High above the skies of the Kattegat, an airship was seen speeding north, flying just below the cloud cover. Drizzle pelted the myriad of small windows that made up the cockpit, a soothing noise for the nerves of Elaena.

She was still secured tightly in the pilot’s seat, though not for long anymore. She unfastened the webbing straps that were supposed to keep her in place during the worst of maneuvers before running a quick check on the instruments.

Unlike many other airships that had been made with multiple crewmembers in mind, everything on Sirocco was laid out so she could steer her herself from the safety of the cockpit. Brass gauges and instruments were all pointed toward her, with the control levers for the maneuvering fins occupying the center of the layout and the two sticks of the engine telegraph –starboard and portside respectively- on her left armrest.

The controls for the gas bags were on her right, almost integrated to her armrest inside of a marquetry box she knew cost twice as much as all of the other instruments combined. For a reason, because behind the gauges and thin wood of the box rested a set of enchanted crystals that transmitted her crucial information. Namely: the temperature of the boiler, the voltage she had left inside the batteries, and some tank soundings –both for coal slurry and fresh water-… among other things.

The voltage most of all couldn’t be allowed to fall down to zero. If it did, she wouldn’t be able to control her altitude anymore, something that had already happened once back when she wasn’t familiar with the system. Against all logic, Sirocco didn’t have an alternator, mostly because of cost. Acid-lead batteries were all she had.

She had been forced to fly over to the nearest airship dock and use signal flags to request for emergency ballast. The locals Zebricans had not been amused.

Neither was her wallet for that matter.

Glancing up at the compass readout, she quickly made sure she still was on the right track, comparing the number she was seeing to the track on her chart.

She would have to thank the one that had prepared the charts –Geert if she remembered correctly-. The Dutch Officer had gone the extra mile and mapped all chart switches along the track, as well as indicating courses with the local magnetic variation already accounted for, just to spare her the math.

Rather professional for a young Officer.

“All good?” Alejandro’s voice was heard, the hyacinth macaw’s head poking halfway through the hatch behind her.

“All good.” She nodded. “Just gotta keep an hour and a half on that track and we’ll be on the first waypoint.”

Which was just as well for her since that span of time allowed her to get off the pilot’s seat and go grab a snack. She snatched a copper-plated chronometer that had up until then been hanging on a chain attached to the altimeter and motioned for Alejandro to back off a bit.

“I can afford to step off for a bit, she’ll stay her course.” She reassured him after the other parrot threw a concerned glance in the direction of the unoccupied pilot seat.

Saying that she let herself fall down the hatch at the foot of the ladder one deck below.

“Alright… you know if you want I can pick up the helm.” He told her, pressing his back against the bulkhead so she could move past him. The ‘room’ was pretty cramped as is, being near the tip of Sirocco’s ‘neck’.

Come to think of it, that part of the airship did remind him of a tortoise’s neck with the way it extended ahead of the main structure. It may be a bit bulkier than that, with the (small) chart room one deck below the cockpit and Elaena’s cabin one more deck below before rejoining the central structure between the balloons, but Alejandro was pretty sure the main point to that part of the airship was specifically so that the cockpit could see past the balloons.

Still made Sirocco look like a fat turtle though. A flying turtle with oblong balloons on either side of its shell. And no tail. And a belly that hung out below it.

Not really a turtle then.

“I’ll show you how the helm works later.” Elaena clicked her beak before winding up the chronometer in her claws. “For now, I just really need to grab a bite.”

They descended back down in the common room, to be greeted by the sight of the rest of the crew. Radiant was discussing stuff with Mikhail and Armiger in the lounge. Derek was sitting on his own at the dining table, reading.

Elaena didn’t acknowledge any of them, instead moving on towards the kitchen with a purpose in her step.

“How is it going Chief?” Alejandro heard Mikhail call out.

“We’re on track. Give us an hour and a half and we’ll be over Gothenburg.”

“Wait, aren’t we headed for Narvik?” Radiant blinked.

“We are. We’re just flying over the town so we can see whether or not it’s still contaminated by a gas cloud. The guys that are actually going to go there need to know, so they don’t bother with the Piranhas and chemsuits for nothing. Got it?”

“Makes sense.” The Pegasus nodded. “You gonna tell them via radio?”

“Well, duh. What else? Passenger pigeons?” Alejandro almost broke out in a laugh. “We gave you lot a radio for a reason.”

“Yeah, and that’ll cause a stir when we get back to Equus.” Radiant pointed out with a hoof.

“Just like the rest of the stuff we’ll be giving you.”

“Come again?”

“We didn’t tell you? Shit, sorry. I meant to say we’re going to give you copies of blueprints for a lot of the tech Amandine and Rhine Forest use. Combustion engines, induction motors, desalination plants, we even have plans for all the telecommunications tech and some of the more advanced stuff. We kinda owe you a payback for all the books and lessons.” Alejandro said.

Judging by the way his tail moved, the parrot was pretty sure that had Armiger been a cartoon character, he’d have had dollar signs in his eyes. Not without any reasons either: he was pretty sure that anyone bringing back information-era tech to a late industrial-era world (at least that’s what he assumed they were at) could make a pretty penny selling the plans.

Patenting them though… that might have been more profitable, but he doubted the cat could have gotten away with it. A bit too brazen.

But that wasn’t his problem to worry about. The aliens could fight for the plans once they got back to their world for all he cared. They had just brought a measure of equity in the deal.

Elaena came back from the kitchen with a bowl of nuts and a fresh loaf of bread stuck in her beak. She addressed the passengers in the common room a nod before nudging Alej’ in the ribs with her elbow and motioning for him to follow her back up to the cockpit.

They quickly came to an arrangement: the two of them would alternate watches of two hours at the helm until they arrived. Narvik was twelve hours of flight away, not nearly enough to cause the two of them any measure of fatigue. Elaena made use of the first hour of flight before they reached Gothenburg to quickly teach Alej’ how to steer Sirocco properly.

Not such a complicated affair considering Amandine’s Chief Officer only needed to keep her on course. The rudder fins, one ventral and one dorsal aft of each balloon, were what made it possible to change course –though it could also be done by applying different amounts of thrust on port and starboard-. Sirocco also had two pairs of horizontal planes fore and aft that allowed her to make small changes in altitude or even pitch up and down if needed, but they were already good in the altitude department so he wouldn’t need these anyway.

If anything, the complicated part with using the fins correctly was that they weren’t even using hydraulics. Turns out, setting four entirely mechanical cable-driven fins in motion while travelling at the speed of 90 knots required quite a bit of upper body strength, something the male parrot thankfully didn’t lack.

“Ain’t that complicated now is it?” Elaena smiled over his shoulder while keeping an eye on the compass.

“Verticality aside this isn’t too different from a regular ship.” He admitted. “Still, I’m sure I’d do better with a wheel instead of levers. Can’t help but feel they’re a bit counterintuitive.”

“I’m with you on that, but at this point I’ve gotten so used to the lever system there is not point wasting money on a wheel. My sister always puts one on her ships, but sometimes I wonder if she even realizes the difference between an airship and a seagoing ship.”

“You don’t get along much it seems.” The hyacinth macaw commented.

“She has her ideas on how to conduct business and I have mine. We’ve both been in the trade for all our life, learnt from the same parrots and studied in the same place, yet she somehow wound up with delusions about the pirate lifestyle.”

“She went pirate?” Alej’ now sounded a bit alarmed.

“Nah. She barely qualifies as a corsair, even with that stunt she did way back when Equestria was invaded. I’ve always told her to look for the secure and reliable sources of income, but no! Cargo transport is boring and dreary she keeps saying.” Eleana muttered, her raspy voice dripping in contempt.

“So she’s not a pirate, and cargo is not her thing. What does she do?”

“Salvage and archeology, basically. Looks for wrecks, recovers downed airships and, verbatim, looks for booty.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wish.”Elaena winced. “Might explain where she got the pirate delusion from though. Girl wouldn’t even look at my yearly figures. She hits dry spells for months at a time while I rake in a steady cash flow, but whenever I start to get through to her she finds a moon rock or some shit and it’s like talking to a wall.”

“And the end result?”

“I still make twice what she does. Gross that is. Her operating costs are through the roof, while mine…” She trailed off.

“Yeah, not much I imagine.”

Guess it pays off to be a single-crew ship.

What Elaena didn’t say was that while she could tolerate the attitude towards cargo hauls, it was the pirate jig that drew them away from each other. The scar she had across her throat was more than enough to tell that pirates shouldn’t be messed with. Her sister on the other claw, she chose to roam the skies living a romanticized fantasy of a life the ponies in Equestria were all too happy to gobble up.

Hearing stories of the dashing pirate Captain going on quests looking for treasures long lost? That they liked, but most of them utterly failed to acknowledge the actual pirates. The ones that ransacked isolated settlements in the southern hemisphere and attacked ships when they were at their most vulnerable.

The attitude was understandable considering the northern hemisphere (where Equestria was) was nowhere near as dangerous, but that didn’t make her sister’s attitude any better. She knew damn well what went on in Klugetown.

Sirocco eventually reached the vicinity of Gothenburg. As expected, the Swedish city still was covered by an immense cloud of gas. Even from a thousand meters up in the air, they could see the murky yellowish/orange haze that blanketed the streets of the city through the windows of the cockpit. Parks and vegetation had withered away from the contamination, leaving dirty brown blotches in the cityscape.

There were only a few buildings that were spared from the contamination: residential districts on the outskirts of the city, and some of the taller skyscrapers in the CBD. The former had the local topography to thank for that, since the hills around the city put the small houses just high enough that they were spared from the gas, as were the top floors of the skyscrapers.

Hopefully that was where the rescue team would find the survivors.

The most contaminated area appeared to point towards a factory near the harbor, where the haze was so thick they could barely see the top of the factory’s twisting maze of chromed piping and gantries.

Thankfully, it seemed that Gothenburg’s uneven terrain helped prevent the gas from contaminating the rest of the region. The city, much like any city on the western side of Scandinavia, was built amidst a jagged terrain with steep rocky rises all over the place. The city centre and the harbor were built at the mouth of the river between two such rises in the terrain, which thankfully seemed to keep the heavier-than-air gas contained to the city.

The small archipelago west of the estuary was the exception to that. Winds coming from the hinterland had blown some of the gas in their direction, killing flocks of gulls and removing any traces of shrubbery on the islands before it moved on further to sea and dissipated.

“Whelp, better hope those survivors are in the safer parts of the city.” Elaena muttered.

“I hope for them. Wouldn’t want to be stuck in a confined space in such a situation…” He trailed off, glancing at the chart on the board next to Elaena. “Anyway, alter course to two-eight-five for now. We’ll move west across the sea until we hit Kristiansand, then it’s all smooth from there. Just keep the shore on our starboard side until we reach Lofoten.”

As for Alejandro, he went down the hatch back to the chart room where they had installed the radio station. Calling Copenhagen to tell them about the gas cloud was nothing too hard, though Sirocco’s limited batteries forced him to keep the transmission short. Dilip was rather displeased at the news, the possibility of survivors being in the uncontaminated parts of the city doing little to raise his spirits.

Because it didn’t change anything. The expedition team sent to Gothenburg would still have to pack hazmat suits, SCBA’s and the Piranhas.

“He doesn’t sound happy.” Armiger noted.

Alejandro startled. The Abyssinian noble had somehow snuck up on him while he was speaking with Dilip, his feline form nonchalantly leaning in the doorframe.

“That he isn’t. We’re taking insane risks sending a team in the middle of a gas cloud at the possibility of finding survivors. He was probably hoping I’d tell him it had dissipated in the meantime.” He told the noble whilst making sure the radio had stopped broadcasting.

“Your Captain doesn’t seem too fond of taking risks.”

“Because we can’t. We’ve been walking on thin ice ever since we reappeared. No safety net, no Coast Guard to pick us up if we wreck the ship, no salvage crews to pull us out if we ground her, and much as I loathe admitting it, our medical capabilities aren’t even that good.” The parrot recited with a shake of his head as he was hunched over the chart table. “I’ve been called out on that, mind. Our bosun, Artyom…”

“The blue dragon?” Armiger quirked his head.

“Yeah, him.” He nodded. “Complained a few times we were overdoing it with the risk assessments.”

“Risk assessment?”

“It’s a formal procedure we do to examine the dangers of certain tasks and minimize risks to ship and personnel. Regardless… as long as it’s just us and our ship with not even a single colony to return to, we will have to show extra care for even the most routine tasks. Any misstep…” He made a cutting motion with his claw. “… and Amandine could be doomed.”

“Using colonies as a safety net. You know, I’m no marine specialist but judging by the size of your ships you will need a fairly large industrial base.”

“It’s not going to be easy, I know.” Alej’ sighed. “I don’t even know if we will ever achieve it, but our world relied heavily on maritime logistics for supply chains. If we don’t start finding and linking colonies soon, our civilization could very well start slipping back decades on the technological scale.”

“So?”

“So what? I’m Chief Officer, not Captain. I may worry about that stuff but it’s up to Prateek and Gerig to find a solution. What I can tell is we will need to negotiate some deals. Ships need their own kind of stuff, but we can’t ask colonies to produce supplies and parts just for us. That is gonna be a huge change for the industry.”

“I don’t get it.” Armiger frowned.

“How does the shipping sector work in Abyssinia?”

“That depends.” Armiger crossed his arms. “What do you mean exactly?”

“Who owns the ships? Who charters them?”

“That would depend on the kind of ship. Regional freight transport –anything that stays in Abyssinia- is typically transported on smaller tramp freighters owned by companies. International cargo on the other paw, that’s where you get one-ship-companies. Heirloom ships, where the Captain is typically the owner and it’s more of a family affair.”

“That system practically died out here on Earth. That’s what I meant about the change. We typically just pick up the cargo and transport it. There is no negotiation aspect on the shipboard side of the industry; all deals are handled by companies and agents shoreside. Been that way for a while now, which is no surprise considering no single individual could possibly shoulder the financial burden of a seagoing ship.”

“They’re costly aren’t they? Considering how big Amandine is I wouldn’t be surprised if she cost a significant amount.”

“You aren’t particularly versed in the ins and outs of the maritime sector are you?” Alejandro glanced at the feline over his shoulder.

“I’m more of an industrial. Factories, workshops, some vineyards even, but no fleet management.” Armiger admitted with a shrug.

The parrot noted in passing how the Abyssinian’s tail tended to mimic his shrugs by bobbing up and down. Funny, he never really paid attention to that…

“Then I’ll have you know the problem with ships is not the upfront cost of building or buying them. What gets you in the long run is the upkeep. And it’s skyrocketed in the last years of our civilization. Pollution insurances, P&I clubs, vetting, classifications and flag-state requirements. Pair those with crew salaries that require the hiring of graduated Engineers and Officers, stupendously high fuel costs and the steady increase in size… family-owned ships were doomed to disappear. The only industries where they remained were for inland navigation and fishing fleets, and even then they were only a fraction of the total.”

“Interesting. I’ll keep that in mind when I get back to Abyssinia, might be interesting to know how that industry can develop.”

“Investment ideas?”

Armiger’s eyes twinkled in amusement, the tip of his tail drawing small circles in the air.

“My my, minutes of talking and here you already figured me out. Hats off to you.” The cat smirked.

“Flattered. My point still stands. Ships that reappear will be unclaimed by any shipping company, with only their Captains and crews as legitimate ‘owners’. That means the negotiation side of the job will be coming back, for good or ill. No relying on shoreside agencies to figure out the most optimal trade route for a specific ship any time of the year. Figure out the supply chains yourself, and make sure to be where you’re needed at the right time to pick up freight.”

Armiger blinked at him, an owlish look appearing on his muzzle.

“Something wrong Armiger?”

“Nothing, just an idea.” He shook his head. “But please, call me Louis. ‘Armiger’ can stay in Abyssinia’s cigar lounges, we’re on an expedition! Back to my idea. Elaena, she owns Sirocco. You should ask her how she manages it, might help you when it’s time to do it yourself.”

It was Alejandro’s turn to blink in surprise. That… really wasn’t such a bad idea. He thanked Armiger –no, Louis- before quickly grabbing the next chart on their list. Speaking of Elaena, she’d need that chart in a few minutes when they passed Stavanger.

Sirocco continued on her route, following the Norse shoreline all the way north to Narvik. Elaena and Alejandro relayed each other at regular intervals behind the controls, making sure the double-balloon-airship kept a steady course and didn’t change her altitude or speed too much.

Radiant could have helped with that, but Sirocco was already made to be piloted by a single parrot, he’d just have been redundant at the job and his body type barely fit in the pilot’s seat anyway. The Pegasus thus found himself relegated to the role of keeping an eye on the engines, something that wasn’t even particularly necessary because of Sirocco’s one-parrot-crew jig.

He did spend a good while marveling at the engineering behind the craft, wondering whether a pony like him could buy one once he got back from the expedition.

Elaena mentioning Sirocco’s price tag put an abrupt stop to that. Even she had to admit, she was lucky to have gotten her claws on the airship. Radiant managed to intercept her between two bouts at the helm and, with sensible use of coffee and some subtle prodding; he managed to get her to open up on how exactly she had acquired the airship.

It was a bit underwhelming really. No grand story of stealing prototypes from a mad scientist, no humongous treasure to finance a revolutionary vessel or anything quite like that.

Just making sure you’re at the right place at the right time; and that you slide enough bits –or Abyssinian marks (A-Mark for short) rather- in the right creature’s pockets.

Elaena had been lucky enough to wash up in Abyssinia after the loss of her first ship. Her former crew was quick to scatter as soon as they left the hospital, leaving her with nothing.

Nothing but a hefty account at the Royal Bank and earnings from the book on piracy she had written while recovering in the hospital. She may not bother with actual parachutes but you’d be hard pressed to catch her off guard on the financial side.

Then she just played a few parties like fiddles.

Party one: Abyssinia’s Royal Academy of Fine Engineering. Eternal lovers of any exotic tech they could get their paws on. She ‘donated’ the cats her notes on traditional high performance Ornithian lift gases while making sure the newspapers caught her in the act.

Paired with her newfound fame -courtesy of her book-, it took but a day for letters from various engineers and shipwrights to land in her lap.

Her book helped. The narration in there made sure to draw a picture of her and her sister while putting emphasis on the fact she was the more ‘tame’ of the duo. She was a sound investment, little risk taking, no theatrical antics; just steady, reliable investments.

And investments they were. The academics wanted to see the Ornithian lift gases in action, the shipwrights wanted to get the opportunity of making the next revolutionary airship, investors wanted their name on it, and the Abyssinian Crown just wanted good publicity.

A few months later, she was flying out aboard a brand new Sirocco. A design optimized to fill a niche in the industry few others could fill, something which quickly started raking in money. In as little as five years of careful management along with investments on the side, she managed to buy all shares of the vessel.

Meanwhile, the ground flew under them. If many countries had a relatively straight shoreline with beaches, Norway was the complete opposite. All the fjords and inlets, some of them digging dozens of miles into the hinterland, gave the shoreline a jagged appearance. The border between sea and land was made even harder to distinguish by the presence of hundreds of small islands of all shapes and sizes, some just a hundred meters across with but a few weeds and a fisherman’s shack on them.

The reason behind that landscape came from the geological nature of Norway. See, contrarily to most of Europe’s shore, the Scandinavian Peninsula was made of mostly igneous rocks like granite unlike the far more brittle sedimentary rocks found elsewhere, such as limestone. That was the reason behind the massive outcroppings and mountains that arose out of the land a mere hundred meters away from the shore: it simply was that much harder for water to erode.

From the air, all these cliffs and rocks gave the land a dark grey hue similar to a blackboard. That dark grey paired up with the green vegetation growing out on the slopes and in the narrow valleys, wherever there was enough land for it to grow. Pines, hardy weeds and all kinds of vegetation able to weather the harsh conditions that swooped in every winter, placed over the landscape as if painted there by the strokes of a giant brush.

But no fields, or at least nowhere near as many of them as in Sweden. Norway didn’t lend itself to the same kind of agriculture as Southern Sweden.

Elaena didn’t regret their decision of going around the mountains. From the portholes of Sirocco, they could all see the clouds wrapping around the snow-capped mountains, some high, some low, all buffeted by strong winds.

Without a proper chart she was pretty confident they would be a smoldering wreck somewhere on the slopes had they not decided to use nautical charts and go the long way around them.

A chill started to seep in the air as they flew further north, the temperature dropping down a good five degrees as their latitude increased. It wasn’t really that cold, Norway or not it was still summer. The clouds and drizzle that had loomed over them since Copenhagen were also left behind by the point they passed Alesund, trading place with the cottony shapes of stratus clouds in a blue sky.

It was also about that time Louis and Derek discovered exactly why Norway was called the Land of the Midnight Sun. Their voyage may have lasted twelve hours with their departure around noon, but night never came. They were now too far north for that. In Narvik, the sun didn’t set from late May to late July.

A few hours after passing Alesund, the Lofoton Peninsula finally appeared ahead of them.

They were there.

“So he just left you with a manual?”

“Basically.” Scarface shrugged. “Said you’d be able to help me figure out the rest as soon as I could focus magic in my arms.” The gargoyle told, forearms lighting up in a red translucent aura for emphasis. This was about the only thing he could do at the moment. Derek had given him and the other gargoyles a couple lessons on magic, but all of that went out of the proverbial window when he left with Sirocco.

The young mage’s parting words were why he was now addressing Sidereal. Not that she wasn’t on an expedition roster herself, but she wouldn’t be going far enough to cancel the unicorns’ magic lessons…

… which now seemed to include the sphinxes as well. He could see Farkas and Thanasis sitting on their haunches near a magic lantern, eyes closed in concentration.

It wasn’t that odd actually. The more the Equestrians trained regular ponies and species they were familiar with, the more of their attention they could devote to rarer species. This was how Gust wound up giving flight lessons to winged bipeds, and also how Cheese and Sidereal found themselves beginning to teach sphinxes the basics on magic. By Derek’s reckoning, Nikola could ask the latter to teach him magic.

“I’m sorry uh…”

“Nikola, or Scarface if you want.” The Bulgarian completed.

“Sorry Nikola, but I don’t think gargoyle magic and unicorn magic mesh particularly well. You have your kind of magic and we have ours, the spell lattices and weaving are intrinsically different because of the very nature of our focis.” Sidereal apologized. “We’re already having difficulties teaching the sphinxes.”

Farkas opened her eyes, only for the lioness to notice they were shining like a pair of flashlights. Cheese rushed over to help her dispel the accidental spell.

“I can see that…” Scarface drawled. “But is there really nothing you can do? Any tips?”

“I could, but I fear any advice I could give you would be… ill-suited. Either I tell you advanced stuff I learned for my PhD you couldn’t care less about, or I give you advice that’s meant for unicorns that may not even work for you.”

“Pity…” He sighed, shoulders sagging. “Well then, guess it’s back to flight lessons for now.”

And he didn’t even particularly like flying. Those wings on his back were more of an annoyance that forced him to readjust his entire wardrobe and wouldn’t let him sleep on his back. They got warm or cold at the slightest change in temperature, something that was particularly annoying when he had to go between the relative freshness of Amandine’s car decks and the stifling heat of the engine room.

“I could try something.”

He perked up.

“That manual he gave you, I could try to take a look at it tonight. I think I know enough about magic to interpret what’s inside and figure out how you’re supposed to make it work.” Sidereal mused. “No promises though, I’ve never read any academic publications that came from gargoyles.”

“It’s the thought that matters. Thank you.” Scarface gingerly handed her the manual with a polite smile before walking back towards the rest of the assembled gargoyles on the other side of Amandine’s main deck.

She spotted a few disappointed looks before one of them motioned for the others to follow with a wave. If they couldn’t train in magic, at least they’d make sure they could fly as soon as possible.

“Nikola?” Sidereal stopped the Bulgarian before he could get too far. He addressed her an inquisitive look but didn’t say anything.

“Those wings of yours, they seem to be bothering you.” The red mare pointed at them with her hoof.

“Yeah, always seems to feel hot or cold at the worst of times.”

“I know dragons use the skin in their wings to dissipate heat. They run hot. Maybe you’re supposed to use them for temperature control, just saying.”

He was just about to deny that when the thought struck a memory of Derek. Now that he thought about it the mage did always carry a cloak around, even now in summer. At times he’d wear it above his wings, other times he’d just fold it.

“I’ll look into that.” He nodded curtly before turning around to join the other gargoyles.

Watching him depart, Sidereal starred down at the manual she had dropped by her forehooves. The thick paperback book had a mention on the back of the cover. ‘Translated to Equestrian’.

Ugh, those were always so inaccurate.

It took him a while and a lot of trial and error, but Vadim was finally flying.

Not gliding. Not helplessly beating his wings to stay aloft. Flying.

The grey falcon griffon let out a delighted caw as he zoomed above the stacks of containers and headed for Amandine. Behind him, other trainees cheered him on, most of them still busy doing glide training.

He caught the sound of feathers beating against air behind him so he angled his wings ever so slightly to slow down. Micha shot past him in an orange-clothed blur, soon followed by Gust, the Equestrian Ranger matching his speed.

“Congrats!” The gold-furred Pegasus spoke up, his red and blue tail trailing behind him and leaving –for some reason- a faint contrail. He had shed his gambeson, not needing the armor as long as he stayed within the limits of the terminal the sailors kept secure.

“Thanks! Just a question…” Vadim paused to bank around a tall container crane. “… where do I go from here?”

“Two things.” Gust stated. “One: keep flying so you can stay longer in the air. I’m not talking minutes, I’m talking hours spent aloft. Do it all the time, just to keep your wings fit. Even if it means hovering half a meter above the ground when you’re inside.”

“What’s number two then?” Micha butted in.

The bald eagle griffon had just completed a lazy turn around Rhine Forest’s gantry crane and was only now joining their ‘formation’.

“Maneuvers.” Gust grinned before starting to beat his wings faster.

They watched him roll over and start doing tricks around the cranes and between the stacks, his lithe equine form hugging the obstacles, never straying more than a meter away from them before he shot up in the air with a corkscrew. He allowed himself to stall at the apex of his climb, before dropping into a glide that brought him back alongside the two griffons flying side by side.

“You’re flying now, which is good, but there is more that can be done. I’m not going into cloud stuff further than the fact you can walk on them for now, but you might want to learn some tricks. Hovering, flying backwards, upside down, obstacle runs.”

“Obstacle runs?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m an Everfree Ranger.” He admitted. “I find it rather important. We have our courses where we must fly as fast as possible through a forest.”

Together, the three of them landed on top a container stack.

“But why?” Micha asked.

“Everfree’s a big forest. The canopy doesn’t always let you fly up to avoid danger –and believe me there is danger in spades -, so we need to reach certain speeds through forestry without hitting them.”

“You told me Pegasuses…”

“Pegasi.” Gust corrected.

“Right, Pegasi.” Micha rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you say your uh… kind is more suited for high altitude performance?”

“We are. Doesn’t mean I can’t achieve it with a bit of elbow grease. Sure, batponies will beat me in a forest run, but it’s no trouble as long as I meet the criteria. That and there is more to the job than just flying through forestry. We have other species in the ranks too. Unicorns, Earth Ponies, it’s more than just a bunch of flyers shooting crossbow bolts at critters.”

“Eh, if you say so. Not like I can verify.” She shrugged before suddenly swiveling her head in the opposite direction. “Be right back.” She blurted out before spreading her wings.

She had left Andy with Aleksei; the Latvian hippogriff had been taking a short rest and could stand to watch the kid for a minute or two.

Or not.

She was currently chatting with Sandra, completely unaware that a certain hatchling had become disinterested in her coloring books and was now stalking a seagull.

Not. On. Her. Watch.

She saw Andy get ready to pounce on the surprisingly oblivious gull, an unhealthy ball of feathers covered in grime no sane creature would ever consider as prey. The poor animal was probably more plastic waste than flesh at that point.

Kid didn’t seem to care. Micha intercepted her just in the nick of time, pinning her tail to the ground with her talons and halting her mid-pounce. Andy let out an outraged squawk, the outburst making the seagull fly away now that it had noticed the two predators in its vicinity.

The older hen fixed a stern glare on the hatchling who had the presence of mind of at least squirming a bit.

“Seagulls aren’t for eating. They’re full of diseases. You just had dinner.” She barked, sharp raptor eyes not leaving the kid.

Andy meekly tugged at her still pinned tail before lowering her head.

“Kurwa mac…” She heard the kid mutter under her breath.

Micha furrowed her brows, her grip on Andy’s tail subconsciously tightening. First words she heard her utter and… it’s just swearing. Now she wasn’t really surprised the kid’d pick up words like that but…

That didn’t really make it any better.

“Don’t say that Andy, those are bad words.” She sighed, letting go of her tail.

On the one claw, the kid was finally starting to speak so she didn’t feel like chastising her about it. On the other claw… she might need to watch her language around the kid now that she was picking up on what she was saying.

Can’t really blame Andy though. She’d be surprised if she actually knew what she’d just said actually meant.

“I’m sorry Mich’, she slipped past me.” Aleksei rushed over with an apology.

Micha looked down at Andy who was now pressing herself against her side with an apologetic look. She did understand the scolding tone then.

“It’s nothing.” She shook her head, brushing her talons over Andy’s back.

Not really, but she didn’t feel like being rude.

A knock on the door interrupted her train of thought.

“Come in!” Schmitt barked, setting aside her blueprints for now.

It was late in the evening, well after the usual flight training they did at that time. Up until then she had been hunched over her desk touching up the blueprints for the oil reconditioning system they’d need to complete, eventually.

Not really urgent, per se, but it seemed like her transformation didn’t cure her insomnia problems. So… might as well make use of that time.

Scrunched paper balls littered the floor all around her desk, along with a few empty thermoses long depleted of their precious coffee. On a corner of her desk were also a couple chewed-up drill bits and screwdrivers the female dragon found herself sticking in her maw increasingly often as of late.

Her door opened to reveal a somewhat disheveled hippogriff, the blue feathers of his mane/crest sticking out at odd angles to go with the myriad of coffee stains he had on his white coveralls.

“Engine Cadet Rüdiger ma’am, here to report on my progress.” Frederik barked tiredly.

Schmitt’s eyes flicked to the alarm clock on her desk, it was showing her a number uncomfortably close to midnight. Kinda late to go from Rhine to Amandine just to report his progress.

“Speak up, how did it go with the flow rate calculations?” She waved a claw towards a chair in front of her desk.

“It took us some time, but I think we’ve done it.” Frederik told her, sliding a small laptop on the desk, along with a couple printed excel sheets. “It took all three of us engine cadets, but we’ve got an idea of what we’ll need.”

“Scale model or full size?”

“Both.” The hippogriff smiled. “We… uh, shit.” His face darkened.

“Something wrong?” Schmitt raised an eyeridge at the pause.

“Not really. I just don’t know how to say it in English.”

“Just switch to German then.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m Luxembourgish, languages aren’t really a problem for us.”

“Danke.” Fred said in relief. “The other Engine Cadets all speak German too, so we did it in German instead of English.”

“They’re German too?”

“No, French, but they learned it in high school. One is from Alsace even. Anyway…” He clicked his beak. “We ran our calculations with the system requirements you wanted. The excel sheets should give you an indication of the suction head required to make the system work, but it’s gonna need booster pumps otherwise the whole thing will be a cavitation fest.”

“How many times did you run the iterative calculations?” She asked, brushing a claw over a drawing of the system.

“Five times on the scale model, twelve times for full size, got an accuracy of about .01%. We also did the thing backwards: depending on the pumps we’ve managed to salvage around the docks, I added some flow tables for each setup along with output-by-rpm graphs.”

Honestly, the difficulty with the whole thing would be more about having to make the whole oil reconditioning system work for oils in varying states of degradation. The differences in viscosity required several measures to make the whole system viable. Flow and pump requirements were a secondary thing Schmitt was perfectly comfortable with handing off to the Cadets.

What she was getting stuck on at the moment was introducing a system that would make the vilest of oily sludges pumpable and cleanable.

So far, the only thing she had come up with to get to the desired viscosity was a freshwater injector paired with a mixer. Not ideal, both because it forced them to use fresh water to clean oil, and…

Well, mixing fresh water with a heavily polluted and spoiled sludge was ecologicallyunwise to say the least. Sure, she very much doubted any activists would show up on their doorstep mid-apocalypse so she totally could throw the contaminated water overboard once it had helped with cleaning the oil and keeping a decent viscosity inside the system…

Nah.

She told Frederik to wait a second before pulling out a large sheet of paper with the general drawings of the system.

Freshwater injector it is.

But!

She also drew another oil/water separator at the end of the system, along with an oil-content monitor. Technically she wasn’t cleaning the water they rejected, but at least they’d make sure not to leave an oil slick on the surface whenever they cleaned oil. The usual really, just keep the oil content below 15ppm. They did the exact same thing when they discharged bilge water at sea, and it was perfectly legal.

“Okay, let’s do that… we’re not going to do the water injector for now since shore oils aren’t that spoiled yet.” She began, snatching a blank sheet of paper from her printer and writing down instructions on it. “Tomorrow I’m going with the expedition to Gothenburg, but that doesn’t mean the project stops with my departure, got it?”

“Jawohl.” Frederik nodded.

“What I want you Cadets to do is start building the scale model without the water injection system. If you manage to complete it in time, go take some oil samples to run through the system.”

“What kind of oil exactly?”

“Bilge samples. The nasty stuff, let’s not forget we’re cleaning that oil now. I don’t know how you do it on Rhine, but if you don’t have any take some from the sludge tank on Amandine, ok?”

Frederik nodded.

“Good! Remember: you take two samples at the same time and use on in the system. Compare the purity of both. What I want to know with this test is if the system is viable.”

“But what if the result isn’t usable in the engines?”

“It won’t be. Ever. It’s bilge oil. I don’t think we’ll find any spoiled fuel for at least a few months, so that will have to do. So that’s three tasks for you lot tomorrow: finish the blueprints for the scale model with…” Her pencil hovered over some of the excel sheets before circling a pump setup. “That setup. Build it. And if by the time you’re done you’ve got some time to spare, run the sample through it and do a performance evaluation.”

The German hippogriff bit back a gulp as he watched the orange dragon write her instructions on the sheet in front of him. That would take hours! They had just spent nearly as long doing the calculations, and it was only by convincing the others that they might get some down time after the crunch that they’d got the job done.

“We uh… ma’am?”

Schmitt winced internally at the reminder she was now female. She waved for him to continue.

“I don’t think we can do it all in one day.”

“Of course you can’t.” She shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, her wings rising at the motion.

“Excuse me?”

“This task sheet…” She grabbed the piece of paper in her claw and waved it at him. “Consider it as such: do your usual tasks, routine stuff, and then use what time you can spare to work on the project.”

“But…”

Schmitt aw’ed.

“You crunched through the calculations didn’t you?”

“We did, yeah.” Fred lowered his head.

He had an inkling of an idea his goodwill with the other cadets was about to dip significantly.

“We have months ahead of us before this whole oil reconditioning business actually becomes relevant. There is no use exhausting yourself over it, ok?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Alright listen…” Schmitt leaned back in her chair, her tail coiling around one ankle as she stared at him through piercing blue eyes. “I’ll give you a piece of advice: pace yourself. You already know you can’t pass exams by crunching overnight. You may pass the first, but by the time the second comes around you’ll already be a wreck. Think of all our projects like exams, and oil won’t start spoiling until the end of the semester. Is that clear?”

“Crystal ma’am.” The hippogriff sagged. “I’ll… tell the others tomorrow.”

“I’m not chastising you.” Her maw parted in a predatory smile. “But they might. You did good work; just make sure to pace yourself next time.”

He nodded weakly.

“Dismissed. Get some rest Rüdiger, you’ll need it.”

As for her, with another couple hours of work she might be able to drop dead and overcome her insomnia…

“Hello world! Copenhagen here, with DJ Jensen.” Sandra cheerfully began.

She was sitting at the radio station they had installed in her cabin, a high-quality mic hanging in front of her muzzle, adjusted just right to her height so she could comfortably sit on her haunches in the comfortable desk chair she had a sailor bring there.

She may not have been on Amandine for long, but she was already starting to give the cabin a homier feel. Stuff she had gotten back from her houseboat in Christianshavn had found its way here and there: family photos from before the Event, wall posters to balance out the drab colors of the wall…

The obligatory soundproof wall panels. The batpony had received a very clear message that her role as radio operator and broadcaster would not be an excuse for disturbing their sleep.

Right now she was comfortably leaning back in her chair, her favorite pillow pushed against the armrest and a cup of tea held in her ‘wing digits’. She had her laptop open on her desk next to the radio station, a blinking red light clearly telling her she was now broadcasting.

To the entire world. Satellite radio helped with that.

“Now let’s not be fooled. I know this will be broadcasted worldwide but if my knowledge of radio tech before the Event is any good, there won’t be many of you hearing me. Pardon the accent by the way…” The Danish batpony rolled her tongue in her mouth. “I’m not exactly a native speaker, but I figured I’d get a better audience in English. Back to radio tech then… satellite radio isn’t what I’d call widespread, so unless you’re in the vicinity of the Oresund you won’t be hearing me on FM or AM anytime soon. And if you’re near the Oresund, then forfanden haul ass and get to Copenhagen.”

She took a sip of her tea and glanced at her notes. Right, get to the main dish.

“By now you’re probably wondering why you’re hearing the voice of one lovely girl –or mare really- on the waves. And you’ll be hearing more of me in the future, be sure of that. Daily planning will be one emission put on repeat every two hours with my delightful playlists in between. I’ll make sure to record something new everyday, tell you the news, change the playlists so you poor solitary survivors don’t go stark raving mad.”

“Thing is, I’m no solitary survivor. Eh, this might be the closest thing we’ll have to an advertisement on this channel actually. See, I gotta thank a bunch of sailors for rescuing me and giving me that radio. Poor me would have been eaten by timberwolves otherwise, wouldn’t that be a pity now?” She laughed.

“My thanks go to the sailors of Amandine and Rhine Forest. We’re making an organization with them, a fleet, if you will. If you want to contact us, we’ll be very interested to hear about you and maybe even your colony…”

Reading off her own notes, she explained them the procedure on how to message them via satellite mail or call them on a satellite phone. She made sure to give both her cabin’s number and that of the bridge so they’d get their messages.

“But enough with trivialities. I want to celebrate my… I guess I should call them shipmates now?” The purple batpony smiled. “So…” She lifted her teacup in her wing. “Here’s one… teacup of mint infusion? Here’s one to that glorious bunch of sailors, which, by my right as the only media on the entire planet, I hereby unilaterally christen as the World Seafarer Union. No, you don’t get a choice, now the world knows you as that. If anyone’s listening, please give a round of applause to the sailors of the WSU, coming soon to your neighborhood.”

She paused.

“Well, only if you live near the shore. Tough luck hinterland people, guess you’ll have to live with becoming my pen pals. DJ Jensen, out.”

And with that she keyed off the transmission. She pushed the desk chair into a spin with a cheerful squee.

“I did it mom! I’m a pirate radio now!” She cried out in Danish.

Just like Radio Mercur in ’58.

Her cheering was brought to a stop by the ringing of her alarm clock.

Right, the date with Johann. Batponies date at night.

Author's Notes:

Got a bit carried away about the oil reconditioning system, hope you folks didn't mind the rambling. That thing really got me wondering what kind of tech you'd need to jury rig to clean up the oil and keep it versatile enough to work under variable viscosities.

^{Note: Bilge oil is mostly runnof from hydraulics mixed with chemicals, detergents, and condensation from inside the ER. Even in a clean state that's not the stuff you can run engines on.}

I have high hopes for WSU Radio, that little trick should allow me to start telling stories of isolated survivors away from the fleet and present them like interviews. Might be entertaining to look into for the sake of variety.

By the way, if any of you has a survivor you'd like to see appear on the radio, feel free to ask.

Little note of trivia: Luxembourgers are ridiculously skilled in foreign languages. For real though, by the time these guys get out of primary school they already speak three languages. High school? Easily six. Some of the Luxos I know can speak eight languages.