Slipstream

"Careful, Derp-"

CRASH.

I winced. The polished mahogany cabinet that had just exploded into splinters all over the runway was probably worth more than my monthly salary. "Was," being the key word. Now, it was worth jack-shit.

The jasmine-coated mare by my side slapped her hoof to her face for what was probably the fifth time, giving a loud groan in the process. "Why me?" she mumbled under her breath, falling back onto her haunches in exhaustion.

"Oops. Sorry, Raindrops," Bubblebutt chirped, fluttering down from the fuselage to inspect the damage. She even grabbed a few pieces of the mangled wreckage, as though she actually intended to fix it.

I chuckled at her childlike determination. I had quickly come to realise that five minutes of this pony's company was often funnier than an entire Weird-Al concert.

Her name wasn’t really Bubblebutt; I had just christened her that in my mind due to her unique butt-tattoo. Her actual name was Muffin, but I had heard other pegasi on the base refer to her as "Ditzy Doo" and "Derpy".

Both nicknames were rather fitting, seeing as she was clumsy as shit.

She eventually gave up trying to "fix" the cabinet, instead flicking her blonde mane out of her face and grinning sheepishly at Raindrops. As far as weird alien equines went, Bubblebutt was certainly one of the more adorable ones.

Nearly a week had passed since I'd agreed to fly for Spitfire. In hindsight, I probably should have consulted with my crew members regarding that particular commitment first. None of them had yet come to terms with the abrupt transdimensional predicament we’d found ourselves in. I wasn’t doing so great either, considering all I'd had to drink was a few stolen tankards of cider from a cellar I'd discovered on my nighttime wanderings. For a military base, the security around here was pretty pathetic.

Leanne was the worst. She was convinced she was locked up in some nut-house, hallucinating, despite the many assurances from Jason that she wasn’t. Jessica was faring a little better, but had been reluctant to talk to any of our equine hosts. She was currently holed up in some "safe room" with the other two. From what I could discern, it appeared to be a disused officers lounge.

I had quickly brought them up up to speed on Spitfire's intentions. Predictably, they hadn't like the idea. Well, Jessica and Jason hadn't. I don't think Leanne had even acknowledged my presence, given that she’d had her knees to her chest—and had been slowly rocking back and forth like a deranged mental patient.

Once I'd made sure they were relatively okay, I'd spent most of my time avoiding Gigolo-pony. Seriously, that cheery fucker was everywhere—always popping up when I least expected and trying to persuade me to take his "Horsefucker 101" class.

Thankfully, Spitfire hadn't mentioned anything about the dreaded "heat tamer training" when she’d burst unexpectedly into the dormitory to speak to me that morning. Instead, she’d requested that I oversee the stripping down of the "ship," mostly to prevent any of her subordinates inadvertently tearing out something important. She had even asked nicely, much to my surprise.

She’d then followed up her little request by by informing me a delegate from the Equestrian government would be stopping by to "investigate". No doubt some snot-snouted politician would come poking their muzzle into places it wasn't welcome...

Most of the jet's lavish interior was now sitting by the side of the runway. The bar, several cabinets, tables, barstools, expensive leather recliners, and various other business-traveller comforts were arranged on the tarmac. Anything too big to fit through the doors had been all but pulverised by the excitable pegasi. It was clear to see they were having quite a lot of fun looting the "alien ship". Personally, I didn't give a damn what they did with it, as long as they let me keep the whiskey.

The sweat I had worked up from organising the purged interior of the aircraft into specific categories was already soaking through my uniform. I'd since grown accustomed to the extra G-force of this strange world, but I was exhausted within a mere five minutes of dragging furniture around. The heat wasn't helping, either. According to Spitfire, we were thousands of feet above sea level. It was far from cold on the runway, though. The ridiculously stuffy, thick atmosphere made sure of that.

Carefully setting a large plasma screen TV down next to a bunch of other expensive gadgets, I wiped the sweat from my brow with a forearm. Raindrops nudged my side with her muzzle, nearly throwing me off balance. I promptly glared at her. I must have told her a hundred times that I wasn't overly keen on bodily contact, especially with freaky equine aliens.

"Sorry," she mumbled around the water bottle clenched in her teeth. Her ears flopped downwards. I scowled, finding it annoyingly adorable. "Here," she mumbled again, offering me the freezing cold beverage.

I took it. "Thanks," I said, taking a swig, before pouring half of the bottle's contents over my face and shaking my head. Raindrops chuckled at my chosen method of cooling off, lifting a wing to shield herself from the spray.

"You're acting like a dog," she giggled, playfully slapping my side with her outstretched wing.

"Hey!" I chastised, batting the feathery appendage away. She grinned, clearly unperturbed by my mock anger as she kept on batting me with her wings.

It was only when Bubblebutt saw what we were doing and decided to join in that Raindrops ceased her relentless teasing. She watched in horror as the clumsy grey mare slammed into me, with probably quite a lot more force than intended.

Thankfully, part of a sofa that had been ripped from the plane broke my fall. The clumsy mare landed on top of me, damn near cracking my ribs.

“Mpphh, gerroffmee!”

"Oh... Sorry, Jack," she mumbled, lying quite immobile on my chest.

Mouthing off a string of inaudible swear words—as they were muffled by the fur of her barrel pressed to my face—I managed to roll the ditzy pegasus off my chest. She hit the floor with a thud, and I wasted no time in jumping to my feet and storming off toward the jet. Fucking ponies...

Raindrops covered her maw with a hoof, her eyes brimming with mirth.

"Shut up," I shot at her, heading for the rope ladder I had fashioned from an old airship mooring line to gain access to the jet. It wasn’t a particularly practical way to board the plane, but the only airstairs the pegasi possessed—presumably for earth pony and unicorn visitors—were nowhere near tall enough to reach the Airbus.

Of course, there was an alternative, but I'd had quite enough flights of impending doom from Spitfire and Fleetfoot already. I certainly didn't need anymore.

No sooner had I put half of my weight on the rope ladder, it severed from the plane and came tumbling down onto the runway. A few more choicy swear words left my mouth as I gave the useless pile of rope a good kick.

"Oh, you were using that?" Derpy asked, getting to her hooves and giving me a guilty look. "I untied it... Sorry." Her ears flopped down, and my retort died in my throat. It was difficult to be angry when confronted with those ridiculously large, puppy-dog eyes, even if they often seemed to be looking in different directions from one another.

"It's fine, Derpy." I turned back to the pile of rope and bent down to pick it up, only to nearly jump out of my skin. “GAH! ...fuck!”

Fleetfoot’s large, fuchsia eyes were inches from my own. I hadn’t even heard her approach, much less get up in my face. Stumbling, I landed heavily on my ass. Thankfully, the pile of rope ladder broke my fall somewhat. “Damn it, Fleetfoot! You scared the crap out of me!”

Predictably, her only response was that stupid little chuckle of hers, along with a rather mischievous grin. I glared wearily at her. I’d almost been trying to avoid her as much as I had Warmfront, mainly because she seemed to get a kick out of messing with me.

She wore her Wonderbolts flightsuit, which clung to her body, and did nothing to hide her lithe, athletic form. Her mane was windswept, as always, and her eyes seemed to twinkle in the sunlight. As I was still sitting on my ass, she was around a head higher than me, and she looked quite imposing with the backdrop of the heat-shimmering tarmac behind her.

Realising I’d been gawking at her for the better part of ten seconds, I blinked. “What do you want?” I grumbled, before quickly glancing back at Raindrops. Both her and Bubblebutt were gazing apprehensively from a distance, that is, until Fleetfoot yelled at them to get back to work. They hastily took flight, abandoning me in an instant. Figures.

Fleetfoot turned back to me. “I need you to move your ship. One of ours will be coming in to land shortly.”

“Oh, sure!” I said, clumsily getting to my feet. “I don’t suppose you’ve got an aircraft tug lying around here, have you?” I looked at her expectantly.

Fleetfoot raised an eyebrow. “A what?”

"I'll take that as a 'no,' then," I pointed a thumb over my shoulder at the jet. “That thing can't go backwards without a tug.”

“Doesn’t it have reverse?”

“No.”

She frowned. “That’s dumb. What if you need it to go backwards and you don’t have one of those ‘tug’ things?”

I sighed, throwing an arm up in exasperation. “We always have dedicated ground crews for aircraft this big. Aircraft tugs are a vital part of those crews.”

She paused, briefly tilting her head to the side as though contemplating something. “How about we tie a bunch of ropes to it and pull it back?”

I snorted. "Yeah, good luck with that, the tanks aren't empty. Even with the stripping out, this thing will still probably weigh in at about four hundred tonnes—and that's without taking into account the freaky gravity on this planet."

"We can handle it," Fleetfoot boasted, with her familiar air of confidence.

"Heh, fair enough. Can't promise I won't laugh when you fail epically, though."

With absolutely zero warning, Fleetfoot suddenly lunged, locking all four of her legs around me and shooting up into the sky. Instantly, I clung to her like a needy ex-girlfriend. “Fleet-NO! Put me down this fucking instant, you crazy-ass flying horse! I swear to fucking Jehovah I’ll snap those physics-bending wings right off your back and beat your sorry flank with them!”

I continued to yell at her. She continued to ignore me, save for licking my cheek—fucking eww—and mumbling something that sounded way too similar to “kinky” for me to write it off as something else. “Ugh! Cut it out!” I growled, pressing the side of my face to her neck in an attempt to hinder her wandering tongue.

The mare simply giggled, twisting her wings. The resultant series of barrel rolls were highly unpleasant. I gave a rather high pitched scream, that to this day, I'm not particularly proud of.

Sky, ground, sky, ground, sky, ground. It felt like I was about to throw up as I clung to the horizontally-pirouetting pegasus. After what seemed like a good five minutes, but was probably only thirty seconds, Fleetfoot flared her wings and we decelerated rapidly. Her hooves and my lower body eventually came into contact with something solid. I was too busy clinging to her to notice, however.

After my senses had caught up and I’d realised we had, in fact, stopped, I opened an eye. It appeared we had landed on the top deck of the Airbus. It was void of most of the luxuries it had before, but that just meant there was quite a bit more room for the pegasi. The whole cabin was full of them, all of them mares, and all staring at me with their ridiculously large eyes.

It was at this precise moment I became woefully aware that I was still clinging to Fleetfoot’s underside, with my arms wrapped around her barrel in a death-grip.

She turned, grinning at her soldiers and gesturing to me with a forehoof. “Says he’s not into ponies.”

The whole cabin erupted into a fit of giggles. I quickly released Fleetfoot and scrambled from between her legs, scowling at her green-text one liner and turning to address the crowd. “No! Let me make this one hundred percent fucking crystal clear right now—this-” I pointed at myself for emphasis, “-not a horsefucker.”

Judging by the continued laughter and various expressions of exaggerated scepticism, I was clearly wasting my breath. Thankfully, Fleetfoot only allowed it to continue for a few seconds before stepping forward.

"Okay, that’s enough." She hadn't even raised her voice, but the whole cabin immediately fell silent. "We need to get this thing off the runway, and Jack here has just told me he can't make it go backwards from the cliff edge."

"Yes,” I added, thankful for the change of topic. “Unfortunately this thing has the turning circle of a freight-train and no reverse gear, so we need to work out a way to pull it back. If you guys can find rope strong enough, you might be able to pull it if you tie it around the landing gear. Chances are, though, you probably won't be able to. As you can imagine, it's pretty damn heavy." I smirked.

Fleetfoot rolled her eyes. "Gather up as much rope as you can, secure it in place, and tell the others we're going to pull the ship clear of the cliff-edge," she told the pegasi.

Having been listening intently to our instructions, they gave an eerie "Yes, Ma'am," in perfect unison, and wasted no time in scrambling for the exits.

Once the last of them had taken flight, I focused on the stripped-down cabin. Both fore and aft staircases remained, but everything else bar the interior wall lining and cabin lighting had been removed. I would no doubt get in a ridiculous amount of trouble if the Skyland bosses ever found out what had become of their prized flying headquarters, but the notion that this plane would ever find its way back to Earth was pretty absurd.

Fleetfoot suddenly nudged me with her wing. "Hey, quit daydreaming. I want to see the control room." She gave me a rather happy grin I'm pretty certain she’d never allow anyone else to see. It was so endearing I almost smiled. Almost.

"Don't you mean cockpit?" I said, descending the forward staircase and walking towards the room in question.

Fleetfoot snorted, fluttering down the staircase after me. "That's what you guys call it?"

I rolled my eyes, deciding not to dignify her with a response as I opened the cockpit door. It felt something akin to stepping back in time, seeing the familiarity of the gun metal grey control panels. This room was my life, my greatest ambition. I had achieved my dream job... Only to have it taken away after a few months by some failed griffin experiment...

Still, at least I'd still get to fly, though how safe that flying would be was anyone’s guess.

I sat down in the captain's seat, remembering with a pang of regret that I hadn’t even asked what had become of Albert's remains. I'd been so busy over the past few days that it had completely slipped my mind.

"... This is... I've never seen anything like this," Fleetfoot breathed, a look of utter bewilderment on her face as she gazed at the multitude of panels with their various switches and dials.

She had her ears flat to her mane—something I'd seen a few others do, but never Fleetfoot. I begrudgingly admitted to myself that she looked... cute, for considerable lack of a better word.

Her gaze caught mine, and once again, I became abruptly aware that I'd been staring at her. Fuck. I quickly turned to look straight ahead out of the window. I really need to cut that shit out. I certainly didn't want to give any indication at all that I'd be interested in playing along with Spitfire's original plans for me.

Fleetfoot didn't say anything, even though I was sure she'd caught me looking. She began examining the centre console, her ears still flat. I had no idea whether it was out of genuine interest, or if she was merely just trying to ignore the semi-awkward situation of us being completely alone together.

I risked another glance at her, before deciding I was probably being stupid. Yes, stupid Jack, as usual.

As the Airbus was so close to the edge of the cliff, nothing but blue sky was visible through the windscreen. It was a little unnerving for me, considering the cockpit was currently in a "cold and dark" state. I decided to change that, hitting the four battery switches in turn on the overhead console. A few switches and dials illuminated with an orange glow as an electronic notification tone sounded.

This earned a surprised gasp from Fleetfoot. "What... What did you just do?" she nervously asked.

I chuckled. "Relax, I just turned on the electrics."

I reached up once again, holding the APU fire test button to check that both of the red indicator lights illuminated before hitting the master and start switches. Fleetfoot flinched as another notification tone sounded through the cockpit, signalling a successful APU start.

After switching on the console back lights and APU bleed air system, I turned to look at her, grinning this time. If she was freaked out by a simple “dong” tone... then she was gonna lose her shit when the ECAM fired up.

“What’s wrong? Is the big alien ship scaring you?” I teased, idly placing a thumb and forefinger on the ECAM display selector dial.

Fleetfoot scowled. “Please,” she scoffed. “As if a few strange noises could-EEEP!”

The master warning notification blared through the cockpit, causing Fleetfoot to flap her wings in panic, which in turn caused her to fall over backwards in the confined space. I didn’t hesitate to express my amusement by laughing my ass off.

“You were saying?” I chuckled, hitting the master warning reset button. The alarm stopped immediately.

“What in Tartarus was that!?” she gasped, effortlessly flicking herself upright with her wings.

“Just the plane's computer reminding me that engine one ate Windrunner. It's kind of sadistic like that.”

Fleetfoot glared at me. “You shouldn’t joke about that. Cloudchaser would tear you apart if she heard you say that.”

“Sorry,” I sighed, the last of my laughter dying.

Fleetfoot was silent for a few seconds, but her expression softened. “Well, I was never really keen on him.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I don’t need to know about your sex life.”

“What? No! I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Whatever you say... I’m just here to fly the plane,” I snickered. It was nice to have some payback for all the times Fleetfoot had terrified me, even if it was only teasing her.

Fleetfoot nickered in anger, and I promptly had a mini-heart attack at how much she sounded like an actual horse. Fuck, that’s creepy! She opened her muzzle to say something, but ended up giving another “eep” as the cockpit door burst open and smacked her in the flank.

Bubblebutt came barrelling into the cockpit, tripped over Fleetfoot, and ended up faceplanting the floor rather spectacularly. She came to rest upside down, one of her hind legs hooked over the first officer's seat back and her female pony bits very much on display. I facepalmed, making sure to cover my eyes.

“Derpy!”

The clumsy grey mare flinched at Fleetfoot’s sharp tone as she fell to the floor. She didn’t stay down for long, however. “It’s making a noise at the back! It’s really loud!” she all but yelled, her wings fluttering wildly and launching a few feathers as she sprang to her hooves.

Fleetfoot gave another nicker. Yep, still sounded freaky as fuck.

Pushing that disturbing thought from my mind, I grabbed Derpy by the shoulders. “It’s supposed to be making the noise. Now calm down, or I’ll have to ask you to leave the cockpit.”

This seemed to have the desired effect, seeing as she suddenly went from panicked to indifferent in no time at all. “Okay,” she chirped, grinning goofily at me as though she hadn't just been causing a scene.

Fleetfoot gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm going to check on the others."

Derpy grinned enthusiastically. "Need any help?" she excitedly asked.

"No!" Fleetfoot hastily yelled, before lowering her voice a little, "... I mean, no. You stay here. But for the love of Celestia, don't touch anything," she added, her tail giving an agitated flick as she left the cockpit.

I wearily observed Bubblebutt for a few seconds, but she seemed to be heeding Fleetfoot’s order, albeit with that goofy grin on her face as her eyes wandered independently of one another around the cockpit. With a slight shrug of indifference, I switched the Captain side display screen to the gear-cam. The screen illuminated, displaying the four main landing gear. Raindrops appeared to be halfway through securing an extremely thick mooring rope to one of the starboard side sets.

Derpy leaned over the centre console and stared at the screen. “Woah… How did Rainy get in there?” she asked.

I slowly turned to look at her, my expression incredulous. I mean—I know she had quite the reputation for being a bit dense, but this was more than a little ridiculous. “She’s not actually in there. It’s just a monitor,” I said, resisting the urge to facepalm again.

The ditzy mare ignored me, instead leaning over and tapping a hoof to the screen. “Hey, Rainy! Can you hear me?”

I chuckled. “Oi! Bubblebutt, she can’t hear you! Now back off, you’re gonna break the damn screen.” I gave one of her large furry ears a cheeky flick for emphasis.

Derpy froze.

Instead of the minor flinch I’d been expecting, she gave a high pitched yelp and launched herself backwards, hitting the rear wall of the cockpit.

“Woah, what the hell are you doing?” I asked, utterly bewildered by her mini freak out.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she just looked frightened, and almost as confused as I felt. Even though I had no idea what I’d done wrong, it was still enough to get a pretty nasty guilt trip going. “Was it something I said?”

In a swift movement, she was gone from the cockpit before I could even finish the sentence. Fuck.

Staring back at the open door, I tried to make heads or tails of what had just happened… All I did was flick her ear. What’s so bad about that?

When no explanation came to mind, I gave a loud sigh and turned back to the side screen. A thick mooring line was attached to each gear segment in turn, all four of them trailing off slack on the runway. Raindrops was nowhere to be seen, but a few of the others were milling about, or talking in small groups.

“What did you do to Derpy?”

I nearly jumped out of my seat at Fleetfoot’s question.

“Jesus, fuck! I wish you’d stop doing that!”

“Doing what?” she asked, slowly trotting into the cockpit and kicking the door closed with a hind hoof.

“Sneaking up on me!” I adjusted my tie and smoothed out some of the creases on my shirt.

“I wasn’t being particularly quiet. Your ears must be bad or something.” She paused, ignoring my token eye-roll. “Speaking of ears, d’you want to tell me why you were fiddling with Derpy’s?”

“Fiddling!? I flicked her ear!”

Fleetfoot frowned. “Why? Do you want to rut her?”

It took me a few seconds to comprehend what she had just asked me. “... What?”

“I don’t think she messes around outside of her heat cycle. If you’re looking for that sort of thing, then you’d probably have better luck with Flitter. Word on the base is that she already has her eye on you.”

After even more brain lag, my mind caught up. “... What? Wait, who? I mean—no! It doesn’t even matter! I don’t wanna know,” I spluttered, already wishing I had some extra-strength Brain Bleach, or better yet, a large bottle of Jack. “You mean to tell me that when I flicked Derpy’s ear, she took that as me coming on to her?”

Fleetfoot snorted. “Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because… it’s stupid! And weird! You guys are weird.”

Fleetfoot chuckled. “No, you’re weird. That’s why Flitter wants to rut you. She’s into crazy shit… crazy shit like you.” She grinned.

“How the fuck can someone be turned on by having their ears touched? That just strikes me as unnecessarily inconvenient, if anything.”

Fleetfoot merely shrugged, one of her own ears giving a slight twitch.

Another thought sprang to mind. “So… should I avoid looking at pony ears?” I asked. The question sounded even more ridiculous out loud than it had in my head…

“Only if you don’t want to get jumped,” Fleetfoot deadpanned.

After an embarrassingly long length of time, I finally realised she was winding me up. A smug grin slowly spread across her muzzle.

I scowled, turning back to the controls. “Let’s just get on with this, for fuck’s sake…”

* * *

Three attempts.

Three attempts had been made, utilising nearly two hundred or so of the pegasi stationed at the academy—but the plane still refused to move. I was currently rocking my "I told you so" face at Fleetfoot. The scowl on her face was rather satisfying... For me, at least. Her disgruntled complaining was the cherry on the cake.

"Who builds a ship this big with no reverse? It's stupid,” she mumbled, sitting on her haunches behind the centre console.

"I told you, we have aircraft tugs for that," I half chuckled in a sing-song voice, re-activating the parking brake.

"Isn't there something you can do? We can't just leave this thing here blocking the runway."

I sighed. As much fun as it was to wind her up, she did have a point. "Well, it's a little unorthodox, but I could throw a bit of reverse thrust into the equation..."

"...reverse thrust?" She glared at me. "You mean this thing does have reverse?"

"Well, not exactly. It’s more a means of slowing down than-oww! Hey! What are you-OWW! Damn it, you crazy horse!"

Fleetfoot had reared up and began batting me with her wings. "We could have-" whack, "-had it moved-" whack, "bucking hours ago!" whack.

"Okay! Okay! Cut it out already!" I half yelled, attempting to hide behind the seat back.

Fleetfoot nickered, but stopped her feathery assault. “Well, go on then. Do what you need to do!”

“Slow down, it’s not as simple as that. We need to make sure everyone is well clear of engines two and three. We don’t want another Windrunner.”

“Fine. I’ll take care of that. You get them started.” With that, she trotted from the cockpit, her bright, silky tail swishing behind her as she went.

I watched her go. I wasn’t staring, though…

* * *

The whimpering had finally stopped, and now… now there was nothing. Jessica didn’t know if this was a good thing, or if she should be worried about her suddenly silent friend.

“Umm… Is she okay?”

Jessica glanced at the panic stricken flight attendant. “She’ll be fine… I think.”

“Are you sure? I can leave-”

“No, that’s quite unnecessary. She has to get used to ponies eventually.”

The stallion smiled uneasily, his bright cerulean coat shining in the light from the large bay windows. His mane and tail shone even brighter, just the right shade of blonde, and a lively volume some of her former colleagues would have killed for.

It was odd, but Jessica had come to find that she didn’t mind Warmfront’s visits so much. In fact—given that she’d been bored out of her wits end the past few days—she even looked forward to them.

“Well… If you say so.” Warmfront gave a nervous chuckle. “Where’s Jason?”

“He went out somewhere with Flitter about an hour ago.”

“It’s a shame she won't let you leave,” Warmfront said, nodding toward Leanne. “You must be crazy bored sitting in here all day.”

“Yeah…” Jessica sighed. It was getting old… Leanne’s fear. Six days had passed, yet the poor girl still thought she was going crazy. It would have been easier to deal with if she didn’t latch onto Jessica’s arm and start crying every time she tried to go for a stroll. “Never mind that. What brings you here?”

His smile faltered. “I’m looking for Jack.”

“Again?”

“Well, he’s really good at hiding… Or, I suck at finding him, I don’t know…” He rubbed his forehead with a wingtip, and Jessica couldn’t help but notice the bags under his eyes.

“I wish you’d tell me why you keep looking for him,” Jessica grumbled. “Maybe I could talk to him, get him to come round…”

“I told you, it’s classified for now. Spitfire’s orders.” He shivered slightly upon pronouncing the Captain’s name.

“Are you… Are you scared of her?”

Warmfront gave a noticeably forced laugh. “Scared? Of course not… I’m bucking terrified! You’ve met her, right?” he screeched, causing Leanne to flinch and retreat further back on her sofa-bed. “She keeps demanding I get Jack to comply! As stubborn as he is, it wouldn’t be so bad, but Fleetfoot won't let me get near him!” His voice broke as he fell to his haunches, his wings flailing pathetically at his sides. “I’m trying to keep Spitfire happy by persuading Jack to do the thing Spitfire wants him to do, but then Fleetfoot catches me and starts breathing down my neck to leave him alone! I can’t bucking win!”

“Okay, calm down, Warmy,” Jessica soothed… Wait… Warmy? Where the hell did that come from?

Quickly pushing the weird nickname aside, Jessica dropped to the floor next to Warmfront and wrapped an arm around him. “Can’t you just tell Spitfire someone else is giving you a conflicting order?”

“No,” he sobbed, leaning into her touch, “Fleetfoot is bucking crazy. If she found out I complained to Spitfire about her, she’d probably tear my damned wings off.”

Jessica rubbed his side. His fur was noticeably smooth against her fingers. “She kind of sounds like a bitch.”

Warmfront flinched, nervously glancing at the doorway. The corridor beyond was empty. “I just don’t understand why she’s so adamant that he be left out of the programme… unless…”

“Programme? What Programme?”

Warmfront gulped. “Nothing… Eh… I should probably get going.”

“Unless what?”

The stallion got to his hooves and began edging toward the door, a nervous grin on his face. “So, uh… You have a nice day!”

“Wait!” Jessica yelled, but he’d already taken off at full gallop down the hallway. Jessica made to run after him, but an extremely loud yelp from Leanne stopped her in her tracks.

God damnit… Why’d I get stuck with the orange bimbo?

* * *

Side display set to tail-cam. Check.

Fuel pumps set to auto. Check.

Engine mode selector set to ignition. Check.

Everything appeared to be in order, but I still thought it necessary to check the tail-cam display for a fifth time to make sure all of the pegasi were a safe distance away from the two engines I was about to start. I couldn’t see beneath the wings, but I’d already given Fleetfoot a good twenty minutes to warn everyone to stay clear.

I hadn't forgotten the look on Cloudchaser's face when she'd first confronted me about Windrunner. Sure, I'd been drunk as hell, but it was all too easy to recall the despair... I really didn't want to kill any more ponies, indirectly or otherwise.

With a drawn out sigh, I pulled the corresponding master switches. The auto-start sequence initiated for the two engines as normal. The engine RPM gauges, along with the vibration running through the fuselage told me they had successfully fired up.

Instinctively, I took another glance at the Captain’s side display. No pegasi were in the danger zone, but the ropes connected to the gear had been pulled taut. Clearly, the ponies were getting impatient. Wasting no more time, I applied maximum reverse thrust and disengaged the parking brake.

The two engines quickly spooled up to a loud roar, just as the cockpit door burst open. “Okay, no more messing around! Do your thing and let’s get this ship rollin-oh…” Fleetfoot’s face suddenly lit up. “We’re moving!”

Sure enough, the aircraft had began rolling backwards ever so slowly. I chuckled. I certainly hadn’t expected this little stunt to work. Man, if old Albert could see me abusing the engines like this, he'd have a fit... God rest his soul...

It took a while, but once we’d rolled back a few hundred feet, I set the engines to idle. The plane eventually stopped, with plenty of room ahead to manoeuvre.

Fleetfoot haphazardly clambered into the First Officer’s seat. The image of her sitting there on her haunches in front of the various switches, dials, and displays was pretty ridiculous.

She slowly turned to look at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I snickered. “You just look a little… out of place.”

She scowled. “I’m the best Raptor pilot on this base!”

“This is an Airbus,” I deadpanned. “What the hell is a Raptor?”

“That.” She pointed a hoof dead ahead out of the windscreen.

One of the strange vessels I’d seen in the cloud hanger was just visible in the distance. Its long, sleek, Concorde-like fuselage was painted in an elaborate blue and white livery, something akin to sky camouflage. It was travelling way too slowly to be staying up in the air, even with the increased air density. I was utterly baffled as to how it was managing such a feat… until I spotted something that I hadn’t seen on the hangar-bound vessels...

“Is that… the Magnus effect?”

Fleetfoot grinned. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

Several thin cylinders were protruding from either side of the aircraft, allowing it to glide quite comfortably along at low speed. It eventually sailed over the top of the airbus and out of sight, presumably heading for a go-around.

“That’s… really clever, actually,” I admitted. The dense atmosphere would certainly make it a hell of alot easier to utilize the Magnus Effect—a generally failed method of generating lift back on Earth. "Must be quite a bit of drag, though?"

"Felix takes care of that. She’s pretty good at anti-drag enchantments."

“Felix?”

Fleetfoot’s grin grew at my interest, her eyes momentarily showing an uncharacteristic softness. “Our engineer, and the only unicorn I trust to have my back in a fight.”

Up to this point, I’d never met a unicorn, and the prospect of actually witnessing honest to freakish-pony-overlord magic was a bit of an unnerving one. Fleetfoot must have noticed, as the googly eyed fondness vanished, to be replaced by her signature smirk.

“I feel like I should warn you. Felix is a very, ah... inquisitive pony. She has to know what everything is, how it all works, what its purpose is, where it came from-”

I scowled. “I got it.”

The smiling pegasus fell silent for a few seconds, during which I deliberately focused on the various pegasi loading the piles of extracted interior onto several large carriages.

“She’s not too good with boundaries, either,” Fleetfoot added.

I willed myself not to rise to her bullshit. She was well aware of my stance on personal space and was more than likely exaggerating just to get a reaction.

She wouldn’t be getting one.

“Where do I park?” I all but monotoned.

Still grinning, she motioned to a large area of tarmac over by the barracks, not too far from the large cloud hangar. With tepid throttle movements, I powered up the two running engines, giving a little more thrust to engine three to help ease the leviathan aircraft to the left. The jet slowly turned towards the intended destination just as the last of the looting carriages were pulled free of the runway.

“But really, though—don’t be scared of her when she, uh… examines you. Because she will do that-”

“Can you not?” I snapped.

“I’m just saying…”

The jet came to a halt by the barracks, with probably a little more braking force than was required. Fleetfoot nearly smacked her head off the screen in front of her. I smirked, engaging the parking brake and powering down the engines before hopping out of my seat.

Without so much as a glance back at my highly annoying feathered companion, I strode from the cockpit and down the staircase, scanning the cabin for anything I could use to get to the ground.

There was nothing.

I opened the cabin door anyway, scowling at the distance to the tarmac and cursing at the stupid ponies for not having a decent set of airstairs.

The sound of hooves on tarmac grew slowly louder, Raindrops eventually coming into view from beneath the fuselage. She looked a little out of breath, but bore her usual, happy smile regardless.

“Oh, hey, Jack,” she chirped, launching herself into the air and whizzing up to hover at my eye-level. “Do you need a wing-”

“Nope. I got this,” I lied.

The pegasus hovered perfectly still in the air, giving me a somewhat pitiful, bemused smile. I glared at the ground, several meters below, almost trying to will an independent method of de-boarding to spontaneously present itself.

To her credit, Raindrops was pleasantly patient with my insanity. “Y’know… I think the rope is still on the runway. I could go get it if you-”

“Please,” I croaked, hastily punching myself in the chest.

She nodded, darting vertically out of sight. I continued to glare at the tarmac, determined to stifle the sob threatening to escape my throat.

Men didn’t cry. Especially for stupid shit like lack of a staircase...