No sooner had Ledge practically dived into the shuttle did the doors close, the vehicle accelerating rapidly. Still dazed from the ride over, he couldn't find purchase to hold on to and was lurched backwards. The movement quickly stopped, though, and he found himself surrounded in a cyan glow as Silver caught him with his psychic powers. The pale hedgehog was securely fastened in a seat, alongside Amy and the Chaotix.

"Woah. What is this?"

"You've never seen my psychokinesis before? Huh. Well, this is what it looks like!"

Once the shuttle reached cruising velocity, everyone unbuckled and had gathered around to start chatting when a very stern-looking Knuckles opened the door to the cockpit.

"Rookie, what were you thinking?! You could've gotten yourself killed!"

"Hey now, don't be so harsh on him!" Amy criticized. "It was his first mission, and he made it here without any crippling injuries and didn't delay the mission. I think he did a pretty good job."

"Yeah, and did you see how he was jumping all over the place? It was so cool!" Charmy added.

"… just try to be more careful next time," the echidna said, turning back to the cockpit and closing the door again behind him.

"Don't worry too much about him," Amy suggested. "He's always been hot-headed."

"I don't suppose he would take kindly to me addressing my grievance about being called a rookie, then," Ledge responded.

"I mean, you are a rookie," Vector defended. "Regardless of your intelligence or skill, you lack experience, and that can make a big difference. Especially against Eggman and his hair-brained schemes."

"I know it's tough, but that's the nature of training," Espio continued. "We were all there at some point. Wouldn't you agree, Charmy?"

The bee sighed. "Yeah, I know, I know, I'm still young. But you don't keep me around for nothing!"

Later, after Knuckles cooled down, he decided to hang with the others while Tails continued to monitor everything up front. Opening the door once more, he saw Amy and the Chaotix playing a card game.

"Cards? Where'd you get those?"

"A ninja never reveals his secrets," Espio answered without hesitation. He didn't even look up.

The others snickered at the comment but tried to focus on their game. Knuckles looked around and noticed Ledge sitting in a chair in the back, staring out the window. He walked over to the recruit and smiled when he realized what the bird was looking at.

"First time in space, I take it?"

Ledge was startled by the voice behind him, but he kept his gaze out of the window instead of addressing the brighter red being.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. I hope you understand that it's out of concern for you. None of us wants to lose the only refreshing face we've seen in a while."

"That's a very odd compliment, but I will accept it. And yes… our world is beautiful from all the way up here. It's really bittersweet that I wound up seeing it under these circumstances. You almost can't tell that on the surface, everyone is struggling."

"Guys, guys!" Tails called, thrusting open the door to the cockpit. "Rouge is contacting us!"

That caught everyone's attention, and Tails motioned for them to come up front with him. They all crowded in front of the console to listen in.

"Everyone! Can you hear me?" the bat asked.

"Rouge! It's about time," Knuckles answered. "How's Sonic doing?"

"He's been better. They're getting ready to banish him into space."

"What? You can't be serious!" Silver exclaimed.

"Eggman's been keeping Sonic alive all this time for a reason," Rouge continued. "He's waiting to show him his completed empire before disposing of him for good."

"And torturing Sonic just to pass the time…" Knuckles realized. "That's low, even for Eggman."

"The Doctor got wind of our rescue plan and is moving forward with this ahead of schedule. The clock is ticking."

"But we don't even know where on the Death Egg he's being held captive," Amy brought up.

"Then we're going to have to divide and conquer once more," Knuckles declared. "It should be the same as how we got here, but without a map this time. You all know what to do. Let's go get Sonic."

"I know you're as excited as we are to see Sonic again, but it can't be that simple," Espio objected. "Rouge, are there other prisoners aboard? Do you know how many?"

"A lot. Who knows how many prison sectors there are on a space station of this size?"

The commander thought for a few moments. "I hate to say this, but Sonic is our top priority. We'll try to rescue as many people as we can, but if it comes to it, we have to save him, no matter the price."

"Oh, man, you're joking, right?" Vector exclaimed. "That's not good at all!"

"None of this is good, Vector. That's why it's called war. And unfortunately, the objective of war is not to save everyone, it's to win. We can't win without Sonic."

Silver clenched his fists. "But –"

"No buts. I'm sorry if you disagree, but being the commander means making the hard decisions. All of us present are the only ones that stand a chance against Eggman. We can't afford any rogue heroism that may jeopardize any of our lives."

Ledge noticed a very brief glance in his direction from the echidna as he said that, but he couldn't tell if that was in reference to the second sentence or the third.

"So what's my next step?" Rouge asked.

"Try to find a way to disable the locks. We'll focus on searching the prison wards for Sonic. Vector, I want you to hold down the shuttle area for our return. Everyone ready?"

There was a collective, if somewhat hesitant, round of agreement.

Ledge quickly found out why it was called the Death Egg. He had thought the Spaceport had been well-guarded, but the space station it supplied had multiple times the number of robots, turrets, traps, and an assortment of every other deadly contraption you could think of.

The team managed to find a service elevator and split towards different sectors of the orbital base. Ledge had the idea to treat it like an actual ship – the engines were below, followed by the cargo hold, and passengers were on top. He was the last to get off the elevator, claiming the upper reaches as his quarry. So far, that decision was working out well for him, as everyone else got caught up dealing with enemies.

He ran down a large ramp in an open area leading to the floor below him. On top of its many threats, the Death Egg was simply massive, and anything that led to new territory was worth traversing as opposed to attempting a comprehensive search of each area. This appeared to be a road of sorts, so he was cruising across and looking for any signs of a prison sector.

Instead, the only sight he saw when the road led into a tall corridor was a large squadron of Egg Pawns waiting for his arrival. The ones in the front held out their arm cannons like a firing squad and began to send energy bullets his way. Thinking quickly, Ledge shot his grappling hook up into the rafters and swung over them, using his free hand to torch the whole group with his weapon as he passed.

When he released, he flew out at a much higher velocity than he had been expecting. Soaring over the rest of the passage back into an open area, he nearly overshot the road, as it curved around to the left. Spotting a support beam near the center of the arced path, he grappled it and used it as a fulcrum to swerve around.

The road led back into the area he was in before, but right as he reached the apogee of his turn, something moving in the air caught the corner of his eye. There was no way he could make out what it was right now, but his instinct told him he needed to identify it. He kicked off the ground as he neared the end of his swing and landed on an elevated road running perpendicular to the one he was following.

The thing he had spotted was a large container travelling along a monorail. It looked like an oversized purple pet carrier, but he couldn't tell from here if there was anything inside because it wasn't lit. Some of Eggman's other robots were animal-themed, so it was possible that this was carrying a larger model of some sort. However, he thought it was more likely that it was being used for smaller, living cargo.

Ledge: "I've sighted what appears to be a prisoner transport. Can anyone confirm its identity?"

Rouge: "The prisoners are being held in a kind of internment facility, so… potentially. I'm still on the lookout for the main computer. Security's tight, so keep on your toes."

He looked back to see that the transport had gone ahead through a hole in the wall up above. How foolish of me to stop and chat. With a running jump, he vaulted back down onto the main road and gave chase. He found his pursuit cut off as the road ended and the only other way forward was a staircase spiraling downward. Only one way forward, then.

All the hallways blurred together as he focused on his target. There were a lot of elevators as he tried to ascend back up to where he thought the carrier had gone, only to be pushed back down by the maze of passageways. If he had known where in the Death Egg he was before, he certainly didn't now. There were robots in his way, but he hardly paid them any mind as he burned them to smolders.

That turned out to be a grave mistake, and the cardinal was sent reeling by a large, spiky object. He was offered only a brief glance at the top-like enemy and the spike ball that hit him before sliding off of an edge into some sort of pit. Almost out of instinct, he shot his grappling hook and it hit a target, and he allowed himself to dangle as he came back to his senses.

The hook had not attached to the walkway he had fallen from, or any other walkway, for that matter. Looking around, Ledge saw that he was hanging in the middle a pit that looked like what one would see in a nuclear reactor. It was circular, empty of any overhangs, and the bottom was too far down to see. Rings of red lights glowed eerily, as if glaring at him for his error. No way am I going down there.

His abdomen was beginning to hurt. A lot. It was bad enough that he got smacked by a giant mace head, but he was hanging by one arm and the other was holding his weapon, which wasn't light. That meant no access to his communicator, either. What little strength his scrawny scientist self had was draining rapidly, and he didn't have a clue what to do to save himself.

One of the red lights was broken, and he fixated his sight on that to try and get himself to focus. When the light began to float towards him, he was pretty sure he was beginning to hallucinate. However, as it got closer, it took on a tangible form. It was the same color red as its surroundings, making it hard to tell what it was. Ledge could see its outline, which was scraggly near the top. It had three tentacles with similar flares. Flare was a good word for it, because it looked kind of like living fire.

That was all he was able to discern before the creature began to circle him. After a couple of rotations, it decided to settle itself in his weapon, and he could feel a motor or something hum to life within the device. It was a sensation he had felt before, when he had inserted that cartridge back at the Spaceport.

As energy flowed through his device, Ledge could feel an idea flowing through him. He began swinging on the line, although every movement hurt. With some effort, he was able to raise the weapon and pull the trigger. Like it had before, it released a small explosion instead of flames, which gave him a strong push back on his trajectory. He rotated his body as he was brought around and fired again on the other side when he had reached the apex. Like so, he turned himself into a rocket-powered pendulum, getting stronger with each pass as opposed to weaker.

Just as he reached a height where he could feel comfortable leaping off, whatever fuel that strange being was providing stopped, and weaker flames were all that his weapon procured. Shoot, I don't have time to ready myself. I only get one chance!

He was already on the downswing as he had that thought. Only a second later, he released the line and went into a rough roll onto solid ground. His body protesting, he stood with his flamethrower at the ready in case of any robots that had planned to strike. Thankfully, the robot that had hit him appeared to have left, probably assuming it had gotten the job done.

Charmy: "Gosh darn, we're still trying to fight our way out! They've got us pinned down!"

The cardinal froze up a little at the sudden statement. A huge wave of anxiety washed over him, as if trying to take control. He had just had a near-death experience, everyone else was in danger of being obliterated forever, too, and there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide because they were in the stratosphere. When he holed himself up in a basement to fix a flamethrower, he did not anticipate that this was how things would turn out.

Had he gotten in over his head? Let his pride in his skills get ahead of him and charged blindly into a battle with a scale much larger than he could possibly tackle? Why would he put his reputation on the line, so he could come out the one that tried to save the world and had to get saved himself? He almost laughed at the idea. It was a little bit of hope, he supposed. He couldn't give up and allow that to happen. It just wouldn't do. He straightened his suit jacket and pants and forced himself to start running again.

Amy: "I found a prison sector! It looks like this place was used up until recently."

Espio: "Until recently? Does that mean our brethren are not being held there anymore? Where would Eggman have taken them?"

Silver: "I bet he's carted them off to watch him toss Sonic into space! That's one more thing he'll answer for!"

Knuckles: "Curses! Rouge, if you've found the control panel, unlock all the gates now! We need to distract them!"

Rouge: "Calm down, boss, I'm on it. Get ready for high alert."

Alarms began to blare, bright lights flashing through the hallways and coating them red like the hollow he escaped from. Ledge turned a corner and encountered exactly what he had wanted to see: rows upon rows of freshly-opened prison cells. However, no Mobians were to be seen, meaning the cells had also already been emptied.

He kept moving, searching for any sign of where they had gone. Instead, he heard some loud engines, and two large robots that looked like oversized Egg Pawns flew overhead. They turned around, easily keeping pace despite now moving backwards, and bright light shone out of some emitters on one of the robot's shoulders. Ledge had only a moment to register what that was and leapt off the side of his walkway to avoid being eviscerated by a giant laser.

Remembering the training Tails had given him, he rolled as he landed and was able to keep most of his speed. However, the robots were still ahead of him, having dipped down. He was ready when the other one fired itself up, sidestepping the laser. The walkways went back and forward between cells and a central pathway, so it was very doable for him to dodge the onslaught by moving fluidly between them.

He saw a staircase leading back up to the top tier and vaulted it two or three steps at a time. Adrenaline was in full force – he couldn't feel the pain anymore. The laser squad continued to follow him, somehow keeping a fixed distance without even turning around. I bet they're automated to do that, Ledge pondered, the corners of his beak turning up. And if they're automated, I can exploit them.

As if to mock his idea, the sentries immediately turned around and flew away. Dumbfounded, he nearly stumbled over his own feet. Why would they turn their backs on an intruder? Unless there was a higher priority… Sonic. He must be nearby. The prison block looked like it ended up ahead, and there was no doubt that beyond that was where he needed to be.