When Only A Feather Of Hope Remains

by bucking bronco 1968

Chapters

Chapter 2: Welcome to Hell
Chapter 3: Rough Landing
Chapter 5: An Old Friend
Chapter 6: Everything Changes
Chapter 1: Just Another Mission
Chapter 4: Sisters In War

Chapter 2: Welcome to Hell

"Ladies and Gentlemen we’ve begun our decent into hell. Please make sure your guns are in the full locked and loaded position. Thank you for flying Flak Bait Air, and safe shooting." D.D. said in her most air stewardess like fashion. The crew and crews of other bombers who had heard D.D. burst into laughter.

D.D. always came up with something strange to say when they hit the hot zone to keep everyone's spirits high. Many crews had learned to tune in on the "public" frequency to get a laugh as well.

Sorin let them have their laugh, then cut in, "Alright everyone, look sharp. This could get ugly quick." Everyone went quiet and got on their guns, it was show time.

As it always seemed to be, the flak was incredibly thick. Dash watched as a bomber in front took a direct hit to the right wing, the wing tearing away from the bomber as it banked right and fell toward the ground in flames. Only 6 parachutists were seen before the bomber fell out of sight.

"Shit we lost one! someone from another bomber yelled into the radio, but no one responded. It wasn't the first and certainly wouldn't be the last.

"Rainbow, how long to the drop?" Sorin called, breaking the silence.

Rainbow looked out the nose for a landmark and spotted a small river. She found it on her map and asked, "Airspeed?"

"157."

Dash made some quick calculations, "About 35 miles, eta 13 minutes."

"Alright. Ditsy, the bird is yours at 20 miles."

"Roger that Sorin, my bird at 20 miles from target." Just as Ditsy finished speaking, a flak shot exploded close to the nose, throwing the plane up.

"Let's hope we make it! Sorin yelled as he struggled to put his bomber back on course.

Ditsy looked back at Dash, She could see the fear in the bombardier's eyes, "Don't worry Dits, we'll make it!" Dash yelled over the drone of the engines and explosion of flak.

"We got a scout of 4 coming in 5 o'clock high!" someone yelled.

The sound of Lead Leg's turret moving was followed by his voice, "Leave them be. Let the escort take care of them."

Just then, Rainbow watched as 8 P-51 fighters shot past her bomber, heading for the 4 enemy fighters. No other fighters made a move to follow them, their pilots knew very well there were more fighters hiding in the clouds, so they stayed close to the bombers as the 4 enemy scouts fled. The 8 P-51 settled that had peeled off fell back into the formation just in front of 'Speed of Lead'. Soon enough, they were surrounded by 8 of their brothers and sisters, creating the standard 4 flight group formation.

Dash looked on in pride as 16 P-51's, not even a fraction of their escort flew close to the bombers, protecting them as they always did. Dash took notice of the markings on the fighters. Two groups of them had black and yellow checkered noses and tails, markings of the 393rd fighter squadron.

The rest had black noses that broke into blue lightning bolts that ran the length of the planes, with blue wing and tail tips, which were the unforgettable markings of the 380th fighter squadron.

Between the two fighter groups, they had shot down over 700 fighters and other enemy aircraft since the beginning of the war. The groups had the 2nd and 3rd greatest number of Ace pilots in the air force*(1), only being beaten by the 49th who flew the fork tail devil P-38's.

The 49th had a total of 112 pilots under it's control, and it was said that all of them were aces*(2). No one from the 49th had come by base yet, but Dash was ok with that, she already knew a 49th pilot.

But at the moment, the 380th and 393rd would do just fine.

Rainbow and the others watched and waited, they knew that a dogfight would break out at any second. The skies remained silent for a few minutes, then their welcoming committee showed their faces, and they were in force.

Everyone watched as a sea of enemy Bf-109's and Fw-190's appeared and raced toward them. But their was another plane in the group that Dash saw and it made her blood run cold. Flying in between the waves of enemy fighters were at least 25 Do-217's. The sight of just one Do-217 could make the most hardened bomber crew scared.

In it's standard condition, the Do-217 was a common and useful medium bomber with standard 6,600 lbs bomb load. But some got turned into a deadly attack type aircraft with four 7.92mm machine guns and four 20mm cannons that could rip through a bomber in seconds, sending its crew to their death.

Dash knew many bombers had fallen to the might of the 217, and she didn't want to join them.

"We got a sea of Sharks and piranhas inbound”*(3) Ace yelled into his mic as the escort around them turned toward the incoming fighters.

Dash watched in silent pride as the mix of P-51's, P-63's, and P-47's began their attack, as hell was set ablaze. Tracer fire was everywhere as every plane and gun in the sky began to spit its fire as the flak from below died down to allow their allies in the sky time to attack the stream of bombers, but it was still there.

The friendly fighters did their best to keep the Arabians away from the bombers, but even with the hundreds of Aces and experienced bomber gunners giving their all, enough enemy fighters were getting through to be a problem.

Dash watched as fighters strafed the bombers in front of her, bombers and fighters alike bursting into flames, and falling out of the sky in flames.

She could she that Ditsy was worried as the strafing fighters slowly worked their way closer to 'Speed of Lead', because she was physically shaking. Rainbow was about to say something to her when she was thrown from her seat and into the support frame in front of her as the bomber was rocked violently from a powerful flak explosion.

"What the fuck just happened!" Dash yelled as she sat back down holding her bleeding head, a powerful headache developing quickly.

She glanced over to Ditsy quick. The grey mare had been thrown as well, and stood up a little shakily, but looked ok.

It took a minute before anyone said anything, but finally Sorin spoke, "Took a direct flak hit to engine 1. We're in rough shape but flyable. How long till we're over the drop zone?"

Dash looked over her map and judged their speed impairment, "I'd say about 7 minutes or less.."

"Well we're too far in now, I guess we're going for this. Ditys! The plane is yours, just try to keep left turns light. Lead! When you get a chance, I'm gonna need a full damage report!

"Roger that skipper!" Lead Leg yelled as he let of another burst from her machine guns as yet another fighter went through his gun sight, its wing being filled with holes.

"Yes sir." Ditsy said as she flipped a few switches on the panel next to her, but Dash could still hear the fear in her voice.

Eventually the remaining enemy fighters broke away from the insane dog fight, their ammo, and more importantly, their fuel spent. But it was not time for celebration as the flak that had plagued them from the start returned in full force.

The damage they had suffered from the flak hit was sever, the #1 engine was completely dead and the #2 was in rough shape. The left wing itself was shredded, making it impossible to keep their altitude and speed the same as the other bombers around them. Slowly, the B-17 dropped altitude to keep itself from stalling, and they slowly dropped back and away from the formation.

The experienced Arabian flak gunners continued their onslaught of anti-aircraft fire at the stream of bombers, more than happy to try their hoof at finishing off Dash's crippled bomber and others like it as they fell away from the group.

But finally, after what seemed like ages, the target, already ablaze, slowly came into the view of the bomb sight. "30 seconds!" Ditsy called out as she put the bomber on target. The crew heard the bomb bay doors open as they prepared to drop their bomb load.

"Hurry up!" Lucky yelled, "We got a Do coming in hot!"

"I see it, open fire!" Turtle yelled as he rotated his turret into position. Turtle and Lucky opened fire as the Do's pilot closed the gap between the two planes.

Ditsy heard the fire and started to panic, "Come on come on!" Ditsy yelled to herself as the target slowly fell into place. Finally she flipped the toggle switch and the bomber jolt upward as it dropped its payload. "Bombs away!" Ditsy almost cheered as she closed the bomb bay doors and gave control of the bomber back to Sorin.

Sorin smirked as he put the bomber into a tight right bank to keep up with the group, as they all turned for home. "Rainbow I need a course back to base A.S.A.P.!"

"Roger that." Dash said, as she let her heart-rate slow slightly.

Even though they were still being chased and shot at by the Do-217, the crew felt they were going to make it home in mostly one piece.

They had just about completed the turn when the bomber lurched hard left again. Sorin and D.D. were both caught off guard, but gripped their control columns and pushed them hard right, they were just barely able to level out the stricken bomber.

"The hell just happened!" Sorin yelled as he fought to control the bomber.

"We just got pretty fucked up!" Lead Leg yelled back.

Sorin groaned, "Well give me a damn damage report then!"

"Rudder’s shot to shit, elevators are destroyed, and the tip of the left wing is gone.."

"What?" Sorin asked in disbelief.

"Yeah the Do’s cannon shells cut off the last three or four feet of our left wing." Lead Leg called back as he watched the stubborn Do bank left and dive towards the ground, its right engine engulfed in flames, allowing him to finally let go of his triggers.

Sorin knew he was in a tough spot to say the least. His #1 engine was blown out, his left wing was destroyed, his whole bomber was riddled with holes. His rudder was almost gone, his 3 working engines were in rough shape from flak and aircraft fire, and on top of that his elevator was destroyed

He knew his plane could most likely get them home, he'd seen it done before, but the question was, should he make the attempt.If he attempted and failed, he could get his whole crew killed in a crash, but if they bailed out, they’d be stuck in hostile territory where they most likely be captured and killed.

Then the flak that had died off over the target returned in full force. Sorin put his mind back on flying the plane, deciding attempting to get home home wouldn't mean anything if they fell victim to the flak.

Again, the flak gunners were not only aiming for the trails of bombers that were turning toward home and the ones that still hadn't dropped their bombs, but also the other damaged bombers that were trying to limp their way back to Tallahassee. Those made easy targets.

Speed of lead bounced all over the place as the flak shots shook it left, right, up, and down.

Dash had finally been able to determine a course back to base and looked up to say something to Ditsy just in time to watch Ditsy and reality seemed to slow. As she turned her head, she saw something pop up at the bottom of the nose. It had barely come into view when it exploded, and Dash’s world went black.

Dash couldn't see, move, or really do much of anything for a few seconds. Eventually, she began to regain her senses, and opened her eyes to see nothing but blue sky.

She panicked at first, thinking she was falling through the sky toward the ground, without a parachute.

But in her panic, she found that she was sitting on metal, and the wind was hitting her face as if she was moving forward. She looked around and gathered her surroundings. She was on a two foot strip of metal which was almost the only evidence that remained of the nose. Her desk was gone, her maps, the bomb-sight, Ditsy.

"Ditsy!" Rainbow yelled aloud as she realized she couldn't see her bombardier and friend. She looked around in a panic, there weren't many places Ditsy could go but down.

She then looked behind her and sighed in relief. There was Ditsy, laying covered in black gun powder, deep gashes, and unconscious in the "tunnel" that led from the nose into the cockpit.*(4)

Dash stepped over her and grabbed her flight jacket in her teeth, pulling her backwards into the cockpit. When she finally exited into the cockpit, she was met with stares from Sorin, D.D., and Lead Leg. "We thought you were dead." One of them said.

"Well we're not. So would you stop staring at us and fly this fucking plane!" Dash yelled. It was then Sorin and D.D. realized they had lessened their inputs on the controls, and the bomber was starting to bank left. They both pushed hard right and after a few fearful minutes, the bomber leveled out.*(5)

"Dash, we can't keep doing this. I need that course back to base now!" Sorin said through clenched teeth as he fought with the controls.

"Turn compass heading 210 and it's a straight shot, 4 hours max."

Sorin nodded and let the controls drift slightly until the bomber lined up with the compass heading 210. Sorin then yelled back to Dash, "Go back and check on everybody, then get back up here. We're gonna need your help to muscle this thing home!"

Dash nodded as she left the cockpit and ventured onto the small walkway that spanned the bomb bay. As she crossed, she looked down and saw the left bay door was gone and the right had a hole in it big enough to drop a bomb, or pony, through. She tried to pay that little attention as she crossed the shot up walkway into the radio room.

She found Sparky deep in conversation with other bombers from the group as they called in to check on the beaten up bomber.

He looked up at her long enough to nod his head backwards toward Turtle's turret and the other gunners. Dash gave him a grin back as she hurried over to Turtle's turret, she knew Sparky was alright, but she didn't know about the others.

Dash opened the hatch to Turtle's turret with little effort, "Hey, you alright Turtle?" she asked as she flung up the hatch.

The grey coated, black and red maned stallion looked up at her with a smile, "Yeah I'm good. Took a good few hits from the flak and jammed my left gun, but other than that I'm fine."

Dash noticed that Turtle's left hoof was holding a red stained cloth over his left shoulder. "Here, let me finish that for ye." She said as she leaned into the cramped ball turret and tied the cloth around Turtle's shoulder making a makeshift bandage out of it.

She gave him a quick hoof bump when she finished before she pulled herself out of the cramped ball and shut it's hatch.

She then looked over to the two waist gunners who were too busy watching the skies for last minute attacks to notice the cyan mare, at least until she started their way.

She went over to Cannon first who greeted her with a warm smile, "Well Blindy isn't too blind to see the flak comin’. Glad to see you're still with us." Dash just rolled her eyes and checked him over.

Cannon had very little flak injuries, in fact, his only real injury was from a small machine gun round that had grazed his shoulder, which was quickly taken care of.

She went over to Ace, but he said, "I'm fine, go look check on Lucky. We haven't heard from him in a while." Dash gave a sharp nod and turned to the "tunnel" that lead to Lucky's tail gun cave. She got down on her knees and crawled up to the door that doubled as his seat and banged on it.

It opened quickly, revealing pegasus, "Hey Dash what's up." He said in his normal, cheery, we're gonna be fine, voice.

"Oh just checking to make sure you're luck hasn't run out yet." She said in a non-caring manner, getting a laugh out of Lucky.

"Oh no I'm all good. Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna get back on my gun." Dash gave him a smirk and shut his door before crawling back out of the hole. When she emerged, she found the two waist gunners waiting, who only got a smirk and a roll of the eyes from the rainbow maned mare.

The two chuckled, knowing Lucky in true Lucky fashion was just fine.

The two gave Rainbow a quick smile before she hurried back up to the cockpit where they needed her.

She returned to the cockpit to find Lead Leg out of his turret watching over the engine gauges while Sorin and D.D. continued to fight the controls.

Sorin turned his head quick as he heard her run in, "Good you're back. Now listen, I need you to control the throttles since neither me or D.D. can take a hoof off the controls."

Rainbow didn't question why Lead Leg wasn't working the throttles*(6) and nodded, looking down at them.

The B-17 had a very interesting throttle set up. The engine throttle levers were two stacks of three levers that controlled the engines' speed. The top two on each side controlled the #1 and #4 engines and the other two controlled the #2 and #3 engines respectfully. Below that were four levers that controlled how fast the props spun, and above the throttles were another set of four levers that controlled the turbochargers that gave the engines extra power for high speed flight.*(7) The whole setup could be very confusing for someone who didn't know what the were doing. Luckily, that wasn't the mare Rainbow Dash was.

"Alright, what I want you to do is decrease power on engine 3 to 50%." Dash did as Sorin said and pulled the throttle, turbo-charger, and prop control levers from their cruising position at 75% power down to 50%.

"Ok engine 3 is at 50%." Dash said as she felt the plane slow and tilt as the engine slowed.

"Good. Now idle out the turbochargers on the #4 engine and put everything to full on #2." Again, Rainbow did as she was told and pulled the turbo-charger lever of the #4 engine down to 0 and increased all three levers on the #2 engine to full power.

The increased power on the left wing and the decreased power on the right wing helped pull the plane out of it's leftward bank. Sorin and D.D. let out a sigh of relief as they were aloud to loosen their death grip on the controls for the first time in 2 hours.

"How are the engines holding up Lead?" Sorin said as he sat back in his set for the first time in hours.

"Two is holding just fine but a little hot, nothing to worry about though. 3 is running a little rough but nothing that should cause a problem. And 4 is running just fine."

Again Sorin sighed, "Good. Maybe we'll get back to base after all." About then, a fully functioning B-17 flew about 500ft overhead of them, its ball turret pointed at them.

Sorin and the others watched it 'till he heard Sparky come over the radio, "Skipper, you got a second?"

"Yeah Sparky go ahead."

"That B-17 just radioed me, apparently our #1 engine is in worse shape than we thought."

Sorin and D.D. shared a confused look, "What do you mean?" D.D. asked.

"Apparently engine 1 has a foot wide hole going through the middle of it."

The four airmen in the cockpit shared a look of astonishment . "What?" was all Sorin could say through his disbelief before turning to Lead, “Why didn’t you tell me about that!”

Lead Leg put his hooves up in defence, “Hey from up there, I couldn’t tell!”

Sparky intervened before the argument could get worse, "Ball gunner said it looked like a dud shot went through the engine, then another shot went off and that was the one that got out wing." Sparky replied.

Again the cockpit went silent. They all knew that if the flak shell that went through the engine had exploded, they'd all be dead. It stayed quiet for quite some time after, around an hour at best until Sorin realized damaged B-17s were passing them.

He looked down at his airspeed indicator and almost panicked as he noticed they were just above stall speed.*(8) "Dash, put #3 up to 75% again and pull #4 down to 20%."

Dash snapped out of her trance and changed up the throttles to what Sorin had said. The change in throttle layout pushed the bomber slightly left, which was easily countered by what was left of the rudder. But slowly, their airspeed increased, taking them away from the danger zone around stall speed.

Lead leg looked at the gauges for the third engine and saw that the RPM's and temperature was rising fast, "What the fu..." But he didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as the #3 engine blew to pieces.

"Shit! Cut power and fuel to 3 and put 4 to full!" Sorin yelled as he grabbed the controls and held on.

Rainbow quickly shut down the #3 engine and put #4 to full power. She could still see fire licking out from every crack of the third engine.

"Come on. Come on!" Sorin said under his breath as he felt the controls loosen as the were burned and melted. Finally, after a few tense minutes of held breath, the fire snuffed out.

"Oh thank Celestia." Sorin sighed as he again sat back in his seat. "Sparky, radio one of those bombers for an eta back to base."

"Roger that skipper." Sparky said.

"Well shit this is interesting," D.D. said as she rested a bit. "Fly a 2 engine, fucked to hell bomber back to base. Rusty's gonna blow his lid."

"If Rusty says one fucking word about any of this, I'll stick my flight boot so far up his ass that I’ll be able to put it on through his mouth." Lead Leg said as he continued to watch the gauges.

"Agreed. I'd love to watch to see him up here, see what we see, and then run his mouth like he does." Dash said as she sat against the control console.

"Sorin, from what the bombers tell me, we're two hours from base."

"When did two hours go by?" Rainbow asked as she looked out a window to the left of Sorin.

"Doesn't matter." Sorin said as she shook his head. "Thanks Sparky, see if you can get me in touch with base."

"Can do." Sparky said as he got back on the radio.

"Lead, how we lookin fuel wise."

"Uh, 4 has plenty, but 2 will never make it at full power. Got about an hour and a half of fuel, max."

"Shit." Sorin yelled in frustration. He knew he would have to fly the final leg of the journey on one engine.

"That puts us in one hell of a tight spot. We could loose altitude to gain speed and get their faster, but we're gonna want all the altitude we can get when #2 cuts out. If we hold or altitude, we'll be slower and #2 will cut out farther from base, and we can glide on one engine only so far. Fuck we're screwed." D.D. said, finishing with an angry sigh.

"So what do we do?" Rainbow asked, looking around the cockpit at her friends and crewmates.

"We take the old girl as far as we can." The three looked at Sorin, but soon found they agreed.

"We got to give the old girl the benefit of the doubt. I mean Shadow pulled it off, why can’t Speed? She's brought us home from a lot." Lead Leg said with a slight chuckle.

"And if worst comes to worst, we get as close to base as possible and bail, but that's a last resort." Dash said, feeling that they at least had a chance of not needing to use that option.

"Sorin, I got base on the horn." Sparky said, cutting the conversation short.

"Thanks Sparky." Sorin switched his mic from crew intercom to the base's radio channel, "Tallahassee.*(9) this is bomber 651*(10) do you copy."

"Roger Sorin, we read you loud and clear, go ahead.

"I got problems. My bomber is fucked. We're running on two engines, barely, and the rest of my plane isn't much better."

"Roger Sorin. What do you want from base?"

"I need runway 4 cleared with as much emergency personnel you can spare ready and waiting. I got a bad feeling about this landing."

"Roger Sorin, we'll see what we can do. We’ve had two bombers crash land already, but we’ll see what we can do.

"Just make sure they're off 4 is clear enough for a landing , bomber 651 out."

"Roger, Tallahassee out. out."

"I wonder who crashed." D.D. thought aloud.

Sorin hung his head, "I don't know. But let's focus on making sure we don't make that total three."

D.D. nodded and braced herself for another struggle with the controls.

An hour later, engine 2 was just about out of fuel, and Dash and D.D. had switched places due to D.D.'s inability to fight the controls any longer.*(11)

"Alright, let's see how rough of a landing this is going to be. Dash, give us 40% flap."

"Flaps to 40." Dash called out as she mover the flap control lever down to a normal takeoff position.

"Cannon, Ace, we got any flap response?" Sorin asked.

"I got nothing skipper." Ace called as he scanned the right wing.

"Same over here."Cannon agreed as the left wing showed no sign of flap input.

"Are you serious! I guess we’re going to be coming in hot. OK let's try the gear next, Rainbow."

"I got this Sorin." Dash said. Again, she lowered the gear lever, and the sound of the gear lowering could be heard.

"Turtle, did the gear go down?"

"Yes and no."

"Yes and no." Dash and Sorin said to each other. "What do you mean yes and no?" Sorin asked

"Well the left gear lowered fine, if a little fast. But the right gear fell away."

"And what do you mean by fell away?" Dash asked, getting slightly annoyed, and worried.

"When the locks released so it could be lowered, the wheel fell away from the engine. It now has a one way ticket to the ground."

"Ok, I'll just belly slide the old girl again, Dash pull the gear up." Sorin said, angry and slightly panicked.

Dash pulled the lever for the gear and pushed it up, but the sound of the gear moving never came. "What the?" she said in confusion.

"Turtle, did the left gear move?" Sorin asked.

"Noooooo. Was it supposed to?"

"Are you fucking kidding me!" Sorin yelled, before he punched the control panel. "Uh, Turtle your job is done, get out of that turret, head to the radio room and strap yourself down." Sorin sighed as he thought, now instead of being able to just belly land his bomber, he would have to land it on one wheel and not go into a fiery cartwheel.

"Well what do we do now?" D.D. asked.

Sorin sighed, "Well we could try to break the gear off with speed by diving, but that's just a bad idea. If we try to break it off on landing, we'll probably explode, and I'd rather like to make it out of the damn war alive. We could try to land on just one wheel, but that will most likely end up with us in a fiery cartwheel of death. I think we might have to bail on this one."

Everyone one in the cockpit went silent, there was a feeling of hopelessness that held in the air.

"I’m not bailing."

The simple sentence made all four of them jump, as not of them had spoke it. They looked behind them to see Ditsy, slowly pushing herself up on shaky hooves, blood still oozing from her gashes, an unforgiving look stamped on her face.

"Have you all lost your faith in our plane. Are we in a tough spot, yes. Is this landing going to suck, most likely. But does that mean we should give up just because of slight problem, hell no! We've seen bombers land on one wheel before, Shadow did it twice! Some ended badly, but some didn't. We got to give this old girl one last shot, so bail if you want, but if I’m going down, I’m going down with my bomber. Who’s with me?" Ditsy had been passing back and forth as she spoke, and soon, everyone found they were starting to agree.

"Hey she's right. Just because some have failed doesn't mean we will. We've got the baddest bitch to ever drop bombs on those damn Aries, she can keep us alive one last time." Lead leg said with enthusiasm.

Sorin groaned, "That's well and good, but we're gonna need a plan if we want to life through a landing like that."

Ditsy smirked, "You want a plan skipper, well I got one. The way I see it is we do as Shadow did, stay on the left wheel as long as possible and let our speed decrease to the point we can't get the plane to respond to the ailerons anymore."

Sorin perked up, "I see what you're saying. If we come in at an angle and near stall speed, we can stay on the left wheel while we control the tilt with the ailerons. By the time we have to let the right wing drop, we'll hopefully be going slow enough so we'll barely be damaged. And in theory, we won't die."

Sorin tuned to look behind himself at D.D. with a grin, "So what do you say D.D., you think we can walk this bird on one leg?"

D.D. just flashed him a cocky smile, "Oh you know we can."

Sorin's grin just widened, "Alright, Ditsy, Dash, go back and get everyone strapped down in the radio room. Lead, I need you to stay here and help us the rest of the way. But once we're on final, your ass is in that radio room, got it?"

"Yes sir!" the three yelled.

"Then move your asses!" Sorin yelled back as the two mares rushed to the back, D.D. retaking her place at the control column and Lead Leg took D.D.’s place at the throttles.

It wasn’t going to be much longer of a fight, as they were less than an hour away from home.

Ditsy and Dash made quick work of getting everyone strapped down in the radio room for what everyone knew was going to be a rough landing. It didn't seem like it had been long when Lead Leg walked into the radio room and strapped himself to one the the last open support members.

"Alright everyone, hold on. This is gonna be a wild ride." Sorin said over the radio before turning back to focus on the landing.

Dash and everyone else could hear everything they were saying. The two pilots had left the radio on so they would know what was going on since they couldn't see anything.

Dash listened as D.D. slowly called out the altitude as they got closer and closer to the ground. Then Dash held her breath as she heard the left front tire kiss the runway.

Author's Note

*(1) an Ace pilot is a pilot who is credited with more than 4 aerial kills
*(2) Keep this in mind for the next chapter, you'll understand.
*(3) Do 217's are known as Sharks and Bf-109's-Fw-190's are known as piranhas.
*(4) What? You actually thought i would let best pony die this early? No way! Not yet at least. ;)
*(5) If the bomber had backed over 70ish degrees, it would have gone into a death sip, and then everyone is screwed.
*(6) Lead Leg wasn't working the throttles because as you will see, Sorin and the throttle operator need to know how the engines are handling the throttle positions they are being set to.
*(7) Top speed=287mph, which is pretty fast for a bomber.
*(8) A stall is where the speed of a plane drops to a point where it is no longer going fast enough for the wings to provide enough lift to keep the plane in the air.
*(9) Tallahassee Air Field
*(10) Most bombers are just refereed to by the last three numbers in their serial number. The bomber's full serial number was 44-85651.
*(11) The damage to her left front leg from the flak on mission 11 had caused nerve damage making it hard for her to fight the controls for long periods of time. It had gotten better over time, but you can only heal nerve damage so much.

Hey guys BB1968 and I'm happy to present you with the new chapter 2. This one didn't take as long because it's shorter and a little easier to finish. Hopefully, at the pace I have now set for myself, I should have chapter 3 finished and edited by the end of July, and I have a feeling you guys are really going to like what I have in store for you. Anyways guys I hope you have a good day, Morning, Night or what ever it is and as always, Aim high and fly on. BB1968 signing off.

Chapter 3: Rough Landing

At Tallahassee, a stallion burst through the door that led the the commanding officer's office, "Major Gusty!" He yelled as he entered.

Major Gusty, the military officer in charge of running Tallahassee looked up from her desk where she was planning the next mission, "What is it Windrider*(1)?" She asked as the stallion caught his breath.

Captain Windrider, the lead radio operator of Tallahassee who worked in the control tower, finally spoke after a few seconds, "We got another one coming."

Gusty stopped in her tracks for a second as she contemplated what Windrider had said. Then is clicked, and she wished he had never came through the door.

They had already had three bombers crash on landing at the base due to an emergency landing, a B-17 and B-24 from another squadron and a B-24 from the 851st that had landed just minutes earlier.

She had hoped that no other bomber would come in for an emergency landing after seeing what had happened to those three.

The first bomber that had crashed was one of the B-24’s, one of the 851st bombers, and it had not fared well. Though it didn't belly land, it suffered a similar fate to the bomber that had. When the wheels came in contact with the runway, the left wing snapped off at it’s base, which had been severely damaged due to a fire in the #2 engine. The bomber had then rolled over to the left before it explode when the right wing slapped the runway turning the bomber into a tumbling fireball, which killed the seven ponies who had survived up to that point.

The second bomber had been the B-17, and it fared just as bad. The pilot had been in a panic and wanted to get on the ground as quick as possible. But in his haste, he had come in at too steep of an angle and smashed the nose into the runway, crumpling the front of the bomber and breaking it apart. Out of the 10 ponies who had been on the bomber, 3 walked away and another 4 were taken to the hospital with varying injuries.*(2). While, three that had died. The navigator and bombardier and the pilot who had caused the whole mess. *(3)

The last plane was the second B-24, which ended up looking much like the first one. It had belly landed, as the right wing had been severely damaged and it’s gear wheel blown off. When it hit the runway, the damaged right wing gave out and snapped off, causing fuel and fire to go everywhere. The bomber leaned over to the right, but had been going slow enough that is stopped before the left wing could carry over and slap the runway upside-down. The bomber would eventually fall back to the left, crushing the wing tip of the left wing, but thankfully, not bursting out into flames. Two crew on that bomber had been killed before making it back to the base, 6 more were taken to the hospital with second degree burns while the two others were able to walk away with only minor injuries. *(4)

Gusty turned away from the captain and stared out the window at the end of her office that over-looked runway 5, the runway that the B-24 had cartwheeled on. The B-24’s twisted and charred remains still sat on the runway.

"What squadron is it from?" She asked after a moment.

"It's one ours, a B-17 from the 848th. Bomber 44-5651." Windrider replied.

Gusty froze. She new that bomber well. Hell everyone at base knew 'Speed of Lead'. Sorin and his crew were known by and friends with almost everyone at base, and hated by none. His crew had been given the nickname 'Angels in Hell' because they had come back from so many missions in their trusted bomber covered with holes and with destroyed engines, many times with injuries that should have killed them but never did.

And now they were coming back to base for a crash landing, something they had done only one other time.

"How long ago did they radio in?" She asked as she played out situations in her mind.

"They called in about half an hour ago. We got in contact with a bomber that flew past them around the same time, they were about two hours out at the time, and from what we were told, they’re in bad shape. If we heard the pilot correctly, he said they were on two engines, and the bomber is barely airworthy." Windrider responded.

"Why was I not informed of this half an hour ago!" Gusty yelled in frustration, "Something like this should have been brought up to me at that moment."

Windrider didn't move or flinch at Gusty's outburst, he'd heard it before. He was in complete agreement, and he was just as frustrated as her. He was just able to hold it in a little better.

"I only heard of it a few minutes ago and when I did, I came straight here. Why someone didn't come here and tell you earlier, who knows. What we have to focus on right now is making sure we give them everything we have to give them the best chance at surviving."

“Right. Do we know which runway they're most inline with?”

“From the position the other bomber gave us, they're on an almost straight path to runway 4.”

"Okay, we need to get those remains of that B-17 off the runway now.” Gusty said as she calmed down slightly.

"Already ahead of you." Windrider stated, "I got some of the mechanics to pull the wreckage off the runway the second I was told, I have them combing it for sharp metal now."

Gusty took a deep breath, "Good, that's the least we can do for them. Now we just have to hope Sorin and D.D. can do what they always do, and bring that bomber home."

Windrider put a hoof on Gusty's shoulder and tried to crack a smile, "Gusty, this is Sorin we're talking about, he'd probably try to muscle home a bomber without a tail and pull it off."*(5)

Gusty tried to smile too, "I hope you're right."

Two Hours Later

Gusty stood in the control tower as she, and the rest of Tallahassee, waited with bated breath for the only B-17 from their base that was still unaccounted for.*(6)

They scanned the skies, fighter's at the ready to search for the bomber's wreckage if the wait was deemed too long, but everyone was hoping that they wouldn't be needed.

"Look there they are!" One of the controllers yelled and pointed toward a black speck in the distance. Some were skeptical at first because they couldn't hear the sound of the bomber's engines, but as it came a little closer, they realized that it really was the stricken B-17. It was then they all realized that, for the first time, they had seen it before they had heard it.*(7)

All of Tallahassee looked on in amazement as the once elegant bomber fell toward the runway, running on only one engine and nearly cut in half.

"My god." Wingrider said under his breath as they all looked out at the bomber as its left wing dipped toward the ground. One of the operators next to him pulled out one of the military issued camera, turning toward the distant bomber.

"What are they doing?" One of the other radio operators asked.

It was then Gusty was able to get a good look at the bomber, and realized that it's right gear wheel wasn't deplored, only the wheel on the left wheel.

"They're trying to land that monster on one wheel!" Gusty yelled as she grabbed the base's intercom, "All emergency personnel be ready! It’s a unicycle"*(8) Then all they could do was watch as the bomber came in slow toward the runway.

The wheel came closer and closer to the ground until, finally, the gear made contact with the runway with the left wing angled to the point that the wing tip floated just feet away from the rapidly moving asphalt. Seconds after the wheel touched the ground, the #4 engine, the only engine left still running, died, leaving the plane with no power.

"My god, they're doing it." Gusty said as the bomber tore down the runway. Everyone in the tower then watched as the bomber passed the middle of the runway, "But it's going way too fast!" someone yelled as the whole base watched the bomber careened toward the end of the runway, and the trees beyond it.

They watched, helpless, as the bomber bounced off the end of the runway and into the grass, the left wheel leaving a rut in the ground. As dirt built up in front of the tire, the bomber slowed to the point that the right wing fell hard to the ground, snapping off part of it and sending the bomber careening to the right.

Tallahassee watched as the bomber slid sideways till it disappeared into a treeline. Not long after, an ear-shattering crash was heard, and the ponies in the control tower watched as one of the larger trees on the horizon shook violently.

In all, the landing had only last 53 seconds.*(9)

The air had barely went silent when every able body in Tallahassee raced to the end of runway 4 to help anyone who had survived what was, without a doubt, the most death-defying landing anyone could remember.

As they ran, they had two thoughts in their minds, how many of their friends were alive still, and how many were now not going home.

Rainbow looked out at the others who had strapped themselves into the radio room. Lead Leg had just pulled himself in from the cockpit and soon, he too was strapped in.

They all sat there, and listened to the almost distant sound of the lone engine as it struggled to get a bomber, built to barely be able to fly on two engines, to the runway that never seemed to draw closer.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was only minutes, D.D. came over the plane’s intercom, the sound slightly slurred because the speaker had been hit by shrapnel, "Alright everyone get ready, we've only got one shot at this, and we're going in."

Everyone in the radio room held their breath as they listened to Sorin and D.D. calling out the altitude over the intercom, to keep the others in the loop since they could see absolutely nothing.

"100. 80. 60. Easy Sorin you're coming in a little hard." D.D. said, finishing just as the tire squealed as it came in contact with the runway. Just after the tire came in contact with abused asphalt, the #4 engine, the only one left running, died.

"Why did you kill the engine!" Sorin yelled as he wrestled with the yoke to keep the right wing elevated.

"I didn't! D.D. yelled back. "We must of ran it out of fuel. Couldn't have timed it any better if you ask me."

Sorin groaned, "We cut that way too close."

"No shit!" D.D. Yelled back. "What's our speed?"

Sorin checked quick, "86."

"God damn it Sorin, get on the brakes harder! We've eaten up half the runway!"

"I'm on them as hard as I can be! Some of the shrapnel must have damaged the the brake lines!"

Then D.D. looked up out of the windshield and her heart almost stopped, "Oh shit hold on everyone! We're going to do some lawn care!

Just then, everyone felt the bomber bounce off the end of the runway and run into the grass.

"We're slowing down too fast!

"No shit Sherlock! We're gonna have to set the wing down easy."

The others in the radio room felt the right wing slowly level out, but the second it became level, the wing dropped hard and slapped the ground.

"Shit!

"Shit!"

Sorin and D.D. yelled, the wing snapping 3/4 of the way down it's length just after the aileron, and throwing the plane hard right.

"We're heading for the trees!" Sorin yelled seconds before the bomber collided with a tree 2ft in width between the ball turret and radio room.

The bomber hit the tree at about 60mph, almost splitting the bomber in two, embedding the tree half way through the tail. The bomber sat there, right wing against the ground and left wing pointed toward the sky.

As the tree stopped shaking, the metal of the bomber gave out one last groan as it settled into the ground, like the last breath of a dying animal.

The rush of ponies that had come from base arrived on the scene, and they stared in awe at what had happened.

Once the shock of what they were looking at wore off, they rushed to the waist gun windows and climbed in, looking for any survivors.

They got into the radio room after navigating around the tree and found the entire crew. Some were worse for wear than others, but all alive, strapped to the bomber’s framework, out cold.

They then traveled forwards into the cockpit and found Sorin and D.D. Sorin was still strapped in his seat, the left side of his head bleeding from smacking the broken window next to him. The window had been broken by a branch from a tree just about a foot from the bomber’s cockpit. D.D., who had been thrown out of her seat on impact, was now impaled on the end of the branch. The duo, were also completely unconscious.

"Get the medics!" one called, "These guys need the docs yesterday!"

Minutes later, as Rainbow was being carried out of the bomber, she momentarily regained consciousness. She looked around at the world around here, watching ponies scramble to and from the bomber carrying out her other crew members, and she realized she wasn't dead.

She chuckled to herself, "I guess protocol does come in handy." Chuckling again before falling back to the stretcher she was on, unconscious once again.

No one noticed she had came to.

Dash's unconscious mind brought her back to happier times, back when the thought of going to seemed like a good idea.

Dash had just arrived at one of the many military flight schools. By military rules, at least one other member of a bomber's crew, besides the pilot and co-pilot, must know how to fly the plane.

A mechanic in a jeep dropped Dash off at her bunk house, one of the older small ones that was really only good for two ponies.

She thanked the jeep's driver and grabbed her bag out of the back. As the jeep drove away, she walked into the bunk house.

She saw two beds, one was empty and was most likely her's. The other was a mess with a purple mane popping up between wing ups.

"So. My new roomy. Finally. Arrives" The other pony said between wing ups.

Dash could barely tell what the voice sounded like, but it sounded very familiar, " Yeah some mechanic just dropped me off." Dash said setting her military issue duffle bag in her bed.

The other pony stopped mid rep, "Dash?" the pony said in a mare’s voice.

Dash knew that voice she looked back at the other bed and saw an orange head pop up. Yes she knew this mare well, and she smiled, "Hey squirt, it's been awhile hasn't it."

Scootaloo beamed as she got up, walking over to her "older sister" and hugged her, "I didn't think I would see you here Dash." Scoots said with a smile, "I thought you said you were a navigator?"

"Yeah, but the military wants me to be a back up pilot so here I am."

"Really? So what are you training on?

Dash shrugged, "Multi-engine bomber, and that's all I know. So what about you? What they got you slaving over?"

"They've had me training on the P-38. I'm to be shipped out to the 49th squadron in about a month."

Rainbow Dash looked at her sister in astonishment, "The 49th. The 49th fighter squadron. The same 49th squadron that lays claim to 13 aces in 2 months. One of the hardest squadrons to be assigned to and has only lost 17 fighters in 24 years! That 49th squadron!"*(10)

Scootaloo smiled, proud that she had awestruck her idol, "Yep, the very same. The top pilot of every class is assigned to the 49th. For the last two months, they've had me training on the same P-38 that I'll be flying when I ship out."

"Oh really, where are you storing the thing, I want to check it out." Dash said, almost already out the door.

Scootaloo smiled sheepishly, "Well I would, but I might have." Just then the sound of a twin engine fighter buzzed low over the the bunk houses.

"What the hell was that!" Dash yelled.

Scootaloo just smiled, "Oh it's probably just D.D."

"Who's D.D." Dash asked, raising an eyebrow.

Scootaloo just gave a Rainbow a grin, "Just watch." she said as she pushed the bunk house's door open.

Dash stepped out the door to see a sheet metal finished P-38 buzzing low over the bunk houses. The plane then pitched hard toward the sky and climbed higher and higher. But Dash could tell something was wrong, "Shouldn't she level off soon, or won't she stall?"

Scootaloo just laughed, "Oh shut it and watch."

Dash turned back to the sky and watched as the fighter slowed then it started to back over, canape toward the ground. The pilot then kicked the rudder, throwing the P-38 into a flat spin, just 4,000ft above the ground. Rainbow held her breath as the P-38 fell in it's flat spin toward the ground, but slowly, the plane started to pull out of the flat spin. Soon after, it went into a regular dive, 1000ft above the ground. The pilot then pulled hard on the yoke, trying to get the fighter to level out. It continued to dive toward the ground, and Rainbow almost shut her eyes at what she thought was going to be a crash. But, at literally the last second, the P-38 leveled out at roared back into the sky, adding a few rolls for good measures.

"Holy shit." Was all Dash could say.

Scootaloo just smiled sheepishly, "Yeah, she's a bit insane. You have no idea how many times she's destroyed the props on fighters in the last few months doing tricks like that."

Dash just stared blankly at her sister, "She's wrecked planes before? Why haven't the orderlies*(11) gotten on her."

"They were the ones who put her up to it. They were tired of having old biplane trainer sitting around that no one could use because the military deemed them out of date. So when she accidentally climbed into one thinking it was her trainer, they told her to use it as one and have some fun with it, she already had a resume for doing crazy stuff in her trainers. Then one thing led to another and now she's just a crazy stunt flyer know as Dare Devil, but we mostly just call her D.D."

Almost if on cue, D.D. buzzed low over head, upside-down at high speeds before going into a loop.

"When does she stop?" Dash asked.

"Either when she runs out of fuel, destroys an engine or two, or hits the ground." Scootaloo said as she watched knife-edge feet away from the control tower.*(12)

Dash watched with a smile, "I'll have to talk to her sometime, but right now, I'm gonna head to the chow house, I'm starved."

"I could go for some stale bread and beans." Scoots said, the sisters broke out in laughter as D.D. brought the p-38 in for a landing, the metal of it's wings only slightly damages from the high G's she had put them through.

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash would never get to talk to D.D. at training.

Rainbow Dash and other recruits from several different training camps that had been assigned to bombers disembarked from the C-47 that had brought them to their last stop before the front lines, Vanhoover bomber training center. The 37 ponies who had been on the transport flight filed into the waiting area outside the orderly's office.

Dash set her stuff down next to an orange mare with a black mane, only to hear, "So the world famous Rainbow Dash was training was us huh."

Dash just turned to the mare and gave her a smile, "Oh I'm just another wonderbolt doing their job. You obviously know my name, so what's yours?"

The orange mare smiled at me, "My name's Cloudwing, but everyone calls me Dare Devil, or D.D. for short."

Dash cracked a smile when she heard this, "So you're the D.D. who stole my sister's P-38 and did crazy stunts with it. I got to say, I saw you a lot back at training, you're really good a flying fighters, so why are you a bomber pilot?"

D.D. looked at her, "Okay, one, who's your sister? And two, I may be good at flying fighters, but I think if I ever was assigned to one, I would spent more time doing my stunts than actually fighting."

Dash broke out laughing, "Fairpoint. Oh and to answer your question, my sister is Scootaloo."

That stopped D.D. dead, "Whoa Whoa Whoa, hold on a second, Scootaloo is your sister?"

Dash slightly shrugged, "Well technically, no. But when she was younger, she was picked on a lot because she couldn't fly well, and was late getting her cutie mark. She had always been a fan of me, and when she had a little bit of a break down on a camping trip with me and some of our friends, I took her under my wing as a little sister. Truth be told, I think it helped her self confidence by a lot."

D.D, stared at her, "Wow, that's crazy. to think that confident pilot once was a scared filly, is kinda sad."

"She wasn't really scared, she just had problems putting up with some other fillies at her school. There was one time that these two fillies got into her head when she and her friends were practicing a routine for a contest to see who carried our town's flag in the Equestria games. In it, she was supposed to jump through a hoop on her scooter. But when these two rich fillies got into her head saying she head to fly or they'd lose, she wore herself ragged trying to get herself to fly. The whole incident nearly tore her friendship apart, but after an intervention by her friends, and me, we made the tryouts, and they won."

D.D. cracked a smile, "Well I'll be. But enough talk about Scootaloo, I talked with her a lot back in training. So, you got any good stories?"

Rainbow shot D.D. a grin, "You have no idea."

The two mares spent the next two hours talking like old friends as the other pilots around them were called into an orderly’s office and assigned to their bombers and crew.

Everything was as normal as many of the other ponies made small talk with each other until, "Captain Cloudwing, First Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, please enter." All conversations stopped dead, only one pony at a time had been getting called in to the office, no one knew what it meant to have both Dash and D.D. called in at the same time.

D.D. and Rainbow just looked at each other and shrugged, before they both picked up their military issue duffle bag and headed into the office.

Sitting behind the office’s desk was light blue and yellow pegasus dressed in a Major’s uniform, sween into the uniform was the name Gusty.

Once the door behind them closed, the mare spoke, “Good, you’re both here. I called you in here at the same time because you’ve been assigned to the same bomber.”

She pulled two papers off her desk and handed one to each of them, “You’re bomber is 44-5651 and you’ve been assigned to the 848th bomb squadron, part of the 490th bomb group. You’ll be flying out of F.O.A.F Tallahassee.”

Dash and D.D. turned and looked at each other, “Tallahassee?” they both asked in confusion. Part of their training had included memorizing multiple bases, and Tallahassee rang no bells.

Gusty sighed a little, “I thought they had told you about this already. Tallahassee is a newly constructed base that got finished a few months ago. It’s nothing big, it wasn’t built to handle 6 bomb groups.*(13) Just know that you and the other nine members of the 848th are the first crews to use it, so don’t trash the place.”

The two mare did their best not to laugh before they folded the papers under their wings and saluting the major before turning and leaving her office.

The two quickly made their way out of the orderly building and out into the sun, looking off toward the hanger’s and lines of bombers.

“Well that could have gone a lot worse.” D.D. said as they got away from the office building.

“Yeah, I had no idea how that was gonna go. But I guess we’re gonna get to know each other a little better huh.” The two laughed before pulling out the papers that had been under their wings.

D.D. smiled, “Now, let’s see what other nut bags we’re gonna be flying with.”

“Alright, let’s see.” Dash said when she looked at the first and stopped dead. “Pilot, Captain Cloud.”

D.D. looked over at Dash, her eyebrow raised, “Are you ok?”

Dash looked over to the orange pegasus, “Captian Cloud is Sorin. I’m just a little shocked that Iron Wing got put on my crew.” She then cracked a smile, “I’m gonna take the piss out of him when I see him.”

D.D. couldn’t help but crack up laughing at Dash as she seemed to go crazy, “I’m not even going to ask, I’m just gonna see who else is with us while you lose your mind before the war even starts.

Rainbow quickly got a hold of herself, and went back to the list.

“Okay, let’s see here, I’m the co-pilot. Yeah that’s a surprise. And of course you’re the navigator, like you’d be anything else.” D.D. started as she went through the names, “Joining you in the nose as the bombardier is 2nd lieutenant Doo.”

Dash looked at that name, “Why do I feel like I know that name?” she said to herself, before she shook it off and continued to look over the list of names.

“We have a top turret gunner and flight engineer named Private Wall, and a radio operator known as Private Tail. You know I kinda hate how the military only gives last names, cause I feel like I might know some of these guys.”

Rainbow laughed a little, “Yeah, I can agree with you there.”

The two were about to turn back to their papers again when they heard a car come to a stop in front of them and someone yell, “Hey you two!”

The two mares looked up to see a jeep with three ponies inside sitting in front of them, the one that had spoken was sitting in the back.

“You’re Rainbow Dash right?” The one in the back spoke again.

“Yeah that’s me, who’s askin’?” She shot back. She had a few stallions try to hit on her during training and it had really started to piss her off.

The stallion held up his hooves, “Easy there Ms. Wonderbolt, we’re part of your crew. Name’s Cloudtramp.” He then motioned to the stallion in the passenger seat, “and that’s Live Wire. We’re your waist gunners.” He said before turning to the jeep’s driver, “And this suicidal lunatic is our tail gunner, Gusty McArrison. But everyone knows him as either Lucky Bastard or Lucky”

Rainbow nodded, and snuck a look at the paper, looking at the last three names to make sure they were actually telling the truth. When she saw the three names at the end of the list, she calmed down.

“Well you obviously know who I am.” She then pointed to D.D. next to her, “And this is Cloudwing, but everyone calls her D.D.”

D.D. gave the three a salute, which the three in the jeep returned half-heartedly before Lucky spoke, “You guys heading over to our bomber?” The two mares nodded, and the three cracked a grin.

“Perfect. That’s where we’re headin’. Climb on it!” Live Wire called as he moved over to give the two mares room.

The two mares happily obliged as they threw their duffle-bags in the back before climbing into the jeep.

With their new passengers loaded in, Lucky started up the jeep and pulled away, making a beeline for the rows go hangers where their new bomber awaited them.

“So where'd the name D.D. come from?” Live Wire asked as they came up to the long rows of hangers.

D.D. cracked a smile, “Technically, it stands for Dare Devil, but everyone started calling me D.D. As to where it came from, I was known for doing a lot of stunts in my trainers, and other ponies planes. I actually broke a lot of props because I would come too close to the ground.”

Cloudtramp and Live Wire stared at her for a second. It took a minute before Live Wire said anything, “You broke trainer plane doing stunts? How were you not court martialed?”*(14)

D.D. sighed a little, “It’s a long and confusing story that i don’t even really understand, but basically the orderlies were the ones telling me to. I don’t know why and I probably never will. But the second they told me I could basically do whatever I want whenever I wanted, I didn’t really care.”

The looks one Cloudtramp and Live Wire had one their faces and what they could see of Lucky’s in the rear view mirror almost made the two friends break down laughing.

Before anyone could question D.D. Rainbow spoke up, “Trust me she’s telling the truth. First day I was at training she came buzzing over my bunk house at like ten feet above their roofs in my sister’s P-38, almost crashed it too.”

Silence hung in the air, for about two seconds before the three gunner stallions burst out laughing. Rainbow and D.D. held together a little, before joining them in their fits of laughter.

When they finally calmed down, Live Wire spoke, “I have a feeling that you and Lucky are going to get along just fine.”

Hearing this, Dash thought back about what Cloudtramp had said when introducing Lucky, “Hey speaking of Lucky, what did you mean when you said he was a ‘suicidal lunatic’?”

Cloudtramp and Live Wire shot each other a grin, before Cloudtramp responded, “Well, there’s a reason Lucky has the name Lucky Bastard. He was known for doing a lot of stupid shit back in basic training and then in gunnery training. The name really came into its own when he jumped out of a C-47, that he somehow talked the orderlies into letting him use, from 150 ft into a lake just because one of his friends bet him twenty bits he wouldn’t do it. So he actually jumped out of the plane and cannonballed into the lake, and we all thought he was dead. But about a minute after he popped up out of the water, the only injury he had was a bloody nose and an injured eardrum from the pressure of being thrown about thirty feet under water.”

The two mares’ glances went between Cloudtramp and Lucky a few times, before D.D. blurted out, “How the fuck are you not dead!”

The three gunners looked at each other and shrugged, “No one knows. But the name Lucky Bastard has followed him around ever since.”

“I can see why.” Dash said. When her brain finally caught up with her, she noticed that they had stopped at the first hanger in the line of thirty where bombers sat, waiting for crews. “How long have we been sitting here? And why are we stopped at all?”

Lucky turned to her, “We’ve been sitting here for like fifteen minutes, and we stopped.” He turned and looked at Live Wire, “‘cause I forgot what hanger the mechanic said our bomber was in.”

Live Wire face hooved, “Third to last hanger on the left. Jesus Lucky we went over this like four times!”

Lucky had one of those smiles on his face that said, “Yeah I really messed up.” as he put the jeep into gear and continued down the rows of hangers.

“Speaking of our bomber, do you guys know if it’s a B-17 or a B-24?” D.D. asked as the jeep got back under way.

It was a decent question. At that time, the Royal Equestrian Air Force had two main heavy bombers, the B-17 Flying Fortress, and the B-24 Liberator. While the B-24 would go on to be produced in higher numbers than the B-17, but it wasn’t because they were a better design than the B-17. The nickname of the bomber said it all, The Flying Coffin.

The B-17 was known for getting shot up to the point that is shouldn’t be able to fly and still getting what was left of their crews home. It wasn’t that the B-24 hadn’t done the same, but due to their design, they were more susceptible to having their wings blown off. With the B-17, the wings were mounted in the center of the fuselage*(15) But with the B-24, the wings were mounted at the top of the fuselage, which made them all the easier to be torn off. Many would go on to say that more B-24 went on to be produced in the war than B-17 because more got shot down. The legend of the B-24 became so widespread that crews prayed to get assigned to B-17’s.

“Don’t know. The mechanic we asked didn’t tell us. I hope to hell it’s a B-17.” Lucky said as he looked down the rows of hangers.

“Amen to that.” D.D. replied, “I wanna get through the war in one piece, and not end up splattered across an Arabian farm field.”

The rest of the ponies in the jeep burst out laughing in agreement before Lucky spoke up again.

“Guys, look.”

He pointed to a hanger not to far away. The doors were partly opened, and written on a board, that looked like it had been painted over multiple times, hanging over the open space were the numbers 44-5651.

Ever pony in the jeep held their breath as they rolled toward the open hangar doors, prayers being said in there mind for a B-17, as if the result meant life or death. *(16)

They came to a stop in front of the doors. And then they saw the rounded engine cowlings and fuselage that were dead giveaways of a B-17.

“Thank Celestia it’s a fortress!” Live Wire yelled as Lucky pulled the jeep into the hanger.

D.D. and Rainbow both let out the breath they’d both been holding and silently thanked Luna’s lucky stars that they’d been given a B-17.

Dash was reaching for her duffle bag when she saw a tuft of blue move in the the cockpit glass. She watched the dark blue mane move around in the cockpit before something clicked, and a devilish grin crossed her face. She then yelled out, “Hey Iron Wing!”

The blue mane in the cockpit stopped moving, before a Sorin popped his head out of the co-pilot window and yelled out to Dash, “God damn it Dash! I told you to lay off with that god forsaken nickname! I’ve been reminded of that day enough.”

Rainbow couldn’t help break down laughing, “I’m just messing with you Sorin. Nice to see you again.”

Sorin just groaned, and Dash had to keep herself from laughing as she felt she could almost hear Sorin mentally saying, “This is gonna be a long ass war.”

Rainbow chuckled again to herself before she finally grabbed her duffle bag and started to walk toward her bomber. She almost had to stop for a moment when that thought came across her mind, “My bomber. Man that’s gonna take some time to get used to.”

Dash looked up to see Lucky and Cloudtramp pulling themselves into the rear entrance of the bomber, D.D. and Live Wire most likely already inside. She then took a second to look around the bomber.

She was a little surprised. When she had been in training, she had taken time to actually learn the markings for the different bomb groups, even though there were a lot of them and she really didn’t need to.

Usually, bombers in the 490th bomb group weren’t painted and were kept in their normal silver sheet metal finish with red lines outside the outboard engines, down the middle of the elevators, and along the bottom of the rudder.

While 44-5651 did have the distinctive red lines, the red line on the rudder took up the top instead of the bottom, and instead of being sheet metal silver, it was the classic drab olive green-brown that was used on most B-17’s at the time.

Written just above the bomber’s identification number was a +K, which was used to identify what bomber squadron the plane belonged to. Dash had tried for weeks to understand how these letters worked, but it had ended as well as Twilight trying to figure out Pinkie Sense.

It was then Dash noticed a pony’s body poking out of the ball turret. “Well that must be our ball gunner. What was his name?” Dash then realized that she not only hadn’t really taken the time to see what their ball gunner’s name was besides a quick glance at it when she was checking the names of Lucky, Live Wire, and Couldtramp, but she also realized that she had no idea where her crew list was.

She shrugged, and proceeded to walk over and went to poke the pegasus in the wings to get their attention, when she realized, the pony she was staring at wasn’t a pegasus.

Yes he had wings, but they weren’t pegasus wings, they were the bat wings of a terrestrial. Had she not already met a few of the terrestrials that worked as Luna’s guards, she probably would have been freaking out do to all the old horror stories that had been told about terrestrials. She had learned quick from those guards that those stories had been made up after Nightmare Moon’s defeat to attack the terrestrials for “siding with the darkness” when in reality they were being controlled the whole time by Nightmare Moon. But at the time, no one really wanted to listen to anyone who had been associated with the dark mare.

“Hey, I take it you’re our belly gunner. Name’s Rainbow Dash, I’m our navigator.”

The terrestrial unfolded himself from inside the ball turret and turned to her. Much like his tale, his mane was a two tone black and red, which had been part of what threw her off from thinking he was a terrestrial. Terrestrials she had seen normally had a purple or navy blue mane and tail.

The terrestrial stallion smiled, with Rainbow only jumping a little bit when she saw the small fangs in the stallion’s mouth. “Well hi there Rainbow Dash, name’s Mason. But everyone has taken to calling me Turtle”

Rainbow had to hold in a laugh, “Turtle. Really. The guys back in your gunnery basic weren’t to creative were they?”

Mason rubbed the back of his head with his hoof, “Well it didn’t really start out as a nickname, it was originally more of an insult. Turns out that even when you’re about to risk your life for Equestria, 1000 years of hatred doesn’t go easy. Growing up a terrestrial, I learned to try and make myself as small as possible. That doesn’t help when you’re stuck in a military barracks with 20 other ponies who want to do nothing but kick your ass and tell you you’re worthless. Eventually I learned through the help of a couple of real nice guys what friends can for each other, so I turned Turtle into a nickname. It was kinda our way of getting back at everyone at basic.”

Rainbow had to think about that for a second, “Wow. I’m surprised you’re still carrying that name around. But I do have to ask, what’s with the black and red mane thing? The terrestrials I’ve met usually have like, blue or purple ones?”

Mason looked up at the piece of his mane that had fallen down in front of his eyes, and had to hold back a laugh, “Oh yeah, that. I’ve had it for so long that I forget about it. I did have the normal navy blue mane, but Manehatten isn’t exactly nice to terrestrials. So I dyed my mane and tail to help myself blend into a crowd. I did it for so long, I grew to like it and I’ve kept it that way ever since.”

“Well it definitely works at helping you blend in.” Dash thought. “Well that makes more sense than anything I would have come up with. So what happened to these friends of yours?”

Mason shrugged, “It was basic, so who’s knows where they got sent to.”

Dash was about to reply when, “Ay, is that who I think it is?”*(17)

Rainbow and Mason turned toward the hangar doors to see a large white-grey stallion with a red oxide mane and tail, and seemed to speaking with a thick Scottish accent.

Mason looked at the stallion for a second before his face turned into a giant grin, “No way, Scotsman what are you doing here!”

The grey stallion walked over and slugged Mason in the shoulder, “I told y’ah that name was annoying as hell y’ah bastard. But it’s good to know that someone besides myself will actually be able to do ‘heir job.”

Dash watched as the two gunners proceeded to chat away like old friend. She had heard “Scotsman” say something about being a gunner, and the only gunner she hadn’t met yet was their top turret gunner.

”So that’s gotta be who he is.” She thought to herself as she watched the pair continue to chat away. She thought back to her missing list and the names that she had read on it. She thought back to the missing piece of paper, then she remembered.

“You must be Private Wall right?” She said as she walked up to the duo.

The scottish pony turned to her, “Ay that’s me. Name’s Stormwall, and you must be Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow nodded back, “Yep that’s me. I take it you and Mason know each other.”

Stormwall locked a foreleg around Mason’s neck and pulled him close, “Ay. Me and this idiot met up back in gunnery. Even though he started that annoying as hell nickname.” Stormwall shot a death glare at the terrestrial in his grasp, “I still consider him a good friend. Even if he walks a fine line between friend and enemy from time to time.”

Mason was eventually able to remove himself from Stormwall’s grasp. “Speaking of gunnery, do you know what happened to the others?”

Stormwall cracked a grin, “Well it turns out that Dusk got assigned to another bomber in the 848th as a waist gunner. As for Lightning and Skies, no idea.”*(18)

The conversation was cut short after that when, “Hey you three! Stop you’re gossiping and get in here! We got practice missions to run!”

“Oh cool you’re ass Iron Wing! The war’s not going anywhere!” Dash yelled at the outstretched head of Sorin.

“I swear to Faust Rainbow Dash! One of these days I’m gonna end you for that damn name!”

Rainbow painted her face with a cocky smirk, “Better hurry up Iron Wing or the flak will beat you to it!”

Sorin’s face had gone from his normal blue to a nice shade of red, “JUST GET IN THE DAMN PLANE!” He screamed, giving Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice a run for it’s money.

The three air ponies groaned, ears slightly ringing, as Sorin, still fuming, pulled his head back into the cockpit of the bomber. Dash sighed as she turned to the two stallions, “Might as well do what he says, we’re gonna have to put up with him for as long as we last.”

The two stallions groaned again, but nodded as they picked up their bags and made their way over to the rear of the bomber where an open door waited to seal their fate.

Stormwall and Mason begrudgingly pulled themselves into the back of the bomber, and Rainbow was about to do the same when she heard a jeep come to a stop at the front of the hanger.

She turned her head toward the hangar door, and watched as a grey mare climbed out of the passenger seat. Dash caught sight of her back, and her cutie mark, and when Dash did, her eyes went wide.

“No way, it couldn’t be.” She said to herself, as she sat her duffle bag down in the bomber’s doorway and started to walk toward the open end of the hanger.

D.D., who had walked back to talk to Dash, saw her walking away through the waist gun window. She stuck her head out of the bomber’s door and yelled, “Hey Dash where you going?”

Dash didn’t even turn around as she shouted a reply, “Just going to confirm a hunch. Throw my bag in the nose will ya.”

D.D. rolled her eyes, grabbed Rainbow’s bag, and walked back up to the cockpit, watching as her new friend made her way over to the jeep.

Dash watched as the dropped off mare returned to the driver’s side of the jeep and spoke with the driver before waving as the jeep drove away. “Thanks again for the ride!”

Rainbow walked up behind the mare before saying, “You’re the last pony I expected to see her, Ditzy.”

Ditzy jumped a bit, caught off guard by the voice behind her. When she calmed down she turned around to see, “Dashie!” She yelled happily as she threw her forelegs around Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow had to chuckle as the grey mare that she had become good friends with over the past few years wrapped herself around her.

“It’s been a while Ditz.” She then caught sight of the gold ring on a chain around her neck alongside her dogtags.

“Ditzy, is that what I think it is?” Dash asked with a grin on her face, pointing to the ring.

Ditzy looked down to where Dash was pointing before returning her gaze to Dash, with a slight red hue imprinted on her cheeks. “Yeah, the Doctor proposed to me not long before I left to go to training. He said it would give me a reason to come back, even if him and Dinky were reason enough already.”

Rainbow couldn’t help but smile, “Hey that’s great Ditz! It’s about time Whooves popped the question.”

Dash then remembered what she had been about to ask before noticing Ditzy’s ring, “I gotta ask Ditz, what are you doing in the Air Force? No offence, but your the last pony I’d expect them to accept cause. Well, you know.” Dash had known Ditzy for nearly a decade now, but it still felt awkward to bring up her eye problem.

But as she always did, Ditzy barely even noticed the comment, “Funny thing about that. I had a recruitment letter come about nine months back. I thought the same thing that they wouldn’t take me because of my eyes. But they took me in and ran their normal tests, and found out that if I set the bomb sight in a specific way, I’m actually more accurate than the average bombardier.”

Dash was a little shocked by this. She knew that even with were lazy eye problem Ditzy didn’t have much trouble seeing, but the idea that they made her a better bombardier than most off the bat was a little crazy. Yet she could help but smile.

“That’s awesome Ditzy. With you in the crew, we’ll stick it to those Arabians real quick.” Dash then turned back towards the waiting B-17 behind her, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the crew. I’m sure Sorin would be happy to see you again.”

Ditzy’s smile widened, “Sound great.” she said as she picked her duffle bag up off the ground and followed Dash.

They quickly pulled themselves into the back of the bomber and soon found all the gunners talking in the radio room above Mason’s turret.

Lucky turned when he heard the sound of hooves walking on the metal behind them, “Well nice to see you finally join us Dash.” He then caught sight Ditzy, “And who might this be?”

Lucky’s comment made the others turn to the two mares who had stopped just in front of the left waist gun. Dash smiled at the five stallions, “Guys, this is Ditzy. She's our bombardier and a good friend of mine from back home.”

She then turned to Ditzy and motioned toward the group, “Ditzy, these are our gunners. Lucky in the tail.”

“Wassup”

“Live Wire and Cloudtramp on the waist guns.”

“Yo.”

“How’s it going.”

“Mason, our ball gunner.”

“Whats going on.”

“And Stormwall our flight engineer and top turret gunner.”

“Ello lass.”

Ditzy smiled at the five stallions in front of her, “Nice to meet you all.”

It was then Cloudtramp noticed one of Ditzy’s eyes go a little lazy, and couldn’t help but point it out. “Hey are you ok?”

Ditzy and Rainbow turned to each other, and Dash immediately noticed what Cloudtramp was pointing out.

“Oh that. That’s nothing to worry about.” Dash said as Ditzy’s eyes went back to normal.

The five gunners looked at the two mares before finally, Cloudtramp spoke, “If you say so.”

Rainbow then turned back to Ditzy, “Come-on Ditz, we should probably get up in the nose before Sorin blows a fuse.”

Ditzy chuckled a little before falling in behind Dash as they crossed over the empty bomb bay and into the cockpit where Sorin and D.D. were sat in there seats checking over the multitude of gauges in front of them, preparing to start the four engines.

Sorin turned around at the sound of hooves behind him and caught sight of the two mares. “So you finally decided to do some work huh Rainbow Dash?” He said as he turned back to his work.

Dash rolled her eyes, “Screw off Sorin. We got plenty of time. Like I said, war’s not going anywhere and time soon.”

“Yeah but I’d rather not have the orderlies on my ass on day one. We’re supposed to be in a practice bombing formation in about ten minutes.”

Again Rainbow rolled her eyes before turning to D.D., “You sure you’re gonna be able to put up with him D.D.”

D.D. laughed, “I’m sure I’ll soften him up in no time.”

Sorin was getting tired of this, “Dash, just get down in the nose so we can get on with this.”

Dash held her hooves up, “Alright, alright, Iron Wing keep calm over there. Let’s go Ditz.” She said as she lowered herself into the tunnel leading into the nose, closely followed by Ditzy.

They quickly found themselves in the cramped interior of the nose. Sticking out of the plexiglass was a machine gun, sat right above Ditzy’s bomb sight. At the right was Dash’s desk, which had her duffle bag taking up most of its space, with another machine gun just to the left of it, and one in the same spot on the opposite side of the nose.

Dash looked around, taking in the cramped space, “I guess this is home for a while Ditzy.”

Ditzy walked past her and over to the bombsight, which took up a large part of the tip of the nose. Dash could see the slight smile on her face. “Well, we can atleast make the most of it.”

Dash watched as Ditzy took a photo out of one of her vest pockets, picturing Ditzy, her daughter Dinky, and the Doctor in front of there house in Ponyville, and put it in the groove of one of the bombsight’s adjusting knobs. She then took off her dog tags and hung them around the receiver of the machine gun next to her.

Rainbow couldn’t help but smile before she settled herself in behind her desk. Just as she did, she heard the bomber’s intercom buzz on.

“Alright everyone, now that we’re finally all settled in, we gotta hurry to get into formation with the other bombers to do practice in air formation.”

“Hold up there skipper.” Someone called back, “We’re still missing our radio pony.”

“Well where the hell is he!” Dash didn’t need the intercom to here Sorin that time.

“There he is.” D.D. called as a dark blue stallion walked into the hanger, not noticing that the bomber he was walking toward was already full of the rest of his crew.

Sorin didn’t feel like waiting, so the second he caught sight of the stallion, he fired the #1 engine. Sorin smiled a little when the stallion jumped as the #1 engine cranked over and came to life.

He quickly broke into a run to the back end of the bomber where a smug Stormwall stood, waiting to help the poor spooked stallion into the bomber.

Sorin, now with his full crew onboard, started the bombers other three engines before giving power to the #2 and #3 engines and slowly rolling the bomber out of the hanger, letting sunlight hit the new paint for the first time.

“Beautiful day to start a war huh Dash.” Ditzy said as the sunlight filled the nose.

Rainbow Dash chuckled, “Yes it is Ditzy, yes it is.”

Dash groaned as the fog in her mind started to clear as she came out of her coma. Her timing couldn’t have been better because as she started to come too, one of the base’s doctor walked in.

“Well good morning Miss Bat, glad to see you’re still with us.”

Dash groaned as she rolled her stiff body over to look at the doctor, “Keep talking Splits, you’re just digging your own grave when I get out of this bed.”

She then looked around the room and over at one of the windows, she could see that the sun was just coming up. “How long have I been out?” she asked rolling back to the doc.

“About six days.”

Rainbow Dash gave a soft chuckle, “Six days huh? Wow my naps keep getting longer. If I keep this up, I’ll sleep through the rest of this war.”

Doctor Splits laughed, “Glad to see near death hasn’t robbed you of your sense of humor.”

“So, how hard did I take it this time?” Dash asked as she looked herself over.

“Well you’re not dead, so that should be a plus after what you guys went through. But you were one of the hardest hit out of your crew. You have a concussion, two cracked ribs, a broken shoulder, and somewhere in the 50 range of stitches due to Celestia knows what.”

Dash winced a little as her condition was read back to her. She had been worse before, but she had also seen better days.

“So how long till I get out of this thing?” She asked, patting the bed she was on.

Splits ran a hoof through his mane, “That’s the question of the day Dash. I can’t give you an exact estimate, but given what we know about your condition at the second, it’ll probably be a few weeks.”

Rainbow groaned, “Where’s my Daring Do collection when I need it.”

Splints couldn’t help but laugh, which gained him a death glare from Dash. He just smiled back at her, “I’m gonna leave you be, I have others to look after. I’ll check up on you again in a few hours.” Still smiling, Dr. Splints turned to leave.

“Hold on a second Splints.”

Spints turned back around to see Dash, with an unsteady look on her face. “Yes?”

“Am I going home once I’m healed up?” The injured cyan mare asked.

Splints sighed and ran a hoof through his mane, “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that. The truth is Dash, the answer is most likely no.”

Rainbow Dash wasn't surprised by the answer, but it made a perfect opening for something that had been on her mind for a while. “I gotta ask Splints, why do you guys keep us here after we get so banged up? I had family that was in the military in the second griffin war, and there were soldier sent back because of a lot less that what most of us have gone through.”

Splints shook his head, “It’s a long story. Basically, the high ups feel that too much of Equestria is already being drawn into this war, and we can't really call on anyone because they're involved in the war as well. So, because of that, and advances in medicine and other tech, they're gonna keep you guys fighting as long as they possibly can. That's why Sparky didn't go home when that fuel tank exploded while he was under it, and why Rusty completely rebuilt that bomber’s wing instead of using it for spare parts.”

Dash started to get it. Back in conflicts like the second griffin war, they didn't have things like bionic replacement limbs and massive metal machines that could keep soldiers in a fight. Back then, if you took a spear and lived, there wasn't much you could do that would be of use to the military.

Now though, you can have a limb torn off by a 20mm shell, and have it replaced with a metal leg as good as the one you lost. Metal machines made up armies instead of ponies. And it was a lot easier to put a sheet of metal on a tank or plane wing, than replace 20 soldiers that once stood in the machine’s place.

“So there isn't much you can do to get out is there?” Dash finally asked

“At this point, the only way out is finish your tour, or go bat shit crazy. No pun intended.”

“Great.” Dash said, rolling her eyes and flopping back into her bed.

Splints turned back towards the door, “I’ll come back in a few hours to check on you again. That last mission was a rough one and it left me with a lot of new patients.”

“Alright doc, go do what you gotta do.”

With that, Dr. Splints walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Dash rolled over in her bed, and sat there trying to figure out what she was gonna do for the next few hours.

About half an hour later, Rainbow caught a lucky break. As she sat on her side wondering if she went mad in recovery, they’d let her go home, when someone pounded on her door before opening it.

“Oy Batty! You still alive in here.” Lead Leg called as he walked into the room, with Ditzy, Lucky, Turtle, Cannon, and Ace following behind.

“Hey guys.” Dash said with a smile at the group of ponies that now occupied her room.
Ditzy stepped up from behind Lead Leg, “How you holding up in here?

“Honestly, I’ve been in here for a few hours and I’m going insane. I need something to do.” Dash said as she laid herself back into the bed.

Ditzy smiled, “Well then I might have something to cheer you up.” Ditzy motioned back to Ace who passed her something from his saddle bags.

Ditzy walked over and passed Dash the object, and she stared in shock at what it was. It was a copy of the newest Daring Doo book, one that hadn’t even be released yet.

“Daring Do and The Journey Behind Enemy Lines!”*(19) Dash said in shock as she stared at the cover of the book. “How did you guys get this! It’s not supposed to be out for another two months!”*(20)

“There was a package sitting in the mail room for you addressed from A. K. Yearling. When we opened it up, that’s what was inside.” Ace said before going back to his saddlebags and pulled out a piece of paper, “Along with this note.” He passed the note up to Ditzy who then hoofed it over to Dash.

Rainbow

I heard from a friend of mine in the 851st about what happened to you guys a few days ago. After what happened in, the making of this book, I was stuck in a bed for a while, so I know how it feels. So, I might have finished up my book during that time, and had my publisher run you off a special copy. Hope to hear what you think.

A.K.

Dash was speechless, she couldn’t believe that Daring Do had actually sent her a copy of her newest book. Then someone spoke up, breaking Dash from her stupor.

“May I ask how you personally know A.K. Yearling enough to get an early copy of one of her books.”

It was Turtle.

Dash turned to the group, “It’s a long story, one I explain another time. But I got a question, where are the others.”

The once happy group of Air Force ponies grew sollum, and none spoke. At least for a while.

Finally, Turtle broke the uncomfortable silence, “They’re still stuck in their beds, just like you. Sorin and D.D. got hit the hardest out of us during the landing. Sorin got a pretty bad concussion and the side of his head got pretty shredded up. He also has a few broken ribs and a broken leg. D.D. got the worse of the two though. Her straps gave way when the bomber hit the tree and she wa thrown from her seat into the windshield and then into the wall next to Sorin. That itself left her with a cracked open head and some broke ribs, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. A branch from one of the other trees around the bomber broke through the window next to Sorin’s head, and she got impaled on it. It punctured her lung, but the docs say that she’ll pull through, and be flight worthy in about two months.”

Dash was shocked by how bad the two pilots had made out. She knew that Sorin would most likely be fine after having his stomach sliced open and making it. But D.D., a punctured lung was no laughing matter.

That’s when she noticed something, which broke her from her thoughts on D.D., “Hey wait a second, where’s Sparky?”

The other ponies in the room looked at each other and then to the empty door before Ace face-hooved, and leaned out into the hall. “Sparky! Stop you’re bullshitting and get over here! She’s awake this time!”

Moments later, the dark blue radio operator ran into the room. “Oh hey Rainbow, nice to see that you’re still with us.”

Dash was about to comment on how Sparky had been flirting with a married nurse, when what Ace had said, this time, clicked in her head.

“Wait a second, what did you just say Ace? Awake this time?”

“We’ve come by a few times in the last couple of days.” Ace replied.

Dash had to think about that for a second, “Why didn’t the docs have you stuck in a bed like me?”

She could tell by the smirk on Lead Leg’s face that he had she smart ass answer coming her way.

“Well because we’re still smart enough to save our own skin.”

Thankfully, Dash wasn’t the only one getting tired of Lead Leg, proven when Ditzy smacked Lead in the back of the head. Hard.

Turtle sighed, “Lead, can you just stop being a pain in the ass for one day.” The Scottish gunner mumbled something to himself before he turned and walked out of the room. Turtle then turned back to Dash.

“We haven’t been stuck in the hospital the whole time because we came out of the accident in better shape.” He then motioned to Cannon who was standing beside him, and had stayed mostly silent ever since they had entered to room. “Cannon was the latest to join us back outside these walls. Docs let him out the door yesterday.”

“When did they let you guys out?” Dash asked, motioning to the others in the room.

Turtle turned back to the majority of the group, “Well Lead Leg was let out about two days after the accident, along with myself and Sparky. Ditzy and Ace were released the next day. And of course, Lucky never stayed in the hospital. He just got a bloody nose.”

Lucky couldn’t help but crack a cocky smirk, “It takes a lot more than a few lucky flak shots and a crash landing to take me out.”

Everyone in the room rolled their eyes. Lucky always seemed to have this cocky attitude, since he never came back home with injuries that needed hospitalization. They were all just waiting for they day that he got what he had coming to him. But he was a great tail gunner, so they felt his cumopense could wait till the war was over.

It was just then that Dr. Splits came back into the room. Or at least tried to.

“Wow, I’m surprised you’re all still here.” He said as he pushed his way through a assemblement of ponies. “I do however have to ask you to leave. Dash needs rest, more than she thinks, and I need to run some tests now that she’s awake. You can come see her again tomorrow.”

The group of six ponies nodded before they all turned, making their way out of the room. Ditzy was the last to leave, offering Rainbow Dash a smile and a quick wave before she pulled the door shut behind her.

Dash turned to look at Splints who had pulled at least four needles out of a cabinet.

“Damn it i had needles.”

Nearly three weeks later, Dash was walking around with her other crew members, minus Sorin and D.D., who were still in the hospital, but were both making a good recovery.

At that second, Dash was walking around the maintenance area where lines of bombers and fighters stood waiting to be repaired. They were walking next to a line of P-51s when Lucky turned to the group, “Hey you guys gotta see this P-51 that’s been sitting around here for a few weeks now. I still can’t believe it’s pilot landed the thing.”

They picked up the pace a little to keep up with the tail gunner as we passed by P-51 after P-51.

They came to a stop in front of a P-51 near the front of the line, one that had definitely seen better days.

“Sweet Celestia.” Was all Dash could say as she got a good look at the once graceful fighter. It was full of bullet holes from wingtip to wingtip, and rudder to propeller. The cowlings around the engine were stained black from oil and burned from sparks that had been shot from the exhaust. The cockpit canopy was early non-existent, obviously destroyed by whatever shot at the fighter. The rudder was completely destroyed, all the sheet metal that would normally cover its surface was gone, leaving only the destroyed metal framework. The wings had so many cannon holes in them, that it amazed Dash that they hadn’t just fallen off.

Rainbow used her wings to lift herself up towards the cockpit of the battered fighter. She was bit by the smell of aviation fuel as she set herself down on the plane’s right wing as lightly as she could. It groaned from the extra stress, but held firm.

She peared in, to she back of the cockpit filled with fuel, and the rest covered in dried blood. The control panel was shot up, leaving only the altimeter intact, even though its glass was shattered.

She leaned back and looked at the metal rim of the canopy. Slightly covered by oil, was a name “Cpt. Skyrider” Dash read to herself.

“Dash, what are you doing?” Ace asked. The whole crew had been standing on the ground as the watched Dash examine the destroyed fighter.

Dash floated herself off the wing of the P-51, “I was just trying to see if I could find anything that told us what squadron it’s from. Everything that’s a normal indication is destroyed.”

The others nodded. “Well the one thing I know is that she’s a good pilot. Got herself home in this wreck, and she’s got a 7 kill count.” Turtle said before motioning to the other side of the fighter.

Dash walked over and indeed saw 7 Arabian flags painted on the left side of the fighter. The metal piece they had been painted on on the right side was blown apart.

“Not bad, been a while since we had an Ace on base.” Dash said once she caught sight of the 7 flags. She then took a second and thought about what Turtle had said. “Wait a second. Turtle a second ago you said the pilot was a she, have you gotten a chance to talk to her?” She asked turning toward the black and red terrestrial.

“Yeah I talked with her quick yesterday when I was helping Lucky and Lead load ammo into one of their friend’s bombers. Really nice mare if you ask me. But I only got to talk to her for a second, and I never got around to asking what squadron she was in.”

“Do you have any idea where she would be right now?” Dash asked. At first she just wanted to know what squadron this mare had been in, but now she wanted to meet her and find out her story.

“Ah know.” Lead Leg spoke up. “She ot’a be over in the in’da shops wid’ Rusty.”

Dash nodded, “Well then, lead the way Scotsman.”

Lead leg shot Dash a death glare for mentioning his old annoying nick-name, but none the less, lead the group toward the mass of hangers that were used as the mechanic areas of Tallahassee.

Lead Leg walked into one of the main work hangers, currently occupied by a Crystal Empire Lancaster bomber, and three P-51’s.

“Oy Skyrider! Where are ye!” Lead yelled as we all set hoof in the hanger.

“I'm in the wing of the bomber you Scottish twat!” Came a muffled reply.

Lead Leg, now slightly pissed, filed in at the back of the pack leaving Rainbow Dash as the new leader.

“Gimme a second. Rusty had me re-rigging the cables for the aileron.” The muffled voice said again as movement was heard inside the right wing of the Lancaster.

The group heard the sound of shuffling coming from the bomber as the mare extracted herself from the inside of the bomber’s massive wing.

They were barely next to the bomber’s left wing when the sound of a pony climbing down a ladder, and then she came into view.

Dash stopped dead. The mare was a pegasus, but her back and wings were separately wrapped, forcing her to use the ladder instead of just hovering off the wing. She was trying to get some oil out of her orange coat, the oil matching the black highlights at the bottom of her purple mane. Dash knew this mare very well. It was one of the few ponies that she thought she would never see again.

“Now what do you want Sc..” She said as she looked up to the group, her eyes locking with Dash’s.

“Rainbow?” She said as she slowly started to walk toward the cyan mare.

“Scootaloo.” Dash said as she started to run toward her sister.

Scootaloo said nothing as she broke out in a full sprint, coming together with her older sister under the fuselage of the bomber in a crushing hug.

Author's Note

*(1) No not the same Windrider. I originally wrote this before episode 16 aired. Plus with all the ponies in Equestria, some names are going to overlap.
*(2) The three that had walked away were the two waist gunners and the tail gunner. The tail section in general had fared best.
*(3) It still amazed them that the co-pilot made it out alive.
*(4) These had been the bombardier and the pilot.
*(5) At the time, Windrider didn’t know how ironic that statement was.
*(6) All the other bombers had either returned to base, or had been confirmed as K.I.A.
*(7) B-17’s can usually be heard miles away when their four engines droned along together.
*(8) Yes, the military actually had a protocol for something like this. You'd be surprised all the things they have a name/protocol for.
*(9) That one ATC controller who had recorded the landing did what almost anyone would do when they get something crazy on tap, he confidently said, “I got that shit on film!”
*(10) The 49th fighter squadron was twelfth fighter squadron to be added to the Equestrian Air Force, making it one of the oldest still in operation behind the 8th and 2nd. It earned it’s number because it originally had 4 new pilots, and 9 aces.
*(11) The officers in charge of training the new soldiers.
*(12) Top gun reference anyone? Anyone? Come on! Highway to, the danger zone!
*(13) not yet at least.
*(14) Being tired in a military court.
*(15) main center body of a plane.
*(16) And depending on who you asked, it did.
*(17) I can’t write Scottish worth shit
*(18) Lightning and Skies would eventually become gunners on Shadow’s crew. Lightning would be his tail gunner and Skies a waist gunner.
*(19) It's not easy to come up with these names.
*(20) She kept in touch with A.K. after she was told about the setting for this book.

Chapter 5: An Old Friend

It would be nearly two weeks before Scootaloo’s fighter was in flight worthy condition. During that time, Rainbow Dash and Scoots were inseparable, sharing stories and making up for time they had lost. But all good things had to come to an end, so with a heavy heart, only 11 days after seeing her sister for the first time in two years, Dash watched Scootaloo’s freshly rebuilt P-51 take off from runway 2 into a clear blue sky.

She watched the fighter until it was nothing but a speck of black on the horizon. It had been a hard day for Dash when it happened, but looking back, she was happy with everything, despite still being in hell. Two days later, Rainbow found herself reading her new Daring Do book in her bunk when Rusty came walking in, asking if she could give him a hoof with some work he was doing on a B-24. Dash, having nothing better to do, agreed; but now she wished she hadn’t.

“Next time Rusty asks me for help I’m kicking him in the face.” Dash grumbled. She was crammed into the small crawl space inside the wing of the B-24, removing the bolts that held in the three fuel cells behind the number 4 engine. The bomber had been hammered on it’s last mission, and the fuel tanks on the right wing had been badly damaged, so they needed to be removed and replaced. Rusty had already taken care of the ones closest to the fuselage, but had been ‘too big’ to fit into the crawl space to reach the ones behind the number 4, and that’s where Dash came in. She worked slowly in the tight, dark, cramped, hot hell that was the crawl space, grumbling all the while as her sweat soaked hooves slipped on the ratchet that she was using. She could barely move, the space in the wing ribs being just wide enough to hold her.

Just as she finished loosening a particular bolt, a hoof reached down and grabbed her leg. Dash panicked and tried to move, only to smash her head into the wing rib closest to her. She groaned as she held the spot on her head that was beginning to throb, before she slowly shimmied her way back through the ribs of the wing to the access hole, which sat just to the right of the number 3 engine. She popped her head up over the surface of the wing, wincing slightly at the light of the sun, before turning her attention to the earth pony sat on it’s metal surface. “What the hell Rusty! What do you want!?!” Rusty was slightly taken aback by the anger in Rainbow’s voice, “Eh, huh, a, sorry Dash. But look!” He pointed toward the sky off-base.

Descending towards base Runway 2 was a C-47 transport plane. This C-47, however, wasn’t the average military adapted two engine transporter. This one was painted a deep navy blue, with the mark of the two sisters displayed proudly on the tail. This wasn’t any normal C-47, this was the princess’ royal C-47.*(1)

Dash smiled at the sight the aircraft, before she began to lower herself back into the darkness of the wing, “Luna must be coming by for another review, Nice. I’m gonna get back to work, give me a shout when they land.” Rusty stared back at her in surprise, “What! You don’t want a chance to see one of the princesses!” Dash sprouted a cocky grin, “I know and am personal friends with all of Equestria’s princesses. The novelty of seeing them wore off a while ago” she said, while thinking about how much Celestia actually told the population about her and the other elements. With that, she fully descended back into the wing, and got back to work.

Rusty left the conversation at that, mostly because he was still dumbstruck, and went back to watching as the royal aircraft came down and made the smoothest textbook landing he had ever seen. He watched it slowly make its way over to HQ, before coming to a stop in the best spot next the the concrete shelter. As the engines shut down, the ramp at the back of the plane began to lower. Rusty was still watching in astonishment a minute later as two alicorns exited the C-47, one purple, and one black. “Hey, it’s not Princess Luna at all, it’s that new Princess Twilight Sparkle and the new high commander” Rusty said as he watched the two disembarking alicorns.

A loud ”What!” shook the plane he sat on before the sound of Dash again banging a part of herself into a wing rib. The cyan mare’s now bleeding head popped up through the wing access panel once again. “Where’d the transporter park?” She asked, not even aware of the blood that was now starting to drip down her forehead. Rusty pointed toward the control tower, “Parked over at HQ. Oh, and uh, you got a little...” he then motioned to her head with a rag. It was only then that Dash noticed the feeling of a liquid running down her face, and the pain in her forehead. She took the rag and quickly rubbed the blood off herself, before wrapping it around her head like a bandana, covering the cut as best she could. “Thanks” She said to Rusty before turning her attention back to the transporter, its inhabitants now disembarked and creating a perimeter around the C-47. She, however, was only interested in one of the three figures that were surrounding the front entrance to the building. This one was a head taller that the two around them, and wearing a different type of armor compared to the others in the area.

Dash smiled, “Hey Nyx, long time no see”*(2) she said to herself before turning and making her way towards the ladder that they had used to get up onto the wing, which sat between engines 3 and 4. Dash wasn’t exactly happy that she still couldn’t use her wings after nearly a month of healing, but she had somewhat become used to it. “I’m heading over to HQ to go say hi” She called over to Rusty as she set hoof on the ladder. “What! You can’t just walk up to one of the princesses! Or the High Commander!” Rusty called back as he sat in shock by the access panel. “Just watch me!” Dash shouted as her head disappeared under the leading edge of the wing, simultaneously wondering if Rusty had developed short term memory loss, and again about how much Celestia actually told the population about anything related to herself or her friends.

“But who’s gonna finish the wing!” Rusty yelled as he ran up to the leading edge and looked over. Dash looked up as she touched hoof on solid ground again, “Finish it yourself you lazy prick!” she shouted up at the orange head poking over the edge of the wing, before walking under it in the direction of HQ. Rusty watched gobsmacked as Dash’s body appeared behind the wing, walking in the direction of the now guard-surrounded HQ. What she said finally hit him, and a scowl developed on his face. “Lazy prick am I? Who’s the one who rebuilds your broken shit every week! Ungrateful littl…” The rest of his rant was muffled out as he lowered himself into the wing.

15 minutes earlier

Twilight sat on one of the two couches that took up the private section in the back of Luna’s C-47, going over paperwork that she had taken from the bases she had just finished visiting. Since the start of the war, the efforts of ruling the kingdom had been divided up between Equestria’s four alicorns. Celestia and herself had taken over running Equestria’s day to day operations to make sure the kingdom carried on as though the war wasn’t even happening. This, however, meant that they usually didn’t have much say in the management of the war effort and their deployed troops, that responsibility had fallen to Luna and, much to Twilight’s dislike, Nyx.

After a long time of thinking about what she wanted to do to honor her cutie mark, Nyx had decided that she was going to enlist in the royal guard when she turned 18. When Twilight found out about this she threw a royal tantrum*(3); but, after a number of talks with Nyx, only one of which devolved into a shouting match, a couple with her brother, and one or two with Celestia and Luna, she came to understand and respect her daughter’s decision, even if she still wasn’t exactly a huge fan of the idea. Under the helping hoof of her Uncle Shining, Nyx made it through boot camp and was selected to be a member of Luna’s elite Night Guard; and, though Twilight didn’t always like to admit it, Nyx did make an amazing guard.

Because of her skill with the job, and the fact of her alicorn genealogy, it was decided just over a year prior to the start of the war that Nyx would become the new High Commander of the armed forces, taking over the position from Shining Armor’s successor. Being in this position meant that she held the highest authority for all of the armed forces, only being outweighed in a decision by one of the royal sisters.

“I can’t believe you’re still doing paperwork. All you ever do is paperwork, and now you can’t even enjoy a day off.” Twilight looked up to see a certain black and purple alicorn kitted out with midnight blue armor trimmed in white, looking back at her, that cheeky smile on her face. ”Nearly 21 and she still acts like she’s a teenager sometimes.” Twilight said to herself before addressing her daughter, “This paperwork is necessary so we can be on this ‘day off’ as you call it.” Nyx laughed as she sat down on the couch across from her mother. Twilight couldn’t help but eventually laugh along with her daughter as she set the paperwork she had been working on down at her side. It could get finished later, she didn’t get to see her daughter much anymore, and she was going to make good use of this small time she now had.

“So what’s our next stop?” Twilight asked, knowing her daughter had just come from talking with the pilots and other guards on the transporter. “Next stop is F.O.A.B. Tallahassee, home of the 848th and 851st bomber squadrons of the 490th bomb group, 11th Air Force.” Nyx rattled off. She was quite proud of all the information she had memorized over her time as High Commander, and loved showing it off. Twilight giggled at her daughter before she let the jumble of words and numbers register in her head. “848th, why does that sound familiar?” she asked herself aloud. “Probably because it’s one of our most reliable bomber squadrons we had. They’ve never come home without completing whatever mission that’s been assigned to them, even if it means heavy losses.” Nyx said, with a bit of a sigh, before cracking a smile at the blush that came over her mother’s face when she realized she had actually asked the question out loud. “Yes that’s probably it.”

“So, how far away are we?” “Pilot’s said we should be there in about half an hour.” “Perfect. Now, how have you been holding up? I remember you saying that Luna has been giving you more and more tasks to take care of lately.” Nyx shrugged, “yeah she has. But it’s all stuff I would have to be taking care of as acting High Commander during a war anyways.” “Are you still having trouble with those generals?” Nyx sighed and nodded.

Ever since her humble beginnings in guard boot camp, other ponies around her called favoritism. These claims were the exact opposite of the actual truth. Due to the fact she was an alicorn, her Drill Sergeants expected above average performance out of her, taking anything less as failure. Despite this however, the rumors, jabs, insults, and accusations continued to fly, sharper than bullets. It got so bad at one point that Shining Armor, who had moved back to the castle to help Nyx through her training, found the black alicorn at their normal meeting place in the royal gardens in tears. After calming the young alicorn down, with some gentle prodding Shining found out that Nyx had been attacked that morning by some of her fellow trainees in an attempt to hamper her performance and force her to wash out. When they didn’t get the results they wanted, they had turned back to simple brutal ridicule, even dredging up her past and her attempt to take over the country.

Shining, of course, had been furious when he found out. But his anger couldn’t even touch a candle to the pure rage Twilight had felt when she heard what had happened. Legend has it that you could have seen her rage shift flame from space, and despite how many times she had been asked, Luna would neither confirm nor deny.

So Shining and Twilight, along with a little help from the royal sisters, set up a little treat for those ponies training with Nyx. The next morning, Nyx, along with the rest of the trainees, were surprised to find that their usual Drill Sergeant had been replaced by her uncle. He spent a solid half hour putting everyone in their place. He explained how Nyx was not getting favorable treatment because of who she was, along with why more effort was expected out of her. He then went on to drill the rest of the trainees, except he ran them based off of what was expected out of Nyx. Besides Nyx herself, only two other ponies out of the 53 were able to pass by her standards, if just barely.

From that day to end of basic, the others held a lot more respect for Nyx. Those few who still had a problem with her were often quickly silenced by the more respectful trainees, if only for the fear that her uncle would return once more. At the end of it all, Nyx, Moon Light, and Shadowed Light, the two other ponies who had been able to keep pace with her, ironically both thestral mares, were assigned to Luna’s elite night guard. The rest was history.

“They have definitely gotten better, but they can still be insufferable sometimes.” Nyx said, breaking the short silence that had descended the rear of the transporter. Twilight smiled sympathetically, “They’ll probably always be like that a little bit. But I’m glad to hear that they’ve gotten better.” Just then they heard the curtain move and a thestral poked their head through the curtain separating the guards from the two alicorns. “Sorry to interrupt ma’am, princess, but we should be on the ground in just a few minutes.” “Thank you Shadowed Light.” Nyx said with a nod to the leader of her personal guard. Shadowed Light nodded back before removing her head from the compartment, letting to curtain return to its original, fully closed state.

Almost two minutes later, the C-47 touched down on one of Tallahassee’s large runways. Nyx looked out one of the transporter’s windows in awe of how many bombers, other aircraft, and personnel were present on the base. She was well aware of the fact that Tallahassee was the largest airfield that she had under her command, but being there and actually seeing its true size and scope actually solidified the fact in her mind.

The C-47 quickly taxied over to the control tower, where its pilot shut down the two engines in short order. Once both props had came to a full stop, Shadowed Light’s head appeared once more, “Ma’am, princess, clear to depart.” The two alicorns nodded, before standing and walking through the curtain into the guard section of the aircraft, making their way towards the front exit. Lined up on one side were six of Twilight’s personal guards, while Nyx’s set occupied the other side. They nodded to their guards, before the two alicorns exited the C-47, led by Twilight, the two followed by their respective sets of guards.

“You go talk to the general, I’ll stand guard out here.” Nyx said to her mother. Twilight nodded, making her way inside the control tower flanked by her two highest ranking guards. Nyx took post outside, along with the rest of Twilight’s guards and her six. Inside, twilight walked up to the general’s door and knocked. “Enter.” The muffled reply came soon after. She nodded to her two guards, who nodded back before taking position at either side of the door, only then did Twilight enter the office. “Ah, Princess Twilight good to see you again. Taking over Luna’s job for this review?” Twilight smiled at the general. Gusty Day was one of the few generals she actually enjoyed holding a conversation with, given that before the war had started she had been one of the higher officers in Twilight’s guard.

“Yes I am. Luna’s swamped with planning for this big mission she’s trying to set in motion, so she asked me and Nyx to take this process off her hooves.” “Ah, so Nyx is here as well? Glad to see that she’s starting to fall into her role as high commander.” “Yes I can agree. I also see that your promotion to general is treating you well.” Gusty smile hid the slight bit of exhaustion that she was feeling, “It’s a lot of work managing a base, especially one as big as this one. But I’ve got a good bunch here and they pull off everything that we have sent our way. Anyways, let’s get down to business and go over these numbers.” She said as she pulled out a stack of papers.

Meanwhile outside, Nyx was chatting with the other guards. They were acting a little bit more laid back then they normally would, but then again they were on the largest military base operated by Equestria. A base that had never been attacked by the enemy, surrounded by hundreds of battle hardened airmen, they felt like they were perfectly safe. Nyx had been talking with Shadowed Light when she caughts sight of a walking rainbow making its way towards her.

She smiled, “Rainbow Dash, I forgot you flew for the 848th, how’s it going?” Nyx called to her approaching aunt. Dash walked up and offered nyx a salute out of respect, “Afternoon ma’am.” Nyx couldn’t help but laugh, “Dash come-on, you’re not under inspection here, you can treat me like your niece.” Rainbow couldn’t help but smile as she dropped out of her salute, “Nice to see you again kid.” She said to the black alicorn, the fact that her niece was taller than her not being lost. Nyx laughed again, “Kid? I’m taller than you, and your high commander, and you think I’m still qualified as a kid?” “Height, rank, and your immortality aside, you are still younger than me, which means you’re still a kid in my eyes.” Dash said with a half cocky smile plaster across her muzzle.

Nyx grinned as she tried not to laugh again, “You haven’t changed a bit Dash, it’s good to see you again.” She said, offering up a quick hug, not caring about the other guards gathered around them. All of them had been part of Twilight’s castle guard at some point, and knew the family, and their friends quite well. Dash was happy to accept, also not caring about who saw. Once they broke apart, Dash looked back up at her niece, “So what brings you and your mom around to our quaint little corner of hell?” “Ah, so you saw Twilight walk off did you?” Nyx asked with a smile, receiving a nod from Rainbow. “Well she’s meeting with General Gusty for Tallahassee’s review.”

“Oh, taking over Luna’s job are you? I thought you said that she was easing you into your role.” “Oh she is, but it’s not that simple. Luna’s back at home putting together some big mission she feels could begin the end of the war.” Dash’s eyes almost lit up at the idea of the war being over soon, “Now I like the sound of that.” Nyx nodded with a chuckle, “We all do. But don’t worry about that right now, the mission is still in its planning phase, so it won’t be happening for a few weeks unfortunately. Anyways, what have to been up to lately, anything interesting?” “Well I’ve spent the last few months on the ground. Me and my crew got banged up pretty good on our last mission. Besides that, I spent the last two weeks hanging out with Scootaloo.”

Nyx’s face lit up with a massive grin when she heard the name of one of her long time friends, “Scootaloo, what’s she doing over here? I didn’t think the 49th would ever give her up.” Dash had to laugh, “No they didn’t give her up, I’d think you’d have to fight an all new war against just them before they turn Scoots over to another squadron. She stopped by after her last scouting mission. Herself and her plane got shot up pretty bad, so she had us rebuild it while she took some time to heal up. Left for home just a couple days ago.” Nyx smiled gently, “Well it’s good to hear that the squadrons are working together as well as we thought. But you said that you got banged up good after your last mission, what’s the story behind that?” Dash cracked a proper cocky smile, “You got a minute?”

“Alright, last on the list is bomber numbers.” Gusty said as she looked at the last piece of paper that herself and Twilight hadn’t gone over. “Over the last three months between both the 848th and 851st, we have taken in 29 aircraft, while in the same time, lost 21.” Twilight sighed slightly, “Not exactly the numbers we were hoping to hear, but at least it’s better than last few reviews.” Gusty nodded sympathetically, “I know what you mean. I still remember when I had to tell Luna once that we had lost 66 bombers in the span of three months not too long ago. Then again, Operation Scatter Line didn’t help.” Twilight sighed again, “That was such a horrible day. Nearly 120 bombers, just gone in such a short time. Many squadrons still haven’t recovered, moral wise more than anything.” “I know what you mean.That mission didn’t do the moral around here any favors.” Gusty said as she looked down at her desk.

She then looked up as she thought of something, “Do you remember Operation Production Halt*(4) from three months ago?” Twilight nodded in reply, “I take it that was where most of your losses came from?” “Well, yes it was. However, there was a bit of an, incident isn’t the right word but it’s what I’m going to use, that arose on the return flight from that mission.” “Oh?” Twilight said with a raised eyebrow. Gusty nodded before continuing, “It was the tail end of the mission, all of our numbers had been accounted for, either as returning, or shot down. That is, accept for one, a B-17 belonging to the 848th. The crew was well known all around base. They had come back many times with more holes than plane and injuries that should have left them dead, but they had never taken this long. A bomber that had flown past them had informed us that the B-17 was in bad shape at the time. From what we’ve been able to gather, the #1 engine was struck directly by a flak round that didn’t explode. The tail section was also badly damaged, with much of the rudder shot off, and half of the elevator, yet it was still struggling it’s way back to base. The last contact that we had received from the bomber had been from nearly three hours prior, when we had been informed that they had went down to two engines, and were struggling to stay airborne.”

“Something as big and heavy as a B-17 wasn’t built to fly long distances on only half of its originally engine power.” Twilight commented. Being the reading lover that she was, she had read over many of the plans for their mass produced aircraft. Gusty nodded again, “Exactly our concern. We had fighters waiting at the ready to go out on a search pattern if we deemed the wait for the bomber too long. Yet just before we were about to send them out, the bomber came into view. Here, watch this, I feel it does the situation more credit than anything I could describe.” Gusty said as she pulled up a projector that had been sitting behind her desk and set it running, its film being projected against one of her office’s empty walls. “The landing was recorded by one of the tower controllers.” Gusty said as the bomber properly came into frame.

Twilight watched in shock as the crippled bomber came into view, half the elevator and nose missing, rudder and fuselage shot up, the props on three of its engines sitting unspinning. She watched as it touched down on one wheel, before carreaning down, and then off the runway and into the trees beyond. “I can’t believe that they were able to fly, let alone land an aircraft in such a state.” She finally said as the projection came to a stop.

She then sighed, “How many didn’t make it back.” It was at this that Gusty cracked a smile, “That’s the incredible thing, all ten of the bomber’s crew made it home and survived. They’re still here at base, waiting for one of their ranks to be cleared to fly, and receive a new bomber.” Twilight was absolutely shocked. She had seen bombers in much better condition make it back to their respective bases missing half of their crew. To hear that all ten of the bomber’s crew had returned was truly a feat that she had rarely heard of. “Really? All ten survived? That doesn’t seem possible. I would have guessed that they had lost at least their bombardier and navigator, given the fact that the nose was clearly blown off.” “You would assume, but this crew is well known for their luck in situations such as that.”

Twilight still could barely comprehend what she was hearing, “You said that the entire crew was still here at base correct?” “Yes, yes they are.” Gusty replied with a nod. “Well I would like to have a chance to talk with them. Who are they, if I may ask.” “Of course Princess, the crew consisted of Second Lieutenant Ditzy Doo, First Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, Captain Sorin Cloud, First Lieutenant Cloudwing, Technician Fifth Class Storm Wall, Technician Fourth Class Comet Tail, Technician Fourth Class Mason Lighthooves, Technician Fourth Class Live Wire, Technician Fifth Class Cloudtramp, and Technician Third Class Gusty McArrison.” Gusty said, reciting the names of 44-5651’s crew in order from their position in the ill fated bomber.

Twilight went over the names in her head, taking a surprisingly long time to recognize one of them, “First Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, wait a second, First Lieutenant Rainbow Dash!” Twilight couldn’t believe it, not only was she finally on a base that held one of her closest friends, but she had come to learn that she had not only been involved in one of the most logic defying returns to base she had heard yet, but had also nearly died in the process. Gusty couldn’t help her smile from growing, “Indeed, Rainbow and her crew have delivered first hoof some of the most amazing survival stories of the war to our humble little base.”

Twilight was still in a slight state of shock when she finally spoke, “Do you know where she is by any chance? It has been far too long since I have spoken to her face to face.” Gusty’s smile returned to a casual grin before she nodded, “Yes I do. If I remember correctly, she should be helping our lead mechanic with the repairs to one of the 851st’s B-24’s. I know right where they should be.” With an ever growing smile, Twilight stood from where she had been seated, “Well please then, lead the way.” Gusty nodded before motioning to another door that sat at the side of her office, “We can use the control tower exit if you want to, so you don’t have to disturb your guard.” Twilight nodded enthusiastically as the two made their way out of the office and down the tower’s staircase, planning to surprise her daughter with the sight of one of her aunt’s.

“Wow, that’s just crazy! I can’t believe that you were able to land your bomber that shot up, on one wheel for crying out loud!” Nyx exclaimed as Dash finished up her tale of her crew’s most recent dance with death. The story had drawn the ears of the other guards in the area, and by the time she had finished, Rainbow had acquired quite the crowd. “You wanna go check it out? The old girl is still sitting back in the trees.” Nyx nodded excessively before turning to Shadowed Light, “Go inform Day Break and Iron Side where we’re going. I don’t need my mom freaking out that I’m gone if we don’t get back before she finishes up.” The thestrial mare nodded before making her way into the building, while the rest of the guards returned to their posts as Rainbow Dash and Nyx made their way around the control tower and began walking towards the end of runway 4.

Had either turned around at the sound of a door opening behind them, they would have noticed a lavender alicorn and light purple pegasus exiting the control tower’s entrance, heading towards the maintenance ramps. And had either Twilight or Gusty looked to their right as they left the control tower, they would have seen a black alicorn in midnight blue armor and a cyan pegasus walking away towards the forest that surrounded the base. As it was, neither group knew the other existed.

“So what is the rest of her crew up to right now?” Twilight asked Gusty as the two walked through the rows of battered aircraft. “Well most of them are doing the same as Dash and helping out the maintenance crews, all of her gunners and her radio op are in that boat. Sorin is hanging around Cloudwing trying to help her recover as quick and easy as possible. And Ditzy has been helping around the hospital with whatever they need.” Twilight nodded, “And what can you tell me about the other members of the crew, just so I have an idea of what they’re like.”

Gusty nodded happily, “Of course. They were all fresh out of training when they first joined the squadron, but most already had a reputation. Cloudwing had the nickname Dare Devil, or D.D. following her from flight training. Something about pulling stunts in her trainers. The other big one was McArrison, who was known as Lucky by all of the ponies who knew him. That came around from the time when he jumped out of a C-47 and cannonballed into a lake from 150 feet and came up with no injury.” Twilight’s eyes went wide at that, “I can see why he would become known as Lucky.” “Exactly, oh hey, here we are.”

Gusty said as they approached a particular battered B-24. “Rusty!” Gusty called up at the wing. Muffled mumbling and cursing could be heard from inside the wing before a head popped up through the access hatch, “Whaaaaaaaaa…..” Rusty started out at a yell before taking notice of the pony standing next to his commanding officer. “Pr-pr-pri-princess Twilight!” He was finally able to stutter out. Twilight smiled and waved at the dirty mechanic, having been a princess for nearly nine years at this point, she had grown used to pony’s reactions to her. It was at this moment Gusty cut in and saved Rusty from further embarrassment, “We were looking for Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, and I know you were supposed to be working with her.” “Uh, yeah, yeah I was. But when you’re transport landed, princess, she went off to the control tower.” Rusty was just able to ramble out. Gusty and Twilight each exchanged a glance, “Hmm, must have just missed her. We’ll head back and see if we can’t track her down.” Gusty said to Twilight before turning, “You can go back to work Rusty.” She said to the still frazzled mechanic. “Y-yes ma’am” he once again stuttered before quickly disappearing back into the wing.

As the two mare turned and walked away, Twilight couldn’t help but ask, “I’ll take it that isn’t how he normally acts?” Gusty laughed, “Oh no. That Irish nutcase yells at everypony in ear shot on a normal day. It’s the stress of being the lead mechanic in a place like this, barely a week goes by where he isn't up for over 48 hours straight putting planes back together, and so we let it slide. Most of the time.” The two were quick to make it back to the control tower, surprising the guards. But they were surprised to find that Nyx had gone missing. “Where’d Nyx go?” Twilight asked Shadowed Wing. “She got talking with Rainbow Dash and they decided to check out Rainbow’s old bomber your highness.” She quickly said with a salute. Gusty and Twilight once again stared at each other, before Gusty spoke, “Well, that gives me an excuse to go show you the actual bomber.” Twilight nodded, before she turned to the accumulated guard, “Keep an eye on the transporter, we will most likely be leaving soon after we get back.” She said before she and Gusty started to make their way towards the end of runway 4.

She had been hoping to talk to all the members of Rainbow’s crew, but at the rate things were going, she might not get that chance. “So you said that this scenario with Rainbow and her crew is a regular thing?” “Yes it is. I think Rusty replated the floor in that bomber more than once to cover up blood stains.” Twilight’s face contorted slightly, “That bad?” “If you've got the stomach I can tell you a story about a screw and a bootlace.”

Meanwhile, Nyx and Rainbow had shown up at what was left of Rainbow’s once trusted bomber. Nyx whistled as she looked the wreck of an aircraft, taking it all in. “Faust you weren’t kidding when you said the nose got blown off.” Nyx commented at they took notice of the nose of the battered bomber. Dash rubbed the back of her neck, no matter how many times she had seen it at this point, it was still a hard fact to swallow that she and Ditzy had come so close to biting the bullet, somewhat literally.

“Yeah, the old girl has seen better days, it's almost sad seeing it like this. Two years of my life were spent inside this metal tub, and now it's down for the count. It was the only bomber I ever flew on, and I was almost hoping at this point it would carry me and the others all the way through at this point.” Dash said as she looked the bomber over once again. She had seen it so many times at this point, but it never got easier for her to take in. She really was going to miss Speed of Lead.

Nyx turned to her cyan aunt, “I hope whatever they put you up in next can live up to her.” Dash laughed, “I hope so too, but that won't happen. There isn't a bomber flying that could live up to Speed of Lead. Taking everything she took and bringing us back every time, you only get that once. But with only three missions left, I think we’ll manage.” “Manage what?” A voice asked from behind her.

Dash turned around to find herself greeted by the sight of another alicorn. Twilight smiled softly, “Hey Rainbow, it's been a while.” Rainbow smiled as she walked towards Twilight, wrapping her friend in a hug, “Too long Twilight.” When they dropped Twilight took a look at the bomber that was speared in the trees, “So this is the bomber that Gusty told me about.” It was only then that Dash noticed her general, quickly offering her a salute, “General.” “As you were Lieutenant.” Gusty quickly stated.

Dash nodded as she dropped out of the salute, before turning back to Twilight, “So, she told you a bit about my little old bomber did she?” She asked with a halfway grin. Twilight giggled, Rainbow hadn't changed a bit, “Yes she did. Told me the story of how it ended up here, and showed me the video.” “Video?” Rainbow asked confused, before looking past Twilight to Gusty, “What video?” “One of the tower controls recorded the landing.” “What! How am I just now hearing about this!” Twilight rolled her eyes, definitely the same old Rainbow Dash, “I'm sure she can show it to you later. But first, I think you should tell me how this all started.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes, “Here I go again. Alright Twi, settle in.” For the next twenty minutes Rainbow took Twilight through her last mission in Speed of Lead. Nyx had already heard the story, but she was more than happy to listen in once again. Gusty also sat in, due to how injured the crew had been when they returned to base, she had never been able to get a proper debrief, and thus had never heard the entirety of the story about how the once unkillable bomber had finally met its maker. Both Twilight and Gusty found themselves in greater and greater states of disbelief as Dash told them about more and more details on how the bomber had ended up in such a state.

Soon enough though, Dash’s story came to an end, leaving both Twilight and Gusty in shock. “That’s, that’s just incredible Rainbow! I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it from you.” Twilight said as she stood from the seated position that she had taken at the beginning of the story. “I really wish I could talk to the rest of your crew, but it would take too long to round all of them up.” Gusty cracked a smile as she stood up, “Actually Princess, I left a note when we left to have the crew of Speed of Lead taken over to my office. They should be there right now if you would like to talk with them if you’re still interested.” Twilight turned back to the general, “Still thinking off everything I see Gusty.” “Always Princess.” Gusty said with a wink. Twilight laughed, “Come on Dash, let’s go have a chat with your crew.” Dash nodded as she and Nyx picked themselves up as well, and they all made their way back to Gusty’s office.

Back in Gusty’s office, all nine of Rainbow’s crew members sat around waiting for their commanding officer, wondering why they had been called to the general's office. “So, what do you think we did this time?” D.D. asked from the wheelchair that she resided in. Though the injuries to her hind legs had been minimal, she had been restricted to the wheelchair she was in to keep the strain off her damaged lung, allowing the magic that was healing it to properly do its work. She had been told that she would be in the clear soon, but the day was still not yet here.

“I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve done anything that bad this week.” Ace said, eyes pointed at Lead Leg. The Scottish pony rolled his eyes, “Ay, set a box of ammo off one time an’ no’ne let’s ya forget it.” The other gunners in the room were about to point out the fact that said box of ammo had nearly set off one of the base’s munitions buckers, when Rainbow Dash walked in. “Ah, Bats, was wondering when you’d show up. Got any idea why we’re here?” Lucky asked from his spot in the corner of the room.

Dash nodded happily, “I do, just don’t freak out alright.” As if on cue, Gusty entered the office, followed by the two alicorns. “Princess Twilight and Commander Nyx!” Everyone in the room said in unison, conflicted over whether they should bow, or salute. “At ease all of you, the princess here just wanted to have a little chat before she heads out.” Gusty said as she returned to her desk and retook her seat. “Princess, the floor is yours.” “Thank you general.” Twilight said as she took a position in front of Gusty’s desk, doing her best not to block the general’s view.

“Now, while I was here covering for Princess Luna on the base review, I got into a conversation with General Gusty about Operation Production Halt, and was told about what you went through on your way back to base. I was showed the film of your landing, and have seen your bomber for myself, and I must say, both myself and Commander Nyx are incredibly impressed with what you were able to accomplish with odds so stacked against you.” “If I may speak Princess, we were just doing our best to get ourselves home. Any other crew would have done the same.” Soarin said from behind D.D.. “You may think that Captain, but I have seen the reports from other squadrons. Crews in much better situtions than the one you found yourselves in have been known to bail out of their aircraft in an attempt to save themselves from the exact scenario that happened to you when you made it back to base. The crew, sans Rainbow, hung their heads slightly, “We were tempted Princess. When we attempted to lift the gear that we had left, and found we couldn’t, we were tempted to bail out and hope for the best.” D.D. stated, hanging her head just a little more. “What made you change your minds?” “That’d be the Deceptionist y’er highness.” Lead Leg replied.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the name, but Rainbow was quick to step in and explain. “Nicknames Twilight, we all have them. That’s Lead Leg, Turtle, Sparky, Cannon, Ace, D.D., Iron wing, and Lucky. I’m know as Bats and Ditzy is Deceptionist.” Dash said, pointing to each pony and herself in order. “Ah right, of course. Now, what do they mean by you changed their mind Ditzy?” Ditzy blushed a little, “I refused to bail out of the bomber Twilight. Speed of Lead had gotten us through so much, and I just knew it could get us through one last mission. So I refused to bail, and I was able to talk the rest of them into giving our bomber one last chance.” “That doesn’t make what you did any less extraordinary. Gusty has told me about many of your achievements during your tour of battle, the injuries you’ve occurred and the situations in which you have survived. I also know about how one of you has become and ace as a gunner, not an easy task.” Twilight looked over to Ace, who just rubbed the back of his neck. Though his nickname showcased his achievement, not many ponies praised him for that.

Twilight smirked at the gunner’s reaction, “Taking that all into account, when I return to Canterlot Castle, I will be putting in for all of you to receive not only the Distinguished Flying Cross, but also the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star.” Everyone in the room, including Rainbow, Gusty, and Nyx were shocked by Twilight’s announcement. Dash was the first to recover, as a thought crossed her mind, “Twilight, I think I speak for all of us when we say that you just made our month. But I think that there is one other pony who needs to be honored for the sacrifices that he made.” “And who might that be Rainbow?” Rainbow hung her head a bit, “His name was Night Wing, Shadow to the rest of us. He was a pilot for the 848th who went down with his bomber during Operation Scatter Line.”

Again, the assembled air ponies hung their heads, “I feel that to do his story justic, you need to talk to a pony by the name of Thunder Clap, he’s been in the base’s hospital since returning from the mission.” Twilight nodded, “Then I will have to go talk with him quickly before I leave.” She said, ignoring the little pony in the back of her head screaming about the fact that they should have left twenty minutes ago. Seeing somepony like Rainbow Dash, after receiving such news as what she just gave, point her towards another pony who she deemed more deserving of the medals she was going to receive, needed to be acted upon by her.

After a quick conversation with a quite surprised and finally recovered Thunder Clap, Twilight had come to the decision that Shadow’s family would receive the medals that their son had rightfully earned, along with finally learning the whereabouts of their missing family member. It was also decided that Thunder was to come with them back to Canterlot, as she felt that hearing the story from one of the ponies that their son saved would make it easier on the family when they learned the news of their son’s death. It helped that it had been decided by the doctors at base to send Thunder home, feeling that the internal injuries that he obtained were too severe to return him to active duty. So it was with heavy hearts that Twilight watched the runways of Tallahassee disappear as the royal C-47 lifted off destined for Canterlot only an hour behind schedule.

Thunder had been made comfortable with the rest of the guards up front, while herself and Nyx had taken up their spots at the rear. “Real generous of you to go hoofing out medals like that.” Nyx said to her mom with a wink. “It’s not like they haven’t earned them Nyx. Also, I would like you to put together a proper counsel to look over the reports we have been sent about these sort of situations when we get home. It seems our current systems aren’t rewarding our soldiers as they have rightfully earned.” Nyx smiled, “Consider it done.” Twilight nodded before looking out her window, getting one last glimpse at Tallahassee before it disappeared behind the trees, “Good luck Rainbow.” She said to herself as her view was reduced to just a dense forest of tree tops.

The next week at Tallahassee was full of high spirits, especially among Rainbow and her crew. News of their rewards had quickly spread around, and their fellow bomber crews were all too happy to see such a battered crew finally be recognized for what they had done, new hope spread among themselves as they saw the possibilities for themselves to have the same happen to them. Dash’s spirits were still high the week after when she found herself being called back to Gusty’s office once again. As she entered, she found much of her crew was there as well, including a now wheelchairless D.D..

“D.D., finally got to ditch the chair I see.” The co-pilot smiled with suppressed joy, “Yup! Finally let me up yesterday. You have no idea how weird it felt to finally walk around again.” “I can imagine.” Dash said with a laugh before turning Gusty, “So, what’re we here for this time boss mare?” “I’ll let you know once your entire crew is here.” Gusty said, not picking her head up from the papers she was going through on her desk.

Ace was the last member of the crew to arrive at the office, and once the door closed behind him, Gusty began. “So, as you may know, the medics cleared D.D. yesterday for flight operations again. So, I’m assighing you your new bomber.” Gusty then passed papers to ever member of the crew. “She’s waiting for you in the maintenance hangar W3, Rusty just finished painting the squadron’s markings on it last night. Head over and get yourselves settled in with it, your next mission brief is Thursday at 0600.” The seasoned bomber crew nodded at her before turning and filing out of Gusty’s office.

After the door shut behind them, Gusty let out a long slow sigh and walked back to her desk, before pressing the intercom that let her speak with her second in command. “Lucky Strike, I’m heading to one of the bars in town. Just pile up any paperwork on my desk.” ”Why aren’t you just going to the officer’s club?” “Because I don’t want to be anywhere near that crew for at least a few hours.” Gusty’s nerves of Dash’s crew were well founded as she to one last look at her copy of the paperwork she had given to the veteran crew, specifically at one line that she didn’t have the heart to fill out on their copies. “I just hope they’ll be able to forgive us one day.” She whispered to herself, before grabbing her jacket and leaving her office.

Meanwhile, Dash and her crew were on their way to their new bomber, when they noticed something interesting about their new bomber’s tail number. “44-41967? That’s lower than Speed of Lead’s. Did they give us a hoof me down or something?” Sparky asked, being the first to notice the interesting fact of the tail number. “They probably did. We only have three missions left before we go home, why give us a new bomber.” Mason stated. The others thought this over for a few seconds before D.D. spoke up, “True, bust Gusty said that they finished putting on the squadron markings last night. Why would a hoof me down need to have the squadron markings painted on?” “Maybe they were destroyed by battle damage. That happened to Speed of Lead once or twice.” Ditzy proposed. “Or maybe they brought in some bombers from another squadron again.” Cannon added.

The crew went back and forth on this tail number mystery until they found themselves three hangers away from where their new bomber sat. “I wonder what model B-17 it is?” Ditzy pondered aloud. “I’m hoping for another 17-E, maybe even a late model like Speedy was.” Dash said hopefully. Lead Leg huffed, “As long as it’s not a D. Ah trained on one a-dem, an’ dat ting was a sack of shit.” The crew laughed at this as they walked in front of the last hanger. However, the laughing stopped the second they caught sight of what sat inside.

Four oval intake style radial engines were mounted to a large set of high sitting wings. These wings were attached to a long, rectangular fuselage, which ended in the rear with a large horizontal stabilizer which had a rounded rectangular vertical stabilizer that doubled as a rudder on either end. It was without a shadow of a doubt, a B-24. The Flying Coffin.

There was a long silence before Lead Leg spoke for the whole crew, “Aw fuck.”

Author's Note

*(1): The princesses posses many aircraft, many much more suited for the job of transporting royalty. But, they were all civilian aircraft that would stick out like a sore hoof from the average military line up. So, in an attempt to protect themselves and camouflage themselves, they had commissioned this C-47 for use when visiting military bases out near the front

*(2): Yes I’m putting Nyx in this story, no I’m not sorry. You may now rage in the comments.

*(3): Oh come on that was funny!

*(4): Mot every operation can have cool names like Operation Overlord

Hey everybody, I'm back! Sorry all of this took so long, but real life got in my way at every turn. But never the less, here is chapter 5, only about a month late. I hope you guys enjoy it and are ready to see more in the coming months. Don't worry, next chapter we get back to your regularly scheduled program of high altitude bomber mayhem. Until then, keep your friends close and your mechanics in check, this is Mason a.k.a Bucking Bronco 1968 signing out. I'll see you guys later on the battlefield.

Chapter 6: Everything Changes

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Chapter 1: Just Another Mission

The calm silence of the skies over Saddle Arabia was destroyed as over 300 large bombers cut through the air. The bombers were broken up into groups of about 50 bombers each. Flying happily in the middle of the third group was an olive green B-17, printed in large yellow letters on the side was the name, Speed of Lead. Below that was a large image of a machine gun shooting the plane out its barrel. Sitting at a little desk in the nose of the plane, was Rainbow Dash.

The hum of the engines was evident all around her, but it wasn't as deafening as it had once seemed. The truth was Rainbow had grown use to the roar of the engines over the last 18 months. They had taken off not too long ago and had just formed up with the other bomber squads. Dash stared out the Plexiglas nose at the dozens of bombers in front of her, knowing just as many and more sat behind her as well.

Dash sat at her small desk, checking over her maps judging how far and long it would be to their target. Even though the flight plan of the day was mostly a straight line, it would still be 4-6 hours before they neared the drop zone. Knowing she was pretty much unneeded do to how easy it was to just follow the bombers in front of them, Dash let her mind start to drift, but still kept up with her map calculations.

The first thing she thought about was her family back home in Cloudsdale, her mom and dad who were probably worried sick that at any moment they would get that dreaded letter that Dash was either dead or missing. She then thought about her friends. Fluttershy was probably just as worried as her parents were about her. How Applejack must feel knowing her best friend and sister were out there on the front risking their lives. Pinkie and Rarity were probably trying to make the best of a bad situation.*(1) And there was Twilight, she was probably so busy with Celestia and Luna trying to make sure Equestria didn’t fall apart at the seams she was barely sleeping, let alone worrying about Dash, but she understood that.

She then looked over to the other mare in nose of her bomber. The Grey mare had her hair pulled back and tied up to keep it out of the bomb-sight. Around her neck were two chains, one was a military issued necklace that held her dog-tags, while the other was a more decorative one that held an engagement ring under her flak jacket.

"How you holding up over there Dits?"

The grey mare turned around and smiled at Dash, "Oh I'm doing fine. Just another mission where we are flying into skies occupied by Arabian pilots and flak gunners who's only desire is to blow us out of the sky. Besides that everything is fine."

"Well that means you just have to drop a bomb on their heads now don't it?" Dash said with a laugh

"According to you guys I could put it between their eyes. " Ditsy said before she broke down laughing, Dash soon joined in. It was somewhat of joke between everyone on the crew. They weren't mocking the fact Ditsy's eyes could go a little, derp, but through some crazy way, her eyes actually made her a better bombardier.

It was about then their radios cracked to life, "Hey, you two down in the nose. We're going to be heading into some pretty heavy fire. So I want one of you to head back and grab a couple extra ammo boxes."*(2) Someone said from the side of the line.

Dash again laughed before pushing a button under her flak jacket and responding, "Yeah I got it covered Iron Wing."

The pony on the other side just sighed, "I still hate you for that Dash. Just hurry up and get the ammo."

Dash chuckled, "Yeah yeah I'm on it Sorin." she replied as she walked toward the small "tunnel" that led out of the nose of the bomber and into the cockpit.

Rainbow Dash exited the tunnel to find herself in the cockpit behind Sorin, A.K.A., Iron Wing, and his co-pilot D.D. The name Iron Wing had followed Sorin from the Wonderbolts thanks to Rainbow Dash . He had gotten it after he messed himself up pretty good in a stunt accident which led to him having to have metal plates put into his wings so he could fly again. It was funny that the name ended up working double since Sorin was the pilot of the metal winged bird.*(3)

D.D. one the other hoof was a more interesting story. D.D. stood for Dare Devil, and had been given to her during flight training when she started taking out trainer planes and doing stupid crazy stunts that often almost got her killed, and the funny thing was, the orderlies actually encouraged her. Dash swore that if any other pony had tried what D.D. had been doing, they would have been court marshaled for destroying military property.

"How you holding up D.D.? Sorin not driving you insane is he?"

The orange mare just started laughing before turning to Dash, "Na he hasn't been that bad today." Sorin then turned to the two of them, "You two do realize that I'm right next to you right?"

"Wait, Sorin? Where did you come from?" Dash asked sarcastically, before she, D.D., and the top turret gunner and flight engineer, Lead Leg who had heard everything, burst out laughing. Sorin just rolled his eyes and sighed, "Dash, just go get your damn ammo and get back to the nose."

Dash chuckled to herself again, "Alright, I'll leave you in peace Sorin. Later D.D." She then turned around and started to wonder deeper into the bomber. She had barely made it two feet before she stopped next to the legs of Lead Leg, one leg in better shape than the other. Dash cracked a grin and smacked in his bad leg, one that had been filled with a bullet and shrapnel only seven missions earlier.*(4)

"How you hanging up their Scotsman?"

"Ah! God damn-it Dash! My leg still hurts like hell after being filled with metal. And you know how much that nickname annoys me you blind bat!" The Scottish pony yelled, being reminded of his old, annoying nickname.

"Dash! Go get the fucking ammo!" Sorin yelled. Dash finally got it through her head that she should actually do what Sorin was saying and went to go get the ammo boxes.

Dash quickly made it past Lead Lag and across the narrow walkway that crossed over the bomb-bay and between the six 1000lbs bombs that hung in their holders, ready to be dropped on the Arabians. She quickly made into the radio room where the bomber's radio operator, Sparky, sat fiddling with the radio.

Sparky, who's real name was Comet Tail, had gotten his nickname early on in the crew's time together after a particularly hard fought battle getting through the IP.*(5) The B-17 had been shot up pretty bad, with holes large enough to fit a head through dotted around the bomber.*(6) Shrapnel from the bullets and bomber fuselage had shorted out or destroyed pieces of Lead Leg's electric panel, leaving the damaged bomber without gear or flap control, and no electrical systems.

Sorin and D.D. had been able to muscle the busted bomber back to base on what few instruments that hadn't shorted out or been destroyed. As the two pilots lined up the B-17 for landing, Comet came up with an idea and grabbed a .50 cal casing out of the thousands that were scattered around the tail of the bomber from the waist guns.

He used the bullet to carry current from two destroyed wires for long enough that Sorin and D.D. were able to put down the flaps, while shooting sparks everywhere, and then did it again for the gear. But because he had to hold onto the bullet as the electricity flowed, it gave him a pretty good shock, leaving his hair on edge and his flight jacket slightly burned from the sparks, his name came quickly after.

"Hey Sparky! How's it going back here?" Dash yelled over the now louder sound of the engines.

Sparky turned around quick and grinned at Dash, "Oh it's fine. Ammo's where it always is." He said pointing to the hatches in the floor where the ammo was stored during the long flights to the DZ, which were right in front of the hatch to the ball turret.

Dash opened up one of the hatches and pulled out two 500 round boxes of .30 cal ammo.*(7) She then looked behind her at the hatch to the ball turret, and she got and idea. She yelled over her shoulder to Sparky, "Hey have you checked on Turtle recently?"

Sparky didn't turn away from his radio set, "Na, not in the last few hours at least." Rainbow's smile grew as she turned to the hatch and knocked on it.

She heard the turret motors move and line up so when the hatch opened it would be lined up with the hole the ball gunner used to get in and out. A knock came from the other side of the hatch and it opened up, revealing the gunner, Turtle.

Turtle, known by most as Mason, was the odd ball out of the crew, besides Lead Leg the Scottish nut head. This was because Turtle, was a terrestrial. He had the standard looks of a terrestrial, navy bat wings, fangs, grey fur, the only thing he didn't have was the blue-green mane and tail. Mason had mostly grown up in Manehattan, and he put up with plenty of bullshit for being a terrestrial, who in most cases were considered lesser beings compared to ponies in the big cities. So to make himself blend into the crowd a little bit better, he dyed his mane and tail two tone black and red.

His nickname of Turtle was fairly common in bomber crews for their ball gunners because the ball turret was often referred to as a gun equipped turtle shell.

Mason smiled up through the access hole of his turret to Dash, "Oh hey Bats, what's new?" He said, keeping a straight face for as long as possible before he started laughing, Dash had to chuckle too. Even though Mason was the literal "bat pony' of the crew, Dash was the one whose nickname was bat related. Her crew had had taken to calling her either Blind Bat or just Bat after she got them all to the IP in thick fog on nothing but guess work with her map.

"Oh nothing much, just grabbing extra ammo before the fight, in fact, since I'm here." She then pushed the button under her jacket to turn on her headset before she spoke, "Since I'm right here, anyone else want some extra ammo?" It didn't take long for a reply to come in, "Ah, why not, I'll take two number fives to go." Someone said back.

Dash rolled her eyes before mumbling under her breath, "Of course Lucky wants ammo." before she walked back to the hatches and pulled out two boxes of .30 Caliber ammo. She then pulled out two boxes of .50 Caliber boxes and she was about to walk away when she took a moment to think, grabbed a third box, closed the hatch, and walked toward the rear of the bomber.

As she passed Turtle's turret, she reached in, gave him a hoof bump, then closed and locked up the hatch and then continued toward the tail gun.

Dash grunted a little bit under the weight of the three heavy ammo boxes, but she slowly walked toward the waist gunners*(8) and the tunnel to the tail gunner position at the very back of the bomber. As she got to the waist gunners, she nodded at the one on the left, Live wire, who was better know as Ace from his five confirmed kills, something not very easy for a bomber gunner too do.*(9) Ace gave a nod back before turning back to look at the sky outside his waist gun window.

She then turned to her right where the other waist gunner stood, staring out of his window at the other fighters and bombers around them. He was know as Cloudtramp, but most just called him Cannon. This came to be months earlier when he was hit by three 20mm cannon rounds in the chest and leg. Somehow, he didn't die, but his leg was lost and he ended up being kitted out with a metal bionic leg*(10), ironically made by Ditzy's daughter, Dinky.*(11)

Dash dropped one of the heavy ammo boxes next to Cannon, causing him to jump slightly before he turned and looked at her. "Dash, why'd you bring this to me?" He asked. "I never asked you to get me an extra ammo box."

Dash did her best to hold back a smile, "Come-on Cannon, this is you we're talking about. You'll need it before we even get to the drop point."

Ace then yelled over his shoulder, "She's got you there Cannon."

Cannon only slightly grumbled before he took the ammo box, and Dash continued on her way to the tail gun, dropping into the tunnel not far from where Cannon and Ace stood.

Dash crawled through the small access panel that lead over the tail wheel and to the tail gun position.

After dragging the two ammo boxes with her, Dash arrived at the door panel that doubled as the Tail gunner's back rest. She banged on the piece of metal and soon enough it opened to reveal the smirking face of the tail gunner Lucky.

Lucky, who was actually named Gusty McArrison, had earned his nickname all the way back in gunnery training where he was known for doing all sorts of stupid stunts that should have killed him. His true claim to fame came on a hot summer day toward the end of his gunnery training when he jumped out of a C-47 at 150 feet into a lake that the trainees used on their down time as a pool, just because one of his friends bet him twenty bits he wouldn't do it.

The force his body felt when he hit the water should have killed him, but as would quickly become a statement with him, he surfaced from the water with nothing more than a bloody nose from the pressure of being shoved 30 feet underwater.

His luck and the legend behind his name grew as he came close to death many times in the 18 months he had served as the tail gunner on "Speed of Lead". One example was when he had to reload h gun and bent down to grab another ammo belt, not a millisecond after he moved his head, a 7.92mm bullet ripped through the glass of his tail gun right where his head had once been. But the one that Lucky loved to talk about was when a 20mm cannon shell was stopped and stuck into his gun-sight, mere inches from his chest. He still wore the shell on a chain between his dogtags.

Dash brought the two boxes of ammo in front of her and pushed them toward Lucky, "Here you go Lucky, two boxes."

Lucky took the two ammo boxes and put them on the floor next to his guns, "Thanks Bat. You'd better get back to the nose, I think the Hot Zone is comin' up, and the DZ isn't going to be much farther after that."

Dash nodded, "Yeah, where would guys be without me yelling at Sorin where to pint this bird?"

"Dead in the middle of Saddle Arabia that's where." He said before he took the door and closed it behind him, ready to fight.

Dash turned around and crawled back out to the waist guns were Ace and Cannon were lost in there own little worlds, staring out into the sky. She walked past them as if they were all in a whole different world.

She walked through the bulkhead between the radio room and the waist guns, nodding to Sparky as she grabbed the two .30 caliber ammo boxes that she had left out and continuing through the second bulkhead and into the bomb bay.

It wasn't long before Dash had descended through the tunnel and found herself back in the nose, where Ditsy was sitting next to her bomb-sight staring out to the sky.

"Hey Ditz, who you holding up?" She asked as she stowed the two ammo boxes under her desk.

Ditsy sighed a little, "Huh? Oh, I'm just thinking about everything. From what the Doctor said in his last letter, Dinky is spending most of her time after school in her shop building different prosthetic, and I guess I just don't know how I feel about it. I'm happy that she's getting so good at her metalworking, but there's just something in me that hurts when i think about such a young filly coming home from school to just go to her workshop to build limbs for ponies hurt in this war."

Dash tried to keep her smile, "That's just you being a mother Dits. But I get what you're saying, not you're first choice of a career for your filly is it?"

Ditsy nodded, "Yeah. It's not the kind of news that you want to hear from home. But it's better than nothing. Tell you the truth, I just want to get home and see my filly again."

Dash nodded in agreement, it had been a long time since she had seen anyone at home because of the war. This brought her full circle back to her thoughts earlier about her friends and family away from the front.

Then, with what Ditsy had said about going home, it for some reason made Dash think about the day she had been officially drafted when she had been in her house, cooking lunch.

She had been in her house cooking lunch when she heard someone knock at her door, “It’s open.” She called, still working on her food. She heard the door open, then close, and then the sounds of hooves walking across cloud. “Hey Rainbow.” Said the pony. Dash looked up and saw Twilight standing at the entrance to the kitchen.

It had been 6 years since Twilight had become a princess and 5 since the whole Tierce fiasco, but Dash still couldn’t get use to Twilight having wings. “Oh hey Twilight, what’s up?”

Twilight shrugged, “Not much. Hey you mind going for a fly, I got something I want to talk to you about.” Dash found it a little strange she wanted to take a flight to talk, but shrugged it off, “Ah, sure, just give me a sec.”

She leaned over and turned off her stove, then followed Twilight out the door and into the sky. “So what do you want to talk about?” Dash asked after a few minutes.

Twilight sighed, “Have you been keeping up with the news lately?”

“Yeah, why?”

“So you heard about the attack.”

The attack she was talking about was when the Equestrian Naval base, Celestial Harbor, had been surprise attacked by fighter bombers that came out of nowhere. Over 2,000 naval soldiers had been killed along with the destruction of 12 ships and around 48 aircraft.

"Oh yeah, the navy base southwest of the Crystal Empire, it was a real tragedy. A few of the others on the weather teams had family up there and they still haven’t heard anything.”

Twilight seemed to wince at hearing this. “Yes well, not long before that, Princess Celestia, Luna, and myself were negotiating with a foreign dignitary from Saddle Arabia. Turns out that it took him and his empire 6 years to learn the Crystal Empire had come back. Well it turns out that Saddle Arabia had taken claim of the land where the Crystal Empire came back.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow, “How can he miss something as big as the Crystal Empire reappearing out of nowhere?”

Twilight tried not to laugh, “That’s what we said. But anyways he requested a meeting with the Princesses to bring forward his anger, because he thought Celestia and Luna were in control of the Crystal Empire.”

Dash snorted, “You’d think they’ed do a little research before calling out Equestria.”

Twilight couldn’t stop herself from laughing a little, “Oh trust me, I completely agree. Anyways, when the letter saying that he was coming to Equestria showed up on Celestia’s doorstep, we were all kinda shocked. So she called myself and Cadence to the castle to talk with the king.”

Dash was getting slightly worried that Twilight might start to ramble as this conversation had been going on for over 15 minutes. “Twilight, not to be a jerk, but where is this story going?”

It was at that moment Twilight realized she still hadn’t told Dash what she needed too, “Oh sorry. Anyways, long story short, the king of Saddle Arabia was really thick-headed. We tried to explain that the land he was fighting over had not only already be signed in as its own kingdom at a council meeting that they decided not to attend. Plus the fact that they wanted us to give up part of Northern Equestria as reimbursement for “stealing Arabian land.”

Dash listened trying to keep up with this as she still didn’t understand what this had to do with her.

Twilight continued, not noticing that Dash was slightly lost, “Eventually he got fed up and said we weren’t “taking him seriously” so he would have to revert to more extreme measures.”

Dash’s mind put the pieces together without Twilight having to say another word. “No.” she said in a low and quiet voice, hoping she wasn’t right, but Twilight nodded her head, confirming the worst.

“When we asked him about it, he took full responsibility. He said that if negotiation wouldn’t work, he had hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers and thousands of griffin soldiers ready to use force. Things fell apart quick.”

“So what’s gonna to happen?” Rainbow asked afraid of the answer.

Again, Twilight sighed, “Long story short, Equestria is going to war.”

The statement caught Rainbow Dash completely off guard, “Say what!”

“Yes Dash, and that’s not all.” Dash slowed, what could be added onto the fact that Equestria was going to war. “You’re being shipped off to fight in the war.” Twilight said with a sigh.

This made Dash stop dead, “Wait. What! I’m being sent off to war! Why?”

Twilight groaned under her breath, “Because you’re a wonderbolt Dash.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Dash asked, still completely confused.

Twilight face-hoofed, “Dash do you remember anything from that wonderbolt history lecture I gave you 6 years ago?” Rainbow shied away a bit in a blush, getting another face-hoof from Twilight, “Rainbow, the wonderbolts may be a group used more as a show piece, but they are still an active military unit, which means if Equestria goes to war, so do the wonderbolts.”

Rainbow sat herself down on a cloud, mind trying to comprehend what she was being told. Twilight landed next to her, “Look Dash, I know that this has to be tough, but you should hold your head high. At least go talk to spit.”

Twilight didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as the strong wind nearly blew Twilight off the cloud as Rainbow Dash flew off in the direction of Cloudsdale, hitting rainboom speed with barely any effort. “Fire.” Twilight finished, as she, her ears ringing from the explosion that they had just been witness to. She then turned and stared out in the direction of Cloudsdale, before turning and looking at the ground, a sad sigh escaping her lips. *(12)

Spitfire was sitting in her office, filling out paperwork entitled ‘Celestial Royal Air Force’ when she heard the sound of a deafening explosion. She looked up at the clock on the wall, 2:47 p.m. “I guess I owe Sorin 10 bits.” She muttered to herself as she continued on the paper work.

She listened as she heard the sound of a pony-sonic air cone pass her window. “10, 9, 8, 7.” She counted off in her head as the sound of hooves running down the hall grew louder. Just as she hit one, the door to her office burst open, in its place was a heavy breathing Rainbow Dash. “Well hello Rainbow Dash, nice of you to drop in. What can I do for you?” Spitfire said in a nonchalant way as if nothing was wrong and this was just a routine visit.

Before Dash could respond, Sorin stuck his head in Spitfire’s door, “Where’s my bits spits?” Sorin barely got out before a bag of 10 bits was hucked at him. He disappeared a few seconds later.

Dash took a second for his mind to catch with what just happened, but when she decided she really didn’t care, she blurted out, “Please tell me that this whole thing about me being drafted is a fluke.”

Spitfire sighed, “Sorry Dash, but every pony in the wonderbolts and wonderbolt academy is being sent off to fight. It’s part of the job i’m afraid.”

Rainbow was about to continue her rant when Spitfire’s words sunk in, wonderbolts and wonderbolt academy, oh no. “Wait, Spitfire, you said that academy recruits are being drafted as well, even if they just started last month?”

Spitfire knew exactly where Rainbow was going with this, “Yes Rainbow Dash, even Scootaloo will be sent to fight.”

Dash’s rage shifted to sadness as the words fully sunk in. Scootaloo had turned 18 just a few months earlier, and the first thing she had done was apply to the wonderbolt academy. Just the month before, she had been accepted and started her training at the academy.

Spitfire watched Dash’s face fall as what she had said took full effect. She wasn’t happy that she had to be the one to give Rainbow the bad news, but someone had too. It also hurt to know that she had to send Scootaloo and others her age in the academy off to the upcoming war, almost all of them were younger that 20, and she knew that many wouldn’t come home once they left.
Spitfire got out of her chair and walked over to Rainbow, putting a hoof on her shoulder, “Look Dash, I understand that you’re having a hard time keeping a clear head about this. Lucky for us, we get to choose where we go in the military, though almost the entire team is going into the air force. I think you should look into it, flying seems to be your thing.” She said with a wink.

“Now come on, I’ve been doing this all day and I could use some grub.” Spitfire finished as she lead the way out of the office.

“Huhhh”

Dash was broken out of her day dream by a loud sigh. Dash looked to her left and saw her companion in the nose, Ditsy, staring mindlessly out the nose of the bomber.

Dash knew from flying with the mare for the last year and a half how she acted in certain situations. She knew that whatever was on Ditzy’s mind was pretty heavy to change her

Dash asked Sorin if he was good with just following the bombers ahead of them for a while. He said it was fine, but to make sure she knew how to get home.

Dash laughed, “If I can get us to the target and back in fog, I think I can get us home in clear skies." She then took her headset off and walked over and sat next to Ditsy. “Hey Dits, you alright?” she asked.

Ditsy didn’t say anything and just kept staring out the nose, Dash sitting at her side. They stayed like that for a while, how long neither really knew, you could lose track of time very easily in a bomber.

Eventually, Ditsy spoke, “I’m scared Dash.”

Rainbow wasn’t surprised by this knowing what they had seen, “We’re all scared Ditsy, we’ve always been.” Dash said, putting a supportive hoof around her.

“I know but this is different.”

“How so? The way is see it, this is just another day, another mission, with another target, and another 6000lbs of bombs.”

“With another set of fighters waiting to knock us from the sky” Ditzy replied.

“Very true. Still, how is this mission different.” Dash asked

Ditzy turned away from her friend and looked out the nose again before speaking, “It’s just, I’m worried about the 20’s curse.”

It took Dash’s mind a second to process when Ditsy had said, then it hit her hard, 'of course, The Cursed 20’s.'

It was something that had spread through the bomber crews. They all wanted to get through 25 missions, it meant that they could go home and get out of this hell hole known as war. But getting through 25 missions and surviving was easier said than done.

Some crews got shot down in their first five missions. Many didn’t make it to twelve, and some got as far as 18. But a good few got to the twenties, were the curse set in. In the 18 months Dash had been in the war, 189 crews got to 20 missions. 161 got to 22, only 113 got to 24. And in all, only 68 crews had completed and gotten home from mission 25. 680 ponies had made up those crews, with only 442 going home alive. One crew that was part of Dash’s bomb group had come home with only their navigator and copilot still in one piece. Another only had it’s bombardier.*(13)

But those who had lived, joined a special group known as the lucky Bastard club. This "club" was really nothing more than the group of ponies that got out of the war alive, those few, “Lucky Bastards.” Those last five missions had become notorious to crews and had received the name, The Cursed 20’s.

Dash hadn’t even thought about them yet, but the reality sank in hard.

They were on missions 21, most of the 20’s bombers were shot down between missions 21 and 23. So the idea of the curse sunk in hard on Rainbow Dash, “I never even thought about the curse.” She said, still lost in thought.

“It’s all I’ve thought about for the last two missions. I mean, two missions ago we almost got blown out of the sky, then last mission we come home with barely a scratch. It just reminds me too much of Shadow’s last mission.”

Rainbow knew what Ditsy was referring to. Shadow was one of the pilots at base who was loved by everyone who knew him. His crew and had been nicknamed Night Wing, not only after Shadow’s real name, but also because they had come home over 7 times without a hole in their bomber.

On their mission 23, they had almost been shot down by a group of 5 enemy fighters, but somehow made it back home on 1 engine and landed intact.*(14)

When they went up on their next mission, they had been fearful of what they might encounter, but came back happy and relieved with only 6 bullet holes in their rudder. Word was spread that the next mission was supposed to be a milk run*(15) to a target already heavily bombed.

With the idea of an easy 25th mission into the Lucky Bastard club, Shadow’s crew partied. The next day, Shadow’s crew took off with 33 others from base on what looked like an easy final mission, their luck just needed to hold out another 13 hours.

Dash and the rest of the crew hadn’t gone up with them because they had come back pretty messed up from the previous mission, and their bomber was still being patched. So they waited back at the base to welcome Shadow and his crew home with well earned drinks.

Later that day, four bombers came over the horizon from the direction of the assault, and only four. From what they had been able to see on the ground at the time, they weren’t in the best of shape.

Three of the four had to belly land with their wheels up, the 4th’s left landing gear broke on contact with the ground, throwing the bomber, causing it to cartwheel into hundreds of flaming pieces. Those were the only bombers to come back to base that day.

Hundreds of ponies flooded the scenes in seconds, pulling their brothers and sisters from the four burning wrecks. Rainbow and her crewmates helped as best they could, but they couldn’t do much until the fires were controlled.

After all was said and done, 24 of the 40 ponies in the crews survived the fiery landings, though none were unhurt, and few were conscious.

Rainbow was walking away from the wrecks when she heard someone weakly call for her.

“Rainbow.” the voice wheezed.

She turned to her left to see a young colt, covered in blood and cuts, laying on a stretcher waiting for an ambulance.

It had taken Dash a second to realize who it was under all that blood, but it shocked her when she figured it out. It was a navigator that she had become friends with during training named Thunder. He was barely 18 when she had met him, and now the 19 year old colt sat covered in his own blood, slowly dying.

“Thunder, what happened up there? Where is everyone?” She finally asked as the shock wore off.

The other pony grunted in pain as he spoke, “It was looking clear, no flak as we approached the Hot Zone. Then these 217’s came out of nowhere and ambushed us. They weren’t normal 217’s though, they…. they….” But he didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as he passed out from his injuries.

A few seconds went by before an ambulance came screaming around the wrecked B-17. Two medics jumped out and loaded the now limp Thunder into the back before tearing off in the direction of the base’s hospital.

It was a sad day for Equestrian Air Force. In that one attack, they had lost 84 bombers. 13 out of the 31 that had left base that day with Shadow were later found varring distances away, having been forced to make crash landings. 7 of these had brought their whole crew back alive, but none had been Shadow’s B-17.

The thought of her horribly hurt friend pulled Dash from her daydream, “Ah man Thunder. I haven’t gone to see him in forever. I’ll have to do that when we get back.”

“If we get back.” Ditsy said before returning to stare out the Plexiglas nose of the plane.

Dash pulled Ditsy a little closer, “Dits, we’re going to make it home.”

Ditsy looked at her, “How do you know?”

“I don’t.” Dash said with a sigh, “But I put my trust in Turtle, Ace, Cannon, Lucky, Lead Leg, all the other gunners in the bombers next to us, plus the fighters that are at our back. I know that we’ll protect them, and I hope, no I know they will do the same.”

Ditsy smiled slightly, “I guess you’re right. But I just can’t shake the feeling that, I don’t know, today is our last day.”

Dash didn’t say anything for a second, she didn’t want to leave one of her best friends in a state of fear. Then, she got an idea, “Hey, don’t think about bad, think about all we’ve gotten home from, two crash landings, 11 engine fires, 4 missing alerons, 2 destroyed rudders, blasted apart elevators, flak explosions, and injuries that should have killed us. We haven’t gone out yet, and the way I see it today is no different”

Ditsy thought for a moment about this, “Yeah, we have been through a lot.”

Dash smiled, “Exactly. Then there’s how far we’ve come since we started.”

Ditsy had to smile and agree “Yeah, I guess we have come a long way. I mean, when we first started flying, Cannon could barely hold onto his gun while he fired.”

The two laughed, the fact that it took Cannon over 5 missions to be able to shoot his .50 Cal was well known. “Or when you panicked at the flak shot that went up on mission 1.” Dash said between laughs.

Ditsy stopped laughing and lightly punched Dash in the shoulder, “That wasn’t funny, flak isn’t funny.”

It took a second for Dash to calm down, “I know. But you don’t flinch anymore unless it’s at least close enough to see the cherry burst.” She finally said.

Ditsy sighed and nodded, “I guess you’re right.”

The duo spent the next few hours talking, it was interesting to see what they had gone through and been scared of in their early time together, that they didn’t bat an eyelash at now. “Plus when he fell asleep in his turret, and we all thought he was dead.” Dash said with a chuckle.

Ditsy chuckled too, “Good thing we know the difference, it seems like Turtle falls asleep in his turret every mission.”

The two laughed again, then Dash brought up a mission that everyone at base remembered, their mission 11, Operation Red Flag*(16), or better known as Operation Scrap Yard. The mission’s target was a rail yards near a well know flak barrier. The idea was to get two birds with one bullet, get the flak guns and the important military rail travel, but it was not a “milk run.” The mission had been tough, but the crew of the “Speed of Lead” remembered what happened on the ground as much as what went on in the air.

It had started as a normal mission, Cannon still didn’t have his nicknames, Lead Leg was still known as Scotsman, and Sparky was still feeling the buzz from electrocuting himself the mission before.

The skies were full of smoke, fire, tracer, and lead as the groups of friendly escort fighters along with gunners from 119 bombers fought the never-ending waves of enemy planes that pressed their counter attack.

Ditsy had taken over control of the bomber, and they weren’t far from the target. The flak was thick, very thick, Dash and Ditsy had seen at least two bombers explode and fall to earth thanks to the black puffs of death.

The sound of the off and on fire from the gunners of their bomber and bombers around them could be heard as they helped the friendly P-51's fight off the attacking enemy BF-109 and FW-190’s. It was about that time that Lucky’s voice came over the headset, “I got two 109’s coming in, 5 o’clock high.”

Soon the sound of at least 20 .50 caliber machine guns could be heard as they tried to hold off the attacking fighters. Just as the fighters dove on Speed of lead, Ditsy opened the bomb bay doors.

Turtle laughed hard as he watched two fighters and 6 bombs fall out of the sky toward the target. Ditsy yelled, “Bombs Away!” as she closed the bomb bay doors and gave control of the bomber back to Sorin.

The whole crew smiled, the hard part was over, or so they thought.

Everything seemed alright, then, the whole plane rocked as a flak shot exploded just in front of the #2 engine’s propeller*(17), completely destroying the front of the engine. Dash and Ditsy sat stunned for a moment as the nose of the bomber filled with fog through a large hole behind Dash.

Dash got her senses back and looked out the hole to see that the #2 engine had been completely blown off the wing, leaving that part of the leading edge*(18) of the left wing “flat”.

Dash slowly felt pain coming from her back, and she knew that she must have been hit by a few pieces of the exploded flak shell. She looked over at Ditsy and saw that she was mostly unhurt, only receiving a small gash to her left front leg.

Everything had only taken a few seconds, and after a few more, both their ears stopped ringing, only to hear two pain filled screams. The two looked at each other then rushed out of the nose into the cockpit, and found a scene straight out of hell.

Blood was everywhere. Sorin was slouched over holding his stomach, blood seeping down his legs to the floor under him.

D.D. was sitting in her seat, her head hanging off to the side. Her left leg hung limply at her side, a large gash running along the top of it gushing blood, while her right hung tightly to the yoke of the massive bomber.

D.D.’s one hoof was the only thing in control of the bomber, and the damaged wing slowly started to pull the bomber into a left bank, getting worse as it stayed uncorrected.

Dash and Ditsy had to act fast before the bomber fell into a death spiral.

They quickly and carefully lowered Sorin out of his chair and onto the floor behind it, getting a good look at his injury. The flak had shot a piece of shrapnel up through the floor by his feet. The piece of metal had cut a long gash into Sorin’s gut, the lodged itself in D.D.’s arm. The gash in Sorin’s gut was deep, and went all the way across his stomach, and it bleeding horribly.

Sorin granted and squirmed in pain, on the verge of breaking into pain filled cries. Dash wanted to do something, but she knew she had to leave sorin in Ditsy’s hooves.

She quickly took his placed in the pilot’s seat and struggled as she put the bomber back onto a level course.

Dash then yelled back to Ditsy, “Go get a med-kit and sew him up as best you can, and quick! Then take care of D.D.” Ditsy saluted and dived back into the fog filled nose, hoping that the med kits hadn’t been blown out of the plane by the flak.

D.D., through the pain she felt in her arm spoke, “Don’t worry about me, take care of Sorin.”

Dash looked at her worried, “Are you sure D.D.? You look like you’re in bad shape.”

D.D. cracked a pain-filled smile, “Hey, someone’s got to be here to teach you how to fly a fucked up bomber.” Dash cracked a small smile, even threw the pain of having a piece of metal lodged deep into her arm, she could still crack a joke like her normal old self.

Dash turned back and looked around at all the gauges she could see, checking to see what still worked, and what was screwed.

She could see that their speed was slowly decreasing, along with their altitude. The fuel gauge showed that there was a slight fuel leak, enough that the #1 engine wouldn’t make it home, but it would make it most of the way.

Dash quickly shut down the fuel flow to the #2 engine so that the fuel load would last as long as possible. She was looking over the gauges for the other 2 engines when Ditsy came back up out of the nose, a small med kit in her teeth.

Dash knew that Ditsy wouldn’t have grabbed the small kit if the main kit, one at least twice the size of the one she had, had been available. She knew this meant the kit was now falling 28000ft to the ground below.

She went back to flying the bomber as she heard Ditsy dig through the kit, looking for morphine, a needle, and thread.
Dash looked out D.D.'s window at the #3 and #4 engines, she could see that the #4 was running rough, this being confirmed by Scotsman a few seconds later.*(19) Then she heard Ditsy scream in frustration and fear, “This kit has no morphine or needle!”

Dash looked back at Ditsy, finding her in a panic and Sorin looking at them both with a worried look in his eyes. Dash turned her head back toward the sky, very aware that if Sorin didn’t get sewed together soon, he’d never make it back to base alive.

Ditsy, still in her panicked state, looked around to try and find anything that could help keep Sorin alive as long as possible.

Then, she saw something, it was a screw, one of the thousands that held the bomber together, it gave her an idea.

She grabbed the screw, and quickly undid the laces of one of her flight boots. Sorin looked at her and could see what she was thinking, and nodded, he was already feeling horribly light-headed from blood loss.

Dash was focused on holding the bomber level, when she heard another scream of pain and a thud behind her.

She turned to see Ditsy, using the screw as a needle to break through Sorin’s skin, and then, used her boot lace to seal up the gash, Sorin was out cold, knocked unconscious by the pain.

She didn’t say anything and turned back to worrying about flying, knowing that she would never get that sight of one of her idols sliced open then being sewed back together with a boot lace and a screw out of her mind for the rest of her life.

She had decided to go back to flying just in time as the enemy fighters, freshly refueled and rearmed, came back up to attack the retreating bombers.

From what Scotsman had told her, when she asked him for a report, they had a badly shot rudder and the left wing was in rough shape. Also, they were being trailed by many other shot to shit bombers, too many to count.

The large gathering of badly damaged bombers, both in front and behind Speed of Lead, probably looked like an all you could shoot buffet to the ascending enemy fighters. Soon the sound of ‘Speed of Leads’ gunners, other bomber gunners, and the fighters that had dropped to cover to damaged bombers opening up on the attacking 109's and 190’s, trying to keep their brothers and sisters in the air and on the flight plan home.

Tracer fire was going everywhere, and Dash watched as 3 of the bombers in front of her either burst into flames or loss their wings, sending 30 airmen falling toward the ground, and for most, their death.

Ditsy came up behind her, “Sorin’s sewed back together, what do you want me to do now?” Dash didn’t even get a chance before Lucky broke over the radio, “I’m running out of ammo back here!” Dash just nodded to Ditsy, only receiving a nod back before she bolted toward the back of the bomber, making a stop in the radio room to grab two 500 round boxes of ammo from a floor hatch.

As Ditsy slowly made her back toward Lucky’s tail gun position, she froze up when she heard the sound of cannons going off. She didn’t think and dropped to the floor, covering her head in hopes she wouldn’t be hit.

Her mind and muscles completely locked up when she heard and felt the bullets from multiple cannons buzz just millimeters above her head.

She luckily didn’t get hit, but not everyone was so lucky.

Ditsy looked up when she heard another horrible scream of pain, her eyes catching sight of Cloudtramp's falling body. She dropped the heavy ammo off her back and ran over to him, but was shocked with what she saw.

Cloudtramp had taken 3 cannon rounds to the front left leg, chest, and right shoulder and was bleeding horribly. “Shit, Cloudtramp took 3 cannon rounds!” Ditsy yelled as she did her best to close up the rapidly bleeding wounds.

“Can he make it back to base?” Dash asked over the bomber’s intercom.

Ditsy looked over Cloudtramp again, none of the shots were fatal, and only one had been a direct hit. The one in his chest had shrapneled apart on one of the bomber’s supports, and the one that had hit his shoulder had only grazed him. But the one in his foreleg had been an untouched, direct hit, almost blowing the limb in half.

Ditsy really wasn’t sure what she could do to keep her friend alive, but she had to try. "I Don't know, but i'll do my best."

"Ace! I need your tourniquet!” she yelled over her shoulder as she started to patch his wounds with her kit she had pulled out of her vest.

Ace got off his gun quick and threw the small pack to Ditsy, then got back on his gun and started to fire again. Ditsy did her best to stop the bleeding, but there wasn’t much she could do. The tourniquet Ace had given her was able to stop most of the bleeding, but he would need a doctor soon if he was going to survive.

“Ditsy, Ace, watch out, a fighter’s comin’ in 9 o’clock!” Scotsman yelled as he watched a fighter come at the left side of bomber as he turned to the front, firing at a different fighter as it streaked past him.

Ditsy looked up from Cloudtramp’s body and out the left waist gun window as reality seemed to slow.

She watched as the BF-109 came at them. Ace turned and was about to jump onto the left waist gun to give defensive fire, when Ditsy jumped up onto the gun, and let loose.

She opened up on the attacking fighter as it did the same to her. She held the trigger down and never let up as the fighter came closer.

Then, the fighter stopped firing as it banked left and dove toward the ground in a death spin, its pilot most likely already dead.

Finally Ditsy let go of the trigger and let the gun go limp in the window, its barrel glowing a bright red from the friction of constant fire. She stumbled backwards and fell to the floor next to Cloudtramp’s unconscious body, her mind completely blank.

She knew Ace asked her something along the lines of ‘Are you ok.’ She couldn’t really understand reality at that point, so she just nodded and watched as he turned back to the job of defending the bomber. Ditsy just sat there, staring at the cealing of the bomber as she let time blur away.

The flight back to base once getting away from the deadly flak and fighters was hell for Dash.

The left wing was completely destroyed and it made it hard for her to hold the bomber level, especially since D.D. was providing little help as she had begun to feel light headed. But finally after a grueling three hour flight, they hit the safe zone.

This was where the fighters and bombers from other squadrons broke off from the group and made way for their home. Dash watched as whole groups of bombers around her broke off, their pilots flashing her a quick salute for good luck.

She looked in front of her, she knew 43 bombers had taken off from base for the mission, and she could see most of those in front of her in varying shapes of destruction. Around those bombers were about 17 fighters, and from what Lucky told her, they had no less than 25 bombers and 22 fighters tailed them.

'25 bombers and 39 fighters, the mechanics back at base are going to busy, but it’s been worse.’ Dash said to herself as she continued to fight the controls of what was left of her B-17.

But finally after another hour, the large clearing and asphalt of the base came into view. To the military it was known as F.O.A.F. Tallahassee*(20), but the crews of almost every military squadron knew it as The Garage.

Tallahassee was on the outskirts of Equestria, about 270 miles from the Saddle Arabian border and 110 from the border of the Crystal Empire. When it was built a few months before the war started, the military had no idea what its potential was.

When built, Tallahassee was a one runway base with about 40 tent like shacks and in all, it took up about 20 acres of land. When the war started and the base was actually needed, it was assigned the 848th bomb squadron, housing the 490th bomb group of the 7th Air Force*(21). When called to action, 19 bombers made up the bomb group.

Soon, the word of the base’s “close” proximity to the bomb targets*(22) spread through the Air Force, crews started landing battle damaged bombers and fighters alike at Tallahassee to save the planes and pilots.

As would be expected, the base quickly grew crowded.

When Celestia and Luna along with their military staff realized how much they overlooked the small base, they combined their resources and increased the size of the base immensely.

The base was upgraded from one to five runways, along with an increase of barracks by 12 times. There were 18 new mechanic stations added, bringing the base’s total to 23 to accommodate for the large amount of planes that would need to be repaired on a daily basis. Along with the mechanic stations, the ground crew numbers were increased from 80 to around 500. Then there was the fact that the base’s hospital had went from a few large tents sewn together, into a two story concrete building. When everything was said and done, Tallahassee took up 117 acres.

To add to the increased ground power the bomb groups were massively increased. Tallahassee was assigned a new bomb group, the 851st*(23) also part of the 490th bomb group, which at the time was 31 bombers strong. The 848th was also increased to a total of 36 bombers.

Thanks to the upgrades given to the base, at any given time there would be around 80 bombers and fighters from other squadrons sitting around being repaired along with the ones from the 848th and 851st.

The base was quite busy, but had very common visitors. The main squadrons were the 849th, 850th bomber squadrons, both of which were part of the 490th bomb group. Along with these where the 393rd, 24th, 6th, 380th, 422nd, and 384th fighter squadrons, which flew a mix of P-47’s, P-38’s, and P-51’s.

Of course, there were the occasional interesting visitors, like the 358th bomb group and the 366th red tails fighter squadron, a fighter group made up completely of terrestrials, which were known as some of the best fighter pilots in the air force, only being beaten by one group.

Tallahassee had gained a well-deserved reputation as one of the most vital air base in the Equestrian military, yet it seem the Arabians had never noticed, as it had never been attacked.

“Dash I’ve been in contact with the bombers around us, they’ve all told me for us to land first.”

“Roger that Sparky.” Dash said before switching over to the bomber’s intercom. “Everyone into the radio room, we’re going in.” Dash said as she slowly watched Tallahassee get closer.

“Hey D.D., put the flaps down for me, I don’t want this thing drifting left if I let go of the yoke.” D.D. just nodded, crossing her right arm over her body with a pit of a pain filled grunt, putting the flaps to a normal landing configuration.

To the surprise of everyone, the B-17 stopped its leftward tilt and became easier to leveled out, needing very little control input.*(24)

“Well I’ll be damned.” Dash said as she was allowed to rest a little for the first time in 5 hours and was able to let the damaged bomber almost completely fly itself.

“Should I do the gear too?” D.D. asked as she reached for the gear toggle lever.

“No, leave them up. The left gear is literally gone*(25) and I’d rather land this on its belly then attempt a one wheeled landing.” D.D. shook her head in agreement as she backed away from the lever.

“You still with us back there Sorin?” D.D. called as she put her one good hoof back on the yoke.

“Barely, just get us on the ground in one piece.” Sorin wheezed weakly.

“Sure thing Lead Belly.” Dash said, getting a laugh from her and D.D. and a weak, “Oh fuck off.” from Sorin.

“Sparky, I need you to patch me through to Tallahassee tower, they need to know the plane.”

“Sure thing Dash, just a second.”

“Tallahassee, go ahead.”

“Tallahassee, this is bomber 44-5615, we’re coming in on runway 5 for a belly slide. Do you copy.”

“Roger Rainbow, belly slide on 5. Anything else?”

“Just make sure the runway is clear and open, Speed of Lead out.”*(26)

“Roger, can do, Tallahassee out.”

“Well shit, this is gonna be interesting. D.D. you ready for this?”

D.D. just looked at her, “I wasn’t ready to die at the beginning of this mission and I don’t feel like changing my mind now.” Rainbow smiled and gave her a quick air hoof-bump with D.D.’s limp left leg, “Alright, when we’re getting close, at like 100 feet or something, cut the engines, it’ll help us slow down.”

D.D. just gave her a sharp nod as Dash jumped on the intercom, “Everyone, strap yourselves in, this is it”

Anyone who hadn’t already ran from where they were to the radio room and tied themselves to the frame members of the bomber, it was the closest thing they had to a safety. The only ones left not in the radio room were Rainbow Dash and D.D. who were flying, and Sorin, who was into critical condition to move.

With the runway in sight, and most of Tallahassee watching them, as in anyone who wasn’t helping an already landed crew, Dash brought the bomber in on approach. “Ok here we go, kill the engines!”

D.D. spun around and reached for Scotsman panel, and shut off the three engines. With all three of the remaining engines shut off, Dash knew she had one shot at this.

The bomber coasted toward the ground in true and terrifying silence. “60 feet, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10.” D.D. called out as their altitude slowly decreased.

Then finally, the barely moving props came in contact with the runway and the B-17 began to slide across the abused asphalt.

The sound was ear shattering as the metal from underneath the bomber was slowly scraped away by the runway.

Rainbow, D.D., and everyone else on ‘Speed of Lead’ held on and waited for the bomber to come to a stop, all hopped it wouldn't flip and go into a fiery cartwheel, which would spell almost certain death for all of them.

But luck was once again on their side, as finally, after what seemed like a lifetime of metal scraping terror, the B-17 came to a stop.

The silence that descended over the bomber was almost eerie after the noise that had moments ago surrounded it.

Dash finally let the breath she didn’t know had been holding when the bomber lurched to a stop. “Thank Celestia for our luck.” She said as she melted into her seat, the adrenaline that had kept her going for the last few hours started to drain, making her feel incredibly tired.

She watched as around 100 ponies rushed over to the stricken bomber, all rushing to check on their brothers and sisters in arms.

Within 15 of the landing, Sorin, D.D., and Cloudtramp had been loaded into waiting ambulances and rushed to the hospital. Dash, Scotsman, Ace, Lucky, Ditsy, Sparky, and Turtle stood next to what was left of their B-17 as the last doctor exited its wrecked body, only to be stopped by Ditsy.

“Hey doc, can you take a look at my shoulder?” She asked as she showed the doctor her right shoulder, the flight jacket over it was stained a deep red.

The doctor looked at her, then to her blood soaked shoulder, “I don’t see why not.” He said as he motioned for her to roll up her flight jacket.

She did so and slipped her flight jacket up her leg, and the doctor froze.

He just stared at her, “How are you still standing?” he asked as if he was out of breath.

The rest of the crew, who had gone on to talking over what had happened, stopped and looked over to where the doctor and Ditsy were standing and gasped.

Sitting clear as day at the top of Ditsy’s shoulder were 3 bullet holes, they weren’t cannon rounds, but they were still holes created by small machine gun fire. “What?” Ditsy asked as she looked down to where the others were looking, “Hey, when did those get there?”

The doctor just continued to stare at her, “Can you feel those?”

“No not really, it mostly just a sting.” Ditsy said, literally shrugging it off.*(27)

Finally the doctor pulled himself out of his stupor, “Alright, come with me.” He said as he motioned toward a military 3 ton truck that was loaded with many of the mares and stallions who had rushed to Sorin’s crew’s aid. Dash and the crew watched as Ditsy loaded herself into the truck and rode away toward the base’s hospital.

Dash and everyone else were about to disperse when, “What the HELL did you do to my plane!”

“Oh shit here we go.” Turtle said under his breath as they turned around to see a two tone red earth pony looking over their beaten bomber. “Rusty shut the fuck up. We really don’t want to hear it.” Ace said, with everyone quickly agreeing.

Rocky, or as everyone called him Rusty, was the lead mechanic at Tallahassee and took pride in his work. He didn’t take it well when freshly rebuilt planes came home with fresh holes and blown to bits engines. “I don’t care if you want to hear it or not! This is the 3rd time you’ve brought me you’re bomber in a piss poor shape, but this one takes the cake.”

“Well sorry if we almost got blown from the sky by a lucky flak shot and then got jumped by a crazy amount of fighters.” Scotsman said, the rage in his voice was very evident.

Rusty just scoffed, “Well I guess I can’t blame you for the flak, but couldn’t you have stopped the fighters, I mean that’s why you have gunners ain’t it.” Rusty had barely finished the sentence before he found himself thrown to the ground by a punch that came from Scotsman. “I swear to god Rusty, if you say anything like that again, I’ll put you in the hospital.”

Rusty slowly stood up and dusted himself off, “Damn, calm down Storm, I was just joking.”

Rainbow, who along with Ace were holding Scotsman back from killing Rusty, gave said mechanic a death glare, “That is not something you joke about.”

Rusty just rolled his eyes, “Yeah I guess not.”

Ace, still holding Storm back, had grown tired of listening to the pain in the ass mechanic, “You know what Rusty, we’ve all had a rough mission and I don’t feel like dealing with this bullshit. So I’m gonna give you 5 seconds to run before I let Scotsman pound your face in.” Ace never even got to one before Rusty took off, running for his life.

Dash and Ace let Storm go, all three of them were thoroughly pissed off, “You know what, I’m tired as hell, I’ll see you guys later.” Dash said as she made her way toward the officer barracks.

Dash walked through the endless rows of wooden shacks, each assigned to two officers, most were crew-mates.

Finally after about 15 minutes of walking, she found the shack she had been looking for. Above its door were two wooden planks, one was marked ‘First Lieutenant Dash,’ the other was ‘Second Lieutenant Doo.’ On the door was the same nose art as that on their B-17.

Dash pushed the door open and went straight for her bed, falling asleep the second she made contact with it.

Hour later Dash was woken up by someone shaking her. She rolled over to find a smiling Ditsy, “Ditsy, what are you doing here? And why aren’t you still in the hospital?” she asked groggily, her brain still mostly asleep.

Ditsy smiled and held up her bandaged right shoulder, “They said that I was alright, since I was still able to walk, and let me leave. Oh and Turtle told me him and him the others were heading into town.”

Dash’s drowsiness completely disappeared, knowing Ditsy meant their crew was going to one of the many bars in town that served military personnel, she jumped out of her bed and pointed herself toward the door, “Ah hell yeah! Let’s role!”

Ditsy just rolled her eyes and walked out of the shack with her and waited for the jeep full of the other able-bodied crewmen to arrive. Within 5 minutes, a jeep loaded with the 4 gunners and one radio man pulled up, Ace at the wheel, “Hey Dash, Dits, you coming with us?”

“Well I am the driver the week aren’t I?”*(28) Dash said with a smirk and climbed into the driver’s seat as Ace scotched over.

“I’m surprised they let you out of the hospital Dits.” Lucky said as Ditsy climbed in the back with him and Turtle. “Yeah, the docs said that there was no reason for me to stay since I could still walk so they let me go.”

“Sweet, well bat, you think you got enough sight left in you to get us to the bar?”

Dash just smiled, “You got enough strength left in you to hold on?” And with a quick laugh from everyone, the jeep took off in the direction of the nearby town, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

It was common knowledge that most bomb crews hit the local bars after a tough mission, and if you asked anyone, almost getting blown out of the sky and surviving a crash landing was well worthy of a bar run.

The remaining crew of ‘Speed of Lead’ arrived at one of the local pubs finding it already overloaded with airmen and a sign over the door saying, “Military personnel only tonight.” They walked in and were quickly swept up in the atmosphere and within half an hour, all the crew, except Dash, were well on their way to being blackout drunk.

The minute the group had entered the bar, they had split up. Scotsman went with some of his other gunner buddies from a mix of crews and quickly proceeded to get into a shot challenges with all 6.

Turtle, Ace, Sparky, and Lucky also went and met up with friends from other crews, while Dash and Ditsy went up to the bar and started to get a few drinks.

They had been in the bar about an hour, and Dash had switched over to sodas so she wasn’t too drunk to drive home. She was about to get another soda and Ditsy had just gotten her 6th beer when one of Scotsman’s friends yelled over to them, “Hey, D. and D.! Why don’t you come over here and join us!” The two mares looked at each other and shrugged, and joined the group of shot taking stallions.

Dash made sure to not get mixed up in the shot taking, because she knew that she would go overboard and she didn’t feel like driving home drunk. Ditsy however jumped in full bore and by the time most of the drinking started to die down, she had probably taken 3 years off her life from how much she had drank.

All 9 members of the group were having a good time when a group of four stallions walked up to them, “Hey grey coat!” the lead one yelled. They all turned, and since Ditsy was the only one in the group who was grey, she answered, “Yes?” in a very drunken voice.

“This bar is open to only air ponies right now. So beat it.”

Ditsy and the group looked at each other, “I am/she is an air-mare.” They all said at the same time.

One of the other stallions spoke up. “That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard. How could you possibly pass through the military’s exams? I bet you can’t even see straight.”

Ditsy, within seconds of the sentence being spoken, was up in the faces of all four in the group. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Today I almost died, two of my crew-mates almost bled to death and are only alive thanks to me. Hell our plane almost got BLOWN FROM THE SKY! I took three bullets protecting my friends and you have the audacity to say I shouldn’t be here. I think the best thing for you to do is leave now before I kick your asses.” She said, surprisingly sober.*(29)

By now, most of the ponies in the bar had gotten behind Ditsy, literally, preparing for a fight. Since most of them were stationed at Tallahassee, they knew Ditsy and they weren’t going to let someone talk down to one of their fellow cannon-fodder.

The group of four was joined by 6 others, most likely their fellow crew mates, and were also prepared to fight. The leader of group got right up into Ditsy’s face, “Make us.” Ditsy happily obliged and punched the stallion, sending him flying into the wall.

Ditsy jumped on top of him and pinned him to the floor, then removed the bandages around her shoulder, exposing the three closed up bullet holes. “This is what happened to me. This is what i put myself through to save my friends, and I barely felt it. That’s how tough I am, how tough are you!”

She had barely finished the sentence when one of the stallion’s crew mates barreled into Ditsy, slamming her into two tables before she hit the wall, unconscious.

The group of Ditsy’s supporters pulled the stallion off of her, “Why the hell did you do that!” One of them yelled.

The group leader just smiled, “Bitch had it coming.”

The bar erupted into a raging battle between the ten stupid stallions and the 80 other who were in the bar while Dash and the rest of the crew slipped out the front with Ditsy in tow. After putting her back in the base hospital, the crew mates went their separate ways as they went to their shacks.

Dash was on her way back “home” after putting the jeep back with the others, when she saw Rusty heading her way on his motorcycle. “Hey Rusty!” she yelled, flagging him down.

“What do you want Dash?” he said, stopping next to her.

“What’s going to happen to Speedy?”

Rusty looked at her, “You mean you’re bomber? That’s gonna get jacked up and taken back to my shop and repaired. It’s gonna be a week of no sleep for me, again.” He said with an aggravated sigh.

Dash was surprised to hear that ‘Speed of Lead’ was going to be repaired. Usually planes that had crash landed were scrapped and used for extra parts. “Why is Speedy getting repaired? I thought crash landed planes are scrapped for parts.”

“Usually they are. But the assembly lines back in Equestria are being overloaded with orders for new bombers that they’re running out of material. So the higher ups told us if it has two winds, four engines, and a tail, it gets patched up, or in your case, completely rebuild” he said with another sigh.

Dash just stood there for a second, “Well I’ll be damned. Thanks Rusty, I’ll see around.”

Rusty started up his bike, “Later you blind bat.” And he rode away.

“I remember waking up in the hospital and having to be told the whole story, I was laughing my ass off all day.” Ditsy said as she remembered the morning after. The time the two had spent remembering what was still the craziest day of their career had been a great way to forget about what was happening around them.

It was about then that Dash realized that the other 9 ponies stuffed into that bomber with her were some of the best friends she had, only being topped by her friends back in Ponyville. She was about to say something to Ditsy when the sky started to full with black clouds. The flak came in all around them, like they were greeters saying, “Welcome to Hell.”

Author's Note

*(1) Pinkie had started throwing small, Dashie is still alive, parties for herself everyday to make sure she didn't forget her friend. Rarity, just went full dress design overload mode. Fluttershy had actually taken a job as a nurse for the medic, though at some points she really wished she hadn't.

*(2) B-17's had three .30 Caliber machine guns in the nose of the bomber so the bombardier and navigator could help with fighter control if need be. one of these would later be replaced by a two .50 cal chin turret along with the two .30 cals.

*(3) I will expand on this later, along with Derpy's ring. All will be explained in time.

*(4) High speed flying metal and soft skin tend to not mix well I've learned.

*(5) Initial point. This is where the bomb run will start. This is inside what I will refer to as the Hot Zone which is basically the area where enemy fighters can reach the bomber.

*(6) 20mm cannons tend to leave pretty big holes in bombers.

*(7) These boxes tended to weight about 20lbs each.

*(8) Waist guns are two gun positions toward the rear of a bomber, before the tail gun, that stick out on either side and help defend each side of the bomber.

*(9) A confirmed kill means that you can say without a doubt that you destroyed the other aircraft. This is normally hard to do in a bomber formation where you often have multiple planes and even more gunners shooting at the same target.

*(10) As some of you may remember from the original version of this chapter, Cannon's leg survived. But after seeing the season five finale and Dash with a metal wing, this just seemed cooler, and a bit more realistic. Because really, who gets hit in the leg with a 20mm shell and doesn't loose it?

*(11) Hope and shadows reference, I couldn't help myself.

*(12) Unfortunately for Twilight, it wouldn't be the last time she would have to send a close friend off to fight. It was something she would never let herself forget.

*(13) By military rule, more than the pilot and co-pilot must know how to fly their bomber. Dash was trained, which followed the trend of the replacement pilot being either the bombardier of the navigator.

*(14) Which shocked everyone because a B-17 shouldn't have been able to fly for more than 3 minutes on one engine with diving to keep speed, let alone flying for an hour and only dropping 1,000 ft. By most expectations it should have been impossible, but Night Wing seemed to be the exception.

*(15) A milk run is what crew called a mission that was expected to be easy to the point that there would be little to no fighters or flak.

*(16) The name was a joke toward the fact trains would be given a red flag when they came to the part of the line that was destroyed.

*(17) #1 engine, outer engine on left wing

2 engine, inner engine on left wing

3 engine, inner engine on right wing

4 engine, outer engine on right wing

*(18) The leading edge is the front edge of the wing where the engines and propellers are mounted.

*(19) Scotsman has the gauges for the engines on a panel right next to him, since he was the flight engineer. You can only fit so much on the on the panel in front of the pilots.

*(20) F.O.A.F.=Forward Operating Air Field.

*(21) The air force is broken into branches, the bomb group is made up of multiple bomb squadrons.

*(22) Five hours from a bomb point is considered close.

*(23) The 849th and 850th had already been formed when they came around to adding the second squadron to Tallahassee.

*(24) This was because the hydraulics controlling the flaps on the left wing were destroyed and made it so the left flaps couldn't extend. When the ones on the right extended, it pulled more on the right then the left, equalizing out the already hard pull on the left.

*(25) The left gear is stored in the #2 engine on a B-17, with most of the #2 engine gone, it is not a bad guess to assume that the left landing wheel was gone.

*(26) They start out professional, but when experienced pilots are noticed by experienced ponies in the tower, professionalism goes out the bomb bay.

*(27) Ditsy O.P. :derpytongue2:

*(28) They made so many runs, that they circled through who was the designated driver every week so drunk arguments wouldn't break out.

*(29) Again, Ditsy O.P.

Whats up guys. I know this took me a while but I ended up changing a lot and adding 2,000 words. This has been a few months coming, so I hope you guys like it. See how many changes you can spot, and as always, drop a comment on any grammer mistakes and other mess-ups you see so I can get them fixed. So until the next chapter, keep your eyes on the sky and head in the clouds, Bucking Bronco 1968 signing out.

Chapter 4: Sisters In War

Dash was trying her hardest not to cry, only because she was in front of the majority of her crew, but she wasn’t doing too well.

“I was starting to think I’d never see you again Dash.” Scootaloo replied as she hugged her sister tighter. The barely detectable shake in her voice being the only give away she was on the brink of tears as well.

“Same here Squirt.” Dash quietly stated.

The two pulled away from each other finally, and looked over the other’s bandaged body. “You look like hell.” They said in near perfect sink, before laughing and collapsing back into the hug.

They embraced in silence for a few more moments, until, “What the bloody ‘ell is this?”

”Fucking Scottish prick.” Dash mumbled under her breath before turning to the members of her crew, her hoof hanging around Scootaloo’s neck. “Guys, this is my sister Scootaloo. She’s a pilot for the 49th.”

Her crew stared in shock, well all except for Ditzy, she was just smiling at the back of the group. “Wait wait wait wait, hold on a second. You have a sister, and she’s a pilot for the 49th. Since the hell when?”Ace yelled from the middle of the group.

Scootaloo cracked a smile, “Formation Commander and holder of the 2nd highest confirmed kill count in the air force, 49th fighter squadron pilot actually. And I’ve been with the squadron since the beginning of the war.”

Rainbow didn’t try to hide her smile, “That’s my sis, setting records and kicking Arabian ass!”

“But, you’re plane only had seven flags on it. How’s that work?” Ditzy asked.

Scootaloo caught sight of the fellow Ponyville native, “Oh hey Ditzy, didn’t see you back there. And that is actually easier to explain that you might believe. That’s my fourth aircraft, and I only mark down the victories I get on each plane respectfully.”

The whole crew’s, especially Dash’s, eyes grew at that. “You’ve been shot down three times?”Lucky asked.

Scootaloo burst out laughing, “Oh dear Faust no! I’d lose my spot as Formation Commander if that was the case. No, I’ve only technically been shot down once, wasn’t too much of a loss. I only had three kills with that P-51, seven from the scrap metal sitting outside, thirteen with my P-47 that’s back at the squadron base, and then twenty-nine with my P-38 baby that’s also at base.”

Everyone around Scootaloo started to do mental math, adding up the victory count. “.....carry the one, wait, that means you have fifty two victories! God damn girl!” Cannon said, being the quickest to put everything together.

“Yeah not half bad. Though a good few of those are tanks, mostly with bombs and rockets from my P-47. Actually, only six of the kills with my P-47 come from me downing other aircraft. Three of my kills in my P-38 are from tanks too, now there are a few stories there.” Scootaloo said as she joined the group proper.

“Well, don’t leave us hangin’ lass!” Lead Leg said when Scootaloo didn’t elaborate after throwing that bait out.

Scootaloo just shot him a look, “Keep it in your sheath Scotty. First, why don’t you introduce me to your crew Dash.”

Dash laughed at the look of pure rage that came across Lead’s face, before she gathered herself back up. “Well you already know Scotsman and Ditsy, the one with the busted nose in the back is Lucky, the one with the destroyed head is Ace, Turtle is the one was the broken leg, and then there’s Cannon, who has the shoulder bite. Oh, and the one in the back with the singed jacket is Sparky”

The four gunners and radio operator rattled off different versions of hello before Dash turned back to Scootaloo, “Course we’re still missing two of our own. Sorin and D.D. are still back in the hospital healing up from our landing.”

Scootaloo looked almost shocked, “You have D.D. on your crew, damn Dash that’s gotta be fun.”

“It's interesting to say the least. Sorin keeps her in line as best he can, but there really is no controlling that mare.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes and laughed, “Don't I know it. I swear she is related to Pinkie someway somehow.”

“This is well good and all, but can-a-we get back to these stories.” Lead Leg asked, seeming to grow rather impatient.

“Huh, what?” Scootaloo asked, faking ignorance, “Oh right P-38 tank kill stories almost completely forgot.”

She then motioned for the others to gather around, which they happily did. “So the second kill I got wasn’t anything too special, base just strapped a couple bombs to the bottom of my plane and I got a good hit. The other two however, now those are interesting. So the first one happened about four months into the war. I was flying as left wingpony in a formation of four doing a scouting run. Another squadron had come in the day before with P-47’s and had done a ground strike, and we were inspecting their success, and loaded up to take care of any stragglers still in the area. We were cruising along at about 175 mph at about 250 feet off the ground, talking back and forth, when the pony flying tail-end charlie*(1) reported spotting a tank on the ground, tracking us. So I winged over slightly to get a better look at the ground and sure enough there was some sort of panzer on the ground tracking us with his turret. I saw this as kind of of, however those thoughts were quickly forgotten when he actually fired at us. And not just his machine gun either, his full on main gun.”

This statement shocked the entire group.

“So wait, a panzer, not some random AA truck, started taking shots at you with its main cannon? I’m just checking to make sure I heard that right.” Mason asked, not believing the words that had just left his mouth.

“Nope, you heard me right. Trust me, it took us long enough to come to grips with the fact it actually happened too, and we lived it. Anyways where was I? Oh yeah, so the tank fired his main gun at us, and the round hit our right wing pony, destroyed his right rudder. I didn’t know what to think, so I just acted. I winged over and dived from the group toward the offending tank. I still think it was an inexperience tank crew, because they left the grates over their engine compartment completely exposed.”

“They were experienced enough to hit a low flying P-38.”Ace interrupted.

Scootaloo nodded, “True, but I guess we’ll never know. Anyways, seeing those engine grates exposed, I took aim at them. I didn’t really have much time to maneuver or think with only 250 feet of altitude, but I was able to line up on them long enough for a quick burst. That few seconds though were all I needed apparently. The second I let off the trigger so I could pull up and go around, the tank went up in flames. My best guess is that one of my incendiary 20 mils got through the grates and hit their fuel tank. I flew right over the explosion, and took a little damage, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. We flew on for another half hour or so, talking about what happened, before the damage me and Rain Check received forced us to return to base. No one there believed us until they pulled the footage from my gun sight camera.”

The crew mumbled to themselves at this, “I wonder why?” Sparky said jokingly, before they all turned back to Scoots.

“What about the other one?” Ditzy asked.

“Well that one is one that I still don’t believe. So we had our P-38’s fitted with, at the time, experimental drop tanks to try and extend their range for bomber missions, and we decided to test them on a frontal assault mission. Turns out one of the mechanics didn’t attack my left drop pod correctly, so I couldn’t pull fuel from it. So when we encountered a few flights of Arabian fighters and I dropped the tank, it was still completely full. Now I thought nothing of it until three days later, when I got a letter from 27th infantry regiment. Turns out, my drop tank hit a tank on the ground that was pinning down some of the regiment’s soldiers and blew it up. Don’t ask me how, I still haven’t figured that out yet.”

The group of bomber ponies stared at the 49th pilot, in complete silence, that was until Lead Leg broke it. “Now what a Celestia damned second, that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Drop tank blowing up something on the ground, my ass!”

Scootaloo smiled, she been waiting for that, and hoping it had been Lead Leg that called BS.

She reached into her mane and pulled out a folded picture and shoved it in Lead Leg’s face. The rest of the crew gathered behind Lead Leg and stared at the picture.

In it were three soldiers climbing on the burnt wreckage of a tank. One soldier wasn’t paying attention to the picture being taken, and was smoking a cigarette and facing away. Another pony was on top of the tank pointing at a mangled metal piece sticking out of it’s top. The third was holding a piece of metal up so the camera pony could see the charred white paint which read, “loo, 49th”.

“Still wanna call bullshit Scotty?” Scootaloo said before folding the picture back up. The whole group laughed as Lead Leg spluttered, trying to come up with a retort.

“So Squirt, now that you’ve totally called out the Scotsman, wanna go for a walk and catch up?” Dash asked, walking up and throwing a leg around Scootaloo.

Scoots “thought” about it for a second, “Well, I’d rather go for a fly, but I guess I can settle for a walk.

Dash smiled and the two started to walk toward the exit of the hanger, when she yelled over her shoulder to her crew, “Any of you follow us, and I’ll put you back in the hospital!”

Lucky, Cannon, and Lead Leg, who had been planning to sneak off and eavesdrop on the pair, now found themselves hiding behind a laughing Ace, Sparky, and Ditzy.

Dash shot the group a smirk, before she and her sister walked out of the hanger, Dash’s leg still over Scootaloo’s shoulder. It was only after turning a corner and disappearing behind another B-24, did Dash speak up, “So since when do you guys fly P-51’s and P-47’s? I thought the 49th only flew p-38’s.”

Scootaloo chuckled a little, “Yeah, started off that way, then they started to add to our rosters as newer aircraft came out. We even do combat testing for new aircraft, command feels that if the best squadron in the Air Force can’t fight with them, then they aren’t worth the material, time, or money. In fact, that’s how this happened.”

Scootaloo then held up up her right wing and unwrapped the end of it, showing off how the feathers of the last three inches before the wingtip were melted together. “Command was trying out different ways to extend the range of the P-51 so they could stick with the bombers on long range missions. One of the ones they were trying out was extending the plane’s internal wing tanks. I was flying one of these, and it was performing ok, a little heavier than a normal P-51, so it took some getting used to. But, like I said earlier, I was able to get three kills with it. But while I was trying to turn out of a scramble, my ammo basically gone, a 190 jumped on my 6 and set me right wing on fire. The fire crept into the cockpit and burned me up pretty good, but it all went out thankfully. I flew as long as I could, getting as close to my home base, before my engine gave out from fuel and coolant loss. Bailed out fine, still had a two hour walk back to base proper, but it was all good.”

It was at that point Scootaloo looked up and realized that they were walking past her thoroughly destroyed P-51, and she couldn’t help but stop and stare as memories flooded back to her. Dash stopped when she felt her sister stop, and turned to see what was up, finding her sister staring at her wrecked fighter. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you Dash. For the last two months command has had us running non-stop bomber over watch. Even with us giving our all, bomber still were getting shot down. All I could think about when I saw them going down was you. You never told me what squadron you got assigned to, so every time I saw a bomber go down I would think it was one that you were on. They go down so quick and there always seems to be so much fire and, and.” Scootaloo didn't get out another word before she began to tear up.

Dash turned to her sister and watched as what must have been two years worth of blocked emotion finally start to show its head. Dash completely understood where she was coming from, and knew exactly how it felt.

“Is that what you were doing when this happened?” Dash asked ask she pulled herself closer to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo shook her head. “No, we were on a scouting mission, trying to see where the Arabians were hiding their aircraft. There were seven of us, I was leading the formation. I was laughing at something one of my wing ponies said when we got jumped by some 190’s.”

Scootaloo began to tear up again, “We knocked them down, but we got hit bad, an-and I only remember three of the others getting out of there with me. Now three ponies are dead and it’s all because I wasn’t paying attention like I should have.” Scootaloo said devolving into tears again.

Dash removed her hoof from around her sister before turning and wrapping her in her wings. The two stayed like that for a while as Scootaloo got herself back under control.

As she sat there, Rainbow came up with something, “Hey Squirt, follow me, I want to show you something.” Scootaloo looked up at her sister in confusion, before Dash stood up and began to walk in the direction of runway 4.

Scootaloo, confused further, wiped her eyes with her bandaged wings before standing up and trotting after her sister. The two trotted along in silence for a while as they slowly made their way through the air field.

It wasn’t long before they came to runway four and Dash turned, walking down the left side toward one of its ends.

“Um Dash, is this really a good idea? Isn’t this runway active?”

“Yeah it is, but it’s one of our least used runways, we’ll be fine.” Again, the two walked along in silence towards the end of runway 4, and the trees beyond.

It took them a little bit, but soon enough, they arrived at the end of runway 4, the grooves left from the landing of Speed of Lead still remaining. The ponies at base had decided to leave the landing grooves at the end of the runway intact, one of the two reminders of the landing that had taken place.

As she walked along behind her sister, Scootaloo inspected the grooved ground. Before she could ask what they were, she heard Dash mutter.

“And there she is.”

Dash couldn’t help but let a little sadness slip into her voice as she took in the sight of her ruined bomber. She turned around to look at Scootaloo, “C’mon Scoots, just gotta take a trip inside.” Dash once again said, emotions still hidden in her voice.

”One last time.” She said to herself in sadness as the two approached the wrecked B-17

Scootaloo, unaware of her sister’s emotions, was shocked by the state of the plane. Only growing more so as she pulled herself into the rear door of the bomber. Splattered around the left waist gun were small drops of blood, and every inch of the bomber was riddled with bullet and flak holes, and oh yeah, the nose was missing.

Scootaloo was so side tracked looking around the destroyed body of the bomber, that she nearly walked into the tree speared through said bomber, which just shocked her even more.

She then turned to Dash, who was standing in the small space next to the tree, “Dash, what is this? And what are you trying to show me?”

Dash turned to her and smiled slightly, “This, is Speed of Lead, she was my one and only bomber for the last two year.*(2) And we’re here for something I left behind.” Dash finished by motioning Scootaloo into the radio room.

The two walked into what was left of the radio room.

Surprisingly, Sparky’s radio still sat at his desk, ready and waiting for another mission.

One that would never come.

That, however, was not what Rainbow Dash was interested in. Instead, what she was interested in was one of the two drawers built into the desk the radio sat on. “Rusty put these in here while he was doing work on the nose before or last mission. I’m glad I forgot to move them back.”

Scootaloo, curious about what her sister was talking about, walked up next to her. Dash picked up a number of dog tags out of the drawer, before laying them out.

Scootaloo quickly counted them out, and found that a total of 19 dog tags were laid out in front of her.

“These tags all mean something to me.” Dash said, sounding almost distant. “Each one of these tags belonged to a pony that I was more than happy to call my friend. They were all good ponies that meant a great deal to me.”

It was then that Dash turned to look Scootaloo in the eyes, “Every single pony that belongs to one of these tags, all close friends of mine, are dead.”

Some part of Scootaloo knew that was coming, but it was still a shock to hear.

“Now these aren’t the only friends that I’ve made here at base over the past year and a half. I still have some that are hanging in there, and even more that have passed on, but I couldn’t get their tags for one reason or another. Usually because their bombers were shot down on a mission, and their secondary pair got sent to their family like it should.”

Scootaloo looked up at her sister, to see her eyes starting to water up, she then watched as her sister pointed to two tags in the middle of the group.

“These tags belonged to two ponies on the same B-24, Raindrops was a waist gunner, while Misty was the navigator. On their fifth mission, a series of fighters strafed their bomber. Killed Misty outright, along with the bombardier and co-pilot, while Raindrops got hit pretty hard. She died on the flight back to base in her sister’s arms, who just so happened to be the bomber’s other waist gunner. Both Raindrops and Misty had just turned 19 not too long before the mission.”

Dash then pointed to the third tag, “This was our base’s first General, back when it had just been made operational and only ten bomber crews called it home, including myself. He went up in place of the pilot of our lead bomber, and was killed by a flak shot directly to the cockpit.”

Dash then point to the first tag of the whole group, “This is the pilot he went in place of.”

Scootaloo looked back up at her sister, and saw that reliving all of the stories of these lost friends was hurting her sister. “Dash, I get it. I’ve been in the same boat. I’ve seen my fair share of friends get downed.”

“Hurts every time don’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah it does.” Scootaloo said as she cast a downcast look back down at the table of tags. “Making new friends is just getting so hard now, ‘cause it seems like every time I get close to somepony now, the arries come around and blow them out of the damn sky!” Scootaloo finished the sentence with a choked breath as fresh tears threatened to be pulled from her eyes.

Dash wrapped a wing around her sister as they sat there on the wrecked bomber’s floor, letting the grief, despair, and hopelessness the war had forced into them finally come free.

After a minute or so, Rainbow turned Scootaloo towards her, “The lives we live right now aren’t exactly the ones we were hoping for Squirt, but they’re what we got. Half the time we get out of bed, we’re not certain if we’ll be back in them that night. And that’s a lot of weight to hold on one pony’s mind, trust me, I learned the hard way after one of our missions. The point is that you need other ponies that you can rely on to make it through this thing, more than just the ones who tell you when someone’s on your six.”

Scootaloo sat there as she processed what Dash had said. A few moments went by before she spoke up in a voice barely above a whisper.

“How do you do it?”

Dash raised an eyebrow, “What was that?”

“How do you do it?” Scootaloo said a little louder. “How do you just keep going like this? You have no control over your own life up there! You just have to hope and pray as you watch your friends all around you do the same, wondering who’s not making it home this time. Just, just how do you keep living a normal life in all of that?”

Dash smirked, but it was not a cocky smirk. No, it was the smirk of a pony caught in the middle of a lie, "I don't think normal is what my life is considered at this point. But compared to the rest of the ponies here, I live a normal life by trying to forget the fact that I'm actually in this damn war."

Her smirk than faltered, “But, it’s all just an act. Half of what I do based off of a promise I made to a pony once upon a time.”

Scootaloo watched as Dash reached up her hoof to the table and picked up one of the tags in the middle. Scootaloo looked at the tag closer, up until she caught sight of the name on the tag, Night Wing.

That got Scootaloo’s attention real quick, “No, no not Night Wing too.”

Dash caught what she had said and turned to Scootaloo, “You knew Shadow?”

“Night Wing was the pony I had bunking with me before you turned up. I’m pretty sure he’s the only reason why I didn’t wash out of flight training, he was always there to calm me down when I started to overly worry about something I had messed up.”

Dash chuckled to herself, that definitely sounded like Shadow, “Yeah that sounds like Shadow alright. He was well known around base for helping ponies keep a level head. A lot of the new ponies that came to base looked up to him, his crew was kinda the hope for all the new ones.”

Scootaloo looked back at her, confused, “What do you mean?”

“Shadow and his crew earn a nickname in the early days of the war, Night Wing. Yes it was partly a joke on Shadow’s real name, but more importantly it was because the first seven missions they flew, they came back without a scratch. No hits to the crew, no bullet holes or flak hits to the bomber, not even a scratch to the paint. New ponies who got brought into the squadron looked at his crew and hoped their luck worked out like it did for Shadow.”

Then the smirk she had been wearing earlier returned, “Or, they hoped that they would end up like me and my crew.”

Again, Scootaloo was confused, but before she could say anything, Dash started to explain.

“Shadow's luck was what other crews hoped to have, coming home without a scratch on them. But that was hardly ever the reality. Most of the time, the bombers that did make it back were in pretty rough shape, more often that not with injured crew. So ponies started to turn their eyes toward my crew. We often came back, in the worst condition imaginable. Yet we came home every time, we all survived, and went our bomber was repaired, we went up and did it all over again. Us and Shadow became role models on base, so Shadow came up to me saying we should play into it. That's the act I'm talking about.”

“Really, how’d that conversation go?”

Dash smiled, “It was interesting to say the least. He brought it up to me after my 11th mission.

Dash walked along the road back to her bunk, the only noise from the surrounding area coming from the distant sounds of the mechanic’s shops, and the clomping of her boots. With her faux-leather bomber jacket laid across her back, Dash turned onto the final road toward her bunk, lost in her thoughts.

It wasn’t until she looked up and saw a jeep sitting outside her bunk with a pony inside, that she was pulled back to reality.

“Shit!” She yelled to herself before she took off running. It wasn’t until she grew close that she noticed that the pony sitting with the jeep was grey, with a two tone black and blue mane.

Dash sighted, before creeping up behind the pony and smacking him in the back of the head.

“Damn it Shadow, you nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you were the general or something.”

Shadow sheepishly smiled from where he sat in the jeep, “Sorry ‘bout that Dash, I was just stopping by to see how Ditzy was doing. Where is she?”

“Back in a bed at the base’s hospital. That asshole messed her up pretty good. But the docs said that she’s alright and a few days of taking it easy will be all she needs.”

Shadow whistled, “Damn that sucks for her. But she’s a tough mare, I’m sure she’ll be out quick. Can’t say the same four those ponies who tried to beat on her.”

Rainbow shook her head, of coarse Shadow had been involved in the bar fight. For the good guy routine that he put up, he could be downright ruthless if you messed with those he held close. “You and the others didn’t rough them up too bad right?”

Shadow smiled, “No we went easy on them, they won’t be heading back to their home base with more than four broken.”

“All together?”

“Each.” Shadow said with a massive grin on his face.

Rainbow shook his head, “What are the general gonna do with you?”

“Nothing. Like he would jeopardize his best lead formation pilot over something stupid.”

Rainbow laughed, and soon after Shadow broke down as well. After a few moments, the two calmed down, “So I was gonna head over to the officer’s club and grab a drink, you wanna join?”

“You just got back from a bar in town, and you still wanna get a drink at the officer’s club?” Rainbow asked.

Shadow rubbed the back of his neck, “The others talked me into being the driver this time, so I didn’t drink much back in town.”

Dash rolled her eyes, “Sure you didn’t. But after a day like today, I could use a proper drink. So, why the hell not.”

Shadow smiled, and after they returned his jeep, the two made their way over to the officer’s club.

That night, the two bomber ponies got absolutely drunk. The two laughed and joked and talked for the entire night, letting the horrors brought on by the war get drowned away by the numbing effects of alcohol.

The next morning, Dash woke up to find Shadow asleep in Ditzy’s bed, and her head hurting like hell. After Shadow woke up, they both stumbled their way into the mess hall, planning to drown out their hangovers with burnt coffee and bad eggs.

After the hangovers the two both had, had dulled slightly, Shadow spoke up, “So I’ve been noticing something lately.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“It seems that your crew and mine have developed a bit of a reputation. A benchmark that some of the newer crews are trying to live up to.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re known as the crew that can get turned into Swiss cheese, and still come home. While my crew is the one known for coming home looking like we never took off. Ponies wanna be like up, either coming home without a scratch, or being able to survive anything and everything.”

“Sounds more like a fool's dream instead of a benchmark.”

“That it may be, but I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe we should play the part.”

Rainbow sighed, “Shadow, it’s nine in the morning and I’m running with a hangover, you’re gonna have to lay this out word for word for me.”

“We encourage the new crews. Instead of telling them the hard reality off the bat, give them a little something to hope for. At least for a little bit.”

“So lie and tell them that everything is sunshine and rainbows, except when it’s hailstorms and hurricanes, great idea Shadow.”

“Well think of it this way, what would you rather have if you were in the new crew’s positions? Come into a base fully of hardened crews that are all telling you you’ll probably be dead in two months, or come to that same base and have a couple crews tell you, it can be shit, but it’s not always bad, even when it is?”

Dash thought it over for a second as she shoveled the last of her eggs into her mouth. After a few moments, she nodded, “Alright, I see what you’re getting at Shadow, I’m in. The real challenge is getting the rest of my crew to agree.”

Shadow laughed, “True, but not everyone in your crew are all that bad. The ones who are, well, wave enough alcohol in front of their noses and they’ll agree to anything.” The two broke down laughing before toasting their coffee mugs to their plan.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but laugh when Rainbow finished her story, “Sounds like you two got along well.”

Dash sighed and smiled, “Like I said, Shadow was certainly something.”

Hearing Shadow being referred to in the past tense made Scootaloo remember that he was gone. “So, what happened to him?” She asked with a sigh.

“I don’t really know the specifics. He went up on a mission where we stayed behind due to battle damage repairs to our bomber. They went up in high spirits, it was their 25th mission, and is was supposed to be a milk run. At the end of the day, only four out of the 33 bombers that went up with him made it back to base. 13 others were later found close to base, but none of them ended up being Shadow’s.”

“So, you never found out what happened to him?”

“Nope.” Dash said with a shake of her head. But it was then, she thought of something, “But I do know somepony who might know. He’s the only pony left on base who went up with Shadow and came back. The others are either dead now, or chilling with the Lucky Bastards. Come on, we can go pay him a little visit.”

With that, Dash scooped up all of the dog tags and placed them into the pocket of her bomber jacket. The two turned and walked out the back of the bomber, before Dash put them on a course towards the base’s hospital.

It was getting late in the day when Dash and Scootaloo arrived at the base’s massive hospital. Scootaloo was amazed by its size and scale, “They really went all in when they did this place up.”

Dash chuckled, “We use it enough to justify.”

The two walked in and a pony at a desk looked up and slightly gasped at the sight of Dash, “Rainbow Dash, I thought after all the time you spent in here, I thought you’d never wanna set hoof in here again.”

“Yeah this isn’t exactly the first place that I wanna be around right now. But, me and my sis here wanna have a chat with Thunder.”

The pony behind the desk nodded and flipped through a few papers, “Ah here we are. They moved him up to the second floor a few days ago. Here’s his new room number.”

Dash smiled and took the paper from the unicorn nurse, “Thanks Long Shot, have a nice day.”

“You too Dash.” The other pony called as Dash and Scootaloo walked into the hospital proper.

As they walked toward the stairs, Dash spoke up, “It’s good to see Thunder got moved up to the second floor finally.”

“Why’s that?” Scoots asked as they began to climb the stairs.

“This place having two floors comes in handy in ways like this sometimes. When ponies come back from a mission and say, they have a two foot long piece of bomber sheet metal lodged in their lower body, which isn’t the craziest thing that’s ever happened in this hospital, they get rushed to the closest open room on the first floor to be operated on. If they pull through that, then they stay on the first floor till they are deemed to be in stable condition, they are moved up to the second floor where they are monitored till they are released. This is mostly done so that the ponies in the most unstable conditions are the easiest to reach in case of an emergency.” By now, the two sisters were on the second floor and just two doors away from Thunder’s room.

“Makes as much sense as anything else the military does.”

Dash laughed as she walked up and banged on the door, “Hey Thunder, you awake in there?”

”I am now I guess.” Came a muffled reply.

Dash nodded to Scootaloo before she pushed open the room’s door. She looked over to the bed that was holding the room’s only true occupant.

Dash remembered what the colt had looked like before that fateful day. He had been a decently handsome colt, his two tone yellow and grey on dark gray mane and body weren’t exactly to her tastes, but that didn’t change the fact. Even now, despite the massive scar that took up the right side of his muzzle caused by a ricocheting bullet and shrapnel, he didn’t look half bad.

“Hey Thunder, it’s been a while. You look a lot better when you’re not covered in blood and open wounds.”

Thunder laughed, “Yeah I imagine I do. Though last time you saw me I wasn't covered in blood.”

“No, you weren't. But you were covered in like six layers of bandages, so I'm counting it. Nice battle scar to the face by the way.”

Again, Thunder laughed, knowing full well what Dash was talking about, “Thanks. I've got plenty of the things now.”

It was then Thunder looked past Rainbow to see Scootaloo, who was still standing in the doorway. “Well hello, and who are you.”

“That's my sister Scootaloo.” Dash said before motioning for her sister to enter the room.

“Sister huh? I thought you were an only child Dash.” Thunder said as Scootaloo walked up next to her sister.

“It's a bit of a long story, I'll explain it later. We came here to ask you something.”

Thunder faked shock, “Are you saying the all mighty Rainbow Dash needs something from moi.” Thunder finished with lifting his IV impaled leg, wincing just slightly when he brought it to his chest and came into contact with one of his healing ribs.

Dash rolled her eyes, “Oh ha ha Thunder. But seriously, we have an important question for you.”

Thunder chuckled, “Yeah I'm just joking. What do ya need?”

“We were wondering if you saw what happened to Night Wing?” Scootaloo said, jumping into the conversation.

The happy go lucky smile that had been on Thunder’s face quickly fell, “Oh, right, Shadow.”

“Now Thunder, we don’t wanna drag up the memories from that da.”

Thunder held up a hoof to halt Dash. “No, it's alright Rainbow, I understand. Yes, I do know what happened to Shadow. I was off his left wing for the entire mission.”

Dash and Scoots took a seat on the floor as Thunder laid back in his bed, letting the memories from that day come flowing back to him.

“It was a beautiful day out, barely a cloud in the sky. Good for us because I think if there had been clouds that day, none of us would have come back. We had just gotten to the Hot Zone, but the flak was relatively light. It looked to be shaping up to be the milk run command had told us it would be.”

His face then crunched up in anger, “That was until, they, showed up.”

Thunder sat in front of his bomb sight, watching out at the formation of bombers in front of him.

Though his bomber, “Marauders from Manehattan”, was second in the formation from Tallahassee, just left and low of Night Wing, with Shadow leading the charge, two of the other three squadrons had formed up quicker than they had, leaving them around the middle of the pack.

The 62 bombers flew along through the very rare pops of flak, without a care in the world. It appeared as if only three or four guns were firing at them, which compared to what they were used to, was like they weren't firing anything at all. “Ten minutes to the DZ!” Star Chart, Marauders’ navigator, yelled over to Thunder.

Thunder nodded, before radioing up to his pilot, “Steel Hoof, ten minutes to showtime.”

”Alright, bombardier the bird is yours.”

Thunder flipped a few switches, taking over control of the bomber’s systems, “Roger that, plane is mine.” Thunder then began to sight himself in.

About two minutes later though, ”We got company. 20 enemy twin engines coming in, two o’clock high.” One of the formation’s gunners called out.

Soon enough the whole group had the incoming enemies spotted and, and lead began to fly. The enemy fighters broke into ten groups of two, and descended on the bombers. Since it had been estimated that the bombers would encounter little to no enemy fighter resistance, that had been sent with no fighter cover themselves, leaving it up the the numerable bomber gunners to protect the formation.

”They’re descending, everybody ready!” Another gunner called.

Thunder looked up out of the nose and watched as two groups swung around toward the front of the formation, before diving in for the attack. It was then Thunder would witness the beginning to the most ruthless attack on a bomber formation that anyone had seen up to that point in the war.

He watched as one of the twin groups, picked out a bomber in the formation and attacked. The two attackers opened up on a single bomber, and Thunder watched in horror as the bomber was torn to literal shreds, and fell toward the ground surrounded in fire. It continued like that, the groups of two singling in on one bomber before tearing it the shreds with cannon rounds, slowly inching closer and closer towards him.

And they were still five minutes from the DZ.

They had been able to knock down a few of the attackers, but their numbers still totaled 11. Then, ”Watch out, two of them are going for Night Wing!” called one of the formation’s gunners.

Sure enough, Thunder watched as two of the machines of death descended from the heavens toward Shadow and his bomber from their four o’clock.

The gunners held nothing back as they opened up on the two. Before they could get any shots off, one of the two had it’s left wing blown off by an exploding fuel tank, the other however, hit its mark.

Cannon shells rained down on the targeted B-17, holes being torn into the body and the #2 engine going up in flames.

It was as the attacker flew over, Thunder got a good look at the machine, and went white when he realized what it was. “Holy shit that’s a 217! The put eight cannons on the thing!”

Star Chart saw it fly by, and also paled, “Sweet Celestia, that’s just plain dirty.”

Thunder then looked back over to Shadow’s bomber, whose engine was still engulfed in flames. He looked along its length, taking in the massive holes that had been pounded into it. The waist guns now sat unmanned, and he hoped that wasn’t why he thought it was. Then he looked to the tail, which hadn’t escaped the cannon’s wrath, and saw a sight the nearly brought him to tears.

There was Night Wing’s tail gunner, Lightning, sat slumped over his guns, not moving, the glass in front of his gun sight coated in blood.

“Damn it they got lightning.” Thunder said to himself.

“The rest will join him if they don’t get that fire put out.” Star commented.

It was just about then, as if cued by Star’s comment, the #2 engine’s fire went out. Thunder looked to the cockpit to see that massive holes had been torn into the metal body, and Thunder could see straight in.

Straight into the blood covered floor and instrument panel.

Both Shadow, and his co-pilot Lead Slug, were still moving, but it appeared that they had both been hit by at least shrapnel from the 217’s attack. He could see Shadow motioning to Lead Slug, and it seemed that the crew was getting ready to bail.

He watched as Night Wing’s bomb bay opened, and the load they were carrying was dropped. He then watched as two ponies hobbled their way out of the nose and toward the bomb bay. He then watched as those two, along with five others, jumped out of the bomb bay, bailing out of the wrecked bomber, leaving only Shadow, Lead Slug, and the body of Lightning left on the bomber.

It appeared that Shadow and Slug exchanged a few words before Slug hesitantly got out of his seat, before heading for the bomb bay and bailing out as well, leaving Shadow as the only living pony left on the battle weary bomber.

Thunder wondered what Shadow was doing, not bailing out with the rest of his crew, until he looked over at him again, and it clicked. Shadow was fighting with the bomber’s controls, keeping it straight and level as best he could.

If he let go to attempt to bail out, it would most likely roll over, right into Marauder. He must have been waiting until the other bombers had started their turn for home to bail, to make sure that it wouldn't hit any others when he did.

Thunder cracked a smile, that Shadow had thought of everything. He then looked out straight, and paled. Diving on them from their one o’clock was another team of 217’s, and they were pointed right at him.

His bomber was their next target.

He began to panic as times slowed, watching the bringers of his doom grow closer every second. For some reason he wrestled his eyes away from the incoming attackers to look over and Shadow again.

Shadow was looking up, having taken notice of the attackers himself, before turning his head left and locking eyes with Thunder. They stayed like that for a fraction of a second before Shadow nodded towards him and pulled hard back.

Thunder watched as the bomber pitched toward the sky, right toward the path of the incoming fighters. It was then Thunder realized what Shadow was doing, he was trying to put himself in the way of the attackers to force them to wave off.

He was sacrificing himself to protect Marauder and her crew.

That was until the left wing, badly damaged from the run the attackers had made against Night Wing, and the fire on the #2 engine, couldn't take the G-force caused by the attempted quick climb, and caved.

Thunder watched in horror as the left wing folded, its supports breaking.

This unbalance pulled on the bomber and forced it to start to roll left uncontrollably. Yet, even though Shadow hadn't fully put himself in the attackers’ path, as the right wing swung over it came in contact with the first 217, destroying its wing, and leaving it in the same predicament as Shadow.

This contact broke apart part of Shadow’s right wing, leaving the pull it created lessened. This allowed a Thunder to watch as Night Wing rolled over above his nose being able to look up and straight into the cockpit at Shadow through the roof windows, which were both blown out. Again, him and Shadow locked eyes, and again, Shadow nodded before his bomber rolled over the top of Marauder, and fell toward the ground after just missing the left wing.

Thunder couldn't take his eyes off of the spot where he had seen the last of Night Wing descend past, that was until he was reminded that there had been two fighters when the right side of his face was shredded by shrapnel that came from the nose being blown apart by the cannon rounds of the second 217.

“Star Chart had to reach over me to drop the bomb load because all I could do was sit on the floor and wither and scream in pain. Who would have known that being given a second mouth on the side of your face hurts like all holy hell.”

Thunder’s half-hearted chuckling was the only thing that filled the room, both Dash and Scootaloo too lost in comprehending the story to speak. It was then that Thunder turned his head, and attention, to Rainbow Dash, “That was the single most selfless thing I have seen in my life Dash. Shadow risked his life to make sure his crew could safely bail out, and then gave it in an attempt to give me crew a better chance at getting back to base. I saw it in him that first time we locked eyes, he knew he was gonna die that day, but he would be damned if he was going out without a fight.”

The room was soaked in silence after that again. It stayed like that for a short time until Dash broke it, “He always did say he’d go down swinging.” She said, her tone of voice much like it was when she first saw Scootaloo that day.

She then stood up, “Thanks for clearing everything up Thunder, but I’m sure you’re still tired, so we’ll get out of your mane.” And with that Dash walked out of the room, not even waiting on Scootaloo. Scootaloo and Thunder looked at each other, somewhat shocked, before Scootaloo got up and took off after her sister.

She was just able to catch with Dash as she walked out of the hospital, “Dash, you ok? You kinda spaced out on us when you left back there.” Scootaloo asked as she finally stopped next to Dash.

It took Dash a moment to actually realize that Scootaloo was talking to her, “Huh, uh yeah, yeah I’m fine Squirt. It’s all just a lot to take in, that’s all.”

She then turned toward Scootaloo, “You should probably head back over to Rusty’s hanger. He doesn’t take to kindly to ponies leaving jobs half done.”

Scootaloo couldn’t believe what Dash had said for a few seconds, until she nodded, “Alright, I’ll go get back to it then. But you’re sure you’re ok?”

Dash cracked a very unconvincing smile, “Yeah Scoots I’m good”

“Alright, but if you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

Dash laughed, “What’s this role reversal you’re doing here? But I’ll keep that in mind, thanks Squirt.”

Scootaloo nodded, then hesitated for a second, before finally turning and making her way back over to maintenance.

Dash watched her walk away, keeping a smile on her face until she turned a corner, it was only then did she let her face fall.

She had come to terms with Shadow being dead a long time ago, but having the details of his death laid out to her had opened old wounds. Without even knowing what she was doing, Dash began to walk, her mind clouded with thoughts.

She didn’t know how to feel, one part of her wanted to smile, happy that Shadow had went out doing the one thing he had hoped to. The other, and somewhat more selfish part of her wanted to be angry at him, angry that Shadow had done something like that, basically resigning himself to death.

As she continued to walk in an undetermined direction, she let her head hang, “Why couldn’t you have just made it home. Even if I didn’t still have you on base I’d at least know you were alive.”

Dash was once again trying to hold in tears.

All the emotions from what had been going on that day had crashed down on Dash’s mind hard. It was then her head bumped into something metal. She looked up to see that she was once again standing next to the wrecked hulk that was once her bomber.

“Everything always seems to lead back to you, huh Speedy?” Dash asked with a chuckle. Once again, Dash climbed into Speed of Lead’s wrecked interior.

She slowly walked through the rounded body, making her way up toward the cockpit. After making her way over the slanted walkway over the bomb bay, she entered the cockpit, which sat still covered in dried blood and broken glass. After quickly checking it for shards of glass, Dash sat down in Sorin’s seat, one of the few times she had ever sat in the pilot’s seat of a bomber outside of training.

She took a minute and fished Shadow’s dog tags out of the pocket all the others were in, before staring at them. The only piece of Shadow she had left. And for a while, she just sat there, letting her thoughts wander, thinking over the times she had shared with Shadow.

It was then her mind turned to something, a song that they had heard during many of the drinking nights. Dash stood up, “I wonder.” she thought out loud before she walked out of the cockpit, once again crossing the slanted walkway back into the radio room.

Though Sparky’s radio was made for communicating between base and other bombers, it could be used to listen into any radio channel that could reach it, if you knew what you were doing. Dash took a seat in Sparky’s old chair, the ever present tree next to her all but forgotten. At one time Sparky had showed Dash how to hook into many of the military radio stations that were played around base, from their bomber.

Dash reached up to the radio and flipped a few switches. Sure enough, even after going weeks upon weeks without being charged, the batteries that ran the radio still held charge. It powered up to nothing but static, still tuned to the bomber formation station from their last mission.

She reached up to the tuning dials, and began to tune the radio, searching for the station that she knew would eventually play the tune she was looking for. Sure enough, with a final slight turn of a dial, a voice phased through the static.

”.....ow we know it’s gotta be hell for you out there, and we back here at home can’t possibly understand. But, the one thing we can do is offer our support to you all. And the best way I feel I can do that is by keeping these tunes coming from back home, keeping your minds off of where you are. So with that said let me hit you up with something to do just that.”

With that, the tune started, and to Dash’s surprise it was exactly the one she was looking for. As the song continued, she was doing all she could to hold back tears as Dash’s memories brought her back again. As the song came to the end of the first chorus, Dash couldn’t help but sing along.

“And I’ll stand my ground, and I won’t, back, down.”

She sang as tears once again freely flowed down her cheeks.

Scootaloo and D.D. walked down the side of runway four in the dying light of the evening, D.D. laying some of her weight on Scootaloo as she hobbled along. It had been silent since they had started walking, but Scootaloo was happy to break that, “You sure about this D.D.? We haven’t even checked her bunk house yet, what makes you think she’ll be in your old bomber?”

D.D. laughed, “Trust me, I’ve gotten to know Rainbow Dash pretty well, and if there’s one place that Bat would go it’s her cave.”

“Her what?”

Again, D.D. laughed, “Sorry, forgot you haven’t been on base for very long. Rainbow Dash has gained the nickname Bat, or Blind Bat, and it seems whenever she needs to think, she hides herself away in our bomber. So, what happened to get Dash all broke up like this, this time?”

Scootaloo couldn’t speak for a second, but eventually found her voice, “She was showing me her dog tag collection, then we went and asked Thunder about what happened to Night Wi-I mean Shadow.”

The look on D.D.’s face quickly fell, “Oh no, her wounds about Shadow must have got reopened.”

Scootaloo shook her head, “Ok, that is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, and that’s saying something. Care to explain?”

D.D. sighed, “Dash had been having a hard few weeks. Our nine and tenth missions had hit us hard, and the nose of the bomber had taken some of the worst hits. Worst of the worst was on the ninth mission, while we were heading into the Hot Zone, the flak was thick, and we were getting tore up. But what messed Dash up was when a dud shot went up through the nose just a few inches to her left. If she had turned just slightly to, say, tell Ditzy something, she probably would have had her head torn off. We got back home in somewhat decent shape, and as we were all leaving the bomber, Ditzy noticed that Dash wasn’t moving. She was just sitting at her desk, staring at the hole that had been torn in the floor of the nose. Ditzy asked if she was coming, and Dash told her that she’d catch up. Ditz hesitated at first, but ultimately left her to herself, hoping that she’d figure whatever was on her mind out.”

“And did she.”

D.D. shook her head, “Ditzy went back a few hours later, and found her still in the nose. The only sign of movement was that Dash had relocated herself from her desk chair, to the floor in front of the hole. Ditzy walked up next to her and asked if she was alright, and that’s when the floodgates opened. She sat there and cried into Ditzy’s shoulder for Faust knows how long. That mission really broke Dash for a while, up until Shadow started hanging around her.”

Scootaloo smiled slightly as they reached the end of the runway, “Sounds like the two were close.”

D.D. laughed, “Close, the two were basically a married couple. I bet they would have become one if they had made it out of this damn war in one piece.”

“Really?” Scootaloo asked with wide eyes.

D.D. nodded, “Oh yeah without a doubt. I guess hearing about how he went out and having you around would open up some of those wounds she thought she had bandages on.” That comment made Scootaloo stop in her tracks, nearly making D.D. face plant.

“What does me being her have anything to do with Dash’s emotions. If anything I’d think she’d been happy to see me.”

“Oh I’m sure she’s over the moon about seeing you alive again, honestly.” D.D. said as she steadied herself against Scootaloo’s side again. “However, I’m sure you being here doesn’t help. Dash has developed a bit of a guilt problem around you.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow, but before she could say anything, D.D. continued. “It was something Ditzy told me about Dash bringing up on that night after mission nine. Dash feels like it’s her fault that you got into the war as early as you did. She feels that it’s her fault that you’ve been in danger like you have, being on the front with the 49th and all.”

Scootaloo was about to retaliate, when she began to think about what D.D. had just said. Even though she had been planning to go for the Wonderbolt Academy when she turned 18. But when Rainbow Dash had gotten wind of this plan, she had been more than happy to encourage Scootaloo into the choice. It was because of the fact that she was in the Academy when the war started that she was drafted in so early to begin with. If she hadn’t, despite the fact she was nineteen now and would have been drafted before this, the military had only started drafting in eighteen year old two months earlier.

And even if she had been eighteen at the time and had been drafted on that first day, she’d still have at least another month before she even saw combat.

“She blames herself for me being in since the beginning?”

D.D. once again nodded, “Seeing you so beat up, and learning the details of Shadow’s of Shadow’s death must have been too much for that mask of hers to take, and something must have gave. I'm surprised that it didn't give out sooner to be honest. She's been wearing that mask of hers for so long that its basically become a part of her, a part that pains her to keep up.”

D.D. finished as the two walked up to the wrecked bomber. It was then that they noticed the sound of music mixed with static filling the air around the bomber.

“Huh, she must have gotten Sparky’s radio working.” D.D. said as she and Scootaloo made their way into the bomber’s body. The two made their way around the tree blocking the radio room, to find a saddening sight waiting for them.

There was Dash, on the floor, hooves covering her face as she wept openly. “Oh Dash.” Scootaloo said, unable to take seeing her sister so broken.

She walked up and sat down next to her crying sister, startling her. “S-s-scootaloo.” Dash managed to choke out before Scootaloo wrapped her up with her bound wings. Dash hesitated for a second before she wrapped herself around Scootaloo as she began to weep once again.

D.D. stood and watched this for a moment, before she turned around and exited out of the back of the bomber, feeling that this was something that the two sisters need to work out on their own.

Hours later the two sisters exited the bomber into the pitch black night, feeling that a weight had been lifted off of both of their shoulders.

Author's Note

*(1): The rear most position in the formation. Oftentimes reserved for the least experienced pilot.
*(2): Dash and the others have only been at Tallahassee for around nineteen months, but for three months before that, they had Speed of Lead and were training with her. Just wanted to clear that up, time with bomber, 2 years basically, time at base, year and a half basically.

Hey guys! I did it, I finally pulled of a promised date! But in all seriousness I'm very happy to present to you Chapter 4! This is gonna be a very quick author's note, I just wanna say I hope you enjoy my hard work. I will be making a "blog" post soon that has a full explanation as to why this chapter took so long, and what to look for in the future. So with that said, this is Mason saying, keep an eye on the sky, and your family close. Thanks for sticking with me for so long guys, and I'll see you soon. This is Mason, signing out.