Rainbow stormed to the bridge, but Twilight wasn't there. Seething, she demanded to know where she was. The others were happy to redirect her to Twilight's personal room. Rainbow relaxed just a little. "Oh, okay." She turned about and stomped in that direction. "A private chat? That's fine."

She stopped outside the door and took a slow breath. "Better start on a friendly tone." She straightened her back and offered a small smile. "Ah, there we go." With that, she tapped at the nearby intercom. "Twi, you in there?" That came out a bit more hostile than she planned. "Wanna talk?"

The door slid open near silently.

Rainbow trotted through, taking that as an invitation. "Seriously, I could have taken that thing. We abandoned the first seed with it right in front of us. Shoot, not even sure I could call it 'in front' when I was already inside it!"

Twilight turned in her seat to face Rainbow. "It was too much of a risk. A single gunshot, a thrown rock, whatever that monster might do, could have alerted others. It was a single pony, we don't know what kind of threat the rest of them are." She pressed her hooves together. "And just because you saw one, doesn't mean there was only one. Did you hear what it said? It wasn't acting entirely alone. This whole world should be considered off-limits until a military vessel—" She took a shuddering breath. "—comes along and burns it entirely to the ground."

Rainbow worked her jaw. "That sounds awful. But they haven't even done anything to us." She spread her wings in frustration. "He didn't even get a single bite out of me!"

"Because we left!" Twilight put a hoof to her chest, taking the calming breath Cadance had shown her. "And possibly only because of that. Rainbow, you are space hardened, but that might not have protected you against biological threats. Whatever killed that pony? I could not be sure you were immune to it. Worse, what if it stole your free will the same way?"

Rainbow puffed out her chest. "Hey, I'm way too awesome for some stupid disease to take me down!" She paused and deflated slightly. "I've never heard of a space disease."

Twilight marched up to thump Rainbow directly in the center of her chest. "We are on an exploratory mission, and space is nothing if not big. We will see a lot of new things, and a lot of nothing. Prepare for a lot of both."

Rainbow raised her wings, then dropped them slowly. "Twilight, look. You're the captain here. I won't disobey orders, but we gotta get these guys out of there, right?"

"We do not. Our priority is to keep ourselves alive and intact to get to the other seeds. The military won't spare ships for our mission. The others need us more than they need us to throw ourselves at this planet. I've marked this planet. The update is being beamed back towards Earth. If it gets there before we do, at least they'll know what to expect, and can decide what they want to do. But us? We're moving on."

Rainbow pouted. "Can't I just go down there and punch a few things to see how tough they are?"

Twilight narrowed her eyes at Rainbow. "That will most certainly not happen." Suddenly she pounced Rainbow, hugging her tightly. "I will not lose you just so you can soothe your ego. Rainbow, calm down."

Rainbow struggled in the hug. "Okay, okay, fine." She flailed about until Twilight released her. "Man, that was rough." She dusted herself off with her wings. "So, I should have been scared."

"Very!" Twilight threw up a hoof. "You are as close as science allows to being invulnerable to physical attacks. If that thing was just a physical threat, we'd be laughing. You saw it! That pony, what happened to it. I don't think any brute physical trauma caused that. I doubt it was radiation, which you're also fairly well hardened against. Ultimately, we don't know, and that's the worst position to be in." She trotted past Rainbow, pacing the room. "Too many unknowns. This is our first stop. Failing here? No, too risky."

Rainbow shuffled awkwardly. "Okay, fine. We leave this one alone." She fell into a sitting position with a sigh. "This sucks. They're down there, all trapped and helpless."

At that, Twilight flopped down to her own haunches. "Yeah." She met Rainbow's eyes. "That, yeah." She adjusted her glasses with her glowing magic. "It isn't fair. Nopony deserves that end. I want to help them, but I want to help a lot of ponies, and there's only one of us, and only one of these ships." She quirked a smile. "Even if that isn't technically true, any other mes or yous are busy on other ships."

Rainbow burst into a laugh at that. "Other yous? They probably are ships!" She closed with Twilight, touching nose to nose. "I like us being physical this time. I missed sharing your air, silly as that sounds."

Twilight bumped her nose back. "Maybe once we're back home, we can both find a ship and just fly away together for a few months."

Rainbow smiled at that, but her expression hardened a little. "Okay, so if we're not going back down there, what's the next step?"

Twilight raised a hoof to answer, then slowly dropped it. "Good question." She put a hoof to her temple. "Cadance? What are your thoughts?"

Cadance appeared in shimmering holographic form before solidifying enough to be barely discernable from any living pony. "The other aides have been working hard on picking candidates for the next seed. I have a list of the three closest and most likely options. One is putting out a live signal; which makes it very interesting."

Twilight sat up at attention. "Signal? Let me see it!" She rushed over to a monitor to see what Cadance was sharing. "That's a standard pony distress signal! That is very promising!" She clapped her hooves. "Let's set course immediately. Maybe they're alive and waiting for us."

Rainbow caught Twilight before she could rush to the bridge. "Hold on. I feel silly telling you to slow down right after you had to stop me, but just because it's crying for help doesn't mean it's for sure gonna be good. It could be somecreature else hoping to lure something to it. We still have to have our ears up and eyes open."

Twilight waved that away. "If someone's broadcasting a distress signal, there's no reason to doubt they're looking for help. At least it doesn't seem to be anything hostile." She nudged Rainbow playfully. "Besides, now's the time for you to show how amazing you are, Rainbow. We'll keep our wits about us, but this is too promising to not at least look. We did at least that for this planet, and it was far less promising."

Rainbow huffed, but smiled all the same. "Yeah, that's fair." She chuckled a little. "Alright, let's go do this. Let's rescue some ponies!"

Twilight pressed her hooves together a moment before she accelerated to the bridge, Rainbow not far behind her. "We have a new target!" At her words, the star system of that target came up on the main screen with information about it and its location flashing. "Set a course and warm the Sparkle Gate. When the Gate is ready, use it. We have a live distress signal."

Harriet began tapping away at her station. "A distress signal? Really?"

"Yes." Twilight sat in her captain's chair with a wide grin. "This one looks promising. It seems like they might even still be alive down there."

Harriet beamed. "I'm glad to hear it. I'll get the gate spinning, and we can be off to find them."

The whole bridge came alive with excitement as each did their part to get things moving. The Sparkle Gate would take time to warm up, but they had the ship pointed in the right direction and sailing in the meantime.

Twilight admired the main screen as the world was centered. "It's an aquatic planet. Think we can get you all water-worthy, Rainbow?"

Rainbow zipped about. "Totally!" She scoffed at the idea. "As if I'm not already. Does mean I'll want to come in gentle. Crash landing into a bunch of water's harder than land, funny enough. She inclined her head. "Ponies are not fish though. Why'd they pick a water planet?"

Twilight waved that away. "It's primarily water, not entirely water. If they are on land, that narrows the search quite a bit."

"Mostly water, hmm?" Rainbow blinked slowly as she considered that. "Okay, but there is no way I'm doing this alone."

"I know you're not alone, Rainbow." Twilight gave her friend a small smirk. "There are several of us here with you." She waved at the rest of the bridge crew. "We would have gone down with you on the last if you weren't so eager to rush ahead of us. Be a little more patient."

Rainbow crossed her arms and flopped in place with a pout. "Well, can't help it. There's an adventure to go on, and you guys are too slow." She flapped her wings for emphasis.

Twilight gestured to the gate drive. "We need that charged, or we're not going anywhere fast. Be grateful we have it. Once it is charged, we'll be there in a clap of the hooves."

"Right. I'll be waiting." Rainbow left with a powerful flap, abandoning the bridge for the moment.

"Huh." Twilight turned to face Harriet, looking over her shoulder at the screen before them. "She did not object at all."

Harriet nodded slowly. "No, ma'am." She smiled a little. "Rainbow trusts you, even if she puts on a big show. Some people are like that."

Twilight sighed with a gentle smile. "Yeah. Speaking of that, how's North Star? I didn't see him on the crew registry."

"The moment he got a look at Earth, he didn't want to go anywhere." Harriet laughed at the memory. "He's a botanist, and Earth has more plants than any one person could even dream of looking at. He fell in love with the whole world and quit space faring. I couldn't even be mad at him."

Twilight chuckled at that. "I have no room to talk. I've done my fair share of looking around." She considered her own experiences and a slow sigh escaped her. "I remember those first moments of exploration. I started with such little foal steps, learning how to be prosocial." She rubbed a hoof on her cheek. "I feel very silly about it, looking back. Ahem! Thank you, Harriet. Carry on."

Harriet sat taller in her seat. "Yes, ma'am!" She worked her keys rapidly. "Sparkle Gate charging smoothly. All systems nominal."

Twilight turned her attention to the gate drive itself. It took up an entire room of the ship, a series of concentric rings that were slowly spinning up. At the center was a vortex of light and power. She ran a hoof over the display of the room and the power she could imagine was within. "The apex of pony and human technology, come together." The two were melding in all sorts of fascinating ways. They were becoming harder to tell apart as the years went by with the two races joyfully working together.

Cadance appeared nearby in holographic form. "Your students are growing into quite capable scientists." She glanced at the monitor where Twilight had been staring before. "I wish I was there to help them."

Twilight stretched her front legs up. "You are."

Cadance started at that before it hit her. "I suppose I am. I'm still getting used to this new being. Do you ever get used to there being more than one of you, Twilight?"

Twilight waved Cadance over for a one-armed embrace. "You do, I promise. I know there are dozens of other iterations of me, out there, in space, helping pilot entire ships." She laughed at the idea. "Largely by being the ships. I'll learn how they did the next time my sync is properly integrated with the master copy. That will be when future mes will learn how I did as well, and how they all come back together into one Twilight timeline, shared among us all."

Cadance made a small sound. "I guess it would be easy to get lost in all of that." She glanced at Twilight with a gentle look. "But you're you, right now, not them."

"I'm me." Twilight nuzzled into Cadance gently. "You're you. Don't spend too much time worrying about the others. We have plenty to worry about in front of us."

The Sparkle Gate thrummed gently, sending a low note through the entire ship. The vortex began to flare brightly, an outward sign of its power.

Harriet began her countdown. It was time to get going to that second seed.

Author's Note

Though one planet was scuttled, the mission as a whole is not. Let's face the next.

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