard's owner sat in the rear of the room, framed in gold. A bored-looking earth pony in relatively expensive-looking clothes sat behind a desk, a novel in his hand as he waited. The group of six entered, the door jingling as it opened. The pony looked up, instantly dropped his book, and drew a pen and binder out of somewhere behind his counter and dropped them on his desk.
"Hello! Welcome!" His pale blue face looked at each of the ponies, his green mane shaking slightly as his head moved. A pair of deep-blue eyes looked up and down each of the crewmembers, almost as if sizing them up. After about a second, he nodded and sat back into a more relaxed position. "What can I do for you?"
Steel Wind just placed a slip of paper on the desk, turning it so that it faced the attendant. He took out a pair of spectacles from the counter, and raised his eyebrows slightly. "An Admiralty seal? Ah, wait. Nevermind," he said, as he continued down the paper. "So, you're Ms. Wind then? Your ship is in the main hangar. The engineers said they just finished with it; besides missing a few preflight checks, it should be in perfect condition. I must say, whatever hit you did quite a number on her. I'm surprised you didn't just drop out of the sky; generally, pilots can't survive anywhere near that much damage."
Steel just smiled at the thinly-veiled complement; with a quick nod, the attendant nodded his head quickly before continuing to speak. "Right, then. Shall I lead you to your ship?"
"Yes, please." she said politely, accompanying it with a slight curtsy. Her weather-worn garments shook slightly as she did so, and she took a moment to straighten them before the attendant started moving. They followed him out through a rear door of the structure and into a small, grassy courtyard with a cobblestone path winding slightly through it. Some chatter went between the crew and the attendant, but for the most part it was rather silent save for the fall of hoof on stone. They came to another, slightly larger door within half a minute; this door, however, was on the large hangar building. The attendant knocked twice, and the door opened. A tall, stout unicorn stallion opened the door, looking at the attendant for a moment before noticing the grey pegasus.
"She's here!" he shouted, turning his head back towards the interior of the hangar. The attendant stepped aside, shaking slightly, as the tall pony stepped forward. He was dressed in the off-duty uniform of the Royal Engineering Corps; a burgundy coat with golden trim. "I assume you're here for your ship, Ms. Wind?" he said, eying the pegasus up and down. It was probably the handkerchief she always wore half-tucked into her coat's front pocket that gave her identity away; regardless, he had known who she was. She sighed as she replied.
"Yes. It's fully operable, right?" Her affirmation was immediately followed by a question, so quick that many ponies would have missed the "yes" entirely. However, it did not avoid the stallion's ear, and he came with his own reply.
"Yes, ma'am." The stallion's quick reply, combined with his gravelly voice and the somewhat intimidating stature he held, seemed to make the word reverberate through the air.
Steel Wind nodded. While she didn't enjoy the formalities so often displayed to her, she had quickly learned to dismiss them as just a side effect of her father's position; the Admiralty had a habit of attracting a great deal of respect, even for those only associated to it by blood or by proxy. The stallion moved aside, and Steel entered the building followed closely by her crew. The engineers that had been making last minute checks on the vessel waved before either jumping off the side or, if they were on the interior, walking through the door in the stern.
Once the engineers had cleared, Steel had an unblocked line of sight to her vessel. It was a rather small airship compared to some of the ones that sat out on the docks; that wasn't to say that it didn't dwarf the ponies, however; at eight meters tall, ten wide, and twenty long, it was still far larger than most other small merchant ships. Its hull was a nearly-grey color, tinged slightly with red. It was a rather fat ship for its length, and its bow was a rounded, flattened hemisphere instead of neatly curving to a point like most other vessels; one of the quirks of the Renau-class merchant vessel. Its stern, unlike its hull, turned sharply upward at an angle. The majority of the flat plate at the rear of the stern was a massive door, which opened downwards into a ramp perfectly usable for loading cargo. A massive window was just above the cargo door, providing the pilot of the merchant ship with a perfectly-clear, almost uninhibited view of the sky and land behind the ship -- or, in this case, the hangar wall.
Three landing legs jutted out of the bottom of the vessel; essentially telescopic, retracting poles with flat metal pads stuck onto them, they provided the ship with a relatively safe, secure way of touching down without breaking anything important. They kept the ship about a meter off the ground, a good margin of error for most terrain types without requiring longer, sturdier landing gear. The ship's deck was made out of wood; while usually dirty and dull, it had been polished to a shine by the engineers that had been working on it. There was no above-deck balloon; instead, there was only open sky. A single pony-operated 20mm cannon turret was the only armament the ship itself had, although it was still definitely a weapon to be feared against even the newest monoplane designs of the Airfleet, assuming that it could hit an aircraft before the plane hit it. Twin engines sat on either side of the hull, attached by a complicated web of pipes, struts, and metal beams. The engines shone a brass color, the finish having been applied by personal request of Steel when she left her ship in the shipyard's care.
Within the bowels of the ship, there were a variety of rooms arranged along two decks. The more commonly-used rooms, such as the kitchen, mess hall, crew quarters, observation room, armory, etc. were all located on the upper deck, on either side of a narrow corridor that ran the length of the ship and terminated in a forward stairwell, while the more engineering-based rooms, such as the fuel tanks, the batteries, the arcane-balloon banks, and the ship's power routing system, as well as the cargo bay, were on the lower deck. The piloting cabin was in the stern of the ship, an odd arrangement until one notices the arcane screens displaying live feeds of the bow, stern, side, and bottom views of the ship. The only part of the ship that didn't have a screen dedicated to it was the top; it only took a quick peek through the multitude of windows in the top of the piloting cabin to realize why, as the massive window, held up by a lattice of steel conforming to the curved glass, provided a more-than-apt view of the sky above. Besides the windows and screens, there were many gauges and levers for controlling the ship, as well as two levers and a throttle that controlled altitude, heading, and throttle. On the left of the room, there was an arcane map; points of light identified every major city while a single red dot identified the ship's position. It was very useful for navigation; displaying both Equestria and the entire continent of Euroa, it was helpful for navigating anywhere from the mountains of Central Russe through the Reich and Gaelia, all the way to Las Pegasus on the southwestern Equestrian coast.
Painted on the side of the ship, in golden letters that stood out against the dull background of the hull, was the name "Katyusha." It was a simple name for a simple ship, given when the vessel was first launched a decade and a half earlier in Stalliongrad. The letters were old, faded, but still easily readable.
Steel Wind and her crew clambered excitedly into the ship. They trotted through the familiar corridors quickly and easily, all reaching their stations as fast as they could and checking up on what they needed to. It took a good portion of an hour for all the information to be gathered and all the pre-flight checks to be completed, but in due time, the ship was ready to take flight.
Steel, Lysander, Cross, and Broadhoof were walking down one of Manehatten's many crowded streets. The sidewalk was full of ponies; so much so that it was quite difficult to stay close enough to hear. The street was flanked by tall buildings, between twenty and thirty stories in height; not quite the tallest buildings in the city, but rather close. Cars of various makes and models filled the black asphalt road, their engines and honks filling the air as they waited, stuck in traffic.
The building that Lysander had pointed out had, at first glance, seemed rather normal. Twenty-three stories, high, with windows set in grey stone walls, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about it; at least, until one looked further down. There, a white banner with solid black letters read: EQUESTRIAN AIRFLEET OFFICE - NOW HIRING CAPTAINS, SHIPS, AND CREWS.
"Do you think we should go in there?" Cross asked, tilting her head as she looked at the sign.
"Sure. Might be a good way to get money, after all." Steel replied, looking at Lysander and Broadhoof. They just nodded; so, without further ado, Steel crossed the street, followed closely by her crew. It may have been a better idea to actually use the crosswalks, but since the cars were stationary, it was easier to just fit through the spaces between the bumpers of the stuck-in-traffic vehicles. They made it to the other side of the street with little problem, and walked up to the front of the building.
The doors of the building were ornately decorated. Gold-colored frames held large glass panes on either side of a similarly-modeled revolving door. On the other side of the door, a large lobby with marble floors and golden chandeliers framed an ornate wooden desk behind which a well-dressed stallion sat, a pen in his mouth as he wrote down something or over. The lobby was quite full, many ponies who looked like they were from upper society looking oddly at the crew as they walked up towards the desk. The stallion looked up from his paper as he heard the approaching hoofbeats, and quickly closed what he was working on.
"Good morning, Miss. What can I do for you?" he asked, looking at the crew and mostly succeeding at hiding his nervousness.
"We're here to sign up; we heard you were hiring ships and crews." Steel replied, leaning on the desk. "But first; if we supplied our ship, would we be the ones to crew it?"
"Of course, Madam. Just sign your name, the names of your crew, and your ship's name here, and I'll give you the list of important dates you need to know."
She did so; as soon as she signed her name, the stallion paled slightly. As soon as she had finished writing the names with her mouth, he asked, "So, Ms. Wind. Do you know the Fleet Admiral personally?"
"If knowing him personally means spending the first eighteen years of your life living in his house, then yes." Steel replied. "Now, give me that paper."
"Of course! Sorry, madame," he said with a sheepish grin as he handed over the paper. "It's just, not every day do we see someone of your social status here."
"Social status? That belongs to my dad. I'm just a humble airship captain."
"Really? I doubt the admiral would allow his own daughter to drop like that without having some sort of lifeline."
"Well, see you later, Mr..."
"Quillpen. The name's Quillpen."
"Alright, Mr. Quillpen. Bye."
"So," Steel said to her crew as they sat around a table inside the Katyusha. "There's three dates we absolutely can't miss. The first one's about four days from now; they're having some sort of faux-battle thing, where they're going to decide which applicants to keep. Then, a week after that, there's an official training session where they'll teach us about naval tactics, then have another battle. Finally, a week after that, there's the ceremony where they decide what branch to put us under - line battle, intelligence gathering, or special operations. Most likely, we'll be going into intelligence gathering or spec-ops, since we don't have any good weapons for frontline combat.
"Remind me again, why are we doing this?" Sefe asked as he lifted up a cup of tea to his lips. "It seems like this could go spectacularly poorly in a large variety of ways."
"It's also a way for us to get something to do." Cross explained. "You know how we haven't really done much of anything since we helped raid that pirate base, like, three years ago? This is our chance to finally do something big."
"I dunno," Rosebud said, in a thoughtful position. "I kinda like this life. It's safe, it's quiet -"
"It's boring." Lysander said. "All we do is just trading goods. We're capable of so much more; why limit ourselves to what's easy when we can have a life we enjoy living?"
"Either way," Steel said, "we're doing it. Now, c'mon. It's barely even noon, and we have the entire rest of the day to waste away."
"I'm going to go see the city, maybe get a drink. Any of you want to come?" Lysander said, already hovering.
"I'm game," Steel said, followed by a chorus of agreements.
The rest of the day was largely spent going around the city, visiting its many familiar landmarks. Even though none of the crew had been born there, or lived there for any longer than a few days at a time, they had been there often enough to know most of the city's major landmarks; from the Empire Tower that rose high above the rest of the city to the large copper statue of Celestia that stood in the harbor to Time Square in the center of the city, they'd seen - or flown dangerously close to - all of them.
Come nightfall, the crew had returned to their ship after their sightseeing, and had all fallen asleep - except for Steel, who was on deck, watching the docks as she sat on her flanks, cradling a bottle in her hooves. Every few minutes, she'd take another swig as the lights of incoming and exiting ships filled the sky. She just sat there and watched them for hours, until she fell asleep right there on deck, an empty bottle in her hooves.
A/N: This chapter will likely be lower quality than most others, considering how I wasn't really feeling it at all at the time of writing.
"Fillies and Gentlecolts! We here at the Equestrian Airfleet Recruitment Division are glad that you decided to attend today's event!"
"Oh, bugger," Steel said, leaning on her hooves as she listened to the announcer's annoying voice. Even from where she sat with her crew in the cargo hold of the Katyusha, she could hear the loud, pestering voice quite clearly. She despised her current position; being forced to listen to such an annoying voice for potentially hours just in order to not be kicked out of the competition. Thankfully, the announcer spoke quickly.
"The rules for today's contest are simple. A mock-battle will be held. Your weapons, ammunition, and everything else that could be dangerous have all been enchanted for safety. Any shots - or slices, for those of you who prefer melee combat - will result in a simple flash of light and, if it was an attack on a pony, an ejection from the arena or, for ships, immobilization and inability to fire weapons.
"No aircraft besides ships will be allowed to participate in today's battle. While there are no carriers here anyway, we've had some... incidents in the past. Of course, pegasi will be allowed to fly, as they will not go down in flames if shot.
"There are two teams for this combat; an offensive team and a defensive team. The offensive team's goal is to simply take control of the flag. There is no need to run it back to friendly territory; if they can capture and hold the flag for two minutes, they win the battle. The defense's goal is to protect their flag. If the flag is kept uncaptured for three hours or if all the offense is eliminated, the defense wins."
"Papers are being delivered to each ship now, detailing what team they will be on. Once you get your paper, move to the southwest corner of the map if you are offense, or the northeast corner if you are defense. The game will begin in ten minutes from now."
Steel looked up just in time to have a paper drop on her face. Shrugging, she pulled it off with a hoof and looked at it. It only had one word printed on it.
Offense.
The battle began with a roar. Both sides had respectable amounts of ships - nearly thirty each, generally between ten and sixty meters long. Many of them were armed to the teeth, floating platforms of annihilation launching torrents of hellfire at any hostile unit that crossed their path. Bright flashes filled the sky as shots connected with their targets, from artillery shells hitting ships to plucky pegasi dropping bombs onto their targets to some of the strands of tracer fire in the forest of light hitting their targets.
The Katyusha was no exception. Her 40mm cannon swiveled as it tracked its targets, letting loose short bursts before switching to another. Almost invariably, the target it shot at was engulfed by a flash of light, rendering it no longer a threat. It skirted the battlefield, staying far enough away from the center of the action to avoid much notice, for almost two hours. It was quite obvious by that point that the offense was losing; they were down to only eight ships, and had barely advanced a quarter of the map beyond the original halfway point. The defensive team, on the other hand, had nearly double that number, with half their original fleet left.
A flash of light erupted from one of the offensive ships. Seven. Another, from a different ship. Six. Two flashes erupted out of opposite sides of one of the enemies, but it was not enough to curb the flow. It was a losing battle, and everypony knew it.
But the Katyusha wasn't about to lose.
"Alright!" Steel said from the piloting cabin. "I'm going to crash-dive us, to about five meters above the treetops!" she shouted to her crew, most of whom were gathered on the deck of the Katyusha, listening intently. "Lysander, I need you to fly forward and try distract them as long as you can while we cap the flag. Don't worry if you get knocked out; it's only an exercise." She turned to Cross. "Cross, see if you and Sefe can put up some kind of shield or - even better - cloak around the ship. Basically, just do your best to make us harder to kill." She turned to Rosebud. "Hold your fire until you know we've been detected, they open fire on us, or they're close." Finally, she turned to Broadhoof. "Broadhoof, since Sefe's going to be using his magic to do whatever, I need you to be down in the engine room. Tell me if anything's breaking."
A chorus of approval rose from the deck of the ship as the ponies moved to their positions. Soon, the Katyusha was steaming towards the flag, barely avoiding the tops of the coniferous trees that covered the rolling hills of the battle-zone. It was surprisingly quiet at such low altitude; Steel presumed that meant that her remaining allies had been eliminated. She looked at the clock in the piloting cabin; there were roughly forty-five minutes left in the game. Plenty of time to capture the flag, if the ship could get there undetected.
Unfortunately, there was no such luck. Despite being rather well camouflaged by the combined magic of her two unicorns, the ship's red hull still poked out in places, giving a hint as to where the enemy should fire. Shells started flying as the twelve remaining ships slowly began to accelerate towards the Katyusha, who was well past halfway to their flag already. Being mostly larger ships, however, the remaining ships on the defensive team were slower than the Katyusha, and had no hope of catching up or firing accurately at the quick-moving vessel.
Sure enough, as soon as the defenders started firing at the Katyusha, Lysander shot up off the deck and started beelining towards the enemy fleet. He dodged through the air, attracting most of the attention of the ship's crews by deflecting tracer fire back at the ships using his metal wing. Flashes started popping up all over the decks of the ships as he kept up his performance for nearly five minutes, flying over, under, around, and even looping over the enemy ships until a lucky strike took him out of the game. But, he managed to buy his ship enough time.
By the time Lysander had been dealt with, the Katyusha was already at the flag and was beginning to capture it. Sure enough, a voice boomed out, "Flag being captured! Two minutes until offense wins!" Steel cursed under her breath as she drove the Katyusha in lazy circles around the flagpole, watching as a strip on the side slowly changed from blue to red. The red seemed to creep up from the bottom of the stip, eating towards the top as the time passed. It wasn't hard to figure out that it was an indicator of how done the capture was.
Of course, by the time thirty seconds were left in the battle, the enemy had reached firing range. Without the ability to dodge, flee, or do much of anything for fear of losing the capture, all the Katyusha could do was vary its path slightly to allow the shells to either miss entirely or just barely bounce off the relatively thin armor that it had. With ten seconds left, the Katyusha took a solid hit to her deck. It was quite obvious to Steel that it had taken out her engines, weapons, and power core, as well as at least three of her crew, but the Katyusha was still technically in the game. With five seconds left, a shot hit the front of the ship, one that would easily have blasted off the bow had it not been enchanted. With a single second left, Steel saw a shell coming straight for the piloting cabin. Not caring about her injured wing, she threw open the door, ran across the deck, and jumped towards the flagpole just as the ship behind her exploded in a flash of light, the capture was completed, and she was teleported into a room, where she fell hard on her stomach and passed out.
A few hours water, she awoke in her bed in the Katyusha. She quickly learned the details of what had happened from Lysander; the offense had won the game right as the Katyusha was being destroyed, and since that type of situation was rare, and her reaction even rarer, there were no safeguards to prevent any damage for reasons of pure ease of use: it was far easier to teleport while keeping velocity than it was to teleport and cancel the teleported object's velocity. The shock of the teleportation combined with the blunt force of the impact against the floor of what she learned to be the holding room - where all the ponies who had 'died' in the battle waited for it to finish - had knocked her out cold before she could even claim her prize. She was escorted back to the ship with no problem, and laid to rest in her bed until she came to.
Looking out her window, she could tell that night would fall soon. Lysander trotted out of her room as she tried to sit up and get out of bed, only to fall flat on her face as she rolled. She managed to get up on her hooves next time she tried, at least, and she was shortly trotting out onto the deck.
When she got on deck, she expected nothing much. Maybe a few nurses, asking her questions about how she felt. Hopefully no one. If she was unlucky, the announcer would come to have her claim her prize in front of everypony else who participated. What she didn't expect was every single pony who had participated in the battle standing on the docks where the Katyusha was parked, maybe six hundred ponies all told. Of course, at the front of the crowd and literally on the gangplank was a pony dressed quite fancily and holding a letter. As soon as she poked her head up above the deck, she immediately felt herself dragged further out and put onto her feet by near-imperceptible magic as the pony walked over to her and hooved her the letter. She shoved it into a pocket, intending to read it later, and went out to see what was happening.
The basic gist of the meeting was that, since she had essentially single-hoovedly won the battle for her team, many of the ponies wanted to meet her, either to glean some of her methods, acquaint themselves with her, or simply congratulate her for her performance. It took nearly three hours to get through all the ponies in the crowd, and by the time they had all left, Steel was nearly collapsing from exhaustion. Ignoring her crew members, who were all trying to get her attention, she just hobbled over to her room, flopped into her bed, and almost immediately dozed off.
