Star Fox: Down Chapter 1

For all of you wondering this; my name is Zane. I'm not looking to write this for glory or a Pulitzer or anything of the sort. Why I'm publishing this is for the sake of those involved and uninvolved with questions. As you've probably heard, the Star Fox team announced its official disbanding as of two years ago. A lot of heads turned at this sudden surprise and many people asked why when they first found out. To their disappointment, the team answered no questions. That's where my quest began.

I took the next year going around and interviewing each member of the team regarding their retirement. I wasn't able to talk to everyone just to throw that out there. What I'm about to show you...what you are about to read; is how their last mission went, which as you'll soon realize is the true reason for them getting out of the game. This is not a novel or a fictional tome for someone poking around for a good read: this is Star Fox: Down.

(You'll have to forgive me if what I say to them seems inappropriate...I didn't want to hold back. And neither did they.)

The first member of the team I was able to get in touch with was actually on mandatory leave when the operation was going on. He's a good friend of mine, a great pilot and even better with navigation than anyone I've ever seen. My first talk was with Marcus McCloud.

I was originally on my way to my hotel when I got the call. You never really realize how bad things can suddenly turn until you hear of something like this happening. The traffic on the interstate wasn't bad, in fact I was probably one of maybe ten people on it at the time, which was around two or three in the afternoon. I was doing about five over the speed limit when my phone went off. I glanced at the screen and keyed my bluetooth and answered it. Well that call quickly threw me for a loop. I pulled off of the interstate turned around and went right back home. You really don't understand how...um...real things get I guess until suddenly the reality of war comes back and bites you on the ass while you aren't looking. I pulled into my place and took my phone with me. The guy on the other end was some random dude from the DOD that I'd have guessed had done things like this a million times. But when he was talking to me about...well my family...my own flesh and blood there; I couldn't help but feel like his words were meant. My parents were famous for their services to Lylat you know. If it hadn't been for them, this system might have been much different.

Did you lose hope ever?

I did at one point. When we hit the 96 hour mark with no report from them or report of other units seeing them; I had all but given up. I told myself, Marcus if they don't come back they would want you to press on and keep at what you love.

"What you loved?"

Yeah. My parents knew that, like them when they were my age, I always wanted to fly. I was in one of the greatest Air Forces known to the galaxy, I was already an Ace and I had more flying hours than most people my age at the time. There was nothing else I wanted to do but fly. My parents knew that, I knew that, Sarah knew that, hell, anyone that knew me well enough, knew that there wasn't anything else I would want to do but fly. And after I started to lose all hope of them ever coming back, I stood up and went back out. I was ordered to take a month's leave, and damn it all I was going to take some freaking leave.

How did you handle the media? God knows they must've been all over you.

The media...well they harassed me more than anyone else I think. I called Bill once and Katt a few times asking about it. They told me that they'd been approached too but refused to comment considering that it wasn't really appropriate at the time they were asked. When I was approached by the massive hoard of media that might as well have been Dash Bowman's entire empire, I kinda ignored them.

Ignored them? Why?

They were too overzealous about it. All of them I could just tell they were looking for the scoop, they didn't really care. Not a single one of them asked me how it was affecting the rest of the family. I just hid my face and told whoever ran the store or the restaurant I went in to do me a huge favor, and that was keep those damned animals away from me and out of my face. Needless to say I ended up with a police escort for the rest of my month long vacation. I remember one girl, way too concerned with her career to give a damn about a police escort blocking her way to me, she slipped by and immediately pointed a mic at me. Her question was simple: what do you think happened to Fox and his team. I looked at the reporter and said, "No comment, now would you kindly get that damned thing out of my face before these guys do." I motioned to the cops that surrounded us. I think she got the message and she just kinda stood there while the bunch of us kept walking.

Were you camera shy?

God no! I'm all for an interview with the CN or whoever wants one, but at the time, I was in no mood to want to think about my parents or my co-workers. I knew they wouldn't want me worrying. So I didn't. I kept telling myself, one day the call will come and the guy from the DOD is going to say, we found your parents, they're okay and they'll be coming home soon. I told myself that for three weeks. At about the second weekend I hung my head after getting out of the shower and said to myself: Way to go, you naive little shit.

What was it like seeing the news reports from Titania?

They were hard to watch. I wouldn't care what the reporter had to say really, I was constantly watching the background and praying that maybe dad or Falco or Slippy or someone would pass by. It never happened, reporters never go into the Red Zone. I did swear that once I saw Flaco's blue feathers but I don't think they were actually there. I even rewound my DVR to try and see it again. I had been seeing things. What they did show while I watched though seemed...well incomplete.

Incomplete?

It seemed to me like they weren't covering everything. I checked CNN I checked KNN, hell I even tuned into places like Comedy Network and TBS just to see if they had something remotely related to this that might give me hope. Needless to say, Danial Tosh had nothing appropriate to say regarding this incident. I haven't paid his show mind ever since then. The reports that I saw on legit news broadcasts were very one sided, either leaning towards a political party's favor or being the rival party's detriment. I rolled my eyes at most of those reports and said to myself, if I got to the top of CNN or KNN I'd have hung the politics and just did my job, report the news; any and all of it. I wouldn't leave out something because my political party would have an advantage come the next election or whatever.

Did you ever want to go out there and search yourself?

I had my moments during my mandatory leave where that's exactly what I wanted to do. When it was about a week in, I called General Hare and asked to return to duty just to look for my dad and his team. You can only imagine how fast my request was denied seeing as my leave was mandatory.

You mentioned someone named Sarah a minute ago.

Sarah is my younger sister. Not much younger than me mind you but younger. She and I had much different interests when we were growing up. I wanted to fly the I-Arwing*, she wanted to fix people.

You mean do medical stuff?

Exactly. Sarah and I always had little brain wars when we were younger. I'd usually win most of the time because of the gift I got from mom. Unfortunately for Sarah she didn't have it. But yeah, Mom and Dad said that we were two of the smartest kids they'd ever seen, and it was meant not just as an I-love-you-cause-you're-my-son/daughter thing; it was true. Most of the kids in our neighborhood came to us for answers they didn't know. We were right almost all the time. She went to med school and I went to the Academy. You can only imagine how proud our parents were, you know? Especially since then the two biggest honors were going to medical school and going to the CMA. It didn't surprise either of us that the other was top of the class by the end of our first years. Now one thing we didn't do though was let our intelligence go to our heads. I knew a lot of smart people at the Academy that thought they were total badasses just because they could answer a few really tough questions off the tops of their heads. Sarah and I were really humble about it, if someone needed help we'd offer to do so in a casual way.

Around the end of the first week, people started to riot about the military's lack of searching. What were your thoughts?

"You people are fucking retarded" was my initial thought. We were at war! You can't suddenly just drop everything to search for four pilots when you've got a war to fight. I get it the Star Fox team was somewhat of an icon and that we were all really popular and what not, but still this was war. People get captured, people go missing and people die. That's just the way it is. I think the Cornerians and the rest of the civilian population in Lylat became aware of that when I delivered a speech about mid way through the second week.

A speech?

I wrote up a little speech on the military's behalf that I was planning on presenting when I returned for duty, but it egged at me for three days straight. I could hardly sleep at night because this little voice in my head would be screaming at me "Do it, present the speech" Finally I just got up one morning and said to myself "I'm going to do this." So on Wednesday in front of the hotel I was staying at, I called the press and from on top of a box that helped me overlook everyone there, I gave the press my opinion on the search for my family and friends.

What happened after that?

Questions. Lots and lots of fucking questions that, if you'd actually been listening to the speech I gave, had already been answered.

[Pause]

Okay, so I didn't answer everything they had to ask. This far into them missing was enough for me to start answering the media. I remember first being asked what my feelings were towards the military's efforts to find them. I remember being very blunt and terse about it. "They're doing what they can." was all I said.

Did you really feel like they were doing all they could to find your parents?

Yes. You've got realize like I said earlier, they were fighting a war. It'd be a stupid move to suddenly drop everything that you're doing to try and win to go look for four pilots.

Even if these four pilots could pretty much win the war?

Something we never like losing in combat is an asset. Like say we're on the ground. It's you, me, a few other soldiers and we have a Landmaster MBT following us. I would count the MBT as our biggest asset. Okay, now let's say we're walking along and our tank runs over an IED and get's immobilized. Well, our asset is now in trouble. It'd be our job to defend it right? Okay, there we are guarding it while our tech guys are trying to fix it up so we can get it back to base. Next thing you know, an RPG hits the tank and blows it to pieces. Now our asset is gone. So what do you suggest we do then? Do we drop our guns because our tank was blown up and give up? Or do we snap them level and engage the enemy that just blew up our tank so they don't blow up some other unit's tank? Frankly, I'd engage them and take them out so we don't lose anymore tanks, then once they're dealt with we go back to base and get another one.

Did you just compare your parents to re-issuable equipment?

Yeah...But hey that's kinda how it is really. We lose an Arwing and a pilot, then what do we do? Next quarter we order another Arwing and train a new pilot. It all just kinda cycles through. You have a veteran pilot that's done with flying and we let him go. He gets to keep his Arwing, since they are relatively cheap to build and the process repeats itself with the new guy and his Arwing.

Cheap?

The average Arwing cost about 300,000 credits to make standard. The stuff you see in my cockpit isn't all standard. Most of that stuff is paid for out of pocket and installed by our crew chiefs.

300,000 doesn't sound really cheap.

In reality it kinda is. Think of it this way. The orbital gate that we use for our FTL travels cost the military almost ten billion. A fleet of Cornerian battleships costs about that much. The military invests more than two million in each of it's troops. The least they can do for most of them is let them keep something that's standard issue. Marines get to keep their rifles and armor, and pilots keep their Arwings.

A rumor started up around the last couple of days of the search that there we Aparoids on Titania. Did you believe them?

It wouldn't have surprised me if there were, but I highly doubted it. I initially shrugged it off as nothing, since I knew dad and them could handle a few bugs. That's not to say I believed them so much as acknowledge them as a possibility.

When they finally were found after those three weeks, how did you react?

I broke down and cried tears of joy. And I'm not afraid to admit it either. It's not like your friends are going to take away your man card for crying after a lost person is found and reunited with the rest of his family. I was with Jimmy Bill and Katt at the time. We're at Miller's Ale house watching the game. I get a call, mind it's been eight or nine hours since they actually showed up on base, so they've been with us for a pretty good while now. I answered the phone and my world just kinda stopped.

[He laughs a little]

"Yo, this is Marcus." I said.

"Your mom and dad have been found." goes the guy on the other end.

"Are you for real?"

"Yep, they're okay but we need to do some medical screening, just calling to let you know."

That was the end of that call. It was I could do to keep from really breaking down. Bill looks at me with this...this expression on his face like he suddenly knew everything. When I told him, my voice was quivering and I was fighting back tears. He pats me on the shoulder and says it's okay and that I can let it out.

What about Katt?

I let her know when she came back from the bathroom. Her reaction was shock, rather than tears. I doubt she'd admit to crying over a good friend being found after two weeks of missing in action.

*The I-Arwing, or Arwing Interceptor was a faster and more streamline version of the standard issue Arwing. What it lacked in defenses it made up for in speed.

[Our talk ended after Marcus was called into action before I could ask any further questions regarding the matter.]