STARFOX: SUNRISE OVER LYLAT

By Eric "Erico" Lawson

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: DECLARATION

Titania- An anomalous world in the Lylat System, the arid, rust-red world of Titania is famous for its ceaseless wasteland environment and its paradoxical ruins. Holding only trace amounts of water, the world is victim to hurricane-force ion storms that swirl across its surface, yet it maintains a breathable, if stale atmosphere. Planet-wide low level radiation and the inhospitable conditions make it a poor tourist destination, although planetary cartographers did make note of impressive structures detected by initial reconnaissance probes. Sadly, the presence of a very large and dangerous bioform codenamed "Goras", meaning "Death Monster" in ancient Cornerian, as well as other indigenous creatures, prevented thorough study prior to the Lylat Wars. This wasteland has been the scene for countless conflicts and battles since then, most notably the final duel between the Starfox Team and Star Wolf that concluded with the death of Fox McCloud.

(Field Notes of Professor Fayn Blackwolf, Sabbatical Archaeological Dig)

"In between bouts of high energy storms, radiation fears, and choking on the eternal dust of Titania, my team of graduate students and I have managed to finally look at a particularly impressive cluster of ruins. I can state with certainty that these are ruins, and not natural rock formations, as some have postulated in years past. The stonework is impressive, but there are also signs of hollow structures as well, leading underground. There is script here, which we are making rubbings and photographic evidence of. The work is slow, as we have to constantly ground ourselves to prevent static discharge from destroying our gear. Yet for all we've found, there must be countless more impressive finds on Titania. The sad fact is that the constant erosion of the winds and the swirling sands may consume them before we are able to determine the true importance of it all…"

Wild Fox

Hangar Bay

0030 CST (Approximately 4 hours prior)

There was more than one route through the ship, as Telemos and Rourke were fast learning. While the turbolift was the preferred method from going from one deck to another, the service tunnels that usually only saw engineers and maintenance crews going through them worked just as well, albeit quite a bit slower.

Even though Telemos had agreed to come along, and everything about the unusual pilot's actions indicated he was on the level on wanting to get Terrany out of Primal custody, Rourke didn't find it easy to trust him entirely.

Thus, when the access panel to the service conduits along the side of the Hangar Bay slid out and then up from the locked position, it was Telemos who stepped out first, his uniform thoroughly rumpled. The irritated Primal smoothed it out and glared behind him as Rourke came out second. He didn't say anything, however. The nature of this meant not attracting attention to themselves.

Inside the conduit, Rourke had relayed the plan in full, such as it was, to his Primal conspirator. Or rather, ROB's plan. The transport which the freed POWs from Venom had flown away on was at Lunar Base, in SDF patrolled airspace. There was a transport shuttle pilot who was making another routine trip back to Corneria within the hour, so they were going to get on board, subdue him, and then force him to make an unscheduled layover at Lunar Base, where they'd get to the Primal transport, power it up, break clear of the cordon, and fly for Titania.

Somehow.

Of course, Telemos had been quick to rain on the parade. The plan was hasty, full of holes, and nigh suicidal. Not that he was against it, as he'd cheerfully informed Rourke. An honorable death trying to save the life of a rival who had been so dishonorably treated would do just as well as an honorable life, he had said to the wolf's consternation. Once they reached Primal airspace, Telemos would somehow have to pull on his knowledge of Primal communications codes so they wouldn't become suspicious. One thing in their favor, the two had learned after comparing notes, was that the Primals used less exact IF/F beacons on ships considered "Nonessential military craft", such as the vessel they were hoping to hijack at Lunar Base. It wouldn't require any serious reprogramming to keep their enemies from realizing that it was the same ship which had flown out of Venom less than 2 days before.

They hadn't even done anything aside from breaking Telemos out of 'prison' yet, and already Rourke had to admit to himself that ROB's choice to have him bring Telemos along might have been a sound one. The data they'd taken on Primal weapons of war back on Corneria was helpful, but limited, giving them only the names of things and a rough rundown of technical specifications such as armament and armor.

Telemos knew so much more than that.

There were three Rondo transports aboard the Wild Fox at the moment: The one assigned to carry the Landmaster Major Boskins had brought along with him, the one loaded up with a special collapsible gantry in the cargo bay to carry and launch Arwings, and finally, one regular old cargo Rondo transport which Rourke was good and familiar with. As he should have been, considering he was on a first name basis with the transport pilot. Things were quiet around the first and the third, but Rourke could see Wyatt sitting up in the cockpit of the second Rondo, eyes cast downward as he programmed away with full concentration.

"Doesn't that frog ever sleep?" He muttered under his breath, ducking behind a crate full of supplies along the side of the hangar. Telemos came up behind him, glancing from the transport's occupant and to Rourke. The wolf gave his head a shake. "We're going after that one." He said, motioning to the first transport. "The fella who drives it should be getting ready to take off soon."

Moving quietly as they could through the dimly lit hangar bay, the two proceeded on.

Corph the Venomian lizard was in the cockpit of the first Rondo transport, slowly working his way through the preflight checklist. Routine as it was, it was a task he kept after with diligence. One missed step could lead to an undetected problem during flight operations, and he was responsible for more lives than his own.

He didn't realize something was amiss until a cold piece of metal was pressed up against the back of his skull. The lizard froze in place, not quite sure what was happening.

"Evening, Corph." The calm voice of Rourke greeted him.

"…Rourke?"

"I want you to pull your hands away from the controls very slowly, and set them in your pockets. All right?"

Corph did as he was told, and stayed still. The cold metal retreated just enough that it didn't scrape against his head as his seat was spun around, and Corph went briefly cross-eyed staring down the barrel of Rourke's laser pistol. The wolf wasn't alone, however. A Primal was standing beside him.

"Rourke, what the hell are you doing?" Corph asked. "And who the hell is this?"

"Oh, you didn't hear? We've got ourselves a special guest on board these days. And here's the thing: He's helping me out. So are you."

"With what?"

"Easy. You're flying back to Corneria after this, right?"

"That's my flight plan. Have some junk parts and garbage to take back, and another shipment of supplies to pick up for you all. But again, what in the hell is going on here?"

"Well, that's easy, Corph. We're not going to Corneria. You're flying us to Lunar Base."

"…You can't be serious."

Wolf leaned in close to Corph, letting his face stare hard at the lizard. "What do you think?"

"…Okay, you're serious. Crazy, but serious."

"Corph, Terrany's being held prisoner by the Primals. They faked her death. I'm going to get her back, and you getting us to Lunar Base is Phase 1 of the plan."

"Phase 2. Breaking me out of prison was Phase 1." Telemos added helpfully.

Corph stared at the two. "What's so special at Lunar Base?"

"A Primal transport, which was flown by escaped prisoners from Venom." Telemos explained dryly. "Not a bad outcome, considering I originally meant them only to act as distraction, and cannon fodder for my own breakout."

Rourke looked sideways to Telemos with a dirty look, and the Primal gave him a curious glance in return.

"What?"

"And here I thought you did that out of the goodness of your heart."

"Do not confuse my motives, Cornerian." Telemos rolled his eyes. "It only makes you look foolish. Remember why I want to free her."

"Stupid reason, if you ask me."

"Uh, hate to interrupt your little argument, fellas, but if you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you plan on getting this Primal transport? They're bound to have it protected."

"We'll take care of them." Rourke said confidently. He caught Corph's eyes flicker away from his face momentarily, and it took him a fraction of a second to realize that the Venomian lizard was looking behind him.

The warning was too brief and too late, as both Rourke and Telemos felt the cold steel of a laser pistol being pressed up against the backs of their heads.

"You're not going to break into Lunar Base and hijack an enemy transport, Rourke." The cool, collected voice of Sergeant Milo Granger announced authoritatively.

"Not alone, anyhow." Dana added, a bit more cheerfully. The pistols pulled back away, and Rourke and Telemos turned to stare in disbelief at the two other flight members of the Starfox Team. The tigress and ring-tailed raccoon were dressed in black battle dress uniforms, and Milo even had an old sniper rifle slung over one shoulder.

"How did you…?" Rourke started, and Milo cut him off.

"ROB told us."

Rourke shut his eyes. "Of course he did."

"Hey, buddy. Listen." Dana thumped her fist into Rourke's chest heavily, getting his attention. "Terrany's our wingmate too, and if you're going to throw in with this Primal and attempt a suicide mission to get her back, I'll be damned if you're doing it alone. We fly together, or we don't fly at all."

"And we don't leave our people behind." Milo agreed solemnly.

Telemos chuckled a bit. "Strategically, the odds of our success improve with four agents operating in tandem over just two. Your squad mates have the right of it, wolf."

"The name's Rourke. Wolf was my grandfather." Rourke muttered. He relaxed when Dana stowed her service pistol, but Milo gestured to Corph with his own, not yet putting it away.

"Now, then. Up, up, Corph. We're flying out of here, but you're in the wrong transport."

"What are you talking about? This is my transport!"

Milo walked past Rourke and Telemos, pulled Corph from his seat, and then reached underneath the console. With a sharp yank, he separated a small attached brick from its position and dropped it into Corph's hands. The ship's unique IF/F Transponder.

"Not anymore, it isn't. We're making a switch. Come on, boys. We've got a plane to catch."

So it was that five animals ventured out of the third Rondo in the line and headed for the second, whose collapsible gantry, Rourke saw, was extended and being carefully loaded up with a Seraph Arwing. Wyatt was still up in the cockpit of the craft, and it was Ulie Darkpaw, alone in the darkened hangar bay, managing the cargo claws to set it in properly.

The black bear paused in his operations long enough to nod at Starfox, Corph, and their Primal guest before returning to work. "Got your Seraph fully charged and fueled up, Dana."

"You gave me G-Bombs, I hope?"

"As you wanted. Go head on inside. I need to finish this, and we need to get you launched before the rest of the graveyard shift comes back. I sent them up for doughnuts, courtesy of Pugs, but even he can't keep them distracted forever."

Rourke shook his head. "ROB?" He asked in amusement.

"Yup. Well, Wyatt, actually. ROB told him, he told me." The black bear waved them inside the Rondo. "Get going. You've got our girl to get back."

Moving inside of the Rondo, they found Wyatt right where Rourke and Telemos had seen him earlier, in the cockpit and fiddling away.

"Hello, boys and girls, and good morning." Wyatt greeted them. "Milo, did you get the replacement transponder beacon?"

"Right here." The raccoon went up and handed it over to the toad, who dove underneath the paneling and got to work installing it. "I'd better make sure my crate of goodies is on board. We're going to need it."

"What munitions are you bringing along for this little jaunt, Marksman?" Telemos asked the raccoon.

"Ever hear the phrase, 'the kitchen sink?" Milo asked in return. Telemos thought about it for a moment, then frowned and shook his head. The raccoon first sighed, then chuckled. "Enough to start a war. Or at least win a skirmish or three."

As he disappeared in the back, Wyatt pulled himself up from underneath the transport's dashboard. "All right, then. Corph, your Transponder beacon's been installed, so this ship will register as the Rondo you're used to flying. Stick to the same callsign, and you'll be golden." The toad put away his screwdriver and looked at them all. "It's chickenshit, is what it is. We should be flying in there, guns blazing."

"No, we shouldn't." Rourke countered, earning surprised glances from Dana and Wyatt. Telemos, however, nodded in quiet approval of the admonishment. "Look. Fact is, Skip had the right of it. Details are too sketchy, and there's no guarantee that we'd be able to reach Terrany and neutralize her captors before they offed her. Now that I've cooled down a little, I can see that. But what we can do, we are doing. And that's a black ops mission. Stealth and infiltration is the key this time around, not overwhelming force. That's how we get to her and pull her out of there. But if it fails, and things go tits up…" O'Donnell looked meaningfully to Dana, who gave off a predatory smile. Wolf shrugged. "Well. Now I know why you're bringing along your Seraph, Dana."

"Milo has his kitchen sink. I have mine." Dana explained.

Wyatt nodded. "Okay. Makes sense. And you lot would know more about this kind of work than I do. I just build your marvelous toys."

"You do more than that, Wyatt." Dana reassured him. "I look at your engineering team…the ones we know back on Ursa Station, and the new ones we've picked up, they all adore you. You're not just an engineer, you're a leader. So don't look down on yourself. Without you, we wouldn't be here."

Wyatt's throat pouch puffed up pridefully at the praise, and he stepped away. "The fuel cells are fully charged, and I've started a program patch to let you control the Rondo and the gantry launcher from inside your Seraph if need be, Dana. It'll take a few hours to finish integrating into the ship's systems, but you've got that long of a flight ahead of you."

"Good. Then maybe Rourke has time to change." Milo came back with a wrapped package under his arm. He chucked it at the Starfox Lead pilot, and Rourke snatched it in midair. Unwrapping it, Rourke found another black BDU, similar to the ones Milo and Dana were wearing. "We're going rogue for this operation, Rourke. May as well look the part."

"I see. I don't suppose you have a similar outfit for me?" Telemos asked.

"None that would fit you." Milo deadpanned, taking in the larger frame of Telemos, who was especially broad in the shoulders and torso. "You may be related to the simian species here, but clearly the Primal's evolution deviated during your long absence. Besides, I'm wagering that we'll need you in a Primal uniform for this to work."

"At first, anyhow." Rourke agreed. He clasped a hand on Corph's shoulder and pushed him into the driver's chair. "We'd better get going. Wouldn't want Corph to miss his designated departure time."

"Guess that's my cue." Wyatt took a peek back into the cargo compartment of the Rondo and smiled. "Good. Ulie's got the Seraph loaded up, and the rear door is all closed up. If you've got all the goodies you need…?"

"I've been hoarding things for a rainy day." Milo reassured him. "We're good."

"All right." Wyatt held out a webbed hand to Rourke. "Good luck, Starfox. Bring our girl home."

Rourke gave it a firm shake. "Make sure we've got a home to come back to."

Wyatt gave him a wink, then exited the ship. Everyone took a seat, and Corph got to work powering up the Rondo's systems.

"We're going to get in so much trouble for this." Corph moaned.

"I know. Exciting, isn't it?" Dana chuckled.

As the transport came to life, the platform it sat on lowered down into the launch bay of the Wild Fox, aligning it with the long tunnel and setting it into launch position at the back of the tube.

"Don't panic, and set your course for Lunar Base." Rourke ordered the transport pilot. "And for Terrany's sake…act…normal."

"What exactly is 'normal' about this ship, or anyone on it?" Corph countered waspishly. Still, he took in a cleansing breath and reached for the communicator. "Wild Fox, this is R-8853. Preflight checklists are green, ready for departure. Requesting permission to launch."

"R-8853, Wild Fox. Permission granted. Have a safe flight." It was the voice of XO Dander up on the bridge who responded a few seconds later. Rourke reached over and killed the radio.

"Okay. Haul ass, Corph. Let's get going." He stood up from his seat and headed for the back of the transport.

"And where are you going, exactly?" Corph asked, even as he throttled the ship's thrusters up towards maximum for launch.

Slinging the black BDU over his shoulder and continuing on, Rourke allowed his old, familiar, predatory side that had been crafted during his formative years to take hold again.

"Putting on an old face."

Lunar Base

27th Day of the Primal War

0445 CST (The Present)

The six guards around the Primal transport had been made aware of the Rondo transport with engine problems drifting into Docking Bay 3. They shuffled back and forth on their feet and gripped their laser carbines a little tighter. The thing wobbled a little as it started to approach its landing position, giving credence to the notion that the thing really hadn't been safe to try atmospheric re-entry. Finally, it put down in the lot next to the Primal transport. Side by side, the Primal transport was broader and more cylindrical, while the tapered tail end of the Rondo was unmistakable.

At length, a Venomian lizard dressed in cargo hauler's fatigues came out, while a shekat with a mechanic's cap and an overlarge coat trailed after him, lugging a toolbox.

"Hey, fellas. Sorry for the trouble." The lizard waved at the guards in greeting. "Thruster stabilizer gimbals probably just need a re-alignment. Shouldn't be more than an hour."

"Yeah, all right. Just be sure you stay on your side of the line now." The commanding officer of the security detail said in warning. "We're under orders to keep unauthorized personnel away from this ship."

"Wow…never seen that kind of ship before." The female mechanic said, tilting her head up for a better look at the alien craft. With the bill of her cap upwards, the forward guard could see orange and black stripes along her fur. A tigress. "What is it?"

"Ma'am, step back, please." The forward guard called out in a strong, firm tone. He raised his laser carbine up. "We've been authorized to use force if necessary."

"Woah, cowboy." The tigress stopped, and her eyes widened as she held up a paw, holding short two and a half meters short of the line. "I didn't know. Just curious, is all."

"Curiosity killed the cat." The guard reminded her. "Just keep back and finish your repairs."

"Okay, okay. I won't get any closer, I get it." She lowered her paw, noting that he hadn't let his weapon drop. "Is that ship Primal? It's gotta be Primal. I don't recognize the markings, and with you lot going heavy on the strongman routine, it adds up."

"Ma'am, I suggest you get back to fixing your ship." The guard said warningly.

The tigress mechanic's eyes narrowed. "Don't call me ma'am. It's offensive. People don't like it when you use that word."

"Ma'am, if you don't turn around and walk back to your ship right now, we will be forced to treat you as a threa…"

That was all the man got out before the report of a gunshot rang out, and the guard fell backwards with a cry of pain.

"See what I mean?" The tigress mused quietly. In a flash of movement, she flipped the toolbox open and let it drop, snagging two lonely grenades from the otherwise empty box and hurling both at the perplexed and off-guard security forces. They exploded in light, noise, and smoke in midair, and every last one of them was disoriented by the triple threat.

"GO! GO! GO!" Rourke shouted from the interior of the Rondo, and he and Telemos took off running, with Milo following close behind. The raccoon's sniper rifle was drawn and the barrel was smoking from recent use, and he had his hands full pulling a container full of supplies which, even on wheels, slowed him down considerably.

"Rubber bullets and stun grenades. Your restraint is ill-timed and foolish." Telemos complained, dashing across the docking bay with broad steps that had him outpacing even Rourke by a head.

"We're not trying to kill these guys, just subdue 'em." Milo shouted back, his voice a little more strained with the effort of running. Of course, he was carrying more weight, and he was older than the others as well. "Now get to that transport!"

Dana had vanished into the cloud of smoke and scrambling SDF soldiers as soon as the initial thunderclap of noise and flash of light had faded, and they could hear the sounds of hard punches and kicks against lightly armored bodies as she kept at her work. By the time that it had dissipated and they'd caught up to her, she was standing alone amidst a seat of either unconscious or curled up, groaning bodies, all of whom had their weapons stripped from them. She calmly picked up as many as she could, kicked away the ones she couldn't, and then dumped them in Milo's box of goodies as he passed by.

"Okay, boys. You've got your plane to fly…"

"And you have yours. We know. Just stick to the plan, all right?" Rourke asked gently.

"Stop right there!" A shout rang out, followed shortly thereafter by a laser shot that hissed above all of their heads. A contingent of security guards were emerging from the elevator at the end of the docking bay and running towards them with weapons drawn. Telemos cringed and reached for Milo's box, grabbing one of the stolen SDF laser carbines.

"Enough of this foolishness!" He raised the weapon up and sighted in on the lead trooper charging for them.

"NO!" Rourke batted the weapon out of the Primal's hands, hurling another stun grenade down the corridor in the place of a lethal weapons shot. They all scattered for cover, and Milo's followup throw, along with one more stun grenade lob from Dana, struck at them more effectively after they dodged the first. "We do not kill them!"

"They will kill us!" Telemos roared back at him.

Gnashing his teeth, Rourke shoved Telemos towards the Primal transport. "Shut up and get that thing ready to fly! We'll keep them off your back. Dana! Get moving!"

"Already on it, lieutenant." Dana stripped off the now useless disguise of a mechanic's overcoat and cap and snagged up the toolbox, running for the Rondo again. As she passed by a cowering Corph, she gave the lizard an apologetic glance. "Sorry for this, Corph."

"Sorry for wha…"

She slammed the toolbox against the side of his head, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. "That." As she got on board the Rondo and closed the airlock behind her, she took a moment to catch her breath. "Hopefully that's enough to make it look like we keelhauled you."

It was no good worrying about the details of that now. She raced for the cockpit.

"Damn, I was hoping we'd have a bit of time before they jumped us!" Rourke snapped, ducking behind a scrap of cover provided by some cargo containers as more laserbursts blasted by overhead. A nonplussed Milo, who'd found a much better perch under the gangplank of the Primal transport, took aim with his rifle again and fired three more rubber bullet rounds. Nonlethal as they might have been compared to a live load, the projectiles were still loaded into rifle cartridges and being fired along a high velocity barrel. Each hit, and they were all hits, was akin to a kidney punch at just the wrong time. His crate of supplies sat by the loading ramp of the Primal transport, painfully in range of enemy fire. Rourke kept lobbing stun and smoke grenades, trying to give them precious cover. The laserfire being hurled their way gave Milo a clear point to shoot at through the smoke bank, at least, even if Rourke did feel like he was one mistake away from being turned into a cooked goose.

"I'm betting that they had this docking bay on constant video feed. As soon as we popped our first stun grenades, they were probably scrambling a response team." Milo answered him coolly. "I've got you covered, boss. Roll my crate up inside, or else we're not going to have any party favors for this mission." He fired off two more shots in quick succession, and two more grunts of pain answered the reports, along with a slight waning in the concentration of laserfire.

Not one to turn down such a cheerfully made offer, Rourke rolled out of cover and scurried to Milo's supply crate, keeping low to the ground. Once he was behind it, he grabbed the handle and hurriedly started pulling it up into the ship.

Underneath the ramp, Milo used the visual sights of his old sniper rifle to aim. The detached scope was tucked carefully away in a flap pocket of his BDU, as it would only mess up his aim with all his targets being less than 150 meters away.

"Anytime now, guys…" He muttered, firing off another shot. He'd brought along three clips of rubber bullets for this phase of the operation, and had just chunked in the last of them before telling Rourke to make a break for it.

The rumble of the Primal transport's engines coming alive was the welcome sign he'd been waiting for, and none too soon. Proving that they'd grown wise to the attack, a line of four SDF security guards started to push through the smoke. When Milo fired, the bullets bounced harmlessly off of their reinforced plastic riot shields.

"Shit."

"We're wheels up, Marksman, get inside!" Rourke shouted from inside of the plane. A report of a laser carbine from the transport's interior hissed through the air and clipped the edge of the farthest right riot shield, causing the approaching guards to scatter. Pulling himself out from underneath the ship, Milo slung his rifle over his shoulder and dashed inside. The ramp was retracting and the hatch was closing even before he'd taken a second bounding step, and finally, they were sealed inside of the ship. Milo's last sight of Docking Bay 3 was clearing smoke, frantically approaching and shooting guards, and a second contingent loosing small arms fire on the Rondo as it rose up from the landing pad, its shields easily absorbing the hits without complaint.

"Dana's moving." Milo told Rourke.

The wolf lowered a borrowed laser carbine. "Good. But she's following us out, so let's hope our 'friend' up front's done more than hit the ignition switch." Rourke patted the supply crate they'd brought along. "Your goodies are all safe, and those guards gave us a few more weapons."

"You can never have enough." Milo chuckled. As the sounds of plinking laserfire against the hull started to become overwhelming, the two decided it was high time to head up front before the SDF guards got the bright idea to increase their damage output.

Telemos was busily flipping toggles and checking readouts in the foreign Primal language when they came up to the cockpit.

"Well, we've got them good and pissed. How are things up here?" Rourke asked their willing enemy accomplice.

Telemos turned his head slightly, giving them a sidewards glance from his right eye. "It appears that we are fortunate. Whatever technical staff you had here at this military base left all the ship's systems intact, aside from ghosting a copy of the ship's log and datafiles. We have 72 percent of maximum fuel stores still available for the engines, and the FTL drive is operational." He looked back ahead and snorted. "I almost wish they'd taken the emergency rations, though."

"Why? Isn't it a good thing to have food and water available?" Rourke asked.

"Even the meager amount of nutrition provided to me aboard your vessel yesterday was…more than adequate." Telemos explained. "You may find Primal fare to be somewhat lacking in comparison." Hitting one last toggle and putting both hands on the control yoke, Telemos nodded. "Now sit down and strap in. I'm engaging the shields."

The transport lifted off of the pad and headed for the domed runway of Lunar Base, passing along the transparisteel tunnel. The weapons fire from the docking bay stopped chasing them, but as they lined up to make their escape, thick shutters closed in over the exit.

"Ah, shit." Rourke uttered. "They're blocking us off!"

"I thought you planned for this contingency." Telemos raised an eyebrow. He reached for the radio and turned it on, setting it to broad channel scan.

"Attention, hijackers. You are under arrest! Power down your engines and surrender immediately!"

"You wouldn't let me shoot them." Telemos gave his head a shake, ignoring the dirty looks that Rourke and Milo threw back at him.

"Would shooting them open up those blast shutters?" Milo asked flippantly. "We may have to ram it."

"That's a possibility." Telemos said. "But would doing so vent this base's atmosphere and risk the lives of everyone here? You seem to care a great deal about preserving Cornerian lives."

"The blast shutters just keep ships from going in or out. The atmospheric shield is still in place."

"Good to know." Telemos reached for the throttle and opened it up, going from an idle at the start of the Lunar Base runway to a rapidly increasing dash.

"Uh, Telemos? I was joking about the ramming." Milo spoke up hastily. Telemos smiled. "Really, that was a joke."

"Good to know." Telemos repeated.

"Telemos, are you trying to get us killed?!" Rourke demanded. Telemos smiled wider.

Before the two could offer another worrisome remark, Telemos reached above his head and pressed one last button. On the canopy, a targeting reticule appeared, lining up with the blast shutters. A steady beep-beep-beep quickly turned to a solid tone, and Telemos reached a finger under the control yoke.

Outside and underneath the cockpit of the Primal transport, a panel of the outer hull retracted to reveal a large launcher. A single missile fired, hurtling down the runway until it hit the shutters, and exploded. The force of the blast knocked them clean off of their tracks and threw them out into lunar space, clearing the path. A second and a half later, the Primal transport rocketed out of the entrance trailing smoke from the explosion, and the Rondo transport, driven by Dana Tiger, followed.

"Did you really think I was going to ram those doors?" Telemos inquired with a snort.

Rourke blinked. "This ship has a missile launcher. Why does a transport have a missile launcher?"

"It is Primal." Telemos explained. "A ship that cannot defend itself may as well be made of scrap. Now, set your subspace entry coordinates. We need to get clear of this airspace before they scramble interceptors."

"Yes to that." Milo agreed quickly, getting started on the computations at Navigation. He cringed. "Eesh. Can we change the language settings? I don't read Primal." Telemos rolled his eyes, but a few button presses from the pilot's chair quickly switched the script on Milo's screen to Cornerian standard.

"You should feel lucky that the intelligence officers aboard the station installed a translation matrix during their data transfers." Telemos criticized the former sniper.

"Gee, and here I missed out on that Primal language class in College." Rourke snipped back. He hit the radio. "You there, Stripes?"

"Roger that, Fangs. On your six and hauling ass." Dana responded. "But I picked up comms chatter as we were flying out. They're sending Raptor Squadron to intercept us."

"Perfect." Rourke muttered, being sure to take his finger off the squawk button when he did. Depressing it again, he cleared his throat. "We'll try to break orbit. If they come after you, do not engage. I'll talk to them. Just worry about making your FTL jump."

"Which is what I'm trying to do, but this Primal navigation system is clunky." Milo complained from behind the pilot and co-pilot's seats. "Telemos, your people may go overboard on firepower, but you suck at programming."

"Hmph." Telemos snorted. "Next you'll tell me I can't fire back at our pursuers."

"Why do you think I didn't give you a gun back there?" Rourke winced as he checked his radar. "Ugh. Viper and his boys must wake up early. I've got four radar signatures closing in fast."

"Attention, transport ships. This is Captain Korman of the 17th Raptor Squadron. You are being pursued, and are marked. Change your heading 180 degrees and return to base, or we will fire on you. This is your first and only warning."

"Screw that." Rourke punched in the talk button. "Viper, I know you know who this is. Don't say my name."

"What…? But you're…" The Venomian lizard who was in charge of Raptor Squadron did at least listen to instructions, although his tone went from crisp and authoritative to genuinely angry as he caught on that it had been the Starfox Team who'd raided Lunar Base. "What in the hell are you thinking, pulling a stunt like this?!"

"Right now, I know this looks ugly. Trust me, though, it's for a good reason."

"What reason would be good enough to commit treason and risk being killed?"

"Viper…she's alive." Rourke answered. His eyes moved to size up both Telemos and Milo. Neither wavered. "Don't say her name either. We're going to rescue her. That's why we're doing this. And we didn't kill anyone on the base."

"Stun grenades. Rubber bullets." Milo called out loudly.

"We've flown together, fought together. And you know me, Viper. So I'm asking you, begging you, trust me this once. Let us go. Let us save her."

"…You sure about this?"

"I'm risking my life and my freedom. What do you think?" Rourke countered.

There was silence on the radio for nearly ten seconds. The wait became agonizing, and Rourke watched Telemos unconsciously rub the firing trigger for the transport's missile system underneath the control yoke.

"Lunar Base, Raptor 1. Moving in closer to make visual ident."

Captain Korman's Model K Arwing boosted up ahead of his comrades, pulling alongside the Primal transport. Staring through their canopies, "Viper" Korman, the male members of the Starfox Team, and their Primal accomplice all watched one another.

Korman looked at Telemos dubiously, then to Rourke. He mouthed a sentence he dared not utter over the radio. Are you sure, Rourke?

Rourke nodded exactly once before offering a silent reply. Terrany is alive. We need this ship to rescue her. Let us go.

Korman wavered for a bit more, then nodded in quiet acceptance. Stay safe. Bring her back alive.

Rourke gave the squadron leader a thumbs-up in answer, and then Viper spoke again.

"Lunar Base, Raptor 1. We are returning to base. Cancel the alert."

"Creator bless him." Milo let out a breath he'd unconsciously been holding. The Arwings pulled away, and just in the nick of time.

"We're clear, and I've got my computations finished. We're ready."

"Two stage mission, fellas." Rourke told his partners inside of the Primal vessel. "We just finished the easy part."

"This was easy?" Telemos offered incredulously. "How did you know that they would spare our lives? They will face military criminal charges almost as serious as yours now."

"Because they're Arwing pilots, Fendhausen." Rourke told the Primal with a faint grin. "And there's a couple of things you've gotta understand about Arwing pilots. One, we're all crazy. Two, since there aren't that many pilots who can handle an Arwing, much less a Seraph, we're a tight knit group. And three…when one of us is in trouble, we'll go to hell and back for each other."

Telemos shook his head. "Your sense of…camaraderie…is more important than following orders?"

"When it's a choice between following orders or doing what's right, we'll do what's right every time." Milo said from the back. "Haven't you ever had a group of pilots who you'd do anything for?"

Telemos tightened his grip on the control yoke of the transport, and his face hardened. "I did, once." He said cryptically. With one hand, he reached for the thrusters. "Activating FTL drive."

The stars began to blur and extend into lines, and the ship disappeared from Cornerian lunar airspace.

Lunar Base

Command Conference Room

Colonel Bruce Cherrickson was not a happy squirrel, and it showed in the flashing of his tail as he sat with the recently freed, and still recuperating, Major Dullahan Mainefurd of the Cornerian Army. Cherrickson had already torn into his officer of the watch for diverting the rogue Rondo transport to Docking Bay 3, which he'd ordered cleared for security purposes. The ships there had been shunted to Docking Bay 1 and 2 to keep the Primal ship from being gawked at too heavily. The officer of the watch, pale from the events, had still managed to air his defense. Military regulations clearly stated that a ship in distress, possessing the proper clearance, was allowed to dock to make repairs. That the only docking bay with enough space to accommodate the Rondo after the ship reshuffle happened to be the same one where the Primal transport had been placed had been unfortunate coincidence.

Of course, it hadn't been. Somehow, the terrorists had planned it that way.

He'd crisply told base security to escort Captain Korman of the 17th Arwing Squadron to him as soon as he and the rest of his flight touched down, and had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't be done with Major Mainefurd before his next appointment arrived.

"No, sir. We didn't have any personal effects aboard that transport that I can recall. Just the Primal firearms we took with us." The tomcat said with a frown. "I just can't believe there was a group of terrorists bold enough to waltz into Lunar Base and hijack it." The hiss of a door punctuated his last sentence.

"They weren't terrorists." The voice of Captain Korman called out, coming inside the conference room and joining the two officers already present. Security personnel standing outside the room saluted the colonel, but waited for further instruction.

"Stand at post outside the doors." Colonel Cherrickson ordered them. The guards saluted again, and the door hissed shut.

Captain Korman came over and raised an eyebrow. "The armed escort was a little much, Colonel. I was already planning to meet with you first thing."

"Consider it a sign of my extreme disapproval." The Colonel rumbled. He activated the room's flatscreen monitor and pulled up the exterior cameras from several minutes ago. Raptor Squadron was clearly visible, as was their positions behind and surrounding the two escaping transports. "Would you mind explaining who in the hell was on board those transports, and why you disobeyed direct orders to pursue and either return them to base or blow them to dust?"

"Well, that's easy, Colonel." Captain Korman said. "They needed that ship. And as for who, I need to know that this incident won't be publicly broadcast."

"…Korman, you're on a very tight leash right now. Why?" The squirrel demanded.

"Because their lives, and the life of another prisoner of war, depends on absolute silence regarding this incident." Korman explained. "We know that our enemies are listening in to our radio broadcasts."

Fuming, but not one to cut off an explanation midway through, the colonel sat back in his chair. "Very well. I'll contact the CSC directly with my report."

"Good." Korman seemed relieved by that. "In that case, I acted under previously issued orders which superseded yours. The Starfox Protocol."

"…What?" The Colonel blinked. "You're telling me those animals who attacked our base were Starfox?"

"With your permission, sir?" Captain Korman reached for the colonel's datapad, which still had the base security footage feeds on playback. When the colonel nodded, he brought up a camera view of Docking Bay 3, when the shooting was still going on.

"There." He motioned to the figures moving around the Primal transport. "Milo." Korman highlighted a figure crouched beneath the walkway, firing projectiles from an old model slug thrower. Behind a crate of supplies was a wolf in black. "And their leader, Rourke." He rewound the footage to show a tigress beside the transport pilot, who'd later been decked. "And that's Dana. All three of them, and they said they needed that ship for a rescue mission."

"They didn't run that request through the normal channels. All this does is make them look guilty." Cherrickson countered.

"No, sir. If they'd done that, the Primals might have gotten wind of the op." Korman argued.

"They are guilty, Captain. Of collaboration." The Colonel moved the footage around until he could get a clear shot of the fourth person who'd gone for the transport; unlike the others, this one was clearly Primal. "They had a Primal with them. For all we know, they're either working for the Primals, or they've been duped by them. In either case, we're talking treason."

"After everything they've done, all the sacrifices they've made, sir, do you really have the stones to accuse them of being traitors to Corneria?" Korman countered with a growl. "I don't know who that Primal is, but…"

"I do." Major Mainefurd spoke up suddenly, killing the argument between the commander of Lunar Base and the flight lead of the 17th Squadron. The squirrel and lizard turned to look at the tomcat, who stared at the security image of the Primal running into the transport, frozen at a moment when his profile was in full view. The former POW wore a funny look, and he traced the edges of the Primal's face. "I…know this one."

"How?" Cherrickson asked. "More importantly, where do you know him from?"

"Remember in our report, we said that we were freed, and later rescued, by a lone Primal also breaking out of prison?" Mainefurd looked from the squirrel, to the image, and to Korman, before tapping a foreclaw against the screen. "This is Telemos. After we got off of Venom, he broke away from us. We flew for Corneria, and he went in a different direction. I didn't think I'd ever see him again."

"Well…now we know where he went." Captain Korman nodded. "He made a beeline for Starfox."

"This is concerning on multiple levels. One, how did he know where to find them? Two, why did he fly for them? And three, what rescue mission?" The colonel fumed.

Captain Korman didn't have an answer for the first two questions, but he did know the third.

"Terrany's alive. They're going after her."

"…What? They killed her! Broadcast it even, the sick fucks!" The colonel pounded a fist on the table.

"It would hardly be the first time misinformation was used."

"Colonel, this is the same Primal who set us all free." Major Mainefurd pressed the point. "If he's working with Starfox now, after doing that for us…"

"Enough." The squirrel shook his head wearily. "You two are dismissed. It's way too damn early in the morning for this much of a headache. I've got calls to make." Korman opened his mouth, and Cherrickson cut him off. "Relax, captain. I've read the necessary briefings on the new security measures for communications, same as you. The Primals won't sniff this out. Dismissed."

Satisfied with the answer, Korman led Mainefurd out of the conference room.

"Come on, major. We don't have the best coffee, being a military base, but let me buy you a mug."

"Captain, after the ordeal that we've gone through, all coffee tastes great." The tomcat assured him. The two kept walking down the corridors, Korman returning salutes from the morning crew as they came on duty and passed by. "Is what you said in there…"

"I know Starfox, Major. They wouldn't lie about one of their own. It's real."

"Yeah. It's not going to make this entire business any easier, though."

"In that, you're absolutely correct." Korman sighed. Chances were good that the CSC was going to get an earful from the livid colonel of Lunar Base. And after General Kagan got his, he was going to tear into General Grey. But would any charges really be filed? He suspected not, but he wasn't going to bet on it.

"There's going to be hell to pay when this blows over." Mainefurd observed.

"Maybe." Korman shrugged. "I'm just not sure if we can afford to pay it."

Wild Fox

General Grey's Quarters

27th Day of the Primal War

0710 CST

Brigadier General Arnold Grey sipped at a cup of coffee, reviewing the morning reports. Nothing new yet from Kagan and the CSC about their target on Titania, which meant they were still data finding. The Wild Fox was in good shape, a transport ship had left late last night to drop off used supply canisters and garbage, and to pick up fresh equipment and victuals. And beyond the reports, he knew that he had a crew aboard this ship teetering on the verge of complete dissolution, with military and civilian, or mercenary crews, one spark away from a powderkeg. One he needed to find some way of dousing.

Like authorizing the rescue of Terrany, and making a shipwide broadcast to that effect. Short of storming Corneria and forcibly retrieving every Arspace employee, including President Toad, that was probably his best option. And it was still horrible.

What most of the crew currently out of sorts had always failed to recognize was that, while General Kagan was ostensibly 'in command' of their endeavors aboard the Wild Fox, he'd become little more than a figurehead or liaison officer since Project Seraphim had been ended by Primal action, and the Starfox Team had risen in its place. He advised the Starfox Team, looked through the information sent to them from the CSC, and provided as much assistance as possible. Everything they were doing was in a terribly gray area. Were Starfox free agents, a rogue force paid solely for their kills? Were they connected to the SDF in a more intimate fashion, and if so, did that mean the Starfox Team and its associates were actually breaking military protocol?

They'd been pushing the issue aside since recovering from the aftermath of the Cornerian invasion, what category Starfox fell into. The War was more important. Saving lives, rescuing planets, striking back heavy blows against the Primals, all of those were more important. Those objectives had unified them.

But then Supreme Admiral Weyland of the severely decimated SDF Naval Forces had gotten a burr up his ass, and done something incredibly stupid in an attempt to hasten the rebuilding of his fleets. Kagan hated it. Grey hated it, for the cracks that the frission had exposed. The crew of the Wild Fox, primarily civilian and mercenary, was up in arms. They were hanging on to cohesiveness by a thread.

"We're going to have to do something soon." Especially considering that Starfox was champing at the bit to fly straight for Titania with an incomplete threat assessment and no plan of attack to speak of; All in the wild hopes that the Primal prisoner was on the level about Terrany being alive, that it wasn't a trap, and that they'd be able to pull her out of there before the Primals executed her for real.

General Grey was pulled from his stomach churning contemplation by the chirp of an incoming call. His eyes widened when the window with the information displayed full black with overlaid white lettering.

Incoming Communication from CSC

Omega Black Frequency

Attn: General Grey

"Oh, hell. What now?" He muttered, dreading what would make General Kagan spend another precious Omega Black transceiver. The Primals must be on the move again, which meant instead of a day organizing information on Titania, they'd be thrust headlong into another emergency mission.

Grey accepted the incoming call, and found a particularly ragged, and livid Winthrop Kagan glaring at him. The lynx looked like he'd gotten an early start to his day, and not by choice.

"Grey, what the hell are you all thinking?" The lynx snapped at him, before Grey could so much as wave in greeting.

Grey blinked at the question, taken aback at the venom in his former student's tone. "Winthrop, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your people leading a raid on frigging Lunar Base and hijacking the Primal transport!"

Grey felt a pit beginning to form in his stomach. "What are you…you're mistaken."

"Oh, so Colonel Cherrickson, Raptor Squadron, and the entire security force just imagined the Starfox Team docking under a false IF/F tag, getting into a Creator damned firefight, and waltzing off with a Primal in tow?" The lynx inquired sarcastically. A still image from a Lunar Base security camera was transmitted to Grey, and when he opened it, it clearly showed Rourke, Dana, Milo, and the Primal in the middle of a firefight in a docking bay.

For General Grey, his head was swimming with the ramifications.

They hadn't listened to him. Rourke hadn't, and the others went along with it. But it had to be a lie. He didn't think Kagan would call and lie about something as severe as this, but he also didn't want to believe it.

Rourke couldn't be that stupid.

"Hang on."

"What?"

"Give me a damned second." Grey barked at his pupil. He brought up the internal ship's sensors, and scanned for all pilots and military personnel, each of which had a tag on their uniforms.

Rourke, Milo, and Dana all registered as still being in their rooms. That wasn't enough proof. He brought up the security cameras.

The rooms were empty, the lights turned off, and their flight jackets all flopped helplessly on their beds.

They'd left them behind.

"Shit." Grey whispered. On all their heads be it. And his now. He looked back to a still angry, but now more informed Kagan.

"You didn't authorize this." Kagan surmised.

"No. I didn't." Grey shook his head. "For all the good that means."

"There's going to be all kinds of hell to pay because of this."

"You don't think I know that?" Grey asked. "That Titania information I wanted. Is it ready?"

Kagan's whiskers twitched. "You're going after them."

"They're going in blind, and without their Arwings. Damn right I'm going after them. Is. The intel. Ready?"

"Not yet. But I'll make damn sure we get it done. You want laserburst transmission or Omega Black?"

"Burn the Omegas." Grey spat the order out, even though Kagan outranked him by two stars now. "They were moving last night. I'm not sitting on my ass any longer than I have to. This is FUBAR'ed enough already."

"Raptor Squadron let them get away. Claimed immunity under the Starfox Protocol. I wasn't kidding about the political mess."

"And now you know why I should have taken that desk job, son." Grey quipped back. He watched the timer on their call tick to 10 seconds and continue counting down. Not much longer before the Omega Black quantum triggers fell out of resonance, and the secure, unbreakable communication would end. "At least this will put everyone on the ship back on the same team again."

"At the cost of alienating Starfox from the SDF completely."

"Then we're all damned, Winthrop." Grey concluded.

The connection ended, and General Grey's screen reverted to his reports. He closed them all out and hit his communicator. As expected, ROB answered.

"Yes, general. What can I do for you?"

"I know you helped them, and I would personally love to blast you to scrap, ROB."

"But you won't." ROB said. "Because you need me."

Grey's claws dug heavy grooves into his desk. "Have Major McCloud, Engineer Toad, Captain Hound, and Major Boskins report to me immediately."

"It shall be done. May I state that I am in agreement with your decision to go and assist with the rescue?"

"Fuck off." Grey ended the call and reached for his mug of coffee. He meant to take another drink of it.

It tasted cold, and so instead, he threw it across the room with an angry yell, watching the ceramic shatter into jagged shards and the liquid within drip down the bulkhead wall.

His breathing was heavy as he watched the coffee trail for the floor.

Subspace

In-Transit to Titania

Rourke felt a hand shaking his shoulder, and he came to immediately, reaching for his sidearm. His hand was on the grip before he saw who was shaking him awake. Telemos Fendhausen, the Primal.

"I nearly shot you just now." Rourke muttered. He glanced over Telemos as the enemy pilot stepped back away from him, noticing that the Primal was now carrying a laser rifle of Primal manufacture. "Still thinking about it. Why the hell do you have a gun?"

"We are out of Cornerian airspace, and I can no longer shoot your allied forces." Telemos responded calmly. "I did not think you cared if I shot up any of my own species." He slung the rifle over his shoulder. "We are thirty-five of your minutes out from your female associate's departure point. Two minutes after that, we ourselves will drop out of subspace."

"Good." Rourke stretched out his arms and legs and yawned loudly. "There are parts of this plan of yours to get planetside I don't like. Why couldn't we just put down on the planet and walk off?"

"Because we have no cargo, yet we are claiming to be carrying a full contingent of soldiers and supplies." Telemos explained impatiently. "Primal security at landing facilities is not so lax as the forces we went up against in your precious Lunar Base. Nor will we have the chance to locate the Pale Demon's prison compound, much less get there in time, if they raise the alarm."

"And faking a crash is less conspicuous?" Rourke folded his arms.

"Unexpected, but not something to put the entire planet on high alert for. Military regulations call for the dispatch of a single APC with a squad of six troopers to make the primary investigation of any transport crash, and report back to request medical or cargo carriers as needed." Telemos went on. "Odds we should be able to thwart with only a minor amount of risk and inconvenience." The Primal paused before staring at Rourke. "But you still have doubts."

"…Yeah. But if you say it's our best option, that's what we'll have to go with." Rourke said. "At least we have a rough idea of where she is. And when we do put down, the odds will be in our favor. Titania runs on a different clock than Corneria, so when we get there, it'll be moving in to late evening. The two suns will finally be setting in that hemisphere."

"Another point in our favor." Telemos nodded. He glanced over at Milo, sleeping away without a care in the rear seat, arms folded and ears drooping. "Your sleep seemed troubled. The Marksman, however, is at peace."

"That's Milo." Rourke grumbled. "He's the oldest guy on our squad, and there are some things about his military career I've learned not to ask about. But somehow, he's almost always on an even keel. Mentally, that is."

"You are a fighter, and a decent pilot." Telemos pointed out, giving Milo a certain amount of respect as he gazed at the ring-tailed raccoon slumbering away. "But your friend is a Warrior, baptized in blood and fire. There is something about how someone stands, how they watch their surroundings that allows a trained mind to recognize a Warrior. I acknowledge his skill and courage. That being said, I think you are the better pilot."

"Yeah, that's no surprise." Rourke chuckled. "He only started flying about a year and a half ago. I've been in fighters since I was a pup." That earned a look of surprise from Telemos, but Rourke waved off his followup question. "He served in the Army. Um…ground forces."

"Ah." Telemos nodded, and Rourke could almost see the Primal's mind spinning, thinking on the sniper rifle their accomplice had brought with him. "We will need that experience."

300,000 Kilometers from Titania

A brief pinprick of light triggered in the open void of space, a cascade of blue and purple light as a crack in the fabric of spacetime opened up and allowed a ship to pass through it.

The Rondo transport containing Dana's Seraph Arwing slipped back into realspace, and the fissure leading to subspace closed behind her. She took a moment to inhale, then accessed navigation. She was right where she wanted to be.

"Here goes everything." The former test pilot murmured to herself. Milo, Rourke, and Telemos were still in subspace and jetting on ahead. At her distance, the rust red orb of Titania was prominent, but not so great that it swallowed the whole of her front window. This distance had been chosen by Telemos as the optimal spot for ingress while still staying well out of range of Primal sensors. They would have to be looking directly at her heading with a high powered telescope to even notice the momentary disruption of light.

The tigress checked one last time to ensure that the intership link was stable. It had been a rush job on Wyatt's part, and while she trusted his coding skills, it was still her life on the line. Their lives.

She sighed in relief and smiled as everything came up green. She could now pilot the Rondo remotely from her Seraph.

Phase 1 had been leaving the Wild Fox unnoticed.

Phase 2 had been making it to Lunar Base, hijacking the Primal transport, and bugging out.

They were now in Phase 3.

"Boys fly in hard, I drift in like wreckage." She repeated to herself. Dana checked her heading once again, confirming that the Navigation systems had her on a course that would pull her into Titania's gravity well as she flew alongside it. She'd need to fire the Rondo's retros from the Seraph, but for now…

"Okay, girl. Time to go to sleep." Dana flipped through the Rondo's manual, finding the shutdown checklist which would allow for fast startup. Muttering the lines to herself, she started turning off the ship's systems. Radar. IF/F beacon. Even the power generator was dropped to negligible levels, as were the heating coils. Anything that required power, anything which might show up as even a blip on sensors that would indicate activity, she powered down.

To any curious Primals, her ship would seem to be dead, cold, and drifting at high speed, headed to either pass Titania or crash into it.

Now for a few hours of boredom.

Dana got up from the pilot's chair and started to head back. She paused after five steps, then detoured to the ship's head.

There were some things one couldn't do in a Seraph, after all.

4000 Kilometers above Titania

The Primal transport burst out of subspace, with Telemos at the helm of the behemoth and Rourke and Milo strapped in tight. All three had slipped on Primal uniforms, most importantly the helmets.

"Battlenet datalink established." Telemos announced, taking note of a flickering green light above their radio. "We will be contacted shortly. Marksman?"

"Rear compartment is sealed." Milo called back. "Ready to vent smoke."

"Do it." Telemos ordered. Milo punched in the trigger of a small detonator he'd kept with him, and their transport shuddered slightly from a small explosion.

Alarms began to go off in the cockpit immediately. The miniscule hole created by the explosion began to unload the precious atmosphere from within the cargo compartment to the void of space at an alarming rate.

"There's our deception." Rourke muttered. "And any hope of making the bulk of this tub spaceworthy."

"We were crashing this anyways." Telemos harrumphed. "Now be silent. You don't speak Primal."

"Karu Parlava, hecch'ago Titania vardt. Grein harzin mopolo?"

Rourke and Milo stayed perfectly still as Telemos reached for the communicator, making no attempt to silence the blaring alarms in the cockpit. "Titania hecch'ago, Primalus Wiz Nafen Multina ro'sh! Med aus gritznoben, lein vauxis nafarus! Jek hal malus! Jek hal malus!"

"Wiz Nafen Multina, rek. Toran yo'se, nai?"

"Hach ballwerst, nai! Jek m…" Telemos stunned his two compatriots by tearing out the communicator from the dash, taking a chunk of the paneling with the reinforced cord as well. He then plunged his hand back into it, sending up the smell of sparks and burned fur and ozone before pulling the pieces back, along with a slightly bloodied hand.

"That got the message across." Telemos snorted, dropping the pieces of the ruined radio to the ground.

"I'll say." Milo said. "Primal's a very…guttural language, isn't it?"

"You expected the kind of flowery, delicate tongue you Cornerians use?" Telemos's helmet turned around slightly. "The Primal language, Primalacha, is a harsh language for a harsh people."

"Clearly. Was it necessary to ruin the radio?"

"The Battlenet is monitoring our ship status. Or was. I could have disabled the automatic uplink, but that would have raised red flags to their security protocols." Telemos answered. "Their last report from us would have shown explosive decompression in the rear cargo bay. I reported a loss of power to the ship's thrusters and further systems damage just before I disabled our radio. Now they can't call us for help, we can't call them again, and most importantly, our Battlenet uplink has been destroyed." He pointed to a small, sputtering bit of circuitry amidst the mess between the pilot and co-pilot's chairs. "Without that, they have no idea how good or bad things are in this ship. It is necessary for the deception."

"You've thought of everything, haven't you?" Rourke asked flippantly.

"Just the things you couldn't." Telemos responded. "Now. We have to falsify a crash, so I'll need your help. We'll be entering Titania's atmosphere hard and fast, and even with our shielding, controlling this tub at those speeds will be like trying to steer a toggan with a negfaltz."

"Uh. Right." Rourke grabbed hold of the secondary control yoke, and Telemos guided their smoke-trailing vessel towards Titania.

"I'm putting up our course on your HUD, guys." Milo said. "180 kilometers east of the primary ZOI, Telemos, so try not to deviate too much. In these conditions, we could end up overshooting by hundreds of kilometers."

"I am aware of this."

"You'd better not be rolling your eyes under that helmet, Telemos."

"And if I was, Rourke? What are you going to do? Shoot me?"

"You're bleeding on the steering wheel already. I'm going to make it worse?" Rourke motioned to the lacerated knuckles of Telemos's right hand. "We'll have to patch that up. Just one thing I want to know before we hit the atmosphere."

"And what burning question chips away at you this time, Rourke?" Telemos sighed.

"When we saved Corneria during the initial invasion, we got our hands on a mostly intact ship and hijacked its database. Helped us construct a translation matrix for when we intercepted open communications."

"Your point?" Telemos asked tersely. Outside of the ship, the planet had swallowed up the whole of their view, and a fireball was beginning to form around the ship's shields. The shaking was increasing to match.

"When you Primals broadcast openly to insult or taunt us, are you speaking Primal, or Cornerian?"

"Primalacha we reserve for ourselves. When we deign to speak to you all…we use Cornerian. We've had years to learn it from your radio and television broadcasts, after all."

Rourke's head tipped to the side, and though his helmet hid his expression, his voice held curiosity. "How long have you been listening to us?"

"Before I was born, at least." Telemos grunted. "Now shut up and help me drive this Matschwein, would you?" Rourke grunted, and did as he was asked. This was less about precision landing, after all. They were brute forcing the transport to the ground, trying their damndest to imitate an uncontrolled crash without burrowing a crater into the Titania desert.

And this was only Phase 3. The hard parts were still to come.

"I hate re-entries." Milo complained from the back, when the shaking got bad enough to rattle their teeth.

Titania Desert

176 kilometers East of Primal Compound

1 hour later

A solitary Primal APC rumbled through the desert, its manned turret still venting heat after being fired at some of the larger local wildlife who'd thought to venture a little too close. The second sun of the Lylat System blazed low in the sky ahead of them, forcing the Primals within to keep their visors tinted just to see. In another hour, the sun would descend completely, making the air on the arid world bone-bitingly cold.

"How can this shithole of a planet support any life, much less a thing five times our size?" One of the soldiers at the rear of the small transport complained through his headset communicator.

Up above, inside the sealed dome of the gunner's position, the Primal manning the rooftop turret chuckled. "The same way your mother cooked for you, Garon. If you're hungry enough, you'll eat anything."

"You shut up about my mother!"

"The both of you, shut up!" The commander of the vehicle shouted back from the front passenger seat. The driver and the two others in the back cringed and stayed silent as their unit CO cracked the whip once more. "We're coming up on the crash site, so pull it together and focus, or you'll be at half rations for a month! The ship reported it was damaged in transit and lost control, and it was venting atmosphere before it began an uncontrolled re-entry. This is a straight investigate and report mission, so I don't want to see any screw ups!"

"Yes, commander." Came the uniform, monotone response from all the soldiers in the vehicle. Still, they straightened up a little more, checked the power packs on their weapons, and got themselves ready for the arduous task that awaited them. Given how fast the thing was moving, it was unlikely they'd find any survivors.

"Coming up on a valley, sir." The driver reported. The commander of the APC frowned and leaned forward in his seat, examining a long, dug out furrow which led over the hill. Land crested four meters over the roof of the vehicle on either side through the rust red terrain as they drove on.

"This isn't a valley. It's the crash path. The transport dug out a trench when it hit. Must have skidded…" The entire vehicle jostled wildly on a bump, then dropped back into the dug out grooves again, shaking everyone inside. "…Skipped along on impact." The commander of the squad hastily amended his statement. "I see the smoke up ahead. Hang on, men."

Another two minutes of rough country driving brought the Primal contingent within a gunshot's range of the Primal transport. Somehow, miraculously, the thing had come down on its belly, and it hadn't completely been shredded to pieces. Still, the damage it had suffered, along with the trails of black smoke pouring from its engines and white smoke along the fuselage, made it very clear that this was one ship which wouldn't be flying again.

The commander brought the vehicle's radio to life. "Titania command, this is Reconnaisance Unit 4. Have located crash site. Are moving to investigate."

"Roger, Reconnaisance 4. Report back with findings. Out."

Stopping 150 meters out from the ship, the APC disgorged its occupants out onto the sandy wastes of Titania.

"Spread out and keep your eyes open. Garon, you and Vauldon go in first. I see a body half on the walkway and half off of it. Could be a member of the crew who tried to get off of the ship after the crash." The commander gave his orders efficiently, and without any room for stupid questions. The two soldier group headed for the ramp while the commander took another partner towards port, and the last two Primals made for starboard. "Let's make sure these engines aren't going to go critical and blow us all to kingdom come."

Each of the three teams made their way to their destinations with the sort of easygoing pace one treats a grave site. No need to rush, they're dead already, you only rush for the living, and sometimes, not even then if they've disgraced themselves. The unmoving body, half on the rear ramp and half off of it, led validity to the sentiment, so casual footsteps it was.

At length, they found that the rear thrusters were blown out, releasing acrid smoke that stung the nose as the plasma reserves vented.

"Flames above. Their systems overload was more severe than we thought." One trooper remarked at the damage.

Garon and Vauldon stood over the body, and Garon nudged it gently with the toe of his boot. It moved only a little at his beckoning before coming back to rest again. The soldier's right hand was crusted with drying blood, the left was tucked under his torso. "This guy's dead. Probably from smoke inhalation, or internal injuries." Vauldon called out.

"Hang on." The commander of the small unit of soldiers was staring up at the starboard thruster, frowning a little as he examined the blasted ruins of the engine.

"Something wrong, sir?"

"This engine." The commander pointed. He took off his helmet and pointed up at the wreck, still frowning. "This damage…the engine didn't blow out. At least, not initially. It's like someone took a shot at it."

The unit had only one and a half seconds to consider that before their existence ended.

At the ramp, Garon and Vauldon had looked away from the dead body towards their CO. They missed the slow movement of the dead body's left arm, but there was no missing the sudden, jerking movement as it flipped over, came into a semi-recumbent position, and pointed a Primal laser rifle at them. They didn't have time to speak a word before the rifle fired, cutting them both down with the impact of high energy bolts.

From inside of the darkened, burning transport, a gleaming metal object arced through the air towards the commander and the trooper beside him. It came to a plop in the sand beside their feet, and they looked down at it in surprise, recognizing it too late to do them any good. "Grena…!" And then it went off, filling the air with smoke and red sand turned even more red.

The last group didn't have any time to react. They also had been watching the object soaring through the air towards their commander, were distracted. More distracted and in shock when their trooper companions by the ramp were gunned down by a supposedly dead Primal.

They never had a chance, as an unseen, but heard gunshot went off from inside of the transport. One trooper fell to the ground, a spray of red and white flaring out from the enormous hole in the back of his helmet, and then the second went as well, joining his partner in death.

Less than three seconds for it all to happen. Six dead Primals.

The 'corpse' on the walkway came up in a crouch, holding his laser rifle in the ready position as he scanned for any further threats. But all was silence in the wastelands of Titania.

"Clear." Telemos sounded hollow as he removed his helmet and stood up.

From the interior of the burning ship, Rourke and Milo quickly joined him. Milo's old sniper rifle was still wafting vapor from the barrel as he ventured out, and he examined his kills.

"Decent shots, Milo." Rourke complimented him. The raccoon shrugged.

"At this distance, I should be able to put one through their eyeballs." He nudged the two bodies with his boot. "I'm getting rusty in my old age."

"You're not even 40 yet." Rourke pointed out. "You're not old."

"Considering the company I keep? I'm ancient." Milo went over to Telemos, sizing up their accomplice. "You all right there, Telemos?"

"Just…give me a moment." Telemos asked solemnly. "The necessity of their deaths does not excuse my sin."

"What's different between this and when you helped those Cornerians bust out of jail?"

"I only killed one Primal then. Directly." Telemos told him. He wandered over to the two soldiers he'd gunned down in cold blood and knelt beside them. "The one I killed on the Homeworld was without honor. But these soldiers…they are different."

"Whatever your issue is, are you going to get over it any time soon?" Rourke snapped. "We've got a crate of asskicking supplies we need to load up into this APC we're making off with."

Milo headed back to the ship and looked at Rourke, wearing an expression very unlike his usual ones. "I'll help you out, Rourke. Let's give him a minute." The raccoon grabbed his discarded Primal helmet and tucked it under his arm.

If Rourke had been meaning to protest, it died on his lips after Milo gave a slow shake of his head.

"Yeah. Don't take too long, but…we'll get the vehicle ready to go." Rourke finished slowly. He and Milo went back to retrieve the crate, and while it was still heavy, having two people to move it sped the process up. The entire time, they snuck glances at Telemos, who hadn't moved from his position beside the bodies. He seemed to be whispering something, and his head and hands moved in rhythmic rotations.

Four minutes later, not long after Milo and Rourke had loaded up their crate of supplies into the Primal APC and secured it in the back, a stone faced Telemos Fendhausen joined them.

"I am ready." The Primal stated. Milo didn't say anything, and didn't try to offer consolation. He merely nodded and closed the back gate.

They all piled into the vehicle, Telemos in the driver's seat. The Primal gone renegade reached for the radio, then hesitated.

"You recorded their transmission as they came in?" He asked his conspirators.

"Yeah. Sounds like angry gibberish to me, though." Rourke held up a digital voice recorder, still wired to his field radio.

"Play it back."

Rourke did so, and Telemos listened intently. He finally nodded and picked up the radio, barking out something in Primalacha, as he called it. A second's delay, and then a voice on the other end responded. Telemos said what was likely a confirmation of orders, then disengaged the talk button and set it back on the cradle.

"I have reported that we found the ship's remains, and that there were no survivors. This has been acknowledged, and we have been ordered to return to Detention Area Zero."

"Detention Area Zero?" Rourke raised an eyebrow, excited and worried in the same measure. "…She's here."

"As I said." Telemos hit the accelerator, pumping the RPM's up while they idled in neutral. "Now. Phase 4."

"Phase 4." Milo echoed. He held up his detonator for all to see, and Rourke gave him a solid nod.

"Do it."

Milo depressed the trigger, and the secondary charges they'd placed within the transport before leaving it went off, and the ship vanished in an enormous fireball.

They drove away from the wreckage, leaving the past behind them. Nothing for the Primals to retrieve, nothing for them to use later.

And the only way left to go…was forward.

Wild Fox

Carl McCloud's Quarters

Carl sat in his room, staring out of the port window that allowed him to overlook the sphere of Katina below the orbiting ship. He wasn't so clichéd as to sit there with the lights off, but he was alone.

Having just gotten back from a meeting even more tense than the one when they'd been trying to figure out what to do about the Worldbreaker, the grandson of Fox McCloud felt like the universe was doing its damndest to collapse on him. All because of his sister, who had been captured while rescuing him. Had been publicly executed.

A false execution, if one believed the Primal prisoner.

A Primal prisoner his former teammates had sprung loose, flown off with, and attacked Lunar Base with. All for a desperate rescue attempt which may have all been a ruse.

Carl had wanted to wait, and not only had Rourke broken from his tradition of punching holes in the wall for an even stupider response, but he was taking Dana and Milo with him on his crash course. He felt betrayal from them, from Wyatt, from ROB…because of course those two would have been in on it…From everyone.

But he felt shame, too.

He hit his communicator. "ROB."

"Did you require something, Major McCloud?"

"…Why didn't you tell me?" Carl asked, his voice gravelly and low.

"You had already given your answer. And I found it lacking."

Carl had figured the robot's answer would be something like "I took action because you all wouldn't", but that more sobering remark hit him in the chest like a mallet.

"Do you think they stand a chance of saving her?"

"You believe she is there, finally. Without any doubts."

"Rourke and my friends were willing to throw their careers, their freedom, their lives away to prove it." Carl's snout twisted up in pain. "Terrany threw her life away for the shred of hope that I could be saved. She…I heard her…she said…"

"She said that you were all that mattered. And she was wrong." ROB concluded. "She matters too."

"More than me."

"No. No, you are equivalent, in different schemas." ROB disagreed. "Could anyone else but you have put together the plan which shattered the Super-Saucerer and saved Katina? And by the same token, could anyone else have flown with such fire and skill as she did to hold back the Primals long enough to secure you?" Carl couldn't think of a suitable answer to it, and so ROB pressed on. "She is listed as the owner of this ship. In her absence, I do what I have done since Krystal's departure, and act as the Wild Fox's caretaker. I work to protect what is most precious to her, and hope that those that my owners care for have the same empathy."

"Yeah." Carl nodded for a bit, then paused as a sobering thought hit him. "ROB. If you could set all of this up…if you have the ability to fly this ship without any other soul aboard helping you out…why didn't you just sail straight for Titania and damn the consequences at the outset?"

ROB did not respond immediately to the question, which was a first for him. Even for complicated questions, the ship's AI was never without a reply.

"ROB?" Carl called up hesitantly.

"I was…considering my response." The monotone voice finally said. "My first four answers were invalid upon a logic subroutine analysis. The one answer which is not countered by the fallacy paradox is this. Merely telling you the correct answer solves nothing. For there to be lasting and meaningful change, you must arrive at the proper conclusion yourself. It is in my power to take control of this ship and bring it there. It is not my responsibility."

"It's mine."

"Correct."

Carl stood up and reached for his cane. "Because I'm her brother?"

"I have outlived two masters and one mistress. You must do this, because I do not intend to outlive a fourth. And because for once, there are two in your generation. Do not waste the opportunity it affords."

The speaker clicked off, and Carl headed for the door. Out in the corridor, he slowed a little bit when he saw his mother approaching. Slowed, but didn't stop. She looked livid.

"Hey, mom. Let's go." Carl said, cutting the legs out from what was her most likely diatribe.

"Go? Where?" Mrs. McCloud demanded, still angry but now confused.

"Terrany's alive and we know where they're keeping her." Carl said, picking up his stride as he passed his mother. He pressed down on the cane less, and unconsciously started putting more weight through his weak leg. It didn't buckle out underneath him. "Rourke and the others already set out on the first part of the rescue mission."

"The first part?" Julia asked her son. A faint string of hope now ran through her voice as they stepped on to the turbolift, and Carl allowed himself a small smile.

"Yep. We're the second."

Titania

2 kilometers east of Detention Area Zero

1.5 Hours Later

Nightfall. The crash landing had occurred during the sunset of Lylus in the Titania skies. Sunrise, when Solar would come up in the west, was another 3 hours off. The evenings on Titania were shorter, compared to Corneria, but they were colder as well.

The APC which had been dispatched to investigate the crash site had moved at a more leisurely pace on its return trip, no longer needing the expediency for rescuing survivors. As it rumbled up a rocky ridge in the dark, headlights shining along the path ahead of it, the vehicle slowed to address the craggy rocks beneath it.

On the back, the hatch opened, just long enough for a lone figure, loaded down with a weapon and gear, to jump out of it. The hatch slammed shut behind him, and the figure stayed low to the ground, running for the cover of the larger rocks that stuck out of the ridge.

The APC rumbled on ahead, still heading for the nearby Primal prison facility, with nothing to indicate that anything was amiss.

In the shadows of the rocks, unseen by any living soul, Sergeant Milo Granger spared one last glance at the receding vehicle, then started his sprint up the side of the hill, darting from rock to rock.

They were on a schedule, and in Phase 4. Milo had to get in position to fulfill his role in the rescue operation.

Trying to keep his breathing shallow, and cursing how deconditioned he was from his prime fourteen years ago, the ring-tailed raccoon thought back to the briefing, such as it was, that they'd had while en route to Lunar Base…

"Phase one, getting off the Wild Fox unnoticed, is finished." Rourke said. They sat cramped in the Rondo transport, soaring through subspace. "And everyone's clear on phase 2 and 3."

"We should be. We've gone over those steps four times." Dana sniped at him.

"Phase 4, then." Milo cut in, once again forced to be the voice of compromise to keep things moving along. "Dana's drifting towards Titania, holed up in her Seraph and hoping that the Primals decide the Rondo's nothing but an offline piece of space debris. Once she gets in range, she launches and takes out their orbital defenses. Meanwhile, we manage to reach the planet's surface unmolested, and make our way towards the prison camp we saw earlier."

Telemos had been content to let the others make the plans up to this point, but now he butted in. The intelligence data taken from the downloaded spysat feeds were on Rourke's datapad, and the Primal pilot pulled it from the wolf's hands.

"We must do three things once we reach the detention center. One, we need to cut it off from the outside world. Primal communications are transmitted through the Battlenet, an encrypted subspace radio system. Ships of the Armada each have their own Battlenet relay, but the production costs are too prohibitive to equip every ground unit with the same." As he spoke, Telemos was scanning the image of the prison camp with intense focus, and at length, he zoomed in on one corner of the compound. Gradually, a transmission tower came into grainy focus. "Here. This is the ground Battlenet relay that they're using. In order to keep the ground forces from calling for reinforcements and raising the alarm, this must be destroyed immediately prior to, or following, the beginning of hostile action."

"Okay, that's one target. Good thing we packed explosives. Now we know what we'll need to use them on." Rourke nodded slowly. "That still leaves us with two other problems: Neutralizing the Primal perimeter patrols before they close in as reinforcements, and finding Terrany."

"Leave the perimeter patrols to me." Milo said confidently. "I didn't get my old sniper rifle out of storage just for shits and giggles."

"You do realize that the high density ionization of a laser rifle makes it immediately clear from which direction the shot has come, yes?" Telemos pointed out.

Milo merely smiled. "Yup. Which is why I never used them, if I had the choice." He reached to his side and patted the stock of his favored weapon. "This thing fires metallic rounds, everything from hollowpoints to armor piercing rounds made out of depleted heavy ionizing metals. And yes, I kept my hands on all sorts of ammunition."

"Interesting. That solves the visibility issue…But what of the noise?" Telemos asked, intrigued at the more old-fashioned slug-thrower. "It is harder to muffle a high velocity, long-range weapon such as yours. Once you begin shooting, they'll know where you are."

"Lemme see that map." Milo gestured for Telemos to pass over the datapad, and he used the spysat still images to look around the perimeter of the Primal compound again. With a smile, he motioned to a high ridge, which ran from the eastern edge of the site all the way to its southwest corner. It seemed littered with rocky debris.

"Bingo. See all that? Cover, and more than that, a soundbreak. Once I start shooting, they'll know they're getting shot at, sure. But they won't be able to figure out where it's coming from exactly."

"That ridge is two kilometers out from the camp." Dana exclaimed. "Are you sure you'll be able to hit anything from that far out?"

A slightly distant look overtook Milo, and while he still smiled, it lacked the warmth of before. "Hasn't been a problem before."

"Okay. That just leaves finding Terrany and getting her out of there before they lock the place down and kill her." Rourke moved to the last problem. "That'll be my job."

"No." Telemos disagreed with a hard shake of his head. "That is my job. Yours is destroying that Battlenet relay."

"Hey, she's my wingmate, bub, not yours! If anyone is going to…"

"Can you pass for a Primal soldier?" Telemos retorted, shutting down Rourke's argument before it even got started. "Can you speak our tongue with the fluency they will expect? Do you know how our security systems work, or how to run a search through Primal computer systems? Do you know all the little tells, the tics, the unconscious tricks that Primals possess, and can you perform them flawlessly without thinking about it?" Telemos waited for an answer that everyone sitting there in the ship knew would never come. Rourke bit the inside of his cheek and turned his head away.

Telemos sighed. "No. Only I can do all of those things. It must be me, then, who rescues your comrade. And I will rescue her. You may be assured of that. To redeem my honor, I can do no less."

"Yeah." Rourke mumbled. "I know that. I know that. But it doesn't mean I like it. I should be the one to be there for her."

Telemos cocked his head slightly to the side, puzzled at the sullenness of the wolf.

"You are." He said. He didn't reach out and touch Rourke's arm, or pat his shoulder. There were none of those nonverbal cues, the gentle touches used by the Cornerians used to offer comfort.

But in his own way, Telemos had given reassurance.

Milo couldn't help but chuckle a little. "Okay. So, that's Phase 4. And is there a Phase 5?"

"Phase 5 is we get Terrany and ourselves off of Titania in one piece and make space tracks for SDF held territory. Mission accomplished." Rourke finished, a bit of confidence coming back to him at last.

"You make it sound so easy." Dana teased him.

"It won't be." Rourke admitted.

"But still, we try." Telemos concluded.

Wild Fox

Bridge

All eyes were on Major Carl McCloud as he stepped out of the turbolift. Ordinarily, they'd take notice of him before looking away, but something felt different about him this time around. Nobody paid more than a moment's attention to his mother, who trailed a few steps behind and lingered by the lift doors, hesitant to come farther in. There was an energy and determination he'd not displayed since leading the impossible mission of destroying the Super Saucerer. When he reached the ramp which separated the rear section of the bridge from its front, dividing communications, radar, and operations from command, navigation, and combat systems, he paused, leaning on his cane.

General Grey got up from the command chair, staring at the still freshly promoted wing commander. "Reporting for duty, Major?"

"Seeing as I still don't have a flight status, or an Arwing…yeah." Carl looked around the bridge. ROB was at weapons, silent while his single eye behind the red crystal visor scanned left and right. Hogsmeade was back on duty after a good night's rest, keeping an eye on the radar and the MIDS. Corporal Updraft was sitting at the helm, and his red feathers ruffled a bit as he began to feel the strange energy in the air. Sasha, who'd just taken over communications 20 minutes ago for a weary Woze, snuffled her flattened nose. And then there was a squirrel, Whipman, standing by operations in the middle of performing a routine diagnostic. Some of them were SDF. Some of them were Arspace.

Each one of them was watching him. Waiting.

"General Grey. Did we receive an updated data packet on our target of interest from the CSC?" Carl asked, trying not to pay attention to how dry his mouth felt.

The old wardog readjusted his cap for a bit before answering. "Yes. We haven't had the time to fully look it over yet. And you can guarantee that it's the last favor they'll turn in for us."

"Understood." Carl managed to keep his face impassive. "I have the conn."

Grey stared at him even harder, if such a thing was possible, then got up from the command chair. "You know what you're doing?"

"Sort of. Making some things up as I go along, but I've got the right idea for once."

Grey stepped away and motioned for Carl to take the seat. With everyone standing by, he picked up his cane, grimaced a bit, and steeled himself.

Against doctor's orders, he walked to his post without using his cane. Some of the steps were shaky and shuddering, but he didn't fall. And he didn't falter.

Looking more exhausted than anyone should have after such a simple task, Carl collapsed into the command chair and took a few seconds to catch his breath. When he finally spoke, he directed his voice to ROB.

"Give me shipwide broadcast, ROB."

The robot merely did as he was told, not vocalizing an affirmative. The chirp from the chair's communications console informed Carl that he was active.

"Attention, crew of the Wild Fox. This is Major Carl McCloud. I wanted to take the time to inform you all of our situation, because we're about to do something crazier than usual, and it involves putting both this ship and every soul aboard in jeopardy. But it's for a good reason. The only one worth risking everything for."

Wild Fox

Medical Bay

Dr. Bushtail had been midway through a quick procedure to stabilize a hairline fracture in one of the engineers who'd been unlucky enough to get his arm smashed when a cargo hoverplatform moved a little too fast. Both he and his patient stared at the wall speaker.

"Doc, what the heck's going on?"

"Shut up, boy, I'm listening." Bushtail hissed back at him.

"One of our own we thought dead is alive. My sister, your friend, your comrade, the vulpine who found this ship and gave us all a fighting chance…she's still alive. The Primals faked her death, and they've been hiding her away ever since."

Wild Fox

Engine Room

Garfield, one of the Arspace engineers who'd been tasked by Wyatt to oversee the Impulse Vacuum Drive and make sure that the Wild Fox's unique power core didn't have any hiccups, broke his attention away from the power deviation readings from the last eighteen hours.

"She's…she's alive?" The lynx asked the empty room. Only the gentle hum of the enormously powerful engines answered.

"Two nights ago, we were boarded by a Primal soldier. His name was Telemos Fendhausen, with some long-winded title after it. He was the same Primal who'd lost to my sister on the Venom raid, and his obsession with her aside, he was insistent that she was alive, and that she needed to be rescued. We kept Telemos under wraps while we tried to figure out if he was on the level or not."

Wild Fox

Hangar Bay

Wyatt had been stuck underneath the belly of the Phoenix Starfighter Telemos had flown in with when the announcement started up. He'd tensed up and continued to work when Carl got started, but as soon as he blurted out the presumed status of his sister…the head of Project Seraphim turned Chief Engineer of the Wild Fox and all associated projects had pulled himself out and walked towards the nearest wall speaker.

His silent action hadn't gone unnoticed by the rest of the engineers and techs under his command.

Puffing out his throat pouch as he breathed slow, heavy breaths, Wyatt folded his arms. "Finally made up your mind then, Skip?" He asked under his breath.

"Late last night, the remainder of the Starfox Team pulled Telemos out of his jail cell and set out on a daring, and very risky rescue mission, which involved them heading to Lunar Base and hijacking a captured Primal transport. They're a ways ahead of us now, and likely trying for a stealthy insertion. But this job is too big for them to do alone. We've given them time to get started. I intend to haul our sorry asses after them to Titania, and make sure we finish what we start. My sister is alive, and we're not going to abandon her. She didn't give up on me. Everyone else thought I was dead, but she never stopped believing. I'm ashamed to admit that she does a better job at keeping the moral high ground than I do right now. But that's going to change."

Wild Fox

Cafeteria

SDF personnel and the Arspace and other civilian agents who'd been at odds with each other since the news of the Arspace militarization had been giving the other a wide berth since then, going so far as to segregate themselves during meals. The gap between their rows of tables had seemed to be insurmountable back then. They barely looked at one another. Barely spoke if they could help it. Pugs even started making a lousier version of his usual meals just to snub the SDF crews.

But when Carl started to talk about his own shame, and how things were going to change, it plucked that tense string and set it vibrating. Hearts hardened by the moral outrage, the artificial divisions they'd erected, all of that began to tremble.

Animals who would have only offered scowls at one another slowly began to look across the silent cafeteria towards the others across that wide, insurmountable divide.

"What the SDF did to Arspace…it's unconscionable. Back when we started Project Seraphim, it was hailed, privately, as a mark of great cooperation between public and private interests. Our Seraph Arwings were to be the greatest iteration of the Arwing high performance spacefighter. We were united. You all were. SDF or Arspace, a wardog or a peace bird, none of that mattered. When I went missing and you found yourselves scrambling to prepare for a war that the Lylat System wasn't ready for, you all flourished. I can't take back what the Navy did. And right now, because of this rescue mission, it's very likely that the rest of the SDF will consider us traitors, or at the very least, wild cards. But none of that matters, not now. We've been the tip of the spear since this mess began, and they're not about to shut us down now. They need us, and we need Terrany. So forget it all. From now on, we're not SDF, we're not civilians. We're something more. Something better. Here on out, we make our own declaration about who we are, and what we stand for. We're the best the Lylat System has to offer, and it's about damned time we started living up to that responsibility!"

"Damn right." Corporal Fress, a squirrel who ran the night shift at navigation, uttered from his plate full of undercooked scrambled eggs and burned hashbrowns. "This infighting's stupid. I like Slippy too, and they shouldn't have done what they did."

"Yeah." Gridley, another Arspace technician sitting at the next table over across the divide, spoke up in response. "We've been together for so long, first on Ursa and now here…we're more than colleagues now."

Pugs came up behind Corporal Fress and yanked the pitiful plate of food away, setting down one with perfectly cooked hashbrowns and pristine poached eggs. The chef and unofficial morale officer nodded to the squirrel in his SDF uniform. "We're family."

Wild Fox

Bridge

The tense energy that had been on the bridge since Carl walked on it had been transformed in the long two minutes he had been speaking. Like an atom forced into a higher energy state, everyone was bristling, electrified, waiting to go off.

"Apparently, back when the Primals set foot on Corneria, we were close to losing. The entire system had been paralyzed, the 7th Fleet had been lost, and Corneria City was ready to fall. But then this ship, the Wild Fox, showed up and the X-1 Seraphs all launched. They didn't fly in the name of the SDF. They flew under a new name. On that day, my sister and Rourke decided, together, that they were Team Starfox."

Carl looked around the bridge, and aside from the usual unease from General Grey, saw no hesitation at all. Even when he looked to his mother, a vixen whose nerves had been steadily fraying away since the death of her husband, and the career decisions of her children, he didn't see the stomach gnawing worry. She merely stood straighter and gave him a nod.

"And that's us now. All of us. I don't care if you're a pilot or a mechanic, if you fire the guns or keep the lights from flickering. We are all Team Starfox now. And the first rule about Team Starfox is this: We don't leave our people behind. We're going after Rourke and his flight. We're rescuing my sister from that Primal outpost. And when we've done that, when we've gotten the attention of the SDF, we're going to get Slippy Toad out of jail. Because he is Starfox too."

The bridge was full of grinning faces, but everyone jumped when raucous cheers blasted out of the speakers. Carl turned to ROB, who merely directed them all to look at the main viewscreen.

It displayed camera feeds from all over the ship.

Camera feeds of almost everyone aboard, who served, and who had heard.

All of them were cheering. The cheering quieted, never quite stopping.

Carl realized what ROB had done.

Everyone was hearing everyone else.

The cheering picked up again, but something new began to take its place.

A chant, which had started down in the hangar bay, and was picked up in the cafeteria. From there, it spread everywhere.

Three words that rattled from bow to stern.

"WE! ARE! STARFOX!"

Carl killed his chair's communicator and exhaled. "Nice trick, ROB."

The robot shook his head. "I did not make the speech that unified this ship. That was your doing."

"Then so is this." Carl glanced over to Navigation. "Put us on a direct course for Titania, full FTL speed. I'd use the Portal generator, but we should keep that in reserve for if we need a fast getaway."

"You sure you want to piss off the SDF and all the Cornerian voters still on the fence about whether or not Starfox is a good thing?" General Grey asked Carl, leaning in so he could level the question quietly. "Promising everyone we're going after Slippy?"

"You think I was lying about that?" Carl countered, raising an eyebrow at the general. "You said it yourself. The SDF's probably going to hang us out to dry after this. And let's be honest. They need us to do a job, we're getting paid to do it, and we're only loosely taking orders from them. This ship, and everyone aboard her, have been mercenaries since my sister flew in to Corneria City shouting the family team name. To win this war, I've already made it clear we have to fight it our way. And that means, we don't ask permission to do the right thing, whether that's going after my sister or taking a Primal transport to save her, or busting Slippy out of prison."

Carl paused, noting the fear in Grey's eyes. Of course the old dog would be afraid. This had all the telltale signs of a mutiny. He took a moment to compose himself before he went on. He had to rationalize it. "We're not ruthless. We don't raze civilian targets. We move with shock and awe, and ride on the wave of terror. There is one spacefighter the Primals are afraid of, and that's the Arwing. And of those Arwings, the ones they fear the most belong to Starfox. It's a name we forgot about for a very long time. It died with my grandfather, and I'm proud to use it again. If I have to resign my SDF commission and declare myself a mercenary to do what's right, then that's what I'll do. But I'm hoping that it doesn't come to that. I'm hoping you still feel like there's a place for you here."

"What good's a general without an army?" Grey muttered, reaching for his corncob pipe. He tapped it against his palm thoughtfully.

Carl tilted his head to the side, looking from his mother, to ROB, and then back to the general once more.

"What good is a family without a grandfather?" Carl retorted. "We need you, too."

"For what?" Grey blinked curiously.

Carl pushed himself up and smiled through the grimace as he reached for his cane. "I've said we're doing this. Now we have to figure out how. I can't be expected to have all the brilliant ideas."

"General, Major, we've finished breaking orbit with Katina and are ready to make the FTL jump." Corporal Updraft called from the driver's seat.

The general harrumphed. "Engage. What's our ETA?"

"At subspace velocity, we will arrive at Titania roughly two hours and 45 minutes after our advance team reached planetary orbit." ROB reported, ignoring their own personal travel time and reporting the figure that Carl and the general were the most concerned about.

"Let's hope that's not too late." General Grey sighed.

"They only brought one Arwing and supplies for a ground raid. If I know Rourke, his plan involved stealth and a slow approach at the start, with an explosive finish." Carl explained. He reached down to the armrest of the command chair and tapped the squawk button. "Major Boskins, Captain Hound, and all combat personnel. Report to the conference room."

"Heh. You've stepped in it now, Skip. I guess we all have." Captain Hound answered back. "So we're all Starfox now, then?"

"I imagine you'll want to keep the Squadron name, but yeah. Where it really counts, we're all Starfox." Carl turned off the communicator again and looked to his mother. "We'll get her back, mom. We're going to win this."

"I know you will." She smiled at him, turning for the turbolift doors. "It's in your blood."

Titania

Detention Area Zero

2 Hours and 30 minutes since planetfall

In the darkness, with the detention camp's burning lights throwing shadows off of all the hastily erected buildings and tents, and the more ancient looking ruins besides, the Primal APC which had gone out to investigate the crash site at last returned to the perimeter fence check-in station.

The guard on duty made his way over to the driver's side, and the soldier , keeping his helmet on and the visor down according to Armada regulations, offered a curt nod. When the guard saluted, the officer returned the perfunctory gesture.

"Returning to base." The officer said in a gruff voice. A little too gruff; his throat sounded raw.

"Understood, sir. You might go and get some water and a throat lozenge. Sounds like you got a case of the sand coughs."

"That's my plan." The officer grunted. The guard stepped back and saluted again.

"Welcome back, sir. Proceed."

The vehicle drove into the heart of the Primal's territory on Titania, and the soldier in the passenger's seat up front let out the breath he'd been holding in.

"I hope to Lylus this works." Rourke told Telemos.

"Just stick to the plan." Telemos, the disguised 'Primal officer', hissed back lowly.

The countdown had started, and they were fully aware of it.