Alpha Centuri B. Alpha Centuri outpost. Gaia. 8:00 AM.

A ship...

Screaming...

Silent noise...

A madman laughing.

And-"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddddd!"

Soft long grass framed the turquoise sky. James was suddenly painfully aware of all the reasons not to take a nap in the grass, such as roots and stiff joints. He groaned, and went to sit up, but once again "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaad! Where are you?" rang out, and he froze.

'I know that voice' he thought to himself, and he chanced a quick peek above the grass.

He nearly laughed at what he saw. A young fox, fresh out of pup-hood but not quite an adult, was snaking through the grass in the other direction.

'Still just a pup' He thought, and began silently moving up behind him.

The fox half-stood, looked around, and whispered, "Where'd he get to?"

Then James pounced. "Gotcha!" he yelled, as he bowled over the youngster and pinned him to the ground.

The fox cursed and struggled, but James was heavier, and he cuffed him soundly round the ears.

"That's enough of that Fox. Now, do you give up?"

"Alright already! Lemme up!" He exclaimed, and then James rolled off him and got up.

Fox got up slower, rubbing his skull and said, "How do you always win?"

James laughed and replied "Practice. Now, why'd you wake me up?"

"I want breakfast."

"Then make it. I won't stop you."

"But I can't cook!"

"And?"

Fox sighed and said, "Can you PLEASE make me breakfast, PLEASE?"

James stared at him long enough for him to start fidgeting, then relented with a smile and "Alright, you go ahead and get everything out, I'll catch up".

Fox smiled, than he was off and racing, already a tan spot in the distance.

James watched him go and smiled wistfully. To be young again.

At around the same time, Peppy Hare, pride of the cornerian army, was snoozing face down on a table-full of schematics.

The clock was ticking, and it was daylight behind the tightly drawn curtains.

As Peppy hovered between the two extremes of asleep and awake, a large and unstable pile of paper wobbled, shifted, and fell right on top of his head.

He snapped upright and reached for his blaster, but it wasn't there and no one was trying to show him what his entrails looked like.

He sighed and slouched back down, but it was hopeless, he'd never get back to sleep now.

Since there was nothing else for it, he had another look at the schematics. They were for a type of advanced fighter he, James and Pigma were working on, codenamed the Arwing. That is, he and James worked on it, and Pigma went off somewhere, got drunk and then scored. They were encountering a few problems with the engine system, namely a build-up of an electromagnetic residue called FactorG, and it posed some major problems if they were unable to reduce it's interference with the Ba(boost) Bb(brake) and Li(lasers) systems.

He sighed again and picked up the phone. He dialled James number and waited.

Click.

"Yeah?"

"Hey James. It's me, Peppy."

"Oh. Hi."

"You were working on the Arwing last night, weren't you?"

"Actually I was. I made a breakthrough too. You know the problems we were having with FactorG?"

"Yeah. What did you do?"

"Well, I-" There was a loud crash on the other end of the receiver, a clatter, then muffled voices.

"James? James! Talk to me James!"

There was silence.

Peppy jumped up, grabbed his blaster out of his bedroom, and was out the door franticly juggling his keys, the phone and his weapon when Fox picked up the receiver and said "Hello? Peppy?"

He breathed a long sigh of relief and slumped against his transport door.

"Oh thank god. What happened?"

"I was cleaning up breakfast when you called and I dropped a dish. Why? Something wrong?"

Peppy looked at his sweaty paw, loosely grasping his charged blaster and burst out laughing.

"What? What is it?"

"Oh nothing. Could you put your father back on?"

"Yeah sure. Daaaaadd!"

A brief pause, then:

"Peppy?"

"Don't you go scaring me like that!"

"Oh relax. It's not like anyone is after me."

"Yeah? I've heard all this stuff about Dr. Andross being at large again, and planets being attacked."

"That stuff is light-years away, get over it. Beside, don't you want to hear about my breakthrough?"

"Oh right! What gives?"

"Well, I was thinking about how FactorG can be attracted to endothermic magnetism, and I started thinking about making a G-Diffuser..."

So James bragged, told Peppy off for falling asleep on the table again, got told off for falling asleep outside again, and the day wore on.