Author's Notes: Took me a little longer than I thought to get back caught up to where we left off in Chapter 4 (wow, chapter 11? Good lord.) I really adore any feedback (good or bad) on this one, as I've already decided that I will be both revising this story once it's done, and either expanding on some side ideas that I had while writing this or writing a second related story. I'd like to take a moment and seriously thank everyone who has reviewed, or pmed me with comments about the story and my writing. I love trying to improve, but the fact it's been encouragement on all counts so far has been just amazing to me. I plan to find out if the folk who have pmed me are okay being named at the end in thank yous!
July 5, 2014 Update: Formatting fixes. A major part of the scene between Wolf and his former teammates got altered here. I decided to put Carouso in a very different light. More attempts at bringing the rest of the characters to life a bit more, and alterations to fit with earlier chapter revisions.
"It's always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black." ― Paul Newman
Zoness - Day 0 - 2 Years After the Aparoid Invasion
The only sound in the apartment was the rapid click of keys being hit on a keyboard. The green light of an old style terminal reflected off the vulpine typing on the laptop, as he wound his way through a virtual maze. Flying had been his first love but computers and the programming or hacking thereof had always been a close second. Jared, as the first of his ID cards read, reached absently for the now cold cup of coffee beside him. His mind was focused on the display in front of him enough he didn't notice, he hadn't noticed it had been twenty-eight hours since he logged in. Blue eyes scanned the list of data stores tied to the particular user ID he'd queried for. These had never come up in his mercenary work with them, he hadn't known that they had ever utilized portable secure data stores until a year ago. His contact hadn't even meant to tell him, or had assumed he'd already known that they existed, and that while other divisions had moved to more modern technology the General had always and still used them. Jared wasn't sure which it was, but it didn't matter. 12 months of obtaining small tidbits on the side had been required to get enough information to access this far into the Cornerian network without getting caught. Enough layers of security, passwords, and dialing what were probably forgotten and disused connections were needed to actually manage the hack to get to the management system for the stores, not the stores themselves.
He frowned most of them were inside the main Cornerian base, and there was no telling which ones would contain anything useful to him. The vulpine was beginning to think this was a fruitless waste of his time, but so many dead ends over the years led him to keep looking through the list, and paused on a particularly interesting entry. Ears and head tilted, confused at what the screen told him. That name shouldn't have been in this system. Wolf O'Donnell (Who apparently had a different first name. Wait a second, a lupine named Ember? The kid that went to flight school with his son for a year was the leader of StarWolf?) had worked for Andross, not Corneria. Why was his name listed as an authorized user here ? Alongside Cornelius Pepper's and a couple of others he didn't recognize. "Did you sell me out all those years ago before I even left on that mission, you old bastard?"
Snarling involuntarily he tapped a few more keys to get the location of that store, fully expecting it to be destroyed or located deep within the central base which was well beyond his reach. The aging fox muttered to himself. "I'll be damned. Finchina? It's a ghost town of a base, never mind most of the planet. I wonder if that's where you figured no-one would ever look. Makes it all the more interesting." Scribbling the information down on a scrap of paper he reached for his cell phone. The idea of going and fetching it himself was tempting, terribly tempting. But James knew that he'd need someone on the access list, or he'd have to hack the store itself. That was daunting, despite his ability to get into things he shouldn't. Pepper and O'Donnell might both have been on his shit list, but one of them would do much of anything for a price.
When Remus picked up, Jared realized the man must have been asleep, the voice on the other end sleepy and muffled sounding. "Old man, you better have a good reason for calling me at this hour. Do you ever sleep?!"
"Sorry, I forgot what time it was. Look, I need to know a couple things and then I may have a job for you."
"Can this not wait till morning?" The weasel might have been a middle man, but he preferred to be a middle man during daytime hours.
"No, this cannot wait till morning. What day is it by the way?" That display clock can't be right. Jared was logging out of systems and the layers of redirection he'd put between himself and his target.
"Thursday. Jared, are you alright?" Fondness wasn't a particular habit of the weasels, but Jared had helped him make some damn good money along the way and he was loathe to see that end.
"Yeah, but I'm probably going to crash for a while after this. Didn't realize this took so long."
"What took so long? You are not making any sense." Remus sighed, he'd worked with Jared long enough to realize that occasional bizarre behavior was to be expected. He'd go off on one thing or another obsessively, the spooky part was usually no matter how little sense it initially made, Jared's information turned out to be right.
"Don't worry about it. Look, so, what the hell ever became of Wolf O'Donnell?"
"You call me up at three in the morning for that? I thought it was common knowledge anyways. Guess not. After that whole mess where he randomly showed up during the invasion and saved StarFox's collective tails he went back to Sargasso. Except sentimentality doesn't work well for that position, his rivals pressed in all the harder and painted him as unreliable. A guy who would know swore that sometimes O'Donnell would wind up saying strange things to thing air as if someone else was there every so often. He threatened anyone who overheard into silence when he realized he'd done it though. I don't think that made public rumor at the time, but it probably didn't help him. You know as well as I do right after a war when nobody gets overthrown theres too many weapons and not enough buyers. Six months after the mess they decided to crack down on smuggling too, napped a ton of the folks who dealt with Sargasso. Lack of income, too many people eager to take his place, you know how this works Jared. Not even his team stayed together more than another three months after that. The station itself more or less became irrelevant afterwards, Fenrix Lysin took over and couldn't keep order, far as I know it's been abandoned. Since then? Wolf's name shows up in job bids every once in a while, nothing of the sort I arrange. A few contacts of mine have used him when nobody else was stupid or crazy enough to take the job. O'Donnell does still come through though, according to them, but most people want teams, not solo pilots and that bounty from Corneria keeps him off any legit jobs. Now why do you ask?"
"So how desperate do you think the man is?"
"Oh for fucks sakes Jared. I don't know for sure, if he's still trying to fly and if he's not dead, probably pretty freaking desperate."
"Good, I want to hire him. Find out where he is."
"You're shitting me. Jared, do you realize how absurd what you're saying is?"
"Yeah, I do. Trust me, I completely and utterly do. Look, there's a job and he's going to be the only one who can get at what I want. He won't do it though unless he's a little desperate, it's going to possibly draw some attention he doesn't want." Jared wasn't concerned at all about the other mercenary having any qualms about being on the opposite side from Corneria. Whatever deal Wolf had made with the General once, there was a not shabby bounty on his head from the same.
"Fine. Fine. You are one crazed fox I hope you know. I think I see why so many people think you look like James McCloud, you're just as batshit as he was supposed to be too."
Jared smirked, the irony of what Remus was saying terribly amusing to the sleep deprived man. "So you have said on more than one occasion. I'll send you an encrypted message with details for him and the offer."
"Alright. But that part I am absolutely waiting till morning. I'm not going to go calling up crazed mercenaries before dawn, or breakfast. I'll call you, not the other way around."
"Thank you Remus." Jared heard the other end of the phone click and grinned as he set the cell phone down.
Kew – Day 8 – 01:56 Local Time
Wolf paced the floor of the hangar. In his wildest dreams, he never imagined that something like this would fall into his lap. This has been sitting there for twelve years, under the project name I was in. I never even knew it was there…and it has everything I could possibly want to manipulate that lying scum who fancies himself a leader. The lupine laughed at the irony of it all, before it turned into a coughing fit he muffled into his sleeve.
First order of business was to make a copy of the data, he had no idea who had hired him and there was no chance he was going to lose his chance at revenge. Placing the box next to the ship he set it up to work on that while he pondered his next move. Remus was an intermediary, and the mercenary would love to know who the end client was. It wasn't often he wanted to stick his nose into such things, but then again it wasn't often it got personal either. There wasn't really a way to get at that information though, which was more the shame. Which left really only the question of exactly how Wolf was going to put that damn dog Pepper in his place. He would have easily lost himself in that weighty question when he heard a female voice behind him.
"Ember, don't lose yourself to this. Did you decide to do the right thing during the last war and then lose Sargasso for nothing?"
He startled, spinning around although by now he knew that there was no-one he'd see there. The voice was his sister's, and it unnerved him every time he heard it. Was he just cracking up like people believed? The lupine didn't think so, okay yeah he might have a heavy hand with the drink and all but hallucinating dead sober was a far cry from that. Which left really, no logical explanations he could come up with, no matter how many times over the years he tried. Other than that Lyra had been more special than he'd known or realized. The notion still didn't help settle him about it when it happened. Worried thoughts were still playing in his head while his eyes scanned the hangar and noticed the light on the door had clicked off. As if power had been cut to that, and only that. Drawing his blaster, he ducked behind the Wolfen to put it between him and the door.
The door which didn't open, oddly. Footsteps that made no noise behind the lupine didn't attract his attention.
"Look behind you." The same invisible voice of his sister came again and he turned blaster out first and firing a shot anyways. At worst he'd hit the wall and at this point he wash't really thinking about that anyways. A reptilian hiss came from now his left as a green lizard dressed in all black leapt out of Wolf's immediate aim. A familiar green lizard. "Leon! You asshole!" Wolf had never really expected loyalty from his former team, but it was still mildly disappointing to be proven right on that count. Then again, it was a hell of a bounty on his head.
"I can't decide if you are getting old and slow to not expect the door to be a trap, or still quite good to have heard me at all. Either way, I am a mercenary just like you. There's no asshole in this, just bounties."
"Right, and that's why you didn't shoot me from a distance? No, you sick fuck. I know how you take your kills. I'm not going to be one of them today." Wolf kept his back to the ship, it meant one less place he had to watch as he tried to steady his slightly shaking arms. He really did know exactly what Leon did to his targets before they mercifully, finally died and he really did not want to experience any part of it.
"Whatever you say, Lord O'Donnell" The sarcasm in Leon's voice was followed by an eerie chuckle. The lizard never really laughed, and rarely smiled. He probably wasn't even smiling now which made his occasional chuckles or snickers all the more disturbing. The think of metal next to Wolf caught his attention and he saw the gas canister rolling towards him. Oh bloody hell. He kicked it as far away from himself as he could.
"That isn't going to save you!" Leon hopped up onto the ship's wing and tried to sink the blade in his hand down into Wolf's right shoulder so he would drop the blaster or simply be unable to shoot. Wolf ducked under the same wing and then turned direction, trying to get to the other side of the ship and hop up into the cockpit.
Polwaski had been crazy, and ruthless, but never stupid. He knew what Wolf was up to and changed his own direction accordingly. As the lupine came up from under the wing, Leon swiped again at him taking a good chunk out of the side one of the tall grey ears and eliciting a howl from his target. "Poor little wulfie. Games of chase annoy me. Sit still and this will go …well faster is a relative term after all."
Wolf snarled back at him "Fuck you, psychopath." Leon was quick, and the couple of blaster rounds that were fired missed, narrowly but that didn't matter now. Where the hell had he gone? The damn hangar wasn't that big! Taking cautious steps, O'Donnell got where his back was to a corner, it wasn't the greatest move but Leon wasn't likely to shoot him from a distance. When they had worked together, Wolf had learned that when he wasn't in the air Leon loved to make a kill personal. Terrifying, but seriously flawed as an approach, but the reptile was far too nuts to tell that to.
Unfortunately that assumption was only half right, another howl coming from the lupine as a blaster shot, half powered but still agonizing, hit his hand and his own weapon went skittering on the floor. Well, that's going to be lovely now isn't it? Wolf didn't dive for the blaster, his attacker would be on him too quickly before he got a shot off, so he waited. The lizard was swaggering closer, confident in his ability to take down his former leader. "Well well, Shame you didn't go for it there, I do so like getting a good face kick or three in."
Desperation and lack of options led Wolf to do the possibly stupidest, or smartest, thing he'd done in years. Despite the fact Leon held the knife, Wolf knew he had his armored vest on. With all the ferocity his kind was known for, he leapt at the green skinned man who wanted him dead. Which was the last thing Polwaski had been anticipating, his target to just leap at him in close quarters. The two men tumbled on the floor, the knife trying to sink into Wolf's shoulder only to be skidded off by his vest, and then promptly thrown across the room. Words were replaced by feral snarls and hisses as blows were exchanged and holds were broken along with a few bones on each side. Leon squirmed out of the lupine's grasp and managed to get on the other side of the ship standing in front of it.
Instead of chasing, Wolf hopped up onto the wing again and reached into the cockpit hitting the ships lasers. The sound of it hitting the would be assassin/bounty hunter in front of them was really, kind of bizarre to his ears. He'd never heard it given it was always fired in the vacuum of space or at most, high altitude with comm chatter, yells and the sound of engines over them. The sound of the body hitting the wall before the structure itself absorbed the rest of the blast meant for another fighter and created large cracks and a small pile of scorched chunks. Well, so much for staying here. Or coming back given the property damage I also just caused. It would be a good hour before anyone showed up though, despite the damage to the hangar door. They might want to make him pay for it or take it out of his hide, or more likely claim the bounty themselves once they saw him but nobody here was going to care quite enough about a door to risk getting shot in an active firefight.
Wolf took a moment, sitting down on the wing trying to catch his breath and only coughing for several minutes in the attempt which made his cracked ribs hurt enough that he found himself flat on his back instead of sitting up. Finally managing to sit back up he crawled into the cockpit and grabbed the medkit he had stashed there. He reached up and flinched as he ran a paw over his ear. Damn. Blood was all over the fur in his gray paws when he was finished bandaging it off, and he closed his eyes for five minutes only to open them hearing the hacked door open. "Goddamnit. I can't get a break today." The spare blaster under his seat was out and aimed towards the second intruder before he registered who it was.
"It seems Panther was right in thinking this might be where you were, and very wrong in thinking there was a tool room before the main hangar." The black cat stood where he was, and kept his hands well away from his weapon. Wolf always had thought the feline was the most sane of the trio that once made up his team.
"Cute. Really cute. You and Leon together up against me is something I really didn't expect. Got anything to say before I send you to join him?"
"Leon's here? Panther isn't working with him. "
"Was here. I suppose what little is left of him still is. So it's coincidence you both found me at the same damn time? Seriously? Okay fine sure the universe does hate me that much. I'll buy that. Out with it then, cat."
"There are at least four other bounty hunters within ten minutes of here. Someone here figured it out and sold you out. Panther couldn't exactly call you over their channels to warn you. Shooting you was not my intention. Mercenary is one thing, forgetting how many times another man saved your life is unacceptable."
Wolf paused and looked at the feline. Panther was good for his word, unlike Leon. Four more on their way meant he had to be gone now. Of all his teammates over the years, the cat was the only one who he'd halfway liked. "Thank your lucky stars that I halfway liked you and know you happen to have a strange sense of honor for a mercenary, or I'd never believe it. You've got to be joking me though, nobody gets sold out like that here. It would fuck the entire way this place works." He lowered his gun and looked at his former wingman. "Seems we're even then. Not that I ever thought you'd really think you owed me to begin with."
"Reasonability suits you, O'Donnell. Nobody's had a bounty like that. It probably won't work well for them in the long run but someone wanted their cut. There's no joke. " The black furred feline was glancing towards the door. "Why don't you get going and Panther will be on his way? Warning you is one thing, dying for you is also not acceptable." The lupine nodded once and with that, the black cat turned and darted down the hallway.
"Fucking hell" The last remaining person in the hangar muttered to himself, as he shut the cockpit and decided that this was getting all too crowded for his tastes. He had a weasel to contact and a drop to make before he found a bolt hole somewhere else.
Zoness - Day 9 - 07:32 Local Time
The dirt and soot that accompanied a hangar, even a private one, made it an odd place to see a man in a suit. Remus stood with his arms folded, he didn't like to make exchanges in such an obvious place, but O'Donnell had meant it when he'd said take it or leave it. The bounty on his head was high enough even someone as connected as Remus didn't know where he was planning to go to try and avoid it. Insisting on things with a man like that was liable to end badly on a good day, and it was far from a good day to be the wanted lupine.
Remus unfolded his arms and made sure that the hidden gun in his pocket was there. Insurance, of a sort. Not that it would do him much good but he felt better with it there in case something went wrong. He at least looked calm, years of dealing with all manner of unsavory characters tended to weed out the people who couldn't manage it or at minimum, fake it.
Wolf opened the cockpit and hopped out, landing in a crouch with the datastore in one hand before he stood up and looked at Remus with suspicion. Traces of blood still stained his fur, a snarl on his face and a blue metal box in one hand. The lupine stood up, towering over the weasel in height and build and took several heavy steps towards him. His voice seemed more gravelly and rough than it had over the comm. "I ought to just shoot you where you stand, given the bounty on my head for this."
Remus blanched a little. "First off, I'm just the messenger. I don't know the details nor the reasons behind it. Secondly, you could but that would just mean you don't get paid now in addition to having an absurd bounty on your head."
"Lucky for you I suppose. You get this when you pay me. In cash. Not exactly able to walk into a bank right now for anything else."
Clearing his throat, Remus reached into a pocket and handed over the credit stick and waited while Wolf checked it. "You'll find the remainder of what we owe you there, all of it having been routed through other channels and will not trace to myself, my employer, or you." One purple eye and a blank glass lens stared at his contact harshly, before the box was set down and the mercenary took a step back and only grunted slightly and tucked the stick away.
Slightly sweaty paws picked the box up. "Well then, seems you've done what we've asked and it's all settled. I'll wish you luck and be on my way."
"Yeah, sure. Don't get caught with that, kid. Corneria's a hell of an enemy to have." The ship was gone before Remus could really think of an answer. Kid? He wasn't that much younger than the wolf.
Curious eyes rested on the box. "And you, are a most interesting thing. What possibly could be worth hiring him over that also interests Jared?" Being a middle man meant keeping your nose out, but this had all gone so strangely that he really couldn't resist.
A quick text message to Jared that yes, he'd still come to the "party" this evening. Once both he and the datastore were safely tucked in his own apartment he opened it up, and hooked it up to his tablet which had no network connections. Should be safe enough that way.
The encryption proved to be something that Remus couldn't guess at and a half hour later he gave up on it and pulled the cord to his tablet out. The ermine never noticed the now red status indicator on the bottom of the case, nor did he know that such devices were set to try and call home over any available network, satellite, or cell connection if tampered with.
The only thing he noticed was the sudden entrance of several men in full armor with no insignia on their uniforms literally beating down his door hours later, right before he went to go meet Jared. "Whoa, whoa whoa, whats join on guys?" There was no reply as a red dot centered itself on his forehead and the weasel fell to the floor.
An hour later, Jared knew Remus was late and the vulpine didn't like it. Something was going on, or off, he knew it. He just didn't know how he knew it or what it was. Half an hour after meeting time came and went, Jared decided he'd go for a walk. A walk by the apartment building he knew his middleman lived in. As he wandered down the street, he noticed it got very quiet as he approached the right block. Which probably had a great deal to do with the unmarked vans outside of the apartment.
Shit. Remus, what the hell did you do to get caught? The fox ducked into the nearest building and headed out the back way before weaving a very indirect path back to his own place, checking to see if he was followed the whole way. All of that work, and time, for nothing. There was an eerie howl of frustration from the vulpine, as he kicked over the table in the small apartment.
Corneria - Day 9 - 23:53 Local Time
"Was that really necessary?" The voice of Senator Jerrard sounded extremely displeased, as she leaned both hands on Pepper's desk and was looking at the General as if he had reached a new level of crazy.
"Standard protocol when any of our secure data reports back home as tampered with." Pepper mentally smirked, but outwardly he looked perfectly neutral about the conversation. "I should hope we still follow those."
"So this wasn't a pathetic excuse to deploy your latest pet project and get something you wanted without Senate approval for interplanetary operations."
The general let out a deep sigh as if dealing with a petulant child. "Senator Jerrard, if you came here to accuse me of things you could at least look up *what* the usual course of action is for such things before you start in. Really now, I will have my secretary retrieve the documentation on them for you and you can see for yourself. I planned nothing of the sort. It deeply worries me that's your reaction to this whole affair."
Dani Jerrard narrowed her eyes at the General. "Coincidence is rarely just that, in my experience. Have your secretary do that, and at least *try* to realize that our influence on various planets in the system is not what it is here. It would be wonderful if you could possibly inform the senate of these things at least thirty seconds before you enact them. Several civilians on Zoness saw the vans and have been freaking out thinking that someone might be attacking again."
"Which was hardly my intent. Spin it with the media any way you like, I'll vouch for it."
Jerrard scowled and turned on her heels to leave. I will not kiss your ass for basically foisting this mess off on me and then offering your help. Argh! Why can't we make you retire already!?