Sheila bit her lip, staring at the name on the door placard. Why am I so scared of meeting him? it's not like we've never spoken…. She took a deep breath, then knocked on the door. A female voice called from the other side, telling her to come in. she gingerly opened the door and stepped inside, greeted by a small chamber, a delicate brown and white canine greeting her with a smile that could melt Fachina. The chamber had several plants, and seemed as welcoming as a five star hotel lounge.
"Hello miss. May I help you?" Sheila bit her lip again, still with no clue why she was.
"Um, yeah, I need to meet with senator Reeves. It's important." Sheila found her self ringing the pocket on her cargo pants, right where her blaster usually was.
"Did you have an appointment today miss…..?" she bit her lip yet again, tasting a tiny amount of copper. Need to stop this, gonna put a hole in my lip…
"Spitz. Sheila spitz, former CDF fighter pilot. And not exactly but….. he's an old friend." She smiled at Sheila again, keying up the intercom.
"Senator, there's a Sheila Spitz here to see you. Shall I let her in?" the response was near instantaneous, and made Sheila breath a sigh of relief.
"Yes, please, I've been expecting her. thank you Carrie." The canine stood and gestured Sheila to the door behind her as she opened it. Sheila smiled at her and stepped around her desk, entering the office itself. It was a very sudden and stark contrast to the secretary's office. It was completely bland and Spartan, not a single thing in the room not having a purpose. In all of the news reels every senatorial office she had seen had extravagant desks, and were filled with pleasantries. But even the desk was a simple wooden desk. Figures, he's made himself the most accessible senator, working from his district and not behind every bodyguard in the region. And behind the desk was a slim brown furred canine lupine hybrid. He smiled to her and gestured to one of the chairs. "Have a seat. nice to see you again Miss Spitz." She raised an eyebrow at him, double checking that the door was closed.
"We…. Haven't actually meet senator….." he simply smiled at her again, leaning forward onto his plain desk.
"We have. Your Cornerian valor medal. I was at the ceremony. And it's just Kyle. Need something?" she nodded, biting her lip again.
"Yeah….. I need anything you have on…. Um…" she froze up, realizing she probably shouldn't outright say Midnight or Oikonny's name in his office.
"Midnight?" she nodded and he let a small sigh slipping out.
"Arent you afraid someone might hear us talking about them?" he shook his head, gesturing to a round object up in one of the corners.
"Sound canceler. Also blocks radio and comm signals. This room is a complete dead zone. Courtesy of one Vince Stazac. What do you need?"
"I need info on Midnight and Oikonny. Anything new, especially something me and Wolf can take action on." The senator nodded, pulling a laptop over and opening it.
"It's not much, but we had reports of a 'ghost fleet' out around Aquas. Disappears before anyone can get more than a few radar hits on it. Wolfhound might have better luck. Take the whole laptop." She nodded, smiling as she glanced at the screen, closing it before setting it in her lap.
"That easy huh?" he nodded and smiled.
"That easy. I got some intel analysts working on things. Ones that have yet to be bought out yet that is. Be careful Sheila. I aint sayin the prime minister himself is dirty, although he probably aint far off, the people he listens too, aren't just on the government's payroll. Fox needs to be extra careful too, with what happened to him." she nodded, a small sigh slipping out. "And Sheila? There's a plan in motion, Peppy's fighting it, but a lot of our force commanders are on board with it. As far as leaders are concerned, they're either too scared to fight it, angry enough to agree to it, or I'm damn sure they are getting a lump sum of cash to go for it."
"What plan?" Sheila watched as he stood, a small sigh slipping out of him.
"They are going to nuke earth. Target as much of it's major infrastructure and production capabilities. They say it will end the war but…." Sheila gulped, already knowing where he was going. Although Corneria did have nuclear weapons, they were primarily used to redirect celestial bodies from populated planets. The Venom army had used them during the Lylat wars, but aside from that, they were rarely used as weapons. Humanity, on the other hand, only had laws against their use on planets, and as such, every single cruiser had at least one nuclear warhead on board, if not more. And not only that, they likely had the means to pulverize every planet in the Lylat system with them.
"That…. Humanity would wipe us off the face of the galaxy if we did that….." a somber silence fell between them, neither one really wanting to speak anymore. "I…. how long do we have?" Reeves sat back down in his chair.
"Two weeks from tomorrow, that's when the final vote is." Sheila cursed to herself before standing, already headed for the door.
"So I guess we need to end this war before then. Good luck senator." She was already out the door before he could respond, having to fight running for the closest comms terminal.
"Quiet…." Mira's soft whisper caused both of the soldiers with her to freeze, and although she wasn't looking at them, she knew they were staring at her. her ears twitched as she tried to focus on listening. I could swear I heard one….. after a few seconds, she head the barest trace of a squeak, followed by a pair of thuds. Damn it! Androids. "We got androids. I can hear them. Barely." She kept her voice as low as she could as she spoke to the other two. they had been wandering down the tunnels for nearly two hours, and it seemed like it was an endless maze. On the bright side, they had hit no resistance what so ever. Until now.
"damn, guess those ears really are good for something. Anything we need to really worry about?" Mira glanced at Bale after he spoke, shrugging.
"Depends on how many we are talking about. Three or four, we should be fine. Any more and things start getting tough. Your rifles should tear right through them….. just….. well, last time, we faced dozens of them." Both of the other soldiers nodded, letting her lead the way. The two of them had surprised her earlier when they told her that whatever decision she made, they would follow. They had every reason to not trust her, and yet, they still did. she shook that off, moving forward down the passage they were in. it twisted and turned downwards, farther than any of them cared to know, only to arrive at a large open chamber. It was unlit, and the reach of the IR lights on their night vision couldn't reach out far enough to give them a clear view on what was in the room, not able to see the walls or ceiling, save the wall their tunnel exited from.
"Hey uh, Bale, your actually and eleven series, right? Happen to know the range on Nods with no lum?" Carrion's voice was several octaves higher than it usually was, likely as shocked at Mira was at the vastness of the room before them.
"Uh, yeah, they don't actually teach us that in infantry training….. I think it's somewhere around fifty, maybe sixty yards." Mira gulped, knowing they were now at a major disadvantage. Thermal imagery had no real limit to how far it could detect things, meaning the androids she could hear earlier, could be a kilometer away and be able to see them, even in absolute darkness like this.
"Please tell me you guys have something better than night vision. That's putting us at a major disadvantage in here." Bale nodded as Mira spoke, reaching up to the device on his helmet to slide it onto his helmet's forehead, out of his vision.
"Yeah, we got two fifty lumen lights on our weapons. Can light up a barn almost two hundred meters away, just kill you nods first." Mira nodded, quickly twisting the power nob on her device to the off position before taking the rig off, stowing it in a cargo pocket. Carrion had already slid her own goggles up, just before all three rifle lights were activated. Mira was shocked when the light on her rifle damn near blinded her, out powering both of the other lights combined. "God damn, that thing is bright! Where the hell did you get it!?" the other two had to shield their eyes for a second as well, the already dark room seeming much darker now that they had light again.
"I don't know. Will bought and set up this rifle. I think the light can be set lower…." She was moving to bring the light level down when Bale stopped her. she glanced at him, only to see that his vision was fixed on something ahead of them. She glanced at what her beam of light was illuminating, seeing dozens of consoles and a large steel hulk, painted a deep crimson. She swept the light across it, showing the hull of a ship, only able to see maybe three hundred meters or so of it. if she had to guess, it was a Verham cruiser, only a hell'uva lot bigger. There were several fighters landed haphazardly in the room they were in, being a smaller hanger, opening into the larger ship berth beyond. A twitch of movement drew her attention, something near a console moving. Before they could react, red plasma bolts started lancing toward them, blasting chunks out of the wall as the small team scattered, having to run almost sixty meters just to find some cover. Mira tried to ignore the pain and soreness across her body, adrenaline over writing everything she felt. The other two had ended up several dozen meters away, and were already firing back at the armored robots, seemingly fruitlessly. The mechs were coming from behind consoles and fighters in twos and threes, the silvery blue bolts from the human rifles ricocheting off them, energy shielding flaring at the impacts. Mira flicked the selector lever on the rifle to the power blast setting and opened fire, watching the much larger green bolts reflect off as well, the mechs shielding not even wavering. She cursed as she dropped back below the console, the air around her already starting to heat up from the volume of inaccurate plasma fire ripping around her.
"Hey Tails! I thought you said our weapons would rip these things apart!" she glared across the gap between them, almost blinded by the lights on their rifles and only able to see them when plasma bolts lit them up. The hell kind of nickname is tails and where did he dream it from!
"don't look at me! I cant do shit to em either!" she saw one of them pop up, only for several plasma blasts to pound into them, collapsing to the ground.
"Maria!" She could barely hear his rifle clattering to the ground as he shouted. Mira cursed and leapt to her feet, returning fire as fast as her weapon could let her, missing with more rounds than she hit. One of those misses announced hitting gold with a massive explosion, knocking her off her feet, as well as most of the mechs. She crawled the rest of the way over to Bale and Carrion, toning her light down so she didn't blind them. She could see that at least one round had torn through carrions armor, one hitting her unarmored arm. Mira grimaced as Bale pulled a handle hidden under a flap on the top of her chest plate, the connections for the shoulders and buckles popping loose, letting Bale pull the plates off. Wow, that's a neat trick. She shook the thought off as she dropped her small pack, digging into it to find her medical supplies, quickly cutting the cloth around the two wounds with a pair of scissors before slathering burn gel on both of the injuries, followed by a chest seal on the chest wound and a bandage around her arm. The sound of a mechs mechanical footsteps drew her attention as she began to roll Carrion over, seeing an android stepping around their cover. Bale was already reacting firing a fully automatic burst of fire into the mech. The rounds tore through its armor, firing the delicate circuitry below. Mira's attention fell back to Carrion, rolling her over so that the injured side of her chest was down, and finding a burn on the back side of her uniform. she quickly repeated the process she had on the other chest wound, leaving her on her side before grabbing her weapon.
"What ever you hit on that mad rush seems to have knocked their shields offline!" she didn't acknowledge him, just firing a pair of overcharged rounds into one of the surviving mechs, watching it fall.
"How many left!" they were both ducked back down as Mira shouted back, plasma bolts ripping overhead again.
"Eight, I think!" she groaned and popped to the side of the console, firing another pair of rounds at one, seeing it crumple to the ground, anther was moving to flank the two of them, Mira moving to fire, only for the weapon to sputter, a small flash of energy discharging from the barrel and nothing else. She cursed, dropping the weapon onto it's sling a yanking Will's pistol out. Just one of it's tungsten rounds ripped the head off of mech. She quickly popped over the barricade, firing three more of the rounds in rapid succession, fighting to control the violent bucking of the weapon. It was nothing like the recoil on a Cornerian blaster, but the two more mechs dropping was not something she could complain about.
"Damn, that thing got tungsten rounds or something!?" she nodded, firing the last four rounds in an equally rapid succession, the last of the mechs dropping as they both pounded rounds into them. She quickly dropped the magazine, fumbling slightly as she slid a new magazine in, making sure to stow the empty one before releasing the slide on the weapon. "Huh, boyfriends blaster I guess." She nodded again, trying to quell the shaking in her muscles as she checked Carrions pulse. She was unconscious, but alive. "Is she going to be…." She could hear the worry in his voice, cutting him off before he could say more.
"Yeah, she will. See if you cant get someone on comms. Faster we get her out of here, the better." He nodded, dropping his own pack as she reloaded Will's rifle, slinging it on her back before picking up Carrions, reloading it as well. A couple of the magazines for it went into her empty cargo pocket, Bale raising an eyebrow at her for the action, but remaining silent.
"This is two-six romeo, calling any station this net, respond!" the radio was loud enough that she could hear the staticy response clearly.
"Two-six romeo, two six, hearing you broken but readable." Mira breathed a sigh of relief, knowing this place wasn't rigged like titania.
"Roger that, we have a casualty, and we found ourselves something big. Need assistance, beacon is active. Repeat need assistance, active beacon!" he spoke slowly and clearly, Mira sweeping the area around them with Carrions weapon, slowly moving further and further from Bale. She stopped as she noticed one of the consoles had a small green light on it, so faint that she couldn't even see it when her light was on it. she quickly powered the console up, finding it locked, and cursing to herself. "Mira! Helps on the wa-" his voice dropped off as an explosion ripped out, Mira snapping the weapon in the direction of it only to see four human soldiers rushing out a new hole in one of the walls, Vince following them out. She smiled at the site of them, Vince trotting over to her as she waved.
"Find something?" she merely gestured at the computer after he spoke, watching as he opened a command interface, quickly and easily bypassing the lock. "Hmm, everything on here is heavily encrypted. Cant get much off here….. hmm, Cerinia?" Mira's eyes snapped to the console, instantly honing in on the unencrypted word, seeing the word 'research' on the file as well. As well as a date, placing it with in the past month.
"Holy shit! Cerinia is Krystal's homeworld! How much would you be willing to bet there is a research base there! But…. Why is the question?" Vince quickly copied the files onto a hard drive he was carrying. Before anymore could be said, a faint rumble echoed through the room, Mira's eyes snapping up. Several high pitched blasts marked red plasma bolts ripping away from a turret on the vessel, shaking the entire area. The ship slowly began to lift off it's birth, more weapons firing beginning to destabilize the ceiling. Chunks began to fall, crushing one of the strike fighters.
"Run for it!" she wasn't sure who screamed that, but she didn't need another invitation, sprinting for the tunnel out. Her light crossed the entrance, lighting up something metallic, barely sliding to a stop and bringing the weapon up in time to fire. The weapon violently bucked against her shoulder, several bolts of plasma lancing into the mechs, but most hit the wall above them as the muzzle bucked upwards, thankfully, she wasn't the only one to fire, the three mechs stepping through dropping as rounds tore into them. More red plasma blasts whipped by from behind, Mira spinning on the spot and engaging them, pulsing the trigger to control the violent recoil she wasn't accustomed to, and to great effect as several mechs collapsed. Vince darted by her, the last of the people there. She emptied the magazine before sprinting from the room, and just in time as debris clogged the tunnel behind her. she lost any real cognitive thought as she ran for her life, dropping the empty magazine and loading a fresh one by instinct alone. She barely notice herself slowly pass the others , finding herself as the first to reach the cross roads, soldiers spilling out of several different paths. Bale and Mason came out from her path, Maria hoisted between them. She looked down the path, seeing vince several meters down it still when the roof of the passage caved in, blocking her view of him.
"Vince!" she felt tears in her eyes as one of the infantry dragged her away. she tried to shake the soldier off, only to hear shouting in her hear, barely understanding what they said.
"Damn it Marshall! He's gone!" she slumped in defeat, letting herself be dragged from the tunnel system.
Wolf watched as his ship dropped from warp, it's stealth systems letting it slip right by the orbital defenses around Corneria, easily dropping into orbit and shortly after, the atmosphere. It didn't take the ship long to drop far enough to disable the stealth systems, Riley handling ground control as they directed themselves to Star Fox's private landing pad. He watched in silence as the ship was gently set down on the private landing pad, the corvette sized ship taking up all of the pad. As soon as the ship had landed, he made his way to the hanger, were the cargo ramp was. It didn't take him long to get there, literally riding the ramp down. The Canine they were there for was already on the landing pad, stepping on the second the ramp touched the ground.
"Come on, we don't have time to dawdle. Here." She handed him a laptop as she strode up the ramp wolf tapping a command into his wrist computer to raise the ramp.
"What's the rush for, you said it was urgent when you called?" she nodded as the ramp raised back into the ship, Falco giving them a puzzled look.
"We got two weeks to end this war. Corneria is on the verge of nuking earth. We all know what that will cause, we are going to aquas, got it?" wolf shrugged, leading the way up to the bridge, speaking the second he arrived.
"Riley, set course for Aquas, Dash, compare this with our data." The two instantly followed his orders, the ship lifting off the pad.
"Is Fox alright?" Wolf glanced over at Falco as he spoke, Sheila shuffling her feet before responding.
"I don't know. Last I heard, the damage was repaired, but he still couldn't walk." Falco let out a sigh before leaving the bridge, Wolf watching him go. He let a small sigh slip out before dropping back into his command chair, the view port showing the sky turn from it's gentle blue to the black of space, just before Riley triggered the warp drive.
Fox grunted as he hobbled forward, using the crutches under his arms to move. Krystal had stopped on the other side of the door, smiling at him as she waited for him to catch up. He returned the smile before he finished moving through the door, out into the streets. He couldn't help the smile that slipped out as he breathed in the familiar air, glad to finally be out of the hospital. He was currently on pain meds for his legs, but he was already starting to regain feeling again, even though it was barely a day after the surgery. A cab was already waiting for them, Fox dropping into the seat as Krystal held the door open for him. they both remained silent on the drive to the head quarters, Fox getting out the second the cab stopped.
"Fox McCloud. Hmph, thought you left the planet?" Fox looked beside him, seeing a familiar detective, the deep brown lupine smiling in an almost evil fashion, his yellow eyes fixed on Fox.
"Detective. Need something, or just sight seeing?" Fox glared at the man, knowing he was responsible for arresting his team members twice before, and still hadn't given up.
"Yeah. where have you been for the past five months?, McCloud" Fox just grunted, starting to crutch his way away as Krystal rejoined him.
"None of your damned business. Good bye detective." Fox tried to ignore him as he shouted after them, but to no avail.
"I will bring you to justice Star Fox! I can promise you that! Just you wait!" Fox let his eyes close for a second, taking a breath, but deciding to not speak. Good luck with that detective.