The command center looked like a warzone. A big section of floor was charred, warped and sagging, as if partially turned to slag. Smoke was billowing up through the glowing, yellow, cylinder-shaped isolation field, which flickered occasionally, but dutifully hummed along, doing its job for at least a little while longer.

Ugly as it was, living bodies rained off the tower-like command center platform, propelled out of the isolation field by the blast. They plummeted to the distant metal floor below. Seven's bomb in that comparatively small area was overkill, no question. The power was so much that even his own cover didn't protect him fully; the black-clad troublemaker lay under a bent, shredded, fully-blown-out computer terminal, which appeared to have been torn out of the floor and knocked over atop him, partially pinning him down.

Seven sat up tenderly, clutching at an arm, grimacing, and looking entirely worse for wear in every possible way. He nonetheless lifted the console enough to pull his leg out from under it, rolled over face-down, and pushed himself up onto his knees with considerable effort. He appeared to be experiencing some mix of pain and satisfaction, and coughed every time he started to laugh, and winced behind his grins.

"... Biometric analysis interface ready," said the computer's voice. The system was somehow still operable. A probe-like structure with a single, glassy-looking lens on the underside extended from the distant ceiling above, and began projecting a circle of blue, grid-lined light that encompassed the command chair and a space of twenty-five feet around it on all sides. "Please approach the center of the platform."

Except for the purple-haired boy on the floor, there wasn't a soul in sight; the deck looked completely clear. But above, something stirred; Rock clung with all four limbs plus his tail to the supports and wiry guts of the scanning apparatus high above, out of the blast range. The white primate had taken more than his share of knocks already, but the explosion wasn't one of them. Using the warp belt, he had shot straight up to the ceiling and averted the crisis almost entirely. With Seven stirring below, though, it was time to get back down there and finish what had been started.

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Seven jumped upright and ready only to fall backward and start scrambling in reverse, away from Rock with a genuinely spooked look on his face. One hand clutched his stomach while the other drew the machinepistol hanging from his thigh holster and leveled it at him

He squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flashed and flared as a volley of pistol rounds were blurted out in fully-automatic fire.

It was too late by then. The weapon discharged futilely into the air as Seven fell back, rammed straight to the ground in a high-speed tackle. The two combatants skidded and rolled a good twenty feet, swooshing, squeaking, thudding and scuffing before Rock lost his grip and each spun free of the other.

Seven, disarmed, pushed himself up with renewed urgency.

Rock was already on him again, hurling a heavy-handed right cross. Seven shielded himself with his forearms and staggered back under the sheer force of the blow. In survival-driven rage, he freed his knife from its sheathe and lunged straight back at Rock with an unintelligible shout, head down, trying to tackle and stab him; the considerably heavier primate simply caught him and shoved him back. The knife had struck Rock's abdomen and made a messy, bleeding mark, but his face was frozen and frigid, and he didn't visibly react to it.

An ugly-looking chain of events followed.

Rock stepped forward and clapped both palms at the sides of Seven's head with titanic force; a crisp, leathery, bony "pow" echoed across the platform, and a worse one through the boy's brain. Reflexively, Seven wilted and buckled forward, clutching his ears while his knife clattered to the floor.

Rock grabbed the boy by the hair of the head and drove him face-down into a rising knee; with that same leg, he propelled a huge boot sideways at Seven's lower body with such power that it knocked his legs straight out from under him, stretched him out parallel with the floor in midair, and —

BANG.

Rock slammed him face down into the steel deck with both hands.

... BANG.

He pulled Seven up a little, and did it again.

Three such repetitive slams later, the white primate picked the boy up slowly to full, standing height by his hair. Seven looked at Rock vacantly and palmed at his face as if trying to push him away, all while utterly lacking the strength to manage it. Rock turned his own face away and ignored it, pulled him in close almost as if in some sort of strange embrace, and wrapped one hand around the back of the human's head, and cupped the other under his chin.



Crick.



Snap.



Crunch.



Seven dropped to the floor, his head facing backward off his shoulders, and eyes and mouth agape, but motionless.

Rock looked looked down at him for perhaps some scant two or three seconds, blank, neither pleased nor perturbed, as the trickle of red from his abdomen darkened the waist of his already-similarly-colored trousers. It seemed he only stared at the mangled remains to ascertain that Seven was in fact dead. The battered primate then turned and swaggered away toward the blue ring of light, where the computer awaited.

Rock's footsteps carried him gravely to the platform's center.

There was something unsettling hanging in the air, looming over that moment of death and strife. A boy who was nothing but selfish and evil had just breathed his last, and perhaps the universe truly was better for it. But now, who remained? Could any good come of it? More than a soldier, an executioner now stood before an empty throne, the likes of which could have the power to shake the firmament of the world itself; to draw and dissolve political boundaries; to give rise to peace, or to silence dissent.

Rock stopped in in the middle of the circle as the sensor-equipped structure finished lowering from the ceiling and hovered directly over him.

"... Biometric analysis complete."

Rock turned, stepped back, and sat in the seat with a sigh—the kind of sigh one might puff out after a hard day of pulling weeds or working in the shop.

His mismatched eyes traveled upward along the full height of the flickering, fading isolation field.

"Computer," he said with curiosity in his tone.

"Yes, Dr. Eggman?" replied the computer.

"... Don't call me that."

"Yes, sir. By which name should you be addressed?"

"'Sir' works fine for now," he replied plainly. "Can you tell me the status of the isolation field?"

"Isolation field integrity is at approximately 15%. Failure is imminent. Reason: power available is insufficient and will be routed away to vital systems as needs arise."

Rock sighed again. He drummed his leather-bound fingers and gazed wearily toward where Ace and Jam presently stood. He had to have known that any minute there would likely be a displeased horde coming behind them, ready to try to take another piece out of him.

"What's wrong with the power supply?" he asked with an exasperated tone that implied he didn't really want to know.

A volumetric display appeared front of him with a virtually unreadable print-out and utterly complex diagnostic.

"I don't know what this is supposed to mean," Rock sputtered his admission with a flopping flail of one hand on the armrest, displeased.

"Reactor core temperature is rising and will soon reach critical levels," said the computer. "Reactor control rods are being manually removed and should be replaced immediately."

"... Show me the security CCTV feeds for the reactor core," ordered Rock with a scowl creeping onto his face and into his tone.

The volumetric display showed a grainy-looking array of live video feeds of an immense reactor core, laden with complex machinery. In the midst of it all was none other than Dr. Eggman in a full radiation suit, yanking things out of the core. Some of the cameras began moving to follow him; he noticed it, turned, bent over, and fanned his butt at them, then sprinted out of the frame, and out of the room.

"..."

Rock's face relaxed to a deadened stare that, non-verbally, said, well screw me. He scratched slowly and deliberately at his neck two or three times and thought deeply.

"Send security in the reactor core area to capture the intruder," he ordered, "and send maintenance units to replace the rods."

"Error," said the computer. "Reactor maintenance and supervision systems have been compromised and cannot function."

Rock's lips pulled tight and he blinked twice, heavily, either impressed, irritated, or both.

"Then, for now, send every available unit here to defend me, mark that red-colored female primate as an ally," he pointed, "and identify all other intruders as hostile if they display aggression." His tone remained all business even as he called down an army of robots to confront his former allies.

"Understood, sir."

The isolation field soon fizzled away.

And so it went, with not entirely friendly talk on the stairs, supplemented by some quiet stargazing, some... bleeding out (in Desmond's unfortunate case, as no one had yet noticed him down there), and a backdrop of distant technical jargon flying back and forth between computer and operator.

"Scram the reactor with whatever rods are left and turn the turbines back on."

"This action could cause damage to the electric generator. All remaining control rods have already been inserted."

"Do it anyway. Then get the comm array fully online again, connect to the network, and open all ports to six-eight, dot, three-eight, dot, one-two-eight, dot ..."

Basically, they were all sitting in a giant spacecraft, with a giant nuclear reactor ready to blow, and they had someone they already didn't trust there to work on it. Perhaps it was more a matter that his motives were distrusted rather than his proficiency; after all, survival was a goal Rock and everyone else shared an equal stake in right then.

There wasn't much for anyone to take note of until the computer's speech was suddenly replaced with heavily-synthesized, more masculine voice. It responded within moments of the request, albeit a bit more monotone than usual. Rock had managed to reach the intended contact... or at least a subsystem of said contact.

"Communications request received." There was momentary pause before prior to the voice speaking again.

"Adjusting for signal delay in link. One moment."

Another brief delay, this time several seconds longer before the voice spoke again, with combined overall delay spanning roughly less than half a minute. Rock tapped his fingers anxiously.

"Communications up-link established." The tone in next response was considerably less 'automated phone operator' than the previous. "Unidentified contact, state the nature of this comm inquiry."

"Tau, it's Rock," he blurted hastily. "We're in the destroyer — all according to plan, but the Eggman's taken the control rods out of the reactor. I can't physically get there in time to replace'em. Any ideas?"