Fallout Equestria: Homelands

By Somber

Chapter 2: Tempest-Tossed

Getting shot at sucked.

A year and a half ago, Scotch Tape had been living a relatively safe life inside Stable 99, oblivious to most of the world. Indeed, oblivious to most of Stable 99. When her mom had died, she’d been thrust into her job in the bowels of the stable, tending the worn machinery that kept everypony alive. It had led to a number of harsh lessons about life, family, and her place, or lack thereof, in the world. Of all the lessons she’d learned in her time following Blackjack everywhere, that one came home right now.

Everyone threw themselves to the floor as the gun started up again, bullets blasting in and sawing a second wandering line through the hull. Most of the shots were above the waterline, but some immediately started to admit water. Above, shouts and the cracks of sporadic gunfire replied to the constant rattle of the machine gun. The line of wooden eruptions traversed the hold once, paused, then ripped out again, and all Scotch could do was curl up on the floor, trying to make herself as small as possible.

I hate this. I hate this so much.

The machine gun fell silent as quickly as it had started, water now trickling through a hundred holes along the waterline. Why they hadn’t shot the ship below the waterline she couldn’t imagine, but even though the breaches weren't gushing, the Abalone was still taking on water at a disturbing rate. One of the two zebra stallions had been hit in the leg, but, except for small cuts from shrapnel, all of the others had been missed.

“Stem those leaks!” the captain barked. “Get some agoloosh and help him!” Immediately, the first stallion ran to a crate, pulling out a mouthful of tapered, hoof-long bits of wood covered in wax or pitch. He then rushed to the holes leaking the most, jabbed in the pointy ends, and hammered them home with one hard kick each. The second stallion limped to a sack, pulled out a strange purple wad of seaweed, and started to masticate quickly. The blood pouring from his wound slowed noticeably, as if he’d drunk a healing potion. Then he started to help the first stem the leaks.

The captain grabbed Lamprey by his greasy mane and hauled him towards the stairs up like a bound lump of pissed zebra. “Wait!” Scotch Tape shouted after her. The captain paused, glaring back at them. “What do you want us to do?”

Captain just stared for two seconds, then released his mane long enough to snap, “Something useful!” Then she dragged Lamprey out of the hold. Useful. The exact opposite of what she was.

“Toss them stems!” Majina shouted, going to the barrel and grabbing mouthfuls of sticks, then rushing back to the stallions and flinging them. The stallions caught them as smoothly as if they’d rehearsed this.

“Yeah, have fun with that,” Pythia said as she immediately started to collect her books and papers, carefully storing them in her saddlebags.

Scotch trotted to the barrel of stems, knocked it on its back, and hopped on top. Running backwards, she rolled the barrel along the middle of the ship, spilling out tapers as she went while trying to avoid obstacles. When she failed to avoid a box, she started sticking stems in the holes. Unlike the zebras, though, she couldn’t hammer them in with her hooves. For every one taper she worked in, the stallions hammered home ten. Still, a few minutes later, every leaking hole was stopped.

Then another line of bullet holes travelled from prow to stern, creating thirty more holes spurting water. Two burst to either side of her head, spraying her with wet wood splinters as the water gushed in.

“Oh, come on!” she shouted, then took a half step back from the spray.

And tripped over the zebra stallion. For a moment she flailed before tumbling onto her back, turning to apologize only to realize it was to a corpse. This time, the bullet had gone through his eye and out the back of his head. The other stallion gasped and flopped on the floor, bullet holes in his chest bubbling. Again, Scotch felt paralyzed. What should she do? What could she do?

Majina scrambled to the sack, grabbed some of the healing weed, and shoved it in his mouth. Then she jabbed a wad into the wound itself. Apparently that wasn’t quite the right way to use the stuff, as he screamed, the hole closing and leaving twisted scar tissue behind.

“Thank you,” he murmured to her before rising to his hooves. He pressed the bag of healing seaweed to her chest when she tried to return it. “Tell Captain I will need more people down here.” Then, without even a glance at the fallen stallion, he resumed his work. Pythia, her saddlebags bulging with books she’d carefully wrapped in plastic, trotted up.

“Will do,” Pythia said as she hopped over the slain zebra. Majina put the bag of healing seaweed around her neck. She reached the stairs and paused. “Sorry about your lover.” The zebra stallion betrayed nothing as he resumed slamming stems in place. Then Pythia glanced at Scotch. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” Scotch murmured as she pulled away from the body and followed the other two. “How’d you know they were…”

“I know we all look alike to you, but those two were the only pair who actually made out rather than pretending when they were sent to keep an eye on me,” Pythia answered.

Scotch paused, regarding her with an arched brow. “You were watching them that closely?”

Pythia blinked back, and her cheeks turned a touch red. “Well, yeah, duh. There wasn’t a lot to do down here, and... you know... idle hooves...”

This really wasn’t the time for this, Scotch thought as they went up to the crew deck, which was populated only by those too wounded to fight. Majina immediately started towards them, but Pythia bit her tail and pulled her away. Majina squawked in alarm, but Pythia explained, “They’ve got other bags of healing weed and others who can give it. We need to find the captain.”

“Why?” Scotch asked with a frown.

“Because there’s something a whole lot bigger than just piracy going on,” Pythia said as she crept up the stairs towards the deck and the gunshots. “Last I checked, we didn’t make a big announcement to the Hoof that we were leaving, yet not only does a zebra captain know you exist, she personally wants you dead. So unless you’ve been running around pissing off zebras, something is going on.”

“Maybe she just hates ponies,” Scotch muttered. “I mean, the Abalone’s flag has a unicorn head on it!”

“Oh, that’s just so zebra ships know it’s not a pony ship that got lost or anything,” Majina said with a wave of her hoof. “They’ve all got flags like that. Showing impaled pegasi and stuff.” Scotch stopped and stared at the filly flatly. “What? It’s hard to tell a zebra on a flag from an earth pony on a flag unless you’re looking really closely.”

“You’re not making me feel better,” Scotch grumbled.

Pythia rolled her eyes and went on, “My point is that this is way too much for a simple ‘kill a pony’. They had to signal the Riptide clandestinely, lay the barrels on the reef, and position the ships for the trap. If they really just wanted to kill you, they could have simply gotten ahead of us and waited till you stepped off the boat. In that instant, you’d stop being a passenger, and the captain would have no reason to protect you. Riptide is making damned sure you’re dead. As in, see your body dead. She’s not taking the chance of you reaching land and disappearing. So something else is going on. That, or Riptide is hating ponies so much it’s making her stupid.” She paused and rolled her eyes. “I will be so disappointed if it’s just an ‘I hate ponies’ coincidence.”

“Gee, I’m sure she’d hate for you to be disappointed in her,” Scotch muttered flatly.

“So then you don’t have an idea?” Majina asked the Starkatteri. “You haven’t seen anything futurey?”

“I thought things blowing up in the Hoof would have taken care of the future. Now nothing makes sense. I’m probably too close,” she said with a frown as she peeked out.

“What do you mean?” the other zebra filly asked in worry.

“It’s hard to see things very far out when you’re tied up in the events. You see, you act, and what you saw changes, but not how you thought it would. Or you see, you do something to stop what you saw, and that brings about what you saw. It’s complicated. Seeing other people’s futures is half guesswork, half prophesy. When you’re mixed in, it muddies the prophecy part.” Pythia stared around the deck as bullets zipped across it. “There should be a break in five… four… three… two… run!” she shouted as she bolted onto the deck.

The two followed her. Scotch immediately looked to Precious, still chained up and tied with rocks. She’d gnawed through one section of chain and was now chewing on a second. Scotch started towards her, but Pythia looped her tail around Scotch’s neck. “She’s fine. She’s not going anywhere, they’re shooting from the other side of the ship, and she’s bulletproof! Captain. Now.”

“We’ll be back!” Scotch Tape shouted, but over the din and chatter of gunfire, she didn’t know if the dragonfilly heard her. The captain was in a little alcove below the wheel atop the forecastle. When they’d been sailing, it’d been full of supplies used for the gutting of fish. Now those had been dragged out, revealing a sheet-metal-lined interior that proved much more effective at stopping bullets than wood. The gutting table had been laid on its side across the front. A wheel on the back, directly beneath the abandoned wheel atop the aftcastle, was crewed by the zebra helmsman. The captain and both shamans were the only other people inside the box. An old radio crackled on a shelf nearby, the shouted Zebra so distorted that Scotch couldn’t understand it.

Oh. So that was a submarine!

In the sea off the left rail bobbed the vessel. It resembled a giant, bulbous, metal fish with fins and enormous glassy eyes. Those eyes had to be made of something tougher than glass, though, to stop the rounds that plinked against them. Atop its back, just behind the dorsal fin, was a hatch with a heavy machine gun mounted on a pivot. The opened hatch gave the gunner a little cover as they sprayed the Abalone with machinegun fire.

The Abalone’s crew, taking protection behind scattered plates of metal mounted along the railing, peppered the sub’s gunner with fire from bolt action rifles. Despite both vessels bobbing on the sea, their shots were eerily true, and as Scotch watched, the gunner on the sub slumped over. A moment later, the gunner’s limp body was shoved out, and another zebra took the gun. The half of the crew that weren’t fighting were patching holes that had been ripped in the sails with duct tape.

“Get me a breeze, Altar!” the captain snapped at the elder shaman, who held a little bowl filled with burning incense and was waving her white feather through the smoke.

“I’m trying!” she growled out around the end of the feather, fanning furiously. “They must have a shaman too!”

Scotch gaped cluelessly at Pearl, who seemed equally terrified. “Sky’s trying to summon a wind spirit,” the filly shaman shouted, looking at the metal fish, “but there must be a shaman nearby keeping them away!”

Captain eyed the three of them. “Your warning saved us all. Had we wasted time clearing the reef, we’dve been caught completely unaware.” Scotch noted she didn’t specify who she credited with that warning. “As is, eventually they’ll run out of crew to throw on that gun, but we’ll still be sitting here.”

“They need more below. One of the stallions was killed,” Majina said, her ears drooping.

“We need more period,” Captain shouted. “Lagoon! Coral! Get below. Stem and pump! Keep us up!” Two stallions immediately ran for the hatches leading down.

“What do you need to summon the spirit you need?” Scotch Tape asked the frantically fanning shaman. For an instant, fear and scorn burned in Sky’s wild eye. “Give me a way to help you!” Scotch shouted, just as desperate.

She spat out the feather. “This isn’t enough! I need to dance!” Dance? Seriously? The elder shaman gestured at the confined alcove around her. “There’s not enough space here.”

“Go below,” the captain ordered.

“No! It needs to be in a place the spirit can see,” Sky retorted, and pointed to the aftcastle. “There!”

“They’ll shoot you dead the moment you start. Wait till we’ve bled them of all their gunners,” the captain ordered. “We’ve gotten three so far. Can’t be more than two dozen in that tin can.”

“That’ll take forever,” Sky Altar protested. “I’m not sure dancing will be enough, even up there. I think Riptide must have every shaman she’s got calming the winds. It’s a doldrum!”

Pythia stared at Scotch, long and steady. Scotch knew what she was thinking: hand over the filly and go free so three of them could look for the Eye. Scotch couldn’t blame her, but then she thought of something. “No, they won’t be shooting at her,” Scotch said as she considered the glowering Lamprey. “I’ll go out on deck. Someone needs to get Precious loose, anyway.” She considered Lamprey. “Riptide wants me dead, right? I bet she’s promised a great, big, fat reward for whoever kills me?”

“More like horrible punishments if we fail,” he said. “The reward is for who gets you to her alive. She wants to feed you to her props herself.” Even Captain seemed taken aback by that. Seriously, what did I do to piss this zebra off so badly? Scotch wondered.

“Right. So they’ll aim at the green pony who stands out like crazy.” But that would be death for any zebra around her. She pointed to the forecastle. “There!” She couldn’t do anything to help, but maybe being a decoy would be enough. The captain regarded her soberly, then nodded.

“Get Precious free!” Scotch shouted at the others as she turned around and bolted from the metal box across the deck.

“How am I supposed to do that?” Pythia yelled after her, but Scotch was already racing to the front of the ship.

On the bow, there weren’t many defenders. The front of the ship didn’t do much besides hold the toilets, the anchor, and extra canvas for the sails. There wasn’t much to attack or defend there. Scotch hopped right up onto the anchor and waved her hooves at the submarine. “Hey! Here I am! Woohoo!” She spotted the zebra gunner gaping at her a moment, and so she thrust her butt in the air at him and waved it back and forth. “Can’t hit nuthin’!”

Oh, but he could try!

And he did.

A lot.

Scotch dropped down and pressed herself to the anchor, curling herself into as tight a ball as possible as the machine gun roared a steady stream of bullets that tore the wood around her to pieces. Splinters jabbed and peppered her as the rounds pinged and wildly off the anchor behind her. For what seemed like an eternity, the machine gun roared.

It was appropriate she was up front, as she promptly wetted herself.

Then a break as the gunner was killed. Scotch’s body was covered by shards of wood, several of which were sticking into her hide, though none deep enough to do worse than bleed. She coughed and tasted the tang of copper in the air. On the stern, Sky Altar had begun to dance. Back on the island, when the four had been picked up, the shamans had performed a fluid duet of waving forelegs and swaying hips.

That was nothing.

With the smoking bowl at her feet, she started to whirl and twist. The scarves wrapped around her body loosened and trailed in the air around her limbs like white contrails. They caught the smoke, and it swirled like snakes along her outstretched limbs and around her. Her long, uncovered mane snapped in the wind as she threw her head back and twirled about on a single hind hoof. Whiteflower petals cupped in each hoof were released, catching in the smoke that was curling and rising in a pillar above her.

Scotch glanced at the submarine and saw the gunner turning the gun towards the stern. Sky was a sitting duck, oblivious to the weapon being oriented on her. She had to keep the gun away from Sky.

Only she was scared.

There was no Blackjack here, the Security Mare who could do anything and kill anypony. No P-21 with his steady confidence. No Glory with her eternal optimism. No Rampage with indestructible wrath. No Lacunae with her soft wisdom. Just her, and she was going to die, just like her father did.

No. Worse than her father did.

Her guts threatening to befoul her further, Scotch rose up from behind the anchor. She stared at the submarine and the gunner. “Riptide wants me!” was what she meant to shout. Instead, a hoarse and incoherent shout issued from her mouth as she stood at the shattered rail.

Kill the shaman, or kill the pony? Scotch stared, trying to will him to choose the latter. Though her limbs trembled wildly, she waved a splinter-peppered hoof at the zebra gunner.

The gun swiveled back towards her. She threw herself behind the anchor, screaming and covering her ears as the gunner sprayed her. How many bullets were in that damned submarine? Scotch squeezed her eyes shut and kept herself in as tight a ball as she could. The anchor behind her vibrated with impacts as she soiled herself.

Then the shooting was interrupted. Scotch couldn’t uncurl for several seconds as she gasped and shook. Through a cracked eye she saw the smoke and petals rising above Sky Altar and forming the vague outline of a ghostly bird, barely visible against the clouds. It started to fan its wings. The sails overhead ruffled, and the ship started to move. She risked a glance at the submarine, but the gunner was trying to fix something, a jam perhaps.

“Hey,” Majina said softly in her ear. “You did it. We’re going.”

“I just played target,” Scotch said as the bow started to turn away from the submarine while Sky Altar left the aftcastle for the safety of the redoubt. “I also think I pooped myself.”

“You did. But you also saved our lives,” she said as she tried to tug Scotch to her hooves. Majina guided her to a sheltered spot where the zebra filly could clean her up while she worked to steady her trembling hooves and slow her thundering heart.

But Scotch frowned. Something was wrong here. They’d just sprayed bullets. Deadly, yeah, but not very reliable. Scotch touched the bullet-chewed wood as Majina carefully swept her face of the stinging splinters. Scotch looked away to the other side of the ship, down through the holes cut for toilets. She absently took some of the purple seaweed Majina was pressing into her hooves. Funny how it tasted just like a healing potion…

And Scotch saw the zebra in the water.

Not a corpse of a gunner, nor one of the Abalone’s crew. Despite how hard it was to tell zebras apart, there was no way to miss the dozens of scars covering the stallion’s face as he swam beside the hull just below the Abalone’s toilets. He leered up at her…

And pressed something to the Abalone’s hull. It was about the size of a garbage can lid. “Zebra swimmers in the water! That side!” she shouted, getting dozens of blank stares in response. Ugh, she’d said it in Pony! “Zebras swimming next to the boat! They put something on the hull!”

The submarine was pacing the Abalone, but some zebras rushed to the other side. Sure enough, there were more zebras swimming towards the Abalone, swimming just under the waves and only coming up for gasps of air. The speed with which they cut through the water astonished Scotch Tape, who was lucky to ponypaddle. On their backs were more of the strange metal disks. One sharpshooter struck a disk as the swimmer breached the sea. The metal disk exploded in a pillar of foamy water, the zebra vaporized by the blast.

“Limpets!” some zebras shouted, and the alarm spread.

Majina and Scotch walked unsteadily towards the captain, keeping low as the submarine resumed its strafing, robbed of choice targets. “What’s a limpet?” Scotch asked numbly. She nodded once at Sky Altar, and the older zebra gave a respectful nod back.

“Explosives glued to the hull,” the Captain explained. “Once in place, a chemical timer starts, and it’ll blast a hole that will sink us in minutes. They probably wanted to get them under the keel where we can’t scrape them off, but waterline will do.”

“You can’t remove them?” Majina asked.

“Not while we’re underway. You need swimmers for that, and steady seas, and no damned machine gun chattering away at you!” she said as she glowered at the sub.

“They have one on the waterline near the bow,” Scotch said as she looked at where Pythia struggled with the chained Precious.

“We’ll have to make sure they don’t attach more!” the captain snapped.

With her riflemen split on both sides, the machine gun was now doing more damage. Scotch had no clue what to do to help, other than to give up. Lamprey just leered at her, his eyes savoring some horrible fate. “You’re killing them,” he muttered. “They’ll all be slaughtered for you.”

Not able to answer, Scotch left to help Pythia. The cloaked zebra was futility scraping at a lock with a bit of curved nail. “Finally!” Pythia said as she gestured around her. “No one here knows who’s got the damned key! Can you get this open?” she said as she tugged at the locks keeping the dragonfilly bound.

If her father had been here, he could have opened it with a stern look. “I’m not sure how,” she confessed; this lock didn’t look anything like the ones she knew in Equestria! The way the chain was looped around Precious’s body and was locked behind her head, shoulders, and withers made it hard to imagine how she could wiggle completely free. The rocks were just weights set with carabiners, though. She could remove those, at least.

Precious just gave her a rather indolent raise of an eyebrow that summed up her opinion of Scotch Tape’s lockpicking abilities. Scotch flushed as she managed to get Precious’s forelegs loose.

One by one, the swimmers were killed as they approached. Most simply sank out of sight, shot through as the Abalone picked up speed. Then one exploded, not adjacent to the hull, but close enough that the entire ship listed over towards the submarine. The ship tilted, and for a moment, Scotch feared they’d capsize, but then like a pendulum it swung back, the deck sloping towards the sea.

And Precious sliding into it.

The filly failed to latch her claws into the deck. Scotch Tape didn’t think as she lunged at the trailing chain. She simply pounced on the end, tossed it about her neck, and dug her hooves in. The lavender dragon gave a roar of outrage coupled with a scream of terror as she slipped over the edge and the chain jerked tight, the links cutting into Scotch’s neck and almost strangling her. She grunted as she planted her hooves at the very edge and came to a stop. When the Abalone rocked back, a wild-eyed Precious emerged from the waves choking and spitting. When the ship settled, Precious still dangled in the water.

And she was one heavy dragonfilly, but Scotch was an earth pony damn it, and while the earth might be a hundred fathoms down, she should be strong enough to pull Precious up. She stared down the ship at zebras who were trying to pry the limpet explosives off with long poles. Another dangled from a rope, but now that the Abalone was on the move, he didn’t have a chance to pry it off before being swept away.

“Pull me up! Pull me up!” Precious shrieked. Scotch would have answered her, but right now breathing was a little complicated.

Oh, that explained the swimmers.

On the opposite side of the ship from the first sub, which her oxygen-deprived brain dubbed ‘Goldfish’, popped a second sub. This one was long and low to the waves and was crafted to resemble some kind of fish with a horn sticking out. Unicorn fish? Unlike the Goldfish, it didn’t have a machine gun. Small favors. If it was fast enough to ram them with that spire, though… ugh… need air badly…

Majina and Pythia ran up, each grabbing the chain and pulling enough that Scotch could get a breath. “Pull!” Majina cried out, but Scotch watched Precious’s claws cutting furrows in the hull.

“Wait!” she croaked as loudly as she could. “Pull her left!”

“Get me out of here!” Precious yelled up at the trio. The other two looked at Scotch as if she was crazy, but no arguing with the earth pony! She heaved in the direction of the closest bomb, where two stallions struggled with fishing spears to pry it off.

“Move!” she yelled at the two stallions, who fell back in bafflement. “Precious! Rip off the bomb!”

“Are you nuts?” she shrieked.

“Getting it off, or we all drown!” Her limbs were shaking as she stared at one of the gobsmacked adults. “Help!” she snapped.

One did. He easily took the weight of the dragonfilly, letting Scotch watch Precious. Being small and heavy, and wrapped in chain, she resisted the water trying to sweep her away. She roared as she grabbed the edges of the bomb and pulled. The adhesive stretched, then gave way, and she flung the bomb from the ship. “Now get me up!”

“Two more!” she called out, and the stallion, who now understood Scotch’s plan, began to yell at others in faster Zebra than she could ever hope to follow. They slid her over to the second. Precious clawed it free as well. Scotch didn’t know chemical detonators well. Were they reliable? Old? Waterproof? Her father would have been able to say exactly how much time they had.

When they reached the bow of the ship, though...

“I can’t reach it!” Precious snarled, sweeping her claws in futility at the limpet three feet from her. “Pull me up!” The curve of the ship kept the dangling dragonpony from getting any closer. This was the first limpet, and probably the one closest to blowing.

Why was every zebra looking at her? Could they swing her? No, the bottom of the arc was in the waves away from the hull. “Pull her up! Get another rope,” she said in Pony, trusting the other two to translate.

Precious was brought up, shaking and spitting and glowering at all of them as she clung to the rail. “Get me unchained, now!” she roared, and then blinked as Scotch looped the rope around her. “Uh, this... is kinda the opposite of what I--”

“I know,” Scotch said with an apologetic smile.

Then she shoved her off again. Roared expletives punctuated by gouts of green flame exploded as Scotch ran to the front of the ship and carefully maneuvered the end of the rope around the bowsprit at the front and to the other side. “Now pull!” If everything went right, this should pull Precious against the hull and…

Oh, hello Goldfish.

The boat had fallen back a ways, but at the sight of the green filly, the machine gun opened up again, and Scotch dove to the deck. The rope started to slip over the edge, Precious letting out a roar of frustration, and Scotch pounced it. Bullets chattered off the wood around her as she fought with the urge to hide versus the need to pull.

She had to pull, though, and ignore the wood splinters and bullets and hope that the chemical fuse was long enough for Precious to get the limpet off–

Another explosion rocked the ship. The rope suddenly went slack, and a sick numbness spread through her as she frantically pulled it in, only to stare at the broken end.

Oh, Celestia, I just killed Precious. Scotch just stared at the slack rope coiled around her hooves. From beyond Precious’s ghost cursed her as she stared out at nothing. “What the hell was that? I try and help you and you throw me off the side of a ship?!” Precious spat from the afterlife. “I'll kick your butt for this! Don't ask me how, but I'm gonna do it! I swear!” the ghost growled.

Behind her.

Tears ran down Scotch’s cheeks as she saw the waterlogged dragonfilly being released from her chains by the crew. Behind the ship, she could see the patch of foam stirred by up the last limpet. “You’re alive!” Scotch blurted, and dove at Precious. The effect was spoiled by the fact that it was like trying to tackle hug a concrete pillar, but she gave it her best shot anyway. “I thought I’d killed you.”

Precious blinked down at her, then snorted. “Yeah, don't do that anymore. And stop crying, too. You're making me feel bad for the buttkick I'm gonna be giving you later.”

“Yes yes, all very touching, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” Pythia said from behind. Scotch frowned and looked at the two submarines that were falling behind the ship. The Abalone had been shot up quite a bit, but the crew were patching holes in the... everything. She nodded towards the captain’s booth. “Come on.”

“What. We got away. That means we won, right?” Scotch said, looking at the chewed-up wood all around her.

Pythia stopped and sighed. “Scotch, which way are we heading?”

Scotch frowned and checked her PipBuck’s compass.

Due west.

“Oh, poop,” she said dejectedly.

“Right. We’re going the wrong way,” Pythia said as she trotted towards the Captain. The crew was too busy to curse Pythia, so that was an improvement.

At the captain’s booth, the captain was at the old radio. Static hissed as she fiddled with the knobs. “No good piece of garbage,” she muttered as she worked the device. When she saw the four, she gave a little nod, then gestured to the radio. “For emergencies. At the very least we can tell Northport that we were attacked.”

“Can I see?” Scotch volunteered, and the captain stepped away as she carefully removed the back. The design was… primitive. No gems anywhere. Just glass tubes with really old electronics inside. This was the tech used in emergency systems in the stable, the kind that would work with a spark battery and little else. “Think there’s some corrosion on the connections.” She carefully worked out a tube and caught the telltale green verdigris on the copper base. “Bingo.”

“What’s Northport?” Majina asked as Scotch rubbed the oxidation off on her leg.

“It’s our… capital I suppose. Place where all our tribe elders live, as well as most of our mares and young,” Sky Altar said. “It’s also the only drydock in the north sea.”

“Are we going there?” Pythia asked with a frown. The captain spoke with the crew about making repairs.

“We will be, eventually. Not you. The elders would capsize the whole town if you showed up,” Sky Altar said. She didn’t have quite the same sneer as she’d had before.

“Wait, capsize? Is Northport a boat?”

“More like a floating island of boats,” Sky Altar answered. “After the war, there were no safe harbors. The land and sea were ravaged by megaspells. So the captains took the largest ships and welded them together into a safe port. It saved our tribe. But since it floats, it moves, and we’re not sure where it is now. When we have to return, we use the radio or ask other ships its location.”

“And all your elders are there? Would they help with Riptide?” Scotch asked before checking the next tube. Damned salt was a menace…

Pearl glanced at her sister. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Sky said, her ears folding back.

Scotch tried the knob, and the static dropped to a faint crackle. The captain returned to the radio and turned a knob. “Mayday. Mayday. Any ships on this channel. This is the Abalone. The Luster of Nacre. We’re being attacked. Are any ships in range of this broadcast?”

“The Luster of Nacre?” Majina asked.

“It’s a sign, so people know it’s really us,” Pearl explained.

There was a pause, and then the radio crackled and a mare said in a smooth, calm voice, “Why, hello there, dear bondsister. This is the Riptide. May the seas ever be red. However can we help you?”

“Help? We were attacked by two submarines, and nearly sabotaged by an agent of yours!” Captain snapped. “We were nearly sunk, thanks to you!”

“Oh, dear,” the mare replied, her voice dripping with concern. “Well, if you’ll give me your position, I’ll be there right away and drive those nasty submarines off. I do so wish to look out for my bondsister.”

“Bondsister?” Scotch Tape asked Pearl.

“Father is married to Riptide, and Mother,” the filly explained. “I have seven bondmothers, each captain of a ship. I really don’t like Riptide, though. She’s mean.”

“I thought she was a pirate!”

“It’s politics. She’s a pirate alright, so to placate her, father married her. That gives her some legitimacy in the tribe. She’s still a bloody murderer, though,” Sky Altar said with a frown.

“Call off your submarines, and I’ll let the matter drop,” Captain said, glowering flatly at the horizon.

“Well, are you sure they’re my submarines? I know my subs would never attack my dear, sweet bondsister. They must be pirates. Give me your location, and I’ll be right there,” Riptide purred. “Also, who is that I hear in the background? Are you carrying passengers as well as fish?”

“The pony is here!” Lamprey shouted from next to the booth. Precious silenced him by sitting on his face with a growl.

“Oh my, did I hear right? You have a pony passenger? By any chance, did you pick her up at the burned islands of our people?” Riptide asked sweetly.

The captain regarded Scotch Tape soberly. “How did you know? Why do you want her? What are you playing at?”

“All wonderful questions, but the second is all that matters. Give her to me so that I can feed the enemy of our people through my props. I’ll even help you repair the Abalone or, at least, limp to port.” She said it so reasonably. It wasn’t like the raiders back home at all. This, in its own sick way, was worse.

“Swear by sea and tide,” Captain demanded.

“I swear by sea, tide, and ship,” Riptide responded smoothly. “Now, what is your position?”

The captain stared at Scotch for several seconds, then looked at some brass equipment above the emergency wheel. “North fifty, nine hours seven minutes. West ten, one hour five minutes.”

Scotch Tape gaped at her, but really, she shouldn’t have been surprised. After the attack, the Abalone was badly damaged. Her crew was more important than just one pony.

The captain continued to stare at her as the radio was silent. Then Riptide replied, “Dear bondsister, you are a liar.”

“As are you, bondsister,” Captain replied, saying the word like an epithet.

“Only you would doom your ship for a pony,” Riptide purred.

“Not a pony. For tradition,” Captain answered with a small smile, and Pearl beamed at her mother.

“Whatever,” Riptide said in disgust. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

Captain shook her head. “We are in grave trouble.” She walked to a table in the back which had a number of maps on it. She pulled one out and smoothed it flat. Then she fished out some mother of pearl buttons. “We are here,” she said, putting down one. “Rice River is here.” She tapped the map on the southeastern corner. “Those subs are here and here,” she said, putting down two more red buttons between them and Rice River. “Okambo is here.” And she set a large black button to the west of the Abalone. “To the south are mudflats, sand bars, and reefs. A dying yard for ships.”

“Crap,” Pythia muttered. “She’s smart.”

“You see it then,” Captain nodded. “It does not surprise me.”

“What?” Scotch Tape asked. “Just go nor–“ She cut off as she made the connection. “You think the Riptide is north.”

“I am all but certain. The radio was clear. That alone is a hint that she is close by. Within a hundred nautical miles.”

“So can’t you break past those two submarines? They don’t seem very fast,” Majina pointed out.

“Correct, but the wind is easterly. Now that we’re moving, Riptide’s shamans are keeping it easterly. The spirits are working against us,” Sky Altar said with a worried frown.

“Can’t you just summon a stronger spirit?” Majina asked.

“I’m only one shaman!” Sky snapped. “I summoned the strongest I could that would heed me. Unfortunately, if I asked it to blow us away from east, I would censure myself!”

“Censure?” Scotch frowned in bafflement.

Pearl sighed, “When you ask a spirit to do something, you can’t ask it to do something completely different later. That’s like… like… breaking a promise or trying to weasel out of a deal. It makes the spirits angry.”

“The alternative is to summon a spirit and let it run amok with no terms at all, but again, the Riptide’s shamans probably have heaps of offerings and a dozen dancers to exhort the spirits,” Sky said with a sigh.

“Wait, really?” Majina asked, tilting her head as if imagining such a thing.

“No,” Sky said. “She probably only has one shaman. Maybe two. Lots of shamans working together is a hard trick. Bad things happen when they fail to do so.”

“How do you two do it?” Majina said, regarding the siblings.

“We’re sisters,” Pearl replied, as if that were all the answer she needed.

Sky actually flushed as she added, “And we’ve divided our realms. I handle the sky. She handles the sea.”

“The sky is actually a lot harder than the sea. The sea just… is. It’s full of stuff and hidden things, but it doesn’t do a lot of bad things without the wind,” Pearl said, getting a frown from Sky. “I’m just saying, sister!”

“So you were the one doing the water walking magic thing?” Scotch asked Pearl. The filly nodded. “How’d you get wet, then?” Pearl flushed.

Sky answered, “Because when you ask spirits to help you, bad things can happen. The spirits don’t like being servants. If I got spirits to clear the skies for me because I wanted a tan, they’d do it, but then they’d sunburn me red. We ask them to help others, and if we benefit in the process, then fine. I didn’t ask the wind to blow for me, but for my ship. Pearl asked the water to hold me up, but the spirit wasn’t strong enough when I jumped on the shore, and so she sank.”

“I’m Atoli. It’s not like I’d drown,” the zebra filly said with a smile.

Scotch believed it. She’d never imagined any equine, pony or zebra, swimming so swiftly. “So can we do something like that?” Scotch asked. “Just make us able to walk on water and we’ll trot to land!”

“No,” Precious growled, administering a hard shoulder shove that made it clear that this was not an option.

“It’s more than a hundred miles to the flats, and trying to get enough spirits or strong enough spirits for four of you would be really really hard! I’d have to go with you the whole way, too,” Pearl added. “Like… I could make one of you walk okay for a few minutes, but once you’re away from me, the spirits would probably forget.”

“But…” Scotch considered Pythia. “What if she asked the stars for you, Captain? Pythia can figure out all kinds of things!”

Pythia’s yellow eyes popped wide, and she flailed at Scotch, “No! You don’t talk any more! You’re full of bad ideas! Nobody likes them or you for having them!”

The captain too appeared as if Scotch had just propositioned her, but the filly hesitantly continued. “I mean, it’s not like she’d be the one benefiting. She’d be asking the stars for you,” she finished lamely, tapping her forehooves together. Pythia covered her face with a hoof, throwing her head back with a groan.

But the captain’s face set as hard as ice. “I would have to be far more foolish or desperate than I am now to even consider such an idea.”

“But–“

“Do not tempt me!” the captain snapped as she stared at Pythia like a venomous snake. “I know full well the nature of your tribe and their gifts. Ruin and damnation are all you have to offer. We listened to your augurs and predictions once, and it nearly lead to the undoing of all zebras! Never again!”

“Figures. You’d rather die from spite and pride than acknowledge I can help you,” Pythia muttered, her eyes narrowing. “Your tribe, above all others, has no excuse.”

“You can return below decks, Starkatteri,” the captain said, her voice dangerously soft and even. Pythia maintained her scornful stare before snorting, pulling up her hood, and trotting back to the stairs, disappearing from sight. Precious gave the cloaked filly a sympathetic glance as the zebra trotted away.

“So what are you going to do, Captain?” Majina asked.

“I will sail north and west and take you home,” she said as she consulted the charts. “I will not abandon my passengers to peril, though we cannot deliver you to your port. With luck, we will slip past Riptide and get around Okambo.”

“What?!” Scotch blurted. “But… there must be some other way!”

“There is. I give you to her and try to drink away my shame with rum back in port,” the captain replied, her green eyes boring into Scotch’s. “Which would you prefer?”

The filly averted her gaze first. “It’s just, we’ve come this far.”

“I’m sorry. I can not fathom why she would endanger all the influence she’s built just for your life, but she will. But I will, at least, see you safely back to pony lands,” she said in a low, soft voice.

“And if you can’t get past the Riptide?” Scotch asked, chewing her lower lip. The captain stared at her for a long moment, silently communicating the choice she’d have to make: saving her ship and crew, or giving up one pony. She might have been on Scotch’s side now, but would that change if Riptide herself attacked?

“Help with the repairs if you can. We will face that tide when it comes,” the captain said as she turned to her charts.

Scotch regarded the others and then followed Pythia below decks with Pearl tagging along. “What did she mean by ‘your tribe has no excuse’?” Majina asked the shaman.

The filly coughed as she went past crew who were administering to their wounded. She waited till there was no one nearby. “Um… well… the Atoli use stars too… mostly to tell where we are in the middle of the ocean. I mean, we normally don’t get lost. We’re Atoli. But sometimes a captain will have to use the stars to find the way back to port.”

“So, why won’t she take Pythia’s advice then? I mean, she not really afraid, is she?” Scotch asked, glancing back up at the hatch.

“Of course she’s afraid! Can’t you see the bind she’s in?” Majina blurted, wide-eyed. “She’s in a classic temptation plot. Does she do what is easiest to save her ship, or what’s right? Does she take advice from a cursed source, or does she risk losing everything? If it were just her, the stakes would be easy, but she’s got so many lives on the line.” She gasped, clasping her hooves over her chest, “The drama is just crushing!”

“Actually, she just doesn’t trust Starkatteri. But probably all that, too,” Pearl said, earning a pout from Majina. “She’s pretty sure that whatever Riptide wants, she won’t risk her ship this close to Okambo. As precious as the Abalone is, the Riptide is a warship, and those just aren’t replaceable. If we get far enough west, we’ll be in the same waters as the Orinoco. She trades with the Yaks and can handle herself in a fight… probably.” Pearl’s ears drooped, and she forced a smile. “All I’m saying is the odds are better two on one. Three on one if the Cerulean is nearby!”

They trotted down to where Pythia had resumed her spot in her hammock, ignoring the hammering as crew stemmed leaks in the hull. “I still don’t get what’s going on. If she’s your mom’s sister…”

“Bondsister,” Majina and Pearl said in unison.

“Fine, bondsister, shouldn’t that mean you… I don’t know, like each other?”

“Riptide’s been a terror for a decade. She was nothing. A ship’s… um… comfort mare,” Pearl said, tapping her hooves together. “Oh, and if you ever meet her, don’t remind her of that. Then, one night, she kills the captain. Normally, that would have gotten her killed quick, but the captain was so bad the crew didn’t turn on her. The first mate was an idiot, but he was smart enough to listen to her. Then a year later, she killed him, and became captain herself.”

“So she killed her way up the food chain. Classy,” Pythia muttered.

“Big fish eat little fish. She was still a joke till she dared raid the old Roam shipyards and found the Riptide still intact in drydock. It was scheduled to be launched on the Day of Doom. Then she became a threat, but she wasn’t stupid. Oppose her or insult her, and she’d obliterate you, but pay her in crew or money or fuel, and she’d leave you alone. Eventually, father married her to try and make her more respectable and less of a threat. There are plenty of sea monsters the Riptide would be useful against, and other pirates. She shakes them down like anyone else, and they go and murder and rob our people.”

“So your father married her? Did it work?” Scotch asked.

“I don’t know.” Pearl slumped. “She’s mean, but she pretends to be nice. Then people give her presents because they don’t want her to take them by force. She likes swaggering all over port, sitting closest to father, and making other ponies nervous. And she’s smart, too. She plays other captains against each other.”

“And apparently has spies everywhere,” Pythia added sourly. “Why hasn’t Captain turned that stallion into chum yet?”

“She can’t do that,” Pearl gasped. “She’d be killing her crew!” That statement blew so many fuses in Scotch’s mind that she didn’t know where to begin.

“Oh, of course,” Pythia asked as she turned away from them and lay on her side. “I don’t suppose anyone’s tried to kill Riptide off of her ship, have they?”

“‘S what I’d do,” Precious agreed, her lips parting in a wide, toothy grin.

“Well, that breaks Tradition. In port, captains can’t just kill each other. It’s just wrong. They can duel each other if they want to settle a fight, but Riptide just settles it on the sea. If someone did kill her in port, it would be murder.”

“Of course,” Pythia said with a sigh.

“What I can’t figure out is why she’s after me at all,” Scotch confessed. “I didn’t know Riptide existed before a few days ago. We didn’t know we were coming to the zebra lands, and when we did, we didn’t exactly run all over telling people where we were going. Why is the worst pirate in the ocean after my head?” she asked, rubbing her throat nervously.

“Blackjack pissed off a lot of people. Maybe Riptide was one, and she’s taking it out on you?” Precious suggested. Scotch could only shrug. Majina and Pearl were equally clueless as well.

Then Scotch peered at the Starkatteri filly with her back to them. “What are you doing up there?” she asked in Pony.

“Nothing,” she said at once, and when Scotch moved around to see what she was hiding, she covered up her star map. “Hey! Butt out!”

“You better not be scrying,” Majina warned, in Pony. “The captain is mad enough as is.” Pearl watched in confusion.

“I’m not scrying… well… I’m not scrying her or the ship or anything to do with the Abalone, okay?” Pythia said, looking back at them over her shoulder with a scowl. “I’m scrying the Riptide. Maybe I can see something about it.”

“What are you talking about?” Pearl asked, worried and a touch suspicious.

“Pythia’s trying to use her seer powers to spy on the Riptide. She’s not asking the stars anything,” Majina assured the filly.

"Cripes, shut up, you freaking tattletail!" Pythia growled at her, her eyes never leaving the map.

“Oh. Okay,” Pearl said in tones that indicated it wasn’t really okay at all.

Pythia had her map out, and her eyes scanned the little spots and specks marked with little glyphs. Scotch Tape had watched her do this dozens of times to little effect; simply staring at things for hours on end looking for ‘signs’ and muttering to herself. Now, though, she seemed different, her face pondering the page as if it were a puzzle. Nearly an hour passed, and the crew finally finished their repairs. Once again, she felt like she was back on the island, with nothing she could do.

“I don’t get what she’s doing,” Precious muttered sullenly as she rocked in her pot. “None of this zebra stuff makes sense.”

Pearl, who’d watched Pythia like someone might watch a sleeping radigator, replied, “She’s trying to know more. Scrying’s very difficult. You have to open your mind wide and just let the knowledge flow in and out.”

“How would you scry for answers?” Majina asked.

“I’ve never tried. Most shamans just ask and then try to understand the answers we get. Like if I want to know when the tide changes, I ask the water. But if I wanted to know where a boat like the Riptide is, I’d… well… one method is scattering dust on the water as it flows by and watching the patterns it makes, looking for shapes. Or closing your eyes and listening to the waves. It’s hard because instead of listening to one spirit, you’re listening to everything, and it’s really difficult to know what’s true and what’s just in your head.”

“How do you know it’s not just random noise?” Scotch asked, finding it all… very odd.

“You don’t. That’s why it’s so tough,” Pearl said. “Sky tried it once though, watching patterns in the sky. The shapes of the clouds. The patterns of the birds. It’s exhausting to just sit there and take it in hour after hour and not fall asleep or get bored or think about other stuff.” She considered Pythia. “I have to admit, she’s really focused. Sky needed complete silence.”

“Do you know how Zencori scry stuff?” Scotch asked Majina. “Maybe you could try it too?”

“I wouldn’t know how to start or where to begin!” the filly said, shaking her head vigorously. “Mom said it took flipping through books at random and stuff, and I don’t think she knew how to do it either.”

“Still doesn’t make sense,” Precious grumbled sourly.

“A sea of stars,” Pythia murmured errantly to herself, and they jumped. “Where is the Riptide? If only it were night.” Her hoof stroked the paper lovingly. “I’m missing something. Something I don’t understand,” she said with a frown. “A riptide… what is a riptide? Not the boat. The word?” She never took her eyes off the paper.

“It’s a current that sweeps out between sandbars and carries things near shore out to sea. They can be really strong and easy to miss until you’re already far from land,” Pearl explained.

“A current. Insidious. Dangerous. Underestimated. And we’re fighting currents. Caught in currents,” Pythia murmured, her eyes unfocusing. “Depths of the oceans as dark as the depths of darkness between the stars where timeless things lie. Riptides are on the surface. On the surface… what’s in the deeps below? The deeps below…” she said as her hoof moved slower and slower, her pupils dilating as if caught in shadow. “What—“

She screamed, clutching her head as she recoiled, and fell to the deck. “No, stop! I see! I see! Please!” Then everypony stared as she flopped and writhed as if in the throes of a seizure. “What’s wrong?” Scotch shouted as she grabbed Pythia before she could fall out of the hammock. Even Precious scowled in concern at the abrupt attack.

Pythia’s body spasmed as if it had suddenly been hit by a hammer. “No. Please! I’ve seen enough!” She wailed, then jerked again. Precious rose from her pot, frowning. Another slam, and something in the filly gave a snap and she screamed.

“No! No! No!” she begged, blood flecking her lips, and Scotch just stood there. All she could do was hold her as she jerked and thrashed, her eyes wide open in terror. Again she jerked. And again. And again! Damn it! If she were Blackjack she would have just used her stupid unicorn powers on her or shot her in the head or…

Well. It was something.

She grabbed a pot of water and dumped the contents on Pythia. Majina and Pearl stared in shock. The filly immediately coughed and choked, started to sit up, and then collapsed back as she grabbed her side with a hiss of pain. “I think I broke a rib.” Then she saw her waterlogged map, tried for a scream, and ended up coughing and hacking as she furiously tried to shake the water off it.

“Stop stop stop!” Pearl said as she grabbed Pythia. She took her pearl pendant and put it in Pythia’s mouth, the Starkatteri's yellow eyes popping wide in shock. Pearl closed her eyes. “Please return to where you belong,” she said, and Pythia shook, then spat out the pearl. “Give her some agoloosh,” she said to Majina, who shoved it in Pythia’s mouth as soon as she opened it. “Chew!” Pearl ordered, and Pythia did, eyes bulging. “Swallow!” the filly said with a stamp of her hoof.

Soon as she did, Pearl touched her pearl to Pythia’s map. “Please return to where you belong.” The water immediately seemed to shimmer on the surface and flowed to cover the blue orb on its string. Then she dangled it over the pot, and all at once the water released and plopped back into the jar.

“Now, are you okay?” Pearl asked.

“No, I am not okay. None of us are okay! I’m still seeing and I’m not sure why!” Pythia blurted, staring straight ahead again. “What was that?” Then she snapped, “And I don’t have them for everything… ugh… nevermind! Say it.”

The fillies all considered each other. “Uh… You’re our expert,” Precious said with a frown. “Don’t you have notecards of weird stuff?”

“Not for this. This is bad. Everything is bad!” Pythia shoved Scotch off and started to climb out of the hammock when her hooves windmilled wildly and she fell out on her face. “We need to go the other way. Now,” she declared from the deck.

“Why?”

“Because I was just blown to pieces! We were all blown to pieces!” Pythia said as she started towards the stairs, then froze. “No. I go up, and we still die! She won’t listen to me!” She stared at one after the next, her face becoming more and more stricken. “No. No. No! NO! She won’t listen to any of you!” Her pupils shrank as she breathed faster and faster. “I stay here and die. I need a future I don’t die in!”

“Calm down! Are you saying you saw the future?” Scotch Tape asked. “Like a bomb going off?”

“I don’t know. Everything blew up, and we sank!” she said as she stared around her. “And we had this conversation before it did! And I remember saying that! And I remember remembering saying that!”

“So, we have to turn the ship?” Precious muttered.

“Right! But she won’t listen! I keep seeing the futures, and one after another after another I die! We all die! Boom! Screaming! Water! Glug glug glug! I keep dying over and over again!” She was hyperventilating now, her pupils huge, hooves pressed to her throat. She gasped as Precious trotted past her towards the back of the boat.

In the months she’d known Pythia, she’d never seen the filly become completely unglued before. The filly was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. “We can just tell Mother—“ Pearl began.

“You did! I saw you trying. I’m seeing us trying. Seeing every future of us trying to talk to her, and every one, boom! We’re going to die! We’re going to die! We’re going to die!” She sat and wailed, “I’m too smart to die!”

Suddenly, they were all flung on their faces as the ship lurched to the side. Above decks came creaking and popping, followed by shouts and the captain bellowing for them to right course. Scotch picked herself up off the deck, peering around for the cause.

Precious was holding the steering rope in her jaws, pulling on it hard as the ship continued to creek and list. A minute later, she released it. “There. We turned. Now can you stop freaking out over nothing?” Pythia, breathless, just stared at the dragonfilly in shock, her pupils shrinking back to normal size.

“You… changed the Abalone’s course?” Pearl whispered in horror. “Mother is going to be so mad!”

Precious snorted and rolled her eyes. “Pffft. As if we’re not in enough trouble already.” An instant later, a thunderous boom erupted outside, followed by the roaring cascade of falling water. Precious peered in the direction the noise had come from. “On the other hoof.”

They rushed back up on deck.

Oh. That was a warship, all right.

The ship may have been a few miles away, but there was no missing that form. Scotch gaped at a long, sleek, dangerous-looking vessel. She’d seen the pony battleship Celestia, and Raptors, and this vessel shared those characteristics of a machine meant to kill. The ship was only half the size of the Celestia, all smooth sloping sides and a low profile that made it hard to see against the waves. The superstructure’s gray and blue paint blended in with the sky behind it. No exhaust rose from the ship to betray its presence. All of that was overshadowed by one thing, however.

The turret near the front of the ship pointed right at them. It might not have been ginormous like the cannons of the Celestia, just a single barrel, but it looked more than capable of blowing them out of the water.

“Full sail. Full sail! And summon Boreas himself if you have to, but get us moving!” the captain roared at Sky Altar up on the aftcastle as the crew scrambled. “Weave a course away from that damnable ship south!” The Abalone was pointed away from the Riptide, the sails and lines guttering and snapping. As Scotch and the others ran up, she snapped at Pearl, “I need waves. We must move, or she’ll blow us to pieces. Work with your sister. Go!”

Pearl nodded and rushed to join her sister. When they’d gone, she glowered at the four. “I don’t know many things. I don’t know how they knew to wait at the reef. I don’t know how they were aiming at our course. I don’t know why my ship diverted before they fired. I am tired of not knowing.” She closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath. “Starkatteri. I, Mahealani, would… request… your assistance. Use your ways and your sight to guide us from this peril. Chart me a path to see my ship and crew to safety.”

“Captain!” more than a few nearby gasped.

“Just give them the pony!” others demanded.

“I will not forswear myself! I will not forswear this ship!” she called out. “This is my last voyage as your captain. I take this onus and curse upon myself!” She turned to the crew. “This is the Abalone. We are not a vainglorious ship, nor the swiftest, nor the mightiest, but we are the toughest ship on the waters. We take from the sea what bounty it can offer. We honor the ancestors and the traditions! Do we not?”

It was a moment as taut as a drawn wire. Then a stallion bellowed out, “Aye!” It was the stallion from below decks. The one who had lost his mate.

“Do we make the ancestors proud?” The captain demanded.

“Aye!” More answered.

“Are we better than those wreck-picking reef rats and pillaging scum that dare use our tribe’s name, because we still hold true to our Tradition?” the captain called out.

“Aye!” the crew roared in unison.

“The Tradition says we protect our passengers, and we shall. Other ships play with Tradition as a toy when it is convenient. Too many ships cast it aside at the first excuse, scrambling like crabs for the first safe hole. One ship mocks all our tribe stands for utterly,” the captain said, riveting them all with her stare. “But we are the Abalone, and if we must be the last good ship of the Atoli tribe, then so be it. To your stations. We shall weather this storm, and when we return to Northport, I will see to it that my husband turns every ship of the seas against my foul bondsister for this treachery! Move!”

The crew broke into activity. She returned her eyes to the stricken Pythia, who still didn’t seem quite recovered from her attack earlier. “Well?”

Pythia then swallowed. “If we’re following traditions, there must be payment.”

“A gold coin is standard, as I recall.” She plucked one from her hat and extended it to the filly, who accepted it with an air of solemnity. “Save my ship and my daughters. Chart us free of these shoals.”

“Captain,” Scotch Tape said as she stared at the mare as she trotted past. The captain paused, considering her soberly. “Thank you.”

“If I gave you to her, I could never look my youngest in the eye again. Though I do wish you had traveled to our land another way.” She pointed at the radio. “See if you can get in touch with anyone. I must see to my ship for its last voyage.”

As she moved off giving orders and supervising, Scotch headed to the radio. It wasn’t much different from pony versions she’d seen, only with a pedal and microphone and all the knobs were in glyphs. Next to her, Majina and Pythia were looking at maps. Precious flopped down next to her, curling up and... taking a nap?!

“I would,” Pythia muttered.

“Would what? And what does she mean, last voyage? She gave that speech expecting us to sink?” Scotch said as she started to twist the knobs, listening for anything that wasn’t static.

“I would,” Pythia muttered again, then blinked. “Damn it. I can’t tell which now I’m in.”

“She just made a deal with the star cursed tribe, Scotch. In front of everypony! No crew will sail with her after this. Ever!” Majina explained, her eyes wide and sympathetic.

“But, doesn’t that mean the ship is cursed too?” Scotch said with a frown.

“She didn’t ask as Captain. She asked using her not-captain name. The curse starts with her and ends with her,” Majina said.

“Where are all the rules for this stupid curse nonsense?!” Scotch demanded. It was all just so... stupid! “Curses are dumb.”

“Blackjack was cursed,” Pythia said as she stared at the maps, rubbing a temple with a hoof.

“Shut up,” Scotch snapped. “Your face is cursed!” Majina immediately began to sniffle.

Precious sighed, sat up, grabbed Scotch’s head, and twisted it towards the radio. “You! Listen for another ship.” Then she pointed a claw at Majina. “No crying.” Then at Pythia. “No more talking about Blackjack!” Then she flopped down in the middle. “I swear, if I’m gonna get blown up, it’s not going to be listening to you three bicker.” And then she curled up, covering her face with her spade tail. A booming peal of thunder crackled across the horizon, and she peeked out, but the skies overhead were clear.

Scotch turned the dial again and again, and each time she repeated, “Mayday, this is the Abalone, can anyone hear me?” Only static. Wait, why would she have Scotch on the radio? She wouldn’t know what ships to talk to. What to say? And shouldn’t she be getting the Riptide, at least? That ship was close! She glanced behind the device and spotted a plug tugged out of its socket. A plug connected to a wire that ran up to the antenna on the mast.

So, the captain gave her a disconnected radio to distract her. Something to keep her out of the way in the nice, safe alcove. Like a little kid. She wiggled the plug back in, and the static disappeared. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” she said irritably.

“I can hear you,” a mare purred in her ear. “You don’t sound like my dear bondsister, and I know a pony accent when I hear one.”

“You’re Riptide?” Scotch asked, then demanded, “Why are you after me?”

“I made a deal, but don’t worry. I know I said all that stuff about feeding you to my props and all, but that was just for show. I have to keep up appearances,” the mare said so calmly.

“Why do you want me, period? How did you even know about me?” Scotch demanded.

“Now, now. I can hardly explain such things over the radio. You never know who might be listening. In person, though, I could tell you so many, many things. It’s really quite fascinating,” the mare spoke calmly, as if she wasn’t trying to kill her.

“Yeah, well, I’m skeptical of anyone who comes after me in a warship,” Scotch replied.

“I know where the Eye of the World is,” Riptide purred. “I can take you there myself.”

Scotch froze, glancing over at Pythia and Majina, but they were both doing something with Pythia’s pendant. “How do you even know we’re looking for it?” Scotch demanded.

“I know many, many things,” Riptide whispered. “Like I know you can save that entire ship and your friends right now.”

“What?” Scotch blinked.

“Come now. I know you’ve thought of it. They’re all going to die trying to uphold stupid traditions that should have been done away with ages ago. You get in the longboat with Lamprey right now. I stop and pick you up. Your friends survive. The Abalone survives. You survive. Everyone is happy. You save everyone. You get to be the hero. And then I can answer questions. Don’t worry about yourself. Whatever happens to you is insignificant compared to all the lives you’ll save.”

“I... I...” Scotch stammered, her eyes wide. She glanced over at the bound stallion watching intently.

“You’re not worth their lives, Scotch. Admit it, and save them,” Riptide whispered.

“You know what I think?” Precious said loudly from over Scotch’s shoulder. “You sound like Sanguine.” Then she brought her claw down hard, smashing the radio over and over again. Her deep blue eyes stared coolly into Scotch’s. “I can give you the same treatment if you’re dumb enough to believe what she said.”

“What? No! Pffft! As if. I was totally going to tell her off, but you beat me to it. Scotch managed a grin as the dragonpony eyed her skeptically.

“Better,” she said as she flopped down. “I wish there was something–” Another blast of thunder, but instead of an explosion, this was accompanied by a gust of frigid air and... why were the waves getting bigger? Precious stared up at the sky. “Oh. That’s something. Not sure what kind of something...”

Wisps of white magic rose into the sky from where Pearl and Sky Altar danced on the aftcastle. The pair danced on their hind legs, back to back, moving their forehooves in strange circular gestures as they rotated and twisted, their faces set in concentration as they sang. Pearl held a watering can of all things in her forehoof, but the water flowing out of the shower head wasn’t falling to the deck; it was rising towards the sky, where it mixed with sparkly powder trailing from Sky’s hoof. From the way Precious licked her lips, Scotch guessed the powder was diamond.

Both of these joined the streamers of magic coursing up to the clouds, where the gray overcast skies were thickening and swirling... becoming. Over and over, the sisters cried out ‘Boreas!’ With each cry, the clouds darkened, the shape growing ever more defined. Equine. Zebraish. Then, with a final boom of thunder that knocked the sisters to the ground, the clouds moved with life.

Then, in a voice of thunder, not just simply loud, but actual thunder, it boomed, ‘The North Wind has come!’

And then it blew.

The Abalone was a tough ship under full sail. The captain had not claimed it was a fast ship, but in that gust the old schooner practically flew forward. The seas built behind it, wave after wave, slamming not just into the Abalone but into the Riptide as well. Its next cannon shot went wide as it struggled to aim in bucking waves. Scotch and Precious scrambled up to the aftcastle where the sisters had collapsed, carrying them down below.

“We did it,” Pearl whispered. “We actually summoned the north wind.”

“Now watch him kill us,” Sky murmured.

Scotch stared at the enormous zebra of black clouds and frigid wind. “Won’t their shamans try and get rid of him?”

“I hope they try,” Sky said, pushing herself up to her shaky hooves. “You remember when I talked about smart spirits? Boreas is one.”

“How the hell did Equestrians beat things like that?” Scotch Tape demanded, pointing a hoof at the massive zebra head.

“With about two hundred pegasi working together, along with your sky boats,” Sky said with a sour twist of her mouth. “Honestly, this is summer, when he’s weakest, but even then, he’s the strongest of the four winds. He’ll still try and wreck us.”

“Which he’s going to do,” Pythia said from the bench. “I’m not seeing the way out.”

“Mother paid for your services!” Sky snapped. “If she’s going to do that, I expect you to deliver!”

Pythia had her starmap in front of her and was dangling the pendant over it, but with the bucking of the ship, it seemed to rock and wave wildly. “I’m trying! I’m asking Saladsuud, and all I’m getting are these weird motions. I was getting them even before you summoned Mr. Blowhard up there, so I know he’s not the cause.” The ship’s masts groaned as a heavy gust hit it, all of them glancing upwards at the colossal zebra in the clouds.

“I think he heard you,” Pearl muttered.

“Yeah, I got that kind of voice.” Pythia said, then tapped the map. “Saladsuud is the luckiest star in Aquarius. It actually gave me an answer right away, but I’m not understanding it.”

“Can’t you just ask it to help, like Boreas?” Scotch asked, and got horrified looks from everyone with stripes, even Lamprey. “Oh, come on! You asked Boreas for help! How is it different asking Saladsuud?”

“We didn’t ask Boreas anything. We summoned him. He’s doing what he always does when ships are around: sink them!” Sky Altar said, then pointed a hoof at Pythia. “You cursed my mom. Don’t you dare curse my ship too!”

“Relax. I’ve only ever played shaman once. Not doing that again,” she said as she stared at the starmap. “Saladsuud’s giving me everything I need, I’m just not understanding!”

“Maybe you need a new map?” Precious asked.

Pythia blinked and stared at the dragonfilly for several seconds, as if stunned. “Huh,” she muttered, and then started looking at charts, flipping over one that was blank on the back. “Draw everywhere the light goes,” she told Majina as she stretched up. Her crystal pendant caught the light from the overhead lamp and focused it into a number of specks, the largest being a single point of light on the paper. Majina took a piece of charcoal on her hoof and followed it around and around and around. Every now and then the pendant would stall, reverse, stall, and reverse again as the ship continued to buck and creak.

When it finished, Majina had drawn a swirly, largely filled in ‘Q’ with feathered edges like a saw blade. “Thanks, Saladsuud, you lucky star,” Pythia said as she showed the others. “What do you think this is?” she asked.

They stared, and then Sky Altar gasped, “No! Better wrecked than that!”

“What? What is...” Pearl trailed off, her weary eyes going wide. “Oh.”

“What?” Scotch asked with a frown.

“Wait, is that what I think it is?” Precious asked with a frown. Pythia nodded once, and the dragonfilly lay down on the deck, covering her face in her claws. “I am so sick of boats.”

“Oh,” Majina said as she regarded the paper. “Well, if we do live, I think the captain will be going down in history!”

“What!” Scotch Tape demanded. “What is that supposed to be?”

“Go get Mother,” Pearl said. “She’s not going to like this.” Sky trotted off towards the front of the ship.

Scotch Tape sat and stared at the swirly thing, eyes bulging as if trying to force herself to poop out comprehension. “What? Is? It?” she demanded.

“Scotch,” Pythia said with a patient sigh. “What happens when you flush a toilet?”

Scotch blinked. “Oh, crap. It’s Okambo.”

The stars were sending them straight into a swirly megaspell of death.

Pearl had been right. The captain hadn’t liked the answer she’d paid for. With enemies to the north and west, and land to the south, the megaspell lying to the west was the only way out of Riptide’s trap. Boreas was keeping the warship from closing in enough to get a clear shot, but every few minutes, the cannon would roar, and a massive plume of water would erupt near the Abalone. Shooting in the midst of a sapient storm couldn’t have been the easiest thing, and the waves seemed to take particular delight slamming into the propeller-driven ship. At least, Scotch hoped that was the case.

If they kept racing south, though, eventually they’d run aground on a mud bar, and the Riptide would have a sitting target to shell. Apparently the mud flats of the shore extended for miles and miles inland. Some crew might survive, but the odds were against it. Especially if they had anything on that ship capable of flight, and they probably did.

On the other hoof, going into Okambo meant certain death in the maw of the vortex megaspell.

The key, Pythia insisted, was the tail on the ‘Q’ that was drawn. Apparently Okambo was chowing down on some islands, and one of them was creating a current or eddy that would spit out the Abalone. All they had to do was use Boreas’s wind, find that current, and let it spit them out.

Easy peasy.

The captain informed the crew. They would not let the Abalone be more spoils for the raptorial Riptide. If they were to return to the sea, they would take all their treasures with them. Scotch couldn’t imagine how much charisma and loyalty it took to convince the Abalone to spite the Riptide, but the course was changed west.

Into Okambo.

Fifteen minutes later, Scotch could feel the difference. Before, the waves had been wild things, coming from all angles. The further west they travelled, the more orderly the waves became, advancing like marching soldiers as they circled the great megaspell. The helmszebra had to have legs of steel to control the ship as it weaved along the troughs, angling north to cut up the approaching wave, breaching the crest, and then angling in south as the wave passed underneath so as to not ‘roll’ down the side of the wave into the trough. The Goldfish submarine was out of sight behind them, but the other sub, which Scotch had been informed was a ‘narwhal’, kept pace with the Abalone, trying to cut them off.

What good was a kill if there weren’t any spoils to go along with it?

The crew on the sails stunned Scotch Tape. In the windblown spray, they clambered up masts, walked out on gaffs and yardarms, trimmed sails, mended rips, and swung on ropes to reach places they needed to be. Not one fell to their death; when one slipped, another crewmember was there to help them. They hauled ropes and kept everything tied down. Those who didn’t tossed their cargo overboard. First pots of shaloosh, then smoked fish and clams.

And through it all, they sang.

Maybe it wasn’t singing, precisely, so much as shouting in harmony over the wind. A few stallions would bellow out lines, and the rest of the crew would answer in refrain. The words were in a Zebra more archaic than Scotch could follow, so Majina supplied the translation.

Now we are ready to head for the Horn,

Way, ay, roll an' go!

Our boots an' our clothes boys are all in the pawn,

Timme rollickin' randy dandy O!

The Riptide, she was sure, had no such song carrying it through the wind and rain. It didn’t roll with the winds and waves. It smashed through them, its prow gouging great fans of foam every time it ripped through, trying to line up a perfect shot.

Heave a pawl, oh, heave away,

Way, ay, roll an' go!

The anchor's on board an' the cable's all stored,

Timme rollickin' randy dandy O!

As the ship cut through a trough, the Abalone let out a boom that sent everyone not an Atoli zebra on their faces. “What was that?” Scotch Tape yelled out over the wind. “Did they hit us?” No. The ship still seemed intact.

“Mud bar,” Sky Altar explained. “Or maybe sand.”

“Definitely mud,” Pearl contradicted.

“You’re telling me that wasn’t a rock?” Scotch said as she picked herself to her hooves.

“If it were, there wouldn’t be a bottom to the boat,” Sky said as she trotted to the rail and looked back. “The Riptide’s keeping to deeper water. She’s falling back.”

Scotch brightened. “Maybe we won’t have to go into Okambo after all!” The pair of young zebras gave her a pitying look. “What?”

“Scotch, we’re in Okambo right now,” Pythia said as she examined her swaying pendant, as if trying to discern more clues about their course.

Soon we'll be warping her out through the locks,

Way, ay, roll an' go!

Where the pretty young gals all come down in their flocks,

Timme rollickin' randy dandy O!

When Scotch had seen Okambo, she’d realized it was big. What she hadn’t realized was just how big it actually was. As she raced to the rail, she could see the sea wasn’t flat and wave tossed. It sloped. The captain had returned to the wheel next to the helmszebra, and the ship now ran with the waves rather than along them. She could barely see the other side of the megaspell as it now competed in rumbling with the skies above. Zebras seemed to take glee, competing to see who could hurl crates further out towards the maw of the megaspell.

Heave a pawl, oh, heave away,

Way, ay, roll an' go!

The anchor's on board an' the cable's all stored,

Timme rollickin' randy dandy O!

The depression was so shockingly massive that the edges appeared beautifully smooth. Even mesmerizing. The vertical lines of the far side seemed to ripple and shimmy back and forth as she stared at them. The water around them had the color of liquid concrete. Then the captain let out a shout, and the singing stopped as every zebra on board grabbed something. Precious tackled Scotch Tape to the deck.

Because that was when the water went up. It was like a hill in the curve of the sea, surging higher and higher until it erupted in a massive shower of sea water. The Abalone rose up the wave, the ship nearly vertical as it climbed that wall and fell to the side of the fountain of sea water... and rock.

Then the sea fell out beneath the Abalone, and she screamed along with Precious as the ship dropped down the backside of the enormous rock in the wall of the megaspell. Then, of course, the water came crashing down upon them, and it was just the weight of Precious keeping her from being washed overboard. The dragonfilly had her claws latched into the deck around them, and didn’t release, even when the rock was left behind. Mud, silt, and bits of pulverized seaweed covered them

“Precious, you can let go now,” Scotch Tape shouted.

“No I can’t!” she yelled back. “Here comes another!”

And another.

And another.

The Abalone proved as tough as her namesake. Each time, they came near one of the rocky protrusions, the captain gave a shout, the song changed, the crew braced, and the Abalone rode the piled-up water up and around the obstruction. It would have been easier to go around the obstruction by heading towards the center.

They didn’t want to do that.

From a distance, it was easy to imagine Okambo as a funnel dropping down to a watery death. Really, the megaspell was more like a basin, flattening out closer to the center. The bottom of Okambo, however, resembled a cement mixer of utterly mindboggling proportions. The water was black with sludge as immense boulders two, three, or ten times the size of the Abalone rolled around the glowing green nexus that was the megaspell. Every few second, some of the boulders would reach the megaspell itself and be flung away with tremendous force, arching up and sometimes breaking the lip of the megaspell, only to tumble back down into that booming, grinding mess that would annihilate any ship, even the Riptide, instantly.

The warship stayed high at the very edge of the crest, where the rotating water was carried over the mudflats and it could power away from the megaspell if it needed to. At this point, Scotch imagined the Riptide just watching for the ship’s inevitable demise.

The Narwhal wasn’t so lucky. It had been designed for speed as well, but every time it had to pass an obstruction, the captain went inward instead of rising up on the outer side. Soon it was below the Abalone, struggling to power its way up the gray slope.

Then it disappeared into the rocky slurry.

It reappeared, its pointed nose straining for the sky and safety, before it was sucked under again.

One final glimpse, the submarine folded in half. Then pieces. Then nothing.

Okambo didn’t even burp.

But the megaspell was doing what it was supposed to. Every revolution they made, the Riptide fell further and further behind. Despite its powerful engines and deadly shape, it had far more to fear from the deadly currents. With Boreas thundering and gusting, the Abalone could scrape higher along the wall each time it caught full wind, keeping it from ruin below.

Still, the Abalone was ailing. Every protrusion they rode strained the ship. The crew was now fully busy bailing out jarfuls of water. If they stayed in much longer, the Abalone would simply break to pieces. Hoof sized rocks were beating the decks, sails, and crew.

But how to get out?

Scotch Tape almost missed it. The island, really just a massive pile of boulders, hadn’t yet hit the wall of the megaspell. The wall of water caught it and curled around it in an eddy. As if sensing its prey was about to escape, the Riptide, on the far side of the megaspell, fired a few shots that fell short.

With one final, massive, groaning effort, the Abalone hit the eddy curling around the island. It pulled at the ship, lifting it up to the rim of the megaspell and down the far side, out to sea.

Then she saw Zebrinica for the first time.

To the left, mudflat and marsh stretched almost as far as she could see. The entire region looked as if it had been plowed, with heaps of muck and rock scattered in piles. Beyond the devastation was dark forest rising ominously in the distance. She finally understood why Thrush had said she couldn’t just take her to the shore and drop her off.

Zebrinica looked as if it wanted to eat her.

“I need you to debark,” the captain said, wearily, as she approached Scotch Tape. “I fear this is as far as the Abalone will be able to carry you.”

“But what about the Abalone?” Scotch Tape asked as she regarded the battered ship and crew.

“She sails, though I know not if she will survive to port. Boreas has tired of these summer waters, and is returning to vex the yaks. We will continue west, find a safe cove to anchor, and hope to summon help.”

“What about Riptide?” Precious asked. “She’s going to be pissed.

“She comes for you. If you are not on our ship, there is little she can do,” the captain said. Then she barked a laugh. “If she doesn’t murder us all out of spite, Tradition will demand my bondsister rescue my ship. When she finds you not aboard, she will have a choice of whether to waste time killing us or get back to pursuing you.” She glared down at the muddy, waterlogged Lamprey. “This eel will attest to as much when I return him to his mistress. She will not be pleased, I wager.”

“Will she murder you out of spite?” Scotch Tape asked in worry as Pearl and Sky Altar joined them.

“I think not. I’m sure she will want to reap as much profit from this as she can, and as she does, I might discover what she seeks with you. If I discover anything, I’ll have the wind deliver the message to you.” The captain sighed and straightened. “Now, Miss Scotch Tape, Happy Tale of the Zencori, Serpent’s Wisdom of the Starkatteri, and Miss Precious, please board the longboat and take it ashore. Do not worry about its return.”

“But what if you sink? Don’t you need it?” Majina asked.

“And how are we supposed to get across all that?” Pythia asked as she gestured at the mudflats extending for miles.

“I do not know,” the captain confessed. “But if you are on board when the Riptide finds us, the crew will give you to them. I have asked as much as I can of them, and they’ll take no more. They are to the breaking point. We will sail west and find the Orinoco. Then return to Northport, and they will find a new captain… and probably a new ship. If the Riptide does wish vengeance, my bond-sister can take it out on me in your stead.”

The crew sure wasn’t sorry to see them go, but there was far too much to do for any trouble to start. They loaded up the longboat with the quartet’s belongings and some supplies even as they worked to get the ship underway. Pearl was begging the water in the ship to return to the ocean, while Sky worked to summon a much more manageable breeze. Boreas’s wrath had dissipated into a stormcloud that seemed more intent on tormenting the Riptide than the Abalone. Small favors.

Aboard the longboat, the four were lowered down to the water. The Abalone, for all its hard journey, still seemed too stubborn to sink. Scotch Tape reached out and patted the hull as they descended. “Thank you, Abalone. You’re a good ship.”

Then she caught Pythia’s sardonic gaze, Precious’s eye roll, and Majina’s suppressed giggle all at once. “What?” she blurted. “It’s a good ship! Leave me alone.”

“It’s just so cute!” Majina gushed, pouncing Scotch and giving her a tight hug.

“Right,” Pythia said dryly. “Well, why don’t you show this boat how much you admire it too and get rowing? ‘Cause I don’t want to be sitting here when Riptide comes around.”

Scotch moved to the seat next to Precious as the Abalone drifted away, spilling a near constant stream from a bucket brigade. “Think they’ll be okay?”

“Of course they are. Now row, my little ponies!” Pythia said from the bow as she jabbed a hoof at the distant trees.

As the Abalone pulled away, Captain on board could still hear distant shouts.

“Hey, you’re not the boss of me! Who put you in charge?”

“We’re going around in circles!”

“Together! We have to row together!”

“Now we’re going the other way around.”

“We should have left you in Hoofington!”

“We should have let them dunk you, witch!”

“Beast!”

“Bitch!”

“Girls!”

“Row already!”

Mahealani, Captain of the Abalone for the last time, just shook her head as one of the four ex-passengers started to cry. Her elder daughter trotted up behind her. “I’ve a westerly. Barely a zephyr, but it should get us moving.” Lalahawa stared at the longboat they were leaving behind, watching as one of the four was pushed into the water. “They weren’t worth it, Captain,” she said, softly.

“Perhaps not,” the captain replied.

“Perhaps?!” the young mare blurted. “Captain, we jettisoned almost all of a year’s haul. The repairs needed to keep us afloat will make us the laughingstock of Northport! There is no ‘perhaps’. This is a debacle!”

The captain chuckled softly. “You’re young, Lalahawa. In time, you’ll learn that cargo comes and goes, and a ship is ever in need of repair. But when have you heard of a two zebras, a pony, and a... pony... thing... asking to travel to our lands?”

“Never,” Lalahawa confessed as the longboat flailed its way towards the mangroves and mud flats. “Not since... well, old times.”

“Mmmm,” the captain replied as she watched them shrink from sight. “Very old times. And better times.”

“Captain. Twenty of your crew are killed or wounded, and the Riptide will find us. The Abalone is all but wrecked. If it weren’t for Ahulani, we’d be sunk for certain. Did you seriously do all this for... for nostalgia?!” the shaman asked incredulously.

The captain stroked the rail of the ship. “Of course not. I did it because the Abalone wanted to.”

She stared at her mother for a moment. A smile curled the corner of her lip. “Did you become a seer or shaman when we were busy, Captain?”

“Watch your tone, Lalahawa. I am Captain till your father says otherwise, and I'll still be your mother after that,” she said with a frown. “I may not hear or speak to spirits, but a wise captain knows her ship. The Abalone wanted this. To take passengers. To honor tradition, even at great peril. To live as she did when she plucked clams from the sea two centuries and more ago.” The captain stared at the megaspell behind them. “And I have questions for my dear bond-sister.”

“You know she’s a bloodthirsty monster. She might kill you out of annoyance, Captain,” Lalahawa warned.

“Don’t insult your bondmother,” the captain said lowly. “She is not some mindless pirate or creature of the sea. Riptide is vicious and cruel, but worst of all, she is ambitious. If she contented herself with violence and plundering, she’d be easily put out to sea and ignored. She has a vision of our people, and there are ships that will heed her winds. She’s forsworn her traditional name for that common, vulgar slang name more befitting a pony raider than a captain. And she’d have us all do the same. She’d make all the elders of Northport dance if she could. And she attacked me!” She thudded her hoof on the rail. “She risked everything with this. Years of influence and plays for power, all for that pony. I would know why.”

Lalahawa stared out at where the ship had disappeared from view amid the mounds of grayish mud. “What do you think will become of them?”

“If they are wise, they will wait for the tide to come in, then hug the sea with the boat. Once past Okambo, they are only a few days travel from Rice River,” the captain said soberly. “The land is flat, and it will be impossible to miss the river. If they are not wise, they’ll go inland into the swamps, run afoul of the Orah, and never be seen again.”

From far away came a blast of emerald flame. The captain let out a long sigh. “They’re going inland,” Lalahawa said lightly.

“I need a drink,” the captain murmured as she turned away from the rail. “Tell me you saved at least one bottle of sahi from the waves.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Mudflats. The gray stretch between trees and ocean may have technically been mud, but it was flat only in the geographical sense. Heaps of muck, broken rock, seaweed and sea creatures had been vomited all over the shore by the megaspell, covering the mangrove bushes in filth the consistency of wet concrete mixed liberally with manure. The few times they’d attempted to put any pressure on it, the oar sunk a foot in and stuck fast. Each time they'd only barely been able to pull it free.

But that was nothing compared to the bugs.

In the Wasteland, the most you had to worry about were bloatsprites and radroaches. Maybe radscorpions, but Scotch wasn’t sure if they counted as bugs or not. Probably. As they struggled to row up a creek, the four were assaulted by a veritable cloud of biting, stinging bugs that swarmed over their boat after any vulnerable flesh. Swatting them accomplished nothing, and Precious even blasted flame to try and scatter the persistent vermin. They’d become so intolerable after five minutes that Majina had fallen out of the boat from all her efforts to get them off her.

Then she’d discovered that the mud covering her kept most of the worst biters off her hide. She’d also discovered an eel, or maybe an enormous worm, wiggling about in her mane. That discovery was only useful in providing lunch for Precious. Soon, all four were coated in thick gray mud, reeking of rotting fish, and stuck trying to struggle up a creek to evade the Riptide.

“This was not how I imagined going to the zebra lands would be,” Scotch admitted, giving up rowing and just using the oars as poles, sinking them into the syrupy gray muck and pulling upstream as mangroves rose up around them.

“How did you imagine it?” Majina asked as she stood on her hind legs at the back of the longboat, peering north through the bushes.

“Us getting off a ship at a dock, for starters,” Scotch said sourly. “Less bugs. No pirates.”

“Really?” the filly asked, twisting to blink down at her.

“More or less,” Scotch admitted. “I mean, I didn’t think it’d be easy, but I thought we’d just go there and...”

“And what?” Majina asked.

“And Pythia would do her knowing stuff thing and we’d...” Scotch began, then trailed off again. The cloaked zebra had refused a mudbath, pulling her ragged wrapping closer around her as she flipped through her notecards.

“We’d what?” Majina continued, relentless in her curiosity.

“She’d follow me around on great adventures like she did with Blackjack,” Pythia answered for Scotch. “She’d do as much thinking with us as she did with her.”

“That’s not how it was!” Scotch Tape shouted at her.

“Do not start with the shouting,” Precious growled as she worked her oar out of the mud and stabbed it back in a few feet further down. “Keep pulling or we’re never getting out of this mudflat.”.

Scotch rammed her oar into the muck, pretending it was Pythia’s face. “Blackjack was trying to unravel a mystery. She went all over the Hoof helping people! I was hoping this would be like that! Okay?” Scotch snapped, pulling hard on the oar.

“Right. You getting dragged along for the adventure while the big ponies did the hard work. Well, the big ponies are dead and gone. Now it’s just us,” Pythia said indifferently.

“Why do you have to be so mean all the time?” Majina demanded. “She lost her father!”

“Shut up,” Precious growled.

“At least she had one for a while!” Pythia shot back.

“All of you, shut up!” the dragon snarled, jabbing her tail behind them.

At the Riptide.

The smooth, angular sides and gray-blue paint scheme made the vessel almost disappear into the sea. Smoke, or perhaps steam, rose from the water behind it. It must have vented its exhaust underwater to prevent it from being seen rising in the sky. The back of the ship had some sort of landing pad set up. The ship crawled along, barely moving at all. From the back of the pad, tiny dots started to lift into the air.

Fliers.

“Move!” Scotch shouted, poling the boat as hard as she could through the muck towards the cover of the trees. They reached a berm of mud, and Precious hopped out and pushed on the back of the longboat, driving it up over the lip into a large pond of brackish water extending to the tree line. Precious pulled herself back on board, and then the four fillies paddled across the pond and up the narrow stream feeding it. Thirty seconds later, they pulled into the deep shade beneath the trees.

Just as a flier landed nearby.

Lighting down on a muddy stump jutting from the pool a few dozen feet away, the flier didn’t look like... well... anything Scotch Tape had ever seen before. It was wrapped, head to hoof, in strips of stitched-together leather. Four enormous, diaphanous wings, like those of a dragonfly, jutted from its shoulders. A gas mask covered its face, and every breath it drew was a raspy gasp. The sea breeze brought a stench of garlic from the equine shape. It peered around at the trees, its begoggled eyes glowing a dim, sickly green.

Then its four wings blurred into motion, lifting it into the air, and it darted away along the treeline.

“You know what I see? I see the three of you arguing, and fighting, and bitching, and sniping and crying, and getting yourselves killed till I am the last one left,” Precious said, her voice hissing and low. “And I don’t like it, so knock it off.”

“Right,” Scotch muttered. “We should go...” And she looked deeper into the swamp.

A real swamp, like from her storybooks in 99. One with dark green trees and bushes and vines and hanging moss. Plenty of bugs, though, shockingly, fewer than on the mudflat. The trees rose to either side of the narrow creek, connecting overhead in a verdant tunnel, the knobby, twisted bases of the trees tangled up with thorny bushes. The water itself was stained blackish-brown, as if it were toxic.

She really didn’t want to go that way, but what alternative did she have?

Had Chapel really been that bad? She could have just been patient a few years. Helped rebuild the Wasteland then.

Now she was here, in the zebra lands, and all she wanted was to go back.

“Come on,” Scotch said as she picked up the oar she'd dropped. “Let’s get moving before another flier finds us.” Precious took up the other, and together they started up the black river.

Author's Notes:

So here’s chapter 2. I hope it’s okay. Only took me twenty thousand words to actually get her TO the zebra lands. Pretty good for me. Not much else to say.

I’d like to thank Kkat for creating Fallout Equestria, and Hinds, Bronode, and Swicked for editing this nightmare and making it legible. Thank you everyone who is giving my second story a chance, and I look forward to reading what I did right and what I need to fix.

Also, if anyone wants to help support future chapters, you can do so by putting bits in the bit jar: through paypal to [email protected] or through my patreon https://www.patreon.com/Somber?ty=h