October 10th

Sargasso Space Zone, Near Asteroid Mining Station Horizon

Nadal Corvus Ani came into his quarters with the air of one who had spent many weeks working and few days resting. It was odd that with comparatively so little to do the otter would still be so busy. Then again, he was captain of a fast attack carrier and its accompanying escort frigates. Just running that small group alone would eat up days of time. But he was also in charge of half an asteroid field in the Sargasso Space Zone, recently mined and put to use by all of Lylat ever since Star Fox had so generously annihilated the pirates there following the end of the Aparoid invasion.

Nadal had not fought for this position. Nor had he really been expecting it or wanting it. He did not have the profile of a great leader. Despite being an otter, he was not physically imposing. His body was shorter than most of his species, despite being well proportioned. His voice was not booming or authoritative, and his soft brown eyes did not bear the experienced glint of older and wiser commanders. Rather, he had been forced into his captaincy by the constant stress of war on the Lylat system. He was only thirty-six years old, but had seen nearly constant warfare and the loss of countless friends, and suffered through dozens of battlefield promotions and transfers. Most of the "old guard" (or what was left of it) looked down on his youth and therefore supposed inexperience. But Nadal had seen enough of war to last a lifetime.

He sat down on his easy chair, reminiscing about the first few days of combat he had seen. Fourteen years ago, at the beginning of the first war with Andross, he had been a squadron leader of a small group of corvettes on Fichina. Venomian fighters had struck without warning, and Nadal had gained some recognition when he and his group had fought a more desperate than heroic rear guard action while the messy and disorganized Cornerians fled at top speed. They had abandoned the planet to Venom at a cost of seventy percent of their own forces, and the colonists left behind had suffered miserably. But Nadal had gotten his men out alive. That had been his goal ever since.

In the eight years following he had been promoted to lieutenant commander of a small escort frigate, just in time for the Aparoid invasion. Nadal preferred not to remember that. The Aparoids were the sole reason he was so young and yet in command of a battle group. Everyone with more experience had been sent to fight. Most had died. Others had been infested, and promptly turned back the way they came to attack their former allies. Their devastation was still seen today, four years after their monstrous attack. Compared to them, the following Anglar attack was just an annoyance. Nadal had been part of the battle group that smashed the Anglar's final resisting fleet. It had been done almost without mercy from the Cornerians.

His current command was won just before the Anglars came, and it was his best yet. He was captain of the good ship Aragosa, a fast attack carrier designed for quick deployment and fast response to enemy incursions, and in a pinch could, with its hanger and capital ship repair facilities hanging off the sides, serve as a mobile command and resupply center. She was a sleek, long, flat vessel and small for her class, with a crew of around five hundred, not including its complement of fighters and corvettes. She was perfect for hunting down remnants of Andross and the Anglars. But instead she was on guard duty in the middle of nowhere. A proud ship in an inglorious position. But he could not blame her for the inaction.

The last thing Nadal could be was disappointed in his ship or his crew. After fighting through so many wars in so little time, he was dreadfully accustomed to seeing new faces and recalling old ones only through holo-vids. The myriad conflicts at this point in Lylat's history had made the term "career soldier" chillingly accurate. And Nadal was above all else a career soldier. His life had been the military, starting at sixteen when he had used his family's wealth (garnered in an ironic double twist from peaceful merchant trades that profited from military research and development) to acquire a pilot's license, and his own training ship modeled after early Cornerian fighters. It had been a small, one-man craft that handled wonderfully and had a paint job that drove the girls wild.

Nadal had nearly killed himself and almost been thrown in jail when he crashed it at age eighteen on a dare to fly through the exposed infrastructure of an unfinished dry dock near Corneria's asteroid belt, but had been saved from the authorities by a recruiter coming by that very day. He had seen Nadal's skills, and knew at once that he could be a fine fleet officer with the proper training, and got him off of everything except some community service by getting him to join the military.

His parents of course had nearly bitten his head off, but had calmed down after realizing that space had always been an aspiration of Nadal's. They had wanted him to follow the family and ply new trading routes, but his thrill-seeking would only get him in more trouble with that kind of work.

After all he'd been through thrills were the last thing Nadal wanted.

Eventually he had become inspired to remain and better himself, turning slowly into the otter he was today. For fourteen years he had fought. For fourteen years he had given his life to the defense of his people, had lost friends and family to all the enemies of the universe, and avenged them all.

Fourteen years after all that had begun, he was reduced to dealing with security for ore miners and using his ship to maintain decrepit freighters.

While he was still brooding, his communicator beeped loudly from his desk. With a groan, he switched off the music and walked slowly towards it, bopping it lightly with one of his knuckles.

"Yes?" he asked in his quiet baritone voice.

"Sir, sorry to interrupt, but we have the reports from our frigates. They request that they talk to you personally."

There was a moment of quiet.

"I'll be right up."

-----------------------------

"Officer on deck!" barked Armand, the ship's tactical and security officer as Nadal entered, nearly blowing his eardrum out. The burly husky took great pains to make sure things were followed to the letter, especially when it came to protocol.

"At ease," he told his bridge officers, who settled back into their stations.

"Where are my frigates?" Nadal asked quickly.

"The Vanquisher and theWhiplash are holding position just outside sector A-15," replied Emery Van, Aragosa's communication officer and resident cocker spaniel. "I'll put them up on screen if you like, sir."

"Do so."

Nadal went to his chair at the center of the bridge, stationed just behind the hanger and repair facilities at the middle of the vessel. On the viewport in front of him appeared the visage of Tybus Ensign, the hare captain of theVanquisher. She and her sister ship Whiplash were the escort group for the Aragosa. Both were fine, Barrier-class frigates, large ships with a long, boxy, clumsy appearance, but a wide array of weaponry and the durability to allegedly get a full crew home with only half a ship. They were not designed to be ships-of-the-line, but everyone felt better having them along.

"Captain Ensign," Nadal said, never able to get over the awkwardness of having a rank (however outdated) for a name, "do you have a report on the anomalies outside Sargasso?"

"Not quite, Captain Ani," replied Tybus. Technically Nadal should be known as commodore, but the official memos had never gotten through. As the senior captain, he wielded authority enough. "We are certain, however, that these are not naturally occurring phenomena for this area. If we had a full complement of Corneria's science division we'd be able to get a better idea of what's going on out here… there are several gravitational distortions centered on specific areas of the Sargasso, even within the asteroid field, but their properties are unlike anything in our databases. We're not sure why, but I and Gibson have our crews at general quarters… just in case. Whatever they are, something deliberate is causing them."

"All right," Nadal said after a moment of thought, considering this all very strange. Ensign and Gibson, his fellow frigate captain on the Whiplash, had good heads on their shoulders. They must have been getting very odd readings to sound general quarters.

"I'll send out a detachment of fighters to sweep anything your sensors can't reach. Update me if anything changes. Aragosa out," Nadal said. Ensign nodded, and his face disappeared from the screen.

Nadal put his paw over his dark brown eyes, thinking, listening to the crew quietly attend to their duties. They had no scientists out here, only engineers. Nothing strange enough ever happened in Sargasso to warrant the attention of so called "professionals" like those snobby toads.

"Sir?" asked a voice next to him full of duty and modesty. The otter looked up to see Lieutenant Winchell Carlstaff, his second-in-command and chief of staff, standing next to him. The primly dressed fox, garbed in an impeccable Cornerian military uniform, was a fine officer and adviser.

"Yes, Lieutenant," Nadal replied tiredly, waving his paw impatiently. "Come on, come on, out with it. Where do we stand?"

"Another whisper has been detected, sir, on the fringe of the field, near one of the larger anomalies."

"Yes, we've been getting them all morning," Nadal said levelly, his expression prudent.

"The difference, sir, is that this signal is stronger than before, and is confirmed to be a separate phenomenon from the gravitational anomalies."

"I can't think of anything that would actually be able to hide from all this scanning… but I can't ignore it. Send a few squadrons of fighters out to investigate. And make sure it's someone we can trust."

Lieutenant Carlstaff hesitated a moment before speaking in a very quiet murmur.

"General Hare believes it's only pirates."

Nadal shook his head. These anomalies and whispers on the fringes of Lylat's space had been going on for the better part of a week with disturbing frequency.

"General Hare of all people should remember things are never that simple in Lylat."

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Doodle-beep-boo-dee-deep!

Emery Wickliff's ears twitched at the disgustingly cheerful alarm. The arctic fox's room was dark and quiet. He had only just gotten to sleep six hours ago, and here he was being woken up again. Emery brushed a paw through his snow white fur, pressed and messy from hours of being slept on, and threw his legs over the side of his bed, groaning as the alarm continued to wheedle at him.

"Shut up!" he groaned desperately. It didn't do anything.

"Room service! Turn that thing off!" he shouted. Finally registering that the fox was awake, the computer turned off the alarm and told him what the news was as Emery stood up and went to get washed as quickly as he could. The only times he got woken up was when he had new orders.

"Good morning, Emery Wickliff," the pleasant female voice said. It was a far cry from the monotonous drone they kept hearing in the older fighters. "The time is 4:08 AM standard ship time. You have new orders. The clearance level is B-3. Would you like to hear them now?"

"Yes," Emery snapped.

"This is Wing Commander Liepner," spoke the heavy and modest voice of Emery's commanding officer. Emery's pale green eyes snapped open. "Gamma Lead Emery Wickliff. You are being ordered to head to the asteroid field in Sargasso Space Zone with all speed. Coordinates and mission data are attached to this message. You will be flying a routine patrol to investigate unknown contacts within the field. Whiskey and Haze squadrons will support. You have precisely one hour to prepare yourself. That is all."

"Open message attachment," Emery said as he stepped into the shower. As he listened to the coordinates he listed off all the ones he had memorized. These were way out on the fringe, not even near regular patrol lines. The miners knew it to be an unprofitable and unpredictable area. What on Corneria could there be that was causing these weird disturbances? It must have been serious if they were allocating fighters instead of bulky mining vessels to investigate.

Emery was only twenty three years old, but he had seen enough fights to know that the smallest of sensor contacts often turned out to be the biggest trouble. He was not particularly concerned, however. When was the last time he had a good scrap, anyway? He had, after all, joined the Cornerian armada to fight, and not to sit around in giant tin can waiting for miners to come up with some new complaint like needing new shipments of conduction coils or bugging him whenever he went on "shore leave" on one of the giant mining stations for news from the rest of the system. He felt as trapped as they did.

As he turned on the water and let it flow comfortingly over his snowy fur, he reflected back on the predicament he and the rest of the crew were stuck with. It was a real quandary, being soldiers and not fighting. Of course, the two years of peace after the Anglars had been a breath of fresh air in the stagnant pool of constant warfare, but it would only be so long before discipline began getting lax again and the armada began lowering its standards once more. Even Star Fox was beginning to settle down, if he remembered the last news update correctly. Star Fox... now there was a team to be envied. Heroes and cultural icons both, they were an inspiration to fighter pilots everywhere. It was one reason he didn't like hearing news about them. Real heroes distracted his men, and himself, from doing their jobs properly. How could they fight if they were always trying to measure up to another squadron that wasn't even in the military?

In any case, they were just here to do their jobs. Emery had joined to do his part in keeping Lylat safe from the monsters that kept trying to take it over. He had grown up in a small suburb outside Corneria's central residential district, and had grown up in the midst of rebuilding from Andross' first vile campaign. It had affected him to the point where he simply had enough, and had vowed

to be as good a pilot for Lylat as he could be. Star Fox, after all, could not fight every battle out there. He just hoped that he would do his squadron proud and keep it together today, unlike so many other days during the Aparoids and Anglars when he had been unable to get them home intact. That was another drive of his. He wanted to get as many back home to their families after a profitable career as he could... in honor of the ones he could not.

Making sure to not let his shower take more than a few minutes, he quickly went over to his personal computer and data terminal and sent the signal to the rest of his squadron: We have new orders. Prepare for anything.

-----------------------

Oddly enough his entire squadron was already waiting in the pilot lounge by the time he was out. Everyone, Emery included, was dressed in their flight suits. There were still twenty minutes until the mission officially had to start, and Emery wanted to grab a quick drink before he left. He went over to the bar and dropped down beside a young male red squirrel, finding it odd that the lounge was mostly empty save for his men. Not all that surprising, actually, he told himself. There are other lounges besides this one… and anyway, nobody hangs around in here unless there's a party or they're itching for a mission.

"You're up late," said the squirrel.

"Shut up, Calim," replied Emery, tail drooping to the ground. "I had a rough time yesterday and I only got six hours of sleep."

The squirrel shrugged, his own tail twitching with a mix of amusement and anxiety.

"Well, I just hope you're ready for the mission you had us assemble for. And hey… stay cool, all right? You've been jumpy all week."

Emery sighed and called the robotic bartender for some orange juice. Not exactly the mainstay of fleet drinkers, but he wasn't in the mood for a shock today. That and he had never been a heavy drinker. Calim remained at his side. Calim West was always at his side.

He and Emery had been friends for years. The day they had entered the Academy they had sworn that they would watch each other's backs, and never allow the other to become just another statistic on the ever-expanding lists of the dead. Calim had been eighteen and Emery nineteen when the Aparoids came. Now, with four years of bitter experience behind them, their bond had held true to the end.

"Sorry, Calim," Emery said at last after he had sipped a little of his juice down. "I guess I'm just feeling a little uptight being stuck way out here on this can…"

"The Aragosa is no mere 'can', Emery," came a gruff voice from behind the two. They turned to see a large, rough badger seated nearby, reading through a data pad with little actual interest in

whatever he was seeing. His scraggly fur and craggy features served only to increase the demeaning tone of his gravelly voice.

"It is a self-contained command center and is responsible for saving countless lives during the Aparoid conflict," he continued. "Were it not for this ship, we would not even have a posting except somewhere irrelevant like Titania..."

"That wouldn't be so bad," remarked a young male raccoon reclining on a couch next to the badger, tearing his bright blue eyes from the monitor he had been watching random programs on. "It'd be better than flying all these dumb patrols for a bunch of miners that hate everyone else anyway. Besides, Jagger, you look like you need some time off… that stripe of yours is getting more grey than white nowadays."

"My age," Jagger replied in a low voice, for he always kept his age guarded, "is of no importance compared to your own, Abram. It's a wonder they allow youngsters like you into a fighter anyway…"

Abram Thewlis snorted and turned up the volume. The averagely built raccoon was only eighteen, just out of the Academy, and usually liked a good-natured argument. But his conflicts with Jagger always left the room somewhat tense. Emery and Calim kept an eye on him at all times during flight. His inexperience mixed with his impetuous nature was sure to breed something troublesome. The badger, Jagger Bandaloo, was nearly the raccoon's polar opposite. He had come into the military during the Aparoid conflict after a life of mercenary fighting for reasons only known to him, having lived profitably ever since the first war with Andross. Everyone was certain that "Jagger Bandaloo" was not his real name, but his imposing stature alone was enough to keep out questions.

On the monitor Abram was watching, Emery and Calim saw something that caught their interest… it was a very familiar looking fox standing in front of an Arwing fighter, giving some sort of speech at a military base on Zoness.

"Hey, check it!" Abram said. "It's Star Fox!"

"It's always Star Fox. They never show anything but Star Fox… I swear, they're getting worse than some of the holo-vid celebrities I see," a droll voice slurred opposite Abram's couch. That was Gary Lander. The slender, twenty two year old ferret had been with Emery and Calim since the Aparoid conflict. An ace pilot, and an even more reliable friend, he had his pride as a reason for disliking Star Fox and their flashy stealing of the spotlight from the rest of the fleet. This stood in stark contrast to just about every other living, breathing being in the Lylat system, such as Abram.

"I bet you're just jealous, Patch," he joshed, invoking the ferret's nickname for the actual patch of brown fur around one of his light brown eyes, which stood in stark contrast to the creamy white the rest of his face and front was. "All those credits they get, the publicity… the heroism."

"The credits they spend on the maintenance of their ship," Jagger interrupted, keeping his eyes on his data pad. "The publicity is a tight constraint on their personal lives, and they are driven by profit more than duty… all mercenaries are."

Abram snorted again.

"Right… it was just the lure of credits that got them to save our butts three times in a row and give people hope whenever we were close to getting enslaved or assimilated."

"I'm not denying what they've done," Jagger retorted. "I'm only saying that they are people like anyone else… and are flawed all the same."

"You call that flawed?" Abram cut in, and pointed at the monitor. Alongside Fox another vulpine had appeared, elegant and comely. It was none other than Krystal, famous love interest of Fox McCloud and the object of spite and envy from lonely females everywhere. Neither she nor her beau were talking about anything remotely interesting; they were just rehearsing their lines and looking good for the cameras, leaving plenty of time to simply gawk at the cultural icons. Emery shook his head at Abram's expression, one that he remembered well from his own days of puppy love. Thank goodness those were over.

"I call it a severe distraction," he cut in after a small nudge from Calim. "We're soldiers, not fanboys, Abram. And we have to get to the hanger, besides. You all got my call."

"Nothing serious, I hope?" Calim wondered aloud. Emery downed the last of his orange juice as heroically as he could and stood up.

"It's an excuse to fly… serious or not, I'll take that any day."

His fellow pilots could not agree more.