STARFOX: SUNRISE OVER LYLAT
By Eric "Erico" Lawson
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: THINGS WORTH LIVING FOR
The Battlenet- The Primals' military (and thus, sole) communications system. The Battlenet uses several advanced subspace radio transceivers called 'Relays' to forward comms chatter, text messages, ship IF/F and sensor data, tactical data, and all other traffic over a large area. Every Relay is a sizable endeavor to allow for the space and machinery necessary for the all-important quantum processing data cores, which limits their deployment to capital ships and ground-emplaced Relay towers. In exchange for this shortfall, the Primal Battlenet also has the ability to intercept and almost instantaneously decode standard encrypted subspace radio transmissions within a relatively short distance, something which gave them the upper hand in military engagements until the Starfox Team began utilizing alternatives.
(From the Personal Journals of Wyatt Toad)
"So Ulie finally got that Primal to open up a little bit while they were piecing his ship back together. He was floored that we had managed not one, but two separate means of communication that their Battlenet techies hadn't been able to account for. As Ulie paraphrased, he called us 'clever little bastards.' Coming from Telemos, that's about as complimentary as it gets."
Deep Space
The Primal Armada
1 Year Before Return to the Homeworld
Three generations of Primals had lived and died since the Lord of Flames had suddenly awoken from his simmering slumber and proclaimed the Great Return to be set in motion. The journey through the massive spiral sea of stars had not been without hardship and incident. There was no time to rest, to resettle, to colonize. What the Primals needed in foodstock, in fuel, in materials, they took from the planets, comets, and asteroids that they passed by. Most places they had found empty. Some had not been. There were no Primals left alive now who had been so when their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers had lit the nuclear furnaces and set their course. The Armada still journeyed, sacrificing blood and treasure for the promise of a lost Homeworld that none had ever set foot on. Never seen.
But now, they were just a year's worth of hard sailing from it all. Telemos Fendhausen, the last living member of the Sixth Noble House of Radiance, hoped it would all be worth it.
Sitting inside of the cockpit of his Burnout atmospheric fighter, Telemos checked his systems one last time. He clicked his radio on instinct. "Tinder 1 to Tinder Squadron. Report status."
"Tinder 2. I stand ready, Telemos."
"Tinder 3. All systems nominal."
"Tinder 4. Good to deploy."
He had three wingmen currently. The Armada's Grandflight had signaled a week ago that they might be adding a fifth slot to Tinder Squadron sometime soon, but Telemos appreciated the balance of a flight of four fighters and was not keen on training up a new squadmate. A year was not so very long a time to learn how to survive in aerial or space combat, and opportunities to fly sorties in the Burnout fighter were rare.
The Burnout shivered a little in its deployment mounts, and Telemos glanced around inside of the dark and cavernous interior of the re-entry shuttle that he and the rest of Tinder Squadron had been loaded up inside of. They must have finally hit the upper atmosphere of the planetoid.
Good. He had waited long enough to prove himself again.
"We will be launching shortly, so let's review the mission." Telemos began. The others held their silence. "Two days ago, our forward scouts took orbital readings of this planetoid and detected sizable deposits of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, as well as other elements necessary for the production of our fuel stores. The first material retrieval team found signs of abandoned mining settlements and no life forms, but automated defense systems came online. Whoever was here before left behind some very nasty toys in the form of shielded surface gun emplacements and aerial drone forces, apparently several degrees more advanced in their programming than our own drones. Our orders after launch are to engage and eliminate the enemy forces as fast as possible. The rest of the Armada will be arriving in two days' time, and there is a second material retrieval ship waiting in orbit for the all clear to begin mining operations." He paused to let the others speak, and took notice of how the shuddering was easing off some.
"If these defense drones are more advanced than our Splinters, has Command placed any emphasis on retrieving an intact fighter?" Tinder 2 asked. Telemos smiled. Lashal always could see through lies of omission.
"Primal Command would surely like to have the opportunity to study one to upgrade our own drone squadrons. However, it was a minor detail in our orders, and I am not willing to risk your lives or my own to fight with one arm held back. If you have a kill shot, you will take it."
"Understood, Captain."
A new signal crackled over their Battlenet radios. "Tinder Squadron, we are twenty seconds from deployment. Ready your thrusters. Signal the all clear after all targets are destroyed."
"Confirmed." Telemos said, and the rest of his team gave double mike clicks to acknowledge as well and keep from cluttering the channel. There was no need to order his squadron to finish preparations. They were well skilled in 'hot drop' operations, because Telemos had trained under the best before him, and he had in turn trained Lashal, Nomen, and Vodari as well as he was able. It was why this mission had been given to them, instead of wasting valuable nuclear fuel on a squadron of Helion starfighters; you used the right tool for the job, instead of reaching for the hammer every time.
There was a momentary lurch as the re-entry shuttle shifted its attitude, and then the enormous doors in its belly split open. Blazing light reflected off of the arid planetoid's surface below shone into the darkened interior, and Telemos squinted his eyes shut. The tinted visor on his helmet helped, but going from total darkness to full daylight took some time to accommodate for regardless.
He throttled his engines from their idle setting to the barest amount of thrust; just enough to make it easy to wind to full power, not so much that he would rattle the mounts still holding him to the shuttle's interior to the breaking point. Just above the open hatch, he watched a series of three lights go from solid red to flashing. Then they went dark.
One went green. Then the second. Then the third. Telemos tightened up on instinct, and the mounting clamps released. He jammed the throttle to full power and the Burnout went from an initial stumbling fall to a full on gallop. As the Burnouts of Tinder Squadron hit the upper edge of the engagement zone, the re-entry shuttle finished its turn, nose pointed spaceward, and pulled away fast from them to the safety of lower orbit.
There would be no retreat for them, no way to escape back to the Armada if they failed. Victory or death. Harsh or unjustly draconian, there was no mistaking that Command understood the meaning of the word incentive.
His threat alarm went off, and Telemos quickly peeled away from his wingmen as they did the same. The resulting split made their rough formation blossom into an odd starburst, but it spared them all from being roasted in a searing blast of high energy plasma that had been hurled up from the surface. It dissipated a kilometer after passing them, Telemos noted as he glanced over his shoulder. They were on the upper edge of that weapon system's range.
"Stay focused." He voiced to his comrades. "This will get worse before it gets better. Don't make yourself a predictable target."
Four separate targets spiraling in towards the target along wavering and unpredictable angles made it difficult for the surface gun emplacements to draw a bead. The absolute speed of the Burnout was another reason why they had been selected for this mission; in atmosphere, the Burnout could reach speeds of four times the speed of sound. Helion starfighters had a slightly more bulky profile to match their dual capabilities and to allow for an FTL drive. Needing only standard propulsion, the Burnout had been built sleeker, giving it greater speed. Telemos had always thought he could defeat any Helion pilot in atmosphere when his Burnout was properly tuned, but he had learned long ago to avoid boasting. Pride always went before a fall. And prideful pilots who questioned the supremacy of the Helion fighter corps seemed to fall often.
The first 15,000 meters of descent were difficult, but not impossible. There weren't any missiles to deal with, thankfully; only the tracer fire of staccato laserfire and plasma mortars.
Telemos clenched up the muscles in his legs, feeling the pressurized cuffs of his flight suit inflate to match. The Burnout had no inertial diffusive system to compensate for G-forces, and the suit and his training kept the blood in his body from draining away from his head. Another sharp turn, full of positive Gs, pressed him flat up against his seat, but he was still able to dance clear of the next salvo sent up after him.
The altitude continued to decrease, and the rate of fire slackened off as their angle of descent took them to a part of the surface twenty kilometers distant from the defense site and out of the guns' reach. The four Burnouts leveled out back into formation, and as their suits relaxed to allow their blood to circulate again, Telemos blinked twice to clear the momentary blurriness from the corner of his eyes.
"Report damage."
"No damage, Tinder 1."
"Good here."
"Didn't even graze me, sir."
Telemos felt a smile creeping up on his features, but it was stilled as he glanced down to his radar display and saw a cluster of new returns coming straight at them from the defense site's bearing. His computer identified 20 separate targets.
"Set all weapons to active and deploy wings." He ordered. "We have company coming."
Each of the Burnouts was a variable wing fighter. The wings had been pulled in close to the fuselage during their rapid descent, but with company incoming, each member of the squadron moved them from a 30 degree angle to the full 90 degree extension, providing them maximum maneuverability during combat.
They pitched up, gaining a slight bit of altitude for maneuvering while still keeping below 2000 meters so the guns couldn't target them. With the distance being eaten up between them, the Burnouts opened up their weapons bays, punching out a pair of NIFT-24 'Slammer' missiles each. The guided rockets screamed ahead of the fast moving jets towards the inbound drones intent on detonating just ahead of them, forcing the drones to fly through clouds of deadly shrapnel.
Instead, the pack separated into four clusters; one group of five going skyward, another five veering left, five more veering right, and the last five coming straight at them still, heedless of the missiles. They started firing wildly towards the inbounds, managing to hit one of the missiles with a lucky shot that crippled five of them. The last three screamed on and hit their targets, leaving only two at the center of the spread out formation…but the other fifteen were untouched, moving in on the Burnouts like a closing fist.
Telemos swore. "Break into teams. Nomen, with me. This is going to get hairy."
Saving their last pairs of Slammers for the hardened targets to come later, Tinder Squadron merged with the enemy drone squadron in a blistering exchange of laserfire. Telemos fought down the bloodlust and rode the wave towards victory.
Subspace
Enroute to Planet Cerinia
Present Day
Telemos blinked several times as he stirred himself out of the small bit of rest his body had demanded. A quick glance out of the canopy revealed the same faintly blue and purple miasma of subspace that had been there when he had given in to his weakness. Breathing in slowly, he reached to one of the buttons on his front console, pushing it just hard enough to stir the backlit toggles from idle, as well as his ship's chronometer.
"Only one hour's passed." Another hour and a half to go before he arrived.
He had been dreaming of a long ago mission, back when they had still been Tinder Squadron. Before they were assigned a fifth wingman. Before they had lost their fifth wingman.
That mission had been difficult. Telemos had suffered more than his fair share of damage, and one laser cannon had been so badly blasted that it had needed to be replaced afterwards. After learning that the alien drones had been programmed to kamikaze if not destroyed outright, they had been forced to neutralize the entire force before moving on to clear the defensive turrets covering the objective. Command had been pleased enough with their performance that by the time they reached the Homeworld, Tinder Squadron had been given the honor of flying home defense patrols instead of being assigned to a forward post.
"We were fine. I was fine." He growled to himself.
But then, Starfox had come. Terrany had come. A perfectly ordered existence, thrown into chaos. Doubts, conflicting evidence. Enemies now friends, his former allies now enemies. And what was he, himself?
"You still don't know, do you, Telemos?" He muttered, as twisted up as ever. Nor was he an 'ally' to Starfox, beyond what had been necessary to rescue the Pale Demon.
But there was blood on his hands still. Cornerian blood, Primal blood. There wasn't a side that he had not caused harm to.
I'm not here to make you a happy, well-adjusted murdering son of a bitch.
He closed his eyes, feeling a familiar pang strike him in a place that he had no armor. He tried not to think about her, the vixen whose fur he had bleached full white in a blind rage. Of course, any such attempts to not think about her were pointless.
He thought about her every day.
Telemos slammed a fist against his leg, using the burst of bruising pain to snap his focus elsewhere.
"They're right about you, you know. You are crazy." Telemos let out a sick little snort after. "Talking to yourself now. And you think this is a good idea."
It was a very bad idea, the more rational part of him knew. He wondered if that simian doctor who had treated him after his arrest had actually been serious about being able to fix the brain damage that the Phoenix's Ghost Drive had apparently caused. 'Synaptic degradation', the term was, if he recalled correctly. Could such a thing be fixed?
The Primals had not been aware of the problem at all. He doubted the medicine of his people could have healed him.
The rest of Phoenix Squadron was still flying them.
He worried about Lashal and the other two. But there was nothing he could do for them here. Now.
The last time he had seen the God in the Machine, the deity had performed a miracle, scorned them all, and then told them to fix their own mistakes.
It was probable he might not come back alive after this. The realization he was fine with that outcome made Telemos Fendhausen again ponder his sanity.
Wild Fox
Hangar Bay
Ulie Darkpaw loved his job. He loved working on planes, working with experimental systems, and having Wyatt Toad for a boss. That being said, playing Assistant Chief Engineer for both Project Seraphim and now the entirety of both the Wild Fox and the Starfox forces came with some significant downsides.
More work than they could ever be done with. Constant repairs, along with new systems R and D. Irregular hours, shifts-and-a-half, double shifts sometimes when the need was more pressing. And lately, it had been hydraulic-level pressing. A sleep schedule that was just as crazed, and which Wyatt didn't help matters with by constantly working himself into exhaustion. They hadn't had to dump him in a tub of water in the past week, but the risk was there, and everyone else felt the need to overperform to emulate their boss.
A distinct lack of regular meals was probably the thing that irritated Ulie the most, but for once, he was getting a break. Pugs Femmick up in the galley, bless that sedate, rounded dog, had taken pity on the engineering teams and sent one of the staff down with a pile of cold cut sandwiches and flavored seltzers. That would have been thoughtful enough, but Pugs had made certain to prepare Ulie a very special sandwich.
Now, sitting in his small, cramped 'office' quarters, Ulie had his feet up on a crate, his cold soda sitting on his desk, and the focus of his momentary happiness clutched tightly in his paws.
Grill-seared fish, still pink in the middle, with garden fresh lettuce, tomato, and a mayonnaise and mustard sauce which made both his mouth and his eyes water. He dug into the first bite and closed his eyes as he chewed through it slowly. Bless that dog.
After washing it down with a swallow of his drink, he readied for a second bite when the door to his private workspace was flung open and Sergeant Milo Granger ducked inside.
The raccoon and the black bear blinked several times, with Milo looking goggle-eyed and Ulie chewing with a resolute determination that his meal would not be ruined.
"You didn't see me. I'm not here." Milo said, closing the door behind him.
Ulie raised both eyebrows as he finally finished working his second bite, then swallowed it down before speaking. "Uh huh. Why's that?"
They both heard footsteps approaching, and Milo tucked himself into the far corner of the room behind a standing three drawer cabinet, out of immediate sight of the door. The raccoon's eyes were wide and pleading.
Ulie rolled his eyes. "I get one decent meal for the first time in a day and a half, and you go and ruin it."
"I'll make it up to you, I promise."
"You'd better, you miserable…" Ulie grumbled, going quiet as a silhouette appeared on the other side of the door.
There was a polite knock, and without waiting for permission to enter, a hedgehog in spectacles opened the door and stuck his head in.
"Hello there. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"My lunch." Ulie growled at him.
"My apologies. I was looking for Sergeant Granger. One of the mechanics said that he'd seen him wandering in this direction."
"I didn't see him. He isn't here." Ulie replied in a clipped tone.
Dr. Lynch just stared at him for a few seconds before sticking his head in a little farther and looking around. Milo tried to duck down out of sight, but it was too late. The hedgehog smiled. "Ah, Sergeant. There you are. One would swear you've been avoiding me."
"Gee. Imagine that." Milo groused, stepping out from his failed concealment. "Can this wait, doc? I'm kinda busy."
"Checking files, no doubt." Dr. Lynch smiled. He glanced over to Ulie. "Would it be all right if we borrowed your office, sir? I need to have a long-overdue conversation with the sergeant, and these things are best done in private."
Ulie growled with enough thunder that it rattled their chests. Stuffing the rest of his sandwich back in its container and closing it up, he picked up his soda and stormed out.
"Nothing sacred about a guy's one good meal, I tell you, I oughta fuckin…"
Milo flinched a little bit as Wyatt's second in command left, thundering even more colorful swear words the entire time. Settling on an irritated look, Milo stared at Dr. Lynch.
"You made him angry."
"I sensed that." Dr. Lynch maneuvered around to sit in Ulie's chair and gestured for Milo to join him. "In any case, I haven't formally introduced myself. My name is Dr. Lynch. I'm a psychiatrist attached to the…well. What used to be the SDF."
Still sour-faced, Milo ignored the offered chair and sat on a cargo crate tucked up against the wall. The distance he put between them did not go unnoticed.
"Lynch, huh? I knew another fella named Lynch." The raccoon finally said, after taking a while to compose a response.
"Oh? Did you like him?" The hedgehog inquired politely.
"Not really. He was a spook."
"Ah." Dr. Lynch said, showing no reaction.
"Oddly enough, I'm not liking you much either."
"I get a lot of flak from others in my line of work, sergeant. It's perfectly all right." Lynch said reassuringly. "In any case, I imagine you know why I'm here. The others on your team were not regular military, but your aversion to seeing me tells me you have a better idea as to my presence."
Milo kept staring at him, providing several seconds of silence that should have been uncomfortable. Unfazed by the silent treatment, Dr. Lynch continued to sit and wait, smiling politely the entire time.
"Psych evals." The raccoon eventually bit out. "To see if we're crazy, or if we've gone crazy. Assuming you're legit."
"Have a shingle on my wall and everything, sergeant." Milo rolled his eyes at that, and Lynch pressed on. "There is legitimate cause for concern, given how you and the Starfox Team have been on the front lines of this war since even before the invasion. I have already spoken with a few members of your team back at the McCloud household. Even relaxing, there was much to discuss. Not that I can comment in detail; doctor patient confidentiality, you know." Milo grunted, and Lynch went on. "Everyone else on your team left to take some vacation, sergeant. But you stayed here, on base. On the Wild Fox."
"Yeah? Maybe everything I need to relax is here." Milo challenged him.
"Or everyone." Dr. Lynch replied innocently. The defiant stare the raccoon had fixed on him deepened into a full burning scowl, and the hedgehog shifted in his seat slightly. "Relax. I'm not judging."
"You noticed, though. Nobody else has."
"People see what they want to see. They look at you and see an old soldier. It defines you, and they throw out everything else unnecessary."
Milo rolled his eyes again, and Dr. Lynch removed his glasses, reaching for a clean rag to wipe them with. "Okay. Change of topic. Of everybody on the Starfox Team, you're the only one who had absolutely no experience in fighter aircraft or spacecraft before Project Seraphim. In reviewing the records available to me, there seemed to be two main factors responsible for the decision in bringing you on board; your viability as a candidate for this 'Merge Mode' technology, and your previous military service. Carl McCloud wanted Rourke O'Donnell on the team. The compromise General Grey insisted on was that he got the next pick. And he went with you."
"The point. Get to it, doc."
"Right. The point is that in spite of the questionable recruitment, you have become a very important member of this team. You may not be the one in command, but by choice or design, there is a role you fit into nicely. They always look to you for advice. Wisdom. You became their center of reason."
"Can't imagine why." Milo muttered, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.
Lynch offered up another point. "They say old soldiers look for one last battleground to die on."
Milo chuffed. "Do I look old?"
"Compared to the rest of the team?" Dr. Lynch lifted an eyebrow.
"Hm. What makes you think I'm looking to die?"
"A feeling. It's…hard to put into words."
"Try."
"You always pretend nothing bothers you? Even when it does?"
Milo didn't angle his head back down, but Dr. Lynch could see the raccoon's eyes track down to him slightly. "How would you know that?"
The hedgehog frowned. "They found you drinking yourself to death in a Papetoon saloon. I'd call that a cry for help."
Milo paused for another long stretch before folding his arms. "I went there for the waters."
"Most of Papetoon is a desert."
"I was misinformed."
"I think you moved there because you felt guilty about what you did during the Insurrection."
"And I suppose I'm conflicted about what we're doing now?"
Lynch finished cleaning his glasses and put them back on. "No. I don't think you are. I think you're enjoying this. As much as anyone can."
"Aha. So I like killing then. Setting me up for a Section 8 already?"
"Sergeant, I'm not…" Dr. Lynch started, a little more flustered than he had intended to be. The hedgehog paused and took a moment to collect his thoughts. "My point is, you exude leadership."
"Sure I do."
"You never brag. You're quiet. You know what it means to take a life. To fight. To sacrifice. Even if they never voice it, they feel it. There is nothing false or boastful about you."
"Hm. Wouldn't be how I'd put it."
"And how would you put it?"
Milo finally tilted his head back down and smiled grimly. "It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for."
Dr. Lynch laughed softly. "I've heard that too." A companionable silence followed
Milo exhaled slowly. "You think that I'm out here to find a good place to die. You're wrong. I would personally love it if we all lived through this. But…if the fates demand a life, better mine than any of theirs. And you can be sure that I'll take as many Primals with me as I can before I go."
"To make the value of your death worth it?"
"Nah. My death isn't worth that much. I just like the idea of there being more deserving kills in my ledger than questionable ones." Milo and Dr. Lynch stared at each other for a while longer before Milo got up. "Anyhow. If it's all the same to you, I'm going to head out. You should leave Ulie's office soon as you can. He's touchy about his private time, and you just stomped all over it."
"We're not done yet." Dr. Lynch protested.
Milo harrumphed, already opening the door. "Yeah, we are."
Dr. Lynch watched him walk off, leaving the door open. The hedgehog waited until he couldn't discern the raccoon's footsteps from the rest of the noise going on, then smiled and pulled out a small datapad.
"He's a pistol, all right." Lynch murmured to himself.
Primal Command Carrier Ironforger
Macbeth Orbit
Justicar Kroff.
Days after that promotion had been awarded to him by the Tribunes, circumventing the usual advancement procedures within the Armada, Dauns Kroff still had trouble responding to that more impressive title. A Praetor was assigned command of a single combat formation; capital ships, support vessels, and fighters.
Justicars told Praetors what to do, and determined overall strategy in larger military engagements. The title meant nothing to Kroff, as he had always been focused on tactics. It just meant that now, his strategies were more than a passing fancy. There was weight to them. Heft to his orders.
The door to his quarters chimed, and Justicar Kroff set down the book he'd been reading. "Enter." He ordered, smiling as he anticipated the Primal on the other side of it.
The fellow who came in wore a captain's rank insignia on the lapel of his uniform and looked sorely out of place as he stepped into the finery of Kroff's quarters. There was a rough shine to his outfit which bespoke of a hasty cleaning, and the presence of particulates that resisted such efforts; all too common an occurrence for transport captains.
The fellow stopped five paces out and came to attention. "Captain Mausleff, reporting as ordered, Justicar Kroff."
Kroff returned the salute and gestured to the empty chair across from him. "We can leave out the formalities, Golitz. Call me Dauns."
"If…if you insist. Sir." The transport captain answered uneasily, settling into his chair with the posture of someone who fully expected to have to jump back out of it again. He waited for Kroff to continue, and at length, the Justicar did so.
"You must have some idea as to why I have summoned you here."
"To demote me, I imagine."
Kroff blinked. "Demote you? For what reason?"
"For cowardice in the face of the enemy over Titania." Mausleff went on, biting the words out. Kroff fought off the urge to growl himself for a different reason. Coward was one of the worst things you could call another Primal, and after the debacle that saw the traitor Telemos Fendhausen lead a raid against the Primal's secret prison facility there, there had been plenty of blame and shade to throw around. Fendhausen took the worst of it, but Mausleff's bitterness confirmed what Kroff had suspected; even without any formal charges brought to bear, the tactical retreat Mausleff had ordered his ship into after the Arwing had destroyed the only offensive orbital elements present had exposed him to ridicule.
As a mere Praetor, there had been little he could have done about it.
A Justicar, however, shifted the winds.
"Hardly." Kroff snorted, and to this, Mausleff looked up in wonder. "No, Golitz. What the other honor-obsessed and foolhardy elements within our Armada consider 'cowardice' represents something else entirely to me. After seeing the Creosote destroyed in moments after engaging with the Arwing, you ignored the orders of the Flashpoint's captain to hold on station, and instead chose to retreat, sparing your ship and your crew a pointless death. There was no fighting chance, no point in risking your lives in that situation. What you could do, you did. You provided warning to the Armada about the presence of an Arwing and a raid in progress. What followed was through no fault of your own. Winning this war against Starfox and their accursed Arwing fighters will require new methods of fighting, new strategies and tactics…and a new set of operational principles."
"I…thank you, Dauns." The transport captain rubbed a little at the fur on his chin. "What did you intend? Surely you cannot mean to ask me to become a part of your command authority."
"Not directly, no." Kroff admitted. "That would raise too many eyebrows, especially among the Elites. But, I believe you were meant for greater things than serving as captain aboard an unnamed supply freighter. I reviewed your scores in piloting, tactics, and command; you were ranked very high. It was only your status as a commoner Primal and your unwillingness to follow along blindly that saw your star pushed so low."
Golitz Mausleff sat up a little straighter, leaned forward slightly. "Sir?" He said eagerly.
Justicar Kroff chuckled. "Eager. Good." He reached for a datapad and handed it over to the junior officer. "The shipyards at Macbeth have been hard at work rebuilding our weakened Armada. They just completed the final stages of construction on an Ignan-class frigate; the Hellbringer. It has been assigned to one of the battle groups under my command. Your orders, Captain Mausleff, are to take command of this ship and crew it from available personnel. I am giving you full control of your pick in junior grade officers."
Mausleff swallowed hard. "I did…I did not think this would ever come to pass."
"You're wise enough to acknowledge when defeat is imminent and to flee out of harm's way. Only a fool stays to die needlessly." Kroff's eyes darkened. "I have seen enough fools die in this short, brutal war of reclamation. We must take a page from our Cornerian enemies and learn to be survivors." He paused for a few moments, waiting, and then when Mausleff still hadn't said anything, forced the issue. "Do you accept this command?"
"Oh. Yes. Yes, sir. I gladly accept command of the ship, Justi…apologies. Dauns." Captain Mausleff worked his closed jaw, considering his next words carefully. "If I might ask, what station will the Hellbringer be supporting?"
"You will be assigned as an escort for the 7th Group's Logistics division." Kroff explained. Mausleff raised an eyebrow, but the Justicar continued before he could interrupt. "I know what you're thinking. You've been on convoy duties with the 7th already, especially that last one. However, if I were to assign you to a different post around a priority defense zone, your career would consist of readiness checks, followed by a very harrowing experience dealing with Starfox whenever they get off their asses and decide to start getting messy again, which you might not live through depending on the overall strategy promoted by your local Praetor. As escort for transports, you have significantly more leeway in your strategy, especially in regards to deploying available assets in combat situations. You have demonstrated initiative. I want to cultivate that. You just need the right environment to thrive in." Kroff blinked twice. "Now. Any questions?"
Mausleff only had one. "When do I leave?"
"Immediately." Kroff gestured to the datapad in Mausleff's hands. "Your officer candidates are on a database stored there for your convenience. You have three days to review the options and make your selections; this includes any face to face interviews or Battlenet communiques you care to hold."
"I'd better get started then." Mausleff stood up and saluted his superior. "Thank you, Justicar Kroff. I won't let you down, sir."
"Impress me, Golitz." Kroff smirked.
Planet Cerinia
The subspace rupture that permitted the stealth Starfighter back into the realm of normal space was small in comparison to the ones produced by the shuddering wake of larger ships. Telemos found that to be little comfort as his retros fired and he followed his HUD's instructions to slip the Phoenix into a high orbiting track over the dead world. No matter how small the burst of energy was, there was still a powerful presence that inhabited Cerinia. He doubted he could have hidden from it, even with the capabilities of the Phoenix.
Then again, he hadn't come here to hide. After a stable orbit had been achieved, Telemos narrowed the broadcast strength of his subspace transceiver so the signal would degrade after 100,000 kilometers. Fine enough for it to reach the surface, not so far that any Primal assets scouring the Fichina-Sargasso corridor would come snooping around for him.
He still hesitated for a long while before he worked up the nerve to transmit.
"This is Telemos Fendhausen. I have come to seek an audience with the God in the Machine, Andross." He released the button and waited. Ten seconds. A minute.
Ten minutes. Long enough for even the patience of the disgraced Primal to come to an end. He punched the squawk button again, and this time his voice carried far less reverence.
"I know you can hear me. I know you watch the skies, that you listen to everything, that you can take control of any ship who strays into orbit. I need to speak to you."
A blur of light outside of his ship's reinforced canopy nearly blinded him, and when it cleared, a small metallic orb about a meter in diameter was hovering close, keeping pace with his orbital velocity. From it came projected photons that took on the shape of an all too familiar face, arranged on the tinted canopy like it was a visual monitor.
The voice came through the Phoenix communications system. It should have terrified Telemos. He confined it to a small shiver.
"What made you think I wanted to speak to you?"
Telemos shook his head. "I need answers. Advice."
"And you come to me."The voice of the entity within a machine snorted. "There is nothing I could say that would help you, Primal. I have nothing left but bitterness and broken ambitions."
"Then you know my pain." Telemos deadpanned. The projected head, which had been standoffish, spun very slowly until it could look at Telemos straight on.
Telemos felt that presence watching him more than he sighted it. He swallowed hard before he went on. "I feel like I am torn between two places. Or that I am two people. I threw my career away on an obsession with Terrany. A need to either die at her hands or prove myself her better. When I was wrongfully imprisoned, the only thing that saved me was learning she still lived. It gave me something to live for. Now I am not only wrongfully convicted, I am a traitor who has killed his own people to save a single enemy pilot. She rests, at home, still lost inside of herself. There is no place for me there. Or with the Cornerians. Or with my own people now. If you told the truth…If we were…are…"
"Slaves." Andross finished. His image had yet to blink, and it was unnerving. "I was feared. Reviled. Hated. I never lied. Never."
Telemos shook his head. "I am lost."
"Lost enough to return here, when I told you all to let the dead rest."
"And you are dead?" Telemos countered. "Because from where I sit, you have been through an Apotheosis."
"Given who your people claim fealty to, your definition of godhood seems to be very loose." Andross declared. "Enough. I have better things to do than bandy with you. You will get one question before I set you wandering again."
Telemos shut his eyes. "What do I do now?" He asked.
"Be specific."
"How do I save my people? How do I preserve my honor when Terrany McCloud cannot fight me?"
"That is two questions. I will only give you half an answer for both." The holographic head turned sideways slightly, concentrating. "Before you can save them, they must first know what they need to be saved from. And as for your honor, Telemos Fendhausen, if it requires you to fight her again, what do you need to do to make her able to fight?"
Neither answer was satisfactory to Telemos, especially since the second was just a question. Still, it was something. He finally nodded, and the head of the God in the Machine nodded him off dismissively.
"You know what you need to do, Primal. You know why. You only need to do it."
"If I knew what my next steps were, Andross, why did I come here to seek you out?" Telemos rasped.
"Because you mistakenly believe you need permission, or an order, to do what is necessary. And you think I can give you that absolution." The eyes in the head narrowed. "Act in your own name for once, Telemos. Only then will you have a clear conscience."
The holographic projection on his canopy blinked out, and the sphere hovering by the starfighter's canopy vanished in the shimmer of an optical cloak, or something even more impossible.
His audience with Andross at an end, Telemos lit up the trio of thrusters at the back of his Phoenix and spun the ship out of orbit. He had all of his long flight back to Katina to consider the God in the Machine's words, and his complaining bladder urged him to waste no time sitting uselessly in orbit.
Deep in his chest, however, the exiled Primal felt something stir in the ruins of his heart. A fire quenched in shame and disgrace was coming back to life.
The cryptic words of Andross were like dry kindling thrown onto the embers.
Wild Fox
Elevator
Dr. Lynch, by virtue of his papers, had been given the full run of Deckmore AFB with no questions asked along with a very 'persona non grata' vibe. The hedgehog, having spoken with Sergeant Granger, now turned his attention for the AI which presumably was sitting up in the Medical Bay; there had been no sign of KIT down in the hangar bay, and as busy as the technicians had been, a sense of self-preservation had forced him away from the noise and the heavy machinery.
It wasn't until the humming and inertia of the moving elevator both stilled that Dr. Lynch tensed up and recalled that there was a second real AI on board the Wild Fox that might not appreciate his presence.
As it came to rest between decks, he glanced up towards a camera tucked in the corner of the lift. "Hello? ROB?"
"I determined that we should talk."
"So you did stop the lift. You're the ship's onboard AI."
"That is correct, Dr. Lynch. My identity is not falsified." The eery monotone of the AI's voice added emphasis by raising that one word by about five decibels; just noticeable enough.
Lynch smiled, masking the sudden unease he felt. Trapped in a box, inside of a ship, with a hostile AI holding him captive. "I should have known I couldn't put one over on you."
"What is your purpose here?"
"To talk. Did you think I came here to harm anyone?"
"If you had, you would not have cleared the checkpoints alive." ROB answered smoothly.
Lynch removed his glasses. "I believe you. You and the crew did manage to prevent that SDF-led coup rather effectively."
"Not effectively enough. It was an unnecessary distraction that slowed our reaction times, and prevented us from saving Corneria."
"Starfox saved Katina, though." Lynch blinked. "But I understand what you mean. For an AI, you possess a very complex interactional matrix."
"I have been online for the better part of a century. You seek to measure the Starfox Team's operational readiness, I understand. I would suggest you conclude your efforts quickly."
"I get it. Your ship, your home, and I'm trespassing. I'm just following orders."
"The only ranking military personnel who could assign such orders, MONARCH, are aboard this ship and unaware of your presence." When Lynch blinked at the revealed codename, ROB pressed on. "Pursuant to his battlefield promotion, General Grey received command authorization and a compressed datastream of SDF files before Corneria City was wiped out. EMERALD personnel data was included in it."
"I regret that there was no training in psychoanalyzing an AI."
"You are making an attempt regardless. However, KIT is not a 'True' AI. Something you are well aware of."
"I wasn't talking about KIT. I was talking about you." Lynch clarified, earning his first period of silence from the ship's hardwired AI. "You're very protective of everyone on board. Like they were family. That interests me."
Still, ROB said nothing. Lynch stared at the camera in the ceiling thoughtfully until boredom forced him to speak up again. "I take it by your silence you don't want to talk."
The elevator started moving again, which, Lynch supposed, was as good an answer as any other.
When the doors finally opened on the deck that housed the Medical Bay, Dr. Lynch adjusted his glasses and stepped off. "Lovely speaking with you." He remarked glibly, earning a slightly puzzled stare from a badger who had been waiting to get on.
ROB, wherever he really was on board the ship, seemed to want nothing more to do with him.
Primal Transport
Enroute to Deep-Ear Outpost
Zoness
Nomen and Vodari had both been less than enthusiastic about their new posting, but they had a benefit that Lashal lacked. They were unattached. To the younger members of Phoe—Tinder Squadron—the reassignment to Zoness meant a loss of honor and future achievements. A distinct lack of entertainment, and the few cultural vices allowed them.
But Lashal Orrek was not unattached, and the two largest reasons for his compliance in this humiliation were on board the transport as well. His wife Marena and his young son Selim sat far behind himself and his two co-pilots. There were also a trio of Primal technicians further ahead who had come along with them to relieve the staff on board the base, and they kept to themselves.
Lashal glanced at the chronometer over their heads, then unstrapped himself and moved back to be with his mate and his child. Marena looked up in surprise as he stepped back towards them, and she fingered her golden collar. The entire flight, she and Selim had had to keep quiet.
"To hell with how it looks." Lashal muttered bitterly, sliding in the empty seat in their row. He held out a hand to his son, and Selim quickly grabbed hold of it. Barely two years old, and yet so brave in the face of the unknown. This entire trip was something that he'd had no chance to prepare his family for, and it was a miracle that he hadn't gone into a full crying fit.
Marena searched his face worriedly. When she spoke, it was in a bare whisper that hardly got off the ground and forced Lashal to strain to hear it. "Why did they send us here?"
"Because of the captain." Lashal told her quietly. He could feel the gazes of his wingmates on them, and found for once that he didn't care about how inappropriate it looked. This was his wife. His son. They deserved answers, regardless of their military clearance. Besides, he was already exiled to the sticks. Command could hardly punish him any worse.
"We are…tainted by association. Myself, Nomen, Vodari. We've had our fighters taken from us. Our status returned to where we were a year ago." He must have sounded even more miserable, for he felt Selim give his hand a squeeze with his own chubby little mitt. The gesture made Lashal smile a little, and continue on. "It isn't ideal. It wasn't what you were promised, either of you. I cannot give you back what we lost, not anytime soon. I am sorry for it. You both deserve more than this…banishment."
Marena Orrek quickly shook her head, dismissing his apology. Her hand came out, squeezing the hand of her son and her husband. "We're together. They could have sent you by yourself. Left us to wonder and worry."
Lashal exhaled. They could have. They would have. There but for the grace of Grandflight Valmoor Gatlus interceding on his behalf.
"That we are." He conceded, releasing their hands. As an afterthought, he began to strap himself in. His wife gave him another surprised look and he shrugged. "Let them think what they want." And then he stared ahead to the rest of the cabin, daring anyone to challenge the audacity of sitting by a female and his offspring instead of with his fellow pilots. The engineers stared for four seconds before shifting their gazes nervously.
Nomen and Vodari looked at him for a bit longer, then looked at each other, and made a decision of their own. They both got up from their seats, walked back, and sat in the row behind Lashal and his family.
"What the hell." Nomen muttered, tapping the back of Lashal's seat. "We fly or fall together. Right, sir?"
Lashal shut his eyes and smiled. Perhaps there was hope for the unit yet, even without Telemos. "Absolutely."
Wild Fox
Medical Bay
Dr. Bushtail and Dr. Lynch stared each other down for a good half minute with neither talking. The entire time, Nurse Ermsdale flopped her ears and glanced between them, waiting for the inevitable fit from her superior. 'I need to speak with KIT' was a whopper of an opening. Insisting on it after Dr. Bushtail had informed him that the AI was offline and stuck in a cube while they waited to see if another Seraph could be built to house him properly had been where she'd drawn in a breath and made ready to duck the fireworks.
Bushtail instead went for the reasonable route, getting a look of surprise from his subordinate. "Tell me. As a psychiatrist, what exactly are you hoping to learn from him?"
"I haven't yet been able to interview and assess Terrany, and it seemed like a good idea to speak to the AI who she'd been sharing brain space with for weeks before I got around to that." The hedgehog answered. "Are you sure that you can't arrange for me to speak with KIT first? I'm assuming you can bring him back online."
Bushtail sighed. "I've had other things to worry about."
"Are you punishing him for his role in her fate?" Lynch pressed.
There was almost a snap in Bushtail's neck as his head swiveled back around to Dr. Lynch in a single move. The simian's paws flexed and unflexed twice before he coughed and regained his voice.
"If I wanted to punish him, I'd wake him up, leave him stuffed in a computer with no external access ports, and stuff the computer in a storage closet after I tore his head off."
"Ouch." Lynch blinked through his glasses. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."
"Too late, sport." Bushtail muttered. "As it is, that's exactly what you're planning to do. But maybe he does deserve it. Nurse, get the flagging sphere he's stowed in."
Dr. Lynch took a step back. "Now, hold on a minute…"
Bushtail was having none of the hedgehog's nonsense, and shuffled across the floor to go nose to nose with the psychiatrist while she dug through his desk drawers. "You want to talk to him, you're gonna get to talk to him. If you don't want to, then you can get the hell out of my office. Take your Creator-frigging pick."
"…Under the circumstances, I will speak with him."
"Good. Lydia!" Bushtail snapped out her name, and she hopped forward, quickly dumping the Andross-supplied 'KIT Sphere' into his waiting palm. Well aware of just how pissed off he sounded and looked, he exhaled and threw her a sympathetic glance. "Nurse Ermsdale, why don't you take 15 minutes? Go grab a coffee, relax. You've earned the break, I think."
"Yes, doctor. Will you be all right?"
The simian snorted at that. "Get on, you worrier." Accepting the answer, if not entirely convinced, she scooted out of the Medical Bay, leaving Dr. Bushtail and Dr. Lynch alone.
Producing a datapad, Dr. Bushtail slid the sphere's data access tab into a matching port. "ROB, I could use a little help here. Activate our patient and bring him up to consciousness, then lock all external access on this datapad. I don't want him getting ideas and running around the ship's systems."
"Understood, doctor. Two digital presences in the ship's DataNet would be crowded." ROB chimed in after a second's delay.
Left with nothing to do but wait, Dr. Bushtail stared at the screen of the datapad, eyeing the small pinhole aperture at its top that held the camera. A window to the outside world. The blue sphere of latticed metalwork began to shine brighter after a while, and he steeled himself.
"Uhhh." Unheard for weeks, the voice of KIT emanated from the datapad's tiny speakers, making him sound like death warmed over. "I'm…This isn't…Terrany?" A pause. "Doc?" He finally sounded worried just then. "Doc, where the hell am I?"
Stuck in an alien datadrive connected to a medical datapad." Bushtail gritted out.
"Terrany?"
"Recovering. Elsewhere."
"I saw Andross. Holy shit, I saw Andross! Is he…"
"Not a factor." Dr. Bushtail cut him off sharply. "As it stands, Terrany's a scrambled mess. And whose fault is that, hmm?"
"…Doc…"
"Was it worth it?" The simian snapped at the blank screen. "The damage you've done to her brain…As long as you two were Merged…It was beyond me. If we hadn't stumbled across the wrecked shell of Andross in the heart of Cerinia, you two would have been fused and useless. We would have never gotten her back. Hell, we still don't have her back!"
"I didn't…"
"Save it." Dr. Bushtail handed the datapad off to Dr. Lynch. "I don't want to hear it. But someone else does. This is Dr. Lynch. He's a psychiatrist, apparently he's going around talking to folks connected to the Starfox Team. He's the only reason you're not sleeping the years away in my desk drawer, you coward." He glanced over to Lynch, finally off camera. "When you're done with him, leave the datapad on my desk. He can stew for a while. I'm going for coffee." Then Bushtail stormed out of the room, leaving Lynch to stare at the datapad and its camera.
"I take it he doesn't like you much."
KIT snorted at that. "We were never on really good terms to begin with."
"Is it true? That you're actually not a real AI? That you—"
"You can call me Falco, if it makes it easier." KIT sighed. "I may not have the feathers anymore, but I never lost the attitude."
"Heh. Well, all right. Falco it is then." Dr. Lynch smiled and adjusted his glasses. "It isn't often that one gets to speak to a legend. I mean, Slippy Toad is still alive, but you were Fox's right hand animal. And it was something of a surprise when everyone learned who you really were. A ghost masquerading as a combat AI."
"They got over it fast enough. Kind of had to. We had bigger drama than the fact I used to have a brain instead of a hard drive."
"Did you and Slippy ever get a chance to…catch up?"
"Once." KIT mused sadly. "He cried a lot. I wasn't quite myself either. That slippery bastard's turned into a real stubborn wart in his old age. But then, given where he started, I guess he had nowhere to go but up."
"What's it like? Being an AI?" Lynch went on, curious. "I mean, right now, you're stuck in a box. And before Project Seraphim got started up, you were in a box then too. And then you were in an Arwing. Or at least, its memory banks."
"Quiet, mostly, and dark. When you're awake." KIT answered. "The whole idea behind the Seraph Arwing was to give a pilot the ability to Merge with his fighter in a way only ever dreamed of. Unfortunately, I'm a custom fit. Didn't get along with any of the original test pilots, including Terrany's big brother. They mothballed me after too many failed attempts, went with those knockoff ODAIs. I was rotting in a dark hangar for a long time before Terrany showed up."
"And when you were Merged with her?"
"Right now, it's like I'm in a dark room. Same as it always is. Got a window to the world, small right now. But when I'm with her, it's all lit up. A massive white room, with all the screens and data you'd ever be able to shake a stick at. And her, side by side with me while we decided how to move. How to fight. How to win."
Lynch nodded. "Then…the rescue mission. Beyond the Rim. You got jumped by a Primal fighter squadron who'd been waiting for you all. I'm not too caught up on the details of how this 'Merging' works, but I think you did something that wasn't supposed to happen."
"Yeah. We disengaged the safeties. The five minute limiter. It…it's something they put in after the first trials with me. A way to keep the pilots from frying their brains out. Because when you're Merged, you're not using just ten percent of your brain at any given time. It's all lit up. Their brain becomes a second, more powerful processor, while the neural interlink allows them to move and fight at the speed of thought. With their AI. In Terrany's case, with me. If we'd let five minutes be the end of it, we would have lost. Bad. So we kept the pressure on. We kept fighting past that five minute limit. And then the Primal reinforcements showed up, and…"
"You two went for the sacrifice play." Lynch concluded. "The Seraph got shot out from underneath you. You were still Merged. The ship was going dark."
"And I jumped into her brain. Completely." KIT sounded completely miserable. Guilty.
"You were there with her the entire time. Through the entire period of her captivity." Lynch surmised. The psychiatrist, tired of standing, went into Bushtail's private office and sat down, leaning the datapad against the monitor so he could have both paws free while keeping himself visible to KIT. "I have wondered about that."
"It's…it's not something you want to hear about." KIT whispered.
"No." Lynch readily agreed with a shake of his head. "You're right. I don't want to hear about it. But I need to. I need to understand you. I've talked to Rourke, and Milo, and Dana, even Telemos, but…"
"TELEMOS?! Wait a minute…I…I thought I saw him. That wasn't a dream?"
"No." Dr. Lynch said. "No, he was vital in the operation that rescued you, Terrany, and nearly two full squadrons of Arwing pilots from a Titania prison camp. His status is…uncertain at the moment."
"I think he's a nutcase."
"He is troubled, but there is a certain clarity in his motivations. But I wanted to learn more about yours today, before I speak with Terrany."
"How is she, doc?"
"Sequestered. Back at her family home, here on Katina. But you're changing the subject, Falco." Lynch removed his glasses, set them down on the desk and leaned forward, squinting at the datapad's camera. "Why did you go with Terrany? Hitch a ride onto her brain? Nobody thought that was possible."
"We have a habit of redefining 'possible' on the Starfox Team." KIT offered. "As it was, I turned out to be…helpful. They tried so many things to break her. I was there with her the entire time. It was different than being Merged in the Arwing. Less…controlled, I guess. It got harder to figure out where I ended and she began. But she was losing it. Torture. Drugs. The stuff they did, doc, she wasn't going to live through it. So I pushed her down. Rose up myself. Took it."
Lynch blinked several times. "You're saying…there was a mental tug of war? For control of her body? Consciousness?"
"Something like that. It wasn't like flipping a switch. She started pulling back. Pulling away. Like she wanted to die, just to get away from it. But I was there, so she went deep and I…took over. I'm not sure what she remembers. I hope she blanked it all out. I hope I was the only one who has to deal with what they did to her. Us."
Lynch nodded slowly, digesting that crucial detail. "You haven't answered my question."
"I thought I did, doc."
"No. My question was not how you landed in Terrany's brain, or what you did while you were inside of her. My question was why."
Silence at last from the ruminating digital consciousness. Lynch waited him out.
"You know why, doc." KIT exhaled miserably. "What did Bushtail say?"
"Falco, Dr. Bushtail was angry." Lynch reasoned.
"He wasn't wrong." KIT rebuked him. "He called me a coward."
"Do you feel like a coward? The most skilled pilot in the Lylat Wars?" Lynch asked.
"Years ago, I was old and dying. Cancer. So I made a decision. My promise to Krystal about her son, her grandson…That was after the fact. Just an excuse. Terrany hadn't even been born yet when I went under for the procedure. It's excuses. Years, I've been feeding myself excuses. I was afraid, doc. I was afraid of dying. Fox died. Krystal's dead. Slippy's got one foot in the grave, and Peppy kicked the bucket when he saw the writing on the wall about Corneria's ambitions. Death came for me again when we were ambushed rescuing Carl, and I flinched. So yes. I am a coward. I'm so afraid of dying, I gave up on living."
Dr. Lynch reached for his glasses, put them back on. Folded his hands. Stared at the datapad. "So what do you do now?"
"What can I do now?" KIT scoffed. "If I ever get the chance…tell her I'm sorry. Tell everyone I'm sorry. And try to make penance for all the pain I've caused."
The hedgehog hummed thoughtfully. "Seems like a recipe for living to me."
McCloud Household
Katina
45th Day of the Primal War
Early Evening
Invisible to standard radar and radio silent as it was, the Phoenix Starfighter belonging to Telemos Fendhausen was not whisper-quiet, nor did it camouflage well in the mid-afternoon sun of Katina. He had picked up the comms chatter and knew without a doubt that the Cornerian satellites in orbit had detected his approach; first from the spike of energy that came with dropping out of FTL through a subspace rift, and again by the technosorcery the Cornerians possessed in abundance.
Undoubtedly, the local authorities would be receiving frantic communications shortly, because it was apparently frowned upon for warplanes to come in and land in the middle of city streets in front of houses. Telemos took it as a source of pride that he had managed to do so without scraping the wings against any trees, although there were some shrubs and gardens that were the worse for wear from the wash of his landing repulsors when he settled down on the Phoenix's landing struts. It was an impressive feat of aerial maneuvering that merited congratulations, but even as his thrusters whined down, he could tell by the look on the face of Rourke O'Donnell, storming out of the house, that he wasn't likely to receive it.
"What in the hell were you thinking?!" Rourke demanded. Telemos cut him off by raising a hand up towards his face.
"Bathroom." The Primal growled out, making his first priority after landing clear. Agitated as he was, Rourke didn't refuse the thinly veiled request and stepped aside. Telemos grunted and walked into the house. The necessity of rest breaks after long flights. Apparently it was a universal trait among combat pilots.
Two blissful minutes later with the sound of a flushing toilet echoing in the house, Telemos stepped out of the downstairs restroom. Rourke was still there and glowering at him, but now he heard the sounds of chattering animals outside, and the shrill voice of Dana as well, shouting at them, "Everyone can relax! It's nothing to worry about, just another Arspace prototype. No, Mr. McAllister, you don't need to call the police! HEY, KID, DON'T YOU DARE CLIMB THAT FRICKING…"
"You didn't wash your hands." Rourke insinuated, sniffing the air. Telemos stared back at him, and Rourke let the barb slide for more pressing questions. "Mind telling me what you've been doing with that Starfighter we had stored in the Wild Fox to throw off the curious? And why you thought it was a good idea to land it smack dab in the middle of suburbia?"
"Coming to a decision." Telemos replied. "I'm taking Terrany with me." He started for the stairs, but Rourke's arm snapped out sideways, blocking his path. As if by magic, Mrs. McCloud apparated out of the kitchen along with Carl, and all three stared at him with sudden menace.
"Yeah, no. Not happening." Rourke drawled back.
Telemos narrowed his eyes. "Is she herself again?"
"…No. Which is why we have to…"
"Do you want her back to how she used to be?" Telemos cut the wolf off sharply.
"Does a bear shit in the woods?"
"I wouldn't know." Telemos answered, missing the sarcasm. "Do you want her back to how she was or not?"
"Yes, okay? Yes."
"Then step aside and let me take her."
Carl moved closer, his initial wave of panic replaced with curiosity at the Primal's cold insistence. "Take her where, exactly?"
"Home."
Carl and Rourke both blinked, but only the wolf seemed to catch on. Terrany's brother opened his mouth to question him again, and Rourke spoke up first. "Can you fit anyone else in that jet of yours?"
"No. It's a single seater."
"Then I guess we're taking the car." Rourke held out his paw. "Okay if Dana flies that rustbucket of yours back to base?"
"Given that I left on an unauthorized launch, I would say that my odds of getting arrested decrease if I am with you." Telemos grumbled. "Will she be able to fly it?"
"She was a test pilot before she became an Ace shooting down your friends and their tinker toys. She can fly it. Is there a key or an access code or…?"
Telemos blinked. "It is a ship. You fly it."
Rourke stared at him. "No security?"
"Who among the Primals would steal a spaceship and use it against their own people?" Telemos asked dryly. "Until I did so, such a thing was unfathomable."
Dana came back inside, pausing in the front doorframe. "Okay, hate to break up this little powwow you've all got going on, but we've got civilians out front crawling all over your plane, Telly, and I'm pretty sure they've called the police by now. Was there a reason you decided to drop in on the neighborhood so dramatically?"
Rourke glanced over at the tigress. "It's okay, Dana. Believe it or not, I think he's got a plan."
"Knowing him, a crazy plan." She complained.
"We're Starfox. All our plans are crazy." He snorted. "And this one, I'm willing to try. A week of letting her take it easy and sitting around spinning her wheels hasn't helped. The good news is, you get to fly the Phoenix back to base."
"Oh, a new toy?" That made Dana's face light up enough that Telemos glanced nervously to Carl.
"Should I be worried that your mate is going to crash my ship?"
"Only as worried that you're going to make Terrany even more of a wreck than she is already." Carl answered him coolly. "Letting you ride around on our fath…her hovercycle is different than putting her life in your hands."
"Her life was always in my hands." Telemos argued. "So why are you suddenly afraid now?" Carl blinked several times, reaching for an answer, and Telemos pushed past Rourke, going nose to nose with the older McCloud sibling. "Could it be you're afraid that I know her better than you do?"
Carl swallowed, but to his credit, he didn't blink or look away. "What makes you so sure that this idea of yours will bring her back?"
Telemos left the question unanswered as he pushed past Rourke and finally headed upstairs. He had been waiting to see Terrany for days since they had returned from Cerinia and been denied. He would be denied no longer.
Terrany was sitting in a chair and staring out her window when Telemos strolled in. By the view, he knew that she had seen him bring his Phoenix in for a landing.
"I know you." She said to him, stopping Telemos dead in his tracks. "We fought."
"Twice." Telemos nodded, uneasy at her response to him. Rourke was at his elbow a second later, and the wolf nudged his shoulder.
"Yeah. She does that now." Rourke muttered softly to him.
"She is Cerinian." Telemos resolved, steadying his nerves. "Andross was right."
"Hm? About what?"
"More. And less." Telemos walked towards her. "She needs to remember."
His hand snaked around her arm, and her head swiveled towards him as he pulled her up. Surprise, but no reaction. No punch, no kick, no angry words. Just a look that penetrated through him, leaving him unsettled. Telemos fought through it, meeting her stare.
"I'm not here to kill you." He declared.
Terrany blinked several times, saying nothing even as Telemos dragged her along and out of the house. She stayed mute when they loaded her in the hoversedan, kept her tongue when they drove off and were overtaken by the roar of Dana in the borrowed Phoenix Starfighter leaving them all in the dust.
"You'd better be right about this, Telemos." Carl said, gripping the steering wheel tightly and looking to the backseat, where his sister sat between their mother and Rourke.
In the front passenger seat, Telemos Fendhausen folded his arms and shut his eyes.
"She's smarter than you are, McCloud." The Primal said.
"How's that?"
"She knows that there's nothing more to say."
Deep-Ear Listening Outpost
Northern Sea
Zoness
Having landed and disembarked at the Zoness station, the pilots of Tinder Squadron had been allowed a half an hour to get their belongings squared away in their quarters. To Lashal's relief, Tinder Squadron had been given a separate dorm block, which allowed him to give his wife and son a measure of privacy. The technicians that had come along with them had seemed equally glad not to be bunking with the disgraced pilots.
That small blessing was quickly replaced when Lashal, Nomen, and Vodari at last dragged themselves to the base commander's office to report in. Knocking and entering, they found themselves faced with a sour-faced Elite Primal whose rumpled uniform bore a Praetor's rank insignia. He sat behind the barest facsimile of a desk, an aging piece of slap-dash metalwork.
"Tinder Squadron, reporting for duty, Praetor." Lashal announced, coming to attention.
The dark-haired Primal glowered at them all and stayed quiet, keeping them uneasily standing. He finally waved them down right when Lashal's arm was beginning to fatigue, and slumped sidewards a little into a devil-may-care pose.
"I am Praetor Fritz Lurick. Welcome to Deep Ear." The Elite gestured to a row of empty cargo containers along the wall of his office. "I'm still waiting on proper furniture." After they had sat down on the uncomfortable reinforced plastic cases, the Praetor brought up a datapad—stolen Cornerian technology—and cleared his throat.
"Tell me. What do you know of this post? Any of you. Feel free to speak up."
"Deep Ear functions as a subspace listening outpost for the Armada." Lashal began. "It was established a week after the Invasion to serve as a primary warning beacon, should the Cornerian forces attempt a strike against our forces on Macbeth."
Praetor Lurick smirked a little. "Anything else?"
Lashal felt a twinge of uneasiness. "Not that I can recall, sir."
"Well. Allow me to enlighten you all then, on the peculiar situation that you now find yourselves." Lurick snorted, a major breach of military decorum that painted a very unflattering picture alongside his dress and deportment. "Deep Ear is equipped with hastily installed, second-rate detection gear that is constantly at the risk of failing. This facility was a mining platform for the Cornerians before we captured the planet, and one that was falling apart before we got here. We are near the very bottom of the resupply list, and our Battlenet bandwidth is limited. The official line is that Deep Ear is one of the Armada's more vital early warning stations. As you will come to understand during your tenure, what Deep Ear really is is little more than an unnecessary listening post built on a rusted drilling platform. With everything that's been going on in the course of this war, we have become overlooked, and this base is a dumping ground for those with no prospects for career advancement." Lurick's eyes seemed to drift, and when he breathed out in frustration, Lashal thought for a moment he picked up the smell of grain alcohol. "Myself included."
Lashal took a deep breath to put his thoughts together. "What are our orders, sir?"
"Your orders?" The Praetor blinked a few times, as if surprised by the question. "Oh. Right. Well, so far as Command made me aware, you're here to 'defend the perimeter.' Of course, with Helion fighters you're limited to atmospheric combat. So here's hoping that if we do get attacked they don't just decide to vaporize us from orbit."
"Is that likely?"
"We're not exactly equipped with anti-orbital shielding here." Lurick shrugged. "It's what I would do. Less mess, less fuss. But, we'd get a warning out before they ever got close. And after that debacle on Titania, Command has begun to take additional security precautions. Not that you need to worry about that."
"Because it is a command level decision?"
"Because your security clearance no longer allows me to share information of that sensitivity." The Praetor said succinctly. Lashal's eyes narrowed, and a glance to either side of him with his peripheral gaze indicated quite clearly that his co-pilots were equally seething over it. Lurick got up from his desk and folded his arms behind his back. "Tonight, your orders are to meet with the base technicians and evaluate our runway and other facilities. Tomorrow, we're getting in a shipment of three Burnout fighters for your use. After the technicians have cleared the safety checks, you are to begin setting up patrols. I leave the scheduling to you, for the time being."
"Yes, sir. One thing, though. I would prefer if my men and I were there to participate in the ship safety and maintenance checks." Lashal said crisply. Lurick blinked at him in surprise, and Lashal pressed on. "Our former captain was quite insistent on learning the ins and outs of every fighter we climbed into, and our familiarity with the Burnouts is nearly on par with the technical staff we've served with before. It's a matter of personal assurance."
"Or a lack of trust in the Primals who maintain your craft." Lurick retorted.
"Trust goes both ways. Sir." Lashal replied.
The two stared each other down, with Lurick failing to intimidate the seated Primal fighter pilot. Lurick finally shook his head.
"I would watch your tone during your time here. However long that might be. You would do well not to mention that traitor ever again as well." The Praetor turned his back on them and waved a hand over his shoulder. "You're dismissed."
Needing no further convincing, Nomen and Vodari took off in a shot after a hasty salute, but Lashal lingered another half second more to glower at the Praetor's back before spinning about on his heel and departing. The newly promoted flight lead of Tinder Squadron did not bother to salute.
Deckmore AFB
Sallwey Province, Katina
Dana had beaten them back to the base by 20 minutes, and was waiting for them at the check-in gate. After their security credentials got them through, she climbed into the back of the car and nudged her chin over the backseat, resting it on Rourke's shoulder.
"Took you all long enough. Stop for coffee?"
"No, we drove straight here." Telemos replied, missing the joke completely. He looked back at her and frowned. "I trust my jet is still in one piece?"
"Yeah, it's parked inside the Wild Fox. You wouldn't believe how many flight controllers you pissed off on your little joyride, Telly. They damn near scrambled fighters until I radioed in and got General Grey to clear my approach. After Corneria, stealth equals kill on sight."
"…There is no hiding from you Cornerians any longer, is there?" The Primal muttered lowly.
"Nope. Guess you're stuck with us." Rourke grunted.
"Hmph." Telemos shook his head. "Do you have simulators?"
"Simulators?" Carl asked from the driver's seat. He cocked his snout partway over his shoulder to look at the Primal from the corner of his eye. "What would you need simulators for?"
Rourke harrumphed, shoving Dana's muzzle off of his shoulder. "No. Not on the Wild Fox. I think Deckmore has a couple of Arwing simulators, though. Only Model K, though. We don't have sims for the Seraph."
Telemos cocked his head sideways in thought. "It will suffice."
"For what?"
"Skip, shut up and drive." Rourke sighed. He pulled out a communicator and tapped it on. "Wild Fox, this is Rourke."
The crisp and professional voice of Sasha answered him. "Wild Fox Actual. What can we do for you, Lieutenant?"
"Ask ROB where on the base they keep their flight combat simulators."
"One moment."
Rourke lowered the radio slightly. "You know, at this point I'm amazed that damn robot doesn't just cut in on the call and tell me himself?"
"Wild Fox Actual. Main building, second floor. Major McCloud's security access will get you in."
"Thanks. Rourke out."
"Nice to know I'm good for something." Carl muttered bitterly, which earned confused stares from his two former wingmates as well as his mother. Telemos barely reacted at all, still focused on whatever crazed plan was running through his mind. Noticing the stares in the rearview mirror, Carl sighed and shook his head. "Sorry. I've…I've felt really guilty for a while now. About what happened to Terrany. About all of you."
"You never told me that." Dana said softly.
"Yeah. Well." Carl slowed the vehicle down as they approached another turn, going around a block of barracks. "I'm still not all that comfortable about the promotion. About the added responsibility that comes with it. It was that psychiatrist who came to visit that cracked it out of me. Rourke, I trust you with my life. I put you in command when I wasn't around. But when Telemos showed up and said Terrany was alive, I didn't buy into it. You all went rogue and saved my sister when I didn't. And it wasn't that I couldn't. I just…didn't." His ears flattened against his skull when he finished.
"You think we hate you? Boy. You really don't trust your instincts." Rourke snorted derisively, and just like that, Skip's ears snapped back up in surprise. "I guess it's a good thing you refused flight lead for the Starfox Team after all."
"What?"
"You're an idiot, Carl." Dana sighed, her tail up in the air and flicking back and forth distractingly as she rolled her eyes at him. "We could never hate you. And I can't blame you. It's not like I don't have my own problems."
"Are you really doing this?" Telemos interrupted, giving the car a full sweep of his scowling disapproval, complete with a raised eyebrow. He folded his arms together for additional emphasis. "Sharing your feelings? Now?"
"Looks like." Rourke shrugged. "Just go with it, 'Telly.' You don't have to share if you don't want to."
The Primal's gaze turned murderous as he stared at Dana. "You see what you've started?" The unapologetic grin on the tigress' face only made his thundering mood worse. Gnashing his teeth, he spun around and looked out the windshield with an angry huff. "Cornerians."
"What I'm saying, dear, is that we've all got shit to work through." Dana went on, looking to Carl with a new level of guilt he'd not placed before. "Like the fact I wanted to put a bullet in my brain when we lost you. Not that Milo was going to loan me one."
That garnered startled looks from all the sensate McClouds in the vehicle, but Rourke merely grunted and nodded his head, something that Dana recognized as she nodded back at him as well. "I'm better now, but I still worry about it. Doc Lynch said I should...talk to you all about it. So. Yeah. Doing it now." She looked away awkwardly, scratching at her sleeve.
"I would love to tell you children to put your heads on straight, but I'd be lying about how anxious I still get, knowing you're out there constantly getting shot at." Mrs. McCloud chimed in, saving Dana's jacket from being shredded. "There's nothing I would love more than to drag all of you back to my house and tell everyone and everything else to sod off. But I can't. My son and my daughter belong to something greater than themselves, and no matter how many nights I wake up from a nightmare of you two dying just like your father did…"
"Mom. It's okay." Carl reassured her.
"It's not okay." She sniffed. "But I'll manage. Just don't get too offended if I try to keep you close when you're not off trying to prevent our extinction."
"We've got space on our ship, mom." Carl smiled, then paused before correcting himself. "Sorry. I forget that it's actually registered to Terrany. Right, sis?"
But the pale-furred sister and wingmate that they had come here to save just continued to stare blankly ahead, offering no reaction aside from an inconstant blink. Carl exhaled and pulled the car to a stop next to the largest building on the base. "We're here. Now. How in the hell are simulators going to help here?"
Telemos stepped out of the hoversedan and maneuvered to the rear door. "Rourke. Bring her." His gaze flickered back to Carl. "You. Clear us a path."
Flight Combat Simulator Wing
Room 208: Arwing Operations (AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY)
Deckmore AFB
There were only four simulator pods available for use on Deckmore, as the bulk of the SDF's Arwing training program had been located on Corneria, and of those, only two weren't down for repairs. While Rourke and Dana fussed over putting Terrany into one of them, Carl found himself roped into assisting Telemos Fendhausen into the other.
"I'm pretty sure this violates about 12 articles of the SDF's Flight Security Regulations." Carl found himself saying, during a pause while Telemos tugged and fidgeted with his harness to get it into position.
"Flames take your damned regulations, McCloud."
"I think I need to get you away from Rourke. He's a bad influence on you."
Telemos finally got the clasp to catch and settled back into the padded seat. The Primal rolled his eyes. "You are assuming that I am not the one influencing him."
"Oh, I don't doubt it." Carl quickly replied, finally earning a sidewards glance from the rogue pilot. "I just know that that scruffy bastard's not the type to let anyone make him do something he's not already planning on doing. Learned that the hard way."
"You trust him."
"Implicitly."
Telemos drummed his fingertips on the control stick of the simulator. "You also trust me."
"To a degree."
"You let me into your home. You allow me to linger in your sister's presence. If your trust in me is not total, it is certainly high."
"You want the rest of it, Primal?" Carl asked. When Telemos shrugged, he told him anyways. "Explain to me how this is going to help her."
"I cannot." Telemos said.
"Be serious."
"I am perfectly serious. I cannot explain how this will help her in a way that you will understand." Telemos spoke slowly and precisely, as if he were in the presence of a child. "You are a soldier, trained for the fight but without the heart for it."
Carl felt his heart beating faster. "And what is she, then?"
Telemos had been scowling the entire day, but just then he smiled. Predatory. Smug. Anticipatory. It made the elder McCloud sibling shiver and look towards his insensate sister in the other pod for an eyeblink before looking back to Telemos.
"Why don't we find out?" The Primal said with a rumbling chortle. "Now. The controls. Explain."
Shaking off his lingering unease, Carl held out his right hand, mimicking the grip he would have on a Model K control stick. One by one, his fingers and thumbs flexed, pantomiming the buttons and toggles. "Hyper laser. Hold to charge and laserlock. Smart bomb launcher. Master Arm." Then he was pointing. "Throttle, and variable wing selector. On this model, you've got the standard three configurations: Launch, interceptor mode, and all-range for maneuverability. Down at your feet, you've got the yaw pedals and rudder toggle; press that in and it'll keep you from banking past 90 degrees port and starboard. Double tap that, and…"
"The ship spins, and produces that deflective aura." Telemos inferred, grunting when Carl nodded in confirmation. "You have no idea how meddlesome that particular trick has been."
"And now you get to use it. Aren't you one lucky son of a bitch." Telemos gripped the control stick and tested out the throttle. Carl saw that the pilot noticed that it took a few pounds of additional force to fully throttle up or down. "Boosters and retros, Fendhausen. You have to hold it to keep them active."
The Primal grunted again. "So. This can simulate any environment?"
"Yeah. The sims are slaved to the SimWing computer core; hardline access only. Did you have a preference for this stunt of yours?"
"Put us in deep space." Telemos said. "Give us a small combat zone."
"How about 50 cubic kilometers?"
"That will suffice." Telemos brought his hands up and flexed the fingers on his right hand while he rubbed his wrist with his left. "Is she ready?"
Carl looked over and bit his lip, seeing Rourke and Dana fuss over her one last time. They had painstakingly tucked her in and fitted the harness over her. Rourke's claws brushed past Terrany's fingertips as he finished putting her hands on the controls. There was no mistaking the worry and tenderness when he kissed her on the forehead before pulling away.
"She isn't ready, but they have her prepared." Carl conceded. Telemos gave a sharp nod, his gaze fixed on some unseen speck of dust floating in the air in front of him. The older McCloud sibling felt another twinge of fear run up his spine.
"You're sure this will work? That you're not doing this for yourself?"
Telemos froze at that, and slowly turned his head all the way to the side to meet Carl's gaze. There was no heat or anger in the stare he returned. Just steel, endless steel like an immovable wall.
Unnerved by a look, something that Carl couldn't remember happening since his first posting with Captain Hound, he ran a hand through the brown fur on the back of his neck and looked away. "You haven't exactly been secretive about the fact you've been wanting another duel with her since you let yourself get captured. Will this help her, or are you just looking to soothe your own pride at her expense?"
"Some day, you and I will fight." Telemos finally answered, every syllable weighty. "And we will see if there is half as much spirit as she has beating in that heart of yours."
Telemos pressed a button on the simulator's control panel, and the upraised opaque canopy began to whir and lower back down. Carl looked back, wincing when he saw that Telemos was still looking right at him.
"Start this. So we can finish it." Telemos growled.
The canopy settled into place and clicked as it sealed and locked.
(Simulation)
Deep Space
"Wake up, McCloud." A growling, all-too familiar voice came in through the speakers of the cockpit. She stirred slightly, blinking.
She wasn't at her mother's house. She was…
Flying?
All around her, the muffled sounds of several thruster's vibrations through a cockpit tickled at her awareness. Her eyes slowly drifted in a circle.
She was in an Arwing. She looked out of the canopy and saw the silvery wings and blue G-Diffuser pods on either side of her, witnessed empty black space dotted by starlight rolling by. Her hands twitched, and she could feel a control stick and a throttle under her paws.
"You know where you are now? Or are you really that far gone? I doubt it. You are a warrior born, Pale Demon. The avenging creature that haunts the nightmares of every Primal pilot and soldier."
A sudden, urgent beeping came from the ship's systems. A warning about an incoming threat. She blinked again. From where?
An enormous green explosion engulfed her Arwing, and the ship screamed a painful alert. Her arm jerked back on the stick reactively, burning a path clear of the detonated laserburst. The canopy HUD display showed that her shielding had dropped by 15 percent.
The system screamed at her again in warning, and dull instincts, turning like rusted gears, started to move. Her foot jammed down on the rudder toggle as she jerked the stick left, standing on her port wingtip while she banked hard away. Another ball of green laserlight chased after her and her other hand slammed the throttle full forward, triggering her boosters. It broke the lock-on and the second laserburst soared on harmlessly.
Whatever relief she felt was torn away from her when the Arwing found itself rattled by a furious and unending salvo of short-range hyper laserfire. The Arwing's systems screamed anew, and her shield gauge dropped at an alarming pace as the torrent overwhelmed her.
"Fight, damn you! You've never backed down in your life, don't you start now!"
She felt her neck creak. Slowly at first, and then with more control, her head turned to look back over her shoulder, to a second Arwing flying behind her, attacking her. Her opponent, who had anticipated her dodge and moved to intercept.
She knew that voice, though. It did not belong in an Arwing.
Lips tightening, Terrany tried to jink and weave. The motions were stilted, halting, predictable. The attack continued.
"Faster, Flames take you! What timid bitch are you pretending to be?!" That angry voice snarled.
She was bathed in red light as the shield gauge dropped below twelve percent. It hit zero, and everything went dark, save for two ominous words burning over the void of her canopy.
Simulation Failed
The sounds of the Arwing cut off, until she could only hear the uneven breathing of whoever had been shouting at her. It said nothing, composing itself for a period of time she had no perception of.
"Again." He finally said.
The red letters on her HUD vanished, and the stars and the noise of her Arwing, fully functional once more, returned to her.
"Again, Pale Demon." The voice repeated, and she recognized it as an order given.
SimWing Core Housing
Room 208
Deckmore AFB
35 Minutes Later
Separated from the flight combat simulator pods by a drywall-covered reinforced steel partition, the SimWing computer core more closely resembled an office, albeit one where the cabinets were replaced with enormous standing servers and an industrial grade central cooling system that left the room slightly chilly and humid, the better to prevent static discharge and overheating from the powerful systems. Into this small space was crammed Carl, Rourke, Dana, Mrs. McCloud, and a pair of nervous SimWing technicians who hadn't expected to be so busy.
"Seems like overkill to run a few Arwing simulators." Dana complained, tightening her jacket around herself with a shiver.
"The Arwing SimPods were an afterthought." Carl answered the tigress, barely glancing at her before refocusing on the holographic projection of the simulated combat zone and the two ships moving through it. "This setup was designed to run fleet operation simulations and theaterwide variables. Nearly the entire floor above us has dedicated rooms to simulate bridge environments of every ship class the SDF operates. Operated. It wasn't until Brigadier General Grey argued against the validity of the setup lacking dedicated Arwing simulators to tie into their simulated wargames that they installed these four, and that was under protest. It was one of the reasons Grey found his advancements stalled out."
"Wow, major. You know a lot about Deckmore's setup." One of the technicians said. The brown rabbit's ears flicked up while he kept monitoring the datastreams and power consumption of the simulators. His partner, a long-haired sheepdog, was too focused on monitoring the system's stability to say anything himself. "Did you spend a lot of time here before?"
"Some. The 21st Squadron ran a couple of simulations with the 7th Fleet back when I was working under Captain Hound. It wasn't exactly a fun experience. Admiral Howlings never let his Arwings hunt like they needed to. He preferred to keep us on picket defense instead of attacking their BARCAP."
"Quiet." Rourke muttered, not looking back at them. He was too busy flickering between the main holographic display and the smaller flatscreen monitor at his station, where he was tracking the vitals of both Terrany and Telemos, as well as viewing a small hidden dashboard camera feed that showed their faces. "Concentrating here."
"This isn't working." Mrs. McCloud muttered. She pushed her rolling chair over beside Rourke's and rested a hand on his shoulder. Leaning her snout by his shoulder, she stared at the displays. "She's not recovering. He's not helping her. He's insulting her. If you hadn't stopped me, I'd have yanked him out of that pod and slapped him already."
"Good thing I stopped you. Because it is working." Rourke replied.
"How, exactly?" Carl demanded. "We've run this simulated dogfight fourteen times so far. He's beaten her in every engagement. If he's trying to get her to snap out of her state of mind by throwing her into a fight, he's doing a shitty job of it."
"You're not paying enough attention then, Skip." The last O'Donnell drummed his claws against his chair's armrest. "Her eyes. Her hands. Her vitals."
"What about them?"
"They're improving."
Carl got up and walked over to Rourke and his mother, leaning over the both of them. The added body in close proximity wasn't something the Starfox lead pilot was a fan of, as he grunted and shoved Carl back a step. After rolling his eyes, Carl concentrated on the cockpit camera pointed at his sister.
"…I'm not seeing it. She's still moving slow."
"Going from catatonic, though?" Rourke snorted. "This is therapy. It isn't supposed to be easy."
"Or fast, apparently."
"How's the leg muscles treating you, champ?" Rourke countered sarcastically. "Has Doc Bushtail cleared you for flight duty yet, or are you still lifting weights in the gym to make up for your monthlong artificial coma?"
Carl bit his lip to keep from flinching. "Point taken."
"Good." Rourke said. "Now shut up and let me concentrate."
Holding up his hands in surrender, Carl stepped back and moved to his original post. He winced as Telemos vaped Terrany for the fifteenth time.
"Again." The rumbling voice of Telemos came through over the intercom.
"Loading the program. Trial 16." The sheepdog SimWing technician said.
Rourke leaned in, his narrowed eyes not breaking from the image of Terrany.
"Come on, Teri." He whispered, just barely loud enough for Mrs. McCloud to hear him. "Show me something."
Wild Fox
Bridge
1 Hour after Terrany's Deckmore Arrival
"Sir, you're making everyone else nervous." XO Dander said quietly, leaning down next to his superior's floppy ear.
General Grey gnawed on the end of his corncob pipe a little harder as he considered Dander's soft warning and did a quick sweep of the bridge. Sure enough, the others on station were trying to hide their furtive glances in his direction. Hogsmeade's eyes went wide when he realized that Grey was staring right back at him, and quickly swiveled his head back around to his console.
"We know they went to the main building here on the base to access their flight combat simulators." Grey said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. "So if I seem on edge, it's because it's been a damned hour and we still haven't heard from them."
"Wild Fox, this is Rourke."
"Speak of the devil and he appears…" Sasha muttered loudly, slipping her headset back on fully and keying up her mike. "This is Wild Fox Actual. Go ahead, Rourke."
"We need ROB." The lead pilot of the Starfox Team announced.
"What?" XO Dander and General Grey both said at the same time. Sasha glanced at them before shaking her head.
"Sorry, Rourke. Say again?"
"We. Need. ROB." He repeated, less politely this time. "I know he's listening, so tell him to get his rusty ass off that ship and down here to Deckmore's SimWing. And bring the mission data from when Terrany was captured. Transmissions, enemy deployments, Arwing flight data, the whole ball of wax."
Surprising everyone again, ROB appeared out of the turbolift as the doors hissed open. His roving monocular eye swept the bridge behind his red visor before he tapped into the transmission feed.
"I will be there in ten minutes, Pilot O'Donnell. Would it not be easier to simply upload the data?"
"Yeah, but the SimWing is hardline access only. No wireless ports, which is…"
"Which is why you need me to come in person. So to speak." The robot deadpanned.
"Skip's reminding us all that having you come in breaks about four regulations."
"Tell the Major that I'll allow it. Three star authority's good for something, right?" General Grey cut in on the transmission from his chair.
"Well, hear that everyone? We've got grandpa's permission." Rourke chuckled. "See you in a bit, ROB."
Grey bit down on his pipe stem and growled as the connection cut off. "He's still a piece of work." He looked over to ROB, who was already downloading files onto a high-capacity datapad through a line-in port. "I didn't think you could leave the ship."
"I have the capability to." ROB answered. "When the original Great Fox was destroyed over the Aparoid Homeworld, I ejected in an escape pod with Peppy Hare. However, I function best when tied into a ship's system core to offload the bulk of my coprocessor subroutines. My absence will not cause undue hardship, thanks to Deckmore's significant DataNet access." The datapad in his metal hand beeped, and ROB detached the access wire from the bridge console. He walked back over to the turbolift and came to rest as the doors slid shut behind him. His closing remark came over the bridge intercom.
"I will keep you all updated on their progress."
Deckmore AFB
Main Building
SimWing, Room 208
Less than 10 Minutes Later
"Are you listening this time?" Telemos asked impatiently, when Carl and his mother both stared him down and demanded to know why ROB needed to drag along the information from Terrany's last mission before her capture. The remark bought him a precious few moments of stunned and indignant silence. "I would have hoped that you would have understood by now. Terrany is stuck. For too long, she had another mind sharing space with her own." He shut his eyes. "The Terrany I fought against twice was not the Terrany I met with before her supposed execution. It was not the same Terrany I rescued from that prison camp, and it is most definitely not the Terrany who has been sitting like a living doll in your home. You wanted her back. None of you knew how to do it. This is how." Telemos gazed narrowly at Carl. "You trusted me before. Trust me now."
The Primal pushed past them and climbed back into his own simulator pod. Slipping on the flight helmet, he brought up his communications. "Are we ready, Rourke?"
The response from the adjoining SimWing System Core room was immediate.
"ROB is uploading the Phoenix physical model to your profile. But you understand that this is a purely visual modification; there will be no change to your weapons or your flight capabilities. She won't be flying a Seraph and you're not flying a Phoenix. You'll just look like you are."
"Good. This is between pilots. Not their machines." Telemos said, flexing his right hand into and out of a fist a few times. "I am glad you saw the wisdom in this decision."
"Don't thank me yet, Fendhausen. I've flown against Terrany more times than you have, and let me tell you, if this works, you might end up regretting it. Nothing stops her when she's well and truly pissed off. Not on even footing, and rarely when the odds are against her."
"Then I will finally see her at her best." Telemos resolved. "Be sure that everything is exactly like it was in our duel. Before the Primal reinforcements arrived."
"Yeah. No problem."
Telemos leaned back in his seat and exhaled. "You Cornerians have better simulation technology than we do. Small wonder your fighter pilots are so capable."
"You prefer to learn on the job, I take it?"
"I prefer to live." Telemos grunted. "I took what experience and training I could get, and offered my men the same. It kept three of them alive after you engaged us in the skies of Venom."
"…There were five of you on Venom. But in the ambush, just four." Rourke pieced it together after a moment's consideration.
"Are you working you way up to an apology?"
"No. This is war, Telemos. None of us were holding back." The wolf quickly snapped out.
In spite of himself, Telemos smiled. "Good. You shouldn't apologize for things done in wartime. But you're wrong about not holding back. She was." Which was the truth, and Telemos knew that Rourke knew it as well. In their entire duel on Venom, she hadn't once used the transformed configuration of her Seraph Arwing.
He hadn't gone up against it until their second duel, and then he had been flying in his Phoenix. It had been too much of a stalemate for too long, with no deciding blow.
"We're ready here, Telemos. You set?"
"Do it." Telemos answered.
Time to break the stalemate.
The Rim of Lylat (Simulation Number 41)
She was back in the cockpit of an Arwing. Again. How many times had it been now? She couldn't remember. Concentrating was…hard. It was just losing, dying, over and over and over again. When she could muster the energy to react, he still beat her.
There was a part of her that thrashed and raged, but it was so hard. Like…
Like being underwater.
Yes. Everything slower. Everything heavier. All her senses, sight, sound, touch, distorted.
But this time was different. Before, it had only ever been two Arwings, hers, and paradoxically, the one flown by him. Her enemy. But why would he be in an Arwing? It made no sense. The confusion only made things worse.
This time…
There were other ships. Other Arwings. Seraphs, as well as Model K's. They were fighting against…
Black ships, invisible to radar, little more than shimmers in the cold and dark…
All of them swerved and flew around a larger transport ship, clearly outmatched and in trouble. The Arwings were trying to defend it, the black ships were trying to destroy it.
I know this. I've been here.
Terrany felt herself struggling to go further, to move faster. It set off every warning in her head, and…
"All planes, this is Damer. I've taken significant engine damage, and maneuverability is shot to oblivion. I'm going to have to bug out."
"I was afraid you'd say something like that." Another voice she knew came back bitterly. "Retreat to the edge of the operational area. Don't give these bastards an easy target!"
They were in trouble. All of them, all surrounded, swarmed, beleaguered.
Two squadrons. A flight of four and a flight of three. Two, now. Six fighters against four black ships that unleashed hellfire and light into the darkness before swimming back into it.
She could save them. She should save them. That impulse had her turning towards the most visible dogfight in progress, towards the transport carrying the most precious cargo imaginable. Her brother.
Her Arwing shuddered as laserfire overtook it, and the warning alarms went off as she pulled clear, thoroughly rattled.
"You cannot save them." The bastard's voice snarled at her. "How can you, when you will not even save yourself?"
The fight froze for a moment, her controls going cold and stiff in her hands. It was strange, seeing every ship and every laser shot suspended in space around her. Everything frozen, save for the sound of her own shallow breathing, and the angrier huffing of that damned voice on the other end of her radio.
Then something else came through her headset. A recording.
A memory.
"Terrany! Get out of there! Fall back, damn you!"
"Can't. No…way out of this…"
"I'm coming for you! Just hang on!"
Another voice, one she knew very well. A voice that made her heart hurt and sing at the same time.
Rourke.
"No! Ships…heading for Carl. You have…stop them!"
"Terrany…"
"Save Carl! All that matters…the real McCloud!"
Her vision blurred. She brought her fingers up, slowly, and felt a warm wetness matting the fur under her eyes.
She remembered this. She remembered the moment, and it hurt.
"Your premise was flawed, Pale Demon." The first voice, the voice of her enemy, returned with venomous intensity. "You said that your brother was all that mattered. What does it tell you when all of us risk our necks to get you back?!"
Deeper memories, ones torn from her that she couldn't recall, struggled to connect with her and failed. A part of her screamed that she had lived through it, but it skittered away like the vestiges of a dream, or a nightmare. She remembered waking up with her brother, with Rourke, and with Dr. Bushtail all staring at her in shock fury.
She remembered the pain of burning fire in her mind. She remembered KIT, screaming along with her. Inside of her.
She remembered the face of a long dead enemy, still alive, still very much alive, staring her down with derision and uncaring clinical detachment.
Andross.
Gasping for air as the revelations and memories settled in, the battle started moving around her again. And there was still a fighter on her tail.
She remembered him now. Remembered the shape of his fighter, and of the seething rage on his face when she had defeated him on Venom and spared his life.
Telemos Fendhausen.
He was still here.
"I will kill you, Terrany. I will hurt you, then stand over your broken body and laugh. Primals know nothing else!" There was more volume than vitriol in that line, but she shuddered under the weight of the declaration all the same. "I am Telemos Fendhausen! Defeat me, or know you will forever be haunted!"
He was on her tail again, in spite of her evasions, and the laserfire spun up anew. But this time…
This time…
Terrany blinked. Her fingers twitched on the control stick. For the first time since Cerinia, she drew in a breath of her own volition, instead of involuntarily. She felt a twitch in her jaw, and took hold of it until her snout curled into a snarl.
Her hand clenched down on the controls and she pulled back hard on the stick right as she pushed the throttle up to full, activating her boosters.
In a swoop, her Arwing's nose was pointed into an upwards Z-Axis, rocketing out of his line of fire. On instinct, her paw on the throttle jerked it back to a brake, and she quick-fired the maneuvering thrusters to alter her orientation. Beneath her, the Phoenix Starfighter piloted by Telemos Fendhausen flew through the space she had once occupied.
Dead in her gunsights, Telemos wavered, and Terrany fired.
For the first time in over forty simulations, each one a loss to Telemos, Terrany took the offensive.
He took two hits even as he jinked clear of the attack, and she heard him laugh callously over the radio.
"You can do better than that, McCloud."
That last stinging barb passed through her mind like a thunderbolt, as if fusing broken synapses.
It was like breaking the surface of the water after drowning for days. Like emerging from a fever dream in a cold sweat.
Fire burned in her lungs, and Terrany let it out in a howling, wild, life-confirming shriek as she swung in on a startled Telemos and laid into him.
SimWing Control Room
For the technician monitoring the vitals of the testees, the sudden surge in brain activity, heart rate, and response came as a tremendous shock. For more than an hour, he had sat, watching and listening, as the simian who had accompanied Major McCloud's small assembly had thrown one vicious verbal insult after another at the nearly insensate Terrany and destroyed her, over and over until it blurred together. None of it had worked, but now…
"Holy shit." He rubbed at his eyes to confirm he was seeing things properly, and then stuck a finger in his ear to make sure he wasn't hearing things wrong as well. "Her vitals, they just…"
"She's awake!" Rourke whooped, giddily slamming a fist against the side of his leg before reaching over and punching Carl hard in the arm. "That son of a bitch did it!"
"Damn, Rourke." Carl hissed and rubbed at his arm. "That's gonna bruise."
ROB paid them no mind and strolled over beside the technician monitoring the pilot's status, then reached a finger down. A small access tab emerged from the digit and he inserted it into the console.
"Hey, what are you…!" The startled technician demanded after recovering from his surprise at the robot's sudden presence.
"I am broadcasting to the Wild Fox. Telemetry and vitals are being routed to the Medical Bay for Dr. Bushtail's immediate review and assessment." ROB paused before looking over to Mrs. McCloud. "The simulation's cockpit feeds are going to every viewscreen and intercom speaker on the ship. The others will want to know that Terrany has finally recovered."
Eyes full of happy tears, Mrs. McCloud quickly covered her muzzle with a hand to stifle the joyful sob.
"She might be moving, but she's not up yet." Carl cautioned the others, tamping down on their exuberance. "He got her mad. How she handles it…well. She'll crash and burn, or maybe that Primal was right about her after all."
"What?" The first technician, in charge of tracking the simulator's power and systems, startled in shock. "That guy Telemos is a…a Primal? I thought he was just another simian! You let a damn Primal in here?"
"At ease, soldier." Major McCloud quickly dismissed his panic and rolled his eyes. "This one's on our side." He saw Rourke glance at him in surprise, and Carl shrugged with a sigh, as if admitting that yes, Rourke had been right about him all along. "This fight's not over yet. Keep watching. You wanted to see something, Rourke? You're gonna get your wish." Carl folded his arms, carefully covering the now bruised part of his arm with his other hand.
"If Telemos keeps pushing, you'll get to see exactly why our family nickname for her was Wild Fox."
Wild Fox
Hangar Bay
45th Day of the Primal War
Evening
The Hangar Bay, the de facto lair of one Wyatt Toad, the surviving Arspace engineering teams and their partnered SDF armory and maintenance crews, could best be described as controlled chaos. Working webbed hand in furry paw, Wyatt Toad and his burly bear associate Ulie Darkpaw were a couple of rocks in the storm, moving through the eddies and guiding their workers from one task to another with an efficiency that could not be duplicated by traditional means. It could have been used as an ongoing case study for management classes which would have been titled, Whatever They're Smoking, I Want Some.
Between upgrading the interior to accommodate the SACS systems with the newest schematic alterations, routine maintenance and outright new construction for their Arwing fleet, and handling all the other odd jobs that popped up on a ship originally constructed well over two decades ago, there wasn't an idle set of hands or a safe corner to stand in. It was full of noise and barely controlled chaos, and the buzzing energy somehow never stopped. Every living soul under Wyatt's command knew full well just how much everyone, especially the pilots tasked with saving their collective asses, depended on them doing the job, doing it well, and working as fast as safety and precision allowed for. Occasionally, one of the intercoms dotted around the perimeter would go off next to whatever department or group of animals the caller needed the attention and assistance of, and less frequently, the hastily installed system monitors in the workshop areas would blink from whatever project data they were working on to an even rarer video call or transmission.
It was finally late enough that the first shift was wrapping things up and the second shift was coming on duty. For that precious half hour every evening and every morning, the engineering and maintenance teams stuffed the hangar bay and its workshops to capacity, with the worn and weary crews finishing their shifts informing the animals just coming on duty what had been done and what still needed doing. They hadn't always had enough of a workforce to fully staff two shifts, and the transition had been a welcome one.
Every conversation stopped and every head swiveled towards the nearest viewscreen when something truly unique, unexpected, and jaw-dropping happened.
Taken over remotely, the ship's communications systems were slaved to incoming video and vox feeds that were prefaced by the volume-increased monotone of the ship's walking AI, ROB.
"Attention all personnel. This is ROB. I believe you would be interested in watching this."
There was a picture of Terrany in a simulator cockpit. And there in a cropped video feed beside hers, Telemos in a similar setup. Below the images of the two pilots was the HUD display from Terrany's system. They were fighting each other, with Terrany's simulated Arwing pursuing a simulated Phoenix Starfighter. The crews out on the hangar bay floor quickly glanced towards the parked Primal fighter just to confirm that the thing was actually there, and not flying somewhere else.
Terrany and Telemos, fighting each other.
No, not just fighting. Fighting didn't do what they were watching justice.
A spotted leopard snapped his dropped jaw back up and tugged his hat on a little tighter as he spoke. "I've got thirty on McCloud!"
The roar in the hangar bay started up anew, albeit with a much different focus.
Wild Fox
Medical Bay
It had started out as a calm evening, with Dr. Bushtail off of the clock and off resting in his own quarters for a change, and Nurse Ermsdale on call, but nibbling away at a salad brought up from Pugs' galley and reviewing the staff physicals in the absence of having any actual patients to treat. The sudden announcement from ROB brought her meal to a pause, and she set the fork down.
The rabbit bolted upright with a yelp when one of the monitors in the main treatment area powered on and began chirping with vitals. A few seconds later, the computer in Dr. Bushtail's office clipped on as well, displaying the same video and audio feed that everyone else on board the ship was getting.
"Hey! What the hell's going on out there? Something's happening, I heard ROB blather on about something!" The voice of KIT, coming from the datapad propped up on the desk jarred her back to her senses.
"Hold on, I'm still trying to figure that out myself."
"Well, can you turn this datapad around so I can see what you're seeing, at least?" The trapped AI snarked back at her. Nurse Ermsdale growled under her breath before picking up the datapad and holding it up so he could watch the feeds.
"It seems Terrany and that Primal are…fighting." The Nurse turned her head to look out of the office and towards the biometric monitors out in the Medical Bay. "And ROB wants us all to have a look at it."
"Wow." KIT uttered. "I think…I think she's finally snapping out of it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, lady, there was a long period of time where she was content to hide in her subconscious and let me do the driving. If I'm right, that Primal is trying to pull her back up to the waking world. Kicking and screaming."
Another bellow from her made the rabbit wince. "The screaming part is right." She conceded. She considered the incoming medical data and sighed before hitting her intercom, buzzing Dr. Bushtail's room.
He responded almost immediately. "I'm seeing it, Nurse Ermsdale."
"Sir, there's more. ROB is transmitting their biometric data from the simulated fight to our systems."
"…Is it recording?"
"Yes sir. I just thought you might…her EEG data…"
"Good. I'll take a look at the data tomorrow."
"Finally learning to balance your work and your home life?"
"We live on a ship, Lydia." The simian surgeon grumbled, cutting off the connection.
KIT paid little attention to their conversation, and was in fact dead silent with the camera on the datapad his Cerinian datasphere was attached to pointed at the office computer screen.
"Is she going to win?" Lydia Ermsdale asked the AI.
KIT grunted in response. "He's getting her angry, and pulling her out of her withdrawal into herself. Her success depends on whether or not she can channel it instead of just raging her head off." He paused. "If she can be better than I was."
She was getting better. Underneath those angry screams, the unintelligible utterances of feral rage, there was awareness. Something more than the bare scraps of instinct she had shown in every simulated fight before this one. She was beginning to take the offensive, making it less of a chase, more of an actual duel. Telemos laughed in exultation for it, and pressed on.
Just a little more. Just a little more.
"Again, McCloud!" He shouted, after he jinked clear of a homing laserburst in the nick of time. He grunted and veered in a different direction after she peppered him with a few more shots, then hit his retros and his maneuvering thrusters, sending his simulated spacecraft into a spin that would have been suicide in atmospheric combat. It lined him up with her as she charged in after him, and he returned the favor with a blistering spray of shots that had her veering off. He killed the retros and took his ship back to full power as he finished his spin, and wheeled after her, maintaining his momentum. "You can do better than that, McCloud. The other Primals, they all trained to defeat you, and every squadron you and your team have gone up against has failed! Only I could be your equal! Only I could defeat you!"
"NEVER!" She screamed, and the shock of hearing her actually speak stunned Telemos long enough for her to invert and dive down under him in a reverse loop. He tried to follow, turning his nose down, but she had too much of a lead on him.
Telemos swore and spun his nose around, and the two ships opened up on one another. Their screams matching in ferocity, neither one budged. There was no more dodging, no more weaving or jinks. Nose to nose, they fired away with everything they had, burning their shields to a red-hot flaring intensity before both finally failed.
Their screens went dark, leaving them with just the sounds of the other's panting coming through their headsets, and the ominous red letters slowly displaying.
Simulation Failed
Simultaneous Destruction
No Winner
A tie, Telemos realized as he panted away. A Flames-damned tie.
He didn't want a tie, yet there had been more of her in that dogfight than ever before. But was it enough now? Was she back?
"Are you awake, McCloud?" Telemos asked softly. "Are you finally yourself?"
Hard breathing was his response, and Telemos felt a twinge of pain in his jaw. With a start, he realized he had been grinding his teeth.
"…Yeah." Her voice, absent in his life for so long, struck him like an arrow. He almost dared to hope again.
"Do you know where you are?"
A pause. "Inside a simulator pod. So…Corneria?"
"Katina. On the base where the Wild Fox is parked. Where all your friends are waiting."
"Huh."
"Do you remember me?"
She chuckled a little at that, and the arrow in his chest dug in a little deeper, forced in by her lilting voice. "You're hard to forget. Telemos. You don't give up."
Telemos fairly sank into the simulator's seat in relief, and broke out into a short, sharp laugh. "I learned that from you, Pale Demon. I also hate ties."
"Yeah. Me too."
"Are you ready?"
"And if I win?"
"Then I will have my answer, won't I?" He quipped back, this time with a softer chuckle.
"Fine. One last time, Telemos. I won't hold back."
"Nor will I." Telemos vowed warmly. "Rourke? One last simulation. Put us on Venom."
"You want to finish what we started, I see." Terrany goaded the Primal.
"No tricks. No Merge Mode. No Ghost Drive. Two ships, equally matched. The only difference is the pilot." Telemos blinked as the screens lit back up, the simulation changing around them. The familiar brown and green skies of Venom, the Homeworld, returned.
Venom Mid-Atmosphere (Simulation Number 42)
She was herself again.
Pushed to the ragged edge by Telemos Fendhausen, Terrany had snapped out of her fugue by a combination of two immutable forces in her life: Fear and anger. Fear that she was alone, and could be killed, anger that someone would dare to try. And to think that the Primal had pulled it off by putting her through one simulation after another, ending with replaying the memory of their last battle together.
When she had gone further than ever before. When she and KIT had stayed Merged. When she had made the sacrifice play.
With nobody else left to save her, with Telemos still pushing, Terrany could no longer just hide. Her only choices to fight or die, she had chosen to fight.
Because she was a McCloud. It was in her blood. It almost made her laugh to think that of everyone in her life…only her enemy understood her well enough to take that critical step. Only Telemos had understood that for her, home wasn't the house she had grown up in.
It was the ship registered in her name, the Arwing that belonged to it, and the wide open skies and stars.
"Give him hell, Terrany." The voice of Rourke came over her headset, and she cracked a relieved laugh, letting the warmth it brought flow through her. "Your mom, your brother, and me and Dana are all here watching."
"Oh, you wanted a show?"
"Naaah. I want a massacre." Rourke retorted, in a teasing tone of voice. If he meant to get her laughing again, he failed horribly. Terrany resettled her grip on the control stick and shifted in her seat, picking up the bogey that was Telemos on her radar. She could feel an old, familiar sensation in her mind and in her chest.
She let it burn.
"That's what you're going to get then." She growled, and angled after her target. Against the backdrop of the fetid brown earth and the green, nitrogen heavy atmosphere of the planet, the silvery form of another Arwing was distinctly apparent.
Once they were within a kilometer of each other, her threat alarm went off. Laserlock. The faint green glow around the enemy's nose was also a dead giveaway, and she quickly went nose up, hitting her boosters. The laserburst shot off and followed her, with Telemos angling up to follow and keep the lock intact. She reversed her turn and came straight at him, forcing the trailing laserburst to switch its course. The turn proved too sharp, and it detonated in her wake, chasing after her. Green light filled the rear of her canopy, but Terrany didn't even bother looking back.
She knew, after all, it hadn't been close enough to hit.
The opening shot fired off and parried, the two Arwings found themselves in what SDF fighter pilots affectionately called 'knife fighting range.' Terrany, diving down, built up her speed and braced one hand on the wing configuration toggle. Model K tactics were vastly different from a Seraph, but she still had hours more simulator and flight experience than Telemos in the beast. That, and the bragging of Carl, back when she'd still been in the Academy and he was off flying with Growler Squadron.
Telemos fired up, Terrany shot down. The single hyper laser the Model K came equipped with unleashed a stream of blue fire in opposite directions, steadily curling around one another. She watched his Arwing carefully for a heartbeat, taking note of his wing configuration. Interceptor Mode. Perfect.
In near perfect unison, the two Arwings started in a wild series of aileron rolls, deflecting away the inbound attacks. It became a test of who would flinch first as they closed the distance, and their ships began to scream a collision warning. Even with the world spinning around her, Terrany grinned.
Telemos balked first, breaking out of the roll just long enough to regain his bearings and pull clear. Terrany followed suit a half second later, but with the addition of toggling her wings to their full deployment, the 'All-Range Mode' made so famous in the war films about the Lylat Wars. With the wind suddenly pulling against a wider airframe, her own turn was far sharper than his own. She jerked her head around, expecting to see his Arwing coming into her gunsights.
Instead, he was farther away than expected, and his wings had been folded back from Interceptor Mode to Launch position. He had sacrificed almost all of his maneuverability for outright speed, turning his fighter into something akin to a rocket.
"Clever tactic, McCloud." He goaded her. "But not clever enough."
She growled and turned after him, moving her own wings to match and watching her airspeed slowly tick up as the wind resistance slackened off. "I thought you wanted a fight, Primal."
"I wanted a duel." He countered, kilometers ahead of her. She heard his grunt over the radio as his Arwing's wings flared out and he reversed his course, coming straight at her as his wings folded back in again. He'd forced them out just long enough for the turn.
He was jousting her.
"I don't do duels." Terrany growled, yet she found herself matching his intention. Both charged their lasers, locked on, and fired. On their matching courses, the laserbursts streaked past one another and sailed on. Terrany jinked in the same moment he did, and the ship's alarms squealed in warning as undue stress strained the internal reinforcements.
There was a reason pilots didn't fight in Launch Mode. The control surfaces offered little to no assistance in maneuvering, which forced the four thrusters of the Model K to take on additional strain to make up the difference, and poorly at that. At full speed, in that configuration, structural fatigue and failure became a real problem during anything beyond minimal maneuvering. Wings had been sheared off because of such brazen tactics in the Model K's testing phase.
"You're going to wreck your plane doing this." Terrany muttered through clenched teeth, fighting off the vibrations from the actuators inside the simulator's cockpit. Had this been real, the Arwing would have been shuddering just as bad; A G-Diffuser field couldn't stop wind resistance, and the energy shields could only ablate it so much. Telemos didn't rise to the bait, and the two unseated their wings long enough to reverse course and come after one another again.
Three passes in total resulted in neither scoring a decisive blow. Both had missed on the first joust, Terrany's attack had grazed him on the second, and then on the third a minute feint on the part of Telemos had resulted in a similar strike.
Tired of playing the game on his terms, she pointed her ship's nose skyward and hit her boosters, catching him off guard.
"Running away, McCloud?"
She harrumphed at the barb. "Going for a change in scenery. Why don't we see just how flexible this simulator's abilities really are?"
"It does not matter to me where I vape you." Telemos said snippily, firing after her. Going on a relatively straight arc, and with the atmosphere thinned to nearly nothing, it was easy enough for her to spin the Arwing even with the wings in Launch Mode, deflecting his shots harmlessly away.
"Ooh, I'm shaking in my combat boots." She teased him.
"Arrogant brat." He snarled, and she heard the warning chirp of her laserlock alarm. A quick visual sweep of her surroundings confirmed her suspicion about her altitude, and she moved the toggle, spreading her wings out as far as they could go. With her thrusters now able to expand out to their fullest, she was easily able to pull a loop and throw off the laserlock, even spinning at the top of the maneuver to throw off his retaliatory snub shots. "You think you will do any better in space than in the atmosphere?"
"Nah. I'll do about the same. I'm expecting you to do worse." She answered, pulling down alongside him. The two were banked at 90 degrees, able to stare across the empty space into the other's simulated cockpits. Terrany grinned when the interior showed nothing but a glitching black space. "Hey, I think we about crashed the sim. That, or you got uglier."
"Did you want to fight or throw more insults?"
"A girl can't do both?"
"In my experience, you can do neither." He mocked her.
"Oh, you're gonna pay for that." She countered, grinning wildly.
"We shall see, Demon." As if reacting to the same signal, they pulled apart, reversed direction and spun away from each other, putting a full five kilometers of distance between them before rounding back for their charge.
Telemos likely expected a replay of their battle in the atmosphere, which had been a jousting match of one pass after another. Terrany's response was anything but the same. Even before they closed, she cut her main thrusters and used her maneuvering jets to completely reorient her Arwing, pointing her aft towards him. The wild spin threw off his laserlock and forced him to go for normal shots as he closed in. Now flying backwards, she spun into an aileron roll and deflected his shots until he finally had to break off to avoid collision.
Still grinning, Terrany hit her boosters and reversed her momentum, now chasing after him. The simulator pod shook, but it couldn't simulate the burst of artificial gravity the maneuver would have forced on her. She clenched her body up all the same.
Now on his tail, Terrany had to chuckle as he swore at her. "You cheated."
"Sorry, no." She responded, not fazed in the slightest as he jinked and weaved. The maneuver would have overwhelmed her shields and likely shattered the spine of the Arwing in atmospheric flight. It was close enough to one of her oldest tricks, the flatspin shooting arc, to merit concern, which strained an Arwing enough. But in outer space, or simulated outer space, it was all too possible. Strange, risky, but possible. And beating Telemos? That required risk.
"I see you know your way around this kind of Arwing as well." He grunted. "But I've learned a few tricks myself. Your slow recovery gave me plenty of time to experiment." He pulled up into a high climb, then fired his own maneuvering thrusters to spin his nose around towards her as she went to match him. Terrany sucked on her teeth as she spun to deflect his counterattack, cutting her own thrusters to stay in the pocket while his Arwing finished its spin.
"You're just copying my tricks now." She said, firing at his aft. He banked right and pulled clear of her, starting the dance over again. "But you're getting better at dodging."
He grunted in reply and flew out in a straight line, dancing over the curve of Venom's sickly-colored atmosphere. Terrany went after him, but frowned when he started to pull farther away than expected. She gained laserlock, but he didn't break off, and instead kept going, even after she fired.
As fast as her homing laserburst was, somehow Telemos was faster. It trailed after him for as long as it could before giving up, dissipating harmlessly well after his thruster wake. The realization hit her at last and she swore. "You disabled your G-Diffusers, didn't you? You're using the planet's gravity to slingshot you."
He chuckled darkly. "Not entirely. Just enough. Try and keep up, girl."
With that, he lifted off and away from the planet, heading towards a sector of space that threw up fresh warnings on her HUD display. She swallowed down the lump gathering in her throat. Telemos was headed into a massive debris field that still had yet to be completely cleaned up after 75 years. Slowly dissipating gravitic and spatial anomalies wreaked havoc with any ships that passed through it, and that didn't include the untold tons of floating wreckage and debris left behind after the day which had created it all. It was a no-fly-zone for military and commercial traffic, a place even scientists didn't visit for long, and Telemos had decided to take the battle straight into it.
"This is gonna be interesting." Terrany muttered, maneuvering to follow him. "I'm not sure that the simulator can keep up with mapping the debris field, Telemos."
"Afraid, McCloud?" He taunted her. "Or can you only fight in open space?"
"Oh, you're dead." Terrany's hand clenched hard on the control stick. "You wanna tangle in the wrecks? Fine. Rourke, do whatever you need to to keep the sim from crashing."
"You're not asking for much." Rourke's amused voice answered her. "The technicians here are popping Antacids like candy as it is."
"It will not be a problem, Terrany." ROB cut into the radio. "I am connected to the system. I will compensate."
"Good." Terrany hit her thrusters, brought her radar scanner up to its maximum sweep, and dialed down the resolution to a close-in view, showing only the first three kilometers out from her. "This is gonna get nasty."
In the decades since its creation, the portions of Andross's defeated Area 6 Defensive Line which had not been pulled in by the planet's gravity and destroyed by re-entry or asteroidal impact had been carefully marked off and avoided as much as possible. The Gorgon supership that was responsible for it had been a terror of a device, and the implosion of its strange spacetime folding engine had made the problem worse. As a result, it had earned not only a fearful reputation, but been given a name meant to chill the heart of any who dared to think of flying into it as a good idea. Even in a simulation, it went against everything Terrany had been told, but she had made the choice regardless.
The two Arwings flew straight into the Graveyard.
Venom (Simulation Number 42)
24,000 kilometers above Venom
The Graveyard
Debris, debris, and more debris. There were some ships that could fly through a miasma with minimal fuss, but those would be ships of the line; enormous, lumbering, slow-moving hulks with thick armor plating and heavy duty shielding that could pick off larger pieces with their guns while striking the smaller threats with impunity. An Arwing was far less fortunate. Designed for speed, maneuverability, and power on target, their main defense was not armor, which it had very little of, but in its sheer speed, regenerating energy shields and the deflective field temporarily created during aileron rolls. Like all Cornerian manufactured shields, they were more effective against energy weaponry than projectiles, a weakness that the Primal's own strengths could capitalize on with great zeal.
The main threat Terrany had to contend with as she flew into the Graveyard was flying straight into a bit of wreckage. The shields could probably take the impacts of the smaller pieces, but anything the size of her head or larger would quickly spell ruin.
Telemos had to be aware of the dangers as well, having fought against Arwings in the past. He had to know he was in as much danger as she was fighting in this mess. The inescapable conclusion, Terrany decided, was that he had come here with a plan. How long had he been stationed on Venom before their showdown beyond the Rim of Lylat?
Long enough, she answered herself soberly. The chances were high that he had been able to examine the Area 6 defensive zone in detail. She was probably dancing right into his killing grounds. She should have turned around then. She should have never followed him up into the Graveyard to begin with. But that would mean conceding even a slight victory to him, and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Either she could beat him at his best, or she couldn't.
Terrany cut back on her thrust and sighed as she put the wings into All-Range configuration; she would need the extra maneuverability. "Really missing the Seraph canopy HUD right about now." She was forced to glance between her radar display and ahead of her to match up what she saw with what her sensors could pick up.
If there was one benefit to the situation, it was that there was enough light streaming in from Solar and the more distant, but still just as brilliant star Lylus, to allow for partial visual identification. The metal of the ship debris still gleamed as brightly as it had seven and a half decades ago. She curved around the remains of a skull-emblazoned Harlock class frigate which had been split into two ragged halves, relying on her radar only for obstacle avoidance. In this soup, picking up Telemos and his Arwing would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Chances were good that he'd get the jump on her first, just by virtue of reaching the Graveyard first and having time to prepare.
"Deep breaths." She said to herself, commanding herself to relax. Being tensed up wouldn't do her any good. She tried not to think about which of these ships had been picked apart by the Great Fox and which had instead been peppered to death by her grandfather and his comrades on their blistering raid straight through the battle lines.
It was right as she was coming on towards the twisted hulk of a heat-warped green Zeram cruiser that things started to go wrong. Her Arwing shuddered slightly, and her G-Diffusers sent a warning about the anomalies. The gravitic distortions were starting to ramp up; not a good start, especially since she could make out the distinctive top-like shapes of a few Umbra battlestations clustered in a semispherical shape along her immediate flight path.
Every bit of debris, lacking its own thrust and momentum, circled around the ribbon-like mess of the Gorgon's remains. Her eyes on a swivel, she used her sensors and visuals alike to try and pick out Telemos. The Primal was like a ghost, however; every so often, she would catch a glimpse of a new radar contact, only to have it gone when she moved in to establish visual contact.
The fur on the back of her neck was steadily rising higher in warning, and her sixth sense was now screaming at her. She was flying further into the Graveyard, and with it came the feeling that he was somehow leading her on. Drawing her into a trap.
That lingering unease kept her even more on edge. It ended up saving her life.
Out of the corner of her eye, a glint of silver and blue that had no business in the debris field passed behind two more broken ships off her starboard wing. He was terrain masking. She prepared herself for him to come swooping out, diving in on her for the strike. Instead, an enormous red blast of light and force exploded behind a Zeram cruiser, breaking its keel and sending the two broken pieces of it spinning into her flight path.
Terrany sucked in a sharp breath and went low to duck the high flying stern, and her proximity alarm screamed all the louder as the longer bow piece of the ship, twisting in corkscrew fashion, angled itself up to smash her like a flyswatter. Only a quick twist of the stick and a brilliant mixture of first retros, then boosters, spared her. She screamed along the hull, barely staying ahead of the leading edge of the heavily armored wreck, her pullaway speed just enough to match its wild spin.
"Come on…Come on!" She snarled, the stick pulled back into her stomach. Finally, the collision alarm shut off, and she burst clear of the ships. The wild maneuvering had caused her to lose her orientation, and she quickly glanced towards Venom, righting the ship to match it. It was precious time wasted, time which would have allowed Telemos to set up for an attack. Sure enough, there he was, coming straight at her. He must have looped high and dove down in a high yo-yo, keeping him clear of the debris while maintaining the best angle to attack.
"I honestly thought that would kill you." He taunted her, locking on.
"I'm not…out yet!" Terrany snapped back between breaths. Her heart was pounding away in her chest like a jackhammer, and in spite of the air conditioning in the simulator pod, she found her tongue lolling out as she panted hard. With no room to maneuver for a loop, she pushed the throttle bar back up to full and shot towards the cluster of dilapidated Umbra battle stations off her port wing. The hard glow of a green laserburst chasing after her increased, throwing pale emerald light on all the scraps of debris around her. It quickly closed the gap between them, but she kept her eyes forward. She needed an opening. A small gap in the debris field she could exploit…
THERE!
In yet another dazzling maneuver, she folded her wings back into Launch position, turning the Arwing into a silvery dart. Using what little maneuverability she had left to her, she aimed for the hole, grit her teeth, and hoped for the best. She only had time for one minute shift before she burst through, her shields scraping the side of one ragged Umbra's edge before she blasted out on the other side. Releasing her breath, she toggled her wings back out and hit the retros, glancing behind her.
The laserburst, less controlled, hit the edge of the hole she'd passed through and detonated, baking the wrecks and leaving her intact. Terrany grinned and cut back on her thrust, sizing up her surroundings. Telemos had led this dance by setting the game inside of the Graveyard. He'd known the terrain well enough to set up an effective ambush. She needed a way to turn the tables on him, and she desperately wanted to return the favor.
A broken apart Harlock cruiser on a negative Z-Axis, jostled out of its position by the flying wreckage of the Zeram she had outrun, shredded apart as laserfire started to burn through it. Her heart caught in her chest, because it meant that Telemos would soon emerge and sight her instantly. A passing sheet of armor plating from above, spinning on its edge, gave her just the opening she needed. Ducking in behind it and matching its speed, Terrany hid in cover and coasted along, quickly looking back over her shoulder as Telemos's Arwing passed her and kept on going, keen on keeping up the attack.
Turning a switch to mute her headset, Terrany grunted. "All right, you son of a bitch. Let's see how you like it."
SimWing Control Center
"They're insane." Dana said, for what had to be the sixth time since they had set course for the simulated version of the very real Venomian Graveyard. "I'm all for pushing it to extremes and taking risks, but even I always stayed clear of that mess! Lylus, how are they even surviving it?!"
"Maybe they're just better pilots than you are." Rourke said laconically. That earned him a glare from the tigress, and even a sidewards questioning glance from Carl. Rourke gave them both a quick look and rolled his eyes. "It's survivable. My granddad told me once, in one of his more lucid moments when he wasn't drunk and tearing my head off, that he'd flown through it to avoid a pursuing SDF patrol a long time ago. Swore it off afterwards, said it was a place where only suicidal or crazy pilots should go. It's an absolute hell in there. Sensors work sporadically and get plagued with ghost radar returns, you're liable to get shredded just by sitting still, and you run the risk of running into microportals and spinning off meters away from where you were before. But she's managing in that, even if it is just a simulated version of the real thing. Funny thing is, I don't think it matters to her whether this is a simulation or if they were doing this in real life. She'd probably still charge in."
"She's her father's daughter." Mrs. McCloud added with a small, sad laugh. "I can't stop her. I can't save her. All I can do is make sure that there's a home for her to come home to afterwards, so she has something to live for."
"And all we can do is fly with her, to make sure she does make it home." Rourke agreed, drumming his fingers on the edge of the console he was standing by. His eyes stayed in squints, watching the duel play out.
He smiled. "She's gonna win this."
Wild Fox
Medical Bay
Stuck inside of a datapad, KIT could do nothing but stare at the screen Nurse Ermsdale had positioned its camera towards. That, and run commentary, which the rabbit on duty didn't mind in the slightest. Nobody was injured, the office was quiet, and it helped to pass the time.
He also knew what she was doing, which made the odd movements of Terrany McCloud as she stalked well clear of a still searching Telemos much more sensible.
"Okay, so why is she using her lasers to nudge debris in different directions? And why isn't it vaporizing when she shoots it?"
Onscreen, they watched Terrany sit motionless in a more open pocket of space, surrounded by clusters of wreckage and wrecks. As she spun around in a slow and seemingly pointless sphere, she would lob out a laserbolt, shots that glowed a dull red as opposed to the hot blue of the usual hyper laserfire.
"They're dancing in the Graveyard. Fox and I helped to make that mess, but when he gutted the Gorgon, it got a lot worse. That thing used some kinda 'dimensional phase' drive to move in and out of reality, warping from place to place. When it blew up, it created these tiny little ruptures all around where it went off, and with all those shipwrecks, it was too dangerous to map. I imagine even the simulator is just extrapolating some 'possible' holes in reality. She's shooting bits and pieces of debris and watching how they track. If they keep going, tremendous. But…"
He paused as one bit of armor plating she'd sent spinning off disappeared, only to manifest back into reality a full five meters and going in a different direction than before.
"…She's mapping it."
"Mapping it." Nurse Ermsdale repeated dubiously. "Trying to figure out where all those 'holes in reality' are? Is that so she'll be able to fly safely around there? I thought her reaction time was fast enough to account for it."
"Oh, it probably is. But she's not doing it to fly safe." KIT chuckled. "She's doing it so she can set a trap."
"Oh." Lydia Ermsdale blinked, and stared a little harder at the simulator's datafeed. "Ohhhhh. Oh, wow. Will it work?"
The dark laugh KIT answered her with made her shiver.
Wild Fox
Hangar Bay
"Come on, people! Let's keep the chatter down unless you're making a bet!" Wyatt shouted, temporarily calming the din of noise as the crew chiefs, mechanics, and engineers that kept the Wild Fox and its fleet of Arwings serviced put all their work on hold and congregated around the monitors and screens. Centered in the midst of them was Wyatt Toad, who had quickly taken the initiative once bets started flying on the duel between Terrany McCloud and Telemos Fendhausen. Beside him, a slowly spinning trio of flatscreen images rotated above their heads, showing the current bets and their odds of payout. He croaked loudly and tipped up the transparent green plastic casino visor which had taken the place of his usual oil-stained ball cap. "A bet on Terrany winning pays 1.5, Telemos still gets you 3 to 1 odds. Anything more specific, the payout jumps!" He motioned to one of the more wild bets currently on the board, with a payout of 12 to 1: They crash into each other and tie again.
Sitting well clear of the main group of rowdies and shaking his head, Sergeant Milo Granger flattened his ears briefly against another shouted out bet and looked to Ulie, who sat off of his shoulder. "What I want to know is, where did Wyatt get the visor?"
The black bear that was 2nd in command in the hangar and workshops chuckled in response, reaching for another handful of potato chips from the bag in his lap. "That one's a replacement for the one he lost on Ursa Station. I think the base PX had it. Which is good, because he doesn't do Poker Night without one."
Milo blinked twice and then tried for a sour look. "Wait, wait. Hang on a second. You guys do a Poker Night and you never told me? Or invited me?"
"Wrench turners only, Milo. No pilots allowed." Ulie replied, not looking too terribly apologetic.
Milo crossed his arms. "Hmph. When do you all play?"
"When we get a break from fixing up your messes, Third-Day evenings."
"You always told me you were working late!" The ring-tailed raccoon argued.
Ulie sighed and rolled his eyes. He shoved the handful of chips in his mouth and took the time to consider his response. After swallowing down the masticated paste, he shrugged.
"Milo. When does a bear play cards?"
The raccoon groaned. "I hate it when you use that excuse, Darkpaw."
Ulie grinned and shook his potato chip bag. "Well?"
"Gimme those!" Milo snapped, yanking the chips away from him. He plucked out a single chip and chewed on it slowly before grunting. "Whenever he wants. Jackass."
"Yup." Ulie's grin widened. "But I make it up to you, don't I?"
Milo just stared him down until Ulie's face drooped into something more akin to repentance. "Next time you win one of those nights, I want a bottle of Reserve Zonessan Rum."
Ulie waved a paw in surrender, and the two got back to focusing on the match. Their little corner of peace and quiet lasted all of one minute before another engineer, a tipsy short-eared rabbit, came wobbling over and crashed beside them.
"Furkins! You drinking on duty?!"
"Nah, boss, nah. I'm off shift, don't worry." Furkins said with a chuckle. "Boy, I wish they'd stop dancing around each other and do something!"
"Oh, she's doing something." Milo muttered, not breaking his gaze away from the nearest screen.
"What's that, Milo?" Ulie asked. "It doesn't look like she's doing much of anything to me."
"Back when I was a sniper…Well. Setting up where I was going to make my shot was just as important as pulling the trigger. You have to maneuver close to your target or put yourself someplace where they'll come to you. You have to get there undetected. That's Fieldcraft. She's doing something very similar right now."
Ulie wiped his greasy paw on the leg of his coveralls. "Mind explaining that?"
"All right. She's changing the game. Telemos is still treating this like a dogfight. He's hunting her, but not paying attention to the Graveyard aside from avoiding obstacles and looking for her. Maybe he's flown in the real thing, but this is a simulation. It's going to play by slightly different rules, and he figures it's close enough he'll still have the edge. Terrany's doing something else."
"She's…Fieldcrafting." The rabbit mechanic Furkins said hesitantly. By then, some of the other conversations around them had gone quieter, and Milo became acutely aware of how some of them leaned in closer to hear him better.
The Arwing pilot scratched under his chin. "In a way. She's picking out the spatial anomalies. Figuring out where the junk is. She's tracking the Graveyard's 'windage'. Where a shot will disappear and go wild, and where it'll reappear. Once she knows that, she'll know where to put herself, when to shoot, how to shoot. She might even be able to figure out where he'll come from, where he'll try and jink to escape her. It'll be over before he even knows what's happening."
Away from them, a sharp whistle from Wyatt scuttled his focus. The toad glowered at them. "Hey! What's with the chatter over there? You gonna place a bet, Sarge, or just be a color commentator all day?"
Milo chuffed and leaned back to smile waspishly at the chief engineer. "You want a bet? Sure. I'll put down 50 credits. Terrany wins." He raised up a clawed finger. "Under forty-five seconds after re-engagement. No return shots fired. What's the payoff when I win?"
Wyatt blinked at the bold declaration, but pulled up his datapad and typed in the wager, putting it through his betting algorithm.
Terrany victor. Under 45 seconds from re-engagement. No counterattack. 32 to 1 odds.
Wyatt swallowed as the Hangar Bay erupted into murmurs, hiding how pale his face had gotten.
"Um…No more bets." He said, locking the spread while the room groaned in protest.
With Ulie staring at him like he'd grown a second head, Milo leaned back, smiled, and kept eating the stolen bag of chips.
Simulation Number 42
The Graveyard
Telemos didn't know how she had done it, but somehow, Terrany had gotten clear of him, and hid somewhere in the din of The Graveyard. Forced to start his search from scratch, the Primal grumbled inside of his head even as he swiveled it in every direction, looking for a telltale glimmer of blue and silver that never seemed to materialize.
It was apparent to him that the Cornerians had never fully mapped this region of Venom's outer atmosphere. He'd flown in the real thing a little during his time guarding the Homeworld, just enough to know how dangerous it was. Just enough to get a feel for it, which he knew that Terrany had never gotten.
"You can't hide forever, McCloud." He growled. His anger at the situation was all the worse because his own experience within the Graveyard didn't match what the simulation was throwing at him. The major shipwrecks were the same, but the smaller debris field, especially closer to the center of it, was far different from real life. Somehow, she was outpacing him in this simulacrum of the floating mess, and it left his stomach twisted up. He was half expecting she would find him before he…
There.
Right on the periphery of his vision, he caught sight of the flaring glow of Arwing thrusters and the tail end of a silvery frame as it slipped behind more cover.
"Found you." Telemos nudged his thrusters up a few more degrees and chased after her. He made his way around the ruined defense satellite, and…
And she was gone. Stunned, Telemos fired his retros and did a full spin, expecting to see her coming at him from above or perhaps below. But she was nowhere. His rising panic momentarily quelled from the cancelled ambush, he righted the Arwing and proceeded ahead at what was a snail's pace for the spacefighter, all the while swiveling his head one way and another for a hint of her passing. His sensors remained as useless as ever, giving him ghostly radar returns and inconsistent ions. This close to Venom and exposed in the full daylight side of the planet's rotation, he couldn't go off of infrared either. There was nothing for it but to keep going ahead, to try and get another visual on her again.
It came sooner than he'd expected. A pitted out section of drifting cruiser that he had dismissed at first glance from a side view caught his attention with an unexpectedly bright reflection of light as he passed its open cross section. His eye slid to the side just in time to see a ship tucked inside of it…
Her ship…
And she was firing on him.
"Blast!" He shoved the throttle forward as the first laserbolts blindsided him, and skipped ahead with a wild rotation. She came rocketing out of the wreckage she had been hiding in, on his tail and eager to keep up the chase as a familiar glow settled on her nose.
"Oh no you don't." Telemos snarled. He jinked around a piece of debris to break the laserlock, expecting a few precious heartbeats of silence, but then to his shock, more laserfire started pelting his shields again, this time from a completely different direction. He swore and swerved out away from the line of fire and glanced behind him, expecting to see her on his tail…
Nothing but open space, and a line of laserfire that had burst out of nowhere to strike at him. That mind-stopping thought was quickly shoved to the side as he looked over his other shoulder and saw Terrany closing in on his tail, for real this time, firing again.
Another strangled scream, another few hits taken, another wild turn. He jinked out of his corridor and whirled to turn around another piece of debris, but again, laserfire seemed to come out of nowhere and bore straight on him, from the direction he was turning into. Telemos felt his hand shaking on the throttle as he rode through the attack and kept on going, spinning to divert the worst of it. His shield gauge had dropped considerably; he was now close to 60 percent after three blistering surprise attacks. He knew why his hand was shaking, at least.
Terrany hadn't just been wandering aimlessly. She was using the spatial distortions to great effect, firing into one invisible tear and pelting him with shots as he maneuvered into the reach of their connected exits.
This was her stalking ground, and he had stumbled right into it.
"You haven't won yet, McCloud!" Telemos inverted and pulled back on the stick with a burst of retros and then boosters, reversing his course and charging out to engage her. Instead, an enormous blast of red light, heat, and radiation baked his surroundings. Eyes widening in horror, the Primal banked hard away from the smart bomb detonation she had dropped in his path, and still he felt the ship rattle as it baked his aft section and cooked his shields down even further.
32 percent. Nearly critical, and he had yet to get a single shot off in response. His threat alarm screamed the warning of another laserlock, and he pushed the boosters hard, forcing his injured Arwing towards a narrow opening between a pair of cratered out Zeram cruisers drifting around the Graveyard's epicenter. Her laserlock would break, and this time, if she tried to use an invisible portal to fire on him, he'd spin and deflect through it and charge through the tear to ram her!
Instead, he saw the blinding light of another red explosion off the side of the dead cruiser off his starboard wing, and shortly thereafter, the entire bulk of that ship's carcass started to crawl towards him, and the other cruiser off his port wing. Barely any time to react at all to the threat of being squashed. Somehow, by will, stubbornness, and a hard turn that would have strained G-LOC even with dampeners in real life, he jerked up to escape the hammer and anvil she had made. Most of his Arwing did escape. His starboard wing was clipped, though, spinning him wildly before the Zeram cruisers collided and smashed the exposed wingtip. The force of his thrusters broke the rest of him clear, but the structural damage of a sheared off wing and the stresses the maneuver had caused dropped his ship's structural integrity to critical. His shields, already hurting, were no better.
14 percent.
Another laserlock. Beleaguered, exhausted, shaking from the constant onslaught of one well placed trap and maneuver after another, Telemos hurled himself into a high yo-yo to throw off her targeting and sight in on her for one last, desperate charge.
He never got the chance. Escaping the first laserburst, as he came to the peak of the high loop and started to come down, his vision was filled with blinding emerald light from a second laserburst. Untargeted, dead-fired, and yet somehow right on target. Because she had known how he'd move.
The simulator's screens went up in green light and then everything went silent as darkness replaced it. Telemos heard himself breathe as he shook like a leaf.
Simulation Failed
Total Ship Destruction
He heard her breathing as well.
"…I got you…" She rasped.
Telemos blinked at her assertion. Smiled. Something in his mind cracked, and released as a wave of hard, relieved laughter. Exhausted, completely and utterly defeated in a trap he had laid for her, Telemos slumped back against the simulator's seat and just let it all out.
"Uh…You okay? Rourke, I think I broke him."
"No, Terrany. I am…at peace." Telemos answered her with a sigh. "You have won. On an even field, you have bested me. I needed to know who was the better of us."
"You did all this for that?"
"We were both lost, Pale Demon." Telemos said, unstrapping himself and lifting the false canopy up. "This was the only way we could find ourselves again." Before she could answer, he tore off the simulator's helmet and climbed out of it. He marched in a straight path for her simulator, unsurprised to find Rourke, her brother, and her mother all moving there as well.
When the canopy opened, the pale-furred vixen just sat in the simulator pod blinking for several moments. She looked at her paws, then turned her head up to glance around her.
She saw the others at last, and the confused look on her face faded.
"Mom? Carl?" By the time she turned to Rourke, her voice cracked. It was almost enough to make Telemos feel as though he were intruding, and that feeling lasted when he approached and stood next to Carl. Her eyes fell on him next, and he smiled in spite of the awkwardness. Let the others think what they wanted. He had found his resolution.
Terrany climbed out on shaky legs, and stumbled a little as the toe of her shoe caught the edge of the simulator's hatch seal. Rourke let out a worried noise and quickly stepped in to catch her, pulling her close so her head came to rest under his chin. As she pulled back and looked up at Rourke, Telemos could see the concern in the wolf's eyes.
"You all right?" The Starfox flight lead asked her carefully.
She answered him by grabbing the collar of his jacket and pulling him down into a kiss that threatened to set his ears on fire. Carl snorted, her mother hummed appreciatively, and Telemos, a little put off by the display, calmly looked up at the ceiling and scratched the side of his face.
When the lovers finished their embrace, Terrany slipped out of one hand and kept hold of the other firmly, walking around him and dragging him behind her. "Come on."
"I…what?" Rourke gasped, still gobsmacked. "What are we doing?"
"What do you think?" She countered shrilly, not slowing down in the least. They were out of the room, Rourke still protesting halfheartedly at her determination, when Dana started laughing harder than Telemos had.
"First thing she does…after getting out of that walking coma…She drags him off to mount him!"
"For sport?" Telemos wondered aloud, puzzled at the implication. "You Cornerians hunt lesser creatures and hang them on the wall as decoration also?"
"Ew, no." Carl winced.
Dana only laughed harder. "I don't know, she might have him up against the wall sooner than you think!" Telemos blinked in confusion and looked between the gathered animals with a growing suspicion that they were all more than a little crazy, Dana especially. His confusion came to an end when ROB, of all individuals, created a circle with one hand and repeatedly shoved a finger into it in an unmistakable imitation of the act of coitus.
"Oh." Telemos muttered, scratching his face even more to hide a rising blush.
Wild Fox
Galley
46th Day of the Primal War
Morning
Rourke had a permanent 'approach at your own risk' vibe that held the curious at bay, but this morning, the tousled fur, rumpled outfit, and heavy bags under his eyes made him especially surly to look at. A cruller and a couple of turkey sausage links went mostly untouched, and he made ineffective stabs at a small container of blueberry yogurt and a cup of coffee so black that the smell alone would have been enough to wake up a lesser animal. He was running on fumes after last night's…exertions, and if putting on an even scowlier mien kept the others away from him so he could have a few more precious minutes to put himself back together again, he'd take it.
Milo he could put up with, the older raccoon was no stranger to comfortable silences and assessing body language. The sniper would have put himself between Rourke and any chatterbox crewmembers in a heartbeat. Dana would have been a pest, but with Carl back in the fold, she'd been spending more time with her fiancée and less with the rest of her team. And Terrany…
His mind blanked out, and he didn't come back to himself until a serving tray plopped down across from him loud enough to jar him back to his senses. To his dissatisfaction, it was the psychiatrist, Dr. Lynch. The hedgehog smiled politely. "Mind if I join you?"
"Seems like you already are." Rourke told him. He sighed and took another sip of his coffee.
"Oof. Rough night?" Lynch guessed, sitting down and digging into his bowl of oatmeal.
"Hnh." Rourke grunted back. "Something like that."
Lynch smiled in a knowing way that instantly left Rourke unsettled. "I heard Terrany finally came back to her senses. Congratulations."
"So, you're here to talk to her next then?"
"Yes. Her interview is all I have left to finish up my assessments." Dr. Lynch put another spoonful of the pasty gruel in his mouth and spent only a little time chewing before swallowing it down. Chasing it with a swig of juice, he went on. "I should be out of your hair by the end of the day."
"Don't be surprised if she tells you to stuff it." Rourke said, biting off a piece of sausage.
"Oh, is that what she told you to do last night?" Lynch inquired not so innocently, causing Rourke to choke and reach for his coffee again. "There's plenty of gossip around the ship about you two. Apparently, neither of you came up for air."
The wolf groaned and rested his head on his arm. "I take it this is my interview, then?"
"No." Lynch dismissed the idea with a shake of his head. "I'm just teasing you while I have the chance. Believe me, I am very happy that you two figured things out. Having a deeper bond seems to serve the members of this team well. We may have to rethink the rules on fraternization, at this rate."
"Can we please, please not talk about this?" The wolf asked wearily.
"Fine, fine." Lynch finished up his bowl of oatmeal and looked around the galley. "Come to think of it, where is my patient, anyways?"
"Where I left her. Sleeping." Rourke bit off another piece of sausage and chewed it noisily, as if daring Lynch to do something stupid like demand he go wake her up.
"And you didn't think to sleep yourself?"
"No rest for the wicked. It never ends."
"Oh, I doubt very much you're wicked. And in spite of your fatalistic outlook, undoubtedly a product of being raised by your paternal grandfather, I believe you're far more optimistic today than you'd care to admit. You're just worn out and…drained." Rourke arched an eyebrow and stared at the hedgehog, who smirked again and shook his head. "Terrible joke, I know. I apologize. It's rare I can get in a quality zinger, and you're such an easy target right now."
"Keep talking, I'll just be sitting here taking measurements for your coffin."
"And that's my cue to leave." Dr. Lynch finished off the last of his juice and exhaled in satisfaction, then rose up from the bench. "When she does wake up, inform your paramour that I would like to meet with her at her earliest convenience. Take care, Lieutenant."
"Wait." Rourke said, stopping Lynch while he was reaching for his tray. "That's it? You're really not going to interview me?"
"No. I thought I made that clear." The hedgehog said, adjusting his glasses.
"Why not? You've talked to everyone else on the team. And even her mother."
"I talked to them because I needed to talk to them. Because the rest all had baggage, and were terrible with dealing with it." Lynch shook his head. "I didn't need to talk to you. My psychological assessment is that you're perfectly fine, and coping with everything better than most would. You have baggage, to be sure, but you deal with it effectively. You deal with your stress so that you can be there for the others when they need you to be. Your unique background made you a hard luck case, and gave you all the qualities you would need to cope and adapt. The qualities a leader needs." Dr. Lynch chuckled. "So keep being that leader, Rourke, and I'll never have to darken your door."
Done at last, the psychiatrist took up his tray and departed, leaving Rourke to stare down at his own meal, lost in thought.
At length, he grunted and reached for the cruller, letting the smile he felt come to his face. "Shrinks."
Medical Bay
Midday
"Can we hurry this up, doc?" Terrany complained. Dressed in a light blue T-Shirt and cargo pants, her tail swished behind her at an irritated pace as she sat hooked up to wireless diodes and scanners. The very first thing she'd done after arriving was demand to see KIT. The datapad with the Cerinian data module containing his…essence?...Programming?...Was clutched tightly to her stomach, camera facing out. "I'd kind of like to get moving."
"You should have been in here last night as soon as you finished with that marvelous performance against Telemos." The simian surgeon retorted, shining a light into her eyes for the third time to judge her pupillary response. "However, you wanted to hump your brains out as the gossip tells it, so we're doing it now. And afterwards, the good psychiatrist here wanted to speak with you." He gestured behind him without looking towards the hedgehog leaned up against the wall. The doctor kept his eyes on the monitors and frowned. "Well. Baseline vitals are normal, but your EEG is…very active. Below the readings when you and KIT were still sharing cranial space on a permanent basis, but above what your 'resting' synaptic activity was."
Terrany looked at him strangely for a time, and the surgeon felt a light prickling on the top of his skull, like a sudden itch.
"You're worried about me." She inferred, and Dr. Bushtail tried to mask his shock. "It's…I don't know." She looked down. "Is this part of that latent telepathic ability my grandmother was supposed to have?"
"Maybe." Bushtail conceded. "But before, you only seemed able to pick up on the surface thoughts of KIT. Now, it's…can you control it?"
"It's off and on." She admitted. "So, no. Not sure I'd want to. Some of the stories about grandma were…strange."
"It's part of your heritage." Dr. Bushtail soothed her. "Andross called you the 'last daughter of Lylus.' I'm not sure how much I throw into the old religious myths, but I can't argue with the evidence in front of me."
"Goody. So now, I'm a freak."
"Join the club, kid." KIT called out from the datapad's speaker.
Dr. Bushtail's datapad beeped, and after glancing at it, he started disconnecting his electrodes from Terrany. "Well, that's enough data to keep me busy for a while."
"So I'm good?"
"Your flight status is not restored, but otherwise, yes. You've been cooped up long enough. Just stay close."
"Where else would I go, doc?" Terrany countered, handing KIT's datapad back to the surgeon. "This ship is my home. Take care of him, will ya? I'm going to go see if Wyatt's ready to take him back yet."
The simian blinked a few times, then turned around and walked off so she wouldn't see him smile. "She's all yours, Lynch."
The psychiatrist pushed off the wall and walked closer to Terrany. "So. Would you want to stay sitting in here talking, or you want to go for a walk? If we talk as we go, I'll just slip out after."
Terrany smirked. "Heh. Were you this good with everyone else on my squad?"
"More or less."
"Well, let's get going then. I've got an appointment with the hangar bay." She bounded off of the examination table and strolled out of the Medical Bay, and Dr. Lynch fell in step beside her.
In the corridors of the ship, Lynch took the opening move. "So. You've been out of the loop for a while. Was it a lot to take in?"
"Rourke caught me up last night."
"You had time set aside for that?"
"It isn't all rutting when you're a vixen and a wolf."
Lynch laughed a little. "So I've heard. You can spare me the details." He kept the smile, even as it strained a little. "Still. The loss of Corneria, so soon after Darussia…Your falsified death and miraculous return…and the total collapse of the SDF. Everyone looking to Starfox, to your brother, to Rourke, to you, to be saved."
"Not much has changed." Terrany told him, keeping a steady pace. She had a hard look on her face, her mind turned inwards on the situation. "They were always looking to us for a miracle. Somehow, we keep delivering. It's who we are. Only difference is now, we don't have to deal with the SDF, or rely on the "Starfox Protocol" to give us the assets we need to pull off wins."
"Because everything that's left, which isn't much, works for you now."
"Exactly. As Rourke tells it, though, we're hard up to resupply and rebuild. So are the Primals, but they have Macbeth and its production facilities still."
"Knowing your brother and General Grey, I would imagine that they're putting a plan together." The hedgehog adjusted his glasses as they reached the turbolift. The doors hissed open and they stepped onto it. "I'll be honest with you, Miss McCloud. You don't seem all that concerned about things. That worries me. After what you've been through, most animals would have some form of PTSD. Just remembering things would…"
"I don't." She cut him off.
"Hm? You don't what?"
"Remember." She said, staring at the wall of the lift as it hummed and took them down to the lower decks. "At first, I was sort of there. KIT…Falco…he was there with me, and we were kind of…sharing." She folded her arms and leaned back. "But when they started the torture, I was…slipping in and out. I think he was pushing me down. Taking over for the worst of it, so I wouldn't have to deal with it. Then there was some kind of…injection…I remember it burning. Just, burning all over. Outside, inside, in my head, in my blood, and then…nothing." She looked over to Lynch and bit her lip. "I don't remember anything after that. I kind of remember Andross. I remember waking up after, being driven back to my mother's house. After that, I was just underwater. But what you're implying? My time in captivity?"
She shrugged and looked away. "Not a clue. So I'm not sure what to feel about it."
"Hm." Lynch adjusted his glasses. "I had a chat with your digitized friend earlier. He wasn't sure what you'd remember, but he had a different opinion on the matter. KIT believed that he wasn't pushing you down so much as you were hiding and letting him take the controls. So to speak."
Terrany's face tightened a little. "I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe he's wrong. Why does it matter?"
"What I am afraid of, frankly, is that there will come a time when you will remember something. Maybe at the worst possible moment, like when you're on a mission and need your full wits about you."
"Oh, give me a break." She muttered. "What, I'm going to crack because I'll female out or something?"
"Hysterical responses to trauma, much as the uneducated would like to argue otherwise, are gender neutral." Lynch said diplomatically. "I think in the course of this war, everyone has had a moment where they've just frozen up for a lack of being able to process the situation. I'm not saying that you're a liability, Terrany. In truth, you are a very valuable asset. Your record speaks for itself, after all. How many kills have you racked up so far? Over fifty? Over a hundred? I believe, capital ships and drones included, you're approaching two hundred confirmed kills. Given that Fighter Ace status is awarded at five kills, that makes you a living legend in the history of fighter pilots."
Shr shrugged. "Couldn't give you the exact number, but grandpa still has more. For now."
"The point I'm trying to make is that as much you want to just barrel into getting back to 'the routine', you need to take it slowly. I doubt they even have a ship ready for you to fly yet, since Arwings are apparently in short supply these days. You have more reason than most to want to put these Primals down, but do yourself a favor. Take some time to come to terms with what's happened. Spend time with your friends. You're more than a fighter pilot. Don't lose sight of that and start thinking of yourself as just a weapon."
"Has that ever happened?" Terrany laughed. She'd been looking at the lift display counting the deck numbers, and glanced in his direction when the psychiatrist didn't give her an immediate response. The cold look on his face made her pause.
Lynch stood still for a few moments longer before answering. "Once or twice." He said softly. By the time the lift doors opened, he was back to himself again, a placid and masking smile back on his face.
"Okay." Terrany said, stepping off the lift into the hangar bay. "So, what do I do first?"
"Where do you go to relax?" Dr. Lynch replied with a question.
"On this ship? Usually the garden my grandmother put in."
"Go there, then."
"But I was going to…"
"After you check in with Wyatt." He corrected himself, stopping her protest. He looked on ahead and nodded. "I believe that's everything I need for my interview, Miss McCloud. You've made a good home here. Don't be afraid to enjoy it every so often."
"I won't." She promised.
"And one last thing, since I doubt I'll ever have the chance to see you again." Dr. Lynch held out a hand towards her. "Good luck, Starfox."
She grabbed hold of his hand and shook it tentatively. "You too."
With that, the hedgehog clucked his tongue and started down the metal walkway to the hangar bay floor, and an exit out of the parked ship. Terrany only watched him for five heartbeats before she caught sight of Wyatt down on the ground floor, giving instructions to a group of ten technicians clustered around a parked transport.
"Hey, Wyatt!" She yelled, and went down the other set of stairs towards him.
Wild Fox
General Grey's Quarters
46th Day of the Primal War
Late Evening
Well on his way to slipping into blissful unconsciousness, General Grey closed the document file he'd been reading and moved to set his datapad onto the end table. While the book series would never be finished, as the author was one of the countless billions dead on Corneria, he still enjoyed reading them, especially the third in the series of the published five. He had just killed the light and eased into his pillow when he heard the distinct noise of the device vibrating. It made him tense up instantly.
He didn't move, or open his eyes up, even as it buzzed in the same pattern four seconds later. Don't worry about it. You're off duty. It isn't your problem. If it was important, Dander or ROB would be paging you on the intercom.
That thought lasted him for a few precious moments of indeterminate length before it chimed again. Somewhere in the muzzy portion of his brain still capable of rational thought, he started to remember it only did that after a message had been ignored for over thirty minutes.
You could just shut it off. Power the damn thing back on in the morning and deal with it then. Yes, he could do exactly that. Or he could try to ignore it, and hope that he was asleep before it chimed off again, too far gone for its noise to bother him.
Still, you're the highest ranking officer left in the Remnant Armada. And maybe it isn't flagged important enough for them to buzz your room when you should be dead asleep…
…But it's all important when you're in charge.
With an exhausted groan, Grey reached over and grabbed the device. As the screen blinded him while his eyes adjusted, he relied on muscle memory to take him to his inbound messages, and found one waiting in his inbox.
FROM: MONARCH
"Shit." General Grey's heart instantly kicked up twenty beats a minute, blasting him out of his stupor. A MONARCH message. That asset was still alive? He kept reading, and was immediately puzzled. Usually, MONARCH flagged data was sent to him under the EYES ONLY EMERALD label, printed off in hardcopy, the original transmission deleted and the hard drive partition overwritten. But now, MONARCH was transmitting to him directly. It had none of the usual clipped style of code phrases and short, to the point, data.
This was an open letter.
For any hope of success in this war, every asset still left available to you and the Starfox Coalition must operate at peak capacity, or as close to it as possible. Prior to the destruction of Corneria, there was great concern among the Joint Chiefs that not only were the staff under your command and aboard the Wild Fox a bunch of loose cannons, but that the pilots of the Starfox Team themselves were, if not outright emotionally crippled, at risk of a total nervous breakdown. Information collected from Flight Data modules and after-action mission reports seemed to support this. Separate from General Kagan's awareness, discussion was held among the others as to whether Starfox should be disbanded or replaced, in spite of the risk to troop morale and stunting the flow of the war.
As a result, steps were taken to meet with, and assess, the pilots and notable related individuals of the Starfox Team. Following a review of those interviews, MONARCH advises Acting Supreme Commander of the Starfox Coalition and Remnant Armada (ROGUE DOG) of the following findings:
-The situations faced by the Starfox Team have ranged from the difficult to the ludicrous. In spite of this, they have triumphed in nearly every engagement, suffering only minor losses. This performance ratio is leagues above what any other Arwing Squadron currently is capable of, and while this may change as additional Seraph-capable pilots are trained, it is doubtful that they will meet Starfox's level of achievement in the short term.
-The members of the Starfox Team are nontraditional pilots, and this is more a strength than a weakness. With Terrany McCloud as the only pilot to go through full Air Force Academy training (not withstanding her expulsion in the final semester), the team relies on tactics and approaches that are not in alignment with SDF standard training. This has led them to try maneuvers which, while ridiculous on the surface, have proven vital in securing victories.
-Their emotional well being, as a unit, is wholly dependent upon one another. The brashness of Pilot Tiger is counterbalanced by Major McCloud's more even-handed mantra. Pilot Granger is seen by the others as a source of wisdom and advice in difficult situations, and Flight Leader O'Donnell maintains authority with a hard, mission-oriented eye for detail and unflinching command. There appears to be a natural ebb and flow of 'lead and follow' among them in spite of their ranks, and an instinctive understanding among the pilots of what their fellows can, and will do. While many were reticent to discuss their flaws and problems, all seem to be in better spirits following therapist-suggested heart to hearts, as well as the revival of Pilot Terrany McCloud
As a result of these findings, MONARCH advises the following:
Keep the Starfox Team intact, and model other Arwing Squadrons after their approach. Encourage out of the box thinking, but balance it with squadron discipline and do your best to discourage 'sacrifice plays.'
What you have on board the Wild Fox is something I have never seen before in the armed forces. They have gone from a bunch of civilian and military throw-togethers tossed into a war none of the Project Seraphim staff ever expected, and cemented themselves into an extended, multi-species family. Much as it may pain you, it seems that the bulk of the crew looks to you as a grandfather figure. Given your own colorful history, General Grey, it should not surprise you that the Starfox Team and their assorted support staff are turning out to be as gadfly-ish as you are.
They are, to be certain, a little mentally unstable. That is to be expected when one walks the razor's edge as often as they do. They are plagued by all the doubts and guilt that any common animal possesses, magnified by the breadth of the task set ahead of them. It is a perspective and burden that is not limited to your pilots, and yet in spite of the pressure that would crack lesser souls, everyone on board the Wild Fox somehow endures. They work hard. They fight harder. They are steadily getting better at controlling the mechanism to relieve the pressures of this conflict with less self-destructive methods.
Starfox is more than a name. It is more than a squadron. In their hands, and now in yours, it has become a rallying cry and a uniting force unlike anything the SDF ever possessed. The war began with the Primals already fearing the Arwing spacefighter, targeting them whenever possible. Starfox is something worse.
One last note, in regards to the (status uncertain) Primal known as Telemos Fendhausen. It is my belief he is standing at a crossroads in his life. With some gentle nudging, he could become a valuable asset to our survival. Just be careful not to push too hard, or he will be lost to us. You may wish to leave the matter to the Starfox Team. Among everyone within his circle of acquaintances, he is closest to them, and it would not surprise me if they manage to recruit him. To what end, is something only he, and you, can determine.
The Starfox Team has been psychologically evaluated. They are, pending your final authorization, approved for full combat duty as their physical conditioning allows. -MONARCH
END OF MESSAGE
"Huh." Grey made a face, not sure how he was supposed to feel about it. Taking another look at the clock, he settled for a snort before turning the datapad's screen back off and tossing it roughly onto his bed's end table again.
As he pulled his blanket back over his shoulders, the old dog coughed loudly. "ROB?"
"Yes, General Grey?" The tinny voice from his room's com speaker inquired.
"Remind me tomorrow to throw a fit about the SDF's top intelligence asset investigating my pilots without my approval."
"I shall do so. Do you require anything else, General?"
"Some Creator-damned peace and quiet."
"Good night then, General Grey."
Wild Fox
Habitation Deck
Telemos Fendhausen's Quarters
The door chime to his room went off, and Telemos looked up from his empty desk. "You may enter."
The door slid open to reveal Rourke O'Donnell and Terrany McCloud waiting on the other side. Terrany looked nervous with her arms behind her back, but Rourke merely narrowed an eye. "It's customary to ask who's there before opening the door. What if it was someone who wanted to hurt you?"
Telemos turned his chair around slightly, allowing the mercenary pilot to catch sight of the Primal's half-unholstered laser pistol, and the hand gripping it. "They would be welcome to try." The point made, he slid it back into the holster and removed his hand. "As of late, you and Sergeant Granger have been my most consistent visitors. Besides, very few Cornerians aboard this vessel have been openly hostile to my presence following the rescue of your mate."
The frank statement regarding his relationship to Terrany made Rourke smirk and look away from her. "Yeah, well. Nice to know you're being careful."
"It is a trait we apparently share." Telemos stood up from his seat and nodded to Terrany. "It is good to see you up and moving around, McCloud. Was there something you required?"
"What, a girl can't just stop by to visit her defeated rival and gloat for a while?" She asked innocently. His dead stare finally made her sigh. "Fine. I had a question for you."
"You may ask it." Even at rest, she was impressed by how stiff and stoic he presented himself as.
"Rourke told me that you…you threw away everything. To help my friends. Save me. And from what I remember, you were always obsessed with me."
"I wanted to finish what was left unfinished." He said. "And now it is finished. You defeated me."
"Well." She scuffed the toe of a new set of combat boots against the carpeted floor. "If you've taken care of your unfinished business, what are you going to do now?"
Telemos stared at her, and sensing the challenge in his gaze, she kept her head up and refused to look away.
"I have thought about nothing else since you defeated me in our simulated duel." He explained. "I cannot go back, after all. Even were I not branded a traitor to my people, knowing what I know now about my people's history, I lack the stomach return to blind, obedient service." He raised a hand to forestall Terrany when he saw her opening her mouth to speak. "Nor could I join your fighters and take up arms against the soldiers of the Armada. I know that was your next thought." She snapped her jaws shut with a loud click.
"So…What will you do?" Rourke asked. "If you won't help them and you won't help us, are you just going to fly off to some remote corner of the Lylat System and wait the war out?"
Telemos let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh at the notion. "Never. No. I struggled for a very long time, but I have my answer. My people are slaves, Rourke. My ancestors were taken from this system, pressed into servitude. I cannot do nothing. I must act in my own name, and I must save them."
Rourke nodded slightly. "Okay. How?"
"That, I…I am less sure of." The Primal admitted with a wince. "Before I can save them, they must know what they need to be saved from. The methods at my disposal for that purpose are limited, as I am sure you know."
"So…you're still figuring it out then." Terrany inferred.
"Yes." Telemos nodded sharply. "I do not anticipate it will be easy."
"And you'll do it alone?"
"If I must. But, I will admit it would be easier if…Were I to ask for your help in freeing my people from the bonds of unknowing enslavement, Starfox…"
Rourke saw him struggling to make his sentiment clear and took pity on him. "Do you want our help in saving your people?"
Telemos flinched a little. "I…Yes." He looked away. "But I understand how you must feel. My people have been your enemies. We have inflicted terrible harm and suffering on you. In my case, I am sure you merely feel a sense of obligation due to my actions taken on your behalf…"
"Gah, shut up already." Terrany sighed, causing him to stutter off and stare at her. "Your people have been used. Fine. We've killed a lot of you, you've killed a lot more of us."
"Teri." Rourke put a hand on her shoulder. She rolled her eyes, and Rourke went on. "We're not saying it's going to be hugs and handshakes overnight, Telemos, and you're enough of a realist to know that's not going to happen either. But, we want to put an end to this war. I want the bastards in charge who started this holy war of yours. If helping your people means that your leaders suddenly end up with less of an Armada than they were counting on, I'm fine putting in a little extra effort. Just be sure that you're not setting the stage for another war with us after we stop this one."
"Why? Will there be anyone left to fight when this is over with?" Telemos countered. "You may relax. I am wiser than I was when we first crossed swords over Venom. Many of your ways are still strange to me. You place value on virtues and things I struggle to understand. Perhaps some good will come of remaining in close proximity to you all. I may eventually know you well enough to show my people a different path. A better one."
Terrany smiled and stepped closer to the Primal, pulling her hands out from behind her back to reveal a leafy fern in a small clay pot. "Well, if you're going to be living here on the Wild Fox for the foreseeable future, you're probably going to want to get settled in. I thought you might enjoy a housewarming gift."
Telemos stared at it. "It is a plant."
"Well, yeah." Terrany said, hefting it expectantly. Telemos kept his hands at his sides, failing to take the bait.
"I do not understand. Why are you giving me this plant?"
"You put it in your room. You take care of it. It grows."
"Would this plant not be better off in the garden housed on board this ship?" Telemos asked, confused.
"Um." Terrany shuffled from one foot to the other. "Telemos, I think you're missing the point here."
"You are giving me a potted plant. As a gift. A gesture of welcoming." Telemos said. "I understand this, but why should I keep it here and not in the garden?"
"Because your quarters here need a little livening up!" Terrany gestured with the plant around the room, empty save for a box of folded clothes, and the desk and bed which had come with the room to begin with. "I can't tell anyone lives here!"
"These quarters suffice for my needs."
"But…!"
"Terrany." Rourke stopped her again with a sigh. "Let me give it a shot. I've got a little more experience with Telemos-speak than you." The wolf looked at the Primal and narrowed his eyes. "Take the plant, put it on your desk. Water it every day. Leave a light on it. Now say thank you."
So ordered, Telemos stiffly accepted the plant from Terrany and put it where he'd been directed. "I…thank you. For the houseburning gift."
"House. Warming." Terrany bit the word off, folding her arms.
"Ah. Housewarming. Yes." Telemos corrected himself, missing the extra bit of irritation he'd caused in his rival. "I shall water it. When you say water, do you mean…"
Rourke put a hand over his eyes. "From your sink. Don't piss in the plant."
"Understood." Telemos scratched at his forehead. "Was there anything else you needed?"
"Did you have any ideas on how to get started 'freeing' your people?" Terrany asked him.
"One or two. I will need to consult with your superiors."
Terrany glanced over to Rourke, who smiled before speaking. "Tell you what. We're doing a briefing tomorrow morning on our next targets. You should stop by. Maybe you'll get some ideas."
"And, I assume, you will also pick my brain for any valuable intelligence during this briefing which might alter your plans." Telemos inferred sourly.
"Hey, he is getting to know us." Terrany chuckled. "I guess you're only dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to social situations."
Telemos grunted. "Annoying female."
"And proud of it, scruffy." Terrany spun around, waving a hand over her shoulder as she left. "See you tomorrow!"
Telemos watched her go and looked to Rourke in askance. The flight lead of the Starfox Team shrugged cheerfully. "Well. Looks like we're going to be friends after all."
"She's worse than Dana." Telemos rolled his eyes. Rourke laughed a little and patted him once on the shoulder before departing as well. When his door had closed, leaving him alone once more, Telemos sat back down at his desk.
He looked around the empty stateroom, wondering why it suddenly seemed barren, instead of functional. It had never bothered him until the Pale Demon had brought the subject up. With one finger, he reached out and gently poked one of the fern's stems, watching it bend backwards before springing back. It was undaunted in the face of aggression. Telemos found that reassuring.
