"Look, I don't care about knocking your lights out any more," Coop grunted, awkwardly, "is that good enough? I'm trying to stop it happening—the one thing harder than carrying someone is carrying someone who's unconscious."

He began to turn around and kneel down (for the inches of advantage it would give Ace), before halting and adding:

"Don't ask me how I know that."

He descended the rest of the way to his knees (the rest of the inches) and linked his hands behind his back to give the cat a step up.

While the crew running and flying across the arid, hard-packed soil was certainly basking in their share of heat, it was hard not to notice that there were clouds encroaching on the fringes of the desert in the distance. Murky blankets of some kind of smoke, vapor, or just smog of the worst kind hung to their left (the west, toward Gigalopolis) and their right (the east, toward Spring City), tinting—no, tainting the sky in those directions an unnatural red, even at that normally-sunny time of day.

Eggman was doing damage. That much was certain. Those cities, like all of Eggman's establishments and fortifications, were like destructive, cancerous lumps on the Earth. Somehow, despite being a natural wasteland, the Yellow Desert suddenly seemed lively, fresh, and clean by comparison.

It wasn't a long trip. They moved faster than the delivery truck would have been able across that kind of terrain. Aga's sense of direction proving true, they soon closed in on the beginning of an incredibly large crevice, like a huge, canyonesque gash in the ground. But before they could even reach its edge or set their eyes on whatever lay within, there came a noise to draw their attention away.

Pops. Or, rather, explosions, delayed and muted by distance to small pops. The ground thudded with a subtle jarring following each one. Toward Spring City, shooting up through the reddish soup of pollution, bright green beams pierced the sky from opposing angles, absolutely obliterating what looked to be some kind of spacecraft. It was a colder reception than even they had received; the ship, still high in the sky, was a sitting duck for the beam cannons, and streaked in a fiery, smokey mess, trailing debris as it careened toward the group.

Fragments of the ship small and large, some even the size of cars and trucks, began to litter the desert, some even falling at the group's present position. Even a comparatively "small" piece of debris would have been devastating—imagine getting hit by a piece of metal the size and weight of an engine block, falling with the momentum of a couple thousand foot drop! But, the ship itself didn't crash anywhere visibly in the desert; it just kept flying onward, descending, blazing, twisting, and struggling in the last throes of its flight until it vanished somewhere over the horizon to the southwest.

Meanwhile, straight ahead, something unusually colorful fell into the Dry Lagoon ravine along with the other ship-junk: a large, purplish-looking ball, with something orange stuck to its top.

It disappeared from view somewhere in the lush greenery and watery pools of the hidden oasis.

"Huh," said Coop.

"Hold on," he said to Ace. He dipped in the air, beating his wings to pick up speed, and took off towards the crash site.

"Present," replied the jogging jackal simply to Aga as he decelerated to a slower plod.

He didn't seem all that affected by the heat, despite running around in it. It probably wouldn't be any big surprise if he was used to it, judging by the region he was from. Nor did he appear at all shaken by the destructive spectacle, and the hazardous storm of metal that had just finished falling all around them. What he did look troubled by was whatever it was his eyes locked onto in the eastern sky:

A full fleet of airships. A good chunk of the so-called Egg Fleet was sweeping the landscape in full-force—a variety of huge, bizarre-looking aircraft, some easily, easily larger than aircraft carriers, all rolling along at low altitude, rumbling and humming with the sound of their giant engines, jets, and rockets, surrounded by what looked like a sea of fiery dots and specks. Robots of all Eggman make and models flew at their flanks, rockets burning bright, propelling them right along the path the crashing spacecraft had followed. They'd be passing by overhead any minute.



"Incoming! Don't stop!"

Midian went to shove Aga back into motion, and continued running for the ravine. Whenever it was they arrived, he only took a moment's hesitation to scope out a safe place to jump, then hurled himself clear off the cliff's edge in a huge, feet-first dive toward the water distantly below.

It looked deep enough. (He hoped.)

Coop heard the tremendous, on-coming, nonstop rolling boom of the ships and hazarded a look behind him.

Immediately following this brief glimpse of the horizon, he looked directly forward, lowered his head, and dove for the deep crevice in the rock. He swept down into the gorge at nigh-on top speed, and bounced off the opposite wall, kicking off it and plunging down.

Bent over so that Ace would not be jerked off, Coop opened his wings again with a snap, slowing his descent before he hit the ground.

"Come on," he stated, simply. He dove for one of the overhangs that pocked the cliff face all around.