//------------------------------// // sandpaper freight train // Story: Sandblasted // by MoondustIsPoison //------------------------------// It was the middle of the day.... Everyone had been instructed to stay inside to avoid getting heatstroke. The dorms were blazing hot even with AC so everyone in our room stripoed down naked and sat in front of the AC vent... Strangely, none of us saw it as odd... Although some poor mare on supervisor duty saw us and just walked away with her face red as a beet. After it started to cool off in the afternoon we all got dressed again and went about our buisiness on base until the alarm went off. I already knew it wasnt good... In the earlier months of summer the storms would be far worsr than the rest of the year due to the far wider temperature fluctuations, and the last few dsys had been hot... And now that it was cooling off and the air was redistributing... It was bound to hit hard... "All storm control personnel, we have a Class 12 sand storm inbound north by north east, scramble and try to slow it down as much as possible. All nonessential personnel, please proceed to any storm shelter location and do not leave under any curcumstances until the all clear is given... May tartarus have mercy on you... " I ran to the hangar and smacked the door open button, I ran through a quick check and hopped up into the cockpit, I fired off the engines and taxi'd out while I was still strapping my helmet on. I saw the pegasus wings go up and begin flying toward the storm,i caught up to falcon 2 and saw falcon 1 taxi in behind me, we took off as fast as we could and began flying toward the storm behind the teams. The radio crackled on as soon as we got within twenty kilometers of it. "Team alpha and falcon 2, you're taking storm front, beta and falcon 1 get top duty and Falcon three and gamma get collapse duty... Get to it and may faust have mercy" "Rodger that..." I released the radio button and flicked on the heads up, I found gamma and dropped the support equipment early. I clicked on the squad radio. "See you all in tartarus... " "Ill pray for us" one gamma member said, she was the super religious one... I had no clue what her name was but she was always quick to pull another quote from her little holy book... Heck I didnt even know what book it was... She was kinda overbearing but at least the sentiment was nice. I looked ot the massive wall of sand before me, many kilometers high and seeming to strech off into infinity in either direction. "here goes", the plane punched through the outer wall of sand, followed by Gamma team, i was immediately presented with an image that would Make any meteorologist shit themselves and run for cover... Massive layers of driving sand, tornadoes and lightning mixed in and windspeeds of almost hurricane proportions, I flicked on the camera mounted in the nose and patched the footage in to home base... "anyone groundside getting this?" i waited s few seconds and heard only the occasional gasp or some pony quietly saying something along the lines of "oh shit"... I pulled into a calmer layer and zet a course deeper in to collapse whatever was droving this thing along... Or at least slow it down... For the first five minutes we were fine... The storm was so huge that it was easy to stay clear of the worse parts... But then we went deeper... And thats where things went south... Fast.. I Frantically heaved the plane around trying to avoid the massive vortexes and walls of sand that would shred me to bits in seconds, my med bay already had the maximum capacity of three in it already and injured reports were coming in left right and center, then they all stopped... While I wrestled the controls I saw something that would make anyones stomach turn, a Pegasus was dragged into a vortex... And seconds later saw bodyparts flying from it, A severed wing from the unfortunate Pegasus got impaled on the sensor aerials stocking out of the nose of the plane, and splattered blood across the camera, I retracted the camera and desperately fought the plane to keep it stable, throttles were full blast and now that the rest of the team was dead I retracted the booster and the tube, I desperately tried to go fast enough to keep stable, but the windspeeds were too high to even escape safely. For what felt like an eternity I frantically whacked the controls around to keep even sort of stable, radio was down and I felt the plane getting torn apart.... Soon someting failed... The rudder vane was torn of first, only leaving jagged pieces of framehanging from the hinge, soon more failed, a sand filter was torn free, the engine sputtered and died in a cloud of black smoke, I engaged the emergency drive shaft and got both props spinning from one engine, soon enough elevarors and ailerons were torn off as well and the plane began losing altitude fast, i let go of the stick and toom my hooves from the pedals..... And I waited... I clicked on the radio and began talking to nopony... It would be recorded in the black box, so If it was ever found someone would know what became of me. "mayday falcon three going down... Lost all form of control...and the otjer engine just died... If anyone finds this... Tell my family, gwen and anyone who survived this storm that I loved em like family... Tell gwen I love her...it was a good run... Falcon three signing off, I switched off the radio nd let the storm bounce me around like a toy... Despite my best efforts the three pegasi in the med bay had all flatlined... And I was alone... The altimeter kept falling.... The plane lost its relative balance and went into nose dive, the props still spun because of the wind, sparks flew fromm the rapidly deteriorating props and lit the fuel on fire, bright blue and green flames erupted from the wings, and the ground ever approached.... My life flashed briefly before me and I closed my eyes... I was dead either way, I pulled the eject lever and felt the gees hit me like a train, the canopy spiralled away and the plane fell... I was dragged into the winds and passed out from the gee forces ofbeing thrown around "Guess this is it..." CRASH!...... THUD The plane hit the sand at almost four hundred Kph, crushing the cockpit and nose instantly, the remaining fuel exploded on impact and the remainder of the aircraft was bent and mangled even more by the ferocious storm. The ejected seat was dragged by its parachute farter into the storm, and was bounced around for several minutes before finally coming to rest in the sand below.