//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Rendezvous // Story: The Engineer’s Wings // by Keeper of time RD //------------------------------// “Wha-huh?” Those were the first words to escape Scootaloo’s lips after laying eyes on the spectacle before them. There were two large airships, and between them were a few dozen airplanes engaged in a dogfight. Though both dwarfed the planes buzzing around near them, the smaller of the two capital ships was mostly made of wood and held the form of a traditional water ship. The obvious difference being that this ship had traded its masts for a dozen helicopter engines along the sides of the top deck. The flat top could also be used as a runway for smaller aircraft. The larger of the two airships was mostly made of metal. If you’d lined up directly in front of or behind it, its basic shape would have appeared to be a trapezoid. Its sheer length also made its top deck an easy runway. As for how the metal giant flew, the bottom wasn’t metal at all. Instead, if one got underneath it, one would find a layer of cloud serving as the foundation of the cloud ship. The airplanes trading bullets and lightning bolts between the behemoths were of two distinctly different models as well. While both sets were metal airplanes, the ones shooting bullets had straight wings that looked oval-like. They also had more square-like canopies and a propeller engine on each wing. The flashes of their machine guns came from the rounded noses of their planes. All of which marked them as civilian aircraft that had been modified for combat. The other set of planes looked a lot like Scootaloo’s, leaving no doubt whose planes these were. Unlike her own plane, the Lightning Bolt Mark 2’s body got noticeably wider halfway back. And on the back itself there were two triangle-shaped thrust ports, to accommodate the second engine, instead of the single engine of her Mark 1. Unlike her silver Mark 1, the Mark 2’s were all painted blue, with yellow lightning bolts. “Isn’t that the C.S. Cloudsdale?” Scoots muttered. “Wait! We were rendezvousing with the Wonderbolts all along?!” Sweetie Belle nodded. Then realizing that her pilot couldn’t see her, she said, “Yes. The Wonderbolts are working with somepony who found a spirit key barrier, and they think that it’s linked to my spirit key.” By now Scootaloo had set her plane flying in a cycle, holding her distance from the dogfight between the two airships. Taking a moment to think, she considered her options. So far, neither side had noticed her flying a holding pattern off to the side of the firefight. But that couldn’t last forever, and the Wonderbolts would certainly know that a silver Lightning Bolt Mark 1 wasn’t one of theirs. And then there was the fact that she hadn’t been given a radio frequency, but she had been given a call sign. Making her decision, Scootaloo reached into one of the pockets of her chair. Pulling out a small metal cylinder with a cloth strap attached to it, she fastened the device to her front left leg. Then doing her best to stand up in her seat, she pointed the device out the side of the cockpit window, at the C.S. Cloudsdale, and started using her left wing to tap the button on the end, causing the device to flash. “What’s she doing?” Sweetie Belle asked from the back seat. “Oh! Ah remember that thing! Scoots showed it to me once! It’s a light gun! Ah think she said it’s for talk’n to folks when ya can’t use your radio, ya just flash em with that code they use in the telegraph office!” Apple Bloom happily answered her fellow backseat rider. “What’s she saying?” * * * * * * * Meanwhile, on command deck of the Cloudsdale, a Communications Officer turned in her seat to issue a report. “Captain! There’s an unknown aircraft to the northeast flashing us with a light signal. Odd thing is, it looks like one of our old Mark 1’s.” The yellow mare with a fiery yellow and orange mane in the captain’s chair asked the obvious question. “Well? What’s it saying?” “Courier Seven. Intent to land, your field. Please advise.” * * * * * * * Scootaloo had repeated her message three times before putting her light gun down. Then she just kept flying in circles, waiting for an answer. Sweetie Belle was the first to give the young pegasus something to respond to. “Um… wouldn’t all that flashing bring attention to us from both sides.” “Yeah,” Scootaloo admitted. “But pilots are supposed to keep an eye on their surroundings anyway, so they were going to notice us anyway. At least this way the Wonderbolts won’t mistake us for the enemy. And whoever those other guys are, their planes are too outclassed by the Wonderbolts to risk turning their backs to them to come over here. Besides all I did was ask them to tell me what to do, and it’s not like they’d tell a civilian courier to fly into a dogfight. They’ll probably just tell me to hold position out here until they’re done fighting over… whatever it is they’re fighting over.” “Oh, hey! They’re flashing ya back Scoots!” Apple Bloom announced. “See? What did I-” Scootaloo started, only to interrupt herself. Her eyes went wide and jaw dropped. Even though they couldn’t see any of that the two fillies in the back could tell something wasn’t right. “So, what are they saying?” The question snapped Scootaloo out of her daze. When she answered she spoke as if she was reading back her own death warrant. “They said, ‘Cleared to land in landing bay three.’” The orange filly was tempted to pick up her light gun again and flash the message ‘Now?’ back, but the fact that the cloud ship was already turning and opening one of the large sets of doors in the back answered that question. Then, out of the blue, Scootaloo burst into a fit of cynical laughter. “What’s so funny?” Sweetie asked. “I can see why your sister paid me extra to make sure you came back alive. These ponies are crazy!” Shaking her head and giving a heavy sigh, she added, “Hold on to your horseshoes. This is gonna be a bumpy landing.” With that she broke out of her holding pattern and pointed her plane toward the waiting cloud ship. It didn’t take more then four seconds to notice that the silver Mark 1 was obeying the flashed light signals from the C.S. Cloudsdale. And as soon as they did, three of the fighters from the unknown airship turned to intercept it. And as a result two Wonderbolt planes ditched the main dogfight to intercept them. Turning their back to the Wonderbolts proved to be a big mistake for the prop-planes. Outclassed by the top of the line Mark 2s, and now no longer flying erratically in dogfight maneuvers, two of the propeller-driven fighters quickly took hits from the Mark 2’s lightning shots. Engines shorted out, fuel lines burst into jets of steam and the two planes started to fall away, leaving trails of steam clouds in their wake. A moment later the canopies of the two planes popped open and their pilots bailed out. The pilots of both planes turned out to be griffins. They spread the wings they’d been born with and quickly retreated toward the wooden airship. All the while, Scootaloo was trying to line up with the open landing bay. She’d pulled back on the throttle and was just about to add flaps for a landing attempt when the third prop-plane opened fire. With a stream of bullets suddenly blocking her way, Scoots had no choice to jam the throttle back in and dive away to avoid flying into the enemy fire. Now too fast, too close, and at a bad angle, she had no choice but to call off the landing. She’d need to circle back around and get enough distance to line up to try again. So she pulled her plane into a hard turn. By then the enemy plane was doing its best to correct its aim, forcing the young pegasus pilot into another evasive action. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom hugged each other like their lives depended on it and screamed when they heard the rat-a-tat-tat of bullets bouncing off their plane. Although, thanks to the low angle of impact, the hits only managed to add a dozen or so dents to Scootaloo’s plane. As she came out of her roll and pulled up to avoid slamming into the forest below, she found herself behind the very airplane that had just added some dents to hers. The jerk who’d damaged her plane turned left. She should have turned right to head back out and try again at landing on the Cloudsdale. But she felt something she’d never known before, something burning inside her. She turned left, hard. Her right hoof left the stick and opened a slat in the cockpit wall beside her, revealing a patch of dark cloud behind the panel. And once her turn put the plane that had just shot at her back in front of her she jabbed the little black cloud as hard as she could. A lightning bolt flashed from the nose of the silver Mark 1. It only struck the tip of the left wing of the prop-plane, but that was enough. One engine started spewing steam and it started to lose altitude. For a brief moment, Scootaloo found herself unable to look away and in the back of her mind she whispered a prayer for the pilot of the other plane to bail out. A few seconds passed, then the canopy of the prop-plane opened and a griffin rolled out, opened their wings, and started flying for the wooden airship. Seeing that, Scoots released the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding since her shot actually hit the target. A new stream of bullets coming her way fully awakened her mind and forced her to roll her plane to the side to avoid any direct hits. Any thought the young pegasus might have had about counter attacking again were rendered moot when a Wonderbolt plane scored a direct hit on this most recent attacker, ripping one of its wings clean off. By now thanks to the advantage of both superior skill and equipment, the Wonderbolts had thinned the griffin planes enough that the remaining ones didn’t really have a chance of intercepting the courier with the mysterious delivery that the Bolts couldn’t wait to receive. A few managed some long range shots in the general direction of Scootaloo’s plane, but now that upwards of six Wonderbolts were flying defense for her, nothing could really stop the young pilot from lining up for another landing attempt with the Cloudsdale. It was in this reprieve of lining up for a landing that Apple Bloom finally managed to gasp, “Wait! This thing is ARMED!?” “When I said I fixed my dad’s plane, that included its ion cannon,” Scootaloo answered in a matter-of-fact tone. In a more somber voice she added, “I’ve just never had a reason to fire it before today.” The farm filly might have said something in response, but Scootaloo missed it as she focused her mind on the task of doing something else she’d never done before. Land in a cloud ship’s landing bay. One last griffin plane tried to take a shot at the silver Mark 1, but was immediately forced to abandon its attack thanks to a Wonderbolt counterattack. The young flyer had slowed down enough to add flaps and lower her landing gear. Her muscles tensed as she put her complete attention into handling the control stick. As she drew near she realized just how big the open bay door was. Namely that it was wide enough that one could fly two of her planes side by side without clipping the entrance. And yet that did little to ease the butterflies in the filly’s stomach from the knowledge that she’d never landed on a runway that had a roof over it before, or seeing a steel wall at the far end for that matter. As she zoomed into the metal leviathan, Scootaloo finally pulled her throttle out to idle. Then she held her breath as she waited eagerly to feel the wheels touchdown. The silver plane zoomed down the short runway and passed many an alcove to the sides some of which had Wonderbolt planes waiting. Although many were empty and no doubt the home of the planes currently flying outside. The C.S. Cloudsdale may have been large, but truthfully Sweetie Belle’s front yard had been bigger. In fact Scootaloo’s plane was almost halfway to the back of the landing bay before its wheels touched down. The instant she felt the landing the young pegasus started pumping her brakes furiously. Yet even as she did so, she already knew there wasn’t enough room left between her and the wall at the end of the landing bay. Suddenly Scootaloo gasped as a prismatic array appeared before her. It was several nets, seemingly made out of rainbow. As her plane went into the first net she felt heavy deceleration. All three of the fillies aboard gave startled screams. Also Scoots felt a hard thump through the back of her chair. The net stretched for a moment, then shattered into a shower of prismatic sparkles. Then her plane went into the second net and it too stretched some, then shattered. The third net stretched some, but this time the plane ran out of momentum and finally came to a stop. Once she realized they were stopped, Scootaloo gave a nervous laugh and then said, “Oh, so that’s how they land in such a short space.” “Oww…” Apple Bloom moaned as she tried to peel herself off the back of Scootaloo’s chair. Thud! “Oww again,” the farm filly added when she succeeded, only to fall to the floor.