* On board the Great Fox *
"That's... That's smoke comin' up from the stadium...! Y'all see that smoke yonder?" Peppy shook his head, thinking his eyes might've been deceiving him, but they weren't at all. Even through his small circular spectacles, he could spot a pitch-dark haze rising from the stadium's tiny structure floating way down there in the distance.
Standing beside the hare, Fox had likewise been gazing out through a cold and unsettled stare this entire time. Falco stood next to them now as well, still holding that medical cloth against his wounded shoulder.
"Uh, yeah?" The bird then thought to utter, "Anyone with half their eyesight can see it."
The Star Fox team's demeanor had done a complete 180 after witnessing those security shuttles get blown out of the sky earlier, right before their eyes. Yet, even when the Halberd made its descent to Midair Stadium, there was no way they could've known just how horrific the following minutes actually were.
Fox held a very different sentiment on it regardless, because for him, all the pieces had aligned in a single, bleak configuration. Seeing that type of smoke meant one thing, and one thing only.
"... It's been attacked..." Profound dread filled his every word, "... The stadium's been attacked..."
Both Peppy and Falco fell silent, even as the vulpine glanced at each of them. "Guys, that's the smoke you see from explosions. Wh-What else could've happened? Look... Look how the Halberd's been hovering right over it this whole time..."
It couldn't have meant anything other, yet at the same time, none of this was making a lick of sense. How? Just how could Meta Knight have blown up those security shuttles out of nowhere like that? Then, much more shockingly, could he have actually gone and attacked Midair Stadium itself? Right in the open?
But... That was a blatant act of terrorism! An act of WAR against the ENTIRETY of Sector N!
Fox's thoughts were swarming all over the place. What could he and his team even do to respond to this apparent attack? The Great Fox's own weapon firing systems had been surged out during that energy anomaly, so there was no feasible way they could've attempted to intervene without any defenses; not to mention, their Arwings still lay damaged in the hangar bay.
And yet, the vulpine was totally unaware of the fact that Meta Knight himself wasn't responsible. In no way could he have known that the Halberd had been hijacked by dark, unknown forces.
"... MSAA, you getting this?" Fox fidgeted to hit the right function on the communications console. He even had to take a quick breath before continuing, "MSAA, do you copy? D-Do you see the Dreamland Battleship Halberd on your scope?"
Despite his attempt at making contact, no answer from the Midair Stadium Arrival Authority manifested, none whatsoever. After this long beat of silence, the burning stress was inevitably starting to get to the vulpine.
"MSAA, are you getting this?!" He reiterated more anxiously, "This is the Great Fox. We... We witnessed the Halberd destroy the security shuttles and then attack the stadium itself...!"
When Fox looked out the front window again, everything in his mind halted. Meta Knight's battleship was banking wide and turning around down in the far distance, before it slowly pitched upward to a bearing which faced the Great Fox almost head-on.
"Now it's... Coming back...?!" He said aloud, his stature tensing up even more than it had been.
"Yeah... What the hell's Meta Knight doin'?" A likewise befuddled Falco added. Indeed, the Halberd began climbing higher and higher in the sky below, heading right for the Cornerian mothership. All its giant rear thrusters roared with a powerful fury.
Why was it pulling away so quickly? It looked as though the battleship was trying to get away from the stadium as fast as possible; like a deliberate escape from something.
Fox felt another stark chill shoot down his spine.
"... Shields up," he commanded. "ROB, get our shields up. Full power to the bow."
Doing so, the robot tapped several modules on one of the mainframe panels. "Activating shields."
Right in front of the bridge windows, the air warped for a brief instance while the Great Fox's energy shields powered on. A thin albeit protective, membrane-like force now enveloped the entire mothership.
"The Great Fox's shields are at maximum power," ROB 64 confirmed, adding, "Increased buffer transfer to the bow is complete."
A frail breath then left the vulpine's maw. All he and his team could really do was wait while Meta Knight's battleship kept ascending higher and higher, drawing nearer with each passing second.
"Should we... Try hailin' him or somethin'?" Peppy thought to ask, though Fox gave no answer. He just kept staring at the Halberd's broad and foreboding stature, when all of a sudden:
"... Haa-... Aaaahhh!" Sharp, pain-filled cries erupted from the human boy still lying back there on the table. Slippy had tried to tighten those medical wraps around his thigh wound with good intent, but it ended up causing the exact opposite outcome.
"S-Sorry, sorry!" He grabbed the boy's slender torso with both hands, trying his best to hold him down and prevent him from writhing too much. "I-I didn't mean to...!"
Frantic yet frustrated, the mechanic turned and wailed, "FOX! Get over here and help me!"
"Nghh..." The vulpine glanced back at them, seeing how tears of helplessness were spilling from the human's eyes. Slippy's Hypo-Blue injection on him had surely worn off by now, so that full pain pulsated through his whole body. That androgynous-looking boy kept squirming, emitting empty whimpers while the mechanic struggled to restrain him.
"Come on, please!" He looked up at Fox, insisting once more, "I need your freakin' help! I can't hold him while I'm trying to keep pressure on his leg and-"
"SLIIIIIIPP!" A single word burst out from the boy's parted lips, cutting straight through all other noises. Cold silence immediately followed as Fox, Falco, and Peppy swung around in unison, locking their attention on the struggling human.
Slippy was especially shocked. He stared at the others with his mouth agape, trying to form anything close to a thought on what he'd just heard. It really sounded like this boy had shouted his name! Or, had he?
More pain-filled words abruptly spilled out as he lay there, all but crying, "Hnngghh... S-Slipp... Slipp meg...! Ahh... V-Vondt... Det vondt... Så...!"
Falco started taking a few heavy steps toward them.
"... What's he sayin'?" A frothing mix of both anger and confusion teemed in his voice. "Why's it sound like he's sayin' your name, Slip? Tell me what he's sayin'?"
"I-I-I-I-I don't-...!" The mechanic stammered, only to feel one of the boy's trembling hands grip his forearm. He even tugged on it, sitting up a little and making direct eye-contact a second time.
Slippy could see the utter anguish burning within those light hazel irises. So desperately did they want to communicate something, even if it couldn't be understood by a spoken word.
"Haa-Ahh... Slipp... V-Vondt så..." Tears dripped down the boy's cheeks and ran along the sides of his tense neck. His lips pried apart once again, though this time he strained to utter something different, "V-Vann... Jeg må... Vann...! Jeg... Jeg trenger... Vann...!"
Falco moved closer, his eyes glaring upon the human. "... What the FUCK is he sayin'?"
Slippy turned around and leaned back against the table in an attempt to guard the boy from the approaching avian. He dreaded a repeat of what happened earlier, or possibly worse.
"D-Don't come any closer," he croaked. "I won't let you touch him again!"
For a brief moment, Falco did stop in his tracks. That soul-piercing glare of his shifted up to meet the mechanic's contrasting, fretful one.
"Oh yeah?" The bird took another step forward, then two purely out of defiance. "Then make 'im SHUT UP."
"No, w-wait," pleaded Slippy, right as more frail words came from the boy. Something seemed to click for him right then and there. "Guys, can't you hear?! He's... He's trying to tell us something...!"
Falco gave a morbidly sarcastic scoff. "Oh, gee, ya think? Well no shit, Sherlock."
Ignoring his words, the anxious mechanic turned to a silent Fox who'd just been staring blankly at this whole situation.
"... Fox...!" He panted, "You hear him, right? Listen, it's like he... He needs something!"
At first the vulpine opened his maw as if to agree, but a mere blink and slight shake of the head ended up being his response; one of pure uncertainty.
"... I mean, he's gotta be, r-right?!" Slippy was desperate. He felt so certain about this hunch and wanted nothing more than for somebody else to see his reasoning. Right now, however, no one appeared remotely willing.
"Hnnghhh... Sni... Snill...!" The tearful boy murmured again. Slippy leaned in close, trying to grasp an inkling on what he might've been trying to say. "Det vondt...! Jeg... Jeg må... Vann...!"
Falco could barely take it anymore. He was on the verge of snapping again, so he shut his eyes and clenched his beak, digging a pair of his feathered fingers right into that cloth over his shoulder wound. The sharp spike of pain only fueled his seething distaste.
"Slippy... Make this little bitch shut his trap or I swear I'm gonna-"
Then, all of a sudden, something truly frightening happened. A deep and distant explosion of warped sound sucked Falco's rage straight from his lungs. Everything else abruptly fell mute too; even the boy's cries got snatched out of thin air.
Where had this noise come from? It seemed to radiate in pulses across the surrounding sky, though it quickly came to be realized that there was only one possible source.
"... Look! The stadium!" Peppy pointed out the front window, wide-eyed and panicked. Fox swung back around to look as well, but what he caught sight of left him stone-cold to his core.
Midair Stadium wasn't there anymore. Instead, where it once floated way down in the distance, a dark and ominous sphere expanded steadily until every trace of the structure had been swallowed.
No one dared to utter a single word. They didn't have but a few moments to process any of this either, because the Halberd had drawn close enough now where the sheer force of its thrusters made the Great Fox vibrate.
Everything in the bridge started rattling again. Within seconds, the noise became so intense that it forced the team to cover their ears like before and focus on this humongous battleship approaching. It even looked like the two craft were on a direct collision course, but then, seemingly at the very last moment, the Halberd veered up and roared right over the Great Fox; quickly enveloping it in its massive, stark shadow.
"Aaaghhh! What is going oooon?!" wailed Slippy, clinging to the table from all this shaking. Those words of his did nothing except barely pierce this thundering swell of the Halberd's unimaginably powerful jet engines.
Everyone's ears became so saturated that they didn't hear the alarm starting to blare on the mainframe. Only ROB 64 stood there to detect multiple blinking trails now upon the radar, though unlike earlier, a new alert was flashing in big red letters on the display.
"Warning. Target-lock detected on three incoming projectiles."
"... TARGET-LOCK?" Fox, Falco, and Peppy all swung around in shock. "More missiles from the Halberd?"
"Projectile composition is unknown," answered the robot. This sent waves of confusion amongst the trio.
"... What?!"
"Trajectory analysis shows that the projectiles did in fact originate from the previously unidentified battleship Halberd, and will strike the Great Fox's stern. Distance: Four-hundred meters and closing."
But... Our shields are up...! Fox grinded his teeth in angst. The ship's protected... Right...?
The alarm blared faster and faster with each passing moment, until ROB 64 announced, "Danger proximity. Projectile distance: One-hundred meters and closing."
Everyone held their breath.
"Impact with projectiles in Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."
Purple and black streaks trailed each incoming object as they shot straight through the barrier of the Great Fox's shields, like it'd never even been there to begin with.
BANG! The first one blew apart the starboard thruster completely.
BANG! The second slammed right into the huge middle thruster, gauging out a considerable hole.
And BANG! The third blasted a rear balance fin clean off.
Violent jolts rocked the Cornerian mothership with each explosion erupting at its stern. Those projectiles had acted similar to missiles movement-wise, yet when it came to actual appearances, they looked more like beams of energy. Experimental weaponry was the only possible answer, between that and their strange colors; not to mention how they'd slipped right through a live energy shield!
This meant the Great Fox wasn't protected at all! It was completely vulnerable to these projectiles!
Music: "Raid on the Compound"
Alarms blared throughout the bridge. Alerts flashed in big, bold letters across every monitor.
"Starboard engine destroyed. Damage detected on the fusion core head and shield generators. Stabilization compromised." ROB 64 analyzed streams of statistics and information about the damage. Meanwhile, a horrified Fox and his team scrambled to get back on their feet.
"We're HIT," blurted the vulpine. "How the hell were we hit?! Our shields are up!"
"Whaddya mean we've lost the starboard engine?!" Peppy also threw out, equally terrified. Even Slippy was glancing every which way. He clung around the human's trembling body that'd slid halfway off the table, when ROB 64 suddenly alerted again:
"Warning. Target-lock detected on six incoming projectiles. Distance: Two kilometers and closing."
Fox felt every muscle freeze up within him. Not only was the Great Fox a sitting duck, but now twice as many of those unknown projectiles were about to strike. If just three had already done that much damage, he could only begin to fathom what six might cause. One option still remained, though: Get the ship away from there, fast.
"ROB," he yelled, "Evasive maneuvers! Full forward on all thrusters!"
The robot hesitated, replying, "Action is not advised. Repeat: Starboard engine destroyed. Damage detected on the fusion core head. Stabilization has been compromised."
"I don't care, do it!" A panicked Fox waved his arms in freak gestures. "Full forward! Get us outta here!"
ROB 64 tapped the corresponding modules. "Affirmative. Maximum acceleration on remaining thrusters. Commencing evasive maneuver."
That deep rumble of the Great Fox's engines swelled up almost immediately. Fox swiftly seated himself, facing his frightened team members.
"... Guys, strap in!"
Falco and Peppy barely managed to sit down when the huge middle thruster and port-side thruster roared to life at peak power, catapulting the mothership forward and jerking the team back against their seats.
"Waaaghh!" Slippy wailed as both he and the wounded boy got hurled from the table, tumbling hard until they bashed into one another on the back wall. The mechanic hit the wall first, giving the human at least somewhat of a softer impact. Still, they lay there in a tangled heap, unable to even move amid these harsh G-forces.
The Great Fox soared in a wide arc across the vast cerulean expanse. Dark smoke spewed from its destroyed starboard engine, while black and purple trails streaked behind those six projectiles in their relentless automated pursuit.
A hexangular-like spiral ended up forming when the objects suddenly spread out, rotating around one another as they closed in on the fleeing mothership more and more. It really seemed there was no stopping them.
"Evasive maneuver in progress. Projectile distance: Five-hundred meters and closing on the stern." ROB 64 controlled the Great Fox while also keeping track of those six blinking icons on the radar. That large hanging screen showed the radar's image as well, so the rest of the team could at least get an idea as to what was transpiring.
"... Right! Bank right!" Struggling to lean forward in his chair, Fox barked out orders at the robot in a frantic bid to evade these projectiles, and moreover, save his mothership. Even though the Great Fox did bank to the right, it wasn't nearly enough. Those incoming projectiles maintained their lock on the ship like nothing happened.
"Now left! LEFT!"
ROB 64 steered the Great Fox left, tilting its gigantic flying mass in the opposite direction. Again, though, it proved futile. A craft this huge changed course way too slowly and stood no chance of evading tiny projectiles like that. ROB 64's next announcement only confirmed it ever the more:
"Projectile distance: Two-hundred meters and closing."
Another aching emptiness surged within the vulpine. Tears lined his eyes as he stared out at the brilliant blue skies, painfully realizing this was it. There wasn't anything else he could do to prevent the coming impact.
"Danger proximity," alerted ROB 64. "One-hundred meters and closing."
Fox firmly clutched the armrests of his chair, shutting his eyes in helpless agony.
"Impact in Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."
BOOM! The dreadful moment finally hit and the whole bridge jolted violently like never before. Any loose tools lying around got cast into the air. Slippy and the boy slid forward from the wall, colliding against tables and control boards. Fox, Falco, and Peppy also lurched hard where they sat. They would've gotten thrown out of their chairs if it wasn't for them being strapped in.
Through a hail of explosions, all six projectiles struck at once. A jagged, gaping hole had been blasted clean-through the back of the hull, outside of which lay the open sky. Mere remnants of those huge thrusters were the only pieces left on the stern, for all three of them had been utterly obliterated. Pitch-black smoke also billowed out in a long trail that must've stretched well over a kilometer.
Then there was the ship's actual engine hall, where things looked much more catastrophic. Blinding fires raged throughout this giant room. Fuel or coolants sprayed all over the place from broken lines. Even the central fusion core itself was cracked on its casing and belched out frightening streams of pure energy.
Now, beyond everything else, the sheer forward momentum that the Great Fox held started to grind to a halt.
"Warning," ROB 64 announced over near-countless alarms going off, "Critical hull breach on the stern. All engines and shield generators have been destroyed. Coolant leak detected in the primary reactor and fusion core casing. Stabilization loss of ninety-nine percent."
Fox's teary eyes locked on the sky ahead. The horizon was starting to rise in relation to the bridge's level, and a sudden feeling of weightlessness overcame everything.
"... We're going down!" He cried, writhing fanatically to click his seat harness off of himself. "We're going down guys! Hang on!"
Horrified, Falco and Peppy watched as he staggered over to where the robot stood at the controls. A main screen showed a virtual model of the Great Fox on a 3D coordinate plain, along with how its vertical position had plummeted drastically.
"Altitude decrease from ten thousand meters to nine thousand two-hundred meters. Calculation based on current falling trajectory: Eight-hundred meters per kilometer. A catastrophic collision with the planet's surface is unavoidable."
This only reiterated what Fox already knew to be true.
"ROB, activate the emergency landing sequence! Bring her around steady, and then set a-"
"Negative. Cannot commence." Before he could even finish, ROB 64 asserted, "Rear automated stabilizers for emergency landing have been compromised."
"... FUCK!" The panicked vulpine glanced out the front window again, thinking fast and breathing hard through gritted teeth. He saw that the Great Fox was almost level now with that massive dark sphere, marking where Midair Stadium once floated. Its haunting depth actually captured Fox's full gaze for a beat, along with Falco's and Peppy's as they cascaded by in their flaming mothership.
Even from this distance, they couldn't help but stare at those slight color fluctuations, churning hypnotically between black and a violet-indigo tint around the fringes. Speaking of which, all visible light got warped near the sphere's edges, only making it that much more mysterious.
"Altitude: Seven thousand meters and falling rapidly." ROB 64's update on the situation snapped everyone's attention right back. Fox grunted and reached across the dashboard to tap several modules, prompting a pair of large joysticks to unfold up from the navigation console's base.
"G-Give me manual control, ROB," he ordered. "I'm gonna bring her all the way down myself."
"... WHAT?" Falco swung around, petrified at this risky plan. "Are ya damn crazy?!"
"Maybe I am!" Fox fired right back. The truth was he'd never attempted a manual emergency landing before, let alone on trying to ditch his own mothership. Something needed to be done, though; anything other than accepting this fate in flames. At least with manual control there was a chance to land, albeit a slim one.
"... ROB, do it! Switch to manual!"
Falco faced ahead and buried against his chair, muttering, "We're dead... Oh we're SO DEAD...!"
ROB 64 activated the functions nonetheless. "Affirmative. Primary navigational control switching over to ma-..."
Just as the robot did so, something else manifested upon the radar: A single icon of a much smaller ship, a couple of clicks out from the Great Fox's own position. Not only that, but it appeared to be moving in a parallel direction; away from that heart of darkness.
"One small craft detected off the port side. Distance: Three kilometers west and maneuvering on an identical northward bearing with that of the Great Fox."
The robot's announcement grabbed everyone's attention almost instantly. Fox even glanced out that side of the bridge window, but couldn't spot anything.
"... ID?" He demanded, which ROB 64 followed up with:
"Tracing data confirms that the craft is a Class-F Aardasean Cruiser."
"Aardasean...?!" Fox gawked, exchanging surprised looks with the others.
"Wait a sec..." Peppy observed that craft's trajectory a second time. Then he couldn't help but gasp once it all clicked. "Boys, look! That ship came from the stadium! Y'all know what that means?!"
Fox immediately recognized it too. "... SURVIVORS...!"
Survivors indeed. However, they didn't realize just which ship it actually was.
It was the Falcon Flyer!
Sure enough, a determined Captain Falcon steered his speeding vessel while Mario and Red sat beside him in the passenger seats. Their attention remained glued to one screen on the dashboard in particular, where naught but that menacing dark void floated in the rear-view camera.
A sickening feeling churned within them both. They knew they were among the mere handful, if even that, who'd escaped by a split second. Moreover, though, they'd realized that this sphere was the result of that strange bomb detonating.
But what about all those countless people left behind? What fate did they meet in this darkness as it literally engulfed the entire stadium? No one could bear such a thought right now.
"... Everybody doin' ok back there?" Captain Falcon called back to the rest of the group standing in the cargo hold, holding onto anything they could.
Red turned around as well, focusing on the blonde-haired boy who was the only one sitting huddled against the fuselage's metal walls. Those cold, wide eyes of his now fixated upon what stood directly in the cargo hold's center: The Blue Falcon.
"Oh my... LOOK! Everyone, look over there!" A frantic Mario suddenly pointed at something to the right. Captain Falcon and Red looked as well, but quickly spotted the same disturbing sight.
In the distance, off the Falcon Flyer's starboard side, there it was: The tiny Great Fox with a long trail of flames and pitch-black smoke billowing in its wake.
"Th-That isn't the Halberd, is it?" Red speculated as the others crowded behind his passenger seat. Meta Knight was particularly anxious to see for himself after what he'd just heard the trainer say. He shoved his way past Kirby, Luigi, Link, Ike, and the Pokémon, until he finally laid eyes upon that distant yet fiery object streaking through the sky.
Hardly a moment went by before he blinked, uttering, "No... No, that's not my ship...?"
"Poyo," added Kirby, desperately wondering what and who's craft it could actually be.
That's when the chilling realization hit Mario like a punch to the gut. He remembered how only one other major ship besides Meta Knight's would be arriving late to Midair Stadium.
A phantasm flashed in the plumber's mind... A face all too familiar and beaming from a video chat...
"... Fox...!" He uttered with a gasp, "It's-a-Star Fox!"
Then Captain Falcon's eyes widened through shock. "Holy... You're right! That's the Great Fox! It's been shot down!"
The vulpine exhaled deeply, gripping each joystick to get a feel on the feedback. He tilted them in opposite directions, which made the Great Fox reset its lateral orientation. Slowly but surely the huge mothership started to level out, even as it barreled down across the sky.
What a relief! Manual controls were working at least! However, it wasn't before ROB 64 announced, "Altitude: Six thousand meters and falling. Airspeed is approaching critical velocity, threatening the structural integrity of the Great Fox."
Hearing this, Peppy un-clicked his seat harness and swiftly hobbled over next to Fox.
"... Wait!" The hare then pressed an identical set of modules which prompted a second pair of joysticks to extend up at his end of the mainframe. He gripped them both, adding, "Here, we'll have a much better response on stabilization through dual-manual!"
That 3D model of the Great Fox leveled out more and more onscreen as the two of them began working together, shifting their joysticks in mirrored motions. Fox adjusted the stabilization on the port side, with Peppy adjusting starboard.
"Mayday, mayday!" The hare hollered, leaning over the communications console, "Anybody out there?! This is the Cornerian mothership Great Fox! We've been shot down! Say again, we've been shot down but we're attemptin' a crash-landin'! Mayday!"
The seconds went by, yet no response came other than an occasional spike of static. Hard to tell if the general comms were even working anymore.
"Extending drag fins on all wings!" Fox tapped another sensor pad nevertheless. Drag fins unfolded behind each of the mothership's wings, making the whole structure vibrate heavily as its airspeed started to get forced down.
"Altitude: Five thousand meters and falling." ROB 64 gave a status update, right before Peppy followed up:
"We're enterin' the cloud layers!"
Indeed, a seemingly endless sea of curling white lay in front of the bridge. Wispy strands lapped and parted as the massive hull descended into them more and more. It wasn't long then until the view got obscured by this thick pale haze altogether. Strong headwinds must've been within this cloud front as well, because the air turbulence spiked all of a sudden, rattling everything in the bridge.
"... ROB?" Fox couldn't help but throw out, "Wh-What's the status on that Aardasean cruiser?"
He held the joysticks firm yet steady, figuring it was best not to look over at the radar display and risk anything control-wise. That is, until ROB 64 clarified:
"The cruiser has just altered its course forty degrees east, towards the Great Fox."
Both Fox and Peppy instantly glanced at the radar to see for themselves. Sure enough, the small craft's icon had changed direction.
"It's headin' for US now?" The hare balked a bit. On the other hand, the vulpine kept eyeing the radar.
"Maybe... Maybe they heard our distress call? Think they're trying to follow us?"
"Could be," replied Peppy, looking ahead once more amid sharp vibrations from the ongoing air turbulence. He felt unnerved about just how much turbulence there was, so he narrowed his eyes, trying to see anything other than white outside the window.
After taking a deep breath, he asked in a follow up, "What's our airspeed lookin' like, ROB?"
The robot answered, "Dangerously high."
Peppy and Fox both swallowed hard. The drag fins were a mere token in helping, but at least they prevented the Great Fox from reaching critical velocity. That was also when the dense veil of clouds finally started to dissipate.
First came quick little glimpses of land, before a truly vast vista opened up below. These were the tundra wastes of the far-northern Mushroom Kingdom, many hundreds of kilometers across where not a single soul abided. Chains of jagged snow-capped mountains eclipsed the distant horizon, while a desolate and barren landscape spanned most of the foreground.
"Altitude: Four thousand meters and fa-" BOOM!
Just as ROB 64 was giving another update, the entire Great Fox lurched hard, violently throwing Fox and Peppy up over the joysticks and onto the dashboard. A massive explosion ripped through the mothership's lower hull, blowing out the main Arwing hangar while sending a fiery pressure wave surging all the way up the corridors. Those automated sliding doors blasted off their mounts and flew right into the bridge, along with metal shrapnel and an ear-splitting roar that left everyone's ears ringing.
"GAAAHHH!" Falco screamed, cowering in his turned-away chair. Flaming chunks of debris streaked past him and slammed against the front window, leaving web-like fractures.
Fox scrambled to get off the dashboard and regain himself, since he knew right away what'd happened.
"The Fusion Core just RUPTURED," he howled. A frantic Peppy shifted the joysticks meanwhile, only to discover they gave no feedback whatsoever. All monitors, the radar, and functions on the mainframe had suddenly flashed dark for that matter.
Power to the controls was lost! Now the Great Fox really began to nosedive without any manual stabilization.
"ROB, hurry!" The vulpine commanded, "Switch to auxiliary backup power!"
No response came from their robot.
"... ROB...?!" To Fox's horror, ROB 64 stood there, motionless. A hole was torn straight through its thick metal torso due to a razor-sharp piece of shrapnel. Sparks fizzed and popped from the severed ends of wires, until the robot finally keeled over backwards, hitting the floor with a dense clang.
Stunned silence befell the Star Fox team, albeit only for a second. Their dire predicament remained spiraling out of control, quite literally.
"... Right, switchin' to auxiliary backup power!" Peppy hopped to where ROB 64 once stood and pulled what looked like an advanced circuit breaker. The manual controls as well as any vital displays like the radar and stabilization grid flickered back on.
"There, we got core control again!" The hare hurried back to the joysticks. Fox stood at the ready with his, glancing another time at the radar.
"That Aardasean ship," he said, "It still looks like it's following us!"
Before long, the two of them were re-stabilizing their mothership, but now came the real question: The burning decision of where to ditch exactly?
"... Look, down there! A LAKE!" Nobody expected Falco to suddenly blurt out their answer as if on cue. Sure enough, though, a shimmering blue expanse lay far below the Great Fox. Flanking the opposite sides of this gigantic lake were chains of smooth, glacially-carved mountains, gently sloping all the way down to its shores.
Fox cobbled together his plan upon observing this, a bold plan which was to be all or nothing.
He huffed a deep breath. "Pep, this is gonna be a long shot. You saw those shallow mountains next to the lake?"
"Uh-huh?" The hare nodded warily.
"Well, we've past them. Our angle of descent's stayed around twenty degrees since we leveled out, and it looked like the slopes of those mountains right by the shore were about the same. Altitude should still be enough, so on my mark, help me bank 180 degrees to port. The turn will also act as our last chance for an airbrake."
Peppy held the joysticks firm, thinking again, "Bank 180 degrees back toward the-... Wait..."
Then it hit him. "Fox, we're seriously gonna-...!?"
"Yes, yes we are!" The vulpine asserted, "We're gonna use one of those mountains as a landing slide to ditch the Great Fox in that lake!"
This was it. This was the final plan: All or nothing. Now, to actually attempt it...
"Right," he said, "Get ready for my mark."
A flabbergasted Peppy opened his mouth to say something back, but Fox stole the air instead:
"... I know, Pep! It's a long shot, but it's a long shot no matter what! At least by using the mountain's slope we'll ease into the crash!"
Peppy gulped, blinking long and hard at first. He nodded soon after, though, because he knew it was right. This stood as the only feasible way. The alternative, attempting to crash land smack on the tundra plain, was nothing short of suicide. Their weakened mothership would shatter like glass from the sheer force. That was also the reason why this lake and its flanking row of smooth mountains presented themselves as a true miracle.
"Alright, ready when you are..." The hare tightened his grip, while Fox waited for the precise moment to give the word.
It finally came.
"... NOW," barked the vulpine. He and Peppy yanked their joysticks all the way to the left, bracing for the sharp turn.
The Great Fox started to bank wide, its structure groaning and creaking deeply from the utter stress of air-braking. Thick columns of fire and smoke curved within the mothership's wake, tracing its long downward path through the sky.
"... Steady, steady on it," clamored Fox, fighting against this intense feedback he was feeling in the sticks. Those mountains soon drifted back into view, with that huge lake just beyond them in the distance.
"Ok, straighten! Straighten out!" He pulled the joysticks back towards center position.
"We're still goin' way too fast!" Peppy hollered, doing likewise.
Now Fox couldn't help but growl, "Come on... Come on...!"
As for Falco, he remained harnessed in his chair, mumbling something desperate again and again. Slippy on the other hand managed to crawl up and grab the edge of the mainframe, his tear-filled eyes becoming locked on ROB 64's lifeless figure not far in from of him.
"... There," the vulpine ushered, "See that fifth mountain over? That's it! That's our target!"
He pointed at the landform which indeed was one that sloped all the way down to the lake's broad shore. Then he took another dreaded glance at the radar and saw their rapidly decreasing altitude, along with a trajectory calculation.
"We got just over two kilometers to that top!"
Each disappearing moment brought the mountains closer and closer. Peppy pushed those small circular spectacles up his broad nose with a finger, staying focused as Fox kept shouting updates:
"... Passing a thousand meters!"
The first row of peaks started to pass underneath before he knew it.
"... Eight-hundred meters!"
Now came the second row.
"... Six-hundred meters!"
Then the third row.
"... Four-hundred meters!"
And the fourth.
"... Two-hundred meters!"
Just that single round-topped mountain remained. This was the target, and touching the Great Fox down on its smooth back slope had to be nothing other than exact.
"... Brace for impact!" Fox howled. Something suddenly appeared off to Peppy, however, because he started shaking his head frantically.
"W-We're not gonna clear it...!" He amped his voice up, "Fox, we're not gonna clear that peak!"
The vulpine stood firm and was quick to refute, "Yes we will! Yes we will, Pep! We'll clear it!"
Maybe he'd spoken too soon...
A violent storm of house-sized boulders and other fractured rock exploded when what remained of the Great Fox's lower hull clipped the very top of the mountain's dome-like peak. The massive mothership pivoted forward before it finally smashed down on the slope right after, unleashing a truly deafening roar of metal grinding against stone.
Down and down the long slope it careened with boulders viciously tearing away at the hull. First to break off were those frontal cannons, followed by the lower pair of wings when the fuselage tilted sideways. They became lost in a giant spray of rocks, dust, and smoke getting kicked up behind the ship.
Fox couldn't even hear himself think amid this mind-juddering noise. He and Peppy clung onto the mainframe console since all controls were utterly useless now.
Then the vulpine glanced up. That humongous lake lay dead ahead, filling the entire view and leaving only seconds until the Great Fox would strike its waters.
"HHOOOOLLDD OOOONN!" He yelled as loud as he could, bracing for this inevitable crash. The rest of his team did likewise; Peppy and Falco gripped on for dear life, but Slippy had scrambled back over in a last-ditch attempt to cover and protect the human boy.
Finally, that bone-chilling grind of rock against metal gave way to a thundering splash like no other. Everything lurched downward after the Great Fox tore across the shore, penetrating the lake bow first. Giant streaks of mist shot high overhead, before an immense wall of water slammed right into the front bridge windows.
It pressed with such force that those fractures in the glass split more and more, until CRACK! The entire window caved in.
Fox closed his eyes, and the last thing he heard was a cascade of frigid lake water rushing toward him.