Chapter 23

The personal transport of General Pepper came into sight, a little black speck against the bulk of Corneria. Flanking it were four Arwings recently purchased by the CDF for special missions.

"Space Station Alpha Central, this is transport Artemis requesting landing clearance."

Admiral Verenski nodded to the control officer, who started entering codes into his computer.

"Transport Artemis, you are cleared for landing in bay J-22"

"Acknowledged, Alpha Central. We are following your entry vector."

Verenski watched the quintet of ships turn and head towards the most secure landing bay on the station.

"New contacts! Twenty-four, repeat twenty-four long-range fighters, they're broadcasting hostile!"

Verenski snapped into action. "Shields up! Power up weapons systems but DO NOT FIRE until the General is aboard. Order all capital ships docked to this station to launch and do the same. I want every fighter on this station getting ready to launch."
Three of the four Arwings moved off to engage the enemy fighters. They had to evade some missile fire at range from the hostile force, but came through virtually unscathed. Then when they were in range, the trio of ships fired Nova Bombs, devastating the enemy force. They then broke up and began engaging in individual dogfights.

The orbital station shuddered as four battleships and two cruisers detached and moved to a defensive formation.

Suddenly the station's guns began firing.

"Enemy fighter group! Another two squadrons skipping in from sector 4B!"

Verenski shook his head. This would get ugly.

The second set went straight for Pepper's transport. The Arwing protecting it fired off a couple of Nova Bombs, but the enemy fighters just plowed on ahead. The Arwing broke formation and moved to engage the enemy fighters, taking down another quartet in a head-to-head run. But the remaining fighters, all six of them, went straight for the transport. Even as the Arwing began to turn and line up for another shot, the six fighters were firing their weapons.

"This is transport Artemis, GET THESE FIGHTERS OFF MY BACK!!!" General Pepper's voice roared across the comm.

The transport, with its reinforced shields, could have taken the concentrated fire long enough for the Arwing to destroy the remaining fighters. But the six attackers didn't stop firing. They closed with the transport and rammed it at full speed, penetrating the shields and detonating, destroying the transport in the blink of an eye.

"Shit." Was all Verenski could offer. The big puma shook his head and watched as the Arwings destroy what stragglers were left of the enemy force.

"Order all ships to stay on alert. Bring those Arwings in on the double."

Verenski glanced once more at the chaos outside the viewport, then started headed for the landing bay…

"Admiral, wait a second! Jamming reported at Sector X!"

General Pepper pulled his flight helmet off and slid from the cockpit of his Arwing. The enemy had somehow gotten wind of his latest trip out of the base, which was positively disturbing.

At least his decoy system had worked. The robot-controlled transport was destroyed while he, safe in his Arwing, had accounted for eighteen kills. If only the entire Defence Force could be re-equipped with the ship.

Pepper saw the Admiral striding hurriedly towards him. "Admiral Verenski." He saluted.

Verenski hastily saluted back. "Good to see you made it OK General, but there's been a another situation! It happened just as you were landing!"

Pepper felt his gut go cold. "What situation?"

"Follow me."

Moments later, the two military leaders strode into the control room of the station. On the main screen, a number of blue icons were being driven back by a swarm of red ones. The conflagration was set against the background of Sector X. The recent practice of using the scanners to focus transmissions at last allowed High Command to know what was going on in every battle.

"They're past our last lines of defense, and troops are entering Base X now." General Pepper observed mournfully. "Order the evacuation of the Base."

"Look, one enemy battleship's trying to set itself up to engage our escaping transports." Verenski pointed at a large red icon moving around Base X. "It's his fault that he broke formation. I want Gargantuan, Dominant and Liberty to pound the hell out of that wreck, then accompany the transports back to Fortuna."

The battle, when viewed from hundreds of thousands of miles away, did not strike one as being a life-or-death situation. From the control room of Orbital Base Alpha Central, it was just pictures and numbers, a game of strategy. And during this game, Corneria had lost. Now Pepper and Verenski had to cut their losses and set up yet another line of defence at Fortuna.

But this time, more devastating forces were about to come into play.

"Sirs, I… The fleet at Solar… It's gone!" Stuttered the sensor officer.

Both the General and the Admiral stared at the sensor officer. "Umm, elaborate please." Said Pepper.

The sensor officer punched in a few buttons and put a visual recording up on the main screen. It was Solar, from a distance. The molten planet was surrounded by white-grey specks, which was the Cornerian Fleet in orbit. The whole planet suddenly glowed brighter and flared up, blinding the screen white. When the view resumed to normalcy, the planet was there, as though nothing had happened. But the fleet which was orbiting it had all but disappeared.

Pepper gaped at the screen. "No contact with anyone? What about the Star Fox team?"

"All missing sir. I don't know what happened."

Verenski's eyes narrowed. "Sensors, rewind the recording. Bring up the recording of the battle at Sector X and play it simultaneously"

The two separate events played on opposite halves of the main screen. The Cornerian Fleet had just wiped out the aggressive battleship and were in full retreat. A number of enemy vessels were docking with Base X.

That was the exact time when Solar began to glow brighter.

"Inconclusive." Said Verenski. "Pull up all movements from the enemy in the archives and compare them with recordings on Solar. I want to see a recording of Solar at the exact time when the enemy fleets moved into Sector Z."

Another set of images came up on the main screen, once again with Solar on the left and a tracking report of enemy fleet movements on the right. An enemy fleet moved into the center of Sector Z…

And on the recording of Solar, the screen brightened slightly as Solar seemed to flare up for a moment. This time it was little more than a momentary glow, but it did look suspicious nonetheless.

Pepper glanced curiously at Verenski. "How did you figure that?"

"I studied both archaeology and physics at the Academy." Said the Admiral. "There is something that links the two. You are familiar with the Astrophysical Catastrophe, I'd expect."

"I sure am, go ahead." Pepper replied. The Astrophysical Catastrophe occurred nearly two centuries ago, when the planets of the Lylat System ceased to follow the classical laws of physics and began orbiting with the planets farthest out moving fastest and the planets near the Sun orbiting slowest, yet despite the physical impossibility of this they all remained in orbit around Lylat, now moving so that they were all in the same position relative to each other all the time.

"Well, it has been theorized by archaeologists that the three oddly-shaped dust clouds at Sectors X, Y and Z are linked to, possibly even created by, the civilizations that used to exist on Aquas and Titania." Verenski continued. "And thanks to the Astrophysical Catastrophe, they all remain in the same relative position- at equal distances and angles from Solar."

"Oh! I've heard of that!" Said Pepper. "The difference in distances from the middle of each dust cloud and the centre of Solar is less than forty miles. And each sector is 120 degrees away from the other, when viewed from Solar."

"So people think that the three sectors and Solar are linked with each other, and possibly Titania and Aquas, though we've never found much to that end." Verenski thought for a moment. "Sensors, was there anything coming from Sector X when Solar flared up?"

The sensor officer checked his screens. "Got it! Energy spike, some sort of massive comms transmission across just about every frequency, aimed directly at Solar. This happened around three seconds before the burst at Solar. The burst at Solar blasted radiation and energy of all kinds in every direction. Electromagnetic, hyperelectromagnetic, psionic, distortive, you name it, Solar had it. I think we're dealing with technology way beyond us here, sirs."

The General and the Admiral glanced at each other. "This is bad."