The Imperial Crystal Navy battleship Shining Armor ploughed through the intense storm at a speed of twelve knots; the bow slamming down with a loud thump into an incoming wave. Nearly throwing water to the shattered bridge windows. The water rushed over the deck almost to the forward fourteen inch turret and washing its rusted surface of what paint was left as it popped back up. She was 173 meters long, 30 meters wide and had five twin barreled turrets, varying small arms ranging from .50 caliber to 40mm as well as a few five inch guns.
Deep within the rusted hull her twin triple expansion steam engines thumped in time to create a soothing rhythm like a heartbeat. Green snow whipped at the crew on the bridge, blown about by an icy wind. Chilling them to the bone had they been alive. Indeed her whole crew were not alive, but neither were they truly dead.
Kept alive by radiation from the storm and turned into ghoul's, the Shining Armor's crew were doomed to carry out their last known order for eternity. But in over 200 years they had gotten no further than the week after the bombs fell. Arriving in the storm just half a day after their target, the Shining Armor was caught on the trailing edge and was forever sealed inside the mysterious storm. Doomed to sail in circles until the end of time, but something caused the storm to rapidly dissipate a few hours ago. Leaving the Shining Armor on calm seas and a clear blue sky.
The ghoul crew had kept nearly everything in working condition not knowing that 200 years had passed, because for them the storm had only lasted a week. As the lookout swept his gaze across the horizon he spotted a lone ship flying an unusual flag. The Shining Armor's crew trained her ten 14 inch guns on the target. Unleashing a barrage of fire at a range of eight miles. Her first volley overshot the target. The second one struck home with six shells ripping straight through the unarmored transport ship, splashing into the water on the other side dealing no critical damage.
A third volley landed short as the transport began to zigzag as best they could in an attempt to flee from the hostile warship. The fourth volley struck the engines of the transport and she began listing heavily as minor explosions inside her hull tore her apart. Shining Armor’s fire control officer ordered a cease fire as she launched a fifth volley that slammed into the bridge, two shells destroying it in a ball of fire.
As the guns of the Shining Armor rotated back to their travel positions, she turned towards the now flaming wreck to pick up the survivors.
*** ***
Stormstrike was roughly shoved into the rusting brig of the mysterious battleship. He had not seen its like in a very long time, for Stormstrike was a pre-war ghoul. The earth pony’s rotting steel grey coat was drenched. His borrowed Steel Ranger Scribe’s robe dripping ice cold salt water onto the metal deck as he glared with emerald green eyes at the other ghoul.
His gaze went to the tattered Marine uniform while his irradiated mind churned over who the strange ponies could be. Though he couldn't come up with any answers, because he did not know of any pre-war battleships that were in operational condition, much less one with a full complement of crew and ammo.
The brig was not very big. Inside its four by eight foot rusty confines was just a bed and a bucket to shit in. The guard stared at Stormstrike as the earth pony paced back and forth in the cage. Out of the fifteen crew and fifty Steel Rangers on the transport only him and five others had survived, but the ghouls shot them as 'traitors' while keeping him alive for an unknown reason. Beneath his hooves he could feel the deck heave on the waves and the rhythmic thumping of the steam engines. After ten minutes of pacing the door to the rest of the ship opened with a rusty shriek.
Stormstrike stopped pacing, looking up as a glowing ghoul in a ripped white ship Captain's uniform walked in. He could feel the radiation emanating from her body and noted the glowing green under her hide as well as her near solid glowing green eyes.
Stormstrike still did not speak. Instead he slowly backed up as the ship's Captain walked over. She looked at the guard and nodded. He opened the cell with a set of keys and followed the Captain in.
She took her hat off. Placing it on the nearby bed and speaking with a voice like eighty grit sandpaper that had an underlying echo. "Let's try to be civil about this, shall we?" Stormstrike nodded. "Good. First things first; who are you, where are you going, and what were you hauling?"
He looked at the Marine guard, eyeing the IF-18 .44 revolver in a foreleg holster and the metal baton at his side. A lie formed in the earth pony’s head. Stormstrike quickly looked at the Captain and spoke with a raspy voice. "Scribe Stormstrike of the Baltimare Steel Rangers. We were hauling supplies and reinforcements to Oakwood."
The mare smiled at him. "Next question. Where's the gold?"
"What... What gold?"
Her eyes narrowed. The Captain slammed a hoof down on the deck and a cloud of green shot up from where she had struck, causing Stormstrike to back into the bars.
She walked closer and he could practically feel the radiation trying to burn through the hull of the ship. The Captain pressed her nose against his and scowled. "Don't play games with me! I know you took the empire's gold, now where is it?!"
Stormstrike's gaze went to the uniform as he sidestepped out of the way. Then the gears in his head finally caught, falling into place and spinning as he figured out who the attackers were. Shaking his head he explained. "I swear to Celestia that I've never been to the Crystal Empire before in my life!"
She glared, making him feel as if she were trying to look into his very soul. He suspected that he couldn't reason with the mare and slowly stepped towards the guard, whom he noted was acting more like a drone than a ghoul with a brain.
"Liar!" The Captain shouted. She snarled at him and continued. "I think I shall use more persuasive mea-"
Stormstrike leapt onto the guard before she could finish, wrapping his foreleg around the guard's head and twisting hard. A sickening hollow snap filled the room as the ghoul's neck was broken at the base of the skull. Stormstrike reached down grabbing the revolver with his teeth as the Captain opened her maw wider than any normal pony should and let out an ear piercing shriek.
Two loud bangs filled the room as Stormstrike pulled the trigger with his tongue, striking the glowing ghoul in the eye and forehead. She fell to the floor and began moving to get up.
Stormstrike walked over, placing the barrel against her head and firing two more times. He went back to the dead guard, taking the baton and spare ammo. The old ghoul quickly checked the dead guard’s barding for anything useful, finding enough ammunition for two more reloads. As he was loading in the four shots he heard shrieks deep in the hull.
“Fuckin’ great,” he hissed through his teeth. Snapping the revolver shut he glanced back at the Captain and his eyes widened as her hoof began moving.
Stormstrike quickly left the cell, turning around to shut the door and locking it. He withdrew the key’s as she clutched her head with a hoof, he noted that her eyes weren’t solid anymore as she looked at him. He could see the crystalline like iris’s.
She held out her other hoof. ”Wait!” Stormstrike did not. He backed away as she continued. “The stern under the guns! Down...” The ghoul groaned as she fell over clutching her head as her eyes glazed over. She lunged at the bars, shrieking and trying to hit him with a hoof.
He turned around and bolted from the brig. Stormstrike quickly looked around the dark narrow passageway before shutting the door, spinning the wheel shut. To his left at the end of the hall was a door, along the wall next to him were doors to the various cells. He galloping through the rust streaked corridor with the pistol in his grip. As he reached the door at the end of the hallway he pressed an ear against it, hearing the sounds of the ship and ponies working in a sort of shop. The noise outside made hearing his gunshots in the cell impossible.
“What did she mean by the under the guns?” He thought. Then he looked cross-eyed at the revolver firmly clenched in his teeth. “The magazine! But, that would be sui-”
A loud bang drew his attention back to the cell he had escaped from as the Captain lunged at the bars over and over, trying desperately to break them down. Without waiting to see if she would succeed he spun the hatch’s wheel and it opened with a shriek. Sticking his head through he looked left, seeing a large passageway that nearly ran the length of the ship, to his right was a machine shop with ponies working to repair broken parts for something he could not identify.
Stormstrike bolted across the hallway taking cover behind some pipes and aiming his stolen revolver at the back of a feral ghoul’s head as it walked along with something on its back. His gaze went left, and right. Looking back he saw the round metal encasing where ammunition was sent up to the third turret a few decks above. He knew that if he somehow managed to catch the powder on fire it would be put out with some sort of flooding device.
“I’ve got to get off this boat.” Stormstrike thought while turning his attention back to the ghoul, who had disappeared by this point. The old ghoul earth pony got to his hooves and trotted forward. As his old eyes scanned the passageway for threats they fell upon a sign above a door to his right that read: ‘Clothing Room’.
He opened the door to a room about six feet wide by twelve feet long. Stormstrike quickly shut the door and began browsing the rack’s of old clothes looking for any that might fit.
*** ***
Many hours later an explosion rocked the ICN Shining Armor, sending a shockwave rippling through the hull as the roof of the number four turret blew open. A call to general quarters was sounded throughout the ship as a fire began slowly spreading towards the number five turret. Ghoul’s donned useless fire retardant suits and galloped towards the blaze.
A second smaller timed explosion tore through the forward 40mm ammunition hold on the port side, spreading fire and splitting the attention of the crew.
Smoke billowed out from where the number four turret used to be while the Shining Armor continued its course towards Baltimare. The Captain having been rescued from the brig when she did not appear for a scheduled drill. Now however... she was scowling at the pony telling her that her ship was crippled.
“How did this happen?!” She shouted in his face. “Did I not tell you to beef up security and to find that earth pony?”
He nodded rapidly. “We tried, but it was as if he vanished!”
Her green eye twitched as she pointed a hoof at the damage control display. “Run that by me again, would you? I think I misheard what you said.”
“We... tried, bu-”
She nearly screamed in his face, “get down there and kill him before he sinks my ship!”
The ghoul galloped from the bridge as another red light clicked on on the display. “Fire in the forward ammunition bay is spreading towards the bow.” Another pony intoned.
Stormstrike peered out from his cover as a pony in a cloth hood and mask came running over. He aimed down the barrel and pulled the trigger. His shot tore through the ghoul’s head and sent what passed for the creature’s brains against the wall.
He stood up and trotted towards where the powder for the aft fourteen inch guns were stored. The burning number four behind him blocking his path towards the bow. Around his neck hung various grenades he had found and tied to a string. His gaze was locked on the door and he did not see the ghoul behind him aiming a shotgun.
Buckshot tore through his right hind leg, separating it from his body as he screamed in agony around the revolvers trigger. Stormstrike hobbled and fell, looking back at the crewpony with a fierce gaze. He triggered the revolver once, then twice in rapid succession. His three shots hitting the ghoul square in the chest. As that pony fell he gathered his strength, hauling himself up and hobbling towards the door.
Opening it and seeing it full to the brim with powder. Stormstrike did not say any witty remarks, nor did he ask for any forgiveness from Celestia or Luna. He simply pulled the string holding all the pins on the various grenades and tossed the whole belt into the room.
A third, but much larger explosion destroyed the far aft turret of the ICN Shining Armor; killing an old grey ghoul in the process. That turret was launched sky high off the deck as two powder rooms and a room full of 14” shells exploded. The shockwave tearing a hole in the side of the once proud ship. The fire quickly spread across the hall into the starboard powder room when the crew found their fire pumps to be un-working. A secondary explosion tore another hole into the ship.
More alarms rang out throughout the Shining Armor as her ghoul crew desperately tried to keep her afloat. She began listing and sinking at the stern as a thick black cloud billowed from the stern section. Her hot rusted metal groaning and popping as ice cold water rushed in, filling the void and going below decks.
Nearly all of the Shining Armor’s system were kept in working condition, however the watertight bulkhead doors were not among them. Some had rusted shut into a half open position as they attempted to close, allowing water or fire to flow into the next compartment. The ice cold water flooded the boiler room because of this reason.
The Captain of the Shining Armor screamed in frustration. Her beautiful ship was slowly turning into a sinking inferno. As she looked out across the horizon from the bridge she saw six tiny black shapes flying across the sky.
Axe was a maroon pegasus. Her and six others were flying recon when they had spotted the black smoke trail of a coal fired ship. Deciding that it might be Steel Rangers the six Enclave pegasi had been following its trail for the last thirty miles.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Axe asked the squad leader the obvious while they flew in a large circle around a smoking and clearly sinking pre-war battleship.
“Yeah,” he replied, “I’m thinking we should get a Raptor or Vertibuck over here and pick up the survivors. Grill ‘em and figure out how they sank it, but more importantly. How they managed to get it working in the first place.”
The list the Shining Armor had developed was worsening by the second as her whole stern was now under water. She was heeled over twenty degrees to port, but on the bridge it felt a lot worse than that. The Shining Armor’s Captain picked up the ship's intercom, “all hands abandon ship. I repeat, all hands abandon ship, this is the Captain speaking.”
One of the Shining Armor’s boilers exploded in a cloud of scalding hot steam. Tearing a hole in the bottom and letting even more water in. The ghouls crewing her galloped as fast as they could throughout her rusted hull as the metal shrieked in agony. Her list increased, throwing the deck off kilter at a forty-five degree angle and increasing by the second. Lifeboats were useless as the bow of the ship was by now out of the water by at least thirty feet.
The crew began jumping off the sides and swimming away as fast as their old hooves could carry them.
Axe pointed a lightly armored hoof down as a pony in a white uniform jumped into the water. Without a word the maroon pegasus went into a dive, closing the distance, flying above the water as she held out her forelegs. She noted that the pony she was about to catch was a ghoul, however this did not bother the Enclave pegasus as much as not finding out what information they had on the ship and its systems.
She grabbed the pony as her whole body shuddered. Axe flapped her wings and looked down as she quickly gained altitude, her eyes widened behind her mask as she saw the glowing mist around the ship captain's exposed legs, and the solid glowing eyes.
"Traitor!" The Shining Armor's Captain screamed, "you fuckers left us to die!"
She reached up, her teeth tearing through the light armor and into Axe's flesh. The pegasus let go as she screamed in pain. The ship's captain slipped off, falling six hundred feet onto the now exposed side of the Shining Armor's hull. She collapsed flat as nearly all of her bones broke and she quickly slid down the slope into the water with a splash, but the radiation in her body began to heal her quickly.
One of the propellers slowly spun as the steam engine gave its final stroke in life. The Shining Armor's Main Battery Control room on the foremast slammed into the water. Crushing a few of the crew and throwing up a wall of water that swamped others; the hull's list finally stopped with her laying completely on her side.
Shining Armor bobbed on the waves as the crew looked at her in confusion. The Captain looked up in the sky, seeing other black dots that she recognized to be pegasi cloudships. Her maw opened extremely wide as she shrieked, and was answered by the rest of the crew.
Axe looked at her squad leader as they hovered over the scene below. Even from their height they could hear the ghouls screaming at them. Axe nodded, holding out her bitten leg. "The bitch called me a traitor and bit me! Of course I'm sure it was a feral ghoul!"
He nodded while moving away from her. "Alright, get that looked at and don't go near anypony until you're cleared by medical."
Axe nodded and turned towards a nearby Raptor.
The sea around the shining Armor boiled as the Enclave Raptor and Vertibuck fired down on the ghouls with everything from pistol lasers to gatling lasers and plasma turrets, then the same weapons were turned on her. Though they had no effect against her thick armor and did little more than scorch what anti-fouling paint was left. The Enclave ponies soon realized this and continued on towards their initial objective.
*** ***
Under a star filled night sky and a full moon the Shining Armor silently slipped beneath the waves. Leaving a trail of debris as she did so. She rolled upright and fell stern first towards the murky bottom. All that remains to mark her passing on the surface were the bodies of feral ghouls that hadn't been turned to ash, and an oil slick, but all of that was gone a few days later.
The Shining Armor groaned as she plummeted into the black abyss, the water pressure causing any remaining air pockets to explode the deeper she went. Ammunition, guns, and other heavy objects that weren’t bolted down spilled out as she fell. An unexploded boiler landing two miles away from the wreck and marked where she had initially slipped under the waves.
The Shining Armor's stern slammed into the muddy bottom and dug a trench as silt obscured any vision of the act. Slowly the bow came down as she slid to a stop. With a metallic groan that could be heard for miles by the sea life she heeled over onto her side and came to a final stop.
After 200 Years the ICN Shining Armor finally found rest...
