Chapter Twenty Five - The Battle at Ghastly Gorge

"Armor up and to your stations!" I bellowed out from the quarterdeck. "Mount all catapults and net throwers! Load with wire and cutting heads! Pass the word for Ms. Tempest!"

Tempest came up from below, still shrugging into her borrowed armor as she came up the ladder to the quarterdeck. "Captain?"

"Stormguard battleship approaching from the northeast," I told her. "Any advice on how to fight her?"

"Can't you just—"

I had no time or patience to explain about the exhausted state of my storage crystals and the low ebb of my own personal magic. "We have options, but it might come down to a slugfest. What are their weaknesses?"

She heard the urgency in my voice and responded in kind. "Detonation right under the envelope is best, because that would get the three center cells, but the gap is narrow and they guard against that, mostly with heavily armored troops on deck. Enough strikes in the same spot on the envelope will burn through the anti-magic coating, but there are six cells in there and they only need four to stay aloft if they drop all ballast. The propellers and rudders are vulnerable, but you have to get behind them to hit those, and they often retract the two outboard props during battle to protect them. Even if we shear off everything aft of the envelope, they'll still be able to get emergency maneuverability back."

I nodded. "Okay. What is the most likely way they'll attack us?"

"The whole ship is a weapon. The keel is effectively an ax blade; if they get above us, they can slice through our envelope and gas cells. If they're below us, that top armor will cut through our hull like a giant saw. But what they mostly do against other ships is board them. The beakhead is a ram, and will hook in to hold fast. If we avoid a direct collision, they've got a grappling cannon in the bow. Once they've got us caught and reeled in, they'll hook on the boarding planks, throw a wave of catapult bolts and javelins, and the heavy armor will charge across."

Tempest was facing me and didn't see the growing expression of rage forming on Fluttershy's face, but she turned in surprise when Flutters snarled through her teeth, "They're not going to hurt Nebby or any of her ponies. I won't let them!"

Tempest backed away a step and shot me a questioning look.

"She is quite sincere, Ms. Tempest," I said.

Ao and Rainbow Dash arrived at almost the same time, Ao was carrying a padded chest painted with nearly every warning symbol known to ponykind.

"Ooh, ooh! Is that zebra fire?" Dash asked, her eyes fixed on the box. "Can I do it this time?"

I shook my head. "We need a couple of rainbooms to soften up the yetis first, and the spheres would detonate if you were carrying them."

"Aw, Twi! I never get to play with the good toys!"

The fact that she called the hideously dangerous things "toys" only made me more determined to keep them out of her hooves. "Since when do you need weapons to smack the bad guys around?"

She gave the hilt of her cutlass a flick with one hoof. "Variety, Twilight. Look it up!"

"We don't even know if it is a Stormguard ship yet, and you can—" The speaking tube from the cupola interrupted me with three shrill whistles.

It was a Stormguard ship, and it was headed straight for us.

I turned to the waist and ordered, "Rig the anti-boarding nets to lay low! Out with bare stun'sl bones!"

The "lay low" part of my order meant the crew were to rig the nets to be hauled up very quickly, but to leave them rolled up, out of sight below the bulwarks. The fixing of the spars for the studding sails was a tactic to attempt to keep the enemy hull away from our own and to provide some protection for the engine pods. Which reminded me…

"Mr. Ralf! Fix lanyards to the mounting pins on all engine struts. Mark them with red flags!" If it came to a close boarding action, he could pull the pins out, causing the engine struts to swing down vertically on their hinges, where the engines would be less likely to be crushed between two hulls.

"Dash, wait until they're two furlongs out and then blast them! one going out and one coming back."

She made no further protest about the zebra fire, but gave me a tight nod. "Gotcha, skipper. Give 'em the Old One-Two."

"Ao, keep cover behind our envelope until the second shockwave hits and then out on a high arc and light them up."

Ao grinned. "With pleasure, Captain." She didn't move immediately but stood there with an expectant tilt of her head. Her barbels lay close and unmoving on her cheeks.

"Ah." I said.

"It is the thing to do, Captain," she quietly reminded me.

I sighed. "Ensign Shrrbrgrth, hoist the furled Red Moon to the main top. Break it out at two and a half furlongs."

"Aye-aye, Captain! Fly the Red Moon at two and a half. Surrender or die." She went below to get our joli rouge.

"Fluttershy—"

"Straight at them, aye Captain." She was already turning Nebula onto an intercept course to the enemy.

Did it bother me that the crew seemed so eager to get into a fight to the death with a warship full of enormous hulking brutes? No, it didn't bother me at all. But since my mind is a nightmare of recursive introspection at times, I knew I would spend several sleepless nights in the future, upset that I wasn't bothered about it.

I patted at my pockets and realized I had no charged gems on me at all. "Spike!"

"Right here, Twi!" he said from behind me.

"Go down to the cabin and get whatever's been charged, will you? After that… Can you demount the motivator crystals from Bookmark and Bibliophile? Ask Ralf to help you."

"On it!" He hurried away.

I had a quiet word with Fluttershy about tactics until Spike returned with the gems.

He grimaced. "They're only half full. Mr. Ralf is working on the boats now, but he said something about their crystals not being suitable for big discharges?"

I checked the two half-charged crystals and slipped them into the little hidden pockets in my sleeves. "I know about their cross-columnar growth structure, Spike. I'll take that into account if I have to use them. Go on below and assist Mr. Ralf, and thank him for the warning, will you?"

When he'd gone, I trotted forward to the fo'c'sle deck and pulled out my big spyglass. I could just make out the ugly shape of the Stormguard airship through the mist. My biggest concern was that there might be more of them, but it soon became clear that she was running alone.

I scanned the landscape ahead of us, just to be thorough, and spotted a slow freight train heading south from Ponyville on the trestle at the head of the gorge. A crew pony (or possibly a hobo) clung to a boxcar ladder, staring back at us.

"Enjoy the show," I muttered under my breath.

"I beg your pardon, Captain?"

Clove Hitch stood behind me with my light helmet and gorget.

"Train on the line down there. Let's try not to drop the yetis on them."

She nodded hesitantly, probably unsure if I was kidding or not.

I put on the armor. Clove had rightly assumed I wouldn't want the peytral, saddle, or flanchards. My coat was woven with spells and had strategic bits of armor built into it that made it at least as effective as light aeronaut armor, with the added benefit of lots of pockets.

"Make sure the crew are on safety lines for the first pass. There will be sharp maneuvering when we engage."

"Already spread the word, Captain. Everything else is set and ready."

"Good." I took another look through my glass at the smoke-belching monstrosity. "Close now. Let's get back to the quarterdeck. Oh, and have Mr. Landslide re-secure the main yard with slip knots, will you? I may need it in a hurry."

"Aye, Captain." She took the bizarre order as calmly as if I had asked for a cup of coffee, but she had been on my crew for a long time.

Ralf met me on the quarterdeck with the motivator crystals in a padded carrying bag. "Both spares are in there, too. Please be careful with them, Captain."

"Good work Mr. Ralf. We've rigged a grating as a ramp down to the crew deck where Dr. Woundwort is set up. Station yourself there and be ready to run up and pull the engine lanyards if the command is given."

I thought about the amount of energy in the engine crystals for a moment and roughly estimated the damage they would do if detonated on deck. Then I slung the bag over the transom, attached to the big stern lantern. That would be close enough to draw from, but in a place where an explosion would do the least damage. We might lose the stern gallery and the windows, and maybe a chunk of the rudder and the preventer stays, but the thick planking of the transom should stop any shrapnel from spraying onto the quarterdeck. It would have to do.

Waiting is the hardest part. Everything was ready, and all we could do was watch the steady approach of the enemy. They were close enough for me to see the armored yetis working on the foredeck, setting up what looked like some sort of catapult, when Ensign Sherbet went over to the main flag halyard and pulled down sharply.

A pirate who flew the red flag sent a clear message that was understood the world over: Surrender or die.

I had no clue how or why the yetis were here in the heartland, less than a day's trot from Ponyville, but it didn't matter. The warship was a knife at Equestria's belly, and had to be dealt with. We couldn't let the ship or any of the crew escape because any death and destruction they wrought afterward would be because we failed to prevent it. Mercy could get ponies killed.

The air hissed as Rainbow Dash streaked out from the top, a bow wake of compressed mist forming in front of her almost instantly. The yetis spotted her and fired their strange catapult, but I could see it would be a clear miss. Dash was just too fast for them.

Then it happened, as it nearly always does; my plans fell apart only seconds into the battle.

The glittering catapult shot curved up and followed Dash. It wasn't just a simple hunk of metal, but something magical. It wasn't gaining on her, but she couldn't see it coming from behind, and when she made her turn for the return run…

A blaze of chromatic light blossomed in the sky above the yeti ship and the sound and concussion reached us an instant later. Nebula was bow-on to the blast and Fluttershy knew exactly how to ride out the shock, but the yeti ship had been hit from above and it dropped a dozen lengths, accompanied by ugly cracking noises.

The magical weapon wobbled but recovered and continued the pursuit. The apparent separation between it and Dash widened as she started her turn. It was enough to allow me to take a shot without risking hitting her. The glittering thing expanded into a spinning starburst of blades as it neared its target and my blast caught it just before impact. Dash swerved away from the spray of sharp fragments when my bolt destroyed the thing and lost the speed necessary for a second rainboom.

The yeti ship's engines roared, spewing dark smoke as she climbed back to attack altitude and her catapult crew fired again. This time it was a spread of three shots aimed at the ponies on Nebula's deck.

I got a snap-shield in front of one, but whatever magic was driving the thing practically negated the shield. It skittered off and around and kept coming. I followed up with a hurried blast of direct force, but the little gem in my sleeve popped and shattered as I pulled too much power from it too quickly and my half-formed starfire bolt had barely enough oomph to disable the thing before it hit the capstan and broke apart.

Star Dance hit another with a shot from the net thrower in the bow, and the wadded mess of wire and magical blades clattered and ripped along the bowsprit before falling away.

Tempest tried to shoot the third one out of the air, but she couldn't manage an accurately aimed shot. The weapon passed through her powerful but unfocussed blast and tore through the larboard main shrouds, parting two of them before it disintegrated. That told me that the things were capable of only one strike, which was a bit of good news.

The yetis had used the volley to distract us from their crew firing their big grapnel cannon, and the dull roar of the launch startled everypony. But Fluttershy hadn't been fooled, and used all of her skill to try to jink us out of the way in time.

Ponies on deck stumbled and swayed as Nebula swung hard to starboard. One fluke of the grapnel raked along her hull as it flew past, throwing a spray of oak splinters in its wake, but it missed getting hold of us, and the yetis released the heavy chain so that the hook wouldn't drag their bow down. It clattered out of the hawse pipe and vanished below us, as their beakhead closed over the launching tube.

"FIRE ON THEIR CATAPULT!" I bellowed in the royal voice.

We were turning to give the battleship a full broadside, but only two of our bolt-throwing catapults could immediately be brought to bear. They both got off good shots. Unfortunately, the yetis were more than willing to protect their magical armament with their own bodies, and formed a shieldwall in front of the weapon as soon as they saw our weapons aiming at it.

The heavy bolts slammed into their big metal shields and sent three of the brutes tumbling across the deck, but the launcher remained undamaged, and began rapidly firing back almost immediately. Tempest released another blast, but it spattered harmlessly off of the anti-magic shields.

Nebula was still turning as five more glittering shots streaked for her deck. I reached out with my magic to connect with the engine motivator crystals, and to Tartarus with the consequences, when the main deck fell into sudden shadow as a huge shape dropped from above.

The blade clusters hit bronze, steel, and wire-woven canvas with an awful noise, ripping, breaking and shattering as they expended themselves against Nebula's big starboard steering fin that Fluttershy had swung down to shield the crew.

Shafts of sunlight shone through the holes in the fin as it rose back up into flight position. One of the struts was bent at an unpleasant angle, but if anypony could keep Nebula flying true with a mangled fin, it was Fluttershy.

The damned catapult fired again and again, and we answered back with more shots of our own as we kept turning. There were cries of pain from both sides as the strikes found targets. I shot one more of the blade clusters out of the air, and was out of backup energy.

"Ao! This way! Bring it here!" Rarity shouted from behind me.

I turned to see Ao, still clutching the zebra fire globes, trying to outrun one of the blade clusters. She was remarkably acrobatic in flight, but slower than an average pegasus and the weapon had nearly caught up with her.

Ao came in low over the quarterdeck and Rarity's needles darted out, swirling in a starburst shape, right into the path of the glittering knives. The collision was almost musical, and the enemy weapon fragmented into individual blades which tumbled, uncontrolled, toward the ground below.

Rarity glanced at me. "Simple pattern. Easily countered." She sniffed disdainfully and added, "Inelegant."

"How long can you keep that up?"

She shrugged. "All day, darling, but my range isn't far. I can keep the quarterdeck clear, but from the way they're elevating that thing, it looks like they're going to be firing at our rigging and envelope next."

She was right. They'd evidently given up on the idea of boarding us and had decided to sink us instead. I had to disable that damned-to-Tartarus weapon.

I thought furiously. The yeti anti-magic shields would just bounce back any starfire bolts I threw at them, and I'd exhaust myself trying. After the little gem in my sleeve had popped, I'd given up any hope of using the engine motivator crystals, because as soon as I pulled a big pulse of energy from one, they'd just…

Oh, Ralf is going to hate me for this, I thought.

I levitated the whole bag of crystals off of the big stern lantern and threw it at the battleship's foredeck.

Credit to the yeti crew; they saw the bag coming and set their shields in a tight formation that protected the magic catapult from above as well as from the sides. It just didn't do them any good.

The thaumochromatic detonation made the battleship shudder and pitch wildly, and when the colorful vapors had cleared, the catapult and almost all of the foredeck crew were gone. So was the helm, and the ship began to swerve away from us.

Ao floated down beside me. "Now, Captain?" she asked, nodding to the glowing green spheres carefully cradled in her forelegs.

"Now, Ms. Ao"

A few of the yetis spotted her as she flew up and across, but she wiggled out of the way of the crossbow shots they managed to get off, and ugly green fire blossomed across their dorsal surface.

An ordinary airship would have foundered within a minute or so, but the armor slowed the progress of the zebra fire. It would eventually sink her as it burned through the joints between the plates but, as we'd learned at Canterlot, that would take a while, and the delay left time for the yetis to continue the fight.

More yetis came up on deck from below and tried to get control of their ship. One of them was shouting orders back through a doorway at the rear of the deck, and it seemed they were trying to steer by varying the speed of their props and manually swinging the rudders under his direction. Tempest tried a shot at him, but her blast went low and only hit the hull, so I had Half Hitch shoot him with a rope-cutter bolt. That delayed them, but they formed up a shield wall to protect the deck and soon were able to steer again.

They steered straight for us.

It made sense. If they knew their ship was going to sink, why not get to a ship that wasn't sinking? Or maybe they just wanted to get their iron beak/ram into our hull and drag us down with them. Either way it was something I had to put a stop to.

"Fluttershy, get an angle on them where I can get a clear view of their props and as near as you dare!"

Her teeth were clenched hard, her jaw muscles knotted, and she didn't reply. Her hooves flew, and Nebula's engine pods rotated, turning us quickly while I undid the knots holding the main yard to the secured spars on the main deck.

"Sticks and stones," I muttered to myself as I strained to lift the heavy wooden beam. "Sophisticated fighter, I am."

Sophisticated or not, it worked. I didn't get the thick timber directly onto target because my strength gave out before I could place it exactly. But when my magic field flickered and went out, the yard had pierced the middle rudder and it swung down into the lower rudder and props. The weight of it falling did a satisfying amount of damage before it worked loose and fell away.

Only one of the big propellers on the starboard side survived, and the thrust from it started swinging the airship on an uncontrolled curve. Unfortunately it was turning to put the bow straight into our beam.

I didn't yell to Fluttershy to get us away from the crippled craft because she was already doing that. I could see that the battleship's bow would clear us by a half dozen lengths, and I didn't want to interfere with Nebula's ability to maneuver, so I didn't give the order for the starboard engines to drop. That was a mistake I would sorely regret.

The yetis weren't giving up. A spray of crossbow bolts with some catapult shafts mixed in peppered Nebula's waist. I saw a couple of snap-shields pop up, deflecting some of the bolts, but there were also shouts of alarm and a couple cries of pain from the crew before they dove behind whatever cover they could find.

The volley from the yeti ship was to cover the group that ran out onto the ship's metal beak swinging grappling hooks. Four of the hooks thudded into our rail and bit deep. A fifth hook's line fouled our number four prop, and Fluttershy shut down the engine as the line wound tightly around the shaft. The yetis started pulling themselves in as their comrades kept them covered with shields.

Catapult and net-thrower shots took out some of the yetis, but there were always more to replace them, and they steadily got closer.

Rainbow Dash streaked by, her cutlass flashing. The grappling lines twanged and vibrated like guitar strings but didn't part. I suspected wire cores because Nebula's were made that way. A rope-cutter bolt fired from the fo'c'sle deck hit one and spun off, confirming my guess. I hate it when my enemies are competent.

"Boarding axes!" I yelled, "Chop those hooks free!"

Landslide and Hawser, who had on heavy breastplates and helmets, ran to the rail and began hacking away. I didn't have enough magic left to do much, but I could still cock and reload a crossbow quickly and I gave them as much cover as I could.

A huge yeti with a heavy iron maul leaped from the end of the beak, heading for our rail where Landslide and Hawser frantically chopped away, and I could see that he would make it.

Or he would have made it if he hadn't taken an unexpected shot to the face. His feet landed on the rail, but he dropped his maul and clawed at the steaming-hot, sticky mess that had suddenly covered his helmet. He lost his balance, toppled backward, and disappeared from view.

I looked to the fo'c'sle deck where Pinke was hefting two more freshly baked apple pies. Her demented smile was a comfort to me.

Part of the rail broke beneath one hook with a thunderous crack, and that end of the section pulled away from the bulwark, but stuck against the main shrouds. The yeti ship had been constantly dumping ballast to stay aloft, but she was losing the fight, and the weight of her slowly sinking hull loading onto the grappling lines sharply canted Nebula's deck.

Something would give very soon, and everyone knew it. The yetis gave up trying to haul themselves closer and they all came at us all in a rush, leaping for our deck.

The anti-boarding netting was tangled in the broken rail and couldn't be raised in time, so Ket and Sherbet tried to derail the charge by boiling out from behind our bulwarks, screeching and hissing from their many jagged-fanged mouths, flailing and lashing out with tentacles lined with venom-dripping spikes and stingers.

Tempest had gotten an angle on the yetis and added a good shot that spattered around the edges of their leading shields as their tight formation loosened up in confusion at what seemingly awaited them. Between that and the collisions caused by shock, a lot of the mob of yetis went overboard, but the leading bunch, in the merciless embrace of inertia, made the leap to our deck.

The first met the flashing whirlwind of Rarity's needles. The second got double-teamed by Zepherine and Star Dance. Star Dance distracted him with a showy flourish of her cutlasses, and Zeph executed a perfect capriole that added to his headlong rush and propelled him clear across the main deck and over the larboard rail. The third met me, and I was not kind to him. My magic might have been nearly drained, but I can hold my blades in hoof or wing well enough.

"Surrender! You've got one chance!" I yelled, hoping they all understood Equuish. Tempest repeated my command in their language, and Sherbet and Ket helped convince them by hissing and looming menacingly. The yetis didn't know that the changelings were far more fragile than they appeared and dodged away from them. To them, the little ponies in the middle must have looked like easier targets.

The deck was a confused tangle of fighting for a few more seconds. Tempest shot one of the yetis right in the face, still shouting, and Hawser finished him off with his boarding ax when he fell. I dropped a second, dodging forward under his downward smashing strike to get my short swords up under his ribs around the edge of his breastplate. Two more died under the blades of a veritable swarm of Nebulas, and the rest backed away from the fight and surrendered.

We had gotten the survivors face-down on the deck, huge clawed hands laced behind their heads while the crew roped them up, when Nebula's deck jerked under our hooves. The shattered rail ripped out a section of ratlines as Applejack kicked it loose.

Then came a second jolt accompanied by a painfully loud metallic screech, and I looked over what was left of the rail just in time to see half of our number four engine, still tangled in the boarding line, tear away from the pod and follow the burning yeti ship to the ground.

"Fates damnit," I swore as I watched the flaming mess fall all the way down. In a blessed bit of good luck, it landed in a field and across an irrigation ditch instead of on any of the little homes or barns scattered across the rich farmland below us. The engine crystal detonating was barely a bright spark amid the general conflagration.

The freight train had stopped at a cluster of grain silos southeast of the gorge. The train crew and all the farm ponies that had pulled their wagons up to the depot were still and silent, muzzles turned toward the burning wreckage.

I also noticed three parachutes drifting downward, carried by the wind in the direction of the silos.

Surrender or death. Escape was not an option when it meant innocent ponies would be put in danger.

"Fliers!" I yelled, pointing a dripping blade at the parachutes. "Drop those things!"

When Spike dove over the side, I instantly regretted the order. Dash should have done it. Ao would have enjoyed doing it. But Spike… My baby brother? I tried to summon the Royal Voice to call him back, but my magic sputtered and I choked on it. The parachute canopies blossomed with green fire and dropped like stones. Ao was at my side a moment later, but it was too late.

Spike landed back on the deck next to me and carefully folded his wings along his back. He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. There was no reason to say anything.

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Author's Note

There was a moment for doubt, but that wasn't it.

Size Comparison

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jordanis for fixing the tone of this battle. There was a delicate balance to be achieved, and he gave me a much-needed shove when I was about to topple over.