Chapter Eleven
There's a jolt, and then a muted roar as two missiles strike the solid steel of the door, erupting into a storm of shrapnel and fire. Fox waits a moment for the smoke to clear, then points the nose of the Arwing straight at the jagged hole. He breaths deep, then eases the throttle up. The Arwing responds, surging forward powerfully. Fox increases the throttle, guiding them out onto the rainswept landing strip. Lightning flashes overhead as the Arwing gains speed, its landing gear beating against the wet asphalt, faster and faster until Fox feels the raw power of the engine grow stronger than gravity. He pulls up and the Arwing follows, lifting free of the strip with a giddy jolt that makes Fox's stomach flip, and then they're free.
Fox looks out of the cockpit as they soar up and over the trees and toward the blackened sky. A vast panorama is laid out below him, and he can pick out the school and the airbase, and then the road winding like a thin brown snake all the way back to their houses, tiny dots in a sea of rippling green. Fox's eyes trace back and forth over the landscape, everything he's ever known falling away far below him. With reluctance he tears himself away, looking back at the heads-up display to check attitude and drag. The weather is much rougher than it has ever been in the simulations he's taken, but the Arwing is built to resist solar winds and radiation belts and it cuts through this storm easily, the gale-force winds barely touching them.
"We probably have a few seconds until they notice we're gone," says Falco from the gunner's seat. "I don't know what they'll do, but we should be long gone by then."
"Right," says Fox, wondering how long after that the enemy scouts will notice them. "Keep checking the ladar, we don't want to get taken by surprise like the first flights were."
"A dozen fighters, your uncle said. Think they'll all be together?"
Fox chews his lip, thinking hard. "Maybe. Probably, actually, if they haven't broken through the stratosphere yet. I'll bet they stay together until they get just above the clouds, then spread out and use the storm for cover."
"Makes sense. So we just have to hope they're still above the clouds, and we don't miss them."
"They could be anywhere," says Fox, suddenly realizing the reality of the situation. "If we clear the atmosphere in the wrong place, we'll never get back in time to catch them."
Suddenly a light flashes on the HUD. "Incoming transmission," says Falco. "It's using Cornerian protocols, it must be the defense base."
And just like that, it's over, thinks Fox. What a shitty idea, did we honestly think it would work? "Patch it through," he says, his spirits sinking all the way back down the the ground.
The light flickers and solidifies, signaling an open channel, but no angry voices fill the cockpit. Fox looks down at the console, confused. "Are we getting anything?"
"No," says Falco, sounding just as bewildered. "The channel's open, but nobody's saying anything. They're just connected to our systems. There's no … wait, check your HUD!"
Fox looks up at the display in front of him. His eyes widen. No general's face fills the screen, no directives to return immediately flash at him. The channel is entirely silent, and in that silence dots are beginning to appear on the readout. Fox counts them mentally. One, two three … eleven targets. The blips are moving as a tightly packed group, much too far off to be actually seen.
"Fox," says Falco quietly. "They painted our targets for us. We've got bearings and coordinates on all the fighters. I'm tracking their trajectories now."
A twinge runs through Fox's knuckles and he realizes he's clenching his hands on the yoke. He loosens his fingers, closing his eyes for a second. "You know what this means," he says. "They think we can do it."
"Or they're desperate enough to try anything," says Falco.
Fox shakes his head. "They have no idea who's in here. For all they know, we're real pilots. We could be elite soldiers taking secret orders from the admiralty board."
Neither Fox nor Falco continues the thought, but it hangs in the air anyway. When really we're just teenagers in far, far over our heads.
They coast along in silence for a few seconds as it sinks in, then Fox pulls the Arwings nose sharply upward and they begin to climb. Teenagers or crack pilots, we have work to do. Rain streams off the frictionless coating of the canopy as the Arwing slices through billowing layers of cloud. Crackling spiders of lightning flash behind the scorched darkness, infusing the whole scene with an unearthly glow. "Feed me the coordinates for one of the bogeys," calls Fox.
"Done," replies Falco, and a guiding reticule pops up on Fox's HUD. "Looks like they're just about to break through the mesosphere."
"Right," says Fox. "At this speed …" his eyes flick down the the speedometer, then back up to the vector of the targets. "We should hit them about ten miles over the clouds."
"They'll pick us up instantly," warns Falco. "It'll be a target shoot."
"I hope so," says Fox, increasing the throttle and watching the wind resistance gauge. "Check the pressure buffers, will you?"
"What are you planning, Fox?" Falco's voice sounds wary.
"I'm gonna lure them down into the cloud layer," says Fox. "The storm will screw up their sensors, they won't know if there's a larger force waiting and they'll be cautious. Then we hit them hard and fast, get away, and pick off stragglers."
"That's your plan?"
"See, this is why I don't tell you my plans," grumbles Fox. "They never sound good out loud."
The punch through the clouds in a sudden rush, wisps of grey trailing behind them, the chaos of the storm giving way to clear, steely-blue sky on all sides. Fox knows that by the time they have a visual lock it will be much too late to escape, so he waits for Falco to give the word. Sweat drips into his eye and he blinks it away, readjusting his hands on the control yoke. The Arwing shakes, compensating for the loss of pressure and drag as the atmosphere thins around them. Fox concentrates on keeping the red diamond of the enemy force dead ahead as the Arwing continues upward, until at least Falco calls out from the gunner's seat. "Enemy lock! Evade, Fox!"
Fox Takes a deep breath and tries not to throw up as he pulls the yoke and takes the Arwing in a wide loop, angling its nose downward and plunging back toward the clouds. They speed toward the storm, a solid grey mass pockmarked by dark bruises and flashing pockets of lightning. Fox grits his teeth, fighting the feeling that they're really about to hit the ground, and then the nose of the Arwing rips through and they're diving back through the hellish tableau. Brilliant white flashes around them, rain and wind screaming against the canopy as the targeting klaxon wails unceasingly, its red light muted against the terrible luminescence of the storm.
"They're still on us," barks Falco. "The lock signal's getting weaker though."
Fox's knuckles creak against the yoke. He snarls at the storm as it buffets against the Arwing, furious arms of wind breaking themselves against the ablative anti-friction fields, doing nothing to slow their plummeting descent. "Just a little farther," he grits. "Tell me when the lock breaks!"
"Weaker, weaker. …" Falco's voice tenses, and then he cries out. "Gone! We're free, Fox!"
Just as the altitude warning joins in the cacophony of noise inside the cockpit and the ground below fills Fox's view, he pulls back hard. The Arwing shudders, the jet intakes coughing as they stall out and the plasma thrusters take over. Blue flashes behind the fighter as it flexes its deep-space muscles, carrying Fox and Falco up in a graceful arc and back to face the oncoming enemies. "Targets!" yells Fox.
"Acquiring!" replies Falco, and red triangles appear on Fox's HUD, their distance readings counting down faster than Fox can follow. Fox zeros in on the leading ship, feeling the mighty push of the plasma drive behind him.
"Prepare to engage," he calls to Falco. The avian doesn't respond. He doesn't need to; they're going to have to move faster than words now. Fox waits, watching the distance readout. Almost, almost …
Just as the distance between the two fighters hits a hundred meters Fox yanks the yoke to the side, feeling Falco's torpedos impact, and then they're spiraling up and around in a dizzying barrel-roll, laser fire scorching through the clouds and hitting nothing but vapour. Falco feeds the next target instantaneously and Fox adjusts course, looping downward as Falco lets off a barrage from their own laser cannons. Brilliant ruby light flashes ahead of them, catching the enemy fighter's tail and eating up toward its cockpit. Laser energy boils steel and ignites internal gasses and the fighter explodes, blossoming into a greasy orange fireball.
The minutes blur. Adrenaline and G-force fuze time into a liquid blur, and Fox can't tell if seconds, hours, or years have gone by when he finds himself diving through a blackened cloud bank, chasing the last three targets of the enemy squadron. Sweat trickles into his eyes, his fingers aching on the controls. Behind him Falco calls out an alert.
"Fox, the last fighter's peeling off from the group! The last two are coming straight at us."
Fox's eyes flick across the HUD, tracking the fleeing target as it speeds away to the west, then snapping back to the remaining two fighters as they adjust their trajectories and head toward the Arwing. "They're covering its escape," he realizes. "Target and destroy, then we have to follow!"
"Roger," says Falco, and Fox twists the nose to avoid an incoming fusilade of laser fire. The energy shields ripple around them, absorbing the errant photons, and Falco lets off a single missile. The projectile strikes the first fighter on its wing, tearing it off and throwing out a cloud of debris that strikes the other fighter, destroying it. Fox swings the Arwing around and Falco finishes off the wounded fighter with a burst from the laser cannon.
Fox swoops up, clearing the wreckage, then looks at his HUD and calls out to Falco. "Where's the last fighter?"
"It's gone," says Falco, and Fox can hear him jabbing furiously at his console. "We lost the target! I'm trying to reacquire it but it's out of range!"
"Damn!" curses Fox, looking out past his HUD even though he knows there's no chance of actually seeing anything. Lightning flashes outside, raindrops melting off of the frictionless canopy.
Suddenly the comm panel chirps again. "Open it," says Fox hoarsely. He hasn't realized it, but he's been screaming at the top of his voice for the past who-knows how long.
The comm panel chimes, and this time a window opens up on the side of Fox's HUD. It crackles with static, and then a familiar face fills the screen. "Peppy!" cries Fox, breaking into a grin.
"Fox. We've got our satellites searching for the last bogey. As soon as he breaks orbit we'll have a lock. In the mean time, set your course for the outer exosphere and prepare for coordinates."
"Done," says Falco from the gunner's seat.
Peppy's eyes flick to the side, and Fox realizes he has both of their faces displayed side by side. "That was exemplary flying, boys," he says gravely. "Fox, I haven't seen anyone fly that way since James was with us. Your father would have been delighted."
Fox beams, pride bubbling inside him. It vanishes just as quickly though, and his face falls. "We must be in for a shitstorm when we get back home. You think they'll arrest us?"
Peppy looks first at Fox, then at Falco. "Boys," he says, "I want to show you something." He steps back from the monitor.
The camera refocuses, and then the image clarifies. Fox is looking at a wide room. Tables of computer consoles have been shoved against the walls, and the bare floor is packed with people. Not just ordinary people, he realizes, his heart quickening. Nearly everybody in the large room wears a uniform. Fox picks out stripes, medals, stars, in groups of one, two, and three. A tall canine in a crimson uniform with gold pauldrons steps forward, his voice a forceful baritone. "Son, this is General Pepper, commander in chief of the Cornerian Air Force."
Holy shit. Fox stiffens in his flight chair. "Sir!"
"As you were, as you were," says the general, waving his hand in dismissal. He strides up a set of steps to stand with Peppy and looks up at the camera. "Son, the methods we witnessed today were unorthodox, undisciplined, and at times downright shocking. It was also some of the finest damned flying I've ever seen. Suffice it to say that Cornerian Flight Academy officials are watching you boys with very special interest."
"Sir," says Fox, his chest swelling. "Thank you, sir!"
"There remains the last fighter, however," says the general. "Based on our analysis, we believe him to be the squadron's leader. If he escapes to hailing distance of the main fleet, he will most likely send the command for a full invasion. Destruction of this fighter is imperative."
A voice pipes up from behind the general. "Sir, the bogey just hit the exosphere! Sending the coordinates now."
General Pepper stares into the camera, his flint-grey eyes seeming to pierce straight through the hundreds of miles between them. "Good luck, pilots. Pepper out."
The comm window closes. Fox breathes out a massive breath, the fatigue of the fight suddenly hitting him. He tries to remember the morning. It seems weeks ago now. "Are we locked on?"
"Yeah," says Falco. "Patching them through …" His voice sounds troubled, hesitant. "Fox …"
"What is it?" asks Fox, correcting their vector toward the tiny triangle on his HUD.
"What if we make it out alive?"
"What?" says Fox, taken aback.
"Well, I mean, what if we do it. What if we save everyone and make it home alive. What happens then, with, you know … what happens with us?"
"Why would anything change?" asks Fox, confused.
"You heard the general. He wants to send us off to the academy. There'll be people there who've been flying their whole lives. People a lot better for you. Maybe better in a lot of ways."
Fox wishes he could reach around behind him and beat some sense into his gunner. "Damn it, Falco! You really want to end this now?"
"No! I like this, I … I love it. But … shit, Fox, you really want to settle for me? I know how I am, and I know you can do better."
Fox slams his palm against the side of the cockpit in frustration. "Damn it to hell! What's the matter with you?"
"Sorry," says Falco, and his voice is hollow. "I'll let you get back to flying."
Fox takes a deep breath. "No. Listen to me, Falco. I have never felt anything like this before. Never. I don't know what it is, but it … it feels like love." There, I said it. He takes another breath, giving his heart a second to slow down a little. "And I'm sure as hell not about to give it up. I'm not about to give you up. Not for anything."
There's a long silence, and when Fox hears Falco's voice again it sounds like he's choking on it. "You mean that?"
"More than anything." And I do, he thinks, shaking his head in amazement.
"Fox, you're the best thing that's ever happened in my stupid life. I don't care what happens after we get back. I'll follow you anywhere."
"We'll go there together," says Fox, blinking quickly and trying to swallow the tightness forming in his throat. Come on, pull it together. He pulls in a final, shaky breath. "But first we've got to take this last fighter."