"Hey, what's this?"

Doc Zed stopped ahead on the path, Officer Gloss by his side. Kevin and Flight galloped to catch up. As they neared the two stallions, it was clear what Doc Zed had been asking about—a small hardcover book with a photo of an ocean on the cover.

"Looks like someone just left it out here," Officer Gloss said. "Maybe there's a name written inside."

"That was on the ship!" Kevin exclaimed, a little louder than he had been intending. He could feel all eyes on him. "Erm... I found it when I left the ship, and I must have dropped it before I ran into Gloss. I think it belonged to that filly—see how it's in a weird alphabet?" He pointed to the three-character white word splayed across its cover, then looked up at Doc Zed. The stallion's eyebrow was raised in confusion, as if he didn't know what to say. Then, he blinked and put a hoof to his forehead.

"Oh, jeez, Kevin, I totally forgot..."

"Forgot what?" Kevin asked, confused.

"You would have learned about it in school in the last few years, but—"

"Oh." There was silence for a few moments as Kevin said nothing more.

"It's the main alternate script in the Bureau, mainly used on the Gnostic planet. Honestly, though, if you saw ships from there, I'm surprised you never saw any of it."

Kevin's face grew red. "Maybe I saw it once or twice on a ship..."

"Oh, give him a break," Flight said, cutting in. "He probably just didn't notice it if he wasn't trying to read anything."

"I'm sorry for putting you on the spot here, Kevin. Anyway, that means this filly and her ship were probably from the Gnostic planet, don't you think?" Doc Zed said.

"Probably... though not necessarily," Officer Gloss replied from behind them. "The reading on the ship wasn't like any known Bureau-authorised ships, though. I'm going to suspend my judgment until we've got the thing in front of us."

"Fair enough. Let's go on, then." Doc Zed started walking, Officer Gloss once again walking alongside. Flight began walking, too, but she looked back at Kevin. The book next to him was enveloped in a green magical aura and it quickly levitated upwards and slid into Kevin's saddlebag.

"What did it say on the cover?" Kevin asked.

"'Sea'. It looked like a novel to me," Flight replied.

"Hmm..." Kevin shivered. "We must be pretty close to the ship by now."

"We had better be." Flight looked out at the trees surrounding them, the scratchy uneven surface of their trunks dancing around in the shadows. "The sooner we're out of this place, the better."

"Not into the forest at night?" Kevin asked.

"Not in the slightest."

They kept walking along the path; Gloss and Doc Zed were still talking about politics or whatnot, but Kevin and Flight seemed to have exhausted most of what they had to say, at least for the moment. There were, of course, other topics left not discussed—how could there not be, after years of not seeing each other? However, as they would soon see, it would prove helpful that they didn't say everything all at once.

The bushes and trees around them started to feel vaguely familiar to Kevin—maybe it was his tired mind acting up, he wondered, or maybe this was the part of the forest right by the ship that he saw before he had stopped paying attention. And, sure enough, in a few moments a large shape in the middle of the path came into view, even in the dark. It wasn't quite clear until they got closer and Doc Zed's illumination reflected off the surface of the thing that it was, indeed, the ship.

"If that ain't the weirdest lookin' ship I've ever seen..." Doc Zed said, stopping just a metre from its edge. His face was reflected in the sheer, curved metal surface.

Indeed, the ship was, for lack of a better word, odd. Alien, even. Kevin wondered why he hadn't noticed it before—he had hardly given it more than a passing glance when he first exited the vehicle, more focused on his destination. But now he could see the strange shape of the craft; while most Bureau ships were angular and more functional, the form of this ship was... bubbly and curvaceous.

There were two distinct sections, which Kevin could tell corresponded to the two levels in the ship. The bottom part was larger and curved further outwards, whereas the top was smaller and skinnier, like a long passage. The tip of the cockpit reached over the edge of the bottom layer, and he could clearly see a hole of broken glass where the dashboard window had shattered.

"I presume this is the ship, then?" Gloss asked. Kevin only nodded in reply, still focused on the shape of the vehicle. Where in the hay had that filly gotten it? Was she really just from the Gnostic planet?

"Hey, look, there's something written up there," Flight said loudly, pointing up next to the cockpit. And, sure enough, in shaky black letters, was a long word.

"Looks like it was either painted on by a unicorn who didn't have a good grasp of their magic or, more likely, a pegasus or earth pony with a brush in their mouth," Doc Zed observed.

"What does it say?" Kevin asked.

"It doesn't really look like it says anything that's actually a word," Flight said. "Maybe it's the name of the ship?"

"Could be." Doc Zed squinted his eyes. "I think it says 'Sweetiebloom', but I'm not totally sure."

"Could we go inside, perhaps?" The other three turned to look at Officer Gloss, who had been silent until then. "What?" he added, looking at them with an eyebrow raised.

"Nothing, nothing," Doc Zed replied. "I agree with Gloss, though—I can't really know what we're dealing with until we have a look around in the guts of this baby."

"Yeah, it's just this way." Kevin led the other three around the left side of the ship until they reached the back end. The door was still as wide open as he had left it. He paused to allow the other three to stop there, in front of the sheer featureless back end of the ship, for just a moment. Their reflections gazed back at them from the shiny metal surface, coloured an ethereal blue by the light from Doc Zed's horn.

Gloss coughed. "Kid?"

"I'm going, I'm going," Kevin replied and he did, setting hoof inside the pitch-black hallway of the ship for the first time since he had left it that morning. The clanging of his hooves on the metal floor reverberated through the darkness ahead of him; it was at once familiar, reminiscent of the past few days and weeks he'd spent aboard this ship and the one before it, but also mysterious and eerie as he couldn't see where he was going.

"Hey, Kev, since you're leading us, could you do an illumination spell instead?" Doc Zed called from behind him. "I'm starting to get pretty tired out."

"Yeah, no problem." Kevin squeezed his eyes shut in concentration; a moment later, there was a spark and his horn was aglow with green light. He looked over his shoulder; Flight was right behind him and Doc Zed was behind her, leaving Officer Gloss to bring up the rear. Satisfied and prepared, he continued forward at a slow pace and he could hear the others coming in the ship behind them as their hooves likewise clanged on the floor. It took them all a few moments to adjust their gait to step softly, but soon there were only faint reverberations and Kevin was able to think again.

"What's in there?" Gloss asked. Kevin looked back to see that he was gesturing at the door that was to the left from the entry, the mysterious one that was always locked.

"Dunno, the filly didn't know the keycode to get in and I don't either."

"Curious," Gloss murmured, but Kevin was already on his way deeper into the ship so the other three followed suit behind him.