//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Home again, home again // Story: Bailing Out // by PhillyCh3zSt3ak //------------------------------// Chapter 3: Home again, home again Well the firefight had ended last night and I had spent the night in the infirmary overnight for a very lucky shrapnel wound that had somehow missed all the major veins and arteries and in between my the radius and ulna of my right arm. A miracle if I've ever heard of one. I had to get stitches on both sides of my arm which was unsurprising. I also had gotten some pain meds and antibiotics, which meant no drinking, great just like getting my wisdom teeth pulled again. Where was I? Oh yes the shrapnel. It was from the car that I was behind. A grenade had been thrown and one of the parts of shrapnel that came off the little fucker struck my wrist while I was attempting to blind fire over the car’s trunk. The Sarge and Squirt managed to take out the sniper and we were able to extract back to base. Got stitches, went to sleep, and now am in a transport plane homeward bound. I pulled out one of the personal affects I was allowed to bring along: my smartphone, in airplane mode. I figure a few audio books would hold me over, plus it’s not going to be a short flight either, plus I don’t have cell coverage out here so I can’t browse the internet either so the only other thing to do is sleep. Only a 14 hour flight is what separates me from home. *** Spitfire continued wandering towards the city just over the horizon that continued to glow in the long off distance. She had traveled during the bulk of the night before stopping at dawn to use the pop-up survival tent to sleep the day away until sunset. Calling it a pop-up tent was being generous. It was only a survival blanket supported by a collapsible tent pole with the other side being held up by a large cactus. She used her unused back-up parachute as a pillow since she would have only needed it if her wings wouldn't have slowed her down, which they luckily did. It wasn't the most comfortable pillow, but it worked well. Why was she traveling at night? Her survival training told her that walking during the day tired you out more and drained your water supplies faster than traveling at night when the heat from the day was being released from the ground at night making it cooler out. Plus in her case it made it easier to know where to head in terms of direction. With her MRE eaten the day before and at least another two before she hit civilization, she would be forced to hunt some animals. Though most of the citizens of Equestria were mostly vegetarian, they all did partake in some sort of meat from time to time. In most of the rural communities the sources were usually from road killed deer and elk, while in the cities it was mainly fish. This made it much easier for those pressed into survival situations, like Spitfire was, when you couldn't be a picky eater and can only eat what you know to be safe and edible. The “night” before she had waited until the sun had rose some more while waiting under her little lean-to seeing of anything edible would emerge. As her luck would have it a jackrabbit was hopping around no more than 10 or so yards away. She took her pistol and shot it. Spitfire did feel a little guilty about ending a life like that, but in the wilderness it’s survival of the fittest, and she’s the one with a gun. She skinned and cooked it as best as she could and tried to save as much of it as she could for the next meal, since the next meal might not come until she finds someone or gets found. That was yesterday, right now the sun was setting again and the sun had fallen behind the mountains in the distance. The sunset was beautiful and breathtaking. Spitfire had never seen such a sunset before, even with Celestia being the steward of the sun. Well mainly keeping the planet on course and in orbit. One thing that Spitfire noticed was that during the day there was no one managing the weather. The clouds few freely. ‘Do they not have angels managing the weather?’ she asked herself. Another thing that she noticed was that larger versions of those planes kept passing over her at extreme altitudes, all of them going and coming from every direction on a compass. They were too far up in the air to be searching for her so maybe they were transport planes? A few more of those fighter planes and some larger wing-shaped planes flying and landing past the mountain range a good ten miles ahead of her and then took off in different directions at high speeds as well. She looked at the small mountain range ahead of her. It would take a few hours at the base to reach the top, but she figured it’d be worth it if she could glide down and save her aching feet some grief. In her training she was forced to do several 10 mile runs, but this was on a whole other level. During the first few hours after the sun set she’d unzip her flight suit and tie the sleeves around her waist, walking on in her black tank top until it started getting cold out. “Well, time to walk again,” Spitfire muttered. *** Ok so I was wrong, it was shorter than 14 hours. We made a landing at a Royal Air Force base to land since our original flight route was basically fucked because of an unforeseen tropical storm that would have been too dangerous to fly through. They left us the choice to either wait until the storm passed or take a flight from London to NYC and then to wherever home was. Airlines have come a long way in the last seven years, planes are capable of flying twice that of commercial jets back in 2013 thanks to some innovations. They’re still not at the level of speed that the Concord was at years ago before it was decommissioned, but it’s still faster than before cutting that annoying 12 hour flight over the Atlantic down to six or seven hours. Then of course you have random layovers and delays back home and you’ll total a wonderful 14 hour trip. Pretty much a whole day wasted. I was against waiting another day to get home since that’s how long it would take for the storm to pass. So I bought a one-way ticket to Phoenix after dipping a little into my bank account. Getting through customs was a pain in the ass. Yeah take a man in the US Army, drop him in London and have him explain why he’s in full uniform at a British airport. While I have nothing against our British cousins, getting through took longer than I would have liked. Though I do have to admit, the tea isn’t half bad. I had some from some restaurant in the concourse. The flight over the Atlantic, could have been better. I was wide awake from my nap on the cargo plane and the in flight movie sucked balls. Worst part was that I didn’t even have the time to go and get my cash exchanged for British pounds so no headphones for me. Well yeah I COULD have used a credit card, but the one I had was a prepaid card with only enough cash for getting home, the real card was in a safe back in my house. What? Call me paranoid but I didn’t want any of my squad-mates ordering $500 in sex toys on the internet and have them discovered on my doorstep. Eventually I fell asleep maybe an hour into the flight. But it wasn’t a restful one, it was more like an ‘I fell asleep because I was bored’ type sleeps. All I have to say about this is: jet lag is going to be a bitch when I get home. *** Spitfire had gotten almost to the top of the small mountain range. Along the way she had to kill a rattlesnake and a mountain lion. She had caught herself on another fuzzy looking cactus that seemed to just jump out at her leg when she got too close. She spent a good hour getting all of those little spines out of her left calf. She had used the last of her gauze and antiseptic on her leg. “Let’s hope nothing else goes wrong,” she muttered. As if on cue coyotes started howling, all from the direction she came from. Standing up quickly, wincing from the pain, she started running up the mountain as fast as she could muster. Reaching the top a short time later she stared at the landscape in front of her. More desert, but there were houses a dozen or so miles away. She’d be able to glide maybe six or more miles before having to walk the rest. Spitfire head the howls again and sprinted to get a head start as she ran for a sheer drop. She jumped off and spread her wings. As the air was caught in the feathers of her wings she felt a dull pain in her back muscles. She glided over the landscape watching cacti and miles of desert pass below her. Her flight didn’t last long as she approached the ground again. The sand cushioned her landing, but it still wasn’t a pleasant one considering she had been walking for the last two days. She kept walking towards the lights in the distance before her eyes fell upon a house, a large house. She ran up to it and saw that all the lights were off when many other houses close nearby had many lights on. She ran around to the front door and saw several newspapers on the doorstep. “No one’s been here for a while,” she muttered. She then looked for one of those false key rocks that some people used back in suburbs of Canterlot and Cloudsdale. It took her a while in the dark but she found it. She unlocked the door and went inside only to be greeted by the smell of dust, several months of dust. “Someone could have cleaned up better,” she muttered to no one in particular. As she explored the empty house she found the master bedroom and the bathroom attached to it. “I bet the owner wouldn’t mind if I used their shower for a bit,” she said starting the shower up and stripping down, leaving her holster on the bed. She stepped in letting the borderline steaming water melt the aches from her body and the sand and dust dissolving from her skin. She must have stayed in there for a good hour since the water started turning cold and the entire bathroom had steamed up. She grabbed one of the towels and wrapped it around herself getting out and turning the water off. ‘I bet they won’t mind if I borrow some clothes while I get my stuff clean,’ she thought. As she opened the door into the bedroom she was greeted with a gun in her face and an angry looking camouflaged man holding it. She raised her hands slowly above her head since her own gun was in the same room on the bed. “Umm, hi?” she said with a weak smile. The man’s expression unmoving and his eye looking right through the iron sights at her head. *** Several hours earlier… I had arrived at JFK a little after 8pm, Jesus that was a long flight. I had to move quickly to get to the connecting flight to Denver. Yeah the flight didn’t start boarding for another 20 minutes but it’s better to be early than to miss the flight entirely. I did catch “dinner” at one of the food stands in the concourse, my stomach was still registering it as lunch right now. Nothing fancy, oh God how I missed the simple hot dog. After I got back to my terminal I got the assorted responses from “thanks for serving” to just a stare. Yeah there’s still people that hate people like me who serve and the war when they should just hate the war and not the soldier. It’s not a hard concept really. Before I boarded the cutest thing happened that gives me hope in the next generation, or at least a little hope. This little girl, no older than six or seven walked right up to me, her parents in tow, and saluted me. It was just so adorable. “Hey, do that again,” I said and she repeated her salute. “Now hold it there,” I said then adjusted her elbow so that her salute was perfect. Then I returned the salute to her. She then gave me that little kid hug they do at times and in the most adorable voice said “Thank you,” before running back to her parents leaving me with a smile on my face. Another 3 hour flight later and I was in Denver. Again the same responses from other travelers as I passed to my next terminal which lead to Phoenix, home sweet home. The flight to Phoenix left right away so one sprint and one flight later I finally arrived home. One bright side to all this traveling was that I got to leave the plane first so suck it bitches! Leaving the concourse and seeing my family outside, looking as tired as fuck, we all met up. Hugs were exchanged, kisses were mainly from my mom. We all piled into my dad’s truck and headed away from the airport. “So Andrew, what’s up with the sling?” my dad asked. “Shrapnel wound,” I said. My mom turned around and looked at me with worry in her eyes, “Don’t worry, it missed anything vital. The docs just want me to keep it in the sling for the rest of the week. And I have pain meds if I need them, so no alcohol for the next week. And here I wanted a drink,” I laughed a bit there. The drive to my house was a good hour drive, most of it was on the freeway, only the last fifteen or so was on a major road. During the drive my parents asked me a whole bunch of questions, as expected from parents who haven’t seen their only son in almost six months. You know the questions: “how was your flight?” “Did you meet anyone nice over there?” “Does your arm hurt?” “Did you make any friends?” You know, questions like that. We finally arrived in my driveway and I let myself out, grabbing my bag. “Andrew, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to rest right now after your trip, so we’ll leave you. Call us if you need anything,” my mother said. I waved goodbye as I pulled out my house key from inside my wallet. Not a bad idea, I did it with my car key a few years ago, it saved me a really embarrassing phone call to AAA. As I walked in one thing that was blatantly wrong with my house was that the shower was running. I dropped my bag and walked over to my bedroom silently after taking off my boots. Walking over to my bed I saw what seemed to be a very dirty 1940’s style flight suit, a sweat soaked tank top, and women’s underwear on the floor and a holstered .45 caliber Browning M1911 pistol on the bed. I took the pistol and removed the magazine and removed the chambered round and placed the now “safe” firearm back on the bed. I then walked to my bedside table and removed one of my personal side-arms hidden throughout the house; in this case this one was a FN Five-seveN. I sat on the bed and checked to make sure there were rounds in the magazine before placing it back and charging a round. I waited and listened to the shower’s running water. A good and long fifteen minutes later the water finally stopped and I stood up taking a shooter’s stance two feet away from the door, my pistol aimed right about eye level at the door. I heard the wet “pitter patter” of feet as they approached the door. As it opened I was greeted to a woman no older than me wearing nothing other than one of my nice towels. One thing that immediately stood out about her, other than she looked sort of hot, was her fiery red hair. She looked at me in shock, because who wouldn’t in this situation, and raised her hands slowly above her head. Adjusting my aim slightly so that I was aimed right at her forehead I stared down the sights. In reply she spoke up, “Umm, hi?” and tried to pass off a sheepish smile. “Who the fuck are you and why are you in my house?” I said in the darkest angry sounding voice I could.