Doctor Whooves: Clockwise Counter
“Doctor! Things are starting to get a little bit tense up here! I don’t think we can last much longer!”
The brown earth stallion known only as the Doctor ran to the front of the somewhat-damaged ship to see if he could figure out anything to help their situation. They were in the middle of a battle between airships, with their opponents being a band of pirates, and so far, things weren’t looking very good. The Doctor pulled his high-tech goggles over his eyes to use some of their 42 functions in an attempt to find a solution to the problem, but all he could deduce was that they simply had to try and survive until they could escape or retaliate.
“Just keep flying Jack. Do your best!”
“We could have had this in the bag if you hadn’t insisted on removing our only gun from this thing!
“I’m sorry, but you know how I feel about guns!”
“Daddy,” came a female filly’s voice, “are the bad guys going to kill us?”
“Not if I can help it Dinky,” came her father’s reply. “Ditsy! Are there any defense groups on the ground that we can contact!?”
“Um, I think so…I know there’s the royal guard, but other than that I don’t know much.”
“That’ll have to do! Try to get a connection to them somehow! We need help, and FAST!”
Ditsy ‘Derpy Hooves’ Doo, wife of the Doctor, ran to the communications portion of a nearby console and attempted to make contact with anyone that could help, and her other daughter Sparkler ran over to help knowing her mom wasn’t as adept with machinery as she was. Meanwhile, the pirate ship began closing in, and it wasn’t long before they heard thumping on the roof of the cabin as enemy pirates attempted to board and make an entrance for themselves. A part of the roof began shooting sparks as a unicorn which had been dropped by a Pegasus attempted to cut a hole with its magic. It finally managed to make it through the bronze-colored metal and landed right behind the doctor.
“Daddy!” yelled Dinky, causing the Doctor to realize what she saw and immediately kick behind him, sending the unicorn into the far wall.
“Well, fancy that! I didn’t realize I was THAT strong!”
An earth pony climbed in through the hole made by the previous unicorn and headed straight for the pilot, the dark-blue Pegasus Captain Jack Harkness. He managed to grab Jack around the neck in an attempt to choke him, but Jack punched him in the chin as hard as he could, causing him to release his grip. Jack set the airship to autopilot, which at the moment merely caused the ship to continue flying straight when nobody else could fly it, since the Doctor hadn’t had time to replace it with a better version that only he and Jack knew how to build. He then turned around and began grappling with the pirate, the two wrestling each other for dominance, before the Doctor came up behind the adversary and knocked him out with sound from his Sonic Screwdriver.
“It’s amazing what you do with that thing, Doc!” Jack exclaimed, panting.
“See? I TOLD you it wasn’t useless!”
“I still prefer things with a little more Sonic though.”
“Aw, just get back to piloting this thing before we crash, you killjoy!”
There were more slamming sounds of hooves on metal as more ponies landed on the roof of the cabin. Jack and the Doctor looked up, trying to figure out what to do about all of this, as Dinky began to freak out a little. Ditsy and Sparkler continued to work on the communications console, occasionally looking behind them to make sure they wouldn’t be attacked as they continued to press buttons, flip switches, and turn various knobs.
“What do I do daddy? I want to help!” Dinky said.
The Doctor thought for a moment. “You know what? You’re smart. Go to the storage room and try to keep Princess Luna safe.”
“Okay!” she said somewhat nervously. She was both brave and brilliant, but she still showed signs of fear at her tender age. Little did her father know that she already knew Princess Luna to be far more capable of defending herself than Dinky was of keeping her safe, but she went along with it anyway. She ran through a metal door into a storage room to see the Princess standing with a stern expression in the middle of the room. Luna wasn’t her usual colors, but this was because Sparkler had figured out a spell that would reverse her colors so other ponies wouldn’t recognize her, in order to prevent a time paradox. Dinky began looking through boxes to find gears, wires, weights, any materials she could use to build possible traps.
Back in the cockpit of the airship, Jack had climbed back into the pilot’s seat and begun piloting the ship again. The Doctor was standing by the hole in the ceiling to make sure he could quickly take out any other pirates that attempted to jump in through it. His plan quickly failed though, as sparks began erupting from another portion of the ceiling. He prepared his screwdriver in his mouth, positioning himself between the first hole and the one that was now being made. He wasn’t a moment too soon, as the unicorn and a Pegasus quickly dropped in, one in front and one behind. The Doctor kicked behind him and activated his Screwdriver at the same time, knocking the unicorn back while dazing the Pegasus with sonic energy. The unicorn landed near the two ponies at the communications console and began to stand back up, but not before Ditsy decided to take her part in the action by leaving the console to knock him out with a solid punch to the face before going back to her post.
“Go Mom!” Sparkler grinned, proud that her mom was one of the tougher mares out there, before trying another sequence of switches and knobs.
There were even more pounding noises on the ceiling now, and as more sparks began flying in multiple places on the roof, everyone knew things were quickly going to become hopeless. Jack decided to try something interesting.
“Hold on tight guys, I’m going to try something to get them off!” he yelled back to the rest of his crew. He yanked the steering wheel to the left, causing the ship to bank sharply that direction. They heard a few shouts and the scraping of hooves sliding on metal come from outside as some of the unicorns went flying off the cabin down to the ground far below. The Doctor looked out the window to see some of them get rescued by their Pegasi buddies, but not all of them made it, to his dismay. Even if these guys were attacking them, he still didn’t like to see others die.
A few moments passed before Jack was able to right the ship again. No sooner had he succeeded than an angry Dinky opened the door in the back and yelled “Hey! Don’t forget there are ponies in the storage room! You’re lucky I heard you right before you turned or one of us could have been squashed by a falling box!”
“Sorry, kiddo!” Jack yelled back, not really paying her much attention as he was too focused on the task at hand. She paid him no mind and shut the door behind her as she turned back to her task.
The Doctor went over to a window and looked out at the pirate ship. He almost wished he hadn’t as the ship was now so close he could see the expressions on the faces of their adversaries. Then they began doing something that worried him.
“Uh-oh.”
“’Uh-oh’? What do you mean ‘Uh-oh’?” Jack yelled back.
“I don’t think they want to loot us anymore,” came the Doctor’s reply.
“And why is that?”
“Because they are readying a repeater gun.”
“WHAT!?”
Jack looked out the window to his right, and sure enough, they were readying what most referred to as a repeater gun, a special type of weapon meant for air-to-air combat that could fire off ten powerful shots in five seconds. Explosive weaponry was still a new concept, so repeater guns were currently the only guns capable of firing that fast and still having that much power. However, reloading them could take a while, since they had to be reloaded one shot at a time. At this time, nearly every airship was to be mounted with at least one.
Jack watched as the pirates began to take aim, then suddenly yelled “EVERYPONY GET DOWN!!” before switching on autopilot and diving to the floor. The Doctor ran to his wife and daughter and stood over them as they ducked as low as they could. Jack had called out just in time, as loud blasts began ringing from the enemy ship and shots began tearing through the side of the cabin one by one, about two holes being made every second. After Jack counted ten shots, among which he had heard what sounded like a heavy object whiz by the two ships, he stood up and peeked out a window that had been shattered by a repeater pellet. He began to worry as he saw them begin to reload the weapon. They managed to reload it surprisingly fast, as they had a number of crew members waiting to each load a shot into the chambers. Jack couldn’t help but admire their smart tactics.
“They’re preparing to fire again, Doc, and they are making record time of it. What should we do?” he asked.
The Doctor looked worried, and very much so. His wife and daughter saw this and began to grow increasingly worried, themselves, at their father’s silence.
“I don’t know…” he said, almost too quiet to hear over the noise of the wind rushing by outside. “I guess all we can do now is hope for the best…”
Everyone in the cabin remained where they were and did just that. The pirates began to take aim. The Doctor muttered “I HATE guns…” to himself before preparing for the worst.
There was the sound of loud gunfire outside the cabin…and then the sound of shattering clockwork machinery as a heavy projectile suddenly slammed into the gun. The pirates that had been manning it fell backward, stunned from the sudden shattering of their gun and the pelting of broken metal and gears against their hides.
The crew of the victimized airship all stood up to see what had happened, until a young-sounding voice suddenly came through the speaker on the communications console, slightly jammed with static.
“That was a close one! Is everyone okay!?”
The Doctor told Sparkler to go make sure Dinky and Luna were okay before dashing to the console and pressing a button. “This is the Doctor! Who am I speaking to!?”
“This is Skill Set, student to the Princess and member of the royal defense forces!” the fuzzy voice returned. “Now answer the question, is everypony okay?”
“Um, hold on a sec,” the stallion said before turning his head to look behind him. “Sparkler! How are they!?”
His daughter returned and said Dinky and Luna were fine, just a little shaken. The Doctor turned back to the console. “It seems we’re alright up here, but we have no defenses and no way of getting everyone off this ship safely with these pirates still up here!”
“Alright, Doc, we’ll get right on that! Just hang tight for a bit!” The Doctor heard him shout something in the background that sounded like “Hatter! Grease! Get on those harpoons! We’re going to anchor those pirates!”
Jack continued to look out the window and watch as their attackers tried to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t long before their ship began to turn away from their would-be victims.
“Yes, they’re running away,” he muttered to himself.
Dinky opened the metal door to the storage room and walked into the main cabin.
“What happened, Daddy? Did we win?” she said.
“Not yet, muffin, but we have help now! We should be alright as long as we stay together and do as we are told. I trust that Skill Set can help us.”
Ditsy gave a cheer of “Muffin!” as she heard the name of her favorite food mentioned by her own husband, then grabbed the console to steady herself as they heard the sound of shattering metal come from outside again. They all looked out to see one of the biggest harpoons anyone had ever seen lodged in the hull of the pirate ship. Two more suddenly slammed into it, burying themselves in the heavy metal of the ship, before all three of them began to pull the ship closer to the ground. They watched as the pirates began to scurry about, some of them attempting to fly away as their ship was rendered helpless. The harpoons stopped pulling, and a heavy fast-moving object suddenly slammed into the hull of the vessel, followed by another, and another, as the hull of the pirate ship was slowly being torn to pieces by anti-air fire. One lucky shot managed to puncture one of the balloons holding the airship up, and the ship began to slowly sink closer to the ground again. It wasn’t long before a final shot slammed into the airship and the whole thing fell apart and dropped, all of its parts crashing into the field far below. By now all of the Pegasi on board had escaped, but the remaining non-Pegasus crew members were caught and apprehended by a group of Pegasi in royal armor that had gathered near the crash site. Jack had been cheering at the action the whole time, hoof pumped in the air and a silly grin spread across his muzzle.
“Now THAT’S what I call firepower!” he yelled in excitement.
The rest of the group standing near the console could also hear cheering coming from the other end. They were able to pick out Skill Set saying “Alright, we tore ‘em to pieces! Good job guys!”
As the cheering died down, Jack turned back to the rest of his crew. “Well then, Doc, whadda ya say we get this thing landed so we can get off this deathtrap?”
“Deathtrap!? That’s-“ he stopped himself, “You know what? That sounds like a great idea Jack. Let’s go.”
Jack grabbed the steering wheel as he flipped off the autopilot and began heading straight for the nearest airship dock in Ponyville.
Author's Note
I was originally going to have this be a three-part thing, but unfortunately I hit writer's block during the second part. I'll be sure to update it if I ever manage to write the rest, but thankfully, this was the main part I wanted to get out when I wrote it, so at least I managed to do this much. 
