Pilot's Story

Chapter 18: Answers: Part One

"You're a real special guy Tommy. You catch the particle accelerator on fire, now you've caught the robot thing on fire. You know what? You're not allowed to touch the truck." James scolded as the group watched the metal orb hover erratically in a small circle, trailing smoke and fire.

"Particle Accelerator?!" Eva asked incredulously.

"We... might have stolen a bunch of expensive equipment and committed a litany of other federal and state crimes... which may have been felonies, in order to get here," Tommy admitted. "And part of that was stealing a particle accelerator... and then it caught on fire... and then James crashed your plane," he finished as he leveled an accusing finger at his older brother.

"Hey, It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't-" James started.

"Okay, you know what? No. You can both stop or I'll have Twilight turn you both into teacups. Magic can do that right?" Eva asked as she turned her head back towards the unicorn.

"Well technically yes, but that's not really-" Twilight stammered.

"Good enough. Tommy, James, are we clear?" She asked, not waiting for an answer, "Good. Now, somebody hit that thing with something heavy and then I want to have a look at what you did to my plane."

"How are you doing that, exactly?" Twilight asked.

Eva smiled and turned to face the little unicorn as the sound of metal striking metal echoed through the field, "we're flying, of course!"

"Tommy is staying here, last time he got on a plane it caught on fire and crashed," James interjected as he walked past the two mares. "I'll take shotgun, ya know since I actually know where we went down, and I have fingers," he added while holding his hands up and wiggling his digits with a grin.

"I can kick really hard." Eva deadpanned.

"I have a stun gun." James countered.

"No you don't." Eva pointed out.

"No, I don't," James admitted, "but fine, I'll drop it. So, are we gonna do this thing?"

"You're in a hurry, got a hot date I don't know about?" Eva joked as she jumped up into the open hatch on the DC's tail. The pegasus looked down at the unicorn still standing in the field, looking lost, "You coming along Twilight?"

"Me? Why?" She asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"You wanted answers, right? Well that's where we're going. Tommy and Dash look like they've got things under control here. Like you said, you didn't know what those were, they only appeared after I got here, after Tommy and James got here. I find that very curious," she explained, "almost as curious as how the fuel tanks in this plane were refilled."

"And we're going to find answers to that at a plane crash?" Twilight asked as she climbed up the steps.

"It's a place to start, can't ask more than that."

~~

"Battery on, generators off, priming," Eva announced as she pushed her hoof against the control panel, "James, count out the blades on number two, magnetos off."

James pulled back the sliding window on his side of the cockpit and looked out and down at the engine, "Ready."

Eva pressed down on the starter switch and listened as the starter spun the radial over, she watched the oil pressure climb.

"...six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. We're good over here!" he called out, as he pulled his head back into the cockpit, "Prop is clear, we're good to go."

"Magnetos on, ignition booster on, contact," she called out as she pressed the starter button over again and spun the engine over, five, six, seven blades and then a puff of smoke poured out of the exhaust stack and the engine rumbled to life.

"Oil pressure looks good, generator coming up now, cylinder head temp coming up, we're good on number two, I'll run it up if you want to focus on firing up number one," James called out as he reached for the throttle quadrant. He throttled the engine up and was pleased to hear it spin up gracefully. A few moments after he throttled it back down to idle he heard the other engine fire up and throttle up.

"Engines are good, let's release the wheel brakes and get this thing rolling then shall we?" Eva yelled across the cockpit with a grin. She turned her head back and looked at Twilight sitting on a jumpseat in the corner of the cockpit, "Twi, hold on, this part will be a little rough!" she yelled over the roar of the engines.

The unicorn nodded her understanding and pressed her forehoof against the pillar next to her as the drone of the engines increased and the decking started to rumble gently, she felt herself shifting in her seat as the aircraft started to roll out of the depressions it had made in the ground.

"Pushing to rated power, give me ten degrees on the flaps, I want to get out of this thick grass as quick as I can, think I blew out a shock absorber on the starboard landing gear on the way in," Eva explained at the aircraft started rolling down the improvised runway, kicking up dust as the propwash blasted the ground,

"Yeah, I can feel it," James replied as the craft bounced along, accelerating quickly. The plane pitched forward and the tail lifted off the ground, showing the treeline at the far end of the field through the windscreen, "That never gets old, been a long time since I've been on a taildragger!"

"Best way to fly!" Eva laughed back as she eased the control yoke back, the rumbling smoothed out as the main gears lifted off the ground and the plane began to gain altitude and airspeed. A soft electric whine indicated the retraction of the flaps and landing gear as she brought the plane into a shallow left-handed arc around the town and reduced the throttle setting.

"Looks like I've drawn some attention," She commented off hand as she looked out the side window at ponies stopping to look up at the plane, still low enough to make out individual faces. "So where are we going, or do you just want to take over? I mean, assuming you don't crash this time," she asked.

"Tommy's not here, I think we'll be fine," James deadpanned as he stepped into the rudder and leveled off the plane, "Should be about fifty miles or so off in this direction, we can go higher if we miss it, as clear as the skies are today we can probably see for a hundred miles."

"Sounds good, I'll just relax for a bit, haven't been able to delegate for a while, I think I like having underlings!" she said with a laugh.

"You know we're not in the air-force anymore, you don't outrank me anymore," James shot back.

"James, I will always outrank you."

~~

"...and you're sure you're supposed to be out of the hospital?" Tommy asked as he carried the dented metal sphere back towards the library. Behind him, Trixie floated the other sphere in a magic field.

"As if they could stop Trixie from leaving if they tried," She answered with a smirk.

"Okay, fair point," Tommy conceded, "Is this third person, er, third pony... whatever, thing going to be a regular inclusion to your speech?"

Trixie scowled and bumped the metal ball into the man's back. "It's a habit!" she shot back. "One that... Tri-, one that I could probably work on changing," she admitted, grudgingly.

Tommy stumbled a little bit as she hit him, and shot her an annoyed look, "Well, as much as I appreciate the help, I don't understand why you're so insistent about it. You don't owe me anything."

"It's not about that... well it's not just about that anyway. All of my life has been about showmareship, sleight of hoof, misdirection, and magic. This technology is... well it's like its own kind of magic, I need to understand it, understand the rules that it works under," she explained as they drew ever closer to the library.

"And then?" Tommy prompted, his own mind raced with the implications of introducing a seemingly primitive race to the technological advancements he was aware of and knowledgeable about.

"And then... figure out how to break those rules, or at least bend them. With that kind of edge I could put on the best shows Equestria has ever seen!" she exclaimed finally, rearing up on her back legs and waving her front hooves in the air wildly.

"Okay then," Tommy deadpanned, mildly off-put by the sudden giddiness, "I will teach you everything I can, but under one condition."

"What condition?" Trixie asked excitedly as she trotted up next to the man.

"First per- pony speaking only, you come off as a little insane with the third person thing and I would feel way too much like a mad scientist if I let you get away with that," He explained with a smirk.

"Fiiiiiine," she drew out with a dramatic eye-roll, "I'll do it your way then."

"Good, now let's get inside and crack these things open, I wanna see what makes 'em tick."

~~

"No, no, no, no!" the stallion yelled as he pounded his forehoof down on the console. His face was a mask, hiding his panic and anger, "they didn't stop it in time..."

He slumped backwards onto a cushion in the dimly lit chamber, "I hope that you all know what you're doing... because this time I can't make it all better." He sighed as he looked at a picture up on the console, "What would you have had me do? Would we have been able to do more? Not everyone will get to live this time and... this is one time when everybody should."

"I've carried the world on my shoulders for this long, what's a little longer?" he said finally into the darkness, "You wouldn't have wanted me to give up, no matter how dark it became. I can't fix this but... if I'm very, very lucky... I can help."

"And you..." He said softly, turning away from the console and staring off into the dimness of the room. "You brought me here... you knew I could do something... or maybe you just wanted me to see something," He said, as if to the room itself.

He faintly smiled as he pulled a brown long-coat over his back and made for the door, "In any case, I suppose that means I've got work to do."

Author's Note

It's been over a month, you guys can have this, and I'll work on the second half as the next chapter.