Pilot's Story

Pilot's Story

Chapter 8: Some Kind Of Magnet For Strange

Eva bit the lid off the bottle with a sharp grunt and dumped four of the white ovals into her mouth, choking them down and throwing the bottle into the corner of the cockpit. "Damn childproof bottles. Who the hell ever thought those were a good idea anyway?" she complained to herself.

She let out a sigh and rubber her eyes with her fetlock, stifling a yawn as she stared out the windscreen. She could make out the buildings of Ponyville in the distance, she cut throttle back a little and started her descent, as little fuel as she had left from the full throttle flight she wanted to set it down on the first pass.

As the aircraft shed altitude a new complication arose, a rainbow coalition of pegasi seemed to take an interest in her approach. Eva keyed up her microphone. "Dash, got your ears on?" she called out as she eyed the approaching pegasi with caution.

"I always have my ears on, what are you talking about?" came Rainbow Dash's confused reply over her headset, Eva could hear commotion in the background, hospital sounds, she'd hoped.

"It means... is your radio on, and it is apparently. It's getting awfully crowded in my sky, can you clear out some of our winged friends? They are severely limiting my maneuvering options." She called out as she dialed back more throttle, putting the craft into a lazy arc towards the hospital on the edge of the town, the clearing marked off by... chalk lines, it seemed.

She dialed back a few more inches of throttle and brought the pitch back, clicking the flaps down a few notches and dropping the landing gear. She saw her blue friend yelling something at the pegasi that had been crowding her flightpath and they started to disperse, good.

She settled in on final approach, she switched to an open microphone and eased back on the yoke slightly, "Touchdown in about five seconds, get ready for the wounded...." she trailed off, concentrating on making the touchdown gentle. She looked up ahead of her.

Orange, Yellow, White. There were foals running into the landing strip right in front of her. The main wheels touched down. "Shit!" she yelled into the open microphone as her right hoof threw full power back to the engines and hauled back on the controls, the aircraft struggled to bring itself back into the sky. "Aborting!" she yelled out again. 'Power up, nose up, gears up, flaps up, speak up...' she mentally recited as her hooves flicked across the controls, a sharp jolt rocked through the airframe right before the craft picked back up into the sky.

"Holy... Dash, check the landing zone, there were foals... for the love of God tell me I didn't hit them!" Eva almost screamed into the microphone in her panic. She heard confused groans coming from the aft compartment of the craft as she put it into a bank, taking a wide arc to re-align to the landing zone.

After a few tense moments she heard her radio crackle to life. "They're okay, but they might wish they weren't when their sisters get a hold of them." she heard Dash reply, her voice betraying a not inconsequential note of agitation.

"I'm gonna bring it back around for another attempt, keep the field clear, I don't think I'll have enough fuel left for a third try and I really really don't want to bring this thing in dead stick!" Eva shouted into the microphone boom over the drone of the engines.

Said engines chose that moment to surge and sputter. 'Tanks are just about dry...' she thought to herself and flipped the booster pumps on, calming the the throttle fluctuations as she settled in on final approach for the second time. "Alright everybody, hold on if you can, hold on for those that can't, I'm afraid I can't make this one gentle." She said into the intercom as she cut the throttle back again, her eyes peeled, making sure the strip was actually clear this time.

~~

The messy-maned stallion watched intently as the aircraft descended, he'd heard the commotion after Rainbow Dash had arrived, and was more curious than he'd ever been about this new arrival, this 'Eva' as he was told her name was.

"I can't think of many who would do what she's doing..." he said aloud to himself while pointing the metal cylinder at the DC-3, the high pitched squeal once again filling the air as he pressed the button down. One flick of the hoof later, he was staring at a readout.

He looked up again and that's when he saw it. 'Those fillies do get themselves into no end of trouble.' he thought as he watched them rush out, directly in the path of the descending aircraft. He wondered what would happen, he knew she didn't have much fuel left...

Those three, the 'Crusaders' as they were known, had caused him no end of trouble when he'd first arrived, on a number of occasions and to his great distress they had nearly discovered the 'secret room' in the back of his clock shop.

The engines roared and the craft lurched back into the sky, the Doctor smiled, "So, it's like that..."

He'd have to meet her before too long, he decided.

~~

The DC-3 hit hard, Eva had shed airspeed early to bring the wheels down and give her more room to stop on the ground, room she intended to use to maneuver the craft as close to the hospital entrance as she could safely manage.

The wheels stopped and the aircraft settled into the grass some fifty feet from the building, Eva locked the wheel brakes and cut the engines immediately, trying to conserve what little fuel she had left. 'Not that it'll do much good if I can't get any more...' she thought to herself as she slapped her hoof across the main battery cutoff.

The gray pegasus trotted down the aisle in the center of the plane, stepping over and around her injured and uninjured passengers and hooved the door open, dropping the stairs to the ground outside. She stepped awkwardly down them and turned back to help unload her 'cargo.'

She felt a hoof touch her shoulder, "Miss, if you'll come with me..." the nurse-pony started.

"Wha?" Eva said as she turned her head to face the blue earth pony, "No, I wasn't in the crash, I'm the pilot, help the ponies still inside." She finished, pointing a hoof up the stairs. "I uh..." she looked at herself and could only imagine how terrible she looked to anyone else, "I'll be fine, just tired, take care of the others okay?"

The nurse nodded slowly. Confused, but not willing to press the issue, she turned toward the hatch and began to help offload the injured. Eva watched her for a few seconds before deciding she had other things to deal with at the moment.

Eva turned away and trudged towards the front of the aircraft, wincing slightly with each step as she became painfully aware of just how torn up she'd been in her train car adventure; each step sent a sharp sting up her flank, each blade of grass rubbing on her raw skin burned.

She knew she'd been through worse, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out when that might have been. She caught a flash of rainbow in the corner of her eye and turned to see Dash standing with a trio of fillies, the blue pegasus did not look pleased.

Eva trotted off in their direction, to say she was angry would have been an understatement, she could have crashed, she could have killed somepony. 'and now it's infecting me, I'm even thinking in ponyspeak.' she thought to herself.

The kids were actually pretty cute, infectiously so, and it started to disturb her how easily she was empathizing with and acclimating to being, what was for all intents and purposes, an alien. On the one hand, she'd always been good with all kinds of animals, even had a soft spot for horses. On the other hand, none of them could talk, smile, or emote quite like the ponies she was getting to know.

It bothered her that it didn't bother her.

She finally found herself standing in front of the three, scared, she realized, fillies. She wanted to yell at them, she wanted to scream, yell, berate. She wanted to knock some sense into them. She turned to the yellow one, with the bow in her mane, she raised her hoof, and brought it down, gently stroking the earth pony's mane. "Well, at least you're okay." she said softly.

'They're kids' she reasoned, 'It's not like I never did anything stupid when I was young, and they couldn't have known any better.' Rainbow Dash looked at her like she'd grown a second head. Eva shook her head a little, "It's not worth yelling Dashie, they're just fillies right?"

Dash nodded slowly, not really understanding it completely but willing to roll with it. "Girls, go home, we'll talk about this later." Dash said to the three after a few seconds consideration, her voice more tired than anything.

Eva put her hoof on Dash's back, between her wings, like she would pat a friend on the back, were she still human. "Is it always this crazy around here or am I some kind of magnet for strange?" she asked her technicolor friend.

Dash's cheeks tinted slightly red. "Not-always-but-it-does-get-crazy-now-please-take-your-hoof-off-my-back." she said with the speed of a machine-gun.

Eva pulled her hoof back and gave the other mare a confused look, "But... I... what?" she asked, unable to make sense of the strange embarrassed rejection of, what she thought of as, a simple friendly gesture.

Dash looked away and reached out her own hoof, gently prodding Eva in the same spot on her back before quickly pulling away. Eva's eyes shot wide open and her mouth opened in surprise as a blush formed on her own face, "I did not... That is... Huh." She finally settled on, "We will never speak of this."

"Good idea." Dash hastily agreed.

"So, it gets crazier than today?" Eva asked, changing the subject, still blushing, it had been a very long time since anypony... 'No, shut up, do not think down those lines Eva!'

"Oh... Yeah, it does. I mean, you haven't even met Pinkie Pie yet."

~~

In the heart of Ponyville, plans were taking shape, items purchased, goods baked. A peculiar pink pony with a predilection for parties was plotting; this new pony in town would have a party, it would be perfect, a celebration without peer.

Pinkie Pie hummed a happy tune to herself as she shoved another tray of cupcakes into the oven, tomorrow was going to go off perfectly.