Black Skies

Author's Note: Well, as those copy/paste reviews won't be going away for awhile, I'd just suggest everybody ignore them. Let's try to work something out, hmm?

Like I said, Lylat is drawing to a close. Red Squirrel Writer, thank you very much for pointing out Cerinia's spelling. However, desperate that I am, I'm simply going to say Lylat, to fit Cerinia's name into its language, added an extra I, and that the Cernian spelling is Cernia. xD

LylatFox, I indeed do like Brian Jacques' works, but they have no real effect here. Thanks for the review!

And finally...be ready for an all-new podcast, Slippy's Workshop! Details on D3.

Chapter 33 Reach for the Stars
Once a suitable breach in the core wall had been located, close to ground level, Fox was able to ask ROB to transport an Arwing down. With a garbled, "Transport initiated," a white glow began to suffuse the air and a blurred outline began to take shape. The line wavered and flickered. Color began to seep into the picture, fading in slowly from one side to the other. As yellow, cautionary energy bands spun around, the grey of the armor plate and the blue of the G-Diffusers faded in, coloring the white outline and deepening with each passing moment. Then, with a sudden, catastrophic flicker of light, the transport stream collapsed. A heap of loose components crashed to the ground before them. Annoyed and mystified, Fox contacted ROB again.

"ROB, we've got what amounts to half an Arwing down here. What's the story?"

"Core interference is disrupting transport signals," intoned the AI. "Transport systems nonfunctional."

"Can you clear the interference?" inquired Slippy, joining the conversation.

"Negative. Your da...uplink...breaking up. Loss of signal in...approximately...seconds. Moving...compensate."

With a keening, garbled rush of white noise, the channel broke apart. Fox winced as he rubbed one furred ear before swatting at it with disgust to clear away the ring.

Slippy was already kneeling next to the fragments of Arwing now strewn in a heap upon the ground. Half heartedly, he picked up a component of the G-Diffuser and shook it aimlessly in one paw. "There isn't enough here to make much of anything," he reflected, gloom in his voice. "Might as well try to make a bucket fly."

Falco pulled his head in back from the core shaft, also shaking his head. "No use trying to climb, either, it's all solid crystal."

As Fox opened his maw to reply, a small light began to flicker on his headset. These flashes of light rapidly increased in frequency until the small lamp was giving off a bright, almost solid glare. ROB's voice was crackling back into his ears.

"...shield fragm...disr...transf...possib...comm remod...will clea...li...sta..."

Fox lifted one paw from his ear and thought for a moment, mind racing to decipher the transmission. It was only a few seconds later when his answer came in the form of a distorted, but otherwise clear call.

"Comm modulation complete." A rush of static. "Fragments of the anti-laser shield at the mouth of the core shaft is disrupting the matter transmission system. Opening fire to clear obstruction. Advise you to get clear."

Fox gave a nod as the channel closed once more. "You heard him, move away from the shaft!"

As the six scrambled away from the core wall, a dull thud rolled through the cavernous expanse and faded into the stygian black. Then another, and yet another. A red glow would fill the chamber with each impact of a plasma round, then fade away. The fainter lights of focal lasers only dimly pierced the shaft, and were almost unnoticed by the mercenaries.

The frequency of weapons-fire only increased as the minute dragged by. A white sheen of light was beginning to illuminate the area, light Fox was sure came from the skies and nebula above.

When the lighting in the chamber suddenly flared, Fox was on his paws in an instant, concerned by the flash. He was turning to Slippy, who he knew would be taking scans. There he was, keying in commands for his scanner. The device swept about with beams of varying radiation, drawing in data about the surroundings.

Slippy's diagnosis was unmistakable. He closed the scanner with his voice grim. "The radiation levels in the area are rising," he pronounced, before pointing a paw. "And it's coming from that."

One pudgy finger was pointed directly at the towering core wall.

The light on Fox's commset was flickering. ROB was barely able to get his message through, that the shield was reforming, before the connection cut entirely. He turned to his team.

"We need to get away from the core, that's the first thing," he said. Century, his own scanner out, hastened to disagree.

"Fox, radiation levels are rising. This is long-lasting stuff. We leave now, we aren't coming back."

"Apparently," replied the vulpine, turning to Abbey. "How much?"

"Time?" said Abbey. "Twenty minutes, tops. Fifteen for Slippy. Any more will be fatal for the lot of us."

"No Arwings," said Fox. "Walking and climbing are absolutely out. Anything more you can give us, Slip?

"No, Fox," said Slippy, shaking his head. "All we know is the shield's activated. We can't climb up or down in the core because of that same radiation, ignoring the fact that we can't do that anyway."

In his mind's eye, Slippy was back in the cockpit of his old Arwing, flying above the jostling pack of mercenaries below. The core wall was whipping by now at fantastic speeds, and laser fire intermittently streaking from the lead fighters, Fox and Wolf, were tearing apart all opposition in their path.

"I wonder what's up there?" Sudden remembrance surged in the toad's mind as he turned to Fox. "There's a branch off of the main core! It might lead to a way out!"

"You said it yourself, Slip," put in Century. "We can't fly."

"You can't," said Abbey, turning on her rudder, "but Falco can."

"I don't know, Abbey," replied the avian, voice slow as he thought this over. "I haven't flown for a good while, and even if I could, I'm rather slower than a speeding Arwing. In any case, we don't know where we are in relation to it, and we only have three minutes anyhow."

Peppy was turning as he heard running footpaws. His ears shot up with alarm, his eyes widening. "Krystal, get back here!"

"Maybe you lot can't fly," shot back the running vixen, "but I can, and I can protect myself as well!" Fox made a move, but Krystal was already leaping into the shaft, and she swung herself over the staff as if on a motorbike. She dropped out of sight for a moment, then surged up as the bottom of her staff ignited with blue and white flame.

Fox did not realize that he was standing upon the lip of the core, watching Krystal ascend, until Falco pulled him back and Abbey decided to shout in his face.

"What are you doing? We've got three minutes of exposure time- get moving!"

The shields around Krystal were flaring bright, erupting with brilliant ovular flashes of radiance as she collided with deadly particles of radiation. Linked to her staff, she winced at each frequent impact, her telepathic link to her staff constantly warning her of the ever-dropping energy levels of the rod's reserves.

She roared around a bend and continued upwards, but with nothing to see and the shield looming ahead, she reversed course and flung herself downwards.

Like a heaven-thrown thunderbolt of sapphire, she streaked downwards, the core wall whipping by at fantastic, ever-increasing speeds. All at once, the path forked into two, and pulling up sharply, the vixen changed her course and soared up into the ascending path.

She emerged into what might have been a museum had it not been for the walls of faintly pulsating crystal. It was a cavernous chamber that stretched for miles, its floor almost invisible under the mass of ships that covered it.

Krystal saw everything, from battleships to fighters, Venomian Fleas to Cornerian Lerowings. All of them were powered down and clearly inoperable.

The staff below her trembled and shook as her footpaws touched ground. Deactivating the lift, the vixen ran her mind through her staff's remaining energy levels, which were down to fifty percent. Krystal then took a red gem from a side pocket and fitted it into the staff. The crystal dissolved, and it was with great relief that she saw the azure staff head glow with a revitalized light.

She was about to set off in one direction when she saw something across the shaft, something that gave her great heart. It was polished to an almost blinding radiance, the mean light afforded by the crystal walls dancing upon its surface, reflecting and twirling on the ground and other ships as if cast from a strobe light.

The vessel was a Cernian levicraft, the Heavenwind. The last model before Cernia was taken, the last defense Krystal had seen of her homeworld as her shuttle blasted into space.

She sank to her knees suddenly, vision swimming. All at once, she remembered the radiation. Her mind raced. She could fly across the shaft, but it would cost her valuable staff power. Raising her shields would do the same thing.

Krystal squared her shoulders. She had but one option. Staggering upright and leaning heavily upon her staff, the vixen strode off at what was almost a brisk pace around the shaft mouth. The edge would dance perilously near to her footpaws as she felt a surge of lightheadedness take her, almost sweeping her paws from under her and sending her to the ground. The air seemed fuzzy, blurred, and indistinct. The levicraft was a mile away, too far for her numbed and aching limbs to carry her to.

And then she was there, one paw touching the cool silver and gold of the hull. A surge of strength wiped her vision clean, and it was with renewed vigor that she jammed her staff into a small port and gave it a half turn, opening the canopy with a smooth, almost inaudible hiss of hydraulics.

The vixen swung herself in, collapsing her staff to carrying length and jamming it end first into a port on her right-hand side. A hard twist of a dial pulled the canopy shut above her. Praying under her breath, Krystal then grasped her staff and gave it a quarter turn.

Life surged into the panels before her, a turning, three-dimensional model of her fighter lighting up on a main screen. Gauges depicting shield strength, weapons reserves, life support, and engines shot on, lighting up to various degrees, and a larger panel began to feed in sensor data.

Krystal put her paws upon the two flight yolks before her, and feeling the Heavenwind's computer regain awareness, she reached out with her mind and sent power flooding into the engines. Magical sparks sprayed about and flickered, casting a blue aura through the dim hangar. Krystal pushed harder.

The engine ignited with a great, fiery roar that rolled through the core shaft and the hangar like thunder, a sphere of arcane energy hurling the Heavenwind into the air. Throttling down briefly with a flick of her thoughts, Krystal pointed the ship back towards the core shaft, and with one more thought, shot it forwards at speeds Falco would kill to achieve.

Her ship spun and twirled through the air as Krystal soared through the network of tunnels, turning onto the main core before surging up for the surface.

Although there were no ships that could possibly carry the team out through the shields, nor be used as a breaking ram to break that barrier, the Heavenwind was still something at the least.

A flicker of movement caught the vixen's eye, and she was about to turn her head towards it when something slammed into her craft with frightening force, slamming the Heavenwind back and throwing it close to one wall. Rolling smartly to return to the shaft center, and hearing the sparks of her shields reforming, Krystal gave a nervous swallow, looking down at her control screens for an instant, away from her viewpane.

The main screen now showed a large, flashing patch on her starboard side where she'd been hit. Superimposed over it were a spattering of red dots- enemy consciousness, hostile in intent. But who where they?

Krystal threw the Heavenwind into full reverse as one of the dots surged forwards. A horrible, twisted face of pulsating crystal flashed before her startled eyes, then disappeared behind her and to her left. Another one surged up, and this time, Krystal saw it- a figure within a ship, its mind hopelessly corrupted, its identity shattered beyond recognition.

The ships around her were Mark I Arwings, of that she was sure. But she had no time to feel loss for the pilots, and the one who ventured into her crosshairs, its frame highlighted upon her main screen, was ripped apart by bright orbs of flaming red that erupted from the maw of her ship.

Up they wient in a deadly dance, the one Cernian Heavenwind against the five Mark I Arwings. The lasers fired by the latter glowed an evil, sickening green, and tendrils of light flared outwards from where they hit the core wall, the light following the edges of cells before winking out.

A small voice in the back of her mind was telling her that her staff was running low on power, that something had to be done. Krystal thought about this for a moment, her brain sparking with an idea, but even before she could think further, a bright, crackling pillar of three strands of blue lightning ripped from one side of her ship and rammed into a Mark I Arwing. Energy flooded back into her staff, and the Arwing, exhausted now of all power and life, fell back into the depths.

Krystal watched in shock, awe, and fear as her ship continued to lance out, draining energy from each of the pursuing craft.

A whining chirp drew her attention to her energy gauges, all of which were glowing brightly. A display on her computer was dancing about before her eyes, its image shifting so rapidly that she could not bring her eyes to focus upon it. The shape began to settle into a set of interlocking circles, which began to flare and spin around. On the screen, the energy shield blocking the shaft egress was being traced by what looked to be like five targeting reticules, each flicking about as of its own accord.

Lines of data flowed out before her, and Krystal felt a thought rise, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind- the desire to get her teammates out safely, through the shield. Each of the five reticules on her screen blinked into a steady red color, A loud, penetrating hum began to fill her cockpit, and realizing what her ship was going to do, the vixen shielded her eyes, throwing up her arms as the fearsome scene began to unfold before her.

Spores of magic were rippling up to the prow of her craft, a disc of golden mist forming around the nose and swirling with ever increasing speed. The blue and indigo half-dome of the forward shields flared brightly, just behind the swirling golden light.

Five lances of golden energy exploded from the disc, rippling shafts of magic with a spherical head and long trail behind it, these being encircled by numerous rings which spun at fantastic speeds.

The first of the five golden orbs crashed into the aparoid shield, and the defensive barrier broke like glass, shattering into pieces and leaving a gaping hole in its length. The second round hit, followed by the other three. The entire shield grid was exploding now, roaring with gouts of flame and broken crystal.

Trembling, Krystal winced as shards of the destroyed barrier bounced off her ship. Throwing both control bars forward, she put the Heavenwind into a full climb, the cockpit roaring and shuddering around her as she was borne upon the fiery wings of destruction her ship had caused.

Seconds passed as she cleared the broken and blackened ring of the shield grid, easily outstripping the flying debris that was raining down upon the surface. To her right, she could see a fragment of a wing- doubtless, that of the Great Fox. A few broken hulls of Wildfire-class cruisers were strewn about as well, these corpses dark and silent. Her eyes searched the horizon until her ship, sensing her will, highlighted with a circle her shuttle, off on the horizon.

Krystal dove towards it, the thin air screeching and howling as she tore through it like an arrow from a bow.

Everything was coming apart below the Homeworld surface. Radiation levels were dropping as the core powered down, but as great cracks were radiating out in the ceiling above and large chunks of core wall were breaking away to explode in a cloud of shrapnel below, this small benefit was lost to the winds.

Fox gave a great shout as one of the giant, crystalline support pillars cracked to pieces and began to collapse in on itself, drawing the Homeworld crust down with it. Star Fox scrambled out of the way as the behemoth structure crashed down about a mile away, throwing deadly shards of indigo into the air like a thousand knives.

With the interference breaking up, Century decided it was time to call for help. Shouting into a closely-held commset, he yelled, "Krystal, we could use some help down here!"

"Krystal, we could use some help down here!" The call echoed in the vixen's mind as she continued her dive, the shuttle before her drawing ever nearer as the wind whistled by her, a low moaning sound which well suited the drama unfolding below her.

Cernia was finally dying. She was the cause. Yet as the last of the aparoid hive mind was breaking apart, throwing its last efforts into maintaining the homeworld, she could feel the cries of gratitude and the waves of peace that suddenly emenated from thousands upon thousands of liberated souls, those who had escaped destruction at the hands of Fox McCloud.

The shuttle door was opening before her as she leapt from her cockpit, twisting her staff as she did. Power faded from the ship, and the Heavenwind settled to the ground even as Krystal was leaping into her shuttle. At her touch, the ship, powered by its own crystal core, rose into the air and streaked off towards the core shaft.

Vertigo gripped her by the gut as the shuttle turned its nose down into a full dive, the hull beginning to shake and shudder violently as the craft accquired more and more speed, almost more then it could handle.

A hull stress gauge was rising, suddenly breaking the monotonous shrieking of the wind with a loud, piercing wail that rolled around the small enclosure hurtling downwards like the voices of the damned.

Paw pressed to his headset, Fox was nodding his head in time to an unheard cadence coming in, apparently, from ROB. The others watched as the vulpine continued his rhythmic movements, a spot of order in this pit of chaos. He looked up.

"Krystal's coming this way!" he called over the continuing din. "Everyone, get ready to move!"

"Aren't we already?" shot back Falco, even as he moved back towards the ruined core shaft.

At that instant, a fireball of blue flame erupted from a breach, almost, but not quite clearing the edges. With a terrific crash, Krystal's shuttle forced a breach in the remains of the core wall and flew on, trailing debris behind it. The craft descended until it hit the ground, the hatch already flying open.

One by one, the team piled into the shuttle. Krystal looked back only to shout, "Hold on!" before she threw power into the engines and flung the ship forwards at terrific speeds.

Fox slammed back into his seat, his words never leaving his maw.

Explosions of flame, magic, and broken crystal were littering the core shaft with great clouds of falling debris. Each member of Star Fox now had their eyes fixed on the confident blue vixen who held all of their lives in her paw.

The shuttle raced onwards, shuddering with impact it took from the waterfall of broken crystal. A tidal wave of red fire biuvaced around the ship, filling the cabin with an angry glow of red. An avalanche of crystal roared down upon them, forcing the shuttle down, arresting its ascend.

Krystal bared her fangs and pushed the ship harder. The little craft shuddered and whined, then bucked sharply as its prow cleared the debris, ramming its way. At long last, the ring indicating the remains of the shield projector came into view, a wrecked, broken, and wretched thing that would no longer bar access to the world of the living for the disturbed dead.

Below the shuttle, great fissures in the crstalline surface were opening up, and geysers of debris were discharging their deadly contents in a great cloud of whirling matter. Krystal was about to bring the ship out of the atmosphere when a sharp reflection caught her eye on the surface below.

A lump knotted tightly in her throat. It was the Heavenwind, the faithful little ship that had brought her to this moment, the last testament to the fine shipwrights of Cernia, the final artifact of a bygone age, one that had passed all too soon.

Ahead of her was the Great Fox, a shining beacon hope for the many. Below her was the Heavenwind, a monument for the valiant long gone. Sweat beaded on her forehead as her shuttle began to slow.

Fox sensed the anguish and longing battling within the cerulean vulpine before ihm. He reached out a paw. "Krystal..." he breathed.

He stopped as she whirled around, eyes now burning with a desperate flame. "Fox!" she snapped, voice firm with the tone of one whose course was set. "Take the controls! Think of how fast you want to go and the ship will do it!"

Krystal spun from her chair, and in one fluid movement, grabbed her staff and opened the hatch, letting herself be sucked out into the void. She splayed herself to arrest her fall as she wrenched her staff into a flying position, and the weapon flared with a spectral light as the vixen rocketed to the rapidly disintegrating planet.

Century was able to haul the hatch shut as Fox hesitantly grasped th controls, turning the ship back instead towards Krystal and pushing the battered shuttle forwards. Only when an alarm within his mind informed him that power was low did he grudgingly turn, a thundercloud swirling between his ears as he brought the shuttle about and made for the hangar.

Peppy was already taking the liberty of telling ROB to prep the Krystal Fire for launch as the dreadnought hove into view.

Like flak, the remains of aparoid crystal shooting up to meet her were denying her a safe way to return to the surface. Yet at this point, the vixen couuld care less. Krystal put herself into a complete fall, trusting her staff to get her through this once more.Debris ricocheted off her shields as she continued her descent for the last time, pulling up with a force that caused her vision to swim and nearly dislocated her shoulder. Shaken, but not detered, Krystal pushed her staff ever faster until the Heavenwind came into her sights.

Leaping from the staff and turning it sideways to act as an airbrake, the vixen was vaulting into the cockpit even as her footpaws touched brittle crystal, and as the rod collapsed itself, the ship was powering up, engines throbbing with life and weapons coming online. Screens and gauges flickered to life as magic surged into them. The levicraft reared and leapt for the skies, but just as it began to clear the ground, a piece of rubble, silver in color, crashed into her canopy and cracked it.

Unknowing, Krystal threw the ship forwards, blasting it upwards like a rocket. Only as the atmosphere began to thin did she realize, via the hiss of escaping air, that she was losing oxygen and couldn't leave the atmosphere.

Yet she had no other choice. Looking down below her, Krystal could see the Homeworld destroying itself, its structure collapsing in upon the body of Cernia that had sustained it. The atmosphere would blow apart as the Homeworld shattered. She had no choice but to try for space.

Staying as high as there was breathable air, Krystal pushed her ship to its limits, seeking the sleek, grey form of the Great Fox. It came over the horizon within a minute, as well as a much smaller form that could only be an oncoming Arwing.

Krystal pulled back on her flight yolks, angling her ship towards the heavens. The hiss of rushing air resumed once more, sucking the vitality from her lungs with impossible speed. Almost within seconds, Krystal could feel herself getting dizzy, lightheadedness distorting her senses as she struggled to stay awake.

She could distantly feel the thud of a grappler, feel the jerk of acceleration. Then, despite the dull thunder of the Homeworld's death throes beneath her, darkness took her for its own.