Survival Begins at Home

Shining made his way down the hall toward the prison cell. He'd requested the opportunity to question the hostage, and had been given the chance, under the condition that a professional be there to make sure everything went smoothly, without any unnecessary harm coming to the prisoner. Smacking him around was okay, but breaking his jaw would limit the amount of information he could disclose.

The zebra kneeled on the floor of his cell, completely nude with his wrists tied behind his back. He'd been wearing the uniform of an officer and nothing else, so there was nothing to put him in once he'd been stripped and scrubbed. Equestria wasn't big on loin cloths, the go-to outfit zebras were known for. He'd only just been washed, so he was still dripping when they walked in.

Shining kicked the zebra. Not particularly hard, just enough to draw his attention. "Don't go falling asleep yet. Your day's not over until I say it is."

The zebra looked up and spat at Shining Armor. "You will never make me talk. You may as well turn around and walk."

"Oh, come now, zebra scum. You took the time to put on an officer's armour and sneak into our meeting. You went so far as to make sure your uniform was the right one, even if you put it on backwards. It must have been really uncomfortable wearing armor, and more importantly, wearing clothing. I bet you felt really hot with all that cloth covering your body."

The zebra said nothing, making good on his promise not to speak.

Shining grabbed him by the mane and pulled his head back. "I suppose there wasn't a question in that list of statements." Shining pressed the zebra's large penis between his boot and the stone floor. "Let's try this again. Was it uncomfortable wearing actual clothing?"

The zebra clenched his teeth and whimpered in pain. When Shining pressed a little harder, the whimper turned into a yelp.

"Answer the question, or I'll do worse."

"It was certainly very hot," winced the zebra. "If bidden again, I would rather not."

"Good boy," said Shining, raising his boot a bit, but not releasing the shaft. "Now tell me something else. On which vessel did you sail into harbor?"

The zebra chuckled. "You ordered me to protect my fellows. I will, no matter how much you bellow."

"So you'll just sit there, silent as the grave?"

"My soldiers know what to do if I don't return. My only regret is that, from here, I won't see your city burn."

"So you won't mind if I cut this off?" asked Shining, twisting his foot a few degrees and grinding the zebra's penis against the brick floor. "Because I am authorized to do that, if you don't talk." He wasn't, actually, but he was allowed to make such a threat. "After all, you don't need it to tell us what ship you sailed in on."

The zebra was in incredible pain. One of the incentives that had convinced him to join the war effort was the promise of new slaves, meaning that the price of buying one would go down, and he could finally afford one. That would do him little good if he couldn't use them.

"I can promise you that they will not be excessively harmed if they surrender and come quietly into the prison. If they try to fight back, I can make no such promise."

"If I tell you in which ship I came, they'd know exactly who to blame. You threaten to perform on me a castration, but treason would bar me from my own nation. You don't know what they'd do to me, if my face they were to see."

Shining squatted down and grasped the zebra by the balls, firmly but gently. With a few soft finger movements, the zebra was rock-hard and tiny droplets of blood were oozing out of the pressurized microlacerations on his skin. "I can grant you certain protections if you talk. I can make your time easier. I can make sure your food is better. I can keep a guard on you at all times to make sure that you come to no harm." He squeezed the zebra's balls and pulled them to the floor, scraping them against the bricks in the process. "Or, if you don't talk, you will receive a harsher punishment, as you will have to endure all of the punishment we would give to your crew. We have ways of keeping you alive against your will if we have to , to make your life excruciating." He let go and stood up. "I will be back in two hours. Think about it. But don't take too long, because if we find your ship before you tell us, I can't offer you my protec--"

"The Aeolus is the ship we sailed," whimpered the zebra. "The prior commander, we left impaled. He's dead, with his male crewmates, on an unmarked sandbar. The mares are in the cargo hold, being trained for the bazaar."

"Are the mares still alive?" asked Shining. "What manner of harm has befallen them?"

"Our soldiers number at eighty-three. It was eighty-four, including me. You'll need a big ship to block their escape, but don't sink them, for the mare's sake."

Shining held out his left hand, into which the jailor deposited some keys. He unlocked the zebra's wrists, and allowed him to stand up before walking out of the cell. "See to it that this prisoner is given a sandwich, some water to drink, and some boxer shorts."

As Shining made his way out of the prison, he began putting together a plan. He would need at least a hundred and fifty soldiers to take over the Aeolus, if what the zebra said was true. If they came willingly, perhaps not, but if it turned to violence, he would need them. He actually considered taking three hundred, just for the intimidation factor. Multiple ships would blockade them to keep them from running.

All of that thinking changed as the wall behind him suddenly broke down with a loud crash that shook the floor. Shining turned around and looked out through the hole in the wall. There, in the harbor, was the Aeolus, firing large, round rocks from black tubes on the deck. These were not Equestrian weapons. This was something new.