Sonic flew through the night, stopping only once to refill the tanks from the jerry cans of fuel.

In spite of the racket from the engine, Knuckles had fallen asleep not long after they'd taken off the second time. Apparently the past few days had finally caught up with him. He stirred as dawn spilled across the sky.

"Where are we?"

Sonic glanced over his shoulder.

"About 20 miles east of the base."

Knuckles fell silent again.

"Will they have detected us yet?"

"No one's shown up to say hi, if they have." Sonic shrugged, "Probably think we're passing tourists. The excitement won't come until they figure out we aren't." He yawned, and gazed out at the sunrise. A haze covered the ground and the clouds were pink and yellow above it.

"Pretty," he commented.

Knuckles grunted noncommittally.

"Almost makes you homesick doesn't it?" Sonic continued, to break the silence.

Knuckles' reaction was surprisingly vehement.

"It's nothing like home."

Sonic twisted in surprise to stare at him. Knuckles squirmed lower in his seat, looking suddenly embarrassed.

"And it's not homesickness." he finally said, his voice barely audible over the engine note.

Sonic decided against pressing the subject, and returned his attention to the horizon. After a few more moments he spoke again. It was long past time to clear the air.

"Okay," he said without turning. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this. Is that what you want me to say?"

No answer.

Sonic gave it another few seconds then twisted in his seat again to stare at Knuckles.

"Well?"

Knuckles was frowning deeply but not, apparently, at him.

"I--" he started, stopped, started again. "No. Not really."

"Huh?" Taken by surprise, Sonic felt almost affronted. Some way to respond to an apology!

Knuckles opened his mouth to frame another answer then his eyes suddenly widened.

"Sonic!"

Sonic snapped his head back around. Rising from below and ahead of them was a black and angular aircraft. Ports in the wingtips glowed green, looking unpleasantly likely to be weapons.

"I guess they just figured out we weren't tourists." Sonic shoved the nose down and the smaller plane darted underneath the looming shape. A beam of eye-watering green light burst into the air to their right and he reacted without thought, banking so steeply to avoid it that the plane rolled right around through inverted before returning to level.

"That blast was Chaos energy!" Knuckles shouted.

Sonic was eyeing the glow along the black aircraft's wings.

"I have a nasty feeling so is that."

"The two Emeralds." Knuckles said. "One down there, one up here."

Sonic's eyes darted around the sky, his fingers twitching on the controls as he waited for the next shot. "Didn't hang around did he?"

Knuckles ignored the remark. "We need both. Get above that ship."

Sonic obeyed, reasoning they were at least less likely to be shot at with the craft between them and the ground station.

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Knuckles was undoing his harness.

"What are you doing?" Sonic yelled, throwing the plane over and barely dodging the first blast from the ship itself. Apparently they weren't as safe here as he thought.

Knuckles grabbed at the sides of the cockpit until their flightpath steadied, then reached for the canopy release.

"I'm going to fetch this one," he said, evenly.

He jumped.

Sonic stared in blank disbelief for a second or two. The he shook his head, rolled the plane onto its back and pulled through into a dive. The upper surface of the black aircraft hurtled by above his head and the wind across the still open canopy snatched away the muttered, "And he reckons I'm impulsive!"

Sonic discovered he only needed to dodge two more shots from the ground before he made an ungraceful landing in the half-desert scrubland outside the base. The weapon, however it was set up, must take some time to charge, or aim or --Sonic's technical knowledge ran out at that point and he settled for-- "Or something."

Sonic didn't wait to find out if anyone had seen his landing. He had already spotted that there were no guards on the perimeter fence and doubted that they were merely spectatating. Most likely they'd been called in to defend the weapon. He also wondered where Robotnik was. This was clearly his handiwork but would he be up there, or down here? In the past he'd always seemed to relish flying his creations himself, but would he trust his safety to the clearly lower technology of this world--however heavily modified?

Sonic quickly decided he didn't have time to speculate. He'd find out soon enough. Or Knuckles would.

Sonic tore straight through the fence in a spin and headed for the cover of the nearest building. The weapon station was immediately identifiable. It had been constructed in the ruins of the control tower he'd demolished on his last visit, using much of the same material. It pointed, snubnosed, at the sky and, as Sonic had expected, was surrounded by armed guards.

To his amazement half of them suddenly ran off, a tight group flanked by several on the fringes. They were heading towards the spot where he'd touched down and it suddenly made sense--he had been seen but they didn't yet know whether he'd landed or crashed.

It wouldn't take them long to find out. Now was the best chance he was likely to get.

Sonic eyed the weapons installation a moment longer, assessing the number of guards, and their positions. Then he moved. He was still accelerating when the first guard shouted. The warning sounded dopplered to Sonic's ears as he sped up, and he couldn't make out the sense of it. Not that it really mattered. He was going too fast for a change of plan now.

He swept around the shortened tower, leaning tightly into the turn as dirt sprayed up from his shoes. The slipstream in his wake swept the guards off their feet. They fell coughing in the dust cloud. Sonic spared them just a glance to check they were down then leapt towards the platform, already curling into a spin as his went.

There was the dull crash of breaking masonry a sharp squeal of tearing metal, then something sparkled as it flew free. Sonic twisted, still halfway through his jump and snatched the Emerald out of the air.

Firing broke out from the guards who'd recovered their feet. Sonic landed in a starting blocks crouch and took off again, jinking across the open ground, towards the fence.

There would be guards around the plane by now. He only hoped they'd left it airworthy, and hadn't decided to shoot first and investigate afterwards.

Only one way to find out of course.

The guards were already running towards Sonic as he approached. The noise from the base must have carried. He bowled straight past them, leapt into the cockpit and fired the engine up almost in the same motion.

The guards had barely turned around before he was rolling. Gunfire burst around his ears and he silently urged the plane to greater speed.

Maybe he should have just run. Compared to his own pace, this slow acceleration to flying speed was like ploughing through syrup.

It took an eternity before the plane lifted off. Sonic held it low for a few more seconds, gathering speed, then pointed the nose at the sky and climbed away.

A metallic bang marked the last, and most accurate of the gunshots. Sonic glanced out and cursed. Fuel streamed out of a ragged hole in the wing, trailing out behind as a glittering, but unwelcome, banner.

Sonic tried to quickly tot up how much fuel might be left and how fast he was losing it and gave up. Either he'd make it back to Robotnik's craft or he wouldn't.

That thought led inevitably to the next problem--quite how he was going to get on board if he did get there was something he hadn't quite worked out yet.

--End Part 13---