Danger Zone

by Lt Rainbow Slash

1940: Fast as Lightning, Loud as Thunder

1300 hours
Date Unknown
Location Unknown

Rainbow Dash shook her head as her sight returned. She felt slightly queasy but she ignored it as she glanced outside her Hornet. The formation was still there.

"All callsigns report in." Fleetfoot ordered before continuing, "Striker one-one, Misty, green."

"Striker one-two, Flocho, good to go." Said the male voice of Misty's wingpony.

"Striker one-three, Loose, I'm good!" Came another mare's voice.

And so it continued through the rest of the squadron.

"Striker three-one, Sonic, ready to rock!" Rainbow reported as her turn came around.

"Striker three-two, Flash, my GPS has no reception but otherwise I'm good." Rainbow's wingpony, Lightning Dust, reported.

"Uhhh...Striker three-three, Thud, I got the same problem. Everything else is fine though." At Thunderlane's report Rainbow took a puzzled look at her GPS. She had neglected to before, as the GPS was one of the most reliable things in the plane. To her surprise and confusion it too showed no connection.

"Striker three-four, Ray, Same was the other two."

"Hauler one-seven, good." came the tanker pilot.

"Lookout two-seven, GPS is out but everything else is green." Said the AWACS controller.

"This is one." Fleetfoot's voice came back, "My GPS is acting up too. If your GPS is working tell me."

While the silence reigned, Rainbow took a glance at her heading indicator. 090. Due east. She took a look out. What the...

"This is Sonic," She began, "somethings wrong. Take a look at four O'clock."

There was silence for a few seconds before someone muttered, "Woah. That's a lot of smoke."

Indeed there was. Off in the distance to the south, several columns of inky black smoke rose thousands of feet into the air along a coast.

"Striker one-one, Lookout. Radar contact on one hundred plus bogeys. Please advise." Came the AWACS.

"Where are they?" Fleetfoot asked.

"One group is twelve plus, ten o'clock, twenty klicks. Rest are spread all over at three o'clock, near the smoke."

Rainbow glanced over to the south again. Looking closer at the base of the pillars of smoke, her keen pegasus eyes picked out a port town. Probably oil fires. She thought.

"Ok, Lookout. I'm giving you flights two and three. Ones will stay with the bigger planes." Fleetfoot's voice came again.

"Roger. Striker two-one, steer heading zero-one-zero, angels fifteen." Ordered the AWACS.

"Copy." Replied two-one as his flight peeled off to the left and began to climb away.

"Three-one, heading one-seven-zero, angels ten. Buster."

"Wilco." Rainbow replied before swinging her flight into a climbing right turn and opening her throttle, heading just to the left of the smoke. She kept looking around, and occasionally glancing at her radar. "Hey sonic?" came Lightning Dust's voice over the flight radio channel.

"Yeah Flash?" Rainbow replied, continuing to look around. "I can see boats down there. Looks like a damn exodus." And indeed there was. Glancing down, she could make out dozens of ships. Some appeared to be older military vessels, while the vast majority were cargo or passenger ships. They seemed to be picking up long lines of ponies off the beach

"Lookout, this is two-one. Visual contact. Noodles, are those what I think they are?" Asked the leader of second flight. Another voice, supposedly 'Noodles' replied, "Yeah, those are Spitfires alright."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that. The old World War Two aircraft was very rare. What was a group of them doing here? "This is Two-One, I'll be on seven-three-decimal-one."

"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Thunderlane muttered over the flight comms. "Yup." Rainbow replied as they flew along the beach. All was quiet as the four Hornet drivers flew along taking in the view. It was broken moments later by Lightning on the squadron channel. "This is Three-Two. Radar contact."

Rainbow glanced at her own radar and noticed it had picked up a large formation of aircraft coming down the coast ahead of them. "Lookout, this is Three-One. Moving to intercept."

"This is Two-One to all callsigns." Cut in the other flight lead, "I've been in contact with the Spits. They say it's 1940, and that smoke is Dunkirk." Rainbow's eyebrow went up in surprise. That certainly wasn't what she was expecting. A badly aimed teleport sure, but time travel? How'd the eggheads screw that up?!

In the distance she began to make out the specks that were the aircraft her radar was detecting. "Tally thirty." she reported as the flight flew past and climbed above the formation. She got a good look at the aircraft and quickly reported, "Lookout, Three-One. Visual contact with formation of thirty plus Stukas escorted by twelve 109s."

"Copy Three-one." Came the reply, before Lookout began speaking again. "One-one. I'm at a loss. You're ranking. Orders?"

There was silence for a few seconds, likely as Fleetfoot figured what to do. A moment later she came back over the radio. "Ok, I see two options. We stay neutral, or we fight for Equestria. I sure as hell aren't taking the Germane side. Flame?" She asked the other flight lead.

"I say we kick some ass. Anything to shorten this war." He replied. "How about you Sonic?" She asked Rainbow.

"I'm with Flame on this one." Rainbow replied looking down at the Stukas. They were about six thousand feet below the Hornets and were rapidly approaching Dunkirk. In her headphones she heard Fleet asking Lookout.

"I'll go with whatever you decide." Was his response.

"Alright then" Fleet began "All callsigns, you are clear to engage Germane military forces on sight, weapons free. Repeat weapons free."

A predatory smile appeared on Rainbow's face. "Right! You heard the lady!" She transmitted, "Threes! Get into the bastards!" And with that, she rolled inverted, threw the throttle wide open and dove straight into the Stukas. She rapidly gained speed easily gaining on the propeller driven dive bombers.

As she approached she keyed up her two sidewinders. Almost instantly she had a lock, the shrill tone filling her ears. "Fox Two!" She exclaimed. She immediately kicked the rudder and brought a second dive bomber into her sights. "Fox two!" The second missile flew off the rail just as her first slammed into a stuka, blowing off its wing and sending it spiraling down in a trail of smoke.

And then she was in among them. Pulling back on the stick she switched on the afterburners. The G-forces slammed her into her seat, going into a near vertical climb. The HUD read six hundred knots. 1,100 Km/h. She left the formation in the dust and rapidly gained altitude. She pulled back on her stick again, looping around and bringing her diving back in behind the formation. She watched as one of the Hornets, probably Sky Dust, as it loosed both it's missiles blowing apart two more aircraft before gunning another down with her gatling. "Wahoo! Splash three for me!"She exclaimed.

Sadly Rainbow only had had two missiles. After all, it was just a ferry flight. Why would the armorers put on more than the two required by protocol? No matter though, she still had a full load of twenty mike-mike cannon rounds for her gatling.

Rainbow watched as her speed built up in the dive. Combined with the thrust from the afterburners the jet easily broke the sound barrier. It was as if someone flipped a switch. One moment the jet was shaking and the next, everything went quiet and the ride became super smooth.

She quickly turned off her afterburners to conserve some fuel, and refocused on the stukas. Lining one up, she took careful aim placing the 'pipper' on her target. The small circle on the outside of the sight then began to disappear counter-clockwise indicating the range. Rainbow pulled the trigger, a satisfying hum filling her ears before she broke off into another vertical climb, the stuka spiralling down below her.

She didn't hit the afterburners this time letting her speed bleed off as she gained altitude. She levelled off at ten thousand feet glancing down at the aerial carnage. a few seconds later, Dust joined on her wing. There were large holes through the formation. There was also inky black smoke trails behind several. While each Hornet had shot down three or four planes each, between the four of them that was at least twelve of the thirty stukas.

A moment later Thunderlane and Sky joined the two. "How's ammo looking?" Rainbow asked. "Winchester missiles. Three hundred twenty mike-mike." Dust reported. But just before Thunderlane could begin Sky cut in.

"Tally six o'clock!! Break!" Rainbow immediately looked over her shoulder to see the Stuka's escort of Bf 109s diving in from behind. Her years of training immediately kicked in and she broke hard up and right. Over her shoulder she could see the 109's bright yellow nose and muzzle flashes as it rolled to follow. A cheeky idea popped into Rainbow's head.

She rolled back left and reversed her turn. Once again the Germane pilot followed. She kept the throttle at about half as she kept the turn, while keeping her eyes on the enemy fighter. The G-forces crushed her into her seat but still she kept in the turn. Slowly but surely she watched as she began to out turn her opponent. She was almost behind him when the Germane tried to make a run for it.

The Maresserschmitt rolled over and began to dive away. "Oh so thats how you wanna play?" Rainbow grinned under her oxygen mask, "Speed won't save you!"

She slammed open the throttle and gave chase as the two aircraft rapidly lost altitude. But just as Rainbow placed the gunsight over her quarry, he levelled out at less than a hundred feet and began jinking. He turned left, and right, making it as hard as possible to hit him as the two streaked along the waterline at well over two hundred knots. Rainbow had to throttle back to stay behind and avoid overshooting.

Rainbow had to admit, the enemy pilot knew how to make a difficult target. She kept after him trying to line up a shot, before an opportunity presented itself. A quick burst of cannon fire ripped off the plane's wing sending it spiralling into the beach surf.

Pulling around and looking at her surroundings for the first time, Rainbow realized she was over the evacuation beaches. Looking at the wreckage Rainbow let out a relived sigh that no soldiers were near. Grinning she flew back along the beach and waggled her wings at the soldiers below.

"This is Sonic. Everypony ok?" She asked as she turned and began to climb. Lightning was the first to report, "This is Flash. Shook and shot down the pair after me."

"Thud here." Came Thunderlane's voice, "Me and Ray outran 'em over the channel. Bingo fuel." Rainbow nodded and glanced at her own fuel. It read just over four thousand pounds. Enough to make it back across the Channel.

"Copy, out." She said before changing to the squadron freq. "Lookout, this is Three-One."

"Send traffic." The AWACS replied. "Threes are bingo fuel. Requesting instructions." Rainbow replied, as she used her radar to find LD's IFF transponder.

She quickly found it and made her way over. Lightning saw her and pulled over onto her wing. A minute later, Thud and Ray came winging in. "Three-one, I've been in contact with several controllers over on Equestria. They have made arrangements for your arrival. Switch to seventy-five decimal eight, and contact Blackout when you come into sight of the coast. They will give further instructions."

"Copy. Three-one out."

---

0930 Hours
August 18, 1940
RAF Biggin Hill

Rainbow yawned as she woke from her nap. She rubbed her eyes and glanced around. She was on a cloud hovering a few feet off the ground outside by a dispersal hut. All around her were ponies, mostly pegasi, who were trying to stave off boredom. Most wore the mish-mash flying gear of Royal Air Force fighter pilots, while the green of her modern flight suit stood out. Some were playing board games like chess, some read, and some, like Rainbow, napped. Off to her right Thunderlane and Sky Dust were chatting about something or other. Lightning slept nearby.

A nostalgic smile crossed Rainbow's face as she thought about her wingpony. The two had met as kids back in their hometown of Vanhoover. They had become fast friends when they learned they both wanted to be fighter pilots, not to mention they were the only two to be able to keep up with one another. They had stuck together, even being lucky enough to be assigned the same squadron, and flight. The only reason Dust wasn't commanding her own flight right now was because of her recklessness.

Glancing around at the pilots around them Rainbow couldn't help but think they came straight out of a Battle of Equestria movie. Most wore the navy blue uniform of the RAF with 'Mane West' life jackets and other assorted bits and bobs. A little ways away were their Spitfires, warmed up and ready to take off. Beyond them were her flight's Hornets.

After their arrival, the squadron had been split up in flights over southern Equestria. Given specialists, they had taken the load of the C-130, a cache of at least one of each weapon minus the nukes for the Hornets. The specialists were in duplication magic, which kept the flights armed with missiles. The ground crew that was riding in the 'Herc' had also trained several more in maintaining the Jet fighters. This had kept the Squadron in fighting condition, if split up.

And that's when Rainbow was shook from her reverie.

Her ears perked up as she heard a phone ring in the hut. All the others did as well, tensing. A few seconds passed before one of the ponies in the hut poked his head out the window. "Squadron scramble!" He bellowed. Everypony took off running.

Rainbow flapped her wings and shot off to her jet. She could see the ground crew already starting it up for her. As soon as she got there the pegasus in the cockpit hopped out and began to strap her in as she slipped on her helmet. The jet was already spinning up as she finished. She quickly finished the startup and rolled off the grass onto the runway. She could already see the Spitfires taking off on the grass. Lightning pulled up on her wing beside her ready to go.

Once on the runway she glanced behind her to make sure she wouldn't kill anyone with her jet-wash before hitting the afterburners. The jet leaped forward. Faster and faster it went before finally she pulled back on the stick and the huge jet took to the air. Behind her she could see Thunderlane and Sky taking to the air as well. Satisfied Rainbow quickly turned her attention to her radio.

"Blackout, Savage Leader, squadron is airborne." Came the call from the Spitfires. "Copy Savage Leader." Came the reply a few seconds later. "Sixty plus bandits over Dover, angels two. Steer heading one-one-zero, angels four."

"Savage Lead copies." Rainbow watched as the twelve Spitfires peeled off and began climbing south. Now the radio was clear it was her turn. Since the squadron had split up over southern Equestria, each flight had changed its callsign to make the controllers jobs easier.

"Blackout, Thunder one-one, Squads airborne." She said already vectoring to follow the Spitfires, as she shut off her afterburners. "Thunder, do you copy last to Savage?" Blackout asked.

"Affirm." Rainbow said, while Thunderlane and Sky came up on her wing opposite Dust. "Want us to do the same?"

---

Five minutes later the four Hornets were still twenty kilometers from the small port. Flying at five thousand feet the view of the Equestrian country side would be beautiful, if it weren't for the ugly black smoke coming from several Germane He 111 bombers. At least two squadrons of Hurricane fighters were tearing into the formation, as another of Spitfires engaged the Maresserschmidt escort. Rainbow grinned. Each of the Hornets carried eight AIM-9X Heatseekers and two AIM-120 AMRAAMs. Considering our targets...ten missiles, ten or more kills. She thought with a smile.

"Alright! Let's rock and roll!" Rainbow exclaimed opening the throttle and diving in from ahead of the formation. She grinned as she leveled off a few kilometers ahead of the bombers and began shooting.

---

Deflection Shooting was in his element. He may have been the squadron newbie, but he was doing what he was meant to. His Hurricane shuddered as he fired into one of the Germane He 111s. Peeling off he climbed up above the formation. Just as he rolled back in to make another run several rockets came hurtling from ahead. A bunch of the bombers fell away in pieces. More of the strange rockets quickly followed, and more bombers exploded. Deflection watched in awe as they were followed by four aircraft moving unbelievably fast.

Everypony in Equestria had seen the pictures, and the video, of these amazing machines and their pilots. They had earned many nicknames but most called them by only one. It was easily the most popular.

"Hey! The cavalry has arrived! Its the Steel Angels!" Somepony exclaimed. "Sit back and watch the fireworks chaps!"

---

Rainbow grinned as she pulled through the formation. She had already bagged four with her AMRAAMs and Sidewinders. Bombers whipped by, and Rainbow watched a Spitfire lay into a bomber as she streaked past. Another two missiles left their rails. As they flew she switched to guns and blew another He 111 out of the sky.

She had no idea how many she had bagged in the last two months. Last she checked it was in the hundreds. Most of the squadron had similar kill counts. It was just what happened when you had a seventy year tech advantage over your opponent. She grinned again as three more Germane planes went spiraling to the ground.

---

Rainbow flew among the clouds. It felt like years since the last time she had just...flown. No jets, no planes, no combat...no killing. Just Rainbow, her wings, and the clouds.

She wasn't far from the airbase. In fact she carried a small radio in case they were scrambled. But it was early October. The Germane attacks had been petering out. They had only scrambled twice in the last week.

Rainbow flew at a sedate pace, gliding along. She flew over and alighted on a nearby cloud. She turned around and lay down looking over the edge, just taking in the view of Equestria. Sure, technically she was Caneighdian, but she felt a fierce loyalty to Equestria and the Princesses. She sighed, and just…thought.

She heard the sound of flapping wings a bit later. "Hey." She said, as Lighting Dust landed beside her. "Hey."

The two sat in silence for a while, simply enjoying the view and musing their own thoughts.

"We're in for the long haul I guess." Piped up Lighting.

"Yup." Was all Rainbow said. There was silence for another few moments.

"You know we have no way back right?" Lighting muttered, almost a whisper.

"Yeah." Replied Rainbow, "The way I see it, there's nothing we can do Flash." She said using the other pegasi's nickname, "So we fly on, and end this war."

Lightning just looked away. "I...It's..." She tryed, "It's just that it's starting to get to me..."

"What is?" Rainbow asked looking at her puzzled.

Lightning looked back, a depressed look on her face, "The killing." She muttered before looking Rainbow in the eye, "Dash. We are some of the highest scoring fighter pilots of all time. I have shot down over three hundred planes. Don't tell me you don't think about those inside." She began to tear up a bit, "I'm responsible for killing them. Fathers, sons, Mothers, daughters, siblings. I killed them. WE killed them!" She burst out, before sobbing, "I know that its ours or theirs, I know that I have to! But I doesn't make me feel any better."

Dash simply looked away, unsure what to do. She had a small mental battle with herself, before muttering, "Fuck it." She turned and hugged Lighting. "It's OK LD. I know we've taken lives. But we're heroes." She said before pulling back and looking Lightning in the eye, "Don't think about those we've killed, think about those lives we've saved! We saved hundreds of ponies Dust. Hundreds!"

This brought a small smile to Lightnings face, "Yeah I guess we did didn't we."

Rainbow continued, "The two of us are the most skilled pilots in history! We can change the course of it Dust! Think about how many lives we can save! Bomber crews, tankers, and infantry!"

"Yeah!" Lighting said, brightening a bit.

"Who's the two best fighter pilots in history?" Rainbow said with a grin.

"We are!" Said Lightning.

"Damn right!" Rainbow exclaimed with a huge grin on her face, "Now lets head back. I hear their serving Pizza in the mess."

Lightning just grinned. "Race ya!" She exclaimed before flapping her wings and shooting off.

Rainbow just grinned at her friend's antics. "Hey no fair!" She exclaimed before shooting off after her wingpony.

Author's Note:

Map for you :P
I know what you're thinking. "But TRB, why would ponies have fighter jets? They have wings!"

Two and a half reasons in my headconon which is how the world works in this fic.
1. Speed. Fighter planes, even the older WW2 ones, are faster than the average pegasi. In this canon the average pegasus can do about 200km/h. Of course those with flight talents like RD, LD and Spitfire can do much more than that.
2. Weapons load. I don't know about you but I doubt a pegasus could carry 10,000lbs of high explosives and weaponry.
2 (and a half). Protection. A plane takes a fair amount of bullets to destroy. A single machine gun carried by a pegasus won't cut it.

Oh and yes I realize the Radio Discipline is not NATO standard. I'm doing that on purpose to make it slightly easier for everyone else. For instance: "Bolt 2-1 flight, this is Render 2-3. Bandits bullseye 243 for 60. Move to intercept."
Unless you are a huge wannabe fighter pilot like me, or a real fighter pilot, you probably aren't going to understand a thing of that. So I simplified things but kept it sounding professional: "Bolt two-one, Render. Bandits heading 243 at sixty kilometres, move to intercept."
Also the nice thing is instead of using the Imperial system like we do in real aviation (I still don't really know how far to look when tower tells me there's another plane 3 miles away) I can use metric. :P

And that last scene. I wrote it six times and it's still shit. Oh well. Can't get better at writing the occasional emotional scene without practice.

Comments

[ClosetKnight]

ahem...

[Cosmic Mind]

6561631

Somehow I knew this was coming

[Crescent Glaive]

Well, i'm hooked

[Crescent Glaive]

Now that i've been thinking.... that last scene is ver good. I can feel the emotion in it

[KittyrinnAiko]

I was thinking, maybe earth ponies invented airplanes, and that pegasus can't carry any form of heavy armament and hope to get off the ground. The benefit of having pegasus fly the planes is no parachute needed.

[Lt Rainbow Slash]

8690688
No parachutes, and (in my headcanon at least) higher G tolerances. Cause that just makes sense.

[Kitsune_Kenshi]

How are the WW2 ponies going to react to the jets?

NANI?!