Belly of the Beast

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi chuckled softly when Chadin mentioned having to search through all the terminals. "You really aren't tech savvy, are you? Ever hear of remote desktop?"

In any case, Giichi moved to join Chadin at the terminal. Frowning, he brought up his netbook to see the password and login he'd used on the elevator.

"Excuse me Chadin..." He gently nudged the deer aside again, and input the doctor's password. After a few more minutes of searching, he checked out Robotnik's personal files. One file name had a rather ominous-looking title..."FINAL SOLUTION". Giichi clicked on that, and he was greeted with a battle plan. The layout on the plan looked familiar... The cat's jaw fell open wide when he realized what it was.

"That's Soleanna! He's going to bomb it! We've got to get the word out about this!"

He quickly connected his netbook and downloaded the file. Giichi thought about downloading the rest of the doctor's private files when the window disappeared and a big box flashed on the screen with red text.

WARNING - SESSION HAS BEEN REMOTELY TERMINATED

The cat frowned, as his eyes narrowed a bit. He went back to the login and tried to get in again with the hacked password. Once again, he was greeted with a box with red text.

ACCESS DENIED - INCORRECT USER ID/PASSWORD

"The password...it's been changed." A cold shiver ran down Giichi's spine as he said this. He froze in place. He could only think of one reason why this had happened. "I think...the system's picked us up..."

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robotnik smirked upstairs, as he terminated the intruder's session.

"Now now, silly boy...can't have you poking around in my personal files, can I?"

Lucky he came back to his computer when he did. The doctor had just stepped away for his mid-morning snack (several family-size bags of potato chips), and returned just a moment ago. That message with the elevator report definitely caught his attention when it said he'd used the main cargo lift today...despite him not leaving his quarters at all this morning.

After canceling the session, he immediately changed the password to prevent any further intrusions. Robotnik would remember to put better encryption in his system security. It had been far too easy for that cat to get access to places in the network he shouldn't be poking about in. Seemed that he'd underestimated technological advancement outside of his domain.

In any case, the deer and cat were probably aware something was up now. He'd have to act quickly to capture them. Robotnik spoke into his personal communicator.

"Swatbots...take the express elevators to Floor 75 and capture our two guests. Take them alive please."

I want to know how they got in so easily.

Within moments, Swatbots were already trooping into elevators 40 floors down in the bot storage and armory levels. That seemed like a long way down, but with the speed of the express elevators, it wouldn't take long for the lifts to arrive at their destination.

[Chadin]

My eyes bulged in alarm when I saw the red text appear with its ominous warning. Giichi's remark did little to settle that voice in my head screaming for me to get out of here. "Oh no, if the system's booted you out, that means it knows it was being hacked. That means we're going to be crawling in Swatbots any second now! We have to get out of here!!!" I grabbed Giichi by the arm and practically dragged him away from the terminal and back to the freight lift we'd used to get in.

Unfortunately we wouldn't even get halfway there before my keen hearing heard the tell-tale swish of a mechanical door sliding open and the rhythmic clank of metal boots. I spun around in horror to see at least half a dozen Swatbots piling out of a another elevator on the other side of the vast room. Bright strobbing red lights flashed on the tops of their dome shaped heads while a dull sound echoed throughout the room that ironically sounded like a police siren. The lead ranks all raised their arms in perfect unison while simultaneously each one shouted out in their monotone robotic voices:


"Intruders located, level 75, priority alert!" the first called out.

"Halt in the name of Dr. Robotnik." Another one declared.

"Abandon all hope all ye who enter." Said a third.

"Error, audio file not found." A fourth declared.

My ears leapt out to the sides in fright, knowing exactly what was coming next. "GET DOWN!!!" I shoved Giichi behind one of the server banks as I simultaneously jumped for the bank on the other side of the hall. I don't know what happened to Giichi at that moment, but all I know is that as I was, for only a brief second leaping through the air, I felt the equivalent of a bull charging into my rib cage at full gallop.

"AGGGHHH!!!" Next thing I knew I landed in a heap behind the server bank, close to blacking out. I'd been hit by Swatbot stun blasts before, but wow. Those ones packed a wallop. For now I was safely behind cover, but the hall was filled with bright blue laser bolts as the Swatbots filled the air with suppressive fire.

[Apologies if I took control of the Swatbots for the time being, I just figured we'd keep things moving along.]

[Giichi Twinkieland]

[No, it's fine. I think it's more fun this way.]

Giichi grunted as he flopped down onto the floor. Immediately though he rolled back to his feet...looking towards where Chadin had gone. There he was behind the next server bank, looking like he was writhing in pain on the floor. Laser beams flashed between the two of them, occasionally making sparks as they impacted the servers.

Well...this is a great start. Now I may have to drag your ass out of here.

He pulled out a sticky smoke grenade and tossed it at the oncoming troop of bots. A moment later, the hall of servers filled with smoke, obscuring the view of the bots. The laser beams stopped for a brief moment. That gave Giichi all the time he needed to dash across the corridor and yank Chadin up off the floor.

"Come on get up get up GET UP!"

Once he was up, Giichi shouldered the deer (so that his feet were still on the floor). Chadin was bigger than Giichi was, so the cat struggled to hold his bulk up.

"Look...I'm not that strong, okay? I don't think I can carry you. If you can't walk, you're done for."

In the meantime, Giichi could hear the distinctive clanging sound of metal on metal, as the bots trooped right towards them.

[Chadin]

I was barely aware of anything else around me until Giichi ran up to me screaming in my ear. I groaned in pain as he hauled me to my feet, but the urgency in his voice snapped me back to reality like a splash of cold water. I found myself shakily held up by Giichi and my free arm clutching my side.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." I assured Giichi as I stood to my full height and put my full weight on wobbly legs. "It was just a stun round... way more powerful than the ones I remember." Shaking my head to get my brain to reboot, I took stock of the situation.

Smoke now filled the hall between the rows of servers to our right, something Giichi must have done while I was on the floor. Within the confines of the smoke I could the cloud filled with the sporadic illumination from the flashing head lamps of the Swatbots. Every so often another laser blast would erupt from the cloud but it was hardly the volume I'd seen before. One other thing I picked up on was the approaching clank of metal boots and silhouettes emerging from the cloud.

I dropped to my knee beside the server bank and prepared to fire. "I don't suppose you thieves have a universal escape plan for situations like these, eh?"

[Tails]

Tails watched from above in the tornado and stayed high enough away from the base for a second or two.

Tails made a turnaround and saw a robot in a fork lift form grabbing a large crate. He descended toward the opening.

As he flew down, the two inside with the swatbots could hear a airplane getting louder and louder.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Unlike Chadin, Giichi remained on his feet and appeared to be ready to make a nice run.

"They're called air ducts. Come on...you'll love them. Besides...I don't think we can take all these guys..."

He tugged on Chadin's shoulder a few times, to emphasize the need to run away right this instant. But now that things had quieted down a bit, Giichi could hear a loud droning sound. It sounded like...a propeller. Was that a plane?

"What is that?"

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Unidentified aircraft spotted in Robotropolis airspace..."

"What?!" Robotnik looked up from his computer to the live video feeds showing the exterior of the command center. He saw a familiar red and yellow plane buzzing about. That was the second major security oversight of today. Robotnik thought about strangling his chief defense and security officer...then he realized that he himself was the chief defense and security officer since he and he alone ran his empire.

Sighing...he pressed a few buttons on a terminal next to his machine. Panels slid open on the sides of the egg-shaped skyscraper, revealing flak cannons, heavy laser blasters, and missile launchers.

"Silly fox boy...you think you can just fly wherever you want? I'll show you."

And with that...the laser blasters came to bear and unleashed a torrent of sizzling red beams upon the incoming propeller plane.

[Chadin]

I ignored Giichi's tugging with a rising sense of annoyance. I can understand the situation, but nevertheless, its just plain rude to disturb someone while they're shooting. In spite of the distraction, I fired off a clean shot and was rewarded by the sound a massive weight of metal falling to the ground and one less light flash filling the smoke filled hall.

"Air ducts? At this point I'd even be happy with an escape sewer; lets go!" I rose to my feet and chased after Giichi. Just about then I noticed the droning sound as well. "Sounds like an old prop plane... But Robotnik doesn't use propeller driven planes does he?"

[Tails]

Tails hears a comlink destress signal from CT23.

CT23: It appears the base moves and is ready to fire. I suggest evasive manuevers.

Tails salutes and switches the tornado to high. "Roger."

Tails sharply turns the airplane away from the laser fire and pulls up as the laser fire miss him. He flies away from Robottropolis and prepares himself for quite the comeback.

Tails presses four buttons on his airplane and four missiles come out of the wings, two on each side. He presses a button with yellow and black stripes and a targeting device comes to him at resonable speed.

Tails commands the CT23. "Switch to multi-lock missiles."

CT23: Affirmative.

Tails turns the airplane around and activates the targeting and places in front of his face. As soon as Tails gets close enough and the targeting device locks onto four laser cannons, he fires from the throttle.

Four laser cannons explode and he disengages the targeting device.

Tails sends a message to Robotnik. "That the best you got you large tub of egg yolk?"