S.O.N.I.C GO!
S.O.N.I.C GO!
GO! GO! GO! GO! LET'S GO!
Episode 19: Babylon, city of the Battle Birds and the Mysterious Angel Wing
-
The Falcon Admiralty was a power in space that excelled in space combat and defence. Its fleets were the largest and most dependable in the known galaxy. Because of this, their territory was universally renowned as the most secure and well defended in this spiral arm.
The Combined Federation had tried many times to recruit their aid in campaigns against the Confederation but each and every time they had refused. The Falcon's were notoriously isolationist and did not believe in fighting another's battles.
About a hundred years ago the Confederation had attempted an invasion of their territory and during the preliminary stages of the war, now referred to as the 'war of ruffled feathers', they had taken half a dozen worlds along their border.
The Falcon not only repulsed the invasion with their superior ships but they destroyed the entire invasion force. Not a single ship returned across the border. This utter massacre had sort of put off any incursions or raids on their territory and since the Falcons were not an expansionist people that solidified their borders.
None wished to cross their Battle Bird Armada.
Alliances with them were extremely hard to maintain, or forge at all so the other inter galactic factions had to maintain the status of neutrality.
"What the hell is all this?" Chuck demanded in astonishment as two brief cases full of papers were delivered by the Falcon immigration authorities.
"Stand port entry papers, documents and contracts." The Falcon told him, writing down something on a clip board. "All have to be signed by the designated owner of the vessel before port entry can be admitted to Roc solar space."
"What?!" Chuck gagged looking at the seemingly never ending pile of papers. "There has to be a planet's supply of pressed trees here! That's ridiculous!"
The bird like creature shrugged.
"Sorry pal, I don't make the rules. All I know is if you don't get past the orbit of the second moon without filing all the paperwork."
Grumbling loudly about bureaucrats Chuck got to work signing all five hundred papers.
It took him over five hours to supply his name, names of crew, planet of origin and planet of precious occupancy but eventually clearance was permitted for the Blue Typhoon to proceed towards planet Roc; the staging place for the finals of the Ex Galactic Grand Prix.
The Falcon government, being isolationist, were extremely wary of anyone not of their own kind when they came to their home world. Ordinarily no non-falcon was allowed on Roc. It was only during public events permission was granted for temporary residence.
"Why do I get the feeling they don't like visitors?" Sonic asked; looking out at the tremendous defenses placed in orbit around the planet. The stations here were military installations with gigantic laser turrets and were capable of casting a shield around the entire world; shielding it completely. Currently it was down to allow ships to pass but the potential for it to go up at any time remained and was broadcast extremely by floating ad-ships that also showed commercials about a new type of oil for those difficult to manage feathers.
What was even more impressive was the home defense fleet placed in orbit at the various stations. While none of the Falcon's ships could match a Com-Fed Predator battleship in size or firepower, they definitely had the advantage in sheer numbers.
Sonic, who had taken a crack at a few heavily guarded installations before, placed this defense as one of the best he'd seen yet.
"Ah, ignore that. That's the image General Kukku puts out for tourists." The customs officer replied while Chuck was busy signing away.
"General who?" Sonic asked looking back over his shoulder.
"General Kukku the 15th to be precise. Recently 'elected' resident ruler." The Falcon's tone of voice was extremely sarcastic. "Course you can imagine that election was the biggest farce since that union peddling the cure all skin treatment for reptilians.
And they have scales, not skin!"
"If he's a dictator, why don't you kick him out?" The blue hedgehog asked and the Falcon looked up sharply as if he'd just blasphemed.
"A little word of advice buddy." He started fixing him with a serious expression. "Keep a lid of statements like that while you're here."
"Here… they're all done." Chuck gasped, shoving the pile of papers aside. The end of his pen was broken and he looked as if he'd sprained his wrist.
"Ok, that's all in order. Enjoy your stay and the rest of the tournament." With that, hauling the large collection of signed papers, he was off.
Roc had two moons and a large collection of asteroid debris in order around its poles. Once the Typhoon past through the orbiting stations and entered the atmosphere the crew could observe the planets surface.
Roc was a desert planet with very little water. The only body of body was a single stripe of water running from the North Pole to the equator. From orbit it looked more like a giant river than an ocean.
As they entered the astrosphere they flew right into a dust storm, bellowing giant clouds of sand blanketing the sky and obscuring even the intense sun of this world from view. The auto-pilot Chuck had programmed in however kept it steady on course as they moved towards the capital of this planet, the city of Babylon.
According to the tourist handbook any resemblance to the ruined city of Babylon on Earth was purely circumstantial.
"Man, what a dump." Hare muttered looking at the lay of the land as they descended with a skeptical expression. "I mean, we past a dozen or so beautiful planets on your way here.
Why would this 'Prometheus' choose such a wasteland to live in?"
"According to Gaia Hertia, this planet used to be his home." Sonic stated. "Even after seeing the rest of the universe, I'd still call Mobius my home any day."
"We're going to have to get that name problem sorted out." Hare muttered to Bean. "I mean, since Mobius and Earth are one planet now what do they call it?"
"Mobrth?" The duck suggested.
"Or maybe Earius?" Bark added.
"Let's just call it home and be done with it." Lieutenant Milford interjected; his ear next to the communications console. "Now keep it down, I'm trying to get us landing clearance."
Seeing Sonic was by himself, Amy came up to him; trying to catch his eye. When he noticed he had company the blue hedgehog cast a glance in her direction.
"Something on your mind?" She asked. Sonic put a hand to his chin and tapped his foot.
"Something is going on." He muttered. "But what does it all mean? Nexus… Krish… the Black Doom… Prometheus… Iblis Trigger… none of it makes any sense." He paused and then took the small metallic disc he had been saving out into the open. The one with Tails' insignia engraved into it. "And just how does this fit into it?"
"Well at least this means he's alive." Amy said shrugging it off and letting her arm flop around his shoulders. "Come on Sonic. He's ALIVE. Faced with that, does everything else even matter?"
The blue hedgehog blinked twice, before a wide grin spread across his face from ear to ear.
"Hey, come on people. Let's party." Sera declared, coming in between the two hedgehogs and putting her arms around each of them. Her tail swishing out behind her. "We made it to the finals of the tournament. Win or loose, Sonic gets his name engraved in the history books."
Sonic shuddered.
"Just what I need more fandom."
"Don't give us that. You love the attention." Amy put in a smirk.
"Meow! Hell yeah, You're fawning over it all." Sera added, purring softly as she rubbed her cheek against Sonic's. Her tail wrapping itself around his leg.
Amy leaned in closer as well, trying to prevent the cat-girl from keeping all of Sonic to himself.
"And let's not forget…" The pink hedgehog started with a seductive grin, looking the now intimidated Sonic in the eye. "That unfinished business of ours with the Babylon Rogues."
Leaning over too far, Sonic fell over with both girls on top of him.
Hare, Bean and Bark watched the pile on with a certain amount of intense jealously on their faces.
"This is Babylon space port control tower to Blue Typhoon. Come in, blue Typhoon." A voice sparked with snow over the communications console.
"This Blue Typhoon responding Control Tower, over." Milford replied, picking up the receiver. "Requesting landing clearance at…" He stopped to read the top of the first page of the documents Chuck had been signing. "Dock five."
"We have you on our screens now. Please await further instructions." The voice buzzed for a minute and the Typhoon soured on its course. The dust storm outside began to dissipate a little, the sky growing clearer as their ship began to pass out of the radius of the winds.
"Hey, what's that?" Chuck asked, peering through the thinning veil. As the Typhoon soared past the outer reaches of the storm they beheld Babylon.
A floating city. A huge expanse of land held in the air, covered completely in Arabian style buildings; the tall reaches of the Arabic towers piercing the sky above. There were many floating islands, each one connected to another by a series of giant stone bridges.
Flying up towards it from underneath, they got a perfect view of the many buildings descending through the island mass itself to hand suspended in the air from the bottom.
The airspace above the city was swarming with ships, all different sizes and shapes. There were dozens of battleships in the immediately perimeter of the city, moving in and out of the large landing bays that served as docks for individual ships. Far more common were smaller civilian ships. Those had completely replaced cars here, sliding through the islands and tall buildings and aligning themselves like traffic.
Below the floating city were dozens of Oasis', spotted pieces of paradise in the middle of a barren wasteland here and there. Some over a mile away from the city itself and others directly underneath. Babylon floated in just the right position so that none of these watering holes were obscured by its shadow
"Please, let me tell Knuckles." Sonic started with a short grin. "I want to see the jealous look on his face first hand."
"Attention Blue Typhoon, this is the Control Tower." The same voice began from the communications console. "You have landing permission at dock five. Please acknowledge."
Milford was just sitting there with a dumfounded look on his face at the floating city as their ship moved towards it. .
"Again, Blue Typhoon please acknowledge."
Still Milford did not move.
"Please be advised that loss of radio contact will subject you to military action."
Hearing the word 'military', Milford slammed his hand down console.
"Er.. Blue Typhoon here. Acknowledging landing clearance. Beginning docking sequence now."
"Roger that Blue Typhoon." The control tower replied, sounding amused. "Over and out."
Chuck switched the Typhoon from Auto-pilot to manual and once they were over the dock labeled 'five', he slowed them to a stop below lowering the ship down; firing the downward thrusters to slow their decent and cushion their landing.
It was an undeniable fact that Chris and Helen were spending increasingly long amounts of time together.
That fact Chris had feigned ignorance of, but in reality he was more than aware of it and of what it meant. Rather pathetically, he thought, this was the first time he had ever had feelings like this for anyone. Sonic had turned his life upsides down when he little older than ten and since then he simply hadn't had time for anything like that.
He dare not mention it to his grandfather in fear of receiving the classically rehearsed speech about the bird and the bees.
Even now he was watching her, exercising her legs by going for a walk with Francis as some of them left the Typhoon to venture out onto the dock. It had been nearly half a year now since she had been given that device on her wrist to help her walk.
Alicia hadn't specified when exactly her nervous system would react on its own and she'd be able to walk without it but obviously it wasn't going to be anytime soon. Helen was still having trouble with a quick steps and running was out of the question.
"Dude, don't just stare." A voice behind him started and standing up in alarm Chris nearly tripped over his own feet.
Danny managed a superior smirk at his old friend's reaction.
"I knew it." He muttered as Chris blustered, trying to come up with some excuse as to why he was staring at the girl. "Oh cut that out. You've not only fallen for her you crashed through the floor." He smacked Chris on the back. "Get out there before I throw you out."
Chris went a dark shade of red, keeping eyes on his shoes.
-
Knuckles was annoyed.
He was annoyed for several reasons.
The first and foremost reason was that he had a bruised lump on the back of his head that he could not explain and it was giving him hell. For a few hours he had gone around holding an ice pack to his head.
The second reason was that despite his best efforts, the Master Emerald was being used as a tool. The Echidna was utterly steadfast in his belief that the Emerald was in some ways a living being, more than a simple supply of energy.
Nobody, himself included, knew from where the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald had come from. Their earliest knowledge of the Emeralds was their presence on the Emerald Chao shrine but their history before that was completely unknown. They were an anomaly. Their contained power defining the known laws of physics and could not be explained by any scientist, no matter how many times Chuck had tried.
It was a mystery that Knuckles had tried to solve many times before, each and every time he had ended no more enlightened than when he started.
On top of that he was frustrated like the rest of them about their predicament. Knuckles had to force himself not to imagine what the Confederation might be doing to Angel Island right at this very moment.
Wandering about alone on the deck of the ship he tried to forget his worries for a while at least and enjoy the experience of something new. Unfortunately he hadn't the wanderers spirit like Sonic and found that the experienced labored as if he was forcing himself to enjoy it.
The three Emeralds they had been able to track down safely placed inside the ship's vault and the Master Emerald was protected by the Blue Typhoon's energy core. With all items of importance adequately protected Knuckles found himself lacking purpose.
Sighing out load, he turned to head after the others who had gone down to the Oasis' below on the desert surface.
"Hello."
"Arggh!"
The Echidna doubled back as Hyper seemed to appear out of nowhere, smiling at him sadistically and with a disturbing passion in her eyes. Before he could stop her, the half-reptilian swung in close to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her long snake like tail twisting around his waist.
"You know, Red is my favourite color." She whispered to him. "Sure you can't flex those muscles for me just once?"
"Knuckles!" A voice declared with fury underlining the tone. The Echidna looked back with a furlong expression back towards the entrance where Rouge was standing. The she-bat's fur was standing on end and her fists were clenched at either side and she was shaking with growing anger.
The sight of her bared fangs sent a cold shiver down Knuckles' spine and he went a pale shade of white.
"Get your hands off my Echidna." She scowled. Hyper just grinned at her and tightened her grip on Knuckles.
"I don't see your name on him." She stated coyly, placing her cheek right against his. There was a certain line one did not cross with Rouge. And that line was the coveting of items she considered to be her property.
Her wings spread out either side as she launched herself through the air at Hyper with hands extended like claws.
"Agh, nothing." Sonic complained as he marched onto the bridge with an intensely annoyed expression. The only other people there besides himself were Chuck and Hare. Most of the others were taking shore leave to view the incredible floating city. Even Knuckles was gone. "Nobody was willing to talk around here. It's as if the entire city is keeping its mouth shut."
"That's the problem with a police-state." Chuck muttered. "Makes people too afraid to open their doors, never mind answer questions."
"Did you notice the camera's everywhere?" Hare asked. "No wonder that guy told us not to ask too many questions down here." General Kukku, the Falcon's dictator maintained an iron grip on their home world. Ships from their Battle Bird fleet were constantly watching over the floating Babylon and armed patrols stood guard over the larger public places.
Public address beaming out across the cities airwaves were pure propaganda, describing with sickly persistence how the high military presence kept the population safe against the states' outside enemies.
"I don't want to spend too much of my time here but its taking longer to find this guy than I thought." He looked over in Chuck's direction. "Any luck with you?"
Prof. Thorndyke shook his head with a sigh.
"Sorry. According to Falcon records nobody by the name of 'Prometheus' has ever lived in this city."
"Well that's hardly surprising." Hare put in as he flicked an overhanging ear out of his face and the two of them looked his way. "Common sense fella's. The very name Prometheus is a bit of a giveaway isn't it? If this Gaia Hertia is to be believed, this guy is thousands of years old. There's got to be a way to ensure privacy with that kind of life style. Especially on a planet with a near omnipresent government."
"You mean he's using an alias?" Chuck asked. Hare rolled his thoughts thoughtfully.
"Something like that yeah."
Sonic growled.
"Great. That could be anything." He smacked his fist down in annoyance. "We're right back to square one." They weren't making fast enough progress and it was annoying him to no end.
Huffing the hedgehog made his way towards the exit. Passing by a window he paused to gaze out along the docks.
Several positions away was a Falcon Admiralty class ship Sonic recognized. The coloring and markings were a big give away. It was the ship of the Babylon Rogues. The sight put him so much on edge he could tip off that edge at any moment.
"And just where are you going?" Chuck asked.
"Just to blow off some steam." The hedgehog replied, grabbing his Rengoku and heading out the door.
Everything would have been so much easier if Gaia had known where these supposed important bloodlines were and why they were so special. If anything, Sonic's meeting with the ancient had left him more confused than when he started.
Amy and Knuckles had headed down to one of the Oasis' down on the desert surface below and around Babylon. That seemed like a good a place as any to vent some of his pent up annoyance.
-
It was the scent of desert winds intermixed with the fresh smell of the oasis that told Jet he was home. Giving a big sigh of relief he leaned back and lay in the long grass near the water hole, folding his arms behind his head he simply laid there with his eyes slowly closing.
How long had it been since he'd been back here? Five years… seven maybe?
Ever since his father had died he had sworn never to return until he uncovered the secret of the key his father nearly destroyed their guild to use. Finally… he had at the secret and now his own ego would admit him the right to relax in his childhood environment.
This very oasis he had spent whole days of his early youth in, dogging through the massive trees perfecting his skill; bathing in the waters and hiding from his friends in the long grass.
One of which was pacing up and down nearby, her arms crossed in front of her with a nervous expression on her face.
"Oh… oh boy, oh boy, oh boy." Wave was muttering to herself, kicking a stone out her way in frustration. The projectile past close to the tip of Jet's beak nearly hitting it before spinning away into the long grass. The Hawk opened one eye and regarded her for a moment before he rolled over to try and ignore her.
"What's taking Storm so long?" She asked out load, stopping her pacing and adopting an angry face.
"Wave, just sit down and relax." Jet told her, looking up with a hint of mild annoyance in his voice.
Storm hadn't reported back in days. True Jet had told him not to come back until he had something worth reporting as a means of redeeming himself but he hadn't meant to completely cut himself off. Regular communication was standard stuff.
"How can anyone be so relaxed at a time like this?" She asked him.
"Storm can handle himself. You know that so just let the big idiot get on with his assignment. He'll contact us when he's ready." The hawk rolled over again and tried to get back to his nap.
"And I still can't believe you broke off the arrangement with Eggman." Wave carried on now irritated at being ignored.
"He was a liar who would have betrayed us given half the chance." He muttered with his eyes closed, preceding a long yawn. "Besides, we don't need him anymore. I've got the knowledge I need to activate the key and that's all we needed from both him and the Fesonian resistance."
Wave stamped her foot to regain his attention before he drifted off.
"You're taking too many risks! You're a leader, Jet. And leaders have responsibilities." Jet rolled over until his back was to her. "Stuff like plans for heists you understand but when it comes to taking personal interest in the well being of…"
Jet tuned her out. He sat there completely ignoring her as she whittled on about something or other.
She didn't understand that he knew what he was doing. Everything was in place and he wasn't going to jeopardize it now for something as silly as someone else's well being.
His father had left this task to him… him and him alone.
A soft purring sound caught his attention, followed by the sudden rush of a strong wind. Glancing up he watched a blue blur shoot through the canopy of leaves on the far side of the Oasis. Momentary gaps in the leaves showed a sleek blue shape riding atop a board of some kind.
Recognizing it instantly he grinned.
"Ah… time for a little fun." The hawk muttered to himself, glancing back at Wave who was still in the middle of some morale speech. While she was absorbed in it telling, Jet picked himself up and quietly tiptoed away.
By the time Wave finally noticed her audience was no longer sitting down before her, she looked up to see him leaping up using his wings to travel higher until he reached a branch of a tree. Before she could do anything Jet vanished into the leaves, disappearing almost completely.
"Hey, Jet! You get back here, right now!" She called after him but of course he didn't. She stood there for several moments, fuming silently with fists clenched at both sides. Finally, she slumped her shoulders with a defeated look on her face. "Oh why do I even bother?"