We Sail For Celestia

"Any news on our port, Minister?"

Princess Celestia breezed into the war-room, her white robes flowing like a cloud around her legs, her mane and tail trailing along behind.

"Yes, Your Highness. Alas, nothing good," Copperhead replied. The veteran Defence Minister hated these early meetings. Somepony of his age should be casually perusing the newspaper over toast and tea at this hour, still clad in warm slippers and dressing gown. Celestia's sun had barely even risen over Canterlot. Up in the frozen wastes of Northwick, it would not do so until near noon local time. Travel much farther north than that, and it would not rise at all for months, until winter's chill grip upon the hemisphere had relaxed and spring was well in bloom across the rest of the continent.

"Fill me in, Minister," Celestia ordered, pouring herself a steaming cup of breakfast tea from a gaudy samovar nearby. Only now could Copperhead fill his own cup, for such was the etiquette of palace life.

"The Kirin have taken the majority of the first line of forts that protect Harmony Bay," Copperhead explained for her. "Fort V, the central fort of the first line, is still resisting. The second line of forts is currently intact, but the Kirin artillery is now well within range of them. Their attentions have naturally shifted to bombarding the second line while trying to subdue the remaining resistance from Fort V. As per our latest report from Harmony Bay, the city itself is not yet under fire from land-based artillery, but..."

"But they are expecting it imminently, I would imagine?" Celestia interrupted, before taking a sip of her tea. "The Kirin's aim appears to be the capture of the city and the destruction of the fleet. In all probability, one of those would lead to the other. Which, in your estimation, is the most likely to happen?"

"I believe the destruction of the fleet is most likely, Your Highness," Copperhead replied. "The city can only be captured by a direct infantry assault, and that requires the Kirin to reduce the remaining fortresses, overcome them. However they do not need to take the forts to bring their guns in range of the harbour. Once they do that, it will give Admiral Strongbow a dilemma which he will not relish. Stay sitting in port while Kirin observers direct their artillery onto his ships, or sail out of range, but straight into the teeth of the Kirin navy."

"In other words, there are two methods by which the Northern Fleet might be destroyed," Celestia nodded. "But only one way the Kirin will take the city. Can the forces in the city possibly retake the front line of forts? Push the Kirin back out of artillery range of the fleet?"

"I am not confident, Your Highness," General Snow Meadow spoke up. The Army Chief of Staff had let Copperhead take the lead thus far, but this question was about the army, her specific realm. "General Wild Willow says that she will attempt local counterattacks where possible, but the Kirin are there to stay unless we can mount an assault from their rear."

"And how are things progressing with regards to assembling a force to relieve the city?" Celestia asked.

"Slowly, Your Highness," Snow Meadow replied regretfully. "We are still looking at a timeframe of weeks, minimum. Even that will be a relatively limited force, but it should be capable of causing the Kirin some trouble. As more units arrive from other provinces, we will be able to enact a full-scale counterattack upon their rear and hopefully break their backs."

"I hope so," Celestia nodded. "We need some good news. What of the Home Fleet?"

"Last radio contact with the fleet placed them approximately ninety miles west of the city of New Zebrica," Copperhead informed her. "Admiral Blueblood intends to coal there and regroup. His ships are still strung out after the hurricane."

"And their losses?"

"One collier lost in the storm, and one battleship and a tanker sunk by enemy action, Your Highness."

"A submarine, I gather?" Celestia questioned.

"Apparently so," Copperhead nodded. "Much to Admiral Blueblood's disquiet. I believe he underestimated the Kirin's capacity for long-range operation, as did we all. Though he prudently ran the fleet without navigation lights and with minimal radio chatter, they must have known where he would be. Lying in wait."

"Spies along the route," Snow Meadow suggested, and Copperhead nodded.

"Almost certainly. At every port, the Kirin will have agents. Hard to detect, especially if they have recruited locals to do their dirty work, like that fellow who tried to blow you up, Your Highness."

"So when the fleet reaches New Zebrica..." Celestia's brow creased.

"The Kirin will know even before they drop anchor," Copperhead nodded.

New Zebrica was a bustling port at the northern fringe of the tropics. Flat-bottomed boats and small sailing ships plied the harbour, transporting all manner of exotic local goods; fruits, silk, spices. The city itself was constantly shrouded in a light pall of smoke, like the parlour of some cigar-loving baron, as a thousand small fires burned, smoking meats, heating water for leather-tanning, cooking simple meals for Zebra families. The terracotta and stucco buildings were gaily colourful, a cheery warmth being lent to the city by their appearance.

As if it needed any more warmth.

New Zebrica was on a similar latitude to Mare-Isle, and like that island it possessed a hot climate, but whereas Mare-Isle was a dry heat, fed by the deserts, New Zebrica was a sweltering wet heat. The humidity could rise to stultifying levels, like standing watch in a ship's boiler room. The Zebras, local to the area, were used to it, adapted to the conditions. Ponies were not.

The Home Fleet steamed into this ostensibly-neutral but Equestrian-aligned port two days after the hurricane. Repairs began almost immediately. Ships, especially the more elderly vessels, which had already travelled thousands of miles and come through a rough beating needed boiler maintenance, condenser cleaning, repairs to the engines. Broken gaskets and leaky pipes needed to be fixed, for any loss of pressure or steam would drag down the top speed of any ship, large or small. Broken searchlights, damaged panelling, torn lines and smashed windows needed dealing with, all external damage from the storm which has lashed and scratched at the armoured hulls of even the largest vessels like a vindictive cat with its claws extended.

Blueblood ordered two light cruisers, the Revenge and the Superior, to patrol outside the harbour, and left a quartet of destroyers as an outer picket line in case the Kirin should suddenly spring up from nowhere and try to launch an attack on the fleet in port, as they had done at Harmony Bay. The Admiral had no desire to be caught with his proverbial pants down, as his opposite number in the Northern Fleet had been. He never had liked Strongbow much- the other, older Admiral was too businesslike for his more metropolitan mind, focused on war, war, war, even when at peace.

We are Admirals, Blueblood, for Celestia's sake, he had once said at a cocktail party in the palace several years ago. We're meant to fight, not dance.

But what is naval combat if not a graceful ballet? Blueblood had replied. Neither of them had ever been involved in a major fleet engagement before.

New Zebrica's heat began to hit the crews as soon as they got to work with one of the most pressing tasks; taking on more coal. This was vital, especially with the loss of one of the collier ships in the storm. Though the fleet had left Manehattan with every empty nook and cranny filled with sacks of coal, they had burned through all of it, and more besides, having taken on additional stores at two previous coaling stops along the southern Equestrian coastline. The fleet had a gluttonous appetite for the black gold of fossil fuels, both in solid and liquid form. The destroyers and other smaller craft had mostly made the switch to oil to run their boilers, which gave greater efficiency, higher top speed, and less need for huge storage capacity aboard for great quantities of fuel, with coal bunkers being great hefty chambers below decks on the larger vessels. The capital ships, however, still relied on coal, even the newer ones like Chevaline.

That meant backbreaking work, lugging sacks of coal from the dockside or transferring them from colliers, hauling them below, filling the bunkers with fresh fuel. It was hot work too, under the blazing sun and in the moist, humid atmosphere. Where their uniforms had been soaked with seawater two days earlier, now the crews were soaked with sweat, equally as stinging and salty as it dripped into their eyes. It was worst of all below decks, where the metal hulls of the ships amplified the heat and stilled the air. There was no cooling breeze to be found, though many crewponies pressed their faces against open portholes or vents in the desperate hope of locating one.

When informed of the conditions, Blueblood, sitting at his desk in his cabin, electric fan whirring, iced glass of a fine vintage whiskey in one hand and a book in the other, told his Flag-Captain;

"Surely our sailors do not want us to be stuck here any longer than necessary? The more they complain, the longer we will be in this damn fetid hole. Tell them to work harder, damn their eyes!"

Champagne Crown, reluctantly, returned topside and relayed the signal, though in more delicate and diplomatic language, to every ship in the fleet.

Admiral orders redoubling of efforts. Fleet to get underway ASAP. Take aboard all necessary supplies.

There were grumblings, angry chatter among the crews, especially of the big battleships and battlecruisers. They had the most coal of all to load aboard, while some of their more tactless officers set up a pristine white awning on the fantail of the battleship Luna and invited Blueblood aboard for a kind of afternoon picnic, with champagne delicately served in flutes and caviar on hand, followed by pleasant games of bridge and whist and even a round of croquet, with hoops ingeniously formed from broken inks of anchor chain.

While the officers and their Admiral lunched beneath the protective awning, the tired, aching, sweating stokers and labourers continued their work in the hot sun, collapsing from heat stroke and exhaustion. As the evening came they expected some respite, but Blueblood ordered them to work until nine that night. Only then would he allow his crews to be served their dinner- no champagne or caviar for them, but merely buckwheat porridge and a roasting-hot vegetable broth, delivered in great pails by the cooks who had been refused permission to prepare something cool and refreshing, simply because, according to the Admiral, it was midweek, and vegetable broth and buckwheat porridge was always served midweek.

The next day, the coaling continued. It was another hot day, even stickier and close than the day before and conducive only to lying in the shade and drinking plenty of lemonade. With many of the crew on the sick-roll due to exhaustion and severe sunburn, Blueblood contacted the dockyard authorities of New Zebrica. A gruff but sincere Zebra stallion, the dockmaster, came aboard the Chevaline and told the Admiral he could provide five hundred Zebra labourers for an appropriate fee. Blueblood agreed, opening the fleet's purse and paying twenty bits' wages for each Zebra for the day.

Word got around the fleet fast. Ordinary Seaponies, the lowest rank and the rank which made up the bulk of those doing the hard labour, got ten bits per day, of which two were immediately docked for 'board and keep,' to pay for uniforms and to donate to each ship's petty cash, which could be used, depending on the whims of her captain, to purchase necessities or treats when in foreign ports. Spare parts or coal could be obtained if needed, and special rations were common purchases, to keep crews happy- chocolate, spirits, cigarettes, local delicacies, candy.

The fact that these Zebra labourers were being paid more than twice as much for a day's work than the seaponies received was a fact rapidly disseminated to each bunkroom and hammock. Mumbles and mutterings of discontent spread even faster than disease aboard a ship, and by the afternoon every pony knew about this outrage. The Admiral, not content to browbeat his sailors into working themselves to exhaustion, had the gall to contract their job out to some random Zebrican dockhands because they weren't working fast enough for his liking, and then to add insult to an already considerable injury, he had decided to pay them twice as much.

The mood of the fleet quickly turned sour. There had already been considerable discontent from the length of their voyage and the feeling of sailing to an unknown fate, to say nothing of Blueblood's abrasive leadership style, as Defence Minister Copperhead would have described it. For many, this was the last straw.

The next morning was meant to be the final one in port. The outer roadstead of New Zebrica was crowded with warships, and though technically the neutral port was only meant to allow three warships from any foreign power to dock at any one time, the local mayor had chosen to ignore those requirements of international law on two grounds; most of the fleet stayed in the outer anchorages, thus not technically entering the port itself, and Blueblood had a hell of a lot of big guns under his command.

The fleet's next port of call was meant to have been the Griffon-controlled city of Bridgeport, but the Griffons had taken absolute neutrality in the conflict and, unlike the Zebricans, they were no friends of Equestria. Thus the safe harbour and coaling facilities of Bridgeport were closed to the Home Fleet, which was why Blueblood was so desperate to load up every sack of coal he could lay his hands on with fleet funds. The loss of one of their own collier ships was a bad blow, given the distance they would have to travel to the next Equestrian anchorage at Summertown. Blueblood had tried to charter Zebrican collier ships to accompany him, but given that they were sailing into a warzone, the Zebrican government had no desire to risk its own merchant ships being sunk by the Kirin. If Kirin aims were indeed greater than merely reconquering Northwick and Yakyakistan, that might also give them a legitimate reason to declare war on Zebrica, something else that was to be avoided.

Ultimately, Blueblood had no choice but to load his own ships to the brim with coal, even loading some onto destroyers that had no need for the stuff. Coal dust hung in the air, a thicker, darker contrast to the woodsmoke that usually rested in a comfortable pall over the city. The faces and hands and uniforms of the crew were caked in it. The decks were black with it. The unused lower decks of the hospital ship Peace were filled with it. So were the lungs of those who had hauled the sacks and shovelled the coal into the bunkers.

The battleship Royal Oak was a first-rate vessel, one of the newer Royalty-Class, fully armoured like the Chevaline and outfitted with four turrets, two twelve-inch guns in each, plus a multitude of secondary armaments. Her crew of over one thousand ponies were decent sailors, decent gunners and more than decent drinkers, when it was allowed. Like every other vessel, their rations of alcohol had been cut by Blueblood's fleetwide order before leaving Manehattan. They had spent the last three days lugging coal and breathing in the dust, turning their tongues and lips black. They had watched the fleet's senior officers partying on the rear deck of the Luna, moored beside the Royal Oak in the roadstead. They had suffered under the iron discipline of the battleship's first officer, Sawtooth. They had endured the seasickness and the cold and the heat. And now, they had finally had enough.

It began a little before noon, when the sailors loading coal were expecting sweet lemonade and bread with marmalade to be brought around to quench their already prodigious thirst and tiredness. Zebras in little canoes and flat-bottomed boats were clustered alongside the mighty warship, offering exotic fruits with outstretched hands and claims of great qualities. This one will make you fuck for hours! Try this sunfruit, it makes your hair grow back!

There were papayas and guavas, pineapples and kumquats, dragonfruit and Zebrican plums and mangoes, all just out of reach. Lower a basket! the Zebras cried. A basket and money, and we'll send them up to you.

"We're getting fed soon!" one of the seaponies called back down. Except they didn't. The lemonade and bread and marmalade didn't arrive, because the captain, Sawtooth, decided to run a readiness drill for the rest of the crew, including the mess-deck ponies, while the labourers were at work hauling coal. Noon came and went. Grumpy seaponies, angered by the lack of sustenance, decided to lower a tin bucket with a bunch of bits in to the Zebras below. They shared the money among themselves and tossed fruits of all kinds into the bucket, ready to be hauled back up.

Once that was done, the exhausted crews gorged themselves on the fresh, ripe fruits, sticky juices running down their coal-stained chests and shirts. Only then did one of the inattentive officers, Lieutenant Prancer, spot what was going on. She loudly berated the crew for slacking off, lazing around.

"Get back to work, you dogs!" she had cried. "I hope you didn't pay for those fruits from ship's funds! Now get moving! The Admiral wants this coal loaded by sundown!"

"Then he can come down here and load it himself, the fat bastard!" somepony shouted, which brought a loud cheer from the resting crew. Prancer's green face turned a deep red, veins almost popping out on her forehead. How dare they insult their Admiral? Didn't they know he was leading them on a vital mission? Insubordination would be, nay, must be punished, she told them. She ordered them back to work. They refused. Fuming, she went to fetch the captain. By the time they returned, the insubordination had become a mutiny.

Gathering their supporters from other work gangs and loading parties, the two ringleaders, Chief Petty Officers Supercharge and Cinnamon Prairie, had been busy. They had downed tools and moved to occupy key positions on board the battleship; the anchor rooms and engine rooms to prevent the ship from leaving, and the forward armoury, where they had gathered rifles and pistols. When Captain Starhunter arrived on the main deck, he had already unknowingly lost control of his vessel.

They were sick and tired of the conditions, the mutineers explained to their superior officer, brought before them like a captain's mast in reverse, where rule-breakers would be brought before their leader to receive punishments that could range from minor to capital. Mutiny, Starhunter pointedly reminded them, was punishable by death. The two petty officers explained that it was not a mutiny, not really. It was more a kind of general strike.

"If it's a strike," Starhunter asked laconically, "why do you need rifles?"

The two stallions explained to their captain that it was merely insurance, to make sure their demands were heard. In truth they had nothing personal against Starhunter- he was a patient and understanding officer, unlike Sawtooth, his deputy. It was the Admiral they detested, plus a few junior officers aboard the Royal Oak, Sawtooth and Lieutenant Prancer included, who followed in Blueblood's authoritarian mould. The mutineers knew that Starhunter would have been receptive to their suggestions under normal circumstances, but this whole mission, they contended, was a fool's errand. The fleet was sailing into the teeth of who knows what? They had already started losing ships and they were thousands of miles from Harmony Bay.

"Think of whom you serve," Starhunter had reminded them. "Not me, nor the Admiral. Remember who ordered this voyage."

But the Princess, they contended, was even further away than their target. The lives of every pony aboard every ship in the Home Fleet was at risk. Many had already been lost. They were one battleship down, leaving five- the Chevaline, the Luna, the Sol Invictus, the Royal Oak and the rickety old Avenger. They still had their three battlecruisers, the Fearless, the Triumph and the Duke of Baltimare. But how many capital ships did the Kirin have? At least ten, from the reports out of Harmony Bay. They may well have been reinforced by now with even more battleships and battlecruisers, as they knew the Home Fleet was on its way. Surely, the petty officers argued, they were steaming into a distant trap?

Starhunter may have privately agreed with their assessment, and with their assertion that it was all a vainglorious attempt by Blueblood to gain the respect and the notice of the Princess, to raise his standing at court and in high society; but still, it had not been Blueblood who had ordered them to sail. It had been Celestia, and her word was law.

"If we can't turn back, then, at least let us rest," Cinnamon Prairie requested. "A day's rest, and resumption of the full alcohol ration. Give us some pay to spend in the port."

The requests might have seemed reasonable if the mutineers were not in control of the ship already. Starhunter told them it was not in his hands; since they were sailing as part of the fleet, then the fleet's commander was ultimately in charge of such issues, and Blueblood would hardly rescind his own order on halving the alcohol rations to appease some troubled sailors who were protesting against his own leadership.

After a short discussion, the matter was settled for them, and not through talking. As part of their rebellion, the mutineers had 'struck the colours' of the Royal Oak, lowering her Equestrian ensigns, normally a sign of surrender. In this case they did so symbolically, to indicate that they were no longer sailing for the state, but for themselves, at least temporarily until they got what they wanted. This symbolic gesture was noticed by an alert lookout on board the Luna, riding at anchor several hundred yards away. Within ten minutes, Blueblood was on the bridge of the Chevaline, angrily speaking into the radio and demanding to know the meaning of this slight against the Princess and Equestria.

"Starhunter, what the devil are you playing at over there?" the Admiral roared. When curtly informed that the captain was not present on the bridge, he demanded to know his whereabouts. The reply made him have to struggle with himself to refrain from smashing the radio handset against the bulkhead until it shattered.

"This vessel is no longer under the command of Captain Starhunter. This vessel is an independently-flagged ship that recognises no nation and serves no greater master, only the consensus of its own crew. Until our demands are met, this vessel will remain so."

"Mutiny!" Blueblood spat, half-laughing as he turned to his Flag-Captain. "Crown, get a boat out to the Royal Oak. No, make it two...three! At least three boats with marines. Take that ship back, damn it, and hang the bastards responsible!"

Champagne Crown swiftly obeyed, seeing blood behind his Admiral's eyes. Whether it was anger at their mutiny against the Princess, or against him, Crown was not entirely sure. Given the parlous state of the fleet's morale, it paid to be quick about tamping down on this insurrection and stopping it from becoming anything more serious, and Captain Crown had the word passed to the Luna and the battlecruiser Fearless to lower boats and send their marines over to the Royal Oak.

When the boats were rowed and motored over toward the battleship, they were fired upon by rifles and machine guns from the deck; just warning shots, kicking up strings of splashes in the water ahead of the boats' bows. The marines in their boats had their rifles, but if the mutineers were willing to use their machine guns, then not a single pony would make it on board. The boats withdrew to a safe distance. Blueblood, practically tearing his hair out with anger, ordered the Luna to train her twelve-inch forward gun turrets on the Royal Oak.

"To think it has come to this!" the Admiral raged. "Aiming my guns at one of my own ships! The Kirin won't even need to meet us if we are fighting amongst ourselves!"

Over the radio, the mutineers reiterated their demands. They wanted to go home, to turn back, to save the fleet from the disaster they were certain would befall them. Blueblood dismissed that out of hand. The fleet would not be turning back unless the Sun herself were to order it. They would be continuing, with or without the mutinous Royal Oak. He made that clear to the two ringleaders, Chief Petty Officers Cinnamon Prairie and Supercharge. If necessary, he told them, the fleet would open fire on the vessel.

Only a relatively small part of the battleship's crew, however, actually sided with the mutineers. Those who dissented had been corralled together and locked up in the ship's brig, the officers' wardroom, and the mess deck, under armed guard. The mutineers were worried they might try a counter-uprising, and those loyal to Starhunter and the Admiral outnumbered them. It had only been surprise that had enabled them to take control, a relatively spontaneous act when it came down to it, though there had been mutterings and secret meetings between members of the crew for weeks prior. Such meetings, Supercharge now informed Blueblood, had not been limited to ponies of the Royal Oak. Others among the fleet held similar views.

Blueblood angrily dismissed them as traitors and disloyalists, both to himself and to the Princess who had dispatched them on this mission. Personal feelings of danger did not matter; they were in the service of the Sun. They were not pirates or mercenaries, whose whims could change based on the prevailing winds, who could scatter in the face of danger or simply decide not to take on a certain contract.

"We are all sailors, damn your eyes!" Blueblood snarled. "And we sail for Celestia!"

The two ringleaders came to an agreement, finally, after hours of staring down the barrels of the Luna's big guns. Take those who want to leave, put them ashore. Let them choose their path; stay in New Zebrica and live with the locals, take up positions with local shipping lines to work on board their freighters, or head home to Equestria. Out of the question, the Admiral stated.

He then offered a counter-compromise; the mutineers would be arrested, but would not, he promised, be hanged or shot. They would be loaded on board a chartered freighter, under armed guard, and sailed back to Manehattan along with the fleet's medical cases, a number of ponies who had succumbed to tropical diseases, accident, or after-effects from the hurricane. There, they would be subject to naval discipline for the lesser charges of insubordination and disobeying lawful orders, but at least they would be away from the fleet, which would please Blueblood, and no longer on the voyage that they were sure was heading for disaster. After more consideration, the mutineers took a vote among themselves. They agreed.

Luna's guns were swung away, the mutineers put down their rifles, and the loyalist members of the Royal Oak's crew rounded them up, ready for the marines to come and take them away. Blueblood half considered having them shot anyway, but the words of the ringleaders rang in his ears. These secret meetings were not just confined to the Royal Oak. If that was true, and he executed the mutineers as he certainly should have done under naval law, then he might be facing a larger problem. No, this compromise was best, though it pained him to see the traitors loaded onto a Zebrican freighter the next day, a freighter which he had been forced to expend some of the fleet's money to charter, no less. But it was one less pain to worry about. What concerned him more was the enemy and the fleet's readiness to face them.

The mutineers were replaced by shuffling small numbers of crewponies from other ships to fill the key roles of those who had been arrested. Zebrican dockhands and itinerant sailors who lacked a ship had been rounded up from dockside with the promise of steady work and decent pay to fill in the rest of the empty spaces on the fleet's duty rosters. Carefully, with destroyers sweeping ahead with hydrophones and Pegasi observers, the fleet sailed out the following morning. Zebras came to line the quays and watch, and no doubt there were a few Kirin spies somewhere, watching from a window or concealed among the civilians.

After the noon bell rang and lunch had been eaten, Blueblood ordered gunnery practice for the entire fleet. The Luna towed a target raft a thousand yards behind it for the Chevaline to fire at. The action stations alarm was sounded, and the gun crews rushed to their positions. The huge twelve-inch turrets were swung about, the secondary batteries loaded and trained, the four and six-inch tertiary armament prepared and their gun ports opened. At Blueblood's command, they opened fire with a full broadside.

The thunder of guns made the mighty warship creak and groan like a dilapidated old house in a gale. The Chevaline was practically lost to sight in a huge grey cloud of smoke that drifted back over the vessel in the slight breeze, obscuring the rangefinders and fire control nest, perched atop a large tripod mast above the bridge. Her guns expended a total of two-hundred-and-six practice shells over half an hour's firing. They hit the target raft twice.

The rest of the fleet was no less shambolic in its performance. The Sol Invictus was the standout star, having won the fleet gunnery competition for the last two years running and now under the command of Vice-Admiral Moonshot, despite the apparent dichotomy between her name and the name of her new vessel. They struck their target raft, towed by the Royal Oak, thirty times. The Royal Oak in turn didn't hit hers at all.

Blueblood was dismayed by the dire performance of his gunners. He knew full well that the ratio of hits to misses in modern naval combat was low; there were a multitude of factors in play, such as the speed of the target, the wind, sea state, visibility, and more besides. But the fleet had done terribly in this training exercise, on a calm millpond-sea.. The rafts had been chugging along in the wake of their tow-ships at a steady ten knots. They had not been manoeuvring, or making smoke, or taking evasive action. There were no torpedoes, no shells coming their way. Yet still they had been firing like drunks at a fairground shooting gallery. How would they fare when they met the Kirin?

After a few stiff whiskies and much pondering late that evening, Blueblood went to bed, a lot less sure of his impending victory than he had been before they had arrived at New Zebrica.