“The carrier” was inside a massive artificial cavern deep under the northernmost mountains in the Dominion, far behind the Dominion’s densest defenses. Through the cavern flowed a river dredged to a carefully calculated size that eventually opened into the similarly-maintained Great Bay. No Equestrian warship even came close to filling the space dug from the mountain, which had been flawlessly transformed into the surrounding landscape.

At the cavern mouth, a truly enormous set of solid-granite twin blast doors, each measuring 50 meters wide, 75 tall, and 5 deep, weighing in over 50,000 metric tons, and costing nearly three billion bits apiece, guarded its ancient treasure: an ancient flat-topped ship, over two hundred years old, rusting but operable. Its hull was raised above the water, showing a quadruple lift engine on each corner. The stern had been widened considerably. Covered in flak cannons and main-battery turrets, the ship was no longer just a carrier. It was a battleship. To Celestia, it was nearly unrecognizable until she saw the faded white number “76” displayed on its side.

“Is that… Reagan?” she asked.

“The one and only,” Jade replied. “Onyx bought her from the Americans about fifteen years after the War. We’ve made a few modifications over the years, taking some of humanity’s old popular culture and making it reality. There was an overhaul of the power system a while back…” He trailed off, searching his memory for other things done to the ancient aircraft carrier.

“But why do you have her?”

“We thought we might need her? I don’t know. What’s important is that Onyx knew what he was doing when he purchased her.”

“So what can she do now that you’ve made all these modifications?” Andromeda asked.

“She can fly.” Jade scratched his head. “Her hangar and flight decks are strong enough to handle the space-atmosphere prototype fighters Atlantis has been working on. Her crew’s down to three thousand thanks to automation, but human conflicts have prevented us from taking full advantage of the technology. But seeing as Onyx made the deal with the United States, not whatever’s there now, we couldn’t return Reagan even if we wanted to. Not that they care that we have her.”

The cave echoed with an announcement: “Attention all personnel: the gate is scheduled to open in T minus five minutes. Secure all loose items and equipment. Lock all aircraft to the deck. Carrier launch will occur in T minus fifteen minutes.”

The group made its way to the ancient ship’s renovated command deck. Its small, cramped passageways had been changed to fit a pony’s height rather than a human’s, allowing for plenty of extra space to fill with electronics and pipes. As a result, the corridors were less crowded. A similar change had taken the bridge as well, but on a smaller scale. Very little space remained for navigating the room once all the necessary instrumentation was in place. Celestia was pleased to see that the aircraft control was still a floor above, and that the bridgewings stayed accessible. She walked out on the one overlooking the flight deck and sighed.

Her brief reverie was interrupted by the screech of rusted metal. She searched for its source: the massive gate that blocked the outside world had begun to open. A seven-lock system clicked one by one as the cavern shipyard’s command center relayed the correct codes. Then, after all of the locks released, the two field-size blast doors were synchronously cracked by a thin beam of light. They creaked farther, revealing the midmorning sun, artificial river, and terraformed countryside surrounding the underground base.

Announcements and alerts blared over loudspeakers and radios. The ponies on the bridge responded to those calls referred to them. With a hum, Reagan’s reactors came online and disconnected from shore power. Her quad-engines roared to life in hover mode, providing just enough lift to stay aloft. Another screech, this time below the ship, told Celestia that the docking clamps holding Reagan above the water were retracting. She listened to the bridge chatter.

“Engine one is green.”

“I need a report on aircraft fuel.”

“Status report: arms and ammunition.”

“Engine two is green.”

“Status report: supply check.”

“Engine three is green.”

“Can somepony check the secondary reactors?”

“Engine four is green.”

“Supplies are loaded. We have provisions for three months.”

“Forward propulsion is online.”

“Secondary power is online. All reactors are operating within acceptable limits.”

“Braking propulsion and maneuvering thrusters are online.”

“Aircraft fuel tanks are full.”

“Arms and ammunition are secure. Storage facilities have been locked down in preparation for takeoff.”

“Docking adapters have retracted successfully. We are airborne.”

Jade stood tall and regal. “Take us out.”

A different roar filled the cave. It wasn’t as intense as the hover engines, but it was much louder. Reagan crept forward, towards the outside world. A dozen engines pushed against the cold, humid air, sucking in copious amounts of water vapor and atomically separating it, then blasting it out the back with enough reactor exhaust heat to change the elements back into water. It was a self-feeding rocket engine, the result of years of work by Equestrian, Griffon, Atlantean, and Dominion scientists.

Unbeknownst to the princesses, every nation on Equus was represented aboard the ship: the main defense batteries were Griffonstone technology, the aircraft complement Atlantean design, and the power systems Equestrian. The hull was modified from its American origins by the Dominion. Dragons provided the propulsion systems, while the various Changeling hives made the hover engines. Minotaur electromagnetic lifts ferried aircraft between the Hangar and Flight Deck. Crystal ponies built the electrical network to match the Equestrian reactors. Yaks laid out the internal communications. Ammunition was manufactured and shipped by the Dominion.

Slowly, gracefully, the great carrier flew through the gaping hole in the mountain. Sunshine and solar heat bathed Reagan in a heart-warming welcome not felt in two hundred years. Celestia felt the wind blowing through her mane on the bridgewing once more and smiled. She could almost feel Robinson next to her, hear his voice in the breeze. The smell of jet exhaust filled the forefront of her memory, as did the sound of running engines, the sight of vapor from the catapults, and the excited shivering she felt from watching the Americans go about their business with such professionalism and expertise.

High above her on the mast flapped the united banner of the Equestrian World Congress. It flew side-by-side with the individual colors of its founding nations, and behind a flag not seen since the mess of the 2050s: the stars and stripes of the United States, flowing proudly over America’s last loyal ship.

With a gradual turn, USS Ronald Reagan started on a course to Amyfalone, the capital of the Dominion--and Lady Liberty’s refuge.

Several days later, Princess Luna felt the wind in her mane from her position on the Equestrian destroyer ENS Dazzleflash, the third ship to bear the name, as the world ahead swirled into a violet-blue mesh. The last week had been dizzying: Celestia practically took command of the resurrected Reagan while Jade and Andromeda geared their industries for war. Flurry Heart, daughter of the late Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, began to bring the extremely conservative Crystal Empire back up to speed on modern technology.

She looked to her right. A few hundred yards off the starboard beam, the Atlantean frigate ANS Silvercrest and Dominion cruiser DNV Blossom steamed together, one of the few times the two allied but rival navies didn’t conduct war games. All three ships bore the diplomatically immune banner of the Equestrian World Congress as well as their own naval jacks. Griffonstone, although being a founding member, had few resource-rich lands and therefore primarily relied on Atlantis’s naval power and Equestria’s peacekeeping history for maritime defense--they did have a “navy,” but it consisted of a half-dozen coastal patrol ships--focusing instead on land-based artillery and missile technology. Because of this, their most powerful patrol craft, HMNV Soaring Skies, labored to follow in the three ships’ wakes, but was more than a match by herself.

A brief tingling sensation, a blinding light, and a magical portal later, Luna morphed into her human form. The American coast constituted a haze in the distance from here, usually full of post-industrial smog and environmental control. The green that once blanketed the marshy deltas and forested beaches no longer existed. Humanity had nearly destroyed itself to support a population of nearly fourteen billion people through the construction of massive self-sustaining space stations and colonies on the Moon on top of a war-wracked world that threatened to snap at any minute.

The United States of America had changed quite a lot over the past two centuries from its divided, politicized culture to a united nation with a purpose. After much conflict, the States annexed its neighbors Canada, Mexico, and Cuba, instated the island of Puerto Rico as a state, and ran its entire electrical network on nuclear fusion. The fossil fuels of the twenty-first century were too depleted to provide a reliable source of power. Following World War Three, the North American continent was no longer separate nations, but one Federal Union of Free North American States. And as resources continued to dwindle, space conquering was given an unlimited budget. Currently, three Moon colonies and four orbital stations were owned by FUFNAS with dozens of capital ships to defend them.

As a sacrifice to controlling nearly all spaceflight, FUFNAS abdicated its blue-water supremacy to the Eurasian International Trade Coalition, the successor to the European Union. The EITC had developed some serious surface warfare technology and was even capable of destroying FUFNAS’s satellite network at a moment’s notice. However, the Europeans were still at risk from orbital bombardment via FUFNAS’s extensive lunar base network, which could fire huge lunar boulders from their maglev cannons.

Luna watched as the coast creeped closer. Having witnessed the crapfan that resulted in the reindustrialization of much of what was formerly America, she had a nostalgic feel for the beauty the land once boasted. It had felt untamed at the time. Now, the Earth was a wasteland.

The radio crackled. “Unknown fleet, you have entered sovereign Federal Union territory. Identify yourself or be destroyed. You have thirty seconds to comply.”

“Federal Union of Free North American States, this is the Equestrian Naval Ship Dazzleflash and her consort, the Atlantean Naval Ship Silvercrest, the Dominion Naval Vessel Blossom, and the Griffon Majesty’s Naval Vessel Soaring Skies. We are on a diplomatic, bipartisan mission to dock at the Foreign Relations Embassy in Jacksonville.”

There was a few seconds of static. Then, “Dazzleflash, send your computerized identification code.” Luna nodded to her communications officer. “Aye, Dazzleflash, you and your consort are cleared for port entry. Proceed to Pier 97.”

Author's Note

Man, this particular chapter was quite hard for me to put together. I wrote an initial version, edited it, made an entirely new version, edited that, then published it. Normally, the first version is good enough for me.

So yeah, 200 years from now, the world is a different place. It's actually kind of depressing what I've put humanity through to make this background work.