Eternity's Test
Chapter One: Troubled Beginnings
Jirest woke up slowly, letting his crystalline eyes flicker open. He ached. That was the only way he could think of it. The fire that had once crawled over his nerves had dulled to a distant throb, but the blurriness remained, covering over half his vision in a haze. Everything had lost the crystalline look, he wasn't seeing the added layers of emotion or pheromones anymore. He sighed painfully, letting his eyes half-close. And this was only with the loss of one antenna! Thank god he hadn't lost both.
"You're awake! Finally!" Exclaimed a voice, and he lifted his head off the thick cushion that Lylatians called a bed and smiled very weakly at Wrin. "We were starting to get worried about you, Jirest." She sat beside him, studying the bandages over his wound absently.
"Sorry." He yawned, slowly sitting up, watching his faded vision waver as he did so. He couldn't see the happiness flowing off Wrin anymore, and it bothered him. He knew she was, sure, but he couldn't see it anymore. He had lost almost an entire dimension of his sense. "Are Fara and Wolf all right?"
"Oh, that's right, you don't know!" Wrin smiled. "Fara had her child while you slept."
He snapped awake. "What? Isn't that a bit early for her?"
"Yes, but it's all right. She had a beautiful baby girl, in spite of that fact." Wrin smiled. "I helped her deliver it, so I can vouch for the fact that she's recovering fine."
"I've missed quite a bit, it seems." He let her help him to his feet, leaning onto her shoulder heavily. "Would you mind walking me to the kitchen?"
"No problem at all."
The two walked into the hallway, leaning on each other. It was early in the morning, the Great Fox having just come into orbit around Lylat's new planet. A few of the team members were awake, Wolf was already working on breakfast, Peppy was on the radio. When they entered the kitchen, Jirest smiled brightly when he saw Fara sitting in one of the chairs, looking tired but happy, a towel draped over one shoulder to cover the fact that she was feeding her daughter. "Hello, Fara honored mother!"
"Hi, Jirest! Glad to see you're finally on your feet." Fara smiled at him, gesturing for him to sit with one arm. "Wrin told you, I take it?"
"Yes indeed." Jirest reached over shyly, fingers slowly reaching over to brush the newborn's ears, which were perked up, happily absorbed in feeding. When he touched her, she let go and yipped at him from under the towel, peering out from under it, and he snatched his hand back in surprise.
Wolf laughed out loud. "She's a baby, Jirest, it's not like she can hurt you."
"What was that noise for?"
"She was surprised, silly." Fara replied with a wry smile, shifting her daughter and buttoning the shirt up, removing the towel so Jirest could see all of the child. "Her name is Hope. Fox and I thought it would be appropriate."
"A very good choice." Jirest studied the child curiously.
Hope was a mix of red and fennec fox, producing a child with strawberry-blonde fur and a shock of red hair already growing in. Her eyes were still birth-blue, currently fixed on her mother's face as she burbled newborn nonsense, complaining half-heartedly about the fact that she wasn't being fed anymore. In Jirest's eyes, she was just tiny, so small he could probably have cradled her in one of his three-fingered hands. He smiled a bit, reaching out again to brush a finger over Hope's cheekbone.
"She's beautiful."
"I'm glad you think so. She was worth the effort, certainly." Fara smiled a bit, shifting her daughter so they were chest to chest, the newborn's chin on her shoulder, nuzzling the wispy red hair absently. All of the problems her people had, but they had paled now to this, what her life had become.
Fox wandered in, tail lashing the air. "Have you guys looked out a window lately?" He asked with a grin. "Come to the bridge and check this out."
Everyone followed him up to the bridge, Wrin leading Jirest by the hand, and gaped when they fully saw what floated outside the viewports. The planet was beautiful, about half water half land, a vibrant blue-green spotted with clouds.
"Air's our standard, et cetera. There's a vaccine prepped so the background germs won't make us sick." Fox said, leaning on the view port, staring out. Home, a new home for his people. "No official name yet. It's a fairly large planet, but we don't want to drop the entire populous down there. One of the moons is our standard too, oddly, the other declared a dead zone, so we can mine it without having to worry too much about it." He looked at everyone else. "So. What do you think?"
"I think we're going to be busy." Peppy replied with a half-smile.
Fox laughed, shaking his head. "God, you're probably right about that, but that goes for most of the convoy. Those in charge of the mother ships are trying to figure out who exactly gets to be woke up first, and it's not an easy task."
"I thought they were just going to do it by profession." Fara lifted an eyebrow.
"Yeah, well, they were, but it's being contested. As usual." He sighed, ruffling the fur between his ears absently. "To make it worse, the… situation with the Rekuva has officially gone nuclear according to Pepper." He took Hope absently, licking one of her ears until she started giggling.
That got everyone looking at him. "Nice of you to share information, Fox." Falco huffed. "Like, what do you mean by 'nuclear'?"
Fox only shook his head.
Andross sat back, watching Pepper and Tordak go at it. Tordak was now the highest ranking Rekuva in the area—the asshole in charge. Andross just rolled his eyes. Obviously, that made Tordak think all of Lylat's fleet was at his service. It had taken less then twelve hours for Pepper to blow.
"Look!" Pepper snarled, jabbing Tordak squarely in the chest, canines bared. "You're taller then me, you're higher ranking then me, but let's get something straight, you overblown bastard! I am in charge of the Lylat fleet! Me, and no one else! The High command advises me, and they alone can change the orders of the fleet! You are NOT, and NEVER WILL be, my boss! Do you get me?"
Tordak made the low, scratching noise that was a Rekuva growl. "You obviously don't know how to respect your betters, animal."
"Animal? ANIMAL?!"
"Shut up. Both of you."
They stopped, staring at Andross, who had drawn his face into the cold, menacing look that had earned him system-wide fear during Lylat's war. He had been listening to this for nearly half an hour, and had had more then enough of it. His opinion on the Rekuva hadn't changed. To him, they were still to be watched from a distance, and not to be trusted. With the exception of the two on the Great Fox, of course, he had the word of the entire Star Fox team that they were decent people, and that was enough for him.
"And where do YOU get the authority to speak to me like that?" Tordak asked, quirking an antenna.
Andross slowly stood, and Pepper took a step back. This wasn't the scientist before him anymore, this was the Emperor, the leader of warriors, destroyer of armies, the striker of fear. "From the simple fact that I can destroy you without thinking about it." Andross walked over to the Rekuva and shoved him back one-handed, his face contorted in fury. "Let me tell you a story. Before the crisis which destroyed my system, I was the most feared warlord and mad scientist in Lylat." He held the Rekuva's gaze, satisfied when he saw awe and fear forming there. Good, maybe the Rekuva was learning his place in the galaxy—below himself, below his friends. "And I don't like you. At all. I don't like your race. At all. I suggest you stop treating my friends with such disrespect." With that, he turned on heel, facing Pepper, face softening, becoming human again. "Now, would you kindly continue the conversation in a more… civil tone of voice, General Pepper?"
"By all means." The General managed a sour half-smile. Well, at least the destroyer of armies was on his side this time, right? "Look, Tordak, you aren't my boss and you attacked one of my cruisers without reason."
"We had reason, General." Tordak looked away from Pepper, tugging on one of his armor plates as he recollected his cool, stunned that a Lylatian had scared him so much. "Your ship was in a territory declared closed."
"One that had been declared closed without issuing a map update." Pepper shook a finger. "We had no way of knowing, and we had a lot of reasons to go to Talar-Dan'i'. It would seem the planet holds some information that we want."
"The planet is closed."
Pepper sighed. "Look at me, Tordak." Once the Rekuva did, he continued. "Andross, would you read off what Fara's little group found on the surface of Talar-Dan'i', word-for-word."
Andross nodded once, and recited the passages from memory, precisely, enunciating clearly each word in the Rekuva's language. He had learned every alien language available to him, what else could he do? The Rekuva, already intimidated by this aging warlord, cowed, then just listened, silent, antennae twitching.
"That doesn't make any sense." Tordak said, voice honest, confused. "The phrasing is familiar, it's religious writing. But… we do not support genocide! We never have!"
"Apparently, that isn't true, Tordak." Pepper replied. "From what we can see, your race is the one that planted the bombs that took out our home." He crossed his arms. "The evidence isn't complete, but it's all we have, and a lot of people are… disturbed. The Rekuva haven't done us any harm, but it would seem that your ancestors did."
"How could we have lived through the creation of a star system?" Tordak wanted to know. "Your scientists said Lylat was created when this galaxy was! For us to have planted the bombs would be to mean that we were older then the galaxy, and no race is that old. We have only been traveling among the stars a mere five hundred years."
"Or so you've been told." Andross said. "What if it IS right, Tordak? What if everything you've been told is wrong?"
Tordak turned away restlessly. "What you found can't be right."
"Well, that's why we'd like to go back to Talar-Dan'i'. We want to know. We have to know. We moved our entire people because of those god damn bombs, Tordak. We have to know why. We have to know the motives."
"We've lost people too, Andross." Tordak replied, turning back to him, frustrated. "We lost many colonies! We lost many people! Us, the Vun, the Bylar, we've all lost people."
"Wouldn't you like to know why?" Andross made his voice gentle, hiding the rage that bit at the edges of his nerves.
"Many people are still looking for those answers, if they were on Talar-Dan'i' they would have been found."
Pepper and Andross looked at each other and shook their heads. What was true here? Was the information withheld? Forgotten? Was the entire race being manipulated?
"Regardless, we're going back to Talar-Dan'i', Tordak." Pepper replied. "And your people are not going to stop us. You can try, but you're not going to be able to. If anything we'll put Fox's group at the head of the spear, and you couldn't stop him."
"Don't remind me. That group is… savage in the way they fight. They fight like they're about to die. Why is that?"
"They fought like that because you doubted their skills. They're the best we have. It's that simple. So if I were you, I wouldn't piss them off."
Wolf yelped, sitting up in bed, hackles up as he panted, looking at the clock. Four-thirty, ship time. He had gotten about five hours sleep so far. He moaned, ruffling the fur between his ears as he tried to collect his sleep-clouded thoughts.
His most recent terror hadn't been very lifelike, but it had scared him all the same. He had seen enough torture done his subconscious could put him through it in dreams with a cold, calculating accuracy. He sent dark thoughts at the AI in his head, which replied in its normal, half-interested tone that it was not in control of his dreams. Sometimes, he doubted that. Yawning, he kicked the tangled covers off himself and wobbled to the bathroom, staring blankly at the mirror as he scratched one of his ears.
His ears were at completely askew positions from each other, mainly because the one supported with mechanics had gotten crimped during the night. He sighed and fixed it absently, clearing the fur from the tiny gears with one of his claws, nodding in satisfaction when the ear returned to its normal position. He would have to see about getting this stuff finished sometime soon—the bare mechanics got annoying at times.
After pulling on a pair of sweats, he left his room, padding down the hallway. The ship was only dimly lit, ROB usually ran all optional functions at low during the ship's night cycle, routing power to charge batteries and maintenance cycles. The lights flickered on and off as needed as he walked down the hallway, and he huffed as his pupils expanded in and out repeatedly.
Hearing low, annoyed noises, he paused, sticking his head in the den. Jesse, Bill, and Peppy were sitting around the coffee table, Jesse on the floor, bent over a chip that was on the table, studying it under magnification.
"… So, yeah, they're going into denial now." Bill said, swirling coffee in a mug and staring at it gloomily. "Utter bull."
"I don't know about you guys, but all 185 points of my IQ told me those inscriptions on the pillars were real." Jesse looked up with one eye, blocking the eye with the rig with his hand so he wouldn't see someone's face at a 200x magnification. "And those spiders were too. I've been working on 3D models of them in my programs. I'm guessing they're a few thousand years old now, so it's only given the AIs are nuts."
"No kidding." Peppy sighed. "Would you be sane after all that ROB?"
"I would have shut myself down by then." ROB replied dryly. "I just got the report from the Rekuva. They've got a blockade on Talar'Dan'i'. We're not going to be allowed near it."
"And that's all she wrote." Bill bared his canines at his coffee cup in frustration. "The high command is not going to be pleased."
"No kidding." Wolf said. "Can I come in?"
The trio glanced up. "Hi Wolf! Come on in." Jesse said with a grin, looking at him around the rig as before. "Got anything to contribute?"
"Not really, except that I knew it was bound to happen." He came in and sat, looking at the chip, which was actually part of a huge motherboard. "But what can we do? It must have been approved by the Galaxy Federation council, right? We're new, it wouldn't be good to go against them, especially since our whole race is in their debt."
"That's exactly the problem." Peppy said. "We're starting off with a debt. Will we ever be able to work it off?"
"Good point. Instead of a national debt, we have a galactical debt, or something like that." Bill said.
"I'm not sure 'galactical' is a word, but you've got the right idea." Jesse took off the head rig and yawned, showing small, sharp canines.
"But we're mercenaries. We don't have to listen." Wolf pointed out.
"I don't know about you, but I don't want a Rekuva hunter force after me. We just got the full publishing of their ship designs. Scary, scary stuff." Bill said. "Frankly, it doesn't make sense. They're so advanced in destructive technology, and yet they pledge to be humanitarians and peace-lovers."
"You must wonder if that's how it's always been." Peppy said very slowly, pressing his fingertips together and half-closing his eyes.
The rest of the group fell silent, considering this.
"I think you've just stumbled across something… intriguing." Jesse said, chewing on the end of a tool, eyes distant. "We're going to have a meeting in the morning. I think we're going to have to be very, very careful about this. Very careful indeed."