//------------------------------// // Part 9: "It was an accident. That's all. Nothing more." // Story: The Death of Daring Do: The Engine of Eternity // by DuncanR //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash slid across the roof of the plane and slammed against the wall. The plane continued to tumble, and a heap of kitchenware spilled out of an unlocked shelf and clattered against her: a heavy frying-pan slammed into her face and sent a cascade of sparkly flashes bursting across her view. She shook her head and grabbed the wall, bracing herself tight. "Derring!" she shouted. "The Cockpit!" Derring-Do let out a squeal as she dangled from the edge of her sleeping cot, hanging upside down. "What did you do!? Why are we falling!?" "We've got less than a minute before we hit the ground, and you're the only one who can fly this thing!" Derring kicked her back legs wildly as she clung to the bed. "This can't be happening... it can't be!" "Get to the cockpit!" Rainbow Dash roared. After a moment's hesitation, Derring-Do let go of her cot and began scrambling for the front of the plane. The aircraft tilted violently and she  slammed up against the wall, screaming as her crippled wing took the brunt of the impact. Rainbow Dash kicked off the nearby wall and grabbed hold of her. Using her wings to stabilize them both, she managed to push Derring into the cockpit. She clung to the seat and climbed into it, even as the plane tilted nose down: she braced her hooves against the control panels and pushed herself into place. "Okay! Okay! Gotta start the engine!" Derring-Do shouted. "Gotta remember the checklist! Item one: make sure the seat harness is secure!" She fumbled with the harness for a second, but Rainbow Dash grabbed her from behind and began buckling her in place. "Just get on with it!" "Okay! Okay! Item two: Make sure the fuel selector valve is on full! If we have two full fuel tanks, we can turn the selector to either side, or straight up! We wanna make sure the selector is set to up and on, so we can use both tanks! Then we wanna make sure the power-grid and avionics control systems are all off, so we don't overload any of our radios..." Rainbow Dash finished clasping her harness, and glanced out of the front window: the zeppelin was just a tiny, silver dot, and it was impossible to tell how close the thick white fog was. "We don't have time for a checklist!" Dash shouted. "Start this thing now!" "Right! Right!" Derring reached for a lever with a bright orange button on the end. She pressed the button and pushed the lever into the panel. "This controls the amount of fuel that goes to the engine! We're gonna make sure it's 'full forward', or 'rich', so we have the most fuel going to the engine... the most fuel... the most. Okay, the fuel gauge isn't going up. Why isn't the fuel gauge going up?" "This better be important, Derring!" Derring-Do sighed, sounding mildly irritated. "There is no fuel. We're empty." The plane rotated around, pointing straight down. Rainbow Dash braced herself against the door and spread her wings, stabilizing herself. "We gotta do something, Derring! Think of something! Start thinking right now!" "We... we gotta..." She slapped her helmet. "Right! Our magi-crystals are still fully charged, so we can still operate the maneuvering controls!" She pulled a lever, and the plane's tilt-rotor wings moved into a forward facing position. The tumbling stopped, but they began plummeting even faster. Derring grabbed the throttle and pulled towards herself "Glide, darn-it! Glide! It's just like coming out of a stall, darn-it!" Derring looked to the left wing. "It's not working. The aileron isn't working! Why isn't the aileron working!? Okay, don't panic... maybe it's just the one." Derring looked to the right wing and wiggled the controls. "Nope... they're both broken. Hokay then." "What now!?" "Parachute! Get me a parachute from the back and prepare to abandon ship!" Rainbow Dash sped to the back of the plane, flying through the claustrophobic interior as quickly as she dared. She scanned the cargo section up and down, checking all the secured crates and duffel bags. "I don't see any parachutes!" she shouted. "Wow," Derring called back. "That is bad. Hey, do you think you can you carry me?" "With your body weight?" she said, "not for more than a minute. I might be able to drop you off safely if we're over a body of water." There as a moment of silence. "Derring? Don't you quit on me, okay?" "It's not over yet!" she shouted back. "I think I can do this by moving the tilt-rotors manually, but first I'll need you to give me somethin." "Name it!" "A push," she said. Rainbow Dash's eyes shot open. An instant later, she snatched a pair of flight goggles off the wall and flew to the door, but the lever refused to budge. Right... the exit's busted. How could I forget? She grabbed the emergency exit release and pulled it, but the bright red lever snapped off completely. "Aargh! Stupid door!" Dash braced her front hooves on the facing wall and kicked her hind legs against the door with all her strength, as rapidly as possible. The wall of the plane shuddered and shook, and a hiss of high-speed wind split the air: frigid air poured in through the tiny crack with alarming speed. "Almost... almost!" Dash gave one last heave, and the door broke off its hinges and sailed out of view. Dash leaped out of the door and immediately slammed into a gale-force hurricane. The plane sailed ahead of her, but she quickly regained her balance and streaked ahead of it like an arrow. She settled into position directly in front of its nose, matching its speed perfectly as it sailed straight down. She waved back at Derring-Do through the window: she waved back, and pointed up and to the left. Dash she spread her wings wide and caught the wind, shaping the weather into a powerful wind tunnel and gently arcing it upwards. The plane shuddered behind her as the wind caught it, and the heavy bulk of its fuselage strained against the hastily sculpted weather pattern. Unbelievable... how can something so heavy move so fast? She tightened her control over the wind tunnel, straining with every muscle to keep the plane from breaking free. They began climbing up, one degree at a time, but not quickly enough: they plunged into the thick, white layer of fog that obscured the foot of the mountain. A shiver ran along Rainbow Dash's back as they hurtled through the air completely blind. She glanced back at the plane, and saw Derring-Do frantically waving for her to get out of the way. Rainbow Dash shook her head and kept the course. At last, the plane leveled off. She slipped underneath it and slammed up against its belly, pushing as hard as she could. None of this will mean anything if we can't get out of the fog! We’ll either crash into the ground, or crash into a mountainside! She let out a roar and redoubled her effort, ignoring the glaze of ice and frost gathering on her feathers. Something massive loomed through the fog beside her, easily the size of a skyscraper. Dash gasped in shock as several more towering pillars rushed past them: it was impossible to make out any details through the fog, and there was no warning whatsoever as they streaked onward: a huge, dark column appeared directly in front of them, impossible to avoid, and the plane crashed against its side with an explosive force. Rainbow Dash tumbled through the air, wildly out of control, and the last thing she saw was the Goldfinch snapped in half with cargo spewing from its aft section. A wave of intense heat washed over her, and her vision faded to black.     Rainbow Dash groaned as something tickled against her ear. She scrunched her eyes shut and waved it away, but the sensation persisted. The fog finally lifted from her mind, and a dull, throbbing pain washed over her body. She muttered to herself and opened her eyes, but it took several seconds for her vision to clear up. When it did, she gazed around herself in amazement: she was in a jungle. Not just any jungle, either: the trees were the size of skyscrapers, and their lush green crowns were thick enough to form a ceiling. She could see up through the breaks in the foliage and saw the same white, cloudy mist as before, this time from below. Even in the middle of the day, it was dark and gloomy. She tugged her flight goggles down and looked at herself: her limbs were tangled up in thick, leafy vines, and she was suspended more than a hundred meters off the ground. Her entire body was covered with sprains and bruises. "Hello?" she called out. "Is anypony there?" There was no response. Not even an echo. She tried to untangle herself, but cried out in pain as the vines tugged against her sides: both of her wings were badly sprained... possibly even broken. "Of course they are," she muttered to herself. "Derring-Do? Can you hear me? Hello?" She scanned the ground far below, watching for anything out of place. She saw one of the airplane's wings lodged against the side of a tree branch, shattered in half. Right below it, near the base of the tree, was the front half of the plane jutting out of the ground at a steep angle. "Hang on, Derring!" she shouted. "I'll be down in just a minute!" She struggled against the tangled knot of vines and managed to free her front legs, but swung over and dangled upside-down from her hind leg. She waved her front hooves desperately. "Aaah! No, wait! Do-over!" She twisted around and grabbed at the vines again, and managed to regain her balance. "Okay, we're good... we're good. Yeah." She clamped her teeth around a nearby vine, but her hind leg slipped free and the knot loosened: she swung down on the vine a considerable distance, came to a jarring halt, then swung down again in the other direction. She swung side to side, lower and lower, as the knot steadily unraveled and finally deposited her on the ground in a heap of bushes. Rainbow Dash lay on her back and stared at the canopy far above, and managed to take a short, hissing breath. She sat upright and cradled one of her wings. "Yeah. We're good." She stood up and made her way towards the remains of the crashed plane. "Derring-Do? You okay over there? I'm on my way now! Don't move, stay right where you are!" Her journey was quick and straightforward: the ground-level foliage here was thinner than than that of a normal forest, and the land was surprisingly even. She could hear birds and animals in the distance, but couldn't see anything nearby. The only major obstacles were the roots of the titanic trees themselves: they were the size of whole buildings, with more than enough space to walk beneath them. She came at last to the front half of the Goldfinch, suspended a scant few meters above the ground by a tangled net of vines. The wreckage groaned and creaked as it slowly swung side to side. The whole back half of the plane was completely missing, along with all of their cargo. "Okay! Okay! Just gimme a second to—" She ran forward, but flinched back as her front hoof sank into swampy, wet mud, perfectly camouflaged under a thick layer of mossy undergrowth. She pumped her wings out of reflex and let out a cry of pain as the muscles twisted. She clenched her teeth and tried to step backwards: She pulled her foot out of the bog with a deep, wet squelch, and the fetid stench of rotting plant matter clung to her hoof. "Okay... might take me a little longer than I thought. Just stay cool." She walked around the plane, carefully testing the ground as she went. After walking to the other side, she caught sight of the plane's other wing leaning up against the trunk of the nearby tree. She climbed between it and the tree and gave it a push, and the hollow aluminum frame fell down against the surface of the bog with a loud slap. "Now we're cookin' with oil," she said. She trotted across the makeshift bridge and climbed up onto the plane, using the tangled vines as a rope ladder. "Almost there, Derring. You got nuthin' to worry ab—" One of the vines snapped under her hind hoof and she scrambled to regain her footing. A moment later, the plane gave out a low creak and shifted position. She clenched her teeth and froze in place. Oh, no... no you don't. Don't you dare. The plane slid down several inches, and the nose of the cockpit dipped into the surface of the bog. Rainbow Dash climbed up the plane and leaped inside, slipping on her muddy hoof: she fell straight into the cockpit and landed face-first against the slightly-cracked windshield.  She stared at the pool of mud directly below them. She looked back and saw Derring-Do in the pilot's seat, slumped face-first against the controls. Her eyes were closed and there was a slight trickle of blood along her forehead. Dash pushed her back against the seat and tilted her head side to side. Still breathing... She unclasped Derring-Do's harness and slung her body across her back, wincing as she jostled her injured wings. She struggled to climb her way out of the steep, slippery plane, even as it slid deeper into the bog below. Mud flowed against the outside of the window, and the fractured glass quietly cracked and tinkled under the pressure. Dash moved carefully, like a water-strider insect balanced on the surface of a pool. She reached the broken-off end of the plane, and paused to look below. Too far to jump, especially with this weight. There's no way I can climb down the vines while carrying her. She looked back down through the interior of the plane. She reached over and took a chunk of metal wreckage in her mouth, then hurled it down into the cockpit below. It smashed the glass apart, allowing the slimy, fetid mud to rush inside. The plane tilted straight up and down and began sinking faster, but Dash stayed where she was. Once they were low enough, she simply hopped to the severed wing laying across the bog. Their combined weight caused the end of the wing to plunge down like a see-saw. Dash scrambled to keep upright: her hind hooves slid back into the mud for a moment, but she managed to pull herself free and run along the wing. She leaped to solid ground and collapsed, gasping for breath. She turned and watched as the plane and its broken wing were swallowed up by the swamp... their communication and navigation gear, along with everything they'd packed for the journey, was gone without a trace. Dash staggered upright and carefully rolled Derring onto her back. She opened her eyes, blearily, and let out a moan. Dash patted her cheek. "Hey. How ya feeling?" "Where... are we?" "We, uh, kinda crashed." Dash wiped the sweat from her brow. "In a jungle." "Where's the plane? The cargo?" Dash bit her bottom lip. "You don't want to know. It's gross." "I've..." Derring coughed and sputtered, and Dash had to lean close to hear her voice. "I've changed my mind," she said. "I'm not glad I came here."       An hour later, Derring Do lay under the shelter of a cluster of giant tree-roots. Her jacket was wide open and her coat was filthy with dirt and sweat. The air buzzed with insects the size of tea saucers, and distant roars and bird-calls echoed across the foliage. Rainbow Dash climbed into their tiny shelter, wearing her goggles around her neck. She set a pair of saddlebags on the ground. "I've been searching for almost an hour, and this was all I could find. Sorry." "Better'n nothing," Derring said. She opened the satchel and rummaged through its contents. "Spare notebook and grease pencil... magnetic compass... flare gun, with two flares... pocket watch, broken... flint and steel... kerosene lamp, broken but serviceable." She threw the empty bag aside. "No food, no water, no first aid kit. Great! Just great." "We still have the air horns, and that little radio thingy you had with you." "We're going to get two miles out of that thing, tops. The mountain is four miles up. We couldn't reach the HMS Imbrium even if they were directly above us." Dash glanced out of the shelter, warily. "Are you good to walk?" "Walk!?" Derring stood up and glared at her. "Just where do you think we're going to walk to? It'd take us three weeks to walk to the coast, even if there weren't a half-dozen mountain ranges zig-zagging back and forth in between!" Dash walked to her and set a hoof on her shoulder. "We'll figure something out, okay? I promised I wouldn't let you die in the middle of nowhere, and I'm going to keep that promise." Derring-Do shoved her hoof aside. "That's fantastic! I can trade dying in a plane crash for dying in a tropical jungle! At least a plane crash is over before you can feel anything: but death by exposure? Much more long and drawn out!" "Would you calm down? We're not going to starve to death, okay?" "You're right. It takes three for four weeks to starve to death... we're going to dehydrate long before that happens. Three days, tops." Rainbow Dash gestured to the sky above. "This is the heaviest moisture I've ever seen in a ground atmosphere, so there'll be plenty of rain for us to drink. Now let's get moving already: if you're healthy enough to stand up and complain, you're certainly healthy enough to walk." Derring-Do sputtered for a moment, glancing between Dash and the jungle. "This is the end, isn't it? I'm going to die in this jungle, and it's all your fault! You wanted to go one a real-life adventure, and you've gotten us both killed! How does it make you feel to know that your greatest hero, Derring-Do, is going to die in this horrible place!?" Rainbow Dash watched her for a while, patiently. "Are you done?" Derring took several deep breaths. "Yeah. Let's go." They walked along the forest floor, side by side, with Derring's tiny metal compass to guide the way. They walked at a steady pace for several minutes. "Pretty easy terrain," Rainbow Dash said, "all things considering." "It's the light level," Derring-Do said. "These jungle trees are so big that they choke out all the light... makes it impossible for smaller trees and shrubs to grow. They absorb most of the rainfall, too... but it doesn't look like it rains much up there." "The mist isn't condensing," Dash said. "Even though it's freezing cold up there, and hot as a basement bakery down here, something's preventing the rain from forming." "Might be the tree cover. Maybe these trees absorb dew right out of the clouds." Rainbow Dash glanced around, casually. "You know a lot about jungles?" "My first three assignments were in rainforests. You have to take a safety and survival course before the University will let you go... I never thought I'd actually have to use it." Dash looked straight up, at the mist-covered leaves above. "Think the expedition knows about this jungle? Or did they think they were dropping us on a giant glacier?" "It was an accident. That's all. Nothing more." Dash frowned, but kept her eyes ahead. "All the doors were jammed. The emergency release was broken. We were out of fuel. The wingy-thingies wouldn't tilt. Both of our parachutes were missing." "What are you saying? You don't think... no. Of course not." "Are you blind?" Dash shouted. "As soon as Professor Walski got her hooves on the prism and all your notes, she sent us home in a coffin with wings!" Derring-Do turned to shout at her, furiously. "Perez Walski did not try to kill us!" They continued walking for several minutes. Eventually,  Derring-Do's lower jaw started trembling. She stopped walking and waved her head, slightly dizzy. "I don't believe it... Perez Walski tried to kill us." She shook her head. "No... it doesn't make any sense. Why would she do such a thing? It's ridiculous!" "What about that prism? Maybe she wants to keep it to herself." "Are you kidding? I'm the only other archeologist around who can confirm her claims with a personal testimonial. If she could get my signature on her final report, it would only strengthen her theory about where the prism originated." "I mean what if she tries to use it? If it really is a philosopher's stone, she could make all kinds of super-medicine and sell it for a profit... heck, she could just use it to make a huge pile of gold!" "She doesn't care about the money!" Derring snapped. Rainbow Dash pointed straight up. "Did you see her zeppelin!? You heard her talking about her investors, and never having enough time—or money—to do things properly. What if she's trying to fund her own expeditions?" Derring bit her bottom lip. Her eyes darted slightly. "It doesn't even matter," Dash said. "As soon as she had the prism, she ordered her flunky to drop us like a hot potato! We need to get back to Equestria and tell ponies the truth: that it wasn't an accident." Dash marched on, and derring paused to watch her. "Flunky...? What do you mean?" "That creepy stallion in the long black coat. He was the one who dropped us out of the hangar. I saw him do it with my own two eyes!" "...A black stallion in a black longcoat," Derring whispered. "I saw him in the zeppelin a few times. I know he's in charge of the security team, but I never got his name." "Well the next time I see him, I'm giving him a hoof to the face." Derring chased after her. "No, wait! We could have this all wrong! Maybe he acted on his own, and maybe Perez doesn't know what happened!" "So what difference does it make?" "Think about it! If he tried to take us out on his own, he might do the same to Perez! What if he means to steal the prism for himself?" Rainbow Dash slowed to a halt. Derring ran around in front of her and stood face-to-face. "If he's in control of the security forces," she said, "he could take over the whole airship. They have superior numbers, superior training... they even have weapons. He probably tried to eliminate us because he didn't want us reporting back to the university!" "But he works for Perez," said Dash. "She wouldn't let anyone join her expedition unless she knew she could trust them. She has to be pulling the strings." "She said it was the investors who hired the security team. I doubt they gave her any choice in the matter!" They stared at each other for awhile. "So," Dash said, "either Perez tried to kill us... or the black stallion tried to kill us, and he's going to kill Perez." Derring nodded. "We have to go back and warn her!" "But if he's got the prism, why would he wait? He's probably already killed her by now." Derring lifted one hoof and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Dash continued walking. "Unless you can think of a good reason for us to go back, we head for the coast." "You don't even care if Perez and the others are in danger, do you?" "I do care," Dash said, "but we need more to go on. If you can figure out what's going on here, I'll be the first to listen to you. Until then, our first priority is to survive."