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Author's Notes:

Tails of the Old Republic is a crossover between the Sonic the Hedgehog universe and the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game.

Sonic and all related IP belongs to SEGA/ Sonic Team
SW: KotOR and all related IP belongs to Lucas Arts/ Bioware Corp
No copyright or trademark infringement intended.

Series rated "Web-14" for violence, mild language, and suggestive themes.

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Undercity of Taris — Escape Pods

It took Carth a lot of convincing before he allowed Tails to pick him up and lift him into the open air shaft. The fox informed him how he had fended off Dia's attacker and carted around the hapless bounty hunter high above the streets of the Upper City without too much trouble. But ultimately, Tails had to "test" his flying weight capacity back inside the corridor over solid floor. Carth had more gear and a slightly heavier frame than Dia's attacker did, but Tails was successfully able to lift the man off the floor and hold him steady midair. Tails estimated that Carth weighed about ninety-five kilograms (nearly than double Tails' own mass), and his gear likely weighed another twenty kilos, including his armor. After a minute of hovering inside the corridor, Tails could now extrapolate how long he could carry Carth before his muscles fatigued.


The adolescent Mobian was glad his tails had grown so much in the last two years; carrying a Human passenger any distance would have been impossible if they were still at their prepubescent length. Of course, Tails' arms, shoulders, and spine were still the weak links in his carrying capacity. Mobian anatomy tended to favor mobility of the limbs and joints while sacrificing maximum strength and durability, and although Tails was now one of the strongest and most visibly muscular Mobians alive, he was still slender and wiry, and his body was still limited in what kind of stresses it could take.


For most Chaos adepts, a higher Chaos affinity would translate into greater strength, speed, and endurance than what was biologically possible. Sonic and Shadow could run faster than sound, Knuckles and Mighty could uproot trees and toss boulders, and all of them could absorb ungodly levels of physical punishment and keep going; and, they were all skinnier than he was! Not Tails: the only place his Chaos energy manifested itself was in his twin tails. For all the power the fox could channel through his tails, his physical body limited him. Tails probably could spin his namesakes fast enough to lift a five-ton boulder, but his body would tear itself apart in the attempt. The boy's cybernetic augmentations helped significantly, but there was only so much they compensate for.


"Well, are you convinced yet?" Tails asked his passenger.


Carth sighed, and replied, "Yes, I'm quite convinced. Let's get on with this, then."


Tails set Carth back on the floor, and Tails then 'coptered back through the elongated window. He again altered the configuration of his tail-props from flat helicopter blades into a vertical double-helix, tightening the rotating spiral to about six feet in length and three feet in diameter at the tips. He drifted as close to the window as he could without whacking the exterior wall with his tails, and he reached into it with his hands. Carth Onasi had his back to the window, and he raised his arms up and behind him. Tails grabbed his wrists, and started pulling the Human up and out of the Lower City corridor. Carth tucked in his legs as he was lifted over the window sill, then let them hang freely after he was clear. Tails banked to his right, and started flying in the direction of the hole. The fox relaxed the spin of his tail-props a little, and they began descending at about one meter per second.


For a n00b, Carth was taking the flight really well. He didn't voice any further concern, and he simply looked around, although he couldn't actually see anything in the nighttime fog. Fortunately, Tails' camera system in his headset allowed him to see where he was going. Tails figured that the Human had experienced greater levels of weirdness than wingless flying mammals.


Tails couldn't help but smile. Carth was three times Sonic's weight, but the fox was overcome by nostalgia as he remembered carrying Sonic's spiny blue butt everyplace on their crazy quests save the world. Needed to cross some vast body of water? Tails could help! Needed to reach some impossibly high platform? Tails could help! Needed to infiltrate Robotnik's fortress without triggering his supersonic radar? Tails could help! Well, sometimes. Tails reminisced in the early sagas of his life. He wasn't very confident in himself back in those days, and he tended to hide in Sonic's shadow, but he followed the blue hedgehog wherever he we went; trying not to eat Sonic's dust plumes, of course. Tails was always getting hurt, often critically so, but he resolved he would face any danger Sonic did. And in the end, Tails found himself saving Sonic's dumb butt almost as often as the hedgehog saved his. The war with Robotnik was hell and was traumatically brutal, but somehow, Sonic's presence made it bearable. Despite his youth, the hedgehog was the poster-boy for the entire resistance, and provided the world with much-needed hope, even after years of attrition. Tails rarely got credit for all his contributions, but was always happy when his deeds were recognized by the Mobian people.


'I don't need a reason to help people', Tails thought to himself. 'Wherever I go, I just want to be helpful'.


"I have a question," Carth said as they flew.


"Yah?"


"For all the torque your propeller-tails must be exerting, how come the rest of you doesn't start spinning out of control the opposite way? I'm no engineer, but even the most basic helicopter system needs a counter-prop to balance its torque. So, how come you can fly just fine with only two propellers? Ignoring, of course, the whole fact that you can fly at all."


"Uhh... heh heh... well," Tails responded with a little embarrassment, "I really don't know. I remember, in my earliest days of practice, that I would often twist out of control. Eventually that little problem went away, without any real explanation why. I simply accepted it. There are a lot of things about Chaos Mechanics I just don't understand yet. Many people insist that Chaos energy is magic or sorcery, or simply a supernatural projection of one's mind, but I prefer to think that it's just another branch of physics waiting to be de-mystified. I've made great progress in analyzing its properties, but I've only grasped a tiny fraction of its nuances. Being a Chaos adept myself helps me a lot, of course, but I wonder if I'll ever figure it all out."


"Chaos energy..." echoed Carth. "I'm going to have a long chat with Bastila after we rescue her."


"She's a Chaos user too, right? A 'Jedi'?"


"Uh-huh," said Carth. "I'd doubt she'd call it what you call it, though."


Tails stopped descending at thirty meters above ground level and continued flying straight.


"Hey, Carth..." Tails spoke.


"Yes?" he answered.


"I'm sorry I pulled that stupid stunt, jumping out the window like that. I don't know what possessed me to do that, but I know it was extremely irresponsible of me. I apologize."


Carth was quiet for several seconds, then said, "Apology accepted." Several more seconds went by, then he added, "How's your nose?"


Tails sniffed, then replied, "Healing."


The ragged hole in the building this side of the air shaft became visible from the various lights illuminating the walls of the air shaft. Tails slowed to a stop and hovered in place. He scanned the area with his eyes and ears, searching for potential threats. Once certain he and Carth weren't going to get shot at, Tails drifted into the hole. It was about eight meters in diameter and had very jagged edges, and Tails could see the rooms and floors the escape pod had crashed through. The fox hoped few people got hurt. It got darker and darker as Tails descended, until he had nothing to rely on except his camera's IR sensors.


Finally, they passed through a thick layer of metal and concrete, and the hole opened up to an enormous cavern at least twenty meters high and two hundred meters wide. The terrain was rocky and broken, and piles of rubble littered the ground. It was extremely dark.


"This must be the Undercity," Carth commented. "Man, it stinks!"


"Hey, I can see the escape pod!" Tails said.


"You can? I can't see a thing."


"It's at the far edge of the cavern! I take us there right away!"


Tails flew quickly to the landing zone, and found the pod half-buried in dirt. Tails checked for possible threats, then carefully set Carth down on the ground. Tails dropped down next to him, and his tails returned to their natural fluffy state. Carth Onasi dug out a handheld flashlight out of his coat and drew his blaster pistol.


Carth shined his flashlight on the escape pod and inspected it.


"Looks like this pod has already been stripped to its frame," he said. Carth found the emergency hatch and peered inside. "Even the seats have been removed."


Tails circled the exterior of the pod, his parabolic ears darting back and forth, scanning for threats. The fox's natural night vision was fully active, but there was so little visible light that he couldn't see very far – maybe ten meters at best. Tails decided to use a hybrid solution – with his right eye, he would use his natural eyesight, and with his left eye, he would employ his headset's camera system and display the infrared reading on the holographic eyepiece. The split-view effect was dizzying at first, but he eventually acclimated to it.


"There's nothing here," Carth continued. "Everything's been stripped away by looters. Even the computer system is gone."


"Well, it has been more than a week since it crashed here," said Tails.


Carth climbed out of the pod and walked over to Tails' position.


"Don't shine that light in my eyes, please," Tails pleaded, shielding his face with his hand.


"Oh, sorry," said Carth. "You can see out here without a light?"


"I have a limited ability to see in the dark, provided my night vision isn't overloaded by bright lights. Also, the camera system on my headset is helping a lot."


Carth grunted, then said, "We should move on."


"Agreed—"


Tails heard something, a voice crying in the darkness, and he swiveled his ears in its direction.


"Carth, I hear a voice! I think someone's calling for help," Tails said. "I may be one of the Republic soldiers from the pod!"


"Where is it?"


"This way, follow me."


Tails half-ran over the dirt and rocks, trying to minimize the noise from his boots. Carth followed as quickly as he could, his blaster at the ready. Tails followed his ears, mapping out the multitude of sounds in his mind. They came to a narrow outcropping, and found one Human male propping himself up against the rock.


"Please... h-help m-me..." he rasped. His voice was very weak.


Carth shone his light on the man, and both he and Tails could see he was in bad shape. His skin was bleach-white, and he was covered in bites and slash marks. He was sweating profusely. Tails could smell the blood on his clothes. But something else was wrong...


"We're here to help you," said Carth. He turned to the fox and said, "Tails, keep watch for danger. I'm going to try to dress his wounds."


The Mobian complied, and he inspected the area for possible attack vectors.


"Please..." the wounded man continued, "I-I can feel it inside m-me... s-something growing... like s-some kind of h-hideous disease..."


Carth Onasi opened up one of his medkits and injected a hypospray into the man's neck. "What happened to you?" he asked.


"Th-those things... they attacked us as s-soon as we left the p-pod. Th-they k-killed the others... it was h-horrible but I managed t-to escape unharmed."


"What things?" Carth asked.


"I d-don't know. Despicable monsters, th-they are. They've b-been toying with me all w-week, as I hid from them and the thieves who stripped the p-pod."


"When were you injured?" Carth asked as he bandaged the man's lacerations.


"Two d-days ago... they mauled me pretty badly. I-I g-guess they got bored of their g-games. I've used up all m-my rations, including all my antidotes and anti-bio meds. Th-they've inf-fected me with s-something... I know it... I j-just slowed it down."


Carth injected him with another anti-bio shot. "Do you know anything about Bastila? What happened to her?" he asked.


"Bastila? Sh-she wasn't in our pod. We were tracking her before we hit the p-planet... it went down somewhere to the w-west."


Suddenly the man contorted to the side and started writhing in the dirt.


"Urk... no... No! Aaah! AAAUGH!"


Carth jumped up and backed away. "Tails! Get your ass over here!"


The Mobian appeared, and a jolt of electricity shot up his spine as he saw the wounded man convulsing on the ground.


"What's happening to him?!"


"I have no idea!"


The man's eyes, nose, and mouth bled as his body began to twist and change shape. His bones and joints popped as they shortened or lengthened, his skin wrinkled and turned a mottled gray. The fingers on his hands melded together and formed three vicious claws, and his feet did the same, bursting out of his shoes. His arms and legs twisted into the limbs of a feral beast. All the hair fell off his head, and his face warped as his jaws elongated and his teeth turned into jagged pegs of bone. His eyes turned into black, obsidian orbs.


"Is that... a rakghoul?!" Tails exclaimed.


"RRAAAUGH!!"


Its transformation complete, the creature dug its claws into the rocky soil and lunged at Carth. He almost didn't react in time, but Carth Onasi bolted to his right as the creature sliced through the space he occupied a split-second ago. The Human fired repeatedly, but only managed to nick the thing. It did, however, back off for just a moment.


"Carth, take cover!" called Tails.


The fox flattened his tails into ribbons and hardened their edges into razors. He ran at the creature, which snarled at the boy's approach. Tails jumped and whipped his tail-blades down at it, hoping to skewer the thing.


It dodged.


The creature bounded to the left, and rushed in to exploit the opening Tails had left in his defenses. Tails' eyes widened into saucers as he saw it rush him. He pulled in his tails and whipped them through the air, and one of his tails managed to cut into its side, forcing the creature to back off.


Carth scored a direct hit with his blaster, but the creature didn't go down. Tails decided to draw his own blaster, and both he and Carth shot the creature repeatedly until half its body was reduced to smoldering ashes.


Both Carth and Tails panted for a moment as their nerves calmed. After he recovered, Carth shot the creature's head until there was nothing left of it.


"So... what Zelka said was true after all," Carth muttered. "Dammit."


Tails was visibly trembling. He had seen the huge factories where captured Mobians were unwillingly robotisized, their tissues and organs transforming into quasi-organic metals and carbon fibers. He had even been forced to watch as whole families turned into Robotnik's clockwork slaves. But it was never a threat that came to you. You had to actually be captured and transported to a designated processing plant for "conversion". But this... this was clearly a biological infection that could be transmitted from person to person, a disease that, once contracted, doomed the victim to his or her fate.


"Tails, are you injured?" Carth asked.


"N-no," said Tails.


"Good. We have to watch out: any bite or scratch is a possible vector for infection. I have no idea how many of these 'rakghoul' creatures there are, but I have no desire to join that man's fate. Tails, on guard. We're moving out."


Tails gulped, and he calmed his frazzled nerves as best he could.


"So, um... should I fly us up? It would be, you know, safer," Tails suggested.


"As strange as this might seem, I'd rather not dangle helplessly while mutant freaks lunge at us."


"The whole point would be to fly above any risk of a melee attack, Carth," Tails protested. "I can fly us along the ceiling, well away from danger."


"Tails, who are we looking for down here?" Carth asked.


"That Twi'lek girl, Mission Vao."


"Uh-huh, and just how well can you see in the dark down here? Would you actually be able to spot her or her Wookie friend from the ceiling?"


"Um... maybe not," Tails replied. His heart sank at the thought of fighting through rakghoul-infested caves.


"Do you want me to take point now?" Carth asked. "I'll let you guard the rear this time."


"All right then," Tails said nervously. "I'll make sure nothing sneaks up on us."