TCB - Zero Hour

Chapter 2

Five o’clock finally rolled around and in the OHR main office in Canterlot; the office staff were
packing up to leave for the weekend. Josh tapped his foot impatiently; he was – as usual – waiting
for Lyra to finish packing up her desk, she was always the last one to leave the building which meant
that they got stuck in the traffic jam that formed on the road between Canterlot and Ponyville.
Seeing that Lyra was nearly finished Josh took his field grey military style overcoat and field grey
peaked officer cap off the peg by his desk and put them on. He always felt powerful when he was
wearing them; OHR had its own small military force that was separate from the UN forces. Many of
the senior agents – like himself – also served in the officer corps of the “OHR Armed Division”, he
himself held the rank of Field Marshal.

He then unlocked the bottom draw of his desk and pulled out the brown case file, he studied it
quietly for a moment – knowing full well what it meant – before tucking it in the inside pocket of his
coat.

“I’ve got to come up with a plan...and fast” he thought to himself.

Lyra finally finished packing up her desk as the last of the office staff were leaving and the lights
were going off automatically.

“Last ones to leave again...this is getting embarrassing”. Josh joked shaking his head as the two
walked out of the office; closing the door behind them.

Outside the office building it was snowing heavily – it had been for the last five hours – and there
was a thick carpet of snow blanketing the ground. Josh was holding his car key in the air and pressing
the button repeatedly trying to locate his car in the blizzard, it was funny but this scenario brought
back fond memories of his holidays to Disney Land in Orlando, Florida; and he and his parents would
try to locate their car at the end of the day using the same method – of course it was warmer then –
he chuckled slightly at the memory.

Eventually there was a muffled “bleep” and a slight flash of amber from under a mound of snow, the
entire car was buried.

“Looks like we’re going to have to dig the car out”, Josh said to the mint green mare who was trying
to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

“Don’t worry I got this”, Lyra said smiling. She then proceeded to levitate the snow in a solid block
off the car and dumped it in a pile two feet away. It always amazed Josh how they did that, because
of their magic Unicorns had become invaluable to human industry; and could be seen everywhere
from foundries and steelworks – where they helped to create more evenly blended alloys – to
factories and shipyards – where they helped with final assembly.

The two then got into the car and exited the office buildings car park and began travelling along
Canterlot’s main street, the windscreen wipers working furiously to cope with the snow. Canterlot’s
main market street was largely pedestrianised - only OHR vehicles and other delivery vehicles had
access – making progress slow, Josh kept his eyes focused on the snowy road as they crawled along
at just ten miles an hour.

As they drove Lyra watched out of the window as people – human and pony – hurried past; some so
laden with presents as to almost obscure their vision. There was a group of young fillies with a stall
selling a drink that the humans called “Mulled Wine” and “Mince Pies”, Lyra had tried the “Mulled
Wine” but didn’t like it. Josh liked it though, and could often be seen sipping a steaming mug full on
frosty evenings. She liked the “Mince Pies” though, very sweet she thought. They were made with
a drink that the humans called “Brandy” which she liked a lot, although Josh had warned her not
to drink too much; something about waking up chained to a lamppost. They also passed a group of
humans and ponies singing Christmas Carrols surrounded by a crowed that had stopped to listen.
Lyra marvelled at how similar Christmas was to Harth’s warming eve even though they came from
two different worlds.

Eventually the car made its way to Canterlot’s main gate, which was – as always – guarded. As the
car approached one of the OHR soldiers guarding the gate stepped out in front and held a hand up,
in accordance with the guards wishes Josh stopped the car and rolled down the driver side window
as another guard approached. The OHR soldiers were wearing black helmets, and heavy field grey
trench coats, rifles were slung over their shoulders.

The guard approached the car and glanced at the officer’s cap on the dash board, seeing this the
soldier instantly snapped to attention and offered Josh a crisp salute.

“Sir” the guard greeted him relaxing his arm

“Good evening Sergeant James” Josh replied handing Sergeant James his ID badge, James checked
the ID badge before handing it back to Josh and calling for the barrier to be raised, he then offered
Josh another crisp salute saying

“Have a good evening Field Marshal”

Josh drove through the main gate of Canterlot and set off along the cliff-top road back to Ponyville.

(Departures lounge, Ponyville International Airport)

Twilight, Applejack and her sister Applebloom were sat in the departure lounge of the Ponyville
International Airport – although Canterlot was Equestria’s Capital city, it was impossible to build
a runway there long enough for commercial jet aircraft – as Applejack and Applebloom waited to
board their flight to Earth.

“Applebloom..Sit still” Applejack scolded her sister, who had started jumping about excitedly
drawing disapproving glances from the other passengers.

“But I’m just so exited!” Applebloom exclaimed

“I know you are sugar cube..but you’ve got to be patient, we’ll be boarding soon I promise”.
Applejack smiled at her sister, Applebloom was staring out of the large viewing windows at the
various jets going past trying to work out which was theirs.

“So how is Braeburn?” Twilight asked grabbing applejack’s attention

“Oh he’s fine, been hard adjusting to life Earth-side. As they have no magic over there the human
farmers had to develop all kinds of machines to help them, you remember that crazy contraption
that those Flim&Flam brothers had?” Twilight nodded to indicate that she did. “Well the humans
would consider that primitive, they’ve got all kind of advanced dohickies....”

“HEY!” Applejack’s head snapped around to see her sister had run up to a man in a black tunic with
gold buttons and carrying a black suitcase.

“Applebloom!” Applejack exclaimed getting up to drag her sister back. Meanwhile the young filly
was staring with fascination at the gold pin on the man’s lapels; it was of a pair of wings with a
crown in the centre.

“Are you a pilot Mister?” The young filly asked him.

“Applebloom, what did I tell you? I’m terribly sorry sir” Applejack apologised but the man waved her
away smiling at Applebloom.

“Actually I’m the captain of the plane you’re going to be flying on” The pilot answered warmly

“Wow!” Applebloom breathed “what’s it like to fly?”

“Oh it’s one of the most wonderful things in the world” Applebloom was wide eyed in amazement,
“say...how would you like to come and see the cockpit once we’re in flight?”

“Oh you don’t have to do that sir” Applejack said

“Nonsense I insist” The Pilot said walking towards the boarding gate glad to have met the excited
little filly.

Applebloom returned to her seat grinning from ear to ear sure that she would have such stories to
tell the other crusaders when she got back.

(Ponyville)

Josh and Lyra were sat in a traffic jam just outside Ponyville – the one that Josh had wanted to avoid
– and they hadn’t moved in and hour and a half. Josh was drumming his fingers on the steering
wheel irritably waiting for the traffic to start moving again; Lyra was sat with her head in her hooves
in a kind of coma.

“You know Lyra, when I tell you to hurry...this is why” Josh sighed gesturing out of the window at the
stationary cars.

“I know” Lyra said sounding like a scolded foal, “hey” she said perking up “I know what we could do
to pass the time”

“What’s that then”

“You could tell me about Earth...You know...before we came”

“Weeeell... Alright then...where to begin”

I was born in a small-ish town in the North-East of England on the 4th March 1994. Earth was a rather
turbulent place before you lot arrived, it seemed that through the large part of my childhood not a
day would go by where there wasn’t something violent going on somewhere in the world.

“Like what?” Lyra asked

Well there was the Columbine High School Massacre in April 1999, then there was Virginia Tech
a few years later, then...there was 9/11 which I don’t want to talk about. Then there was the 2 nd
Gulf War and finally a persistent conflict in the middle-east against Al-Qaeda. But don’t get the
impression that the human race was trying to blow itself up all of the time, there was also amazing
scientific work going on like the big Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

Anyway, Earth was an amazing place...before you lot showed up magic only existed in fiction so we had
to use other methods to aid us. The corner stone of human technology is electricity without it none
of our science works, the problem is that the method by which we produce electricity usually involves
burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. This causes pollution, which in turn damages the
planet. If Equestria hadn’t shown up when it did I don’t know what would have happened.

“What do you mean?”

The thing about fossil fuels is that their finite and when they ran low it would have sparked up
another war and if that happened, you may have come to a nuclear wasteland. But luckily Celestia
intervened although it has to be said that I didn’t think much of her method.

Lyra nodded to say that she understood. “wow, it sounds like a time bomb”

“Oh it was Lyra...you can think of Equestria like a pressure release valve, you came just in the nick of
time to save us from ourselves” Josh said

“You really think that your people would have destroyed themselves?”

“eventually yes...nuclear weapons were both the greatest and most terrifying weapon ever built by
man”

The traffic began moving again and soon they pulled up outside the lodgings that Lyra shared with
her marefriend Bon bon, as she stepped out of the car Josh called after her that they were going to
be working in Ponyville up until the start of the Christmas Holiday.

After dropping off Lyra, Josh –instead of going home – drove out of Ponyville and up and dirt road to
the old Ponyville Observatory. Josh reached into the inside pocket of his coat to make sure that the
case file was still there; before banging hard on the large oak door.

There was the sound of hooves on stone and a key grating in the lock before the door glowed and opened. In the doorway stood a maroon unicorn stallion with dark glasses and a black and
white mane, “I was wondering when I’d be seeing you next” the strange stallion said in a calm voice.

“I think we have a problem” Josh said pulling the brown case file out of his coat so that the stallion
could see it.

The stallion nodded before saying quietly “well they had to use their brains eventually”.

(OHR Command, Canterlot Castle)

George Van-zantan was walking through the halls of Canterlot Castle on his way to see his boss, the
operations director of OHR Augustus Cribben. The walls of the corridor leading to the office were
lined with OHR Spec-ops, they were all dressed in white body armour with helmets and gas
masks; they all had swords clenched in their hands with the blades on the floor. All stared silently and
emotionless at their colleges on the opposite wall.

George nervously adjusted his tie, the atmosphere of the corridor making him uncomfortable. As he
neared the ornate oak door of Cribben’s office the small security camera above the door frame
locked onto him and tracked his movements as he approached. He sighed nervously, knocked on the
door and entered.

Cribben was sat behind his desk, his chair facing the large floor to ceiling window opposite the door.
George walked into the large office and stood by the door waiting for the director to acknowledge
him.

“I assure you Mr Ewing everything is as you stipulated in our agreement…yes I understand
the urgency…yes…the first barrels will be there by the end of the week…yes have a good
Christmas…goodbye Mr Ewing”.

Augustus Cribben put down the phone receiver and turned to face George.

“Our friend Mr J.R Ewing…the Texas Oil Baron wondering when his promised oil is going to
arrive,” Cribben said gesturing to one of the plush leather chairs in front of his desk. George sat and
accepted the glass of famous grouse that Cribben offered him.

Cribben settled himself behind his desk and took a sip from his own glass.

“Did you deliver the briefing to the specified agent?” Cribben asked splaying his hands

“Yes…although I still don’t understand why you specified Field Marshal Exley” George answered
looking quizzically at his employer.

Cribben sat back in his chair and smirked; George instantly felt uncomfortable and took a
large sip of his drink.

“Tell me Mr Van-zantan what do you know of Veritas?”

George leaned forward in his chair trying to work out where the director was going with this. Across
the desk Cribben’s smirk widened.

“If I’m right things are about to get very interesting…prepare the spec-ops team”

“Yes Sir” George said, placing his empty glass on the table and walking out of the room, the door
closing behind him with a soft click.

Across the room Cribben swivelled his chair to face the window again and took another sip from
his glass.

“Oh yes…very interesting indeed….”