"Dead? Since the spaceship was gone, couldn't they just take another one after her?" Kevin asked.

Flight rolled her eyes. "He said that was their first ship ever, doofus."

"Oh, right. What about, y'know, magic-assisted telescopes and radar and junk like that. Wouldn't they at least have that type of stuff if there's an alicorn building a spaceship?" Kevin paused and then added, "Though, if she's an alicorn, why does she even need to build a spaceship?"

"Oh, dang, I should ask about that when I get her back on the comlink. But, from what she said, the situation with space travel on the Ecuestran planet is a little... complicated."

"How so?" Flight asked.

"Well, have you ever wondered why you never hear about ponies going to the Ecuestran planet, even though it's illegal to go there? I can assure you—if it were actually possible to get there, ponies would be breaking the law left and right. No, the real reason is because there's a forcefield surrounding the planet."

"What?" Flight exclaimed, not able to contain herself. "How is that possible? That would require so much magical power..."

"Heh, funny, and that's what I said too. But even the research done by the Bureau corroborates this—there is an invisible forcefield several hundred kilometres from the planet's surface and we haven't figured out how to get in—and apparently the ponies of the Ecuestran planet don't know how to get out, either. We're able to see down to the planet, though, and it's always looked uninhabited. Or so we thought."

"Dude, can it with the clickbaity cliffhangers and cut to the chase," Flight said, yawning.

"What's 'clickbait'?" Kevin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, you sweet summer child... if only I were away from civilisation for so long that I had avoided clickbait..."

"You done?"

"Yup."

"Okay, then I'll keep going. Princess Twilight told me that on their planet, there were no other planets in the sky—only ever just the stars, the sun, and their moon, Saros. She thought nothing of this since their whole astronomy and whatnot was all based on this and it was easily confirmed by just looking up at the sky. Also, apparently the planet literally doesn't rotate and there are magical sun and moon constructs that other alicorns move across the sky. Yeah, it's weird, but lemme keep going because it gets weirder.

"So then I guess at some point she was doing some sort of magical radar and something seemed a little off about what she got back—there was a little bit of strange noise or something. So, like any good scientist, she did it again a few times and, sure enough, got the same result. The exact same frequency interference each time. By that time she knows something's up so she adjusts the spell and shoots out her magical radar beam thing out into the sky at this particular frequency... and it keeps going. There's no sort of interference, no strange noise, no nothin'. It just keeps going. And then, eventually, it bumps into something and comes back. And that thing that it hits ends up being what we call the Kindred planet—what we're standing on right now."

"Holy crap..." Kevin breathed, eyes wide with surprise. Flight's expression was no different.

"I guess she modified a telescope and some other stuff to look past the forcefield, but the gist of it is that she figured out there's a whole universe beyond what the Ecuestran ponies knew, starting with planets in their own backyard and a heliocentric system and... Argent, I can't imagine learning all those things at once. I think my head would explode.

"However, Princess Twilight's head is I guess more resilient than mine and she was able to get enough data to come up with a theory that seems pretty damn accurate: that the forcefield that surrounds the Ecuestran planet is not just invisible but acts as a screen displaying a particular image. And it seems that this is true of the outside as well, since the planet is most definitely not uninhabited and doesn't look at all like the observations by the Bureau."

"But where in the hay is the forcefield coming from?" Flight asked.

"Well, since there's other alicorns there that control those sun and moon magic thingamabobs, don't you think it's, like, them?" Kevin remarked. Flight gave him a funny look and he shrunk away. "O-or not."

"No, no, that's exactly right, Kevin. Princess Twilight wasn't quite sure if that is truly the case, but it's her best guess. She was planning on confronting them about it as soon as she took a test flight in her spaceship that she had been building, with the help of Scootaloo, for the last few months. Just to confirm that it was real, so she had actual evidence she could show the alicorns. But then... then, of course, you know what happened. The ship disappeared just a few nights after it was completed, and Scootaloo went with it. Princess Twilight has been tracking its path for a while, but lost it once it crashed below the trees on the Kindred planet. Even though she's an alicorn, apparently her magic is limited by distance—honestly, that's another thing I need to ask about next time I call."

"Now we had better find that filly, just so we can find out why she left," Kevin said. He glanced over at the fire that, although it was now burning much lower and closer to the centre, still had tendrils of flame twisting about in all directions. Their orange hues were not unlike... Scootaloo. Her name was Scootaloo.

"Wait... if there's a forcefield around this planet, how did the ship get through?"

"She said something about building a frequency generator into the ship, which lines up with this weird device I found and almost removed. Kinda glad I didn't, though, 'cause it would be a pain to put back in."

"Hey, kids, can you wind it up?" Flight jumped back, startled, and turned away from the comlink. Bold Remark emerged from the edge of the forest into the small clearing, with Fourth Estate and Mango alongside. "It's getting pretty late and we actually want to get to sleep now so we can get up early in the morning."

"Oh, um, yeah, sorry." Flight turned back to the comlink. "Hey, Doc, do you think we could talk more about this tomorrow. It's super interesting and all but, uh, the ponies we're with are trying to get to sleep and we don't wanna be a hassle."

"Ah, yes, sure thing. Get rested, 'cause tomorrow you're sure to—"

"Doc Zed?" Fourth Estate said, raising an eyebrow. "Hold up, is that you?"

There was no immediate response, and then a staticky cough. "Fourth Estate? Holy crap. What are you—why are you out in the woods?"

"You know him?" Kevin asked, looking from the mare to the comlink speaker. "But aren't you guys involved with the... um... the bad guys?" Fourth Estate sighed, but didn't say anything.

"Kevin... I... if these guys are involved with the 'bad guys', then... well, I'm involved with the bad guys too."