"Keep shooting, KEEP SHOOTING!"
--unknown EDF transmission Trottingham

Date: August 9th, 1666 CC
Time: 15:41
Name: Helios
Location: Alimia Ocean, 4 miles from Baltimare Harbor

A fog spread over the ocean waves, thick and spanning a great distance. The fog looked almost natural save for the fact it was electrically charged.

Within the fog dozens of ships ranging from fishing trawlers and small sailboats to a few large private yachts with a tugboat pulling a barge loaded down with the bright colors of ponies as the boats fled east from their homes in a desperate attempt to save their lives and hopefully reach safer lands.

Members of the Baltimare Weather Teams worked quickly to build the fog the boats were using as cover to hopefully avoid detection from the invaders.

The lead ship cutting through the fog was a mid-sized yacht, her deck dotted with multiple ponies. The captain watched the fog ahead as the radiopony quietly spoke to the other ships in the convoy behind him. He had been lucky to be at the marina when everything happened and so was lucky to escape along with everyone else. They set a course for the distant Griffin Kingdoms in hopes of safe harbor.

As the ship quietly moved through the fog the captain squinted into the fog at a dark shape trying to figure out if it was a trick of the light or something else.

For safety he ordered the yacht to change course in case it was something and the radiopony relayed the information to the other ships.

As the yacht moved the dark shape suddenly became a massive bow of a ship cutting through the fog. The captain cursed as the yacht turned even sharper to avoid a collision thankfully having already been turning so just barely missed the ship.

Righting himself the captain looked to try and see the ship crazy enough to be heading back towards Equestria and wondering if they had somehow missed the news of what was happening.

Throughout the convoy the large ship cut its way through and ponies watched it glide among them almost like a predator, a low rumble coming from it almost sounding like a growling in the fog that hid most of the ship with brief glimpses of movement upon the ship’s deck.

The ship passed the refugee ships as it sailed towards Equestria eventually reaching the edge of the fog.

Slowly the ship emerged and Celestia’s sun shone off old steel and wooden decks as sailors in light blue uniforms moved to and fro along the deck. As more emergent a tall smoke stack became visible pumping dark smoke above the ship. Flying high above the ship's bridge was the flag of Equestria and below that was an outdated Equestrian navy flag. The crew of the ship worked to prepare the massive guns which took up most of the ships decks.

Anyone who would see this ship would think they somehow had been transported back in time as what they witnessed was the first ever military ship designed and built during Equestria’s technological boom.

The EMS Helios had sailed the seas for only a decade before being decommissioned and her sister ships scrapped for parts. The Helios only escaped such a fate due to a filing error that kept it from being put into dry dock and by the time anyone noticed the ship was old. It further escaped destruction by deciding the ship should be preserved as a part of history and thus select members of the Equestrian navy were chosen and trained on her analogue systems and she sailed around the ocean as a living exhibit for all to see and watch perform various maneuvers to show how such an old ship worked and would handle a fight.

Now Helios was returning to her home, not as a living exhibit but to answer the call to arms she had been built for.

Helios sailed under full steam towards the besieged city, her radio one of the few modern pieces of technology aboard allowing them to communicate with the defenders of the city.

As she neared the harbor she began to turn starboard till she was running parallel with the shore, then her massive guns swung around and raised as the crew communicated with those within the city giving her coordinates.

With a deafening boom that echoed across the harbor Helios unleashed her full might with a full broadside attack, the ship listing from the sheer power of her mighty guns.

Massive shells whistled through the air on their flight into the city. Soon the harbor echoed with explosions as Helios shells found their targets. The guns were reloaded as they adjusted and another thunderous boom echoed as she unleashed another volley, her shells penetrating deep within the besieged city to find their targets.

However this act did not go unnoticed and it was not hard to spot the lone ship sitting outside the harbor and the invaders' wingless aircraft rose from the city like angry hornets and tore off towards the old ship who quickly got back under way as her guns adjusted and fired another volley.

The flying craft came in low and Helios let forth with her starboard anti aircraft defenses and the sky filled with flak and 20mm rounds all targeting the incoming aircraft as the ship engines went to full to make them harder to hit by moving, deploying the tactics she had been built to use.

The invaders let forth their energy bolts which struck Helios, sending sailors airborne from the explosions.

Still Helios continued to fire on them and when the craft flew over her she left forth with her port side AA batteries as her main guns fired another volley.

The invaders came about and launched another attack on Helios’ port side and more sailors were lost, but still she continued to fight.

She fired another volley as soon as able and the invaders let forth their own and Helios lost one of her main guns as the massive barrels were blown clear of her deck and vanished into the waters of the sea.

The invaders now swarmed around her like angry hornets firing on her, pecking at her old armor as she continued to return fire with ever dwindling number of AA defenses.

Another of her main guns was lost and still she fired another volley.

It was at this time Helios began to list and she started to take on water. Bulkheads were sealed to try and stop the water but the invaders were relentless as they rained down bolts upon her. Even as she trailed dark smoke that blocked visibility from numerous fires that raged through her she still fired another volley in defiance of the damage the invaders had done upon her old frame.

She fired one more volley and then her guns went silent as an explosion rocked her bulkheads. Smoke poured from nearly every surface hiding her from view as she slowly listing more and more.

The survivors of her crew launched the old wooden lifeboats from areas they could or leapt into the ocean to escape the blaze.

As the crew abandoned her she shook with multiple massive explosions as her remaining ammo detonated within her hull causing catastrophic damage and soon Helios rolled completely onto her side in the water and slowly she vanished beneath the waves of the seas she had sailed since she left dry dock.

EMS Helios had been commissioned and built in 1593 and had been in service for nearly 75 years. In that time Helios saw combat only once that lasted approximately 20 minutes. In those 20 minutes EMS Helios had a dozen confirmation of target destructions with over 100 estimated kills and saved an unknown number of civilian and military forces who would have been overrun and lost without the ships direct interference. At the end of her one and only battle EMS Helios was claimed by the sea along with 90% of her crew.

It was officially listed as a pyrrhic victory.

Author's Note

The theme of this chapter is Dreadnought by Sabaton