Chapter 6.
Pleased to meet you. Can you guess my name?
Miyu stared at the ceiling, her nose barely a pawsbreadth from the metal plates. When she signed up for a spot on the crew, she took a top bunk. In her mind, it would've given her some distance from everyone else.
Every room usually held four bunk beds, two in each wall. When she moved in, she first looked for a room with no one in it. When she couldn't find one, she settled for a room with one other person. She learned why he had the room to himself when she smelled the air. The scent that curled her nose hairs hovered somewhere between old mustard and a chemical tang.
Burns, the steel-gray cat living in it, slept in a packed nest of clothes and coffee-stained sheets with a stack of takeout foam clamshells and pizza boxes under his bunk. Moving in, she decided to ignore it, taking the empty top bunk across from Burns. It didn't take long to figure out that the room didn't just smell because of the trash. In all the time she knew Burns, she never remembered him using a shower.
Looking at Burns' spot now, she saw a body-shaped dent in the mattress where he used to sleep. Burns, though, probably hovered somewhere in space as part of a scrap cloud. He died in the first attack against Star Fox.
Miyu wondered if she should've felt bad. She didn't really talk to him, and her longest conversation with him lasted no longer than any other kind of squadron net chatter. Star Fox shot him down, but at the same time, she hardly knew him.
Most of that was her choice: she already kept to herself even when surrounded by people. Whenever others reached out to her, she kept her distance. It was also pretty easy to keep her distance from him. He smelled like he wanted to be left alone.
More than importantly, any thoughts of sadness evaporated the moment she got tasked with cleaning his bunk. She only finished a few hours ago, as a way to take her mind off of the overwhelming dread that faced her after watching Grant become a vegetable. It only worked for as long as it took to haul a trash bag to the ship's dumpster.
She heard a knock at the door. The arctic fox, whose name she still didn't know, leaned in before Miyu could even answer her knock. "Emergency meeting. We're going up to the briefing room."
Miyu got down from her bunk and reached for her closet. The arctic fox waved a paw, "Don't bother. Just come as you are. We need everybody up there, like, right now."
Miyu narrowed her eyes. She wore nothing but her sweat pants and a loose faded T-shirt featuring a logo so old its letters peeled. She minded walking out of her room like that, but after noticing that the arctic fox wore something similar, a Macbeth militia T-shirt and a set of flip-flops under her sweat pants, she decided to let it go.
As they walked down the hallway, they joined a sparse procession of several other pilots making the trek towards the briefing room. At one point, when they walked between some other pilots for several steps, the arctic fox spoke aloud, to no one in particular.
"Grant's dead." She said the words as she watched the floor pass beneath her. Miyu turned towards her, briefly lost for words. This time, though, she felt a pang of sadness. She knew Grant, even if she didn't know him well. But more importantly, she actually liked him. He counted among the three or four people on the ship Miyu knew best.
"Whatever that ferret did, it got into his brain. He just...shut down," As the arctic fox spoke, Miyu remembered the feeling she got when the ferret looked her in the eyes.
Her heart leapt into her throat for a moment. Grant only died after the ferret stared at him, and the ferret stared at her, too. Miyu wondered if she would be next, before remembering that the ferret only glanced at her, while Grant stared back at him for several minutes. Maybe that difference mattered.
Miyu shivered as she kept walking. She wanted to believe it mattered. She didn't want to die.
"He's an alien. He's gotta be," Another pilot, a tall husky, spoke up as he walked with them, "Must've done something with that stare of his."
"Oh don't be daft." Another pilot, a white cat with a jacket tied around her waist, growled, "Venomians are sneaky. I know some of their people have dart guns with nerve toxins in them-"
"Okay, that sounds like rationalizing. Where's the dart, then?" A rat still in her flight suit piped up from behind.
The white cat stared over her shoulder for a few seconds. She offered up a response, "Dissolving tips."
The rat looked back at her with half-lidded eyes and a curled lip. The cat kept going, "It's what I heard during the war-"
"Bullll-shiiit," A third voice lilted. A panther in exercise shorts and a grime-stained shirt picked up her pace and walked with them. "Do you even hear yourself? Dissolving tips, my ass,"
The panther snorted as the white cat turned around, tail bristling as she retorted, "Do you hear yourself?" she glanced at the rat and husky, "Yourselves?"
She turned away with a huff. "Aliens. Magic stares. Rubbish."
Miyu watched as the white cat bristled, and noticed the shared glance between the rat and the panther. She opened her muzzle to reply, then clicked her teeth as she opted to keep her mouth shut. She couldn't think of any answer that didn't feel just as bizarre.
As they filed into the briefing room, Miyu watched to see who else showed up. She counted familiar faces as she breathed in the room's cold air.
Passing a stocky, shirtless bear, she heard someone joke, "My guy here's gonna take out someone's eye without his shirt on-"
The bear shot the panther a deadpan look before folding his arms slightly higher than before. Miyu looked around, and noticed that most of the folks here were in similar situations. McCoy walked in wearing just a shirt and his underwear. A few folks showed up in just underwear.
As the motley squadron sat down in their seats, Miyu noticed Jess, still in her flight suit, standing in front of the crowd. She probably slept in it, Miyu thought. Considering it was Jess, that made sense.
Miyu noticed a tiger lean in to speak in Jess' ear. Jess nodded towards the door, and the tiger walked out. Before the door closed, Miyu noticed the tiger standing at the entrance.
She felt her fur start to bristle. Something felt off. She also knew she wasn't the only one to notice. Murmurs crept up along the crowd, silenced only by Jess clearing her throat.
"I appreciate you folks showing up on short notice. There's a reason I got everyone here by word of mouth." Jess paced, sucking her teeth. "We have a problem. I think you all know what it is."
The murmurs grew louder. Miyu caught some of the words. Grant. Ferret. Takeover.
Jess cleared her throat again, and the murmuring stopped. "Folks, I'm just gonna throw out the hunch I have right now."
She looked around at the silent crowd. Miyu could hear several sharp breaths inwards. The pause could've been for a few seconds. It felt like a minute.
"I don't think I speak for myself..." She kept pacing, scanning faces as she walked. "...when I say I don't want to fight for these people anymore."
The room stayed dead silent for a full second before the murmuring returned, louder than before. Miyu looked around. Some looked shocked, a few nodded soberly, most just looked unsure.
The white cat from before spoke up again. "What about getting paid? What then?"
Miyu looked back to see the white cat's face, then noticed the empty seats usually taken by Venomians. As the realization dawned on her, Miyu looked around further. She couldn't recognize a single Venomian face in the crowd.
Maybe some were still here. A few faces glowered at Jess' announcement, but Miyu didn't see any of the familiar black flight suits, besides Jess'. It didn't help that Miyu didn't remember many faces to start with, but now Miyu could guess why the announcement got passed along by word of mouth.
Maybe Jess didn't want the Venomians here.
Jess waved for everyone to calm down. "I...I wish I had an answer for you. I don't know about getting paid, but more importantly than that,"
She looked down directly at McCoy and the arctic fox. "I care about our people getting out alive."
A ripple of agreements spread across the crowd. Jess went on, "Ever since that...ferret...came back with another carrier, we've lost a lot of our independence. I don't think it's a stretch to notice that some of us adapted to this a little too well."
"Venomians." Someone spat. Jess looked uncomfortable as she pointed this out. Some of the crowd cursed the Venomians. Most kept quiet.
Jess looked around, speaking, "This is why I've gathered you here. I'm not sticking around for this. I'm gone, and if anyone else wants to tag along-"
"-then they can volunteer to go down with you."
Miyu froze when she heard the new voice. The ferret appeared, standing no less than ten steps away from Jess, and walking away from the door where Miyu saw the tiger standing guard. Just beyond the doorframe, she saw the tiger's body slumped against the wall. Shocked murmurs rippled through the crowd, with the loudest coming from the rear.
Jess bristled. Her paw immediately hovered over her holster. The ferret looked at the space directly above her head as he slowly took a few steps towards her, ticking a finger back and forth as he got closer, "Ah-ah-ah. You've already made one fatal mistake, and your mountain lion friend paid for it. I'm just here to keep you from making a second. Please step back, flight lead."
The commotion at the back of the crowd got louder. Miyu paid no attention to it. She focused instead on Jess, whose paw hovered right over her holster. Jess glanced at the space between herself and the ferret, and Miyu imagined her gauging the distance.
"Flight lead, please step back." The ferret kept his tone level and low. No impatience tinged his voice. He almost sounded calm, even with an armed pilot in front of him. "You don't have any other options. Please step back."
For a fraction of a second, Jess narrowed her eyes, and the paw over her holster looked frozen in place. She looked at the ferret, staring directly at his sunglasses, and Miyu watched as Jess' ears flattened almost immediately. Something changed. Jess' new, horrified expression betrayed that it happened.
A series of gunshots thundered through the air as Jess visibly flinched, then fell. Red marks spattered the wall behind the space where Jess' head used to be. Miyu's ears rang as she immediately turned to see where the shots came from.
Someone in the crowd pointed to the rear of the room. Behind the crowd, holding a still-smoking carbine, stood the crocodile from before. He wore a combat vest over his black uniform, and his ballistic helmet sported a Venomian flag. A group of armed guards in similar gear flanked him.
The guards barked a steady stream of orders at the pilots. Mostly to stay in their seats as they surrounded them, shoving them back as some tried to stand. One pilot went down under the weight of three guards as he took a swing at the nearest one. The guards approached, row by row, methodically pulling pilots out of their seats before frisking them for weapons. Some called out whenever they found a gun, or a pocket knife.
When Miyu's turn came, she watched and felt her heart sink as more and more guards came in through the doors. She recognized some of the faces behind the visors, even the face of the she-wolf that approached her. Miyu never took her eyes off the wolf's face as she frisked Miyu with rough, gloved paws, and shot her a venomous look when the she-wolf shoved her back down into her seat. The she-wolf looked at her, appraising her for a half-second before moving on to the next pilot.
The ferret stepped towards Jess' body, lifting her paw distastefully with the tip of a polished shoe. His lip curled as he sighed through his nose, "A let down."
He turned his head to face the crowd, with his body slowly following suit, like a gear turning in place. As the guards finished, they formed a cordon around the seats. The dull roar of barked orders and growled retorts faded, replaced by the uneasy near-silence of the ship's ventilation, interrupted only by the occasional chirp of a guard's radio.
The ferret spoke, raising his voice over the dull roar of the crowd. "Your flight lead, as it turns out, did not have your best interests at heart."
Faces in the crowd turned towards the ferret as he continued, "The mission we gave you promised a sum that would be distributed to you all afterwards. Your friend, here," The ferret nodded towards Jess' body, "Would have gotten a larger share if there were fewer left to collect."
Miyu stared at Jess' body. She remembered how Jess immediately rejected the demand to hand over Zard. She remembered the despair in her voice when she ordered the squadron to fall back. She felt something hot rise in her throat, a dozen words that she wanted to throw right back at the ferret as he insinuated further:
"Your friend," This time, the ferret stepped over her body towards the crowd, "Made the self-serving decision to ensure that the reward would be bigger for whoever survived the initial assault. Why else do you think she opted to attack without us reinforcing her?"
Miyu took a breath, letting it hiss through her nostrils. She also remembered that. How Jess relished the idea of attacking first, and how she planned to make more money. The thought that Jess took a massive risk for more money ran together with the memories of her working to keep the team alive. The hot rush of anger mixed with the slow, creeping feeling of doubt and left her sitting there, fuming.
She mentally wrestled with the chance that maybe the ferret told the truth, and at the same time imagined what the ferret's face would look like if she socked him in the jaw.
Miyu glanced at the armed Venomians surrounding the crowd and imagined what it would take to break through and get to the ferret. That thought died the moment a trooper stepped by her seat, right as the barrel of his blaster rifle passed her at eye-level.
Miyu felt a ripple of nausea in her stomach as the ferret spoke again.
"You'll have to forgive our more zealous allies," Miyu imagined, almost reflexively, what a blaster bolt did to a face at point-blank range, "Star Fox has a certain level of infamy among Venom's forces, and our friends here hoped for the opportunity to settle the scores personally.
The ferret looked directly at Miyu, and she felt every hair stand on end as he spoke, with the familiar buzzing of insects grazing her ears. "Some of our friends are deeply disappointed by this turn of events, but we will ensure that this kind of insubordination won't happen again."
Miyu let out a shaky breath the moment the ferret turned away. She didn't even know she held it. She felt herself shiver, like she stepped out of icy water and into a breeze. She muscled through the urge to turn away from the ferret and stared at the back of his head, right as he turned away, with a fury that came from her core.
She imagined spiking the ferret into a lit fusion torch engine. He killed Grant. His goons killed Jess.
And they might not stop there.
Miyu suppressed the thought with a clenched jaw as the ferret kept going, "As of now, this ship is now under my direct command. This is merely a setback, and we will return command of the ship the moment the mission succeeds. We appreciate your cooperation, and,"
The ferret surveyed the crowd with a quick glance and smiled, almost warmly. "We will triple the reward."
Bewildered curses peppered the air. Miyu looked over her shoulder as she saw some pilots look around uneasily. The ferret, almost sensing the uncertainty, smiled wider, "If you check your bunks, you will find half of the reward money already there. Consider it a pledge of good faith."
Bullshit. Miyu's instincts told her everythng didn't add up, but at the same time, her doubts about Jess returned. She looked at the ferret, carefully avoiding his gaze. She didn't want to believe a word he said.
"As of now, the ship's command staff have stepped down, and our own forces will take over operation of the vessel. You may return to your quarters and then resume your regular operations. Nothing important has changed."
The ferret brought his heels together. "We will organize the next assault tomorrow onboard our own carrier. That will be all."
As the ferret walked away, some of the Venomians followed, with the crocodile keeping watch as the pilots stood up and filed towards the exit. When Miyu's row finally stood up to walk away, she glanced at the crocodile. His eyes followed her, and he brought his finger to rest on the trigger guard of his carbine.
The crocodile snorted the moment Miyu's eyes glanced at his trigger. She felt his gaze follow her down the hall long after she left the room.
"I don't believe it."
Miyu looked up from the briefcase in her lap. She saw the arctic fox, sitting on the bunk across from her, looking over a fan of bills she held in her paws.
Miyu shared her shock. She looked down at the stacked rows of clean bills, held together with thin brackets of cardboard. When she saw the money for the first time, she imagined, almost immediately, how much of it could go towards buying a new fighter. For a split second, that thought eclipsed almost every other one she had, even her doubts, even her anger.
Closing the box, she felt a brief surge of guilt. Grant and Jess were gone, and for a second, the money made her forget all about them.
She cursed inwardly. Part of her wanted to reject the reward, and at the same time, she rationalized keeping it. She needed this job. Turning it down meant being stranded aboard the ship with no fighter. She flew a borrowed one, and with an already-dwindling bank account, she had no idea what to do if she didn't take the deal.
She slumped back against the wall and slowly realized that she already came to a decision.
"Miyu," the arctic fox shook her head, never taking her eyes off the money, "what the hell is going on?"
A familiar, ugly feeling settled in at the back of her mind. She mentally reached for an answer, and sighed bitterly instead. She consciously avoided looking the arctic fox in the eyes as she climbed back into her bunk.
She just wanted to sleep. She wanted the mission to end so she could move on. She wanted to close her eyes and forget everything that happened.
The sooner they could take over the asteroid, the better.
The carrier that the ferret flew in on resembled a true, up-to-date military vessel. The obvious details stood out, like rounded corners on every interior surface to minimize injury during loss of gravity, or the standardized battle gear worn by the ship's security.
At one point, Miyu even saw at a trio of Venomians decked out in full power armor. She felt them approach before she saw them. The floor shivered in tune with the cadence of heavy boots before they even stepped into view, and Miyu could only gawk as she saw them walking by with raised helmets and long guns carried on their backs.
She saw automated loading mechs haul pallets of still-shining ammunition through the halls and spotted clean, neat uniforms on almost every crew member walking by.
The more she saw, the more she felt the already deep, familiarly ugly feeling settle in a little more. She didn't want to be here. She shouldn't be here.
Those words relentlessly echoed in her mind, never fading, but instead finding new surfaces to bounce off of every time Miyu spotted something new that her employers brought with them.
The Venomians, both the ones from the new carrier and the ones from her original crew, escorted the pilots of her mercenary team to a new briefing room: a circular auditorium, with all the seats surrounding a raised platform at the center.
The guards herded Miyu, along with the rest of the non-Venomian pilots, into the center seats closest to the platform. The Venomian pilots surrounded them afterwards, filling in every seat immediately around the core group. Miyu sensed an uncomfortable symbolism. She tried ignoring it, and succeeded right up to the point where the ferret stepped in.
The raised platform projected several red, triangular wireframes and a jagged, spud-shaped one into the space above the platform. A sweep of the ferret's paw across the projection conjured new shapes from the edges: swarms of green triangular wireframes joined by two brick-shaped ones. One swarm appeared on one side, and the second appeared on the opposite side, with one brick in each swarm.
Miyu spotted McCoy and the arctic fox in the seats directly across from her, on the other side of the platform. She focused on their faces. The arctic fox's rapt, wary attention showed in the way her eyes darted from the ferret, to the guards, and back to the ferret again. McCoy glowered, averting his gaze from the ferret only when he turned to face their section of the audience. A rumble from the crowd interrupted her thoughts, and she tuned back into the briefing just in time to miss the joke that got several Venomian pilots laughing.
"...so, to reiterate, our mission has been updated: we are no longer interested in defeating Star Fox outright,"
The ferret pushed a paw into the projection, right in the middle of the cluster of red wireframes. A red brick flew out, and three additional triangles joined the fray.
"Our new plan is a kind of siege: we will stop assaulting the asteroid directly, and instead try to keep them in. Our employers now realize that the risks involved in a frontal assault are too severe to warrant continuation, and have changed plans accordinly,"
A thin smile spread on the ferret's face, "Our allies saved us some time by figuring this out before we launched our own attack. For that, we're grateful for their sacrifices."
Miyu wanted to yell. She wanted to sweep her boot through his ankles and drive his pointy face right into the steel floor. The moment he said sacrifices, some of the Venomians snorted, laughing loud enough to echo in the auditorium.
She glanced back, spotting several pilots in black flight suits. Many of the suits looked faded down to a charcoal color, and some sported squadron patches from Andross' original fleet, or newer ones with the familiar ape skull-and-swords insignia. She spotted tattoos of the skull-and-swords on ears, knuckles, and even on some ape faces.
Miyu curled her lip warily. At one point, she knew that the odds weren't long that she flew with Venomian loyalists, but she didn't think much about it. When she saw some of her squadron wear the symbols in the past, she sometimes bristled, but tried to ignore it. She hoped it was just misplaced patriotism, or maybe pilots just struggling to fit into a new, different solar system after the war.
Now? Now she just felt stupid.
Several of the people she flew with now sat by the people who controlled the ship. Laughing at the same jokes, sneering at the word sacrifices.
Miyu felt ill. She resolved to leave the moment the mission ended and never look back.
The ferret continued, "Our plan is to surround them with two fleets and force them to stay close to the asteroid through continuous patrols. If an opportunity appears to pick their fighters off individually, we'll take it. These tactics will minimize casualties. Our plans may change in the future, but our goal remains the same: we will eventually take the asteroid."
The ferret waved downward and the wireframes disappeared. He mechanically raised a flat palm upwards and a wireframe box appeared in midair, each side covered in a spreadsheet of names, "These are the pilots who will be part of the first sortie. Those of you who see your names will immediately report to your new flight leaders and prepare for the first patrol. And, before I forget,"
The ferret swept his gaze across the ceiling, right at the space above the pilots' heads, "We are now enforcing an end to all long-range communications until the mission is over, and all ship communications will be monitored by flight leaders in order to keep them secure. This is only to keep our enemies in the dark, and to ensure that we operate as one force, with one goal, and with no distractions."
Miyu's fur stood on end when she heard the phrase. Was it to ensure they could keep an eye on the mercenaries? Maybe to prevent a mutiny or defection? She already knew that the enemy could potentially intercept their communications, that was always a risk, but this felt less like security and more like keeping an eye on the people the ferret didn't trust.
She heard murmurs from the other pilots around her. Little of the mission made sense: how would they minimize casualties by patrolling that close? How would monitoring pilot communications prevent the enemy from learning what they did?
She saw McCoy shake his head with a curled lip. The arctic fox's jaw hung slack as she narrowed her eyes at the ferret. Miyu heard muttered curses, and they fell silent when the ferret raised a paw,
"You all have your orders. Make sure you obey them this time. You are all dismissed."
I didn't like writing this chapter as much as I liked writing the last one. When I write a story, I think of a bunch of major events that need to be connected together with scenes that make the transition from chapter to chapter feel natural. The last chapter was one of the major events. This one is about building the bridge to the next big thing, so it's not as exciting.
I'd also like to apologize for how long this chapter took to write. I wasn't happy with it for the last few months, and that kept me from finishing it for a while. But now, it's done. Soon we're gonna have more of the action and drama that any good adventure story should always have.
That said, I'm glad I got this done, and I'm glad that I still get reviews from y'all. Let's move on to those:
Nail Strafer: Like I said, good catch. I'm glad you're seeing those details, but I don't want to mention any more about them because if I did, I'd risk giving away the direction of the story. Keep paying attention, though. It gives me a reason to work harder on writing more of them.
Overture OTSW: I'm glad you think so! I've worked on this story for a while, so it feels good to hear folks say that.
Elarix: I like to write different perspectives. It makes the stories feel deeper, so it's not just Fox and his buddies who have a story going on. I thought having a story about someone fighting them would make it more interesting. As for the ferret's reaction, I wanted him to point out that their losses were unacceptable, and that even losing the numbers they did left them in a weaker position. Their original plan was to rendezvous with the ferret's ship and wait before attacking, but Jess disobeyed and now has a weaker squadron to start with. The point you brought up about the team letting the takeover happen was a good point, so I wanted to make it clear in this chapter that the ferret arrived with a bigger ship and more troops than the mercenaries had.
Vexed: Intoxication's a good word for it. Miyu stepped into a crowd that cheered her name, and to me, that's one of the most powerful feelings in the world. I wanted that to feel meaningful, and I'm going to write more about why in future chapters. I also like writing banter between different, strong personalities, so it feels good hearing I got that right. I have a lot planned for the characters and their personalities, so I appreciate every time someone thinks I wrote them well.