//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Until Fairer Skies Beckon 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow sat in the cockpit.  The engine wasn’t even running, but she’d never had such a deep feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.
 
The Tucano was equipped with a pair of .50 caliber gun pods and a pair of bombs hanging under the wings on its four hardpoints.  Soarin’ had showed her what controls activated them.  He’d given her a brief overview on the cockpit and radio, but that was it.  He’d told her that if she was already certified to fly single engined planes then she was most of the way there.  She didn’t believe him.
 
Lightning and Kiel came into the hangar.  They carried their helmets.  Lightning’s flight suit pockets bulged with things and she wasn’t wearing the black patch.
 
Kiel went over to the MiG-21.  He looked focused today and didn’t speak.  He picked up a Russian g-suit and began to put it on over his lower legs.  One of the air bladders was patched with duct tape.
 
Lightning came over to the Tucano.  She glanced over the plane, ignoring Soarin’.  She glanced at Rainbow’s flight suit and paused.  “Take your patches off.  If you get shot down and they know you’re from the company, they'll just kill you.”  
 
“It doesn’t matter, they’ll probably do that anyway,” called Kiel.  He wore his patches, in some perverse tribute to UTA.  
 
“Why do we even have patches?” asked Rainbow.  
 
“We make these ourselves,” said Lightning, reaching out to touch the one still affixed to Rainbow’s flight suit.  “These aren’t official UTA patches.  And anyway, it’s better than being with the Freedom Army.”
 
“Is that what we’re calling them?” said Rainbow.  “Because Freedom Army of the Republic of Talongo spells-”
 
“Yeah,” Lightning smirked.  “It translates differently in the local language.  But it’s their name.  That’s the same reason why we have patches - having your own identity is important.”
 
Kiel finished zipping up and came over.  “I’m not here by choice, but UTA is my master now.  The Freedom Army is just as bad.  I picked a side.  I didn’t want to, but it’s better than being caught in the middle.”
 
“You need to stop believing so much in fate,” said Lightning.
 
Seeing Rainbow’s curious look, Kiel explained.  “I wear my patches.  I don’t carry survival equipment.  I’m too old to run if I get shot down and don’t have a hope of passing for local.  If I get shot down, it’s over.  That’s why I focus on flying the best I can.”
 
“And I give myself every advantage I can,” said Lightning.  “I try to plan for everything.”  She showed off her stuffed pockets.
 
The two wildly contrasting approaches nearly made Rainbow’s head spin.  The two of them were in the exact same situation but approached it from completely different mindsets.
 
It made Rainbow wonder how she would learn to cope.
 
The other two got into their planes.  Their respective mechanics finished final checks.  Rainbow also noticed conspicuous UTA soldiers standing around.  Were they to prevent the pilots from doing anything subversive?
 
“Are you good?” asked Soarin’.
 
Rainbow tried to reply, but her throat was too dry.  She pulled her patch off and handed it to him.

A tug pulled each plane out of the hangar.  Outside, Soarin’ gave Rainbow the signal to startup.  With some trepidation, she pressed the starter button, secretly hoping it wouldn’t work.  However, Soarin’ was too good a mechanic and the engine came to life immediately.

Soarin’ gave her a thumbs up and then closed her canopy.  She almost wished he was coming along, to ride in the back seat.  If nothing else, he could give her advice and act as an extra pair of eyes.  However, the Tucano’s back seat had been stripped.  Soarin’ had also told her that he didn’t want to go.  She could see why, but slightly resented him for it anyway.

“Radio check.  Patriot One.”  The voice on Rainbow’s helmet headset sounded like Angels High.  Rainbow saw another few planes being prepared at the next hangar.

“Patriot Two.”  It sounded like Pugachev.

“Patriot Three,” said an unfamiliar voice.

“Patriot Four,” said Kiel.

“Patriot Five,” said Lightning.

Rainbow looked down at a handwritten radio shorthand code.  “Patriot Six.”

A ragtag warlord-run air force needed all the credibility it could muster, but the callsign was still painfully ironic.

“Let’s go,” said Angels.

Rainbow saw a grey MiG-21 begin to roll.  An L-39 was behind it, followed by another MiG.  Lightning’s Hunter was closest to the others and went next, followed by Kiel’s MiG, and then Rainbow.

The line of them taxied towards the runway access.  Rainbow’s small propeller plane felt like a toy next to the jet fighters.  Even on the ground, she could feel the buffeting of their exhaust.

Upon reaching the runway, Angels turned her MiG and then pushed the throttle forward, rolling for takeoff.
 
“Wait!” Rainbow blurted.  “What about takeoff clearance?”

“Nobody cares,” said Lightning.

And indeed they didn’t.  One by one, each of them took off.  When it was Rainbow’s turn, she applied power and got moving.

The Tucano was responsive, much more than a Cessna, but the experience was tempered by Rainbow’s knowledge of where she was going.  Once airborne, she raised the landing gear and checked her instruments.
 
The fuel gauge showed less than half a tank.  Soarin’ had told her she wouldn’t need any more.  Everything else seemed normal.  As normal as they could, anyway.
 
Rainbow raised her head and looked around for the others, who had circled up around the base to wait for her.

“Wasn’t there something else they could give her?” Pugachev complained.  “We’ll have to go slow.”

No one responded, but that didn’t stop Rainbow from hearing the bite in his words.  It wasn’t like she could choose what kind of plane they gave her!

Distracting herself, Rainbow formed up with the others, her engine running near maximum power while the others were probably at loitering speed.  She glanced down at the notes she’d brought.  The impromptu brief the pilots shared before flying had contained next to no details about the mission.  They were apparently doing on-call close air support.  Rainbow thought there was supposed to be training for something like that.

She also thought there was supposed to be some sort of map, rather than time-distance directions.  She might have been an amature pilot, but she knew how to navigate.

They headed north, passing over what Rainbow saw were missile launchers.  Were they for base defense?  Was the base attacked that often?

One thing at a time.  Rainbow turned back to the inside of her plane and tried to get comfortable in the Tucano.  The military-style seat didn’t give her much room to move, but that was probably a good thing if she was going to be turning hard.  Her fingers moved over the controls, still getting accustomed to them.  For just a few minutes, Rainbow lost herself in the flying, getting used to a new plane, a more powerful one than she’d ever flown before.
 
She looked outside at the others.  Each jet carried two bombs.  The MiGs and the Hunter also carried a pair of missiles.
 
Rainbow wondered how some warlord was funding all this.  Then again, the jets weren’t new and not having to pay pilots helped.

Perhaps twenty minutes of silence passed as the light clouds drifted by.  A small village presented itself down below.  Rainbow craned her neck to look down.  She checked the altimeter, which read fifteen thousand feet.  This high up, she was definitely using the oxygen mask, something else private planes didn’t have.

“Patriot flight, checking in,” said Angels.

After a moment, an unfamiliar voice replied, “Loud and clear, Patriot.  This is Panther.  We will begin now.  Drop on these coordinates-”
 
“No GPS,” Angels said.
 
“That’s right.  Then drop in the center of the village.”

They were going to bomb the village?  “Who lives there?” Rainbow asked.

“If they shoot back, they were bad guys,” said Lightning dryly.

“Five, get on it,” said Angels.

Rainbow saw Lightning’s jet roll over and pull into a dive, hurtling towards the ground.  The two bombs under its wings came off and continued down.  Lightning climbed again as the twin explosions went off below, obscuring the center of the settlement in smoke and dust.

“Good hit,” said the ground controller, the sound of automatic gunfire now in the background.  “We’ve begun the assault.  Drop the next strike at the north end of town.”

“Three,” said Angels.

“On it.”  The L-39 was next to dive.  It hit its target, throwing up another explosion.

Rainbow looked down at what remained of the center of town.  It was hard to make out from altitude, but the fragile buildings were blown apart like someone had stomped a sandcastle.  Tracer bullets whizzed back and forth across the crater.

“Looks like reinforcements from the north,” Kiel observed.  Rainbow looked to the dirt road north of the village.  Sure enough, there were dust clouds coming closer.

“Six, you need the practice,” said Angels.

Rainbow could have protested that a moving target was no place to start.  But that might give her a better excuse for missing.  Also, she realized they probably wanted her to take the isolated target because her inexperience might land bombs on UTA troops.

Trepidation in her heart and fingertips, Rainbow closed the distance.  She saw a line of camouflage-painted trucks, driving fast.  Gritting her teeth, she nosed over into a dive.

Rainbow’s finger rested on the trigger.  She should be focusing on the big picture, not the feel of the smooth plastic.  It seemed like she was picking out a lot of small details.  She was vaguely aware that the memory was going to stay with her forever.
 
She thought about pulling off to the side and saying she missed.  But Soarin’ had specifically told her about the gun camera installed in her plane.  They would know she did it on purpose.
 
She looked through the gunsight mounted atop the instrument panel, the convoy swinging into view behind it.  Her jaw was clenched so hard that it began to hurt.  She pulled the trigger.

The rattle of the machine guns was easy to hear, even over the engine.  The tracers zoomed forwards, still seeming slow over the distance.  The gun pods weren’t aligned perfectly and Rainbow had to make an adjustment to her course.  Even still, she saw the bullets walk over the lead truck and head for the rest, some of them ricocheting back into the air like fireworks.

Realizing she was about to run into the ground, Rainbow hauled back on the stick, the g-forces dragging her down into the seat.  Even still, she gasped for air as the nose pointed up into the blue sky.  She hadn’t realized until then that she’d been holding her breath.

But then-  “Six, ground fire!  Get out of there!”

Rainbow’s lungs hitched as she looked around wildly.  A thin white trail had come up from the near the edge of the village.  A missile?  Rainbow rolled, trying for the dust cloud behind the trucks.  A crazy idea that it might hide her plane from the – heat seeking? – missile flew through her mind, before she remembered that the dust would stop her from seeing the ground and knowing when to pull up.

She pirouetted again, craning her neck behind her to look for the missile.  It didn’t seem to be following her anymore, if it ever had.  Propeller engines produced less heat, but clearly she shouldn’t get complacent.

“Panther, are we clear to engage the northwest part of the town?  That’s where the MANPAD was fired from,” said Angels.

“Clear.”

“I’ve got it.  Four, you get the convoy,” Angels ordered.  She and Kiel dove after their respective targets.  Rainbow was grateful for the opportunity to gain altitude and go back to breathing.

“Chopper inbound from the northeast,” Three observed.

“I’ve got it!” shouted Pugachev.

“Five is closer,” Angels said.

Both Lightning and Pugachev turned towards a small cargo helicopter approaching.  It flew just barely over the savannah, and fast.  It looked like a race between the MiG and the Hunter, both diving towards it.  Lightning got there first, and her plane’s four thirty-millimeter guns tore the helicopter to pieces.  It slammed into the ground, cartwheeling and throwing off flaming wreckage.

“That was mine!” Pugachev roared.

“I was closer,” Lightning quipped.

“I called it!”

“Keep the radio clear for something important,” said Angels.  “Speaking of, we’re almost out of fuel.”

Rainbow glanced down at her instruments.  She was right.

“We’re leaving, Panther,” said Angels.

The ground controller acknowledged.  The planes turned for the base.

Despite the calm flying on the way back, Rainbow’s heart rate was still up.  She swallowed and tried to steady her hands on the stick.
 
The Hunter slid close, hanging off Rainbow’s left wing.  She could see Lightning in the cockpit, looking at her.

“So,” called Lightning.  “That’s your first.”

If she wouldn’t drown inside her oxygen mask, Rainbow wanted to throw up.