Semper Fidelis

by Electric thunder

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Human
Length: 3981

A C-130 goes M.I.A over the desert of Iran, and a team of U.S Marines are sent to investigate, but everything goes south.

"There are only two kinds of people that understand Marines: Marines and those who have met them in battle. Everyone else has a second-hand opinion."

A C-130 transporting ammunition and supplies vanishes over Iran, so command sends a team of U.S Marines and their dog Roxie, to figure out what happened to it. What was a simple search and rescue turned into a trip to a land that is no place for a war harden Marine.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-05-27 06:11:22 UTC

Just a Simple Job...

The plane rumbled and hummed as it thundered across the sky over the barren sandy desert of Iran piloted by Major Harding and co-piloted by the fresh rookie captain McGalion who was on his first flight mission in the plane.

“So, how you holding up?” Harding’s voice was clear in the headset.

“Pretty good” He looked to the captain.

“Well I sure need a coffee, could you get one?”

“Yes sir” He got from his seat up to the makeshift coffee maker on the side of the all outside of the cabin, as it started to brew he looked out into the cargo hold that was filled with crates and boxes.

Once the coffee was finished he returned to his seat and gave Harding is brew.

“Ah, still tastes like shit” He said sipping from the cup.

“Really, I don’t see why not, I like it”

“Yea well wait a few months, trust me” He chuckled, and chugged down the black crap as he likes to call it.

The flight was a long one, and Harding got up nice and early to make a few pre-flight checks, witch there are people who do it for you, but he likes to double check, everything.

“Heading is good, and wind is at are backs, looks like we’re going to get there sooner than expected” McGalion looked over the instruments.

“You need to be more relaxed, trust her she made it this far just fine, so why do…” The plane shook violently.

“You jinxed it” Said McGalion looking at the compass.

“Were in the hell did that come from?” No sooner did he say it the C-130 gave a hardy rock; he could hear the cargo slide around.

“That’s not ri…” The machine rumbled and dropped and then forced itself up again.

“I’m getting some movements” McGalion gripped the stick as the plane started having what felt like a small earthquake in the plane itself.

“We’re of course by a long shot!” Harding started to pull the plane trying to fix the offsetting.

“Oh, shit!” The plane dropped to the left and the wings to a eighty degree angle.

The engines started to grope and the props started to lose speed.

“What’s happing?!” The captain yelled.

“Do you think I know, so shut up!” the C-130 started to fall nose down.

“Fuck me!” The Major tried to pull up, but to no avail.

The windows became clouded, and covered by some kind of smoke blocking any view from the cockpit, the plane made another drop, putting a pit in the pilots’ stomachs.

Out of no were the whole plane started to roll.

“Oh god, my head…make it stop!” McGalion pulled of his helm and ran his hands through his greasy hair; it felt like his brain was being pulled apart by fishing hooks, there was a loud ring in his ears as he yelled in agony.

Harding tried his best to fight the pain as the cabin was filled with white light, the plane was relentless as it threw him around in his seat.

“HOLD OOOON!” He yelled before blacking out.

<<<(#)>>>

It was the first day of summer, the bright shining land of Equestria  was enjoying the warm day, running along with their business, as young foals played in the soft breeze, and not a could in the sky. It was the perfect day for anything.

The small town of ponyville was taking the most advantage of the day to catch up on many need choirs and other tasks and such.

But not so far east in the mountains was the large city of Canterlot, were the finest of the finest ponies resigned to, and in the castle were the princesses of Equestria lived and performed their royal duties.

And like any other day, Celestia was holding court for any subjects who needed her help, seek her word on matters, or display something they invented.

Only once a blue moon did anything actually interesting come to her, and today was one of those days, for one pony who came to her with something very interesting...

“What is it” Celestia looked down at what appeared to be a small metal box with a number of nods and switches.

“I call it “The Radio” The old stallion wheezed.

“What does it do?” She asked.

“This device allows the user to speak with another pony in real time, watch” He started to tinker with all the controls.

“Could you demonstrate?” Celestia looked down at the radio with a raised eye brow.

“Oh, yes I certainly can” He looked enlightened as he tinkered with the controls, until he finally reached for the mini-speaker with a small button on the side, and was connected to the radio with a curled wire.

“Hello, hello it’s me are you there, can you hear me?” He spoke into the mini-speaker.

“ Couldn’t hear you any more the better! ” A scratchy voice responded.

“Oh what a relief, good I will see when I get back” He said.

He put the mini-speaker back onto the radio and beamed up to the princess.

“It took me years to get this to work, until the other week when I discovered that I could use radio waves to send a signal back and forth between two of the radios” He said gleefully.

“Well I have to say I am impressed with your radio” Celestia said with a smile on her face.

“Oh, thank you so much f…”

“ Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Tango-seven four ninner, we are going down, I repeat we are going down, anyone respond!” Another voice cracked up from the radio.

“Who is that?” Celestia raised a eye brow.

“N-no that’s anypony I know” He said picking up the mini-speaker.

“ Are location is unknown, we are going down, mayday, mayday, mayday” The voice came again.

“Hello, who’s there?” The stallion picked held down the button speaking into the mini-speaker like he did moments before.

“This is Tango-seven four ninner, and we are going down I can’t see anything, are systems are all fucked up, I-I can’t hold her! There was a loud scratching sound that followed.

“There are only two radios correct?” Celestia nodded too the radio in front of her.

“Yes, and I own the both of them”

BOOM

Celestia threw her hooves around her hears the whole castle shook violently as a deffing boom echoed through the great halls, and the air around her was filled with a loud humming sound.

“Oh, my ears!” the old stallion was hunched over.

Celestia bolted to the closest window, peering into the sky looking for what could be causing the sound, the sky was open clear and not a single could up above.

She scan the sky, but there was nothing even when the sound became louder, and louder but there was nothing out of the ordinary. She thought to soon.

A massive…thing came flying over the castle causing her to duck and back away from the window.

The creature was a huge, it flew down over the city, it had a two long wings with two motorized props under each wing, the tale resembled a upside down ‘T’ it was grey in color leaving a long black trail of smoke behind it.

It flew low to the roof tops roaring loudly and easily made it over the whole of Canterlot in seconds before falling past the ridge side making its way toured ponyville.

“Oh please no” She muttered.

The creatures continued its course even though it rapidly descended through the air on a suicidal path to ponyville.

“Please…”

<<<(#)>>>

McGalion was shaking his head hard, his eyes were burning and blood was tricking from his nose his ears were ringing, his head thumped with every beat of his heart, and he could hardly see out from the cabin.

“Major, Major wake up man!” He called to Harding who was slumped in his seat with his head pressed on the dash board.

He turned back to the controls he could just make the outline of a large city and he pulled up on the wheel as he looked out to his side but he couldn’t see anything a few feet in front of himself.

His vision started to clear as he saw the city rush by under him, as he relaxed on the steering.

He rubbed his eyes with a hand and shook his head to minimal success.

“Oh man, fuck man…” He squinted his eyes to see a small town drawing closer to him.

“Shit!” He pulled up as hard as he could until it felt like he would rip the control wheel apart.

The plane slowly started to pull up from its dive, but still was losing its altitude.

“Come on, come on, you can do it” He grunted as the engines were overworking past their limits.

He felt the plane rumble then dropped hard, the last thing he saw was a forest below him before he succumbed to darkness.

Wake Up Buttercup

America is not at war

The UMSC is at war

America is at the mall.

It was dark…so very dark, why did he feel so cold, why did it hurt even when he was dead?

McGalion was hunched over bleeding profusely from his forehead onto the dashboard, his whole body was screaming in pain from his head down as he took sharp intakes of air.

I’m…alive...I’m alive! He thought slowly to himself.

He wanted to open his eyes, but when he did, it was still an ongoing void of black, but there was a heavy scent of rotting flesh.

Blind…can’t…no, only…blood He told himself.

McGalion went to raise his hand to wipe away the blood, but only achieved in twitching is fingers.

”Come…on you can…do this he muttered

He threw all his will power into his arm and slowly cupped his fingers and pulled away a large glop of old blood from his eye, and he let his hand fall like a ragdoll, as the blood dripped from his fingers.

He could see!

McGalion could see the floor below him it was tattered and covered in debris and a small pool of fresh crimson blood.

He slowly titled his head ignoring the waves of pain that shot threw his body to look up at Harding.

He snapped his eyes closed when he saw his mangled corps.

Harding had both legs broken and bent out of shape, even his left leg he could see his bone jutting from the bloody flesh. Farther up, he had several deep gashes slowly oozing dark red blood, there was countless metal shards sticking from his upper chest. His right arm was completely removed, and the other was unrecognizable among his tattered body. The top part of his head was ripped open with brain matter scattered over the wall behind him with a massive branch piercing the windshield past his head.

McGalion was ridden with grief over his dead friend.

He remained still and silent with his eyes closed for what felt like eternity, until he gathered enough strength to push his head from the dashboard.

His arms shook and ached as he pushed back as hard as his frail body would allow him.

He felt his body yell in agony as he pushed, and to his relief he flopped back into the battered chair as he gasped for air.

He closed his eyes to keep himself from looking to his partner.

He looked at his safety belt that was smashed under debris.

“Shit” He sighed.

He looked up to the smashed window in front of him, and through a long struggle snapped of one of the shards and cut the belt away.

“Come on, let’s do this” He grumbled as he failed to stand from the chair.

“GHA!” with a hard heave he pushed of the chair and flopped onto his hand and knees over the blood pool, his whole body was aching in pain.

He remained still, gasping with his eyes shut.

He eventually slowly propped against the wall shaking, but standing which gave him a boost in will power, as he slowly made his way out from the shattered cockpit into the absent cargo hold.

He slid down the step stairwell and collapsed onto his back with the wind knocked out of him as the world started to spin and blur.

He rolled over onto his stomach.

The cargo hold was thirty-forty feet away broken and shattered with boxes scattered between him and the hold, everything beyond that was a white blur.

He grunted a sigh as he pulled himself to his knees before standing up and losing his balance and falling against the remaining wall of the cockpit.

He started to take short weak steps, shuffled his steps.

He made it less than a quarter of the way before he collapsed into the turned up dirt and held his eyes closed, and biting his bottom lip trying not to scream in agony.

He gripped a pile of dirt in his hand and slowly looked up…

“Oh my god…” He muttered into the ground as a tall white winged figure stood less than five feet from him looking down at him, his vision started to fade and blur more so than before.

He reached up a hand before his body started to become cold and the figure started to fade into darkness…

<<<(#)>>>

Celestia stood as guards shuffled about moving the crates from the belly of the strange creature that was in three separate parts, the tail was jutting from the ground into the air, the belly was rolled on its side the left wing in the air, the right snapped into, the head somewhere beyond the belly.

“Ma’am” A guard stopped in front of her with a stiff salute.

‘Yes, what is it?” She peered down at him.

“We have opened one of the crates and…there are some strange things inside of them, the captain thought you would like to see them” He stated hesitantly.

“Well lead me to them, would you kindly” She beckoned he nodded and started to walk with her at his side.

They walked past guards who hauled small metal boxes to large reinforced crates were Shining Armor stood peering into one of the crates with the top at its side.

“What is it that you wished to show me?” Celestia asked the stallion.

“This” He pointed his head down into the box.

“What is it?” She asked

“It’s a 50 caliber tripod mounted machine gun, and looks to be American made…Hmp” An exotic voice came from behind the two.

“Oh, Doctor there you are!” Celestia greeted the light brown stallion who had an hour glass cutie-mark.

“Hello to you to” He smiled.

“Wait, wait, wait it’s a what?” The captain stuttered.

“To be simple, it’s called a gun, a very big one to, and that…is a plane” He waved a hoof over the plane wreck.

“How do you know all this?” The goddess asked the Time-lord.

“Well I have been… around, you could say” He said flatly.

They started to make their way around the belly of the plane to examine the engines and wings.

The doctor pointed out various areas and specific pieces of metal that were scattered about, as Celestia and Shining listened to him explain a place called the United Kingdom and America until The Alicorn faintly heard a soft Thump from around the wreckage.

She craned her neck to see the origin of the sound, but could not see anything out of the ordinary.

Celestia looked back at the two stallions as the doctor chattered on about the Write Brothers, or something.

She walked around the belly to the head of the plane were a… actually she had no idea what it was…face-down in the dirt.

She stood there looking at whatever it was look up to her, it reached up a trembling foreleg mumbled something she could not understand and then it dropped its leg and stopped moving.

“Doctor!”

The Falling Man

sssSSSHEERREWWWwww

A UH-60 Blackhawk zoomed overhead flying low to the desert sea startling a snake that was slithering peacefully below, its speakers blasting over the swooshing of the rudder blades.

The Chopper thundered on making its way to the last known location of a missing C-130 that vanished around a week prior. The Hawk was dull, with a slanted name painted on the nose…

The Black Eagle

It was transporting five U.S Marines who had the mission to investigate the expected crash site of the C-130, and were to bring back the two men who were flying it at the time.

The Marines were as followed.

There was the fresh Privet First-Class, Jackson porter who was an average cowboy from Texas who found a desire to become a marine, just like his Grandfather who had died in Vietnam. He was thin, tanned, with dark green eyes. Jack was called with full cliche in mind, Tex.

The more experienced privet, Travis Mills, a short muscular macho man who was born in the city of Chicago, he was a joker. He had light brown eyes who loved to read, he was a more of a outgoing man who had a smart mouth. He was nicked name Grunt, because that’s all he does, grunts.

Then you had Lance Corporal Gorge Boloso, He was a tall African American, Gorge was a smooth tempered guy, he spoke with a deep voice and loved to sit a listen to Jazz and blues, He was nicked named Be-pop

Also there was Sergeant Lucas Sive, A short pale white guy from New York, He jittery and followed the Christian faith, but he had no fear at all, he changed the saying “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight”. Lucas earned the title of “Bull”

Finally the leader was Gunnery Sergeant Booker Lyions, smart, fearless, bold, risky, there are many words that fit his personality, he was an older man around thirty years old, who always had a grim face, and he had served for six years in the marines. He was known as “Lion”

Then finally the German Shepherd Roxie who was held by Jackson.

The crew of the UH-60 are…

Captain Melissa Gotteram, a young girl from Maryland who ever since going to a local air show when she was twelve, wanted to be a pilot. after many long years of waiting she enlisted and came out second in her class.

Her co-pilot John Grim, who was a helicopter pilot for Phi, and after a few years  decided there were greater things for him in the military, so he joined the day after his birthday.

Finally there was Mark Sullivan; he was the gunner on the mounted M134 Mini-gun. He was not very open to the others and never talked about his past, but was gun-ho kinda guy.

They were joined by "butterbar" Second Lt. Marshal J. Willipes who was to over see the investigation.

[Hey right here for song!]

“How much longer?” Jackson mouthed to Booker.

Booker pulled back his glove to look at his watch, and then held up five fingers.

“Hey, don’t you think it’s wired, that a C-130 just despaired out of nowhere, and then they send us to investigate, why did they not send the army guys?” Travis shouted as loud as he could over all the noise around him.

“Because the army guys suck!” shouted Lucas.

Marshal turned to look at Travis, who gave a light chuckle.

“Hey, shut up I can’t hear the song!” George yelled at the two men.

“I thought you only liked jazz and shit like that” Travis joked.

George shot Travis a nasty glare before leaning back into his seat and closed his eyes and returned to the barely audible song.

“Mills, shut the fuck up!” Booker ridiculed Travis.

Travis was about to say something in return but was cut of by the pilot...

“Boys were almost their gear up!” Melissa looked over her shoulder at Booker.

Ever one was looking over their guns and equipment except for Travis who was bobbing his head using is M-16 as an air guitar, Booker shook his head as he checked over his barrette.

Jackson looked past the side of the helicopter trying to spot any smoldering crash sites, but he found none, only sand. In fact, no one on bored could see any signs of a crash anywhere, nothing…

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Booker asked the pilots.

“Y-yea, these are the correct coordinates” John looked over his instruments again checking his compass that started to spin out of control.

“What’s wrong with…” The Sergeant was distracted when the music ended abruptly.

“Hey what gives?!” Travis stopped strumming his M4A1 in annoyance.

“All radio signals have been cut off…what the hell” Melissa tried to regain a connection to the radio.

The UH-60, that was flying smoothly, started to flick around and shiver at random moments.

“Something ain’t right…strap yourselves in boys, this might get rough!” John adjusted his belt.

The Uh-60 started to veer to the left then started to veer to the right, the Blackhawk started to whip back and forth.

“What the fuck is that!?” Booker shouted.

“I-I-I don’t know, the trim is of balance” John was pressing on the left peddle then the right trying to straighten the Helio.

The Helicopter suddenly dropped, then started to spin one-hundred eighty degrees before dropping farther to the right, and in a split second the helicopter was engulfed in blinding white flash…the helicopter diapered from the sky.

<<<(#)>>>

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” Travis was gripping the chair under him so tight his knuckles were white, has he tried not to be sucked out of the copper as it spun faster and faster.

“OH GOD HELP US” Lucas yelled.

Jackson had Roxie tight in his arms, holding on to her as if she was a life line, jack just hopped his belt would not snap and send him flying from the helicopter. The Copper was blaring with warning sirens, and the engine was making an unnatural sound.

“HOLD ON!” Melissa tried to say, when three things happened all at once…

The helicopter busted free from the white glow that had previously surrounded the Eagle and was replaced by thick cloud cover. The loud deep growling that mixed with the engine’s hymn of noise was dampened in a split second. The third was the obvious screams of shock from the people inside of the UH-60.

“Oh…wow…whooo…holy shit…” Travis was trying to grasp what had just happened.

“Oh, my, god…look at that!” George raised a finger to the most beautiful sight any of them have seen.

George was pointing at a city, a city that was just peacefully sitting silently on top of a large patch of clouds, defying the laws of gravity. The city was massive with different kinds of buildings of all shapes and sizes; the sun was slowly rising behind a rainbow that arced up and over the whole city and ending on the opposite the side it began. There was what was similar to a water fall, a rainbow that drifted down to the clouds below.

“That …that…that’s…wow…” Mark was speechless as he unbuckled his belt and walked to the opposite side of the helicopter.

“Were the hell are we?” George breathed.

“I-I don’t know, but this is…wow” Travis had his mouth agape as he looked at the city.

“Hey, why can’t I hear the engine?” John’s face became pale.

“Oh shi...”

The UH-60 gave a jerk, and Mark lost his balance falling over the edge of the Helicopter.

“MARK” Lucas tried to grab the gunner, but he was strapped into the seat.

“AHHHHHHH, YAHHHHHHHHHHH, WOAHHHHHH, NO, NO, NO, GAHHHHHHHH!” The world around Mark was spinning by him as he tumbled out of the sky….