Rainbow landed on the ship's side. She pressed her hoof to a pad. With a slow scanning line, she was verified and allowed inside into the airlock. She trotted free of that with a confident smile. Every crew she passed could see the bag of jewels draped over her. They clapped for her, and she nodded in reply, a job well done.

She arrived on the bridge, waving the bag over her head. "Crystals!" She dropped them in front of Twilight. "Here ya go."

Twilight peeked into the bag. "This is everything? These are all the crystals you recovered?"

Rainbow groaned. "Yeah, why?"

Twilight continued to inspect the crystals. "In theory, one would have worked, but we have no idea what damage any one of them suffered. More is good." She willed them into the air, horn glowing. "Let's get them over to engineering. They can start analyzing them properly. There could be ponies in these."

Rainbow spread her wings, floating out of the room. "What's even with this planet?" She waved it off, leaving Twilight to handle the boring nerd stuff, as she was good for.

Twilight hurried the crystals over to the technicians. "Mark 1 data crystals." She set down the crystals far more gently than Rainbow had. "Please examine and begin data recovery. They may be redundant backups of one another, but we can't know that for sure until you've checked each."

A dragon, the only dragon of the crew, hopped to his feet. "Sure thing, Twi!"

Twilight inclined her head. "You're in good spirits, Spike."

Spike hopped onto a crystal, carefully sliding it into a slot in a large computer system. "I get to really start my thing. I'm excited!" He grabbed a different crystal and sniffed at it a moment before reaching for the next for the same, and the one after it. "They do smell similar. Probably backups. I'll check to be sure."

Twilight patted Spike on the back. "Thank you. Oh, we have the portable sync working. Will you be using it?"

Spike considered that a moment. "Sure," he arrived at without much of a delay.

Twilight smiled, ears up. "While I'm glad to hear a yes, that sure came quickly. You were already considering it?"

Spike waved a hand. "This may sound funny, but my mom named me for some ancient dragon of import." He rolled his eyes. "Who's still around. If that's good enough for her, I can deal with having a copy around. They won't get in the way of what I'm doing right now." He tapped at a keyboard, guiding the recovery process. "Besides, worked with enough computers to know backups are a good idea."

Twilight nudged him again. "And while this won't replace you, it will make us all feel a lot better knowing we have more of you on hand." She pat his back once more. "To be used only in the case of an emergency, of course. Sync copies are for nothing save severe calamities that—"

Spike huffed gently, "I know the deal, Twi. I gotta die before you load up new me. And new me would only know what I last backup up with. Just like a computer system. I get it." He smirked with a thought. "Unless they add me to the ship roster. Spike across the universe, helping countless crew deal with their computers." He laughed at the idea, eyes on the screen as data began showing as rolling lines of text. "First crystal shows promise. I should focus on this."

Twilight pointed at the door. "I have other tasks to handle. Please keep us informed if anything important comes up."

Spike gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "Yeah, yeah, sure."

Twilight backed away from Spike, knowing that wasn't her Spike, but a lovely dragon all the same. "Thank you, for coming. You had no obligation."

Spike perked a fin at her. "Huh? Look, I wasn't getting many job offers back on Earth. You did me a solid by giving me a chance to actually show off my skills." He leaned in. "Ah ha." He started some new program. "Pretty sure this is a pony."

Twilight clapped her hooves before setting off to not be in Spike's way anymore. She made her way swiftly in a trot back to the ship's bridge. "They're already making good progress on those crystals, but sitting idle while they work on that doesn't help any of the others. What's the next closest viable target?"

Harriet swiveled around. "On screen. We found one that is actively sending a signal."

The planet came up on screen, appearing far less peaceful than their last location. It was a molten planet, with little water, and a lot of active volcanoes. "I'm not sure what drew a seed to this world."

Twilight sank onto her chair. "Desperation. We started with what seemed to be the best odds and worked down, hoping some of them would work out." She took a slow breath. "It was extinction, and fighting it. Faced with that, you start to take any thread of a chance you can see."

Harriet pointed at their captain, Twilight. "You got the best one?"

"One of." Twilight rubbed behind her head. "I was also the head of the project. Perhaps that wasn't entirely fair, but we, I. Well, I was desperate too. Princess Celestia made the decision and I didn't argue it." She huffed softly. "The least I can do, now, is try to save the ones that didn't get lucky."

Rarity arrived with a soft pop of glittery magic. "Such a bleak way of thinking. This ship was crewed by a singular pony who believed so deeply in their people's ability to overcome adversity, they refused to die."

Twilight perked an ear at her digital friend. "How do you know which pony piloted this seed? We haven't arrived there, nor scanned their computers yet."

Rarity smiled, a mildly haunted expression. "Because I recognize the planet. She told me about it. I wanted to stop her, but there were few other options." She took a slow breath she didn't need. "If my guess is correct, the true Sweetie Belle is on that planet. If a signal is coming from it, perhaps she survived? That would be remarkable."

Twilight got to her hooves, eyes wide. "Is it?" She shifted her weight, looking left and right. "Harriet, how soon can we be there?"

"Given what I'm seeing here? Quite quickly." Harriet brought up a countdown clock. "The Sparkle Gate is almost finished its charge. I started it back up right away this time."

Twilight swept a hoof forward. "Then take us there."

Another pony approached Twilight. "Ma'am. I thought we already have Sweetie Belle."

Twilight winced at the question. "We have a Sweetie Belle, composed of our thoughts of the real thing. She's developed and grown since her creation, like all entirely digital ponies. Likely, the two are different ponies at this point. We'll let them meet and decide for themselves. That's a conversation only their answer will do for."

Rarity shook her head. "It was my memories that formed a large part of the Sweetie Belle we have. I do hope the real one, which we can rescue, isn't too offended by it."

Twilight tapped Rarity on the snout. "She won't be, because we'll be honest with her. No one is ever in trouble for an honest mistake." She spun to face Harriet. "How long until the gate activates?"

Harriet drew the countdown onto the main screen to answer that, but kept at her own work.

Twilight nodded at that ticking timing. "Rarity, don't feel bad." She offered an arm. "Let's get to her and see what she thinks before we decide if anything's wrong. Perhaps she'll be nothing but tickled."

"Perhaps." Rarity vanished without another word.

Twilight made a low sound as she considered the images of the planet. "I would not want to try starting a colony here." She shook her head at the heated planet. "I hope she survived."

"Twilight!" A new pony appeared, with a pink mane and tail, her eyes wide and frightened. "Twilight!" She adjusted her golden-topped glasses. "What happened?!"

Twilight inclined her head at that pony before it clicked. "Mayor Mare?"

Mayor Mare shuffled in place. "If I'm here, and entirely digital, that means—" She swallowed thickly. "I died. The mission was a complete failure." She began to dance in place. "Twilight! What happened? Is Equestria gone?"

Twilight raised a calming hoof. "Slow down. The status of Equestria is unknown at this time. Ponydom is not extinct. At least one seed took root with friendly creatures." She waved at the humans in view. "With wonderful others. We found your ship, and recovered your sync. How do you feel?"

Mayor Mare took a slow breath before looking over her digital self. "Well, I'm here." She looked up at her pink mane. "Ugh! Dear, please tell me how do I fix mistakes in my, hm, appearance?"

Twilight waved Mayor Mare closer. With soft words, she began to explain how a digital aide accessed their own control panel, and with it, controls for that. "You can be any color you wish."

Mayor Mare relaxed as she regained her stately grey shades. "That's better, even if I'm not mayor of much these days." She huffed. "I couldn't even be mayor of one small ship, apparently. Do you know what happened? Please, tell me."

Twilight extended a hoof. "We don't. I'm just glad we got a sync of you, even if it's from before you started the mission. Your ship was on a, hm." She reached out to tap a button. "Spike? Is Mayor Mare from the crystal we just recovered?"

Spike chirped back, "Looks like! Want me to install her as an aide now, or let her rest?"

Twilight tapped at her chin. "Just... Make sure she's on the crew roster. I doubt she wants to turn off that quickly. Besides, you can ask her directly."

"Please!" Mayor Mare swept her hooves through her mane. "The idea of being turned off forcibly is not at all agreeable. By the way, that dragon said his name is Spike, but that wasn't Spike, not the one I knew."

Twilight shook her head. "He was named after the real Spike, but he's the son of another dragon that served on a ship of mine. A good dragon by all measures I have to give."

"Aw, thanks, Cap." The line went dead with a laugh.

Twilight smiled a little. "You can trust on him to keep your program running smoothly. We're working to recover all the other ponies that were with you. Do you remember any of them?"

Mayor Mare shook her head. "I performed one sync, days before I was to head out and try to start a new colony. I hadn't yet met those who would go into space with me." She frowned at the idea. "That mission was, clearly, an abject failure. How did I mess it up so terribly?"

Twilight tapped at Mayor Mare's shoulder. Without entirely meaning to, it turned into a mutual hug. "I'm certain you did your best, Mayor Mare. I'm just glad we found you. We're on the way to the next planet. This is a seed rescue mission."

"Good!" Mayor Mare was raring to go, as much as her digital body would allow her. "I want to save the others. Let me know what I can do to help." She grinned as wide as she could. "Mayor Mare, reporting for duty!"

Twilight climbed back into her chair. "RD? Mayor Mare is recovered."

"Mayor Mare? Seriously?! Hey MM!"

MM perked an ear at the speaker Rainbow's voice was coming from. "You made it? Nice to hear from you, Rainbow."

Rainbow chuckled. "Glad to have you aboard. First official rescue of the mission!" She let out a whooping cheer even as Twilight ended that call.

Author's Note

Mayor Mare, online. She's a bit bummed her mission clearly failed, but hey, she's alive to try again! Now what happened with Sweetie's mission?

Join the special community of folks who like my stories and/or get your own here at atreon!

Don't want to do an ongoing thing? You could

Join my discord to chat!