Chapter 5: Jailbreak
June 12th, 2307 - 6:00 AM - Various locations
Swift peacefully slept in the bedroom of his apartment in Forest Town, Elona, his mind free of troubles as the morning sunlight started to filter in through the blinds. With all of the money he had been rewarded with for capturing Robotnik, he could never have to work again, and even his KID might not ever have to work. Still though, he didn't think he'd like to sit around doing nothing for the rest of his life. Swift was a restless soul, and he could never stay in one place for very long with nothing to do. Maybe he'd stick around in the army for a while to give himself something to do...
The telephone on the nightstand next to his bed started to ring, stirring Swift from his slumber. He cursed under his breath, and blindly reached towards the phone with his eyes still closed. After a few moments of searching, he finally found it and brought it to his ear.
"Uh...hello...?" he muttered.
"Swift? Is that you?" a familiar voice said.
"Oh, hey Kyle..." Swift said, as his rage started to slip away since it was a friend who was calling him. "What's up?"
"Turn on your TV! Hurry up and do it now! Go to the news channel!" Kyle ordered.
"Why?"
"Just do it!"
Swift fumbled around for the remote, which he also left on his nightstand. He picked it up and aimed it at the TV set. He pushed the power button. The TV flickered to life, and Swift changed to Channel 7, the news channel.
"We're continuing to bring you live coverage from Naeco Maximum Security Prison," a young female reporter said. "Which is currently under attack by Robotnik's army."
The news camera showed a view of the outside of the prison. Robotnik's tanks had surrounded the prison, and were plowing right through the electric fences as if they were made of cardboard. Prisoners who happened to be out in the yard took advantage of the chaos to run for freedom. Guards in the guard towers feebly fired their rifles at the tanks, but all this got them was return fire. The tank shells easily blew up entire towers, sending them crashing down with the guards inside them. As the tanks entered the yards inside the fences, robot soldiers emptied out and moved towards the cellblocks.
"What the hell?!" Swift said.
"I know," Kyle said back over the phone. "Robotnik's army should be disorganized and confused without their leader."
"Maybe he programmed them to save him in case he got caught."
"I guess so. It looks like we'll be seeing each other again sooner than we thought."
"Yeah. Looks like he wasn't making an idle threat back in Reppoc after all. I guess I'll get ready to go now then."
"I'm getting packed now too. It's a shame how this came up right in the middle of my honeymoon. I'm going to have to cut it short."
"You got married to Natalie already?"
"Yeah..."
"Congratulations then, bud!"
"Thanks, but now's not the time for that. I need get going. Our unit is meeting at the army base in Chawak, Ronoh, so I'll see you there."
"Chawak, Ronoh, got it. See you there. Bye!"
"Bye!"
---
At the prison, Robotnik sat giddily in his cell, hearing the distant explosions and screams. Soon his robot soldiers would get to him, and he would be free. Robotnik took off his glasses and looked at them with pride.
I could have never pulled off my backup plan without this, he thought.
Robotnik wasn't actually talking about how well the glasses allowed him to see, but what special feature he had built into them. He had installed a hidden homing beacon inside the frame of the glasses, should he be captured. All he had to do was press a button to activate the beacon, and his army would come to help him. He was a little afraid that the beacon might not work when he had first turned it on last night, but fortunately it seemed to be working perfectly.
Had he been so inclined, he could have turned on the beacon the day he had been captured and been freed before even reaching the prison. He decided that it would have been better to let the Freedomians have a month off, to let them get a little lazy. In that way, they wouldn't be prepared for his sudden surprise attack. As an added bonus, he had totally crushed the Freedomians' happy spirits from their early victory by letting them bask in their glory for a while.
However, he heard loud footsteps outside marching up to his door. He heard the swish of a keycard through the reader next to his door, and with a confirming beep it hinged open. Several heavily equipped human guards stood outside his door, with thick helmets, heavy bulletproof vests, and high caliber assault rifles. They looked like they were ready for hell itself.
"YOU!" a guard yelled, pointing his finger at Robotnik. "Come with us!"
Robotnik smiled and got up off of his bed.
"You're only delaying the inevitable," he said. "I WILL be getting out of here a free man today, no matter where you take me to."
"Just shut up and let's go!" the nearest guard shouted, grabbing Robotnik's arm and jerking him out of his cell.
Another guard slammed a pair of handcuffs on Robotnik's hands. They marched down the hallway, three guards walking in front of him, three bringing up the rear. Apparently, they were taking him to a more secure area. Not that it would make much of a difference. His escape would only be delayed by several minutes more at most.
He heard the rumble of a tank engine behind the right wall, and grinned. About three seconds later, with a mighty crash, the tank smashed through the wall, sending bricks toppling everywhere and creating a massive cloud of dust in the hallway. The three guards walking in front of Robotnik were actually crushed by the tank since it had smashed in so suddenly. Meanwhile the others behind him jumped back in fear, waving their guns towards the tank. Robotnik smiled and turned around to face the guards.
"It's not too late for you to run," Robotnik said to them. "Leave now and my soldiers will spare you. There's no need for you to throw away your lives like this."
Even under their facemasks, Robotnik could tell how terrified these men were. They looked like mice trapped against a wall by a big cat, with no hope of escape.
After a few seconds, one of the guards screamed, "Screw this!" and ran away back down the hall.
"Wait for me!" another guard yelled, dropping his rifle as he turned to run.
There was now only one guard left.
As the other two sprinted down the hall, the last guard called out "FREDDIE! GEORGE! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Robotnik stepped over to him, and the guard turned around in fear. Meanwhile, the tank that had crashed through the wall in front of them reversed, tearing out more bricks as it pulled itself out of the building. The guard pointed his rifle at Robotnik's face, trembling so much the rifle was jerking all over the place.
"Too late for you," Robotnik said. "You think you're being a hero, I imagine, but all you're really getting is an early death."
"Just shut up!" the guard screamed at him.
A laser blast fizzled past Robotnik's left arm and struck the guard in the stomach. With a gasp of surprise, he toppled to the floor, dropping his rifle.
"Are you all right, Master Robotnik?" a robotic voice said from behind him. He heard the footsteps of other soldiers coming in behind the first robot.
"I'm fine," Robotnik said.
He didn't bother to turn to face his robot soldier. He heard the sound of the robot raising his blaster rifle to its shoulder.
"Don't shoot him yet," Robotnik said as he waved a hand in front of his servant. "I'd like to have a talk with him first, but kill him if he makes any sudden moves."
"As you wish," He heard the robot say, as he stepped back.
"How do you like your reward for doing your job?" Robotnik said.
"I may die here today, but I will die a hero, unlike my friends," the guard said.
"Some friends they were...but at least they were smart enough to not carelessly throw away their lives like this."
"I'd rather die a hero than live in the shame that I let you go."
"Die a hero? How romantic. What's the point of dying though if all you did was delay my escape a few minutes?"
"We make sacrifices for the rest of our people, for the good of many instead of the good of a few."
"Aww...that's so precious..." Robotnik said in a sarcastic voice, as he looked up at the ceiling and grinned. Drifting back into his normal tone, he said "But ultimately pointless. For I will never be defeated by such heroes."
"Are you sure?" the guard said, as a soft click was heard.
Robotnik jerked his head down, and saw that the guard was leaning up on one hand. In the other hand was his handgun, which he had pulled out of its holster while Robotnik was distracted. He started to squeeze the trigger. However, the robot soldier opened fire and sent a hail of lasers into the guard's body, sending him toppling to the floor in a spray of blood as the red bolts of light struck him. The blood rapidly spread across the floor, staining the white linoleum red.
Robotnik had experienced real fear there for a moment, but it was quickly replaced with arrogance and Robotnik smirked at the dead body before him. The guard had drawn Robotnik into the conversation, so that he could distract him long enough to pull out his handgun and shoot him. It was a good plan, and yet it hadn't worked.
"You see...I can never die to you pathetic Freedomians," Robotnik said with a sneer to the guard's corpse. "No matter how heroic you are, I'll never die to any of you. This planet will be mine soon..."
He turned around to face the robot soldiers behind him.
"Get me out of here, now!" Robotnik shouted at them. "And get these things off of me!" as he waved his handcuffs in front of them.
One robot solider stepped forward and grabbed one of the cuffs. He pulled it apart, snapping it into two pieces. The other cuff broke just as easily. The broken handcuffs clattered to the floor as Robotnik walked out of the hole the tank had broken in the building's wall, with his robot soldiers in tow. As he walked out into one of the prison's outer yards, he saw prisoners running out of the buildings, and got an idea. As he got inside a nearby tank, he ordered the robot soldiers to broadcast a certain message to the prisoners on the prison's PA system. A few minutes later, the robot soldiers took control of the PA system and blasted the message from all of the loudspeakers in the compound:
"Attention all prisoners! If you would like to be free of this prison forever, then report to the Robotnik mother ship on the north side of the compound! Come on board and we will fly you out of here!"
The message was repeated over and over about every 45 seconds. The prisoners cheered, and many of them ran straight for the mother ship waiting outside of the prison walls. The Robotnik forces had broken many holes in the fences and walls, and had also killed many of the guards, so it was easy for them to get out. Many ran towards the ship once they were free, and piled into it through the entry doors. The robots herded them into the cargo bay, as Robotnik had requested. He watched with glee from the window of his tank at how eager the prisoners were to go with him.
A few minutes later, Robotnik took his seat in the control room of the mother ship. He was extremely pleased with how well his backup plan had worked. He gazed at the four former humans in front of him, manning the controls of the room. These were the four Earth human generals he had kidnapped last summer. Iketani Jinzo, the Japanese man, Boris Shlochev, the Russian, Hans Gutenhuber, the German, and Jack Thompson, the American. They were the ones who had been activated when he had turned on the homing beacon in his glasses, and had commanded his army in his absence to free him.
The experiment he had tried on those generals in the summer of 2306 had worked perfectly. At first, he was afraid that it might diminish their effectiveness in commanding armies, but it seemed like they still retained all of their old knowledge of war tactics. Even better, the experiment had made it so that they would never need to eat, drink, or sleep, so they could work for him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if he wanted them too. Best of all, once the experiment was over, they had obeyed him to every last letter he had said, just as he wanted it. All in all, it was a complete success. Since his invention worked so well, he was going to try it again...on the prisoners he had recently freed.
---
Redrum Sehliner was extremely happy. He was a dark red dog from Tresed, and his criminal nickname was the "Sudo Butcher", which he earned from the papers after cruelly murdering several people in Sudo, Tresed's capital city. He had been put on death row for his crimes, and it didn't look like he was going to escape from prison in time to avoid his punishment. Now though, his opportunity for escape had been handed to him on a silver platter by Robotnik's army.
That guy may be a maniac who wants to take over my home world, Redrum thought. But hey, if he's going to offer me escape, he's an all right guy by me.
He sat on a box in the cargo hold of Robotnik's mother ship, smiling widely. He was so happy that he didn't even bother to talk to any of the other prisoners around him. When he had felt the ship lurch off of the ground, he felt like a whole new dog.
It's all uphill from here, he gladly thought.
Suddenly, a large door in the wall nearby rolled open. Robot soldiers started walking into the room, surrounding all of the prisoners. Whispers could be heard throughout the crowd:
"What's going on?"
"What do they need?"
"Do they need to talk to us or something?"
Redrum slid off of his crate and surveyed the room. The soldiers moved rather efficiently, because before long they had soldiers stationed throughout the cargo bay. Once they had reached their positions, they remained still for a moment. However, simultaneously all of the robots raised their guns and depressed the triggers. Instead of lasers, a purple gas appeared from their guns. As the wisps of gas reached his nostrils, Redrum started to feel tired.
"It's sleeping gas!" someone in the room screamed.
The prisoners started to make a run for it, but it was hopeless. Already some were too tired to even walk, let alone run for their lives. Robot guards blocked all of the doors so that nobody could leave the room. Redrum was out of it after the first minute of breathing that purple gas. After a few minutes, there was no longer any resistance from the prisoners and they all slept peacefully on the floor.
June 12th, 2307 - 6:00 AM - Various locations
Swift peacefully slept in the bedroom of his apartment in Forest Town, Elona, his mind free of troubles as the morning sunlight started to filter in through the blinds. With all of the money he had been rewarded with for capturing Robotnik, he could never have to work again, and even his KID might not ever have to work. Still though, he didn't think he'd like to sit around doing nothing for the rest of his life. Swift was a restless soul, and he could never stay in one place for very long with nothing to do. Maybe he'd stick around in the army for a while to give himself something to do...
The telephone on the nightstand next to his bed started to ring, stirring Swift from his slumber. He cursed under his breath, and blindly reached towards the phone with his eyes still closed. After a few moments of searching, he finally found it and brought it to his ear.
"Uh...hello...?" he muttered.
"Swift? Is that you?" a familiar voice said.
"Oh, hey Kyle..." Swift said, as his rage started to slip away since it was a friend who was calling him. "What's up?"
"Turn on your TV! Hurry up and do it now! Go to the news channel!" Kyle ordered.
"Why?"
"Just do it!"
Swift fumbled around for the remote, which he also left on his nightstand. He picked it up and aimed it at the TV set. He pushed the power button. The TV flickered to life, and Swift changed to Channel 7, the news channel.
"We're continuing to bring you live coverage from Naeco Maximum Security Prison," a young female reporter said. "Which is currently under attack by Robotnik's army."
The news camera showed a view of the outside of the prison. Robotnik's tanks had surrounded the prison, and were plowing right through the electric fences as if they were made of cardboard. Prisoners who happened to be out in the yard took advantage of the chaos to run for freedom. Guards in the guard towers feebly fired their rifles at the tanks, but all this got them was return fire. The tank shells easily blew up entire towers, sending them crashing down with the guards inside them. As the tanks entered the yards inside the fences, robot soldiers emptied out and moved towards the cellblocks.
"What the hell?!" Swift said.
"I know," Kyle said back over the phone. "Robotnik's army should be disorganized and confused without their leader."
"Maybe he programmed them to save him in case he got caught."
"I guess so. It looks like we'll be seeing each other again sooner than we thought."
"Yeah. Looks like he wasn't making an idle threat back in Reppoc after all. I guess I'll get ready to go now then."
"I'm getting packed now too. It's a shame how this came up right in the middle of my honeymoon. I'm going to have to cut it short."
"You got married to Natalie already?"
"Yeah..."
"Congratulations then, bud!"
"Thanks, but now's not the time for that. I need get going. Our unit is meeting at the army base in Chawak, Ronoh, so I'll see you there."
"Chawak, Ronoh, got it. See you there. Bye!"
"Bye!"
---
At the prison, Robotnik sat giddily in his cell, hearing the distant explosions and screams. Soon his robot soldiers would get to him, and he would be free. Robotnik took off his glasses and looked at them with pride.
I could have never pulled off my backup plan without this, he thought.
Robotnik wasn't actually talking about how well the glasses allowed him to see, but what special feature he had built into them. He had installed a hidden homing beacon inside the frame of the glasses, should he be captured. All he had to do was press a button to activate the beacon, and his army would come to help him. He was a little afraid that the beacon might not work when he had first turned it on last night, but fortunately it seemed to be working perfectly.
Had he been so inclined, he could have turned on the beacon the day he had been captured and been freed before even reaching the prison. He decided that it would have been better to let the Freedomians have a month off, to let them get a little lazy. In that way, they wouldn't be prepared for his sudden surprise attack. As an added bonus, he had totally crushed the Freedomians' happy spirits from their early victory by letting them bask in their glory for a while.
However, he heard loud footsteps outside marching up to his door. He heard the swish of a keycard through the reader next to his door, and with a confirming beep it hinged open. Several heavily equipped human guards stood outside his door, with thick helmets, heavy bulletproof vests, and high caliber assault rifles. They looked like they were ready for hell itself.
"YOU!" a guard yelled, pointing his finger at Robotnik. "Come with us!"
Robotnik smiled and got up off of his bed.
"You're only delaying the inevitable," he said. "I WILL be getting out of here a free man today, no matter where you take me to."
"Just shut up and let's go!" the nearest guard shouted, grabbing Robotnik's arm and jerking him out of his cell.
Another guard slammed a pair of handcuffs on Robotnik's hands. They marched down the hallway, three guards walking in front of him, three bringing up the rear. Apparently, they were taking him to a more secure area. Not that it would make much of a difference. His escape would only be delayed by several minutes more at most.
He heard the rumble of a tank engine behind the right wall, and grinned. About three seconds later, with a mighty crash, the tank smashed through the wall, sending bricks toppling everywhere and creating a massive cloud of dust in the hallway. The three guards walking in front of Robotnik were actually crushed by the tank since it had smashed in so suddenly. Meanwhile the others behind him jumped back in fear, waving their guns towards the tank. Robotnik smiled and turned around to face the guards.
"It's not too late for you to run," Robotnik said to them. "Leave now and my soldiers will spare you. There's no need for you to throw away your lives like this."
Even under their facemasks, Robotnik could tell how terrified these men were. They looked like mice trapped against a wall by a big cat, with no hope of escape.
After a few seconds, one of the guards screamed, "Screw this!" and ran away back down the hall.
"Wait for me!" another guard yelled, dropping his rifle as he turned to run.
There was now only one guard left.
As the other two sprinted down the hall, the last guard called out "FREDDIE! GEORGE! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Robotnik stepped over to him, and the guard turned around in fear. Meanwhile, the tank that had crashed through the wall in front of them reversed, tearing out more bricks as it pulled itself out of the building. The guard pointed his rifle at Robotnik's face, trembling so much the rifle was jerking all over the place.
"Too late for you," Robotnik said. "You think you're being a hero, I imagine, but all you're really getting is an early death."
"Just shut up!" the guard screamed at him.
A laser blast fizzled past Robotnik's left arm and struck the guard in the stomach. With a gasp of surprise, he toppled to the floor, dropping his rifle.
"Are you all right, Master Robotnik?" a robotic voice said from behind him. He heard the footsteps of other soldiers coming in behind the first robot.
"I'm fine," Robotnik said.
He didn't bother to turn to face his robot soldier. He heard the sound of the robot raising his blaster rifle to its shoulder.
"Don't shoot him yet," Robotnik said as he waved a hand in front of his servant. "I'd like to have a talk with him first, but kill him if he makes any sudden moves."
"As you wish," He heard the robot say, as he stepped back.
"How do you like your reward for doing your job?" Robotnik said.
"I may die here today, but I will die a hero, unlike my friends," the guard said.
"Some friends they were...but at least they were smart enough to not carelessly throw away their lives like this."
"I'd rather die a hero than live in the shame that I let you go."
"Die a hero? How romantic. What's the point of dying though if all you did was delay my escape a few minutes?"
"We make sacrifices for the rest of our people, for the good of many instead of the good of a few."
"Aww...that's so precious..." Robotnik said in a sarcastic voice, as he looked up at the ceiling and grinned. Drifting back into his normal tone, he said "But ultimately pointless. For I will never be defeated by such heroes."
"Are you sure?" the guard said, as a soft click was heard.
Robotnik jerked his head down, and saw that the guard was leaning up on one hand. In the other hand was his handgun, which he had pulled out of its holster while Robotnik was distracted. He started to squeeze the trigger. However, the robot soldier opened fire and sent a hail of lasers into the guard's body, sending him toppling to the floor in a spray of blood as the red bolts of light struck him. The blood rapidly spread across the floor, staining the white linoleum red.
Robotnik had experienced real fear there for a moment, but it was quickly replaced with arrogance and Robotnik smirked at the dead body before him. The guard had drawn Robotnik into the conversation, so that he could distract him long enough to pull out his handgun and shoot him. It was a good plan, and yet it hadn't worked.
"You see...I can never die to you pathetic Freedomians," Robotnik said with a sneer to the guard's corpse. "No matter how heroic you are, I'll never die to any of you. This planet will be mine soon..."
He turned around to face the robot soldiers behind him.
"Get me out of here, now!" Robotnik shouted at them. "And get these things off of me!" as he waved his handcuffs in front of them.
One robot solider stepped forward and grabbed one of the cuffs. He pulled it apart, snapping it into two pieces. The other cuff broke just as easily. The broken handcuffs clattered to the floor as Robotnik walked out of the hole the tank had broken in the building's wall, with his robot soldiers in tow. As he walked out into one of the prison's outer yards, he saw prisoners running out of the buildings, and got an idea. As he got inside a nearby tank, he ordered the robot soldiers to broadcast a certain message to the prisoners on the prison's PA system. A few minutes later, the robot soldiers took control of the PA system and blasted the message from all of the loudspeakers in the compound:
"Attention all prisoners! If you would like to be free of this prison forever, then report to the Robotnik mother ship on the north side of the compound! Come on board and we will fly you out of here!"
The message was repeated over and over about every 45 seconds. The prisoners cheered, and many of them ran straight for the mother ship waiting outside of the prison walls. The Robotnik forces had broken many holes in the fences and walls, and had also killed many of the guards, so it was easy for them to get out. Many ran towards the ship once they were free, and piled into it through the entry doors. The robots herded them into the cargo bay, as Robotnik had requested. He watched with glee from the window of his tank at how eager the prisoners were to go with him.
A few minutes later, Robotnik took his seat in the control room of the mother ship. He was extremely pleased with how well his backup plan had worked. He gazed at the four former humans in front of him, manning the controls of the room. These were the four Earth human generals he had kidnapped last summer. Iketani Jinzo, the Japanese man, Boris Shlochev, the Russian, Hans Gutenhuber, the German, and Jack Thompson, the American. They were the ones who had been activated when he had turned on the homing beacon in his glasses, and had commanded his army in his absence to free him.
The experiment he had tried on those generals in the summer of 2306 had worked perfectly. At first, he was afraid that it might diminish their effectiveness in commanding armies, but it seemed like they still retained all of their old knowledge of war tactics. Even better, the experiment had made it so that they would never need to eat, drink, or sleep, so they could work for him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if he wanted them too. Best of all, once the experiment was over, they had obeyed him to every last letter he had said, just as he wanted it. All in all, it was a complete success. Since his invention worked so well, he was going to try it again...on the prisoners he had recently freed.
---
Redrum Sehliner was extremely happy. He was a dark red dog from Tresed, and his criminal nickname was the "Sudo Butcher", which he earned from the papers after cruelly murdering several people in Sudo, Tresed's capital city. He had been put on death row for his crimes, and it didn't look like he was going to escape from prison in time to avoid his punishment. Now though, his opportunity for escape had been handed to him on a silver platter by Robotnik's army.
That guy may be a maniac who wants to take over my home world, Redrum thought. But hey, if he's going to offer me escape, he's an all right guy by me.
He sat on a box in the cargo hold of Robotnik's mother ship, smiling widely. He was so happy that he didn't even bother to talk to any of the other prisoners around him. When he had felt the ship lurch off of the ground, he felt like a whole new dog.
It's all uphill from here, he gladly thought.
Suddenly, a large door in the wall nearby rolled open. Robot soldiers started walking into the room, surrounding all of the prisoners. Whispers could be heard throughout the crowd:
"What's going on?"
"What do they need?"
"Do they need to talk to us or something?"
Redrum slid off of his crate and surveyed the room. The soldiers moved rather efficiently, because before long they had soldiers stationed throughout the cargo bay. Once they had reached their positions, they remained still for a moment. However, simultaneously all of the robots raised their guns and depressed the triggers. Instead of lasers, a purple gas appeared from their guns. As the wisps of gas reached his nostrils, Redrum started to feel tired.
"It's sleeping gas!" someone in the room screamed.
The prisoners started to make a run for it, but it was hopeless. Already some were too tired to even walk, let alone run for their lives. Robot guards blocked all of the doors so that nobody could leave the room. Redrum was out of it after the first minute of breathing that purple gas. After a few minutes, there was no longer any resistance from the prisoners and they all slept peacefully on the floor.