"Yo, Orb-head! Over here!"
Sonic smiled broadly as the Stealth Orb turned in his direction. "Catch me if you can, Evil Eye!"
With a laugh he launched himself down the street. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that the Orb was trailing him, just like it was supposed to. With any luck, it was calling the nearest Swatbots to its location—and well away from Sally, Bunnie, and Tails.
He glanced over his shoulder again in time to see the Orb turn away. He skidded to a halt. "Hey, no fair! C'mon, bot brain, play by the rules!" Looking around, he saw a small chunk of rubble. In one motion he scooped it and readied to throw it.
The rubble disintegrated on impact with the Stealth Orb, but the Orb seemed not to notice. "All right, this is makin' me mad. What's up?" The Orb continued to move away. Sonic looked around and listened, alert for anything, but all he could hear was the ambient background noise of Robotropolis. Slowly Sonic followed the Orb, shouting insults at it, trying to get its attention.
It resumed its original position. Sonic turned away in disgust. "Fine, I'll find someone else to play with," he said.
Just as he accelerated away from the Orb, he felt a wave of heat pass behind him, then heard the sounds of several heavy blasters firing at him. As he ran, he checked over his shoulder. A full quintet of hover units was on his tail. It was only by turning away at that instant that he'd avoided their shots.
He laughed. "Well, that dumb ol' Stealth Orb did its job after all. Juice it loose, guys!"
Bunnie whispered to Sally, "Um, Sally-girl, how much further?"
"Not very much, Bunnie, just a little more."
Bunnie shook her head. This ventilation duct was cramped for one animal, let alone three, one after another. They were blocking the airflow enough that she half-imagined some bot would notice. Then again, the bots didn't care; the ducts weren't made for them. But for the furries, it was stuffy and hot.
Tails was holding up well, she thought. He was keeping his cool and following directions really well. And if being in such close proximity with the two ladies was affecting him any, he was doing a heroic job of keeping it under wraps. She smiled, wondering if he was that old or not. She'd have to ask him some day.
Well, no time like the present… Why not now? She turned the idea over in her head. Though she had a strong urge to ask, she decided that given the circumstances Tails was addled and worried enough; he didn't need Bunnie distracting him with embarrassing questions.
And why was her mind in such a rut at a time like this? Come one, Bunnie, pay a little attention!
It was hard for her to keep quiet in the duct, but long years of practice had made her good at it. The three animals continued to move until at last Sally said, "Stop!"
Bunnie didn't see the next part, but she saw lights ahead of Tails and Sally. A few moments later, she vaguely saw Sally disappear from view—she'd dropped through.
"Come on, Tails!" she called.
"Go on, sugar!" said Bunnie, but Tails needed no more encouragement. He was out already. Bunnie brought up the tail.
"Stay back!" hissed Sally. Bunnie jumped backwards and felt her tail press against the wall. She was looking forward, but felt Sally and Tails next to her.
Where were they, anyway? Bunnie looked around as best she could. She saw Swatbots headed away, but other than that only storage containers.
"Slide along the wall," Sally whispered. Bunnie did as she was told, and the three of them moved. 'What in the world is going on?' That was all Bunnie could think about. She then looked left and saw that Sally was going to squeeze them in behind a storage container.
There was barely enough room for Bunnie. "Sally-girl, what's the plan?"
"Well," she said, "the plan had been for me to climb up this side of the container," she said, pointing up. The container was several meters tall. "But I don't think I have the room in here." She turned to Bunnie in sudden inspiration. "Bunnie, I'm going to ask you do something unusual."
'This can't be good,' she thought.
"Throw me to the top of the container."
"Sally-girl, have you gone to seed? There ain't no way to manage that!"
"We'll have to go out to the side of the container. Can't you do it?"
"Well, Ah… Ah guess Ah could, but Ah don't like it!"
"Neither do I, but I have to get up there."
"Well, how the hoo-ha are you plannin' to get down?"
Sally couldn't answer, but Tails spoke up. "I'll help," he said. "I'll fly up there, and when Aunt Sally's done, I'll drop her slowly to the ground."
"Tails, darlin', can you fly her up there?"
"Nuh-uh," he said, his face grave. "I'm not strong enough. But you're really strong. If you can get her up, I'll get her down."
Dang, Bunnie thought, now I can't say no. "Alright, Sally-girl, this ain't gonna be easy." The three animals came out to the side of the container to get enough room to operate. She tried several grips on Sally, with none of them getting the control or power she needed. She couldn't do a hammer-throw style; she couldn't do a boost-style; she couldn't do any style at all. Definitely not stylish, she thought.
"Enougha this," she said. She grabbed Sally by the scruff of the neck with her left hand and used the right hand to guide her body. She twisted and hurled Sally upwards.
Next thing she knew, she saw the brown shape of Sally's body going over the edge of the container. Great, she thought, now I can't see what's happening! Beside her, Tails jumped into the air and flew to the top of the container.
Bunnie waited several anxious seconds, almost a very anxious minute, before she saw any more signs of her friends. Eventually she saw Tails hovering directly above her. She called up quietly, "Y'all done?"
She then saw Sally fly out from the top of the container!
Bunnie barely suppressed her scream by jamming her paw into her throat.
Sally's motion abruptly stopped, and Bunnie saw that she'd caught hold of Tails' paws. Her panic subsided at the exact rate that the two of them descended—very slowly.
"Sally-girl, Ah swear you are tryin' to age me."
"You think it was easy watching?" said Tails, panting. "Do you know how heavy Aunt Sally is?"
Sally's face betrayed her outrage. Bunnie chuckled and said to Tails, "Tails, a tip for dealin' with ladies. Don't talk 'bout their weight, 'specially not in front of them."
"Okay, Aunt Bunnie," said Tails with a gleam in his eye. Bunnie suddenly got the idea that he'd known that tip before speaking. There was no way to be sure, of course, but still…
Inspired, Bunnie turned to Sally, "Yeah, Sally-girl. Ah mean, Ah've got an excuse—mah metal. But if you're heavy, it's all on you, if you know what Ah mean."
"I am on the verge of leaving the two of you behind," Sally pouted.
"That's not funny, Aunt Sally," said Tails, looking around furtively.
With a shock Bunnie remembered they were still in Robotropolis. Sally immediately took charge. "This way!" she said. She led the Freedom Fighters back the way they came.
Bunnie's relief increased with every step.
Tails staggered into his hut, tired to the bone but feeling great.
His second mission as a real Freedom Fighter had gone just fine. He'd stuck with Sally and Bunnie and they'd gotten in and out without a hitch. He wasn't sure exactly what had been done, but he knew that Sally had placed something inside the cargo bin, and whatever it was couldn't be good for Robotnik.
Even the victory party afterwards had been less trying. The citizens of Knothole had contented themselves with Sally's vague explanation and hadn't pressed the Freedom Fighters too much. Tails was grateful for that. He wasn't sure he could get used to being admired.
He hung to the latter thought. He was admired. As a Freedom Fighter, others admired him, just as he'd admired the real Freedom Fighters before.
If you only knew, he thought to the animals of Knothole. If you only knew how terrifying it is to go there.
Tails' emotions were mixed again. He liked that he finally understood what really happened, what was really going on. Then again, the only way to understand how scary being a Freedom Fighter was would be to be a Freedom Fighter. In other words, be just as scared.
But as he stared up at the ceiling that night, his paws didn't shake.
I can handle this, he thought.
I can handle this.
It started off rough, but I can live with it after all. I can help. I can live through raids. I can get in and out. And I can not get nightmares out of it.
I can handle being a Freedom Fighter.
He slept.
"What happened?!"
"Sir, we're still looking over it."
Robotnik was impatient and furious. It just wasn't right that a convoy suddenly dropped off radar.
"Sir, it appears that we've been sabotaged."
"Of course we've been sabotaged! Get on with it!"
"The convoy was carrying our few remaining Stealth Bots. We haven't been producing them, so we only had the reserves in storage. This convoy was moving them from storage to the launch bays."
"And now they're gone? How is that possible? Have you been getting the observation videos up?"
"Yes, sir, the Stealth Orbs are approaching now."
Robotnik looked out of his personal hover unit. Normally, he would already be watching the feed, as the Stealth Orbs could send their feeds to Headquarters via the mainframe.
But the mainframe was down! Robotnik smashed his fist against his chair and was disgusted to see the chair's arm cave. That was shoddy construction, nothing more, he thought.
Snively opened the door of the unit and let the Stealth Orb approach. He then hooked it up to the unit's onboard computer. The video feed came up.
"Stealth Orb," said Snively, "time index 2213 dash 64." The image that appeared was of the convoy: two freighters with a number of hover units around.
For no apparent reason, the rear of the first freighter exploded.
The suddenness of it made both Robotnik and Snively jump. As they watched, the first freighter stopped moving forward. The second freighter had been following closely for protection and was unable to stop. The front of the second freighter became tangled with the back of the first.
Unable to support itself, the first freighter began falling to the ground. The humans watched helplessly as the attached second freighter was dragged down as well. Buildings blocked the Orb's view, but a few seconds later the outcome became only too obvious as flames leapt skywards.
"Snively, are there ANY Stealth Bots remaining?"
"Three or four only, sir."
"We have no factories for them? At all?"
"Sir, we haven't built a Stealth Bot in four years."
A growl was rising from the back of Robotnik's throat. He hated this situation! He couldn't strike back at the Freedom Fighters! All his plans were on hold, because they needed the mainframe to operate; he was completely on the defensive until he got his computers back.
Robotnik felt some momentary relief when he considered he would never have gotten this far if the other side in the Great War had had a military mind half as good as the princess. That relief passed in a second.
He couldn't give a wide-band order to change the behavior of all freighters; he didn't have the communications support.
"What did we lose, in total?"
"Two freighters… one hover unit caught shrapnel and went down as well. A total of eight Swatbots and sixteen Stealth Bots, plus that hover unit."
"No worker bots?"
"Negative, sir. Those aren't programmed to fly vehicles."
That was something. The losses were still staggering, though.
Robotnik knew that the hedgehog had been in the city earlier that night. The hover units following him had reported that he hadn't entered a single building; he'd just run around, then run away.
He was covering for the others, of course. But knowing that wouldn't help Robotnik find those others.
The growl rose further into Robotnik's throat. What could he do to stop them that he wasn't already doing?
To be continued…