//------------------------------//
// Novella: A Burning Phoenix 
// Story: A Circle Has No End: Volume I 
// by Gladi Writes 
//------------------------------//



Waylay Island marked 1/3rd of the way between Equestria and the Griffon Home Islands. Long ago it had been ceded to them, as a gesture of friendship in more peaceful times. A volcanic island, with a large mountain in it's centre splitting it in two. A hundred kilometers to it's west the Wonderbolt Fleet was poised to assault it, the Magnificent at it's head.

At the back of the Magnifent's bridge were two boards, and a clock above which was currently held at the zero position. Spitfire stood  before one of the boards, the bridge crew at attention behind her. Today was the most important day in the Wonderbolts storied history, today was the day they would fulfill their original role in defense of Equestria. The homefront was one thing, but now they were on their own. There were no alicorns waiting on the sidelines, no hope if they failed. Between them and their end goal was a thousand kilometers of ocean, a griffon fleet, and probably a hundred thousand griffons. Today they would face a tenth of that.


Tuesday, August 26th, 1001.
Celestia's Royal Marine Corps Status: 21056 Operational, 56 Injured, 576 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 26 frigates, 37 corvettes. 7 lost.


Weather: Heavy rains, visibility low.


Six Hours to Operation Bronco


Spitfire adjusted her uniform and turned from the information board, hanging at the back of the Magnificent's bridge.The Wonderbolts hid their true causality numbers by only reporting lost ships, morale would take a nose dive if the public found out how many they had lost in these last two months, mostly in the first few weeks of hit and run coastal attacks before they learned how to adapt. The marines had suffered the hardest in Baltimare, but their numbers were being increased by fresh recruits every day. The original force was all volunteers from the old guard, but it quickly became clear that wouldn't be enough. The wonderbolts though, they couldn't rely on that. Their number now was all they had, almost every single pegasus capable of fighting was, the rest would be unable to fulfill the obligations that came with being a Wonderbolt.

Two hundred sixty three.

Two hundred sixty three pegasi that would never see home again, twice the original peacetime strength of the Wonderbolts had been lost, now their total number was a heavily classified number somewhere close to ten thousand, mostly in the support roles and crewing the ships. Not every pegasus could master flying with a half tonne of weaponry on your back, it took more then just practical skill- it took a honing of a pegasus' inherent magic. Most of them didn't make the cut.

There was no surrender in the air, you couldn't drop your weapon and pull out a white flag in the half second it took for a bullet to tear through you, or for a griffon to get into a position behind you to bathe you with that horrible fire. You either killed your enemy, or he killed you. That was the first lesson they had learned, and anypony without the nerves required to stick it to a griffon as soon as you got the chance quickly found themselves a statistic. Rarely did they come back wounded, it was more or less a binary equation in an engagement. Lighting on fire at a thousand feet, or getting hit with a 30mm round, had the effect of that.

Beside that rather depressing board was the Combat Air Patrol scoresheet, which Spitfire always looked over second to reassure her of their chances. They might be bleeding, but the Griffons were bleeding far worse.


DASH WING: 464 CONFIRMED, 27 UNCONFIRMED
DUST WING: 327 CONFIRMED, 65 UNCONNFIRMED
SOARIN WING: 257 CONFIRMED, 22 UNCONFIRMED
FLEETFOOT WING: 222 CONFIRMED 0 UNCONFIRMED


FLEET SCORE: 7 CAPITAL, SIX FRIGATE, 27 TRANSPORT


This was in addition to the marines having taken, at a rough estimate, a thousand of them in Baltimare. The griffons were full of hubris, and while their flame cannons were terrifying- they were absolutely useless at any sort of range; now they had fallen back on rifles- their design stolen from the Marines. The Wonderbolt's could out fly them them too, so the order of the day had become to fly at them full speed, let loose a hail of bullets, and then keep going while they struggled to follow. If all four wings were out they could go one after another and absolutely annihilate the enemy. Their fleet was superior, their Wonderbolts superior, but there was still the matter of the ground.

Waylay Island was a vast expanse of thick tropical jungle, to add to this it was raining heavily, and the weather out here had been left alone for far too long for the pegasi to even try and reign it in. It would take a force three times their size with decades of time to attempt that, which brought up the question of just what Equestria was going to be like when they got back. 

Spitfire shook her head, the ponies could deal with a single harsh winter, it was a sacrifice that had to be made. It was certainly far better than the sacrifices they had to endure out here, especially today.

Today they would attack Waylay island, head on. Flash Sentry should be back soon with the recon photographs he had been ordered to take with the Pheonix 3, and they would begin planning in earnest. It would seem wise to delay the attack until they knew more, but their long term plans hinged on taking the island as quickly as possible. The griffons had clearly expected a less aggressive strategy, with the Wonderbolt Fleet high on the victory of downing a dozen troop carriers that had been positioned to drop on Baltimare. The griffons had invested a lot of resources in that trap working.

It hadn't, and now the winds had shifted. The fire was coming to them.

"Sow the wind..." Spitfire said, and turned to the bridge crew lined up before her.

"Reap the whirlwind!" They shouted in unison.


______


Flash Sentry sat the controls of the Phoenix 3, somehow managing to keep his breakfast down as the strong winds outside buffeted the craft. The low cloud ceiling meant that they would have to stay within the clouds as long as possible, and then dip below just long enough to get recon photographs. 

Hopefully they wouldn't die.

The craft was nice, and the cockpit was rather spacious with room for two, and a tiny cabin with a cot in the back for long voyages. There was even a washroom, however this was all for naught- overheating kept the Wonderbolts from flying these for more then five hours at a time. Even so, it was warm in here and the thick front glass, carpeted interior, and armoured sides kept the noise level to near silence, only the hum of the engines in the far back audible. 

Behind the cabin was the bomb bay, around ten meters long with four adjustable racks. Normally these would hold basic gravity bombs, and a few times they had dropped other things. ATA-1 missiles had to be attached to external hardpoints, and this had only be done once back in Baltimare.

This bomb bay of this Pheonix was full of recording equipment, a few hundred thousand bits of it handcrafted to Spitfire's specifications. It was the most advanced camera in the world- possibly in history.

"Fang!" Flash barked, struggling with the controls. Why in Celestia's name he was the one flying this thing instead of an actually trained pilot was beyond him.

"Yeah, what is it?" Fang asked, himself managing to keep steady somehow standing behind Flash.

Flash pulled back on the stick and set the craft shooting over the clouds so he could read the get a bearing. The view outside was beautiful, the sun shining down on the billowing white clouds, but there was no time for that now.

"We're about ten minutes out, get back and get ready to get pictures. I hope you've got a keen eye, because I'm not slowing this thing down. I know they've got guns down there," Flash said.

"Sure thing Flash, shouldn't be too hard." Fang returned.

Flash grabbed the stick, and carefully placed his hooves on the pedals.

"Alright, now it's going to get bumpy so hold onto something," Flash warned.

Fang grabbed the edge of the cockpit, and used it to pull himself to the back as Flash sent the plane back down into the clouds. Soon enough the soft flight through the troposphere gave way to rattling turbulence as it hammered it's way onwards. Flash couldn't keep it above for long, a griffon scout marking them would force them to abort. If the weather was better they would just hang at extreme height and take pictures at their leisure, but the elements were not on their side.

	Elements. We used to just throw the 'elements' at our problems, so much for that.

Guiding himself to the back with the wall as a guide, Fang entered the bomb bay and secured the thick door behind him. Then he put on the gear handing on the inside wall. A headset for communication with the pilot, and an oxygen tank for extreme height voyages . They weren't flying that high right now, so he just put on the headset.

He clicked it on and tapped the mouthpiece. "Flash, you hear me?" he asked.

"Sure do," His voice buzzed through. "Now get into position and I'll open the bay, you've got your oxygen right?" Flash asked

"No, didn't think I would need it," Fang replied.

"Just in case buddy, never know when we'll need to get to height," Flash said.

Fang accepted the advice, and slung the tank around his back. The mask he stuck to his face, and he flicked the switch on.

To his relief, it worked as intended and a steady stream of oxygen came through, taking a deep breath he carefully stepped between the bomb bay doors to the centre, where a seat with a small control panel attached was connected to an odd looking scope. The operator, although this had never been tested, should be able to see objects as small a half meter at this height, and could take instant photographs using this. As a fall back, a second immovable scope pointed directly downwards, and recorded to a film reel. It would take non-stop film, while the operation was to look specifically for anything unusual and take photographs.

Fang uneasily buckled himself in the chair and pulled the scope towards himself.

"I'm all set," He said.

"Go.." Flash's reply was silenced by the enormous buzzing noise of the doors that opened and the air was sucked out. Fang looked downwards to his side, and could just barely see the ground thousands of meters below through the clouds. Even though Fang could fly, it was still frightening to see the ground whizzing past at this enormous height. 

"I'm bringing us below now, we'll probably be moving too fast for you to make out much but try your best," Flash said, and Fangs heart moved into his head as the plane soared downwards below the clouds, a whole new turbulence shaking it.

Fang looked through the scope, and shifted the chair around with his feet looking for anything below that stood out. First was a formation of three concrete looking towers, which he snapped a few photos of as they went past. After that was what looked like the first of at least a dozen barracks they would see, and a few probably anti-air installations too. 

Then a few minutes of circling later he saw a long, flat, dirt pathway. At least a kilometer long.

Fang looked away in horror, there was only one other place he had seen that, it looked like the flight deck of the Magnificent- except made of dirt.

"Flash... I thin," Fang was nearly knocked out of his chair as the plane shuddered, and then pressed hard into it as it flew upwards.

"Fang! Get up here!" Flash ordered through the radio. 

Fang unbuckled himself, and paused as he thought of how just to cross the ten meter gap ahead of him. The doors were open and the clouds whipped by below- the plane was above them now and gaining height fast. If he got sucked out- that was that. Griffons weren't known to take prisoners. Assuming, of course, he wasn't knocked out in the fall and simply fell to his death.

Suddenly the plane veered to the right, and he grabbed he scope to keep himself steady- which instead pulled to the side and left him hanging over the abyss as something flew only a few meters under them, with a roaring fire as it shot past.

"Flash, close the doors!" He shouted frantically.

Another hard shudder shook him from his position and he lost his grip on the scope, falling down against the hard metal of the bomb bay doors as an explosion from behind spewed smoke into the bay.

Fang shuddered, this was getting to be altogether too much.

"Fang! I've lost engine two, what's going on back there?" Flash asked.

Fang collected himself, and grabbed the wall with a white hoof to peer back. There was a fire.

"It's on fire!" Fang shouted, glancing around for some solution. A fire extinguisher hung on the other side, as the bomb bay door clanked uneasily before it.

The ship tilted again, pressing Fang against the wall hard. Smoke was starting to make it hard to see.

"Well put it out! I barely got away from that guy, I'm not going to die to a fire now!" Flash ordered.

Fang swallowed and tip-hooved around the edge of the room to grab it, and then repeated the motion backwards. The fire in the back had turned into an inferno, and he sprayed the foam extinguisher blindly inside.

It had the desired effect after a few moments, and Flash breathed a sigh of relief.

"The fire's out," he said.

"Good, now grab the film reel and get up here," Flash ordered.

Fang crept over to the chair he had sat at, and opened a chamber on the console. He quickly levitated two metallic disks out, and hurried rushed to the door.

The cockpit was a disaster, the window had shattered and Flash sat in his seat wearing the same sort of oxygen tank Flash did, broken instruments and sparking wires were sticking out of the board.

"Flash, what happened?" Fang asked, putting the two objects in a small chest beside the door. 

"Well," Flash said, grappling with the controls. "Turns out we're not the only ones that have planes, they've got their own. Not nearly as fast it looks like, but he got the drop on me and put a missile in our rear. Looks like they only carry two, and I dodged the other, so we're safe for now," he explained.

Then he sighed, and flipped a switch on the board. "Spitfire is going to kill me for this," he mumbled.

A horrifying clanking noise came from the back, startling Fang- whom was already quite on edge.

Flash came up from behind the seat, and looked down at the board. The switch Flash had flipped was marked "Bomb Arm"

"We don't have any bombs..." Fang noted.

Flash pointed to a dial, which was slowly creeping towards the red end of it's counter. It was marked "Engine Temperature"

"Engine one is doing all the work, we're too heavy to get home like this. I've got to drop the equipment, or we'll end up in the ocean," he said, and flicked another.

"Bomb Bay Doors"

With a screech, Fang heard three hundred thousand bits of state of the art equipment fall into the ocean behind them.

Fang took his seat, sweating with anxiety and shaking with fear. At least they were above the clouds now, leaving Waylay behind them on the way back to the fleet.

Flash noticed his fear, and spared an arm to comfort him. "Don't worry, we're out of the woods now," he said.

Fang shuddered and glanced at his friend. "How are you so calm? We almost died just now!" He exclaimed.

"Fang, calm down. We've been through worse before, Remember Manehatten?" Flash asked.

That memory sent a fresh shudder down Fang's spine. "Yeah, but nobody was trying to kill us then!" He replied.

"Fang," Flash said, and held the stick tight as he looked over. "You don't have to be here you know, if it's getting too heavy for you..." 

Fang shook his head. "No, no I'm okay. Just.. scared, but I can handle it," he said.

"So am I Fang, and so is everypony else. If they say otherwise, they're lying," Flash said, turning his attention back forward.

"You don't look like you are," Fang commented.

Flash released his hooves from the stick, and nodded to it. 

He had managed to bend it almost in an upside down U, and the plastic was crushed from where he had gripped it.


_________________


Four Hours to Operation Bronco

Spitfire stood on the flight deck, the cold wind blowing in through the open hanger doors. Beside her was a radiopony, communicating with Flash on his way in. Behind them was a few dozen ponies in fire resistant suits. Apparently he had found problems, and had to abort early.

He better have a good reason.

The radio pony beside her glanced up. 

"Pheonix 3 that's right, take it in slow. The deck is clear and we're ready for you," She said.

Outside barely visible, was a black object coming at them. It was trailing a long column of smoke, and bits of metal dangled from it's belly.

"Oh please no, do you have any idea how much that cost!" Spitfire shouted down the deck.

"If he dropped the gear, I'm sure he had a good reason to ma'am- look at that thing, I'm surprised he made it back at all," The radiopony noted.

Spitfire frowned, she had a point. Still it was a significant loss. They only had a certain amount of resources, and her choice had been either a flight wing of propeller planes... or a super advanced camera.

Spitfire had chosen the camera.

The Pheonix 3 was almost in the entrance, and the radio pony stepped back to relay instructions. A siren wailed to warn anybody not paying attention to get off the deck, and the firefighters stood ready. Flash Sentry had been chosen to fly, after a crash course, because she needed all the experienced pilots at the ready in case they were attacked. He was the only one that managed to master the controls in the short time frame they had.

More then this though, he was disposable. Ponies like Flash were a dime a dozen, failures that spend their lives lamenting over what 'was'. Failed as a Wonderbolt, failed as a guard, and he would probably fail as a marine.

The Pheonix 3 came down hard, slamming it's nose down on the deck as everyone on the deck cringed to the horrendous noise of metal against metal. Sparks flew from it as it slid on its way, and the bomb bay doors tore themselves off, flying backwards along with some other debris. The plane was clearly a write off, but at least they could use some of the parts.

It slid to a halt, and slammed back down on its rear which burst into flames, the firefighters running forward to frantically extinguish the flames. 

Some of the parts.

Spitfire waited a moment, not wanting to get caught in any possible explosion, and then trotted over. What a mess it was, the cockpit had been blasted open, the rear had a huge chunk taken out of it, and an engine was entirely missing. Spitfire couldn't help but be impressed that Flash had managed to land it, maybe he had improved as a pony since he was in the Academy. The cockpit door creaked open, and then clattered to the floor as Flash climbed out, followed by his strange apprentice. Spitfire had allowed them to be together, but soon she would have to tear them apart- there was no ways he was letting that short changeling hit the beach.

"Sergeant Sentry!" Spitfire shouted. 

Flash wearily saluted, and Spitfire noticed his follower was clutching something close to his chest. Spitfire trotted on over.

"Sergeant, I trust you have a good reason for... this?" Spitfire said, gesturing back at the plane- still bursting into flames in places, the firefighters playing a fiery game of whack-a-mole.

"Yes ma'am! Griffons have planes of their own now, ma'am," Flash replied.

Spitfire frowned. She had considered that, but desperately hoped it wasn't true. Now they had lost their dominance of the air- at least until they destroyed those planes. 

"Noted, now did you at least get some pictures before they chased you off?" Spitfire asked.

Flash nodded and prodded his friend, whom seemed to be staring into space as he clutched the tapes. They were digging into his chest, and it did not look comfortable.

"Uhh, Fang, you wanna..." Spitfire said, and then he dropped the tapes to the floor with an echoing clatter before looking at her with what could only be described as total abject horror.

Then he swallowed, and seemed to try and say something before glancing away, and vomiting all over the deck.

Spitfire cringed and turned away, waving an arm to get the radio ponies attention.

"Get a medical team up here!" Spitfire ordered, and turned to pick up the tapes.

Flash leaned down and embraced his friend. "Fang, it's going to be alright," He said softly.

Fang didn't say anything, but a silent stream of tears down the changelings face said more then words. Spitfire had seen this all too often, once the combat was over it caught up to you just what had happened. Once it was over you were free to think, and think, and think. What if this, what if that, how close to death you had really come. If you couldn't force your brain to not really realize the position you were in, it would just go in a horrifying circle and lock down. This is what Fang was experiencing.

She held her place until the medics came, and Spitfire turned to them.

"He's a code green. I want a full physical and mental evaluation before he's put back on duty," Spitfire ordered, gesturing at the pair on the deck behind her.

The medics nodded and one of them tapped Flash on the shoulder, while the other darted around and jabbed Fang with a syringe. Fang yelped, and then went flopped into Flash's hooves. 

Flash softly released him into the care of the medic, whom slung him over his back and trotted out with her partner.

"You take good care of him!" Flash shouted at them, and then turned to Spitfire.

"He'll be alright, won't he?" Flash asked.

Spitfire put a hoof on his shoulder, and spoke softly. "Sergeant, I don't know. I've seen soldiers come back from that and go on to lead long, healthy, careers. I've also seen..." She trailed off, leaving it to Flash.

"We'll do our best for him, now I need to take a look at these tapes," Spitfire said, returning to her usual professional tone. You're assigned to 1st Seaborne as a radio operator, we deploy in four hours," Spitfire added.

Flash nodded. "Yes ma'am," he said, giving a salute and trotting off. 

Spitfire looked at the tapes, and then left the deck out a different exit. Hopefully there was some good news in these.



___________


Two Hours to Operation Bronco


"Bad news, that's the gist of it," Spitfire said, the developed photographs enlarged and lying on the white lit table before her. 

Certain things on the photographs were circled. Flash had only been down there for twenty minutes, and in that short time he managed to get a day's worth of bad news. First was that trio of silos, which they assumed was for launching rockets from a protected position. Gravity bombs weren't going to much against against those, so the fleet itself wouldn't be able to approach within a hundred kilometers- the range of griffon missiles. 

Next was the barracks. Assuming this was the only major installation on the island there were around ten thousand griffons down there, and that was a very poor assumption. Add to this the fact they were dug in and knew the terrain, and the difficulty notched up to 11.

Lastly was the realization that the griffons had aircraft, which meant the role of Wonderbolt fliers would have to be reconsidered. Even a prop-plane could outpace a pegasus, and whatever weapons they carried had made short work of a Phoenix.

"This is bad, are you sure we're still go for 1600?" General Pike asked, standing across the table.

Spitfire sighed. "We have to, the longer we wait the longer they have to fortify and prepare. Either we bleed now, or we wait and bleed more later," She replied.

"You've seen our airship recon, we could barely get within 50 clicks, but it was clear they're building dozens of bunkers," she added.

Pike nodded, pawing at the pictures. "We're going to lose a lot of good ponies down there. If we don't get this done quickly morale and initiative is going to collapse," He said, staring intently at the circled silos.

"Its been easy until now Pike, we've been fighting on our land against an invading army. Now we're half a thousand kilometers away, fighting on their land," Spitfire said, turning to look out the window. The ship had been moved over the clouds to give them the range to shoot a barrage at the island- which was bound to be as accurate as throwing a shoe down a hallway at a pin, but it was important for morale when they launched the landing craft.

It used to be so simple....

"I'll rally the troops, and get the landers prepped. Celestia help us," Pike said.

"We've got no alicorns to help us now Pike, we're all on our own out here," Spitfire said, staring out the window. 

Pike sighed, and pushed open the door. "I wonder what history will think of us," He mumbled to himself.

"When we win," Spitfire turned, and said after him. "We'll be the ones writing it."


___________


Thirty Minutes to Operation Bronco


Flash trotted into the infirmary, clad in a brand new (hoof stitched!) brown-green uniform with the insignia of his unit on the shoulder. He had been assigned to First Seaborne, the premiere marine unit, their insignia was the numeral I on top a waving sea pattern, with Celestia's sun halfway over the 'horizon', in a triangular patch. His triple chevron rank was under that insignia, and his name was on his chest alongside the three ribbons he had earned through his career. Crystal Imperial Service, Canterlot Castle Guard, and Volunteer Service award. To his vast disappointment, he hadn't qualified for a Baltimare Service ribbon, having only been there for a few hours near the end.

Pike might have a coloured career, but he was an organizational genius. He had quickly created an entire new structure for the marines, ten two thousand person units. Each unit was an entirely self-sufficient fighting force, with its own logistics and support companies. Each was led by a Brigadier, the 1st by Brigadier Sunshine. He had recently renamed his corps to 'Celestia's Royal Marine Corps', time would tell if the name stuck. Once Waylay was theirs they would split up, and start carving their own paths.

Trotting amongst the empty beds, noticing that they all had been recently cleaned, one of the nurses noticed him and trotted before him.

"Marine, can I help you?" She asked.

"Yeah, I'm looking for a friend, Fang- changeling, he w-"

The nurse shook her head. "Can't do that marine, he's a code green," She said.

Flash glared at her. "I don't know what that is, I don't care what that is, I want to see my friend!" He demanded.

"A code green means unfit for active duty due to mental or physical exhaustion. We're keeping him here, under close watch, until we decide to discharge him or put him pack on the roster. I can't let you see him- not yet, lest he remember why he's here in the first place," she said, blocking Flash from going around her.

Flash tried harder, and then found a heavy hoof gripping his shoulder. A pony with an MP helmet was at his side. 

"I assure you, we're doing our best," She said, and pointedly gestured to the door.

Flash shook off the MPs arm. "You better," he warned, and stormed out with the MP at his heel.


_______________


Ten Minutes to Operation Bronco


Flash grabbed the radio gear he was supposed to bring, which amounted to a a transmitter on his back with a receiver attached to it. The rest of the equipment, including long range transmission equipment, was waiting on one of the many barges that were along the flight deck. The lack of surface ships with any real armour had forced to work with what they had, so they had simply cut the balloons off a few flying barges, and hastily modified the propellers for the sea, and wheels on the bottom allowed them very basic ground movement. The plan was to board them, and drive out of the Magnificent into the choppy waves below as it hovered low. 

A roaring explosion from below shook the room as the opening bombardment took place, the tension in the vast room with its thousands gathered was actually visible, as here or there a unicorns horn sparked with tension. 

Flash entered the room, and passed a bat pony on his way in. Four large groups waited inside, somepony in the centre of each holding the flag of their unit. He quickly made out the 1st and took a spot near the back, between a rather large earth stallion and a unicorn mare.

The stallion was built like a brick... house, and wore one of the Wonderbolt's twin-barreled guns. Which was odd, because those things were so heavy that nothing less then a trained Wonderbolt at top fitness could carry one. However, looking at him, he clearly could handle it.

Flash cleared his throat, and once he had his attention offered a hoof. "Flash Sentry," he said.

The stallion took his hoof, and nearly crushed it. "Big Mac," he replied.

Flash regained control of his hoof, and turned to the other side where the unicorn stood. She was rather pretty, which a well taken care of grey mane, brown coat, and intense orange eyes. Her horn sparked each time the cannons below fired. On her back was a medics bag.

"Mary-eee" She squealed, as the ship rapidly descended her voice her voice went in the opposite direction.

"Frosthorn," she finished, as the ship finished its descent. The ride was like an elevator, going twice as fast. The steel of the ship groaned with the force.

"Flash Sentry, nice to meet you," Flash said, shaking her hoof.

She gave him a weak smile, her horn still sparking with anxiety. The Magnificent was creaking ominously all around, and the sound of heavy rain on the metal roof echoed through the hall.

"Pegasus huh? Shouldn't you be with the Wonderbolts?" She asked.

Flash shrugged, and prodded his prosthetic. "They don't take anything less then peak health, and I'm a leg away from that," he quipped.

"Oh, I'm uhh... sorry to hear that," Mary said, and then tapped her horn in an attempt to stop the constant sparking.

"Don't worry about it," Flash said. "What's your story then? Most unicorns are in special operations or leadership, not too many unicorn grunts," he asked.

She gave up, and tried simply not to be distracted by her horn. "I'm good at math, and I'm pretty good with fire magic, not much use for me up there," she said, and gestured ahead of the crowd to where General Pike was taking his position at a podium.

"Well its good to h-" Flash began, but was forced to attention, along with all the others, automatically by the General calling them to such.

"Colts and fillies, welcome to the first day of the end of this war! Today we finally start striking the griffons on their own land, and we intend to strike hard," He yelled over them all.

"Make no mistake, this is not going to be an easy- or a short, fight. We face an entrenched enemy, one that knows the terrain and knows we're coming. Every day we let them be, they grow stronger. So we're not going to let them be, we're going to crush them!" He shouted, to a reply of anxious excited shouting from the crowd.

"First Seaborn is going to hit the beach first, board ships one through seven!" He ordered, and Flash's unit shuffled along towards those ships.

"Celestia help us. Baltimare was one thing, but attacking an island, in the rain, without any real planning?" Mary questioned.

The general continued barking orders, but Flash had his and it faded into the background along with the Magnifiecent's buzzing intercom

"The General is right, if we don't get a hoofhold soon they'll fortify," Flash said.

"Yup," Big Mac said beside them.

Flash glanced at the weapon he wore. Whatever happened out there, it was good to know this was the pony he was going in with.

Trotting up the ramp of the nearest landing ship as a trio, they took a position in the middle surrounded quickly by their comrades. No seats, just a hundred ropes dangling from the roof so the troops could keep themselves stable. 

It looked like a hundred nooses hanging in a steel coffin, which was oddly poetic. 

Once it was full the ramp slid upwards and clanked against the vessel with a heavy clank, and then with a roar the propellers and motor fired up. 

"So we're really doing this, Celestia help us all," somepony said. 

Somepony in the background threw up, it was starting to be that sort of day.

A siren blared, quieting the group, and then a radio buzzed somewhere near the front.

"Welcome aboard Marine Public Transit fillies, colts. Next stop..."

There was a noisy clunk, and Flash had to grab the rope hard to keep himself steady as the vehicle started forward.

"... Waylay island!" the voice shouted, and the vehicle shot off the end of the Magnificent's flight deck. For a moment in time the occupants felt weightless, and then they were gently lifted into the air as the ship descended, slower then what would be natural for a steel hulk of that size- but far faster then they would have liked.

The period of peace ended, and the craft fell into the waters with an enormous splash that sent a few of the passengers flying. 

"No going back now," Mary noted.

"Nope."


_______________


One minute into Operation Bronco


Spitfire stood on the bridge of the Magnificent, uneasily aware of the fact it was hovering only a hundred meters above the choppy sea- the lower deck only ten or so. The landing ships were watertight, and had a levitation spell on them, but a hundred meters was the highest they could launch them safely from the flight deck. It was a vast oversight to not have a surface fleet, and they were paying for it now.

"Dust, Soarin, Fleetfloot wings follow them in, hold Dash wing back until ordered," She commanded, and glanced back at flight control to see it was carried out.

"Fleetfoot reports delays, some injuries reported when a gale hit the Solaris," Leftenant Clear Skies said.

Spitfire rolled her eyes. "I don't care, order them to go now," She ordered.

The Magnificent had its own fair share of bruises from being down in this weather for so long, but she was well built. It would take more then a little wind or water to stop her.

She then turned her attention across the room. "Communications, any report from Phoenix 2 or 8?" she asked.

"Nothing, they've been doing a wide circle over the clouds just as ordered, but if they have a fleet- it isn't up there," Echo said.

Spitfire sighed, and looked out the window again twenty landing craft were racing their way towards the island.

"Get us back above the clouds Northstar, and signal the rest to the do the same," Spitfire ordered.

Echo replied in the affirmative, it took Spitfire a second to realize Captain Northstar hadn't- and the ship wasn't moving.

Spitfire turned back, and saw Northstar staring ahead idly.

"Captain Northstar!" She shouted, and the mare shot to attention.

"Yes ma'am, up ma'am!" She responded, throwing a lever and shaking the ship as it shot upwards, nearly throwing Spitfire off her footing.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead, as the ship shot above the clouds and then, thankfully more softly, settled along with the rest to hang in the open sunny sky. Once it had done so, Spitfire pointed towards the helm.

"Captain, my office, now," Spitfire ordered, and trotted around the rest of the bridge while the crew pointedly ignored her, and Northstar following at her tail.

Spitfire opened the door, and gestured to the chair before her desk.

"Sit," she ordered.

Northstar did so, and Spitfire shut the door behind them.

"Captain Northstar," Spitfire addressed, taking her seat.

"You're distracted," she accused.

"I.. I'm ju-" Northstar tried to respond, but was interrupted when Spitfire slammed the desk and loomed over her.

"Your son is in the Marines, I understand, that your worried. That doesn't mean I can accept it. If I see another lapse in your abilities, I'll discharge him," Spitfire warned.

"You can't discharge him for my mistakes!" Northstar exclaimed.

"You're worth a lot more to me then he is, and you better believe I can captain," Spitfire returned.

"If you discharge him, I'll resign," Northstar threatened.

"Try that, and I'll have you court martialed for dereliction of duty. We're at war captain, you don't get to act like this is a soap opera!" Spitfire growled.

"Dismissed to quarters for today, get a handle on yourself," Spitfire ordered.

Northstar's face contorted to nearly a snarl, but she managed to suppress her emotions well enough to snap off a salute and dart out the door.

Spitfire sighed.

"I really hate doing that," she said, and glanced at the portrait of Commander Hurricane.

Taking a deep breath to collect herself, she turned back to the door.

Which shut, and a bat pony stood in its place. Grey coat, grey mane, yellow eyes- the usual, except what the hell was she doing here? 

"Who are you, and why are you in my office?" Spitfire demanded, hitting a small alarm button under her desk.

The mare smiled. "I already disabled the alarm, now have a seat," she said.

Spitfire glared at her, and then became quite aware of a gleaming metal object on her thigh.

"Your guards didn't even notice me- nor did that mare, which has made my job all the easier. A boat of distracted idiots," she said, and unholstered that weapon.

"Now sit," she ordered.

Spitfire kept up her glare, but did so. 

Play for time.

"You realize this is treason? You'll never get back to Equestria alive," Spitfire warned.

"Oh yes I will, I will take one of those planes, and the rest will go up in flames. The ultimate power will belong to us, and there will be nothing to touch us in the sky," she boasted.

Spitfire thought quickly. Could somepony be so insane as to cripple the war effort to make a play for power at home?

"I wonder what Queen Luna thinks of this? She'll have you hanged for treason when she catches you," Spitfire said, and leaned forward despite the gun.

"She will catch you," 

The mare laughed, and pointed the gun away for a split second- probably to gloat more. It was enough for Spitfire, and probably her only chance, so she put all her strength forward and flipped the desk over at the mare.

It slammed into her, but only knocked her backwards. Spitfire lunged forward after it, but the bat was already darting out the door.

"Coward!" Spitfire shouted, missing her and slamming into the floor. 

The mare ignored this, and flew forward firing at the- only repaired a day ago- window to the outside. 

"Don't shoot that y-" Spitfire was too late, and the mare did. The glass blew outwards, and she shot out of it.

"Clear Skies!" Spitfire shouted, and turned to the shocked flight controller.

"Recall Rainbow Wing!" She ordered, and quickly turned across to Leftenant Echo. "Sound the alarm, intruder on the ship!" She ordered likewise.

"And get me a connection to Canterlot!" 


_______________


Fourty minutes into Operation Bronco


Flash, and the rest, were getting uneasy in the eternal wait to landing. He swore he had spent days in the steel box they all found themselves in, bumping along the waves.

"How much longer?" Flash asked Mary.

"What, you think I know?" she replied.

The radio buzzed, thankfully, and the room became silent.

"Welcome to Waylay island!" The pilot shouted, and the craft jostled them around as it hit the shallow water.

"Here we go!" Flash shouted, and gripped the rope for dear life as the landing craft stabilized and crashed onto the beach, driving a few meters up.

"Give em hell!" The radio buzzed, and a siren blared a moment before the steel ramp crashed down onto the beach. It was not pretty outside, a muddy grey beach with a forested cliff a hundred meters beyond, but it was land.

The group charged, and Flash was jostled forward as they gave a collective warcry. The red behemoth on his right was out first, firing those cannons downrange at the trees.

In reply came an entire line of gunfire pounding down on them, but each group had a few unicorns trained for that- and kept a shield above. It couldn't last forever though.

"Where's our air cover?!" Flash shouted over the chaos as he ran forward. he had expected the Wonderbolts to make short work of anything on the ground. 

"Why would I know?!" Mary replied, casting a fireball forwards. Glancing to either side Flash saw the other craft hitting the beach, and disgorging their own forces. Thousands of ponies clambered up the beach, many of them wouldn't make it to the end.

He wiped the rain off his face as he went on, and reached the ending cliff alongside the rest of them.They had all made it, thanks to the unicorns.

"Sentry!" Somepony shouted.

"Sergeant Sentry!" They shouted again.

"I'm here!" Flash shouted, and waved a hoof over the line of ponies taking shelter at the cliff.

"Front and centre!" He ordered. 

Flash swallowed, and gingerly made his way across the line to where Brigadier Sunshine stood. All around them the sound of gunfire could be heard back and forth, melding in with the screams of thousands. One of the groups had been pinned into their landing craft, a huge torrent of gunfire tearing the sand up before it.

The brigadier grabbed Flash, and pulled him to his side. Without saying anything more he took the receiver off his pack, and frantically started yelling into it.

"This is 1st actual, I need a sitrep on that air cover!"

The radio buzzed, and then Flash cringed at the horribly loud noise as a dozen planes flew over them towards the sea, and up into the clouds.

"Air cover is engaged 1st, you're on your own," was the reply.

Brigadier Sunshine swore, and slammed the phone back on Flash's back. Out along the beach was a terrible scene- Wonderbolts.

Fallen Wonderbolts, coming down with the rain from the hazy sky, their uniforms torn and bloody.

"Stay focused people!" Sunshine yelled.

"Sir, we can't hold these shields any longer!" One of the unicorns shouted, as the purple half-circle started shimmering as it was pockmarked by incoming bullets.

"You did good, we just needed you for the beach!" The Brigadier shouted, and pointed down the cliff. 

"You lucky bunch are on point, there's a ramp fifty meters down the line! Unicorns up front, light it up!" He ordered.

The unit shuffled forward, Flash staying at the brigadier's side as was his job.

"You picked a good day to not be a Wonderbolt son," he noted.

Flash stared at the cliff, desperate to not look the other way.


_______________


Fifty minutes into Operation Bronco


Spitfire was the the helm of the ship, regretting sending away Captain Northstar. 

"Fleetfoot reports engagement, Dusureports engagement," Clear Skies said, keeping track of the horror unfolding in the silent distance. Above the clouds it was peaceful, serene.

Below them it was hell.

"What about Dash and Soarin?" Spitfire asked.

"Rainbow is on her way back, she's going to be sore with you for keeping her out of this," She replied.

"Nothing from Soarin" she added.

Spitfire sighed. That damn traitorous mare forced them to divert needed resources, and they couldn't launch the Pheonix's knowing full well they had bombs on board. They were being looked over, but there were a lot of places to hide a bomb on those planes.

Hearing the door open behind them, Spitfire grinned at the first good news of the day.

"Good work, where did you find her?" Spitfire asked, leaving the helm to approach the- bruised and battered- bat pony mare held by two gruff military police officers.

"In the infirmary, she was trying to poison the changeling," One of them replied.

"That so? Stick her in the brig, and keep a heavy guard," Spitfire ordered.

The bat pony spat at her. "This isn't over," She growled.

The MPs pulled her out before Spitfire could vent her rage, and she stood there for a moment to collect herself.

After a deep breath, she started back over to the helm. 

"Inform Dash Wing they can return to the front, and cancel the alarm," Spitfire ordered on her way.

"Will do m..." Clear Skies trailed off, and Spitfire glanced over to see her slide the headset off, and stare towards Spitfire with a pale face of horror.

"Ma'am, we've lost Soarin Wing," she said.

"What about Soarin?" Spitfire asked 

"Ma'am, we lost the entire wing."


_______________


Two Hours into Operation Bronco


An explosion sent debris and dirt flying into the air, forcing Flash to cower down with his hooves over his head. Their company was slowly pushing up the opening into the forest, but casualties were mounting. Four times he had seen Mary drag back a pony, back to the beach where so many others lie.

The living were muddy, wet. and cold, but their adrenaline meant none of them noticed that.

Another explosion shook the group, and sent Flash diving into the mud again. The explosion however was a good ways ahead of them, and was followed by a dozen more- coming from behind.

"We've got our air cover, charge!" Brigadier Sunshine yelled, and Flash leapt up with his weapon- just a tiny sidearm- firing frantically in the general direction of 'them'. A griffon poked out of the foliage, and quickly received a fresh hole, falling forward out of the brush.

"Good shot son!" Brigadier Sunshine shouted as they all charged forward, the griffons retreating under the hail of fire coming from the air. The company pursued them through the threes, and emerged into a field, the griffons exiting into the trees on the other side.

"Company hold!" The Brigadier ordered, the company coming to a halt just inside the field, he grabbed the phone from Flash's backpack.

"This is 1st actual, we have reached the first waypoint. We will settle here as planned, over!" He said.

"Roger that 1st actual. The rest have reached their waypoints as well. Sit tight, over" was the reply.

Brigadier Sunshine hung up the phone, and took a quick look over the group.

"Congratulations everypony, you're now prime company! I want a perimeter set up a hundred meters from that treeline, start digging!" He ordered, and leaned closer to Flash.

"You're my lieutenant in charge of the signals company now, get the rest of the radio gear from the landing craft and get it set up. Good work today," He said.

Flash smiled, and gave a sharp salute. "Yes sir! Thank you sir!" He shouted, and left back the way they came while the company started digging in. Checking his watch, he noted that the last month had only lasted two hours.

Just as things started to settle down, a pair of griffons charged out of the trees at them, firing randomly with their rifles. Flash dove to the ground and fired his pistol, it meeting the force of a hundred rifles, stopping them dead in their tracks after only a few seconds.

"I don't get it, why charge like that?" Flash wondered.

"Some misplaced sense of honor probably, no go get that gear," Sunshine said.

Clambering down the muddy earthen ramp a minute later, he looked across the beach. A few dozen medics, Mary among them, were checking the fallen Wonderbolts for signs of life. A few dozen of them, screaming pain, were being dragged into one of the landing craft. Flash looked away, and stared towards their landing ship, desperate not to think about it. He arrived at the boat, full of holes and not going anywhere for a while by the looks of it, and clambered inside. At the end was a series of boxes, which lay scattered on the floor from their rough landing. Trotting to them he found the one he needed- helpfully marked SIGNALS EQUIPMENT, and pulled it out after himself to the end.

At the mouth of the vehicle, he put it down and sat on the box staring outwards, shaking himself dry. The rain continued to pour down on the muddy beach, thousands of hoofmarks marked alongside scattered shells, and bodies lay here and there. The medics had started pulling them together, for burial back in Equestria.

The sounds of gunfire still echoed through the air, but were scattered and fading into the distance. They had won their foothold, but at what price Flash had no earthly idea. This was just the start too, if this was the price they paid for the first kilometre- they had fifty more to go.

He sighed, and sat there for a few minutes listening to the sound of rain against the metal ship. It wouldn't be here for much longer, they were due back out once they had gotten their supplies to get more, so he relished his time in the relatively safe and dry metal cave.

Before leaving Flash looked down on his uniform, muddy and torn in a few places, and was startled to find a dark red patch on his chest. Frantically rubbing at it he breathed a sigh of relief to find the blood wasn't his own. Looking at his backpack he found that the radio had suffered a worse fate, a large hole in it meaning that at some point it had taken a bullet for him, and he had been lugging it around for no reason. He shook his head and slid it off his back, letting it crash to the floor of the ship before pulling the box out behind him on his way out, back to work. 

Pulling the box behind him up the muddy beach a few others passed him to gather the rest of the gear. Perhaps it was best Fang had been able to avoid this. There wasn't any glory here, those Wonderbolts wouldn't go home to a hero's reception. They wouldn't go home at all, and Flash had narrowly avoided the same fate were it not for his radio gear. Fang would have been torn to pieces. 

He had to push the box ahead of himself up the ramp, sliding in the muddy trampled grass. As he did he wondered what it was like back in Equestria, the worst they had to worry about was the harsh winter coming. Out here he had to worry about getting shot.

For a moment he was angry at them, safe and happy in their homes. They were fed, warm, and rested. That moment passed though, and he reminded himself why he had volunteered in the first place years ago. Somepony had to shoulder the world, make the sacrifices that needed to be made. History called them heroes, and that's what they were. No single one of them, all of them. They were all here so those in Equestria could continue to be fed, warm, and rested- never having to worry about a griffon shooting at them. 

"Remember Baltimare," Flash mumbled, and suddenly found the box much lighter.

Mary came to his side, somehow managing to smile despite being soaked with water, mud, and blood.

"Thanks, and uhh- you might want to wash up," Flash said.

She looked down at herself, and frowned. "You're right, but there's not much I can do right now," She said.

Flash got the box over the top of the hill, and went to the front to pull it again. To his relief she took the back, and they both carried it forward.

"How do you do it? I can take being shot at just fine, but... that," Flash asked.

Mary looked through him. "I worked at Canterlot General for a while, you learn to.... detach yourself. Learn to take your mind, and leave. Bring it back once it's over, and forget it," She said.

Flash met her gaze. "You never really can really forget though, can you?" He asked.

"No."


_______________


Two Hours Thirty Minutes into Operation Bronco


Spitfire sat in her quarters, alone. The beachhead was taken, and the Wonderbolt flights had returned- most of them. Soarin was gone, forever. They had their hoofhold, at a cost. A heavy cost. That damn bat had thrown a wrench into everything, she had even destroyed their long range transmitter, and it would be a day before it was repaired. Spitfire would let rot in the brig for a day before... calmly asking a few questions.

She poured a glass of cider, and put her Wonderbolt crest on the table before downing it. This was her operation, planned and authorized by her. She took the blame for this disaster.

"We should have waited," She mumbled, and poured the glass full again. 

Before she could drink there was a knock on the door.

"It's open," She said, and heard it slide open. She didn't look to see who it was, she didn't care.

"Ma'am, we found something," Captain Northstar said. Spitfire glanced over to see her clutching something in her hoof, which she laid on the table.

It was Soarins shoulder badge, outlined in gold- the mark of a Wing Commmander. The insignia for his wing, as per tradition, was his own cutie mark- a yellow bolt surrounded by twin tall clouds. It was scorched, and spotted with mud. Spitfire held it, and tears streamed down her face.

"It's my fault, this was my plan, they died because of me," Spitfire lamented, reaching for the glass.

Northstar swept it aside, splashing its contents onto the floor.

"It's not your fault ma'am, it's their fault- the griffons, that bat, they're the enemy," she said, and sat next to Spitfire.

Spitfire sighed, and gently placed the badge on the table next to hers

"I shouldn't have been so hard on you, I just.. I need to be perfect, an unmoving pillar of command, so I'm hard on everyone. I can't make friends, I can't be nice, or I'll start making bad decisions," She lamanted. 

"Then this happens!" She shouted, and slammed the table, her hoof shuddering. 

"M... Spitfire, you can't take the entire war on your own shoulders. We're an army, we fight as one. You're the best commander in the history of the Wonderbolts, if you make a mistake- anyone else would have too." Northstar said, putting a hoof over Spitfire's shoulder.

Spitfire shrugged it off, and angrily turned to her. "That's not the point! I can't make any mistakes, my mistakes cost lives!" She yelled.

Northstar grabbed her. "Fine, then tell me what the mistake was!" She demanded.

"I don't know!" Spitfire returned.

"Exactly! You couldn't have done anything different. You can't second guess yourself like this. The die was cast, and we went with the best we had. Nopony blames you," Northstar said.

Spitfire sighed, and fell backwards to lay on the carpet, staring upwards at the metal roof. 

"How many more Northstar?" She asked.

Northstar adjusted her uniform, and turned to leave. "Too many," She said, and left her commander to her thoughts.



_______________


Wednesday, August 27th, 1001.
Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 20856 Operational, 156 Injured, 676 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 26 frigates, 37 corvettes. 7 lost.


Weather: Light rains, visibility moderate.


Seventeen Hours into Operation Bronco


Spitfire stood before the updated list, and hung Soarins wing insignia beside it. The cutie mark of a Wonderbolt that would never fly again, she only hoped he was in a better place now. His wing had been ten squadrons, each of ten pegasi- and only ten made it back. Almost a hundred of them, lost in a matter of minutes when those damn planes showed up. The Marines had bled in Baltimare. and now the Wonderbolts had bled at Waylay. She then turned to the next board, and stared at it.


RAINBOW WING: 664 CONFIRMED, 27 UNCONFIRMED
LIGHTNING WING: 427 CONFIRMED, 65 UNCONFIRMED
SOARIN WING: 257 CONFIRMED, 22 UNCONFIRMED
FLEETFOOT WING: 322 CONFIRMED 0 UNCONFIRMED


FLEET SCORE: 7 CAPITAL, SIX FRIGATE, 27 TRANSPORT, 37 FIXED WING


She picked up the eraser, and began to erase the third line before pausing. Thinking a moment, she skipped over the first part, and then wrote something in place of the rest.


SOARIN WING: MAY WE NEVER FORGET.


She then turned to the assembled bridge crew, behind them the shattered window had been covered up hastily by a plastic tarp, which fluttered in the breeze.

"Alright everybody, let's get back to work. Marines will be back on the move soon, have the Pheonix's been cleared yet?" Spitfire asked.

"Yes ma'am, went over them myself last night, our friend hid a surprise in the engines," Stiff Wing replied.

"Good, get them back in the air- missile load. Weather is clearing up, if those planes show up again we can nail them," Spitfire ordered.

"Aye eye," Clear Skies said, and took her position at the flight control station.

"Rest of you, get to your stations. It's going to be a long day," Spitfire said, and took another look at the board before taking her seat.


_______________


Eighteen Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash Sentry stood beside BrigadierSunshine inside the command tent, after getting what could only jokingly be called 'a nights rest'. The rain still came down, but it was starting to let up, and hopefully by the end of the day it would stop.  Before them was a vastly outdated map of the island, the scant recon they had drawn on it, and the positions of the units marked by plastic markers. 1st Seaborne had taken the east beach, and managed to take it much faster then the others- which had arrived later. 2nd and 3rd were to the west of them, the rest were arriving by the hour into the breach they had opened. By the end of the day eighteen thousand of them- 10th Seaborne kept back as reserves- would be on the beaches.

"Alright, here's the plan," Brigadier Sunshine said to his assembled company leaders. "I want Able and Baker holding back covering the landing zones. Prime is going to move up on this series of silos, brass wants those missiles out of the game so we can start bombing from the air, and get the ships closer. " he ordered.

"Captain Tradewind, how are we for logisitics?" Sunshine asked. 

"Pretty good sir, half of the landing craft had to be scuttled- but that's more then we expected to keep. We're well supplied, for now," he said.

"First good news of the week, dismissed," Sunshine said, and turned to Flash as the others left.

"As soon as Prime reports success, call the fleet," He ordered. 

"Yes sir," Flash said, saluting. 

He turned to leave, but then glanced back. There was something that had been bugging him all morning. 

"Sir, how many griffons did we get yesterday?" Flash asked.

The brigadier leaned on the board, grinning. "Five hundred," he replied.

Flash grinned himself, and left for the signals tent at the end of the clearing. The company that had bunked here last night was moving out, a few hundred ponies off to fight the days battle. Staying behind were logistics, medical, and of course his signals company. Signals was the smallest, with only a dozen here in the camp, and one in each squad out there. That put their total at somewhere around fifty, Flash wasn't sure of the exact number yet.

He brushed aside the flap, and found his new charges at a few wooden tables with radios before them, and headsets on. They, being the lucky few that had to stay alert while not actually leaving their stations, had mugs of coffee on the tables before them.

"Good morning colts, what's the sitrep?" Flash asked. 

"Companies are moving out, not much to report yet. We got lucky here, apparently 2nd landed right next to the griffons barracks, they got chased down the beach for hours last night," one of them- Private Excavo, said. 

"Good, now do we have a link with the fleet?" Flash asked.

" 'Fraid not sir, they can receive- but they can't transmit. We've been sending runners with the landing ships to get news," 

"That's... a problem, what happened out there?" 

"From what I heard, a traitor tried to take out Spitfire, managed to wreck the transmitter too. Damn bats," Another pony said, near the back of the tent.

Flash took his position at the end of the tent, and turned on his radio, which was beside a teletype. The teletype machines in Equestria were useful, but out here nobody had the time to type out messages. They relied on radio for communication between units now, with the only teletype connected to the Magnificent. 

Which was useless at the moment.

Putting on the headset, Flash Sentry went to work. He and his fellows managed communications within the 1st between companies and squads, calling mortars down where they needed to be, and ensuring everyone was at the right position. The next few hours went by in a blur, the noise of their comrades outside and in the distance reminding them that at the other end of these radios were real ponies, fighting for their lives.

"This is prime, objective secure," Flash heard through his headset.

He grinned, and changed the frequency.

"Wonderbolt Fleet, bring the thunder."


_______________


Nineteen Hours into Operation Bronco


Spitfire strode into the brig, two of the biggest MPs she could find at her side. They hadn't really used the brig for much, and it had became rather run down over the years. Paint was chipped, a few of the lights flickered, and the stale air smelt of rain that had gotten in. The ambience was perfect for what it was.

Their prisoner had been tossed in the furthest cell, in the far corner. Spitfire came to a halt before it and ran a hoof along the bars to wake the mare up.

"Good morning!" Spitfire addressed, the bruised bat pony glaring at her silently. 

"Here's the deal, traitor. Tell me who sent you, your specific orders, and you get tried for treason. Refuse, and I'll execute you for treason myself- I have that power," Spitfire said.

"I was ordered to kill you, and destroy the aircraft Celestia so foolishly gave you. The night sky is ours 'air martial'," she said.

Spitfire was stunned for a moment at how open she had been.

"Where did you get such treasonous orders? You can't possibly be acting alone," Spitfire asked.

"Now isn't that the question? I'll never tell," The mare spat.

Spitfire had planned for this, and gave a shrill whistle. A moment later a unicorn came to her side.

"Say hello to my good friend Sergeant Bolt, Bolt here is very talented with lightning magic, and he's going ask you a question," Spitfire said, and stepped aside.

"What is your name?" Bolt asked, in a gruff voice. He was a large stallion unicorn, his yellow coat and orange main marked by his cutie mark- a blue web of electricity. 

"Bite me," The mare said. 

Bolt's horn shone, and an arc of electricity shot out at her, arcing all over body as she cringed with pain. 

Once the sparks had stopped coming off her, he asked again.

"M...oonlight... S...hadow," She stammered.

"Good, now answer the Air Martial's question- who sent you?" He growled. His eyes were glowing so brightly that the bars were illuminated by them, he was certainly putting on the 'charm', Spitfire noted.

"Queen Luna," She replied.

Bolt looked at Spitfire, unsure how to proceed.

"Queen Luna would never order something like this, you're lying," Spitfire said.

"Am I?" Moonlight said, wobbly trotting over to the bars.

"Who leads the Night Guard? Who benefits the most from all this? Our Queen will reign for a thousand years!" 

She leapt at the bars, Spitfire backing off as she grinned crazily at them. 

"Shock her," Spitfire ordered, and a bolt of electricity threw her backwards, writhing in pain on the ground.

"Bu..ck you!" She spat.

"Again," Spitfire growled.

Bolt hesitated for a second, but did as ordered.

"Remem..."

"Again!" Spitfire ordered, and then was startled by a shout down the hall. 

"Air Martial Spitfire, what the hell is this?!" Pike yelled.

"My job!" Spitfire yelled back. "Again!" 

"Stand down Sergeant!" Pike yelled, quickly sliding to a halt shortly down the hall from the others.

"Shock her again!" Spitfire yelled.

"You three, dismissed!" Pike ordered.

They hesitated for a moment, but after glancing at the raging Air Martial, decided to honor Pike's order and left down the hall silently, passing him.

"Spitfire, save your fire. You're getting damn close to war crimes here," he warned.

Spitfire clenched and unclenched her hoof, as the fire drained from her eyes. Her heart thumped The mare inside the cell had been thrown into unconsciousness, but was still breathing. Spitfire wanted nothing more then to strangle the life out of her, all those Wonderbolts that would never see Equestria again. She was no better then the griffons, and all her anger at them was directed at the target within reach- her.

She took a deep breath, and turned to her counterpart. 

"Thank you," She said.

Pike nodded, and led her towards the exist. "Don't mention it, we're all here to support eachother, and we're all on edge. I'm just glad I happened to be on my way down here myself, and got here before you did something you'd regret," he said.

"Would I really regret it? One less enemy," Spitfire asked.

"Don't go down that road Air Martial, that's griffon thinking. If we become them to beat them, have we really beat them?" Pike returned.

"What if they're right?" Spitfire asked, as he opened the door into the hallway.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that," Pike said, and strode onwards, allowing the heavy door to fall back on Spitfire.

"And instead ask you what you learned before I got here," He said.


_______________


Twenty Four Hours into Operation Bronco


Spitfire returned to the bridge after lunch, having explained to Pike what she had learned. He was on his way to the front now, on one of the resupply landing craft. He bet a thousand bits that Luna wasn't actually behind this, and Spitfire believed him. Whatever was going on back home was more complicated than that, but it would have to wait.

"Situation report," Spitfire ordered, closing the door behind her.

"First and third are engaged, second is still holding, fourth through ninth are formed up and awaiting orders," Echo replied, and then held up a hoof as she listened into something.

She smiled, and took a deep breath. "First called the thunder," she said.

Spitfire grinned ear to ear and rubbed her hooves together. "Finally!" Contact the fleet and close to ten kilometers, launch the Pheonixes, and prepare for shore bombardment!" She ordered, stepping around to her seat while the room became a flurry of actively.

They were finally back on track. Whatever was going on back in Equestria be damned, they had a war to win out here- and they were.

"Stiff, what's the status of our transmitter?" Spitfire asked.

"In a word, bad. In more words, we won't be able to call home or use the teletypes, we're down to one way radio communication with the island," he replied.

"Well that's great, don't we have backups?" Spitfire asked.

"Yes, but she got those too."

"What about the other ships, can't they transmit?" 

"Not over this range, we'd need to close within five kilometers," Swift replied.

Spitfire sighed, two steps backward and one step forward. 

"Fire a salvo at the far end of the island, I don't give a damn about accuracy- just give them a show," She ordered.

"Aye aye," Leftenant True Shot said, and mere moments later the guns on the deck below shook the ship as they loosed their payload downrange.

At least they were fighting with their full strength now.

_______________


Twenty Five Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash sighed and sat back in seat, slipping the headset off his head. It had been a long day for him and his company, but it was over now. The rest of the companies were returning victorious for the day, to cheers outside. 

"Alright everypony, take a break an-" Flash spoke, but was drowned out by a huge whistling roar from above, followed by an explosion that shook the ground. The Magnificent had been pounding the island for the last hour.

"And get ready for tomorrow, we'll be going out, and they'll take a turn here," Flash ordered.

His weary counterparts left silently. Since the Magnificent was unable to transmit they could leave the tent unattended, so he followed them, holding a mug of coffee in his hoof. Seven hours of relaying commands and ensuring everyone out there was doing their job was exhausting, but at least it had been dry. The rain had stopped a few hours ago, giving way to a clear sky as the companies returned. A few medics pulled wounded towards the medical tents, and that's where Flash headed.

Mary was outside, sitting on a box clad in a red stained apron and redder gloves. 

Mary saw him, and smiled- putting the box beside her. "Evening sergeant, busy day?" She asked Flash as he approached.

"You have no idea, and it's lieutenant now," Flash said, smirking with his announcement.

"Well isn't that nice, getting promoted on the first day. What's next, general?" she joked.

"Give me a month Mary, and I'll make field martial," Flash said. "I suppose they've been keeping you busy too," he added.

Mary shrugged. "It was worse after the attack in Canterlot, that was sheer chaos. Out here though, everypony knows their place. We're like a well oiled machine," she said.

"Yup," Big Mac said, and sat down the crate beside them, and dropped his back mounted gun behind with an wet thunk. Flash noted his rank for the first time- private.

"Welcome back. I'm sure they worked you hard, must be nice having a gunboat out there," Flash said.

"Yup."


_______________


Thursday, August 28th, 1001.
Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 20556 Operational, 256 Injured, 776 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 26 frigates, 37 corvettes. 7 lost.


Weather: Clear skies, visibility perfect.


Thirty Nine Hours into Operation Bronco


Spitfire went past the update, far more interested in the other board.


DASH WING: 702 CONFIRMED, 27 UNCONFIRMED
DUSTWING: 467 CONFIRMED, 65 UNCONFIRMED
SOARIN WING: MAY WE NEVER FORGET
FLEETFOOT WING: 332 CONFIRMED 0 UNCONFIRMED


FLEET SCORE: 7 CAPITAL, SIX FRIGATE, 27 TRANSPORT, 39 FIXED WING


Yesterday, despite the rough start, had been a good day. They had managed to push a full ten kilometers into the island, and with the skies clear they finally had a good view of it. To their relief that griffon camp was indeed the only major one, and thanks to 2nd Seaborne they had managed to pin the majority of their troops inside. The Magnificent and a few other ships had spent the night raining down shells on the general area, but couldn't keep that up for too long without resupply. The Pheonixes had been doing runs as well, but kept getting forced to abort when planes showed up. They couldn't risk losing any of them, so the bombing had been called for now.

It wasn't all good news however. The griffons had moved their own air fleet in and secured the opposite side of the island. Spitfire didn't dare move her own fleet onwards until she knew more about the enemy on the other side, if they had missiles they could make short work of the Magnificent. So that remained back, about thirty kilometres, surrounded by a small cloud of pickets. The bulk of the fleet was further towards the island, waiting for orders to attack. That was today's objective- remove the enemy's ability to reinforce. The ground was to take a backseat, they were meeting little resistance as they continued up the island anyway, and it was slow going through the forest. The reinforced griffons and advancing marines would probably engage sometime tomorrow, if Wonderbolt recon was right.

Spitfire sighed. If only she still had that recon plane, or some machine to tell her what was in the air beyond what she- or her Wonderbolts- could see. 

She turned to her assembled crew. "Alright everypony, let's get through today without anymore surprises, to your stations," She ordered.

The bridge crew saluted, and ambled over to their respective stations. Spitfire followed Leftanent Echo, and looked over her communications panel. Dozens of knobs and plugs, it was quite a complicated board.  

"Have you gotten through to Canterlot yet?" Spitfire asked.

"Haven't tried yet ma'am, they only got the transmitter fixed last night," Echo replied, settling into her seat and picking up the headset.

"Well try now," Spitfire ordered, impatient to finally connect with home.

Echo flicked a few switches, and turned a dial while she listened intently.

"Canterlot, this is Fleet One, do you copy?" She asked several times, before apparently getting a reply.

"I.. I've got Canterlot on the line, but I don't know who this is on the other end," She said.

Spitfire gestured with a hoof. "Give it here," she commanded. Echo handed her the headset and she put it over her head.

"Canterlot, this is Wonderbolt Actual, who is this?" Spitfire asked.

A short pause, and then the reply came through. It was distorted by some sort of interference, and barely audible.

"Wonderbolt Actual, this is Archer. Your transmission has been intercepted, and you are ordered to cease contact."

Spitfire pressed her hooves onto the board. "Who the hell are you? Intercepting critical communications is a felony!" She snarled.

"I'm well aware," Archer said, and then a burst of static tore through Spitfire's head, forcing her to throw off the headset.

"What the hell is going on over there?!" Spitfire exclaimed, angrily slamming the board, and making a series of dials jiggle.

"I don't know," Echo said, and picked her headset off the floor, "but please smash a different board next time, it's going to take me three hours to fix these dials," she complained bitterly.

Spitfire coughed. "Uh, noted. Carry on."

_______________


Thirty Nine Hours into Operation Bronco


1st Seaborne set off early in the crisp morning, packing up and setting out to hopefully get across most of the island before sundown. Apparently the griffons had landed on the other side, and while 2nd Seaborne- backed up by 5th and 7th now pinned their comrades in their barracks, that meant the rest of them would have to press to the other side. They expected the griffons to be doing the same, and they would surely meet in the middle- where that airfield lay.

Flash was up next to Brigadier Sunshine, and they were both being tailed by an Equestria Daily field reporter. He had remained silent, just taking notes on a notebook he carried with him. The stallion had gone through bootcamp just like the rest of them, and was armed, but Flash didn't expect much out of the lanky earth pony. First Page, cutie mark as such, probably not somepony you wanted to rely on when manure hit the fan.

Sunshine stopped and stuck up a hoof to halt the company. 

"Map," he ordered.

Flash pulled the map out of his uniform, and handed it over. 

"You, hold this up for me," He ordered a nearby unicorn. 

The map unfurled and held aloft in a blue field, while Sunshine considered it, and a compass he held in a hoof. Flash took the pause to check his watch- 7AM. A crisp morning, fresh from the rains of the last two days. If it wasn't for the sporadic gunfire in the distance, and the pending calamity, it would be a nice day.

The Brigadier thrust the map back at Flash. "Alright fillies, three hours untill we break. Move out!" he yelled, and all as one the thousand ponies began trudging through the forest once more.

"Y'know what I miss?" Sunshine asked.

"Yessir?" 

"The armour, we used to have those big steel sets of armour. We had to give em up, just can't make enough of it. Griffons though? They've got sets to spare," He said.

"I guess they just saw this coming, and we didn't," Flash said. "And honestly, I always thought they were a bit heavy."

Sunshine snorted. "Suit yourself, give me an earth pony and armour and I'll give you Wing's Reach."

"Yup."

_______________


Fourty Hours into Operation Bronco


The crew was rested, fed, and the fleet near the island was in position. The phoenix's were in the air, and it was time to get to work. Spitfire stood ahead of a board, a wooden replica of the island. Plastic markers marked her own ships, and their recon early in the day gave them a basic overview of the enemy fleet. They had used a hot-air balloon and a brave pony with a telescope, which was able to give them the size, and position of the enemy fleet- but no more then that. Thankfully the balloon was small enough that they hadn't seemed to notice it.

Spitfire's fleet at the moment was about a fourth of the total, they still had a coast to protect after all. The big ships though, with the big guns and missiles, those were all up front.

She took a long look at it, and started the rest of the day.

"Order the twin missile cruisers Duke and Duchess to rise a few thousand feet, and hold just long enough to fire on the enemy fleet. I don't need accuracy, I just need the griffons focusing up there. Move the gunboats up on the right, backed with the Dreadnought. Order the others to move to half way up the left flank, and hold. Keep the Pheonixes on holding pattern- watch for planes, and get our wings in the air," She ordered, as a cadet quickly shuffled the board around, and echo relayed those orders.

"Dash takes point, Dust and Fleetfoot hold back. So..."

Spitfire took a deep breath, and swallowed her emotions before continuing.

"Magnificent holds, prepare missiles and cannons for ship to ship if need be," She finished.

"Holding steady ma'am, thank Celestia the weather improved," Captain Northstar said.

"Celestia has nothing to do with it, Captain."

_______________


Fourty Hours, Thirty Minutes, into Operation Bronco


1st Seaborne marched, and it marched, and it marched. Their footing was treacherous in the deep forest, the ground dampened by the last days rains. They took solace however in the fact that at least the rain had stopped, and the gunfire in the distance had silenced. 2nd seaborne had finally routed the griffons, and were celebrating in their own barracks right now.

To pass the time, they sung. 

"Celestia's flank is mighty wide, a thousand years eatin' cake, to fight for it fills me with pride."
"We're lucky if we get hay, and it sure would help the ache, to have an alicorn in the fray."
"N- GET DOWN"

Flash didn't know who shouted it, he was too busy dropping to the dirt as something roared over them, flowed by a dozen more somethings, and the sound of gunfire crackling in the distance. 

"What the hell was that? Did they see us?!" Someone yelled.

"They couldn't have, the trees are too thick!" Flash yelled back.

Brigadier Sunshine shook the mud off himself, and came to his hooves. "Lieutenant Sentry is right! Whatever it is, it's Spitfire's problem. Company forward!" He ordered.

The marines set back forward, with only hushed conversations now. Behind them the sounds of explosions and gunfire followed them, and every once in a while you could even hear a scream.


Fourty Hours, Thirty Five Minutes, into Operation Bronco


"Ma'am, signals intelligence reports they've found the frequency they're using," Echo said.

Spitfire left the board, and came to her side. "What are they saying?" She asked.

"Well, uh... they're speaking in Saddalian," Echo replied. "It seems to be communications between the planes. If it's any use, they seem to be running out," she added.

"That doesn't make any sense, unless..." Spitfire looked out the window- their last replacement, and off in the distance the Wonderbolts fighting with those planes could be seen like specks. The griffons didn't possess the technology they had been using- their missiles came as quite a shock, but the Saddle Arabians had been in a long arms race with the Zebras.

"Have any of those planes gone down over land?" Spitfire asked.

Echo shrugged. "I don't think so, and we haven't found any pilots that's for sure," she replied.

"Alright. Tell sigint to keep looking for the griffon frequency, and get the landing craft out looking for one of those planes, we need to have a look at it," Spitfire ordered.

Echo relayed the order as Spitfire returned to the board. The fleet had managed to push up both flanks, and the missile cruisers had scored a hit on what looked like a transport ship before descending back below the safety of the mountains shadow. Their wings had adapted, and learned to out-turn the planes. They were fast, they hit hard, and they were armoured- but they couldn't pull off anywhere near the manoeuvres that ponies could. The real threat from them was the smaller missiles they each carried, two of the gunboats had been holed. 

"Order Phoenixes 4 through 6 to fly around a long circle behind the enemy fleet. Shoot anything you see back there, let's cut their supply lines," Spitfire ordered. "Get the Crazy Horse up on the right, and order the left to proceed forward until engaged."

Spitfire paused for a moment, and she stared out the window. The Magnificent had held back for safety, it was the important asset in the entire war. Losing it meant losing, full stop.

"Magnificent forward, hold ten kilometers from the beach," She ordered. 

"Recall Dash Wing, I have an idea."

_______________


Fourty Hours into Operation Bronco


2nd Seaborne has spent nearly a full day without rest fighting, inch by inch, the griffons outside their camp. They had succeeded in routing them earlier today, at a cost of nearly 20% of the force. The griffons fared far worse, the count was up into the hundreds now on their side. They seemed to have an absurd insistence on never falling back unless directly ordered, and when they ran out of ammunition they simply charged. Rifles were ranged weapons, and it was rare for one of them to succeed with this tactic. In Baltimare it had worked wonders, with them charging out of alleys or swooping out of the sky, but in an extended fire fight in the open; it was suicide. 

Equestria was adapting, the griffons weren't. 

General Pike arrived at the camp, which had been taken nearly intact. The soldiers were taking their rest, drinking and eating the spoils of war. Griffons were omnivores, but they had apparently kept a stock of fruits and vegetables as good as any other. It was a welcome change from the field rations- which amounted to little more then hay and trail mix.

Outside the camp two sentries saluted him, and the two ponies at his back split up to hang something over the wooden gate. The entire camp was surrounded by a wooden palisade, which was now breached in a dozen places. It would have to be repaired, this is where he would lead the ground campaign in this fight. 

Inside the camp he was met by a few cheers, but mostly they didn't seem to notice him. It was easy enough to spot the General- his uniform was black instead of the usual beige and green, and he wore a cap with three stars. He allowed the small disrespect, these ponies had certainly earned their relaxation. At the end of the wooden barracks was a larger building, the griffon command post. Their commander had apparently left in such a hurry that he left a good deal of top secret information behind, however it was coded, and it would be weeks before they could make sense of any of it. Spitfire was right though, their plan to strike as soon as possible was paying off- the griffons clearly hadn't expected it at all.

Pike opened the door, and inside found 2nd Seaborne's leader. BrigadierBuckshot was not somepony you messed around with, which was why he had sent her battalion into the lions den. She was at least half again his own size, and her eyes had the seemingly magic ability of finding the weakness in anypony at a moment's glance. Combine this with the brute strength of an earth pony, and you had an unstoppable combination.

"Brigadier Buckshot," Pike greeted, saluting. 

Buckshot was directly ahead, looking at some documents on a desk with two of her officers next to her. The desk had a plaque on it: Commander Flaming Glory.

"General Pike," she said, meeting his salute, and dismissing her officers with a nod.

"We're all set up in the other room, and the griffons left us a present," she said, leading Pike into an adjacent room with a large table in the centre.

Pike looked over it, a map of the island marked with a few red flags, and what looked like chess pieces near the west beach.

"Chess pieces?" Pike asked.

Buckshot shrugged. "It's all we had, the important thing is these unit markers they left- if I'm reading into this all right we managed to catch them during some sort of exercise, most of their troops were out in the jungle and without much supplies. Now.." She gestured to the far end of the map, to a long stretch of flat land- the airfield. It was marked, oddly, by a pink flag.

"Why the pink flag?" Pike wondered aloud.

"If I had to guess General? Griffons aren't the only ones with an army, what's on the other side of this ocean- past the home islands?" Buckshot asked.

Pike sat, and put his hat on the table. "Saddle Arabia."

_______________


Fourty Hours, Thirty Five Minutes, into Operation Bronco


The Magnificent hovered ten kilometers from the beach, its great hanger open for the Pheonixes to return and re-arm. Both flanks had been trading fire with the Griffon fleet, neither side committing fully yet. One of them would move, the other would fire, and they would fall back. Repeat this for an hour, and that was the situation at the moment. Spitfire had ordered breakfast served on the bridge, and a cup of coffee lay on the board before her. 

"Is Dash Wing back yet?" Spitfire asked.

The door slammed behind her.

"Yes, it is," Rainbow Dash said, and trotted around the deck glaring at Spitfire.

"Why am I here, ma'am, instead of out there?!" She demanded, gesturing at the flapping trap over the window.

Spitfire met her gaze, and stretched her legs to tower over her. "You are here, Wing Commander, because I need your wing for a plan," Spitfire said.

"Why not just use one of the other wings? I belong out there!" Rainbow argued.

"You..." Spitfire prodded her chest, "...belong wherever I say you belong, now fall in before I decide Thunderlane should lead the wing," Spitfire growled.

Rainbow opened her mouth to say something, but her professionalism managed to catch up, and she swallowed it. "Yes ma'am, what's the plan ma'am?"

"We've been doing so well thus far because the griffons haven't expected fearless aggression, I'm going to take this to the logical conclusion," She said, and moved the largest marker out to the left.

"Ma'am, we've got one of the planes now, where are we putting it?" Echo asked.

Spitfire left the board. "Drop it on the Wideflank, I'll meet them there. Wing Commander Dash- prepare your wing for engagement in two hours," Spitfire ordered.

Rainbow saluted and giddily left the room. Hubris sometimes had its advantages, she was going to be asked to lead her wing against the griffon fleet head on, so hubris was exactly what Spitfire needed. 

"Captain Northstar, you have the con. Page me if anything happens," She ordered, and quickly left the bridge. The situation was stable for now, and if anything did happen it was mostly up to the captains in the field to deal with it. 

In the hallway she could feel the ship adjust its heading, and start moving for its new position on the left flank. If this plan worked, she would be able to break the back of the griffons and cut their supply and reinforcement route.

If it didn't, she would lose the war in the second month.

_______________


Fourty  One Hours into Operation Bronco


The barge carrying the wrecked plane was similar to the landing craft, except for the balloon that kept it aloft. Roped to the bottom was a barely held together pile of metal, in the general shape of an aircraft. It looked like at one point it had been a biplane, with a two person cockpit, and mounts on the wings for weaponry. The fuselage was long enough that there was probably a place to store bombs as well.

The deck crew guided it to the end of the end of the supply ship Wideflank- named as such for the size of its flat deck, and dropped it heavily on the metal. Spitfire sighed as the plane collapsed in on itself, going from looking somewhat like a plane to just a scrap of rusted metal.

"I told you to be careful with that!" She yelled, trotting over to the wreck.

"Sorry ma'am, salvage isn't one of our talents," One of the deck crew said.

Spitfire shook her head, and took a closer look at it. The first thing that stuck out was the cockpit seats were far too small for griffons.

The second was the Saddle Arabian flag on the wing.

"Cut this wing off, and transfer it to the Magnificent. Give the rest to research and development, maybe they can learn something," Spitfire ordered.

One of the deck officers nodded, and shut the welding shield over her face. Spitfire turned away as they set to work, and took wing to return to the Magnificent. They had their smoking gun- if only she could call home. She had half a mind to just fly back to Equestria, or send a ship back, but she needed all hooves on deck right now. 

Saddle Arabians in the war, now that was a prospect. Griffons were one thing, but Saddle Arabians throwing their own force in was a horrible idea. They had a fleet, they had technology- but they also shared a border with the Zebras.

The entire world was picking sides, nopony had ever imagined anything on this scale, but then again they hadn't imagined they would be fighting a war to begin with. The only thing certain now, was that the world was going to be a very different place when this was all over.

_______________


Fourty Three Hours into Operation Bronco


11 AM on the 28th of August, and it was do or die. Spitfire was at her seat behind the helm of the Magnificent, while Dash Wing stood ready inside the hold. Her plan was to turn the ship backwards, and launch them using the ship itself to protect them while they got up to speed. The other wings were on the right flank, and they would catch the griffon fleet in a crossfire. Duke and Duchess would repeat their mission from earlier, hopefully timed with the arrival of each flank.

"Echo, give me fleetwide," Spitfire ordered. Echo flipped a switch, and a green light on Spitfire's seat flickered on.

"Wonderbolt Fleet, this is Air Martial Spitfire. A thousand years ago this great institution was created with one purpose- to defend Equestria. For a thousand years brave ponies had stood ready, and over the last few months we have been the ones fated to fulfill that original promise. Today we're going to give it our all, this is do or die. There will be no retreat, and no surrender. We go now, we go hard, and there's no alicorns waiting to save us. Equestria is counting on you, now let's send these griffons to the bottom of the ocean," She said, and then gestured across her neck to cut the connection.

She took a deep breath, and then shouted "Commit the fleet, engage targets of opportunity as they appear!" 

"Aye aye!" The crew replied, as they set to the tasks. The tarp had been removed, and outside the window a mirror had been hastily hung so they could see behind them, but it didn't matter much what they could or couldn't see, the die had been cast and it was up to the crew and gunners now. 

"Order the Duke and Duchess to go for broke, I don't want them falling back until they've run out of missiles!" Spitfire ordered.

"Right flank reports contact, looks like a half dozen gunboats were waiting for them," Echo said.

"That leaves the destroyers and corvettes for us, keep a tight formation- smaller ships behind us, we'll take the first barrage and they'll fan out from behind us with Dash Wing," Spitfire said.

"We'll uh... take the first barrage?" Northstar asked.

"Captain, we've got enough steel plating this thing to make an entire new fleet, we can take a few hits," Spitfire replied.

"I hope," She quietly muttered, tapping the armrest of her chair.

"Here we go, forward batteries will crest the island in... 3."

2

1

The bridge was immediately rocked as the batteries shot off their pony sized payloads, hopefully hitting something.

"Launch Dash Wing, order the fleet to split up and engage at will!" Spitfire shouted. 

A huge explosion from somewhere behind them marked the ship absorbing a blow. 

"Northstar, fly us around the Griffon force on a wide vector, we'll cross right over to the other flank!" She ordered.

"Aye Aye!" She said, gripping the wheel hard. 

The side batteries came to life, giving their own power to the fight while the other ships came out from behind their protective superior, and the outside became a chaotic cloud of ships firing at eachother, the griffons being hit from all sides, surrounded by ponies raining down death.

"D..." A deafening explosion from somewhere above them shook the bridge, interrupting Echo,

"Duke has been forced down, Duchess is pulling back," She repeated.

"I've got fires on decks two and four, they've holed us- but we're fine," Stiff Wing said, as a series of lights on his board started flashing. 

Outside there was another massive explosion, and the sound of debris raining against the hull of the Magnificent sounded throughout like some horrible metal rain.

"That was the Sun Dog, observers report all hooves lost," Echo said.

Spitfire cursed, and the side batteries fired again. "What abo-"

The ship quaked with such force that she was thrown out of her chair, a deafening explosion from behind them tearing through the side, pouring out smoke.

"Damage report!" Spitfire yelled, thankfully noting the bridge crew wasn't injured.

"That was the second starboard magazine, it took a direct hit, but the damage is contained," Swift said, and turned from his board.

"We're wounded Spitfire, but it'll take a lot more to stop us," He added.

Spitfire looked over to Echo. "Echo, tell me some good news!" 

"We've destroyed or damaged nearly the entire griffon force, and their landing party has run into the jungle. It's working," She said.

"No sign of those planes?" Spitfire asked.

"Phoenix's caught them over the island, you can consider that threat neutralized," Echo replied.

Spitfire sighed, and laid her head back in the chair. "Mop up here, we've scored a major victory," She said.

"Aye Aye, must've been a hell of a sight from the ground," Northstar said.

_______________


Fourty Five Hours into Operation Bronco


1st Seaborne crossed into a clearing, the peak of the central mountain island to their right side. They had quite a show for the last few hours, having come high enough for a fantastic view of the fight taking place 30 kilometres to their east. The Magnificent was clearly visible, belching smoke from its side. Every few minutes the great guns lit up, and a few seconds later an explosion echoed across the island. The effect on morale was huge, and the fact that they had a fleet, but the griffons didn't anymore, brightened everyone's day.

Brigadier Sunshine shot a hoof up, and Flash handed him the map. The unicorn on his other side held it in front, a ritual perfected through the last few hours to a silent art.

"Good news everyone, we're ahead of schedule! Get a perimeter up a hundred meters from the east treeline, and dig in!" He shouted.

The rest of the company moved forward past them to carry out the order, while Sunshine took the phone off Flash's back.

"Base? This is Brigadier Sunshine, over."

Flash couldn't hear what was on the other end, but he sure tried. If only his ear could turn backwards...

"We've reached our waypoint... Prime Company and the rest yes... You're sure? Well, I suppose it's our turn then," He said, and returned the phone to its place.

"Shoulda joined the fourth," He muttered, and turned to yell down the field.

"We just got new orders everypony, get some rest- we're moving at 0300 tomorrow morning!" He shouted.

The field was filled with groans of complaint, but they didn't stop in their work. 

Flash followed Sunshine into the field, spotting his company at the far end erecting a tent.

"Where are going sir?" Flash asked.

"Pike wants that airfield taken, apparently Wonderbolt recon saw the rest of the griffons heading that way. Everybody except the 2nd is going to head for it- and we're going to be on point," Sunshine replied. 

"What if we end up stuck in the middle of both forces?" Flash asked.

Pike paused, and looked back at him. "Then we're up a creek."

_______________


Fourty Eight Hours into Operation Bronco


Spitfire strode along the deck of the Magnificent, taking note of the damage she had sustained. The worst was the gaping hole where the second starboard cannon used to be, and elsewhere a dozen more holes left a few decks open to air. They had lost a dozen crew members and many more were injured, but they had taken victory on the field. 

She walked past an earth pony engineer- one of many they had now- putting out a small fire, and looked off the side towards the island.

Down below, about a kilometre away, was a beach. It was littered with a dozen destroyed griffon airships, uncontrolled fires raging all around and filling the sky with a black smoke. Hundreds of griffon soldiers had gone to their doom down there, along with a significant amount of supplies. They had the island surrounded now, and cut off any hope of reinforcement or resupply. A large force had gotten into the jungle though, and the marines would have to deal with it before they could declare victory. 

Beside her a grey coated unicorn mare had appeared, and cleared her throat to get the Air Martial's attention.

Spitfire looked her over, Leftenant Tulle Gras, volunteered to be reassigned to the Magnificent from 48th Medical in Canterlot- a few days after Black Friday.

"What is it Leftenant?" Spitfire asked.

"That changeling that went code green passed physical and mental evaluation ma'am. I think he can do fine, so long as we keep him out of direct combat. I just need your signature on the release," She replied.

Spitfire took the clipboard from her and scanned over it. "Fang" had apparently been cleared, but there was a note that he seemed to greatly fear death, to the point of mental collapse. Perfectly understandable, especially considering how young he seemed to be. She took a pen from her jacket pocket, and signed off it. In the "Reassignment" box she wrote "Signals".

She gave the clipboard back to Tulle. "Signals ma'am? Seems perfect," She said.

Spitfire nodded. "I want another mental evaluation in a week, I've got a funny feeling about this one Lieutenant."

"Yes ma'am," Tulle said, and then saluted before departing.

Spitfire turned back to the island. The Wonderbolt's job was done, it was all about the Marines on the ground now. They could support them, bomb targets and keep eyes on griffon movements, but they would be doing the heavy lifting. 

Leaning over the edge, she saw a few of the retro-fitted landing craft looking through the debris for anything useful. Their primary salvage mission was technology, anything that pointed to griffons long term plans, or any more proof of Saddle Arabian involvement.

Looking at them, and then one of the barges still attached to its balloons, and then to the ground, she had an idea.

"Who says Marine's can't fly?"

_______________


Fifty Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash checked his watch, 6PM. Knowing that they were due out in only 9 hours the company had left most of the gear stowed, and since the weather was so nice they would sleep out under the stars. With the sun setting, and painting the island a deep orange as it shon through the smoky haze wafting in from today's fighting in the east, he and his friends sat together eating their rations. A small fire, one of many in the field, kept them warm. 

Flash, being a lieutenant, had a single apple with his trailmix. 

"Lucky," Mary said. 

Big Mac lay across from them, and eyed it hungrily. Fearing his existence, Flash quickly removed the tempation.

"Hey," Flash said through a mouth full of apple, "atleast you still have all four legs." 

Mary frowned at her bag of trail mix. "I don't think it's worth it," She said.

"Nope."

Flash swallowed, and then frowned when he realized that was the last apple he was probably going to see for a while. 

"You will tomorrow, believe me getting this thing stick in mud isn't very fun," Flash said, spinning the squeaky wheel of his prosthetic.

Mary laughed. "Still trade it for an apple, although I guess it's too late now," She said. 

"How did you lose it anyway?" She asked.

Flash sighed, and lay back in the grass as he continued spinning the wheel. 

"I lost it in Manehatten, lucky to be alive probably. I was in Downtown Manehatten when the bombs went off, myself and a changeling I met. I don't think I would be alive if not for him," Flash said.

"A changeling? I thought they were all.. shifty. If I had to guess, this 'alliance' is a sham and Celestia just wants to 'keep her enemies close', as it were," Mary said.

"Yep," 

Flash sighed. "I dunno, this one wasn't like that. He can't shapeshift, and we were together until yesterday. He actually followed me out here, and volunteered to go to Baltimare," Flash said.

"Really? I haven't seen any changelings around, I don't suppose he..." Mary left the conclusion hanging.

Flash shook his head. "Nah, he 'code greened' before we deployed. He's still on the Magnificent as far as I know, wish I knew he was okay," he said.

"If he code greened, he's probably heading home. Y'know what I like to call the code greens?" Mary asked.

"What?" Flash returned.

"The sane ones," She replied.


_______________


Friday, August 29th, 1001.
Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 20006 Operational, 156 Injured, 926 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 23 frigates, 34 corvettes. 14 lost.


Weather: Clear skies, visibility perfect.


Sixty Four Hours into Operation Bronco


Another day, another updated board. The weather looked to be perfect for the foreseeable future, and the fleet had the island locked down. As soon as Spitfire had awoken she had ordered shore bombardment to continue, they probably weren't hitting much without proper targets, but it was bound to hurt enemy morale.


DASH WING: 752 CONFIRMED, 27 UNCONFIRMED, 20 LOST
DUST WING: 467 CONFIRMED, 65 UNCONFIRMED, 22 LOST
SOARIN WING: MAY WE NEVER FORGET
FLEETFOOT WING: 332 CONFIRMED 0 UNCONFIRMED, 16 LOST


FLEET SCORE: 7 CAPITAL, 10 FRIGATE, 37 TRANSPORT, 56 FIXED WING, 874 LOST


Spitfire had broken from protocol and ordered that loss numbers be posted on the kill sheet. There was no point trying to hide it now, she could only hope that the loses were worth it. Yesterday had cost them the Sun Dog, the Crazy Horse, the Duke, and a few gunboats with only numerical designations: G-35, G-74, G-55, and G-45. The griffons, however, had lost a hell of a lot more. The final tally was 560 of them on the beach, with an unknown number more hidden below the waves in wrecked ships. It was like their command had no concern for their lives, they were throwing away people by the hundred. 

"Griffons might not care about their soldiers," Spitfire said, and turned to her bridge crew.

"But we do. The marines down there are riding into hell today, and we're going to everything we can to help them. Gunships on air cover, wings on recon, we're going to pin those bastards to the ground and hammer on them until they surrender," she said.

"Yes Ma'am!" The crew saluted, and took their positions. Spitfire followed Echo to her communications board, time to try again.

"Contact Canterlot, again," Spitfire ordered. Echo nodded, and flicked a switch. She seemed worried as she handed the headset to Spitfire, warily eyeing the dozen dials.

"Canterlot this is Wonderbolt Actual, come on," Spitfire said, looking out the window. If only she could actually see what was going at home.

"I thought I told you to shut up?" Archer said.

"Who the hell... you again? How about I come over there and jam a Phoenix up your ass!" Spitfire threatened.

"Good luck, we've got more missiles then you do- all lined up on coast, idiot," Archer said.

Another burst of static forced Spitfire to tear the headset off, She managed to stop herself from slamming the deck, and instead just screamed frustrated at the window.

"I am going to kill that jackass!"

_______________


Sixty Four Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash checked his watch- 8AM. They had been trotting for five hours. The break of dawn had been beauitful, the sun rose over the east reflecting off the ocean, lighting the trees. From where they were on the mountain the ocean was visible in the distance down hill, at some point last night they had crossed over from the west side to the east, the peak of the mountain now to their backs in the north.

Birds were singling, and it was too late in the season for mosquitoes- a beautiful crisp early-autumn day. Except for, y'know, the fact they were on point to assault the enemy.

Flash trotted beside Brigadier Sunshine as usual, but he had used his officers privilege to 'lighten the load' a few hours ago. Private Rona Excavo carried the radio pack, Flash himself only keeping the map. She was a capable enough unicorn, and considering he was a pegasus with only three legs he didn't feel too bad about it.

The mood throughout the group was... low. They had the easy beach, now it was time take the hard job. Like geese in flight, they cycled out to keep one unit from getting exhausted. 2nd Seaborne had fought for nearly a day straight, and was taking it easy.

"So Private Excavo, you're a newer volunteer, what made you sign up?" Flash asked the mare beside him.

"My brother was a reservist, I signed up a bit after the war started. Didn't get to Baltimare before the griffons got him," She replied.

Flash was forced to halt as his prosthetic caught in something, and painfully tugged at his upper leg. The wheel had long since become totally useless, rusted and caked with mud.

"That's..." He struggled to pull the thing out, stuck in what looked like a gopher hole. "... too bad, I'm sorry for you," he finished.

Flash grunted as he tried to pull the damn thing out of the hole, it was in good. Just as he was about to give up, and undo the clamps, a blue field took it and with seemingly no effort it slid out of the hole- looking like the day it was made.

The wheel even spun.

Flash glanced back, and Private Excavo stood behind him. "Don't mention it, we weren't too close. I was surprised he had the guts to sign up at all, so I figured if he did- I've got no reason not to," she said.

Flash smiled, and they came back to their positions. "I suppose that's as good a reason as any," he said.

"What about you, Lieutenant? I heard your name in the news a while back, something about the Empire," she asked.

Flash sighed. "I signed up to be a hero, turns out it's not the person- it's the organization," he said. 

"That's not really an answer," Excavo pressed.

"Screwed up as a Wonderbolt, so I signed up for the Imperial Legion. Screwed up as an Imperial Legionnaire, so I signed up as a guard. Screwed up as a guard, Lost a leg, stopped being full of myself. Signed up for the Marines, stopped screwing up," Flash said.

"Happy?"

"Happy."

For another hour they went on, mostly in silence. Ever few minutes Brigadier Sunshine checked the map, they were getting eerily close to the position marked as PROBABLE CONTACT, a big red square that surrounded the airfield for about a dozen kilometres in each direction. The other units were closing on it too, but 1st was going to enter the red ahead of them. 

For another hour, they went on. At the end of that hour Sunshine once again checked the map, and halted the column as he handed it back.

"Weapons ready! We're in the red now everypony!" He ordered, and all around the sounds of guns being checked filled the forest, while Sunshine radioed home to report. 

"Contact!" Someone shouted, and a hundred griffons charged through the brush. 

Flash hit the dirt, firing blindly with his sidearm. He wasn't sure what he was shooting at, but by Celestia he was shooting it. Everyone else was doing the same, the deafening sound of hundreds of rifles and other arms sending their rounds cracking through the air at whatever their holders thought was an enemy. Trees exploded on both sides, covering the ground- and Flash- in timbers.

He saw a shadow in the bush, and shot it. He glanced around for another, and shot that one too.

He saw another, which exploded into smoke and tree as Big Mac fired the big gun over that way, snapping a tree cleanly in half and sending it to the ground. 

Another, and Flash pointed his weapon, and pulled the trigger for the sixth time.

Click.

This wasn't a shadow, and there was a griffon charging through through the trees, a fire in his eyes as he bared down on him. 

Click. clickclickclick.

Flash closed his eyes, and accepted it. 

Silence fell over everything, and to his surprise he opened his eyes. The forest was filled with the smoke wafting from a thousand guns, and the stench of gunpowder- and his own sweat- stung his nostrils. Two feet ahead, a griffon had met his end, claws outstretched as if he was in the middle of lunging.

He glanced to his side, and Big Mac gave a sagely nod before he released the spent magazine of his hulking gun, letting it crashing to the ground into a pile of spent cartridges.

"Is that it?" Flash wondered aloud, as he inserted fresh rounds into his own weapons magazine.

"Probably just caught a patrol with their pants down, it's going to get bad from here," Sunshine said, and stood to shout an order.

"Dig in everyone. I want a ten meter wide clearing in front of us! Overlapping lines of fire, you know the drill!" Sunshine ordered.

Flash grabbed a shovel from Excavo's pack, but before he could even start digging a dozen foxholes had already materialized, along with a trench and a basic dirt fortification. He looked at her with awestruck wonder.

She shrugged. "Runs in the family," she said, and went down the line making holes as she went. 

"Who says we need Celestia?" Flash said to himself.

_______________


Sixty Four Hours into Operation Bronco


General Pike left the board, units were converging on the airfield and 1st had reported contact. A private had beckoned him into the radio room, apparently Spitfire had an idea.

Inside he nodded to the signaller, and Spitfire was put on the speaker.

"General Pike? Air Martial Spitfire, are you reading me?" She asked.

"Loud and clear, now what's this idea of yours?" He returned.

"Remember those landing craft? Who says they have to land on water? We could shove an entire battalion right up their ass and they don't have the firepower to crack that armour," Spitfire said.

Pike thought about it for a moment. It was risky as hell, but throwing an entire battalion right in the middle of the airfield would crack the griffons right open, and was bound to be far less bloody then slowly pounding on them. Gunships had been doing runs, but griffon light rockets made them stay too high to do much of use, and Wonderbolts risked getting torn up by ground fire. The Magnificent's cannons were definitely having an effect, but they were quickly running out of shells. The Pheonixes already had, and weren't very accurate int their bombing. They hadn't had long to prepare for this war, after all.

"I'll form a battalion out of elite companies, give you a call when we're ready," Pike said.

"We'll get it r-" Pike cringed, as an intense burst of static shot out of the speaker.

A few seconds later he heard an explosion echo across the island. 


Sixty Four Hours, Ten Minutes, into Operation Bronco


Spitfire pulled herself up by her chair, pressing on a gash in her arm. She had been tossed from it like a rag doll, hitting the control panel rather hard. She was sore, bruised, and it pained her to even breathe.

"Damage report!" She ordered, looking for any serious injuries.

"W.." Stiff coughed, the bridge was filling with smoke at an alarming rate. "We've lost all engines, we're dead in the air!" He shouted. 

Spitfire glanced out the window, the sea was clear- and there was no possible ground threat.

"What the.." She coughed. "Evacuate the bridge!" She ordered, and fell back to make sure they all got out. Northstar was limping, and looked like she had a broken leg. Spitfire came to her side and helped her outside, sealing the door once they had all escaped.

"What the hell was that?" She asked, her crew coughing and checking themselves over in the corridor.

"I don't know, there was no contact, the engines just... exploded," Stiff said, and then howled with pain as he cracked his shoulder back in place. 

"Well go find out," Spitfire ordered, and took her hoof off to get a better look at her arm. Her uniform was soaked with blood, and there was a deep, painful, wound- which spat blood at her as soon as she released it.

"Celestia help us, Spitfire!" Someone yelled, Spitfire wasn't sure who.

"C..call a me.."

She fell against the wall, and slid down leaving a long bloody trail. Before she hit the floor, darkness overtook her.

_______________


Seventy Hours into Operation Bronco


The whole unit was on edge, Flash especially so. A half dozen hours ago they had received a cryptic message from basecamp, General Pike informing them that contact with the Magnificent had been lost. This was after they had heard a huge explosion. They couldn't actually see anything, but the amount of smoke visible in the sky did not paint a pretty picture. 

Flash had a rifle now, and in a fox hole his rank was meaningless, his company meaningless, he was just a pony with a gun. A mile long line of them stretched into the distance, with around a third of the fox holes having been dug by Rona Excavo.

Corporal Excavo now, Sunshine was rather impressed with her efforts. She was in the next fox hole, the radio gear stowed a ways back in a tent. Brigadier Sunshine was managing it personally now, things were getting heated with the other companies. Every few minutes on of them would be attacked, and the reply was a dozen or so mortars into the forest. The idea that they might have lost their fleet support was scaring the hell out of everyone, and the Wonderbolts hadn't been seen or heard from in hours- although they couldn't do much good in the thick forest anyway.

"Contact!" Someone to the side yelled.

Flash squinted through the sights, and sure enough the gleam of griffon armour was visible in the jungle. 

"Position 27, call fire!" Flash shouted back towards the communications tent, a pony nodded and ducked inside just before the company began firing into the forest. 


Flash fired, and managed to hit a griffon, but the shot just bounced off the armour. He cursed, and ran the bolt of his rifle to fire again. Before he could a volley of return fire forced him to duck into his fox hole, dirt flying into the air all around. The amount of noise coming from all around was amazing.

"Man, since when the hell did ponies get shot at?!" He yelled to nobody in particular, and swung his rifle back over the dirt wall.

"The hell happened to Pax Equestria!" He yelled again, firing another round down. 

"We aren't in Equestria any more, didn't you get the memo!?" Excavo shouted, ducking down to reload her own magazine.

Flash ducked to avoid another hail of bullets. "Excavo, you got any grenades?" He asked.

She laughed. "Kidding me? We all ran out hours ago," She replied, and swung back over to resume shooting.

Flash did too, but only peaked over for a moment before the opposing treelike exploded as mortars began falling like explosive rain. After a half minute, silence fell once more. The forest that had a few hours ago been pristine natural beauty was now a hole, trench, and body filled wasteland. Everywhere you looked wood chips, spent rounds, and other things littered the ground, and most of the grass was either burnt, covered by dirt, or cratered by explosives.

At least it was warm today.

Flash sat back in his hole, they were safe for at least another half hour. As soon as their fight ended, another could be heard starting down the line.

"Hey Lieutenant?" Excavo addressed.

"Yeah?" Flash returned, looking over as he sat back and opened his bag of trail mix.

"Why are we so good at this?" She asked.

Flash had to consider that for a second. It was a logical enough question- Equestria had gone from basically nothing to mounting an assault landing in, what, three months? He was even surprised at how well he was handling it himself, they all had been trained how to use rifles, and fire mortars, and all that- but none of them ever expected to use that knowledge. The Guard was supposed to stand around with crossbows, and maybe every once and a while fight timberwolves. Anything heavier was dealt with by alicorns, alicorn proteges, or magic.

"I honestly don't know, I guess we've just learned to adapt. We're were all trained for this, even if we never expected to actually do it. I think most of the training stuff comes from the Zebras, they were always really good at..." Flash paused, and gestured around himself.

"This," he said.

Excavo nodded. "I suppose you're right. Corner a pony, and you get a lion," She said.

_______________


Seventy Two Hours into Operation Bronco


General Pike sat in their new command post, in the radio room while he waited for some sign the Wonderbolts still existed. While he waited, he went through the files for his units. 4th Seaborne seemed to have a good balance, but no elite units, so it was going to be folded into the others from where he took what he pleased. Brigadier Buckshot sat beside him, at a desk that had one point been the griffon commanders. They didn't seem to have a fine eye for detail, it was more or less just a wooden rectangle with a slot for a chair and a few drawers. 

Too bad he seemed to have taken most of the important documents, although they did find some cryptic references to House Arkavo and a food shortage. SIGINT was going to have a field day... if they still existed.

"Alright. Logisitics from the 2nd, Medical from the first, combat units from the 2nd and 1st.... what about signals?" Pike wondered.

"We need a sharpshooter for the rapid response squad too, who's got the best scores out there?" He asked.

Buckshot rifled through some papers, and handed one over. "Sergeant Sentry, field promoted to lieutenant a day ago," She replied.

Pike read it over. Wonderbolt, ex-wonderbolt. Wounded in Manehatten, above-average abilities to handle stress in combat, which made him a heck of a prize in a signals tent. His marksmanship in the Wonderbolt Academy was amazing, assuming this carried through with a rifle he could knock a bottle cap out of the air at a hundred yards.

"He'll do, bring him over with his signals unit and we're all set," Pike said, marking this down on a paper ahead of him.

"Sunshine isn't going to be happy to abandon his unit sir, I sure as hell wouldn't be," Buckshot noted.

"Yeah well, who's in charge?" Pike said, and leaned back to look over to the signaller still trying to raise the fleet.

"Any luck?" He asked.

"No, but I think I found the griffon frequency," He replied.

Pike quickly swung out of his chair and put on the spare headset.

"Qu'aucune cession, aucun déshonneur... Qu'aucune cession, aucun déshonneur... Qu'aucune cession, aucun déshonneur..." he heard through the headset, staticy but definitely griffon. 

"It just repeats?" Pike asked, and set the set back down.

"Yessir, it translates to 'No surrender, no dishonor- I think," the radio pony said.

"Well that-" Pike shut up as the pony shot a hoof in the air, and then sat back in his chair with a relieved sigh.

"It's the fleet sir, they're all right," he said.

Pike was so taken by relief he kissed the stallion on the head, and none spoke of it ever again.

_______________


Seventy Three Hours into Operation Bronco


Captain Northstar walked through the rows upon rows of injured in the Magnificent's infirmary. Dozens of injured engineers, mostly from burns and shrapnel when the bombs went off in the rear five propellers, leaving her unable to move. Another set had blown into the transmission tower, but these were poorly planted enough that repairs only took a few hours. Thankfully there had been no real damage beyond the propellers finding themselves at the bottom of the sea.

Northstar herself had broken her left leg, and now wore a splint over it. She was one of the luckier ones.

She approached the end of the line, where a shrouded bed was constantly watched over by the head doctor, and two military police.

"Doctor Tulle, is she awake?" Northstar asked.

"Surprisingly, yes. I have no idea how she manages the pain- she's refused any medication. The arm should be fine, but she won't be able to use it for a few weeks- she's lucky," Tulle said, and stepped aside.

Northstar pulled aside the blinds, and quickly closed them after herself. Spitfire lay on the bed, her arm covered in bandages, and a good amount of red soaked into the bedsheets. A bag full of blood was connected into her arm, while another series of bags collected her bodies waste and fed her. Spitfire was not going anywhere soon.

She tried to get up, but her body wasn't having it.

"Don't be stupid Spitfire, you've got to rest," Northstar said.

"Who put you in charge?" Spitfire asked, her voice weak.

"Regulations did, you're in no condition to go anywhere ma'am," Northstar replied, sitting by her commanders side.

"Y'know, the crew isn't going to think any less of you if you take some painkillers, that can't possibly be comfortable," She noted.

Spitfire groaned. "It hurts, it hurts bad, but that's how I know I'm still alive. If it ever stops hurting, then I'll be worried," She said.

"Northstar, General Pike has a plan to end this so we can get back home and figure out what the hell is going on back there. I need you to work with him and follow through, he'll have all the details," She added, her voice slowly decreasing in volume.

"I'll get it done," Northstar said, and with a weak nod Spitfire gave into sleep.

Northstar pulled the covers over her, before leaving the shrouded bed.

"Is that bat still in the brig?" She asked one of the MPs.

"No ma'am, that's why we're here- she's loose," The MP replied.

Northstar nodded. "Rotating guard then, full alert, you know the drill," she ordered.

"Yes ma'am, we've got people looking for her- but we think she went to ground," He said.

Northstar saluted, and left them to their guard. As she strode down the hall outside towards the surface deck, she wondered what Spitfire could mean by 'a plan'. In the end it didn't matter what it was, Northstar only hoped she would prove as capable as Spitfire, the world was on her shoulder now.

_______________


Seventy Four Hours into Operation Bronco


1st Seaborne was starting to get close to exhaustion, but to their massive relief the 4th had arrived to relieve them. It had been a long, long, day for the stallions and mares of the 1st, nearly constant fighting since they had arrived a half day ago. Flash left his foxhole, a member of the 4th replacing him, and with his legs like rubber he eagerly wobbled away, thankful to be done with that nightmare- for now. Rona Excavo took his side as they trotted away from the line, into the clearing of tents a few dozen meters behind a second line of trenches.

Interestingly there was an airship parked, and a few dozen ponies- he recognized Big Mac and Mary Frosthorn in particular- were boarding it.

"Sentry!" Brigadier Sunshine shouted, standing before the line of marines boarding the ship.

Flash hurried over with Rona at his tail. "Yessir?" He asked, saluting as he came to a halt.

"New orders Sentry, we're on our way back to the Magnificent," Sunshine explained, and gestured to the waiting craft.

"What about the rest of the 1st sir?" Flash asked.

"Don't worry about them, that's none of our concern now. You'll be happy to hear we're taking 1st Signals with us though, you get to keep your job," Sunshine replied.

Rona seemed greatly relieved by that, and trotted past to board the ship.

Sunshine turned to do so as well, Flash once again at his side. 

"So, what are our new orders sir?" Flash asked.

Sunshine grinned back at him. "Welcome to 1st Airborne."

Once they had boarded, Flash found his friends- Mary and Big Mac- sitting together near the rear. They had a bag of carrots, which Flash had heard were long since gone, and he sat with them to help make that a truth.

"So lieutenant, you hear? They're pulling the 'elite' from all the batallions for this new unit," Mary said, through a mouth full of carrot.

"We're elite." 

Flash shoved a few in his mouth, and quickly devoured them before bothering to reply. "Apparently. I wonder why they're pulling this together, we've got the griffons on the ropes- why mess with the lines like this?" Flash asked.

Mary shrugged. "To open up a new line, why else? He called us the 'airborne', I wonder if that means we'll be dropping out of the sky," She said.

Flash grinned wide with astonishment and glee as he figured it out. "Mary, the landing craft- who said they had to land on water?" 

Mary met his smile. "Oh, they'll write about this in the history books!" 

"Yep."

_______________


Seventy Five Hours into Operation Bronco


Captain Northstar, now leader of the Wonderbolt Fleet itself, waited on the flight deck of the Magnificent for the arrival of the '1st airborne'. Pike had briefed her on his plan, having arrived a few minutes ago. He stood at her side, the sun shining down on them through one of many, many, holes in the armoured deck covering. It seemed to her now that it was a rather large waste to have all that steel there. The original idea was apparently to make the enemy think it was an air balloon so they would waste ammunition on it, while also concealing the fact they had planes inside, but that cat was long out of the bag.

Those planes had been pushed to the back, and in their place a dozen landing craft were being hastily modified. The propellers were removed, and each had a rotary gun salvaged from one of the lost gunships sticking out of the top. Steel that had been salvaged was being welded to the bottom to protect against groundfire. Engineering didn't have the parts to keep them mobile once they landed- the tiny wheels would only be able to get them out of the hanger.They didn't have time to construct any dedicated platforms, but they would certainly have some designs for home to consider.

Home... what was going on at home? Something terrible probably, but they had to win this battle before they could fight that one. If there was a fight to be fought, they better be ready for the whirlwind. Nopony in Equestria's history had gone through what they had out here, and they would drop all that experience right on their heads.

The first ship, a yacht that had probably seen use by some aristocrat- The Blueblood- was the first in the bay. Its balloon couldn't fit inside, so it extended a ramp and hovered at the end- another reason to remove the roof. She and Pike waited for the troops to line up before them, a hundred of their finest soldiers, with their support companies on the way. Northstar took a good luck at them, and was delighted to see her son on the front line. He was bruised, dirty, and his uniform had more tears then there was uniform left- but he was here. The rest of them didn't look much better come to think of it, and she felt a slight pang of guilt that they had it so easy up here.

"Company halt!" The pony leading them shouted, and they did so behind him. Northstar had never been as proud of her son as she was at that moment. Flash Sentry was elite, so much so that he had been personally chosen for this mission.

"1st airborne reporting for duty!" Brigadier Sunshine shouted.

"At ease," Pike said. Northstar nodded at her son, front just behind the Brigadier.

"You hundred.." Pike stepped forward, inspecting his troops. "... have been chosen because not only have you proven yourselves exceptionally over the last few days..." he paused, looking over a red earth pony that seemed more like a mountain then a stallion. "... but also because your days in training suggests you have specific skills that elevate you above and beyond the rest. Over the next two days you are going to train those skills, and we are going to drop you straight into the lions den," He said, and returned to the front of the line.

"You are going to kill the lion, is that understood?" 

"Yes sir!" They shouted, as one organism.

"Dismissed! Get some rest, training begins at 0600 sharp, Brigadier Sunshine will give you assignments," Pike ordered.

The ponies ambled off, and Northstar glanced to Pike looking for approval. He nodded, and she quickly took her sons side.

"Flash..." She said, holding back tears as she took his bruised hoof.

Flash smiled, happy beyond words to see his mother.

"M-" 

She embraced him tight before he could speak, and the whole room was uplifted by the scene.

After a few minutes they left, and took dinner in the cafeteria. Flash was surprised the ship managed to keep itself together, debris was everything and it seemed like every second crewmember was bruised, or had a broken limb, or was otherwise injured. He didn't feel too bad though, they had the refrigerators- which meant they had the cold drinks and fresh vegetables. Their dinner was a fine change from the trail mix they had down on the island. Strangely there were MPs everywhere, and all of them were armed.

Flash sat across from his mother in the cafeteria, busy with the arrival of the tired, hungry, airborne.

"What's with all the security?" Flash asked.

"We've got a traitor around, first she tried to blow up our planes- and now she's blown up our engines," Northstar replied. 

"I think I heard something about that, you're telling me this traitor is loose?" Flash asked, sticking a fork into a potato, with vigour.

Northstar reached across, and put a hoof over her sons. "Don't worry about it, you've got enough on your plate as it is," She said.

Flash relaxed, and slouched into his chair. 

"I missed you mom, it's been a long few days,"

Northstar smiled, and through sheer willpower held back tears.

"I missed you too Flash, and Flash?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm proud of you."

_______________


Seventy Six Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash took some time to get a new uniform (machine stitched, to his great chagrin), and now he stood outside the signals building, which was at the rear of the great ship. It had apparently seen better days, with most of the windows having been blown out, and tarps fluttering in the wind as makeshift coverings. The radio tower had too, it was held up by rope, and by the looks of it no small amount of prayer. A whole dozen MPs surrounded it, armed to the teeth.

Flash took a deep breath, and opened the door. Before he could react a black blur flew at him, and he was thrown to the ground by the force of a very happy changeling hugging him.

"Flash!" Fang exclaimed, clutching his mentor tight.

"Fang, how's it going buddy?" Flash asked, smiling as he lifted the short changeling off himself. He had a uniform now, and a privates patch too. Fang was a proper Marine.

"It's great, they've got me helping with the radios!" Fang said giddily, and eagerly pulled his friend along into the next room. The frazzled signallers, having been through hell in the last few days, paused in their work and smiled. Fang was quickly becoming their mascot. 

"See, look at this," Fang said, and plopped himself in a chair -which had been cut to size for him, before a radio panel.

"I'm helping DJ 92.5 Wonderbolt FM, as soon as we actually get some time to spare- things keep exploding around here," Fang said.

Flash took a quick look around. Most of the equipment looked fried, and there was a stack of barely recognizable radio parts in the corner. Somebody had gone through a lot of effort to try and stop communications.

"I've noticed, I guess nobodies been able to get a break," Flash said, and pulled a chair over for himself.

Flash patted his head, and pulled him towards so he could look into his eyes. 

"Really now, you're okay?" He asked.

Fang blinked. Good luck trying to get a read on somebody with no pupils.

"I am, really," He said, putting a hoof to Flash's shoulder.

"Don't worry about me Flash, you're the one that has to go..." He shuddered, and gestured towards a barely-covered window.

"...back there."

Flash smirked. "Don't you worry either, I can handle myself," Flash said, and checked his watch. 8PM, he had been awake for nearly... 15 hours. 

Realizing that, his body suddenly remembered that sleep was a thing it needed, and that it had done a lot today. Flash yawned, and patted his friends furry head.

"I'll see you later buddy, this pony needs some sleep," Flash said, and departed. Fang watched him go, and then turned back to his board. 


_______________


Eighty Six Hours into Operation Bronco


Captain Northstar got up at 6AM sharp, the drills General Pike had scheduled had seen to that. A lot of noise got his stallions up ten minutes ago. After checking up on Spitfire, finding her sound asleep- thankfully, she deserved that much- Northstar arrived at the bridge with the rest of her groggy crewmates. and updated the board as she did every morning.

"Echo, you got the latest casualty and kill lists?" Northstar asked.

Echo nodded, and got up from the comm board to deliver a clipboard. Every morning they had done this before Spitfire arrived, every morning they had to increase the numbers. At first it was horrifying, but by now they did it with a professional numbness. First she updated the date, it was Saturday.

Nobody cared, war didn't take weekends off.



Saturday, August 30th, 1001.
Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 20006 Operational, 156 Injured, 926 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 23 frigates, 34 corvettes. 14 lost.


Weather: Clear skies, visibility perfect.


Eighty Six Hours into Operation Bronco


She glanced up at the clock above it, and was shocked by what it read.

	Damn, we've only been at this for eighty six hours?!

Collecting herself, Northstar checked the board- another hundred marines dead last night, another hundred injured. Another hundred returned to active duty, so that balanced it out. Nice even numbers.


Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 19906 Operational, 156 Injured, 1026 KIA or MIA


This was the first time the operational number had dipped below 20 thousand, and the first day the fatality list clicked over a thousand. Northstar took a moment of silence before continuing.

"Weather report?" She asked, glancing over to Echo.

"Looks like.... Clear skies, slight fog rolling in from the east. It'll get thicker as the day goes on, and it's getting cold," Echo replied.


Weather: Clear skies, visibility deteriorating.


Nobody cared about the temperature. So long as it wasn't cold enough for frostbite, it didn't matter. They all had had fur anyway.

"Anybody score a hit yesterday?" She asked, looking over the Wonderbolt score sheet.

"Nope, that clusterbuck with the engines kept us out of action. Everyone was running CAP in case the griffons took advantage of it," Echo replied.


RAINBOW WING: 664 CONFIRMED, 27 UNCONFIRMED
LIGHTNING WING: 427 CONFIRMED, 65 UNCONFIRMED
SOARIN WING: 257 CONFIRMED, 22 UNCONFIRMED
FLEETFOOT WING: 322 CONFIRMED 0 UNCONFIRMED


FLEET SCORE: 7 CAPITAL, SIX FRIGATE, 27 TRANSPORT, 37 FIXED WING


Northstar left the board as is, and turned to face the bridge. The crew hadn't lined up as usual, it wasn't any disrespect on their part- they had just felt it improper without Spitfire.

She walked around to take the helm, stopping at Leftenant Stiff Wings' engineering station. It was both a short range radio relay that allowed him to keep in contact with the dozens of separate engineering squads and rooms, and a board that relayed from several dozen fire alarms and explosive sensors. Nearly the entire board was red at this point.

"What's the status of the engines, and the other repairs?" Northstar asked.

"Well..." Stiff spun around in his chair, "... we simply don't have the parts to fix the propellers, but we can fix the engines themselves. I suggest we use a pair of destroyers as tugs on either side when we go home. As for the rest... we're managing," He replied.

"You can still get us over the airfield for the drop, right?" 

"You bet, the steering propellers can move us at 20 knots, it'll take a few hours- but we can do it," He said.

"Good," Northstar said, and left him to his work to her own station.

"Wait a second... why am I on the helm if we can't move?" She asked herself, and glanced back at Spitfire's seat.

She shook her head. "I'm going down to see what Pike's up to, call me if you need me," She said, and left the bridge. 

It just wouldn't be right.


_______________


Eighty Six Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash flung out of bed, and with a flash had his uniform on. He was ready to go, having had the first really restful sleep since hitting the beach.

"Let's go colts! Duty calls, you've all got somewhere to be!" Brigadier Sunshine yelled, clanking a pot against the doorframe.

"Don't you?!" Mary yelled from somewhere near the back.

"Right here!" Sunshine yelled, and redoubled his clanking effort. Flash shut it out, and focused on the paper he had shoved in his uniform pocket.


	


Lieutenant Flash Sentry- Signals and Sharpshooting.
Saturday: Shooting practice- H.M.S Magnificent Flight Deck 
Sunday: Shooting practice- T.M.S Wide Flank
Monday: Practical Shooting with Griffons





He smirked, and pocketed the paper. General Pike had an odd sense of humour, but at least he had one. 

He marched himself up to the flight deck, only realizing when he got there he could have just flown up from the main deck- he hadn't been using his wings for much lately.

"Lieutenant Sentry!" General Pike ordered, noticing him come in from the centre of the deck.

"Yes sir!" Flash said, quickly cantering over and coming to attention.

"At ease," Pike said, and opened a crate next to him.

"You got some impressive scores in the Wonderbolt Academy, think you handle a sharpshooters rifle as well as a crossbow?" Pike asked.

"Yessir!" Flash replied, and caught the rifle Pike tossed at him.

He had a good look at it. Notably longer then the rifles used on the field, with a wider barrel and magazine. On the top was a long scope.

"We don't have many of these, so you take good care of that," Pike said, and stepped back. Behind him had been a skeet thrower.

Pike released it, and sent a skeet flying before Flash could react. It smashed against the deck a ways away before he had even shouldered the rifle.

"You don't get warning in combat lieutenant! Pay attention!" Pike shouted, and launched another.

Flash fired from the hip, knocking it out of the air barely a second into flight.

Pike launched another, and it met the same fate just slighter later, as Flash had to run the bolt this time.

"Impressive enough, let this one get to range- how close to the floor can you get it?" Pike challenged, and launched a third.

Flash looked through the scope, and followed its trajectory. When he pulled the trigger and sent the bullet cracking down the deck, it hit the disk just as it splintered against the floor. 

Pike grinned, Monday was going to be a good day.

A few hours later, Pike decided to increase the odds. He had a few cadets come down and line up five more skeet throwers. 

"Alright now, I want to see how well you do in a no win situation- you can't get them all no matter how hard you try," Pike said, and nodded to the cadets beside him. 

Six skeets went down, and Flash dispatched the first almost instantly. Tugging the bolt back he ejected the spent cartridge, and as soon as the next was in the chamber it was sent cracking through the air into the second. Ejecting another cartridge before the first had even hit the ground, the third bullet was fired and met its mark.

He stopped, and the other three skeets crashed against the deck.

"Think you can do better?" Pike asked.

Flash looked at him. "No sir, can't eject the cartridges fast enough," He said, and blew the end of the rifle to cool it.

Pike nodded.

	Skilled, and he knows his limits. This ponies going to make field martial.

"Sir, you have a marker?" Flash asked.

Pike was slightly confused by the question, but he did indeed. He pulled it out of his uniform pocket, and tossed it at Flash.

He wrote something on the rifle, and tossed it back.

	Pax Equestria

Off in the distance, not wanting to get in the way, Captain Northstar watched her son become the greatest sharpshooter Equestria had ever seen. When she turned to leave, she found a gun at her neck.

"Hooold on there little pony, we're going for a ride," Moonlight Shadow whispered in her ear.

Northstar froze. "What the hell do you want with me?" She asked.

"Think, idiot- equestrian shield- you're my ticket out of here," She said, and prodded Northstar forward.

Northstar slowly trotted forward, ever mindful of the gun stuck in her neck and the bat using her as a meat shield. Pike glanced over, and did a double take before yelling an alarm.

"Now hold on, I've got a hostage!" Moonlight yelled, gesturing with the gun.

"Attack me, and s..."

Crack

The gun shot out of Moonlights hand,flying backwards to Moonlights horror. Thinking fast, Northstar ducked.

Crack

Hearing a wet thunk beside her, Northstar rose to find Moonlight Shadow lying dead beside her, a hole cleanly between her eyes. She stood there in shock, rubbing her raw neck where the gun had scrapped it.

Flash tossed aside his rifle and galloped to her side, as a pair of MPs rushed to the bat, and hauled her body away.

"Mom?" Flash asked, frantically looking over her.

"I'm alright Flash," She said, and looked at her son with a new respect in her eyes. 

"You saved me, and you didn't even think you just.. acted," She said.

"I couldn't have waited, she had a gun to your head- I had to shoot while she was still monologuing," Flash said.

She reached forward and hugged him, shaking with adrenaline. Flash however, was steady as a rock. 

"You're a hero," She whispered.

"No, we all are."

_______________


One Hundred Hours into Operation Bronco


Fang's voice crackled through the radio sitting beside Flash's cot."Welcome to the hundredth hour of Waylay, brought to you by Grand Martial Galvon, guy sure likes titles doesn't he? Enjoy the next hour of music, on 92.5 Wonderbolt FM- The Whirlwind" 

Flash laughed, and lay back in his cot. It had been a long days work, and he had fired more rounds down range then he had in the entire campaign so far today.

On the radio, one of his favourite songs started playing- Fortunate Son.

He wasn't sure what a senator was, but he got the message well enough. Zebra music was pretty great.

"Hey Mary, what did they have you doing all day?" He asked, rolling over to the side. She was on the next cot, and the ever talkative Big Mac on the other.

"I'm pretty sure I can put a pony together out of a million pieces now, they had us doing mock triage for hours on cadavers," She said.

Flash held back a little vomit. "Doesn't that get kind of... heavy, eventually?" Flash asked.

She shrugged. "We're all just big wet machines Flash, and someponies gotta learn the mechanics to keep you all alive," She replied.

"Yep."

"Flash?" Mary asked, rolling on her side to look at him,"

"Yeah?"

"You asked me before how I deal with it, but how do you deal with it? You go out there everyday and get shot at, and when you shoot back you end a life- that's what always got me, who are they?" Mary asked.

"I do like you do, I leave my body to do the work, and turn my mind off. I also like to think of it like this- the blood is on the High Martials hands for starting this whole thing, we're here because of him," Flash said.

"Does it work?" Mary asked.

"No."


_______________


One Hundred Nine Hours into Operation Bronco


Captain Northstar awoke earlier than usual to check up on Spitfire, who was finally able to at least sit up in her bed. She had lost a lot of blood, and it was a wonder she was alive at all. Outside her bed was a report of her injuries, requiring two full pages to list. Broken ribs, lacerations all over the place, a deep wound in her arm, fractured leg, broken arm, it just went on and on. 

Northstar closed the blinds behind her and took a seat, Spitfire's eyes barely open, but watching her with that intense calculating fire that they always did. Her body might be in rough shape, but the mind of Spitfire was stronger then any mortal weapon yet concieved.

"Morning ma'am, you'll be pleased to know that bat is out of our hair," Northstar said.

Spitfire sighed, and relaxed. "That's the best news I've heard all week," She said weakly.

"What about the plan, are you going tomorrow?" 

Northstar nodded. "Everything is going according to schedule, and the lines on the ground are advancing faster then we thought. We'll drop tomorrow at 1200," Northstar said.

"That's four hours early, you sure we can do it?" Spitfire asked.

"Ma'am, we've got the best fighting force in the world assembled here. Don't worry about us, worry about yourself," Northstar replied.

Spitfire squinted at her, and seemed to be deciding if she was actually as confident as her words made her to be.

"Good, do it," She said, and closed her eyes. 

Northstar once again pulled the covers over her commander, and left her to her rest. A few minutes later she arrived at the bridge, and set to updating the boards.


Sunday, August 31st, 1001.


Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 19906 Operational, 156 Injured, 1026 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 23 frigates, 34 corvettes. 14 lost.


Weather: Clear skies, visibility perfect.


One Hundred Nine Hours into Operation Bronco


She cocked her head at the clock. There were five digits on it. 

Not a good sign for their future.

"Echo, casualty list?" She asked.

Echo trotted over and gave it to her. "We've had a bad night Captain, griffons are starting to use suicide tactics," She said, and handed over the board grimly.

Northstar stared at it for a whole half minute.

Five hundred dead.

Five hundred.

She did her duty and updated the board, lowered her cap to her heart, and gave a moment of silence.


Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 19186 Operational, 476 Injured, 1526 KIA or MIA


A note on the board explained the night- griffons had charged several lines suicidally, tearing into them with their flamethrowers. They had lost a hundred of their number in this, what a total waste of life for both sides.

"Weather?" Northstar asked.

"Clear, there's a storm brewing far out east though, probably get here late Tuesday according to our Phoenix," Echo replied.

Northstar left the weather report as is, and did the same with the Wonderbolt scores. There was no luck trying to get any fire from the air into the forest, and they had long since exhausted their long range armament. They had ten shells left for each cannon, and a total of twenty ATA missiles. They were supposed to have contacted Canterlot as soon as their position was secure for resupply, but that obviously wasn't happening.

"Echo, hail Equestria, let me try," Northstar ordered, and trotted to the comms board.

Echo reluctantly handed over the headset, and flicked the switch to transmit. 

"Equestria, come in Equestria," Northstar said.

The line buzzed, and a voice came through. "Who is this, and how did you get this frequency? Misuse of Night Guard communications frequencies is a felony."

Northstar thought for a moment, and figured she might as well go for broke. She pointed over to the switch marked 'bridge intercom', and Echo flipped it.

"It's me, Moonlight. I did as ordered but I don't have a secure transmitter on this plane, where am I setting down?" She asked.

Behind her Stiff and True Shot quickly bet on whether this would work or not.

"Are you serious? Goddamnit Moonlight you know better then this," The voice said, and there was a muffled conversation in the background.

"Stay clear of Canterlot, that's loyalist territory. Put it down in the Hollow Shades, and you better pray you don't get court martialed for this."

"Hey, I blew up the Magnificent, you should give me a damn medal," Northstar said, grinning as they seemed to fall for it.

"Y... what?! Moonlight you get back here as soon as you can, we can advance our timetable by weeks thanks to this! Now we rule the skies- thanks to you, you'll go down in history as the pony responsible for Her Glorious Ascension. May Queen Luna's Reign last a thousand years!"

Northstar stood there in shock as the transmission gave way back to static.

"Please tell me you recorded that," She asked Echo.

"We record everything- standard procedure," Echo replied.

She turned to the window, and out of the corner of her eye Stiff Wing and True Shot exchanged a sack of bits. Apparently Stiff won.

"Northstar, we're not going to have to fight Luna too now, are we?" Stiff asked.

"I don't know, he mentioned 'loyalists' in Canterlot, I don't see why Luna would abandon her own throne- she certainly worked hard enough to get it. Something weird is going on back home," She said.

"So who are we going to fight? Somebody has been messing with us, and I don't appreciate the attention," True Shot said.

"Some asshole named Archer if I'm following this right, we'll get him. One war at a time leftenant, one war at a time."


_______________


One Hundred Nine Hours into Operation Bronco


The stallions and mares of the 1st airborne were awoken on the dawn of their second day to their Brigadier once again yelling at them, banging a pot in the barracks doorway.

"Get up! You've all got somewhere to be!" He shouted. Flash leapt up, he always was a quick waker.

Mary wasn't. "Brigadier, don't you sleep?- I saw you pacing the deck at midnight!" 

"I don't sleep corporal, gave that up when I turned fourteen! Now get up, get to the flight deck, and enjoy the next twelve hours!" He shouted, and hit her with a medical bag.

Which it turned out was full of spell books. Flash ignored this, and threw his uniform on. 

He saluted the General on his way out, and smirked when he heard him still yelling at his comrades down the hall.

"Maybe if the rest of you were more like Sentry I wouldn't have to stand here like this!"

Quickly striding out into the Magnificent's deck, Flash took a deep breath of the crisp morning air and took a second to look at the island from the air, flapping his wings to hover beside the ship. It was beautiful, the soft light of morning twilight dimly reflecting off the foggy dew that hung over the trees, the sea surrounding it misty with frozen water droplets that hung in the brisk air. If it weren't for the smell of gunpowder in the air, and the long line of black burnt trees barely visible in the distance that marked the front line, it would be paradise.

After around a half minute of relaxing to that visage, he swooped backwards under the Magnificent and took his time looking for the Wideflank, it had been a long time since he really stretched his wings. 

First taking a wide course around the Magnificent itself, noting how the engines were more like burnt out stubs now, he spotted the ugly steel supply ship that was his objective. It really was ugly- just a grey steel rectangle with stacks and stacks of containers on its huge deck, a central spot in the middle so smaller barges could land and shift the containers around the fleet. The fact that most of the containers were open- and empty- was disconcerting.

General Pike was waiting on the centre deck, sitting on a chariot with a pile of crates beside him. Flash recognized it as a set of radio gear.

"Sentry?" The general addressed, checking his watch. "You're a few minutes early Sentry, have a seat," he said, and tossed Flash up an apple from a box beside him.

Its existence was limited to a few seconds, and Flash softly landed beside him.

"I always did wake up fast sir- so long as I had a reason," Flash said.

"No need for that here Sentry, just call me Pike," he said, and leaned back in his seat.

"I'm an earth pony, right? So I had to get a team of Wonderbolts to fly me over in this... thing. It does not look well on me to have to rely on Wonderbolts just to get around out here, we need some helicopters or something," he noted.

"I'm sure we could build some when we get home," Flash said.

"When we get home, that's right. You see all these containers?" Pike asked, gesturing around. Flash nodded.

"We've got two weeks of food left, and we're damn near out of ammunition. We were supposed to get re-supplied by now, but that isn't happening. It'll take two weeks to sail back with the Magnificent busted up like this," He said, and sat back up.

"Sentry, if we don't end this tomorrow we're not going home," he said, and slid out of the chariot.

He quickly opened a crate, and tossed Flash his gun. Flash grinned when he noted it was his, still having his message on it. 

"Seems a little ironic for a firearm, but whatever works for you," Pike said, and opened another crate. 

"Put on the radio gear, and fly to oh... let's say a hundred meters over the deck," he ordered. 

Flash slung the radio pack over his back, and glanced at the General when he noticed the phone was instead replaced with a headset.

"You're going to be a flying scout Sentry, you're not just the lead for 1st signals- you're going to be part of our rapid deployment squad. You and uhh.." Pike reached to his side, and grabbed a clipboard sitting on a box.

"Corporal Mary Frosthorn- Medical and magic. Corporal Macintosh- Heavy Weapons, survival expert. Corporal Rona Excavo- Signals, rapid field engineering. Yourself- recon and sharpshooting, and lastly Brigadier Sunshine- driving and leadership." He said, reading down the list.

"Well get to it Sentry, rise to a hundred meters, you'll notice a few targets on the beach. I want you to note their position and report them as soon as you can," he ordered.

Flash took wing, and as soon as he did the weight of the radio pack became utterly non existent. The magic of a pegasus pony, it allowed them to pull chariots and the Wonderbolt wings to fly nearly at the speed of sound with a half tonne of weapon on their backs. That was far beyond Flash's capability however.

One up at a hundred meters over the Wideflank, he pointed his rifle down towards the beach. The first target was pretty easy to find, a red target board standing between two wrecked griffon landing ships.

"120', 500 meters!" Flash shouted, and looked for the second.

"190', 600 meters!" 

"155', 700 meters!"

Continuing to look around, he couldn't find any more. So he turned his attention towards the sea, expecting some trickery and a target out there too.

Instead he spotted a fleet on the horizon. A fleet of surface ships.

	A fleet flying the Saddle Arabian flag.

"Sentry, you better be enjoying the sunrise, I don't want any bad news!" Pike yelled up at him.


_______________


One Hundred Ten Hours into Operation Bronco


The bridge of the Magnificent was absolute chaos as orders were given, weapons were loaded, and wings were ordered out. The fleet was forming up outside as a protective screen, and the Phoenixes were armed and in the air. 

"Echo, do we have the Saddle Arabian frequency?" Northstar asked, standing beside the comm station.

"Yeah, hailing them now," Echo replied, and handed Northstar the headset.

"Saddle Arabian Fleet, this is the Equestrian Wonderbolt Fleet, please identify your purpose," Northstar asked, as diplomatically as possible. She really didn't want to cause a diplomatic incident, or give them an excuse to attack.

"Equestrian Fleet, this is the Saddle Arabian Expeditionary Force, we are in international waters and have no reason nor need to tell you anything. I will however state that we have no intention of attacking," the other commander said.

Northstar covered the mouthpiece "Recall the planes, and stand down from weapons ready," She ordered.

"But ma'am- the..." 

"That's an order!" Northstar barked, and uncovered the set.

"Your right to international waters is recognized, but any attempt to come within weapons range will be met with force, is that understood Saddle Arabian Expeditionary Force?" She asked, her brow beading with sweat. 

A quick glance out the window added to her nerves, there must be at least a hundred ships on the horizon, dots flying above marking Saddle Arabian planes buzzing over them. If only they had some warning before they actually had seen them.

"That is understood Equestrian Wonderbolt Fleet. I see you have stood down from alert status, and we will do as well. Be mindful that we will respond in kind if you approach us- and this includes those planes," The other commander said.

Northstar silently sighed with relief, and the other line clicked off.

"Dodged a bullet there," she said, and wiped the sweat off her brow. 

"I'd say we dodged a 16 inch naval shell, if they wanted to hit us they could slice right through," True Shot noted. 

"If I had to bet," Echo said, "They're waiting on the results of the ground fighting. If we take the ground they would have to re-take it, and with the tension in the far west they probably don't have troops to spare."

Northstar sighed, and considered her options. Now they had two ticking timebombs- supplies running out, and a Saddle Arabian fleet staring them in the face. War hadn't been declared between them yet- but that sure hadn't stopped the griffons. They were going to get eventually, they were just waiting for an easy opening.

"It would be really, really, nice if we could contact Equestria right about now," she said, and lowered her cap to rub sweat off her forehead.


_______________


One Hundred Fifteen Hours into Operation Bronco


The 1st Airborne wasn't able to stop training while the fleet formed up, and Flash had spent the last few hours honing his skills of focusing on the task at hand, cancelling out outside distractions- while also being mindful of everything around him. More than once he had almost nailed a Wonderbolt patrolling while he shot targets down on the beach, but always managed to stop himself.

"Alright Sentry, you can come down now!" Pike shouted below. 

Flash lowered his rifle, as he lowered himself to the ground. When he landed he suddenly realized he was hungry, and almost fell over when the weight of the radio gear caught up with him.

"I swear Sentry, I've never seen anypony like you. If your history wasn't so marked I'd say you were the perfect soldier," Pike said, and gestured towards crate full of vegetables. 

Flash did his namesake proud, and hungrily dug into his lunch. 

"A half hours break, and then the last drill of the day. You're going to be working with Mary Frosthorn, who should be here right about..." He looked at his watch, and then pointed to the deck.

"Now."

A red fog flashed into existence, and disappeared an instant later. Mary stood in its place.

"Good, you've got a handle on teleportation, Corporal," Pike said, nodding his approval.

"Yes...sir," Mary panted, and smiled when she noticed Flash.

"I can't break a hundred meters though sir," She noted.	

Pike whistled. "A hundred meters? Most unicorns can't break fifty. If we do end up fighting Luna, I'm glad I've got you people to do it," he said.

Flash looked up from stuffing his face. "Hold on, is that what this is about- this 'rapid response team' is about?" he asked.

"Rapid deployment squad, and yes," He said, and beckoned them both forward.

"We did a lot of planning in the old guard- heck it's half of what did, the other half being looking good for weddings. Operation Half Moon called for the Wonderbolts to seal off the Hollow Shades, the guard to seal off the inner mountain, and Centurions to... do what needed to be done," He explained.

"That's all gone right to hell now obviously, so the new plan is to drop you on her while the 1st secures Canterlot. I call it Operation... uhh.." He paused, deep in thought. "Thousand Year Itch"

"You haven't had very long to plan this, have you?" Flash asked.

Pike sighed. "I came up with this Friday, making it up as we go is becoming a hallowed tradition of our fine nation."


_______________


One Hundred Sixteen Hours into Operation Bronco


After lunch, Pike ordered them both to attention, and handed Mary a rather expensive looking rod of some strange grey metal.

"That's 100 grams of alicornium, and it's worth more then both our lives. Do not lose that," he warned.

"Alicornium? You're kidding me!" She asked, holding the rod as if it contained the secrets to the universe.

"I am not, that came out of the wrecked Phoenix, so you can thank Sentry here for it. If my understanding is right, you'll be a little more capable with magic, but if you go overboard you'll burn your horn out," Pike explained.

"Don't worry sir, I know. I think it was one of Celestia's old students.. Shimmer or something? Almost killed herself with a rod half this size," Mary said.

Pike nodded. "Good, that's why I gave this to you- as a medic you'll know the signs of fatigue, and when to stop," he said, and opened another crate.

"There's a reason I have both of you here. these are tracer bolts. Sentry, shoot the bolt at a target- it'll burn for a few seconds and can dig into solid concrete. Frosthorn, blow up the target," Pike said, and lifted a scoped crossbow out of the crate.

Flash and Mary glanced at each other unsure.

"I said shoot!" Pike yelled, and tossed the crossbow at Flash. He deftly caught it with one arm while he slung the rifle on his back with the other, and shot into the air.

The crossbow, which he inspected before sighting, was the same as the old guards with the exception of the weird looking bolts, and long range scope. The bolts looked like they were coated with something- probably an incendiary chemical, and had a small arm at the very back. Happy to have the state of the art equipment, he put it to his shoulder and looked through the scope.

He quickly saw one of the targets.

"190', 600 meters!" he shouted, and shot the bolt. It scraped against the barrel of the crossbow, and sparked alight as it shot forward into the air. For a few seconds it arced through the air, and then dug into the wood board, burning bright orange.

"No need for that now Sentry!" Pike shouted below.

"Frosthorn, light it up!" He ordered.

Flash lowered his crossbow and glanced below, Mary stood over the edge of the Wide Flank and her horn shone bright red, before conjuring a huge fireball before her. It roared through the air downrange, and exploded with a great force a few meters from Flash's target with a fiery explosion, sending glassy sand into the air for dozens of meters around.

"Good, but not great! Practice!" Pike shouted below.

Flash looked through the scope again, and sighted the second target. Once again the bolt whizzed through the air, and Flash swore as it just barely missed, burying itself in the metal of some debris behind it.

"Wake up Sentry! Bolts don't move as fast!" Pike shouted.

Mary sent another fireball downrange, and this one impacted precisely on the blazing bolt.

"She's giving you a run for your money Sentry, forget how to shoot?" 

Flash sighted the third target, and took a second to steady his aim before sending the third bolt flaming towards it. He nailed it dead on, and it was quickly followed by a huge explosion.

"Hot damn now we're in business!"


_______________


One Hundred Twenty Two Hours into Operation Bronco


Six hours later Flash was getting exhausted, but he kept at it. The beach at this point was little more than melted steel and dark glassy rock, so he started firing at outlying trees.

There weren't many left.

He once again shouldered his crossbow, and sighted one of them. 

"Sir, I'm all out of juice," Mary said below, and Flash lowered it. Glancing down he noticed something- the tip of her horn had become slightly red.

"Alright, come on down Flash!" Pike shouted, waking up from his nap.

Worlds going to hell, I'm shooting at a beach, and the stallion was napping. 

Flash slung the crossbow around his back, having found a while earlier his radio pack had a holster for it. A lot of effort had gone into this gear, he only hoped he was really the right one to receive that attention. He lowered himself down, but stayed a low hover- he was so exhausted his legs probably couldn't hold him with the pack.

"You two are dismissed, we launch at 1200 tomorrow. Sleep in your uniforms, and keep that gear close," He ordered.

"Ughhhh, do we really have to do that?" Mary asked, painfully aware of the heavy medical bags she had worn all day.

"Rapid deployment squad. From now on that gear is your skin on duty, and you're going to be on duty a lot," Pike said, grinning.

"Sir, with all do respect- that name sucks," Flash said.

Pike sighed "Well what do you suggest, lieutenant?" he asked, exasperated.

Flash considered. Brigadier Sunshine, a mage with fire magic. Sunshine, sunburn...

"Well, we are Celestia's Royal Marine Corps, right? And our leader is Brigadier Sunshine... Sunburn Squad?" Flash tried.

Pike sighed, a sigh that seemed to be his very soul crying out in anguish.

"Fine," he said, and waved at a passing Wonderbolt patrol to get their attention, "if Sunshine agrees, it's all yours," he said.

Pike paused, and then shooed away the approaching (and now very confused) Wonderbolt patrol.

"What the hell am I doing? Sentry! Pull us home," Pike ordered, and laid back in the chariot.

Mary glanced at Flash, a look that seemed to say "sorry", and leapt on herself. Flash shrugged, chariot pulling wasn't that hard, the only reason a pair normally did it was so one could take the 'lead' in carrying it over long distance. The Magnificent was only a few hundred meters up, they had been in the shadow of it all day.

Flash hooked himself up, and lifted the chariot into the air behind him. Slowly at first, but then he glanced back at Mary and winked. She sensed what he was up to, and held herself tight against the side- Pike lounging in the soft red cushioned seat.

Flash took a deep breath, and then launched upwards at 70', as fast as his wings could take him. Careful to not actually kill the general- that might be a little far-, he sped up towards the Magnificent's docking bay, and overshot it, doing a wide turn to lower himself to an angle for entry. Once it was in sight, he blazed forward with a second burst of speed and shot inside, sliding sideways in the air and coming to a rough stop amongst the busy deck crew.

Mary leapt over the side, and straightened her uniform with a professionalism befitting a General. General Pike pealed himself off the cushion he had found himself merged with from the force of his 'ride', and slid out of the chariot with his mane frazzled.

He shook his head, and wobbled on his hooves for a moment before he was able to collect himself, Mary standing to the side and suppressing her laughter- poorly- while Flash briskly detached from the chariot.

"Sentry, you're lucky I have a sense of humour. Brigadier Buckshot would probably have you doing laps right now," he said, and approached Flash.

"Instead, I'm going to have you do push ups, fifty, with the gear on," he ordered.

Flash shrugged. "Worth it," He said, and got down to do his repentance. 

Fifty push ups later he lifted himself back up, to find that Pike was long gone, Mary leaning over the chariot and observing him.

"Dinner?" Flash asked.

"It's a date."


_______________


One Hundred Twenty Three Hours into Operation Bronco


Captain Northstar pulled back the blinds, and took her seat beside Spitfire once again. She was healing remarkably fast, it would certainly take more then losing a third of her blood to stop Spitfire.

Spitfire looked at her, those calculating eyes on Northstar. "Are they ready?" Spitfire asked, weakly- slowly- shifting to a sitting position.

"I'm confident in them ma'am, we'll win tomorrow, you can count on it," Northstar replied.

"Don't make promises you can't keep Northstar, every plan needs a fallback," Spitfire said.

"Not this one ma'am, we don't have anything to fall back on," Northstar returned.

Spitfire shook her head, which seemed to cause some pain and she cringed.

"I always have a fail-safe Northstar. If we lose tomorrow you are to go down to the reactor, and you are to release the core over the deep sea. I won't let anybody get their hands on that technology," Spitfire ordered.

Northstar was taken aback. "Ma'am, if we do that we'll lose the Magnificent, and we don't have enough other ships to get us all home!" She argued.

Spitfire sighed. "If we lose, it won't even matter. There can be no surrender Northstar, the technology here can't fall into enemy hands. Not this ship, not the Phoenix's, none of it. If we fail, Equestria's only hope is that they keep the lead in technology, maybe they can build another one," she said.

"They can't... we don't have enough material," Northstar said.

"So we better not fail Northstar, a generation of ponies is counting on us," Spitfire said, and released a deep sigh.

"The worlds on your shoulders Captain, I wish I could be there with you- but I can't even move my legs," Spitfire said, and her eyes began to flicker weakly, and then closed.

"I wish you could too," Northstar said, and pulled the covers over Spitfire once again.

While Northstar attended to Spitfire in the infirmary, Flash and Mary ate alone in the cafeteria. Everyone else was still on duty, or drilling somewhere, so they had their peace. They had, as of now, run out of fresh fruit- all that was left was carrots and a few tonnes of trail mix. 

The consensus with the crew was they better get through those carrots as soon as possible, for morale reasons.

"So Mary," Flash asked, sitting across from her at a cafeteria bench, a pile of carrots split between the two. "Why'd you sign up?"

"I always wanted to help people, but the work at Canterlot General was always so... boring. Waiting around all day, sometimes mend a limb or two. So I signed up with the guard, and then I started doing work that really helps ponies. Guards got injured all the time even before the war, so I got to really help. I got to travel all over Equestria too- and now even beyond," she replied, and rubbed her reddened horn. It seemed to be slightly pained, but she hadn't complained.

"What about you? A pegasus in the marines, I gotta say it's weird," She asked.

Flash nodded. "It sure is, but I honestly think I'm doing more here then I would there. They fired me right out of the academy, and my career in the guard wasn't much brighter, but out here I think I'm making a difference."

"We all are," he added.

"You keep saying that like you're afraid of taking some credit for yourself, come on Flash- you're the best sharpshooter I've ever seen, gloat a little," Mary suggested.

"Like, look at me, I'm a medic that blows things up. Pretty cool if you ask me, can't wait to tell my folks about it."

Flash laughed. "You'll be the hero of the neighborhood. Myself? I don't have to write home- I am home," Flash said.

Mary didn't seem to understand, Flash smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Captain Northstar? That's my mother," 

"Wait hold on- the Magnificent's Captain- second only to Spitfire- is your mother?! What the hell are you doing trudging around with the grunts, you should be leading a wing, or commanding a ship, or something!" Mary exclaimed.

Flash looked at her, and came up with the perfect response. He reached forward, put his hoof on hers, and looked into her eyes.

"If I was commanding a ship," he said softly.

"I would never have met you."

She blushed, and pushed herself off the table. "Meet me on the flight deck in ten minutes," she said, and strutted out of the room.

Flash watched closely.

What a flank.


One Hundred Twenty Three Hours, Ten Minutes, into Operation Bronco


Flash entered the flight deck, and found it a flurry of activity. The deck crew was frantically modifying a series of the landing craft- apparently putting more armour on the sides at the moment. The hastily added steel- which looked to have been stripped from the swiss-cheese roof over the flight deck, looked like steel paper mache over the sloped craft. The Pheonix planes had been moved to the back, a small pile of missiles beside them was their only remaining stock. 

Flash had a thought- what if they attached a few missiles to the landing craft, and loosed them as they 'glided' in from the sky? He buried it for later, and spotted Mary standing on the long flat deck, in a circle of light that descended from the evening sun outside through a vast hole in the roof. 

Mary waved him over, and Flash started over to her. She seemed to be standing next to a radio.

"See all these busy ponies, frantically preparing to send us all into the lions den tomorrow?" Mary asked.

"Yeah, what ab..." Flash trailed off as he noticed Mary rubbing her red horn again, a few purple-green sparks shooting out.

He was greatly concerned, and sped to her side. "Mary? Are you alright?" He asked.

She waved a hoof at him, and cleared her throat. "I'm fine, I just overexerted myself today. Alicornium is a powerful thing, and if I didn't know the signs I could easily kill myself with this rod," she said, revealing the rod sown inside her uniform.

"Signs like a red horn?" Flash asked.

She nodded. "Red horn, followed by pain, followed by madness and fits of rage, followed by..." She paused to consider.

"We don't know actually, everypony has gone insane at that point," she finished.

"Right, now then- the deck crew. They're all busy, worried, and probably exhausted," Mary said, and reached down to turn the radio on.

Music, music from the 980s, his favourite kind. It echoed through the hall and added itself to the clanging cacaphony of the rushed workers, welding and slamming metal together. 

"Let's give them a show," Mary said, and grasped Flash's forehooves in her own. 

He looked into her eyes, those beautiful iris's of deep green, and she into his; and for the first time in Flash Sentry's life he realized he was actually moving forward, and with that thought he entered a state of pure bliss as he danced with her. It was a feeling he had never experienced before, true happiness.

The pair danced in the light cast by the evening sun, and slowly the cacophony was overtaken by the music as the deck workers paused in their work to behold the spectacle. Two marines, both clad in their heavy gear, danced without a care in the world. They, and those watching, gave into the peace and serenity of it; and for half an hour they forgot they were at war. For a half hour they spun in the light, a hundred eyes watching them. 

As much as all present hoped, it couldn't last forever. The sun continued its never-ending cycle, and the sunshine ceased to shine through the hole, casting them in darkness. The pair halted, and Flash held Mary in his arms.

The deck crew clapped and whistled, and then returned to their work, their effort redoubled and their morale as high as could be.

"That," Mary said, adjusting her uniform and fixing her mane, "is what we're fighting for."

Flash felt he could take on the entire griffon army, and bouyed by this confidence he did what any sane stallion would in his position.

He kissed her.


_______________


One Hundred Fourty Hours into Operation Bronco


Northstar 'awoke', having not really been able to sleep- who could with the world on their shoulders- and swung herself out of bed, cringing with pain as she stood on her broken leg. Her quarters was next to Spitfire's, and actually somewhat larger. She wasn't actually around all that often, the last week was an oddity. 

She yawned, and rubbed her sore eyes. With the practised speed of a veteran soldier she dragged her tired body through the motions of a quick shower, and put on her uniform. She looked at herself in the mirror, quite aware of how bruised she was all over- one of the luckier ones at that- and put on her cap. Two stars, one less than Spitfire's. She took a long, deep breath, for today was the day they charged. Five thousand frontline marines would charge the lines, while a hundred of their finest were going to get dropped right into the lions den.

Including her son.

She was afraid for him, terrified for him, but she buried that deep down inside. For centuries their family line had served, waiting for that faithful day they would actually defend Equestria. They had always been high in the Wonderbolts, but never on top. Seconds, thirds, flight leaders, but never Captain. Northstar was the first, although that honour had been somewhat diminished with the rank now superceded by 'air martial', and Flash was the first non-wonderbolt. Was it somehow dishonourable? No. The Wonderbolts flew, Flash fought.

Outside her quarters Echo was waiting, and they strode down the hall as a pair. She seemed awfully eager to pass off today's report.

Northstar paused to look at it, and wished beyond anything else she could make it vanish.

Two Thousand souls had lost their lives last night, the griffons had broken out the flame-throwers again. Their attack force all died, but they took down a lot of good ponies.

"Echo," Northstar said, signing the report.

"Yes ma'am?" Echo said, taking the report and continuing to follow Northstar.

"We are going to burn this airfield to the ground. Go update the bridge reports, and get us moving towards the drop zone. Marines launch in an hour, I won't be up till then," Northstar ordered.

Echo saluted and left back the other way, Northstar pushed open the infirmary door. Tulle greeted her inside.

"Captain, it's good you're here- Spitfire was asking for you earlier," Tulle said, following her to the bed at the end.

Northstar turned to her before pulling back the curtain. "I imagine she's worried, big day today," she said, and ducked inside.

Spitfire sat up on her bed, remarkably better looking then the day before. Her arm was covered in bandages, but her coat had regained its brilliant yellow colour, and her eyes lost the sleepy look they had the past few days. 

"Mornin' ma'am, we're all set for 1200," Northstar said, closing the curtain and taking her seat on the bed.

"Good," Spitfire said. "Now help me up," She said.

Northstar watched as Spitfire slid her legs off, and wobbly tried to stand. She was clearly not able to, and Northstar had to quickly prop her up.

"Ma'am, you can't walk yet, you're just going to make yourself worse," Northstar warned.

"Northstar," Spitfire said, and grunted with effort as she brushed aide the curtain. "We're about to drop a hundred ponies straight into hell. I can't look weak. I need to stand in front of them, and send them off myself, even if it kills me," She said.

"Leftenant Tulle!" She shouted, slowly- and with great effort- pulling herself forward to the awed looks of some still wounded crew in the other beds.

"Spitfire?!" Tulle exclaimed for the other side of the room, quickly daring over. "What the hell are you doing? You need to be resting!"

"Tulle, painkillers, now," Spitfire grunted.

"But ma'a..."

"That's an order," 

Tulle looked to Northstar, hoping she had some way to argue their commander down, but they both knew that was hopeless. When Spitfire had her mind made up, no army on earth could get in her way.

The griffons had tried, and look what happened to them?

"Fine, but I can only allow you out of bed for an hour, that's a doctors order," Tulle said, and rummaged through her medics bag for a syringe.

"An hour is all I need doc."


_______________


One Hundred Fourty One Hours into Operation Bronco


Brigadier Sunshine once again woke the unit up, yelling incoherently at them in the barracks. This morning their was no yelling back, no sarcastic complaints or mumbling. They had a job to do, and within thirty seconds they had their gear on and were moving down the hallway. Flash took his place behind Sunshine, as he always did, and Rona Excavo came up behind. Mary was somewhere in the back with the other two medics. A hundred ponies, the best of the best. 

Flash glanced at Rona, who seemed anxious. Actually on that note, he was. They all were. The sparks of anxiety from the few dozen unicorns lit up the hallway and sounded like sparklers going off.

"Corporal Excavo, you ready for this? You weren't even in Baltimare," Flash asked.

Rona glared back at him. "Sergeant Excavo, and I'm your second now," she replied. 

"Fair enough."

For the few minutes that the company took to march up to the flight deck- up a hastily made metal staircase that wrapped around the ship- it was never designed for flightless ponies- Flash looked off the side downwards. They were slowly coasting over the island towards the drop point in the noon sunlight. The weather was perfect- thankfully, and the view of the dew covered forest was beautiful. The earth ponies and unicorns did not seem to appreciate the view as much as he did. 

The crew of the Magnificent watched them pass with awe, and they all stood at attention, and saluted, as they made their way through, dropping whatever they were doing to do so. 

"Give 'em hell...Ciders on me Marine...Call me...Send em back to Wings Reach..."

After passing the crew, and soaking up their admiration (and a few mares blowing kisses), they entered the flight deck. The landing ships were all ready to go, in all their ugly armoured glory. Each had a 30mm cannon poking out of the top, uncovered, and with a handle for aiming by some poor soul that would be manning it.

"Company halt!" Brigadier Sunshine ordered. 

They did, a line of the bravest ponies in Equestria's history lined up on the deck with their commander before them. Flash looked past at a podium, and was surprised to General Pike standing beside Air Martial Spitfire. She didn't even look tired, despite apparently losing a third of her blood only days ago, and most of her body was still covered in bandages, her arm held in a sling. Beside her was Captain Northstar, who nodded to Flash.

Spitfire stood forward, and cleared her throat. Flash wondered if she was actually immortal.

"You, 1st airborne, represent the very best soldiers in Equestrian History. Today I am going to send you into hell, and you are going to kill everything you see. Is that understood?" She shouted.

"Yes ma'am!" They shouted their replied together.

Spitfire stood back, and nodded to Pike.

"Alright colts! You've all been assigned your units, now get on those ships and make us proud! Fifteen thousand ponies are counting on you down there, and so is Equestria itself. If you fail, we all fail. Move out!" Pike ordered.

Sunshine barked some orders, and the company split up towards their craft. The armour and cannon had meant that each could only carry ten ponies, Flash was to board A1.

Once inside, he was pleased to note that seats had been added- and that his friends were they with him. Sunshines Sunburn, the best of the best. Flash Sentry, Rona Excavo, Mary Frosthorn, Big Macintosh, and Sunshine himself. They had already boarded- Rona glanced down at him from her seat up at that cannon, and Big Mac nodded from the end. His gun had been upgraded- now he had two giant guns on his back. 

Mary was already seated, and Flash sat beside her. As he did, Sunshine boarded himself, and took for the cockpit.

"Just us sir?" Flash asked.

"Just us, we're going in on a special mission of our own. I've been training on how to pilot this thing, and we're going to smash straight into the command tower. You're going to cut the head off this snake," Sunshine replied, and plopped into the cockpit seat.

"Or die trying. Buckle up colts!"

The rear ramp slammed shut, and the noise of the crafts motor started up. They no longer had propellers, but the power to the wheels had been doubled- they could move very slowly once on the ground- assuming they made it. Theoretically the griffons were out of long range missiles, and had nothing else that could puncture their armour. 

That they knew of.

Outside the craft, Spitfire and Pike watched their last hope board their drop craft. 

"This better work!" Pike shouted over the massive noise of their motors."

"It will Pike! It'll work!" Spitfire shouted, and Northstar caught her as she wobbled on her footing.

"Can they see me?" She asked.

"No," Northstar replied, and barely a second later Spitfire fell asleep in her hooves. 

"Pike, do something useful for once and help me get her to the infirmary!" Northstar ordered, gesturing to Spitfire's legs.

Pike glared at her, but did as ordered and picked up Spitfire's legs, and Northstar gingerly held her arms- careful of where she knew the wound lie.

"Captain, watch your tone," Pike warned.

"General, I have the same rank you do- there's two stars on my hat," Northstar said.

Pike stared at her, and she at him, as they slowly waddled out carrying her.

"Shut up you two, blue on blue," Spitfire moaned, before falling asleep again.

They both laughed in response. "What the hell are we doing? We've got a war to win here, General Pike," Northstar said.

"No no, you were right. I haven't pulled my own weight around here, don't worry about it, Captain Northstar."

Northstar didn't hear him, her glance had turned downwards. The airfield was visible from the staircase below them, and within minutes they would launch. The others on the ground had been ordered to charge minutes ago to go along with this, and the crackle of gunfire from below steady grew in intensity.Once they reached the main deck, the sound of fire from the ground hitting the bottom of the ship echoed around like rain against a steel shed.

"I bet they're fertilizing the fields down there," Pike noted.

A few minutes later they dropped Spitfire off at the infirmary, and Pike hurried out after checking his watch. Tulle checked her over while Northstar stood by worriedly.

"She's going to be fine, right?" Northstar asked.

Tulle nodded, and took off her stethoscope. "Damned if I know how, but she's built like a... I don't even know. Celestia herself isn't this strong," she said.

Northstar sighed with relief, and quickly left the infirmary herself for the bridge.

A siren sounded down the hall, and she started into a gallop.

"Action stations! Action stations! Enemy aicraft!" Echo buzzed through the intercom, and the cannons shook the ship as they fired off their loads at whatever was out there.


___________________________


Landing craft A1 shot off the deck and was immediately pelted with small arms fire from the ground, which had absolutely no effect. Rona started firing at... something, the shells ejected from the cannon rattling against the floor.

"Something just flew into the Magnificent!" She shouted, and ceased firing.

"Eyes on the prize everyone, they can handle themselves! Brace for impact!" Pike shouted back.

Flash braced, and felt Mary's hoof on his own. They shared a glance for a brief moment before the craft slammed into the ground. The magic kept them light in the air, but as soon as they touched down the craft became a ten tonne steel behemoth.

"Targets at ten and two, light them up sergeant!" Sunshine ordered, as the vehicle sped forward to its destination. Flash glanced at the door, and wished they had a window or something.

Rona had a good view, and she saw the griffon command centre directly ahead. The other craft had landed and were disgorging troops, the field quickly becoming a chaotic scene. The griffons were clearly taken by surprise, having formed a long dirt mount surrounding the area to defend from the assaulting Marines on the other side. They were rapidly being cut down by the mares and stallions of the first that had just landed behind them. 

A griffon stuck his head out of a window in the command center and fired an RPG towards Rona, she fired the cannon down at it with a thunderous report, and blew the entire wall inside the building. The RPG bounced off a thin magical shield- there was a reason she was on the gun.  She kept shooting the building, aiming for the windows and decimating this side of it.

"Coming up fast Brigadier, get ready down there!" She shouted, and turned the gun to the side to light up a charging griffon flamethrower squad.

Flamethrowers were rather explosive, and when she released the trigger there was was nothing left of them less a dark stain on the dirt landing strip, the spent shells clattering to the floor below her. The command centre was coming up fast, so Rona ducked before Sunshine rammed it.

"Alright colts, get in there and capture or kill whoever is leading this!" Sunshine ordered. 

"Excavo, stay on that gun!"

The door smashed down inside the building, in what looked like a lobby. Flash bolted forward and slid behind a reception desk, dodging a hastily fired shot from a griffon rifle. Mary slid beside him.

Flash peaked over, and tried to think of a strategy to deal with him. 

"Yeeaaarrrrhhhh!"

Flash ducked his head as a giant red tank charged past, and cringed at the explosive report of his cannons blasting down the hall.

"Cease fire! Don't waste your ammo!" Flash ordered, the griffon was no more- and neither was the wall behind him.

Big Mac grunted, and ducked behind the wall before the hallway ahead, while Flash slid to the other side. Mary extended a red shield before herself, and moved down the hallway.

"Looks clear, follow me!" She said, and beckoned they follow behind her. 

Flash did, Big Mac watching their back. Rona kept firing out behind them, her gun constantly booming out. They slowly went down the hallway with Big Mac and Flash checking the rooms to their sides, finding them all empty. The griffons had left hastily, and most of whatever documents were there still remained scattered on debris covered desks. The continued past and up the stairwell, bypassing the second floor since apparently Rona had blown most of it wide open.

On the third floor they entered as they had on the first, and checked off the rooms. Flash pointed his rifle into one, and a pony stared back at him.

He wasn't armed, and... was probably as tall as Celestia. A stallion with a brown coat and longer muzzle then usual. Not a pony- a horse.

"It's about damn time," he said.

Flash wasn't sure what to say, so he defaulted to his training. "Surrender to us, and you will not be harmed," He said. The others took notice and watched his back.

The horse snorted, and dusted himself off. "I surrender, and I'm unarmed. You would be wise not to harm me soldier, Saddle Arabia isn't at war with you... yet," he sneered.

"Contact!" Mary yelled, and Flash leapt into the room as a stream of fire flew down the hallway. 

"Who are you!?" Flash shouted, glancing down the hall from a crouched position behind the doorway. 

A pair of griffons were making their way up, both with flamethrowers. Mary was across the hall, having ducked into a room. Big Mac had apparently vanished.

"I am Rossak, and that is as far as I'm going with you." The horse said.

Flash shook his head, and fired blindly down the hall. It had the intended effect, and a second volley of fire shot down it, setting the building ablaze. 

A terrifying war cry followed, and then a red monolith appeared from the stairwell letting loose 30mm cannon fire like an unstoppable force. Once he had passed their room, Flash pulled the horse out behind him and retreated along with Mary. Big Mac kept filling the griffons with rounds, and they toppled out of the back of the open wall.

"Big Mac, objective secure- let's get out of here!" Flash ordered, and flicked a switch on his pack.

"1st Airborne Sunburn Squad- Objective Complete!" He repeated.


___________________


Northstar slid into the bridge and quickly slammed the door behind her. "Situation report!" she yelled frantically. 

"Griffons breached decks 5, 7, and 9! Some sort of boarding craft flew right into us, they were hiding in the forest!" Echo shouted, over the sound of a half dozen alarms on the bridge and dozens of small explosions outside. 

Northstar quickly threw open the small armoury cabinet, and collected small arms- rifles- for her crew.

"They don't know the layout of the ship- so they're going to be heading for the obvious place. That's us," She said, and began handing them out.

Stiff Wing took his without even looking away from his damage control board, constantly barking orders to engineering, Clear Skies was similarly busy managing their wings. True Shot eagerly checked the chamber of his, but Echo seemed to freeze up when Northstar handed hers out.

"Echo?" Northstar asked, to no response.

She sighed, and with the explosions outside reminding her why she was doing this, she shouted.

"Leftenant Echo! Attention!" 

Echo shot to attention and automatically stood, saluting, beside her chair.

"Take this rifle!" Northstar shouted, thrusting it forward into Echo's hooves. "Watch that door!" 

"Yes ma'am!" Echo yelled back, and used her chair to stabilize the rifle.

Then her brain caught back up, and she shuddered. "I've never fired a rifle ma'am," she said quietly.

Northstar put a hoof on her shoulder. "Just do your best, most of us up here haven't," she said, and then checked her own rifle. They each had five shots.

"Alright, here's what's going to happen!" Northstar shouted, trotting down to Spitfire's chair, and slamming the BRIDGE LOCKDOWN button- a rather large red button positioned under the armrest. With that, the tarp covering the windows was torn off as a thick sheet of metal slid down over the opening.

"Echo! Scramble your dials, we can't let them know our frequencies! Stiff, tell engineering to ignore all bridge commands untill we stand down from red alert! Clear- same order! True Shot, you better be!" She yelled, and positioned her rifle on Spitfire's chair, pointing towards the door. To hell with how odd it felt, they had a bridge to protect.

They carried out their orders, and the bridge itself fell to a eerie silence- while all hell broke loose outside.

There was shouting down the hallway, and then a thunk. Northstar felt sweat on her brow as she held the gun.

The door creaked, and the wheel spun as it unlocked. She took a deep breath and sighted the gun at the door, along with the four others.

"Friendly!" Pike shouted, and a moment later the door opened. He stood there, holding a pistol with a pair of MPs at his side. 

He was bleeding.

"General Pike? What's going on out there?" Northstar asked.

"Well," Pike grunted, and adjusted his arm, "It's going pretty well on the ground, and we've got most of these boarders locked up on the flight deck. We're here to help," He replied.

Northstar was about to thank him when she saw a trio of griffons slide into the hall behind him.

"Pike!" Northstar shouted, frantically pointing forward.

He threw himself to the ground and fired down the hall, his two comrades doing the same. The griffons took up positions on either side of the end of the hall.

"Surrender and or be killed!" A gruff voice shouted at them.

"Buck you!" Pike returned. 

Northstar remember Spitfire's orders. "Pike! We need to get to the reactor!" 

Pike looked back and nodded, and then two griffons charged up the hallway, casting an obscuring cloud of fire that roared down it. Their reply was the crack of their rifles, firing down the hallway blindly. 

The fire cleared, and two griffon bodies lay on the floor. A third, a heavily armoured monstrosity holding, to Northstar's confusion, a large sword- and no helmet.

"I am the bane of Talonhuus, Son of Yarok! I will see your rivers run red, and your cities burn! I-"

Crack

Northstar shot him in the face, and he fell clattering the floor like an armoured sack of meat. Then Northstar ran the bolt of her rifle, and the shell clattered to the floor of the now silent bridge.

Pike got up, and dusted himself off. "Good shot Northstar, now what's this about the reactor?" He asked.

Northstar left her position, and motioned the rest of the crew follow her into the hallway. "If the griffons find it, we're up manure creek without a paddle. It would take half a year to build a new one, assuming they don't steal the alicornium," She said, and they started moving down the hallway as a group.

"What if that's why they're here?" Echo asked from the rear.

"Then we better hurry," Pike said, and led them into a gallop.


___________


Their prisoner was surprisingly unfazed by the chaos going on around him, and he looked around the landing craft thoughtfully when he entered- four armed ponies at his back.

Sunshine looked back from the drivers seat, and covered the microphone he had been barking orders into. "Put our friend in one of the seats. Rona, you stay here and watch him. Sentry, Frosthorn- take up a position on the third floor and pick off what you can. Macintosh, second floor- shoot whatever you see," he ordered, and got back to it.

Flash turned, and was brushed aside by Big Mac rushing forward and up the stairs.

"He's rather eager!" Mary shouted, tailing Flash up the same stairs.

"I think he's in his element!" Flash returned, and holstered his rifle, instead holding the crossbow.

At the third floor they both rushed forward to the end and slid to a prone position. Mary took a second to douse the flames behind them magically, no sense letting the building collapse on them. Below Big Mac was firing bursts, and Rona was taking shots from the vehicle. The noise was near deafening.

Flash looked through his scope down the range. It was sheer chaos out there, with more landing vehicles milling around and firing. Two of them had been lost, and lay in flames just outside a hanger, from which explosive shells kept coming out of. Flash could just barely see some sort of large tripod weapon inside. He fired a bolt at it, watching it whizz through the air in an arc before digging into the concrete just below the emplacement. 

The gunner noticed, and shifted to point it at them. Flash could see him clearly now, an armoured griffon. He was too late, and the last thing Flash saw from him was a look of horror as Mary's fireball blasted the ground, incinerating everything for a half dozen meters. The hanger itself collapsed, sending dust into the air.

He looked for another target, and found a group of griffons ducked in a trench, trading shots with a group of marines a few dozen feet away in the open. He fired another bolt, and the trench became a burnt crater.

Then the guns stopped.


___________


The group of MPs and bridge officers came onto the main deck, and quickly scattered when a volley of bullets met them. Northstar slid behind a box just outside the door, while one of the MPs ran for the other side. With a crack from somewhere down the deck, he dropped.

Northstar swore and glanced over to see what they were dealing with. A ways back a dozen griffons were behind cover trading shots with a group of pinned MPs, two of which seemed wounded.

Mary considered her options, and spared a glance over her cover. She squinted to see something coming up from behind.

It was a Wonderbolt wing, and it was coming fast. The griffons didn't seem to notice. She saw their guns light up as they approached, and a split second later the deck was torn to pieces as the Wonderbolts did their run, a rainbow shimmering above them for a moment.

The MPs cheered and rushed forward, picking off the remaining Griffons behind their line. Northstar sighted and shot one of them, and quickly ran the bolt to shoot a second. In moments ten of them lie on the torn up metal of the deck.

"Northstar! Let's go!" Pike said, and leapt over his cover. She followed, and he led her to one of the hatchways that led to the lower decks. 

The MP went first, followed by Pike and Northstar. He was their shields, as grim as it was- it was a part of their new reality.

"Reactor is about a hundred meters down from here," Northstar said, quickly running down the stairs. Pike nodded, and took the lull to replace some spent cartridges in his pistol. 

When they reached the bottom of the stairwell they quickly dashed into the hallway, and Echo closed the door behind them. Then it was silent. Deafeningly silent. Northstar checked her magazine by sliding the bolt back- two rounds.

"Alright, form a circle and let's move up slowly. I'll bet anything they got down here, but they don't know where anything is," Northstar ordered.

The MP took the lead, and Echo took the back. Pike was beside her, with True Shot just ahead of them and the others behind.

"I didn't expect it would go this far, I thought the Magnificent was invincible," Clear Skies noted.

"Nothing lasts forever, but you can bet she'll get us to Wings Reach if we take good care of her," Northstar returned.

Pike shot up an arm, and they paused silently. Ahead footsteps echoed through the hall, so they all crouched down and aimed forward.

A pair of griffons came out of a side hallway ahead, and they fired all at once at them. What bullets met their mark ricocheted off the thick armour, impacting harmlessly against the wall.

Then they charged, with their flamethrowers spewing fiery death down the hallway as they ran. The group continued firing, but the fire didn't stop.

Click.

Click. Click. Click.

Northstar tossed aside her empty rifle, and found a last-ditch salvation.

"Wings! Use your wings!" She shouted, and lifted slightly into the air with her wings pounded it forward.

The rest of the bridge crew followed her example, and the flames approaching slowed. Northstar stared ahead through the roaring inferno at the grimacing griffons trying to press forward through the whirlwind.

She beat her wings harder, and harder, putting every ounce of strength she had into it. The fire started to reverse, and as a group they pressed forward.

The griffon realized what was happening, and the last expression his face ever made was one of wonderous horror- before the flame backed up into the weapon itself and it exploded, tossing the bridge crew backwards like ragdolls with a last explosion of fire, incinerating its host utterly.

Northstar felt a horrible burning pain, before her vision turned to black. Then there was no more pain.


_______________


One Hundred Fourty Two Hours into Operation Bronco


Flash strode amongst the fiery ruin that was the airfield, hundreds of of Marines quickly converging on it, amidst scattered shots here and there from a griffon hold outs. The size of the griffon casualties was enormous- not a single one had surrendered. Even when cornered, out of ammo and hopelessly outgunned, they never surrendered. The loss of life was massive, and utterly insane. They had barely lost a dozen on their side, Spitfire's plan had worked absolutely perfectly- combined with an apparent lack of supplies on the other side. Routing their resupply fleet days early had taken its toll, from what they could tell the griffons had been subsisting off stolen trail mix the last few days.

Thankfully they didn't appear to eat ponies, at the very least that convention had survived, for now anyway.

Above them the Magnificent hung like a monolith, shadowing them with its colossal size. Here and there a hole in it belched smoke into the air, it had taken quite a beating over the last week.

"This High Martial, why is he doing this? Look at all the losses, I don't understand." Mary wondered, trotting beside him.

"For people like him Mary, it doesn't matter. He'll kill his entire species if it means more power for himself, history is littered with beings like him. King Sombra, Emperor Riovelli II, they all end the same way," Flash said.

"We're going to add High Martial Galvon to that list, just wait and see." 

Flash looked around, and spotted a landing airship. It took a lot of effort to get the drop ships back up, they had to be hauled one by one by airships back to the Magnificent. 

"Sentry! Flash Sentry!" One of its crew shouted, flying off the deck.

Flash released Mary's hoof and flew up to meet him. "Sentry here!" He shouted.

The pony- a Wonderbolt wearing a torn up uniform- flew towards him. "Report to the Magnificent's infirm-"

Flash thought faster then that, and was already shooting upwards before he could finish. A million horrible possibilties ran through his mind, and it seemed to take forever to cross the distance between the ground and the hovering ship, despite the fact he was moving so quickly that he burst into an orange streak. He shot over the deck, and darted through the buildings on it for the infirmary building at the other end. The first thing he noticed was the scorch marks and bullet holes all along the deck.  

All the crew saw was an orange flash that sped across the deck with such speed it sent debris flying on the floor, generating a cloud of dust and discarded shells in its wake. The flash slid to a halt before the infirmary, and darted inside.

Flash glanced around, a few dozen injured Wonderbolts lay on a few dozen beds, moaning with pain as nurses tended their wounds. A few were burned, a few were shot, and Flash didn't give a damn, he ran up to one of them.

"Where's Captain Northstar?" He asked frantically, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Now hold on Sentry, c..." 

Flash pushed her aside and made his way to the other end, his eyes darting around the beds looking for his mother. The further he went, the greater his desperation became as he passed dozens of ponies.

"Sentry!" Someone shouted behind, he glanced back to see a blue unicorn with a pair of MPs at her side.

"Where is she doc!" Flash shouted back, having come to the end of the room, where a curtained bed lay. 

"Sentry!" Tulle shouted again, Flash drew black the blinds and to his horror saw not his mother, but Spitfire sleeping there.

"For Celestia's sake sentry!" Tulle yelled, as Flash felt two arms grip his tightly. 

"Where is she!" Flash demanded, gripped by fear and desperation.

"Sentry," Tulle said, stepping before him. "She's in her quarters, I knew you would come and I need to calm you down first."

Flash released a sigh of unquantifiable relief.

"Follow me," Tulle said.

Flash followed her- the two MPs staying close, as she led him out of the infirmary. 

"We had a hell of a time up here Sentry, griffons boarded us," Tulle said.

"We saw that from the ground, casualties?" Flash asked.

"Four, we got lucky. Griffons had this absurd idea of using swords and flamethrowers," Tulle said, and with a heavy sigh opened the door to the officer quarters building. 

Flash held his tongue until they arrived at the room marked Captain's Quarters. Tulle beckoned the MPs guard the door while she led Flash in.

Flash rushed past her to come to his mothers side, she lay in her bed attached to a familiar series of tubes and bags. She was covered almost entirely in bandages, and fast asleep.

"She's lucky, only second degree. I'm afraid General Pike didn't get off so lucky, he's going to lose his arm," Tulle said.

Flash didn't even hear her, he lay his head on his mothers chest and wept.


_____________


With Captain Northstar, and Air Martial Spitfire, and General Pike all injured (Pike being taken care of by his own medics down on the island) wrapping up their time at Waylay Island fell to Leftenant Echo. She took her position, and on a lark decided to call Canterlot.

"Canterlot? Come in Canterlot," She said into the radio.

"Who is this, and how did you get this frequency? Misuse of Night Guard communications frequencies is a felony."

Echo sighed. "This is the T.M.S Wideflank, who is this?" she asked.

There was a pause, and a hushed conversation on the other side. "Wideflank? Wonderbolt Fleet? You've been calling us on a different frequency for a week, last message was to send resupply to uhh..." Whoever it was trailed off, and Echo's ears perked up. Something was different now.

"... Hold on, something is wrong. It says in the log supplies were sent to Waylay Island a week ago, and then again a day later. I checked the registry, and it was the same ship- but they can't move that fast. What's going on over there?"

Echo really wished she hadn't been the one to break through, and winged it.

"What can you tell me about a stallion named Archer?" She asked.

There was another pause, and then a crackle of static before a different voice came through.

"Wideflank, this is Malgavian. I assume you've been speaking with somepony named Archer, yes?" he asked.

"That's right, he kept blocking our communications," Echo replied.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. I want you to contact the rest of your fleet, and return to Canterlot with whatever you can spare under radio silence. Buzz frequency 4625 KHz with the password Half Moon to get through the coastal defences. Once you're back on our territory we'll fill you in on what's been happening," he said.

"What would the ETA be?" he asked.

Echo thought hard about it. The Magificent couldn't move under her own power, and required those two destroyers acting as tugs to get anywhere, at this speed it would take two weeks.

"Three weeks," Echo replied.

"Run into some trouble did you? That's fine, we can wait for you. Do not call Canterlot again until you have passed the coast defences, as far as everyone knows you're still at Waylay, understood?"

"How can I trust you?" 

"You can't, but you don't really have a choice here. We're having problems out here, problems that will make your life out there impossible unless you come help sort them out," he replied.

The line cut to static, and Echo sat back in her chair.

Clear Skies was at the helm, and the tarp had been replaced by a series of metal plates with a slit for him to see out of.

"Set our heading for Equestria, full ahead. Dash Wing comes with us along with 1st airborne, and six gunships, the rest will stay," Echo ordered.

"Aye Aye, heading for Equestria," Clear Skies repeated, and the ship slowly turned towards the west.

"We're coming home," Echo said to herself, and trotted to the board.


Monday September 1st, 1001.


Equestrian Marine Corps Status: 18806 Operational, 856 Injured, 2226 KIA or MIA


Wonderbolts Status: 6 Capital ships, 23 frigates, 32 corvettes. 17 lost.


Weather: Clear skies, visibility perfect.


One Hundred Fourty Eight Hours into Operation Bronco.


Echo reached up and pushed a button beside the clock.


Fleet Victorious