The Outlaw bomber, its white anti-flash paint gleaming in the sun, cruised over the sea at 54,000ft. On board were its crew of five; pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, navigator and Defensive Systems Officer, a fancy name for the pony who was responsible for operating the remote controlled, quad-barreled 20mm defensive tail gun mounted at the rear of the fuselage beneath the tall, sweeping tail fin. The heavy, delta-winged bomber was operating at its optimum altitude, maximizing the range of the aircraft; it had a long journey to make. It had already crossed almost the whole of Equestria, and now it was crossing the sea, heading for the USR coast, closing in on its target. Some distance off its starboard wing sat another aircraft, one of its sister ships from the same squadron.The rest of the squadron was strung out ahead of and behind the pair, at distances of several miles, all heading for the same target.
On board the jet, the bombardier, Golden Oak, sat in his seat behind the flight crew. As they approached the target he would descend to his station in the nose of the jet, in front of and below the pilot, where he would operate the radar bombsight and ensure the bombs were released on time and on target. Each Outlaw bomber carried six 500-kiloton bombs, each of which could devastate all but the largest cities or completely annihilate an airbase. Once they were in the air and heading towards the USR, the pilot, Sunray, had opened the sealed orders that were kept permanently in a locked safe on board each jet. It had informed them that their target would be the USR city of Maremansk. As well as being home to some three quarters of a million ponies, Maremansk was home to a large part of the USR's Grand Fleet, their main naval force in the sea that separated them from Equestria. Of course it had been targeted already, struck by missiles fired from deep within Equestria, but there was no kill like overkill, and so the bombers were on their way, as other squadrons were to a dozen other targets. Golden Oak knew that USR bombers were heading eastward in a similar mission, looking to pulverise what remained of Equestria's cities, more out of spite than anything. The missiles would have done their jobs- there would be few survivors, and the thermonuclear bombs carried in the womb of each bomber would do little but stir up the rubble. But it was their duty, and there was always a chance that the missile attack had not been as effective as it should have been. Maremansk might have survived unscathed for all they knew, however unlikely that seemed.
As the miles ticked down and the Outlaw drew closer to the USR coast, the crew prepared the aircraft. Although the USR air defences would be in disarray, that did not mean that they would not be operational. Their command centres would have been demolished, their interceptor bases consumed in nuclear fire. But their missiles would be ready. Their high-angle guns would be loaded. Their jets would be in the air, assuming some of their supporting tankers had survived. The crew had to be ready to act, to defend their aircraft as best they could and force their way through the defensive screen to reach the port city of Maremansk. Golden Oak tried hard not to think about his family too often; his wife and son lived near, very near, Hoofstead airbase. A gnawing pain in his gut told him that they were gone, and his brain agreed- Hoofstead would have been hit, probably several times, and the relatively flimsy base housing would have been wiped from existence. Perhaps they made it to a shelter- but the shelters were too close to the base. The overpressure would have caved them in. His heart disagreed- they weren't dead. They couldn't be dead. He couldn't go on without them. Part of him hoped they didn't return from their mission. There would be nothing to return to, certainly not for him. Even if they could make it back to Equestria, the chances were there would be nowhere to land. Every airbase in the country would have been hit, as would the civilian airports that possessed runways long enough for their heavy bombers to land at. The chances were they would have to circle over a spot with relatively easy terrain and simply bail out.
A loud, intermittent beeping shook him from his misery as it filled the cockpit. He looked over at the pilot. The sound was being emitted by the Radar Warning Receiver display on the instrument panel. The warning receiver was fitted in the tail of the aircraft, and detected radar emissions, classifying them according to type and displaying the results on the screen in the cockpit. Circles represented ground-based radar, and diamonds were other aircraft or missiles. Golden Oak looked at the screen; a row of circles occupied the top of the screen, representing the air defence and tracking radars that they had just entered the range of. Now the USR knew they were coming, even if they hadn't before- their long-range early warning radars had probably picked them up soon after takeoff. They would be vectoring their interceptors into position even as Golden Oak watched the display, a thicket of red circles appearing in a crescent in the top-left corner of the screen. He wondered for a few moments what they could be- Maremansk was dead ahead, which would mean any radars around the city would appear at the top centre of the screen. Perhaps they represented the radars of the Grand Fleet- if they were not in port at the time of the attack, or if they were preparing to depart, they could have escaped the detonations.
Golden Oak withdrew a small square of paper from his flight suit- it was a photograph of his wife and his son, probably the last remnant of their existence in all of Equestria. A few bitter tears stained his cheeks as he stared at them, the insistent beeping continuing as the bomber clawed its way closer to the coast.
'Airborne contacts,' Sunray growled. '11 o'clock. Right on the edge of the screen, must be 50 miles out.'
The words of his captain shook Golden Oak from his reverie, and he looked up, but not before giving the photo a quick kiss. He tucked it back in his flight suit, and looked at the warning display again. A trio of red diamonds had appeared in the top left of the display, close to where the large collection of circles were. If, as he had surmised, the circles represented the surface radars of the Grand Fleet, perhaps the airborne contacts were either carrier-based interceptors, or long-range anti air missiles launched from the cruiser escorts.
'Are they heading our way?' he asked in a quiet voice. Sunray nodded grimly.
'Yeah, straight for us. Don't know where they're coming from. Might be the fleet at sea.' His captain concluded with his analysis. 'Not getting any lock warnings. Probably not missiles, I guess they're interceptors coming for us.' He flipped down his visor. 'We are hooves dry in five...four...three...two...one...mark.' At the pilot's signal, the heavy bomber lumbered across the USR coastline, starting to transit across a 65-mile wide peninsula jutting from the USR mainland, on the far side of which lay the protected anchorage of Maremansk. The airborne contacts were 50 miles away- it was a race against time for the bombers to reach their target, and it was a race that they would almost certainly lose.
'Better get to your station.' Sunray nodded at Golden Oak, keying his radio. 'Everypony, action stations. Strap yourselves in. Looks like it's going to be a bumpy ride.'
Golden Oak stood, and made his way to the nose of the rumbling jet. He ducked his head below the floor of the flight deck and crawled forward to the bombardier's station in the half-glassed nose. The landscape of the USR, the home of the arch-enemy, passed by slowly 54,000ft below him as he stared down. The conditions below were moderate. He estimated around 3/8ths cloud cover at approximately 5,000ft; fine weather for a genocide. His headset radio crackled and Sunray's voice filled his ears.
'Be advised, we have three bogeys closing in from the northwest, range is now 38 miles. Assumption is they are hostile interceptors. Be prepared for an engagement. We are 52 miles from target. Celestia protects.'
Golden Oak removed the photograph of his family from his suit again and propped it up between the armature of the video bombsight and the support strut of the nosecone. The smiling faces of his wife and son stared back at him, and he felt the acid sting of tears on his face again. They were dead, he could feel it, and it was his fault- his wife gave nothing but her eternal support when he said he wanted to join the Royal Air Force. His young son, Sandy Oak, wanted nothing more than to fly like his father when he grew up. They moved to Hoofstead Airbase when he was commissioned as a Flight Lieutenant, and lived right beside the base. The base that would be a primary target of the USR missiles, and so they were dead. Gone. More than likely, he would be joining them in heaven, or hell, or wherever he would end up after dropping the bombs on Maremansk and killing Celestia knew how many ponies.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opened them again he began to get back into the routine, energizing his bombsight and preparing the system for the ultimate work it had been designed for. The video screen flashed into life, showing the landscape passing below the jet. He initialized the targeting system, linking the bombsight in with the bomber's inertial navigation system, giving the device the precise location of the jet in relation to Maremansk so that it could work out the exact moment at which the bombs should be released.
While the bombsight was powering up, he glanced ahead, out of the perspex canopy that formed the lower nose of the Outlaw. Several miles ahead he could see a dark shape in the sky being trailed by a black smudge of exhaust; Cutlass 1, the lead bomber, ahead of them in the stream that had taken off from Hoofstead. Apart from them, the sky was clear of aircraft. It was not, however, clear entirely.
In the distance ahead, roughly where the city of Maremansk lay, the remains of a filthy brown mushroom cloud hung in the heavens. The cloud had risen to far above the altitude of the bomber, and was rather ragged in appearance, telling Golden Oak that the missile that had created it had been detonated maybe half an hour in the past. The dreaded mushroom, that fatal apparition that every pony had been taught to fear the sight of above all else- 'Duck and cover,' he thought derisively, as if that would make any difference. The mushroom ahead of him was rather distorted by the high-altitude winds, and barely resembled its namesake anymore. But there was no mistaking the source of such a pillar of smoke and dirt. He closed his eyes again, and images of a similar cloud filling the sky above Hoofstead airbase blanketed his mind.
More tears ran down his cheeks as his headset rang out with the sound of Sunray's voice again.
'Vampire! Vampire! Missiles inbound! Brace yourselves colts! Starting evasive maneuvers!' Golden Oak grasped on to the cold metal support struts and braced himself, staring out of the perspex at the sky outside. He saw nothing; the sky was clear, apart from the mushroom cloud and the jet ahead of them. The heavy Outlaw bomber began to bank to starboard as Sunray worked the controls. Golden Oak watched his 11 o'clock- a glint of sunlight on a canopy, a puff of smoke indicating the inbound missiles, any sign of the enemy. Nothing was visible.
The bombsight chimed softly to let him know it was ready to perform its function, but with the bomber banking there was no way it could get an accurate fix on the ground below.
'Deploying chaff!' Sunray called over the radio. Streams of metal foil strips burst from the root of the tail fin as he toggled the switch. Designed to confuse radar-guided missiles, the chaff fluttered in the high-altitude winds behind the jet. The missile, streaking in towards the aircraft, passed it by astern and exploded in amongst the chaff cloud. Sunray rolled the heavy bomber back level.
'16 miles from target! Bombardier, standby!'
Golden Oak keyed his mike.
'Bombardier standing by.'
He returned his attention to the bombsight, listening to the radio transmissions from the pilot and the other bombers.
'Cutlass 3, we still have lock on!'
'Cutlass 5, we're breaking to starboard. Bandits are at angels 58, range now 20 miles.'
Golden Oak flicked a couple of switches on the bombsight as something flashed ahead of him. He glanced out of the perspex nose.
Cutlass 1, the bomber ahead of them in the column, was falling in flames. One of the missiles from the incoming enemy interceptors had found its mark, and the big delta-winged aircraft was spiraling down, trailing black smoke, a torch of crimson fire flooding from the port side of the fuselage.
'Son of a bitch...' he mumbled. That could have been them, had their chaff distraction not worked. It could still be them. The enemy fighters were still closing in. The race between them was entering its final stage- could they reach the target before the interceptors cut them out of the sky?
Golden Oak returned his attention to the bombsight. Keying his mike again, he announced to Sunray,
'Skipper, we are at the IP. Ready to start the run.' After a second, his reply came through.
'Roger. You have control.'
'I have control,' Oak replied. While on the bomb run, the bombardier controlled the aircraft to ensure that it stayed on target. Actually, that was something of a misnomer- the plane's autopilot controlled its flight, while the bombardier merely controlled the inputs into the autopilot system- Golden Oak would adjust the height, speed and course that the autopilot would follow, until the moment the bombs were released, when control would be returned to the pilot.
They were now the lead aircraft in the squadron- Cutlass 2, leading the way, punching through the USR's defences to destroy whatever was still standing down below. At least one missile had already hit Maremansk, and, judging by their radar warning receiver, the Grand Fleet was most likely already out of port already. Even if they weren't, nuclear weapons were surprisingly ineffective against ships, as several Equestrian atomic tests had proved. The blast tended to strip away weapons, sensors and other extraneous parts on the decks and superstructures of navy ships, but the vessels themselves almost always stayed afloat. Still, Cutlass Squadron had their orders, and they would carry them out to the best of their ability, and their orders were to bomb Maremansk.
Golden Oak adjusted the autopilot's heading slightly, making sure they were dead on course for the centre of the city. They had passed the IP, the initial point, the start of the bombing run. The city centre was now just 10 miles away. The release point, the spot in space where the bombsight would trigger the payload clamps, emptying out the womb of the aircraft, was just 7 miles ahead. But the enemy fighters were closing in.
Truth be told, the Outlaw bomber didn't technically need a bombardier at all. The electronic bombsight was radar-guided and capable of linking in with the autopilot to control the aircraft, and also with the bomber's inertial and radar navigation systems. Once the pilot flipped the switch, the bombsight could guide the plane on its bombing run and drop the bombs itself. But older Equestrian bombers had manual bomb release systems and lacked the electronic guidance, requiring a pony to do most of the work in the final stretch of the mission. The Outlaw was 12 years old now, and originally it had been equipped with a manual system, but it had been retrofitted once the new radar bombsights entered service. Since the bombers had a bombardier, and the new sights were untested in actual flight conditions, it was decided by somepony with a lot of brass on their shoulders to keep the bombardier position as a manual backup. A strategic bomb wing would be of little use if the automatic systems failed to release their payload and there was no manual backup, after all. In the event of a software malfunction, it would be the responsibility of Golden Oak to kill.
That was what he had trained for, after all, but there was a big difference between flying in the training simulator at the base, and actually pressing the button that would end Celestia knows how many lives. The Air Force tried to train their bombardiers to blank out any moral objections to their actions; after all, a bombardier who refused to drop his bombs was just as useless as a broken bombsight. Their profession was death, and there was at least a certain distance between the pony pressing the button and those in the target zone on the ground. But the sheer scale of the destruction they would unleash would distinguish them from fighter pilots or those of ground-attack aircraft- they would be ending numberless lives, destroying an entire city with one press of a button. Or what was left of it, at least. A single missile, maybe more, had already struck Maremansk, and would have reduced most of it to rubble. The cloud still hung in the sky ahead of them. They were getting close to the edge of the cloud, which towered at least another ten thousand feet above them, dirty brown and ragged, the high-altitude winds slowly tearing it apart. Already it hardly resembled a mushroom at all.
Most likely, the port facilities and any other important military or industrial targets in Maremansk would already be in ruins, crushed by the blast or incinerated by the fireball. And yet, Golden Oak's orders still stood. The squadron's orders still stood. They were to drop their bombs on target. On whatever was left below. Together, the eleven surviving jets of Cutlass Squadron could drop sixty-six 500-kiloton nuclear bombs on Maremansk. One bomb was enough to destroy the city- sixty six would reduce it to nothing more than radioactive dust. Even overkill has its limits, Golden Oak thought to himself, as he glanced at the bombsight's display.
Everything was on course. The bomber was heading right for its target point. The bombs would be dead on course, their CEP, circular error probable, was a mere 600ft. Assuming nothing went wrong with the system, Golden Oak would have nothing to do but merely sit there and watch the screen. The main problem with the automatic system, a problem it shared with the manual option, was that it kept the bomber wings level, at a constant speed and altitude- exactly what was required to ensure an accurate attack, but exactly what was not required when enemy interceptors were closing in. While on the bomb run, the Outlaws were sitting ducks. They could not outmaneuver a fighter at the best of times, and they certainly could not outrun one. During these critical few minutes, they would have to rely on two things; their chaff and flare countermeasures to deal with any missile attacks, and their tail-mounted 20mm cannons to dissuade any close-in gun attacks from astern.
The trio of USR naval interceptors streaked in from the northwest, their afterburners flaring as they sought to close the gap between them and their targets, cutting through the sky as they tried to get behind the half-dozen lead bombers, those closest to Maremansk. They unleashed a second volley of missiles as they got closer; these were heat-seekers, shorter ranged than their radar-guided counterparts, but just as deadly when fired from the rear aspect, where the huge thermal signature of the bombers' engine exhausts were visible to their seeker heads. None of them were targeted at Cutlass 2, but the jet behind them, Cutlass 3, took a missile straight in the port wing. Its half-empty fuel tank detonated in a spectacular fireball, ripping the jet apart from the inside.
'Cutlass 3 is down! 3 is down! No chutes, no chutes!'
Golden Oak could see none of that, his view being restricted to the sky ahead of him. but he heard the desperate calls over the radio. Further back in the line, Cutlass 6, despite deploying a string of decoy flares, took a hit in the port engines and spiraled out of formation. 30 seconds passed before a third wave of missiles roared from under the wings of the interceptors. More white-hot magnesium flares spilled from their dispenser chutes aboard the lead bombers, the pilots of those behind shouting warnings into their headsets. One missile found the flares deployed by Cutlass 2 and exploded harmlessly astern. Cutlass 5 was not so lucky. Both missiles that were targeting it found their mark, ripping a hole in the port wing and destroying most of the tail fin. The jet immediately began to descend, bits of shredded metal streaming back from the doomed aircraft.
'Three miles from target,' Golden Oak spoke into his mike. 'Standby...bomb doors open.'
'Get a move on!' Sunray barked. 'We have a bandit on our tail!'
One of the interceptors was moving into position behind Cutlass 2. Its missiles expended, the pilot was maneuvering his jet into gun range, the 30mm cannon in its nose capable of shredding the bomber in moments. The best position for a gun attack was directly astern, which was why the Outlaw bombers had been fitted with a quad 20mm tail cannon. But the USR pilot was no fool, and he swung his plane to starboard, trying to angle in towards the wing of the bomber, knowing he would only have a few seconds in which to engage it before he overshot and passed over it to port.
'One mile to target...' Golden Oak announced. His hoof was shaking. Within ten seconds, the automatic system would condemn thousands to death. He licked his dry lips. Half a mile to go. He was glad he didn't have to press the button himself. At least his conscience could perhaps absolve himself of any involvement in their deaths- even though they had started the war, and launched their nukes first. he thought again of his family, and knew they were gone. Something throbbed in his chest, a deep sense of loss, longing, sadness and fear. His wife and son had been killed, he knew, by USR missiles. To avenge them, others had to die. But the ponies in Maremansk were just innocent civilians, like his family were...
He jolted back to reality when he heard the bombsight chiming. It didn't matter. It was out of his hooves now. The bombs were gone, dropping inexorably towards Maremansk 54,000ft below, just the slightest shudder of the airframe as its heavy load was released. They couldn't be stopped now. Half a dozen 500-kiloton bombs, each one of which could destroy most of the city. The fate of whatever lay below was sealed. He slumped away from the bombsight, his hoof still shaking. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, were about to die. Those who thought they had survived when the missiles hit. Some of them might be emerging from their shelters, seeking loved ones or friends, trying to put out fires. The air raid sirens would not be functioning anymore; unless they hears the drone of the bombers or happened to glance overhead, they would have no warning of the attack.
Golden Oak had no warning either. A sudden thumping noise filled the cabin, and then a loud bang shook him. He looked round as a fierce wind began to whip around him.
'We're hit, we're hit! Decompression warning!' Sunray shouted, his voice crackling in Golden Oak's headset.
The interceptor behind them had fired, and struck home. The heavy cannon shells had stitched their way across the fuselage of the Outlaw bomber just behind the starboard wing, puncturing the thin metal and causing an explosive decompression. The interceptor had dipped away below the Outlaw, circling away to come around for another pass, leaving Silver Arrow, the tail gunner, powerless to fight back, his guns not able to traverse far enough to engage the jet.
Within a few seconds, the air inside the bomber had been sucked out of the half-dozen ragged holes that had been blown in the fuselage by the cannon fire. While approaching the target, and during the bomb run, every crewmember wore an oxygen mask and electrically heated flight suits, meaning the decompression was of no immediate consequence. The Outlaw surged onward, Sunray back in control, and quickly banking away to starboard, turning back towards distant Equestria. The tail guns swiveled, Silver Arrow scanning the skies for the interceptor.
With the bomb run completed, Golden Oak should have returned to his seat behind the cockpit. But he stayed sitting in the nose of the bomber, his eyes vacant. In another twenty seconds, the first of the bombs they had dropped would detonate. Most likely, the blast would incinerate all the others that were falling with it, but one bomb was enough. One bomb, to cleanse what remained of the city below. One explosion, like the single explosion, one among hundreds, that must have killed his family. Tears ran down his cheeks, freezing in the sub-zero temperature of the rarefied atmosphere. He ignored the stings of pain, knowing they were inconsequential compared to the suffering he had just caused to those below. The suffering his family had endured.
The first bomb detonated eight thousand feet above the centre of Maremansk with a bright burst of light and heat, shaking the rubble of the city and killing the lucky few who had survived the missile strikes. Cutlass 2 dove away to the south, descending to 48,000ft and heading for home, its engines throbbing as Sunray pushed the throttles to the firewall. The mushroom cloud began to form behind them, the fireball destroying the other bombs that had been falling. Cutlass 4, the next surviving bomber in line behind them, was approaching the release point, the cloud rising rapidly beneath them, about to add their own efforts to the ruin of Maremansk.
'He's on our ass again!' Silver Arrow shouted into his mike. The USR interceptor was swinging back into position, trying to maneuver to the side of the jet to make another pass across it, aiming for the engines. Silver Arrow squeezed off a few bursts of cannon fire, attempting to dissuade the interceptor from closing in, but to no effect.
Shells from the interceptor's cannon thumped into the starboard wing of the Outlaw. The high-explosive shells shredded the metal skin of the wing and punctured the fuel tank, igniting the jet fuel within. A funeral pyre burst from the wing, streaming backwards, quickly extinguished by the lack of oxygen in the air as it passed the tail of the bomber. In the nose, Golden Oak slumped against the bulkhead as the jet shuddered.
'Fire in numbers three and four!' Sunray shouted into the mike, as he pulled the extinguisher toggles. Golden Oak rested his head on the cold metal, closing his eyes. More cannon shells slashed through the fuel tanks. Within moments, the entire starboard wing was aflame.
'Bail out, bail out!' Sunray shouted, his voice echoing in Golden Oak's ears. The rest of the crew scrambled for the escape hatch in the floor of the fuselage, just behind the cockpit. But Golden Oak stayed where he was, seated in the nose. The Outlaw shuddered, shaking. The fire began to spread towards the fuselage.
'Get out! Everypony out!' Sunray screamed, standing by the exit as Silver Arrow removed the hatch and jumped out. 'Get out! Oak, where are you?!'
Golden Oak kept his eyes closed, whimpering a little. 'I...I love you, honey...' he whispered, opening his eyes enough to look at the photograph of his family. 'I love you, son...I-i'm sorry...so sorry...'
The bomber was ten miles from Maremansk when the fire found the intact fuel tank in the starboard wing. It exploded, ripping the wing from the fuselage and shredding it. The fuselage was peppered with shrapnel as the airframe started to spiral downwards, shaking violently. Golden Oak closed his eyes, knowing he was soon to die. He stared at the picture of his family for as long as he could, before the centripetal force ripped it from his hoof. The remains of the Outlaw bomber plunged into the open countryside south of Maremansk, exploding on impact. The funeral pyre of Golden Oak burned fiercely, drowned into insignificance by the towering cloud that hung above the city he had destroyed.