Eternity's Redemption

Chapter One: Endings

Slippy sighed, crouched on his heels, watching the pump shake and cavitate. He had been expecting this, but it was still a distressing thing to watch. It was just another thing to put on the list of things that were slowly going to hell on the Great Fox.

He shook his head and stood, looking across the room, where all the water filters were valved out with 'Spent' written on them in red marker. He'd taken the last one offline last week, not that it mattered. There wasn't enough water in the system to even put filters into use, let alone keep the whole system viable. He'd actually taken whole systems of fire suppression offline a month ago, not that it had helped much.

And, as if to drive the final dagger into his side, the lights flickered, dimmed for several seconds, then came back. The Great Fox's core was tapering off. They were down to fifty percent viability at best, and all the generators were down. Basically this meant that at idle, the ship was struggling to put power to all the systems. Yet, all this mechanical trouble stood second to the human factor of it all.

He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets, leaving the maintenance room and kicking the door closed behind him. He had no idea what to do about any of this, and that didn't bode well. His father's company had built the ship, but he had lived in it, had memorized most of the design documents, had repaired it during the war, and he had no idea where to start in this mess.

"And?"

He looked up, and saw Peppy leaning on the wall, also in casual clothing. "Last pump on is having some serious cavitation, just this side of damage. I hate to say this, but I think I'm going to have to completely shut our water systems down."

"Fox was expecting that. The High Command still won't give us water, so do what you have to to keep this ship viable. His words."

"Now we're splitting hairs. If I let the system stagnate for any amount of time, it'll take days to bring it back up, let alone get drinking water out of it."

Peppy sighed and ducked his head, lacing his fingers across the back of his neck. "So what you're saying is, it's screwed either way. Shut it down, Slippy, at least then we don't have a water pump tearing itself apart."

"Will do. What did Fox say about the core?"

"Nothing. He isn't saying much these days. I think he's hurting."

Slippy opened his mouth to point out that Fox had basically stopped eating, but shut it without saying anything, going to a wall panel and bringing up the ship system controls, shutting down all water-related systems silently, then punching the wall next to the panel in frustration, not looking at Peppy when the older man pulled him back. "What the hell are we going to do?! I can't fix this!"

Peppy shook his head. "We'll think of something."

Fox sighed, looking over his shoulder at his docked ship then proceeding deeper into the hub station of New Lylat. It was amazing how the little things bothered you, even when you were forced into the position he was. To him, seeing his ship dark and silent sent a spike of pain through his chest. Crammed into the biggest bay the station had, the Great Fox looked crowded, trapped, bound. But being docked was the only way his crew could survive at this point.

Three months ago, Wolf had come to him and given him bad news: the kitchen was empty. Fox had already known that the water systems were low, so hearing that their resident chef was shafted just felt like icing on the cake. When he asked why Wolf hadn't requested resupply, Wolf had snorted and replied that he had, several times. Which was why Fox was hearing about it, the High Command was turning down all requests he had. The High Command wanted them to eat from the station galleys.

Alright, fine, Fox had said. The station is rationing, if they gave us anything they'd be taking food away from station personnel. Wolf had just shook his head, and Fox found out later why he had.

Waiting for the first round of crops to come about out of hydroponics, station supplies were strained, and that went for water too. There were no water treatment plants completed yet planetside. This meant that the High Command denied any and all provisions to the Great Fox itself. As far as they were concerned, the crew could walk to the nearest facilities.

Which is how Fox had ended up in the position he was.

He'd long since figured out how the station was laid out, and barely saw the corridors he walked through, eventually shouldering open a door and looking at the people gathered around a table there. "Sorry I'm late."

The High Command, the group of military personnel, scientists, and a few politicians that ran new Lylat, all looked up and stared. "I didn't think you were coming." Pepper replied slowly, looking at Fox. The young man wasn't in uniform, instead in belted jeans and a baggy hooded sweat shirt. More disconcerting was his face, which had visibly changed since the months beforehand, thin and sharp, eyes flat and dull.

"Yeah, well. I thought about blowing you guys off again but I figure there are better ways to let you know I'm pissed off." Fox came fully into the room, shoving his hands into the pockets of the sweat shirt. "Like coming and telling you about it."

"You're out of line, McCloud." Garis remarked. "Surely you can't expect us to change our entire schedule so you can have a tantrum."

"Screw you. Shut up." Fox replied flatly, and during the shocked silence, turned back to the rest of the High Command. "You know me. I'm pretty flexible, I don't issue ultimatums. So realize the position I must be in to issue one now."

"Fox, I don't know what…" Pepper started.

"That 'Shut up' went for you too, General." This got him another wave of shocked silence. "You've been refusing to resupply my crew, and my patience is out. You will give us food, and you will give us water. We are not your soldiers. We are mercenaries. You may not have money, but you have supplies."

"You really can't expect us to give you more food than the other crew of the station." Garis protested.

"You've heard my ultimatum."

"And if we don't?"

"Then I will find someone else to supply my crew. You have three hours to get me what I want."

"Fox, this isn't like you." Pepper finally said.

Fox turned his back and walked out, stopping in the doorway and looking over his shoulder. "Usually I've eaten within the last seventy-two hours." That said, he was gone.

"Oh, this is ridiculous. He's not being blocked at the galleys; he's got no reason to starve himself." Garis shook his head.

"Um… Sir?"

Those around the tables looked at the private that was standing by the wall, one of the many aides that ran errands for the command deck. "Yes, Lynx?" One of the politicians finally asked.

"Sir, I don't know how you haven't heard about this, everyone on board has been talking about it." The feline gnawed her lower lip. "He does go to the galley, he doesn't eat anything he takes. He gives it all to his girlfriend and the rest of his crew. He barely eats."

"That's completely ridiculous, they're getting rations too…"

"Yeah, but his girlfriend is breastfeeding sir and the rations don't account for it, so he gives his ration to her."

There was a long awkward silence, the group looking at each other.

"If we supply them we're giving them special treatment, which wouldn't be fair to anyone else on this station. It'd be taking food from everyone else to feed them."

"McCloud is going to let himself starve if we don't."

"That is his choice."

"This is stupid. They saved us. We owe them."

"They were paid, and can you honestly take food and water from the others on the station just to feed them?"

"How hard would it be to allow Fara Phoenix more rations? She IS an exception to the rules, she has a child barely out of infancy."

"That'd be easy but it isn't what he asked for."

"Good point. Do we assume he's asking for full resupply?"

"He's never done anything by halves before."

"So what do we do?"

"Look, we have other things to talk about. I suggest we discuss this at the end of the meeting, at that point maybe someone will have an idea."

Falco huffed, peering at Fox. "That was pretty drastic, even for you."

"Yeah, I guess so." Fox rubbed his stomach. "But I didn't have a better idea. Do you?"

"Hell, I'm proud of you boy." Falco laughed and moved, hugging Fox to his chest somewhat gingerly. "About time you stood up for yourself."

"Don't call me 'boy.'" Fox grumbled, feebly slugging Falco's stomach. "Get off."

"Yeah, yeah." Falco gave him a noogie then let go.

"I have to assume you have a plan." Wolf said, sitting on the kitchen counter. There was no food, no water, but everyone still gathered there automatically. "You wouldn't do this if you didn't have a plan."

"I sort of have a plan, but I have no idea if any of it will work." Fox sagged in the chair. "But at least it's something, and I should have done something ages ago."

"No, we should have the minute you started losing weight." Wolf replied, shaking his head. "You aren't the only person on the team, Fox."

"I keep telling him that."

Fox looked up and mustered a smile at Fara, who was in the doorway carrying Hope. "Hey, you."

"Hey, yourself." She replied, walking over and sitting next to him. "I heard about what you did, it's all over the station gossip chain."

"We are a hot topic, aren't we?" He sighed, reaching a hand out to stroke his daughter's hair and freezing when he realized that everyone was watching his shaking arm. "Oh, bite my ass ok?" He pouted and crossed his arms. "Getting all angsty over my state will not fix me!"

Everyone else in the kitchen was still sharing a silent headshake when Peppy came in, trailing Jesse. Jesse managed a smile and held up two gallons of water. "Hi, guys."

"You little devil, where did you manage to steal that from?" Wolf laughed and hopped off the counter, taking the gallons and putting them by the sink. "Drinking water?"

"Yup. I still have most of the door codes for the station, so yeah.. I did steal them." Jesse looked sheepish and sounded more so, voice cracking and squeaking as he spoke. "But I figure we'll be gone before anyone misses them."

"You don't have to come with you know. I'm not sure it's in your best interests to." Fox pointed out, now holding his daughter in his lap, smiling when she yanked on the strings of his hoodie and nearly strangled him in the process.

Jesse dug under his shirt and held up Wolf's dogtags. "Yeah I do. I fought with you guys or at least I tried. I'd rather be here and face uncertainty then stay on the hub and not know if I'll see you all again."

"Have you been huffing helium? You sound all squeaky." Falco asked, then looked baffled when Jesse promptly burst into tears. "What? What did I say?"

"I hate this I hate it I hate it I hate it!" Jesse wailed, scrubbing in fury at his eyes then going still when Wolf pulled him in, muffling his cries into Wolf's shirt and gradually calming down. Fox personally was glad for this because at least everyone's worried gaze wasn't on him anymore. After a few moments Jesse seemed more composed, sniffling and stepping back from Wolf. "I ran out of hormones a while ago. I stretched them out as long as I could, but… yeah." He stared at the ground, looking horrified with himself. "And-and-and .. no, I am NOT going to cry again not going to cry dammit… that means my hormones are all out of whack. I'm having massive mood swings that make roller coasters look like nothing."

"And I thought I was a mess. My condolences, Jesse." Fox said sourly. "To reiterate, I should have done something a while ago. When our water systems first edged into the red I should have had us move on."

"We can't blame you for not wanting to abandon New Lylat. Hell, the idea doesn't exactly sit well with me, but the anger nicely balances it out." Falco snorted. "They're screwing us, Fox."

"You don't have to tell me that. You could cut things with his hip bones right now." Fara complained.

"This." Fox held up Hope, who went "Ma?" in a confused tone. "Is worth it."

"If you don't survive to see her coherently walk I'll have Andross resurrect you so I can kill you again." Fara replied in a peevish tone.

"He can do it, too. I'm walking evidence." Wolf smiled a bit.

"Oh very funny, guys, very funny…"

"What did I miss?" Slippy asked, walking in, wiping off his hands. "We're as sorted as we can be for launch. Wherever we're going, it isn't going to be fast. Personally I wouldn't take her above eighty-five percent right now, with the state of the core."

"Any way we can fix that?"

"Assuming the same elements exist out here as in Lylat?" Slippy wanted to know. "Possibly. We don't have the equipment though, that's the problem."

"We've got problems." Peppy summed up.

"Well, hopefully we'll solve at least some of those by the end of the day." Falco said. "We just have a few hours to wait."

General Pepper sighed, taking off his hat and staring up at the bulk of the ship. He wasn't looking forward to this, but what else could he do? He put his hat back on his head, looking to the side at Lynx, who was pushing a wheelie cart. "Thank you for the help."

"No problem sir." She nodded, pushing the cart along as he walked forward and up the ramp into the docking bay.

"ROB, I know you can hear me, tell Fox I'm here." Pepper intoned, gesturing for Lynx to park the cart.

A few minutes later, Fox walked into the docking bay, leaning on the doorway and peering at him. "Didn't expect you to turn up in person."

"Well, goodbyes over radio never did set well with me, son."

Fox laughed weakly, rubbing his eyes. "I take it they aren't giving me what I want."

"Not hardly, the stubborn asses. They think you're bluffing, I know you well enough to know you wouldn't bluff about this sort of thing." He smiled a touch when Fox walked into the bay to him. "But I broke a few rules, and I got you a going away present." He nodded at the cart Lynx had.

"Oh? Whatcha get me whatcha get me?" Fox sniggered, walking to the cart and looking at the contents. "Water and food, just what I wanted."

"And you will eat some of it!" Pepper smacked him with his hat. "You better, I'm going to be grilled for this."

"Right. I'm surprised you're not upset about this."

"On the contrary, officially I'm supposed to gently lecture you about interrupting meetings and inform you that the rationing rules can probably be broken for Fara. Unofficially I say godspeed, and be safe." Pepper winked. "Shall we, Lynx?"

"Uh, no sir."

He gave her a puzzled look. "What?"

"No, sir." She turned to Fox and saluted. "Permission to come aboard sir."

"This ship's in a bad way, private, and we don't know for certain if we'll get help." Fox frowned.

Pepper, at the same time, said, "That's going AWOL, private."

"I know, sir. Both of you, sirs. But I can't stay on the station and know that Star Fox got screwed. A friend is coming by with my personal effects, if you'll allow it, my friend would like to come as well." She bit her lower lip, looking worried.

"Well, this is interesting. You and your friend, ground soldiers?"

"Trained as pilots, not that it mattered, we never got craft."

Fox stared at her, then nodded over his shoulder. "Grab some supplies and board the ship proper, private. Hope your friend shows up mighty quick." He looked at Pepper. "Unless you mind?"

"I may even forget to report this for a few hours."

The pair smiled at each other, and Pepper laughed, pulling him into a quick hug and exchanging a back slap. "Take care of yourself, General."

"Get out of here, money grubber. Do your dad proud." He tipped his hat and walked back down the ramp, stopping when a poodle carrying two bags walked in and nearly had a heart attack upon seeing her. "No, don't salute, board the ship before it leaves without you." The poodle saluted with a duffle bag and was gone up the ramp, Pepper smiling after her before entering the station, whistling.

"Alright, everyone, these are Privates Faye Dog and Miyu Lynx, respectively." Fox said, looking at the stack of supplies on the table. Water and MREs, nothing fancy but it'd certainly get the job done. "I trust you can divine which is which. Pepper got us the stuff, but the High Command isn't willing to help us."

"I thought that'd be how it went." Peppy sighed, nodding to the new recruits. "Not sure where we're going to put you as far as sleeping goes, privates."

"We can crash on med room beds if nothing else, sir."

"Fox is the only 'sir' on this ship, and even he hates being called that. If you must, call me Hare, but I really do prefer Peppy."

"We'll go through introductions and mercenary command chains later. Where's Falco and Katt?"

"They just came on board." ROB intoned.

"Alright, start sorting for launch ROB, I'm coming up to the command deck."

"Shall I ask for launch clearance?"

"Sure. Why not? They may even give it." Fox smiled a touch.

Peppy looked at him and grinned. "Good to see you back."

"I left?" Fox wanted to know, and exited the room, grabbing his uniform jacket from his room and ditching the hoodie, shrugging into the jacket as he walked, pace picking up as he approached the command deck. His body protested, he was shaking, but damn it this was business and he wasn't about to show the High Command his weakness.

Slippy was the only warm body on the deck when he got there, sitting at one of the stations with multiple screens showing various ship status readings. When Fox nodded at him, he started issuing commands to the Great Fox's core, the cruiser giving a mighty shudder then a bone-deep hum as the reactor came up to speed.

"Eighty-five percent, right?" Fox asked, taking his seat. "How's that extend our travel time?"

"On the conservative side, add an hour to any long trip."

"Good to know." Fox picked up his headset and put it on, flicking the mouth piece once. "Any response, ROB?"

"They've acknowledged and ask that we hold while they get permission to open the doors."

"Yeah, sure they are." Fox glanced at his displays and saw the core was up, and that the ship was buttoned up for departure. "I don't have a lot of patience right now." He shook his head and keyed his mic. "Great Fox, Commanding Officer speaking, requesting permission to launch from station immediately."

"This is Station Command, please hold, waiting for clearance to open your bay."

"I suggest you hurry." Fox half-covered his mic and looked at Slippy. "Can we get out of here?"

Slippy lifted what counted as his eyebrows, and raised his voice so Fox's headset would pick him up. "Without them opening the doors? Yeah, but it will be messy. We don't have room to turn which means we couldn't use the guns, which is the more neat option."

Fox grinned at him, listening to muffled rushed conversation happening at Station Command. "Great Fox CO again requesting permission to launch, and that is right now."

There was more muffled conversation, some mic feedback, then General Pepper's welcome voice came onto the air. "Permission granted, get your trouble-making ass out of here, McCloud."

Fox grinned, seeing the doors open up on his displays, and gesturing for ROB to pull them out of the bay. "Good as gone, General. Thank you."

"Good luck." Pepper dropped the headset and watched the Great Fox back out of the station, turning nearly on point and boosting away, disappearing in the shimmer-blur of warp.

"Guess this is it, then. Independent again." Falco said, slouching at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee from the MREs. "It's been so long it almost feels weird."

"It has been a few years now." Peppy replied. "Though to me, the time increment is astonishing. Hard to believe the war was that long ago."

"Some of us have easier reminders of it than others." Wolf said very quietly, holding up one hand and curling his fingers with a barely audible servo whirr.

"Lingering on the past isn't going to fix the present." Katt said briskly, setting the much-abused star chart on the table. "And to fix the present, we're going to have to prioritize some stuff."

"Believe it or not, I sort of have this handled." Fox said, leaning on one elbow that was planted on the table, other hand poking at the MREs. His stomach had nearly freaked out at the first few bites of food, but he'd kept it down, and was now eating very, very slowly. "Did this stuff always taste this good, or am I that hungry?"

"You're that hungry." Fara said, smiling a bit. "Eat it anyway."

"Um?"

The group looked at the end of table, which is where Faye and Miyu sat. They'd been directed to put their bags in the med bay for now, and had so far just stood in the background and watched. "Alright, look, I agreed to let you two board, so you need to realize a few things." Fox said, poking the MRE lasagna with some suspicion then using the side of the fork to cut it into bites. "We're a casual organization. Beyond the fact that I'm CO, there isn't really a chain of command, and I only really enact my rank when we're in battle. Everyone's on first names basis, everyone can just jump into conversation. Got it?" When both nodded, he continued. "So, what were you going to ask?"

"I was going to ask about our current heading." Faye said, fidgeting with her water cup a bit. "I can't imagine you'd jump this ship without having a heading."

"We do have a heading, one I actually decided on a while ago." Fox was quiet for a few minutes as he managed a few bites of lasagna. "We're in the curious position of having more potential allies than New Lylat does."

"We heard about something happening on the fringe, but it was really hard to get decent details." Miyu said. "Something about a confrontation with the Rekuva?"

"Yeah, they're not high on our list of people we like." Falco said. "Happily there are other intelligent races in the galaxy."

"Some of which feel they owe us." Fox smiled a bit. "Which is a good position to be in."

"The Rinaldi and the Vun." Jesse said, looking at Fox in surprise, also holding a cup of coffee. When this got a nod since Fox was chewing, Jesse sat back and did some math, then grinned. "Party Circle. Only place I can think of that's within easy jump distance that's held by either of those races."

"Spot on. I actually looked, and there are some Rinaldi planets about the same distance, but we've been to Party Circle before and met the leader there. Figure that's our best chance, at the very least I bet they'd let us touch down and put us up someplace while we figure out what the hell is going on."

"Bringing us back to the idea of a priorities list." Said Katt, tossing the star map over her shoulder.

"First one is getting us back to fully functional life support." Slippy said, popping his knuckles. "That means water, and a lot of it, plus filter system replacements for both air and water, and food. Those are really basic needs but I remember that getting this bird fully filled on Lylat was not cheap."

"Gerak on Party Circle seemed to like us though, and you have to admit it'd take one hell of a stiff government not to give a ship in need water." Fox said.

"The water's useless without the filter systems, and they'd probably have to fabricate stuff, which means I'd have to give them some of our system designs."

"I figured as such. I mean, we don't exactly have any money or currency on hand, so we may end up owing a debt."

"Bad position to be in." Falco said. "Once you're in someone's pocket, it is hard to get back out."

"Point taken, but what else can we do? We have no cash and nothing to barter." Fara said.

"Actually we probably do." Jesse said thoughtfully. "Information is always at a premium, and we're new arrivals into the galactic power structure. The question is what information they'd want."

"I don't even want to contemplate that right now." Peppy shook his head. "Sounds like the information equivalent of selling one of your kidneys."

"Alright, so say we somehow get life support back up fully with all the bells and whistles. Then what?" Wolf said, reaching out and opening one of the other MREs, reading the package. "Cornerian City Strip Steak? Yeah, right."

"It helps, but it doesn't exactly fix all our problems. I'm going to be honest with you guys, this ship is not in good shape right now. If none of this had happened, we'd be at ArSpace negotiating an overhaul." Slippy sighed, shuffling through notes he'd made. "Setting aside all the less vital issues, the core needs a refuel. I have no idea how we'd go about getting that from an alien race."

"Any other vital issues?" Fox asked.

"The ones at the top of my list are life support and core refuel. I have a lot of small issues, but… they can be dealt with." Slippy looked unhappy.

"Out with it, shortstop."

"She's old, she's feeling it. She's also overcrowded, and we're feeling that. This ship was not designed to have this many people on it full time." Slippy looked at Faye and Miyu. "Not your fault, we've technically been over capacity for a while now."

"Which is how we ran the water systems down to nothing this fast, and how we emptied the kitchen." Wolf said. "This cruiser was designed to run solo with minimal resupply, but the range it has starts to diminish as more supplies are used."

"This ship is approaching two decades and was designed to go at least five." Fox protested.

"Yeah, but she's also been the spaceship equivalent of rode hard and put away wet." Slippy replied, to a chorus of groans and protests. "Not your fault, Fox, but she's seen a lot of use, and losing a stabilizer not long ago did not help at all."

"It was replaced extremely well though." Jesse smiled a bit.

"I'm not sure what you expect me to do about a ship feeling older then she is." Fox shook his head slightly. "We focus on vital areas first, then start looking into finding some work. With all the wonderful unrest our presence has caused, surely someone in the galaxy has need of us."

"Good lord, we set the fire and now they have to hire us to put it out." Falco looked entertained. "How extremely enterprising of us."

"I am never letting you talk business with a prospective client. Ever." Fox gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Alright, we have a few hours until we arrive, so I suggest we use it to be as prepared as possible. Since Fara isn't letting me leave the kitchen, I have some work to delegate."

"As previously mentioned, you aren't the only one on the ship." Wolf smiled a touch. "What do you need us to do?"