War is Boring

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 4

Chapter 1

WrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

My eyes snap open instantly at the noise coming from right above my head. “Who the buck is launching jets right now?”

“Oh wow, LD, it’s almost like daily flight operations are starting,” replies a sleepy but sarcastic voice from the other rack.

I grumble and get out of bed. If that was the first wave of aircraft launching, it means I have an hour before I need to be ready. The flight schedule that had been slipped under the door last night told me that I was flying as part of the second wave.

“What kind of favor did you call in to get the morning off?” I ask, finding my roommate’s name further down the schedule.

She chuckles. “Don’t complain that you’re only getting ten hours of sleep.”

I grumble some more. Then, I smirk and stealthily reset my alarm clock to its loudest setting. I give it a few minutes, time for me to get away and time for Rainbow to fall asleep again. She would do the same for me.

I go to the head for morning business. I look in the mirror as I brush my teeth. My mane is everywhere, but so is everypony else’s on this ship. I could do something with it, but I took a shower the night prior and it’s not worth the time to take another.

After putting on my flight suit, I get going, walking through the tight ship passageways. Even though I’ve been at this job for a while, it’s still mind boggling that somepony was crazy enough to put an airport on a ship. Crazier still, it works. Plenty of little problems remain, though, like trying to make airwing and ship ponies get along.

The passageways are crowded with ponies. Some of them are fellow pilots, but most are members of the ship’s crew. I head for the wardroom to see what’s for breakfast and make it there without crossing too many sailors. Checking out the selection, I make my choice: nothing. I’m not going to eat any of this disgusting stuff, but looking at my options has made me not as hungry, so that’s a plus. The less said about ship food, the better.

Down a different passageway, I arrive at the squadron ready room and go inside. It’s the closest thing to a living room that any of us pilots have. The floor is crowded with chairs and our flag is on the wall. Somewhat comfy, and a good place to meet.

The coffee pot is full and I pour a cup. The duty officer’s brain is empty, but at least she knows how to make coffee.

“Good morning, Lightning!” Derpy quips.

Having not had any coffee yet, I mumble through a reply. The first sip opens my eyes. It’s so black that my soul might be in danger. Tasty.

I plop down in my chair, the one that has Lightning Dust embroidered on the headrest. Other ponies start to come into the ready room. I spot Fleetfoot, the mare that would be leading the section I was in that day.

She nods to me and takes a cup of coffee. She winces at the taste. I quickly take a sip of my own to hide my grin. Fleetfoot comes over and sits down. “I’ve got the documents for the mission today.”

“What are we doing?”

“The same thing we do every day.”

I sigh. If she had meant “take over the world,” I would be down for that. Unfortunately, the only thing we do every day is fly over countries that don’t like us to help them fight ponies that like us even less. Sometimes that actually involves dropping bombs. Sometimes.

Fleetfoot notes my expression. “Cheer up. Just another six months before we go home.”

I give her a flat stare. I can’t imagine how she could be so chipper. Just because this wasn’t her first deployment, she’s trying to tell me that things aren’t so bad. How could this so-called war be so bucking boring?

Fleetfoot doesn’t appear to notice my contempt, however. She reads through her notes, still holding her coffee cup. I notice a tremor go through her wings every time she takes a sip.

It isn’t just our squadron that will be participating in this event, so after working through a few notes, Fleetfoot and I get up to head for the brief room. A few ponies from other squadrons are already there, waiting on the intel guy to show up. Shortly he does, and turns on the computer.

The slides are the same ones every day. Go here, hang around until something interesting happens – or more likely, you get low on fuel – and come back.

Thus armed with more bombs than brains, we go topside to strap into our jets. The F/A-41Q is an ugly abomination of a couple airplanes stitched together by a blind foal. It had been designed for the flexible fighter-attack role. I don’t know if it could do that. I had only ever seen it drop bombs on lightly armed enemy pedestrians.

But it’s all we have, budgets being what they were. I do a walk-around to make sure I’m being given all the bombs and missiles that I’m signing for and nothing serious is leaking out of the jet. Small leaks are good, because they mean the reservoir isn’t empty. Why would anypony want to properly fix a multimillion-bit aircraft?

I hop in the cockpit and strap in. Beside me, Fleetfoot is doing the same in her jet. As I close the canopy, the deck ponies give both jets a tow towards the front of the ship. I happily notice that I’m being taken to the catapult that runs directly above mine and Rainbow’s room.

I feel a bump as the catapult shuttle hooks onto the jet’s nose gear. Just in case Rainbow is still sleeping, I make sure that the engines are extra loud when I come up on the throttles. After a quick stir of the stick to check the ailerons and tail surfaces, I’m ready.

The catapult shooter crouches beside the jet and points a hoof forward. At his command, I launch. The catapult shot is exhilarating as it rockets my jet into the air, side by side with Fleetfoot’s aircraft. The skies and the seas are beautiful this morning, under a warm sun. Sometimes I have moments where I feel very smart for joining the Navy instead of the Air Force.

“Cupcake One-One,” Fleetfoot says, checking in.

“Cupcake One-Two,” I reply.

Fleetfoot orders the next step in the checklist. “Spread and FOD check.”

We put a little distance between the jets and then roll inverted to see if there are any foreign objects or debris hanging around. In my upside down jet, a water balloon rolls out from under the seat and explodes on the canopy.

It takes me a moment to realize what just happened. I hang there from my seat straps and stare at the puddle of water resting in the hollow of the canopy. When I roll right side up, it’s going to soak me.

“Anything?” Fleetfoot asks.

I grit my teeth and return to level flight. Splash. “No more than usual.”

Ahh, yes. A few extra precious moments of sleep… So much win. Little does LD know, I swapped our names in the flight rotation before it was posted last night.

I hear the door shut as my comrade in arms heads toward the ready room. It’ll be a good solid thirty minutes before the next flight op wakes me up. Plenty of time to catch a bit more shuteye…

“WEEERK WEEERK WEEERK WEEERK WEEERK”

“DAMMIT LIGHTNING DUST!”

Well, it looks like I won’t be getting any extra sleep today. Time for some bucking coffee, I guess... After a long, hot shower, of course. At least I can have that.

The first (and undoubtedly the hardest) mission of the day is to drag myself out of bed. The extra motivation of Lightning’s early morning sabotage helps, every time the thing sounds off I can feel my brain try to explode. As soon as my hooves hit the deck, I turn off that bucking alarm before it can scramble my brains.

With that epic journey out of the way, I decide to hit the head. A small shuffle of my wings as I walk is enough for me to know just how badly my feathers are jacked up. My mane’s probably even worse, so I don’t bother looking into the mirror as I walk past.

After taking care of some very important morning paperwork, I head over to the shower and turn it on. Of course, it always takes a while for the water get hot, so I let it flow, waiting for it to steam up before I step in and soak myself. As soon as the water hits my head, that horrible, pounding headache begins to fade. I pretty much fall in and lean against the wall, not even bothering to pull the curtain shut. There’s a drain on the floor. That’s what it’s there for, right?

The water is glorious, just the thing I need before strapping my flank in the seat of a big, clunky airboat for the day. I can’t wait to fly around pointlessly until I almost run out of fuel… again. Maybe this time I can actually fly somewhere that isn’t over the ocean, heck, maybe even blow something up… at least I have that to hope for.

The roar of jet engines on the upper deck brings my mind back into the present. As much as I don’t want the shower to end, I still have a mission briefing to catch. After drying off and tossing my wet towel onto LD’s pillow, I squeeze into my flight suit and head for the upper decks. The shower was great and all, but I still need some coffee before I can even think about thinking about things.

I’m actually looking forward to getting to the ready room just so I can have a cup of that awesome brew. Derpy doesn’t do a lot of things right, but coffee is one of the few things she’s got figured out. A few minutes of squeezing past grumpy sea-ponies in the hall while trying to resist the urge to see if I can fly over them is all it takes to bring me together with my cup of coffee. Wonderful, wonderful coffee.

I take a seat at the table and give myself a moment to let the caffeine do its job. As usual, Derpy didn’t disappoint. It might be cheap, stale, ship coffee, but she makes it strong enough that you might be at risk of a heart attack if you drink more than two cups… I always like to have three.

After downing the first cup and getting about halfway through the next, the rest of my flight squad for the day’s mission starts to filter into the Flier’s Lounge. Yeah, I came up with that one. With us in charge of the place, the description fits. At this point, it’s pretty much our hangout spot when we’re not out on a flight mission. Too bad we don’t have anything stronger to drink than coffee… Maybe one day me and LD can get back to base and go out for a night on the town.

The craziest part about this whole war thing is how incredibly lame it is. Nopony told me it was gonna be so much intense waiting, with the occasional explosion that I don’t get to watch. I’d rather be out there flying on my own, without some big, metal cage keeping me trapped in a state of eternal boredom. Yet, here I am, about to go on another mission to babysit the skies… Speaking of which, here comes the intel guy, probably about to put his stupid slides up on the screen and brief us on the same mission as always. What fun.

We all walk into the brief room just as the screen flickers on, and the intel guy (whose name I always forget) takes his seat behind the table in front of us. He looks like he could use a few cups of coffee himself… I thought my mane would look bad this morning, but this guy... wow. I find my mind wandering off as he rattles on about the exact same flight mission we’ve been doing for the past three weeks. It’s like they actually expect us to run into trouble out there! If only we could be so lucky, I never thought being a pilot could be so dull.

With all that excitement out of the way, it’s time to make the journey topside to the flight deck. It’s a fairly short walk to the end of the hall and up the stairs that lead to my destination. I get to the end and open the hatch. Of course, being trapped in a dimly lit ship for so long has the effect of making even a dark, cloudy day seem like somepony is blasting you in the face with a searchlight. Today is not one of those days. There isn’t a cloud to be found in the sky and of all the stupid things for me to do, I went and let LD borrow my feathering sunglasses.

I swear, sometimes I’m too nice to that mare… Good thing I left her a little present to wake her up this morning. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see me when I get back from this skysitting mission. I squint my eyes as hard as I can to deal with Celestia’s eye-scorching photon blaster until I can get my flight helmet on. I’d like to find whoever decided to work a tinted visor into the design and buy them a few rounds of drinks. It’s been a lifesaver more than once.

Finally, I make the walk across the deck and reach my jet. Since I still have a good bit of time to perform my pre-flight inspection, I decide to take a moment to check my cockpit for any surprises. You never know what someone might leave laying around in there. It might get awkward if someone left me a present that got me all wet in the cockpit… Hehehe.

Aside from the usual oil leaks and dingy paint, my jet seems to be in pretty good shape. Of course, I wouldn’t mind the chance to punch out, just so I can get the chance to fly with my own wingpower. It would be a shame to waste a perfectly good jet like that though, me and this baby have been through a lot together. She’s taken pretty good care of me so far.

That’s one thing I gotta give to the flight crew here, they keep our birds up and running, even on the worst days. Now, if only they weren’t so uptight. I swear, most of these stallions walk around like they’ve just had something shoved up their plot. Well… this is a Naval ship. From what I hear, some of them probably have had something shoved up their plot recently.

While I was zoned out thinking about what stallions do for fun on this ship, my wingpony for the day, Lightning Streak, caught my attention. For a moment, I look back at his flank, continuing my mental tangent without even realizing it. Unfortunately, my eyes betray me, and that moment is just long enough for him to catch me.

“See something you like back there, Dash?”

For a moment, I contemplate telling him I was wondering if he’d had anything long and hard shoved up his plot recently… But I really don’t wanna know. And, to be honest, I kind of hope he isn’t into that. I’d definitely like to take a little bit of liberty with him, if you know what I mean… He pretty much looks like a male version of Lightning Dust, so he’s hotter than the average stallion. Don’t ever tell her I said that.

“Naah, I was just zoned out thinking about the mission. Never know what we’ll run into out there, it’s best to be prepared for all the possibilities.” The smirk on his face was enough to tell me that he didn’t buy it.

“And just what kind of mission did you have in mind? I don’t think getting flank was on our list of objectives this morning… Too bad it isn’t, I’d sure like to pull a hit and run mission
on your bunkmate.”

“Hah, yeah right, Streak. If you wanna get some of her, you gotta get through me!” I lift off and hover, then cross my forelegs for extra emphasis. Gotta make sure I’m sending the right signals.

In response, he looks up at me with a raised eyebrow and that (really sexy) lopsided smirk, then replies, “Well, there’s no need to fight over it. I’m sure the three of us could find a way to keep ourselves entertained.”

I drop to the deck and give him my best bedroom eyes. Of course, he falls for it like a chump and leans in as I slowly close the distance. I stop just a breath away from his muzzle and look deeply into his eyes.

“You wouldn’t last eight hours…”

The look on his face is priceless. I bump my bose against his, then swat his muzzle with my tail as I turn my back to him, making sure to sway my flank far more than necessary as I head for my jet. Once I’m close, I wing jump up to the cockpit and land perfectly in the seat, then watch as Lightning Streak shakes his head in my general direction and walks off. At least now we both have something entertaing to think about during the next several hours of sheer boredom.

I close the canopy and start working through the cabin portion of my pre-flight inspection. I’ve never had a problem out of this baby, so I feel okay with skipping some of the less essential steps. Our mechanics always do their job right, so I don’t even need to worry about it. I radio in and call for a taxi. The deck ponies come and pull my jet onto the runway. I go through the last few steps of my pre-flight, including firing up the engines. I’ve always loved the way it feels in the cockpit as the engines roar to life. There’s just something thrilling about controlling all that power… Though, these jets aren’t exactly what I’d call sporty.

I throttle up a bit to warm the engine a little faster, slowly increasing the thrust until I feel the jet start to lurch forward. With all that out of the way, I signal the deck ponies that I’m good to go and they prepare the catapult for launch. All I can do now is hang tight and wait for a crazy ride. It’s always a rush to accelerate so fast, definitely my favorite part of all the lame missions we’ve been doing lately.

The catapult shooter gives me the signal and I punch the throttle. I hear a loud, metallic clang along with what feels like something violently snatching my jet forward, but instead of being launched off the ship, I just continue to slowly roll towards the edge of the runway. Steam rises from the deck where the catapult has just passed, and I see some unidentified shiny object flying off the end of the runway. That is definitely not normal. I snatch my throttle back and grab the brakes before it’s too late to stop. The jet comes to a screeching halt, and a sudden alarm starts sounding off on the instrument panel. A series of flashing lights that I’ve never seen before go off all over the cabin, then the engine dies completely and whines to a halt, followed by the whole instrument panel… And the air conditioning system.

“What the BUCK?!”

I try cycling the power toggle on and off, but it doesn’t work at all. I grab the radio and try to key in, but it’s totally dead too. After a few moments of trying everything I can imagine, I finally give up. So much for our awesome feathering mechanics. Could be worse, I guess. At least now I might get the day off. With that joyful thought in mind, I reach for the button that opens the canopy. Of course, nothing happens when I press it. For a moment, I start to freak out a little bit, but I realize there’s a manual crank that opens the canopy in case of power failure. Gotta love those engineers, making life just a little bit better.

I grab onto the latch that manually unlocks the canopy and give it a good tug, but it won’t budge. I try again just to be sure, but I get the same result. My day just got a lot worse... All I can do now is sit and wait for somepony to come get me out of this boat. To top it all off, the lovely sunshine beating down on the cabin is causing the temperature to rise a lot faster than I’d like. I sure hope those damn deck ponies get me outta here fast… Now I’m kinda wishing I’d saved that water balloon for myself.

Chapter 2

“Okay guys, I get that the launching bridle broke. It’s rare, but it happens. No big deal, you fix it, I live to fly another day. What I don’t understand is how in the HAY my jet DIED without WARNING. What if I was in flight? What if I was taking off? I couldn’t even open my feathering CANOPY! If my jet had rolled off the edge of the runway, I’d be bucking DEAD! So, who’s got big enough swingers to explain to me why my bucking JET couldn’t even make to to the end of the bucking RUNWAY?!”

Needless to say, I am a little bit upset. It doesn’t help that it took over an hour for the crew to get me out of the cockpit. Don’t judge me, you’d be pissed off too.

“Lieutenant, I understand that you’re upset, but please calm down. We’re not even the ones who worked on your jet! We were called in to audit the maintenance crew that worked on your jet last. We did an inspection on the electrical system and found that the loss of power was caused by an accidental disconnection of the main power relay.”

He pauses and waits for me to comment, but I continue to glare at him without saying a word. It’s enough to make him feel uncomfortable, he shuffles on his hooves a little bit, then looks back at the crew gathered behind him for support. They do their best to avoid eye contact. Yeah, totally not getting out of this one, bud.

He sighs and looks at the floor, then says, “Okay Lieutenant, I’ll break it all down for you so it’s easy to understand. The main power relay is a high-power electronic switch that’s controlled by the main power toggle switch in the cockpit. When you actuate the power toggle on your instrument panel, you’re sending low voltage to a small electro-magnet that operates the larger, high-voltage switch inside of the relay. It’s a small switch that controls a bigger switch. The relay itself fits into a socket kind of like an electrical outlet. It appears as though the relay was plugged into the socket, but the technician didn’t properly bolt it in, allowing it to come loose due to shock and vibration. Honestly, you’re lucky it happened before you were in the air.”

“Okay, so I lost power because some featherbrain didn’t tighten some bolts. That explains why my jet died. It totally shouldn’t have happened, and I’m still totally pissed off about it, but I know it wasn’t your fault. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, please explain why in the hay I couldn’t open my canopy. Do you have any idea how horrible it is to be trapped in a confined space with no conceivable way out? Not to mention the fact that I could have DROWNED! It’s a damn good thing I didn’t try to punch out, I’d probably have ended up like Lieutenant Goose!”

The technician winces at the mention of the Goose incident. It serves as an extreme example of the dangers of ejection, definitely not the way I plan on going out. That sort of kills the conversation for a second.

“Look, I’m not trying to bust your balls, I just want to find out what happened to my jet and prevent anything like this from happening to anypony else. If you find any information that might help me out, let me know.”

Just as I finish the last sentence, my eyes spot movement in the back of the room just in time to see the door close behind someone. Some of the regular crew was missing, so I didn’t recognize all the faces in the crowd, but it definitely seems like someone slipped out. Maybe they just couldn’t handle all the pressure. I do tend to have that effect at times.

With that, I excused myself and headed back for the barracks. I need a shower, again. The sun pretty much baked me the whole time I was in the cockpit, this flight suit is great for the chill of high altitude, but it’s pure Tartarus inside of a confined space with no air flow. I’m not exactly smelling fresh as a flower right now either, if you know what I mean. Not to mention, it’ll give me time to cool off a bit and calm down.

I walk through the ship, taking my usual path through the halls until I reach the little bunk room that LD and I share. Finally, I can relax for a moment. Time to get out of this terrible suit. It’s easy enough to loosen the straps without help, but with the way it’s stuck to me, I have an extremely hard time peeling it off. Somehow, I manage to get it done and tuck it away for laundry pickup. Time to hit the shower.

As the water splashes over my head, all I can think about is how close I came to almost getting killed in the most uncool way possible. What happened? You’d think something that important wouldn’t get overlooked. There’s no way a mistake like that would go unnoticed, right? I wonder who worked on my jet last… That might be worth looking into.

I probably was being too harsh with those guys, but I had every right to be angry; I almost died because of somepony’s careless mistake! Celestia would be pissed if that happened. I’m lucky she even let me join the military, being an element of harmony and all. I guess I made myself a big enough nuisance at the palace to justify her putting me on a ship as far away as the Equestrian borders will allow. That’ll teach her to try and keep me somewhere I don’t wanna be. It’s not like I could have done anything important there anyway, at least here I feel like I’m being useful.

A sudden chill in the water lets me know that showertime is over. I hop out before the water has time to reach hypothermia status. After drying off and slipping into a fresh uniform, I remember that I forgot to eat after my jet tried to kill me. I am feeling a bit hangry, maybe food will make me feel more optimistic about my day, at least it’s been more exciting than usual. Hmm, a cup of coffee would be nice too… and maybe somepony brought muffins. To the ready lounge it is.

With that decision out of the way, I head out, barging through the horde of earth ponies crowding the halls as fast as traffic would allow. On the way, I run into a few of the ponies from the crew that I yelled at earlier. They did their best to avoid eye contact and stay as far away as the narrow halls would let them, though, it’s kind of impossible to be too far away from anypony in this tin can. For a moment, I feel just a little bit guilty for being so harsh with those guys, seeing as how they didn’t even work on my jet before I attempted to take off… but only for a moment. I’m sure they understand.

After I navigate maze of hallways that lead to the ready room, I finally arrive to see a few pilots kicking back in their swanky pilot chairs. I grab a cup of the Derpy brew, and a big, fat, chocolate chip muffin. What? After all that stress, a mare is entitled to a little bit of chocolate to help her relax.

I sit down at the table and take a big slurp of coffee. Tastes even better than earlier… some of the water must have evaporated away. Thank Celestia for Derpy and her inability to read the fine print of the suggested preparation guide on the back of the coffee can. If she actually followed the instructions, we’d have a bunch of pissed off pilots drinking steaming cups of brownwater. Sometimes, it’s the small things that matter most. Especially in the morning.

Of course, as soon as I start chewing a big bite of muffin, Fire Streak decides it would be a good time to start asking stupid questions.

“Hey Dash, I heard you almost ran your jet off the end of the runway today! What happened? You didn’t get into any trouble for almost destroying your jet, did you?”

A scowl crosses my face as I finish chewing my muffin, taking time to formulate an appropriate, rational response.

“You think it was my fault that happened? How could it possibly be my fault? The feathering launching bridle broke off and then the main power relay came loose! The bucking canopy wouldn’t even open! It’s a damn good thing the power went out after the jet stopped, otherwise, that cockpit would have quickly become a watery grave. So yeah, my jet almost rolled off the end of the runway today. No, I didn’t get into any trouble. But, if I find out which featherbrain is responsible for my near death experience, they’ll damn sure be having some trouble!” Okay, so maybe I let that get under my skin a bit more than I should have.

Streak’s weak attempt at holding back his laughter fails miserably. After his little giggle fest is over, he manages to croak out a reply.

“There’s no need to be upset Dash! I was just worried about you, that’s all. It isn’t my fault someone gave me the wrong information. We only know what they tell us over the radio.”

“You mean they told everypony that it was my fault that the jet feathered up! Oh, BUCK ME!”

With that little outburst, Blaze decides to step in to the conversation. “Come on Fire Streak, you’re giving the situation more of a negative spin than it really deserves. Yes, they said that your jet almost rolled off the end of the runway. However, they never said that it was specifically your fault. I think Streak here just wanted to see you squirm.”

He shoots the other stallion a dirty look from across the table, then turns back to me. “Quit trying to get her all riled up, Streak. I seem to remember you having a hard time landing on the flight deck your first few months. She’s never had a single accident, even during training. I’d say Dash here is a much better pilot… no, a much better flyer than you’ll ever be.” He winks at me, then adds, “Not to mention she’s much better looking.”

“Oh, shut up Blaze! You’re just trying to get under her tail.”

Blaze and I share a laugh at Fire Streak’s expense, though he didn’t seem too upset.

“Well, I do agree that she’s much better looking than me. So, Dash… If that whole thing wasn’t your fault, what did happen?”

“I told you, the launching bridle broke of—”

“Yes, yes… I already know what happened. I guess the question I really want to ask is why. I mean, I’m sorry it happened and I’m glad you’re okay… But I’d like to know what actually caused it. If there’s something going on with these jests, I think we all deserve to know about it.”

Silence falls upon the table for the moment as we all think about the possibilities, giving me me time to put together an answer.

“Well, this is the first time anything like this has happened, that I know of, at least. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our jets... mine maybe, but nopony else has had any problems. As far as I can tell, it looks like one of the mechanics feathered up. As long as nothing like this happens again, I probably won’t be to worried about it. I mean, sure I’m pissed that it happened, but it’s not gonna be enough to keep me out of the cockpit.”

“Well, as long as it’s not my jet, I guess I don’t need to worry about it too much either. Let’s hope the mechanics don’t make a habit out of making dangerous mistakes.”

“Yeah, I’ll second that. Hopefully nothing like this happens to anypony else.”

Of course, nothing ever happens the way I want it to. As soon as Blaze finishes his sentence, somepony in a white vest barges through the door and says, “Dash! It’s Lightning Dust, she’s called in for an emergency landing!”

I immediately jump out of my chair. “What’s going on? Is she okay?” He starts to respond, but I cut him off. “There’s no time to sit here and talk! You can tell me about it on the way.”

“On the way to where?”

“We’re going to the LSO platform. I’m running paddles.”

“You can’t just go up there and do it yourself!”

“You gonna stop me?”

“...Fine, let’s go.”

We head out and make our way out to the flight deck as fast as possible. I snag a float coat and some eye/ear protection on the way out the door.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have time to think about it. Right now, all I need to do is get up there and help her make her landing.

It might have been a little bit against the rules for me to fly across the deck and up to the Landing Signals Officer platform without orders, but in my experience it’s always easier to get forgiveness than permission. As soon as my hooves hit the door, the lead LSO walks up as if he was expecting me.

“Alright Dash, if you’re gonna do this, you better make sure you do it right. Dust might only have one shot at this, and we still don’t know exactly what’s going on. I know I’m not gonna be able to talk you out of anything once your mind’s made up, so I won’t even try. But remember, if you feather this up, it’s not just your ass on the line. Your partner’s life, my career, maybe even some of the other LSO’s too.”

He steps back away from the console. “She’s all yours.”

The caution light had come as a complete surprise. One minute I was flying over the beach and counting another combat mission to my credit, the next I was troubleshooting what "MAIN HYD LOW PRESS WARN WTFBBQ" meant. Other than some sort of problem with the jet's hydraulics, the blinking light doesn't tell me anything. It doesn’t even have the good grace to flash it in Morse code. I hear that feature is coming with the next software upgrade.

I consult my checklist and realize that this particular problem will require aborting the mission. I sigh and key the radio. "This is Cupcake One-Two declaring an emergency."

Fleetfoot and I talk it out as we turn around and head back to the boat. My jet doesn't feel wounded, but hydraulic problems can manifest in all sorts of different ways. I just have to figure out what is going to happen before it decides to kill me. Wonderful.

We radio ahead so they know to expect us. Fleetfoot takes the lead. If my jet crashes, it'll block the landing area so she can't land. So instead, she lands first, leaving me to fly around a little longer with a potentially crippled jet.

Biding my time, I look out at at the ship below me. Celestia’s Assistant, named after a couple of special helpers to the princess over the years, isn’t a bad ship I guess. Other than the downside that cheeky aviators routinely shorten the name to Celestia’s Ass, or simply The Ass.

After Fleetfoot is safe on deck and it’s my turn, I enter the landing pattern. Pulling the levers for landing gear, flaps, and tailhook, I throttle back and bring the jet into the final approach. Being a cheeky aviator, I am lined up straight for The Ass and coming in hard.

Rainbow is on the radio. "Cupcake One-Two, you’re at one mile. Call the ball."

There's nopony I'd rather have on the platform at a moment like this. Either she uses her considerable skills to help me land perfectly, or I can blame a mistake on her. It's win-win.

"Cupcake One-Two, ball," I reply, spotting the lighted landing signal that means I'm coming in at just the right angle.

“Roger ball, twenty eight knots of wind over the deck,” Rainbow replies.

At the one hundred fifty knots I'm moving, the boat gets a lot larger in only a few seconds. An instant before I touch down, just when I think I'm golden, Rainbow shouts, "Waveoff! Cupcake One-Two, where is your tailhook?"

I firewall the throttles and pull back on the stick, my face flushing red. It's the most rookie blunder ever, forgetting to lower your tailhook. But as I reach for the lever, I realize that I've already pulled it. The hydraulics must have failed to lower the hook.

I quickly communicate this. No way am I going to let them think this is my fault. Several long seconds pass. I can practically hear paddles, the maintenance crew, and fellow pilots all brainstorming how to fix the problem.

Finally, "Cupcake One-Two, you're going to have to take the barrier."

My teeth clench. Instead of my jet catching a wire, the ship is going to put up a net to stop me. Oh joy. There's no time to dread it, though. In just a few minutes they're ready and asking me to come down.

I reenter the landing pattern and swing the jet into position. I can see that the barrier has been strung up across the landing area. I cringe as I line up for it. If any of the heavy fabric straps do something they shouldn't, I'm going to get a facefull of them. If my jet isn't positioned just right, or the canopy breaks, or anything else, I could be in for a bad time.

The wheels hit the deck. I have just enough time to chop the throttles and stomp the brakes before the jet plows into the barrier, the net swathing the jet like a fish in a... well, a net. Shut up, you'd be bad at similes too if you were going from one-fifty to zero in two seconds.

I survive. That's good. Looking around, I see a rush of ponies coming up to my jet. Rainbow is one of the first ones there. I frown, only just now realizing that she should be flying her own jet right now.

The canopy has to be untangled from the net before it will open. It takes a few minutes and I wait impatiently for them to get me out. I have the presence of mind to safe the ejection seat and begin disconnecting my radio and oxygen gear from the jet.

When I finally climb out, everypony cheers. Confused, but not one to turn down free cheers, I wave and smile.

"What happened?" Rainbow asks.

"The jet broke."

"So did mine."

I shrug and start to walk away from the jet. "Well, we're both here and can't go flying. What are we supposed to do for the rest of the day?"

Rainbow looks glum. "Paperwork, probably."

I wince. She's right. "Unless..."

"Unless we get the maintenance guys to do it since they fix the planes so it's kind of like their job anyway?" she provides.

I grin. "It's like you read my mind."

We go to lunch. Over limp lettuce and stale hay, Rainbow tells me about the problems she had with her aircraft. She looks at me like she wants some sympathy. Screw that, she didn't have to land a jet in a net.

“Strange that two jets had serious problems on the same day,” I comment.

“Yeah,” Rainbow agrees, “and it’s really strange that the two jets happen to belong to the same bunkmates. Almost too strange.”

I arch an eyebrow. “You think there’s a spy here that’s trying to kill the two of us?”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but… I just think it’s too much of a coincidence that the only two jets that have malfunctioned since we got here just happen to be ours, and it just happened to be on the same day. I’m not trying to jump to conclusions here, but I think somepony might have sabotaged our jets on purpose.”

“Or, y’know, maybe due to this long deployment the warranties expired yesterday and our equipment is manufactured to such exacting tolerances that it reaches the end of its service life exactly as planned.”

Both of us burst out laughing. Everyone knew that the jets didn’t come with warranty.

“Okay,” I say, wiping away tears of humor, “Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

Chapter 3

In the Air Force, everything is well organized and well run. Everypony, to include both pilots and mechanics, is groomed to meet high standards for knowledge and professionalism. The aircraft are top-notch. The facilities are excellent. The maintenance guys are the brightest and the best trained. You always know what to expect and you'll be given the training and resources you need to meet those expectations. You will never be put in a situation over your head. Over a long career, you will be home for most important family events. Your Mom would want you to be an Air Force pilot and so would your spouse.

For Naval Aviators, you have to share space and resources with salty sailors. Nothing is ever the same anywhere you go. Your squadron is your home, and it may be great, average, or awful, sometimes simultaneously. You will spend months preparing for deployment and even longer actually doing it. The quality of the aircraft varies directly with the availability of parts and mechanics. Said parts are hard to get in the middle of the ocean. Said mechanics vary from terrific to the troubled kid the judge made join the service. No matter if you’re one of them or an elite pilot with a Top Gun patch, you’ll probably have to get your hooves dirty. The quality of your training will vary and sometimes you will be in over your head, even as a pegasus. You will miss many important family events due to being stuck on a boat. You will fly in very bad weather and at night, and you will be scared many times.

But hey, there’s something about summer whites and wings of gold that make the hottest mares in the bar want to meet a Naval Aviator.

And then my alarm clock wakes me up. I’m lying in my tiny bunk. Above my head, I can hear deck ponies dragging around chains and towing jets back and forth while somepony cycles the catapults for practice. Funny how reality can seem more surreal than anything my mind could dream up.

I grumble as I get out of bed, but at least I’m not alone. Rainbow and I are both on this early morning flight.

We go through the morning motions together, cleaning up, dressing, surveying the breakfast offerings before deciding to go hungry, heading to the ready room, and getting coffee. The first sip opens my eyes and the entire world seems to get more vivid. Maybe it’s the heart palpitations.

The mission this morning is check flights for our jets that broke yesterday. Incredibly, the mechanics have already managed to patch up anything that went wrong the day before and been have presented us with two perfect aircraft. Or so they claim. It’s up to Rainbow and me this morning to take our jets for a spin and find out if that’s actually true. If it’s not, we could die. I decide to have another cup of coffee.

A check flight, aside from the “testing to make sure the plane won’t kill you” aspect, is a pretty good deal. There’s no need for a boring intel brief and you’re basically given about an hour to fly around and put the jet through its paces.

I can practically hear Rainbow’s hooves vibrating across the deck with excitement as we gear up and make our way to the flight deck. To be fair, I’m excited, too. It’s not every day you get to burn gas and goof off with your best friend.

“So you think I'm gonna make it off the deck this time?” Rainbow asks.

“I’m more concerned if I’m going to make it off the deck,” I reply.

"Well, if I do make it off the runway and my jet doesn't fall apart, I'm gonna push this baby and see just what she's got. Mechanics said they did a complete overhaul on the engines. Something about an upgrade for the afterburner system. I can’t wait to see how she handles now!”

I grin. If that’s true, it’ll mean her jet is almost as good as mine. Of course, she’ll never admit that.

We strap in and spin up the engines. I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary with the jet, and you can be positive that I’m paying attention. They hook us up and fire us off the front of the ship, Rainbow a second ahead of me. The cat shot is as exhilarating as always.

“Monochrome one-one,” Rainbow says as we form up.

“Monochrome one-two,” I reply.

We do a FOD check. I have a moment of panic, but then relax as I remember that I’ve been watching Rainbow closely since the day before. Sure enough, I don’t discover any unexpected presents left in my cockpit.

Oh, but I still owe Rainbow for that. I’m already trailing her after the staggered launch. I turn on my radar and lock her up. She instantly knows the game is on and is more than willing to play.

She rolls her jet and breaks off in a different direction. I pull the stick hard to follow her. We have to be a little careful, don’t want to overstress the airframe or run out of altitude, but most fighters are built to take more g-forces than most pegasi.

Of course, I’m not most pegasi. Neither is Rainbow. If there wasn’t a g-limiter, we’d definitely break the jets before we’d admit defeat in a mock dogfight.

“That all you got?” Rainbow calls over the radio.

“The fun is in the pursuit. And you haven’t managed to ditch me yet.” My last few words came out grunting, due to g-load.

“What if I don't wanna ditch you?” Rainbow replies in similar grunts. “Maybe I want you to chase me down and take me by force... If you want it, all ya gotta do is lock-on!"

“Oh, I will... surrender your booty and prepare to be boarded!” I radio.

“Not a chance, foul air-pirate!” she laughs.

Pirate actually wasn’t what I was going for. Everypony is after Rainbow’s plot. She knows that, but it might surprise her to discover just how inclusive “everypony” is. Like, the whole ship. Laundry is probably spreading rumors about how her flight suits fit her.

“Ha, you’ll be eating your words once I come inside!”

I hear Rainbow snickering over the radio before she responds, “Only if you can manage to get a clean shot at my plot!” She kicks in the afterburners and makes some distance before peeling off and corkscrewing away, leaving a nice double helix-looking contrail in her wake.

That engine upgrade may be better than I had anticipated, but I’m not gonna miss the opportunity to sink my rocket in Rainbow’s plot when I get the chance. I punch the throttle and feel my jet surge forward, the g-force hitting hard as I make a hairpin turn to follow Rainbow.

The dogfight goes on. We trade a few more insults of incredibly poor taste. It’s probably good that neither of us have actual weapons, lest we get overzealous. We duck and dive, pushing the equipment to its limits in a roar of afterburners and wailing lock tones. I win, of course.

Before we know it, we’re both low on fuel and it’s time to land. We dirty up, popping flaps, landing gear, and tailhooks. We both do a careful visual inspection of each other’s jets, just to make sure everything is working and nothing is leaking too badly.

Landing is much easier than the day before. I sneak into the pattern before Rainbow and go first. After catching the wires and coming to a complete stop, I lift the tailhook and fold the wings, turning out of the landing area to make room for Rainbow, who is a minute behind me.

Taxiing to where the deck ponies point me, I shut down the engines while they chock the wheels and start stringing tiedown chains. I’m sweaty as I climb out of the jet, but it’s a good kind of sweat, like after a workout.

Rainbow parks beside me and climbs out. The two of us walk back across the deck together. The jets are fine, the weather is great, and we’ve just had some fun. Lunch is next, and maybe it’ll actually be something edible. The day is definitely looking up.

After getting out of our flight gear, we head for the wardroom. We’re supposed to debrief after every flight, but nopony said we couldn’t do it over a meal.

The salad looks somewhat edible. I snag a plate. Rainbow always likes to smother hers in dressing, so she grabs a bowl instead. We pile the salad onto our respective dishes and take a survey of the room. We find an empty table and sit.

“Okay, mission debrief,” I say.

“Consider yourself debriefed,” Rainbow replies with a wink.

I wish. I grin. “You too.”

She looks around the room and returns my grin with a mischievous smirk of her own, then leans in conspiratorially and whispers, “Better save that part for later… We don’t want everypony in the wardroom getting all hot and bothered.”

We share a laugh, then decide to chow down on our heaping plates before the greens wilt.

“You know, the best part about these salads is that awesome, vinegary salad oil stuff.”

Rainbow has a habit of saying what she was thinking. She said that nearly every meal. She must really like the stuff.

Rainbow picks up the bottle of salad oil and pours it on her plate. It comes out black and thick. “What the buck…?”

She leans forward and sniffs it. “This is motor oil!”

My eyes go wide. “Then what did they put in the engines?”

“Really? And they say you’re supposed to be the smart one, LD. Obviously, they didn’t put salad oil in our jets. What they did do is slip us a bottle of motor oil, instead of the usual awesomeness, the bastards!”

I stand up and glare at the tainted remnants of the meal I was so looking forward to. I was having such a good day, too, what with the practice dogfight, which I won, of course.

But this, to borrow an old chestnut, was the worst possible thing. “This. Means. War. Nopony messes with my food and gets away with it!”

“What are we going to do about it? It’s not like we know exactly who was responsible.”

“Then that’s the first step, we need to find out who’s involved. This was no accident, somepony doesn’t like us. We need to do some recon, the salad tossers and the lube shooters are suspect. You can’t get used motor oil without going to the lubricant storage area, and you can’t get there without having a key… Which means this must be some sort of horrible collaboration!”

Lightning Dust picks up the bottle of motor oil and idly swirls it around. She has a look of deep thoughtfulness on her face, probably still trying to wrap her head around the whole scenario. “Why though… Why would the grease gobbers and the galley crew be out to get us? What did we do to deserve this? Not to mention, the mechanics… that is, if the incidents are even related. Though, if they were really trying to take us out, why wouldn’t they use something a little more subtle than motor oil?”

“Hmm, maybe somepony is trying to send us a message. Maybe they were trying to give us a clue, who would know about the mechanics’ activity better than the grease police?”

“You’d think they could come up with a more subtle way of communication. I mean, putting motor oil in a salad dressing bottle is not a very good way to say anything besides ‘buck off’.”

“Maybe, maybe not… There’s only one way to find out, we’ve gotta sneak in and gather intel.”

“Rainbow, how do you plan on sneaking anywhere? You’ve got the single most distinctive mane and tail in all of Equestria, and I’m damn certain that everypony on the ship would recognize your flank as soon as they saw it.”

Dammit, she has a point. Maybe posing for Fliers Illustrated: Flight-Suit Edition wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“You’re not exactly spy material yourself, LD. I imagine there are just as many ponies on this ship that would recognize you as me, we are kinda famous, after all.”

“Ha, more like infamous.”

I sit down at the table and motion for LD to get closer so nopony can overhear what I’m about to say. I lean in and whisper in her ear, “We gotta get disguises, something that covers our flanks and our wings.”

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “You wanna do what now? Are you serious? How do we cover our wings up without anypony noticing? I can’t think of any way we could do that without sticking out like a broken pinion.”

“How else are we gonna keep our cover?” I say. “There’s no way a couple of sexy pegasisters such as ourselves would be able to sneak in unnoticed, at least, not if we look like sexy pegasi.”

“So, what do you propose? I can’t really think of anything that wouldn’t attract unnecessary attention. We can’t wear anything that a normal lube squid wouldn’t wear below deck. Besides, I know you hate having your wings bound just as much as me. Not to mention, we’d have to be breaking at least a few rules. Are you sure you wanna risk it?”

“It’s the only way to find out what’s really going on here. What if one of the oil checkers actually was trying to tell us something?”

“Or what if they’re in on it, and this is all a plan to get us in so much trouble that we won’t be able to fly anymore? Maybe, since they failed at killing us, they’re trying to make us take ourselves out of the game by doing something stupid. It’s seeming like a pretty brilliant plan so far.”

Admittedly, I hadn’t thought of that at all. I suppose it’s easy to get caught up in the whole scenario.

“Well, we’ll have to do a bit of looking around to see what we can find…”

I take a good look around the room, partly to see if anyone looks like they are paying too much attention to us, and partly to see what all the ponies around me we were wearing. Admittedly, I’ve never really paid attention to what all the other ponies wear. I blame walking… if I could fly in the halls, I’d see everything. Just saying.

Mostly what I see is a bunch of salty, grumpy looking mudponies wearing blue jumpsuits. Hmm...

“LD, look around you. what do you see?”

She takes a big mouthfull of salad and looks around the room. After chewing her food thoughtfully, she replies in classic LD style, “Grumpy sailors…” then takes another bite. “And really bad food.”

I roll my eyes at her, “Okay smartflank, that’s not what I meant. Look at what most of them are wearing. Jumpsuits, blue jumpsuits.”

She looks around and takes a survey of the room. “Oh. I see. That could work. That takes care of the flank and wings, but we’ve still got to do something about disguising our mane and tail.”

“Yeah… that’s gonna be challenging, to say the least. Think we could use some type of food coloring or something? Whatever it is, we need to be able to wash it off without a trace, if anypony saw us with crazy hair we’d look suspicious.”

“Well, what do you propose?

“The only place that we could… uh, borrow a uniform without attracting attention is the laundry bay. We can snag a couple of blue jumpsuits from there and maybe look for some kind of dye or something we can wash out.”

“I don’t think dye is gonna wash out, Rainbow. And I don’t know what we’ll have to use to cover your mane, it’s not gonna be easy to hide all that awesomeness. Whatever we get, it’ll have to be water soluble, otherwise we’re gonna have problems.”

“I guess we can keep an eye out for anything like that while we’re in the laundry bay.”

“So we’re actually doing this, aren’t we?”

“Eeyup.”

Chapter 5

It’s pretty ironic how long you can wait on somepony named Dash. I grumble under my breath and tap my hooves. What’s taking her so long in the laundry room?

Fed up, I decide to go in after her. Knowing Rainbow, she’s probably abandoned all sense of subtlety and is looking for a uniform with a SEAL insignia sewn on it… exactly the last kind of pony we would want to steal from.

Carefully creeping, I move deeper into the laundry room. Behind long rows of spinning washers and driers, I spot Rainbow chatting amiably with a unicorn.

The laundry pony’s mane and uniform, both blue, are just barely in regs. She also seems to be responsible for the pounding music. Due to the outrageous volume, she and Rainbow both have to shout to carry on their conversation. I can hear it from where I’m standing.

“So, Dash… Do you like to bottom or top? ‘Cause I have a lot of different— Wait, who the hay is that?”

Rainbow spots me standing there. “That’s Lightning Dust, my roommate. LD, come over here and meet my friend, Vinyl Scratch.”

“Oh, really... Lightning Dust?” says the unicorn as I walk up. “So you’re the one that’s into roleplay?”

Excuse me? I shoot Rainbow a look. I have no idea what she’s been telling Vinyl, but I can’t risk undoing any lies she’s been spouting in an attempt to weasel some uniforms. I nod. “Yep.”

Rainbow grins but Vinyl positively beams. “Nice. I can just see RD doing LD during RP.”

“That’s hilarious!” Rainbow laughs as I simultaneously attempt to say, “That’s private.”

“So you know, if you could facilitate us…” Rainbow says.

“Sure, sure,” Vinyl says, turning to grab some blue coveralls off a nearby table.

“Where did you learn a word like facilitate?” I ask Rainbow under my breath.

“You know that movie, Uncelebrated Bitches, about killing the genocidal Diamond Dog leader?” she says. “It has that one scene that goes, ‘We got a dog here who wants to die for his country - facilitate him?’”

I nod. Figures.

Vinyl turns around with two jumpsuits. “These should fit.” She winks. “Come back when you’re done with them.”

Rainbow and I stuff the uniforms in our laundry bags and scoot out of the room before somepony catches us. Honestly, the whole exercise went a lot better than I expected. Not bad for my first steal-ex.

Well, borrow. We do eventually plan to give the uniforms back.

Still, I’m feeling kind of exhilarated, the feeling I get when I’m getting away with something I shouldn’t. Based on Rainbow’s grin, she’s feeling it too. When we pass Fire Streak’s door, Rainbow stops in her tracks as if an idea has just come to her.

She pulls a pad of sticky notes out of her pocket. I glance around and move myself into a blocking position to give her some room to work. Whatever she’s up to, it’s going to be good. She puts a sticky note on Streak’s door and writes on it, Do not disturb, jerk-ex in progress..

We walk away giggling like fillies. It’s immature, possibly sexual harassment, and not likely to be nearly as anonymous as we hoped, but totally worth it.

Back in our room, we lay out our pilfered coveralls. Rainbow immediately takes umbrage. Mine has Petty Officer Second Class insignia. Hers is third class.

“Typical!” she rants. “Vinyl thinks that because I put up such a tough front in public that I’m actually the subordinate one. Feathering stereotypes. Who was the pony that decided, 'Yeah, that’s my fetish,' and set the tone for the rest of us?”

While she’s ranting, I put on my best trollface and point out the names. “If you thought the ranks were bad…”

Rainbow pauses long enough to read them. Hers is Pretty Posey. Mine is Rock Salt.

She starts to pout again, but a sudden thoughtful look goes across her face. “Rock Salt is a strange name for a mare.”

The idea that I might get mistaken for an especially svelte stallion who specializes in water softening is super unappealing. At the same time, that would be a pretty darn good disguise for me to go unrecognized.

“I’m secure in my femininity,” I say. “I don’t need any false standards of beauty to feel pretty even if I’m in the military and in a lesbian relationship with you.”

“Yeah, I suppose it must have its advantages.” She laughs and gestures to the uniforms. “Lying to ponies about how I’m screwing my roommate gets us free stuff.”

Before I can respond, she yawns wide enough that I can see her tonsils. “Wow, all that walking around on the lower decks really takes it out of you. Doesn’t help about the salad.” Her mood cools as she remembers the motor oil incident. “We’ve got a flight tomorrow afternoon. We could get down there to find the suspicious ponies in the morning.”

It’s not a great plan, but it’s a plan. And I’m kind of tired, too. We climb into our racks.

The sound of jet engines blasting overhead once again rips me away from my amazing dreams. I sit up in bed, rubbing my bleary eyes and trying to make sense of the room around me. Once my eyes come back into focus, I look over to see my sexy “mare friend” curled up on top of her covers. I can’t believe she’s still asleep…

My hooves hit the deck with a light clop, and I take a moment to stretch my wings a bit before going for the light switch. The first moment of blinding light flooding the room causes LD to roll over and bury her head under a pillow. Odd that I’m the first one up, but we had a pretty big day yesterday, I’m sure she’s as tired as I am. Actually, now that I think about it, the only thing that woke me up was that stupid jet… and a powerful need to hit the head.

With that business out of the way, I hop into the shower to wash off and perk up. The hot, steamy water feels pretty amazing. Say what you want about ship utilities, they have their bright spots.

After taking my time and enjoying the moment, I step out of the shower to see a groggy looking LD splashing her face with water and drying off with my towel. I watch for a few seconds before she notices I’m out of the shower.

“So, you planning on letting me dry off or what?”

She looks up at me, then jumps a little bit. Her mouth opens like she’s going to say something, but no words come out. She just kind of stares for a moment before shaking her head and snapping back into reality and tossing the towel at my face.

She watches me dry off for a moment with a silly smirk on her face, before asking, “So, why did you think it was a good idea to wake up at zero-seven?”

“Because, LD, we’ve got work to do.” I walk over to the uniform and snag it off its hanger. “It’s time to for a little bit of roleplay!”

She smiles at that, then walks up to her own suit. “Oh? You think we have time for that before we go on our recon mission? Rock Salt might just get her first taste of a Pretty Posey.”

I roll my eyes at her. “Yeah, yeah. Seriously though. We’ve gotta find a way to get down there and blend in. A little bit of grease in our mane probably couldn’t hurt.”

As soon as that last sentence comes out, she gives me that look. You know, the kind of look that says, Why didn’t I think of that before?

“Why didn’t I think of that before?! Dash, you’re a genius! That’s how we hide our manes!”

Yeah, I know LD far too well.

“Of course I’m a genius, was there ever any doubt?”

“Of course not,” she says, as she rolls her eyes.

“Riiight, so, here’s the trick. How do we get grease without going into the lubrication storage area? I mean, we’d be taking a huge risk by going down there half-disguised. Got any ideas?”

“Well, we could go to the hangar as ourselves first. I bet we can find a grease gun there and sneak some out.”

“Good call. I think that’s a solid plan.”

“But what if we get some grease on these uniforms?” LD asks.

“No problem. Vinyl cleans them with wubs.”

LD shakes her head and facehoofs. “Seriously?”

“What? She was even working on a design for a sonic-propulsion space hyperdrive. She's quiet around a lot of ponies, but don't let that fool you about how smart she is.”

“You know what? Just... nevermind. Let’s go do this.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear!”

Several minutes later, we find ourselves in the hangar under the guise of inspecting our jets. Looking around, there really aren’t very many ponies around, which is actually pretty good news for us. Even better yet, the grease-police wagon is sitting in between both of our jets.

“Well, that’s convenient.”

“Yeah… Almost too convenient.”

I look over at her. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, after the whole motor oil incident, I’ve been a bit suspicious of the lube techs.”

“Understandable. But, it’s not like seeing the grease cart is a big deal or anything. I’m sure they’re here just to check our oil.” I wink at LD and push her with my wing. “Besides, this makes it easier for us to get what we want.”

She smiles in response, then baps me on the back of the head with her wing. “I’m not sure what you came for, but all I want is some grease. Now let’s hurry up and get it, we don’t need to waste too much time, and it’s probably better to avoid questions.”

We walk over to the cart and start looking through all the different types of lubricants for us to choose from. There’s at least ten different types of oil and grease on the cart, so I look for the darkest thing I can find. After taking at least a minute or two looking at all the different tubes and checking to see how dark/stinky they are, I finally pick one that seems right. LD gets this big, goofy grin when she sees me sniffing the grease, so I decide to preemptively strike before she has the chance to say something stupid.

“Before you say anything stupid, I’m sniffing the grease because I’d rather not have something on my head that smells so strongly it makes me sick… Or attracts unnecessary attention.”

“What? I wasn’t gonna say anything...” She swats my flank with her tail. “I was just noticing how cute you look with your nose all scrunched up while you sniff.”

I give her a deadpan look. “Seriously? What are you, some kind of filly-fiddler?”

“Maybe I am…”

She locks onto my eyes, and inches closer to my face. Of course, me being me, I don’t even flinch. And of course, because I don’t back down, LD doesn’t back down either. She leans in, just a breath away from my muzzle…

“What are you gonna do about it?” She holds her gaze for just a moment before cracking a huge smile and bumping her nose against mine.

“So, miss beauty queen, did you find the prettiest looking grease you could?”

She always has to ruin the mood. “Yes, dear, I found the grease. You ready to do this? Or are you just gonna keep staring dreamily into my eyes all day?”

LD gives me a huge grin. “I was born ready. Let’s go.”

A short walk later, we find ourselves back in our room, staring at our borrowed earth pony jumpsuits. I guess it’s maybe a bit… politically incorrect to assume that they belong to earth ponies, but statistically speaking, it’s highly likely.

“Well, let’s see how we look as Rock Salt and… Pretty Posey.”

“Don’t worry, Dash, I’m sure you’ll be able to play the part perfectly. I’ve seen the pictures of you in those pretty dresses, I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful Posey.”

“Ugh, can it, Dust. Or should I say, Salt. You are having way too much fun with this.”

“Psh, not as much fun as I could have.”

“If we always had as much fun as we could we’d never get anything done. Now, help me zip this up.”

She gives me her best pouty face. “I thought I was supposed to be the dom here!”

“Dammit Lightning Dust! Fine, you know what? I’ll zip you up first. Just... turn around.”

“Don’t you mean please turn around, Master?”

“I will hurt you,” I threaten.

“Aww, c’mon, Dash, I’m just getting into character! There’s nothing saying we can’t practice for a while just in case we have to go pretend to be in a lesbian, sub/dom relationship. I mean, we don’t want anypony to get suspicious.”

That comment earns her a smack on the flank.

“Ooh, I knew you liked it rough!” she giggles.

“I swear to Celestia…”

“Alright, alright, jeez. I’m just trying to have a little bit of fun… Posey.”

“Dammit!”

After me and LD got each other all lubed up, we immediately plunge into the depths of Celestia’s Ass. We don’t want to get spotted hanging out where we’re not supposed to be, so we make sure to hurry belowdecks and avoid direct eye contact. That always works, right?

“So, what are we gonna do when we get down there, Posey?” Seems like she can’t keep herself from smiling every time she calls me that. Stupid Vinyl and her stupid assumptions.

“Well, aside from the fact that I have no idea what grease donkeys normally do when they’re not checking oil or lubing shafts, I’d say we mostly just need to keep our ears open. Listen for any clues that may lead us to something more useful.”

“Sounds like a solid plan. I guess we can start by watching all the other lubrication technicians,” she shoots me a glare as she says that, “and finding out what it is that they do. It’ll probably make it easier to pull off our disguises if we don’t say things that might offend our fellow technicians.”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing these suits have name tags, otherwise I wouldn’t know what to call other mudponies.” I smile innocently.

“Really? Really?” LD accuses.

“What?” I ask, shrugging my shoulders.

“Just… Try not to blow our cover. Blowing cover is not what Pretty Posey is supposed to be good for.” She looks at me and grins.

“Oh, and what is she supposed to be good for, Rock Salt?” I cross my forelegs and raise an eyebrow.

“Well, how much do you like salt licks?” And there’s the trollface.

Dammit, LD! As much as I hate to admit it, that one is pretty good. I can’t help but smile as I reply, “About as much as I like smart-flanked fliers with lightning-streaked asses.”

“So, a lot!”

“No.” I smile at her and roll my eyes. “Alright, we’re getting close. Let’s just try not to do anything stupid, shall we?” Taking the lead yet again, I start walking down the hall toward the lubrication station… or whatever it’s called.

“I’m more worried about you accidentally being racist.”

“Psh, I have plenty of friends who are earth ponies. I’m not racist!”

“Good, just keep pretending and we’ll be fine.”

“Whatever, lightning-butt. Let’s just go in there, find out what we can, and get out. If somepony really is trying to take us out, it’d probably be best not to get caught snooping around.”

“Yeah… Let’s hope that’s not the case. I’d really rather not have to deal with all that. Trying to prove that somepony is plotting to kill us without substantial evidence will be pretty much impossible. Not to mention, any evidence we may have would have been gotten by breaking lots of rules. The best thing we can do is confirm our suspicions and try to stay ahead of the game. Then it’s just a matter of catching them making a mistake and pinning it on them.”

I look away and curse myself for not thinking ahead. “I actually hadn’t thought about that part… I was more worried about finding the bastards that are responsible and calling them out in front of everypony.”

Lightning Dust rolls her eyes at me. “Of course you didn’t think that far ahead. That’s why we make such a good team, I think ahead, and keep you from doing anything stupid… Well, I try to. It usually works.”

As much as it pains me to admit it, she has a good point. I really do need to start thinking about things before rushing in. That’s... never really been one of my strong points. We see a pony walking towards us, so we both stop talking and keep walking. As the pony in question gets closer, it starts to look more and more like somepony we know. Though, what she would be doing down here is anypony’s guess. I elbow LD in the shoulder.

“Hey LD, does that look like Derpy to you?” I ask, nodding towards her direction.

‘What?” LD squints her eyes and peers down the dimly lit hall. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say yes. What is she even doing down here?”

Okay, now I’m genuinely interested in what Derpy is doing belowdecks. I can’t think of any logical reason she’d be down here. Of course, this is Derpy we’re talking about here, so trying to apply logic may be like trying to figure out how Pinkie does… well, Pinkie.

I lean over and whisper, “Hey, let’s follow her and see what she’s up to.”

“Seriously? Why? Don’t we have more important things to worry about?”

I place a hoof on her shoulder and look her in the eyes. “You never know who you can trust. She may be a double agent… Nopony would suspect it!”

Lightning Dust opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but stops herself and takes a moment to think about what I just said. “That’s completely ridiculous, but you have a point. She would make the perfect spy, being a parasprite on the wall for pretty much every mission briefing we have. Still, there’s no way.”

“Wanna find out for sure?”

“Yes.”

With that decision out of the way, we channel our inner Daring Do and follow our wall-eyed compadre as stealthily as we can. The deeper we go into the ship, the hotter it gets. From the looks of things, we’re headed for the reactor.

I lean over and whisper into LD’s ear, “Sweet Celestia! Do you think she’s gonna sabotage the reactor?!”

“Surely she’s not…”

Just as those words came out, Derpy turns into the hall leading to one of the most dangerous and possibly hottest places on the ship, the reactor room. We stay quiet and follow, giving her a bit of time to get down the hall before rounding the corner. She opens the door to the reactor and steps through, not even bothering to look around and make sure nopony is watching.

“No way…” I shake my head in disbelief.

“Alright, we gotta go see what she’s up to. There’s no way this is what we think it is.”

“Yeah… right. No way.” I say that… but it’s looking more and more suspicious as I think about it. There is no logical reason why Derpy should be here. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Shall we?”

With that, we walk the rest of the length of the hall and carefully ease the door open. Peeking inside, I can just barely see Derpy doing something to the reactor. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on with her back turned, but whatever it is, she definitely shouldn’t be doing it. I see her reach back and snag something out of her saddlebag and set it onto the reactor. Then, without warning, she turns around. I barely have time to get the door closed before she can see us, but in doing so, I managed to make just enough noise to alert her.

“H-hello? Is anypony there?”

The sound of hoofsteps gets closer, LD and I freeze, trying not to make any noise. We can’t run without getting noticed, and we can’t hide anywhere. Our best bet is to stay put and hope she doesn’t come out. Of course, nothing is ever that easy. The door swings open and a very surprised looking Derpy comes out of the reactor room.

“W-what are you ponies doing down here?”

“We could ask the same about you, Ma’am.” It seems like our disguises are working fairly well, they’re at least Derpy proof.

“I have special permission to come here, directly from the reactor officer.” She hoofs over a small scroll saying that she did, in fact have permission to be there. “Now, what are you doing here?”

Just as I was about to make up some totally awesome and completely believable way to get ourselves out of this, Lightning Dust does the stupidest thing I can think of.

“Derpy, it’s us!” She takes off her hat, exposing the un-greased part of her mane.

“L-Lightning Dust? Rainbow Dash? Now I’m really confused…”

“Yeah it’s us!” She puts her hat back on. “Seriously Derpy, how and why did you get special permission to be here?”

“Well, honestly, it’s because he likes my coffee…” She looks away from us as if she’s embarrassed about something. “The chefs in the galley won’t let me use an oven to roast my coffee beans, so I bring them down here and roast them on the reactor instead. In exchange, I always give the RO some of my freshly roasted beans.” She smiles her goofy little smile and asks, “What, did you think my coffee was is so good just because I make it strong?”

“Well, kinda… yeah. I never imagined you roasted them yourself, especially not on the reactor.” I wonder if this stuff is radioactive? Maybe it’ll make me fly faster… I might even be able to do a double rainboom! I stare off into space for a few moments, imagining the possibilities of having super powers, but a punch to the shoulder from LD snaps me back into reality.

“Hey, Derpy… Can you do us a huge favor?” LD puts a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t tell anypony you saw us down here. I can’t explain it to you now, but ponies may be in danger, and we came to gather a bit of intel. You’re a nice, trustworthy mare. I know you won’t tell anypony... right?”

“Y-yeah, no problem, Lightning Dust!” She blushes a bit then looks away. “I wouldn’t have told anypony either way… But I definitely won’t now!”

“Awesome,” I say. “Now, we’ve got to keep moving if we’re gonna find any information that may help. You be safe down here, try not to hurt yourself.” And also try not to accidentally blow up the ship.

We head back the way we came and Derpy goes the opposite direction, probably heading back topside. After I make sure she’s out of earshot I ask the question that’s been bugging me since we saw the magic of Derpy Roast first hoof. “Who in the hay thought it was a good idea to let Derpy anywhere near the reactor? I’ve seen that girl destroy buildings with rainclouds… Rainclouds! How do you even do that? It’s like trying to smash something with a really fluffy bag of water!”

“Yeah I was thinking the same thing… You think she’s porking the RO?”

“You know, you might be onto something there! Maybe she reminds him of a mutant.” We both share a laugh at that, then let the conversation die down as we get closer to the grease pit.

“It is really good coffee, though.”

“Sure is.”

The sound of clopping hooves and clanging metal reaches our ears as we approach the entrance to the grease pit, along with it is the sound of conversation. Perfect opportunity to pick up some information without being noticed.

“Man, you should have been there last night, Bob. We had a blast!”

“Yeah, well, nopony invited me! If you didn’t tell me, how was I supposed to know?”

“What do you mean, nopony told you? You mean… They didn’t tell you?”

“No!”

“Then forget I mentioned it.”

“Wait, what the hay is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I mean… I can’t really tell you.”

“Then why were you telling me?”

“Well… I like you, Bob. I’m gonna go get somepony and introduce you to him. If he likes you, we can talk about it some more. Just hang here for a minute.”

The sound of the unknown pony walking out of the room echoes through the hall. Now’s the perfect time to go in and see if we can get a bit more info on the situation. I elbow LD and snag the door handle, trying my best to avoid making too much noise. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. The door creaks as it swings open, which immediately grabs the attention of the pony named Bob (what a weird name).

“Hello?”

Well, let’s hope these disguises work out. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Oh, hey. You here to pick up part of the next shipment?”

“Yeah,” we both say in unison.

“Awesome, now I won’t have to pull an all-nighter… Well, not here, at least.”

“Wait, where else would you pull an all-nighter?”

The door opens and in walks two ponies, clad in similar jumpsuits. One stallion looks at us, then back at the other stallion somewhat nervously. The slightly older-looking stallion whose voice I didn’t recognize looked each of us in the eye before taking charge of the situation.

“So, you said you had somepony you wanted me to meet? These the ones?”

The younger stallion’s eyes meet yours for just a moment, then he says, “Yeah, these are the ones. What do you think?”

“Well, they seem alright to me… But you gotta pay your dues, just like everypony else. You in?”

I look over at Lightning Dust, who looks back at me. We make eye contact for a brief moment, then she nods. I guess we’re doing this.

“Yeah, we’re in.”

“Me too,” says Bob. “But what exactly do you mean by paying your dues?”

“Well, if ya wanna be able to join our… club, ya gotta contribute. In order for all of us to have drinks, somepony has to bring the booze. That’s where you guys come in. We all did it. Ya see, I brought the first bottles and shared it with a couple of my buddies. Fine Bitalian Grappa, something nopony around my hometown had ever tried before. My buddies bought a couple bottles of Scotch from Scoltland, and we invited a few more ponies to drink it with. The cycle continued, and and before you know it, we had a right proper speakeasy going on . Now we have a party every night!”

He laughs a little bit and puts his foreleg around the stallion’s shoulder. “And now, you guys,” he looks at us, “...and gals get to be a part of it all. Alls ya gotta do is bring us two bottles each… Big bottles, of the best liquor you can find. Nothing cheap, ain’t nopony here wants deal with shitty booze. You do that, we’ll see how you get along with everypony else. Capiche?”

Well, this went waaay better than I expected. I look to LD for confirmation, she nods her head and gives me the biggest smile I’ve seen from her in a long time. I send that smile right back.

“Deal!”

Chapter 6

“Alright Dash, how are we gonna do this?” Lightning Dust is curled up on her bed looking over the day’s flight rotations. “We have to fly literally all day, there may not even be time to deal with it. There’s no way we can have booze shipped here, and I don’t even know when we’ll be docking next.”

It is a pretty grim situation, our mission starts at twelve-thirty. We’re scheduled to be in the air for six hours, which will totally ruin the rest of the day.

“Well, if we want to be able to make something happen fast, then we’re gonna need to find a way out of flying for the day. Maybe say that we’re both sick or something. We’ve never done that before, with luck, we may just be able to pull it off.”

LD looks thoughtful. “Or, even better yet, we find a reason to land somewhere else instead of trying to get out of our mission entirely.”

“How do you suppose we’re gonna do that?

“Oh, you know. I have a few ideas.”

I hop off my bed and walk over to her. “Like what?”

“Well, we’ve been having some issues with our jets lately anyway, right?”

“Oh… I see where you’re going with this. That just might work, actually. Though, we’d have to make sure there’s a base nearby.”

“Damn right it’ll work, but only if we play it off just right. Once we get in the air and find a good position, just follow my lead. I think I have the perfect way to get us on the ground.”

“Alright then, I’ll let you do what you do.”

With that, we both head for the showers and start getting ready for the morning briefing. It doesn’t take very long for us to get suited up and ready, so we make it to the Flier’s Lounge with a few minutes to spare before the briefing starts. LD and I head straight for the coffee pot, and Derpy positively beams as we both snag our first morning cup.

“Morning, Derpy!” I smile back at her, wondering how I could ever have imagined that she’s capable of being some sort of spy. After taking a sip and trying my best not to cringe at the bitter kick to the back of my throat, I walk over to my awesome personalized chair and take a seat. Whatever idea LD thinks she has, I hope it’s a good one. I look over to her, it looks like she’s pretty deep in thought. Maybe this’ll work. I’d never admit it to her face, but LD can be pretty sharp. When she has an idea, it usually works.

The morning starts out pretty nicely, that is, until my least favorite group of pilots shows up. The Canterlot Squadron… Or at least, that’s what I like to call them. They’re a group of unicorns that pilot two-seat aircraft. And they definitely act like unicorns… At least earth ponies aren’t so detached from reality that they think their shit doesn’t stink. They way those ponies hold their noses so high up in the air makes me want to go snag a thundercloud and drown them with the rain.

“Well well, if it isn’t the ambiguously gay duo… Here to babysit the skies while we do all the real work?”

You see, that right there is why I hate these ponies. “Psh, please. The only work you do in the skies is giving each other horn jobs while one of you makes sure the autopilot light is still on.”

That gets a laugh from the rest of the pilots in the room. I’m pretty sure everypony dislikes the uni-pilots just as much as we do, but they seem to have a particular hate-boner for us, so we like to return the favor.

The unicorn pilot laughs just like a “noblepony” from Canterlot would laugh at one of Twilight’s crappy “politically correct” jokes. “You’re just jealous because you two can’t fly in the same jet together. We all know how you like to be close to each other.”

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met anypony so narrow-minded in my life. “Actually, it kinda seems like you’re jealous… you must hate that that LD and I get laid every night. I bet it’s frustrating to know that we get to do whatever we want to each other, while you’re stuck giving yourself hoofies when you think nopony’s looking. Or, do you like to let the other stallions watch while you do it?”

LD decides to get in on the action too. “Nice one, Dash!” She gives me a hoof bump. “These guys are totally jealous… they probably think about us every night when they’re in their bunks, wondering if any of their bunkmates might be willing to trade favors. I bet if you ask your partner real nice he might let you suck his di—”

“Alright ponies, let’s cut the chatter!” In walks the intel guy, just as things were getting good. He’s probably gonna give us another incredibly boring and detailed description of the incredibly boring and uneventful mission he has planned for us today. Let’s see how bad it is this time.

“Alright ponies, today we’ve got something a bit different. You actually get to fly over land today!”

That’s a change. A very convenient one.

“Were going to be doing some joint-attack ops with the Air Force. This will involve you cooperating with multiple bombers as fighter escort. You guys will be providing support as-needed for the several operations taking place throughout the area.” The intel guy sweeps his hoof across the projected map on the wall. “You’ll be meeting up with the Air Force squadrons, going to a remote region of Ponbekistan, and running interference on anything that might be trying to take those guys out. Our first target is here.” He zooms in on the picture and points to a small cluster of buildings on the map.

“You’ll taking out a group of insurgents in a small town, then destroying the outlying supply depots and transport tunnels. After that, we’re headed to provide support for ground troops running ops throughout the region. Here’s a map of our field of operations with a list of the demographics of each town we’ll be operating in, make sure you study this carefully. There are civilian buildings all around, so do whatever you must to avoid damage to the surrounding towns and villages. “ He gives us copies of a ridiculously detailed map, complete with lots of funny symbols and acronyms that we’ve all pretty much forgotten since training.

One of the other pilots chimes in, asking about something on the chart. “Hey, what’s MAM mean?”

The intel officer replies, “Military Age Males. They're potential bad guys who could fight us.”

“Why don’t we call them... Fighting Age Guys? Heh heh.”

The intel officer smiles and replies, “Because then we’d get them confused with Fighter-Attack Guys. Heh heh.”

The unicorn goon laughs and says, “Hey, just like Rainbow and Lightning!”

“Oh, you got a problem? Let’s see how you feel about this!” I grin and look over at my wingpony. She gives me another one of her awesome, sexy smiles, then rolls her chair closer to mine.

Here’s the part where we blow their minds.

Lightning reaches out and grabs my foreleg, pulling me in until our muzzles are almost touching. I tuck a stray forelock behind her ear, then gently place my hooves on her cheeks. We lock eyes, smiles still spread across our faces. For a moment, we let our noses touch... just long enough to let the suspense build. Our lips meet; the sound of background ponies’ wings popping out is priceless.

After a very long and very passionate exchange of affection, we break our last kiss and end the embrace. At least half the pegasi in the room are sporting wing-wood… myself and LD included. What? Just because we pretend to be gay and make ponies uncomfortable by swapping spit in public, it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves while we’re doing it. Wait… that came out wrong. You know what I mean!

Our little show pretty much shut everypony up. The resident intel officer decided to leave us to our business after handing out mission-specific documentation. Canterlot Squadron made their exit wordlessly, though they did give us nasty looks as they passed by.

“Well, I guess we’re all set. You ready to gear up, Dash?”

I throw a hoof around LD’s shoulder and whisper into her ear, “You got your plan figured out?”

“Looks like we’re gonna be making an emergency landing on an Air Force base. Think you can handle that?”

I crack a huge smile in response, she and I both had heard that Air Force bases have all the best alcohol… and pretty much everything else. “Yeah, I definitely think I can handle that. I’ll leave it to you then. How will I know when you’re ready?”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll know.”

“Sounds like you got it all figured out.”

“Damn right, Dash. Let’s do this!”

With that, we make our way to the top deck. Time to fly.

I’ve gotten lucky today and been designated the lead for our section of jets. Not to mention getting lucky with Rainbow. She’s totally into me! Just because we’re totally gay and make ponies uncomfortable by totally making out in public doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it when we do.

I’m grinning as I do a preflight on my jet and then climb into the cockpit. Still grinning as we launch into the late afternoon sun.

Even when I have to check in with call signs, the ridiculous one we’ve been assigned doesn’t dampen the mood.

“Therapist one-one.”

“Therapist one-two,” Rainbow replies. She pauses, and then says exactly what I’m thinking. “Seriously, therapist? Who comes up with these things?”

We share a chuckle and point our jets towards the rendezvous point. The check-in location is buzzing with other airplanes. The two-seat jets from The Ass are there, as well as Air Force bombers and tankers.

Everypony’s terribly un-tactical today. Rainbow and I wait impatiently while the rest clumsily check in over the radio. Of course the unicorns are bad; even with the two of them per aircraft they can’t seem to fly and think at the same time. The Air Force is only marginally better. I guess those big, slow planes have pilots relaxing at the controls, probably drinking coffee and getting up to use the restroom whenever they want.

After we’ve met up, we all top off the tanks. Airplane-to-airplane refueling is roughly comparable to pegasi in-flight sex: You’re both flying in close proximity, probing each other and being incredibly careful because the consequences of an error could be horrible.

When we’re ready to push to the target, we arrange into a loose formation and head into country. The tankers turn around and head back to an Equestrian base set up in Hoovikstan, where the Air Force runs most of their operations.

Crossing the beach, I don’t even bother looking down. Ponbekistan is a featureless bowl of sand. I’ve flown over it before and I still can’t imagine why anypony lives there, but sure enough they do. And they seem pissed about it. They never stop fighting. If Equestrians weren’t around, they’d fight themselves.

The ride to the target is boring. It takes hours, just getting there. Hundreds of miles go by beneath us. I suppose it demonstrates the long striking arm of our military, but it sure can be tedious.

I could talk to Rainbow, but there’s no way of knowing who might be listening to the frequency. It almost makes me wish I was flying one of the electronic warfare jets. It’s a timid mission, just flying around with computers and stuff instead of weapons, but at least those guys can use their spy equipment to listen to FM radio. One of those nerds in that squadron once told me that the Ponbekistanis really like Sapphire Shores.

The overall mission commander is flying the lead bomber and orders us to do a radio check. I glance at the map, seeing that we’re approaching the target. I manage some enthusiasm. With any luck, we’ll get to use our weapons to clean up missed targets. If we get super lucky, the Ponbekistani military or someone will fly an attack jet too close and we’ll get to have some target practice.

The mission commander counts down. “Three, two, one, bombs away!”

The bombers drop their bombs.

“Well, that’s great, everypony. Have a nice day!”

The formation starts to turn for home. I crane my neck to look down, hoping to see some explosions. Not wanting to run into a bomber, though, I have to concentrate on flying.

Along the way home, there’s a tanker waiting for us. Just what I need - a nervewracking maneuver right after I’ve completed a bombing mission that turned out to actually be the most boring thing in the world.

There was a study done once that says pilots actually feel more stress landing on a carrier than they do in combat. Whether pounding The Ass or plugging a tanker, I’m kind of demoralized that “combat” is mundane in comparison. It’s not exactly what I pictured when I signed up.

As we wait our turn for the tanker, I glance over at Rainbow and smile. Then again, it’s a beautiful evening, earlier I got a kiss from my crush, and we’re just about to deceive the whole military.

The Air Force jets cycle through. The tanker sticks a very phallic probe into the planes to inject fuel. The tanker also carries a different system to service the Navy, a hose that the jets plug into.

Rainbow and I are last for tanking. I check my gauges, making sure I’ve calculated right. With a shot of fuel, we would have enough to get back to the ship. Without, we’ll have just enough to reach the base in Hoovikstan.

I flip a switch and the refueling probe pops up. It makes my jet look like a unicorn when it emerges from the nose. The tanker is trailing the long hose behind it with a refueling basket on the end. Positioning the jet carefully, I ease forward. Then, I start flailing like somepony is piping dubstep into my helmet.

One of my hooves slaps the throttle forward. The jet surges faster, the probe slamming into the basket. The hose flails like I’m doing. It cracks like a whip, and the basket rips off, still stuck to the probe.

I shove the stick forward to escape the stream of fuel coming out the torn hose. On the radio, I transmit, “Mayday, mayday, this is Therapist one-one. I have a bee in my cockpit and the tanker hose broke. My fuel is insufficient to reach Celestia’s Assistant. Diverting.”

“Therapist one-two. With the tanker broke, I’m not going to be able to get fuel,” Rainbow says. “Also diverting.”

“Sucks for you guys,” says the tanker pilot. “I guess you could just follow us back. After breaking my plane, though, you might get a cold welcome.”

That was about what Rainbow and I expected. Not that we cared what the Air Force thought about us.

We start transmitting our plans back to the ship. It should be a fairly easy fix to land in Hoovikstan, get the basket off, and refuel. Unfortunately, we were the last mission of the day and it will be late at night before we’re able to come back to the ship. Instead of going to the trouble of getting everything set up on the ship just to recover two jets in the middle of the night, we’re told come back with the first wave returning to the ship the next day.

Basically, Rainbow and I have just earned ourselves more than twelve hours of downtime ashore.

The next step is to actually get it approved. We have no other options but going to the base in Hoovikstan, but it would be nice to actually get permission to land there first.

I call up the control tower as we get close. “Base, this is Therapist one-one. We are an emergency divert requesting permission to land.”

“Who are you?” the controller asks. “Do you belong here?”

“No, we don’t, hence the emergency divert part. My wingpony and I are flying a pair of F/A-41’s and are low on fuel. We need to land.”

“Well, there’s a lot of stuff going on here. A lot of planes fly from and return to this base every day. The hangars and flightlines are packed. We don’t really have room for guests.”

“They’re Navy jets - the wings fold up.”

There’s a long silence. Finally, the reply: “Well, I guess we could probably find somewhere to park them.”

“Good. For your reference, would you like our side numbers?”

“What are those? Is it like a tail number?”

I frown into my oxygen mask. We’re probably talking about the same thing, but just to be sure...“It’s the number painted on the side of the jet.”

“Oh, okay, a tail number.”

A tail number painted on the side. Bucking Air Force.

I give the numbers and add, “We’ll also need a maintenance crew to remove a refueling basket from a probe.”

“A what from a what?”

I let out a breath and close my eyes briefly. The tower controller doesn’t know anything about refueling. Typical Air Force - so specialized at their jobs that they don’t know anything else about anything else.

“Just tell maintenance that we’ll need help removing a refueling basket from a Navy jet’s probe. While we’re at it, we can’t go back to the ship until tomorrow so we’ll need a place to stay for tonight. Depending on where you park us, a ride would be nice.”

“Uh…look ma’am, I just talk on the radio.”

I facehoof. My helmet absorbs most of the blow.

We do eventually get our landing clearance, though. The jet bounces hard on the pavement as I bring it in, the tires and suspension still set up for boat landings. The sun is setting as Rainbow and I touch down and head for our assigned parking space. It turns out to be a small square of concrete at the end of the two-mile runway. It’s about that far from any other facilities.

Despite the twilight of the setting sun, the heat hits me as soon as I open the canopy. Hoovikstan is a desert. If I thought flying over sand was bad, looking at the barren landscape from close up is worse.

The maintenance crew shows up promptly and they make quick work of removing the basket. A fuel truck appears and tops us off. All of them give us blank stares when we ask where we can stay for the night.

Deciding to figure it out for ourselves, we hitch rides towards the lighted area of the base. Lights must mean that ponies are around and we can find help. The scale of the place is a little disconcerting. A ship a quarter mile long feels huge. It feels downright cozy when you’re stuck in the desert miles from the nearest anything.

We take off our helmets and stow them in our helmet bags. Both of us are sweaty. Rainbow fishes a boonie hat out of her bag and puts it on. She grins. “I hoped I never had to use this in the desert, but I guess it comes in handy.”

I have my standard khaki garrison cover in my pocket and put it on. It feels strange to wear it. On the ship, typically the only headgear I’d wear is a flying helmet.

“Are you hungry?” asks one of the maintenance ponies.

“Yes!” Rainbow and I chorus.

They drop us at a building with a couple of levels. It looks like there might be rooms upstairs. Part of the ground level has a sign identifying it as a dining facility.

I look around as we go in, searching for the cashier To our surprise, it’s free. Like, free-free. Even freer than the wardroom dues we pay every month on the ship.

And the food is fabulous. We can smell it from the front door. I guess that’s the advantage of having a real kitchen and access to fresh ingredients that you can get every day instead of waiting for a supply ship to deliver canned food.

The ponies eating run the gamut from Air Force pilots to mechanics to other services and even some foreign ponies and other species allied to the war effort.

We’re not the only ones there wearing flight gear, spotting some ponies who are apparently alert crews or maybe just got back and were too hungry to wait.

We pause by a couple of pilots. “Hey,” I say. “We just got here and are looking for a place to rack out. Which deck is that on? What about the head?”

“And where can I put my cover?” asks Rainbow.

They stare at us blankly. “What do some of those words mean?” asks one.

Oh, right. Too many Navy words. I spot a stallion wearing cammo. “Hey Marine!”

He looks up. “Yes ma’am?”

“We just got here and are looking for a place to rack out. Which deck is that on? What about the head?”

“And where can I put my cover?” repeats Rainbow.

“The check-in for berthing is located one deck up. The head is in a separate building down the street. Covers go on the rack by the door,” he replies.

I never thought I’d have anything in common with jarheads, but at least we speak the same language for Celestia’s sake.

Rainbow and I eat the delicious, delicious food and then head upstairs. We get a room that is clean, though not as homey as our room back on the ship.

Rainbow pulls her phone out of her pocket and lets out an extended gasp. “We get wifi!”

“No way!” I’m instantly on my phone. Glorious, uncensored internet is within our grasp.

We spend a few minutes just soaking up the trons before either of us remember why we came here in the first place.

“We really should get going,” I remind Rainbow. “No telling when the exchange closes.”

She agrees. We drop our flight gear and head out. The store is about a quarter of a mile away.

It’s starting to get dark. Some fitness nuts are out for jogs or whatever. They’re all wearing fluorescent belts. And, they salute us.

On the ship, there isn’t much reason for salutes. You might get your head taken off by a jet if you pause and come to attention in the wrong place. Even ashore, the Navy doesn’t salute when wearing workout clothes, especially when uncovered. So Rainbow and I are both dumbstruck when the Air Force and Army ponies do it. And it happens again and again on the walk to the store. Of course, we have to return every salute.

But it’s worth it. The exchange is huge and lit up like a glittering oasis in the desert. They’ve got snacks and magazines and tactical gear and consumer goods and really anything anypony could ever want whether they’ve been on a ship for months or not.

And by Celestia, they have booze. Good Booze.

Rainbow snatches up a ceramic bottle with three X’s on it. “Aw yeah, this is the good stuff!”

“Moonshine? Isn’t that illegal to sell inside Equestria?”

“Yeah, it could cause you to go blind or something. But trust me, it’s the good stuff. My redneck friend says so.”

I shrug and pick up a few bottles. We go to the checkout. The cashier gives our change in little cardboard disks.

“What the heck are these?” Rainbow asks.

“We call ‘em pogs,” the cashier says. “You must be new here. They’re used at base exchange stores located overseas. They’re easier to transport back home to the Equestrian Treasury than metal bits.”

An interesting souvenir, maybe, but it makes me wonder how easy they would be to counterfeit. But that is of little consequence. We have our entry fee into the booze ring aboard the ship and we’ve got a little extra for tonight.

Unfortunately, months at sea have lowered our bodily tolerance and judgement when it comes to hard liquor as we shortly find out. I take the toilet and Rainbow takes the sink.

This is not how I want to see her. It’s not how I want her to see me. But as we’re sprawled together on the bathroom floor, she groans and offers a hoof. I groan back and brohoof her.

There’s no pony I’d rather be with when hammered to the point of puking at an Air Force restroom building somewhere in the middle of the desert of a third world country somewhere on the far side of the world.

We eventually get up and stumble back to the place we’re sleeping. It’s difficult to figure out why the Air Force decided to build a separate building for restrooms. But as I fall into the nice soft bed, I don’t care.

In the morning, though, I care. I need a shower and the only way to get one is to walk to the other building in the middle of a sandstorm. Rainbow and I squint and try not to breathe too much.

“Does this happen a lot?” she gasps as we make it inside.

“Yeah, a couple times a week,” says a pony passing us on the way out.

We go to find shower stalls. It doesn’t look like they get cleaned every day like they do on the ship. Also, the water is cold. What is this crap? At least on the ship, we have a reactor - we can get hot water.

Afterwards, manes still damp, we have to walk back through a sandstorm. At least an amazing breakfast with fresh fruit and made to order pancakes is waiting for us at the dining facility, although the coffee is terrible. By the time we finish eating, the sky is clearing up. The sandstorm is already being replaced by a heatwave and both of us are starting to invalidate our showers with sweat.

Smuggling the booze in our helmet bags, we try to find a ride. There are plenty of vehicles around and nopony seems too concerned about locking the doors.

Rainbow bumps my shoulder. “We should steal a tank.”

I think about it. “I’m not saying I don’t like the idea, but why?”

“Because it would be totally awesome. In the future, when we’re drinking, we can tell the story about that one time we stole a tank!”

I’m sold. However, before we can, an Air Force refueler crew pulls up in a van and asks if we need a ride.

Oh, all right. They’re heading in roughly the same direction we are and they actually know their way around the base. They aren’t the same ponies who were flying the tanker yesterday and we don’t mention how exactly we ended up here.

Returning to our jets, we find that they’re covered in a layer of dust. I scoop what I can out of the engine intakes and try not to let any get into the cockpit when I climb in.

Ahead of us, the long, wide runway stretches invitingly into the distance. We call the tower for permission to takeoff.

“Hang on a second, I have your paperwork,” replies the controller, a different one than we had the day before. “Let’s see, your callsigns are The Rapist eleven and The Rapist twelve.”

It takes a couple seconds of stunned disbelief before I realize the problem. “Therapist one-one, Therapist one-two.”

“What the buck,” Rainbow mutters in disbelief. I glance at her jet and see her shaking her head. “They’ve got great food, shopping, and alcohol, but terrible restrooms, weather, and coffee, not to mention the language barrier. How can Air Force bases be so awesome and yet simultaneously so shitty?”

That’s a pretty good summary: a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here. I feel a sudden longing to be back on the ship, where everything is uniformly mediocre.

We punch the throttles and get airborne. It’s a short hop back to the ship. Rainbow and I will probably get some ribbing from the other pilots about our little adventure, but it’ll be worth it. Now that we have what we need to gain entry to the inner circle of the clandestine speakeasy, we’re one step closer to figuring out what's going on.

Chapter 7

Rainbow and I stand in front of Spitfire’s desk. Our Commanding Officer is not pleased.

“So you inexplicably lost focus in the middle of a critical refueling event, rendered an Air Force tanker crucial to the war effort inoperable, exposed two of our jets to the damaging effects of a desert sandstorm, and forced your squadron mates to cover your duties until you got back to Celestia’s Assistant?”

I stare at the deck beneath my hooves. “Yes ma’am.”

“Did you have fun ashore?”

I glance up. There’s a twinkle in Spitfire’s eye that could either be the memory of her own youthful adventures or an impending demerit coming my way.

“No ma’am,” I reply.

“Their coffee is terrible,” Rainbow adds.

“You’re damn right it is,” Spitfire says. “Now get out of my office.”

Rainbow and I exit as quickly as possible, shutting the door behind us. We both breathe out a sigh of relief.

“Glad that’s over,” she says. She smiles, that cocky grin I love.

A change of subject seems in order. “Well, let’s get this thing done,” I say.

We hurry back to our room. Our borrowed clothes are ready and we help each other put them on, concealing our wings.

The disguise grease for our manes is still disgusting, but necessary. It almost feels like we’re doing each others’ makeup. Ugh. Not that either of us would know about that or anything.

We look in the mirror together, our warpaint on and ready for the mission ahead. I’m feeling more apprehension in my chest than I ever have for a combat flight. Funny how things like that work.

“You know, LD...you make a pretty sexy dirt pony.” She winks.

I smile. That was exactly what I needed. “Right back at you. Let’s do this.”

We grab the smuggled booze. Then, it’s downstairs to present our little gift, gain entry to the inner circle, figure out who is responsible for the drunken accidents, and finally blow this thing wide open.

Of course, that’s not how it goes. Not even close.

Okay, we do get downstairs, but that’s when things begin to turn into a furball. Meeting back at the place where we’d first learned about the shipboard speakeasy, there’s nopony around.

There’s the door that we saw them use before. Rainbow grabs the handle, but it doesn’t move. She throws her weight into it, and it slams open. There’s a unicorn on the other side who shouts and stumbles back, holding his nose.

“Hey, sorry,” says Rainbow. “I’m, uh, you know, a clumsy, super strong mudpony here.”

“I thought the m-word was verboten,” he says nasally, still holding his nose.

“Oh, but it’s our word,” I jump in as Rainbow fumbles.

“Yeah!” she adds. “Boy, I sure love, um, dirt and...not flying.”

The unicorn nods and lets it go. Stereotypes for the win. “So what are you two here for?”

“We have our ‘entry fee,’” I say.

He nods. “Come on. I’ll show you in.”

We follow him deeper into the ship. Some ponies were around, and the place looked lived in, or at least partied in. It was almost as if they’d set up their own little society here, deep in the forgotten depths of Celestia’s Ass.

Our escort shows us to a larger area where a dozen or so ponies are hanging out. There’s a bar and a few bottles behind it. This must be the place.

“We drink for another day!” he calls, levitating the bottles we’ve brought to the bartender. A cheer goes up around the room and the closest ponies give us a pat on the back. Fortunately, none seem to notice our wings.

Rainbow’s eyes drift over the crowd and lock on a couple of them who are hoof wrestling in the background. “I’m gonna go over there and see what I can find out. I can talk a good game.”

“I didn’t know hoof wrestling came with much talk.”

She shrugs. “So I’ll just beat them and figure it out from there.”

She heads over and I turn to the bar to see if there’s anything going on. A couple of ponies are looking noticeably depressed, much different than the rest who seem to be in good spirits. I think I recognize one from the flight deck.

My eyes narrow of their own accord. Is this the guy who almost got Rainbow and me killed?

I slide closer. He knocks back some whiskey and I gesture for the bartender to get him another one. He glances at me and mumbles, “Thanks.”

“What’s up with you?” I ask.

“I’m here drowning my sorrows because I almost got a few ponies killed,” he replies. Yep, this is definitely the guy.

“How did that happen?”

“Some pilots could have had accidents with their jets.”

“What do you have to do with it?” I’m genuinely interested in exactly how he screwed up, so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“It happened because I was drunk, from drowning my sorrows because I screwed up the maintenance records of some other jets.”

“Vicious cycle, huh?” I say, but internally my mind raced. Other jets? Could this happen to somepony else?

“Who else knows?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Everyone’s got their own problems.”

Like putting motor oil in the salad dressing dispenser or any number of other screwups we’ve seen. Just how deep does this problem go?

I glance around, trying to memorize faces. When Rainbow and I bust this wide open, it’s going to be huge.

Speaking of busting things, a loud crash from across the room followed by an even louder scream breaks the moment.

I look back at LD and see her slide closer to some greasy looking stallion sitting at the bar, no doubt trying her best to squeeze him for info. I know we came here to investigate, but there’s no way I’m gonna walk outta here without having some fun first, and hoof wrestling seems like the perfect way to start the night… Maybe I’ll even get one of these wannabe meatheads to buy me a drink.

I walk up to the table where the stallions are trying to prove the worthiness of their stallionhood, just as the largest of them finishes slamming his smaller opponent to the deck. Time to make this chump feel like a puny little colt.

“Hey there shipmate, mind if I get in on the next round?

The stallion raises an eyebrow and looks me up and down, then says, “I don’t think you really wanna do that.”

“What’s wrong, big guy? Afraid you’re gonna lose?”

“Big words, coming from a little filly. You sure you wanna play with the stallions? Ya’ might get hurt!”

I look him right in the eye and slide up to the table, taking a seat and resting my foreleg on the smooth, metal surface. He takes the bait and sets up for another match, not knowing that he’s about to get owned in front of all his little buddies. Earth pony strength or not, me and LD do more pushups in one day than most ponies do in a month, bro. All that training has paid off, not only do we both have irresistible sex appeal, but both of us are probably strong enough to give even Big Macintosh a run for his money when it comes to hoof wrestling.

“Alright, seaman. Are you ready to get your flank pounded by a filly?” That one earns a chuckle out of his buddies.

He looks back at his companions and scowls at them until they stop laughing.

“Your funeral, sweetflanks.”

We lock hooves, and one of the other stallions places his hoof on top of ours, then starts the count.

“Three. Two. One. GO!”

As soon as he shouts go, the unofficial referee releases our hooves. In that split second, I blast every ounce of strength I have into pulling my opponent’s foreleg closer, just enough to get it past center and gain the upper hoof. The look of surprise on his face tells me that my plan is working. I maintain eye contact, slowly forcing his hoof closer to the table. He’s breaking a sweat, straining blood veins on his forehead, and grunting like he’s trying to squeeze one out after a solid diet of MREs for a few months.

“So, still think you can beat me, sugarsausage?”

He only grunts in reply, putting even more effort into winning a losing battle. Poor guy didn’t realize what he was getting himself into.

“I know this nice stallion back in Applesoosa that I think you’d really like. I think he’d like you too…”

Overinflated ego will soon be this stallion’s downfall. He takes my bait, tensing up and using even more of his strength in a burst of rage. Exactly what I wanted. At this rate, he’ll burn out before I’m even starting to get tired. Frustration intensifies as he struggles helplessly against my iron grip.

I look into my victim’s eyes and whisper just loud enough for him to hear, “I’ve got you…”

His foreleg starts to tremble.

“Right…”

The strength of his grip slowly weakens.

“Where…”

I hold my gaze, watching his rage slowly burn away, just like the strength in his tired, weak muscles. After several moments of losing ground, the reality of the situation slowly starts to force its way into his booze-addled mind. The reality where he gets beat in front of all his buddies… By a mare! His eyes widen at the realization.

That’s when I make my move, letting my foreleg relax just a bit to throw him off, then slamming his hoof to the table with all my weight.

*CRASH*

It is… far more effective than I had anticipated. As soon as his hoof hits the tabletop, the stallion slips out of his chair and hits the deck, somehow dragging the whole table down with him. Needles to say, he is very upset. The irate sailor tosses the table aside and picks himself up to his hooves. He takes a moment to set the table back up, then steps across to the opposite side and fixes me with a vengeful glare.

“Alright, I ain’t never met no mare could wrestle hoof like that! Just who in the hell are you, anyway?!”

The stallion leans across the table and looks at my chest. For a moment, I don’t realize what he’s doing, until I see him mouth the words “Pretty Posey.” His eyes go wide, then he rears up and stomps the deck as hard as he can.

“WHAT THE BUCK IS GOING ON HERE? YOUR NAME AIN’T PRETTY POSEY!”

My heart drops as soon as I realize what’s going on. I look back at LD. For a brief moment, we make eye contact. The look in her eye seems to reflect exactly what’s going through my mind as well: What the buck have we just gotten ourselves into?

That’s when the stallion decided it would be a good time to let out his best war-cry and flip the table in my general direction.

Of course, the table flipping did not go unnoticed by the rest of the drunken ponies hiding in the depths of Celestia’s Ass... no, not at all. And judging by the looks on their faces, none of those drunken ponies seem very happy about it.

I glance back at LD for just a moment, taking notice of the not at all calm look on her face. Way to provide moral support, partner!

I look around the room for a moment, searching for a way to buy time, trying to plan routes of escape... Anything! But, it seems there’s no escape to be had. You know, in situations like these, I sometimes like to ask myself: “How would Daring Do get out of this if she were here?” Unfortunately for me and Lightning Dust, this isn’t exactly the sort of problem Daring Do would have written about in her books. I guess this one’s on me.

The sound of drunken chatter raging in the background is dead, and all eyes are focused on the table flipping drunk… and me. Great.

“What do you mean I’m not Pretty Posey? My name’s right here!” I point at the name tag on my chest and fix him with a deadly glare.

The stallion trots over to me and snatches the name tag off of my suit.

“I mean exactly what I said, you ain’t Pretty Posey! Would you like to know how I know you’re not Pretty Posey?” He pauses for dramatic effect, looking around the room at all his dirt-loving mud buddies before returning his gaze to me. “Because Pretty Posey is my BUCKING MAREFRIEND!”

Oh, horseapples.

Chapter 8

What has Rainbow gotten herself into? I, and everypony else in the illegal speakeasy, are staring across the room at the developing showdown.

“You ain’t Pretty Posey! Pretty Posey is my BUCKING MAREFRIEND!” a rather large stallion shouts. “Where did you get that uniform?”

“Oh yeah?” says Rainbow. “How do I know you aren’t an imposter-” she squints at his nametag “-Mr. Cover Closer?”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” he insists.

He’s right. A fight is brewing, and even if Rainbow’s mouth can delay it, it’s still going to happen soon. I glance around. The stallion to my side is hammered. He’ll be no trouble. The ponies gathered around Rainbow have their backs to me. I could zoom across the room and get the drop on them. It would just take one good push with my- Wait, my wings are bound up in this uniform.

I glance around again. The door’s nearby. I just have to figure out how to get Rainbow across the room and through it with me.

There’s a bottle on the bar, one of the ones we had brought as entry fee to the speakeasy. I grab it up and cock my foreleg back.

After a quick flight across the room, the bottle shatters across the back of Cover Closer’s head. Rainbow, not one to stand idly by when there’s violence to be wrought, immediately punches the next closest pony.

I grab the drunk beside me by the collar and throw him into the pony nearest the door. Glancing over my shoulder, Rainbow is on her way across the room, stopping as necessary to punch another face.

The bartender vaults the bar, but on his way down, I intercept him and toss him back. Then, Rainbow is beside me and we bolt for the door.

Of course, that’s not the end of it, not by a long shot. The speakeasy patrons know this seldom-traveled part of Celestia’s Assistant a lot better than a couple of pilots do. We might be fast, but if we hit a dead end, we will be thoroughly bucked.

“You just had to blow our cover,” I pant to Rainbow as we run.

“Nah, blowing Cover Closer was the real Pretty Posey’s job,” she quips.

I get half a laugh out, trip, and barely regain my balance. For revenge, I reply, “Where are we going? Why does Celestia’s Ass have to be so big?”

Rainbow snorts and stumbles as we reach some stairs. We’re still ahead of the angry mob, but the stairs slow us down. They’re well within sight, and still coming.

At the top of the stairs, I have a fraction of a second to decide which way to go. A hatch a few feet away begins to open and I dive for it. Too bad for whoever is on the other side, but the element of surprise favors whoever seizes it first.

It’s Spitfire. Also, like a dozen military police. Too bad I’m already committed to the maneuver.

I probably look completely ridiculous bowling over my commanding officer and a bunch of cops. I hope Rainbow enjoyed it.

I hope LD enjoyed taking a free shot at the skipper. Regardless of who they are and whether you think they actually deserve it, an opportunity like that is once in a lifetime.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Spitfire demands, getting up and glaring. Her gaze swings to me, too. That’s when I realize both LD and I are wearing stolen uniforms, have grease in our manes, and are being followed by a crowd of drunken and possibly murderous sailors.

“Illegal booze,” LD blurts. She waves her hoof back the way we came. Since that is also kind of pointing at me, I make sure I wave my hoof the same direction, just so everypony knows that she meant something beyond me.

“Yeah!” I chime in. “We were running from some kind of smuggling ring.”

“They’re getting everypony drunk. Some of them can’t do their jobs,” says LD.

“Some of them like the guy who almost got me killed when my jet broke the other day,” I add.

Spitfire’s raw anger has cooled, but her eyebrows are still twisted up. She glances between the two of us. “Why are you here? Why are you dressed like that?”

Lightning Dust looks at me and I look at her.

“We were kidnapped!” I blurt. “We found out too much and they grabbed us. They put us in disguises so nopony would know we were here.”

“Right!” LD quickly adds. “Check us, we’re the only ones who aren’t drunk.”

Spitfire gestures and the cops rush forward. They go down the stairs and I can hear them laying the smack down on some drunken sailors.

“We managed to escape and we were on our way to find you or anypony that could help,” I say to Spitfire. “This alcohol smuggling ring needed to be stopped before somepony got hurt or worse.”

“The other skippers have been talking,” she says. “We all suspected there was something like this going on, but I never would have thought it would be so organized. You both deserve medals for figuring it out.”

LD and I trade grins.

“But,” says Spitfire, “You both deserve to be court martialed for being in this up to your ears, so let’s call it a draw.”

I can feel the puff go out of my chest. But hey, not getting a court martial is pretty good too.

“Get back in the uniforms you rate and I’d better never hear of either of you doing anything like this again,” says Spitfire. She turns to go.

“Ma’am,” calls LD. “How did you know where to find us?”

Spitfire turns. The tiniest smile comes to her mouth. “I was a junior officer once too, you know.” Then, she walks away.

I walk over to my roommate. “Wow....just wow.”

“You said it,” she replies.

We get back to our room and take off the borrowed uniforms. We both take a moment to just breathe and think.

“Does it piss you off that this is the most exciting thing you’ve ever done in the military?” LD asks after a moment.

“Yeah, a little.” I nod. “I thought combat would get my heart pumping, but no, we had to find something else to do.”

“War does not live up to the hype,” she says, shaking her head.

“I don’t know, it’s not so bad. I get to hang out with you.” Yeah, I know, kind of sappy by my standards. I used to be one of the Elements of Friendship, sue me.

She turns and smiles. “Thanks. I really like being with you, too.” She leans closer, kissing me on the lips.

“There’s nopony else around, you don’t have to act that way,” I say.

She frowns. “What? I thought… Aren’t we together now? After everything we’ve been through.”

“I’m not gay.” I frown. “Are you? Did you think I was?”

“You’re...you’re not?” LD stutters. “I just thought...it’s the Navy. Everypony’s gay. You...I thought we had something.”

“Nope, not me. Sorry.” I shook my head.

Then, I grinned. “But I’d still do you.”

“I love war!”

Chapter 4

Sneaking around unnoticed on a cramped ship with five thousand other ponies around is even more difficult than it sounds. Rainbow and I made some plans to mitigate the risk, but we were both aware the kind of trouble we would be bringing on ourselves should we fail.

Well, actually we had no idea. Nopony we knew had ever been charged with stealing laundry.

After dinner, we visit our room to grab our laundry bags. It would look suspicious if we were in the laundry facility without a reason.

The laundry room was three decks below the hangar bay, which meant it was six below our room and seven below the flight deck. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to make a boatful of quadrupeds deal with stairs. It was a lot easier to hover up and down the ladderwells, but I figured I might as well get practice pretending to be an earth pony.

The deeper we go, the warmer it gets, which is a little counterintuitive. You’d think the water would cool the ship, but then again, there’s a lot less airflow. There’s also the nuclear reactor, which apparently puts off a lot of heat.

I grumble a little bit to myself as I begin to sweat. It sounds like Rainbow is grumbling too.

The laundry room is even hotter than the rest of the ship, a blast of moist heat from the dryers practically knocks me back a step as I walk through the door. Sweat starts to drip down my nose.

There’s a bin next to the door marked for dropoff. A few uniforms are already in the pile. Most are incredibly dirty and I can smell them from here. Further into the room, massive laundry machines are spinning and there’s a music beat in the air powerful enough that I can feel it in my chest.

Fortunately, the laundry ponies are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they’re somewhere in the back. Rainbow and I have a quick whispered conversation.

“We can grab some stuff right here.” I point at the nearby bin.

“No way! I am not wearing somepony else’s dirty uniform!”

I didn’t want to do that either, but prefer to have Rainbow be the one to say it. Any chance I get to make her feel like a prissy fashionista, I take it.

“Well, where are the clean uniforms?” I ask.

We both look around. Maybe there are some deeper into the laundry room, between the rows of machines. If we venture into the maze and get caught, we can make up some excuse for why we’re there. However, it would be better to never be seen and get in and out with the goods.

“I’ll stand guard here,” I say. “You go look.”

Okay, with LD guarding the entrance, I should be able to get in and out clean. I just have to go down the really long, creepy hallway lined with double-stacked washers and driers, complete with absurdly loud electronic music thumping in the background… Great.

Ironically, I’m totally surrounded by uniforms, but they’re all locked behind big glass doors. I could just stop a machine and get what I want, but it’s probably better not to mess with anything... My luck, I’d end up somehow breaking something. Guess I gotta go deeper if I want to find some clean uniforms that aren’t in the process of being de-stinkified.

The farther I go, the more intense the music gets. I can’t even hear the laundry equipment anymore, and it’s hard to tell if the deck is vibrating from all the machines, or if it’s the epic-level wubs blasting me in the face. There’s only one pony I know who plays music like this, but there’s no way she’s on this boat. Probably about to do some big, awesome concert in some big, awesome city right about now. Wish I had gotten her number before I decided to run off and join the Navy… Oh well, another scratch on the long list of things I regret not doing.

As I get farther into the room, it starts to get a lot darker. I notice most of the lights are out overhead, which is convenient for stealth, but really odd given how big the Navy is about keeping lights on in the ship. I keep expecting to see a big table full of folded uniforms, or at least some dump bins with freshly cleaned ones, but there’s none to be found… Of course they keep them all the way in the back, nothing’s ever as easy as I’d like. I press on and keep walking, trying my best not to attract attention as I go. It appears that there’s nopony else in the room, which is also a good sign.

Once I really start getting into the darker part of the room, I notice something glowing in the back. It looks like some sort of computer screen or something, probably what the music is coming from. I know it’s not my business, but I can’t resist taking a peek and confirming my suspicions about what’s playing. It sounds way too familiar.

Being sure to keep my eyes open for any signs of other ponies, I walk all the way to the back of the room, confirming that the music was coming from the computer which is connected to a really familiar looking speaker system. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was Vinyl’s bass cannon. That’s really weird... Maybe somepony is making copies and selling them? If so, I have got to get one for myself! At this point I don’t even have to look at the screen to know whose song this is. I know I’ve heard it before, and this setup is obviously made by a fan of Vinyl Scratch.

Now that my eyes have pretty much adjusted to the darkness of the room, I can see a couple of big, metal tables with folded uniforms. Perfect! I trot up to the table and start sorting through them to find the right sizes, trying not to mess them up as I go. Just as I find a size that looks like it’ll fit, bright light floods the room, blinding me for a few moments as my eyes struggle to adjust.

“What the hay? Who the buck is that? What are you doing back here?”

I take a big gulp and turn to face the pony behind me. After my eyes finally adjust to the brilliant light, I”m greeted by a wild, electric blue mane and a very familiar set of red eyes looking back at me.

“V-Vinyl?”

“No way! Rainbow Dash?! Now there’s a pony I never thought I’d see here! What the hay are you doing on this scrap heap?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing! Why aren’t you out there somewhere making a crowd go wild?”

“Well, you see, some things happened. Nothing major, really. I had a small afterparty in my hotel suite, only about twenty or so ponies. As it turns out, a few of those ponies were holding things that they really shouldn’t have had. Those same ponies were less than subtle about what they were doing, so when the Royal Guard arrived because of a noise complaint… yeah. Since it was in my hotel room, it was technically in my possession. The prosecutor threw out terms like possession of illegal substances, public disturbance, and and mentioned something about jail or military service. I chose the latter. It’s better than being somepony’s pincushion in the pokey.”

“Wow, Vinyl… That sucks. A lot. Especially since you’re all the way down here, trapped in the laundry bay.”

“You know, you’d think this job would suck... But, it gives me plenty of time to work on my music in between loads, and it’s the only place I can actually play my jams full blast without anypony getting pissy about the sound. All in all, it’s not so bad. What are you doing here?”

I rub the back of my neck sheepishly. “Well, I actually came to borrow a couple of blue jumpsuits, if you think you can spare some.”

Vinyl looks around the room, then looks back at me with a deadpan stare. Okay, maybe that was a stupid question.

“Nope, I’m fresh out of uniforms.” She holds her neutral expression for a few seconds before cracking a big smile. “Yeah, I think I can spare a couple of uniforms, Dash. May I ask why a flygirl like you would want a jumpsuit like that?”

Well, this is awkward… Do I tell her what’s going on and risk her accidentally tipping someone off somehow, or do I make something up that she might believe? Better safe than sorry.

I return her smile with one of my own and reply, “Well, me and my bunkmate… she’s kinda into roleplay.” I can’t believe I just said that.

Of course, just as I thought it would, this sparks Vinyl’s interest. “Wait… do you mean what I think you mean? You lucky little filly!” She eyes me up and down, lingering on my flank for a moment before going back up to my eyes. “I may have to talk you into letting me in on the party sometime, Dash.”

Well, now I don’t feel so bad about not getting her number. “I think we might be able to work something out, Scratch. So… about those jumpsuits.”

“What size do you need?”

“Um, one that fits? I really don’t know anything about jumpsuit sizes.”

She grins. “Let me show you around, sailor.”