Fox McCloud – Sector X Airspace
The brilliant lemon glow that the nebula cloud in the distance of Sector X emitted filled a region of space in which countless stories of adventure, mystery and war drifted by. The only evidence left to put proof in those stories was the eerie streams of floating debris wandering through space. Most of it was comprised of ship parts – mainly burned out sublight engines, scorched and dismembered star-fighter wings and an array of different hull plating, but there were also small pockets of pilot clothing, empty space helmets and ejected flight seats – those pieces of memento were where the stories spawned from. And most of those stories' protagonists were dead.
It was only truly haunting when you stopped and looked at it; when you realized that each one of those wings was torn from a star-fighter by a laser blast aimed to kill, and all of those flight suits were from the pilots that never got home. This was the conclusion that Fox McCloud had come to whilst sitting in the cockpit of his Arwing II star-fighter. His father's ship could have very well been drifting somewhere through here, but he'd never know. Fox seemed lost in a trance, but he came to his senses when the communications link crackled with static. His emerald eyes widened, his muzzle twitched and suddenly Fox seemed alive again. His fur, consisting of tiny hairs colored white and brown trailing down his face from the top of his head seemed to quiver once he was brought to his senses. As the radio's static morphed into a mechanical assortment of spaced single-syllables, Fox knew ROB-64 was trying to get through to him.
"Captain, this is ROB-64. The scanners here show no signs of any remnant fighters but there was a faint signal picked up only a minute ago at the most."
Fox could hear ROB's mechanical fingers attacking an operations board in the background.
"Thanks for keeping me up to speed, ROB" Fox said quickly back through the radio. "Fox out."
It was silent again, but Fox had a feeling somewhere in his stomach that it wasn't going to last for long. He was convinced that the faint signal ROB spoke of earlier was a small star-fighter trying to keep hidden under a piece of rubble somewhere in the sea of space wreckage. Still, Fox stared forward into the nothingness, comforted by the serene feeling he always found sitting in a star-fighter cockpit by himself. Fox lifted his eyebrows and his green eyes rolled upward to take a quick glance at the heads-up display before him. No dots on the scanners – nothing. No warning beeps. No flashing lights.
Yup, something's definitely going to pop out at me in a minute he thought. He pulled himself together by grabbing a paw and swooshing it through the fur on his scalp, and then grabbed the controls of his Arwing II and made sure his feet were secure on the pitch and roll pedals. He fought the thoughts of his father out of his head, he fought the thoughts of lost friends out of his head and went into combat mode.
And he was just in time, too.
There was nothing appearing on Fox's scanners, but only by chance the burning light of the Lylat System's central sun, Solar, caught a reflection on the starboard side of his transparent cockpit window. An oddly shaped ship flew toward the Arwing II, and although awkward it seemed quite well armed. Fox waited for the unsuspecting pilot to try a missile lock. Two seconds passed, and there it was. Fox's systems in the cockpit started bleeping and blipping like crazy, but the captain had everything under control. The missile from the brown star-fighter with replacement and scorched plating all over it launched a missile followed by a bright red tracer.
That's close enough Fox decided, and immediately brought his ship up in a half roll, but then propelled forward in a drastic move toward the attacking fighter. Clearly surprised, the amateur tried a downward dive, but Fox laughed as that was the worst move he could possibly make. With the enemy ship clear in his crosshairs, Fox pumped the lasers mounted on each wing of his ship. Bursts of neon blue ultra-hot flame hit the back of the ship, and it started to wobble all over the place. The Arwing II slipped its outstretched white wings gracefully between two large charcoal black pieces of wreckage, with the tip of the blue nipper-shaped trapezoid mounts narrowly scraping through - but Fox had accounted for the lack of space. The nose of the Arwing II didn't stray far from the stern of the enemy fighter, even through the densest areas of floating debris. It wasn't long before Fox had another couple of clear shots on his foe, but when he took them, this time he noticed a glowing turquoise shielding protecting the craft from the laser bolts. Fox scowled. Nothing was easy in life anymore.
The thug obviously wasn't the greatest pilot in the Lylat System, but he was certainly driving a warhorse. The chunky star-fighter was equipped with two laser cannons, one on each side (as far as Fox could tell), a hidden missile launcher located somewhere on the underside of the craft and also packed a pretty touch shield of some kind.
And I didn't even feel like flying properly, Fox moaned in his head. Then a thought struck him. He made sure his radio was open to ROB and spoke up.
"ROB, I have a plan. If we can capture this guy, he might give us some indication of why the Great Fox has become such a target lately" Fox said quickly, keeping his mind on weaving in and out of large bits and piece of a destroyed Cornerian battle-cruiser. It wasn't long before ROB's voice came back to him.
"Suggestion, sir?" the robot asked.
"I know you're powered down right now ROB, but I need you to charge up the EMP cannon" Fox instructed with urgency in his voice.
"Affirmative, charging electro-magnetic pulse cannon."
"Alright then. Let me know when you're at one hundred percent. I think this guy's shield will need a full blast. Fox out."
Now the goal had changed a little bit – instead of hailing laser fire onto the unknown ship, Fox would have to make himself appear vulnerable. All he needed was an explosion, a thump, anything to give the idea away that the Arwing II had been harmed and left in poor shape. Without further ado, Fox yanked up on his controls and sent his craft shooting in the opposite direction. And just as soon as his new course was set, the enemy started to circle around and keep an eye on him from a distance. Flying directly toward the center of the lemon and lime colored nebula millions of light years ahead, Fox awaited the foe to take a shot at his craft. But he had been too quick, and the enemy was out of range. Fox then made a decision he knew he'd regret later, and inspected the debris in front of him, hanging in space. He spotted a nice flat chunk of metal that didn't look like it would hurt the Arwing II's wings much, and slowly drifted off-course toward it. Fox didn't waste any time, he scraped his port wing along the sheet of metal, ripping a black engraved valley into it right across from one side to the other. Next, Fox died down his sublight engines a bit in an attempt to convince the inexperienced pilot behind him that the Arwing II had taken a bit of damage. It worked.
Sucker. The brown oval accompanied by hexagonal wings was soon on Fox's tail, summoning a flurry of sparkling crimson rain. The laser bolts were repelled for the most part by a barrel-rolling Arwing II, and thankfully the gravity-well system in the ship was so accurate that Fox didn't find himself vomiting out of dizziness. The laser bolts hit the Arwing II's spinning wings with force, but however were countered with a faster amount of force, sending the projectiles crashing through debris on either side of the warring star-fighters.
Fox kept one eye on his HUD display, and soon he spotted the Great Fox come into range. It wasn't the mother-ship it used to be, but the Star-Fox flagship still had a little bit of punch left in it. Fox's only doubt was that the rookie behind him would chicken out upon seeing the Great Fox, but it seemed that overconfidence had got the better of his enemy. The idea of a wounded Star-Fox fighter within grasp was too much of an opportunity for any thug to pass by – it would never happen again, and you'd be dead. And so becoming more desperate for the kill, the enemy ship increased velocity and scattered laser blasts in a frenzy, doing anything to try and bring down Fox's fighter. And he was giving Fox one hell of a time, the experienced captain certainly had his hands full. Just a couple more klicks however, and Fox knew the whole thing would be over. The silhouette of the bulky beetle-looking mother-ship became larger and larger, but there was still no transmission from ROB. Fox slapped down on his communication controls and spoke rather quickly into the radio.
"ROB, tell me you're close. We're not gonna' get another chance at this."
"Electro-magnetic pulse cannon is eighty-percent charged. Fire can commence at any time."
"No, no! I told you! We need one hundred percent capacity! This guy's shields are tough, I don't want to risk anything less!" Fox stressed.
"Affirmative. Will resume charging."
"ROB, I'm about ten klicks off. This is going to be close."
Before he had finished his words properly, a screeching emitted from Fox's HUD and he looked up to see a projectile depicted on his scanners heading toward him. It was too fast to avoid. Fox snapped his jaw together as he prepared for impact, and then felt the shudder of the missile hitting his engines. The Arwing rocked up and down and a wrestling contest with the control yolk began. Fox couldn't keep his nose on-course, and a handful of laser blasts came tumbling into the back of the craft. A loud explosion followed by sparks hailing out from behind the flight seat as well as a urgent screeching from the HUD alerted Fox that his shields were out.
"ROB I'm in trouble here!" Fox cried. Before he gained his coordination, Fox caught the grey arc of the upper hull of the Great Fox pass by his port side, and seconds later he spotted the EMP cannon dead in the middle of the ship's bow. "Fire!" Fox screamed.
"Firing" ROB responded less than a second later. Fox brought his wounded Arwing II up in a loop, and before the enemy craft could follow through the motion, he was caught in a giant glowing amethyst beam expelled from the Great Fox. Sizzling electro-magnetic rods crawled across the star-fighter like a swarm of space-locust, and the whole craft stopped dead in its tracks. Fox's ship curved around in an arc and rolled underneath the Great Fox, disappearing into the loading bay. It was followed by flames and smoke which quickly disappeared in the vacuum of space. A small portion of the enemy ship ejected from the rest of the craft in an attempt at escape, but ROB already had plans to stop that.
Some few minutes later, Fox McCloud entered the cramped bridge of the Great Fox. Computer monitors hogged the walls, and where what should have been walk-able floor in the middle of the bridge, were detailed holograms showing the layout of Sector X. ROB was standing in one corner of the bridge next to starboard viewport which wrapped right around the front of the ship. Crouched below ROB was the thug that thought he could defeat Fox McCloud, bound by magnetic cuffs around his wrists and ankles. The threatening grey rods that ROB had for arms repeatedly pounded the ruffian on the top of the head until he stopped struggling. Fox wasn't sure if he was supposed to, but he found the sight of his old robotic counterpart having his ways with a common thug quite amusing.
"ROB, that's enough. I think he'll be seeing stars for days to come" Fox remarked as he headed toward the two of them. ROB's blocky head with the main feature of it being a red bar where his eyes would have been, rotated to face Fox, and nodded.
"Affirmative. Enemy restrained."
Fox kneeled down to the simian pilot. He was young, he was in bad shape thanks to ROB, and he was stupid.
"Who are you?" Fox asked firmly. With the tone the captain had, the ruffian knew that he wasn't playing around; especially since he had tried to kill him.
"I'm just a pilot!" he cried. His panting breaths and slippery, sweaty forehead was a clear indication of his fear.
"What's your name?"
"... Alfa… Alonso."
There was hesitation in the simian's voice, but he knew he didn't stand a chance at resisting questions in the middle of Sector X with Fox McCloud crouching in front of him.
"Who do you work for?"
"Nobody!" he called out. "I'm a… I'm a bounty hunter."
Fox's eyebrows shot up. Now that was an answer he wasn't expecting.
"A bounty hunter?" Fox questioned with disbelief, "A bounty hunter?"
"Yeah. You've got a price on your head. And it ain't too shabby, to tell you the truth" Alfa said more quietly. Fox grabbed the shoulders of the rookie, and squeezed his fingers into his shoulder blades.
"Now listen to me. What bounty? How much? Who? Who set it?"
"I don't know… There's no use in asking me that! This gang leader… he stays away from names, he doesn't… He doesn't deal that way, you know?"
Alfa's voice had a touch more confidence in it, he felt he could relate to Fox a bit more. He was wrong. The lighting of the Great Fox's bridge was gloomy, but Fox resigned his arms from holding onto Alfa's shoulders, and stood up so a yellow light of a hologram caught his face.
"Why?"
Fox's voice was cold.
"You're at your weakest, right now, Fox… You've got two members in the legendary Star-Fox team. Two. That's nothing. Four's not a great deal – but when you take it down to two…"
Fox felt the reality of his situation sink in, and his eyes veered away from the shaking simian pilot. He stared out of the viewport, and wandered closer to it, resting his hands on the top of a computer console. "… And… and here you are… Wondering why everyone wants a piece of you… Fox McCloud…"
Alfa's tone had changed, it had gotten bitter. Fox wouldn't tolerate it, and once again grabbed the bounty hunter by the shoulders, and brought him up to stand. He then thumped Alfa against the bridge wall several times, and looked him in the eye.
"Give me a name, bounty hunter" Fox ordered. His fangs started to appear out the corners of his mouth.
Alfa tried to back further into the corner as he replied.
"The Luperium… That's all I know! I swear! They don't use names!"
Fox dropped one arm and used the other to propel Alfa over the bridge floor. His facial features relaxed a little and he looked at ROB.
"ROB, let him go" he said. Fox leaned down to the man draped across the floor of the bridge once more while he wriggled about. "But get this straight. If I ever see you and your ship again, in space, I will shoot you down."
Alfa Alonso didn't have much trouble getting his star-fighter back online, but the weapons were still disabled. After he left Sector X under the close surveillance of both Fox and ROB, the two turned their attention toward the health of the Great Fox. The transport ship, which was a replacement for the original battle-cruiser, was a delicate base of operations. It had low shield power and the hull couldn't withstand much laser damage at all. But it was all Fox had, it was the best he could afford.
"ROB, did you finish your repairs?" Fox asked aboard the bridge while studying blueprints of the Great Fox's bowels.
"Repairs complete. Sector X proved useful for finding such items."
"I'm still not happy about what that bounty hunter had to say. No wonder we've been under so many attacks recently – no wonder we're here in Sector X, trying to repair the ship."
"Yes sir" was all ROB could come up with. Fox let out a sigh as he decided he couldn't put up with having one-sided conversations much longer.
"Is Falco done yet?" Fox asked.
"Negative. There has been no response from Falco to the transmissions I have sent" ROB said.
"Damn. I knew he'd run into trouble. ROB, take us to the outskirts of this region."
"Affirmative. Great Fox on-course to co-ordinates three-zero, two-nine, three-eight, three-two."
And with that command, the bulky Star-Fox command-ship committed to a slow change of direction and accelerated toward the edge of Sector X.