It was the same as home, with a couple of exceptions. First of all, everyone spoke with an accent very foreign to Maidenpool. Secondly, there was no smell of saltwater in the air. But the feeling of a small town devoted largely to the sea was there. That was the larger truth that superseded all the other little details. It felt like home, and it hurt.

I lifted my head up from the panel of the older vessel we were working on, it had been beached for decades, and most of it was in the process of decay. However, it did have something we needed-

“Permittivity, did you get that manifold off yet?” Marigold asked me as she looked up from her own task.

“Nearly there,” I said as I stooped back under the panel and grasped the metal tubing. With a quick spin of the screws holding it in place, it came free and I pulled it out and got to my hooves. “Got it.”

“Alright, can you come over here and help me with this reaction chamber?” Marigold asked me as the sounds of other parts of the ship being stripped could be heard. We were stripping down the un-salvagable vessels for parts.

“Sure,” I said as I trotted over to where the Earth Pony techie was loosening up the bolts that held a steel sphere in place beneath the flooring. They really didn’t make these reactors easy to get to. With a pulse of magic and a deep breath, I grabbed onto all the other points of connection for the chamber and loosened them. A moment later, her point of contact came loose and I pulled the chamber out of the floor before gently setting it on the decking.

“I’m just glad you’re assigned to my work crew,” Marigold said as she wiped sweat from her forehead, with a foreleg. Her golden coat and light pink mane seemed to glow incandescent in the work lights we had set up.

“Likewise,” I said as I stretched out my legs and felt the deep ache of the potions still being healed day by day. “So what else is salvageable on this tub?”

“The wiring, the steel tubing, and the engine itself,” she said before pausing her list. “But we’re gonna take this reaction chamber up to Privateer, and see if we can’t get that engine purring this afternoon.”

“You just want to be the first crew to get an engine running, aren’t you?” I asked with a laugh as I lifted the heavy reaction chamber up in my magic. As far as I could tell, the chamber would hold a vacuum and the gem catalyst from the Privateer would work with it.

“That bitch Hinges isn’t going to be the first with her old fishing boat,” she said with a triumphant laugh.

“I mean, she has a bigger crew than you,” I replied with a smile on my muzzle.

“But I promised Icepick that I’d buy her a drink if I got access to you,” Marigold said as we exited the engine room of the beached ship. “She also said I’m supposed to leave at least one scratch on you.” I shook my head at that. The Privateer was a short trot away. As soon as we made it to the outside of the craft, Marigold met the gazes of her other work crew members.

“Get that engine stripped down, but after about an hour, feel free to head onto the Pirate,” she said before rapping her hoof on the hull of the ship. “We’re gonna make good on that bet.”

There were a couple of cheers as ponies looked up from their tasks, tools in the hooves and mouths. Regardless, we had to get moving if we wanted to get that engine running before nightfall…

“Connect the pump,” Marigold said as we stood the reaction chamber up in its proper position. The battery-powered pump activated, and for a few moments, the sounds of loud compression via piston filled the room. “Check the gauge.”

“We’re at vacuum,” I replied with relish. The engine was nearly ready to be started. “Hit the button.” She did. For a few seconds the battery bank we had stacked up in the engine room hummed, but that was it.

“Not enough juice, not enough juice,” Marigold said as she paced the room, thinking hard about what was going wrong.

“So, you’re sure that everything is connected correctly and in working order?” I asked her.

“Yeah, that’s not the issue,” she said with exasperation and exhaustion showing through. “We don’t have enough potential from the batteries to jump-start the reaction chamber.”

“What if I give it a voltage increase?” I asked as I thought about what Icepick had said about these devices in the past.

“That might work, or it might blow us up,” Marigold said as she eyed my horn with interest and a fair amount of fear. “Hold on, I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“I’ll be sitting here, I might have a solution,” I said as I let my legs fall from beneath me. The steel decking was cold on my coat, but I ignored it. Marigold gave me a strange look, before looking wistfully out the door.

“It’s not a big deal. When Hinges gets her boat working, then she can jump start ours,” Marigold said as she passed out the door, her packet of local cigarettes already in her hoof.

I ignored the faint sound of hoofsteps. I cleared my mind of everything except the problem we faced. Not the big problem, but the small one before me. My horn lit up, and even with my eyes closed, I could see. The potential of the batteries, and the slight distortions of the ambient electrical and magnetic fields coming from the reaction chamber. There was energy there, the gem practically hummed with it inside that vacuum chamber. I shut my eyes forcefully, before throwing the switch on the batteries. For a moment, the flux and the potential travelling through the casing made the distortions fluctuate, a deep humming from within the chamber that could only be heard in the radio spectrum-

My horn glowed brighter as I felt the flow from the battery begin to deteriorate. I grasped at the humming distortion, holding it with my horn- And then I deepened it and compressed it around the chamber. With a start, the reaction chamber started up. It began to generate power and sent it back through the battery. With a rip, I pulled the battery line and cut that circuit. When my eyes opened, I could see a faint glowing from the outside of the reaction chamber. It was emitting radiation on all the frequencies, but a fair amount of it was in the visual spectrum.

I stood up and dusted myself off. Maybe I couldn’t affect the weather, but having a clear mind to interact with the fields that made up the universe was nice…

“Holy shit, how’d you do it?” Marigold asked as her second or third cigarette hung from her lips.

“Magic,” I said with a laugh as I tapped the reaction chamber with a hoof. At that moment, a particularly high energy photon leaked through the steel. It entered through my eyes, leaving a bright comet like a trail through my eyes. She wasn’t looking at me, she turned and looked over at the control panel. A dial was in the red, and she was staring at it. Slowly, the dial began to recede back to green.

“Well, we beat Hinges, and the repair talisman is going ham on the ship,” Marigold paused and looked over at me. “We should dump some scrap into it, it might need it at this point.”

“Wait, this tub has a repair talisman?” My surprised question struck her as funny because she burst out laughing as soon as I finished.

“Yeah,” she said as she paused in her laughing. “Basically every ship built in the last few years of the war had one. It didn’t matter how much the price tag of the talisman was, because you were going to save money within a year or two. Maintenance and it’s associated costs are really high, and a talisman isn’t that hard to make. At least, if you have the infrastructure and the production lines already set up.”

“That makes sense,” I said with a smile on my face. The repair dial was already another couple of degrees towards green. “When do we take her out?”

“The repair work should be double checked, but after that, we’ll take her out tomorrow morning,” Marigold said with a deep intake of breath. “Anyhow, you can leave if you want. You won me the bet after all,” Marigold finished and threw a foreleg into the air. I met it as I walked by.

“Thanks, I’ll be here tomorrow morning,” I said as I started towards the door of the Privateer.

She waved goodbye and I climbed out of the ship. Beside her was the old fishing boat that the other crew was working on. I waved at them and they looked back with a bit of annoyance at me and the humming engine of the ship below me. I didn’t blame them.

“Hey,” I said as I opened the door and stepped inside. Icepick was at the cheap wooden desk that the hotel room came with.

“Hey,” she said as she looked over at me. There was a ghost of a smile on her muzzle when she looked at me. I trotted into the room and stripped my work clothes off. The door shut with a quick outreach of my magic. I started towards the bathroom before remembering that this place didn’t have a shower. I let out a groan and dropped myself onto the bed. It creaked and gave in under me. “Did you start one up?” Icepick asked me as she got out of the desk chair and stretched.

“Yes, the Privateer is running and repairing as we speak,” I said as I crawled back towards the pile of pillows laying against the headboard.

“That’s great, I knew we could get a couple of those ships running,” Icepick said as she walked around the side of the bed, before throwing herself sideways onto the mattress. With a hoof, I grasped her and pulled her body towards me. Our faces were close together, and our hind legs drifted nearer by the second. She smiled at me, a tired expression on a tired face. Mine was a mirror image of exhaustion. But, maybe that was okay, we were tired together at least.

“I bet we can get a third of the old vessels running again,” I replied with another yawn following seconds later.

“That’d be nice,” she said quietly as her own foreleg stretched over my tired form and wrapped around my head. Icepick stroked my mane even as she pulled my head the final distance between us. Our lips met in an explosion of sensations, it was always a wonderful feeling kissing her. Kissing my partner, my bound soul.

Maybe an hour passed, maybe a few seconds did, but eventually, our kiss broke. We stared into each other's eyes for a moment, revelling in our mutual infatuation. It was a pleasant feeling, but reality had to break in at some point.

“How long do think it’ll take?” Icepick asked softly.

“Months,” I replied equally quietly.

“We don’t have that long,” Icepick said with a sigh.

“I know,” I said in a low voice. “All of us are going to be inoculated within a fortnight.”

“We still don’t know anything about Paradise, whether they’re still occupied-” Icepick started to say before I put a hoof to her lips.

“Don’t worry about that problem just yet,” I said to her. “I just thought of a way out of our current predicament though. Well, something to get us out of here without feeling guilty.”

“Shoot,” Icepick asked me as my mind spun back to the thought that had filled my mind.

“We build them a power grid, and teach them how to service it and the ships were getting going again,” I replied. She pursed her lips as soon as my proposal exited my mouth.

“How do we build them a grid?” Icepick asked instantly.

“We build it out of spare parts,” I replied, “there’s enough spare wiring and reactors in those ships out there to rig up a basic decentralized grid. Nothing to run industry with, but a couple of streetlights… That we could do.”

“How long would that take?” She asked quietly, wheels turning and grinding in her head.

“A couple of weeks, especially if I get a lot more labour to work with,” I said before letting out another yawn. Just the thought of doing this was making me feel more tired.

“I’ll mention it tomorrow at the meeting,” Icepick said before grinning widely. “Something tells me they’ll be up for it.”

“They’d be beyond stupid not to go for a power grid, even if its a kludge,” I said before leaning forward and bumping my nose against hers. My other hoof drifted down her chest and towards her stomach. It stopped there, running gentle circles around her navel. Icepick smiled at me.

“I might need to reward you for that idea, maybe come up with some sort of medal-” she said with a laugh before I pressed my lips to hers. Moments later I was on top of her, and her hooves were kneading my back. I may have been tired, but not too tired…

“You’re proposing the construction of a power grid for Safe Harbour?” Blackwood said with a bemused tone.

“Yes,” I said resolutely, but not loudly. He met my eyes and searched them for- something. I just met his gaze, before cracking a smile. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, or cheap, but I can get the project going in a fortnight, and you’ll be in a position to finish all the really time-consuming parts.”

“And what are those time-consuming parts?” Blackwood questioned, as the rest of the council gave him the floor. Icepick stood off to the side, watching my proposal get its spotlight.

“Mostly just wiring individual buildings,” I replied. He looked at me questioningly. “And as a part of the building process, I can teach a number of your ponies about the electrician profession.”

“Why would you want to go through the effort of building us a power grid, what do you want in exchange?” Blackwood questioned.

“Three ships, and a transition away from directly resurrecting and scavenging the ships in the bay,” I smiled at him as he played through my offer.

“You said it would take you two weeks?” Blackwood after a few seconds of evaluation.

“Two weeks to set up the reactors, to get them humming and thrumming,” Icepick said as she walked over to me, before putting a hoof to my shoulder. “Everything else, well, you should be able to do it.”

“Alright, how many labourers do you need?” Blackwood asked.

“How many can you give us?” I replied.

“That is exactly why I trust you both, you have the spirit of the first crews,” Blackwood said as a murmur of voices started up behind him.

“The first crews that settled here?” Icepick asked curiously.

“Indeed, the ones that settled this island, and built the framework that’s lasted us for a hundred years,” The bespectacled stallion stated, before meeting both of our gazes in turn. “It’s ponies like you that push us all forward, that change the world.” He paused and turned around to the other council members. “I propose a resolution to give them the funds and the resources to complete their project, and the exchange of whatever three vessels they want upon completion of the grid.”

“I want the Privateer,” I said to the council members. “It’s a fine vessel, with a powerful reactor and engines.”

“You just want it because of the name,” Icepick said a moment later. She had a smile on her muzzle. “But, if we can strap guns on it, then I have no problem with it.”

“That seems like a fair point,” Blackwood said before taking off his glasses.

“Actually, do you have any large cannon we could borrow,” Icepick asked the council with a pleading smile, she pressed a hoof to my shoulder and I looked at them too.

“You mean automatic cannons, correct?” The military mare from before said. “We have a couple of twenty-millimetre anti-air guns in storage.”

“We could use a couple of those,” Icepick added with a nod towards the mare.

“We’ll think about that particular arms transfer,” Blackwood said with a note of finality. “Thank you for your time Commander Icepick, and Mister Permittivity.”

We walked out of the chamber and into the daylight. I had taken the day off of my work on the ships today, and the two of us had an afternoon free-

“Let’s go get lunch,” Icepick interrupted my thoughts. “That place over there looks interesting.” Her hoof was pointed at a building two blocks away, it had a sign that showed an Orangutan with a wooden bowl in its hands, rice and veggies filled the bowl. As we walked towards it, we could see ponies entering and exiting the place reasonably fast. It must have had a quick turn around.

Opening the door, we spotted the food line and the cashier beside it. It looked like a cafeteria, with ample small tables and chairs that looked just comfortable enough for a short meal. We started towards the line. My eyes lit up as I saw one of the chefs in the back. They were a male Orangutan, and his eyes looked up and saw me. I met his gaze and a moment later he walked away from the dish he was working on. We moved along with the line, and eventually, Icepick noticed him as he got out into the dining room. He waited at one of the tables, with his back to the wall. There were two chairs in front of him. The Orangutan lifted up his right hand and waved two fingers towards the table repeatedly.

I nodded at him as Icepick gave me a strange look. We grabbed our food at the line, two bowls that looked very similar to the one on the sign and I started towards the table with the Orangutan. Icepick shrugged and followed after me. The two of us placed our food on the table and sat down. The Orangutan met our gazes and smiled before clearing his throat-

“I’ve been expecting you two,” he said a moment later as the two of us looked at him, shocked. “Don’t be alarmed, I knew that the two of you were nearby, and Zenji told me you were in town.” His accent was deep, but it was passable equestrian.

“Ah, Zenji’s influence makes itself known once more,” I said with a laugh as I stuck my fork into the bowl of steaming rice.

“You aren’t surprised?” The Orangutan said.

“She’s the kind of pony that knows everyone and is friends with everyone worth being friends with. So do you own this joint?” Icepick responded with her own smile before she ate her first bite of the food.

“Indeed, this is my restaurant,” he said before continuing. “Apologies, my name is Zahn Of Green Leaves.”

“Hello Zahn, may I ask you a question?” I asked him quietly.

“What’s your question?” He replied softly, before taking his arms and crossing them behind his head and leaning back into the cushions behind him.

“Do you know any master’s of the path? I’ve been studying with Zenji as often as I can, but she told me that I might need a more experienced teacher,” I finished and took a deep breath before gazing into his caramel coloured irises. He started to laugh as soon as I finished, loud enough that some of the other patrons looked towards him.

“I might know someone,” he said loudly before laughing some more.

“What’s so funny? I hate missing out on a good joke,” Icepick asked in between large bites of the food in front of her. It was good food.

“Well, framed like that, miss, I have to reveal it to you both,” Zahn said before leaning closer to us and unbinding his hands, leaving his strong arms on the table before us. “I’m Zenji’s teacher.”

My jaw dropped open and he laughed again. I leaned back in my chair and started to laugh along with him. Icepick slid her left foreleg over my shoulder and pulled me closer to her. It was a pleasant feeling.

“So, you taught her everything she knows?” Icepick asked a few seconds later.

“I wouldn’t say that, but I did lead her through the first steps of her journey,” Zahn replied. He looked at the two of us and turned his head slightly. “She wasn’t kidding. You two do indeed have bound souls.”

“Yeah, I believe it,” Icepick said before moving one of her hooves to my chest and gently running it over where I had been stabbed. A moment later that same hoof drifted towards my healed rifle wound. My breaths became slowed, each exhale a reminder of my mortality. Icepick stopped touching my wounds and moved her hoof up to my cheek. A moment later she pulled it away with an unreadable expression on her muzzle.

“Would you be interested in learning to meditate as well?” Zahn asked her softly. The time for laughing was gone.

“Honestly, the thought of clearing my mind for a while does sound pretty pleasant,” Icepick said before letting go of me and turning her body to face his. “How long do you think it would take to learn?”

“It depends,” Zahn and I said simultaneously. She looked at the two of us incredulously, before popping me in the shoulder lightly.

“Alright, I’ll try it along with him, whenever the two of you are set to practice,” Icepick said with curiousity in her voice.

“Well, I’ll tell my kitchen that I’m taking the rest of the day off, I’ll be back in a few minutes until then, eat up!” Zahn said before getting himself out of the chair with exaggerated slowness.

Icepick and I sat down on our haunches, the soft mats compressing beneath us. On the wall was an incense burner, light but pungent incense burned from within it. The curtains on the wall were pulled, and only the candles he had set out were providing light.

“Breath in, breath out, count to ten slowly,” Zahn said quietly, hypnotically. There was a richness in his strange voice, a voice that came from vocal cords alien to us equines.

I did as he asked, I forgot everything but the sensation of breath and the simple numbers climbing heavenward in my mind. Both were abstractions of reality, a focus for my mind, just as my horn was a focus for my magic-

“Now onto one-hundred,” Zahn added just as I got to ten. I kept counting, the soft light barely registering in my mind through my eyelids. I reached one hundred and went beyond. Everything was falling away, I was losing myself to the meditation. His voice fell away, the sounds of breathing were lost, and I kept going. Slowly, everything came into focus again, except there were only the shadows of form, and there was no difference between the people around me and the world at large. I took a deep breath and I saw Zahn as a pool of energy, ebbing and flowing, changing before my eyes…

And then I felt it on the horizon, a deeper horizon than my eyes could provide, something only my soul, my inner being could see…

They were out there, humming and living in their mechanical way, also changing and flowing. The Privateer, The Xenophon and all the other ships, and further beyond that, I could see all the suits of armour being worked on, all the life in the jungle and the fields. I glanced up with my sight that wasn’t. In the sky, angry chirps echoed, chemical bonds being broken in time. There were ponies in the sky- They were in distress.

My eyes shot open and I gasped heavily. I looked at Zahn with terror in my eyes, before jumping to my hooves and running out the door.

The destination in my mind was clear, that picture of the world with all its dynamic patterns burning into it-

I ran towards the docks on legs that were still weak from the tail end of the potion regiment. Ponies looked at me like I was crazy as I ran. I didn’t care.

My lungs burned, my eyes watered, and yet I went forwards, a new reserve of strength revealing itself as I ran. There was an extra bounce in my step, a little extra oxygen with each breath, even as I knew my bones were heavier than they were before. I took a breath and turned the corner, running towards the Privateer.

On the deck stood a very confused Marigold, watching me run onto the ship ramp with a bemused expression on her muzzle.

“Mare, you must really love working on this boat,” She said loudly as I raced towards the controls, and the thing I was searching for.

“Not really, now follow!” I yelled as I raced into the bridge. Marigold sighed loudly enough for me to hear, before following me into the room. My eyes fell upon the surface of the old controls, recently renewed by the repair talisman.

I spotted it, a console and a petite microphone. Without missing a step I went over to it and turned the power dial on it. It started up with a crunch of static as I hit the scan function on it. A moment later, the radio caught something-

“Mayday, mayday, this is flight alpha niner launched from Paradise, Captain Turbocharger speaking, please respond,” A mare’s voice spoke with a crackle from the radio. I grasped the radio microphone and pressed the transmit button.

“Flight Alpha Niner, this is Permittivity from the Privateer speaking,” I replied before adding. “What is your current position and heading.”

“Privateer, are you a ship on the ocean?” The captain asked.

“No, I’m in the middle of the inland sea,” I replied a moment later as I waited for the other person to respond. “What are your bearing and location.”

“We’re roughly twenty miles north of the mountains, and we’re heading towards the ocean on the west side of the island, however, we’re losing fuel quickly, a busted fuel line on our right engine probably,” the mare said with fear in her voice.

“Change your vector, and climb over the mountains, then proceed south,” I said to her, pleading and trying to sound as sincere as possible.

“What?” She yelled into her radio. “Repeat that? Are you telling me to try to reach over the mountain on one engine?”

“Trust me, the moment after you get over those mountains, you’ll see Safe Harbour,” I said with urgency. “If you’re as bad off as you say you are, then you won’t make it to the ocean.” There was a long pause, with only the static of the radio set making it known that it was still on.

“Okay,” the mare said with a note of resignation. “I’ve never been much of a betting mare-” She cut off as she stopped transmitting.

“It’s alright, I’ll stay here and guide you in,” I replied, false confidence edging out a victory in that sentence.

“Thank you Permittivity, are you on the water?” She asked me with her own false confidence starting to show through.

“Yes, I’m docked on the edge of an inland sea, or a big lake, I don’t think there’s a definitive answer on that,” I responded chuckling lightly as I listened to the deep hum of her engines over the radio. One sounded distinctly less functional than the other.

“But it’s big, right?” She asked with a matching nervous chuckle. The throttle of her engines had picked up, she was giving her remaining engine all the fuel it could handle without flooding it. At least the exhaust would be less sooty-

“It is,” I said as I watched the lake outside the window in front of me. Sunlight glinted off of it in the light of the early afternoon. “Once you’re over the mountains, head towards the source of my transmission.”

“Will do,” she replied with stress edging back into her voice. I shrugged loosened my muscles a little. As long as she didn’t ask how I knew to get on the radio, as long as she didn’t ask too many questions right now, she’d get through this…

I got out of the cabin as soon as she spotted the lake. I wanted to see the damaged aircraft land- I was standing on the deck of the ship when I heard the sound of the engine starting up. The only other pony on the ship was Marigold. She leaned out of the bridge and nodded at me. I nodded back as I threw off the mooring lines with my magic, before skidding back to the bridge. We were leaving the shore as quickly as we could-

“Hey, are you gonna go catch that thing?” A familiar voice asked as she ran towards us. We were a few feet away from the dock when she jumped over the edge of the pier. Icepick landed squarely on the deck as a number of other ponies came out to watch the three of us pull away. She waved at the ponies, most of whom were soldiers on our side.

“To answer your question,” I paused and met her eyes. “Yes, we’re gonna find it and tow it back after it lands.”

“That’s a good plan, Marigold’s?” She asked with a laugh as I snorted.

“She took the initiative as I watched the plane come into view,” I said as I watched the dot in the sky become more and more defined as it lost altitude.

“Well, it’s coming down now,” Icepick said as she pointed a foreleg into the sky. I looked up and there it was. I heard the gearing of the engine beneath us change. We were a couple hundred meters from the dock now. She was coming down fast, even with her flaps up-

“Does she know what she’s doing?” Icepick asked as we watched the twin-engined plane descend.

“How did you know it was a she?” I asked curiously. There wasn’t anything we could do other than watch.

“Ehh, lucky guess,” Icepick said before bumping my shoulder with hers. “Well, did you sweet talk her then?”

“I got her to make the right decision,” I said with a note of annoyance.

“Ah, well, I know for a fact she’ll be wet soon,” Icepick added with a laugh.

“Ha, ha. I bet you do wonderfully at the middle school circuit,” I shot back.

“I mean, money is money, but getting someone’s lunch money is even sweeter-” She said before stopping as the plane threw its air brakes on and made contact with the water, the added friction of the water on its belly adding to the resistance substantially.

“She’s good,” I said as I watched the pilot touch down and stop after a few seconds. And then, I ran into the bridge and looked at Marigold, Icepick hot on my hooves. “Start us towards that seaplane.”

“Aye, aye,” she said with a sloppy salute. Icepick entered after me and looked at her as she put the ship into gear.

“If make you a rear admiral, will you shock me?” Icepick asked.

“I would strongly consider it,” I replied. She blinked and opened her mouth again-

“Commodore it is,” She said with a laugh and a soft grasp of my shoulder. Marigold just snorted.

Marigold pulled us up alongside the seaplane, now moving under the slight push of the wind. I launched the first of many ropes, and chains to attach the ship to the rear of the Privateer. A moment after I started the closet door to the cockpit opened up and a ponies face greeted me. Her coat was a light blue, nearly the colour of the sky at midday. She was wearing a coat made from some kind of faux leather with a bunch of extra insulation around the barrel and neck. I met her eyes. Green eyes the colour of jade stared into mine intensely.

“Permittivity?” She yelled before things at her side started to flutter. Wings.

“You’re a pegasus? You could have just escaped if you wanted to,” I yelled back at her, anger seething in my voice.

“Hey, Turbocharger is it? He gets kind of mad like that, but he’s actually pretty nice,” Icepick said as she walked out of the bridge. A moment later the pony flicked her wings out and in one strong wing flap threw herself across the gap between our ships. She landed in one comfortable motion on the deck of the privateer.

“I get that,” the mare said to Icepick before looking back at my enraged expression. “I didn’t want to ruin my pride and joy, even if her fuel tanks are dry and one of her fuel lines are ruined.”

“See she’s pretty reasonable,” Icepick said with a laugh as she offered her hoof to the mare. The pegasus mare, quite a bit shorter than her, took the offered hoof and shook it up and down once.

“You sounded taller on the radio,” Turbo said a moment later.

“I take back what I said,” Icepick replied in a relatively convincing voice.

“Can you tell us where to attach the chains?” I asked her in a neutral voice.

“Yeah, sure,” Turbo said before turning back to Icepick and meeting her gaze. “Oh, and the reason I came here. Paradise is open for business again.”

“What?” Icepick asked immediately. I had a startled look on my own muzzle.

“Well, between a couple of ersatz dive bombers and a bunch of radio-guided speed boats, we kicked the Rangers out of our harbour,” Turbocharger said proudly before kicking up her wings and flying out to one of the wing spars on her plane. She gestured at one of the chains near me. I floated it out to her as Icepick finished picking her jaw off the decking.

“I’m not complaining, even if the rangers aren’t really the biggest threat on the board,” Icepick said as she stroked a chin with her hoof. “Hey, do you think we could catch a ride on this thing to get back there?”

“W-what? What part of out of fuel and a leaking fuel line do you not get?” the pegasus mare yelled as she flew over to the matching wing spar attached to a pontoon. The radial engines were still hot, the air interacting with them was distorted by the heat.

“Well, we can get you some kind of fuel here, and fuel lines don’t seem that hard to replace,” Icepick replied before walking back towards the cabin. I shrugged and continued to help Turbo with her plane.

A few moments later, Icepick rolled out of the cabin with a bottle in her hooves. She held it up in the air as I looked over. The Pegasus and I had finished attaching the tow lines to the aircraft, and Marigold was looking back at us with a bored expression on her muzzle.

“I was gonna save this until the plan got approved, but I feel like right now is a good time to bust it out,” Icepick said as she got closer to the two of us. There was a shift beneath us as the ship started back towards the dock. We could see the crowds starting to come out to the docks to watch as the seaplane was tugged towards them.

“What is it?” I asked before surrounding the bottle with my magic and pulling it towards me gently. Icepick let go of it and walked up to me, she was watching my face as I realized what was in this bottle. It was fifteen year aged rum. Black rum, but aged finely. “T-thank you!” I nearly chirped in surprise as the mare beside me clasped my shoulder before grasping the bottle back in her hoof.

“You wanna crack it open?” Icepick asked as Turbo walked over to the two of us standing on the deck, being watched by a bunch of ponies from Safe Harbor. Without missing a second, I pulled at the top of the cork stopper with my magic. It came off with a quiet pop. Icepick took a look at the bottle before holding it up and dumping a swig of the dark liquor into her gullet. I baulked a bit at the display, but the crowds watching us pull in didn’t seem to care. Fuck it I guess.

I grasped the bottle in my magic and dumped an appreciable amount of the liquor into my mostly full stomach. I smacked my lips audibly as I enjoyed the rich and multifaceted taste of the rum. Turbocharger had gotten to within a meter of us, and the two of us turned to face her. She looked at the bottle with something approaching lust-

“Give the girl a drink, she almost lost her baby,” Icepick said, before laughing heartily. I did as she suggested and passed the bottle over to the pegasus. The Paradise mare lifted the bottle up, letting the sun’s rays pass through the glass twice and the rum once. Then she lifted it back and took a reasonably sized swig of the liquor.

“Thanks, Icepick, maybe you’re not as intimidating as I thought without your armour, but you’re a lot more relaxed than I expected,” Turbocharger said before watching Icepick knock back even more of the fine fluid. Icepick let the bottle float into my hoof before I recapped it.

“Ehh, I’m usually pretty easy-going,” Icepick started to say as she wiped her lips with the side of a forehoof. “But honestly, I’m just getting the fun part of being on a boat with booze and a new acquaintance out of the way. The next part is gonna rely on me being slightly tipsy and really charismatic.” We looked at her strangely, before watching her lift her right foreleg into the air and keep it there. She looked strong in the sunlight, the light glinting off of her blonde locks, and being half-absorbed, half-reflected by her steel grey coat.

“What are you doing? What are you talking about?” I asked as I tapped her on the shoulder, with a bemused expression on my face.

“You’ll see, and hear,” Icepick said in a slightly apprehensive voice.

“So, did you really come out here to stop an Arab from using a balefire bomb?” Turbo asked.

“Yep, but that was yesterday’s news,” Icepick said with a quick turn towards her. The murmuring of the crowd was growing louder as Icepick kept her hoof in the air…

And then, she took a breath and swept her head back and forth along the crowd, meeting many pony’s eyes. The sound of her throat being cleared hit the air as Turbo and I watched her curiously. We were maybe thirty meters from the docks. And we were still going forward. Icepick pumped her hoof in the air once, before starting-

“Ponies of Safe Harbor, I’m happy to be a bearer of good news,” Icepick began in a loud voice, yelling but not shrill. The crowd looked confused, even as their murmuring quieted down. “Today we celebrate the liberation of a city much like yours, a free city! Granted, I already started celebrating as soon as I heard.” There was a laugh from the crowd as they all knew what she was talking about, the visible pulls from the dark liquor bottle echoing through their minds.

“Let me give you a few more details,” Icepick started before dropping her right hoof and placing it over her chest. “The city of Paradise, which had a hostile fleet blockading it and threatening it with its guns, was able to throw off the yoke it had been placed in. They used all of their ingenuity, all of their spirit, and a lot of explosives-” She smiled wryly at that last part, briefly glancing back at her Cutie Mark, before starting up again. “To get their fleet out of their harbour. I must confess that the ponies they were fighting were my old order, the Sall’han Rangers. But, at this point, we as free ponies, the common pony, the common zebra, the common Arab, we must throw off our loyalties to the old order. A new world is coming, something radically different than the isolated, separate old world that was created by the bombs-” She took a deep breath and held her foreleg out in front of her. Her tail swung behind her once, decisively.

“Our struggle is their struggle,” Icepick said before taking a deep breath. “The sad truth though, it’s something harder to swallow than solidarity with our fellow free ponies. The truth is that, as of right now, there is a mechanized, and advanced army and fleet controlled by a power that enslaves and terrorizes their Arab population. And they aren’t even the biggest threat to Sall’han, and the lives of the ponies living here. The biggest threat will come from deeper in the desert, a place where another world crosses over into ours, where an evil being, pulls the strings and threatens to invade us all. Already, agents and equipment from the Empire have been flooding into our world.”

Icepick took that moment to look over at me, before uncorking the bottle and taking another swig from it. I made a choice, I walked up to her, before throwing a foreleg over her broad shoulders. She smiled at me, thanks written into her expression, before looking back at the crowd.

“However, I don’t believe history is written in advance, and I believe that a righteous, popular cause is something that can inspire us all to do what needs to be done. We need guns, ships, and ponies willing to use them.” She paused and looked over to Turbo charger, who had pulled out a cigarette as she watched Icepick speak. “That pony over there, she’s an example of a heroic soul, someone willing to risk danger and capture to get information over to us.”

Icepick loosened herself from my grip and my leg fell towards the decking. I watched as she turned around and started towards the other mare. Turbo gave me a single pleading look, before Icepick got to her. The larger mare picked up her smoking foreleg and lifted it into the air.

“You can be like her, you can do your part in the fight to come, for all of us, for the free ponies of Sall’han!” Icepick said with a note of load finality, before letting go of the other pony as we pulled into our original dock. For a moment there was no response from the crowd-

And then, a single solitary clap of hooves on the pier could be heard. Then, another joined the stomping, another, and then five more, within a few moments a majority of the ponies were whooping and stomping into the deck. The large crowd moved by Icepick’s words.

“Alright, obviously you folks want a little more. Well, I’ll give you my other stump speech, the one I’ve been working on in my free time, the one I planned on giving on the eve of a big battle or something like that-” She stopped and waiting for the crowd to respond. They quieted down, with something like anticipation in their eyes.

“Well, I like you, and I’m gonna spend a little more time in your town,” She began slowly, with that smile taking up her whole face, everything but her eyes, which seemed to burn with an intensity that lit up her whole face. “So, here I go. We stand on the brink of a great battle, a war that will decide which way Sall’han goes. Maybe, what way the world goes. Will it be brought back to the darkness, the deprivation of the past, the dark age engulfing Zebrica, Equestria and most of the old world. Or will we decide that enough is enough, we’ve learned our lesson and we’re ready to march into the future as free ponies!” There was a cheer as the crowd heard her words. “When we take back our future from the forces that want to chain us down, when we lose the bonds that hold us to the past, when we link our hooves and create the world we want to live in, together-” The crowd grew louder, even as the our ship came to a stop and dropped anchor as Marigold went about actually doing what needed to be done on the ship.

“Then we can rest a bit easier, with strong allies at our backs and shared technology and resources making all of our lives better. Do you know what my buckfriend and I our proposing to your council right now? A power grid built from the old spark reactors that you have rusting in your ships right now, something we’ll build with your help and your hooves. Something you can be proud of, something that you can get a whole hell of a lot of value out of. I mean, electric lights and refrigerators are awesome, just trust me on this.” Icepick took a pause to let the ponies listening react to her latest bombshell. The cheers were louder now, and growing in volume.

“My ponies, the ones who choose to fight alongside me, we aren’t just soldiers, we’re technicians, scientists, and workers too. We know how to build as well as how to destroy, and that’s why you should go make your voices heard in the streets, in the taverns, at your job. Tell your leaders that you want Electricity, that you want to support your fellow free ponies, and that nothing will stand in the way of a bright future if we stand together!” Icepick pumped her right leg into the air triumphantly, before letting it slide down to her chest again.

“I’m just one pony, but I’ll fight for what’s right,” she lost her volume for a second, and a note of something approaching a plea entered her voice. “All I can ask each of you, is to do the same.” She finished speaking and looked back at me. The bottle was in front of me, a fair amount of it already imbibed. Still, I grasped it with my magic and started to follow her as she walked towards the edge of the deck, towards the dock. The cheering wasn’t dying down this time, it simply crescendoed upwards, towards participation for everypony on the shore.

Icepick smiled at them all and waved towards the ponies on the edge of the dock. They made a path for her and I, and as I gave a glance behind me, I knew our new Pegasus friend was following behind as well… Even as the crowd started to break up, the stomping and hollers continued unabated-

Whatever else Icepick had done in her life, she had learned how to get ponies fired up. Then again, wasn’t a crowd like a bundle of explosives, waiting for the right trigger? I shook my head and looked at Icepick for a moment. I started to clear my throat, then I saw the exhaustion on her face, the uncertainty-

My little hypotheses could wait. We had a meditation lesson to complete.

“Welcome back,” Zahn said in his deep voice as we trotted into his home. When I scanned his living room as I normally did, I was surprised to see Zenji sitting in one of the chairs, a teacup sitting on a coaster beside her.

“Sorry for ditching you,” Icepick said with a tired tone.

“From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, you had a good reason to leave with haste,” Zahn’s eyes met mine as he said this. I met his gaze, before looking over to Zenji.

“I felt it,” I replied quietly. “The everything, the oneness-”

“You saw the plane, sputtering and in trouble,” Zahn said.

“Yes, that too,” I said with a note of confusion in my voice-

“It was beyond the mountains, beyond sight, beyond the senses available to you normally,” Zahn cut me off with a smile. “Incredible, and this was your first time viewing the unity.”

“What?” I asked him suddenly, trying to remember what exactly I had seen in my mind’s eye as I found the plane. There were life signs, reactors, talismans-

“You saw the world in another way, the truer way,” Zenji said breathlessly.

“I saw everything spewing electromagnetism, and magic,” I started to say before realizing something else. “And the engines of the plane, they looked odd, so I focused on them.”

“So you could’ve watched anything, seen anything with your magic, and you chose to focus on a plane,” Icepick surmised with an open expression as she took a sip of tea. Zenji having hoofed her a cup a few moments ago.

“To answer your question, yes there were lots of ponies I could’ve viewed as abstract fields of energy, but there was only one plane in the air,” I replied as I took a deep breath, I let it out a moment later.

“Fair enough,” Icepick said before taking another sip of her tea. The other mare giggled lightly at our antics.

“Now you’ve reached a level few achieve, but there is more to learn,” Zahn said a moment later.

“Teach me,” I said breathlessly. My eyes were wide as he opened his mouth.

“I’ll try,” Zahn said a moment later. Icepick and Zenji just stood there, drinking their tea and threw a smile my direction when I looked towards them. Icepick winked at that, before pulling Zenji towards her. There was a look of surprise on the stoic zebra as Icepick said something to her. “But enough for today. I need to close down the kitchen.” I looked at my Terminal and saw the time. The sun was certainly on its way down.

“Alright, well, when should we meet next?” I asked quickly, notedly looking away from the conspiring mares.

“I’m free to do whatever I want in my old age,” Zahn said with a grin.

“So, whenever I’m free?” My words were a question, but they came out a little blunter than I intended.

“Knowing how the council is going to vote, you’re going to be busy,” Zahn said with a laugh.

I just shrugged and got to my hooves. I bowed towards Zahn, to which he smiled enigmatically. My horn lit up and I grasped Icepick, pulling her out of the chair and onto her hooves. She shot a look of mild betrayal at me, I ignored it and started towards the door. Zenji took that moment to get up out of her chair gracefully, before walking towards the large Orangutan. They embraced for a moment, before breaking apart, with Zenji following the two of us towards the back entrance of the place. A wooden fire escape lay beyond the door…

“Today, we stand before the people of Safe Harbor, the future laid out before us. It was not in our mandate to electrify the city, nor was it in our mandate to contact the outside world. But we have heard your cries, your pleas, and we have listened,” Blackwood said before stomping his hooves into the fresh lumber of the platform. The microphone in front of him was something unfamiliar to him, yet he clung it like it was his birthright. His voice was proud and strong, something that a head of state should sound like.

“Today we lay the beginning of our future out, we break ground for the next stage in our history. That’s what you’ve decided, and we back you with all of our power,” Blackwood said before clearing his throat. “Tomorrow, we open the doors of a new agency, the electrification service. Anyone with the willingness to aid us, with the time to devote, anyone who dreams of a brighter future-” He broke off and looked sweepingly at the crowd. He lifted his hoof in the air just as Icepick had the day before. “They can join the agency, and be paid for their hard work. Not even our allies in the Equine liberation army, they haven’t done this before, but they’re going to help us build something new. And for that, we should thank them, however, they are few, and we are many. We cannot afford to let this opportunity pass us by-”

I lost interest as he moved away from sweeping rhetoric, and the important phrasing he has used regarding us. Allies. We had another set of ponies willing to back us. And now, we had a name for ourselves, something that had been hard to come to a consensus about. Icepick stood beside me, watching intently. This was a day of celebration, but tomorrow, the real work would begin.

Then again, from the reaction of the crowd, we would have the pony power necessary to accomplish this task. The pay would be good, Blackwood added in the middle of his speech. I smiled as the crowd grew louder…

Now we just needed to get the celebrations over with.

“You ordered more than a thousand wooden poles?” Icepick asked me as I stood on the other side of the desk from her.
“Electrical poles,” I replied softly.

“And a load of transformers for them?” Icepick asked a moment later, exasperation on her face.

“The devil is in the details,” I replied softly, before meeting her eyes. “I never said it would be easy.”

“The council isn’t liking the cost,” Icepick added before leaning back in her chair.

“If they wanted me to cut corners, then they should’ve hired a Celestian,” I shot back with a laugh. “No but seriously, thanks for the speech, there’s enough political pressure on them for them to not back out.”

“The ponies who ran off with all the money,” she said with a snort of her own. She leaned forward over her desk, looking me in the eyes. For a moment I could tell she was distracted by something, then her eyes focused on mine. I stepped forward, Icepick winked at me, before licking her lips-

The door to the room swung open, and Ironsight trotted in with Frostbite in tow. The two ponies had spent more and more time with each other recently. I wondered if the two ponies were into one another

“Uh, Icepick, Perm, a lot of ponies showed up to the recruitment center,” Ironsight said as she trotted into the room, before dropping into a chair in front of the desk. I spared a glance at the silent stallion as he trotted into the room and beside Ironsight.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Icepick said as she leaned back and threw her hinds onto the desk. The chair squeaked as it was leaned backwards.

“There are a thousand ponies out there, at least,” Ironsight said with a note of exasperation in her voice.

“So, go hunt down some more hard hats,” Icepick replied before yawning. She looked at me, before laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I asked as Icepick’s gave shifted between the three of us.

“We’re gonna bankrupt this town,” Icepick said before laughing louder.

“Probably,” I said as her peels of laughter died down. “So, should I get them started digging post holes?”

“Damn, we really are creating government jobs,” Icepick said a moment later, before nodding. “That’s really all we can do, until we get the parts we need.”

“You’re forgetting the actual, you know, parts of the grid,” Ironsight said with a note of annoyance in her voice.

“Well, salvaging reactors is a little more sensitive than digging holes, we’ll have the trained ponies do that,” Icepick said with a note of concern. “On the other hoof, we could probably send the mob out to gut the wiring from those ships. That’s a good point, and it’s not exactly hard to gut a ship.”

“Are there even enough tools in this city to facilitate a workforce this large?” Frostbite asked with a worried expression on his face.

“Probably,” Icepick said before spinning the chair and taking her hinds off of the desk. “Did you already get their information?”

“We’re working on that,” Ironsight said with a shudder. “Payroll is going to be a bitch. Like, how are we going to keep track of that?”

“Easy, we just pay ponies at the end of each shift,” Icepick said before standing to her hooves and stretching.

“So, we just get a bunch of sacks, fill them with money, and pass them out at the end of the shift?” Ironsight asked, before smiling.

“Do you think we need to be more complex than that?” I asked the ponies in the room before a barrage of shrugs and grins met my eyes.

“Let’s go tell them how this is going to work,” Icepick said as she started towards the door.

“This is going to be a clusterfuck,” Ironsight said with a shake of her head.

“Oh, that was clear from the moment I made that speech,” Icepick replied with a grin on her muzzle. Her head was held high though, and she looked every bit the leader she was.

“On the bright side, my legs better,” Frostbite said as he held open the door for us. Icepick blew out the candles in the room, leaving only the light coming through the window into the room. They had loaned us a floor of an underused government building to use.

“Next time we get in a bar fight, lets not hurt ourselves, alright?” Icepick asked her question with a laugh as we all walked into the hallway.

“Agreed,” I said as I thought about my own fight against those ponies.

“Next time?” Ironsight asked with worry in her voice.

Author's Notes:

Sorry about the delay. I hope you like this chapter anyway!

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