Frosty finally shook Polaris awake.

“That took some effort!” She remarked. “You normally don't sleep that deeply.”

“Yeah, I was dreaming.” He muttered and instantly regretted it..

“What about?” She asked, sending his heart into his throat.

“Erm, well, about you.” He stammered. “You were… making short work of a group of enemies.”

“How nice!” She hummed. “But we have a problem.”

PW got to his hooves. “What?”

She motioned to the window. He looked down into the deep, blue water and spotted several dark red sails in the morning twilight.

Polaris shook his head. “They followed us? That's… impressive. This balloon is dark and we changed course northward after the incident. And climbed higher!”

“They really want action.” Frosty clicked the radio’s mouthpiece. “Norfilly Control, how do you read?”

“5 by, Frosty.” Control cackled in reply.

“I have you the same.”

“Roger, in case we get disconnected, your orders are to return to and remain above the red ship.”

“Actually Control, I have some information that may change your mind on that.”

A pause. “You have our attention. Proceed.”

“Last night we were attacked in flight. A pair of pegasi were cutting our guy-lines while we slept. They also cut a hole in the balloon. Luckily Windy woke up from the noise and alerted me. We engaged and killed two. A charcoal gray pegasus with blue eyes and a dark green pegasus, no further description. We did not see any others. Further, this morning we spotted the aforementioned red ship again below our position. Windy notes our course has changed from 270 to 360 overnight after the incident."

“Standby Frosty, the ponies here are discussing.” Replied the voice on the radio.

PW took out his bubble sextant and performed two shots in the morning twilight while the stars were still visible.

“Frosty, what's your position?” Norfilly finally asked.

“Good timing.” PW said. “Open the mike.”

Frosty clicked it open for him and he reported. “15 south, 50 east!”

“Roger.” Norfilly acknowledged. “Your orders are to disregard previous instructions. Identify the wind direction and achieve maximum ground-speed in the direction of the wind until sundown. When the sky is completely black turn right 90 degrees and continue with engines at full. You are to call us with an updated position at dusk tonight.”

“Copy all.” Answered Frosty.

“Control out.”

Polaris looked up at the ceiling. “Let's fix the balloon first. We're wasting fuel with that hole.”

“All right, I'll cover you!” Answered Frosty with a bit of pizazz.

"You seem particularly enthused.” He smiled as he climbed up the ladder.

“Let's just say I'm eager to try the pegasus-shooting gallery again.” She chuckled.

“Great. I'll have nothing at all to worry about!” PW clambered out of the hatch with the kit in a saddle-bag.

Frosty meanwhile aimed her weapon at the ship and gasped at what she saw through her optic. “Bad guys aren’t messing around. I think I see the mounted machine gun still aiming at us.”

“We must have really pissed them off!” PW called from his flight to the top of the balloon.

This repair would be tricky even for a pegasus as he’d never had to hover and sew at the same time. Landing was not an option as the balloon would not have the pressure needed to support his weight. He arrived at the hole, made sure his fabric patch was the right size and then plunged it into the hissing column of shooting hot air.

“AGH!” He cried as the oven-like air forced its way into his fur.

“You good?” Called Frosty.

“The air coming out is really hot!” He shouted back.

“They do call it a hot air balloon!”

“Hot-hot-hot-HOT!” He winced, this time keeping his head out of the way and pushing the cloth into the hole. Once the patch was positioned properly the pressure inside the balloon sealed it to the opening.

“Frosty!” He shouted down. “I'm having to climb with the balloon again! The fix is working and it's going up fast!” He worked the needle in and out through the fabric, getting a stitch going. By the time the patch was completed he was so exhausted that he could only glide back onto the hull.

“Woah!” He misjudged his landing space and nearly went off the hull again until a strong claw grabbed his tail.

“You good?” Frosty hauled him up.

“Tired from flapping.” PW huffed. “It's done. Thanks for grabbing me.”

“Good job, buddy.” She turned him right-side up and tousled his mane.

“Hehe, stop it!” He laughed.

“Make me.” Frosty teased.

“No baddies in the sky?” PW asked.

She stopped and looked around.

“Nope.” She replied and ducked down into the hull.

PW climbed in after her and went to the console. He manipulated the controls to enter a hover, reduced the oil inlet, opened the damper, and turned the automatic hover valve open. By now the sun was up, reflecting waves on the ocean.

“Alright, now we wait to see where we're drifting towards.” He sat with a sigh.

After only a minute he could tell. “Due South. Wind should be faster higher up, the wind's commensurate with the trades.” With that he opened the oil valve to full and brought the regulator and cutoff to their fastest configuration. Once they had picked up speed they were moving so fast that the ocean was appearing to scroll under them at a good clip. "We're at ten thousand. Let's take it to twenty. I don't want you defenseless in the event of another pegasus attack.”

“Me neither.” Frosty nodded.

“I see the sails repositioning.” Polaris noticed.

“Yeah, they're coming about. Trying to follow us.”

Light-colored water began spraying from the ship’s stern and she belched a gray smoke. The ship was working very hard to catch them but by the time the Night Sky 1 had leveled off the gap was widening. Around lunchtime they lost sight of the ship over the horizon.

Just before PW made his call that evening he had a second thought on the smoke.

“Frosty, I’m curious.” He asked her. “Regarding all of the light gray smoke coming up from the ship earlier… Do you think it might be from some sort of engine rather than a boiler or galley?”

She put a hoof to her chin in thought. “What do you suppose it could be, if we entertained that thought? The smoke dissipated and didn’t trail out.”

“It may burn some sort of wax or lamp oil material. Those don’t belch heavy smoke.” He offered.

“Maybe, but it’s all conjecture.” She shrugged. “I’d mention it but you may want to avoid volunteering any theories over the radio.”

PW nodded and keyed the mike. “Norfilly Control, Windy. How read?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Roger, we believe we’re at 25 south 50 east now. We’ve managed a speed of about sixty knots. Lost the ship around lunchtime. She tried to follow our course change by moving the sails. We saw some kind of smoke from the stern too. There may be an engine on there.”

“Copy all. When it is pitch-black make your left turn to the East. Call again in the morning.”

“Got it. Windy out.” He clicked the device and turned to Frosty. “That’s a short call for such interesting information!”

“They have their reasons. Who knows? Maybe they already have other intel.” She suggested and rose to her hooves. “Hey, PW, want to do some stargazing?”

“Uh, sure?” He cocked his head. “Why so sudden?”

“I’m curious how you store all that information in that head of yours. And we have some time to waste.” She opened the hatch and led the way outside. “Plus, it's stuffy in there.”

“Now there’s the real reason!” Called PW. “What would you like to know?”

“I see thousands of stars. How do you even know what you’re looking at?”

“Constellations and then building roadmaps from them.”

"Okay?”

“So, it starts with a few constellations that you can identify. From there you build a map of the neighboring ones until you have the sky identified.”

“Show me.”

“The bright blue-white star over there. See it?” Asked Windy, pointing with his wing. “That’s Vega.”

“So, how do I know that if you aren’t there to tell me?”

“This time of year, if you keep looking at it around the same time it will always be in the southeast in the Norfilly area. Eventually your eye will learn to pick it out in the same way you can a face; with just the color and brightness. Now, that whitish-yellow star there is Deneb. And the white star there is Altair. Draw a line from there to Vega, then to Deneb, and back to Altair you have the summer triangle.”

“Right, 3 points to a triangle.”

“So, then you build on that! Look at Deneb. You can see a cross forming from that star. That’s the swan. Look back at Altair, and you have it heading a diamond with a tail. That diamond is called the Eagle. And lastly Vega, has a box around it. The Lyre. Then, you can branch off again. The swan is flying towards that zig-zaggy ‘W’; Queen Cassiopeia. You can keep going.”

“We could but we’d better get our course changed.”

“Yes, that’s right.” PW realized and went back inside with Frosty in tow.

The sole adjustment PW had to make was the rudder. “Do we need to keep watch?”

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “The ship is gone and it’s pitch-black. They can’t find us.”

“Agreed.” PW answered and they both turned in for the night.

“Pst. PW.” Frosty whispered.

“Hm, yeah?” He yawned, rubbing his eyes. It was still dark out.

“You’re never going to believe this.”

His eyes met hers. “Believe what?”

Frosty pointed at the window. He looked and had to agree with her. Far below and lit by several lamps were the distinct red sails of their pursuer.

PW scowled at the sight. “What? How?”

“We’re not going to be able to get away from them.” Frosty shook her head.

“How do they know where we are?” He stamped a hoof.

“I don’t know. More pegasi following us?”

“At 20 knots?” He asked and she shrugged. “Another thing that’s concerning is that they aren’t hiding.”

“No, they want us to know they are down there.” Frosty paused. “PW, there were three warning lines. First, ‘what is that.’ Second, ‘how or why is it doing that’ and third; a very panic-y oh shit! We’ve already seen the first two, in the correct order.”

“You’re saying that we’re in trouble?”

“No. What I’m saying is be ready for trouble. Now let’s call control.” She picked the device up.

“Wait, I need our position!” Called PW, taking the sextant. He was against the clock to get the position out. He took the readings and copied them onto his worksheet, performing the corrections and plotting their fix. “Got it, fix shows us at 25 south 55 east!”

Frosty nodded and clicked the control. “Norfilly control.”

“5 by.”

“Good morning. We performed our maneuver as instructed. Position now 25 south 55 east. However, it seems our red ship has somehow managed to follow us, and is making for our current position at unbelievable speed. I will add that it is still dark out. They cannot see us and it is intentionally lit up like a castle.”

Frosty and Windy awaited their response. “Control, did you copy?” Frosty transmitted.

“Standby.”

“Looks like we really got them going this time.” Frosty laughed off the air.

“Frosty, Windy. Stand by for a briefing.”

“Get a notebook and a pencil.” Frosty ordered. PW turned the navigation worksheet he had over and nodded.

“Ready to copy.” Frosty called.

“We’ve received a distress scroll from Mount Aris. Queen Novo requests help at once. Your mission is to make an immediate course change directly for Mount Aris. You will be handed off to a radio controller there. No frequency change needed. Your mission is to make contact with Queen Novo.”

“What’s going on there?” Frosty asked.

“We do not know. The message received was an encoded distress not sent in clear text. This can only mean one thing; the Queen was not comfortable writing out the message verbatim.”

Frosty and PW exchanged glances, amazed at what they had just heard. He walked over to the controls to adjust the rudder when something caught his attention.

“Frosty, the ship is in a turn!” He called.

“Don’t touch the rudder yet. Let’s see where they turn out.” Frosty responded.

After the ship had completed its turn, PW nodded. “Course 190.” He called.

“Let me see that South Celestial Sea navigation chart.” Frosty pointed.

Windy brought it to her and reading her mind, also brought a straightedge and a plotter. He overlaid both for her and drew a line on course 190. It crossed right through the mountain island.

“So they’re going to Aris too…” Frosty realized.

“Yeah, I wonder what made them go too???” PW suggested.

“Norfilly, you should know that the red ship just turned to course 190. Checking the map that also puts them directly towards Aris. I think they may be up on our radio calls.” Frosty keyed.

“Roger. That could explain how they’re following you. That’s troubling. She can sail at thirty knots and somehow has classified technology. If you can, try to identify some extra identification markings on the ship.”

Frosty took her scope and studied its shrinking form. She finally keyed the mouthpiece “There’s four masts, appear to be two –” *XSHXSHXSH*

“And ten – ” *XSHXSHXSH*

“I didn’t copy Frosty, try again.”

“Two – ” *XSHXSHXSHXSH*

“I heard two.”

“Decks on – ” *XSHXSHXSHXSH*

“De –” *XSHXSHXSHXSH* “Two de –” *XSHXSHXSHXSH* “There are two de – ” *XSHXSHXSHXSH* The radio crackled.

Frosty cursed through her teeth and made eye contact with Polaris. It was clear she was agitated.

“Wuf-Wuf-Wooo!” A canine howl suddenly burst through the static and the pair looked at the speaker with wide eyes.

“That transmission was clear as day!” PW remarked.

“No, not a weak transmission.” Frosty frowned. “That, Windy, was an intentional jam. That’s never happened before outside of a drill.”

“Control, be aware that they hear us and keyed up.” Frosty called.

They waited several seconds.

“Doesn’t look like they heard us. Should we try again?” PW asked.

She huffed. “The less that goes over the radio now the better.”

They waited another full minute.

“MAINTAIN RADIO SILENCE UNTIL CALLED.” Came a singular reply.

“Frosty? How is it that they have a radio? That’s supposed to be very advanced tech. I don’t even know it works.”

She reclined into her bunk crossed her hooves and stewed in irritation.

Then her glare softened with a thought and she wondered aloud. “If we had an insider leaking information.”

PW’s face went blank with the thought. “The hand modifications?”

“Yep. Even more classified than a radio.” Frosty nodded.

“Okay, we may know who we’re dealing with now.” Polaris finished, checking up on the boiler.

“Some-creature is attacking Aris and they know the Night-Mare.” Frosty conjectured.

Author's Note

Things are really starting to heat up! Stay tuned because things are going to boil soon!