Chapter Ten
A heavy, heavy atmosphere fills the room. Atreus looks at Fox, sorrow in his eyes. "Fox, your uncle wanted you to see this very badly. We're running a ridiculous amount of damage control with the press, but weather satellites are already picking up blips. It won't be long until this is all over the news channels. Peppy wanted you to know now, you understand? Before it's too late."
Fox shakes his head. "What do you mean?"
Atreus gives him a long, penetrating look. "He gave me a message for you, too," he says at last, tapping at the video player. Peppy's face appears, looking twice as haggard and ten years older than this morning.
"Fox," says the old hare, and Fox wants to reach through the screen and hug him. Peppy looks over his shoulder, then leans in toward the camera and lowers his voice. "Listen, Fox. We're doing our best, but in a few hours, probably less, the same footage you saw will be playing on billions of screens all over Corneria. It will be absolute mass panic. For this reason, the Defence Bureau is grounding all Arwing squadrons. We are not to scramble a single jet more until the absolute last minute to avoid a catastrophic civilian panic."
Peppy looks over his shoulder again, running a weary hand through his head fur. He looks back at the camera, dark circles showing under his eyes. "Now, we believe this is a small scouting party. They are getting a feel for our defenses in preparation for the hyperspace jump of a larger invasion force. A dozen fighters right now, no more, but potentially millions in the invasion force. Fox, they can't jump that force, or we're finished. Corneria cannot defend against a fleet of that magnitude."
Peppy leans even closer to the camera. "The expeditionary force must be destroyed. Andross is cautious, if his scouting flight is wiped out he'll think twice about launching an invasion. We could buy ourselves months, maybe years. But they grounded my flights. The scouts will meet no resistance, the invasion will come, and we will fall." The old hare stares into the camera, the intensity palpable in his eyes. "Fox, I always knew that when the time came, you would be every inch the man your father was and more. You've become more like him with every day, and I have always had complete faith in you."
He sits back, raising a hand to end the transmission. "The time has come, Fox. Remember who you are."
With that the transmission ends. Atreus slips the darkened screen back into his pocket, turning to his son. Falco meets his father's eyes, and Fox senses something pass between the two, something deeper than words. Atreus reaches a hand out, then drops it suddenly. "Son, I—" he begins, then seems unable to finish the sentence.
In a sudden rush Falco pushes forward, wrapping his father in a bearhug. Atreus looks stunned for a second, then hugs his son back, closing his eyes and burying his face in Falco's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "For everything. I didn't realize how far … I'm sorry."
"She's never coming back, dad," says Falco.
Atreus stiffens, then he lets out a massive breath and seems to sag in his son's arms. "No," he says, and years of weariness show in his voice. "She's not coming back. I'm sorry it took me so long to admit it. I loved her, but she's gone, and you're here now, and I love you."
Falco squeezes his father tighter. "I know, dad. I love you too."
They break away, both of their eyes a little wetter than they'd like to admit. Atreus looks back at Fox, taking a shaky breath. "You two should get to the nearest shelter. I have to get back now before I'm missed." He starts toward the doorway, then turns back, a look of agony on his face. "If, if I don't …" He opens his mouth to say more, then shuts it and hurries away down the hall.
Fox turns to Falco, an empty feeling chewing at his stomach. "I guess we should go to the shelter."
Falco nods. "Right. I'll just pack up some clothes." He moves as if in a daze, shuffling back to his room and stuffing random pieces of clothing into a backpack. Fox carefully returns Atreus's guitar to its stand and he and Falco leave, locking the door behind them and setting off across the hills to Fox's house.
Lighting shatters the sky overhead, forking through pitch-black clouds that roil and swirl like the face of an angry, ancient god. Fox hardly feels the rain as the two hike back to his doorstep. He pulls open the front door and they troop inside, not even bothering to shake off the water. Fox wanders into the kitchen, looking about him as if in a dream. Is this really happening? he wonders. Am I awake? How can I be?
He looks around the kitchen again, taking in the dark wood cabinets and the stained oak countertop, covered in an absent-minded heap of files and papers. Something feels wrong somehow, as if he's missing something. The time has come, Peppy had said. What was that supposed to mean? And that look Atreus had given him, as if he was waiting for something. …
The phone rings from next to the sink and Fox picks it up automatically. "Hello?"
"Fox, it's Wolf!" says his friend's voice excitedly. "Fox, have you been watching the news? Satellites are picking something up coming from outside the atmosphere! This could be why all those fighters were scrambling before, remember? Didn't you say your uncle was working overtime on something at the Defence Agency?"
Fox's eyes trail over the pile of papers on the counter. He's only half-listening; something is rearranging itself inside him and he feels as if the pieces are almost about to fit together. Grounded all my flights … must be destroyed … Fox, I always knew that when the time came … His eyes settle on a piece of rigid plastic poking out from under a tattered folder. Carefully, with a tingling feeling in his stomach, he pulls it out of the pile. Peppy's ID. He was distracted, but he wouldn't have left that behind by accident, would he?
Fox blinks, his heartbeat echoing in his ears. Suddenly, in a moment of complete clarity, it all fits. The time has come. I have always had complete faith in you. Wolf is still chattering in his ear. "I have to go," says Fox, and he hangs up the phone with Wolf still talking. Remember who you are.
Falco looks up at him, seeming to sense a change. Fox looks back at him, and something in his expression makes Falco freeze. "We're not going to the shelter," says Fox.
"We're not?"
Fox slips the ID into his pocket, the strangest sense of calm overtaking him. The out-of-place feeling is gone; now he feels awake, awake and ready. "Come on," he says, striding past Falco and opening the front door. Falco follows him as Fox leads the way back into the forest and down the same path he's walked almost daily for the past few years of his life. Falco must realize where he's leading them, but he doesn't say a word. Instead, Fox feels a change in the air, and when he looks back the avian's face is a picture of complete determination. He nods at Fox, and Fox turns back to the trail and pushes onward. Overhead thunder cracks, rolling like cannon fire across the valleys.
By the time they arrive at the airforce base they're both completely drenched. Fox pushes open the door to find the lobby deserted. A screen overhead is flashing the same message again and again: All staff recall to Lithmus Airstrip. Await further orders.
"Is everyone really gone?" asks Falco, breaking the eerie silence.
Fox nods. It makes sense. "Lithmus is the nearest major airstrip. If the scouting flights took off from here, they must have lost almost all of their pilots. They'll want everyone back at the main bases to stage a counter-attack."
"A counter-attack that will come too late," says Falco grimly.
Fox walks through the powered-down security checkpoints, this time taking a left down the hallway toward the main hangar. As he swipes Peppy's keycard a sense of dizzying anticipation overwhelms him. I have always had complete faith in you.
It's much bigger than the practice hangar, a vast empty space lit by dimmed light strips and walled on one side by a massive steel door. Fox looks around, panic suddenly blossoming in his gut. Wait, empty? The fighter bays lie dark and empty, and Fox remembers that the scout flights would have taken this base's entire compliment of fighters. … Then his heart lifts as he sees the final bay, the last on the right, has its running lights on. Sitting there, bathed in shadow and grimy yellow light, is a single Arwing fighter.
Fox steps forward slowly, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous space. He approaches the Arwing carefully, as if it's some great beast that might attack or run in an instant. He raises a hand, running his palm over the worn and battered side of the spacecraft. "It's beautiful," says Falco from behind him, and Fox can only nod. He looks up at the cockpit, the scarred glass seeming impossibly far away even though a few quick steps up the rusted ladder will take him there, a few short steps up to the destiny that he's dreamed of his entire life. "Are you ready?" he asks.
In answer Falco reaches his hands around Fox's waist and pulls him in, holding him close and kissing him gently. Then he breaks away just as suddenly, a half a smile on his face. "Yeah," he says softly. "I'm ready."
Fox climbs the ladder, laying his hand on the canopy. In the dirty glass his reflection looks different, older somehow. Fox blinks. He has the sudden feeling that he's not seeing himself at all. I've always had complete faith in you. Fox stares into the reflection. Dad? But then it's gone. Just a trick of the light, he decides, and opens the canopy.
The seats are made of worn, synthetic upholstery that sighs as Fox and Falco climb into the cockpit. Fox leans back, taking in a deep breath and filling his lungs with the smell of machine oil and the faint tang of mildew. He curls his fingers around the control yoke, the comforting fit of the two sticks like the grasp of an old friend. I'm finally doing this, he thinks, I'm actually piloting an Arwing. It's really happening.
"Fox," calls Falco, breaking him out of his reverie. "There's just one problem: we don't have anyone to open the hangar door for us."
Fox looks across the darkened hangar to the massive steel door at the far end. "We'll have to blast through it," he says, buckling up his restraints and tightening the straps until they press snugly against him. He looks down at the control board, for a moment imagining he's back in the simulator room on flight day. His fingers move of their own accord, finding the power switch and flipping it up. The cockpit hums and lights flicker on all around them. The canopy lights up, a heads up display appearing over the glass. "Systems check," says Fox, and they run through the routine. Under the familiarity is a sharper edge, though, as both of them realize that this time not just their grades but their lives are at stake.
Startup check complete, Fox once again wraps his hands around the yoke. He pushes forward slightly and the Arwing hums, taxiing out of its slot and turning to face the opposite end of the hangar. "Okay. Target the hangar door."
"Locked on," says Falco behind him. "Big fucking rectangle, dead ahead."
Fox laughs, nerves pushing his voice up a few steps higher than usual. "Alright, let's go. Blow it open."