Milton Hayward looked up into the sky in awe. It was, in the sterling opinion of his seven and three-quarters year old mind, the most awesome thing ever. Up high in the air above him a plane – his dad called it a CF-161 Bolt Mk. II with ion engines and Zero-G cup holder, whatever that meant – was performing a death defying ascent straight up into the heavens in what he'd been told was a maneuver to cause a stall. Being around his dad so much he'd learned what that word meant, and he couldn't figure out why anyone would want to do that.
Up and up the plane climbed until it looked like it would keep going until it flew past the Jupiter colonies. How such a thing would be possible never occurred to young Milton; all he could think about was how the plane started slow down and what it could mean. Would the plane crash? He was trying to stall, after all.
Just as the plane reached the apogee of its climb it stalled in the air and began falling, spinning around so that it was facing nose down. Milton and the rest of the crowd gasped in horror. This was it, they thought, it seemed like the end of the pilot and his plane. Surely nothing good be gone, the plane was just falling too fast.
Then, when all seemed lost and the plane was about to crash into the ground it leveled off and shot out over the runway. All of them called out in astonishment. He did it! The pilot had pulled off the impossible, or at least the seemingly impossible.
“Did you see that, dad?” Milton called down to his dad, whose shoulders he was standing on.
“I sure did, son. That was pretty cool, wasn't it?” his dad asked him rhetorically.
Milton, however, took it as a serious question. “I guess so. I mean, it was kind of simple.”
His dad tried to give him a funny look at that. “I swear, son, by the end of this day I will get you to stay amazed at something.”
Milton didn't answer and just watched the plane as it circled around and began to land. Unfortunately for him, it opened up a gap in the action through which the chatty person standing near them could advance.
“The colt is right. The performance left much to be desired,” said the Equestrian national standing next to them, whose name Milton didn’t care to remember. “A typically bland showing for an unproven technology.”
“Oh yeah, twenty years of ever-growing use is nowhere near enough testing for aerospacefighters,” Milton’s dad replied in a snarky tone.
“Precisely,” the pony said without the slightest hint of picking up the tone of the accent. “Soon, though, you shall all bear witness to the glorious arrival of Equestria’s very own superior flight demonstration team, the Wonderbolts. They shall, of course, be deftly flying the fantastic F/A-23A Black Widow II.”
“That design is American and older than I am,” Milton’s dad said to him in a conspiratorial tone.
The Equestrian either heard them or the next part of his speech simply covered a similar enough area that it sounded like a response. “Some plebeians might say that because the craft was originally designed by the insufficient hooflickers at Northrop Grumman that it is not properlyEquestrian, but part of the spectacular superiority of Their Divine Majesties’ glorious nation is our ability to take what others have mucked up and produce truly ascendant greatness. This, I, Glorious Illuminated Opinion of Exalted Superiority, whose fantastic name is my own and which I have now stated, doth proclaim in a most incredible manner.”
Milton looked around to discover that, yes, everyone was inching away from the annoying pony.
“Ah, here they come now,” the pony proclaimed in a most dramatic fashion. “Now witness the grace and beauty of this fully trained and operational flight demonstration team.”
Milton looked up as the blue and white planes of the Wonderbolts streaked onto the scene, and he was . . . unimpressed. They were, contrary to the pony’s declarations, frightfully generic in the child’s mind. They were just simple planes making the same simple motions as ever. Others might have liked it, and his dad was certainly bemused -- yes, Milton decided, his dad was definitively bemused -- but he wasn’t one of them.
He suddenly felt a tug on his leg and turned his head down to see his father holding up his tablet with something written on it. “Remember, that cockpit designed specifically for pegasi I showed you?” Milton silently admitted to himself that he did indeed remember it, if only because it was one of the few things his dad showed him that wasn’t painfully old.“Some Commonwealth units have them, but the way those planes fly reveals that they don’t, and the Wonderbolts are exclusively pegasi!”
That made Milton chuckle. He had no idea how his dad could tell what a plane’s cockpit looked like by watching it fly, but he had learned not to question him about such improbable things. Besides, it wasn’t like that knowledge was going to make the day any less boring, or the pony next to them with his nose in the air and cap in hand any less annoying.
The performance continued for several more minutes, with Milton becoming increasingly bored the whole time, and the pony becoming increasingly more annoying. His dad had told him that they would be seeing something cool at this airshow, but all he was seeing was the same old same old that had been going on for over a hundred years. There was just nothing to see but the retreating forms of the Wonderbolts’ airplanes.
“Now that you have borne witness to the unfailing superiority of the grand and stupendous Wonderbolts you will bow to superior Equestrian military might,” the pony that they had somehow been unable to inch away from like everyone else declared in his pompous manner.
“Oh yeah, you sure showed us, eh? And before the main event even begins too,” his dad replied sarcastically.
“Indeed,” the pony said with a wave of his hoof, once again ignoring or failing to recognize the sarcasm. “You peasants would do well to learn from superior Equestrian showmanship and daring.”
Luckily, Milton was cut off from what he wanted to say to the pest with four legs by the airport’s communications system coming online.
“Alright, ladies and gentlemen. It'll soon be the moment you've all been waiting for, the appearance of our nation's latest in military hardware. Something that sure to knock everyone's socks off. Well, what could be better than a spaceship performing stunts just a few hundred feet above our heads? For those who didn't read the website or signs posted everywhere tick around and keep your eyes to the North, because I've just gotten word they're almost here!” the announcer called out over the speakers.
“Daddy, what's that man talking about?” Milton asked his father as he looked around the sky, trying to remember which direction north was.
“Just you wait and see, son. This is something that people have wanted for a long time, and we're finally getting it,” his dad coyly replied.
“How long, daddy?” the boy inquired yet again.
“Just be patient, Milton. Just be patient,” the dad said.
The child went back to scanning the sky, his eyes darting in every direction but towards the sun and down to find whatever was approaching. The sky seemed clear. Then, the speaker played again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what you're about to see as been dreamt of by man for more than a century. It has always been a dream, and always out of reach. We've gotten close a few times, but never to its fullest extent. It has always been out of reach, but no more. And who would we be if we didn't try to solve two problems with one solution? Indeed, who would we be if it was just a single species sharing in the bounty?” at this some music started to play in the background. “Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for. I give you the 431 Air Demonstration Squadron!”
Suddenly, ten shapes shot over the airfield and screamed over the crowd. Milton tried desperately to reorient his view to get a good look at them, but they had already passed him by and were pulling up.
“Whoops! Looks like not everyone was paying attention there. Don't worry, folks. Things are well in hand.”
One of the shapes shot back down again before coming to a complete stop a hundred feet above and in front of the crowd. The shape turned out to have two flapping wings, some oddly shaped wings, and a tail, all of which was decked out in white and red armor. There was also distortion behind it that looked like exhaust.
“Oh! A gryphon!” Milton shouted.
The powered armor-wearing gryphon gave a salute and then flew up to join his comrades.
“Yes, folks, you saw it in person here first. The first public demonstration of our nation's new brand of powered armor. They're rolling this stuff out now by the hundreds, and if the media around this is even half true it will turn our groundtroopers into skytroopers. But enough introduction. We've finally got jet packs, and I bet everyone here wants to see how they move.”
As if waiting for that cue the ten gryphons all split apart and dove towards the ground before changing direction and arcing back up into the air in a weave pattern.
The rest of the airshow flew by in a daze for young Milton. Hayward. The Skytroopers bobbed and weaved through the air in immensely complicated and coordinated maneuvers, their armored figures coming within inches of colliding with each other at hundreds of miles an hour. Their armor and natural flight ability allowed them to stop and start with ease, perform barrel rolls that actually looked like they could be performed in a barrel, astounding feats of marksmanship with their laser weapons while flying, and airborne gymnastic routines that no plane or person could preform. The boy didn't want any of to end, he wanted it to go on forever, but eventually the announcer informed the crowd that the squadron only had one more routine to preform.
As Milton pouted slightly he watched as three Skytroopers that he didn't even see leave flew back into formation carrying comparatively large cylinders. They flew up, higher and higher, until they were at least three hundred meters above the crowd. Then the magic happened.
The three Skytroopers carrying the cylinders flew in a triangular formation while the rest of the squadron exploded out in all directions from them but front and back. Once that was accomplished the cylinders carried by those in formation began spraying thick clouds of colored smoke – the outer two were red, while the inner was sparkling white. Once the three were clear and the smoke shut off the remaining seven members of the squadron stopped, snapped the laser rifles off their backs, and took aim at the smoke. They fired, and as the beams intersected with the smoke a familiar tune began to play for the audience.
Milton gasped in awe as the rest of the audience took off their hats and performed similar expressions of surprise. The intersecting laser beams and smoke had created a giant Canadian flag in the sky, complete with a holographic maple leaf. It was an impossible feat to top off an impossible day.
“Hey,” the voice of his dad broke Milton out of his amazed stupor. “How would you like to meet them?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for the Snowbirds!” the announcer called out.
“That'd be awesome!” Milton called out over the roar of the cheering crowd, glancing to the side to happily confirm that the pony was shocked by the glorious superiority of Canadian superiority, or something like that.
–
Three hours later Milton and his dad were standing in line to meet the Snowbirds, or at least some of them. There were a lot more people in the squadron then those who had flown today, after all. For one thing, the people who flew the planes were still around.
Milton shuffled his feet as he watched the formation leader of the powered armor demonstration, Captain Gray Garstang, go about his job of signing autographs for kids like him. Just like he had watched them at the panel where they had answered questions from the ecstatic crowd of patriotic Canadians. He had listened to every word they said, gobbling up as much information as he could about the heroic flight team. It was thanks to the Q&A that he knew all their names, the names of those who didn't participate in the demonstration, the names of their commanding officers, the names of all the flight crew that were mentioned, and the name of the armor itself. It was also thanks to that that he knew that they were using CAG-25 laser rifles, whose name was a misnomer because lasers didn't need rifling, and which was based off the G-25 laser rifle that the Griffonican military was deploying to its troops – thus, he also knew that the name really meant Canadian Airborne Griffonican Model 25 laser rifle. He also knew from at least one of the questions that, yes, William V was a far better monarch than Celestia, but that was pretty obvious to him beforehand.
All that and a thousand other little things were running through his head when it finally came to be his turn to walk up to the panel.
“And what would your name be, little guy?” Captain Garstang asked him in that calm and collected voice that he had maintained throughout the proceedings.
“Milton Hayward, sir,” the boy internally froze. He had so many questions beforehand, but now he couldn't think of a single one.
“And do you want an autograph, or ask a question?” the Captain asked.
“No, sir, I just want to be like you when I grow up,” Milton decided that honesty was the best policy, if only because he felt physically incapable of anything else at that moment.
The Captain seemed taken aback by that, but one of the other people on the panel, Lt. Grant Graham, quickly picked up the pace. “A gryphon, or part of the RCAF?”
“Part of the RCAF!” Milton quickly corrected.
By now the Captain seemed to have composed himself. “Well, that's a pretty tall desire, but I'm sure you can achieve it.”
“How, sir?” Milton asked, again letting his mouth run.
“Simply apply yourself,” the Captain answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The Royal Canadian Air Force only accepts the best, and if you want to use the airborne powered armor or join the Snowbirds you have to join the RCAF. Stay in school, get good grades, stay out of trouble, get into Royal Military College of Canada, and join up as an officer. Officers are the ones who get to fly the planes . . . and, right now, the armor too.”
“I've got it, sir,” Milton said earnestly.
“Good on ya, lad. Now, I know you didn't ask for an autograph, but here's one anyway, with a little extra something for your troubles, so to speak,” the Captain said as he handed Milton a piece of coldnote with a post-it note stuck to it.
“What’s this?” Milton asked as he examined the note.
“It’s a code for 52% off on the CF’s online bookstore. I know it’s not much, but . . .” the Captain trailed off.
“No! This is great, sir. Thank you,” Milton said happily.
–
“Nice kid, that Milton,” Graham said to his superior officer.
“Yeah,” Garstang agreed as he watch the kid walk away and the next one in line come up. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’ll be seeing him again in a decade or so.”
“Come on, sir. No-one’s mind can keep a desire alive that long,” Graham muttered as he started automatically writing down his signature.
“Mine did,” Garstang replied with a smile.
Author's Note
The names of all these characters are taken from a list of Canadian aces of World War II. Just in case no-one noticed that.
In addition, eagle-eyed readers will have picked out that all the gryphons in the story don't really "fit" with the current Snowbirds line-up. Either in ranks or in numbering, like they've just been added on top of what's already there. This was intentional on my part, and in-universe I blame the bureaucracy.
And yes, this was supposed to be just a short "snapshot of a life" piece.
