Rainbow Dash banked her tiny craft and turned it toward the huge Operations Zeppelin, the Imperator. The Zeppelin thrust out its landing pad and she swooped deftly onto the platform, which then retracted into the gondola of the airship. Orange Flourish, her earth-pony engineer, trotted over to the machine as she climbed from the cockpit and dropped lightly onto the steel platform, stretching her wings, and pulling off her flight goggles. Orange had never really liked his name, and only a few of his closest friends, dash included, knew his real name. To everyone else, he was simply known as “Greaser”, mostly due to the fact that he couldn’t manage to work on a machine without getting totally covered in oil stains.

“You’re on orders to report to the flight briefing room. Somethin’ serious is going on I reckon.” Orange had to shout to be heard over the noise of the aero engines, the clanking and grinding of gears, and the sound of mechanics at work.

Dash blinked in surprise. “Huh…what do you think is going on exactly?” She said.

Orange shrugged, and replied simply: “I have no idea. Maybe we’re moving out, I don’t know. All I know is all private craft have been grounded for the time being. Looks like you’ll be flying the F.E for now. I already got her re-fuelled, re-armed and ready to go… Anyway, you’d better get moving, you’re already…” Orange paused to flip open his pocket watch. He looked at it for a second or two, and then continued. “…Oooh…let’s see now…2 minutes late. Guess you aren’t as fast as you say you are huh?” He chuckled as he turned his attention to the autogyro.

Dash rolled her eyes at this, but she didn’t say anything. If it had come from anyone else, it would have been a serious insult. But you had to let the mechanics make jokes at your expense, because without them, you’d never get off the ground. She turned and cantered off into the ship. She’d have preferred to use her wings of course, but the corridors weren’t high enough to fly in. Maybe she could have tried it, but she didn’t fancy colliding with one of the many steel pipes that protruded from the ceiling. They looked pretty solid, and she reasoned that her skull would crack before the pipe did. She thought about what Orange had said; “Looks like you’ll be flying the F.E for now”. The F.E2b wasn’t a difficult machine to fly; but she much preferred her own autogyro. She’d bought the rusted old machine at a rock-bottom price, and, over the years, she’d modified and improved the machine until it felt like a part of her.

The flight briefing room was located amidships. High ceilinged and bare-walled, the briefing room was circular, save for one wall directly in front of the benches, which was flat. The benches were set out in a semi-circle, and each row was positioned slightly higher than the last, giving the impression of an auditorium or a lecture theatre. It was already fairly crowded when she arrived, and she hastily found a seat on the very top tier of benches. The majority of pilots were Pegasi, but she’d spotted the odd Gryphon or two mixed in amongst the crowd. The room buzzed with the conversations of excited and curious pilots, and Dash couldn’t help but wonder why they’d all been called here. She didn’t have to wait long to find out, as a small group of senior officers suddenly trotted in through the door, and arranged themselves in the centre of the briefing room. And, mixed in with the officious military types, and looking very out-of-place, she saw a very studious-looking elderly unicorn. She recognised him immediately: It was Professor Emerald Snow, who was widely recognised as being the best scientist in Metropolis; and perhaps even all of Equestria. She didn’t recognise the young, purple-maned unicorn standing behind him, and slightly to the right. She turned her attention back to the centre of the room, as a green Pegasus, whom they all knew as Captain Thunder; the commander of the Imperator, stepped up onto the podium in the exact centre of the room, and began to speak.

“Good evening. You are probably all wondering why I called this briefing, so I’ll make it as simple as possible. As you all probably know, sky-pirate activity has been fairly minor for the past year. But that’s changed. We’ve been getting reports of a huge pirate fleet that’s suddenly appeared in the northern reaches. They’ve set up shop right in the middle of the North-east-to-North-west trading lane, and they’re raiding any ship that comes through. And they haven’t stopped there. They’ve been raiding sky-ports, attacking some of the smaller ground-based settlements, and causing a whole host of other problems. We’re pretty sure that it’s one pony that’s organising the whole thing, pulling all the strings and such. Obviously, the Trading league is more than a little upset about this whole situation, so they’ve naturally been blaming the council, and they’re demanding that they do something about it. So, as of tomorrow, the entire fleet will be moving out and heading up to the Northern reaches. Our sister ship, “The Titan” is all ready out there, and she’s probably blasting pirates as I speak. We’re going to put a stop to the actions of these pirate scum. Now, on a brighter note, the esteemed Professor Emerald Snow will be joining us on this venture. I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to tell you why, but it’s important that you behave politely, and that you do your best to make sure that he and his assistant feel welcome. You may now return to your posts and begin preparing for tomorrow. That is all.”

(To enhance the reading expierience, I have added some music to this chapter. Open a new browser window, and enter this into the web adress bar: http://www.youtuberepeater.com/watch?v=gqJ0Fch3UCQ&name=Steampunk+Music+Jon+Magnificent+Hooks+Theme. The song will repeat untill you shut it off.)

One of the most powerful and dangerous classes of airship in Equestria, the Dauntless Class Missile Cruiser is only outsized by the brand new Carrier and a few individual vessels such as the Celestial, the official flagship of the entire Equestrian navy. The pinnacle of line-o-battle warship technology, the Dauntless lies on the verge of a naval revolution. While it keeps its main armament in its 8 Triton missile launchers, its effective firepower is multiplied several times over by the addition of newer, larger guns in higher mobility mounts – 6 8'' cannons, 3 per side, are housed in armoured wide-angle casemates, and 6 14” guns are contained in an armoured gun turrets, two housed within the ship, one port and on starboard, and one up the aft decks. Powerful and accurate, these larger guns are capable of dealing devastating damage at long range, often before enemy ships can close within broadside range. Twin magic-enhanced steam engines give the airship a respectable top speed and make it capable of gaining altitude more quickly than any other large ship of its type. This is what the lookout of the pirate vessel, “Blood moon” saw through his telescope in the grey light of dawn, and his reaction was perfectly understandable in such a situation; He fell out of the observer’s nest in surprise. Luckily for this unfortunate sky-pirate, he tumbled backwards down through the hatch that he had climbed through a few hours before, and not over the rail of the nest, which would have probably resulted in him becoming a red smear on the ground many miles below. Instead, he fell down the ladder and landed painfully on the deck of the ship. The rest of the ship’s crew greeted this spectacle with raucous laughter. The lookout struggled to his feet and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Navy ship approaching! Dauntless class!”

The laughter stopped abruptly, as he pointed towards the naval vessel that was coming towards them from the south. For a few seconds, the entire ship was silent. Then the ship burst into life as the crew began to panic. The captain stared in the direction the lookout was pointing, and swallowed nervously. He’d been assured that there weren’t any naval ships in the area. But now he was looking at one of the most dangerous vessels the Equestrian navy could field, and it was coming straight for his hopelessly outclassed ship. “Throw anything we don’t need overboard! We need to loose weight, and fast!” He shouted, as he turned the wheel in a full circle. The ship banked to the right as the ship span around, and attempted to flee from the oncoming vessel. Barrels, chairs, tables and crates were tossed over the side of the ship. The captain watched as the furniture tumbled through the air, down towards the ground below. He knew it wouldn’t make any difference. The naval vessel was much, much faster than his ship, and it was only a matter of time before it came into range. He didn’t have long to wait. He heard a dull thud as the immense cannons of the naval ship came into range, and the shrill whine of the shell as it hurtled towards him. It missed the pirate vessel by several meters, but he knew it wouldn’t take long until the gunners found their mark. He inhaled, closed his eyes and prepared to give the order to abandon ship, but a hoof that had suddenly been shoved into his mouth stopped him. He stared at the pony that had silenced him. It was their mysterious guest, the one in the long, black cloak.

“Shush… I have a better idea. This is a perfect time to demonstrate the power of my new device…” the mysterious unicorn hissed. The captain stared at him, and then nodded slightly. The hoof was removed from his mouth. “Now…stop the ship.” The cloaked unicorn said simply.

The captain stared at his guest. “Are you mad! We’ll be a sitting duck!” he shouted.

“I think not…” The unicorn replied. “I won’t ask again. Stop the ship. Now.”

The captain reluctantly obliged, pulling the lever that deployed the air-breaks. The ship slowly glided to a stop. The cloaked unicorn trotted over to the stern of the ship, and placed the device he had been carrying on his back onto the deck of the ship. The device seemed to glow slightly, as the unicorn positioned it to face the oncoming vessel. He pushed a series of buttons with his hoof, and then looked up expectantly. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the clouds above the huge naval ship seemed to glow, and a beam of light suddenly shot down out of the clouds. It smashed through the exact centre of the enemy ship, as a huge shockwave rocked the pirate vessel. Everyone onboard was thrown to the floor, and the captain stared as the naval vessel, blasted clean in two, plummeted towards the ground, engulfed in flames. He struggled to his feet and stared at the terrifying spectacle. Eventualy, he broke his gaze away from the obliterated ship, and turned to look at the unicorn that had fired the device. The unicorn stared back at him, a victorious smirk upon his face. And the captain’s face soon broke into a grin as well. Nothing could stop them now.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3 Estimated time remaining: 6 Minutes