“Impact in forty seconds. If you don’t feel up to the task at hand, eject your boosters and get back to base.”
Okay, this is it. Just think happy thoughts. Wait, I should be concentrating. Where is the target?
While soaring through the sky, a mare squinted while trying to identify anything other than the glowing exhausts of three pairs of rocket boosters in the darkness above her. The aviation goggles she wore made seeing anything nearly impossible. She struggled to fly in a straight line under the immense air resistance the rocket boosters on her back were forcing her into. Her wings fought to keep extended against the wind.
“Impact in 30 seconds.”
The voice in her ear became almost inaudible under the loud humming noise of hundreds of engines that came closer and closer with every passing second. She raised a hoof to her ear so that she could adjust the volume. Her breath grew heavy under her black mask.
I hope this doesn't hurt too much.
“Impact in 20 seconds.”
The screechy tones of the distorted voice coming through the earpiece caused her to wince. Suddenly, the boosters on the mare’s back burnt out. She punched the clasp on the bottom of her abdomen, sending the pair the pair of torpedo shaped attachments on her back flying off of her body. She looked behind herself to make sure that had safely been detached.
She looked back up, winced and rolled to the left side. A yell of pain filled the air when a hoof stuck her into her right flank. The stallion who had been flying in front of her had lost control and most of his momentum, causing her to almost crash into him. One of his boosters had burnt out, while the other was still at full power.
“Impact in 10 seconds. I wish you good luck. You will need it.”
Clenching her teeth, she pulled together all of her strength to regain control. She tried to find a point of orientation without success. The glowing lights she had been following before had already all died out. Slowly, parts of a silvery figure came into her vision. She extended the harpoon that had been attached to her left foreleg by flicking it to the side.
This is not good.
She aligned her hoof in flight direction and tried to ready herself for immediate impact.
This is going to hurt so much.
She slammed into the bottom of the silver figure, after the harpoon on her foreleg successfully penetrated. Her hind legs creaked under pressure as they hit the metal. She half collapsed on her chest before falling back as she tried to pull herself back up with her left hoof. After a moment, she had regained enough composure to orientate herself while she dangled in the wind.
Yep, that hurt… I must be on the horizontal stabilizer.
A gasp passed her lips as she noticed that a stallion been watching her through a pane of glass.
Buck!
With a flick of her free hoof, she extended a long black spear and thrust it through the pane to hit the shocked stallion in the breast.
No time to think. Just do!
She retracted the weapon and began to repeatedly smash her hind hooves into the glass. With every kick she groaned in exertion from curling her body together against the air resistance, as her boots broke away more and more pieces.
After enough glass had broken away, she grabbed the metal edge where the glass had once been, and detached herself from the harpoon after she was sure she could haul her weight into the small opening. She whimpered as her left wing was slowly torn by a piece of glass while she pulled herself in. While pushing herself past the still breathing, but decapacitated stallion.
Don’t think! Don’t think! Just do what you learned in combat training and everything will be okay.
The inside of the aircraft was filled with the echo of humming motors. There wasn't much space to move, and she had to duck her head to shoulder-level to fit into the pipe-shaped construction. She pulled a knife free from where it had been attached to her hind leg, and grasped it so that the edge pointed away from her body. The weapon trembled in her hooves. With her other foreleg she pushed her goggles up in an attempt to get better vision in the dark interior.
Ahead of her were the shadowy figures of two stallions, each of which were too concentrated on keeping their eyes on their respective sector of the sky to have noticed that one of their comrades was fighting for his life only a few paces away. They only moved slightly while grasping their mounted machine guns with both hooves. She slowly made her way towards them, breathing heavily and slightly limping on her right hind leg, while shivering with the rest.
Shortly before she had reached them, the left stallion caught sight of her approach. His eyes grew wide and he screamed as he saw the masked mare.
No way anypony could have overheard that. Now I have to be fast.
She thrust the knife down between his neck and his collarbone before she pulled it back and stabbed the blade to the side and into the neck of the other stallion, who had only been given enough time to turn his head towards the mare. His neck was pushed off of the blade in a well trained procedure.
With a quick jump she made her way past the collapsing gunners and towards a hatch at the end of the construction. After a moment, another mare looked through this only to be rewarded with a knife being jammed into the bottom of her jaw. Her eyes slowly slid closed, and she fell out of the hatch and onto the ground, while her attacker sidestepped.
Only two left.
She jumped over the corpse and through the opening. In front of her, a pilot was working the controls of the aircraft. He was occupied with trying to keep his machine in formation while barely being able to see the aircraft around him through the dark sky. A dark-red light at the top of the cockpit gave him enough vision to see his controls. In the front of cockpit a winged mare crouched over her machine gun.
With a quick stab into the pilots back from below his ribs and into his chest, the now gurgling stallion was ended with little resistance. She simply pushed him to the side. After his hooves lost contact with the controls the aircraft fell into a moderate descent.
The last pony noticed this and looked up over her shoulder from where she lay over her machine gun. Her eyes grew wide while she tried to turn around and get up to her hooves. She was pushed up with her back against the side of the cockpit. Her wings fluttered in panic. She pushed back and attempted to struggle, but her futile resistance was brought to an end when a knife was stabbed into the front of her chest.
They looked into each others eyes. One face held the expression of dismay while she tried to breathe, but her body failed to respond. While the other stared back through a black mask. One heavy gasp after another was pulled air into the attacking mares lungs, as if she were taunting her prey.
She pulled back and let the mare fall out of her grip and onto the floor.
She was... Don’t think. Now I only have to get out of here alive.
It didn’t take long for her take the pilot’s place and get an overview of the machine. Her shivering hooves grasped the side-stick controllers, and she let the aircraft descend further out of formation.
I don’t think I will ever be able to get used to this.
She leaned forward to look out the side of the cockpit to both sides. To her relief, all four propellers still seemed to be rotating, even if it was hard to see anything outside of the windows at all. She was still breathing hard, but she slowly calmed herself. The familiar vibration of the controls in her hooves and the loud humming of motors comforted her greatly.
She gasped in pain as she tried to extend her left wing; sure enough a large cut went from the alula of the wing all the way down into the secondaries. It seemed as if any further attempt to use her wing would only result in the appendage ripping like a wet piece of paper. She carefully pulled her wing back to her side while clenching her teeth.
Looks like the only way I’m getting out of here is if I can land this thing.
The calm humming of motors was interrupted by the voices coming out the mares headpiece.
“Alpha, here. Report!”
“Bravo reporting success.”
“Gamma reporting success.”
“Epsilon reporting success,” the mare half-yelled in an attempt to overshadow the ambient noise while pressing a button on her neck.
“What happened to Delta?”
“One of his boosters malfunctioned. He lost control.” she replied. With a few long breaths, she forced herself to breath normally again.
“I’m sure he got himself back under control. It hasn't been the first time one of his boosters gave up on him.” replied the commanding officer on the other end of the headpiece.
Even though her breathing had calmed down, she started turning green under her mask. The mask was hastily discarded to the floor in a further attempt to calm her breath.
Am I sick because of the thin air up here or because of what I just went through?
“Dammit! Eighty percent success isn't a bad record though. How was your first raid, Epsilon?”
“I think I’m going to puke,” she said after her breath had lost all of its regularity.
“That’s the spirit. Everypony lose altitude and get rid of your bomb-load in a safe place. Over and out!”
She looked down at the dead mare lying on her side at the front of the cockpit. She still had that shocked expression in her face, which became more grotesque in the dark red light of the cockpit. Her green eyes and her jaw were wide open, as if she were stuck in that state of horror for all of eternity. A few stands of her yellow short-cut and mane stuck out from under her aviation headgear. Only the large, but barely bleeding wound in the front of her pink chest and her lack of locomotion indicated that she was no longer amongst the living.
On her other side another aviator lay in rest. His lower body still occupied the navigators seat, while his upper body hung limply from the side. She couldn't see his expression from here, but she could see the laceration on his lower back. A considerable amount of blood had spilled down his back and over the seat, as well as leaving a puddle on the aluminium floor that glowed in the eerie red luminescence.
I am going to puke.
After a few moments the reek of a thick green substance filled the air. The fluid spilled back and forth to the half rhythmic movements of a mare who was juggling between flying an aircraft and spreading her last meal onto the floor.
10 years ago...
“Daddy, I want to be pilot like you when I grow up.”
“Are you sure about that Firefly?” her father replied with a wide grin on his face.
“Yeah!”
The stallion playfully bopped her nose with his hoof. “But you already have wings, not like your old pa. You can fly whenever you want to.” He looked into the eyes of his daughter, who was seated next to him on the grass.
She replied with a giggle.
“I want to be just like you daddy. I want to take everypony flying with me!”
He felt so proud of his daughter in this moment, and nothing in the world could make him feel happier.
Author's Note
This is my first story that I have ever submitted anywhere, and I haven't been writing for very long. I don't have an editor either.
So please feel free to comment and share your thoughts with me. Some constructive criticism would really help me.
It was dawning, but the sun hadn’t made its appearance yet. The mountainous horizon in the distance had only just begin to glow. All was quiet, except for a buzzing noise that slowly became louder and louder in the distance.
“It took her long enough to find the place. She can’t have very much fuel left. I almost thought we lost her. What do you think, Sharp?”
“Huh?” Sharp replied without looking up. He sat on top of a crate and leaned his back against the wall of a hanger. He slowly rubbed a piece of cloth along the edge of a blade with such delicacy as if he were building together a clockwork mechanism. Only his blood-red eyes, and his white wings were visible from underneath his uniformly black combat gear.
She looked over her shoulder towards where he was sitting only a few paces away. After watching him for a few seconds she said: “You creep me out when you do that.”
“Shut up, Glory.”
Glory sighed and looked back towards the end of the airfield with her golden eyes. The frosty wind brushed through her striped orange and amber mane, but did little to faze her. Her light blue coat stood up at the back of her neck in anticipation.
Slowly but surely the silhouette of an aircraft descended over the forest and towards the end of the runway. It flew over a fifth of the strip before finally touching the ground. After a few minutes it eventually rolled to a stop in front of the two ponies. The two motors gave a last rumble before becoming silent and the rotors turn slowed down to a slow spin.
The shining silver aircraft towered over the ponies. The whole plane was at least four ponies tall. Even more impressive than the height was its wingspan, which must have been a minimum seventy paces wide. The powerhouses which powered the enormous beast extended forwards out of the wings and ended in four yellow tipped black rotors.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” said the mare.
This time Sharp actually took the time to look up from his blade and reply: “Yeah, she really is.” He carefully put his knife into its sheath on the front of his breast while standing up. “What do you say, should we get Firefly out of there?”
Firefly slowly lifted herself from the pilots seat and let herself fall onto her boots and into the greenish muck which had been left behind on the floor. The prospect of getting puke on her boots didn’t really matter to her anymore. After all, she had just been sitting in a cockpit with two corpses and a large puddle of drying slime, which also partially covered the former gunner, for a few hours.
A leather saddlebag which had been sitting at the side of the cockpit caught her interest.
Firefly winced mid grab as a scream of panic filled the air.
Sharp stumbled backwards and fell onto his flank.
The mare who stood next to him sighed, and hit him over the back of the head. Crimson liquid dripped from the opening on the side of the aircraft.
“Just push her out of the way,” said Glory, “the cleaning crew will take care of the rest.”
“Yeah, I was just-”
“Being an idiot, I know.” she retorted.
He grumbled, stood up and pushed the face of the female corpse aside who had been blocking the entrance to the aircraft. With a small jump he found himself in the aircraft, and with another he was standing in the back of the cockpit, but he suddenly winced back.
“Horses of Heaven, what’s that smell?”
Firefly blushed, but not very visibly, since her coat was already dark red. “I em… had a little accident.”
“A little accident?! I haven’t seen this much spew in one place since the one time me and my buddies decided to try out Sonic Rainboom shots back in Manehatten.”
Glory shouted from outside of the aircraft: “Hey, Sharp! I told you to get her out of there. When did I mention telling her about the good old days?”
He turned around and left the aircraft the same way he had entered with a sigh. Firefly followed after taking one last glance at the mare who laid dead at front of the aircraft.
“Who shoved a breezie up your flank? I was just-”
“Being an idiot, I know.” interrupted Glory. She grabbed him at the collar and pulled him close, so that their faces were almost touching. “I know we shouldn’t be too easy on her, but this was her first time seeing real combat.”
“And what exactly did I do wrong?” Inquired the stallion while being pushed aside.
“Forget it.” She replied. Glory’s gaze turned to Firefly, who winced as her hind legs touched the ground. “I see you you found something.”
“I just thought-”
“Just keep it,” interrupted Glory, “finders keepers.” She studied the mares diverse injuries. “It looks like you picked up some injuries. What happened to your flank?”
Firefly looked at the cut in the side of her suit. Her cutie mark of a white biplane had been split into two halves by a long wound. The dry crimson blood was only slightly darker than her coat.
“I collided with Delta when he lost control.”
“Any other injuries?”
Firefly extended her wing slightly, causing Sharp to gag in revulsion.
“Sharp, take her back to the barracks and get a medic to look at that.”
“On it boss!” he replied. Firefly began follow him with a slight limp.
“Are you sure you can walk? We can get a stretcher if you want.” asked Glory.
“I don’t”
“Fine, just don’t forget to take care of yourself.”
A few hours later Firefly found herself in her own quarters. It wasn’t very large, only big enough for a simple bed, desk, and table to take place. While been anything but luxurious, the room was far better than the barracks the lower ranked servicemen had to live in. The private bathroom, or more importantly, the private shower was what truly made her feel comfortable. Sunlight from the morning sun shone through the single window the room possessed.
She took off her leather saddlebag and threw it onto the table.
Her combat clothing had been cut off at the medic. There was no use in keeping a torn uniform, and nobody wanted to risk getting it off around her wing.
Firefly walked into the bathroom and began inspect herself in the mirror. The mare in the reflected image was crimson red, with glowing golden eyes. She took a moment to inspect her now bandaged wing. It had already began to fill with an itching sensation. She ran hoof through her chestnut colored mane in an attempt to distract herself.
Firefly made her way into the shower. Flowing water indicated that a ritual had begun. She let the sensation wash away all feelings and thoughts. Only the feeling of water running along her body and the sound of water made its way into her senses. Everything else became distant. Water fell. Steam rose. Lungs pulled air. A heart pushed blood. All elements had their place. Nothing needed to make sense anymore, because nothing was left. Time passed. The shower ended with a quick movement. The world became real again. She grabbed a towel, and left her temple.
After drying off her mane she threw the towel onto her bed. Firefly looked back towards the bag sitting on the table. Almost a minute passed until she had finally decided to inspect its contents.
She spread the contents onto the table. A vacuum flask, a black white photo, and a letter. A quick taste check showed that the container was filled coffee.
Next she inspected the photo. A mare kissed a tall stallion on his cheek in front of what seemed to be a nightclub. Her cutie mark was a white bird, his was a black piano. Next to them stood a very dark colored stallion wielding a saxophone. Firefly rubbed along the side of the picture with her hoof while deep in thought.
The letter had caught her attention next. It was neatly hoof written.
Dearest Silverhooves,
This is going to be one of my last letters home. I only have to fly one more raid and then I have all 12 flights. I’m coming back home!
I can’t wait to hold you in my hooves again when I get back.
I miss singing in the Blue Note with you on the piano and Brass Tunes at the saxophone. I miss our songs almost as much as I miss you.
Scarlet Song, the navigator I told you about, decided she wants to come home with me to Manehattan. She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I think you will really like her. Her voice would be such a wonderful addition to the club.
Love, your songbird, Meadowlark.
She put the letter back down on the table, and her glance wandered back to the picture. Her hoof slowly pulled it back in front of her.
I don’t remember her having a cutie mark. She has one on the picture but I can’t remember anything but her face. I can’t even remember if she had been wearing a jacket. Did anybody in the bomber wear a jacket? Crews normally wear jackets, how else were they supposed to keep warm up in those high altitudes? Especially since it how cold it has been getting these last few years. Why do I even care if they were wearing jackets? Why is the only thing I remember about these ponies which gender they had? Why are they all colorless shadows? Why was she different? Why do I remember her green eyes, and her pink coat, and her short cut yellow mane sticking out from under her headgear? What w--.
“Firefly!” yelled a stallion who had been standing in the doorway.
She broke her stare at the picture and looked towards him.
“Sharp.”
“I was asking if you wanted to go eat something in the canteen, but you kinda didn’t react.”
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know you shouldn’t have taken that saddlebag with you.”
She looked back at the picture she was holding in her hooves. “I don’t feel like eating anything right now. I think I’m going to hit the hay.”
“Your loss. Try not to puke everywhere next time.” sharp replied while turning to leave.
“Sharp Descent.” she hesitantly called.
He stood in the doorway for a second and looked back over his shoulder with blood red eyes. His coat was pure white and his mane was messy mix of dark blue and cyan stripes. A single sharp note adorned his flank. His wings shifted along the side of his muscular body.
“Knock next time instead of just bursting in.”
9 years earlier...
“Firefly, can you come down here for a moment?”
“Sure dad, one minute!” she called from upstairs.
After a few moments she was standing in the kitchen, and looking across at her father who sat at a table. He looked back at her with his golden eyes. His dark brown was partially covered by his chestnut colored mane.
“So, whats up?”
He folded his newspaper together and laid it onto the table.
“I have to tell you something. Sit down.” He gestured towards the chair next to him. ”Do you want anything?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied hesitantly without moving from where she stood. Firefly
“Okay,” he answered with a sigh. “We have to sell the biplane,” he reluctantly confessed.
There was no use in drawing the truth any longer. His eyes grew full with sorrow.
“W-W-Why?” Her mouth moved wordlessly for a few moments. She knew why but refused to accept it. “First your job and now this?”
“I’m sorry Firefly.”
“But, but, I never got to fly it...” Tears started to form in her eyes. She stumbled backwards and almost fell on her blank flank.
“I’m so sorry.”
She ran back into up the stairs, loudly sobbing along the way, and into her room, slamming the door shut after herself. The room was brimming with the sounds of filly crying into her bedsheet and the pebbling of raindrops hitting the windows.
After some time Firefly had enough of sobbing into her sheets.
Her father came into the room only to find the window open, and his filly gone.
Firefly pushed a barn door open with with quite some effort. Her exertion was rewarded with the sight of a single white biplane sitting in the center of the barn. The aircraft itself had already been quite old, being one of the first aircraft with full metal frame. The radial motor at the front of the aircraft attached to a wooden, two-bladed propellor.
For her it was simple the most wonderful thing in the world.
She quickly got out of the mud and rain outside of the barn and made her way towards a pile of wood located in the corner of the barn. First she searched for a small block of wood and a long wooden staff. Then she turned around and tossed these up into the cockpit of the aircraft. Next she pulled out a cranking shaft from underneath the wing, attached it to the side of the engine, and began turning it, causing the rotor to turn backwards. After it had became too hard to turn it any further she let go and the machine stuttered to life.
Two quick jumps later she sat in the cockpit, and on top of the block of wood. She hadn’t flown the aircraft before, but she knew everything she need to know. She had spent countless hours sitting in the seat, and pretending she were flying.
Her father had even shown her everything he knew about flying the aircraft when she had been younger. Since she had gotten bigger in the last few years, she could fit on her fathers lap in the tight cockpit anymore. Now she tried to recall everything she had been told.
The few gauges on the dashboard were mostly motionless, only the RPM gauge swinged up and down slightly. She grabbed a pair of goggles from the back of the seat and pulled them over her eyes. Then she quickly fastened the safety belts. Her right hoof grabbed the joystick, and the left hoof gripped the throttle. She took a moment to breath and muttered: “Now or never.”
The engines steady popping rhythm was replaced with the roaring of sound of thousands upon thousands of small explosions. The aircraft may have been old, but the engine was anything but weak.
The plane rolled out its makeshift hanger and onto the muddy road. Firefly use the staff to press the pedals, aligning the aircraft with the improvised runway. On either side of the road were seemingly endless fields of grain.
“FIREFLY!”
Her father ran after her as fast as his legs could take him. Shouting and Hollering as loud as his lungs could muster. He failed. He was left standing in the mud, while the rain fell upon him. Watching his daughter slowly drift away and into the air. Somewhere inside himself he felt proud, but his tears weren’t tears of pride. They were helpless tears, sad tears. His daughter was flying into a thunderstorm, and there was nothing he could do.
Firefly looked down at the gauges, three hundred and fifty kilometers an hour was decent speed for a biplane. The aircraft weightlessly swayed left and right in the wind. In the distance short flashes of light, and the following thunder did little to impress the filly.
“Time to see what this thing can do!”
With a quick push to the joystick the aircraft did a quick series of rolls. The weird sensation of being pushed in and pulled out of the seat quickly made Firefly feel nauseous. She shifted the control back into place so that she was back into an upright position.
Next she tried to do a looping. Which succeeded fairly well for a filly who had only been flying the aircraft for a few minutes. She didn’t have to fear that the aircraft would stall, considering how powerful it’s engine was, and how easily its wings could keep it in the air, and she knew it. Already her new wings felt almost as much a part of her as the ones on her back. As she grew more confident she moved to more complex maneuvers. A turning climb was followed by a corkscrew and signed with a half looping. Every stunt became more elaborate than the one before.
Firefly felt free up here. She was the queen of the heavens. But it hadn’t been enough.
The biplane pulled into a steep zoom climb towards the clouds. Every second of climb gave her a few more precious meters of independance. Eventually she shot into the dark clouds. Firefly winced as she felt the cold vapor wash over her coat. It was dark. Suddenly, everything was bright as she ascended out of the darkness and into the sun’s embrace.
And then the motor gave a loud series of sputters before it died out. Firefly let the aircraft fall into a slight descent as she sailed over the clouds. Eventually she had lost enough momentum and she couldn’t hold the aircraft up any longer. She turned the aircraft on its head and pulled ‘up’ into the clouds.
Wind pulled and dragged the aircraft back and forth as she spiraled downwards. The sound of thunder became louder than even the sound of hurricane like winds. She plummeted out of the clouds and into the middle of the thunderstorm. Firefly tried to regain control of the powerless machine. Her efforts were finally became futile as she was blinded and deafened by lightning only to find her right wings burning. As the flames began to eat away at the wings the roll became uncontrollable. The ground was coming closer, and Firefly realized she had to abandon ship.
She panicked as she struggled to open the safety belts. When she finally got them to release her she was launched out of the cockpit. Her wings fought to regain control of her flight. She heard the sound of the aircraft slamming into the earth.
Blackness.
Firefly opened her eyes. Everything was blurry. She blinked a few times in an attempt to make sharpen her vision. A pony came into her view. He, or possibly a she, was saying something, but Firefly could hear nothing except for the quiet ringing in her ears. The pony seemed to be yelling something to someone. After coughing a few times the world became more clear, as she slowly faded back into reality. She tried to get up.
“-out of here!” The mare finished yelling before pushing Firefly back to the ground. “Don’t move. Everything will be okay.”
Firefly tried to look around. The remnants of an aircraft were burning, while a group of yelling pegasi were trying to extinguish the fire. Smoke and fire yanked back in forth in the wind. Heavy rain made a soft sizzling noise as it hit the ground.
Then Firefly noticed something, a silver-white biplane cutie-mark.
Everything went black again.
Author's Note
If you spot any errors, please comment so I can fix them.
And as always, please feel free to comment.
(I also haven't decided how to name this chapter yet, so if you have any ideas.)
