Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you! I am totally back! This story is, like my other one, a collab, but this time, with people from the BKC-forum, a semi-official Archie Sonic Comic forum where the admins are the writers... anyways, this story is written by me and four others. Two of them are here and are called jkcool and Chris000... thank you for joining, guys ^^. The other two are "The KKM" and "Rick" on BKC. Well... here's the story...
The footsteps of one person could be clearly heard in the empty hallway of the MSF Frederick. This person was a two-tailed fox. He wore a dark blue boiler-suit with quite some stains on it, probably oil or a similar substance. His once white gloves were almost completely black. His eyes looked straight forward, emotionless, as if his mind was completely empty. As he walked on, he passed by several doors, all with a panel next to it attached to the wall with solid screws. None of them got his attention. As he passed one of the doors, it opened and a white echidna walked out the door. He glanced at the fox, but diverted his eyes to where he went: the opposite direction. The fox didn't turn around, but kept walking on, making a metallic sounds, every time his soles hit the floor. Behind the fox's back, his tails moved playfully around, a sign that what he showed on the outside was just a facade, hiding his true emotions. He arrived at a junction and turned left without hesitation, remembering clearly which way he should go. As he looked into the hallway ahead of him, he focused his eyes on the second on the right. He walked straight to the door and walked in. Fifteen minutes later, the door opened again and the fox appeared again, but this time, he had other clothes: those of a pilot. He had a slight smile on his face, as if he was about to do something cool he had wanted to do for a long time. He walked on, through many hallways, before arriving by upwards leading stairs. He walked upstairs and pushed up the scuttle in the roof. The smile grew bigger when he climbed into the big room, which proved to be a hangar. A couple of spacecrafts were standing here. Several people were walking around, doing their job, whatever that was. The fox looked around, searching for someone with his eyes. His eyes stopped searching when he saw a human in about the same clothes he had first been in, lying under one of the aircrafts, tinkering in the inside of the spacecraft. The fox walked towards him. He stopped before the spacecraft and looked down at the man's black shoes.
"Hey, Snively," the fox said to the mechanic.
The sound that Snively had made and pushed himself from underneath the spacecraft, to look up at Tails.
"Ah, Tails. It's almost ready... I only have to adjust some things... it'll take a few minutes."
Snively, with his huge nose, winked and then crawled under the aircraft yet again, leaving Tails standing before the spacecraft. Tails smiled while he turned around and walked at the front of the machine. Looking up to the cockpit, he sighed.
"It's been a while, beauty," he said dreamily. Suddenly, the intercom was turned on and a creaking sound filled the hangar. A few Mobians looked up. Then a voice announced:
"Last call for 2nd lieutenant Bennett and airmen Prower, O' Sharpis, Babylon and Hodgekins to go to the hangar and prepare for flight. Thank you."
The intercom was turned off again and everyone who had stopped with their work, went on. Tails looked around for the rest. Lieutenant Bennett, a green duck, with an eyepatch over his one eye, that was covered in mysteries, was talking to Jet Babylon. He'd seen Nack O' Sharpis a few seconds ago... only Sonic Hodgekins was missing in the hangar. As Tails was searching for Sonic, a blue blur shot into the room, apparently coming from one of the scuttles. Mobians looked up surprised, but when seeing who it was, they returned to working. There he was: Sonic. Tails saw Lieutenant Bennett looking at Sonic. Bennett said something to Babylon and then turned around, walking at Sonic.
"Tails," a voice suddenly said. Tails turned his head to where he thought the voice coming from and saw Snively wiping his oily hands of with a rag.
"You ready?" Tails asked.
Snively nodded.
"Good," Tails said.
Snively turned around and walked away to one of the scuttles. This was probably his last job for now. Not many really trusted Snively and his Uncle Julian Eggman, two humans who had been rescued two years ago after a terrible accident, where all the mechanics and a few other soldiers had been killed. Despite this, Tails and Snively were good buds and knew each other very well.
Tails climbed into the cockpit of the one-person spacecraft.
"Man," Tails said to himself, "I missed this!"
He saw O' Sharpis, Babylon, Bennett and Hodgekins climbing into the cockpits of their own spacecrafts. Tails looked around in the cockpit... it had been a while since the last time he had flown an Eagle, the name of this kind of spacecrafts. Eagles were the most commonly used spacecrafts in the MSF, Mobian Space Forces. The last time he had flown an Eagle was one year ago, in a battle against a group of aliens called Black Arms. He barely escaped his former ship before it blew to pieces. A shard of the ship had hit his Eagle back then and it was a wonder that he could manage to get to safety. Tails was one of the best mechanics on the ship and that his main job. This time, though, the Frederick had gotten an SOS from the MSF Nate, that was damaged after a fierce battle with the humans. They got a mechanical problem, which disabled the entire ship to fly. Mechanics there were not able to solve the problem, so they asked the Frederick if they could help. And since this area was full of human spacecrafts, Tails got protection from four people of the Air Force.
