Blackwing's Legacy

Today was nothing new to me, it was the usual route; just cruising along in the skyship, searching the high skylanes and looking for traders and merchantmen who had grown fat from the government and corruption.

I'd done this a million times before, and I was in fact commanding the whole thing. Including my sleek ship; the prow cutting easily through the cloud cover as we searched, a predator after its prey. I had named her the Swift Spirit - just because I practiced piracy didn't mean I had to have a horrid name marring my ship's beauty.

The Swift Spirit was a frigate class skyship, metallic and cold on the outside, yet warm and homely within. She was a fine vessel, held aloft by a set of four propellers, which were bolted very firmly to her frame, and a large sail sat in the middle of the deck, but was never really used unless we needed a bit more speed. Propulsion was provided primarily through five red hot engines that pushed us along at a powerful rate - leaving behind a trail of deep red exhaust that was one of the Spirit's signature features. The bridge deck was enclosed within a shell of thick metal that was painted blue to match the Spirit, and through the glass covering the front was a nice view of the chaos the bridge held. Within it was a mess of wiring, beeping consoles and flashing screens - and amid all that was a large wheel, which we used for precise steering; usually in combat.

Pegasi flitted across the deck quickly, checking and maintaining the flight path on the bridge, checking the propellers above and the engines below-decks while I myself stood next to the wheel, with my navigator and aide. Through the glass I keenly watched the clouds pass by, preferring to watch for ships the traditional way - flight tech always confused me.

"Cap'n Blackwing, sir. The local sonar picked up something off to the starboard., sir! Do we move to intercept?" One of my officers piped up, motioning to the screen urgently which showed a red dot off to the right side, about 700m away.

I grinned, didn't look like there was going to be much of a chase.

"Engage! Pull up alongside and begin prepping grapples. And the grape shot. You know the drill; I want cargo as undamaged as I can get it! Alert the boarding parties, and tell them to get ready!"

As I finished barking out orders all over the bridge I spread my wings and flew quickly over to the bridge roof hatch, with intent to check out my catch.

The wind rustled my blue-gold mane violently, causing it to fall in front of my eyes and block my view of the ship ahead of us. I pushed it aside, and I saw clearly the enemy - an old looking cruiser, with a fat belly and two propellers. The engines looked like they had given up trying long since; and judging from the speed, I reckoned I couldn't be too far wrong.

On their deck I could just make out around ten or fifteen crew. They were moving around the bridge area in a hurry, like ants in a panic, presumably they were warning officers.

I let out another toothy grin, that showed to me that they had a severe lack of a radar or sonar to pick up enemy locations. With a ship like this, I doubted they had much cargo, if any.

Still, I was bored. May as well have a go at them.

The Swift Spirit bore down on the smaller craft, a giant facing an insect - and a fat insect at that, if the enemy ship's belly had anything to do with it. My Spirit was capable of holding 500 ponies, and we had at least 430 on board, prepped and ready for a scrap, all of them pegasi who were used to fighting in high altitudes and on skyships.

I had also stocked us with a healthy supply of grape shot: for crew, and incendiary shot in case I needed to wound a ship and flee the scene - like, for example I got myself into a fight I couldn't win.

That had happened before, more times than I'd like to remember, but it had, and my fire shot had gotten me away fine. That, and my crew's exceptional flying skill.

For ten years we had hunted the skies of Equestria, ten years since the onset of the new government - a corrupt and evil thing run by a less than virtuous mare named Twilight Sparkle.

Oh, she had once been quite kind and benevolent I had heard, but not anymore. Adulation corrupts, and being the element of magic had sent her adulation through the roof. Now she just lived for self worship and tyranny, pushing ordinary citizens out of free trade, making it so she directed all trade routes and merchant lanes. She was a pirate king in her own right, cheating normal ponies out of buying exotic items and food they would need for business, and instead exporting more and more to the zebras in far off lands. She had named the loose collection of traders that took advantage of this her Twilight Cartel, which goes to show how prideful she can get.

The injustice of such a thing, simple as it may seem - which it most definitely, was not - actually began my career as the third most wanted pirate in the skies. Now normally, you couldn't buy a skyship unless it was for trading, and even then you needed to have an official on board at all times - except when docking - and a lengthy process of signing deals and permissions was needed to fly.

The year I discovered what was happening to our fair government, I had sought out peaceful means of preventing a catastrophe. I got nowhere, so instead I travelled far and wide, eventually ending up in a rotten city full of shady types and sleazy mares. This was the city of immorality and sin, and it went by the name of 'Pegarus'. This pit of decadence and decay was a blessed irony;  it provided me the means of purchasing a ship with my life savings, which I had taken with me when I had begun.

My experience at skysailing was rather minimal at that point, but I did have some.

I had come from a rather privileged family; and they had paid for training of all kinds when I was a young, hopeful colt. I remember signing the deal for the ship with a quick hoof - and my blue hoof colliding with the dealer's red was the beginning of a new life for me.

Since then I have grown my crew and fine tuned my sailing skills through sheer, unbridled effort, taking down multitudes of the Twilight Cartel and their escorts; and returning to that rum-sodden city, Pegarus to sell my wares to the blaggards there.

The oddest thing about Pegarus was that the leering merchants who took residence here would actually sell back to regular citizens, and sometimes they would pay mercenaries to ship wares to other cities and do black market deals for odds and ends or foodstuffs. In this way, they were very much like me.

Coming out of my reverie, I saw we were almost upon the ship, and I headed back below to check the status of boarding parties and wait to give the order.

"Boarding parties 1 through 4 are prepared, guns loaded, gun packs locked firmly on, cutlasses at the ready. Parties 5 through ten are standing by. Starboard cannons loaded, lining up portside along the enemy."

I nodded to my aide, as he finished reporting, and checked the monitors for the boarding parties; they each had a unique gun pack mounted on their back, with a helmet covering each of their faces: this helmet provided a technological interface for the gun pack so it knew when to fire. If the pegasus wanted to fire, they need just use the command in the helmet. The guns that were attached to it rested under their wings, and was either dual pistols or a blunderbuss.

It was a nice bit of tech, and it cost me a pretty penny as well to get a half decent collection.

The enemy was alongside now, and I could actually see into their bridge - their crew was in a shambles, scurrying over the ship in a rush, trying in vain to speed the small craft and her tiny engines away from the Spirit's wrath.

I could see clearly the logo inscribed on the side of the vessel; a scroll with a violet six pointed star in the middle, surrounded by stars. The words In Twilight, We Flourish sat beneath the symbol; and I felt a taste of metal in mouth seeing the detested logo.

"Aim the hooks. I'm boarding this myself; with my own team accompanying me. I doubt we need more for this morsel. She can hardly fly straight! Ha!" I commanded, moving off to my cabin at the back of the bridge whilst the crew managed the aiming and grappling.

As I reached the door, I felt a familiar shake beneath my hooves, the main batteries on the starboard side being rolled out, I guessed. Those things were as heavy and thick as the cloud cover we soared above; and just as numerous.

I pushed my way into my personal cabin - it was a spacious thing with a nice reinforced glass wall at the back that provided an amazing view and also had emergency shutters if it was ever breached - and I spotted my gun pack, custom pistols loaded and ready. It was atop my workbench, and I pulled it on quickly; having done so many times before.

I heard a sound like metal on metal, screeching, drowning out all other noise for a brief moment, and a slight shake from the Spirit.

Good, we've grappled them; I thought contently, checking my gun pack in the wall mirror - to make sure everything was set correctly. I pulled my helmet on, bathing the world an eerie green, matching my emerald eyes - an interface now sat in front of my vision, the options and status meters lining my sight, along with an ammo count for the pistols that were resting beneath my wings; my burnt wing was folded atop the gun tenderly; and although it still worked just fine thanks to some unicorn magic, it still sat awkwardly on my flank.

Armed, ready and eager for a good fight, I left my cabin and went below decks.