Somewhere north of San Francisco, the trees had started and they hadn't stopped. Rainbow had time, and kept to the 101.
It had been a long, long drive up from Lemoore. Her Camaro wasn't that big, and it was crammed with as much of her stuff as she could fit. Moving sucked, but at least she could have fun with this trip. Solo, a chance to decompress.
In northern Washington, the road took a hard right turn at a town called Forks, which sounded vaguely familiar for some reason. Maybe her old college roommate had mentioned it or something. At Port Townsend, she finally broke from the highway, taking the ferry across Puget Sound to Whidbey Island.
Her journey ended there, at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, her home for the next three years.
She'd heard it wasn't a bad place to be stationed, but still had misgivings. She was going to be very nearly on her own. Still, someone had to teach fighter maneuvers to the pilots here, which was why they were sending a fighter pilot like her to a base primarily home to recon planes.
She rolled up to the gate. Her face was usually good enough, but rules were rules, so she showed her ID, too. As if there was anyone - anypony - else who looked like her.
The sailor on guard reacted as they usually did, a gushing "I can't believe it's really you!" Rainbow was used to it at this point, a celebrity on active duty. Since the two universes had become connected, she had moved over to the human realm and decided to become a fighter pilot. That had been much easier said than done, but here she was, a pony in the US Military.
She had a special grin for this, pulled from her catalog of reactions to fans, and replied, "I can't believe it's really me, either."
The guard glanced down. "Nice car, though I would have expected you to drive a Mustang."
Rainbow laughed, but only politely. Everyone thought they were the first to make the joke.
The guard returned her ID and saluted, and she drove on through the gate.
Ponies on Earth were still a little rare, but Rainbow probably wasn't the first the guard had ever seen. She was the only one who was a US Navy pilot, and her coat as bright as her name only helped to make her a figure most people recognized on sight.
Her current problem, though, and speaking of recognizing things on sight, was trying to figure out where she was supposed to go to check in. She'd never been to Whidbey Island before, and GPS was spotty on military bases. She already knew she wasn't allowed to use her own wings to fly around here - didn't want to get sucked into a jet engine if nothing else - but mostly because of rules about national security to which nobody had ever granted her an exception even given her status.
She did eventually locate the Personnel Support Detachment, because at least most things on military bases were labeled. It was like something one of her nerdy friends would do to organize things.
Odd how little moments of melancholy would hit her over the silliest things. She was a long way from home. Well, Equestria, but her last base, too.
In the parking lot, she got out of the car and had a good stretch. The seat was fitted for her. It had to be, she wasn't shaped like a human. The custom seat was comfortable, but it had still been a long drive. She was going to have to be a little creative when tabulating her travel paperwork to ensure she didn't admit to violating government regulations on miles per day.
Upon entering the building, she was treated to another fan sitting at the front desk. It sure was a good thing she was an extrovert.
"I'm checking in," Rainbow said, when the conversation eventually turned to business.
"Down the hall to the door marked 'Newcomers.'"
This wasn't Rainbow's first tour in the military, so she already understood the mountain of paperwork required when shifting to a new command and new duty station. That didn't make it any less arduous.
One of her nerdy friends had given her a tip, though, which helped. All her relevant paperwork was in a blue military-issued folder carried under her wing to have easily within reach. It saved time at places like this.
Her hooves clicked on the tile floor as she dutifully went to the Newcomers office. While they might have been glad to see her there, they at least weren't surprised; there was no way they could have missed her name on the list of expected check-ins.
They wanted to see some of her paperwork, and they had a lot more for her to fill out. Even as much as it dismayed her, Rainbow was vaguely aware that this was only going to be the first stop of many. This was the downside of being a cool fighter pilot, she had to do at least as much paperwork as anyone else in the military. She took a clipboard and had a seat.
When she was done with their paperwork, they pointed her to the next stop. "Ms. LaBelle, two doors down, handles finance." Rainbow dutifully trotted off to see her.
The door was open a crack, but she could see the lights were on. Rainbow knocked. "Hello?"
No response, so she pushed the door open.
The office had one desk, and it was empty. On second glance, however, that wasn't quite right. Rainbow frowned, staring at the feet beneath it. "Uh..."
She took a few steps to the side, and discovered a motionless woman lying on the floor behind the desk, face purple and foam on her lips.
"Help! Call an ambulance!" Rainbow shouted.
She knew a little human first aid, but already had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't really make a difference.
The small office got noisy and crowded in a hurry. Rainbow stepped back. A few of the people who came in response to her call tried CPR, but it didn't help.
In a few minutes, the medical people started arriving. They weren't able to do much, either.
To get out of the way, Rainbow had relocated to the building waiting room, but regretted it when the gurney carrying the closed body bag went by on the way to the door. What a way to welcome her to a new base.
"Did they say what happened?" she asked the front desk clerk.
"Don't know. There was apparently an open box of chocolates on her desk."
Rainbow paused, and glanced at her paperwork. "So, uh, awkward question...who's going to do my finance paperwork now?"
Author's Note
This is maybe the second time in my life I've awakened from a dream with a fully-formed story plot in my head, so I couldn't let it go to waste.
For those of you who are very focused on the Battleships timeline, maybe don't look too closely at anachronisms here. A softly-official addition to the canon.
Thanks for reading.
The whole finance-clerk-dropping-dead thing was the most intense part of Rainbow's morning, but far from the only setback.
That made her a little later than expected to check in at her new unit. Of course, things kept snowballing from there, as things tended to when one got late early in the morning - just kept getting later.
The squadron VAQ-129 was the center of training for aircrew of the EA-18G Growler jet before they went off to the fleet. The squadron had their own hangar, and Rainbow eventually found it. Her sponsor, Lieutenant Carmichael Key, was waiting inside the flightline fence, and not looking pleased at the delay.
Sponsors were assigned to help new check-ins, and were generally peers. There was no human who could appreciate Rainbow's unique pony situation, but they could at least help her with the Navy.
Key, or as he'd first introduced himself via email using his callsign, Potato, was a little brusque as the two of them met face to face for the first time. "I thought you were supposed to be fast."
"Well..." Rainbow explained. She had the sinking feeling she was going to be doing that a lot today.
He took her explanation and shrugged it off, apparently more focused on other things. He led her towards the hangar.
Rainbow looked with interest at the expansive concrete flightline. It was full of Growlers. Not only from VAQ-129, the training squadron, but from the handful of fleet squadrons that would deploy around the world.
The EA-18G was visually similar to the F/A-18F Super Hornet, just with the weapons replaced by electronics. Aircrew were trained to jam enemy radars and collect signals from afar. They weren't supposed to be in frontline combat, but if that should ever happen, they would have to know how to evade and defend, and that was where a fighter pilot like Rainbow came in, training the new aircrew.
She was mostly a legacy Hornet pilot, but had been checked out in the Super at Lemoore before reporting to Whidbey Island. From there, a lightly loaded Growler flew pretty much the same as a Super.
Following Potato, she headed into the hangar. There was space for jets, as the name implied, but also offices and classrooms for the training squadron.
"You came back to the RAG after a fleet tour?" she asked.
"Yeah. The sandbox. Got an Air Medal."
"I've got two." Rainbow had learned a fair bit of professionalism since joining the Navy, but it wasn't bragging if it was true, right? Besides, he'd started it.
The commentary aside, Potato being a fleet returnee put him in pretty much the same boat as her. He'd learned to fly his type of plane, done a deployment with a different squadron, and returned to the training squadron as an instructor.
Rainbow had just finished up at TOPGUN, learning to be a better instructor. She might be the only pilot on the entire base with the patch, considering fighters weren't based here.
The Growler version of TOPGUN was called HAVOC. She'd already seen a few of their patches around.
Potato wasn't much for any other conversation today, only giving her grunting one or two word responses.
Rainbow's prize for finally making it into the building was more paperwork. Potato showed her to the admin shop and left her there. That was fine; she was getting a little tired of his company.
Fortunately, there were no further complications with this paperwork, and she was next directed to the vault for security in-briefing.
Rainbow didn't pretend to know how security clearances worked, except that there were certain special access programs for each kind of jet, and they were going to let her in on a few specific to the Growler.
An elderly and balding civilian seemed to have the vault to himself. He was the one who had buzzed her in, and he was the one who filled out yet another stack of paperwork for her.
His name was William van Otten, or so his desk nameplate indicated. It must have been his, if he was alone. He did introduce himself, though.
"How much of this is necessary?" Rainbow asked him over the paperwork. "I'm not even taking these jets into combat."
van Otten shrugged. "Procedure. I know how it can be, but I also know what happens when people in my position bend the rules."
If he was the one granting her the clearance, he himself must have been in a high position of trust in the government. Rainbow was, well, perhaps not a stickler for rules herself, but did grudgingly acknowledge that someone out there had to be doing their job to the letter.
"How are you settling in?" he asked as she finished up. "Found a place to live yet?"
"Not yet."
"All the cool kids live in Anacortes, or so I'm told."
Rainbow had scanned the map before she arrived. That town was to the north, just on the other side of the bridge that made Whidbey Island an island. She said she would consider it.
Outside the vault, she encountered Potato again. He was looking less and less pleased to be escorting her as the day went on, but dutifully escorted her to meet her new boss.
Lieutenant Commander Tim "Pfizer" Knebal was the squadron training officer, and Rainbow would report to him.
"There's already a lesson plan," he said. She wasn't the first to hold the position. "But we're always looking for refinements."
He looked at her. "You ready to fly?"
"Always."
"I've got you down for a local fam flight tomorrow. I expect the terrain around here is a lot different than Lemoore."
It sure was. She'd already seen the distant, snow-capped mountains.
Potato looked at the draft flight schedule written on the large wall dry erase board. "All of us, huh?"
"Might as well," Pfizer said. "Call it teambuilding."
Rainbow followed Potato's look, seeing that the three of them, plus someone she hadn't met yet would take two jets up for the morning flight. Pfizer was a backseater, and would be riding with Rainbow.
Pfizer said he didn't have anything else for Rainbow to do today, and said she could use the afternoon to get her business sorted with checking in. She was grateful.
However, she was only just walking out of the hangar when her cell phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Lieutenant Dash?"
"Yes."
"I'm Special Agent Bill Alstrom with NCIS. I understand you found a deceased body today."
"Ugh, yes I did."
"Would you mind coming by our office? I'd like to ask you a few questions."
He told her where it was, and Rainbow got on her way, though internally groaned. One more thing.
Alstrom greeted her at the door when she arrived. He took her into an interrogation room, but left the door open. "Thanks for coming. Would you mind starting from the beginning? What did you do, and what did you observe?"
Rainbow walked through her part in the story, with somewhat more detail than she had during the quick conversation with the first cops on the scene. Alstrom took notes, occasionally asking an expansion question.
When she was done, he continued writing for a few moments. Rainbow asked, "So what do you think happened to her?"
"The investigation is still ongoing."
Rainbow cocked her head. "That there is even an investigation at all tells me something happened."
Alstom smiled thinly and said, "Thank you for your time." He began to close his notebook.
Rainbow was a good fighter pilot for a lot of reasons. Ponies' eyes were larger than humans', and hers were especially acute for a pony. Her vision was such that looking in the reflection of the one way glass behind Alstrom, she caught sight of the page of his notebook.
There were four names under a header of Suspects. Hers wasn't one of them, but she realized to her surprise that she knew them all.
