Rainbow Dash had heard of the saying “go pound sand”, but this was getting to be ridiculous.

For the past two weeks, every time she went out to the fields where she practiced her flying, she could see a group of guards off in the distance relentlessly pounding the earth with their hooves.

Normally, she wouldn’t care what ponies did in their spare time, but a group of guards beating the ground like it owed them money will grab anyone’s interest. When she saw Sergeant Ironhoof in the town market one day, she asked him about it. His response was a casual "Don't know. Don't care. I'm still on leave 'til the LT get's back.", as he purchased a bundle of carrots from Carrot Top's stall.

As it was, she had forgone today's practice in favor of lounging on a small cloud to watch the guards beat the ground into submission.

However, the peace and quiet that she was enjoying was shattered by a peculiar sound.

It was a strange high-pitched whine, combined with a deep thrumming that she could feel within her chest.

As she turned toward the noise, she failed to notice the guards in the field below her scrambling to place orange cones around the perimeter of their plot of compacted earth.

John checked his instruments for probably the hundredth time during the flight. Everything seemed to be working correctly, and he hadn't fallen out of the sky or spontaneously exploded... yet. However, it didn't hurt to check. So he did... again.

Keeping an eye on the GPS, he adjusted his flight path towards the eastern side of the town. No need to fly directly over a town with an aircraft that could possibly blow up at any moment.

... Better check the instruments again... Nope, still fine.

Huh.

He mentally shrugged. He could see the town off in the distance, so he pushed the thoughts of explosions and fiery death out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. Princess Luna was rather cryptic with her directions. All she had told him was to "Fly to Ponyville. Look for the cones".

He thought about pulling up his targeting pod to begin searching, but everything had been removed from the aircraft to make it as light as possible for take-off.

Stupid short runway.

Reluctantly, John lowered his altitude and prepared to begin a search pattern around the town. Hopefully the Princess' mysterious cones wouldn't be too hard to find.

If he had to guess, the cones had something to do with some sort of landing strip, and, between the Everfree forest and the Apples' orchard, there weren't too many places around the town where a strip could be placed. The only feasible place for one would be the open fields to the south-east...

Making a quick adjustment, he angled his flight towards the fields, the Wonderbolts still flying off his wingtips. There were a few small hills scattered around, but the area looked flat enough. In a particularly flat area, the sun must have caught something metallic just right, because an intense glint of light caught his attention.

Gotcha.

Pulling the throttles back a bit, he lowered the aircraft's speed. Sure enough, as he passed over the area where the shine was, he spotted several guards running around putting down what looked to be orange traffic cones along the edges of a large, flattened area of packed dirt.

The length of the improvised runway wasn't that much longer than the one at the academy, but at least there wasn't a cliff at the end of this one.

After landing, he really had to talk to someone about the proper length of a runway.

Before bringing the aircraft around for landing, he signaled the Wonderbolts, who then peeled off and headed down to the strip to make sure it was clear.

Checking the instruments again, John nudged the aircraft into a lazy left turn to give himself more than enough room for the final approach.

Movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention and he looked up. One of the Wonderbolts was on his wing again, waving at him.

The strip was clear and he was cleared to land.

Giving a quick thumbs up to the pegasus, he angled the aircraft toward the strip and went through a quick mental checklist.

Heading: A little off
Altitude: Good
Speed: Good
Flaps: Set
Gear: Down
...
Here we go.

Because of the short runway, he would have to land at a very slow speed, and even then, there was a high probability that he would shoot off the end of it.

Oh well. There wasn't anything that could be done about it now, although he wished that Luna had consulted with him before creating the runway.

With a mental shrug, John cleared his mind and focused on landing the Warthog.... preferably in one piece this time.

Lining up with the runway, John checked his instruments one last time, then began his descent.

"Not too fast, easy does it."

Keeping his eyes on the velocity indicator on his heads up display, he maneuvered the aircraft so that it would touch down right at the end of the makeshift runway, giving him the most room to slow down.

"Alright, nice and easy girl. You know the drill."

John was jostled as the Warthog's wheels hit the compacted dirt, and he was thrown forward into his harness as he quickly pulled the throttles back and applied the brakes. A loud wooshing sound was heard as he opened up the air brakes all the way, slowing the aircraft down even faster.

Still, the end of the runway was coming up fast, and John's left hand unconsciously moved towards the eject handle between his legs.

"Cmon... Slooow down. You can do it."

He stomped on the brakes even harder, causing the wheels to lock up.

John swore as the aircraft still shot off the end of the strip, and he prayed that the ground held up.

After an agonizing few seconds, the A-10 finally slowed to a stop, leaving behind a rapidly dispersing dust cloud and three strips of flattened grass where the wheels had traveled.

Breathing a sigh of relief, John unclasped his oxygen mask, rolled his shoulders to relieve some tension, and began the shutdown process.

He also hoped somebody remembered to bring that extra flight suit, because he was beginning to chafe.

Author's Note

Sweet mother of god, it's been awhile. I FINALLY got off my lazy ass and wrote something. It's a bit shorter than I'd like, but at least it's something.

Anywho, little update: Got around to setting up an appointment with the local recruiter. Long story short... I'm joining the Air Force!

I've been sitting on my butt, doing nothing for too long, and this is something I've wanted to do since I was a wee lad, so I finally got the ball rolling.

I don't know when I'm leaving for basic just yet, but don't fret, it's not gonna be until after June. Got some things I want to take care of first.

What does this mean for the story? Am I gonna keep writing? Am I gonna stop? Cancel it?

Well...

My plan...

Is...

To...

FINISH IT BEFORE I LEAVE!!

At least, that's what I've got in the works so far.
As it stands, I'm physically nowhere near ready for basic, so I'm gonna go ham on the workout sessions. During the breaks I take, I plan on working on writing. A few hours a day, for the next 4 months should be plenty of time to finish... I hope.

Anyways, It's almost 0100, so I think I'm gonna call it a night.

As always, comments are appreciated, and spell/grammar checking is even more appreciated.

Cheers!

[EDIT:] Good lord this is a long author's note...