//------------------------------//
// Chapter 18 
// Story: Until Fairer Skies Beckon 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

The UTA soldiers were rather bemused by the strange hole blown right through the wall of the bunkhouse.  Rainbow didn’t say how it had happened, to anyone.

The UTA didn’t do anything, because the building was where the pilots slept and nobody cared what condition it was in.  Rainbow managed to convince Soarin’ to install a patch of metal on the outside the next morning.

“How did this happen?” he asked as he worked.  Rainbow held a few tools for him, in replacement for his mangled hand.

“Eh…” she said.  Now didn’t seem like a good time to mention that it was magic.  Her magic.

At least, she thought so.  But without a way of actually controlling it and calling on it at will, was it really?  Subsequent experiments she’d tried had been utter failures.  Rainbow wasn’t sure if she had to be genuinely emotional, or if the outburst had been a one-time thing.

Neither were good options.  She’d have to murder another friend.  Either that, or the magic had been a fluke.

Well, at least she didn’t know for sure that there weren’t other options.  There was a time when she could “pony up” when she was playing guitar in a rock band with her friends.

The key phrase there was probably “with friends.”  Whatever had happened with Rainbow after Vapor Trail...it felt entirely wrong.

Was this the same magic she’d shared with her friends?

If not, was it still good enough to get her out of here?





Rainbow had almost forgotten her five mission reduction for shooting down a deserter.  The next time she remembered was when she sat down in the cockpit and mentally counted.  She was almost to twenty.

Pantera was at ninety.  Kiel was somewhere in the seventies, Lightning in the fifties, Pug in the forties, Striker in the thirties.

It was hard to believe it was down to just the six of them.  In the month Rainbow had been here, four people she knew were gone.  Three had been killed on the battlefield.  Rainbow was responsible for two of them.

As she sat there exploring dangerous feelings, she was interrupted by the sound of a jet.  Looking out the hangar door, a fighter came in for a landing.  Rainbow scrutinized it.  The plane appeared to be a Mirage F1 in Libyan markings.

“Dibs!” called Lightning over the radio.

“You may be disappointed,” said a voice.  “I’m going to be keeping this one for myself.”

It must be Wind Rider, Rainbow realized.  Keeping it for himself?  Was he flying with them now?

Yes, as it turned out. Wind Rider had gotten his hands on one of the best jets on the continent and come to lead the ragtag group of indentured pilots.  Perhaps Lion Heart was a little unsettled by losing two jets on the same day that ground troops had reported “monsters.”

Wind Rider refueled and took off again with the rest.  They were flying by following him, rather than with hasty time/distance directions.  Apparently Lion Heart was also considering the attempted escape and had decided to deny the pilots any prior knowledge of their missions until after they had taken off.

“There’s a decent sized city up there,” said Wind Rider over the radio as they flew.  He pointedly didn’t tell them where or even what it was called.  “We’re pushing in today and so the Freedom Army is going to be out in force.”

The so-called decent sized city was in fact the largest settlement Rainbow had seen since she’d been in Africa.  It wasn’t as big as Ponyville, but not by much.

Buffalo the ground controller called them.  “About time.  Are you ready, Patriot?”

Rainbow wondered why the callsign still hadn’t been changed.

They were not immediately ordered into ground attack.  Capturing buildings intact was apparently the idea.

In the meantime, Wind Rider called, “Pair of bogies moving in from the north.  Low.”

They were all still at altitude.  Wind Rider lined up and fired a Super 530 missile.  “Fox one.”

Being semi-active, the radar still needed to be pointed at the target, and the group followed along behind him as the distance closed.

“Splash one,” said Wind Rider smugly.  “Fox one again.”

The distance was closing rapidly.  Rainbow’s own radar, though barely functional with a lower target against the ground, showed the remaining contact only five miles away.  Her eyes widened - no, it was Russian radar - five kilometers.

Out the cockpit, she saw the trail as Wind Rider’s second missile went by an Su-25 Frogfoot that was coming at them.  Why the Soviet attack jet hadn’t changed course, Rainbow couldn’t imagine.  Maybe they knew they couldn’t run and had chose to fight.  Either way, they would soon realize the error of their ways.

Wind Rider maneuvered to get behind the Su-25 for a heat-seeking missile shot.  Rainbow gauged the enemy’s trajectory as probably going right beneath her, just two miles or so lower.  She rolled over and pulled into a split-s.

The MiG accelerated like a bullet.  To prevent telltail tracers from crossing in front of the Su-25, she pulled the trigger when her gunsight was just behind it, walking the rounds forward.

“Guns,” she called.  “Splash one.”

But it was not to be.  The Frogfoot started to smoke, and banked away from its course, but didn’t go down.  Rainbow belatedly remembered that it was built to do the same job as an A-10, and armored nearly as well.

“Fox two,” Wind Rider called.  His missile blew the wing clear off the Su-25 and it spiraled into the buildings below, its own weapons adding to the explosion.

“You’ll have to do a little better than that, Seven,” he said smugly, rejoining the formation.

Rainbow, for her part, was humbled by the too-early call, but had the feeling that he was only rubbing it in because he thought she’d tried to steal his kill.

She didn’t know much about Wind Rider, but he seemed like kind of an asshole on top of being a paid UTA mercenary.

“Buffalo, Freedom air has been taken down,” said Wind Rider.

“Don’t be so sure of that,” a voice broke in.

“Oh really?” said Wind Rider.  “I just shot down two of your friends.  You want to try your luck?”

“Luck isn’t necessary when one is Death itself.”

“Hi, Death, I’m Wind Rider.  Bring it on.”

His words and confidence did not appear to phase the alleged Death.  “I will meet you at the time and place of my choosing, as it should be.”

“Coward!”

Death did not reply.






The mission had been relatively uneventful after that and the group returned to base.  After landing, Wind Rider turned his jet over to a team of people Rainbow hadn’t seen before and left for the headquarters building.

She taxied to the hangar and shut her jet down.  Climbing out of the cockpit, she saw Soarin’ standing there.  Rainbow nodded to him.  He glanced at the soot around her jet’s gun port.

“I got a piece of a Frogfoot,” she said.  “Wind Rider got the other half.”

“I’d actually heard of him, back before all this,” said Soarin’.  “He was in the Air Force.”

“What did you think?” asked Rainbow.

“The reason I heard of him was because he was running drugs in the pockets of his flight suits.”

Well, at least Rainbow could still trust her instincts.  “But is he a good pilot?”

“Yeah, he is.”

“Better than Angels?”

Soarin’ tilted his head.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.”

Rainbow grinned.  “Better than you?”

Soarin’ chuckled.  “Not even close.”

He turned to the MiG.  Apparently he was her mechanic again.  Rainbow left him to it.  She stripped out of her g-suit and headed back for the Flyers Club.

All of them had flown together today, something that had apparently never happened before.  Granted, since Rainbow had been there, they’d never had only six kidnapped pilots.  They’d also never had a paid pilot with them.  Rainbow wondered how many of those they might have.  The C-130 crew.  Lion Heart’s personal helicopter crew.  Did the UTA have any other air assets?

Wind Rider wasn’t there when she arrived.  Apparently he didn’t feel like associating with the plebes.

“So what was the deal with Death?” said Rainbow.  “You don’t think they’re scared of Wind Rider, do you?”

“He introduced himself, so I’m not sure if they know of each other,” speculated Kiel.  “The first Death was gone by the time they hired him.”

“I don’t think Death is real,” said Pug.

“I think I agree,” said Rainbow.  “Two taunts and no shows.”

He met her eyes, but looked away.  Rainbow decided that the next chance she got, she would have to pull him aside and formally put things right between them.  Hopefully it would go well.  Then again, what was the worst that could happen?  She was trying to rebuilt a bridge that had already burned.

The talk turned to other matters.  Nobody, it seemed, wanted to discuss Wind Rider.  It had never been said, but Rainbow had noticed none of them ever mentioned sensitive matters in the Flyers Club or in the bunkhouse.  Were they wired?  Should she assume they were?

Another UTA mindgame.  Rainbow left.

Over at the bunkhouse, she sat down on her bed and pulled her shoes off before lying down on her back.  She glanced briefly at the hole she’d made in the wall.  How to get her magic working…

Rage, or remorse over killing a friend?  Actual friendship?  What else could have been a factor that day?  Rainbow turned it over in her mind.  Adrenaline.  Combat.  Being covered in lion blood.

Rainbow sat up.  She’d tossed the handful of lion claws under her bed shortly after receiving them, because they disgusted her.  But what if it was the lion blood?

She heaved a sigh and lay back.  If it was the lion blood, she was in more trouble than she thought.

Adjusting her position, Rainbow reached out to try and fluff the bedraggled pillow.  Her hand brushed something beneath.

She pulled out slip of paper.  Holding it up, Rainbow stared at the block letters printed on it.






C   R   A   Z   Y   H   O   R   S   E






Her eyes cut side to side.  The room was empty.

Rainbow crumpled the paper and quickly stuffed it in her pocket.