CHAPTER 10- ULTOR CORP.
Wolf entered a room in the hastily set up tent where a hologram of a lion in a black suit and red tie seated behind a large desk waited for him.
"Whats your report Wolf?" He asked in a very calm, businesslike manner.
"No Zendium yet, we're almost done searching this quadrant. It should be done in a few weeks." He lied.
"Very well, report if you find anything."
"Will do Mr. Spektor." He said turning off the hologram.
"Will do indeed..." He smirked leaving the tent.
"Get on the mercenary radio frequency and tell them that there is about to be one very wealthy client on this planet. But first, contact all fuel suppliers in the system and tell them that there is fuel for half of what Ultor is priced." He said to one of the chimps as he passed.
"Aye sir!" He said getting on the radio transmitter, broadcasting the message to soldiers of fortune all across the system.
xXx
"We've been at this for hours! I think you're lost!" Kazooie yelled over the nearly deafening roar of the drill tanks engines.
"What?" Falco yelled back, pretending not to hear her.
"I said, I think you're lost!" She shouted even louder.
"What?" he said hiding a smirk.
"I know you can hear me jackass!"
Just then he stopped the drill abruptly, flinging her into the dashboard.
"You should really start wearing your seatbelt."
She glared at him as she picked herself up off the floorboard and brushed the dirt off of her bright red-orange feathers.
"Now, I'm not one hundred percent sure where we are, so I'm going to surface real quick and have a look around." He said pressing the button with a depiction of the vehicle popping up out of the ground. An alarm sounded as the drill roared through the dirt and arrived at the surface in no time flat. Once it had stopped, Falco climbed to the hatch and turned the squeaking, rusted handle to open it. He peeked his head out to find a foggy field with a derelict mansion and church in the distance. An eerie full moon and howling dogs greeted him as he jumped out of the tank.
"Where the hell is this?" He asked as Kazooie climbed out as well.
"Mad Monster Mansion." She answered casually.
Falco turned to examine the exterior of the tank and saw the gears that rotated the drill were glowing red hot.
"Oh that's not good..." He said getting a better look as he crawled under the vehicle.
After a few minutes, he removed himself from under it.
"Looks like this thing needs gear coolant. Any idea where we can..." He said looking around, realizing he was alone.
His face contorted into an expression of annoyance as he noticed the creaking wrought iron gate swinging open in the breeze.
"Christ..." He said walking toward the gate into the mansion grounds, soft, ambient organ music wafted to his ear in the moonlight mist of the twilight as he entered.
"Where's that music coming from? This planet is insane." He said slowly opening the creaky metal gate, his pistol drawn.
"Kaz? Stop goofing around!" He said slowly walking up to the mansions aging wooden steps.
"SCREEEE!!" He blasted the direction of the earsplitting shriek. He watched as the culprit hit the porch, smoking.
"Ugh...just a bat." He said looking toward the front door. He blasted through it and cleared the room, seeing a giant table and chairs inside.
"What the hell?" He said lowering his pistol. He soon spied Kazooie's tracks through the dust and saw that they led out of a shattered window.
"Grrrr..." He jumped out of the window and saw that the rest of her footprints led inside the old church.
He made his way to the door amid the hoots of owls and howl of coyotes. He rammed his shoulder into the door, but it didn't budge.
"Hm..." He drew his pistol and blasted no less than 30 holes in it before it caved in. He stepped into the church and was in awe at the size of the pews and the massive organ being played by a ghostly, disembodied hand.
"What the..."
"BOO!"
"What the fu-!" Falco said whipping around and pointing his pistol straight into Kazooies laughing face.
"Ah ha ha ha! Your face was priceless! Hahaha- huh?" She was cut off by the sudden end to the organ music that filled the church.
"You dare interrupt my song!?" A disembodied voice growled as the phantom hand swooped down off of the large organ, with the intent to crush her.
Falco immediately took action and tackled her out of the way of the punishing blow.
He got off of her and grabbed her wing as he pulled her out of the church.
"Lets go before he decides to make us into quills!" He said as they tumbled out the door of the old building.
"You...you saved my life..." She gasped catching her breath.
"Don't get used to it. I don't know how you'd survive without someone looking after you." He said turning to look for water.
Kazooie glared at him and looked toward an old well in the cemetery.
"Hey jerk, there's a well right here."
He turned and trotted over to the hand crank and began to raise the bucket as the old rope creaked in protest, threatening to snap.
"Get ready to grab the water when it gets-AHHH!" He said letting go of the handle in fright sending it back down to the depths below. It had been full of hissing poisonous snakes.
"Why snakes? I hate snakes..." He said catching his breath to the sound of another round of Kazooie's laughter.
"I'm glad being stuck here in this daft graveyard without any water to fix our only mode of transportation is somehow funny!" He said angrily at being mocked for the second time, and partially for having one of his deepest fears exposed in front of a female, no less.
"Relax, I know one place that always has water." She said wiping a tear from her eye.
"Follow me." She said taking flight to the second story of the old mansion, Falco following suit as he leapt from the ground to the roof in a single bound.
xXx
Banjo awoke to blurred glimpses of being dragged by his arms (which were still shackled together) by two guards back to the arcade where he was originally being held.
"We'll be coming for you later bear. Enjoy your last sunset." One of them said as he focused on the dim sunlight coming through the window of the arcade, casting an orange sunset hue across the floor of the room.
He still couldn't believe he gave away his best friend, sisters, and new friends location to someone who would surely do awful things to them should he find them.
He stood up in this much larger cell and looked out at the sun setting behind the buildings of showdown town.
'Is this really it?' He thought to himself.
xXx
Spektor sat in his office reading the newspaper while the galactic stock exchange was on in the background. As he was checking the current market trends, mention of his company on his massive office television caught his ear, making him set down his newspaper.
"...Coming up this evening, is there a new upstart Zendium company that could finally challenge Ultor?"
"What?" he said slowly lowering the newspaper.
"Many speculators believe so, the new company Wolfco ent. is selling starship fuel at half the price of the Zendium giant Ultor, and is set to take a chunk of their profits this fiscal quarter. More on that at eleven." Spektor hurled the remote, crashing it though the t.v.
"Jina get me Ultor black ops and a ship out to the omega sector now!" He growled into the intercom on his desk.
"Yes sir, there is a ship waiting on top of the building."
"Wolf you are going to pay for double crossing me!"
xXx
Fox and his team were now only a mile outside showdown town, and already Wolfs forces had built a wall around the settlement. The wall was topped with guard towers and searchlights, which scanned in predictable patterns in the darkness.
"Ok guys, get those nightvision goggles out and lets find a way in there..." He said removing his from the small pack on his back. Eight green dots soon illuminated the woods around the city as they tried to formulate a plan.
"Katt what can you see?" He asked.
"I've got guards working the spotlights by hand, so we need to leave them alone, but I don't see any guards patrolling outside the wall. I think we can sneak up to it and maybe dig or cut through it to find out what they know about Falco."
Fox nodded but was soon startled by a helo drop ship roar by overhead, many pairs of legs dangled from the each side of the ship, indicating it was full of soldiers.
"Where do you think he was going?" Krystal asked.
"I don't know, but I'd hate to be around when it gets there."
xXx
The transport streaked across the sky as Covo stood to address her elite squad of soldiers, all in special tactical armor. What she referred to as her "shock squad", named for their use of flashbang technology to quickly apprehend any target.
"Remember. Do not kill Falco, or injure him unessicarily, understand?"
"Aye mam!"
"Good." She said as the transport stopped over Banjo and Kazooies home at the foot of Spiral Mountain.
"We're here, ropes down, go, go, go!" The pilot said as Covo led the way, her laser pistol drawn.
They silently made their way to the door, as another two squads went to the two windows on the front of the house and waited their leaders signal.
She looked at all of them and flipped down the nightvision goggles that had been resting on her forehead, then held up three fingers.
3
2
1
"Go!" She kicked the door open and tossed in a flash-bang. It detonated and all three squads rushed into the small house, guns drawn, shouting a mix of "On the ground!" and "Don't move!"
Soon however, they realized that the house was empty. Covo ordered her troops to look everywhere but didn't find even a clue as to the whereabouts of its former inhabitants.
"Wolf, the house is empty, over."
"Damnit! Come back to headquarters, and make it quick, I have a feeling news will be getting out of our Zendium exploits on this planet. Ultor is probably already en route."
"Copy, We're heading back now." She said as the ship they rode in on dropped rope ladders down to them.
'Now we're fighting a corporation? What have I gotten myself into..." She thought as the transport headed back to showdown town in the early morning darkness.
Sorry bout the lateness!