The beginning of the repair works went just as Alejandro had predicted it. As soon as Aleksei and her team brought back current in the city’s grid, the entire fleet at the graving dock was given the green light to begin repairs.

Machines started turning in the workshops, pumps revved up, and the lumbering shapes of Samson and Goliath rumbled to life, the two giant yellow gantries arcing over the graving dock and dwarfing even the merchant vessels beneath them.

For most teams, the preparations either involved working at the pumphouse setting up all the valves and priming the pumps; or just placing the support blocks in the graving dock’s basin. Another group made up of mostly engineering team sailors found themselves deep inside the humongous hangar they had decided to use as their workshop. There were other such places around the docks, of course, but for the sake of safety and practicality they had chosen to haul all the tools and machines they needed inside the one hangar.

And boy did that thing have room to work with. The building had probably been designed for the assembly of medium-sized offshore facilities, because the hangar was easily a dozen stories tall with several cranes and winches attached to the steel beams in the ceiling. It even had a mobile heavy duty gantry crane, mounted on rails that ran all the way to the graving dock’s basin.

Easily big enough to lift an engine, something Schmitt found herself seriously contemplating as it would be much easier to repair the damaged generators there before reinstalling them. After all, they’d have them right next to the machines that were supposed to craft the parts needed to repair them. That would be a hell of a lot easier when it came to fitting.

She’d have to bring it up with the other Chief Engineers.

The Luxembourgian dragoness had set up shop in one of the hangar’s offices. The room was just your regular factory foreman’s office, set aside at the top of several catwalks a couple floors above the main assembly chain. Her little ‘den’ was just in the right spot to observe all the work spaces down below. The multiple clusters of machines, mills and workbenches essentially boiled down to two parts: one cluster off to the side used as the machining shops with a small part dedicated to fixing engine sensors and electronics, and another much bigger cluster in the center of the hangar with a huge bending press to make the new hull plates.

Already she could see one of the inner cranes start lifting a couple unprocessed plates, one of Rhine’s centaurs manning the controls. The plates had been delivered the day before by a lorry they’d used to scour the local warehouses for materials. They had all been sorted depending on the grades of steel, each pile of plates labeled in bold red spray paint lest they accidentally use grade A plates on engine parts.

Or the reverse. They may not be paying for it, but she could not fathom wasting good steel on mere hull plates.

“Everything alright ma’am?” Someone asked behind her.

Schmitt turned away from the windows. There were two creatures behind her: Pavlos and Izaak. The two bosuns that served on Rhine. The former was a Greek gargoyle, middle-aged with a black coat of fur.

She had already gotten to know him during their ill-fated expedition to Gothenburg.

Izaak however, she was less familiar with. The Pole had suffered a fate very similar to that of Raimund: a genderswap combined with age reduction that wound up making a young griffon chick out of her. She was a buzzard/caracal mix, with colored feathers –every griffon hen had some- in the shape of a blue spot on her forehead.

Unlike Rhine’s Captain however, the chick couldn’t rely on her status as Captain to be respected by the ratings she was supposed to supervise, and relying on her colleague Pavlos to enforce her authority wouldn’t have flown.

In other words, she was very good at screaming at her subordinates in screechy squawks that would frequently send shudders down the spine of any creature with above-average hearing. More than enough to make her subordinates follow orders.

“I’m fine, just thinking is all.” Schmitt said. “How are things progressing down here?”

“Machinery’s in place and we’re getting the raw stuff to their workstations.” Izaak chirped. “Give us an hour or two and we’ll all be ready to start work.”

“Good good…” She nodded before making her way over to a desk. “What’s the status on the dock?”

“Fugro’s moored in place and held tight. They’ve just begun pumping out the water.”

Schmitt stared off in the distance at that. Alejandro had said it’d take a couple hours to pump the water out of the dock… then now would be about the time the stricken vessel would enter the critical phase of the docking process.

They’d best not bother the guys at the graving dock then.

Her claws reached for a couple stacked folders on the desk next to a forgotten coffee mug. She grabbed the entire pile and passed it off to Pavlos.

“Schematics for the parts we already know we’ll need.”

The gargoyle grunted a bit as he took in the weight off all that paper, shoulders sagging.

“Feels heavy, that a lot of stuff I guess...” He grumbled.

“It gets worse. Fugro has a lot of flooded compartments in her aft section that we have yet to inspect. What you have here is all the parts we already know we’ll need. Expect the list to grow. A lot.”

Izaak winced as she looked at her colleague that was near collapsing under the weight of all the plans.

“Ja pierdole.”She swore.

A couple hundred meters away from the hangar, several seaponies were swimming under Fugro as the basin emptied around the ship. Back before the Event, they’d have used regular divers to ensure the ship stayed put and didn’t slip off the blocks, but now they had the slight improvement of having divers that didn’t need to surface and didn’t fear hypothermia.

Emphasis on slight. Seaponies may be far better suited to living underwater than humans, but unfortunately, they also had to forfeit the prehensile talons of their hippogriff forms when they took to the water. That, had required a bit of on-the-fly improvising just so they’d have a way of manipulating tools underwater. As expected of a jury-rigged solution, it left quite a bit of room for improvement. They had attached some improvised gauntlets to their forearms (more like forefins) that they could equip with tools. Though it was nowhere near as good as claws or talons, it still was an improvement over the delicate membranes at the tip of their fins.

Ergonomics aside, Sri had to admit being underneath a ship whilst the water was being emptied made for quite the sight. Fugro was a gigantic red oblong shape, her hull perfectly smooth and still devoid of any algae or barnacles. Her sole presence cast an oppressive shadow on the bottom of the dock and the seaponies that were swimming under it, each positioned at key positions from where they could keep an eye on as many of the support blocks as possible.

Smooth as the steel plating of Fugro’s hull was, dozens of imperfections still broke up its surface: that went from normal stuff like the grills protecting the maneuvering thrusters and the sea chest, to the bulb holding the transducers for the log and echosounder, to less common oddities like a couple hatches along the keel including one for the moonpool.

“Wibowo, get in position please.” A seapony officer from Rhine reminded her as he swam past.

A Filipino from their barge department supervising the underwater side of the operation. She barely knew him, and didn’t want to either. Pushing aside a stray thought that wondered how exactly seaponies could talk underwater, she grunted an acknowledgment and pushed against the water with her tail fin.

The resulting action propelled her far faster than she could ever have swum before as a human. Support blocks and other seaponies whizzed past, and she used the ‘wing’ fins she had on her back to twist and turn past all the obstacles in her way while Fugro’s hull steadily got closer to them. All the while, she kept fiddling with the straps on her tool gauntlets with her teeth.

Rather ineffectually too. She had to ask Scarface to help her put them on once she had transformed. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian may have tightened the straps a little too hard. She fully expected to find bruises under her seal-like fur before the end of the day. No matter, better focus on the job at hand…

Or fin, whatever.

Her post was near the stern of Fugro. She halted herself by grabbing onto a bar recessed in the ground with the grabbing claw on her gauntlet and flipped around. The job was rather simple: they had shown them a drawing of where the support blocks were supposed to go to hold up the ship, and they just had to study it and flag either the underwater officer or someone above the surface if they had the slightest hint the ship wasn’t in the correct position.

Easy enough.

From where she was, she had a perfectly clear view of the damage Amandine had accidentally wrought upon the smaller offshore vessel. If on the surface, things looked rather mild, underwater was another matter entirely. Amandine’s bulbous bow had acted as a battering ram, cleaving a round hole straight through the other ship’s hull, and leaving behind a jagged mess of crumpled plates, bent girders and scraped paint. The damaged ran so deep in fact she could see some flooded compartments past what used to be a ballast tank.

Once they emptied all the flooded compartments, the guys in engineering were in for some hard work. And so was she, probably. For all she knew, the Captains might decide involving the deck departments in the repair process would speed up things.

Sri allowed her thoughts to drift a bit as she stared at the looming ship above her. She wasn’t exactly fond of her waterborne form. Similar as it was to flying, she far more preferred taking to the air than diving. Underwater just felt… utterly alien to her. Too many changes to get used to for her own comfort, including the small things.

One such small thing was that sound carried further underwater, something which was quickly becoming aggravating as it meant she could hear any conversation seaponies were having around the dock, layered above the constant white noise of Fugro’s machinery, above the droning noise the pumps made as well.

Big headache for such a small detail.

Plus, overhearing details on the sexual life of Rhine’s cadets wasn’t part of what she wanted at the moment. She had just barely managed to get over the conflict between her religion and her own transformation (with copious amounts of alcohol, a bit of denial and a stern rebuking from Artyom, but hey, she wasn’t a good Muslim to begin with), brazen sex talk was just a step too far.

Fortunately someone told the cadets everyone could hear them before she had to, and the emptying of the dock carried on without a hitch. It took a couple hours of dull watch-and-wait, but they eventually got to the point where the last puddle of water left in the dock got sucked through the pumps, and the seaponies all reverted back to hippogriff form, much to Sri’s personal relief.

Water still trickled down, emptying from the flooded compartments still on board, the liquid mixed with oil and chemicals they all stayed well clear of before someone came to rinse it with a pressure washer.

“’bout damn time…” Sri muttered in her native tongue as she massaged her forearms, finally free of the tool gauntlets.

Torture devices is more like it.

“Whelp, looks like that went alright, init?” Scarface casually asked as the gargoyle landed a few ways behind her.

He was a bit covered in grease and soot himself, having spent the entire time Fugro was being put on the blocks stripping down the generator that powered Amandine’s bow thruster just to see which parts hadn’t been completely burned down and could be salvaged.

Not that many beyond the engine block and casing it turned out.

“Alright? Al-right?!” She repeated loudly. “I got a splitting headache, know more about someone’s sexual life than anybody ever should, probably will have bruises on my forearms for a week or two because you tighten straps like it’s a BDSM porn flick, and you…” She trailed off, jabbing in a talon in the Bulgarian’s general direction.

“And me?” Scarface put his hands on his hips, utterly nonplussed.

“You owe me a fucking beer for tonight’s game.” She finally declared.

“You do know we don’t pay for those, right?” He replied with a quirked eyebrow.

“Shut up, it’s the thought that matters.”

Squabbling between the veterans aside, they soon moved on down their checklists. Lacking any water to cool down her generators, Fugro had to be plugged in on shore electricity (courtesy of the Kilroot plant). A trifle easily done by a team of sphinxes with the connecting cable, but a trifle that had to be done nonetheless.

They also began erecting scaffolding around the vessel, an entire armature soon wrapping around Fugro’s red belly, complete with makeshift lifts, fall nets and even a bridge that connected the quays with the deck of the docked ship. Necessary as it was to make Fugro still accessible to non-flyers, it didn’t mean her crew was permitted to stay on board during repairs.

That would have been far too dangerous. They were instead relocated inside of Rhine’s accommodation containers that the barge carrier had acquired in Copenhagen. Granted, they were far less comfortable than actual cabins, and nowhere near as luxurious as what could have been found on Fugro, but it was all they had on offer that was within the limits of the repair yard. Commandeering a hotel to accommodate Fugro’s crew may have been more comfortable, but that would have required them to set up yet another security perimeter, something they didn’t have enough manpower for.

Soon as the scaffolding was in place, the welding teams moved in with plasma cutters to remove the damaged components, Fugro’s belly erupting in a shower of orange sparks. The repairs were officially started

In stark contrast to the industrial process and engineering going on in Northern Ireland, things were a lot quieter in Brittany. The sun had risen above Trecesson castle with the crowing of a rooster in the farm, marking the beginning of yet another arduous day for Rockhoof. The large Earth Pony guzzled down enough porridge to sate six ponies before heading out to get into the fields. They still needed to get a couple more ready if they wanted the castle’s food store ready by the time winter rolled in.

Meadowbrook followed soon after, trotting over to her garden for a quick inspection. Not that it would take too long: she still needed to find a room in the castle she could rearrange to make a new potion lab.

The sun shone, birds sang in the trees, even the cows in their pastures were grazing peacefully, looking at the big stallion that was now plowing the fields on his lonesome. Rockhoof only addressed them an awkward glance.

He found them strange. Cows in Equestria may not be fully civilized, but they were intelligent, talking creatures. These… they had the beginnings of a spark of intelligence in their eyes, but they were still animals. Not creatures he could have a chat with after a day on the farm, not creatures to whom he could ask if they were willing to lend him a bucket of their milk.

How in Faust’s name was he supposed to get milk then? Just… stride up to them and milk them?!

He had best leave that to Meadow…

A few ways away from Rock’s awkward musings, somebody stirred awake inside the keep. In the upper floors, just next to the lord’s chambers, was a smaller bedroom. Its furnishings were very similar to those of the rest of the castle: dark varnished floorboards covered by a thick white woolen carpet, tapestries covering the walls to better retain heat, a cast iron stove in a corner of the room, and only one little window to let the sunlight in.

It was that sunlight that woke up the little fawn lying in the oversized bed in the center of the room. Blearily, he let out a long yawn before blinking at the rafters above him, his mind attempting to piece together memories of the last few days. Rather ineffectively so, mind. The memory of waking up on a trail and limping aimlessly for days before making his way to a nearby castle was all but gone now, replaced by foggy images of an equine shape feeding him broth amidst lances of pain in his limbs and tummy.

Tummy in question which took it as its cue to start gurgling. That spurred him to awake fully and take a proper look at his surroundings. The chambers were sparsely furnished compared to more modern dwellings. All the little fawn could see was the poster bed he was lying in on a small dais, a tall oaken wardrobe and a couple sturdy chairs around a coffee table near the window.

An older individual would have noticed that, as medieval as the bedroom looked, there were still hints of modernity creeping in. Martin, however, didn’t see some of the fixtures were actually light bulbs mimicking candles, nor did he see the power outlets subtly hidden in the corners or the radiators that were peeking out from behind the tapestries.

No, to Martin’s young mind it looked like he had somehow gone back in time to the era of his favorite cartoons. The same cartoons that were why he had begged his daddy to take him to visit the forest.

That would have been bad enough, but then he attempted to stand up. On his hind legs. That obviously failed and sent him sprawling back down on the mattress, the fawn only then realizing his hands had been turned into cloven hooves.

It didn’t take long before he did what any kid his age would in a similar situation: he began bawling his eyes out and crying for his daddy. Meadowbrook overheard him and rushed in his bedroom to try and comfort him, the blue mare soon finding herself with a little fawn crying in her hooves.

“Shh, shh, you’re safe with us.” She reassured him in French.

“Mah da-“Martin hiccuped, snot dribbling out of his nostrils and his eyes streaked red from tears. “Il est où papa? What’s going on?”

Meadow hesitated. She spared a second to wipe away some snot that had stained her coat before addressing him a tentative smile.

“Your daddy… is busy. He’s working now, Martin, but he said you needed to be a good colt until he got back, okay?” She elected to say.

Martin nodded feebly. His tears finally seemed to abate.

“Good!” Meadow beamed, ruffling the strands of spiky fur at the base of the fawn’s still stubby antlers. He didn’t seem to notice the fake tone in her cheerfulness. “Now, are you hungry? I bet you are, do you wanna come to the kitchen with me?”

“Y- yes…” He stuttered.

She assumed he had been running on pure instincts when he turned up at the gatehouse, because she had to help him up on his hooves and the frail little fawn hobbled unsteadily all the way down to the castle’s kitchens. She didn’t comment on it, instead choosing to encourage him as the former human boy still had to get acquainted to his body.

Guilt wrenched her heart every time she looked in his general direction as she prepared him a bowl of oatmeal porridge. She just couldn’t outright tell the kid he may never see his father again. She glanced back at him.

Martin was just sitting on his haunches on a stool, eagerly looking at all the shiny copper pots hanging from the rafters above him.

“Daddy… he said we were going to visit the forest.” The fawn finally said, a small lisp in his voice.

“The forest really? It’s a bit dangerous now you know.” Meadow pointed out.

“Daddy’s the best, he would protect me just so we could see where Merlin and Arthur went.” Martin insisted, puffing out his narrow chest proudly.

“I’m sure he would.” Meadow smiled as she poured a bowl of steaming porridge. “You said Merlin?”

“Yeah!” He nodded cheerfully, the earlier sadness now completely replaced by pure fanboyishness. “He’s from my favorite story. He’s just sooo cool, I wanna be like him later!”

Meadowbrook’s eyes glinted knowingly.

Now where to find Starswirl, about time the mage payed them back a bit.

“I want him to turn me into a squirrel!”

Hold on, what?

Camille carefully eyed the City Hall as she flew in circles above it. While everyone was busy with the docking procedure at the repair yard, she as a doctor had little to offer to help things along.

So they sent her to the IRA guys instead.

On her own.

She wasn’t sure whether to consider it a relief from the usual lab stuff she had been doing as of late, or to treat it as having been handed the proverbial hot potato. She was aware Vadim was currently doing something similar up north in Carrickfergus with the British loyalists. The ‘similar task’ being to give the survivors the very same briefings they had gotten from the Equestrians. Simple enough, she could feel the weight of her laptop and a little projector inside the backpack she was currently holding in her talons.

Yeah, in her talons. Turns out, having a massive rucksack on your back and between your wings works out poorly when you’re trying to flap them. Who would have thought?

More details of the City Hall popped into view as she steadily decreased her altitude. Aleksei’s report couldn’t have been more right when she described the building as a fortress. The formerly Victorian building’s white walls were now bristling with defenses and makeshift barricades.

From her position up in the air, the French hippogriff could also see details hidden by the outer barricade that the recce team had missed. The group of returnees living there obviously had their plans set straight, because they had already gone ahead and modified the lawns around the city hall to fill their needs, and then some.

Vegetable patches now replaced the grass where tourists used to lounge in the summer, along with other stuff likely looted from a nearby garden store: greenhouses, a chicken coop or two, a makeshift shed with at least a dozen electric generators set up next to a large fuel tank. Even on the roof of the building she could see some modifications they had made so they could better collect rainwater and channel it towards their cultures using a makeshift maze of PVC pipes and plastic gutters.

That was about all she could say about the modifications they had made though. The city hall had an inner courtyard too, but they had completely covered it up with large blue tarps and bits of corrugated steel.

Her assessment made, Camille finally landed in front of what she assumed were the gates, slinging her backpack over her shoulder as soon as her hooves hit the pavement. Now that she was closer she suddenly felt a tad less confident about the visit. Sure she may be wearing a modified plate carrier for protection, along with a pistol in a chest holster (and she didn’t even want to, they forced her to take the gun for her own defense), but the watchtowers and all the barbed wire were imposing, to put it mildly. She shifted her weight from one side to another, wings instinctively fluffed up as she waited for someone to turn up and notice her.

That didn’t take too long. A hedgefog appeared at the top of a watchtower, clad in the same Provo uniform they had seen on Finnegan when the dragon turned up at their gate. He was armed too –obviously-, with some Cold-War era battle rifle in a sling across his chest.

“What’s yer business ‘ere?” He gruffly asked.

“Uh… Hi!” Camille waved at him. “I’m from the WSU and I’m here to see Mr. Finnegan. We wanted to share some of the knowledge we have on the species you’ve turned into.”

The hedgefog motioned for her to go on with his paw.

“I’m Doctor Delacroix, from Rhine Forest. You see, I’ve spent most of my time since my reappearance studying details about our new species.” Bit of a white lie there, the Equestrians had given her most of the answers. “So I thought you’d be interested in some biology lessons. Really basic I promise, how your reproductive system works, what kind of trick each race can pull off…”

Technically, she also had the data on the monsters, Charybdis and Scylla and even the 10 000 years return rate, but she doubted turning up at someone’s gate claiming that kind of stuff would garner much success.

The guard in the watchtower seemed to evaluate her for a few seconds before he finally turned his head, seemingly to look at someone behind the gate.

“So what’s yer take, uh boss?”

“Let ‘er in. Sounds genuine to me.” Finnegan replied.

Camille heard someone work the bar holding the gate shut before two identical dragons opened the doors, finally allowing a look inside the compound. A crowd had amassed by the gate to take a look at the visitor. Most of them were dressed in IRA uniforms and variants thereof: hunting clothing, military surplus, even some blatant airsoft gear to go with their eclectic mix of black-market weapons.

However, as noticeable as the paramilitaries were inside the compound, Camille also recognized a not-so-insignificant share of civilians in the crowd, wearing regular clothes and carrying tools instead of guns.

Of all the residents, she also took note of their species, if only to know which she should focus on for her briefing. Dragons and hedgefogs were the most prominent, with unicorns and centaurs being a close second after them. There were a couple other species as well among the lot, like a lone Earth Pony mare, but their numbers were pretty minor in comparison.

Numbers that were still rather limited she noted. At a glance she would say there must have been… forty of them? Probably closer to thirty. That still was a lot more than the Loyalists holed up near the power plant.

“Well hello there Doctor.” Finnegan came up to her, the dragon holding out his claw towards her. “I don’t think we’ve been acquainted yet. Surprised you guys would come to us so soon.”

“As I told your guard: I’m only here to offer you basic information.” She replied after firmly shaking his claw. “Anything about trade or local politics doesn’t concern me. That’s up to the Captains to decide, but any message you have, I can tell them.”

“Aye, ah can work with da’.” Finnegan nodded before turning around to give an appraising look towards the crowd around them. “Alright you lot, back t’work. We’ll call ye when Doc’s ready to give us the brief, ‘kay?”

There were a few grumbles but the survivors all went back to their posts, if begrudgingly. Camille watched a group of three centaurs and the Earth Pony head back towards the greenhouses.

“Quite the endeavor you managed to arrange in here. I gotta say… I’m surprised you found so many returnees in town. All the ports we’ve seen yet were rather deserted. This is a crowd by recent standards.”

“Ain’t only from Belfast.” Finnegan snorted, shoving his claws in his pockets. “We got peeps from all ‘round the countryside comin’ here. I popped in a month ago near Crossmaglen, the twins I believe roughed it all the way here from Dublin for God knows why, and I’m pretty sure we got someone from effin’ Cork workin’ inside.”

“And they all came here?”

“Fuck if I know why…” The green dragon shrugged. “I just headed for the nearest big city to see if I could find someone. Not gonna complain tho’, even with this many folks workin’ here we’re always short on hands.”

“Doesn’t look that bad.” Camille commented as she gave an appreciative glance at all the stuff they had built around the gardens. “You look like you’re managing just fine.”

“Could always be bettah.” Finnegan admitted. “This place was the easiest stronghold we could find, and it draws in quite a few peeps ‘cause o’ its position; but it’s not exactly comfortable per se. Right now I got a couple guys in there workin’ on makin’ us some propah bedrooms and plumbing.”

That was the start of an improvised ‘tour’ of the settlement which gave Camille the chance to see how they had set up their stuff around the area. In essence, it was rather simple: Finnegan as the de-facto leader of the colony had set his focus on securing all of their basic needs.

Food was ensured by a stockpile of canned and dry food they looted from all around the city that they kept safely stored in the cellars under the city hall. Not satisfied with that supply only, the dragon had decided they should start working on a more durable food source, which led to them turning the city hall’s grounds into a makeshift farm, complete with the vegetable patches, greenhouses and the chicken coops Camille had spotted before landing. The ‘farmers’ all greeted Finnegan as he crossed through the greenhouses, Camille trotting a few steps behind.

If Camille wasn’t already aware of how centaurs influenced plant growth just by observing Asha, now was the last bit of confirmation she needed. All of their greenhouses were as lush as jungles, with the more open vegetables patches showing signs of following down the same path. Not bad for a few weeks of production.

Water was a bit more complicated, though not unmanageable. They built a system on the roof to collect rainwater and reroute it towards their farms, which they had coupled with a few cisterns and barrels up on the roof, just so they wouldn’t have to use pumps for irrigation. Of course they were still working out some kinks in the system, like filtration to make it so they could actually drink that water instead of relying on a large but limited supply of bottled water.

They also lacked running water, but that was nothing they couldn’t solve with a bit of elbow grease and some camping showers Finnegan claimed they had installed in a section of the public toilets they now called ‘the bathhouse’. He knew it wasn’t ideal, but he already had a couple teams working on creating actual showers and fixing their plumbing.

As soon as they were done with the bedrooms that is. Useful as it was for defense, the city hall was exactly that: a city hall. It came with offices, gathering rooms, archives and whatnot, but bedrooms so far were just a matter of ‘find an empty room and claim it for yourself’.

Speaking of their lodging issues brought Finnegan to the last part of the survival trifecta: shelter, which he directly associated with security after several attacks from both escaped zoo animals and monsters. If anything, that was what forced them to use an easily fortifiable structure like the city hall instead of regular housing.

“Are the attacks really that bad?”

“D’pends.” Finnegan frowned as he led her inside the city hall. “Dogs in packs can be pretty dangerous if ye’re not careful; and even if monster attacks are rare, the risk factor is enough t’warrant gatherin’ inside a stronghold. If ah had more men t’patrol the streets, then maybe we could live in the apartment buildings nearby, with actual patrols and perimeters, but there ain’t enough o’ us t’do that.” He explained. “So far, we can only do short range patrols t’keep an eye on all the packs but that’s ‘bout it.”

The interior of the city hall further highlighted the level of skill of Victorian architects. An atrium directly followed after the entrance, just below the central cupola, opening up to a wide room below the dome with pristine white walls covered in intricate moldings and murals. This, paired with velvet red carpets, marble parapets and reflective floor tiles gave the entire building such a richly decorated atmosphere it was almost overwhelming. The sight alone was enough to explain how Belfast could have produced a ship like Titanic in the first place.

Crates and miscellaneous loot were piled up along the walls, stuff they had recovered from all around town ranging from tools to medicine, furniture and even random stuff some survivors had looted for their own gain like gaming consoles. Camille took note of two things as the dragon led her down a hallway to a gathering room: one, them restarting the plant in Kilroot had apparently brought them electricity as well(not much of a surprise); and two, there were some noises coming from above her that sounded a lot like they really were busy re-purposing the building to make it livable.

“Just to be sure, does your electricity…”

“From the grid, yes. We’d been usin’ our generators, but yer guys brought back power. Ain’t gonna complain, tho’ knowin’ how long the plant’ll be runnin’ would be nice.”

“I’ll ask.” Camille nodded before pointing at the anti-material rifle he kept slung over his shoulder, its massive muzzle brake nearly scraping doorways every time they passed one. “I wonder, where did you guys find so many weapons? I could have sworn… ahem…”

“Officially? We disarmed like... ten years ago. Unofficially? Most o’ us hardcore Provo’s splintered to form our own brigades. They got some o’ our weapons, sure, but we kept the stuff we actually needed. Me rifle? That’s the same I used in South Armagh way back in ’93. Spent a lot of time hidden in a barn, but now was the best time to reactivate all this here arsenal I daresay.”

That got Camille to stop and gaze at the taller dragon, beak held agape.

“You… I remember the papers from back then. The Brits, they called you One Shot Paddy.” She gaped.

“Wasn’t the only fella to get the title you know.” He answered. “We were more than just I and me .50 cal.”

“You killed people.”

“Aye, ah did.” He confirmed. “Soldiers, in uniforms. Them guys were well aware o’ what might happen to them when they enlisted. And ah didn’t even attack off-duty and retired folks, unlike some o’ me… harsher peers.” He added upon noticing the glare the hippogriff was throwing his way. “In any case, now that the Brits are gone we’ll finally get the island fer ourselves, and their childish attitude towards guns is bitin’ them in the ass as we speak. G’luck fending off monsters without some serious firepower, but that’s what ye get for infant’lizing yer own people. The world’s changed Doc, and ah fer one ain’t gonna try t’reverse it and give the reins back to authoritarian Britons. Peeps, they got a right t’defend themselves.”

Camille opened her beak to protest only to stop when Finnegan stopped in front of a tall double door. The dragon opened it, revealing the Great Hall behind it. It was a long ballroom painted with warm yellowish hues to go with its red carpet. Several Irish flags hung from the vaulted ceiling above them as well, some decorated with either the raised fist or the phoenix all IRA splinters had sooner or later used as symbols.

As for what was in the room, she could see rows of cots lined up along the walls on either side of the room, each separated by curtains to allow for a measure of privacy. There was also a long table in the middle, with a detailed map of Belfast pinned down on it with four pocket knives, along with the remains of a breakfast, a couple empty cereal boxes lying down under the table.

Finnegan said something about needing to grab a white screen somewhere and told her to get ready for her briefing, something Camille was all too happy to comply with. She shrugged off her backpack and set down her laptop on the table before getting to work on making sure her presentation was ready.

Just a matter of putting more focus on the races she had spotted among their group really.

A mere five minutes into that, she was interrupted by a polite cough behind her. Camille turned around, finding herself faced with the Earth Pony she had spotted earlier near the gates. She was a rather short mare with gold fur and a white mane she wore in a braid, like her tail. The equine was wearing a surprisingly well-fitted green shirt, but only that, which left the sewing-needle-and-thread symbol on her flank visible.

“Something the matter?” Camille asked, her hippogriff ears tilting sideways in curiosity.

“Hi, are you from that group of sailors that just turned up?” She asked.

“The WSU yes, we came here for repairs.”

“Good! Good…” The mare said before awkwardly rubbing her neck. “Say, do you plan to go to America eventually?”

“That’s our next port of call. Why the question?”

“Well, I guess I should explain then.” She said, taking a seat at the table next to Camille. “I’m Molly Hawkins by the way. I’m not really from here. I’m a tourist.”

“American then?” Camille guessed.

“Yes.” Molly nodded. “I was born in Boston, but I lived in Jacksonville before…” She waved at herself. “That happened. Do you-“

“Think we can bring you back home?” She completed. “Most likely, but I’d have to ask around because I’m not sure we could drop you off at the right port. We already have most of our ports of call prepared, believe it or not. Is Jacksonville even a port town anyway?”

“It is. But you could get me across the ocean?”

“Bien sur.” Camille confirmed. “I don’t think the Captains would object to bringing a passenger along if the request is phrased nicely. You might have to put in some work though. What can you do?”

The Earth Pony pointed a hoof at the mark on her flank, a needle and thread weaving through a piece of fabric.

“Seamstress.” She declared.

“Oh, then I’m sure they will agree. I’ll talk to them about it when I get back this evening.” She promised. “Now, I don’t wanna be rude but I have a briefing to prepare…”

Author's Notes:

Arguably, this chapter is a bit weaker plot-wise than my standards, but I wanted to set up and present the Provos' camp. Plus describing technical stuff like docking is pretty much part of this story at this point, unless I got it wrong. Don't know if you guys have anything against the Brittany arc.

Fluff wise... grade A steel is what the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping, a classification society on the same level as Lloyd's and Den Norske Veritas) calls the plates used to make hulls. They're actually not that strong in terms of metal quality, their tensile strength remains below that of any metal used in engine parts. At least that's what I know off the top of my head, not a pro in metallurgy.