Tails stared out once again through the wide viewscreen at the light show that had seared itself into his brain a little over a month ago. The yellow-furred fox kit knew all the motions he had gone through, all the motions still to come. At least when this hateful dream had form to it he could manage it – he was so familiar with it, or maybe so scared by it or just too fast a thinker to stay trapped, that he'd grown some conscious corner of his mind even while he was caught in the nightmare – but sometimes it decided to be formless. Disembodied snippets of the conversations he'd had that day, a few bizarre physical sensations his body remembered even after his brain had forgotten, and that roiling sea of painful emotions that had driven him so far out into space in search of peace.

Obviously, he hadn't found it yet.

Mercifully, the dream took shape this time. The world at the corners of his eyes swam with colors that couldn't exist in the light, but everything in front of him, everything he felt, was as real as when it had actually happened. He was in that same wide stance, gloved palms planted on the harsh brassy surface of his auxiliary bridge's control panel while the white tips of his sneakers scraped on the greenish steel decksole and the two fluffy tails that gave him his nickname curled and knotted painfully behind him. He could make out individual seams and rivets in the ship around him without even looking at them; they seemed to jump out of their proper places just to be sure he knew they were there. Same as always, then. Joy. His eyes were already fixed on the multiheaded dragon-thing directly ahead of them, the last stand of the monstrous Metarex that they'd chased across at least two galaxies, and he turned his mind's eye on them as well. Let's get this over with.

The planet the creature was growing out of was a shimmering blue ball, surface covered in fresh water with the same rippling blue of a well-kept pool. But a much smaller, much darker blue ball raced along the Metarex beast's wooden trunk. Tails felt his body cheer around him, but he knew better by now. He'd gone through this sequence enough times that the floating feeling of his body moving on its own no longer bothered him in the slightest. No, he knew that for all his big brother's valiant efforts Sonic was about to take a nasty hit, and things would just fall apart from there. And eventually the dream would bring him back to the same point it always did – even when he tried to set alarms to wake himself up early, the rest of the sequence stretched and compressed itself to make sure he saw everything anyway.

A sick pressure worked at his stomach, and the fox mentally frowned. Something felt off about this, and plus it was coming two whole scenes early! The Metarex had hit them all with something that leeched their energy, some spore or power field or whatever, but it hadn't quite squeezed or tugged at him the way this did. And then the klaxons went off, wailing and clanging through every different attention-grabbing tone he'd managed to come up with – but he'd only done that when he refitted the old Tornado; it hadn't been on the Blue Typhoon back when the dream was set! No, something definitely wasn't right...and the more Tails thought about it the more he realized that the sounds and sensations were affecting his mental presence, not the dream-body from weeks past. Which meant...which meant...

Tails woke up panting, not with fear or sorrow like normal but instead with the sheer exertion of ripping himself out of the dream. His muscles were still locked down in sleep paralysis, sapping his energy every time he tried to move and giving him nothing but numbness in return, but he knew from more experiences than he probably should have had that that would pass in a minute or two. In the meantime, he blessed that weird little conscious edge of his brain fervently for breaking him free of the nightmare. And with that out of the way, he turned his attention to the starscape around him.

The first thing he did when his limbs worked again was slam the bulk of a tail against the alarm toggle. It had gotten him out of bed, sure, but he needed his brain clear right now. With the screaming vibrating noise out of the way, he was free to hear a second screaming vibrating noise, and with a shudder he realized it was coming from his engines. His instruments told him that the Tornado was burning through energy at an impossible rate trying to back away from something – a literally impossible rate, or at least it should be since the solar panels he'd built into the wings before taking off on his own ought to be drawing power from every star that had ever shone on this chunk of space. He couldn't tell if he was moving, couldn't really tell anything, and he looked up through his canopy to try to figure out what was wrong.

The first thing he noticed was that for whatever reason the stars had decided not to shine here. Then he realized that wasn't quite true; there were a few almost perfect circles of what could have been starlight if it wasn't so constant dotted around, with one hanging bow-on to him like the sun on a foggy morning. Now that he was looking for it, though, there was also something like a pane of light – no, a globe, he realized as he squinted in at it – turning that circle into the rim of a black sphere about the size of the sun he'd grown up under. And that bizarre rolling tension was still there, like he was being stretched in every direction at once. No! This isn't fair! I woke up, this thing didn't get a chance to spawn in my dream. His breath caught, shredding his throat, and when it came back again it was roaring as fast and hard as his engines. And Cosmo...Cosmo destroyed the real one.

That last memory slammed an axe down on the neck of his thoughts. He might have adapted to the dreams by now, but he couldn't see how he could ever "adapt" to what he'd done, to what his friends had sacrificed for him. And wanting to get over it – wasn't that even worse? Cosmo had trusted him, had trusted Sonic, and he'd gotten her...no, don't lie, Tails. He hadn't just "gotten her killed," he'd shot her himself, and the fact that she'd asked him to didn't change that at all. The least he could do was live with the memory.

Tails forced himself to open his eyes and look at the thing looming before him. It wasn't the big black orb the Metarex had created after all, was it? No, there was something different about this. That had actually been a black solid with light seeping through; this was more like a glaze of white over a chunk of space. And judging from that odd tapering pressure – no, that acceleration – he'd stumbled across something that might quite possibly have been even more dangerous.

That explains why my ring gate dumped me here, I guess. I'm going to need to tweak it later though; this is way too close to a black hole for comfort.

Oddly enough, that realization settled him down. He might be in just as much danger, but this was just a force of nature. It didn't have the same pain attached as what he'd thought he'd been looking at did.. And now that he was awake and more importantly aware, Tails could put together a plan to pull away from the not-quite-overwhelming gravitational shear of the singularity ahead of him.

He'd designed the pods on the Tornado's wings to fire smoothly as he swiveled his joystick, the better to simulate the atmospheric flight he loved, but right now that meant he'd kick himself forward towards the event horizon instead of pulling straight back unless he played things exactly right. The engines on their own wouldn't do enough either, obviously, and his emergency boosters were aft-only, so he had to get himself turned around a bit past perpendicular to the pull before he could break away. This was going to take some fine timing, and unfortunately Doctor Robotnik back home had always held the upper hand in computer programming. Tails had more of a mechanical mind, which meant this was going to be manual.

The fox shrugged his shoulders and settled back into the warm damp padding of his flight chair. Well, this is what you tell people you're good at. Time to live it. His toes curled and uncurled, scraping yet another layer off the ragged insoles of his sneakers as he prepared himself. His tails rolled down along his legs to curl around the thrust control pedals – he wasn't used to that posture, but this wouldn't be the first time he'd used it either, and he knew from practice runs that he'd automatically pay closer attention to what his tails were doing in such a weird place. It wouldn't help him much in a dogfight, but for sensitive maneuvers like this...well, it was a good idea in theory. Stop second-guessing yourself, Tails. You need to do this fast.

That he did. I wish Sonic were here. He could do anything fast. I bet he'd even be able to outrun this thing if he had a track to run on! His big brother had done plenty of even more amazing things in their short six years together. Of course, he'd left the hedgehog behind when he went soul-searching – he'd have driven him crazy with all of this sleeping in a confined space – but just the thought settled him down the rest of the way. I'm going to come home once I'm happy again, big bro. I promised.

Well, if he was going to do that then he needed to break out of the gravity trap sooner rather than later. He couldn't maintain life support, engines, instruments, and everything else for more than a few minutes if he had to keep burning at full power like this, so now was definitely preferable to later. His tails knotted themselves around the pedals with a strength and dexterity no feral fox could have imagined and he leaned gently on his joystick. It was a tender touch at first, and he choked back forward thrust and opened the reverse just as easily. Then, as his nose began to swing and the light across the black hole spiraled into a prism and back to white, he pushed it all a little harder. Then more, then more still, working the thrust controls in near-perfect tandem with the stick as he yanked himself away from danger.

Now came the tricky part – he was almost side-on to the singularity now, and the gravitational shear was doing remarkably odd things to his rotation already. He'd have to completely reverse his thrust, go from mostly pivoting left to full-ahead in an instant, or else he'd stall out and have to start over again as he swung back in. If he was lucky. But he could feel the pull his tails were giving, a gift he'd known he had but had never had to test like this before, and he knew almost exactly where the pedals needed to end up. Come on, come on! Just a little more. He felt the tension along his side now, plucking only at his left tail instead of both at once, and he worried for just a moment that he'd miscalculate because of that before stamping down hard on the fear. Normally it helped him prepare for things, but in the moment like this it was only getting in the way.

Tails wasn't entirely sure how long he'd hung there, but his flier's instinct kicked in and he yanked the throttle controls to their opposite positions while letting the joystick stand freely. The little blue jet still wasn't quite pulling away, though – now! He leaned forward and slammed his fist on a yellow-striped panel, kicking the emergency boosters into action. The small fox went slamming back into his seat as the sudden rush of acceleration did more to his body than the black hole had ever managed. Now that his speed was up he leaned on the stick one last time, using the little bit of distance he'd gained to complete his turn. He'd started in a nosedive, brought himself up to a decaying orbit, and was finally rocketing away a bit more than perpendicular to the singularity's pull, and his shoulders squished into the sweat-soaked fabric of his chair.

His breath finally eased up and he realized his adrenaline had fired the way it normally did when he tried to keep up with Sonic, slowing the world down around him so he could move at full speed. It was second nature to him now on foot – well, not exactly on foot, he reflected with a tired smile – but he rarely had it happen in a vehicle like this. Must have been even more stressed than I thought. According to his energy readouts, the whole maneuver had lasted the longest thirty-two seconds of his young life. No, not quite the longest, that wasn't true. That honor still belonged to Cosmo's death. Tails let his eyes close and sagged back in his seat as the shear faded away behind him, automatically using his tails to bring the plane to a halt so he could find a safer chunk of space later.

And that was exactly why he was so surprised to feel a sudden yank on his ears and whiskers as a fresh force jerked the whole plane upwards before he could even get back to sleep. He looked up through the curved glass of his canopy at a hulking triangular profile with what looked like four big...no, he didn't like thinking about those, they distracted him. Four big spheres dangling below. He worriedly cycled through his radio frequencies, tuning them again and again to everything he could reach, but all he could hear was a rush of static no matter where he tried. That big hulk was getting closer and closer and Tails sat back in his chair with a whimper. He didn't have the energy in himself or his plane to make a run for it.

Besides, he'd come out here looking for something to do, after all. For someone to help. For someone to help me.

It took perhaps five minutes by Tails's internal clock to get inside the belly of the rescuing ship, by which time he'd tested every radio frequency he was set to pick up and found nothing but starglow noise whipped into a nightmarish howl by the black hole cluster. White floodlights snapped on just before he arrived, leaving the young fox blinking away big rectangular afterimages instead of checking his surroundings – probably exactly why they'd done it. So much for "rescuing" then. Of course, they're still getting me away from the black holes out there so I guess they can't be all bad.

Still, from the little his limited natural night vision had been able to make out these people seemed to be going out of their way to be intimidating. Their ship was indeed a giant isosceles triangle with those four...bulges making it much more massive than it needed to be, and he'd gotten glimpses of great hulking turrets poking out from any surface they could fit on. Not the Typhoon's single fixed-frontal cannon either; these were double-barreled or more and clearly mounted to hammer anything before or beside the big ship. The little fox had to wonder exactly what the ship's designers had met that needed that much killing. Of course, I know something that did.

His overloaded eyes finally started responding again as the Tornado grated to a stop against an obsidian decksole. Bright while lights above, walls so grey they might as well have been black, and an assortment of pipes and cables and cranes all around him only added to the shadow and confusion. And then he looked down, noticing for the first time the double lines of green-grey armored figures with their stubby black rifles pointed directly at his head. He smiled as charmingly as he could – not very, considering the circumstances – taking special care not to bare his teeth. Sure, Sonic and Amy and Chuck had all told him his stubby fangs made him look even cuter, but this was not the time or place to test that on a new audience.

A trooper with an orange shoulder panel that contrasted hideously with the battleship green of his armor trotted to the Tornado and started pounding on the airframe. "All right, all right, I'm getting out," Tails muttered to himself as he popped the canopy and gently eased it back. He pressed both hands ostentatiously against the clear polymer as another gesture of peace, although presumably for all the soldiers knew he had two extra limbs – come to think of it, he did, but the less people knew about his tails the easier things would be for him whether he had to assimilate or run away. As soon as the canopy was far enough up the orange-flagged trooper grabbed Tails roughly by the bangs, scrabbling for a better grip on the kit's scalp, and Tails reflexively brought a tail up to bat the gauntlet aside.

That was, of course, a mistake. The other arm came up, bringing a carbine with it, and any attempts at resistance promptly ended as the cold black metal slammed hard against Tails's temple. He probably could have recovered from that hit – he'd certainly had enough experience at it – but his head snapped against the canopy's sharp rim and then back into the rifle. As the hangar swam behind ever-darkening gel, the kit's last thoughts were of how lucky he was not to feel the man ripping his fur out anymore.

Tails's skull was still singing with the cold reverberations of the blow as he opened his eyes again. He couldn't hear much of anything around his injury, but at least he could tell where he was now. Whoever designed this ship must have had a floodlight fetish or something, he thought as the bloom resolved itself into a darkened yet oddly familiar figure. Most of the kit's surprise was at his own lack of surprise as he realized he was staring at a human. Heh. Rouge did say she ran into more of them out there. The memory sent nausea washing through his stomach that had nothing to do with the way his heartbeat was pounding through his forehead. Hope there's nothing like those...roots out in this part of space. The fox kicked at the decksole idly, feeling his bare paw-pads scrape against impressively slick tile. Figures they wouldn't leave me my things, doesn't it? Funny how it's more of a problem when I outgrow my shoes than when someone strips me. Bet they gave me a good brushing too – just business for them, but I won't complain.

The man leaned in close, resting his chin on his knuckles as he loomed over the tired young fox. Tails realized as he moved that the man's void-black silhouette wasn't just a function of the overly bright lights. No, some genius tailor had given him black armor over an equally black jumpsuit, and to continue the theme he had on what looked like a black plastic helmet with a broad sweeping neckpiece. Who comes up with this stuff? It's like they're trying to look as evil as possible or something. At least with something to think about the worst of his pain fell away, although he knew from a decade's hard experience that he'd feel pain and frustration chasing each other in circles if he tried to multitask for a while.

"Well, it seems you're awake. What are you doing all the way out here in the Maw, hmm?" The man had a high, thin accent that reminded Tails distinctly of Earth's quasi-historical television shows. Not a narrator, though – more like, once again, the people they hired to play the villains. The fox guessed he should have been surprised that this man spoke the same language as Chris and Chuck and Eggman – and, oddly, as most of the little one-planet species they'd met on the Metarex expedition – but for some reason that didn't seem to faze him either. It might have just been nerves though. He'd been asked enough questions in that tone of voice before that he didn't even consider refusing.

"My name is Miles Prower," Tails answered with a wince. He knew as much from experience as from the man's flinch that he was talking too loudly, but right now he was having a hard enough time hearing his own voice that they would both need to put up with it. "Most people just call me –"

"Did I ask that?" Tails wasn't sure how the man could possibly loom any more ominously than he already was with the low metal bench between them, but he seemed determined to try. "No. Who and what you are is irrelevant. I asked you what you were doing out here." The man paused for just a second, but before the fox could even start to put together a reply he pushed ahead. "Smugglers have cut through the Maw for longer than we've patrolled it, of course, but it's a rare criminal that tries to make the Kessel Run without a hyperdrive. Or in a ship we've never seen before and that doesn't match a single registry in the archives."

Tails frowned and picked his head off the table. He started to lean forward only to catch against a restraint he hadn't even noticed before. I half-expected them to go with a metal chain. This seatbelt is downright civilized! "I'm no criminal, sir," he said as gently as honor would allow. "And the Tornado's my own design. Well, not really, I guess, it's not like I built it myself, but Sonic lets me fly it and repair it and tinker with it a little when I feel bored. Honestly, a whole bunch of other people've made additions to it. In fact, it wouldn't be spaceworthy without Eggm –" He tasted blood as the man cuffed him with a gauntlet just as hard and sharp as the trooper's had been. "Hey!" It might have given him a gash – from the feel of it, he'd gotten one both inside his mouth and out – but this man had nothing on the soldier from earlier. Chaos, even some of his bullies back in the Emerald Hill Zone had slugged him harder!

"We'll get the history out of you in due time. I'm still waiting on an explanation." The man gripped Tails's shoulders firmly and hauled him against the restraints until they were literally nose-to-nose, and the fox squeaked and squirmed as the "civilized" seatbelt crushed his lungs. "What are you doing here?"

Tails frantically searched his overloaded brain for a coherent reply, but another voice from elsewhere in the room rescued him. "I could ask you the same, Ensign Onasi." His interrogator released him and jumped to his feet with a salute and a look incongruously like Sonic's after being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "New prisoners are processed by the Chief of Intelligence, not his junior clerk." The newcomer's heels clicked against the deck as he crossed over to the suddenly much less confident young officer. He wore the same bizarre helmet but no armor, instead keeping steel-green fatigues slightly lighter than the armor Tails had seen earlier. More interesting was the pistol at his hip, which looked like a bizarre hybrid between a toy ray-gun and one of Eggman's portable factories, and he planted a too-wide black glove on the grip as he addressed the other officer.

"Major Ulgo, sir." Yes, the ensign was definitely sweating now, and Tails took a perverse satisfaction in watching. He knew it was wrong of him, that it wasn't much different from being the sycophant to one of his childhood bullies, but the sense that there was indeed justice in the universe more than outweighed his distaste. "You were off-duty this shift and I assumed, sir, that –"

"Of course you did, Onasi. I can't think of a single decision you've made that wasn't based on a faulty assumption." Tails wished he knew how this Major Ulgo could keep his baritone voice simultaneously pleasant, forceful, and aristocratic. Maybe "paternal" is the best word for it, although Sonic didn't ever take that tone with me. Guess I was lucky. "This is the first thing our department has had to do in a week and a half since we shipped out from the Enclave, and you 'assumed' I wouldn't make time? You'll get your chance, ensign, but this isn't it."

"Sir, I was about to –"

The major waved his hand dismissively. Maybe that glove isn't as floppy as it looks. It didn't move at all – guess I'm so used to growing into Sonic's old pair that I assume they slide around on anyone's hands if they aren't lashed down. "You were about to injure the prisoner for no likely gain. Whether it's ignorant or complicit, jumping directly to the core question guarantees you won't get a straight answer from it. Remember?"

Ensign Onasi bristled. "Sir, I am an officer in the Imperial Navy, no matter how junior. I hardly need a lecture on basic interrogation protocols!"

"Clearly you do." If Tails hadn't still been nursing the fresh cut on his gum line he probably would have giggled at the major's ferociously raised eyebrow. "We can discuss this later, ensign. Out!" The ensign drew himself up but then visibly thought better of it, fired off a brusque salute, and stalked out of the room. The door hissed open at his approach and then back shut the instant he cleared the opening. Then Major Ulgo settled into the chair Onasi had just vacated. "He's just eager to please, which wouldn't be an issue if he was actually competent," he told the young fox. "His great-great-something grandfather was a war hero and the family's never quite lived up to his reputation. So he gets an excess of zeal whenever he thinks he can show off to somebody. Still, he's right; we genuinely need to know what you were doing in this part of space."

Tails wrinkled his nose and squinted at the officer. "May I work my way up to it this time, sir?" he asked a hair more confrontationally than he'd meant to – well, more like a full winter coat more confrontationally, if he was honest.

"Whatever gets us both out of here as easily as possible," the major told him with a grin. Tails wished he could make out the man's eyes against the harsh backlight, because with the limited detail he could make out through the wash he had no idea if it was genuine. Best to be generous then. He seems nice enough, even if this is a good-cop-bad-cop routine. Thank the Emeralds for human television; I learned so much from it.

"All right, sir. Well, like I was telling the ensign, my name is Miles Prower but most people just call me Tails. I prefer it, but I understand if you use the long form."

Already the major stalled him with a raised hand. "Seriously? 'Tails?' Well, I suppose it has the benefit of simplicity."

Tails returned the grin. "Wait until you meet my friends Sonic and Knuckles."

"I can imagine," the major told him in a desert-dry voice. "All right, Miles, go ahead."

Tails tried not to wince too hard at the use of his given name. At least he didn't catch the terrible pun! "Okay. I'm not really sure what to say, though. I mean, I guess I came out here...joyriding?" He gave Ulgo a hopeful look.

"Joyriding. In the Maw. No, try again."

Tails frowned. How to explain this without ripping open his wounds again? "No, sir, not just in the Maw. I've been jumping from system to system for about a month now looking for something to do. My computers just stopped me short before I ran into a black hole out there."

Ulgo nodded fractionally, drumming his fingers on the table. "I don't need the Force to tell me there's a story behind that. The part that confuses me – and that I'm sure confused Master Onasi earlier – is that our techs have been turning your ship inside out and there's no sign of any hyperdrive."

"Or much of anything else you'd recognize, sir, no," Tails said. "Like I told the ensign it's my own design – well, the ring-gate system, not the plane itself – and to be honest I had no idea you people were out here. I was just meandering in from the galactic fringe, and the only people I've ever met Out There were from one planet at a time."

The nodding picked up speed. "It's amazing how much makes sense now. Like why you've still got mass drivers and chem-fired missiles. Or why you never responded to our hails before we picked you up, which is why the troops were so careful with you on the way in."

You call that careful? Tails brought his namesakes up to massage his aching temples. His heartbeat still throbbed through them, but the worst of the dizziness had broken. "Out of curiosity, sir, what frequency are your communications on? I couldn't find anything but background noise on my radio."

"Radio..." Major Ulgo repeated the word several times, changing the emphasis and pronunciation each time. Finally he gave it up with a weary chuckle. "You and our technicians are going to have quite a few things to talk about."

"You said they were 'turning it inside out,' sir. Am I ever going to get it back? There are things in the Tornado that mean a lot to me."

That seemed to take the major aback. He broke off eye contact, pursing his lips as he scanned the ceiling. "That's hard to say, Miles," he told the fox absently. "If you help us out, answer our questions, then we can probably return it to you intact."

Tails smiled at him. "Don't worry about playing the good cop here, Major. I'd have told the ensign the same things if he'd have let me. Tell me what's really going on and what I can do to help out. That's what I went wandering for, after all."

"Telling us things or helping out?" Ulgo wondered aloud. "All right then. Lieutenant Bessiker's provost team ripped your ship apart while you were asleep. We all assumed you were some kind of smuggler or maybe a marooned pirate, so they went after contraband. Now Engineering and some of my Intelligence boys are trying to put it back together and make it work again, see if they can do themselves what you've already done."

"So I cool my heels in here for a while and let them try it on their own, right, sir? Otherwise it would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"

When the major had raised his eyebrow at Ensign Onasi it had been terrifying, but he managed to make the same gesture convey pride and approval now. "You're a sharp one. Have you done this before, Miles?"

The fox wrinkled his nose with amusement again, and this time the major cracked a grin in return as he recognized the body language. "Not unless you count trying to explain it all to a couple of tech-illiterate big brothers. They're smart but they never had the same interests as I did."

"You'll have to tell me all about it later, Miles, but for now I think we both have all we need for a first meeting. I or someone else on my staff – not Onasi – will be by later to check on you and fill you in on our decisions."

"Thank you, sir." Tails was genuinely grateful. He'd been kicked around and bruised by 'interrogations' much less fair than this one many, many times in the past. It was refreshing to see that no matter what their aesthetic choices may have been these humans were still, well, human. Of course..."You weren't really surprised to see Ensign Onasi in here with me, were you, sir? It was kind of too ideal for you, too ideal to pass up. You got to set up the dynamic between the two of you with me even if neither of you had to act, plus he gave you a chance to teach him a lesson and still see how I was going to behave." His voice trailed off into awed silence as he looked at the major, shining blue eyes wide.

The major stared at him with an expression almost as concussed as his own had to be. "You are a sharp one," he repeated in a much different tone. He stood up awkwardly and crossed to the hatch, and Tails shielded his eyes as best he could as he caught the full blast of the floodlights. "You'll hear from us soon. For now, it might be a good idea for you to try to sleep." His hand must have crossed some sensor, because the floodlights died and were replaced by a wan glow from the hallway. Then the hatch hissed open and shut again, and the little fox was left alone in the dark once more.

Tails hadn't expected to be able to fall asleep no matter what the major had said, but the restraints were warm against his belly and the darkness was just too comfortable after all the harsh glare and sharp shadows of the rest of the ship. In fact, he transitioned from simple darkness to sleep so seamlessly he hadn't even noticed he'd done it, and when he woke up again it was much the same.

Then someone threw the lights and Tails could definitely tell he was awake.

"Hey," he tried to protest, but there were already gauntlets under his armpits hoisting him bodily out of the seat. The confused fox blinked away sleep, but he was being handled too roughly and moved too quickly for him to quite figure out what was going on. Not until someone deigned to explain it to him, at least.

"Get it to the shuttles on the double, sergeant." A filtered male voice acknowledged the command as Tails shivered. Partly it was the air vent he'd just been carried under, obviously, but the woman who'd issued the order put Knuckles completely to shame as far as authority went. "Command can figure out what to do with it when it's on Kessel and not my experimental cruiser, clear?" Kessel. Didn't I hear that name a while back?

"Commander, I must protest." Good. Ulgo was here and he sounded like he was still on Tails's side. "He is clearly both sentient and gendered. Please show some degree of courtesy." An explanation would be nice too.

Whoever was carrying Tails stopped long enough for the fox to sort out his surroundings. Judging from his captor's pose the man was watching his commander's reaction with amusement and interest – hips cocked, head tilted enough that the helmet's face pushed the fox's right ear down – and as Tails got a clear view of the woman whose close-cut hair was a shade darker than her gunmetal uniform he could see why. Her expression was unreadable; it expressed too many sentiments – most of them negative – for the good-natured fox to pick out more than two or three. Contempt, though, contempt was definitely there.

She seemed to transfer any nervous energy to the people around her. Tails couldn't resist the urge to squirm even though it earned him another cuff across the head, but he could feel the guard behind him jittering just as badly. And at least this hit was lighter, either from distraction or sympathy. In fact, if not for the armor he might've thought it belonged to Sonic – the hand was just as big as his big brother's had been on him when they met six years before.

The commander's level soprano scythed his thoughts down. "It is an alien, Major. More to the point, though it claims extragalactic origin it closely resembles a Wookie or a Bothan, neither of which is known for their friendship to the Empire. I will not have it exploring an Interdictor cruiser like my Fastness for Force knows how long while Command decides what to do with it."

"Sir, have you seen a Bothan or a Wookie with a tail? This is quite likely a first-contact situation, so again I request that you show some respect." The intelligence major practically growled out the last three words. Let me change my original thought. She passes all the nerves to people who actually have a healthy sense of terror. Ulgo clearly doesn't.

The commander shared Tails's sentiment. "I have made many allowances for your...eccentricities on account of your recent loss, major, but I have very little tolerance for poor discipline. Not even an entire planet and the aristocratic titles attached to it can fully excuse softness or slackness of this sort, major, so set Alderaan aside and resume your duties. I have established this ship's policy towards lesser breeds and issued my orders regarding this specimen and I expect you to comply with both. Am I understood, major?"

"Yes, sir." The major's voice was as harsh and cutting as broken glass, but his commander had clearly found his vulnerability.

Tails closed his eyes, letting the sergeant carry him to wherever they were going. He'd caught the look of pain on Major Ulgo's face and wondered how anyone could lose an entire planet. You didn't have to do that for me, sir, he wished he could have said. I've been called those names plenty of times back home too. It always bothered Sonic more than it bothered me anyway – guess that's not too different now, is it? The man was hardly a replacement for Tails's big brother, but with today's confusion he'd take whatever he could get.

A door whirred open ahead of them and Tails opened his eyes again. The commander was nowhere to be seen, although since he could only see the people ahead of the sergeant that didn't tell him much. What he could see was a concave white wall just ahead of them – oh, elevator. Right.

"Sergeant, you can set him down." Good to hear he's still here at any rate. "Commander Toleo's gone back up-ship." And that answers my question. He's doing this on purpose, isn't he?

Well, there was one way to find out. "Is she really gone?" he asked, voice trembling with unfeigned fear. If he was being set up he'd rather the punishment land on him alone, but he'd much rather it not land in the first place.

The voice behind the helmet chuckled, a harsh and flat sound through the breath mask. "She stormed off after Nautilus stared her down." Tails really did wince this time. Sweet Chaos, no wonder the poor man didn't laugh at my name! What kind of parent does it take to name someone "Nautilus?"

"Remember that my name is on the Official Secrets List. Distribution is punishable by death," the major told them in tones far too frosty to be real. He confirmed it a moment later with a soft chuckle.

The sergeant let go of Tails at last and the fox slithered down his body to form a little furry puddle on the elevator floor. He hoisted himself up with all six limbs and dusted his fur ostentatiously. After a month in the Tornado it's not like that'll make a difference anyway. He turned around as much as he could so he could finally face both of them, and looked up – way up – into their faces. The soldier might have been the same one who had clubbed him earlier or it could be someone of the same rank; the death's-head mask made it impossible to tell. At least the fox could guess that the orange pauldron probably designated a sergeant, since that was what he'd just been called. The red and blue checkerboard on the major's breast was substantially harder to read, but Tails figured he'd have time to figure it out later. All right, it was time to clear the air. "Um, major, sir, thanks for sticking up for me back there but really, it's all right. I've heard it all before."

"You told me he was exo, major." Exo-what? Exo...oh, right, extragalactic.

"I thought that too," the major said almost conversationally. "You've run into humanist prejudices before then? Where?"

Tails shook his head quickly. "No, no. I mean on my own planet. Because of these." He wound his tails around himself and grabbed the ends, presenting them to the two men.

"Your species normally doesn't have tails, then? Might explain the nickname," the major muttered.

"Not quite." The fox dropped his namesakes and held up his left index finger as he slid into professorial mode. "My world has a large number of different species – at least, we act like they're species, although from what a few of them have said it's possible to interbreed. Not really my thing," he clarified hurriedly, causing the sergeant to snort through his mask. "I'm a fox, my best friend Sonic is a hedgehog, stuff like that. Pretty much everyone has exactly one tail, though, so I got called a freak for it. Anyway," he forged ahead before he could dredge up some of those old memories, "skeletons are pretty close to identical too, although builds are all over the place. Um, you're interested, right?" He wasn't sure what to make of the look the major was giving him.

"Fascinating," the man said, but he still seemed distracted. He's been curious this whole time, Tails. He's probably just processing everything you've told him.

"Okay, moving on then –" The elevator door rushed open, causing Tails to jump back against the cold polymer wall. He hadn't even noticed the thing start moving! "How far did we go?" he asked haltingly, already dreading the answer.

"Military secret," the sergeant answered. Well, it's straightforward at least. Doesn't overload me with excess information or anything, which is probably more than they can say for me. Instead of dwelling on it, then, the fox looked out past his escorts at the new room. There were a couple of cross-corridors, all that same oppressive mix of blacks and steel greys, but just out past that he could see a room that promised to be massive. "Hangar's ahead. Climb on, then, fox." With no further warning the sergeant scooped Tails up again and clattered out of the elevator, letting the major's measured stride ring out just behind them.

The hangar was if anything even bigger than it looked from the access hallway, although the towering blue-white force field holding out the vacuum did little to rein it in. Racks across the ceiling held twelve odd little craft with insanely tall hexagonal...no, no matter how the fox squinted he couldn't bring himself to call them "wings." Although come to think of it, dedicated spaceframes wouldn't need airfoils like the Tornado did, and unless he missed his guess there were solar panels set into those odd frames too. He'd done his best to disguise his panels, putting aesthetics before efficiency, but basic black would certainly fit the ominous theme these people had going.

And speaking of ominous... There was a hunk of light grey metal waiting for them, a large rectangle resting on three bird-legs with three giant fins reaching for the ceiling. More importantly, though, there were five more troopers just behind it, these ones in bright white armor with slightly more elaborate detailing on the shoulders and greaves. Tails wasn't entirely sure if that put them above, below, or just parallel to the green-suited crew from earlier, but what it meant in the meantime was that the major probably didn't have as much authority here. For that matter, the sergeant probably didn't either, which meant he was back on his best behavior. Just when I was starting to relax, too.

"This him?" one of the white-armors asked. Whatever speaker set was in that armor made him sound exactly like the sergeant. This is going to make things awkward. At least he's using "he" and not "it," which I guess is kind of a big thing around here. Tails shook his head at his own thoughts. Okay, Tails, face it, Sonic had a point. It was a big thing back home too, and it took the humans on Earth a little while to figure it out even with him, ah, reinforcing it for them.

"He's all yours, trooper," the major said. "Esseeyoh-nine-five," Oh, that's SC 095 – probably the sergeant here, although I've got no idea what the number means, "will be going along with you as the Intelligence liaison. Remember, gentlemen, best behavior. No matter what the commander's policy might be, this is a unique situation and you have the opportunity to show the Empire's best." Tails had to perk up his ears to catch what the man muttered next. "Force knows we could use it after Yavin got out." No idea what that means either. I hope wherever I end up has a library to curl up in. Or a computer screen; as long as I've got a nice soft cushion and something interesting to wade through I'm not too picky.

The sergeant hoisted him up the ramp and the other troopers fell in behind them. The big slab of metal ground its way up behind them, hissing closed with the refreshing sound of a good seal. The fox looked around for seats or an acceleration couch or even a handlebar dangling from the ceiling but there was nothing to be found. To be fair, you didn't notice the elevator moving either. But he definitely knew when the shuttle took off; no pilot could ever miss that sensation – or the comedy inherent in watching turfers stumble all over themselves at the slightest shift. The noisy white armor only added to the humor, and judging from the twitches that occasionally spat through the deck whoever was at the helm was enjoying this as much as he was.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the fox made the mistake of laughing aloud. He wilted under the troopers' hot glares even through their helmets. Please let me just turn into a fox-shaped puddle on the deck before –

"So, you boys hear about the new breed of silicon spider in Kessel?" Wait, "in" Kessel? I thought it was going to be a planet... "Something about drinking liquified brains, I think it was. Or was that just one of the prisoners?"

A trooper across from the first speaker piped up next. "No, pretty sure that was the spider. Those things swarm all over the heavy-labor teams in the mines. Bet they'd be fond of prey that's smart enough not to get spice-screwed too."

"Or that's smart in the first place," the first soldier agreed. "Besides, that's the kind that can probably get away from the rest of the inmates long enough for the spiders to actually have a chance."

Inmates? Mines? What kind of planet is this and why am I going there? Tails felt like shrieking, but he didn't want to give the soldiers the satisfaction.

"No such luck for them here," a third soldier – Tails thought – spoke up. "Figure this furball's getting the VIP treatment considering that Imp-Int's got the sergeant watching over him."

"'The sergeant' is sitting right here," 095 growled. Tails wished he knew the man's name, it would make things a lot less awkward. As it was the fox desperately wanted to hide in a corner and let the walls press in on him like a warm safe blanket until things were sane again.

"You know what the sector bosses are like on that dustball. Only guy I can think of who gets off work right now is that Antilles kid we picked up at the Enclave yards."

Something in the atmosphere changed as the sergeant spoke up. "Who?" His tone drew Tails's attention like a magnet, and the way he gripped the butt of his pistol kept it there.

"Um, no idea, sir. Sorry, sir."

"Smart," the sergeant muttered, easing himself back down. "Right, enough horseplay for tonight, team. We'll hit the orbitals in eleven standard if the pilot knows what he's doing for a change, and from what I've seen of you shiny-boys I fully expect you'll have better things to do than sleep even when you're in bed by the time we're down there." Tails felt his cheeks heat as he caught the man's meaning. "I'll watch the furball, the rest of you catch whatever rest you're going to." Tails really did go pack himself into a corner now, wadding one tail up in the small of his back and the other behind his neck. He'd slept plenty recently but somehow he wasn't in the mood to explore right now. "Sweet dreams, fox," 095 called across the room. "Don't worry about brain-eating spiders or prisoners whose whole families are locked up for poaching and illegal fur trades or..." The sergeant kept droning on and the fox did his best to drown it out. Okay, I get it! No more laughing at people still growing their air legs. Sweet Chaos, is he still going?

Even through his practiced silliness, though, Tails couldn't shake the feeling that the troopers had been doing more than swatting him down with tall tales. Sweet dreams, huh? Oh boy, this is going to be fun.

Still, it was also going to be an adventure, even if it turned out to involve dodging giant spiders in a pitch-black cave somewhere on someone else's world. And adventure was what Sonic had raised him on, and adventure was what he'd come out looking for. He'd have quite the story to share with his big brother once he found his way home from this!