Author's Notes: For those of you who have been reading this as it's published, all the prior chapters have been tweaked and revised. Some of them are fairly heavily added to, but the most important alteration plot wise is in Chapter 10 - in short, Panther didn't try to kill Wolf. I think it's worth a look at again, but I'm biased!
Also, I didn't realize any of the Arwings or Wolfen's had ever been given official names. Some of the named ones are the same, but others changed from canon.
I tried to incorporate all the feedback and suggestions I've gotten so far on this story and make it better. I hope I did so. As much as I wanted to stay with one viewpoint through most of the combat, I couldn't figure out how to do it and relay all the things going on. I tried to keep it as clear as I could though, although I certainly want to know if it's not.
Without further ado...the new Chapter 13!
"There is no redemption without sacrifice." - D.I. Telbat
Corneria Airspace - Day 16 - 1:12 PM Local Time
Fox clicked into place the last of the smart-bombs and laser charges into his Arwing, the team logo prominently on the side above the script declaring it to be the Red Avenger half of the entire supply the team owned was loaded into his ship. The other half had been loaded into Falco's SkyClaw. He shut the panel, trying to choke back the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This time, he knew that all of the men in the air he would be fighting were the people he'd tried so hard to protect his entire career. None of whom could he bring himself to be angry with other than the General himself. Who of course, wouldn't be in the air but safe in his bunker well below the city.
Falco stood behind him. "Fox, let us go with you." They both knew the odds here were absurdly low and the stakes high, just like the early days of the team.
The vulpine shook his head. "Falco, I..I know that we're in this together till the end. But it's going to be hard enough to get one Arwing through the Cornerian defenses, much less two. I was" He swallowed hard, finding that the words didn't want to be said despite how much he meant them. "I was hoping that since we have multiple copies of the data, that I would take the first run at it. If I fail, then...you would try. I don't think they'll expect us to split up like that. At that point, up to you whether you want the others to be flying with you. I'd..advise against it though. So you know, loaded both your and my ship up full. Doesn't leave anything other than the heavier weapons here."
A hand rested on Fox's shoulder, his long time friend looking at him. "Send me after you, what's that a joke? Aren't you the best pilot we've got or was that just bluff on your part? You, better make it on the first go, or I will come kick your tail when this is all over." The bird smiled a little although it didn't reach his eyes. There was a cough from the other side of the hangar and both of them blinked looking up to see O'Donnell walking towards his battle scarred Wolfen II. Falco frowned, he just couldn't get over the idea that Wolf was really anything more than a dangerous and malicious man. "Just where do you think you're going?"
Wolf stepped up onto the ladder to the Hellfire and popped the cockpit open. "With Fox. He's mostly right, we need a plan B and that's you. No offense, kid, but Slippy and Peppy aren't going to cut it for this one. Someone has to man this anyways, would be a waste not too. Krystal's a telepath, how long you think she's going to stay in the air once she starts picking up on the minds and feelings of Cornerian pilots she's shooting down? No matter how good she is, she's never shot down anything but Andross' creations. Besides, the ammunition for the Wolfen's are slightly different than the Arwings, takes time to convert the holders from one to the other. Only had a couple stashed anyways for, well, a rainy day. Pourin now aint it?"
"Didn't you hear him say that it would be too hard to get two ships through? Or is your hearing half gone too?" Falco got a sharp elbow from Fox who was glaring at him to cool it with the taunts.
The lupine didn't growl or even snap back at the taunt. "That only holds true if he needs to watch out for the other person's tail. I can hold my own, just as much as he can. If I can't? I hope he has the fucking sense to let them shoot me down." He turned his gaze to the vulpine they were talking about and looked at him hard. "Truce or friends or whatever or not, you understand me? I'm not going to rot in a Cornerian jail when this is all over, and I'd be nothing but a distraction at best here. It's kinda pointless for me to not go. I'll follow you as far as I can. Once you make it if I can still bolt, I'm leaving. If not, well, don't disappoint me and make sure Pepper takes the fall for all this shit, McCloud."
The two teammates glanced at each other before Falco just shrugged and then Fox nodded. "Fair enough. I don't like it, but, it makes sense. Y'know, though, if it wasn't going to be ...as bad as it is I would let both of you come and watch your backs."
"I'll remember that if we're all not dead and there's ever better times." Wolf actually chuckled with amusement, and shook his head as he settled down into the fighter. He pulled out the dogeared picture of Lyra and stuck the corner in a narrow slot above his displays, noticing that McCloud had managed to finagle a pair of sunglasses to stay in about the same spot in his own cockpit. Ostensibly it was to hold...who knew what. Something that no real pilot ever bothered remembering, and instead stuck their good luck charms or photos there.
ROB's robotic voice came over the intercom as Falco left the dock and stepped through the airlock. "Dropping out of warp and entering Cornerian Airspace in five minutes."
Quiet settled into the ship dock, other than the click of buttons and whir of systems coming up as pre-flight checks were made, only to be replaced by the rush of air and then silence other than the sounds from within the planes themselves as they shot out into the black above Corneria's atmosphere.
"Incoming cruisers detected. Estimated arrival time in three minutes." The AI's flat voice came over all comms.
Fox shot towards the planet, Wolf right on his heels. They'd both be long landed before the real fight here started. After they broke atmosphere though, it was oddly still quiet.
"Okay, McCloud, Where the hell are all our lovely friends to the party? They can't possibly be this late."
"I don't know, bet they haven't had time to change the encrypted channels in all the fighters though. Tune in."
Static came over the comm and the the cries of an actual battle already in progress. "Squad Three Leader to Ground, target won't surrender or answer comms but he's already taken out four of our pilots!"
Fox caught a glimpse of Wolf through the glass in the other ship beside him and both men shrugged at each other, before Wolf's voice overlaid the other men's , talking on the private channel. "Maybe the universe likes you as much as it hates me. Not gonna ask, just gonna take the good luck."
Below already in the airspace of Corneria, a lone Arwing streaked across the sky, visible to all of the people below yet not appearing on any radar. Fighters were scrambled to meet it in the air, although oddly at at several squadrons were reporting serious delays in getting ahold of pilots, mechanical delays, communication system failures, anything that could fail seemed to have failed somewhere. Pepper narrowed his eyes at the tablet he held in his hands, secure in the bunker well below the capitol city. He strongly suspected that they were simply reluctant to fight against StarFox, and that was unacceptable. But it was nothing he could deal with right now. All the manpower he was deploying would have been overkill against anyone else, but if Wolf and Fox were both flying in the air against him? Pepper was grateful for the seven stories of rock and metal between him and the air.
"Did you get that radar fixed yet?!" Pepper barked into his own phone.
"Sir, the radar is fine. The ship simply doesn't show up on it anymore. We'll have to rely on visual confirmation only."
Curses came from the General. He had the best radar technology of anyone in the system, how was Fox managing to fly right in front of it without anyone being able to see him! Cuss that man. He was just as conniving as his father had been.
"Sir, we just got reports that GreatFox was sighted dropping out of warp. Cruisers are already deployed."
"Keep me updated, but focus more on that damn Arwing!" The team wouldn't have any direction if it lost it's leader, it wasn't like there was a third generation of ace pilotsin that family.
"Sir, a Wolfen and an Arwing also reported coming in from a different direction. How do you want us to split the squadrons?"
"...What? What the hell are those guys up to! Half to each. The first Arwing has to be Fox, nobody else would be giving us this much trouble! So it would be Wolf and whichever secondary pilot is suicidal enough to trust him in the other."
It wasn't until Fox and Wolf were practically upon the downtown area of the city that any fighters had been able to catch up with them. They'd overheard the entire time that someone the ground thought was Fox McCloud was taking out pilots elsewhere. Wolf fell back enough to engage the other pilots and try to keep them busy while Fox found a spot to land which wasn't easy. It wasn't like they just put landing strips everywhere. The large park in the center a few blocks over from the Senate Hall was probably his best bet, so much for the landscaping.
O'Donnell tilted his wings and dodged expertly through the skyscrapers, looping back to take out another of the slower military fighters that didn't dare try to follow him. The harder part was the numbers, even though there were far fewer fighters in the air than he'd expected it was still grossly uneven. That and the fact that there were a hell of a lot of obstacles here, probably with civilians in all of them hadn't escaped him. "Give up yet boys? You're going to do more damage to your own side than you ever will to me! You're not nearly as tough as you need to be for this."
Unlike fighting mercenaries, nobody replied. "Gah, wusses." Wolf saw out of the corner of one of his displays that Fox had found a place to land and pulled a somersault, putting himself behind three of the other fighters. He managed to disable two of them before the third broke off pushing it's engines hard to get away. The rest of what he saw though looping back around shocked him. "Fox, be aware we've got ground troops already deployed on us too. They haven't reached you yet but those are definitely black spec ops vans headed towards the courtyard outside of the hall."
"You'd think we went and declared war on the whole system. I didnt realize Pepper had such unilateral power. I'll watch my back, I'm good." Fox expected that Wolf would break out of atmo and try to bolt for it at any moment, like the man had said.
Instead he saw the other ship circle around one last time knocking out another fighter and taking heavy fire in return this time and ducked out of his view among the buildings. Fox tore his eyes away, he wanted to watch to see if Wolf came back up but he had no time to do anything but try to avoid the problems coming his own way. He hopped out of the Arwing, grabbing his blasters and zipped up the jacket with the datastick, and bolted, keeping low to the ground and trying to stay out of sight. The sounds of fleeing scared civilians and raid sirens filled his ears.
He was on the other side of the Central Courtyard when he had to duck from the blaster fire that started coming his way. Fox dove for cover behind one of the concrete walls surrounding a set of steps. Shit. Now what? His thoughts raced as he tried to figure out how to cross the remaining distance. He could hear movement behind him, he hadn't been fast enough, he was surrounded.
The courtyard in front of him however, became an unexpected field of chaos as a Wolfen slid onto the brick paving the courtyard, sparks flying from it's underside and the whole ship rotating 180 degrees as it came skidding to a halt. Two of the four wings collided into the large statue in the center twisting them and wrenching them off as they tumbled alongside the still skidding fighter. And the damn thing was STILL firing, although thankfully nowhere near McCloud, until someone managed to take out the main turret. The cockpit was forced open by several troops rushing up to it, only to find it empty.
There was a hoarse chuckle in his comm as a small round device with blue electricity sparking over it came sailing over his head and bounced on the ground before rolling . "Run, pup. You're about to loose comm, and your blaster. and everything else that isn't shielded. Datastick is. Get going." In an instant there was a flash of light and a strange high pitched whine from his comm before it went silent. Fox bolted for the other side of the courtyard towards the steps of the Senate Hall, as he heard shouts and howls behind him. The vulpine stole a quick glance to the chaos that O'Donnell was causing.
The wolf fought like a demon, howls filling the courtyard as he laid into the soldiers anyway he could. No trick was too unsavory and no move too low to be tried at this juncture. He'd done a number on a couple of them with the blade he himself carried, when that was wrested away from O'Donnell he resorted to claws. Two of the soldiers weren't going to be seeing to hit him ever again, as the others tried to take him down. It wasnt' that Wolf didn't feel the blows, he just didn't expect to have to feel them for very long and O'Donnells didn't surrender. One of the soldiers managed to deliver a kick to the back of Wolf's knee with a sickening crunch, earning a howl of agony from the lupine. Who shoved off with the other one and all of his weight slamming into the two soldiers in front of him, still throwing punches as he felt one of his ribs snap under the return throws. That pup better hurry. I'm not going to buy him much longer.
Fox glanced back forward only to find himself tackled by one of the soldiers who had also, similarly lost comm and any weapons that relied on circuitry. The knife that Fox saw glint in the husky's hand obviously was still perfectly functional. He wasn't going to go down that easily though and hit back at the man, rolling with the tackle and slamming the other man's head into the brick below. He didn't feel the knife hit his arm, as he pressed down on the other man's throat until the soldier fell still. Fox picked himself up and dashed the last length across the yard only to see regular ground troops suddenly take over the courtyard. Shit. He found himself staring down the business end of at least thirty blasters, that were clearly still functional. "Stand down!" The clear commander of the troops yelled.
The vulpine tried not to be sick, how had Pepper gotten this many people here this fast?The soldier in front of him yelled again. "Weapons down and hands up! All of you!" Fox set his blaster on the ground, raising his paws as instructed. Blood ran freely down his left arm as his chest heaved taking in deep breaths. He waited for them to shoot him anyways on Pepper's orders despite the surrender. Moments ticked by as the fire never came. Then he noticed that the same ground troops were aiming at the soldiers who had tried to chase him. Demanding their surrender as well. "If you aren't here on Pepper's orders to kill me, I need to talk to Senator Jerrard. Please. I have information that has to reach her." The guns pointed at him didn't budge, however he could hear behind the riot gear one of the newly arrived troops talking softly into a comm. He took the moment to try and spot Wolf, who he still couldn't find any sign of despite the fact that weapons were being laid down and something resembling sanity was being enforced. The soldier's helmet that obscured any idea of who it was then nodded at Fox and motioned for him to turn around.
The brown lupine form of Senator Jerrard was walking through the chaos on the steps and courtyard as if she strolled through battlefields on a regular basis. A contingent of unhappy looking bodyguards flanked her, to whom she paid no mind. She stopped, well out of arm's distance of the famous pilot. "You sir, have friends in strange places and enemies in even stranger ones. I am hoping what you have for me involves some manner of explanation for what the *HELL* is going on." The senator's usually unflappable demeanor was slowly giving way to the temper her species was well known for.
Fox tried to keep his head about him, and explain as calmly and succinctly as he could. "I do. There's a data stick in my flight jacket's interior left pocket. It is a copy of the data from Fichina, decrypted. It's what Wolf O'Donnell was hired to steal, and what Pepper declared an unheard of bounty on him for taking. When we found him, we wanted to know what could possibly justify a death only bounty. He also begged us to read it. We've always had high clearance with the military and this dates over a decade back, so we took a look. It dialed home, Pepper declared us traitors. The data is self explanatory as to why General Pepper took all of those actions, I was told that you are one of the senators who is not currently being blackmailed by the General, and someone who isn't needs to see it."
The senators eyebrows arched, although that was the only indicator of surprise she had. She nodded to the soldier to Fox's left, who reached into his jacket and pulled out the key, stepping over to hand it to the woman after a careful inspection of it. "Blackmailed? No, certainly I am not being blackmailed. I wasn't aware that anyone was, although that would explain some things. This should be interesting reading to say the least." Brown eyes took in the aftermath of the fights and she addressed the commander standing next to her, barking orders without a moment's hesitation. "What is this? Venom? You have surrender on all sides, go get the wounded medical attention. Including this one. We'll sort it out later and figure out who needs to be arrested, detain them all. Also I want a status update every half hour on whether General Pepper has also been taken into custody for deploying troops on Cornerian citizens without senate authorization! Given that our own senate may also have been compromised if Fox McCloud is telling us truth, I also want Protocol ShatteredGlass in effect, immediately. Declare the city under a state of emergency and all citizens are to immediately remain indoors at their schools, homes, or places of work, or designated shelter, the ones that didn't already flee downtown that is - whichever is closer, further updates to those instructions will come within a few hours." The commander beside her nodded smartly and started relaying more specific orders into his comm.
She turned then to go, but paused and looked back over her shoulder at the vulpine. "If all of that is true, you will have both my and the cities sincere apologies and gratitude. I have no expectations of assuming mere words will suffice in that case either, this was no way to treat people who are our saviors twice before, and perhaps a third time. I'll come find you once I've read enough of this to start giving sane orders. If this isn't true, well ...you'll see me later anyways." With that she turned and ascended the steps again, taking a headset from the younger reddish colored wolf who was her assistant and donning it. Fox could overhear her side of the conversation as she walked away. "Hare said what? Technically not normal surrender protocol but he's damn well right. Unless you want to deal with the public shame of doing otherwise if they're innocent I suggest you let him do it, under a proper guard. Yes on my authorization. Hang the reelections!" Her voice drifted out of his hearing over the other noise as the soldiers allowed an EMT to come up and look at his arm.
Fox could hear the sirens of additional first responders showing up as they led him towards a waiting vehicle, the vulpine let out a small yelp at the sight across the courtyard. Two other EMTs were lifting up a mangled pile of blood-soaked gray fur into a different vehicle. Wolf. Fox felt like his heart had stopped as he couldn't tell from this distance if his rival, his friend, had just paid for Fox's life with his own.