Yes, I changed my pen name recently. My old one didn't really suit me, so I reverted back to my old one- Knicknevin. Hopefully, ya'll can forgive me for the delay and I can go on with this story.
Part of my problem was, although I've found a solution now, that I had written myself into a corner in Chapter 2, and I sat for weeks staring at the screen shouting, "What do I do now?"… 'Becky, if you're reading this- this is why I warned you about chapters… You can trap yourself if you're not careful…
Anyway, at long last…
Ruins of Camelot
Chapter 3
By: Knicknevin
Katina Surface
Tildoe Base
8:00 A.M.
Bill Grey surveyed the situation as best he could from the cockpit of his fighter. Husky and Bulldog squadrons seemed to be working well together, and the battle was going fairly well.
Surprisingly well in fact. Intelligence had estimated a much larger force was on the way, but as things stood Bill's two groups outnumbered and out classed the enemy. The battle they had been frantically preparing for might not last more than fifteen minutes or so… Of course, that was far too easy, Bill knew. Long range sensors showed more incoming, and more and more and more… But if every attack wave was this weak, they could hold all day.
A sudden impact on his ship pulled Bill back to the present. He instinctively threw his fighter into evasive maneuvers, scanning the sky for the enemy. He caught sight of a small craft speed by on his eleven. Got you now… He quickly brought his craft to bear on the oddly small fighter. Must be a drone ship… that explains why he flew right by me- not much room for brains in those tiny ships. About all they can do is fly straight and take an occasional pot shot. A few blasts later the small ship was sent burning down to the ground below.
A few more drones headed his way, one of them firing a few lazy shots in his general direction. Bill looped up around and over them, laughing as they just flew on forward, not even realizing they were about to be destroyed.
Once they were taken care of, Bill swung his fighter around to head back towards where the 'fighting' (if it could be called that) was heaviest. "Husky, Bulldog, report in," he ordered, trying to make sense of the cloud of fighters swarming over the base.
"Husky two reporting in."
"Husky three here, they're flying like they're asleep!" Tinny voices laughed over the radio.
"Bulldog one, reporting in."
More and more pilots called in. Bill found to his amazement that they hadn't suffered a single casualty yet… In fact, except for the occasional lucky shot, no one had even taken significant damage. Bill watched as two of the enemy ships, in pursuit of one of his own, collided in mid air. About the best Andross can hope for with forces like these is they might crash into one of us if we aren't paying attention.
"Husky, Bulldog, these guys are morons," he laughed to his group, shooting down three in quick succession. "But don't let your guard down. If we're careful this should be a cakewalk."
Both groups responded with confident affirmatives, as several more drones fell prey to their lasers. This can't be all there is to it, Bill thought. Unless this is just a diversionary attack, and their real target is elsewhere. Zoness is under attack the last I heard… maybe they're launching an offensive there.
"Hey, hey!" A new voice interrupted Bill's thoughts. "I'd offer to help you guys but it sounds like you've got this under control."
Bill recognized the voice at once. "Peppy! Glad you guys finally made it." Grinning, he looked up, and spotted the silhouettes of the approaching Arwings. Strange… there only appeared to be three of them… "Hey Peppy, what's up? Is someone missing? Fox?" He realized it had to be Fox- he would have said something to Bill by now.
"Well, yeah, he's sitting this one out," Peppy responded absently, blowing away a fighter while he was talking. "He… well… I'll fill you in later." Bill wished his speaker was a little better… he was sure he could hear pain in Peppy's voice, but it wasn't quite clear.
"Is this IT?" Falco cried in shock after shooting down his first drone. "This is easier than shooting targets in the Academy!"
"Well then, this shouldn't be a problem for you, eh?" Bill said, knowing it would ruffle Falco's feathers. A message flashed across his control panel. "Another wave is coming in, so watch it… This might be a better group."
StarFox acknowledged, but Bill's fears were unfounded. It was simply another wave of drone ships pouring into the fray.
A high pitched voice screamed across the radio moments after the new group joined the battle. "Help me!" Slippy wailed. He had at least a half dozen fighters on his tail. Bill could only laugh as he picked them off- some things never changed. Who else could get into so much trouble? At least the new group was just more drones.
Bill glanced over at his chronometer. 8:23 A.M. He sighed as yet another
wave of drones came swarming into the atmosphere. This might take awhile.
* * *
Katina
Tildoe Base
9:35 A.M.
It had been almost two hours now, and Bill was getting pretty tired. He could fly for hours on end, but combat wore at the nerves… even when the battle was almost pathetically easy. The only idea he could come up with was that the enemy planned to simply wear away at them, sending endless waves of these pitiful drones, until they couldn't fight any longer.
Bill flew mechanically, shooting down drones without even thinking about it. He, as had all the other pilots, had fallen into a sort of routine- shoot, flip, shoot, locate new targets, shoot, flip, shoot…. They spoke little now, probably all thinking along the same lines as Bill- they couldn't keep going forever. If the situation didn't show any signs of clearing up soon, he considered having a few pilots land and rest for a bit. He could then rotate them back in to relieve some of the others… shifting the most exhausted pilots out and replacing them with fresher ones as the battle wore on…
A message from Tildoe Base interrupted his thoughts. "Sir, be advised that we've picked up a large craft entering the atmosphere- it appears to be on a direct course here."
He checked his radar, and, as promised, a ship at least as large as the base itself was slowly making it's way towards them. "That must be the mothership these drones are launching from," he told his team. "Finally decided to come out of hiding I see. If we can take that out…"
Looking over his radar, he noticed the amount of drones had dropped vastly. No more appeared to have been launched after the last wave was mostly wiped out. Bill had a sinking feeling…
"Bill, you guys take care of the base here," Peppy said, "we're going to go see what we can do about that."
"Roger that Peppy, you be careful now- they must have something nasty in store for us or they wouldn't be showing their faces now," Bill responded, watching as StarFox sped off towards the incoming ship.
"Don't worry about it," Falco answered, his voice full of confidence. "A ship that big just has that many more weak spots."
"Yeah, I guess…" Bill said, not convinced. "But watch it."
"Funny," Slippy reported as they approached, "I'm g-getting some crazy readings from th-that ship… I can't be sh-sure of its shield strength. All the s-smaller ships it's carrying make a reading impossible."
Peppy leaned forward in his cockpit, straining to get a better look at the ship. There didn't appear to be any visible launch bays or openings, or any defensive weapons for that matter. "I don't see where it could have been launching those fighters from…" he said slowly as his Arwing drew closer.
"I'm p-picking up some sort of activity inside," Slippy stated. "I think th-they're about to launch another gr-group of fighters."
"How?" Peppy asked, scanning his eyes over the mothership again. "I don't see any launch bays."
"Looks like we're about to find out…" Falco warned. Several panels on the mothership dropped down, revealing four large launch pads. Within moments, dozens more fighters were swarming through the sky towards them. One broke off from the group and burned its engines towards Falco. Falco's fighter rocked as a laser blast slammed into his shields. "Whoa! He hit me!"
Peppy quickly turned his attention over to Falco. "Bogeys on my tail!" Falco shouted. "Two, no three of them!" Laser blasts peppered Falco's ship again, but his shields held. Peppy moved in behind the group as quickly as he could, but before he could open fire, his own ship rattled from repeated laser blasts.
"Blast it!" he shouted as he spun out of the way of another volley of fire. He could see several fighters locked onto his own tail. "These ones are good!" Slippy was wailing, having picked up his own group of tails, and Falco appeared to be struggling to evade his group, just barely avoiding their fire. They need help, Peppy said to himself silently. Watching the fighters on his tail for a vulnerable moment, he saw his chance. Let's see you follow me through this. He zigged and zagged randomly for a few moments, then dove and quickly followed through into a loop.
Peppy watched with satisfaction as the enemy fighters zoomed through where he had been. Before he could bring his weapons to bear, however, the enemy group split up in three directions, scattering as widely as possible in an attempt to get behind him again. Smart move… I can't follow all three, and if I pursue one, the other two will be free to get behind me again. However, with his immediate threat gone, Peppy ignored them and thrusted back to assist his wingmates.
By the time he reached them, Falco had managed to break loose from his own bogeys and was doggedly trying to chase one down and destroy it without being blasted himself. Slippy appeared to be in more immediate danger, so Peppy first moved to assist him. By the time Peppy's attackers were able to turn around and lock back onto his tail, he had managed to surprise two of Slippy's pursuers- enough for the frog to gain the initiative and start pursuing the survivor.
"Falco, how you holding up?" Peppy asked as he tried to avoid the angry laser blasts flying all around him.
"I'm all right," Falco replied. "I got one of them… I should be able to take care of the other two."
"Roger that," Peppy acknowledged, trying to keep enough of his attention on his flying to keep ahead of his pursuers. "Bill? How's your group holding up?"
There was no reply for several moments. Finally Bill responded with a brief "Not well." Taking a brief glance at that end of the battle, Peppy could see Husky and Bulldog groups were heavily engaged. A few fighters were falling toward the ground in flames, and not all of them were the enemy's.
"It's like these guys know our every move!" Falco shouted as the fighter he was chasing effortlessly avoided his fire. "They keep getting better and better as time goes on!"
Peppy couldn't afford to keep dividing his attention, and moved his focus back to gaining the upper hand on the enemy fighters behind him. Just as he managed to fool one and blow it out of the sky as it flew past, he took a brief glance at the mothership, which had spent the entire time simply waiting at the fringes of the battle. As he watched, the panels on the ship dropped open again.
Moments later, another full group of the enhanced group of fighters began to pour out.
Things didn't look good…
* * *
Venom
Wolf O'Donnell's Quarters
8:09 P.M. (10:25 A.M. Katina Time)
Wolf lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, not really thinking about much of anything. Reports from Katina were trickling in on his monitor, but with all communications jammed they were reduced to messages carried by light-speed courier ships. The battle sounded to be progressing well, so Wolf stopped paying attention when he was confident Venom's force would win.
The door chimed with a cheery tone that Wolf had never felt inside himself. Damn it all, Wolf thought absently, I don't want to be bothered anymore today. But, he knew it could be important news of some sort, so when the chime rang again he called "Enter."
The door opened, but Wolf didn't bother looking to see who came in, knowing they hadn't come here just to stare at him. "Are ya awake Wolf?" he heard Pigma's high-pitched voice squeal.
"We need to talk," he heard Leon say, "It's important."
Wolf sighed, sitting up and turning to face them. Pigma looked a bit nervous for some reason, but Leon was as impassive as ever. Something's up… Leon isn't showing it, but Pigma looks frightened by something. Of course, Leon's expression never changes, even during his 'interrogations'… "What is it?" he asked aloud, eyeing the two suspiciously.
Pigma looked at Leon expectantly. "Well, it's rather simple," Leon began. "You've got some sort of problem, and we want to know what it is. You've been distracted lately, and careless… I still can't understand how that Pheonix woman managed to shoot you down with your new fighter."
"I know ya have some sort of grudge against McCloud, and ya hate him," Pigma said, his courage starting to come to him. "But it seems like whenever he's around, or we have the chance to hurt 'im somehow, you get all sloppy."
Wolf just glared at the two. "Is that all?" he shot icily. "I'm not required to tell you my whole life's history- it's not any of your business. We may be a team, but make no mistake; I'm not your friend." He stomped over to his monitor, scanning the battle reports again. "The woman was lucky- that's all," he spat, fixing an icy glare at Pigma. "And if you think I'm getting sloppy maybe you'd like to try and take command from me."
Even though Wolf was unarmed, Pigma shrank back from him, horror in his eyes. Leon, though, wasn't quite ready to back off. "Fine, if you want to be that way, then go right ahead. But don't come crying to me if you miss another chance to kill McCloud because you're so blinded by your hate for him you can't even see straight."
Wolf took a step towards the pair. "GET OUT! Don't bother me again!"
Leon and Pigma glanced at each other again, then left the room without another word. Wolf watched the two go, then locked the door behind them. "They don't understand," Wolf muttered aloud after they had gone. "It doesn't matter anyway… I'm not getting careless… I'm closer to Fox than I've been in a long time…"
On his monitor, new reports began to flash across the screen. Wolf scanned over the newest list of reports, a growing smile on his face. The jamming had been lowered allowing communications to open up again. The battle reports were still being assessed, but…
Wolf's smile grew even wider. "Yes indeed… Fox, you're closer than you've ever been before…"
The final reports scrolled by, and it was made official.
Katina had fallen.
With visions of Fox dying at his hands flashing through his head, Wolf
began to laugh…
Okay, I finally managed to get my personal life in some vague semblance of order (having finished my classes in January helped), so I'm going to get this show on the road again. I kept this chapter fairly short, but I believe in concise writing, so hopefully it shouldn't suffer too much from that.
Coming up- Chapter 4: All your base are belong to us! (Okay, maybe not.)
As always, tell me what you think, and don't be afraid to criticize
if it's called for. (But no flames.) Thanks!