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.
