Wolf O'Donnell – Lone Star, Area Six Airspace
Wolf O'Donnell made a step outward from his Wolfen fighter into the large spacious rectangle that comprised the hangar bay with a Venomian heavy-duty military issue boot. The channels running adjacent across the sole of his boot scraped against the battered and darkened metal floor plating with a metallic chime. He had imagined it had been, in a previous life, a gleaming silver arrangement of floor panels – an accommodation to some variety of royalty, but this ship had seen many years of service. And from what Wolf could tell, those years had been shared to very different captains. The state of the hangar itself was indicative to Wolf the conditions of what remained to be discovered, and also suggested the variety of the crew that dwelled within. The intentions of this hidden crew was sitting in his mind vividly – space-drifters that were unable to earn a healthy sum acting on their profession, and instead preferred to feed on the misfortune of others. The skin around his eyes tightened as unsolved mysteries filled his sights. There was a ripple in the fur across his face as he slowly scanned the unidentified ship's hangar bay. Wolf's eye caught a rise of pointed barbs and curved fins silhouetted by the red of the ship beacons, completely black and hidden to his left a considerable distance away with the companionship of encompassing shadow. It took a few moments to run through a handful of possibilities – but a sudden jolt fizzled throughout his innards at what the towering outline implied on his vision. The slumping turret hanging from a wing, recently dismounted and connected only by electrical components, the crater triangulating deep within a front hull catching only a glimpse of light to make an appearance – it formulated an equation that summed up Wolf's analysis. Battered and bruised fighters, stacked atop one another, ravaged of any object that could be melted down or sold, down to the last sheet of scrap metal. The pilot's suspicions were confirmed, and he released a breath of air. It wasn't a sigh, but a bodily precaution for his expectations. He turned to the most obvious feature of the hangar upon his discovery – an elevated terrace overlooking the space below, aligned with a handrail that would have been golden once upon a time, but was now a tarnished bronze. The lighting in the hangar was dim; it seemed the only source of illumination was from the standby beacons of Star-Wolf's ships. A ray of crimson crept across Wolf's face and rendered him demonic as he turned into the lights from the Star-Wolf ships. Patchy strips of assorted blues covered up breaches in the hull from the inside, obviously some amateur handiwork had been utilized to mend the ship's wounds, suggesting proper assistance was off-limits. Ultimately, it meant the crew of this heavily modified cargo vessel – were pirates.
The three pilots from Star-Wolf stood alone in the hangar, awaiting their rescuers to appear on the terrace, but a chilling period of silence told Wolf that something was indeed odd about their newfound allies. The fact that there was something odd about the entire situation had struck him a long time ago – but it appeared that more surprises awaited him.
"Who are these felons?" Leon muttered tensely, as if his voice breaking the silence in the cold air of the hangar would cause imminent bedlam.
"You know as much as I do, Leon" Wolf replied without moving a muscle. His curious stare was fixed on the run-down terrace.
"You'd suppose anyone attempting to ally with Star-Wolf would have the decency to greet their guests with a nice warm meal. Wouldn't you two agree?" Panther uttered.
"I'm not entirely sure if these crewmembers are in fact our allies, Panther. Retrieving Star-Wolf from a vicious dogfight such as that one takes a need or a want. I'm not prepared to surrender either of them."
"This ship was our only way out" Panther spoke his thoughts aloud.
"Exactly" Wolf confirmed quickly. "This wasn't an act of decency, its blackmail."
An echoed clunk bounced off the dark and grubby hangar walls, and Wolf registered the sound as the opening of a hatch. When gravity caught the hatch's ascent at its peak, the subsequent familiar clanging sounded, which Wolf had been expecting. On the terrace above the trio, brown fur striped with black clenched around the discolored handrail, and tightened. Wolf couldn't make out the figure clearly as it was too dark, and when a piercing beam of light from out of nowhere shone from behind the terrace, any hope of identifying features of Star-Wolf's host had been lost, as they'd been completely silhouetted. The only two features Wolf could make out were a long hanging coat, and the shape of a top hat. He found difficulty in doing this as the light burned against his face and shrunk his pupils.
"Good morning, friends!" a delighted full-throated greeting came. The voice was clear and voluble, and a tinge of overconfidence in it. It was male, and was easily distinguishable as feline. Wolf, had his co-pilot not been standing beside him, could have sworn Panther had voiced the words. There was no reply to the crewmember's comment, and he jolted his shoulders backward in surprise. "Alright, then! Fine by me if you don't say hello!"
"Who are you?" Wolf coldly questioned, partially speaking over the last few syllables of the feline's sentence. The feline tilted his head, as if to ask Wolf to repeat himself – though Wolf did not. In a jazzy performance, the feline made his way down a flight of what used to be silver steps, bringing him into the red lights emitted from the Star-Wolf fighters. Although the crimson beams of light rendered the feline in burgundy mixture, Wolf could still make out the feline's fur tone as a smoky charcoal, with blobs of beige thrown in, adding contrast. Lodged in the midst of the feline's bushy assortment of whiskers was a smoldering stick of Dragon Rock spice. A small ember opposite from the feline's mouth released a trail of topaz-shaded fumes, which curled in waves through the air, twirling up through to the hangar's rusted mechanical pincers hanging from the ceiling. Wolf caught a sent of the spice as the feline came closer, and bobbed his muzzle a little as he immediately noticed the commodity was indeed rich. It reminded Wolf of the scent of flour harvested on Katina; however the intensity of the spice transformed it from an aroma into an assault. From what he could tell of these pirates already, Wolf was presuming the spice was banned on Corneria. Hanging from the feline like an oversized drape was an olive colored trench coat, almost scraping across the grimy metal flooring as he walked. His top hat almost matched the coloration of the coat, but was faded, as if it had been left in the light of Lylat's sun a little too long one morning, and was fitted with a tight black band. Wolf didn't turn away from his host when the snicker on the feline's face became unambiguous, and all of his facial features were defined in the red lighting clearly. His nose was squashed firmly into the center of his face, seeming like it had met with the flat end of an electro-hammer. The mysterious crewmembers eyes were a rich jade color, popping out from the rest of his bland coloring and features like a bent tail. Size wise, the feline wasn't spectacularly large at all – in fact, smaller than Panther and Wolf, and measured more similarly to Leon's dimensions. He swayed before Panther, giving him a quick internal synopsis, and then moved on to Wolf. Star-Wolf's lead pilot watched the feline position himself in front of him, giving the famous and feared mercenary a slow visual scan for any weapons. A hand partially hidden in the length of the faded coat's sleeve moved up to the stick of spice embedded somewhere in the feline's face, and latched a hold of it between two fingers. He removed the stick, and puffed a breath full of spice upon Wolf's physique, whilst leaning back gracefully and allowing his arm to wander down by his side.
"My name is Rufus Haze" he finally answered Wolf's question. "And you are standing in the hangar bay of the Lone Star."
"The Lone Star" Wolf repeated, demanding elaboration. He winced his eyes a little as the aroma of the spice was a little too sharp to his nostrils for his liking. The coiling swells or orange mist danced around his furry cheeks before evaporating. Rufus, as he had introduced himself, didn't seem interesting on informing Wolf with the in-between details, however the mercenary was determined to acquire them. He cleared his throat obnoxiously. "Let me tell you a little story of what happened out there. Maybe you can fill in the blanks" Wolf voiced. He dropped his head slightly, recalling the mess of laser fire that he remembered the dogfight as. Rufus took a step backward and looked prepared for the pilot to entertain him with a puff of his spice. "Corneria and Venom decide to go to war with each other, and we're caught in the middle of it. All Star-Wolf was here to do was to collect some cargo for a client. Suddenly, there are ships everywhere, and Panther here, can't find a single way out without taking a space-cruiser head on."
"That's the obvious part" Rufus nodded, beginning a pace back and forth in front of Wolf whilst fixing his bright green eyes and different marks and spots on the hangar floor.
"You appeared out of nowhere well within combat range, meaning you were in the area the whole time" Wolf said. He'd already figured the next part out as he finished his words. "I don't feel any impacts on the ship now, meaning… this ship is equipped with a cloaking device, from the eye and radar systems."
"Well done, chap" Rufus nodded with his eyebrows raising in compliment. Wolf continued, not amused by the feline's performance.
"McCloud mentioned somebody jamming their scanning systems – I imagine that would have been you."
"Correct, correct" Rufus said with an excited inclination in his voice. "But you're missing one little peculiar detail."
"Right" Wolf replied spontaneously. "You were here before the fire started."
"Strange, yes?"
"Either this is impossibly coincidental… Or this incident, you had already perceived."
"Hmmm…" Rufus muttered curiously.
"Which would lead me to make the assumption that… you were the fire starter?"
"Hah!" Rufus expostulated at the top of his lungs with a twisted pleasure. He stopped pacing in his tracks, turned to Wolf in a rotation, removed his top hat, and then bowed with a fluid motion. A wisp of spice fumes escaped his lungs and hovered toward Wolf's muzzle. As they neared his black eye patch, the mercenary felt a slight tingle around the curves of his covered eye socket. "You've done very well" Rufus smiled, coming up from his bow. "You're smarter than they say you are, Captain O'Donnell! Just an abominable space nomad you are not!"
Wolf remained silent at the feline's comments. Rufus was starting to get on his nerves, very much so, but there was little he could do about it. "Very well" the feline declared, taking the final puff of his spice stick and tossing it aside. His brown boots, that were probably once black, crushed the remaining fire left in the smoldering cylinder, and reduced the object to flattened mark on the floor.
That's where they come from, Wolf remarked to himself. "You've earned the right to know how you can live through your dire situation."
"Have we now?" Wolf frowned. "I think you'll find we're…"
"… Full of surprises?" Rufus capped. "Sadly O'Donnell, I don't think so. Not this time. You're not the oppressor in this little story, I am. So accept your position, and then consider what you're going to do about it, yes?"
"I would consider you foolish to allow me to live, to be completely honest with you, Rufus. I don't know who you think you are – but I think you'd better kill me – and my boys here. Because if we do escape your revolting hovel alive, you can be assured, you never will."
He eyed Rufus's reaction closely, but the feline was on his game, leaving almost no leads.
Almost.
Wolf had caught the flinch he was looking for, a flicker of the jade eyes. The situation was spelled out for him at that moment – Rufus was seeing how far Star-Wolf could be pushed.
Leon interjected with a comment fueled by the anger dancing at his fingertips, only a hint away from reaching for his blaster.
"I'd cap him right here, and do this whole ship in cold."
"Easy, Leon" Wolf muttered.
"I spotted those automated turret compartments in the ceiling too, Wolf. That's nothing we can't handle" Leon shot back.
"That's not what was on my mind" Wolf announced, raising his voice for all to be heard. He took a step closer to Rufus, looking the feline in the eye with his singular, and nodded slightly. "I think Rufus here, already knows that Star-Wolf won't turn down a profit, and that's why he had the intuition of saving us from that mess back there in the first place."
Character judgment – it was never hard. All Wolf ever needed was just a little time to analyze someone and put the missing pieces together, and then it all became crystal. Rufus, whoever he was, was in full possession of all the facts relating to Star-Wolf, and had already devised a reward tempting enough to stop the trio from formulating a counterattack. Rufus's enveloping smile stuck solid on his face.
"There's no two ways about it, you're captain has it precisely accurate" he nodded. "It's forced business, if you come out of this alive; you have a great amount to gain. And not just in money."
Wolf didn't feel far from wandering through the charred remains of a primeval cavern network as Rufus Haze led him through the ship's bowels. Much of the interior of the Lone Star appeared to be constructed out of a type of wood. Wolf found this surprising has he'd expected the ship's structure would be old, but not so much as to seem on the fringes of abandonment. The darkened network of corridors that he'd been led through by a shady feline were lit only by fiery lanterns, hooked up or latched on dangerously to the ship's wooden bulkheads. Wolf was partially amazed that the Lone Star had not already melted itself down into space dust. The narrow spaces between the lanterns were blocked with a scorched air, which brought droplets of sweat to Wolf's scalp. He rid his forehead of a few droplets before continuing down a blackened, seemingly endless tunnel where the space between the lanterns grew more distant, and finally, arrived at Rufus's intended destination.
"You may speak with the captain now, O'Donnell" Rufus announced as he placed one furred hand on a bolt protruding from an ancient doorway. With a jolt he heaved the gate toward him, and his remaining hand to gesture Wolf inside the entrance. Giving the feline a stern glare, he reluctantly passed through the doorway, aware of what was waiting for him on the other side – a barrage of demands from the Lone Star's captain. He spared a quick thought toward Leon and Panther, who were both awaiting his return uneasily in the hangar bay of the ship, but found himself with few options.
Wolf felt no change of temperature as he came through into the cramped quarters, the same blistering heat lingered as it had further back down the corridors. As he gained distance from Rufus, standing at the doorway, it was slammed shut in a hurry. Wolf jumped to alertness and studied the area around him in search of signs of a trap. However the room's other occupant, slouched in a chair that resembled a bright red throne, seemed quite relaxed.
"Please, sit" insisted a confident and warm voice. Wolf eyed his captor closely, scanning every inch of the captain without missing anything. The captain was coated in a thick jungle of lengthy snow-white fur; spotlessly clear without a single discoloration. He was a bear – and against the dim shades of his cabin, he emerged from his background like the biggest and brightest star in a night sky. Draped in a gown formed of a glittering and yielding material of the highest prestige, the captain still allowed a large portion of his fur to be in plain sight, as if his immaculate fleece was a prized trophy. He had an epic physical mass that consumed the bulk of the throne he was resting on, and mercifully allowed the arms of the structure to make an appearance. On the glowing bear's face was a silver monocle sitting around his left brunette eye, connected by a chain which wrapped around one of his hidden ear lobes. Before the enormous being was a large wooden desk, littered with datapads crowded around an older-model holoprojector. It struck Wolf immediately that whom he was dealing with here was not a stereotypical thug.
In fact, it doesn't seem there's anything villainous about him at all.
Wolf did what he was told and located the nearest chair – not nearly as glamorous as the throne the captain had placed himself on – and seated himself.
"Would you care for a drink?" offered the bear sincerely as he extended a gargantuan arm toward an assortment of prehistoric glassware. Wolf twitched his muzzle in surprise as he spotted the antiques.
Any further back in time and this ship wouldn't be spaceborne.
Wolf shook his head in a negative after the novelty of the glasses wore off, as experience and instincts told him to. One never accepted a drink from a captor the first time around, it was the most memorable piece of advice in survival holograms system-wide. The bear nodded, and Wolf thought he had caught a trace of empathy in the captain.
"The drinks are not poisonous, Captain, as I would be dead by now. Secondly, I understand how you feel like a roasted vulpine at current. Trust me, I know – my species also prefers more temperate environments."
Wolf glanced at the vermillion flames rippling behind the Lone Star's captain, and subsequently wrinkling his vision of the rear of the cabin with an intense heat wave. Just watching the flames in the claustrophobic environment lured the sweat droplets from the top of Wolf's head, and began streaming them down his face.
"Fichina blend?" Wolf inquired lightly. The captain appeared taken aback, with an expression of pleased revelations upon his features.
"Goodness, Captain O'Donnell. What indeed fine taste you have" the bear grinned, grasping a bottle without shifting his weight at all and relying on the stretch of his arm. As the captain went about pouring the beverages into glass cylinders possibly even more ancient than the bottles themselves, Wolf watched carefully, but simultaneously offered a nod. He had noticed the continued usage of the word 'captain' as a title for the pilot was a mark of respect, yet most likely adopted to rub Wolf into a more diplomatic frame of mind.
He's very cunning; I can respect him for that.
"I assumed you had come from Fichina."
The bear nodded with a tinge of excitement, eager to approach business. There was a gentle splashing as the pouring commenced of the last glass, and he handed it to Wolf courteously.
"Forgive me for not yet introducing myself" the bear said, clearing his throat. "My name is Arctirus, I am the captain of the Lone Star, and it is a pleasure to finally meet you, Captain O'Donnell."
Arctirus? Now that name rings a bell.
A charcoal hand approached Wolf's muzzle on a arcing vector as a hint of danger crept through his veins.
"Wolf… please" the mercenary spoke, fighting a gulp.
"Well tell me Wolf, has word of the Luperium ever reached your ears, by any chance?"
Wolf's jaw, had it been open, would have snapped shut hard enough to shatter his fangs. Instead, either side of his mouth pressed against one another to compress his astonishment.
"The Luper…" his voice drifted off, unable to finish his words. He put the shock aside as much as he was capable of doing, and forced his voice box to say something. "Occasionally… hardly… ever" he admitted. Arctirus nodded and his eyelids drooped downward.
"Yes, I would have suspected a pilot such as yourself, who has traveled through the Lylat countless times would be aware of such a word. I don't know what you've heard Wolf, however the Luperium is not a wad of despicable murderers and thieves. On the contrary, the Luperium is quite reasonable in terms of bargaining."
Wolf dreaded the answer to the question that was on the tip of his tongue, but asked in spite of his fear.
"Do you… work for the Luperium, Captain?"
"Arctirus, please" the bear grinned with a twisted invitation to comradeship. He took in a deep breath and his grin enlarged into a welcoming smile. "No, I do not work for the Luperium" he answered casually, however his raise in volume suggested something viler. Wolf was correct when he suspected the captain of the Lone Star was only bracing his guest in suspense. "I am the Luperium."
Rufus allowed the length of his olive coat to exaggerate his height as he approached the two Star-Wolf pilots from the base of the steps. His hand slid of the handrail gracefully, as if the feline had planned yet another slick entrance, and then dropped it to his side. Leon and Panther had cross expressions upon their faces when they realized that their captain had not returned, and their feelings jumped to conclusions. Panther watched Leon loom toward the feline in distress.
"Where is he, you whelp?" Leon hissed. Panther noticed that the rubbery jade flesh upon Leon's scalp was sparkling with a coat of fluid exclusive to the lizard's species, and only dwarfed his appearance.
"Relax, First Lieutenant Powalski, your captain is enjoying the welcoming company of my superior."
Leon didn't reply, he wasn't completely aware of how much at liberty he was to say. Rufus seized a hold of the gap of silence, and dove his hands into interior pockets in either side of his coat. From each beige palm emerged a black boxy device with a minute control interface. Rufus offered them in plain sight to each of the pilots, and then explained their meaning. "These will be used to control your actions, and the actions of your captain. They are remote explosive devices, and attempting to remove them once activated results in an explosion large enough to destroy a small ship… such as your Wolfens."
Wolf didn't attempt to hide his grief as he molded a thumb and an index finger to the shape of his brow, and quivered his head from side to side. Arctirus had seemed to expect the reaction, but did not feed on Wolf's release of emotion. He had emerged from his throne now, and was studying the image of a hologram floating just above his auburn desk, standing only inches away from it. The portrayal was that of Fichina, a world as white as Arctirus was, and drenched in a fierce winter environment all year long. Wolf looked up and saw the cobalt tint of the hologram reflect of the bear's eyes. The white globe that represented Fichina centered itself on each of Arctirus's pupils. It didn't take Wolf much thought to realize that it was the planet of his host's origin.
"I would expect you to be more participatory, considering the circumstances. However Wolf, you seem to be consumed in your own distress."
"I'm not stupid enough to think that there might be a way of getting out of this mess" Wolf moaned. Arctirus offered him an empathetic smile. His eyes became unfocussed from the hologram, and he flicked a button with a black claw that killed the image. The lighting in the room returned to the orange tint that glow of the lanterns produced.
"I like you, Captain O'Donnell. You're motives are not focused on escaping with your life, but looking realistically at the situation before you" Arctirus said. "Many of the people that are brought to my cabin resort to pleas of mercy and the like."
Wolf caught a whiff of the fragrance that blanketed the bear's primal scent as he came in close to lean toward him – a supercharge of citrus jungle fruits from the plush rainforests of Fortuna, and too much of it may have poisoned those within its aura. The beginnings of a migraine sparked in Wolf's cranium as he absorbed too much of the tang, and it brought his neck up. His singular eye coincidentally met with Arctirus's monocle just prior to the bear's delayed words. "However Wolf, I think you'll find you're position is not a bad one. You are more fortunate than you may think. A prisoner, yes – in the respect that I will be placing remote explosive devices on your ships to control what you do – but a business associate in the way that we can provide you with Cass Rico's cargo that you so desperately need for the compensation."
Firstly Wolf had been concerned at the mention of explosives on Star-Wolf's ships, but then his attention shifted to the mention of Cass Rico's name, and it stirred a curiosity inside. It intrigued Wolf, even when he was the pawn in a game, to solve the puzzles along the way and keep one step ahead of captors.
Though keeping a step ahead doesn't seem plausible here.
"You had the cargo?"
"Yes" Arctirus smiled, foreseeing earlier that the aspect would ensnare the pilot's attention.
"Why?"
"The way I plan my business Wolf, is how I succeed. My strategy is to premeditate everything before it happens, relying on the follies in one's character to use to my advantage."
There was a brief pause before Wolf's reply as his realization painfully slipped a prickle into his pride, chipping away at the confidence he'd wielded while resolving uncertainties in both Arctirus and Rico's plots.
"That's how you got to me" Wolf bitterly resonated. Coldness swept over him as he finished his sentence, stinging his ego and pointing a finger in regret.
I should have listened to myself, if I had only the means to go back and change that one thing, I would.
"Do not be so hard on yourself Wolf, for this little lesson you have learned will result in a reward you have long searched for. Fear not, I do not dig up dirt on my clients and use it for blackmail. Instead I offer priceless gifts."
"I destroyed that weakness long ago, Arctirus. It interests me to see how you can tempt me in that respect, for I've defeated my demons… my wants… my needs. Everything…"
"This is something I know, Captain O'Donnell, that you cannot resist."
"If you think McCloud can…"
"Not Fox McCloud, Wolf!" Arctirus interjected with a snap and a snare. A shot of fright rung through Wolf for an instant, as any sense of stable diplomacy between the two had obviously been an illusion on his part. Arctirus's hiss was sufficient enough to remind Wolf that he was a prisoner of sorts aboard the Lone Star, and could be dead in moments if the captain had willed it. He sunk back into his chair slightly as Arctirus placed his hands on the edges of the desk outstretched on either side, with drapes of bushy, dense white hairs drooping from the skin on his limbs. "Please, do not insult me" he growled with a smoldering irritation. He used his right arm to wave a circle over the wide mass of assorted datapads scattered about on the desk top. "After digging up all this information on some of the most feared star-fighter pilots in the Lylat, I've found something with far more leverage than a petty revenge tool."
Wolf's working eye took a quick glance at the clustered datapads as he twitched his muzzle in discomfort at the bear's unstable presence. "Please, understand that I have spent years doing what I do, and anything you think you know about your situation, you don't. It will make both our lives easier."
Wolf released a hand from his brow and allowed the coarse timber of the desk top to tickle under his palm as he branched his arm over it. With his distracting movements, he bought himself some time to consider Arctirus's proposition before the bear could press him further in retaliation. Wolf allowed a fang to cure an itch in the corner of his lower jaw as he glimpsed at the captain for a moment, deliberating over his choices. A fool Wolf was not – he had no choices.
"What are you proposing?" he asked.
"They're free and completely aware that we have them under our control" Rufus said to Arctirus as he passed through the doorway into the captain's quarters. Arctirus pampered the snowy fur on his chin gently as he stared blankly into an invisible spot on the desk before him. When he spoke, his words were far spaced and dreary.
"Captain O'Donnell is no fool; soon he will realize that the devices on the ships are ineffective. But I think we have a form of insurance with him."
Rufus dipped his head as his faith in his leader was temporarily dampened at the lack of confidence in the bear's tone. For Arctirus, his subordinate's body language was more than obvious. "Fear not, Rufus" he reassured. "For the unmitigated completion of our calculations, we will need to target another of the Star-Wolf pilots. Did you select a worthy candidate?"
"I did, Captain. And I think he will be most helpful indeed" the feline said with a mischievous bane creeping into his voice.