Operation: Recovery
Chapter 2: It's Quiet, Too Quiet
I don't remember falling asleep that night but I do remember be awoken by the alarm the next morning and falling out of my bunk. It took me a minute to recover before I followed everyone else rushing out of the barracks heading for the flight deck. The sounds of the engineers making last minute checks on the arwings hit me long before I made my way into the massive, chaotic hub that is the hangar. The hangar was divided into three sections (one for each unit) designated by colored lights; yellow for my unit, orange for dingo, and red for jackal. Three rows of five arwings, alpha squad in front followed by beta and omega, sat in the middle of each section. On the same side of the hangar as Coyote Unit was a barrier that kept the air inside the ship in but allowed arwings to leave. I ran to the far end of the hangar where our ships were and stopped an engineer checking the thruster systems on one of my unit's ships.
"Are we good to go?" I asked him. He gave me a thumbs up and I ran over to my arwing in the middle of the back row and jumped up on the wing. I grabbed my helmet out of the cockpit, tossed it on my head, and hopped down into my seat. I watched the rest of my squad get in their arwings before activating the comms unit in my helmet.
"Everyone here?" I asked.
"Yup!" Vivian said, turning towards me and giving me a thumbs up.
"I'm here." Duke said.
"Where's Chuckles?" I asked.
"Just running a little late captain." The Hyena added. I turned to look at his ship, to my left past Vivian's, and watched him climb into it.
"You sure you're okay to fly?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I just bruised something or something." He said. "Course I'm not lucky enough to actually break something." I heard him mutter. We had to wait a minute before the rest of Coyote Unit got into their ships and Major Jackson voice broke in over the comms channel.
"Coyote Unit! Report in!" He shouted. One by one everyone responded. "All right! Let's do this!" He added after Duke responded. Our arwing's canopies closed and the engineers on the deck ran to safety as the magnetic locks holding the arwings down disengaged. Row by row the arwings launched into space. I followed the rest of my unit as it veered right towards a group of three ships the same dull brown as the ringed planet behind them and we took up position around the last one in the convoy; Alpha squad above, Beta on the ships right and Omega on the left.
"Remember! We need to shoot any gumball sized meteorites!" Vivian said, bursting in over the comms channel.
"Take this seriously Lieutenant." Jackson responded. "Things could change at any moment; so keep your guard up!"
For once though, Major Jackson was wrong. To my surprise (as well as everyone else I'm pretty sure) nothing happened. With Titania far behind us, Brigadier General Grimmsley's voice crackled in our ears giving us our updated orders.
"I'm tempted to keep you all out there." He said. Everyone gave a collective groan, and Grimmsley tried his best to ignore it. "I said I'm tempted. Since the past attacks have all happened within a short range of Titania I have no reason to suspect an attack out here in the middle of nowhere. So, I'm recalling all units' Beta and Omega squads for now. Alpha squad's in all units are to remain flying above their designated target for another four hours at which point beta squad will take their place. Four hours after that, Omega squad's will take the place of the Beta squads, followed by the Alpha squads again four hours after that. I want whatever unit's due to go out on immediate stand-by; that means be able to hop in your arwing and get out to your target in two minutes Beta squads. Omega squads and all squads not on immediate stand-by should be able to launch in five minutes. Grimmsley out."
My squad flew under our ship and followed Beta along the right side of the first two ships in the convoy and into the hangar on the carrier. As we landed and our canopies popped open, Coyote Unit's engineers rushed over to inspect the ships and refuel them. Beta squad made their way over to the side of the hangar where they sat down with their backs to the wall. I hopped out of my arwing and, along with the rest of my squad, returned to the barracks in the hopes of getting even a few more hours of sleep. None of us could, of course, with the threat of a raid hanging over our heads so we lay down and stared up at the ceiling.
"Do you think we just got lucky?" Vivian asked. "I mean, I guess I wasn't expecting anything but still…"
"Maybe they saw us and turned tail." Duke said. "I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to tangle with us."
"Yeah right." Vivian said. "Pirate's are stupid and desperate. I don't think a handful of fighters would stop them."
"So…?" Chuckles asked. "Lucky?" I took a moment to look at Chuckles.
"With a good luck charm like you in our squad?" I said, smiling. "No way."
"Hey!" He said, sitting up and glaring at me. He sighed. "Maybe they're watching us and they were just waiting for a moment when we dropped our defenses."
"So now?" Vivian asked. Chuckles thought about it for a moment but then shook his head.
"No, not yet." He said, thinking. "We've got three squads waiting to lift off and engage at any moment. They'd wait for a little bit longer or, even better; wait until we're changing guards. With one squad leaving the ship, and one squad not quite there, it would be the perfect time to hit us."
"Yeah, but even then we'd be able to see them a mile away so long as our carrier's radar's online." I said. "Even if they wait until we're changing shifts and try to hit us then, we'd see them coming and blast them out of the sky." We all went silent for a minute while we thought it over.
"I guess all we can do is wait and see." Vivian said half shrugging. Everyone nodded in agreement before going back to failing to sleep.
Everyone's experienced boredom in their life but nothing like what pilots feel in moments like the one we were in. It's not that there's nothing to do, it's that you have to do nothing for hours. Nobody bothers to talk because the alarm could go off at any moment, cutting off whatever you were going to say. No point in going to go get something to eat either since the same thing could happen. So, you sit, and you wait for four hours until it's your turn to go sit in the hangar, or fly escort, or back to your bunk, with those little changes being the only thing to happen. This went on for two days. At some point exhaustion took over and I actually managed to fall asleep for a few hours (not all of those being in my bunk) and food was brought to the men in the hangar so we did get to eat. Someone also had the common sense to lug some chairs into the hangar for the pilots to sit on, making their waiting a little less miserable. It wasn't until about halfway through the third day that the Omega squads were treated to a change in scenery.
"…aaand if you look off to your left you can see beautiful Sector X, and the blue-green nebula that gives it its distinctive name." Chuckles said over the comms channel. "For a view of the scattered remains of Andross's once secret base, please just look all around you."
"What happened here?" Vivian asked.
"You don't know?" Duke asked. Vivian shook her head and, realizing Duke couldn't see her, quickly added,
"No."
"Apparently, Andross built some sort of super weapon and it went rouge." Duke said. "It ripped every square inch of the base to shreds before Star Fox showed up and took it out." We all turned our attentions forward as the sound of the carriers' batteries firing hit us.
"There're huge pieces of debris blocking our path." Grimmsley's voice said in our ears. "We can't go around this before anyone out there suggests it. We're already waist deep in it, the amount of time and energy it would take to back all four ships out of this junk before getting back on track isn't worth it. I want all active squads to blast any debris we miss. If anything larger than your arwing hits the ship your guarding it'll take out its shields and any hit after that'll tear right through their thin hulls. That's all for now." There were a few awkward moments of silence after that before Duke asked,
"Whose bright idea was it to go through again?" I was about to respond when something caught my eye; a large chunk of metal floated past my ship and I had to slam on the brakes to stop myself from crashing into it. "Hey captain! There's floating junk out here you uh, might want to watch out for it." I was about to say something when something else cut me off, something much worse than random space junk. An explosion above the ship in front of us, the Seeker, made everyone, not just my squad but the other Omega squads as well, turn.
"Dingo Unit! Report! What the hell just happened?" Grimmsley's voice said over the comms channel.
"We're not sure sir." The captain of Dingo Unit's Omega Squad responded. "It happened behind us. Should we—"A second explosion, this time next to the Curiosity, the ship directly behind the carrier, caused everyone to stop but it was the next two words over the radio that sent everyone into action,
"Enemy fighters!" Someone in Jackal Unit shouted. "They're hiding in the junk!" As if on cue, fighters poured out from behind every decent sized piece of junk in a hundred mile radius and charged at us.
"An ambush?!" Grimmsley shouted. "Damn it! Launch all fighters! I repeat, launch all fighters! We're under attack!" I watched a group of five fighters fly past the front of the ship and veer up and to the right before I finally decided what to do.
"All right Omega, open fire! Keep those pirates away from the Discovery and watch your tails! I don't want to have to explain to Grimmsley that we're down two pilots." I shouted, jetting after them.
"You got it!" Vivian shouted, rolling left and chasing a group of five fighters that'd just flown under the ship. I watched Duke roll away to the right before turning my attention to group I was chasing.
I took aim at the middle most ship and fired several shots off. Every shot missed though, and I watched as the fighters to the left and right of the one I'd been shooting at broke away. I took aim again and let another burst of shots go, but watched as my target rolled to the right and dodged everything I threw at it again. I swore and readied myself again. I pressed down the trigger to fire my arwing's laser and held it down, giving it a moment to charge. I waited a moment for my ship's computer to lock-on before releasing the trigger. I watched with a smile as a ball of green energy shot out from the front my arwing and flew across the short distance between me and the ship I was chasing. He tried to roll again, hoping to dodge death a second time, but it was no good; as it hit his ship it caught fire and moments later, exploded. I went to turn back towards the ship but reconsidered it as a hail of enemy fire came raining down on me. I rolled, managing to deflect most of the fire and slamming on the brakes to dodge the rest. I was hoping my pursuers would fly past me, but they all slammed on the brakes as well. Resorting to the last trick in my book, I slammed on the accelerator and launched myself into a summersault over the ships perusing me. I landed behind them and managed to take out two of them with shots from my lasers before they had any chance of reacting. The last of the ships must've realized how much trouble he was in, and he tried to veer hard to the right but I had a charge shot ready half a second later and I took him out. I smiled for a second before several shots from behind hit me and I remembered that there'd been four ships chasing me and I'd only managed to shoot down three. I was about to try another summersault when Vivian's voice broke in over the comms channel,
"I've got your back!" She shouted, appearing out of nowhere and blasting my pursuer out of the sky.
"I owe you one." I said.
"You owe me a lot more than that." She said smiling.
"Hey! Where are you guys?" Chuckles asked. "Am I seriously the only one guarding this ship? There're a good twenty fighters swarming around it and I can't handle them all by myself!" I looked around for a moment and saw the convoy farther away than I remembered it being. I considered cursing my own stupidity for a minute but figured it'd be better if I turned around and flew back towards the ship I was supposed to be guarding.
"Hang in there Chuckles," I said, doing a u-turn, "I'm on my way."
Shortly after I got back to the Discovery things went horribly wrong. The Alpha squads had been half asleep and were late to deploy. Enemy fighters had begun attacking the carrier in force and every Alpha squad fighter had had to be deployed around the carrier to fight off the attackers since all of the carrier's guns were focused on blasting scrap which posed just as big of a threat to the ships as the raiders. Since the Alpha's had been so slow to deploy, the Beta's were still stuck in the Savannah and wouldn't be deployed for another ten minutes at least. Even then, there was no guarantee that a majority of them wouldn't be deployed to protect the carrier instead of the other ships. In short, the Omega's were stuck trying to defend the scientists' ships in one of the most uneven dogfights in any of our lives.
I decided not to go chasing anymore fighter squads off into the junk and instead focused on, at the very least, chasing them away. Over the next hour I saw Duke chase two wounded squads of enemy fighters into the junk and each time he came back without a scratch. Chuckles and I tried our best to keep everything away from the bridge of the Discovery, knowing that one well placed shot would not only tear through the vessel's paper-thin shields but the glass on the observation deck as well. No one from Coyote's Beta squad ever showed up, leaving the Discovery with only four defending fighters. Reports from the front of the convoy never got any better; somehow the enemy's fighters kept coming no matter how many we shot down. After another half an hour of hard fighting though, things suddenly calmed down. The call went out that we'd managed to beat off the enemy and that they were retreating and, to make things even better, we were almost clear of the wreckage.
Too bad almost doesn't count in dogfights and things that are too good to be true usually are. Things were quiet one moment; the last of the enemy fleeing into the junk then an explosion portside of the carrier caught everyone off guard. In the second we had to think about it we thought maybe a careless fighter and flown into something or maybe it was a mine left over from Andross's old base. The next second though a bright red bolt of plasma cut through the space where the junk had just been and hit our carrier. Sparks flew off it as the Savannah's shields struggled to cope with the damage.
"What was that?" Chuckles asked. A moment later someone answered his question.
"Brigadier General Grimmsley! It's an enemy frigate!" The carrier's radarman said.
"Of course it is." Grimmsley said. "Why didn't we pick it up before?"
"With all the debris floating around out there it's almost impossible to tell the junk apart from everything else." The radarman said.
"How much longer until we're out of this junk?" Grimmsley asked.
"At least ten minutes sir." Someone else on the carrier said.
"Great." Grimmsley said, sighing. "For anyone out there who missed that, we're sitting ducks at the moment. Our guns need to keep focused forward so that means it's up to you to at the very least disable the guns on that thing and soon. If they score another direct hit there's no telling whether we'll survive it. I want all power from any system that's not the engines, life support or our guns rerouted into our shields! That includes communications."
"But sir—"
"Do it!" As the radio went silent more enemy fighters then we'd care to see swarmed out of the junk and flew straight at our convoy. Major Jackson quickly took control of the situation.
"You heard him! It's up to us! I want all available fighters out here! We'll need every man we have if we're going to pull this off! I want every available Beta squad out here defending the carrier! Alpha squads for Dingo and Jackal, go reinforce your Omega squads. My squad keep me covered; I'm going after that gun."
"What about us?" Chuckles asked.
"Guess we're stuck high and dry." I said shrugging.
"Incoming!" Duke said as the first of the fighters reached us.
"All right! Chuckles, you and I'll keep this thing's bridge covered. Duke, Vivian, I want you to play offense; give anyone who gets too close a good reason not to come back. Got it?"
"You got it captain!" Duke said, angling his ship towards a group of fighters.
"I saw 'em first!" Vivian shouted, pressing down on her ships throttle and passing Duke. I'm sure Duke would've complained if a second, larger group of fighters had moments later flown within range. As he chased them off into the junk more and more fighters (no doubt drawn in by the fact that only two arwings were guarding one of their targets) came diving towards me and Chuckles. We managed to stop most of them from damaging the Discovery when, in a sudden act of desperation, enemy fighters began diving into the scientist ship as we shot them full of holes.
"Damn it!" I shouted as another enemy fighter crashed into the hull.
"We can't take another hit!" Someone on board the Discovery said through the comms channel. "Our shields are dangerously low!" I switched the channel before shouting into my helmet's mike,
"This is Coyote's Omega squad! We're in danger of losing our ship! Can anyone out there assist?"
"This is Dingo's Alpha pack leader; that's a negative we're cutting it too close to spare any of our men."
"This is Jackal's Beta squad captain; we're a no-go on reinforcements as well!"
"Damn it!" I shouted back. "If we don't get relief soon—"I had to stop as a group of enemy fighters suddenly appeared on my tail. I quickly tried to shake them, slowing down, speeding up, I even tried to summersault over them but somehow they stayed behind me. Their shots rained down on my arwing with deadly accuracy and no amount of rolling would keep every shot from hitting me. I looked desperately towards the junk, thinking maybe if nothing else I could lose them, but I wasn't about to leave the scientists on that ship almost defenseless.
"In over your head again huh?" Vivian said. "I've got you covered!" I watched, speechless, as her ship came flying up at the six ships behind me and blasted them all out of the sky. Her ship streaked through the left over junk before she joined me on my wing.
"How many do I owe you now?" I asked, looking over at her.
"Too many." She said smiling. I sighed, shaking my head, before asking over the comms channel,
"How soon can you get back here Duke? We need to rethink our strategy." There was a moment of silence before Duke responded.
"That'll be a problem captain." He said. I was about to ask when his ship came into view. It was in bad shape; his canopy was charred from laser blasts, his wings were full of holes, and his thrusters were flickering on and off. He pulled up on my right and I had to fight the urge to cringe; other than his ship's physical damage the controls inside the cockpit were sparking.
"What happened?" I asked.
"You saw me chase that second group off into the junk right?" He asked. I nodded. "Turns out they had friends out there and, let's just say they weren't so easy to get rid of." I looked his ship over once before, with a sigh and a shake of my head, I said,
"There's no way I'm going to let you stay out here. Chuckles!"
"Behind you Captain!" He responded.
"I want you to escort Duke back to the Savannah for repairs." I said. "Me and Vivian'll try and—"
"If it's all the same to you Captain," Duke said, interrupting me, "I'd rather be out here flying on one wing then bunked just because my ship's a little beat up."
"And if it's all the same to you Duke I'd like to finish this mission with no K.I.A.'s." I said. "So I'll be clear; I'm ordering you to return to the carrier with Chuckles flying escort. If you try anything I will shoot out your engines and push you back to the carrier, got it?" Duke groaned and, after a moment, nodded. I watched Duke fly away with Chuckles just behind him before turning my attention back to defending the ship. I kept my eyes peeled but quickly noticed a lack of fighters.
"Where'd they all go?" I asked Vivian. She looked around for a moment before drawing my attention to the enemy carrier off in the distance.
"Maybe they all fell back to defend their ship?" She asked. I looked and what she said made sense; even from as far away as we were I could see lasers flying off in every direction as fighters tried desperately to keep something from getting to their carrier. Suddenly it all stopped and a loud, desperate shout filled my ears.
"They're firing it! They're firing it! Get out of that gun's sights!" I watched as the massive gun on top of the carrier begun to glow red before, a few seconds later, a bright red bolt of energy shot out of it. It quickly made its way across the space where the fighters had just been before eating its way through what little scrap was in its way and finally passing just over the top of our carrier.
"Everyone okay?" I asked. I got varying answers from the men and women guarding the other ships, but I didn't hear from the two people in my squad I'd sent out that way. "Duke? Chuckles? You guys okay?" I asked. Desperately I shouted into the comms channel, "Damn it guys! Are you all right?" There still wasn't an answer. I felt my body go numb. No. Something inside me said. No, no, no, no. It kept going. I don't remember much of what happened after that for a while. I remember hearing cheers break in over the comms channel as Major Jackson managed to take down the gun, then the sound of Grimmsley's voice breaking in over the comms channel as we blasted through the last of the junk. With her guns free, our carrier turned its cannons on the enemy carrier. It wasn't long after that that the enemy finally broke off for good and every fighter was recalled to the carrier. I vaguely remember landing, and I must've somehow made my out of my arwing and across the hangar, but the next thing I remember is being on the ground. Vivian rushed over and helped me up before half-carrying me over the nearest wall where she sat me down before sitting next to me. Some point later someone who must've been one of the ship's medics, came over to me and looked me over. He looked over at Vivian and said something. She said something back and the medic looked confused. He looked around for a moment before motioning to someone.
"…They're not K.I.A; they're in the medical bay." He said, as I phased back into reality.
"What?" I asked, suddenly looking up at him.
"Yeah, they came in just after that cannon missed us." He said. "If you don't believe me, go check—"He didn't have to finish his sentence. I hopped to my feet and rushed for the door leading into the rest of the ship.
The medical bay was located close enough to the hangar that wounded pilots could easily be carried to it, while still being far enough away that any accident in the hangar wouldn't affect the medic's ability to fix people up. I ran the short distance between the two but was stopped by the head nurse, René, who was standing just inside the medical bay.
"Hold up," She said, sticking her hand out to stop me. She looked me over before saying, "we're only treating the badly wounded right now and, since you're not burned or in any obvious pain you don't—"
"Lieutenant's King and Starr," I said, cutting her off, "are they in there?" She thought for a moment before ultimately reaching for a data tablet sitting on a desk next to her.
"They're wounds were minor compared to some of the men and women we've received so we sent back to their barracks."
"Thanks." I said, turning away from her. I almost ran into Vivian, who'd been chasing me before and had only just caught up with me. I quickly explained where I was going and she and I ran towards Coyote Unit's barracks.
I came to stop just outside the barracks door. Cautiously, I peeked inside and, sure enough, the barracks were empty except for the Duke and Chuckles, both of whom were lying in their bunks. I stepped into the door, waiting for either one of them to notice me. When they failed to do so, I let out a loud whistle. They both popped up and looked around the room for a moment before finally noticing me.
"I just wanted to make sure your ears still worked." I said, stepping further into the room, trying not to show how glad I was to see them, "You know, since I shouted your names into the comms channel about five times and neither one of you responded." Duke and Chuckles looked at each other before Duke spoke up,
"We couldn't hear a thing." He said. "That cannon fried everything in my cockpit, comms included; that's how I got these," he held his arms up. His shirt had been rolled up and his arms had been bandaged from the elbow down. "You'd be surprised how flammable a flight-suit is when sparks are flying."
"What about you?" I asked, looking at Chuckles. He pointed to his head, which, along with his ears, were also covered in bandages.
"I was flying above Duke." He said. "That shot didn't miss me by much; it drained my shields in half a second and it fried the electronics in my helmet. It uh, wasn't easy getting it off my head. I mean, my fur'll grow back and I guess I'm lucky that that's all that got singed, but, yeah…"
"You guys are damn lucky," I said. I smiled, adding, "I'm just happy to see you in one piece." Duke looked over at Chuckles before asking,
"What? You seriously thought a giant bolt of red plasma would be enough to stop me?" He looked at Vivian who was standing behind me, "Did you?"
"Yup." She said, smiling as she walked to her bunk. "Actually, I was betting on a space mine left over from the base taking you out."
"I had debris." Chuckles said, also smiling.
"So, you both owe me." I said. Duke looked around for a moment, trying to make sense of what was being said,
"No we don't." Vivian said. "He's still alive, so the bets still on."
You guys were betting on what'd kill me?" He asked.
"Sure were!" Vivian said. "You can't be surprised, I mean, you're betting Chuckle's ship explodes on ignition and you have five to one odds that our beloved Captain gets hit by an asteroid."
"Now wait a minute—"
"This is Brigadier General Grimmsley," Grimmsley's voice said over the ship's intercom. We stopped talking and listened, "our orders have changed. I'm not going to sugar coat this; we lost quite a few good men out there today. Our casualty count stands as follows: Coyote Unit lost two men, both from Alpha Squad, Dingo Unit lost four men, two from their Beta, and one each from their Alpha and Omega Squads, and Jackal Unit lost six men, four of which were from their Beta Unit, and two from their Alpha Unit. On top of that, our arwings've been reduced to shreds; out of the thirty-three we got back, only fifteen of those are in half-decent condition and could fly again. Our engineers are doing what they can to get more of those birds back online but I'm not holding my breath; we don't have the supplies we need to fix them all. As of this moment, our carrier will operate as sole protector of these scientists' ships. Should the need arise we will send out every arwing we have, but not until we absolutely have to. With as short as we are on men, supplies, and arwings we're diverting to Fichina where we'll spend as long as it takes to get everything operational. I will also be calling for the 5th Division's other two units; Timberwolf and Dhole, who will take the places of Jackal Unit and fill in the holes in the rest of our squads." Grimmsley paused for a moment before continuing, "Under any other circumstance, I'd call those of you who deserve medals for your valor and courage up to the bridge or my quarters but I don't have enough medals to give one to each and every one of you. You all did a damn fine job out there and I'll make sure you're all properly rewarded when the time comes. Grimmsley out."