Stormriders: Luna's Own

by PonyMarine

Chapter 9: Tundra

Author's note: FINALLY! I'm sorry this took over a month to get to you ponies! Please have patience as we're close to the end. Chapter 10 is in editing now and I'm writing chapter 11 as soon as I finish typing this. Thanks for sticking with me, it's the readers that make this worth it.

Semper fi,
PonyMarine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enemy Airspace

Flare was in serious trouble. The missile had caught him on the broadside and wrecked.... everything, from what his diagnostics screens were telling him. The stricken striker was essentially a giant brick at this point. Controls were barely responding, the engine was offline, and all the electrical systems had shorted out. A quick tug of the ejection straps proved that the ejection system was offline as well.

"Well... things can't possible get much worse."

The aircraft hit a pocket of turbulence and started to fall in to a spinning tumble.

"Me and my big mouth."

And with a final quip the stallion passed out from the building Gs as the aircraft continued its return into gravity's embrace, picking up speed until finally... impact. An eruption of snow marked the spot where the striker came to its final rest.

Some time later
Location unknown
Background Music

Flare woke up with his head pounding. Given the condition he'd been in when he passed out, waking up was surprising enough. He found himself hanging upside down from the rig that kept him strapped in to the command couch of the striker. From what he could tell all the systems were out, the canopy was blackened, covered in... something. Flare flipped a few switches, trying to get a response from his shattered aircraft, before unstrapping himself and moving back to the ingress/egress port. Normally on the bottom of the striker, it was now facing upwards. Flare yanked hard on a bright yellow lever marked "EMERGENCY EGRESS" and the hatch blew away. Flare pulled the cold weather survival pack from its stowage nearby, checked his sidearm, and ventured in to the bright light streaming in from the emergency hatch.

Screaming winds tore at him as his eyes fought to adjust to the brilliant, frozen landscape. Flare's striker had slammed hard in to the mountainside and as the aircraft cooled was quickly buried in the driving snow. In fact, the aircraft was completely covered, except where Flare had cleared a path by jettisoning the escape hatch with its explosive bolts. The young pegasus quickly augmented his flight suit with the extreme cold weather clothing contained in his kit and pounded a little water from his canteen. Flare remembered that hydration was especially vital in cold climate, because the cold makes it harder to recognize when you were dehydrated and that could easily become a fatal mistake.

He worked quickly, setting the special charges in the designated areas of the aircraft to destroy any remaining sensitive materials, such as the radar package, the secure comms, and other vital systems. No matter what happened to Flare, he couldn't jeopardize his comrades back in the squadron by letting secure materials fall in to enemy hands.

He set the charges for a one hour delay and quickly made his way into the snow. When the blast came, it would be a big one, and he had to be well on his way. Even the thermal scattering camouflage that was part of the survival gear he was wearing wouldn't help him long in the face of a concentrated search.

Flare found a decent vantage point a few miles from the crash site and held up for a brief second, taking more water and part of a ration bar as he observed the area nearby. No jet engines or helicopters screamed towards the crash site and it seemed the only thing moving in this frozen wasteland was him. Flare turned to his second order of business and started to look for Zeph.

The tracking unit was small, a light piece of gear that had a tight band GPS transmitter/receiver of incredible power, amplified by natural pegasi magic through a process well over Flare's head. The tiny little device could punch through the teeth of the fiercest storm. Made in pairs, the tight band units were designed as locators so downed wing pairs could find each other, and when it came time for rescue it could bounce a one off "Signal Flare" transmission broadcasted their exact coordinates to the NORCOM GPS satellite chain. Flare had questioned the limited nature of the device while he was at the academy and had received an hour-long ass-chewing and eight-page paper on communications security behind enemy lines as a result. One thing was sure about the military questions were just not things you asked when it challenged the status quo. But it did its job and shot him a bearing towards the other active beacon in the close area, Flare shot a bearing and took off, moving on foot to avoid the ripping gale-force winds and to be less visible to enemy patrols that were certainly on his tail.

The going was brutal, to say the least. Flare couldn't fly if he had wanted to as the screaming winds ripped and tore at him. The exhausted pegasus stayed hunkered down to the frozen ground, crawling forward in to the teeth of the storm, following the blinking dot on his tracker leading him to Zephyr's final resting...

‘no, can't think like that, mustn't think like that. Just have to keep going...’

Sometime later

'Celestia’s hooves... I made it!'

The site that awaited Flare was not a happy one, and as he found more and more wreckage strewn across the landscape, the exhausted pony's heart sank and his spirits fell like the temperature which was sinking lower and lower as the night arrived.

"Nothing could have survived a wreck like this."

The tears started to fall and froze to his fur almost immediately, the will to continue fighting being sapped from his bones as brutally as the cold was sapping the heat from his body. He continued to half-heartedly trudge forward, looking for the bulk of the striker.

He found the wreckage about a mile on, surrounded by shattered landscape and at the end of a long furrow in the earth. The twisted, shattered wreckage did his heart no better and seemed to confirm what he had already thought. His best friend had passed on to greener pastures. There was no time to mourn. The patrols would be hunting for him as soon as the storm broke and he needed the gear stowed in Zephyr's shattered striker to have a remote chance of survival.

The pegagus went through the process of opening the emergency rescue hatch on the striker. The same type of hatch he had egressed out of a few hours ago had similar controls on the outside to allow rescue crews to get to the striker's pilot in case of a crash. Flare took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. Flare knew in his heart what he was about to see. The hatch fell away... and there she was, just like he'd predicted. Slumped on her controls, she looked like she was just taking a nap or something close to it... that is, except for the blood splattered across the cockpit, the fresh red standing out in sharp contrast to her green flight suit and the few visible patches of blue fur.

Tears filled his eyes and Flare's gorge rose, his mind screaming and not wanting to believe what his heart knew and had known from the first bit of wreckage. Zephyr was dead. Flare groped blindly through the tears, looking for the survival kit.

'Just... just have to get this kit and... oh Celestia's mane...'

A loud coughing noise interrupted Flare's mind breaking and the shocked stallion turned to the body of the mare and looked closer. Breathing. Zephyr was breathing! Flare was too delighted to speak and quickly worked at getting her out of her harness, gently moving her to the ground.

"Zephyr? Zephyr can you hear me?"

The blue pegasus cracked one eyelid.

"F...flare? not so loud... I have one hell of a hangover..."

"Heh yeah, you went on a hell of a bender, but I'm going to fix you up alright? Stay with me!"

"Okay..."

Flare quickly set to work triaging the wounded mare. Most of her wounds were superficial, with a couple cracked ribs and a broken wing being the worst of it. Flare splinted and set those and cleaned the various cuts and scrapes Zephyr had collected. Then he set to work on a sledge for Zephyr and the equipment. Flying was out for obvious reasons and walking in her condition... just wouldn't be happening. Zephyr woke up and watched him work a little.

"How am I Doc?"

"You look like hell."

"Gee thanks asshole, you always say the sweetest things about me."

"Eeyup mister silvertongue that's me."

"Do you say sweet things to her?"

Flare looked up with a start, a blush crossing his face.

"Who?"

"Clanky, come on something's up there, I'm not that stupid flycolt."

"I... maybe... she... she kissed me before we left, said she wanted to talk to me when we got back, I dunno I was hoping..."

Zephyr weakly punched a hoof into the ground in front of her.

"Well that settles it then."

"Settles what?"

"We have to get back to the unit. This could be the only shot your dopey flank ever gets at a decent mare and I'll be damned if I let you miss that chance."

Flare laughs with mock outrage and half heartedly throws a snow ball at Zephyr.

"Zeph?"

"Yeah?"

"It's good to have you back Zeph... I thought I’d lost you."

"Don't get sentimental on me now, I might just die of shock... it's good to be back."

Three Days of Traveling Later
Background Music

They'd made good time today, The sledge was easy enough for Flare to pull, and now that the storm had broken, he could even skim above the clouds and use his wings instead of his legs for easy portions of the journey. They'd holed up in a copse of giant pine trees with a little over hang in it that provided excellent cover. Flare had a small fire running in short order and headed out trying to find more dry wood.

*crack*

'Oh buck me, now what?'

Flare threw himself up in to the boughs of a nearby pine tree and began to observe, waiting to see who else had joined him in the woods. He knew it wasn't Zephyr and that whoever was out there hadn't found her yet. Flare would have heard gunshots and a struggle at this distance. His breath caught in his throat as an individual cloaked in arctic camouflage slowly started to work it's way out of the woods near Flare. It delicately held in it’s mouth what Flare recognized as an EADF pilot recovery tracker, and stopped to catch a bearing and started moving again, coming to a rest under his tree. Flare looked closely at the figure, weighing his options. The figure below his tree didn’t look anything like a griffon..

"Thunder."

The startled figure in white spun around, trying to find the source of the voice, but settled down and responded with the pre-arranged countersign they'd been briefed on.

"Flash"

Flare dropped down from the tree.

"Son of a bitch I could practically kiss you... I... Clanky?"

The floor momentarily dropped out on Flare's reality as he came face-to-face with his rescuer and and found not a special forces pony or a Tactical Recovery team from the Marines, but none other than the mare he wanted to get back to so badly, Technical Corporal Clanky R. Doo, EAD. As their eyes met, her own eyes went wide and she tackled him, driving him back in to the snow and kissing him with the kind of passion that he felt would surely melt the snow around them for a couple yards at least.

"Hi."

"Hi yourself, I missed you."

"I see that, where's the rescue party?"

"You’re looking at her."

"So..."

"You're officially KIA and I'm violating about thirty regulations to be here to save you and Zeph... did she?"

"Broken wing and some cracked ribs. She's in our hide nearby."

Clanky leaned down and kissed him again.

"I'm gonna bail you out this time but don't you ever do something like this to me again... losing you almost killed me!"

"Aye ma'am, I'll never let a pretty mare like you down."

Clanky grinned, blinking away a few tears.

"See that you don't... sir."

The two ponies finish gathering fire wood and headed back to camp for a happy reunion with Zephyr. After small talk and food, the three friends consulted Clanky's map. They laid out a plan for the next day's movement towards the Equestrian border. As Flare settled in to his sleeping bag, he reflected that now for this first time, he truly believes they have a chance of making it--a chance of getting home.

The gun barrel shoved into his cheek the next morning, however, apparently had others plans.

Comments

Gad dammit, you take forever to update and then you throw another cliffhanger at me. You're killin me.

[PonyMarine]

108138

Hahah I know I'm a bastard, I admit it. Chapter 10 WILL be coming shortly, it's already done and just needs editing. No cliff hanger next time I promise!

[SteampunkBrony]

ah well, it is a good cliffhanger.

... anyone else think of that sound from metal gear when snake is spotted on that last line?

[Pyrus Nightwrite]

you updated! yaaaay
ok, now this, this is awesome.