Shadow the Hedgehog stared his opponent straight in its cold, emotionless visage. Metal Sonic's blood-red eyes were locked with his own.
Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise observed astonishedly as one second, the two combatants were frozen in one another's gazes, and the next, they were engaged in intense combat. They could do nothing to sway what little of the battle they could see, as both opponents seemed to teleport around the room, landing attacks on each other whenever they were visible.
"Captain."
Kirk jumped when he noticed Tails next to him. How the yellow fox cub had made its way to them despite the showdown that was commencing was beyond him.
"I think now is a good time to try to get to the control panel for the teleporter," Tails continued, pointing to one of the few monitors still in tact on the other side of the room, "While Shadow has Metal Sonic distracted."
"An old friend of yours, I presume?" Kirk inquired.
"Friend's not exactly the word for it," Kirk startledly turned again to see Sonic sitting on his other side, "But, yeah, you could say that."
"Friend or not," Dr. McCoy grumbled, "he's buying us time. Let's just get to the damn teleporter."
"Right." Kirk confirmed, "Let's mo-"
He was cut short by the sight of his first officer, Mr. Spock, nonchalantly standing up and walking straight into the heat of the ongoing brawl, where the two fighters were now locked in physical combat, momentarily fighting at close quarters without the aid of Chaos Control.
"Spock!" Kirk called out, "Spock, what are you doing?"
The Vulcan officer strolled right up to the robot hedgehog and, just as it turned around to attack him, he grabbed hold of its head, looking it straight in the face.
The two stood motionless as the rest looked on.
"What's he doing?" asked Knuckles, making his way across the room to the rest of the group.
"Spock is a Vulcan." Kirk responded, "A species of alien that can read the minds of other beings."
"But Metal Sonic isn't organic." Tails noted, "Can he do that to robots?"
"I'm not sure, but with our luck..."
Spock released his grip on the metal hedgehog, who fell backward, convulsing in a fit of some mechanic confusion.
"Spock..." Kirk said.
"It would be logical to assume that the Doctor would upload intelligence files regarding the android's mission to defend the Egg Destroyer into its memory banks. I now posses detailed maps of the vessel's layout." the Vulcan affirmed, "As well as a self-destruct code we can use to destroy it."
Sonic whistled, "Way to go, pointy!"
Spock raised an eyebrow to this remark.
"We're running out of time. Let's go." Knuckles demanded.
The group quickly ran to the teleporter and Tails began punching in commands.
Sonic turned and said, "Yo, Shadow? Feel like you could use a lift?"
Shadow eyed the blue robot, who was slowly rising to its feet, and replied, "You'll need somebody to stay behind and stop it from following you."
Suddenly, the group noticed a large group of robots making its way into the room.
Knuckles quickly lept forward and said, "I'll stay behind, too. After losing to that chrome-dome, I really need to smash something."
"If you say so." Tails said, "Is everybody else ready?"
"As we'll ever be." said Dr. McCoy.
"Transporter, On!" Tails yelled.
The six were enveloped in a yellow aura, which quickly disappeared with them in tow.
A very similar aura, the same aura, appeared on board a ship in outer space, and shrunk into nonexistence, leaving behind a blue hedgehog, a yellow fox, and four Starfleet officers.
"Is this it?" Kirk asked.
Tails looked around the room, holding a small, yellow monitor, and said "Definitely. There's no doubt that this is Eggman tech."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get moving!" Sonic exclaimed, quickly making his way down the first corridor he saw.
The others followed at their own pace. They moved forward in a fairly straight line, leaving their speedy partner to rapidly explore the station's many branching paths and hallways. Suddenly, Spock turned down one of the hallways. The rest of the group followed him, shortly joined by Sonic. They came to a large room with some kind of console glowing in the center.
Tails observed the machine, "This looks like-"
"The main power station." Spock interrupted, "Which, if the android's blueprints are correct, is powered by the seventh-"
He himself was interrupted by Sonic, who exclaimed "A Chaos Emerald!", pointing to a large, red gem resting in the top of the console near the ceiling.
"Of course he has to put it all the way up there." Dr. McCoy grumbled, "How the Hell are we supposed to get to it?"
"Leave that to me, Doc.", Sonic smirked, as he quickly ran up the wall and lept toward the console.
Tails, who was scanning the computer with his monitor, quickly looked up and shouted, "Sonic, wait!"
But it was too late. The blue hedgehog grabbed the Emerald, and no sooner did his feet touch the ground, did red lights begin flashing around them and an alarm went off all around the station.
"Main cannon to fire in four minutes.", Orbot's voice came over the loudspeaker, followed shortly by that of Doctor Eggman himself.
"Ooohohohohoho!"
"Eggman!", Tails exclaimed.
"What's goin' on, here?"
"Snooping as usual, I see. But you've played right into my hands this time, hedgehog!", the doctor cackled, "With the energy my Egg Destroyer has absorbed from that Emerald, I may not be able to destroy the planet, but I can do enough damage that taking over what's left will be no trouble at all!"
Kirk stepped forward, "Doctor Eggman, I presume? I've heard a lot about you."
"What a coincidence, because I've been learning about you as well, Captain James T. Kirk."
Kirk looked confusedly around at his crewmates, "How did you-"
"Ah ah ah, a good magician never reveals his secrets! Besides, I have another trick in store for you nuisances should you survive long enough to see it. Ta-ta!", the speaker crackled as the Doctor left the microphone.
"We gotta stop this thing!", Sonic yelled, "Hey Voltron, lay that self-destruct code on me. Maybe I'll be able to-"
"Negative.", Spock said, "The station's main cannon will fire in approximately three minutes. At your speed, it will take you about one minute and twenty seconds to run to the main control center and the same time to get back, leaving us twenty more seconds to escape the blast radius. This will not give you the thirty seconds necessary to input the code."
"You did all that in your head?", Sonic asked sarcastically.
"I am well trained in all forms of mathema-"
Spock was quickly interrupted by Kirk, "The ship's about to destroy a civilization, Spock. What are we supposed to do?"
Cadet Carter spoke up, "I volunteer."
All eyes landed on him.
"You think this is a damn blood drive? What do you mean 'volunteer'?" McCoy demanded.
"I mean that Sonic can take me to the main console and then run back. While the rest of you escape, I can put the code in and destroy the ship."
Sonic argued, "No way! Protecting this world is my thing! There's no need for you to-"
"This world needs you.", Carter rebutted, then turned to the Captain and saluted, "It's been an honor serving under you, Captain. Please allow me the opportunity to fulfill this task."
Kirk could only stare for a moment, before struggling to mumble, "Granted."
"Are you sure about this?", Sonic asked.
"Positive.", the cadet responded.
Sonic grabbed him up, looking uncomfortable, before Spock placed his hand on Sonic's head and gave him the location of the control room. Sonic and Carter then quickly sped down one hallway while everyone else ran down the other, Kirk quickly whipping out his tricorder to call Sulu for a ride.
Accurate to Spock's prediction, it took Sonic and Carter one minute and twenty seconds to reach the control room. Sonic dropped Carter who quickly went to work on the computer.
Before leaving, Sonic turned and said, "Thank you."
Carter responded, "No, thank you."
It took about the same time for Tails and the Enterprise's away team to reach the docking station where the Galileo was waiting. Everyone quickly rushed inside where Sulu was waiting.
"Should we head out, Captain?", the lieutenant asked.
"Not yet.", Kirk said, "We still have one more."
The red lights began to flash quicker and quicker, and the speakerphone started counting down from sixty.
"Come on, come on...", Kirk mumbled impatiently.
"Don't worry, Captain," Tails said, "He'll make it. He always does."
As the countdown reached twenty, Sonic came speeding into the docking bay and lept into the shuttlecraft.
"Now, Sulu!" Kirk yelled, and the ship took off.
In the main control room, Carter stood with his finger resting on the last button of the code, watching the monitor that showed the docking bay. As the small craft left, he looked at the console.
The countdown continued, "Main cannon to fire in Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four... Three... Two..."
He pressed the button.
Kirk looked out the window as the Egg Destroyer burst into flames, leaving only bits of charred scrap in its place. He couldn't look away.
McCoy put a hand on his friend's shoulder and said, "He's dead, Jim."
Kirk looked away from the window and into his lap.
Sulu opened a channel, "Enterpise. Enterprise. Come in, Enterprise."
Scotty's voice crackled over the speaker, "Sulu, is that you?"
Sulu responded, "Affirmative, Enterprise. We're returning. Can you tractor beam us in?"
Scotty responded, "Tractor beam? I cannae even get a readin' on yie. It's like yer not even there!"
"Hmm. That's odd. It's almost like how we couldn't get any readings from the planet until we got close to it."
"That's weird." Sonic said, "Why wouldn't you be able to scan it?"
"It must be the Chaos Emeralds!", Tails said, "They give off such strong energy that they can sometimes interfere with machinery."
"That explains the nonexistent planet." Kirk chimed in.
"I can tweak your computers to fix it when we get up there."
"I'd appreciate it."
"In that case,", Sulu said, "Scotty can you open the shuttle bay doors? We're flying in manually."
"Aye." Scotty's voice answered before the speaker crackled off.
Sonic and Tails gazed in awe as they approached the huge Federation flagship. The tiny shuttlecraft quickly flew inside and landed. Many crew members stared as the away team stepped out with two colorful alien animals. Sonic and Tails looked around in amazement as Scotty came up to greet them.
"Sorry about that, Cap'n." he said "The ship's scanners seem to have gone completely daft."
"Actually, I have somebody here here who would be glad to help you with that." Kirk responded, "Tails, would you care to accompany Mr. Scott to Engineering to make adjustments to our scanners?"
"Sure thing, Captain!" the yellow fox answered.
In the mean time, the rest of the group climbed into a nearby lift. McCoy got off first to return to Sickbay, then the lift went the rest of the way to the bridge.
Sonic whistled, "Pretty snazzy tech you got here, Cap."
Before Kirk could respond, Checkov approached him, "Captin, sorry to interrupt, but our computers seem to be experiencing some sort of, eh... wirus."
"A virus?" Kirk asked, "How is that-"
Just then, Lieutenant Uhura called out, "Captain, we're being hailed."
"Hailed? By what?"
The viewscreen began showing static, gradually fading to show Doctor Eggman's deranged grin.
"Like I said," the doctor crooned, "I have one more trick up my sleeve."
"One more trick? What does he-"
The ship was rocked by an explosion.
"What the Hell was that?" Kirk yelled.
Checkov looked at his console, "Our scanners are picking up another ship coming up behind us."
"Put it on the viewscreen."
The large screen showed the vessel.
It looked much like the Enterprise, but with a crimson and yellow paint job and far more visible weapons.
This was Eggman's final trick.
The Egg Enterpise.