"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.