Starbound Ascension: The Next Generation

Chapter Five: Distant Thunder and Unsung Wars

(NOTE: This chapter takes place after a successful rescue of Kim and AnY. Queen Chrysalis was killed by Kim in the last chapter and the Changelings scatter among the universe with no queen to serve. Look for the highlighted text to see the changes.)

Another month had passed and the NGJSF had some time to relax. Prelude was back on the team as he was playing a round of air hockey with Jet. With a deft flick of a hoof he scored a point as the plastic puck clanked on the edges of the table.

“Yeah! I win!” Prelude celebrated, “It's good to be back.”

“Yeah, we missed you dude. Have you met the new recruits yet?” Jet turned off the hockey table and walked down the halls with his friend.

“Nah man. I haven't had time since I got back two days ago. My legs are good as new though.”

Jet smiled, “That healing potion is probably the best thing since sliced bread got up and walked. Anywho, I'm loving these newbs man. I tell ya, Flip delivers as a combat medic. In the sim he's saved our ass almost all the time. He's definitely a keeper and we needed a medic. Water Wings is good to talk to when you're interested in what she's into. I gave her the nickname of Passion or Pass for short. She's been a real help in training the others in underwater operations. Now let's not forget about Red. Ho boy he is a the life of the party and then some. Loves to have fun and hang out with comrades like us especially when there is vodka involved. He loves to fly VTOLs, bombers, and helicopters but mostly for ground attack. He's good too! He has a fine balance of risk taking and calculation. That makes us twenty one but we still have room to grow. Say, I overheard Ship talking about hiring more new recruits.”

Prelude looked to his friend and cocked his head, “Really now?”

“Yeah,” Jet lead him to the mess hall where he grabbed a can of soda and gulped it down, “Ahh! Says we need more fighter pilots for the upcoming wargame with the Federation.”

“Oh shit! How could I have forgotten all about that?” Prelude sighed.

“Oh don't worry. It's an air superiority mission this time. We're in charge of a simulated defense of Comona Base off mainland Equestria!” Jet walked past a trash can and dunked the empty tin inside.

“Comona Base? THE Comona Base? That is where Applebloom Engineering launches all their private spacecraft and testbeds. A lot of the planes we fly now were tested there you know,” Prelude went on.

“Yeah, I still remember the day when the F/A-38 Lightning II went into service. It was hard to say goodbye to my last F-35A but I am loving the VTOL thrusters of that plane. Heheh, that's another thing different about me from my father. I actually enjoy shooting up ground targets.”

“Hard to believe we were only flying prop planes forty five years ago. Once the aliens started to invade our tech just sky rocketed.”

“I know right?” Jet knocked on the door to Flip's room, “Say I gotta talk to Flip. Catch you later Prelude.”

“See ya dude,” Prelude went off as Flip answered his door.

“Heya!” Jet greeted, “Mind if I come in?”

“No not at all sir!” Flip smiled weakly.

“Oh come on dude. Call me Jet when we're around here. We're all friends.”

“Yes sir,” Flip saluted.

“Are you just doing that to fuck with me?” Jet glanced at Flip, amused.

“Sir no sir...” there was an awkward pause before Flip and Jet started giggling like idiots, “Okay, so I was.”

“Haa! So how you settling in Rookie?” Jet made himself comfortable on a bean bag chair.

“See for yourself!” Flip extended one of his wings to show off his room. He felt very trusting of his new commander, “Plush furniture, sky blue nano-pigments, and a cloudy theme to boot. I grew up in Cloudsdale after all.”

“Yeah, same with my mom. Did I tell you that I was actually the second one born in space?”

“What, no way!” Flip sat down on his bed.

“Yeah, I was an experiment to see if the pony species could reproduce outside our home planet. Obviously it worked. Say, is that a model of an F-35B on your desk?”

“Oh why yes!” Flip carefully showed it to Jet, “It's what I used to fly. Now I fly a Fenrir. I've always loved VTOL air superiority fighters.”

“Hey! Me too! I fly that F/A-38 Lightning II in the hangar!” Jet got up and sat next to Flip.

“I was wondering who flew that. Tell you what, I've learned a special maneuver that can only be done with certain VTOL aircraft. The reason why I like the F-35B, Fenrir, Shinden II, and Lightning II is their extremely high thrust to weight ratio. With their ratios over one to one it is possible for them to so something called a Reverse Maneuver. I've practiced it many times with the Fenrir and it's best suited with that aircraft. However, I know that the F/A-38 has a better thrust to weight ratio than the Fenrir so that is something I have not tested.”

Jet's eyes widened, “Ooo! Teach me!”

“Alright. You wanna boot up the simulation?”

Jet hopped off and trotted to the door, “Meet you in the hangar!”

Inside the hangar of the EMS Sky Buster were rows of fighter planes all docked in their sections. Jet's F/A-38 was locked in place by metal arms that secured the fighter for safe storage like the rest. He climbed the deployable ladder and entered his cockpit. SUSAN was there to guide him.

HELLO CAPTAIN JET. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO WITH YOUR FIGHTER?

“Run a simulation, free flight and clear weather. Link me up to Flip's Fenrir so he can join in the training.”

ROGER CAPTAIN JET. BOOTING UP SIMULATION.

The cockpit canopy of Jet's fighter slid closed as the holographic projectors replaced the hangar bay with a clear blue open sky simulated onto the glass. Jet flew on for a few seconds before getting a notice from SUSAN.

FIRST LIEUTENANT FLIP FLASH HAS JOINED THE SERVER.

“Yo!” Jet pulled up to Flip's Fenrir and waved.

“Hi Captain. Alright let's start the training,” Flip pulled away to gain some distance from Jet, “Stay there, we are going to go into a merge.”

“Roger, SUSAN designate Flip's fighter as hostile on IFF. We are proceeding with dogfight!”

YES SIR CAPTAIN.

With four rapid beeps the HUD icon for Flip turned from a friendly blue to a hostile red. Jet pulled away and got into position for a head on merge.

“Angels four! Bandit identified!” Jet's missiles growled with their lock on tone, “Fox two! Fox two!”

Jet ripple fired two sidewinders and rolled as he performed a break turn to turn back into his opponent. Before he knew what happened the radar blip of Flip's fighter pulled a complete 180 almost instantly and Flip was right on the tail of Jet.

“Shit! He's on my tail!” Jet punched his throttle backwards and pulled his fighter sharply up to perform his father's signature cobra maneuver. Flip kept pace as he performed his Reverse Maneuver to counter Jet's cobra stall, “What the Tartarus?!”

“Gotcha,” Flip engaged Jet with his guns and ripped him apart. Jet's fighter exploded in a flurry of fire and debris and his screen displayed a message.

YOU ARE KILLED IN ACTION. ONE POINT GOES TO FLIP.

Jet respawned far away from Flip as his simulation rebooted, “Holy shit! I have never seen anyone counter a cobra stall like that!”

Flip pulled up to Jet as his plane caught up, “You wanna know how I do it? Watch me!”

The Fenrir turned over onto its belly while simultaneously vectoring its VTOL thrusters downwards. Flip then firewalled the throttle while pushing the stick all the way down to recover his fighter in a horizontal stance. Jet looked at his moves with wide admiration.

“That is something I've never seen before! Now I understand how you countered my cobra stall! It's a cobra stall in reverse. You used gravity to help you turn!”

“Exactly! You know what I noticed though. This move can only be performed by pegasi. It pulls a lot of negative Gs and some of my earth pony or unicorn squadron mates suffered from severe red outs from pulling this move,” Flip explained.

“I know what you mean. We're built to handle that kind of G force.”

“Wanna give it a shot Jet?”

“You bet Flip!” Jet was quick to roll onto his belly, reverse his thrusters, then push the throttle to full while nosing down to recover his fighter. He was now facing in the opposite direction from where he started, “HO HOO! WOO! Now that is a neat trick!”

“Yeah, great to see you quick to pick up. You actually turned a lot tighter than me,” Flip waved to him.

“You wanna test it? Let's pull it in sync!” Jet gave him a zealous smirk.

“Let's!” they rolled at the same time with Jet's craft completing the half roll before the Fenrir. The thrust vectoring nozzles of both jets shot downward with a bright plume of afterburners as they pulled up to recover from their moves. Jet was the first to finish by a mere three quarters of a second.

“YEAH!” Jet cheered, “Nailed it!”

“Like I predicted! The F/A-38 is actually better than the Fenrir in performing the Reverse Maneuver. Well done Captain!”

“I gotta say Flip. You really live up to your name.”

“As do you Captain,” their simulation ended and their cockpits slide open.

The intercom announced with Ship's voice, “Attention all ponies. Please report to the hangar bay to welcome our two new members! Remember: be formal and be friendly.”

“Well, no need for us to change,” Jet and Flip were already in their flight uniforms. Brainstorm and Rush were the first to arrive to the hangar as they guided in a stealth version of a Hornet fighter dubbed the F/A-18U ADV to land with a tractor beam. The fighter landed gently as it was placed inside the hangar bay with the zero point energy manipulation ray. The canopy of the aircraft was all metal with tiny camera nodes all over that projected images into the cockpit. This was reverse engineered UPF technology handed to Equestria to use in their fighters. The canopy slid open and two ponies climbed out and onto the deck. All of the NGJSF stood by to greet them.

Ship came forward with the formal introduction, “Everypony, I'd like you to meet Oliveros Hornet and Blue Circuit. Hornet is an ace pilot who volunteered to assist us in the upcoming battle. As you all know: we needed more pilots like him.”

“Hola mis amigos! Second Lieutenant Hornet reporting for duty!” the white earth pony with blue mane saluted to his new unit. There was a stripe of yellow running down the middle of his messy mane and flowing tail.

“Ace huh. We'll see what you got in the sim before we let you in on the wargame with the Feds. It's great to have a fellow flier on the team,” Jet shook Hornet's hoof.

“Gracias me amigo,” Hornet smiled and got back in line with the other new recruit.

“Hornet, Establecirse y relajarse ,” Ship talked to him in Spanish.

“Si senora!” Hornet saluted again and walked down the hallway out of the hangar.

“Blue Circuit step forward!”

“Yes Captain Ship!” Blue was a grey unicorn with black and single blue striped mane and tail stylized roughly the same as Rainbow Dash. He was clad in a heavily modified Federation Exo Suit.

“Whoa, is that?” Fragarach looked with awe.

“Eeyup. This is a ponified Mark Three exo suit used by the United Planetary Federation. It's a lot better than our pulse jump tech in open areas and it weighs half as much as our 3D maneuver gear with our jump packs like what you guys are used to,” Circuit showed off his piece of advanced hardware.

Jet noticed his flank, “So, with that cutie mark of yours I see you play a lot of video games?”

“Hell yeah! Mostly Call to Duty and Harry's Mod. I got a gaming channel on the internet if you wanna check it out.”

“Sweet! I love those games! So how'd you end up in the military?” Jet continued.

“I first joined to pay for my college tuition and from there it just kinda took off. I was assigned to study UPF weapons, Earth United Force weapons, and shit like that when I served so I can get you some stuff if you need be,” Circuit checked his exo suit.

“Very well! Welcome to the team buddy!” Jet shook his hoof and saluted back to Blue.

“Alright everypony at ease! Show our new guys around and help them get settled in,” Ship ordered to all her crew, “Dismissed!”

They all scattered to do their own things and welcome the new recruits. They had two days to relax and get ready for the fight with the Federation on Equestrian soil.

With a new sense of calm that radiated the ship the crew of the EMS Sky Buster settled down for the night. Aside from the usual night owls like Brainstorm and Mac Book the rest of the crew went off to their private quarters for a good nights sleep. Jet and Nelly were bunked in the same room as the happy couple they were.

“Coming to bed dear?” Nelly purred as she wiggled into the blanket and pillow.

“One second sweetheart, something is horribly wrong here,” Jet continued to type away at his computer.

Nelly sat up, “What is it?”

Jet continued to type, “Somepony is WRONG on my internets...”

Nelly rolled her eyes and hopped off the bed to nuzzle her boyfriend's chin. Jet started to melt and giggle.

“Ookaay,” Jet placed his computer in shut down mode and trotted over to the bed. He softly lifted up and landed on the right side as he put the blanket over him and his girlfriend. Nelly squeaked.

“I love you Jet,” she squeaked again as Jet pulled her closer. They were face to face and nuzzled noses all the while giggling to each other.

“You are just the most adorable thing ever,” Jet embraced her smaller frame. Nelly was always the shorter one among her friends due to her premature birth. That didn't stop her from joining the military with Jet and his sister right out of high school though. Nelly flicked her flowing and fluffy cream tail and snuggled into Jet's arms.

“Can you-” she purred again meekly, “Wrap your wings around me Jet?”

“Mhmm,” Jet caressed her in a loving embrace of his wings and arms. Nelly took one of his wings and covered her eyes with it, “Just like how your mom does it?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, “Whenever I was scared as a little filly I'd hide in my mom's wings and pretend nothing bad will ever happen to me. I was always so small that I could fit under her wings.”

Nelly continued to nuzzle Jet's loving wing. She blushed as the warmth of her lovers body comforted her. Jet shared with her a deep and intimate kiss. They broke off and Jet gently stroked Nelly's mane.

“Sleep tight Nelly girl,” Jet ran a hoof to her ear and took off her bow. They settled in and slept in each others arms.

A few days later and on the eve of the operation the Next Generation Joint Strike Force gathered in their war room to sit down for the briefing. Ship was at front of the board and presented to them using the holograms.

“A large combined force of Federation vessels and aircraft will be advancing west from the ocean directly toward Comona base. Intel is vague but we do know they'll be trying to land forces on the shores to capture the base. Your job today is to engage the enemy, disrupt landing operations, and suppress both their air superiority and naval gunfire directed at our forces ashore.”

SUSAN took over with her mechanical voice.

THE FEDERATION WILL ATTACK IN TWO WAVES. FIRST IS AN AIRBORNE ASSAULT THAT WILL TRY TO LAND AIRBORNE TANKS AND PARATROOPERS TO SOFTEN UP COMONA DEFENSES. THIS ASSAULT WILL BE ESCORTED BY FIGHTERS BUT WE CANNOT CONFIRM THE PRESENCE OF TASK FORCE FROSTBITE EITHER IN THE AIR OR ON THE GROUND. THE FINAL WAVE WILL BE AN ASSAULT FROM THEIR AMPHIBIOUS LANDING CRAFT. CURRENTLY EQUUS AS NO INTELIGENCE ON THE ARMAMENT OF UPF SURFACE NAVAL SHIPS. EXPECT HEAVY RESISTANCE.

“Thank you Susan,” Ship nodded once, “There will be a lot of new pilots flying out there today from the mainland. We're launching every nearby aircraft capable of anti-ship warfare regardless of combat experience. This concludes your briefing! Saddle up everypony!”

They rushed to the aircraft hangar bay and gravitated to their fighters. Automated maintenance and preflight checks were conducted on each craft as the pilots climbed in. Jet, Avia, Tough Heart, Night Petal, Morning Shine, Scratch, Piggle, Flip, and Hornet were all selected for the mission.

Jet's plane was an F/A-38 Lightning II. Based off the F-35 design copied off human blueprints this Equestrian modification gave the craft a larger fuselage with more weapons capacity, twin 3D thrust vectoring engines, and streamlined it into a delta, roughly hexagonal, wing configuration. It was also a vertical take off jet capable of sustained hovering as it runs off magic instead of fossil fuels like the rest of the advanced aircraft the NGJSF flew.

Another Equestrian modification was the Panavia Cyclone. This was the plane that Avia flew and is an enhanced stealth fighter derived from the Panavia Tornado from which her father named her after. It was modified with twin tails, thrust vectoring, holographic cockpit displays, and an advanced avionics suite to boot.

Tough Heart's was the bastard child of an F-22 and an F/A-18E. Rightfully dubbed the F/A-40B this aircraft was a modified F-22 with F/A-18 air intakes, anhedral winglets, and the aircraft has the ability to adopt a low-drag cruising mode, in which its rear vertical surfaces and virtually every external piece of equipment folds down to minimize drag, increasing the aircraft's overall mission range in supercruise. It was a tough fighter that was hard to take down thanks to Tough's modified armor plating.

Petal had a plane unique to Equestria. The F-32 Umbra was a creation by Applebloom Engineering ordered by Princess Luna. This swept forward wing plane was designed from the ground up to be a completely stealthy aircraft with planform alignment used on all surfaces and edges that could give away the aircraft. Coated with more radar absorbent material than the other fighters the NGJSF flew the Umbra also has a built in optical camouflage that renders the plane nearly invisible. Its canards and ruddervators could also move up and down with variable geometry.

“All wings check in!” Jet formed up with his squadron as they flew on in the bright blue skies of Equus.

“Viper squadron is ready,” another squad pulled up off Jet's left wing. This time they flew twelve MiG-21Xs.

“Look at those planes. They're so ancient they could be in a museum. You think this will be enough to fight off the UPF?” Morning looked to the two allied squadrons from his XFA-27. It was a sleek, angular design with variable geometry wings and magical, high-output engines, giving it an extreme level of maneuverability and acceleration. A distinguishing feature of the jet is the Scarface Missile Bay System (MBS), a software upgrade that disables weapon launch limits, allowing it to release four missiles in quick succession. Morning's fighter also used cameras on the bottom of the plane to ensure maximum visibility while retaining a conventional glass canopy with integrated holographic projectors.

“I have no idea. Applebloom Engineering is putting a lot of money into keeping these oldies flying,” Flip commented as he touched the side of his canopy. His Fenrir is distinguished by its unusually large body. It uses a polyhedral cropped delta configuration with bent wingtips, a V-tail, canards and dual air intakes. The frontal landing gear is housed within the mouth-like pod beneath the cockpit. It uses dual thrust vectoring engines, aided by a smaller powerplant between both, which give it V/STOL capabilities. Like most aircraft of the NGJSF it was equipped with camera nodes to view the outside of the plane in real time and in almost 360 degrees.

“Hey, you guys are gonna provide some CAP for Piggle and I right? We've only got ground attackers here,” Scratch flew an aircraft called the A-164 Wipeout. It was a single-seat aircraft used for close air support and ground attack. Derived from the A-10, it was a reduced radar cross section aircraft that was a result from a limited development budget for Equestria. The previous A-10 airframe was improved with better shape, engines and armaments to give this fighter a better chance on the modern battlefield.

“Please guard us while we stay out of the fight and await their ships to come in,” Piggle looked up as Scratch sailed past his To-119 Neophron. Based off the Human Yak-130 it had a longer fuselage, wing, and control surfaces than its predecessor and was able to carry almost twice as much armament.

“Do not fear my amigo. Just keep back and we will handle the incoming flight! You just remain guarding Comona Base from low altitude and under our SAM umbrella!” Hornet's plane was more standard issue. Like most Equestrian aircraft it was a modified human design passed down to them from Earth. It was an evolved model of the F/A-18E using the standard camera mounted cockpit and updated with new radar absorbent materials and a stealthy airframe.

Their radios beeped to life, “Attention all aircraft. This is Comona Base! The defense of this facility is critical. Maintain air superiority until the simulation has concluded!”

“Hey, wasn't that Applebloom?” Flip asked Jet.

“Yeah it was. Enemy formation bearing 2-8-0! NGJSF is cleared to engage!” Jet gave the order to commence the fight, “I sure hope these new countermeasures work Brainstorm.”

“I wish we had more planes up. At this rate the UPF outnumbers us two to one,” Avia commented as she broke away and up past the clouds.

With their cockpit displays augmenting reality the simulation was now in full effect. The virtual explosions and steel carnage were mixed with the reality of their full intensive training.

One of the UPF pilots radioed out on an open channel as he engaged Jet's fighter, “I'm in position! Engaged!”

“He's on my tail! I'm in a break turn!” Jet pulled his fighter in a downward turn to try and evade the Federation Fi-2 on his tail. Capable of hypersonic speed and supreme maneuverability, the Fi-2 is the mainstay of all UPF fighter squadrons. It has standard generation six features like the integrated flight system that enables the pilot to see any adversary from range without a HUD thereby increasing combat awareness. With the aircraft's plasma fueled turbines, it is able to go without refueling for years using a chunk of uranium the size of a pebble. The fighter’s odd forward swept X-wing does give it some drag, but with such powerful engines it is no problem for the Fi-2 to go hypersonic without failure and the arrangement of the wings gives it almost godly powers in a close range dogfight, being so maneuverable that without the fly-by-wire systems, enhanced life support, and G suit nanobots the pilot would die from lack of oxygen to the brain within a matter of seconds in high-G turns. The stealthiness of this aircraft has been upgraded over the years and can now evade all but the most sensitive radars. 3-D thrust vectoring also contributes to the fighter’s remarkable prowess. Among the major space powers the Fi-2 was the most agile aircraft known to date.

However, Jet had a few tricks up his sleeve. Being a pegasus he was able to out turn even the legendary Fi-2 in his rapid twelve G snap turn. This caught the Federation pilot by surprise as Jet pulled in for an easy kill.

“Vertical! Fox Two! Fox Two!” Jet depressed the button on his joystick twice to fire two virtual missiles that closed in and detonated. It was a confirmed kill and the enemy pilot was taken out of the simulation as he egressed from the combat area. Another Federation Fi-2 came in behind Jet to close in for a missile launch, “Shit! Got one on my tail!”

The enemy fighter launched two missiles. These were the dreaded electro-optical missiles hated by the Equestrian pilots. Jet turned into the missiles to try and get them to overshoot. It was no joy as the missiles kept pace.

“Vertical! ECM deployed!” Jet popped off an EMP pulse from his modified engines which caught the missiles in an aura of magic and short circuited the electronics within. The simulation was doing well to factor in the real life EMP pulse with the imaginary projectiles in the programming matrix, “Missile evaded! Missile evaded! HAHA! Brainstorm your ECM worked!”

On the EMS Sky Buster Brainstorm and Mac Book high fived as they orbited above the combat zone, “Good deal Jet! Glad to see my invention leveled the playing field!”

On the enemy side the pilot of the Fi-2 looked on as the Equestrian plane dodged the missile, “What the hell? Command, my electro-optical missile failed to connect! I'm breaking!”

Admiral Ghost Robert Lee shrugged, “Missile failure, try it again.”

“Swellow five! Vulpix Two! Vulpix Two!” the enemy plane launched another volley at Jet. The two missiles were fried by the magical EMP of Jet's fighter and fell into the ocean harmlessly, “Confirmed! Equestri-”

“Swellow five! Respond!” Ghost sat by, “Well he's dead. Back to the boat for you Swellow five. Do not finish that report. We can't have any metagaming.”

“Solid copy command. I'm KIA'd.”

Tough Heart flew in with his F/A-40 and shot down that Fi-2 with a well aimed EML shot, “Tough Guy confirmed kill on a bandit!”

“Thanks for the save!” Jet formed up with his friend, “Sis where are you at?”

“Nowhere special. I detected a UPF AWACs flying at angels 3-6. I'm engaged!” Avia threw her fighter into a near vertical climb up to thirty six thousand feet to intercept a Federation radar plane. Unknown to them that they could not escape the fast climb rate of Avia's Cyclone fighter. Their last calls were broadcasted on open mic.

“Bandit's right on me!”

“Radar lock!” Avia announced, “Fox Two! Fox Two!”

Her missiles slammed into the recon plane. This disabled the Federation's sensor fused technology.

“Good job sis! That should cut off their systems,” Jet relayed back.

“It's not gonna be enough. We need to start focusing on their transports!” Morning Shine shot past Jet and into the fray, “Our pilots are all getting shot down by those UPF fighters!”

Viewing the air battle above Princess Celestia, Luna, and Applebloom looked with a bit of worry at the progress of the situation. Their operators were struggling with keeping tabs to all of the causalities they've taken under the superiority of the Federation.

“Captain Jet this battle is critical for our foreign relations with the UPF. If we fail to impress them, like always, they will retract their support and recognition as a foreign power. Personally I do not agree with the current president's ways. You and your team are all that stands between us and victory,” Celestia sat stoic.

“My sister, have faith in our Joint Strike Force. They will turn the tides of battle for us no matter what the Federation throws at us,” Luna put a hoof on her sister's wing.

“I have faith in them. What do you have to say about this situation Miss Applebloom?”

Applebloom smiled and looked up. Her executive business suit well groomed as the CEO of the largest engineering company on Equus, “I reckon they'll pull through. Ma company needs the money and trade from them Federation folks. It's a real shame that they all ain't so friendly to us ponies.”

“Inferior our technology may be, but our hearts are stronger as the meek among space empires. Fight on soldiers of Equus!” Celestia called out to her pilots which filled their hearts with fire.

“Yes ma'am!” the whole NGJSF shouted in unison.

Morning Shine launched a volley of four individual missiles that tracked different targets, “Dawn Light, Fox Three! Fox Three!”

Two of his four missiles connected to some Type 10 Cazador fighters like the ones flown by Frostbite earlier. The fighter itself is a multirole platform capable of both interception and ground suppression. The sleek design and robust engineering of the fighter enables speed and agility that far outmatches the earlier Type 1 Wasp it replaced. It still has the standard integrated metal cockpit of previous Federation fighters as well as passive stealth and various other features common in generation seven type fighter craft. The baseline model can be upgraded to suit the senior pilot's preferences but these Cazadors were stock aircraft and not painted in the blue and cyan trim of Task Force Frostbite.

“Splash two Cazadors! Be advised, they weren't Frostbite!” Morning radioed out.

Jet vectored his radio to his team, “This is strange. I have an odd feeling Frostbite is here somewhere.”

“We can't confirm it Jet,” Mac answered, “Concentrate on those transports before they land their tanks. Radar is not picking up anything that might be Frostbite.”

“Copy that Mac! I'm sneaking up on their transports now,” Petal used her stealth to slip behind the enemies and pick off the Bo-1C cargo planes and Pelipper dropships. Her Umbra fighter dipped in and out of cloak to confuse the enemies around her.

Petal's fighter was a shimmer of light to their enemies her missiles came out of seemingly nowhere wreaking havoc amongst the UPF fighters.

Hornet flew into an enemy formation to disrupt them as Petal slashed back and forth with her stealth fighter, “Usted no está consiguiendo lejos! Hornet! Fox Two! Confirmed transport and fighter escort shot down!”

Another transport was downed by the NGJSF. Hornet bagged the kill as he flew up to bait some planes onto his tail.

“Flip! I've got the banditos on my tail! You engage!”

“Roger that 'Net! Madman, Fox Two! Fox Two!” Flip shot two missiles and juggled two targets that were chasing Hornet, “Guns! Guns! Guns!”

Flip finished off another two fighters trailing Hornet to total his kill count of four. Jet flew near him as he chased a Cazador fighter.

“That's your callsign Rookie?” Jet chuckled, “Guess it fits you huh Madman?”

“Call me whatever you want sir!” Flip pulled away to follow his flight leader, “Sir you got bandits on your tail! I'm engaging!”

“Solid copy! Breaking!” Jet broke off from his target and turned into the Fi-2s chasing him. The rest of his squadron was engaged with the enemy transports.

“This is Tough Guy! Only a quarter of the transports have been shot down but and the rest slipped through our defenses! They've parachuted their tanks and we are trying to shoot them down before they land but half our planes have been knocked out of the sky!”

“Copy that Tough,” Avia descended from high altitude, “Coming in to assist!”

“If we shoot the parachutes before the tanks detach, we'll smash them into the ground. Are we gonna do it Tornado?” Shine looked to Avia off his left wing.

“Yeah, it's the fastest way to do it.”

“I guess we have no other choice. It's kind of a cruel strategy if this was real,” Morning accelerated to the base as the tanks started to drift downward.

“Be advised! Airborne tanks are dropping off from the transport planes!” Tough Heart shot at a parachute of one of the tanks. On his screen the parachute deflated and the tank plummeted to the ground. The tank crew however was unharmed and popped up a white flag to signal their virtual death.

The UPF tankers landed softly on the base and got out of their tank to stretch and watch the beautiful air battle above. There were smiles on their faces as the Federation was quickly overpowering the Equestrian forces.

On the other side one of the Delcatty officers of the UPF intercepted some encryptions of the Equus forces, “Admiral Lee! We've tapped into their radios!”

“Good good. Let's spice things up a bit.” Ghost looked on from the orbital view of the UPFS New Supremacy, the massive UPF flagship high above the battlefield eying the pigeons below like an osprey circling.

Princess Celestia shook her head in a sorry state of disapproval, “My faith in our pilots is feels misplaced.”

“The airborne tanks are attacking the outer defense line! Pilots don't let them break through to the command center!” the operator typed furiously as his hooves darted back and forth to maintain command and control with the help of Mac Book.

Meanwhile back in the air Jet and the others turned their attention to shooting down all the tanks that parachuted out. Try as they might many of the platoons managed to hit landfall and drive away to storm the facility. The Comona defenses faltered with the massive armored column that hit fast and hit hard. The weapons of Equestria did not have much affect on their brand new armor kits fitted to each main battle tank. Any explosive or magical attack was shrugged off with impunity to the Hellfire Bastion upgraded tanks. The added on armor was a wielded mesh of classified metals and materials mined from the Beta Universe where Equus existed. Their complex construction paid off with almost universal protection from assorted weapons.

Mac Book worked with the operator on the base, “I can't get my cheat codes to work! The encryption technology of the Feds are too damn strong! I good system hack could screw things over for them.”

“Keep working on it Mac! How you pilots doing down there?” Ship switched to Morning's screen.

“Not good sir. Can you count all those parachutes? I gave up already!” Morning Shine felt overwhelmed by the swarm of enemy tanks, “Scratch! Piggle you're up!”

“There's too many!” Piggle glanced back as his plane flew past the columns of tanks, “Our planes are great against those ground targets but we can't knock out this many!”

“Kitty and Warpig are engaging hostile ACVs! Guns! Guns! Guns!” Scratch and Piggle used the 30mm cannons of their jets to kill off the advancing tanks. Their guns and anti tank missiles made short work of the enemy ground forces that landed at the base.

“Good effect on target Kitty and Warpig!” Mac Book zoomed in with his satellite view, “I see a lot of UPF armor with white kill flags! Be advised the UPF is still breaking through.”

“I got this! I got this! I got this!” Scratch had a face of crazed fury, “Meow meow!”

“Great, she's gone crazy again,” Piggle rolled his eyes as the growling from his cannon took out another row of tanks with virtual explosions, “Times four ACVs destroyed!”

“Solid copy! These fighters are giving us more trouble than we thought!” Jet was in a tango with two enemy Fi-2s with one in front and the other in the back.

“Break! Break! Break!” Avia radioed to her brother as she came in to assist with the pursuing fighter. Suddenly there was a missile that locked right onto her fighter from out of the blue. It gave her no warning as it impacted her fighter and sent her virtual plane into a fiery ball that fell into the ocean. Her radio was cut silent as she exited the area.

“Avia is down! I repeat! Avia is down!” Jet continued to turn and burn with his enemies now on his tail, “Ugh! Hold on!”

Jet threw his VTOL thrusters back and violently pitched up with full downward thrust. The enemy planes could not turn into Jet's VTOL cobra stall and he simply flipped down back onto the tails of his troublemakers.

“Vertical launching Sky Buster missiles!” Jet depressed his button but in the heat of the moment all of his weapons had been exhausted. He gasped, “Shit! I gotta reload!”

Jet took a moment to activate a magic spell that reloaded all the weapons in his internal bays. Missiles and belts of cannon rounds replenished his depleted supplies but this cost him valuable time as the fighters kicked their afterburners to dart away from his slower fighter.

“Come back you assholes! I ain't done with you!” Jet glared with anger as his prey shot away. This distracted him enough for another UPF plane to come up behind him to finish him off with a pulse plasma vulcan. Jet was shot down as his cockpit screen faded to a kill message, “What the hell?!”

He saw a streak of blue that darted past his cockpit with a cyan trim. What caught his eye was the snowflake emblem on the tail of the fighter. It was Frostbite and they had struck their first blow with a brand new prototype fighter.

“Jet is down!,” Shine gasped with shock, “Did you see his attacker?!”

“Negative! Negative!” Flip addressed to Morning, “All I saw was that dart of blue and cyan.”

“Stay together!” Hornet's hairs stood on ends, “These fighters don't seem like the standard Federation jets.”

“Petal, affirmative,” Night took a deep breathe, “It's go time. Stay sharp.”

“Where are they?” Morning and the rest of the squadron regrouped. More missile locks rang in their ears as they were forced apart by Frostbite's harassment, “Break! Break! Break!”

A wave of missiles shot out from the NGJSF planes to unknown targets. None connected as they were launched in a flurry.

One of the Frostbite fighters started to launch missiles from pods located on the center fuselage. These micro missiles launched in succession with hundreds of them filling the skies.

They all scattered the formation and kicked their EMP magic. Several missiles exploded they were caught in the blast. The enemy fighters successfully destroyed the Joint Strike Force with one swift attack.

Avia flew by one of enemy aerospace fighters. The sleek blended delta of the new fighter could be seen as it pulled a sharp turn upwards to ascend. She could see canards built into the leading edge and miniature thrusters mounted on the wingtips that vectored downwards with the main engines, “Hot damn. They got some new toys alright.”

“Blue and grey, Cyan trim, it's them alright. Shit no wonder we got our asses beat,” Jet and Avia split away from the fight and back to base. Their fighters touched down on Comona base and they looked on at the losing fight, “Well, everyone else is downed. What now?”

Avia glanced back into the sky, “Hope for a miracle I guess.”

“This is Mitch. NGJSF have been eliminated,” Mitch's fighter was hacking into the remaining fighters to falsely display enemies chasing them to sow confusion among their ranks. Now Avia and Jet could hear them clear as day as they tuned in to the unlocked UPF channel as they were taken out of the fight.

“I've got some rookies I'm messing with!” Strella snickered as her own plane hacked into the sensor fused technology of the Equus planes. They continued to run down the helpless pilots like a pack of wild dogs. With the stragglers gone Strella smirked.

“All UPF elements. Equus air forces have been neutralized. Begin your approach Ekranoplans!” Mitch radioed out to the landing craft.

Princess Celestia and Luna were disheartened, “No luck then. New enemies on radar. We are detecting a large amphibious force coming in to land bearing 2-8-0 speed... Three hundred fifty knots?! This doesn't make sense! No watercraft is that fast!”

“Ekranoplans proceed with the invasion! Skies have been sanitized of fighters and you are cleared to land your troops!” Ghost came through to order his advanced water skimming seaplanes. These were unlike any other surface navy of the other nations as the UPF used something called a ground effect craft or ekranoplan in place of conventional boats or ships. These behemoth planes with stubby wings were the size of battleships, cruisers, and landing craft and were more capable than conventional sea going vessels.

“What ARE those?” Avia looked with awe at the massive invasion force of the boat-planes as they made their way.

“It doesn't matter, we lost,” Jet sighed with regret, “Dammit... They're always one step ahead of us!”

“This is Blossom callsign Inferno. I'm not giving up!” Blossom growled over the radio as she flew in with a giant Mach three bomber coming in from low altitude, “I brought in my B-170 Valkyrie II. I've got times twenty Advanced Cruise Missiles loaded with Trinity warheads! How copy?”

“Blossom! You're gonna get chewed up by those fighters!” Jet shouted, “Blossom I swear. Get out of there!”

“Hell no...” She looked to a TU-160X off her right flying with her, “What you got Red?”

“Glorious Stalliongradi ATBIP. Also known as the Father of All Bombs! Are we cleared to engage?”

“Red, Blossom! Stand down! I repeat! Stand down” Ship tried to get her orders across but the UPF even hacked into the Sky Buster's mainframe, “What the hell? No! Blossom!”

“WOO! Inferno launching cruise missile volley!” Blossom released all twenty of her missiles armed with magically enhanced thermobaric warheads. The gatling guns of the enemy seaplanes intercepted some of the missiles and the enemy fighters also took part to shoot them down. Some of the ACMs impacted with massive yellow and orange sporadic explosions that crippled only a handful of ships. The whole fleet was still able to close in, “No good! Damn their pilots ar-”

Her transmission to Ship was cut short as her bomber was shot out of the sky with combined fire from the ekranoplans and fighter jets. The virtual reality explosion showed her bomber ripping in half lengthwise and plunging into the ocean with a brilliant plume of water from a secondary explosion. She, in reality, was taken into autopilot as her bomber flew level and out of the combat zone.

“Motherfucker! Damn that did no good...” Blossom was frustrated.

“Red October, callsign Chernaya bombs away!” Red dropped his single bomb from high altitude. The satellite guided weapon was shot down by the ace pilots of Frostbite as it ignited into a massive explosion in the sky too far away to cause any major damage. The landing craft made it to the beach and their tanks reinforced the UPF already capturing the base.

“Mission failed... Comona Base was seized by the enemy...” Jet received the message from Princess Celestia herself. She was extremely upset at the performance of the so called 'best special forces Equus had to offer.'

On the Federation side Admiral Ghost was only amused, “Alright, let's mop up. That was a good day guys and another win for the Federation.”

“Roger that sir! We're going home,” his officer relayed all units under his command.

Frostbite came back to land at the airbase with the NGJSF. Mitch got out of his plane and looked at Jet and Avia as they sat sullen and defeated, “I'm sorry it had to be this way. You know what this means right?”

“You bastards just up and fucking leave us. I know, and fuck you!” Jet looked away in anger, “I hope your nation is proud of what it's about to do. You will no longer be welcome here in Equestrian space.”

“My father's such a dick,” Mitch whispered to himself as he walked back to his plane, “Come on Frostbite. Let's head home.”

“This doesn't feel like a victory,” Q sighed with deep regret for his nation, “How can we abandon them like this?”

“When we become too selfish and only care about ourselves that's what,” Alyssa slowly walked away from Jet and looked to him, “It wasn't our fault...”

Jet scowled, “Hey fuck you! Yeah! Just fucking walk away. Walk away like the rest of them. FUCK!”

-----

In the months following the defeat at Comona Base the UPF adopted a new isolationist policy that effectively shut down all foreign relations aside from their strong ties with Lylat. Without the support from the UPF Equus started to fail as the economy once held up by support from Federation trade plunged into a deep recession. Princess Celestia and Luna deemed the Next Generation Joint Strike Force a complete failure and all their members were discharged from the military. Within several months an unknown enemy force struck all the major space empires of both universes leaving devastation in their wake.

The UPF fell within weeks as the superior numbers and technology of this enemy overwhelmed them. Without any allies the Federation died out, not with a bang, but with a whisper...

Task Force Frostbite 2 were all executed on live television with their bodies burned and thrown to animals to be torn to shreds.

With no home to call their own and no queen to faithfully serve the Changelings had no choice but to meld into Equestrian society under the guise of normal ponies. With their new symbiotic relationships to their parasites they blended seamlessly as they could now consume the same food as that of their new society. Eventually word started to spread of their integration and their presence was made clear to the Princesses who acknowledged their citizenship and welcomed them with open arms.

This was not to last. Eventually the same universal faction which usurped both Lylat and the Federation came to Equus by force. In a show of ruthlessness these extremists adopted a terror campaign that was to destroy any and all trace of ponykind. Equus was destroyed, turned into nothing more than an asteroid field after being hit with an experimental UPF super weapon. The remaining ponies which fled to the farthest reaches of space were systematically hunted, cornered, and destroyed. Within two decades the whole pony race became extinct and forgotten by the new universal rule.