After a few minutes in which they all looked at the open, empty drawers and cabinets where the food had been, as well as few more minutes in which Officer Gloss and Doc Zed inspected the bathroom, Kevin led the other three ponies up the ladder to the second level of the ship. As he climbed, more and more of the verdant light poured out into the hallway above; by the time he reached the floor and stood aside to let the other ponies climb up, the entire metal socket of the ship was illuminated.

Kevin watched as his three companions scrambled up from the top rungs of the ladder onto the metal surface of the hallway floor.

"We should probably go this way first," Kevin said once all four of them had made it to the upper level. He pointed to the right. "That's where the cockpit is, so you'll be able to see—and read—the controls."

Doc Zed nodded, so Kevin turned and walked slowly in that direction. In front of him, illuminated by his horn, the narrow hallway opened up into the rotund shape of the cockpit which in the faint light looked almost cavernous. The pilot's seat, in all its red plastic glory, remained in the centre of the far side of the room. Kevin thought he could see some sort of small movement—scurrying, even—in the shadows on the edges of the room; a quick shine of his horn around the room, however, revealed that there was nothing there.

Doc Zed rushed in front of the group, hooves clanging loudly on the floor as he excitedly ran to look at the controls of the ship. His horn lit up with blue light, presumably so he could see better without Kevin there in front, and he was already in the pilot's seat, poring over the rows of buttons and knobs, by the time that Kevin, Flight, and Gloss were beside him.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Doc Zed murmured, a hoof to his chin. Officer Gloss leaned in to look more closely at the panel of controls, reading the labels.

"This is insane. There's no way the Bureau could ever approve a ship like this—the controls are so bizarre and non-standard. It looks like some weird prototype that got thrown together, and definitely not something from the Gnostic planet..."

"My thoughts exactly," Doc Zed agreed, still focused on the labels. "A lot of these buttons and switches are... oddly specific. Kevin, the filly you flew here with seemed familiar with flying the ship, yes?"

"Not exactly..." Kevin replied. "She seemed kind of confused at the control panel and had to do a lot of looking around. I'm guessing she hadn't been piloting it for very long."

Doc Zed lowered his head to look at the front of the dashboard panel. "Oh, interesting. I wonder if there was originally another pony aboard... aha!" He quickly lifted his head, nearly bumping it on the protruding dashboard. "There's standard hex screws on here! I'm gonna open this baby up and see if I can get a good look at the internals. That okay?"

"Sure, do whatever you need to do," Kevin replied. "I'm gonna go back and take another look at the bunks."

"I'm coming with," Flight said. Kevin nearly jumped back at the sound of her voice; he had nearly forgotten she was there.

"Erm, alright." Kevin began walking back across the cockpit, and Flight followed alongside. Before they exited the room into the hallway, Kevin glanced back over his shoulder to see Officer Gloss staring intently, at where Doc Zed had removed the screws and was prying off the vertical panel. His facial expression looked sinister as the blue glow from Doc Zed's horn shifted around his face; Kevin mentally shrugged it off, though, and assumed it was just a trick of the light.

"How long were you on this ship?" Flight asked once they were in the hallway.

Kevin thought about it, trying to mentally count how often he'd slept and eaten, but lost track quickly. "I'm not exactly sure, to be honest. I wanna say... two Kindred weeks or so? That filly didn't have any way to tell time, but I think it was somewhere around that long. I know I was on that other ship for about two weeks and it can't have been going any faster than this one." As he finished his thought, they reached the living quarters. They were exactly how he had left them this morning; a plain metal room with two bunks on the far end. Kevin shivered; he noted, once again, that it was quite cold.

"Which one was yours?" Flight asked. "The bottom?"

"Yep, she had already taken the top by the time that I came aboard so it was the only one free. Not that I would have taken the top, anyway."

Flight giggled as she jumped up to the bottom bunk and landed on it with a soft plop. "How come? You scared?"

"Kind of... I had a dream once when I slept in the top bunk at my grandparents' house that a big fuzzy spider was on the ceiling and it just friggin' jumped onto my face." Kevin said this little tidbit in a neutral, contemplative tone but Flight just giggled again. She was now lying down on the mattress, gazing up at the top bunk above her.

"You're silly, Kev."

"Pff, yeah right. I think you're probably the silly one here," Kevin countered with a smirk.

"Hey, what's this?" Flight reached a hoof up to touch the slats that held that upper bunk in place. "Hey, Kev, can you go up to the top bunk and lift up that side of the mattress?"

"Sure," he said, and he climbed up the wooden ladder until he was on the top bunk. He hadn't been up here before, and it honestly almost felt like an invasion of the orange filly's privacy. Nonetheless, he had a job to do, so he flicked off the illumination of his horn for a moment so he could focus on the levitation spell. Then, enveloped in his green magical aura, the other half of the mattress began to lift, the pillow sliding to rest at Kevin's hooves. Hopefully the glow of his magic would be enough for Flight to see whatever she had wanted to see.

"Weird..." he heard her say.

"Can I put it down now?" Kevin asked. "This isn't exactly—argh—easy."

"Yeah, I got it," Flight replied.

Kevin dropped the mattress and it bounced once before settling into place. He re-illuminated the green light with his horn and started down the ladder. "What did you find?"

"I'm not exactly sure... some sort of drawing on a folded up piece of paper." Once Kevin had returned to solid ground, she held it out for him to see. It was, as she described, a folded up scrap of paper. Kevin took hold of it in his magic and delicately unfolded the thing, careful not to tear it. It felt flimsy—weathered—like it could disintegrate at only the slightest mistreatment. As he unfolded it, though, it didn't become any more clear what it was.

"I think it's... a map?" Kevin said, voice cracking.

"Here, lemme see." Kevin rotated it to face Flight, and she gazed at it intently. "Yeah, definitely a map of some sort. I don't recognise any of the place names, though. They're all in the Gnostic script."

"You think it's of the Gnostic planet or something, then? Or even the Revan planet?"

"No, we studied those in cosmogeography class and I remember them pretty well. These place names are nothing like any on those planets, either. 'Ponyville'? 'Manehattan'? 'Vanhoover'? This sounds like if you took a bunch of normal place names and randomly added body parts to them..."

"Weird. You think it might be important?"

"Might as well keep it just in case," Flight replied. Kevin folded it back up and then dropped it into her outstretched hoof; the filly stuck it in her saddlebags and they were left just standing there for a moment.

"So... um... you think we should go back to the cockpit?" Kevin managed to say, finally.

Flight looked at him right in the face for a moment without saying anything. "You know, I'm really glad you came back, Kevin. Even if this whole situation and everything is weird... it's good to see you again. Y'know?"

"I'm really happy to see you again, too, Flight. I... I missed you."

Flight smiled. "Yeah, let's go back to the cockpit before we find Doc Zed has holed up inside the dashboard and refuses to leave."

"You think he'd do that?" Kevin said with a laugh. "A tiny little birdhouse like that doesn't seem like his style."

"You never know." The young ponies walked side by side as they returned the short distance to the cockpit.

Officer Gloss was standing aside and watched as they walked in. He put a hoof to his lips and then pointed to where the rear end of Doc Zed could be seen, the other half shoved inside the open hole in the ship. Kevin and Flight stopped by Gloss and they watched as the form of Doc Zed shifted and twisted around. He seemed to be paying no mind to how tarnished his suit was becoming, and indeed they could clearly see where grease had marred its surface; in places, there were even tears. Finally, after a minute or two, Doc Zed backed out of the hole and revealed his head unto the world. He took a deep breath.

"Oh, hey, you two are back!" Doc Zed exclaimed. "Wonderful! As I was telling Officer Gloss here—the wiring system is a little wonky and not what I'm used to at all, but I was able to fiddle with some stuff in here and hook it up to a manabattery I brought. Lemme just test something." He reached across the buttons atop the dashboard and pressed on. Instantly the room flooded with light from above, and Kevin had to squint to prevent the oncoming headache.

"Sweet!" Doc Zed exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. "Okay, kids, now if I can just get this baby up in the air—"

"You will do no such thing."

Kevin's eyes had accustomed to the light by that point, so he turned to see Officer Gloss standing tall, puffing out his chest.

"What?" Doc Zed scratched his mane. "What are you talking about?"

"Nnngh... look, I don't mean it personally, since you seem like a great guy, but I had a job and I still intend to follow through with it, for the Bureau's sake."

"Kevin, what the hay is he talking about?" Flight asked, turning to her friend.

"Well, this guy Gloss is a police officer and he said he would help us keep the ship. I dunno what he's talking about now."

Gloss facehoofed. "Aureate damn it... how can I make my expositional villain speeches when I leave out the important details?" He took a moment to compose himself, then stood strong once more. "What I mean to say is... I lied. I do not intend to help you keep the ship; on the contrary, I only came with you so I could complete my mission, to find out where it was and also get as much auxiliary information from you as I could. I am about to contact my superiors, so they can send a squadron here to bring it to a Bureau base for more research."

"So basically what you're saying is that you want to seize the ship from us?" Doc Zed asked. "Just so we're making this clear."

"Erm... yes?" Officer Gloss looked confused. "Was it not clear before?"

Ignoring him, Doc Zed continued. "Well, in that case, I think we've got ourselves a case! You see, in Bureau law, the government cannot under any circumstances seize private property of its citizens without first lawfully obtaining a warrant, obtained through showing probable cause and yadda yadda yadda. What I'm saying here, Gloss," Doc Zed said, leaning in until his muzzle was only a few centimetres from the police officer's, "is that you have accepted our ownership of this ship and therefore need to obtain a warrant before you can take it. Check and mate."

Officer Gloss blinked. Kevin and Flight looked at each other and then back up at Gloss, waiting for him to react.

"Shit," he said finally. "Getting a warrant could take days. Weeks, even, if they're busy."

"So go, please. Go get a warrant. Be my guest. In the meantime, we will be busy. Kids?" Doc Zed asked, turning to Kevin and Flight. "I hate to ask so much of you, but could you do me a favour?"

"Sure thing!" Flight joyfully replied. Kevin nodded in assent.

"I'm going to fly this ship back into Dienna and store it in my underground workspace so I can do some work on it—there's quite a bit of damage from the crash landing, but nothing I can't fix. There's a few parts I'm missing, though, and I was wondering if you could go to Umberlight and pick them up for me. We don't have much time, so I kinda need you to leave right away."

"Yeah, we can do that!" Flight replied.

"Wait..." Kevin said. "Don't we need to get Flight back to her house?"

"Don't worry, I'll cover that," Doc Zed replied. "Talking to her parents won't be fun, but... Argent knows how many times I've had to talk to annoyed and worried parents about my 'irresponsibility' when sending their kids on pointless fetch quests to other cities. Anyway, you'll need this." He levitated a small scrap of paper over to Flight, who caught it in her outstretched hoof. She opened it up and showed it to Kevin; it was a short list of five or six items, all likely easy to find. "Flight, do you have a card? I can reimburse you for the cost when we get back."

"Yeah, I can pay for 'em. Thanks, Doc."

Gloss raised an eyebrow. "Wait, what? You're just sending these kids off to Umberlight by themselves in the middle of the night, just walking down the path where they could easily be attacked by robbers or somepony dangerous?"

"Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me, Gloss. You guys make sure to stay off the main paths, okay? Having you two youngsters stopped or detained by cops out in the middle of nowhere would really suck."

"I'm sorry, but this can't fly. Does Kevin even have legal guardians? Shouldn't he be a ward of the state? Honestly, I should just take him right n—"

At that moment, Flight grabbed Kevin with a foreleg and ran out of the cockpit, Kevin trying not to fall over as he followed her. Loud clanging noises could be heard reverberating throughout the ship as they scrambled down the ladder and through the lower level to exit the ship.

Doc Zed whooped. "You go, kids!"

"Nnngh..." Officer Gloss facehoofed again.

Doc Zed grinned. "You could always run after them. I'm sure they can't be very far yet."

"Eh... I'm already a terrible cop—I might as well just let those kids go free for now. I can always just call the Umberlight Police Department to be on the lookout for them. Right now, though, I really need to get to Umberlight to start this damn legal process."

"Hmm, interesting," Doc Zed said, not looking very interested. "Say, I have a great idea."

"What?"

"Get off my ship!" Doc Zed yelled, enveloping Officer Gloss in a blue magical aura. The now-startled Gloss began to levitate.

"Hey!"

"So long!" Doc Zed shouted after him as he tossed the pegasus out the hole where the dashboard window once had been.

"Aiiiieeee—!"

Doc Zed watched as Gloss suddenly remembered that he had wings and flapped them for dear life. The lime green coat of the pegasus soon disappeared from view, soaring above the treetops. Doc Zed laughed and then bent once more over the controls before deciding to press one. He heard the engine whirr somewhere beneath him, and he grinned. In just a pull of the lever and a slight rotation of the wheel in front, in combination with a hoof on one of the pedals in the floor, the Sweetiebloom—if that's what this ship's name was—began to lift off the ground and fly forward.