Wow, haven't been here in years. Well, I figured it was time to take a break from the original and return to something more fun, so here you go. My first new fanfiction in ages. Enjoy.
Lieutenant Arlington eyed the heads up display, running the numbers through his head. Fuel was nominal, power count was high, and the shields were holding and steady. The Triwing fighter was performing admirably. Now if only the war effort could follow suit…
A quick flip of the com switch and his voice carried over the radio. "You all know the plan. We escort these bombers to the target site and back. Keep your eyes out for bogeys and AA sites. Over and out." Words of acknowledgement spoke back into his headset, his men letting him know they were still in formation. Arlington nodded silently. He knew them well. They would follow him into the mouths of Hell if he gave the order.
And as of now, he had. The battle raged down below, Lylat forces battling the mysterious invaders over the desert. The fight for planet Hylyas had raged for three standard galactic days now, and the enemy forces had steadily advanced in that time. Explosions raged from the ground, armored divisions going up from artillery fire, and counter battery fire spitting plasma in response. The air was no better, jets and spacecraft from both sides strafing the ground forces and blowing each other out of the sky. It was the chaos of war. And they were flying straight into it.
Two Cobra-class bombers flanked either side of Arlington's fighter from behind, their sides surrounded by other Triwings. They were his quarry, both carrying two size-three Nova bombs, aptly named for the bloom they create when set off, as well as the amount of destruction they cause. They were the last of such weapons available to the allied forces on this world, their very usage indicating just how far things had fallen.
His radar chirped, bringing Arlington back to the present. A squadron of enemy fighters closed in quickly. "Tangos coming, twelve o'clock," he warned. "Stick to your zones. The bombers take priority." No sooner had he spoke those words the enemy craft began firing, causing his unit to evade.
They were strong pilots, his men. They had to be to survive against such an unrelenting foe for so long. They dodged and weaved, the Triwings and the enemy craft. Shots were traded, and hot plasma of two different types danced in the air. Arlington's own craft buckled, catching some weapons' fire, and he pulled a tight turn, getting himself out of the line of fire.
The bombers and fighters pushed forward, despite the harassment. As enemy fighters dropped from the sky, their target crept ever closer, the large enemy encampment kilometers away. Their objective was nearly completed. All they had to do was escort the two bombers to it and let them drop their ordinance.
Unfortunately, they would never get the chance. Anti-aircraft fire blazed from the desert floor, aimed at their position. Two wingmen never had a chance, their craft's exploding on contact with the golden plasma bolts. The remaining craft spread out to make themselves harder targets. The bombers, however, didn't have a prayer. They were swat out of the air like flies, their unarmed Nova bombs torn apart in the fall. Their mission was a failure, and in all likelihood the planet would be lost to these invaders.
An explosion rocked the underside of Arlington's Triwing, throwing him into his harness and sending his fighter into a dive. Klaxons sounded inside the cockpit, warning him of the extensive damage inflicted. He battled with the joystick, pulling it with all his might, but the ship continued to fall from the sky. The Lieutenant's paw reached for the eject lever and pulled… but got no reaction. The eject system must have been damaged with the rest of the ship.
It was going to be a bumpy landing.
Arlington opened one of his eyes. A broken out windshield met his gaze. Somehow, he had survived the crash, but had paid a severe price for it. He could feel himself broken all over, from snout to toe. His body ached surprisingly little, possibly numb from the shock of so many injuries at once. It didn't matter, he couldn't move anyway.
The battle continued to rage without him, the sounds of the fighting echoing into the now open craft. He knew this was a battle they could no longer win.
Footsteps approached, boots crunching rocks into dry dirt. The canine tried to move, an arm, a leg, anything, but the crash had stunned him viciously. He was helpless against whoever found him first.
A shadow flowed over Arlington. He looked up and recognized what had made it. Those smooth heads were hard to mistake for anything else. His eyes adjusted quickly enough, and he could spot the body armor those of the enemy infantry. His vision moved up and rested on the tattoo on the center of the bipedal creature's forehead, a black stylized eye. It was indeed one of the so-called "Jaffa."
The Jaffa reached for a radio attached to the body armor, speaking words from his alien language into it. He received a crackled reply almost at once, and turned back to Arlington. The rifle he held came to bear, and the egg-shaped apparatus in front opened and crackled with energy.
The last thing Arlington saw was a flash of golden light.
……………………..
The small hologram of Hylyas hovered above the platform. Its colored changed, shifting from a subtle blue to a dark red hue. The planet joined dozens like it, the latest of worlds taken by this new enemy.
"Goa'uld," their leaders called themselves. Tall, furless bipeds with uniforms and strange, ethereal voices. Their foot soldiers were more of the same, differing skin tones and shaved heads, all speaking in that unique language of theirs. It had been translated weeks ago, but spreading out those trained in it was proving difficult.
Fox sighed, and swept the image of the planet from his view. These past few months had been a hellish nightmare, and he didn't want any more reminders. The war effort was not going well.
They had come suddenly in their pyramid-shaped mother ships, hammering several of the most powerful worlds in the Lylat sector into submission. The worlds they attacked never had a chance. Their forces were swept away before any real sense of mobilization could occur. A massive retreat had been ordered by his old employer, General Pepper, ordering any surviving military to hyperspace out of the sector. Technically, he had no command over forces coming from other worlds aside from Corneria, but the remaining forces had accepted him as one the three de facto military leaders some time ago.
But the forces at their disposal were dwindling daily. Attacks on the Goa'uld always came with heavy expected losses, and victories were usually short-lived. The Lylat forces are outnumbered three to one, and the surprise attack had taken its toll. They couldn't keep up this war for long.
"It's getting worse, Fox," the image of General Pepper appeared on the wall screen. "Hylyas was fortified. We should have been able to hold them off until reinforcements arrived."
"But we didn't," the vulpine replied, turning away from the screen, "We wouldn't be having this meeting if we did."
Fox knew this was merely a courtesy call. At the moment, the mercenary group known as Star Fox stood at a membership of one. The team had been separated sometime after the initial attack. Skills of their caliber were in increasingly short supply, and Fox had been convinced they were stronger individually than together.
He still wondered if the decision had been the right one.
"What's the next plan?" the mercenary asked, "Assuming you have one."
"We're going to be trying something different this time," Pepper alluded. "We'll need your skills for this one."
Fox nodded, his attention taken hold. "Whatever it takes, sir."