Interdiction
~
"The advances on the other continents have stagnated, mostly due to increased enemy buildup and readiness. As we've hoped, most of the population centers are enraged at the moment and are ready to join the effort to unify Fortuna, but until their military occupation is quelled, there's little they can offer us but words." The scar ridden legate explained, summarizing the sentiment of regional populations.
"It matters little what happens elsewhere, our southern brethren are fighting bravely, but they're mostly acting as a distraction at this point. What truly matters is decisively defeating the outworlders in battle, and I'm not talking about the grab-and-go skirmishes that have proven successful so far." Kosi leaned over the table, pointing to a certain spot on the map where a river divided the northern Litore region with the other stretches of land.
"We'll need to hold this dam for the ultimate phase of the counterattack. Remember, the beast comes down from the mountain, the beast is weakened, then trapped," The civet bounced a finger on the spot showing the massive river barrier. "…then swept away."
"That dam is being held by the Litore Defense Alliance, we've done everything we can to bring them to our side, but they refuse to revoke their neutrality. The government sanctioned paramilitary groups were never meant to have offensive capabilities, and they were never organized to fight in a local conflict like this." The bull hastily explained.
"Lacero, when you say we've done everything, you don't truly mean that, do you? After aligning so many under our banner, you think that one will slip from our grasp so easily? Even if the first few were handed to me, the others came when they saw it as a struggle for survival, this one will be no different." Kosi said, waving his paw around in a confident gesture.
"General sir, what do you propose? We have the numbers to take the areas by force." The officer suggested, though not as a likely course of action.
Kosi let out a brief but noticeable laugh. "A bold strategy, and one that's sure to fail. The moment we break from the tree line, Cornerian artillery will zero in on the troop positions and… well…" He paused. "No, for this operation, we'll need to deploy a more… nuanced approach." A successive series of taps on the display screen opened a page of information detailing the types and number of available assets. The particular section which interested the civet had to do with the arrangements of vehicles and weaponry that had previously been seized from Cornerian Army stockpiles.
"If we play our cards right Legate, the Defense Alliance will have no option but to join our cause."
~X~X~X~X~X~
"So, hold on, who are we fighting? The maps never showed the FLF in that area, what's going on?" Falco asked, catching up to the other four members of Icepick as they continued their walk to the airfield.
"As I said during the briefing, we're hitting targets deep in northern Litore, supply rails and depot. The area isn't affiliated with the FLF, it's instead some local defense force." Bill explained, turning his head back to see the avian finally join up with the rest of the group. "Apparently one of their installations was stormed and they're blaming us, we know for a fact it couldn't have been us since we haven't deployed any assets in that area, but that's not going to convince them."
"I don't get it. We didn't attack them, but they think we did, so now we have to attack them? What kind of sense does that make?"
"They were neutrals in this conflict before the incident." Bill calmly clarified. "Now that they've entered it, we're going to have to secure what strategic territory they have."
"By… destroying it." Falco concluded.
"Yes, wow you finally caught on!" Wiley uttered, throwing his arms up as if Falco had made some fantastic discovery. "Maybe that's what all the bombs are for! It must've take some incredible foresight to realize their purpose after all this time!"
Falco made a dismissive scoffing noise. "Yeah, whatever. It only feels weird that we're going after people that don't care about what's going on around them and just want to be left alone. I mean, these guys aren't like Venomians or the FLF, they're acting defensively."
"But… we're not going after the people…" Fay spoke up, her own position on the far left of the pack. "Just their transportation and supply infrastructure, right?"
"That's why we're Icepick." Fox noted from next to Bill's position up front. "We hit 'em with precision, striking only what's needed." He ended with an obvious nod to the bird's rogue tendencies.
"Once we reach the targets, we strike them and get out, we don't engage any of their troops, vehicles, emplacements, or whatever else they throw at us, unless they happen to be air assets." Bill informed the others upon them reaching the patch of airfield where their fighters were waiting. "We're not there to kill and cause as much mayhem as we can, but to deny them and the FLF from easily transferring weapons and soldiers to the area."
Icepick got to work on the routine task of entering their ships and performing the initial system checkups before calling the base's air controller for permission to take off. Procedures on the ground were simplified in comparison to the New Dawn's stringent requirements, there wasn't any launching machinery or orbital orientation business to worry about, just a simple matter of hovering upwards and flying straight out from there.
Fox was sitting in his recently sealed Arwing, busy fitting his ears into the padded slots of his helmet when Bill called out through the team's channel.
"When we take off, enter a line formation behind me."
The fighters took turns with their vertical ascents, kicking up a sizable amount of ground debris with the force of their thrusters. Once in the air, they formed up in the order that had been previously arranged, with Bill flying out in the front of the line while Falco remained at the tail end of the formation.
The Lylat had descended below the horizon hours ago, and the entirety of the Litore region was enveloped in the darkness of night, a fact which was vital to the nature of their intended strike. Even though such missions could be achieved through alternative means, such as cruise missiles and orbital artillery, those measures were either susceptible to interception or imprecise enough to account for unexpected variables. While Icepick had flown a few missions under the cover of night, none were designed to penetrate this deeply into enemy territory.
Fox switched the night viewing mode on the Arwing's display panel, augmenting the otherwise blackened surroundings of Fortuna with a bright and crisp overlay. The augmentation nearly increased the external visibility to where he could see like it was daytime, though there were some noticeable differences as the colors looked a bit washed out and the brightness of objects tended to degrade after a certain distance. Even though he could live without the enhancement and rely only on his instrumentation and his HUD for orienting himself, it provided an additional benefit by sharpening his situational awareness.
"Engines switched to low profile…" Bill called out over the team radio. Low profile meant that the engine noise and intensity was pulled down to its lowest setting, reducing the detectability to ground sensors, which oftentimes utilized sensors that could recognize the exact pitch of combat aircraft and alert operators of their presence.
"Quiet as a Katinan Rustler." Wiley whispered, referencing a slithering nonsentient reptile from his home planet. "They won't hear or see a thing."
"Everyone stay low, their trackers are top of the line used equipment. Same things we use around Spearhead in fact." The bulldog wing leader informed the others, even though they'd left the FOB only a couple minutes ago and were still a good distance away from the target area.
The team passed through the uncultivated and almost unoccupied forests of the Fortunan wilderness, the trees created too much of a cover to notice anything that was going on beneath. FLF troops were unlikely to be hiding out in these isolated patches, and even if they were, the armaments of those rangers were insufficient to take on anything that was significantly shielded.
"Trains… why after all this time do people still use trains?" Falco wondered, breaking the silence that had been unofficially enforced for the past few minutes.
"They're more efficient than flying things out all this way." Fox offered as his best answer. "Trains are still useful for frequent bulk shipments, and they're much easier to offload than air freighters."
"Yeah, it just seems… outdated." Falco casually switching his visual focus to either side of the dense tree cover. "This is pretty much what the first pilots would've done 300 years ago, it's almost like nothing's changed since then."
Icepick remained in their relatively low altitude as they crossed the officially designated demarcation line bordering the region in which the Litore Defense Alliance was active. The intelligence reports given to the team beforehand had constructed a thorough overview of the region's air defenses, and the flight path that Bill had planned out specifically considered the scanning range and effectiveness of those systems.
Fox's attention was drawn to the newly formed boxes that were being drawn up on his front display panel. He immediately understood these shapes to be guidance markers for the whole team to fly through, weaving them through a perfectly crafted path in order to help them avoid unwanted detection.
"Stay inside the boxes, we'll be passing right through their missile defense systems." Bill alerted from his forwardmost position.
Anti-air systems were commonly arranged in a way so that the extent of one system's range overlapped with other surrounding defenses, helping to provide as much area denial as possible. However, not every deployment was as ideal as their design called for, and an astute mission planner could often recognize and exploit such weaknesses by "threading the needle" through a specific path between the ranges and pass through undetected.
"You sure you don't want them taken out? I got a couple of FARMs ready." Wiley eagerly mentioned in direct reference to his small armament of "Fast Anti-Radiation Missiles" that were designed to lock on and destroy tracking systems by targeting their radar emissions.
"Negative. Limit casualties. And our boys will be needing those SAMs once we're through with them." The bulldog answered.
Wiley dutifully removed his paw from its anticipatory hover over the missile arming switch. "…Understood."
The line of fighters continued weaving along their designated path, each pilot carefully ensuring not to stray too far towards either side. Fox made a quick check towards one of his left side display panels, its navigational readout informing him that the target was an estimated six minutes away. While they would still be within the operational range of the Surface-to-Air missile batteries if they popped from their position now, Fox figured that the team was capable enough to ignore or take them if needed, though doing so would stretch the group far outside the mission's tactful requirements.
Another fact which was eerily noticeable to Fox was the complete inactivity in the air; sure, the enemy had a terrible track record of air cover during the conflict, but this faction was a newcomer, and hadn't yet faced the devastating onslaught of a professional air force. Even a minor group such as the LDA had to have a few patrols guarding its territory every now and then, right?
"Hold on, looks like we might have a couple of bogeys, ten o'clock high, heading… 070. That's… towards us." Fay called out, instantly answering Fox's internal ponderings.
"They might be ACES…" Wiley mentioned.
"Uh, no I don't think so. These losers are bound to be amateurs." Falco retorted, failing to understand the mustelid's usage of an acronym instead of the standard implication of the word "aces".
"They can't be ACES," Bill assured. "They're too far out. They're in the middle of opposing territory." He said, continuing to check on the radar warning receiver for the position of the unidentified aircraft.
Fox readied himself to take whatever maneuvers Bill called out next. The aircraft were over 50 kilometers out, and their eventual paths seemed to converge precisely with that of Icepick. Even with the active low-profile measures, there was still an uncomfortably high chance of them being spotted and engaged. They weren't invisible, just quiet.
A few moments of silence passed.
"Keep going, don't make any sudden moves, we'll see if they pass us." Bill commanded, guiding his fighter along the precalculated path as usual.
Fox understood the inherent risk in this tactic. If the bogeys happened to be enemy fighters, there was a distinct possibility that they'd noticed Icepick's intrusion and were moving in to intercept, meaning that they'd likely gain an advantageous position on the fighters and force them to become exposed to the ground-based defenses. It was now a waiting game, a flinching contest where neither side would know if one saw the other unless they made the move for the kill.
"I can still take the SAMs out…" Wiley reemphasized, his FARM missiles ready to go in case they went in hot.
"Hold… position."
The bogeys continued their own path, not changing in the slightest. Soon they were at forty, then thirty and closing. A tense chill ran down the vulpine's back as it seemed there was hardly anywhere the group could go without being noticed at this point.
Nobody dared say anything, their attention consumed by the dual tasks of flying through virtual boxes and watching out for the potential danger overhead.
"All, silent." The bulldog instructed.
Fox pried his eyes away from the front and scanned the darkened horizon to his left, where he could barely make out the indistinctive forms of the approaching fighters. He gave a slight grimace upon trying to focus on the distant objects, his mind seemingly uncomfortable with the attempt to track the dots as they floated against the dull light enhanced background. While the vulpine couldn't pin down the exact feeling, something about the way he immediately forced his eyes away in response to the temporary discomfort was deeply unsettling.
Was he losing his sharpness?
A rapid shake of his head quickly pulled him away from his temporary mental break. He figured it was probably had something to do with the unnatural tint of the night-vision system, even though he couldn't remember having any problems from it before. No matter the cause, now was not the time to be having perceptual disturbances.
He let out a series of rushed breaths, not out of fear, but more out of sense of anticipation and a physiological response to increase combat readiness. They were almost here, in the next ten seconds they'd all know whether the fight was on or if Bill's underhanded gambit had paid off.
The bogeys were now overhead and slightly to their left, heading straight across Icepick's front. They were at too high an altitude for Fox to make a clear confirmation, but more likely the small formation of fighters was comprised of older Cornerian models and not the Invader III class which the FLF had deployed in limited use.
The vulpine's eyes tracked the fighters while they flew straight ahead without so much as a minor adjustment, an indication that they were entirely unaware of the strike group's presence. If Icepick wanted, now would've been the best time to engage the enemy fighters as their vulnerable rear now lay exposed; however, they knew very well that doing so would compromise their activities and open them up to the air defenses the same as before. The tactic of indifference seemed to have worked.
The enemy air patrol was quickly fading behind them now, flying away to some undefined perimeter where they'd be met with nothing but the moist Fortunan air. A soft scratchy noise made its way into Fox's headset.
"Alright, looks like we're clear." Bill spoke up, breaking the previously enforced radio silence.
"Did you see that? They passed right over us." Wiley whispered, almost as if he were trying to keep his volume down to avoid being discovered. "Numb skulls."
"We'll have to watch for them on the way back…" Fox noted, the blips in his warning receiver disappearing into the bottom right corner. "Once we go loud, they'll be running to see who's been causing the racket."
"Right, we'll keep an eye out during exfil." Bill nodded.
The transient distraction of the passing patrols had now gone, allowing the team to return to the matters of their mission objectives. The loading station was only a couple minutes away at their current pace, and there was no telling how ready it would be to face Icepick's surprise attack, if they had any defenses at all.
Fox brought his gaze towards the bottom-left corner of his HUD, making a quick mental check of his active armaments. His Arwing held an array of four small diameter bombs, relatively weak but nonetheless effective weapons designed for precisely striking stationary targets. The location outlined by mission parameters certainly wouldn't have the same hardening features that would be expected on a military installation, meaning that whatever limited loadout that Icepick carried would still be enough to inflict the intended amount of damage.
"Coming up on target, ETA 1:20." The bulldog continued.
Even with the night-vision enhancements, Fox could still see a patch of illumination in the distance. The target was mostly wedged between two elevated hills that barely missed mountain qualifications, offering a slight protection from the ground-based regional defenses. Fox could sense his mind once more gearing up in eagerness for the fight ahead, bringing his senses into a laser-like focus, tuning him into the state of combat proficiency that had been lying dormant for far too long.
The facility was nearing into view, the outline of its twisting railway could be seen stretching to the extremities of the shallow valley. The main section of the facility contained a cluster of gigantic storage containers on either side, interspersed with loading cranes and other machinery that were necessary tools in the offloading process for the station's train.
A pair of boxes soon came into view on Fox's HUD, his targeting system recognizing the points of interest. From now on it would be a simple process, as all he had to do was get within range and deliver the payload, allowing the precision guided munitions to do the job they were built for. There was no need for cannon fire, and certainly no need for multiple passes, since the nature of their mission had been calculated down to the finest detail, with each piece of ordinance chosen for their specific target.
"Alright Icepick, let's do this." Bill muttered from his frontmost position. "Follow me, break high, come in fast. The bombs will do the rest, they know where to go."
He wasn't exaggerating. The weapons weren't the "smartest" in the Cornerian arsenal, but their internal guidance systems were nonetheless formidable, enabling the weapons to destroy certain targets while doing as little damage to the surrounding area as possible.
Bill broke from the line formation by sending his fighter upwards at a controlled slope, arching himself up in preparation for the ensuing strike. Fox and Fay followed his exact path, with Wiley and Falco trailing them at the end. The quiet facility was quickly coming into full view, its illuminated causeways populated by only a few roaming souls.
The screen on Fox's display told him that he was almost within range. All he had to do was get a little closer.
"Weapons armed… going in…" Bill notified the others, the engines of his ship flashing in a quick burst of thrust and sending him straight towards the vulnerable depot at a downward angle.
The Cornerian strike craft released its payload of four bombs, which split from their freefalling motion and diverged into their own paths towards their inevitable targets. It was only until the munitions had almost completed their destructive journey that the station's occupants noticed the abnormalities in the sky, shielding themselves with outstretched arms once the series of deafening explosions rang out from the loading area behind them. The bulldog pulled himself upwards and entered a loose 180-degree turn.
"Whew! Look at that beauty!" Wiley exclaimed, admiring the violent yet perfectly symmetrical work of art that the commander had just laid on the canvas.
Fay was next, her weapons deploying with considerably less fanfare, scanning the ground below and waiting until the one confused body hanging around her target had made up enough distance in their panicked flight. "Package delivered!" She yelled, looking back in the rear view as she passed and breathing a sigh of relief upon realizing that nobody was harmed in the wake of the rail line's utter decimation.
Now that the front two had completed their runs, Fox eased his Arwing straight along the path of the railway, down the center of the expansive facility. It was obvious at this point that the depot carried little if anything in the way of defenses, and because of this, Fox could position himself any way he needed, not having to worry about any potential return fire.
He glanced through the cockpit's frontal window at the two pairs of targets his ship had already locked onto. Two loading cranes and two storage containers, one of each on either side. The boxes containing the targets flashed with red diamonds, indicating that they were within range.
"Bombs away!" The vulpine shouted.
The payloads quickly pried themselves from the Arwing's underside, racing silently to their targets to enact their fiery demise. There was an unmistakable thrill racing through his mind on watching the targets erupt into towering fireballs, but even in the surreal clarity, the odd feeling in his head resurfaced to bother him once more.
Same as Fay, Fox hovered back around after his pass was completed to ensure that none of the civilians had been caught in the fire, not that he'd be able to help any of them if they had been, but for the psychological comfort. After all, the people here were almost entirely unarmed and hadn't done anything to deserve such a fate, a fact which had long been taken into consideration.
As he completed his turn to follow the others, he watched in the corner of his eye as Wiley made short work of the remaining infrastructure, his bombs carefully delivering themselves to storage assets while carefully straying away from potentially populated buildings. The weasel's strike craft carried a significantly greater armament than the others, and in his short span of time over the depot managed to lay as much firepower as the previous three combined.
Falco was the last to arrive, his duty being to cleanup any items of interest that hadn't been disposed of. However, the others had done a fine enough job that there wasn't much left that wasn't left a mangled and crumbling mess. Content with the results, the avian broke off from his descent maneuver and returned to the rear of Icepick's tight formation.
"A++ job fellas." Bill commended. "The whole place is decommissioned, but the personnel are walking away without a scratch!"
"Whew! Hope they enjoyed the show, 'cause we won't be back anytime soon!" Wiley stated with an obvious layer of elation coating his voice.
"Right, let's get out of here before their help arrives." Fox added.
"Agreed. Follow me, low and fast, let's get out of here." The bulldog's commands were followed immediately by a synchronized burst of the group's engines, accelerating them in the direction from which they initially came. The thin trails of fire and other lights illuminated their rear views, decreasing gradually in size until they were eventually hidden behind a passing ridge.
"Uh, hey- I think they've noticed." Fay said, watching closely on her warning receiver as the bunch of dots that had passed over them previously were now heading towards them full speed.
"She's right, I have contacts at our eight." Falco relayed. "Looks like the same ones."
Bill examined the distance of the enemy fighters and calculated the time to reach beyond the influence of their defenses. Theoretically, Wiley could take one of the sites out with his FARM and they could create a shortcut that way, but this method would guarantee their exposure and send whatever else the LDA had in their arsenal after them. Their current path wasn't perfectly straight and required a careful application of maneuvers to avoid entering the defensive zones.
"Keep it going, Icepick. If they disengage before we clear the border, then good, otherwise…" A flip of a switch armed his fighter's cannon. "We're clear to engage all bandits."
"Nice! Time for some excitement!" Falco cried out, jerking his head forward excitedly.
'Yeah, excitement.' Fox thought. There was no pleasure in the idea of taking out anyone on their side since they were an entirely defensive force and could hardly be considered aggressors. Still, if they were willing to trade fire with him, he had no intention of holding back.
"They're still pursuing!" Fay warned.
"Don't stop, we may be able to make it!" Bill guided the rest through the winding turns across forest treetops. If they were on a straight path, they could make it without engaging the enemy, but the quick changes in direction required for proper evasion made the actual time far more than the navigation computer's simple estimation.
"We aren't going to make it, Mad Dog." Fox pushed his fighter slightly upwards to gain a better view of the horizon. "We better engage before they push up on our six."
Bill paused in consideration. "Icepick, new plan…" The bulldog began. "Approach left, loose formation. We'll need to take that SAM out first, Wild Eye?"
"Already on it…" The weasel confirmed, pulling his strike craft away from the formation to engage the enemy missile site. Taking it out would grant them a clear sky for combat, so long as they stayed within a certain radius.
In most scenarios, the SAM sites would have to be "marked" by either Wiley or another fighter beforehand, however, the reconnaissance capabilities of the Cornerians meant that the defensive target's position had been loaded onto his targeting computer before he'd even taken off. Wiley approached the SAM from his moderate distance, waiting for the moment the operators would switch the tracking system on and allow him to fire his missile at them before they managed to shoot theirs.
The mustelid pilot kept a close eye on the HUD, his finger on one of his joystick's top buttons in anticipation of the moment when the targeting diamond would overlay the box and send the FARMs on their way. "Come on, flinch." He goaded. It was only a second later when the screen lit up with the targeting box indicating a successful lock on, accompanied by a high-pitched tone that signaled the urgency of the moment.
The FARM shot out from Wiley's underbelly, instantly directing itself to a higher altitude. "Missiles away! I'm outta here!" He called out, breaking from his current bearing and heading back to the rest of the team to avoid any further interaction with the SAM site.
The FARM that the mustelid had just released performed its duty to perfection, streaking across the sky at a speed that made it too difficult to intercept by anything other than purpose-built laser beam weaponry. As the missile approached its target, it made a quick course correction upwards before it was directly above the SAM site, changing directions one last time and flying straight down. Although the explosive power of the missile was comparatively small, the kinetic energy due to its speed and the weak protective measures of the target meant that it faced no difficulty in forcing them out of the fight.
"Scratch one SAM!" Wiley exclaimed triumphantly, watching the bright flash in the distance accompany the disappearance of the target on his receiver. "Too easy I tell ya…"
"Nice going." Bill applauded. "We're clear to engage them now, Icepick. Let's show 'em what we've got!"
Bill and the others broke from their flight path and entered a loose formation where the spacing between them allowed for the other to make any necessary evasive maneuvers. The two fighter wings were now on a head on collision course, with less than a minute to go before contact.
"All friendlies in the area, this is Icepick actual." Bill spoke over the main channel that was open to any Cornerian affiliated listeners in the area. "Be advised, we're engaging an enemy air patrol with clear skies. Any help would be appreciated…"
"Hmph, you think anyone will answer?" Falco wondered, positioning himself to the far-left of the formation.
"This far out? Unlikely." Answered Fox.
The two formations were almost within range, Fox could make out their forms once more through his light-enhanced view, positively identifying them as the surplus Cornerian models he'd previously guessed. The fighter to the far right made a hasty break from the others, Fox recognized this move as an attempt to circle around the back of Icepick to give it an advantageous position.
"He's trying to come around." The vulpine noted.
"Go ahead and take him, we'll engage the rest." Bill responded.
The unfortunate pilot was trying to throw a wrench in the group's plans and make them react in a way that would expose themselves. Of course, there was no way that he could anticipate going up against Fox 'effin McCloud of all people.
The vulpine directed himself away from the rest of Icepick to meet the rogue member while the others remained in formation. The lone fighter quickly noticed that Fox had picked up on his sleight, and in a panicked reaction descended to a lower altitude, almost near to the ground. Is was already evident to Fox that whoever was in there had never had to face down a real enemy before.
"Alright man, let's see what you got." Fox said to himself, rotating his craft so that the ground was above him and pulling into a gradual turn to intercept the adversary's eventual location.
The enemy had already placed himself at a disadvantage by lowering himself and allowing the vulpine a much greater breadth to perform his initial maneuvers. With little hesitation, the fighter attempted to perform an upward roll to reposition himself; however, Fox immediately reacted to the move and added a bit more thrust during his turn so that he'd be at a greater angle when the enemy completed his revolution. Fox glanced upwards to the colliding group of fighters outside of his range, Falco as predicted had taken the initiative in the swarm and had already scored a couple of shield-draining hits.
"We have them contained! You stay down and keep him busy!" Bill messaged to Fox.
The lone challenger quickly became greedy in his effort to attack Fox and entered a tight turn to his right. Since Fox knew that matching the enemy's maneuver would mean placing them in a turn fight, he instead made an unconventional decision and slowed his Arwing down to a near hover, allowing the unaware fighter to continue its pursuit in vain. A loud burst erupted from the Arwing's engines once Fox noticed the enemy had turned himself to the point of placing himself right in front of him.
"Really? You can do better…" Fox muttered, pushing the throttle forward.
The bandit attempted to weave and shake the vulpine off, but the simple efforts did absolutely nothing to the pursuit. He was leading Fox directly away from the main battle cluster and through a series of small rocky archways, though even with the varied attempts, Fox only gained on him, swiftly entering weapons range.
"A good try." Fox calmly told himself, squeezing on his trigger and sending a constant stream of cannon fire through the canyon expanse and onto the fighter's rear, causing several arcing blue streaks to fizzle around the exterior, a signal that the shields had been well perforated by Fox's expertly placed barrage. The foe performed a responsive maneuver that betrayed his confusion and inexperience, attempting to pull a half-loop maneuver and turn the tables on Fox. Unfortunately for him, such an action came with the cost of being exposed to head-on gunfire.
"Wheww!" Fox yelled out as the enemy fighter passed right over his own. Each had managed to release a rapid-fire burst towards the other, but none ended up with any success. Fox then eased back on the flight stick, climbing up into the darkened sky while curving towards the side in response to the other's movements.
There was never any moment of doubt in Fox's mind as to the outcome of the intimate conflict, he'd likely be the favorite in a faceoff with other members of his team, and they were each highly capable and experienced in their own regard. This fight was almost unfair, and he could only imagine the levels of stress the other pilot was undergoing as he whirred across the treetops of the Fortunan forests. Fox understood that his next shot would end it, and so he purposefully moderated the cannon's power to give his opponent a sporting chance of coming out of it alive.
Completing his "yo-yo" turn by converting his rolling downwards from his high position and penetrating the middle of the bandit's turn, giving him an exemplary opportunity to finish the task at hand. He held down on the charging trigger, the targeting reticule in front of him having no difficulty locking onto the vulnerable target.
"Sorry pup, I've got a job to do." Fox uttered, an uncomfortable amount of Wolf O'Donnell seeping into his voice.
The trigger released, and the guided energy projectile was sent hurtling downstream, ending in a brilliant flash as it obliterated the right-side wing of the targeted fighter, sending it upwards in an uncontrolled swirling motion.
"Splashed him! He's down for the count!" Fox cried out over the team radio.
"Good! Just took care of one myself!" Bill replied, his own fighter at a significant distance to where the Fox chase had ended up.
The vulpine's celebratory gesture was short lived, his attention now resting on the fate of the struggling pilot as he tried his best to keep his aircraft from crashing to the ground.
"You can do it… just pull out." Fox said in a soft, sympathetic manner.
There was no possible way with the amount of damage that Fox had inflicted that the fighter could pull out of its tumble alive. A major section of its wing had been blasted off and much of the remaining vessel was engulfed in a veritable inferno.
"Come on buddy, punch it!" Fox yelled, knowing that the defeated pilot was unable to hear his words.
The fighter was quickly losing altitude, its uncontrolled spin and misdirected thrust giving way to gravity's consuming force.
"Get out of there!" Fox yelled, having yet to see any signs of ejection.
The reflection of the fireball in the vulpine's eyes ended whatever hopes he had for the unfortunate enemy. He'd gone down in a blaze, likely confused and terrified as to what was going on.
"Damn it!" The vulpine slammed his cockpit's dashboard with a closed fist, the force causing a minor through the display pixels. No matter the nature of the conflict, there was a sickening feeling welling from within about the unnecessary death, he'd done everything he could to prioritize the enemy's survival, but to no avail.
"We can use your help over here!" A voice belonging to Fay called out.
"Right, on the way."
"Hold up, we have a number of contacts heading our way!" Wiley interrupted, noticing a new trio of blips appear on his warning receiver.
"I see 'em, they read friendly!" Fox smiled in relief. "Looks like they got the message!"
The rest of Icepick's fight had been similarly one-sided, Bill had managed to turn inside of one of the fighters chasing Wiley's less maneuverable craft and dispatch him with ease. The remaining two fighters knew they were well outmatched, and so flew in close coordination, covering each and taking opportunities to trade shots when possible. Although they were outnumbered and outclassed, they remained locked in their circular dance, neither daring to make their escape move as they were thoroughly contained.
"He's breaking for you guys!" Wiley cautioned, his own fighter hanging around the edge of the circling duo.
"I see him!" Fay broke off from her float next to the wing leader and bolted her craft into a head-on course for the enemy trying to catch Bill from behind. The adversary must've not noticed that Fay had redirected herself until it was too late, catching a significant flurry of laser fire in its frontside canopy while it attempted an out of range burst of its own towards the bulldog.
"Got him!" Fay swiftly avoided the now derelict fighter. Swinging her head around to track the passing wreckage, she saw the battered canopy burst open, throwing the pilot out and allowing a few seconds of freefall before a parachute fluttered to life and guided the figure safely into the dense tree cover below.
"You all have one kill now, eh?" Wiley asked, scanning the skies next to him for the last remaining enemy. "Guess that means it's my turn!" He slammed the throttle to its forwardmost position and raced towards the last fighter, who was attempting a possible escape back to home territory. Since the weasel was now the closest to the fighter, there was no one else around to steal his kill.
Or so he thought.
The small patch of incoming blips on the radar indicated that help was arriving, and fast.
"Come on, don't do this…" Wiley begged, catching a slight glimpse of the streaking allies in the corner of his eye. He'd almost caught up on the enemy, his powerful and meticulously maintained engines made sure of that. Only a few more seconds and the easy shot would be his. He charged a shot in preparation, this one would be powerful enough to eradicate the weakened aircraft.
"What the hell!" Wiley yelled, realizing that the fighter had gone up in flames without his interaction. Immediately once his words were finished, an odd-looking craft swooped by at an immense speed, coming around behind Wiley in a single motion before returning to formation with its two similar looking associates.
"Whew!" The team's channel was filled with an additional voice. "You're welcome!"
"Hey!" Wiley snapped. "You could've been caught in my crossfire, what were you thinking?"
"Sorry! Guess I'm just too good." The simian sounding voice replied.
"That's all of them!" Bill said over the open comms, the team doing their best to regroup and head in the friendly direction. "Thanks for responding to our call, are you guys ACES?"
"We're KC, glad to help." The female leader of the other team answered, their fighter moving into a complimentary position behind Icepick. "Headed over as soon as we could to join the action…"
Falco made a double take upon hearing the leader's voice. He slowed his fighter from the edge of Icepick's formation to get a better look at the aiding trio.
"K-Katt?"
An audible gasp was then heard over the team channel. "Falco? Falco!" Katt's eyes widened, settling on the outline of the avain's Arwing.
"Katt it's really you, isn't it?" Falco let out in complete disbelief.
"Monroe?" Fox added, his own Arwing having just returned from the previous detour.
"Fox!" Katt switched her gaze in surprise.
"Fox! Falco! No way!" Dash yelled, almost hyperventilating.
"Bowman?" Fox questioned again, soon receiving a word of affirmation from Dash.
"Wow, I can't believe that Fox McCloud is actually here!"
"Is Slippy with you?" The feline asked.
"No, it's only us two. And Grey if that counts." Fox responded.
"Hey, we exist too you know!" Wiley grumbled.
"I'm… really confused… do you all know each other?" Fay said.
"Mhmmm, some of us know each other very well…" Katt answered in a sleek, silky voice which likely referred to the blue avian. Falco's Arwing huddled next to Katt's ship, the two switching their cockpit lights on all the way so that they could see each other through the night sky.
The team's channel was soon infused with another voice, this one coming from an aircraft in the distance.
"Attention Icepick, this is Chad Richardson and the ACES. We've received your call and are on our way to-"
"Go away, Chad, we've already cleaned things up over here!" Katt proclaimed, somewhat mockingly. "Next time try to be a bit more responsive, and maybe you'll get lucky."
"Wait a minute…" Wiley paused. "I know that voice. No… this is too good. You were the one flirting with Hatchet a few days ago, weren't you?"
Katt blushed.
"Eh, Wiley, remember what I told you about Falco? And… uh… trying to form his own team?" Fox interrupted.
"Yeah, sure… but that means." Wiley sprouted an uncontainable smile, switching his view between the avian and feline's ships. Something about their sudden proximity confirmed his previous suspicion. These two definitely had a past considering the way they flew right next to each other. He shook his head, considering the depths of Fox's implication.
"You gotta be shittin' me."
~X~X~X~X~X~