//------------------------------//
// Special Delivery 
// Story: Special Delivery 
// by Willow Arqueiro 
//------------------------------//

        "This is the Marine Recon force, where the hell's our air support?" shouted a voice over the radio.
RainbowDash grimaced and turned down the volume, "This is the Captain of the air support flight, identify yourself."
"I am 1st Lieutenant Armor, United States Marine Corps. Requesting the air suppot flight to help immediately upon arrival." RainbowDash froze and stared ahead at the name.
"Hey, RD. Wasn't there a Sergeant Armor that you got involved with back in Afghan?" asked ThunderLane over the private link for their flight.
"Stuff it ThunderLane, we got a job to," she switched back to the command circuit, "Lieutenant, I am coming low over the trees for a low altitude gun run. Mark where you need it." She switched to her flight circuit, "ThunderLane, BlossomForth; hold back a little and I'll give you targets after I blaze through. Escorts, stay with them."
"Rog'", said Lane
"True dat," was all Forth said.
"Captain, targets are here. Warning this is danger close." RainbowDash looked at her HUD which now displayed two points connected by a line marked in red. She couldn't actually see the target due to the low altitude and slightly hilly terrain. She buckled on her oxygen mask just in time to hear, "I repeat, Danger Close, don't miss!"
"1st Lieutenant Armor, I believe you know me better than that to know Danger Close does not faze me." she said exasperated.
"I don't believe I've ever met someone as arrogant as you, all I know is I need that air support now or my position will be overrun!" he yelled.
"Good thing for you I have a special delivery for you," she said almost on scene, barely brushing the treetops.
"What fucking special delivery!" shouted Armor, the staccato sound of rounds being fired sounded through the radio.
Dash raced over the treetops and arrived on scene, 40mm Gatling gun tearing through the thirty or so men rushing the Marine position. "Your special delivery of saving your sorry ass," she threw at the Lieutenant meaningly and zoomed past banking hard. Over the radio she heard really loud swears from Armor and his men as the A-10's bullets hit less than ten feet away.
"Fuck!" she heard one yell, "Sir! Look at the decals on that bird!"
"Fuck me," he said. "It's motherfucking RainbowDash," and swore again.
"Sir, didn't you two..." the other man began.
"Yes, drop it now," he ordered.
"Ya know I can hear all of that," she said, sideways   banking hard. Armor swore again. Dash found the heavy vehicle convoy and launched AGM's destroying a large portion of the convoy.
"ThunderLane and BlossomForth finish off the convoy and drop napalm bombs on selected enemy strongpoints in the surrounding woodland. Stay below 200 feet."
"Will do," they both chorused.
She circle around and coasted barely fifty feet off the ground, heading for one of the woodland strongpoints. She armed a napalm bomb and dropped it perfectly on target. The area she had targeted was now a burning ball of sticky fire. As she flew over she banked hard to the right, viewing her handiwork. She gazed at the burning woodland showing no emotion. Near the fire, she saw a few flashes of light in a small clearing. A split-second later her plane bucked and rattled as Ack-Ack fire tore into her.
"Shit!" she cut the engines and banked harder, heading for the AA emplacement. She switched to AGM's and fired one off. "This is RainbowDash, I have taken damage but am still combat operational." she called to the AWACS that was out of the combat zone but could monitor everything and was the voice of HQ.
"RainbowDash, this is the AWACS Celestia, report damage."
"I've lost power in right engine and there is hull damage but I don't know to what extent."
"Roger, RainbowDash, keep flying."
Captain Dash gritted her teeth when her A-10 started rattling again as she banked around for another firing run.
She lined up on another group in the woods with her bombing reticule. She angled down from 200 feet and dropped it perfectly at only thirty feet above the ground.
"RainbowDash, this is Lieutenant Armor, requesting fire mission on approaching tanks," came through the radio. The voice sounded tense but it didn't sound like the tenseness was because of the combat, more like because of her.
"What fucking tanks?" she replied curtly. "Just laze the targets and I'll deal with them. "
She looked at the little digital map which now showed six little dots where the Marines were lazing targets behind her. "ThunderLane, BlossomForth. How's that convoy coming along?"
"What convoy?" asked Lane innocently.
"I need you two to come over her and help with these tanks, by the way. What are those ChairForce escorts up too?" Dash asked.
"Ok, I got good read on lazed targets, as for the escorts. They just flew in big banking circles watching the pros." said BlossomForth.
Dash chuckled, loving how they were doing 5+  g-force maneuvers and talking normally.
She wheeled around and fired her last remaining AGM missile, only having six to begin with. She flew in below, zooming above the ground and gunned another tank. Before climbing back to 200 feet. Her A-10 screamed and shook in protest as she climbed the short distance with only one engine.
"RainbowDash, is that smoke coming from your number two engine?" came Armor over the radio with something like concern in his voice.
"Yes, what's it to you?" she shot back.
"Am I not allowed to be a little concerned what happens to the planes flying over me?" he fired back.
"You lost that right to be concerned for my wellbeing years ago. As it is, I flown worse in my sle.." she was cut off by an emergency transmission from the AWACS.
"RainbowDash, we have confirmed reports that there are fast movers approaching your position, your 1 o'clock. Hostile."
"Uh, Celestia, please run that by me again. There is nothing on radar except for the ground targets and friendly aircraft." she responded confused.
"RainbowDash and Escort one evasive maneuvers you are being fired upon from 2,000 feet!" shouted Celestia.
RainbowDash looked straight up and saw the tell-tale missile exhaust trails coming down. Her missile alert alarms screamed in her ears. "Shit!" she yelled, throwing the stick sideways and dropping flares behind her, the single engine screaming. She pulled the maneuver hard and dropped flares until the alarm stopped, signaling she was safe, for now. Escort one was not so lucky. In his perfectly good F-22 his inexperience cost him his life. He froze up at the alarm and started evading too late, the missile slammed into the plane blowing it into a floating ball of fire and falling debris.
"Fuck me! Celestia, Escort 1 is down. I repeat, Escort 1 is down!" she shouted into her mask. The second F-22 went tearing off after the two bogeys, climbing fast.
She watched him until she realized that both escorts have no idea what they were doing, "Escort 2! Break off now! You are about to be engaged by enemy SAM sites!"
The Air Force plane kept climbing up while the enemy planes dived down. Escort 2 fired two missiles, each heading for a different planes, he would have been fine... Except he climbed too high. From each of the three enemy SAM sites, a missile the size of a telephone pole launched up at him. Dash saw the pilot drop flares and chaffs while desperately rolling sideways to no avail. Two of the three missiles connect with him almost together. The first one hit his engines, blowing them out. While the second one connected right below the cockpit, instantly vaporizing the pilot. The third missile had nothing to connect with and just kept going.
"Sunuvabitch!" she swung past accelerating as hard as possible. The two enemy fast-movers came in lower and the AWACS tagged them as Mig-28's."ThunderLane! BlossomForth, get out of here now!"
"Not till those birds are down!" came back ThunderLane.
"I ditto with Thunder," said Forth
"That's an order! I'll do what I can to draw their fire." she said softly, knowing an A-10 was no match for two Migs.
"Yes ma’am," they said. "Give them hell boss," added ThunderLane.
They broke off and hightailed it to back to friendly controlled airspace. She angled her A-10 towards the incoming Migs and locked on with her close range missiles. After a second she got tone, and fired of two of her four missiles. Dash watched in disgust as the two Migs effortlessly evaded the inadequate air-to-air missiles. "Fuck, what to do, what to do..." she asked herself as the Migs peeled off of each other and began to circle back to catch her from two sides.
"What's my advantage?" she said to herself. "I'm damaged with lousy missiles and I've been shot up to hell."
Thinking hard as the two Migs finished there circles and came from the left and right. "I'm slower then them and can turn harder but how does that help me? How do I kill them? Oh wait, I'm sitting on it," she tried to slap her forehead but hit the visor.
"Ok, ok, ok, here they come," the two Migs got closer and were going to toy with her by downing her with cannons.
Blood rushed through her ears as her heart started working triple overtime and she acted. She slammed the throttle down to low and yanked open the flaps throwing her forward against the seat harness. The two Migs flashed past each other in front of her and banked around behind her. She dropped the flaps and slammed the stick to the left, chasing that Mig. She got a bead on it and switched her aiming reticule to a bouncing circle. She was pulling the trigger when the Migs crossed past again and the Mig she wasn't tailing raced past her, no less then twenty feet away. She pushed the other Mig out of her mind a focused on the one in front of which was still trying to outturn her. She was having trouble trying not to turn so hard to expose herself to it.
She got nice and closed and steadied the bouncy circle squarely on it's ass.
"Sleep well in hell you bastard." she muttered and pulled her trigger.
The massive seven barreled 40mm Gatling gun below her roared and spat out a line of tracer fire nailing the Mig and shaking the entire airframe of the A-10.
The Mig blew in half, both parts spiraling down towards the not so distant ground with the cockpit on fire.
"Whew, one down and one to, wait, what happened to the other Bogey!?" she yelled, fearing the worst.
And the worst was right to be feared.
While she had taken out his partner she had gone tunnel vision and forgotten about the other Mig. Said Mig had closed on her and gotten a nice missile lock on her ass. Only a 100 feet behind her.
She closed her eyes, knowing what came next and sure enough the missile alert sounded and she snapped open her eyes and through the plane barrel rolling to the left while dropping flares. She looked behind her and saw the missile get right behind her and she just leveled out and looked ahead steadily, knowing that she was in no position to evade it.
The enemy missile slammed up the exhaust port on her remaining working engine but didn't explode, it was a one-in-a-million dud.
Unfortunately for her, it had slammed up into the engine lodging there and causing the engine to explode by jamming it.
She yanked her head back and saw that engine one was no longer there but had been replaced by nothing, only a blank spot remained and a gash in her number two engine.
"Fuck me, both engines dead, well one gone," amended. The Mig raced past, not even looking at her. She tore her eyes away from the rapidly retreating Mig.
She was only 180 feet above the ground and losing altitude slowly by gliding as best she could. "Sorry baby, but it's time for me to go," she said to the heavily damaged plane. She reached for the ejection lever between her legs and pulled expecting the cockpit to blow off and her to go rocketing up. Nothing happened. She tried all the other levers getting more and more desperate. She slumped in her seat after pulling the last one. "Well, I guess I'm riding you to hell," she muttered.
"AWACS Celestia and Marine Recon force, I have lost all power and am going down. Repeat mayday, I am going down." she said then turned off her mic, not really wanting to hear their suggestions.
She angled her nose to a flattish looking field of tall grass that was less than a mile away from the Marine position, and lowered her self-down above it, the altimeter read ten feet above ground. She lowered her landing gears, not really expecting them to help but tried any way. She was zooming along fast and was losing field space quickly. "Now or never," she said while raising the flaps and put her down.
The landing gears barely brushed the ground before being ripped of with a thunk. Dash rolled her eyes and lowered it down some more. The fuselage connected with the ground and started sliding, plowing a small furrow through the ground. Her eyes darted at the speedometer as the plane bucked and kicked, protesting this unfair treatment.
Little did she know that the field angled up a little, the uphill being to her left and had a tall rock outcropping too right in front of her left wing... Her wing hit the rocks and spun the plane violently. The heavy 40mm cannon lodged in the hillside and pole-vaulted the plane back up now, sending the plane cartwheeling, smashing the nose, wings, and tail.
RainbowDash let go of the stick and braced her arms on the sides while the plane continued to cartwheel. The out of control wreck approached the trees at the edge of the field and slammed particularly hard on it nose, shifting the restraining harness enough to where Dash slammed her head into the side of the cockpit. Knocking her out through her helmet. The wreck of a plane stopped on it’s nose, then spun a little and fell. It's tail lodging in a tree with the nose planted firmly in the ground. The plane was upside down, tail only ten feet up in a tree, with a knocked out Captain Dash still in it.