...to see a green grey unicorn colt with a cropped slate grey mane, about the same age as her, standing in an open doorway across from the kitchen. His brow was furrowed as he looked at her, as if try to figure out if he had seen her before so that he could potentially avoid embarrassing himself.

"Um... hello, there," Scootaloo replied. "What's up?"

"Are you new?" the colt inquired, setting conversation niceties aside. "Where did you come from?"

"I'm... uh... your friends here just accidentally tractor beam'd my ship 'cause they thought it was empty."

The colt snorted. "Believe me, Tangerine—these ponies aren't my friends at all." He paused. "Wait... you said you have a ship?" There was a hint of something more in his voice—excitement?

"Yeah, it's docked against this ship. I'm lucky I was able to get out before they accidentally turned it into scrap..."

"Oh boy... that's the best news I've heard all... um... in a long dang time. Say, can you come in here and talk with me?" The cold beckoned towards the room he had burst into the hallway from. "We'll have a lot less chance of being overheard—"

At that moment, Scootaloo heard the latch on the other side of the hall click open and the door swung open to reveal Tank with a warm grin. When he saw Scootaloo, he opened his mouth to speak; upon seeing the colt standing with her, he appeared to think better of whatever he was about to say.

"Kevin! What are you doing up here?" The question was innocent enough, but the colt's frown was enough for Scootaloo to tell that something else was going on.

"I apologise, sir, it's just that this room is my assigned living quarters, remember?"

"Is it really? Hmm, there must have been some sort of mistake... we never would have put you up here so close to the—ah, well, no matter. I've got business to attend to, and I know for a fact that you do as well. Off with you, now."

"Yes, sir," the colt replied with a salute. As Tank turned away down the hall with Scootaloo following, the orange filly thought she could make out the colt mumbling something about a name under his breath. But the pace Tank was keeping was too fast for her to linger behind any longer so Scootaloo left the colt with a wave and continued down the hallway to wherever she was being taken.

"Glad to see you're still with me, Bolt," Tank said as they walked along. "Some of the younger ponies we have in our employ... well, they're hard working—that's for sure—but they sometimes rile up trouble. And you wouldn't want to get mixed up with that."

"Um, no, I wouldn't," Scootaloo replied. "Though I don't think I'll have much of a chance to, since I'll be taking off in not too long."

"Yes, yes, true. Speaking of that—I am taking you now to a dining room. The cook is hard at work preparing the salad for us."

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Tank."

"It's really no trouble!" They walked in silence past a few more doors and then Tank stopped. "Ah, now here we are." He reached out and opened the squeaky handle with a foreleg, letting Scootaloo in as he held the door open. He shuffled in after the filly and closed the door slowly behind so that the click of the latch was nigh on inaudible.

The dining room that Scootaloo was greeted with was small but not empty; on the contrary, it was the most ornately-decorated and full room that she had seen thus far. A variety of wooden dressers lined the edges of the room, each with a spiralling metallic finish that lined its edges. However, all that this furniture around the room held above was arrangements of flowers in simple metal vases. At a closer look, the flowers didn't even look real; this made sense, as it was a spaceship, but Scootaloo thought it gave the whole room a bit of a tacky vibe. She evidently had been spending too much time talking to Rarity.

The centre of the room was filled completely with a large table set for two over top of its white tablecloth. Although Scootaloo had expected other ponies to be there as well, she wasn't about to turn down a free meal just yet and especially not in this situation. She rushed over to the other side of the room and settled down in the chair on the end opposite where Tank pulled out his own seat. They sat there in silence, forelegs resting on top of the sheer white tablecloth near their silverware.