Scootaloo was bored. Sure, staring out into space was pretty and all, but her muscles were itching for a scooter ride. But there wasn't any space for that... kind of ironic when she thought about it, given that wide open space was what she was travelling through. All she could do then was sit in the pilot's chair and look out in front, steering occasionally so that she didn't hit any more moons.

Then her belly gurgled. She grinned; this was exactly what she had been looking for. A legitimate, totally-not-an-excuse reason to go somewhere else and do something else because just sitting there was driving her nuts. Scootaloo hopped out of the seat and trotted on the metal down to the hallway. About halfway between the cockpit and the living quarters, she stopped and turned to the left, where the wall was interrupted by a niche that led downwards. Scootaloo backed into it, carefully placing each back hoof onto the thin metal ladder rungs. Slowly but surely, she descended her fuzzy orange body into the darkened depths of the ship's belly.

One she reached the bottom and let go of the ladder, Scootaloo stood there in the darkness, only illuminated by the light shining down from the hallway above. Groping around on the right wall, Scootaloo's hoof finally made contact with a light switch that she flicked upwards. A few light fixtures on the ceiling immediately buzzed to life. Scootaloo walked forward, unfazed.

The room illuminated by the lights was a small cavity in the ship's underbelly—a rectangular room lined with reflective metal cabinets and a counter on the far wall. There were darkened hallways jutting off from the room on both the left and right sides, but Scootaloo paid them no mind. She walked forward quickly towards the counter and the cabinets below and above it.

When she reached the cabinets, she paused for a moment, glancing around at the metal storage spaces in front of her. Then, once she made up her mind, she pulled a small stool from the side of the room over to the centre, directly in front of the cabinets. Scootaloo climbed atop the thing and clasped her teeth around the cabinet handle in front of her. It was cold—the very feel of the metal by her gums sent a shiver down her spine—but Scootaloo, determined, opened the cabinet. She had to readjust her hoofing as she went, careful not to fall off the stool, but she finally had the cabinet door wide open, allowing her to see what lay inside. There was nothing.

Scootaloo blinked. "Huh? I could have sworn..." She hopped down off the stool, scooted it over several inches, and hopped back up. She opened the next cabinet, this one a bit quicker than before.

But inside there was nothing; the sheer metal surfaces of the shelves and back wall just reflected her fuzzy, bewildered orange face back at her.

"Oh crud oh crud oh crud," Scootaloo muttered to herself, sweating. She reached over with a hoof and flung open another cabinet. As with the other two, it was completely empty. "Dang it!"

She hopped down off the stool with a loud metal clang and bucked it aside. It hit the metal wall with another clang. Without stopping, Scootaloo lifted her front hooves and pulled open one of the drawers below the counter, wincing slightly as the metal handle dug into the flesh by her hooves. But, once the drawer had opened far enough, she saw that it had all been worth it.

A small, yellow cardboard box lay on its side in the back of the drawer; Scootaloo's ears perked up as it came into view. She reached her hooves in and pulled the thing upwards, out of the drawer, and onto the metal floor where she set it down softly. Scootaloo bent down to get a closer look.

It very much resembled a box of crackers. The front of the box read "Gamsco's" in green bubble letters; underneath it, there was a picture of what looked to be brown, bready balls in a plastic bowl. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow, but set to ripping off the top with her teeth anyway. It came off quickly; most Equestrian packaged food was designed with teeth-tear tops for the non-unicorns. A glance inside confirmed that what was on the front of the box was indeed what was inside: brown, bready balls, about a third the size of her hoof. Up close, they didn't exactly look all that appetising.

Scootaloo's stomach gurgled again. She frowned. Then, reaching in a hoof, she managed to scoop one of the balls out of the box. It looked no more appealing once out in the light; she could see every groove of the thing, the little wrinkles through the brown. She sighed and then closed her eyes... and dropped it into her mouth. She bit down into it with her molars and began to chew.

And, honestly, it wasn't that bad. It didn't really taste like much—the closest thing Scootaloo could think of was bread, but a little more like dirt. Which, when she thought about it, was a little gross. So she tried not to think about that. But, whatever this "Gamsco's" food was... it wasn't that bad. She could stomach it. In fact, after eating just the one, she didn't really feel hungry anymore. Scootaloo put the box back into the drawer and closed it.

Curious, Scootaloo turned to the other drawers and opened them one by one. Sure, the stuff wasn't bad—but it wouldn't hurt to have something else to eat once in a while too. However, most were empty. The few that did contain something unfortunately just contained more boxes of "Gamsco's". It wasn't until the last drawer Scootaloo checked that she saw something worth being excited about.

She was kicking herself for not having thought about it before; without it, she'd be dead meat in just a hoofful of days. But thankfully, in that last drawer, lay several plastic bottles of water. Scootaloo immediately grabbed one in her teeth and set it on the ground so she could unscrew the tiny white lid. One she had broken the seal and gotten the cap off, Scootaloo took a hearty swig. This much water could last her for weeks, if she rationed it out.

But somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that these stores of food and water wouldn't last forever, and that trying to stretch them out would just make her die miserably at the end of it. She'd either have to give into that death or stop somewhere along the line to refuel and replenish her supplies.