Spike stood next to Spitfire in the cockpit. He informed Garble and Sweetie Belle what was happening and told them to get ready.

"We have a visual of the doppelganger ship, Commander." Spitfire spoke. Spike looked outside, seeing the doppelganger ship, but got a strange feeling about it as it looked like the ship Sombra used on Horizon.

"Very low emissions," WOONA added "passive infrared temperatures suggest most systems are offline. Thrusters are cold.

"That thing is massive! How the hell did Angels take that out!?"

"I have no idea." Spike replied

"Radar scans do not detect any hull breaches on the side facing us." WOONA continued "I detect no energy; it appears the drive core is offline."

"Rendezvous in thirty seconds, Commander." Spitfire said "Good luck."

After the Celestia got close enough, the carrier with Spike, Garble, and Sweetie Belle inside came out and flew to the opening. They all put on their helmets as the shuttle's door opened, letting them feel the cold of space and seeing the inside of the Doppelganger ship.

"What's up with this ship?" Garble asked

"It looks like an insect hive." Sweetie inquired.  

"Penetrating scans have detected an access node to uplink with doppelganger databanks." WOONA announced through their helmet's intercoms. "Marking location on to your hardsuit computer."

"Let's move out!" Spike announced. They walked into the Doppelganger ship, arming themselves when Doppelgangers come out or are on patrol. So far, no doppelgangers  

"Spike, I have compared the ship's EM signature to known doppelganger profiles. This is the same vessel that was on Horizon."

"The same one with Sombra!? ...guess the defense towers softened it for the angels."

"You think some of those colonists may be aboard?" Sweetie asked "I read what happened there." They continued their way, but stopped at an empty pod, steaming, as if it was opened.

"Didn't they put colonist in these things?" Garble asked

"This is horrible; trapped in these pods and left at the mercy of Sombra and the Doppelgangers." They continued, but stopped at a pile of dead colonists.

"That's disgusting!" They approached the pile of dead colonists, and though Spike hid it, he felt like throwing up. "Why would they do this? Why not hold them for ransom?"

"They look like... test subjects... for something... I don't want to know what happened to them."

"There are worse things than death." Spike said, turning away from the pile "Like being a slave to a tyrant."

"This is wrong! If they needed to kill subjects, it could've been painless!"

"That's reality." Garble said.

"Let's get out of here." Spike said "I feel sick and want to do something to Sombra from seeing this!" They continued down the hall next to them, seeing piles of bodies around, up until they entered a blue lit room with pods on terminals. They looked at the pods; the left was empty but the right had a doppelganger inside of it.

"What the hell!? A doppelganger!? Was Sombra experimenting on them?" Sweetie Belle went to the terminal and began to upload the data to the Celestia.  

"WOONA, I'm uploading the data from this terminal. See if you can figure out what Sombra's doing.

"Data received," WOONA replied "Analyzing.... it seems Sombra was running baseline genetic comparison between Humans, Angels, & Mages with the Doppelgangers themselves."

"Is he looking for similarities?"

"I have no hypothesis on his motivation, all I have are the preliminary results, but they reveal something remarkable. A quad-standard genetic structure, identical to traces collected in ancient laboratories. Only one race has this structure: The Immortals." Everyone froze as their mouths dropped.

"You mean... the entire doppelganger species was the result of a failed experiment!? How did we not know this!? And they're working for Sombra now!?"

"They are not entirely immortals, Spike. When Doppelgangers die, all of their genetic coding is now dead with them, making it near to impossible to learn about them, and the immortals show signs of extensive genetic rewrite. Basically, the immortals have more of their characteristics today, with the addition of turning anyone into an immortal, whereas the Doppelgangers are more insect-like and can't turn anyone else into them. It should also be known that many of the experiments done to make an immortal involved criminals as test subjects."

"So the Doppelgangers were a bunch of people with insect abilities, stole pure camouflage technology, and turned into the Doppelgangers in centuries. But... they work for Sombra, and we have to stop them."

"No species should have suffered like this." Sweetie Belle spoke

"Let's find what we need before the Doppelgangers come & salvage this vessel. Move out!" Everyone nodded, pulled their weapons out, and went on ahead, but saw many pods around them.

"So many pods." Garble spoke "Now I'm wondering if I should've took this job or not."

"There must be thousands of them." Sweetie Commented "How... many of them do you think are full?"

"Too Many." Spike answered sternly

"I detect no life in pods, Spike." WOONA spoke. "It is probable that the victims died when the ship lost primary power."

"...fuck."

After making their way inside the ship, nothing happening at all, they entered not a huge room, but a large, open area where pods were everywhere!

"Holy Shit!" Garble commented

"They could take everyone in this system and still not have enough!" Sweetie added.

"Looks like he may target Earth, Sora, and Alliage."

"Not if we stop him!" Spike yelled. They walked ahead, seeing a console.

"A platform," Sweetie said "looks like some kind of control panel."

"Where the hell are the Doppelgangers!?" Garble asked "Something doesn't feel right." Sweetie Belle walked next to Spike and began to do her buisiness.

"WOONA," Spike spoke "Sweetie Belle's setting up a bridge between you and the Doppelganger ship. See if you can find anything useful in the data banks."

On the Celestia.

Spitfire typed on the ship's controls as information was across her screen.

"Data-Mine in progress, Spike." WOONA spoke. Spitfire watched as WOONA worked, but the screens went dark, followed by loud bees. She turned to WOONA, only to see a red hologram of Sombra himself, sitting on a throne, smiling and laughing evilly before disappearing.

"Oh shit." Spitfire commented.

Back.

The place shook and some tubes around the three began to pump some liquid around.

"Spitfire!" Spike yelled "What the hell just happened!?"

"Major Power Surge, Spike." Spitfire replied "Everything went dark, but we're back now."

"I managed to divert the majority of the overload to non-critical systems." WOONA added "Spike, it wasn't a malfunction. This was a trap." The floor shook beneath them, and their platform began to float in the sky, spinning clockwise.

"We need a little help here, WOONA." Spike spoke

"I'm having trouble maintaining connection. There's someone else in the system."

"Sombra." Their platform stopped, making Sweetie Belle fall onto her back. Spike helped her up, but all saw another platform like theirs heading to them, but with Doppelgangers.

Connections reestablished. I need to finish the download before I can override any systems."

"Then you better get it done fast, WOONA."

"INCOMING!!!" Garble yelled, pulling out his assault rifle. Spike pulled his assault rifle out as Sweetie Belle pulled her shotgun out. They took cover behind their own platform's built in walls as the Doppelgangers flew & crawled their way towards them. All three got out of cover and fired at the Doppelgangers, making them drop like flies. Sweetie Belle, though fazed on what she did, snapped out of it when a lone Doppelganger was close to her. She turned and fired her shotgun at it, killing it instantly. She went into cover and pulled out what looked liked an orb.

"Kánte ó, ti boreíte na éginan." She said to it. It glowed blue, opening some parts, and began to float out of cover and fired what looked liked miniature missiles at the doppelgangers, killing at least three with one shot. Garble flapped his wings into the air and began to fire at the Doppelgangers flying at them, leaving Spike & Sweetie Belle to fend for themselves.

After some intense moments, the doppelgangers were dead, though they could still hear the hissing sound of Doppelgangers around them.

"Spike," WOONA spoke "you must manually reestablish my link to the command console." Spike and the others headed to the command console. Spike typed in some stuff, and the hologram of WOONA appeared in front of them. "I have regained control of the platform, Spike."

"I knew you wouldn't let us down, WOONA." Spike replied with a smile.

"I always work at Optimal capacity." She disappeared. their platform moved to where they needed to go.

"Did you get what we need?"

"I found data that could help us sucessfully navigate to Apis. I have also found the Angel distress call that served as the lure for this trap: the Doppelgangers were the source. This is unusual."

"What are you getting at?"

"It's unusual because Angel emergency channels have secondary encryption. It is corrupted in the message. It's not possible that Mr. Rich would believe the distress call was genuine."

"Why are you so sure?"

"I found the anomaly with FIST detection protocols. He wrote them.

"He knew it was a trap!?" Spitfire asked in surprise "Why would he send us into a trap!?"

"That son of a bitch!!!" Spike yelled "He knew it was a trap and he wanted us to die!!!"

"But why would he do this!?" Sweetie Belle asked "We didn't do anything bad, did we!?"

"Typical rich person tactic," Garble replied "say you'll pay someone in to have them do your work, have them die on the job, and save your money."

"Commander," Spitfire spoke "We have another problem: the Doppelganger ship is powering up! You need to get out of there before their weapons are online! There's no way I'm going to die with a failed mission!"

"I do not have full control of their systems," WOONA added "I will do whatever I can. Sending coordinates to shuttle extraction." The place shook, followed by loud hissing and Sombra's laugh.

"Let's get out of here!" Spike ordered. Everyone sprinted their way out of the Doppelganger ship, firing at Doppelgangers in their way, but still running as fast as their feet can carry them!

They ran to the shuttle outside, turning to fire at a couple of Doppelgangers heading towards them.

"We're outta time, Commander! Spitfire yelled "We have to go!"

"You heard her!" Spike yelled to the others "Everybody onto the Celestia! MOVE!!!" They jumped into their shuttle, activating it quickly and hastily moved to the Celestia's location. Luckily, their shuttle was taken in, and all three got out, taking off their helmets. Spike ran ahead to the elevator to get to Spitfire's cockpit.

"Strap in, everyone! I'm gonna make them work for us!" Spike ran behind Spitfire and stood next to her, looking out of the windows & cameras around the Celestia. The Doppelganger's ship fired it's laser at them, missing them thanks to Spitfire's piloting skills. "We can't dodge them forever, WOONA, get us the hell out if here!!!"

"Specify a destination, Ms. Spitfire." WOONA replied

"Dammit! Anywhere but here!!!"

"Very well. Engaging emergency drive core." In a few moments, they sped as fast as when they started this mission, making Spike grab onto the nearest railing. The lasers from the Doppelganger ship stopped firing, and everything was calm. Both Spitfire and Spike took a deep breath.

"Good job, Spitfire." Spike said

"Thanks. Do... you want to talk to Filthy Rich?"

"I would."

"Patching him through." Spike nodded and went to the briefing room. Inside, another scan and the room went dark, showing Flithy Rich on his chair again.

"Spike," he began "it looks like WOONA extracted some interesting data before the doppelganger ship came back online."

"Yeah," Spike replied "and WOONA told us the distress call originated from the Doppelgangers! You betrayed us! I knew I shouldn't have trusted you."

"We're at war! Sombra is kidnapping people and every minute we waste is one more chance we give the enemy to prepare!"

"I know the stakes! We're suppose to be on the same side, and I can't trust you for shit!"

"Without that information, we can't reach the Doppelganger's homeworld, leaving you, and everyone else as good as dead or enslaved by Sombra! Yes, it was a trap! But I was confident in your abilities. and don't forget about WOONA; Sombra couldn't have anticipated her."

"You could've told me the plan! You say I'm important, but it seems you're gambling with my life."

"I needed Sombra top believe he had the upper hand. Telling you could've tipped his off in any number of ways. Besides, I wouldn't have sent you in if I didn't think you'd succeed."

"I don't risk people; there are always alternative ways."

"You may not like being on the receiving end, and neither would I, but the facts are with me. As much as we try to avoid them, these decisions need to be made, but more importantly... it paid off. WOONA confirmed our suspicions: Sombra has made an advanced identify friend/foe systems around Apis. All we need to do is get our hands on one of those IFF's"

"I was just on a Doppelganger ship! Why didn't you say anything about finding his IFF!?"

"As I said: WOONA just confirmed it. Besides, you wouldn't have had time to extract it. But we have options: One of Luna's scientist teams discovered on the planet Nogaknelk has a crater that holds a special weapon. I sent a team to find either the weapon or its target. They found Both. The weapon was defunct, but it helped us gather the flight path of the intended target: A 37 million year old battle cruiser. We found it damaged and trapped in the gravity of a brown dwarf.

"...Aren't Brown Dwarfs basically stars that didn't make it?"

"Simply put, but accurate. They're gas giants that don't quite have the masses of stars. Expect gale force winds and extremely high temperatures. The ship itself has an old yet advanced system that keeps it in orbit; likely an automated response to external threats. It's stable, but I won't call it safe."

"I get the feeling that this isn't going to be a simple 'swing by and pick up our package' deal."

"We lost contact with Dr. Anadnahc's team shortly after they boarded. Initial reconnaissance revealed no clues, and too risky to commit more resources, but we need that IFF. I'll forward the coordinates to Spiftire. In the meantime, I suggest you tell your crew I didn't risk their unnecessarily. It will make things easier going forward."

"... WOONA, tell the crew to assemble: we've got a lot to talk about."

"Of course, Spike." WOONA spoke.

Everyone was in the briefing room, yelling at each other.  

"This is bullshit!" Strongheart yelled "Why wasn't i with you! I could've been great!"

"Ha! You!?" Diamond mocked "If I was in there, my father would've aided WOONA in hacking.

"Or be happy you were gone." Garble muttered.  

"What was that!?"

"Why didn't you take me, Spike?" Big Mac asked "Ah understand 'yer stronger than before, but you need help!"

"I agree." Sunset added "You should've had me or the Doc with you."

"That hacking would've been done easily." The Doc replied with some pride.

"I can do it much better than you, 'Doctor'!" Trixie growled.

"And... who are you?"

"I think she's a magician." Sonata inquired "Can you pull a bunny outta your hat?"

"I don't have a hat, you idiot!" Trixie yelled

"ENOUGH!!!" Sweetie Belle yelled. Everyone stopped talking and turned to her, who was standing next to Spike.

"Thank you." Spike replied "Look, I know this is tough, and I would've liked some people with me, but I'm not saying your worthless, its just not needed at that moment, ok?" Everyone muttered to each other. "Alright, good. Please, go back to your working position and forget about this. Just know that Mr. Rich didn't want us killed and we need to work together until this is over. Okay?" Everyone muttered and left the room, leaving Spike alone. He took a deep breath.

What am I going to do now? He thought to himself.

I. Recruitment.

1. A. The Assassin

-Zecora

-Seabreeze

-Bon-Bon

-Other

-An O.C.

B. Mare-Do-Well/ The Vigilante

-Gilda

-Discord

-Soarin

-Other

-An O.C.

2. Allies.

-Diamond Tiara

-Big Mac

-The Doctor

-Sunset Shimmer

-Sonata dusk

-Strongheart

-Garble

-Trixie

-Sweetie Belle.

II. Loyalty missions

-Diamond Tiara

-Big Mac

-The Doctor

-Sunset Shimmer

-Sonata dusk

-Strongheart

-Garble

-Trixie

-Sweetie Belle.

III. Pick up the IFF.