Chapter 36: The Unfriendly Skies

After several hours at high speed, Isla del Lamento came into view of the magnification cameras.

"Well that's a mess," Marky said, staring at the image on the main screen.

Parts of the island had drastically changed. Giant fungoid plants squirmed on the beach, huge tentacles waving in the air. They looked both diseased and dangerous at the same time.

"I somehow don't think we can drive through them easily," Jeff said, looking at the monitor. "Fortunately, we brought some, ah, path clearing equipment."

He leaned back in his chair. "Ready the railguns."

There was a deep clank that resounded throughout the ship, followed by the hum of hydraulic actuators as two elongated armor hatches swung open and twin fifty foot cylinders rose out of the hull on thick metal targeting pylons.

"Megacapacitors charging, projectiles autoloading, targets locked. Fire on your order, sir."

"Hit them."

There was a massive buzzing clang that shook the vessel as the twin super cooled magnetic coils energized, blasting two barrel-sized metal projectiles towards the island at sixteen times the speed of sound.

The water churned beneath the hypersonic shock wave, and seconds later parts of the beach exploded. The railguns autoloaded another set of projectiles, and ten seconds later another another part of the beach erupted in flames. Bits of burning plant matter shot skyward, leaving smoke trails that curved gently behind them.

"I don't think they expected that."

In the monitor, a flurry of activity was visible as fungoid crawlers tried to escape the beach in a panic.

"Keep whacking them."

The railguns clanked again, and more shells howled through the sound barrier and into the island, bombarding the shore with unrelenting fury.

"Just keep going until the only thing moving is smoke and fire," Jeff said calmly. "And move us in closer. We're going to land once we've beat them down enough."

Chris pointed at moving spots on the main monitor. "We've got incoming air, some kind of flying creature."

"It's safe to assume they harbor hostile intent, I imagine," Jeff said sarcastically. "Man the laser turrets. They aren't designed to lock onto organic targets."

Chris directed the others as they hurried to the defense laser control stations. He sat down and brought up the targeting interface, glancing left and right to see Twilight and Applejack doing the same.

"Good thing we went over this in the simulator," Emmy commented, tapping at the holographic buttons as her motorized chair swiveled and slid forward into the combat interface. She grabbed the joystick. "I wonder if we'll get a chance to try anything else we learned."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Chris grunted. "Are you okay with this Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy nodded as she slid into one of the combat terminals. "Those things? They aren't nice at all. They're evil monsters. And I'm pretty good at video games." She settled into her seat as the interface came to life around her. "Don't worry about me."

Pinkie Pie waved a hoof from behind her glowing holographic cocoon. "She's good at a lot of things when she puts her mind to it!"

On the exterior of the Leviathan, small circular hatches opened and slotted domes rose out, spinning to face the island as the laser batteries came to life, charging and preparing to engage the attackers.

Chris used the telescope-like laser focusing optics to zoom in on one of the flying objects, putting the image up on the large screen.

"What even are those things?" Jeff asked, his voice filled with disgust.

On the monitor was a fat greasy looking orb of diseased flesh with two wings. It was bat-like, if bats had bodies composed of nothing but slimy leaking tumors.

"That is the most revolting thing I've seen in days. Shoot it before we find out what it wants."

Chris fired, and the creature exploded in a massive fireball. He whistled. "Lasers impacts don't explode. They're flying bombs!"

"Don't let them get near us!" Rarity exclaimed.

Clouds of the creatures rose from the island and flocked towards them, flapping through the air with complete disregard for their own survival. Laser capacitors hummed and pulsed as Equestrians and humans swung joysticks and pulled triggers.

"Can this thing shoot any faster?" Rainbow Dash shouted in frustration.

Jeff tapped his console. "Powering down railguns, redirecting power from non-essential circuits to laser defense grid."

The lights dimmed.

The buzzing sound of laser capacitor batteries charging and discharging increased in frequency.

"Oh yeah that's helping!" Applejack shouted, blasting targets in a blaze of speed.

Chris risked a side glance at her. "You're pretty good."

More monsters suddenly flew up from the island, expanding the cloud even further.

"Uh, guys? Do we have anything else we can throw at them?" Marky said in an uncomfortable tone as he swiveled and fired. "Things are getting busy out there."

"I'm going to have to activate the rest of the defense grid," Jeff's hands flew on his interface. "Bringing CIWS turrets online."

"Close in weapon system?" Chris looked back at Jeff. "That should be able to target anything."

Jeff frowned. "Remember when I said Leviathan is experimental and not everything works right?"

Chris groaned audibly.

"Yup," Jeff said. "Only a couple work and we're gonna have to man them from here."

"I can help," Celestia said. "Let me try."

Jeff pointed at an unused combat interface chair. "Go grab that one. I'll patch you into one of the CIWS turrets."

Celestia hurried over and slid into the chair. She flicked switches and her holographic interface powered up.

Jeff activated an interface on his command chair and took control of one of the turrets himself.

The drawn-out buzz of depleted uranium being expelled from Gatling turrets at impossible speed joined the hum and buzz of laser capacitors.

Celestia dragged her joystick and held down the fire button, a sustained BRRAAAAAAPPPPPP echoing out over the water. A moment later, lines of flying bombs exploded.

"They're flying too close together," Sanchez commented with a laugh. "The DU rounds are taking out multiple targets! Keep it up!"

Celestia smirked, her mouth smiling but her eyes deadly. "Perfect. I can decimate their numbers with ease."

Hundreds of winged monsters went down in flames and explosions with each press of the trigger. The sound of the raging Gatling was deep and powerful even though the sealed body of the ship.

"Looks like the bastards figured it out," McAllister growled. "They're changing tactics."

The foul orbs had dispersed and begun flapping erratically, rising and dropping like frightened mosquitoes. None of them faltered in their mindless determination to reach the ship, although their bobbing approach reduced their speed.

"We're going to need additional assets," Jeff said. "You guys are doing great but there's too many of them."

He activated his communication link. "Flight deck! Ready the quadcopters for immediate combat launch! Instruct all pilots to defend the ship, but stay at a safe distance from the storm cloud covering the island." He listened for a moment, then nodded and spoke to the bridge. "We have a quadcopter without a pilot."

Rainbow Dash looked up from her console. "I can fly it, let me."

Jeff looked at her suspiciously. "You know how?"

"We both do," McAllister said. "We ran the training simulator together a lot."

"It was a ton of fun. For real, we can do it," Rainbow Dash added. "I fly better than anypony! Even in a machine."

"I'll be your gunner, Dashie." McAllister hooked a thumb at her and looked at Jeff. "No kidding. She got all the highest scores on the leader board. Wasn't satisfied with second. She's good. Best I've seen. I spent enough time cleaning my own puke out of the simulator's copilot seat to know what I'm talking about."

Rainbow Dash's chest inflated visibly.

Jeff narrowed his eyes. "You know those machines are capable of mid-air velocity changes that can severely injure or kill the occupants, right?"

"Not as long as the acceleration limiting computer interlock is active," Rainbow Dash replied, narrowing her own eyes and grinning menacingly. "It will allow me to push system performance to the edge while preventing G-LOC or death in a delicate human passenger."

Jeff sighed. "Fine, you seem to know your stuff. But be careful, this is no simulation. You screw up here, there's no second chances." He spoke to the intercom again. "Send in a couple security personnel to take over these tactical consoles. Two bridge personnel are headed to the quadcopter bay."

Soon after two ProteC security hands entered the bridge. They took over the defense control chairs, and Rainbow Dash and McAllister hurried out of the command deck to rush back through the corridors of the ship towards the hangar. Several catwalks and flights of stairs later, they were running side by side into the large hangar space. The roof armor was open and the last of the piloted quads was performing a vertical takeoff as they entered. It was much quieter than a regular helicopter, the four high speed propellers making a whining noise as their electric motors spun powerfully. The quadcopter buzzed, rising slowly under autopilot control until it cleared the bay doors, then it rocketed upwards and darted out of sight when the pilot took manual control.

"Ready Dashie?" McAllister lightly bumped her shoulder with his elbow as they approached the one remaining copter.

"Oh yeah. I'm totally ready."

They stepped between the shielded propellers and swung into the side by side cockpit. Rainbow Dash immediately started powering up the machine.

"Batteries at one hundred percent," she said. "Activating primary control systems."

There was a hum as the computer came online and the holographic interfaces surrounded them with information.

"Ammo full, missile racks loaded, ready for takeoff on your go," McAllister reported. "Let's blow some shit up."

He held up his hand to her hoof and they fist bumped over the chair arms.

"Awww yeah!"

***

Jeff watched their status go green on the main tactical console, then their navigation computer flew them out of the hangar.

Once they cleared the bay doors, Rainbow Dash gunned the powerful electric motors and the quadcopter shot away from the ship like a missile.

"Jeez those things are fast," Sanchez observed. "I'd lose my lunch if I were on board."

On the tactical display the green icon of their quad zipped forward to join the others dodging and rolling in the sky.

***

"Oh yeah!" Rainbow Dash was having more fun than she'd had in days. The nimble quad was specifically designed to perform aerial acrobatics, and it twitched and spun in the air, dodging and performing flips with ease.

McAllister grimaced. Even with the on-board targeting computer's stabilization assistance, pulling off a good shot was difficult under Rainbow Dash's enthusiastically insane piloting.

"Dashie, ease up a bit girl, I can't draw a bead."

She complied, slowing down and moving in an easy arc while he sprayed down the enemy with bullets.

The Gatling gun buzzed like a giant angry hornet and hissed as it came to rest, each trigger application spewing rounds into the enemy. Other quads were visible around them, hovering and firing into the cloud.

"Good, we're chewing them up now. We'll have the sky clear in a minute or two." McAllister glanced at the chat feed. General chatter from the other helicopters and the Leviathan gunners came over the holographic comm interface in speech-to-text format to reduce confusion.

• Christopher Lance (Leviathan): Target evading far left.
  
• Eddie Jones (Quad 2): On it.
  
• Christopher Lance (Leviathan): Looks like you got him.
  
• Christopher Lance (Leviathan): Watch your tail Quad 7.
  
• Jerry Lombar (Quad 7): Roger, thank you Leviathan, target down.
  
• Jeffrey Peterson (Leviathan): Their numbers are thinning. We're taking care of business. Good job all!
  
• Christopher Lance (Leviathan): Wait, something's happening. Watch out, incoming enemy, unknown type!

McAllister squinted out the window past the text chat. Several odd shapes had jetted up from the island at high speed. They were highlighted with a red circle and question marks on the holographic overlay.

"The hell is that?" he said aloud.

Rainbow Dash looked out the window too and frowned. "I don't know, but I don't like it."

"Magnifying." McAllister zoomed in on the creature.

It squirted up into the air and floated, then darted again, moving like a squid, with incredible speed in short bursts. Tentacles floated behind it, lazily groping in the air at each pause then streaking behind when it moved.

Rainbow Dash muttered to herself. "It looks exactly like a squid. In the air. Airsquid."

"Airsquid works. They're huge. And here they come!"

The creatures were making a beeline for the quadcopters.

• Jeffrey Peterson (Leviathan): Focusing laser fire on the newcomers.

There was a pause, and nothing happened.

• Jeffrey Peterson (Leviathan): We've got problems on Leviathan. High voltage laser grid has overloaded. Quadcopters, you are on your own for now. Can only provide CIWS Gatling support. We may be down for some time. Good luck.

"Well that's not good at all," McAllister said. "Those things look dangerous."

The CIWS Gatling guns buzzed from the Leviathan, but the Airsquids moved in a random dodging pattern and they were not in any one spot long enough for the guns to score a hit.

• Celestia (Leviathan): They move too fast! I can't hit them with this gun, the bullets take too long to travel!

The Airsquids were now close enough to discern detail, and what they could see was terrifying. The creatures had heads at the far end from their tentacles, with gaping spider-like fangs and what looked at first like compound eyes. As they got closer, McAllister realized with a shudder that the compound eyes weren't compound at all, but were actually huge clusters of mammalian eyes scanning and flicking everywhere at once. They looked almost human, down to the thick eyelashes that matted against each other and blinked randomly. As the Airsquids approached, their long tentacles reached up into pockets along the sides of their body and withdrew glowing greenish objects.

Rainbow Dash dodged, flipping the craft in a barrel roll to the side multiple times.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE! IT"S GONNA ATTACK!" she shouted, her voice coming over all the copter intercoms at once.

Her instincts were right. As they flipped, the Airsquids flung the glowing green orbs at terrific speed through the air.

The other copters reacted to her voice, flipping and jumping out of the way.

Quad 3 was too slow. Multiple direct hits from the green orbs smacked into it. For a moment nothing happened, then Quad 3's pilot came over the voice channel.

"We took a direct hit from... From... I don't know what. It looks like jelly. It's... It's melting through the window!

"Invert your copter!" Rainbow Dash yelled into the voice chat, but it was too late.

"It's on me! It's on me! GET IT OFF! IT BURNS!!!

The vehicle began listing in the air. The agonized screaming of the pilot and gunner went on for far too long, eventually ending in a coughing, gurgling sound.

Quad 3 floated in place for a short time as the guidance computer kept it in the air, then the green slime melted through the propellers and it fell towards the ocean below. It landed with a splash, and the flotation bags activated for a few seconds, before the slime ate through them as well. When they deflated, the quad sank out of sight beneath the waves.

Rainbow Dash's face was horrified. "Oh no," she whispered.

"Pull it together," McAllister said. He reached over and put a hand on her hoof. "You kept it from happening to most of us. You can do this. And to tell the truth," he said with increasing urgency as the Airsquids prepared for another volley, "we don't have time to think about it right now. Let's move!"

Rainbow Dash gave her head a quick shake and snarled. "Yeah, I got this. We're gonna show them they messed with the wrong ponies."

"Damn right they did."

She yanked the sticks vigorously and put them through another nauseating series of flips as a hailstorm of green orbs flew past.

McAllister focused on the enemy, ignoring the erratic roller-coaster like flight while he tried to line up a shot.