I'm sitting, stomping my front hooves. actually I'm tapping them really quickly on the floor. I feel more than a little nervous, Blaze and Cipher are both on the radio right now, listening to flash traffic, Sugarberry and Ballad are pacing back and forth.

“General, I know what I’m asking. You need to tell the Joint Chiefs that this wasn’t an attack.” The LT said, “Look I can’t explain exactly what it was or who did it for sure, but it was NOT an attack.” The LT looks over at Blaze covering the mouth piece of the phone, “I blame you for this. She’s your daughter... WHAT? No I can’t give you evidence. No I don’t know why it was done, maybe it was a test, maybe a prank, whatever it was meant as it wasn’t an attack.”

I look up at the LT, “Uncredited intelligence, it was domestic.”

“Tell them it was domestic, uncredited intelligence sources, we need time to track the source. If there are no further attacks within 24 hours, yeah I know, but it’s better than SPF 10,000.” The LT hung up the phone turning to face me.

I gulp big time, “As long as they have time to calm down and think, they will pull back, are we still on Callout?”

The LT points at Blaze, “His daughter nearly starts world war 3 and you’re worried about going to base? And why couldn’t I just tell them it was his daughter?”

“LT, if they thought it was a pegasus that did that they would be rounding up any and every pegasus they could find. I don’t want to be put in a concentration camp because they think we are at threat or that they can’t trust any pony.” I say still thumping my hooves nervously.

The LT grumbled, “If it was for anyone but you. I trust you and Blaze. Some in the military will realize it was a rainboom but with no evidence it won’t carry. I’d like to know what was going through that pegasi’s mind though. Is it pegasuses or pegasi’s? Whatever, just…”

I hug the LT tightly. “Thanks LT.”

“No hugging your commanding officer.” He says with a chuckle, but he hugs me back and ruffles my mane.

Letting go, I back up and looked at the girls, then back at the LT, taking a breath. “So what’s the call?”

“Priority transport for commanding officers and essential personnel, our squad is currently considered security personnel for a training detachment.” He says “Current orders are to maintain security, and continue training.”

I blink a few times, “You know, any other time I’d start laughing, that military lingo for you being our baby sitters. The problem is, with that near miss on war, Army of God, and everything else, I think babysitting duty is actually needed. At least were not civilians.”

Henry looked over “Oh god, remember when we had to do security duty in Afghanistan for those world health jerks.”

I groan, covering my muzzle with a foreleg “Don’t remind me,” Whining, I say “Why do we have to walk, why can’t we just take the jeep?”

Blaze looks back over and laughs, “When are we going to get to the town, I’m hungry and have to use the bathroom.”

Jay laughed, “I still say that was punishment.”

“For whom, them or us?” Henry just shakes his head.

“Ok, the bathrooms mine for the next hour.” I say as I get up.

“An hour, that’s long even for you,” Blaze said, “What are you planning on doing…”

Ah-Pee turned her rear towards Blaze and was making an obvious effort to brace her forelegs in preparation to buck him if he finishes that sentence.

I giggle, “Training the girls, it will be good practice.”

Turning to the three unicorns I stomp my hoof again on the floor, “Move those tails, or get them shaved, hup hup hup…”

The LT chuckles, shaking his head as I picked up the rear, flicking my tail once as I head up the stairs.

“Now this is going to be really different, because holding liquids like shampoo with your magic is really strange and somewhat hard, so loofah’s are going to be your best friend, you are going to want three of them because it’s easier to pour shampoo or body wash onto a loofah or cloth, and use magic on that rub the soap around, rather than trying to rub the water and soap around.” This is all stuff I had figured out, but I needed to let the girls to get the hang of it, so they had to take turns showering.

I wait in the bathroom, but let them keep the shower curtains closed, I'm just here to answer questions or give suggestions. At the same time I remind them t ensure the cleaning of their hooves, as well as the dog shake trick to get the bulk of the water off first, finally when each is done I have them clean the shower with their magic for the next girl. Important note, make sure the curtain is fully closed before the shake, or they have to clean the walls too.

Had I actually thought about it, I might have freaked out, being in the bathroom with girls showering, but to me I was actually just teaching, and more concerned that they didn’t get hurt, hurt themselves, or blow up the house.

Once everyone was dried, brushed, and dressed again I smiled, “So, we are not even close to finishing our training yet, but I have to ask, do you think with what you know right now, with what you can do right now, that you could live without support?”

Cipher nods, “Heck yeah, with practice I should be able to do as well as magic as I could with hands, maybe even better.”

Ballad sighs a bit, “Maybe, I mean I could take care of myself, but things like operating a crane or back hoe, or driving.”

“Driving course is later today, you can drive with magic.” I say, and watch their faces light up. “Sugarberry, how about you, I know you had problems with being a unicorn, how about now?”

“I was worried about it, but seeing you, learning my magic, I think I can do it.” She said.

Blushing a bit, I scuff my hoof on the floor, “Seeing me?”

She nods, “Your confident, comfortable, and you seem so natural with it.”

I blink a few times, feeling my face flush even more, “Umm trust me, no, I have had more freak outs, screams and problems, trust me, you girls are doing better than I did. Next up though, is Ah-Pee, not everything is about magic, she’s going to teach you how to handle basic pony needs, like hoof care and…” blushing I turn, “Ah-Pee your up.”

“I got it from here, find yourself a place to hide Twilight.”

As quickly as my hooves can carry me, I head downstairs, skidding to a stop I look at the LT, “Ok, they're in Ah-Pee’s hooves now.”

“What Ah-Pee teaching?” The LT says, looking down at me, “Thought they were here for magic training.”

“To improve their quality of life,” I say looking upstairs, “She’s covering hoof care and… um… mare things.” I once again scuff my hoof on the floor in response.

“So, why are you down here?” He asks.

“Because they are going to be talking about… never mind.” I say, once again, my face is heating.

“Oh, I get it, I actually had to sit through a class on feminine hygiene in the field during officer training, and they wanted us to know in case we had women in our unit. I wasn’t a Ranger LT than, this was just general for all officers. To me I just filed it away as stuff I might need to know if ever I have a daughter.”

Putting his hand behind an ear he starts softly scratching, “It must be terrifying for them.”

“Why would it be? They’ve always been girls.” I say, looking up at him.

“Always being a girl doesn’t prepare you for things, remember how scared Ballad looked when she first got here? Or sad Sugarberry looked? In many ways they are all foals again, just learning their first magic spells, learning to do things as if they were blank flanks. Everything is new to them, they are a new species and don’t know what to expect. Essentially they are growing up all over again in a short time.”

“Yeah but they already know about that stuff.” I say as I close my eyes leaning into the scratching.

“Nope, they know about human, not about ponies, they can only guess and fear the worst. Ah-Pee is probably the only with firsthand… first hoof… meh, I’m human, firsthand knowledge of what the effects are and that even is limited to horses. So she might be just as scared as you.”

“Ah-Pee, scared?” I chuckle. "Yeah, right."

“Hey, fear is fear. We’ve all seen it, all felt it. The difference is, do you run and hide, do you stand your ground, or do you push on and attack.” The LT says and stops scratching.

“Difference between us and GI’s, we push on. Better to take the fight to them, than to let them control the battle.” I say. “Rangers ho?”

Looking down the LT simply nods “Rangers ho.”

Taking a deep breath I go upstairs again, and tap on the bedroom door.

Ah-Pee opens it smiling at first, then she blinks a few times at me, “You don’t have to be here for this part. We’ve already covered some of it with just you and me.”

“I know, but I should still be here, no one is 100 percent sure of what’s going to happen or what our heats will really be like. It’s going to be new to all of us girls.”

Ah-Pee blinks, then smiles, hugging me tight, and quietly whispers, “Good girl.”

*** Yiska***

I passed back and forth looking at the wall charger, “Damn it, how long does it take that thing to get a full charge.”

Henry chuckles “I don’t know but it holds a charge for a good long time, you forgot to plug it in last night didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to get like, swap out batteries for that transponder, just for cases like this. With us at defcon-2 if I even got 50 feet off the ground I’d probably have a missile coming at me.” I huff.

“Grounded because of lack of a battery.” Henry just laughs.

“Well at least the drone pack is charged. Hey wait a sec, doesn’t the drone pack have a USB port?” I say perking up.

“Yep, for downloading memory storage.” Henry is continuing to chuckle.

“So all I need to do is to plug a USB cable into my camera battery pack, run the cable to my transponder, plugging it into the micro USB port there, and I can run it off that battery.” I perk up, feeling proud.

“Yep, too bad we don’t have a USB to Micro USB cable.” Henry pats my head.

With a swing of my foreleg I cheerfully speak up, “Exactly. And it would be just as simple to buy more battery packs, as it would to buy a cable for this one time.”

“Eeyup.”

“Man this got messed up fast, what was Dash thinking?” I huff again.

“Oh that’s simple, that she couldn’t sit around and do nothing, and had to do something to get the ponies attention.” Henry sits back on the sofa.

“What makes you say that?” I say, blinking at him.

“Simple, she’s a pegasus, and your daughter. Meaning she probably can’t stand to sit still, and wait for a battery to charge.”

Blinking, I looked at the ground and huff, dropping back down and folding my wings to my side I scowl at Henry. “Yeah you’re right, I guess it’s a pegasus itch. We have to act and sometimes without a full plan.”

“I guess that’s why you have unicorns, to think first without acting.” Henry says and laughs.

“Ouch... No burning Twilight when she’s not here to defend her race.” I laugh, shaking my head, “Though sometimes I think Twilight has a little bit of pegasus in her, she uses magic without thinking sometimes too.”

“Yep, she can be featherbrained too.” Henry said laughing and bonks my head lightly.

“You’re just jealous you can’t match this much awesome!” I say going into a Blaze pose.

Henry smacks my flank causing me to jump, “Heeya mule.”

Trotting away I huff, “Hairless monkeys.” Unplugging the charger I put the transponder on my foreleg. Turning I snap my tail at Henry and head up to the roof.

It takes me a few seconds without help to get the ear headset on I must have looked silly holding the clip open with both hooves then tilting my head and ear till it was in the right place, but it works. Sitting up I am finally able to dial the switchboard at Nellis Air Force Base.

“Hi could you put me through to flight ops? Thank you, I’ll hold.”

I lay back on the roof using the chimney as a backstop and relax, it’s a nice day out, a few clouds, but lots of clear sky, no storm fronts around and I don’t expect any for a few hours. So the roof is a nice place to rest.

“Flight Ops, Captain Nelson speaking.” I hear the voice come over the ear piece.

“Hi, this is Corporal Yiska Christian, this is probably going to be the stupidest question you’ve got today but, how would I go about flying a flight plan, normally I’ve been told I don’t need to.”

“Really, how long have you been flying?” He sounds confused by my words.

“Oh, about a week and a half, was supposed to get a crash course in transponders and such, but with all that’s going on, that’s become low priority.”

“Right…. What’s your license number… if you have a transponder you have a license number.” He says slowly.

“Oh um,” I start flipping my transponder around, looking, then I find a number on the flap “1-NP990003X. I was told to use squawk 0001.”

“Right, that’s not even close to a… the heck… 1-NP990003X call sign Rainbow Blaze, no radio available.”

“Yep that sounds like me. Given the Defcon-2 status I figured flight plans would be a good idea.”

“Yeah give me a sec, hybrid military civilian call sign, only assigned to special squawk band transmitters?”

“Yeah it’s this Velcro strap with a transmitter on it and bunch of keys. Gives you airspeed, heading, altitude, and such, but it doesn’t have anything on it for filing flight paths.”

“Look, you should have been given courses in this by your flight instructor.” He's starting to sound more than a little annoyed.

“Never had one, ok this is getting silly, sorry sir, I’ll be heading into Nellis, umm I’ll keep it low, about 500 feet or so, if you want to let the AWACS know. I'll bet they are jumpy enough.” Hanging up, I flap down “LT I’m going to head over to Nellis for a bit, checkup on some things and see if I can get a field manual on how to file flight paths as well as the squawk codes.”

“Be careful, don’t get your tail shot off.” The LT says, reading the paper. Of all of us he seems to be the only one getting real R&R.

Shooting up into the air I level off around 650 feet and begin accelerating, I figure if I keep my speed down to about 300 or 400 knots I wouldn’t drive people nuts, besides, high subsonics are hard to do at low altitudes.

I find myself checking my transponder a few times, just worried the batteries would run out on it, but I'm fine. I figured I’d showed up on someone’s radar though, because a BIG bird drops down to about 5,000 feet behind me, I've seen F-16’s close up before, but this thing looks evil. It has the classic wing shape of an F-15, except its tail fins are canted, and currently its missile bay doors on the side of the air intakes are open.

Very slowly I raise my altitude to his flight level and let myself fall back to his wing. I watch his bay doors close as he checks me over. I give him a salute, and get one in return as he pulls back on his stick and goes vertical. There is no way I'm going to race that thing.

Holding steady at 5,000 feet I head for the base. Eventually landing at the guard post outside the main gates. Trotting up to the MP’s I put my beret on and salute. “I’m looking for flight operations.”

“How’s the flying weather corporal?”

I blink as the MP smiles and pulls out a base map. “Umm fine I guess.”

“Ok, flight operations is this building here, flight training areas are here and here. You know I’ve been meaning to ask, I haven’t heard yet but is there any regulations on mane styles for the military?”

I blink looking at him and look at up at my mane, “I… um, for dress uniform mares are supposed to have their manes in a bun but I don’t know for stallions yet.”

Quickly I turn trotting, “Ok, now I’m getting weirded out when people treat me like a normal pegasus.” Shaking my head, “did they put regulations on mane styles? If so, poor Velvet.”

Trotting in to flight operations, the desk administration clerk looks down at me and just chuckles, “Oh are you gonna get it.”

I blink, the heck is going on here, “I’m Corporal Blaze, I’m looking for some help filing a flight plan.”

He nods, “yep, your instructor will be done in a few moments.”

“Oh, the Captain I was talking to before, yeh. So why am I gonna get it?”

“Cuz she’s been in a bad mood all day.”

“She who?” I ask blinking.

“CORPORAL BLAZE!!!” I hear the yell from behind and gulp. Turning around, an ice blue pegasus mare with white mane and tail is stalking up to me, she’s wearing a flight suit that’s been customized for her and grabs me by my combat jacket shoving me against the wall.

“What the heck, Fleetfoot. What I do?” I whine.

In a very soft growl she narrows her eyes “That’s Captain Fleetfoot to you Corporal, just what in Tartarus did your daughter think she was doing?”

“Look Captain, I haven’t seen her in over 25 years. I’m not in contact with her at all. Trust me I’m just as PO’ed at this as you are, so everyone stop blaming me for her, we both know she must have had a reason.”

“My office, NOW!” She shouts, turning and storming through a set of doors.

Panting, I fold my wings tight to my sides, and follow her into the office, it's small, but well kitted out, they seem to have replaced her desk with a shorter one and given her a set of pillows to sit on, motioning to the pillow on the other side of her desk I take a seat.

“You know we are at Defcon-2 right now.” She says, snarling.

“I know ma’am. I called in to ask how to file a flight plan, but the officer couldn’t help me so I told him I’d fly in.” I said.

“Your daughter almost started World War 3 you realize.”

“I know, and I’ve been doing my best not to let anyone know it was actually her.” I say firmly.

“Well at least you have some brains. If Command knew it was a pegasus that did that, it would mean all our wings.” She says with a huff. “And I know the army is lax but who told you to fly low and squawk 0001”

“Fort Bragg supply when I got my transponder, said to leave it on 0001, and avoid 7500.”

Shaking her head she looks at me sternly, “Weren’t you a pilot before?”

“No, airborne ranger, you know, the one’s with the wing suits.” I say.

Fleetfoot rolls her eyes and lifts a hoof, “Flying without plane, you had your air kicks but never needed flight training, go fig.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most pegasus I’ve encountered seemed to fly in one form or another even before the change, or at least take to flying.” She says, “Army was off the ball with you apparently.”

“Ok Captain, Let’s start this from the top, my birthday’s on the 5th of May so…”

“Just Fleetfoot in the office, and what's your birthday got to do with anything? Mine is the 1st of May.”

I blink a few times, “Ok, I’ll start this from the beginning 25 years ago then.” Taking a deep breath I go through the Discord spiel, the curse, the cartoon being real, and finally Spectrum and the court martial.

“I had guessed most of that, figured out some from talking to a few other pegasi, but you guys had it rough.”

“Army couldn’t figure out what to do with us so transferred Twilight and I to reserve status, so I think our training got messed up. They put us on leave, and then sent a group of unicorns to Twilight for training.”

“You know where Princess Twilight is?”

“Twilight Velvet, the princesses’ mom, she, well he was also a Ranger.”

“Ok that explains why your training got lost in the shuffle, how’s your flying skills?”

“Good enough to play with F-16’s. Though some big thing came in behind me today, looked like he was ready to fire a missile.”

“F-15SE, we have a few of them here now for air guard and anti-ballistic missile duty. There supposed to provide cover for here. It was verifying you were not a cruise missile.”

“Man Fleetfoot, if I see Dash I’m going to give her a spanking she’ll never forget.” I say with a huff.

“Now then, as to your flying,” she pulls out a small book and puts it in front of me, “here's the squawk codes, there’s only about 5 you should be using, all of them are the ones that state uncontrolled or without radio, 0001 is fine at high altitudes, 4000 at lower altitudes, if you’re flying slow, or for non-speedsters 1402 is used, glider speed for pegasi pulling up to 100 knots.” She says and I almost feel my eyes glaze over.

“Yeh I have a lot of reading and memorizing to do.” I say and sigh.

“Flying isn’t just about flapping your wings around here.” Fleetfoot says, looking at me sternly.

“Sorry ma’am.” I gulp.

“As to your flight plans, you’ll want to log those on your TA-324.”

“My what?” I blink, totally lost now.

“Your apple IPad you were given, with the protective casing.”

I shake my head no.

“Horseapples, what in Tartarus is the Army doing.” She says, standing up and trotting to the door yelling “Get me a TA-324, have it assigned to Blaze, and bring me the paperwork for it.”

I cringe watching her, “All they gave me was this.” I say holding up the foreleg transponder.

Putting her other foreleg on the desk she opens a Velcro cover showing me an Ipad mini. “These things are customized and custom programed. All you do is tap where you want to go, GPS will tell where you are, then send the data to a special computer. That computer will either let you go straight there, or fix your route based on no fly or restricted airspace, you can also tell it how high and fast you wanna fly.”

“Ok so if I’m going back to Gallup, I can select say, 32,000 feet, Mach 2.2 and it will update it?”

“Yep if you can fly that fast, once done it will give you suggested transponder codes, and waypoints you need to follow if needed. Problem is you need to be at a wifi point or cell tower to have it work.”

“Thanks,” Looking over my shoulder as a human private comes in and puts paperwork on her desk before strapping the pad on my left foreleg. “and thank you too.”

“Sign here Corporal, loose it, break it, its 799 out of your pay.”

I nod and sign quick with my mouth and blink looking at the pen. “Minty.”

“Anti-viral, bacterial dip, not everyone trusts the last pony’s mouth when picking up pens.” She says with a smile.

I open my mouth then close it, honestly, I got nothing for that one.

“Dismissed Corporal.”

Standing up I trot out, and file my flightpath back to grandfathers, then take off like a rocket. Now at least I can file for runs to Montana if needed.

I'm in low altitude flight, again, cruising along at about 4,000 feet, it is a pretty relaxing day once you’re in the air, away from the other aircraft. The ground below me is badlands, there are scattered houses and trailers, but there aren’t farms or animals because the land won’t support that.

This is Navajo land, I'm still miles from home, but grandfather had taken me out this way I was probably just north of Flagstaff, there is a major highway near here, my flight path has me almost following an east west highway, but seeing three pickups with, not to be racist, white men, in them threw up flags. You don’t usually see people in the back of pickups with rifles, let alone 2 or 3 of them per truck. That is just wrong. I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up looking at them, are they more of those Army of God yahoos?

They aren’t on the highway, they are on a service road, the type used by the power companies following some high tension power lines. I decided to change course, heading north and following the lines, they seem to be heading somewhere so let’s see where. I zigzag as I fly, watching the area, but nothing seems to be worth their time, old run down houses, a few trailers, just junk. There’s nothing of value that I can see here.

I'm just about to turn to head my way back when something catches my eye, there are lots of colors in the badlands, brows, grey’s, oranges, reds… but Green and Teal are not that common, especially when laying on a brown background of a rooftop.

Looking down the road I see the trucks, oh I have lots of time, they are still a few miles away, no problems. I dive low and come up to land beside the pegasus, cute little mare if somewhat overweight, she's lying on the leeward side of the roof panting a bit.

“Hi there, not to be a bother but, we’ve got some rather bad looking company coming up the road.” I say with a smile, yeah I'm a real charmer, aren't I?

Looking up at me she whimpers once, “I think I’m in trouble.”

“Naw, we’ve got some time, just get your wings going and we can get away from them without a problem.” I say with a laugh.

“I can’t fly…” She says, looking scared.

Leaning over I look down off the roof, “How did you get twenty feet off the ground then?”

“Sort of a wing assisted jump. It’s the best I can do right now.” She says, panting softly.

“Flying’s easy, and a lot safer then hanging around and risking being spotted by some Army of God thugs.” I say nodding firmly.

“I can’t fly, I’m too heavy.” She says, tears welling in her eyes.

“Oh nonsense,” I avoided the plump comment, “Flying is about magic, weight doesn’t matter as much as you think.”

I can hear the trucks in the distance, “Look best shake your tail, we don’t have time, if you can get a wing jump you can fly.” I say to her firmly.

Closing her eyes tight she shakes her head, “I was about a month from giving birth when Discord cursed me. I think I might be going into labor…”

I look at her sides then at the trucks, “Discord you mother…”