Evacuation Fleet

[Chadin]

The air on the outskirts of Robotopolis had played host to a number of strange sights and sounds over the past few days. Today was no exception. With the emergence of the Egg Fleet and it's subsequent departure in the wake of the alien ship arriving over the city, yet another strange sight could be seen.

A whole fleet of small transport ships and Swat-pods flying low to the ground in a bunch that looked more like a swarm of migrating bees than a formation of ships. A the head of this haphazard armada flew a particularly ship that while didn't look any more special than the others, all the other ships seemed to follow it implicitly.

Inside, that lead ship, you'd find our little band of Freedom Fighters. Though the group was always something of a ragtag bunch, this one that I found myself with were even more so. One Ex-MFF member, and frankly, the only one who is actually a Freedom Fighter, one time displaced Queen and her lackey, a reformed Robotnik robot of all things, and a time-displaced (probably-alternate reality) cyborg.

At the moment, Gamma and Jii were elsewhere on the little ship we'd stolen from Robotropolis checking on the passengers we'd stowed away in the modest cargo area aboard. Or checking on our systems, I couldn't be sure any more. I myself had just wandered back onto the bridge of the ship, where I knew Shaz would be piloting the ship; and by extension, the rest of the ships.

Honestly, as much of a weirdo this guy was, I couldn't deny that without him, the task of evacuating so many civilians out of the city would have been downright impossible without him. Now if only we can manage to reach Solenna and land all these ships better than he landed in Robotropolis.

"Hey, want some company? Or are you too busy flying everything right now?" I asked as I rapped on the side of the metal bulkhead that separated the hall from the cockpit to gain his attention.

[Shazbot]

Shaz was in a bit of a stupor.

He'd always promised himself that if he ever got temporally displaced, he would do everything in his power not to get involved with anything. Whatever happened, he would make sure never to alter history. Of course, he never thought temporal displacement would be something he'd have to deal with, so he kept the thought in the back of his mind, next to zombie outbreaks and alien invasions. Now here he was, getting about as involved as a guy could get, and he still had no idea where he was or what was happening.

Still, he assured himself, at least I can be sure that this isn't THE past, just A past. If nothing else, those dinosaurs were a dead giveaway.

A notice flashed in front of his eye as a couple of the civilian pods got caught in a crosswind, sending them off course. He made the necessary adjustments, then modified his signal to get them back in formation. He sighed. This was something else he never thought he'd get a chance to try, and his wandering thoughts did little to aid his concentration.

Just then he heard a knock as Chadin made his presence known. Shaz shrugged and gestured at the empty co-pilot seat. "Go ahead. I could use a little distraction. Micro managing a hundred aircraft isn't as interesting as it sounds."

[Chadin]

"Heh, I bet." I stated as I limped over to the proffered seat and eased down into it. My leg was starting to feel awfully stiff, now that all the excitement was over. It seemed like a small mercy that the huge alien ship had paid them no attention whatsoever. Even more so that Robotnik hadn't made any attack on us either.

All in all, the mission had, despite some monumental side-steps, been a huge success. It had taken some time, but he'd managed to gather that at least half-a dozen shards had been collected by the civilians they'd brought with them. He wasn't quite sure what had happened to Espio, or Alpha, but he was pretty sure they'd all gotten aboard at least one of the evacuation ships. He'd made sure to send a runner back to the area they'd fought that shadow beast to make sure they knew they were pulling out. If nothing else, he'd seen Espio pilot a swat-pod before. If they hadn't gotten out with the rest of them, he could at least get them back safely.

"Ugh... what a day..." I sighed dramatically, feeling the seductive fingers of sleep clawing at my eyelids. "I know you were late to the party, but wow... What. A day!!"

[Shazbot]

Shaz leaned back in his chair, drained. There was one event on his mind, and he was trying very hard not to think about it. Whenever he did, his breathing slowed and a massive knot formed in his stomach. Now that he had a chance to relax, it kept flooding his thoughts like a broken tap.

--"You won't kill me. I MADE YOU."--

Shaz clenched his eyes shut. "Yeah... I've had a long day too..."

[Chadin]

My ears perked up with interest at that. "Oh? You mean before or after you crashed a ship into an entire hangar's worth of other ships?" I asked with a wry grin.

[Shazbot]

Shaz pushed the memory out of his mind.

"Yeah, it's kind of a long story. The short of it is, I'm from a future, and I was in an accident; a new kind of power generator overloaded in my face. (And before you ask, no, it wasn't mine.) Anyway, that's where I got this..." he knocked on his metal skull with an echoing *BONG*. "And this." He opened up his chest like a cabinet door, gingerly removing the discolored emerald from before. He tossed it lightly in the air, catching the gem with practiced ease.

"Earlier today, (or should I say 2,000 years from now?) I managed to cheese off a very large, very powerful group of techno punks, and last I knew I was stealing one of their new airships when I got caught in some kind of temporal anomaly. I'm still fuzzy on the details, but I have a pretty good idea where (and when) I am, based on what I've seen."

He leaned back in his seat with a sigh. "To be honest, I don't know if there's anything in my dimension worth going home to. Of course, I don't want to be stuck in the middle of a war, either. A rock and a hard place..."

[Chadin]

"Pfft... Trust me, as bad as it might have been where you were from, this place is way worse. I mean, bad enough Robotnik is here; much less the same one I was fighting in my own zone." I scoffed with a bitter laugh, scratching at the metal chip on the back of my neck as I reflected on the fact that this Robotnik was the same one who'd put this on me.

"But on top of that, we've got these new alien bozos who just dropped out of nowhere, we got some kind of Mammoth bent on taking over absolutely everything. But no, that's not even the half of it. That anomaly that sucked you here? It did that to me too, and pretty much every zone and alternate reality out there, merged them together and who knows what happened to the bits and pieces from the other places that didn't show up here. No, the BEST part, is that whole fabric or reality is out of balance and at any second it could all collapse and wipe out everyone and everything in existence!!"

[Shazbot]

Shazbot stowed the emerald back in his chest. "Actually, I have a theory about that, but in any case..." He glanced outside at the clouds floating lazily by. "Where exactly are we going? You gave me coordinates, but I'm not exactly from around here."

[Chadin]

"A city called Solenna. Never heard of it myself before, at least, not where I'm from." I answered with a shrug as I gingerly massaged my aching leg wound.

"Actually, I think I heard some of the people we rescued say that the city we just left used to be called Station Circle or something? Well, before Robotnik took over and renamed it Robotropolis anyway. Again, not a place I knew about from where I'm from, but I could definitely tell that the place wasn't the same Roobtropolis I remember. Well, not all of it anyway. I saw a few bits and pieces, sure, like his command tower. That I remember seeing before. It was weird, first time I saw the place, whole skyscrapers cut cleanly in half like you were looking at the side of Swiss cheese or something. Heck, even the Great Forest had whole trees split down the middle. Heck, I even saw one where a half a spruce tree was joined with half a poplar tree as if they two had grown that way naturally."

I was getting off track, I realized, and shook my noggin back on track. "Anyway, this place ought to be as safe a place to send these people as any. Plus, they have hospitals that should allow our refugee's to get rid or Robotnik's tracking chips. At least then they don't have to worry about him following them where ever they go, the big prick!"

[Alpha Omega]

From one of the other pods in the group, a radio call reached the lead pod. The voice would be familiar to at least Chadin, Anu, and Ji, should any of them be around at the time.

"Is this thing on? Hello? Calling lead Swat Pod. Is anyone actually leading this, or are we heading into another trap?"