//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Equestrian Skies: The Bearers of the Ribbon Insignia // by Shattered Skies //------------------------------// “Amdist the blue skies, a link from the past to the future, the sheltering wings of the protector…” The annoying buzz of an alarm clock filled the colt’s ear, causing it to give an annoyed twitch. He awoke, feeling groggy, and shut the alarm off, before heading to the bathroom to check himself in the mirror. A colt with a chestnut colored body, a dirty blonde mane, and a horn atop its head, stared back at him with hazel eyes. He gave himself a quick look, to make sure that he wasn’t a complete mess before heading to breakfast. After all, today was the final day of summer and the first day of school. As he entered the kitchen and took his seat at the table, his head turned to the T.V. It displayed an anchorpony with soldiers moving across a war torn land. The colt returned his attention to his breakfast, paying little mind to what was occurring on television. War to him was simply a thing that occurred in far off places or in stories. After completing a delicious breakfast, he put his saddle bags on, hopped on his scooter, and headed off to school. The colt traveled along the side of the road, following its winding path through gently rolling hills that bordered the sea. Suddenly, he heard a sound that emulated the rumble of distant thunder. He turned his head toward the azure skies above him and saw a series contrails that drew dizzying circles as if the planes that left them behind were participating in some kind of crazy waltz. In a manner of speaking they were, for the aircraft were engaged in battle in the beautiful skies above his head. His attention was fixated upon them, until a deafening roar flooded his ears. The silhouette of two fighters streaked passed him, one in pursuit of the other. The trailing fighter opened fire as they climbed, spewing forth a stream of tracers at the fleeing plane, which in turn, caused the unfortunate plane to trail smoke and fall out of the sky.The falling plane spiraled, spewing smoke and flames until it crashed into the cape, erupting in an impressive fireball. This was the same cape where the colt’s family lived. The colt stood there a moment, in shock of what had just occurred, before sprinting back to his house, leaving the scooter on the side of the road, forgotten. Once he had arrived at his house, he saw what the plane had done. Only the flaming ruins of his former home remained, and there was no sign of his parents. The whine of jet engines returned the colt’s gaze to the sky. The opposing aircraft had fled and the battle was over. The victor circled above to confirm his kill, and on his fighter there was the number 13, emblazoned in a stark yellow. As the victorious aircraft vacated the skies above him, the colt muttered to himself, I will never forget this. A stallion opened his eyes, returning to the world of reality. He stared at the parchment that would soon become a letter, before levitating a quill out of an inkwell. He began to write: Dear, when he stopped and began to think of how should he address her. After a short pause, he decided to ignore it and continue writing: I was just a child when the stars fell from the sky, but I remember how they built a cannon to destroy them. And in turn how that cannon brought war upon us. War was an abstract idea, nothing more than a show on television. As a child, I only saw it as something that happened in a far away land. Until that final day of summer… -------------------------------------------------- Soft snoozing could be heard from a naval cot, attached firmly to the wall. A loud banging awoke the pony from her pleasant slumber. Bleary eyed, she turned her attention to the steel gray hatch on the far side of the room. A voice, muffled from the heavy door, spoke “Hey RD, come on wake up, we have to scramble.” For a moment Rainbow Dash sat on her cot confused, before the realization hit her like a bolt of lightning. “Ohmigosh! Are you serious?!” The pony on the other side of the door chuckled, and then replied, “Yeah, hurry up and get ready. I’ll meet you outside the briefing room, and we will go in together.” Rainbow could hear the clank of hooves on metal as the pony walked away from the door. She was giddy with excitement. This was her first sortie, and the first interesting thing that had happened on this carrier since she arrived. Being on standby was boring and stressful as the taskforce awaited the inevitable strike Prance would make against ISAF GHQ (General Head Quarters). As she put her flight suit on, she took a moment to admire the patch above the single gold bar of a second lieutenant that was stitched onto her right shoulder. She was told that the symbol in the middle was a mobius strip, but to her it looked more like a ribbon. Either way, it signified her place in the 118th Tactical Fighter Squadron. The 118th was an odd squadron in that it was made of several different squadrons that had all suffer an exceedingly high number of casualties. It was formerly Mobius squadron, until all of the pilots were shot down. Lucky for Rainbow, she had been late coming aboard the carrier, and had missed the disaster of the mission. With only one pilot left, the higher ups decided to throw in other partial squadrons into the 118th, which included Vapor, Halo, Viper, Omega, and Rapier squadrons. With Viper, Omega, and Rapier, all having four pilots, and Vapor, and Halo having two each. She was left without a wing mate, though this suited Rainbow Dash just fine. A wingmate would just slow her down. With her flight suit on, Rainbow Dash proceeded down the hallways leading to the briefing room. With the briefing room coming up, she began to feel the pre-flight jitters. Sure, she was an excellent flyer with her wings, but flying a jet in combat was another matter entirely. Rainbow gave a quick shake of her head, attempting to clear the doubts from her mind. No, She thought, I’ve spent countless hours in simulators, and several hours in the cockpit. I had the best mentor a pony could hope for. I can do this, This only partially relieved her nervousness. She had still never shot down another fighter, and whether she was capable of ending another pony’s life was something she would soon find out. Finally, Rainbow had reached the briefing room, where she spotted the pegasus pilot that had awoken her just a few minutes before. A stallion with a white coat and a red mane stood next to the briefing room doorway. His cutie mark was a symbol of a red hurricane with a black center, which made sense since his name was Storm Surge, callsign Omega 11, leader of what was left of Omega squadron. He had the most experience of any of the other pilots of the 118th, having survived much of the retreat off the main land. They had become fast friends during the little flight time they had together. “Well look who’s up. The rainbow wonder has finally decided to grace me with her presence.” He said with a friendly smirk. “Even this early in the morning, you’re still full of hot air.” Rainbow retorted with a smile. He often called her the rainbow wonder because of her ‘natural ability in the air’ and because of her sometimes boastful personality. “EARLY! 1400 hours is not early to most ponies. Of course if her highness wishes to miss future missions that can be arranged,” He said with a mock bow and a glint of amusement in his silver eyes. “,Come on we need to get in there, the briefing starts in five.” She entered the room with a smile on her face, her nervousness forgotten. The room was steel gray like much of the rest of the ship, with a screen at the far end of it and a rack of helmets next to it. On each side of her, there were rows of seats, most of which were filled other Pegasus pilots and their unicorn WSO’s (Weapon Systems Officer). There were no earth ponies, as the idea of being trapped on a ship so far away from the land was not appealing to those with powerful ties to the ground and the idea of flying was even less endearing. Instead, they often found themselves in the various fields of the army. Pegasi were the obvious choice for pilots because of their natural ability to resist G-forces and of course, their ability to fly. Unicorns often found themselves in the navy or as the copilots and WSO’s of aircraft for their ability to work complex equipment with their magic. Her attention returned to the aisle as she searched for a free seat. Storm Surge gave her a nod of goodbye, and joined the rest of his flight on the left side of the room near the front. She chose to sit down on the right side of the room next to the aisle closer to the back. With no other flight members, she felt a bit excluded from the rest of the ponies, who were chatting with the other members of their flights. Her ears perked up as she heard the door open. She turned her head to see a lavender unicorn mare with an indigo main that had a purple and pink stripe in it. Her violet eyes searched the room, and then lit up with recognition as they fell upon Rainbow Dash. The mare trotted up to her and asked, “Are you Second Lieutenant Rainbow Dash?” “Yeah?” Rainbow replied uncertainly. How does this random mare know my name? She thought to herself. “I am Second Lieutenant Twilight Sparkle, your Weapons Systems Officer. I’ll be flying with you today.” The mare stated. Though she sounded confident, Rainbow detected a bit of shakiness in her voice. “How come this is the first time I have met you Twilight? I’ve had to fly all of my training exercises without a weapons officer because there were none left. Where’d you come from?” Now the mare looked nervous. She was obviously dreading this question. “Umm… Well you see. I’m not actually a weapons officer. I was part of the AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control Systems) crew until I was recently reassigned to be your WSO. My training was completed yesterday.” “And how long ago were you reassigned?” “A week ago.” She muttered as her eyes turned to ground. Rainbow Dash could not believe her ears and she made no attempt of hiding her disbelief. This mare had completed her training in six days. This unicorn was either the smartest unicorn alive, or they had given her the worst training in the history of forever. Another question popped into her mind. “You have flown before? Right?” Apparently the floor proved incredibly interesting as Twilight continued to stare at it while she replied. “I’ve flown in the E-767, but not in a fighter.” This just keeps getting better and better. Rainbow thought. She was about to ask Twilight why they chose her to be Rainbow’s WSO, when her thought process was interrupted by a silence that filled the room. She looked around the room wondering if her conversation was attracting undue attention. Then she noticed the unicorn walking from a side door to at the front of the room. The briefing was about to begin. She returned her attention to Twilight before scooting one seat over and saying, “Come on sit, we have a briefing to listen to.” A hopeful gleam filled Twilight’s eye for a moment before she nodded her head and took her seat next to Rainbow. The two mares’ attention returned to the front of the room where the unicorn that had entered now stood. With a flash of his horn, the blank screen behind had become blue, and was dominated by three light blue arrowheads, each with a corner touching on of the other two to form a pyramid with a kite in the middle. Under the insignia, the letters ISAF were written in a large bold font with the words Independent States Allied Forces under that in a smaller light blue font. This was the faction that she and her new pilot Rainbow Dash flew for. They were a conglomerate of countries on the continent of Usea, that had allied together to stop the Prench aggression. Sadly they had been failed to protect the continent and had been forced to move their GHQ to the formally neutral island nation of North Point. With another flash of the unicorn’s horn, the screen changed to a map of the continent of Usea. The continental map depicted the territory that ISAF controlled in blue, while Prench territory was grey. It also showed a few key positions such as Farbanti, the Prench capital, Los Canas, the former ISAF GHQ, but most importantly it showed a large white dotted line in the shape of a circle, with the center point being a red dot named Stonehenge. This dot was the cause of the war and the cause of ISAF’s near defeat. Stonehenge was a rail gun cannon system that used a combination of gunpowder and magic to accelerate 120mm armor piercing low yield magical pulse rounds at extremely high velocities. It was developed by the FCU (Federation of Central Usea) in cooperation with much of the world to destroy and asteroid on a collision course with Equestria. Detected in 1994, the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid was predicated to make planet-fall in Usea on July 3rd 1999 and was large enough to completely wipe out life on Equestria. Sure enough the Ulysses approached on its predicted day, but what was not predicted was that it would break into thousands of smaller pieces. Overwhelmed, Stonehenge valiantly tried to destroy as many pieces as possible, but it could not destroy them all. After the first two weeks of the asteroid bombardment at least 500,000 ponies had died in Usea alone, around a million were displaced, and much of the landscape was marred by craters. Prance had been among the hardest hit, as its capital suffered a near directed hit from an asteroid fragment and was decimated. With its economy in shambles, the country could not handle the influx of refugees it was being forced to take in. When the FCU found out that the refugee camps where in deplorable situations, many countries began boycotting Prench goods, worsening the political and economic situation. The FCU formed ISAF in response to the escalating crisis. On August 22nd 2003, Prance invaded Stonehenge, taking control of the facility. The FCU set a mandate for Prance, to leave STN (Stonehenge Turret Network) on September 14. Prance responded by declaring war, on the newly formed ISAF. While ISAF forces were able to take back STN they lost the city of San Salvation, the capital of the country of the same name of which the cannons were built. This was the beginning of a long continental retreat, and soon ISAF lost STN again. With the recapture of STN, Prance discovered its potential as an anti-aircraft weapon and soon dominated the skies over the main land. With the loss of air superiority, ISAF was soon pushed off the continent onto the islands off the east coast, outside of Stonehenge’s range, leaving them in the situation they were in now. As Twilight finished reminiscing, she returned her attention to the briefing. The stallion cleared his throat and began. “Here is the current sitrep and your orders for deployment, effective immediately. Enemy agents destroyed our early warning radar network, allowing Tu-95 Bear bombers to penetrate our airspace.” At this point a red line extended from a new dot that had appeared labeled Rigley AFB, to an island labeled Newfield Island. It represented the flight path of the bombers. Then a new blue dot appeared, and a line extended from it to the same place. Even though it was unlabeled, the new blue dot was in the water, so it must have been their carrier. “In 15 minutes we expect this bomber formation to strike at Allenfort Airbase located on Newfield Island, and then to move on to targets in North Point.” As the presenter stated this, his horn flashed again and the picture zoomed into the combat area above Newfield Island. In this new view, additional information was displayed, which included weather, longitude and latitude, date and time, location, and the operation name Umbrella. In the center of all of this information was the projected position of the enemy aircraft at the time of the squadron’s arrival. How they knew this, she could only guess. The unicorn continued, “Our air defense forces are currently extremely weak at this point in time; hence our GHQ is a sitting duck. It is mission critical that you destroy the bombers and neutralize the threat before they get past Newfield Island. Remember, you are the first line of defense for North Point, and the fate of ISAF rests in your hands.” Yeah, no pressure. Twilight thought sarcastically to herself. With a final flash of the unicorn’s horn, the screen winked out, and he walked out of the room. The briefing was over. Twilight turned her attention to her pilot. Rainbow Dash’s head was on her hoof and her eyes had glazed over. She had an incredibly bored expression across her muzzle. It would appear that she had not even realized that the briefing was over. Twilight awoke Rainbow from her stupor with a sharp jab from her hoof, to which she suddenly jolted up and responded with a very confused “Huh?” thus confirming Twilight’s suspicions. At first she thought of berating the inattentive pegasus, but decided against it. She would need her pilot’s trust if they were to survive in combat together and starting an argument before the first mission began would not be a good way to start. “Come on, the briefing is over, we need to get to the flight deck.” The pegasus stared at her a moment before exclaiming “Oh! O.K. Let’s get go!” With that she glided over to the rack, flipped her helmet into the air, which landed smartly on her head, and trotted out of the already empty briefing room. Twilight sighed as she levitated her helmet over. Why did she have to be paired up with the slow pilot? -------------------------------------------------- Upon arriving on the flight deck, they were greeted by the sight of several deep blue F-4E Phantom II fighters, each with their squadron symbol on the tail, lining the side of the ship. Two of the F-4s were taxiing up to the two the catapults at the bow of the ship while two other aircraft were being hooked up to the catapults. Rainbow Dash and Twilight approached their aircraft. It was easy to distinguish, as it was the only one with a mobius strip on the tail. As they approached, Twilight abruptly stopped and stared at the fighter. Her muzzled scrunched up with deep thought and confusion. She raised a hoof, pointed it at the aircraft and asked “Rainbow, what’s that?” Rainbow turned around and stared at Twilight’s hoof for a moment. She then turned to the offending plane. A thought formed in her head, leaving her with a large grin across her face. She turned back to face Twilight, still wearing a silly grin, and replied, “That,” she pointed her hoof at the plane, “That, right there is a fighter.” Twilight's annoyed expression was priceless. "No. Really?" This caused Rainbow to lose any façade of control and she burst out laughing. “NO, NO, NO! Look under the plane’s wings! There are bombs attached to it! Why in the wide world of Equestria would we need bombs on an intercept mission!?” Rainbow struggled to stifle her laughter as she returned her gaze to the F-4. Sure enough the plane had four Mk. 83 1000lb unguided bombs attached to it, two on each wing. The bombs were also accompanied by two AIM-9 Sidewinder heat seeking missiles, one adorning each side of the aircraft. “Huh. That is weird.” Twilight stared at her pilot, dumbfounded. “That’s not just weird, it doesn’t make any sense! At all! Whatsoever!” “Ok sheesh, calm down. Look there are some ponies over there. Why don’t you go ask them?” As Dash spoke she motioned to a group of unicorns arming another F-4. “Fine, I will.” Twilight replied with an annoyed huff. The unicorns had just finished attaching one of the bombs when Twilight approached them. “Excuse me sirs, but could you explain to me why you are arming these planes with bombs when we’re on an intercept mission? Couldn’t you arm them with more missiles?” Twilight asked. “Sorry no can do.” One of the unicorns replied. “The replenishment enchantments on the weapon racks aren’t compatible with missiles. Only bombs will reappear on these.” “Oh… ok, thanks I guess” Suddenly an incredible roar was emitted. They looked across the deck to the bow as one of the F-4s went into afterburner. The fighter was suddenly launched from the carrier by the catapult, and it lifted into the sky. Twilight felt a lump for in her throat as her stomach began to churn. She had never taken off from a carrier before and it looked like it was going to be a wild ride. As if she had read Twilight’s mind, Rainbow Dash chuckled and said “Yeah, the first time is always the most intense, but don’t worry. You’re flying with me.” This did little to alleviate Twilight’s fears, as her imagination played various scenarios of their plane plunging into the churning sea below them. She returned her attention to her own aircraft and began to climb a set of moveable stairs into the cockpit. She sat down into the cockpit on her haunches and used her magic to adjust the seat to match the position of her back. She extended a set of belts across her chest to secularly fasten her to the seat, so that she would be able to survive Rainbow’s no doubt insane flying techniques. As Twilight situated herself, Rainbow Dash flew up to the cockpit. A far different setting greeted the pilot. Seven metal sleeves occupied the cockpit, four for her legs and two for her wings and one for her tail, each filled with cushioning to retain some level of comfort. Rainbow quickly slipped her legs, wings, and tail into their appropriate slots, and extended them into flight configuration, which resembled a pegasus in normal flight with outstretched limbs. With both mares positioned within the cockpit, Rainbow poked a button on the instrument panel with her nose, causing the canopy to close. With that out of the way, she started up the aircraft. As the plane started up, a slight electric shock rain through Dash’s body leaving a sensation of pins and needles all across her body. This was a good thing though; it meant that the neural interface enchantment known as the COFFIN (Control For Flight Interface) system was working. This enchantment, which was the reason she had to sit in the full body cast, allowed the pilot to control the aircraft through small movements of the body. The wings controlled the throttle, pitch, and roll of the aircraft, by moving them forward and backwards, and angling them down or up. The tail controlled the yaw, extension of landing gear, and, when a weapons officer wasn’t present, the arming of the special weapon. The forelegs were used for firing the gun and whatever other weapon was armed at the time, while the back legs were used to change targets, and switch radar modes from short, to long, to strategic. Due to this method of control, a lot of flight training involved creating a powerful control over the body’s muscles to prevent any involuntary movements. With the neural enchantment working, the HUD (Heads Up Display) activated, giving Rainbow Dash important information such as the pitch, elevation, bearing, airspeed, throttle, available weapons, ammunition, weapon’s range, and the status of the aircraft. It also displayed the radar screen so that Rainbow would not have to look down at the instrument panel. Like Twilight had pointed out, UGBM’s (Unguided Bombs Medium) were shown under missiles on the HUD, though the readout claimed that there were 8 bombs and 52 missiles along with an unlimited number of bullets. Obviously there were only two missiles and four bombs attached to the craft, but this difference was made possible by another miracle of magical enchantments, the replenishment enchantment. This enchantment allowed essentials, such as fuel and ammo, to be teleported directly onto an aircraft in flight until it wore off. This also explained the lack of a fuel gauge, and in its place a timer, which displayed the time until the fuel enchantment broke. While Dash was re-familiarizing herself with the HUD, Twilight was undergoing a similar process in the seat directly behind her. Much of the information that was available for the pilot was also available to her, but solely on the instrument panel in front of her. In place of the HUD was a modified version of the COFFIN system. Instead of giving her control of the aircraft, it provided a full field of view around the plane and it allowed her to actively track targets that Rainbow would select during flight. Another difference was that it responded to magic rather than neural synapses, which meant that, through a simple thought and a little application of magic, she would be able to quickly bring up any display that she and her pilot might need during a mission. To establish the link needed control the system, Twilight touched her horn to the instrument panel, and began to push magical energy into the system. The initialization of the COFFIN system was confirmed by a purple hexagonal pattern extending across the top of Twilight’s section of the canopy, which would allow the display of the system’s functions on the canopy itself. With her weapons officer ready, Rainbow began to maneuver the F-4 onto the forward left catapult. She was guided to it by the various ponies on the flight deck as they signaled her to adjust the plane into the proper position. Once the fighter was in place on the catapult, Rainbow began one final test of the control surfaces of the aircraft while the other ponies attached the necessary equipment to the nose gear and hastily checked her plane for any problems. The elevators, and rudder responded flawlessly, and a pony in a yellow vest gave her a quick salute, signaling that everything checked out. She was ready for takeoff. The jet blast deflector raised behind the plane as Dash pushed her wings backwards, sending the plane into afterburner. She gave one final look back and flashed a reassuring smile to Twilight, who simply nodded and swallowed in a vain attempt to get rid of the nervous lump in her throat. Dash returned her attention forward, with a wild grin on her face. There were few things more exciting than being thrown off a ship in a flying piece of metal at 160 miles per hour. “Mobius 1 you are clear for takeoff, takeoff immediately to clear the flight line.” With that, Rainbow Dash and Twilight were launched down the length of the catapult and off the ship. Rainbow quickly angled her wings up to gain altitude and join up with the rest of the planes, while Twilight took deep breaths to keep her heart from exploding. Once they were in the air, they changed their bearing to 315 and began to fly northwest to meet up with their AWACS and intercept the bombers.