At the scene of the bus crash, Fran managed to get the rear door of the bus open, to face a cacophony of children screaming, trying to coordinate their new limbs. The few larger ponies and others she can see were in a similar strait. “Make your way to the back! Help is on the way!” she shouted as she leaned in, looking for whoever was closest to the back.
Her first rescue was an Abyssinian, tall, ginger-tabby marked and possessing considerable bulk for a presumed teenager, yet the clothes he or she was wearing were slack. “Let me catch my breath and I’ll be back to help,” the tabby boy said as he got out of the bus.
“Sounds like a plan. More help is coming. Watch for them,” Fran said as she helped another Abyssinian out, this one much smaller than the first, gray tabby markings.
“Where’s Toby? Where’s my brother?” the kitten sobbed.
The larger Abyssinian called out, “I’m right here, Gina. Come here, okay?” The little gray bolted to the larger ginger, knocking him onto his rump. “Not so hard!”
Frack and Freida were next to arrive. They went to the front of the bus, where the smoke was getting noticeably thicker. Freida was able to get the front door open, and got to work getting the driver out, some sort of pony who was slumped over the wheel. Frieda got the driver out, using her talons to cut the seat belt. She found the driver had a broken left hind leg, down low. Fortunately, the skin wasn’t broken. When she got the driver out of the bus, Frack went in.
“Okay, come on, kids! Let’s get out! Wonder later, exit now!” he called out.
The first to start moving was a hippogriff chick, a rather small one. Frack used a wing to help guide the chick down the stairs into Frieda’s arms. “What happened?” the little chick asked, her Dora the Explorer shirt hanging loose on her
“We’ll explain later, little one. Let’s get everyone off the bus, okay?”
“Okay, Miss. I sit in the shade, okay?” the little hippogriff said, pointing at the sidewalk.
“Good idea! You do that!” Frieda told the chick, patting her gently with a wing. She then reached for her radio. “Husker Three to Husker Two. Paw, where are you?”
“Pelican Six to Husker Three. We just turned the corner onto Baylen, about five or six blocks. We’re going as fast as is safe, Three. We see you and the smoke,” Foster called back.
“Hustle your bustle, Pelican! The driver has a broken leg, he’s the lump you see off to one side,” Frieda said as she guided a pegasus filly to where the hippogriff was waiting.
“Going from trot to gallop! Pelican Six out!” Foster replied. He grabbed the fire extinguisher in his glow and went to a full-out gallop, leaving Fred and the wagon in the dust. He wound up running the half-mile in a bit over a minute, Frieda wisely getting out of his way as she heard his hoofbeats. His glow wrenched the hood off the bus, and he aimed the extinguisher stream at the base of the smoke puff, which went from black to gray.
“I’ll help Fran, you get kids out your way!” Frieda squawked, heading back along the bus. She changed her mind when one of the emergency exit windows popped open and a pony’s head came out, coughing. She got up on her back paws and helped the pony, an earth pony mare, out through the window.
Foster, once the fire bottle was emptied, tossed it aside and went in. Seeing the frightened ponies inside, he reverted to his training, being a sheriff for over twenty years and a deputy for a dozen more. “Now, everyone calm down! Ah’m Sheriff Hardegan, and we’ll get you outta here, but you have to CALM DOWN!”
His tactic worked. The pandemonium inside the bus quickly settled, most of the children’s eyes looking at Foster with hope, not panic. With him at the front, Fran at the back, and Frieda at the window, they had the bus emptied before Fred made it to the scene, Frack helping those inside to get out. A large female diamond dog was at the one open emergency window, handing out smaller foals to Frieda.
Fred, once he was close enough, set the wagon’s brakes and got out of the harness, going to where the driver was sprawled on the road. A touch told him that the driver is a pegasus, does indeed have a broken leg, as well as two cracked ribs in his barrel. While he could not heal the broken bones until they were set, he could ease the driver’s pain. “The kids… what happened?” the driver managed to whisper.
“The kids are being evacuated from the bus now. You seem to be the worst off. You’re going to have to wait a bit before my wife resets your hoof. She’s helping to get the kids out. I’m Fred Halvorsen, from Oconee, Nebraska. What’s your name?” Fred asked.
“John Doyle, deacon of the Basilica of Saint Michael the Archangel. We were taking some of the diocese’s children on a day trip to a carnival in Tallahassee. I had just barely pulled out of the parking lot when there was a bright flash and I could not grip the steering wheel, plus my shoe lodged under the brake. Just what happened?” John asked.
“More on that later, okay? That way I only have to tell the story once. How many were on the bus?” Fred asked in return.
“Thirty. Twenty-four between nine and fourteen, two senior teenagers, myself and three parents. What’s going to happen with us? Where is the fire department?” John said, his mind catching up to events, and not liking what it saw.
“Easy, Deacon Doyle,” Fred said in a soothing voice, touching the fallen pegasus with a hoof. “I was the sexton of Saint Isidore’s church in Columbus, Nebraska for some years. A lot of strange things have happened, magic is in existence and can be used by most species. Thanks to divine intervention, I can heal at a touch, speak any language, and determine what path is best for a pony, should he or she truly need it. We will have a more detailed talk later. Now, where would be the best place to shelter everyone?”
“The Basilica, which is just a block away. I locked up when we left, and the keys are on my ring, which is in the ignition. Saint Isidore’s, eh? Welcome to Pensacola,” John said drowsily, putting his head down.
“Easy, Deacon. Salvation is at hoof. Let us help you in your hour of need,” Fred told the pegasus, who shut his eyes. “Sleep the mender.”
Meanwhile, through the combined efforts of Freida, Frack, Fran and Foster, the bus was successfully evacuated. When it looked like the bus was trying to catch fire again, Foster took the extinguisher from inside the bus and successfully snuffed the smoke. Frack found a clipboard in one of the front seats which presumably held a roster of those aboard. “Okay, who’s in charge here?” Frack called out.
“Deacon Doyle. He was driving,” said the large female diamond dog, whose clothes were straining to span her enhanced acreage. “Who are you, and what happened to us?” she snapped.
“I’m Frankland Larsen, Chief Engineer of the motor yacht Deliverance. With me are the Second Officer, Frieda Halvorsen, she’s the griffoness, Technical Officer Fran Vasquez, the tortoiseshell tabby, Security Officer Foster Hardegan the white unicorn, and the blue pony over by your deacon is our First Officer, Fred Halvorsen. Now, all of you remember this: we dropped everything and got our butts over here to save your asses. We moored less than an hour ago,” Frack said, pacing around in front of everypony there, wings spread, clearly getting worked up. “Now, does anypony have any possible idea on where we can put you all until we can figure out a plan of action for you?” He flapped his wings some, lifting off the ground, glaring right at the diamond dog.
The tactic worked. The diamond dog lost her belligerence. “I’m Anne Jones, one of the parent monitors on this trip. It looks like you have the roster there. Would you call the roll, so we can find out who’s who?” she asked in a far meeker voice.
Frack landed and smiled warmly. “But of course, Mrs. Jones.” He called off each name on the list. Turned out the group consisted of seven earth ponies, five pegasi, five unicorns, three diamond dogs (all related), three Abyssinians (two related), two hippogriffs (unrelated), two griffons, two thestrals and one Ornithian.
While Frack and Fran handled the attendance, Fred, Frieda and Foster took care of the deacon. Foster carefully lifted the pegasus with his glow and set him into the wagon. Then Fred and Frieda conferred as Frieda set and bound the break, after which Fred healed the bones in their proper positions. When that was done, Fred brought John around and asked if he would be willing to speak to the rest of the bus passengers. He said he was willing, so Fred hitched himself back to the wagon and brought John to where he could address the crowd. There, he managed to really put them all at ease from the back of the wagon, calling out each name on the list and learning who was whom. He then told the crowd that they were to listen to those that had helped them, and for now, they were going to stay at the Basilica. “Mister Fred was a sexton at a church in Nebraska, and is as much a man of God as I am. We must all work together to pull through this and emerge as better people… or whatever we are called!” he finished with a laugh, which proved infectious.
Foster got the keys out of the bus, and the whole herd walked the block to the Basilica. Once there, Fred and Frieda said they were going to get some food for everyone, while the other three would stay and start talking about how everything had changed, what to expect, and what everyone can and should do.
Back aboard Deliverance, Frick waited anxiously for news. He knew damn well that they were going to be busy, and not to bug them for updates. Once he got the fueling started, he thought of something- the drone. Finding the charge at ninety percent, he launched the drone and flew it in the direction Fran had run off to, catching sight of the scene after a few minutes. He parked the drone on a nearby rooftop and set the camera to watch while he busied himself monitoring the ship’s refueling. He followed the herd’s movement to a nearby church, and when all were inside, he brought the drone back to the boat. He had just plugged the drone in to recharge when Frieda called via radio.
“Frick, Fred and I are on our way back. Time to dig into our supplies. We have thirty ponies at once, twenty-four between the ages of nine to fourteen. Looks like we’ll be here a while.”
“So I noticed, Freida. Everyone else staying to educate the newbies?”
“That’s right. Plus clouds are moving in, like Frack predicted. Break free the portable generator and gas can. We’ll be there in a while. Good thing we have a lot of provisions!”
“How long are they going to last? Three days?”
“Longer than that. Trust me. We’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Right, Freida. Cornhusker base out.” Frick clipped the radio to his harness strap and headed up to the bridge, where he removed the generator and the two five-gallon gas cans from their mountings, levitating them to the pier, followed by a side of venison, dried fish, a can of pemmican and a large can of government-issue crackers from Saint Louis, still unopened and freshness dated through 2026.
When Fred and Frieda arrived, Frieda called Fran to ask what supplies were on hand at the Basilica. “More than I hoped, actually. Some of the food in their pantry has spoiled, but it’s not as bad as we thought. Cots, clothes, bedding are all adequate, just no power. Bring the generator, we have extension cords and power bars.” Fran reported.
“Will do. We’ll be there in an hour or so. Let us get packed and we’ll call when we leave here,” Frieda told her friend.
“We’ll be ready for you. Five out.”
The three at the boat spent the next hour loading the wagon under skies that were darkening with more than just sunset. Frick took five minutes to cover the wagon with a tarp, screwing hooks in the wagon to keep the tarp in place. “Send Frack and Fran back tonight, and give Foster the option to stay there or not. I’m certain the two of you will want to at least spend the night with them, for which I don’t object. Hope you can train them all to be good scavengers!” Frick told the couple before they left.
“They know the city better than we do. Deacon Doyle seems quite sensible, and once we bring the older ones up to speed, they’ll help keep the younger ones in line,” Fred told Frick.
Freida handed Frick a sheet of paper. “This is the full roster of all of them, name, age and species. I’m sure you will want to call Rotterdam and let them know. There’s no way they will be able to survive for long just by themselves,” she said.
Frick took the paper in his glow and looked it over. “I will do just that. If I remember right, the Rhine Forest will be making a run to Havana and Mexico sometime in the near future. I’ll send a message to the Admiralty and ask. We’re going to have to plug them into the comm system soon, so they won’t need to use us as intermediaries. The main question I’m going to have is will we be able to catch the Rhine Forest on this trip or will we have to stay in Havana for a few months. If we can catch the ride, we can tell them honestly that we will meet again.
“I don’t want to lie to them, but you can say we’ll be looking into the problem. Rescue to what we know as civilization is not a matter of if, but when. Answer all the questions you can, but stress the eventual rescue is not up to us,” he concluded as a couple of raindrops started to fall.
“Don’t worry, Frick. Keep the home fires burning,” Fred told his friend.
“Go do the hoo doo you two do so well!” Frick replied with a small laugh as the couple headed out.