~~~~~
12:00 Hours
April 3, 1988
Canterlot, Equestria
~~~~~
The sound of bells echoed through the streets of Canterlot as rain poured down from the grey storm clouds overhead. I walked alongside Amelia behind the caisson which held a flag draped casket. Amelia wore a black blouse and skirt with a black veil over her face. To my right was Thunderstreak who was in a black dress that, at any other time, would have been beautiful. On her right and Amelia's left were the kids who were in either black suits or, in Typhoon's case, a black dress. Behind us walked the royal sisters, John, Marko, Austin, and over a thousand Equestrian troops from all the different branches of service. A man once said that the nice part about being in the rain is that no one can see your tears. Such a statement never summed up a situation so well. I tried my best to ensure that my face remained neutral despite the tears that streamed down my face.
We finally made our way to the national military cemetery and it seemed that the temperature had dropped another twenty degrees as soon as we had passed through the gates. I managed to hold my composure all through the funeral until I looked up on a hill where a pony's silhouette stood out against the grey sky. They raised a bugle up to their lips and Taps echoed through the cemetery. That was more than I could handle. I broke down and through my crying, silently thanked whoever was up above that it was raining. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to see Amelia standing next to me, tears mixing with the rain that hit her face. She stared at me for a moment before pulling me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around her and we both cried into the other.
~~~~~
09:00 Hours
April 6, 1988
Near the Mareianas Islands
~~~~~
A quick glance out the window of the aircraft showed the water quickly approaching us as the flying boat came in for a landing. The fleet around us had a half dozen battleships and three aircraft carriers. I straightened out the front of my khaki uniform and was glad that the seats had a belt because otherwise the shock from landing would have thrown me from my spot. With another look out the window, I saw a PT boat approaching the aircraft. The blue seaplane slowly stopped and the boat pulled up along side us where the door was. I unbuckled and walked forwards towards the door that had been added to the front of the PBY Catalina. I thanked the crew for the ride before I stepped out the door and onto the deck of the PT boat. As soon as I had found my seat, the boat raced off for one of the aircraft carriers. As we neared the carrier, I could see a large white number 17 that stuck out against the dark grey of the ship. The fresh paint and newer type of carrier showed that this one had still yet to see actual combat. The name of the carrier, if I remembered it right, was the Harvard. I smiled a bit as we pulled up along side a whaling type boat that was crewed by a couple of seaponies.
"Good morning, sir." They both said as they saluted me. I saluted them back as I hopped from one boat to the other and I extended a hand to both of them. They shook it and we began to motor towards the carrier. Waves breaking against the bow of the boat caused a spray of water to rain down upon us with each one that we hit. We finally reached the carrier and the boat was lifted back onto the ship. When we disembarked, I was met by a Navy commander who snapped to attention as soon as my feet hit the deck. I gave a lazy salute back and he turned to lead the way without a word said between us. I followed him down corridors and up stairs until we entered the ship's bridge. From this position halfway up the island, I could see most of the flight deck without leaning out a window. A sea foam green stallion in an admiral's uniform. The commander tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to face him but quickly looked past the lower ranking officer towards me. The sunlight from the windows glinted off the three stars on his shirt collar and he smiled at me. Rather than a salute, he stuck out his hoof for me to shake. I shook his hoof as I returned the smile.
"How are you, James?" He asked as we stepped over to the windows that had a view of the flight deck.
"Been better. How about yourself?" I asked him as an F6F Hellcat raced down the deck before seeming to drift into the air.
"Fine. I'm sorry for your loss." The admiral said as he took a sip from the coffee mug held in his magic.
"Thank you, Sea Foam. How's your husband?" I asked and I saw his lips turn up into a small smile at the mention of his spouse.
"He's doing fine. In fact, that's him right there." Sea Foam said as he pointed a hoof towards a neon yellow stallion he was walking across the deck with a leather helmet on and a checkered flag in his mouth. I smiled about the happiness in the admiral's voice as he pointed out his husband. "You going to come to the ship's dance tonight? Provided that the changelings don't bomb or shell us first." He asked me with a small chuckle at the second part. "We're supposed to have a bunch of MAVES coming aboard tonight for the dance so you won't be without company."
"As nice as that sounds Foam, I'm a married man." I told him as I followed him to what would serve as my cabin.
"Hey, just remember the rule me and Shooter have. Eatin' ain't cheatin' and suckin' ain't fuckin'!"
~~~~~
20:16 Hours
April 6, 1988
RNS Harvard
~~~~~
The sound of the band on the far end of the mess made me tap my foot under the table. Next to me sat a very nervous and shy looking young mare in a MAVES uniform. Across from us was Sea Foam and Shooter, both in their white uniforms. I turned to the white mare next to me as Foam and Shooter seemed to be groping each other with their eyes. "So ma'am, what's your name?"
"I'm Peach Mane, sir." The mare replied in a voice that was barely audible over the band. I noticed that her mane was indeed a peach color under her cap and smiled at her.
"So what did you do before the war, Miss Peach?" I asked as a stallion set drinks on the table. I slid her bottle of soda over to her before grabbing my glass of water.
"I worked on a peach farm. My dad is a thirteenth generation peach farmer." She said. Now that we were getting into her territory, she seemed to be coming out of her shell.
"Thirteen generations? That's a good length of time." I replied as I took a sip of my water.
"We've worked the same farm since one hundred years before Princess Luna's banishment. We've been around longer than any other farming family in Equestria." Peach told me with a bit of pride in her voice. The band struck up a song that made me smile and Peach gasp and then sigh dreamily. "I love this song." She said as the band played the opening of La Mer.
"Would you like to dance?" I asked her as I stood up. She nodded and I lead her out onto the dance floor. She stood up somewhat clumsily on her back hooves and I was surprised how tall she now was for a mare. She was about shoulder height on me now that she was standing up and I carefully started to lead us into the dance. As the song continued, I recalled the lyrics that were missing from the song.
"La mer
Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs
A des reflets d'argent
La mer
Des reflets changeants
Sous la pluie
"La mer
Au ciel d'été confond
Ses blancs moutons
Avec les anges si purs
La mer bergère d'azur
Infinie"
Peach looked at me in surprise and I stopped singing among the two of us when she did so. "Did I do something wrong?" I asked her as I looked down at my feet and her hind hooves. "I didn't step on you did I?"
"No, no. You did nothing wrong. Just, I didn't know you spoke Prench." She said and I flashed a smile at her as we continued to dance.
"Just enough to keep things interesting." I replied and she blushed a bit as she looked away from my face and down at my chest.
"You-you also have a very nice singing voice." She stuttered out and I grinned again.
"Well, I certainly thank you for the compliment." I told her. Out of nowhere, I felt somepony bump into me and a voice began whispering in my ear.
"Remember the rule, Jimmy." Foam's voice said in my ear. He and Shooter quickly disappeared into the sea of dancers before I could turn my head to look at him. As I thought about his words and Thunderstreak and I's private agreement about other mares, I decided that maybe I should go for it. As long as Thunderstreak had green lighted it, why not?
"Hey Peach, would you like to have an even better time?"
~~~~~
21:00 Hours
April 6, 1988
RNS Harvard
~~~~~
"Sweet Celestia, that was amazing." Peach said as I stood up from the end of the bed and wiped my mouth before straightening my tie.
"Celestia had nothin' to do with it, Peachy. That was all me." I told her with a smile.
"If you're always that good, I don't see how your wife lets you leave the bedroom." She remarked as I climbed up on the bed with her and carefully wrapped an arm around her. She smile a bit before rolling off the bed to put on her uniform. "I must say, that was far better than dancing. Thank you, sir."
"Running off so soon?" I asked with a smirk as I rolled onto my side and made a sarcastic attempt at a sexy pose. She rolled her eyes and laughed a bit as she slipped on her blouse. "Can't even stay to enjoy the after glow? Or even round six?" She chuckled again as she skid on her skirt.
"You know, no stallion has ever gotten that many out of me."
"What can I say? I'm just that good." I told her with a smile as I rolled over to the edge of the bed. Just as she was about to offer a rebuttal, a warning siren began wailing that was accompanied by a call to battle stations. I was quickly out of bed and into the corridor with a couple dozen stallions who were putting on helmets and flak jackets before peeling off towards the AA guns. I climbed the stairs towards the bridge and found Sea Foam shouting orders to the crew members that were frantically running around the bridge. "Foam!" He turned to look at me and I pointed a thumb towards the flight deck. "You got a fighter you can spare?" He turned to a petty officer who had a list in his hoof. The petty officer looked over the list before looking up at Foam.
"Corsair Seven Fifty One is available, sir."
"You heard the boy, Jimmy. Go give 'em hell!" Foam called after me as I turned and ran down to the hangar deck where Navy and Marine Corps pilots all ran around to their planes and crews lined them up for the elevator to the flight deck. I found a midnight blue F4U Corsair with a white 751 on the side. Putting my foot in the step in the left wing flaps, I climbed up onto the wing and then up into the cockpit. A ground crew came over and pushed the fighter into the line behind a Hellcat. When they stopped me, a stallion with a cigar in his mouth and gunnery sergeant stripes on his shirt climbed up onto the wing. He handed me a flight helmet and goggles before sticking his hoof out towards me. I shook it and he gave me a quick smile as the line started to move again.
"Best of luck, sir." He said as he jumped down and helped to push my plane forward. After less than two minutes, I was up on deck with the wings extended and the engine running at full power. I watched Shooter and waited for him to wave his checkered flag for me to go. Finally, he knelled and waved it towards the bow of the ship. I released the brakes and the fighter began to roll across the deck. Just as the tail raised up, the AA guns opened up on silhouettes in the moonlight.
"Looks like Zekes and Bettys, three high." A voice called over the radio. I could barely see with certainty the types of aircraft we were against but I would have to trust the word of the other pilot. Pulling back on the stick, the Corsair climbed quickly and I saw the silhouettes growing bigger. I pulled up underneath a twin engine bomber and flipped the switch for the gunsight's illumination light. The cross hairs lit up and the were perfectly on the belly of the bomber. I squeezed the trigger and the four 20mm cannons let loose with a roar and a flash. Tracers tore into the belly and I could see the flashes of metal on metal with every round that tore into the bomber. I moved the stick a little bit and raked the right wing and engine of the bomber. An orange glow began coming from the engine and the bomber banked to head back in the direction it had come. The bomber however didn't stop banking and I saw several pony looking shapes jump out. Parachutes seemed to pop out of them a moment later and I suddenly felt the fighter jump as flak started to burt around me. The AA gunners, confused in the excitement and the moonlight, had opened fore on me thinking I was an enemy fighter.
"Somebody call those gunners and tell them they're shootin' at one of their own!" I shouted as I hit the button for the throat mic. It took a moment but the guns eventually stopped firing at me. I saw the silhouette of a Zero fighter dive past me and I immediately rolled over and dived after him. He suddenly appeared in my gunsight and I squeezed the trigger only for the cannons to let loose one loud bang and then a clunk as they jammed. "Fuck!" I swore as the four rounds that had fired struck the Zero but failed to do any real damage to him. I broke away and flew back towards the carrier. In the moonlight, the carrier's deck glowed and I had little difficulty in coming in for a landing the dark. The approach was no problem, the landing itself, that was another story. The long nose on the Corsair presented visibility problems that, as the son of a Corsair pilot, I should have accounted for. Looking back, I realize that I deserved the award for 'dumbass of the night'. I pulled up and stalled the plane about twenty feet above the deck. The fighter came down suddenly and there was three loud bangs and a metallic crunch as the landing gear collapsed from underneath the plane. I sat in shock for a moment as several of the deck crew galloped over to check on me.
"Are you alright, sir?" A distant sounding voice asked and I shook my head and turned to the stallion in a yellow vest outside the cockpit. I nodded my head as I unbuckled from my seat and climbed out. Removing my life vest, I walked over towards the island of the ship. I sat down against it as the enemy planes turned back against such fierce AA fire. But if they had struck at us once, I knew they would soon return.
~~~~~
04:30 Hours
April 7, 1988
SSN-115 'Swordfish'
~~~~~
You'd think that as someone who'd joined the navy, I wouldn't have a problem with the idea of submarines. You'd be dead, fucking wrong. I silently cursed whoever had thought of the idea of the submarine. Those damn things are nothing but claustrophobic, underwater deathtraps. I squeezed through the small hatchway in the single aisle that ran the length of the sub and entered the control area underneath the conning tower. I had a moment to look around before a lieutenant appeared in front of me. His uniform had a sub commander's pin above the left breast pocket.
"Lieutenant Squid." He said and I mentally chuckled to myself at a sub skipper named Squid. In back on Earth, if a Marine called a sailor that, it would've started a brawl. Here, it was just a name. I shook his hoof and followed as he led me over to a glass-top table with a map of the island group on it. A light in the table illuminated the map and a sheet of glass with a grid on it was laid over the map. A petty officer stepped aside for us to stand next to the table. "General, we are currently here." He pointed towards the large lagoon in the middle of the map that was surrounded by the islands that made up the Mareianas. "The enemy has an airfield on the main island from which they have been launching anti-submarine patrols with their bombers." His hoof slid across the glass to the big island on the southern side of the chain. "They also have their main docks located there. We've been trying to sink as many of their ships as we can before they can enter the port but-" He stopped suddenly as the drone of an aircraft could be heard above the sub and the entire crew began working frantically. He grabbed a hold of a microphone for the sub's PA system and raised it to his mouth. "All non essential crew to the bow and prepare to dive!" I stepped aside as over a dozen stallions galloped past me and towards the forward torpedo room.
"How deep is it here?" I asked as the submarine's bow pitched downwards and we began to dive under the water.
"About one hundred fifty meters." He replied as he leaned against the navigation table.
"And how deep can we go?" I asked him as I we continued our decent under the water's surface.
"Around ninety meters maximum. Any deeper and we risk the hull collapsing in on us." Squid told me as I leaned against the table with him. The sub leveled out and the engines stopped as we began to float almost three hundred feet under the surface. "And now, the hunter has become the hunted." The crew all remained quiet as a pinging sound echoed throughout the vessel. "There's their sonar buoy. Thank Celestia they can't see us well among all the rock formations in the area. Not to mention that half the time their buoys don't send back very accurate information." We sat silent again until explosions could be heard outside the sub. They grew closer until the sub would tremble more with each blast. The enemy may not have had the best sonar, but they were damn good at dead reckoning when it came to dropping their depth charges nearby. Except for one, none got too terribly close for comfort. One however was close enough that when it exploded, so did a pipe running along the hull of the ship. The crew was able to shut off the flow of the water in the pipe but now the submarine would need to return to the main fleet to ensure the crew could get the freshwater pipe replaced. After a half hour of waiting, we surfaced and I joined the Lieutenant up on top of the conning tower. We began to sail out of the island chain with nothing to show for the mission. But more importantly, I could get off of that fucking deathtrap.
~~~~~
05:00 Hours
April 8, 1988
RNS Harvard
~~~~~
I looked down at my instruments as the Corsair's engine rattled the whole plane. With the canopy slid back, the breeze from the propeller felt amazing in the hot, humid morning. I leaned to my left and looked behind the plane where several other Corsairs as well as Hellcats warmed up on the deck. Looking back towards the deck crew, I saw Shooter wave his flag for me. I quickly pushed the throttles forward as I held the brakes. Once the engine was a t full power, I let off the brakes and the fighter roared down the deck. I pulled back on the stick and the plane gracefully climbed up into the pre-dawn sky. I raised the gear, flaps, and slid the canopy shut as I circled and waited for the rest of my flight to form up on me. With five flights of four planes each, the number of fighters just from our carrier alone was at twenty five. That wasn't counting the fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers from other carriers that would help to soften up the landing zones ahead of the invasion force. With an order to maintain radio silence, I slipped on my flight gloves that had been dipped in a special luminescent ink so that we could use signals in the dark. I raised my left hand for my flight to see and pointed towards my right. My right hand tilted the stick and I banked to the right and towards the island chain. The other three Corsairs followed me and we headed east towards where the sun would soon be rising.
~~~~~
05:45 Hours
April 8, 1988
Near the Mareianas Islands
~~~~~
I leaned against the straps that held me in my seat and saw the main island in the chain appear through the broken cloud cover below us. I waved my hand downward and pointed as I looked to the other pilots. They leaned forwards and looked before looking to me and nodding their heads. I led the way as I rolled inverted and dived down towards the island. At the request of myself, the crew for the fighter I'd been given mounted a captured Jericho Trumpet on the left wing. I engaged the trumpet as I dived through the clouds and the scream of the siren could be heard over the roar of the radial engine. I broke through the clouds and immediately was surrounded by black clouds of flak. I got a row of barracks buildings in my sight and squeezed the trigger, letting loose a torrent of cannon rounds that pierced the roofs of the hut-like buildings. As my altimeter broke five hundred feet I began to pull up and hit the release switch for the two, one thousand pound bombs that were slung under the fuselage. I continued to pull up and away from the barracks and disengaged the Jericho Trumpet. I looked in the rear view mirror on my canopy and watched as my bombs detonated in the middle of the barracks. Leveling out, I looked down at the enemy airfield where a dozen or more Zeke fighters were taxiing towards the runway. I rolled over again and squeezed the trigger as my sight traveled across the row of fighters. I scored hits on all of them and managed to knock some out where they were, but others continued to roll now with large holes in their wings and tails. As I circled around, I saw the others from my flight strafing the enemy fighters. Some now sat burning on the taxiway while a couple continued to head for the runway.
One of the fighters that had been near the front reached the runway before I could catch him on the taxiway but I now was going at him head on where he sat. I opened fire on him but was coming in at just the right angle for him to fire at me while on the ground. His rounds began hitting my fighter, each round peeling away a line of metal on the wings and leaving an aluminum streak where paint had been. My rounds were hitting him too and a couple hit his fighter in the front of his engine cowl. But while I had scored lucky hits, so did he. The supposedly bullet proof glass of my Corsair's windscreen was pierced by a round that went clear through my left shoulder as other rounds hit my engine. The fighter began couching and spraying oil all over the nose as black smoke followed me. I pulled up just before I would've hit him and began flying blindly away from the engagement. Flak started to burst around me again as I got out into the range of their bigger AA guns. As I flew, I got the feeling that I was not alone and looked behind my left wing. There, sitting like an angel sent from above, flew another Corsair. He closed in on me and I slid the canopy back with my right hand, the stick braced between my knees as I couldn't move my left arm. I grabbed a hold the stick again and looked around to try and get my bearings. By this time, the other pilot was wingtip to wingtip with me and had his canopy slid back as well. I dreaded to think about it, but there was just no way my crippled fighter was getting back to the Harvard as she was. I stole a glance at the ocean below me and swallowed hard as I realized that it was my only option of living. Bracing the stick between my knees again, I pointed downwards with my right hand and saw the other pilot nod in acknowledgment. I grabbed the stick and screamed in pain as I cut the power and lowered the flaps with my left hand.
Pulling back on the stick, I began to descend and I checked to ensure that my life jacket hadn't gotten any holes in it. The plane hit the water with a sickening crunch and skipped once before skimming across the surface and coming to a quick stop. Grunting and my vision blurry from the pain, I unstrapped from my seat and grabbed the emergency life raft from my plane before stepping out onto the wing. I inflated the raft and climbed inside, using my good arm to paddle away in case the sinking plane created any suction that would pull me under. A nearby splash made me stop paddling and look over towards where the noise came from. In the water floated the Corsair that had been flying with me. The pilot had climbed into his own raft and began paddling towards me to meet up. He still had on his flight helmet which had the Equestrian Marine Corps insignia on it. He waved to me and I offered a half-assed wave back as he continued to grow closer. The sound of a blast of air made me turn back to my fighter as she slipped under the water and a small panel from the tail fell from the sky with a plume of water. Turning back to the Marine pilot, I saw he was only a couple yards away from me.
"Are you injured?" He asked as he help up a medical kit.
"Took a slug to my left shoulder. Other than that, just as peachy as dog shit." I told him and he chuckled a bit.
"Sounds like something our C/O would say." He produced a piece of rope from his raft and tied ours together to ensure we floated together.
"Tell me," I stared as he opened up the medical kit. In the distance, the sun began to peek over the horizon. "why did you land with me? You could've just reported my position and flown back."
"Because," He held up a needle in his fetlock and stuck it into my left arm "we never leave a man behind." He injected something into my arm that I assumed was morphine as the pain eventually started to subside. He carefully set about packing and bandaging my wound as the morphine really kicked in. I sat and stared off into the horizon as my mind seemed to be just as adrift as us. A patting on my leg snapped me out of it and I looked over to the red stallion who had a hoof out towards me. "Guess if we're going to be on this little float trip together, we may as well know the other's name. I'm Captain Star Dancer." He said and I extended my right hand to him.
"General James Jones. Though, you probably already knew that." He gave a shrug and nod of confirmation. I made eye contact with him and that was when I finally noticed something different about him. "You're a bat pony." I stated and hit looked as though he wanted to make a smartass come back but held his tongue.
"I am." He replied simply as he relaxed a bit and leaned back in his raft.
"I've never actually had a conversation with a bat pony before." I told him as I adjusted myself in my raft to get more comfortable.
"Nor I with a human." Star said as he crossed his forelegs. "So, since we're here, tell me about yourself."
~~~~~
13:45 Hours
April 8, 1988
Somewhere in the Haycific
~~~~~
I laid on my stomach and watched the waves over the side of the raft. I had long since removed my shirt and pants, the sun making it far too hot to be fully dressed. Star had stripped down to nothing but a pair of sunglasses. My back burned and turned red in the sunlight as I watched a small fish swim just under the surface. I turned over and slipped on my sunglasses to keep from being blinded. We floated for what was probably a couple hours, neither of us saying a word as we watched seagulls fly around and swoop downward to catch fish. . After another hour of floating, the rafts lurched and a slight grinding noise awoke a sleeping Star and made me sit up. I lifted up my sunglasses and looked at the white sand of the small island we’d landed on. Carefully standing up, I walked out of the raft and my feet sank into the wet sand. I turned back to Star who hopped out of the raft and grinned at me.
“Well, here we are! Guess we’ll be staying here.” He said before trotting off along the white sands. I pulled the raft further up onto the beach to keep it from getting swept away before following him. He suddenly stopped and turned around. “Hey, do you know how to hunt?” He asked.
“Of course.” I replied.
“You go find us food; I’ll handle getting a shelter together.”
~~~~~
21:15 Hours
April 8, 1988
Somewhere on the Mareianas Islands
~~~~~
I sat on the sands and watched the reflection of the moon on the waves. The sound of sand shifting behind me drew my attention away to see Star walking towards me. He sat down next to me and produced a small silver container. His hoof held the flask out to me and I graciously accepted it. I took a drink and felt the whiskey burn as it ran down my throat. Handing the flask back to him, I looked back out over the ocean. “You think they’ll ever find us?” I asked as he screwed shut the top of the flask after taking a drink.
“Don’t know. I’m sure they’re out here lookin’ for you though.” He replied.
“You mean us?” I asked him as I looked over at him.
“No. I mean you.” Star said as he untwisted the cap and took another drink. He handed the flask to me before continuing. “Why would anypony give a shit about a batpony?” He asked me as the burn of the whiskey was welcomed back.
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Do you have any idea why you’ve never really met a batpony until me?” He took another drink as he waited for my response.
“I’d never given it much thought.” I replied simply.
“Or why we’re never seen in restaurants or in certain shops?” He asked as the flask was passed back to me.
“I figured you were just nocturnal. You know, being batponies and all.” I told him and the whiskey was taking its hold as it burned far less than previously.
“We may mostly be nocturnal but it’s not necessarily by choice. We’re not really accepted in most of Equestria.” He said with a slight slur in his voice as I passed the flask back to him. “You know how long I’ve been in the service?”
“Nope.” I said as the tide slowly made the waves creep further up the beach.
“Thirteen years. I joined at sixteen as an officer cadet due to my father being in the royal guard. I graduated a second lieutenant. In thirteen years I’ve only made it to captain. You know what one of my OCS classmates is now?” He asked me and I shook my head as the flask was again passed back to me. “A brigadier general. Most of them have made lieutenant colonel or colonel. And here I am; a captain. And all because I’m a batpony.” I took another swig from the flask and looked over at him.
“You ever consider going into the guard? I’m sure they’d let you in with open arms.” I told him as the moon continued to rise higher into the sky. I laid back on the sand and I heard Star ungracefully plop down next to me. Our eyes locked onto the moon and I pointed a finger up at it. “My people have gone there. Well, to our moon anyways.”
“You guys send people to the moon too?” He asked as he looked over at me. I turned my head to look at him and shook it.
“Yes but not as punishment like Celestia did.” I replied. “We did it in the name of science and exploration. To go and visit something we’d never gone to before. Shit, that was almost twenty years ago now.” I said as I looked back up to the moon. The whiskey was definitely having an effect as my head spun and I noticed the stars were spinning too. “How fucking strong is that whiskey of yours?”
“One eighty-five proof.” He replied casually. I nodded my head in approval as I held out my hand.
“In that case, give me another drink.”
~~~~~
10:03 Hours
April 9, 1988
Somewhere on the Mareianas Islands
~~~~~
I slowly opened my eyes and immediately regretted it as the sunlight made my head pound like a drum. As I rubbed my head with one hand, my ass hurt like hell and I stopped rubbing my head for a moment. “Did I fall down last night?” I asked myself in a whisper. The hand not on my head reached down and brushed up against something fuzzy. I slowly lifted my head and looked down, only to see I was naked as a jaybird and Star was curled up behind me. “Goddamn it.” I grumbled under my breath as I quietly inched away from him. “I could’ve at least been on top.” I searched around for my underwear and found them by the front of the small shelter Star had built for us. I grabbed them and slipped them on as I looked down the beach in both directions. As I stood on the beach, I heard a droning sound in the distance. Then I saw it, several aircraft flying in formation in the distance.
“Wonder what they are?” Star’s voice asked and I turned to him in surprise. He raised a pair of binoculars up to get a better view. “Thunderbolts and Lightnings.”
“Very, very frightening.” I said with a small chuckle to myself. Star cast a sideways glance at me but went back to watching the planes through his binoculars. I turned and went over to the rafts to get the flare guns but Star’s voice made me stop as I searched through the survival kit from my raft.
“Looks like they’re banking this way! Better find that flare gun and fast!” His words made me quicken my search as the sound of the fighters grew louder. “They’re descending! I think they see us!” He said as I finally found the flare gun. I started to run towards the beach but froze when I heard the familiar crackle of machine guns and the hiss of bullets hitting sand. I began running as Star galloped away from the fighters but wasn’t fast enough as a red mist and chunks of flesh flew upwards from his flank. His leg was held on by only a few strands of flesh but his fall didn’t stop the fighters attack. As the first plane pulled up, the second opened up on him. The bullets walked across the sand and hit him again, Star simply laying there. I raised the flare gun and squeezed the trigger, the red flare arching high into the sky. The fighters ceased their attack once they saw the flare and began to circle the island. I ran to Star, but it was too late. Blood pooled around his mouth and his body was mutilated from the impact of the .50 caliber rounds.
I sat with his body, my mind and body numb as I stared off into the distance. My thoughts were interrupted by an aircraft landing on the water and I stood up to gather what I needed. I put on my shirt and pants as the Catalina taxied closer to the island. I gathered up as many of Star's things as I could find before I carried them down to the shore. A raft with two search and rescue fliers paddled near in a raft. They beached it not far from me and I walked over to them as they secured the raft. "These are his things. I want them taken back." I told them. One of the fliers nodded and placed the things in the raft before dragging it back to the water. "Help me load him up." I told the other one. He followed me to Star's body and helped me load him into one of the rafts we'd arrived in. We carried it to the water as the other raft dragged along the sand, it still being tied to the one we carried. We gently set the raft in the water and climbed into the other one. Once we were in, we began paddling towards the seaplane where the other flier and the pilots sat waiting for us.
~~~~~
18:00 Hours
April 9, 1988
RNS Harvard
~~~~~
I looked at the flag covering Star's body as the ship's minister said a few words. My brain worked overtime, not noticing anything until the slab he was on was tilted up to allow Star's body to slip overboard and into the ocean. I let my head drop and I slowly started to walk away from the scene, my eyes stinging as I kept back my emotions for the stallion who was my only friend for the time we were stranded. As my feet carried me along the deck of the carrier, I passed several sailors that seemed overjoyed at the rapid success we were having in the invasion. My mind was not on that however, but on how soon I could get home. After the events of that morning, I simply wished nothing more than to go home and be with my wife. Thunderstreak was more than just my wife; she was my best friend as well. The problem with war though is that all your friends end up dead or fading away from your life. As I thought more about the state of our marriage as of late, I decided that there was only one solution. Alone time. With the kids and stress from the war, we’d been somewhat strained and snippy with each other at times. I stopped at the railing that was directly below the port bow AA guns and looked at the wake coming off the bow. I knew exactly what we needed. We needed to get away to someplace; but where? Then as I thought back to the places we could fly with Trans Equestria, it struck me. White sandy beaches, friendly locals, exotic food, and plenty of chances to relax; the choice was clear. We were going to Mexicolt.