— §§ — Part 1/3 — §§ —

"And so the valiant soldiers loyal to the dream of Lord O'Donnell barrel recklessly into the heart of the enemy stronghold," the lion spoke proudly, spinning out of his seat at the helm of the transport. While adjusting his glasses, the green pigment in his eyes sparkled as he stepped down the shallow set of stairs to the hold of the ship where his four partners sat. His pale fur and nearly buzzed head became illuminated in the fluorescent light of the hold, while a smirk of confidence creased his maw.

"A death mission incarnate," he continued, pacing across the metal floor. "Dare I say a suicide mission? No, I dare not say it. What I dare say is that this mission will solidify our leader and visionary Lord O'Donnell's reign over space itself! And seeing the impossible before him, he chooses an intransigent team to defy and revolt against Corneria's tyrannical rule by spearheading the counteroffensive against his captured shelter! Oh, a scene fit for an epic indeed! A mission set to live on in history as the ultimate defiance of odds! The penultimate chapter in Lord O'Donnell's quest of power, rule, and leadership!"

"Is this really necessary?" the gray wolf on his left questioned, evidently annoyed by the lion's monologue. He looked to see the wolf's piercing blue eyes knife through the façade he tried to build.

The lion looked over with restrained exasperation, lowering his voice to an almost murmur. "Austin, have you ever heard of a pep-talk?"

"This is far from a pep-talk; this is an attempt at self-glorification."

"Oh, sure, being optimistic is grossly self-indulgent on my part."

"Look, all I'm saying is—"

"No, no, please go on about how I'm a disgusting narcissistic sack of shit."

"Ryan," Austin merely shook his head when he caught the lion's ingenuine tone. "You've actually never done this before. I'm just asking why now?"

"Why now?" the lion narrowed his eyes and smirked. "Why not now is the real question?"

"Because staring death in the face just screams monologue."

"Guys, he's ruining my moment again," the lion complained to the other side of the room, hiding his smirk pretty well.

"I'm with Austin here," the fox sitting next to the wolf mentioned, hiding under his beanie while almost biting his tongue as he spoke.

"You know it's bad when Austin and Michael agree on something," the llama's rich voice piped in from the other side of the hold.

"Yeah, why can't you just let Ryan have his fun?" the golden retriever beside him chirped in a sort of subtle nasal tone, finally looking up from the tablet in his lap.

"Ryan is capable of having his fun without the expense of us," Austin argued.

"Implying anyone is being expended aside from yourself," added Ryan with a smug undertone.

"I'd beg to differ," answered the wolf, implying the fox beside him. The fox Michael just lifted his beanie up slightly.

"Michael hasn't gotten up-in-arms as you have, and silence does tend to have affirming qualities."

"Hey, I'm right here!" Michael flicked his hands in frustration. His voice was naturally younger sounding already, but his complaint made him sound like a proper preschooler. The retriever's wheezy laugh punctured the ensuing silence.

Speaking to Austin, Ryan folded his arms and scoffed, "So let me get this straight: it's cool if you interrupt my fun, but the moment I do the same to you, it becomes a problem?"

"My fun doesn't grate the ears," commented Austin. "My idea of fun is, oh, you know, actually completing our assignment, not stroking your already inflated ego."

"How are you guys not backing me up right now?" Ryan questioned the other side of the hold.

"No, no, I'm with you here," the llama quickly replied. "I think it's perfectly reasonable to speak highly of the situation at hand, you know, given the circumstances."

"I am still stunned at the collective overreaction here," Ryan belted with the retriever giggling and wheezing in the background. "I'm the confident leader spreading said confidence to the rest of his crew with an informative and uplifting speech. I'm empowering my crew. Is there anything wrong with this picture, Austin?"

"I've said my share," the wolf calmly rebuked. "The collective overreaction is personified with yourself making a scene out of it."

"Well how else am I supposed to garner energy and determination out of my squad?"

"I think that's your own problem to figure out," Austin chuckled to himself. "The confident leader you are should be more than capable of doing so."

"I was doing so until you interrupted," deadpanned Ryan.

Austin shook his head. "Fine. I'll just keep my mouth shut."

"Mmmm," Ryan began with the tone of a spoiled middle-schooler mixed with a rather mocking and extrapolated sneer of a confident nerd as depicted by the school bully. "I'll be at the, ah, shooting range if you'd fancy to improve upon your potato aim with me instead of defiling my ears with nonsensical prose."

Austin merely rolled his eyes.

"As I was saying," Ryan turned around. "The best of the best has assembled to complete a seemingly impossible mission. A mission that holds the fate of Lord O'Donnell's entire empire!"

He took a few steps and put a hand over his chest. "Myself, Ryan, captain and commander of this multifariously talented team will be the level-headed and strongly willed head of the proverbial machine. A leader needs a plethora of skills and unparalleled quick wit to not just survive, but thrive in situations where the self-proclaimed leaders fail. No, this is not a jab at any of you."

"Hmm?" the retriever hummed, lifting his muzzle out of his screen.

"Could have fooled me," murmured Austin.

"Hey now," the bald lion gently concurred.

"I appreciate the respect," the llama grunted.

"Was that a subtweet?" Austin questioned.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" sarcasm tainted his reply so much that Austin rolled his eyes.

Ryan then turned to the llama. "Robert! Persuasion personified; the voice of an angel and the coercion of a dictator. Lord O'Donnell knew you could single-handedly sell a broken promise as if it were gospel, and here you are now, waiting to let your talent loose."

"I'm liking the intensity," Rob smiled. "What else? Say something else!"

"He's also the one responsible for eating my lunch in the break room a few days ago but, mmmm," Ryan adopted the sneering tone again, "I never bothered to, ah, indicate ownership."

"You haven't lied yet," Rob shrugged.

"Going down the list," Ryan announced triumphantly, "The dog of gold, the codebreaker wizard, the reality-checker himself," he bent over to the retriever and lowered his voice. "It's Nick, how's it going?"

The retriever Nick snickered to himself. "These nicknames aren't sticking, are they?"

"Moving right along," Ryan ignored his question, spinning around and looking the fox dead in the eyes. "Michael the fox, the reigning, defending, undisputed champion of espionage. The one that will never take that goddamn beanie off his skull. The—"

"Hey, I never insult your head, leave mine alone," Michael whined, pulling on the ends of his knit hat to force his ears flat.

"You do have a very insultable head," Rob commented with a laugh.

"Yes, I know this," Ryan sighed, rubbing his head almost self-consciously. "You guys really don't have to keep bringing it up."

"You started it," Michael reminded.

Ryan stayed quiet a moment before stepping over to the wolf. "Austin… the marksman, the gunsmith, the ace in the hole, the keen eye… the danger seeker… Promise me you won't blow something up unless I tell you."

"Is this about over?"

"This group!" Rob stepped back and outstretched his arms to the cockpit. "This group of legendary talent will not fail Lord O'Donnell. Lord O'Donnell does not deserve failure! He deserves total victory! What will the future hold for these five intrepid specialists of Lord O'Donnell's arsenal? …Today will be our answer, my friends."

Silence overtook the hold for a few moments.

"Is… is he done?"

"Austin, show Ryan a bit of respect," chirped Nick.

"I respect him when he's not melting my ears with word-vomit."

"Word-vomit?" Ryan took exception to this comment. "Listen here, as I said countless times before, I am motivating my crew to preform at their best before we enter the snake's pit. Call it a call to arms, if need be."

"Sure, fluff up your tirade all you want."

"You're just jealous Lord O'Donnell didn't put you at the head of the group."

"Look," Austin calmed down a touch. "Nerves are high, I just need to calm my mind before we start. Having you talk is actually mind-flooding me."

"Mmmm," Ryan's sneer elicited grins from the other three. "Just gimme a second to defragment my mind palace," he tilted his head and gave his trademark sneer a robotic undertone. "Mmmm, processing answer database, searching for retort."

"You seriously aren't helping."

"Hey Ryan," Nick butted in. "Isn't that Sargasso there?"

Ryan spun around to see the behemoth of a space station shrouded in the debris from the Meteo Belt. It didn't look any different from when they saw it last. Though, there was an eerie undertone about it. There was a shared sense of dread, however miniscule it might have been.

Metaphorically driving headfirst into the snake pit.

"And into the fire we go," Ryan nodded his head as he approached his center console. He scaled the steps but stopped as he got to the top. His crew were uncharacteristically quiet… They usually kept a conversation going despite the leader not being present, but the opposite situation hovered over the hold of the ship as if the shadow of doubt swallowed the life out of everyone. He exhaled and looked over his crew in the hold of the transport all literally looking up at him; silent, lost, and antsy.

Rob's eyes kept darting from person to person, trying to gauge the feel of the hold but obviously not understanding what it truly was. His smile felt forced at times, and when he realized it was, it faded away almost instantly. Nick's care-free and cool posture he prided himself on was tense and stiff as if he was learning to drive for the first time. Michael acted more jumpy and argumentative than usual, with the former being of concern to Ryan. He didn't want his saboteur flipping out at something so miniscule in hindsight. Austin usually stayed quiet in most situations, but being so adamantly vocal did open Ryan's eyes as much as he didn't want to admit it.

Seeing his crew act so fundamentally different to what he was conditioned to forced a switch on in Ryan's head. This wasn't an escort mission for Lord O'Donnell's army, nor was it a siege on a Cornerian transport fleet. This was a grenade into the heart of the machine. A fox in the coop. Nothing could really compare to how important, yet how dangerous this mission was. Ryan only tried to mask it and blow it off as a routine mission, complete with the """overbearing""" introduction and pep-talk. His crew knew, but he didn't want to think any different because that would throw off the routine. It would ruin the usual docket. The fact that this was far from the usual docket made him truly realize the gravity of the situation.

Ryan had to suppress the face-palm he wanted to give himself as he pursed his lips. "All jokes aside," he started in a much more calm and respectable demeanor. "The four of you motherfuckers have the chance to be the change you want to see in the world. You can sit back and let the mission fail, or you can help one another, play to each other's strengths, and work as a team; a unit… I want us to be more than good here. I want us to be the best goddamn squadron Lord O'Donnell has ever commissioned."

Austin nodded. "Now this is much more acceptable."

Ryan smirked. "So, with that being said… let's complete this mission the only way we know how. By… being completely incompetent and somehow managing to successfully complete our assignments. Aye?"

In amongst laughter, the four replied, "Aye!"

The communicator in the transport's dashboard crackled to life. "Transport, you are encroaching on CDF occupied territory. State your identification and intention."

Ryan cleared his throat and sat in the pilot's seat, with Nick unbuckling himself to take the copilot's seat beside him. A smug smile on his face, Ryan obliviously replied, "Oh good deity above, there is a station out here. Can I ask where I am?"

"You're approaching Sargasso Station, transport," the other end replied sternly. "State your identification and intentions."

"My crew and I escaped the fight near Sector X," Ryan replied, glancing at the screen Nick showed him. "Our main vessel was destroyed, we just barely escaped with a small shuttle. Our instruments are damaged and we're running on fumes. We just need help."

"A survivor? What's your identification?"

Ryan took his finger off the device. "Mmmm, I require adequate identification," he joked to Nick, who just wheezed in reply. Answering the controller, he said, "Callsign Northern — crew of five; myself included. We're requesting refueling, repairs, and rest. The three essential r's as I like to call them."

"Ryan," Austin called out disapprovingly.

"No, that's not one of them," Ryan smirked.

"You know what, I—"

"Your crew is not enlisted under CDF databases," the speaker replied.

"Nick," Ryan rolled his eyes at the retriever. "I thought you were good at this."

"Listen, I never promised anything," Nick retorted, getting back to work on his device. "Give me a minute."

"If I had a minute to give, I wouldn't even bother giving it to you at this rate."

"Then say something to him already! Just buy me a bit of time."

Ryan turned back to his console. "Our records aren't in yet. We were… accepted for patrol a few days ago, but the home servers were undergoing maintenance. They must not have updated them yet, unfortunately."

"Good save," Rob laughed to himself.

The controller fell silent for a few moments before responding, "Your request has been conditionally approved. We've opened Hangar Two for docking. Please report to the presiding commander when available."

"Much appreciated," Ryan replied. "I'll try to guide her in." As he closed the connection, Ryan turned around to the cabin. "Michael, break something."

"Huh?"

"Our instruments are damaged."

"No they're not."

"Mmmm, conditional approval, please disfigure distance radio transmissions," Ryan sneered.

"Uh…"

"Don't make Austin do it."

"You're telling me to willfully damage our ship?"

"I will you to damage our ship."

"It's like Michael's wet dream," Rob commented from behind the conversation.

"Hey, don't even talk to me like that," Michael unclasped his harness and approached Ryan. "So… break it."

"Absolutely."

"I don't see how this will help—"

"For goodness sake Michael, we need something broken so that they won't get suspicious!" Ryan flung his arms up in audible frustration. "This isn't going to work unless we do something! For crying out loud; I'm over here looking like the idiot telling my own crew to sabotage our ship and you're sitting there like "oh, well, we really shouldn't damage our own ship because it'll cost us money to repair;" what of it? This isn't even our ship!"

Rob couldn't contain his laugher as Michael stumbled around the cabin in distress.

"Well what do you want me to do then?" Michael retorted.

"Just, pull a wire or something," Ryan insisted. "Chew on the cords, rip out the paneling, shoot a hole in the fuselage; I honestly don't care; so long as something gets broke!"

Austin crossed his legs. "And here I was thinking I'd be the punching bag."

Michael crawled over to the control panel and looked underneath the dashboard. Ryan and Nick both flinched and fled the cockpit as a laser shot ripped through the main panel. A plume of smoke followed the two as they backed out and watched the smoke-filled cockpit with mixed emotions. Nick looked like he was on the verge of busting a lung while Ryan stared with morbid curiosity. A deep whirr sounded from within the dashboard, which slowly dulled until it fell flat. When the smoke cleared, Michael stood up and looked at his handywork, smiling with his tongue hanging from his maw.

"Michael."

"What?"

"You blew a hole through our control deck."

"You told me to break something."

"I didn't say blow a hole through our control deck." Ryan's shock turned into relatively placid anger, with his tone remaining flat and expressionless much to the surprise of the others. Nick was too busy wheezing with laughter.

"You told me to break something," Michael emphasized.

"Oh, let's just rip a hole through, like, the only useful thing we really need."

"Hey, you told me to—"

"That's because I thought you would tear out a few wires or something!"

"Then you should have been more specific!"

"I was specific!"

"You actually said you didn't care."

"Mmmm, fox, I implore you to mutilate, ah, the only functioning device Ryan could have theoretically employed in piloting operations."

"Don't even Ryan-voice at me," Michael whined back. "I did what you told me to do so don't get pissy."

"See, if it was Rob doing the dirty work," he looked over to the llama struggling to not bust out laughing. He just shook his head and deadpanned, "…Wouldn't even have to ask."

"You. Told. Me. To. Break. Something."

"Ah, yes, please tear an unfixable gash through the entirety of my workstation because I instructed you to."

"All correct."

"Has it occurred to you that I needed that control panel working to be able to dock the ship?"

"You're not landing, you're being pulled into Hangar Two right now."

Ryan looked behind him to see the hangar bay of Sargasso almost swallowing up the small transport. The steel framework within soon greeted the crew's eyes as the transport gently set down just inside of the energy field airlock.

Michael pocketed the murder weapon and stuck the tip of his tongue out. "Mmmm, I understand how docking works," he replicated Ryan's sneer, to which Nick, Rob, and Austin started to crack up. "I'm Ryan, uh, extremely Ryan voice—"

"Don't even extremely Ryan voice me," Ryan sighed. "I'll admit I was wrong this time, okay?"

"He says this time," Nick murmured.

"Yes I said this time," Ryan retorted to a wheezing Nick. "And don't you forget it." He then stepped away from the crew and approached the back bay door. "So, last call. Everyone's uniform fit?"

"My neck is cold," commented Rob, scratching at the wool on his neck.

"I… would say that's your own fault but you have no control over your biological nomenclature," snickered Ryan.

"Nomenclature refers to the name, not the specie," Nick corrected.

"Look, I'm not a scientist."

"Biologist, you mean."

"Nick."

"You said the wrong word."

"Mmmm, the words you utter are incorrect, idiotic plebeian," sneered Ryan.

"The one who holds the doctorate should know the difference better than a glorified hacker."

Ryan just sighed and continued on. After adjusting his glasses, he opened the hatch, which whined in a low, grinding whirr. Before he got out, he stopped… An idea…

"Austin."

"Oh no," the wolf sighed.

"I have an idea."

"Did it hurt?"

"Not as much as it'll hurt you."

"What do you mean?"

"Just… just trust me here. And please… don't get mad at me."

"Asking to not get mad at you should be a pretty big indicator that what you're about to do will make me mad."

"Not necessarily…"

"And how do you think that?"

"I'm just asking you to trust me here…"

"Implying I've never trusted you before?"

"This is different…"

"How much different?"

"Austin, can you stop talking?" Ryan started to get antsy himself. "Look, I'm trying to end this scene on a good cliffhanger; you're extending it too far."

"Oh… Sorry."

"Joke's ruined now."

"Well it's you're fault for being vague."

"Being vague is what garners intrigue."

"I don't think you should intrigue your team here."

"Austin you're killing the joke."

"Can't kill what's not there."

Ryan just shook his head.

"So…" Austin cocked his head. "What are you planning here anyway?"

— §§ —

Sargasso Station primarily found its niche as a shipping depot, used for long-distance shipments across the ends of Lylat. Within the bounds of the Meteo Belt, Sargasso rests in the heart of interplanetary travel lines, making it an incredibly useful depot for storage, rest, and—as of recently—a prime outpost for the Cornerian Military to be able to act upon any disturbance. Yet, as its function still remains a shipping depot, the open and spacious hangar bay housed many a cargo frigate, with crates upon crates of materials and supplies stacked as far as the high ceiling would allow. A massive claw sat attached to the high ceiling, much like a shipping depot for cargo ships on the sea.

Two Cornerian soldiers walked up to the recently docked ship and assessed their notes. This ship was an older model of the transport shuttles used to travel from one frigate to another in the overall fleet. The five aboard were not accounted for in records, but had reason to believe their allegiance. The two peered into the open transport, and after seeing nothing of note, stepped into the shuttle. A smell wreaking of an electrical fire filled the two Cornerians' noses. They stepped through the thin haze in the hold of the ship to find nobody aboard.

"How many are supposed to be here?" the smaller soldier asked?

"Control said five," the larger replied. "Check the cargo hold; they might be gathering the rest of their gear."

"These models don't have a cargo hold," he answered as his partner stepped into the cockpit area. "This is it. But there's nobody here—you sure this is the right ship?"

The larger soldier saw the burning hole in the control deck, noting that whatever hit it also fried the ship's log and the distance radio transmitter. As he looked around, he saw a note stuck to the back of the pilot's seat. Curious, he peeled it off and read the message.

Your first mistake was believing me — Northern

"Son of a bitch," the soldier growled, throwing the note away. "Call Control right now; code—"

The parked ship erupted into a fireball, expelling shards of sheet metal all throughout the hangar. The blast knocked about a dozen or so Cornerian soldiers to the ground, with a few of them being swept off their feet and thrown at least twenty feet. The fuselage blew soon after, shaking the entire station and creating a plume of dark smoke that obscured the entire area. Half of the hangar bay was engulfed in flames fueled by the resulting scatter of burning fuel.

Austin pocketed the remote as he turned to his team with a smirk.

"Austin…" Nick began. "Are… are you okay?"

"Of course I am, why?"

"The ease at which you did that was troublesome."

"Not hardly."

"Well, not necessarily troublesome, but worrisome would be a better descriptor."

"Why?"

"The fact that all five of us were on that ship not two minutes ago should be telling."

"Look, I like blowing things up," Austin defensively replied. "And Ryan gave me the okay, so…"

"I'm still fearful of your intentions."

"My intentions of…?"

Ryan stepped ahead. "Okay, listen up. As far as they are concerned, we're dead. So, while we're aboard, don't call attention to yourself, blend in as best you can, and we can continue with phase two, okay?"

"We're dead?" Michael questioned.

"Well, we're not alive," Ryan replied honestly. "We're in a thousand burning pieces out there. Hypothetically speaking, obviously."

"So hold on, let me get this straight," the fox began, his voice progressively getting angrier with every word. "You blew shit at me for destroying your control deck, when you were just going to blow the damn thing up anyway?"

Nick stifled a wheeze.

"It wasn't my idea," Ryan dismissively answered.

"You still let it happen!" whined Michael. "You knew it would happen but you still got mad at me!"

"I wasn't mad, okay? I was disappointed in your careless behavior."

"But in retrospect, you know you were making a scene out of something unimportant."

"Listen, I thought I still needed the control deck to land the ship in the hangar," Ryan explained defensively. "I admitted I was wrong earlier, okay; I'm not doing it again so soon after the first."

"MMMM, extremely Ryan voice," Michael started, instantly getting cut off by Ryan.

"Don't do the voice."

"I need to."

"I don't think you need to."

"I deserve to after this."

"Look, Michael—"

"MMMM—"

"Michael."

The fox giggled ever so slightly and murmured in a highly mocking version of Ryan's sneer, "S'cuse me, but do these glasses make my head look like an egg?"

Nick wheezed in harmony with Austin and Rob's laughs, which Ryan tried to hush down to no avail.

"Michael, look what you've done," Ryan said disappointedly.

"Worth it."

"Hey, now, guys, quit laughing for a second so I can talk to you," Ryan pleaded.

"I mean, your head does look like an egg," commented Rob.

"Irrelevant. Look, we—"

"I can't unsee it now."

"Robert."

"What? I'm stating what's already been stated."

"Michael said that as a joke."

"And the joke was funny because it had elements of truth."

Ryan sighed. "Does my head really look like an egg?"

"I was just teasing," Michael started. "Honestly—"

"It does," Nick interjected.

"Yeah," Michael quickly tacked on. "Yeah, it does."

"Well that's a piece of pointless trivia I didn't need to know," sighed Ryan. "But seriously, guys, huddle up. Time to talk phase two…"