Great Fox 2

Low Corneria Orbit

11:48 AM


"Normal speech"

"Thoughts"

-"Radio/comms"-


"Heya Krys."

"Hey Fox…"

McCloud walked into the ship's common room, spotting Krystal lounging on the large couch that dominated the center of the space. She had just gotten out of the shower by the looks of it, wearing a snow-white bathrobe and browsing something on her phone.

"Still any hot water left?"

She shot Fox a playful smile, nodding. "I don't take that long, do I?"

"Nah." Fox waved her off, taking a seat on the couch across from her. The two sat idle for a moment, while he tried to work up the courage to tell her they already had a new assignment.

"Uh… I've got some news… Not sure if you'll like it or not, the decision to do it was kinda impulsive."

The blue vixen looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Hmm? Fox, you know I'm not-"

He almost blushed. "No, no, I'm not thinking about that just yet…" A lighthearted chuckle on his part was able to defuse the awkward situation before he continued. "I-I might have another job for us… It's from Pepper."

Krystal almost looked like she was about to let out a sigh, her tone rather disheartening. "Fox… I… When does this start?"

"A-a week, I think."

"Well… Okay, at least that wouldn't affect my plans too much."

"Plans? I-I don't think you've told me?"

She finally let out a sigh, giving him a small smile. "It was a surprise… But, well, sounds like it can wait I guess." Krystal shrugged, sitting up. "So, what's he got us doing this time? Been a while since he's contacted us."

He nodded, trying to remember the details. "Long story short, Pepper wants us to support local CDF forces on MacBeth, there's a rebellion that they need some help quashing from what I can tell."

"So…" She shot him a strange look. "We're dealing with… What's the word? Oh, guerrillas?"

"Yeah… Guess they've got pretty limited weaponry, should be pretty low-risk from what Pepper says. You know I trust him."

"Alright, doesn't sound much on the difficult side then. But…"

She sat there for a moment, thinking to herself about how Fox had just railroaded her into another job without saying anything beforehand.

"I need to think about it, Fox, this is pretty short-notice for me… What's the contract's pay, anyways."

Fox answered rather quickly. "Pepper said he'd pay off the Great Fox's loan, completely."

Krystal took a second take, staring back at him in a bit of disbelief. She'd only heard him mention the loan in passing as a constant overhead cost that he'd never pay off in his lifetime, but Pepper wasn't one to lie. "...You're joking. There's… 50 million credits left, as I recall?"

The vulpine nodded, looking back at her. "Mm-hmm, the original price tag was 70-something million. I was thinking I'd be stuck paying it forever, but…"

"You know where Pepper's getting that sort of money? We're lucky to get a million or two with normal contracts… Makes sense why you'd jump at it though."

Fox shrugged, looking at the worn decking that made up the floor. "I don't really know, he says it's a parting gift of sorts before he retires."

"Hmm…" Krystal stood up, stretching her arms. Fox couldn't help but ogle at her form for a second, though while she wasn't looking. "Alright, I suppose it couldn't be too bad. Always wanted to see MacBeth anyways, I hear it's rather nice in the mountains during winter."

A wave of relief washed over him, feeling like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. It was clear it wasn't what she preferred to do, but it didn't seem like Krystal minded enough to care too much. "Thanks… Like, really…"

She chuckled again, giving him another friendly smile. "Don't mention it, Fox."

"Yeah."

Krystal walked off, probably headed to her cabin aboard the ship. The Great Fox 2 didn't even really have much in the way of what you'd call cabins anyways, originally having only bunks for most of the good 100 plus crew of pilots and other support personnel the carrier once was home to. Now, it was just the five of them, not including ROB. Fox had, with the help of Slippy, torn out most of the outdated military equipment that they no longer needed, mainly being the mentioned bunks and crew accommodations, alongside the craft's rather dated sensor suite. They had little money at the time for replacement subsystems, and the ship still was missing most of what the original Great Fox had.

Still, as long as it hung back and provided support, the ship was mostly workable to Fox and his team. Not that Falco would stop complaining about it, of course, no matter how pivotal of a role it played.

Fox remained on the couch, letting himself think for a bit long after Krystal had left.

"Alright, that just leaves Peppy, Falco and Slippy… Falco might not be so agreeable about any of this, knowing how he is with short-notice stuff. Peppy might not-"

"Heya Fox!"

Fox turned around, spotting his team's mechanic walking down the hallway, approaching the couch.

"Oh, Hey Slip. How you doing?" His tone wasn't the cheeriest, still wanting to be left alone for a bit longer.

"You know, usual." The toad shrugged, Fox having to look over the couch to spot him thanks to his short height. Slippy had matured rather quickly in the past few years, with his voice not quite as high-pitched as it used to be. Still though, his happy, optimistic attitude remained and Fox was starting to think he'd never lose it. At least he'd long since put away the literal blocks he used to play with. Regardless of how he carried himself however, Slippy's mechanical talent couldn't be ignored by anyone on the team.

"Still tuning the secondary fuel pump to the ship's main engine, I think it was damaged when they pulled it out of the mothball yard." The toad mentioned, hopping up on the couch and taking a seat where Krystal was previously. "Finding replacement parts is getting hard, since the ship's so old."

Fox nodded, knowing his mechanic was right. The Great Fox 2's hull was probably laid long before the Lylat wars, and was dumped into a mothball yard shortly after it'd outlived its service life. "Is… That going to be a problem?"

"Nope." Slippy replied with confident grin..

"Good…" Fox would be next to nowhere without Slippy, really, even if part of him struggled to admit it. "I wanted to ask you something, though."

"Shoot!"

"Well… I know we just finished our previous contract, but I might've already landed us another job. It's from Pepper."

"Pepper?" Slippy's eyes lit up. "Oh man, we haven't heard-"

"In months, yeah." Fox interjected, seeing the toad's expression sour slightly. "He wants us to run air support for CDF forces on Macbeth, says they're trying to put down a rebellion."

"A rebellion? When was the last time that happened?"

The vulpine shrugged, adjusting his position on the couch. "Before I was born, for all I know. He's willing to pay off the rest of the ship's loan with this last job." Fox wasn't sure how the toad would finally react to any of this, with it being so-short notice.

"F-fox… That's like… A-a billion credits!" His friend stared back at him, eyes going wide.

"Not quite." Fox chuckled. "50 million. His last gift to us before he retire-"

"I'm on board!"

"Just like that?" He was taken back a bit, thinking Slippy might've had plans.

"Yeah!" The amphibian exclaimed. "If we're gonna be ground poundin' I wanna test out a new shield emitter I've been prototyping!"

"Here we go again…" As with most of Slippy's projects, the toad was rather good about not telling anyone about them until the last minute. Fox certainly hadn't heard about this one yet. "And why didn't you tell me about this earlier? You of all people would know the emitter system on Falco's Arwing was shot after he got too close to a thunderstorm on Aquas a few weeks ago. I don't think he ever stopped complaining about it. I'm not mad Slip, but you've gotta tell us what you're working on."

The toad stared down at the ground in shame, knowing Falco would have his ass if he found out. "S-sorry… I didn't wanna use it until now though, it's a modified aftermarket emitter that I've tweaked so the shield can absorb kinetic impacts to an extent, but it's caught fire a few times from overloading and I wasn't confident it was safe until now."

"Well that would explain that." It wouldn't be the first time Slippy had caught something on fire, but the lack of reporting from ROB in the past few weeks meant Slippy had it under control, or disabled a thermal sensor or two. "Alright, fair enough. Kinetic impacts though? Like bullets?"

Slippy nodded, rather quickly. "Yup, though it's more for keeping debris from hitting the hull and cockpit canopy. Some big stray rock or flying bit of metal will still throw you around, but it won't actually touch the Arwing."

"Okay…" Fox returned the nod. "Actually sounds pretty useful… You're saying it's mostly reliable?"

"Yeah! I've already installed it on my Arwing. Wasn't too hard to throw in, but it pulls more power from the reactor than the old emitter a bit. Nothing to worry about though."

"Alright… Think you could install the same thing in Falco's ship? You don't need to tell him you already had this."

Nodding again, Slippy already seemed ready to run off to the hangar, with or without Fox's permission. "Sure! Shouldn't take more than a few hours… Uhh, when did he say he'll get back again?"

"I dunno, could be hours or the rest of the day, you know him."

"Right, yeah… Well, I'll get to work, tell me when he gets back, I don't want him to catch me poking around the inside of his Arwing."

Fox gave Slippy a small chuckle, seeing the toad run off down the hall and out of sight. Falco had left a few hours after Fox had received the previous contract's income, taking his cut and heading down to Corneria for a round of shopping on his part. He had no idea what the avian was planning to get, probably going to spend the afternoon at some bar on the city's outskirts too, Fox predicted.

Peppy had left too, wanting to spend time with his daughter, Lucy for a few days planetside after months of not seeing each other; Not a bad way to spend time, Fox supposed. He hadn't seen the hare in ages either, and Fox would've gone with Peppy in a heartbeat if he didn't need to help Slippy upkeep the ship. With any luck though, his mentor would be back before the team departed to Macbeth. Actually convincing the two to be onboard with the job? That was another story.

"ROB? Could you run some paperwork to get us a spot in line for the Beltino Gate? We've gotta get through to Macbeth in a couple of days?" Fox turned to his robotic companion, the droid currently occupied with rapidly typing away at a keyboard. The Great Fox 2 lacked any form of FTL propulsion, and arranging a replacement would be outside of the team's price range, necessitating the use of the gateway.

"I had considered that earlier, but Pepper's military clearance codes will secure us a spot in the Beltino Orbital Gate's schedule. They were sent encoded with the rest of the contract's data." Rob replied, not bothering to even look back.

"Right, I should've figured he'd think of that." Fox felt a small weight lift off his chest, but it was only one of many currently metaphorically sitting on him. "Thanks, works for me."

The commander sat for a few more moments, pondering what to do for the few hours he had until much of anything happened. Eventually settling on a movie and a meal, Fox hopped off the couch, walking down the hall to his cabin.


CDF Knox Station

Low Corneria Orbit

9:50 AM


The office sat quiet, with only the steady background hum of the station the room was built on the singular, droning noise to keep the Admiral company. The dog took a long puff from his antique pipe, letting a small wisp of smoke escape from it into a vent on the ceiling. Maintenance staff sometimes hated him, having to change air filters ever more slightly often whenever he was in his office alone for long periods of time. Taking a long good look through the viewport at the planet below, he tossed the financial report aside onto his polished wooden desk, sighing.

"Another 50 million set aside by Pepper… What in Lylus is he spending that on…"

A slight anger filled his head, seeing more of the CDF's desperately-needed funding get redirected to another one of Pepper's divisions. His forces needed that money, his troops were struggling enough as-is, and now that the extra funding he had promised was gone there would be nothing to replace his losses on Macbeth.

"Damnit Pepper, first you rely on goddamn mercenaries to do the fleet's job, then I can't replace my own aircraft because of you…"

It wasn't the first time the old dog had given him the metaphorical shaft with assets and funding, and he figured Pepper was pretty much doing whatever the hell he wanted, probably confirming the rumors that he was retiring soon anyways. But for however long that took, he'd still be under the senior officer's thumb. To make matters worse though, he'd been recently put in charge of the CDF branch on Macbeth, being the replacement for a now-deceased commanding officer, assassinated from kilometers away, supposedly.

Getting up from his rather large and puffy leather chair, the Admiral strolled across the carpeted floor, aiming for a wooden cupboard behind his desk. Opening it, he pulled a tall glass bottle of wine and it's associate shot glass. Setting both back on his desk, he went to pour himself a drink he received a knock on his door.

"...can't I be left alone for ten godamn minutes."

Grumbling to himself, the canid quickly stashed away his alcohol, shoving the bottle back into his sizable collection he kept. "Come in."

The door slid open, with a small she-wolf stepping inside and giving him a snappy salute. It was his secretary, holding a datapad in her free hand.

"No, I'm too tired to care about that crap…" He waved her off, receiving a puzzled expression in return. "Guessing you've got something for me?"

She nodded, waiting for him to finish taking another puff of his pipe. "Yes sir, it's a status update from Macbeth. It's been encrypted though, so I supposed it was for your eyes only."

Nodding to her, the Admiral nearly swiped the datapad from her hand, eagerly turning it on and inputting his credentials. "Thanks. Y-you can go now."

"Of course."

She was gone within seconds, stepping out into the hallway and letting the door close behind her.

"Alright… Let's see here…"

He'd been expecting a secure message from Macbeth for hours now, and he wasted no time in reading it. The lengthy message slowly scrolled down, still in the process of being decrypted even as he scanned down from the top.

-Fwded by Base Commander Vanessa Grey-

-Clearance code: 8450B-

-Apologies for being slow to update; we've been having difficulties in establishing a secure line of comms off-planet, but the more technical-minded staff tell me this line should be safe. We had to 'commandeer' a local civilian radio telescope array to do it… It was messier than I would've liked it to be.

I"ll be honest; our grip on local regions is slipping and I fear without additional air power or reinforcement we may lose control entirely. We still don't know where the rebels keep getting their equipment from, and it's getting to the point where I have reason to believe they've secured manufacturing equipment. What little air power we have is getting worn down, and while what operational aircraft we have keeps the rebels from getting too close to our own bases, they've almost got free reign otherwise.

We're trying to keep the people in check, but I'm afraid recent incidents between our forces and civilians are starting to stress things to a breaking point. It's probably why we're seeing more and more rebel activity every day as more civvies join them, too.

None of the above would warrant a secure transmission, however, a recent event regarding one of our gunships has me deeply worried. It was shot down approximately two weeks ago by some sort of MANPADS, but the lack of wreckage whatsoever indicates whatever was used may be a sort of exotic tech. It was lost during a failed ambush operation, and the local CSOC detachment eventually got a captured rebel to talk.

Most of the report they gave me was classified, but from the few snippets of the interrogation I got something interesting. The rebel said something along the lines of, and I quote; "It ate it, it ate the hull."

Now, while I have no connections I can call upon here, I believe you have a direct line to a certain group that has specialized in situations like this before. We're way over our heads here, please do what you can to contact them, otherwise I fear things may get worse than they already are.-

The long message came to an end, no longer scrolling down his datapad yet he already knew what he had to do. Without additional support there was little he could do directly himself, all but one thing that was.

"Dammit… Just… Dammit…"

Going for his alcohol cupboard again, the Admiral managed to pour himself a drink this time without interruption. He went for his phone, grabbing it from his pocket and throwing it down on the desk before taking a long swig of his glass, letting himself swallow the Fichinan ice brandy before proceeding with the call. It didn't even ring, with the connection instantly going to one of the technicians at a comms terminal in the station's combat information center, a few decks down. Another canine answered his call within a few seconds

-"CIC here. Do you need something, Admi-"-

"Yeah, yeah…" He interrupted, having heard all of it before. "I need you to arrange priority clearance codes and a reservation for Beltino Gate, and hopefully within the next few days."

-"...Going to need an authorization code for that sir, the gate's backed up for the next few weeks with traffic, military or otherwise."-

Being the primary sending node for Lylat's gate network, the Beltino gate was practically always backed up with traffic for at least a few days, but nobody else would be taking priority with the level of clearance he could, and would be swinging around.

"Right, right… Run A40C08, should still work."

There was a moment of silence as the dog on the other end did his work on the terminal, typing away on the keyboard. -"Yes sir… Looks like you've been cleared to pass through the gate whenever necessary, but that code looks like it's only good for a single ship."-

"That's all I'll need." Without even bothering to thank his subordinate on the other end, the high-ranking Cornerian killed the connection, taking another long sip of brandy. Spinning around in his chair, the Admiral took a long gaze out the window, having raised the armored shutter and letting sunlight flood his office.

"Alright, let's get this over with."

Bringing up his phone again, he pinged his secretary this time, also not even letting her greet him again.

"Vanessa, going to need a frigate prepped with a skeleton crew by tomorrow. I'm heading out for a few days."


MIF bunker complex

Macbeth

4:41 PM


Noah scampered down the wet, concrete hallway, boots kicking up puddles of rainwater that had seeped through the ceiling from the snowy peaks above. The passageway was warm thanks to how deep it had been drilled, but despite how expansive the old facility was Noah struggled to call it roomy. A whiff of dry air kept him going to his underground destination though, keeping his head forward and ignoring the two other soldiers standing among a pile of crates pushed to one side of the hall.

The bunker complex that he had called 'home' was an old, deep-level installation dug out by Venom's engineers and slave labor just before the war, being one of many that Macbeth was home too. Most had been found already years ago, caved in with explosives after being cleared of opposition, with others being converted into handy storage or mining operations. This one though, had remained undetected and off-the-books, and it currently found itself with new owners in the form of the MIF.

Walking down a flight of stairs, the husky reached a heavyset door at the bottom. Grabbing the handle and pulling back the heavy steel, Noah stepped through, reaching the large interior on the other side. Nobody was sure what the room had been used for originally when the bunker was found, but their little rebellion had repurposed it into a small motor pool of sorts. A mixture of vehicles sat idle, loosely organized into parking spots, most being stolen from the CDF, or 'borrowed' from civilians. It was a messy collection of trucks, smaller personal vehicles, and a small hodgepodge armor column of stolen CDF armored fighting vehicles.

Strangely though, the motor pool was mostly devoid of personnel; Even in the few times he had visited, there was always a small brigade of mechanics and rebel engineers tending to what few vehicles they possessed, trying to maintain any little force multiples they had. Now though? There was nobody here, far as he could tell. Going for his radio, Noah was prevented from asking a few frustrated questions by the sound of voices coming from a corner of the motorpool.

"-kidding me? Weren't you worried about us using shit like this too much a few weeks ago? The second those goddamn dogs see this thing in the field we're gonna be dealing with their air support again! And if this thing can do even half of what you say it can, they'll start throwing the orbitals at us!"

Noah immediately recognized the gruff, accented voice, belonging to one of his older supriors. It was coming from behind a loose stack of rusted shipping containers on one side of the room, the sound being enough to draw him towards it.

"Perhaps if you hadn't been so eager to escalate this conflict, Commander, none of us would be dealing with this situation right now. We had no intention of giving you such an asset like this so soon."

"Shit, of course he'd be here."

Just hearing him speak put the husky on edge, now slowly inching towards wherever the two were behind the containers instead of his brisk walk.

"How do you expect us to use this then, huh? You want us to drive this damn thing right into a CDF tank battalion and win? I don't give a damn about how much tech you say this thing's packed with, no vehicle's gonna do that! And even if it could, are you gonna say this thing's gonna survive the orbitals they'll throw down too?"

"Perhaps if you would listen you would be fully aware of what this asset is capable of, and how I would advise using it. I never took you as being professional, but-"

"PISS OFF! You're not the one in charge, you goddamn freak! Last time I checked I was General Kishore Tygan! Not you!"

Noah peeked his head around the corner, spotting the two standing and facing each other. Neither had noticed him yet, Tygan being too busy yelling at his armored benefactor.

"You walk a very thin line, Tygan. Without my organization's support, there is little reason to believe your entire movement would've lasted even a month once you split off from that PMC. Yelling at me isn't going to earn you any favors with me, let alone anyone else."

Tygan didn't have a reply, or couldn't think of anything reasonable to say back before the other started to walk off, armored boots kicking up puddles of rainwater as he strolled to the freight elevator on the other side of the motorpool. "You really enjoy speaking before thinking, don't you?"

"Whatever, just get the hell out." The Simian spat. "This is still my bunker, last time I checked. Far as I care you're just a damned guest."

"I recommend changing your tone with me, Commander." Despite the lack of emotion the armored being was showing, Noah could pick up on the disdain he had for Tygan already.

Waiting for the elevator to ascend out of view before approaching his commanding officer, the ape had already turned around and was looking at him.

"S-sir!" Noah snapped into a practiced salute, with Tygan returning the gesture almost lazily.

"At ease, can't say I'm much in the mood for formalities, not after dealing with him."

"I-I see…" Noah replied, not having much more to say. It was all above his pay grade anyways. "You-you wanted to see me?"

"Indeed I did… Turn around, take a look behind me, that there is what all this bullshit is about."

Taking a look in the corner of the room, Noah spotted a large vehicle parked on the concrete, dominating the space with its size.

"W-where did we get-"

Tygan scoffed. "Him, of course."

The vehicle Noah shifted his gaze around on was massive, with the hull itself already being almost taller than he was. Whoever designed the thing clearly didn't have a low profile in mind with it's size, and the large turret only added to the tank's height. It was already painted in a snow-white camouflage, mixed in with black hull armor peeking below the sideskits covering the wide tracks and covered with an array of extra equipment, sensors and active defensive systems.

"...Can't say I've seen anything like this. Damned thing is huge…"

"Sure as hell ain't Cornerian-built. Goes completely against their armored warfare doctrine too."

"Yeah, they take a faster approach to combined arms." Noah couldn't really stop looking at the vehicle, seeing the large cannon and already imagining the amount of damage it could do.

"..What are we going to do with it?"

His commander broke out into a chuckle, holding his hands behind his back and looking at the vehicle himself. "I'm glad you asked… Already got a plan for it, gonna hit those dogs in the soft side…"


Great Fox 2

Four days later


"ROB, ETA on the orbital gate?"

"Provided Pepper's clearance codes are still up-to-date, estimated transit time to Macbeth remains below 5 hours."

Fox nodded an unnecessary thanks to the machine, looking out the bridge's front viewport and spotting the massive orbital installation sitting dead ahead a few hundred kilometers away. While he couldn't make out anything but the gateway itself, the arrays of twinkling lights lined up in parking orbits showed off the long lines of spacecraft waiting to venture through. Part of Fox wanted to avoid taking the gate and cutting in a nearly two-week long line; It'd push back those who had already been waiting for even more hours, but without FTL of its own the Great Fox 2 had no other choice other than to crawl along at sub-light, and reach Macbeth in weeks if they were lucky.

"Don't feel right, cutting in line like this." Peppy commented, sitting adjacent to Fox at another bridge console. The readouts he usually paid attention to having been replaced by a large book he'd been reading for the past few hours.

"Yeah, shows how serious Pepper is about all of this…"

"Mm-hmm, makes me think how bad the situation might be over there too. Must be pretty desperate for air support if we're gettin' ushered through ahead of everyone else."

Fox only nodded again, leaning back in his chair as the ship slowly approached the gateway. He remember the last time being here; Only back then he was shooting down Aparoid missiles in his Arwing, and it was his team's efforts that kept the facility intact throughout the war. Now, his ship was just one of thousands going through. Well, ahead of everyone else, that was.

"Remind me..." Peppy set down his book, looking at the team's leader. "How in the hell did you get Falco to agree to this? You know him and 'wanting to do things' my way."

"Two months of shore leave, and I threw in a reservation for an Aquasian resort out of my own pocket."

"Hmm… Guess he'd like the beaches, lots of ladies to oogle' at."

Fox chuckled, looking back. "Yep, something like that."

"And Krystal?"

"Didn't have anything else to do." The vixen in question said behind them, having walked onto the bridge without even noticing. Fox blushed again, slightly embarrassed he hadn't realized she crept up behind.

Fox's love interest chuckled, seeing the two spin around, shooting the vulpine a smile. "So, I reckon we're about to go through the gateway?"

"Yup." Peppy replied, setting down his reading material. "Shouldn't be a too long a' trip. Gate ain't perfect but it's sure as hell a lot faster."

"That's always good."

Growing larger in the viewport, the three could make out more detail on the installation; Hundreds of idle spacecraft sitting in long lines, being a mix of various models of freighter, civilian transports, ore barges, and pretty much any type of industrial or privately-owned ship that wasn't FTL capable. The sheer amount of waiting traffic grew a pit in Fox's stomach; He'd be holding up thousands of people.

"Is the gateway always this busy?" Krystal inquired, shifting her view up and down the structure's grey and Cornerian-blue hull. "I don't remember quite this much traffic last time we made a more… Casual, visit."

"Not with all the rebuilding goin-"

"Beltino Gateway traffic control is hailing us, should I put them through?"

"Go ahead ROB."

A small monitor hanging from the bridge's ceiling flickered to life, redirecting Fox's attention. The small collection of loose and exposed wiring reminded him the ship still needed work, but that was for later, like usual. Coming up on screen, a rather formal-looking Cornerian wearing a military uniform shot Fox a blank stare before speaking.

-"This is Beltino Orbital Gateway traffic control. Our systems don't recognize your vessel with a transit reservation, please state your intentions."-

"...We've received military clearance codes directly from General Pepper, I'd like to submit them." Fox stated, reluctantly.

-"Understood, please be aware that misuse of such authorization codes is a federal crime… Failure to provide the correct ones will result in authoritative action."-

It sounded to Fox like he wasn't the first to try something like this, trying to bypass traffic as a non-military vessel. "Understood. ROB?"

Giving his Commander the smallest of nods, the team's droid sat still for a moment, motionlessly accessing a laser-based antenna for more secure short range communications.

"Data package sent, awaiting confirmation."

The air sat with a slight amount of tension; McCloud wouldn't think the codes he'd been given were wrong, but that chance something would screw up something else somewhere didn't give him confidence as he watched the canine on the other side of the screen read something out of view.

-"Acknowledged, Great Fox 2. Name your target destination."-

"Uh…" Fox was a little surprised it worked; He could now choose to theoretically go anywhere in Lylat he wanted now. "Macbeth."

-"Understood, move your ship into a holding pattern in front of the gate's main aperture and await further instruction. You're going to be the second ship today that's done this."-

"Second?"

-"Whatever it was, it's above my paygrade. Get moving. Traffic control out."-

The monitor went blank, going back into standby mode as the connection was cut. Leaning back in his chair, Fox breathed out through his nose, looking at ROB.

"Well, guess we shouldn't waste any more time with this. Get us into a spot right in front of the gate, keep your distance from the rest of the traffic..." He could already see the headlines: "Star Fox holds up traffic!" At least the carrier wasn't directly recognizable as the Great Fox, and getting a rear-view of only their engines might hide the fact it was his team delaying everyone by hours.

ROB kept the ship still as ordered, keeping the main engines idle and relying only on smaller reaction control system puffs for movement to save on fuel for the time being. Fox could almost feel the sets of prying eyes from all the traffic lined up behind him, all probably wondering why they got to skip ahead.

"Second ship, huh?" The hare mentioned, starting to go back to his book. "Startin' to wonder what that's all about."

"It's got me curious too, but I don't think we need to get involved in anything else right now, Pep'."

"Right you are, right you are." The hare nodded, dropping the subject.

It was only a few minutes before the team spotted movement near the center of the gate, being a large set of glowing emitters, each of the three pointed inwards to the portal aparute, all designed to rip open the fabric of spacetime to generate a 'safe' and traversable wormhole to the target location.

-"Standby, Great Fox 2. Calibrating exit and entry nodes."-

Within a few seconds of flight control's last announcement, the glow of each of the emitters brightened, and each detached from the center of the station, slowly pulling away from each other with the help of local gravitics.

-"All emitter blocks… Orbits confirmed."-

A large, green ring of ionizing energy lazily expanded between the free-floating emitters, with the gateway itself now forming inside the hoop's circumference. The flat plane of color grew with intensity, eventually forming one end of a wormhole to Macbeth.

-"Portal generation confirmed, bridge stable. Great Fox 2, you are clear to proceed."-

"Roger that, didn't wanna sit here much longer anyways." Fox replied, eyeing the massive portal ahead. "ROB?"

The bridge crew felt the ship slowly crawl forwards, performing a main engine burn directly forwards, with the robot cutting off main thrust and letting the carrier drift into the flat green wall of exotic particles.

Since the craft's bridge was further aft, the team's commander saw the entire front end of the ship slide into the portal, dissolving into another plane of reality right before his eyes. The worst part of gate travel for anyone came next; While not painful in the usual sense, the overwhelming tingle of a feeling washed over Fox in his chair. It felt like all but his mind had fallen asleep at first, but quickly boiled into the sensation that he was melting into his chair as all his matter passed through the soup of wild, green particles that few in Lylat could even begin to understand.

The sensation lasted only a few seconds before the ship's bridge returned to normal, Fox catching his breath as he settled back into reality.

"Godamnit." Peppy spat, helping Krystal off the deck, the vixen being a bit dazed by the experience. "Why in the world would anybody think this is a safe way to travel?"

"We might never know, honestly." The vulpine reliped, still mostly focusing on breathing and looking at Krystal. With her giving the team's leader a small nod, Fox let himself relax just a bit more. "ROB? How we looking?"

"All primary and subsystems read nominal, two primary fuses have failed as a result of power surge. Backup system is stable, but I would recommend replacing them as soon as possible. I have already alerted Slippy Toad about the matter."

"Well, guess it could be worse." Fox joked. "Alright, looks like we're waiting then."

The stable corridor of folded spacetime took the form of a luminescent, spinning tunnel, having completely replaced the almost comforting backdrop of distant stars everyone on the ship was used too; Gateway travel never sat right with Fox, but being the only good option the team had it took the form of a necessary evil. At least he wouldn't be paying for fuel while in FTL though, since the tunnel's wild gravitational anomalies were enough to push the ship forward without any engine power. Only small course corrections that ROB could easily handle was all that was needed should the craft stray too far to one side of the corridor.

"I'm gonna make some more coffee." Peppy mentioned, getting out of his seat and strolling out of the bridge. "You guys want any?"

"Sure, pep. Seems like we don't have anything to do until we reach Macbeth."


A/N: Yup, still alive. Been sitting on this for a while now for some reason, not sure why I didn't post it. Chapter 4's about 2/3s done too, though with how randomly my posts are that might not really mean much I'm afraid. 4's gonna be introducing someone else's character as well, someone you might or might not know, but they'll be playing a pretty major role in the story going forward.