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.

*(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.