“You see, Minuette, there’s no way the princesses can deal with all that themselves!” Vinyl yells, crawling on the floor next to the engine of our airship. Her glasses rest on her horn and she’s overturning every single speck of dust, looking for another bomb. I can barely hear her voice due to the sound of the engine and the fact that we’re both wearing earplugs.

“With what exactly?” I ask, removing the ammunition drum from the autocannon and looking inside to check what’s there. No bomb, just ammo.

“Well, there’s the sun and the stars, huh?” Vinyl replies, levitating a hammer. “And each of them is like a small sun…”

“They seem small because they’re far away,” I say. “Some of them are bigger than our sun.”

“So, let’s say that there’s a planet next to any of them.” Vinyl swings a hammer around. “Is there a princess who moves the sun on it?”

“Our sun doesn’t move,” I explain, staring into the barrel of the cannon. Of course not from the side it shoots from – I’m not Trixie, after all. “Princess Celestia basically moves the Earth around it, while Luna makes the moon revolve around Earth.”

“So, are there other princesses?” Vinyl asks. I see what she’s going to do with the hammer and block it with my magic.”

“Inside of this casing, there’s a turbine that spins faster than all the planets in the universe combined,” I say. “Banging at it with a hammer wouldn’t be reasonable.”

“Okay,” Vinyl mutters. “But still, are there any other princesses somewhere out there?”

“Maybe,” I reply. “Possibly four per every planet, just like here. Someone has to take care of their citizen’s sex life while the first two are busy with the sun and the moon. And, of course, there has to be someone who smiles, waves, and does all the dirty jobs while the other three are busy.”

“And what if a planet has more than one moon?” Vinyl asks. “I once had nothing else to read in the toilet and I ended up with a copy of Scientific Equestrian. Some planets have more than one moon and there can be also two or more stars next to each other. Does it mean that the princesses have more work there?”

“Possibly,” I reply, looking under the cannon mount. “Or maybe there’s just more of them…”

“Wouldn’t that strain the magic field too much?” Vinyl asks and bangs her hammer against the fuel pipe. “I’ve heard somewhere that a sufficiently big spell would drain the universe’s magic reserves and it’d all go down like Trixie’s dinner after she drinks milk…”

“I guess it’s not easy to make such a big spell,” I say with a sigh. “Also, stop banging at this pipe. If the bomb was inside, it’d probably make less fuel go to the engine and you can hear that it works good.”

“Maybe,” Vinyl replies, and bangs at the pipe a bit higher. “But where does that magic come from? It had to start somewhere…”

“In the middle of the universe, there’s a really big hamster wheel,” I reply. “The bomb’s not here.”

“I think that in the middle of the universe there’s a planet with a big sea. In the middle of the sea there’s an island. On the island, there’s a forest and in the middle of it, there’s a high tower. At the top of the tower, there’s a guy who sees us and laughs at us and our idiocy, because he knows we’re not gonna find all bombs until there’s only a few minutes left. He kinda sounds like you.”

I laugh. “Vinyl, your problem is that you think he’s also a pony. The space is big enough for possibilities, you know. He may be a shapeless mass of tentacles, floating in the vacuum and playing flute to many similar idiots. And he doesn’t laugh at us, because he doesn’t care about us, puny ponies.”

“Maybe.” Vinyl nods. “And, a propos flute: one time at the band camp–“ She pauses when the hammer she’s banging against the pipe suddenly makes a different noise. She bangs at it once more, tilting her head. “Something’s inside…”

“Maybe it’s some sensor or something?” I ask. We can’t find a bomb anywhere, but I’d rather not turn the engine off and strip down the whole pipe.

Vinyl shrugs and bangs at the pipe again, as if she wanted to poke a hole in it. “We don’t have any plan of it, do we?” she asks.

“I can ask Hexie,” I reply. “She’s in the cockpit, I think.” I crawl through the passage to the passenger gondola and walk all the way through it, to get to Hexie. Really, we need to have a radio installed there. That is, right after we get a new left engine. Let’s hope Aryanne is rich, because she also needs a new crew.

“I have some news for you,” I say, entering the cockpit. Hexie is focused on steering, while Trixie and Photo Finish are also looking for a bomb. Judging by their expressions, it’s rather hard. Currently, they’re wondering if they should unscrew the main panel.

“Trixie wants the good one first,” Trixie says.

“There’s no good news, just bad and worse,” I reply. “The bad news is, we think we may have found the bomb.”

“Zat is bad news?” Photo Finish asks. “Vhat is ze worse news zen?”

“We’ll have to turn off the engine,” I reply. “The bomb is probably inside of the fuel pipe.” I turn to Hexie. “Is there a way of checking what’s inside without, like, screwing up everything?”

“Not really,” Hexie replies. “I don’t think they could’ve opened it to put a bomb there. Where exactly did you find it?”

“Near the place where the pipe comes from the wall,” I reply.

“It’s probably the sensor that measures the flow of the fuel,” Hexie replies, pointing at some gauge on the board. “But we may check it. Photo, will you stay here?” She pushes a few knobs and I hear the sound of the engine slowly dying down. We have a tailwind, so we won’t lose speed completely.

“Okay,” Photo Finish replies. “Zat machine ist safe wiff me...”

“How so?” I ask. I can get that Trixie learned to pilot the airship, or at least keep it in the air, but Photo?

“It’s like a big camera,” she says. “Except it doesn’t make photos. And it has no film or lenses. It’s like a camera, but not exactly like a camera, if you know what I, Photo Finish, mean.”

Okay... That’s probably the most unorthodox approach to piloting the aircrafts I have ever heard about. Though actually, the most common approach to aircrafts in Equestria is “why don’t we hire a pegasus for that?” All the ponies in this country are lazy.

Walking back through the whole airship, I can’t help but wonder what we’ll see in the engine gondola. I really hope Vinyl, hearing that the engine stopped, didn’t start to dismantle the whole pipe.

What we see, after crawling through the narrow passage between the gondolas, proves once again that to predict Vinyl’s behaviour one has to use the mathematical model of Brownian motion. Which makes sense, since her head is probably filled with some gas that somehow gained sentience.

When we enter the gondola, the first thing we smell is a strong, pungent odour of burning herbs. Vinyl is sitting on the floor and smoking a joint. Seeing us, she levitates it and exhales a large cloud of smoke towards us. I’m trying not to think of where she keeps rolling paper and weed; my imagination tells me scary things. I open the hatch covering the autocannon to prevent Hexie and I from getting baked.

“Peace, girls,” Vinyl says. “Wanna puff?”

“I don’t wanna puff,” I reply. “Vinyl, for Celestia’s tits, what are you doing?”

“I’m thinking,” Vinyl says, staring at the ceiling. “That pipe, for example. There’s, like, fuel inside, huh? Hard to reach.”

“Exactly,” Hexie says. It seems that Vinyl can understand her without the “fuel” I have to drink every twenty four hours. “They didn’t plant a bomb there. We have to look for it in some other place. Maybe in the gearbox?”

“Wait.” Vinyl waves her hoof and inhales a lot of smoke from her joint. “It’s like with some fillies. You know, some of them won’t let you approach ‘em from, you know, the front, but they just love, you know, riding the chocolate train...”

“Vinyl, one more ‘you know’ and I’ll kick you off this airship,” I say, approaching her and getting into the zone contaminated by smoke. “And get to the point instead of thinking of chocolate trains, please...”

“Don’t yell at me, okay?” Vinyl puffs the smoke and continues, “You know, it’s like with those pipes here. There’s one with the fuel and the other one that goes, like, outside. What’s in that pipe, anyway?”

“Air,” Hexie replies.

“Air, okay...” Vinyl tries to make her expression look intelligent, but she only looks more stoned. “Where do we store air? Fuel is, like, in tanks, but where’s the air?”

I smack my forehead with my hoof. “We don’t store the air. There’s plenty outside.”

Vinyl walks to the window, rests against the autocannon and gives the seascape a long and, in her opinion, very meaningful look. “I can’t see it,” she says finally. “Where’s the air?”

“Celestiadammit, Vinyl...” I mutter. “Air is invisible! Just like your brain! But, believe me, it exists! Quite unlike your brain!”

“Oh...” Vinyl nods. “Maybe. So, this pipe is, like, open, huh?”

Okay, I get it. Vinyl’s train of thoughts currently goes from Ponyville to Canterlot via Baltimare, Fillydelphia, Manehattan, and Hollow Shades, its average speed being ten miles per hour. But I think I can easily see what’s in Canterlot and get to that point while Vinyl is still floating over the tulip fields of Neighterlands.

“So, you’re trying to tell me that the bomb is in the pipe that transports air to the engine?” I ask.

“Yes!” Vinyl exclaims, pulling me into a clumsy hug.

“Chill out, Vinyl,” I say, freeing myself from her grasp. “Did you, in your infinite, cannabis-powered wisdom, figured out how to get there?”

“We’d have to land,” Vinyl replies.

“We can’t,” Hexie says. “There’s ocean below us...”

“There is?” Vinyl asks. She looks outside. “Hey, there’s ocean there! With waves, cute dolphins, and stuff!”

I shake my head while Hexie rolls her eyes. “Dolphins rape each other for fun,” I say. “There’s nothing cute about them.”

“They do?” Vinyl asks. “So that’s why I never liked Sapphire Shores...”

I have similar concerns about my ex-roommate Sea Swirl, but I guess Vinyl doesn’t know her. Also, Sea Swirl doesn’t want to talk with me anymore after, when we were both students, she woke up in a vomit-covered bed with Berry Punch, who was claiming that she confused her with me. According to Berry, we’re both pretty similar.

“So, what are we gonna do?” Hexie asks.

“We’ll need a rope and a volunteer,” Vinyl says. “Umm, girls... Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why can’t Trixie do that?” Vinyl asks, hanging upside-down from the rope attached to a harness she’s wearing. We’re trying to help her get to the pipe, but it’s kinda hard due to the wind.

“She’s scared of heights!” I shout.

“I’m scared of heights too!” Vinyl exclaims.

“But you’re thinner. And you’re high anyway...”

“But this wind kills my buzz! Why couldn’t you wake up Blossomforth? She’s a pegasus, for fu–” A gust of wind makes it hard for me to hear her.

“She’s wounded,” Hexie explains. “Also, she has a fever now and Coco had to take care of her.”

“How about that griffon we keep hostage?”

“He had a serious case of a harpoon to the wing,” I reply. “And before you ask, Photo, Inkie, Coco, Hexie, Aryanne, and Octavia are all earth ponies. What if the bomb is deeper and you’d have to levitate it out?”

“That’s racist!”

“You’re right. They’d probably get offended if they heard that I think a unicorn is more suitable for that task than them,” I say, swinging the rope a bit, so she can catch the pipe. “Right, Hexie? Are you offended?”

“Somehow I don’t feel discriminated...” Hexie mutters, watching as Vinyl stares into the pipe.

“How does it look like?” I ask.

“Like a pipe!” Vinyl shouts back. “It has walls, air inside, and all the pipe-thingies!”

“And are there any bomb-thingies inside?” Seriously, I’m getting impatient. If I were Vinyl, I’d try to find any bomb as soon as possible, so I wouldn’t have to hang there like a pinata. But well, I had my share of hanging on the ropes recently and frankly, I’m tired of them.

Meanwhile, Vinyl sticks her head inside the pipe. “There’s some package here, taped to the wall,” she says, her voice resonating in whole gondola. “I’ll levitate it out...”

The sound of torn tape echoes through the pipe. With some effort, Vinyl gets her head out of the pipe and levitates something in her magic field. It is indeed our bomb – very similar to the previous ones. Vinyl lets go off the pipe and hangs upside-down on the rope.

“Okay, now pull me inside!” she exclaims and drops the bomb. Her sunglasses almost fall, but she catches them with her magic. Priorities. Hexie and I pull the rope and drag Vinyl inside. She drops on the floor, panting heavily and looking for something in her mane.

“Got it,” she muttered, producing a small box. Inside, there are some dried leaves and rolling paper. “See? I have to do that again...”

“Can you smoke that somewhere where there’s no fuel?” Hexie asks. “In the toilet, for example?”

“Yeah, sure,” Vinyl replies, and walks out of the gondola. We follow her – after all, we still have one more bomb to disarm.

On our way, we visit Coco and Inkie who take care of Blossomforth. Our flexible friend is sleeping, while our wannabe nurses are sitting on the bed in a pose saying “we totally weren’t making out before you came here”.

“We have only one bomb left,” I say. “The cockpit one. Who’s there now?”

“Photo and Aryanne,” Coco replies. “Octavia and Trixie are guarding Fritz, and Grace is protecting the beer barrels from Octavia.”

So, we have a racially pure crew now? Great. They’re gonna fly to Canterlot and make us an Adlertag. I decide to check on Octavia, Trixie and Grace on our way. It’s not like this bomb is gonna explode soon. We still have two days or so. I walk to the bomb bay and stick my head inside.

“DA GREAT AND POWAFUL TRIXIE CAN SPEAK COCKNEIGH NOW!”

“Told ya not to give ‘er beer,” says a voice that may belong to Grace, if Grace spoke in a fake cockneigh accent.

“Sod off, cunt.” This voice probably belongs to Octavia. Drunk Octavia who lost her refined accent somewhere, but still Octavia. “Didn’t know she was a bloody lightweight.”

“But ya knew she was bonkers,” Grace replies. “Well, ya are bonkers, ya fuck another bonkers... Dat place is insane...”

“Trixie would like to fuck somepony...”

I spot Fritz between the barrels. He senses that he’s being watched and looks back at me as if he was saying “get me outta here!” No chance, mate. You wanted to blow us up, shoot me, and kill Blossomforth. I’m pretty sure you can handle The Drunk and Horny Trixie.

I walk to the cockpit to see how Photo and Aryanne are doing. Photo is still holding the rudder, while Aryanne, who can’t pilot anything that doesn’t come with a long, hard stick in the middle, is looking for a bomb under the cockpit. Apparently they get on together really well.

“Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!” Photo says and laughs in a way many ponies from Germaney do – instead of laughing, she just says, “ha, ha, ha.”

Aryanne also laughs. At least she can do that, though her laughter sounds like a cackling of a mad scientist who just figured out how to make mind-controlling candies.

“Ich kann diese Bombe nicht finden,” Aryanne says to Photo. “Und in zwei Tage werden wir gefickt...” She sighs with frustration.

Cedric Lulamoon was right. I watch too many movies and I automatically assumed that two ponies from Germaney would talk to each other in perfect Equine for my convenience. Not to mention that I’m actually a minority in this cockpit, since Hexie also speaks perfect Pferdisch.

“Did you try unscrewing the panels?” I ask. I vaguely remember that they discussed that with Trixie, but I don’t know if they got around to that.

“Trixie went to get a screwdriver and disappeared,” Photo replies.

Hexie produces a screwdriver from... somewhere. I guess it’s the same place where Vinyl keeps her weed. It’s a pretty nice screwdriver – after all, she’s truly a professional. I also have those. The handle of my cross-recess driver gave me one of the best orgasms in my life...

While I wonder about the alternative uses of tools, Hexie unscrews the panel. I only have a jeweller’s screwdriver with me, not suitable for working with airships and too small for my other needs. If there’s something small inside, then it’ll be useful, otherwise I’ll have to get my saddlebags.

“Done,” Hexie says. I levitate the right panel away and look inside. There are mostly wires there, leading to various gauges and lights on the cockpit. There’s also a lot of dust here, and a dead rat. Must’ve died recently, or else it’d stink so badly that nopony would be able to enter the gondola. I levitate it away. Aryanne looks at it in horror.

“Ist das ein Männchen?” she asks. “Seine Klöten sind großer als sein Kopf...”

“What?” I ask. “You know, I learned Pferdisch from old war movies, so I know only stuff like ‘nicht schliessen!’, ‘Feuer frei!’, or ‘Heil–’” I’m interrupted by Aryanne’s hoof suddenly appearing next to my head. I notice that she’s standing in attention, her right hoof straightened.

“I’m sorry,” she says, blushing. “It’s a reflex.”

“What did they do to you when you were a filly?” I ask. To think about it, she could go to Trixie and, over a barrel of beer, talk with her about their parental issues. Fritz would probably cut himself with liquid soap or something equally unsuitable.

“Umm...” Hexie mutters, looking into the depths of the wires and other stuff under the panel. “I don’t want to interrupt you, but you have to see that...”

I take a look. Well, bugger me blind. Several wires don’t belong to the stuff that should be here, judging by their pink colour. They lead to a shapeless mold of something orange-ish attached to the casing of the machinery. Seems that della Mortes ran out of the dynamite and decided to spend some more bits and blast us with Semtex. I can’t see the battery, but I have an unpleasant feeling that everything is wired to the airship’s auxiliary power unit in such a way that cutting the wires will fry us.

“I need Trixie,” I say. I have no idea if she has any experience with that stuff.

On a second thought, she managed to travel around Equestria in a wagon full of gunpowder and C4 without changing herself into a red splatter on the road. She probably knows how to handle explosives.

I walk to the bomb bay and, trying not to look at what exactly goes on here, I say, “We found a bomb, but we can’t just throw it out of the ship. We need to disarm it.”

“Now?” At least Trixie doesn’t speak cockneigh anymore, but her voice still reeks of beer. “Trixie was just going to sit on this griffon’s face!”

It probably says a lot about me that my first thought was that I finally found what’s Trixie’s kink. To think about it, her arse is good for that, though I wouldn’t try to do that on someone who has a beak.

Maybe I’ll go back to the topic later because now, if we don’t hurry, soon my bum will be closer to my face than I’d like to. “Leave him,” I say. “You need to help me.”

Trixie staggers towards me. I notice Fritz giving me a relieved look. Same with Octavia and Grace. I don’t get them. Is seeing the great and powerful ass in action something bad? I have my opinion about it, but it’s between me, Trixie, and the rope we were climbing on.

Soon, we’re back in the cockpit. Trixie looks at the bomb and nods her head. “Trixie needs a drink,” she says.

“Another one?” I ask. “Will it help?”

“No, but Trixie will feel better when dying drunk.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, fighting the urge to facehoof or run away. “There’s surely a way to get rid of that...”

“Of course, it won’t kill us...” Trixie hiccups and thinks for a moment. “But it’ll, scientifically speaking, fuck the whole cockpit up. No radio, no instruments...”

“Okay, I get it,” I mutter. “What can we do about that?”

Trixie points in the general direction of the pink wires. “Trixie can’t see a battery... Where are those going?”

“To the APU,” Hexie replies.

Trixie tries to focus her gaze on her. Or maybe she’s just not drunk enough to understand her. “WTF is APU?” she asks.

“Auxiliary Power Unit,” Hexie explains. “It’s a small engine that provides electricity to all the devices on the airship.”

“Can we turn that thingy off?” Trixie scratches her mane. “Also, Trixie needs to take a leak. Too much beer...”

“Vinyl is smoking weed in the toilet,” I say.

“And we can’t turn it off,” Hexie says. “We wouldn’t have access to the instruments, steering would get difficult, and the heating would turn off too, so we’d either freeze or crash.”

“Can’t we simply cut those wires?” I ask.

“Cutting one would blow us up,” Trixie says, resting herself against me and almost killing me with her breath. “We’d have to cut all of them at once... And some of them are hidden behind the plastic, so we can’t reach them...”

“Great... What are we gonna do then?” I ask.

“Drink more beer?” Trixie staggers. “They thought about...” She hiccups. “Everything. We can’t disarm it or throw it away...”

“There has to be a way...” I look at the panel. “How can we turn it off without having to turn off the APU?”

“Leitungsschutzschalter...” Aryanne replies.

“Gesundheit,” I say. “Did it mean that you wanted to kill me or fuck me?”

“Nein, that’d be wollt ihr das Bett ins Flamen sehen?” Aryanne replies. “I meant... Leitungsschutzschalter is... well, Leitungsschutzschalter.”

“Circuit breaker,” Hexie explains. She walks to the panel on the right wall of the cockpit and opens it. Inside, there’s a set of circuit breakers. For some reason, they’re labelled in an alphabet I can’t read. The “Made In Sankt Ponysburg” sticker explains why. Really? An airship built in the Griffon Empire, crew from Germaney, labels on the cockpit in Pferdisch, port of registry – Mareseille, Prance, circuit breakers made in Hooviet Union? What’s next? Toilets made in Saddle Arabia?

While I wonder about the multinationality of our airship, Hexie turns off the circuit breaker labelled “Кокпит - право”. The lights on the right part of the cockpit go off. I look inside to see that the same happened with the lights on the bomb. Trixie tries to use her magic to unplug the wires from the piece of Semtex, but it goes kinda sloppy, so I help her and levitate the bomb out. Unlike the previous bombs, I decide to keep it – we’re not that far from the shore, so who knows where it’d land and who’d get it. Not to mention that it may come in handy if, for example, I’d need to go shopping just before the Hearth’s Warming Eve and wanted to get rid of the crowd.

“I think that’s all,” I say. “Now, if that’s okay with you, I’ll go to my bed and have a heart attack...”

Trixie walks out with me and goes to the bomb bay. She probably has some drinking and face-sitting to do. Only when the bombs are gone, I feel how exhausted I am – adrenaline was keeping me awake for, like, forty-eight hours or so, and I’m a bit loopy. On my way to the bedroom I meet Vinyl – of course, she’s higher than a giraffe’s cunt, so she’s basically lying on the pink couch in the living room and laughing to herself.

“Hey, Minuette!” she exclaims. “I can read the toilet user’s manual!”

“Congratulations,” I mutter. “At the age of twenty-six, you finally learned to read...”

“No, look...” She gestures me towards herself. “It’s in Saddle Arabian, I think. At least those letters look like worms...”

I walk to her to see that the user’s manual is indeed in Saddle Arabian. Why didn’t they translate it? Why did they put it there?

And, above all, do we really need a user’s manual to take a dump?

Thinking about such things, I walk to my bedroom. Unfortunately, there’s Blossomforth in my bed. She’s sleeping and doesn’t seem to care about me. I pat her shoulder.

Exactly 2.8 seconds later, I’m lying on the floor, while Blossomforth is trying to strangle me. Luckily for me, she’s not in her top form – she releases me and drops on the floor, rubbing her ribs.

“Don’t sneak on me like that...” she mutters. “I could’ve killed you with, like, a thousand of things in that room, including the room itself...”

“Don’t sleep in my bed then,” I reply, sitting down and rubbing my neck. “I just wanted to hit the hay...”

“Okay then,” Blossomforth says and lies back in my bed.

I stand next to her and clear my throat. “I think there was a misunderstanding,” I say. “Or maybe Fritz hit you harder than I thought. My. Bed. You. Get. Out.”

“It’s big enough,” Blossomforth mutters, turning to the wall and leaving me some place.

“I clopped in it.”

“Me too. And it’s not the grossest thing I’ve ever heard off. Do you know why Cloudchaser was almost kicked out from the Wonderbolts Academy?”

“No,” I reply, lying in bed next to her. Fuck it, I’m tired. “Why?”

“They aren’t allowed to drink, you know. One day they had a little party in Thunderlane’s room with Rainbow Dash, Lightning Dust and some other guys, when they heard that Spitfire was patrolling the corridors. They tried to sneak out back to their rooms, but Spitfire almost caught them and they had to hide in the clouds storage.”

“So far nothing gross,” I mutter, yawning.

“Wait a moment. While they were hiding there... You know, they had a couple of beers each. And, well, it all goes back to nature. Having to choose between getting caught by Spitfire and letting their bladders explode, they took a third option. They found a cloud and, umm...”

“Okay, I can imagine...” I say. I can so imagine... In fact, I’m trying not to, since clopping in bed when I’m alone is one thing, but doing that with Blossomforth would be exhibitionism and doing that with Blossomforth would make everypony think I’m a lesbian.

“Later they covered it with a bigger cloud so it wasn’t so yellow,” Blossomforth continues. “Nopony would notice, but guess which cloud Spitfire chose the next day to show the new recruits how to clear the sky...”

“Eww!”

“Exactly. She wasn’t amused. According to Cloudchaser, she said, quoting, ‘I’m gonna fuck you all out of the Academy.’ Didn’t know she liked her students that way...”

“Yeah,” I mutter, closing my eyes. I don’t know what you expect from us, but I’m tired, so I’m going to sleep. Minuette and Blossomforth, lying on a bed, S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G...

I wake up about fifteen hours later, with Blossomforth’s wing in my mouth and an unpleasant feeling that at least one of my hooves is numb. If it wasn’t for Blossomforth sleeping next to me, I’d snatch the opportunity to, umm... play with it. Though, Blossomforth is still sleeping, so...

Big Macintosh walking to me, while I’m resting under the tree after the whole day of applebucking. He smiles at me, revealing the reason why they call him “big.” I’m gonna need a wider mouth, seriously. I want to get up, but he gestures me to stay there. He puts his large, muscular hoof between my legs and, while I’m biting my lip in excitation, he starts to gently caress my–

“What are you doing there, naughty girl?” Blossomforth whispers groggily. With the image of Big Macintosh still in my mind, I turn to her and finish staring into her eyes. Ah! That’s much better! I get out of bed, wipe my hoof with the sheet and walk out of the room.

“Bitch,” Blossomforth mutters.

I walk to the cockpit, where I meet Hexie, teaching Inkie how to steer the airship. She turns to me, saying, “We got a message from Flitter and Cloudchaser. They’ll catch up with us soon.”

“Great,” I say. I’d drink some coffee. And maybe eat something. I’m always hungry after a good sex. “I missed those rascals.”

“Soon we’ll reach the shores of Equestria,” Inkie says. “And I hit a seagull...” She points at the reddish spot on the windshield.

“All according to the plan,” I say. “How about the rest?”

“Trixie has a hangover, Photo sleeps, Coco is taking care of Fritz, Aryanne is reading some book about camping, Octavia and Grace are guarding Coco and Fritz, and Vinyl is sitting in the toilet, giving gifts to the gods of sea.” Hexie chuckles.

I nod and sit next to Inkie. “I can help you with that if you want,” I say, staring at the gauges and lamps. They are blinking out of sequence. Can I make them blink in sequence? Probably yes, but then something wrong would happen. Those things are always connected.

Inkie points at some small screen next to the rudder. “According to this, we’ll be in Equestria tomorrow.”

“What’s this?” I ask.

“It’s a land where all the ponies are free and which we love more than anything else in the world, but that’s not important at the moment.”

“Okay,” I mutter and go to the radio. I turn the knob, trying to catch Flitter and Cloudchaser.

“Nitwit One here!” A voice from the radio says through the static. “Is that you, Kumquat Three?”

“It’s our callsign,” Inkie explains. “It’s Flitter.”

“Flitter, who the hell invented those callsigns?” I ask. “Pinkie Pie? Come here and talk with us without using your stupid spy slang.”

“Slow down a bit, cowpony, will ya?” Flitter yells. “It’s kinda hard to catch up with you after three days of flying one hundred sixty miles per hour on average!”

“Roger, Nitwit One,” I reply and pull the throttle lever. The sound of the engine lowers a bit and we’re slowing down. Inkie turns the valves regulating the gas pressure in the ballonets, so we lose some altitude. The weather is sunny, with a bit of fog just above the sea. When I get a spyglass, I can see the outline of land before us.

Twenty minutes later, Flitter and Cloudchaser board on our airship. Hexie and Aryanne walk to the cockpit with them.

“Hello, Nitwit One,” I say, snickering. “I guess Cloudchaser is Nitwit Two?”

“Fuck off,” Flitter mutters. “It’s not my fault the command is a bunch of nutjobs.”

“I know, I had a contact with our brave army before,” I reply.

“How much ballast should I drop to compensate for your weight?” Inkie asks. She stares at Flitter and Cloudchaser. “Two hundred fifty kilos?”

Cloudchaser looks at Flitter and gives Inkie a nasty look. “Two hundred. And most of it is Flitter...”

“Don’t make me smack you, sis,” Flitter mutters. “Anyway, on our way here, we got a message. The griffons we captured started to talk. We know where the bombs are.”

“Right in time,” I say. “We got rid of all of them.”

“Are you sure?” Cloudchaser asks. “Let’s check. Under one of the beds?”

“Found it,” I reply.

“Balloon, taped to the envelope?”

“Cost me a few bruises, but I got it,” I say.

“Right side of the cockpit, under the panel?” Cloudchaser looks at the panel, crudely screwed together. “Okay, I see... Air pipe of the right engine?”

“Sure.”

“Fuel pipe of the left engine?”

Suddenly, the whole cockpit goes silent.

“Where in the fuel pipe?” I ask. “Because, you know, we lost, like, half of it together with the gondola...”

“Somewhere closer to the passenger gondola, I think,” Flitter replies. “I mean, that guy wasn’t very precise about the...” She makes a dramatic pause.

“Do you know what’d be the best sign that the universe hates me?” I ask.

Maybe Flitter wanted to answer that, after all rhetorical, question, but at the same moment, an explosion in the back throws us at the panels of the cockpit. For a moment, I can see blinking lights very close to my face, but then I land on the floor, with Aryanne on the top of me.

I regain consciousness seconds after, woken up by some alarms. I stand up and take a look at the gauges. The pressure in the balloon dropped a bit, same with our altitude. The temperature of the right engine rises, getting dangerously close to the red field. I pull the throttle lever and turn it off.

Aryanne, Hexie, Inkie, Flitter, and Cloudchaser get up. It seems that we weren’t very damaged. Even the windshield is still in one piece. Inkie checks the rudder – it resists a bit more, but the airship responds to her attempts to turn it.

“Check the damage,” I say to Flitter and Cloudchaser. “Hexie and I will join you soon...”

While they’re flying to the back of the airship, I run through the gondolas with Hexie, getting fire extinguishers with us. Trixie joins us along the way. It seems that the rest of our passengers is alive: Coco is bandaging Octavia’s head and Photo Finish is still snoring on the couch – apparently it takes more than an explosion to wake her up.

While we’re pushing ourselves through the narrow corridor along the bedrooms, the door to one of the toilets opens and Vinyl walks to us, blushing.

“Hello,” she says. “I had some serious constipation and I pushed a bit too–”

“Get out!” Trixie yells, pushing her back into the stall. We trot to the window at the end of the gondola, ready to put out any fires caused by the explosion.

Well, except that there’s no fire.

“How does it look?” I ask, seeing Flitter and Cloudchaser flying around the remains of the pipe.

“Good thing it was only a piece of pipe,” Cloudchaser says. “Most of the energy went through it, like gunpowder in a gun...”

I lean outside to look at the damages. Indeed, the damage is smaller than I thought, but still, the pipe was torn apart and the debris made lots of holes in the balloon and the right engine gondola. Also, we’re leaking fuel – apparently the valve we closed after losing the left engine got destroyed.

“Stop it up,” I say, pointing at the leaking fuel. “I’ll check the engine... Trixie, go to Blossomforth and tell her to help them. She seemed all right when I woke up...”

I trot to the right engine gondola. Its wall has several holes and everything is covered in some white smoke. I retreat immediately, coughing – apparently the cooling system got hit and everything is full of ethylene glycol. The smoke, however, dissipates quickly, leaving only puddles of coolant of the floor.

“Do we have any sand here?” I ask Hexie. We need to clean the spill first if we want to make the engine running again. I’d rather not get poisoned. You know, Berry Punch drinks that stuff and lives, but she’s Berry Punch.

“In the ballast sacks,” Hexie replies. She goes back to the window to tell Cloudchaser to bring a sack.

“I can’t!” Cloudchaser yells to us. “Maybe you haven’t seen that, but we’re losing gas!”

Indeed, the part of the balloon above the engine gondolas looks like a sieve. We will need a very big thread and needle.

“How long can we stay in the air?” I ask Hexie.

“With those holes?” She looks at the balloon. “Two hours at best.”

“Shit. What are we gonna do?”

“We can call help,” Flitter says, flying to us. “I mean, we can sew some holes, but we’re close enough to Equestria to get help from our floating pegasi bases.”

“Those floating pegasi bases Celestia said don’t exist?” I ask.

“Whoops... I always forget it’s classified.” Flitter smiles sheepishly. “You won’t tell about that to anyone, will you? Or I’ll have to kill you.”

“Sure, no problem,” I say. “Just make this help discreet – I don’t want della Morte knowing that army and intelligence are on his ass.”

“Okay,” Flitter says.

An hour later, three squadrons of pegasi, two small blimps, and a helicopter (one of Cherry Berry’s early models) are surrounding us. One of the squadrons patches our balloon, while the second puts the ropes in the front of the airship to pull us to Equestria. The third is above us, protecting us from an attack of the dragon or something. In the blimps, there are bat ponies who use echolocation to provide the picture of the whole situation.

We cleared the engine gondola only to find out that the debris damaged the transmission and the prop won’t work anyway. I’m currently sitting in the cockpit with Inkie, listening to the radio.

“When are we gonna be in Equestria, guys?” I ask. “We’re getting kinda bored here and despite those patches, we’re still low on hydrogen...”

“Let the Army do its job, civilian,” says some asshole who was, for some unknown reason, given the radio.

“Civilian?” I ask. “That’s sergeant M. R. Turner speaking, cuntnugget! I survived a week stranded in the Frozen North!” Of course, my promotion to sergeant was never officially confirmed and, unlike my brother, I don’t usually use my surname, but fuck it.

“Sergeant, huh? My name’s wing commander Star Hunter. For you morons from infantry, that’d be lieutenant colonel. When I tell your commanders what you called me, you will wish you were still in the Frozen North.”

“Blow me,” I say. “I retired. Hey, can any of you tell me when we’ll be in Equestria?”

“Five hours.” Another voice, this one belonging to a mare. “We’ll try to take you to Canterlot. That’s where you wanted to land, right?”

“Excuse me,” Star Hunter mutters. “She just offended an officer and I won’t–”

“This is your group captain speaking.” The other voice is so sweet that I’m gonna puke. “You’re ordered to shut the fuck up. Understood?”

“Understood, ma’am!”

By the way, I have to make some better nom de guerre for myself. Colonel Rusty Gate would be good. Col. Gate.

I grab the rudder while the pegasi are pulling us to Equestria. We threw all the ballast away so we can keep this piece of junk in the air despite the lack of gas. Inkie is staring at the surface of the sea, searching for the shore. I can understand her. I miss this land of nutjobs too.

I look at the gauges. Speed – 54 knots. Altitude – 660 feet. Whoever designed those controls had some deeply enrooted hatred towards the metric system. It’s actually strange, since most of the stuff seems to be produced in the Griffon Empire, Chineigh, and Hooviet Union. Griffons use metric system, if I recall correctly, same with Germaney. Is it a way to confuse the pilots?

While I wondering about that, speed rises to sixty knots while the altitude drops to six hundred and forty. I try to calm myself down – twenty feet isn’t much, maybe it’s because of some air current, or maybe one of the pegasi got tired...

When I look at the altimeter again, it shows six hundred and twenty. What the hay? Maybe it’s damaged? But no, I can clearly see the hand of the gauge moving further down.

“The sea is getting closer,” Inkie says. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“The altimeter also says so,” I reply and turn on the radio. “Good morning, guys. We have a teeny tiny problem with the altimeter. It currently says that we’re flying at five hundred eighty five feet and going down about a foot per second. So if you don’t want to have an airship-shaped boat here soon, I’d recommend to do something about that.”

“It seems that you’re losing gas again,” someone on the other side says. “Try deflating the ballonets and use the rudders to lift it a bit. We’ll call the Charlie squadron to pull you up.”

“Copy,” I say and turn the valves while Inkie pulls the rudder towards herself. The altitude rises to about five hundred and sixty, then sixty five. Sixty seven... Seventy... Sixty nine...

I feel a little shake when another group of pegasi attach ropes to the airship to lift us a bit. The altimeter raises to six hundred feet and we can now clearly see the seashore. Maybe we’ll even reach it before this whole clusterfuck of pegasi and ropes with us in the middle falls apart to horseapples.

I wipe my forehead. The beach slowly moves under our airship. I can even see a few ponies staring at us as we pass above them. We’re somewhere between Baltimare and Fillydelphia and soon I can see the forest and two mountains in front of us.

“Hey, guys,” I say to the radio. “How are we gonna pass those mountains? Also, those trees are a bit too big for my liking...” Not that I’m complaining, but soon the treetops will start to brush against our airship.

“We’re doing what we can,” some strained voice replies. “Turn right. We’ll fly north of those mountains, above the rail tracks and try to land you on the meadows south of the Foal Mountains.”

“Okay,” I say and get the map from the drawer. Actually, it makes sense: we’ll land not far away from Canterlot, in the rather flat meadow. If we tried to fly south from the mountains, we’d end up in Dodge Junction, or above the Everfree Forest. Or, if we were unlucky, we’d land in the Ghastly Gorge.

Thirty minutes later, we pass the two mountains. Our altitude drops to five hundred feet. Strong wind is blowing from the Foal Mountains, pushing us further south, despite my best attempts. Inkie and I struggle with the rudder, but we can clearly see that we’re going towards the Rambling Rock Ridge rather than the Foal Mountains.

Of course, I can always turn that flying brick completely north and land it in the middle of Hollow Shades. Nosferatu des Grauen can blow me, especially since his daughter almost did. Or maybe she wanted to blow Inkie? I don’t remember, I was drunk.

“We can’t drag you upwards anymore,” some pegasus says on the radio. “Can you turn a bit more to the right?”

“I’m trying, but the wind pushes me to the Everfree,” I reply. “Can the guys who pull us get a bit faster?”

“Well, we can always join them and pull you to Ponyville,” the pegasus replies. “How do you like landing in the lake?”

“I don’t like it at all,” I reply. “But the altimeter says four hundred and fifty feet and I don’t like it even more.”

“We’ll try to pull you faster. Tell us if the airship starts to fall apart.”

“Okay,” I reply and switch the radio to the intercom. “Guys,” I say to my passengers. “It’s Minuette speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts. Vinyl, throw that joint away. If you have any IDs or last wills, roll them and stick them up your asses, so the rescue team will have it easier to identify you. Don’t panic. Always know where your towel is.”

“Minuette,” Inkie says. “Don’t motivate me. Ever.”

“I don’t think there’ll be an occasion.” I watch through the windshield as the pegasi grab the ropes in front of our airship. They flap their wings and soon our speed rises to one hundred twenty knots. Holy crap! Everything in the airship starts to vibrate. The altimeter goes down to two hundred feet, but the Everfree Forest changes into a continuous green blur below us.

Thud! We lost something? I hope not. Or at least I hope it wasn’t important. Another thud. I hear trotting and Vinyl walks to the cockpit, holding a tree branch.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“It got stuck in the bomb bay,” Vinyl replies. “Also, we lost bomb bay doors. Fritz almost shit himself.”

We hit another tree. No wonder, we’re flying at one hundred feet above the forest. Vinyl grabs some lever, but she collapses to the floor anyway.

We cut a few more treetops and finally we leave the forest. Under us, there’s a lake. I’d rather not land there, especially since we don’t have the bomb bay doors and we’re losing the beer barrels (which at least makes us lighter).

“Slow down!” I yell at the pegasi. With some luck, we’re gonna reach the shore of the lake, but we fly fifty feet above the surface of the water. I can almost see Ponyville from here. Just withstand some more, you dumb machine... The pegasi stop in the air, trying to slow us down, but I can’t help but remember that we’re over two hundred tons of wood, metal, fabric, and a mixture of hydrogen and air that can blow up if we catch fire upon landing.

“I’ll try to land in the shallow water,” I say to Inkie. “How’s our speed?”

“Fifty knots,” Inkie replies. Shit. Still too much.

Thirty feet... Pegasi slow us down to forty knots. It’s gonna be a rough landing. I grab the rudders, trying to make us fly more or less in parallel to the lake. I look through the windshield and I see several ponies sitting on the beach and staring at us, their eyes wide. Hello guys, soon you’re gonna see the first airship crash-landing in Equestria...

Twenty feet... Ten... Splash! Once the gear hits the water and reaches the bottom, we’re slowed down quite hard. I hit my head against the rudder and, still holding it, collapse on Inkie’s knees. Vinyl shouts something behind us. The whole airship shakes, skidding to a halt. The water hits the windscreen and everything shakes again when the front wheels reach the beach. Finally, a heavy toolbox smashes itself on the floor next to my head and everything goes silent.

“Minuette? You’re bleeding...” Inkie says.

“You don’t say...” I mutter, getting up on my hooves and almost collapsing again due to a head rush. “Let’s get outta here...”

We walk to the passenger gondola where we join the rest of our friends.

“Did I miss something?” Photo Finish asks, yawning.

“Nothing,” I reply, thinking that bombs weren’t the worst thing those guys could put there. What if they filled the bomb bay with snakes? I’d have to open some fuckin’ windows. We leave the airship and walk to the shore, surrounded by pegasi lying on their backs and panting heavily. Flitter, Cloudchaser, and Blossomforth grab Fritz and fly with him to the station. Or maybe a little black room with a lamp, or whatever our intelligence agencies have.

To my surprise, I spot Berry Punch among the ponies on the beach. She’s standing there, staring unsurely at a bottle she’s holding. Her daughter, Ruby Pinch is also staring at us in awe. If those two are here, where’s Berry’s cousin, Cherry Berry?

“Aquafresh!” someone yells into my ear. “You’re back! And you brought that big flying thingy with you!”

Stop hugging me, you brain-damaged moron! I stole your helicopter, remember?

“While we are at it,” Aryanne says. “Where can I repair it?”

“Totally lost cause,” I reply. “You’ll have to call someone from the Griffon Empire to come and repair it...”

“I can do that,” Cherry Berry exclaims, still holding me. “I repair everything that flies. It’ll be even better than before!”

“Watch out,” I whisper to Aryanne, freeing myself from Cherry’s grasp. “Don’t let her add anything that will ‘make that old cunt go faster’. For your own good.”

“Jawohl,” Aryanne replies.

Berry Punch approaches us. “Am I drunk, or did you really just fly here with an airship?” she asks.

“You’re not, mom,” Ruby replies. “I spiked all your alcohol with laxatives few weeks ago. I haven’t seen you spending too much time in the toilet, so you’re definitely clean...”

Berry looks at her daughter unsurely. “Who gave you that idea?”

“I learn from auntie Minuette,” Ruby says. “Mom? Where are you going?”

“I need to, umm...” Berry runs away to the nearby outhouse.

“You know?” Vinyl mutters. “I’ll go there too. After all that flight, I just need to...”

I facehoof. Why am I not surprised. “How about you?” I ask the rest of our passengers.

“Photo Finish needs to catch a train to Manehattan,” Photo Finish replies. “Grace!”

“Yeah, I’ll get you a ticket,” Grace says with a sigh.

Trixie walks to me, holding the sword of Cedric Lulamoon with her magic. “We still need to take this to Las Pegasus,” she says.

“Just great,” I mutter. “Della Morte and his friends will kill us...”

“I’ll go with you,” Inkie says.

“If Inkie goes there, I’ll go too,” Coco whispers.

“Me too,” Vinyl adds. “Once I take a shit.”

“Trixie won’t leave you.”

“I can help you,” Grace says. “Sorry, Photo, your ticket can wait.”

“Anything you need.” Hexie pats my back.

“I think I have a plan...” I say, smirking and looking at Cherry Berry who tries to get on the airship, despite Aryanne’s protest. “Just... I need a place to think...” I smile. “And I think I know where to find it...”

Nothing changed about my parents’ house since the last time I was there. I grab the key from under the doormat and open the door.

“Wonder if mom’s home,” I say to Vinyl, Trixie, Hexie, Coco, and Inkie. Grace is buying a ticket to Manehattan for Photo. Too bad. My mom would like her. “We’ll see soon...”

“Who’s coming here at this unprincessly hour?!” somepony yells from the upstairs. I’d recognise that voice anywhere.

“It’s me, mom!” I shout. “Your daughter, Minuette!”

“Where were you?!” my mom yells. “Your brother got married, you know... luckily, with a good girl, not that piss-coloured shiksa!”

“I’m more white than yellow!” Vinyl yells. “And his wife is more yellow than me!”

“Oh... I mean, piss-smelling shiksa!” my mom replies.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie can relate...” Trixie mutters. Vinyl tells her to go and have an intercourse with herself.

“Did you bring some friends with you?!” my mom asks. “Tell them not to use such a foul language in here.”

“Okay, mom!” I yell back. “Trixie, behave yourself and don’t speak like some cunt, okay?”

“Okay,” Trixie replies.

“Same applies to you, Vinyl,” I say. Inkie and Coco don’t swear anyway and Hexie only swears in Pferdisch, Ponish, or Prench.

Before I proceed upstairs to meet my mom, I hear the door opening behind me. I turn back to see a large, earth pony stallion with moustache, Oatstralia-shaped chest hair, and a hat adorned with crocodile’s teeth. This stallion happens to be my father, and he’s smiling at us.

“Minuette!” he exclaims, running to me and nearly smothering me while trying to hug me. You know, my dad isn’t exactly subtle.

You know, my father, just like many stallions his age, loves fishing. But, unlike other stallions his age, he usually goes fishing in the Ghastly Gorge. He even brought a dead quarray eel he threw at Vinyl while he was running to me. I think I know what we’ll eat for supper.

“Welcome back,” he says, releasing me. “And you brought Vinyl with you! Finally, someone to have a drink with!”

“H-hello, dad,” Vinyl mutters. “I hope you’ve been training, because now I’m a drunken master...”

“Well, too bad my son got married,” my dad mutters. “But Minuette is still free...”

“Dad, I’m not a lesbian...” I say. He doesn’t seem to notice me.

“Nice to meet your other friends too!” he exclaims, patting Trixie’s flank. “I hope you’ll stay and eat with us, huh?”

Remember the spearpony called Minuet? After the victory over Fluffy the Terrible, he decided that Great Bridletain was an okay place to live. He stayed there and made quite a lot of descendants, such as Page Turner, the scribe, Filly Turner, the well-known lover, Chastity Turner, the mistress of two Prench kings, and Lock Turner, the burglar who was banished to Oatstralia to his crimes. He also made quite a lot children, bushwhackers and swagmares, who were stealing jumbucks by the billabongs, hunting crocodiles with their bare hooves, or killing spiders with their arses. My father, a great, great grandson of Lock Turner ran away from Oatstralia for some reason and moved to Equestria.

At first, he met my uncle, Cunning Runt, a locksmith and a burglar. Cunning Runt was going to go to prison and asked him to take care of his sister. As a result of “taking care”, my brother and I were born. When uncle Runt left prison, he quickly became my favourite uncle. I especially liked when he was hiding candies in some locker and I had to open it without a key to get them. Soon, we switched to different lockers. Then to safes.

Good, old uncle Runt. Too bad they caught him again.

“By the way,” my dad says. “Some cunt crashed an airship in the lake. Have you seen that?”

Author's Notes:

Ich kann diese Bombe nicht finden. Und in zwei Tage werden wir gefickt... - I can't find this bomb. And in two days we'll be fucked...
Ist das ein Männchen? Seine Klöten sind großer als sein Kopf... - Is that a male? His balls are bigger than his head...
Wollt ihr das Bett ins Flamen sehen? - Do you want to see the bed on fire?