1A/N - Here is a little tribute to the Star Fox mechanic. Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I don't own Star Fox.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Some furs would comment on the annoying sound, but to Slippy Toad, there was something therapeutic about the autoratchet's soft turning mechanism. He sometimes tightened a screw, and then loosened, it only to retighten it, just to hear the clicking noise. By far, it was one of the simplest tools he owned, but the autoratchet was his favorite.
Smiling, the toad turned the tool once more and then leaned back to look over his work. The large sum of money, (for saving Lylat, of course) which was split four ways evenly between Team Star Fox, had aided him greatly in completing his latest project. Not only was he able to purchase the equipment needed, he was able to buy the most expensive and advanced in the field. It had taken years to finish and perfect, but it was finally done.
In front of him, mounted on the back of a sleek jet, was a new speed booster.
Slippy tossed the autoratchet a few times, expertly catching its handle each time after a few free falling turns in the air. The aerodynamic jet was very small, having (barely) room for one. It was essentially, an engine with a seat attached. Still, it enticed him to break the speed records set for interstellar travel.
The fame… the fortune… the women…
Fox got most of the ladies, and Falco took whoever was left over. Just once, the toad wanted a female to look his way twice.
"They might now," he said, putting both hands on his hips.
Not that he believed it much. Slippy pocketed his autoratchet and climbed into the cockpit of the jet. He ran a few diagnostic checks, but his work was flawless as usual.
"Hey ROB," he called over Star Fox's frequency, "I'm going to take out my jet for a few test runs."
"Affirmative," replied the robotic voice.
Slippy fastened the seat harness and donned a headset. After a brief warmup, he maneuvered the ship to the launch bay. The toad awaited confirmation from ROB before shooting out into space.
The Great Fox was sitting in the space on the outer edges of Lylat, with Corneria distantly to the right, and Fortuna a small sphere ahead. Slippy calculated the edges of the meteor field of Meteo before plotting a course for the ship.
'The ship? I should think of a better name. It certainly deserves as much,' he thought while waiting for the nav computer to finish.
Before he could think of a few, the nav computer beeped. Slippy set up his flight recorder to transmit to his lab, and then he began maneuvering around the Great Fox. The ship was graceful and fast, zipping around the free space with no complaint from the inertial compensator. He took a few hard turns specifically to test the new equipment, and he was very pleased.
After hitting the recorder, Slippy called to ROB, "I'm going to take her out for a while. I should be back in a few hours."
ROB acknowledged and the toad began the first speed sequences. Next, he dialed up the inertial compensator for the ride. Slippy said a quick prayer and hit the accelerator. The ship quickly approached its standard highest speed. The toad checked the diagnostics of the jet before kicking on the boosters.
There was a soft whirring sound that grew gradually louder as his speed increased. The stars visible to Lylat looked like shooting stars across his transparisteel hatch. He was quickly approaching his test goal speed when things began to go wrong.
It started with a soft clicking noise from below. Before Slippy could even figure out what was going on, whatever might have come loose tore away, leaving a startling grinding metal sound.
Slippy hurriedly slowed the ship down as fast as he could. There was no eject button on the jet, but luckily, it was still flying.
The flight had taken him all the way from Fortuna to Titania. Slippy was facing the dark side of the planet, but he knew it wasn't the best place to land a ship in need. There were only two depots on the entire surface, on equatorial opposites of each other. They serviced long distance flights going from the re-renamed Edena, so they would likely have something to help him. If anything, Slippy's reputation as a Star Fox pilot might come in handy.
As Slippy approached the planet, he wondered about the damage done to the engine, and what could have caused the breakdown. Just as he entered the upper atmosphere, he realized there were going to be more troubles.
"There must be structural damage," he decided as he saw certain scanners dropping and then rising as he left the pull of the planet.
Entry to the lower atmosphere could be fatal.
"Guess I'll have to wait for Great Fox to come," he said with a shrug.
Many things began happening at once. Several green lights turned red, shrill warning alarms and frantic beeping echoed loudly in the cockpit. Slippy was so startled by it, his heart nearly leaped out of his chest and onto the flashing panels.
"Massive loss of power… vacuum breach to the engine… fuel freezing…" he grew more and more worried as he went over the list of malfunctions.
The gravity of Titania began to pull him back toward the planet, and there was nothing Slippy could do but hang on for a bumpy descent.
One that could be his final descent.
The ship hadn't been designed for frequent atmospheric landings, but it was capable of it. Certainly it wasn't quite as aerodynamic with a bulky extension on the lower body, and even more so now, with possibly a large, gaping hole in said booster.
Slippy couldn't even guess at the size of the gap, and he had no way to find out until he landed. He could only hope that the friction from entry wouldn't overheat the fuel cells and… he decided to change his line of thought.
The jet was equipped with a tripod style landing gear for a vertical landing. Slippy would likely be landing in an unpleasant horizontal style.
The view outside the ship grew darker as he came closer to the ground, and the hull temperature steadily grew. When he was suitably close to the surface, he lowered the landing gear and hoped for the best.
Using his pilot training, Slippy forced himself to relax all muscles except those holding the control stick. He could see the coming terrain grow rockier and rockier, which was definitely not what he wanted to see.
The end to the ride came in a much grander fashion than Slippy could have dreamed. After the landing gear collapsed from the uneven surface, the ship fell on its belly. Having a large protrusion right in the bottom center threw the jet off balance, which sent it to the left side. It hit a sand dune hill just right and began barrel rolling across the sandy surface, eventually coming to a rest mostly upright on the right side.
The force of the crash had knocked Slippy unconscious, and he lay in the cockpit for many minutes before he woke. It took a few more moments until he remembered what had happened. An throbbing sensation in his right hand and lesser painful spots all over his body seemed to be his injuries.
As Slippy tried to flex his right fingers, the pain grew unbearable. It was likely broken.
"Luckily I'm ambidextrous," he muttered as he tried to open the canopy.
After a few attempts, and an even more bruised shoulder, the transparisteel canopy creaked open with each strike. The air outside was chill, and the sand was cool and relieving, and Slippy lay there for a long moment, thinking first of how he would rig up a communications antenna.
The stars shone mockingly at the toad, who could only wonder at the massive failure that had placed him in this predicament. This wasn't the first time Slippy had been stranded on the dusty planet. He mentally groaned at the memory of being haphazardly flung from Sector X all the way into the waiting arms of some bio-weapon.
As Slippy rose to a seated position and looked over the demolished craft, it looked like he would have to be rescued once again. And while it felt good to have such generous and caring friends, he hated being labeled the 'one who needs to be rescued all the time.'
The western sky began to grow lighter and Slippy realized he was running short on time. He rose and began going through the wreckage, pulling out various objects and checking each. The pile beside his feet grew, and with an exasperated sigh, he dropped next to it.
"This is going to take a while, and I don't have any sun screen," he moaned.
The next few hours were spent piecing together a voice communicator, and then the wiring to his mangled ship's antenna. After the sun rose above the horizon, the heat increased tenfold. Slippy had spent years in the climate controlled Great Fox, or the temperate Corneria City, and the heat seemed to lay like a energy-eating blanket over him. Fatigue and thirst had him searching for shade before the communicator was finished.
As the toad drank a rationed portion of water from his ship's emergency supplies, he decided to test out the communicator. It might at least reach the nearest depot, that is, if the signal didn't shoot right through the weak atmosphere. Sunrise might at least afford him some upper atmospheric particles to play with.
"This is Slippy Toad of Star Fox Team, does anybody read me?" he said into the makeshift voice box.
Static answered him, so he adjusted the signal boost and tried again. Slippy had at least thirty signal power selections, and he went through each, but found no reply on any. There were two geostationary satellites assigned to Titania, each located over the depots. Unfortunately, Slippy didn't have enough power to focus a signal to one or the other. It seemed he was stuck there until ROB figured out something was wrong. That could be hours.
Or days. And Slippy didn't have days.
By then, Solar was at the apex of its track across the sky, and Slippy was not a happy toad. He was, by nature, a water-loving creature, and the dry, sandy climate of Titania was not an ideal vacation spot for him.
Slippy curled up into the shade of the wreckage, "Why couldn't I have crashed on Aquas?" he asked.
Far across the dry, cracked ground, there were rocky mountains. They looked like steep crags, not safe at all, but they might have some fresh water springs. Titania was known for its parched surface, but there were small water tables in certain areas of the planet.
Solar was nearing the eastern horizon and the temperature was beginning to fall. The landscape seemed to grow redder then, and toward the mountains, something was moving. The indigenous life forms of Titania were desert-adapted insects and rather large, night-active reptilian creatures. They were not intelligent, but could injure an adult.
Perhaps Slippy was falling into a thirst-induced delirium. He had run out of water by mid afternoon. But the object moving was not a figment of his imagination. It was coming closer, very rapidly so, and was kicking up a huge dust cloud in the process.
Slippy went for his side arm, but realized he wasn't carrying it. Instead, he shrank up against the crumpled hull as much as he could and hoped the possibly hostile visitor wouldn't notice his quite obvious hiding spot.
The object turned out to be a speeder. The rider was cloaked and hooded, and a fine layer of red dust coated the bottom of the craft as it settled ten feet from Slippy's ship. The rider stepped off the speeder and slowly approached the ship. Throwing back the red hood, a lioness looked pointedly at Slippy's position.
"I mean you no harm," she said in a smooth voice, "I heard your call but was unable to respond. My name is Malaika."
Slippy scrambled out from under the tail end of the demolished ship, "Thank the stars! I was afraid I would die out here."
"And you might still," she said as she retrieved a bottle and tossed it to the toad, "Drink up. I have enough water for three furs."
The dehydrated toad drank nearly half the bottle before pausing for air. Meanwhile, Malaika was circling the wreckage, shaking her head.
"How did you survive this crash?" she murmured, "Are you not even injured?"
"My hand is a little sore," he winced as he tried to flex his fingers again.
Malaika inspected his right hand, "Yes, could be broken. You'll need medical help. Unfortunately, there is a large sandstorm coming and the nearest depot wasn't able to reach you in time, so they sent me."
"Do you live out here?" Slippy asked as he settled in behind the lioness.
"For years I have," she replied.
Any other response was drowned out by the loud speeder engine. The noise generated reminded him of a constant explosion, for he had no other noise to compare it to. There was something seriously wrong with the speeder. He wondered if it would even reach Malaika's home, out here in the uncivilized reaches of Titania.
The mountains loomed ahead, and Malaika slowed as she maneuvered around rocks. There was a semi-visible path that she was following, but Slippy knew he couldn't rely on his memory to get him back. The lioness had been nothing but helpful and friendly, but he knew that appearances could be deceiving. Titania had been a stronghold of Andross only a few years ago.
Malaika slowed to a stop and turned around, "The storm is moving faster than predicted," she said with a grimace.
When Slippy looked, his blood turned cold. There was a wall of dust and sand kilometers high, moving at a pace that would overtake them shortly. The lioness cranked the speeder as fast as it would go, and as fast as she would dare over the rocky terrain. Ahead, Slippy could see a cave entrance that Malaika seemed to be heading for.
The toad was right as Malaika killed the main engines and the hover took over. They glided into the shelter and then through what seemed to be a force field capable doorway.
Malaika jumped off the bike and ran over to a wall switch. She hit three keys and Slippy heard the tell-tale whine of a force field activation. Sand began pelting the invisible field as the storm moved over.
"These storms are common out there on the plains. Titania has its own share of weather, though a bit different from some of the other planets in Lylat," the lioness said with a smirk as she stood by Slippy, watching the visibility drop outside, "You would have died out there in this storm."
The toad was quiet as the enormity of the whole situation sank in. How long had it been since his life was truly threatened? Sure, testing his experimental craft had been dangerous, but he hadn't felt that it could be deadly. Dying in an Arwing would be quick, and there was always the possibility of ejecting and surviving. But out there he would have shriveled up and wasted away, knowing the inevitable fate and unable to anything but think about it. He felt old then, as if he had suddenly tasted his own mortality, and he didn't like it.
Malaika looked at him, "What is your name?"
"Slippy Toad, of Star Fox," he murmured.
"Ah," a look of recognition crossed the feline's face, "I thought I remembered you from somewhere. Lylat owes a lot to Star Fox. I was here when Andross sent his experiments to take over the planet. Luckily I could hide well here..."
She turned around, "Follow me."
An auto-door swished open, revealing a large room with a few connecting doors. A small living area was to the right, a kitchen unit and dining table were in the back. To the left was a large desk with a computer console and a radio receiver.
"I only have one room, so you will have to sleep on the couch," she said.
"Beats sleeping out in a sand storm."
Malaika nodded in agreement, "The rest room is in that door," she pointed in reference, "And my room is over there. Feel free to shower or wash up."
A smile crossed Slippy's face, "I think I will. Thank you Malaika."
Soon after, Slippy emerged from the rest room feeling much better, in a physical sense in the very least. Malaika was cooking what seemed to be soup.
"Wow, you hand-cook things? I didn't think anyone did that anymore," Slippy said.
"I barely had enough money to install the force field, so I had to give up a few things," she said sheepishly, "I sometimes wish I was paid more for living out here."
"Don't you get lonely?" Slippy asked, and then stepped back as Malaika moved around the counters.
"Sometimes. But I can always make holo-phone calls to friends, and I get one standard month of leave each year. It's not so bad."
Malaika filled two bowls of hearty soup and handed one to Slippy. They sat at the table and began eating.
The first bite was like heaven to the hungry toad, "Malaika," he said between bites, "This is the best soup I have ever had."
She chuckled, "It's one of my specialties. I'm glad you enjoy it. So tell me why you ended up in a mangled ship on Titania."
Slippy looked up at the lioness. There was something in her tone... but he really had nothing to hide. He had already looked over the craft and nothing was salvageable, save a few internal parts.
"I was trying to beat the space-flight speed record. It was going well until... well, I'm really not sure what went wrong. I'll have to look at my recorded data when I get back. But I was by Fortuna when I started, and it only took thirty standard minutes to arrive here, if that gives you an idea of the speed."
"Thirty minutes?" she choked, "Imagine the economic advantages," she murmured, now lost in thought.
"It was an experiment, and very expensive. I'm not happy at all about losing the whole ship."
Malaika nodded, "I'm sure something can be arranged to return your craft to Great Fox. At least you can look over what's left."
Slippy sighed and nodded. Fox and the others would likely be worrying about him by now. His data recorder wasn't overly difficult to operate; ROB had probably found it.
After the two finished their dinner, they placed the dishes in the washer.
"I would really like to take a look at your speeder. It sounded pretty sickly," Slippy said.
Malaika laughed, "Yes, it is in need of a good cleaning. And maybe a bit of a repair..."
Slippy produced his autoratchet and the lioness laughed again.
She sat on a rickety chair out in her 'foyer' as Slippy went over the machine. The winds seemed to be dying down, but the sound of sand pelting the force field still echoed a bit in the cave.
"Where did you learn your mechanics, Slippy?" Malaika asked as she watched intently.
"Mostly my father," he answered, "He was a for-hire mechanic who would leave with cargo ships for weeks at a time. Whenever he was back, he'd be showing me the ropes," he paused to look at her, "My father was the best mechanic I've ever known."
The lioness smiled softly, "I wish I remembered my father. He died on the Valandi when I was a baby."
"The Valandi," Slippy murmured.
It was one of the larger cargo ships that was in operation for the Nargen Corporation. The ship had collided with an uncharted meteor field, only it was charted. Somehow, the danger area had been erased from the star chart memories. The ship, its crew of three thousand, and a half-full cargo bay had been destroyed. It was one of Lylat's great unsolved mysteries.
"The Valandi," he murmured again, "I'm sorry."
Malaika nodded in thanks, "I just wish they could find out who did it," she looked at him, "But, back to the speeder. Is she salvageable?"
"Well... I'd say so. Just needs a good cleaning and new oil."
Malaika clapped her hands together once, "Good! That I can do."
She went over to the bike and powered it to hover, then guided it further back in the cave. With what little light was available, Slippy watched her position the craft over a large oval container. It was then, with the hover engines running, that Slippy saw the container was actually a bath of some sort.
Malaika pushed a few more buttons on the control center and then the bike lowered itself into the oil bath.
"I've heard where bikes were in need of repair were given an oil bath instead and they just broke down for good. This one has to last me at least another year."
"That's true, you know," Slippy said, "I'm glad I was able to tighten the wire receivers and air ducts before you did that."
"And now it looks like you've paid me back for your rescue," the lioness grinned.
"You saved my life. I saved your speeder bike. It doesn't seem like a fair trade," Slippy grumbled.
"What would the great Slippy Toad like to hear instead? That you saved my life because you fixed my speeder? Because that is true. The speeder is the only way I can get around here. Otherwise, my employers would have to come get me, and they take it out of my paycheck."
A smile curved Slippy's mouth, "Well, when you put it that way, it does sound like more of a fair trade."
The two were quiet for a moment, and then they noticed that the outside was quiet as well. The sand storm had moved over.
"We can leave in the morning," Malaika said.
The next day, Slippy was welcomed to the Depot by the space port employees, who in turn thanked Malaika for saving the toad. When the Great Fox darkened the sky above Hornaday Depot on Titania, the residents were clamoring in excitement. All in all, for the boring little station on a boring planet, it was a day that would be talked about for months, maybe years.
After a short reuniting with friends, it was time for Star Fox to leave.
"Are you coming, Malaika?" He asked.
"No, I have some business to take care of here. But if you ever want to visit me, here are my coordinates," she took his data pad and typed in her location.
"Thank you, Malaika," Slippy said, with a bit of admiration. Not many furs could, or even chose to, live out in the desert landscape of Titania.
"No, thank you, Slippy," she smiled softly, and then turned and left.
"Alright, let's get going," Falco growled, "This sand is itching between my feathers."
Star Fox boarded their ship and launched from the space port. They were heading to Slippy's crash site where they would recover his mangled ship.
Malaika turned back to watch the great ship become a mirage in the heated Titanian day, "Godspeed, Slippy Toad."