//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Settling In // Story: The Engineer’s Wings // by Keeper of time RD //------------------------------// The room that Rainbow Dash brought the trio of fillies to was a small room meant for a single officer. A lone bed occupied a nook on one side. The back of the room was only wide enough for the deck set against that wall. Just above the desk was a portal type window that offered the only natural light to the room. Small blue curtains flanked the window and a white carpet offered a little more comfort to the room than the full metal setting found in the hallway just outside. “…and my room is the last door on right, at the far end of the hall,” Dash finished explaining directions to the few places they’d need to know about on the C.S. Cloudsdale. “Need anything or are you good for now?” “Actually,” Apple Bloom spoke up, with a note of hesitation in her voice. “Your captain said something about sending a message to Ponyville. If y’all are sending a telegraph that way anyhow, could Ah maybe add a note of my own?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Come on! I’ll show you the way!” With only Scootaloo and herself left in the room, Sweetie Belle took the moment to ditch her saddlebags by tossing them on the floor next to the bed. Then she started to make her way over to the deck intending to search the drawers of the desk. She only got halfway there before the floor shifted suddenly, sending her toppling down. “OOFF! What was that!” Scootaloo had been admiring the intercom speaker near the ceiling in the corner and had needed little more than a sudden flap of her wings to stay upright. She couldn’t help but giggle as she offered a hoof to help the unicorn up. “It feels like they fired up the main engines. We’re on the move now.” “We’re moving?” the young unicorn asked with a sudden sparkle of excitement in her eye. And rather than wait for an answer, she jumped up onto the desk, put her front hooves on the wall to help her stand up, and plastered her face to the small round window. “We’re moving! We’re moving!” she cheered. An infectious smile spread across Sweetie’s face as she stared out the window. And as the smile spread to Scootaloo, the young pilot said, “You do realize that we’ve been moving all day, right?” “Yes,” Sweetie answered with a chuckle. “And riding in your airplane felt like freedom incarnate. But the way the Wonderbolt’s captain spoke made it clear that she expects us to stay cooped up in this fancy room.” She tapped the mahogany desk with gold trim she was standing on. “This place felt like just another guided cage to me. But this view… this reminder that we are still moving closer to my goal… That I’ll soon be truly free to be myself… To discover who I want to be instead of who everypony else wants me to be. Maybe I’ll finally earn my cutie mark, like you… Oh!” Sweetie Belle had been staring out the window for most of her speech. It was only at the very end that she turned around to see that Scootaloo’s flank was as blank as her own. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean- I thought I was kind of old to still not have one, and I just assumed- Oh! I can’t believe I didn’t even notice before. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” “It’s okay,” the young pegasus said. Yet somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered the time before her father died. When she would spend her days going to school and then her afternoons and weekends trying everything she could in the hopes of finding that special talent that would make a symbol magically appear on her flank to tell her she’d found her purpose in life. “In a way, I guess you and I are a lot alike. Only in my case time is my cage. I can go anywhere I want. It’s just that ever since my dad died, I’ve been too busy just trying to earn the money to pay the bills and buy food that I’ve never really had time to worry about who I’m meant to be anymore.” Sweetie Belle finally jumped down from the desk. And placing a hoof over Scootaloo’s back she said, “Then finishing this mission will mean freedom for both of us. Me because I won’t be a spirit key anymore, and you because of how much mom and sis are paying you!” “Yeah… I guess so,” Scootaloo said, trying to sound supportive despite her doubts. In truth, she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to be as child-like as she had been before the full responsibilities of life had been dumped in her lap. Thankfully she didn’t have to let her mind linger on such thoughts, as only a few seconds later the door opened and Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash returned from their trip to the Communications Room. For a while Rainbow Dash stayed in the room, keeping the fillies company by sharing stories of her adventures as a Wonderbolt pilot. But soon enough, she told the trio of youngsters that she had some work she still needed to do and left. Although not before saying that she’d come fetch them when it was time for dinner. By then the three had already settled into the room that they would be calling home for the duration of this mission. For a little while they tried to pass the time talking among themselves. But eventually the conversation turned into Sweetie asking Apple Bloom all about what the farm life was like, and Scootaloo had been the farm mechanic long enough to be bored out of her mind by the topic. “I’m going down to the hanger. I still haven’t taken the time to look over the damage from those hits we took out there,” she said to excuse herself. “Didn’t Spitfire tell us to stay in here?” Bloom asked. “No, she said to stay out of ‘their’ way. And I don’t see how ‘me’ being with ‘my’ plane is in ‘their’ way.” If the others had a counter argument, they didn’t bother to speak it before Scoots was out of earshot. * * * * * * * Along the way, the few Wonderbolts whose path Scootaloo did cross gave the filly a wary glare further adding to the feeling that her presence here was only being tolerated because they were under orders to. But given her small size and the fact that the crew of the Cloudsdale tended to fly down the halls, no pony could say the orange filly walking along was ‘in the way.’ When Scootaloo had made her way back to the hanger, the first thing she saw was the equipment manager working on her plane. Her eyes immediately locked onto the spotless, new tires on her plane’s landing gear. “Hey! What are you doing?!” she shouted. Although he gave a startled twitch at the sound of an angry pilot, the brown stallion casually answered, “Huh? Oh, your tires were fairly worn out. So I replaced them.” With the thought that he might not understand the cause of her concerns, she voiced them. “You do realize I’m not a Wonderbolt? And that you don’t HAVE to do anything for me. And that I can’t afford to pay you for any services that I didn’t ask for, RIGHT?” At first he blinked. Then when he realized the filly wasn’t privy to the ‘common knowledge’ of the maintenance crew, he laughed. “Don’t worry about money. One of the funny things about militaries is that it takes a half dozen signatures to throw anything away,” he explained. “What’s that got to do with messing with my plane?” The Stallion pointed to a pile of crates in an out-of-the-way alcove and said, “Thing is, we still have a bunch of Mark 1 parts laying around. But half of them don’t fit the Mark 2’s, and I still haven’t been able to get the higher ups to let me just toss that stuff. So you’ll have to excuse me if I jump at this chance to use those parts on the only flying Mark 1 left in the world.” Giving the filly a pat on the back, he added, “Just helping me get rid of that junk is payment enough in my mind. No reason for us to keep hauling around stuff we can’t use anymore, right?” “If you’re not even allowed to throw them away, won’t you get in trouble for giving them to me?” “Naw. Like I said, procedures require a bunch of permissions to throw stuff away. As long as I USE them, I’m the only one who has to sign off on it. And no pony is going to care that my end of month report has three more in the ‘tires used’ line. Also nothing says I have to mention that three of those tires were Mark 1 tires.” Scootaloo breathed a sigh of relief at the realization that, from the stallion’s point of view, he was getting rid of useless spare parts the only way he could. But that didn’t completely exonerate the pony with the crescent moon cutie mark. “You still shouldn’t have touched my plane without my permission.” “You’re right,” he said, hanging his head slightly. “This isn’t one of our planes anymore. And as picky as Wonderbolt pilots can be about who works on their planes, I can only imagine how much stronger a pilot who actually owns their plane would feel. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. “Here, let me make it up to you by letting you borrow this,” he added. And then promptly presented a device about the size of the filly’s head to the young pilot. Naturally Scootaloo had one question. “What’s this?” “It’s surface mender. We use it to get the dents out of the planes without having to take the panels off and bang them out with a hammer. I wish I could give you something for the hole you got in the left wing, but rolls of sheet metal ‘fit’ all planes. Just put it back in my cart when you’re done with it,” he finished, pointing at a wheeled cart strapped to part of the Cloudsdale’s structure. With that Scootaloo gave the equipment manager a thankful nod and turned her attention to fixing up her plane as best she could. Sure enough, all she had to do to fix the dents marring her plane was slide the surface of the device over them a few times, as if it were a scrub brush. Equally true, when she came to the top of the left wing, she found that one of the bullets had hit with a deep enough angle to pierce through the top panel. Fetching her own tools, the young engineer set about undoing the panel from the frame and, checking inside she found the remains of the bullet. Thankfully she found the cables attaching the control surfaces to the control stick remained undamaged. Then she got out some pegasus tape and taped up the hole in the metal panel from both sides before reattaching it. Finally she went about double checking every screw, nut and bolt on her plane, paying especially close attention to her landing gear. Her inspection ended when she stepped back from the tail of the plane and sat down atop the fuselage. Even with her wrench still gripped in her mouth, she smiled at the work she’d done. Sure it was nowhere near as good as the day it had first left the factory, but thanks to her work it would continue to fly for the foreseeable future. “So it’s true,” a somewhat new, but familiar voice said from right behind Scootaloo. “You really did fix up that old wreck yourself.” Naturally the filly spun around and she found Rainbow Dash sitting atop the cockpit canopy looking back at her. The look on the mare’s face seemed to be an odd mixture, like she was impressed and haunted at the same time, trying to cover up the latter with the former. “Rainbow Dash! H-How long have you been there?” “Here? About five seconds. Although, I have been watching you for the last ten minutes or so.” “You have? Why?” Scootaloo asked, a blush forming beneath the fur of her cheeks. “Because you’re a lot like your dad. An awesome pilot, but also smart.” Scootaloo shook her head and looked down. “I’m not smart. I had to drop out of school just to earn enough so I could eat.” The blue mare placed a firm hoof on the filly’s shoulder. “Don’t think that school is the only place you can get smart at, kid. I couldn’t rebuild this plane from scrap if my life depended on it. You did, and that takes smarts.” Then Rainbow Dash shifted to sit beside the younger pilot, and once she was facing the same direction, she added, “When we worked together, I always admired your dad. Even if I was the better pilot, I could see that he was the better pony. Me? I’m an athlete and a pilot. That’s it. Sure I could fly rings around him with wings of metal or feathers. But him? He was fit enough, and smart too. And the more I watched him, the more I realized that his balanced approach to life was wiser than my focus on only strength of body.” For a short while after Dash’s comments, the two just sat there, silently staring down the length of the silver plane. Then the mare got up and used one of her wings to urge the younger pegasus to do the same, while saying, “Anyway… the actual reason I came down here is that it’s dinner time. I already dropped your friends off in the mess hall, but we really should join them before they’re done.” * * * * * * * The mess hall was serving pasta in a white sauce with broccoli among other things that night. But at Dash’s strong suggestion, the pasta was what the entire group chose. Of course, by the time Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash got there, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were almost done with theirs, so those two spent most of the time talking while they waited for the two pegasi to eat. One less enjoyable thing about dinner was that every now and then a fellow Wonderbolt would pass by their table and tease Dash, usually with a remark along the lines of ‘being stuck with baby sitting duty.’ For her part, Rainbow Dash just shrugged it off and even told the fillies to just ignore the unwelcome behavior. As they walked the halls back to their room, Sweetie Belle peppered her Wonderbolt chaperone with excited questions. Scootaloo listened intently to Dash’s answers, while admiring the hallway’s construction style. At least as much as one can for a facility composed of unpainted steel frames and aluminum panels. While Apple Bloom also listened, her eyes kept catching an unusual look on Rainbow Dash’s face. It seemed that whenever the mare didn’t think Scootaloo could see her, her smile faltered for a moment, but not long enough to show what emotion she was hiding behind that confident smile. “Need anything before I turn in for the night?” Rainbow Dash asked, once they’d returned to the cabin that the fillies had been assigned to. Apple Bloom held up her hood, as if she was trying to answer a teacher. “Actually Ah had a question Ah meant to ask earlier.” “Alright, shoot. Maybe I’ll even have an answer.” “Ah thought all Wonderbolts were pegasi. So who was that unicorn we saw next to Captain Spitfire?” “I think his name was Shining Armor or something. And he’s a captain in the royal guard, not the Wonderbolts.” After putting a hoof to her chin for a moment to search her mind, Rainbow Dash added, “Spitfire hasn’t actually told the rest of us the details, but my understanding is that it was his team that found the barrier Sweetie Belle is supposed to dispel.” “Remind me to thank him when this is all over,” Sweetie said, as she was bouncing on the bed like it was a mini-trampoline. “What? It’s fun! And I was never allowed to do this on the beds back home,” she added on seeing the look Rainbow Dash gave her. The slow shake of Dash’s head became a sympathetic chuckle. “Speaking of beds. If this one is yours I should probably go get the spare blankets from my plane. That way Apple Bloom and I can sleep on the floor,” Scootaloo said, pawing the carpet and finding it soft enough for her idea. “Oh no you don’t!” Sweetie protested, and stopping her bouncing. “I already told you I don’t like special treatment! I mean, look at this bed! It big enough for all three of us!” she insisted innocently. And there was no arguing that an adult-sized bed was big enough to accommodate all three fillies. “Are you sure you want to share?” Scootaloo asked. Given how much she was being paid to accompany Sweetie Belle, insuring her client’s comfort, as well as safety, seemed like the least she could do to earn it. “I insist!” Sweetie answered with a firm stomp of her hoof. Rainbow Dash just smiled, shook her head and with a slight laugh said, “Kids will be kids. Anyway now that that’s settled, goodnight.” And then she left the trio of fillies. “I like her,” Sweetie said of the mare who’d just left. “I just wish the rest of the Wonderbolts were as nice as her. It feels like the rest of them really don’t want us here.” “The maintenance chief seemed nice. But yeah, Rainbow Dash is definitely the best!” Scootaloo volunteered. Apple Bloom gave a wary glance at the door and said, “Ah don’t know. Ah get the feeling that she’s hiding something…”