The Sky Patrol's engines screamed like gutted beasts as we climbed above Acorn Manor's manicured sprawl. Jules stood silhouetted against the panoramic viewport, claws clasped behind his back, utterly still. Below, the quartz paths shrunk into geometric insignificance. Sally was probably still counting tiles. Four hundred twenty-three. The absurdity of her marrow fixation clashed violently with Jules' looming shadow. Playdates? Gardens? Maxx's transparent maneuvering felt like watching a bad actor fumble his lines. Yet Sally's detachment—that terrifying emptiness—had scraped something raw inside me. Failure was easy armor. Hers felt like suffocation.
"The Overlander emissary," Jules stated, voice flat as a data-slate, still facing the clouds. "He'll be at Fort Knothole by dawn. You'll observe the negotiations." Not *learn*. Observe. Jules saw me as a recording device—another sensor in his arsenal. The Sky Patrol banked sharply, pressing me into the synth-leather seat. Below, the Northern Baronies' jagged mountain fortresses glinted like broken teeth against the horizon. Jules finally turned, his eyes twin chips of obsidian. "Maxx bleats about madness. Fools confuse desperation for insanity. The Baronies are starving. Starved beasts bite hardest." His claw tapped the viewport. "We offer them a choice: eat the scraps we throw . . . or simply become the meal."
The implication landed like a physical blow. Arm the Overlanders. Let *them* savage the Baronies. Jules' 'unconventional deterrent' was outsourcing genocide. My stomach churned, sour milk rising in my throat. Bernadette's desperate whisper echoed: *Play dumb. Cry. Be slow.* But Sally's vacant stare overrode it. Failure wouldn't shield her, or anyone. Jules mistook my silence for comprehension. "You see the elegance, Sonic. Minimal expenditure. Maximum . . . persuasion." He strode toward the cockpit, dismissing me. "Prepare yourself for next week Sonic. Fort Knothole awaits."
Alone in the shuddering cabin, I stared at my reflection in the polished bulkhead. A blue hedgehog child stared back—Jules' perfect weapon, Bernadette's desperate hope, Maxx's pawn. And me? A coward drowning in borrowed fur. Sally wanted marrow. Jules wanted corpses. Maxx wanted puppets. What did *I* want? The engines' roar swallowed the thought. Survival, maybe. Not as Jules' blade. Not as Maxx's leverage. Not even as Bernadette's disappointment. Just . . . something else. Something quiet. Like counting tiles in an empty room.
The Sky Patrol descended toward Hedgehog Manor's looming silhouette, its landing jets scorching the manicured lawn. Jules disembarked without a backward glance, barking orders about encrypted briefings. I trailed him through echoing halls smelling of lemon polish and suppressed fury. Bernadette awaited us in the formal dining hall, her posture rigid beside the obsidian table laden with silver domes. Her gaze locked onto Jules, fierce and unyielding. "You armed them," she stated, not asked. Jules didn't pause, wrenching a chair back. "I offered solutions. Starve or bleed, Bernadette. Which would you choose? Besides either I'll be able to get rid of those pesky Norther Baronies or those disgusting Overlanders."
Her claws dug into the tablecloth. "There are other choices. Ones that don't turn children into bargaining chips." She flicked her eyes to me—a warning, a plea. Play dumb. Be slow. Fail. Dinner was a silent siege. Jules devoured his roast griffon like it owed him tribute, ignoring Bernadette's simmering glare. I pushed peas around my plate, the clink of silverware deafening in the stillness. Failure tasted like overcooked tubers and cold gravy. Easy. Safe. But Sally's hollow stare haunted me—the way she'd whispered *promise* like it was a foreign word.
Later, in my sterile training suite, Jules activated the holographic war table. Fort Knothole's defenses bloomed in shimmering light. "Observe," he commanded, pointing to the Overlander convoy's projected path through Northern Baronies territory. "They'll hit the Northern Baronies' granary depots first. Starvation accelerates dissent." His claw tapped a flashing icon—a crude skull-and-gear insignia. "Overlander 'Peacekeepers'. Efficient scavengers. They'll cripple the Northern Baronies' infrastructure within weeks." The simulation ran: villages burned in pixelated silence. Jules nodded, satisfied. "Clean. Surgical."
He handed me a data-slate blinking with tactical overlays. "Memorize their approach vectors. Identify weaknesses." The sterile glow reflected in his eyes—no triumph, just cold assessment. I gripped the slate, its edges biting into my palms. "Father, am I mistaken, or don't you win either way?"
Jules smiled, slow and sharp as a scalpel sliding from its sheath. "Exactly." He leaned over the holographic carnage, his shadow swallowing the burning villages. "Either the disgusting Overlanders break the Northern Baronies' backs for us, or they fail and I finally get to destroy them all in the name of piece. Either way, Mobius learns who holds the whip." The cold calculation in his voice made Bernadette's pleas feel like childish fantasies.
Failure wasn't safety; it was complicity. Here Jules was admitting to wanting to kill all humans (they basically were, especially those with five fingers in each hand!) and Bernadette's desperate sabotage suddenly felt like cowardice. Sally's hollow *promise* echoed louder than Jules' simulations. I couldn't just memorize vectors and identify weaknesses. Not this time. The holographic Northern Baronies villages burned silently. Jules watched, satisfied. "Clean," he repeated. "Surgical." He turned to leave, dismissing the carnage as easily as Sally dismissed tiles. "Review the convoy routes by dawn."
The moment the door hissed shut, I didn't touch the data-slate. Instead, I accessed the Sky Patrol's auxiliary comms terminal—a child's toy Jules overlooked. My fingers flew, clumsy but frantic, bypassing basic encryption protocols Bernadette had once shown me during a tedious lesson. *For emergencies*, she'd whispered. This qualified, there wasn't any actually good options and so at least I could convince Jules to just kill the leaders of the Northern Baronies. I patched into Fort Knothole's perimeter sensor net, routing the feed through a dozen dummy relays. Static hissed, then resolved into grainy thermal signatures: the Overlander convoy lumbering toward the Baronies' western granary depot. Coordinates blinked accusingly. Jules' scalpel was poised.
"Fort Knothole Security," a gruff voice crackled over the open channel—probably some bored sentry monitoring routine scans. I pitched my voice high, mimicking the frantic tremor Bernadette used when feigning panic over a misplaced tiara. "Intruder alert! Sector Seven-Tango! Massive energy spike! Looks like—" I faked a burst of static, drowning my next words. "—Barony ambush! Coordinates transmitting NOW!" I slammed the convoy's real-time location data onto the channel, flooding it before cutting the connection. Heart hammering against my ribs, I completely wiped the terminal's history, leaving only the sanctioned tactical overlays blinking innocently.
Silence pressed in, thick as the Manor's lemon polish. Had it worked? Minutes later, klaxons wailed through the Sky Patrol's hull—Fort Knothole's distinct, three-tone alarm. Jules burst back into the suite, fur bristling, eyes scanning the holographic war table now flashing urgent crimson alerts over the convoy's path. "Barony insurgents!?" he snarled, claws flexing. "Impossible! Their movements were contained!" He glared at the data-slate in my hands, "Well, Sonic? Did you see this?"
"Only the convoy vectors, Father," I stammered, holding up the slate displaying the sterile routes Jules had ordered memorized. "The sensors showed nothing unusual before the alarm." It wasn't entirely a lie; my sabotage had bypassed the official logs. Jules snarled, a low, dangerous sound vibrating through the polished deckplates. He stabbed a claw at the flashing crimson icon marking the convoy's sudden halt. "Fort Knothole reports heavy kinetic impacts hitting them *exactly* where they were most vulnerable. That's not coincidence—that's a leak!" He whirled toward the comms officer barking orders. "Scramble interceptors! Full suppression! And find whoever tipped off those Barony barbarians!"
Bernadette appeared silently in the doorway, her gaze sharp as shattered glass, flicking from Jules' furious pacing to the blinking comms terminal I'd just wiped clean. She didn't speak, didn't move—just watched. Her stillness felt heavier than Jules' rage. Had she seen? Did she know? The klaxons screamed on, their rhythmic wail vibrating the bulkheads. Jules slammed a fist onto the war table, scattering holographic projections. "Fort Knothole confirms kinetic bombardment! Those Barony savages are hammering the convoy with siege engines!" His voice was raw fury edged with disbelief. "How? Their intelligence is gutter trash!"
The comms officer flinched. "Unknown source, Lord Jules! The warning came encrypted on a civilian frequency—mimicked our own alert protocols." Jules' eyes narrowed, scanning the room like a predator scenting blood. His gaze lingered on me for a heartbeat too long. I kept my face slack, clutching the sanctioned data-slate like a shield. *Play dumb. Be slow.* Bernadette's unspoken command echoed, but Sally's hollow promise drowned it out. Failure wasn't armor anymore; it was a trap snapping shut.
Jules stalked toward me, claws clicking on the deck. "When I find out who ever did this, they will know the true meaning of pain." His eyes burned into mine, searching for cracks. "You saw nothing? Heard nothing?" I shook my head, letting my grip tremble on the data-slate. Bernadette's stillness intensified; she knew this tremor was genuine terror. Jules' muzzle twitched. "Fine. Then you'll analyze the sensor logs personally. Every frequency. Every anomaly. Find me that leak." He shoved a secondary data-slate into my chest. "Now."
In my quarters, I scrolled through meaningless static patterns, hands shaking. Jules' paranoia was a live wire. If he discovered my sabotage—framing the Northern Baronies for an attack they hadn't launched—he'd flay me alive. Bernadette slipped in silently, shutting the door with her hip. "That convoy," she whispered, eyes darting to the corridor. "Your doing?" Her voice held no accusation, only urgent calculation. I nodded once, unable to speak. She snatched the slate, fingers flying. "Good. Now bury it deeper." She rerouted logs through Hedgehog Manor's ancient laundry chutes—terrycloths dampening digital footprints—before wiping the slate clean.
"Jules looks for knives in shadows. Give him quackery." She pressed the slate back into my hands, her claws digging into my wrist. "Tomorrow, when he asks for your analysis? Stutter. Mention phantom signals. Blame solar flares interfering with sensors." Her eyes locked onto mine—no warmth, only cold strategy. "Fail *convincingly*, Sonic. Cry if you must. Your incompetence is our shield now." She vanished as silently as she came, leaving the scent of lavender soap and treason.
Dawn bled crimson over Fort Knothole's scarred battlements when Jules summoned me to the command spire. Below, smoke coiled from the smoldering wreckage of the Overlander convoy—twisted metal carcasses half-buried in mud where Northern Barony artillery had pounded them into scrap. Jules stood motionless before the panoramic blast window, his silhouette sharp against the carnage. "Analysis," he commanded, voice flat as a tombstone. I clutched the sanitized data-slate, Bernadette's instructions screaming in my skull: *Fail convincingly.*
"Father," I stammered, letting my voice crack like dry timber. "The logs . . . they've been scrambled. Ghost signals everywhere—phantom energy spikes near Sector Seven-Tango." I gestured weakly at the slate's chaotic static patterns. "Solar flares, maybe? The ion storm last week fried half our sensors." Jules didn't turn from the window. Below, Overlander survivors stumbled through the mud, their pallid skin smeared with ash and blood. One clutched a severed arm—his own or someone else's, it was impossible to tell.
Bernadette's voice sliced through the silence from the doorway. "Ghost signals? Solar flares?" She stepped forward, her tone dripping with theatrical exasperation. "Honestly, Jules, you let a *child* analyze tactical data? Next you'll have him predicting the weather by counting that Sally girl's tiles." She snatched the slate from my trembling paws, her claws tapping dismissively. "Look—corrupted logs, sensor degradation patterns consistent with last month's magnetic storm near Yonge Station. Basic diagnostics, Jules. Hardly sabotage." She tossed the slate onto a console like discarded trash. "Blame Acorn's antiquated tech, not phantom infiltrators."
Jules' muzzle tightened, but Bernadette pressed on, her voice sharpening. "Meanwhile, your precious Overlanders are screaming for med-evacs. Half their 'Peacekeepers' are limbless. The Baronies saw them as target practice." She gestured at the carnage below, where Overlanders dragged mangled comrades through the mud. "So much for surgical. Looks like you boffed this one, dear." Jules' claws flexed, knuckles whitening. "The Northern Baronies struck first. We retaliate—harder." Bernadette snorted. "Retaliate? Against who? The ghosts in your sensors? Or the Overlanders bleeding out because *your* intel was garbage?"
The comms officer cleared his throat. "Lord Jules? Fort Knothole reports . . . complications. The Overlander emissary is demanding immediate extraction—and reparations. He claims . . . he claims Lord Acorn warned him this would happen." Jules froze. Bernadette's eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "Maxx?" she breathed. Jules whirled, fury igniting. "Acorn *knew*?" He slammed a fist against the blast window, the reinforced glass shuddering. "That treacherous rat! He played us!"
Below, Overlanders screamed as medics sawed through mangled limbs. The air reeked of charred metal and copper-rich blood. Jules' claws scraped the shuddering blast window. "Acorn warned them?" he hissed, voice thick with venom. "That means he *knew* the Northern Barony ambush was coming!" "Father, may I help them with clean up?" His gaze snapped to me—sharp, assessing. "Sonic. Yes, the Overlander emissary is trapped in Med-Bay Three. Go. Offer . . . assistance. Express . . . regret." The unspoken command hung heavy: *Gather intelligence*.
Med-Bay Three stank of antiseptic and scorched flesh. The Overlander emissary—a gaunt man with cybernetic eye implants—lay strapped to a gurney, his leg a mess of cauterized tissue. "Lord Jules' pup," he rasped, pupils dilating unnaturally. "Here to gloat?" His fingers twitched toward a concealed holster. "No," I whispered, grabbing fresh synth-skin bandages. "Here to stop the bleeding." My paws trembled as I applied the dressing. *This carnage is my fault*. The thought clawed up my throat. "I'm sorry," I choked out, the words raw. "About your convoy." His cyber-eye whirred, scanning my face. "Sorry?" He barked a laugh that dissolved into a wet cough. "Kid, those Northern Baronies will be sorry. We'll peel their mountains down to bedrock." Guilt curdled in my gut. I'd traded genocide for war crimes.
Outside, the doctors were moving the dead and injured around, I chose to look back away, "I don't believe I got your name sir?" The Overlander's cyber-eye whirred, locking onto my face. "Kintobor," he grunted, sweat beading above his prosthetic brow, "Remember that kid!"
Why did I have the feeling that I would? . . .