Chapter 8.
Lunatic Fringe
"Remember your targets. The hangar bay door is the first priority."
Miyu watched an Invader-III cruise by her canopy. Its paint job set it apart from almost every other strike craft in the formation. Every other ship sported faded colors, or none at all.
The fighter fell behind, and Miyu's fur bristled without her even noticing. She stared, bleary-eyed, at the others in the formation around her. Half of the mercenary squadron's full strength surrounded her, flying ships badly outclassed by the Venomians behind them. McCoy's fighter-bomber drifted the closest, to the point where she could see his name stenciled along the canopy in chipped grey text. The arctic fox flew an old Titanian-built fighter in front of her, the same kind Miyu flew in the first attack against Star Fox.
Miyu hissed a long sigh. She glanced at her sensors and noted the cluster of Venomian fighters flying behind her. She did the math before even taking off. Her entire team would be the fighter screen for the Venomians' main strike groups.
They'd fly in first, and naturally be the first ones targeted. It made sense, in a bleak way. The mercenaries go in first as a buffer, buying the larger Venomian groups time. That way, they'd only need to pay the survivors.
Her eyelids felt heavy. Her heart felt heavier. More than anything, she just wanted to be done with this. Her goals boiled down to something simple: survive the fight, collect the money, go find a new job somewhere else.
Through the entire flight, Miyu never communicated with anyone for anything longer than two or three syllables. Every time someone started a call, even a private one, the Venomian leader would cut in and remind them to keep the chatter to a minimum. Miyu shot a glare at the Venomian fighter every time it happened.
Miyu cycled through her HUD and brought up an image of the base embedded in the asteroid. She imagined how many fighters would die in the attack, remembering the ferret's comments on reducing friendly casualties. She scowled, punching the display button with one knuckle, and watched the image take a half second to close.
The sharp glare of light on metal caught her attention. Grant's fighter came closer. She didn't think much of it until she saw a paper sheet flattened against the canopy. She read the capitalized scrawl with a squint.
CAN YOU WRITE?
Her eyebrows flew up. Within seconds, she started searching for something to write with, and something to write on. After a minute's worth of groping around compartments filled with manuals, spare equipment, and a first aid kit, she gave up. She shrugged and shook her head at McCoy, exaggerating the gesture. Hopefully he'd get it.
McCoy wrote something on the other side of the sheet, then flipped it over.
THAT'S OK. JUST WANTED TO TALK.
Miyu stared at the message. Her shoulders sagged a little. She nodded as McCoy brought up another sheet and started to write more.
NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE. I THOUGHT THE HANGAR WASN'T A TARGET. WHAT HAPPENED?
McCoy already started writing on the other side of the sheet by the time she finished reading. He flipped the paper.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.
Miyu's gaze fell onto the line below and her jaw dropped slightly when she read the line.
DO YOU THINK WE'LL MAKE IT?
She felt all her energy leave her when she read the words. Getting punched in the stomach would've left her less winded. She didn't know how to answer. She couldn't think of anything reassuring to say, and that left her with a fear that made her heart feel cold. She reached for the canopy and pressed her paw against it, looking McCoy's helmet visor as she did.
He faced her for a minute, then relaxed, sagging his shoulders much like Miyu did. The gesture hit Miyu worst of all. He turned away, resigned his head to his headrest, and slowly turned his fighter-bomber away.
Miyu's fingers itched to make a call. She wanted to reasure him, but when she reached for any answer, she found nothing, and her paws kept still.
The alarm tone rang three times before Miyu even bothered to turn towards the targets on her HUD. She half-paid attention to the Venomians' barked orders.
Turning to face the flashing diamonds, she sniffed, swallowed her spit, and focused on the asteroid ahead. Now, she just wanted to get this over with. The sooner it ended, the sooner she could move on.
"Hello, McCloud." The hovering ape head flickered as it spoke. The face of Andross smiled. "I am-"
Fox swiped a paw right into the ape's temple and watched as it passed right through the cheek. The ape's head frowned.
"...Maybe I shouldn't be surprised you tried that."
Fox stared, slack-jawed as his fist passed through the ape's face without resistance. Outside, Peppy grabbed at the light that seemed to go through his chest and out through his back. His baffled expression lasted less than a second before he stepped out of the beam's way and watched as the beam snaked through the space where he stood before. Him getting out of the way didn't change anything, and he stared at his chest, pulling at his shirt as though expecting it to have a hole in it.
The hare's expression turned from shock to horror as his gaze settled on the hovering ape head in the canopy. His paw shot towards the canopy ejection handle and in that same moment, the light seemed to bond with the canopy, tinging it red. Peppy grunted, straining himself as he pulled on the handle.
Fox watched as Peppy dropped his shotgun to use both paws on the handle. The hovering ape's head in the cockpit shot a sideways glance at the hare. "Don't worry, I can't hurt him."
Fox's expression slowly shifted from shock to anger. If the hovering head had a neck, he would've grabbed it. The face of Andross smiled without any humor. "At least, not this way."
"Andross." Fox spat the name, hissing it for the shortest second at the end of the name.
"Oh, I'm flattered that you think so, McCloud, but no, I'm not the true Andross. I'm an echo of him. One that he left behind on that."
The Andross-shaped head glanced up at the ruby. He smiled patronizingly at Fox: a wide grin where his teeth almost clicked together but still had about a finger's worth of space between them, like he was just barely restraining himself from saying more. Like the face of somebody with an inside joke.
Seeing that face on anyone else would've irritated Fox. Seeing it on Andross sent a flood of electric, boiling rage into the back of his brain.
The hovering not-Andross head tilted towards Fox. "I've been waiting for you, Fox McCloud. There's so much I have planned for you, now that you're here-"
Fox didn't even get halfway through asking why before he felt the whole asteroid rumble. Peppy froze and stared around, wide-eyed, as dust trickled down from the ceiling.
Andross only smiled wider.
"Well, how do we get the doors open again? I've reached out to the base, but they don't answer." The question came from Slippy. Falco scoffed when he heard the frog say it, because if it came from him, then the situation was probably even worse than he thought.
Falco wheeled over the asteroid as a shield warning blatted at him. He weaved among the rock formations on the asteroid, letting two missiles collide into a crater wall behind.
He spotted another mercenary pilot being chased across a crater by one of the asteroid's defenders. The mercenary pilot pulled up, and for a second, Falco expected the defending fighter to follow him.
Then the wall moved into the fighter.
Falco stared at the billowing cloud of dust left behind as the wall seemed to move, then keep moving. Looking around, he noticed that it wasn't just the crater wall...
...the whole asteroid moved.
"Lombardi, I just lost Antonio. What happened? Did you see?" Greene's voice rang through the net.
Falco watch, slack-jawed, as the whole asteroid moved away from him. Even though he flew forwards, the whole asteroid moved to the side. For a second, it felt like his world turned sideways.
"Slippy?" Falco kept his tone low, even though his eyes probably looked like dinner plates right now. "What's happening?"
"The whole asteroid's moving!" Slippy's face appeared on his HUD. The frog made no effort to hide his shock.
"Need more details than that, buddy." Falco looked around, and for a few seconds, the fighting slowed. Dozens of fighters dove towards the asteroid, and Falco followed.
"Falco, there's enormous heat spikes across the asteroid's surface. I think they're engines. Falco, I think someone's trying to move the asteroid-"
Falco's three-tone shield alarm rang through the net, interrupting the frog. Falco growled, "Engines? Really? How do you hide a friggin' engine on a rock?"
Slippy threw up his arms. "I don't know! I don't have answers for everything, Falco!"
"Coulda fooled me!" Falco dove after an enemy fighter, one of the ones with a newer paint job. After scoring two hits on it, Falco watched as it swerved into another group of fighters, all of which opened fire on him.
He cursed, feeling the reverberating slap of bolts hitting his shield. "Why do I feel like these guys got smarter?"
"Lombardy, Toad, we're losing defenders and we're losing the asteroid. I want us to regroup as close to the hangar as possible. Can you do that?"
Falco didn't answer Greene right away. His eyes stayed glued to the new formations of mercenary fighters. "Yeah, we can come. We'll try not to die before we get there."
Greene's face darkened when she heard the last words. Her portrait disappeared without anything else to say. Falco meant his words as a joke. But now, the corners of his mouth curled downwards in a frown. If he survived, he felt like he would need to ask Greene some questions.
"That's new." Miyu heard McCoy's voice and for once, no Venomian interrupted. Instead, a new set of orders barked in her ears.
"The plan hasn't changed. Focus on the defenders and destroy the hangar. The rest is unimportant."
Miyu watched, stunned, half-hearing the orders as the asteroid started to fly away. Large thruster plumes dotted the surface, forming pinpricks of light on a black, shadowed landscape. The Venomians didn't even acknowledge the fact that their target now accelerated away from them. Bewildered curses peppered the net, with a few voices directly asking for new orders. One suggested destroying the thrusters, and a Venomian immediately barked at him to shut his mouth.
"Total, this is McCoy, I'm gonna need some help out here." For once, Miyu didn't feel bothered by the nickname, probably because the one using it sounded on the verge of real fear. "That Star Fox squadron's picking us off. You're the only one here who took one of them down, and I'm gonna need some of that mojo right now."
Miyu's HUD chirped the location of McCoy's bomber wing. Sure enough, one of the red diamonds seemed to hone in on his group, with two other friendly, green diamonds winking out of existence nearby.
Miyu felt her heart sink to her stomach, then set her jaw. She needed to look after her friends. She got one of the Star Fox team already, and maybe, just maybe, she could take down a second.
The floating head smiled condescendingly. Fox suppressed the urge to ask what just happened, partially because he didn't want to give the not-Andross projection the satisfaction of scaring him again.
And partially because he wondered if the answer would scare him even more.
Peppy jumped off the Arwing with a muffled grunt. He pulled out his shotgun again and started unloading shells into the ruby on top of the pyramid.
"Hm. Stubborn." The not-Andross head glanced at the hare with a bored look. "Much like his friends."
He turned back towards Fox as the crack of solid slugs echoed throughout the room. The canopy muffled the noise, but only enough to make them sound like thunder happening ten steps away.
The floor rumbled again, and Andross tilted his head upwards to look down at Fox. "Well, we're certainly on the move."
The words sounded ominous. For a second, Fox furrowed his brow until the realization slowly surfaced in his mind. He felt his mouth turn dry as an idea slowly formed in his head.
The not-Andross head seemed to enjoy watching his expressions change. "What's the matter? Have you finally figured out a fraction of my plan?"
Fox remembered a briefing about launching asteroids at planets during the war. It never happened, but Fox knew what a rock several kilometers wide could do to a planet. He also knew that any asteroid strike would need several of them to overwhelm any defenses. He mentally ran through a list of all the planets allied to Corneria that wouldn't have the power to stop that kind of attack. He felt his heart sink as he put the pieces together.
"You want to use this asteroid as a weapon. It can't be the only one you have. You're going to throw them at anyone who helped Corneria. You're going to throw them at Fichina."
The ape's face instantly looked disappointed. Fox didn't know what else to add. It was his best guess. The ape shook his head with a humorless laugh that seemed to shake with the asteroid's rumbling.
"No, McCloud. I'm going to throw it at Venom."
Hey, y'all. This story reached 1000 views after I posted the last chapter. I'm grateful for every single one. I'm just glad that there are people here who want to read what I have to say. Thank you.
I also want to apologize for how short this chapter is. I thought these events would take longer to put together, and instead, they came together pretty easily. That's good for me, but I doubt that it's as good for people who want to read more. That said, Chapter 9 should be a much bigger one than this. It should be ready in another month.
Nail Strafer: Hopefully, I answered some of those mysteries with this chapter. I put a lot of planning into the big reveal, and there's still more to come. Depending on how this story ends, I might add a sequel, too. But that's still a ways off. I don't have an outline for it yet, and I probably won't until this story is done.
Overture OTSW: I appreciate the advice! I put a lot of work into the outline for the story before writing it, and so far, it's worked.
ArminiusFiddywinks: That's the plan. I'm glad you like it so far!
Elarix: You were right! The story's over 1000 views, now. I know I'm not writing anything that'll immediately bring in a big crowd, but I'm more interested in doing something similar to what Foxmerc did. I want to write something different, something that'll stand out, but still feels like Star Fox. As for the description of the Arwing, that's the tone I wanted. I hoped it would feel strange and eerie. The blood spill causing the floor to open is also a brilliant idea. I just wish I'd thought of it before I wrote the outline.