A Method to his Madness

by Luna-tic Scientist

23 -- Loup-Garou

Waits Until Sunrise opened one eye halfway and looked disinterestedly at the rain-streaked window. Freaky weather we're having... wasn't it blue sky a minute ago? Perfect flying weather, if it wasn't for those damned Talons taking over. He pushed the thought away before it could destroy what little of the philosophical mood he’d managed to acquire.

Any chance of sleep ruined, Waits rolled over on his sleeping pad, idly running his talons along the half-healed scratch on his belly. All of his squadron, and the other three, all crammed into the single barracks roost, were in similar attitudes of repose. Most slept, compelled by boredom and confinement, to escape the close proximity of so many others. There had been fights, not at the start, but after it became obvious that the Talons would not be letting them out very soon, but the dominance order within the wings was already well established, and the extra training took the edge off those instincts.

I hope the rations are going to be more plentiful than yesterday, he thought, a little spike of worry washing away some of the boredom. Comrades or not, if that greedy bird takes more than her fair share, there's going to be trouble. Waits eyed the recumbent form of Breaker Of Bones, flight leader for the whole air wing, the bulk of her large frame rising and falling as she breathed. The goshawk-snow leopard was huge, and easily had a hundred kilos on him. Perhaps I should just do it now, while she's asleep...

The thought made Waits twitch, and he clicked his beak quietly, pushing away the suddenly fascinating idea. If you wait, and end up missing another meal, you'll just get weaker... best to do it now. The baser levels of his mind supplied the intimate details; flying in this space would just wake her up, so snake between the sleepers and get your beak around her throat before anyone is the wiser. Waits groaned, the noise making his wingmate open one sleepy eye. ...that's right, attack the flight leader; and the rest of her squadron will shred you, then yours will attack hers and we'll all be dog food.

"Just wait, Waits," the other gryphon murmured, his one exposed eye twitching with suppressed humour.

"Says the gryphon whose name just screams 'take a bath'. You never did get tired of that joke, did you?" Waits muttered, but Dusty Feathers was right. There is still time; as soon as the coup is over, they'll need experienced pilots again. As paranoid as the Talons are, they'll never want Whitetail to think it has a chance to roll us over. They obviously think something is going on, though. I wonder where they shipped all our planes?

Lightning strobed outside, flaring through the narrow window and sending sharp-edged and sinister shadows flickering across the ceiling. I think I'm glad to be locked in here; that does not look like fun flying weath--

There was the sudden, shrill warble of the 'scramble' alarm, a sound that had been specifically designed, or so the rumour went, to drill through the most exhausted gryphon's brain and send them into adrenaline overdrive. Waits Until Sunrise was on his paws and reaching for his flight bag, beak closing on empty air before he realised it had been confiscated like everything else he owned. Every other gryphon was similarly in motion, and the darkened room was a maelstrom of wings and flying feathers, as four times the normal number of pilots tried to get to the door.

Several small fights broke out, filling the air with threatening hisses and screeches, loud enough to overpower the siren. "Damn you all -- be still and silent!" Waits shouted, putting all the anger and frustration he'd built up over the last few days into his voice. His own squadron reacted as if electrocuted, the long hours of training making his the only voice they could hear, and froze on the spot. The sudden patch of calm spread, helped along by the efforts of the other squadron leaders, wading in with beak and scaly fists to break up the fights. Breaker caught his eye and nodded; Waits blinked, then nodded in return, remembering the temptation he had to murder her in her sleep.

The lights flicked on and, in the sudden silence, the sound of the doors being unbolted was shockingly loud. Every head turned in that direction, with the closest gryphons crouching, wings mantled and leg muscles tensed to spring. "Steady, don't give those trigger-happy goons an excuse." The deep voice of Breaker carried with it a lot of authority, and Waits found himself nodding along with the gryphoness' words, relaxing a little and retracting his hind claws where they had dug into the wooden flooring.

The doors thudded open and four of the Red Talon troopers burst in, forcing back the closest pilots with back-clawed slaps. They were in full riot armour, and electricity snapped and flashed at each contact, raising little plumes of smoke from singed plumage. There were no cries of pain, just the occasional hiss of anger as the gryphons pushed back, crowding their fellows.

The individual that strode in was shorter than average, but stocky and heavily muscled about the forelegs, looking a little like a hyena. That will be all that time spent swinging a club during interrogations, Waits thought, narrowing his eyes, beak opening slightly in an unconscious threat gesture, he should try a more balanced exercise program.

"What do you want, Render?" Breaker asked, pushing through the dense crowd like an icebreaker through a berg-choked fjord.

"I want you to do your jobs." Render looked around the room, eyes wide and unblinking. "The Equestrians are here."

"With what, bad language?! You idiots took all our aircraft, you fight them." Breaker laughed, a harsh sound that made Render hiss and the four nameless Talons take a step forwards.

"Oh, some of the aircraft are still here, but we have our own, trusted, pilots for them... but that doesn't mean that there's nothing for you, does it, air wing leader Breaker Of Bones?" Render's anger had suddenly vanished, and he smoothed raised head feathers down with one foreclaw.

The vicious pleasure in his voice made Breaker blink, suddenly uncertain. Waits' attention was drawn back to the window, and the distant flicker of lightning past the hammering rain. There's always the... Waits looked back at the Talon commander and cringed inside at the expression on the other gryphon's face. He cannot be serious...

"There's no way I'm letting any of my pilots--" Render made a flashing motion with one foreclaw, and the gun over the shoulder of the nearest Talon trooper cracked once. Breaker faltered, looking confused, then dipped her beak to touch the rapidly spreading red stain under the black and white feathers of her breast. Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees, hindquarters collapsing a moment later. "What..." She gave a groan, and would have fallen sideways if it weren't for the gryphons to either side of her lowering her to the ground.

"Still alive..." Render snapped his beak, the sound nearly as loud as the gunshot. "...you need more weapon practice, trooper."

"Sorry, Sir. Won't happen again, Sir." The Talon didn't sound anything more than bored, his eyes still scanning the tense crowd.

"We are at war. To refuse an order at this time is insubordination and, given the number of you, will be regarded as mutiny." Render's beak opened, not in threat, but in a smile.

That chick-rutting little piece of guano-- Waits hissed in involuntary fury, but it was fear that kept him frozen to the spot. ...but I know him; he'd do it. He glanced at Breaker; the gryphoness was panting, her sharp tongue extended and little pulses of blood dripping down her chest with each breath. How many have already died out there? No one will care about us. He met the eyes of the other two squadron commanders, then sighed. "Fine. Get a medic for Breaker and we'll all fly."

===

"Time to drone intercept sixty seconds... mark." Willow whispered, her voice flat and disinterested as she conducted her own particular and rarefied brand of warfare. "Starting to see leakage from the missile pack's network; isolating the frequency tables." There was a little pause. "The gryphon can see the pony."

Echelon's senses, a gestalt view assembled from the drones and all four Loup-Garou, showed the swarm of red glitter starting to break up, some of the missiles throttling back and dropping behind the bulk, while a few accelerated away. The leader's vector markers swung minutely, placing them on a heading towards the drones, the others...

"Celestia damn me!" Willow said in a strained whisper. "This isn't going to work." The remaining vectors had opened out like the spread of a taloned claw, expanding the missile's search envelope to include the tracks of all the Equestrian fighters. "Switching the drones to full active." Echelon's map display twitched as the electronic warfare pods on the ersatz fighters came alive, showing him a true map of the surroundings for the first time.

Positions, previously a diffuse haze of probability, narrowed down to precise pin-pricks, and he called up his own weapon systems, keying a pair of missiles for stealth launch. "Weapons live and in the launcher." A twitch relayed his intentions to the rest of the flight, but most of the other pilots had already reached that decision on their own.

Willow gave an unmare-like grunt of effort and the tingle of magic swept over Echelon from tail root to muzzle tip in wave that made his skin shiver. Red One gave its own shiver as, deep in the fighter's belly, a pair of Wren missiles were thrown from their magazines. They travelled on silent ballistic arcs, their dark hulls thermally matched to the ambient air, curving with subtle shifts in profile of their pliable, variable geometry noses, heading towards Red Two's drone.

Echelon watched them with a critical eye, then smiled, a tight little gesture as every single missile passed just under a drone, then lit their drives. Looks like a launch to me... now to see if those Slugfish are as easily pleased... Their Wrens accelerated violently, leaping towards the aerodynes. The trajectory passed close to that of the rapidly closing Slugfish, and several of the red vector lines abruptly swung around, then disappeared.

"Well, that's not on the spec sheet," Willow said, sounding mildly irritated, "I will have to have words with the Panopticon about that." Both Red One's Wrens vanished in the same instant, the data feeds from the other missiles in the little flock veering wildly as they swerved to avoid any further countermeasures.

"At least that's another couple we won't have to dodge." The little spots of light, still glowing in the infrared, expanded like tiny smoke rings, marking the demise of the missiles. Echelon popped Red One's autopilot into fully autonomous mode, then switched his armatures to the drone. Never did trust the computer... and this way I get a bit of practice. The feeling of weight and power associated with the Loup-Garou vanished, replaced by the far lighter and decidedly flimsy sensation of the drone's folding wings.

The first flight of Slugfish were upon them, and Echelon twisted violently, sending his counterfeit fighter into sharp corkscrew turn to slide between the pair of missiles heading for him. They turned sharply, vectors dancing in the spherical energy plot that sat in the corner of his vision, trying to find his position. They were agile things, and had dumped a large chunk of their forward velocity to better engage, throttling back as little airbrakes popped out from their hulls and thrust diverters slewed them around at frightening rates.

His tactical plot showed them as points of red light, each sitting at the tip of a wide pink cone, with a long tails straight down the centre. The tail was the vector, now rapidly shortening as the missile went into dogfight mode. They sought him out, lines waving wildly as the missiles cooperated to close off his escape routes. One vector abruptly lengthened and Echelon sent the drone into a screaming turn, narrowly avoiding the edge of cone, only to get caught with nowhere to go as the other did the same trick exactly in his path.

Twisting his wings violently and ignoring the warning vibration that marked the ragged edge of the flight envelope, Echelon's lips found the countermeasures dump toggle and flipped it, dumping the drone's limited active and passive ordnance all at once. Wide-spectrum flares flickered and flashed, lighting the valley walls, while clouds of active and passive chaff exploded into short-lived, exceptionally crude, renditions of a Loup-Garou's radar signature, filling the sky with hundreds of distorting images in the radio bands.

The vector-and-cone wobbled, as if the machine mind was hunting for some other solution to this problem of mass and momentum, then the leading edge of pink swept over the centre of the plot. Cameras went dead, then, an instant later, so did the flight linkage, sending odd twisting motions through the armatures, before Red One's computer put the pegasus back in control. Echelon blinked, then made an adjustment to his fighter's engine settings. The simulations don't really do them justice, do they?

"We have twenty-two Slugfish remaining; I'm going active in five," Willow said, her voice back to its inflectionless professionalism. "You have the physics, I've got the arcane."

"Roger that." A bank of arming lights and magazine indicators blinked into being along the left and right sides of his synthetic view, marking Willow's release of the mundane defensive weapons. That tingling sensation came back, and the steady cadence of the unicorn's breathing hitched and became strained. Vague, febrile glows danced along the nose of the Loup-Garou, some tiny fraction of the spellcraft amplifier's output latching on to the closest physical object. On the tactical plot, the forest of vector lines became chaotic, fanning out like a hedgehog suddenly curling into a ball, then realigning to put the fighters at their focus.

The fastest Slugfish had taken wide paths before curving back in, placing the fighters at the centre of a cup that grew rapidly lengthening spines. "Can't get a grip; too many and too fast," Willow gasped. In his synthetic view there was a flash, then another, little red lights flicking out in quick succession. "Got one." Willow was panting now, the sound loud in his ears.

Echelon grunted, then flicked on Red Ones's active countermeasures. All of Willow's hard work, coupled with that of the other weapon officers and the massed processing power of the four fighters and the now distant Friendship Express, poured out through the phased array plasma antennae that flashed into being along the Loup-Garou's flanks. Pulses in very specific patterns and at rapidly changing frequencies lashed the inbound missiles, hunting for that particular combination of settings that would let them reach in through the Slugfish's receivers and drown the computers that controlled them.

Beamforming focused all that energy onto the individual missiles, turning each into a little repeater for the complex radio signals. The directional receivers mounted on each missile, designed to reject foreign signals coming from any direction other than that of a legitimate member of the pack, could not distinguish the reflections from genuine. Overwhelmed, the shared data network collapsed, isolating each Slugfish and dramatically reducing its intelligence and sensor horizon.

The spined bowl lost some cohesion, vectors switching from one target to another, the missiles no longer able to share their targeting information and decisions about which were a priority. Echelon made a little, abbreviated nodding motion, scarcely more than a twitch, the only movement the padded head socket would allow and caressed the deployable munitions panel with his lips.

Five seconds before the expected terminal dash, he started firing.

The air around the little squadron flashed to solar brightness with broadband flares, an order of magnitude more powerful than that used by the drone decoys, and filled with strips of metallised plastic, ejected from high-speed cutters under his nose. Dynamically changing their length to best match the hostile spread-spectrum radars and scored with simple inductors and circuitry, the madly fluttering cloud didn't disperse, but was dragged along in Willow's amplified magic to form transient ghosts that looked for all the world like solid metal to the right radar receiver.

Echelon twisted, pulling the Loup-Garou around, the blood prevented from rushing to his hooves by the sudden, near painful, constriction of their padded sockets. The ghosts, ripped and tattered by the motion, gamely followed suit, failing and dispersing into fluttering silver as they went out of range, only to be replaced by other, fresher spectres. Blinding lasers, their tiny goniometer mirrors turning and vibrating at a tremendous rate, reached out for the missiles and lit then with lurid monochrome hues that spanned everything from the deep infrared to the vacuum ultraviolet, trying to distract them for just long enough to survive.

Within the needle nose of each Slugfish, behind an array of passive and active sensors that sought to thread a route through all the lies and deception to the things they'd been sent to kill, was a plain metal-capped plastic drum mounted on a clever lattice of rods packed with explosives. Not much explosive, and certainly nowhere near as much as was in the drum itself, but just enough to bend the lattice in very specific and repeatable ways, and at speeds that would dwarf any system made of gears and bearings.

A missile came within range of something it thought was real -- not contact, for such a thing was near impossible under these countermeasure-saturated conditions, but within a hundred metres of a ninety degree cone centred on its nose. Little charges fired, bending the lattice and slamming the plastic drum exactly where the target would be within the next fifty milliseconds. The missile then waited a fraction of a second, just long enough for the spin of its hull to move it just so, then triggered the main charge.

Shockwaves moved through the densified block of octanitrocubane at close to ten kilometres a second, distorting and shaping the thick layer of tantalum that formed the dimpled, concave lid of the drum, as if it was little more than soft plastic. Freed, the metal took the energy and folded into carefully planned fragments, each one a horn-length needle and boosted to twice the detonation velocity of the explosive that birthed them. They swept through the thin composite hull of their parent missile and rushed out into the world.

===

Chirr flinched as the fighter bucked twice, his wings straining against the armoured panels of his suit. Luna, if you get me out of this, I swear I'll never get on another aircraft for as long as I live. The sense of loss of control and entrapment was horribly strong, and Chirr ground his teeth together, trying to pay attention to the multitude of views and other, less identifiable, data cascading across his helmet's visor. How many times have these FOALs hung together like this? Strapped in the belly of some machine, just waiting for a bit of invisibly fast metal to come flicking through the hull and end their lives. He desperately wanted to ask the question, but to give voice to his fears, here among these ponies... Give me the night and a good fight, alone against a half dozen gryphons.

Gentle curves, almost like the rocking of waves as felt from some small ship, replaced the sudden, unnerving jolts, then the characteristic tingle of magic stole along his wingbones and up his spine. Powerful, like when he'd stood next to the Princess, but without the subtle rhythms of her arcane presence. Instead, this was regular, like being tickled by a machine.

"Brace, everypony. I'll eject us if we are hit." Trailblazer's voice was calm, as it always was, and Chirr grabbed a hold of it as an anchor amid the howl of engine noise. "Blevie, you do it if I can't."

"Yes, boss." The mare's voice was tight with excitement, like she was a coiled spring held under great pressure.

I'm glad you don't have the primary release... otherwise I'll be flying at the next loud noise. The thought made him smile, and Chirr made a conscious effort to relax. The next burst of acceleration caught him by surprise, a sudden intense pull through the frogs of his hooves that made the helmet display seem to lose colour and fade inwards from the edges. The armour suspension straps, wide padded things lined with dense microfibers that were as soft as the fur on a foal's belly, suddenly became steel cables cutting into his flesh. His armour suit creaked alarmingly, settling under the load and pressing heavily against his back.

The air woofed out of his lungs and all his efforts wouldn't get it back in again, the world of sight shrinking to a grey-lined tunnel with only darkness at the end, hearing starting to fill with the harsh jangling of tinnitus. There was a crack, loud even through the blood-loss induced deafness and helmet filters, then the lethal forces vanished, replaced by a violent seesaw that had his helmeted head slam into the side walls of the cargo pod.

"Nightmare take me for her harem!" he gasped, inhaling a great, wheezing lungful of air. The rapid motion died away, but the normally rock-solid smoothness of the Loup-Garou's flight was filled with odd little vibrations, as of machinery running too hard or too long without maintenance.

"Isn't that one of the things in the chiropt afterlife legends? Something about a hidden delight? I'd have thought you want--" Bleve's voice was strained, as if the mare had just run fifty kilometres with a heavy pack, but the edge of mischief was still there.

"That's enough, Bleve," Trailblazer snapped. "Echelon, report."

"Sorry, Captain, things got a little tricky for a moment. I've lost a chunk of the port-side wing and I've no thrust vectoring to speak of, but Red One is a tough bird and she's rebuilding her flight surfaces right now... or at least Willow is." The pilot's voice was still carefree but, like the fighter, held a note of roughness. "I hope you have a plan B, Captain," he said, voice becoming a little more ragged still, "because Green One got hit."

There was a moment of silence, then Trailblazer spoke again, sounding tired. "I'm sorry. Survivors?"

"No beacon from Green One, but I've dropped a relay to scan for portable sets... it's a rare hit that gets everypony."

Green One was carrying the other FOAL team. Chirr tensed, his stomach contracting. I never knew those ponies, and now they are gone. "What's the fallback -- do we still go in?" The instant he asked the question, Chirr knew he was being stupid. Of course they would go in; it was unthinkable not to. "I mean, still through the front," he amended hastily.

"Well, unless Luna has given you the ability to slip through fifty metres of rock, yes, it will still be the front door." Nightstorm said.

Chirr winced at the unicorn's tone, resisting the urge to snap back. I guess nothing has really changed... seven ponies or four, I can't really believe it will make that much difference if his Lordship is in residence. The sounds of the other ponies' breathing went quiet for a few seconds, then came back. Did they just cut me out of the comms circuit?

There was a sigh, his suit's adaptive sound system placing it accurately, so the natural seek and search of his ears could localise it as coming from just ahead. "Sorry, Sergeant Chirr, that was uncalled for. I got on well with Scoria," Night said.

"I only met Scoria at the briefing, but if she's half as tough as you ponies, I'm sure it would take more than a missile to stop her." Chirr paused, his ears drooping. "I'm sorry too."

"I hate to interrupt this little bonding session, but we're coming up on the drop point. Scope is clear of anything big, but there are a number of small fliers that might be gryphons, if they weren't so hot. Any update, Willow?" Echelon's voice had regained most of its composure, so Chirr forgave him the gallows humour.

"The port array took a hit at the same time the wing did, and I can't spare the time to get it up and running again. Clairvoyance is useless in this weather; can't see anything but water in all directions." The mare was obviously distracted; little grunts of effort broke up the flow of her words.

"There you have it, ponies. The drop will be hot; Willow has suppressed the antiair on the valley walls, so you'll have plenty of cover. Okay," he said, suddenly business-like, "IP in twenty seconds... mark."

"Roger that," Trailblazer replied. "This is it, fillies and colts, time to go. Chirr -- follow us down and don't get separated."

"Yes, Captain." Chirr did one last check of his arcane shocker, a stubby, prismatic crystal of a spellcraft device that sat along his helmet's sensor crest, and was designed to do anything from electrocute to flash-fry a target, then pinged the two exoweapons perched on his shoulders. They responded with little flashes of light announcing their readiness, and snuggled closer, wrapping their spidery legs around his barrel and between his forelegs. He glanced sideways and tried to catch a glimpse of the semiautonomous machines, made slightly nervous by the unfamiliar grip and feeling like he'd been trussed up like a fly, ready to be sucked dry.

The timer in his helmet gave three bleeps. Chirr inhaled deeply and let his legs go limp. Two bleeps. Wings flexed and mantled under the carapace armour, the muscles twitching with the urgency to fly. One beep. The belly of the pod snapped open, so fast that it had to have been explosively driven, showing a howling maelstrom of rain and rock passing far, far too close. The mountain fell away into darkness, the valley floor beyond even his augmented vision, and Chirr was thrown into the teeth of the hurricane.

Comments

[Cedric Bale]

"Nightmare take me for her harem!" he gasped, inhaling a great, wheezing lungful of air.

I wish Luna'd somehow overheard that, I'd've loved to see her face.

[KMCA]

10037792
Redder than Celestia at dawn... uhh, the star not the pony.

[Cozy Mark IV]

Wow, you can really write a wild ride : )

[Blaster M]

What time is it? Hot drop o'clock

[Sir Mediocre]

Huh. A superplastic hypervelocity needle-spewing shot cannon.

Like a a few hundred HEAT warheads stuffed in a barrel.

For those who are unfamiliar, a High-Explosive Anti-Tank round is the kind of weapon that will punch through metal armor and spall the interior of the vehicle. As described in this chapter, it uses a shaped charge to create tremendous pressure on a metallic or crystalline mass in the center of the charge. The pressure and shape of the explosive blast combine to force the metal into a superplastic state as it is propelled away from the warhead, which causes it to form a long, thin needle while at the same time attaining velocities that are typically found among objects in low orbit.

This causes a Very Bad Day for anything it hits.

The best ways to defend against it is by having composite or non-homogeneous armor in the way, or explosive-reactive plates or point-defense guns in place to detonate them prematurely. The superplastic projectile itself penetrates metal armor through sheer kinetic force, but deforms quickly upon firing, yielding an extremely limited effective range. ERA plates explode when struck by, for example, the tip of an RPG, which detonates the charge a short distance away from the actual armor, allowing it to sustain minimal damage from a projectile that has spread apart and deformed significantly before impacting.

Although, that's with a 20th century Earth warhead. Given a few centuries of equivalence of technological development in material sciences, they might be just as effective at one hundred meters from the detonation point as at ten centimeters.

[Luna-tic Scientist]

10038942
This story let's me get my high tech fix! Magic's all well and good, but...
10041201
Yeah, the same process as shaped charge jet formation, except optimised to put a larger mass on target. The range is quite a bit greater, but the velocity lower (still very high, though!). More sophisticated than the ones we have at the moment, but the idea is the same. Explosively formed projectiles.

Defence is tricky, doubly so when you are talking about putting armour on an aircraft.

[Sir Mediocre]

10041856
Obviously, they haven't invented the battle screen yet.

[krakentoa]

Twisting his wings violently and ignoring the warning vibration that marked the ragged edge of the flight envelope, Echelon's lips found the countermeasures dump toggle and flipped it, dumping the drone's limited active and passive ordnance all at once.

By flight envelope, do you mean the range of motions(coordinates and momentum) that the drone could withstand, or the range of motions the remote linkage could take as input before hitting mechanical transducer limits?

[Luna-tic Scientist]

10044485
Yes, the area on the speed/altitude plot within which the drone can keep flying. The wing armatures are fly by wire, so the vibrations are a warning that something unrecoverable is going to happen (like the 'stick shaker' stall warning on big aircraft).