After a pickup mission gone wrong, a Huragok (Called Engineers by humans) crashes in the Everfree Forest. Witnessing the crash-landing and her curiosity getting the better of her, Apple Bloom finds the little gasbag. After a traumatic first encounter, she takes the biological supercomputer home. While she and the other ponies try to figure out what a Huragok actually is, they are completely unaware of the danger it poses to them.

Note: This story takes place sometime after the Halo novel The Thursday War by Karen Traviss