"Come in, I don't read you! What's your status?!" Tower ran through the ARK, trying to reach his escort ship through his radio, but all he was receiving was static. "Damn, what's going on?!" He rounded a corner, finding a few of the Black Aliens waiting for him. He aimed his shotgun and fired as he charged them, dodging their own shots in the process. He dispatched them quickly and made for the landing site, but as the door opened, he almost fell as he found the path he had taken earlier was now gone.
"What's going on?!" Peering down, he found the broken pathway floating in space. The wreckage of his transport was there with it, but there was no sign of his crew. "I'll have to rendezvous with Mantis Platoon and-"
Before the Commander could finish his thought, another shock rocked the ARK, and he found himself suddenly falling down, the ARK quickly rising up above him. Looking around, he found a pathway with a GUN Jump Vehicle falling alongside him. Grunting, he turned himself around and reached out for the broken walkway. He just about managed to reach it and pulled himself onto the solid ground, but there was no time for rest as more debris was raining down from above.
Boarding the mech, Tower looked up and found a way through the falling debris. He jumped up to another falling path, and then to another, and another. Eventually, he found his way to a doorway that would lead inside the ARK. Once inside, he climbed out of the mech and took a moment to catch his breath.
Reaching for the radio, he attempted to contact Mantis Platoon, but all he got was more static. "Looks like I can't reach anyone. All the fighting is causing the ARK to fall apart…" Running down the hallway, Tower found the bodies of both GUN and Black Arm soldiers alike littered throughout. Thankfully, the lights were still on so he didn't have to worry about tripping over any of them, but it pained him to see how many of his men had fallen in this battle.
Coming across a door, Tower looked inside to be sure there wasn't an ambush waiting for him. The room appeared to be a cafeteria at one point in time, and seemed quite empty. He continued down, finding another door and checking it as well. This one was an office of some kind, for a doctor, judging by the medical equipment inside.
"Hold on…" The Commander looked back down the hallway. He knew where he was! He had played in this section of the ARK with Maria, and if he was right, there should be more offices along the hallway, and then a storage room for various medicines and medical equipment. At the end of the hallway should be the lounge, and if he took one of the elevators there, he could reach… "The Observation Deck!"
Tower hurried down the hall. The 'Observation Deck' was the unofficial name given to the large, empty room that was set aside for emergency evacuation purposes. Well, one of them, at least. It had no function other than to hold escape pods for passengers to get back down to the Earth, but it became a popular spot for patients, doctors and researchers alike to just sit and look down at the planet together.
He remembered that Maria loved to go there often. He never found it interesting and rarely joined her, but in his current state, the idea of just looking down at the peaceful planet and thinking about all the happy people down there sounded like a fine way to pass time. "Maria, I will protect the planet you loved so much!"
Tower had to stop suddenly as he opened a door. The path had been submerged in a glowing green fluid. It must have leaked out from all the damage, and though he wasn't sure what it was, he knew he didn't want to touch it. The Black Aliens seemed to agree, as they were also in the room, hovering above the fluid atop small, flying saucers.
Some of the bat-like creatures were also there, and when one of them took notice of the Commander, it alerted the rest. "I don't have time for this!" Tower ran forwards and jumped onto the nearest of the flying creatures, firing his shotgun at one of the humanoid aliens to knock it off its saucer. He leapt across the flying creatures like stepping stones, firing at the saucer-riding aliens along the way. A shot grazed his shoulder, but he managed to make it over to the other side with no serious harm, and he continued running as the Black Aliens gave chase.
Reaching the lounge, Tower found that the elevators were still functioning, but he had to call one down. The Black Aliens chasing him entered the room, and he took cover behind an overturned table as they fired at him.
"It's just one thing after another!" Taking one of his grenades, Tower pulled the pin and threw it out. It exploded, and the firing stopped, but he could still hear the grotesque sounds of the Black Aliens approaching cautiously through the smoke.
Emerging from behind his cover, Tower took advantage of the Black Aliens' confusion to thin out their numbers, taking them down as he ran from one cover to the next. He threw a second grenade and checked the elevator's progress. It was almost there, he just had to buy a little more time.
Springing out, Tower took a shot to his left arm and groaned in pain. His left arm hurt too much for him to continue using it, so he tossed aside the shotgun and took out his sidearm, using just his right arm to take out the Black Alien that shot him as he ran to find more cover. He dove behind a sandbag barricade set-up by GUN, finding two of his soldiers lying dead. One of them was holding a riot shield.
The elevator arrived, and Tower readied himself as he grabbed the shield with his one good arm. He took a deep breath, and sprang out, deflecting shots as he ran for the elevator. The doors were closing as he neared, forcing him to throw the shield in order to just barely slip inside before they closed completely.
He pressed the button to go up and sighed as the elevator moved, the Black Aliens attempting to fire on him but being unable to pierce the glass with their weapons. He had to admit, Gerald Robotnik knew what he was doing when he built this place. The elevator's glass was made of the same material that the ARK's windows, meaning that they were designed to withstand even the force of high-grade explosions without shattering.
As the elevator continued its ascent, Tower took the time to sit and collect his thoughts. Could he really trust what Shadow said, about accepting his fate? Even if Shadow was suffering from amnesia – and by this point, he was willing to give him that benefit of the doubt – would the real Shadow be so honourable, once his memories come back? Just what was Shadow's connection to the Black Arms, anyway? Did he really save the Earth to protect it? Or was it indeed an act as Tower had suspected?
So many questions ran through the Commander's head, and he felt that the answer might not be so simple, or to his liking. But all of that could wait, because what mattered right at that moment was returning home. Returning to GUN HQ, and keeping his people safe.
The elevator reached its destination. Tower climbed to his feet and hid as the doors opened. Nothing happened, so he took a glance outside and found the room empty. Running over to a nearby control panel, Tower was delighted to find there were still escape pods left. It seemed that one had been launched in the last few months, which confirmed they were still functional.
He called one of the escape pods and set the destination. Since HQ was being invaded, he knew the automatic systems would open-fire on any unknown craft attempting to enter through the air, so he had to set his destination to somewhere nearby instead. Hopefully he wouldn't run into the Black Aliens before he could make contact with his troops.
Stepping into the escape pod, Tower took one last look around the room. He then remembered, in the months leading up to the disaster, this room would often be made off-limits to all living on the ARK. All except for Maria. It confused him at the time, but he didn't think much of it, given her grandfather ran the whole facility. He figured she must have just wanted some time to be alone, but was that really the case?
"Shadow and Maria… Did they come here together, back then?"
The pod closed, and Tower braced himself as it was ejected down to the planet.
Back at GUN HQ, the battle to ward off the Black Aliens had grown intense as the invaders had breached the outer defences, and began to storm the facility. GUN soldiers mobilised throughout the base, locking down entire sectors and setting up defensive positions.
Hope watched as soldiers rushed through the halls outside, scrambling to intercept the Black Aliens that were pushing further inside. Reports were coming fast of breaches in various sections, along with requests for reinforcements.
"We need more men to cover the East Block-"
"They're coming in through the western car park! We need backup-"
"We're down to our last mech! The enemy is- GAAAAHHHHH!"
Hope covered her ears, trying to drown out all the sounds of soldiers desperately calling for help. General Morgan was doing her best to co-ordinate the troops in Commander Towers' absence, but the battle being spread all over the world left them little with which to defend themselves.
"We'll have to pull our forces further inside so we can tighten our defences," Morgan said.
"Sir, if we do that, we'll compromise the defensive cores," one soldier stated. Three cores existed in GUN HQ that powered its external defences. They were the reason the Black Aliens gunships weren't able to simply fire on the facility itself, or rain troops in from the skies. Instead, they were forced to enter on-foot. If the cores fell, the facility would surely be lost.
"The rate things are going, we won't have any choice," Morgan replied. "Our numbers are too few, and our communication lines are in chaos at the moment. We have to cut our losses and defend only what we can."
The President sighed, hanging his head low as he listened to the brave men and women fighting, while he simply sat and waited for a report from the Chaotix. A report that, at this point, might do no good, anyway.
"Sir, we've detected something falling to the ground! It seems to be a craft of some kind!" an agent reported. "It's out of range for our automatic defences."
"Do you think it belongs to the Black Aliens?" Morgan asked, approaching the agent and checking his monitor.
"Unknown, but it landed far from where the Black Aliens are."
"Could it not simply be the remains of a ship or a fighter jet that had been destroyed?"
"Negative. It's equipped with a Chaos Drive and there are signs of life inside."
Hope gasped. "If it's a Chaos Drive, it must be one of ours."
"The Black Aliens have been hunting the Chaos Emeralds," General Morgan said. "It wouldn't be strange if they also had Chaos Drives, or something similar."
"Yeah, but…" Hope approached the agent. "Where did you say it fell from?"
"Projecting calculated flight-path…" The monitor showed that the craft was likely to have come from space, but rather than coming from the Black Comet, it was coming from the Space Colony ARK.
"The Commander!" Hope smiled. "He must have used one of the ARK's escape pods! They're all equipped with Chaos Drives."
"We don't know that," Morgan said, "But if there's even a chance, then I will send out a party to scout it out."
"General Morgan," another agent began, "That won't be possible. The Black Alien gunships will shoot down any craft that leaves through the hanger."
Morgan gritted her teeth. "Sending out a ship would take too long… Blast! We can't risk leaving the Commander alone out there!"
Hope tried to think. Maybe there was a mech that could make it outside, pick up the Commander, and then return? … No, the only ones that could possibly make it outside were too slow. There's no way they'd outrun aerial bombardment. What if they took out the gunships? If they could do that, they wouldn't be in the situation to begin with…
"We need a craft that can exit through the back, make it to the Commander, and return, while being fast enough to evade the attacks from above," she muttered, and then it dawned on her. There was such a craft right there in the fortress.
Hope grabbed a laptop and ran out the room, racing down the halls. General Morgan called after her, but she kept running, taking turn and following the directions towards the South Hanger, where the Commander had landed earlier with his team.
By the time she reached the hanger, she was out of breath, and her legs felt heavy. There was no time for rest, though, so Hope ran across the large room. Engineers were prepping mechs and waiting for orders to send them out to squads that needed them, and pilots were on standby in the event that it became safe to fly.
On one of the landing pads at the back, Hope found what she was looking for. It was Tails' plane, the Cyclone, parked alongside the escape craft that the President had used. She jumped inside and looked over its controls as she tried to figure them out. She found the switch to power it on, and was met with a screen asking for a password and a retinal scan. "Sorry Tails, but I need to borrow this." She plugged the laptop into the Cyclone and attempted to breach its security.
The Cyclone detected the hack and tried to shut itself down, but Hope was able to bypass the security feature and deactivated the protocol. She was still locked out of the unit itself, though. Tails' security was top-notch, but not unbeatable. With enough effort, she found a vulnerability that allowed her to create an entry point, and from there, was able to input a new line of code that told the system it no longer needed to confirm the pilot's identity.
When the Cyclone's systems came to life and welcomed her, Hope could barely contain her excitement. "Alright, now let's see what this can do." She studied the controls for a minute, and once she had a good idea of what did what, she pushed the button to convert the plane into a walker mech. Carefully, she moved the mech forwards, and was surprised at how simple it was to handle.
"If I can make it to the South Dock, I can launch safely and reach the Commander." Hope left the hanger, earning many surprised looks along the way. She marched through the base in the walker mech, passing GUN troops on standby as she made her way to one of the large elevators used to transport mechs and large vehicles.
She booted up the map of GUN HQ on her laptop and found the fastest way to the South Dock. She needed to go down, and then it would be a straight run there under normal conditions, but with the base under lockdown, she may have to take a detour. Hope boarded the elevator and rode it down, and as she did so, she found Black Alien creatures flying into the room, shooting down laser attacks towards her.
"I won't just run away this time!" Hope locked-on to the flying creatures, and then launched a missile salvo. The creatures tried to evade but the missiles followed after them, taking them down in no time at all. "Wow," was all she could say as she looked down at the mech's control panel. "Laser-guided missiles that home in on their targets! I wonder how they do it? Heat signatures?" She attempted to dig through the mech's data, but was alerted by the sound of the elevator locking into place as it reached its destination.
"I'll have to ask Tails about it later," she said. "I have to focus! Still though, this walker mech is awesome! Even I can fight in one of these!"
As she marched down the next hallway, she found a group of GUN soldiers engaged with Black Aliens. She attempted to lock-on to just the aliens, but the system was also targeting her allies. "That's no good. Um, let's see… Ah, here!" Hope abandoned the missile barrage and instead activated the mech's ballistic capabilities, firing its built-in machine gun to clear out the aliens as she charged forwards. Their own shots were deflected by the mech's shields, which she found were charged by Power Rings. "It has everything!" she sang, stars appearing in her eyes.
"Hey!" one of the soldiers shouted, jumping out in front of the mech. Hope hit the brakes and leaned over the side of the cockpit. "Wait, you're not Tails?"
"Sorry, I'm just borrowing it for a bit!" Hope said. "I need to get to the South Dock! The Commander might need rescuing!"
The soldiers exchanged glances, and then nodded. "Understood! The way has been sealed so you'll need to take a less-direct path. We'll provide cover!"
"Roger!" Hope dove back into the cockpit and checked the controls. She found a way to identify friendlies and set it to recognise the GUN soldiers as allies. "Okay, should be safe now…"
They pushed through the facility, swiftly taking out Black Arm forces along the way using Tails' Cyclone. Hope noticed that only the smaller aliens had been coming, not the giants or the worm creature that had been sighted in other areas. The soldiers noticed this, too, and suggested that the aliens were probably launching a desperate assault.
In that case, they just had to be aggressive. With some newfound morale, the troops pushed hard, forcing the Black Arms to retreat and pinning them down. They met up with other units, who assisted them in reaching the South Dock. There, they found Admiral Lee's troops fortified at the end of a pier, using the surrounding water as a barrier to bottleneck the Black Arm forces attacking them.
"Admiral Lee, we're here to lend some assistance!" a soldier called out as the squad began firing on the aliens from behind.
Caught by surprise, the Black Arms scattered and attempted to retaliate, which gave the Admiral's squad a chance to advance. Trapped between two enemy units, the Black Arms quickly fell. Hope breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in the mech, wiping the sweat from her brow. Suddenly, her hands began shaking, and she got a chill down her spine. "T-That was kind scary… Exciting, but scary…"
"Thank you for the assistance," Admiral Lee said as she approached the soldiers, looking at Hope in the Cyclone. He turned back to the troops. "If you're looking to use of our ships, you're out of luck. Bastards dropped something nasty in the waters up ahead."
"'Something nasty'?" Hope asked.
"Worms," the Admiral answered. "Giant ones. Turns out they can hide underwater, as well as underground."
Hope nodded. "Well, I wasn't planning on going by sea anyway…" She was about to push the button to turn the mech back into a plane, but felt a hand on her arm.
"Will you be okay on your own?" a soldier asked, looking up at her sternly. "You might be good in that thing, but you're still just a child. You're not a soldier like us."
Hope wasn't sure how to answer. Truthfully, she was terrified of going out there all by herself, with no guarantee that the Commander would even be waiting there for her. An explosion from further inside startled everyone, and it snapped Hope out of her thoughts. "Everybody else's putting their life on the line," she said, pulling her arm away. "I'm not a soldier, but I'm still a GUN operative!"
With that, she pushed the button and blasted off in the Cyclone, leaving the facility and taking to the skies.