Pilot's Story

Pilot's Story

Chapter 2: Nice to meet ya

"What are you doing in Equestria, Human!" the larger mare yelled as she stomped one of her hooves against the side of the aircraft, next to the smaller one's head. "Your kind brings nothing but destruction and tragedy!"

The pilot pressed herself harder against the fuselage, trying to, if possible, melt herself into it and away from the angry...unicorn? no, she had wings, there was a word for that, which eluded her. "Okay well... angry talking unicorn lady I uh..." she started, somehow instinctively aware that the being before her was more than capable of turning her into a red stain, "Well I was just flying my completely peaceful airplane here and there was a bright flash of rainbow colored light and..." she paused, her eyes drawn to the horn on the... 'alicorn, that's what a winged unicorn is' alicorn's head, sparks of what looked like electricity arcing to the fuselage.

Clearly the alicorn was very angry, but there was something else, the same carbon scoring from the engine nacelle was on the side of the airplane now, where the electricity was arcing to. The pilot's eyebrow twitched, her mood shifted from afraid to angry, "You!" she screamed at the alicorn, "You shot me down! You could have killed me! What the hell were you thinking? If I had been going any slower when I lost that engine I'd have crashed!"

The pilot was inches from the alicorn's face when her expression shifted, she looked down at the ground with a frown, "And now... somehow, I'm a horse" she sighed as she waved her hoof around as if to explain.

"Pony." she heard.

"What?" The pilot asked, looking back up at the now non-sparking non-pissed-off mare. She could see feeling in those eyes, regret?

"You're a pony... at least you are now." She said, softly. She stepped back from the pilot-mare and seemed almost embarrassed.

The pilot turned around and intently examined the tail control surfaces of the plane as she spoke back to the alicorn, "I take it you've run across humans before then, and that it didn't end very well." She stepped a hoof onto the horizontal stabilizer and pressed down a little, checking for any excess flexing.

"It didn't... nor did it begin well." the alicorn said sadly, "and still... I was no better, judging you so quickly, I acted out of fear and attacked you."

"Does this mean we're friends now and all is forgiven?" the pilot asked with a hint of mirth in her voice. She had worked her way back up the fuselage and was cranking on the door when she turned back to the alicorn, an eyebrow raised inquisitively.

The larger mare laughed a little bit in spite of herself, "I wouldn't go that far, I'm not sure I trust someone who walks around with a gun on her back, not just yet."

"Oh, you know what it is, see, I was kind of wondering about that since you don't seem to actually have, you know, fingers. In my defense though, between the two of us, you're the only one who's actually shot at the other." The pilot said with a laugh, somehow more at ease. "Besides, I get the feeling if you wanted to you could turn me into a bowl of grape jello before i could even get the thing off my back" she added with a laugh.

"Do you confront every situation with humor?" the tall one asked with a laugh as she eyed the aircraft, taking in the shape of the polished metal skin, noting a distinct lack of anything that looked like a weapon, this wasn't the same as she'd seen before.

"I try. Eva Lohengrin by the way." the pilot said, extending a hoof.

"Princess Celestia." the taller replied, taking the hoof and shaking it, a slight smirk at the corner of her mouth as she watched the grey mare's eyes widen.

"I uh... your majesty I uh..." Eva muttered, stumbling over her own words as she realized just how far down her own throat she'd stuck her foot, or hoof, as it were. 'Great, she's freakin royalty and I screamed at her... well yeah she did shoot me down but she could throw me in the dungeon or something!'

"Will it fly again?" Celestia asked, mercifully distracting Eva from her litany of faux pas, "your...airplane, is it badly damaged?" she gestured towards it with one forehoof.

Eva took a couple of steps back and climbed up onto the ledge from opening the cargo doors, sitting down and taking a breath, "It could have been worse, the landing wasn't that rough but whatever you did when you shot me knocked out the magnetos on the right side engine, coils are burnt so that engine isn't going to start until I fix or replace them, can't fly this heavy on one engine, and couldn't take off on one engine anyway, I'd just spin in place," she explained as she grabbed the shoulder strap of her rifle and picked it up over her head and tossed it gently behind her onto a tarp.

The princess nodded and narrowed her eyes in concentration, mulling over the conversation and trying to set aside her fears. This human-turned-pony, which she mused, was likely her subconscious mind's way of turning something she was afraid of into something she wasn't afraid of, didn't seem to be a threat, even if she was... peculiar.

She looked up to see that the pilot, Eva, was hooves deep in a metal box, digging out random bits of metal that the princess didn't recognize. She cleared her throat to get the grey mare's attention, "ahem."

The pilot's head perked up, "Oh, sorry, sorry, I was just... looking for that spare part, feel kind of exposed being stuck in the middle of this field, what's er... up?" she ground out awkwardly as she looked over at the princess.

The princess couldn't help my laugh a little at how... flaky this mare's personality seemed to be. "I was going to say... you don't seem to be too much of a danger, so for now you're welcome in Equestria," She said kindly, "and, as an apology for damaging your machine I'll see to it that you've a place to stay and food to eat until you get on your hooves or... we figure out how to get you home."

Eva dropped down out of the cargo bay, tool box and spare magneto in hoof and stood up on her hind legs to walk around to the damaged engine, "I actually... really appreciate that, thank yo-" she abruptly found herself cut off by a face full of dirt as she tripped and fell.

"You might want to try walking on all four hooves, I find it's easier to get around that way." the princess deadpanned, struggling with but succeeding in keeping a smile off her face.

Eva dug her face out of the ground and hopped back up on her hind legs, tools and part in hoof, "That... actually makes a lot more sense than the way I've been doing it."

~~

"Why does it say pegasus on it?" a raspy female voice said, startling Eva, who was head deep inside the engine nacelle, half way through replacing the magneto. She cracked the back of her head on a support strut as she pulled her head out.

"What?" she asked, looking around for the source of the voice. 'that's not the princess, so who...' she wondered.

"Well, it's not a pegasus, it's not even a pony, it's some kind of flying machine right?" the same raspy voice said... from above.

Eva looked up and saw the cyan colored pegasus with a rainbow colored mane idly flapping above her. 'Alright, flying pony, not the weirdest thing to happen today... which doesn't say much for my day.' She propped a hoof up against the engine, "It's my company name: Pegasus Air Freight. Hi, by the way."

The rainbow maned pegasus fluttered down and set down on top of the wing, her hooves making a faint tapping sound as they settled onto the metal. "I guess that makes sense then, I saw you flying over by Cloudsdale Stadium, so I came over to see what was going on... what are you doing anyway?" she asked.

Eva grabbed a wrench and slid her head back inside the engine casing, cranking down on a bolt, awkward without fingers but still manageable. "Fixing this engine, it's the thing that makes the plane move, it uh... broke. I'm almost done then i should be able to get this engine started and get out of the middle of this field" she said from inside the nacelle. 'Assuming I can still pilot this thing in my current form.'

"Oh, I see" said the cyan mare, "Name's Rainbow Dash by the way."

The pilot-mare laughed inside of the engine casing, the sound distorting and echoing through the wing. "That... somehow doesn't surprise me, I'm Eva Lohengrin, pilot and owner of this here flying machine," she added on the last bit with a forced southern inflection.

"Hah, now you sound like Applejack!" Dash commented with a laugh. "Need any help with that?" the pegasus asked, stepping up onto the nacelle itself.

"Applejack? like the booze?" Eva asked. 'Pony names are definitely weird...' "And actually, yeah you can help, if you could grab a hold of the propeller... the three bladed thingy at the front of the engine here, and turn the top of it just a tiny tiny bit towards the main part of the plane."

"Like this?" Dash asked as she pushed hard on the propeller with her hoof and was rewarded with the top blade tilting towards the cockpit.

"Perfect!" Eva yelled as she cranked the wrench and locked down the timing nut. "I think I'm ready to test start the engine now!" she exclaimed as he pulled herself out of the nacelle and latched the cover down, picking up her tool box with her mouth and trotting around towards the stairs to go back inside of the plane.

"Wanna see something cool?" she asked after she set the toolbox down, poking her head back outside of the hatch and looking up at Rainbow Dash, who had lifted herself back up into the air.

"I'm always up for seeing cool stuff!" Dash laughed.

"Well come inside then, you can even help me out." Eva said, beckoning Dash over with a hoof, "and close the door behind you!"

~~

"Alright, main battery... on, generator one... off, generator two... off." Eva said aloud, mostly for her own benefit as she ran through her startup checklist. 'Not as hard as I thought it would be to flip switches with hooves, small blessing I guess.' she thought to herself.

"Seems pretty complicated." Dash commented as she looked at all the switches and gauges in awe, "But I guess it would be kind of complicated for an earth pony to fly without using any magic."

Eva decided not to comment on 'magic' and continued to run through her check list in her head, "It's complicated at first but once you get used to it it's not so bad, the actual flying part isn't really that complicated at all to be honest." She looked out the window as she pulled on the control yoke, "Control surfaces check."

"This could get a little loud." She said to her pegasus companion in the co-pilot's seat, "Fuel on, magneto off, cranking engine one." She announced as she pressed down on the starter button, spinning the thousand horsepower beast of an engine as she counted the propeller revolutions, "Oil pressure good. Magnetos on, ignition booster on... here comes the fun part dash" she explained as she pressed down the starter button a second time and the number one engine roared to life.

Dash leaned forward and looked out the window at the spinning propeller, a smile plastered on her face ear to ear as she listened to the rumbling of the engine. "This is... so cool..." she said as Eva flipped on the generator for engine one and ran through the checklist for the recently repaired engine two.

"Alright oil pressure is good on engine two, Magnetos on, ignition booster on..." There was a pregnant pause as she pressed down the button to start the second engine, the propeller started to chug around, one revolution... two revolutions... three...

A puff of smoke and a soft rumble finally issued forth as the engine started to run on it's own, she adjusted the throttle and mixture controls and soon both engines were running smoothly and in sync. Eva smiled as an idea popped into her head.

"Say, Dash, Is there a flat open area near town that I might be able to set this thing down, maybe not in the middle of somebody's pasture?" Eva asked, grinning at her cyan coated companion.

"Oh yeah lots of open space why do you...oh...oh this is gonna be awesome!" She exclaimed, her mouth curling into a toothy grin as a... noise not unlike a rubber duck being squished came out of her. This surprised Eva but... still wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened that day.

"Well then, you're about to see how those of us without wings do it," she said with a grin as she pushed the throttle forward.