Chapter 2

Armadi – 11 hours later

Line after line of data filtered onto the screen before Seltic, falling into place in the growing log. Seltic leaned back into his chair and plopped his boots onto the table beside the computer. He loosely grasped his mug and sipped the relaxing coffee as he pretended to pay attention to the meaningless array of garbled data. The data would take some time to decode before it could be read, but Seltic took comfort in that his computer flickered a confirmation of its ability to understand it. Robotnik was careless; the encryption patterns for the radio traffic Seltic was logging had been stolen years ago, and Robotnik hadn't bothered to change it.

He glanced at the clock on the screen and smiled as he took note of the early morning hour. After the events of the night before, he found himself unable to sleep. Seltic often found himself in such situations, either something found in Robotropolis was too much to resist studying into the night, or he would stay up late performing any number of tasks with his computer.

Seltic yawned loudly before gulping the last of his drink. He was normally resistant to boredom and could continue to watch the computer for some time, but even he realized that there were more productive things to be doing. Content to leave the computer to its task, he pulled himself from his chair and stretched. As he turned and prepared to leave the room, the computer blurted out an alarm. He instinctively whirled to face the screen, and watched curiously as the normal flow of letters and numbers were replaced by haphazard strings of red text. The computer again blared the alarm, prompting him to mute it. A warning flashed across the screen, "Unrecognized encryption pattern, possible data corruption – check connections."

He sighed and dismissed the warning message. This error was relatively common given the nature of their second-hand equipment, and Seltic suspected that the communication line from the antenna had come loose for the hundredth time. Normally he would leave it alone and fix it later, but there was little else to do at the moment, and he knew that Maya would want to monitor Robotnik as much as was possible.

He grabbed his coat, slid it on and checked his pockets for a couple of tools. His hands brushed against a set of instruments in his pockets, but he figured that odds were against them being the correct ones. From the drawers beneath the computer he pulled a pair of sensor tipped tubes, and plugged them into some of the powered computer ports lining the inside of his coat. He tossed them into one of his pockets and walked out of the door at the back of the room. He lazily clomped down the stairs, and grabbed a portable computer hanging from a hook at the base of the stairs.

The door slid open as he tapped the control, spilling daylight into the dim room. He stepped outside and slung the computer around his shoulder. In the early hours silence would normally encompass the sprawl of buildings, but the excitement of the night before had everyone up early. Seltic glanced over to the separation between the storage garage and the building he had converted into a house and workshop for himself and his sister. The image of the radio antenna jutted out from behind the garage.

With the computer secured he set out towards the antenna. As he approached, he unsurprisingly saw nothing immediately wrong with the setup. He snatched one of the connectors leading from the antenna loose and opened up the computer. After plugging it into the laptop he pressed a series of keys and studied the screen as data began to flow onto it. He puzzled as he watched the computer run a series of tests, all finding no problems with the connection. The only possible problem remaining was the cable running to his workshop, which would take days to replace.

Before accepting such a time consuming job, he plugged the portable computer directly into the antenna. Perhaps he would be lucky enough to only have to replace the antenna. At first, the computer reported a normal connection and began to read the encrypted data being broadcast from Robotropolis. Seltic sighed and frowned, instead it looked like he might have to replace some parts on his computer. As he prepared to close the computer, a familiar group of red, garbled data began to flow into the screen.

He relaxed at the result, and closed the computer. Finding a new antenna would be immensely easier than locating the needed computer parts, and they needed a new one anyway. He placed the connector back into the antenna and stood. As he took a step from behind the garage, he heard someone shouting something to him.

He turned to see Stanley racing towards him from the far end of the town, throwing his arm into the air to catch Seltic's attention. "What did you say?" he shouted back.

"Maya's called a meeting," he replied as he reached a more manageable distance.

"This early?" Seltic asked, stopping a few steps in front of him.

"Yeah, she said she thinks she knows what happened last night, and she doesn't seem too happy about it."

"I don't suppose she is, regardless of what happened," Seltic replied, staring into the woods towards the former location of the lookout station. "In the meeting hall right? Or is she at her house?"

"Yeah, the meeting hall. Where's Sissera? She wants everyone there."

"I think she's in bed."

"Ok, I'd better go get her then."

"No, I'll do it. I've got to take all of this stuff back anyway," Seltic said, raising the computer slightly.

"Alright then," Stanley replied as he turned and jogged back.


Despite having his field of view completely blocked by Vladimir's massive frame as the two entered the cafeteria hastily converted into a meeting hall, Stanley could feel the anxiety of everyone already inside. From the dining area, the mottled sounds of voices filled the hallway.

"What did Miss Maya want?" He heard Marcus direct to him.

"I'm not exactly sure, but I guess we'll find out soon," he replied as he entered the busy room. The spacious room that normally held only a pair of tables was now crowded with a slew of chairs, boxes of papers, and a handful of the others. Maya stood at the end of the room on a makeshift platform, nodding as she saw the three enter the room. Vladimir found a seat in the rear row as usual, followed by Stanley and Marcus. Kyros entered from a door to their right. He passively eyed everyone before taking his customary seat in front of Maya, beside Tantalus and Sissera.

"It looks like everyone but Seltic is here, so I'll go ahead and begin," Maya addressed them. "I don't suppose I really need to explain why I called this meeting, given the events of last night. There have been a few developments though, that I feel you should all know about."

She paused as Seltic quietly entered the room. "Sorry, I was having a bit of computer trouble," he said to her, smiling meekly.

"It's fine, just have a seat," she replied with a tired frown. Seltic found his usual seat beside his sister. "As I was saying, there are a few things that have come up that I think should be addressed."

She reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a handful of papers. After thumbing through them, she laid the first on a rusted and battered overhead projector. The image of the incinerated lookout station shined onto a screen fixed to the wall behind her.

"I had Seltic take a few pictures last night after everything calmed down, and I've come to a conclusion about the cause of the fire. But first, does anyone have any ideas on the cause, or any... confessions to make?"

Everyone glanced at one another in curiosity before returning their gaze to the out of focus image. Maya looked each one in the eye before fixing her eyes on Kyros.

"I would assume it was an electrical fire," Seltic offered. Sissera nodded in agreement.

"I think we all suspected that at first," Maya coolly continued. "But that's not what happened."

She reached into her pocket and produced a small white tube. "I found this on Kyros last night."

Kyros stiffened as she raised it high enough for everyone to see. "So?"

"It seems that Kyros has been smoking while on watch duty," she said to the group before looking down to Kyros again.

"Again, so? What does it matter?" he growled. "What does that have to do with the fire?"

She smiled and placed another picture onto the projector. "If you'll look closely at this picture, you'll see that the fire clearly started right here." The image showed a badly burned spot next to the window on the fallen station. "After reviewing the path of the fire, it's obvious that the fire started at the station, and Seltic couldn't find any evidence that it started inside."

"So, what are you saying then?" he snapped.

"I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that a cigarette that you discarded last night started the fire."

"You can't prove that, and so what if I smoke? It doesn't hurt anyone else."

"How can you say that? Not only did you smoke behind our backs, you ended up destroying the station, burning half of the forest down, and nearly killing yourself! Just imagine what would have happened if the fire made it back here!"

Kyros grew silent for a moment. "But it didn't. Look, everything turned out fine, no one got hurt. I'm sorry that I was still smoking out there, but we're all still alive. The station can be replaced."

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. "Yes, but that's beside the point. Your bad habit and negligence could have caused a much larger problem. We're all still fine right now, but I don't know for how much longer."

"What do you mean?" Kyros asked, trying to change the subject.

"I mean, what about Robotnik? We know he didn't start the fire, but that's only the beginning. I'm sure that he knows it happened. What would happen if he happened to take a picture of the area with a satellite? If he decided to investigate the cause, he'd find us for sure!"

Seltic's eyes grew wide at the statement.

"What's the matter?" Tantalus asked as he caught a glimpse of his face.

"I think we might have a problem..."

"What do you mean?" Maya asked.

"Remember those computer problems I mentioned? I'm not sure they were problems after all."

"Go on."

"I was monitoring the radio traffic coming from Robotropolis earlier today, since I had nothing better to be doing and couldn't sleep. A few minutes before Stanley came and got me, the computer claimed that it was receiving some signals it couldn't decipher. At first I assumed it was a glitch or connection problem with the antenna, but I couldn't find anything. I didn't have time to finish investigating it, but it could mean that Robotnik is transmitting something using a new encryption scheme. Obviously something he doesn't want us to know about."

"Did you find out where the signal was heading?"

"I didn't try to find the source, but it couldn't have been too far away. It's possible that an air patrol saw the fire and transmitted the data back to Robtnik.."

Maya's face grew obviously worried. "We don't have any choice then. We're going to have to head to Robotropolis and find out if Robotnik knows anything. We can't take any chances."

"Great, then I guess I keep monitoring the signal while you guys are away."

Maya looked away. "We're all going. We have to cover as much ground as possible, as quickly as possible. That means that you're going too."

Seltic swallowed. "Uh... o-okay,"

"So unless anyone else has anything that they need to say, you're all dismissed until then. We'll be leaving immediately after dinner tonight."

Seltic looked down in thought. "If we're all going, then we'll need to take both hovercraft. One is still in bad shape after the firefight during its last mission. I'll need someone strong to help me get it back into shape. I should be able to get it working by tonight though."

"Alright, Kyros, unless you have something pressing, help him out. The rest of you, you might want to get some sleep if you haven't already. It's probably going to be an all night mission."

She waved as she stepped down to signal that the meeting was over. Everyone stood after a moment and began to quietly converse. Kyros groaned and rocked to his feet. "Alright Seltic, let's go."

As the two approached the door, Maya called to them, "And Kyros, I'm not done with you yet. We'll finish this after the mission."

Kyros cut his eyes to her and followed Seltic outside. Maya sifted through the dispersing crowd to find Marcus, and motioned for him to approach when he noticed her. "It's our turn to cook tonight," she said to him, smiling. "Unless you're too tired."

"No ma'am, I'm alright."

"Alright then, I'll see you back here tonight."


"Here it is," Vladimir said to Tantalus as he towed a flatbed cart into the storage garage. He pulled the cart to a stop next to the squirrel, who was busy staring into a clipboard.

"Huh? Oh, alright," he replied, snapping out of the trance.

"What do we need to get?"

Tantalus glanced back to the list. "First thing's first, I suppose. We'll need a few guns. Let's see...," he trailed off in thought. "Four or five should be enough. I think Kyros put them in the second locker room over there," he said, pointing blindly in the general direction.

"Very well," Vladimir said, marching off.

"I suppose we'll need some ammo too," he whispered to himself. "Grab a crate of energy packs while you're back there!" he shouted after his assitant.

Normally Kyros would be the one to select the weapons and equipment to be brought on a mission, but since he was busy helping Seltic the duty fell to Tantalus. The laser guns were all but a given for most missions, but selecting everything else wouldn't be as simple. He had spoken with Maya briefly, but she was too mentally exhausted to give him much more advice than that she wanted to keep as low of a profile as possible. After all, being caught during the mission would make the entire effort pointless.

"I could not find the power packs in the storage room," Vladimir interrupted, placing an armful of laser guns on the cart.

"You didn't see the crate back there?"

"No, the room was mostly empty."

"He probably put them in the main room," Tantalus muttered, dropping the clipboard. "I'll have to get the combination from his room. Grab a couple of radio sets while I'm gone."

"Understood."

Tantalus tucked the clipboard under his arm and made off towards the stairs against the back wall of the garage. The rusted metal steps creaked noisily as he ascended the stairs. Below, he saw Vladimir sifting through a crate, mumbling as his efforts failed to turn up what he sought. Tantalus clanked along the scaffolding towards another flight of stairs disappearing into the ceiling.

He slid his card key through a reader situated at the top of the stairs, and with a confirming beep the door before him snapped open. The lights inside the room shined to life moments later, illuminating a clothes-ridden floor. His eyes tracked across the countless objects hanging from the walls, stopping as he noticed a notebook piled under empty drink cans situated on a nightstand next to his bed. He groaned and forced his way through the sea of dirty clothes and discarded papers. The cans fell to the floor as he snatched the notebook, clacking against some solid object hidden beside the bed. Tantalus peered into the crevice and smirked as he caught a glimpse of a laser pistol. Kyros was never far from a weapon should he need it.

Tantalus flipped through the notebook, stopping at the last page of numbers. Every week the main storage room was given a new combination, and Kyros was responsible for keeping up with it. While it was a good safety precaution, Kyros only did it because the part that they had stolen to lock the room required it. It had been taken from Robotropolis many years ago, when Robotnik still bothered to keep a tight lock on everything.

Vladimir met Tantalus at the base of the stairs. "I can't find the radios, either."

Tantalus sighed, and replied, "I guess Seltic has them at his workshop. Could you go get them? I got the combo so I'll get the the rest of the stuff here."

"Very well."

As Vladimir left the garage he walked over to the main storage closet and keyed in the combination. He stepped into the cramped room and eyed the stacks of crates. Naturally, the crate of fresh energy clips was at the bottom of the mountain. He frowned at the thought of sending Vladimir off instead of having him move the heavy boxes. As he read the labels of the other crates he relaxed slightly. Fortunately they contained other things they should probably bring as well, such as some grenades, ion charges, and a heavy repeating laser cannon.

They were a little more than low profile, but there had been more than one occasion that they had been caught in a fighting retreat and could have benefited from better weapons. He smiled as he lifted the top from laser cannon's container. Kyros would have probably chosen it too.


"Could you hold this?" Seltic said to Kyros as he lifted the access door on the side of the hovercraft. "Just like that."

"Okay," the echidna replied, bracing the hatch open.

Seltic forced a lever next to the hydraulics down, resulting in a loud hiss as the drained system sprayed the remaining fluid onto the floor of the craft. He opened a floor panel and examined the torn hydraulic lines.

"You can let go now."

Kyros cautiously released the door. It slowly drifted down a short distance before locking into place.

"The hydraulics system is shot in the whole craft, but otherwise it's still in pretty good shape. I think the compressors in the left engine were hit too, but that shouldn't take too long to fix," Seltic thought out loud.

Kyros leaned up against the craft. "Anything else I can do?"

Seltic jumped out and looked around. He stooped down and looked underneath the ship, shining a light to brighten the underside. "Yeah, the fluid tank under here was hit by some SWATbot beams. Bring the jack over here and lift it up."

Kyros silently obliged, and stood up. He walked over to the jack and grabbed the handle, and dragged to over to the spot Seltic indicated. With Seltic's direction, he positioned the jack and pumped the handle several times to lift the hovercraft sufficiently.

"That's good," Seltic said as Kyros raised the lever the final time. He grabbed a powered drill and slid under the gap provided by the jack, positioning himself under the damaged tank. "So, how long have you been doing this?"

"Doing... what?" Kyros asked.

"You know, smoking while no one's looking."

"A few years I guess, why do you care?"

"Just curious. I guess it was too hard to quit after all."

"Yeah. But it doesn't matter now I guess, Maya's going to be watching me constantly."

Seltic unbolted the tank and hefted it slowly onto the ground. He pushed it out from under the ship, and asked Kyros, "Move that out of the way, would you?"

"Fine. I guess she's going to have me doing manual labor for the rest of my life too."

"Don't be that way. She's got all of our best interests at heart, including yours."

Kyros was silent.

Seltic slipped back out from under the ship and sat up. "Look, everything did turn out alright this time, but Maya has a point. This could have been a major disaster, and you could have been killed."

"I get that! I know how serious this is!"

Seltic paused for a moment. "I'm just saying that you shouldn't have any hard feelings over it."

"I don't. I'm just ticked off about the whole thing."

Seltic stood and picked up the damaged tank. "Well, don't worry about it. You know how she is, she'll probably cool off after a few days. If the mission goes well tonight, maybe she'll get over it even sooner."

"I guess."

"At least you'll get a chance to let some of this out on Robotnik tonight," Seltic said as he tossed the tank into a pile of junk lining the side of his workshop. He picked up a spare set of empty air tanks and placed them under the ship. "These aren't exactly made for this, but I think they'll work."

He bolted them into place underneath the ship and ran a series of hoses from the hydraulic system to them. "There's a tank of fluid for the system next to the shop somewhere, could you hand me the hose attached to it?"

Kyros grabbed the tubing running from a large, fixed container next to the shop. He tossed it under the the ship and asked, "This one?"

Seltic examined the connector and replied, "Yeah, thanks." He plugged it into a receptacle on the tanks and waited for a few moments as it charged the system. "Okay, that should be enough to test it. Pull the lever inside the ship up and try to open and shut the door."

"Alright," Kyros replied. He forced the heavy lever up and reached for the controls. The door clicked and folded shut as he pressed a button, locking into place as it closed. Another press of the button sent the door upwards again.

"Great, looks like the system will hold long enough for us to finish tonight at least. That just leaves a few details to work out. We've been working for a few hours, but it shouldn't take long to finish," Seltic said as he pulled himself from under the ship. As he began to lower the jack, a loud set of rings from a distant bell echoed through the town.

"Great, because it sounds like dinner's ready," Kyros replied.


The aroma of the cooking foods filled the air as Kyros approached the cafeteria. Given the stress that he had been through, food had been the last thing on his mind. The smell of whatever Maya was brewing was beginning to overwhelm any of his moderation remaining. Today he was extra thankful that Maya was cooking, as she was the only one to actually prepare much a meal. The others, himself included, were usually limited to heating up some form of prepackaged food looted from Robotroplis.

As he pushed through the double doors leading to the cafeteria, he found Marcus finishing his job of repositioning the tables and chairs. Whenever Maya cooked, she tried to get him to help out however he could. Without anyone his own age to interact with, Marcus enjoyed any opportunity to work with the others.

"So, what's for dinner?" Kyros asked.

"Spaghetti," Marcus replied, dragging another chair over to a table.

Kyros didn't like spaghetti much, but his hunger was beginning to return in full force. "Okay, need any help there?"

"No, I think I got it."

As Marcus returned to the separate kitchen, Tantalus and Vladimir entered the cafeteria. Vladimir silently walked over to his normal seat and sat down. Tantalus approached Kyros. "I went ahead and got most of the equipment together since you were busy."

"Thanks, anything worth mentioning?"

"Mostly the usual things. Laser rifles and ammo, radios, a few grenades, and the like. I did pick up the repeating laser though. I remember how rough things got last time so I brought it along."

"Sounds good. Who's lugging it around?"

Tantalus paused. "I didn't really think about it, but I guess Vladimir can. I guess it depends on the squads you pick."

"Yeah," Kyros replied, looking up as Stanley, Seltic, and Sissera filtered in.

As everyone found their usual spots and began to converse, Maya and Marcus appeared from the kitchen, with a large pot of spaghetti in tow. With a little help from Vladimir, they set it in the center of the table.

Maya walked to and stood at her seat. "Before we eat tonight, I think we need to have another little talk," she announced. Everyone stopped their conversations and looked to her. Kyros cringed.

"I know that we've been through a lot in the past day, and that there may be some hard feelings between some of us at the moment. But, I've been having a bad feeling about everything lately, and I just want us all to remember... that no matter what happens, we're all in this together. There's always that chance that one of us won't make it back tomorrow, and I don't want any of us to leave here tonight with a grudge or hard feelings."

Everyone looked around the room, remaining silent. "Does anyone have anything that they want to say before we eat?" No one spoke.

"Alright then, everyone dig in. And Kyros, I know you don't like spaghetti too much, but we're running low on supplies."

"It's fine," he replied, "I guess I deserve it anyway."


As Maya quietly entered the garage where everyone was assembling for the mission ahead, she passively observed the final preparations being made. Kyros and Tantalus directed Vladimir in the loading of the equipment onto the ships, Seltic worked feverishly to finish the repairs on the damaged craft, and Marcus and Sissera watched in a bored stupor. As she walked to the center of the room, Seltic triumphantly slammed the engine covers of the craft.

He looked over to her and said, "Okay, that should finalize the repairs. Well, it should last for a few days anyway, I'm not a real mechanic."

"Good, it looks like we'll make it to my deadline," she replied. Noticing that the equipment had been completely loaded, she threw her hand into the air to get everyone's attention. "Alright everyone, just a little briefing before we leave."

The group grew silent and turned their attention to her. "I just want to make it clear what our objectives are for this mission. First, and most critical, we absolutely must determine if Dr. Robotnik has recorded the fire, and if he has, if he plans to do anything about it.

"Second, like I said earlier today during dinner, we're starting to run low on food and other basic supplies. We also need to go ahead and begin looking for a replacement building or building supplies for the station. With any luck, we'll be able to locate something useful while we're in Robotropolis.

"And third, as always, we're on the look out for anything suspicious. We know that Robotnik is probably up to something, since he's been so quiet lately. If you see anything odd, or if you notice any targets of opportunity, don't hesitate to bring it up. We can't afford to miss anything.

"Having said that, I'm going to leave everything else up to Kyros, as usual. Kyros, if you would?" she continued, motioning for Kyros to pick up.

He blinked a few times in thought before answering, "Okay. I think that since everyone's going, and since we need to cover as much ground as possible, we'll split up into two squads. First, is me, Seltic, Tantalus, and Vladimir. We'll head to North Robotropolis and try to get into the main computers there.

"The second squad will be made up of Stanley, Sissera, Maya, and Marcus. You guys will head to east Robotropolis where Robotnik is always building new stuff. With any luck, you will find something there. If not, you can pick through the construction zones and trash heaps for anything useful."

"Anything else?" Maya asked.

"No, not really. Hopefully this won't be too tough."

"Alright then. Remember that we want to keep this as quiet as possible. Does anyone have any questions or suggestions?"

Everyone was quiet for a moment before Seltic spoke up, "I just want to remind everyone in squad two that I'm still looking for any damaged, destroyed, or just plain discarded robot parts. It doesn't matter if it's a SWATbot or a roboticized person."

Maya paused for a moment. "Anyone else?" No one spoke up.

"Very well then, if you're all ready, we can leave now."

"I'm ready," Kyros added.

"Me too," Stanley said.

Maya looked around, and asked, "Alright then, if anyone has anything they need to do before we leave, do it. We're leaving as soon as possible. Tantalus, you and Stanley are driving."

The two muttered a confirmation and entered their respective ships. The rest looked around momentarily before following, loading into their designated craft. Maya took a deep breath and waited for the drivers to start the hovercraft. As the two machines sputtered to life and flashed their lights on, she thumbed the garage light switch. The room fell dark, dimly illuminated by the internal lighting of the hovercraft. She mounted her ship and shut the door.

"Whenever you're ready Stanley," she directed to the front of the ship before taking a seat.