//------------------------------// // Chapter 5-The Fall // Story: Eight days under the Zebrican sun // by The Cheeser //------------------------------// A few days had passed, all of them had gotten used to their planes, and now was the day. Their job was to eliminate an airship convoy over the Eastern Deserts of Zebrica. This convoy had been found to contain valuable supplies for the storm king's army, which was occupying Colthage. At around 0200 everypony was woken by an alarm. The convoy would be in place in the next 5 hours. Lieutenant Control quickly gathered his airponies. As usual, Swift Glaze was the last to make it. This tardiness had gotten him the nickname "Lacky" though, he didn't like it. Eventually, he sat down in his cockpit with his tree nuts and liter-sized water bottle. He started the engine and, with a wave of adrenaline, took off. However, after this wave of adrenaline, there wasn't much to do. A few hours later… Eventually, Fluffy Mitten Squadron made it to the desert. Even before they made it to battle though, they could hear the roar of cannons firing and the patters of machine guns. "You ready Fluffy?" Squadron Lieutenant Control asked "Yes Sir!" Fluffy replied proudly. She had just barely been able to make the Fluffy Mittens airpony patch for everypony in the squadron. She had distributed them to everypony in the squadron, except Swift Glaze, since he was late. One by one the Control asked if everypony was ready, saving "Lacky" for last "Lacky, you ready?" Control finally asked Swift Glaze "Yes, though I wish you would stop calling me that" replied Swift Glaze "And I wished you wouldn't be last to everything, but here we are" squadron lieutenant Control mockingly replied "Alright, time to cut the chatter. We have been assigned to attack their deck to eliminate their cannons." Said Squadron Lieutenant Controls only a moment later. As they all approached, Controls commanded them to get in a line formation, so they could devastate the deck. However when they had gone to fire the enemy cannons erupted. A few minutes passed while Fluffy Mittens Squadron flailed, trying to dodge explosions. Swift Glaze was panicking, this caused him to be less effective at dodging. Soon enough shrapnel from the cannons hit his wing "If I go down, I'll take them with me!" Swift Glaze yelled, pointing his damaged airplane at the airship and dropping his extra fuel. "What the hell are you doing?" Squadron Lieutenant Controls demanded but before Swift Glaze could reply, the airship shot an explosive at his right wing. Knocking Swift Glaze out "Lacky! Are you there Lacky??" Yelled Squadron Lieutenant Controls. Swift Glaze woke up to his plane quickly spiraling to the ground. He immediately yanked the controls to the left, trying to regain some influence over the machine. "I can't regain any control," Swift Glaze said "Alright, listen to me. Use your parachute and bail out. I will get HQ to send a rescue mission, Understood?" "Yes sir" Swift Glaze responded, while taking out his parachute from the plane's emergency hatch. "Should I take the EB??” (Emergency Box) asked Swift Glaze "No" responded Squadron Lieutenant Controls Swift Glaze bailed out of the plane at around 11000 feet. He watched as his plane spiraled quickly to the desert floor. The left wing touched the ground first and caused the plane to flip upside down Swift Glaze, after watching his plane crash, decided not to ponder on the repercussions of his actions and instead looked up toward the battle. It was magnificent, some 13 airships were fighting at least 200 aircraft. All of a sudden one of the airships deck exploded in flames. It seems they had hit the ammunition. Soon enough the airship was headed toward the sand. A huge bang filled the air once the airship crashed as it erupted into flames (they used hydrogen gas) as soon as it hit the scorching sand. All of a sudden Swift Glaze realized that he was almost at the level of the airship and he looked down. CRASH… Swift Glaze was so preoccupied with watching the battle that he had forgotten he was falling in the first place. The hot sand burnt his fur as he desperately tried to unhook his parachute from him. Eventually after a few minutes of struggling he managed to get it off. The next issue was the heat. He looked around trying to find a place to hide when he remembered his aircraft. He quickly galloped to where he thought it lay, and found it on the side of a sand mound, with the left wing anchoring it so it wouldn't fall. Swift Glaze quickly ran to the little shade it provided and looked for supplies. Fortunately, the Emergency Package was only slightly dented. The issue, however, came when he saw his radio. It was destroyed. Some shrapnel had ruptured his radio when the plane crashed. Now the radio was pretty much useless. Unwrapping the EB he pulled out his flairs and shot one. As the flair went up into the air Swift Glaze realized he had brought food and drink. Looking at where he put it (under the seat) he saw that, the water bottle had ruptured and was incapable of holding water, which soiled his seat. But the tree nuts had held up well and were only slightly wet. Swift Glaze thought to himself "If I get stuck out here for a long time, I need every drop of water I can get. I need to get all of the water out of this seat cushion" Soon enough, he was wringing dirty seat water into a canteen that every Airpony was required to bring, After he had done this he grabbed the blanket and put it on the sand to cool his hooves. After this, he laid down on the blanket to rest. About an hour later the battle was ending. A few more Equestrian Aircraft had been shot down. However, these went down in balls of flame and fire because their fuel tanks exploded. Swift Glaze was lucky, he had dropped his extra fuel tanks when he had tried to be a hero, saving his life. Ten more airships had been shot down at this point and the last two were almost out of sight. Swift Glaze wondered "How long is it going to take for somepony to rescue me? I'll give it until tomorrow morning before I leave." he thought, before promptly falling asleep. Swift Glaze woke up in darkness. He was very cold. "It is the desert after all," he thought to himself. The blanket he had used to cover the sand he now slipped under. The sand was very uncomfortable, but he couldn't do anything about it. He wondered when they would rescue him.