Scootaloo stared into the slowly revolving star chart projected in blue light at the bottom of the cockpit amphitheater. She would occasionally stop it and adjust the controls mounted on the sides of her captain’s chair, adding annotations and coordinates based on her research, calculating the path that the EQX had taken and plotting them on a map.

Below her, Roseluck deftly maneuvered the Rainbow Dash into position over the wreckage of the other ship, correcting for its slight drift in space. It had taken them nearly two days to find and reach it, and they were not about to lose it again- -especially with an away-team already on board, inspecting the damage.

Once she was finished, Roseluck reclined in her chair and looked up through the windows at the ship that appeared to be floating above them. Scootaloo could not help but occasionally look at it from time to time as well. The design was unlike anything Scootaloo had ever seen before. In the United Military Academy, Scootaloo had familiarized herself with literally hundreds of designs of vessels, ranging from military ships throughout Equestrian history to freighters to commercial space liners. The only time she had encountered anything like this vessel had been in physics textbooks about theoretical spaceflight designs. Even as badly damaged as it was, with a significant amount of its hull plating and overall architecture gone, its curving lines and swept shape were a thing of beauty.

“It almost looks alien,” said Roseluck.

“There are no such thing as aliens,” mumbled Scootaloo, staring back at her star chart.

“That’s not right.”

“No, it is. All sentient life is derived from the Equestrian star system.”

“No. I mean your chart.”

“What do you mean?” said Scootaloo, somewhat angrily. The calculations she was doing were not easy, and she was running on very little sleep.

“Look,” said Roseluck, pointing. “Those distances can’t be right. No ship can move that fast. Not even a Wonderbolt class. It would have to be going fifty times the speed record for any ship ever. And, like, almost nine hundred times our top speed.”

Scootaloo smiled. “That’s not even the weird part.”

“It gets weirder?”

“You wanna see?” Scootaloo clicked her controls, and a second window of blue light appeared, showing a list that Roseluck was sure to recognize.

“A teleportation itinerary,” said Roseluck. “So?”

“So, that ship isn’t on it.”

“So? That’s not that unusual. Classified ships get moved out all the time.”

Scootaloo shook her head. “No. That’s the MASTER itinerary.”

Roseluck’s eyes widened, and she looked away, putting a hoof next to her eyes to block the view of the list. “I don’t think I’m allowed to see that…where did you even GET that?”

“Sources,” said Scootaloo. Meaning, of course, that it had been one of the things that Rainbow Dash had used her “Wonderbolt12345” password on. “That is all the ships that Celestia or Luna have teleported in the last six months. Look.” Scootaloo narrowed the search and highlighted one name. “That’s us. But that ship? Not on it.”

“That’s impossible,” said Roseluck. “The only ship that has an internal teleportation ability is the Harmony.”

“I know.”

They both stared out the window at the ship. Scootaloo felt uneasy.

“Are you sure you don’t want me over there?” asked Roseluck.

“Are you even approved for spacewalking?”

“No, but it doesn’t mean I can’t do it. Back in the Rose Nebula, we used to…” she laughed slightly. “Well, we used to fly personal solar-sail craft. Fell off a few times. I’m used to navigating space.”

“The Rose Nebula? Isn’t that a colony?”

“Way out on the frontier. Nearest populated base is a week trip.”

“I can see why you left.”

Roseluck shook her head. “No, you misunderstand. I loved it there. And once my time in the navy is done, I’m going to take my commission right back out there. I want to start a florist shop.”

“And ride sail-boards?”

Roseluck laughed. “I never said I was especially good at that. Hence why I fell off a lot. Never got hurt, though. I’m pretty lucky that way.”

“Well, I think we need you more on…”

Scootaloo trailed off as a set of hoovesteps was heard on the far side of the hull. Scootaloo and Roseluck paused, and then saw a pony come into view, dressed in a pressure suit and crossing the transparent surface. As the pair watched, a pair of derped yellow eyes looked in at them.

“Captain!” said a voice over the communication channel. “I think I found survivors!”

Scootaloo clicked on her own channel. “Muffins, what are you doing?! You’re on the wrong ship!”

“I am?” She looked around, and then up at the correct ship floating overhead. “Oh. Woops. I just don’t know what went wrong!”

“Rose,” said Scootaloo. “I’m going to need you to suit up after all- -”

“Captain,” said Lyra over the communication channel. Her voice was filled with the warble and static of a weak magical signal.

“Belay that,” said Scootaloo. “Hold on, Lyra, I’m engaging a projection.”

The starchart vanished, but the magical projection expanded, filling the amphitheater of the bridge with blue light. Images resolved into simplistic shapes, and a scale hologram of Lyra was projected in the center of the room, standing in the center of her very own holographic bridge.

“What is it?” said Scootaloo.

The holographic Lyra looked up at Scootaloo. Her face was completely covered in an opque-looking combat mask, but Scootaloo could sense her unease. “Something here isn’t right.”

“I’ll say,” said a gruff female voice. Bengie appeared in the hologram, a diamond dog walking bipedally and holding a clip-board. “Can you believe this? This bridge has a hardwood floor! Fat lot of good it did them when the air left, though.”

“Are there any survivors?”

“You know the answer to that one, Captain,” said Lyra, darkly. She gestured toward the edge of the hologram, which showed a wall with a large hole in it. “Looks like they took a puncture. Wasn’t a meteor, though. The Equestrian steel could handle that. This was something a lot faster and a lot harder.”

“Like what?” Scootaloo stepped forward. “Lyra, you can’t be implying that somepony shot it down?”

“You can see the ship, right? From your window?”

“If Muffins would move her rump, yes.”

Bengie came into view. “Would you believe me if I told you that hole was the only damage this ship took?”

“No,” said Scootaloo. “Look at it. It’s missing half its hull!”

“And its entire engine,” said Bengie. “Including the Core inside. But they weren’t destroyed.”

“Then…what?” asked Roseluck.

“They were removed,” said Lyra.

“Re…removed? By WHAT?” Scootaloo’s heart beat faster. “Do you think it could have been the Crystals?”

“Have you ever seen what the Crystals do to a ship?” asked Lyra. “Trust me, they don’t take pieces.”

“Aliens…” whispered a voice inches from Scootaloo’s ear.

Scootaloo cried out and jumped into the air, her tiny wings fluttering as fast as they could. She turned to see Fluttershy standing behind her, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“How did you even- -never mind,” said Scootaloo, straightening her uniform. “And I wasn’t startled. Those were my finely tuned combat instincts kicking in. But it wasn’t aliens.”

“Yeah, you might want to rethink that,” said Lyra, adjusting the view of the image.

The ponies on the Bridge- -and Muffins, who was outsides- -all stared wide-eyed at what Lyra focused her transmission on. Inscribed into one of the walls was a complex and aggressive looking symbol.

“This ship was cut apart,” said Lyra, crossing to one of the panels. Her encapsulated horn glowed, and the magic charged the system, producing a holographic plate-interface. Lyra tapped at it with an armored hoof. “What’s left of records shows that the Core was uninjured in the impact. It’s internal life-support system sustained it, and it went dormant. I can only assume that whoever- -or whatever- -pulled this ship apart took it.”

Scootaloo sat back in her chair and clicked on her controls. “I’m running a scan for magical signatures.”

“You don’t think it left all on its own,” said Roseluck.

“No,” said Fluttershy. “She thinks that aliens took it.” She giggled. “Real, live aliens.”

“I think,” said Scootaloo. “That the Core is really, really important.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Bengie. “There’s not much to work with here, but I can tell you that this isn’t an ordinary ship. It’s small, but this thing would have had a punch like a dragon in heat. The conduits linking to the core were…preposterous, really. Nothing left here is valuable, but I can only guess that the Core they were using was something special.”

“I’ve found something,” said Scootaloo. “It’s weak and…”

“And what?”

“It doesn’t match any known type of magical signature. But it’s definitely there. Something came here, and then left.”

“It has to be aliens,” maintained Fluttershy.

“For the last time, aliens aren’t real!”

“No?” said Fluttershy. “Because I have an entire storage area that begs to differ.”

“Those are just animals,” said Scootaloo, annoyed. “We’re talking about sentient, spacefaring races here. You know as well as I do that they just don’t exist.”

“No?” said Fluttershy, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve seen animals on hundreds of worlds, most of them as smart at least as ponies. It is not much of a stretch to think that they could build a ship.”

“But we know that all sentient life originated on Equestria Prime.”

“Really?” said Fluttershy. “What about my home planet, then?”

“Tartarus is a special case!”

“I don’t really care about academic debates,” said Lyra through the hologram. “Aliens or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s just another thing to kill. This ship has nothing left of value on it. I’m going to copy what is left of the primary logs, but if you want to get that core, we need to follow that trail. And quickly.”

“Right,” said Scootaloo. “Lyra, Bengie, get back to the ship. Muffins…”

“Yes?”

“Wait for Lyra. Then go…I don’t know. Help Carrot or something.”

“Right!”

“Helmsmare.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“How fast do you think we can follow that trail?”

Roseluck smiled. “I’ll push Trixie to her limit.”

“Good. Follow it. We need to recover that Core.”