Equestrian Skies: The Bearers of the Ribbon Insignia

Chapters

Prologue
Sitting Duck
Equestria's Newest Ace
Preemptive Strike on an Imminent Threat
Blinding the Northern Eye

Prologue

“Amdist the blue skies, a link from the past to the future, the sheltering wings of the protector…”

The annoying buzz of an alarm clock filled the colt’s ear, causing it to give an annoyed twitch. He awoke, feeling groggy, and shut the alarm off, before heading to the bathroom to check himself in the mirror.

A colt with a chestnut colored body, a dirty blonde mane, and a horn atop its head, stared back at him with hazel eyes. He gave himself a quick look, to make sure that he wasn’t a complete mess before heading to breakfast. After all, today was the final day of summer and the first day of school.

As he entered the kitchen and took his seat at the table, his head turned to the T.V. It displayed an anchorpony with soldiers moving across a war torn land. The colt returned his attention to his breakfast, paying little mind to what was occurring on television.

War to him was simply a thing that occurred in far off places or in stories. After completing a delicious breakfast, he put his saddle bags on, hopped on his scooter, and headed off to school.

The colt traveled along the side of the road, following its winding path through gently rolling hills that bordered the sea. Suddenly, he heard a sound that emulated the rumble of distant thunder. He turned his head toward the azure skies above him and saw a series contrails that drew dizzying circles as if the planes that left them behind were participating in some kind of crazy waltz.

In a manner of speaking they were, for the aircraft were engaged in battle in the beautiful skies above his head. His attention was fixated upon them, until a deafening roar flooded his ears.

The silhouette of two fighters streaked passed him, one in pursuit of the other. The trailing fighter opened fire as they climbed, spewing forth a stream of tracers at the fleeing plane, which in turn, caused the unfortunate plane to trail smoke and fall out of the sky.The falling plane spiraled, spewing smoke and flames until it crashed into the cape, erupting in an impressive fireball.

This was the same cape where the colt’s family lived. The colt stood there a moment, in shock of what had just occurred, before sprinting back to his house, leaving the scooter on the side of the road, forgotten.

Once he had arrived at his house, he saw what the plane had done. Only the flaming ruins of his former home remained, and there was no sign of his parents. The whine of jet engines returned the colt’s gaze to the sky. The opposing aircraft had fled and the battle was over. The victor circled above to confirm his kill, and on his fighter there was the number 13, emblazoned in a stark yellow. As the victorious aircraft vacated the skies above him, the colt muttered to himself,

I will never forget this.

A stallion opened his eyes, returning to the world of reality. He stared at the parchment that would soon become a letter, before levitating a quill out of an inkwell.

He began to write: Dear, when he stopped and began to think of how should he address her. After a short pause, he decided to ignore it and continue writing: I was just a child when the stars fell from the sky, but I remember how they built a cannon to destroy them. And in turn how that cannon brought war upon us. War was an abstract idea, nothing more than a show on television. As a child, I only saw it as something that happened in a far away land. Until that final day of summer…

Soft snoozing could be heard from a naval cot, attached firmly to the wall. A loud banging awoke the pony from her pleasant slumber. Bleary eyed, she turned her attention to the steel gray hatch on the far side of the room. A voice, muffled from the heavy door, spoke

“Hey RD, come on wake up, we have to scramble.” For a moment Rainbow Dash sat on her cot confused, before the realization hit her like a bolt of lightning.

“Ohmigosh! Are you serious?!”

The pony on the other side of the door chuckled, and then replied, “Yeah, hurry up and get ready. I’ll meet you outside the briefing room, and we will go in together.”

Rainbow could hear the clank of hooves on metal as the pony walked away from the door. She was giddy with excitement. This was her first sortie, and the first interesting thing that had happened on this carrier since she arrived.

Being on standby was boring and stressful as the taskforce awaited the inevitable strike Prance would make against ISAF GHQ (General Head Quarters). As she put her flight suit on, she took a moment to admire the patch above the single gold bar of a second lieutenant that was stitched onto her right shoulder.

She was told that the symbol in the middle was a mobius strip, but to her it looked more like a ribbon. Either way, it signified her place in the 118th Tactical Fighter Squadron.

The 118th was an odd squadron in that it was made of several different squadrons that had all suffer an exceedingly high number of casualties. It was formerly Mobius squadron, until all of the pilots were shot down. Lucky for Rainbow, she had been late coming aboard the carrier, and had missed the disaster of the mission. With only one pilot left, the higher ups decided to throw in other partial squadrons into the 118th, which included Vapor, Halo, Viper, Omega, and Rapier squadrons.

With Viper, Omega, and Rapier, all having four pilots, and Vapor, and Halo having two each. She was left without a wing mate, though this suited Rainbow Dash just fine. A wingmate would just slow her down.

With her flight suit on, Rainbow Dash proceeded down the hallways leading to the briefing room. With the briefing room coming up, she began to feel the pre-flight jitters. Sure, she was an excellent flyer with her wings, but flying a jet in combat was another matter entirely. Rainbow gave a quick shake of her head, attempting to clear the doubts from her mind.

No, She thought, I’ve spent countless hours in simulators, and several hours in the cockpit. I had the best mentor a pony could hope for. I can do this, This only partially relieved her nervousness. She had still never shot down another fighter, and whether she was capable of ending another pony’s life was something she would soon find out.

Finally, Rainbow had reached the briefing room, where she spotted the pegasus pilot that had awoken her just a few minutes before. A stallion with a white coat and a red mane stood next to the briefing room doorway. His cutie mark was a symbol of a red hurricane with a black center, which made sense since his name was Storm Surge, callsign Omega 11, leader of what was left of Omega squadron. He had the most experience of any of the other pilots of the 118th, having survived much of the retreat off the main land. They had become fast friends during the little flight time they had together.

“Well look who’s up. The rainbow wonder has finally decided to grace me with her presence.” He said with a friendly smirk.

“Even this early in the morning, you’re still full of hot air.” Rainbow retorted with a smile. He often called her the rainbow wonder because of her ‘natural ability in the air’ and because of her sometimes boastful personality.

“EARLY! 1400 hours is not early to most ponies. Of course if her highness wishes to miss future missions that can be arranged,” He said with a mock bow and a glint of amusement in his silver eyes. “,Come on we need to get in there, the briefing starts in five.”

She entered the room with a smile on her face, her nervousness forgotten. The room was steel gray like much of the rest of the ship, with a screen at the far end of it and a rack of helmets next to it. On each side of her, there were rows of seats, most of which were filled other Pegasus pilots and their unicorn WSO’s (Weapon Systems Officer).

There were no earth ponies, as the idea of being trapped on a ship so far away from the land was not appealing to those with powerful ties to the ground and the idea of flying was even less endearing. Instead, they often found themselves in the various fields of the army. Pegasi were the obvious choice for pilots because of their natural ability to resist G-forces and of course, their ability to fly. Unicorns often found themselves in the navy or as the copilots and WSO’s of aircraft for their ability to work complex equipment with their magic.

Her attention returned to the aisle as she searched for a free seat. Storm Surge gave her a nod of goodbye, and joined the rest of his flight on the left side of the room near the front. She chose to sit down on the right side of the room next to the aisle closer to the back. With no other flight members, she felt a bit excluded from the rest of the ponies, who were chatting with the other members of their flights. Her ears perked up as she heard the door open. She turned her head to see a lavender unicorn mare with an indigo main that had a purple and pink stripe in it. Her violet eyes searched the room, and then lit up with recognition as they fell upon Rainbow Dash. The mare trotted up to her and asked,

“Are you Second Lieutenant Rainbow Dash?”

“Yeah?” Rainbow replied uncertainly. How does this random mare know my name? She thought to herself.

“I am Second Lieutenant Twilight Sparkle, your Weapons Systems Officer. I’ll be flying with you today.” The mare stated. Though she sounded confident, Rainbow detected a bit of shakiness in her voice.

“How come this is the first time I have met you Twilight? I’ve had to fly all of my training exercises without a weapons officer because there were none left. Where’d you come from?”

Now the mare looked nervous. She was obviously dreading this question. “Umm… Well you see. I’m not actually a weapons officer. I was part of the AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control Systems) crew until I was recently reassigned to be your WSO. My training was completed yesterday.”

“And how long ago were you reassigned?”

“A week ago.” She muttered as her eyes turned to ground.

Rainbow Dash could not believe her ears and she made no attempt of hiding her disbelief. This mare had completed her training in six days. This unicorn was either the smartest unicorn alive, or they had given her the worst training in the history of forever. Another question popped into her mind. “You have flown before? Right?”

Apparently the floor proved incredibly interesting as Twilight continued to stare at it while she replied. “I’ve flown in the E-767, but not in a fighter.”

This just keeps getting better and better. Rainbow thought. She was about to ask Twilight why they chose her to be Rainbow’s WSO, when her thought process was interrupted by a silence that filled the room. She looked around the room wondering if her conversation was attracting undue attention. Then she noticed the unicorn walking from a side door to at the front of the room. The briefing was about to begin. She returned her attention to Twilight before scooting one seat over and saying,

“Come on sit, we have a briefing to listen to.”

A hopeful gleam filled Twilight’s eye for a moment before she nodded her head and took her seat next to Rainbow. The two mares’ attention returned to the front of the room where the unicorn that had entered now stood. With a flash of his horn, the blank screen behind had become blue, and was dominated by three light blue arrowheads, each with a corner touching on of the other two to form a pyramid with a kite in the middle.

Under the insignia, the letters ISAF were written in a large bold font with the words Independent States Allied Forces under that in a smaller light blue font. This was the faction that she and her new pilot Rainbow Dash flew for.

They were a conglomerate of countries on the continent of Usea, that had allied together to stop the Prench aggression. Sadly they had been failed to protect the continent and had been forced to move their GHQ to the formally neutral island nation of North Point. With another flash of the unicorn’s horn, the screen changed to a map of the continent of Usea.

The continental map depicted the territory that ISAF controlled in blue, while Prench territory was grey. It also showed a few key positions such as Farbanti, the Prench capital, Los Canas, the former ISAF GHQ, but most importantly it showed a large white dotted line in the shape of a circle, with the center point being a red dot named Stonehenge. This dot was the cause of the war and the cause of ISAF’s near defeat.

Stonehenge was a rail gun cannon system that used a combination of gunpowder and magic to accelerate 120mm armor piercing low yield magical pulse rounds at extremely high velocities. It was developed by the FCU (Federation of Central Usea) in cooperation with much of the world to destroy and asteroid on a collision course with Equestria.

Detected in 1994, the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid was predicated to make planet-fall in Usea on July 3rd 1999 and was large enough to completely wipe out life on Equestria. Sure enough the Ulysses approached on its predicted day, but what was not predicted was that it would break into thousands of smaller pieces.

Overwhelmed, Stonehenge valiantly tried to destroy as many pieces as possible, but it could not destroy them all. After the first two weeks of the asteroid bombardment at least 500,000 ponies had died in Usea alone, around a million were displaced, and much of the landscape was marred by craters.

Prance had been among the hardest hit, as its capital suffered a near directed hit from an asteroid fragment and was decimated. With its economy in shambles, the country could not handle the influx of refugees it was being forced to take in.

When the FCU found out that the refugee camps where in deplorable situations, many countries began boycotting Prench goods, worsening the political and economic situation. The FCU formed ISAF in response to the escalating crisis. On August 22nd 2003, Prance invaded Stonehenge, taking control of the facility.

The FCU set a mandate for Prance, to leave STN (Stonehenge Turret Network) on September 14. Prance responded by declaring war, on the newly formed ISAF. While ISAF forces were able to take back STN they lost the city of San Salvation, the capital of the country of the same name of which the cannons were built.

This was the beginning of a long continental retreat, and soon ISAF lost STN again. With the recapture of STN, Prance discovered its potential as an anti-aircraft weapon and soon dominated the skies over the main land. With the loss of air superiority, ISAF was soon pushed off the continent onto the islands off the east coast, outside of Stonehenge’s range, leaving them in the situation they were in now.

As Twilight finished reminiscing, she returned her attention to the briefing. The stallion cleared his throat and began.

“Here is the current sitrep and your orders for deployment, effective immediately. Enemy agents destroyed our early warning radar network, allowing Tu-95 Bear bombers to penetrate our airspace.” At this point a red line extended from a new dot that had appeared labeled Rigley AFB, to an island labeled Newfield Island. It represented the flight path of the bombers. Then a new blue dot appeared, and a line extended from it to the same place. Even though it was unlabeled, the new blue dot was in the water, so it must have been their carrier.

“In 15 minutes we expect this bomber formation to strike at Allenfort Airbase located on Newfield Island, and then to move on to targets in North Point.” As the presenter stated this, his horn flashed again and the picture zoomed into the combat area above Newfield Island. In this new view, additional information was displayed, which included weather, longitude and latitude, date and time, location, and the operation name Umbrella. In the center of all of this information was the projected position of the enemy aircraft at the time of the squadron’s arrival. How they knew this, she could only guess. The unicorn continued,

“Our air defense forces are currently extremely weak at this point in time; hence our GHQ is a sitting duck. It is mission critical that you destroy the bombers and neutralize the threat before they get past Newfield Island. Remember, you are the first line of defense for North Point, and the fate of ISAF rests in your hands.”

Yeah, no pressure. Twilight thought sarcastically to herself.

With a final flash of the unicorn’s horn, the screen winked out, and he walked out of the room. The briefing was over.

Twilight turned her attention to her pilot. Rainbow Dash’s head was on her hoof and her eyes had glazed over. She had an incredibly bored expression across her muzzle. It would appear that she had not even realized that the briefing was over.

Twilight awoke Rainbow from her stupor with a sharp jab from her hoof, to which she suddenly jolted up and responded with a very confused “Huh?” thus confirming Twilight’s suspicions. At first she thought of berating the inattentive pegasus, but decided against it. She would need her pilot’s trust if they were to survive in combat together and starting an argument before the first mission began would not be a good way to start. “Come on, the briefing is over, we need to get to the flight deck.”

The pegasus stared at her a moment before exclaiming “Oh! O.K. Let’s get go!” With that she glided over to the rack, flipped her helmet into the air, which landed smartly on her head, and trotted out of the already empty briefing room.

Twilight sighed as she levitated her helmet over. Why did she have to be paired up with the slow pilot?

Upon arriving on the flight deck, they were greeted by the sight of several deep blue F-4E Phantom II fighters, each with their squadron symbol on the tail, lining the side of the ship. Two of the F-4s were taxiing up to the two the catapults at the bow of the ship while two other aircraft were being hooked up to the catapults. Rainbow Dash and Twilight approached their aircraft. It was easy to distinguish, as it was the only one with a mobius strip on the tail.

As they approached, Twilight abruptly stopped and stared at the fighter. Her muzzled scrunched up with deep thought and confusion. She raised a hoof, pointed it at the aircraft and asked “Rainbow, what’s that?”

Rainbow turned around and stared at Twilight’s hoof for a moment. She then turned to the offending plane. A thought formed in her head, leaving her with a large grin across her face. She turned back to face Twilight, still wearing a silly grin, and replied, “That,” she pointed her hoof at the plane, “That, right there is a fighter.”

Twilight's annoyed expression was priceless. "No. Really?" This caused Rainbow to lose any façade of control and she burst out laughing.

“NO, NO, NO! Look under the plane’s wings! There are bombs attached to it! Why in the wide world of Equestria would we need bombs on an intercept mission!?”

Rainbow struggled to stifle her laughter as she returned her gaze to the F-4. Sure enough the plane had four Mk. 83 1000lb unguided bombs attached to it, two on each wing. The bombs were also accompanied by two AIM-9 Sidewinder heat seeking missiles, one adorning each side of the aircraft.

“Huh. That is weird.”

Twilight stared at her pilot, dumbfounded.

“That’s not just weird, it doesn’t make any sense! At all! Whatsoever!”

“Ok sheesh, calm down. Look there are some ponies over there. Why don’t you go ask them?” As Dash spoke she motioned to a group of unicorns arming another F-4.

“Fine, I will.” Twilight replied with an annoyed huff.

The unicorns had just finished attaching one of the bombs when Twilight approached them.

“Excuse me sirs, but could you explain to me why you are arming these planes with bombs when we’re on an intercept mission? Couldn’t you arm them with more missiles?” Twilight asked.

“Sorry no can do.” One of the unicorns replied. “The replenishment enchantments on the weapon racks aren’t compatible with missiles. Only bombs will reappear on these.”

“Oh… ok, thanks I guess”

Suddenly an incredible roar was emitted. They looked across the deck to the bow as one of the F-4s went into afterburner. The fighter was suddenly launched from the carrier by the catapult, and it lifted into the sky. Twilight felt a lump for in her throat as her stomach began to churn. She had never taken off from a carrier before and it looked like it was going to be a wild ride.

As if she had read Twilight’s mind, Rainbow Dash chuckled and said “Yeah, the first time is always the most intense, but don’t worry. You’re flying with me.”

This did little to alleviate Twilight’s fears, as her imagination played various scenarios of their plane plunging into the churning sea below them. She returned her attention to her own aircraft and began to climb a set of moveable stairs into the cockpit.

She sat down into the cockpit on her haunches and used her magic to adjust the seat to match the position of her back. She extended a set of belts across her chest to secularly fasten her to the seat, so that she would be able to survive Rainbow’s no doubt insane flying techniques.

As Twilight situated herself, Rainbow Dash flew up to the cockpit. A far different setting greeted the pilot. Seven metal sleeves occupied the cockpit, four for her legs and two for her wings and one for her tail, each filled with cushioning to retain some level of comfort. Rainbow quickly slipped her legs, wings, and tail into their appropriate slots, and extended them into flight configuration, which resembled a pegasus in normal flight with outstretched limbs.

With both mares positioned within the cockpit, Rainbow poked a button on the instrument panel with her nose, causing the canopy to close. With that out of the way, she started up the aircraft. As the plane started up, a slight electric shock rain through Dash’s body leaving a sensation of pins and needles all across her body.

This was a good thing though; it meant that the neural interface enchantment known as the COFFIN (Control For Flight Interface) system was working. This enchantment, which was the reason she had to sit in the full body cast, allowed the pilot to control the aircraft through small movements of the body.
The wings controlled the throttle, pitch, and roll of the aircraft, by moving them forward and backwards, and angling them down or up. The tail controlled the yaw, extension of landing gear, and, when a weapons officer wasn’t present, the arming of the special weapon. The forelegs were used for firing the gun and whatever other weapon was armed at the time, while the back legs were used to change targets, and switch radar modes from short, to long, to strategic. Due to this method of control, a lot of flight training involved creating a powerful control over the body’s muscles to prevent any involuntary movements.

With the neural enchantment working, the HUD (Heads Up Display) activated, giving Rainbow Dash important information such as the pitch, elevation, bearing, airspeed, throttle, available weapons, ammunition, weapon’s range, and the status of the aircraft. It also displayed the radar screen so that Rainbow would not have to look down at the instrument panel.

Like Twilight had pointed out, UGBM’s (Unguided Bombs Medium) were shown under missiles on the HUD, though the readout claimed that there were 8 bombs and 52 missiles along with an unlimited number of bullets. Obviously there were only two missiles and four bombs attached to the craft, but this difference was made possible by another miracle of magical enchantments, the replenishment enchantment. This enchantment allowed essentials, such as fuel and ammo, to be teleported directly onto an aircraft in flight until it wore off. This also explained the lack of a fuel gauge, and in its place a timer, which displayed the time until the fuel enchantment broke.

While Dash was re-familiarizing herself with the HUD, Twilight was undergoing a similar process in the seat directly behind her. Much of the information that was available for the pilot was also available to her, but solely on the instrument panel in front of her. In place of the HUD was a modified version of the COFFIN system.

Instead of giving her control of the aircraft, it provided a full field of view around the plane and it allowed her to actively track targets that Rainbow would select during flight. Another difference was that it responded to magic rather than neural synapses, which meant that, through a simple thought and a little application of magic, she would be able to quickly bring up any display that she and her pilot might need during a mission.

To establish the link needed control the system, Twilight touched her horn to the instrument panel, and began to push magical energy into the system. The initialization of the COFFIN system was confirmed by a purple hexagonal pattern extending across the top of Twilight’s section of the canopy, which would allow the display of the system’s functions on the canopy itself.

With her weapons officer ready, Rainbow began to maneuver the F-4 onto the forward left catapult. She was guided to it by the various ponies on the flight deck as they signaled her to adjust the plane into the proper position. Once the fighter was in place on the catapult, Rainbow began one final test of the control surfaces of the aircraft while the other ponies attached the necessary equipment to the nose gear and hastily checked her plane for any problems.

The elevators, and rudder responded flawlessly, and a pony in a yellow vest gave her a quick salute, signaling that everything checked out. She was ready for takeoff. The jet blast deflector raised behind the plane as Dash pushed her wings backwards, sending the plane into afterburner.

She gave one final look back and flashed a reassuring smile to Twilight, who simply nodded and swallowed in a vain attempt to get rid of the nervous lump in her throat. Dash returned her attention forward, with a wild grin on her face. There were few things more exciting than being thrown off a ship in a flying piece of metal at 160 miles per hour.

“Mobius 1 you are clear for takeoff, takeoff immediately to clear the flight line.”

With that, Rainbow Dash and Twilight were launched down the length of the catapult and off the ship. Rainbow quickly angled her wings up to gain altitude and join up with the rest of the planes, while Twilight took deep breaths to keep her heart from exploding.

Once they were in the air, they changed their bearing to 315 and began to fly northwest to meet up with their AWACS and intercept the bombers.

Sitting Duck

After traveling northwest for about five minutes in afterburner, Rainbow Dash and her WSO Twilight arrived at the combat airspace with the rest of the fighters from the 118th that had managed to make it off the carrier.

Along with Rainbow, Storm Surge had made it and his wingmate Omega 9. Rapier 4, leader of the remnants of Rapier squadron, and his wingmate Rapier 6 had also made it. The other members of the 118th had not been prepared in time to make the intercept, so they were left behind.

As the fighters slowed down to a cruising speed, they tightened up their formation and awaited contact from the AWACS that would be joining them. Rainbow took this moment to admire the view.

A deep blue ocean extended from beneath here to horizon, only broken up by the occasion island. The sky was similar to the ocean, in that it was also a vast expanse of a lighter blue, which was only interrupted by the occasional cloud. It seemed that even the clouds had a blueish hue.

Blue must be the color of the day, Rainbow thought absent mindedly. Off in the distance, Rainbow could just barely make out the silhouette of Newfield Island.

Newfield Island was a relatively small island with a mountain on its southern end. Around the middle of the island on the eastern coast, a city had formed near a crater that made a perfect harbor. Ironically, this crater that had created a thriving city had been caused by the asteroid fragments that ruined the rest of the continent. On the north end of the island was Silver Wing airbase, the secondary target of the formation she was about to intercept.

An alert from the radio distracted Dash from her admiration of the scenery, and brought her back to the present. There was a mission to complete and people to defend.

“AWACS here, call sign Sky Eye. Do you read?”

“This is Rainbow Dash, we read you.”

“Your call sign is Mobius 1. We will refer to you by this name at all times.”

Oops, Rainbow thought. In her excitement, she had forgotten that pilots had to use their call signs during combat operations.

“You are now under my command. Six bombers on vector 360 confirmed. Continue north to intercept.” Wow, what a hard flank.

“Today’s my birthday! A victory sure would be nice.” Okay, maybe not a complete hard flank.

“I have them on radar now,” said Twilight from behind her. “The bombers are flying in pairs, one behind another. They also have four fighter escorts around the middle of the formation.”

“How do they have fighters out this far?” asked one of the other pilots, probably Rapier 6.

“Probably mid-air recharging,” somepony else replied.

“Everyone cut the chatter and check your planes. Prepare to engage the enemy.” That was definitely Rapier 4. “We’ll engage from six o’clock. Maintain your current heading and airspeed.”

“If we maintain our current airspeed, the lead bombers will be over Silver Wing Airbase by the time we arrive.” Twilight stated. Well, that decided it.

“Everypony, we need to engage them now.” Rainbow declared. As she said this, she opened the throttle, allowing raw fuel to pour into the engines, which sent the plane into afterburner.

“Mobius 1, wait! We need to stay in formation.” Rapier 4 shouted.

“Not going to happen, those bombers need to go down now!” Rainbow exclaimed as she rocketed ahead of the formation. One of the advantages of being your own flight leader was that she only answered to Sky Eye and nopony else

“That mare is going to get herself killed.” she heard Rapier 4 say.

“No she won’t, just watch. There is something special about her.” Storm Surge replied, “Go get ‘em Mobius 1. We’ll be right behind you.” Rainbow couldn't help but smile at his confidence in her, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

“So Twilight, what do you think we should do?” Rainbow Dash casually asked as they approached the bomber formation.

“Wait, you mean that you haven’t thought any of this out?” Twilight asked in disbelief.

“Well… no. But now we can think of one. So, any ideas.”

Twilight rubbed her temples with her forehooves. They were going to die, she was sure of it. With that fact accepted, she looked down at the radar screen in front of her.

“We need to take out the bombers in the front of the formation soon. They are almost to the city. I suggest we fly along the left side of the formation taking out any bombers along the way before reversing our course and taking out the bomber on the left.”

“Oh, I was just going to rush to the front of the formation to take out the lead planes, but your idea works too.” Twilight resisted the urge to facehoof at such an impractical plan.

With a plan in place they continued to fly towards the bomber formation. Two small squares appeared on Rainbow’s HUD as they flew closer to the targets, indicating that they the bombers were within visual range.
The radio beeped again.

“Mobius 1, engage.”

With permission to attack granted by Sky Eye, Twilight armed the sidewinders as Rainbow targeted the bomber on the left and adjusted the fighter to intercept it. Blazing through the air at 1000 knots, the duo quickly closed the distance between them and the unfortunate bomber. Suddenly the square around the bomber changed red, and a loud constant tone sounded in their headsets. They had a missile lock.

“Mobius 1, fox 2!” Rainbow dash yelled into the mic, as she flexed her left fore hoof twice, causing the two sidewinders to detach from the bottom of the Phantom and streak towards their target. As the missiles screamed towards their mark, they left a thin white trail of condensation behind them, before slamming into the tail of the Tu-95, blowing it clean off.

“A bomber has been hit!”

“There’s our welcoming party.” An unknown voice spoke, acknowledging the new ISAF formation.

Rainbow Dash smiled at this response, then frowned. She didn’t recognize those voices.

“Let the escorts handle them.”

Realization dawned on Rainbow. The radio was picking up the enemy communications, but how was it doing that?

“Oh good, it works. Now we can hear what the enemy is planning.” Twilight stated, answering Rainbow’s unasked question.

“How’d you manage to do that?”

Twilight began to detail the process of finding and decrypting the enemy’s radio frequency, thoroughly confusing the much less tech savvy pilot.

“Never mind, it must be more of an egghead thing.”

Twilight gave an annoyed snort, but didn’t press the issue further. Now was not the time to start an argument. A quick glance at the radar showed that they were quickly closing in on the second target, while the escort fighters were only just starting to react to their sudden attack. We just might pull this off, Twilight thought to herself.

Once again the solid tone of a missile lock filled their ears as they got within weapon’s range of the bomber, but this time it was more prepared than the last. The Bear’s tail gunner began to fire at them, filling the air in front of the F-4 with bright yellow tracer rounds, and even more unseen rounds.

Rainbow quickly fired off another two missiles before rolling the aircraft upside down and pitching the nose down, in attempt to avoid the AA fire. Luck was on her side, and none of the rounds struck their aircraft. The heat seekers had continued faithfully on their path and once again destroyed the Tu-95’s tail causing it to plummet towards the earth.

Now only one bomber remained on the left side of the formation. Rainbow repeated the maneuver that she had used on the previous bomber’s tail gunner, but went over the bomber instead of under it. Over the radio she heard its pilot cry out, “Mayday! Mayday! This is Gray 1, we can’t maintain alt..zzzzz Eject!”

After a moment the radio crackled to life again.

“Rapier 4 engaging!”

“Rapier 6 engaging!”

“Omega 9 engaging!”

“Omega 11 engaging!”

The other members of her squadron had finally entered the fight. About time they showed up, Rainbow thought.

“This Black 9 to Red 5, you and Red 8 go and engage the new arrivals. We’ll focus on the lone fighter up front.” The radio was picking up enemy comms again, and by the sound of it, she would have company real soon.

“Dash, keep flying straight.” she heard Twilight say.

“Why? The other bomber is right next to us!”

“We need to maintain our speed to avoid the escort fighters. Also it would be best to attack the bomber from head on, so we don’t risk getting hit by any more AA fire from those tail-gunners.”

“Why does Twilight always have to make so much sense?” Rainbow muttered to herself as she continued on her current vector, putting distance between the other bomber and its fighter escorts.

Twilight brought up a display on the COFFIN system to keep track of their distance to the bomber. If Rainbow turned too soon, she wouldn’t have any time to adjust their heading before they overshot the bomber. Once they the bomber was just on the edge of the system’s ability to track it, Twilight told her pilot to turn around.

She could feel the G forces push her into the seat as Rainbow banked and turned hard to the right. Now they were hurtling towards the bomber, and after a few small adjustments, they were going at it head on. After a few seconds of closing in on the target, she heard the tone of a missile lock.

“Mobius 1, fox 2!” she heard Sky Eye declare, and felt Rainbow pull up to avoid ramming the front of the soon to be wreckage of the enemy aircraft. Twilight grimaced as another thought popped into her mind.

The missiles would impact the cockpit of the bomber and instantly kill its pilots.

As if to confirm her thoughts, an explosion sounded outside of the aircraft, followed by Dash giving a victorious yell. “Yea, target down. Let’s move onto the next one.” Twilight took a deep breath to suppress the rising feeling of sadness.

“Okay.” she said half heartedly.

Rainbow didn’t notice her weapons officer’s lack of enthusiasm due to the fact that she was too absorbed in her own excitement. Her first mission was going better than anypony could have could have ever dreamed.

The fifth bomber was approaching rapidly, but she wasn’t concerned. It would be a simple matter of repeating the same thing she did to the previous one. Sure enough, the new target met the same fate.

“One target remaining.” came over the radio from Sky Eye confirming her progress. With Silver Wing Airbase out immediate danger it was time to finish off the escort fighters before moving on to the final bomber.

“Twilight, where are the fighters that are trying to intercept us?”

“There at vector 340. Why? Aren’t we going to destroy the last bomber?”

“No, I want Prance to know who they are dealing with. I can’t do that if the escorts bug out after the last bomber has been shot down.” She stated as she checked her own vector. The compass at the top of the HUD read 180 S. Rainbow banked to the right until the compass read 340. Those enemy fighters wouldn’t stand a chance.

Black 9 and his wingmate Black 2 had been desperately trying to catch up to the lone ISAF fighter that was decimating their bomber formation. Unfortunately the single engine of the Mig-21 was not powerful enough to catch up with the far faster F-4.

They had almost caught it when it had shot by them to destroy the fifth bomber, but the time the enemy was within weapon’s distance was too short for a lock. Despite this previous failure, they now had another chance to destroy this incredibly annoying fighter.

Then enemy F-4 made a wide turn and now it was coming straight at them. The distance between them and the lone fighter quickly dissipated as they closed in on each other. Soon Black 9 heard the tone of his missiles locking on, then another tone blazed through his headset, one of a much higher pitch.

His HUD turned bright red, and the words MISSLE ALERT were displayed across the middle. He froze up for only an instant, but it was long enough for the opposing fighter to fly over head. He glanced up to watch it fly by, before returning his attention to the front. Two angry missiles were right in there, and he only had a moment to register their existence before they removed him from existence.

Black 2 watched in horror as his flight lead’s plane exploded. He was just a nugget, a completely new pilot. Without his flight lead he was lost.

A warning appeared on the HUD indicating the enemy fighter had already turned around and was acquiring a lock. A quick glance at the radar confirmed his fears; the bandit was right behind him. He did the first thing he could think of, and turned hard to the left.

Turning hard enough would prevent missiles from hitting so long as one could withstand the g forces. To his dismay, the bandit matched his turn, bleeding off a large amount of speed in the process. How could someone stand that kind of force!? In desperation he called out over the radio,

“This is Black 2, I have a bandit on my tail.” No one responded. Red 5 and 8 were still engaged with the other fighters. Suddenly a burst of machine gun fire passed in front of his cockpit. Fear took over and he began to reverse his turn.

This was the only mistake the plane behind him needed. Half-way through the roll, the warning became an alert. Black 2’s mind stopped working, preventing him from thinking of anything other than trying to complete his turn, but there was no way he would be able to turn hard enough in time. The missiles impacted his aircraft, turning it into a fireball that fell back down to earth.

“Mobius 1, bandit destroyed!” declared Sky Eye.

Rainbow Dash was absolutely giddy with excitement and bursting with pride. The dogfight had gone perfectly. To her, everything simply felt natural. There wasn’t any real thought put into her maneuvers; she just knew what to do.

Her cutie mark might have been for racing, but dog-fighting seem to come just as naturally. With the adrenaline wearing off, she began to wonder what her next course of action. “Twilight, where are the other two fighters?” she asked.

Twilight looked down at her radar screen. One yellow triangle was surrounded by four blue triangles, one directly behind it. A white blinking dot appeared on the blue triangle, and began to travel towards the yellow one. A moment later the blinking dot reached the yellow triangle and both disappeared from the radar screen. “Looks like our squadron mates shot them down.”

“Omega 11, splash 1.” confirmed the radio.

Suddenly, Sky Eye’s voice was heard over the radio, “Target is bombing the city!”

“What?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

“Why would they do such a thing?” Twilight whispered.

“Doesn’t matter, we're going to stop them now!” Rainbow declared, turning the plane until they were flying north again, and opening up the throttle.

A message from the lone bomber came over the radio, “Five miles to the target.”

“We’re not going to make it!” cried Twilight.

“Yes, we are.” stated Rainbow Dash as they tore through the skies.

“Two miles. Open bomb bay doors.”

The bomber appeared on the HUD, the distance to the target just under it. It counted down as they approached:

40000ft away

3500ft

3000ft

2500ft

2000ft

1500ft

Only 1000ft

“Target on the nose!” the bomber exclaimed.

Just as it said this, the distance to the bomber hit 855ft; the range required for a missile lock.

“Fox 2!” Rainbow Dash shouted one final time as the missile leapt from her aircraft. They streaked across the sky towards the last Tu-95. In a desperate attempt to avoid the two sidewinders flying towards it, the bomber began to turn. It was futile though, and the missiles impacted the side of the Bear at the base of the wing, blowing it clean off. It fell out sky, spinning toward the ground beneath it.

“Good job, Mobius 1, mission complete.” Sky Eye praised.

“This is Silver Wing Airbase; we got a visual on the downed bombers. Whose kill was that? Make sure to thank him.”

“That’s a round up! Let’s get on home!”

Author's Note

First things first. I must congratulate you for making it this far. I have never written a story solely for the entertainment of others, nor have I ever written a story with this much dialogue in it. Secondly, if you haven't already realized, this story is basically a ponification of Ace Combat 4, so I can only take credit for the little creative liberties I take on the plot. The rest belongs to the story writers at Namco and Project Aces. The plot is not the purpose for writing this story though. I intended to give Ace Combat 4's protagonist some character when I decided to write this, so hopefully I have achieved that in some respects. Thirdly, as I mentioned before, I have never written a story of this magnitude, so if I have completely butchered some aspect of literature, please inform me so that future mistakes can be avoided. More specifically, if you have any suggestions on improving dialogue, through format or content, please feel free voice your ideas. Also, I have a terrible time with names. Changing the name of the air base to Silver Wing airbase was one of the greatest problems I faced, and I am disappointed that I wasn't able to come up with a suitable name for the asteroid. Once again any offers of assistance would be greatly appreciated. Lastly, I thank Admiral Tigerclaw and PonyMarine. Their stories, High Flier and Stormriders: Luna's Own respectively, inspired me to try my hand a writing. If you even remotely enjoyed reading this, I would strongly recommend reading their stories. Who knows, if enough people enjoy this (like 10 people), I will continue to write. I know that I have definitely put enough thought into the story line. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Equestria's Newest Ace

"I can't believe you were able to do that! You took out all those bombers without us, and you splashed two bandits all by yourself! On your first sortie none the less!"

Omega 9 had been going on about Rainbow Dash's incredible performance the entire way to the carrier.

"How did you get so good at flying? What's your secret?"

"There's no secret." Rainbow Dash replied with a wide grin and a chest that was swelling with pride. "It just sorta happened. Everything felt natural, like I already knew what to do. That and I'm pretty awesome. I guess no pony can compete with such raw talent."

"Be careful Mobius 1, that pride is going to get you killed you know." Storm Surge joked. The other squadron members laughed at this. Even Twilight let out a giggle.

"Ha... yeah, not likely." Rainbow said, a little of her swagger lost. The others had only heard the joke, but she had heard the more serious undertone in his voice. He was worried about her, but she would prove to him, and anypony else, that there was nothing to worry about. She would be the best, and the best don't die.

Rapier 6's voice over the radio interrupted her thoughts. "Hey look! There's the carrier."

Sure enough, she could see the carrier out in front of her. Simultaneously, a blue dot appeared on radar, representing the floating city of steel. Though it was over 3 hoofball fields long, it was just a speck of grey in an endless expanse of blue from the distance they were at.

"We're going to land on that?" she heard Twilight say with a hint of worry. "It's so... small."

"Well, it gets bigger when you get closer to it." replied Rainbow with a grin. "Still, it is one of the hardest things a pilot has to do."

"You have landed on a carrier before right?" Of course she had landed on a carrier before.

"Of course I haven't."

"What?!" shouted Twilight, her now filled with obvious fear.

"Why would I have landed on a carrier before? It's not like every time you take off, you have to land somewhere. Though, when I do land, I land at an airbase. Then they put me on a boat and take me back to the carrier."

"Aaah." Twilight thought. "The sting of sarcasm, will two can play at that game."

"So... you have really never landed on a carrier?" Twilight asked in an innocent tone. Now that she knew the rules, it was time to play.

"Of course I have landed on a carrier! How else would I get back to the carrier after I had taken off from it?" Rainbow Dash asked, sounding very flustered.

"But you said it yourself. You land at an airfield and get back by boat."

"I was joking. Don't you understand sarcasm?"

"I don't believe you." Twilight stated in all the seriousness she could muster. It took all of her willpower not to laugh.

"You don't believe that I was joking?" Rainbow asked. Now she was annoyed and confused.

"No, I don't believe you can land on a carrier."

"But I already told you that I can."

"Prove it." Twilight said, in the most challenging tone she could manage while still stifling her laugh.

"Prove what?" More confusion? Good.

"That you can land on a carrier."

"How?"

"Oh, I don't know." Twilight said as she put her hoof to her chin and faked some difficult thinking. "Maybe by landing on the carrier in front of us."

The other pilots couldn't contain their amusement any longer, causing the radio to be filled with laughter. With everypony else laughing, Twilight also lost it and began laughing so hard that when she took a deep breath, it caused her to snort. Everypony went silent for a moment, and then continued to laugh. Everypony except Rainbow. Instead she rolled her eyes and smiled. Twilight had gotten her good. She could grow to like that mare.

After having continued their discussion of the mission, the pilots of the 118th had quickly approached their home carrier, the Cloudsdale. Named after the place where nonpegasus powered flight first took place, she was originally one of three sister ships that made up the backbone of the ISAF fleet. Sadly the Nimbostratus had been sunk early in the war, thanks to the actions of Prance's pride of the seas; the "Invincible" Aegir Fleet. Fortunately the other carrier had survived and returned to the east coast. Now the Ark Angel was at its home port, St. Ark (short for Ark Angle), to aid in the defense of the last remnants of ISAF's ground forces, which were desperately clinging onto their last foot hold on the mainland.

"Mobius 1 perform landing check." A stallion's voice said over the radio. Rainbow twitched her tail downward in response to the command, causing the landing gear and tailhook to extend and the flaps on the wings to go down. Twilight observed all of this through the COFFIN system, checking to make sure that everything was functioning as it should. Once everything was in position, two lines appeared on Rainbow's HUD, one vertical and one horizontal. They indicated to her how she needed to adjust the aircraft for the best landing possible. It accomplished this by having the two lines intersect where ever she needed to go to line up with the runway, or in this case flight deck, and land successfully.

"You are cleared to land."

With her eyes narrowed in concentration Rainbow began her approach. She lowered her altitude to around 1000 feet, and then began to make small adjustments in the pitch and bearing of the plane so that the lines intersected right in the middle of her HUD. Now it was just a matter of keeping it that way.

"Two miles to touch down."

"No matter how many times I do this..." Rainbow thought while making further adjustments. " it never gets any easier. Why couldn't there be a skip landing button or something."

"One mile to touch down."

Now the plane was just a few hundred feet above the ocean. Rainbow angled the nose up slightly and cut back on the throttle, causing the plane to drift downwards towards the aft of the carrier.

"You’re on the money!" said the stallion.

The fighter continued its downward drift, but now the carrier seemed to be rapidly filling up her vision. In mere moments she was on the flight deck. A soon as Rainbow felt the wheels touch the deck she opened the throttle to full military power, which was as high as it could go without going into afterburner. This was to allow a plane to immediately take off in case the tailhook missed all of the arresting wires. Of course this precaution proved unnecessary, for the tailhook had caught the third of the four arresting wires which quickly brought the plane to a stop.

"Nicely done Mobius 1!" said the stallion as both Rainbow and Twilight let go of the breath neither had realized they had been holding. Now that the plane had come to a stop, Rainbow quickly brought the throttle down to an idle, and maneuvered the F-4 out of the landing area so that the rest of the squadron could land. Once the plane was parked on the bow of the ship, Rainbow deactivated the engines and the flight systems. With the COFFIN system finally off, she returned her legs to their normal position and slipped her wings out of their sleeves. A final press of a button caused the canopy to open up and Rainbow flew out of the cockpit, eager to stretch her sore limbs. At the same time Twilight teleported out of the cockpit and on to the deck, where she gave a quick stretch of her back.

"I guess you proved it." Twilight said with amusement in her eyes.

"Told you I could." Rainbow Dash retorted with a smile on her face.

The rest of the squadron landed without a problem shortly after Rainbow Dash's own successful landing. After everypony was safely on board the Cloudsdale, they were instructed to return to the ready room for a debriefing. Rainbow was especially excited for this one final part. Everypony would be able to see her amazing performance.

After traveling below deck and through a labyrinth of steel corridors, the returning ponies finally arrived at the ready room. When they entered the room, they were assaulted by the sound of cheering and the pounding of pony hooves on the floor.

"It’s the saviors of ISAF!"

"Yahoo!"

" Alright!"

"You guys are the greatest!"

"Ahem."

"The heroes of ISAF return!"

"That will teach those Prench to mess with us!"

"Ahem!"

"No pony messes with the 118th!"

"You said it!"

"EVERYPONY! SILENCE!" The assembled ponies stopped at once in response to the command and turned to look at who had interrupted their celebration. A yellow unicorn stallion with an orange mane that had been standing next to the projection screen at the end of the room was now at the center of everypony’s attention.

"Awww... come on Spotlight, why'd you have to ruin our fun." Somepony whined, earning a few snickers from the others.

"That's Colonel Spotlight to you, and the reason I ruined your "fun" second lieutenant Cloud Striker, is because of the reason we were all brought into this room. I would watch the tone you take with me in the future." the colonel growled.

"Yes sir, sorry sir!" a light grey, white maned pegasus responded with a smart salute, though his eyes betrayed the worry he felt.

"Now back to the reason you all have been assembled here; the debriefing of the recently successful operation: Umbrella. Everypony take your seats." Immediately the pilots and weapons officers did as they were instructed. With the assemble pegasi and unicorns seated, the stallion's horn flared with magic, and the screen next to him came to life. On it were five smaller screens each having five labeled arrows; four blue and one white that floated over a grid. The labels read: Mobius 1, Omega 11, Omega 9, Rapier 4, and Rapier 6. The white arrow had a different label on each screen which showed the pilot whose performance was being tacked on screen. On the side of each screen was a table that tracked the kills of the white arrow. The screen with the white arrow named Mobius 1 was at the center of the group and was slightly larger than the others.

Colonel Spotlight cleared his throat and said "Ok, let’s get this debriefing underway." As he said this, the various arrows on the screen began to move, reenacting the mission that had occurred an hour earlier. A tail formed behind each arrow, showing the changes it made in altitude, roll, and bearing so that the observers could get an accurate sense of what the fighters were doing. Rainbow and Twilight watched their arrow attentively, along with every other pony in the room. Their arrow started off in formation with the other blue arrows, but after a few moments it left them behind and began to fly solo. It quickly approached a slow moving red arrow, and after a few moments it blinked out of existence with a beep. On the table, a slot filled up with the words Tu-95 x1. The arrow continued to move around causing other red arrows to disappear in a perfect imitation of Rainbow's flying, the table updating with each disappearance. While the screen showed the battle, Spotlight continued talking.

"Thanks to your efforts, the enemy bomber strike was averted." *Beep* The last arrow disappeared as if to solidify is statement. The table's final reading was Tu-95 x6, Mig-21 x2. A pilot needed five kills to become an ace, and with eight confirmed kills, Rainbow Dash had not only met that requirement, she had exceeded it. She was officially an ace.

"However" Spotlight continued "our victory will be meaningless should you all fail the next mission." With that sobering note, the screen winked out of existence. "Oh, and one more thing. Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle, front and center."

Rainbow Dash's face fell at the sound of her name being called. Being called out in front of everypony was generally not a good thing, and it didn't help that the colonel did not sound pleased.

Twilight was also worried, but a little more so. "He is going to kick us out." She thought frantically. "My first mission and I'm going to be kicked out of the air force, all because of Rainbow's rash actions. I shouldn't have let her fly out of formation. Is the colonel going to let us fly home? No, they can't afford to give us a plane. They're going to make us swim. Wait, Rainbow can fly so I'M going to have to swim, ALONE! I don't think I can swim all the way to North Point. Can anypony swim all the way to North Point?" The last thought brought Twilight's wild speculation to a girding halt, having realized that her panicking had gotten her off topic and far beyond the realm of reason. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and stood up. Rainbow Dash mimicked her, and they walked to the front of the room together.

"Twilight... Rainbow Dash." Spotlight said with a stern voice. Suddenly his tone changed to a much more cheery state "The various member states of ISAF would like to extend their gratitude to you for your defense of ISAF GHQ and for preventing the enemy bomber force from damaging Silver Wing airbase. Congratulations First Lieutenant Sparkle and First Lieutenant Dash."

Both of the mares were shocked by the sudden turn of events. Twilight was the first to notice the difference in rank. "First lieutenant Sir?"

"That’s correct Twilight." Spotlight said with a pleased look as he levitated out a pair of silver bars. "Command has seen it fit that you two be promoted for you exceptional performance. Congratulations."

Twilight's jaw dropped. Her first mission and she had already been promoted. Upon seeing the bemused expression of the colonel at her reaction, she quickly recovered and grabbed one of the silver bars with her magic. Meanwhile Rainbow Dash was absolutely beaming with pride. After letting the moment soak in, she too grabbed the remaining silver bar with her mouth.

"You two can pin those on later. Now we can celebrate."

With that, the two mares turned around to face their fellow pilots and weapons officers. Applause and cheers broke out once again. When the applause and cheering subsided, Cloud Striker called out "Hey Rainbow, in celebration of your promotion and all, let’s go see if we can convince the catapult officers to launch a hoofball off the carrier!”

Rainbow quickly stowed her rank away before responding with excitement "That'd be sweet! Do you think they would actually let us do that?"

"Dunno, but we won't find out by standing here. Come on, let’s go." With that Cloud Striker galloped out of the room closely followed by Rainbow Dash. The rest of the ponies began filing out until only Twilight, Storm Surge and Spotlight remained. Twilight and Spotlight just shook their heads at the ridiculously foalish idea while Storm Surge looked after them with an amused expression.

"I knew she had it in her." Storm Surge said to no pony in particular. Turning his attention to the colonel he said "I'd better make sure they don't get in trouble." With that he too walked out of the room.

Far on the other side of the continent, a chestnut unicorn colt sat on top of a small hill and stared up at the blue expanse above him. He had repeated this behavior for a week, constantly returning to the same spot to scan the distant blue skies. As the sun began to set, the colt stood up, disappointed yet again, and began to trot back towards his town. Well, what was once his town. He couldn't remember exactly when the western armies had occupied it. He had been too busy watching the horizon for the fighter with the yellow number 13 on its nose.

As the colt walked through the town, he took limited notice of the changes that had occurred due to the occupation. The surrounding buildings had been plastered with colorful foreign propaganda. The colt could understand some of it, but only because they had started teaching the language at school. He continued to walk until he came to a stop at a cross walk. An earth pony stood there in green combat gear with a stop sign in his mouth and a weapon mounted to his back. Foreign M.P.s (military police) had replaced their friendly local sheriff's department. The unicorn waited as military vehicles and pony drawn carts crisscrossed the walk way until the soldier held out the stop sign. Though they lived in the 21st century gasoline rationing had reduced the civilians to pony powered carriages. After the colt had safely crossed the road, he returned his hazel eyes to the skies above him, still hoping to see the fighter "Yellow 13", but tall buildings and parabolic antennas were obscuring his view. He had heard whispers that the antennas were secretly being used to receive broadcast from North Point, but they had recently stopped, and no pony knew why.

After his depressing walk through the city, he finally arrived at an equally depressing two story town house with a broken down taxi out front. After his parents' deaths, the colt had moved in with his uncle, who had formally been a taxi driver, but, without gas or the strength to pull carriages, he found himself without work. The colt entered the building and walked past his uncle, a light tan unicorn with a grey mane, who was in the kitchen with a hoof leaning on the table supporting his head. An open bottle of beer sat next to his head on the table. The colt climbed the stairs, his hoof steps echoing on the concrete staircase, and entered his room. He grabbed his harmonica with his magic, and began to walk back down the stairs. As he walked past his uncle again, his uncle shifted then shouted "You going back to that good for nothing bar again?!"

"Yes, I'm going back there." the colt replied just loud enough to be heard. Then he walked out the door.

"That lousy barkeeper, severing the enemy like a dog." his uncle grumbled to himself.

The sun had fully set by the time he reached the bar. It was named the Sky Colt, and its owner was often scorned by the rest of the town for so eagerly doing business with the occupation forces. Tables sat outside of the bar, which were illuminated by the lights from the interior. More tables, and of course the bar, were inside the brightly light establishment. Each table was filled with sullen occupation ponies, trying to relieve their boredom through idle conversation and strong drinks. The colt approached the soldiers and began to play his harmonica, the one thing he seemed to be good at, though it had failed to give him his cutie mark. For his uplifting music the soldiers gave him their spare change, which he would used to support himself and his uncle. Just then an earth pony filly came out of the bar with a platter of drinks on her back. She had light pink fur, and a flowing bright yellow mane. The colt quickly averted his eyes as the slightly older filly turned around and returned to the bar. He had a crush on her, but she was also the barkeeper’s only daughter, and he doubted that the barkeeper would appreciated any feelings he had for her.

As the night wore on, the colt continued to play for the soldiers' money. Finally, after a few hours of playing, he felt that he had enough, and began the long walk back to his uncle's town house. As he walked along the sparsely lit street, he sadly thought to himself "Another day passed, and still no Yellow 13."

A.N. - Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. With a lot of the descriptions out of the way, future chapters will probably encompass all stages of a mission. I doubt I will be able to stick to a schedule, but I will do my best to not take an unreasonably long amount of time updating.

Preemptive Strike on an Imminent Threat

Rainbow Dash stood at the aft edge of the aircraft carrier Cloudsdale, facing towards the sea. The wind blew her rainbow mane against her neck, but she hardly noticed the mild annoyance unless it obstructed her view. She was watching the distant coastline of North Point slowly sink below the horizon, trying to burn it into her memory, for it was likely the last time she would see her home country again in a long time. It had been 16 days since Rainbow’s first sortie, and during that time the Cloudsdale had returned to the naval port at ISAF GHQ on North Point to be refitted and restocked for extended operations. Sadly no pony had been given shore leave, due to the threat of another attack from Prance at any time. Without a way to get off the ship, she had not gotten a chance to visit her home town of Cyrricuse one last time.

Cyrricuse was a cloud city in the far north of North Point, and, as the city’s named implied, it was entirely made up of wispy, icy cirrus clouds. Since it was made up of the high altitude clouds rather than the cumulus clouds of most other cloud cities, it had one of the highest elevations of any city in all of Equestria, which also made it one of the coldest cities. In fact the city was so high up that only pegasi could thrive in Cyrricuse. The lack of oxygen would prevent any other races from living there for an extended period of time, provided that they were able to walk on clouds for that long. This incredible altitude was the reason for Rainbow’s fantastic physical condition. Since she had trained in the thin air at such heights, her blood was able absorb large amounts of oxygen when she was lower to the ground, giving her endurance that would rival an earth pony. Cyrricuse’s natural elevation also contributed to Rainbow’s love of flight. While flying was a leisure or a utility for most pegasi, Rainbow had made it to her passion. As a filly, she had been inspired by the many stunt flyers, of both natural and artificial flight, that visited the city to train and practice their routine under the extreme conditions present in the city. The most impressive flyers often came from the city of Cloudsdale, which was the largest and most prestigious pegasus city in all of Equestria. It also had the added benefit of being the world’s center of aviation.

Rainbow had always dreamt of visiting Cloudsdale when she was young, but that dream had been thwarted by geography. Cloudsdale was located on the continent of Osea, in the country of Solaria, which was more or less on the other side of the world. If she had traveled east, she would have to cross all of Usea, then the Spring Sea, just to get to Osea. After that, she would have to fly almost all the way across the continent to reach Cloudsdale. Traveling west would have the same problem but with a different continent. After traveling across the Usean Sea, she would need to cross the entire continent of Versusea and the Ceres Ocean to reach Osea. Traveling across such vast distances never proved feasible, so she had never been able to see the capital city of flight for herself.

The high pitched whine of an elevator brought Rainbow out of her thoughts. She glanced over her shoulder to see two F-4’s being lifted up from the hangar onto the flight deck. That could mean a few things, all of which involved her flying really soon. Storm Surge had mentioned to her that there was likely to be a briefing today at around 1330. He had even given her a new hoofwatch that he had ordered while in port to prevent her from being late, though since she had been in a hurry to watch the ship leave port, she had slipped it on without taking a good look at it. When she brought it up to check the time she was surprised to find that all the hands of the clock pointed towards where the number 12 would be, and did not move. Another surprising feature of this watch was that there were no numbers, only one word that took the place of the number 12: Late. “One day I am going to get him back for this.” Rainbow thought darkly as she began to gallop across the flight deck in attempt to make it to the briefing on time.

Rainbow Dash’s hooves pounded on the metal floor of the ship as she raced through the corridors, leaving a short rainbow after image behind her. Anypony who stood in her way had enough sense and reaction time to get out of the way, or was swiftly sidestepped. The only thing that remotely slowed her down was stairs, which she had to slow down just a little to avoid slamming into the bulkhead. After a few seconds of setting speed records for moving around the ship, she reached the final stretch to her room. With an epic sliding stop in mind, she poured on speed as she entered the corridor. Just as she was about to start her slide, the door to her room opened. A purple mare stepped out, and turned to face her. Both ponies’ eyes widened as the two mares spotted each other. Rainbow did the first thing that entered her mind, and jumped. She soared over the surprised mare, landed on all four of her hooves, and did a perfect slide to a stop. “That… Was… Awesome!” she yelled. Rainbow Dash turned her attention to the mare she had just vaulted over, and quickly determined that it was her weapons officer and new roommate, Twilight. “Did you see that Twilight? I just jumped clear over you. It was so cool!”

Twilight had, in fact, not seen Rainbow Dash’s amazing feat, for she had immediately hit the ground, and covered her eyes with her hooves. A small whimper was the only indication that Twilight had heard her pilot. “Uh… Twilight, you ok?” Rainbow asked concerned with the fact that the petrified unicorn had yet to respond. When she failed to respond, Rainbow gave her a swift poke to the flank. That finally got a reaction from the purple pony, who jumped to her hooves and spun around to face her aggressor.

“Why’d you do th…” she started to say before she realized that the pony poking her had been the same one that had almost body slammed her a few moments ago. “Rainbow? How’d you get behind me?”

“I jumped over you. It was sweet! I can’t believe you missed it.” Rainbow Dash explained excitedly, obviously impressed with herself.

“You jumped over me?” Twilight asked with confusion written all across her muzzle.

“Yeah” Rainbow explained in the tone of one talking to a kindergartner “I jumped over you.”

“But how did you…” Twilight began before the confused look Rainbow Dash gave her caused her to stop. The cyan mare couldn’t seem to understand why Twilight was so confused by the simple concept of one pony jumping over another. “Never mind, why were you in such a rush anyways?”

“Oh snap! I almost forgot. I came here to get my flight suit on.”

“Why?” Twilight asked, more confused than before.

“Because, there is a briefing at 1:30. I need to get my flight suit on now so I won’t be late.” Rainbow paused for a moment, and then asked “Hey, how come you don’t have your suit on?”

“Why would I have my flight suit on? It’s 12:20. I was just on my way to the galley to get some lunch.” Twilight calmly explained.

`“You can’t be serious.” Rainbow replied with a look of disbelief on her face.

`“Yeah, look at the clock in the room. It says 12:20.”

Rainbow peered into the room through the open doorway. A bunk bed with green sheets was attached to the wall on the left. The bottom bed was nicely made while the top one was a disaster, making it very easy to figure out who slept where. On the right side of the room was a desk that had been recently organized by her new roommate. On the far end of the room there were two white washed wooden cabinets for their flight suits and any other personal belongings. Hanging above that was the clock. Sure enough it read 12:20.

“See.” Twilight said as she pointed to the clock with her hoof. “I told you.”

“Hmph” Was Rainbow’s only response as she sat down on her hunches with her fore hooves across her chest in frustration.

“Hey! Is that a new hoofwatch?” Twilight asked, having spotted it when Rainbow crossed her fore hooves.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Rainbow mumbled angrily.

After a quick lunch and a short walk back to the room to change, Rainbow Dash and Twilight finally reached the ready room. When they entered the room, they saw that the other members of the 118th were already present. Spotlight had already taken up his position next to the screen and Storm Surge was sitting with the other members of his flight in the second row of seats on the left. When he noticed the two mares enter, he gave them a friendly wave. Twilight waved back while Rainbow shot him a glare that he pretended not to notice.

“Now that everypony is present, let’s begin the briefing” Spotlight announced as he applied magic to the screen. The blue triangles of ISAF filled the screen before quickly being replaced by the continental map with the date October 5, 2004. A blue dot in the Gulf of North Point represented their carrier, and a red dot on the mainland was labeled Rigley Air Base.

“The enemy held Rigley Air Base is located in close proximity of to our front lines, making it the proverbial knife at our throat.” Spotlight began. As he stated this, a dashed circle appeared around Rigley, showing the range of enemy aircraft launched from the base. The circle included all of their territory around St. Ark, the coast of an island to the south of North Point, and, most importantly, about half of North Point.

As Spotlight continued speaking, a formation of angry red arrows appeared outside of Rigley. “A large Prench bomber contingent was deployed to Rigley. Their intentions are clear; a full scale strike on our forces at North Point is imminent.” The blue line showing the ISAF fighters would be flight path appeared, and then the map zoomed into the combat area. The mission was titled operation harvest and a cluster of red, yellow, and white dots with a few yellow arrows sprinkled in represented the airfield and enemy aircraft that the pilots would need to destroy.

“Operation Harvest?” Rainbow asked Twilight with a whisper. The weapons officer shrugged, and opened her mouth to explain that it had not made much sense to her either, but she was prevented from voicing her thoughts as Spotlight continued with the briefing.

“Your mission is to catch these bombers on the ground and destroy them. Halo, Vapor and Mobius flights will be sent to execute the mission. I expect that you all will turn the parking ramp at Rigley into a junkyard. The rest of you will remain here in case they fail. Good luck to you all.”

The assemble ponies stood up and began to shuffle out of the room, eager to finally have something to do. Rainbow Dash had other plans though as she glided across the room to confront Storm Surge.

“YOU!”

“ME!” he replied with a goofy grin on his face.

“Don’t you get smart with me.” Rainbow retorted. “You must think that you’re really funny.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Storm Surge said evenly, though the growing smile on his face indicated otherwise.

Twilight, who had left with the other’s, peered around the doorway and called out “Come one Rainbow! We need to get going!”

“Just a sec.” Rainbow said with a dismissive wave of her hoof in Twilight’s general direction.

“The watch?” Rainbow asked as she returned her attention to the red and white pegasus in front of her.

“Oh, that. I take it that you didn’t like it?”

“No, no I didn’t.”

Twilight didn’t fully understand what they were going on about, but was pretty sure that some stupid watch was not more important than the mission they had received just a minute ago. “We need to go NOW Rainbow!”

“Fine, fine. Sheesh keep your horn on, I’m coming.” Rainbow said, very annoyed that Twilight had interrupted her discussion. As she began to trot away, she looked over her shoulder at the troublesome pegasus and said “I’ll get you back. You just wait.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will.” Storm Surge replied, not feeling threatened in the slightest. Just before Rainbow was out the door, he called out “Hey! What time is it?”

Twilight let out a groan at the further distraction.

“Oh, it’s…” Rainbow began to answer reflexively, as she brought her defective watch up to her face. Upon realizing what she had done, she glared at Omega flight’s leader and mouthed “I will get you back” before walking out of the room.

“Why do you antagonize her?” Spotlight asked after the two mares had left.

“Now she has no choice but to come back alive.” Storm Surge explained. “She owes me.”

Within ten minutes of take off, the flight of ISAF fighters had left the Gulf of North Point behind, and was now over the mainland, quickly approaching Rigley Air Base. Rainbow Dash having been born on the island country, had never seen the mainland, though she wasn’t all that impressed by it. The land was covered with rectangular fields that were bordered by hedgerows, and they were generally various shades of green but the occasional light brown, almost sand colored field was also mixed in. What little land that wasn’t covered by fields was occupied by large hills with dark green forests spread across them. There was little evidence of pony presence except for the occasional house our small town, and the string of power lines that cut through the fields and forests. Rainbow wasn’t in awe of the scenery, but it was nice in a rustic manner. At least it wasn’t as boring as the sky, which was covered by a thin layer of dull grey clouds that stretched on for miles. It was only broken up by the random breaks in the clouds, and the four other blue Phantoms, two on each wing, that were flying in formation with her in the lead. The F-4’s on her right were piloted by Halo 10 and Halo 2, and the others on the left were piloted by Vapors 5 and 6. A beep from the radio indicated that the squadron had reached the combat airspace. This was confirmed when Sky Eye began to speak. “30 miles to Rigley Air Base. Use the power lines to navigate southwest. The bombers should be clumped together on the ground. Take them all out.”

“Halo 10 here, copy that. Everypony, don’t be predictable in heading or altitude when the enemy closes in. Also don’t forget wing mate consideration during combat.”

“You heard the mare Vapor 5, stick to my wing and you’ll be fine.” Vapor 6 ordered.

“Pffft. Wing mates, who needs ‘em.” Rainbow Dash joked.

“Not all of us can fly in the insane manner you do Mobius 1. Don’t forget, we’re here for you too.” Halo 10 replied.

“Yeah I know. We’re in this together. We’ll nail ‘em and go back in no time flat.” Rainbow stated. Though she didn’t need any wing mates, she wasn’t a one pony air force either.

“Hey look down there.” Twilight said, catching the attention of the other pilots. “There’s a substation along the power lines.” Just like Twilight said, there was a substation a few miles ahead of them, just sitting out in the middle of one of the green fields.

“So?” Rainbow asked.

“Sooo. The power lines run to the base. If we take out the substation, we’ll knock out power to the base. They will be forced to use emergency power, and they won’t be able to respond as effectively.”

“Right… So you need me to blow it up?”

Twilight gave a loud sigh, before replying “Yes, Rainbow. I need you to blow it up.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? Arm the bombs!” Rainbow Dash said with a little too much excitement.

“Have you even dropped bombs before?” Twilight asked skeptically, though she suspected that she already knew the answer.

“No.” Of course not. “Not any real ones at least. I have trained with them though, and a building doesn’t really move. How hard could it be?”

With that said, the pilot dropped the nose of the F-4 and began a shallow dive towards the target. Twilight armed the UGBMs (UnGuided Bombs Medium), causing a circle to appear on Dash’s HUD. The reticule showed the pegasus where the bomb would land after being released allowing her maneuver the plane so that the circle was right over the building. As soon as it was over her target, she twitched her left hoof, causing the bomb to detach from the underside of the aircraft and sail through the air towards its target.

“Mobius 1, pickle.” Sky Eye stated, confirming the successful release of the bomb.

Just then, the enemy’s radar picked up the incoming fighter squadron. “Bogeys closing in on Rigley A.B. Scramble to intercept. This is not a drill, I repeat thi-sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh” A wave of static washed over the communication as the bomb obliterated the substation.

“Man that guy was annoying. See, I told you Twilight, no problem. You worry too much.” Rainbow Dashed boasted.

“Yes. Yes.” Twilight said dismissively “Your bomb dropping skills are truly remarkable.”

Rainbow was about to retort when a voice over the radio interrupted her. “Repeat this is not a drill. We’ve just lost all power. Backup generators are online, but the radar for the surface to air missiles is inactive. All fighters scramble at once. Intercept immediately.”

When the base mentioned fighters, Twilight looked down at her radar screen. She saw two yellow arrows approaching directly in front of them. Twilight looked up, but she didn't see any planes. They couldn't be below her, so that left only on other place. “Dash! We’ve got two bandits, twelve o’clock high.”

Rainbow Dash looked up in response to Twilight’s warning. At first all she saw were grey clouds and patches of sky. Then a glint of light caught her eye. Dash’s eyes snapped to the anomaly, and she spotted two fast moving shiny grey triangles moving across the sky. They seemed to ignore the lone fighter beneath them, instead flying to intercept the rest of the squadron. “Vapor, Halo. You’ve got bandits on the nose.” Rainbow told her squadron mates, who were flying far above and slightly behind her.

“Vapor 6 copies. All pilots prepare to engage.”

“Halo 10 here, No joy. I don’t see anything… Wait, got ‘em. Tally ho on two Prench F-5’s, bearing 225. Go on ahead Mobius 1, we can take them. We’ll join up with you once we splash these suckers.”

“Roger Halo 10, moving to attack the air base. Don’t take too long, or there won’t be any base left to attack.”

“With you in the skies, I have no doubt. Halo 10 engaging.” The other ISAF fighters repeated Halo 10’s status, as the flight merged with the enemy F-5’s. Meanwhile Rainbow sent her own fighter into afterburner towards the base. Flying at high speed, and low altitude, Rainbow would easily be able to get the jump on any of the base’s remaining defenders. As she flew towards the base, the pilot listened radio chatter from the dogfight, just in case they needed her help.

“Halo 10, get him off me.”

“Hold on Halo 2, I’m on his six. Break left on three. One… Two… THREE! Break! Halo 10, fox 2! Bandit down.”

“Miss! Miss! Miss!”

“Calm down Vapor 5. He’s turning too hard. Wait until he’s in gun range.”

“Alright, I’m closing in… Got him in my sights… Guns, guns, guns! I got him!”

“Great job Vapor 5; you’ll be an ace in no time.” Rainbow said to the victorious pilot.

“Rainbow Dash, I’ve got the base on radar.” Twilight said to Rainbow, causing the pilot to refocus on the task at hoof. “There are four bandits defending the airfield. We should probably focus on them first.”

“Any targeting radar from AA weapons?” The rainbow mare asked her unicorn weapons officer. She wasn’t too keen on relying on the enemy’s reports, just in case they knew the ISAF aircraft were listening in.

“Just four anti-aircraft guns. No SAMs or flak.”

“That won’t be a problem. Arm the sidewinders” The pegasus replied as she tilted the nose of the aircraft up to intercept. As the plane increased in altitude, Rainbow Dash was able to get a better view of Rigley A.B. A long back strip of asphalt ran perpendicular to her plane, with a network of white concrete roads branching off of it. The roads led to two slabs of concrete, one on each side of the runway, which had hangers for housing the fighters, though they appeared to be too small for bombers. On the closer, and larger, of the two ramps had a control tower built on top of it, and three Tu-95 bombers parked directly in front of the tower. Two hangers were located next to the left of the control tower, and three more bombers were located further to the left. To the far left, at the end and on the other side of the runway were three more bombers, which were parked in the grass. The last three were located on the far side of the runway all the way to the left, on the other concrete slab, next to three other hangers. A single AA gun was located at each of the four corners of the facility. The four fighters were spread out over the airspace around the field, indicating that they were probably not part of the same flights.

As Rainbow continued to climb, she noticed three more fighters emerging from the hangers near the control tower. “Twilight, rearm the bombs.”

“Why?” Twilight asked, confused by the odd instruction. “Aren’t we going to engage those fighters?”

“Yeah, in a minute. Three more bandits are preparing for takeoff. I’m going to deal with them before they become a problem.” Rainbow Dash replied as she began to pitch the nose down into a dive.

“But that will kill them!” Twilight protested.

“Well duh… that’s kinda the point.”

“No. I mean they’re defenseless. There is absolutely no chance for survival.”

“Good, that means they won’t have a chance to come back and bite us in the flank.”

“Rainbow! How could you say that! They’re still ponies.”

“Ponies that want to kill us! Twilight, you need to arm the bombs. I’m running out of altitude!" Rainbow shouted, growing increasingly annoyed with Twilight's resistance.

Twilight didn’t respond, but she begrudgingly armed the UGBs. She saw the ammo counter change from seven to six as Rainbow dropped one on the unsuspecting aircraft. With the COFFIN system, she watched the sinister black oval fall through the air, secretly hoping that Rainbow Dash had missed. To her misfortune, it didn’t, and the resulting explosion turned the airplanes, including the ponies inside them, into flying pieces of shrapnel.

The rest of the mission proceeded smoothly once Rainbow had finished off the rest of the base’s top cover. All the pilots must have been fresh out of flight school because it had been a simple matter of firing missiles at them. They poorly attempted to avoid the heat seeking missiles, but to no avail. With the fighters gone, Rainbow Dash effortlessly placed bombs in the middle of the cluster groups of bombers and air base facilities. The base had been wiped out by the time the rest of the 118th arrived, much to Halo 10’s disappointment. Now the pilots were back in the ready room listening to Spotlight’s debriefing. Rainbow didn’t pay much attention to it, something about how the attack was a success and that the air strike had been averted. She was more concerned with Twilight’s attitude toward her. The unicorn hadn’t spoken a word to her, not since she had destroyed those fighters on the ground. Once the briefing concluded and the two mares returned to their shared room, Rainbow confronted her weapons officer about her new code of silence.
“Twilight, what’s the matter with you?” The purple pony didn’t respond. Instead she began organizing random papers on the desk with her magic.

“Come on Twilight. Say something.”

“You killed them.” Twilight replied in a barely audible voice as she stopped moving the papers around, though she refused to face her roommate.

“What?”
Twilight spun around to face Rainbow Dash, with anger and tears in her eyes “You killed those ponies! They were defenseless! They didn’t pose a threat to you! How could you do something so inequine?!” Twilight shouted with fury.

Rainbow Dash was stunned by the unicorn’s sudden outburst, but only for a moment. Now she could feel her own anger rising as she retorted “Me! Inequine! What about that Prench bomber attacking the city just a few days ago! How’s that for inequine?! The ponies being bombed were pretty defenseless!”

“That doesn’t mean you should sink to their level. We need to be the better ponies.”

“I didn’t sink to their level. I killed soldiers, who, given the chance, would have just as gladly killed the both of us. The Prench bombed a city full of civilians because it was in the way! How does that make me the villain?!”

“I…” Twilight began before faltering. As much as she hated to admit it, Rainbow Dash was right. The fighters would have done the same to them given the chance. If Rainbow hadn’t done what she did, the fighters might have killed them right then and there. Rainbow Dash was good, but seven on one were long odds for most pilots. That didn’t make her actions right, just less wrong than the Prench. “You… your right. I’m sorry.”

Rainbow Dash blinked in surprise at this sudden turn of events. “What did you say?”

“I said that I’m sorry. I guess I overreacted. It’s just that… this isn’t what I signed up for. I never expected to be on the front lines.” Twilight said solemnly.

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, clearing away any remaining anger, before saying. “I don’t enjoy killing other ponies. I realize it isn’t the right thing to do, but neither is war. The Prench chose to attack us, our families, and our freedom. We need to defend these things by destroying their instruments of war, which includes there soldiers. I can’t say I’m sorry for what I did, but I can say that I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

Twilight took a moment to process what the cyan pegasus said, before repling with a ghost of a smile “When did you become so profound? Have you been reading?”

Rainbow smiled in response “Hah… yeah right, reading. Sooo...friends?”

“I guess.” Twilight said skeptically. “As long as you try not to do something like that again.”

“I would never do that unless it was absolutely necessary.” Rainbow Dash replied “I swear.”

The colt had continued to play in the bar, night after night, earning just enough money to sustain himself and his uncle. Each night was the same, one after another, until one night…

A colt stood in the midst of several army grunts, playing his harmonica for them to help raise their spirits and lighten their pockets. Suddenly the sound of vehicles rolling up to the building could be heard, which was quickly followed by several stallions storming into the bar. They ordered the grunts to get out, to which the grunts complained to one another as they reluctantly followed the command. The colt took cover in a shaded stairwell, far away from the new arrivals. Maybe the barkeeper had done something wrong, and these ponies where here to close down the bar. This proved not to be the case, as the new ponies situated themselves around the tables, and began to order drinks. As they began to settle down, the colt was able to recognize a patch on the vest of one of the ponies. It was the mark of the Prench air force.

Now that he looked back, he noticed that most of the new ponies were pegasi.

One of the ponies, a unicorn, began to write names on the far wall, followed by symbols that looked like poorly drawn planes. The colt couldn’t get a very good look, as the pegasi pilots began to crowd around the unicorn. Occasionally cheering would erupt from the crowd, which was soon followed by a toast and then heavy drinking. He couldn’t be sure of what they were saying, but one word stood out: Ace.

When cheering and drinking had subsided, the unicorn went on to his final announcement. “And now, for our leaders results.”

At first the colt thought that everypony had turned to look at him, but when he followed their collective gaze, he noticed a beige pegasus with a blonde mane, sitting in an odd manner, strumming a peculiar instrument. It was peculiar, not because the colt had never seen it before, but because it wasn’t an instrument ponies normally played. The instrument in question was a dark brown griffon made acoustic guitar. The only reason the colt could identify the foreign instrument was because his father had also learned to play it. The difference was that his father had been a unicorn, which, while difficult, allowed him to use magic to play it. This pegasus was using nothing but his hooves, and he was good at it too.

“Our Yellow 13 bagged three more today.”

That statement washed away any more thoughts about the pegasus’s guitar playing abilities. This stallion, just a few feet away, was the pony responsible for the death of his parents.

“Bringing his new tally up to 64 kills.”

The stallion looked up and smiled at the colt, seemingly ignoring the unicorn’s praise, and asked “Would you please join me on your harmonica?”

The colt was too shocked to decline, and slowly walked out of his sheltered spot, to take his place besides his parents’ murderer. Instinctively he brought the harmonica up to his lips as Yellow 13 started a new song. The colt’s eyes widened with recognition at the sound of his guitar. By some fluke the pony, whom he had searched for day after day, the one who had killed his parents, was now playing his father’s favorite song.

Hello everyone once again. As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, though, to be honest, I don't feel that it is as good as the previous ones. The mission isn't really all the exciting in the game, and I felt that going into detail about blowing up bombers would be boring, so that is why that part isn't really described. I skipped the debriefing for a similar reason, it didn't having anything to add. Also having the debriefing in every chapter would get repetitive. On the topic of the geography of Equestria, it is the same as the geography of Strangereal, with the same continent names. (for those who don't know, Strangereal is the alternate Earth on which Ace Combat takes place.) The difference is the name of countries. In the case of Solaria and Cloudsdale, they take the place of the country of Osea and November City. A map of Strangereal can be found below. The map is a little hard to read so here is a link to a larger version.

Blinding the Northern Eye

“Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Daaaaash!” Twilight called out, her voice echoing down the empty corridors of the Cloudsdale. After waiting for a few moments for a response that never came, she muttered to herself “Where is that pony?” Twilight had not seen the pilot all day and was beginning to worry for the pegasus’s well being. An aircraft carrier was an easy ship to get lost in, this Twilight knew from experience. “I’m sure she’s fine. She has been on the ship longer than I have.”

“Where in Equestria could she be?!” Twilight exclaimed, stomping her hoof on the metal floor, resulting in a resounding clang. She had checked the galley, the hanger, back at the room, all of the places she thought the rainbow maned pegasus could be and all in vain. One last place popped into her head, and its obviousness warranted a facehoof. “Of course! She’d be in the ready room!” With the sudden epiphany out of the way, Twilight began galloping full speed towards her new destination. Upon reaching the door, she threw open the door, hope in her violet eyes.

“Rainbow Dash I’ve…” She stopped in mid-sentence, the hope in her eyes extinguished, and instead replaced by a sheepish blush on her cheeks. Instead of a polychromatic pony greeting her, several pairs of unfamiliar eyes bore into her, all belonging to equally unfamiliar pegasi and unicorns. They sat at the far end of the room, near the screen most often used for briefings, and the occasional movie. There was an after action report on the screen. The white arrow, labeled Halo 10, was paused in mid turn, due to the fact that the unicorn controlling it had been interrupted. Several models of F-4’s, Mig-21’s, and F-5’s were floating or otherwise being held by the members of the group. With a moment to actually see who she had interrupted, and the hint on screen, she recognized these ponies as the members of Halo and Vapor flights; the pilots and WSO’s who flew with her and Dash five days ago. Unfortunately she knew them as a group rather than ponies, and couldn’t put names or call signs to faces.

An awkward silence reigned over the room, at least until a deep green pegasus stallion with a black mane decided that it had gone on long enough. “Sooo… You’re looking for Rainbow Dash?” he asked with unnecessary caution.

“Yeah…” Twilight replied. She regonized his voice from the radio. ‘He might be Halo 10 or Halo 2.’ She thought to herself. Deciding to hazard a guess in an attempt to improve relations, she asked “You’re Halo 10 right?”

The stallion looked incredulously at her, as if waiting for her to continue a joke. When everypony realized she was being serious, the other members of the group started to snicker. He turned and gave them a quick glare. One of the unicorns responded by saying “Hey it’s not our fault you sound like a mare over the radio.”

The green stallion responded with a very indignant “I do not!”

Now Twilight was thoroughly confused and she let everypony know with a “Huh?”

The stallion returned his attention to the confused unicorn in front of him and began to explain. “I am Camouflage Ripple, or Camo for short, and I am Vapor 6. That pegasus over there” he pointed to a silver mare with a white mane who gave a friendly wave “is Slipstream, and Halo 10. My ‘friends’ say that I sound like a mare when I talk over the radio, and unfortunately you added further support to their claims.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn't mean too.” Twilight responded meekly.

Camo gave a friendly smile “Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault my friends are jerks.”

Twilight was confused for a moment but shook it off. Other ponies were weird and it was best simply not to question it, though there was one question nagging her. “Why are you all playing with toy planes?”

Today was the day of indignity for Camo “Were not playing and they’re not toys. We are practicing our dogfighting by reviewing our performance during our last mission and acting out different responses.” Twilight opened her mouth to apologize again, but Camo cut her off. “Nope, no more of that. You’re new and you’re learning. Anyways, you wanted to know where Rainbow Dash is right?” Twilight nodded her head. “Well she was here helping us by giving us suggestions.”

Slipstream rolled her eyes’ “More like bragging”

“She became an ace on her first sortie. She’s earned some bragging rights.” Camo replied. He returned his attention to Twilight “She left a little while ago. I think she went topside.” Seeing that Twilight was about to ask another question, he responded “The flight deck.” Twilight nodded her head in understanding, and quickly left the briefing room to continue her pursuit.

Upon reaching the flight deck, the first thing she noticed was the cold. It was far colder than she remembered it being a few days ago. A quick check of the sun revealed it to be high in the sky, but sinking towards the left. Since it was about two o’clock that meant that the ship was heading north. A strong gust of wind brought her back to the task at hoof with a fur penetrating chill.

A quick check of the surrounding area showed several F-4’s placed around the edges of the flight deck, one of each member of the 118th. These planes were on standby, ready to be launched in the event of a Prench attack on the fleet. One of the fighters stood out, since it had a few ponies standing in front of it, one of which was cyan and had a rainbow mane.

“Rainbow Dash! Hey Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out, shivering as she approached.

“Oh hey Twilight.” Rainbow replied. She waited for the violet unicorn to join the group around the plane before continuing. “I was just speaking with the mechanics about our plane. They said that I put a lot of stress on the airframe. Oh well, you can’t curtail the awesomeness of my maneuvers.”

“Curtailed? That’s a pretty big word for you Rainbow.” Twilight said with mild surprise.

“Don’t be so shocked with my elevated dictionary. You’re going to hurt my feelings.”

“I think you mean diction.” Twilight replied, her surprise replaced with amusement.

“Diction, dictionary. They’re close enough.” Rainbow said, waving her hoof dismissively. “Anyways, what brings you here Twilight?”

“Well, when I woke up, I didn’t see you in the room. I waited for you awhile, but you never returned, so I thought you might have gotten lost.” Twilight could help but notice how silly her reasoning sounded when spoken aloud.

“As you can see, I’m not lost. I mean come on Twilight, we’ve been on this ship for almost a month. I think I can manage to not get lost at this poi…” Rainbow stopped and gave the unicorn a worried look. The mare next to her was not just visibly shivering, she was shaking uncontrollably. “Uh… Are you OK?”

“Jjjuusstt a lllllittle coldddd.” Twilight responded as sarcastically as she could through chattering teeth.

Rainbow Dash looked around as if she had just noticed that the air wasn’t at room temperature. “Yeah I guess it is a little cold.”

“Hhhow are youuu nnoot bottheredd by thisss?” Twilight asked with disbelief, her shivering getting worse.

“Well, where I am from, this would be dangerously warm.”

“Whu whu where in Eeequestria dddid youu lllive? A glacier?”

“No, Cyrricuse, and don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little. It’s not even below freezing.”

“Iii am nottt over reacting. Iiitt never gettts this colddd in Comona.”

“Where?”

“Comona. Youuu kkknow. Southern mosttt parrrt of Usea. Dirrrectly soutttth of Commberth Haaarborr.”

“ Doesn't ring a bell”

“Home to Riass Space Center, the facility that sent the first pony into orbit, and Comona University, the place that discovered Ulysses and calculated its impact time and location.” Rainbow just shook her head. Twilight let out a heavy sigh. Her excitement had made her temporarily forget the cold, but now it returned in full force. Luckily neither of them would be standing outside for much longer. A call came over the ship’s intercom.

“All members of the 118th report to the briefing room immediately.”

“Anything to gettt out of thissss collddd.” Came Twilight’s relieved reply.

“Ah, you’re just a wuss.” Rainbow said as she jumped ahead of Twilight in her eagerness to get back in the air.

“And you’re just a freak.” Twilight’s mouth moved before her brain had processed the thought. Upon realizing what she had just said, Twilight instantly regretted her choice of words. Regret quickly became worry. ‘What if I hurt Rainbow’s feelings? What if she decides to hurt me?’ Rainbow’s reply quickly washed away her unreasonable fears.

“Ha! If by freak you mean freaking awesome.”

Twilight couldn’t help but think back to what Slipstream had said. Maybe that mare was on to something. Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed that Rainbow had asked her something. She could only thing of one response to a question she hadn't heard. “What?”

“I said: How did you know about Cyrricuse?” Rainbow Dash repeated her question, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Oh, I read about it.” Twilight’s shivering had stopped upon entering the heated corridors of the Cloudsdale, of which she was incredibly thankful for.

“You just read about it?” Rainbow asked, her muzzle twisted in confusion in an attempt to comprehend such a foreign concept.

“Well yeah, it holds the world records for highest elevation of any city and the coldest average temperature. I suppose it makes sense that you’re used to the cold since you lived there.”

“Why would anypony want to read about something like that?”

“Because reading is fun.” Twilight replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Rainbow Dash looked at the purple unicorn with a look of complete bewilderment; reading and fun were two words that had absolutely no relation to each other. “And you thought I was a freak.” The cyan mare muttered just loud enough for Twilight to hear.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?!” Twilight responded, sounding more offended than she actually was. It was well known that Rainbow didn’t like to be associated with anything related to intelligence that wasn’t somehow related to flying. “When you grow up at Comona University, books tend to be a major part of your life.”

“You actually lived at a university?” Rainbow asked with completely genuine shock. Who had ever heard of a pony living their entire lives at school?

“Yep” the unicorn responded with a certain air of smugness. “My fath…” Twilight began to explain before she was cut off by a shout from behind her and her pilot.

“Hey! Where do you two think you’re going?!” The pair turned around to find that a light grey pegasus stallion with a white mane was the cause of the commotion. Twilight recognized him as the pegasus who had interrupted Spotlight after their first mission, and the one who had suggested that they launch a hoofball of the carrier. ‘I should probably ask Rainbow Dash how that went’ Twilight thought to herself.

“Hey Cloud Striker! What’s up?” Rainbow asked.

The stallion replied with a smirk on his face “What’s up? You two just waltz by the ready room as if nothing’s going on is what’s up. Where are you two going?”

“If you must know…” Twilight began, obvioiusly annoyed at having been interrupted. “… we were going to get our flight suits on.”

“Psssh, don’t worry about that. You can get them after the briefing. Now come on, everypony is waiting on you two.” Without waiting for a response, Cloud Striker darted back inside.

Twilight rolled her eyes at the Cloud Striker’s impatient behavior, but Rainbow’s eagerness got the better of her. “Let’s go Twilight! We’ll get the suits later.” The purple pony responded with a heavy sigh. She hated being be late, but she despised being unprepared.

“Ok, everypony present and accounted for?” Came the booming voice of Spotlight. He had taken up his normal position in front of the crowd of aviators. The ponies before him looked around at each other before giving nods of confirmation. “Good let’s get this briefing underway.” His horn flared brightly, causing the screen to come to life with its normal intro sequence of the ISAF symbol. There was one addition though. Spotlight had noticed that ponies, one prismatic pony in particular, would nod off or otherwise become distracted. To help combat this, he had asked permission to play music over the speakers, which were normally used for movies. The change of pace had the desired effect, and the entire room became noticeably more alert. Spotlight grinned inwardly at the success of his plan but maintained his stoic expression. After all, appearances are everything.

“I’m afraid that I have some bad news. The remaining allied forces on the mainland are retreating.” He waited a moment to let the news sink in. Thought the pilots remained silent, they had also become noticeably grimmer. “The survivors are gathering at the northern port of St. Ark.” With a quick though, Spotlight made the date and time appear, highlighting the location while doing so. 1620hrs. 10 October 2004 appeared on screen, just as it should. “However the radar facilities atop Mt. Shezna…” recalling the strategic map he had memorized a few short hours ago, he made a new red square appear, labeled Mt. Shezna Radar Base with a ring around it, symbolizing the radar’s range. “…Provide tactical support to the enemy. As a result, our evac mission is in jeopardy. If we can successfully evacuate our troops to North Point, they will become a fearsome fighting force in future battles. In order to accomplish this it we have created operation White Out. It has been decided that the 118th will be split into two groups. The first will join up with forces from the Ark Angel. From there they will launch a feint attack on the forces pressuring our retreating units. The hope is that this will draw fighters away from Mt. Shezna and make it easier for the second group to knock out the radar facilities. Omega, Rapier, Halo, and Vapor will make up group one. Mobius and Viper, you will make up group two.”

A cyan hoof shot up immediately after he finished his sentence, just has the yellow unicorn had predicted. Before he could acknowledge her, Rainbow Dash began to voice the complaint he knew she would have.

“How come we have to go on the boring mission?! I mean a strike mission?! Really! Who came up with that stu…” Rainbow’s rant came to an abrupt end when a haze of purple magic snapped her mouth shut.

“Sir, I think what Rainbow is trying to say…” Twilight began in a far more diplomatic tone while her pilot glared at her “is that her talents would probably be more useful in an air to air intercept rather than an air to ground strike mission.”

Spotlight couldn’t help but blink in surprise at the impressive recovery, but he quickly composed himself and replied tactfully “Your concern is duly noted Lieutenant Sparkle, but the objective of the first strike group to lure the enemy away; not to engage them.” His words were directed more towards the cause of the disturbance. “It is more likely that the second strike force will encounter aerial threats that require engagement, and we cannot send a large escort force since it will increase the chance of detection by the radar facility. A small force with one very effective escort will have a higher chance of success.” Rainbow nodded approvingly despite the magic encasing her muzzle. “That, and we don’t need a hot headed pilot getting caught up in a dogfight and forcing the rest of the squadron to engage as well.” Rainbow was understandably less pleased with this reason. “Oh and Lieutenant Sparkle, I believe you can relieve Lieutenant Dash of her restraints now.” The unicorn nodded, allowing her horn to cease glowing and the magic to dissipate. Rainbow used her new found freedom to stretch her mouth as if she had been muzzled for days causing Twilight to roll her eyes at Rainbow’s exaggerated antics. Spotlight allowed himself a small smile before he reminded himself of the possible severity of the situation. “I believe she has learned her lesson, isn’t that correct Lieutenant Dash? There is no room for insubordination when our situation is in such a desperate state.”

“I have learned my lesson sir!” Rainbow Dash obediently responded with a salute. “I'll do whatever it takes to ensure ISAF's victory.”

“Good to hear Lieutenant. Are there any other questions or concerns?” Spotlight looked around the room but nopony moved. “Good. You are all dismissed.”

From the cockpit of his brown and green F-4 Phantom he could see the beautiful snow capped mountains of the Shezna mountain range. The valleys and peaks that surrounded him were covered with a perpetual blanket of white snow only broken up by the dark grey crag of the steeper slopes. The sun cast enormous shadows across the eastern side of the peaks, giving entire slopes a bluish tint. To the south, he could see a small fountain of steam rising from Ephemeris Crater, though it was only small because of the distance. Up close both the fountain of steam and the crater were massive. Though there was no precedent of the Shezna mountain range being volcanically active, the amount of steam that came out of the crater combined with the fact that there was no snow in it would suggest otherwise. The scenery never failed to leave him in awe, even though he saw it every day while on duty. His radio suddenly sparked to life, surprising the Prench fighter pilot.

“Red 9, this is Shezna Radar One. Do you read?” The pilot recognized the voice of one of the Shezna radar facility's many operators. He had been stationed here for three months to ensure that it could continue to monitor the retreating ISAF forces, and provide his own with important strategic and tactical information along with early warning capabilities for the forces on the ground and in the air.

“Red 9 here, I copy.” He replied has he had many time before.

“We have five unidentified bogies on radar. They’re approaching on vector 135 about twelve miles out. Go out there and get a visual I.D. We don’t want to cause a panic with a false alarm. Our forces are still chasing the ISAF aircraft that attacked further south”

“Roger Shezna Radar One. Vectoring in.” the Prench pilot answered, though only questions occupied his mind. ‘The ISAFAF was launching an assault on the troops to the south so it was unlikely to be the enemy…’ The pilot thought to himself ‘…but any Prench formation should have at least one aircraft with an operational IFF. Even more confusing was the fact that it was a five plane formation. He could only think of one group that chose to fly a five plane formation, Prench or ISAF, and that was Aquila squadron, better known as Yellow squadron. That had to be it. Yellow Squadron had to be on a secret mission, and perhaps they were returning for ammo or fuel. It would certainly explain why their IFF’s were off. Having convinced himself that the approaching force was friendly, he quickly closed the distance, eager to see the Yellow squadron.

As the distance between him and the unknown force diminished, so too did his hopes. While he couldn’t make out the markings on the planes yet, the HUD had put up the green targeting squares around the five aircraft, and it was easy to see that they were not flying a five plane formation. In fact, the bogeys had divided themselves into three groups. Two groups had two planes and the third was just a single aircraft. Whoever it was, it was most certainly not Yellow squadron, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that he recognized the formation from somewhere. Somepony had recently spoken to him about it, but who was it and where were they from? He thought hard for a few seconds while the distance continued to close, desperately trying to remember. Somehow he knew it was critical.

The epiphany hit him at the same time the aircraft’s systems detected the missile lock. Rigley was the last thought that passed through his head before the warning became an alert and thought gave way to fear, instinct, and training. His Phantom was moving too fast and was not nearly maneuverable enough even attempt to evade the missile, which only left one option. He looked down at the red handle between his outstretched forelegs, grabbed it with his teeth, and pulled. The calmness of a pressurized cockpit gave way to the roar of 500 knot winds as the canopy was blown away from the fuselage. The pilot felt the control cradle around him force his legs out of flight position and back into the normal standing position before he too was ejected from his doomed F-4, along with his WSO, who had remained as unresponsive as ever.

The now pilotless Phantom continued diligently on it course as drag chutes built into the control cradle and ejection chair increased the distance between pony and plane. Moments later the green and brown fighter was consumed in a ball of fire that immediately began to plummet towards the mountains below. The pilot was sad to see his plane go, but he was happier to be alive.

The drag chute on the ejection seat immediately opened the parachute for the WSO, but the control cradle containing the pilot continued to slow down to a safer speed before it suddenly fell to pieces, releasing the pegasus and allowing him the freedom of flight. Had he been injured, he could have activated a parachute, but in this case there was no need.

The roar of jet engines brought the Prench pony’s eyes to the sky above him. He could now clearly the customary blue fuselage and white underbelly of an ISAF Phantom as it rolled on its side to rejoin the rest of its squadron. As it rolled, he could just barely see the symbol on its tail. From his brief glance, it looked like a ribbon being twirled. “Great.” he thought to himself “I got shot down by a ribbon.”

Rainbow Dash was smiling to herself within her F-4’s cockpit. That marked her 9th kill if she didn’t count the three fighters and several bombers she’d bombed at Rigley. In order to take out the lone fighter, she had shot ahead of Viper flight, much to the chagrin of its flight leader, and now she had to slow down to fall back into formation. A voice came over the radio as she rejoined the rest of her squadron.

“This is Shezna Radar 1. Bandits approaching, vector 135. All fighters engage hostile aircraft and keep them from the radar.”

“Well, there goes the element of surprise.” A mare’s voice came over the radio with obvious malice. Rainbow rolled her eyes at the sound of Viper 3’s voice. As soon as the briefing ended, Viper’s flight leader did little to hide that she was upset by the fact that she was being “foalsat by some upstart filly.” From that point on, Dash had known that flying with her was going to be a pain in the flank and so far her suspicions had been correct. “Was it really necessary to shoot down that insignificant fighter?”

“Well you see Viper 3, that insignificant fighter is one less fighter I have to keep from shooting you down.” Rainbow Dash shot back.

“Maybe, if we flew lower and used the terrain to hide us from the radar, we could have it hit the first radar facility before they knew what was happening.” Viper 3 snapped back. “Besides, I wouldn’t trust you to keep a balloon in the air and I most certainly wouldn’t trust you with my plane.”

“If we tried to fly in low, we’d get bounced from above by the patrols as soon as we attacked, and then my hooves would be tied trying to shoot down all of those insignificant fighters. Betcha didn’t think of that.” Dash retorted smugly.

Viper 3, known as Bricktough on the ground, frowned to herself. She had not thought of that and it bothered her that some new pilot did. It bothered her even more that this filly just out of flight school who acted like a naive airhead half the time had such amazing tactical sense, right before entering battle no less. It infuriated her when Rainbow though she could give her, a veteran of over four years of combat and countless sorties, advice. Bricktough could feel rage bubbling up, but before she could unleash a scathing remark, another pony who really ruffled her feathers spoke, one under her command.

“Mares, mares, chill out. If you don’t now, I’m sure the snow will later after you both get shot down.” Said an overly relaxed voice said over the radio. Only one pony had the audacity to speak to superiors in such a manner.

“I believe Spotlight has already spoken to you about you tone when speaking to superior officers Viper 7.”

“Everypony cut the chatter now! This combat area is within enemy airspace, so keep an eye out for bandits.” Sky Eye intervened, bringing the argument to an end.

“Yes sir.” Viper 3 responded, and immediately switched into command mode. She opened up the strategic radar map and glanced over it, forming a plan. There were two separate clusters of red which representing the radar facilities along with several yellow dots representing the enemy fighters. There were more fighters located in-between the two facilities ready to add additional protection to either. “Viper 4 you’re with me. We’ll sanitize the airspace above the farther radar stations. 7 and 9, go and attack the closer one. Once that is destroyed, join up with me and 4 and we’ll mop up the rest. We’ll split the defenders. They won’t know who to attack until it’s too late. Mobius 1, I expect both of my squadron mates to join back up with me after they’re done.” Even though Brick out ranked Rainbow, her escort had not been placed under her command, so she couldn’t give her a direct order in the presence of Sky Eye. However, Viper 3 could imply threateningly.

“Alright sheesh, don’t get your tail in a knot.” Came the disrespectful reply of the cyan pegasus. Her fellow pilot’s disrespectful tone made her want to shove a hoof through the radio set. Fortunately for the radio, the control cradle prevented any movement, so Brick was forced to only glare at it. After a few moments, she took a deep breath. Getting angry wasn’t going to get the mission accomplished, and no matter how much she wanted to throw Rainbow over the side of the carrier, a small part of her would always remind her that Storm Surge might just be right. Dash was certainly better than any rookie should be.

“So what’s the plan Mobius 1? You’ve got a plan right?”

“Of course I do Viper 7.” Rainbow Dash reassured Cloud Striker, who was now on her right wing. Viper 7 and 9 had formed up around her and now they were vectoring in towards the first radar station. “It’s a simple plan. I’ll go in first and engage the enemy fighters. Once I have them tied up, you and Viper 9 swoop in and destroy the radar facilities. After that, you two can help me mop up the fighters if there are any left.”

“Sounds good to me. Any idea where the arrays will be at? I’d hate to attack the wrong side of the mountain.”

Dash didn’t reply, mostly because she didn’t have a clue as to where the arrays would actually be located. Sure the radar gave a general location, but it didn’t help with topography, or in the case of aircraft, elevation. Fortunately for her somepony else did have a clue.

“The arrays will be on top of the ridge. They’d have to be there to get the best coverage.” Twilight answered as if it was to most obvious thing in the world.

“Roger that. It’s good to have somepony who knows there stuff. Hey, Viper 9, looks like we should attack from above. That sound good to you?”

“Yeah.” Came a bored voice over the radio that Rainbow didn’t recognized.

“Ya know, I'm really glad we can have these chats Viper 9. Go get 'em Mobius 1. We’ll be ready.”

Rainbow looked to her left and watched Viper 7’s aircraft pitch up and start climbing. The blue F-4 quickly passed out of her field of view. Satisfied that everything was prepared, she increased her throttle. Her fighter responded, accelerating towards the radar station at near supersonic speed.

“Hey Twilight, what are we up against?”

The WSO quickly looked down and checked the radar display. “Two bandits at twelve o’clock, 8 miles out. It looks like there moving to engage us. There is also another bandit above the radar station 12 miles away.”

As soon as Twilight finished, two green squares appeared on her HUD, identifying the bandits as a pair of F-5E’s. “Got it, I see them now. Mobius 1, engaging.”

Rainbow armed her Sidewinders and waited for the two aircraft to come into ranger. The two fighters rapidly closed the distance until suddenly one was highlighted red. Simultaneously, her HUD began to give a warning, alerting her to the enemy’s radar lock.

“Mobuis 1, fox 2!” Rainbow Dash declared as she launched a pair of missiles towards one of the F-5’s, while pulling back and rolling over, avoiding any return fire that her opponents might send her way. Her Phantom sailed over the F-5’s as one of the two burst into flames.

“Blue 5, eject!” came a shout over the radio, confirming her kill, but there was no time to bask in her success. Her eyes continued to track the other Tiger until it was too far behind her to see. Rainbow stopped her roll and preformed a Split-S, once again bringing the enemy into view. The F-5 was breaking left in an attempted to face her again. She wouldn’t give it the chance. With her added speed from the loss in altitude and a little more throttle she quickly closed the distance before her opponent could come all the way around. She fired another pair of missiles, forcing the enemy to either slow down and turn harder or join his companion. Just as she thought he slowed down allowing Rainbow the quickly close in. With the distance rapidly closing, she angled her wings backwards, causing her aircraft to throttle down and deploy its air breaks, lest she overshoot the enemy. Now Rainbow was right on top of him.

“Bandit’s in gun range.” Skyeye’s voice sounded over the radio. Sure enough the circular pipper had appeared on her HUD. Dash continued to decelerate as she matched, opponent’s turning radius. As soon as the pipper encompassed the enemy aircraft, she lit it up with her gun. A good two second burst and the enemy plane caught fire.

“Damn! It’s no use. I’m hit!” A voice sounded over the radio. Now Rainbow Dash could take a moment to smile smugly to herself before moving on to destroy the final fighter. “Hey Twilight, where’s the last one?”

“Ten o’clock high, 7 miles away.” Twilight responded after a quick look at her radar screen. “It looks like he’s moving to intercept Viper 7 and 9.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Rainbow Dash replied as her aircraft banked left until it faced the desired direction. Rainbow’s wings tilted backwards and the F-4’s elevators mimicked the pilot’s movements. With a healthy dose of afterburner the Phantom started to climb up towards its new target. As Dash closed in, the HUD identified the plane as another F-4.

“He’s probably that lone fighter’s wingmate.” She idly though to herself. A moment passed before she realized what she had thought of and quickly banished the notion with a shake of her head. The aircraft in front of here was the enemy. There was no room for any other thoughts otherwise she would end up like Twilight; afraid to do what had to be done. With the moral dilemma out of the way, Rainbow Dash returned her focus to the aircraft. It had not yet made any move in response to the cyan pilot’s presence. Dash passed under the opposing plane, pulled back until she was inverted and rolled over, positioning herself right behind the enemy F-4. It had still not made any move to evade her. Dash almost started to wonder why until she reminded herself that it didn’t really matter. She would never be certain as to why it acted like the way it did, but she was certain that if she shot at it, she’d destroy it. A few moments and two missiles later, Rainbow Dash proved that certainty correct once again, marking her fourth kill of the day.

“Thanks for clearing the skies Mobius 1. Now it’s our turn.” Viper 7 announced over the radio. Rainbow began to scan the skies around her, look for a blue fighter or a blue box that marked it as a friendly. Her eyes picked up on two blue boxes, both rocketing downwards in a steep dive towards the mountain ridge. A few seconds later, both fighters pulled out of their dives, and banked left leaving several black specks careening towards the ground. The domes of the radar stations were enveloped in fiery death as the 1000lb bombs impacted their intended targets.

“Radar, do you copy?”

“Shezna Radar 1 has gone silent!”

“Alright Viper 9, we got ‘em. Sky Eye, this is Viper 7 we are moving to engage the second radar station.”

Before Sky Eye could respond, Viper 3’s voice cut in. “That’s a negative Viper 7, we haven’t cleared the skies yet.”

Now Sky Eye chose to speak. “Viper 3, be advised, you’ve got four more bandits on vector 050, 12 miles. They’re moving to engage you.”

“My hooves are tied at the moment Sky Eye. We can’t handle anymore fighters over here.” Viper 3 replied.

Rainbow decided that it was time to speak up. “Mobius 1 here, I’ll intercept the bandits. Viper 7 and 9, go help Viper 3."

“That’s crazy! Even you can’t take on four fighters by yourself!” Viper 7 protested.

“There is no point trying to prove you’re the best if it’s going to get you killed.” Viper 3 stated with a coldness that could rival the mountains around her.

“This isn’t about proving myself.” Rainbow countered. “If we fail here, then he ground forces will get wiped out and ISAF will have nothing to counter attack with. Sky Eye, give me an intercept vector.”

“Roger Mobius 1. Changing you’re heading to 285 and move to intercept. Good luck.”

“Uhh, Rainbow? are you sure this is a good idea?” Twilight asked with a quiver of fear in her voice.

“No. I’m not sure. But that doesn’t matter. The mission comes first.” Rainbow Dash replied with a surprising amount of maturity. Unfortunately, it did little to alleviate Twilight’s growing fear. A fear that Rainbow Dash shared. While she tried to sound calm, Rainbow Dash could feel her stomach tie itself into knots as she turned her aircraft to intercept the enemy. As her F-4 closed in, Rainbow realized just how unafraid she had felt compared to the way she felt now. Her HUD now indicated that the four bandits were all F-16’s. For once in her short military career, Rainbow Dash had absolutely no hope. The Fighting Falcon was faster, more maneuverable, and overall better in every way compared to her meager F-4. The coming dogfight would be more of a test of the enemy’s lack of skill rather than a test of her own.