The bulk of the ship towered over him, blocking the sky.

Sonic, frowning, studied the wall in front of him, trying to figure out how to get inside. So far, no obvious options were observed, so he involuntarily returned in his thoughts to the situation which he had driven himself into.

He lied to Tails. Took advantage of his trust and selfishly followed his own plan by stealing the key. The blue hedgehog gritted his teeth, admitting his insignificance. He hoped that Tails would forgive him later, when it would be all over, and realize that he simply had no other choice, but his heart still burst with pain. He had never lied to his brother before, but the situation was critical, and Sonic doubted that anyone would approve of his crazy idea at all.

Maybe it really would have been easier to go together, but the Hero of Mobius feared for the lives of his friends. And for anyone's in general. The drones were really hard to dodge, as if they were anticipating every move. Even Sonic himself several times was literally a hair ahead of a shot that could kill him on the spot. Never before had he seen such a terrible weapon - It literally atomized the target with a single shot , ignoring any defense.The only thing that could save was that the drones, for some reason, tried to avoid hitting buildings and complex mechanisms, so that using them as cover, it was possible to carve out brief seconds of respite. Until you were inevitably at gunpoint again.

Behind the wave of destruction that the invaders carried with them, not a single living soul remained, just eerie ghost towns in which everything at first glance was as usual. Only dead silence, without a single sound. Why the machines needed these remains and why they didn't touch the planet's infrastructure was a mystery. As if they were preparing a springboard for some other creatures that would have to take the place of the inhabitants of Mobius. At first this thought seemed delusional, but every day he became more and more imbued with it. If only he knew who sent metal death to their planet, so he could look them in the eye and ask: "Why?"

Sonic threw up his head sharply, glaring at the surface of the ship. He got here without any incident - the drones simply ignored the blue hedgehog, which in short dashes moved from one shelter to another. When he reached the border of the area cleared by the base’s engines during landing, he staggered out into the open, ready at any second to take off. But he was still unnoticed, so he literally ran in a straight line to the shield. It let him in as if there were no obstacles, and his heart ached again when he remembered the smashed Tornado that had to be left behind the last time.

So now he was standing right against the wall of the ship with cold fury in his mind. Once he gets to the emeralds, he won't leave right away. No, he will try to cause as much damage to the internal systems as possible. He had no equal in skill of destroying machines, thanks to a decade of confrontation with Eggman and his creations. So it was good that the drones weren't alive and he could, with a clear conscience, take out on them all the pain for the lives of those they had killed.

He could have saved so many if only he had somehow got through the shield earlier. But even Chaos Control didn't work, literally pushing back the force trying to pierce through space. It was the first time such a thing had happened, and at first he decided that he was simply not controlling Chaos well enough. Then he, throwing pride aside, asked Shadow for help, hoping that the two of them would definitely succeed. To his surprise, the black hedgehog agreed without the usual rumbles and questions, admitting that the same idea came to him himself. Even so, their combined efforts didn’t work - the shield didn’t surrender. They were the first to surrender themselves, having almost completely drained both two emeralds and their own reserves. At some point, the black hedgehog even removed his inhibitor rings, but this didn’t help either, and they almost became prey for the drones, attracted by too active surges of energy. At the last second, Shadow Chaos Controlled them away from danger, and then Sonic learned many new words, with which the agent colorfully described everything he thought about the ship, the drones, the shield and the whole situation in general. Perhaps this was the first time Sonic had heard so many sentences from him at once.

And he hoped it wasn’t the last.

Three months had passed since then. It did already happen before that they hadn’t crossed their paths for weeks, to the obvious pleasure of Shadow, judging by the way he rolled his eyes in irritation once the blue hedgehog again appeared in the field of view, but Sonic couldn’t do anything with the oppressive feeling of loss gnawing at him from within... Yes, they were eternal rivals, rarely allies, but for some inexplicable reason it seemed to him that he had lost something important along with the black-and-red hedgehog who disappeared from his life on these turbulent days with his brooding gaze and low, full of firm confidence voice.

Sonic shook his head, driving away his strange thoughts - he really slept too little lately, since this kind of thoughts creeped into his head. He should be focusing on the task at hand. The invaders' base still seemed impregnable, and he hadn’t yet found anything that looked like an entrance.

As soon as he thought about it, he got lucky - a couple of meters from him a hatch window opened with a quiet hiss in the wall of the ship, releasing a batch of drones. Stifling the urge to immediately get rid of the threat, Sonic waited for the last drone to leave and quickly slipped inside. He shouldn’t uncover himself so recklessly - he would have a chance to deal with the machines when all seven emeralds would be in his hands. Not long left.

The metal door of the hatch merged with the wall, cutting him off from the outside world, and Sonic looked around warily. If thinking clearly, he should run away at the first sign of danger. But it would be a waste to miss such a chance, so he decided to leave only if there were no other options left.

He found himself in a kind of launch shaft, along the walls of which, as the only source of uneven orange glow, rare directional lights flashed. A short dash - and he ran into a wide hangar, where, row by row, illuminated by the same dim orange lights, about a hundred drones were housed. Frozen for a second, Sonic noted that they were all inactive, and, squeezing along the wall, headed towards the opposite passage leading to the continuation of the shaft.

The ship was truly enormous. While scientists were puzzled over how such a colossus could land without any problems and what could serve as a power source for such powerful engines, military minds were preoccupied with a more serious question: what percentage of the ship’s interior could be occupied by warehouses with drones and how many of these drones are inside. According to all calculations, the volume of destroyed vehicles had already exceeded the total volume of the ship three times. And judging by what Sonic saw, making his way through the corridors deep into the base, there were practically no empty hangars, and in each there were at least fifty drones. The numbers diminished slightly the further he went from the ship border, but nevertheless, it did not seem that the invaders were suffering from casualties. It was all very strange.

Corridor - hangar, corridor - hangar: Sonic moved almost in a straight line, occasionally changing direction if the shaft suddenly deviated from the path to the center. Sometimes drones rushed past, and he had to squeeze into the wall, letting them pass. He still didn’t receive attention from the machines, which, of course, was good. But he didn’t notice any cameras or other means of tracking. Either they were not obvious, or they were completely absent as unnecessary, but both were a little unnerving. Sonic would prefer to know in advance when his purely nominal disguise would stop working. It couldn’t be that the control center of the base was left completely without any internal security system.

His thoughts (like the race) were interrupted by an abrupt change of scenery. The next exit from the hangar was blocked by a door, but as soon as Sonic approached to study it more carefully, it suddenly stepped aside, revealing a corridor going into the ship depths, flooded with dim cold light. The corridor evoked mixed feelings that the hero could not yet explain to himself, but the only way forward was through its silvery interior, leaving no other choice. Bringing his already heightened vigilance to the maximum level, Sonic slowly moved on, ready to dodge at any second. 

As soon as he crossed the line separating the two different sections from each other and took a few careful steps forward, the door behind him closed with a hiss. Following his intuition, Sonic immediately jumped to the side. And in time - on the place where he had just stood, a black charred spot was blackening.

“Great. I was afraid that everything seemed too easy,” the blue hero chuckled, dodging another volley.

Lasers shot from inconspicuous hidden niches, almost straight from the walls, making it difficult to predict the shots. But this did little to help the protective systems against the evading at supersonic speed hedgehog, so Sonic confidently moved on, dodging along the corridors.

And he finally realized what seemed strange to him: in comparison with the previous part of the ship, which looked like a beehive, riddled with long shafts, the layout here seemed more familiar. The original corridor again ended with a door that immediately moved aside on approach and closed just as quickly behind his back, and continued into a new corridor, with many passages leading in different directions. Some were locked, while the others formed intersections, creating the feeling that there was a separate room behind each door. Too small for a hangar, with a too narrow and low opening. Just under the height of Sonic himself.

But there was no time to think about this oddity - laser shots were on his heels, so Sonic, following the internal compass, tried to choose the turns leading him to the center, reasoning that the emeralds were most likely located as far from the outer border as possible. The doors still closed behind his back, as soon as they were overcome, so, in fact, he had no other alternative.

But around the next bend, the surroundings suddenly changed again.

The blue hero was greeted by a dazzling (after the previous gloom) white light coming straight from the ceiling, and the walls took on a soft bluish tint of mother-of-pearl. The last laser shot left a stain on the soft floor covering springing underfoot, the door closed behind him with a soft rustle and there was silence.

Sonic looked around the short section of the corridor in which he found himself, and froze in amazement, staring into the corner. There, flashing a polished side, reflecting the bright ceiling light, stood a floor vase. An ordinary white vase, only perfectly smooth, as if made of opaque glass. Its very appearance seemed so surreal to him that at first he took it for delirium due to insomnia. The strange picture was complemented by the unnatural monochrome of unknown and clearly artificial flowers sticking out of the vase, of the same pure white shade with gray stems.

‘Machines are craving for art? This is something new…’

While the blue hedgehog, distracted, doubted his own sanity, many small holes opened completely silently in the ceiling and walls throughout his entire gaze. With a slight hiss, they doused him with a cloud of some kind of powder, which made Sonic involuntarily inhale and cough. He immediately tried to shake himself off, but small translucent flakes adhered to the fur and quills and seemed to drip down, closer to the skin, dissolving when they touched it.

For a second, nothing happened, leaving the Hero of Mobius wondering about the purpose of the powder and whether he should start worrying, and then…

Then his legs gave way and he fell to the floor face down. All the muscles in his body at once refused to function, and he didn’t even have time to substitute his arms to soften the fall. At the same instant, consciousness began to leave him unnaturally quickly. In a panic, he tried to move, or at least just breathe, but it was all in vain.

‘The emerald!’

Sonic mentally reached for the power inside the gem, in a desperate attempt to activate Chaos Control on the edge of the slipping consciousness…

But the darkness swallowed him first. 

* * *

- That moron!

The echidna, in a rage, hit the tabletop with his fist, and it, unable to bear it, cracked deafeningly, tossing up the heavy rolls of blueprints.

Tails flinched in surprise. He had already managed to come to his senses and briefly retell to his worried friends the essence of the night conversation with the blue hero, but the feeling of impending disaster, which arose an hour ago, did not want to go away so easily. The fox kid stubbornly tried to convince himself that Sonic would cope with any obstacle, but every now and then he returned in his memories to the day when Infinite captured his brother. When he decided that Sonic was dead.

Tails wasn’t proud of his behavior at the time. And really hoped that this would never happen again. Four years ago, on ARK, when Eggman dropped the capsule with the blue hero into outer space, Tails found the strength to resist the mad scientist further, despite the loss, mostly because his mind refused to accept the situation without direct evidence. But the sight of the defeated Sonic lying lifeless on the ground... This picture was forever imprinted in his eyes. No one is omnipotent: heroes lose, villains win, and even the worst nightmares can come true.

Tails was able to overcome the destructive fear of defeat that drove him into the abyss of despair a year ago. He did it. Just began to appreciate the lives of ones dear to him even more.

“I told him not to go to the shield alone!” Meanwhile, Knuckles expressed his worry as he always did - blazing with anger. Another blow from his fist shook the table, and the little fox began to seriously fear that it would fall to pieces.

“Sonic is not someone who can be stopped by some rules, Knuckles,'' Amy, standing next to him, shook her head and sighed heavily, continuing to type some text on the terminal, which she prudently took in her hands to keep away from the raging echidna, “He wouldn't have listened to us anyway. Although, to deceive Tails like this...” she frowned, “Oh, I’ll show him when he comes back!”

Despite the ostentatious tone she always used when scolding the blue hedgehog for another stupid act (or missed date), it was heard that she, too, was very worried. They didn’t have a clear certainty that the key worked at all, and with the concentration of the enemy that the main base had, even if it was possible to hope for a breakthrough, then serious problems could arise with the retreat.

“It would be enough if he comes back,” said the fox quietly.

The decadent mood was interrupted by an incoming call to Amy's terminal. “Yes, Rouge,” she immediately answered the call, putting the bat on the speakerphone, “Is there any information?”

“The last thing we could detect was that he was moving towards the ship,” the agent officially reported, and then added more as herself, “Even Omega couldn’t figure out more: the closer to the base, the more interference there are.”

"Chaos ... He's really there," Knuckles breathed out.

“Did he get to the shield?” Tails asked anxiously.

Rouge thought for a second and then confidently answered. “Probably yes. The drones ignored him along the way, so there is a chance that he infiltrated the ship.”

“How much time has passed?” Amy asked.

“It was seven when he last appeared on cameras.”

Three hours.

It had been three hours now.

“The ship is big enough, he can still search for emeralds,” Tails muttered uncertainly.

There was a tense silence in the workshop. No one dared to voice out the obvious conclusion why a supersonic hedgehog who could have easily circled the planet in the same amount of time had still not returned. Amy bit her lip nervously, Knuckles frowned as he studied the floor, and Tails felt a chill creep into his limbs and slowly make its way to his heart. No, nothing is clear yet, they have no evidence, anything could have happened, and it is not at all necessary that-

There was a noise of interference from the terminal's speaker, and then another voice suddenly joined their conversation. "Sorry for the intrusion." ("Of course," Rouge snorted in displeasure when she heard it was her boss.) Knuckles opened his mouth to be indignant, but was immediately stopped by the next phrase of Tower, which gave Tails a tiny bit of hope. “Your friend may still be alive.”