The vent was fairly small; the metal walls pushed up close to Scootaloo's sides and she was forced to duck her head so as to not hit the ceiling. Yet she was lucky she was a small pony; otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to squeeze through the vent opening in the first place.

She walked slowly, trying to muffle the metal clanging of her hoofsteps. When she came to the drop down where the vent dipped into the floor underneath the hallway, Scootaloo paused at the sight of the drop. If she were to just jump down, she'd make a ton of noise; Tank would most likely hear it even if he were nowhere near the room yet. Then she had an idea. She jumped down, wings abuzz.

Fortunately, her wings were being cooperative and allowed her a controlled fall onto the floor of the vent below, making no more noise than her regular hoofsteps. Scootaloo exhaled and kept walking forward.

The warm air blowing onto her face was... oddly refreshing in a way warm air rarely ever was. Maybe it was all the cold she had been through in her ship in the last few days that allowed her to feel this air much like the warm tenderness of another pony's embrace, wrapping her up tight. She trudged onwarrd.

It was hard to tell how far that she'd gotten; it wasn't exactly easy to turn her head, so Scootaloo didn't bother. Instead she gazed forward into the warm mists, unable to make out the shape of anything that lay ahead. She was walking blind. Hopefully, when she got there, it would be obvious; she had already passed several turns off that main vent, but had assumed that they weren't the right way to go.

It was then that Scootaloo heard above her the sound of hooves on metal. They proceeded at a normal pace, passing over her in just a few seconds. Evidently Tank didn't know she was gone yet. Scootaloo quickened her pace—the faster that she got to the other end of the ship, the better. She felt her heart rate quicken with her pace, the thing thumping forcefully in her chest. Blood rushed to her ears. Scootaloo kept going.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Scootaloo was able to make out what appeared to be a far wall to the vent. She bounded forward, making a little more noise, to find that what she thought was an end to the vent was a turn, leading left. It was the only way to go, so Scootaloo went that way. She smiled as she saw its end just ahead of her, which also turned left. After several seconds of walking, she reached that end and turned again. As she had suspected, this was the final end to the vent; now, all that remained was the leap upwards.

However, Scootaloo had miscalculated exactly how far she had to jump up; once she got there, it was obvious that there was no way she could make it—and that she would make a lot of noise if she did decide to attempt it. So she was stuck—so close to her goal, yet so far.

But then she realised—she had used her wings to help her get down, right? Therefore, perhaps it would make sense to use them to get up. And, for most pegasi, this wouldn't pose a problem; they could just fly up to the ledge. But Scootaloo wasn't most pegasi, and she was still trying to figure out how to use her wings. Yes, she was getting better—but most of the progress she had made was with gliding, particularly of the downward variety. That didn't exactly help when she was trying to go up.

Yet, as with before, it was worth a shot. Her only other option was waiting there until she got caught, and that would lead to... stuff that really sucked. So she crouched down and, with all her strength, pushed herself upwards into the air. At the same time, her wings buzzed frantically on her back, trying with all their might to propel the pegasus filly up, up, and away.

She soared upwards from the jump, and a few inches further from the flapping of her wings, but came about six inches short of her goal. Scootaloo plummeted back down to the floor with a loud, metallic clang that reverberated both up towards the grate and down the vent. She exhaled angrily as she stood to her hooves.

Just as she was about to try again, she heard a voice come from past the grate above. "Hello? Is anypony there?" The tone was cautious. Scootaloo heard a few hoofsteps on metal above, coming towards her. Quivering, the filly held her breath. She stood there in silence at the end of the vent for about thirty seconds.

"Ungh... probably nothing. Or maybe one of those dumb stallions playing a practical joke in the other room. I don't get paid enough to put up with those ponies, honestly..." The voice trailed off as it grew more distant; the hoofsteps also indicated that whoever was there was retreating, probably across the room. After a few more seconds without any response from that pony above, Scootaloo exhaled.

Without wasting another second, the filly crouched again. She had to make it up there, or she was in hot water. Screwing her eyes up in concentration, Scootaloo thought of light things. Clouds. The breeze. Gulls. Anything in the air that she could think of—that was what she had to focus on. Then, she held her breath, and jumped.

This time, she waited until she was already in the air to begin buzzing her wings. And, miraculously, this seemed to help. Scootaloo felt her body being lifted upwards on her wings; chancing it, she opened an eyelid. Yep, she was in the air. Quickly she shut the eyelid again, hoping not to lose her concentration. She reached out her hooves to feel the top of the metal surface behind the grate and propelled herself slightly forward. She lowered her hooves carefully onto the metal, coming to rest right behind the grate.

Scootaloo wanted to jump with joy—let out a giggle of delight at her accomplishment. But it was not the time for such things. She looked through the grate in front of her.

Through the thin horizontal slits in the metal, Scootaloo was able to make out the room of the ship that she had entered from. Her ship was still docked at the back end of the room; the open door to the ship was visible from where she sat. Also visible were the computer consoles and towers that lined the walls of the room, and at one of these sat the source of the voice from earlier—the pony who had heard her fall. It was Fir, the unicorn mare who had been operating the consoles when Tank had first greeted Scootaloo to the ship.

Scootaloo reached forward to the grate and gave it a little push. It didn't budge; it was still fastened in place by the screws. Which were on the other side of the wall—completely inaccessible from where Scootaloo now sat, even if she did keep the hair clip. She sighed. One of these days, she really needed to plan these things out in advance...

Luckily, she had a backup plan. If she could just pull it off...

Scootaloo turned around—a struggle in the narrow vent, but she eventually managed to face herself in the opposite direction. Then, with all the strength in her hindlegs, she bucked the grate. She'd seen Apple Bloom's siblings do it plenty enough with those apple trees. Easy peasy.

Or, as it turned out, not that easy. Scootaloo's hooves made contact with the grate with as much force as the little filly could muster, but it wasn't much. She made a dent in the metal, but had little more effect than that. Besides attracting the attention of the only pony in the room.

"Okay, seriously, what the buck is going on over there?!" Fir shouted, spinning around in her chair to face the grate. She jumped out of her chair and galloped across the room. "Why, I oughta—huh?" Fir stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the filly. "Bolt? What are you—how did you get in there?"

Scootaloo thought fast. "Long story, miss. But there's no time—I gotta get out of here! The metal is super hot—it feels like I'm gonna melt," she whined. With some effort, she shifted her face into a puppy-dog-eyed expression, feeling her eyes begin to water. "Please, get a screwdriver or something!"

"A screwdriver?" Fir asked, raising an eyebrow. "Ah, you non-magical types. This will only take a second." Her horn lit up with a verdant glow and Scootaloo heard the squeak of six screws turning in their sockets before clattering to the floor. In another moment, Fir had flung the grate aside and Scootaloo bounded out and across the room, over to the door of her ship.

"Hold on, filly!" Fir called after her. "What's going on?"

"No time to explain!" Scootaloo replied, still running.

"I'm not so sure about that, little one," a gruff voice said from behind her. Scootaloo stopped in her tracks and turned around. "I think you've got all the time in the world to tell us what's going on," Tank said with a blank expression on his face.