Beep. Beep. Beep.

Scootaloo opened her eyes. She was greeted with the sight of a flat, featureless metal panel above. It was screwed into the ceiling like all the other ones.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She turned her head to the left, revealing to her the rest of the small living quarters. Just the metal bunk on which she lay stiffly, and the empty bunk below. Leading out of the room was a hallway.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Groaning, Scootaloo tried to move her hooves. After a few attempts, she was successful in thrusting aside her thin white sheet and she managed to pull herself up to a standing position. She glanced down off the edge of the bunk at the metal floor below, frowning.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Scootaloo jumped off the edge of the bunk, stretching out her wings. To her amazement, they were able to catch on the air and, instead of falling as she'd expected, the pegasus filly was carried downward in a graceful dive to the floor. Her hooves touched down on the metal with a soft clank. For the first time that day, Scootaloo smiled. But her brief moment of victory was short-lived.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Scootaloo sighed again, rolling her eyes. She cantered down the short hallway, each hoofstep punctuated with a clank, until she reached the cockpit. Scootaloo stopped in the front of the room beside a plasticky pilot's chair; in front of her lay an assortment of knobs, dials, buttons, and lights. In the centre of the dashboard was a round plastic wheel-shaped contraption Scootaloo had never seen before.

BEEP. BEEP. BEE—

"Stop it!" Scootaloo exclaimed at the electronics, cutting off the noise. "What in the hay is making that noise...?" She looked down at the myriad of controls, but none of them seemed out of place. Then, in the corner of her eye, she spotted a blinking red light on the left side. She turned to focus on this strange light, nowhere near any of the other buttons, and noticed that there was a small label underneath. As Scootaloo leaned in closer, she was able to make out the words: "Autopilot status – beeps when there is an error".

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Scootaloo pulled down on a cheek with her hoof. "Ugh... crud." She looked back at the dashboard, eyes darting back and forth over the rows and rows of controls. Finally, she spied a big red button, labelled as "Autopilot activation", and she pressed it. Scootaloo grinned as the light to the left flashed green, so it was all the more frustrating when the light changed back to a blinking red.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Ughhhh..."

Scootaloo pressed the button a few more times. Each time, it changed to a steady green—only to change right back again to the blinking red, accompanied by—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Frowning, Scootaloo turned her gaze back to the dashboard and the rows of controls. Mischievously, she thought of just pressing random buttons until it worked itself out or even just walking away, leaving it for somepony else to do. But no, she couldn't do that. So she continued to look until she found a little switch that seemed like it could help and she flipped it.

Immediately, the autopilot status light flickered out. Several other lights on the dashboard did as well. Then, slowly but surely, Scootaloo heard the gentle whirr of the engine, which previously had lingered ever-present in the background, start to fade away into near-nothingness. In fact, it felt like the vessel was grinding to a halt.

Scootaloo didn't panic, though—she knew she had flipped the "autopilot" switch back to "manual". She hopped up into that maroon stiff-backed pilot's seat and put her forehooves on the black wheel-shaped object that lay directly in front of her. Because it was so large and because of where they put it, Scootaloo surmised, that wheel probably had something to do with moving the ship. Hopefully. She gave it a little push, rotating it several degrees clockwise. But nothing happened.

Confused, Scootaloo looked back at the dashboard—but no button, knob, switch, or any other control seemed to hold the answers to her questions. It was then that Scootaloo looked down... and that was when she spied the two pedals on the floor, one by each back hoof. An adult pony could probably have reached them—Scootaloo herself wasn't too far from their rugged surfaces, but she couldn't reach them all the same. So she slid down off the seat and landed squarely on top of the right pedal.

In an instant, the vehicle shot forward. Scootaloo felt herself knocked off her hooves and pushed backwards against the front of the seat. Dazed, she stood back up again and stumbled off away from the seat. But as soon as her hooves left the pedal, Scootaloo could already feel the ship slowing down again.

"Ughhhh... why...?" Scootaloo muttered. She walked back over and pushed the pedal down with a hoof and, sure enough, the ship jolted forward. She let go again and, predictably, the ship slowed until it remained stationery. Scootaloo paced back and forth on the metal floor in the cockpit, pondering what to do about the pedals. Eventually, the steady clink, clank, clink of her hooves became too much and she just stood still. But then she had an idea...

Scootaloo ran off down the hallway and back into the living quarters. Thrusting a hoof underneath the bottom bunk, she scrabbled around for a few seconds before she felt the soft fabric she had been looking for. Scootaloo pulled the green tote bag out from underneath the bunk and carried the weighty bag in her teeth as she returned to the cockpit. Smiling, she set the bag down on top of the right pedal and, as the ship rocketed forward, she hopped back up onto the pilot seat. Scootaloo looped the bag handles around her right hindleg and, to test her new plan, she raised that hindleg with some effort, pulling the bag and its contents off of the pedal and slowing the ship. Smiling, Scootaloo set the bag back down and allowed the ship to proceed as she just sat there. With a forehoof, she tried testing the wheel on the dashboard again; this time, she could feel the ship turning underneath her.

Finally, Scootaloo reached over the dashboard and pressed a small button she had been tempted to press earlier, one that she had been saving. A mechanical panel in front of the dashboard slid upwards into the ceiling, revealing a large glass window in front of the pegasus filly that curved ever so slightly outward. Also revealed were small porthole windows on either side of the cockpit.

Leaning forward, Scootaloo gazed in awe out the front window. There was little to see; the white pinpricks of stars dotted the all-enveloping black void, but that was pretty much it. Save for a grey blob in the lower half of the window... the grey blob that got larger, and larger, and larger... until it took up nearly the entire view. Scootaloo could feel the ship being pulled downward, down into orbit around the moon.

"Nnngh..." Scootaloo exhaled, pulling her body back in an effort to shift the ship's weight. She swerved a hard left with the wheel on the dashboard, pushing the thing as far in that direction as it would go. The rocky grey seemed just to get closer, and closer...

...and then the ship started turning left, breaking free of the moon's grasp. The orange pegasus let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding and tried to straighten out the ship, pulling it into a route that circumvented the moon altogether. Satisfied with her handiwork, Scootaloo let go of the wheel for a while and just watched as stars pulled in and faded out from view, all the while pushing herself further and further into the void of space.