Scootaloo woke up with a groan. Last night had been hard on her. For staying out past curfew, her work crew leader had given her the mother of all ass-chewings. In Scootaloo’s mind, it really wasn’t her fault since all the rules were new and she hadn’t learned them yet. If she’d taken any lesson to heart it was to not get caught.
She pulled back the covers and got out of bed. However bad last night had been was inconsequential, today was a new day, full of things to explore and adventures to be had. She darted out of her room and down the stairs. The most important thing for an adventurer to have was a great big breakfast to last them throughout the day.
Both her parents were already in the kitchen when Scootaloo exploded through the door from the hallway. Her father Cloud Hopper, a great big red pegasus who was coming along in his years, was sitting at the table tucking into his breakfast while her mother Fitted Sheets, a younger beige earth pony, worked at the stove making food.
Scootaloo shot through the kitchen in a blur, grabbing toast, a banana, and belting out a hurried “Love you mom, love you dad” before she disappeared out the door and into Ponyville.
The kitchen returned to its previous quiet state.
What’s on your mind honey?
“I checked the postings board before you got up. There’s no assignment for you today, and…” he trailed off.
“And?” Fitted asked carefully.
“And they’ve got me working cloud patrol over the Everfree for the next month,” he said with a mouth full of ashes.
“You can’t work that, nopony works that area! It’s too dangerous!”
“Every able bodied pegasus is meant to contribute to help those who can’t” he spat. “I just wanted to punch that pony right in the mouth. He doesn’t know anything about the weather, stupid ground pounder…” he trailed off, his face flushed as he realized what he’d just said in front of his wife.
Fitted give a short smile. “I guess he doesn’t know what makes a featherbrain tick. It’s time for your shift. I love you Cloud, be safe today.”
“I will. Love you too my sweet pea” he replied, scarfing down the rest of his food.
“Love you back my chickadee.” Fitted responded in turn as Cloud rushed out the door. Then she turned back to the kitchen and sighed. He’d left his dirty dishes on the counter. Shaking her head, she collected them and dumped them in the sink. She looked out the window and gave another sigh. The lemony yellow paint on the side of the house was peeling and the only paint that they could get from the store was dark green. Resigning herself to her fate, she went and got her painter’s gear out of the hall closet. If she was going to paint part of the house, she was going to take the day and paint all the house.
High above Ponyville, a sleek Boeing 737 prowled. The aircraft had taken off earlier that day, filled with a cargo of mail, from Dallas Fort Worth airport when it had encountered heavy storms. After a succession of lightning bolts had taken out the more sensitive avionics, namely the navigation system, the plane had become hopelessly lost. To make it worse for the 3-man crew, after getting out of the messy storm system that they had been trapped in for the better part of an hour, they couldn’t raise anyone on the radio. Still though, in facing the unknown, they fell back to their training and operated as a single cohesive unit.
Their systems untrustworthy, the pilot had disengaged the autopilot while the co-pilot and flight engineer worked together to troubleshoot their systems. It was a curios situation, they were flying over a forest when they should have been smack dab in the hill country. Looking ahead through the windscreen, the pilot could make out a rogue cloud ahead of him, with a small red dot on the side. Blinking he tried to make sense of what he saw but couldn’t. It almost looked like a gigantic red dog was sitting on a cloud. Whatever it was, it was right in their flight path. The thought seemed to rattle around in his head for a moment. Whatever it was, it was right in their flight path. Whatever it was... it was right in their flight path!
The pilot pulled sharply on his stick and banked the aircraft hard right, but it was too late. Something hit the plane, and immediately alarms started ringing out in the cockpit.
“We’ve lost green and yellow!” the flight engineer called.
“Green and yellow?” the pilot asked in disbelief. Every modern aircraft was powered with hydraulics. Oil in pipes, pressurized by pumps, was distributed throughout the aircraft and pushed the various control surfaces. Since you couldn’t control the aircraft without it, there were three fully separate and fully redundant systems. Losing one was scary, and losing two was unheard of. The plane was in trouble.
The plane tried to roll to the left but the pilot fought it with his yoke. However, within moments the yoke stiffened in his hands, and nothing he did could move it.
“Blue is gone,” the flight engineer called, disbelief tinging his voice. The gauges for the the three fully independent and redundant hydraulic systems were showing a flat zero. Without hydraulics, the lifespan of the plane was measured in minutes. They had no controls.
The plane started to pitch up, then down in a cycle, uncommanded.
“Engine power!” the co-pilot exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” asked the pilot.
“We can use differential thrust to control the aircraft, but we have to be careful,” the co-pilot responded. “I was studying United 511, and it happened just like this. Here’s what we have to do…”
As the aircraft began it’s wild pitch oscillations, the aircrew formulated a plan to get some flight controls, any flight controls back. They would be the masters of their own fate.
“Why do we hafta wear these funny hats?” Apple Bloom wondered out loud.
Scootaloo sighed loudly. “Did you even read your book?”
“No.”
“As agents of change, you are expected to uphold the tenets of the new society and prevent regression and barbarism,” she quoted verbatim, holding her booklet high.
“We get it Scootaloo, we’re just tired,” Apple Bloom replied, yawning.
“Girls! There’s something outside! Come look!” called Sweetie Belle.
The pilot spoke up. “We’re running low on fuel in the left tank. The computer says five hundred pounds, but I don’t trust it. Whatever hit us broke the tank and it’s leaking badly.”
“If that engine stops, we’re gonna lose all control. I want to do a crossfeed, can we start a crossfeed?” The pilot asked. A crossfeed mean transferring fuel from one fuel tank to the next, in this case from the right fuel tanks to the shattered left fuel tank. If they could put fuel in the tank faster than it leaked out, then they could keep the engine running and the plane flying.
“Crossfeed, crossfeed,” the flight engineer muttered to himself, his fingers walking the switches until he found the switch. He pressed it, but the pump didn’t turn on. Then the engineer noticed the small sticker under the switch. CROSSFD INOP, SEE LOGBOOK. “We have no crossfeed,” he announced morosely.
The low fuel pressure warning horn kicked on for a moment, before the engineer silenced it.
“This is it?” the pilot asked.
“Yeah, we’re running dry in the left tank,” the engineer replied.
“Men, it’s been an honor serving with you,” the co-pilot said.
“Likewise,” the pilot morosely replied.
Finally, the fuel alarm horn for the left engine sounded its whine. The pump had finally run dry.
Starved of fuel, the left engine slowly spun down. With the left engine a paperweight, and the right engine still running full tilt, the plane slowly began to slew to the left. Inside the cockpit, the pilots fought to counter it, their only controls the thrust of the right engine, but it was too little too late. The left wing, damaged from the earlier impact, had spent the last thirty minutes burning, and the metal spars that ran the length and gave the wing rigidity had softened. With a bang like the shot from a cannon, the left wing buckled and the plane immediately rolled sharply to the left. In the cockpit, alarms screeched and the pilots strained against their controls, trying, but failing to control the descending hulk. The rattle of the overspeed clacker filled the cockpit as the plane pitched forward and down. A view of a picturesque suburb filled the windscreen, thatched houses and dirt streets. The airspeed indicator was now maxed out. The pops of rivets sounded like gunshots, the paneling on the exterior ripping off in the extreme airspeed, the aircraft pushed beyond its limits.
The plane cratered into the freshly painted green bungalow at over 460 miles an hour, and disintegrated into a fireball on impact.
For the past hour, Scootaloo and her friends had been watching the strange machine as it wandered around the sky, moving like a drunken bird. Mostly it had been pitching forward, losing altitude, then it would pitch up, and again altitude. However, in these last few minutes, its behavior had changed. Now it had pitched down hard, and seemed speeding up. This was something different, this was something new, this was something exciting.
As the fireball rose above the treeline, a stab of pain shot through Scootaloo, throwing her to the ground in agony.For a moment, it felt as if her lungs were burning, her blood napalm, her fur the flames of Tartarus. Thankfully, as quickly as it had come, the pain disappeared, though she was still a bit woozy. Standing up again and blinking back some tears, Scoots could make out both of her friends standing rigidly in front of her, staring at her blankly.
“What’s the matter, girls? Do I have something on my face?”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle pointed in unison to something above Scootaloo’s head. Scootaloo tilted her head up and gasped in surprise. There, floating scant inches above her head was a burning crescent moon. The mark of evil, the sign of the beast, the proclamation of the orphan.
“Girls, something’s wrong, there’s gotta be an explanation for this. That’s not right, I’m not an orphan.”
“You’re an orphan Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle chanted in eerie unison, walking forward like marionettes. “Orphans are unlawful, unlawfulness is forbidden.”
Scootaloo backed up until she couldn’t anymore, the wall of the clubhouse stopping her. “I’m not an orphan,” she pleaded. “You’ve seen my dad, he does cloud duty all the time and.. And.. and”--she was stuttering now--”and my mom works from home!”
Her friends continued chanting. “Those who break the law must be broken, for the good of all
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle crept closer, murder in their eyes.
“Please, I’m not an orphan!” Scootaloo screamed, backed into a corner and closing her eyes. “I’m not, I’m not!”
When nothing happened, the clubhouse quiet, save for the breathing of her friends, Scootaloo dared to open her eyes. The last thing she saw was a large rock clenched in Apple Bloom’s hoof coming down towards her head.
