The first sensation was fear. Not simple fright, but mortal terror, free of any logical thought to constrain it. The second sensation was cold, a chill greater than any she had ever felt before. Her entire body ached and burned to her bones, and every nerve screamed as her circulation was reestablished.

Memories began to return, but they were not ordered properly. All of her thoughts were slow and heavy, and compounded with her mortal dread, time seemed to stretch. How long she lay there still and confused was unclear, even to her; it could have been hours, or days- -or merely seconds.

Then Scootaloo opened her eyes. Even in the dim lights of her surroundings nearly blinded her, and she screamed- -or tried to. All that came from her mouth was foul-tasting water, and, choking, she rolled over. Above her was the pod she was still linked to, now standing open with fog slowly drifting from its base, the control module to the side sparking with violet energy.

Scootaloo had no idea what it was, nor did she have any idea where she was, only that she was profoundly cold and that her entire body ached. As she slowly began to regain consciousness, she also became aware of the linkages in body. The irrational fear she had felt was fading, but as soon as she saw the metal spikes and tubes in her limbs and body, it was replaced with profound disgust. She pulled one shaking hoof to her mouth and wrapped her teeth around what she only assumed was an IV line. She pulled, and as she did, she felt something move out of her- -something almost impossibly long.

She followed quickly with the others: secondary IV’s in her lower legs, a tube inserted through a hole in the front of her neck, and a long system inserted between her legs that she could feel sliding out of her kidneys as she withdrew it, screaming.

When she finished, she passed out. There were dreams, but they were of things she did not understand. Dreams of light and armor, of mutation and a face with violet eyes as fiery as they were dead. All were hurried and rushed by her delirium until she awoke with a start.

She was still cold, but not nearly as much. Slowly and shakily, she sat up from the pool of blood and bodily fluids that she was lying in. Her coat cracked as she moved; she had apparently been covered in some kind of gelatinous fluid that had long-since dried into a crust.

“What…the buck,” she wheezed, coughing suddenly. It hurt to talk, and it was somewhat difficult with the hole in her throat.

Again, as slowly as possible, she slowly got to her feet. She nearly fell a few times and felt ridiculous. She was a grown mare, and yet she was having as much trouble just standing as a freshly-born foal.

Scootaloo looked around her. She found herself standing in a small alcove adjacent to a grate catwalk that led in either direction past numerous identical cells. There was almost no light, but from what little there was Scootaloo could see the plumbing and tubes that ran beneath the grate and emerged from the walls, interfacing with each of the pods and dropping to levels unseen.

What struck her was the profound sense of loneliness. There were no signs of life; there was no motion, and no sound save for a distant dripping and the hum of the machinery that maintained whatever kind of facility this was. From the thick layer of greasy dust on the floor, though, it was quite apparent that nopony had been down here in a long time.

Scootaloo stepped forward. The sound of her hoofsteps echoed loudly off the walls, more loudly than they should have.

“Hello?” she called weakly. There was, of course, no response. She was alone.

Her only logical course of action, then, was to try to find her way out. Walking was extremely uncomfortable, but Scootaloo forced herself to keep moving. Her entire body was still cold, as if she had spent hours outside in winter with an inadequate jacket. The room itself was not warm by any means either, and the motion made Scootaloo feel at least marginally warmer.

What she found, though, made her increasingly uncomfortable. There facility was almost labyrinthine, and everywhere she looked there were more and more rows of pods. She eventually found a narrow stairwell to the next level, only to find more of the same- -and still no ponies. It occurred to her that she might be very deep underground.

The lights on the next level up were worse than the lower ones. They were flickering, and several produced a dim violet light instead of the harsh white light that they were meant to. A pipe overhead was dripping some kind of fluid, and a toolbox sat open but abandoned against one corner of the path. As if whoever had been working there had just left, never to return again.

Confused and unnerved, Scootaloo approached one of the pods. It had what appeared to be a thick glass surface, and Scootaloo wiped away some of the frost on its surface to see her reflection in the glass. She looked terrible. She was gaunt and pale, as though she was experiencing the worst flu of her life- -which, in her current state, did not feel far from the truth. She was still a young mare, though, barely past her fillyhood and small for her age. What she could not understand, though, was why her mane had been shaved so short. As she turned her head, she realized that it was not purple like it was supposed to be. Instead, there was evidence that it had been died into stripes of several color before it had been cut to barely a quarter of an inch.

“Like Rainbow Dash…” she whispered. Her eyes widened as she started to remember her sister. There were many good memories, and more that were bad- -but there was something important that she was not able to recall.

As she moved, though, her eyes refocused on something else on the other side of the glass. Confused and curious, Scootaloo slid her hoof across the surface, breaking off more of the ice. Then, when she saw it, she jumped back with a yelp.

It was a pony. Or, rather, what was left of one. Half its skull had been removed, exposing part of the brain inside. Its one remaining eye was staring madly, and its mouth was contorted into a frozen scream. It still had one arm, but its torso was cut off halfway. Anything lower than that was machines. The entire assembly appeared to be encased in something that Scootaloo was rapidly realizing must have been ice.

They were frozen. All of the pods contained frozen, forgotten ponies, or at least parts of them.

Scootaloo backed away. She wanted to run, but knew that there was no point in it. They were everywhere; there was, as far as she knew, no way to escape. Not that she could. It was not the ponies themselves that she was frightened of. They were inert, and probably- -hopefully- -dead. It was the unknown reason for their presence that frightened her.

So, she wandered. There was not much else she could do, nowhere else she could go. Scootaloo had no idea where she was, or why there was nopony there. She tried to wrack her brain to figure out what this place might have been, or how she had gotten there, but she found herself unable. Memories were returning to her- -the academy, her command, her promotion to Priestess- -but her later memories still alluded her. The last thing she remembered was sitting with Starlight, Trixie, and Princess Twilight. They had been drinking some kind of awful tea, and they had small lemony cookies. They had been laughing.

Then she saw a pony. When she did, Scootaloo froze. She did not know why; she should have been glad to see somepony , to not be alone- -but instead she only felt fear. Her instinct told her to turn and run the other way, to hide- -but logically, she knew that was ridiculous.

So, slowly but confidently, she approached the other pony. She did not want to startle him, but likewise, she did not want to appear weak, even if every step made her more and more frightened. As she drew closer, she saw that he was working on an open pod.

“Excuse me,” said Scootaloo. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I don’t know where I am…”

She trailed off as the pony stiffened, and then backed out of the alcove he was standing in, still holding the pair of frozen eyes that he had been extracting from the pod’s occupant. As soon as he came into the light, Scootaloo realized that her instinct had been correct. This was not a pony at all. He had skin like a pony- -pale blue, with a well-maintained coat- -except it was not HIS skin. Instead, it was stretched tight over a mechanical frame, the joints of which still showed through where the skin did not reach. His face, though, consisted entirely of a robotic framework, save for his eyes. Those, though dead, were organic.

It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. It screamed. It was the most horrible shriek that Scootaloo had ever heard, and she jumped back, trying to plug her ears. It did not help, though, because the sound seemed to come from all directions- -and suddenly, Scootaloo realized that it WAS coming from all directions. The false-pony’s scream had morphed into an alarm.

“Escaped subject,” it spoke, as calm as it was stern. “Stop immediately. Lie down and put your hooves over your head. Failure to comply will result in forced disincorporation.”

Scootaloo, of course, was having none of this. She started sprinting. Her wings automatically buzzed as she tried to take flight, but, as always, they were useless. She was unable to fly.

More of the semi-mechanical ponies started to appear. Several emerged in front of Scootaloo, and she banked to the side, leaping over the edge of the catwalk and dropping a level. She had no weapons and was barely able to keep moving, but her training took over, propelling her toward cover and out of their range- -but only for a moment. They followed, dropping easily to the next level and pursuing.

Scootaloo knew that she was at a clear disadvantage. She did not know the layout of the facility, nor did she understand exactly what the automatons were capable of. If they were anything like the equidroids she was familiar with, though, she was far outmatched.

To her side, she saw a gap in the wall- -the entrance to a corridor. Scootaloo decided to take that chance. As a distraction, she leapt up and grasped a wide conduit in her teeth. It was cold, and it burned her mouth, but she still managed to pull it free. A plume of high-pressure cryogenic gas flooded behind her, obscuring her escape.

She dashed into the corridor and took a sharp left. It was narrow, confusing, dirty, and almost completely unlit. Still, Scootaloo thought she had at least partially lost her pursuers. That was until a large dull-yellow Pegasus dropped into her path.

“You,” he said, glaring at her. One of his eyes had been messily replaced with a cybernetic one, and the scarring on that side of his face was extensive. He was heavily armored, but Scootaloo did not recognize the faction he belonged to or even what that particular type of armor was made of. “STOP!”

Almost as soon as he ordered it, a blast door between him and Scootaloo sealed shut. Then there was a second sound as the one behind her closed as well. She was trapped.

Something violet sparked to her side. There was a loud creaking as several ancient-looking pneumatics engaged, unlocking a rusted-shut access panel. Scootaloo watched as it popped open, and realizing that it was her only hope. She ducked inside.

Where it led her was not at all pleasant. The door shut behind her, and another one opened at the end of a dusty, spider-infested offshoot path. What she immediately became aware of aside from the sensation of spiders crawling through her coat was the sudden decrease in temperature. She had thought that the inside of the facility was cold, but wherever she was heading was positively frigid.

Then she found herself in a gap between two buildings, or rather, between an inner and outer shell of the same building. She was standing on a small, rusted metal staircase that ducked under an enormous conduit that led between the surfaces, spanning over what seemed like an infinite drop.

As Scootaloo ascended, she noticed a glint of light. The only source of light in this dim, possibly forgotten maintenanceway was a small window. Scootaloo though that a window was strange, especially since she had assumed that she was deep underground. As she approached it, though, she gasped. She could not have been further from the truth.

The dirty, yellowed window was apparently meant to allow for viewing of a heatsink assembly that protruded from the wall, connecting to the conduit that Scootaloo found herself beneath. Beyond it, though, the sun was just rising over the surface of a planet far below. She was not sure of the specifics of it, but she saw clouds and oceans, and even several large storms flashing with lightning. This was not an underground installation at all- -it was an orbital platform.

Scootaloo gripped the railing tightly, and felt the rusted staircase shudder and creak from the force. Turning away from the view of the alien world, Scoootaloo followed the path as cautionsly and quickly as she could until it led to another access hatch. The hatch, like the railing, was in disrepair, but when Scootaloo eventually opened it, she threw herself in, actually glad to be somewhere warm again.

It seemed that she had at least momentarily lost whoever it was that was chasing her, and she decided to move stealthily through the narrow hallways. Eventually, she found herself in a large room. There was little light, but she recognized the shapes looming in the shadows. This was a hanger, and it was full of starships.

The lights in the hanger suddenly flashed on, and Scootaloo heard a cry from behind her. Something fired at her- -she was not sure if it was magic or bullets- -and she ran, ducking behind one of the ships. She looked around, trying not to panic as her enemies approached. That was when she spied a small starship across from her. Taking the chance, she ran toward it, dodging several more shots as she crossed and ducked behind a rack of equipment that was apparently being used for repairs.

Her fortune seemed to finally be turning. The smaller ship was not only parked, but it was open. It had apparently being undergoing repairs. This added a new level of risk, but Scootaloo gambled that whoever had been fixing it had at least mostly finished. She boarded, and the ramp began to close behind her.

By this time, her conscious mind began to realize what she had on a more primitive level already known. In the Naval Academy, she had spent countless hours learning to recognize the various starships. She had even overseen the Core remediation project with Starlight Glimmer, and she had continued to familiarize herself with the new models. None of the ships in this hanger, though, were anything like she had ever seen. She recognized none of them.

On the inside, this ship was strange. It was by no means small, but the opressivly bare hallways within made it feel that way. It was utilitarian, but at the same time felt unfinished- -a thought which Scootaloo desperately tried to push out of her head.

She quickly found her way to what she assumed was the bridge- -except that it made no logical sense. It was a spherical room with a captain’s chair in the center. There was no space for a crew, or glass for a front screen. In fact, if Scootaloo was right, this room was nowhere near the front of the ship at all.

Still, she took her place in the chair. There was no ship in Equestria that she did not know how to fly. As she fumbled around, though, she quickly realized that this ship was the exception. There was no user interface whatsoever: no screen, no control panels, not even a manual system.

“What- -what the BUCK!” cried Scootaloo. “How am I supposed to do this?”

As if on cue, a surge of green light filled the room and rapidly resolved next to her. In less than a second, it resolved into a partially translucent representation of a green-colored mare with well-styled but unassuming hair.

The mare looked at Scootaloo, slightly confused. “Welcome to the EN-174 G model Scout Vessel, a product of Eqqus Tech Manufacturing. I am- -”

“Who the hay are you?!”

The mare raised an eyebrow. “I was about to explain that. You interrupted my product information monologue. That’s terribly rude. Should I start again?”

The ship was suddenly rocked, nearly knocking Scootaloo out of her chair.

“Oh dear,” said the mare. “It appears that we are under fire.”

“Then tell me how to get us out of here!”

“I am unable to comply with that order. Are you authorized to operate this vehicle?”

“Authorized- -my name is Priestess Scootaloo, of the Cult of Harmony! Yes I’m authorized!”

“Checking…” The mare paused for a moment. Then she looked back at Scootaloo. “I’m sorry, but no Priestess named ‘Scootaloo’ is listed in the records that I have access to. Perhaps you have your organization confused? Would you like me to cross reference?”

“What- -” Another blast shifted the vessel, and Scootaloo was not sure how much it could take before they started trying to cut their way in.

“Name located,” said the mare, somewhat surprised. “Captain Scootaloo Dash of the Royal Equestrian Navy. Is this you?”

“Yes! YES!”

“Authorization accepted. And may I congratulate you on two hundred and eighty seven years of continuous service to the Empire of Harmony!”

“What- -two hundred and- -”

“Running startup procedure! Yay!”

The spherical room flashed with light and seemed to distort. Startled, Scootaloo let out a cry and held onto her chair as a hologram crept around the inner surface of the sphere. The effect was to make the walls of the room appear transparent. Suddenly, Scootaloo found herself suspended, floating in the cargo bay as a surprising number of soldiers surrounded her, trying to get into her ship.

“Oh my,” said the holographic mare. “It appears we are surrounded by enemies. Would you like me to engage defensive weaponry?”

“YES! YES! Why are you even ASKING!”

“Well, because I’m programmed to be polite. Which clearly you are not. Engaging defensive protocol.”

Outside, two green-colored spheres formed on either side of the ship’s cockpit. They then erupted with hundreds of energy bolts firing faster than Scootaloo had ever seen a projection cannon fire. Every pony in their path was shredded into clouds of blue-green mist and metal.

“I didn’t say kill them!”

“Correcting parameter,” said the mare, her weapons now streaking through the crowd but narrowly avoiding several terrified looking Pegasi and a unicorn. “Reboot system complete.”

The ship suddenly hummed to life and picked itself up off the ground.

“The primary doors to this hanger have been sealed. Calculating alternative exit.”

The energy spheres contracted sharply, and then a pair of beams shot outward and upward, tearing through the roof of the hanger. The immediate decompression pulled most of the damaged or dead pony robots up with it, as well as various tools and items. The Pegasi held onto anything they could for dear life, and the one unicorn in the group projected a spherical shield around them to maintain atmosphere.

The ship then rose rapidly, to the point where Scootaloo was actually slammed into her seat.

“Oh, sorry,” said the mare. “My apologies. This is my first time operating with a living passenger, and I have not yet loaded protocols for pro-biological inertial dampening. Correcting.”

The crushing inertia weakened, and the ship shot off into the darkness of space. Scootaloo almost had time to let out a sigh. Then the ship was rocked with something much more powerful than small-arms fire.

“We are being pursued,” said the mare, as if mildly amused. Scootaloo looked over her shoulder, and through the projection saw several large and ominous ships rapidly gaining on them.

“Can we lose them?”

“Yes,” said the mare. “This vessel is far faster than theirs. However…”

“However WHAT?”

“It is not equipped with heavy shields. In other words, they will have destroyed it before we are out of their weapons’ range.”

“So- -so then WHAT?” Scootaloo’s mind raced. Ideas rushed to her, most of them bad. Then she realized that she did have one chance. “If my authorization is still active here- -can we teleport?”

The hologram looked confused. “Teleportation technology has not been used in nearly three centuries. Unless you are referring to a mass-jump?”

“YES! Whatever that is, DO IT!”

“Okay. I can do that. Where would you like to go?”

“Like to go- -ANYWHERE! Just not HERE!”

“Well, that’s not very helpful.”

“JUST DO IT!”

“So angry. Engaging mass-jump.”

Behind them, the ships fired several bolts. Just before they struck the location of the ship, though, the space around it distorted as its core projected a spherical mass effect field. There was a burst of electromagnetic and gravometric energy as space tore open, and then another larger one as it snapped back shut. The beams of energy crossed through empty space; Scootaloo was gone.