The plane shudders as it fights through turbulence, the hot roiling air between the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia can produce some memorable rough weather for pilots. Back in business class, a white pegasus mare sits drumming her hooves on the arm rest, glancing out the window. The plane shudders a bit.
“Damn it.” She growls, “the cross wind is pretty nasty right now, we are at a wrong angle.” The engine whine lessens a bit, “Better give her some juice before we end up pasted on the runway.”
As if the pilot hears her, the big turbofans of the Lufthansa 787 start to scream as more power is applied, High Winds sighs as she watches the ground recede. She looks around, the humans don’t seem to be all that upset about the go around. High Winds, on the other hoof, wants to get this stop over with. Saudi Arabia hasn’t had much of a good reputation on how they treat the few ponies that have cropped up within their borders. She isn’t even going to have to deal with their passport control today. Just a little over an hour on the ground in Saudi Arabia on her trip from Mumbai to Prague. She’ll be catching a connecting flight in Prague across the pond to the States. She’s been with the 520th for a few years, and she’s been training up the ponies in the sanctuary in Mumbai, a personal favor on her behalf to White Lightning.
The human next to her leans over, “You have wings, why don’t you fly yourself and let the pilot do his job?”
She glares at the human for a few moments, then looks out the window, “Yeah, let’s see you fly five thousand miles on your own wings.”
The plane banks as the pilot looks as though he’s going to try again. Then something catches her eyes, she stares intently out the window, “That’s rather colorful for a farm.” She murmurs softly to herself.
USS Ronald Reagan, Persian Gulf
The newly minted XO of the USS Ronald Reagan trots down the stairs. While the ship is enormous, everything inside is quite compact. Sailors move out of the way of the XO as her hooves ring out on the metal decking of the ship. She turns and walks into the ward room.
“Attention on Deck” is called out, the ponies and humans all snap to attention.
“At ease.” Blue Lagoon says softly. She looks around as the majority of those present take seats. One of the new arrivals steps forward.
“Good morning Commander. I’m Jeffrey Cullen, the CIA representative.” He says as he extends a hand.
She looks at him, “I know, you came aboard last night.” She waits a few moments, then reaches out a hoof towards the outstretched hand, “Let’s get this over with. You can go ahead and start.”
He clears his throat as he grabs a pointer and moves to the front of the ward room, “Most of you know me, we’ve had to fly half way around the world together without you knowing much about our mission.” He clicks a button and an image appears, “Four days ago, a member of the 520th squadron was on a return flight to the states. She noticed something unusual.” Another click and the satellite image on the screen zooms in, “Discord has continued to be a pest. We have wondered why so few ponies have emerged in this area, despite them showing up on every continent in the world. Heck, we’ve even had a young man turn twenty-five on one of the science stations in Antarctica and turn into a unicorn. But many nations that are not all that pony friendly have shuffled their new pony citizens onto planes and sent them to many of the pony sanctuaries around the world. This…” another click, and another picture, getting a few gasps from the assembled ponies, “doesn’t seem to be a settlement.”
On the screen is a small apparent farm in the desert, though there are no structures evident, and the close ups show at least three ponies in the midst of being lost, losing their colors, and even their cutie marks fading. Another click brings up a pony that looks like they are being beaten, Jeffrey grimaces as he continues, “Saudi Arabia is technically a friendly nation with the United States, but armed guards, and the conditions these ponies are living in. Let’s just say we’ve had to promise to do something, or some pony settlements in the US will be doing an extraction themselves. Lightning Dust, and her crew, has been helpful on CIA missions in the past, so we are going to help these ponies ourselves. And letting them do the extraction.” He smiles nervously, “Has tended to be rather messy. We are here to avoid that.”
A pegasus lifts a hoof, “So, how are we going to do this?”
He smiles, “I’m glad you asked.”
Badger Group, Persian Gulf
“Maintain separation 1,000 feet. Keep altitude three five thousand.” The strike captain looks at his readouts and keys local coms, “Badger three, drop to altitude three three thousand.” He lets off the transmit button and leans back, he looks at his co-pilot, “Damn, I hope this works, I don’t like being naked like this.”
“Don’t worry, it’s a CIA operation. You can trust them, right?”
The captain just growls as he adjusts the flight speed slightly on his aircraft. His father had flown this exact airframe thirty years before, and it was ancient then. But the B-52 has been updated and continues to be a powerhouse in the air. Even though this mission is far different than many they have flown for the CIA. But the 57th wing helps out when asked.
Dubai
A single small cloud floats along, a single pegasus inside it. Dust Devil is looking at her ponypod V2. She’d taken a nap for a few hours after arriving here from the long flight from Diego Garcia. Finally her phone vibrates on her right shoulder. Time to rock. She checks the location of her cloud, she’s within a hundred meters of her target. She spreads her wings and leaps off the cloud, she lines it up…and bucks the cloud hard. Once, twice, three times. Each time sending a massive lightning bolt into the power station below. Her shots are true, she shorts out all three of the transformers, burning out cables and overloading the lightning protection built in. The transformers catch fire as the cooling oil is exposed to the air. Loud pops announce the opening of the high voltage cutouts, knocking out power to the entire region. Restoring power won’t be easy, as new equipment will have to be brought out after all the fires are knocked down. This area will not have power for a few days. Dust Devil keys her mic on her headset, “Dust Devil to djinn, Dust Devil to Djinn, Sand storm is blocking the tower, over.”
“Dust Devil, this is Djinn” Comes over her headset, “Understood, feel free to fly over the storm.”
Ras Al Khaimah International Airport
“Sharja is down! I say again, Sharja is down!” Comes the head of air traffic control at the small one runway airport, The lights there had flickered as the power surge raced through the entire grid, he looks around at his controllers, “That means all air traffic is being diverted here. You know the drill, rack them and stack them, 1,000 foot interval people. All local flights keep below thirty thousand, and over thirty thousand for international flights. Let’s handle this by the book people."
One of the controllers looks up, “You know our computers can’t handle this much traffic alone.”
He looks at his controller, “Make do manually, don’t depend on the computers. Let every pilot know they are on visual flight rules, beacons are down at Sharja, reset to our beacons.”
The controller keys his mic.
Badger Group
“Baker three five heavy, power is down at Sharja. VFR Rules apply. Keep above three zero kilo altitude and continue your heading.”
The captian of Badger one keys his mic, “Roger, Baker three five heavy.”
The flight engineer leans over, “The CIA came through.”
“Yeah, I know.” He keys his local coms, “Badger group, we are feet dry in thirty.
***
“I don’t like this! I don’t like this one little bit.” Sprinkles moans in his helmet.
“Don’t worry little bro, I don’t like this either.” Come’s his sister’s voice over his helmet.
Sprinkles looks to his side, the fuselage of the plane obscures his view, “Sparkles, why did I let you talk me into this?”
His twin sister’s voice comes over the radio, and he can picture her evil smile as she growls back, “Because we are doing the right thing here.”
“You are safe, you do know that.” Comes another voice, “We’ve got you.”
Sprinkles stretches his neck a bit to look at the pegasus looking back at him, “Wind Walker, we are on a plane, travelling nearly the speed of sound, and we are on the outside of it! You want me to be calm about the situation?” His voice rises with every word.
Wind Walker whirls around and smacks his own helmet into Sprinkle’s helmet, “We do this all the time. When a pegasus gets tired, we can just latch onto a passing airplane, and get a free ride.”
“That’s nice for the pegasi, us unicorns can’t do that.”
Wind Walker smirks, “That’s why we are here.” He whirls back around, “Just huddle down, you’ll be safe, we’ve got you both.”
Sprinkles does as he’s ordered, “Join the CIA, see the world. My hairy tail!”
The lead pegasus on Sprinkle’s side of the aircraft is looking at her GPS readout, she calls out, “We are now feet dry.”
Ad Dammam radar facility
One of the radar operators pokes his head up, “Major!”
Major Atif Safar moves over to the younger man, “What is it?”
“I’ve got a contact here, designating it Rogue one, on a bearing of zero zero zero, speed six hundred.”
The Major looks at the screen for a long moment before another radar operator calls out, he moves over to the other station, “We’ve got multiple tracks coming in, five…” He uses the light stylus to direct his radar, “seven…no, ten, now fourteen aircraft incoming spread out on bearings one zero three, one zero five, one zero nine. Speed four hundred knots. I’m going to designate this raid one.”
The Major leans forward, “Any indication of the type?”
The operator shakes his head, “All I can tell you, they are big.”
Major Safar leans back, “The Russians have been testing our air defenses from time to time. To see how we’ll react.” He looks at the multiple tracks, checking the different assets he has to use. He’s interrupted by another controller, “Sir, we just got a call. Sharja international is down. Their radar is dark, so are their beacons. We have civilian aircraft coming off course, or looking for alternate landing fields.”
The Major curses, “Get every flight ready fighter in the air. They are going to have to chase civilian airliners all over the place, but that can’t be helped.” He looks around, “Now!”
The controllers bend to their work.
***
The pilot of the plane the ponies are camped on looks at his display, one of the most advanced, and certainly the most expensive fighter plane ever fielded, and this time, they are showing up as a big fat target on radar. His computer system is digesting the radar energy bathing his craft, the speed of the radar system is well known, it was installed by American contractors thirty years before. He’s being pinged at nearly double the physical rotation rate of the grid, which means they are electronically steering the beam at his aircraft. That makes him itch. He looks in the mirrors installed on each side of the canopy, the multicolored ponies are still sticking solidly to him. They’ve been feet dry for about ten minutes. He looks at his mission timer and keys his microphone, “Star to halo, star to halo, do you copy.”
He watches the lead pegasus look forward as the voice crackles in his ears, “Halo to Star, copy.”
“Supernova, again, I say, supernova.”
On that command, all six of the pegasi flair their wings out, one of the pegasi on each side grab a unicorn around the barrel as they let go of the fighter, in seconds, eight ponies have shed most of their forward speed and are falling. Both the unicorn’s screams are quite audible over the local channel. He smiles as he clicks over to the satellite radio, “Galaxy, this is star. Now adopting call sign black hole, over.”
He can hear the chuckle on the other end back at Langley, “Roger that, black hole is monitoring.” He reefs a tight turn as his computer tells him the radar system has lost its lock on his craft. He smiles, it may not be the most powerful in the air, but the F-35 has it where it counts. It knows how to disappear.
***
“Sir, rogue one is gone.”
Major Sarif walks over to the controller, “What are you talking about, it’s gone?”
The controller presses a few buttons, replaying the last few seconds of the track, “One sweep it was there, then it is gone.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Only if it broke up in flight. Should we scramble any planes to that area?”
The Major thinks for a long moment, then he shakes his head, “We never had communication with it, no Mayday, we’ve got enough problems to worry about.”
***
“I’m going to kill you!” Sprinkles shouts at his sister, both of them are suspended in a pegasus’ grip.
The pegasus holding Sprinkles giggles, “Don’t worry, you’ll be on the ground in ninety seconds.”
Both of the unicorns look down, then they look at each other, “No, I don’t think so.” Sparkles says softly, “Ready bro?”
“To get my hooves on the ground? Any time!” Sprinkles says.
In unison, both unicorns shrug off from the pegasi holding them, they both take a nose down attitude as their horns light off, and both blink out of existence.
They both reappear at a fast gallop on the ground. The six pegasi streak for the ground themselves.
“Ready to start?” Sprinkles calls out.
“Eeyup.” Comes the response. Both unicorn’s horns alight again, opening their saddle bags, metal spikes with a large crystal comes out. Each of them places two of the spikes in the ground, fifty meters apart in a square shape. Sparkles skids to a stop as she switches to satellite link, “Halo to Galaxy, The oasis has water. Repeat, the oasis has water.”
“Copy.” Comes back over the link as both unicorns race for the outer fence.
Four of he pegasi are streaking towards the guard towers. Each of them lands on the tower. Their orders are clear, neutralize everyone. Each of the ponies slithers through the open windows and surprise the guards inside. Each pegasus bucks the humans, knocking them out. Though everything doesn’t go to plan, on the northeast corner, a short blast of gunfire catches everypony’s attention.
Sprinkles keys his mic, “Spring Step, you okay?”
After a few seconds, Spring Step’s voice comes over the coms, “Sorry, I wasn’t fast enough, he got off a shot at me, my wing got it pretty bad.”
Sprinkle’s growls as he looks at one of the pegasi still in flight, “Lilac Sky, help Spring Step.” He smiles as he watches as the pegasus streaks towards the guard tower.
A crackle over his coms gets his attention, “Galaxy to Halo, the caravan is arriving at the oasis.”
Sprinkle nods as he and his sister get to the fence. Working together, they telekinetically yank the three meter high chain link fence out of the ground and discard it to the side. As they are, all the crystals flash brightly and a bright flash in the middle of the square announces the arrival of the caravan. Dozens of ponies appear and rush towards the facility as Sprinkles and Sparkles take down the inner fence.
Sprinkles keys his com, “Alpha group, get the ground bound humans, everypony else, start gathering up the ponies.”
The ponies spread out, a group of unicorns heading towards the groups of tents for the guards. The emergency generators only providing some illumination. The rest of the ponies, the unicorns among them light their horns and provide light for the ponies around them.
Sparkles skids to a stop before a morose earth pony, his coat is not well kept, and his body is showing multiple scars, Sparkles has to choke back tears as she talks to the pony, “It’s okay, we are here to take you back to New Beginnings.”
The response is only gibberish to her. Sparkles thinks for a moment, then she switches to eponese and repeats herself.
A small glimmer of recognition, then the pony speaks in halted and accented eponese, “Get me away from here?”
The look of hope on his face nearly breaks her heart as she whinnies back, “Yes, with lots of ponies.”
“Friends?”
She nods and points to the rally point, “We are all friends here.”
He smiles and gallops in the direction she pointed.
Another burst of gunfire pierces the night, then the coms light up, “One of the guards was fast, took it on my armor. Guard neutralized.”
In a matter of moments, unicorns have led the ponies that are lost towards the extraction point. And all the other ponies have been herded there as well. Sprinkles looks around as the groups call off, verifying that nopony is being left behind. All of the advance team, except for two of the pegasi move within the square. Several of the unicorns link their magic and link to the crystals. A bright flash announces their departure.
The last two pegasi look at each other, White Wash switches to satellite coms, “Halo extract to Galaxy. The caravan has left, repeat, the caravan has left.”
“Copy that Halo extract, Black Hole is ready for you.”
Working quickly, the ponies grab the four spikes and stash them in their saddle bags. Both ponies take off and streak into the air. The only two true speedsters of the group, they power their way straight up. In minutes they switch to the local coms, hoping they are within the limited range of the local band radios, “Halo Extract to Black Hole, you ready for us?”
She repeats her call after a few moments, finally, “Black Hole, come into my parlor ladies.”
Ahead they can barely see the f-35. After a moment, the external lights of the plane light up, and the bomb bay underneath opens up. Both pegasi push hard and catch up, catching hooves onto the extended bomb bay doors, the pilot notes the extra weight and closes the doors.
Deep Blue reaches out and turns on a light installed inside the bomb bay, so the ponies don’t get too claustrophobic. They brace themselves as the plane turns ninety degrees on its side and the pilot pulls back on his stick, pulling the plane in a tight turn. She turns to White Wash, “We’ve got about twenty minutes here before he’ll drop us. He will hit in air refueling while we head back to the Reagan.”
White Wash lies down and curls up, “Wake me when it’s over.”
***
“Again, sorry about that.” The Captain of Badger one says over the guard frequency. He turns to his co-pilot as he keys his mic again, “You know, night navigation is quite difficult. Thanks for the escort.”
The Saudi F-16’s continue to escort the group of B-52’s north. Their course will take them over Iraq, Turkey, and they will land in Germany after a long night flying. The captain looks at his data link, he sighs happily as a message comes over it. He turns to his crew, “Well, it looks like Operation Milky Way was a success.”