In case you missed the warning earlier, this story includes male/male romance and implied sexual content.

I do not own any part of StarFox including characters and scenarios. The character of Zack and the events of this story is an original character of my own creation.

CHAPTER ONE:
THE HOSTAGE

"That was a quite a successful mission!" exclaimed Leon, as he slid out of his Wolfen cockpit and landed silently on the hangar floor.
"Yes it was, this paid out much better than we expected" came the voice of the Panther from behind him as he jumped from his own Wolfen. The feline glanced in the direction of Wolf's ship, expecting him to say something in agreement. But the lupine hopped out of the cockpit without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement. Panther's heart sank a little. Wolf, their once lively leader, had fallen into a bit of a depression since they had accepted their fate as outlaws, and began to communicate less and less with his teammates. He mostly kept to his quarters during downtime, and during their "missions" ("heists" more accurately) he would only say as much as he had to. Panther knew that the reason for this behavior was mainly due Wolf's dream that the team would one day be free and no longer have to constantly run from the law. Unfortunately, going legit at this point seemed nigh impossible. He understood the lupine's reasoning, but for cripe's sake, Wolf was their leader! The least he could do was check in on them once in a while. Instead, the job of finding "missions" was left to Leon.
The team had to be extremely careful nowadays, as they were some of the most wanted men in the Lylat system. Their heists had to be small enough to escape notice of the Cornerian Army, but bring enough money for them to live on. They usually got supplies at Sargasso, but they found themselves less and less welcome there as many of the usual crowd thought they might bring the entire army with them. Recently, they found themselves having to pay their way in and didn't have much left over for the essentials. Things were becoming harder and harder on the team and their lack of leadership wasn't helping the matter.
Panther watched as Wolf practically sprinted past them to head to his quarters. He was about to call out to the lupine, but Leon caught him and just said "let him go sulk if he wants to, we don't need him" coldly. "Besides, we need to get to the controls and move this hunk of junk before we're discovered." Panther's heart sunk even more as he followed Leon to the bridge.

"Wow, this should be enough to get us back into Sargasso for sure! If they try to stop us again, we'll just flash them a few hundred credits. If they still don't like it, they can taste hot plasma." Leon said, going over their earnings one more time. He had originally expected the bank job to yield a lot less cash, but the bank held way more than he ever imagined. Of course, the team knew in the back of their minds that because the bank had so much, they might catch the attention of the highest authorities. That also came coupled with the constant fear that soon the government would make the conversion to entirely digital monetary exchange, making life that much harder on the three. Leon and Panther tried to push these thoughts away most of the time, though they could not say the same for Wolf, as neither of them knew what Wolf was thinking at all anymore.
"Warning!" sounded the voice of the mothership's onboard computer, along with the siren and the flashing red 'WARNING' on the front screen of the bridge. Leon and Panther looked up to see what it was, but there was no indication. All they had to go on was the arrow pointing forward and the words 'ahead and enclosing' underneath the 'WARNING' on the screen.
"WHAT IS THAT RACKET?!" Wolf yelled as he came bursting in unexpectedly.
"The hell if I know!" Leon yelled back. "And why would you care anyway? You don't care about anything that happens around here!" he shot at Wolf.
"I can't hear myself think with that damned racket!" Wolf spat out as he entered further into the bridge to examine the screen.
"The screen won't give any indication as to what it's warning against" Panther cut in, trying to break up the argument. "All it says is 'ahead and enclosing.'"
"Yes, I can see that. Try and get as many views of the surrounding area as you can."
Leon grudgingly pushed a few keys on the console and many views of the area around the ship came up on the screen. "There seems to be a bit of wreckage from a battle or something" Leon said as he examined the screen, "But judging from how far the carnage has spread out and how small the pieces are, it took place ages ago. And the pieces aren't nearly big enough to damage the ship. I don't get it, the computer wouldn't warn for something like this. It must be malfunctioning. Computer, is this what you warned against?"
"Negative" the computer responded. "One life form detected ahead."
Wolf stepped up behind Leon and looked up on the screen. "You mean a ship?" he asked.
"Negative. There are no ships ahead. However there is one life form detected."
Wolf was at a loss for words. The lupine looked at his comrades to find they were just as puzzled as he was. He asked the computer "How is that possible? How could someone survive the vacuum of space?"
The screen focused on the view directly ahead and zoomed in on the silhouette of a figure which slowly became illuminated as they approached. "Subject only shows very small signs of life. There is no heartbeat or breathing. However, there is large amount of frozen gas surrounding the subject." Upon closer inspection, Wolf found the "subject" to be a young furless with his skin tinged blue wearing an outdated Cornerian military uniform. The figure appeared to be male, and he was surrounded by what looked like water vapor. He figured this was the frozen gas the computer had mentioned.
"Wait, are you saying that…" Leon started.
Panther looked at Leon with an inquiring expression. "What is it Leon?" he asked.
"Yeah, what could it possibly be, oh knower of all things?" Wolf said rudely, accompanied by an eye roll.
"Well," Leon responded, shooting Wolf a glare, "if this person was involved in the fight that caused all the wreckage, I suppose it's possible that he could've taken a shot to one of his fuel or oxygen tanks that just broke open the tank but didn't ignite the gas. If that happened, the gas would freeze in the extreme cold of space. If the gas froze around him, then he could possibly be in a state of suspended animation…"
Wolf scoffed at this theory. "That's impossible!" he said looking away. Leon glared daggers at the back of his head.
"Well the computer said he's still sustaining trace amounts of life, how would you explain it?!" the angry chameleon yelled.
Panther once again attempted to break up the argument by speaking up. "I think Leon's right about this one Wolf…" he said.
Leon turned back to the console and sighed. "In any case, we've wasted enough time here. Let's get as far away from this place as we can."
Wolf spun around to stare at Leon "What do ya mean? We can't just leave him out here! The computer said he's still alive!"
Leon stared back at the lupine and asked in an angered tone "Pray tell, Mr. Leader, how on Earth could we benefit from stopping the ship and picking that poor sucker up? It would only make us lose time that we can't afford to lose."
Wolf was speechless. How could anyone be this cruel? This heartless? He started to reply "But, he…he's…"
"Wait just a second!" Leon exclaimed, wearing the distinctive look of a chameleon with a particularly devious idea crossing his mind. "Maybe we could use him to our advantage. This wreckage is old, so he's clearly been out here a long time. That, and his uniform is outdated. He seems to have been a member of the Cornerian Army, and he's probably been out here so long they've presumed him to be dead. I wonder how much they would pay to get him back alive…All we have to do is keep it covert and this could pay out immensely."
"Fine then." Wolf responded, exasperated. He hated the idea of taking a hostage, but at least they weren't just going to leave him out there. "I'll be in my quarters, let me know when you've got him."
An evil grin crossed Leon's face. "Where do you think you're going? You're the one taking the cargo ship out to get him."
"WHAT?! Why me?" Wolf yelled back.
"Wasn't picking him up your bright idea? Come on, when are you gonna take charge 'Oh Fearless Leader'" he replied, his grin growing even more sinister.
"FINE!" Wolf shot back. He then stormed out of the bridge towards the hangar, his hatred of Leon growing immensely.