The Stranded Pilot

Maverick's grin widened as Frederic levitated over a map of the local area. On it was the clearing with the airfield, to the north was Ponyville, and west of Ponyville was Sweet Apple Acres. An area had been circled roughly 5kms south of the apple orchard, and 3kms West of the airfield.

"Alright, that's the mission area. 1km across, that's where you test the weapons. I've set up paper targets and I've got something sort of like pH paper to test the magic radius. You know what pH paper is?" Frederic turned to the pilot.

"Yeah, put water on it, it changes colour depending on how much acid or alkaline there is. But how does that help?"

"It's not actual pH paper, just like it," Frederic explained. "It's a sort of magic equivalent. The paper dyes purple when it comes into contact with magic, so we'll be able to measure the 'blast' radius accurately. And for your cannon I've got some paper targets set up."

"How do we test the paralysation?" Maverick asked.

"We need an actual pony to get hit by the spell." Frederic admitted. "And I somehow don't think the Guards are going to line up to be test dummies."

"If only we had somepony with a talent for being a test subject." Maverick commented.

"Yeah. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find someone. Meanwhile, you should get ready. Have you flown since you got turned into a pony?" Frederic asked as he rolled the map up and put it down on the table.

"Well, no." Maverick said.

"Go see if you can still use the controls then."

"Alright. Get the payload prepped." Maverick said and turned to leave.

"Hold on!" Frederic held up a hoof and Maverick stopped. The unicorn hovered over what appeared to be a glove of some kind. It was made of rubber and had a mostly flat end, except for a slightly curved rubber nub about an inch long.

"What's this for?" Maverick asked as Frederic's magic fitted the glove onto his hoof.

"I'm guessing you won't be able to hit the buttons or the trigger without hands. This should help. "

Maverick nodded, trotted out of the tent and flew over to the hangar. Frederic had built an automatic door for the hangar, so all Maverick had to do was hit a button. As the doors slid slowly open, the lights flickered on.

"Don't know how you managed this Iron Clad." Maverick called back to the engineer, hiding the Royal Engineer's real name from the Guards.

"Simple." he called back from inside the tent. "Hit the button and the doors open and the lights come on, hit it again and the doors close and the lights go out."

"Simple." Maverick muttered. He flew up to the open cockpit and moved the helmet to the rear seat and lowered himself in. Dash's cloned helmet had disappeared, being only a temporary copy.

"Alright, let's try this." Maverick muttered again. Using his new finger-glove, he hit the main power switch and smiled at the sound of power pulsing through the aircraft. He tested the flaps as Frederic wheeled over a trolley with the mission's payload: around three dozen magical bullets, three dozen plain, and finally the bomb he had dissected for Maverick.

"Do you know how to load those?" Maverick asked.

"Yeah. Do you have a map?" he asked as he picked up the bomb with his magic.

Maverick looked back at the seat where he had put his helmet. The map from the last time he had flown was rolled up and sat in the foot-well. He reached behind and grabbed it. "Got it." he unravelled it and looked over it. The airfield had been marked on in grey, and it didn't take long for him to find the field the targets had been set up in. His flight plan was simple: take it slow and easy until he had adjusted to flying with hooves and give Frederic time to get to the field, then, if it was going well, he could test the weapons.

There was a satisfying clunk as Frederic attached the bomb to the wing. Maverick looked over at the unicorn. "Good job. I'm going to check it, get ready to catch it."

"Wait, what do you-" Maverick cut him off with a mechanical clunk as he released the bomb. As predicted, the clamps holding the metal cylinder in place released and it dropped. Frederic caught it just before it hit the ground.

"Good, you know how to load it right." Maverick smirked.

"Damn it Maverick, don't do that again." Frederic said as he set the bomb down on the trolley.

"Had to make sure. Now, pre-flight checks…" Maverick muttered.

The fighter rolled out of the hangar under the influence of Frederic's magic. He had plans for two electrical winches that would pull the fighter out of the hangar and back in respectively, but he had been concentrating on finishing the weapons. The fighter stopped rolling when it was pointing down the runway and Maverick heard a tapping to his right. He looked down to see Frederic.

"Are you ready to roll?" Frederic asked.

"Not quite. The oxygen mask won't fit over my muzzle. Twilight used magic to extend the other one so it would fit Dash."

"Yeah, one second." Fredric said. "Hold up the mask. Do you know that spell?"

Maverick did so, and it lit up with the whitish grey colour of Frederic's magic. It extended as promised and Maverick managed to clip it onto his helmet.

"Alright, are you good to go?" Fredric asked through the radio.

"Yeah, I'm good. Tell the Guards to stand clear of the engines." Maverick warned him.

"Will do."

Maverick heard Frederic start shouting as he closed the canopy and locked it in place. Looking back Maverick saw the Guards respond and clear the immediate area. He looked at Fredric, who was now standing at the workshop entrance, and waved his hoof in a circle, indicating take-off. He started the turbines and powered the heating coils. The noise from the aircraft increased and he felt the machine roll forwards gently. He pushed the throttle full down and the runway started to blur.

"Alright, gently now." he muttered to himself. He pulled back gently on the stick and the plane responded by lifting its front wheel off the stone runway and into the air. The rest of the fighter soon followed.

"How are you holding up with the glove?" Frederic asked.

"I'm doing alright. It's harder to hold the stick with the it, but like you said I can't use anything else without it." Maverick replied, gently and slowly banking the Lightning and turning back towards the clearing in a wide arc.

"Good. I'm heading to the clearing with a couple of Guards and a doctor in case something goes wrong. Give us five minutes."

"Alright, I'll be there." Maverick confirmed and blasted over the airfield just metres above the trees.

"Was that really necessary?" Frederic asked after a few seconds.

"Completely." Maverick replied. "Now, I'm going to go practise flying this thing with hooves." he banked it to the left to avoid going over Ponyville and alarming the ponies of the town. Banking to the left was easy, as his hoof was to the right of the stick, but banking back the other way was harder, because he had to grip the stick. Somehow it was possible to hold things with just the flat of his hoof, as long as they were relatively small or light. He was damned if he could figure out how, but just trying too seemed to make it work. It worked with shoes of any kind on, and with the glove as well, but it was more difficult than without.

Maverick banked hard to the left, turning south. He didn't push the fighter to the limits he knew it could handle, because he doubted he could pull it back until he'd mastered hoof-work. He tried to level it out again, but the stick slipped out of his grasp. He grabbed it quickly with both hooves and straightened the machine safely. He wiped his brow. That could have gone badly.

He looked up and took his bearings. To his right were the outer reaches of Applejacks land, quickly disappearing, and in the distance beyond a mountain range. To his left, a bank of clouds that had probably assembled by a weather patrol.

That was what made flying the Lightning troublesome. Air traffic was always busy, with weather patrols or pegasi just flying through the sky. And after a couple days of weather patrol and finding out how difficult it was to pile up clouds, he didn't want to burden the other pegasi by blasting through the clouds and blowing them apart.

A cyan blue blur brought his attention back to the flight. A certain rainbow-maned pegasus was flying alongside him. He waved his free hoof in greeting and she responded by changing direction and firing off towards the ground like a cannon shot towards the airfield. Maverick shook his head and continued towards the test field. As if by magic, he passed over the last area of forest and saw a field littered with stuff, mostly what appeared to be ponies. Flying over them revealed them to be the paper targets Frederic had put down, each propped up with a wooden stake to stop them blowing over in the wind. Behind them was a massive white circle, about the size of a normal Ponyville building. That was the magic detecting paper Maverick guessed.

"All right Frederic, I just passed over the clearing. I'll keep circling until you get over here."

"No need, we're just coming out of the woods now." That was fast, Maverick thought to himself. "A pegasus named Rainbow Dash is here, she says she knows you." Frederic added.

"Yeah, she's cool."

"Alright. She says you owe her a race."

Maverick chuckled. "Tell her she can have one when we're done with this." Maverick did a barrel roll so he could see the ponies below him walk across the field.

"Nice moves fly boy." Rainbow Dashes voice came across the radio.

"I've just performed the spell on Rainbow Dash. It's temporary, though." Frederic said.

"Nice one Frederic. So, are we ready to go? I think I've got using hooves down to fly down now. Might take a little longer to master expert aeronautical manoeuvres though."

"Alright, if you're so eager to shoot something you can start taking down those dastardly paper targets. You've got forty rubber rounds, then forty paralyses rounds. And try not to miss; it takes half a second to fire those bullets and ten minutes to make them. Each."

"Will do. Or won't." Maverick turned again to head towards the field.

After a few minutes he'd completed the turn and was flying back towards the field. He let off the thrust and lined up the HUD's crosshair with the first paper target. Time seemed to slow as he twisted his hoof forward so the extended nub on the glove brushed the trigger as the adrenaline rush prepared him for what was coming. A massive bang ensued, subpar with an explosion, followed by a tiny black dot and a wisp of white smoke shooting forward ahead of the aircraft. The small metallic whine of the mechanism reloading preceded another bang and the process repeated.

After that he released the trigger and stamped on the rudder pedal, gentling turning to the right. As the crosshair traced another target, he tapped the trigger and another three shots rang out.

"Buck that's loud!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

Maverick had to agree, despite being mostly protected from the sound by the craft. He strafed his fire across the field, tapping the trigger whenever the crosshair crossed a white outline, leaving just more than a couple of dozen smoke trails from the slightly burnt rubber. He'd traced at least ten targets with his cannon fire. He fired one last burst of three shots at the last target, but raised his eyebrow raised as the target fell over.

"Maverick, you just hit one of the guards." Rainbow Dash said.

"Uh, oops?" Maverick said. "Not my fault; he was in the way of the bullet. Is he alright?" Maverick asked seriously.

"Yeah, he's fine. He's going to be bruised and not too happy, but fine." Frederic said. Maverick banked the plane and pulled up so he could look back. Frederic was helping the guard to his hooves. When he was done, Frederic trotted over to the paper targets and the started checking them over as the guard limped over to his comrades.

"Hey, at least we know the rubber rounds work." Maverick reasoned. "How did I do?"

"Well, you shot this guy in the chest and rear right leg… you hit this one in the head, ouch… ooh, you hit this guy in the one place a stallion doesn't want to be hit… yeah, not bad, eleven out of fifteen targets I think."

"Alright then, am I ready to test the paralysation rounds?" Maverick asked.

"Sure. I was going to suggest you use the last rubber rounds on a live target, but you beat me to it. Come back around and fire a couple of rounds to use up the rest of the rubber ones."

"Gotcha." Maverick spun the jet and fired the rest of the rounds into the field, well away from the ponies. The last shot glowed a whitish grey. Maverick had reached the paralysation rounds.

"Alright, I've got the magic rounds." Maverick told Frederic.

"Roger. I've sent one of the guards across the field."

"Does he know he's about to get shot?" Maverick asked as he lined up the crosshair with the stallion across the field.

"Nope." Rainbow Dash said.

"Righty-o." Maverick said and tapped the trigger. Two of the whitish pellets shot forward and hit the pony in the side. With each hit a small magical circle rippled out across his body. Maverick saw the pony slump forward, unmoving. He sped up and flew overheard as Frederic and the doctor ran over to his target.

"Did it work?" Maverick asked.

"We're assessing the damage now." came Frederic's response. Maverick banked and circled along the edge of the field while the doctor went to work. After a minute Fredric radioed in with a result.

"He's fine except for a bump on the head where he fell. And except for his eyes, he's completely unable to move. The spell works." Frederic confirmed. "That means we're ready for the final test."

"Roger that. I'm lining up for a run now." Maverick said as he pulled up to gain height and headed north towards Applejacks farm house. After a few minutes he passed over the familiar red structure at about a thousand feet and started a U-turn.

"I'm seven kilometres north of the target. Commencing attack run." he said to the ponies on the ground.

"And that means..?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Sorry Dash, forgot you were listening." Maverick said to her as he finished turning and levelled out. "I'm about to drop the bomb. Might want to move away."

"Got it." Dash said.

"Try not to miss the, Maverick. Those bombs are re-usable, but the magic took over half a day to conjure." Frederic said.

"Your lack of faith in me is insulting." Maverick retorted sarcastically. "Dropping the payload ETA two minutes." he warned.

Maverick went tipped the nose down and lowered the throttle. Slowly the field came into view, and with the giant sheet of paper; his target.

"Alright, slow and steady. Account for wind and speed…" he said to himself. The Lightning crested the tree tops and flew over the shot up paper targets. Making one final adjustment to his direction, he hit the switch to release the payload. The same mechanical *clunk* and confirmed he bomb had been released. Maverick banked left to look back at the target just in time to see the small metal canister hit the paper, just off the centre point by about a metre and a wave of Frederic's coloured magic shot out the instant metal hit paper and earth. The paper stained purple as promised, and the wave dissipated and died just before it reached the edge. Maverick looked ahead again and concentrated on flying, waiting for Frederic's result.

"Twenty metre radius!" Frederic exclaimed. "That's not bad. Mission complete Maverick, now I just need to get this stuff back to the airfield."

"Alright, I'm heading for home."

Maverick heard a tapping on the cockpits canopy. He looked over and saw Rainbow Dash flying alongside.

"Not so fast. You still owe me a race." she reminded him.

Maverick chuckled into his mask. "So I do. Well, first one to Hoofington then back?"

"You're on!" Rainbow Dash replied and shot forward.

Maverick grinned and shoved the thrust down, loving the noise of power from the engines.