The canceled flight was an irritation, although considering my flu symptoms and upset stomach it was a blessing in disguise. Closing all the airports within several hours drive was worrying.
Considering what I'm supposed to be delivering, I think I'll head back to the plant, I thought as I returned to my car, stowed most of luggage in the trunk and prepared for the ninety minute drive with my special delivery riding shotgun.
The highway wending its way through rural Virginia was normally restful, but the canceled flight, the urgency of the delivery schedule, and a dozen other factors weighed on my mind too much to enjoy the trip. Meditation had become wasted time.
The trio of attack helicopters flying low was an unusual sight, but not an upsetting one. When one broke formation, maneuvered to where the trees didn't edge the highway and landed across both lanes of the two lane highway, it sent my paranoia racing. While what I was carrying would eventually be delivered to the US military, I was well aware of 'need to know' and custody concerns of the simple-looking machine tools I'd packed into the carry-on I was to keep my eyes on until they were delivered.
The only saving grace was the chopper's main gun was not pointed in my direction, and the gunner was exiting the aircraft heading towards me. That meant nothing, the pilot could redirect and fire the weapon, but it was a small reassurance.
I had my driver's licence and proof of insurance in hand, and the window rolled down as the soldier approached. I'd also tossed a jacket over the carry-on in the foot-well.
"We need you to wait here," the young man said, "I can't talk about it."
Any questions forestalled, I waited as a transport helicopter approached and landed. I was surprised to see my boss climbing out of the chopper carrying a familiar backpack.
I reminded myself that the soft, dumpling of a man had been a Marine 30 years ago, and so would have more experience with this than I would.
"I'll take your delivery," the man said, and sheepishly handed over the computer backpack that was obviously fully loaded. "We had to break in, Maurice is guarding the place with the Stare Police while Sam is replacing the window we cut."
"What am I getting into?" I asked as I unlocked driver's side door and removed the carry-on bag with the packed machine tools in them.
"They called the President of the company, then he and a general called me," my manager said, "It isn't work, but when they missed you at the airport, they sent us along."
It made no sense, my home computers, especially my laptop and little 'chromebook' were never used for business, I took them on business trips to do my personal business, so I never used the company laptop for personal stuff. I was real picky about not commingling things. Same reason I have two cels, one business, one personal.
"If I'm allowed to, I tell you about this," I told him as I accepted the cranial from one of the transport helicopter crewmen, and gave the car keys to my boss. "Might as well just drive it back to the plant. I can catch a ride with someone or have them drop me there. Don't worry about moving the seat and steering wheel, make yourself comfortable."
"I'll have it washed before I give it back," he said as he accepted the keys, and I was loaded and strapped into the transport copter. We returned to the airport a lot faster that I'd left it. Waiting on the tarmac was a two-seat fighter, with the rear seat empty.
A large man with sergeant's stripes on his jumpsuit handed me a flight-suit. "We'll strap you in. Don't touch anything. If you have to eject, the pilot will handle it," the man told me with a sinister smile.
I had no idea what I'd done to warrant this attention, but I wasn't going to ask. What I did want to know was, "Where are we going?"
"Washington," the man said.
I pointed back to the transport. "By the time I get this situated and I'm safe to be in the plane, we could be there in that thing."
The man shrugged. "Orders," he replied.
I wished for some common sense, but a sergeant and a lieutenant aren't going to use their initiative, they're going to do the silly thing they've been ordered to do. As quickly as I could, I got the flight-suit on and the helmet situated and got a thumbs up from the sergeant for keeping my hands over my head as they strapped me in, and dropped them onto my pack which rested on my lap. If someone had to break into my house to deliver this, I wasn't letting it out of my sight.
"You afraid of flying?" the pilot asked of the death grip on my pack.
Since they hadn't shown me how to use the intercom, I shouted, "No, just they seem to want my computer really bad, and a case of the flu's making me queasy."
The pilot nodded. The takeoff was fast, and the climb was abrupt. Then the aerobatics started, and I was fortunate to be too busy keeping my computer pack safe that I barely had time to acknowledge my growing nausea.
The landing didn't happen soon enough, the pilot's tantrum at being a chauffeur to a civie for reasons above his pay-grade ended. The instant we stopped and the canopy raised, I shrugged out of the harness and stood up, secure that my bag was behind me on the seat. I loomed over the pilot, tempted to yank back on the fitting on his helmet, but he obligingly looked up to complain, when I vomited all over his face. I'd been desperately holding it in for a the whole time we were taxiing, so when it went, it went with massive force.
I turned to the stunned light colonel on the ladder that had been pushed up against the plane. I wiped my face on the flight suit's sleeve as I clambered around him with my pack, the wretched sounds of the pilot left behind. At the bottom of the ramp was a Marine and an Air Force full colonel. The marine offered to help me ou of the soiled suit.
I compromised by handing him the still unsoiled pack. "Let the Air Force take care of their own," I told the young rifleman as I stepped out of the suit and turned to the Air Force colonel, "Tell that Blue Angels wannabe that violent aerobatics with a sick backseater gets you what you deserve." I kicked the suit off my shoes and followed the Marine as I recollected the pack. "Marine, I think they want my computer more than they want me, but you can prove the Marines are smarter than the Air Force, I don't like flying and I've got a bad stomach bug, do the math."
"No problem, sir," the Marine said, "You'd probably sleep through the flight if it were longer."
"Wait a second," I said as we approached, "Is that Marine One, I mean when the President's aboard?"
"Well any Corps vehicle is Marine One with the President on board, but this one is Marine One most often," the Marine said as he helped buckle me in, then helped me carefully strap down the pack and the computer within.
As promised, the flight was smooth as silk, as opposed to the wild rollercoater in the fighter. I was more convinced than ever I would have done better in the transport chopper than shifting between aircraft. I thanked my guide and the crew before I stepped out of the chopper and into the hands of the Marine guards and Secret Service who rushed me inside through a side entrance. Within a few moments I was in a room crowded with mostly kids. Some were chattering about Bronicon, or this or that episode. It seemed almost surreal that a person like me was thrust in among kids like them, then I was waved over by an agent, given a badge and ushered away from the youth brigade.
The room they put me in was small. Table a few chairs, and two people who looked more my age and were not all rubbernecking at the odd summons and method. One of the men, the younger one, looked absolutely miserable, near tears in fact, the other, older man was the picture of stoicism.
" 'If you walk through the darkness, keep your head up, you can't see the path anyway, so look to the horizon,'" I told the man, quoting some of my writing in another fandom that I rarely talk about.
The frightened man looked up, and nodded. The stoic stared at me intently.
" 'It isn't your job to create an instruction manual for the stupid,'" the stoic said.
My head snapped up, it could have been an accident, but there were only two people who knew that phrase: me and the mod who'd sent it to me. "Elegant Wolverine?" I asked, the mod's handle.
"Daedalus?" he replied, my pen name in a rather more adult fandom than the kids outside should be reading.
I extended my hand. "Pleased to meet you in real life. I'd offer you a beer, but I don't think we could get one here."
'We'll drink the town dry after we win," he said and looked at the miserable man, "You have a clearance."
The man didn't answer, but his reaction to that revelation showed EW's guess was correct.
"We might be the only ones who do," I offered, "We all write fan-fiction."
"Just some bedtime stories for my kids," the man said, and gave his pen-name for the MLP fan-site.
"Stickey Carrot," EW offered.
"Rarinbow4evah," I added.
EW snorted. "I should have guessed, you still take the wildest crap and overused cliches, and make a decent story out of it."
"And you're obsessed with honor," I replied, smiling as I did, "Okay, why do they need a pack of fanfic authors, with security clearances?"
"Because you'll never be allowed to talk about what happens next," Discord said as he appeared, sitting just above the table, "And you three understand 'need to know' and have lived it. I'll tell the earsuit-and-tie division, then we can brief you."
Discord vanished.
"I think no one would believe us if we told them," the miserable man said, and nearly lapsed into tears again.
EW and I just smiled and shook our heads. Moments later, the Secret Service burst in and politely demanded we follow them. We were ushered through the agitated throng of youngsters, I.e. anyone under 30, and issued into a conference room.
"Patton?" I suggested.
"Return of the Jedi," EW replied.
"What are you talking about?" Miserable said.
"Discord's entrance," I explained.
Discord entered with a general who looked to be very unhappy about the turn her life had recently taken. Discord looked at her, looked at us and rolled his eyes. They came up sevens. Yes, seven pips on each.
"You three have evidently had some experience with this world and some experience with keeping your mouths shut," the general began, hate dripping off every word.
"Only with people who aren't cleared with a need to know," I replied, "Within those who need to know, I talk quite a bit. Holding back information to feel special is a grave character flaw."
She didn't like that implication one bit.
"Evidently, Equestria is under attack by things calling themselves Mandolins, that are either immune to or non-interactive with the native magic," the general ground out.
"What's the government getting out of this?" EW asked, "Besides a modernization of music."
The general smiled. "You have no need to know," she said.
"Chateau Generals and Ivory Tower types get to decide," I translated.
Miserable started making gestures for us to calm down. I don't know what he did for a living, but I knew I could always say no to doing something, leave my job to find another and as long as I never said anything about it, they had nothing on me. Maybe he thought they'd disappear him if he didn't play along.
"They already received a frictionless bearing," Discord said, "Something easily available to your science, but something you've just never looked at, because it's counter-intuitive." He looked at the general. "These aren't soldiers, or you'd be sending them in with weapons, they are intelligence and public relations operatives who are supposed to see and either solve the problem with available means or report back so professionals can solve it, and convince the locals they should let you solve it."
The general's knuckles turned white as all her negotiating leverage was suddenly lost.
"Your job is to arrive, assess the situation, prepare a briefing on basic laws and customs, and if possible, how to deal with the situation," the general said, and glared at each of us. She was not doing a good job of selling the prospect.
"If it's for good relations with Equestria," EW said, "I'll do it. There are technologies there that will leapfrog us to new heights."
I nodded. "So, no weapons but our brains, that should make this interesting."
Miserable looked ready to cry.
The gate looked like an ornate door, Rocco opposing the rather sublime style in the rest of the building, the two Marines in full battle gear guarding it would have been completely out of place anywhere else, but not in this place. It was vaguely reminiscent of the architecture we'd seen in the show, so it would have been normal in any of the royal palaces.
Discord seemed to be adjusting it. "Have to compensate for the drift," he explained, "I assure you, it will be a memorable experience. Ah, glasses in pockets and keep your eyes closed during transition, there are things even I can't compensate for."
All three of us put our glasses in our jacket pockets. We'd been given raid jackets marked POTUS, something we could keep after the mission. The Marines had given us a full survival load-out in rucksacks in case the 'safe place to land' was inhospitable. Discord had been oddly conflicted about the gear, then added a few suggestions, which seemed oddly reasonable.
Thus equipped, we were each allowed to watch as a different officer informed our kith and kin that we would be out of touch for a week or two working a serious problem. They couldn't risk us blurting out something before the effect on the world that first contact with the denizens of a popular, kids' show had been analyzed. It seemed over the top, but first contact couldn't be handled lightly, especially since the show had gotten few things seriously wrong, according to Discord.
"Any of you ever jump out of a plane?" Miserable asked, oddly detached now that the actual mission was on.
"I know the principles, but I never felt the need to leave an airplane early," I said.
"No," EW said.
"Lay flat and control your direction by changing your air resistance," he said and extended and retracted his arms, "It may send you tumbling at first, but you'll get the hang of it.".
"Actually that doesn't work in Equestria," Discord said, "Lay flat by all means, it gives a rescue pegasus a bigger target, but without magic, you really can't redirect yourself, that's why only Pinkie can fly a pedal-powered helicopter. Everything else requires a magic engine, and you've been chosen for your distinctive unmagicalness."
The revelation returned Miserable to an abject state. EW and I exchanged glances wondering what, if any, help Miserable would be to our mission.
Maybe he's to show the Equestrians not all humans are scary and competent at nasty things, I thought, Or if he jumped out of planes as a paratrooper or smoke jumper he has hidden depths.
The transition through the door was an instant shock. I got a glimpse of what we were facing before I squeezed my eyes shut at the tremendous buffeting we were getting. The opponents looked like a cross between an Evangelion and a Martian War Machine. A spindly, humanoid torso atop a rotating disk with five leg sprouting from it.
A moment later I thought that the rescue pegasi better hurry, because the speed and direction was going to take us right to the battle field.
I barely managed to get the actual reason we were here together, before I impacted the first of the leviathans.
Celestia shied as the third human crashed into and through the heart of the third monster, what came out the back of the monster was the same, barely recognizable lump of mixed tissues and mangled metal. Luna was nearly retching at the bloody mess that sailed on the strike the ground hard, testament to the speed with which the humans had entered Equestria.
Discord watched the third Titan collapse, joining it's two brethren on the ground thrashing aimlessly in its death throes.
"Why!?" Cadence demanded of the bloody carnage that had saved Equestria mere miles from Canterlot.
"Your Highness," Discord said, then looked at the other alicorns, "Highnesses, they loved and admired Equestria, and struggled to save it. If they also thought that them being here was a threat to Equestria, who are we to question their wisdom and sacrifice?"
The chagrined Princesses looked away, ashamed of their reaction to the brave sacrifice of beings who knew so little about them.
"I trust their wisdom and will close the portal," Discord said, "They obviously felt that your ponies, unsullied or unspoiled, were worth fighting and even dying for. Perhaps they were not wrong that they would prove as grave a threat as the Mandolins were. If we could fully understand their thinking . . . that might be what they hoped to avoid."
Princess Celestia nodded. "Close the portal. I wish we could tell their families how brave they were and how grateful we are."
"A small regret, for the saving of everything, sister," Luna said, brushing her wing over Celestia's back.
Discord left Twilight to discarding/analyzing the fallen enemies, or what was left of them after the hypersonic impact, and the fallen heroes, ditto, and went off alone to finally grin ear to ear. "Make me some simpering hero in your stories will you? Well that's three," Discord said as he looked around, "Who's next?"
Author's Note
I hain't dead. I just moved . . . again. But I had to give you a Halloween story as a present, especially to my fellow authors. Sweet dreams.