Author Note:
Apparently, Star Fox: Legacy has made the short list of tvtrope's recommended Star Fox fanfics. Um... wow... Thanks tropers!
Anyways. This chapter is a little longer than some of the others, but it's full-to-bursting with intrigue, drama, a bit of snark, and a whole bunch of other good stuff we all love, so maybe that'll make up for the slightly longer length. Hope you enjoy it!
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/
-Some years earlier-
Adrian Crane was alone in Cerberus's computer mainframe, sitting hunched over the main terminal, with a small table pulled up alongside it. A brand new wrist-computer was there on the table. He was busy, coding and programing a comprehensive wireless interface between Cerberus –with all its automated features– and the wrist computer. Essentially, he was making a remote control, which could come in very handy for a ship like this.
Without any warning, the lights went dark, and all the little noises of machinery and equipment ceased, plunging the mainframe into black silence.
Once he'd gotten over the initial shock, Adrian scrambled into troubleshooting the systems, producing a small flashlight from one of his many pockets as he went to work. There was no response from the mainframe's interfaces, not even the power switches were doing anything –could've been a blown failsafe. No. even if there was ship-wide a power failure, the mainframe had a built-in backup power supply which should've allowed some functions to continue, if only for a limited period.
This was different. Something happened, something far beyond a simple failure.
"I'm not here to kill you." a calm voice said from the darkness. "I just want to talk."
Adrian snapped the beam of his flashlight at the speaker, and found Serge Noire, standing right there in his favored knee-length coat, calm and casual as his flinty cold ways would let him be.
There was a flash of combat instincts at that moment that screamed to Adrian, "Get a weapon! Fight back! Take control!" but the analytical part thought better of it, and the curious part wanted to know what this was all about. And besides, Serge wasn't the blathering gloating type. If he wanted him dead, he was well within is ability to have done so already.
"This; it was you, wasn't it?" Adrian mused, giving a sweeping gesture all around him, "What did you do?"
"I activated the Lethe procedure."
"Which is..."
Serge paused a few moments, giving no visual indications other than looking slightly away from Adrian for a bit. Then he looked back when he began, "In the ancient myths, Lethe was the name of a river, one of five that flow though the underworld where the spirits of the dead go. The other four rivers are: Styx, the river of hate, Acheron, the river of pain, Cocytus, the river of anguish, and Phlegethon, the river of fire. These other four are unstable concepts, unpredictable, uncontrollable. No, I prefer Lethe. In its original language, Lethe means 'oblivion', 'forgetfulness' or 'concealment'. Those who drank from this river would experience a state of utter forgetfulness, a complete amnesia."
"That's uh... cute and poetic and all, but it doesn't tell me anything." Adrian said, still confused, "What exactly did this Lethe thing do to the ship?"
"Cerberus has 'forgotten' how to function." Serge explained, "Main power is offline, propulsion and weapon systems are inoperable, the computer is locked out, communications smothered, and all of the automated features have been shut down. The ship has been rendered useless."
"So what's the point of all this? What do you want?"
"This is Cerberus's final line of defense." Serge said, cutting into Adrian with a cold flinty glare.
Serge waited, looking for Adrian's reaction. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but kept his composure, waiting in-turn for Serge's next move. The avian technician's cool-headed response satisfied Serge, and he gave him a curt nod.
"If you are ever overrun, and the ship is about to fall into the hands of your enemy, give Cerberus a drink from the river Lethe: deprive your captors of her use, and turn the tables on them. They will not be able to track your movements, relocate the ship to someplace safe, nor send a message to call for help, not while the ship is a lifeless drifting husk. Then, in this cold dark of oblivion; with the hearts your enemies full of fear, uncertainty, and doubt; strike from the shadows, and pick them off one by one until you emerge the victor.
"That, is the true power of Lethe: to forget, to conceal, and in doing so: obliterate..." Serge reached inside his coat, under his left shoulder, where a handgun would be concealed. When his hand reemerged, there was no weapon; just a memory card, which he presented to Adrian. "This is the encryption key that will reverse the Lethe procedure. It decodes the computer's multi-layered lockout encryptions, and activates Cerberus's flash startup protocols, putting the ship back at full operating status in under a minute. Use it: plug it into the mainframe."
"Why are you doing this?" Adrian asked as he accepted the memory card, still very much curious or confused.
He did as Serge instructed, and inserted the small, plain-seeming card into the corresponding slot on the mainframe terminal. All at once, the ship began to awaken from its sudden slumber. The whir and hum of the computer mainframe components were accompanied by the much lower and more pervasive groan of the reactor core as it started up once again. A wash of light also flooded the room, both from the overhead fixtures and the consoles' readout displays.
"I too would like to 'forget'." Serge finally answered.
With the ship returning to life all around them, Serge turned and headed out of the mainframe.
"Take care of the ship, Adrian."
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/
-Many years after that-
In short, it was a typical enough fine dining restaurant.
The design was fairly straightforward. All the furniture, artwork, and fixtures in the dining area followed a theme of 'elegant semi-modern', where everything followed clean lines and a subdued color schemes, with only tasteful deviations, and nothing that would be rightly considered outrageous or garish. The guests attending mostly followed this trend in the way they dressed, with the ladies in a wide variety of their evening best, and the gentlemen in variations of the classic suit-and-tie combo. The wait staff cycled through the dining area, carrying out their duties with the same iron discipline as soldiers on patrol.
The myriad of succulent scents from the food, and the crisp tartness of the drinks mingled in the air with perfumes and colognes from the guests. Their quiet conversations accompanied by a backdrop of gentle music, and only a hint of the busy kitchen clamor.
Then something changed.
"Everybody be cool!" an angry voice bellowed, "This is a robbery!"
One of the guests – a bright red hook-beaked avian – leapt onto the table he was sitting at, and brandished a handgun down toward the surrounding guests. A similarly colored lady avian in a cocktail dress who was sharing his table produced a handgun from her purse, and likewise held it at the ready as she hollered at nearby guests and wait-staff.
"Anybody moves so much as a muscle without our say-so, and we'll execute every last one of you!"
The gun-toting couple swept across the dining area, shouting and intimidating everyone as they went, sending a sudden wave of panic into the guests which spread through the entire restaurant like wildfire. Anyone who attempted to act were immediately beset by one of the couple, shocked into submission by the muzzle of a blaster handgun and the yelled threat of its imminent discharge.
"YOU!" The scarlet lady avian had pounced on one of the guests who'd tried to move, and bore down on her target with a relentless fury, holding the weapon steady at the victim's face. "Get down on the ground, on the floor! Stay there–!"
* Shk! *
She dropped her blaster.
The lady avian just stood there, speechless, quivering, eyes wide, and breath coming in rapid shallow gasps. The only people who seemed any more shocked than she did at the moment: the guests she had only moments ago threatened.
"Something wrong, honey?" her companion asked, as he came toward her, glancing around with an uneasy combination of concern and suspicion, "You got any problems here?"
When he arrived, he laid a hand on her trembling bare shoulder. She cringed at the touch, and turned herself around. The lady avian's expression was one of pain, and shock, and she clutched her hand.
Her empty hand had been skewered by a serrated steak-knife, the red-smeared blade sprouting from her palm, leaking a thin trickle of blood.
Upon seeing this, he went into a rage down and yanked up one of the cowering guests by the shirt.
"You!" he snapped, "Tell me who threw the knife, now!"
"I– I– I don't know!" the other stammered, "I didn't see!"
"Well who the hell did!" he demanded as he threw the guest back down, "Do any of you fat, ritzy, gluttons have working eyeballs in your thick heads!"
The scarlet avian scanned through the nearby guests. They were all terrified, or confused, or both, but none of them answered. More disconcerting still was when some of the wait-staff leered back at him, angry, confident, scoffing? Mocking?
"Okay hero, so that's the way you're gonna play..."
He brought his handgun up, and mustered another wave of
"If you don't come out at the count of three, I start plugging the diners!"
A few fearful gasps sprung up among the guests, but only a few. More of the guests glanced around in anxiety, aware that something had gone wrong. The staff continued to stare down the would-be robber, silently menacing him with their confidence.
"One..."
He picked out one of the guests to be his hostage, and brought his weapon to bear. He tried so very hard to keep his hand from trembling, to stay intimidating, to save face.
"Two..."
The others could sense his fear, he knew it. He felt his heart bumping, and fought to keep his breath under control. He didn't want to kill, not if he didn't need to, but it looked to be a situation where it's him or them.
"Where are you?" he whispered, but not to anybody in particular.
"Right behind you." answered a cold flinty voice.
The scarlet avian whipped around to face the voice.
His gun arm was swiftly knocked up and away as he spun, forcing the weapon to discharge into the ceiling. Then a strike speared into his throat in the same instant. He staggered from the blow, gasping through his swelling windpipe, and a firm hand pried his handgun away. Before there was a chance to get a good look at his attacker, much less act, the avian found his feet had been swept out from under him, and he landed on his back with a dull thud.
Only then did he get a clear look at his attacker: a sharply dressed, slick-furred canid, holding the blaster handgun squarely toward the hapless avian's face. He didn't even look down at the would-be robber, he just looked over to somewhere else, with a gaze that could freeze fire.
"Get this filth out of my restaurant." Serge Noire ordered.
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軽い誇りの事項
A Small Matter of Pride
/
Scoff if you like, but I promise there are few places more rigorous, more demanding, more meticulous or unrelentingly merciless than a restaurant devoted to elegant fine-dining. There are near-endless lists of standards kept for every possible situation and scenario, protocols to be followed to the letter. The staff must be always in complete awareness of their surroundings and everyone who occupies it, ready to move in the instant their presence is necessitated, and even anticipate when they will be needed beforehand. Everything from table setting, meet-and-greet, seating, taking orders, serving food and drink. It all requires precision, discretion, discipline, and the ease of control to work in plain sight of countless onlookers.
Military training sometimes comes close, but lacks attention-to-detail and discretion; too loud and boisterous. Technical engineering often comes closer, but lacks refinement, or keen awareness of the subtle nuances of people; too oblivious to circumstances outside the objective.
Perhaps this point is becoming clear to you – that the myriad of skills required to succeed in fine dining also lend themselves to other, less-than-innocent professions. Not only that, but a restaurant makes excellent cover: the employees bind together like a fiercely loyal clan, able to keep secrets, act as one, and support each other in times of need. This is why they come to me to learn my ways, and why I acted as I did when she came.
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/
Serge Noire was making his rounds through the restaurant's dining area, just as the evening dinner rush was picking up. Many of the tables now were occupied by expectant guests, the wait-staff were busy ferrying themselves from table to table, and a muffled, not-quite-frantic din of activity poured from the kitchen.
In short: a normal enough weekend evening. That's when Noire's assistant –a well-built white tiger by name of Chandra– came to Serge bearing the look of someone with news. He didn't speak until the two were side-by-side, and could converse without risk of being overheard.
"Someone just tried to break in." he was Fortunan by his name and slight accent, which eased its way through his trained voice, "We have her secured in the back."
"And you haven't discharged the poor wretch according to our procedures. Curious." Serge mused.
"She is... different."
Chandra handed Noire a fresh photograph, still warm from the printer, which showed a somewhat scruffy lady raccoon. She wore a hooded sweater and cargo pants, all in dull colors of gray and brown. He most striking feature however was her eyes: not the color –a grayish hazel– but how they were alert, scanning, alive with that constant state of awareness that Serge had grown to know well, and easily recognize in others.
"Hm."
Serge had to concede that point: she certainly appeared different.
"She's clean." Chandra continued to fill in, "No weapons on her, but she was toting a bag full of tech-goodies, and she also asked for you by name."
The two closed in toward a door marked 'Employees Only', near the kitchen, where the sounds and smells intensified as they neared.
"What do we have on her?" Serge asked.
He and Chandra passed through the door, leaving behind the dull cacophony of the restaurant's dining area. The busy clamor of the kitchens however was far more evident here. The two passed a door on their right, through which the kitchen staff could be seen, and heard,
"The first round of contacts haven't turned up anything, and she doesn't match anyone in our databases. She won't spill a peep about anything unless its to you, so she claims." Chandra's tone altered, becoming colder, more sinister, "Do you want the boys and I to run the gauntlet on her?"
They came to a stop outside a door with no label, no identifying marks of any kind; just a lock.
"No." Serge answered over his shoulder as he approached the door, "Not before I've spoken with her, at least."
He disengaged the lock and passed through, leaving Chandra outside.
The room was small, nondescript, probably intended to be a storeroom by the original architect, but not now. The room was completely empty, devoid of any furniture of any kind, with only a single lonely fixture overhead providing light.
There, leaning against the wall with arms crossed like she hadn't a care in the world, was the lady raccoon from the photograph. She regarded Serge with little more than a passing glance, but that was enough. She looked away, still with that bored expression, and waited.
Noire stepped into the center of the room, moving slow, and assessed her in silence.
"What is your name?" Serge asked. It didn't matter to him what she answered, but rather: how.
"Rachelle Cooney." she answered quickly.
"How did you get in?"
"I came through your back door."
"It's locked–"
"Bypassed–"
"Guarded–"
"Distracted–"
"Watched by cameras–"
"Blinded–"
"Sensitive audio monitors–"
"Flooded with noise–"
"and thermal sensors–"
"Easily nullified when you stick a pane of glass in front of them."
She was concise, controlled, and confident; marks of a practiced professional. Rachelle was examining Serge just as he examined her, each drawing certain conjectures about the other, inserting tentative placeholders at certain conclusions, forming hypotheses that demanded testing. So test each other they did, in the best way they knew how under the circumstances: speak, and gauge the other's reaction.
"Do you know what happened to the last idiot thieves who tried to rob this place?" Serge finally asked.
"It was all over the news the next day: Restaurant Owner Ruins Robbers."
"Then it is fortunate you are not an idiot thief."
"If I was, I doubt we'd be speaking."
"Hm."
"The thing about that little incident though;" Rachelle mused as she stepped away from the wall, "I would've expected someone in your... unique position... to show a little more restraint, instead of mangling malcontents. Why'd you do it, if you don't mind me asking?"
If Cooney knew about the black-market 'intensive training program' Noire ran out of this restaurant, then there was no need to deny the fact. He'd embraced those so-called 'demons' long ago, and she wasn't going to hold that fact against him.
"A small matter of pride," Serge answered with ease, "the very same reason you made contact with me in this show-offish way, no?"
"What makes you think that?" Rachelle asked, intrigued.
"Simple." Noire explained, "No one with the skills to do as you've done would be stupid or clumsy enough to be so easily caught after overcoming the other obstacles, not unless it was planned that way. Ergo, you expected to meet me face to face this way, on my terms, without any feasible means to harm me. The sensible reason to plan such a scenario is if your intention is merely to speak with me."
"Maybe that's true." she said with a shrug,
"Still, there is this question: what made you so certain I would speak with you personally?"
"The same reason you lost Cerberus years ago, confronted and maimed the robbers yourself, and the same reason you're going to seriously consider the proposition I have for you."
"Hm..."
"You see, Serge, I'd like to talk a litte about Lethe."
A small matter of pride.
And that's when Serge raised an eyebrow, and presented Rachelle with the slightest hint of a smile. She was good.
"Touché, Mademoiselle."
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/
Cerberus was just a little bit different now.
The ship itself was still more-or-less a lifeless hulk, with her power and primary systems still offline. Though the bodies of Adrian Crane and Malcolm Aries had long since been transferred aboard the Schwarzwind and transferred elsewhere, the stench of death lingered still where they were found, refusing to leave the ship behind. Yet despite these circumstances, there were signs of life stirring in Cerberus nonetheless.
The ship's medical bay was set up as the impromptu 'base of operations', complete with portable light sources, heating units, and necessary supplies that were transferred aboard before the Schwarzwind departed. It was a lot like camping out, but on a 'ghost ship', in space.
James, Scott, Pigma and Peppy had somewhat unpleasant but necessary business to attend to in the wake of recent events. Rachelle Cooney had gone on her own to follow the only solid lead they had: a shadowy figure by name of Serge Noire.
Normal LCI protocol would've had the nameless wolf 'Wiley' taken into custody and sweated for information. 'Normal' however was something encountered rarely, if ever, in field operations, and this jumble was anything but normal. And besides, Wiley had been utterly stonewalling the attempts by Cerberus's crew, so Rick instead opted to remain aboard Cerberus, with 'Wiley', and try something outside the box.
It was a gamble, to stay alone with someone known to be dangerous, and leaving him unrestrained, but Rick was confident willing to take this chance. With the Mercutio 2 shuttle docked at one of Cerberus's airlocks, locked out so only he could use it, Rick had the only means off the ship. 'Wiley' wouldn't be able to sneak off, and if he tried something, Cooney would be ready to react. If Scott's , was to be believed, Wiley had –at least for a moment– been compliant, and Rick hoped to be able to capitalize on that.
Of course, 'hope' was the key term here. Wiley had been anything but cooperative in the short time he and Rick had been stuck together, but at least they were talking.
"So, who the hell are you, Rick?" The pale wolf asked offhand while he rummaged through the food supplies, "A cop? An agent? Some kind of Investigator?"
"I'm just trying to figure out what happened here, that's all." Cooney answered, checking on the power supply and heating unit.
"What's there to say?" 'Wiley' began as he tore open a food package, and continued speaking between mouthfuls, "Some cavalier mercs show up out of nowhere... they blow the raid, and I sneak aboard this ship... Then the damned bluefur came out of nowhere and crashes the mercs' party in turn."
"But that's not the whole story now is it?" Rick figured, "Harrow and Chakori got off the ship, but you? You were left here to die: what happened?"
"And why should I tell you?"
"Why shouldn't you?"
"For starters, I don't know a damned thing about you," Wiley tossed the empty food package away, and circled around Rick, weaving between empty beds, medical equipment, and the 'camping' gear, "not who you are, who you're working for– what happens to me if I talk? What do I get for trusting you? And even then: how do I know you'll stick to your word? I need to know who I'm dealing with here."
"So do I." Cooney responded.
"Oh please, you already know plenty about me." Wiley guffawed, rolling his eyes, "I'm sure your little friends filled you in on everything they knew. So yeah, I'm a bratok, a 'brother', for Harrow. It's just some fancy Katini word they use for 'guy who does things'. Yeah, I sabotaged the Caius Company fighters and no, I don't regret doing it, not a bit, so don't try to make me feel bad about it or anything. If they were too stupid to check their hardware before liftoff, or properly screen their maintenance crew, then they didn't deserve to live and fight in the first place."
"Pity then, that you weren't as thorough as you're supposed to have been, and then clumsy after that."
"Shit happens." the wolf grumbled back.
"And it doesn't un-happen, ever." Rick retorted with a healthy dose of snark, "You're in this mess right now, 'Wiley', and it's your choice how this plays out. Play it right, and you'll walk out on top."
"On top of what, exactly?" Wiley demanded, "Give me a reason to trust you."
"I can help you."
"What kind of chump areyou to think you can help me?"
"Lylat Central Intelligence." Rick supplied in an instant, "I'm an agent."
There was a momentary stall from Wiley at this. He had to pause to think, to reconsider, to figure the odds again.
"So, you're a government spook," he said with a slow, knowing nod, "the kind of creep who'll just use me and dispose of me when you get what you want."
"Now that's an awfully broad assumption to make my good man." Rick challenged, speaking in lofty tones, "You don't see me treating you like dirt just because you've killed, maimed, and committed other acts of atrocity. You were doing your job, I shouldn't hold that against you."
"It's all an act." the wolf called him out, shaking his head "This is that 'good cop/bad cop' crap, isn't it?"
"You're afraid." Cooney observed.
"I'm suspicious." Wiley corrected.
"What did Harrow do to make you so afraid?"
"I told you: I'm not afraid–"
"But what is suspicion if not the fear to trust?"
"It's pragmatism." the pale wolf growled back, "The people you trust are the ones best prepared to screw you."
"Is that how you wound up in this mess? Did you trust Harrow just an inch too far?" Rick made a broad sweeping gesture all around Cerberus's medical bay, "After a disaster like that, why should you trust anyone?"
"I don't." Wiley affirmed, leering at the raccoon with his piercing violet eyes.
Cooney returned the wolf's relentless gaze with a calm composure, so meticulously maintained, like a house of cards. "I'm not asking you to trust me, but if you want to get through this, you'll have to put up with me whether you like it or not."
"Is that a threat?" His body tensed ever so slightly and his fur stood up on end, more out of a ground-in instinct than a decision to prepare to fight.
"That depends: do you feel threatened?" Rick asked.
Wiley stood his ground in silence, making little to no movement aside from a few twitches of his eyes.
"Heh, good one." he said at last, then turned away shaking his head.
From what Rick could tell, 'Wiley' was paranoid, and perhaps rightly so. Everything he said and did traced back to an underlying, deep-seated fear, despite his blatant denial. He was afraid first and foremost of one thing: Intelligence. Rick suspected he had images of dark rooms, bright lights, inescapable prisons, faceless cold-hearted machine-like people with no regard for life, and the remorseless tortures they'd inflict. The wolf was also restless, anxious, like a wild animal trapped too long in a cage. Even then, Cooney couldn't help but think there was something deeper even than these things, fueling his fears even further.
The only way to get him to open up was to get him to trust. The most apparent way to earn his trust for now was to contradict his fears, to be 'honest'. If this meant feeding him information, so be it.
In this time, Wiley had once again gone into the supplies, and emerged with a bottle of water.
"Just out of curiosity, do you got anyone special in your life?" Wiley asked offhand over his shoulder.
"Intelligence work isn't exactly great for relationships." Rick answered, which was true enough.
Where was he going with this?
"No kidding, don't want to give your enemies leverage they can use against you or anything." he cracked open the bottle and took a swig of the refreshing liquid, "Still, that doesn't mean you can't have a fling or two, right?"
"It happens." Rick conceded with a shrug.
"What about that coon chick you're hanging around with?"
"We're partners." Rick stated flatly, "She and I work together."
"Oh come on, there's gotta be more to it than that." the wolf insisted, "I've seen the way you two are."
"Sometimes, we play the part of lovers or spouses for a cover." Cooney gave him that much, but he was dangerously close to crossing a line. "It's not real when we do, it's all an act."
"Just like this buddy-buddy thing you're pulling with me." Wiley pointed out.
"What makes you so sure this isn't real?"
"What makes you so sure you and she aren't?"
That was the line, and Rick steered the conversation away from it,"We're here to talk about you, remember?"
"What? Mr. spooky spy-man doesn't want to talk about his feelings? " Wiley prodded again, sensing a soft spot.
"That's a conversation you and I just aren't going to have." Cooney asserted, in case he hadn't made his point clear enough.
"A shame, and just when you were starting to get interesting too."
"So what happened?" Rick asked, reeling the conversation back to its original purpose, "Here on this ship, before we found you."
"You do have feelings, don't you?" the wolf pulled at, ignoring the question. He'd caught a hold of something in Cooney, and he wasn't about to let it go so easily, "Seriously, who doesn't?"
Rick was having none of it, and stayed stubbornly away from the subject, "Why did Harrow leave you here, instead of taking you with him, or just outright killing you?"
"You said yourself that I shouldn't make sweeping generalities about you, which means you aren't a stoic, emotionless machine."
"Why?"
"Did you and she ever–"
"Answer!"
"You know..." Wiley clapped hands together, with such an innocent, slightly smug gleam in his eyes.
There was nothing for it. The pale wolf wasn't going to talk, and would rather spend his efforts playing head games with Cooney instead of cooperating. He'd have to try again some other time, when he could better focus.
"I've have enough of this." disgusted, Rick turned his back and started to leave, "When you're ready to talk–"
Wait...
Back turned.
Guard down.
Instinct took over.
Rick twisted into a fighting stance, and wound Wiley already coming down with an elbow meant for his head. Rick sidestepped the blow and grabbed the wolf's arm, slipping under the center of gravity for a throw. Wiley interrupted the move as he drove a knee into Cooney's ribs, then shoved him out into the ship's central corridor.
"You..." Wiley advanced, snarling in a fit of rage "are one pain in the ass!"
"The feeling is mut–"
"Shut up!" he roared as he kicked the downed raccoon, "Just– Shut! Up!"
When he'd cooled off, a little, Wiley yanked Rick up by his coat and brought him to within an inch of his seething face.
"Where's your shuttle docked?"
"P– portside airlock." Cooney sputtered.
Wiley twisted Rick up and around with his arm behind his back, half dragging half carrying the smaller and more slightly built raccoon through Cerberus's corridors. The way was lit only by a sparse string of tripod-mounted lights, making a slow pulse between darkness and light as Wiley charged through toward the portside airlock.
Rick chose not to resist, for now. Wiley was the better fighter, and he'd need Rick's authorization if his intent was to jump ship. Thise gave him time to recover from the shock of the attack, and possibly salvage the situation before it was too late.
Even now, when Rick glanced up at the wolf from his 'helpless' position, there was still fear in Wiley. It was a twisted, tortured, denied fear, but fear nonetheless. "You're running away." Cooney observed.
"No shit." Wiley drawled in full sarcasm.
"Whatever it is, you won't be able to escape it this way." Rick warned, "You have to stand your ground and face–"
"I don't want to hear it!" the wolf barked, "You have no idea the shit I've been through."
"Because you won't tell me." Rick pointed out, "You won't let me help you."
"Helping the lowlife likes of me is the last thing on your mind."
"You don't know that!"
"Bullshit!" Wiley snapped back, "I have been shot at, locked up, starved, frozen, pumped full of drugs and mind-raped; all by people who said they could 'help me'..."
They'd just arrived at Cerberus's portside airlock. The area here was cold, without the heating units placed in more used portions of the ship, and their breath came out in misty puffs. The only light here was provided solely by one of the harsh, tripod-mounted work lights, which cast long and stark shadows through the corridor before fading into obscurity.
"You want to help me so bad? Here:" Wiley planted Rick in front of the airlock control terminal, which was powered by an external supply spliced into the works, "Open the door and get me off this fucking ship."
Rick did as demanded, and in a few moments the airlock's inner door groaned and screeched its way open. The wolf grabbed Cooney by the back of his coat and shirt collar in a tight fist, his left fist, and began to lead him into the open airlock. Thankfully, Wiley had made a few key errors leading up to this moment – something he seemed prone to.
Time to act.
In an instant, Rick twisted around counterclockwise, using his left elbow to break Wiley's grip as he ducked and slipped past the wolf; exchanging places. Wiley came at him in an instant, face sharpened with disdain bordering on rage, and hands barred like talons–
* Blam! *
A blaster shot tore straight into the pale wolf's hand, leaving a sizzling, slightly charred burnt hole in the palm. Wiley hadn't patted Rick down for weapons –his biggest mistake– and allowed Cooney the opportunity to pull his concealed handgun and make the shot.
"Augh!" the wolf reeled back, clutching his crippled hand by the wrist.
Rick followed up at this crucial moment with a firm front-kick, moving Wiley completely into the open airlock. Then Cooney closed the door, sealing him inside.
"What the hell is this?" he demanded. His voice crackling with static through the airlock's intercom system.
"You wanted off..." Rick had changed. His voice was filled with a malice and cruelty that he'd, up until then, kept bottled away. "You're getting off."
Wiley checked the outer door; there was no shuttle docked here, just the black emptiness. In a momentary flash of panic, he went for the failsafe inside the airlock that was supposed to get him out, but it wasn't working. No matter how he pounded the switch, the door remained closed.
He looked over to Rick, stood just on the other side, shaking his head slowly at Wiley's frantic attempts. Cooney's face had lost any sense of friendliness that was there before, replaced now by a stony, sharp-chiseled glare that showed no hint of mercy.
"You wouldn't–" the wolf babbled, eyes bouncing between the two airlock doors, "You– you're bluffing–"
A sharp hiss and whistle pierced through his words. The chamber was decompressing.
"Oh god no!"
He lunged for the inner door, desperate. This was true panic now, an immediate fear for his life, of suffocating, of being swept out into the infinite black nothing.
"I'll talk!" he found he was gasping. The air in the chamber was getting thin, fast, and he wouldn't be able to breathe in a few more moments, "Goddammit I'll talk!"
But the only thing that responded through the inner door's window was the stone-cold, remorseless face of that raccoon, perfectly content to let him die.
"Open the door!" he shouted, pounding on that inner door.
Rick turned to the side, and entered a command? He was going to let him out. Sure enough, there was a clank and groan of an opening door, muffled by the depleted atmosphere, but the door didn't open.
The already diluted air within the chamber rushed away, and he felt the breath being sucked out of his lungs. The weak grip of his oxygen-starved hands couldn't hold on any longer, and he was swept away into the silent black void of space outside.
The last thing he saw was that look of unbridled, merciless cruelty in the raccoon, growing further and further away. After that, the silent black of space and the silent black of oblivion became one and the same.
\
/
Rachelle and Serge had reconvened in one of the restaurant's decadent private dining booths; Serge insisted on it. Cooney had proven to be a most fascinating guest, and the least he could do for her trouble was to be a gracious host while she discussed her proposition.
The booth was isolated off from the main dining area, just as well since Rachelle had nothing to wear, and looked out-of-place as it was in her dull street clothes. The table between them was clear of any place-setting, and held only a small holographic projector, showing an image of an all too familiar ship: Cerberus.
Rachelle had spent the bulk of their time in this booth filling Serge in on all the details he needed to know, including the untimely demise of most of the mercenary crew, and the awkward situation with the locked out mainframe, but left out many things that weren't important to the proposition. Noire knew exactly what she wanted: Cerberus's Lethe encryption codes.
"I can be persuaded to aid you, on certain... conditions."
"Name them."
"First: I will go with you personally to Cerberus, and restart the ship myself."
"Done." she agreed with a curt nod.
"Second: when you have what you need, I keep the ship."
"Why?" Rachelle asked, perplexed by Noire's odd request, "What use do you have for it?"
"That is no concern of yours." Serge waived the question away, "You want my help: those are my terms."
It was a tough choice. Cerberus meant a lot to Scott and the other deceased mercenaries, and it didn't seem right not to include them in this. Time was wasting though, and Serge was the one and only lead they had which could help them out of this situation. They needed his help now, but perhaps the terms could be negotiated later, when time wasn't an ever-looming menace to the situation.
"Done." she finally accepted.
"Hm."
The two reached across the table and exchanged a professional handshake, sealing the deal.
\
/
...
There is nowhere you can run where you can escape
...
"Ghaaa!" Wiley awoke with a scream, followed by a series of gasping breaths.
He found himself in an increasingly frustrating and familiar circumstance. He as unable to move, it felt like sedatives again. His blurred vision soon came into focus, and found that clouded gray face staring right back at him again, like a vision from a nightmare.
"You!" he snapped, as much in rage as astonishment. "What– how– did you– but I–"
Maybe it was a nightmare. Maybe he'd died and gone to Hell. Maybe the whole thing was another one of those damned hallucinations. Any of those would be as good an explanation as any.
"You'd be surprised how robust the body can be." Rick mentioned coolly, "Done right, it can even withstand exposure to a complete vacuum, but only for a short while."
Nope. Real. The crazy coon had planned it out, tricked him. He'd been too desperate and too distracted to follow through on the escape plan like it was supposed to go, or catch on to the little hints. There were so many things he should've done differently, and this is what he got for those mistakes...
Those damned headaches–
"If I recall, you said you'd talk..." Rick reminded him, looming over Wiley like a charged storm-cloud, ready to strike at a moment's notice, "So talk."
There was nothing for it. Even if he could try for another escape, the coon was onto him, and he'd only make more of those stupid mistakes he'd never made before. This was the only option now that made any sense to try.
"He's in my head." Wiley admitted at long last, "That goddamn bluefur is in my head."
\
/