Spelunking

-

"Son, it doesn't matter what people think of you. Just do your best, and you will succeed at everything you try."

Slippy was staring absentmindedly, recalling his father's advice. Whenever Slippy was young and had trouble, his dad always knew the answer. But now, as an adult, Slippy really couldn't look forward to that nostalgic, secure feeling he found from his dad.

"Slippy? Have you made up your mind?"

Slippy snapped back to reality, shaking his head then turning to Peppy. "Gee, I don't know, I don't think I can do it. I mean, what if there's still something...alive on that ship?"

"Relax, son. We've ran bio-scans a thousand times already. There is absolutely nothing on that ship." Peppy gave him a pat on the shoulder to be reassure him. Slippy looked down, defeated. He sort of recalled the feeling as a child, when it was dark and time to come in but there was something outside he had to go get but it was too dark and scary to get it.

Slippy looked around the mess of the control room. Gillreath's documents were scattered everywhere, there was broken glass from some of the computers, and not to mention the door Fox had flown through littered the place with bits and pieces of sharp metal. ROB had been assigned for cleanup. The android booted his way around the room, cleaning up the mess with a built-in super vacuum cleaner Slippy had installed.

"Are you with me, Slippy?"

Slippy shook his head. "I wish I wasn't."

--

--

Darkness faded in and out from the avian's eyes. He could feel pricks and pokes at various places of his body. White was suddenly all around him, and he noticed the medic droids hovering around him.

"Ah crap, I must've hurt myself."

Falco groaned in the most obnoxious way possible. He looked to his left and saw two figures practically melting into each other, with laughs and giggles accompanying them.

Falco poked his head out of the white privacy curtain, and groaned again. Fox and Krystal looked at him in surprise.

"Can you guys keep it down? I'm tryin' to be injured over here!" Falco shot.

Embarassed, Krystal hopped off of Fox and crossed her arms. "Look who decided to show up," she mocked.

Fox smiled crookedly and gave a short wave to Falco. "Hey buddy."

"Oh, you're injured too, huh?" Falco laughed. "What'd ya do? Stub your toe and get a boo-boo? Bahaha."

Fox lifted the towel off of his leg and showed Falco the enormous gash he recieved. Falco nodded, knowing he was defeated in that department, but he wasn't giving up.

"Ah, that ain't nothin'. I've got-" He stuck his head back in the curtain, where Fox could hear him counting. Falco's head popped out a few moments later.

"I got eleven cuts on me, ya big baby. So quit whinin'." Falco grinned.

"Just shut up and get let the droids work on you," Fox laughed. Krystal joined in with a giggle.

Falco shook his head, grinning. "Whatever. Just promise me you're using a rubber." With that, Falco stuck his head back in, folding his arms behind his head. He couldn't see it, but he could tell Fox had his ears leaned back, giving Krystal an embarrassed look while she shook her head.

-

-

Slippy was all suited up in his specially modified yellow space suit. He checked to see if he was missing anything. Utility belt, a blaster for just-in-case moments, some gravity adjusters, a space helmet, a full oxygen tank, his lucky hat, and...

"Underwear. Check. Well Peppy, I think I'm ready."

"Affirmative, Mr. Toad," Peppy said with a grin. "Hangar cleared for departure."

"Uh, Peppy?" Slippy asked, nervously.

"Yes?"

"Bwaaahhh!" Slippy gave Peppy a big fat hug, which surprised the hare. With a laugh, Peppy returned the hug, patting Slippy's back.

"You're gonna be fine, Slippy, I'm telling you," Peppy stated, chuckling as Slippy broke away, trying to wipe away tears but his space helmet wouldn't allow it.

"Now get out there, and pick up anything you see important."

Slippy sniffled, and then saluted with a wave. Peppy returned it, and Slippy walked off to the hangar.

I'm going to be fine, Slippy told himself over and over as he walked down the long lighted hallway by himself. I just gotta be brave, like everybody else.

"Okay!" Slippy excalimed, breaking into a run. "Here I go!"

Approximately 3 seconds later, Slippy Toad tripped over his own two feet.

--

--

Slippy was now situated in his Arwing, the hangar bay doors opening in front of him. Slippy messed with a few controls, and once Peppy gave him clearance, he pushed the throttle forward and sped out.

Space engulfed the Arwing like a wet, cold, vacuum-packed blanket. "Wow, there sure is alot of junk out here!" Slippy said, avoiding space junk and gazing out the cockpit.

Peppy appeared on the above the controls. "I bet. This satellite was ripped apart. How's the visual on the Great Fox's exterior?"

Slippy looked to his right, towards the Great Fox. "Oh boy, it's awful," Slippy announced, frowning. "There are dents and damage everyhwere. It'll take at least as much money we got from Dinosaur Planet to repair it this time."

Peppy sighed, removing his glasses. "That bad, huh...Well, let's get to your objective."

"Aye aye, cap'n," Slippy pirated.

The Arwing zoomed ahead, towards the sunken satellite. Fear crawled up Slippy's stomach like a bad virus as the immense satellite loomed over him, but he managed to choke it down.

"Initiating Arwing ejection," Slippy said, pushing a few controls and setting the Arwing's G-Diffuser system to "stationary."

Slippy's seat began to recline, until it was fully horizontal. Slippy adjust his space suit a bit, and then counted down.

3, 2, 1...

The seat Slippy was in moved back a little, so the cockpit wasn't above him anymore. He was in an encloded area ahead of the engines, designed for this type of ejection. The seat was then enveloped by a space-proof covering metal, enclosing Slippy inside of a pod. Once it was air-tight, the pod began to lower down and out of the Arwing.

This ejection was mainly for space-travelling purposes when docking options weren't available. Slippy was glad he wasn't that much of a claustrophobic.

Slippy felt the bumps and slides as he fell into open space. The pod walls then began to unlock, and form themselves into flatter surface. Its form was a type of space-modified-self-propelled- boogey board, or the "space surfer," as Slippy nickmaned it.

Slippy checked his tether on the space surfer to make sure it wouldn't fly away. Once he was secure, he positioned himself on the board and began to scoot towards the satellite.

"Hey guys, look at me!" Slippy announced over his headset, doing a small 360.

Everyone was now back in the Great Fox command room, shaking their heads with smiles, watching Slippy in his prime.

"What a trooper," Fox murmured almost proudly, an arm wrapped around Krystal.

--

--

A few minutes passed when Slippy finally reached one of the satellite's many floors. Since the damn thing was practically cut in half, accessing other levels would be a pinch.

Slippy didn't quite realize how immense this ship really was. It was at least 3 times bigger then the Great Fox, which makes the levels of survival with the whole crash scene earlier seem pretty improbable. But now, Slippy had to focus on the task that lay ahead of him: retrieving data suspectable of holding vital information of Wolf's plans/base structure.

But it was so frightening to the toad.

"Why does it have to be so dark?" Slippy emphasized, shaking. He pressed a button on his helmet, turning on a light. He noticed he was still floating, so he pressed a few commands into his wrist-com to apply his gravity adjusters. Slippy landed softly on the floor, and strapped the space surfer to his back.

Ahead of him was a short hallway, with a few random objects scattered in it. Slippy pulled out his handheld intel-scanner, and walked along, scanning anything he saw.

Slippy peeked around the corner to find yet another hallway, this one much longer. "I'm still interested why this didn't show up on the Great Fox's radar," he told the team.

ROB answered him. "As mentioned earlier, the exterior of the ship is made of a material radars cannot translate."

Slippy nodded. "Uh huh. I'll send you some data now." He scanned a nearby wall, sending its chemical formulas and all that jazz back to ROB for analyzing.

Slowly, he made his way down. This hallway had a network of more hallways leading left and right, which was quite confusing. It scared Slippy senseless each time he came upon one. The sudden change in light when it hit the hallway entrances made him yelp occasionally, as did the creaking, grated floor that would occasionally break away.

"I'm not seeing too much, guys. Plus, I'm completely lost," Slippy said, worriedly.

"Well good news," Peppy told him, bringing up some info on Slippy's HUD. "ROB analyzed the material used for cloaking the ship, turns out to be..." Peppy had trouble reading the chemical word. "Well, whatever it is, we have it in our database now, so we won't have many accidents like this from now on."

"Good," Slippy replied, scanning a small jar. "How's everyone doing?"

"Well," Peppy said, yawning, "Fox got a little more work done to his leg, and then him and Krystal went to bed. Falco's still getting patched up."

"M'kay," Slippy acknoweledged. A light beeped on his HUD, asking for a download permisson. "Ooh, ROB got a networking area up! Now I can finally figure out where is where!"

Slippy uploaded the file. "Well, awesome! Now that I know where the main control room is, I should be able to-"

A large mechanical moan made Slippy jump in surprise. Something in the dark hallway ahead of him...was coming staright for him!

"AHHH! CONTACT, CONTACT! HOSTILE!" Slippy screamed, pulling out his blaster. The machine lumbered down the hallway at him at a furious pace. Slippy shot his blaster furiously at it, screaming his head off.

"Slippy! What's going on? What's in there?!" Peppy stood up from his chair.

"I don't know! It's some kinda machine...and it's gonna EAT ME! GAHH!"

Slippy dropped his blaster, spun on his heel, and ran as fast as his stubby green legs could carry him. The machine rolled down the hallway, right on his tail.

"Slippy!!!" Peppy shouted.

All Slippy could do was scream, and run. But worst came to worst as Slippy's luck rang in at the wrong moment. He tripped, falling flat on a grated area of the floor. He turned over to see the machine towering over him.

"NOO!!!!"

The machine collapsed on top Slippy, crashing them both through the floor.

"Slippy? SLIPPY! Come in, come in! Status report!" Peppy demanded frantically.

-

Silence.