Dash woke up inside another medical bay. This time, the lights were on, and she was lying on an actual bed. It looked remarkably similar to the gurneys Ponyville Hospital used to transport around sick ponies to the scanners and whatnot. The familiar green glow mixed in with the white light. There were needles, although not as many, sticking out all over her, and Dash couldn't help but think that something out there was using her as a pincushion.

She looked down at herself next - woah. Whatever had happened to her on the way here, it was completely gone. Her skin and coat were a lively shade of blue. Her wings, which lay folded up beneath her, seemed completely feathered. The sensation of something sucking everything out of her was gone, with only the familiar feeling of nothing all over her body. She was fine.

The room was like the previous one she'd been in, but much more sparse. The machines weren't there anymore, replaced by a singular bottle of the viscous green liquid, with tubes flowing out to the needles on her legs.  

The last thing she remembered before her memories were but blurs was the deafening howl of explosions and the shaking of the crystals that surrounded her and the ape. Something had happened between then and now, but even Dash didn't know what. Maybe the ape's friends had come to save them?

The door suddenly hissed open, and there in the doorway stood the metal machine, wearing what seemed to be a shirt. A faint memory in her mind recalled the machine being named something that began with P. The ape had called it that. What was it? Princess? Pom-pom? Somthing spelled p-o-m, because she wasn't stupid, and had learned her Equestrian well.

It was also a doctor, apparently. Seems like robots could go to school here. Did they get cutie marks too?

"Um..." she began. "Doctor..."

"Strange, it comes from another world, and yet it speaks our language."

Every hair in Dash's body suddenly prickled up. The machine sounded a lot like something she knew. She didn't remember what though. A few blurs revealed a white blob in the faint shape of a pony with striking purple hair.

"Tell me, what other words can you speak?"

It was definitely feminine. Dash could give it that.

"Uh... hello?"

"Fascinating... Oh, please do continue."

"Hi. Um, are you, uh, Doctor-"

"Doctor Pomeroy? He is fine. Although I am not him. "

Its voice changed. Suddenly it was overtly masculine in nature and quite low. Dash was reminded of a time when one of her friends had a really deep voice.

"Uh, okay, could you tell me who you are?"

"My name is Kayos." The conversation ended there.

"Kayos, huh? Well, I'm-"

"I suppose my name is not enough. I am a prototype Engi diplomatic unit, with advanced vocal projectors capable of mimicking other species' speech patterns. You may have confused Doctor Pomeroy for me, although I can ensure you that he is not me, because even though Engi units are similar in appearance, each is unique in its own way."

Dash sheepishly smiled at the machine, crawling back from it.

"I am sorry if I frightened you. Most aliens are indeed likely to be frightened by contact with extraterrestrial life."

Did it... did it just call her an alien? In its now neutral, toneless voice?

"No," she said. "I'm not scared. Definitely not scared. You... um, you all just look the same."

"True. However, I assure you that we mean no harm."

There was something about the metallic voice that made her feel comfortable. A faint memory in her head triggered a picture of a purple alicorn, although Dash couldn't remember who.

"I came to wake you before your nanite injection."

Huh? What?

"Nanite injection?"

The machine walked into her room and sat down on the thing that looked vaguely like a chair. It was red, with a shine like plastic, and the machine laid its rear end into the curvature.

"Yes. Your mind and body have been extremely damaged from extended periods of time in a zero-g, low-oxygen environment. When there is no gravity, muscles slowly begin to deteriorate due to their lack of use. Artificial gravity is present on every Federation ship, but perhaps there was none on yours. Your mind, needless to say, has been damaged from multiple head wounds and impact-related incidents, as well as psychologically broken due to a traumatic experience."

There was a flash of red over the left side of her vision. Her head and stomach suddenly wanted to leave her body as fast as they could.

"Knowing the Amber, they probably have done horrible things to you."

The thing, made of crystal, and its rock-like arm. They were just blurs, but thinking about them made Dash shiver from top to bottom.

"The nanites will allow us to reconfigure several parts of your skeletomuscular system that have been damaged, as well as restore your brain to full functionality. Your anatomy seems very similar to human innards, I'll give you that. We have devised a simplified procedure to inject the machines. "

Dash noticed that the machine's right grasper had transformed into a long needle, with a vial of the green liquid at the very bottom.

"If you'd like, we can start now, and I can tell you any story in my codex of human entertainment."

Once upon a time there was a prince. This prince became king when his father died. He had always wanted to be king, and the previous king had prepared him for the task. At his coronation, instead of allowing the steward to crown him, he took the crown from the steward and placed it atop his own head. The crowd cheered for him then.

Later, however, the people did not cheer for him. The prince had changed. Once king, power had gotten to his head. He was... affected... by a dark disease, an endless desire to immortalize his rule and become supreme.

Perhaps his mistake was the greatest ever made. He accepted the powers of the dark and became one with the shadows. Suddenly, not only did he have the means to control his own empire, but all the empires that ever existed, past, present, and future.

He hid his powers and waited for a chance to strike. His military genius was second to none - the supreme ruler of the land bequeathed upon him riches and accolades for all the achievements he made in war. But soon, a new age of harmony came about, and war was not needed anymore. The dark prince saw his pawns disappear - he saw his people break into cheer. The chaos that came about - he despised it. And so he used his power not to control the world, but instead to revile it.

A fatal mistake, this was. He was turned to shadow by two sisters, and banished to the frozen ice of the arctic north. He returned, once more, and this time he was removed from the world. The second resurrection, he was disintegrated, with his horn the only part of him remaining. It was lost in the blizzards of the north, buried under layers and layers of ice and snow.

The crystals that made him abandoned him, leaving him for the waves of dark and tides of time.

But there was another... more powerful entity that found him. Rebels, red as blood, fleeing from defeat, found his horn and his power. They found his last remnant, and in this remnant they found a voice.

"Sir!" said the dish operator.

The pony at the helm of the control station instantly acknowledged the operator.

"What is it, Bit Byte? Report."

"Sir, we've lost contact with at least twelve of our orbital satellites."

In this remnant, on this planet, they found a means of victory. They incorporated his corruption into their own crimson bodies, and in doing so became more powerful than they could ever imagine.

"Sir! I have a visual!"

"Put it on the screen, quickly!"

The dark prince saw a means to gain life for a third time, and so he took it, spreading his essence over the crystal fleets and the crystal cities. The new empire called themselves Amber. They quickly struck back against their former oppressors, tearing them apart without so much as a scratch."

"Inform Celestia immediately. We have a global crisis in our hooves."

"Sombra has returned. And this time, he's serious."

Even though she didn't feel great, at least she could move around. When she laid hoof on the floor for the first time, she discovered that she was about half the machine's height, and that she could barely walk without wobbling off-course. Kayos had said that this was normal for quadrupedal creatures and that he had summoned a wheelchair.

Her mind felt a little better. At the very least, she could recall the names of her five friends. Their pictures still looked fuzzy, but Kayos, again, said that it was normal for visuals to incompletely develop after a nanite reconfiguration.

The machine, however, knew more - much more than she did. He purposefully blurred up several memories deep within her cerebrum. They contained a lot of red. So much red, that Kayos's optics were a little green afterwards.

But the removal of a memory requires a vessel to hold it in, and Kayos was forced to relive Dash's torture.

It was not a pleasant experience, even for an emotionless quasi-machine like Kayos.

But what was he to do? Peter had said to keep her happy, and he was to keep her happy. Peter was his superior officer.

The black and blue vessel slipped through the hyperspace tunnel with a speed beyond anything light had ever attempted. Its darkened armor did not reflect the hyperspace light, merely neutralizing it and rendering the ship a mere shadow amongst thousands of bright stars. It was practically invisible against the blue walls of the tunnel.

There were enemies behind it - enemies that it could destroy. But it was one ship, while the enemy was ten. So it held back its weapons and pursued them. In time, it flew past them, and was currently ahead.

A silent order rang through h-space, and the vessel began to slow. The blue walls slowly turned back as the starfield returned. The light of a nearby sun tried to catch the stealth cruiser's eye but it would have none of it. Quickly, it flared its engines, yellow flames leaping out of the exhausts. Silently, it released a silver orb into the darkness, before jetting away, and disappearing.

Mere minutes later, A fleet of red ships appeared. They looked startled, the crystals that covered them dull and worn instead of energized. They looked around and saw the sphere. Several began firing shards of crystal at it.

Suddenly, the space was alive with fire. Black ships, with cannon bristling from every angle, came in from the side. The cruiser, its job complete, released its powerful cloak.

The howl of a thousand missiles thundered over the silence of space as explosions tore apart the crystal apparitions. The cruiser weaved between the flying shards, its own anti-ship missiles deliberately aiming for control centers and weapons networks, never hitting the brigs. Blasts of plasma mixed in with the missiles but they did nothing against the crystals - while the explosions fragmented them into a million pieces.

It was over mere minutes before it began. The small fleet of missile cruisers tore open the crystal ships. They now mingled with the remains, piercing open prisoner pods and rescuing the broken, scarred, and afraid captives within.

One shuttle found a pod with a surprisingly unhurt man, and a deformed quadruped with hair all the colors of the rainbow.

Kayos had left the pony, breathing and alive, in her room. The nanite injection was, for the most part, over. The residual memories he had obtained from her had been archived and primed for deletion. Everything, as it seemed, was fine.

There was just the small thing of reporting to the captain.  

Unfortunately, when the Engi stepped onto the bridge, he got much more than he was bargaining for.

The captain and two Zoltan in Federation uniform were waiting for him there. The ship Zoltan rarely ever exited the systems - these were obviously not the ship Zoltan. Kayos knew the Zoltan - all four of them were lime green. These two were a dark forest green, with serious faces etched from peaks and crevices of energy.

One of the Zoltan extended its glowing green arm, which Kayos took in his grasper.

"Medical Officer Kayos," said the captain. "These gentlemen are from a research firm in the Gas Cities of Jupiter. They wish to speak to you about the alien."

"The alien? You mean the horse?"

"Yes," said the one on the left. "The psuedo-equine that your ship found in the brig of a crystal vessel. We were hoping we could analyze it."

Zoltan were always brutally honest.

"And?"

"And see how it would react to stimuli," said the right one. "That stimuli being pain, euphoria, and various other simulated emotions."

"You obviously haven't scratched the surface yet."

"We also wish to do a surgery on it. To observe its inner workings in the flesh. And perhaps gather more data in case we ever see another member of this non-sentient species."

"Non-sentient? How could it be non-sentient? It spoke to me. Plainly. In English."

"That is impossible. The report stated that it was incapable of speech and locomotion."

"You actually haven't seen her yet, have you? I just finished her nanite infusion, she's-"

"Her... Her. When did you confirm its gender?"

Kayos never really liked talking with Zoltan.

"When I partially displaced her blood with nanite mush. I was able to conduct several inner body assessments and can conclude that she has a very similar anatomical structure as a human female, of maybe twenty years old."

"Are your findings valid?"

"Valid as I could say. I'll have Doctor Pomeroy re-check them if you wish."

"We understand that this specimen may be of some value to a specific officer on board. Perhaps this is clouding your judgement."

The Zoltan on the left leaned closer to the Engi.

"This is an alien specimen. It must be dealt with the absolute caution. We do not yet know what it is capable of. I request, most vehemently, to take it in for analysis and possible dissection."

"She may be an alien specimen but she is still a living being. And the Federation exists to preserve and protect all living beings, including this helpless little creature you refer to as "subject" and "specimen"."

The right Zoltan sighed.

"Captain, it seems you were right. We will get nowhere with our petty requests. We must make a deal with this Engi unit and the human responsible for finding her."

"We humbly request that you make a stop in the Gas City so we may discuss the matter further."