A calm evening for a routine cargo flight quickly takes a turn for the worse...
On a warm summer evening, something sinister brews high in the clouds. It is not detected until weather sensors start picking up heavy electrical activity and rain in what seems to be a large storm.
All flights start to divert away except one that is too close, FedEx 715.
The flight enters the storm over Kansas, but as the pilots soon find out, they aren't in Kansas anymore, but instead a land called Equestria that they can't seem to comprehend at first.
How will they interact with locals and what will be the outcome of their sudden arrival?
////// will represent switching from the ATC to the flight. ******is a switch between the flight and Equestria. Other dividers will be created accordingly.
Some abbreviations, such as F/O [First Officer], may be used and will be explained in comments if some don't get it.
The summer evening over the Topeka Center controlled airspace was perfect: a beautiful sunset, gentle winds, and hardly any turbulence. However, these kinds of nights can also be hell for the Air Traffic Control. It’s nights like these that make the job stressful, with several more aircraft than usual cruising across the state to various destinations such as Albuquerque, Atlanta, Chicago, you name it.
“Delta 891, contact Denver Approach on 120.5”
“Going to 120.5, Delta 891. Good night.”
Mark had only gotten this job a few months ago, and was enjoying it so far. At times it was really tiring, but it sure paid well. He looked at the clock and wished time would just skip 30 minutes ahead so his shift for the day would end. He was looking forward to watching a late night Hallmark movie or something since he had the day off the next day. He, still being a rookie at the center, only had to control a few flights at a time. I just handed one off, so another should be radioing in any moment now, he thought.
“Good Evening Topeka Center, FedEx 715 En Route to Orlando at Flight Level 320.”
“FedEx 715, Topeka Center roger. Turn left to a heading of 098 resume own navigation.”
“Left 098, proceed on course. FedEx 715,” as the pilot on the other end said this, the flight appeared on Mark’s radar. Just like the pilot said, they were at 32000 feet, at a speed of Mach 0.80, and a heading of now 098.
Mark believed was the last flight he would receive before the end of his shift, so he started to relax and make a final decision on his plans for the remainder of that evening.
The FedEx 777-200LR Freight rushed high above the plains of Kansas at near supersonic speed as it made its way to the sunshine state of Florida. The aircraft was only a few years old, so its control systems were considered quite new still.
At the controls was Captain Anthony Beckham. This was his second and final flight for today and was expecting a relaxing evening after two long haul flights across the continental U.S. in one day. On his right was First Officer John Roberts, who was handling the radio communication for that flight. He had been with the airline for a few years now, however this was only his third time flying a 777. Captain Beckham had a lot more experience with the 777, flying it innumerable times to countless destinations including Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, and even London.
As they passed another checkpoint of their flight and set the navigation instruments for the next one, just 40 miles ahead, F/O Roberts made a observation: “Uhh… Anthony do you see that?” Roberts’ question caught Beckham off guard a bit. What could possibly be in front of them? It wasn’t another plane because otherwise their TCAS [Traffic Collision Avoidance System] would have sounded some annoying warning message about it and what action to take to avoid a collision. He squinted his eyes and looked out the front window to see what his F/O was talking about. All he could see was a fading sky, and some clouds. He thought Roberts might be seeing things until a slight flash caught his eye. Plus, it had come from that group of clouds. Strange, the weather report didn’t say anything about a chance of a storm, thought Beckham.
“John ask ATC if they know anything about this, because I’m quite sure I didn’t see this in the latest weather report.”
Without any hesitation, Robert gave a quick ‘Yes Sir’ and got back on the line with the ATC.
“Topeka Center this is FedEx 715, you copy?”
“FedEx 715, Topeka Center, What’s up?”
“Were spotting some clouds not too far off from our present location and they don’t look too friendly. We were wondering if you could give us any information about it in case we need to deviate to avoid or something.”
Mark rose from his swivel chair and asked one of the standby controllers to take over for him while he sorted out what the FedEx flight had reported. He walked over to a desk piled with different reports of weather conditions and things the pilots might ask about. He picked up the most current report, marked as the forecast for around the time now. It said it was forecasted a few hours ago as well. It showed a few clouds that could create a small shower, but nothing too serious. He decided to call the local weather station just to make sure his report was valid. He picked up the phone, dialed the number listed and waited until someone answered.
“Hello, this is the East Topeka, Kansas weather station. How may I help you?”
“Hi, my name is Mark and I work at the ATC center for Topeka. One of my planes got a sighting of some electrical activity in some of the clouds in front of them but there’s nothing pointing to something like that for this evening. Do you guys see anything like that in our area?”
There was a slight pause between Mark’s question and then the answer from the person at the weather station.
“Tell them that it might just be some dry static air, nothing to worry about. We don’t see anything that could harm them right now.”
“Ok, thanks.”
Mark hung up the phone and took over his position again and gave the information the weather center had told him to the FedEx flight.
“No problem 715, stay on planned course to next airspace.”
“Will do, FedEx 715.” Roberts looked over at the Captain who gave a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t have to deviate from the current route.
The plane pushed on as it made its way to Orlando. However, little did the ATC and pilots know, the clouds were not just static air. Something more serious that couldn’t be picked up by the weather radars of the weather station at the time was about to occur.
The sun slowly descended below the horizon of Equestria as everypony began to make preparations for a good nights sleep. Twilight would usually study her books at this time, but she had been doing so for the past two weeks and was becoming sleep deprived. She decided to give herself a break and get some more sleep this night and resume late night studying the night afterwards. As she prepared herself for a well-deserved slumber, she thought she heard thunder rolling in the distance. Either the sleep deprivation was getting to her or the weather pegasi were planning for a summer shower that evening. Looking out her bedroom window, she couldn’t see any clouds over Ponyville. However she did spot some over Everfree forest. Knowing that if the storm did start to drift over to Ponyville the weather team would take care of it, she climbed into bed and closed her eyes. She began to dream about the happy day of her brother’s wedding and wished the best for him.
Not 5 minutes after Twilight began to fall to sleep, a loud knocking came from her front door downstairs. She looked over to Spike, who was fast asleep already, and decided to get the door herself instead of waking the peaceful dragon. She trotted downstairs while thinking of who could possibly be knocking at this hour. She opened the door and on her doorstep was none other than Rainbow Dash. “Of course…” she muttered under her breath. She yawned and asked, “What do you need Rainbow Dash?”
“Well, uh, the weather team told me to tell you that we have a slight problem.”
“Rainbow, you know quite well that I don’t know too much about the weather.”
“I know, but the situation’s a little bit more complicated than that.”
What could possibly be more complicated than moving some clouds around, she thought. She then realized how stupid she sounded and decided to be a little more helpful with Rainbow at the moment. “Alright then, what’s the problem?”
Just as Rainbow Dash was about to answer, a faint boom of Thunder sounded behind her. She simply stated, “That.”
“Okay, so it’s an Everfree storm. Whats wrong with it?”
“It’s drifting into Ponyville.”
Seriously?!, she began to say in her mind, I skip some deserved sleep for this?! A little annoyed now she calmly asked, “Well, can’t you move it back?”
“That's just it. When we tried moving it something prevented us from moving it!”
Well, at least this doesn’t sound to stupid anymore. “What do you mean?”
“Some of us, err the weather team, tried to move it but some weird energy flung us away from the clouds.”
Okay, now this is getting weird. “Alright then, show me.” What am I saying? I want to go to bed not solve a weather problem! Ugh, I’d do anything for a friend of mine though. After the small confrontation in her head she followed Rainbow Dash over to the edge of the Everfree forest, where a storm was beginning to grow overhead. Twilight’s horn softly glowed as she cast an analysis spell, giving information on the anomaly. She could tell something was not normal. There was a weird energy field causing this storm, and could not be stopped.
“Rainbow, this storm is not natural. Have the pegasi inform other ponies to get inside and see if you can’t strengthen anything that might be damaged in the storm. Also, see if you can’t move the storm around and lessen its intensity but be careful.”
“Sure thing Twi!”
“I’ll be at the library. I’ll see if I can’t find a book or something on what this is exactly.”
Twilight quickly trotted off back towards the library. Her trot started to become a gallop as she heard the booms of thunder intensifying and small flashes in the clouds becoming blinding and wicked lines of lightning.
It seemed that this storm was not going to stop very easily. Not without a good fight.
Another ATC controller tapped Mark’s shoulder. Mark looked over to him just as he handed off another flight to another airspace. Marked mouthed to him ‘What?’ and the other ATC pointed to the LCD television hanging from the wall of the center. It was currently set too the Weather Channel and was reading off the Local on the 8’s or the weather at the time. At first, Mark didn’t immediately figure out why the other controller had him look at it. Then, the broadcast showed a Doppler radar prediction of the next few hours. What Caught Mark’s eye was a bunch of purple and red over the airspace they controlled. Confused, Mark was about to go and call the weather station he had talked with earlier when an announcement came over a small intercom system:
“All controllers, we have received a warning from the National Weather Service concerning a severe storm system moving through our area. We have been advised, no, ordered to convey this information to all aircraft in the area and all aircraft that will be coming this way. If needed, divert them away from the storm to avoid any incidents.”
Mark recalled his conversation with the FedEx flight and tried to estimate how long it had been since then. He looked at his watch and it looked like it had been about 5 minutes since then. Even though it hadn’t been long, at the speed the 777 was flying it could have gone a long way in 5 minutes. He looked back to his radar and quickly found the plane. He then flicked a small switch that gave a small depiction of weather in the area. A large mass, which he believed to be the storm, appeared on the screen. The few aircraft he had control of seemed to be far enough that diverting them wouldn’t be hard. However, the location of the FedEx flight chilled him to his bones. According to his radar, the cargo flight would hit the storm in the next minute or so and didn’t have much room to divert away from it.
////////////////////////////////
“This is a message to all aircraft: A Large storm has formed in our airspace and is looking to be very severe. All aircraft are instructed to request a deviation from their current path and to divert to an alternate airport if required for your current location.”
The pilots of the FedEx 777 face-palmed inside their mind once they heard this. They were the ones that told ATC of this storm yet ATC said it was nothing and now here they are warning them about the same thing except it was not just static air. Roberts heard the Captain mutter something regarding the ATC and decided it would be best if he did not ask the Captain to repeat it back to him.
“Alright then, John?”
“Yeah?”
“How far are we from this thing now?”
The First Officer did a quick scan of his instruments before giving an answer.
“If I’m right, we will enter the storm in a few minutes at our current speed and heading.”
“Can we divert around it?”
“We would still run into part of it trying.”
“Hmmmm…”
The captain entered deep thought of how to tackle the situation. He went over several ideas in his head, ruling out most of them. However, one idea seemed to be logical and could possibly work.
“Roberts, adjust the navigation display to show us the kind of weather were dealing with on our side of the storm.”
The First Officer did as instructed and got the navigation display to a range that they could see the front of the storm. To their surprise, the display only showed green. Some of it real dark green, but otherwise just green. It puzzled them because green meant the storm was not too serious. They both thought: Was ATC talking about the same storm? Is it truly safe to fly through?
Roberts quickly made the decision to ask ATC once again about the storm.
///////////////////////////////////////
“Topeka Center this is FedEx 715, requesting your assistance again.”
“Roger 715, go ahead.”
“We have just looked up the reported storm on our nav. display and we are only seeing what looks like some moderate rain but not much else. Is that really what’s there? Or are our instruments failing us?”
Mark looked back at his radar. What he saw partially agreed with the pilot’s statement but at the same time disagreed with it. There was a patch of green in front of the plane, but there was a large amount of red and purple right behind it. He thought quickly of how to respond before actually doing so.
////////////////////////////
“FedEx 715, our radar shows part of what you claim your radar is showing. There is a front of moderate rain but severe conditions directly behind it.”
The First Officer gave an inquiring look to the captain, silently asking what he wanted them to do now. The captain sighed and said in a calm tone, “Just have him divert us to the north.” According to their display, it would be easier diverting around the storm if they turned to the north. Roberts sighed as well before he made the request to the ATC.
“Topeka Center, FedEx 715 would like to deviate from flight-plan at this time. Request a detour path around the storm?”
“FedEx 715, roger. You are cleared to deviate from your flight-plan. Turn left to a heading of 050 and await further instructions.”
“Left 050 and awaiting assignment, FedEx 715.”
The plane slowly banked to the left as the Autopilot adjusted the heading according to the pilot’s input on the dial. The pilots began thinking about their fears of what could happen as they saw a much brighter flash in the distance. The clouds, now more visible, looked menacing and evil.
“FedEx 715, we can vector you partly around the storm, but you will have to fly through some of it I’m afraid. According to our radar, it shouldn’t be anything too major though.”
“Any help is appreciated,” the F/O replied with a half chuckle.
“Ok then, turn right to 058 and proceed to the Robinson VOR. From there, fly to the Macom VOR then resume own navigation and fly direct to original flight-plan.”
“Turn right 058, fly direct to Robinson VOR then direct to Macom VOR and proceed to original course from there. FedEx 715.”
The metal giant slowly banked right as it heeded to the captain’s input once again. The F/O set the Nav. 1 identifier on the radio panel to the corresponding frequency to the Robinson VOR. The pilots began to hear rain drops on the windshield and hull of their aircraft. The captain set the wipers to low power, but knew he would have to turn it onto max not too long afterwards. The crew and airspace controller believed the plane had turned to a heading of 058, but the storm had a trick up its sleeve. Unknown to all, there was a field of unknown origin surrounding the storm. It had interfered with the plane’s navigation instruments so that even if the plane read that it was at 058, it was really headed towards the center of the super-cell storm.
Wind and rain formed an alliance to bash and crash against the sides of the 777 as it hurdled through the storm. The pilots had to go to manual flight because the autopilot wasn’t holding the plane on its heading of 058. The pilot’s were holding their control columns in place as the winds fought for control of the ailerons. Crashes of thunder were endless. One crash of thunder was followed by another crash in under five seconds. The lightning bolts were not just flashes in the distance now, but actual bolts forming nearby the plane and threatening to cast it out of the sky. The pilots feared for their lives as they continued the battle trying to exit the storm.
“Roberts!?”
“What?!”
“Turn on our landing lights and strobe lights. I want to see where the heavier clouds are. They pose a higher threat and I really would like to avoid them!”
A small click sounded as the pilot flipped two switches: one for the left wing lights and one for the right. He left the nose gear light off since the crew didn’t plan on having to lower the landing gear anytime soon; or so they hoped. An emergency landing was something they did not want to attempt, not in this weather. However, they didn’t know how much longer they could keep their plane in the air either.
With some of the storm now visible in the light of the powerful lamps of the landing lights, the captain with help from his F/O maneuvered the plane away from the darker clouds. He suspected those clouds had the possibility of striking the plane with lightning. Though the plane was designed for the lightning to flow on the airframe and not do any harm to the plane’s systems, he didn’t want to take any chances.
As the plane kept fighting its way through the storm and maneuvering around the clouds, danger appeared in front of them. A large black cloud blocked their path in a way so they would have to go through it. The pilots believed the storm had read their minds and put their worst fear in front of them.
“Hang on!”
As he said this the captain pulled back on the control column in an attempt to avoid the center of the cloud. The plane began to climb higher, over the blockage. However, it was in vain. The cloud above the one the pilots were avoiding shot out an unnatural bolt of lightning that seemed to have a blue tinge around its edges. Both pilots said their prayers as the bolt hit the plane and blinded them for about 2 seconds before disappearing and leaving the plane to fly on. About 5 seconds later, a similar bolt hit and blinded the pilots again. After this flash, the pilots hit the heaviest turbulence they ever encountered. Both of them knew that they were likely not going to make it to Florida if they persevered and continued to battle the storm’s power.
*********************** Twilight frantically scanned for a book on her shelves that would explain the storm and why the pegasi had failed to move it. A quick opening of the door that was slammed shut right after interrupted her search. She turned around to see a soaking wet Rainbow Dash. Curious, Twilight asked Rainbow what happened that would cause her to come back?”
“Dash, why aren’t you helping out the other pegasi?”
Being defensive, Dash replied, “I was! But then I saw something you might want to know about.”
“What did you see then?”
“Well, I was flying over to help move people out of the park, when a bolt of lightning nearly hit me. After avoiding it, I saw this big metal bird-like thing not too high above me. It was purple and white and had wings and a tail. The wings weren’t flapping though. It also was glowing on the wing tips, like if it had lights attached or something.”
Twilight attempted to match the description to anything she had ever heard of but to no avail. “Was there anything else?”
Umm… I don’t think so. Oh! There was also some writing on that thing!”
“What kind of writing?”
“On its tail, something was written in our language!”
“I believe Equestrian is the term Dash.”
Not amused by Twilight’s correction, Rainbow continued, “Whatever, it said Fed..ex I think. Does that mean anything?”
“Well, it’s not a term I know of, no.”
“Then, it’s a name?”
“Maybe. Was there anything else written on it?”
“Uh, I think the name was written on the side too and something was written under it, but it disappeared before I could make it out. Sorry.”
“Rainbow, that's ok. Telling me it’s out there and giving a small description was enough.”
“Oh, ok.”
“I guess is what I recommend is to ask the other pegasi to keep an eye out for it.”
“Ok I’ll do that!”
As Rainbow dashed out the door, Twilight yelled after her, “Don’t Exaggerate anything to scary everypony!” However, she knew that just the idea of a foreign object around ponyville would be scary on its own.
**************************
“Topeka Center, FedEx 715 requesting vectors to an alternate airport! The winds are too strong to keep steady and we have been struck twice, repeat, twice by lightning!”
Mark knew the situation was bad to begin with, and now his fears were confirmed. Things were only getting worse as time passed.
“FedEx 715, roger. Descend to 9000 feet and fly straight in for runway 9 at Kansas City International. We are informing them of your emergency now. They will most likely want you to intercept the ILS [Instrument Landing System] glide slope for landing. Know that conditions at the airport are CAT III A because of heavy rain.”
“Beginning descent to 9000 feet, altering course for ILS runway 9. Preparing for CAT III A landing. FedEx 715.”
///////////////////////////////////
The First Officer looked over to the Captain and quietly asked, “A CAT III landing!? Are we even certified for that!?”
The captain calmly responded, “I know this aircraft can do it, and I was certified not too long ago for it. Just do what I say, and everything will be fine.”
“Yes sir.”
Still on manual, the pilots began the descent to 9000 feet. They monitored their descent in case winds forced the plane to start diving or climbing without the pilots’ input. The First Officer started pulling the engines back towards idle, as the descent and winds increased the aircraft’s speed. This would later complicate things if they needed to quickly climb, but otherwise Roberts and Beckham knew they would risk going into over-speed.
As they began to pass through 18000 feet and set the altimeter to the current barometric pressure setting for the area, they were hit by a large updraft knocked the plane into a steep climb, draining the plane of its speed and closing the gap between flying and going into a classic stall very quickly. The pilots reacted quickly by forcing the nose back down and throwing the throttle to max power. Once the nose began to lower, a massive wind hit them from the side nearly banking the plane past its limit. Once again, the pilots compensated and adjusted the plane back to its descent and lowered the throttle. A final updraft ended the battle by knocking the pilots unconscious against their headrests. The updraft this time had only knocked the plane into a very shallow descent as it continued to fly freely through the dark clouds. Not a moment after the wind’s final move, the lightning performed its finally. It unleashed a final blue-edged bolt and hit the aircraft dead-on, causing the aircraft to disappear to an unknown world.
////////////////////////////
Mark was focused on his radar as he watched the numbers, under the dot representing FedEx 715, drop to indicate it was descending as instructed. He noticed the numbers suddenly change rapidly as the aircraft was hit by the first updraft. He was relieved slightly to see it start descending again as planned. However, the numbers changed again to indicate it starting to come out of the descent. Another updraft. This time, the aircraft did not return to its descent as it had before.
“FedEx 715, what’s your status?”
All Mark could hear was some static and silence as he attempted to contact the flight.
“FedEx 715, did you hear my last transmission?”
Again silence followed. What shocked him this time was what followed the silence. The dot disappeared from his radar.
“FedEx 715, are you there?”
A deadly silence with some static was all that was left. His fears took over and he yelled to another of the staff, “Call the Emergency crews and the FAA! An aircraft has gone missing over some of the plains just north of here!”
As the employee nodded and alerted some other staff to contact other services about the situation, Mark slumped back into his chair. All he felt now was sorrow and the feeling of failure. It was his job to get the two pilots out of the storm and he failed them. All he could think of now is how he could have avoided his failure and that the pilots were okay, no thanks to any mistake he made in his instructions.
The 777 continued to slam its way through the storm. Winds outside moved the elevators and ailerons as they pleased causing the plane to climb, descend, and turn rapidly. The pilots would usually try to compensate, but because of a large updraft not too long before, they were unconscious. The controls were getting to the point where the stress would be too much and the plane would lose control. Even if it was still in the air, the altimeter was dropping. If the pilots were conscious at this point, they would see the altimeter begin to pass the 5000 feet point. The winds suddenly changed and the plane started to nosedive towards its doom.
As the aircraft was constantly rammed with turbulence and heavy wind, Roberts started to regain consciousness. His vision was blurred and he could hardly remember what just happened. He began to hear what sounded like aural warnings the 777’s computer would play if the plane was in danger. He began to make out several warnings being repeated over and over: Sink Rate! Too Low Terrain! Pull Up! As his vision cleared he found himself staring out the cockpit window and could make out what looked like fields of some sort through the rain-stained glass. He glanced over at his altimeter and suddenly panicked as he read the plane diving past 2000 feet. He grabbed his control column and pulled back with all his might. The plane began to lift out of the dive, but his Primary Flight Display told him his airspeed was rapidly dropping as he pulled back on the column. Reacting as fast as he could he disengaged the auto-throttle and threw the thrust levers into the max power position. The familiar takeoff grind of the powerful GE90 engines began to ring through the plane. As the ground neared, he prepared for the worst, fearing that his actions were too late. Just as things seemed grim, the plane’s nose lifted back into the sky and the altimeter started to reverse, claiming that the plane was now climbing. Roberts looked out the window to see the rolling hills the plane was about to slam into shrink as the plane climbed above them. He checked the navigation display quickly, only to see nothing but the compass rose. Roberts could have sworn he saw a few waypoint dots on it not too long ago. He adjusted the zoom on the display to a larger range, but still nothing. Worried, he set the altimeter to level the plane off at 3000 feet so they could still have a visual of the ground. Without their navigation, they would have to have a visual of the ground below them to know where they were going. As the autopilot took over once again, he shook his captain awake.
“J-John? What happened?”
“I think we lost consciousness some time ago.”
“Where are we?” “I don't know. The Nav display wont dhow anything. I leveled us off at 3000 feet so we could have a visual of the ground in the meantime.”
“Good. Lets contact ATC shall we?”
“Sure thing. Topeka Center, FedEx 715.” A long silence with some static was all they heard in response.
“Topeka Center, FedEx 175 please respond.” Again, there was nothing but static and silence.
“What’s going on here?” The captain inquired. The first officer switched between different frequencies trying to contact anyone but to no avail.
“Well, if we can’t contact anyone, its best we find the nearest landing strip in the area and get out of the air,” said Beckham.
“Alright then. Start looking,” replied Roberts.
As they looked around they could see what looked like a small village just in front of them. They didn’t see any landing strip near it or any civilians.
“Everyone’s probably inside because of this storm,” said Roberts.
“Maybe, but it seems weird that theirs no vehicles or even roads for that matter over there. I don’t see a single street lamp or anything I would consider modern.”
“Amish?” Roberts inquired.
“I don’t think there’s any Amish in this part of Kansas Roberts.”
“How do you know we’re in Kansas?”
“That's the last place we were flying, but by looking at this place, I’m not even sure if that's even true. For now let’s just focus on finding a landing strip.”
“Yes sir,” the F/O jokingly replied as he and the captain continued to scan the area in front of them.
********************
Twilight continued to study her books to find an answer to the anomaly storm. She searched everywhere she could think of, but nothing seemed to explain what was going on outside. As she turned the page of the current book, she thought she heard thunder. However, instead of dissipating it seemed to continue on, getting louder and then softer. She first heard it to her left, and as it got the louder the noise moved to her right. Curious, she went to the window, peered out and saw something zoom past in the sky at a speed even Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be able to maintain for long. As she looked closely at it she regarded its tail and stared at the writing on it. It looks like it says Fed-Ex, just like Dash said when she described that… She stopped in her thoughts and looked more closely at the quickly disappearing flying thing. From what she could tell, it matched Dashes description nearly perfectly. Twilight ran to get her friends fearing that whatever this thing was, it was not friendly.
As Twilight galloped through the pouring rain toward Sugarcube Corner, Rainbow Dash spotted her.
“Hey Twilight! Where ya going?”
“To get Pinkie!”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later! What you can do is find Fluttershy and Applejack while I find Pinkie and Rarity. We’ll meet you at Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Sure thing Twi!” With her last remark she raced off to Fluttershy’s cottage.
Twilight continued her journey through the storm and prayed that whatever she saw was interested in the idea of being friendly.
***********
FedEx 715 continued its wandering through the land unfamiliar to both pilots. As they continued their search for a landing strip, a large cliff loomed ahead of them.
“Hey Beckham? Guess you were wrong about this being Kansas.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m staring at a giant cliff that certainly is not part of that area.”
Captain Beckham focused his gaze on the giant rock face.
“Well, I guess we aren’t in Kansas anymore then,” Beckham chuckled along with Roberts, who immediately understood his joke.
“Okay, lets turn this bird around, I don’t think were likely to find a landing strip on that cliff,” the captain said as he turned the knob on his heading indicator to turn the plane back to where it came from. Even if they had no other navigation to go off of, they were grateful that their compass and computer heading were still working correctly. The 777 slowly banked right as it turned around, shaking a bit as some more wind slammed against its hull. As it came out of the turn the pilots continued their search for a runway that they would never find.
*****************
Twilight galloped alongside Rarity and Pinkie towards Sweet Apple Acres. She had not fully explained the situation to her two friends, but felt it would be better if she explained when they found Rainbow, Fluttershy, and AJ. Shes found the other three just outside the acres, waiting patiently for her arrival. “Ok sugarcube, what’s this all about?” Applejack inquired. Twilight, after catching her breath from the non-stop gallop to the acres, responded.
“As you all have probably noticed, this storm is completely unnatural to other storms we have had in the past from Everfree. In detail, there have been lightning strikes around Ponyville with lightning being an unnatural color, clouds the pegasi cannot control, and most recently an unknown flying object first seen by Rainbow.”
The elements turned to RD, intrigued to know what she saw.
“Rainbow, tell them what you know,” said Twilight.
Taking a deep breath before speaking Rainbow Dash explained her sighting of this flying mystery. “Ok, I saw a flash of that weird lighting, and a large thing with wings moving quickly in the air appeared. It looked like it was made of something shiny, like metal of some sort. Umm… it was colored white with a purple tail pointing straight up on the rear with the words ‘Fed-Ex’ on it, and I’m pretty sure know one hear knows anything about what that means.” Everyone except Twilight kept staring blankly at RD. “And finally there was another flash of that lightning and it was gone. I did my best to figure out what it was but it moved too quickly and was not there for very long.”
Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie kept giving a blank stare to Rainbow Dash until twilight broke the silence. “I saw the same thing over the library even more recent than that and it was heading towards Canterlot, so maybe the Princess will take care of it; but for all we know it could turn around and come right back. I don’t know if it's a threat or not but I gathered you all just to be on the safe side. So, for now I guess we should wait until it nears us. Oh! When its near it has a sort of high pitched sound to it followed by a low grumble like thunder, but more continuous.”
All of her friends nodded and went to a more relaxed state, Pinkie Pie suddenly exclaiming, “What if this thing is friendly? And OOOOO we should plan a welcome party!!!!!!!” Just as she finished her statement Twilight flatly said, “Pinkie, we need to find it first and see if it IS or ISNT friendly before we start making plans like that ok?” “Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie responded. As the 6 friends sat in silence with the howling wind and rolling thunder in the distance, the storm seemed to calm a little and a large fog started to spread across the land, limiting their vision to just their little circle of meeting. The situation suddenly became much more eerie as Rainbow said, “I think I hear something.” Each friend closely listened in for what Rainbow Dash was hearing and all picked up on the sound described by Twilight. However, with the dense fog, it was hard to distinguish where it was coming from. Twilight made a crucial decision at that moment: “Rainbow, fly up and see if you can’t see better through this fog from higher off the ground. Also, if possible, try and find where this thing is coming from but BE CAREFUL.”
“Sure thing Twi.” RD responded as she disappeared into the thick fog above the elements.
*********************
As the 777 hurdled its way back towards the strange little village, a dense fog rolled in front and blocked the vision of the pilots. Captain Beckham sighed and said, “Looks like we’ll have to switch to IFR flying, though I don’t know what good it will do us if there’s nothing on the display.”
“Well, I find more point looking at the instruments instead of a wall of fog,” the F/O pointed out.
“I guess your right,” Beckham responded as he and Roberts focused their eyes on their instruments instead of the blank world outside of the cockpit windows. The plane kept on flying itself, remaining at its set altitude and, unbeknownst to the pilots, moved towards Sweet Apple Acres.
********************
Rainbow scanned the blank skies surrounding her as the noise from the flying object got louder and louder. She couldn’t tell which way it was coming from; but, being stubborn and the element of loyalty, she didn’t want to let her friends down by not being able to find the direction this thing was coming from. Her friends below heard the sound increasing as well as whatever it was got closer and closer to their position. They started to look 3 ways in one second nearly panicking as this unknown and possibly hostile object approached them. The fog up where RD was began to clear a little bit, as the noise seemed to reach its peak. Rainbow Dash did a 360 of the area around her and as she finished she froze in her spot as a large thing with wings moved towards her. What froze her and made her mind go blank were the two creatures that were inside the front of the thing looking down at something in front of them. She kept staring as one of them looked up to her.
***************************** As Roberts looked up from his instruments for a second, he spotted a cyan colored creature floating in front of them and coming up fast because of their current airspeed. In shock, he shouted, “WHAT IS THAT?!” which startled Beckham and drew his gaze to what Roberts was looking at. In a rush Beckham disengaged the AP and Roberts took manual control. He banked the aircraft right and put it into a descent in order to miss what ever it was that they were going to hit. Time slowed down as the plane began to descend and bank to the right. Unknown to the pilots, the fog cleared all the way through for a short period of time, allowing one to look from the ground up and see the event. There were 6 of these witnesses that all looked up at the scene unfolding in front of them. All were in total shock when they saw the full event occur in front of their very eyes.
“Ok what do I have to work with?” said the captain as he fought to keep the 777 in the air.
“Engine 1 is down, with engine 2 trying to compensate. We are slowly losing Hydraulic pressure to the elevators as well…”
“What?! How did that happen?”
“I don’t know. After we got hit twice by whatever hit us, its been affecting the systems. Apparently its damaged the hydraulics for the tail end of the plane and its slowly depressurizing.”
“I thought these 777s had three hydraulics systems?!”
“They do. Whatever hit us damaged all three to the point that we will soon have almost no control over the tail and elevators. However, we could try deploying the RAT*. I don’t know if its damaged but hopefully its not and we’ll get control back.”
At this, Captain Beckham sighed and replied, “Even if the RAM still works, with that engine down as well I find it in best interest if we find a spot to set down this bird.” First Officer Roberts somberly nodded at this in agreement. Both of them knew they needed to land the crippled plane, and both of them wished there would at least be a decent landing strip to land on. About one minute later Roberts exclaimed, “Captain over there!” Beckham looked in the direction Roberts was pointing and saw a fairly large field of grass next to a large forest and apple Orchard. It looked fairly flat, though because of the heavy rain and wind they had no idea what to expect in terms of actually landing on it.
“With all due respect Captain, before we keep looking I’d say lets try our luck on that field. From what I can tell it’s our best bet. Plus that the hydraulic systems for the elevators are nearly depleted and if I don’t cut them off soon, we won’t have enough pressure left in the system to use the spoilers, gear, and flaps.” The Captain looked over at his First Officer and stared at him for a few seconds before nodding in agreement and giving instructions.
“Cut off the hydraulics to the tail section and deploy the RAT. Make sure that the RAT is giving us control over those systems before we continue. Afterwards, get us on a decent for that field and set speed and lower flaps accordingly. Also, set maximum braking. I don't know how slippery this is going to be but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Agreed,” replied Roberts as he triggered the RAT and cut off the main system to the tail. Lights on the RAT switch indicated that it was working properly. The First Officer nodded to the Captain to try out the elevators and tail. They barely worked, but it was something. As they descended further, the lower altitudes began to throw winds against them, causing the craft to shake violently and move similar to a roller coaster. As the field came closer, they began to lower their flaps and speed as if they were preparing for a normal landing. Roberts said a quick prayer as he attempted to deploy the landing gear. Luck must have been on their side because the gear deployed very slowly because of the decreased hydraulic pressure, but deployed and locked nonetheless. As they lowered the 777 further and deployed full flaps while arming the spoilers, a sudden wind slammed into their right side and began to push the aircraft off course. The Captain and first officer fought against it putting the 777 into a dangerous crosswind situation, with the nose pointing around 70 degrees to the left of the direction they were traveling. As the 777 neared the muddy ground, both pilots said their prayers to their families as they were unsure what would befall them.
---------------------------------------- A few minutes earlier -----------------------------------
Twilight watched in horror as the metal beast closed in on her friend. Dash, coming out of her shock and realizing what was happening, attempted to fly away from the approaching machine. However, because of the speed the craft was moving combined with her late decision to move, her attempt was futile. The nose of the winged giant slammed into her side knocking her above and to the right of the machine. As all of her friends witnessed this happen, one particular lavender unicorn shouted, “NO!” and without thinking fired two balls of magic at the machine as it moved away from the crime scene. To her satisfaction they both had a direct hit: The first damaging a barrel-like object hanging from the left wing and the second hitting an are toward the back under another set of smaller wings and a giant purple fin with the words ‘FedEx’ painted in white and orange. The machine did not seemed harmed by it though as it continued on its way to some unknown location. But now she had other things to worry about as she caught the body of her falling friend in her magic aura and sat her down on the wet ground softly. Twilight was devastated. Her friend was out cold with a large bruise forming on her right side. All Twilight could think right now is it was partially her fault for sending Rainbow up there. But, another part of her screamed that her decision was very minor and that most of it was at the fault of...um… What do you call it? It flies and it seems to be a metal machine so I guess that it fits under the category of a flying machine. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? That did not matter now. She needed to track down the flying machine and get help for Rainbow.
“Rarity, you, Pinkie, and Fluttershy take Rainbow to Ponyville medical where she can get some needed attention.” Her friends nodded solemnly as they hoisted RD onto their backs and trotted quickly to the hospital. “Applejack, we are going to go find that thing and figure out where it came from and why.”
“Twi, ah know what yer thinkin, an’ ah’m pretty sure that what happened was unintentional.” Twilight ignored AJ’s comment and started trotting in the direction where she last saw the machine disappear off to. Applejack slowly followed her friend and began thinking of what to do if Twilight lost her temper whatsoever the circumstances.
The landing was hard. The main gear slammed into the wet ground like a rock and the airplane began to slide out of control at 160 knots. The pilots desperately fought to keep the 777 straight while slowing down as well. It had rained so much that the brakes did not do much help. They engaged reverse thrust on engine 2 and compensated for the sudden power pulling the aircraft to the right. Both pilots noticed that the forest in front of them was coming up fast. They both slammed on the rudder pedals to activate the breaks and thus put on a bit of over-breaking to help stop the aircraft. As the aircraft neared the forest it finally got to controllable speeds as it slid one last time to the left and stopped just ten feet from the edge of the trees. The pilots sighed in relief and began their shutdown procedures and started the APU to give them some power while they discussed further plans.
“So…what now?” Roberts asked.
“Well, I’d say we evacuate the aircraft. No idea what might happen after we got hit by… what did we get hit by?” the Captain inquired.
“Beats me, though evacuating does sound good for now except for one thing. Where are we going to stay?”
“Tell me John, did you ever take up Boy Scouts when you were young?”
“Yeeeeeaaaaaaaah, why?” The First Officer looked at his Captain who was giving him a grin that said ‘your going to hate this idea but it's a good one’.
“You ever complete the ‘Wilderness Survival’ merit badge?”
“uh…” John never did that particular merit badge but he knew that some of his old friends did it and he remembered what they had said about the requirements and trials they had to go through. He admitted it: John’s idea was great; but at the same time it was crazy. “I didn’t do that particular one, but I think being in scouts enough is good for what your thinking.” Roberts pointed out. “Good. Then gather what you need and lets ‘abandon ship’ so to speak.” Replied the Captain. The pilots performed final securing procedures finishing with shutting of the battery and began to collect what they believe they needed to take with them. As they made their way to the door, Roberts opened a final compartment to check for anything and found something interesting. A Desert Eagle with a box of ammo. He tugged the shirt of Captain Beckham and showed him the firearm. Beckham’s eyes grew wide and he quickly said, “Take it. We don't know what’s going to happen out there.” The First Officer grabbed the DE and its little box of ammo and stuffed it into the briefcase he brought onboard that day. Beckham did the honors of opening the door and releasing the emergency slide, which they both promptly slid down with their stuff and ran a little ways into the forest. The fog was still a bit dense in this area but they decided to stop and rest around some bushes where they still had view of their aircraft, but were out of sight from anyone looking into the forest from where the 777 was standing. The pilots agreed that this was the most challenging thing they came across; for that day. They guessed that from here on out, nearly everything is going to be complicated and challenging.
Twilight and Applejack trotted silently through the fog. After Rainbow had her confrontation with the flying metal object, she had fallen unconscious. Twilight instructed Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy to take Rainbow to the clinic just to make sure she was okay. In the meantime, Twilight asked Applejack to join her in a search for a trace of the mysterious flying machine. Twilight knew that she had struck two direct hits on it. What she was unsure of was if it was even affected.
“Twi, how far do ya suppose this thing is?”
“I don’t know to tell the truth AJ. From what I could tell, its speed is incredible. I have a feeling its still nearby, but it could be likely that it is extremely far away as well.”
“Well, I hope its not too much farther then. Ah really want to see if Rainbow is okay after her… incident.”
“As do I AJ, as do I.”
The two continued walking through the fog. Their eyes were concentrated more on the sky than the ground. If it was a flying machine, then they did not expect it to be on the ground currently. They continued their search until Applejack slipped.
“Whoa Nelly!” Applejack recovered before falling and looked down upon what had caused it her to slip. “Horseapples, that storm turned this entire area to mud.”
“AJ, I don’t think the storm caused that.”
“What do ya mean Twi?”
“Look…”
Twilight was a distance back from AJ’s position, staring at the ground AJ was standing on. When AJ looked where Twilight was looking, her pupils dilated. “My stars…” The mud she was standing on was part of a large streak of mud, stretching out into the fog. A similar streak was a short distance from the former, running parallel with it.
“What do ya suppose did this Twi?”
“I really don’t know. And I’m not sure if I want to find out.”
Twilight approached the streaks of mud. At one end was the start of the streaks, the other end stretched into oblivion, covered by the fog. After a short moment of building courage, she started to follow the streaks. As they followed the streaks, they noticed a third streak form in-between the other two. These streaks continued on for a significant distance. Then the fog began to clear slightly. It was at this point that AJ and Twilight looked up simultaneously and beheld a jaw dropping sight. What they saw was a towering metal object above them that had a set of metal wings and a large ‘fin’ sticking up above the wings. Twilight quickly moved farther to the right side to view the side of the fin. It read ‘FedEx’ in orange and white lettering with a purple background. She looked to her right even further and beheld the rest of a giant metal machine with wheels just inches from slamming into the trees of the forest. She cautiously approached the front end of the machine. She found what made the mud streaks. The machine had a decent number of wheels extended below it. She passed giant cylinders hanging down from what she guessed to be the main wings of the object. Looking inside on of them, she saw innumerable blades connected in a circle, with a cone standing out in the center. She continued to the front part of the machine and found something that was not there when she first beheld the machine in the air. A large yellow slide seemed to extend from a door on the side of the machine. The slide appeared solid, but one touch of Twilight’s hoof on the surface revealed it to be a slick substance filled with a gas of some type. IT was at this time AJ caught up with Twilight to give her recommendations.
“So lemme guess… this is what hit Rainbow?”
Twilight nodded.
“Shoot, no wonder she’s unconscious. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was killed instantly I must say.”
Twilight just kept looking up at the door to the giant flying machine. AJ took note of this and decided now was the best time to voice out her opinion.
“Twi, I know this seems tempting but I ain’t so sure that going up there is such a great idea. Maybe we should leave this to the princesses or somethin.”
This only provoked Twilight further as she teleported up to the door. She found herself standing on sturdy ground just after the doorway. She looked out over the threshold of the door and saw just how high this thing was off the ground. She shivered at the thought of falling off the top of the fin of the machine. She left that thought alone and went ahead to investigate her surroundings. There was not much to see. She was in a dark hallway of sorts that was quite narrow. There was another opening in the middle of the hallway. It opened up to a room with a few windows, seats, and innumerable switches and buttons. Twilight gasped. Never before had she seen anything like it. Her mind now began wondering about the room. It seemed to be a central control room for the machine. She could not comprehend what kind of creature could use this machine though. The switches were tiny and there were knobs that only one with opposable thumbs or magic could turn. There was also a column with a ‘W’ shaped steering mechanism on top of it. There was one of these in both of the seats that occupied the front area of the control room. There were also a few levers in the center of the room. Two of these levers were pulled back towards her and seemed to line up perfectly with each other. There were two other levers on either side of the center two. Both of these were pushed away from her and had different shapes. Beside one of the seats she found a good sized book. The title was most strange: “Boeing 777-200LRF Operations Manual.” She couldn’t figure out what the name meant, only that is on how to operate something. Then an idea came to her. What if it was the operations manual to the flying machine? She desired to open the book and see all the knowledge needed to fly this machine. Just as she was about to levitate it up to her eyes to feast on what the small manual beheld, a country voice called out to her from below:
“Twilight, what is going on up there? You sure yer alright? Answer!”
Twilight snapped out of her thoughts and went back to the ‘door’ of the contraption to ease Applejack’s concerns.
“I’m fine Applejack. You won’t believe how amazing that thing is. Its control area is so complicated, and… and I found a book that promptly says in the title ‘Manual’. Think of all the possibilities we could learn from this!”
“Twi, calm down. I’m still not so sure we should be searching that monster of a machine. I mean come on! We haven’t even seen who or better WHAT uses it. We don’t even know what its for! You saw what happened to Rainbow, are you so sure its not something meant to hurt other ponies?”
Twilight gave a look at Applejack and replied; “Now I think your overreacting. It’s obviously used for flight. Though, I haven’t figured out why it had to be so big. Maybe it's a physics thing? Nevermind that, you have to see it! And so do the princesses! It’s such a wonderful discovery! We could use this as an alternative for fast transport all across Equestria at speeds that Rainbow flies at!” On that note she teleported down to Applejack and darted off in the direction of Ponyville, using her magic to drag Applejack along until she got the message and started running with Twilight.
“Where are we goin?”
“Ponyville Medical of course! We have to tell the others!”
**********************
The two pilots journeyed on through the wilderness of the Everfree with their stuff until first officer Roberts realized something.
“Hey Beckham?”
“What?”
“We need to go back.”
At this the captain turned around and looked at his first officer in disbelief. “Do I really want to know why?”
With a matter-of-fact tone in his voice, Roberts responded: “Yes. I forgot something and we need to go back and get it.”
“Forgot what?”
“My cell phone.”
Beckham groaned and, in a very annoyed tone responded, “Ok, do you REALLY think your going to need your cell phone HERE?!”
“Maybe?” The first officer quietly responded
Rolling his eyes, Beckham considered his options. On the one hand, they go back into the forest in search of a place to stay for a while. On the other, they go back to plane not just for his co pilot’s cell phone, but maybe to use the navigation system to figure out where they actually were, let alone find a way to a nearby airport. With the two options now laid in front of him, going back to the plane seemed like the better idea. For all they knew that could be walking into some trap out in this forest.
Sighing he spoke up to Roberts.
“You know what? Fine. We’ll go back. I didn’t see much point in going into this forest anyway.”
A little confused Roberts made an Inquiry. “Huh? Well if that's the case, what are we going to do back at the plane?”
“Were going to try and get some info out of the navigation system.”
“Didn’t we already try that?”
“Kind of. But I think we can do better if we try again and keep our focus on it, instead of trying to actually fly at the same time.”
Passing this logic through his head, Roberts nodded and replied, “I guess that sounds right. And if that's the case, lets get moving.”
The two pilots had already begun to walk at a slow pace at the start of the conversation. Now that they had finished the discussion of the immediate topic at hand, they picked up the pace as they marched back towards their flying machine, with hopes of finally finding a way back.
“So what are we going to use to get the navigation system online?” inquired the co-pilot.
“What do you mean? We should be able to use the APU* as always.”
“But is that going to put the entire navigation system online?”
“It should, but if that does not work I think we could fire up one of the engines and see if that helps.”
“What if we actually end up finding a way back? What then?”
“Well…I guess we should just be able to fire up the engines and get airborne.”
“I thought that we had the nose about a foot away from a tree in a head-on configuration?”
The captain thought about this. They were in the middle of nowhere, which meant no tug to push them back as if they were at a cargo ramp. As he kept pondering his mind came upon a YouTube video he saw a kid watching in an airport café. The video showed a C-17 using reverse thrust to reverse taxi during a demonstration. 777s were not designed for that kind of thing. It was a long shot, but it was worth trying.
The captain smirked and glanced at Roberts and responded with another question. “You ever heard of a ‘Reverse Taxi’?”
The co-pilot rolled the phrase around in his mind and responded with an elongated yes, until his eyes widening in realization.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Well think of it this way: what have we got to lose?”
The captain made a good point. It wasn’t like they were going to get in trouble for trying something like that out here, right?
“Fair enough.” The co pilot sighed as they continued walking towards their destination. He fully knew the ‘Reverse Taxi’ concept, but it was a long shot for an aircraft that was not designed to perform such a thing, let alone it being fully loaded cargo-wise.
At times like this he recalled a phrase he heard once a long time ago:
Expect the unexpected.
*APU: Auxiliary Power Unit; Commercial jet aircraft use this to provide electricity to their systems during preflight before the engines are started. Also used after engines are shutdown at a parking area to perform proper shutdown of systems.
Emerging from the forest, the two pilots glanced at their transport, sitting where it always had been: noise pointed towards the forest with one of the escape slides deployed. As the two approached the aircraft, Roberts asked yet another question.
“So what are we gonna do about that?”
“About what?” Responded Beckham.
“The slide. Obviously we can’t go anywhere with it deployed so what are we going to do about it?”
“Ummmm…” The captain honestly did not know how to answer that question. Obviously they didn’t have Internet out here, so they couldn’t Google something like that (though he doubted they would find the answer via a search engine anyway). Pondering more about this issue as he and his co-pilot approached the deployed slide, he settled on dealing with that wall when they came to it. They had settled on not trying to fly the aircraft unless the navigation and other systems were still operational anyways.
“So…?” Hearing his copilot’s voice the captain returned to reality and spoke up once again.
“Oh, well, lets worry about that if we get to the point where leaving might actually be possible.”
“Agreed.”
The two pilots now stood at the foot of the evacuation slide, pausing their conversation until they made it into the cockpit. The captain tried running up the slide first, but the mud on the ground was sticking to his shoes, bringing his traction up the slide to an unacceptable amount. Thus, he slid back down, avoiding the mud now left on the slide.
“Uh, Beckham?”
“What is it now?”
“Maybe we should try taking are shoes and socks off. It might just give us better traction.”
“That's… actually not such a bad idea.” Why didn’t I think of that?
The captain sat on the slide and removed his shoes and socks, leaving just his bare feet to climb the escape slide. Beckham started up the slide a second time with Roberts aiding him on the side. It was a struggle, but after a climb that could rival Mt. Everest in difficulty, the captain was able to grab the doorframe and haul himself up into the small hallway that was connected to the cockpit. He motioned for Roberts to toss his shoes up to him, as well as his own, before starting his own climb to command central. Being younger and bit more agile than Beckham, Roberts started up the slide with some speed. As he neared the top he started to slip, yet before he slid back down Beckham grabbed his hand and assisted in hauling him into the cabin. After the two completed the ritual of putting their shoes back on, they moved into the cockpit and pulled out their needed materials hoping for a possible way back home.
*************************************
Rainbow Dash groaned as she began to open her eyes to the bright lights above her. After adjusting to this light, she was able to see her surroundings. On her right was a nightstand with a lamp, which was currently switched on. She was in a standard hospital gown in a standard hospital bed, with some bandages around her forehead and side. Sighing, she tried to think of how she ended up here. She struggled as she tried to get her memory to cooperate with her. There was that storm and Twilight had me get the other elements… then that fog and weird noise. As she thought about the noise she and her friends heard for a second her eyes shot open in realization as she remembered the giant metal machine screeching through the sky in her direction and seeing two things. What were those things? They weren’t ponies, or they didn’t look like any pony I’ve seen. Suddenly the door to her room opened, causing her to lose her train of thought.
“Ah Rainbow dear, you’re awake. Twilight just came by with Applejack to see how you are doing.” Behind Rarity, Twilight and the other elements filed into the room.
“How are you feeling Dash?”
“Ok I guess. What exactly happened again?”
Twilight looked over to Applejack, who shut the door behind her. Twilight then looked back to Dash before speaking up.
“After you had informed of the strange flying object, we all went out near Sweet Apple Acres to meet up. Then that noise occurred and a fog rolled in. You flew up into the clouds to investigate, and that thing came out of nowhere and struck you before you had any time to react. Me and Applejack went to find it after I struck it with some of my magic while the others brought you here.”
Dash smirked at the magic shooting part, then focused back on the situation at hand.
“So you went to investigate? You find anything?”
All the elements except Applejack turned towards Twilight, waiting for an answer. Twilight sighed, preparing to reveal her findings.
“Well, we were kind of successful in that regard. We found the machine sitting in front of the Everfree a short distance from Applejack’s. It was mind-blowing to say the least. When up close, its huge. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stretched higher than a few buildings in Ponyville.”
All eyes were concentrated on Twilight, astonished at not just her findings but also the details of the actual monstrosity.
“It turns out it is some sort of advanced flying machine. I explored inside it and found a control room with two seats and many different switches and buttons. It had labels written in Equestrian and… it was just amazing.”
Everpony’s eyes had dilated at that point.
“S-So wh-what uses i-it?” Fluttershy squeaked.
Twilight looked down deep in thought before offering an answer.
“It looks like a pony, who knew how to use it properly, could possibly fly it. I honestly don’t know what could use it though. There isn’t anything on a pony inventing something as complex as what I saw.”
“Here’s a better question Twi: Where’d it come from if its not from Equestria?” Applejack looked at her sternly.
“I don’t have the answer to that Applejack. Possibly the princess knows but other than that I have no answer to that.” Pondering further she looked to Rainbow Dash, with realization in her eyes.
“Rainbow, when you saw it the first time, what was a common thing going on other than the storm when it appeared and disappeared.”
“Uh I don’t know Twi, the storm was the only thing I noticed. I mean the storm did have a few weird perks than a usual storm but-“
“What kind of perks?” Twilight inquired.
“Well there was that lightning…”
“Lightning…” Twilight said to herself before her eyes widened in realization.
“I think I might know how it got here.” She said.
Silence followed before Rarity spoke up “Well don’t leave us in the dark dear, how did it get here?”
Twilight looked up with determination written all over her.
“Before I reveal my hypothesis, I want to see something first. Pinkie, go ask if Rainbow is allowed to leave yet. We might need her help.”
“Okie Dokie Lokie” Pinkie said in her singsong voice before hopping out of the room.
“Everypony else, I’m going to investigate a little bit. Applejack, take everypony to the site we found the machine once Pinkie gets back. I’ll be there looking around for something.”
With that, Twilight left the room and headed off for the crash site.
*****************************
Back at the cockpit of the 777, the two pilots had just fired up the battery and APU and were attempting to align the IRS.
“Any idea why it’s taking so long?” Roberts asked while yawning.
“You tell me. Wherever we are, it has to be further north of the equator than we were. I know it can take longer to align up there.” The captain sighed.
Just as he finished that sentence, the ‘Align’ lights above the switches started flashing.
“Well that's one step done.” The captain focused his gaze to the flight computer and open the ‘Init. Ref.’ page. He selected the last known position using the side keys and entered it into the position line. The ‘Align’ lights immediately extinguished once the blank squares on the small display were replaced with the numbers of a coordinate position. The PFD came to life showing regular attitude indications, while the NAV display still showed a blank.
The captain sighed and rubbed his eyes as he turned the knob to a full zoom out, which still resulted in a blank. The first officer pressed different buttons on his side of the cockpit. They buttons turned on and off different information on the display. No matter what he tried, nothing seemed to show up. The first officer looked out his cockpit window and spotted something in the distance. Squinting he made out what looked like a purple colored horse.
“What the..” he started to say but he saw the horse starting to move faster in their direction.
“Uh Captain. There is a purple horse moving towards us and I’m not so sure if we want to be here when it gets here.”
The captain looked out the same window and stared at the sight, not believing what he was seeing.
“What should we do?” Roberts inquired.
The captain kept staring until he saw the purple horse teleport closer to the aircraft.
“We stay out of sight and wait to see what it does.” With that the captain flipped some switches, turning off the APU and the battery systems putting the screens back to a blank. The captain got out of his chair and made his way to what looked like a closet door. He opened the door revealing the dark cargo area. The captain made his way inside followed by his first officer. The first officer closed the door behind him enough that one could peer out the crack and barely see the rest of the cabin.
*****************************
Twilight kept making her way towards the flying machine. The fog had cleared by now, so finding the monster-sized machine was not very difficult. However as she approached it she heard a sound similar to when it was originally discovered, but a little less loud. She still made an effort to get to the machine faster, curious to what was going on. She decided to teleport to get to the door even quicker. After the teleport she heard the sound start to die down as if it was being shut off. She quickened her pace running the rest of the distance and arriving at the yellow slide below the door. Twilight immediately noticed the streaks of mud on the slide and immediately teleported up to the door. She walked into the small hallway a bit before coming to the control area. Nothing seemed out of place, except what looked like some kind of saddlebag placed behind one of the chairs. She looked around again, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. She went back to the small hallway facing towards the door to the outside. She immediately noticed the cracked door to the left of the main door. Not sure what was behind the door, she decided to prepare in case it tried to escape. She focused her magic on the door and tried to pull it closed. Nothing happened. She trotted over to the doorframe and realized the giant slide was in the way. Using her magic, she put force on the slide. The slide ripped away from its holds and began to deflate. Twilight tossed the slide towards the forest and attempted to close the door again, being successful this time as she heard the lever lock the door into place. She then crept towards the smaller door, using her magic to crack it open a bit further. She saw something quickly move away from the door into the darkness.
“Hello?” Twilight called out. She moved opened the door further to the point she could walk right in. She crossed the threshold of the door leading into the darkness. “Hello? Anypony here?” she called out again. She lit up her horn revealing the contents of the room. Not to far from her she saw large metal boxes. She started walking closer to the boxes examining them. She heard a hoof-step behind her. She spun around to see what was behind her only to be met with a pain to her head as she blacked out of consciousness.
“You idiot what did you do that for?!” the captain exclaimed as he stared at the body of a small purple horse with a horn on its forehead.
“What else were we going to do? Its got a horn on its head and it was speaking!”
“That didn’t mean you had to go and knock it out with the butt of that desert eagle…”
Roberts looked guiltily at the firearm in his right hand and then at the small horse.
“You know what? Whatever. I’ve had enough of the craziness here. I don't care if we have waypoints to follow, we’re leaving.” The captain marched back to the cockpit to flip on the power switches and start the engines. The First Officer followed, seeing the closed aircraft door and hurrying up the pace. Once both pilots took their respective seats, the captain fired up the APU while the first officer started to bypass the pre-flight on the flight computer. After all checks had been completed, the captain turned off the ventilation packs and switched the fuel switches to on. Finally he switched the starter valve for engine 1 to ‘valve’, beginning the starting sequence for the engine. The pilots were relieved as the engine began to whir and whine as it started up. The first officer flipped the ‘fuel cutoff’ switch to ‘open’ and the engine spooled up the rest of the way, going to its regular idle hum. The pilots had grins on their faces as they turned engine 2 to the same thing and heard a second whir and whine to their right. After switching off the ‘fuel cutoff’ switch, the pilots were chuckling to themselves as the entire cockpit came to life, now running under the power of the two GE90 turbines.
“Here goes nothing," as the captain placed his hands on the throttles as he pulled them back into the reverse setting. As the engines began to spool up, Roberts switched off the parking brake. As they engines reached full reverse thrust, the pilots crossed their fingers as they prayed for a miracle.
Outside, the tress bended as the force of the engines hit them. Everything seemed still for the longest time. The captain was about to put the reversers back to idle before Roberts stopped him, mouthing, “Wait…” The main landing gear wheels, which were sitting on an incline, slowly began to move backward as the aircraft started to back out of its makeshift parking spot. As it moved down the incline, the aircraft began to move a little quicker, until the pilots pulled the brakes and set the engines back to idle. The aircraft could now turn and clear the trees that were originally in its way. As the pilots slowly began to turn the aircraft 180 degrees, they failed to notice a group of small horses, like the purple one they encountered, come over a hill a short distance away from the aircraft.
*******************
After getting Rainbow Dash out of the hospital, the group began to make their way to the crash site of their great discovery. Applejack was leading the pack to where she remembered herself and Twilight when they originally found the mechanical monstrosity. As they got closer to the site, Rainbow Dash spoke up:
“Anypony else hear that?”
Off in the distance they heard a constant whir and whine, and a softer version of what seemed like thunder. While listening Rainbow remembered back to what had got her hospitalized in the first pace. Rainbow moved to the top of the crest of the hill to behold what she had feared. The others came up shortly behind her.
“What is it Dash…” asked Rarity as she turned her gaze to where Rainbow was staring at. Rarity’s jaw dropped along with Applejacks. Fluttershy stood behind the others, quivering a bit in the sheer size of the purple and white machine.
“Say where’s Twilight? She would love to see this!” exclaimed Pinkie.
Rainbow thought back to the beings she saw inside the machine before it hit her and Twilight’s intentions as she left her hospital room. Rainbow fell on a conclusion she was not happy with, causing her to exclaim in rage.
“THEY HAVE HER! Just before that thing hit me, I saw some weird creatures operating it! Twilight left us to do more investigating on it and I’m willing to bet they have her against her will!”
As she finished her rant, the whines of the machine grew louder into roars as it started to move faster over the grass.
“Common ya’ll its getting’ away!” Applejack exclaimed as she and Rainbow Dash took off towards the machine, which was now picking up speed as it moved away from them.
*************************
As the pilots finished their wide turn around, the first officer looked out the captain’s window seeing what looked like more colored horses standing on a small hill not too far off. He could have sworn one of them looked enraged and didn’t like the looks of it.
“I can only guess as to why they’re here…”
“Hmm?” the captain looked to his left and saw the sight as well. A light bulb went off in his head when he saw one with wings that looked really mad.
“Great…” the captain muttered.
“I’m guessing now would be a good time to leave?” Roberts asked.
“Damn right it is.” The captain said this firmly as he quickly moved the throttles forward to take off thrust. The engine display responded with showing the engines moving up to max power, the takeoff grind coming in right on cue.
Roberts did a quick check of the instruments as the 777 started to roll forward, not turning back. He quickly set the flaps lever to 15, realizing they had not already set it. Everything else was in order according to his eyes, all he could do now was hope for the best as he saw the speed tape on his PFD start to pick up in acceleration as it reached higher and higher speeds.
*********************
Applejack and Rainbow were moving as fast as their legs would carry them as the machine sped in front of them, slowly moving ahead but still gaining more speed than them. Rainbow made a quick decision and jumped into the air and sped in front of AJ, catching up to the left wing of the giant. However, as she approached, the wings seemed to extend a little further. A little confused, she did not realize that she moved right behind one of the giant cylinders hanging from below the wings. She was immediately hit by what felt like a giant gale force wind blowing right in her face. The force was tempting her to barrel roll out of control, but she held strong. Dash eventually moved away from the wing, losing a bit of ground on the machine. She pushed herself, trying to keep up as the machine started to rotate its ‘nose’ towards the sky. She quickly moved out of the way as it suddenly started gaining altitude, passing her current altitude and climbing into the sky. She saw the black wheels below it start to fold up beneath it, as well as the wings shrinking back a small bit. She did her best to follow it as it climbed into the clouds, disappearing from her vision. She flew up into the clouds herself, immediately being blinded by clouds as she flew in the direction the roars of the flying machine were loudest.
On the ground, the others had stopped running as Dash disappeared into the cloud cover above them. Applejack panted from running as she muttered, “Be careful Dash…”
***********************
Back in the cockpit, the pilots had successfully rotated off the ground into the sky, raising the gear and starting to retract the flaps back a small bit as the plane continued to accelerate towards its peak cruising speed.
“Well, that went well, more or less, right?” Roberts looked over hopefully at Beckham as he said this.
Beckham responded with a grunt as he said, “We still have that ‘new cargo’ we have laying back there.”
Roberts realized what he meant and sighed, realizing they were still far from the clear. He flicked on the weather radar as the plane banked back towards the forest as it continued to climb, now clearing the small cloud cover below them. In the distance they saw the formation of a cold front in their path. This was confirmed by some readings from the weather radar now displaying on their Nav displays. Before the first officer was about to bank the plane away from the distant storm, the captain stopped him.
“You know I’ve been thinking about how we ended up in this messed up reality,” he muttered.
“Yeeeeeaaaaaah?” Roberts responded, not sure at what the captain was trying to tell him yet.
“Remember when we flew through that freak storm before ending up here?”
“Yeeeeaaaaaah?” Roberts responded once again, still curious as to what the captain was thinking.
“What do you remember happened that seemed 'off' to you?”
Roberts started thinking for a second before answering, “It seemed just like a storm to me with the lightning and-”
“The lightning. Tell me you ever read science fiction much?” The captain asked.
“Not really, but I’m guessing you did?”
“A little. What fascinated me most is bizarre ways of travel, such as teleporting to a new land.”
“Okay, what has this got… to do… with…” Roberts stopped talking as he started to put some pieces together, eyes widening as he did so. He turned to Beckham, staring at him with large eyes before saying, “You can’t be serious. That's more crazy then the multi-colored horses-.”
“After what I’ve seen all I can say is this: What have we got to lose? Just think about that.”
Roberts sighed as he took his gaze back to the distant storm in front of them. Another phrase popped into his head as he retracted the flaps further as the plane continued its acceleration. What goes around comes around again…
“Everyone take a seat and pull out the files laid in front of you and we will get started.” All the employees in black suits followed the instructions as their leader walked into the conference room, closing the door behind him. One of the employees switched on an overhead projector and a presentation began to display on the board in front of them.
“My name is Agent Garret, the lead investigator for this group. As you all know, a Boeing 777-200 Freight-type aircraft, similar to that of the Long-Range passenger variant, which was operated by FedEx went off radar just under 24 hours ago.”
The slide on the presentation switched to a moving image of a radar. On the radar were flights from that evening going their separate ways. After about 10 seconds, one of the flights disappears from the radar and fails to reappear.
“The NTSB were deployed shortly after and emergency crews searched for wreckage. The catch: there was no wreckage found anywhere nearby. So far police from the state of Kansas, where the aircraft was last seen by radar, have reported there is not any wreckage anywhere they can see. They have used helicopters to scan the area but there seemed to be no wreckage in the state.”
The other people at the table looked puzzled. Surely if an aircraft went off radar and did not come back, it should have crashed somewhere right?
“This is where we get to our part in this investigation. The FBI has put us on the case for a reason, and I’ll explain that to you now.” The slide on the presentation switched to an image of a strange device coated in shiny metal plating.
“The pilots and FedEx believed this was a routine cargo flight. However, this was not the case. For reasons I do not fully understand, some government scientists were shipping an experimental device on this plane to Orlando, where it was supposed to be handed over to NASA. Many of you, or most likely all of you, do not know what this device is.”
The other employees looked at each other shrugging shoulders, obviously not knowing what this device was.
“A few years ago, some testing was being done out in the desert near Edwards AFB. Aircraft were being tested with a device technicians were researching for a new type of weather radar. The device is supposed to be able to improve current radar for better heavy storm avoidance at 30,000 feet. On this particular day, they were testing a version of this new radar that was designed for researching weather phenomena. The test plane flew into a mass of clouds and its instruments started to go wacky. The scientists told the plane to land to make sure everything was running normally. About a minute after acknowledging the request, the transmitters from the radar device went crazy. A witness there reported the electronic graphs were going off the scales. The pilot radioed through saying he was encountering what seemed to be some freak storm that popped up out of nowhere. He reported that he was trying to descend out of the cloud cover so he could land. Before the aircraft made it out of the clouds, however, a large bolt of what the pilot described as ‘blue-tinged lightning’ hit it. At the exact moment the pilot reported the lightning, his radio transmission stopped and his aircraft dropped from radar. The control room personnel could not figure out exactly what had happened until the aircraft suddenly reappeared about 10 seconds after it disappeared from the radar. The pilot reported he was going into a steep descent to exit the clouds as fast as safely possible. The plane exited the large clouds shortly, after, and landed.
The presentation slide moved to one of a line graph from a computer, with the date of the weather radar test printed in black at the top right corner. The line on the graph stayed low until it seemed to skyrocket off the top of the graph’s grid.
“This is one of the graphs recorded the day of that test. The point where the line takes off is just before the pilot reported himself in a huge storm that no one had any indication of.”
One of the men seated at the conference table raised his hand.
“Yes Agent Johansen?”
“What was found from the debriefing of the pilot and analysis of the data collected that day?”
Garret nodded his head, “I was just about to get to that.” He turned back to the presentation and moved the slide forward to a picture of the metallic box, only it was opened up to view the circuitry inside.
“This is the radar device. After collection and analysis of the data and descriptions from the pilot, the scientists concluded that the radar device somehow interacted with an unknown field that surrounds the planet and started some invisible storm that day. As this was only a hypothesis, there were some that did not believe such an idea, like early chemists theories on the atom. The issue seemed to disappear into thin air as if resolved, however it was far from that. As you are all high ranking agents I now get to the information that only you are allowed to know at this time. The issue only seemed to disappear because the military labeled it as Classified and Top Secret information.”
Most of the agents merely sat there waiting for Agent Garret to continue, while some agents had significantly wider eyes.
He continued on, “The project was taken to a military base with a classified location that I do not even know of. There scientists continued work and research on the radar device they named Gale I. After a few more years of research they developed Gale II, which was put through a similar test to Gale I. A near match of the first test was performed. The test plane with Gale II flew into a mass of clouds and later the data readings for the device lit up with the pilot reporting a huge storm that ‘Came out of nowhere.’ This time however the pilots diverted immediately out of the storm as per the instructions given by the scientists before the test had started. Further research found that the system that Gale I and II used for radar, emitted some special wave that started the phenomenon each time it flew into a dense enough cloud cover.”
The same agent as before raised his hand again.
“Yes, what is it now Agent Johansen?”
“You said that in the first test of Gale I, the aircraft went missing for about 10 seconds. What did the test pilot say happened during those 10 seconds?”
Garret nodded his head and began to explain. “The test pilot reported to have gone into some sort of weird limbo. He described it as if he was stuck in-between some portal in a science fiction movie. I had not told you this already because the scientists dismissed that as the pilot blanking out for a moment and seeing some sort of dream. However, a group of the scientists researched this further and came up with a hypothesis about this field possibly having a connection to some other dimension. This leads us to recent events.”
The slide moved to a FedEx receipt for sending a First Class package.
“The scientists contacted head researchers of classified information at NASA. They discussed about sending them the device for testing. I do not know what the final decision breaker was, but they put it through FedEx. The device was tracked as it was delivered to be loaded on a plane for Orlando. Originally it was going to be sent on a 757 freighter yesterday, but, through some research already done, an opportunity for FedEx to save on costs came up. Apparently FedEx needed to fly cargo to Europe and they did not have an aircraft at Orlando suitable for the job. The company was going to send a 777 from Los Angeles and saw an opportunity to load the cargo that was originally going on the 757 onto that 777 instead. This 777 was the same aircraft that went missing, and the same aircraft carrying Gale I and II. Our job is to assist in figuring out where this plane went and, if we find it, help get it back to U.S. territory and get the facts on what happened. The pilots will be held for questioning to aid this investigation if found and are still alive.”
Agent Garret scanned the room looking at each of the other Agent’s faces. All of them were focused on him, waiting for instruction.
“One of the documents in front of you lays out your part in this assignment. The FBI and myself expect to hear back from each of you shortly on the progress made on your task. Inform us sooner if there is any problem that needs to be taken care of. Any questions?”
No one spoke, some Agents looking at others to interpret their thoughts on what had just been said.
“No? Then you’re dismissed. Get to work and good luck.”
The agents, including Garret, filed back into the office building to their respective workstations. Some agents began to make phone calls to other staff while some sent e-mails to recipients regarding the investigation. As Garret made it back to his office, his phone rang. He picked it up and answered.
“Agent Garrets office, who is it?”
“This is Investigator Gordon from the NTSB. I’ve got news.”
“What now?”
“One of the scientists from Edwards called.”
“What did he say?”
“One of the receivers for Gale II came online about an hour ago.”
“Wait, what?”
“They were checking the equipment apparently, all of them offline as usual then one of the graphing computers came online with the message ‘Device Connected.’”
“That's impossible unless…”
“Garret, I think your now realizing what I thought when I heard the news.”
Garret replied, “Yeah. Either it’s malfunctioning, or flight 715 is…”
There was a moment of silence as Agent Garret’s eyes widened.
“Gordon, I’ll have to call you back.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got some agents to talk to and a flight to book to Edwards. If the scientists are right about what their computer is saying, then there’s a chance flight 715 has somehow returned, no matter how crazy it sounds.”
With that, Agent Garret grabbed his coat and made his way off to gather his group of agents to take to Edwards to deal with the situation. It may take 3 hours or more to get there, but if this was really what the scientists believed it was, then it was going to be worth it.
Rainbow Dash flew through the darkening clouds, hardly able to see in front of her. She forgot how long she had been flying after this mystery flying machine, but she figured it had to have been a good while. She could still hear the faint roar of the machine somewhere in front of her, but it was slowly being overshadowed by the sound of distant thunder. Everything around her was telling her to turn back, that flying through these clouds was becoming a dangerous position to be in. She fought back against these signs with two words she kept repeating in her mind: For Twilight.
She had been following the flying machine ever since it took off from Ponyville, as it climbed, and seemed to level off. She knew she had the capability to fly faster than it could, but was not sure if she would be able to keep up that speed for too long. She instead compromised to fly at a bit slower pace that she could hold easily for an extended period of time. Lucky for her, this speed was not too much slower than the flying machine. Thus, she was able to keep the machine in sight even if it was slowly pulling away from her. That was, until it flew into the clouds above the Everfree. From then on she only had the roar of its engines to go by. As the winds picked up a bit, the roar generated by the machine started to waiver then seemed to fade out altogether. Confused, Rainbow stopped and hovered looking around and straining to hear where the roar had gone. She flew a bit more forward and then heard the roar again. It seemed to be coming from above and was headed almost straight down. The roar got extremely loud, as it seemed to pass her altitude, and then began to fade as it continued downward. She began to fly forward again and suddenly,
“WOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Rainbow Dash was shot higher into the air by a large updraft. Another large wind shot at her from the side sending her barreling off course. A large downdraft then sent her plummeting to the ground. She recovered as quickly as she could, narrowly escaping the top of a tall tree extending up from the Everfree. She hovered as she searched for the roar of the machine once again, praying silently that she had not lost it for good. A part of her relaxed as she heard the faint roar somewhere off to her left. Dash wasted no time as she climbed back into the cloud layer to hunt down the metal monstrosity that held her friend captive.
~FedEx 715: A few Minutes prior~
“Man this turbulence is hating on us right now,” the First Officer commented as the 777 shook about as it bounced randomly up and down. The Captain acknowledged the comment with a nod as he gripped the armrests of his seat. Both pilots monitored the instruments as the autopilot flew them through the rough air that hugged the edges of the storm. The view outside was a pale grey as the plane flew through the cloud cover. The only way to see outside was the NAV display’s weather radar, which so far was only displaying large patches of turbulence and not much else. The Co-pilot looked at the fuel display, showing they still had a descent amount of fuel left, but it would only last a few more hours at the rate the engines were running. Another shudder shook the aircraft, this time a little more violently. The pilots began to feel the aircraft bob up and down and be shoved left and right. Their eyes both widened as the audio warning system of the 777 cried out,
“WINDSHEAR! WINDSHEAR!”
The aircraft suddenly shot up a couple hundred feet before being pushed back down by another set of winds. The airspeed tape was jumping up and down as well as the altitude tape on the right side of the PFD. The pilots decided to disconnect the autopilot and try to keep the aircraft level themselves and veer away from whatever part of the storm they stumbled into. They tried banking the aircraft to the right. As the jet began to bank right, a large gust blew in from their left. The wind caused the aircraft to bank more than the pilots wanted, causing the aircraft to give out another warning message,
“BANK ANGLE!”
The pilots jammed the control column back to the left, fighting against the offending wind and were able to level the jet again before something more drastic could happen. As the pilots fought the strong winds, their unwelcome guest in the cargo hold began to stir.
*********************
Twilight groaned as she tried to stand up, immediately failing to do so as her head throbbed. She slowly tried to open her eyes, but all she could see was pitch-black darkness. She attempted to stand up again, only to be thrown to her left into something hard and metallic followed by a bang as she collided with it. The floor shook accordingly as well. She pulled herself off of whatever she had collided with while nearly falling a second time. She then realized the floor seemed to be constantly shaking and changing its angle with the ground. She cast a light spell just to see where in Equestria she ended up, not remembering what happened before she blacked out.
Her light shone upon the ground, revealing a metal floor with narrow strips of similar looking metal jutting up from the floor in straight lines. As she turned around to face what she hit. She nearly blinded herself as the surface of the object reflected her light like a mirror. She adjusted the angle of her light and beheld the large shape in front of her. It resembled a rectangular prism, except for one of the corners, which was curved to fit the wall of whatever room she was in. Looking to the left ofs the metal prism, she spotted more similarly designed prisms in straight lines that flowed back into the dark. She could hear a faint mechanical roar coming from the other side of the wall as well. Twilight walked around to the other accessible side of the prism and found what appeared to be a large sticker with letters that she recognized instantly. In front of the white background of the sticker was the purple and orange lettering spelling “FedEx.”
The floor shook harder for a second time, shaking the prism with it. Instantly memories flashed through her mind of her discovering a large metal flying contraption, and then hiding from voices approaching the contraption. Her last memory was the door to this room opening followed by pain and darkness. She reached up with her left forehoof to the area she remembered the pain originating from. “Ow!” The spot was still sore. She concluded that somepony or something had wacked her on the head with something hard for whatever reason. This got her thinking back to her memories. Okay, so I got hit on the head and blacked out. That wasn’t very nice. Twilight, focus! I got hit over the head. Before that there was... “A door!”
Scanning her surroundings, she found that there was indeed behind her what appeared to be a sliding door. Twilight cautiously approached it, her mind racing with horrible things that could be behind it. Part of her did not want to go near it, but the rest of her could not resist. Carefully, she used her magic to slowly slide the door out of the way.
The brightness in this next space caused her to squint her eyes for a moment. It was not really that bright, she had just spent too much time in the dark was all. Looking around once more, she found herself in the small hallway with three seats against one of the walls. Each of the other walls had a door. Two of these doors had a small window that looked to the outside. There was another shudder, not just shaking the floor but the whole frame of the space. She quickly moved over and peered through the window closest to her and confirmed the fears that had rested in the back of her mind. Outside, there were only gray clouds that seemed to be surrounding the contraption she was aboard. Worse, the clouds seemed to be darkening where the machine was headed. Suddenly the whole frame shook again for a second, causing her to stumble a bit. Twilight stumbled backward and ended up falling back against one of the three seats. Maybe it will be better if I think through this before going any further. She then looked to the door on the opposite wall opposite her. It had another sticker with clear black letters spelling ‘Crew Only’.
Twilight’s train of thought was suddenly paused by a deafening crack followed by a deep rumble outside the aircraft. She rushed to the small view hole once again to see it being stained with rain droplets. She jumped as a bright flash lit up the clouds surrounding the craft. What followed was the familiar crack and rumble. There was a storm approaching and she was headed right for it. Then there was a faint dark blue flash that was followed by the whole frame shaking violently, causing Twilight to fall on her side. She then heard a noise coming from behind the ‘Crew Only’ door.
*********************
The warning horn blared in the cockpit with the Master Caution and Master Warning lights flashing. In the background there was the unwelcome sound of an engine shutting down. This was reflected on the EICAS as the N1 kept decreasing past idle towards 0.
Captain Beckham asked, a bit ticked, “What the hell just happened?”
His First Officer looked at the different displays trying to get an answer. He switched the displays through fuel, hydraulics, anything that might give him an answer. He finally replied, “Engine 1 flamed out but I don’t see why. Hydraulics look fine and we’re not low on fuel so I don’t know where else to look.”
“Alright, lets worry about that later. Run through the engine failure midflight checklist.”
Roberts pulled out the checklist book for the aircraft and flipped to the appropriate checklist and started reading through it accordingly while Beckham flew the plane. Before Roberts could do anything though, a deafening voice thundered through the cockpit.
“THOU WILL SURRENDER OUR SISTER’S STUDENT AT ONCE OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!”
