Mission 3 – Mutual Defence (against) Claws

The Arwing II dropped down through the atmosphere, leaving a blazing re-entry trail. A military re-entry, using your shields to aero-brake, rather than slowing outside the atmosphere and coming in more sedately, was harder on the hardware, but saved time and reactor mass. Considering his electronic warfare system had detected no beacons or transmissions on his way in, and his sensors had detected nothing but a ring of orbital debris around this planet, Fox figured that was pretty important. Because right now, the chances of getting his tanks refuelled with dark matter were looking as close to zero he could figure.

Still, he wasn't going to complain. Having a random Gate transfer drop him near enough any star to even see a disk made winning the Cornerian Planetary Lottery look likely by comparison. Having it drop him within visual range of a potentially habitable planet was stretching his luck so far it was going to need a chiropractor. Besides, his instincts, that sixth sense that gave him his edge in combat, was tingling with an unusual intensity. 'This is the place I need to be.'

He'd quickly confirmed it was habitable, or rather inhabited. He'd approached from system zenith (he'd manually reset his navigation system to use this planet's orbit as a system ecliptic, and orbital directions the same as Lylat) and raced to match vectors with it. His approach vector had made it easy to go into a un-powered low polar orbit. He had turned the ship to face the planet surface, so he could look ahead through the cockpit at the surface, and so could his primary sensor array.

He'd covered the day side and night side during the three orbits. While there were no great spreads of light on the night side like the cities on Corneria, there were small clusters of illumination in various places if he used his zoom goggles. Towns, though what the inhabitants would look like was anybody's guess.

His sensors were also putting together a basic topographical map, correlating light sources with locations. Once again, e-warfare and sensors confirmed no-one down there used modulated electromagnetic waves, unless they had heliographs, or had large artificial energy sources. What radiation they could find was broadband thermal, fires and natural emissions.

The acid test was still to come, whether _he_ could survive here. Since he was in a space fighter and not a survey ship, he couldn't take spectrographs of the atmosphere from orbit. The only way to check it was breathable was to 'suck it and see' or rather go atmospheric and let his ship's atmosphere analyser take a sniff. (This was pretty much standard on any small craft, when you didn't have an EVA suit, you definitely didn't want to get out of your ship in a hangar bay that was full of vacuum, or poison gases).

As the last of the ionisation cleared, Fox adjusted the G-Diffusers to atmosphere mode and extended the Arwing's blade-like wings. He was still a good 5 skm up, and heading 'West', or rather towards the sunset line. He'd made a plane change to a lower inclination orbit, and chosen a re-entry path so that if the air proved good, he'd over-fly a number of useful landing sites. The analyser took a moment to stabilise, and reported. Yup, this stuff would do him no harm, in fact the air quality was better than Corneria.

While this was good, breathing was a habit he had no intention of giving up on, it was another nail in the coffin of getting home. These guys were clearly not in an industrial age. While orbiting, his sensors had figured out a rotational period, mass and surface gravity. The days were longer than Cornerian standard by a few hours, and the gravity about 0.9 CG, enough to give him a slight advantage in muscle and endurance on anything native. Especially as he now ran the grids on the Great Fox at 1.2 CG, one of the few advantages of being the sole occupant.

He dropped lower. He was passing over a forested region that reminded him of parts of Fortuna. His landing zone would be mid-morning on a continent that definitely had inhabitants, and far enough away from the inhabited areas that he could get acclimatised without being interrupted. He'd have most of the day to explore, get some kind of idea what the place was like before settling down for the night. Not that it would make the space lag any less comfortable as his body adjusted to the new clock.

There, between those two hills, that clearing… He slowed, and dropped down on VTOL thrust, the G-Diffusers reducing the effective mass of the ship to a few hundred kilograms. From the terrain, hills underlay the forest here, and there was the silver trickle of a river snaking down the centre-line of the valley the clearing was in, only a few hundred sm away. The Arwing touched down lightly, and within seconds the canopy had popped and Fox jumped down.

He took a deep breath… "Looks like that atmosphere analysis was right on the money."

His first thought was to check under the hull. All that was left of the Gate generator was the attachment rail. Fortunately, whatever had happened had also removed the disabler, and transponder, as his systems had returned to normal shortly after he woke up. Well, that was it. His chances of ever seeing Lylat again, or indeed any other system, were now officially zero.

Oddly enough, he didn't feel as bad as he'd expected. Maybe it was because he hadn't yet accepted it emotionally, or because of his earlier decision to go explore the galaxy anyway. For now he was just glad the thought hadn't reduced him to an emotional wreck, because he had a planet to explore.

He started doing a couple of exercises to loosen up. He'd been stuck in that cockpit for about 10 hours straight, strapped into his seat. His shoulders ached and his tail had gone to sleep. Of course, his back was towards the Arwing, and his eyes scanned the tree-line for anything nasty. His blaster, fully charged with a 100 round clip, sat on his hip. This time General Pepper wasn't calling the shots.

Having worked most of the kinks out, he decided to go check on that river. He switched on the Arwing's beacon, collected the canteen from his survival gear, tapped the PDA code to close the canopy, and set out. He hadn't gone 20 sm into the forest before he came on a surprise. The tree was quite ordinary, as were the big brown pods attached to it, but it was the location of the vegetation, that stopped him dead.

"This is crazy! How did a Dumbledang tree end up here?"

He avoided it, this was too weird. But it got weirder, as along the next stretch he found a plant with a glowing yellow gem-like fruit at the centre of it's crown. This was enough to make him go back to his Arwing and collect the staff he'd found on Sauria. It still had sufficient power to extend to it's full length, and when he used it to knock down the gem, it absorbed it as easily as it had back on the dinosaur planet.

Fox shook his head. "Oookay… I just happen to end up on a planet that just happens to have duplicates of plants I know only grow on Sauria… Either the stress has sent me completely out of my furry skull, or something screwy is going on. And talking to myself is _not_ a good sign…"

He pressed on, looking for the glint of water through the trees. What he saw, after several more minutes walking, was the glint of something, and cries of pain and anger. He raced forward, reaching the edge of the tree-line in seconds. Below, an unpaved road ran along the near side of the river, and on it there was an impossible battle. The attackers were Sharpclaw, identical to the temperate zone grunts he'd fought in Thorntail Hollow. There were two waves, about two dozen all told, and they had clearly waylaid a caravan. Fighting them were blue foxes, in tunic tops and skirts or shorts, depending on gender.

They were protecting a line of wood wheeled caravans, drawn by huge beetles. Some were like wheeled houses, others clearly fabric roofed cargo carriers. Of course, right now they weren't going anywhere, because a massive log had been dropped across the unpaved track, and a number of rocks had clearly been rolled down from the raised bank he stood on, smashing several wheels.

Both sides were wielding simple melee weapons, the Sharpclaw their signature clubs and axes and the foxes with spears and long knives. Two foxes were down, injured or dead, behind the defending skirmish line. The remaining nine were out-powered, out-numbered and lacked the Sharpclaw round shields, only holding their own through superior speed and agility. They also had teamwork, covering each others flanks.

An even dozen Sharpclaw faced them, and another dozen were back some way, forming a reserve, so it was quite clear who the ultimate winner would be. A bow-fox… a female with white head fur, popped up from over the back of a cart, and shot a crossbow at the rear line, but a thrown spear from one of the reserves caught her in the belly and she went down.

Fox's blaster was already in his hand, and even as the Sharpclaw let fly. A blaster bolt hit the lizard in the head, sending him down charred and smouldering. Fox snapped off half a dozen shots from the hip, decimating the reserve force even as they turned to face this new threat. Five were down before they could charge, and as they covered the dozen standard metres between them and Fox, another three went down, as Fox stood there with a two handed grip, blasting them like targets on a shooting range.

Several Sharpclaw spears had been thrown, but on the run and hastily aimed. Only one came close, and Fox simply side-stepped to let it smack into a tree at one side. Three Sharpclaw survived, and raced up the bank towards him. One got a carefully aimed blaster bolt that punched through his upraised shield and charred the head behind, but the other two got into melee range.

Fox dropped his blaster and pulled out the staff, even as he jumped over the wicked axe slice one creature aimed at his legs. He rolled to the side putting him beyond the other's reach for the moment and focussed on the axe wielder. His riposte was a two handed blow that smashed the Sharpclaw's helmet down on his head, and a kick to the face that sent the raptor tumbling down the bank. This left the other with a clear shot and a wicked two handed thrust from a spear nearly caught Fox in the thigh.

Fox spun his staff to deflect it, and turned the movement into a sweeping smash at the body of his opponent. The Sharpclaw was still over balanced from his own over-committed strike, and took it full in the shoulder. A bone crunched. Fox didn't let up, following with a flurry of blows that beat the creature to the ground, blood pouring from it's snout. Seconds later it evaporated in a flare of light, as had the monsters that had fallen to his blaster bolts.

He bounded down the slope to where the other was trying to pick itself up. He used his momentum to thrust with the staff and knock it flying, then flipping the staff end for end and triggering the lit sigil for the Fire Blaster technique. It struck the Sharpclaw who jerked and fell still, smoking from it's armour joints. He followed up by sighting carefully along the staff, and sending a second blast into the Sharpclaw on the furthest end of the skirmish line.

It didn't go down, but the blast crippled it, slowing it enough that the fox opposing it could strike home with his knife. Fox considered following up with the Seismic Strike, but decided there was too much risk of catching the foxes in his area of effect. Looked like he was going to have to get up-close and personal. Well, he had no problem with that.

He bounded forward with a yell, and smashed into the rear of the enemy line with another overhand blow to the centre Sharpclaw warrior, driving the staff down between shoulder and neck. There was a crunching sound, and the Saurian warrior crumpled like a puppet with it's strings cut, head lolling in a way that suggested it wasn't connected to it's spine any more.

A follow up sweep to one side smashed at the legs of a Sharpclaw who had his blue fox opponent on the ropes, the fox trying to block a downward driven axe with a crosswise held spear. The Sharpclaw went down, and the blue fox spun his spear-tip downwards and thrust it though the creature's eye. For a second, the two vulpines' eyes met, and the blue one called out something that sounded thankful, but which ended in a yelp of alarm.

Fox's sixth sense tingled, and he dropped and rolled away from a wild axe swing made by the Sharpclaw on the opposite side of the opening. The creature paid for his split attention, taking a slash from the knife of the vixen opposite him that went right past his shield and into the arm behind it. But the lizard shook it off, kicking out to push off the vixen and sending her over backwards with a gashed thigh from his vicious foot claws.

He dived at Fox, having decided he was a bigger threat. Fox triggered the Ice Spray as he stepped back, blasting the thing in the face. It froze, and he shattered it with a straight forward thrust. There were glad cries from the foxes. None of the Sharpclaws had said anything, or even cried out in pain, apart from the grunts, hisses and odd mewlings that had accompanied similar fights on Sauria.

He hadn't used the thing in years, and yet it was like he'd practised only yesterday. He heard another cry of warning from the fox next to him, and saw something green and moving reflected in one of the shards. He slammed the staff horizontally backwards, spinning on his heels as he did so. He was rewarded with a crunch and a pained yelp as the Sharpclaw that had been about to decorate his skull with a club got the sharp end of the staff in his ribs.

Fox spun the staff again, bringing the end down on the thing's weapon holding arm. The club dropped from it's nerveless grip, but it pounced in, discarding it's shield in order to slash at him with the claws on it's one good arm. He ducked under the swing, grounding the staff and sliding it in so the Sharpclaw would land on it. He then heaved, and the warrior flew over his head to land flat on it's back.

Three more had withdrawn from the skirmish line, which closed up behind them. Rather than finish the downed one off, he drew back, hoping to bring them away from the defenders. As the damaged one hauled itself up, and the four followed him, he grinned. "You guys are going to quake in your… uh… ankle bracer things.'

The staff slammed down, and a Seismic strike shock-wave blasted out, knocking all four to the floor, but not reaching the blue fox defenders.

He vaulted, using the grounded staff and landed on the poor abused Sharpclaw he'd earlier thrown. Something crunched, and it vanished. The next one was only half way to it's feet when Fox dived into it, spinning his staff like a cuisinart blade. The flurry of blows, followed by a straight thrust to it's chest, knocked it back, and slamming it into the next one in line even as that creature tried to get around it.

The two fell back in a tangle of limbs, but the third dodged out of the way and attacked. Not with it's axe, but by shield bashing him. Once again his reflexes, and more than merely acute awareness, saved him. The edge merely clipped his muzzle as he tumbled backwards, but gave him a bloody nose. As went over backwards into a hunched position like a sprinter on the blocks, the creature attempted to slice him in two with it's axe. With no time to dodge, Fox triggered his energy shield, and the axe rebounded, taking the monster off balance.

Fox didn't need an engraved invitation, lashing it with a blast of fire and actually running up the body as it tumbled backwards. This gave him the height to drop on the two other fallen lizards, who were still trying to untangle themselves. They never had chance as a Seismic strike slammed into the upper one's chest plate. It crunched inwards, while the Sharpclaw underneath appeared to have embedded itself in the ground. When they disappeared, it had left a sharp relief in the hard packed dirt by the side of the track.

Fox's staff was now almost dry, but he didn't need to do any more. With the weakening of the Sharpclaw skirmish line, the defending foxes seemed to gain a new strength. Now the foxes' teamwork and speed made it possible to tag-team their larger, slower, but tougher opponents. The remaining, outnumbered Sharpclaw had been swarmed, and even as Fox straightened up, a tall blue male fox, bare to the waist, bounded in and struck at the last, downed creature with a machete style knife. The Sharpclaw lay there for a few seconds, then started to dissolve in light.

With the last foe down, other foxes had emerged from the wagons, older women and little children mostly, wearing loin-clothes or smocks. A few rushed forward to tend to the fallen defenders, carrying bundles that could only be medical supplies, but many, and all of the defenders still upright, were standing there, looking at him, not nervously but curiously. He shrank the staff and slotted it away, then sniffled slightly.

A hand to his nose revealed he was still bleeding, and lacking a handkerchief he used an engineers rag from a jacket pocket to staunch the flow.

He must look odd to them, a red furred fox in his standard green flight suit, boots and jacket, his headset still on his head. A few were talking, and their words sounded familiar, but not understandable. Suddenly he made a connection, and reached into his pocket, switching his PDA on voice command. "Saurian translator, activate." He sub-vocalised, and found their speech suddenly made sense.

"One of untranslated word, out here?"

"I'm glad he was, that green-scaled creature almost had me."

"But why the red dyed fur?"

"Maybe it is the blood of all the monsters he has killed…"

"He's the one bleeding… we should offer to help."

There were other comments that the translator didn't catch, and for that matter didn't even sound like Saurian, but the ones that did gave pause for thought. Fox was about to speak, when he saw an older fox, with white wispy fur on his cheeks, chin and muzzle, came forward. He gave a polite bow, and said, "We thank you, there was that untranslated word again. Without your aid, I fear we would have been over-run."

Fox was trying to figure out the word the translator hadn't got. He'd been trying to learn Saurian himself, partly in case he needed to go back to the dinosaur planet, but mostly to stave off simply moping around the corridors of the Great Fox II. 'Fhekosk'eh'… the 'eh' meant a term for a person doing a job… one who protects, one who guards… protector, maybe? Context suggested it was some sort of title, or proper name term, which was why the translator hadn't caught it.

He spoke in Lylatian, unwilling to try his own Saurian, and knowing the same sono-projector elements that fed clear audio to his ears would mask his own speech and replace it with Saurian.

"Just glad I got here in time. My name is Fox McCloud, and I come in peace."

The elder gave him a slightly quizzical look, head-cocked to one side, and said, "Actually, you came in fighting, and thank the Udsaodkj you did."

Another word the translator didn't get. And was that phrasing a bit of dry humour, or just translation difficulty? Fox wasn't sure, but grinned anyway. The elder continued, "You are injured, can we help?".

Fox shook his head. "It's just a bloody nose. Blocking a shield using my face wasn't one of my better moves."

"I am Horegan, leader of the Teraso trading caravan." He gestured behind him to the string of wagons.

Fox realised wounded were still being treated. "Look, introductions can wait, your guys are in far worse shape than I am. Is there anything else _I_ can do to help?"

Horegan sighed. "Thank you, but no. Our wounded are either being treated, or made comfortable…"

The language might be different, but body posture and reactions seemed to be the same, so Fox could detect there was more to this than he'd said. The ones who'd been in the line were being fixed up pretty effectively as far as he could see… Even the pair who were downed had clearly survived. Then he remembered, the girl fox with the bow… that spear had hit her pretty low down…

"The girl who shot off the bow, the one with the spear wound…"

"My grand daughter, Arera. The spear is lodged in her stomach. Even if we could call a Cloudrunner and carry her to a healer, there would be little they could do…" The old guy was clearly holding back his emotions. "All we can do is give her numbing herbs to take away the pain."

Fox hung his head. "Damn it! If I'd only been a fraction of a second sooner, I'd have hit that Sharpclaw before he made the cast!" He was trying to think… maybe, just maybe, he could help.

"I can't promise, but… I may have a way to heal her…"

The other grabbed him by the shoulders with what little force he had. "Truly? I didn't think Staff magic could heal as well." His shoulders slumped. "Unless you mean Dumbledang juice… it's restorative powers are great, but not for this kind of wound."

Fox wasn't surprised. Dumbledang pod juice contained a natural agent that boosted a body's healing rate tremendously, almost equivalent to the Fast Heal agents recently developed by Cornerian biotechnology. But if he remembered his first aid, it was infection caused by damage to the intestines that was the major killer, that and blood loss.

Fortunately, the Cornerian Army field medi-kit he carried in his Arwing was the latest model, supposedly capable of allowing a grunt with basic first aid training to fix anything short of major organ damage, or at least stabilise the patient until med-evac arrived. After his little sojourn on Sauria, he never left the Great Fox without it. After all, he'd assumed that the next planet wouldn't _have_ Dumbledang pods…

"No, I have to fetch my own healing supplies. Keep her still, don't remove the spear, and don't allow her to drink…" He turned and beat feet back towards the Arwing, stopping only at the top of the embankment to scoop up his blaster, safe it and holster it.

As he did, he tried to figure out what in the acidic aqua-sphere of Venom was going on! This wasn't Sauria, he knew that without even seeing the continents. That sun was not Beta, a golden orange K type, and the planetary stats were different too. But it had Saurian plants and Horegan had mentioned Cloudrunners… but they hadn't used the Saurian term Sharpclaw.

And the foxes themselves… Krystal had not said much about her home-world, or how she'd gotten to Sauria, beyond the fact that her planet had been destroyed. She'd also been very clear that she didn't want to talk further about it. He was equally certain that she hadn't lied about it. He'd seen it in her eyes, the same thing he'd seen in the mirror that day Peppy had returned from Venom, alone. They'd both lost so much…

She'd certainly had no space craft of her own, the only ones on Sauria had been Venomian left-overs, including the shuttle that had carried her to the Great Fox, and that had been running on an automatic program. Now he wished he'd pried more. Darn it, they _had_ to be the same species, but how did they get here, and where was here? Maybe his new friends could give some answers…

He burst into the clearing where his Arwing was, hit the opening combination on his PDA, and scrambled up the air-ladder even as it folded out. The kit itself was not much bigger than his forearm, a flat case with a carrying handle and a relief image of a stylised bandaged paw, the universal Lylatian medical symbol.

On the way back, he knocked down another energy crystal (the plants recovered as quickly as on Sauria) and a Dumbledang pod. It couldn't hurt to have one for after-care, even if it couldn't heal a stomach wound. On the way back, his thoughts went onto another track, what to say about himself. He decided, in the end to be as honest as possible. Part of that was the fact that he wasn't sure if there were other telepaths around. Getting caught in an obvious lie wouldn't do him any good.

Well, at least there was no time for much explaining as he arrived back at the caravan. He was taken to the back of a caravan where the vixen lay on a bunk, unconscious. There was an older fox female there, mopping her brow with a damp cloth. He realised the girl was little more than a kit, 14 to 15 CS years at most.

The spear was still in her, which was a relief. As long as it was in it sealed the holes it had made, at least partially. Of course, it was practically through to her back bone, which meant the chances of survival were almost nil, unless he could save her.

The woman looked up, worry written across her face. "You really can save my daughter?"

Fox's answering expression was tight lipped and serious. "I think so. I have to try. My tools may not be familiar to you, so please don't be surprised at anything that happens." He opened up the case and pulled out a hand-held medical scanner, and set to work.

Authors Notes: The plot thickens, and so does my writing. I stand by my assessment that Krystal's people don't have space faring technology of their own. The shuttle that was used to carry her to the Great Fox was used earlier by the Sharpclaws to ferry Prince Tricky. Therefore it was most likely Venomian. If she'd had her own ship, she'd have used it instead, or gotten them to recover it if it were damaged.