And here's another Chaos Race sequel.
"What goes up...better doggone well stay up."
- Morgan Gravitonics, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
---cut on this line---
Two Shades of Sally
Part 1
Written by: Adrian Tymes and Alessandro Sanasi
[Legal disclaimer:
This story is based on characters created by SEGA and Archie Comic Publications,
Inc., and Commander Packbell by David Pistone. Permission is granted to freely
distribute this story, so long as:
a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person who
distributes the story, and
b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally authored.
In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it.
Copyright (c) 1997, all rights reserved, et cetera.]
******
A lone camera orb floated through a large, hollow box with walls of broken
metal. Burn marks decorated the structure's interior, smog poured in from above
through a skylight which lacked any hint of Robotropolis's measured
construction, and fragments of what had once been floors stuck out of the walls.
Quickly checking the building's records, the orb found that power plant number
47 had blown up from the inside. Over a year ago, Robotnik had tried to make a
geothermal power plant, having grown tired of plants designed to produce more
pollution than power. Unfortunately, he miscalculated, and tapped a lava vent
when drilling the plant's shaft. The resulting eruption was contained inside
the building, which explained the thick layer of solidified lava that now served
as this building's floor. Attached to the file was a record of Snively's first
comment upon seeing the disaster: "It looks as if Mobius itself wanted you to
know that was a bad idea."
The building's external walls still stood, a marker to wasted space. Packbell
disliked waste, at least of his resources - which included Robotropolis' land.
This orb had been dispatched to see if the area could be reclaimed. All of its
sensors seemed to indicate that this was possible: infrared showed that the lava
flow had hardened many meters below the ground, chemical analysis proved that
the air was no more dangerous to machines than the rest of Robotropolis'
atmosphere, and all that could be heard on audio was a faint giggling.
Giggling?
The orb homed in on this unusual sound, not knowing how to handle the unexpected
data. Maybe the lava was reacting with a piece of scrap metal. Or, worse, a
critical bit of superstructure could be failing. Or perhaps the metal arrow
heading towards directly towards the orb's lens could have something to do
with...
******
Amy lowered her crossbow as her arrow pierced the orb, sending it permanently
off-line in a small but pretty explosion, as her other hand stopped tickling
Tails.
"Are you crazy?" the kitsune yelled, while trying to catch his breath. "We
could've been spotted!"
"No chance. That model was made to analyze and report data. It knows when
it's been shot at, but it's too dumb to report anything unusual before taking a
close look. I couldn't risk firing while it was moving around; I had to make it
come towards us." She smiled. "Besides, you needed a good tickle."
"Oh, yeah? Two can play at that." Tails leapt on Amy, knocked her down, and
proceeded to wiggle his fingers in what he knew were any Mobian's most sensitive
spots. Amy's involuntarily laughter was mixed liberally with shrieks, which just
drove Tails to more intense tickling - revenge was so sweet. Tails was so lost
in his work that he nearly jumped out of his skin when a metal hand clapped him
on the shoulder. The shock faded when he turned around and saw that the hand
belonged to Uncle Chuck.
"Are you two crazy?" he admonished. "You could've been spotted."
"Sorry, Uncle Chuck," they replied in unison.
"No time for apologies. Packbell's up to something." He removed a disk from a
slot on his stomach. "Here's the data I've collected so far."
Tails took the disk. "What is it?"
"Come on." Chuck motioned for the pair the follow. "It's going up in five
minutes."
"Don't you mean 'going down'?"
"Trust me."
******
The ground shook from an underground rumbling as Tails carried Amy a few
centimeters over a maze of laser eyes. Uncle Chuck walked through as if they
weren't there. Since all the cameras that were set up to scan those who broke
the laser beams only reacted to living beings, he knew that there was no need
for him to worry.
He looked up to see how the youngsters were doing. His expression darkened when
he saw Tails squirming under Amy's continued, although subdued, feathery
touches. "Amy, stop that! Do you want him to drop you?"
Amy stopped, creased her smile just so, and turned her half-lidded eyes on the
workerbot. "He won't let go. Not if he wants to sleep tonight."
Chuck smiled. "And I thought Sonic was in trouble when she was around."
Without warning, Tails let go. Amy did not have time to yell before she landed
on her rear. Dust from her landing highlighted the closest beams without
breaking them. The fringe of her dress danced less than a millimeter from one
of the beams.
"Hey! I could've tripped the alarms," Amy protested, while carefully reeling
her wayward garment back from danger.
"No way. I aimed." Tails grinned. "But, how were you planning on getting back
to Knothole?"
Before Amy could reply, the rumbling grew louder. In the distance, beyond the
field of lasers, a flat, barren metallic field surrounded a hole in the ground.
Tails could only stare in puzzlement: in every mental image he had of
Robotropolis, either buildings and streets occupied every square meter, or the
Freedom Fighters had turned the area into rubble. Amy was similarly befuddled.
Chuck, however, knew exactly what they were looking at. "Cover your ears," he
shouted. All three promptly followed his advice.
They were lucky that they did. As if on cue, a long, tapered cylinder shot out
of the hole, leaving a sonic shockwave in its wake. The wave washed over
Chuck's heavy metallic body with no effect. Amy was picked up and thrown
backwards by the wave, managing to land precariously one the toes of one foot,
right between the beams of in the laser field.
Tails was sent tumbling tail over head over tail. He landed on his feet just
outside the field, shook his head, and looked towards the rapidly ascending
cylinder. "Whoa! What is that?"
"Some kind of space launch," Chuck replied. "You've seen a few of Robotnik's
spacecraft before. Does this look anything like them?"
"Uh-uh. How 'bout you, Amy? Do you recognize it?"
"Hmmnn, hmmnn," Amy hummed nervously.
"What was that?" Tails looked at Amy, and immediately took off.
Amy was waving her arms to keep her balance. Her eyes were fixed on a small,
fist sized piece of junk, which was still moving fast from the shockwave. In
its path was Amy's ankle, twisted to an unnatural angle by her landing. Amy's
face betrayed the pain of this injury; she had bit her lip so deeply that a thin
red line now darkened her chin.
"Hold on," the kitsune yelled as he raced towards her. But too late: the scrap
bounced up and slammed into Amy's shin with a loud crack. "AAAAAAAAOOOWTCH!"
she cried, as she grabbed her ankle and sank to one knee, tripping the laser
eyes.
Alarms blared as Tails swooped in and snatched Amy. Chuck froze, knowing that
the entire scene was now being recorded, and planning on pretending that his
enemy recognition program was off-line when Packbell wondered why a workerbot
had done nothing while the pair escaped. Tails knew Chuck's plan, so he
resisted the urge to wave goodbye as he sped away. Amy just held her shin and
moaned.
******
Sonic puzzled over the mathematical equations projected by Nicole. "Yo, Nicole,
translation please."
"CHILL, MY MAIN HEDGEHOG," the computer responded in its natural-sounding yet
still subtly robotic voice. "CORRESPONDING CONCEPTS DO NOT APPEAR TO BE IN YOUR
LEXICON. ATTEMPTING TO FIND SUITABLE REPLACEMENTS."
"My lexi-what? Nicole, was that an insult?"
Sally giggled as she walked up. "C'mon, Sonic, you programmed it not to insult
you."
"Yeah, but then you reprogrammed it, Aunt Sally," Tails replied.
Sonic shifted his eyes from Tails to Sally. "You messed with Nicole's 'tude?"
"Umm..."
"Sally," Tails interrupted, "will Amy be ok?"
Sonic folded his arms, and continued to look at Sally through Nicole's
projection.
"Sure. She just injured her ankle. Painful, but not serious. I gave her some
sedatives; the pain should be gone by the time she wakes up. She'll be fine in
a couple of days."
"Phew. The way she looked when she fell, I thought...I, I dunno. I was just so
scared that something'd happened to her, that she might, you know..."
Sally looked meaningfully at Sonic. "I know."
"What?" Sonic tried to read Sally's expression, but failed. He tried to glean
a clue from Tails' face, then shrugged and gave up.
"Never mind. Nicole, summarize contents of the disk, please."
Nicole's hologram shifted to display a silvery, cigar-shaped vessel, a long,
perfectly straight underground shaft, and various statistics scattered around
both.
"PACKBELL HAS CONSTRUCTED A GAUSS CANNON, AND INTENDS TO LAUNCH PIECES FOR AN
ORBITAL WEAPON FROM IT."
"Was this what Tails and Amy saw?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"How many launches will Packbell need to get the weapons operational?"
"THE FIRST LAUNCH WAS A FULLY OPERATIONAL WEAPON, INTENDED TO TEST THE SYSTEM'S
CAPABILITIES. IF IT SUCEEDS, LARGER WEAPONS WILL BE LAUNCHED IN AN AS YET
UNDETERMINED NUMBER OF PIECES, STARTING THREE WEEKS FROM TODAY."
"What's the test?"
"COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THE GREAT FOREST."
Sally gasped. "Oh my gosh..."
Sonic was similarly surprised. "Destroying the whole forest's just a test?
Nicole, what's he gonna do with the larger ones? End all life on Mobius?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"I was just kidding."
"But Packbell's not," Sally replied. "We have to get up there, and destroy that
weapon."
"So, let's borrow the gauss cannon."
"Let's not. Don't you know how those things work?"
"No."
"They pass an electrical current through a conductive shell, using the
electrical flux to generate acceleration. This one provides a minimum 100 Gs."
"Umm..." Sonic scratched his head. "I still don't know."
Sally grunted in exasperation. "Look, Sonic, even if we could hijack a shell
from Packbell, and even if we could avoid getting fried by the current, the
acceleration would crush us in less than a minute."
"Oh. In that case, let's not borrow the cannon."
"Good idea." Sally smirked. "We have to find some other way of getting to
orbit."
"That'll be tough. We don't have any spaceships, and Robotnik dismantled every
launch site he found, outside of Robotropolis."
Sally smiled. "Not all of them. The ancient echnidas had a high level of
technology. They must have known about space flight, too. Robotnik salvaged
some of what they left behind to launch his Death Egg from..."
"...the Floating Island," Sonic finished. "And Robotnik never could set foot on
it again, once he betrayed Knuckles. But, you don't suppose he left anything
useable behind?"
"He left the Chaos Emeralds. They've floated the entire island for millennia;
surely they can send us into space for a few minutes. We just have to talk
Knuckles into letting us borrow them."
"No way. He'll never let us have them."
"We'll see."
******
"No way. I'll never let you have them."
Sonic rolled his eyes as Sally and Knuckles argued. He leaned against a wall,
being very careful not to touch any of the gems embedded in the rock-and-metal
Chaos Chamber. A smile crossed his lips when he reflected on how easy it had
been to find the Floating Island, which was literally laying low at the moment.
Besides making it tougher for Packbell to find the place, resting the island in
the ocean allowed it to replenish its water supply. It also meant that, with
Sonic's feet acting as a propeller and Nicole homing in on the island's last
known location, Sonic and Sally only needed a raft to get to Knuckles' home.
"We don't want to keep them, just borrow them. You certainly don't need the
emeralds right now."
"That's not de point. I am the Guardian o' the Chaos Emeralds. I do not let
anyone borrow, steal, grab, take, or otherwise remove 'em. That is my purpose
in life, not your little war."
"LITTLE? We're fighting for our lives, and those of everyone Robotnik has
roboticized. Don't you have any sympathy for the rest of Mobius?"
Knuckles closed his eyes and looked away. "No. This island is my world."
"That's not true." Sally moved her face to regain eye contact with the echnida.
"I know you. You don't just turn your back on a cry for help."
Knuckles turned his head, desperately trying to avoid Sally's eyes. "No. Last
time I got involved with you guys, I nearly lost the emeralds. I can't let that
happen again." He pointed at Sonic. "Besides, wherever he goes, trouble
follows like a shadow."
Without warning, Sonic looked down and locked eyes with Knuckles. "You're
already involved. If Packbell succeeds, all life on Mobius will end. Including
everything on this island." Sonic detached himself from the wall, and returned
Knuckles' pointing. "Including you. And with you out of the way, how long do
you think it will be before Packbell comes here and uses the emeralds for his
own plans? No...not just the emeralds, but every scrap of mineral and
technology he finds on this rock! By the time he's done, there won't even be a
pebble left of this place." Sonic advanced, placing his finger just short of
Knuckles' nose. "All because you wouldn't get involved."
Knuckles was unable to turn away. "The answer is no," he replied weakly. "But
there is another way."
******
In the skies at the top of the island's tallest mountain, a door hissed open,
admitting light into a large airlock. Three figures stepped inside, and
jumped when the door slammed shut behind them.
"Yo, Knucks, what's up?"
"Security. Hold on, mon, I just gotta find the..."
"IDENTITY CONFIRMED. WELCOME, GUARDIAN."
Lights came on with such suddenness that Sonic almost missed seeing the door in
front of him open. Beyond was a workshop of some kind, with unidentifiable bits
of technology scattered here and there. Its blank white walls, along with more
airlocks leading to other rooms, gave an antiseptic feel to the place. Sonic's
eyes came to rest on a part of the wall, which Knuckles' fist was jammed
against. "Palm scanner?" he asked.
Knuckles removed his fist, to reveal two short conical holes in the wall where
it had been. "Knuckle scanner." He grinned, then pointed to a pair of space
suits. "You two get into those while I check the equipment. If we're lucky,
you might be at that satellite in no time." The echnida walked off through
another airlock.
Sally began examining the suits while Sonic looked around. "Whoa. Imagine what
we could do with this stuff," he muttered.
"Don't bother. I asked him about it years ago. This is one of his few links
to his people. He won't part with any of it."
"But..."
"No buts." Sally broke off her examination and walked up to Sonic. "You have a
lot to learn about courtesy. We're lucky he'll even let us borrow the suits.
"Yeah, well at least I don't keep people in the dark."
"What do you mean?"
"Like, back at Knothole. What did you mean when you said you knew what Tails
felt? He's like a brother to me, and even I couldn't read him."
"Oh, I just meant that I knew what it was like to fear for the life of a loved
one."
"Like who?"
"Like you." She jabbed her finger into his chest.
Sonic looked at her blankly.
Sally sighed. "Sonic, every time you go out, there's a chance you won't come
back. I can't stop you, but when you don't return at night, I can't get to
sleep. I'm too worried that you've been captured, or worse."
"Moi? No way. Robotnik couldn't get me, Snively couldn't get me, and neither
can Packbell."
"You can't know that for sure. For all we know, this could be one giant death
trap. That satellite could be rigged to explode the moment we set foot on it."
"Then why are you coming?"
"I'm the one who does all the thinking. I can bail you out if things get
tough."
"Moi? I've gotten out of so many tight spots, it's hard to tell what's
dangerous anymore. But what if you get into trouble? I mean, if you die, I'd
be way bummed."
Sally giggled. "Don't worry, I won't die. Not as long as you're around."
"Promise?"
"I promise." She leaned forward, and sealed her words with a kiss.
Knuckles stepped back through the airlock. "Good news. The machines haven't
aged one bit. You can go into orbit any time." He looked up, and saw the two
embrace. "When you're ready, that is."
******
Sonic folded his arms. "So, now what?" When he did not get an immediate
response, the hedgehog tapped his foot and added, "I'm waiting."
"When my ancestors created the Chaos Emeralds, they experimented with focusing
their energies," Knuckles explained, while making some final adjustments to a
remote control in his hand. "They discovered that the emeralds could propel
things into orbit, and soften their return."
"But, does it still work?" Sally asked.
"It should. It was designed to resist the elements forever. A similar device
propels this island, and it has worked for centuries."
"So, Knuckles, once we trash the satellite, how're we gonna get down?" Sonic
questioned.
"Fall."
"Umm..." Sonic nervously adjusted the glove of his space suit. "What about
landing? I mean, I don't fancy being hedgehog pizza."
"Don' worry, mon. Just get back into the atmosphere, and I'll find you and
bring you down nice an' easy."
"Ok."
"Make sure not to trash the suits. They're..."
"Sally told me." Sonic screwed on his helmet, and turned on its comlink. "Just
get us up there, will ya?"
Knuckles nodded. "Are you both ready?"
Sally plucked at the baggy fabric of her oversized, plain beige suit. "I just
wish we had time for a more thorough inspection, but we don't know when Packbell
intends to start his test. I guess this will have to do." She handed a small
yellow box to Knuckles. "I don't want to take Nicole. Who knows what the
magnetic fields could do to her. Could you keep her for me until I return,
please?" Once Nicole was in Knuckles' gloved hand, she nodded. "Ok, send us
up."
The echnida pushed a button on a remote control. A shimmering beam of energy
enveloped Sonic and Sally, both of whom felt a gentle pressure under their feet.
When the beam and the pressure faded, they were surrounded by vacuum, and saw
the silvery needle that they had been pursuing. However, the needle was now
split into two halves, each the shape of a narrow cone, and each pointing
towards Mobius. Their circular bases had been removed, and they touched only at
a small metal hinge. Sonic and Sally stood on either side of the hinge.
"Huh. I don't see much to wreck."
Sally grabbed the lip of one of the cones, and hmmed as she examined the hole.
"For that matter, I don't see much of a weapon. Where's the guns? I mean, it's
gonna fire something at Mobius, right?"
Sally gasped. "That's it!"
Sonic was momentarily taken aback, but soon bowed. "Thank you, hold your
applause." When he noticed that his bow had caused him to start to drift away,
he quickly grabbed the other cone's lip with his feet, temporarily grateful that
the space suit's magnetic boots had a lot more friction than the sneakers he
still wore under them. As he pulled himself back towards Sally, he asked,
"What's 'it'?"
"These are giant rocket engines. They'll drill holes through Mobius's crust,
right through to the magma underneath."
"Say what?"
"They'll turn the Great Forest into the Great Lava Lake. Knothole would be
buried before we knew what was happening." Sally pointed to a speck of light
visible deep within the cones. "And they're already firing up!"
"Stand back." Sonic maneuvered himself to the hinge, then curled up.
"Sonic?" Sally let go and drifted free. "NO! You'll rip your..."
Sonic spun against the hinge, pushing off the cones to gain speed. Although his
suit was tough, it was also flexible enough to form a sharp edge when shaped by
his quills; sharp enough to buzz through the weak metal link between the cones.
Sonic slowed down as he proceeded, finally stopping when he was all the way
through. The cones tilted away from each other, then erupted in full force.
Sonic drifted just underneath their flames as they shot away, curving back
upwards in an inverted heart pattern, which culminated in a spectacular fireball
when the cones met at its tip.
Sally did not see the fireball; her vision encompassed only Sonic, drifting
helpless in the vacuum after his spinning had damaged his suit's air tank. She
quickly vented some air from her suit's emergency valve, propelling her into
Sonic, and both of them back into the atmosphere. Sally instinctively wrapped
her arms around Sonic as they fell.
"That was a close one," Sonic commented as he broke their embrace. "Just goes
to show, you'll do anything for a hug."
"What?" Sally frowned and adjusted her body to better absorb the heat of the
air's friction as they re-entered the atmosphere. "I just saved your life,
mister."
"Come on, Sal, you enjoyed it, didn't you?"
"I just did what I had to."
"Sure."
"Be that way." She closed her eyes and looked away. "But until you apologize
for that remark, I'm not speaking to you."
Before long, a fireball began to form around them. Embers glowed inside both
suits where the insulation had partially failed, threatening to erupt into flame
at any second. "It's getting a bit hot in here," Sonic lamented. "Let's hope
Knuckles is able to get us back in time..."
Further conversation was cut off by the shimmering beam's return.
******
Sonic had to take a few seconds to clear his head after the beam faded. He
found himself face down in the snow, with the wind knocked out of him. Nearby,
Knuckles was fiddling madly with the remote control. Just when Sonic was able
to sit up, Knuckles yelled out in frustration, threw the control to the ground,
and smashed it with his hand.
"What's wrong?"
"I missed."
"Missed?" Sonic looked around. "Where's Sally?"
Knuckles looked at the broken remote.
Sonic's eyes went wide. "You didn't bring her back?"
The echnida looked up. "For a moment I thought I had her, but I suddenly lost
the signal."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Sonic's cry was more a scream of anguished terror than
anything else.
"I knew something like this would happen if I helped. You see why I don't want
to get involved?" Knuckles dropped Nicole in front of Sonic and walked away.
"Sally...I...I'm sorry..."