Equestria 1939 - Weird World War

Equestria 1939 - Weird World War
Now You See It

“Even if Herr Hitler's proposals were more closely defined and contained suggestions to right these wrongs, it would still be necessary to ask by what practical means the German Government intends to convince the world that aggression will cease and that pledges will be kept. Past experience has shown that no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the present German Government.”

— Nevile Chamberlain speech to Parliament, October 12, 1939

“Mother would have approved.” Sherbert Lemon eyed what her brother had done to the barge, only to have Agent Mane spoil the moment.

“Your mother was mad.” The stallion, who was currently a light brown with an auburn mane, clunked across the teak flooring of the barge and examined one of the banners proclaiming ‘Poland Liberated’ in brilliant German letters. That glowed. Orange. “And won’t Prince Blueblood be a little upset at billing this… celebration in his name?”

“Blueblood still loves the rat bastards,” said Mixed State. “If there were any justice in this world, he would have been vacationing in Poland when this whole thing broke out. Then again, they were more than happy to provide for his every desire when he visited—”

“So he’s a fat-headed fool,” said Mane. “No surprise.” The spy looked around the barge, poking into corners and paying particular attention to the records next to the turntable. “Dance music? You’re going to distract the Germans with a music barge?”

“Party pony barge. The girls—human and ponies—will meet us at the docks,” said Mixed. “Most of the submarine crew will be back from shore leave, since they’re being kept on a short leash. We’ll be taking on other supplies there. Enough booze to float the sub, every party girl who will fit on the barge, and the whole mess billed to Blueblood. I really want to know why you want the barge and Tinkles specifically moored where you told me, but there is no way I’m going to ask.”

“I would not tell you anyway,” said Sherbert. She eyed the elaborate structure surrounding the trap door leading down into the steel tube of Tinkles, with colorful lights disguising its purpose and a big ‘Deutschland über alles’ banner to act as further concealment.

“It must be important if you’re facing up to your claustrophobia,” continued Mix. “Just you and your handsome coltfriend, all alone in Tinkles. Seems to be a lot of work just to get a hotel room.”

“She’s a screamer,” said Mane blandly before vanishing down the trap door. Mixed State watched him descend, then gave a short glance at his simmering half-sister.

“Sorry, Sis. I don’t own a shovel,” he said.

As much as she wanted to snipe at Mix, Sherbert followed the spy into the infernal submarine.

Killing them both would wait until after the mission was over. And she did not need a shovel. The ocean was large.

* * *

“Sound travels.”

Sherbert turned a page on the submarine manual she was trying to read and gave her fellow prisoner a flat glance across the bridge. Agent Mane had retrieved one of the mattresses from the berthing area and put it on the deck so he had a place to pace without the clunk-clunk-clunk of iron shoes on decking. As much as Sherbert wanted to join him, or even run up the conning tower stairs and fling herself into open air, she restrained her base primitive urges.

“I pace when I’m nervous,” he said back in a near hiss. “Besides, there’s enough noise up there—” he jerked his horn in an upward direction where a few dozen human females were dancing to the tune of some negro jazz musician on the phonograph “—that nopony is going to hear me tramping on a cushion down here.”

“You’re not helping me concentrate. Maybe we should try something different.” She pushed the manual to one side and looked Agent Mane in the eyes. “Seduce me.”

“What?” Mane abruptly stopped walking in place and just stared. “Here?”

“Of course.” Sherbert combed back a piece of her mane that kept trying to break free. It had escaped her last trip to the barber and constantly mocked her in the mirror. She would have cut it back to match the rest of her manestyle, but there had always been something more important that kept coming up whenever she looked for a pair of scissors. “You are a spy. You are most comfortable in a crowd, seducing mares of all types, even humans. In order for you to remain cognisant, I offer my assistance in the form of a distraction. I trust it will not be too unpleasant for me, and should prove informative in the event I wish to carry on a personal relationship in the future.”

Mane simply remained staring and did not say a word.

“I see.” Sherbert retrieved the submarine operating manual and returned to her studies.

“No, it’s not that,” said Mane in a hurry, although he had stopped pacing and began looking more normal. “Well, maybe a little that. It’s just… I’ve never heard romance being considered in such unromantic terms.”

“Now you will tell me there is ‘romance’ in your spying activities, I presume,” said Sherbert coldly.

“Well… True,” admitted Mane very slowly, as if the words were being pulled from some deep well that required a great deal of labor to dredge to the surface. “At work, I’m trying to take advantage of a young lady’s attentions in order to gain leverage over some other factor, like her access to secret papers. I’ve just never seen you as a mare I want to take advantage of.”

Sherbert diverted her attention from a fascinating section on ballast and trim in order to favor him with a brief glance.

“I should have phrased that better,” he said with his face frozen in a rictus that looked very much as if he were smiling at gunpoint, and just heard the click of a safety being removed.

“You should have a more believable face when lying,” said Sherbert, although she did not return to reading.

“You think I’m lying?” Mane cocked his head slightly to one side and settled down on the mattress like an uneasy pheasant ready to burst off his nest at the first sign of a fox. She tried to return to her manual, but gave it up as a lost cause after a few minutes of relative silence.

“This is the point where you make an unrequested admission of your weakness,” said Sherbert. “Something tragic and sufficiently similar to my own situation that I will empathize with you and become more suitable for manipulation.”

“You mean like my father beating me?” said Mane. “Or my mother running away from him when I was young, because he beat her too. Human-Equestrian relationships are always chancy. I think my mother only took up with him because the Great War threw the whole country into chaos. My real father was a pony and noted monarchist when the Weimar Republic was formed, so he got out of Germany one step ahead of prison. That left her alone with nopony to protect her. So she made a particularly bad decision to trust a human.”

The manual suddenly seemed far less interesting to Sherbert, and she began to feel the nagging sensation that this was the first honest thing the spy had told her. “Your mother was in a relationship with a human?”

“After I was born, of course.” Mane gave a subdued snort. “You were born on the same day a ship sank. I was born under Halley’s comet. Marcus Manilius called them signs of chaos and destruction. A little more meaningful than a leakey iron tub, I would think.”

“You would have me believe a spy is familiar with the works of ancient scientists?” Sherbert pushed the manual to one side. “Prove it.”

“Why?” Mane turned his head away. “I was read to sleep in Latin, Andromeda and Persius filled my dreams, ancient philosophers and poets occupied my days. My fellow students were struggling with addition and subtraction while I was sketching τετρακτύς in the margins of my textbooks.”

“A needed baseline education for a career of misleading young females of whatever species,” said Sherbert flatly. “Where did this mythical mother go after she fled?”

“Equestria.”

He made no more attempts to distract Sherbert, but she was curious enough about his fictional story to ask, “And you never tried to find her again? As a spy, I would think—”

“She can go straight to Tartarus,” growled Mane in what was a dramatic shift from his normal chirpy quips. “I never want to see her again. She left me with that beast in the middle of Germany being looted. Treaty my ass. It was a license to rob and murder. Trains packed to the top with books, machines hauled away. Men being marched off to ‘volunteer’ for assignments in other countries while their starving wives and children cried in the ditches. He tried to sell me for some potatoes. I ran.”

“Ran,” said Sherbert.

“Ran,” confirmed Mane. “Forged documents, and don’t look at me in that way. I had the copy spell perfected even at that age. I could even forge Deutschmarks, but that was no great task since they were printing them on toilet paper by then. It still paid my way out. Wound up in Haarlem. The Netherlands was far better than what I escaped. All the tulips a young pony willing to run errands for loose change could eat.”

“They’re toxic,” started Sherbert before catching herself.

“Really?” Mane shifted uncomfortably on the loose mattress. “Never would have guessed until the doctor told me. Took me in, once I got better and stopped crapping all over the floor. Ran errands for him. Got to the point where I could talk to humans again without hating them. Well, not too much. Hid it well. Studied. Considered medicine, but there were no Dutch schools who would touch a unicorn. Besides, my Mark didn’t really point me in the direction of social interaction.”

Sherbert’s eyes wandered to the stallion’s uncovered flanks and the rather odd scribble they showed. “Certainly, not the art world. I presume that is supposed to be a ghost.”

Mane pulled his tail closer to his body. “I was young, and had little artistic talent.”

“Your talent seems to be targeted on avoiding attention. If this succeeds—”

“Then this kind of skulking about will never acquire us fame either. That is perfectly fine with me.” Tinkles took that moment to shudder slightly with a loud thump as the barge moored to the German submarine, or at least that was the plan at this point in time. Sherbert’s stomach lurched with the impact, but Mane practically jumped, then curled up again in a tight ball.

“The plan says to give them a half-hour before our raid,” said Sherbert redundantly, since she was the one who had written out their schedule. After a quick check of her watch, a gift from her own father on her fourth birthday and promptly disassembled out of curiosity, she returned to the submarine manuals. The watch displayed at least a vague approximation of the current time, with monthly maintenance and adjustment, and she had to wonder just how much of the submarine had similar issues. At least it could not sink much since the bottom of the harbor was barely dredged out enough for the cruise liners, and the sub was bolted very solidly to the barge, which she had checked during the first visit. Twice. To think that humans could set out into the infinite sea in tiny steel coffins like this one…

She scooted more closely to Mane in order to provide him some moral support, since he seemed so stressed. There was a shock absorber poking out of Tinkles’ front end that pressed up against the German submarine’s hull next to the radio room, so the sounds of a busy bunch of humans echoed faintly through their relative silence by way of direct conduction. It gave Sherbert a sense of the outside world and felt less like being trapped in a pressure chamber until Mane whispered one terrible sentence.

“It won’t work, you know.”

“What won’t?” she responded, quietly so there would be no chance of being heard up above or inside the other submarine.

“Enigma, of course.” Mane peered out at her from where his nose was buried in his tail. “It’s a symmetric cypher so the same key is used for encryption as decryption. That’s its only weakness, but the temporary fixed keyset domain changes frequently enough that even if you have a machine with one known keyset, it becomes useless in a few hours. Even copying their code sequences only gets you those particular days for that particular machine.”

Sherbert said nothing. She merely looked at him and blinked several times.

“I did some reading,” he explained.

“ACACD and I will take the machine and whatever codebooks they have to decrypt all their recent communications and any in the near future,” said Sherbert carefully. “Using common phrase analysis, we will extend our ability to decrypt other messages in turn. Duplicating the machine and the codebooks is only the most difficult step, which must take place before any of the others. The design of the device is roughly derivable from existing known devices, but exact configurations and codes are needed to start the process of understanding the theory behind it.”

“Like spying,” said Mane, still unmoving. “The first ninety percent of a problem takes ninety percent of the effort. The last ten percent takes the remaining ninety percent of work, at best.” He shuddered. “What if I can’t do it?”

“If you are trapped in the other submarine, I suspect the Germans will kill you,” said Sherbert. “They will immediately suspect this vessel as your source, search it, and kill Mixed State and myself, ending my mother’s genetic line.”

Mane did not respond.

“On the other hoof, if we succeed, I will offer my body to you.”

The stallion twitched as if Sherbert had poked him in the ribs. Despite still being curled into a ball on the mattress, he brushed his tail to one side so he could look at her intently. “You’re serious?”

“Hormonal regulators interfere with my thought processes, so I have not used them recently.” Sherbert bit lightly on her bottom lip. “If it did not endanger our mission, I would have delayed this task a week or so. As it is, I am… Well…”

“Horney,” said Mane with a sniff. “Did you even consider that your monthly hormones might interfere with my concentration and scrap the mission?”

“You are a professional,” said Sherbert. “As am I. You are also an intelligent unicorn with good teeth and no apparent need to remain after fertilization. Such opportunities do not happen often. I would be a fool to pass it up, if I am to reproduce my genetic line. Still, I do not think it wise to engage in intercourse before you transport yourself to the target.”

“Or instead?” offered Mane hopefully. “No. Wait. This is nuts. You’re telling me that if I carry my end of this deal, teleport back and forth four times with a heavy load, you’ll have sex with me and hope for a foal?”

“Yes,” said Sherbert, relieved that Mane could see the appeal of logic in her plan.

“No,” said Mane. “I’m not going to sleep with you once to have a foal and run away.”

“There would not be any sleeping,” started Sherbert carefully, considering that his previous story might have had an element of truth buried inside. “And it may take more than once.”

For the longest time, Mane simply watched her, looking into her eyes instead of at any of the rest of her body. Then he shook his head in long, slow motions. “For a while, I thought you were crazy and I was sane. Now I’m thinking you’re the sane one, and I’m crazy.”

“Sanity is a myth.” Sherbert put the manual to one side. “I believe it is time for us to begin. The noises from above are sufficient, and I hear nothing from inside the submarine any more.”

* * *

Seen from up close, Mane’s special talent was far more impressive than he claimed. The bow of Tinkles faded from view as if it were turning to glass, showing the murky water of the Manehattan harbor, then a hoof-sized transparent window in the steel hull of the German submarine that revealed hints of the small room beyond, becoming slightly more clear as the Equestrian lighting flooded in.

“Nobody there. Here goes.” Mane took a Maltie out of his minimal sidesaddle and devoured it with one quick bite. Then there was a flicker of movement far quieter than normal teleportation, and the quiet stallion by her side was elsewhere. It was less dramatic than she expected, leaving little to indicate his presence in the small radio room other than a faint hornglow like foxfire chasing around the room. She turned Tinkles’ lights down similarly so there would not be any leakage in the event that a German opened the radio room door, but then again, that would be a disaster with or without lights.

Fear would be counterproductive, so she did not feel it. Anticipation, perhaps. The churning in her belly was nothing more than hormones causing ineffective responses to faulty stimuli. It had nothing to do with the way her watch had slowed to a crawl, or the way she could taste bile in the back of her throat.

She checked the box of raw materials for the hundredth time, as well as the paper and ink needed for the copy spell. None of it would be worth spit if Mane got captured. She had been exaggerating slightly for Mane’s behalf. Mix could swim, and if things ‘dropped in the pot’ as they said, he would be in the harbor like an otter. However, trapped in this infernal steel tube, she would undoubtedly die…

And Mane was back, carrying two bundles in his magic and dripping much like he had run all the way up Mount Canter in the rain. The tension across her chest eased a bit at his presence, although she had to admit to some worry at seeing his obvious fatigue and the way he was gasping for air in short breaths.

“It’s more difficult than I expected. Here.” The case holding the encryption machine nearly hit the deck when he released it, and Sherbert staggered under the load. Mane took another Maltie out of his sidesaddle, but it fell out of his magic and landed somewhere before rolling away Thankfully, he had more, and proceeded to eat several while watching her work..

“Perhaps the proximity of so much salt water and steel affects your magic,” she murmured while arranging the items on the floor, or deck as it was called on a naval vessel. The box of scrap metal and plastic she had brought was excessive, but she would rather have a kilo too much than a gram too little when using her particular spell.

She bent to her task as quickly and efficiently as possible. Other than the typewriter, she had never copied anything quite this large before, and the cloying air of the steel tube she was imprisoned inside dragged on her magic much the same way that Mane must have been hindered. It required intense focus to reproduce the wires and plugs, plating letters on the discs and fixing the important parts while ignoring the wooden box around the device. Sweat threatened to run down into her eyes by the time she was done and pushed the crude duplicate to one side.

The caseless copy was far from perfect, but it was functionally identical to the pragmatic German design with all the wires and plugs sufficiently matching the original in a way that ordinary photography would never have been able to duplicate. With the primary subject completed, Sherbert turned her attention to the manuals, only to find Agent Mane had a considerable stack of duplicated papers to his side.

“Faster we’re done, the faster we’re out of here,” he muttered from between clenched jaws that gave brief, quick crunches of malted milk balls, most probably for energy.

It was impeccable logic, except that no matter how quickly they accomplished the copy task, the return of Tinkles to the dock depended completely on Mixed State’s ongoing party on the barge above them. There was still a fragment of truth in his statement, and Sherbert was feeling a little dizzy when she stood up, so the assistance would be foolish to turn down. She bent to the task with her usual precision, letting the ink leap onto the duplicated pages with precise bursts of magic and finishing one of the last codebooks at the same time Mane put his back on the stack.

“That’s all of them,” he rasped. “All originals, number verified, return trip initiated, go.” The steel of the submarine’s front hull shimmered into transparency, then the German sub’s hull faded away too, and Mane was gone again with his original burden.

In hindsight, Mane looked terrible, much like he was pushing his magic too far. If she had thought things through, she could have copied codebooks until she ran completely out of magic, leaving Mane with more power to complete his end of the task. Despite the problems only a subset of the full codebook volumes would entail, decryption would still be possible although difficult, but having Mane run out of magic while trapped on the German submarine would be a disaster.

She was worried for him.

It caught her by surprise. Being concerned about herself was fairly rare. Justifiable concern over Mixed State was understandable. But Mane? He was a spy, used to taking risks for misplaced patriotism and an inadequate paycheck. He knew the hazards involved with his job. Undoubtedly, he had been in other situations which could have resulted in his death.

And having light from Tinkles pour into the German submarine’s radio room would not help, so she reached over and turned the lights back down as they had been before. It helped to see the faint glow of his magic flitting around the dark room, since he had left the hull transparent in a small section while he worked. It was probably a precaution for a quick getaway so he could see his destination for teleportation, therefore she stood by the light switch and waited for his signal.

Having the interior door of the German submarine open up without warning was not what she expected.

A practical blaze of light cascaded into the radio room and blinded Sherbert for a moment. The magical ‘window’ that Mane was keeping transparent was around ankle-level for the humans, but right at the end of her nose so all she could see was a set of black military shoes as what had to be the radio operator strode into the tiny room and stopped abruptly.