Stormriders: Luna's Own

by PonyMarine

Chapter 4: To the Skies

368th Night Fighter Wing Compound
Hangar 2, 98th Night Fighter Squadron
0532 - Day of departure for Mareimar AFB
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Dawn. The air was crisp, pure, and beautiful as Princess Celestia’s Sun began to peak the horizon and Princess Luna began to draw down the moon. Zephyr considered that she had met the Princess in person and would be flying escort for her in just a few hours more as the unit made the transition to the northland with their Lady. The hangar was nearly empty, just the Thunderhoof sfighter in their rows. The squadron’s two Draft Horse heavy transports were already outside, being loaded with pre-staged gear and equipment by a slightly sleepy-eyed ground crew. Zephyr smiled as she got to the final two strikers in the row. The brand new planes gleamed with the pride and effort she, Flare, and Clanky had put in to them this past week to make sure they were flight and battle ready. Clanky had even snuck into town and bought some paint to do up custom art on their units to surprise her friends with. Flare’s name was beneath a beautiful arc of fire that looked like somepony had captured a bit of Celestia’s sun and her own name was emblazoned under a cherry blossom on the breeze – her favorite flower.

‘Gonna have to pay Clanky back for all that work somehow,’ she thought to herself. A box of blueberry muffins (the blonde mare’s favorite) would probably do the trick, at least to start.

Zeph started her walk around, inspecting the large twin engined, twin tailed, aircraft. She could recall the details of the unit from memory; how it interacted and amplified the natural passive magic of a pegasi, and how the larger jet turbines used on large transport aircraft – like the ones currently being loaded on the pad – were impractical in terms of size and efficiency for the more agilely sized fighters. She finished her inspection with a quick electrical systems check and settled on the ground, lying against her striker, watching the sun come up. Zeph loved mornings like this and was taking in this one as much as she could. In her heart of hearts, she knew this would be the last peaceful morning she got in awhile, maybe one of her last at all. The shiver went long down her spine as a torrent of thoughts and emotions rushed to her, worrying about what might be coming in the next few days. Her thoughts were interrupted by a sunny shout of greeting ringing out from across the hangar. Flare and Clanky were coming over with some covered trays and she caught the scent of hot food wafting from them. She shoved her morbid thoughts aside and got up to go meet her friends. As long as they were together, Zephyr knew things would be all right.

Several hours later

Clanky buckled in to her seat aboard the big transport plane. As odd as it might seem, she was always nervous when flying on anything other then her own wings, and the big jetliner was no exception. With a snap and crackle the intercom came to life:

"Attention all passengers, this is your aircraft commander speaking. The Princess is aboard, and all our final preparations have been made. Please ensure you're strapped in. We should be taxiing in a few minutes. Thank you."

Clanky turned and looked out the window to the right of her, instantly finding Zeph and Flare's strikers in the lineup of the two fighter wings preparing to launch in tight succession. They were loaded down with heavy external fuel tanks and were running with very low loads of munitions for this hop. Mareimar was very far to the North and even with the externals; the fighters would be cutting it close to make it in to the base. She hoped her friends weren't too uncomfortable in their strikers for the long flight.

98th and 99th Night Fighter Squadrons
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The fighters were lined up on a side taxiway, ready to make a sharp right and take off on the order. The four planes of the command flight were ahead of the other twenty-four planes of the two squadrons, the CO, XO and their wingponies, ready to take to the skies first and ensure an orderly formation.

"All planes, this is the CO. The command flight will be call sign Nightguard, by the numbers, report status"

"Selene One, flight ready, Nightguard One."

“Selene Two, ready"

The familiar ritual of the ready checks locked Flare's head back in his cockpit and cooled him down a bit. He was nervous, no shame in admitting it. His first mission with the squadron into a combat zone – and with the Princess under their care no less! He didn't want to let Major Windsheer (A.K.A. Nightguard One) down, much less anyone else and especially not the Princess. Hearing Zephyr call off her status shook him out of his thoughts and returned him to the pre-flight routine.

"Selene Twelve, two lit and in the green."

"Copy that. Tower, this is Nightguard One, 368th Night Fighter Wing requesting clearance for takeoffs from run way Three Charlie."

"Roger that Nightguard One, take off clearance is granted. Give 'em hell, sir."

"Thank you, Tower, we'll bring you back a souvenir. Nightguard One to all aircraft, launch by wing pairs and take up defensive positions once the transports are airborne."

The squadron took wing like it was orchestrated with each pair launching down the runway and settling into their pre-assigned positions with ease around the two transports to begin the long flight north.

Three hours later
Mareimar AFB - Air Traffic Control Tower

A timid-looking, young earth pony cantered over to the desk currently being occupied by the base's commanding officer: a very severe looking stallion named Colonel Steelhoof. He had a bit of a reputation as a pony to be avoided, especially since he was a Royal Marine aviator in charge of an EADF base, but it was a joint posting and he was the senior officer.
The Colonel focused a single eye on the young mare in front of him, glaring down at her, and asked with a growl, "can I help you, Airpony, or are you just going to stand there like a carousel horse?"

The mare gasped a little bit, saluted and stammering slightly, gave her report.

"Sir, we just received a radio communication from the 368th Wing. They're about fifty minutes out and are low on fuel. They’ll need immediate clearance to land as soon as they reach the landing pattern."

The Colonel leaned back on his haunches, letting the stub of his cigar roll around in his mouth a little bit.

"Very well, Airpony, return to your post and inform flight control that I want two runways cleared ASAP. If there're any foul-ups with the Princess's arrival to my base, I will personally be bucking every single pony vaguely connected to it into the next life, clear?"

"Aye, sir!"

The now slightly frightened mare sped off with a quickness to perform her assigned tasks. The Colonel watched her go with a half smile on his face. The nervous ones were always the easiest to mess with a little. He’d have to have a word with that particular mare's Staff Sergeant about finding her some kind of combat training or something to help her bearing and self confidence.

"SIR! Radar contact! Multiple contacts bearing northwest of the base, estimating fifty to sixty fighters and six medium bombers, no response to radio hails and no IFF beacons."

The Colonel was out of his chair and rushing over to the screen in a heartbeat.

‘Son of a bitch, of all the Celestia-damned gin joints,’ he thought as he started barking rapid-fire orders ‘this is gonna be one hell of a mess.’

"Alright settle down, the lot of you! Sound battle stations, and power up all anti-air defenses. Non-essential personnel are to move to air raid bunkers at once. I want every fighter on this base that isn't under repairs in the air within the next fifteen minutes. Scramble the Alert Five, and tell them to form up with the CAP. We can't let these scumbags any where near the Princess! NOW, MOVE IT!"

The chilling scream of an air raid siren started to howl across the base. What had once been a relatively tranquil scene became a beehive of activity. Even over the sirens, the roar of the engines of the alert fighters going airborne rippled across the base.

Today had just gotten interesting.

368th Wing formation
Approx. 25 minutes flight time from
Mareimar AFB
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"This is AWACS Stormwatch to Nightguard One, please respond, over."

"Stormwatch, this is NightGuard One, what can we do for you today?"

"Nightguard One, Mareimar is currently under aerial attack by unknown enemy forces. Radar has also determined you have bandits on an intercept course.”

"...Horseapples."

"That's about our sentiments on this end, Nightguard One. Stormwatch has taken over battlespace management for the duration of the engagement. You’ll be switched over to tower control on final approach in to the base. One of the local squadrons is breaking off to escort you in but you're going to be in engagement range of the bandits before they can reach you."

"Copy that, Stormwatch, thanks for the heads up. All fighters this is Nightguard One. Siphon the last of the fuel from your external tanks and jettison them. We're going to be under enemy attack shortly. Spread out to battle formations. Weapons are hot. ROE is to engage any enemy fighter on sight. I know we're short on fuel and shorter still on ammunition. Special storm weapons are authorized. We must defend the Princess and the transports at all costs."

Short, tense responses came in from the twenty-seven aircraft listening with bated breaths to the Major’s transmission. If they were authorizing the special storm weapons designed to channel the natural magic of a pegasus, then they were in even deeper shit than the Major was letting on.

Comments

[Princess Lulu]

WHOA Epic background music for the last part!!!

[PonyMarine]

16616

Have to get you all pumped up for chapter 5 next week ;)

[ErrantIndy]

I down right love the music ya include, opened my eyes to a whole new area of music.

[PonyMarine]

16700
All credit goes to my old Deathwatch (Warhammer 40k RP) DM, he loved including epic battle music with his story sections and it added a lot to the campaign for me. One of the benefits of the electronic medium versus say paper is I can actually include music with my work and I don't even have to license it haha.

More please. I love the whole thing, esp the detail of Clanky painting on their strikers. It just reads as so realistic.

[PonyMarine]

17149

I'm doing my best to give everyone an authentic pony asskicking experience, the fun really starts next chapter though

17898

Hahaha I was just reading Haylo! Always nice to see another Marine brony/military pony.

Chapter 5 is in editing, Chapter 6 is almost ready to join it in editing and I'll be starting on Chapter 7 and the 2nd Intermission here shortly. I'm also gonna take a second here to respond to a PM I got! Somepony wanted to know why nopony had a cutie mark in my little corner of Equestria! Everypony does I just haven't really bothered mentioning them in the narrative. So here's the three leads for everypony who's curious:

Flare - a stylized sun mark with a single tongue of flame coming off it, Flare earned his cutie mark diving through a burning home to rescue a trapped foal, the flames were so intense and he was going fast enough that he resembled a solar flare coming out the other side of the building, unfortunately he doesn't have Dashie's invincibility and was pretty seriously burned (he was literally on fire for a minute or two) but obviously made a full recovery with out any ill effects.
Zephyr - A nautical mark symbolizing the North Winds, Zeph picked her mark up apprenticing to a navigator of an civilian air cargo plane, navigating them through the teeth of a ferocious storm, it required no small amount of flight ability on her part as well. At one point taking the controls from the flight team to navigate through the safe course she'd determine.
Clanky - a nut and bolt, Clanky was always quite the mechanical genius growing up always tearing things apart and fixing them, her parents ended up taking her to an airshow at one point and she somehow managed to end up on the flight line and helped a military ground crew repair a striker (read: she got to watch) Clanky immediately decided that high speed aircraft were the coolest things she'd ever seen and dedicated herself to becoming a mechanic on such devices.