Flight for Harmony

The Lost World is an area of the planet, untraveled. No pony dared to enter it because the legends foretold about these locations were immensely terrifying and Celestia knew that. Not wanting her subjects to be harmed she prohibited anyone to enter it.

However, 5 years ago, a strange thing happened. The princesses received an anonymous letter written in a text that they had never seen before. They had their best translators try to decipher the mysterious letter. It took a while but once the translators had successfully decrypted the message, they showed it to the princesses.

They couldn’t believe what they were reading. The horrors that befell upon them were true. It was time to end the Peace Age.

That day everypony who lived in Ponyville including me and my five best friends were sent to Canterlot. When we arrived we saw thousands of ponies gathered just outside the castle gates. The princesses might have brought everypony in Equestria to Canterlot. I was wondering why but the answer came sooner than I expected. They told us that we had two choices: join the Military or go into hiding in the abandoned castle dungeons, which was the safest place possible at the time. Struggling with my decision, I finally chose to join the military. To this day, I still don’t know what my friends chose. Most of them probably switched bases or hideouts, some of them joined the military and some of them didn’t. I hope that my friends and my family are all okay.

I have been serving in the Equestrian Air Force for 3 years now. In here, we get to fly these flying machines called planes or fighter jets. These planes are fourth generation fighter jets. The earlier generations were used thousands of years ago but they were crafted with unicorn magic which made them unsafe. But now, with the advancement in technology, these new aircraft are in full production and with good reason to use them. They are combat-ready. Since there had not been a war for a long time, almost everypony had forgotten about these beasts of the battlefield. But I hadn´t.

I just woke up and had breakfast. Like every day of my life, I expect something interesting to happen. As a fighter pilot I get to serve my country and save hundreds of ponies, maybe even thousands. But all of this comes at a cost. I have to be willing to lay down my life as a normal pony, serve to protect the princesses and Equestria mostly by engaging and defeating the enemy. Every soldier struggles with this: getting your first kill as part of the military is never easy. I know it wasn’t for me but luckily that day was long ago although, I still have nightmares about it.

Yesterday, I was informed of a special mission. Dispatching is today and I need to tell Cloud Kicker. I rush through the base trying to find her and in the process, I bump into some ponies and receive some unpleasant looks from them. But luckily I find the lavender blue coat pegasus mare in a corridor. She notices me running towards her.

“Good morning Miss Dash, what’s wrong?” she asks me.

“Cloud Kicker, we got orders from command, we’re taking-off today. We’ll be sent on a scouting mission past the Antlertic Ocean. Command suspects that there might be some enemy activity there so we need to be prepared. Get ready, we’re taking-off in thirty,” I say hastily but clearly.

“Yes ma’am,” she replied.

She salutes then gallops to her quarters as fast as she can. I feel like all the stress leaves my mind as she disappears behind a corner.

Twenty five minutes later I find myself next to a set of stairs waiting for Cloud Kicker. When I start to get a bit impatient I finally see her trotting up towards me with her yellow and black flight jacket which is the same as mine.

“Dash, the weather system is a bit buggy, but there might be some strong winds and heavy rain north-west from us,” she informs me with an extreme confidence in her voice.

I stare at her without saying anything expecting more information. After a few awkward seconds pass I decide to break the silence.

“And?”

“And what?” she looks at me with a confused look.

“Aren’t you going to give me the coordinates of this severe weather?”

“I can’t be sure, the weather system isn’t exact but I would say approximately 45 degrees north.”

“Ok, that won’t be the direction we’re going so we’re good in terms of weather. Our wingpony today will be Thunderlane with his co-pilot Blossomforth who will be occupying jet Strike 2-7.”

“Good to know.”

We both head up the stairs and through an opening. We are greeted with heavy rain drops falling violently onto the dark ocean, dark clouds covering the whole sky and not a speck of light coming from Celestia’s sun. We walk onto our aircraft carrier's runway and then we both spot our ride, the Tornado GR4, a beauty. This two-seater, all-weather day/night and reconnaissance aircraft is as gorgeous as it is dangerous. With a max speed of 2400 km/h and heavily equipped with Aim-9 Sidewinders for close range and AIM-132 ASRAAM air-to-air missiles for medium range each powered with U.P.E. or Unicorn Powered Energy, this jet is a beast on the battlefield. The call sign of the aircraft is Strike 2-5.

The colourful glow of the red and yellow airstrip lights reflect from the edges of the jet’s sleek metal wings onto the floor. The cockpit is seen from outside with the glass canopy open. Right next to the cockpit, on the floor is a ladder to help us carry our heavy armour into the plane. After a moment of contemplation, we step closer to the aircraft but we both stop a few metres from the jet. I look at Cloud Kicker and she looks at me.

“Put on your gloves,” I order her.

Cloud Kicker nods and then puts on the dark metallic gloves that every pilot has. I see her close her eyes then flinch right before the gloves start making a humming sound as the glass panels on them turn bright blue. These are not ordinary gloves.

These gloves are called Integrated Grip Devices or I.G.D. for short. This device when worn, connect and scan our nervous system. Then with science on its side, it can extract or retract metallic fingers at our command. But all machines have their limits, this one too. However, there are warnings before the gloves overheat. The lights turn from blue to yellow. Usually when this happens we need to activate the A.U.P.E. which stands for Advanced Unicorn Powered Energy. This emergency power supply is produced by higher rank unicorns and only allowed to be used in dire circumstances. This extra juice is situated in the lower bay just below the cockpit and it helps to give a bit more control over the devices. However not having the proper energy for the device, since it is used for multiple chargeable machines, it might make them a bit unstable but controllable. This energy can last between 20-30 minutes. As well as warnings and extra juice, the gloves also alert us if our vital systems are failing. For example, if our heart beat starts to reach 180 beats per minute the lights will change to the menacing colour red indicating that we are close to having a heart attack. The metal of the gloves are colour black, the lights are a rectangle shape that are situated on the palm and on each individual finger. On the back of the palm we see a tiny rectangle screen which shows our heart rate.

Once our gloves are on, I wear my helmet with my call sign ‘Dash’ written on the front of it. As the metallic helmet covers my rainbow-coloured mane I feel the air-conditioning automatically turn on. As I feel the cold air refreshing my head I climb the ladder slowly. Once on the last step I lower my hoof in the cockpit and finally lower my body to rest on the comfortable seat. I strap the seatbelt around my shoulder until I feel the leather of the belt press hardly against my suit. As I look to my left I see the killer waves crashing on to the boat’s left side or ‘port’ side. I also see Cloud Kicker climbing the ladder with her helmet which also has her call sign written on the front of it. ‘Kicker’.

Right after climbing the ladder as my co-pilot, she sits behind me, lowering her body inside the war machine. I see Kicker look down onto the large panel of monitors and buttons that surround her. She then extracts the fingers out of her gloves and presses a few buttons. I then see all the monitors around us turn on; a white colour lighting up the screens, changing after a few seconds into the colour of green and yellow.

As I hear a button clicking I see the canopy close. I always look up to see it lower down, I don’t know why I do it, it just happens automatically and it makes me feel safer for some reason. I see the rain drops fall onto the canopy that protects us. Kicker then starts to do the usual pre-flight checks she does every time before we take off; check weapons, counter measures, flaps and so on. I, with complete trust in her, turn back to my control panel. In front of me are panels with a few buttons on them as well as on the side of the cockpit. There's a monitor on the bottom left and another on the top right. I then start checking breaks, lights and landing gear.

This is the jet that I usually use so that means I could leave some of my things in it if I want: like flying magazines, key chains and a photo of me with my five best friends, all in a group hug. I miss them so much. I used to have way more things in here before but since this jet isn’t mine I frequently need to move all my ‘souvenirs’ sometimes misplacing some of them in the process.

I look to my right and see four ponies with white helmets and a yellow coat walking and standing on their hind legs. Walking, standing and running on hind legs for us ponies is basically something normal now. It is proven in training simulations that this tactic is best. But if somepony needs to sprint at full speed, they would likely use all four legs.

The ponies I see are Ramp Service agents. These agents also have gloves but they are a different type. Their gloves are white with black lights on the palm and fingers. On their back palm there is a screen like ours but their information covers take-offs, landings and jet specification.

While I look at one of the pegasi agents typing something on their screen I catch a glance of another jet right on the take-off ramp to my 2 o’clock. I pay more attention to the machine and spot Thunderlane in the pilot seat and Blossomforth in the co-pilot seat. Through the radio, Thunderlane speaks.

“This is jet Strike 2-7 requesting permission for take-off, over.”

“Base to Strike 2-7, negative, allied jets passing through, E.T.A. two minutes. Please stand by,” a male voice orders.

I then realize the mechanical noises coming from Kicker’s gloves. I look back at her.

“Everything alright?” I ask.

She glances a couple of times to the right and then to the left. “Guns are spun up and missile tracking is a go, affirmative, we’re good to go.”

We both hear Blossomforth speak through the radio.

“Thunder, flaps are all good, wing sweep is correct and A.U.P.E. is filtered and ready to transfer.”

It’s good to know that Blossom is doing her job correctly.

We all hear jets passing above us, tearing through the sky as we hear the sound barrier break a few seconds later. Kicker lowers her visor. The dark glass covers her purple eyes. The visor, along with her oxygen mask that she just put on, covers her entire face. I press a few buttons then also lower my visor. I see on the left of my vision AIM9, ASRAAM and CANNON. I then put on my oxygen mask around my muzzle, I hear a faint breathing.

“This is tower, Strike 2-7 are you ready for take-off? Over,” Tower asks my wingpony.

“Affirmative,” Thunder replies.

Strike 2-7 prepares for take-off. All of the ponies can hear the thrust of the jet starting up. I see the engines of the jet increasing the bright yellow glow of the thrust every second. As the engines turn fully yellow the jet jerks up and down just before taking off from the ramp at maximum speed, the sound from the engine bouncing off our canopy.

It’s our turn now.

“This is tower to Strike 2-5, are you prepared for take-off?”

“This is Strike 2-5 everything is functioning correctly, we are good to go. Over,” I say.

“Roger that.”

I prepare for the take-off. A Ramp Service agent holds one hoof up indicating to hold position. After the throttle sound reaches full blast, the agent extracts all fingers, ducks to the right and waves one hoof indicating that I am clear for take-off. I hold tight on the joystick and then, right after Kicker gives the agents a thumbs up, we take-off at maximum speed. Both of our heads are pulled back. The plane gets off the airstrip. Adrenaline takes over my body. I pull the joystick towards me, and then the plane reaches for the clouds.

This is awesome.