Prologue: Shattered Skies

Lucky Rose

JUNE 27TH, 2018

10,000 meters over Matabeleland, Zimbabwe

The thundering of jet engines broke the silence over the rivers and jungle, causing birds to flee and animals to panic. The animals below became even more frantic when the heavy, rapid thump of helicopter blades followed, as a massive Atlas Oryx appeared, a bulge of electronics sitting on its belly. As the ensemble of noise flew overhead, the animals went into headlong flight in any way they could, anything to escape the roar.

The pilots of the Gripens couldn’t care less. They were far too busy chatting,

“… you’re a crazy man, Batter.” A deep, booming laugh echoed in the radio, easily drowning out a loud (and off-key) rendition of Muse’s Time is Running Out on the other end.

Lieutenant Connor “Batter” (a nasty incident involving a kitchen utensil and a pair of salad bowls) Saunders grinned heartily, “Hey, it wasn’t my fault the bastard had a knife. So yeah, I got the bloody hell out of there.”

His wingmate laughed again, “So that’s why you came back to base with a black eye. Here I was thinking you'd had another run in with Jacob...”

Connor stole a glance to starboard, seeing his loyal friend Lieutenant Thabo “Rocky” Dube hanging a few hundred feet behind. The two had been inseparable since they had graduated officers courses and joined the fighter jocks; however, while Connor was fighting in this war for the glory and honor, Thabo fought because he had to. He had been born into a township just outside of Durban, and had a family of ten to care for. He was honest and hardworking, and his parents had sacrificed much to put him through school, and earning his keep as a “sky warrior” was his payment to them for all they had done.

Their mission control interrupted them, as a gruff voice growled, “If you two would stop being so prissy, we’ve got ourselves some SAM’s to hunt.”

Connor rolled his eyes “Yessir.”

The voice vibrated over the airwaves once again, originating from the Oryx behind them, “This is AWACS, callsign Steeltoe. All flights check in.”

There’s only two of us, plus that tanker. Connor grumped mentally, “Cheetah flight holding fast at bearing ten-zero.”

A female voice called out, “This is Bovine. We’re about a hundred kilos east of you guys.”

Steeltoe came back on, “Alright, our mission is to hunt and destroy those HQ-2’s that Mugabe’s boys have gotten hidden in the jungle. Several Botswana boys are already members of their kill list, so keep your head up.”

Connor sighed. He really didn’t want to be part of this war. He joined the South African National Defense Force straight out of undergraduate for the thrills… and maybe to boost his standing in the bars that surrounded the base. Hey, he was a young adult; things were bound to occur, and he wanted to boost his credentials as best he could. If Leo DiCaprio could score hot Americans as a Rhodesian diamond smuggler, then a South African flying fighter jets would make the Blue Angels look like nerds in comparison. And making the Americans look bad was good business for the horn’s occupants.

Little did he know, or care, when Robert Mugabe finally overstepped his boundaries and tried to invade Botswana for its diamonds, or to keep pressure off his back from the protests at home. No one was truly sure, or cared

Naturally, neither the Southern African Development Community, African Union nor United Nations approved of the invasion, but the AU couldn’t just send in its third-world troops against a well-armed force, experienced like the Zimbabwean Army; they would massacred. NATO could care less for the region, so there would be no air strikes against the regime. So, as Africa’s largest economy and only member country with the inkling of a modern military, it fell to South Africa to beat the former ANC ally back into his place.

Connor had grown up in Cape Town, being born mere months after the fall of apartheid and had known nothing but the chaos of a country emerging from decades of oppression. Like all South Africans, however, his loyalty lay to his country first, then his “tribe.”

He had no qualms fighting alongside African pilots, so long as they were good and didn’t screw around. All fighter pilots in Africa were united in their respect for each other, and the loss of those mates of his ticked him off.

“Bastards.” He muttered, making sure the radio was turned off temporarily; Steeltoe was picky about language,or at least with everyone else he was.

Steeltoe came back on, “Also, all flights, watch out for fighter activity. We have reports of Thunder activity around here.”

Thabo chortled, “Ya, well, they’ll all be a smokin’ pile on the ground if they get to us.”

“Rocky, tone down the confidence. There are reports of Chinese pilots in those things, so keep on your game.” Steeltoe reprimanded.

Connor could almost hear Thabo’s eyes roll, “Aye, Steeltoe.”

The group flew on for a short time; the only sound the hum of the cockpit instruments and the dull roar of jet engines. Eventually, Bovine joined back in, “This is Bovine; I’ve got you guys just off our port wing. Prepare for refueling”

Connor turned to look, his COBRA helmet tracking the large, lumbering A400, “This is Cheetah One. Bovine, you’re looking good. Hold you’re beari-”

Steeltoe cut in, “Head’s up, I’ve got a pair of radar contacts bearing four-zero and closing fast… shit, Bovine, you’re spiked!!!”

Connor glanced down at his radar, indeed seeing a pair of radar blips, along with a small line that was closing fast on Bovine. He jerked his head up to see the massive cargo aircraft dump flares and pull a hard starboard bank. The massive aircraft was much too slow and cumbersome, however, and Connor could only watch in awe as a small dot on the horizon turned into a long tube of destruction.

The PL-12 BVR missile fired off its nose cone, along with pieces of shrapnel, into the belly of Bovine, creating thousands of tiny puncture holes, then buried itself into the massive aircraft and detonated. Flames licked the skies as the hulking metal pieces groaned and tumbled earthward.

“Bovine is down, I repeat, Bovine is down!” Thabo yelled, equally shocked.

“Bandits bearing down you, Cheetah One. Prepare to engage.”

Connor nodded to no one in particular and switched his missile safety to “LIVE.” Instantly, his missiles’ guidance systems woke up and began looking for a target. Connor closed his eyes and breathed deeply. This was his first true air-to-air battle. Hopefully it would go down in history, and he could join the ever-dwindling list of aces.

He opened his eyes slowly, and hardly noticed the deep bass line of Hysteria rocking the cockpit.

Steeltoe counted the distance before engagement, “One thousand meters and closing…. “
“
… 500,” Connor saw a pair of dots in front of him, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

“250…”

“100…”

“… MERGE!!!”

Connor tilted his fighter left, and pulled into a slow arc. As he did so, a blur of beige, brown and green blew past him with a shriek, making him jump. The young South African swore he saw the other pilot looking up at him, a white helmet with a red star on his head…

He shook his head, “Cheetah One, engaging.” he confirmed, banking harder and cutting his engines, sending the tail of his fighter slicing through the air. He slammed the accelerator forward, and the Volvo Aerospace RM-12 kicked into high gear, propelling the Gripen in search of its prey. “Cheetah One, I’m on his tail.”

The moment he spoke, the nimble Chinese fighter whipped itself to starboard, pulling itself into a hard turn. Whoever the pilot was, he was really good. The JAS-39 had no trouble keeping up with the Zimbabwean fighter, however. The large wings and canards gave it an almost unfair advantage over the straight-winged JF-17. The Gripen pulled into a light curve, easily keeping up with the Thunder. The Chinese fighter straightened momentarily, for reasons unknown.

Connor saw his chance. His missile tone repealed well, and he clicked the trigger, “Fox Two.”

The A-Darter infra-red-seeking missile leapt off the outer hardpoint and, once its internal guidance had locked onto the diminutive fighter, tore after it, leaving a smokeless trail in its wake.

The JF-17 took off like a stabbed rat. It flipped from side to side, desperately trying to find a way to escape the speedy missile. However, the people at Denel had built the missile to be unshakeable for a reason. The missile closed in on the fighter, easily outpacing it, and slammed into the fighter just behind the starboard wing.

The wing tore away from the fighter from the sheer impact, but the left stayed intact, at least, until the missile detonated less than a fraction of a second later. The explosion, with the sheer force of its energy, tore the fighter in two. The cockpit had the shortest distance to fall, and slammed into the trees at well over 1000 km/h, most likely turning the pilot inside into a charred soup as the jet exploded.

“Steeltoe, Splash one.” Connor whooped, watching the carnage in out of the side of his jet. The AWACS didn’t answer, “Steeltoe, come in.”

Thabo’s panicked voice filled the airwaves, “He’s gone, Batter. Bastard got him with his cannons. I screwed up, I’m so sorry...”

Connor whipped his head around to see the other Chinese fighter on Cheetah Two’s tail. Panicking, he shouted, “Rocky, you’ve got a bandit on your tail! Move it, get out of there!!! Go!!!”

Thabo sobbed, and made no movement to escape, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” the Thunder launched a PL-9 missile, “its all my fault Ma and Pa, I’m so sorry and it’s all my fau-”

“THABO!!!!” Connor screamed as the proximity-fuse detonated right in the middle of the body, spraying shrapnel into the cockpit area and turning the Gripen into a mass of high-velocity scrap metal, smashing into the trees with a roar, and causing a massive explosion.

Connor stared for a few seconds at the flames that used to be his friend. A man who had worked hard to get into the forces, a man he trusted. The sight and thought unleashed a primeval rage within him, and he whipped his head around to where the small JF-17 was circling, “YOU’RE MINE, YOU BASTARD!!!”

The Gripen took off after its prey, and the Thunder’s pilot, as if sensing his adversary’s rage, faltered, turned tail and ran.

“Oh no you don’t!!!” Connor growled, cranking the accelerator to its full extent. The engine groaned under the strain that the pilot placed it under, but obeyed anyways. The fighter in front of him pulled to starboard and tried to pull away, but then straightened out.

The Swedish fighter rolled and arced tightly across the sky, cutting in gracefully behind the Chinese fighter, which made little to no effort to escape.

Too easy. Connor reflected. His instincts told him that Thunder should be throwing itself around like mad, trying to escape the lock of the advanced PS-05/A radar of it’s South African adversary. His COBRA helmet alighted a target over the JF-17, and the drone of a lock on his prey alerted him to the fact that he was capable of firing his A-Darter missile, yet something held him back.

Though because of the bastard in the Zimbabwean jet who were probably chortling in glee, his wingmate and best friend was dead, along with his guide home and his rest stop for getting there, he couldn’t pull the trigger. He was hyperventilating, unsure of what to do. The green indicator simply stood there, not caring that there were people in that jet, people who, he realized, may be just as scared as he was. Someone who was following orders just like him.

“There’s a person in that thing…” he breathed, lost in the drama of the moment. The hum of the instruments and the dull roar of his engine were all he knew for a few seconds.

He realized too late that it was all a ruse, as all at once, the missile lock warning shriek into his ears, drilling into his skull with it’s piercing tone. His eyes, closed with realization, flew open, and training kicked in. He hauled as hard as he could back on the stick, and the diminutive Gripen flew into the dark sky like a sparrow, air moisture trailing off it’s wingtips like smoke from a pipe. Twisting his head around, he could see the white smoke of a missile streak from below him, a deadly stream that twisted and arced its way, trying it’s darn best to seek and kill him.

He twisted to starboard, and the missile followed him, steadily closing the distance. Connor knew from briefing that this was one of those HQ-2 missiles he and Thabo had been hunting. The Chinese had been quietly been arming the Zimbabwean military for some time, building up to the explosive conflict with South Africa. The missiles were just one of the “gifts” the bastards had given them. And where this one came from, there were probably more.

Well, if they want to take the fight to the ground, he’d be happy to humor them. Switching his target system to “GROUND”, he whipped his fighter around in a tight arc, the JAS-39 having no problem maneuvering under such tight conditions. However, neither did the SAM tracking him. Connor realized that there wasn’t much time. He dove the fighter to the deck, and as the missile followed, leveled up a few hundred feet above the treeline. The targeting system picked up three contacts in a clearing a few thousand yards ahead. He pressed his lips together, and as the missile tone droned on, moved his finger over the trigger.

“Sorry boys.” He grinned, and finalized the decision with a simple finger twitch.

The Denel Dynamics Umbani precision-guided bomb separated from its carrier with a thunk, fell earthwards for a few seconds as the fighter arced away quickly, before it deployed it’s long, awkward, insect-like wings and alighting itself on a path towards the SAM site. It’s GPS sensor awoke, and upon receiving and processing the data it had received, adjusted the wings slightly to compensate for the high winds and continued to fall.

Down below, the soldiers manning the site scuttled around like busy ants, preparing another launch to knock the Gripen out of the sky. The commander in his radar vehicle yelled commands, and the deadly missiles slowly rotated on their launch trucks, following the fighter and it’s pursuer across the sky. The radar locked on, and the commander sneered as he uttered one final word, “Fire.”

The 1000 lb Mk.83 bomb that the Umbani was based around was a tried and reliable NATO weapon that was designed to be streamlined and accurate in its fall. A well-aimed bomb could collapse buildings easily, destroy multiple tanks and even, with modern advanced electronics, angle itself through a window. Therefore, when the GPS sensor, feeding off data from both the LITENING pod and the GPS system orbiting in space, detonated the bomb roughly two meters above the ground, the results were catastrophic.

The 176 kg tritonal warhead of the bomb exploded, creating a blast equivalent to a massive fist striking the deployed SAM site, making a hole in the ground a dozen meters deep. People out in the open were vaporized instantaneously. The sides of the various trucks crumbled like paper under the energy of the explosion, even melting, crushing and incinerating the occupants. The radar truck sailed into the air, corkscrewing as it was temporarily lifted of its bond to gravity by the explosive force. It crashed into the trees surrounding it, tearing them down with its weight and setting some on fire. The HQ-2’s fragmentation warheads instantaneously went off in the heat and pressure, creating an even larger explosion as pieces of scrap metal flew everywhere, decimating survivors of the initial blast. Lightning flashed, illuminating the scene of carnage below.

Connor watched the blooming flower of the explosion for a few seconds, marveling at how much one tiny little tube of metal stuffed with TNT could do. He then reset his mind on reality, as the HQ-2’s were equipped with their own internal guidance system, and destroying the radar had only lifted one of the dilemmas off his mind. He turned once again, and the missile slightly overshot the fighter, before angling out into his flight path once again.

His radar, turned once again back to its air mode, suddenly bleeped. He tore his gaze away from the missile on his tail, and noted that there was a small diminutive contact around 20 km ahead of him. He knew that the little Thunder he had been chasing was there. Out of range of infrared-guided missiles, he had no choice but to switch to his AIM-120 AMRAAM’s (donated free of charge by the US to counter the Chinese influence in southern Africa). He squeezed the trigger, and with another thunk, a thin, long tube separated itself from his fighter and raced off into the night, eagerly on the tail of its prey.

Now back to priorities. Connor reflected, throwing his Gripen in an insanely tight turn once again to throw off the missile. He decided that if he kept it up for a short while, he could eventually fly over the site where the wreckage would fall. Stealing a quick glance down at his radar, he was surprised to see the AMRAAM had almost met the Zimbabwean fighter. The small thin line that was his missile rapidly closed the distance to the fighter. The two pieces of electronic data were within milliseconds of crossing…

The radar blip of the fighter disappeared, and the line of his missile continued unabated.

Connor blinked, “What the f-”

He was slammed forward in his seat by an explosion, his head just missing the dashboard of the cockpit. The fighter lurched as the shockwaves from the proximity warhead of the SAM detonated a few dozen meters behind it. The warhead fired off tiny pieces of steel shrapnel, which were harmless when at a standstill, but at speeds approaching those of SCRAMjet engines, was transformed into pieces of high velocity death. They tore through the fighter, striking the wings, tailplane and even the spare bomb he was carrying, but thankfully missing the warhead that was packed in the front.

Shit… Connor swore mentally as he fought to regain control of his fighter, thankful some higher power had spared the engine. The holes in his wings made the aircraft difficult to maneuver, as the shrapnel had damaged vital electronics that helped fly the unstable aircraft. The fighter was slowly losing altitude, but it looked like he had a few minutes before he needed to bail out.

With a start, he suddenly realized he was about to fly over the area that the Zimbabwean fighter should have gone down. Flowing with adrenalin at the thought of his revenge kill, he arced lightly over the area, whipping the stick back and forward to keep the fighter in the air, scanning his eyes hopefully for a sign of justice to those that took it away from him.

There wasn’t even a scratch on the ground. The Chinese fighter was gone, vanished into thin air, and Connor’s mind could only think of one solution...

“SON OF A BITCH!!!!” he screamed, slamming a fist into the glass cockpit. The bastards were probably landing at some forgotten jungle airport, hopping out and rejoicing in the fact that they had killed a good, hardworking man. A man who fought not because he wanted to, but to support his large family on the meager pay the South African National Defense Force were paid. Tears clouded his vision, and he scrunched his eyes shut, trying out force out the memory.

Because his eyes were shut, he did not see the flash of blinding white light that enveloped his fighter, dismissing it as another flash of lightning. So when he realized that his fighter was spinning rapidly towards the ground, he opened his eyes, panicking, not caring that the ground was now covered in temperate forests instead of the sub-tropical landscape of southern Africa.

But Connor didn’t care. He immediately latched onto the escape handle with his hand and pulled tightly. With a muffled series of explosions, the canopy ripped off, flipping back into the darkness of the stormy sky. With a roar, his seat separated from the floor beneath him, flinging him up skywards. He grit his teeth and braced his body against the G-Forces, as they pressed on him from all sides. With a flapping sound, the parachute opened up above him, catching the air and slowing his fall. Grasping the straps of his parachute, he grunted as a wind current pushed him sideways, watching out of the corner of his eye as his Gripen ended in a ball of flame, scorching the earth, plants and sky around it.

The ground slowly drifted up to meet him, and he braced himself for impact. The chair hit with a thump that jarred him, but he had been trained for that in the past. However, what he was not expecting was the waves of pain that coursed through him.

Every nerve ending was on fire. It felt like he was being eaten away at from the inside out. His stomach twisted, his bones rattled and moved around as he opened his mouth to scream his agony to the night sky, but got a hoarse groan instead.

Fumbling with his straps, he tried to free himself, but it felt like his fingers were fused together, becoming more and more useless. The straps were designed to take patience and nimble fingers to release easily, so it took him several thrashing minutes to get the bindings off of him.

When he finally did get his body free, he tore away, trying to get up, but it felt like he was trying to walk with a backpack on the wrong way; all his weight was in his front. Slamming into the dirt, he tried to scream again as more waves of agony overcame him, but his vocal chords would not obey him. Resorting to a crawl, each single flex of his muscles was a burn, tearing away at his body and his sanity. He collapsed beside some sort of metal container, with some sort of painting one the side. He tilted his head up and stared at the metal tube he was leaning against.

Between two white… things pressed around him, a multicolored eye stared back at him, lacking sentience and a pupil. Rings of green, yellow, red and black surrounded a pupil of white; a pupil that stared him down and mocked his failure. He had lost.

Lacking the mental strength to resist, he felt himself slip into the nether, the heatless embrace of the darkness enveloping him as he fell unconscious.

Rose gasped as her eyes followed burning comet blazing through the heavens, her mouth contorting into an O as the spectacle appeared in a flash of blinding white light. Her eyes were glued to the fireball as it slowly sailed to the ground, however, something separated from it with a loud pop, and that one piece had grown what could only be described as a flower, though not one that the botanist had ever seen in her life before.

Returning her attention to the fireball once again, she watched it slowly reach closer and closer to the earth until it smashed into the trees and exploded in an equally impressive fireball. She cringed, trying not to think about the plants that had just been incinerated by that explosion. She returned her attention to the airborne flower, seeing the breeze was slowly dragging it towards a nearby clearing. She watched it until it disappeared behind the treeline.

What in the world… the raspberry-maned mare wondered, before she heard a low groan coming from the crash site. Uh oh.

She galloped down the path she was on, saddlebags bumping against her sides. She had no idea that there was something in that thing. Though how in Celestia’s name did it grow a flower like that… “Gotta be alien,” she reasoned, slightly afraid, slowing to a trot as she rounded a corner.

She wasn’t prepared for the carnage that greeted her. She almost shrieked as she saw the torn and destroyed trees and mangled ground, but when she saw the main part of the clearing, the sound caught in her throat. A deep gouge had been cut in the ground, an ugly scar against the green of the grass. At its end lay a mangled tube of metal, rounded at one end, but with a huge hole in one end, with layers like scales around the outside of it. To one side sat a pile of silk which she uncomfortably realized was her “flower” attached to one of the most uncomfortable-looking chairs Rose had ever seen, all straight-backed, metallic and with straps all over.

Another groan dragged her attention to another pile of fabric that was slowly making its way over to the metal tube. Its movements seemed painful and unfamiliar, and Rose could only watch, the oddity of the moment hijacking her other senses and clouding her mind. Eventually, it came to a rest beside the metal, staring at something out of the botanist’s view, before letting out a heady sigh and lying still.

Rose tentatively picked her way across the clearing; afraid the… thing would wake up. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it had to be extraterrestrial. Maybe it was a pony with no legs that floated around through magic. Or maybe a Pegasus with four sets of wings instead of just one. Or maybe one of those sea-ponies she had heard about…

“Or it could just be a unicorn…” she almost groaned in disappointment when she saw it really was a simple pony, “Aww, I really wanted to find a sea-pony. Lily would’ve been so jealous…”

Though she was disappointed at the lack of extraterrestrial features of the pony, she still tried to figure out a way to help him. He was barely breathing, and she knew she should go find a guard or something quickly, but as she turned, she paused in mid-twirl and put hoof to her chin. Something about her just wanted to hide him from the public eye though, away from the guards, who would ask questions. But how could she take care of another pony if she could barely take care of… no, best not to think about it

Deciding with a stamp of her hoof, she resolved to take care of him by herself, no matter the consequences. But first…

“How am I gonna get him home?” she wondered, glancing around the clearing, before her eyes alit on the pile of fabric, and she grinned.

“Hope you don’t mind a few more bumps, buddy.”

However, as she worked, she was uneasily aware that she was being watched. Whipping around to face behind her, she stared off into the dark forest, but could not see anything. Slightly perturbed, she turned back to her idea.

She had failed to catch the shadowy figure that vanished into the darkness, it's red star standing out against the shadowy branches. It paused to look back.

“Soon.” It mused, and faded into the night.

Author’s Note:

Hooray, moar explosions!!!! 8D

Looking for suggestions on a title... anything? Anypony?