Chapter Three: But No Seriously, Why ARE We Here?
By Za Raapini
If someone were to walk to Sugarcube Corner for any reason they would have seen a rather shocking sight: nearly one hundred and fifty Special Operators sitting around, along with around twenty five ponies.
If they were to look inside, they would have seen an even more shocking sight: both Royal Sisters together in the same place out in public. With their royal duties leaving little room for dual public appearances, to see them both out of the Palace gave most ponies quite a start. To put the icing on the metaphorical cake, they were talking with several of the strange creatures called ‘humans’ who had just made contact with their world.
Outside, the men were getting bored. They all wracked their brains, trying to figure out ways to pass the time while the meeting was occurring. The Major had ordered them all to stand down; no patrols were to be pushed out, nothing that could be misconstrued as hostility.
Some of them had taken advantage of the time to clean their weapons. Others were huddled up in groups, talking. Jokes were being spit out at a rapid rate from those groups, judging from all the laughs.
The Elements of Harmony sat across the street from where many of the men were sitting. They were still unsure of what to make of the situation, not knowing what was going on inside Sugarcube Corner. The Princesses had expressly forbidden any of them from taking part in the meeting. The Royal Guard flanked the doors to the building, preventing anypony from getting inside.
No one doubted that if the humans wanted to get inside, they could.
Applejack was a bit more uneasy than she would like to admit. When she had kicked one of them, she had never thought that they would be thinking, speaking beings. She looked over at the group she had encountered at her farm. They all had scowls on their faces, and several of them had strange sticks in their mouths which gave off an acrid smell.
Twilight saw Applejack looking over at them and walked over next to her.
“What’s wrong AJ?”
“I feel bad fer what I did. I kicked one of them full on…his chest sorta caved in. I think…I think I hurt ‘im real bad.”
“Well…the least you can do is go over and talk to them. Tell them you’re sorry for kicking one of them. At the very least, they might enjoy the company. All of these guys are starting to look bored. I think one group even made a game out of throwing rocks.”
“I…I guess yer right Twilight. I’ll go over an’ talk to ‘em.”
As soon as Applejack said the words, she noticed one of the men listening intently to something, and then yelling to his friends. They all relaxed somewhat, and small smiles appeared on their faces.
Well, guess I’d better go talk to ‘em. Oh, I got myself in a big mess this time Applejack thought to herself. To be honest, she would rather not be going over at all. She just wanted to go to sleep, wake up, and find out this was all some sort of weird dream. She knew that couldn’t be the case though.
As she walked up to them, she froze. What if they attacked her? Her friends would no doubt help, but if that morning was any indication, there wasn’t much they could do to stop the humans if they decided to get angry.
Plowing through her insecurities, she walked up to the group and began to talk.
“How…howdy y’all,” she said, not knowing how to open up the conversation. All of them turned to look at her.
“Wait a minute…you’re the one who kicked Pryor. What are you doing here?” one of them said.
“I wanted ta apologize for what I did. I was scared…y’all came out of the sky, and I was worried about mah little sister.”
“Takes balls to apologize after doing something like that, kid, but then again brought it on himself by being a dumbass. Raised on a farm, thinks he knows everything about animals; he’ll be okay though. Docs said he’ll be out of commission for about six months or so. Shoulda figured something was up when I saw you wearing a hat. Guess we didn’t really know what to expect here, but shit coulda been a lot worse I guess. Pryor will be fine, and from the looks of it here, losing one man ain’t gonna make too big a difference,” Gunny Johnson said.
“Why do ya say that?”
“Well, normally, in a combat environment, losing one man can make a big goddamn difference. But here, well, looks like we won’t be doing much, if any, direct combat. Which is both good and bad,” Johnson replied.
“Well, how could that be bad? Do you guys like fightin’ or somethin’?”
“We’re, quote unquote, professional warfighters. We get paid to pull triggers and put people down. By us being here, and not in a place where we can do our jobs, bad guys might be succeeding.”
“What are y’all doing here then?”
“Your guess is as good as ours. With the amount of shit they gave us to bring with, along with all the briefs, just about all of us were expecting a hail of gunfire as soon as we crossed through. The brass had a new toy, and we were the guinea pigs. If I were you though, I wouldn’t get used to seeing our faces. This mission is a waste of resources for guys like us.”
Despite herself, the orange earth pony bristled at the last comment. “Now what exactly do ya mean by that? We ain’t worth your time or somethin’?”
“Listen, kid, what you see around you are some of the best trained fighters in the world. The entire reason our teams exist are to gather intelligence and kill people without anyone knowing we were there. There’s some merit to some aspects of this mission, and I’m sure once our policy makers get ahold of this issue, they’ll try to hammer out some type of trade agreement. But like I said, our primary job is to kill people, very efficiently, while collecting as much intelligence as we can. I don’t foresee the first one occurring here, and there are units out there that can do the second part adequately enough.”
Applejack didn’t know how to respond to the last one. The man had said everything so bluntly, and the way he said the words ‘kill people’ so casually slightly chilled her. They didn’t seem like the type of folk that were bad; if that had been the case, Ponyville would likely be a smoking ruin right now. But something about them made Applejack wary being in their presence.
“Anyways kid, thems the breaks. You’re more than welcome to sit here and talk with us. Ain’t like we got shit else going on. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find three people. Time for some Spades.(1)”
Applejack sat there, more confused than she would like to admit. That hadn’t gone quite as she had expected. Maybe with more yelling, or…something. All their actions indicated that they were utterly bored to tears with the situation, and nothing was going to change that. Not even the pony who kicked one of their friends coming up and apologizing for it.
Applejack sighed and decided to go and try to talk to more of these people. Better than sitting there wondering what was going to happen.
Twilight observed what was happening, and was satisfied. At least that was one area where they likely wouldn’t have any problems. She looked around, trying to find the men who had talked to her earlier. Now that the terror of the morning had passed, and her body had had a chance to recuperate, the analytical part of her mind took over, and it wanted to know everything it could about their machines.
Steeling herself, she got up and walked around, trying to spot the men. It wasn’t that difficult. Theirs was the only machine around the square, and both of them were standing outside of it talking to each other. Shoving her worries and insecurities to the bottom of her consciousness, she walked forward, showing far more confidence than she actually felt.
They called to her first.
“Hey! It’s Star Wars! What’s up? Feeling better?” one of them said, a happy expression on his face.
“…Star Wars?” Twilight responded, bewildered.
“Yeah, Star Wars, you had us in the tractor beam earlier. Like some shit out of Star Wars. Don’t tell me you forgot about that. My name’s Collins, by the way.”
“Mine’s Perez. You got a name? Or will Star Wars suffice?”
“It’s Twilight…Twilight Sparkle.”
“Well that’s a hell of a name. But I digress. What brings you to our humble helicopter?” Collins said.
“I wanted to know more about it. I’m pretty good at using magic, and that tethering spell has worked on a lot of different things. But when I used it on your… helicopter, you called it? I was barely holding on.”
“This right here is a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Pretty goddamn good helicopter. Good amount of thrust, can carry a squad, good amount of cargo storage. It’s the workhouse of our unit,” Collins said.
“What unit is that?”
“The 160th Special Operations Airborne Regiment(2). We’re the Nightstalkers,” Perez said.
“The Nightstalkers?”
“Yep. Any time you need an insertion into an area without being noticed, we’re it. You need crazy insane pilots to put you into places you didn’t think were possible with a helicopter, we’re it. There’s no mission we can’t undertake without the highest degree of confidence in success,” Collins said.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Conducting a reconnaissance in force. About seven months ago we got a call from USNORTHCOM(3): they needed about two dozen crews and birds for a pretty big mission. Not a lot of details at first, and what little we had coming in was revealed to us over about a five month span, in between training sessions; something about a DARPA(4) project that they needed tested. Shoulda dawned on us that there wasn’t anything normal about it, given that we had almost two hundred of the best Special Operators from around the world,” Perez said.
“The only reason we’re telling you this is because, well, we’re here. Not a big fucking secret anymore or anything,” Collins said.
“So…what are you guys going to do now?” Twilight said. Every time they answered a question, it raised a thousand more. She felt like she could spend weeks talking to these people and still not have the slightest inkling of what their culture was like, what their technology was like, what anything about them was like. This was the greatest discovery in the history of anything. And she had interacted with them first!
“For now? Sit on ass and smoke cigarettes. Maybe break out some Monster and some cards. Or throw rocks at the D-Boys,” Perez said.
Not the most enlightening of conversations, Twilight thought to herself.
Sure, it wasn’t like she had accomplished much while interacting with them, but at least they didn’t seem like the violent type. If anything, they seemed to be jovial and carefree.
At the very least, she was beginning to discount them as a threat. They didn’t seem particularly interested in this area.
She sat down on her haunches, determined to learn as much as she could while they were here.
She looked over at one of the squads sitting around. She noticed one of the men listening intently to his…radio, she believed it was called.
I wonder what they’re saying…Twilight thought. Wait a minute, I don’t HAVE to wonder! Magic is so handy…
A glow appeared around her horn, and the enhanced hearing spell was cast. She perked her ears up.
“Daredevil Actual, this is Overlord, say again?”
“Roger, I say again, Power Pony One wants to meet the Havoc pilots.”
“Roger, is there a reason why?”
“Affirm. She wants to know who flew right above the deck over her.”
“…Roger, tell her it’ll take about one zero mikes.”
“Roger. Daredevil Actual out.”
Who’s Power Pony One? Who’s Havoc for that matter? Twilight found herself growing more and more curious about who these people were. It was as if they were speaking in a complicated code all the time. She turned to the pilots.
“What’s up with all the weird words you guys use?”
“What do you mean? We’re speaking the same language are we not?” Collins said.
“No, I mean, Havoc, Daredevil, things like that. Why do you guys use those as names?”
“Oh! They’re call signs over the radio. You never use names while you’re on the net,” Collins said.
“Why not? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just use people’s names?”
“Others may be listening in, plus a shit-ton of people have similar names in the military. Plus, we sound cool,” Perez said.
“Yeah, half the fun of the call signs is getting to pick them!” Collins said.
“So…who’s Havoc?”
“Havoc is the call sign for our F-22 support. Five One and Five Two were on station earlier, so they’ll probably be the ones that meet Celestia. Excuse me, Princess Celestia. Why isn’t she a queen?” Perez said.
“I…don’t know actually. I’ve always meant to ask her that but…it never really came up.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll find out eventually kid. If you want to look around, check out the bird, that’s fine. Just make sure me or Collins is nearby when you do it. Personally, I don’t really give a shit what you see, but others might. We’ll be right here if you got questions, and don’t be afraid to go talk to the D-boys. They look more bored than a two by four.” Twilight giggled at the last comment. These guys weren’t so bad. There was a lot they could learn from them, and they seemed like the entertaining type.
Meanwhile, a certain cyan pegasus was getting antsy. She hated sitting still for so long, but she was still a bit shaken up by what had happened earlier today. She just didn’t have it in her to try and fly. As silly and ignorant as it might be, she was scared that the fast ones would come back and smash into her.
As it was, it made the flier twitch when she heard that ominous thumping again, and watched the black…helicopter, she believed it was called, swoop in over the square and land in a clearing. She saw two people get out, and the bird lifted up off the ground and left, as quickly as it had come in. The two men began walking towards Sugarcube Corner.
What was so special about these two? They weren’t carrying nearly as much stuff as the others were. These guys were smiling too, something that was rare on the others. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice them coming up to her.
“Yo, where can we find…Princess Celestia?” one of them asked, while looking at a slip of paper.
“Inside the gingerbread house,” Dash said, with as much snarl as she could muster.
They didn’t appear to be fazed.
“Word. Hey, I remember you! You got some speed kid. You’re the pegasus who was flyin’ in front of us earlier. Glad this all worked out alright. Hey, wait here, we’re gonna be stuck here for a minute after this meeting or whatever. We were hoping to talk to you for a minute. That was some balls-out flying earlier. I appreciate a good pilot, even if her bird is her body.”
“Tom, I say this with the deepest bond of friendship that I can- you’re a fucking idiot.”
“Fuck you.”
“Alls I’m saying is, you talk with the elegance of a sledgehammer. Anyways, my name’s Mike, and this here is Tom. We’re the pilots you had the opportunity to run into earlier. No hard feelings, right? You looked pretty freaked out earlier.”
“Pilots? What are those? How do you know who I am?” Rainbow was bewildered. As far as she could recall, none of these creatures had actually talked to her up until now. And what were these ‘pilots’ they were talking about?
“Remember? We were flying the jets, you got the chariot with the fuck-huge horse down to the ground right as we did a show of force? You were outpacing an F-22 at supercruise(4) speed, kid: that ain’t nothing to sneeze at. I’m damn impressed, actually,” Sauls said.
“F-22…wait, you mean the really fast ones? You guys were FLYING those?”
“Yeah. We’re pilots. It’s what we do.”
“So…you guys are inside the big angry looking ones?”
“Yeah, the Raptor is pretty angry-looking isn’t it? Goddamn I love that bird… hey, we gotta get going. Boss man ain’t looking too pleased,” Daniels said, motioning at Sugarcube Corner. There was indeed a surly-looking individual glaring at the two pilots.
“Hang out here; we’ll catch up after we get done. Shouldn’t be longer than two shakes,” Sauls said, as the two of them started off towards the building.
“Two shakes of what?” Dash called out to them, but they were already out of earshot.
Dash sat down and tried to come to terms with what they had said. Those incredibly fast, loud machines were flown by those people. How did they do it? How did they handle that much raw power surging beneath them?
They were so fast. Dash had been giving it her all, and she had still just barely been ahead of them. She was the fastest flyer in all of Equestria for Celestia’s sake! She should be able to handle two non-pegasus fliers.
Shouldn’t she?
The cyan flyer was still shaken. But sitting there, she made a decision. She was going to get over it. So what if they were fast? She was still agile, and she didn’t need a big machine to make her fast! Plus, they seemed like genuinely good people.
Dash smiled to herself for the first time all day. Something good could come out of this.
Competition.
For months she had been craving something worthy to test her raw speed skills against. Sure, her tricks still left a little bit to be desired, and the cyan pegasus felt like she could improve upon her form for the Sonic Rainboom. But speed?
She was the unquestioned queen of speed. At least, up until now. She had a feeling she hadn’t seen those things giving it quite their all.
No matter. She would just have to train hard, get even better at what she did best. Maybe even wake up early to get some extra sessions in.
Okay, maybe not that far.
Rainbow Dash rubbed her hooves together and laughed to herself.
Game on.
A/N: Howdy everybody. For all ten of you still reading this, terribly sorry about the stupidly long wait. It’s been a bitch of a time lately, between getting sent out on field ops and desperately trying to get terminal leave approved and get checked out of the Marine Corps. Also, really didn’t know how to handle this chapter. So, if it feels clunky…it probably is and I apologize deeply for it. Just trying to set everything up right now, so bear with me. Suggestions? Comments? Questions? Concerns? Bitches? Gripes? Moans? You know what to do. Also, footnotes to explain or elaborate upon things: good idea, or no? Need more? Less? If these actually helped you kind of understand what was going on lemme know. Otherwise I can drop them.
Footnotes:
1Spades is an exceedingly popular card game played by service members. Due to the relative ease of setup, it is not uncommon to see cards taken just about anywhere.
2The 160th S.O.A.R. is the special operations contingent of helicopter pilots for the U.S. Army. They were formed in the aftermath of the abortive attempt to rescue hostages during the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis. They have served with distinction after their formation in October of 1981.
3USNORTHCOM is the unified theater command for the North American continent. It was formed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It is tasked with providing military support for the contiguous United States, as well as Alaska, Canada, Mexico, and various other areas within 500 nautical miles of the United States.
4Supercruise speed is a term used to denote how fast an attack aircraft can travel with weapons loaded in their hardpoints. Supercruise speed for the F-22 Raptor is rated at approximately 1200mph.