Scootaloo held out the map in front of her, the paper dangling in between her front hooves. It was difficult to make the floppy thing stop collapsing in the middle; the filly finally managed, with some effort, to hold it in a bizarre position where the surface of the map lay flat in midair. "So, if I've got this straight... we're somewhere between this third planet and the Kindred planet." Scootaloo gestured with her hoof at the paper as she spoke, tracing a thin line between the two planets she mentioned.

"Yeah, we should be closer to the Kindred planet than to that third one."

"Out of curiosity... what is the third planet called?"

"Hmm... I don't remember. Two and three aren't really that important... the Bureau said it's illegal to go there because it would be bad to tamper with inferior life forms."

"Two and three? What about the first one?"

"Dang, you must really be new. You from the Vergla planet or out of the system? Pretty much every filly and colt knows about the mining operations on the Frade planet."

Scootaloo sighed. "Just assume I don't know anything, okay?"

"Shouldn't be hard," Kevin joked, giggling. He turned back to the map. "Well, basically, the Bureau doesn't have any rules about the Frade planet because it's a barren wasteland. Nopony's lived there in a long time if ever, as far as our scientists can tell. So they let companies go in and mine the planet because there's a lot of precious metals and oil and that kinda stuff. They say they'll eventually run out of all the valuable stuff eventually, but they keep going while they can."

Scootaloo nodded. "Ponies do that back in—erm, back where I'm from. Actually, that's mainly the diamond dogs with the precious metals."

"Diamond dogs?" Kevin asked, looking at Scootaloo in the face. "What's a diamond dog? How is that different from a regular dog?"

"Umm... I don't know anything about dogs that aren't diamond dogs, but these guys are really big and love precious metals and gems and all that snazzy stuff."

Kevin raised an eyebrow but did not respong to the comment. "Anyway... the best plan of action would be to go towards the Kindred planet which take... less than a week, I'd say. Then we could get fuel and probably find someone who can fix this baby up." He patted the dashboard with a hoof as he finished speaking.

"Are we gonna have trouble getting to the surface if I don't have a flying license?" Scootaloo asked.

"You don't have one? I guess that makes sense if you're not from a Bureau planet. That might be an issue, yeah. Hm..."

"Well, how do they check to see if I have one? Can we maybe just sneak by?"

"Unlikely... they have check stations at every major city. If we want to go into an actual spaceport, we're screwed."

"Do we need to, though?" Scootaloo asked. "Are there any small towns we could go to that don't have license checks?"

"I don't think... wait!" Kevin's face lit up with excitement. "Yeah, I know where we should go! There's a village in the south where—I dunno if he's still there, but there at least used to be a guy there who worked on ships that I knew. Oh jeez, this is too perfect."

"Awesome!" Scootaloo replied cheerily. "I guess we'll just keep heading in that direction then until we get close enough, and then you can help me navigate around the planet 'til we get there."

"Sounds good." Kevin hopped off the stool and dragged it to the right wall of the cockpit. "I'm gonna go catch some sleep. The lower bunk is free, right?"

"Yep, feel free. I'm just gonna stay here for a while," Scootaloo responded.

"Catch you on the flipside, Carrot." Scootaloo heard Kevin's hoofsteps retreating in the distance behind her and soon she was alone in the room, gazing ahead out the window at the depths of space. It was so humbling, being a little pony in this ship and being surrounded by stars and emptiness all around. The stars had been there back home, too, but there were other things for her to focus on. But now there was nothing else but for the expanse of black.

However, she no longer had to be alone in the depths of space. Scootaloo had a friend, at least for now.