Ignacio slammed the interphone’s handset with a very canine growl.

“Everything alright ma’am -I mean, sir?” A unicorn stammered in front of her, at the reactor control panel.

“No, no it’s not.” She sighed, leaning her back against the bulkhead and sliding down it until her ass hit the ground. “I can’t get a bead on the CO or the XO so God knows whatever the fuck they’re doing, we only got two people awake in Control, and the emergency blow didn’t work.”

“Hold on, that was an emergency blow?!”

“Eeyup.” Georgia’s Chief Engineer nodded. “Fucking failure that’s what. Looks like we got a breach in the outer shell so big we can’t get enough buoyancy at this depth… and now we’re almost out of compressed air.” She grumbled. “And judging by how we just slid backwards along the seabed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the planes, rudder and screw are all FUBAR. What’s the status on the propeller shaft?”

“No leaks so far, but it’s jammed alright. Shaft seals holding.”

“So this day isn’t entirely shit yet.” She said, casting a look over the room.

It was the Maneuvering room, the place from where they could control or monitor everything engineering-related on the ship, be it the steam turbine throttles, the electrical system for the ship, and obviously the nuclear reactor. Multiple panels in the small room displayed the status of various systems, and on the next deck below were more sensitive readouts for the reactor, as well as the electrical buses and major breakers, enough so that there was hardly room for a normal man to fit between them all. Just a little forward, they could feel the thrumming of the reactor’s Main Coolant pumps, still running at high speed due to their hurry to get to port. The cacophony of horns, buzzers and bells from various systems crying for attention made it hard to focus on any one thing. Never in her memory had so many alarms gone off at one time, except maybe in a shoreside simulator.

Ignacio only had to cast a brief look over the room to notice it was bad. Readouts were in the red, and most of her shipmates were either unconscious or plain unable to do their duties. Most of them had turned into various kinds of technicolor ponies, some young, some mares, and with no fingers to use the consoles the room was fitted with. Most had suffered some light injuries from the grounding and lay there, catatonic or unconscious, and not much use to ensuring the safety of the boat in their now oversized uniforms (really, ponies were tiny).

She was one of the lucky ones.

Lucky was such a relative term in as dire a situation as it was.

Like one of her engineering officers who had turned into some… cat-bird mashup monster (the discovery of which made said half-Pole squawk out a couple choice curse words in Polish), she was lucky enough to still have working digits.

That was about the extent of her luck, because the transformation had taken her little head. She had turned into some kind of bipedal dog, a golden retriever with blonde fur and…

Well, let’s be honest there, she was a bitch. Literally. A large bosom stretched her t-shirt, and the waistline of her coveralls was cracked from the sudden increase in size when she’d gained those womanly curves, in addition to having a mace-like tail rip a hole in the seat of uniform pants that were now stretched to their limit. She stared distastefully over the tip of her muzzle at the accidental cleavage she was showing.

A stray strand of curly blonde hair took the movement as its cue to fall in front of her eyes. She’d need to get a rubber band ASAP lest it get stuck in machinery.

Oddly enough, she was actually bigger than she’d been when she was still human, making her positively huge when compared to ponies. Despite her feminine figure, she also sported a surprising amount of muscle subtly hidden underneath her shaggy fur, which was only really obvious in her larger-than-normal arms that ended in paw-like hands with brown pads covering her palms.

She could feel she was supposed to walk gorilla-style using her arms for support. Would she do it? Hell no! She was a dignified human being, not some knuckle-dragging beast!

With a grunt, she stood up, unsupported breasts jiggling at the sudden motion.

Note to self: add chest wrappings to her mental grocery list. That was just annoying… and slightly painful.

“Alright, where’s that sitrep on the machinery? Pulovski?” She barked at the griffon behind the computer on the other end of the room.

“Underway… sir.” The griffon took a second before he accidentally blurted a ‘ma’am’. “Done with the core and the pressure vessel. No pressure losses that would indicate a breach and all sensors are in the clear, and neither do we have any issues on the steam generator circuit.”

“And the third? The condenser?” She tried to cross her arms over her chest but was blocked by her bust, instead deciding to cross them behind her back.

“That’s where it gets bad. I’m showing a pressure differential between port and starboard systems. We got some damage on the port side, but the starboard seawater intake isn’t taking in as much water as it should.”

Which made sense, if they were aground and listed to starboard as they were, it was very likely the seawater inlet on that side would be blocked by the seabed. Idly, she rubbed the underside of her muzzle as she looked over the griffon’s shoulder and at the screen.

“Alright, so here’s what we’ll do. No need for propulsion so shut that down. We’ll lower reactor output as much as possible, and bump up the water intake on the port side to the max. Shut off starboard, I don’t want any soil getting in the system, if that ain’t already too late. Activate the main steam cross-connect, and shut down the starboard turbine generator before shutting down starboard steam and seawater. Bring the reactor to natural circulation mode. That will save a bunch of power.”

“Aye aye sir.” The griffon replied, talons beginning to flick over the touch-screen at lightning speed.

“Once you’re done with that, keep running scans to evaluate damage and monitor temperature. I want a report on how it’s evolving on a five minute basis, copy?”

“Solid sir.” The griffon replied. “May I ask, why are we not shutting the reactor down outright?”

“That might kill our chances at survival. We have no idea whether or not the batteries are usable, much less the diesel generator… if we’re even close enough to the surface to use it. I’ll have to go and ask in Control. Now… can you see any flooding in the forward compartments with that computer?”

“Flooding?”

“Yes, we hit the seabed nose first. I wanna see if I should be concerned about the diesel generator’s compartment.”

The griffon tapped a button on the screen and a cross-section of an Ohio-class appeared, showing every watertight bulkhead there was on the boat. Ignacio’s eyes flicked over to the bow.

The lowest and forward-most compartment was entirely flooded. The sonar sphere, which just happened to be in front of the torpedo room, itself adjacent to the compartment that housed their emergency diesel generator.

“Keep monitoring the reactor, call the diesel room or Control if anything happens. I’m going to inspect the situation over there and figure out why we haven’t heard the CO or even the XO yet. If the diesel is busted, well...”

She needn’t say how bad things may get. Both the diesel and torpedo rooms sat atop the one thing they could NOT afford to get damaged, that being the ship’s batteries. Lose that, and Georgia would really be in trouble. No backup source of power, unless they could raise the snorkel and exhaust masts to run the diesel engine. And that would depend on how deep they were.

“And get the wounded tidied up. No clue where doc is, but pass some water and bandages around. That’ll help.” She ordered as an afterthought before leaving Pulovski to his own devices.

It took a few seconds for Rockhoof’s sight to clear up after they used the recall stone Starswirl had given them, and a few seconds more for the coppery taste to completely fade from his mouth. He had to give it to the ghost, the stone was effective, if slower than a regular teleportation spell.

He had just needed to activate it and stay still for a couple seconds while it charged up on ambient magic before he and his group were zapped back to Starswirl’s tower. Or whatever it was this place was called because it certainly didn’t look like the insides of the tower he’d given the mage.

“So...” Lionel started in French as he surveyed their surroundings. “Tower’s roomier than I expected.”

“You don’t fucking say.” Emeric rolled his eyes.

Now, Rockhoof mostly understood what Starswirl and Morgane had said about planar magic. Alternate artificial dimension and all, extra space at the cost of an enchantment or something. This explained why Morgane’s cave was so big, and why Vivian’s castle could be so deep beneath a lake that was actually rather shallow.

But this, this took the cake.

Starswirl, in all his creative might, had made his plane a vast empty void completely unrelated to the tower he’d put his access point in. And that void, he’d then proceeded to fill with floating islands that looked like humongous boulders with a layer of dirt and grass sprinkled on top, much like the one they were on, which carried a granite dais covered in runes in the middle of a circle of standing stones. Rock could see a couple more such floating islands, some with buildings on them, some not, but all connected to a much bigger island via stone bridges.

“Oh Star, always the show-off aren’t you?” Rock said under his breath as he gazed at the central island.

A single tower proudly rose up from the island, looking disturbingly like a miniature replica of Canterlot as its golden spires hung over the edge of the island. At its foot, a little fence separated the tower from a small patch of woods through which ran a little path before it reached a point where all the bridges connected to the central island.

Curiously, he looked over the edge of their own little island, finding it to show nothing but swirling blue magic far below them, like the blue haze that was making up the horizon wherever they looked. He wasn’t very inclined to try to see what would happen if he jumped off.

“Err, Rock?” Emeric interrupted his train of thought. “We got a little problem.”

The large blue stallion turned around in one swift motion. He didn’t even need the unicorn to tell him what was wrong to see it.

During their little – if a bit boring- expedition to The Forges, they’d managed to stack up all their loot on a horse-drawn cart the locals kept in store for tourists, which mostly included tools, anvils, bellows and some raw materials to make their own forge and charcoal kiln.

The problem was, most of that cart had been sheared off during the teleportation, leaving them with half a cart and not all that they’d looted.

At least they still had the precious stuff they’d loaded in their saddlebags.

“Fascinating...” Starswirl said, rubbing a hoof against his chin as he popped into existence right beside Rockhoof and examined the cart.

At first Rock barely acknowledged him with a sideways glance, but then he took note of one oh-so-crucial little detail.

He poked Star with a hoof.

Warm flesh, fur and a cloak met the frog of his hoof.

“Something the matter, friend?” Star asked, his voice no longer the ghostly whisper it was supposed to be.

“I can touch you.”

“Why, yes you can. It’s not courteous, but you can.”

“No, you’re alive.” Rock insisted.

Starswirl the Bearded, renowned mage of Canterlot and former tutor of the Celestial Sisters, just blinked owlishly at the taller pony for a couple seconds before he made an ‘oh’ motion with his mouth.

“Oh, so that’s what you mean. Well, no, I’m still dead. At least here on Earth. Equestrian-me is still breathing, mind. This here is just a little ‘clause’ I added to my plane to make myself more comfortable. Neat isn’t it? As long as I stay in here, I’m material and can enjoy mortal pleasures. Like food for instance, or being able to touch something without a contrived application of telekinesis.”

Rock opened and closed his mouth a couple times like a fish out of water before he just shook his head and decided to let it slide. Mages. Always kooky and eccentric. Might be a professional obligations actually.

“Was that supposed to happen with le chariot?”He jerked his head towards the half-cart they still had.

“I suppose? I probably should have warned you, but teleportation does have limitations. The biggest one being… mass.” He said, waving a hoof at a little anvil that had been cleaved in half. “You were never in any danger since the spell will always prioritize living beings over objects, but the relation between mass teleported and magic required is exponential… sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“There are exceptions… the graph of mass-to-magic follows a complicated curve with a few plateaus and dips, but as a whole it’s an exponential function.” Starswirl said. “Sorry about your resources by the way, I’ll make it back to you and get them later but I needed the test to be done so I can get local data. Did you know the mass-to-magic graph on Earth isn’t the same as on Equus?”

“No, I don’t understand, and I don’t think I care.” Rockhoof tiredly rubbed a hoof over his muzzle. “Still, nice little plane you made here. You nostalgic about Canterlot or what?”

“I helped design the place, why are you surprised I’d copy the architecture?” Starswirl quipped back with a smile. “Still working on the details, but the floating island layout is done and I’m quite happy with the result.”

“With good reason.” Emeric commented in awe at the place. “This looks ripped straight from a fantasy novel… by the way, I was wondering...”

“If you jump off you’ll just be teleported back to this pad.” Starswirl guessed. “But please don’t try it.”

“I won’t!” He replied quickly. “Now, it’s not that it’s unpleasant and all but I gotta push on with my personal projects. Where’s the exit?”

“Right this way.” Starswirl beckoned them with his hoof.

“Hvor mærkeligt, how odd...” Sandra muttered as she examined multiple patterns on her screen.

The little batpony was once more in her cabin, the place having gained quite a few more decorations and utilities ever since she’d boarded Amandine back in Denmark. For what mattered, most of those utilities were either to make the human-designed ergonomics better suited to her diminutive size, or to improve all the communications equipment and digital tech that now covered the walls.

Idly, she contemplated splitting the relatively tall room into two stories. That may be ill-suited for bipeds, but for her she would still have enough headroom.

She reached for a piece of paper with her webbed wing and scribbled down the idea using a pen she held in her muzzle before finally turning back to the task at hand.

One of the things the HPI had granted the fleet was admin-level access to a lot of satellite services – since no one but them had any use for the stuff-. That included observation satellites that she’d already used once to identify whether or not the abandoned offshore platforms had caused an oil spill.

And the answer was: thankfully not. Or at least not in a significant volume. Floating platforms looked like they’d been taken by the Event like ships, leaving only their turret connection to the oil wells, and the fixed platforms…

…. were behaving like skyscraper-sized flamethrowers when their automated systems built up too much pressure in the wells and decided to flare everything. That wasn’t too good for the prolonged operations of the wells because it dropped pressure in the oil pockets and it burned an ungodly amount of fuel, but if there ever was a post-apoc Greenpeace they wouldn’t be complaining about tarified seabirds.

That was something she’d done like ten days prior.

What she was busy with now was the weather-predicting algorithm. A neat thing really, but with the shittiest Windows 95 UI she’d ever laid eyes on. They had access to entire swarms of weather satellites left in orbit that were programmed with an algorithm that gauged the weather based on multi-spectrum orbital observation like temperature, wind, air pressure, and the list went on.

In practice it gave them a worldwide weather forecast that was accurate up to 48 hours in advance (within reasons, the algorithm was far from perfect), plus the weather charts to do the predicting themselves beyond that.

Right then, she was looking at a modelisation of the next few weeks and the predictions were… worrying, to put it mildly. Hurricane season was in full-force this time of the year, and she’d already observed the first of the season labeled Ana hit the Carolinas with the intensity of a tropical storm.

A few others had also drawn circles in the Sargasso Sea, as late as two weeks before they’d set off from Belfast, but now two concerns had appeared on the horizon:

The first was a dark blotch that symbolized a really nasty hurricane that had already traveled North all along the Lesser Antilles(and likely causing untold damage to all the islands) and was threatening to veer dangerously close to their planned track.

The second was… just weird. To her at least it looked like Hurricane Erika (the first hurricane that was currently tearing Dominica a new one) had somehow undergone mitosis because a lesser storm had sprouted from it and immediately headed further west across Mexico, with another such miniature storm splitting up a few days later to…

Well, what it had done was hard to describe. The little storm had at first followed a few days after Erika and even met up with it in Dominica, but then it had backtracked and was now heading south, following the South-American shoreline.

Sandra rubbed a hoof against the side of her head in puzzlement.

There was no pressure gradient on her chart to justify a movement like that, it went across the Equator, completely disregarding Coriolis effects, and basically every single meteorological principle ever conceived.

With a sigh, she grabbed yet another piece of paper and began jotting down a report on the phenomenon. For as little as it impacted them, she’d rather the Captain be notified about it.

That and she needed to warn him about Hurricane Erika anyway. That storm at least was a genuine one they were at risk of hitting. She hit the ‘print’ key once she was satisfied with her estimate of what the predicted tracks are, and expertly twirled her pen in the webbed digits that made up her wing.

One suggested track to sail along an isobar and some notes about it should do.

It was just as she finished that task and was about to begin writing the script for her next broadcast that she heard a soft knock on her door.

Well, soft was a relative term. To her batpony ears it was edging into ‘loud’ territory.
“It’s open!” She called, shoving the notes aside for later.

The door opened, Sandra swiveling her chair around just as Radiant poked his head through the opening.
“Hey there.” He greeted her with a smile. “Aleksei sent me to tell you Rhine’s torpedo boat was stopping by in half an hour for a crew transfer, so if you want a ride on one, it’s by the pilot ladder.”
“Thanks, I think I’m gonna hop in for a ride. I wonder how that compares to flying.” She said, spreading her wings and making a small jump to grab her lifejacket from a peg by the door. “What about you?”
“It’s not so much the speed as the weapons that makes me want to see how they’re from the inside.” He said, quickly helping her put on the inflatable jacket and tighten up the straps.
“You know it’s rather funny...” Sandra mused. “We both hang out with Aleksei a lot yet I don’t think we’ve ever been properly acquainted.” She said as she closed the door, keys held in her teeth before she tucked them in the breast pocket of her coveralls.

Which, now that she’d gotten a readjustment from their seamstress passenger, was a lot more snug and comfortable. That Earth Pony had gold for hooves, colonies in the US would be fighting to get their hooves on her.
“To be fair what I do with her is mostly work. When I’m free I prefer to hang out with Angelo and Carlos. It’s… more relaxed. Though I’ll say… you humans have some weird tastes in media.” He told her.

Sure he could get behind some of the games the ship’s two resident geeks played, but most of the violence displayed in so many of their preferred titles would have hardly flown in Equestria without raising serious Tartarus. He doubted it would have been the case in Griffonstone or Mt. Aries, but still…

Even that Minecraft game involved stuff that could blow him up without notice, and they called it a calm game.

Not that he wouldn’t play it again. He just wished he’d been told about the monsters prior to having his first house blown sky high.
“I think I read somewhere it was mostly about catharsis.” Sandra told him. “Don’t mistake what you see on screen as stuff that… well, used to be considered normal in society. It helps to vent frustration.”
“In that respect it makes a lot more sense I guess.” He acknowledged, doing his best to prevent his eyes from flicking towards the mare’s rump as they made their way through the accommodation and out on the main deck.
“Liking what you see?” She teased him, giving her tail a little shake just as they trotted past the helicopter where the pilots were sharing a coffee around a laptop they used to run a little simulator.
“Ah err, what? I’m sorry!” He stammered.
“Don’t be.” She chuckled lightly. “It’s all natural isn’t it?”
“Aren’t you… taken, I mean? Pretty sure I heard you were.”
“It didn’t work out between Johann and me.” She shook her head. “Still cordial between us, but it just didn’t mesh too well.”
“What a shame, what a shame...” Radiant said. “A mare like you on her own?”
“Is that an offer?”
“Might be.” Radiant sniffed. “Depends on whether you feel like taking it up or not.”
“I just might.” Sandra smiled, eyeing him up appreciatively.

To be fair, the pegasus wasn’t too bad looking himself, sporting the typical lithe muscle tone found on flyers, along with a pretty decent wingspan.

Sandra blinked.

Now that was a discovery. She hadn’t really paid attention to it but it seemed the primal parts of her mind did pay attention to wing size. Neat trivia.
“This evening after dinner on the main deck? Or maybe later?” He offered.
“Hmm… I have a broadcast to record tonight, tomorrow same time then?”
“Aye, will do.” He nodded.

There was a gathering of sailors already present by the pilot ladder when they reached it, right in time to see Sri lower it down to the surface just as the boat made its approach and sailed closer to Amandine.

Design-wise, the torpedo escort’s light gray, angular hull was heavily inspired of common speedboats, only supersized and with a fully enclosed cabin whose roof bristled with the antennas of its sensor suite and the remotely operated .50 cal turret. The cabin’s roof sloped backwards to cover a little deck shelter that housedone more machine gun on either side – manually operated those-, along with the one access that let people enter the cabin.

Farther aft, there was a platform that carried two featureless canisters. Their Mk.46 torpedoes, the main armament.

“Alright, radar’s off on the boat, you can go down.” Sri told them, throwing a look over the railing to make sure it wasn’t moving away. “Fly down if you want, it’s quite the drop down to the surface. Earth Pony...” The hippogriff pointed a talon at Miss Hawkins (the seamstress).

“The name’s Molly.” She grumbled.

“Carry a name tag then, I suck at names. You good with taking the ladder? With hooves?”

“Of course, I’m not a cripple, thank you very much.” Molly rolled her eyes.

“Great, you’re going first.” Sri nodded firmly before grabbing her radio. “Amandine to RFCA… sending in the first passenger, over.”

Compared to Molly, Radiant and Sandra really didn’t have any issues getting down. They just hopped over the railing, spread their wings, and then landed on the boat without much fuss. It was only that they truly noticed the sheer size difference between Amandine and the boat. The humongous Ro/Ro was easily five stories taller than the diminutive escort.

Sandra blocked some spray caused by the two vessels being so close to each other with her wing before signaling to Sri above them they were on board. Her Indonesian friend returned the wave and began heaving up the ladder as whoever was behind the helm of the torpedo escort steered them away from Amandine.

The three passengers then moved inside, revealing the interior of the cabin to be… utilitarian, and definitely military in origin. The walls were covered in black insulating padding that hid the myriad of cables that ran all over the vessel and made up its digital architecture, connecting central computers to sensors and weapons systems, all of this feeding into a couple screens and gauges set in front of the three seats that were currently occupied by the crew, their displays casting a dull light on the otherwise dark interior, the polarized – and armored- windows doing a good job of shielding them from the sun’s glare reflecting off the ocean’s surface.

And one of those seats wasn’t actually much of one because it needed to fit a centaur. Instead, they’d removed it and replaced it with some cushioning on the floor along with a couple safety belts so that the stallion could anchor his equine half to the deck.

“Welcome aboard dear passengers.” The sphinx behind the helm said over his shoulder. “Get strapped in ASAP please, that thing doesn’t mess around when it comes to speed and oh boy are you lot getting a ride today.”

Theodoros Aniketos, or Ted for short. Artemis’ brother. Also Lekan’s superior, as Sandra quickly noticed when she spotted the female Abyssinian behind a console on the starboard side and greeted her with a wave of her wing.

“So… how does this thing work?” Radiant asked as he took a seat right behind the centaur, if only to get a better view of the controls.

Sandra took the window seat beside him, while Molly picked one next to the only other Earth Pony on board: Lukas, the American mechanic Rhine Forest had taken aboard as a passenger.

“Mostly digital really.” Ted told Radiant. “It’s a nice thing. There’s a ton of stuff to run on this boat all at once and we can manage with just the three of us. Here… take Imani.” He jerked his head towards the centaur. “His station gets all the sensors, like the infrared camera we have on a swivel above the cabin, along with the radar and the sonar. That, and he also monitors engine status. Anything he finds on the sonar he communicates to Lekan who gets the weapons. We got a remotely operated .50 cal on top of the cabin as the main gun, plus the two extra on the sides that are not remotely operated, and also the weapon pods which depending on the mission, may be missiles for surface and air targets, or the torps we have in the back right now for… well, surface too but also underwater.”

“And what do you do?”

“I steer, I got a tactical ECDIS to monitor the situation, the comms, and I give the order on whether or not to use the weapon pods because shit, all that ordnance is expensive and we don’t got that many of it.” He said.

He paused.

“By the way… I know it’s gonna get rough once I gun it for real, so if any of you feels like they can’t hold it in, just bloody say it, unstrap and go dump your guts in the toilet. It’s down the hatch by the kitchenette and before the cots.” He motioned towards a little hatch that led forward to a compartment below the bow section. “Now, you all ready?” Ted asked with a leonine smirk.

There was a murmur of assent in the back, with maybe a hint of apprehension.

“Well, here we go… Engage warp drive!” He exclaimed, the sphinx’s telekinesis pushing the engine telegraph to the max.

In the back, the boat’s two monstrously powerful engines roared out, unleashing their full might and sending the boat rocketing forward in a matter of seconds. Sandra gritted her teeth. Every time they crested a wave, Ted would jerk the helm sideways and do a little drift so they wouldn’t go flying, instead sliding down the side of the wave at an angle before he resumed his original course.

Essentially, they were zigzagging parallel to the swells and waves at three times the cruising speed of the rest of the fleet.

It was great to preserve hull integrity and avoid damage, but even for a flyer it was positively nauseating.

Sandra surveyed the passengers in the cabin, idly wondering who would yield first.

Ignacio twisted herself sideways to squeeze past the tight hatch that marked the end of the little shielded tunnel they used to get from one side of the nuclear reactor to another, fighting her new body every step of the way as it seemed to find new stuff to get caught on every other second. To make matters worse, the sub being grounded on an up-angle meant it was an uphill climb to the forward sections, and hatches were noticeably harder to open when the ship wasn’t on an even keel, and even harder to shut.

With a growl, she popped through the hatch and slammed it shut, now finding herself past the engineering sections proper and in a compartment just below the main escape trunk. Around the already cluttered passageway were air pipes with sockets crewmen could plug themselves into during emergencies, wall lockers filled with supplies, escape suits, and everything else the crew may need in case of an evacuation, which was not out of the question. She also checked on the atmospheric equipment, theO₂ generators that made their oxygen from water through electrolysis, the CO-H₂ burners that removed carbon monoxide from the air, and the CO₂ scrubbers, which removed the carbon dioxide. Satisfied all were still working, Ignacio pressed forward, through the compartment and on to the next, where she could see the business end of the guided missile submarine that Georgia was in all its glory.

That being the missile tubes, giant orange-painted canisters filled with Tomahawk missiles ready to be unleashed at any threat that even looked at the US the wrong way, even when Georgia was submerged. The passageway sneaked its way in the middle of all those missile tubes, as well as alongside them, with a few compartments tucked away in the curve of the hull beyond them on either side of the boat that held the ship’s enlisted crew berthing spaces. On this section of the vessel and this close to the escape trunk, all those compartments were the ‘hygiene’ stuff: a med bay, the heads, and some showers.

Injured sailors in unfamiliar bodies littered the sides of the passageway, some on their own, others unconscious and being looked over by their shipmates, mostly ponies that threw her surprised looks when they spotted the rank and name tag on her uniform, having a hard time associating what was supposed to be a middle-aged Latino with a gray handlebar mustache to… a very large anthropomorphic golden retriever.

Now that she thought about it, the scant few dogs like her she’d seen were all Latinos in one form or another. Which included her. You don’t get called Ignacio Del Rio if you’re from Canada.

Murmurs started spreading among the crowd of ponies as she approached the med bay, hearing some cries of pain coming from inside the small room. She stepped over a pegasi nursing a splinted forehoof and knocked on the door. Loudly.

“I said it already we’re full! Get in line and wa-” A doe began ranting as soon as Ignacio opened the door, only to stop when she took note of the uniform the bitch was wearing. “Eng?”

“In the flesh.” Ignacio replied, looking down at the diminutive creature before her and squinting to get a look at her name tag.

A bit of a struggle considering the doe had done some weird kind of arrangement with her uniform to make it fit her small frame; by tying the sleeves in a knot and wearing her shirt like… some kind of makeshift poncho.

Appearance wise, the doe was basically the same size as the ponies, if maybe a bit taller in a more… thin-limbed package. She had a sandy coat of fur with a single brown streak across her back, along with a pair of blue eyes that complemented her pointy snout with little tufts of fur at the base of her ears.

In any other context she’d have called the creature cute.

“That you, Blondie?” Ignacio asked her, head tilted sideways to look past what she’d now identified as one of the her own subordinate Officers from Engineering.

Blondie being the nickname the short-but-loud Lieutenant J.G. Lily Smith had received upon joining their crew thanks to her haircut. She was one of the first women to join the crew, something that initially sparked doubts among the crew until she later proved herself as an apt damage control officer and a very meticulous worker.

“Yes...sir, ma’am, whichever. Though I guess now it’s you who should be called Blondie.”

“Don’t tempt fate, and stick to ‘sir’ for now.” Ignacio warned. “So what’s happening over here? I just got out of engineering so I’m a bit out of the loop.”

“How’s the reactor?!” They heard a voice ask them from deeper in the med bay.

“Stable, at least for now.” Ignacio barked. “And here?” She insisted, louder.

“Proper fucked. Folks were having their morning chow when shit hit the fan, so the galley is a fucking mess.” Blondie told her. “We already have five dead from the impact alone, half a dozen who look like they won’t make it, twenty who’re looking at weeks if not months of recovery time, and the rest is just a mess of concussions, gashes and miscellaneous fractures you just saw piled up in the passageway.”

“Okay...” Ignacio nodded slowly, filing it away for later. “Anyone important injured?”

“He asks that as I’m working on Suppo!” The voice he now identified as Chief Petty Officer Ezra, the ship’s corpsman, yelled out.

“Suppo’s injured?” She asked, referring to their Supply Officer.

“Yeah, he… she had a couple crates fall over her in the galley. Ezra, how’s she?” Blondie asked.

“Forehooves both broken, concussion, unconscious, and judging by how she’s reacting at least a couple broken ribs.” Ezra said, coming over to them and revealing himself as having turned into a unicorn. One with purple fur and a white spot over his right eye that matched the color of his curly mane through which poked his actually rather sharp horn. “And I have no idea what he-now-she turned into. Gonna need to ask someone to bring her to her bunk too, ‘cause I’m a bit short on room in there.”

“Kirin, if you were wondering.” Blondie filled in. “Asian horse-reptile hybrid from mythology.”

“Wait, so it’s not just a beer brand? How the Hell do you even know?”

“Japanese culture is interesting, and I’m saying that as a navy brat from Okinawa.” The doe did her best to mimic a shrug. “Anyhow, I’ll go ask in the passageway if anyone’s comfortable enough with their new form to transport him… her.”

On that phrase the diminutive Lieutenant shuffled past Ignacio and disappeared behind a missile tube to go mingle with the crowd of injured sailors.

“So…. You can manage, Chief?”

“I make do, Eng.” The equine frowned. “Hard to respect common procedures when you need to use your mouth to manipulate stuff. Harder even to do triage on my own. I think I’ll need to snatch a dog as a helping hand. Literally I mean.”

“You do that.” Ignacio crossed her arms behind her back and leaned in the med bay’s doorframe, which was no small feat given the angle the grounded boat was resting at and her size. “Were you near the bow when we crashed? I’m looking for the CO, or Exec too for that matter.”

“Haven’t seen them, sorry.” He shook his head. “Too busy keeping this lot alive back here, so try the wardroom if you can.”

“Will do, thanks. And good luck with that.”

“I won’t need luck, just make sure to send any sailor you can find with actual hands my way, I could use those.” Ezra told her before calling in the next patient.

Ignacio backed away from the door to let a pair of ponies – one with a bandage around his forehead, the other a pegasus with a broken wing- inside before she turned on her paws and headed forward.

She didn’t immediately go for the wardroom, instead making a quick turn by the torpedo room and the auxiliary diesel plant. What she found… both worried and reassured her at the same time, if such a thing was possible.

For one the diesel generator was fine despite the impact. There was a reason the Submarine Fleet had stuck to the sturdy and ever reliable Fairbanks-Morse generators for the better part of its existence. With the exception of some mild exterior damage and the intake manifold, the generator was ready to be used provided they could raise the snorkel mast to the surface to get air.

Hopefully. She had yet to check how deep they were.

There was about a foot of oily water in the bilges below the floor gratings, likely something that had flowed in from the torpedo room, located forward of the generator room.

Said room looked fine, all torpedoes still firmly secured in their racks, even given the odd angle the ship was lying at. A quick peek into the supply office just forward of the torpedo room showed that everything was still stowed properly, except a couple of books on the floor that had fallen off the supply clerk’s desk, a First Class Petty Officer who was about to retire after this patrol. Where he was at this time, Ignacio did not know.

Checking the torpedo room thoroughly, Ignacio shut some vent valves that were dripping, and found about six inches of water against the Auxiliary Machinery Space’s bulkhead. There did not appear to be leakage through the bulkhead, but Ignacio went back to the Diesel room to look closer. It didn’t outwardly appear breached, but she still elected to shut off all valves to be safe.

“So how bad is it?” A pony asked, poking his head through the door she’d just come through.

“I’m sorry...” She turned around with a frown, looking into the large black eyes of the navy blue pony, his long purple mane hanging down through the opening. “Exec?”

“Right on the mark, Eng.” He nodded, confirming his identity as Georgia’s Executive Officer, Josh Graham. “How’s the diesel?”

“Serviceable sir.” She replied, straightening up slightly. “If we can raise a snorkel then I’d wager we can switch off nuclear power. We got some damage on the life support, but it should hold for now. And sir… What about the Captain?”

“Captain Green is… unconscious in the wardroom. Took a nasty hit to the head.” Graham sighed. “He should be out for a while, so I’m having someone carry him to his quarters as soon as I can spare the manpower.”

“Alright then… what about the rest of the crew?” She waved a paw around, indicating the ship as a whole. “Where are the watchstanders here? Up by sickbay?”

“That’s why I’m roaming about, trying to find everyone.” Graham sighed. “Problem is… I ran the crew list… Weps was in the sonar sphere with two technicians. Someone shut the watertight hatch to it.”

“So he...” She trailed off, looking down at the floor.

She balled her paws. Fifteen years. Fifteen years spent serving alongside Young, always doing their level-best to stay on the same boat with matching deployments. No small feat, and it had requireda LOT of leverage to pull off.

And now he was dead. Dead saving them from having the entire forward compartment of the boat flooded. Drowning was the worst kind of death a man could hope for.

“Any orders, sir?” She finally asked the XO after a minute.

“Make us stay on nuclear power for as long as you can manage, and go check in Control if we’re even close enough to the surface that we can raise the snorkel mast. I...”

He paused.

“Eng, I’m sorry but I don’t think we’re getting off the bottom on our own power. I have to release the distress buoy and the EPIRB. Looks to me we’re going to need some help getting to port.”

Author's Notes:

It's mildly infuriating (to me) that I couldn't keep this chapter within the 6-7000 words bracket I want. It's not even that far off the mark, which is precisely what makes it irritating.

On a different note, might as well say what kind of geographical range I'm using for Diamond Dogs. Since there are nearly 200 countries and only about two dozen intelligent species, some are bound to be reused in certain countries.

In their case? I'm going with the fact D-Dog returnees can be found around the Indian subcontinent, East Africa, or in Central America.

Latin America... gets a different mix of species than North America, of course (which I will leave as the only part of the world where all pony tribes can be found in the same place, along with extras like deer and reindeer in Canada). What I'm going with is a smattering of Ornithians and Abyssinians across the whole continent, some breezies in the deeper parts of the Amazon, and Griffons in the Andes. Plus the D-dogs in Central America, as I said.

Might adapt it though. I know in Brazil alone there are more ethnic groups than that, and that some places like the Pampas might lend themselves to other species. Centaurs maybe? Might be a character concept, a centaur gaucho.

Only problem is, I can't think of a single MLP species that can do magic and that would fit the continent. They still got human magic of course, but that's a whole 'nother pair o' sleeves considering how inconsistent it can be from one region to the next.