“Well, this is interesting,” Flashfire remarked as he went over several datapads, the information gathered from that one communication outpost a certain former Shadow Line member had called home. “Vraiment, je dois dire. C’est tout à fait fascinant. Now, if only I knew what to do with this information…”

“Yes, well…” Snow Rain, a teal blue changeling drone uttered rubbing the back of his head. “I felt it was worth bringing to your attention, sir, given the… uh, ramifications of this.”

“Est-ce que je ressemble à un prince?” Flashfire asked raising an eyebrow. “Bring this to Stardust, or Flurry, or one of the AIs even.”

“I would, but the AIs are under routine maintenance and Flurry and Stardust are off on the other colony ships so you were the first one I thought of,” Snow replied. “I mean, you are the leader of the Kyurangers so that puts you at a pretty high rank…”

“Lécher les bottes… Ne croyez pas que je sais que ce ne vous concerne pas vouloir un meilleur ensemble de quartiers...” Flashfire muttered to himself, thankful to Celestia that Snow couldn’t understand a word of Prench. Now normally, he’d never be so rude, but he’d had a long week ever since Stripped got himself captured so he was starting to feel the strain. It was outstanding he hadn’t cracked yet thanks to this. Quite a few training droids had been sliced in two by his sword over the past week perhaps needless to say.

“Look, no matter what you may think my intentions to be,” Snow commented. “I think this is worth looking into! I mean, think of it, if these supply ships came where I think they came from…”

“Oh, I agree,” Flashfire replied with a small nod. “I do think it’s worth looking into, trouble is we don’t have time to waste just yet, I’d rather not explore anything until my teammates are safely back aboard this ship!”

“I get that, I do,” Snow said in return. “The Hivemother only knows if it were members of my hive in Dark Matter’s clutches, I’d tear the universe apart till I found them Hell or high water.”

“Well, can’t fault you there,” Flashfire replied before he sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Celestia and Luna above…”

“And see,” Snow put in. “This is exactly why I think you should pursue this. You’ve been putting yourself under a lot of pressure lately. Black and Pink are off on that world securing a communication post, right? So they have the best chance of finding your friends. You sir, with all due respect, need to focus on something else. Put your brains where they’re better suited.”

Flashfire blinked several times before rubbing his forehead with a hand and then murmuring: “Bon, alors vous avez votre nouveau quartier Snow. Merde…”

He was absolutely right, and Flashfire knew it. He had been putting too much thought and worrying too much over a task which his team had well in hand. And what Snow had found was definitely worth a look or two into at any rate.

You see, what he had found were flight logs from Equestria, back during the days when space travel was just starting to be a viable option of escaping the planet. It had come back into vogue, if you will. Flashfire shuddered to think how they’d gotten into Dark Matter’s hands. With any luck, they couldn’t make much sense of the Equestrian script -which was a possibility, given to them Equus was just another planet for them to suck dry of energy- and had just stored it away.

Flashfire had also found trajectories for flight paths upon deeper searching. It seemed at least two ships had been launched at one point, and while there was no telling if they’d reached their destination, it was worth the look. This was down to two reasons. One, Equus had inhabitants out there, possibly lost and confused. And secondly, and more importantly, if a new Eden had indeed been found well then that meant maybe the colony ships could find somewhere to finally settle down.

Flashfire relished that possibility, which made him feel more hope than he’d ever had in a very long time. “Still, it won’t do to announce this publicly just yet,” the unicorn mused to himself. “Say this does turn out to be a wash. There’d be riots if I told everyone we’d found a new home and it turned out to be false tidings.”

There was another possibility, one he hated to consider but he had to anyways. This was all one elaborate trap by Dark Matter. Which was exactly why when the proper trajectories were plotted, only a probe would be sent until Flashfire knew for certain that what he was seeking was the real deal.

“Damn it, who’s out there…?” Snow murmured looking out to the stars.

“Some little lost lambs,” Flashfire said softly. “Now let’s go see if we can go ahead and find them, and bring them home…”

Flashfire rose from his seat, an air of authority about the Beast Star.

“Cordon off Astronomy,” he then said looking Snow directly in the eyes. “I want 24-hour guards around the clock at the doors, don’t tell them why but I want them there understand? No information must leak out. None. I don’t care how you do it, but get it done understand?”

“Understood!” Snow said saluting in spite of himself.

“...and please,” Flashfire groaned. “Don’t salute, makes me feel more important than I really am.”

“But you are important,” Snow remarked. “...aren’t you?”

“Not if I had my way,” Flashfire said in reply. “If I had my way, I wouldn’t be a member of the Kyurangers, I’d be an archivist or a teacher at the School for Unicorns. But c’est la vie, right?”

He clutched his Kyutama tightly for a moment, before grabbing his jacket and throwing it on, the singular embroidered silver star in on the back glistening in the light.

In Astronomy, the two faced a problem. “...this is a bit of a sticky wicket, as they say, isn’t it?” Flashfire commented pouring over some old texts and logs. “See, there’s been no records of any launches. ...well, at least none recorded.”

“Who made the recordings?” Snow asked peering over. “...oh, wait, I see. Gleaming Days. He was related to that Luster Dawn mare. Dad told me he could never keep records for the life of him.”

“Well, if we can’t look for flight records,” Flashfire decided after a few quick moments of thinking. “We’ll just have to look at the luggage.”

Snow snapped his fingers. “Of course! The manifest! Brilliant!”

“Exactly, someone had to load this ship. You can learn a lot about people from their luggage, and this is probably no different,” Flashfire before cursing record keepers under his breath in annoyance. “Now, taking in the time it would take for these ships to launch and for them to journey to these theoretical destinations, we can calculate a rough date on when they were launched and look for ship manifests around that date!”

After a few more minutes of solid thinking, Snow shouted: “I have something! See, right here. The Mariposa. Another word for butterfly, not sure if that’s significant.”

“It may very well be,” Flashfire said taking a sip of his coffee. “...wow, this is interesting. Two hundred and twenty-five Starshine branded computers, twin monitor beacon satellites, seven hundred commlinks, fifty spinning wheels. Cattle, chickens, pigs. Not DNA, far from it. I mean the actual livestock itself. Incroyable. Why would anyone carry such an insane mix of cargo?”

“Perhaps they were preparing for the worst,” Snow muttered. “Or…”

“Out with it! If you’ve got a theory, theorize for me!” Flashfire demanded growing more and more hopeful by the moment.

“There were a few on Equus who advocated for a return to simpler times, back when we didn’t rely on so much technology and relied on nature’s power and our magic to sustain us,” Snow mused. “Perhaps…”

“...Yes, perhaps so,” Flashfire agreed with a small nod. “But if this was a ship full of utopians, why carry all this technological baggage? It doesn’t fit.”

“You’ve got me guessing as well,” Snow said. “It’s like one giant puzzle, and we’re just missing those last few little pieces.”

“Well, when we find our friends,” Flashfire then continued. “I just suppose we can ask them outright. That should fill in the gaps I think.”

“When should I send out the probe?” Snow asked. “As much as I’d like to think this is one massive breath of relief, you mentioned it yourself on the way over. This could be a trap.”

“It’s one pretty well thought out one if that’s the case,” Flashfire commented. “Dark Matter would require access to our records alone to… No, I’m willing to take a gamble here. Have my Voyager readied. This I must see for myself.”

“Wow,” Snow said blinking in shock. “When you want things done…”

“I get them done,” Flashfire said. “Now what are we standing around for?”

He began to walk towards the door before a thought occurred to him. “...Blast it all, these Equestrians have been isolated for goddess only knows how many years. The shock of seeing a Voyager themed after the legendary guardian of Tartarus himself would probably scare them dead.”

Snow felt it best not to mention he saw the ship every day and it still frightened him, it was like it was looking directly at him. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said it was following him.

“I’ll take one of the Skimmers,” Flashfire said. “Probably less frightening. Have the Piercing Arrow or the Solar Radiance follow me, we can’t have the Armor leave orbit yet. Tell them to have cargo shuttles on standby.”

“So, the wait is over then?” Snow remarked. “We’re telling everyone about our little discovery?”

“...well, it was going to get out sooner or later I suppose…” Flashfire murmured. “Can’t keep anything secret aboard this ship. Especially not when I know you’re listening outside the door, Coldcast!”

He directed this shout to the door, where a nervously chuckling Coldcast was listening in. The griffon gave a little shrug as he walked into Astronomy.

“...can’t blame a bird for getting curious,” Coldcast remarked. “I mean, you post guards outside my workspace without telling anyone why, and then you expect anyone not to come asking what’s going on?”

“What’s that they say about curiosity and cats?” Snow uttered before a glare from Flashfire shut him up.

“If I may, there’s a planet not too far from here, just the next system over that could support life,” Coldcast remarked referring to his star charts. “Hooooooooowever, there is a problem.”

“Such as?” Snow asked.

“There is no evidence of any form of any advanced communication network. And yet you theorized that they brought a lot of technology. So where is it?”

“Sure it’s not the wrong planet?” Snow asked.

“There’s not many life-supporting planets in this system, and I did the calculations. This system is where the Mariposa would have ended up,” Flashfire said. “So that’s just another mystery for us to solve, isn’t it? It keeps getting curiouser and curiouser…”

“Well, at least his mind is off Stripped and the Doctor,” Snow said leaning over to the griffon. “Good plan of yours mentioning this to me, and having me mention it to him.”

Coldcast smiled. “Anything for my dear brother,” he replied. “Besides, I got curious as well as if we actually had something here and I wanted to look into it.”

“Then why didn’t you bring it up to him?” Snow replied. “He’s your brother.”

“You’ve seen his mood lately,” Coldcast whispered back. “It’d be like entering the lion’s den!”

“So you threw me into it?” Snow remarked with Coldcast giving a ‘basically’ nod. Snow had to suppress a groan “...Oh, lovely. Somehow I’m thinking now I would have enjoyed the other away mission more…”

Far away in another system rested the perfect prison, a Dark Matter stronghold resting between twin black holes, on an asteroid caught between them. It would take a genius to chart a course to land on the planetoid directly, so everyone was transported in from a nearby space station making that the only way in or out.

Presuming, of course, you even got to the transporter, that is. Dozens of guards patrolled the corridors, with Strongindavers leading them.

There hadn’t been an escape within a century, and quite honestly Sir Ikargen doubted there ever would be.

He hated his job, really. He’d been doing perfectly fine hunting down certain Paladins until a certain Karō had seen fit to plant him here.

“Commander Scorpio,” Sir Ikargen said to the hologram in front of him. “With all due respect, I should be out where my talents matter the most, hunting down the rest of those Rangers! Not playing babysitter to a prison that has never had a breakout within the past century.”

He knew what Scorpio had pulled, the Karō had been tired of his repeat failures again and again so that basically meant reassigning Ikargen to a spot where he wouldn’t cause trouble. It was comparable to being assigned to Antarctica, really. Nobody would really miss him, and here everyone would forget about him.

“Don’t think of this as a failure,” Scorpio instructed. “Think of this as a better use of your talents, really. If someone does escape, you could just snipe them from your guard tower and that’d be the end of it.”

Ikargen glanced at his rifle, resting in a corner of the room. “It’s not the same, the thrill of the hunt is at it’s best when your opponents actually put up a fight. Here, boxing them in and just taking them out from a distance is the act of a coward! It’s hardly deserving of someone of my talents!”

“I see no talents whatsoever,” Scorpio said dismissively, his tail waving behind him the stinger at its tip looking poised to strike. “If you had any, I suspect you would have put them to use long ago.”

Ikargen felt a fit of rising anger in his body, but he quickly quelled it. It wouldn’t do to get angry at his commander, Scorpio wanted that. He was testing him to see just how he reacted.

Ikargen wasn’t quite sure where or how Armage had found and recruited the scorpion being and it had always been a subject of curiosity amongst certain members of Dark Matter. There were sillier rumors of course, such as that Scorpio was Armage’s spawn. But everybody knew it was impossible for Armage to love anyone, so how could he reproduce? The most prevailing theory was of course that like most members of Dark Matter’s higher-ups, Scorpio had once been but a simple citizen of the galaxy, found on some backwater planet desiring power. And Armage had granted it, giving him a new body in exchange for the utmost loyalty.

That was how it was with Ikargen, actually. Once, Ikargen had been but a simple big game hunter who on his home planet had been respected in his craft. But he had grown bored with just simply shooting down the local wildlife and somehow, had stumbled on Dark Matter operations on the planet. He, on a bout of fun, had decided to hunt down as many of the troops as he could. He’d sent them running and let their blood pump and when he finally had them on the edge of giving up in despair, he freed them.

Now obviously, these sorts of things tended not to go unnoticed. Armage himself had been on the planet that day and was none too pleased with Ikargen’s idea of a game. But he’d also knew not to let good talents go unwasted. He needed a personal assassin. Two of them in fact.

Madako had been a bit of an annoyance, but she’d always been the one who Ikargen had been partnered with and she did her job well. No, they did their jobs well.

Every empire had its troublemakers and its dissidents, after all. And soldiers couldn’t be everywhere at once without causing a stir, so you needed people to do away with your enemies quickly and quietly. After all, riots on planets were nothing any prosperous empire wanted to deal with. The people needed to be kept complacent, and propaganda accompanied by puppet rulers placed in the wake of assassinations of troublesome individuals was how you pulled that off.

Ikargen had been all too happy to be this cog in the machine, as it provided him with a certain status in the Dark Matter empire. It also meant he was feared, as nobody wanted to be on either his or Madako’s hit list.

“Consider this a chance to prove yourself,” Scorpio continued on. “You fell so far, and now you have to climb out of the pit. I actually have faith in you, great trials beget great rewards.”

Was he lying out of his ass, and telling Ikargen what he wanted to hear? Perhaps. It just made Ikargen angrier and made him want to prove to Armage that he still had a use beyond this. “Eriedrone disagrees, of course,” Scorpio put in. “But the dragon doesn’t see beyond what’s in front of him, and has never thought beyond how he can settle a problem beyond using his fists. I think you can work your way out of this.”

“And of Madako?” Ikargen asked. He knew he was pushing his luck. But he had to ask the question anyways. “She’s a loose cannon, without someone taking care of her…”

“It has been taken care of,” Scorpio replied. “Rest assured, we wouldn’t allow the… tch, jellybrain off of her leash without someone holding it.”

Scorpio was smirking under that mask, Ikargen knew it. Just about everyone hated that insult Madako liked so much. How he did wish she was there to hear that!

“So your will shall be done,” Ikargen said with a small bow before cutting the transmission. Hopefully, there would not be any trouble today.

Of course, as Ikargen should have known, trouble had a way of finding itself at your doorstep especially when you didn’t want to invite it. Take into consideration the Doctor, and Stripped Gear.

There in their cell, they sat, studying the patterns of the guards and their patrol routes. “...well, we really need to book a new travel agent don’t we?” the Doctor uttered as he tapped his finger against the wall in time to the guards marching.

1.
2.
3.
4.

He tapped it again to this rhythm.

1.
2.
3.
4.

A drumbeat, you could almost compare it to.

“I blame Jabari,” Stripped uttered feeling rather naked without his Kyutama. “It was his foolish desire to prove himself that got us into this mess.”

“He had no way of knowing that concert was a Dark Matter trap,” the Doctor replied. “The kid just wanted to follow his desires.”

“And his desires nearly got him killed, and us captured!” Stripped said with a snort. “He should have listened to his instincts instead. They should have told him that was trap in plain sight!”

“Nobody, unless they were exceptionally paranoid would think ‘hey, maybe a concert is part of an elaborate Dark Matter trap to find dissidents’!” the Doctor fired back. “It’s not exactly something you normally think about, now is it? Okay, yes, maybe I thought about it, but I’m exceptionally paranoid by nature.”

“...this is a real mess of a problem, innit?” Stripped sighed. “...Oh, bet you’ve got some real inspirational quote at the ready, don’t you? I can see it now…”

“Actually, now that you mention it…” the Doctor trailed off with a trolling little grin. ““You’ve got a choice: ...you can just give in. You can give your jailers what they want. Switch off another light and in the ocean of darkness bow your head and cry. You can despair for your kids, and they can despair for you. But what does this choice give you? Have you any great new happiness now? What does your unhappiness give to your children? Why did you make this choice? Why did you walk into the trap of captivity?”

“See, that’s my problem with you Doctor,” Stripped said getting up in the Lord of Time’s face. “You make big boasts, and all too inspirational quotes, but you almost never back them up. You can recite and wax poetry all you want, but that still doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck in here.”

“For now,” the Doctor said gently pushing Stripped away. “Unlike you, I haven’t resigned myself to my own fate. Haven’t you been keeping time?”

“I don’t have a watch, so no,” Stripped drawled. “How could I possibly have been…”

“You see, but you still don’t see,” the Doctor said before Stripped opened his mouth with the Doctor raising his hand to silence him. “Or in plain Equus, as I know what’s coming next, you miss the blindingly obvious! 1, 2, 3, 4, that’s the time in which the guards outside are marching to.”

“We’re still trapped in here,” Stripped said. “Just knowing the rhythm in which the guards march doesn’t exactly help us get free.”

“Ah, but yes it does…” the Doctor said looking like he was waiting for something. “You see, it means I can do this!”

Here, just as an Invader passed the cell door, the Doctor flicked a small pebble and watched it bounce off the ceiling and then a corner and then off an Invader’s helmet. It knocked a keycard from him. And then the keycard clattered in front of the door, and the Doctor quickly grabbed it before anyone could notice.

“And now, we wait,” the Doctor said quickly pocketing it in his jumpsuit. “It’s impossible to do anything right now, so we wait for a shift change. That’s when we make our move.”

“Don’t bother young ones,” an alien from the cell across them said, looking truly ancient. His skin was covered in wrinkles and he bore a long white beard. The Doctor, at this, looked offended. He was not young! “I’ve been here for a century and a half, and I’ve seen many try and fail to escape from this prison. You aren’t the first, nor will you be the last.”

Behind him was a true mammoth of a creature, towering and bristling with muscles.

“Should we really be talking about escape, out in the open?” Stripped asked before gesturing to the guards. “I mean…”

“And do you wonder why they don’t step in?” the alien asked. “It’s because they know how this works, how many people have tried to escape and how many have failed. It is only a delusion, a dream in that of a hopeful mind.”

The Doctor looked him in the eye and he saw it, someone who had lost all hope from years of being stuck in this torment. And then his resolve tightened. Nobody should ever have to feel this pain, of having lost all hope and just waiting and wanting for their day to die.

“We’ll do it tonight then.” he said. Both Stripped, and the alien stared at him.

“...don’t you see?” the alien asked. “Look around, many of us have been here for decades. We’ve all tried to escape at one time or another.”

“No.” the Doctor said.

“No?” the alien asked in confusion.

“No, you tried to escape only once. Each and every one of you. And then you gave up, just because you thought it too hard. You accepted your fate,” the Doctor lectured, and Stripped knew this wasn’t directed at just the alien. “Or more accurately, you accepted what you thought should be your fate. You gave in too easily. Maybe you should be in here if you’re not willing to try. Unlike you, however, I don’t give in so easily. If someone says I should give up hope, if someone says something’s impossible, I aim to prove them wrong.”

The alien laughed. “...you remind me of how I was in my youth. What’s your name, stranger? Might as well know who I’m confined with.”

“The Doctor, just… the Doctor. Nothing else. And my friend here is Stripped Gear. The Yellow Ranger, the Sword Star. I’m the Gold Ranger, the Trick-Star.”

Whispers ran up and down the hall, of the Rangers who had conquered the impossible and defeated Dark Matter at every turn. Perhaps… there was hope after all.

“Very well then,” the alien conceded. “I am Taimuk, and this here is Ragnar. A pleasure to meet you, Doctor. If we’re going to be confined here, might as well get to know each other better eh?”

“If you’re flirting with me, just… stop,” the Doctor said. “I don’t intend to get to know you in that manner. However, if you’ll have me, I will help you get out of here.”

“Very well then,” Taimuk said sighing in resignation.

The Solar Radiance

“...you’re what?” Snow blinked, the changeling leaning towards the comm tab to make sure he’d heard right. “Repeat that, over?”

“Yeah, there’s about two hundred or so odd ponies down here, give or take,” Skywind said over the comms. “It’s… well, yes, it’s paradise down here -green grass, actual green grass!- but um…”

She paused for a moment. “Well, this is one of those moments you really have to see for yourself. Flashfire’s sorta got into a… um, well, minor debate with the colony leader.”

She sounded as if she was this close to just either going into a groan or a sigh. Whichever came first, really.

At first, Skywind when she’d heard… well, she’d felt that same sense of ship-wide relief everyone else had felt when Flashfire had announced this whole thing. She’d heard parties had broken across all ships, so zealous in fact that most of the Royal Guard practically shrugged and gave up trying to stop them. Just before she’d left in fact, she’d bore witness to a group in engineering dancing a jolly old jig of sorts. She was half tempted to join in, really.

That ‘Neutron Nova’ stallion was pretty cute. Though to be honest, Sky never understood what all the song and dance was for, it must have been a pony thing. Though she honestly ever doubted she’d catch someone like Flurry or Flashfire singing. Stardust, that was another story, though said songs would probably be odes to self-praise.

However, Sky was needed elsewhere. There was no time for this, at least at the moment. Maybe later. She was a duty-minded hen, and if Flashfire requested a Royal Guard presence on his little excursion then that’s what he’d get. ...Not that he needed have bothered really, given what she found when she landed on the planet was… well, it sorta the last thing she expected. In a way, the hen was reminded of old Equestria, -which now that she thought about it, she’d heard Flashfire making remarks to expect as such- with miles and miles of farmland and little pink houses and barns.

Sky was half certain half of the Apple Clan was here, along with a few of the kirins from the far reaches of Equus. Guess those rumors of Applejack hooking up with that one kirin had some small amount of truth to them after all. She doubted them all related though, and if they were… she shuddered to think. Now Sky knew exactly why the old stories of all being descended from one pony, this Faust character were generally not thought of too much.

Least in her opinion.

“So, what’s the condition?”

“Of the planet?” Sky asked before answering blissfully: “Paradise…”

“I mean of the people down there,” Snow said. “...though knowing this planet is nice is nice too…”

“Get them up here,” Coldcast barked out. “I’ve just contacted Flurry, and she’s overjoyed and if I hear right she’s coming to meet them personally. Whatever the problem, we can handle it up here right?”

“Um… Yes… well, but…” Sky stammered out before she sighed. “Oh well, I did try and warn you…”

Snow and Coldcast shared a look wondering what possibly they could be needed to be warned about. The transporter glowed in front of them, and what they expected to see was not what they got at all.

Farm animals were now in front of them, a pig sniffing Coldcast’s legs while a menagerie of chickens clucked out angrily. Barrels of hay now lay strewn about the room, along with milk jars. And if that wasn’t enough…

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

A bell jingled as a white and black spotted cow sniffed at a nearby crew member, apparently mistaking her feathers for grass. And yes, before you ask, she was being nibbled on.

“Is… is that a cow?” Coldcast asked as several of the chickens escaped and darted out the doorway.

“Yep… Yep, that is definitely a cow…” Snow blinked slowly not really sure what to make of all of this. “...that’s a cow…”

“So this ship’s got cows now,” Coldcast said. “...well, at least Spade will finally have that cold milk he’s been wanting to serve up in the cafeteria.”

“So where’s the cream cheese then?” Snow asked. “...I mean… I’m surprised there’s no goats.”

“Security, you'd better get somebody down here. Right away.” Coldcast said still in that ‘trying to process this sort of thing mode. His voice was a complete monotone.

“...I’m… I’m not sure security is equipped to handle this.” Snow remarked watching chickens peck at his legs.

“...well, it’s either them or animal control,” Coldcast replied. “And I’m not sure we have animal control. ...can someone take the pig out of here, will you?” he asked.

“I’ve got a word for this.” Snow remarked.

“Yeah?” Coldcast replied. “What’s that.”

“Flustercluck.” Snow returned.

“...Yeah, that fits.”

Flashfire soon joined them, along with a stallion in overalls who looked to be in charge of everything, at least judging by the way he was talking animatedly with the Beast Star.

“Sir, would you happen to be married? It’s just…” this man said. “I have a daughter, and… Well, you seem like a well to do stallion. Would you be interested?”

“No,” Flashfire said and the stallion turned to Coldcast.

“He’s not interested,” he said.

“I’m not interested.” Flashfire repeated after the farmer.

“You sure?” the farmer asked.

“I’m quite sure!” Flashfire said.

“He’s quite sure,” the farmer remarked. “Now, you wouldn’t happen to be the Captain of this finnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeee vessel, would you? It would certainly explain why you get to dictate decisions without so much as a by your leave!”

“What’s… what’s with the animals?” Snow asked, even if he was really rather hesitant to know.

“I’m sorry,” Sky said wiping the sweat off her brow as she tried to escort the cow out. “It was either this or arguing till Tartarus froze over. Apparently, their farm’s on Pear family land and if they didn’t get their animals out they’d be stolen as recompense!”

“...Here goes that old feud again…” Coldcast said in that tone you’d know was of one experiencing absolute dread. “Apples and Pears, fighting tooth to claw! ...Looks like it’s time to warn the security teams and prep the medical bays.”

“I’m actually not an Apple,” the farmer corrected extending a hand. “Extremely Rich, at your service!”

“...Oh,” Coldcast uttered. Somehow he got the feeling that this Rich character would be running this ship inside of a solid week. One look at Flashfire and he knew the unicorn shared the same feelings.

“What have we gotten into this time, brother dear?” he had to think.

“Just… just transport it all to cargo hold 3,” Flashfire said with a little dismissive wave feeling a headache coming on. “...and somebody inform the captain that he’ll be getting a few extra guests.”

“Alright everyone, back into this infernal machine!” Extremely Rich shouted ushering for a few of his farmhands back towards the transporter.

Later, Flashfire found himself in the midst of more chaos as farm animals made a great calamity of noise in the cargo hold. A mare sat nearby, milking a cow as Emerald Gauze ran a scanner over another’s belly muttering: “Two hundred and twenty-three… and two more in the next two days.”

Flashfire then suddenly noticed several ponies putting up bricks they’d pulled from… somewhere and he realized what they were doing. “Now, now, I wouldn’t do that!” Flashfire stammered out.

“Why not?” Extremely Rich asked.

It was then the sprinklers came on to extinguish the blaze, and perhaps needless to say the cargo bay and everyone in it was soaking wet.

“Oh, there you are. Your hospitality leaves a Celestia of a lot to be desired! You don't offer us a bite to eat or anything to drink, and when we build a fire to cook a little something, the place goes insane!” the kirin mare Emerald Gauze had been scanning shouted as she ran up, embers licking at her mane and looking as if she was about to go full Nirek.

“...Not that you could tell the difference…” Flashfire thought with a shudder of fear.

“Some Captain you are!” the mare snapped.

“Her name’s Timber Frost,” Gauze whispered to Flashfire. “She’s pregnant with two, don’t stress her.”

“...I was worried about her stressing me!” Flashfire whispered back to Gauze before turning to Timber. “My deepest sincerest apologies. I was unaware that you had not been instructed in the use of the food dispensers. Allow me to…”

“No, no,” Timber said. “I can figure it out myself, shouldn’t take a genius to operate. Nor do I want some Captain who can’t be bothered to be even remotely hospitable show me what to do!”

“I’m… I’m not the captain…” Flashfire stammered out, and the mare’s tune suddenly changed.

“Oh, that’s different then,” she said sweetly before she glared at him. “And what are you staring at? Have you never seen a mare before?”

“...Sorry,” Flashfire said. “I’m just… stunned by all of this. I’ve been expecting… well, I don’t know what I was expecting. Certainly not a full-fledged farm though! All the same, pleased to meet you, ma'am.”

He was polite enough to avoid saying Timber scared him.

“You’re a Prenchman, are you?” Timber asked doing a small curtsy. “Well, some wealth and culture to our humble little abode. Bet you were born in New Canterlot, or something.”

“...New Ponyville actually, but that’s beside the point,” Flashfire corrected. “Listen… I should really be getting back to work, I’ve got plenty of others to help settle in, not to mention my ship needs a maintenance check.”

No, this was him totally not saying he wanted to get away from this frankly terrifying example of the female species.

“You do you, but I've dozens of frightened and hungry children and women to look after. And I can’t rely on my husband,” Timber said looking towards Extremely Rich. “He’d much rather shout at Almond Pear.”

“...This is you guilt-tripping me, isn’t it?” Flashfire asked. “...Oh well, it can’t be helped I suppose. You got me, I’ll do some of the work. It just simply wouldn’t be polite to leave a mare such as yourself in distress.”

“Pay no heed. She's a fine girl. She's not usually so sharp-tongued.” Extremely said before Timber shouted for him to follow. Emerald looked towards Flashfire, and if she didn’t know better she’d have said he seemed to be shaking with rage.

But he wasn’t and in fact when he turned he was looking about ready to fall over with laughter.

“Sir?” Emerald inquired, the crystal pony looking quite understandably surprised by this sight.

“Sometimes… Mrs. Gauze, you just have to bow to the absurd!” Flashfire commented before he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked to see Extremely Rich.

“Begging your pardon sir, but I have a question to ask… what about the other colony?”

Flashfire’s eyes widened slightly before he asked nervously: “...Other colony?”

Back at the Centaurus Alpha 5 prison colony, the Doctor, Stripped and their new companions exchanged stories to pass the time before the big escape.

“Okay, so there I was in my lab, alright?” Stripped talked animatedly complete with gestures. “They put me in charge of a class back at the Galaxy Garrison, a 20 something-year-old in charge of 16-year-olds. I’d had to step out just for a minute, and while I’m not entirely sure what happened next, Jabari -Aquila Pink- told me his chemistry partner got the idea to make high explosives. Like I said, 16-year-olds.”

“Go on,” one of the prisoners said. “What happened next?”

“So, I went on down the line praising everyone for their initiative, everyone was doing something different you see, and then we got to Jabari and his partner. Both were giggling like fools. Knowing the age of the class I got assigned to teach, I had a sort of suspicion as to what was going on. So I asked, and I’ll never forget this response I got nor what happened next.”

“What do you have there?”

“Nitrated toluene ring.”

“How many nitrates?”

“Three.”

Now everyone was looking at this sight in confusion. Stripped simply answered: “TNT.”

Now, there was nothing to worry about. It was stable in this solution form. Nothing dangerous until you evaporated off the solvent. Stripped didn’t get a chance to explain this, however. What happened next was utter chaos as several chemicals got knocked into a trashcan creating this small mushroom cloud.

“...As soon as the hazmat team got called in, I turned to Jabari and his friend and said this: “...well, I don’t think I’ve ever passed a class so quickly, but you made everyone understand the basics of chemistry!”

“...well then,” the Doctor said with a small laugh. “That certainly livens up things, doesn’t it? Gives it this sorta… Joie de vivre.”

“Sent them to detention anyways,” Stripped said. “But I had to admit it taught everyone a lesson or two, even if that lesson is how to create dynamite.”

“Think you can apply that lesson here?” the Doctor considered. “I mean, an explosion or two would certainly cause a bit of a distraction.”

“You’d need to get into the laboratories,” Taimuk said rubbing a hand through his beard. “For obvious reasons, they’re heavily guarded. Let’s face it, as much as I’d love to get out of here, we need to think realistically. Explosions are fanciful things. We need practicality.”

“That’s assuming you even get out of this cellblock, and past the guard tower,” Ragnar said with a huff, the giant looking towards the guards passing their way. “There’s this massive sniper tower with this new guy in charge, saw him when I got brought out for work. Squiddy looking fellow.”

“Sir Ikargen…” the Doctor mused. “...so what’s he doing here?”

“Wait, you said work right?” Stripped said.

“Yeah, what of it? We make weapons for Dark Matter, though if you plan on using them don’t think on it. They’re DNA locked to Invaders. Nobody else can use them,” Ragnar said. “Shame really, I’d love to take a cannon to the face of the guy who shoved me in here.”

“...Yeah… Uh, let’s not…” the Doctor stammered out. “I… I’m not the world’s biggest fan of guns.”

“And yet you got gifted with a crossbow, irony,” Stripped deadpanned. “Oh well, if worse comes to worst, I’ll fire it myself. Assuming we get ahold of our Kyutamas really…”

“Ikargen likely has them,” Taimuk said. “He’s a hunter, from what I’ve heard. And if you are really who you say you are, he’s got them locked in his office, under high security like trophies.”

“...Hmm, we’d need a distraction, though if I was Ikargen I’d have some fanciful lock only I can access as a back-up measure…” Stripped mused. “I’d need to know… Yeah, that might work if I could just get access to it…”

“What’s he pondering?” Ragnar asked.

“...I almost hesitate to ask…” the Doctor said in a whisper. “Knowing him, it’s both ingenious and contains multiple ways to get ourselves killed if we screw up at any point in it. ...so, par for the course then!”

He said this with an unnervingly cheerful smile.

“Not exactly reassuring,” Ragnar muttered. “Is there a safer option?”

“We’re trapped in a supermax prison nobody’s broken in or out of guarded by one of the best snipers in the galaxy, caught between twin black holes and hundreds upon hundreds of guards,” the Doctor drawled. “What do you think?”

“Point taken,” Ragnar said. “Taimuk, you know this guy right? Down in 2B, good with electronics? Think you can send it down the wire that…”

“Can’t say he’ll help,” Taimuk replied. “It’s a bit of a… well, me and him had this little disagreement over rations about a few weeks back and we’re not on speaking terms.”

“They’re married.” Ragnar said to the Doctor, who nodded slowly.

“Ah, that explains it…” the Time Lord said before doing a double-take. “...wait, you can get married? IN A PRISON?”

“One of the prison’s little oddities, to create a sense of false hope I suppose…” Taimuk sighed. “...How I’d like to get out of here and get married for real…”

“Assuming Sling still wants to talk to you in the end,” Ragnar grunted.

“Assuming, yes…” Taimuk replied.

“Well, if all goes well,” Stripped said. “And by that, if all goes well, I need this Sling chap onboard -so get cracking- we should be out of here in… oh, give or take a few days. Presuming, of course, nothing goes wrong.”

The Doctor laughed.

“What?” Stripped asked.

“...nothing goes wrong?” the Doctor pointed out. “You are aware of who we are and our general luck right?”

Stripped slammed his head up against a wall muttering something to himself. “...I see your point.”

With a bit of tracing the star charts, and a few more calculations and sensor adjustments, another colony was found on the other side of the planet, blocked by natural mountain ranges. Flashfire didn’t like leaving the Armor alone for too long, but he had faith in his marefriend to be able to handle anything that came up.

“Solar Radiance to the colony of Swallowtail,” Flashfire transmitted down to the planet below, Extremely having given him the name of whom he was supposed to be talking to. He thanked whoever was listening that the ship had decided to crash land and split into two, more or less, with one group of colonials taking one side of the paradise planet and the other group taking another side. “This is the Solar Radiance representing the planet Equus and the United Planetoid Alliance, anyone down there?”

“Yes, this is Madam Winter Breeze,” came a female voice, an icy blue pegasus mare wearing a dark suit coming up on the screen. “Prime Minister of Swallowtail. You say you hail from Equus? I’d thought we were forgotten about.”

“I'm afraid the sad truth of the matter is, you got lost in the bureaucracy,” Flashfire laughed in embarrassment. “But despite the lateness of our arrival, we're here now and we're eager to renew ties. You… are aware you are not the only colonists on your planet, right? The southern hemisphere has…”

“Excuse me?” Winter asked. “...other colonists? But I thought… ...Oh well, guess I’ve been thinking a lot of things lately. Oh well, you can tell me about it later, I suppose, I need your help. I’ll explain when you get down to the planet.”

“...If I may,” Flashfire said politely. “I don’t respond well to demands.”

“This is a plea,” Winter said making Flashfire sit up. “Now, please, help us.”

The transmission cut off.

“...well, that was strange,” Flashfire commented. “She seemed awfully interested in getting our help, even if she won’t explain why.”

“Forgive me for sounding paranoid,” Emerald Gauze said. “But you could be walking into a very dangerous trap. Dark Matter could have already gotten to these colonists.”

“Perhaps so,” Flashfire agreed. “But if that was the case, we’d see their ships already and secondly, Dark Matter isn’t so foolish as to miss a separate colony like the one on the southern hemisphere. They’d snatch them up too. And forgive me for saying this, but our new friends in the cargo bay don’t seem quite so intelligent enough to be spies and saboteurs.”

“...Agreed,” Emerald Gauze said after a few moments of consideration. “In any event, I’d like to join you.”

“Agreed, a medical professional is always welcomed,” Flashfire said before going for the comms. “Coldcast, need you down with me and Emerald Gauze. Advise caution.”

Let it be said Flashfire hated the snow and frost, ever since he’d gotten off that one planet. The adventure may have yielded him an extra Voyager but it still scared him to death to even think of snow. There was a reason he was both thinking of taking up a farm when this was all over and was so glad to be out of the cold and inside a warm building.

What he did not expect to see when he walked into the building was Winter Breeze gaining an identical twin of sorts. “Welcome to Swallowtail. I'm Spring Breeze, Minister of Health. Yours?”

“Flashfire, and this is Coldcast and Emerald Gauze.”

“A griffon, a unicorn, and a crystal pony,” Spring said with interest. “A curious mix indeed. Your arrival really is serendipitous, this way if you please? I’ll escort you to Madam Winter.”

Emerald would have been a fool not to notice how on edge Spring seemed, and Flashfire noticed it as well by the look he sent her. They also would have been fools to not notice the three identical zebras hanging about the front desk.

“Triplets?” Flashfire asked in suspicion. He then corrected himself upon seeing a fourth walk by. “...Quadruplets.”

Something was very wrong here, he thought to himself a sinking pit forming in his stomach.

“Oh, how so?” Emerald asked of Spring.

“Well, perhaps I'll let the Prime Minister explain that,” Spring replied.

“Is there some medical problem we should know about?” Emerald inquired. “Madam Winter sounded desperate.”

“I think it best if the, er…” Spring began to trail off.

“Prime Minister explains that?” Flashfire asked before answering the unasked question. “...Yeah, somehow I thought you might.”

When they got to Winter’s office, Emerald had one piercing question to ask. “Tell me, is your entire population made up of clones, Madam Prime Minister?”

“...clones?” Coldcast asked.

“Clones,” Flashfire confirmed with a nod.

Winter Breeze sighed and leaned back in her chair, wondering if it was a good time to switch from tea to alcohol. But she explained all the same, as she took them into a nearby observation lounge.

“Sirs and Madam, we need your help. During our landing on this planet, the skin of our ship was breached. Only five of the colonists survived. The progenitors weren't willing to just give up and die, and they were scientists…”

“...and so you turned to cloning,” Flashfire finished. “...well, I suppose I can’t entirely blame you. Two mares and three stallions hardly represent a sufficient gene pool from which to build a society. And without knowledge of the other colony... If I may, how did you suppress the natural sexual drive? Drugs? Punitive laws?”

“A little bit of both, actually,” Winter said. “...Trust me, the idea of dating my brother was a… little repugnant to me so really nobody minded in the beginning. I suppose it sorta snowballed from there if you forgive the frankly poor pun. However…”

“However what? I see there’s a but coming in a minute…” Flashfire asked wanting to get to the point of all this. Even so, he had that sneaking suspicion. “How did they manage to overcome the problem of replicative fading?”

“And to answer your question, the one I know you're about to ask…” Winter said before she took a deep breath and sighed. It was obvious what she was about to say was hard on her and had been troubling her deeply for a while now. “No, we haven't overcome replicative fading.”

“Then you have got a problem," Emerald said before she explained upon seeing Coldcast's confused look. “See, each time you clone you're making a copy of a copy, right? So, after a short while, the genetic material begins to… fade.”

She paused to let the implications sink in.

“Damned if you do, damned if you don't…” Flashfire murmured sadly.

“Essentially, yes,” Winter said in the tone of one who was resigned to her fate. “Help us… please.”

Flashfire didn't need to be asked twice. Leaning forwards he asked one simple question. “How?”

What he did not expect was to be asked to be cloned. Actually, he did expect it knowing Winter’s tone. She was just that desperate. But Flashfire wasn’t sure how to feel about this. So he turned to Emerald Gauze for extra information, quietly taking her aside.

“Doctor, how desperate is the colony's situation?” he asked in a solemn tone.

“They've got two or three generations, at tops, really, then the fading will be terminal. They're among the walking dead now. They just haven't been buried,” Emerald said with a sigh. “...So, what will you do?”

“I just don’t know…”

“It’s ultimately harmless,” Emerald said. “...if not ethically debatable.”

“Harmless maybe, but one Flashfire Lulamoon is unique, perhaps even special. But a take a hundred of me, a thousand of me. What then? Does it diminish me? I can't even…” Flashfire murmured before he considered the options. It was either this or letting these people die. “I know this seems drastic but really, we do have much in common. They're ponies fighting for survival, like us! Would we do any less? Could we do any less?”

Normally, I’d glad you’d be coming around to my line of thinking,” Winter said peeking her head in having heard the tail end of things. “...Forgive me, I couldn’t help but overhear. I admit we get into more moral issues than one can possibly imagine.”

“I think I can imagine a few examples,” Emerald said. “Say we clone someone just for organs, as what if we need a transplant on the fly? Would the clone just accept his death or would we have to treat him as another pony entirely? Another living being?”

“When you get down to it…” Winter Breeze said. “You wouldn’t know, would you? Not until it came time to… pull the plug if you will.”

“There has to be another option!” Flashfire decided. “I hate to say it Ms. Breeze, but even if we did allow you to clone us, in fifteen generations you’d be right back to the same problem. The end’s closer than you’d like to think.”

“I know,” Winter Breeze said. “It’s only prolonging the inevitable…”

“What you need is…” Flashfire trailed off before it hit him. “...Oh, I’ve got a crazy idea, but it just might solve a whole lot of problems. What you need Madam Breeze, is fresh breeding stock.”

“Yes. They have the energy and drive, and the clones possess the emotional maturity and technological knowledge. Well, this whole thing started off together, it does seem fitting they should end up together…” Emerald said in thought.

“...what do you…? The other colony!” Winter realized. “Well, I can’t say I don’t actually mind the possibility of having to move out of these cold mountains. I have to say, a farm does sound tempting… It's a match made in heaven.”

“Unfortunately, it’ll have to be one Tartarus of a shotgun wedding!” Flashfire said. “Well then, let’s get to work, eh?”

Of course, there was a few teething troubles really. Neither colony leader seemed particularly interested in the other. “Me, allow my family to marry into these high-class snobs? I think not!” Extremely Rich shouted.

“And I won’t allow my ponies to marry into the families of these uncultured swines!” Winter snapped.

This went on for a bit with both sides tossing insults at the other back and forth before Flashfire had finally had enough. “That’s enough out of the both of you! I will not allow posturing and bigotry to destroy this meeting. Now please, sit down!” Flashfire shouted. “Madam Winter, you know how close the end is to your culture, would you really let it happen thanks to your own stubborn pride?”

Next, he turned to Extremely Rich. “And you. Ponies are well known for helping each other in need, extending the gesture of friendship. You married a kirin, and have two half kirin children on the way. Are these ponies really all that different, cloned or not? Would you really turn them away?”

“I don't know. There are so many difficulties....” Extremely sighed sitting down in his chair. “We’d be willing to learn, but…”

“And us,” Winter said with a small blush. “For years we have denied… our, er, more carnal needs. How can we learn to put that aside?”

“Well, you put a young couple together and you let nature take its course,” Flashfire suggested with a deadpan look. “It’s really all that simple.”

“Oh, Goddess, it's so…” Winter started.

“Frightening?” Extremely asked. “Trust me, this an act of courage for me as well, but Flashfire’s right. We shouldn’t turn our fellow ponies away, it’s just not right!”

“Yes, yes....” Winter agreed. “Quite!”

Admittedly, she had seen a stallion with kids, quite elegant in his white fur coating. She wouldn’t be remiss if she didn’t say she liked what she saw. This was a bit scary, but then again her ancestors thought the same thing about cloning she suspected. There really was no other option here.

“Yeah, this was definitely a day for me to take up the drink…” Winter thought as she extended her hand, and shook Extremely’s own. Flashfire could only look on with a smile. And like a real butterfly emerging from his cocoon, things seemed be looking towards a bright new future.

Author's Notes:

Okay, so yeah... an adaption of Up the Long Ladder from Star Trek the Next Generation. ...well, I suppose one Star Trek adaption is allowed, given the genre here.

Now, as any Trek fan will tell you, this was not one of the good episodes. It's actually quite telling that Enterprise did an episode on cloning better. Yes, seriously. RuinQueen, who I must thank for allowing me the useage of Winter Breeze, put it best.

It ignores the actual ethical issues of cloning, that the clone is still human regardless of how its born. If you look at other stories that address the issue, even in Star Trek, either the clones are still treated as being living beings by many (such as various portrayals in The Clone Wars series) or if they have to be killed, there is a good reason (killing the Thrawn clone in the original EU to avoid the threat of Thrawn from returning)

Enterprise, you know the series that everyone hates for mostly legitimate reasons (seasons 3 and 4 were actually good, but not important here... okay kinda important this was a season 3 episode), actually did it better. There was an episode where the chief engineer was badly injured, so they cloned him to get organs to heal him. The clone was treated like a member of the crew and it addressed the ethical issues of creating a new life only to kill it so another life could be saved. When the clone finally was used for that purpose (willingly I might add), he was given a proper funeral and send off by the crew because they had become so close to him

So... um, Yeah. Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaahhh. Take Riker's clone a few years later. He would very much be treated as his own separate person in a way. As it stands though, Up The Long Ladder? it's a funny but still very early TNG episode. There's a reason Star Trek TNG is the trope namer for Growing the Beard.

Irony. Snodgrass wrote this episode but she also wrote Measure of a Man. Possibly the first true classic of the show.

Meh. Also, the story Stripped tells? It was inspired by one of the tales here. https://io9.gizmodo.com/these-are-all-your-most-insane-lab-stories-1695309166