//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Until Fairer Skies Beckon 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow sat at the table in the so-called Flyers Club.  She carefully touched her face.  It felt like a black eye coming on, and as hard as she’d been hit, it wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest.
 
There was nothing - an icepack, or even a wet cloth - to put on her injury.  It just hurt.
 
A metal cup in front of her had a few sips of water left in it.  After the long flight into wherever she was and throwing up all over the plane, she was drier than a desert.
 
But after one big swig of water, she was satisfied enough to start looking for answers.
 
“Where are we?” she demanded, directing the question mostly at Lightning Dust, who sat across from her, but also generally to the room.
 
“I told you, the Republic of Talongo,” said Lightning.  “Or what’s left of it, anyway.  This is Manatada air base.  I think it used to be a government base back before the country fell.  Now it’s run by the company.”
 
“What company?”
 
Lightning shrugged.  “It’s just what we call it.  Lion Heart runs this area with his United Talongo Army group.”
 
“Who is he?”
 
“He’s a warlord, basically.”
 
Rainbow shook her head.  “But why am I here?  I’ve never even heard of this guy before.”
 
“So, the UTA is probably one of the most successful non-state actors in Africa,” explained Lightning.  “Lion Heart is...well, a lot of things, but mostly brutally effective.  He’s got a lot of hired guns, but he decided that if he was going to have his own air force, he’d rather spend money on equipment and just kidnap pilots.”
 
Rainbow’s jaw dropped.  “Are you…?”
 
Lightning nodded.  “Yeah.  I’d just finished up my degree in Poli-Sci and was on the way to Air Force flight school when they grabbed me.  They did me the same as you, some drugs to keep you asleep until you were on the plane and there was no going back.”
 
“But...they can’t do this!”
 
“Who’s going to stop them?”  Lightning spread her hands.  “UTA controls the southern half of what used to be Talongo - an area the size of Arkansas.  It might as well be the government here.  We’re isolated at this base and watched by UTA loyalists.  Nobody knows we’re here.  There’s no long range communication.”
 
“And they expect us to just fly their planes?”
 
“They expect us to fly combat missions.”
 
Rainbow stared at her.  “What!?”  Like, war?”
 
“The UTA is fighting the Freedom Army of the Republic of Talongo, which is basically just another well-armed warlord group.  They control the north part of what’s left of the country.  Whoever eventually wins this civil war gets to rule the whole thing.  And yeah, they have their own air force too.”
 
Rainbow blinked hard, absorbing the warzone into which she had just been dropped.  “What if I refuse?  I’ve got my single-engine license and was working on upgrading it, but what if I tell them they grabbed me too early, that I haven’t finished anything yet?”
 
“One, they don’t care.  If you aren’t useful, they’ll get rid of you.  Two, if you fly, you can go home.  Complete one hundred missions, and they’ll let you go.  They don’t want anyone to get too experienced or comfortable.”
 
“One hundred missions?  In combat?  This is insane!”
 
Lightning nodded.  “Given the choice, though, I thought it was better than a bullet in the back of the head.”
 
Rainbow blinked and swallowed.  “How many have you done?”
 
“Thirty four.”
 
Rainbow stared at her, suddenly seeing a different look in Lightning’s eyes.  It startled her that she hadn’t noticed before.
 
“We try to get through it,” said Lightning.  She touched the patch on her flight suit.  It was black, circular, and had the constellation Crux on it.  Rainbow, being from the northern hemisphere, only recognized it because she had a really nerdy friend.  “Us pilots are all in this shit situation together.  ‘Until fairer skies beckon.’  I don’t know who came up with that.”
 
Lightning looked at the cheap watch on her wrist and got up.  “I have to go.  Time for number thirty five.”
 
She paused and gestured at Rainbow’s cup.  “Oh, you’re probably going to have diarrhea for a couple of days until you adjust to the local water.”
 
She left.  Rainbow stared after her.  It only occurred to Rainbow after a moment that she should have wished Lightning good luck.
 
An older man with a beard sitting in a broken recliner nearby looked up at Rainbow.  In accented English, he said, “She’s going to stab you in the back.”
 
“What?”
 
“As incentives to keep pilots from trying to get away, anyone who shoots down a defector gets five missions off,” he said.  “They’re conditioning us to turn on each other at the slightest opportunity.”
 
He leaned back.  “Not that it matters.  Most of us won’t make it to one hundred.”
 
“Are you a good pilot?” asked Rainbow.
 
“I used to fly commuter planes for Lufthansa.  I know how to fly.  Fighting is new.”
 
“What’s your name?”
 
“Kiel Kielbasa.”
 
“My name is Rainbow Dash.”
 
He nodded, but made no move to get up for a more formal greeting.  “I hope that I remember it.”
 



 
Being forced to work was by definition slavery.  What made the situation even more surreal, though, was the illusion of freedom.  As long as she didn’t try to slip through the fence to leave the base or go into the guarded headquarters building, Rainbow found that she effectively had free rein of base.
 
At Kiel’s direction, she had managed to secure something to eat from a building that seemed to serve as a cafeteria.  The meal ended up being tasteless boiled noodles that were apparently made of cassava, whatever that was.  She also managed to get a flight suit.  It was worse than any she had ever seen before.  Surprisingly, the fit wasn’t bad, but it was greasy and reeked of someone else’s sweat.
 
The amenities, terrible as they were, did exist.  Rainbow found herself assigned to a bed in a community bunkhouse.  She had nothing, neither in her pockets or in the way of luggage.  Still, she took a moment to sit down on the bed.  It was a quiet place to think and try to get a grip.
 
It felt like she was being blown along against the wind and unable to dig her feet in.  Sure, Rainbow had dreamed of being a fighter pilot, but even she was willing to wait for proper instruction and first-world equipment.  Being kidnapped to fight in someone else’s civil war half a world away from home was...well, there really weren’t even words to describe how messed up that was.
 
She got up and walked to the door, looking out into the distance.  There were obvious armed patrols around the base.  Rainbow could see them carrying AK-47’s.  Some even had dogs.  There was nothing but open savanna around the base, nowhere to hide while making an escape.
 
It still hadn’t really sunk in.  At the moment, Rainbow was still operating as if on autopilot.  She knew the facts but some part of her still desperately clung to the notion that this all might just be a nightmare from which she had yet to wake.
 
Deciding that going for another walk was better than sitting still, she left the building.  While looking for a place to wash her flight suit, she was stopped by the big man who had hit her earlier.  He appraised her bruised face and smirked.  “Your plane’s down in hangar four.  You fly tomorrow.”
 
Rainbow wanted to ask questions, but he was the last person she wanted to ask.  Instead, she turned around without a word and headed for hangar four.
 
Most of the buildings around the runway were dilapidated and made of rusty sheet metal.  There was just enough paint left to tell which one was hangar four.  The wide doors were open, and inside were a mixed group of aircraft.
 
A Mikoyan-Gurevich 21 sat front and center, with its distinctive triangular wings and pointed nose intake.  It was the best fighter jet produced from 1950's Soviet technology, and being able to reach Mach 2, it was still a capable aircraft.  The paint was various shades of fade and patch, mostly grey or tan.  Rainbow could vaguely make out  Tolongo Air Force painted on the side of the fuselage.

Beside the MiG-21 sat a Hawker Hunter, a British fighter larger and better armed than the MiG, but even older.  It was painted with an ill-kept green and brown camouflage scheme.  It had a strange roundel on the side, green with a lion.  It had apparently originally served with the Rhodesian Air Force, but Rainbow had never heard of that country.

Towards the back of the hangar was a Cessna 172, the same type Rainbow had been learning to fly.  This one had its engine cover off.  
 
The final plane in the hangar she couldn't immediately identify.  It was a small turboprop with low wings.  It was painted flat grey with no other markings and had a twin cockpit, one after the other.  After looking at it for a moment, Rainbow decided it was probably an Embraer Tucano.

She started to walk towards the MiG, but a voice called out.  “Who are you?”
 
Rainbow turned.  “I’m new.  Uh, the big sadist guy sent me over here.”
 
A man wearing dirty coveralls appeared from behind the Tucano.  His hands were dirty and it looked like she'd caught him in the middle of some maintenance.

He came over, glancing at the rank flight suit she wore and seemingly ignoring her black eye.  “Big sadist?  Sounds like Connor Clash.  He’s the UTA boss here.”  He looked at her.  “You’re the new pilot?”

“I guess so.  I’m Rainbow Dash.  Who are…” Rainbow trailed off, looking at his face, slowly imagining him without the unkempt beard.  “You’re Colonel Soarin’, the Wonderbolts pilot!  How did you…what are you doing here?  I thought you were dead!  That crash was-”

Rainbow stuttered to a halt.  She’d actually met Soarin’ at an air show years ago, when she was just a little girl.  She doubted he remembered her out of the many thousands of fans he had met.  Watching the Wonderbolts was why she wanted to be a pilot in the first place.

Soarin’ looked surprised, but his face immediately went back to an impassive mask.  “I’m guessing I got here the same way you did.”

“But I saw on the news that you’d crashed.  That was, what, two years ago?  How can you be alive?”

“I’ve been here for two years,” he said.  “I don’t know how exactly they grabbed me, but it’s the same for everyone.”

“You’ve been here all this time?” said Rainbow.  “Have you done a hundred missions yet?”

Soarin’ held up his right hand, which was mangled to the point of resembling a claw more than a hand.  “No trigger finger.”

“W-what happened!?”

“Shot.”

Rainbow closing her gaping mouth and looked away, instead directing her attention to his coveralls.  “But you’re still here?  So you’re a mechanic now?”

“I can’t fly, so this is what I do now.”

“How can you leave if you can’t fly one hundred missions?”

He stared at her.  “I can’t.”

Rainbow swallowed.  She glanced around and then lowered her voice.  “I promise I’ll find a way to get you out of here.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to try,” he said.  “I’ve seen a lot of runners since I’ve been here.  All of them died.”

He turned back to the Tucano.  “Give me some help here.  You’re going to be flying this tomorrow.”
 



 
Rainbow walked back to the Flyers Club later that day.  Soarin’ had taught her a little about her plane as they got it ready.  She was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of being forced to fly.  She was still trying to wrap her head around just being here.
 
Entering the building, Rainbow encountered two people she didn’t know.  One was an older woman, tall and thin.  The other was a solid young guy who looked like he swaggered when he walked.  
 
“You must be Rainbow Dash,” said the woman.  She had an accent that Rainbow tried to place.  Australian, maybe.  “Lightning was telling me about you.”  She put out her hand.  “I’m Angels High.”
 
Rainbow shook with her.  The guy’s hands remained crossed across his chest.  “So they gave you the Tucano?  Where are you coming from?”
 
“College,” said Rainbow.  “Flight school.”
 
He burst out laughing.  “Well, nice knowing you.”  He walked away.
 
“W...what?” said Rainbow.
 
“He has two kills.  He thinks he’s hot stuff,” said Angels.  “His name’s Pugachev Cobra, or at least that’s what he calls himself.  People call him Pug, which he hates.  I would just avoid him.  Bit of an arse.”
 
The door opened and a slight Asian man came in.  His eyes were flat, and his expression didn’t change even a little as he looked at Rainbow.
 
“This is Rainbow Dash,” said Angels, hooking her thumb at Rainbow.  Turning it around, she introduced him.  “This is Stratus Jade.”

He ignored Rainbow and said to Angels, “Striker tells me the new Atolls are here.”
 
She nodded.  “Hopefully these actually work.  Thanks.”
 
Stratus left.  Angels asked Rainbow, “So how do you feel about flying tomorrow?”
 
Rainbow hesitated.  “Sick.”
 
“I wish I could help you,” said Angels knowingly.  “But it’s something we all went through.  Believe it or not, you do start to get used to it.”
 
Rainbow didn’t believe her.  But also, she was sick.  She just barely made it back out the door before throwing up.
 
“Yes, the water will do that to you,” Angels commented, leaning out the door.  Her voice was sympathetic, if not actually concerned.
 
The worst part was, that was the most affection Rainbow had been shown all day.