Ignis Aurum Probat
Once-lush, the woodlands stood bleak and eerie, shrouded in a thick cloak of ash that had settled over it like a heavy fog. The vibrant hues of green and brown had been muted and subdued, replaced by a dull monochrome that seemed to stretch out endlessly in all directions. Trees which had once stood tall and proud, now bent and bowed under the weight of the ash. Branches reached out like skeletal fingers towards the sky. Leaves that had once rustled and whispered in the gentle breeze now lay still and silent, coated in a layer of grey so thick that they appeared to be made of ash themselves.
Even the forest floor, once covered in a soft carpet of moss and fallen leaves, was now a barren wasteland of blackened soil and ash. Gentle streams that had flowed through the forest had been choked by the ash, their once-clear waters turned murky and black. The air was thick and heavy. An acrid scent of burning sulphur seemed to permeate everything in sight. The only sounds were the occasional creaking of branches as they strained under the weight of the ash, or the eerie cry of birds lost and confused in the desolate landscape.
Two sleek hovering bikes zipped between the trees, each one emitting a high pitched hum as it glided over the terrain. Small downward-facing thrusters kicked up a thin cloud of the sickly ash as each bike zoomed along. The helmeted riders leant into each turn and dodged obstacles with precision. They still took extra care to make sure their passengers were secure in their seats. Somehow they maintained a rapid pace, despite the poor visibility caused by the grey fog descending from the sky. It was only thanks to the powerful headlights that they could see anything in their path.
“We’re nearly back in the city,” Rainbow Dash said to the pair of ponies astride her bike. “How you guys holding up back there?”
“Just a teeny bit shaken up,” replied a pale red mare, grinning from behind a transparent mask. “We’ll be okay.” Her partner, a slate gray unicorn, nodded in agreement.
“Darn tootin’” Applejack called out from the other bike. “It’d be mighty impolite of us to leave you fellers out there. Jus’ consider us a fancy taxi service, you hear?” The two ponies on her bike, a beige earth pony mare and a green unicorn stallion, laughed in trepidation at the notion.
Not ten minutes earlier, the group of four ponies being ferried to safety had been convinced that their deaths were imminent. Lost in endless miles of jungle. No sign of another living soul for hours. Then a distant boom none of them could explain, followed by what they had thought was snow. But it didn’t snow on tropical islands. Hearts sank as they had realised it was volcanic ash raining down on them. By the time the air was so thick they couldn’t see to the next tree, they had been ready to give up.
Lungs heaving as every breath choked them more and more, they’d collapsed under the largest tree they could find. In desperation, they’d gulped down the last of their water and ripped up their bags to create makeshift masks out of the tattered fabric. It didn’t seem to do much. All they could do was huddle together and hope for salvation. Fitful coughs, aching limbs, ash clinging to their pelts. It felt like Tartarus. Until a pair of lights began to emerge from the gloom.
Now the wind whipped through their manes, the air still weighed down by ash but somehow it felt less heavy. Every breath they took felt clearer and stronger, thanks to the oxygen masks. Grime still clung to every inch of them, and it would take a deep clean to feel free again. But they were on their way.
“Wonderbird One right ahead,” Rainbow Dash declared.
All heads immediately glanced forward for a better look. As the two bikes emerged through a gap in the trees, they started to race past benches and fences. The bikes began to slow down as they passed through a gate that separated the woodland trail from the car park for the visitors centre. In the middle of the car park sat a large blue rocket with a red nose cone, the underside illuminated by the open hatchway of its access ladder. The ash on the ground around it formed a perfect circle, showing exactly where the wake turbulence had scattered the dust during landing.
Both bikes hummed to a stop next to the starboard landing gear, and Rainbow Dash gestured to the access ladder as she hopped off her bike.
“Get them inside and strapped in for launch,” she instructed Applejack. “I’ll stow the bikes and check the intakes before we go.”
Applejack nodded, leading the four ponies towards the open hatch as Rainbow Dash tapped at the controls on her wrist-mounted display. With a hiss, a large cargo ramp descended out from the rearmost section of Wonderbird One’s fuselage. Rainbow Dash ran up the ramp, emerging moments later with a pair of winch cables. Working quickly, she attached one cable to each of the bikes, before tapping at her wrist control again. The cables withdrew, pulling each hoverbike up the ramp and into their docking stations. Once each had slotted into place with a satisfying clunk, Rainbow Dash checked that each of them had locked into place correctly.
If they came loose during supersonic flight, they could each do serious damage to the rocket, so this step was crucial. But true to Twilight Sparkle’s design, each bike was secure and docked. Both of their dashboard displays were lit up green to show their batteries were recharging.
Satisfied, Dash trotted back down the ramp, hopping off into the dust and instructing her computer to close the cargo door behind her. With a similar hiss, the ramp rose up and sealed itself back into the hull of the rocket. Moving with haste, Rainbow Dash flicked on the flashlight mounted to her helmet and checked the various air intakes on the craft.
When she and Applejack had been en-route, the ash in the air had caused her a great deal of worry. Despite the fact that Wonderbird One was designated as a rocket plane, it still had several sets of jet engines. Some were used for extra propulsion at supersonic speed, but crucially, some were used for hovering and vertical takeoff. Since jets are air-fed, the density of airbourne debris could cause them a lot of damage if ran for too long. Rainbow Dash had decided they would land Wonderbird One on arrival and conduct their search for the missing ponies on the ground.
This plan had been decided well in advance: the electromagnetic interference from the ash cloud above them had completely cut off their satellite communications. Wonderbird Five was out of reach. Harmony Island was unable to offer help. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were on their own.
“Our passengers are nice ‘n secure,” Applejack called out on the short-range radio link. It was still working, despite the interference. “How’s she lookin’, ‘One?”
“Good thing we used to run the leaves back home, ‘Two,” Rainbow Dash mused with a grin. “Looks like we were quick enough, there’s a bit of a dusting here but not enough to damage the engines. Once we clear out and get up to speed, should blow right off.”
“Copy that, startin’ her up.”
Above her head, Dash heard the jet engines start humming into life. After taking one last cursory glance around, she galloped over to the access ladder. Her hooves clanked on the metal rungs as she climbed up into the small cargo hold inside Wonderbird One’s hull. As expected, inside she found that Applejack had set up the emergency seating for the four passengers aboard. The seated ponies all watched as Rainbow Dash pulled the access ladder back into place and sealed the outer hatch.
”BRACE YERSELVES,” she heard Applejack shout from the cockpit.
Rainbow Dash barely had time to collect her thoughts when the force of the blast hit her. She felt like she had been hit by a truck, a sudden jolt that knocked her off her hooves. She tumbled to the floor, her body flung backward as if by an invisible hoof. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as she hit the metal floor, but it was nothing compared to the confusion and disorientation she felt wash over her.
For a moment Rainbow Dash lay there, dazed and disoriented. She struggled to catch her breath, her heart pounding in her chest. Around her, voices were shouting and crying, and the sounds of warning sirens filled the air. She became aware of flashing lights blaring through the small room. With gritted teeth, she pulled herself to her hooves, her tail twitching with the effort.
“Is… is anypony… hurt?” she asked between gasps, rubbing her shoulder.
Four terrified faces stared back at her. Each of the ponies had tears streaming down their cheeks. The unicorn mare was in hysterics, her partner desperately trying to console her. Dash tried to tune out her wailing as she turned to the other two. The earth pony mare could only manage a feeble shake of her head. None of them looked hurt, but she couldn’t stop to check any of them more closely. Rainbow Dash stumbled towards the cockpit, stepping into a scene of chaos. Applejack was tapping at the computer console in the co-pilot seat, trying to silence the various alarms and warnings. But that wasn’t what caught Dash’s attention.
When they’d been outside, it had been pitch black. But now bright sunlight filled the entire cockpit. Rainbow Dash’s helmet visor was quick to compensate, adjusting its tint to filter out the harsh light. As her vision cleared, Dash could look out the windscreen to see clear skies in every direction. She saw that she’d managed to land Wonderbird One facing the volcano that had been spewing ash and dust. In the darkness and haze it had been impossible to see, but now it was impossible to miss.
In initial images Rarity had transmitted of the eruption, it had been a gentle plume of ash rising upwards into the atmosphere. Now, it seemed to have gone up a few gears. With fresh vigour, a massive cloud of gases, ash and debris spewed in every direction from the summit of the mountain. It rolled down the slopes and barrelled through anything in its path. Boulders were being catapulted up into the sky like missiles in every direction. Fire and lightning seemed to roll with the cloud as it gathered speed. It was a pyroclastic flow, and Rainbow Dash knew nothing would stop it.
“What happened?” she asked Applejack as she leapt into the pilot seat, wincing at the pain in her shoulder.
“That sunuva-gun blew,” Applejack said, incredulous. “All ‘ah saw was a pressure wave rollin’ across the horizon. It hit us, knocked me silly. ‘Ah reckon it blew all the ash away too, hence the clear skies.”
”Clear skies suits me,” Dash grinned as she reached up to slowly pull her shoulder harness down. “Let’s get out of here.”
As Rainbow Dash eased forward on her thrusters, the hum of Wonderbird One’s jets filled the whole cabin. Purring into life, the turbines spun faster and faster. The rocket began to give the slightest tremble as the power reached a crescendo, and it began to rise upwards.
There was no time to react. A flash of a shadow in the upper of Rainbow Dash’s peripheral vision. A deafening boom. A creak and a shudder. More shrieking alarms and flashing lights. Wonderbird One, no more than ten feet up, fell back to the ground with a sickening thud.
“Whut in tarnation?” shouted Applejack as she tapped at her computers, once again trying to deal with the cacophony of alarms.
“We’ve been hit,” Dash said, maintaining her composure as she scanned her instruments. “Debris from the eruption. Get back and check out the hold, make sure everypony’s okay.”
Nodding, Applejack rose from her seat and left Rainbow Dash alone. The instruments were going haywire. Between external damage to the hull and a hydraulic leak from the landing gear suspension, there was some big repairs to be made when they got back to base. But then there was the kicker: fire alarms from the vertical thrusters. Dash selected her exterior cameras, flicking through them until she found the correct one.
Her ears drooped and her heart sank into her stomach. A small boulder, no bigger than one of Twilight’s books, had collided into the air intake for the vertical thrusters. The camera showed what had previously been a series of small vents that opened up from the rocket’s hull, now a glowing mass of shredded metal. No doubt that hull plating, rock and ash had been sucked through the air lines. The debris would have shredded the turbines and choked the thrusters until they stalled out and stopped.
Reluctantly, Rainbow Dash pulled the fire suppression lever for the thrusters, flooding them with foam. In normal circumstances this was a worst-case scenario, as doing so would render them unable to start. But these turbines would never start again either way. The best Dash could do was stop the fire spreading to the rest of her craft.
“S’all okay back there,” Applejack said, re-emerging through the door. “A smidge of smoke got ‘em a bit worked up, but ‘ah got the vents going an’ that calmed ‘em down.”
”Copy that. Buckle up, ‘Two” Rainbow Dash replied. “This is gonna be rough.”
As Applejack obediently sat down and pulled her shoulder harness over her head, Rainbow Dash flicked a set of switches on the centre console that she rarely used. The landing gear on Wonderbird One was normally configured so each gear touched down on skids. However each gear could be swapped to a set of conventional wheels, in case the rocket ever needed to move around without lifting off. It could even perform a rolling takeoff, if extreme circumstances called for it.
The rocket bumped slightly as the wheels lowered and locked into place. Applejack frowned as she noticed what Rainbow Dash had done. A fraction of a second passed by before comprehension dawned on her face. Her eyes wide and ears folded back Applejack turned her head to look at Rainbow Dash. She seemed to be making a silent plea to be told her suspicion was wrong.
”Afraid so,” Rainbow Dash said, inhaling deeply through her nose. “There’s no airfield on this island, but when we were landing I saw a wide boulevard a few blocks away. Track that cloud, give me a time window.”
“H’okay,” Applejack replied simply.
With grim resignation, Rainbow Dash nudged her thrusters forward. Wonderbird One began to roll, trundling along the tarmac still tinged with specks of grey dust. In her years with the Equestrian Air Force, Dash had grown to love the trepidation of taxiing towards a runway. The thrill of being thrown back into her chair by the launch was a rush that never failed to make her heart soar. This was something new entirely. Her Wonderbird was crippled, and she had to nurse it into the sky from a public road before fire and brimstone tore it apart.
It was no simple task to simply drive Wonderbird One from point A to point B either. Abandoned cars had previously sat at the side of the roads, but the shockwave of the eruption had sent some of the smaller ones flying. Anything that had been near a road and not secured to the ground had been similarly strewn. What was once clear streets was an obstacle course of dented car frames, toppled street lamps and power lines, shattered bins and benches, and even brickwork from older buildings. Every few seconds another piece of debris from the volcano would impact somewhere in front of them, leaving tiny craters in the road.
“Al’right,” Applejack declared as they approached a junction. “Kraken Island is ‘bout twenty eight miles from this island. ‘Ah’m trackin’ the... um… ya know, the cloud ‘a debris? ‘Ah’m tracking it about four hundred miles an hour.”
Rainbow Dash winced. “Four minutes,” she said solemnly, her ears twitching.
“Well, three now, been ‘bout a minute since she blew.” Applejack corrected.
There was no point dwelling on the situation, they literally didn’t have time to. Rainbow Dash glanced backwards out of her windscreen, checking that the swing wings on Wonderbird One were drawn back, before she made a turn onto a side street. The rocket must have looked comical, tenderly navigating its way through motionless traffic on the narrow street. Even tucked away as tightly as they would fold, its wingtips still clipped the tops of lampposts on either side of the road. All around them, pops and cracks sounded as more rock fragments landed through buildings and into the road.
There must have been a Chineighse restaurant on this particular street, because some way down a line of paper lanterns was strung between buildings. The lanterns themselves seemed to have fared well against the shockwave of the volcano erupting, some of them barely even looked damaged. However, they were strung just below the height of Wonderbird One’s nose cone, and the simple piece of string snapped as the rocket pushed past. The lanterns fell to the ground out of sight. Probably for the best, Rainbow Dash didn’t want them being sucked into the jet turbines.
“Two minutes,” Applejack said.
“It’s a pyroclastic flow, by the way,” Rainbow Dash replied, not shifting her eyes from the delicate task of manoeuvring the rocket.
Applejack looked up from her computer. “Whut?”
“The debris cloud. Py-ro-clas-tic flow. It’s what you call the gases and ash in that kind of eruption. You know, the way it rolls downhill.”
“...reallly Dash? Y’all think now is the best time ‘fer schoolin’ me?”
”Well I could pull over and give you a detailed breakdown if you’d like?”
“If’n ‘ah wanted that, ‘ah’d go ahead an’ give Miss Maud Pie a call.”
“Well if we’re quick, we can get some lunch before we head over and see her.”
Applejack couldn’t help but guffaw. “Y’know, even ‘ah can’t deny yer’ bedside manner is unmatched by anypony ‘ah can recall.”
“And I’m the best pilot in the world. Just in case we’re tallying the things in our favour.”
All Applejack could do was roll her eyes as Rainbow Dash made another turn to bring Wonderbird One onto the boulevard she’d spotted earlier. By now there was a noticeable tremor rising up from the ground through the rocket’s landing gear. Buildings either side of the road rattled and shook. Broken panes of glass tumbled to the ground from every empty space a window had previously sat. Rainbow Dash had never been in the path of a pyroclastic flow before, but it felt like she was stood in front of a herd of stampeding buffalo.
But there was a bigger problem. As Wonderbird One had lined up with the long road stretched out in front of it, Rainbow Dash became aware of two obstacles she hadn’t counted on. Firstly, there were far more abandoned cars on this road. They were littered everywhere. For as far as she could see, there wasn’t a single stretch of road where she’d have enough room to get to take-off speed. And secondly, at every intersection where the boulevard met with another side road, huge palm trees sat on each corner. While the trees wouldn’t pose a problem with the wings swept back, she’d have to take off without them at full width. They wouldn’t provide as much lift when stowed, so she’d have to lift off much faster.
Unless.
At a glance, she estimated the gaps between each set of palm trees to be roughly a quarter of a mile. If she could get up to speed and spread the wings while in-between junctions, she should be able to pull up in time. Two hundred and fifty knots, she knew she needed. She could do that.
At least, she hoped.
There were two problems, and at least she had a plan for tackling one of them. But she couldn’t get up to take-off speed for either wing configuration with so much traffic in the way. How could she clear so many at once? Unless she didn’t have to clear the entire road of vehicles in one go. What if she could sweep them aside as she passed by, like a snowplough?
“One minute,” Applejack said, her voice quivering as she cast a sideways glance at Rainbow Dash.
An idea occurred to Dash. She flicked a switch in the central console. A whirring noise emanated from right below the cockpit, lowering a large chrome cannon out of the fuselage. Looking like the halfway point between a gatling gun and a railgun, it had a number of different armaments. For now Rainbow Dash was only interested in its sonic cannon. Launching a localised pressure wave, it would hopefully have the same effect the shockwave from the eruption had on the abandoned cars.
Taking no chances Rainbow Dash turned it to full power, aimed it at a spot about one hundred feet directly in front of Wonderbird One, and fired. A dull thumping noise sounded and the craft lurched slightly. The effect was dramatic and instantaneous. Every car on that section of road launched itself away from the epicentre of the pressure wave as if they’d been fired from a cannon. Where moments ago had been a cluster of cars, now only sat clear road.
”On my word, keep firing that,” Dash said, gesturing Applejack towards the trigger.
Giving one last glance backwards to check her rocket was clear of debris and obstacles, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but notice the wall of darkness rising behind them. Black clouds rolling and writhing, sending out flashes of lightning and columns of fire as it surged relentlessly forward. The rain of debris seemed to be intensifying too, with grey columns of smoke shooting down several times a second all around them.
“Clear left,” she said.
Applejack turned her head away from Dash to check her side. “C-clear right.”
“Alright, start shooting, short bursts.”
With nothing else for it, Rainbow Dash eased forward on her thrusters as Applejack grabbed the cannon trigger. Wonderbird One surged forward as the gun hanging below the cockpit began firing bursts of pressure waves. Dash felt herself pushed back hard into her seat, her shoulder throbbing from the force. In the corner of her eye she saw Applejack brace herself against the momentum, her hoof not leaving the trigger for the cannon. Despite every fibre of her being telling her to push the thrusters to full power, Rainbow Dash didn’t dare. There was no way she’d keep her craft in a straight line if she unleashed the full thrust of the rockets. She had to gently ease it forward.
Despite her careful nudging of the controls, the rocket accelerated fast. Twenty knots. Fifty knots. Ninety knots. Speed rose exponentially as the jets roared with delight, finally unleashed to deliver their true power. The whine of the engines grew louder and louder, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of Applejack continuing to fire the sonic cannon. With every shot, obstacles on the road parted like curtains to allow the rocket to race past. Each dull thud was accompanied by the craft rocking slightly backwards, with the effect of it feeling like it was galloping along.
As they pushed past one hundred knots, Wonderbird One began to judder dramatically. Both Rainbow Dash and Applejack felt themselves start to bounce in their seats, with Dash bearing the brunt of her injured shoulder being pounded repeatedly into the harness holding her in place.
“What’s going on?” she shouted to Applejack.
”The cannon, she’s tearin’ up the street!”
Daring to take her eyes off the horizon for a moment, Dash glanced down. Eyes wide, she saw it was true. Already the tarmac was old and subjected to tropical heat and humidity, but the sonic cannon was too much. Each blast it took was causing it to crack and buckle. Chunks of asphalt began to break off and launch upwards, trailing thick chunks of debris that shattered against the front landing gear. Wonderbird One jolted and bounced over the increasingly jagged terrain. The cracks began to widen and potholes began to appear. If a tyre burst, they’d never get airborne. One hundred and fifty knots now, they were so close. But they weren’t accelerating as rapidly any more.
Yelping, Rainbow Dash pulled hard on her flight stick as the rocket suddenly veered hard to the left. Tyres screeched and the landing gear moaned against the sudden change in direction. A rapid succession of thunks from the port wing suggested that they’d clipped a few lampposts, but Dash was able to correct it. She couldn’t help but groan as they drew near to a cluster of palm trees at an intersection, but the wings passed by with inches to spare.
They accelerated gradually faster, the speed on Rainbow Dash’s flight display climbing inexorably upwards. Workload for a routine take-off was already immense, but this was something else entirely. All around them the sky grew darker as their stretch of road was cast further into shadow by the oncoming cloud of ash and flames. Dash was locked in a relentless battle with the flight stick, making constant inputs to fight the rocket’s attempts to veer away from its intended path. Her other hoof rested delicately on the thruster lever, millimetre by millimetre encouraging it forward. Enough to keep the speed rising, but not enough to cause her to lose control.
On her right, Applejack kept her hooves on the controls for the cannon, keeping up the barrage of pressure waves that cleared the traffic in front of them. The road ahead seemed to break and crumble more and more as they sped along faster, but Applejack didn’t relent.
Two hundred knots. They were nearly there.
“Sugarcube, we got trouble,” Applejack called out.
It took hearing this for Rainbow Dash to realise she’d fallen into a state of tunnel vision. The road ahead, and her speed. That was all she’d been focusing on. So she hadn’t spotted what was beyond the strip of tarmac. It couldn’t be more than a couple of miles away now, but they were closing that distance fast. Ahead of them, the road ended. A T-junction directed traffic either side of a large, ornate building with rows of columns at the front. By the flags hanging either side of the entryway, it looked like some kind of embassy or town hall. And it was right in their path.
They had only seconds until they crashed through it. Two hundred and ten knots, still not fast enough. Without enough speed, they’d never get enough lift in the wings. For all she knew, the port wing might not even generate enough lift after its collision with the lampposts just now. They’d never even lift off the ground without any kind of jump. The word ‘jump’ lingered in her head for a moment, as a jolt shot up her spine. They passed over yet another pothole as the road condition deteriorated.
Instantly she knew what to do. A genuine lightbulb moment. It was dangerous, stupid, borderline reckless. If it didn’t work, they were dead. But they were dead if they didn’t try it, and they only had moments left.
“On my word,” she said to Applejack, calmly and enunciating clearly. “Aim the cannon downwards and give it rapid-fire bursts.”
“Copy that,” Applejack replied.
With a deep breath, Rainbow Dash counted down in her head. The timing had to be perfect. As they hit two hundred and twenty knots, they passed another intersection. Another set of trees passed by in a blur.
“Now!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
At the exact same moment, Dash pulled back hard on her flight stick. The nose of Wonderbird One rose upwards, facing into the sky. Lower parts of the tail fin screamed out as metal dragged along tarmac, the rocket now racing forwards in a dramatic wheelie. Applejack obliged, pulling back on the trigger for the cannon again. It took a couple of seconds for the first pressure wave to charge and fire, but once it did, bursts of compressed energy shot out of the cannon in quick blur. Where the waves of energy impacted road, wide waves of cracks shot out in every direction like panes of glass shattering. Tarmac and concrete the full width of the road launched itself skyward, battering the underside of Wonderbird One. For a sickening few seconds, it continued charging forward. Rainbow Dash prayed.
Then, like she’d hoped, it happened. The crumbling road gave way to colossal potholes, into which both sets of rear landing gear fell. As the rocket bumped out the other side, the speed and angle caused it to launch itself skywards. One split second the occupants were forced down into their seats, the next they found themselves weightless and looking out over rooftops.
With lightning reflexes, Rainbow Dash pushed the wing lever to full width, and threw the rocket engines to maximum thrust. The entire world behind them seemed to explode as they were thrown backwards into their seats with inexplicable force. It was hard to tell if the noise was from the rocket engines or from the pyroclastic flow. But it didn’t matter. The world outside the cockpit windscreen turned to a blur as Wonderbird One launched forwards like a bullet from a gun. On her display screen, Rainbow Dash watched the speed counter go haywire as it climbed higher and higher. She took a moment to reach for the landing gear lever, retracting the wheels up into the fuselage.
Free from the confinements of the ground Wonderbird One soared faster and faster, the skies around it growing brighter as it climbed up and away from the ash cloud. As they pushed faster, Rainbow Dash watched as the air passing by the windscreen seemed to thicken. It distorted, rippling as sound waves began to form at the nose of the craft. With a mighty boom it broke through the sound barrier, the gathering air breaking apart as a white cloud of vapour took its place. Shock waves radiated outwards from Wonderbird One as it reached the coast. Dash eased off the thrusters and the roar of the rockets fell to a quiet hum as the craft soared through clearer skies. They passed over the shoreline, leaving the island and the volcano far behind.
“Don’t relax just yet, ‘Two,” Rainbow Dash instructed. “We got a wounded bird here, we’re gonna need somewhere to set her down. First things first, get back there and check on everypony. Make sure they’re all okay, things got pretty hairy for a minute back there.”
Applejack nodded, pushing her harness up and rising to her hooves. “Anything else?”
“Once we’re clear of the static interference, get a call in to Wonderbird Five. There’s an Air Force base a few hundred miles from here. We’ll need Twi to meet us there. Wonderbird One’s gonna need some patching up before we take her home.”
”Copy that,” she grinned, playfully batting Rainbow Dash’s helmet with her tail as she left the cockpit. “Nice flyin’ sugarcube.”
At a supersonic cruise, Dash could let Wonderbird One’s autopilot take over while she ran diagnostics. The landing gear had taken a battering, and there was some damage to the suspension and hydraulics. It could have been worse. They’d have to make a rolling landing at the Air Force base, but she hadn’t lost any of the tyres during take-off. Testament to Twilight’s engineering skills.
The further they flew, the more the static interference cleared up. By the time Applejack returned to the cockpit they had flown completely clear of any airborne ash. Rarity’s voice chimed in over the comms shortly after, requesting an update. A brief summary of everything was given. It was arranged that Pinkie would fly Wonderbird Two out to meet them at the Air Force base, Twilight Sparkle in tow. If they couldn’t fix Wonderbird One there, they’d be able to airlift it back.
As Applejack conversed with Rarity and Twilight, Rainbow Dash leant back in her seat, her shoulder still aching, but it didn’t feel as bad now. Decades ago, cockiness was one of her leading personality traits. It often bordered on obnoxious, her tendency for boasting. But as her head replayed the events that had just transpired, over and over, she couldn’t help grinning.
‘Even if I’m not the best pilot in the world,’ she thought. ‘I’d definitely give them a run for their money.’