On a Wing and a Prayer

by White Comet

Chapter 4: With a bit of luck...

Barber stood up from his position on the plane, map in hoof. He walked over to the other side to get a better look at where they were. The cloud cover wasn’t on their side, but he managed to make it work using the rough notes he had been given for recon. He might know Equestria like the back of his hoof, but he’d never in his long life ventured over the border into the Changeling lands.

Using the landmarks, he made a guess of their current position and marked it on the map with a pencil, drawing a circle. He trotted down the plane towards where Kobalt and Spark were sitting. Kobalt was facing the interior wall, eyes glued on the instrument cluster. Barber gave him a tap on the shoulder to grab his attention and showed him the map. Barber being unplugged from the radio, Kobalt knew that he wouldn’t be able to hear, so just nodded in acknowledgement.

Sitting directly in front and slightly higher than Kobalt, Spark has eyes on the skies, piloting the plane. Barber climbed onto a support pillar, which got Spark’s attention. Barber presented the map. After taking in their position and time to target, Spark nodded.

Barber moved further down towards the front of the plane where he found Astute in the bomb aiming position. After grabbing his attention, Astute also looked at the map and nodded.

Barber moved back down the plane to his station, where he reconnected to the radio, making a slight crackling in his headset when he did. At least he didn’t miss much, the radio was deadly silent. He didn’t doubt that everypony was on edge, including himself. It was their first-ever live mission. Everypony either wanted to not screw up or not die. Depending on who he asked, each of those would have different priorities.

He pulled up a picture of their target, a black and white aerial photo of an oil refinery. From the reports he had heard, the Changelings were driving into Equestria very aggressively, making fair use of the speed advantages provided by their tanks and other motorised forms of transport. However, that didn’t come without its disadvantages; tanks and trucks require fuel to move. The strategy was clear; disrupt their supply lines to slow their advance.

“On final approach,” The squadron leader called over the radio, each plane in the formation beginning to bank to the right.

“Opening bomb bay doors,” Astute added for Spark’s knowledge. He rested his eye on the bombsight but was only greeted with patches of white fluff. “Damn clouds…”

“Summers over, Astute,” Snapshot called out, keeping her eyes peeled on the sky.

“Bandits inbound, seven O’clock high!” Another pony from a different plane called over the radio.

Snapshot immediately flicked her head in that direction. She operated the controls for the upper turret to move it around. She saw the reflections of some planes heading towards them, at least a dozen. She squinted, trying to get a better look. As they got closer, she recognised the unmistakable yellow nose of a Swarm One O’nine. “Look alive, brother of mine!” She called to Slingshot.

“I see them,” Slingshot replied, getting his gun as far over as he could.

When the fighters were in range, the bullets came whistling through the formation. The favour was immediately returned by their own gunfire. The sound of several machine guns unleashing on the Swarm of enemy fighters easily outclassed the engine noise.

Kobalt kept his eyes peeled on all the gauges representing hydraulic pressure to the turrets. If they got stuck, they were in trouble…

“Target in sight!” Astute called over the radio, “Calculating solution. Keep her steady, Sparky.”

“Tell that to the Bugs, I’ll do my best,” Sparky replied. He took a few seconds to look around at the fighters using typical hit and run tactics to attempt to intercept them. They didn’t like to hang around for too long as they knew that staying in one place for too long would make them easy targets for the Equestrian bombers’ machine guns. Spark had a quick look around his aircraft. Or rather, what he could see of it from his seat. They had got lucky so far with no hits, but he could see some of the other planes in his formation weren’t so fortunate, with various fluids trailing from some of them.

Slingshot quickly yanked the controls of his gun when he saw a fighter approaching from behind and underneath. He pulled the trigger right at the same time and their bullets crossed in midair. The shots made various pings and bangs against the fuselage of the Mystic Mare, but Slingshot saw that they had come better off from that engagement as the nose of the One O’nine caught fire. “Bandit down!” He called over the radio, watching it slowly losing altitude. The canopy blew off, and a small black figure lept from it.

“Dammit, you beat me to first kill!” Snapshot replied.

“Do I get a prize?” Slingshot replied back, jokingly.

“Your prize is survival if you can keep those fighters off our back!” Spark butted in. “Kobalt, any damage from those bullets?”

“Systems are fine, damage is probably superficial,” Kobalt answered.

Despite all the shaking, Astute kept his eyes peeled on the target; the fuel refinery. It’s tall towers extending high up in the sky. Not for much longer…all he had to do was wait for the indicators to cross over. Since it was right next to his head, he could hear the mechanical calculator slowly ticking down to the release. They were almost there. Just a little...more…

“Bombs away!” Astute declared, pulling the release lever hard.

The rest of the formation also dropped its bombs in somewhat unison over the target. Slingshot might have got a good view as they flew over if he weren’t so busy trying to keep enemy fighters from blowing holes in them. Those twenty-millimetre cannons did some severe damage when they hit their mark…

The planes banked around to fly back to Equestria. The cloud cover really didn’t help their accuracy, but they made the best out of the situation.

Flying back towards Equestria, they soon enough got in range of Equestrian and Crystal Empire fighters. The Hurricanes gave the Changeling One O’nines something to think about, drawing their attention away from the bombers before they eventually broke off their attack altogether.

Starting to recognise landmarks, Sparky breathed a sigh of relief and lifted his flight goggles up briefly to give his eyes a rub. “I think that went alright for a first mission,” he commented.

“No casualties is always a good start,” Astute agreed. “Shame the same couldn’t be said about our mares and stallions on the ground…”

“The Crystal Mountains must be giving those Changeling tanks a tough time at least,” Melody commented, “I imagine those things aren’t easy to navigate through windy mountain roads.”

“They won’t be easy to navigate anywhere without any fuel,” Sparky commented, earning a few chuckles.

Despite a few bombers leaking fuel, oil, coolant, or a mixture of all three, all the planes made it back to the airfield. When it was his turn, Sparky brought the plane down onto the runway and parked it up at the spot designated by the ground crew. Killing the engines, he rested back in his seat and released a long sigh as he pulled his oxygen mask off. He rolled out of the seat and fell onto his hooves, seeing Kobalt pulling his mask off in the flight engineers position. “How's it looking Kobalt?”

“No systems damage I can see, most likely just holes in the fuselage,” Kobalt replied, standing up.

“We making cider bets on my accuracy again?” Astute joked, walking through the plane.

“Pfft, if anything, you owe Sling one for downing our first plane,” Snapshot butted in as she dropped down from the turret position.

“I guess we do,” Sparky chuckled, heading towards the back of the plane where the door was.

The hatch opened, and all of them jumped out onto the grass below. Kobalt pulled his goggles up onto his forehead and immediately broke off to go talk to the mechanics that were approaching. “We took a few hits, but it seems mostly fuselage. Patch it up then inspect the hydraulic--”

“Sorry sir,” the closest mechanic butted in, “We’re under strict orders to do essential repairs only, your next sortie is in a few hours.”

“A few hours?!” Spark exclaimed, overhearing the conversation, “We’ve only just come down!”

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” The mechanic shrugged before turning to his team. “Alright boys, start on the port wing and work across,” he instructed as they all descended onto the plane.

“So much for that cider…” Snapshot pouted.

Spark sighed, “I guess…” he turned to walk towards the operations building, his team following behind him. He didn’t like it, but he had a feeling this was about to become their new normal. And given the way the Changelings were currently pushing them back, he had a feeling it would be this way for a while...a few hours barely gave him time to think, let alone rest…

Author's Note:

Well that was a close call for the crew of the Mystic Mare. Looks like things are really going to be heating up for them now. Can they handle the heat?

The previous chapter came up kinda short. I thought about adding this one onto it, but it made more sense for me to make them into separate chapters, otherwise the pacing just seemed too jarring for me.

Thanks for reading, constructive feedback always welcome!

Comments

[shining paladin]

awesome chapter me friend keep it up