Centuries ago, in the years after Nightmare Moon's banishment, Luna and Celestia's descendants helped Celestia build the new nation.
Luna's great-granddaughter, Gale Glider, forged the Royal Equestrian Coast Guard, imbuing it with traditions of valor, sacrifice, and bravery. Her final words remain their sacred oath:
"Sister," Luna said, nodding as Celestia entered her chambers.
Raven Inkwell stood and bowed before silently disappearing out the back entrance.
"How are Raven's language lessons going, Luna?"
Luna's ears twitched and her feathers ruffled. She frowned. "I can speak modern Ponish if I take my time. Excitement or anger, and I still yet lapse."
"You're still planning to attend Nightmare Night in Ponyville?"
Luna looked at her calendar. A date next week was circled. "A few extra weeks to prepare for my reentry to society would be better, but yes."
They stared at each other until Luna said, "Your face betrays unease."
"Tomorrow is an event, Luna. I hate to ask you to perform Royal duties in public so soon, but I think it is important. You need only to stand at my side with austere silence and somber dignity. That is what I do, every year."
"What event is this?"
"The eight-hundred and ninety-first cohort of officer-cadets from the Coast Guard Academy will graduate and swear their oaths to the Crown. To the Crowns, now. It is important we attend."
Luna frowned. "You showed me a tomb. A memorial, rather. You told me that my great-granddaughter...?"
"The sea is harsh," Celestia continued. "The Coast Guard is the single most dangerous profession in Equestria. The officers and ponies will always sail to succor those in need, regardless of the risk to themselves. This tradition is ingrained as deep as bone, no matter the cost. The officer corps carries on your great-granddaughter's traditions, always leading from the front. The officers command not 'Go forward,' but instead 'Follow me,' as taught by the child of your bloodline. We, the Crowns, will bear witness to their valor, to honor those who will fall, and to remember those who have fallen, those who lived in accord with the tradition... the tradition tempered in your great-granddaughter's spilled blood."
Luna swallowed twice, then nodded. "I shall go to bed early and be ready tomorrow."
The Coast Guard Academy sat on the edge of Manehattan Harbor, across from the city itself. Manicured drill fields surrounded brick buildings and a dense copse of tall oaks stood to the north of the buildings, the leaves red and orange with autumn. An ancient caravel, preserved as a museum ship, was tied to a dock, a line of tourists awaiting admission. Black letters on her stern proclaimed her the Dawn's Light.
The two princesses walked along the paved path, their metal boots ringing against the stones. Formal couture and regalia, white and gold on one and blue and silver on the other, billowed in the wind.
A black marble statue stood in the circle where the road met the main building.
"My daughter's granddaughter?" Luna asked, looking at the statue. It was a tall mare, slim with aristocratic features, clearly a Canterlot noble, despite the wings and the lack of a horn. She was clad in a life jacket and helmet, tail and mane blown in the wind. She raised one hoof, pointing forward, and shouted over her shoulder, a snarl of determination on her face.
The plinth named the sculpture Follow me!
Celestia nodded. "I loved her. I miss her."
"The marble is colorless. What did she look like?"
"Dark blue, darker than you, all but black. The white socks and blaze that ran in your family for so many generations. Her wingtips were white, too. Her mane and tail were the gray of the northern seas tossed by a winter storm. From birth, she was gray, and earned much teasing. As the eldest of her generation, her siblings and cousins called her 'grandma,' even before they left the nursery." Celestia smiled. "It drove her mad."
"Had I not made my mistakes, I would have known her."
Celestia put a wing over Luna's back and hugged her.
They entered the main foyer of the Coast Guard Academy, a grand marble-floored hallway a quarter-mile long and one story high. Autumn sunlight poured through the glass ceiling. The right wall was painted with murals and the left wall hung with small plaques.
The polished granite lintel to the entrance was carved with the Coast Guard's sacred oath: We have to go out. We don't have to come back.
Luna looked at the first mural. Seven small ships were tied alongside a single large one, bluffs and stone promontories looming in the mist beyond. Wind drove towering waves, snow and lightning surrounding them. The artist must have been the greatest master of her generation, for Luna smelled the salt and ozone.
"Five hundred years ago," Celestia said, bowing her head momentarily to the mural. "During the Griffonstone Civil War, famine, cruelty, and the desperation of parents who wished naught but a better life for their chicks drove four thousand refugees onto a ship meant for four hundred. A storm pushed it onto rocks. Coast Guard Station Baltimare sortied every cutter it deemed seaworthy, and two it did not. Seventy-three ponies and sixteen officers—including the station's commodore—were killed by storm and sea. That price was horrible, but I name it worthy: three thousand, one hundred and twelve refugees were snatched from the maelstrom, mostly chicks too young and too malnourished to fly to safety. It was both the darkest and the brightest day in the Coast Guard's history. The descendants of the rescued griffons are now among Equestria's most loyal subjects. Not a small number will be in the graduating class today, for they hold their debt sacred, and its repayment the task of generations."
Luna nodded, then walked to the opposite side of the foyer. The plaques were gold, silver, or brass colored, each about the size of two hooves placed together, the three colors about equal in number.
The first plaque was brass. She read:
Rescue Swimmer Rising Tide Fifty miles west-northwest of Vanhoover HMCGC Swiftsure 4th month, 12th day, Year 1093
"H-M-C-G-C?" Luna asked.
"Her Majesty's Coast Guard Cutter." Her lip twitched into a tiny smile. "Perhaps they must be renamed Their Majesties', now."
"That date is from this spring," Luna said. "Does it mean what I fear?"
"This is the Wall of Honor," Celestia explained, with a sweep of a wing. "Every pony or officer who fell in the line of duty is named here." Celestia sniffled and wiped her nose. "One thousand, three hundred, and twenty four names over almost a thousand years. One plaque is presently being fabricated by the artisans. Winter storm season approaches, and I fear they will have more work."
Luna took a few steps and looked at a silver plaque that named a petty officer, killed a decade before.
"This is a place of great sadness."
"The sea is harsh, but doctrine, technology, and training improve, century-over-century. The rate at which names are added is but a tiny fraction of the old days'. The ethos, the dedication, the sense of duty, the tradition, however, are no different from what your great-granddaughter created."
Luna then looked at a gold plaque:
Sub-Lieutenant Winter Storm Heiress, Duchy Cloudsdale HMCGC Indefatigable Twenty miles east of Baltimare Harbor
The date was thirty years past.
Luna was dumbstruck and needed half a minute to find words again. Her voice was raspy and quiet: "The heiress to a duchy died in the uniform of the Crown?"
"Cloudsdale is the senior of all duchies in Equestria, ever since the Battle of Canterlot Bridge, nine hundred and ninety-six years ago."
"You did not answer my question."
"Many of our vassals are useless fops, and raise their foals to follow in their hoofsteps. Many more, thank goodness, have followed in the example of your daughters, and raise their foals with the sense of duty and obligation that their privileges deserve."
"The heiress Cloudsdale was a mere sub-lieutenant?"
"Winter Storm was twenty-one, only three months graduated from the Academy herself, on her first assignment. Her boat crew saved twelve lives. She died when she tried to make the number thirteen, and her crew failed to recover her body. She received the Coast Guard's highest decoration, the Valorous Lifesaving Medal..." Celestia turned away and wiped her eyes. "That medal is so damnably oftenposthumous... I have thanked far too many families for their sacrifice while giving them a folded Equestrian flag..."
"What happened to the Cloudsdale succession?"
"Her younger twin, Fire Storm, is now Duke Cloudsdale."
"I've met him," Luna said, tapping a silver-shod hoof on the marble floor. "Raven introduced us, so I could practice my modern Ponish with one of your political allies, who would not go gossip to a newspaper."
"Fire Storm's son and heir was in last year's graduating class, presently a sub-lieutenant aboard the cutter Typhoon."
"I recall Duke Cloudsdale's coat and feathers are pockmarked with burns and scars."
"He commanded the Royal Forestry Service smokejumpers before his mother passed and he was called home to Cloudsdale to take up his fief."
Luna slowly walked down the hallway, looking at the names. About one in six of the golden officers' plaques indicated the fallen had been either a peer or an heir. Indeed, she counted one duke and three duchesses, a dozen earls or countesses, and many lesser peers over the nine centuries of loss.
This memorial was soaked in blue blood.
"Sister..." Luna whispered. "Sister, where is my great-granddaughter's name?"
Celestia clenched her eyes and took a deep breath. "Her name is the very first."
Luna raised her nose high, clenched her wings, and strode slowly, with as much regal dignity as she could muster, to the far end of the Wall of Honor, about a quarter of the way down the corridor. Midnight-blue silk rustled. Her breath rasped, burning down her throat like the blast of a blacksmith's forge, and the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears drowned out the echoing of the silver hoofshoes on the marble. Her stomach twisted, knotting up, and she feared she would vomit on her regalia as the terror swelled with every step closer to the end of the wall of plaques.
She reached the end and looked at the plaque, at the top of the first rank of names, just above horn-height.
Her breathing slowed and her heartbeat came back under control.
After more than nine hundred years, the gold was dingy from the smoke of candles and the dust of ages. Luna's horn lit. She cleaned the plaque until it gleamed.
It was no larger or more ornate than any of the thousands of others in the hallway. Without reading it, one would have never known it remembered somepony unusual:
Vice Admiral Gale Glider Princess of the Blood HMCGC Dawn's Light Pone Island Sound, just northeast of Manehattan Harbor 23rd day, 10th month, Year 178
"Today is the anniversary of her fall," Luna observed sadly.
"Graduation is always today. The tradition is inviolable."
"An admiral at age forty?" Luna asked.
"In those early days, I had few allies, and even fewer I could trust without reservation. I leaned heavily on your children, and mine." Celestia's ears drooped and her tail thrashed. "Far too many of them died as I forged Equestria. I treated them as a blacksmith treats her anvil. I have never forgiven myself, because they thanked me for my trust and basked in the honor of being used and broken."
"I have never seen your judgment in error, Sister. And this Equestria you forged without my assistance is testament to your choices.'
Celestia looked away, then up at the ceiling, her voice weak. "History remembers my triumphs and forgets my mistakes. But I remember."
The princesses sat in a raised box at the back of the ceremony. One hundred and fifty-one officer-cadets, mostly ponies but including sixteen griffons, four donkeys, one zebra, and two mules, all resplendent in tailored black-and-jade dress uniforms, sat stiffly in folding chairs, their families in bleachers to their left. Three Peers of the Realm—a countess and two barons—could be recognized among the parents and grandparents.
"Now," Celestia whispered to Luna, about a half-hour into the ceremony, "for the Coast Guard's most solemn tradition."
"Indeed?"
"The senior non-commissioned officer in the service has the honor of reading the story of the Service's founding. Generally, their last duty before a well-earned retirement. The words are translated, every few decades, into modern Ponish, but every word of the story is true, for I made sure it was vetted and verified while survivors' memories were still fresh, and it made use of Gale's letters and diaries."
"The story of my child's grandchild," Luna said.
Celestia wanted to hug her sister, for Luna was shaking, but the dignity of the ceremony prevented the gesture.
Celestia then hugged her anyway, wrapping a wing around her, and Luna buried her face into Celestia's neck.
A grizzled mare in the uniform of a command master chief walked to the podium, a thin hardbound book tucked under her wing. She placed the book on the podium, shuffled her wings, and then began to read in a loud voice.
The kind of voice that was trained to carry over the bedlam of storm, sea, and panic, snapping a rookie crew to their Duty to the Crown and to the Tradition of the Service.
The kind of voice that went out, with no mind paid to the odds of coming back.
Nine hundred and fifteen years before, ranks of ponies and officers stood at attention on that same drill field, shivering under their oilskins and heavy parkas. The icy sleet blowing off Manehattan Harbor lashed them, giving lie to the calendars that proclaimed the second day of spring. Only the barest hint of morning sunlight diffused through the clouds.
Gale Glider looked at her new command. Seven hundred ponies waited for her, half from the Navy and half from the Army, along with a sprinkling from the Manehattan Police. They were evenly split between volunteers eager to be a part of something new and unwilling dregs pawned off by previous commanding officers, happy to be rid of them.
She strode to the head of the parade ground, a sailor following at her hooves. She nodded at him and he lit his horn, providing her with an amplification spell. Her valet, Master Steward Proper Place, levitated an umbrella over Gale's head.
Looking at the assembled ranks, she took a few deep breaths, steadying her nerves. The freezing wind burned down her throat. Gale pulled a tightly wrapped scroll from under her own rain slicker, broke its wax seal, and read aloud. The spell let her voice boom over the lash of wind and sleet:
"To, Vice Admiral Her Royal Highness Princess Gale Glider. From, Her Majesty Princess Celestia, Ruler of the Ponies. Admiral: I hereby request and command you to shift your flag to Station Manehattan Harbor and take command of the new service, the Royal Equestrian Coast Guard, authorized by act of Parliament and by my signature. You will make this service ready for active operations in the defense of the lives of ponies and all races who take to the sea in ships and boats before next autumn's storm season."
Gale took a deep breath and hesitated for a moment before reading the final line: "On your sacred honor, fail not at this Royal charge. Celestia."
She rolled up the scroll and tucked it back under her slicker. The ponies stared at her. Across the drill field, two sailors ran a white flag with three red stars up the pole in front of the headquarters building, formalizing her assumption of command.
"I won't waste your time with speeches while there's a sleet storm coming down on us. Weather like this?" She raised a hoof, gesturing to the iron-gray morning sky. "Weather this terrible calls for a drill. Master Chief, sound 'emergency scramble.'"
Seven hundred voices groaned in harmony as the massive bell in the station's belfry began its deep bonging to call the sailors to their ships.
Gale Glider stripped off her slicker and handed it to a sailor, who bowed and disappeared. She and her fifteen officers were in her conference room in the basement of Station Manehattan Harbor's main building. Master Steward Proper Place poured coffee for each of them and then retreated to the door, attentive and waiting.
Her fifteen officers stood at attention, their own rain slickers dripping water and chunks of thawing ice onto the stone floor. She looked at them: Captain Crescent Blue was a huge stocky stallion, overdue for his Commodore's flag; Officer-Cadet Red Sky stood less than half Gale's height, his scrawny teenage body consisting mostly wings and ears, and he was in the middle of a bad molt, shed feathers littering the floor underneath him; the others filled every description and rank in between. Commander Full Larder and Surgeon-Lieutenant Soothing Wave, M.D., had remained ashore and were the only officers who were dry and unrumpled.
She glared at them, one by one, as she stretched her wings and knocked ice from her feathers.
"Remove your rain gear. Be seated and drink some warm coffee."
They did. Their uniforms were all as sweat-stained and rumpled as her own, except for His Lordship the Honorable Officer Cadet's. The lordling appeared to have paid for an expensive—and non-regulation—enchantment to keep his exquisitely tailored uniform pristine.
After a few minutes to let the coffee warm them, Gale declared, "That was pathetic."
"Princess. Your Highness—" started Captain Crescent Blue.
"Military address," she snapped, "not Court courtesies. We're half a continent away from Canterlot."
He nodded, swallowed, and started over. "Admiral, the crews are trying their best. Half of them are soldiers who have never been on a ship before two months ago."
"There are no bad crews," Gale said, "only bad officers."
The officers sucked in a collective breath.
"Admiral, there's no need to insult my ponies. I'll take responsibility."
Gale looked at him and tapped a hoof on the side of her coffee mug. "Fine. Everypony else, dismissed. Get dried off and make sure your ponies hit their bunks early. We're going out again at dawn."
The officers trudged out. Proper Place remained at the door.
"That'll be all, Master Steward," Gale said.
Proper Place frowned. "Admiral..."
"Thank you."
Proper Place bowed and left. Captain Blue and the admiral were alone.
"Admiral—"
"Your previous commander was relieved for cause," she said. "I can see why."
"The commodore tried his best," Crescent Blue said.
"He was a useless fop, foisted on Her Majesty's Nav—Her Majesty's Coast Guard by his mother."
"The Countess does seem to have influence at court, yes," Crescent said cautiously.
"You're thinking to yourself, 'The princesse du sang has a lot of gall, talking about brother officers and nepotism'."
Blue sat up straighter in his chair and clenched his jaw.
Gale smiled. "Thanks for not denying it, because such a blatant lie would have cost you my respect. And yes, I'm here only because I'm Celestia's great-something-niece, but she's been using me as her seagoing troubleshooter" —she gestured to her galleon-under-sail cutie mark— "since I was fourteen. I intend to do the job. I intend to succeed or die trying. The commodore never called a drill in bad weather because he intended to die in bed, many decades from now, surrounded by whores and liquor bottles."
Captain Blue rubbed his chin, and said, very slowly, "Your task group blew the hell out of that squadron of pirates, Admiral. You can handle a line-of-battle."
Her face darkened. "That was an ugly day."
"But, ma'am? If I may speak freely?"
She nodded.
"Admiral, you're the best combat officer the Navy has ever produced, and that's not flattery, that's just a fact. But this—" he waved a hoof around "—is a life-saving and law-enforcement mission. Not combat."
Gale rubbed her face. "I'm really not 'the best.' I had inexplicable luck that day. I judged the weather gauge correctly to force them onto shoals that were on my charts but not theirs, and my gunners and marines were far better drilled."
"Good officers make their own luck, ma'am."
"Then we'd better start making some new luck." She stood and walked to the chalkboard that covered the eastern wall of the conference room. "Let's think of a month-long series of drills, to identify our deficiencies, and to start building teamwork."
Six weeks later, both of the Coast Guard's cutters, Borealis and North Star, fought into the easterly wind, tacking back and forth, their course zigging and zagging far to either side of the straight line toward the reported shipwreck on the Pone Island Shoals.
Captain Blue looked up at the rigging where the admiral, the officer-cadet, and five ponies perched, wings beating to add a tiny fraction more speed to their passage.
How dare the admiral exhaust herself? Her duty was to make decisions, not flap like a common sailor.
But this admiral seemed to be redefining her duties as she went along.
"Wreckage to port!" shouted a lookout. Her magic wiped the lenses of her spyglass, then she put it back to her eye. "Wreckage to p—pony in the water! Pony in the water, port bow, three hundred yards!"
Blue looked at his executive officer, Lieutenant Evening Squall, and nodded.
"Hooves to sheets and braces!" Squall paced the deck, her bellowing voice carrying over the wind. "Bring us two points to port and reduce sail! Crews stand ready to the boats!"
After the disastrous first drill in the ice storm, Captain Blue had sent his previous executive officer home and promoted Evening Squall over the heads of two more senior—but lazy—lieutenants. Borealis's sail drill showed remarkable improvement ever since.
The flapping pegasi, including the admiral and the officer-cadet, dropped from the top boom to the deck.
Captain Blue pointed at the officer-cadet and then at one of the boats. Red Sky saluted and sprinted to it.
As the sails spilled their wind, the ship slowed. Captain Blue stood, forehooves on the rail and a small dome of his magic shielding his eyes from the spray as he stared into the gloom. The admiral approached and stood next to him, a wing shielding her own eyes.
Flotsam decorated the wavetops. A stallion floated facedown in the gray water, a bloody gash across his back.
"We're too late," Gale said, her ears drooping and rain dripping from her gray forelock into her eyes. "The ship broke up. Those bodies will be frozen to death."
"Yes, ma'am. Should I hold the boats back, rather than risk them in water this rough for no purpose?"
Gale narrowed her eyes as she stared at the body. "We will leave no possible survivor behind, and the boat drill will serve the crews well."
Captain Blue nodded and turned to Evening Squall. "Boats away."
Not a single survivor was found from the merchant ship's crew, and five ponies and one petty officer suffered a dangerous chilling when their boat was capsized by a wave. Master Steward Proper Place was forced to grab the Admiral's tail with his teeth and use his aura to truss her wings to prevent her from personally diving into the water to rescue them.
The easterly wind that had stymied their sortie out made their trip back to harbor easy. The admiral and her secretary disappeared to the tiny closet below deck that was her flag office to begin her written report. The crew was solemnly quiet, somber, none of the usual chanties or profanity expected of working sailors.
Master Steward Proper Place stood on deck, near the bowsprit, huddled in his heavy oilskins, sipping a mug of cocoa and levitating a silver tray with a carafe and several empty mugs.
Captain Blue thought for a few moments before walking to the steward.
"Captain," Proper Place said, stiffening slightly.
"At ease." They both stared into the iron-gray clouds. The rain had stopped; wind to their back kept the bow free of spray, so they were standing in the driest spot on the entire deck. "How long have you been with the Admiral, Master Steward?"
"Since she was ten. When she left the Palace creche to attend day school in Canterlot."
Captain Blue nodded. He'd long before decided the 'steward' was actually a bodyguard. "What's your real rank? I won't tell."
"Sergeant Major, Everfree Foresteers."
Blue nodded. One of Celestia's household regiments. The household regiment that provided the Royal family's bodyguards. "You were at the Battle of the North Cape, then?"
Proper Place's ears drooped. "I'm the only one of her original eight who survived."
"I heard rumors."
Proper Place thrashed his tail and the aura holding the mug darkened. "The tide was rising. The pirates' flagship was about to work itself off the mudbank. It would have made a good run, with the wind to its back and its rigging undamaged. It was the pirates' fastest ship, not their biggest. It would have gotten away, and Celestia had decreed that their admiral had a date with the Canterlot gallows. The princess ordered her flag captain to ram. We stove in both ships' bows and drove the pirate over a rock, ripping out its keel."
"Ugly," Captain Blue said. He had seen galleon's keels shattered before. "Very ugly."
"Ugly but effective. The Admiral and I were up in the highest crow's nest, so she could see over the gunsmoke and call down her orders to the flag captain and the signals party. Her other armsponies, her chief of staff, and her flag lieutenant were in the rigging with us. When the pirates swarmed off their sinking ship and met the flagship's crew with cold steel... the admiral yelled, 'Follow me!' and waded in."
"She was about to try that back there, when the boat spilled. Wade right in."
"She's not actually very good with a blade," Proper Place said. "She didn't take after her aunt at all. She very nearly got herself killed and needed one hundred stitches."
"The admiral has a reputation as being very good with a line-of-battle."
Proper Place nodded. "Useless with a blade, but she can play a squadron of galleons like a master violinist."
"Borealis here is a third the size of a war galleon," Blue mused. "One wonders how she'll do with cutters."
"One wonders."
Blue nodded to the tray and carafe. "Have you any spare cocoa, 'Master Steward?'"
"It's the Admiral's private reserve," Proper Place said with a smile, "imported from Zebrica, but I think she won't notice one missing mug."
Admiral Gale sat at her desk, head propped on a hoof, reading reports and sipping at an iced tea. Her windows were open, letting in late-spring sun and a warm breeze.
She glared at the reports. Small-boat drills were getting worse, not better, even though the weather had been calm and almost ideal. What was going to happen come autumn and winter and storm season?
A feather wrapped around a green pencil, she made angry annotations on the margin of the report.
The knock on her door was the double knock, pause, triple knock that meant Proper Place had checked the visitors and was with them. She shuffled the papers into a neat pile and shouted, "Enter."
Commander Full Larder, her chief of staff and the commander of the shore installations, entered and stiffened to attention. Two sailors, both dingy and bloody, followed him. Behind them was Officer-Cadet Red Sky, with a bloody rag shoved in his left nostril. Proper Place took up the rear and glared at the two sailors.
Gale leaned back in her chair, stretched her wings, and folded her forelegs against her chest. "This looks unfortunate."
"Your Highness—" Full Larder began.
Proper Place cleared his throat.
"Admiral," Full Larder began again, "these two sailors had a disagreement about proper small boat drill and it came to blows. Sailor first class East End, here—" he pointed to a short, muscular pegasus "—has had some discipline issues during his previous assignment."
"Which was...?" Gale asked.
"Your Admiralship," the sailor said, "I was in your Aunt's household regiment, a Cloudsale Hussar, I was, but m' sergeant saw the request for warm bodies for the Coast Guard as a chance to be rid of me, he did. Ma'am."
Gale nodded. "I thought I recognized you from around the Palace. What does an ex-trooper know about boats?"
"I was born on the banks of the Thamed river in Trottingham, your Admiralship. Whole family of boat ponies, ten generations back. Ferries and lighters, we do."
"What happened?" Gale asked.
"Well, ma'am, I was showing the petty officer, here—" he nodded to the other bloodied sailor "—the proper knots for the davits, and he told me that wasn't what the book said, and I said to him, I says, doom on the book, I've been on small boats since me momma squeezed me out of her thwat onto the thwarts! And he says we need to do it by the book, and I said the book was wrong, and well, my hoof disagreed with his nose, and so on and so forth. Then Mr. Red Sky tried to stop us disagree'n, and he mighta accidentally gotten a pop in the nose in the general mischief. And I'm sorry."
Gale's chair snapped forward, her wings flared high and her forehooves planted on the desk. "You struck an officer?"
"'Twas an accident, your Admiralship. But I won't be lying none and say I didn't."
Gale's face went pale and Proper Place took a step forward, just behind East End.
"You know I can have you imprisoned for striking an officer," Gale said.
"No offense, your Admiralship," East End said, "but he's a cadet."
"A cadet is an officer," Gale said. "By warrant rather than by Crown's commission, but an officer."
East End stood up straight and nodded. "Momma said my temper would get the best of me, one day."
"I have a worse punishment than prison." Gale looked at Proper Place and nodded. "You're assigned to the Master Steward as his assistant. He's been whining that my entourage is too small."
"I have indeed, Admiral," said Proper Place.
The office went quiet before East End nerved himself up to speak again. "Begging the Admiral's pardon, and not to sound ungrateful that y' won't be sending me to Terra Halter, but how is that a punishment, ma'am?"
"Her previous entourage," Proper Place said, "suffered near-total fatalities at the Battle of the North Cape."
East End swallowed hard. "I guess m' momma was right, after all."
"Everypony but Officer-Cadet Red Sky is dismissed."
The others filed out. Proper Place exited last and closed the door.
The officer-cadet stood at attention. A drop of blood rolled out from under the rag crammed in his nostril and splattered on the hardwood floors of the Admiral's office.
"Officers have no business putting themselves in a position where a sailor could do something that stupid."
"Yes, Admiral."
Her voice slipped from her usual neutral accent to the thick drawl of a blue-blooded Canterlot aristocrat. "I would ha' expected better from the heir to a barony, as well. Were ya not raised with the knowledge you will one day be a Peer o' the Realm?"
"Yes, Your Highness," replied Red Sky, dropping in the same aristocratic accent.
She looked at his uniform. Cut to his growing teenage frame by one of the most exclusive tailors in Manehattan, not by Coast Guard logistics. Drops of his blood beaded up, repelled by the expensive enchantment, refusing to stain the fabric. "Dismissed."
"...and that," Officer-Cadet Red Sky finished, "is what I did wrong."
The briefing room was quiet, all of the other officers sitting around the conference table and looking at Red Sky. Red Sky trembled, his belly roiling and his face cold. He could tell he was ashen. What was he doing here? He wasn't even seventeen yet! He was literally the youngest pony in the entire Coast Guard, and somehow, his status as an officer gave him seniority over master chiefs four times his own age. His cutie mark was a book and quill; hardly nautical. He didn't belong here! (Not that his poetry was any better than his ship handling. In fact, it was arguably worse.)
But, worst of all, he knew that neither his youth nor his status as the only noble in the Coast Guard—other than the Admiral herself, of course—would protect him from the gravity of the sleetshow he had allowed the overnight exercise to degenerate into.
"What was the purpose of this drill?" Admiral Gale Glider asked him.
"Ma'am," Red Sky said, "this was to practice heaving two ships together at night with a current that cut against the weather gauge."
"That's only the most perfunctory aspect of it. What was the real goal? What were you, you specifically, Officer-Cadet his Lordship the Honorable Red Sky, Heir to Barony MacIntosh Hills, et cetera, et cetera, supposed to learn?"
He swallowed. She had never made the slightest comment about his titles in public before. What was she getting at? Having his noble status dragged out in front of the others made his brain skip several beats. "I... Ma'am... I don't know. I don't understand."
"An honest answer, which I appreciate." Gale ruffled her feathers. "Why did I declare every single officer except you a casualty?"
"Ma'am, I don't know. To see if I could do it myself?"
The briefing room was very, very quiet.
"Wrong," the Admiral said. "That is absolutely the opposite of correct. Does your grandfather the Baron run every aspect of his fief himself?"
"You wanted to... to see if I would delegate to the master chiefs' experience or to try to do everything myself?"
"Correct," the Admiral said.
"I fouled up. Ma'am."
"You fucked up by the numbers."
The officers chuckled and Red Sky felt his face go even more pale. Red Sky knew several of the junior officers resented his high birth. They were probably savoring his humiliation.
The Admiral stood. "There are two lessons from this disaster, Officer-Cadet Red Sky. One, any officer can, through sea and storm or by enemy action, find themselves suddenly the senior officer, and must be ready to take command instantly. You froze for twenty whole seconds when I told you all other officers were dead for the exercise. Never freeze up again. A Crown's officer is always ready to assume responsibility. Not merely command; responsibility, something much more sacred and difficult. Second, learn to delegate. We have many experienced petty officers and chiefs. Use them. Adjourned."
The officers all stood and turned for the door, several conversations beginning.
The conversations ended instantly when Gale's voice—slipping into the blue-blooded Canterlot aristocrat accent so thick that the lowborn officers considered it a foreign language—said, "My Lord, w' ye please accompany me to supper in the city?"
Red Sky stood up straighter, eyes narrowing, and let his own voice slip into the same aristocratic cant. "Your Highness, 'twould be my greatest honor."
The other officers—nobles none, not even a sir or dame among them—evacuated the room as fast as decorum allowed.
Officer-Cadet Red Sky hurried back to his small room in the bachelors officer quarters and stripped his sweat- and salt-stinking ship uniform. He tossed it to the sailor assigned as valet to the four junior-most officers and pulled on an expensively cut silk tunic: a tunic that befitted the heir to an impoverished barony that was trying to give the impression it wasn't impoverished.
A glance in his mirror showed that his crew-cut mane and short-cropped tail required no attention. His wings were still in horrible shape, his fifteen-year molt hitting a year late, but there was nothing he could do about that. He double-timed to the center of Coast Guard Station Manehattan and waited for the princess out front of her brick bungalow.
Proper Place stood near the door, ears flicking and hooves scraping the ground nervously. East End and two other rough-and-tumble pegasi impressed onto the princess's guard detail stood with him.
The Princess emerged from her quarters, wearing a casual cotton wrap, light yellow, that befitted the unseasonably warm spring afternoon and complemented her midnight blue coat.
She nodded and Red Sky nodded back. They took to their wings, eschewing the ferry across Manehattan Harbor, and the three sailors made a protective triangle around them. Proper Place shook his head and turned back to the princess's bungalow.
They exchanged no words as they flew, but Red Sky watched her from the corner of his eye. She was more than twice his age, but young for a flag officer. Her wingbeats and breathing betrayed no fatigue despite the pace she set, nearly a sprint. She took physical training alongside the enlisted pegasi every morning, and his own panting told him to do the same, starting tomorrow.
The city loomed before them, the stink of civilization mixing with the salt of the harbor, noise waxing as they crossed the shore and turned to follow Fifth Avenue.
Red Sky frowned. Surely she didn't intend—she was dressed casually, and his own tunic was hardly formal, and they both still smelled of ship and sea—
The princess flared wings and fluttered down in front of the Delmarenico, the most exclusive restaurant in Equestria. (Not the most exclusive in Manehattan—in Equestria.)
Several dozen ponies in fancy eveningwear sat on benches, sipping iced drinks and waiting to be admitted. A sign above the door read:
Current reservation wait is 8months
The "8" was written in chalk and the rest were brass letters fixed to polished teakwood.
An employee in a tuxedo stood at the podium just outside the door.
"We haven't a reservation," Gale said after she landed, letting her voice slip about halfway between her usual neutral accent and her Canterlot aristocrat drawl. Red Sky and the three sailors fluttered down around her and tucked their wings. Gale continued, "We were hoping you could accommodate us."
The tuxedoed employee looked at them, his face twisting slightly and his head drawing back as if he smelled something foul. Then he reached up and tapped the 8 on the sign. "A table for five will be closer to ten months."
"My fine escorts will not be sitting, just a table for two," Gale said.
Several of the ponies sitting on the benches chuckled and shook their heads.
"I'm sorry, madam, but that shall be most impossible. And... escorts... are generally asked to wait outside, lest they crowd the walkways."
Gale smiled broadly. "Could you pretty-please check your maître d's notes? It's possible we're listed as exceptions."
"The exception list is most exclusive," replied the waiter.
"My young companion here," Gale twitched a wing toward Red Sky, "would be listed under 'Heir-apparent, Barony MacIntosh Hills.'"
The waiter's left ear drooped. Several of the spectators' eyes widened.
"I would be listed under 'Princess of the Blood, Duchess Pone Island Shoals, Countess Cliff Peak, Countess North Cape,' et cetera, et cetera."
The waiter's other ear drooped and his right eyelid began to twitch.
Gale tapped a hoof to her chin. "Or perhaps 'Line of Succession to the Crown of Equestria.' I would be eighth on that list." She leaned in and gave a very loud stage whisper: "Ninth, if you count my Aunty Celly."
He began flipping hurriedly through the reservation book. The spectators were rather silent.
"If that fails," Gale said, "Check for 'Commanding Admiral, Her Majesty's Coast Guard.'"
They were seated quickly after that, more than a few dumbfounded faces in their wake.
A table on the second floor balcony, overlooking the main dining room, was made ready. Waiters pulled out chairs for them as the three sailors formed a defensive triangle, eyes scanning the crowd.
The headwaiter himself hoofed them their menus. "Your Highness. My Lord. I've taken the liberty of selecting a bottle of Chateau neuf du-Maretel, a thirty-three. It'll be here momentarily."
"Be sure to give menus to my three escorts. They'll take whatever they wish in boxes as we leave and eat after we return to Coast Guard Station Manehattan this evening."
"Yes, Princess. Of course, Princess." The waiter disappeared.
"A neuf du-Maretel '33?" Red Sky mused. "Expensive."
Gale chuckled. "They won't charge us, My Lord."
"No?"
"No. By tomorrow evening, the wait list will be eleven months. The restaurant's owner, by now, has sent messengers to every newspapers' style editor. The headlines on the society pages tomorrow: 'Princess-Admiral and Baron's Heir dine at Delmarenico'." She gestured at the menu. "They are not so uncouth as to list the prices, but I guarantee that by tomorrow, they'll be higher."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"How is the Old Baron?"
The menu crumpled, gripped in Red Sky's right flight feathers. "Grandfather is completely senile, Princess. He's been in diapers for a year or two, my cousin tells me, and has to be force-fed soup. I don't expect he'll be much longer. I hope to take leave this summer and see him one last time."
"Your Barony?"
"My cousin sits as steward, and regent in all but name. She's barely older than I, but a skilled bureaucrat and she serves honorably. Uncle sits in the Lords in Canterlot, with Grandfather's proxy. I shall ask them both to continue in their duties when... well, when, so that I need not resign my commission and return home."
"Your Grandfather is the last of the Seventeen. His passing will end that era."
Red Sky nodded grimly. Seventeen commoners had been elevated to peerages on the blood-stinking field after the Battle of Canterlot Bridge. Dark Clouds, then a lieutenant of combat engineers, elevated Baron MacIntosh Hills by Celestia that evening for his valor commanding Celestia's sappers during the battle, was the last still alive.
"As you say, Princess."
"My condolences on the passing of your mother, My Lord," Gale said. "It's been... eight months?"
Red Sky stiffened further. "Yes, Highness."
The sommelier appeared and poured two glasses. The wine bottle was dusty and the liquid was such a deep ruby it appeared black in the restaurant's understated light.
"Does Her Highness or My Lord require anything?" she murmured after pouring the wine.
"No, thank you," Gale said. Red Sky shook his head. The sommelier disappeared.
Red Sky took a cautious sip. "Excellent," he said, then put the glass down.
Gale took a bigger sip. "You don't wish more?"
Red Sky stared at the bloody-black light refracting in the glass, ruby caustics playing across the table. "We held it a deep secret within the Barony Keep, but it was alcohol that killed Mother, not infection. The mare who raised me died five or six years ago, when Grandfather's mind went. She disappeared into the bottom of a bottle and never emerged."
Gale nodded and took another small sip.
He looked up at Gale. "Princess, I am a coward. I took a cadet's appointment to escape Mother. It was better to let the sea kill me than to live in the same keep as her."
"I knew, My Lord," Gale said. "The secret was less closely held than your family hoped. There was relief in court that your mother predeceased the Baron, so that Parliament didn't need to reject her succession and name an underage teen to MacIntosh Hills' seat over her head."
Red Sky's wings drooped.
"Again... my condolences. And I don't think any eleven-year-old who chooses the dangers of sea and storm and enemy fire is a coward. Tell me, My Lord, why did you request transfer from the Navy to the Coast Guard?"
"I... I don't know, Princess, honestly."
"Hmmm," Gale said. She sipped her wine again. "I doubt the truth of that answer. Let us change the subject. Your prospects for marriage?"
His feathers fluffed out in embarrassment. "Betrothals have been offered, but my uncle has found them unsuitable."
Gale looked him up and down. "Alas. My daughter is too young to match with you, and my youngest sister is too old. An alliance between MacIntosh Hills and the Royal House would have benefits. ...Countess Manehattan's third daughter is less than a year older than you."
"Your Highness, she is unbetrothed for... good reason."
"I've met her, yes, My Lord. Her personality is volcanic."
"She reminds me of a rattlesnake with a rotten fang, Princess."
Gale laughed. The headwaiter reappeared and they placed their orders.
After a minute of silence, Gale gestured at the main dining room. "The elite of Manehattan, and more than a few ordinary ponies who have saved their bits and put on their finest clothes to celebrate an anniversary or other event."
"Yes, ma'am."
"It's a safe bet our unanticipated arrival threw off their careful reservations and somepony will be spending an extra hour waiting for a table they booked almost a year ago."
"As you say, ma'am."
"Why do you suppose I dragged you across the harbor and chose this restaurant? I know a New Mexicolt place around the corner, barely wider than the proprietor's shoulders, that makes better food for a fraction of the price. Their green chile, fried potato, and whitefish on frybread is divine."
"I... I don't know, ma'am."
"We are ponies of wealth, power, and privilege, you and I. We don't deserve the aristocracy thrusted on us. At least, I don't. Alicorn blood means nothing, really. Pick one thousand pegasi. I have stronger magic than nine hundred and ninety nine of them, but weaker than the last one, and she has no alicorn ancestor. Why should we be shown immediately to a table and fêted by the headwaiter himself and plied with the finest wines?"
"I... I don't know."
"Neither do I, My Lord, but we must repay the privilege Equestria has given us."
"I don't think I follow you."
"My mother is an invalid, her back broken."
"She was a battalion commander in the Canterlot Fire Department, no?"
"Correct."
"Why was a commander inside a building? Was her duty not outside, to lead? To delegate?"
"Several of her fireponies and their rescued charges were trapped at a high window. Her reinforcements were depleted of pegasi, and the situation moving too fast to bring ladders into play. She and the other three pegasi in her senior staff flew to the window to effect an extraction. She was... hurt, but everypony survived. Two foals and their aunt were rescued."
"Indeed," Red Sky muttered, remembering the Admiral's attempt to join the rescue of the spilled boat crew several weeks before.
"My grandmother died to break the Vanhoover plague. My great-aunt died to hold Canterlot Bridge. My cousin died in Griffonstone, to end a war. Another cousin lost her ears and two hooves to frostbite mapping the Frozen North. And on, and on, and on."
Red Sky leaned back and took another sip of the wine. "There's... much sadness in your family. One wonders how Princess Celestia can bear it."
"One wonders," she said with a sip of her own wine. "Every foal of my family realizes that, one day, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, we are likely to wake up and find ourselves confronting the curse that has stalked us for generations. Or, even worse, wonder if our own foals will face the curse..."
"Curse, ma'am?"
"It bears no name. I call it, 'The Honor of the Crown.' Equestria is young, yet, and fragile. It is held together by Celestia's charisma, but that alone cannot stand against all the chaos in the world."
She raised an eyebrow in question. Red Sky nodded understanding.
Gale continued, "Ponies must see that Celestia loves them before they will love her, too, and those bonds of love are what will make Equestria strong, make Equestria endure. A nation founded on fear will not last a century. Celestia intends a nation founded on love, to last forever. But love must be purchased, and the coin that buys love, so often, is blood. We know, we scions of the lines of the alicorns, we princes and princesses of that blood..."
Gale looked across the restaurant and Red Sky's eyes followed hers. A young couple, uncomfortable in their formal eveningwear, were led to a cramped table in the corner by a junior waiter. Probably a first or second wedding anniversary celebration, bits saved to splurge at the most expensive restaurant in the city.
"...we children of the Sun and Moon, we know that one day, we will have to choose between our own lives and the Honor of the Crown, and that the Honor of the Crown is what binds the ponies of Equestria to Celestia's rule, what gives ponies faith in Celestia's rule, what makes Equestria strong."
Then, she looked back at Red Sky. They stared into each other's eyes. "There are two thousand ponies in your barony, My Lord. Some day, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, perhaps while you sit on the Seat, perhaps for your great-grandfoal, disaster will come to your barony, sneaking on quiet paws to strike when your guard is down and the timing most foul. Flood? Fire? Famine? Plague? Those ponies will look to the Keep on the hill. They will see the banner of MacIntosh Hills blowing in the wind. They will clutch their foals to the chest in terror. Their ears will tremble and their tails will swish. Will they see the banner of a noble house that has shown bravery and virtue, shown fidelity and righteousness? Will they see the banner of a noble house that has placed their fragile flesh and sacred honor between their subjects and danger, or will they see a house that has expected their subjects to shield them?"
Red Sky nodded, once, very slowly.
"Will the ponies of your barony rally to your House's banner and stand shoulder-to-shoulder to face down the disaster together? Or will they look at the Keep and see the house that has taxed them and ignored them and lived in privilege without accepting the obligations that privilege imposes? Your grandfather was, is, a pony of honor and valor. Your mother's cowardice in the face of adversity drove her to escape into a bottle. You are no longer heir to a mere family, but to a noble house. And your House's legacy teeters on the edge of a knife."
Red Sky swallowed, saying nothing.
"You, My Lord, are young and chose the uniform, the Service of the Crown. You chose, of your own free will, to don the Crown's uniform and face danger and death at sea. I have faith in you. But you must show faith in yourself, and you must choose the legacy the Barons of MacIntosh Hills will hold in the history books. Will you choose to make your House noble in fact as well as in name?"
Waiters brought their meals, and they ate in silence.
Captain Crescent Blue leaned to the Admiral and whispered in her ear. "What did you say to him at that dinner?"
Admiral Gale Glider looked up. The wind pressed the canvas and hummed in the rigging, water rushing past the Borealis's hull as it slowed toward rendezvous with the anchored North Star.
A cracking teenage voice sounded above the din: "Bosun, prepare to take in sail and drop anchor."
"Aye aye, sir."
Blue looked nervously toward the other galleon, sitting at anchor in the center of the channel. The flooding tide pushed a four knot current past it as Red Sky brought the Borealis onto a converging course. The oldest chief in the entire Coast Guard was on the Borealis's wheel, her eyes watching her own sails and the lanterns that marked the other ship's position in the moonless night.
"Sir," whispered the helmsmare, "won't be long now."
Officer-Cadet Red Sky smacked her back with a wing and nodded.
Crescent Blue swallowed nervously. If the colt crashed his cutter into the North Star—
"Now, milord," whispered the helmsmare.
"Bosun!" Red Sky shouted.
Orders snapped out and sails furled, spilling the wind. The ship slowed, passing the other ship, within mere yards. It made it another few hundred yards before the swift current halted it dead in the water and pushed it backwards.
The anchors dropped, biting into the muddy channel bottom, and two petty officers at capstans played out the anchor lines carefully to allow the current to back Borealis next to the North Star's position. Grappling hooks flew out and the two ships were hauled together, rubber bumpers grinding.
Officer-Cadet Red Sky flapped up to balance on a boom, thirty feet above the deck. "Away rescue and medical parties, find the wounded! Away carpenters and pump crews, staunch the flooding! Fire fighting crews stand ready!"
Enlisted and petty officers swarmed over the bulwarks to the North Star, lanterns gripped in their mouths or levitation. Sailors and officers from the North Star lay on the decks, portraying wounded or dead.
The Admiral looked at Captain Blue. "All I told him was that I had high expectations for him, and that I had been disappointed."
"His maneuver was sloppy, but adequate," Blue conceded. "Had North Star been a passenger galleon in need of rescue, he would have succeeded."
"It's a lovely summer evening. Can we be ready for the autumn storm season? Much less winter?"
"I don't know, Admiral."
"I shall ponder what we do next. Extend my compliments to Officer-Cadet Red Sky. I see room for improvement, but that was a job well done." She turned and went below deck.
Officer-Cadet the honorable Red Sky hustled across the drill fields, rushing from a trigonometry lesson with Captain Blue to a boat drill at the breakwater when he paused, watching.
The admiral—the princess—was outside her small bungalow with a tall stallion and a small filly. She and the filly flew circles around the stallion, tossing a ball back and forth. The stallion leaped for the ball, trying to snatch it in his forehooves, scrupulous not to use his magic to catch it.
The filly giggled in glee as she and her mother played keep-away from her father. The princess smiled broadly and so did her husband. She flipped the ball up and punched it with a forehoof, sending it back to the filly.
A nanny pushed a baby in a pram. From his pram, he watched his parents and sister play, his horn sparking.
Red Sky narrowed his eyes. The stallion was a duke and several ways an earl by his marriage to Princess Gale, but he was also a baron in his own right, his peerage earned—along with a Distinguished Service Order—in combat, although Red Sky couldn't recall the details. He served as a company commander in one of Celestia's household regiments.
The admiral's daughter kicked the ball and her father captured it from the air, foiling the game of keep-away. The filly flopped onto her back on the ground and moaned.
Red Sky looked at her and thought about what the admiral had said about the curse of the Honor of the Crown, about how she wondered if it would strike her own foals. That had been abstract to Red Sky at the time, but now, seeing the princess lift the filly onto her back and fly a loop-the-loop to make her squeal in delight, it became concrete: either of them, or both of them, even the infant in the pram, were more likely than not to find themselves broken or destroyed in Equestria's service. The princess herself had earned her title of Countess North Cape with cannonade, cold steel, and blood, in addition to all the titles showered upon her as matters of Court intrigue and Royal infighting.
No wonder the princess seemed to take joy in life whenever she could find it. She grabbed her husband in a four-legged carry, her daughter still on her back, and flew a low lap around her brick bungalow, all three of them laughing in delight at the joy of a warm summer morning.
It was a month later when Captain Crescent Blue, several armed sailors, and Officer-Cadet Red Sky escorted a bedraggled unicorn in fine silks into the Admiral's office. Blue looked around. Proper Place stood to the side of the Admiral's desk, and East End near the door.
One of the sailors gave the silk-clad unicorn a kick in his rump and he stumbled into the center of the office.
He stood up straight, brushed himself off, and glared around. Captain Blue smiled and waited to see what would happen.
Raising his nose, the unicorn proclaimed, "You should stand in my presence to show respect for my station."
Admiral Gale planted her elbows on her desk and rested her head on her forehooves. "Captain Blue, may I assume this... individual... has some business with Her Majesty's Coast Guard?"
"Indeed, Admiral. Officer-Cadet Red Sky can relate the story best."
"I will not stand accused by a mere child!" the unicorn shouted, glaring at Red Sky.
"You will show respect to any Crown's officer," Gale snapped.
The unicorn turned his fulminating expression to Gale.
"May I have the pleasure of your name, sir?" Gale asked. "I have the honor to be Vice Admiral Glider, commander-in-chief of Her Majesty's Coast Guard."
"I am the Honorable Venal Galdhoof, heir to the Earldom of Gladmane, and nephew of the Countess Gladmane, and I will not stand accused by commoners."
"Then good news!" Gale said with a clap of her hooves. "My Lord Officer-Cadet, please tell us your story."
Red Sky smirked at Gladhoof's shock and took a step forward, bracing to attention. "Admiral, Captain Blue ordered us to stop and inspect a caravel coming into the Manehattan roadstead through the fog just before dawn, as no reasonable ship's master attempts the shoals when they can't see the channel marker buoys."
"I told you!" Gladhoof shouted, "I had a schedule to keep!"
"Silence," Captain Blue snapped.
"The Captain," Red Sky continued, "ordered me to take a boatload of sailors and compare the ship's manifest to its cargo. They chose not to heave-to, so I led a team of armed pegasi to board it forcibly, as is authorized by the Enabling Act of Parliament for the Enforcement of Maritime Law."
"Indeed it is," the Admiral said, staring at Gladhoof. "Her Majesty's Coast Guard may board any Equestrian-flagged vessel, at any time, in any place."
"We took the ship and spilled her sails and dropped anchor," Red Sky continued, "allowing the boats to tie alongside. Petty Officer Sharp Nose found a false bottom in the cargo hold and beneath that false bottom were several tons of Sombran black crystals submerged under bilge water. This individual had already announced himself as the owner of the vessel, so I placed him under close arrest and returned him to the Borealis. Captain Blue put a prize crew on the freighter and brought us to you."
Gladhoof, now visibly sweating, turned to the Admiral. "You can't imagine I knew there were Sombran Crystals hidden in the hold."
Crescent Blue rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, My Lord. Every unicorn who went below deck could feel the dark magic."
Gale's face was noticeably pale. "Several... tons?"
"Yes, Admiral," Red Sky confirmed.
"Transport of Sombran crystal is highly regulated," Gale said. "Mere possession requires licenses from the Ministry of Thaumaturgical Research."
"Indeed, Admiral," Blue said.
"Very well, put this... individual... on the next Manehattan ferry to the city and hand him over to the Ministry office in town. When the prize crew brings the ship to anchor, see that the legitimate cargo is transferred to lighters to the city docks for its consignees. Then interrogate the crew. I imagine most of them will have been unaware of the contraband. Offer them a hot meal and try to convince the competent-looking ones to stay here and take the Crown's Bit, and put the rest on the ferry to town."
"What about my ship?" Gladhoof snapped.
"My ship," Gale said. "I have no doubt an Admiralty court will condemn it and impress it into the Coast Guard's service. Smuggling Sombran crystals is no mere ear-slap of an offense."
Gladhoof turned red and sparks flew from his horn. "You listen to me! When my aunt hears about this, you jumped-up feathery whore of a strumpet, your uniform doesn't even begin to have the weight to protect—"
The sudden silence that descended upon the office was so total that it stopped Gladhoof in the middle of his diatribe.
Face still red, one hoof still pointed at the Admiral, he looked at the other faces, puzzled.
Eventually, it was East End who broke the silence, "Milord, do you realize you just called Her Royal Highness a feathery strumpeting whore?"
Gladhoof's face went from red to pale as he studied Gale. Captain Blue smiled as he watched the thoughts swirl around the young idiot's mind as Gladhoof studied the pegasus with the Canterlot aristocrat's fine facial bones and tall, slim body.
"Are we comparing our aunts' authority and influence?" Gale said, grinning broadly and leaning back in her chair, clapping her forehooves again. "I do love that game. Aunty Celestia hates it when I play it though, but she might make an exception, just this once."
Gladhoof lowered his leg to the floor, unable to speak.
"Your Majesty?" said the Palace majordomo.
Celestia looked up from her dinner, a fork spearing a piece of pineapple cake levitated just in front of her mouth.
"Yes, Mister Sparkle?"
"A messenger from Coast Guard Station Manehattan."
Celestia frowned. "I wonder what's so time-critical my niece sent a messenger?"
"Shall I show him in, ma'am?"
"Of course."
A minute later, a young petty officer strode into Celestia's dining room in his dress black and jade uniform, his feathers rumpled from a long flight. He snapped to attention. "Your Majesty! I bear a sealed message from Her Highness the Admiral, for your eyes and your eyes alone."
"What's your name, Petty Officer?"
"Your Majesty, I am Petty Officer Third Class Post Card, of Her Maj—of Your Majesty's Coast Guard Cutter North Star."
"Have you eaten, Petty Officer?"
"Yes, your majesty. About two hours ago."
"The message, Petty Officer?"
He pulled a parchment envelope from his shoulder bag and passed it over with a deep bow.
Celestia took it from him, broke the wax seal, and read. After a few seconds, she burst out laughing.
"Y-your Majesty?" said the petty officer.
Celestia passed the missive to him: Dear Aunty Celly, Keep a straight face and betray no emotion. This petty officer's wife just gave birth to their first foal. She lives in Canterlot, not far from the Palace, so I've sent him to carry a message to you. Please tell him you will need a few hours to compose your reply and he should return at ten tomorrow morning to pick up your return message from the Palace's staff and that he should find lodgings for the night. He'll know what to do.
Please don't let him know I sent him on a boondoggle just so he could see his newborn. ~𝒢𝒶𝓁𝑒💙
The petty officer looked up from the message to Celestia.
"You sent us a right fine Admiral, you did, ma'am."
"Don't let her find out I told you."
Some weeks later, as summer began its slow turn to autumn, lightning peppering the southern horizon, Officer-Cadet Red Sky snapped to attention in front of Gale's desk. "The admiral summoned the officer-cadet?"
"Sit, My Lord."
If she was calling him My Lord, it probably wasn't Coast Guard business. Best to use her Court titles and not her rank: "Yes, Your Highness." He sat, stiffly, in the chair placed directly in front of her desk. Proper Place placed a large tumbler of bourbon in front of each of the two nobles and disappeared out the back door.
Red Sky considered that. They would each get a stiff drink—a single stiff drink—and there would be no servants or bodyguards privy to their discussion.
Interesting.
He balanced the tumbler on his hoof and sniffed the smoky-woody aroma. It was the same brand of bourbon that his mother had used for her slow-motion suicide. He placed it back on the table, untouched. "Princess?"
She tapped a black-bordered envelope on the blotter of her desk. "A message from Canterlot. Your grandfather has passed away, Baron MacIntosh Hills."
Red Sky collapsed backwards into the well-padded chair. His eyes began to water and he clenched them shut. He hated himself for it, but he bowed his head and hid underneath his wings, as if his feathers might block out the world.
He could hear the Princess sipping her bourbon.
"I am sorry, My Lord Baron. I met your grandfather, once, when I was about your age. It was the fifty-year rededication of the statue of my great-aunt in the Gardens. He read his Lay aloud. 'To every mare born to this realm, Death cometh soon or late, And how can mare die better, Than facing fearful odds...' His voice... I'll always remember his voice. Everypony cried. I bawled my eyes out. He offered to fly with me, and we alighted on a tower at the top of the Palace. He could hardly fly, with his arthritis, but he forced himself, so that we could have privacy. He told me about the Battle of the Bridge. For a few minutes... for a few minutes, I felt I knew my aunt."
Red Sky sniffled and coughed, drowning in snot as he fought against tears. "It is unbecoming for a Crown's Officer to cry like a little filly, Admiral. I apologize."
"You're a Crown's Officer, but you're also a sixteen-year-old colt who in less than two years has lost his father, mother, and now grandfather, and just had a Barony thrust upon you."
A single wracking sob escaped Red Sky.
"A Crown's Officer may request, from their commanding officer, to honorably resign their commission when a peerage is thrust upon them, that they may return to their fief and take up those duties as a Peer of the Realm. Do you request relief from your oath as an officer? Think carefully—this offer is extended once only."
"Your Highness, I do not. I wish to remain in the Crown's uniform."
"Good. I would have hated to lose your service. You will be a fine officer... perhaps not soon, but someday. I will accept your Oath of Fealty on Celestia's behalf. You are still a year and a few months from your majority, so I will also communicate your nominations of regent and proxy to Canterlot."
"Yes, Highness."
"Since you have chosen to remain in the Crown's Uniform, you must also nominate a steward for your barony, in addition to the regent for yourself. As soon after your eighteenth birthday as the exigencies of the Service allow, you must travel to Canterlot and swear fealty to Celestia."
Red Sky lowered his wings and then slid from the chair and genuflected. Gale stepped around the desk and stood tall, her wings flared and her face blank.
"I am your vassal," Red Sky said, flaring his own wings. "Accept my service."
She nodded grimly. "Technically, you should have said, 'I am Your House's vassal,' since I'm not Celestia, but close enough."
He stood on shaky knees and she hugged him, wrapping a foreleg around his short, skinny frame and pulling him to her chest. His tears wet her coat.
"I presume you nominate your cousin as steward in your barony, and your uncle as your regent and as proxy in the Lords?"
"Y-yes."
"I'll send messengers on your behalf to Canterlot and MacIntosh Hills." She released the hug. "The duties of a new baron being fulfilled, I suggest you go find some privacy and have a good cry, Baron MacIntosh Hills. Red Sky. You're a sixteen-year-old colt who just lost the foundation of his world. But you're a Crown's Officer and I expect you prepared for duty in the morning. Dismissed. And again... I'm sorry."
In a raging thunderstorm, Red Sky sat alone on the belfry of Coast Guard Station Manehattan. His oilskins kept everything but his wings and face dry.
He watched the storm lash Manehattan Harbor, wind and pelting sheets of rain. Lightning strobed, brighter than the late-afternoon sunlight that filtered so weakly through the thick clouds.
He sat in the rain so that his tears would remain hidden.
Dead. Grandfather was dead. Red Sky knew this had been coming, but no warning! He was scheduled for a week's leave soon, had planned to go home and see Grandfather one last time, but now, now, now, now he would need to request leave to attend the funeral.
Oh, Celestia, he was the new Baron. He would be expected to throw the first torch on the pyre. He had vomited after he lit Mother's pyre last winter, could he do this ag—
A distress flare streaked up into the sky on a pillar of white flame, high over the harbor, and exploded in bright green fire. He squinted, judging its location.
He flared his wings and leapt, landing on the soggy parade grounds with a single flap, and stormed into the enlisted ponies' mess hall underneath the belfry. Cozy warmth hit him in the face, fires burning in several hearths and spells flickering over the windows to hold the thunderstorm's cold outside.
"Officer on deck!" shouted the master chief, with a fair bit of annoyance in her voice. Ponies stood from their meals, snapping to sloppy attention.
Red Sky understood the annoyance: the enlisted mess was supposed to be a sanctuary from those capricious and unfathomable beasts called officers, and officer-cadets were reputed to be the worst of the lot, after all.
Well, little did they know how ruined their meal was about to be. The master chief double-time trotted to him.
"Sound the scramble, Chief. Distress rockets over the harbor. I think it's one of the civilian ferries, caught by the storm. Send your fastest runner to the Admiral's quarters and tell her."
"Sir, milooooorrrrd, the crews are just sitting down and the cooks right outdid themselves."
"I didn't say this was a drill, chief," he snapped, his voice cracking but eyes firm. "Distress rocket over the harbor. Sound the scramble."
The chief's eyes widened as she realized that she wasn't dealing with a young officer trying to throw his authority around and make the sailors run a drill in the rain, but rather, that a ferry full of innocent lives was in mortal danger. "Aye aye, sir!"
Fifteen seconds later, the first deep bong of the bell rang across the storm-lashed grounds.
Captain Blue held a shield above his eyes, rain drumming against the spell. "That's dead into the wind, Admiral," he said as another green distress rocket burst over the harbor, about a mile and a half distant. "We can't use the cutters, they'll never even work off their moorings until the wind backs."
"Boats is it, then," Gale replied. "Damn."
Blue's snout curled in distaste. "It's dangerous."
"Our job is to go out, Captain," she said.
"Aye aye, ma'am. Who are you—"
"I'll do it myself," Gale said.
"No. Absolutely not. Small-boat rescues are no place for a flag officer."
"What example do I set if I sit here safe and warm?" she replied.
Blue stared at her. She wasn't even in oilskins, her coat and mane soaked, water beading on her feathers. "Admiral, we will ready the cutters and sail in an instant—sail under your flag—if the wind backs. But this is a small-boat rescue, and you will just take up room. You're not good with boats, ma'am. You're a galleon officer. You're at home on an eighty-gun ship of the line, not a boat."
She began to snarl at him, and then cut herself off. "You're right, of course."
They looked toward the stone breakwater, where Commander Full Larder, who ran the station's shore establishment, exhorted sailors to uncover and prepare three pinnaces.
"Who do we send?" Blue asked.
"Volunteers only," Gale replied. "Real volunteers, not voluntolds."
Blue nodded and strode towards the breakwater, bellowing over the storm. "All hooves! All hooves give me an ear."
Sailors and officers turned to him. "I need two officers and thirty ponies."
"Sir!" Red Sky shouted.
Blue looked at the colt. The child. Gale had told Blue of the message from Canterlot, and surely the cadet—the baron—was still suffering from the emotional blow he'd suffered.
But... Red Sky was good with small boats. Of the station's officers, possibly the best. And this was a job for youthful reflexes and audacity, more than age and experience. To top it all off, a pegasus officer would have a better feel for the weather. It needed to be Red Sky, the only pegasus officer other than the admiral herself. "Who's going out with him?"
"Sir," said Sub-Lieutenant Sweet Salt.
The junior officer of the North Star, she was five years older than Red Sky and more experienced. A large earth mare, her physical strength would complement Red Sky's weather sense well. "You're in command, Sub-Lieutenant, the officer-cadet is your second."
"Aye-aye, sir."
East End abandoned his position at Gale's back. "The Young Baron will need a cox'n, sir, and I've been in boats since I was the size of a seagull."
One by one, then faster, the crews of the three boats filled out. Coxswains and common sailors, two medical orderlies. Each boat had one petty officer.
Lit by lightning and the waning afternoon sun through the thick clouds, three pinnaces of Her Majesty's Coast Guard left the sheltered anchorage, rowers straining their backs and the masts bare of sail, dead into the wind, toward the distress rockets that hovered in the mist above Manehattan Harbor.
Proper Place brought the admiral's oilskins and helped her don them. Not that it mattered, since she was already soaked to the undercoat.
At five minute intervals, green flares exploded over the harbor. That, at least, meant the ferry was still afloat and hadn't yet foundered.
A yellow flare exploded over the harbor. A second yellow flare.
"They've made contact," Blue said.
Gale just grunted, shivering under her oilskins, the cold rain lashing her face. Ponies set up lamps along the stone breakwater and the sun set, the dim lamps and lightning strobes providing the only illumination.
Surgeon-Lieutenant Soothing Wave stood in the rain with the others, ears flicking and tail thrashing, horn glowing softly. Transferred from the Guard, not the Navy, when the Coast Guard was founded, she was hideously susceptible to seasickness and looked a little green as she stared at the storm-lashed harbor. Half her orderlies were in the mess hall, rapidly converting it to a casualty receiving station, the other half at her side, ready to meet the boats.
"An hour," Gale said. "They should be back soon. If they come back."
"The wind has slackened," Blue replied. "Although it hasn't backed any. The cutters are still immobilized."
Gale shook her head. "The wind's no better on the harbor itself."
He looked at her, one eyebrow raised. She was a pegasus, and clearly a pegasus of unusually strong magic, so he would not presume to question her weather sense, even if he had no way of confirming.
Close by, near the stone breakwaters to the Coast Guard's anchorage, perhaps one thousand yards away, the white flame of a rocket arced up.
"Don't be red," Gale muttered. "Don't be red don't be red don't be—"
The flare exploded into bloody red brilliance.
"—damn." The admiral leaped into the air, hovering above the hundred-some ponies in their oilskins. She bellowed, "You all saw the red flare. Wounded aboard! Crews to the shore, prepare to help bring fast the boats. Medical crews stand ready to take the injured from the boats!"
Chaos erupted, over a hundred ponies surging into motion in the dark, but the petty officers' and chiefs' shouting quickly brought the chaos into order.
Gale flapped, thirty feet high, squinting into the darkness. A lightning bolt illuminated the anchorage and three boats, piled high with huddled forms, storm-sails set to take advantage of the wind at their backs, ponies bailing desperately with buckets, appeared for just a moment in the strobing light.
In that moment, she saw a pegasus colt hanging, forelegs wrapped around the mainmast of the leading boat, staring into the gloom and shouting down navigation orders, exposed in the most dangerous—and most important—single position.
Gale smiled. The Old Baron would have been proud.
The evacuation from the boats went smoothly. Twenty-six passengers and nine crew from the ferry were taken to the mess hall, where the Surgeon-Lieutenant and her orderlies examined them. The civilians were wrapped in blankets, placed in front of stoves, and plied with hot tea.
The ferry's captain reported to Gale with a salute: all crew and passengers accounted for, not a soul lost. The ferry had foundered and sank as the three boats turned for shore.
Two cases of hypothermia were taken to the Station's tiny sickbay, along with an infant and his mother, just on general principles. Broken bones and cuts were treated by the surgeon and her orderlies.
Officer-Cadet Red Sky remained on the boats, securing them and ensuring they were moored, their sails secured, and their rainproof covers stretched tight, ponies working pumps to clear their bottoms of rain and spray.
Admiral Gale Glider stood in the shadows, watching her ponies and officers. She smiled. She had not given an order in over two hours. She hadn't needed to.
The grim seriousness of saving civilian lives had brought everypony together.
East End walked up and stood in front of her, saluting with a wing. "Admiral."
"Sailor. Perhaps you should be a Petty Officer Third Class, now, actually."
"As you say, ma'am. You definitely need to speak to Mr. His Lordship the Young Baron, though."
"Do I?"
"Admiral, he was the last pony off the ferry just as it foundered. He walked the passenger cabin twice, even the bilge once, to ensure there weren't no single pony left behind."
"What did Sub-Lieutenant Sweet Salt have to say about that?"
"The ferry was caught in a gyre, ma'am. The sub-lieutenant was too busy with keeping the boats from smashing into the ferry. She let His Lordship run the evacuation."
Gale was surprised. Although Sweet Salt was good with small boats, Red Sky was gifted. She would have expected the opposite responsibilities from the two officers. Under the other wing, she had delegated to them because she trusted them and expected them to use their judgment in the heat of the moment.
Every life saved, none lost. The two officers had done well.
Gale's eyes narrowed and she nodded as she looked at the officer-cadet. "Indeed. Thank you, Petty Officer, I shall consider your words. Well done. Back to your duties."
Two days later, after The Manehattan Times interviewed the rescued civilians, the headline read, quite simply, RESCUE IN RAGING STORM. An etching of Officer-Cadet Red Sky standing on the bow of the foundering ferry accompanied the story. The sub-headline read, Coast Guard boats save all thirty-five on doomed ferry.
Gale bought a thousand extra copies of the special edition and had them shipped to the Barony of MacIntosh Hills. Red Sky's cousin, his steward, would be sure to distribute them. Aunty Celestia had taught Gale Glider long ago that a little propaganda never hurt, especially for a young barony... or a young nation.
She took a last copy, scrawled "Your grandfather would be proud" in green pencil, and dropped it in Red Sky's mailbox.
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.
The command master chief closed the book. Her words faded over the drill field. The one hundred and fifty one officer-cadets stared up at her. They knew the story, and had heard it many times before, most of them long before they ever chose the Coast Guard as their life's calling.
But this time, it had been read to them. For them.
The Chief sat down and the Commandant of the Academy rose and moved to the lectern. He ran a hoof down the spine of the book and then looked at the cadets.
"That is the tradition of our service. Our tradition is that it is better to be audacious than timid. It is better to save the life of the civilian than to preserve our own. That we have to go out, and we pay no heed to if we will come back."
He pointed toward the back of the ceremony, past and to the left of Celestia and Luna's Royal booth. "Civilian clothes and train vouchers are available at the exit. If you are not willing to live up to this tradition, you may go."
For sixty seconds, there was silence. Not a single cadet moved a muscle.
The Commandant nodded. "Raise your right hoof or talon."
The cadets, the faculty, and the families moved to a well-appointed outdoor buffet. Celestia and Luna took the opportunity to return to the Grand Corridor in the main building.
At the Wall of Honor, Luna looked at the plaques near Gale's. "I don't find Red Sky's name," she said.
Celestia gave a tiny smile. "He died of old age in his bed in Keep MacIntosh Hills, surrounded by his foals, grand-foals, and great-grandfoals. His first great-great-granddaughter, but a newborn, was nestled in his feathers when he passed."
"It is good he did not die in the service," Luna said. "He must have accomplished great things."
Instead of replying, Celestia exited the back of the building. A second statue mirrored Gale's at the front entrance. The plinth named it Admiral MacIntosh Hills, First Commandant of the Academy. "He trained three generations of officers in Gale's traditions. Other than Gale herself, nopony's influence on the service is deeper."
"Foals and grandfoals?" Luna mused. "He found a suitable marriage, then."
Celestia laughed. "He found a most unsuitable marriage, young miss Common Sailor Deck Swab."
"The filly from the Safe Harbour?"
"Filly, indeed. She was a solid three months his elder."
Luna chuckled.
"The aristocracy shunned him for betrothing a commoner, until I made a point of providing them the Grand Ballroom of Canterlot Palace for their ceremony, and a Household Regiment as honor guard. I, myself, performed the ceremony. When the rest of the peerage realized how high in my esteem the young lieutenant was, the snide comments became the quietest of whispers."
"Gale predicted that flood, fire, famine, or plague would come to his barony one day," Luna said.
Celestia's eyes twinkled with unshed tears. "The fourth Baron, Red Sky's grandson, took up his cane and hobbled high into the rocky escarpments above the town, leading the elderly, the infirm, the pregnant, the foals and their nannies, to where the flames could not reach. The Baron's daughter—who would be the fifth Baroness, not many months later—and her siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews, all the adults and middle-aged of the barony, stood to the cisterns and the river with buckets, ready to attack any ashfall that threatened to ignite the town. The Baron's granddaughter, Red Sky's great-great-granddaughter, shouldered an axe and strode into the forest. She had faith ponies would pick up their own tools and follow her, as the scion of the Noble House that was noble in fact, and not just in name."
"Gale's words were prescient?"
"She was right. The youngest, the strongest, all the very cream of the barony, followed. For three days, they breathed naught but smoke and tasted naught but ash as they cut firebreaks and smothered falling cinders. They halted the fire within a mile of the town. Their fields and silos were burned, but I made sure no pony went hungry that winter. They rebuilt. Ponies who were not there felt their own honor lessened when they heard the tales."
Luna nodded.
"Gale, indeed, forged one of Equestria's sharpest swords. The Barons and Baronesses MacIntosh Hills remain valued and loyal vassals to the Crown."
"What of the current Baroness?" asked Luna.
"She's an epidemiologist with the Ministry of Health, fighting plague. Her heir is a first-year cadet here, graduating in three more years. The baroness's younger foal intends to join the Forestry Service smokejumpers." Celestia smiled. "She says the Wonderbolts are wimps and real pegasi fly into wild flames, not through flaming hoops."
Celestia wandered north, toward the copse of oaks resplendent in autumn red and gold. Gardeners watered a pair of new saplings and placed a thick layer of mulch over their roots to protect them from the coming winter.
After about ten minutes of walking into the copse, Luna said, "These trees are arranged precisely. Nine steps between each, in a perfect hexagonal pattern. This is a garden, not a forest."
"Indeed," Celestia said with a smile.
"There is symbolism, sister. Tell me, for I do not grasp it on my own."
Celestia waved a wing. "Every time the Coast Guard makes a rescue, whether it's merely a raft carrying a single pony or a refugee ship carrying three thousand, an oak is planted."
Luna turned in a circle, ears flat. "There are hundreds of trees in this stand. Thousands."
"And every single one represents at least one, more often dozens, of lives saved. Saved by the tradition your child's grandchild forged."
Luna sat down, dry leaves rustling under her.
"Imagine this place in spring," Celestia said. "Imagine the beauty as green life returns. Like a life saved from certain death at sea, setting a hoof on dry land for the first time, their new beginning."
Luna smiled, a single tear running down her cheek. "My legacy is dark, sister, but this place of joy brings light to my heart like the sun through the branches."
The two sisters stared at the beams of the setting sun shining through the crowns of the trees, and imagined the oaks in spring, resplendent with renewed life.
