The New Recruit

It was an early wake-up call for Ace and Soarin, though they only needed to shower, as breakfast would be provided on the train. In addition to the call, their uniforms had been cleaned and hung, and were ready to go into their closet.

"So what can I expect at this staff meeting?" asked Ace through the shower curtain. "I don't want to be caught off-guard."

"Neither did they, but that's apparently what happened," chuckled Soarin. Last night's dinner still hung heavy in his mind and stomach, but not so heavy that there wasn't room for unlimited waffles. Waffles with honey butter and cinnamon apple jelly. And maybe a few pickled eggs, too, why not? "You'll be fine. It's just a meeting."

""Just a meeting" can turn into "Bad news, everyone" before you know it. The warehouse layoffs started in "just a meeting.""

Soarin shook his head. "If you end up kicked from the show, you just go back to the academy. I'll take you there, myself."

"It's not me that I'm worried about. Didn't my act replace somepony else?"

"Nope. We just made the show a little bit longer."

"Doesn't that mean it can be made a little bit shorter?"

"You're worrying too much."

"So were you, yesterday..."

Soarin nodded, though Ace couldn't see him. "Maybe a bit. Just... Tell you what: You sit next to me, I'll direct you through the whole thing. Deal?"

The handle squeaked as the water turned off. "Deal."

The waffles really did seem to be unending. Soarin was four stacks deep and counting when the meeting was called. He was given five minutes to finish that plate, and then they made their way into the conference car.

"And that's everypony," noted Wind Spire. "All yours, Commander."

Skylight stood up and clapped to draw attention to herself. "Now, I don't want to keep you any longer than I have to, so let's start a minute early, hm? First order of business is something that should have been clarified at the last staff meeting, but wasn't. When I mentioned that we'd have a new face joining us, I had yet to meet Ace of Clubs, and I didn't bother to pull his file. A little late to tell you all this news, but he's our newest Wonderbolt, brought in from his first year at the academy. Also, he's an earth pony. Please stand up, Ace."

As Ace stood up, he heard some worried murmuring. Not about him being an earth pony; everypony had figured that out by now and most of them had seen him perform. They were concerned about him being in his first year at the academy. After a quick wave, he sat back down.

"As he has not undergone the safety training, he's going to be ineligible to perform outside of his single stunt when we reach Trottingham. He will be taking the supplemental course in San Palomino, so if any of you want to join him, that'll be brought up in the next meeting, so think about that.

"Next order of business, total revenue from this stop was three hundred and forty-seven thousand, two hundred and eleven bits, and our expenses were one hundred and ninety-eight thousand, three hundred and fourteen bits. That's a net gain of one hundred and forty-eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven bits. That's a step down from our usual net profit for Las Pegasus, but that's a higher revenue gain than we've seen from there, as well. We have some amount of hype, now, for Ace's act, which was also a big reason for our massive expense increase. Dizzitrons don't grow on trees, nor do they modify themselves.

"Next, I've ordered a new set of group photos. As Ace is to be joining us, I've set it up to have him featured. He'll be taking position right next to Freefall as our premium stock. Since he has been responsible for a slight gain in our revenue, we want him front and center. And since he's responsible for a massive loss, we want him to make it up to us. So we're going to really go after this "flying earth pony" thing to draw in as much attention and publicity as we can.

"Moving on, our next order of business is the radio show. We're going to need two volunteers to go to the radio station to announce the show times and dates, as well as hyping up the show. Wind Spire, I already know you're going to be one of them. Soarin?"

Soarin stood up. "I'm going to have to decline, ma'am. Ace needs more practise to refine his act. I'm hoping to make his final glide more consistent. Double the finale to what we originally intended. Barring that, I want to start walking him through some of our more coordinated stunts so that once he's gone through the safety training, he can join us out on the field more often."

Skylight nodded. "That's probably a good call. Autumn Gust, you're my next pick."

"Sure," she nodded.

"Good. Now, let's go over some revisions. For the baton pass, I think we want to swap places for Wind Spire and Breezy Boom. We saw some bad throws that resulted in the baton almost being dropped, so let's move the two of you around and see if we can troubleshoot the problem. We can fix it over the weekend once we know what's off about your technique. We're the Wonderbolts, we're not supposed to be dropping the baton."

Fourteen other revisions were proposed, all dealing with minor problems that most fans wouldn't notice. For one, Ace's angle of descent was brought up, as Skylight had the same complaint as Soarin about his airtime. It was suggested that he flatten his angle of approach by two degrees, after a heated debate over whether or not three degrees flatter would reduce his air speed too much and eliminate his momentum, or if just one degree would even be able to give him another loop without a significant increase in height. The race was adjusted so that Soarin would pull back his speed by about half a second per lap, and Freefall would loosen her grip to speed up the straightaways and increase braking on the corners. This would slow them both down a bit, by a factor of about ten seconds, but it would be a bit more flashy to make up for it. There were other adjustments, too, and once they were all discussed, Soarin went right back to the dining car for his eggs.