Author's note: This twenty year old fanfic idea kept surfacing in my brain, so I decided it was time to set it free. It's set at the end of Star Fox 64. I made tiny adjustments to some of the game dialogue to create the impact I wanted.
Bring some tissues, check your G-diffuser systems and let's rock and roll.
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Big Picture
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Andross was gone. Nothing remained of him or his base beyond a smoldering ruin. Venom's toxic green atmosphere covered the mayhem like a burial shroud.
But Fox McCloud's eyes weren't focused below. He searched the stars instead, trying to piece together what happened only moments ago.
It happened so fast.
Andross' death throes were a whiteout explosion. Fox screamed in horror and threw a forearm over his eyes.
And then, a voice. Deep, gentle and firm.
"Don't ever give up, my son."
Fox's ears perked up. He lowered his arm and looked around. Orange light bathed everything, yet he saw a distant blue-white afterburner in the billowing smoke and flames. It shone gloriously with an almost supernatural glow.
"Dad?"
The other Arwing accelerated away.
"Follow me, Fox. This way."
No mistaking it. That voice belonged to James McCloud.
Fox didn't question his eyes or ears. He grabbed his throttle and fired his afterburner.
"Dad! Dad, wait!"
The other Arwing turned past a smoking corridor. Fox trailed behind it, yet never caught up. He could only match its movements and hope he didn't lose sight of it in the carnage.
James said, "Never give up. Trust your instincts."
Tears blurred Fox's eyes. He blinked to clear them.
"Dad! Slow down! I can't keep- argh!"
Another sharp turn. Smoke, rubble and sparks fell everywhere. Fox watched the other Arwing glow brighter and speed further away.
"You've become so strong, Fox."
Fox blew through the base entrance. Shockwaves chased him out. The sky grew darker and darker until blackness filled his view. He saw James' Arwing vanish like a morning star into dawn.
"Fox, you're okay!" Peppy crowed with relief.
"Woohoo! Way to go, Fox!" Slippy exclaimed excitedly.
"That's our leader!" Falco added, feigning nonchalance.
Fox barely heard his team's elated chatter. He searched the darkness again, desperate for another glimpse of his dad, yet his green eyes only reflected stars.
"What's wrong, Fox?" Peppy's concerned voice broke the recollection.
Fox squinted and took a deep breath. Maybe he imagined James' presence. Fear did weird things to people.
Still, his heart clung to the possibility that his dad was alive somewhere out there. Hope held his grief at bay for five years. Enough time to get used to James' absence, but not enough to quiet the pain of missing him.
"Nothing." Fox sighed, shaking his head. "Nothing's wrong."
The weight of maybe pulled at his soul. Either he found out once and for all right now, or he spent his lifetime wondering.
"ROB," He opened a private communication line to the robot piloting the Great Fox, "Scan the area. How many Arwings do you detect?"
"Scanning," Rob said. A moment later, he added, "Five Arwings."
"Five? Where are they?"
ROB listed the coordinates of Peppy, Falco, Slippy, Fox, and one more adrift behind Venom's dark side. A place where radio signals rarely reached.
That was all the info Fox needed. He yanked his Arwing out of formation and zoomed back towards Venom.
"Hey!" Peppy shouted through the commline, "What's gotten into you?"
"Fox! Come back!" Slippy cried.
"Yo!" Falco was the loudest. "Hey, Einstein! You're going the wrong way!"
Fox ignored his concerned teammates. Every atom in his being knew his dad helped him escape certain death. What if he needed help, too? What if he sustained damage that prevented him from making it back around the planet?
"Get back here, Fox! I swear I'm gonna- ki- your a-" Falco's signal fizzled as Fox crossed the dead zone.
Darkness swallowed everything. Venom blotted out the sun. ROB's coordinates positioned the lost Arwing almost three hundred thousand miles away from Venom's upper atmosphere. Calculations stated its slow trajectory carried it towards interstellar space.
Fox gripped his throttle and stared into the speckled white swath of the Milky Way, which spread across his visual field like sugar spilled on black velvet. Something triangular twinkled, a metal fleck barely catching sunlight as it spun in aimless circles.
The cockpit of an Arwing. Just the cockpit, no wings or nosecone.
Gulping, Fox sped towards the mutilated vessel, matched its speed and looked up into the cracked cockpit canopy. His mirror image's orange fur caught the light. James sat motionless with his black aviator sunglasses perched on his snout. Frost dotted his fur. The lack of gravity caused his arms to drift above his head. A square piece of white paper floated beside his left hand.
Painful heat rushed behind Fox's eyes. He dared to voice his hope.
"Dad..."
"-copy? F- d- you copy? Fox?" Falco's voice crackled through the silence. "Fox! Answer me, damn it!"
"Falco, tell ROB to bring the Great Fox around, pronto!"
"What gives?"
"Just do it!"
.o
Fox almost disembarked his Arwing before ROB pressurized the docking bay and switched on the artificial gravity generators. He clambered onto James' ruined Arwing, nearly ripping the canopy clean off in his haste to see inside.
James slumped to the side, his hands now laying on his Arwing's controls as if he fell asleep while flying. Melting ice slicked his fur down. His mouth had fallen open, revealing a dry, gray tongue.
Fox felt James' neck for a pulse. There wasn't one. He laid his dad supine on Great Fox's metal floor, planted the heel of his left hand in the middle of his chest, pressed his right hand against the back of his left, locked his elbows and pushed downward hard enough to cave his chest in.
"One, two, three, four," Fox counted each compression. He cupped his hands around James' snout to close his mouth and blew air into his nose. James' chest rose and fell.
One breath. Two breaths.
Fox kept his cheek near James' nose and pressed two fingers against his throat. Nothing. No pulse. No spontaneous breathing. He repositioned himself and performed more chest compressions.
"One, two, three, four! Dad! C'mon! One, two, three, four..."
He remembered being small enough to sit on his dad's knee and ask him about his adventures in space.
"Daddy, tell me about the asteroids!"
He remembered how his dad used to scoop him up in big, strong hugs every time he came home.
"C'mere, squirt! Ahh, you're getting so big."
He remembered sitting on his dad's lap in an Arwing cockpit while they chased a brilliant Papetoon sunset.
"Daddy, how do you do a barrel roll?"
"See these buttons? Push 'em twice, and I'll move the throttle. We'll do it together. Ready? Go!"
"Weeeeee!"
He remembered watching his dad clasp his sunglasses between his hands, slide down the hospital wall to sit on the floor and heave with painful sobs.
"Dad? Is mom okay?"
"S-She... Fox, she's g-gone."
He remembered the awesome hover bike his dad gave him for his thirteenth birthday.
"Here you go, squirt. Happy birthday!"
"Dad! For real? This is so cool!"
He remembered how his dad embarrassed him on his first day at the Academy by scooping him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carrying him upstairs to his dorm room.
"Dad, I'm too old for this!"
"Nah, you're never too old for your old man. I'm doing what my dad did to me. Hey, everybody, take a look! I'm delivering the next McCloud to your ranks!"
"Argh! Dad! No!"
"Argh! Fox! Yes!"
He remembered the hug his dad gave him after his first solo flight in an Arwing. That was last hug they shared, and the last words they exchanged.
"Nice flying up there, Fox."
"Dad! You made it!"
"I wouldn't miss this for the world! C'mere."
"I- hey! Dad, no, no! Dad, not the hugging! Gah! This is embarrassing!"
"Mmhmm. From this point on, it's my job to be embarrassing."
"Ugh, really?"
"Heh, yeah. But I can't do it today. I have to take off. I delayed to watch you fly."
"You're so... Tch, never mind. I'm glad you're here."
"Me, too. You're going to be one of the best, Fox. I can feel it. I- uh...I'm getting pinged. Time to go. Love you, squirt."
"Bye, dad. Love you, too."
The face that smiled at Fox now looked limp and deceptively peaceful.
Footsteps approached from all sides. Slippy gasped in horror. Falco clicked his tongue. Peppy knelt at Fox's side.
"Fox...he's-"
"Shut up! One, two, three, four." Fox grunted through clenched teeth, "Space is cold. Maybe he'll wake up when he gets warm enough! One, two, three, four. Cold preserves people! One, two, three, four..."
Not for five years. It was totally irrational. But hope became blinding.
Fox's ears pinned back against his head. He kept applying chest compressions while ignoring the burning fatigue in his hips, shoulders and back.
"One, two, three, four..."
"Fox, stop!" Slippy wailed and turned away. "You can't-"
Falco's solemn voice cut him off. "Slippy, let him try."
"One, two, three, four... C'mon, take a breath! One, two, three, four..."
"Fox-"
"No!" Fox snarled.
Peppy reached past Fox's shoulder and took the sunglasses off James' face. James' eyes were closed. They looked unnaturally flat due to a lack of blood pressure.
"Fox, the back end of his cockpit was blown out. His Arwing decompressed." Peppy's voice cracked under the weight of realization. "The vacuum of space preserved his body, but that's all it did. He's dead, Fox."
James would've had the sense to exhale instead of hold his breath, which saved him from ruptured lungs.
But exposure to a vacuum robbed someone of consciousness in fifteen seconds. Fifteen seconds was a deceptively long time. Long enough to feel the pain of exposed body parts swelling due to gas vapors forming in the tissues. Long enough for rapid fluid evaporation to render a nose and mouth freezing cold. Long enough to feel ears pop. Long enough to notice gasses in the intestines expanding. Long enough to gasp with nothing to inhale. Long enough to feel confused and euphoric before finally passing out.
It took ninety seconds to die in a vacuum. Loss of consciousness came mercifully before the worst happened. Sweat, saliva, tears, lymph, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, aqueous humor and vitreous humor turned into froth because space lowered the boiling point of liquids. Oxygen bubbles formed in the bloodstream, followed by nitrogen. Blood pressure dropped as venous pressure exceeded arterial pressure. Small blood vessels ruptured. Then the heart stopped beating, and the anoxic brain ceased all function.
Fox put the gruesome details out of his mind. That didn't happen to James. He shoved Peppy back and resumed compressions.
"One, two, three, four- c'mon, dad!"
Another rescue breath.
"Breathe!"
More compressions.
"One, two, three, four...breathe!"
More rescue breaths.
"Breathe! Dad! Breathe! You have to breathe!"
More compressions.
"One, two, three, four... You said to never give up, to trust my instincts!" Tears skittered along Fox's snout. His lips quivered and his nose ran. "Dad, please! One, two, three, four..."
A rib broke under his palm. His voice gurgled hoarsely, "Dad, you can't go out like this! One, two, three, four..."
He was sobbing too hard to give a proper rescue breath, but he tried anyway. His trembling fingers sought a pulse and his cheek waited for the faintest exhale.
"Dad!" Fox grabbed James' shoulders and shook him. "Dad, c'mon! Dad, please! Dad, please!"
Tears soaked his cheeks. He sniffed, squeezed his eyes shut and tried compressions again, once more ignoring his fatigue.
Nothing.
No breath.
No pulse.
No life.
Just stillness.
Fox's strength gave out. Grief, a grief put on hold for five years, crashed through him like a tsunami. He clutched James against his chest and bawled inconsolably into his shoulder. Both his fists clenched around handfuls of his dad's silver flight jacket material, wrinkling it.
Peppy quietly placed something white on the floor next to Fox. The paper that was floating in James' Arwing. He squeezed Fox's shoulder sympathetically, let out a quiet sniffle of his own and led the others away.
"Let's give him some time alone."
"But, Peppy, he's-"
"Slippy, he needs this."
Fox didn't hear them leave, and he wouldn't have cared if they stayed.
"D-Daddy, stay." The childish words squeaked out from the depths of his soul. He was three years old again, begging his dad not to leave home.
"Daddy! It hurts! Daddy, help me!" Now he was seven and limping to his dad with a skinned knee.
"Dad! It's not fair!" He was eleven, listening to his dad tell him a car wreck killed his mom.
"Not my dad. No. That's bullshit, Peppy! Bullshit!" His words at twenty-four, just after Peppy told him Andross killed his dad.
"Oh, dad. This isn't fair." He whispered, sniffling. Now he was his current age of twenty-nine, and coming to terms with what lay before him.
Fox took one hand off James' coat to pick up the paper Peppy left behind. A photo of his beaming mom, Vixy, looking exhausted as she reclined in a hospital bed with a yellow bundle cradled against her chest. Fox's tiny snout poked above the blankets. James, who held the camera, leaned into the shot with a silly grin and a thumb's up.
Seeing it sent pain ricocheting through Fox's heart. James kept that photo in the breast pocket of his flight jacket after Vixy died. Family belonged close to the heart, he used to say. His pocket had a flap with a snap. The photo wouldn't have drifted loose in his cockpit like it did unless he took it out and held it before he died.
Fox pictured James slipping the photo out of his breast pocket, looking at it and closing his eyes for the last time. Family, so close, yet so far. He died alone in the cold with only a photo as comfort.
Tears slicked Fox's fur against his cheeks. He could barely breathe through his nose. His head pounded from crying so hard.
Mom and me...we were his last thoughts.
That realization offered the tiniest solace. Enough to bear the misery.
Fox's tears began to wane. James' lifeless body was heavy in his arms. He smoothed his tousled fur, kissed his cheek and murmured in his ear, "I love you, dad."
At last, he found the courage to lay James down, tuck the family photograph into his breast pocket and snap the flap shut.
James' black aviator sunglasses were still on the floor next to his head. Fox reached into his coat's side pocket and retrieved his own rarely-worn pair. He perched them on James' face and slid the pair on the floor into his pocket. Taking the photograph didn't feel right, but this did.
Fox arranged James' body into a more dignified position of repose, straightened out his rumpled clothing and got up to call in his friends.
.o
Late morning sun burned down from the clear blue skies. Spring had begun on Corneria's northern hemisphere. Everything capable of blooming was in full splendor.
General Pepper pulled all the stops for James' funeral service. Fox paid little attention to it until the final salute. Watching his dad's silver coffin descend into a grave next to his mom's was an ending he never wanted to face. It felt like seeing a dream shatter. He stood at rigid attention, his eyes concealed by the aviator sunglasses he put on to hide his tears.
Discovering James' body turned his ultimate fate into painful finality. Letting go of the hope for his survival was as agonizing as a broken heart.
A hand clasped Fox's shoulder. Peppy flopped his ears down over his eyes and pressed a handkerchief to his nose as he made every effort to keep his weeping quiet. Fox slid his arm around the old rabbit's shoulders and pulled him closer.
"It's not your fault, Peppy." He swallowed hard, sympathizing with Peppy's grief. "I checked his flight record. Pigma shot him down. Andross chewed his Arwing up and spit the pieces out into space. There was nothing anybody could do to save him. Telling you to get out of there was the best shot he had."
Peppy's ears moved off his puffy, teary eyes. "I left hoping for the same thing you did- that he was coming back."
"He did. Just not how we wanted him to."
"Mmph. Yeah." Peppy sniffed.
Fox didn't regret listening to the flight recording. He needed to hear James' last words, and part of him hoped playing the recording reached back in time to let his dad know he wasn't alone.
"They'll never see us coming from the rear. Pigma, Peppy, check your G-diffuser systems."
"Pigma here, I'm good."
"This is Peppy, all systems go."
"Great. Let's put an end to the- Pigma! What are you doing? Get back in formation!"
"Sorry, James, somebody gave me a better deal."
"Pigma! You little bastard! Argh! My wing's gone!"
"Peppy! Retreat!"
"Ha, ha! He won't live to get away."
"Wanna bet? You- gah! I'm losing altitude!"
"Jimmy!"
"Ha, ha, ha! Here comes my new boss! He pays way better than General Pepper! Ooh, I bet you're shaking in your boots right now!"
"You swine! You don't scare me!"
"Peppy! Go! Get the hell out of here!"
"Damn it, Jimmy! I'm not leaving y-"
"You have to! Tell General Pepper that Andross is on the move! And Fox...he'll be all alone. You have to take care of him!"
"Jimmy!"
"I'll cover you. Go! Now!"
"Hmph. That old rabbit's Arwing won't make it back to Corneria in that state. That leaves just you, James McCloud, the best of the best. I'm gonna enjoy watching you die!"
"Heh, heh, is that supposed to scare me? I'm not afraid to die, Pigma."
"You'll change your mind in a few minutes! Andross going to kill you and kill your son on his way to ruling the rest of Lylat! It's over, James!"
"Let him try! You're not gonna win this! You! Ape-face! You're going to die!"
"Me? No, no, no, James McCloud, it is you who is going to die."
"Bring it on! You're not winning this war! Fox will finish what I started! You got that, Ape-face? It's not over!"
Fox had fulfilled his father's proclamation. Now it was over. He watched Andross and his evil turn into a smoking, flaming heap.
Lylat was safe again.
The war left Fox an orphan. Vengeance felt emptier than the voids between galactic superclusters.
Something James would've said crashed into the tears welling in Fox's eyes.
"Don't forget the big picture, Fox. Yeah, you're an orphan now, and I know it hurts, but there are billions of people who aren't going through this because you didn't give up. You took a big one for Lylat, squirt, never forget that."
That gave him the wherewithal to smile and squeeze Peppy's shoulder. "You okay, Peppy?"
"I'm fine! I just need a minute to..." Peppy turned away and blew his nose into the white handkerchief. "A funeral and a party on the same day. I'm getting too old for this."
"Tch, tell me about it," groused Falco. The feathers he tried to slick back bristled atop his head. "It feels like we're dancing on the guy's grave!"
"He might like that," Fox said back. He poked his fingers behind his sunglasses to wipe the tears from his eyes.
"Guys!" Slippy called across the graveyard, "It's time for the Arwing salute!"
Fox took a deep breath. "Do a missing man formation. I'll stay here."
Slippy blinked twice and wrung his hands. "You're not gonna fly for your dad?"
"Not for this."
Falco side-eyed him. "Are you sure, Fox?"
"Yeah. You, Slippy and Peppy go on."
Fox stayed at the foot of the grave as the other military personnel broke apart into their proper march formations. Tears slid silently from beneath his sunglasses. He didn't wipe them away until the shadows of three Arwings crossed James' grave.
.o
Corneria city remained standing despite the damage caused by Andross' forces. Its citizens were out in droves to cheer on the four Arwings flying alongside Great Fox.
Now Fox saw the big picture.
Streamers and fireworks dotted the evening air, lighting the many faces of the people he saved. His painful loss seemed paltry compared to the Lylat system's new lease on life.
"That's a lot of people!" Slippy said.
"You're part of the reason they're here," Fox remarked. "Falco, Peppy, you, too."
"Aw, shucks. I appreciate that." Peppy chuckled good-naturedly.
"Fox," Slippy said softly, "Thanks."
Falco sighed loudly into his commline, causing static. "You killed Andross, Fox."
"Yeah, but you guys got me close enough to do the job."
The celebration below reached a frenzy. Orange light from the sunset gleamed brilliantly off the sides of buildings.
Just above the clouds, Fox saw a distant Arwing glowing like fire in the twilight. He raised his hand in a wave even though the other vessel was too far away to see it.
The Arwing twirled in a barrel roll and faded away like breath on a mirror.
"Bye, dad," whispered Fox.
James had moved on. Fox decided he should, too.
He focused straight ahead and grasped his throttle. His reflection gazed back from the inside of his canopy. The black aviator sunglasses turned him into a mirror image of his father.
Though the pain of goodbye knotted itself in his throat, he found the courage to look at the horizon beyond it.
"Peppy, what are the magic words?"
"I thought you'd never ask." Peppy cleared his throat. "Everybody, do a barrel roll!"
Slippy's uproarious laughter crackled through everybody's commlines.
"Oh, geez!" Falco groaned over Slippy's mirth.
This is for you, dad.
Fox and the rest of the Star Fox team spun their Arwings, swooped low enough to hear the cheering crowd and sped off into the bright orange sunset.