//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: War Between Gods // by Verathuum //------------------------------// Luna pulled the baton apart as soon as she jumped and the light sail’s ribbons began to form. It had materialized before she had even dropped fifty feet or so, and she pulled back hard on the joystick to her right. The small light sail jerked its pitch upwards extremely violently and Luna nearly threw up. A bright flashing notification appeared that said “STALL.” She ignored it since it went away quickly and tried to stabilize the craft. Now that she was in a climb at least, she tried using her brain to get the information she wanted: directions to the Gluhwurmchen and instructions on how to fly the plane. A small chevron shape appeared on her helmet’s display along with altitude, airspeed, and magnetic direction - commonly known as heading. The chevron was tilted to the right and just above the horizon. After a few seconds of Luna not doing anything to change the light sail’s flight attitude, small words appeared next to the chevron which read “flight director active.” Luna took the hint and tried to match the light sail’s attitude with the flight director. The first thing she did was violently jerk the stick to the right where the light sail rotated itself about two hundred degrees. Upside down and tilted, Luna immediately realized that slight movements to the joystick were needed, not large ones. She barely tilted the joystick to the right and the light sail rolled back over into straight and controlled flight. She continued with the motion until the light sail was matching with the chevron. It was still above the flight director so Luna took extra care to lightly push the joystick forward and correct her flight path to what whatever the thing controlling the flight director wanted. When the light sail seemed to be in stable and controlled flight, Luna took a few seconds to look at Equestria below her. She saw Canterlot, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, and even Ponyville; as well as landmarks like the Everfree Forest and other things. She also noticed how beautiful and peaceful things seemed. She was already higher than most Equestrian airships flew and moving much faster than any of the airships could hope to. A smile crept its way onto Luna’s face when she remembered that a light sail could go faster than the speed of sound. A faster speed meant she could catch the fleet faster and find Jolterix, and she remembered how fun it was to fly that fast back in Auflorsung. Luna leaned down onto the light sail’s console and tried to think of whatever words the light sail might recognize as flying faster than sound. “Super sound, uhh…break the sound barrier….um…faster than sound,” Luna thought hoping the systems would recognize what she wanted. Luckily they did. A message appeared on her helmet display that read “Prep Light Sail or supersonic flight?” Luna immediately thought “yes” and she felt her foot rests sliding backwards a little ways as well as seeing the wings change their shape slightly. Luna also noticed the airspeed indicator when from showing triple digits, to showing a decimal: a Mach number even though she didn’t know what it meant. A canopy materialized over her and another message appeared: “Light sail ready for supersonic flight.” “Excellent,” Luna thought in anticipation. She pushed forward on the left throttle control which she remembered Jolterix did when he made his light sail fly faster than sound. The engines revved up and became much more audible over the sound of the wind against the canopy. Mach cones began to form around the light sail and soon vapor exploded around it indicating Luna was going faster than sound. A wide smile appeared on Luna’s face as she realized this and she looked at the ground happily. She could see it moving under her at a slower pace than she would have thought, but it was still pretty fast. The small light sail had crept up on the Gluhwurmchen and was now close to its open hangar bay. Unfortunately, one of the engines exploded and the other immediately shut down to prevent uneven thrust hazards. Light sails weren’t meant to fly supersonically for prolonged periods, or really even at all. Luna’s helmet explained this to her and she thought, “What kind of an idiot builds a machine that can’t use all of its potential?” The helmet display quickly changed from the normal set to the emergency set. It contained the glide speed, what most likely went wrong, and other things, specifically a holographic path that guided her directly to the Gluhwurmchen’s hangar. Several other notifications appeared like what airspeed to fly at, and a checklist that was being automatically filled out. When the checklist was finished, a purple chevron appeared and another notification appeared: “Landing prepped. Follow purple FD for emergency landing.” Luna just sat there and waited for the approaching Gluhwurmchen and watched the countdown since the light sail was already in the correct flight attitude. It struck zero and the purple chevron violently pitched upwards as the little light sail crossed the hangar’s threshold. Luna complied and pulled the joystick backwards, earning herself a very high-g turn and watched her airspeed bleed off dramatically. The light sail then stalled and collapsed on the hangar floor. Luna looked up and noticed she was hidden behind a very large flying machine and the hangar was already very noisy so it was unlikely that anyone heard her less than graceful landing. Luna quickly stood up and collapsed the light sail back into its baton so no one would see her. She stood up and used her magic to heal her minor wounds since she was still under the influence of the Crystal Empire’s magic energy. She stood upright and began looking around in the Gluhwurmchen’s hangar bay. The first thing she noticed was how many more Florians were around than the last time she was in there. This only fueled her curiosity since there shouldn’t be more soldiers if the problem was sorted out. The first thing Luna was sure to do was get to the side of the hangar - out of the way and out of sight. She may have had a disguise, but if anyone asked her anything her cover would be blown. Luna stopped glaring at open hangar bay and got back to her mission: finding Jolterix, or at least Tennerac, and getting answers. She quickly began walking deeper into the hangar and she passed many large ships, a little smaller than the Equestrian airships, but made entirely of metal. She looked deeper in and got a better view of the large metal humanoids she saw last time. They were easily a hundred feet tall and armed with all sorts of weaponry that Luna couldn’t identify, and most of them she wasn’t even sure if they were weapons. It was moved much closer to the exit of the hangar than it was last time, as well as the others. That was enough to tell Luna the Florians were planning on using those leviathans. Another thing she noticed quickly was that parts of it were glowing, indicating it was activated. With newfound uneasiness from the metal behemoth, she quickly fled into a nearby hallway. The first thing that happened when Luna entered the hallway was she bumped into someone. A female Florian stood in front of her giving her a quizzical look, as though she knew Luna didn’t belong. “You know, you don’t need to wear your helmet right now,” the Florian told Luna, interestingly in Equestrian. “But what if I get called out right away,” Luna answered, “And why are you speaking Equestrian?” “Doubtful,” the Florian woman told her, “And because I was hoping to work on my Equestrian while we were here, but since that didn’t happen, I’ve just been speaking it on the ship.” “Oh, well you’re doing very well,” Luna told the Florian woman. “Thanks,” she replied and left Luna by herself. “Everything’s really working out in my favor,” Luna thought happily, “This is too easy, something’s up.” With her new paranoia, Luna quickly found a secluded area where she could relax and collect her thoughts in. She saw a row of packs next to her which she quickly remembered as the wings that Jolterix used in Auflorsung to slow his fall. “I may need this,” she thought to herself as she pulled one off the wall and strapped it on her back. She sat down again to retry collecting her thoughts. Just as Luna was beginning to relax, she heard a voice over the radio: “Yolterix Misekvo and Grantitha Wilim please report to the hangar,” according to her helmet’s translation anyway. “Perfect,” Luna thought and then concluded, “This is getting too easy. I know something’s going on.” With that, she quickly stood up and made an attempt to get out of the room, but the door had locked itself. She tried looking around for another way out, and noticed two glowing squares in the ceiling. Over them appeared to be two pairs of feet. The feet became legs which became torsos, and Luna finally realized the Florians had fallen through the floor! Quickly, she found a small place to hide so the Florians wouldn’t see her and blow her cover. Through silent fidgeting, Luna positioned herself so that she was sitting on the floor with her back against a wall and facing the same way as the two Florians were in front of her in their chairs. She wondered what was going on since they were staring at just a black wall. The metal pieces that mimicked wings on their backs began shifting their position around the cockpit and they began glowing with images of buttons and lights when they found their spots. Other pieces became the control surfaces for the one on the left. The two Florians began working quickly and the engines powered up along with other parts of the craft. She heard voices over her helmet and translated for her: “Glow Worm, LRB-37 tag ‘Dagger’ ready to drop.” “Dagger, roger. Glow Worm. We’ve got, uh, three drops before you: a Type 7, and two Owls.” “Glow Worm, we understand. Dagger on standby.” “What does that mean?” Luna thought to herself.