Ponyville-class

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14

Chapter 1

Author note: This is another story in the Battleships Universe. Reading the rest of the series is not required for backstory. Thanks to everyone who demanded this story and helped iron out the format before submission

Ponyville-class

May, 2005

Pacific Ocean, east of Japan

The old fishing boat creaked and groaned as it plowed through the choppy seas. It had far exceeded its intended life, and only rust seemed to be holding it together now.

Two ponies and a man stood on the bridge, watching the clouds roll in. The morning had started out sunny, but the weather was rapidly changing.

The pale earth pony at the wheel struggled both with the heavy ocean swells and also with the controls that had been designed for hands. He braced his hooves on the filthy deck plates and stared grimly through the windshield.

Behind him, the other two occupants of the bridge conversed in low voices. Their tone was somewhat worried, although anger carried through. Some excitement as well.

“Of all the days for a storm front to move through,” muttered the pony, a dark grey unicorn named Star Show. His cutie mark was a depiction of a galaxy.

“Let’s just get it done,” said the man. He crossed his arms over his t-shirt. “We’ve been waiting too long to let a little weather get in the way.”

The stallion nodded, his mouth almost smiling. The man, Smith, was not particularly likeable, but he got things done. Star could appreciate anypony, or rather anyone, who was so efficient. Sometimes brutally so.

“Uh, Mr. Show?” said the pony at the helm. “I think we’re almost there.”

A small Global Positioning System receiver had been set up beside the wheel. The device's sleek modern design clashed with everything else on the bridge. The GPS’s screen displayed a set of coordinates and the old boat’s location. Their destination was close.

Star nodded. “Mr. Smith, get things set up.”

“Are you good to go?” asked the man, gesturing to the bridge controls. There were not many real sailors aboard, and the old boat certainly wasn’t very easy to operate.

“We’ll take care of it,” said Star tersely. Smith nodded and turned to leave. Down one deck, he found three men lounging around a table and playing cards. They looked up as he came in.

Smith snapped his fingers and his three cohorts jumped up and followed him. None of them knew his real name, but all were loyal enough to instantly respond to his orders. Any man who claimed to be on the verge of harnessing magic for human use and had enough evidence to back up that claim was someone to pay attention to. It didn’t hurt that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot anyone who disobeyed him.

In the next compartment, more people and dozens of ponies were working. The old fishing boat’s storage deck had been cleaned out, although the smell of fish still lingered. A small leather suitcase had been placed in the center of the space, and precise chalk lines had been drawn radiating from it.

Most of the ponies were unicorns, although a few pegasi and an earth pony or two were also present. They all came from different backgrounds, and had a variety of colors and cutie marks. The only thing they had in common was their goal.

Smith observed the proceedings for a while. Everything had to be perfect. Everything had to work. If all the preparations came together like they should, the universe would be a very different place by the end of the day.

It was not simple magic that would be performed, and it had taken years to put together the spell. Ingredients had not been easy or quick to obtain. More than one researcher had died in their attempts to plot out the spell that would be taking place soon.

The price was high, but the payoff would be incredible. Smith smiled a little to himself. Scientists had been working to figure out how pony magic worked ever since the dimensional doorways between worlds had been opened. Soon, very soon, it would no longer be a mystery.

Up on the bridge, Star watched the helmspony carefully. The light-colored earth pony seemed nervous, both for the weather and for the event that would soon be taking place below deck. Star wondered if he was having second thoughts. If so, a swift death and unmarked grave at sea awaited him. There was no room for wavering loyalty.

Star nodded at a pony that he trusted somewhat more to take over the unicorn's place on the bridge watch and headed down to join Smith. The preparations for the complicated spell were well underway, and should be completed by the time the boat reached its destination.

A unicorn with a little training could locate natural sources of magic. With a little practice, it was possible to draw energy from them. On Earth, the naturally-occurring currents were usually referred to as ley lines. Until the emergence of ponies, most people had scoffed at their existence. The boat was currently on track to intercept one such line. It would help add power to the spell.

Such a multilayered and intricate piece of magic drew energy from several sources. The unicorns performing it would add some, as well as a few artifacts that had been brought aboard. The main source, however, would be messy.

“How’s the little one doing?” Star asked quietly.

The spell-worker next to him glanced at a locked door nearby. “She went quiet about an hour ago. Probably thinks this is just a foalnapping.”

Star nodded. Turning to Smith, he asked, “Do you have the blade?”

Irritated, the man pointed to a small wood box sitting on a table next to six glass vials. “You think I would be so stupid as to forget something like that?”

The unicorn didn’t appreciate his tone, but knew this was not the time to make a big deal out of it. “All right. I’m going to make one last check.”

Star went over to the suitcase lying on the floor. He opened it, gazing inside for a moment. A lot of work had gone in to finding the perfect thing to make the spell work. Closing the lid, he checked to make sure the six chalk lines on the deck were perfect. On his cue, the glass vials from the table were brought over. Each contained a hair. They had come from six different ponies, and were a variety of colors and textures.

Each strand of hair was positioned carefully. Star inspected them, and gave the signal to proceed with the spell. The unicorns that would be powering the magic, Star included, stepped forward and formed a ring. Slowly, each began to feed magic into the circle. It had to be carefully balanced, and in perfect coordination.

Smith stood outside the group of ponies. His place in the spell would come soon. He watched the unicorns work, feeling eager to take his place with those that could do magic. It would be soon. He had been promised that.

The Nightmare, when it came, would be very generous to those who had helped it.

★

The weather report indicated that there would be heavy seas, but relatively light rain. Lieutenant James Martin studied the computer printout for a moment before putting it down and going back to staring out the bridge windows.

The destroyer, USS Cushing, could handle rough seas well enough. At more than 560 feet long, she certainly had the bulk to muscle through waves. The sharp bow and relatively svelte beam let her easily cut through heavy swells and made the ship more akin to old-school cruisers than other destroyers.

Martin glanced at the radar repeater on the bridge. There was some long-range traffic out there, nothing too out of the ordinary. Cushing’s homeport in Japan usually had her patrolling the calm western Pacific. Except when deployed to the Middle East, the ship rarely saw action of any kind.

The Lieutenant checked his wristwatch. If another few minutes passed, his bridge watchstanding relief would be late. He had things to do and didn’t like to wait. Fortunately, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sampson appeared just then and formally relieved Martin.

“Anything happen?” asked Sampson, after dropping his salute.

“Nothing,” Martin told him. He left the bridge, heading for the Combat Information Center. This was the compartment deep in the heart of the ship where all the weapons and systems were operated from. The lights inside were dim and the air-conditioning was turned up to protect the sensitive computer equipment.

Martin’s main task aboard Cushing was Strike Officer. While there was rarely a time that weapons had to be used, it was his job to make sure everything would work when it needed to. He scanned a clipboard, checking that inspections had been done. The two five-inch guns, two anti-missile gatling guns, eight-cell Sea Sparrow anti-air missile launcher, two quadruple Harpoon anti-ship missile canisters, two triple torpedo tubes, 21-cell Rolling Airframe anti-air missile launcher, and the 61-cell Tomahawk missile launcher all appeared to be in working condition.

It was a lot of firepower. Cushing, like other Spurance-class destroyers, was primarily configured for land attack and anti-submarine work. There were few ships in the world that were so capable, despite their age. Cushing had been built in 1976 and was scheduled for decommissioning later in the year. It was Martin’s first ship, and he was somewhat sad to know that she wouldn’t be serving the US Navy much longer.

Petty Officer Second Class Edward Bryant approached. “Sir, can I take that report for you?”

Martin nodded and handed the sailor the inspection paperwork. Bryant had actually been in the Navy longer, and was contemplating a third enlistment period.

The Petty Officer carried the report down to the armory where the smaller weapons were kept. He handed the papers to Chief Harker, who was in charge of the armory.

“Any plans for when we pull back in to port?” asked Harker, adding the armory’s information to the report with a pen.

Bryant shrugged. “Not really, Chief. Maybe take a weekend in Equestria with the wife.”

“Make sure you get to the terminal early,” warned Harker. “Yokosuka gets a lot of traffic through the portals.”

“That’s what I hear.” Bryant had visited Equestria before, always on personal time. There were some larger dimensional doorways that could fit vehicles through. None were large enough to accommodate a ship, though, so it seemed unlikely he would ever travel there on Navy business.

The 1MC, the ship-wide address system, turned on. “Lieutenant Martin to the bridge.”

In the Combat Information Center, Martin grumbled. Either the oncoming watchstanders had a question or he had forgotten to do something before turning over the watch. He left the CIC and headed topside.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Sampson looked up as Martin walked in. “One of the contacts on radar is acting strangely. Did you notice any of that on your watch?”

Martin glanced at the radar screen, looking at where LTJG Sampson pointed. “What do you mean ‘strangely’?”

“It was on a straight and steady course, and now it’s stopped dead in the water.” Sampson nodded to the radio controls. “We haven’t heard anything about it.”

Martin looked at Cushing’s track. If nothing changed, they would pass within three miles of the stationary ship. He shrugged and settled in to wait.

The contact didn’t move. It also didn’t appear to be radiating any radar of its own. That could be dangerous, as the crew aboard wouldn’t have any way of seeing other ships except by using their eyes. Sampson and Martin stepped out onto the bridge wing where the twenty-power “Big Eyes” binoculars were mounted.

Sampson examined the stationary vessel through the binoculars. “Fishing boat. That’s why they’re stopped.”

Martin nodded, and moved forward to put his eyes to the lens pieces. He saw a run-down boat with cranes and winches on the aft deck that were used for hauling heavy catches. Something was missing, though. He looked at Sampson. “Where are their nets?

“I’ll go call them. Maybe they have a problem,” said Sampson. He returned to the bridge and picked up the radio.

Martin, deciding that the other man had things under control, left the bridge again. On the way to his berth, he encountered Petty Officer Second Class Bryant again. He almost passed by without saying anything, but a nagging feeling made him stop and call after the sailor.

PO2 Bryant turned. “Yes, sir?”

“There’s something going on at the moment,” said Martin. “It’s probably not going to amount to anything, but be ready just in case we call for SCAT and VBSS.”

“Aye, sir.” Bryant nodded and went on his way. The Small Caliber Action Team and the Vist, Board, Search, and Seizure group supported boarding actions when sailors from the destroyer had to check up on other ships. Generally, such things were just a precaution.

Still, if the Lieutenant was worried, Bryant figured that he’d better go hang out at the armory.

★

On the bridge of the fishing boat, the pony at the helm squinted at the grey shape on the horizon. He’d steered a true course to the correct destination, and now was holding steady. He didn’t like the look of the ship that was coming their way.

The old boat bobbed in the waves as it held position. It had none of the modern gear like radar, otherwise the stallion would have known about other traffic in the area without having to actually see it. Maybe they could get one of the pegasi airborne to keep lookout, the pony thought.

While he was distracted, he didn’t notice that the volume knob on the two-way radio was turned too low to hear any incoming messages.

Chapter 2

The old fishing boat held stationary, carefully positioned over the ley line. On the bridge, the helmspony nervously watched a large haze-grey warship approach. A powerful spotlight aboard the ship began to blink in their direction.

The pony was unable to read Morse Code, but knew what he was looking at. He called to one of the others standing watch. “Go get Star Show!”

Down in the boat’s cargo hold, a hemispherical bubble of built-up magic surrounded the circle that had been constructed on the grimy deck. Smith watched with his arms crossed, waiting for his cue.

The door opened and one of the ponies that was supposed to be on duty at a bridge posting came in. He hurried towards the circle. Smith stepped forward and grabbed the stallion by the mane, jerking him backwards.

“I need to talk to Star!” the pony squeaked.

Smith struck him in the nose with the heel of his hand. “Can’t you see he’s in the middle of the spell? What kind of idiot are you?”

“We’ve got a situation,” the stallion wheezed, a small trickle of blood running out of one nostril. Smith let him go and pointed at two of his men, snapping his fingers. They nodded and followed the pony topside to see what the disturbance was.

Smith turned back to where the unicorns worked. The spell was perhaps one of the most complicated that had ever been attempted by ponies. The time, preparation, and coordination had all taken massive effort. To think that one stupid underling had almost thrown it away.

Every magical effort required a certain amount of power. Smith had studied pony capabilities extensively, and knew that each unicorn had varying magic talent. Some were stronger than others. The amount of power it would take to summon the Nightmare was unfathomable, completely impossible for any one pony. Even with the group that was assembled, there was not enough raw magic to make it happen. That was another reason why the spell was so complicated.

Inside the small suitcase in the center of the circle was a glass orb. It had been crafted carefully and in great secret. Prepared properly, it was the vessel in which an incredible amount of energy could be stored. It would all be released at once in order to complete the spell.

In a different part of the boat, a man named Nolan mounted the stairs to the bridge. He had wanted to stay and watch what the ponies were doing down below, but didn’t dare ignore an order from Mr. Smith. He met up the pony steering the boat. Nolan thought his name was Earthwork, but couldn’t remember for sure.

“What are we supposed to do?” asked the stallion, pointing to a large ship headed directly for them.

Nolan glanced at the warship, sizing up the sharp bow, weapons, and red-white-and-blue flag. “Did they try to call you on the radio?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” said the pony.

The man glanced at the ancient electronics. It took him a moment to figure out all the controls. It took a little while longer to discover the volume was turned all the way down. “Moron! Of course you can’t hear anything!”

Earthwork was about to protest, but stopped short as Nolan turned up the radio. “Unidentified vessel, this is USS Cushing. Stand by for an inspection boarding.”

Nolan grabbed a pair of binoculars from the window sill and gazed at the destroyer through a faint drizzle that was beginning to fall. He could see a few men moving around. It looked like they were armed. He grimaced, but at least they were still on their own ship. Seconds after Nolan had that thought, he saw several men getting into a small boat. That would be the boarding party.

Leaving Earthwork where he was, Nolan dashed down to the cargo hold. Mr. Smith wouldn’t like being interrupted, but he would like a surprise visit by the US Navy even less. “Boss, we have a problem.”

Nolan quickly explained the situation, finishing with, “We’ve got guys with guns headed our way.”

“Don’t you have guns, too?” asked a unicorn.

Smith nodded. “Nolan, get everyone ready to go.” Turning to the pony who had spoken, he said, “And get everypony who can hurt something moving, too.”

Against his better judgment, Nolan asked, “Boss, is it smart to try and fight them?”

Smith gave him an acid look. “If that’s what it takes, then do it. We can’t let them interrupt the spell.”

Nolan left quickly, taking a deep breath. If Smith hadn’t needed all able crew to help defend the boat, Nolan’s question would have probably gotten him in trouble. The subordinate felt as if he’d dodged a bullet. Maybe literally.

★

On the bridge of Cushing, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sampson chewed his lip. The dead-in-the-water fishing boat had completely ignored any radio hails. He’d ordered the signalmen to try the Morse light. That had yet to achieve results, and he was growing irritated.

Through the Big Eyes binoculars, a little bit of activity could be seen. A few ponies and a few men appeared to be on board. They didn’t look like they were in distress, so it was a mystery why they hadn’t responded to the radio.

“Should we call the CO, sir?” asked a young Seaman who was working at the plotting table.

Sampson thought about it for a moment. He knew the Commanding Officer was currently in his rack having a nap. Better to wait just a little longer. He wasn’t about to go completely, unprepared, however. “Leave him be for now, but get the boats ready.”

The call came down to the armory to gear up. PO2 Bryant looked up from the old issue of Guns & Ammo Chief Harker had lent him. Since there weren’t a general quarters alarm going off, it probably wasn’t too serious a call. Still, it paid to be prepared, which was why he was already at the armory.

Bryant got up as other men came in. Members of Small Caliber Action Team pulled M240B machine guns and M16A3 rifles out of the weapon lockers. The Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure people grabbed M4A1 carbines and M590 shotguns, and began to put on knee pads, helmets, and ballistic vests.

Lieutenant Martin showed up, looking as if he had just been pulled from a nap. He observed as the men prepared for possible action. While he was technically off duty, any time SCAT and VBSS geared up, Martin liked to be there. He sometimes yearned to go with them and do something exciting, rather than be stuck aboard the destroyer.

A light sprinkle of rain was beginning to fall topside. It wasn’t a serious problem, but word was passed to every man just in case. It paid to know as much as possible about the situation. All the men getting ready to go out had previous experience with boarding parties and knew what to expect. They were trained and well practiced.

“SCAT to deck positions,” came word from the 1MC. Bryant and seven others filed out of the armory. Two men carried M240Bs. Two men carried ammunition for the machine guns. The other four were armed with rifles.

The misty rain was still coming down. Bryant checked to make sure the machine gunners got their weapons set up in the mounts attached to the ship’s railing. They pointed the barrels to the sky to appear less threatening and dropped plastic bags over to keep water out.

Bryant took a moment to examine the fishing boat that was causing the fuss. It was still perhaps half a mile away. He squinted. It was hard to tell through the weather, but it looked like there was movement on the decks.

A few minutes passed, and the first VBSS team came out. The six men boarded one of Cushing’s small motor launches and were lowered into the water. A second team stayed on call in case backup was needed.

Meanwhile, the destroyer had been steadily drawing closer to the stationary fishing boat. The distance was short enough that Bryant could now see several crew members milling about. It looked like a mixed human-pony bunch. It didn’t look like they were in distress, so the boarding party must be going for some other reason. Bryant idly tapped his M16A3’s magazine, just checking.

The launch reached the fishing boat. The crew did not help the VBSS team come aboard, and in fact appeared unfriendly. Bryant couldn’t hear the words, but it looked like the Navy men were having some kind of argument with the fishing boat crew. One of them pushed a sailor.

PO2 Bryant heard the machine gun crew closest to him muttering at the sight of the assault. They strung a belt of ammunition into the weapon and made it ready. The Petty Officer chambered a round into his rifle and his thumb moved the selector lever off safe.

Seconds later, the unmistakable sound of a shot echoed across the water. One of the sailors from the VBSS team staggered and fell to the deck.

Bryant had been taught to stay cool under pressure. He was trained with weapons to use careful, accurate fire. Seemingly by itself, however, his thumb moved the selector lever to the next position: automatic.

Chapter 3

Yokosuka, Japan

The US Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, had an area of responsibility that covered much of the Pacific. Not being a hot zone, the regular signals received were not usually very interesting. USNS Arctic has resupplied USS Kersage. USS Houston reports a large school of dophins. USS John Paul Jones requests status update on the Army-Navy game. The man sitting at the message desk sighed as he sorted through the teletype paperwork. It was his job to file reports by priority, and most were not very important.

A new report from Cushing about a suspicious fishing boat came in. It was tagged slightly above routine concern. Minutes later, however, a second transmission from the ship labeled FLASH made him sit bolt upright and grab for the phone. That tag was reserved for extremely urgent messages.

The man didn’t get the chance to use the phone very often, and did not know where it connected to. Still, he relayed the message from Cushing. “Shots fired, casualties sustained, pony involvement…”

Lieutenant Colonel Shining Armor was just sitting down to lunch when a US Naval attaché from the embassy came to find him. “Sir? There’s a phone call for you.”

The stallion looked forlornly at the menu he hadn’t opened yet. There was a reason he didn’t carry a cell phone during lunch break. It was supposed to be a break.

The man held out the phone and Shining took it, pressing it to his ear. Even during diplomatic duty on Earth, there were a surprising number of fires to put out.

“Colonel, it’s Wilmington. We’ve got a situation brewing out here in the Pacific.” Shining knew Captain Wilmington, USN was on the Seventh Fleet staff. The two had communicated before.

Shining asked, “What kind of situation?”

“Details are sketchy, but right now it looks like a group of ponies attacked a Navy ship.” It sounded like Wilmington could hardly believe it.

Shining got up from the table, thoughts of lunch abandoned. “Tell me what you know.”

The attaché quickly followed the pony as he strode out of the restaurant with the phone. In Shining’s ear, Wilmington was saying, “It started out as a routine inspection, but something happened. I’m not sure even the destroyer crew knows all the details yet. There were some casualties.”

“All right, I’m going to get a secure line to Canterlot. Get me an update when you can.” Shining gave the phone back to the attaché.

“Sir?” asked the man. “What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure, but it looks like the beginning of a big clusterbucking deal.” Shining momentarily chastised himself for letting some of his more basic Army vocabulary slip out. Hopefully the situation wasn’t serious enough to actually warrant that level of profanity yet.

Pacific Ocean, east of Japan

Minutes earlier…

Nolan watched nervously as the small boat approached. There were only six men aboard, but they were heavily armed. Smith’s orders were clear, however. Stop them from interrupting the spell at all costs.

To that end, Plan A was to deny everything and hope they left. The US ship wouldn’t be sending people over if they weren’t suspicious, though, so in the likely event that the first plan failed, they would have to fight.

The pistol in Nolan’s hand looked pitifully small compared to the weapons the Navy men were carrying. He made sure there was a cartridge in the chamber and tucked it behind his back, stepping out on deck. With him were three other men and five ponies.

The motor launch pulled up to the rail and five of the sailors clambered out of it and onto the deck of the fishing vessel. The last one stayed to secure the small boat.

“Who’s in charge here?” barked one of the visitors. Another one repeated the question in Japanese.

“That’d be me,” said a large man, stepping forward. His name was Breitel. Nolan thought he was a little bit of a hothead, but let the man take control of the situation.

“Are you in distress?” asked the sailor. The name on his uniform read Dunbar.

“Nope. We don’t need any help from you,” said Breitel.

“I’m sure you won’t mind if we take a look around,” said the Navy man. “Just a safety inspection.”

“There’s nothing wrong with our boat.” Breitel crossed his arms and glared.

“We’ve got the safety records if you’d like to look at them,” said Nolan.

“Show us where they are,” ordered the sailor, stepping forward. Breitel got in his way.

Dunbar looked him in the eye, not intimidated. “Are you blocking an official inspection?”

As the sailor stepped to the side to go around him, Breitel threw out an arm and shoved him back. The other boarders raised their weapons. The unicorn standing beside Nolan flinched, and a shower of sparks flew from his horn as he raised a defensive spell. Distracted by the light, the sailors aimed at him. Brietel took a step back, his hand out of sight behind Nolan’s back as he grabbed the other man’s gun.

Dunbar was the first man to be shot in the surprise attack, but that was quickly avenged by the sailor standing next to him, putting Brietel down. Nolan dove for cover as a couple of the unicorns blasted the sailors with spells. Bullets from both sides flew, and somewhere in the distance a machine gun begin to fire.

Without looking back, Nolan threw open a hatch and rushed down to the cargo hold. Mr. Smith looked irritated by the gunfire.

“They sent one group of six men,” gasped Nolan, panting with exertion. “The ship is right there, though. There’s no way we can run.”

Smith clenched his teeth. He glanced at the circle of ponies, still working on the spell despite the battle going on outside. After a moment, he walked over and tapped Star Show on the shoulder. The buildup of magic dissipated instantly.

★

Bryant pointed his rifle at the melee taking place aboard the fishing boat. It was too far for a sure shot, and he wasn’t willing to risk friendly fire. He watched helplessly as men he knew fought for their lives.

In the close quarters, it was over quickly. The sailor operating the small boat drew his sidearm and tried to pull his comrades to safety with the other hand. He shot one pony in the face, but was knocked overboard by a burst of magic from another.

None of the boarders were killed outright. All managed to make it off the fishing boat. As soon as the deck was clear, Bryant opened up with his rifle. Compared to the machine gun mounted solidly to the rail, his fire was probably ineffective. Still, he couldn’t stand around and do nothing.

Bryant was still pulling the trigger when the bolt locked back on an empty chamber. He hit the magazine release button and grabbed another mag from the pouch on his vest, slamming it home and slapping the bolt release. There were no more living targets on the fishing boat, however.

On the bridge, Sampson thanked his lucky stars that he had decided to wake the Commanding Officer. Commander Delgado had been observing since just before the first VBSS team had departed, so the shooting that had just taken place hadn’t happened under Sampson’s authority.

The older officer’s lips were twisted into a snarl, furious at what he had just witnessed. “Get us over there right now!” he shouted at the helmsman. “I don’t care if you ram them!”

Seconds later, a few unicorns came out on the fishing boat’s deck. They fired a couple of jets of magic at the fast-approaching warship. The SCAT men grabbed cover, save for one who raised his weapon and took aim. One of the magical attacks crushed the railing and smacked him against the bulkhead. His limp body fell forward, through the hole in the rail.

An unearthly glow surrounded the fishing boat and it suddenly vanished. There was no wake to indicate its passing, no hole in the water, nothing.

Stunned, Delgado ordered Cushing off flank speed. The boat, and the magical crew, had also disappeared from radar. There was no way to track them. They were gone.

With the enemy suddenly out of the picture, the number one priority shifted to rescue. The second VBSS team got in the other launch and began to recover the sailors in the water. The medical facilities were made ready.

The boat zipped around for hours before finally retiring to its davit aboard Cushing. The men disembarked, their faces depressed. The task had been grim.

Lieutenant Martin, deciding that helping out was more important than sleep, received the recovery team’s report and carried it to Commander Delgado.

“What is it?” asked the CO.

“I’ve got a list of casualties, sir. I believe it’s complete. There are seven: the whole first VBSS team and one from SCAT.” Martin handed the paper over for Delgado to read.

Michaels – injured

Dunbar – dead

Rockwell – dead

Alehandro – dead

Nakamura – injured

Philips – injured

Bryant – missing

Chapter 4

Star Show’s mood was darker than his graphite-colored coat. While he was sure Smith had a good reason for calling off the spell, it didn’t please the unicorn.

If anything, the man’s expression was even more displeased. He examined the contents of the suitcase, checking the magic storage device. The concept of how it worked was remarkably similar to an electronic capacitor, temporarily storing energy. A faint light glowed from within the sphere.

“That isn’t enough power by far,” said Star. “You should have let us keep going.”

Smith glared at him. “If I had, we’d all be dead right now! As it is, I’m damn surprised we got away.”

The pony smirked. “A cloaking spell isn’t that hard to accomplish. Throwing in radar-fooling is just a matter of fine tuning it.”

It had been a little surreal to see the fishing boat’s deck under his feet while being completely invisible to the men on the Navy ship. The old boat had quietly slipped away and had been putting miles between them and the destroyer ever since. Smith begrudgingly admitted that the stallion had been right to take action first and argue later.

“So when are we going to start up with the other spell?” asked Star. “We can’t cloak at the same time. There just isn’t enough magic to go around.”

Smith knew there were a few unicorns maintaining the magic that kept the boat hidden. It would have to be certain that they were all alone before dropping the cloak and restarting on the main priority. The US Navy was probably pissed now, and there was no way Smith’s men and Star’s ponies could hold them off in a straight-up battle.

“What about the prisoner?” asked Smith. They’d dragged an unconscious sailor from the ocean.

Star shrugged. “What about him? Are you thinking of some kind of hostage deal?”

The man thought for a moment. “We were going to use that foal to complete the process…what if we could speed things up?”

The pony’s eyebrows went up. “Two at once? You know, that just might work.”

★

Shining Armor still hadn’t had lunch. He’d had a phone pressed to his ear for what felt like hours. He was getting a better picture of the situation, albeit slowly.

The phone call had been bounced around various government centers in Canterlot since he’d placed it. Nopony seemed to have what he wanted to know, but there was surely another he could be transferred to. It had taken a while, but Shining was finally talking to one who had been briefed on the situation.

“Thank you for taking my call, Princess,” he said.

“It’s no trouble,” said Celestia, her voice slightly distorted through the secure phone. “In fact, you’re in a position where you should probably know the details anyway. The US Navy is asking for our help.”

“Strange thing for an Army pony to be handling,” commented Shining.

“True,” agreed the Princess, “but you’re close, and I know you’re competent.”

Being married to Princess Celestia’s niece had its good and bad points. It was good that he knew her on a personal level—

“They will be flying you out to the ship. I’ve already made the arrangements for you.”

—and bad that she had made him her number one troubleshooter. Celestia reviewed the details, of which there were surprisingly few. Other than “a suspicious boat with mixed human-pony crew attacked a US warship,” there wasn’t much to go on. Maybe by actually talking to the sailors, Shining would be able to get a better idea of what had transpired.

The stallion’s stomach growled loudly enough that the Princess heard it through the phone. Celestia paused. “I’m afraid you won’t have much time to eat. The helicopter is already on its way.”

Shining’s thoughts filled with explicatives he hadn’t used since boot camp. Still, he got where he was by being professional. He said, “I understand, Princess. I’ll deal with it.”

★

“I can’t believe we just lost it!” grumbled Sampson. His watch was over, and he had joined Martin for chow.

The Lieutenant, who hadn’t rested even though he’d been off duty since Sampson had relieved him, nodded sympathetically. It was hard to believe that such an advanced combat ship could lose track of an old fishing boat when they were within visual range.

Sampson brightened. “I heard they’re sending a couple of Equestrians to help out. Maybe we can fight magic with magic.”

“We don’t know anything about fighting with magic,” Martin pointed out.

“Well, I didn’t think ponies did either, but they sure showed it off today.” Sampson had a point, Martin thought.

“I guess you’re right,” the senior officer agreed. “Generally, I thought natives of Equestria were pretty peaceful. It’s a little disturbing to find ones that are aggressive. Worse, we still don’t know why.”

“So what’s the game plan if we eventually find that rustbucket?” asked Sampson.

Martin shrugged. “We’ll probably try to board it again. Maybe we can fly some SEALs out here to help.”

“Let’s just blow it up,” Sampson muttered. At the moment, Martin had to agree with him.

★

The deck was cold under Bryant’s face. His whole body hurt, and the clothes he wore seemed to be damp. Moving his fingers and toes a little, he decided that nothing was seriously wrong with him.

“He’s waking up,” said a voice. The Petty Officer didn’t recognize the speaker, and rolled over. An earth pony, a unicorn, and a man sat watching him. None of them looked friendly. The compartment was small and had an ordinary door. It resembled a closet, Bryant thought.

The man shifted his jacket slightly as Bryant sat up. There was a bulge under his arm that was probably a gun. He glowered at the sailor. “Lie back down.”

Slowly, Bryant complied. He carefully used his movement to hide his hands brushing over the pockets of his trousers. It was a useless effort. Anything he might have been carrying had been taken.

There were footsteps—or maybe hoofsteps?—outside the door. A couple of voices had a short conversation. Bryant struggled to hear the words. He thought they might have been talking about him.

Bryant didn’t know where he was, how long he had been comatose, or the dangers he might now face. One thing was certain, however. Things were going to get worse before they got better.

Chapter 5

The helicopter, Seahawk alpha-one-two, approached the destroyer’s aft deck. Buckled tightly into his seat, Shining Armor looked down through the window, wondering how the helo pilot was supposed to hit such a small, moving target. The stallion did not enjoy helicopters, and liked ships even less. There was a reason he’d signed up for a military force that stayed on the ground.

The seas were reasonably calm, however, and the landing was smooth. A sailor slid the door open and helped Shining to get out. The three ponies with him followed behind. Once the passengers had disembarked, the helo lifted off and headed back towards Japan.

Inside the hangar bay, the destroyer’s own embarked helicopter sat idle. Shining and the other ponies stripped off their flight gear and were greeted by an officer from the ship.

“Martin,” the man said, extending a closed fist.

Shining gave him a hoof bump. “Good to meet you. What’s the situation?”

“Well sir, it’s been a tense couple of hours.” The man gave Shining a rundown of everything that had happened. There were a few interesting details that the pony hadn’t heard before, but he was disappointed to discover that the crew of Cushing didn’t really know what they were up against. The stallion could see the frustration written on Martin’s tired face.

“Can I talk to the men who were on the team that boarded?” asked Shining.

Martin’s expression darkened. “The three that are left.”

None of those that had been injured were serious enough to need medical evacuation. Michaels had cracked his head on the deck. Nakamura’s nose had been bloodied by a hoof to the face. Philips had a scratch on his arm where a bullet had ricocheted off the plate in his ballistic vest. They were all shaken, but very much alive.

“Never seen anything like it, sir,” muttered Petty Officer Third Class Michaels as the medical corpsman assigned to Cushing checked the bandage on his head.

“Tell me how it happened,” said Shining.

“After we boarded, we went for standard procedure. We call it the ‘take us to your leader’ conversation. A guy said he was in charge, so we asked to see their paperwork. When we don’t have another reason to come aboard, that’s what we use,” explained Michaels.

Shining nodded. “Go on.”

“I’m not sure how it happened. The one guy pulled out a gun. I think he shot Chief Dunbar. One of the ponies hit me with some kind of spell. It didn’t do anything but knock me down.” Michaels grimaced at the ache in his head. The painkillers the corpsman had given him were beginning to wear off.

The pony interrogated Michaels and the other two men a little while longer, but could discover nothing new. Frustrated, he decided to visit the Combat Information Center and see if any of the electronics aboard the ship had picked up anything of value.

Shining was just stepping into the compartment when a voice on the address system echoed through the ship. “Commander Delgado to Signals.”

Perfect. He wanted to talk to the ship’s captain anyway. An Equestrian Army Lieutenant Colonel was equivalent rank to a US Navy Commander, so they would be on even terms.

Delgado came in and stood behind the radio man. “What have you got?”

The enlisted signalman turned, his face pale. “Sir, this just happened a minute ago…”

The man pressed play on a recording. Cushing, this is Seahawk alpha-one-two. Someone just took a shot at us.”

“Any identification on the shooter?”

“Negative. Wait, there it is! That’s got to be magic. The surface of the ocean is bare. Do ponies have invisibility?”

“Are you in danger, alpha-one-two? Hello?”

There was no reply.

Another man came rushing up. “Sir, we just picked up a helicopter emergency beacon. The Seahawk probably went down.”

Delgado’s jaw tightened, but his voice remained remarkably calm. “That’s where we’ll find our disappearing boat.”

The CO grabbed the intercom and ordered the helmsman to come to a new course. The destroyer’s engines changed pitch as they accelerated to maximum speed.

★

Smith walked up to the unicorn standing on deck. The two of them gazed out at the wreckage of a helicopter slowly sinking beneath the waves.

“Did you do that?” the man asked.

“It wasn’t hard,” the pony said proudly. “Just a simple spell. Turns out people don’t fly so well when they’re stunned.”

Truthfully, it hadn’t been very easy at all. He’d been lucky to hit a moving target from so far way. He didn’t need to tell Mr. Smith, that though. The stallion was surprised when he felt something cold and metal press against the back of his head.

Smith said, “And now they know where we are, you idiot.”

The gun thundered and the unicorn’s brains splattered all over the deck. Smith stepped back, leaving the limp body where it was. It was wasteful to kill a pony when they still needed so much magic, but perhaps this example would encourage the others to stay in line.

Smith stowed the gun and went back down to the cargo hold. Star Show looked up from his preparations to restart the spell. “Did you take care of him? You know we need as many unicorns as we can get.”

“Well, the extra sacrifice should make up for that.” Smith nodded down the passageway to where the prisoner was being kept.

Star shrugged. “We’d better get started then. Pull the cloakers off duty and have them come down here. We should have opened up enough distance on that ship to give us plenty of time.”

Over the next few minutes, the spell-casting unicorns assembled in the hold. They carefully took their places and began to power up the spell once more. Smith went over to the small wooden box sitting on the table and opened it. The dagger inside was old, but at least it wasn’t as corroded as the fishing boat. Smith did not know where it came from, and did not care. He’d tested the edge by splitting a hair, and that was good enough for him.

Leaving the knife where it was for the moment, he turned to Nolan. “Go get the foal.”

The other man hurried away. Smith walked towards the locked storage compartment where they were keeping the sailor. He put his hand on the doorknob but stopped as Nolan called him. “Mr. Smith! She’s gone!”

“How the hell do you loose a filly? She was chained, wasn’t she?” Smith walked slowly towards Nolan. The other man almost literally quivered in fear.

“Uh, yeah. We had a guard posted, too.” Nolan gulped. “He’s also gone.”

“Search the ship,” snapped Smith. “They can’t have gone far.”

★

Shining felt that he was getting nowhere. The sailors were doing everything they could to find the mysterious fishing boat, but until that happened none of them would learn anything more. Earlier, a P-3 Orion had even flown over. The patrol plane was equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector for sensing changes caused in the earth’s magnetic field by large chunks of metal. Perhaps that could see through the boat’s invisibility. The stallion had been told that it wasn’t a very long range instrument, however, and the plane would have to unknowingly fly very close to the vessel to detect it.

With the helicopter missing, and no scheduled flight arriving to pick him up, Shining and his team would be spending a while on the ship. Delgado was understandably reluctant to send the destroyer's helo up. The four ponies had were passing the time in the small area of the CIC which they'd been given as workspace.

“Ridiculous,” murmured Giga Watt. The unicorn was especially good at working with and detecting energy. He was currently examining a declassified diagram of Cushing’s electrical grid.

“Itching to rewire it?” inquired Lemon Slice, a pegasus mare. She had spent most of her working years in some capacity to the Equestrian government, starting out in law enforcement and working her way into diplomatic relations. Shining considered her an excellent secretary.

The fourth pony, Bedrock, was an enlisted aide to Shining Armor. The solider was capable, fit, and didn’t say much.

“Sir!” shouted one of the ship’s radar technicians. “New surface contact, almost dead ahead. The range is twenty eight miles. It’s like they just appeared out of nowhere!”

“Target speed?” requested Delgado.

“Stationary, sir!”

Martin, the Strike Officer, was about to suggest weapons choice, but Sampson beat him to it. “Sir, are we going to use Harpoons?”

A few of the anti-ship missiles would certainly do a number on the fishing boat. Delgado, however, shook his head. “Do you have any idea what that contact is?”

Sampson opened his mouth to suggest the obvious answer, but thought better of it.

“For all we know, it could be a submarine that just surfaced,” muttered the Commander. “I know how everyone feels about getting back at them, but we have to have positive target confirmation.”

Clearing his throat, Delgado ordered, “Adjust course to best close with the contact. Visually confirm its identity before doing anything else.”

“Aye, sir,” answered the helmsman. “Sir, at this speed, we should cover about one mile every two minutes.”

“Sir, what if it does turn out to be that boat?” asked Martin.

Delgado looked at him. “Sink it.”

★

The two ponies and the man guarding Bryant didn’t give him much slack. He wasn’t bound, but the three of them watched the sailor like hawks. They’d nearly jumped him when he scratched his nose.

It was be impossible to do anything under their watchful stare. Bryant just had to be ready to act on any opportunity. It wasn’t long before one came along.

A muffled bang, probably a gunshot, came from somewhere overhead. Bryant’s captors all looked up instinctively. About halfway through the glance, all three of them realized it was a foolish move.

Bryant twisted on the deck, kicking his leg up. The sailor’s steel-toed boot collided with the unicorn’s face. Pushing up, the man grabbed the earth pony by the ears and dragged him forward, smashing the pony’s sensitive nose against the top of his skull in a crushing headbutt.

When captured, Bryant had not been informed that he was a prisoner of war. He doubted the mixed crew of people and ponies were working for any nation. There were certain rules that had to be followed in organized combat. Guards can’t kill prisoners, and prisoners can’t murder guards.

This was obviously not a prisoner of war situation, and the fight was definitely two-sided. The man grabbed for his gun. Bryant kicked the stunned unicorn into his path and they both fell to the deck.

The earth pony was shaking his head in pain. While the other two were down, Bryant hit the underside of the pony’s chin with the heel of his hand. The stallion must have had a glass jaw, because he dropped like dead weight.

Bryant turned around and froze, surprised and horrified at the sight of so much blood. The man had fallen on the unicorn’s horn. The gun lay near his limp fingers. The stallion was trying to struggle out from under the dead man's weight, unable to cry out because his face and jaw were pressed to the deck.

The sailor picked up the gun and whacked the pony on the temple with the butt. The stallion went limp. Working quickly, he stripped the man’s jacket and used it to blindfold and gag the unicorn. His belt and trousers went to bind the pony’s hooves.

Turning around, Bryant noticed the earth pony wasn’t breathing. While he had been working on the unicorn, the stallion had drowned in the blood running from his nose.

Bryant suddenly felt sick. Two dead, and all it had cost him was an ache from the headbutt. On the other hand, he’d seen a boat full of his shipmates shot and blasted with magic. Well, the score was a little more even now.

It occurred to him that no other guards had come to check on suspicious noises. Could he be so lucky? Flesh-to-flesh strikes weren’t very loud, and it wasn’t like the old fishing boat had zero ambient noise to mask them.

Bryant gulped. Either way, he had a finite amount of time. He could either wait until they came for him, or take matters into his own hands. He checked the gun. It was a Beretta, similar to the Navy-issued ones. There were fifteen cartridges in the magazine and one in the chamber. He flicked the safety off and pulled back the hammer.

The door opened easily to a deserted passageway. Bryant stood for a second, feeling the motion of the boat against the waves. As an experienced sailor, he was able to figure out his orientation with the vessel, although not which deck or where, exactly.

He couldn’t stay standing there, though. Bryant began walking quickly and quietly in the direction he thought he might find a way to go up to the next deck. His ears picked up a set of mixed steps, both hooves and boots, coming his way. He ducked into the first door that presented itself.

It was hard to say who was more surprised; Bryant, or the man guarding a young pony. The sailor recovered first, putting his finger to his lips as he pointed the gun.

The compartment might have once been a laundry room. The equipment was long gone. A pegasus filly with a steel collar around her neck was chained to the bulkhead. The pony stared at Bryant with wide eyes. Her scarlet coat was stained with dirt. Just in case, he gave her the hush gesture, too.

“Do you have the keys?” whispered Bryant, gesturing to the padlock securing the collar. The man nodded.

“Open it, then. Slowly, carefully.” The guard complied, still a little stunned at becoming a prisoner himself. Once the little filly was free, she quickly stepped over behind Bryant. He didn’t know how she instinctively realized that he wasn’t going to hurt her, but was grateful.

“Are you okay, kid?” he asked.

“I…I think so.” Her voice sounded terrified. Bryant understood. All it would take to get them both killed was a little bad luck.

“Turn around,” he ordered the guard. “Go through that door.”

The man twisted the knob. There was no way of telling what might be out there. Bryant braced himself, gun ready.

Chapter 6

It was an agonizing wait. As the destroyer sliced through the waves, every man and pony aboard passed the time in distressing silence.

Lemon Slice, the pegasus, had volunteered to carry a camera aloft. Shining Armor ordered her to stay close to the ship. Anything that could take down a helicopter was not to be approached by a lone pony.

The range to target slowly counted down. Eventually, Lemon returned, lugging a huge telephoto lens. Images from the digital camera were processed as quickly as possible. They were small and grainy, but she had photographed the elusive fishing boat.

“Sir, once we close to thirteen miles, we can engage with the five-inch,” said Martin.

Commander Delgado checked the radar display. “Very well.”

The ship’s guns could fire various types of shells. Armor piercing rounds would lance straight through the old boat without actually doing much damage. Martin called the ammunition room. “Load up the guns. High explosive shells, contact fused.”

The automated fire control calculated the range and made adjustments. The forward gun barrel elevated and swung to line up with the target bearing. All the computer needed was the order to fire.

★

Shining Armor’s voice was scratchy, having been bounced through a satellite or two and gone through the dimensional communication transfer. His emotion and urgency carried over, however. “We’re closing in. I think they’re going to start shooting as soon as possible.”

From her desk in Canterlot Castle, Princess Celestia listened carefully. As leader of Equestria, she’d been kept updated on the situation in the western Pacific. “I hope you understand that capture is preferable.”

“Yes, Princess,” said Shining. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen, though. Everyone aboard the ship is angry, and I think I understand how they feel.”

Celestia sighed. “Do what you can.”

“Yes, Princess.” The soldier signed off.

Equestria used to be an isolated nation. Other countries, such as the Griffon Kingdom, had had minor squabbles with the ponies over the years, but to truly make a mess of international relations, the dimensional portals were unequaled.

Equestria wasn’t on bad terms with many people, it was just that human problems had a remarkable tendency to spread. Celestia rolled her eyes. Modern media was mostly to blame. The old days of printing presses and low volume newspapers were over. Everything was now being carefully observed and blown out of proportion. It was certainly a good thing that she had quite a bit of practice at public speaking.

Regardless of why a small renegade group had attacked a US warship, Celestia knew she should probably be preparing a statement. Because the incident had involved ponies, she would eventually be asked about her opinion on the matter.

Well, maybe there was some way to put a positive spin on it when writing the speech. The royal pony turned to the computer terminal in her office, considered it for a moment, and then grabbed a quill and parchment. Not even the magic of spell check could break a thousand-year-old habit.

★

The passageway beyond the door was fairly dark. Bryant took that to mean it was probably deserted. The man he’d captured walked ahead of him, the filly he’d rescued trailed behind.

“Which way to the open air?” whispered Bryant.

The man pointed forward, towards a set of stairs that led upwards. The sailor nodded. “You go first.”

The guard-turned-prisoner looked like he was about to protest, but thought better of it. He walked up the stairs and disappeared into the next deck. Bryant quickly charged after him, trying not to let the man out of his sight.

A bullet sparked off the metal stanchion beside his head. Bryant dropped back down the stairs, firing upwards. He jerked his hand violently, directing the young pegasus to run. As the pair of them sprinted away, Bryant fired a couple of times over his shoulder to discourage pursuit.

The passageway came to a T, and the sailor made a snap decision which direction to take. He thought quickly, trying to remember how many cartridges he had expended. Five. That left eleven in the gun. Assuming he’d counted right.

“There’s got to be another way out,” Bryant muttered. The little filly didn’t speak, too scared to do anything but run. The man had heard most pegasi didn’t gain flying skills until they were equivalent to human preteens. He had no idea what age the foal might be, but her wings didn’t look very developed.

“Can you swim?” he asked. There was no guarantee that they would be able to find any other way to get off the boat.

“I can float pretty good,” she answered.

“What’s your name?”

“Penny. What’s yours?”

“Edward Bryant. Call me Ed.”

The two of them came across a ladder that led to a shut hatch-like cover. With any luck, it would lead straight to the deck. Bryant told the pony to wait and mounted the ladder, tucking the gun in his belt to open the hatch.

In another part of the ship, Smith paced back and forth. “And what happened next?”

“I went up the ladder and managed to get away,” said the man.

Smith nodded. “All right. Come over here.”

He and the man who had been guarding the filly stepped into the cargo hold. Smith guided the guard over to the center of the circle. Star, standing unobtrusively by the table, stealthily drew the dagger out of its box.

“Do you see this?” asked Smith, pointing at the open suitcase. The glass ball glimmered with magic.

The man nodded. “It needs some kind of shed blood to reach full power, right?” His face suddenly took on a worried look.

Smith chuckled. “Do you think I’m going to use you for that?”

The man relaxed a little. “I thought that maybe after I let the pony escape…”

“Yeah, you screwed up. It’s not going to happen again, though.” Smith grabbed the dagger that Star levitated over to him and slashed the man’s throat. Blood gushed everywhere. The glowing orb flashed red with its first taste of the crimson liquid.

Smith grabbed the limp body by a foot and dragged it out of the circle. He looked at Star. “That helped, but we still need to find the others.”

The pony thought for a moment. “We can start now. I think we might have just enough stored magic to start the connection. We’ll need more to get the Nightmare fully through.”

Smith nodded appreciatively. “Get it done.”

Behind the two of them, the magical containment globe pulsed with an evil light. Previously, it had just held neutral energy. Now, maliciousness had been planted in it. It would be a perfect enticement for the Nightmare to come to Earth.

★

Shining Armor watched the tension among the men in the CIC. They were all anxiously awaiting the order to fire. The computer mulled the data over again and decided that hitting the target was feasible. Firing Solution flashed on the screen.

Even from deep within the hull of the ship, it was easy to hear the explosive report of the forward gun. Three seconds later, a new round had been loaded and it thundered once more.

Lemon Slice had again volunteered to be spotter. After strapping on a radio and donning hearing protection, the pegasus had gone up to observe the attack. From her position above the destroyer, she could faintly see the target ship on the horizon. With a borrowed pair of binoculars, the mare was barely able to pick out tall splashes as the first few shells missed the target. Still, they came remarkably close for being fired from thirteen miles away.

The fire control computer tracked the flying ordnance in midair and adjusted trajectory accordingly. The extreme distance meant that each shell had to trace a very high-reaching arc in order to land where it was supposed to. Factoring in wind and weather was also important.

Martin held his breath. It would take a few shots to zero in, but the computer was remarkably good at holding steady after that. The five-inch shells did not carry the destructive power of missiles, but there were hundreds of them on board. If necessary, Cushing would keep firing until her magazines were exhausted. The fishing boat wouldn’t escape a second time.

★

The deck above was clear. Bryant dropped down and hoisted the filly back up the ladder. He climbed it after the pony and shut the hatch behind him. There was a porthole down the way that Bryant was happy to realize was streaming in sunlight. It was not a way out, but they were getting close.

A door opened ahead and a stallion stepped out. His eyes focused on the two escaped prisoners and he opened his mouth to shout. Bryant shot him between the eyes, the gun making a far louder noise than a yell.

The sailor charged forward, hoping to catch any other hostiles off guard. A man with a shotgun appeared and Bryant began pulling the trigger. Four shots before the attacker slumped to the ground.

Bryant was reaching for the fallen attacker’s weapon when a pegasus shot towards him down the passageway. Two shots to down the pony, and one to make sure he stayed there. Penny shouted a warning an instant before Bryant was hit from behind. A wave of telekinesis sent him sprawling. He rolled, trying to get the gun up. The unicorn that had attacked him wrestled with the weapon. It fired wildly a couple of times.

The little pegasus foal leapt into action, pulling on the stallion’s tail. Bryant pointed the pistol at the distracted unicorn’s face and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The handgun’s slide was locked back on an empty magazine and he’d failed to notice it until then.

Bryant threw the pistol at the unicorn and it glanced off his forehead. He grabbed the pony by the throat and slammed him against the wall, aiming for a protruding bolt. Whether or not it cracked the stallion’s skull, the pony went limp.

Gathering Penny in his arms, Bryant sprinted back towards the sunlight. From an open door, a rope darted in front of his feet, propelled by magic. The little foal went flying, more ropes snatching her out of the air before she could struggle.

Bryant’s hands and feet were bound tightly within seconds. A small crowd of unicorns gathered around, controlling the spells that snared him. He and Penny were carried back below decks, all their forward progress for nothing.

Bryant expected to be returned to the closest where he had regained consciousness. Instead he was taken into a large open compartment that smelled like dead fish.

In the center of the space was a small case with a shimmering red light emanating from it. A dark silhouette seemed to float in the fiery glow. It was pony-shaped and appeared to somehow have a face.

The figure turned to look at the newcomers. Its smoky, transparent body seemed incapable of leaving the vicinity of a gleaming glass ball that rested in the suitcase.

The empty eye sockets and toothless mouth only added to the being’s sinister appearance. Bryant’s mouth had gone dry. His dread only increased when it spoke. “Very good. These will do nicely.”

A man holding a knife appeared to be the one the monster was addressing. He stepped towards where Bryant and Penny lay on the deck. The filly whimpered, “That’s th-the Nightmare!”

The cloudy disembodied pony chuckled, it voice menacing. “Well, I see that my last appearance in the physical world left an impression on Equestria. They’re even teaching the foals about it.”

Bryant had no idea what was going on. It had been almost fifteen years since first contact with the ponies, and he was sure that this…thing had never showed up since then. The sailor was no expert on ponies, but something like that surely would have made the news. He muttered, “What the hell is going on?”

Chapter 7

The man with the dagger grabbed Bryant and pulled him closer to the dark silhouette of a pony. There was blood splashed on the deck, and he suddenly realized what the blade was for.

“Look at me,” said the Nightmare. “Tell me your name.”

The sailor hadn’t a clue why the monster wanted to know, but obliged. “Petty Officer Second Class Bryant, United States Navy.”

“I always enjoyed the death of those with titles so much more,” the Nightmare purred.

Bryant, deciding he had nothing left to loose, spit. Being without solid body, it didn’t affect the menacing black specter, but it was the thought that counted.

“How dare you!” It roared. “Don’t you know when you are beaten? Don’t you understand when it’s time to give up?”

Still bound tightly with ropes, Bryant had to admit that the situation looked hopeless. The knife-wielder stood next to him, looking irritated that his conversation with the Nightmare was taking so long.

“Answer me,” growled the Nightmare. “What is it that gives you hope?”

Bryant looked up, glaring at the creature. “I’ve decided that you don’t scare me.”

The vaporous pony chuckled. “It takes a brave soul to disregard his own death, but what about those of his friends and family? His race? His world? What about slavery? What about torture?”

The sailor shrugged. “You’re not telling me anything I haven’t thought about before.”

“I don’t believe you,” the Nightmare hissed.

“Have you ever been to Earth?” Bryant asked. “Death, destruction, suffering, it’s nothing new. We do that to ourselves. We put other people in shackles. We murder. We persecute. Human beings are capable of anything. You’re just a copycat compared to our history.”

Rearing up to appear larger, the Nighmare screamed, “I will begin killing humans and I will not stop until those that are left tremble at my name! I will torch your cities and pulverize everything dear to you! Your very air will burn, and your soil will be sterile!”

“Good luck,” said Bryant. “We humans know how to do annihilation. See, unlike you ponies we never had magic, but we found ways around that. People have been fighting wars for thousands of years. We know how to inflict casualties, and how to take them and keep fighting. You’ve only got the crew of this boat to back you up against this planet’s population of almost seven billion. You couldn’t kill us all if you tried. If nothing else, the pile of bodies would get too big to climb over.”

“Well, they’re not here now,” snapped the Nightmare. “You’re all alone.”

Just then, there was a shrieking noise as something passed by close overhead and impacted the surface of the ocean with a lot of force. Seconds later, the sound was repeated, more loudly.

Bryant grinned. “I’m not alone. That’s the greeting card of about three hundred fifty sailors who are coming for you.”

The instant the words left his mouth, there was a tremendous explosion.

★

“That’s a hit to the superstructure!” Lemon Slice’s voice carried through the speaker in the CIC. “It looks like the bridge is just gone.”

“Secure firing,” said Delgado, changing his earlier order. “We’ve got them bracketed now, so if they try to hide again we’ll just saturate the area. They certainly aren’t going to be sailing anywhere under their own power now.”

Shining Armor immediately called Canterlot again. He didn’t have time to wait for a patch through to the princess, so he left a message with the communications pony. “Tell her that we’ve got the boat. There should be survivors.”

The Commanding Officer turned to Martin. “Get SCAT and VBSS up. Make sure there’s plenty of both.”

“Yes, sir!” The Lieutenant headed down to the armory to personally oversee the operation. Sailors not on duty were recruited to stand armed watch. This was Martin’s chance to get in on the action he had been envious of.

Groups of men organized and manned the rails of the destroyer. Any resistance from the fishing boat would be answered by a barrage of gunfire.

The ship continued to close on the damaged vessel.

★

Being wrapped in ropes and lying on the deck, Bryant was probably in the best place to be when the shell ripped away a large chunk of the boat’s structure. The man with the knife was knocked off his feet, and the unicorn holding the spell to tie down Bryant was more than a little distracted.

Throwing off coils of rope, Bryant grabbed the dagger that had landed beside him. He slashed at a nearby unicorn as he got up, and sprinted across the deck towards where Penny was struggling with her bindings.

The nearest door led to a staircase which opened onto the deck. Bryant realized he must have been in the holding area directly under the fishing net cranes. The breeze and sunlight was refreshing, but the most beautiful thing of all was the rapidly approaching destroyer.

“Jump!” shouted Bryant. He and the young pony went over the rail. The lightweight pegasus gave him some help staying afloat. The two of them clung together as a blaring announcement carried across the water. “This is the United States Navy. Come out and lie down on deck. Don’t make any sudden moves.”

The VBSS boat plucked Bryant and Penny from the ocean minutes later. Shortly afterward, they were aboard Cushing

Martin watched the two arrive, and turned his attention back to the fishing boat. People and ponies were slowly surrendering. The rest of the vessel would have to be swept for holdouts, but the crisis seemed to be over.

A pegasus suddenly shot into the air. He seemed to be carrying something, but Martin couldn’t tell what. The Lieutenant instinctively raised the shotgun in his hands as the pony overflew the destroyer. The weapon slapped against Martin’s shoulder and buckshot knocked the pony out of the sky.

Martin and a few other men approached the limp stallion where he had fallen to the deck. He had been carrying a suitcase. One of the sailors reached down and opened it. An angrily pulsing red ball greeted them.

Someone said, “What the—”

There was a flash of light and heat. The strange object melted a hole straight through the deck and dropped inside the ship.

Chapter 8

“Damage report!” demanded Commander Delgado. He’d watched the incident on deck. It was impossible to guess what might happen next.

The reports were slow coming in. An out-of-breath Shining Armor burst into the bridge. “Commander, we have a serious problem.”

Delgado motioned for the pony to explain. The unicorn took a breath and began. “We’re not sure of the whole situation yet, but it’s very powerful magic. I’ve got Giga Watt working on it. He says that it feels evil.”

“What kind of damage can we expect?” asked the man.

Shining paused. “I would say that the best-case scenario is if it bored a hole completely through the ship and dropped into the ocean. I have no idea what this thing is, but you don’t want it aboard.”

The pony departed. Delgado called the ships engineering and structures departments to the bridge. It was difficult to explain what was going on, as he didn’t know himself. He got the point across that everyone on board should be careful and consult with their Equestrian guests. The announcement went out on the 1MC.

Below, Shining looked at the underside of the neat hole that had been punched in the destroyer’s deck. He looked down at the hole in front of him where the mysterious orb had kept going. He called out, “Do you see anything?”

Giga’s face appeared briefly though the hole at Shining’s hooves. “It turned a corner. The exit hole in this compartment is in the wall!”

Shining thought that the technical term for a wall aboard a ship was actually “bulkhead,” but didn’t argue. He turned around to go find a way to join Giga on the next deck, and heard a clatter of small hooves and large boots racing towards him.

A red pegasus filly and a sailor skidded to a halt in front of Shining. Both were soaking wet and covered in small injuries. “Colonel,” gasped the man. “Got something important to tell you.”

The young pony was also out of breath, but started speaking very quickly. “It was the Nightmare! I saw it! They were trying to bring it back to life or something. There was this magic glowing thing that it was getting power from. Is it here? Is it on the ship?”

The man put in, “I think it might have been powered by blood. This Nightmare thing seemed like it was building up energy for something. It said it wanted to invade Earth.”

Shining looked back and forth between the two of them. This was perhaps worse than anything he could have imagined. The stallion hurried back to the CIC to get a line to Canterlot. Along the way, he encountered Bedrock.

The soldier looked up as Shining passed. Seeing the worried look on his superior’s face, he asked, “Is something wrong, sir?”

Shining motioned for him to follow. He explained the situation while one of the communications men got the channel set up. Bedrock looked like he could hardly believe it. “The Nightmare? Sir, that’s…”

“Supposed to be impossible, I know.” Shining looked up as one of the sailors handed him the microphone.

From the other end, Princess Celestia asked, “What have you learned?”

Shining cringed slightly. Celestia was one of the nicer ponies he knew, but he dreaded what he had to say. “Princess…we have a serious problem.”

Deep within the ship, Giga kept picking through compartments. Petty Officer Bryant had been recruited to help with the effort, despite his fatigue. The man clearly did not want to meet the Nightmare again, however he requested a dry set of clothes and a cup of coffee, and put his game face on. A few other sailors assisted them.

The next hatch was opened and Giga peered into the dark space. With a thought, his horn glowed and bathed the area with enough light to see by. There was a hole in the deck. The glowing red nuisance had gone even deeper.

Consulting a diagram of the ship’s structure, the unicorn frowned. “There’s only one deck lower than this one. The bilge.”

Bryant nodded wearily. “Let’s go.”

The two of them, plus a cadre of sailors, found the bilge inspection hatch and cracked it open. There was water there, but that was to be expected. The bilge on nearly every ship collected moisture from various sources and had to be pumped out constantly.

At the bottom of the bilge was the keel, the strong backbone of steel that the rest of the ship was built upon. Looking down the long narrow bilge compartment, Bryant spotted a red glow. Heart pounding, he grabbed a flashlight from another man and shined it over the area.

To his relief, there was no black pony silhouette. Giga stepped forward, leading carefully with his horn. “I don’t feel any evil presence. Some evil, sure, but I don’t think the Nightmare itself is here.”

The unicorn stepped closer, observing the pulsing magic sphere. It appeared to have embedded itself in the keel. It gave an angry flash as Giga approached.

“Okay then.” The pony backed slowly away.

“What do we do?” asked Bryant.

“We have no idea what that thing is capable of,” Giga told him. “If it’s a weapon, the ship is in grave danger.”

Bryant knew that even a little damage to the keel could be fatal to a ship. “What else could it be?”

The pony shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest clue.”

Chapter 9

“That’s right, we need magical containment, Spellbreakers, a security team wouldn’t hurt…” Shining had finally gotten something to eat to make up for his skipped lunch, but now he was missing sleep. In the hours since the takedown of the fishing boat, the frantic activity had continued.

Dealing with the prisoners was the least of their worries. When the full situation had been realized, a C-130 loaded with SEAL paratroopers hadn’t been long in coming. They had swept the boat and rounded up all hostiles. Shining was told a tug was on the way to bring in the disabled vessel.

Cushing had stayed for security and would leave as soon as the tug showed up. All those aboard were worried about the mysterious magical object buried in the destroyer’s keel.

Meanwhile, Shining was on the phone. Equestrian assets were mostly on the other side of the dimensional doorway and would take a while to mobilize. His task was made more difficult by the communications equipment. For whatever reason, it seemed to be developing more and more static.

“Sorry sir, didn’t catch that,” said the voice on the other end.

Shining drew back a hoof to smack the radio console in anger, but resisted. It might make the stupid thing stop working completely.

“The destroyer’s going to go back to Yokosuka,” the stallion said. “It’s not far. The Japanese have already been informed about the situation, and they told us that we are not tying up to the pier. Can’t blame them. There’s no telling what this thing is capable of.”

He was about to go on talking about preparations to anchor out in the harbor, but there was no response from the radio. Shining regretted not hitting it. Heturned to a sailor. “Can you fix this thing?”

“It’s some kind of interference, sir. Could be atmospheric.” The man glanced up. “Could be magic.”

Great, thought Shining. He went topside. The tug had arrived, and Cushing was maneuvering to depart the area. The sun had almost set, and night was coming on. He decided to go see what Commander Delgado was up to.

In his stateroom, the senior officer aboard the destroyer sipped coffee and listened to his chief engineer describe a recurring problem. “It’s strange sir, we keep having breakers trip. We reduced the electrical load, and that helped, but it seems to be a traveling problem. Every system is affected differently.”

The Commanding Officer nodded. “Very well. Do your best, and keep me informed.”

The unicorn, Giga Watt, came in, looking at Shining and Delgado. “Good, you’re both here. I really need to speak to you. There’s good news and bad news.”

“Go ahead,” said Delgado.

“The good news is that the Nightmare is not aboard.”

“You’re sure?” said Shining.

“Believe me, I was very careful in coming to that conclusion,” said Giga.

Shining nodded, but then frowned. “Where did it go?”

Giga threw up his hooves, upset. “I don’t know! I tried to track it, but the trail faded quickly. You might get some better ponies out here, but by then all the evidence will probably be gone.”

Shining knew that magical remnants often disappeared quickly. “I’ve got some some Spellbreakers on the way. You don’t have a single hint where the Nightmare might have escaped to?”

The other stallion sighed. “No, not a one. Outer space, for all I know.”

“Is that the bad news?” asked Delgado.

“Um, no.” Giga took a breath. “The Nightmare may not be here, but that…thing down in the bilge is still pretty serious. It’s not a personality or a consciousness, it just sort of is. There’s still a lot of magic there, though, and I think it might have a self-preservation instinct.”

“Is it going to attack us if we mess with it?” Delgado had read a little about magic, but had never heard about anything like this.

“It might,” said Giga. “We can’t just leave it there, though. I think it has a spreading tendency and might be technology-adaptive.”

“What’s that mean?” asked the man.

The unicorn looked at him. “Picture this: your warship gains an evil sentience and learns how to fire cruise missiles all by itself.”

The three of them were silent for a moment. Finally, Shining asked, “What are our options?”

“We might be able to set up some kind of containment on it,” suggested Giga.

“Like a force field?” asked Delgado.

“Something like that.” Giga paused. “Or…we could scuttle the ship.”

Delgado jerked back as if slapped. “No. Not while I’m in command. Besides, what if it doesn’t want to sink?”

As if agreeing with him, the overhead lights flickered just a little.

★

By this point it was becoming clear to Princess Celestia that something big was happening. Shining sounded worried, and communication from him had been abruptly cut off. She didn’t want to overreact, but…

The phone rang. Celestia lifted the receiver to her ear. “What is it?”

“Princess, it’s a call from the American President.”

“Put him on.” Celestia was reminded of an old human joke. How do you know you’re living in an action movie? The phone rings. It’s the President.

The conversation got right to the point. “Do you have any idea what’s going on in the Pacific?”

“I could ask you the same thing. I’ve temporarily lost contact with the ponies out there.” Celestia hoped it was temporary.

“Princess, I understand that this is the kind of thing you have more experience with, but I don’t recall asking for help.”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. President, but I didn’t think you were adequately protecting my little ponies.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he demanded. “The ships are adapted to shield from from nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks, but that doesn’t cover magic!”

“Then it’s a good thing that I have teams of experts headed out there,” Celestia told him. “I think you’ll agree that this needs to be resolved quickly.”

“We have a couple of options,” said the man. “The ship was about to be decommissioned, so destroying won't cost us much.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” The conversation appeared to be over, so Celestia said goodbye.

Instead of putting down the phone, she dialed the communications center. “Has there been any more contact from Shining Armor?”

“No, Princess, we’re still working to establish communications.”

Celestia put the phone down, worried.

Chapter 10

The destroyer had been experiencing more and more problems. First with the electronics, and then with other things as well. The engines were responding strangely and several other pieces of equipment head experienced malfunctions. It was an incredible relief to pull into Yokosuka Harbor.

Commander Delgado observed as the ship laid out its anchor chain. As soon as things were secure, he left the bridge feeling somewhat ill. Worryingly, he knew that in the past few hours other men had complained of sickness.

A harbor ferry boat had come alongside with about three dozen ponies in it, most of them unicorns. Shining Armor met them. “All right everypony, get aboard. We’ve got a lot to do and it needs to happen as soon as possible.”

Most members of the group were civilians from the Royal Magic Institute. The rest were the security detail Shining had requested. He gave them all a brief on the situation.

“Why are we doing this again?” asked Solar Flare, the lead researcher from RMI.

“Princess Celestia wants to help,” Shining replied.

“What is Equestria getting out of it?” pressed Solar.

Shining gave him a look. “I don’t know, but ponies and people have already died over this. I should think that preventing more of that would be reward enough.”

Solar nodded to his team and led them below deck without another word. The officer of the military unit, Lieutenant Gumdrop, asked, “What do you want us to do, sir?”

“Stand by for now. If there’s a problem, we’ll need your help.” Shining nodded to him and departed to find Delgado. They would need to work together to make sure there was nothing that would hold either the sailors or the ponies back from completing their joint mission: saving the ship.

The Equestrian Army detail set up on the helicopter deck to wait. A couple of Navy men were there, either smoking or merely relaxing and taking in the sight of the city across the water. As international military members often did, the two groups found some common ground and soon had a lively conversation going. Information, jokes, and stories were traded. For a while, it was easy to forget the catastrophic events that had brought them together.

★

In Canterlot, the Equestrian Secretary of the Navy reclined at his desk, hooves folded behind his head. From a telephone in front of him, a voice asked, “Mr. Seas, are you there?”

Calm Seas leaned forward. “Yeah, I was just thinking for a moment.”

The man on the other end of the line, the United States Secretary of the Navy, sounded annoyed. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”

“No, not really. It was kind of a silly idea that you probably wouldn’t be interested in.” The pony leaned back again, letting the speakerphone do its thing.

After a moment, the man sighed. “Let’s hear it. We haven’t been able to come up with anything else in this conversation.”

“Well, you were thinking of getting rid of that ship soon, right?” said Calm Seas. “I don’t know extensive the magical cleanup will need to be, but it’s pretty clear we’re more qualified to handle that. Why don’t you just give us the ship and let us take care of it?”

There was a pause. In a different tone of voice than before, the man said, “It’s a very interesting idea. I personally would have no problem with you taking care of the ship. We can’t just give it to you, though. It’s still a perfectly serviceable vessel, and Equestria isn’t poor.”

The stallion winced. The Americans had a strange sense of what things were worth. They supplied billions in foreign aid, but wouldn’t let one old ship go. To get the funds, he’d have to go talk to Celestia.

Balancing that, however, was the fact that it was a really great ship, or so Calm Seas had been told. The Equestrian Navy owned a few man-made vessels. This one—Cushing, was it?—had missiles! If there was an opportunity to grab a really sweet new ship for cheap, he wanted credit for authorizing it.

"All right Mr. Seas, I'll talk to my people and you talk to your ponies. We'll come up with a figure, and you tell us if you want to pay that."

"Sure." A sudden thought occured to the pony about the size of the ship versus the size of the dimensional doorways. He wanted to ask if it would fit through, but decided that the Secretary probably wouldn't know technical details like that. He would wait until later.

The call was disconnected. Calm Seas sighed and reluctantly began dialing Princess Celestia's number.

★

The Japanese Police were good at their jobs, but they certainly weren’t US Navy SEALs. Custody of the prisoners from the fishing boat had only just been turned over when fighting broke out.

The detainees were not armed, and in fact the unicorns had been hobbled by magical suppressors provided by the Equestrians. Several police officers were injured though, and a few attackers were shot. Order was restored fairly quickly, but it took several hours for things to settle out enough to take another roll call. Four names were missing: River, Island Breeze, Star Show, and Smith.

Chapter 11

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Princess Celestia stared at Calm Seas from across her desk. She wasn’t quite sure what the Secretary of the Navy was requesting.

“I’m putting forth the suggestion to bring our sea-based military forces into modern times,” the stallion replied.

“Why would we want this ship?” asked the Princess.

“I believe it would be a great boost to both combat effectiveness and national pride,” explained Calm Seas.

“How is that supposed to help us if the ship won’t fit through the doorways?” Celestia didn’t raise her voice, but her irritation was clear. Calm Seas hadn’t done his homework before rushing into the deal.

The stallion’s face fell. “We could set up some kind of…permanent forward deployment? It would be a huge boost to our presence on Earth.”

“If we’re going to be showing the flag, one ship for the entire planet won’t be very effective,” the Princess pointed out. “Also, think of the operating expense.”

“But we could support our own troops when they’re deployed,” argued the Secretary. “This American ship has already fired Tomahawk cruise missiles into Afghanistan, so we know that we could provide strike capability for our soldiers there.”

“Missiles,” muttered Celestia. “Next, you’ll probably be telling me we need Trident submarines.”

“I’m not sure we could afford those,” said the stallion, showing what the Princess thought might have been the only bit of good information he’d provided in the whole conversation. “We could however afford this ship and more like it. The US is decommissioning quite a few of this kind. We could have a class.”

“A whole class of ships?” asked Celestia. “Just how many do you think our Navy’s budget can support?”

“Er, well…” Calm seas gulped. “Three. With full loads of weapons.”

It was remarkable how the stallion hadn’t bothered to look up the important technical details but had figured out the financial information. The Secretary squirmed under the Princess’ gaze for several seconds until Celestia spoke. “Submit the plan to parliament. If they approve any of it, then we’ll talk further.”

★

Aboard Cushing, the situation had almost been stabilized. Well, as much as it could be with a mysterious, magical, probably evil, object aboard.

The team from the Royal Magic Institute had set up in the bilge of the ship. There were complaints about the tight, damp quarters but all of them knew that they were dealing with something serious.

“All right,” said Solar Flare. “Get that shield up. Easy, we’re just trying to isolate it.”

Working together, several of the unicorns placed a bubble-like barrier around the red-glowing sphere. The force field was intended to keep the influence of the orb from spreading any further.

If there had been room in the crowded bilge, Shining Armor would have both been there to watch. Instead, he sat in the galley with PO2 Bryant examining a dagger that the man had retrieved from the fishing boat.

“I’ve had the Spellbreakers take a look,” said the pony. “There’s nothing special about it.”

Bryant turned the knife over in his hands and placed it on the table. “I don’t have any use for it, sir. You might as well take it.”

Shining nodded and levitated the weapon over to his side of the table. Bryant took a sip of coffee as the stallion examined the dagger. The man asked, “How’s Penny doing?”

“The last I heard, they found a spare mattress and let her bunk with the CO.” Shining knew that aboard a ship the Commanding Officer typically got a large, private room. It was probably the best place to put the young pony. They were working on contacting her parents.

Shining pushed back from the table, picking up the dagger. “I’m going to go see if the research team can do anything with this.”

Lieutenant Martin stepped aside to let the pony leave the compartment. He spotted Bryant still sitting, and asked, “How long have you been awake?”

“Should I count the time that I was out cold, sir?”

Martin shook his head. “We’re at anchor now. I know you’re not on duty. Get some sleep.”

“Aye, sir.” Bryant got up to head for his rack. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you look like you could use some rest, too.”

“Probably right.” Martin said goodbye and headed for the CIC. There had just been an unpleasant report received about escaped prisoners from the fishing boat. Security was already tight while the magic workers toiled down below, but he wanted to make sure it was as good as it could get.

★

The small speedboat’s heavily muffled engine sounded like a whisper compared to the other noises of the harbor. Smith knew that it paid to have a wide network of contacts. It was how he had put the project together in the first place. Now, he had used that web to obtain weapons and transportation.

They could see the lights of the US destroyer anchored out in the bay as they motored towards it. Star Show by himself could cast an invisibility spell over their vessel, albeit not as good as the magic that had cloaked the fishing boat.

Smith looked angrily at the still-visible wake that trailed from behind the speedboat. Because of that, they would have to slow to almost a crawl to make an undetected approach. Still, he hadn’t come all this way to fail, even with major setbacks.

The man glanced at his three unicorn companions. They were dedicated, he knew. Well, so was he. Balancing the steering wheel with his knees, Smith racked the bolt on the AK-47 he had obtained. He checked spare magazines and his sidearm. One way or another, this would be finished before morning.

Chapter 12

Shining Armor watched a few exhausted ponies from the Royal Magic Institute climb out of the bilge. A lot of work had been going on down there.

As a little bit of room cleared up, the stallion made his way into the cramped space. Solar Flare looked up. “What are you doing here?”

“I just came to see if there was anything I can do,” replied Shining. “In case you forget, I’m pretty adept with magic myself.”

Solar muttered something and turned away. Shining looked past him to where other ponies were working. The containment around the strange magical object seemed to be doing its job, but it was taking a lot of energy to keep powering. The team from RMI was working on a rotation to let some of their number sleep.

“What are we going to do with this thing?” asked Shining.

“We’ve got it under containment right now,” answered Solar.

“Right, but what’s the endgame? We can’t leave it here forever.”

The other pony shrugged. “Lieutenant Colonel, we’ve never seen anything like this. I’m afraid that trying to remove it could cause something bad to happen. Leaving it here is also not an attractive option. I wish that we weren’t making up our plans as we go along.”

“What’s the best option?” asked Shining.

Solar thought for a moment. “Take the ship to somewhere deep and poke a hole in it.”

“You aren’t worried that somepony will come along and try to salvage it?”

Looking annoyed, the researcher asked, “Do you know anything about the geography of Earth? The oceans here are at least as deep as our own. I would be surprised if the ship could even be found after it sank, much less be hauled up.”

Shining nodded. “Are there any other options?”

“Why are you asking?” Solar asked grumpily.

“Well…I heard that Equestria might be interested in buying the ship if you can somehow manage to negate the threat.” Shining pointed a hoof in the direction of the red glow.

Solar looked at him like he was insane. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“You’ve never met the Secretary of the Navy,” muttered Shining.

★

Calm Seas finished his speech. The group of ponies who ran Equestria and controlled the military’s purse strings stared at him. He hadn’t expected applause, but this seemed colder than necessary.

“I think that was everything. In conclusion, the Equestrian Navy would do well to buy three Spruance-class destroyers from the United States.” The stallion grabbed his paperwork and stepped away from the microphone. Over by the wall, he could see the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force whispering to each other. The two appeared to reach some kind of agreement and approached the podium.

“If the Navy is allowed to purchase these new ships and weapons, I think it’s only fair that the Army receive funding to design, build, and deploy a series of brand new force-wide armored fighting vehicles.”

“Concurrently, the Air Force should be allowed to become a major participant in the Joint Strike Fighter program.”

There was no booing, but a series of muttered comments ran though the crowd, which was almost as bad. The fragile look of confidence on Calm Seas’ face disappeared. His plan had failed before the vote had even been called for.

The speaker of the committee called for order. “There’s no way all three services can have that much money.”

Calm Seas glared at the other two Secretaries, who gave him smug looks.

The speaker continued. “In fact, only about one-third of that expenditure would be prudent. We’ll be dividing it up. Mr. Seas? I believe that means you can buy one ship.”

The Secretary of the Navy practically skipped out of the meeting hall. It was not what he wanted, but it was better than nothing. Now, they needed a name for the ship as the old namesake, Commander William Barker Cushing - USN, meant nothing to ponies. Also, they would have to find something else to classify it as. Destroyer did not exactly project the friendliest of images.

★

Smith looked forward at the ship that loomed in the darkness. He was not afraid, but knew that assaulting it would not be simple. Getting aboard, in fact, would be the easiest part of it.

A makeshift platform had been setup alongside the destroyer to cater to the transports that came and went. The invisible speedboat, its engine shut off, edged up to the landing.

Smith, Star Show, and the other two ponies got off. In the darkness, the boat was pushed away. The four of them could remain hidden, but eventually the speedboat would get out of range of the spell and be discovered. It was best to move fast.

Smith lugged his weapons and a backpack filled with explosives. It hindered his movements, but it was necessary to do the job. One big push was all it would take to finally generate enough power to firmly set the Nightmare’s hooves on Earth. A bomb that killed every sailor on board would certainly do the trick.

Sweat dripped from Star Show's brow as the stallion juggled the cloaking of the group, the invisibility of the boat, and a locating spell. He whispered, “The orb is still aboard.”

The four of them went up the ladder to the deck. Several human and pony guards were around, but they were able to evade them by moving carefully. Finding an open hatch, Star led the way inside. He paused, seeking his target. “It’s down there.”

Chapter 13

“We have it in the budget, so we can buy this ship.” Calm Seas finished his presentation to the Princess. She displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

“Um, if you’d like to put a media spin on it, you can say we cut two ships from the deal to save money,” the stallion tried again.

“How much money?” asked the Princess. Calm Seas told her.

Celestia shook her head. “Not good enough. For the sake of your job, I hope you haven’t finalized the deal yet.”

The Equestrian Secretary of the Navy gulped, thanking his lucky stars he’d decided to wait until after talking to the Princess. “Ah, yes. Exactly what points should I make with the U.S. Navy to drive the price down?”

“The ship is damaged goods,” said Celestia. “I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with the situation.”

Calm Seas nodded. He knew it was some kind of magical issue, although not the specifics. “I’ll bring it up.”

“Perhaps you could give your Undersecretary some practice in price haggling,” suggested the Princess. “Ms. Crosswind seems to have a fine head on her shoulders. Maybe she’ll even have your position someday.”

The Secretary promised to take care of things and left Celestia’s office. Now that the Princess mentioned it, Crosswind was the pony for the job. Calm Seas had more important things to do, like naming the ship once the Equestrian Navy had received it.

★

The clean passageways and painted bulkheads of the destroyer were a far cry from the rusty old fishing boat. Star Show led the way, shielding his companions.

They all heard some kind of commotion. A battle stations alert was called. Smith swore quietly to himself. The boat the four of them arrived on had probably been discovered and they had to move faster now.

A sailor appeared, running towards his duty assignment. Smith didn’t get his elbows quite tucked, and brushed the man as he went by.

The Navy man stopped, knowing he’d touched something that he couldn’t see. Smith cracked the sailor in the face with the butt of his rifle and kicked him hard in the stomach. He quickly ran after the three ponies before the bloodied man could pick himself up and sound the alarm. Star homed in on the pent-up magic of the sphere, leading the four of them further into the bowels of the ship.

A few decks down, Shining Armor watched the lead researcher from the Royal Magic Institute work. The unicorn named Solar continued to prod at the glowing object that clung stubbornly to the steel.

Through the open access hatch at the end of the bilge, Shining could faintly hear some kind of alarm going off, and instantly became more alert. He may have been a soldier rather than a sailor, and assigned to a desk job, but the stallion knew klaxons were never a good sign.

It was frustrating, really. Nothing so far had worked to remove or negate the malevolent orb, and all Shining had gotten out of being in the bilge was covered in dirty water. A pump ran continuously to remove the excess liquid, but a little was always present. Currently, it was up to Shining’s fetlocks. He sighed. At least it wasn’t knee-high anymore.

Over the sound of the battle stations alarm there came the distinct staccato of gunfire. Shining’s head jerked up. There was no way it should be that close.

“What was that?” asked Solar. The other stallion shoved him aside, staring at the only entrance to the bilge.

The access hatch to the upper decks was a couple of meters away, on the other side of the red-glowing ball. Shining was between Solar and the hatch. Seconds passed, and then all Tartarus broke loose.

Three unicorns and one man dropped into the bilge, firing spells and bullets. Shining threw up a magic shield, protecting himself and the stallion behind him. The man with the assault rifle tried banking bullets off the steel surrounding them, but Shining sealed his spell to the bulkheads. His special talent was protective magic, and some human with a gun wasn’t going to kill him so easily.

Under cover of the unicorns’ spells, the man swung a backpack off his shoulders and threw it down. He reached for something inside the pack, appeared to find what he was looking for, and straightened up, backing away from a flashing light inside the bag.

Shining had gone straight to the bilge after meeting with Bryant, and was still carrying the dagger that the sailor had given to him. The stallion whipped it forward, passing through his shield and straight into his enemy’s neck. The man clawed at his throat and fell to the deck.

The ponies kept firing magic as they backed away. Shining extended his shield, keeping himself protected while putting a hemispherical dome over the backpack. If that was a bomb inside, he wanted it to be contained. The protective bubble fell just barely outside the crimson sphere.

Shining hadn’t wanted to kill, but he also needed the fight to be over as quickly as possible. He desperately searched for another weapon.

The first of the retreating ponies had just made it to the hatch and turned to go up when the bomb went off. Shining felt the tremendous strain against his magic, but he also saw a solution. While he didn’t have time to actually think in the first instant of the explosion, the stallion instinctively opened a pinprick in the other side of the shield. The enormous pressure forced a jet of hot gas out at high velocity, decapitating the first pony in line and punching holes in the other two.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough release for the unfathomable force produced by the bomb, and the hemispherical shield over it concentrated all that power straight down, punching right through the keel as if it were made of paper.

Shining grunted with the effort of keeping the shield up. Instead of holding something in, he was now holding the ocean out. The magic had muffled the sound of the blast, but the steel around him still vibrated with the aftershock. Shining’s ears vibrated, too.

The entire ship seemed to shudder, flexing slightly along its whole length. Cushing had taken a blow to her very core, something that stressed the structure more than it had been intended to withstand.

Solar shouted something. Shining couldn’t hear well enough to tell if it was helpful or just something about being scared.

“We need to get out of here!” shouted Shining. “They can seal the bilge and the ship should survive.” He began to concentrate, slowly shoving the bubble of water down so the two of them could cross it and make their way to the hatch. His eyes went wide as cracks slowly began to spread up the bulkheads from the original damage.

Shining quickly expanded his shield, sealing up the new places water was leaking in. The fissures continued to spread, looking like zippers opening up. As the ship settled from the explosion, the center section where he stood was beginning to pull apart, threatening to split the destroyer in half.

Had he stopped to think about it, Shining might have realized what he was about to do would take as much power as he could muster. He reached out with magic, grabbing anything he could get a hold of, and began pulling.

Damage control crewmen began dropping through the access hatch. They stopped in awe at the sight of the pony struggling to hold the entire ship together.

Chapter 14

“What are we going to do?” screeched a panicked Solar Flare from behind where Shining Armor was desperately pouring magic into the task of saving their lives. Shining did not respond. He was already doing all he could.

“Sir!” shouted one of the sailors, splashing through the water that was collecting in the bilge. Shining was unable to stop all the leaks by himself. The man bravely came up to the edge of the magic shield that held back the water. “We’re going to get the damage control equipment down to the bilge. How long can you stay here?”

Shining shook his head. “No idea.”

A voice shouted from the upper deck. “There’s a fire in one of the electrical lockers! The explosion must have shaken something loose. We’re going to have to close this hatch to control ventilation.”

Solar splashed as his hooves stamped nervously. “We have to get out of here!”

It might have been possible for the researcher to climb over Shining and his force fields, but as the two ponies watched, the sailors retreated back towards the access hatch, closing it behind them.

“They’re…they’re just leaving us?” shouted Solar.

“Quiet!” demanded Shining. “This is hard enough already without breaking my concentration. Think you could lend a hoof?”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the other stallion. His face was petrified, but he seemed to have regained control over his voice.

“Anything you can. We’ve still got water coming in, and I think these cracks are getting wider.” Shining looked uncomfortably at a fissure in the steel that reached up past the low overhead, likely breaching the deck above. There would probably be water coming in there, too. He was slightly more glad that the hatch had been shut to prevent water from coming in that way. As a side effect, the pressure building up would help keep the water out.

It was a small consolation. They were locked in a compartment that was rapidly filling up. The cold seawater touched Shining’s stomach and he arched his back a little to stay dry for a few moments longer. Solar had figured out how to get his own magic in phase and began adding power to the shielding spells. It helped, but the splits in the hull continued to expand marginally.

“I think we’re going to die.” Solar’s voice was calm and collected, and that actually worried Shining more than if he was screaming. It was the sound of a stallion who’d already given up.

“Don’t say that.” Shining could no longer avoid the rising water. He gritted his teeth in frustration as it began to rise up his sides. It was his opinion that yes, they could certainly perish in the cramped bilge, but he wasn’t about to admit that until it happened.

“I feel something,” remarked Solar in surprise. “Where’s that power coming from?”

It took a moment for Shining to realize what he was talking about. The glowing sphere beneath the water was…helping them. The soldier gazed at it in wonder. It sat very near the edge of the hole the bomb had opened up. The metal had begun to crack, and without intervention the fractures might have reached the orb.

Shining knew that it didn’t have a true intelligence of its own, but that didn’t mean it didn’t know that the two ponies might have saved it from harm. Was it grateful?

With the added magic, the water actually began to recede. Within a few minutes, it was nearly all displaced. As the level dropped, the bodies of three ponies and one man stopped floating and came to rest on the deck. Shining had felt the unpleasant sensation of them bobbing against his shield.

The access hatch opened again and several men dropped through it. They carried damage control equipment. Behind them came the contingent of ponies, both researchers and soldiers. Working together with tools and magic, the group relieved the two exhausted stallions.

There was a sudden jolt, and the jagged split in the hull seemed to close slightly.

“That’ll be the tugs,” said one of the men. “We’ve got them fore and aft pushing the ship together.”

Shining glanced downward. The glow from inside the sphere had gone. It was a dull piece of glass.

He stepped carefully over the bodies on the floor and made for the upper decks. Passing the scene of the fire, where crewmen still stood with carbon dioxide extinguishers in case of a reflash, the stallion headed for the CIC. He may have been dripping wet, but there were ponies who needed to know what had just happened.

It was surprisingly easy to get in contact with Princess Celestia. She must have had a dedicated phone channel set up for him to call with updates.

“I heard that there was trouble,” she said.

That was putting it mildly, but Shining doubted that either one of them wanted to discuss the fine details of the conflict right now. He said, “Yes there was, Princess, but it’s been taken care of. The ship is going to survive.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We’ll be taking delivery soon.”

So Equestria actually went ahead with the purchase. Shining mustered as much humor as he could. “I hope we get a good deal.”

“We’re still in negotiation, but the price is steadily dropping as new reports come in. Try not to break anything else, or they might end up just giving it to us for free.”

“I won’t, Princess.” Shining managed to laugh. He asked the radioman to take a walk and spent a few minutes of privacy telling Celestia the short version of what he had experienced, as well as recent damage to the ship.

“I’ll pass the report on to Ms. Crosswind,” Celestia promised. “Between you and me, I think she’s going to be the next Secretary of the Navy. Perhaps sooner rather than later. Now, you sound like you’ve been through a lot, Colonel. Get some sleep.”

“With all due respect, Princess, I think I’d like to get my hooves back on shore ASAP. There’s a reason I joined the Army.”

Celestia said that she would arrange transportation. With a little time to kill, Shining decided to go check on the foal that had been rescued. She would probably want to leave the ship, too.

He knocked on the CO’s door. There was no answer, so Shining stuck his head in. Penny was somehow fast asleep despite everything that had happened.

The stallion stepped in, closing the door. The spare mattress on the floor was no feather bed, but the filly didn’t seem to mind. Clutched between her hooves was a dark blue ballcap embroidered with USS Cushing, DD-985 and a silhouette of the destroyer. It looked like it didn’t really fit her head, but she looked fond of it. Shining decided to let her sleep for a few more minutes.

When Commander Delgado came in later, he was surprised to find a pony in his bed as well as one on the floor. He stared at the two of them for a moment, and then quietly backed out of the room. They had both earned a good rest.

★

October, 2007

Pascagoula, Mississippi

Ingalls Shipbuilding had constructed every Spruance-class destroyer. It made sense, then, to let them work on the Equestrian Navy’s newest purchase.

Between political, military, and public issues, the ship had been laid up in Japan for several months before Equestria could fully take over the vessel. It had been transported halfway around the world by MV Blue Marlin, a Dutch heavy-lift ship that had carried warships of various kinds before, including damaged ones like USS Cole.

After about two years of work at Ingalls, the ship was ready to sail again. The hull had been repaired and an extensive refit performed to ensure that everything was up to par.

The naming issue had carried on for quite a while in Equestrian Parliament. Every member had their own idea what it should be called. The designation, however, was more quickly agreed on.

The Spruance-class destroyers had been the basis for the US Navy Ticonderoga-class cruisers, despite their similar size. Since the new ship was much larger than anything else in the Equestrian Navy, nopony had any problem calling it a cruiser, which sounded better anyway. Accordingly, it was designated CG-1 for cruiser, guided missile-armed, hull number one.

At the launching ceremony, there were more than a few celebrities from both sides of the dimensional doorways. Presiding over the event was the Mayor of Ponyville, Equestria. The mare stepped up to the podium.

“Greetings to you all,” she said, smiling to the mixed-species crowd. “It’s on days like this that we’re truly reminded of the value of friendship. It’s heartening to see so many individuals coming together to do great things.

“First, some thanks are in order. I would like to recognize Ingalls Shipbuilding for their toil. USS Wisconsin was refit here shortly before discovering the dimensional divide, so we know they do quality work.”

The crowd murmured in agreement. They all appreciated a good ship.

The Mayor gestured to the vessel behind her. Its sleek bow was draped with the Equestrian flag and fresh paint glistened in the sun. “My thanks also go out to the men and women who crewed this ship, and the stallions and mares who will continue to do so. You are a credit to your respective countries.

“Lastly, I must express gratitude to the selection committee for choosing to honor my town by naming this ship after it. With the blessings of Celestia and Luna, may I present to you Their Majesties’ Ship Ponyville.”

A pegasus filly with a scarlet coat lifted a glass bottle and cracked it against the sharp edge of the ship’s bow. Out of respect to Equestrian tradition, it was a mixture of fruit juice rather than champagne.

Water began to pour into the dry dock where the ship had been refitted. Although it would take hours to fully flood the dry dock, the water had already covered the scars the mended keel bore. The assigned crew gathered to go aboard. As one, they faced the ensign flying at the ship’s stern and crisply saluted.

Forming a line, they proceeded up the gangplank. It would take work to bring aboard weapons, supplies, and personal equipment, but that was minor. Salt water began to rise up the sides, gently adding bouancy. The hull lifted free of its supports, floating the new TMS Ponyville for the first time.