Battle For Zoness

by ElementXJ

A battle for the murkey planet called Zoness

Battle For Zoness

Zoness
Pollution made this once tropical paradise become a long-suffering planet. Cornerian forces desperately try to clean the planet and keep it under their control. Though both Venom and Aparoid forces have been detected even after the battle with the Aparoid Queen. Corneria struggles to maintain control as the three different forces all combat each other.

"We're going in hot!" The pilot of the dropship screamed over the intercom. "Enemy contacts all around us: Aparoids and Venomians!"

Rye, along with other passengers, was strapped in tight of the small dropship that was inbound of one of Zoness's largest continents. The ship continued to shake from the descent and from enemy air contacts. Blast of heat came with the violent rattles of the ship's hull. They've been under attack ever since their convoy came close to Zoness, and now just with a few dropships in the system, Rye didn't know how well this operation would go. He didn't know the other soldiers in the dropship with him, or anyone else that was part of his team.

"We're-" The pilot's voice was cut off by a large explosion. Fire ripped through the cockpit and entered the passenger's bay. The heat rose, and the ship fell out of control. Rye managed to see the sky through the ships hull, it was completely torn through. Rye held on, as he was thrown around in his strapped seat like a rag doll. The ship crashed into the ground, and Rye's head slammed into the back of the chair and he lost consciousness.

Rye woke up, finally. He didn't know how long he was out. He looked around. The cockpit was destroyed, and it seemed to have dug itself a crater that Rye was partially in. Smoke filled the dropship's passenger department. He got up, and tried to walk out of the wreckage of the dropship. Rye stumbled out of the wreckage, and he was able to breath. Rye felt where he hit his head and he felt blood. Looking back at the wreckage, Rye could tell that he was the only survivor of the dropship's crash. Supplies that spilt out of the dropship, and pieces of the dropship itself littered the surrounding area.

After resting for a few minutes, Rye went back in the wreckage of the dropship to find his gear. His duffle bag was on the floor, which must have broken loose when the ship crashed; he tried not to look at the other passengers who sitting lifeless strapped to their seat. Rye threw his duffle bag out of the ship and climbed out again. He opened it and found his personal rifle, a headset, his belt, and extra supplies. Already, Rye was wearing a vest that had most of his equipment in it. He put on his belt, then his headset and activated his radio.

"Dropship One to any Cornerian forces, come in!"

Only static answered.

"This is Dropship One. We were shot down." Rye realized that the battle above him was still taking place. He looked up and could see his Cornerian convoy, Venom forces, and Aparoid air units all engaging each other. It was chaos. "My name is Lieutenant Rye. I am the sole survivor of Dropship One. If anyone hears this, I'm heading toward the perimeter of the suspected Aparoid-controlled facility. Lieutenant Rye, out."

A familiar whine filled the air, and a heartbeat later the ground around Rye exploded and dirt flung toward the sky. Enemy fire! Rye retreated back to the dropship and took cover inside it. He peeked over the twisted metal to see who was firing at him. He saw infected Venom soldiers trying to flank him. "Damn aparoids," Rye muttered to himself. He brought his rifle up, and put its setting on burst-shot. He aimed and fired and the maneuvering Venom soldiers. Two went down, and Rye ducked again as the enemy fire became more concentrated on his position.

Wait, Rye thought. That scattered equipment looks like the dropships missile pods. I can remote-activate those! Rye peeked over again with blaster rounds flying inches from his head. The Aparoid-infected Venomian soldiers were hiding behind the debris of the dropship. Perfect. Rye pulled out his personal computer, and typed in various numbers, then he hit enter. Outside of Rye's hiding spot, the ground exploded again, in a more violent way than before that shook the earth. Dirt and mud and fire rained down over Rye and the destroyed dropship. The whine of the enemy fire ceased. Rye looked over and saw nothing but craters and bodies of the enemies.

Rye got out of the dropship once again, and headed toward the treeline of the nearby forest. I hope that the other dropships have some survivors. Rye headed toward his destination, hoping to run into a few of his teammates on the way.

After traveling about a mile through the treeline, the sounds of battle grew increasingly louder. Rye could see through the trees an old vineyard home and a stone ridge about a hundred meters away from it. In the old home and behind the ridge were different forces firing at each other. Rye couldn't tell who was who yet though.

Rye brought up his rifle and zoomed in on the soldiers hiding behind the ridge. Some blindly fired over the ridge, and an occasional soldier would get the guts to peek his head over and fire while aiming but a couple were shot through the head doing so. It was clear who was going to win this battle. Rye finally caught a glimpse of a patch on one of the soldiers, a Venom soldier. Rye took aim on the closest soldier and pulled the trigger. A three round burst caught the soldier in the back and he fell. Rye fired again at the next soldier down the line, who also fell to the ground dead.

Five laid dead on the ground before the remaining Venom soldiers made a bold attempt to find cover somewhere else by jumping over the ridge. But they met a wall of automatic gunfire. The vineyard fell quiet, or at least as quiet as it could with the constant chatter of gunfire overhead and in the distance. Rye walked toward the ridge to check the dead, and he noticed half a dozen uniformed soldiers come down the hill toward the ridge. The sound of a tree falling came from behind Rye, he turned to look and saw a large Aparoid coming through the treeline. Rye fired as he tried to get over the ridge, but the blaster rounds had no affect on the creature. Something started to charge under the aparoid's head, a mortar round.

Right before the aparoid could fire off the round, its head shattered and exploded. The entire creature had secondary explosions before it collapsed to the ground and remained motionless. "Damn infected machine," Rye muttered to himself. He turned away from the creature and looked back up the hill, a sniper killed the creature. Rye climbed over the ridge and headed up the hill. Five Cornerian marked soldiers came to greet him.

"Glad to see another survivor," a Dalmatian said to Rye. "I'm Sergeant Arthur from Dropship Five of the 324th infantry division. We were shot down and we're all that's left."

"At ease Sergeant," Rye said. "I'm Lieutenant Rye, Special Operations unit from Dropship One. I'm the sole survivor." Rye looked back at the burning aparoid machine. "Thanks for the help."

"That's not my work," Arthur smiled and looked back at the half destroyed house. "Sniper in the house got that one for you."

"Have your team regroup," Rye ordered. "Our objective isn't far. Hopefully if any others have survived, they'll head there."

"What is our objective?" Sergeant Arthur asked.

"Weren't you paying attention during the debriefing?" Rye questioned but didn't wait for an answer. "An old Cornerian base was taken over by the Aparoids and is believed to be the stronghold for the aparoids on this planet, so we're to investigate and destroy the base if necessary."

"I was a late request, so I missed the debriefing. How are we going to destroy the base if we have no weapons capable of that?"

"We have ships on stand-by that'll bombard the area once we confirm aparoid presence, and place a tracker somewhere inside the base. Come on, we're wasting time here. Let's go."

Rye pulled out a small computer device out of one of his pockets and turned it on. After hitting a few keys, he put the device away and led the team north. The path led back into the forest that's infested with countless aparoids. Rye knew that the closer they got to the base, the more aparoids there'd be, and he could only hope to avoid most of them.

With caution, Rye walked past the first few trees. Behind him was the rest of the team were entering the trees as well, all fanned out so there'd be a smaller chance of an ambush. Rye paid close attention the sounds around him, but he could only hear distant explosions and gunfire above. No sounds of nature could be heard, and the trees looked like they were still dying. Pollution was going to make this planet the next Venom.

Rye's thoughts were distracted when he heard gunfire in the trees, close to him. More weapons started to go off, the team was engaging some type of enemy. Rye noticed movement ahead of him. He snapped up his rifle and aimed at the movement behind a bush. His finger rested on the trigger.

A Venomian soldier jumped out of the bush, Rye didn't fire. The soldier ran right past him without looking back. Rye didn't see any infection on the soldier, and he wasn't armed but it didn't dawn on Rye why the soldier was running away until a moment later when three aparoid units came out from where the Venom soldier was just hiding at.

Rye pulled the trigger and five rounds hit two of the aparoids, who were killed and laid crumpled on the ground a few feet behind the third aparoid. The third however was deflecting the rounds. "Damn it, not another one." Rye thought out loud. The aparoid fired one of its mortar-like rounds at Rye.

Rye rolled the side and fired again, but again the rounds were deflected. Rye flicked a switch on his rifle, switching the rounds to sniper rounds and fired one more time at the aparoid. The barrier shattered around the aparoid and the round pierced through one of the aparoid's legs. It fell, wounded, and tried to get back up but it continued to fall to the ground. Rye went toward the aparoid after swinging his rifle around his back. Rye pulled the sword of his belt, activated it so now it was enflamed in blue fire, and swung at the aparoid's head with one uppercut swing.

The aparoid fell back to the ground for the final time. Gunfire continued to go off around Rye. He put his sword away and pulled his rifle back around, scanning the area for any more aparoids but saw none. The others had their orders, and they'd continue to advance so Rye would do the same.

Stepping over the aparoid bodies, Rye continued his march toward the base. As soon as Rye passed the bush that the Venom soldier hid in, Rye realized how dense the forest really was with aparoids; a dozen infected Venom soldiers were slowly coming from behind the trees toward Rye. Rye pulled a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin and chucked the grenade toward the infected soldiers.

Rye didn't wait for the grenade to go off before he fired at the aparoids. Three were shot and killed before the grenade went off, which killed two more. Rye was able to get off one more shot before the aparoids started to fire back and hide behind the trees. Rye also hid behind one of the trees and returned fire as much as possible.

Rye leaned around the corner, saw one of the soldiers and fired; five remain. Rye repeated this twice and only three were left now but Rye could get a good shot on them. Leaning around the tree again, Rye didn't fire this time. The trees had splinters flying from them and the aparoid-infected soldiers landed a few feet away from their cover. Looking around, Rye wandered who helped him until he spotted a long-eared rabbit perched on a nearby tree. The rabbit was looking toward the north through the scope on his weapon which looked similar to Rye's. On the rabbit's clothing, Rye saw the Cornerian flag patched on so he assumed that he was part of the team Sergeant Arthur was commanding. Rye looked away but before he continued advancing, he heard more gunfire from the rabbit in the tree. Rye looked back and saw him firing short burst into the distance.

The rabbit jumped from the tree suddenly, rolled as he hit the ground and ran forward. A moment later a mortar round hit the tree the rabbit was just in and it exploded. Rye didn't give it much thought when he noticed that the gunfire was getting ahead of him, soon the team would be too far for him to find them again. Rye sprinted through the trees, holding tightly onto his assault rifle.

As he ran, Rye noticed that the gunfire was getting more concentrated and louder, so he was obviously getting closer. But the team must not be as fanned out as they started since the gunfire sounded so concetrated. Rye discovered that they weren't when he came to the edge of a meadow. On the other side of the large meadow was a tall wall, their objective. In the treeline, close to Rye, was a half-destroyed bunker where his team was. On the meadow was hundreds of mixed aparoid units, and they were assaulting the bunker. Rye ran into the bunker, but stayed away from the openings where all of his team members were firing out of, except for the dog.

Arthur came up to Rye. "We're severely outnumbered but we're holding. I requested for the air strike but they refused to destroy the base until we've gone in an investigated it."

"We've got to check for survivors inside the base," Rye said and looked through one of the concrete windows. "Doesn't look like good odds. Make another request for an air strike on this meadow, that should help us with this."

"Yes sir!" Sergeant Arthur said and went deeper into the bunker. The bunker was simple; a single opening went around the entire concrete bunker where the team was shooting out of. A corner of it was collapsed though but it led back into the forest so it wasn't much of a threat. A single stairway went up to the second floor of the bunker, but it had no roof so the team was staying on the bottom floor.

Rye, however, went up the stairs and used the destroyed roof as cover. He looked over the edge and saw even more aparoids than before. The aparoid's most basic unit, the melee units, swarmed the entire area and look as if they were being used as cannon fodder. Meanwhile, infected Venom soldiers also horded the area and used what cover they could to cause hell on the team inside the bunker. Hundreds more of different type, ranging from the heavy armored mortar aparoids to air bombers, littered the area. More seemed to come out from the base.

From the waves of parasites, Rye noticed two missiles heading straight at him. Rye hid behind part of the wall that wasn't collapsed. The missiles detonated directly on the other side, and shook the wall violently. Rye leaned back over and scanned the area with his scope where those missiles came from, and saw one of the mortar-like aparoids fire another four missiles from its body. Rye fired a sniper round at it. The round pierced through one of the missiles which exploded, but the other three kept coming. But the sniper round went through the heart of the infected creature, and it was instantly destroyed.

Rye hid behind the wall again as the three missiles hit the other side again but this time the wall collapsed. Rye jumped away from it just before it crushed him. Dust filled the air, so Rye covered his mouth and nose with one hand to keep the dust from getting into his lungs. Rye went to the other side of the upper level of the bunker and looked through the dust out on the meadow. Melee units below him were still being slaughtered by Rye's team, but Rye's attention was directed toward a squad of low-flying jets comng fast from the east. The air strike has arrived.

The jets flew overhead, and rows of fire and smoke went up in the midst of the aparoid waves. The jets wheeled around and did another strafe, and another. Soon the entire meadow was in fire and smoke.

The jets finally left, the smoke started to thin and the gunfire finally stopped. Sergeant Arthur came up the stairs and stood next to Rye, overlooking the hellish meadow.

"Napalm?" Rye asked without looking at the Sergeant.

"Yes," Sergeant Arthur answered. "I thought it'd be more effective than regular bombs. We'll wait for the fires to burn themselves out, then we can cross the meadow."

"This battlefield will really wound the planet," Rye said watching the smoke rise. "Once we control this planet, it's going to take a while to repair all this pollution."

Nearly an hour went by before all the fires finally burned out and the team moved out of the bunker. They moved out cautiously, with guns pointed in all directions. They avoided any small patch of fire that may still be lit. Most aparoids were hard to recognize other than a blackened piece of infected machinery or flesh. The napalm made this meadow look like hell itself, which only worsened when the team came across one of the larger aparoids, still alive and struggling to live as fire still burned through it. It struggled and cried out, trying to live. Rye and the team walked passed it without giving it much more thought.

It took another ten minutes before the team got out of the area where the napalm bombs hit and they reached the edge of the wall that surrounded the base. Rye checked the computer device again and pointed one way down the wall, where the entrance should be at. The team kept alert, making sure nothing would come over the wall. And they made their way toward the entrance as Rye led them. The team stopped when they heard gunfire, which was coming from the way that they were heading.

Rye signaled for the team to stay there, and then he slowly went toward the entrance of the base, which soon came into view. Aparoids were trying to guard the entrance but blaster rounds were shredding them to pieces. The blaster rounds were coming from the tree line, one either side of the road that led directly into the base.

Using the scope, Rye looked at the treeline but couldn't see who was shooting. Whoever they were, they were skilled at hiding. Rye set his rifle to sniper mode, and aimed at the aparoids, he picked a few off before the entrance shut and the aparoids retreated within. The gunfire ceased, but Rye kept the gun aimed at the treeline. The units in the trees knew he was there; there was no movement at all except for the wind blowing through the trees. Growing nervous, Rye started to back away suspecting that they're Venomian units. Someone came from the trees. Rye took aim.

Rye noticed the Cornerian mark on the soldier and he sighed with relief. He waved back to his team for them to come up. Rye made his way toward the treeline, where more and more Cornerian forces came out of the trees. There were easily three dozen of them. Rye went up to the closest soldier, whose helmet identified him as a Captain. Rye saluted the Captain and stopped advancing.

"At ease Lieutenant Rye," the black fox said. Rye knew black foxes were extremely rare, and extremely skilled. They're believed to be from a small colony on Zoness before Andross took it over. Those who survived retreated to Corneria.

"You know who I am?" Rye asked, and let his arm fall from the salute.

"Yes," the Captain said. "My unit was detailed on the mission, and you're in command here, not I. My name is Captain McCloud, no resemblance with the Star Fox team. Our dropship took some heavy fire on the way in, and we barely made it to the ground. On the way we've been picking up other stragglers. Good to see you alive Lieutenant."

"Thank you Captain McCloud," Rye said. "How many do you have?"

"Last count was 45, but we've picked up a couple more since then. Were you and your team the one's causing hell over there?" the Captain asked, pointing toward the smoke rising in the meadow.

"An air strike," Rye said. "Anyway, we need to get into the base. Have any ideas?"

"We've already got it covered," Captain McCloud said pointing over Rye's shoulder. Rye turned and saw his team, and McCloud's team in position in front of the gate. A cheetah was standing at one side of the entrance, looking straight at Rye and the Captain. "He's waiting for my command to open it. He hacked into the base's computer so he now has control of it. What are your orders?"

"Open the entrance, and secure the base. I'll take a team into the base and search for survivors. Give the order." Rye stood in the back of the formation and set his scope to the highest setting, aimed directly at the entrance. The Captain gave the order, and the doors slid apart.

Rye pulled the trigger multiple times, and the rest of the team fired. They didn't underestimate their enemy as only two dozen aparoids stood at the door entrance. Soon there was nothing left of those aparoids, but there were more in the distance, on the outside walls of the structures. The team poured into the base, and spread out still shooting at any aparoids. Rye and the Captain followed them in, but they didn't find anything to shoot at as the rest of the team did their work.

"Secure an LZ; we need reinforcements to hold this base down!" Captain McCloud ordered. "Get those gun towers reactivated, and seal the seal the base off. We don't want anything to follow us in. Get someone operating a radio on the wall."

Several minutes went by before the team confirmed a secure perimeter. Rye stood in one of the watch-towers, where they had a long-range radio. They requested dropships with reinforcements, and learned that the space battle was quieting down. The Star Fox team was here, and they were moving in-atmosphere to take control of the skies here.

"Aparoids are still inside the structures," the Captain said coming up from behind on Rye. "Go ahead and pick your team out. I'll stay here and make sure you have a save exit."

Rye picked his team, which most of it consisted of the original team that he met at the vineyard. They went to the main structure, which had two guards at either end, and they entered, shutting the door behind them. Rye took in the situation: All lights were burnt out, and the area was littered with debris. This place has long been abandoned but it looked like a battle just recently took place inside here. The team turned on their flashlights that's on their guns or vests.

"Stay quiet," Rye whispered as he led the team down the main hall. "Search the rooms, and kill any aparoid you see. Save everything else, even if Venomian."

The team went through room by room, but found nothing. Not a body, not an aparoid, not a living soul. Rye was starting to get nervous, and he knew the rest of his team was getting nervous too. No one said a word. They went deeper and deeper, further down into the structure. As if possible, the place got even darker and darker. The team finally came across a large room, a garage. The entire team's heart stopped when they heard something fall on the other side of the garage.

All lights were concentrated on the spot that the sound came from, but the light didn't penetrate the darkness all the way through. No one could see through the darkness. Another noise came from behind the team, and most of the turned. But Rye kept his aim concentrated on where the first noise came from. They needed to see what was in the garage with them but Rye's eyes couldn't see anything beyond the light's rays. Rye slowly reached for a flare on his vest, but he kept an eye searching the area in front of him. Rye grabbed the flare but before he could light it, he heard a ghoul-like moan which caused him to freeze. Silence once again fell on the team.

An infected being came from the shadows, charging Rye holding a wrench like a club. Rye fired, and the aparoid fell back into the shadows. The team also fired. Rye moved much quicker this time, and lit the flare as gunshots filled the air with popping sounds. A dull red glow expanded the light to all corners of the garage, and Rye could see half a dozen infected aparoids standing just outside of the light that the guns illuminated. The team all fired again, as all the aparoids charged.

They fell quickly though and soon they were all dead on the ground though. "Secure a perimeter!" Rye ordered with fear in his voice. "Someone find the light switch and see if they still work." Rye went over to the first body he shot, accompanied by Sergeant Arthur. They both examined it, just as the garage's flood lights turned on, and the rest of the team stood at the doors.

"They're Cornerian engineers and workers," Arthur examined the clothing on the body. "How's that possible? We abandoned this planet years ago."

"I don't know," Rye said. "They had no guns, and let's be thankful for that otherwise we all would probably be dead by that ambush. This place creeps me out. No one was in the upper levels, not even the bones of a body or an aparoid. We chased them in here but where did they go?"

"They must still be in here," Arthur said but was soon interrupted.

"Sir!!"

Rye and Arthur stood, turning toward the soldier who tried to get their attention. He was standing in a doorway, leading off somewhere else. "I found something that you should see."

"Fall in!" Rye ordered, and the perimeter collapsed and they followed the soldier to where he claims to have found something of importance. He led them straight into the control room of the base, which was completely trashed. The soldier pointed his light in a closet, which revealed a large tunnel.

"They're underground," the soldier said. "Damn aparoids!"

"Calm down," Rye said quietly. "Someone try to get this base back up and running. The rest stay here and guard the control room." A technician sat at the controls and turned on a few flickering screens. "I want to know if there are any other tunnels in this structure, or in this base. Turn on all lights and try to get Captain McCloud on the radio for me. I'll be back in ten minutes. Soldier," Rye said to the person who discovered the tunnel. "You're coming with me." Rye went into the closet and down the tunnel, followed by the other soldier.

Rye kept his gun ready, and went deeper into the tunnel which sloped downward slightly. Eventually, the tunnel led into a cavern-like hallway. No aparoids were detected. "Try not to shoot if at all possible," Rye whispered and pulled out his sword. They followed the hallway, passing several room-like caves. They stopped when they saw a breeding pod, then thousands of them in a massive room. "Holy shit." Rye and the soldier pushed passed the breeding pods and they were again surprised when they realized they were in the upper levels of an entire colony. They both looked over the edge of a huge room that went several stories deeper into the planet's crust. An entire fleet of battleships could fit in the room. Littering the floor of this room was another ocean of aparoids. It was even more dense than the aparoids on the meadow above.

"What's that?" the soldier asked pointing at something in the middle of the room. Rye looked, and his heart almost stopped for good. A pillar like creature with huge wings rose from the middle of the room.

"A queen," Rye thought out loud. "The aparoids are trying to rebuild their colony on Zoness. We can't survive another attack by the aparoids. Come on, let's go. We need to report this."

Rye and the soldier ran back through the breeding pod room, the hallway and back up the tunnel until they found themselves safe in the control room again. The room was lit up now though and the screens showed other rooms throughout the structure. Some cameras showed the activity outside, but Rye didn't pay attention to those.

"Seal the tunnel with mines and lead pipes," Rye ordered. "Check our exit; we need to get out of here."

"Looks all clear," the Cornerian soldier in the control chair said. Arthur came up to Rye, just as three of the soldiers went into the tunnel carrying pipes they found, plus some mines.

"There's an entire aparoid colony here," Rye whispered to Arthur. "If they come to the surface, we won't have a chance. From the reports I've read on the Aparoid Homeworld, it looks like they're trying to rebuild their world here."

"What are we going to do?" Arthur asked.

"Report to Cornerian Intelligence," Rye said. "We'll let CI figure how to take them out. It should be easy, just as long as the aparoids don't decide to reinforce their forces on the surface and we keep control of the planet. Either way, it looks like we're going to be in for a fight."

"Tunnel's sealed!"

Rye ordered to team to evacuate, and the retreat seemed to have gone much faster than the way in. In a few short minutes, they were back in the sunlight. Rye noticed how well Captain McCloud took care of the situation. Two dropships were parked on the open field of the base, and equipment littered the area, with AA guns surrounding the base. One of the dropships took off, and Rye's eyes followed it. There was no more battle overhead, and Cornerian warships were hovering in the atmosphere. Captain McCloud came up to Rye.

"We have this area secured, and we're hoping to set up a secondary HQ here," McCloud said with a smile. "The Star Fox team took over one of the old cities, and Cornerian forces have set up an HQ there, but it's on the other side of the planet."

"No, we can't set up an HQ here," Rye said. "I need to talk with a CI spook, or General Pepper himself."

"We have a CI spook in one of the ships," McCloud said. His smile changed into a worried expression. "I'll go with you."

McCloud and Rye both went on the dropship that remained on the ground and ordered the pilot to go to one of the battleships. The ship took off, and the trip was short but McCloud used the small opportunity to find out what's going on.

"There's a queen beneath the base," Rye said. "Thousands of breeding pods and hatchers. We won't even stand a chance if they decide to break the surface."

"We should evacuate the planet," McCloud said. "How big was their colony?"

"Enemy forces were countless. There must have been well over ten thousand that I saw in the Queen's room. The colony looks small enough to destroy without harming too much of the planet like what happened with the Aparoid Homeworld. But the base will be destroyed."

The ship decelerated, and the pilot announced it safe to exit the ship. McCloud led Rye into the Officer's Quartering area, where there were several high ranking soldiers, including General Pepper and Fox McCloud, himself. Rye and McCloud immediately saluted.

"Sirs, we have urgent news about the enemy forces at the base," McCloud said.

"All forces at the base have been eliminated," one of the uniformed officers said. His uniform identified him as one of the CI spooks. "What can be so urgent?"

Fox McCloud and General Pepper sat down at the table and looked at both the Captain and Rye, without saying a word. "At ease," General Pepper finally said.

Rye and the Captain let their saluting hands fall, but they had no intention of being at ease when Fox and the General were in the room. Captain McCloud continued, "Aparoids have been detected within the structures, and underneath the base itself. Lieutenant Rye saw the aparoids himself."

"Yes sir," Rye said. "I saw a queen surrounded by at least ten thousand aparoid units. And I've run across one of their breeding rooms, filled with thousands of breeding pods and hatchers. I advise that we immediately evacuate the base, and planet until this infestation is cleansed."

"Evacuate?" the CI spook questioned. "Why should we evacuate the planet when we just gained control of it? That's risking losing this planet again, not to mention our soldier's morale would be depleted."

"Sir, delaying an evacuation would cost more than losing this planet," Captain McCloud defended Rye. "We risk losing the entire Lylat system if we do not evacuate this planet."

"How do you know that?" The CI spook continued to argue.

"I think it's clear that that'll happen if the Lieutenant is telling the truth," Fox McCloud said. "I've fought your older brothers at Venom, Spook, and I fought the Queen herself and you all take my word without question. Yet you do not believe the word of your own militarymen?"

The CI spook didn't say anything. General Pepper whispered to a few of his officers and Fox before he spoke up. "We're evacuating the base, but not the planet. We'll destroy the base and anything below it, but Lieutenant Rye needs to tell us exactly what he saw. You're dismissed for now. Don't leave the ship, we still need you here."

Rye and Captain McCloud saluted and left the room. "Fox McCloud and General Pepper are here," Rye said shocked. "I was just expecting a spook."

"They must have just arrived," Captain McCloud said. "They weren't here half an hour ago. But don't worry, we're done here. We have no more fighting left on Zoness for us. I have to go make sure everyone gets evacuated. I won't be coming back on this ship so I guess this is goodbye. I hope to see you after the Recovery Effort."

"See you around Captain," Rye said and saluted the Captain. McCloud returned the salute and marched back to the hangar. Rye went to the bar, and finally allowed himself to relax. His fighting here was finished.