Part Two:
Rise of the Robots
Six
Talbon sat hunched over the small desk in his cramped and dimly lit cabin. He was busy working on the structural plans for the job he was about to spend the next six months of his life on.
Three months ago his guild on Kitsune were contracted to construct a command and control centre for a warlord on some backwater world called Mobius. None of the higher ranking guildsmen had wanted such a low profile job, so it was pushed further and further down the ladder until it finally came to the last rung and falling on Talbon's lap.
"Why do I always end up with these blasted jobs?" Talbon sighed as he took a gulp of lukewarm tea. He and his team had only just gotten home from another contract before being sent straight back out on this one. Talbon sighed he hated working for these terran savages, but working for them kept the savages away from his homeworld. Like the terrans hadn't left their mark anyway, he thought to himself bitterly.
Distracted from his work by the protestations of his aching body, he began to massage his white furred muzzle before turning his attention to his bushy, tawny coloured tail, working out the tension that had built up in his muscles after sitting still for so long.
The middle-aged fox was shattered but he had to get the revisions done before they arrived. Mobius was a fairly ordinary planet, from what Talbon had read of it, but the base's plans still needed to be fine-tuned for conditions and purpose. And as the head architect of the team, the fine-tuning was left up to him.
A sharp knock at the cabin door woke him from his stupor.
"Enter," Talbon called.
Another fox entered the small cabin, his fur was a coppery colour and he was slightly taller than Talbon. The newcomer was carrying a dented and dull silver tray bearing a bowl of steaming broth. "I thought I'd bring you something to eat, seeing as you weren't at breakfast this morning, boss."
Talbon cast a quick glance at a small ornamental clock that stood to one side on his desk. The delicate hands read 11.42. It was nearly the afternoon, Talbon realised with slight surprise, though that statement held little meaning within the confines of the little ship.
It was only then that he realised just how hungry he was. "Thanks, Jonas."
"No problem. I've worked with you long enough to know that you miss meals far too often for your own good. Y'know some people might begin to wander after all these years of missing meals, whether you just don't like their cooking," Jonas said with a wry smile.
Talbon laughed as he took the bowl. "How is everything today?"
"Fine, but the newbie's starting to drive Vasilis up the wall."
"Why, what's she up to?" Talbon shot Jonas a quizzical look as he took a spoonful of the steaming broth.
"She's getting under his feet and fretting over every little thing."
"She'll learn to calm down eventually," Talbon said and Jonas agreed. "What about the old guy?"
"Doling out advise as usual, the way he goes on you'd think he was Mystic. Er, no offence, boss," Jonas added quickly.
"None taken, I know first hand how irritating Mystics can be." Talbon gave his friend a reassuring smile.
"Well I'd better get back to work," Jonas said, suddenly uneasy. "If I leave Vas alone with the newbie much longer, who knows what might happen." And with that Jonas retreated from the little cabin. Leaving Talbon alone once more.
Talbon's attention turned to a picture frame that stood besides him on the desk. The scruffy discoloured photograph held within was old, but it was the only one he had in which they were all together.
From it stared back a much younger Talbon, one who was still full of the hope and vigour that life had promised. He was smiling happily an arm around his wife Marion, who held their newborn daughter Morain, wrapped in a bundle of blankets. Beside them stood their son, Errol. They were all standing in front of their home on Kitsune. Talbon missed his family and little home back in Shirob city so very much.
Kitsune society was split into two groups, Tech-Smiths and Mystics. While the Tech-Smiths were the scientists and workforce of Kitsune, the Mystics served as its advisors and philosophers.
Before she had retired, Marion used to be an advisor for some of the galaxy's most powerful lords and warlords. In fact that was how they had first met.
Talbon smiled at the memory; 20 years ago she was in the service of Warlord Grann. Talbon had been contracted to design a new warship for him, but Grann was incredibly superstitious and he first wanted a Mystic to bless the designs before he began production.
At first he saw her and her retinue as mere nuisances, that constantly got in the way of his real work. But over the weeks and months that they worked together, they slowly grew closer to each other. They each found a familiar comfort in the other, surrounded by an alien and hostile world. And the rest, as they say, is history.
"Sir, realspace transition initiated. Estimated time until window opening is twelve minutes and thirty eight seconds," the pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.
Talbon suddenly felt so far away from home, from his wife and his children. Kitsune might be a near lifeless desert world, but it was his home. He closed his eyes and for a second he could feel the warm winds blowing gently against his face.
Yawning deeply, he stood and stretched to work the rest of the kinks from his tired body. He'd been up for the best part of 24 hours in order to finish the revisions in time, and that was now running out fast.
"Sir, we're about to make an emergency transition back to realspace," the intercom crackled suddenly.
A heartbeat later the cabin lurched and shook violently, throwing its contents around. The lights flickered as the ship made the leap between dimensions, before everything grew still once more, just as suddenly.
The bowl shattered against the deck, as gravity made its presence felt once more, followed by the steaming broth and finally Talbon.
"By the rings of Kitsune!" Talbon growled as he rubbed his aching head. His cabin was a mess, paper and books were scattered across the floor with broth covering everything. The picture frame lay broken, shards of glass sparkled evilly around it.
He stood and was quickly moving down the central corridor to the cockpit. "What do you think you're playing at? We shouldn't have made the jump for another ten minutes," Talbon barked at the pilot as he entered.
"I apologies, sir. But the window had begun to destabilise," the pilot began nervously. "If we hadn't made the jump then, we could have been crushed if the window collapsed."
Blast these rust buckets! Talbon's hand curled into a fist and futilely pounded against the bulkhead in his frustration. How were they supposed to do anything in these ships that were barely even holding together? The terrans didn't even allow them build new ones, they had to salvage parts from the wrecks that made-up the rings of debris that orbited Kitsune, just to keep the ones they did have from falling apart around them. Not that that was working very well.
"Is that Mobius?" Talbon sighed as he noticed the planet that had appeared dead ahead.
"Yes, sir," the pilot answered.
Talbon studied the rapidly growing planet that hung in the void, it was just like a hundred other worlds he'd seen, but this planet was literally in the middle of nowhere, about as far from the core worlds as one could get. It lay on the edge of the galaxy, about eighty light-years off the Cygnus-Norma spiral arm. Though the fleet of more than a dozen terran warships marked this one out as special.
"What's with all the warships?" asked a young vixen as she came up next to Talbon.
"I haven't a clue," he replied bluntly. He didn't know what held the terrans' interest in this backwater planet and neither did he care, it wasn't his job to know. "Are the others ready yet?"
"Yes, sir," she answered enthusiastically. Her youthful eagerness reminding Talbon of his daughter.
The old fox turned to face her properly, and looked the young girl over. She looked so innocent, so unprepared for what she was about to see, to do. She had petitioned for a place on his crew just before they had left and had only gotten the place as a favour to her farther, an old friend of Talbon's. "This is your first contract isn't it, Fiona?"
The question caught her unprepared. "Um, yes sir. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason." Talbon sighed remembering what his first one was like. He turned back to the stars and continued to study the steadily growing world. "No reason at all."
"Sir, we're being hailed by the Fleet Lord's flagship," the pilot said.
"Put them on."
A bald man with a long needle-like nose appeared on a small monitor. "Talbon, Lord Robotnik wishes to speak with you about the details of the contract." He looked away briefly. "Your ship is clear to land in bay 8."
- - - -
The sun beat down unrelentingly on the vast jungle that straddled the equator of Mobius. A natural border that separated the southern badlands from the verdant fields and forests of the north, and for hundreds of years it had also separated echidna from hedgehog.
Deep within the jungle lay a recently established encampment, little more than a dozen large tents filling a scorch marked clearing. The largest tent lay at the centre of the group, with many thick and heavy cables extending from it, snaking their way throughout the clearing.
Inside the large tent Zachary was leaning over a table which held a map of that region of the jungle. "I want your team to move over hear and set up a remote sensor unit," Zachary pointed to a point on the map about a half mile from the camp, "lets see just how big this thing is."
"Yes, sir." The small group of humans he was addressing took their equipment and left the tent.
The aged echidna wiped his brow with a piece of cloth. He was sweating profusely, Zachary simply wasn't used to this kind of heat. In the southern wastes it had always been hot but never this humid. It was unbearable but he didn't have time to complain as just then a man entered the tent.
"Sir, we've found an opening," he said as he approached the old echidna.
"Good, take me to it."
"Yes sir," the man turned back the way he had come and the old echidna followed him through the jungle.
Animals chirped, howled and yapped in amongst the trees and thick foliage all around them, little suspecting of what the jungle hid. Thousands of years ago humans had visited this world whilst echidnan civilization was still in its infancy. They established a presence here and then for some unknown reason left, abandoning Mobius to the mists of time.
The dirt trail changed to broken concrete patches as he was led to a dulled metal wall that had been cleared of the jungles' overgrowth, and to a hole where some doors apparently used to be. Another man handed Zachary a torch as he approached, and the echidna peered in.
The beam of light thrown from the torch pierced the thick darkness held within. The air was stagnant and as he moved further into the darkness he gagged. The chamber was long with a large desk at the far end and numerous doors leading to other rooms. Bones covered the floor of one side of the chamber, against a wall peppered with scorched holes. The old echidna retreated back outside, feeling rather nauseous.
"I'll inform Lord Robotnik at once," Zachary said to one of the humans around the entrance. "Secure the entrance. But do not enter."
It had been three months since the night that Zachary's life had been changed so much. Three months since he had leaned so much about the ancients, these humans. But there were still so many questions unanswered.
Zachary wound his way back down the dirt trail, away from the millennia old ruins. Trying to fit these new pieces to the growing puzzle.
"Get me a comm-link to Lord Robotnik," the old echidna ordered upon entering.
"Yes sir," one of the humans said, barely hiding his contempt.
Zachary found it amusing, that so many of these humans truly believed they were superior to everyone and everything else. And here they were, because of their hierarchical command structure, having to follow his orders to a T. It reminded him of a people not too far from here and it seemed to Zachary that arrogance was a trait far too common, not just amongst the humans.
Robotnik's face appeared on the screen, his usual look of displeasure adorning it.
"We have found an entrance to the outpost, my Lord." Zachary reported.
"Good, I will send down Grimer with some specialist equipment. I want anything you find shipped to my flagship immediately."
"Yes, my Lord."
- - - -
The footfalls of the group of terrans echoed throughout the cavernous landing bay, as they approached the lone fox that stood at the foot of a battered little ship that looked quite out of place in the landing bay.
Landing bay 8 was massive and within it held dozens of smaller ships, fighters and bombers, landers and shuttles.
"Talbon?" the short bald man they had seen on the monitor, asked as he drew near. The fox nodded. "Please follow us." And Talbon was then led away by the group.
Fiona watched from the cockpit as Talbon disappeared into the corridors beyond, feeling more than a little nervous. "What do you think that Robotnik wants?" Fiona asked.
"I don't know," the pilot said as he began to run a post-flight diagnostic, he was determined to find out what caused the realspace window to destabilise. "It is odd. The lords that contract us usually have little to do with us while we work. They only care that it's done quick enough." He disappeared under the ship's main bank of controls. "Look, why don't you go check on the others?"
"Humph," Fiona huffed as she left the cockpit. It might have been her first contract, but she was already sick of being treated like a little cub that was always getting in the way. She made her way slowly down to the storage bay, where Vasilis and Jonas were busily going through the itinerary.
"Come sit here, young 'un," said the last, and oldest, member of the crew. He was sat on a bench watching the other two work as she arrived.
"What's up, old man?" Fiona sat on the bench beside him.
"I'm just resting my weary bones." He smiled.
They sat together in silence for several moments. Before Fiona worked up the courage to ask, "if you don't mind my asking, why are you still here? I mean, shouldn't you be with the guild elders back home?"
"Heh heh heh, I should be shouldn't I?" the old fox chuckled. "And I was, for a time. But I grew restless. I wanted to travel amongst the stars again. So I joined a contract-team. Had to work back up from the bottom. Until I met Talbon, that is." His expression became that of pride. "He was a promising up and coming leader back then, I might add. He was glad for my experience if nothing else," the old man said.
Fiona had never heard this about Talbon before. When she was younger her father would tell her how much he admired him and how good at his job he was. But, Fiona often wondered, if he really was, then why was he still just a contract-team leader?
"What happened to him?"
The old fox just smiled at her sadly. "He made a mistake." Then he changed the subject, "You look down. Anything the matter?"
Deciding that pushing the subject further wouldn't be such a good idea, she returned to her own problems. "I'm sick of being treated like a newborn cub. The boss is the only one who doesn't treat me like one and he's away seeing the Fleet Lord about the contract."
"I'm worried too, considering Fleet Lord Robotnik's reputation. I'm a little surprised you don't recognise the name."
"Robotnik huh?" Now that he mentioned it, she did recognise the name. Her eyes widened as she realised where she had heard the name before. "The butcher of Dridgedel?" she gasped.
"The one and same." He nodded slowly.
"He pounded that planet with asteroids for seven days, until its was little more than dust! He killed more than sixty million people."
"Yes, but it was more complicated than that. The entire region of space was unstable, the Planetary Lords were growing restless and skirmishes between them were common. Robotnik was charged by Warlord Julian to bring order and stability back to the region. When Dridgedel openly rebelled against the Warlords authority, he made an example of them."
"That's horrible."
"That's the way terrans work, my dear. We can't change that, only survive it."
"But that can't be true?" Fiona began to protest, but was interrupted as the doors to the storage bay hissed as they parted.
"Okay," Talbon said as he entered, "everything needs to be packed up. Robotnik is having us take one of his shuttled down to the surface."
"What, why?"
"He says the locals are still active and are targeting air traffic. So for our safety he is having us take an armed transport down," Talbon looked around at the unbelieving faces, "I don't buy it either. But it's not like we have a choice." The terrans liked their secrets and always had something they wanted to hide from each other. "Don't just stand there, we've got a job to do."
- - - -
A scream caught in his throat and Sonic's eyes shot open, he was drenched in a cold sweat. His eyes darted rapidly across the dark room, panic flowing through him like a raging river. After several long moments of shear terror he began to calm. He remembered where he was and realised that it had just been a dream.
"It was just a silly little dream," he chided himself.
But every night for the past three months he had been having that same 'silly little dream'; he found himself trapped in the school's air raid shelter as the invaders stormed in and began to kill everyone around him. Sonic was trying to find his mum, but he was being push and pulled by the screaming crowd as they tried to flee their attackers.
The butt of a rifle sent Sonic sprawling to the floor, as one of the invaders loomed over him. Sonic futilely raised his arms as the sneering creature raised its rifle. He always woke up a heartbeat later.
Sonic looked down at his quivering hands, his breath was shallow and ragged. He clenched his fists tightly, until he could feel his nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and gritted his teeth together before forcing several deep breathes, trying to calm himself.
"Why am I so weak?"
He slunk out of his bunk, careful not to wake anybody else in the room. He shared the small room that had been stuffed with beds, with seven other kids who had also survived the invasion.
As he left the room he noticed that Shadow's bunk was empty, as usual. Sonic didn't know when Shadow woke or what he did, but every morning he was gone long before anyone else stirred.
In the last few months his uncle Charles had taken control of everything here, he'd taken the handful of soldiers that were left and began to train the other survivors in the art of war.
On the other hand, Sonic and the other 'kids' had been relegated to a handful of room in the old base, with next to nothing to keep them occupied.
The young hedgehog escaped from the suffocating confines of the base, since the attack he had become incredibly claustrophobic and couldn't stand being in even large buildings for too long.
The sky was the subdued orange of an autumn dawn and the chill air was cool and refreshing.
With a single deft leap Sonic was in the branches of an almost bare tree. From his vantage point he had a clear view of the entrance of the base.
As Sonic lay there, amongst the last of the chirping and chattering birds, memories from last night began replaying in his mind.
He was in his uncle's office, stood before the old hedgehog's desk. His cheeks turning red with anger.
"Listen, uncle, you have to let us fight as well," Sonic had said firmly.
"I am not going to let children risk their lives in a war, especially in a war with little chance of us winning."
"I'm nearly sixteen, I'm nearly old enough to enlist!" But his protestation fell on deaf ears.
"I don't care, I am not going to let you or your friends throw your lives away! And that's the end of it," Charles turned to Cable. "I want this boy out of my office."
"Come on, son," Cable had said, as he ushered Sonic from the room, closing the door quickly behind him.
Sonic yelled a string expletives at the door. After a moment, and getting no response, he turned and slunk away sullenly.
The young hedgehog was brought sharply back to the present as he saw a group of soldiers returning from a raid on the city.
"Ransacking supermarkets for leftovers is not what I signed up for." Sonic heard one of them complain as they headed towards the base.
Sonic dropped out of the tree and began to casually follow them through the hallways that made-up the building.
"And with all those people trapped in that slave camp that the general won't let us help!"
Sonic had to suppress a growled, his mother must be in one of those camps and uncle Chuck wouldn't even lift a finger and help her.
"It makes me so angry," another said, summing up the emotions Sonic felt rather well.
"But he has a point though, doesn't he? I mean, it is nearly winter and we can barely feed ourselves, let alone anyone else we might rescue."
They came to a reinforced door with an electronic number pad set into the wall next to it. The largest hedgehog in the group punched in a code and opened the weapon store. He took the others guns and disparaged into the room, returning the weapons they had used.
"Right, who's up for some grub?" he said as he closed the door.
"But aren't you supposed to be on guard duty today?"
"So. Who's gonna steal them around here?"
"But, the general's orders… "
"What's he gonna do about it? fire me?" he scoffed. "Come on, lets get to the mess hall, I'm dying for some breakfast."
They barely noticed the blue hedgehog they passed on their way to the mess hall.
Sonic had a thought, if his uncle wouldn't willingly let them fight, then he would just have to take things into his own hands. And now he had a plan, he just had to convince the others. He would find his mother, and free her. No matter what it took.
- - - -
Knuckles made his way through the dark, rubble strewn streets of Grand-Metropolis. He was late back from his duties at the emerald shrine, yet again. But instead of being late because he had been enraptured by the one of the old Guardian's tales as had been the cause in the past. It was now because he was overwhelmed simply trying keep the Chaos emerald's output at peek efficiency, so that the city had enough power to keep running.
It was a much harder job caring for the city's Chaos emerald than he had ever realised as an apprentice. In these few quiet moments Knuckles often wondered how the Guardian had ever managed it all.
He hadn't even had time to do any more digging into the whole Zachary affair, and the Order had already closed and sealed the case far beyond Knuckles' ability to view the findings.
He sighed as he walked up to the entrance to a large and rather opulent mansion. After he had assumed the mantle of guardian he inherited the mansion that came with the title and responsibility.
Knuckles made his way through the mansion's large entrance hall and into the kitchen to meet Tikal. She was sat at a small table eating a bowl of soup.
After he moved in he found the place way too big for him alone, so he offered a room to Tikal and she gratefully accepted his offer.
"Hey," Knuckles said with a half-hearted wave. He was shattered and didn't have the energy to be any cheerier.
"How did you get on today?" she inquired as she looked up at him.
"Good." He nodded as he fell into a seat at the table, "just keeping the output of the emerald constant is tiring enough, I don't know how the Guardian managed it all." He sighed. "How about you?"
"It's going well, we're mostly got people with lost limbs these days. We've got a shortage of prosthetic limbs, you see. There was this one woman, a robot pilot, she had her left arm crushed by rubble. She's now having to get used to her new mechanical one. Anyway, the repairs at the hospital are nearly finished and they say we can start moving back in a few day."
Knuckles gave a deep, involuntary yawn. "Good night, sis," he said as he stood.
"Aren't you going to have anything to eat?"
"No, I'm too tired."
"Okay then, good night, big brother."
Knuckles slunk up several flights of stairs to his room before finally collapsing onto the bed, exhausted.
From around his neck, Knuckles unclasped the platinum collar he wore. He took the collar and felt its weight in his hands. The collar marked his guardian-hood, but he still couldn't believe that it was now his responsibility to protect the Grand-Metropolis Chaos emerald. He laid it gently on the table beside the bed.
Knuckles lay back on the on the bed but something had kept nagging at him, preventing him from slipping off to sleep. In these quiet moments his thoughts would often drift back to the girl he left at the shelter all that time ago. He always wondered about what had happened to her after that night.
"Computer, place a call to the Grand-Metropolis adoption centre," Knuckles told the computer.
The monitor embedded in the wall rang several times before someone answered.
"Hallo, this is the Grand-Metropolis adoption centre," a tired looking brown echidna answered. "Aah, Guardian! I-is there anything I can do for you, Guardian?"
"Yes, I'm looking for a girl that was orphaned during the attack."
The tired echidna gave an exasperated sigh. "Listen, Guardian, there were hundreds of kids orphaned in the attack on this city. Let alone all those in the other cities and villages. Have you at least got a name?"
"Yes, Lara-Su."
"Is that it?"
"Um, yes," Knuckles said, now feeling rather foolish.
"Okay, let me see what I can do." The echidna sighed, before disappearing from the screen for several minutes. "She's in the orphanage in district 8," he said as he returned.
"Shouldn't someone have adopted her by now, or something?"
"Look, Guardian, there's only so many people who are eligible to adopt or provide care for the children. And many of the staff were killed, so getting through all the cases has been slow."
"I'm sorry for wasting your time, goodbye." The screen went blank and Knuckles just sat there staring at it.
- - - -
Somewhere high in the skies above the southern hemisphere of Mobius, a dark shape slowly floated between the wispy clouds: Sky Sanctuary. A massive airship that had been abandoned long ago by humans that had once strode the world like gods.
It had since been expropriated by the Order of the Emerald. And now Athair, the High-Guardian, stood on its observation deck watching, through cold blue eyes, the wasteland that stretched out endlessly miles below.
Athair was an aged echidna, far older than he would care to admit. His fur was a dull red colour and his stooped form rested on a walking stick of amazing elegance and opulence. The jewel encrusted stick sparkled in the light. A highly polished shard from a Chaos emerald served as its handle.
The doors hissed as they parted behind him and an echidna wearing a simple white robe entered.
"High-Guardian," the acolyte bowed low, prostrating himself before his master.
"What news do you bring?"
"The humans have located the ruins, High-Guardian."
"We knew this day would come, when the humans would return to reclaim what was once theirs," Athair turned awkwardly on his walking stick, to face the other echidna. "But we are no closer to awakening her today than we were a thousand years ago," Athair sighed.
"What of the Mercians, High-Guardian?" the acolyte asked hesitantly.
"They're going to be a problem that must be dealt with. In the future. For now though, we can use them to our own advantage. I want an envoy prepared and sent with an invitation of peace."
"At once, High-Guardian. May the goddesses' light shine upon you.'" the acolyte stood and, with his head still bowed, quickly retreated from the chamber.
Athair turned and hobbled to another doorway. With a wave of his ringed hand the door obediently slid open and he entered the dark room that lay beyond.
At the centre of the room lay a shining pod of metal and glass. Within slept what appeared to be a young wine coloured echidna girl. From somewhere deep within her an aura of brilliant ruby light seemed to radiate, filling the chamber.
"My sleeping beauty, when shall you awaken?"
To totouredeamon; Sally was mentioned in chapter 3, does that count? ... Hmm, okay, Yes, a hedgehogized version of Sally will appear – in fact, she already has. I'll give you a clue, think of her full name. As for Julie-Su, she may appear, but she won't have a very important role if she does.
