Disclaimer: I do not own Star Fox. Additionally, this story is written under the impression that Star Fox Command is considered non-canon and did not happen.

Introduction

Year 00 ADC (After the Destruction of Cerinia) – the planet Cerinia is destroyed by unknown powers

Year 03 ADC – the events of the Saurian crisis transpire

Year 04 ADC – the events of the Aparoid invasion transpire

Year 06 ADC – Krystal, the only known survivor of the destruction of Cerinia, and Fox McCloud, the hero of Lylat, marry

Year 10 ADC – Samantha Vixy McCloud is born

Year 26 ADC – Samantha McCloud joins the Cornerian Flight Academy at sixteen.

Year 32 ADC – Present day

Chapter one: Accidents Happen.

Date/Time : June 1st, 32 ADC / 1100

Location : Orbital Research Station 1, Hangar 5.

Samantha McCloud was anxious. Today she helping test a new warp drive system that could revolutionize faster than light travel. The idea would be that the new drive would tear open a rift into another dimension, allowing a vessel to "slip" through space to its destination. It was faster than the old ward drives and much, much smaller. In fact these new drives could be fitted onto a fighter… theoretically.

Today she was going to test the new drive on a modified Arwing fighter, the first time for the drives to be used on such a small vehicle. The project's head engineer, Science Officer William James DuFrain, had assured her repeatedly that drive would work, but in the back of her mind she was still worried about the new system.

Sam sat in her bird's cockpit, drumming her fingers on the throttle, while technicians scurried around with scanners doing another pre-flight check - the tenth check to be exact. She knew that techs were just being careful, but the constant worrying was starting to make her nervous.

"Calm down, Captain." DuFrain said through the internal speakers. "You have absolutely nothing to worry about."

"I'll be better once we finally get started." Samantha replied, "Just tell your boys to hurry up down here."

"They should have been done a while ago." DuFrain said. "I'll tell them to hurry up so you can get on the way."

No more than a minute later Captain McCloud received the green light from the Flight Control Tower. She decided to us her psychic powers, given to her from her mother, to look into the minds of the technicians and see what kept them so busy. To her relief and dismay, the problem was nothing to do with her craft but rather had to do with something else her mother had given her, her looks. She sulked as she engaged her Arwing's engines and prepared for take-off.

She finally took off. As she exited the hangar DuFrain contacted her, "Alright. First things first Captain. We need you to start execute a few basic maneuvers so we can compare the Arwing's handling to our control."

"I thought this would be a test of the FTL drive, not my piloting skills."

"It is, don't worry. We just want to be sure that the new hardware isn't going to cause any problems in combat." DuFrain explained. "Look, the faster you do this the sooner we can finish this test and go home Captain."

After short while it was finally time for the real test. "Okay Captain, you should see an IR beacon about one thousand kilometers away on you HUD now – that is you first jump target. You need to aim yourself dead center of that target and activate your FTL drive. The coordinates have already been uploaded to your flight computer."

"Understood." Sam said. "I'm powering up the FTL drive now." Points of light appear along the length of her craft as the drive pooled energy. The points came together at the nose of the craft as the drive reached its critical power level, resulting in a small, bright vortex. An instant later the lights and the Arwing were gone.

In the observation post aboard ORS-1 Science Officer DuFrain waited for the craft to reappear at the beacon. After a few seconds he started to worry. The Arwing was supposed to only take two seconds to make the jump, but it was still missing. He licked his lips as he felt a pair of eyes digging a hole in the back of his skull. The project's commander, General Kennings, put a hand roughly on DuFrain's shoulder and said, "Science Officer, correct me if I'm wrong, but our pilot should be at the beacon by now, shouldn't she""

"Yes, sir."

"Is she?"

DuFrain gulped, "No sir."

"Then could you please tell me, WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?" the General roared.

"I… I don't know sir." DuFrain said. "I think her FTL drive malfunctioned. Maybe it's just going to take longer than we expected."

"Or maybe you should have listened to me when I said your calculations were wrong, you idiot." A shrill voice yelled as a toad came storming onto the observation deck.

"Who the hell are you?" the general demanded.

"My name's Philip Toad. I'm a civilian consultant your idiotic officer hired to double check his work."

The general's nostrils flared in frustration. "DuFrain, I'll deal with you later. For now, I need one of you to tell me where my pilot is, and if she is alive."

Philip cleared his throat. "She's somewhere along the vector she was pointed in when the drive was engaged, that much we can be certain of. It's next to impossible to know just how far she went though. She could have gone ten light-years, or ten thousand."

"So what do we do to get her back? Should I send a recovery team?"

DuFrain answered this time, "No, we'd just lose them as well. Unless they jumped under the exact same conditions as Captain McCloud. All we can do is hope she can turn herself around and come back."

"He's right General." Philip agreed.

Kennings toyed with the idea of tossing DuFrain out an airlock for a minute, but finally decided against it. "DuFrain, come with me. The two of us need to go have a pleasant conversation with the McCloud family about how you have most likely killed their daughter. After that, you and Toad are going to spend a lot of time coming up with a better solution than 'wait and see.' Am I clear?"

"Yes sir."

Date/Time: Unknown

Location: Unknown

Samantha watched as the lights around her Arwing disappeared. A smile spread on her face as she activated her radio to call DuFrain. "Looks like it worked, DuFrain. So what's next?"

She waited a minute, but received no reply. "DuFrain… Do you read me?"

Still no answer. Sam huffed in annoyance as she pulled up a diagnostic program to see if the problem was with her Arwing. All systems where running fine, so she tried broadcasting on more channels.

"This is Captain McCloud broadcasting on all Cornerian Navy channels, does anyone read me?" Still nothing. She started widening her broadcast until she was on all channels, but there was still no answer. It was now that she realized that the stars were in completely different spots, and more importantly she was now near a planet which she had never seen before. It was a solid planet with a mostly white surface, broken by great swathes of green along the planets equator.

She sat there stunned for a moment before shouting, "Danmit DuFrain, I'm going to KILL you!"

As Sam sat idle, her curses becoming more and more colorful with each passing second, her Arwing warned her of an incoming message on an unknown channel. After taking a second to call down, she opened the channel. Before Sam could open her mouth, a clipped male voice spoke through her speakers. "Unknown craft. You are currently in Sirian controlled space. You are order to turn around and leave at once. If you do not comply then our fighters will engage. Do not bother replying to this message."

As the message played four large, heavily armed fighters came streaking up from the planet's surface. They looked like massive flying wings nearly four times the size of her craft with engines to match.

Samantha checked the status of her FTL drive, out of energy – figures. Next she looked at her weapons, nothing but her canons – again, figures. "No use crying over spilled milk." She grumbled while putting a paw on the throttle.

"Unknown craft, this is your final warning. Leave or we will engage." After McCloud didn't respond the man spoke one last time. "Very well."

"This is going to be so much fun." Sam groaned as the four incoming planes increased speed towards her. Covers along the edges of the wings folded into the crafts, revealing massive rotary cannons on either side of the crafts' cockpits and several racks of missiles. "I just had to open my damn mouth."

As the enemy fighter closed within three kilometers she triggered her laser cannons, spitting a tight group of deadly, red bolt at that center craft. To her dismay the bolts all dissipated against the fighter's armor, causing little more damage than ruining the thing's paint job. The massive fighters responded by unleashing a torrent of projectiles at her – to her it was like a meteor shower from hell.

When Sam realized she wasn't dead, she opened her eyes and released the breath she had been unconsciously holding. She watched as the four enemies zoomed by and used the time they would need to turn around to check the status of her craft. She was leaking atmosphere, and her bird's wings, cannons, and missile bay were all either severally damaged or destroyed. However, the reactor had not been compromised and the engines were still mostly operable. It didn't take long for her to decide what to do.

She slammed her throttle as far as it would go, redlining her engines. The Arwing responded by shooting off like a bullet, slamming Samantha back into her seat hard enough to knock the wind out of her. Sam's plan was simple. Outrun the fighters, get into the atmosphere of the planet that was two hundred kilometers away, and eject as soon as she could. She knew there was little to no chance for her to find a way to get home, but she wasn't ready to roll over and die just yet.

So she kept one eye on the screen showing the view from her aft camera, and while the other made she was still heading towards the planet. The fighters were about two kilometers behind her know and still in mid-turn. By the time they had finished turning around she had already covered a third of the distance to the planet. She watched as the fighters sped up to match her speed, and then surpassed it. Soon they were closing the distance at a rapid pace.

She started to sweat as the fighters grew closer and closer. By the time she reached the atmosphere of the frozen world the fighters were within weapons range. As one, they unleashed another withering barrage of cannon-fire, but to Sam's good fortune the pilots forgot to compensate for the planet's gravity. Every round passed well underneath her craft. As the enemy pilots corrected their mistake and prepared for their final barrage, McCloud heard a massive crash from the rear of her craft.

A warning sign appeared on her HUD. The engines had just sheared off. Samantha sighed, "Figures."

While the Arwing broke up, Sam punched out. Hoping the pilots would mistake her chair for just another piece of the wreck. The chair rocketed away from the dying Arwing as the Arwing split into more pieces. Sam looked up as the chair fell and felt a wave of relief as the fighters roar overhead with no reaction to the ejected pilot. She thought she had made it until the planes started turning around to make a second pass. As if on cue, her chair's chute deployed – her chair's giant, bright orange chute.

She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, but instead of the stream of cannon fire she was expecting, a she heard a massive explosion. She opened her eyes in time to see two more explosions that enveloped two of the fighters. The final pilot didn't want to stick around and experience the same fate as his wing mates.

The last pilot ignored Samantha, leaving her free to investigate what happened to the other three planes. When she looked, she could clearly see three faint smoke trails that came from about the same point on the planet's surface about three klicks away.

"Looks like I've found the enemy of my enemy." Sam mused to herself as she drifted to the ground. "Hopefully whoever shot those guy down will be friendlier. At this rate though, I seriously doubt it."

Author's notes :: Alright, this is my first time writing and posting a story, so please be gentle in your reviews. Whether ya'll like it or not, I'll continue writing this story.

Anyway, please read and review.