When morning came, Scootaloo and friends found the view out the window had changed from forested valleys to snowcapped-mountains below. At breakfast Rainbow Dash confirmed that they were now somewhere over the western part of the Unicorn Mountains.
However, after breakfast the trio of fillies were promptly returned to their assigned room and it didn’t take long for them to get bored of sitting around a small room. While Sweetie and Apple Bloom did their best to pass the time by talking, Scootaloo quickly grew bored with that too.
Luckily for the young pegasus, she was also a pilot, and wasn’t afraid to use that excuse to go to the only other place on this airship that no pony could tell her not to go, her plane.
Of course once she was there, there wasn’t really much to do. First she took the time to take her stuff from the floor of the cabin and put it in the small compartment built into the wall just behind the passenger seat.
Then she attempted to buy fuel from the equipment chef. She got the fuel, but given the nature of the cloud ship the equipment manager wasn’t sure what to charge for it. While he was content to just give her the liquid rainbow, Scootaloo insisted on at least paying the rate her home airport charged for it. But he insisted on pointing out that the cloud ship was big enough to have its own rainbow production facility, so not even they paid anypony for fuel, that and they usually fueled visiting aircraft for free anyway. Ultimately she accepted the fuel for ‘free’ but insisted she give the Wonderbolts a ‘donation’ even it was only a fraction of what she would’ve paid back home.
And then she had nothing productive left to do and soon found herself just sitting in her plane pondering whether it was more boring to sit here in her cockpit and do nothing or sit in the fancy room and do nothing. The fact that Rainbow Dash showed up and started doing a walk around of her own plane heavily swayed Scootaloo into choosing to stay in the landing/launching bay. At least here she could watch other ponies actually doing stuff.
After a while, Rainbow Dash came over and tapped on the cockpit glass of Scootaloo’s plane. Once it was open, the ace flyer joined the filly in the cabin, taking the back seat.
“So… What’s up?” the younger pegasus asked when the elder one didn’t immediately offer a reason for joining her.
“Finished my pre-flight inspection, and didn’t have anything better to do,” she answered. After a moment of the two quietly watching the maintenance crew work, and with a hit of annoyance in her voice the Wonderbolt added, “That and Spitfire sent my wingpony out scouting without me, since ‘I’m on baby sitting duty.’”
“I’m sor-”
“Don’t be,” Dash interrupted. “It’s not your fault that Spitfire can’t see that you three are well behaved enough to look after yourselves. Sometimes I swear she doesn’t remember being a kid, and that getting older doesn’t make you smarter.” With that Rainbow Dash folded her front legs on top of the cockpit rim and rested her head atop that as she continued to look out at the rest of the landing bay.
“It doesn’t?” Scootaloo asked. It seemed an odd thought to the filly. After all, all her life she’d found that asking questions of adults was always more likely to get the right answer than asking others her own age.
“Naw, being older just means you’ve had more time to learn stuff.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Not even close!” Rainbow Dash said with a laugh. “I’m told that knowing stuff makes you ‘knowledgeable.’ And trust me, I’ve met egghead ponies that may know lots of stuff, but their idea of ‘common sense’ is worthless. I wouldn’t trust them to think their way out of a paper bag.”
For a moment, she closed her eyes and a faint smile appeared before she went on. “It was working with your dad that taught me the difference between being knowledgeable and being smart, because he was both. No, he was even better than that, he could think clearly and he always seemed to know at least a little about anything, so I’d even say he was wise. When I was still just a rookie Wonderbolt, I quickly learned I could always turn to him for answers, no matter what.”
With a bit of a laugh she added, “Even when he had to guess, his guesses were usually more right than the answers I got from anypony else around here. That’s what made it clear that he didn’t just know things, he understood things.”
Scootaloo could only nod, to signal that she’d been listening. She’d never really thought to put a mental barrier between the concepts of knowledge and intelligence before, let alone divide wisdom into its own category too.
“Did you know my dad well before he… well, you know?”
First Dash nodded, then she shrugged. “I’d like to think we were friends. But like I said I’m not good with machine stuff like he was. So when he did spend time with anypony on his own time it was usually the equipment manager, or one of the other engineers. If he counted anypony around here as a friend I’d think it would be them instead of that dumb pilot always asking for help understanding stuff.”
“I think he liked you more then you realized,” Scootaloo said with a smile. “He really appreciated the challenges you presented to him. ‘That reckless rookie that’s always finding new ways to break stuff.’ That’s what he would say about you, but the way he said it sounded like it was a game you and he played.”
The silence returned as Rainbow Dash pondered the idea, replaying memories in her mind with the thought that they had some kind of friendship going between them. Some of them made more sense… especially the last one.
This quiet pondering didn’t last long as the attention of the two pilots in the silver plane was quickly drawn to the fact that main door began to open. Soon the vision of the open sky stood out among the gray metal that otherwise dominated the color scheme of the launch bay.
Seeing as no pony was lined up to launch, the obvious assumption was that somepony was about to land. But instead of a blue and yellow plane the only thing that entered was a white pegasus stallion who wore a Wonderbolt’s uniform.
Rainbow Dash’s eyes became dots when she realized that her wingpony had comeback without his plane. And when he collapsed to the floor she gasped, “Soarin!” and took off toward the end of the bay in a prismatic blur.
Without thinking, Scootaloo jumped out and ran down to see what was going on at the end of the bay too.
The white stallion with the blue mane slowly got back up, and began staggering his way on three legs, while holding one to his side.
“Soarin! You’re bleeding!” Rainbow Dash shouted as soon as she saw the wound on his side that he was trying to cover up.
He just forced a smile through the pain and said, “It’s nothing the doc can’t fix. Now help me get to an intercom, they shot me down before I could get a radio report out.”
Dash nodded, wrapped her hooves around him and with her wings blitzed the both of them over to the nearest intercom box. Scootaloo arrived just in time to hear him give his report into the metal box on the wall.
“The camp was overrun with mercs, the whole place is an ambush. Oh and I may have brought ‘friends.’”
About a half-second after Soarin finished, the white lights that lined the ceiling dimmed, flashing red lights came on, and an alarm began to sound. The alarm quickly lowered as Spitfire ’s voice came over the intercom in a clear ship-wide broadcast.
“Everypony to battle stations! Launch wings seven through ten! We’ve got incoming hostiles!”
By then one of the mechanics had taken over helping Soarin stand, and had started helping him toward the medical bay.
“I guess you have to go, huh?” Scootaloo asked.
With a shake of the head, Rainbow Dash answered, “Naw, I’m in wings one and four.”
With that the filly tilted her head slightly. “Two wings?”
“Yeah, wing one is a special wing, so most of its members are also part of other wings. When it comes to combat, I’ve always been launched as part of wing four.”
Even as she was answering, Dash had scooped up the filly she was talking to and shuttled her back to the silver Mark 1 as fast as her wings would take them. And just as she finished talking, dozens of other Wonderbolts began pouring into the launching bay, each rushing to their own planes. Which in turn made the only civilian plane in the hanger the only ‘out of the way’ place to be found in the sudden flurry of activity.
It didn’t take more then a few seconds before the first plane was launched. Jets of steam shooting up out of the catapult’s tracks on both sides of the runway accelerated the fighter jet being launched. It only took a minute to reset the catapult and taxi the next set of airplanes into place, before they launched those two as well. The sounds of similar events made it clear that the other three launch bays were also launching some of their aircraft.
All the while, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo watched, sitting atop the filly’s plane.
Then a powerful shake rattled not only the launch bay but also the whole ship. The distant sound of a heavy crash reached their ears.
In response Dash muttered, “What the hay? Are we taking fire?”
* * * * * * *
Meanwhile, on the bridge, Spitfire shouted, “What the heck hit us!?”
The command room was larger than the rest of the floors of the control-tower-like part of the C.S. Cloudsdale. As such part of the room wrapped around the hallway that allowed entry to the room, so observers could be stationed to watch the blind spot from the captain's chair.
One such observer shouted, “It’s the airship from yesterday! They just came out from behind a ridge! Also I see about thirty fighters approaching from the two and four o’clock positions!”
Spitfire darted to the forward edge of the room, looking out the observer’s windows. Looking back to the left side of the ship she didn’t need anypony to point out the hundred or so planes appearing from behind clouds and ridges to see what was going on.
“So we’re completely surrounded,” she stated the obvious. With a bit of a growl and maybe a hint of a smile she added, “If they’re going to go all out like that, we’ll just have to greet them in kind.”
With that, the captain of the Wonderbolts flew over the intercom system.
* * * * * * *
“Launch all available fighters! All defenders, fire at will!”
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo shot each other a look as Spitfire repeated her command over the intercom. Then Dash looked to the nearest maintenance crewpony and said, “Hey! Do me a favor and launch me and the kid last!”
Scootaloo’s look of concern became a gasp.
“Wha-huh?! You want me to go out there too? I’m just a filly!”
Rainbow Dash, who’d already started flying over toward her own plane, stopped and looking back to the filly pilot said, “I suppose you’re right. You’re not technically a Wonderbolt so you don’t HAVE to follow Spitfire’s orders. But she did say launch ALL fighters, so she gave you permission to. And didn’t you say yesterday that you were hired to keep Sweetie Belle safe? If the Cloudsdale goes down, she’s not going to be very safe, is she?”
Another heavy bang of a cannonball slamming into the side of the cloud ship punctuated the elder pegasus’ point.
A little more sheepishly she added, “And with Soarin injured I’m kinda short a wingpony.” Then she closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them again only confidence showed on her face, and she said, “Squirt, if you do decide to help out, 721.3.”
Scootaloo blinked for a moment as her mind processed what the numbers meant. When it hit her, her eyes lit up.
“Is that the Wonderbolts radio frequency today?”
With a shake of her head Dash answered, “Naw, Spitfire would get mad at me if I gave you that without permission. It’ll just be you and me on that frequency.”
It only took a few minutes before the bay was running short on planes. Most were launched by the steam catapult in the bay, although some were taken to the elevator and sent up to launch off of the top deck’s runway.
For her part, Scootaloo was sitting in the cockpit of her plane, strapped in, goggles on, and everything was physically ready to go. The only question now was, was she willing to do what was being asked of her?
The maintenance chief flew up to the silver Mark 1 and tapped a hoof on the glass. Though it was Rainbow Dash’s voice that came out of the radio and asked the question clearly written on his face.
“So, do I have a wingpony? Or am I going out there on my own?”
Scootaloo swallowed hard. Rainbow Dash is right. This is what I was hired to do. And I have to prove I’m just as good as any adult that they could have hired instead… just like always. With those thoughts in her mind, she nodded and gave a hoofs up sign to the maintenance chief.
“I’ll try,” she answered through her radio. “Oh and Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah?”
“Would this be a good time to mention that I’ve never been a wingpony before?”
First Dash laughed, then she said, “The way you flew yesterday, you could’ve fooled me! Anyway, it’s easy! All you have to do is follow me, and if any enemy gets behind me, you shoot them.”
“And if someone gets behind me?” The filly voiced her greatest fear tied to this whole idea.
“Then dodge them. And say something to me and I’ll loop around and take care of them for ya!”
As they were taxied into place and their planes were hooked up to the launch catapult Dash shared a few more pointers with the young pilot.
As Scootaloo had learned watching the rest of the Wonderbolts launch, the launch catapult was built to launch two planes in rapid succession before needing a full reset. Technically both launchers used the same rails. Needless to say Rainbow Dash’s Mark 2 was hooked up to the cable and front set of blocks poking up out of the steam launcher’s channels on either side of the short runway, while Scootaloo’s Mark 1 was attached to the back ones.
The iris glow of the Mark 2’s engines suddenly grew bright. Jets of steam shot up out of the launch rails just behind the front set of blocks, and Dash’s plane shot down the runway at an impossible speed.
As per Rainbow Dash’s instructions, Scootaloo looked to the side of the runway, where there was a set of lights. A fraction of a second after Dash’s Mark 2 had left the launch bay, the red light turned off and a blue light turned on. In response the filly suddenly jammed her plane’s throttle all the way in.
The instant her plane started to roll forward, the catapult responded by firing the steam jets on the second launcher.
The young pilot was pushed into the back cushion of her seat as the power of the steam jets gave her plane acceleration that it never could have had on its own. So much so that it only took two seconds to reach the end of the runway, where the hook connecting her front wheel’s landing gear to the tow cable opened, and she left the launch bay behind, exploding into the open sky at full speed.