Author's Note

If you thought not being a boat guy was bad, wait until you read me trying to be a plane guy!

Chapter 2: Over Foreign Skies

"At some point in every being's life, they turn to the skies and wonder what it would take to soar with the clouds, leave the bounds of the earth and touch the heavens. Some are lucky to simply flap their wings and achieve the forces of lift that would allow them to rise into the air, and some even control themselves enough to call it flying.

The Hippogriffs are amongst the treasured races to which the sky is not a mystery but a second home, and no one can compete with our grace and mastery of the air. Was it not us who shot down the Storm King's fleet of airships? Was it not us who proved to the world that the aircraft is the way of the future? And is it not us who have in our possession the most advanced and renowned air service on any known continent?"

Sea Breeze read that excerpt for what had to be the thousandth time. She even had it circled in red ink. How could she not love the words of her idol when they explained everything she'd ever felt? When in two paragraphs Crack Lighting had summed up the entire reason she sat in an uncomfortable bunk clearly made for ponies, in the stuffy heat of a barracks, thousands of miles away from home, wearing the uniform of another country. She wanted to fly, to escape the shackles of the land and conquer the skies in the name of Hippogriffia! But back home, they wouldn't let her do that. That's why she sat here, at RAF Marechester, impatiently waiting for a mission.

Luckily for her, something somewhere seemed to be reading her mind, and the door to the barracks was thrown open. Looking up, she could see another member of her flight approaching her bunk

"Hey, little-wing, get up and go. We're going out on patrol."

She frowned deeply as she set her book aside, "I thought I told you stop calling me that already Shell. Or should I say four-eyes?"

Her fellow pilot threw up his claws in mock surrender

"Easy, easy, don't mean nothing by it Breeze."

"Then stop saying it." she commanded, rolling out of her bunk and pushing past Shell, making for the door.

The pair of pilots moved quickly, moving around the large air base with practiced precision and speed. Breeze was excited to go up in the air again, if only for a patrol. She'd been here for almost three months, but had yet to shoot down a bug plane or even get a real shot at one. Every second spent in the skies was a chance for her to earn her glory! Her companion didn't seem very enthusiastic, looking nervous. Breeze wasn't surprised, Shell was always jumpy when out on patrol with just one other plane. He much preferred when the whole squadron went out on a flight. In all honesty, being saddled with him dragged Breeze's mood down a bit. Still, her and the bespectacled Griff did had a few things in common: they were both new to the No. 313 Fighter Squadron, they were both rookies compared to most pilots in the squadron and they'd both been rejected by the air force back home for "physical ailments debilitating to the job of a combat pilot." But here, those didn't matter. The Equestrians were so desperate for pilots that their standards had been cut far below those of the overly stringent ones back home.

They reached the hangar in which the 313 operated out of, where the ground crews were busy at work prepping and repairing planes. The two pilots made sure to stay out of the crews way as the ponies cleaned propellers and tinkered with engines. Breeze looked over the ponies as they worked away thinking that no matter what, the ground crews never seemed to slow down a second. Truth be told, she had no particular love or sympathy for the ponies unlike many of her comrades. She had joined the Aris Volunteer Flying Group for adventure, not moral grandstanding. The pair made their way to the far side of the hangar, where the pilots' lockers were located in order to grab what they needed before they went up. A couple other pilots stood around chatting, who they planned to ignore, but the group turned to look at the new arrivals.

"Hey hey hey! If it ain't our favorite rookies!" One of the pilots said, brushing past the other two and approaching Breeze and Shell, both of whom saluted.

"Flight Lieutenant Rapid! Good to see you sir!" Breeze said enthusiastically, happy to see the Lieutenant. He was one of the most experienced pilots in the entire squadron and in command of her flight. If Crack Lighting was her idol, then Flash Rapid was her mentor and had been for years.

"At ease you two." Rapid said with a dismissive wave of his claw "It's good to see both of you. But what brings you two out?"

"We're scheduled for a flight patrol, sir-" Shell explained, only to be cut off by Rapid

"What? Since when?"

"Squadron Commander Cloud told me sir, told me and Breeze to go out as wingponies."

The friendly smile that had been on the lieutenant's face just a moment ago had been replaced by a firm scowl as he shook his head.

"That sonofahbitch… No, you two can't go out. It's too dangerous for two rookies to go out together."

Breeze's face fell and without thinking she shook her head in return.

"No, sir, please, you have to let us go out."

"You two are fresh out of training, yet to see a real fight. They might be sending you out to your deaths, damn ponies!"

"Sir… Please. How will we ever learn if we don't go out? We've both been here for months and we've barely left the ground." Breeze pleaded, crossing her claws together

"S-She's right. We really haven't been doing much. Sir." Shell meekly added, unable to muster the same emotion Breeze could but still sounding pretty desperate.

The lieutenant seemed surprised at this kind of push back from the two, and turned to see if the other pilots he'd been speaking with might offer some support. However, they simply shrugged and their body language suggested that maybe the two had something of a point. His resolve was still to say no, until he turned back and looked straight into two pairs of pleading eyes. They were just young rookies looking to earn their wreaths of glory. He'd been like them once…

When Rapid let out that heavy sigh, Breeze knew they had won and she nearly ran for her locker before he could change his mind. But the lieutenant quickly spoke again

"But you aren't flying alone. Cloud can preen my feathers. You two get ready, I'm going to grab Stock and Edge and Marker and we're going out as a flight. With the front getting closer every day, probably better like that."

Breeze was a bit disappointed at this change. More planes in the air meant she might not be awarded the kill. But if that's what it took to go up, then she'd accept it. Plus, the relieved look on her winggriffs face made her feel a bit better about the deal.

"You got it sir." Breeze said with a quick nod before breaking for her locker. She opened it and swiftly threw on her flying jacket before grabbing her flight cap, survival kit, gloves, identification tags and a few other items. Then she pulled out all personal items and shoved them in the locker, including a little locket she'd been wearing and a sealed envelope containing a letter from her mom that she'd yet to read in her pocket. Once she had everything she needed, she slammed the locker shut and all but ran for her plane.

She found it waiting for her, looking as beautiful as ever. While Breeze didn't have much respect for ponies, she had to admit that they knew how to make a pretty plane. The Spitfire Mark V was a beautiful plane, with three broad propellers, an elliptical wing shape tipped at the end, an engine that could output almost 1600 horsepower at lower altitudes and had a supercharger for higher altitudes. It had an impressive armament to go along with its beautiful profile and noteworthy performance, with the variant given to the 313 having eight machine guns, four fitted in each wing. It wasn't the best plane available to the Equestrians, some other variants had better engines or were fitted with cannons, but it was a lot better than the Mark I's and II's the squadron had been fitted with initially.

After walked around the craft and performing the basic pre-flight checks of the exterior, she flapped her wings and landed on the wing of the plane, right in the center of the Squadrons emblem of a bald headed eagle, a well known symbol of the Arisian air force, with the letters "G.S" printed above it. She slid the canopy back and leaned over, checking her cockpit before sliding in and doing the interior checks. The sounds of a plane engine roaring to life caused her to grow a little jealous as she was still in the middle of checking her rudder pedals. She was tempted to rush through the checks so she can start taxiing sooner, but she erred against it. She was excited, not careless.

Once her checks were complete, she turned the ignition key and the plane came to life, the propellers spinning up and the engine purring. She followed behind another plane in her flight out of the hangar, the ground crews watching the planes crawl out from a safe distance. Once out of the hangar, Breeze and the others were taxied out to the run-way. As they lined up for take off, she closed her canopy and fitted her air mask on before snapping her googles on as well.

"Sparrow Flight, this is Flight Lead. Communications check." came the voice of Lieutenant Rapid through the microphone embedded in the breathing mask

"Flight Lead, this is Sparrow-5. Good communications check." Breeze responded, feeling a sense of pride at being first to respond

Once the rest of the flight had sounded off and permission for take off was confirmed from the Air Controllers, they began to take off one by one. Given her designation, Breeze was the second to last to take off. As she shot across the runway, watching the tarmac become a blur, she slowly pulled the stick back and watched the plane lifted off the ground. The blue sky and clouds soon dominated her vision. She was so happy to feel the weightlessness of flight that she almost failed to pull off in order to join the rest of her flight in formation for climbing to patrol altitude. Luckily, she quickly corrected herself and joined the others, Shell eventually pulling up to them off her right.

"Flight, adjust heading east. Settle in for a long day."

—

After a few very disappointing hours, it seemed that Pride's fears would go unfounded and that Breeze wouldn't be earning her glory today. It was frustrating for sure, but she tried not to show it over the radio. Inside her cockpit however, she was looking around constantly, being more vigilant than even her job normally called for. She shouldn't have been, but she was practically begging for some trouble. Just something that could be a start…

"Flight Lead, this is Sparrow-2. Running low on fuel here."

"This Sparrow-4, also low on fuel."

"Copy Sparrow-2, Sparrow-4. Flight, prepare to turn bearing west and head for home. Looks like it's quiet today."

Breeze sighed and turned to her right, looking into the cockpit of Shell. He looked almost as disappointed as she did, but there was at least a bit of happiness in his eyes. She on the other claw probably looked completely dejected. She certainly felt that way.

The formation prepared to turn around when Rapid suddenly spoke again

"Flight, belay that order. Adjust bearing south-west. I see something, 2 o'clock, around 17,000 feet. Might be Changelings. Buckle up."

Breeze's mood did a complete 180 at the sound of that. Combat! Against slow and low enemy Stukas by the sound of it. Hah! This would be easy! She began to adjust her gun sights, grinning as she pictured a Changeling plane in them!

During the slow climb down to the altitude where Rapid said he'd seen something, they hadn't seen anything to indicate enemies were in the area. A cloud cover was rolling in, making spotting anything even harder.. Everyone was alert, their heads on swivels trying to see if their targets were still in the area

"Anyone see anything?"

"Negative."

"Can't see shit."

"We have a cloud cover moving in. Won't be able to see anything through it."

"We could try and break under it."

"We'd be exposing ourselves to ground AA fire. Or getting pounced on any fighter escort."

"Flight, we'll pull under the cloud cover, minimum altitude of 16,000. We don't see anything then, we're going home."

As one, the flight pulled down on their sticks, losing sight of each other briefly as they passed through a thick cloud cover. However, the moment they pulled through, their target was finally in sight. Twelve dive bombers flew close together, in two V wedge formations. There weren't any fighter escorts in sight, meaning they were either cocky or the fighters were hidden somewhere. When she saw the, Breeze almost pulled the stick down right then and there, but held back. She'd get her chance, soon.

"I count twelve. All dive bombers."

"They're flying right towards our guys down there. We should wack em now."

"Hold on, where's their escort? We shouldn't go down there until we find em."

"Can it. It's our job to intercept assholes like this, that's what we're gonna do. Boom and zoom em. We'll see if any fighters come out of the woodwork for us once we do that. All planes, prepare to dive and engage. On me."

With that, Rapid's plane did a half roll and pulled down into a near vertical dive. The rest of the formation followed after him, performing the same maneuver. The Changelings didn't see it coming. One by one, the Spitfires buzzed them. Breeze watched as Rapid let loose a solid burst that caused the leading Stuka of one of the V's to burst into flames and start losing altitude. The rest after him landed a decent burst, though none so swiftly and clearly put a plane down. On her turn, Breeze lined up the leading plane of the other V. Her claw gripped the trigger and she pulled, firing off a short burst. It'd been jerky, and most of the rounds missed or hit the wing edges. She refused to let that be her first shots, and took a deep breath before pulling the trigger for a longer, more accurate burst. The Spitfires were so close to the Stukas, she could see bullets tear through the canopy and splatter the rear gunner's brain out. It wouldn't add to her being an ace, but she was more than happy with the results. In the rear view, she could see Shell target the plane to the leading Stukas left, getting a decent burst into it. The flight zoomed back into the air, regaining altitude on the surprised Changelings.

"I count one losing altitude rapidly, one flaggering."

"Looks like they're tucking tail and turning!"

"Anyone got eyes on hostile fighters?"

"Negative! Looks like they're ours sir!"

"Alright, time for a second pass. Flight order, follow after me."

The Stukas were slow and didn't turn well, especially when they had some bullet holes in them. The first three planes of the second pass were unmolested completely, scoring another two dive bombers spiraling rapidly towards the ground. By the fourth plane however, they had turned and were able to return fire with their rear gunners, green tracers filling the air. The fourth plane had to cut their pass early, after too much fire concentrated on them. Breeze though, she had no intention of pulling away until something was dead! She lined up one of the rear planes and let lead fly, riddling the plane with bullets all along the fuselage, causing liquid, probably fuel or even oil, to start pouring out. In return though, a few rounds tore through the wings of her plane. Nothing serious, but it'd lag performance.

Her and Shell failed to definitively bring down another plane, but the dive bombers were shot to Hell and were flying back the way they came.

"Alright Flight, that's enough. We got three confirmed kills and a victory under our belt."

"Sir, can't we just finish them off?"

"Not enough fuel for that Shell. We stay out any longer and we risk not being able to make it home."

As they began to make for home, something caught Breeze's eye. The plane she'd tagged in the first run, it was lagging behind the group, its airspeed heavily decreased but yet to stall. It almost certainly wouldn't make it home, but that wasn't good enough for her. She wanted to paint an iron cross on the side of her plane when they got back to Marechester.

"Flight Lead, this is Sparrow-5, permission to break off and engage the straggler."

"Permission denied Sparrow-5. Stay in formation."

"Sir, it's defenseless and probably won't make it back anyway. Let's just put them out of their misery."

There was a pause, before a deep sigh came over the headset

"Fine, make it quick Sparrow-5. Sparrow-6, break off and cover her."

"Copy."

Breeze broke off from the formation, with Shell following behind her at a slightly higher altitude. The poor Changeling was basically a sitting duck, her plane quickly approaching her prey and her talon sitting on the trigger. As soon as she was in range, she held down and watched with glee as her tracers flew from her guns and through the air. But even in her glee of scoring her first kill, her ears picked up the distinct sound of an engine, one that had a different whine than that of the Spitfire. She threw her head up and saw two 109 fighters barreling through the air at a quick dive down at her. They were probably scouts for a larger fighter group come to assist the dive bombers. So detached from her comrades, Breeze must have looked like an easy meal. As green and white tracers of Changeling machine guns and cannons began to fly towards her, she threw sticks down. Her plane rattled as the rear fuselage and tail were hit several times, but serious damage to the cockpit wings and engine were avoided. She looked behind her, to see the 109's zooming over her, breaking to turn around and get her. However, Shell swooped in from behind and got on their tails, letting burst of machine gun fire flying at both.

"Two enemy fighters! Breeze, you alright?" Shell shouted over the radio, snapping her back into reality

"I can still fly! Stay on their tails, gotta pull out of this dive!"

"Shit, you two just hold 'em off. We're coming!" Rapid informed them, a mixture of concern and annoyance in his tone. Breeze knew she'd be getting a tongue lashing after this. But that was the least of her concerns.

Just by how the plane took getting pulled out of its sudden dive, she knew her performance had been hit badly. Getting level again proved a bit difficult with the elevator now with a few holes in it, but these Spitfires were built tough and it wouldn't go down that easily. Looking around, she could see that, only being one plane, Shell hadn't been able to stick on both 109's. He was still chasing one, trying to push them off her and towards the rest of the flight. But the other fighter had pulled off right and was pulling around to get on Shell. Breeze couldn't let that happen and broke hard left, utilizing the turning speed of her plane to catch the 109 mid turn. Unfortunately, her burst didn't do any major damage and they zoomed past each other. Meanwhile, Shell's mark was being a wily bastard and had yet to take serious damage from him either. Gritting her beak, Breeze saw that her target had straightened out and pulled up hard, probably trying to loop around and attack her from above. She was going too fast to try and turn to catch him mid loop, but she might have enough time to help Shell.

Turning to see where they were, she saw that Shell and the Changeling had dropped down a few hundred feet, the bug desperately trying to shake his tail. Even with only a small height advantage, Breeze knew she had that 109. Ignoring the other fighter, she turned and came down on the tailed aircraft from its five o'clock, letting a good long burst fly. Not expecting her to ignore his partner, the Changeling didn't see it coming and was caught in the hail of gunfire. The 109's right wing tip fell off and it began a downward spiral. Breeze cheered as she watched her first confirmed dogfight kill go straight to Hell!

That was when the other one finished his loop, rolled upside down, and dove right down on her. A few bullets whistled through the canopy and more smashed into the middle fuselage. Looking at her instrument panel, Breeze could instantly tell that a coolant line was severed. But her craft was still controllable and airborne, meaning she was still in the fight. She watched the Changeling straighten himself out and start to climb to attack her plane from beneath, wondering if her first kill would be her last. But before she could react, Shell fell in behind the Changeling mid-climb and with a solid burst from his guns, the 109 exploded into a fireball of flame and wreckage.

"Hell yeah! Score one!" Breeze celebrated, the fear she felt for her life and her plane

"For both of us!" Shell added, sounding proud of himself

"You two have had your fun. Now let's get the Hell out of here." The harsh voice of Rapid said as the other four planes arrived on scene. What had felt like hours had truly only been minutes.
—
The journey home was a little nerve racking for Breeze, who's plane had suffered some nasty damage, but in the end the Flight returned fine. As soon as her plane was on the ground, Breeze took off her mask and began to check herself. In all of it, she hadn't thought to check herself for injury, but nothing hurt or felt wet, so she must have been fine. With that, she stepped out of the cockpit onto the wing, clambering down as the propellers slowly wound down. To her surprise, she found herself engulfed in a hug by Rapid.

"Thank the Gods! Are you hurt?" He asked, frantically checking her

"No no! I'm fine!" She shouted, beating him off a bit

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

With that, he gave her a firm smack on the back of her head

"Ow!"

"Never ask me to finish off a straggler ever again and never pull what you pulled today." He commanded, his voice steely now

"Come on, all I did was what I was taught."

"Like Hell! You should of baited them in closer to us or stayed on that bug's tail. Not chased down a problem Shell had handled!"

"Come on! What would Dad say if he saw that!"

"Your father? He'd be just as furious at you as I am!"

The fire seemed to die in Rapids voice after saying that, and he stepped away from Breeze, sighing and shaking his head

"But then he'd realize you really are his daughter and probably pat you on the shoulder. I'm not him, so I'm not gonna do that. But I am going to order you to thank Shell for saving you tailfin, young mare."

Breeze rolled her eyes, and gave a mocking salute

"Yes uncle, sir."

"Oh don't get an attitude with me. Go, go on. Debrief'll be soon."
Despite his hard tone, the smile on Rapids face told her he was proud of her. In his own way. That made her smile, even as she turned to her plane and internally cringe at the damage. Nothing some spares and hard work couldn't fix.

—

Following a lengthy, boring debrief, the pilots were allowed to go back about their business and even told to get a hot meal after their troubles. Earning five confirmed kills in one patrol was an impressive feat. As a group, they staggered down to the mess.

The real exhaustion, both mental and physical, didn't really kick in until hours after the adrenaline wore off and Breeze was feeling that pretty badly, having come the closest to dying and all. Despite walking right beside him and waiting in line for food with him, it wasn't until they sat down next to each other that she reached over to her wingpony, placing a claw on his shoulder and spoke.

"Hey. Four-eyes."

"Yeah little-wing?"

"I never told you thanks for saving my ass. Just wish you did it a little sooner."

"Take it as revenge for stealing my kill."

Breeze scoffed and Shell smirked. She punched him the arm, and shook her head

"I was going to offer to help you paint the kill on tomorrow, but you can forget it!"

"Hey, at least I have all of my plane to paint it on. You're gonna have to wait a week, at least!"

With a mutual nod, the two wingponies dug into their chow. Now they had another thing in common: they were up one kill. Now it was a quiet competition to see who could reach five first.