Far Away

CHAPTER XXX

The sky was blocked by many pegasi and griffins, flying towards Manehattan in a spread out group to minimize casualties from anti-air systems. The squadrons blocked the land underneath them of the silvery moonlight, casting fast moving shadows on the ground. Jack trudged onwards, over the peninsula and nearing Manehattan. The tall spires were very prominent, even in extremely flat terrain. They seemed to glow in the moonlight, turning spires silvery and metallic. On the contrary, dark clouds of smoke snaked up into the air following a faraway explosion that caused the ground to rumble. The lower glass windows of the tall spires were shattered, and those that were not reflected red fires, raging in the streets of the now apocalyptic metropolis.

“Tired already?” huffed Jack as he kept his head turned towards Manehattan.

“No,” replied Daring from beside him, “I’m doing just fine.”

Jack stopped and looked through his saddlebags for the map that was issued to him when he stayed at the complex. It had very detailed information about Manehattan and its surroundings and most importantly, shows the topography of the ground.

“Well, there seems to be a hill quite close to us that is only a half a mile away from Manehattan. I’m sure I can pick a few drakes,” reported Jack and then muttered under his breath, “As long as they don’t send those bloody giant ones I’m fine with this.”

The two companions trotted on, on the narrow dusty country lane. Farmland surrounded them which held rich black soil and swaying plants that grew tall into the air. A closer look revealed the golden cobs of corn that the leafy plants hid from plain sight. They walked on for ten long minutes at a steady pace, not too fast nor too slow. They had covered around half a mile when they reached the hill. It was actually larger than Jack had anticipated, towering over the calm fields of swaying plants.

He climbed the hill with relative ease but the two aspects that made it more challenging were the steep slopes and loose rocks that littered the hillside. The hill itself was a good one hundred metres taller than the surrounding land, which gave Jack a good view of the whole sprawling metropolis of Manehattan. He set down his gear and pulled out his rifle, attaching a stand to the front of it and rested it on the rocky surface. The butt of the rifle rested on his shoulder and he peered down the scope. Jack turned the magnification levels up to twenty times by rotating a lens on the scope.

He could see into the streets now, observing ponies ducking up and down from the trenches, sometimes the odd one slaughtered due to pure unluckiness or error. Missed shots landed behind the trenches either stopping completely on the bitumen or ricocheted up into the air with a whizzing sound. The giant high explosive shells from artillery rained onto the streets which shook the ground slightly and the lower frequencies of the explosion rippled through miles of air.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey Spitfire, what do we do now?” queried Iron as they landed on the outskirts of Manehattan.

“Well, judging by how it looks currently, I think it is fair to say that we should get involved. The Drakes are only seven blocks away from the UMH (University of Manehattan),” replied Spitfire, “We cannot afford to let the UMH fall into the wrong hooves, or claws in that matter.”

“Ok, when do we go?” asked Iron.

“Only squads one to five will go plus half of the griffin forces. Get ready, we’ll go on my mark,” said Spitfire as she walked back to her Squad, “Ready up!”

Iron walked back to his own squadron who were preparing to take their equipment off. “Don’t take it off, we’re going in for a strike very soon,” said Iron as he joined them, “And don’t turn off the safety… FIRE STREAK!”

A loud boom echoed through the air as the sniper rifle’s trigger was pulled accidentally by Fire Streak. Thankfully, he was not pointing at anypony in particular and the round whizzed over Iron’s head and struck a large birch tree.

“For god’s sake…” Iron face-hoofed so hard that a solid crack was heard, “When you are not in combat, please use your common sense (that’s if you have any) and don’t flick the safety on your rifle, and my face hurts now…”

Iron heard Spitfire laughing her heart out on the other side of the small street. “Wow Iron, that was so lame!” she commented.

“You’ll be doing the same thing in a few years’ time if you’re at least half competent,” Iron shot back, “I am older and more experienced than you.”

“I am captain,” she replied, abusing her power slightly, “No matter what I say you must obey, no matter how lame.”

“I think that changes from today onwards, right guys?” Iron asked his comrades.

A very uncoordinated “yes” and nods came from his squad. Artemis even had the courage to mutter, “Yes, we only listen to him…”

“Well, I digress,” said Spitfire, “Are we ready to go?”

“Yes Spitfire,” called Silver from behind Iron.

Spitfire looked around at squads one to five. They all looked pretty much prepared. “Alright! Squads one to five follow me in a wedge, we’re going in!” she commanded.

The pegasi lined up into a wedge formation behind the lead squad, pointing down the street so they have a bit of a runway. It wasn’t much, low density residential and commercial districts surrounded the Wonderbolts hub in Manehattan.

“Ready?” asked Spitfire as she tensed her wings, in anticipation for a very steep ascent.

“Yes ma’am,” roared the five squads.

“GO!” she yelled as the wedge took off in unison, keeping roughly the same elevation and height as each other as they ascended.

Wind rushed in Iron’s ear as they neared the conflict swiftly in the night. Yellow light illuminated their path as fires burned all things flammable in the streets. The gunshot pierced the ambient air like a blade. The wedge headed towards the enemy lines at an altitude of about one mile above sea level, which was high enough for the fog of war to cover them.

“Dive!” commanded Spitfire from the front of the formation.

They all obliged. In training exercises, the ‘Dive’ command had been drilled ruthlessly into their heads. All squads split off from the giant wedge and formed a ‘Card Five’ formation, the best to drop the small explosives that the Wonderbolts usually carried into battle. They dived spectacularly out of the dark clouds right into the midst of the enemy lines.

“Evasive manoeuvres!” yelled Iron as the enemy anti-air flaks peppered the sky with exploding shells. It created an effective wall of fire. The pegasi danced nimbly in sky, avoiding the barrage of deadly blasts.

“Drop and pull!” commanded Iron as they neared one-hundred metres from the ground. His squad released their small explosives onto the enemy lines, possible falling into the trenches where hundreds of Drakes were hunkered down, in anticipation for the attack, their claws clutching to their weapons. Iron and his squad pulled a six g turn and headed straight upwards at a seventy-degree angle, converting their raw speed into altitude. All the while, they were being barraged by anti-air shells and also by the most courageous foot soldiers.

“I’ll fall back to a sniping position boss,” called Fire Streak as he lifted his large calibre sniper rifle, “too foggy, can’t see anything.”

“Alright, I’ll return to your sector in a few hours when we have finished our raid. Look for us in the skies,” replied Iron as he flew away from Fire Streak.

Fire Streak flew swiftly to the tall hill in the distance, on which he could see two figures. He quickly pulled the ‘air burst’ stunt, where he traps a large amount of air in front of his wings, causing it to pressurise, then letting loose and riding the negative current (I don’t know if this could be done in physics on Earth for I am not a physicist, but what I do know it’s that pressurized sectors of the atmosphere would spread into less pressurized zones, thus creating wind).

It brought him swiftly to his target location, but he did learn from Artemis that this did not work every time. Sometimes it works against you:

“Don’t trust the wind for it supports you. Don’t trust what supports you for it may lead you astray. Trust exclusively in one thing; yourself, and nothing can stop you. No matter how tough the situation, believe in yourself, and you will not lead yourself astray. Follow you heart…”

Artemis did break a leg and a wing when a failed air burst manoeuvre was executed by her. It ponded her backwards into the ground in a flurry. One could actually see the gusts of wind that the air burst produces, for it is very potent in its ability.

Fire Streak circled the hill slowly in large loops, trying to loose speed slowly. There was a technique for losing speed extremely quickly but it did have a risk factor. Spitfire broke a leg and tore her wing muscles after she attempted it at training a few years back. In fact, she never really recovered from that injury. One with a sharp eye could tell that her wings were slightly out of synchronisation when she flew, because of the varying strengths of the muscle tissue in each wing.

“Hey Jack,” shouted Fire Streak as he landed with a thump.

“Oh, hey Fire Streak,” Jack greeted him as he concentrated through his scope.

“Mind if I join you?” asked Fire Streak.

“Sure!” replied Jack.

Fire Streak set down his sniper rifle onto the ground, extending its stand from the butt of the stock. He lay in the grassy surface, adjusting his scope.

“What are you doing here?” queried Jack.

“Fog is too thick up there, can’t snipe decently,” he replied.

Jack zeroed out a shot on a courageous drake who popped out of his trench to sit directly on the opposite side of the allied side’s sandbags. Jack squeezed the trigger carefully, making sure not to move the gun slightly, as even the tiniest of adjustments can cause a bullet to fly metres away from the initial target at long ranges.

A crack rang out in the air and white smoke exited the muzzle of the sniper rifle. Jack loaded the next shot and emptied the used cartridge with a flick of the lever on the right side of the gun, the metallic sound echoing through the air as an empty cartridge shot out of the side and landed on the ground with a small thump.

“Wow, that’s quite a rifle you’ve got there,” commented Fire Streak as he stretched his hoof to gauge the weight of the emptied cartridge, “and an empty cartridge is quite heavy as well.”

“Yeah, that’s what you get when you get Daring to buy a rifle, I guess,” said Jack as he threw a deadpan expression at Daring who was sitting beside him, “It really is a hassle sometimes, taking the rifle around.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” replied Fire Streak as took a shot, this time the crack less prominent as the calibre of the gun was lower.

“Well, it will be an uneventful night after they figure out that we have snipers,” sighed Jack as he shifted a few metres on the hilltop.

“I think they already did…” said Fire Streak as shells whizzed past him.

“Fall back!” shouted Jack as he scrambled back over the crest of the hill as he dragged Daring with him.

Bullets ricocheted off the ground above them, high pitched whines signified that the place was being absolutely barraged by the enemy lines. They couldn’t actually get shot by the allies when they took pot-shots at the hill.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Push up!” commanded Spitfire as the squadrons aided the infantry to push up, take cover, shoot, rinse and repeat.

They managed to cover five blocks in an hour of fighting, pushing through the enemy like a wedge but not without casualties though. At least sixty lay on the ground, bleeding out, unmoving and two hundred were wounded, bandaging themselves in white cloth as blood seeped through their wounds, colouring the cloth bright red.

Iron dived in for attack, unsheathing his wing blades. The steel glittered a fire orange in the fires of war, looking incredibly menacing. He came within one metre of the ground, finding the unlucky drake who was going to get cut viciously with his sharp blades. Iron whipped around, dragging his wing blades across the enemy solder’s chest, causing blood to spill out onto his blades, staining it. Loud cracks echoed through the streets as the army pushed forwards again.

“Ahh!” shouted Iron as he felt his left wing fall limp. Pain overwhelmed his senses as his wing pulsed. His own blood stained his grey feathers as he fell through the air. Spreading his working wing caused him to unbalance and start tumbling fast.

Fear. Fear was something that Iron Skies did not feel often. He usually nullified his fears by facing them but this time, it was different. This time, his fear was death. You can’t face the fear of death, nor prepare for it. Death is sudden but the moments leading up to it can be horrific. Iron felt his tongue dry as he tumbled quickly though the air. He was going to impact the ground very soon. Iron squeezed his eyes shut as he prepared; anticipated the numbness of death.

“Don’t worry! I got you!” shouted a voice from under Iron.

Iron felt like he was slammed in his right side by a brick wall. All the air in his lungs left him as the thing smashed into him. His brain could not comprehend what happened, why did he still feel every mind numbing thing? The wound in his wing and the cool air rushing through his mane. Was this heaven? No it mustn’t be. This felt more like a living hell than heaven. He felt light headed as the precious red blood drained out of him. The last thing he heard was a voice saying, “You’ll be fine… I hope.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack spotted the silhouette of two pegasi in the air above his position. No, it wasn’t two flying pegasi, one was slumped, unconscious, onto the other’s forehooves. As they approached, he could see black droplets of an unknown liquid falling from the unconscious one’s wing. They banked back to the metropolis, but swiftly dived into a street, then disappeared from Jack’s line of sight.

“Was that… Iron Skies?” asked Fire Streak as he released the trigger his rifle from his iron grip.

“How would you know?” asked Jack curiously.

“I’ve seen him fly at night before, his mane casts a distinct silhouette in the night sky,” answered Fire Streak, “Well, I better get back to the hub.”

“I’ll come too,” offered Jack as he packed up his gear.

“No. Go back to the complex, Jack,” replied Fire Streak, “Spitfire does not like long drawn engagements. She’ll execute a tactical retreat soon.”

“Are you sure?” queried Jack, “I talked to her about holding the university and she said she would do whatever it takes to defend it.”

“Oh, well in that case,” said Fire Streak, “you better come with me.”

Jack stumbled down the steep incline towards the outer reaches of the metropolis. Cities like Manehattan did not cover too much of an area as the residents usually lived in high density apartment buildings in the city, which limited the amount of outer suburbs, which drove the cost of a piece of land in outer Manehattan up until only the richest could afford it.

Jack finally made it down the hill, now on mostly flat ground and very close to the Wonderbolt’s Manehattan hub. It was only a matter of minutes before he would be walking through the city streets, with tall buildings looming over him. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and the main power boards of Manehattan has been turned off to prevent any shorts to the electrical infrastructure that had costed the government billions of bits to perfect. This meant that it was almost pitch black in the streets, deeming it necessary to feel around with a wary hoof before stepping.

It took him several minutes to find a dim glow that shone from around a corner in a more residential part of Manehattan. It looked ghostly, especially with the light fog in the city. Jack turned the corner to see several barrels that smoke was rising out of, presumably fires were lit in them, and a lit facility that bore the Wonderbolts logo on the windows. It was a large concrete structure, almost as attractive as the architecture in the sixties.

Fire Streak flew off without him earlier and was already standing at the front of the building, chatting to Misty Fly about something. Jack walked up to him. “How is Iron Skies?” he asked.

“I don’t really know; he is currently in the medical wing. I wasn’t allowed to see him,” replied Fire Streak.

“Well, that’s a shame,” said Jack, not really knowing what to say, or to do as a matter of fact.

“Well, we are supposed to stay awake for the rest of the night on high alert… so what do you say about a good ol’ game of poker?” High Winds asked.

“Well, ok. Might as well,” replied Jack, before following him with Misty into the building, turning left through a door and into a hall. The third door down was different to the other white doors; it was made of timber. Inside they went, a large table at the centre of the room with a liberal amount of papers littered on it containing the neat block letters of typewriters.

“Hey Wave, hey Windy,” greeted Fire Streak as he sat at one of the chairs around the table, taking out a pack of cards, “Want to play some poker? I’m very sure that we wouldn’t be called into action for a while.”

The two sitting on the couch at the back of the room nodded and stood up and walked slowly to the table.

“So, are we going to use bits?” asked the blue pegasus.

“Yeah, of course!” replied Fire Streak, “That is if you have any. We can always use scraps of paper as chips. Just write the values on.”

Fire Streak pulled out ten bits out of his wing, as did the two unfamiliar pegasi.

“Hey, who is this?” asked the pegasus with the streaked blue mane.

“Oh, this is Jackson. He will be helping us with a few of the operations and this is Daring Do,” quipped Fire Streak immediately.

“Oh really? That Daring Do?” asked the blue pegasus.

“Yeah, that one,” replied Fire Streak.

“Jack, this is Wave Chill,” he pointed to the blue pegasus, “and this is Wind Waker,” he pointed to the lighter coloured blue pegasus with different shades of blue running through his mane. “Say hi guys!”

“Hello Jackson, hello Daring,” said Wave Chill, “Pleased to meet you.”

Wind Waker just nodded his head is acknowledgement as the took the pack of cards from Fire Streak and unpacked them, and shuffled them with a crisp cracking sound. He then dealt the cards quickly, giving two to each player.

“Let’s play Hold’em poker,” announced Fire Streak, “I trust that you guys know how to play?”

The ponies around the table nodded as they peeked at their cards. Wave’s jaw dropped at the sight of his cards; two kings. He definitely couldn’t keep a poker face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spitfire paced in the dark room, only illuminated by a small monitor that displayed the vitals of Iron Skies who was laying in the infirmary bed awkwardly, his wounded wing wrapped in bandages that were caked with dried blood sprawled to his side. A steady monotone beeping signified that he was still alive. It had only been two hours since the incident and Spitfire had ordered the rest of the squads currently on the front lines to keep assisting until overwhelmed by enemy forces.

Spitfire heard a hacking cough from the bed as Iron started to stir. She walked slowly to stand beside the bed as he attempted to raise his head to get a better look of his surroundings. “Where am I and why does my wing feel like it went to hell and back?” he asked.

“You got shot and you’re in the infirmary in the Manehattan Wonderbolt hub,” answered Spitfire, “So you feel alright currently?”

“Yeah, yeah,” replied Iron, “Why am I not dead? I now remember I was falling…”

“I caught you,” said Spitfire simply.

“Umm… Thanks?” said Iron, at a complete loss of words, “Do I owe you my life or something?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” said Spitfire thoughtfully.

“So… What am I to do?” Iron asked cautiously as Spitfire leaned closer to him. Iron could fell her warm breath on his nose.

“You don’t have to do anything Iron. It’s fine, really,” replied Spitfire.

“Uhh…” mumbled Iron before being cut off by Spitfire who muffled him with a hoof and kissed him on the cheek. It ended as swiftly as it had started, leaving Iron speechless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Full house! Yeah!” yelled Fire Streak as he showed his cards to the other players and scooped up a large pile of bits that were placed in the pot.

“Damn you Fire Streak. This is your seventh time in a row! Are you sure you’re not rigging it?” asked Wind Waker.

“Yup, I’m sure,” replied Fire Streak happily. “I guess four leaf clovers really are lucky,” he said as pulled out the herb of his description from under his wing.

“Well guys, I’ve had enough losing my bits over some poker. I’m going to bed,” announced Jack as he stood up from the table. That was when he realised that he was in the Wonderbolt’s Manehattan hub. “Wait a sec… We’re not in Portsmouth are we?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, so there’s no nothing. Either you can stay up or doze on a couch. Your choice,” suggested Fire Streak.

“C’mon Jack, let’s go outside,” Daring insisted, “I need some fresh air.”

“Ok, I’ll see you guys in a moment,” announced Jack as he walked out of the room with Daring trailing him.

They walked through the lobby of the hub and into the cool night air, which bit Jack’s skin sharply. The night sky was filled with the many pin pricks of white and red, which twinkled serenely. A band of white streaked across the sky, containing many more stars than the surrounding darker patches of space. It was really eye opening for anypony who first see it. They will finally gauge the scale of their own conflicts to the size of the universe and realise that they are nothing in this universe.

“Beautiful, isn’t it,” came a voice from beside Jack.

“Uhh… Fleetfoot. How are you back already?” asked Jack, “I thought you are supposed to be at the front lines.”

“Yeah. Soarin thought it was a good time to retreat so that’s what we did. Everypony was tiring anyways,” answered Fleetfoot, “and if you did not see us coming you are as blind as a bat.”

“Well, I did just come out of the hub,” said Jack defensively.

“Oh well. Let’s enjoy this since our time is ending…”