"it IS weird that there's no guards here yet..." Knuckles said, thinking aloud. "Even with his ground assault, he should have at least a few of his Badniks up here to deal with anyone takin' advantage of him leaving."

He started walking over the deck of the flying ship - he knew where they were headed.

"If he's left anythin' here, expect it to be really mean. Otherwise, the Machine is gonna be in the lower levels through a maze of corridors. Before that, though, we need to get to a pair of big doors down the other end of the ship and there's probably gonna be at the very least some automatic turrets shootin' big rounds our way. We're gonna need to be quick."