`Chapter Thirteen
"Where is it, Falco?" asked Fox, searching for the Intergalactic Phoenix. He looked at his radar. Something was coming up from behind.
"Bill! Your men! Warn them…" Kursed's cry was cut out by a call from the CDF. "What is that? We're hit!" The transmission was cut off by a burst of static. Fox turned his ship and sped toward the blast. An enormous hybrid of bird of prey and machine flew through the fire as if it was nothing, breathing fire of its own.
Fox fired at the Phoenix. His lasers didn't even seem to phase it. He narrowly dodged a stream of white hot fire.
"Hang on buddy, we're coming!" said Falco. "He'll have to get through us before he takes another one of Corneria's or Venom's men!"
"That might not be so hard- our firepower isn't making a scratch!" said Scout.
"I'm going to try a bomb," said Katt. She flew up close to the bird and dropped a bomb onto it. The Phoenix let out a piercing screech and rammed itself into her ship, sending her spinning into an enemy fighter.
"Katt! Are you alright?" shouted Falco.
"I-I don't know." Katt sounded extremely rattled.
"Get back to the Falcon, stat! Next time, don't do something so stupid!" he snapped.
"Wait Falco, I think she's onto something," said Bill. "From the Falcon, it looked like that might have done some damage."
"It's hard to tell, its armor regenerates quickly," said Kursed. "You, Badger, watch out!"
Scout looped around a fiery blast. "I'm going to use a bomb," he said. "Watch carefully from up there and see if it does anything." He zoomed underneath the Phoenix and looped around, dropping a bomb on it and speeding away. The Phoenix let out another screech and charged ahead, spraying fire from its beak. This time though, it missed the Venomian ship it was charging towards and smashed into one of the enemy battleships.
"That definitely does something to it," reported Slippy. "But I don't think bombs are fast enough to keep it from recharging."
An idea came to Fox. "Kursed, does your ship carry bombs?"
"Of course, just hit the red release switch on the left hand controls- wait a minute Fox, what are you doing?"
"I have an idea."
"I gathered that. What's your idea?"
"I need you guys to back me. I got to get up close to this thing," he dove his ship downward and swooped it back up quickly, capturing the attention of the Phoenix as he planned. "Fox, be careful!" Kursed shouted. When Fox estimated that the Phoenix would be opening its mouth to release fire, Fox quickly deployed two bombs, confident that his idea worked.
The bombs flew into the bird's gaping jaws and down its throat. Fox backed off to be out of range of its fiery breath, if this backfired.
The Phoenix stopped moving, and then suddenly exploded, the loud boom drowning out its deafening shriek. Its armor shattered in several directions, shrapnel flying.
"Everybody blast it, before it can repair itself!" he shouted over the noise. They fired their ship lasers and bombs at it, trying to scatter the debris in as many directions as possible.
"Fox, look, the ships are retreating! Including the captain's ship!" called Hawkeye. Captain Reptilian had taken this opportunity to start retreating his ships.
"Quick, let's go after him!" said Falco, speeding away. Fox followed.
"Captain Reptilian, we will give you a choice- either turn yourself over now and we will hold you under arrest until your army puts you on trial for treason, or we will be forced to take you down," Bill said.
"You'll get neither from me! Master Pigma, I'll need your back up in the orbital."
Fox and Falco took out the gun turrets on Reptilian's ship and then dipped beneath it, near a loading port. "Reptilian, this is your last chance," said Fox. "Either go with Colonel Grey and be given even a small chance of release, or we will deploy bombs into your ship now."
"Master Pigma, do you come in? Our ships are retreating and they've taken out my firepower. I have little choice unless you help me get rid of these fleas!"
"What'll it be, Reptilian?" Falco said, his patience gone.
"I am loyal to my master! Men, enough talk, take out this scum. Fire!"
Wordlessly, Fox and Falco aimed and tossed a set of bombs up into the loading port of the ship, and then boosted out of the way. The last thing they heard from him over the voice com was, "They really have bombs! No! Wait, I've changed my mi-" before the explosion took over the ship.
"Some personal assistant. He's got about as much loyalty as Pigma. They were perfect for each other," said Miyu.
Fox laughed over the voice com. "That's one of the great things about you Miyu, blunt but truthful," he said.
"We don't have much time," Kursed said curtly, interrupting them.
"Right! Slippy, Colonel Grey, see if you can find a remote point for us to do any last minute repairs. Katt's ship is pretty bad. We'll need everybody in top shape," said Falco.
"Remote? That'll be pretty tough, this is a highly populated metropolitan planet," Slippy pointed out.
"Also, try to pinpoint exactly where Pigma is located," added Fox. "Before we try to find this secret moon base, we should still try to recover General Felini and find out more about those secret plans."
*
"Master Pigma, they've destroyed the Phoenix!" Captain Reptilian's panicked voice came over Pigma's comm. link.
"What do you mean, they've destroyed my Phoenix? It's supposed to be nearly impossible!"
"They found a way!"
"That's the best answer you can give me- 'they found a way'? I should let them destroy you!" Pigma shouted, slamming the comm. link down. He had nothing more to say to Captain Reptilian, but didn't click off the comm. link. He wanted to hear the useless twit get the reward of his failure. Pigma listened to Reptilian's cries for help, and then the burst of static that signified an explosion.
"That's what that idiot gets! Letting himself get taken out by Star Fox and Star Falco," he mumbled. But he had overheard some of the battle conversations in his transmissions with Reptilian. Kursed for whatever reason had joined up with them, in Wolf's ship if he wasn't mistaken. Now, that was rich! The best part was, he knew they'd be well on their way to Pigma. People always called Pigma greedy because of his fondness for money, but Star Fox was greedy for heroism. He notified his men to keep an eye out for the Star Fox teams, and to NOT attack them if spotted. If Kursed had broken free from Star Wolf, then chances were she'd been at Professor Andorf's secret location. He'd just kill off Fox and his pals when they came for him, and force Kursed to take him to Andorf. Pigma laughed and shook his head. While Professor Andorf making Pigma a living weapon worked out well for Pigma himself, the so-called genius Andorf would realize what a stupid move that was.
*
"You guys are doing great, and you must thank Kursed for the valuable information she's provided us, and for risking her life to bring us this information!" said Peppy excitedly from the video transmission.
"Have you been able to contact Dash yet and tell him about Andorf's base?" asked Falco.
Peppy frowned. "No, I have not gotten any response from him."
He forced a smile in Bill's direction. "And Colonel Grey, you did a phenomenal job out there in the field. Why, I could see you being general some day!" Peppy winked.
"General Hare, I wish I could agree, but I lost a ship out there…so many men lost. I feel like I should have prevented that," said Bill.
Peppy became serious. "Yes, rest their noble souls. I don't mean this in a heartless way, but Colonel Grey, even the greatest generals can't prevent every casualty. You are not to blame."
Fox decided to give Peppy and Bill a moment alone. By now, Peppy had been filled in on everything with Kursed. Peppy had also agreed that it was necessary to rescue General Felini from Pigma, as they were having trouble unscrambling this code key. Besides, Fox had a feeling that Peppy really just wanted to see Pigma get taken down.
Fox looked over at Lucy, who was watching Bill closely and looking very concerned. She blushed and looked away when she realized Fox caught her. Could it be…he had seen the way Bill had looked her too. He smiled to himself. Love was in the air, he thought, glancing over at Kursed. Well, with some people anyway.
Since boarding the Falcon, Kursed had been standing around rather awkwardly. No one was quite sure what to say to her, besides thanking her for her help. She came over to him, looking uncertain. Fox studied her. She wasn't the unrecognizable bounty hunter with cold, mask-like exterior he had seen previously, but she wasn't the same Krystal he'd known and loved either, exactly.
"You were good out there, Fox," she said finally.
The confusion and anger that had built up over the years suddenly exploded. "Kursed, what the hell is this? You can't just try to screw us over and then waltz back around like you're our ally without some kind of explanation."
Miyu and Faye had been nearby and discreetly moved away when the heard Fox's outburst. Kursed sighed. "I was in Brea on business. I didn't know Star Wolf had turned over or that you would be there…"
"You know I don't just mean recently, Kursed. Everything. You betrayed us, then you run out on Star Wolf and become a bounty hunter. A killer."
"I'm not a murderer! What I do is no different than you- they've done something to deserve it. It would take a long time to explain everything, Fox," she said. "So here's the quick version- you hurt me…"
"I just didn't want you to get hurt. If anything happened to you…"
"Shh, Fox, I know, just listen to me! You know how hard it is to think clearly with a broken heart…and I liked to think I was helping Star Wolf by being with them, and they ended up helping me, in their own backwards way. Sometimes, things happen that make a person want to change, and they helped me make it. But I couldn't take what I'd become in everyone's eyes, maybe because they were right- it was a horrible thing to betray you, and I didn't want to face the truth about myself. So I ran away from myself, so to speak, and created a new life and identity to get away from it."
Fox didn't say anything for a long time, he didn't know what to say. It's not like what she just said made everything suddenly okay. "So why did you come back for us now?"
She looked down at her palms. "You still came back for me on Jericho. Why did you come back, Fox?"
Again, Fox wasn't sure how to respond. Finally, in a low voice he said, "I used to dream about you, you know."
"Really? Good dreams, or bad dreams?" She inched closer to him, so they were almost touching.
"Confusing," he said, instinctively leaning closer…
"Fox! I think I found Pigma, he and General Felini are located in the city of Polis!" Slippy came running over excitedly, waving the coordinates. He noticed the closeness between Fox and Kursed. "Oh…oh my, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."
"What? Oh- it's nothing!" they both said jumping away as they realized their closeness. "We were just talking," Fox said defensively. Slippy smiled and shook his head, walking away. That nothing looked like it had been about to be something.
*
One of the last things Dash Bowman could remember was falling into utter blackness, first plummeting through a nightmarish clash of visions and feeling as if his insides were being ripped apart as he saw his friends and allies dying. He tried to scream as if that would release the demon, but nothing came out. He heard the voice of Professor Andorf over him. "It's in your blood, you can't fight it. You can't fight me. You are mine!" He gave a raspy, insane giggle. Bowman surrendered, the pain inside of his head had flooded his body had made him too weak to fight anymore. The darkness had won, it had taken over. All was lost…