"Okay, okay, where do I begin..."

"At the start?" Flight asked. There was a loud burst of static that fizzled out from the speaker grille.

"Pfft, yeah, whatever. Basically, I—oh, Kevin? I got into the locked door in the bottom of the ship—the one marked cargo."

Kevin blinked. "Really? How? Did you have to disconnect the electronic lock?"

"I was actually just about to do that, but I punched in the comlink-equivalent numbers of my middle name just for laughs and—lo and behold—the thing opened up."

"Dang, what a lucky break," Flight murmured.

"Meh, I could have just as easily blown the damn thing off its hinges."

"What was inside the room?" Kevin asked. "I don't even think that filly I was with knew how to get in there—or at least she told me she didn't."

"And didn't you say something about a comlink call?" Flight added.

"Yeah, lemme get to that. So I walked in and there were boxes on the sides, but not very many so cargo obviously ain't the main purpose of this ship—though Argent knows what is—and inside the boxes are just some gems and books and stuff. Pretty cool if you ask me, but what was really more interesting was on this little table across the room, and right there there was a comlink. A pretty old one—kinda similar to the ones from a couple hundred years ago, but still not really like anything I've ever seen. Oh, and Flight, I talked to Sue and she said it was okay."

Flight blinked "Huh? I mean, thanks, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"Oh, uh, I was about to use the comlink when she knocked at my door. She and Mary had been looking for you for a while I guess. She wasn't happy about it and made me promise it never happened again, but at least no heads are gonna roll."

"That's good to hear, isn't it?" Kevin asked.

"Maybe... but that sounds suspiciously like they're just gonna ground me once I get back." Flight sighed. "Go on, Doc."

"Well, after that I went back to the ship and I plugged the comlink in and bam, I pressed the call button. It's not like the ones you and I are using right now—there's no way to enter a number or anything so it's just hooked up to one other device. And Aureate above, you kids won't believe where it's hooked up to. I sure didn't at first."

"Umm..." Kevin looked down to his hooves which were tracing circles in the dirt. "Is she with the rebels on the Revan planet?"

"Nah, that's too obvious. I bet she's from the Vergla planet, and that's why she was so mysterious!" Flight countered.

A staticky chuckling sound came out of the comlink speaker. "I probably would have guessed one of those too, but no... she's from the Ecuestran planet."

"The what?" Kevin asked, eyebrow raised.

"It's the third planet, Kevin," Flight said matter-of-factly. "Comes right in between the Duvum planet and the Kindred planet."

"Oh... eheh, I knew that." Kevin could feel his face glow warmly and he was glad that the night had him mostly concealed.

"The comlink beeped a bunch after I pressed the button and I assumed this was it ringing on the other end. It rang a whole bunch of times—something like twenty, I think? Whatever it was, it was a lot more than any of our comlinks rink. Maybe it would have kept ringing forever, but then somepony picked it up." Doc Zed's voice paused for a moment. "Well, I say 'somepony', but I really mean 'somedragon'."

"Dragon?" Kevin could see a mixture of fear and confusion dancing around in the light flickering over Flight's eyes.

"Oh, I actually remember the orange filly mentioning that a friend of hers had an assistant that was a baby dragon," Kevin mused.

"Yep. And, by the sound of it, it's the very same baby dragon you heard about that answered the comlink call—and his name is Spike. I assume that you also heard about the assistant to a Princess Twibright Sparkhill?"

"Twilight Sparkle?" Kevin asked. "If so, that's the one. The filly never said anything about her being a princess, though..."

Flight raised an eyebrow. "Wait... if she's a princess, does that mean she's an alicorn?"

"Yes indeed, though I'm surprised. I didn't have time to ask more about that, but it would directly contradict the Histories which state that only the final four planets were so Blessed by the alicorns."

"That's great and all, but did you find anything important about the filly or the ship or what her mission was?" Kevin asked. "Was she the only remaining member of a crew and something terrible happened?"

Doc Zed didn't respond right away—and when he did, his answer wasn't exactly what Kevin expected. "Her name is Scootaloo, and she stole the ship from Princess Twibr—light."

Kevin blinked. "Scootaloo?"

Flight blinked too. "Stole it?"

The comlink speaker let out a fuzzy sigh. "Hold on, I'll get my notes. The Princess had a lot to say, so I wrote it down. I'm gonna call back tomorrow, though—it's very late at night you see, and I woke them up—oh, here we go. Yes, she stole the ship. It's the first of its kind, too—the first spacecraft ever created on the Ecuestran planet."

"But why?" Flight asked.

"Nopony knows; they haven't had contact with her in about a month, when she disappeared with the ship. They hoped she would find the comlink, but... until now, she had been presumed dead."