“WHAT THE FUCK’S GOING ON!?”  The creature screamed, flailing its arms around wildly.  Being the only ones prepared for a charge, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were the first to make it to the bed, each wrapping their hooves around one of the creature’s arms and pinning it to the mattress.

“Gosh, it’s strong!”  RD grunted.

“Don’t tell me it’s too much for ya, Rainbow!”  AJ replied, grinning through gritted teeth as she dodged a wayward kick from one of the creature’s legs.

“In your dreams, country pony.”

“WHAT THE FUCK’S GOING ON!?  WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?  WHY CAN’T I FUCKING SEE!?”  The creature repeated as it continued thrashing.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie popped up on the creature’s chest, whipped out the largest tuba anypony in the room had ever seen, and blatted right into its face, streams of confetti exploding with the noise.  AJ and Rainbow hit the floor, dazed and covered in glitter.  “Consarn it, Pinkie, couldja warn a pony ‘fore you go doin’ somethin’ like that!?”  AJ snapped.

“Ugh, my ears are gonna be ringing for a week.”  Rainbow grumbled.

“Sorry,” Pinkie replied, shrugging sheepishly at them, “But I didn’t know any other way to calm everypo- you all down.”

“Oh, God, my head,” the creature moaned, its head back on the pillow.  Everypony gathered around the bed, except for Fluttershy, who had to be pulled out from under the pillow she’d been hiding behind throughout the debacle.  “Wha-what’s going on – who’s there?”

“It’s…talking.”  Rarity said, looking around at her friends worriedly.

Twilight cleared her throat.  “Excuse me, sir?”

The creature froze, trying to peer through the bandages.  “Who’s there!?”

“Sir, if you could calm down for…oh, you know what?  Hang on,” she bent over and checked under the bed, where a certain yellow pegasus had already thrown re-hidden herself.  “Fluttershy?  We could really use your expertise.”

Still shivering, she shook her head and kept her hooves firmly clamped over her eyes.

“Fluttershy…”

Then AJ poked her head under, “Fluttershy, hun?  We could really use ya.  This here critter needs somepony t’calm it down.”

“A creature…needs…my…” she whimpered, repeating Applejack’s words to herself like a mantra as she slowly pulled herself out and back to the creature’s bedside.  Obviously unsure of herself, she looked around at her friends, teeth gritted in fear.  They ushered her on.  Still not quite sure of what to do, the little yellow pegasus looked within herself for that gut instinct which had guided her through so many situations like this.  Then, acting purely on that instinct, she pulled off one of the creature’s gloves with her teeth and took its hand in her hooves.

“There…there, you’re…um…safe now.”  She said shakily, surprised at how warm the creature’s hand was.  Based on how muscular its arms and legs looked, she had assumed this thing would be some sort of fighting creature, covered in hard, tough skin meant for taking on other harder, tougher animals.  But this thing in her hooves felt almost…soft.  And smelt lightly of vanilla.

At any rate, the creature relaxed immediately, and her friends beamed at her.  It had worked.  Things were back under control.  The creature laid there for a second before asking: “Where am I?  Some sorta hospital?”

“Well, Fluttershy’s cottage is where we bring all the hurt animals.”  Twilight said.

“A vet’s place?  Great.”  The creature tried to sit up, winced, and laid back down.  “At least you all speak English, and don’t kill Americans on sight.  That’s a helluva lot more than I could say for the last place I was deployed.”

“Yes, um…” Twilight shrugged, looking at her friends confusingly.  “What is…what is your name?”

“Officer Peter Uris, United States Naval Aviator,” the creature said, giving a perfectly well-rehearsed reply.  “Here to support…hang on…”

The creature bolted upright in the bed, “Where am I?”  

“Like I said, you are at Fluttershy’s…”

“No, I mean what country?  I’m back in the U.S, right?”

“Um…” Twilight shrugged at her friends.  “Is…is that the name of your planet?”

“So they HAVE landed,” Pinkie muttered, squinting suspiciously at the creature.

“Oh no,” it groaned, clawing at the bandages.  “Oh man…what’s on my head?  Why can’t I…”

“Oh, easy now,” Fluttershy cooed, unwrapping the bandages around the creature’s head.  For some reason, at the sound of her voice, the creature paused immediately, allowing her to gently unwrap its face.  The moment the last strip of gauze peeled away, its eyes blinked open, squinting in the daylight.

The creature stared at the ponies surrounding it, looking more and more worried as each moment passed and the things around him stubbornly remained ponies, refusing to turn back into human nurses as part of what had to be a concussion-induced hallucination.  The ponies looked back, regarding its dull, squinty brown eyes with concern.  After a few minutes of one of the most awkward staring contests in Equestria’s history, the creature sighed.  “Nope, not Earth,” he muttered.  “Man, my CO’s gonna be pissed.”

The map on the card table in front of Vance hadn’t been touched in twenty minutes, except by an errant finger as he reached over for one of his tools.  A dozen circles marking where the Search and Rescue teams had been deployed stared back up at him as he worked, some of them exed-off already.

Vance grimaced.  This was the part he always hated: the waiting.  His men had received their orders, the sandbags were dug, the weapons had been cleaned and loaded, and the recon teams were scouring the area for enemy contacts (though they were a bit short-handed now with so many of the specially-trained squads on the search for the missing pilot) while everyone else trained up and stayed sharp for that moment when the recon teams came running back to camp.  Until that moment, however, he could only stare at the little circles and dots on his map, repeatedly disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling his sidearm to keep the tension at bay.

Yes, Vance was no stranger to the tension that came with the waiting.  There had been plenty of both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and each time he grew to hate it just a little bit more.  It was waiting for the bombs to go off, or the bullets to start flying, or for a squad to burst from the woods carrying a teammate covered in blood.  It was sitting in one place, waiting for all hell to break loose.

“Captain?”  Lieutenant Parker stepped into the tent with a quick salute.

“How goes the search, Lieutenant?”  Vance asked, remaining focused on the disassembled pistol in front of him.

“We found the chopper, sir: it was demolished.  We don’t know how much of the damage was done by whatever downed her and how much was the initial crash, but there ain’t much worth salvaging.  We know that…”

“Didja find our pilot?”  Vance asked, locking the pistol’s slide back into place.

“No, sir.”  

“Then keep looking.  I want that pilot back in friendly hands before whatever’s supposed to happen here happens.”

“Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant turned to leave, but suddenly thought better and stepped tentatively back into the tent, waiting there for his Captain to acknowledge him.  He didn’t have to wait long.

“Lieutenant?”  Vance still didn’t look up from the half-assembled pistol.

“Sir, with all due respect,” Parker breathed slowly before continuing: “This search has our forces scattered all to hell.  If the enemy shows up, or if one of our guys makes unauthorized contact with the native populace…”

“Our men are professional soldiers who know how to handle unwarranted contact with civilian populations, the appearance of enemy forces will almost certainly be preceded by that rather spectacular light show the rift’s opening tends to show off, and I am NOT writing a letter telling a distraught mother how I lost her son to a nasty storm before the fighting even started.  Not if I can help it.”  Vance slammed the pistol’s magazine home and worked the slide, taking great satisfaction in the little telltale click informing him of a job well done.

“Is that understood, Lieutenant?”

“Sir!  Yes, sir!”

“Then get back to work.  Don’t return until you have either a helicopter pilot with an interesting story to tell, or a body.”

Without another word, Parker saluted and left the tent.  Vance glared down at the map, pistol in hand.  A group of circles with X’s over them stared back up at him, kinda like the eyes of dead people in those old cartoons he used to watch…

Sighing, he pulled the pistol’s magazine out and worked the slide to empty the chamber, catching the bullet as it sprang out at him so he could start the cleaning process all over again. Next Chapter: Chapter VI: The Arrival Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 44 Minutes