“Can we do this today?” Mark asked. “We’re burning EVA time here!”

As much as Spitfire empathized with the human, she couldn’t admit it in front of him. She’d done her mourning for Amicitas months ago. Cherry Berry’s emotional needs got on her nerves, especially when they needed to do this to turn what was left of the ship into a vehicle that would get them off this rock.

But Cherry Berry was the commander, and investing in the commander’s peace of mind meant you lived longer. “You can wait a few minutes,” she said, picking her way through the words like hoops on a flight course.

Satisfied, Cherry Berry placed a hoof on one of the rear landing gear, which now dangled slightly off the ground. “You kept us alive many times,” she said in English, a little awkwardly. “You let us land instead of crash. You held air and heat when the Hab blew. We used you for storage, for radio, for everything you could give.” The pink pony in the orange space suit sniffled, then said, “Thank you. We’re sorry we couldn’t take you home one last time.”

As the commander walked away, Spitfire let out a breath, carefully not asking if that was it.

“That it?” Fireball asked.

Oh, yeah. Count on a dragon for tact.

“Carry on,” Cherry said, turning her back to the ship and walking away

Magic flared, and as soon as Cherry was clear, a unicorn in a white space suit stepped forward, balanced on her hind legs, foreleg in a silly looking karate pose. “HYAH!” Starlight Glimmer shouted, leaping forward in a truly stupid leap that looked only slightly less stupid in the low Martian gravity. Despite the gravity difference she fell well short and had to hop up again, repeating, “HYAH!” before bringing a forehoof up and down in an overhead chop. Her horn flashed as her hoof made contact with the ship, and the thin air popped as the stripped-down wreck of a spaceship split into two uneven halves.

As Starlight landed again, placing her forehooves against one another and bowing, the tail section of Amicitas dropped back onto the rear landing gear, pivoted backwards, and tumbled to the Martian soil with a faint boom.

“Since when do you take Caine the Wanderer as a role model?” Mark asked, a little exasperated.

Starlight dropped back to all fours and said, “Since Gandalf let those stupid dwarves go into the AlwaysFreeForest alone. Foo on wizards. He’s just another Swirling Star. Caine is wise and dignified and honors his word.”

“Yeah, and Caine’s going to risk another attack of magic exhaustion if you don’t stay glued to that battery,” Spitfire grumbled in Equestrian.

“I can handle it,” Starlight bit back. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“Girls! Language! Mark is here!” Cherry’s voice snapped like a whip, sentiment replaced by stern anger.

Grumbling, Starlight walked back to the mana battery for the job of trimming the hull back as close to the bulkhead of the habitat compartment as they dared. Spitfire, for her own part, held her tongue and watched. She’d have her turn after they carried the stupid genius unicorn back into the Hab on the stretcher.

Again.

“Yeeeeah,” Mark said. “No more Kung Fu for you girls. I think we’re going back to Grizzly Adams.”

As much as Spitfire disliked that show- it reminded her of the pony who she’d been expected to replace- she didn’t protest. She liked it better than that stupid Barney Miller… and it didn’t give screwy unicorns ideas…

Speaking of screwy ideas… Spitfire looked at the ship, which… well, it hadn’t looked like itself since the day they crashed, but now that they’d sliced the end of the inner hull off, it suddenly didn’t look like a ship anymore, either. It looked, literally, like something the cat dragged in- half of a thing that had been alive ten minutes before.

Hadn’t Dragonfly always been going on about how this or that was alive in a way, about things having feelings and opinions and stuff? What would she have said about Amicitas now? Had they really killed it? Or was it a hunk of metal, and was Dragonfly just mental?

No. Amicitas is not the metal. The ship is the crew. The ship is the team. While we’re alive, Amicitas lives, until we all get home.

That night Spitfire smuggled a small bit of hull, a fragment shaved away in the trimming process, back into the Hab. She stole the metal file from Fireball and, off in a corner, carefully worked at the edges of the bit of steel, rounding them off, making the scrap safe to carry inside a space suit, inside the suit undergarment, next to the fur.

Amicitas, the machine, would never return to Equestria. But a piece of it would- along with her crew.

That counted, at least well enough to soothe Spitfire’s mind.

All of them- including the spirit of the ship- would make it home.

Author's Notes:

Sorry. This is all I have today. Just could not think of anything else at this point.

I did spend a bit of time planning out plot points for down the road, though, so that counts for something.