Chapter 8: Mocking Glory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red lights flickered ominously inside the dim hallway as Fox, Wolf, Elena and Bill ran at
a brisk pace towards the hangar. The hallway appeared to have been carved directly
through the snow and ice of Fortuna's permafrost.
"Just a few more meters and we'll be there," said Bill panting as he ran.
"Didn't he say that two minutes ago?" muttered Wolf to himself.
As Bill continued to trot down the corridor he took out a small device and held it up to
his face, "Fortuna base" The words he spoke came out of broadcast speakers that seemed
to come from everywhere. "This is Commander William Grey, everyone take their
fighters and group up at Macbeth as soon as possible, I will supply more orders as the
time comes, but until then be prepared for whatever conflict that may occur...I also just
want to say that no matter what happens tonight, I am proud to serve as your commander.
All of you are taking a brave stance in stepping up against General Pepper. Thank you for
your loyalty, your trust, and most of all...your respect." Bill placed the device back into
his coat and continued to jog faster.
"If my memory serves me correctly, you failed speech class at the academy," said Fox
with a smile.
Bill shook his head holding back a laugh, "Oh don't you start now."
Soon they approached a large metallic door which had a small keypad attached to it. Bill
came to a sudden halt in front of the door. "Alright here it is guys."
Bill punched in a set of numbers, as the door made the clicking sound of a mechanical
lock flipping. The entry way opened with a rumble as it slowly revealed a large hangar,
but it was strangely empty.
"Right this way ladies and gentlemen," said Bill lightly as he trotted through the large
room, his voice echoing dramatically off the high leveled ceiling and distant walls.
Bill paused and took out a small device pointing it to an empty space in the center of the
room.
Fox glanced at Wolf and Elena, "Uh...Bill...what are you doing?...There's nothing
there."
Bill and Elena laughed for a moment, "Watch this."
With a press of a button a shimmering outline of a small ship appeared, translucent at
first, but then becoming more opaque as its image distorted, until coming into clear view
after a few seconds. The ship looked exactly like a Cornerian fighter with green and
white markings, yet was obviously different in that it could conceal its appearance
flawlessly.
"My God!" cried Wolf in astonishment. "I had no idea that kind of technology was
perfected!"
"You didn't think I'd send you into a battle fleet completely visible did you? You might
have had sensor invisibility, but someone could just look out their window and see your
ship."
Wolf blushed for a moment while he looked down at the floor.
Elena sternly glanced at Bill and Wolf. "Guys we don't have time for conversation."
"Alright! Geez, this woman I swear," said Bill as he clenched his eyes shut with a smile,
Bill carefully handed Wolf the small circular device which looked innocent enough, yet
held the power to level a large city. "There is a locater device inside the ship; you can
take it with you once you dock with Pepper's ship. You can use it to find the engine
room, just tell it to lock onto the nearest energy source ok?"
"Why the engine room? Shouldn't this bomb do enough damage if I just threw it
anywhere and ran?"
"We want to cause as much damage to the fleet as possible, if this thing detonates in the
engine room the cascading explosion would be devastating, perhaps taking out a good
chunk of the fleet, just find the engine room, it can't be too far from their docking bay."
Wolf nodded while stepping up to the cockpit of the quaint fighter.
"Fox, Elena, and I are going to follow you closely to make sure you get there ok."
"Or to watch me die?" said Wolf with a smirk as the glass covering to the cockpit
lowered slowly with a hum.
Fox's face was as cold as ice as he glared at Wolf, "Don't say that."
"Aw c'mon, I'll be quite fine I assure you." The door to the cockpit shut completely
concealing Wolf inside. Bill picked up his communicator.
"I'm guessing you don't know how to fly one of these, so just begin the start seque...
"By pressing the green button?" interrupted Wolf. "I'm not stupid, and besides this looks
just like the Arwing."
"Which you've only flown once." retorted Fox. However Wolf could not hear him as the
hangar doors began to open with a loud rumble.
"Fox, Elena, shall we go to our ships?" said Bill with a smile as the roar of the engines
from Wolf's Cornerian fighter echoed through the open hangar.
"I'll get to the Arwing, and meet you guys in orbit."
"Alright good, try to hurry too," said Elena swiftly.
Bill shook his head again, "I swear sometimes you'd think she never sleeps."
********************************************************
As Fox exited the atmosphere of the icy planet, he grew nervous and thought to himself,
pressing at the controls. "...Something is going to go wrong...I know it...none of this
feels right..."..."Well Fox probably because you're sending a friend on a mission to kill
General Pepper, someone you've worked for most your life. Of course this feels strange,
I mea..."
"Beware Fox...your enemy holds more than one face..."
Fox's blinked his eyes as he heard a ghostly voice echo through his mind interrupting his
own thoughts. The whisper from the dark sounded muffled and vague, but its tone
distinctly reminded him of one man…
"Father?..."
There was no reply. Fox glanced around the stars hoping to search for his answer there,
but his search produced no result.
"Ok focus..." muttered Fox to himself, soon resetting his thoughts on the mission at hand.
Fox could see about 20 fighters shoot off into the stars to his right, the small group made
a bright spectral flash as they disappeared towards Macbeth.
Fox approached the other three ships that were hanging in the stars above Fortuna. At the
same time, Bill's comm window opened with a static burst.
"Alright Fox, we're all together now, engage light speed and proceed on an intercept
course with the Cornerian fleet. However we're going to break off at about 2 million
kilometers before the rendezvous point to avoid detection."
"And that is when I'll engage this...this...invisibility device?" said Wolf interrupting.
Elena's window popped up, her gray squirrelly face bearing an annoyed expression, "Yes
it is. Remember to make sure that it's on the entire time you're within 2 million
kilometers of any Cornerian ship."
"Yea, yea I know!" cried Wolf sharing Elena's annoyance, only for a different reason.
Fox chuckled for a moment until he heard a ringing sound that sounded like Great Fox's
comm signal.
"Fox! This is Peppy! What are you guys doing? We're tracking a massive fleet headed
towards Zoness! I hope you young fellows have a good plan up your sleeves."
"Yea don't worry we got one. I can't talk about it now, but track our positions, and I'll
meet up with you later."
"Fox, it's not safe to talk over the comm channels for too long, we never know who
might be listening," said Bill in a hushed voice as though trying to obscure his words
from a close listener.
"Of course, I'll try to maintain comm silence."
Soon the four ships shot off into the stars in a blinding streak, bravely facing the trouble
that daunted the path ahead.
******************************************************
Falco rubbed the feathers on the top of his head for a moment before groaning. "I should
be out there fighting! Fox might get in trouble and need me!"
"Relax Falco, I have full confidence in Bill and Wolf, whatever their plan is."
"Right...Wolf..." grumbled Falco.
Peppy squinted his eyes a bit adjusting his glasses, "I thought we were past this whole
trust issue after he saved our lives?"
Falco plucked a deep blue feather from his arm, twirling it around with his other hand,
"Sometimes...I just don't know about him..."
Slippy entered the bridge, "Hey guys, whatsup!"
"Hey Slip, How's Rob coming along?"
"Alright I guess, hopefully soon he'll be up and running and this time he won't be going
schizophrenic on us."
Peppy chuckled for a moment before a beep emanated from the control console, "Looks
like Fox and the group he's with are approaching the fleet."
Falco sulked away "Yea GOOD luck to them."
Slippy glanced at Peppy confused, "What's eating him?"
"Oh just the usual spitefulness, angst, and envy."
"Ah that's our Falco," said Slippy with a grin.
****************************************************
"Alright Fox and Elena, prepare to break off, we're nearing the fleet," said Bill in a
hushed voice.
"Acknowledged, I'm turning back now," spoke Elena as Fox watched her ship arc back
around, gracefully flying past them in the opposite direction.
"Wolf, engage the invisibility device by pressing the blue button on the left side of the
instrument panel. It's above the engine boost button, you can't miss it.
"Got it, I'm engaging it now."
Fox watched as Wolf's ship shimmered for a brief moment before fading into the stars
behind him.
"Now we can only hope and wait," spoke Bill almost in a whisper.
***************************************************
Wolf could see the hundreds of ships dotting the distance near the proverbial horizon on
the stars as he leveled his craft, zooming towards the immensely large battle fleet.
Wolf's mind flooded with thoughts as he tried to focus on what he was about to do, "This
is crazy...what am I doing...how did I land up here?"
"Proximity alert, heading 232," spoke the computer.
Wolf couldn't contain a small gasp as he saw hundreds of Cornerian fighters pepper the
space around him as he flew deeper into the fleet, invisible to the naked eye. The
translucence gave Wolf a sense of security, but the emotion was only skin deep as Wolf
pondered his chances of being detected.
Soon Wolf approached closer to the ship that was at the front of the fleet as it moved
slowly through space inching toward its destination. It was not the largest ship, but its
importance was obvious as every other vessel straggled behind it in a bubbled group.
"Initiating landing procedure, please stand by," beeped the computer as Wolf pressed the
auto-dock button.
The ship began to fly closer to the Pepper's vessel as Wolf's anticipation grew. His paws
went clammy and cold as he fidgeted around in his seat adjusting his tail ever so often.
After the ship landed gently in the pristine hangar, which was suprisingly empty, Wolf opened
the canopy of the small fighter taking notice of how the hull was still invisible. Wolf grabbed
the locater device Bill told him to use in the process of getting out. The gray wolf hopped
onto the hangar's floor, his boots making a soft click as he tried to stay as quiet as possible,
but even that seemed loud in the silence of the room.
Wolf quickly trotted over against the wall, there were large cargo boxes dotting the floor
everywhere. Wolf looked around some more until his eyes rested on a small door. He
pulled out his locater device and pressed a button which told it to lock onto the largest
energy source.
'Target found' appeared on the small screen, showing a radar display with a blinking dot.
"The engineering section must be only a few rooms away," thought Wolf in his mind.
Wolf walked through the door trying to keep a stealthy state of mind; the corridors
seemed empty which made Wolf feel much better. He jogged swiftly down the brightly
lit hallway coming to another door. The door opened quickly with a small whoosh
showing yet another long corridor to Wolf's disappointment.
He glanced at the locater and saw that the blinking dot was coming from straight ahead.
He shrugged and continued to jog until he could hear two pairs of boots clicking against
the floor from around the corner.
"Oh hell!" thought Wolf as he frantically searched for a place to hide. He opened a small
door off to the side marked "storage" and threw himself through it. He waited against the
shut door listening until the guards passed.
"Control, this is guard 31 and 32, we're checking out that strange sensor reading from the
docking bay now."
"Confirmed 31, don't screw around, just check it out and get back up to the barracks deck.
Pepper wants everyone ready when we arrive at Zoness."
"It's going to be quite hard for those dogs to find an invisible ship," chuckled Wolf to
himself.
Wolf waited until he could no longer hear the clicking of the military boots before exiting
the small room.
The stealthy wolf quickly ran towards the door at the end of the corridor and pressed the
open button as swiftly as possible.
The door spread apart revealing a large room with three gigantic columns in the center.
The columns were filled with pulsing electricity that bathed a pale flickering light on the
control panels surrounding the engine core. Again, no one in sight, not even a
maintenance crew.
"Alright this is it," said Wolf double checking his locater. He unzipped one of the
pockets in his cargo pants pulling out the small spherical device. Wolf stared at the
engine core for a moment while thinking of his plan of action for getting off the ship.
"Once I activate the bomb. I'm going to run back to the fighter I came in and get
out...yes...that seems simple enough." Wolf nodded his head as though saying the words
out loud would make it more possible in the future. "Hopefully not encountering any
resistance..."
Wolf looked down at the bomb, he placed his fingers on the three triangular buttons that
were colored red, blue and yellow.
"Here it goes," whispered Wolf.
Wolf pressed all three buttons which caused the device to emit a small set of beeps. Soon
the timer appeared which showed 10:00 on its small tiny display.
"Freeze." *click*
Wolf felt the barrel of a gun press against the back of his head.
"Turn around...slowly." said the deep billowing voice.
Wolf's heart began to race as it came to his thoughts that he had just been caught. He did
not know what to do, his mind went a blur. As he turned around his eyes met the figure
holding the gun.
It was General Pepper.
"Ah...the insufferable Wolf O'Donnell. I had a feeling I'd be meeting you face to face
eventually. It's unfortunate it has to be on such bad terms."
Pepper glanced at the bomb. "Give that to me."
Wolf looked down at the device, which he was holding in his palm like a toy ball then
looked up again, his body still frozen.
"GIVE ME IT NOW!" shouted Pepper, sharply raising his voice at Wolf making him
cringe.
Wolf could hear the laser blaster charge with energy as it emitted a low hum. He had no
choice except to give Pepper the device.
Pepper took the device swiftly and lowered his gun for a brief moment to press a
sequence of buttons on the device. The bomb emitted a long sustained beep and three
short beeps signaling that it had been de-activated.
Wolf looked at Pepper wide eyed; shocked that he had known how to disable it with such
ease and agility. The General raised his blaster again and looked at Wolf while holding
the device in his free hand. He began to laugh softly to himself.
"Oh that would have surely killed me. Bravo Wolf, I must congratulate you. Oh bravo
indeed."
Pepper stepped forward and was now pressing the blaster directly against Wolf's
forehead.
"But I'm going to take an exceptionally wild guess here, and say that Fox sent you, am I
right?"
"Y...Ye..."
"Speak up soldier, I can't hear you!"
"Yes."
Pepper's face turned to disgust as though he had just tasted something horribly sour.
"What a wonderful little plan of his. I'm sure he got his good for nothing friend William
Grey to help him out with that one."
Wolf finally swallowed his fear and spoke up, "I'm not afraid of death Pepper, and I'm
not afraid of you." Wolf clenched his one good eye shut as the blaster pressed even
harder against his head.
Pepper laughed as though he found Wolf's comment somehow funny, "Oh I'm not going
to kill you Wolf."
Wolf opened his eye, looking at Pepper, "You...you're not?"
"No, of course not, I need you Wolf."
"...How?"
"Oh well it's quite obvious. Fox will refuse to believe you're dead, he will then attempt
to valiantly rescue you from the clutches of evil, restoring happiness to everyone again."
Pepper clenched his heart in mocking glory.
"When he attempts to do that, I'll finally have my chance to eliminate him, and then there
will be no one in my way to taking Lylat."
"You're a fool Pepper, Fox does not care if I'm dead, he will continue on without me.
You're wasting your time."
"Oh we'll see about that."
Pepper swiftly backhanded Wolf across the face, knocking him unconscious. The
incapacitated wolf collapsed to the floor with a stumbling thud as he was out cold.
"There are so many more things to fear than death Wolf O'Donnell."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check up later for Chapter 9! Hope you liked this one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red lights flickered ominously inside the dim hallway as Fox, Wolf, Elena and Bill ran at
a brisk pace towards the hangar. The hallway appeared to have been carved directly
through the snow and ice of Fortuna's permafrost.
"Just a few more meters and we'll be there," said Bill panting as he ran.
"Didn't he say that two minutes ago?" muttered Wolf to himself.
As Bill continued to trot down the corridor he took out a small device and held it up to
his face, "Fortuna base" The words he spoke came out of broadcast speakers that seemed
to come from everywhere. "This is Commander William Grey, everyone take their
fighters and group up at Macbeth as soon as possible, I will supply more orders as the
time comes, but until then be prepared for whatever conflict that may occur...I also just
want to say that no matter what happens tonight, I am proud to serve as your commander.
All of you are taking a brave stance in stepping up against General Pepper. Thank you for
your loyalty, your trust, and most of all...your respect." Bill placed the device back into
his coat and continued to jog faster.
"If my memory serves me correctly, you failed speech class at the academy," said Fox
with a smile.
Bill shook his head holding back a laugh, "Oh don't you start now."
Soon they approached a large metallic door which had a small keypad attached to it. Bill
came to a sudden halt in front of the door. "Alright here it is guys."
Bill punched in a set of numbers, as the door made the clicking sound of a mechanical
lock flipping. The entry way opened with a rumble as it slowly revealed a large hangar,
but it was strangely empty.
"Right this way ladies and gentlemen," said Bill lightly as he trotted through the large
room, his voice echoing dramatically off the high leveled ceiling and distant walls.
Bill paused and took out a small device pointing it to an empty space in the center of the
room.
Fox glanced at Wolf and Elena, "Uh...Bill...what are you doing?...There's nothing
there."
Bill and Elena laughed for a moment, "Watch this."
With a press of a button a shimmering outline of a small ship appeared, translucent at
first, but then becoming more opaque as its image distorted, until coming into clear view
after a few seconds. The ship looked exactly like a Cornerian fighter with green and
white markings, yet was obviously different in that it could conceal its appearance
flawlessly.
"My God!" cried Wolf in astonishment. "I had no idea that kind of technology was
perfected!"
"You didn't think I'd send you into a battle fleet completely visible did you? You might
have had sensor invisibility, but someone could just look out their window and see your
ship."
Wolf blushed for a moment while he looked down at the floor.
Elena sternly glanced at Bill and Wolf. "Guys we don't have time for conversation."
"Alright! Geez, this woman I swear," said Bill as he clenched his eyes shut with a smile,
Bill carefully handed Wolf the small circular device which looked innocent enough, yet
held the power to level a large city. "There is a locater device inside the ship; you can
take it with you once you dock with Pepper's ship. You can use it to find the engine
room, just tell it to lock onto the nearest energy source ok?"
"Why the engine room? Shouldn't this bomb do enough damage if I just threw it
anywhere and ran?"
"We want to cause as much damage to the fleet as possible, if this thing detonates in the
engine room the cascading explosion would be devastating, perhaps taking out a good
chunk of the fleet, just find the engine room, it can't be too far from their docking bay."
Wolf nodded while stepping up to the cockpit of the quaint fighter.
"Fox, Elena, and I are going to follow you closely to make sure you get there ok."
"Or to watch me die?" said Wolf with a smirk as the glass covering to the cockpit
lowered slowly with a hum.
Fox's face was as cold as ice as he glared at Wolf, "Don't say that."
"Aw c'mon, I'll be quite fine I assure you." The door to the cockpit shut completely
concealing Wolf inside. Bill picked up his communicator.
"I'm guessing you don't know how to fly one of these, so just begin the start seque...
"By pressing the green button?" interrupted Wolf. "I'm not stupid, and besides this looks
just like the Arwing."
"Which you've only flown once." retorted Fox. However Wolf could not hear him as the
hangar doors began to open with a loud rumble.
"Fox, Elena, shall we go to our ships?" said Bill with a smile as the roar of the engines
from Wolf's Cornerian fighter echoed through the open hangar.
"I'll get to the Arwing, and meet you guys in orbit."
"Alright good, try to hurry too," said Elena swiftly.
Bill shook his head again, "I swear sometimes you'd think she never sleeps."
********************************************************
As Fox exited the atmosphere of the icy planet, he grew nervous and thought to himself,
pressing at the controls. "...Something is going to go wrong...I know it...none of this
feels right..."..."Well Fox probably because you're sending a friend on a mission to kill
General Pepper, someone you've worked for most your life. Of course this feels strange,
I mea..."
"Beware Fox...your enemy holds more than one face..."
Fox's blinked his eyes as he heard a ghostly voice echo through his mind interrupting his
own thoughts. The whisper from the dark sounded muffled and vague, but its tone
distinctly reminded him of one man…
"Father?..."
There was no reply. Fox glanced around the stars hoping to search for his answer there,
but his search produced no result.
"Ok focus..." muttered Fox to himself, soon resetting his thoughts on the mission at hand.
Fox could see about 20 fighters shoot off into the stars to his right, the small group made
a bright spectral flash as they disappeared towards Macbeth.
Fox approached the other three ships that were hanging in the stars above Fortuna. At the
same time, Bill's comm window opened with a static burst.
"Alright Fox, we're all together now, engage light speed and proceed on an intercept
course with the Cornerian fleet. However we're going to break off at about 2 million
kilometers before the rendezvous point to avoid detection."
"And that is when I'll engage this...this...invisibility device?" said Wolf interrupting.
Elena's window popped up, her gray squirrelly face bearing an annoyed expression, "Yes
it is. Remember to make sure that it's on the entire time you're within 2 million
kilometers of any Cornerian ship."
"Yea, yea I know!" cried Wolf sharing Elena's annoyance, only for a different reason.
Fox chuckled for a moment until he heard a ringing sound that sounded like Great Fox's
comm signal.
"Fox! This is Peppy! What are you guys doing? We're tracking a massive fleet headed
towards Zoness! I hope you young fellows have a good plan up your sleeves."
"Yea don't worry we got one. I can't talk about it now, but track our positions, and I'll
meet up with you later."
"Fox, it's not safe to talk over the comm channels for too long, we never know who
might be listening," said Bill in a hushed voice as though trying to obscure his words
from a close listener.
"Of course, I'll try to maintain comm silence."
Soon the four ships shot off into the stars in a blinding streak, bravely facing the trouble
that daunted the path ahead.
******************************************************
Falco rubbed the feathers on the top of his head for a moment before groaning. "I should
be out there fighting! Fox might get in trouble and need me!"
"Relax Falco, I have full confidence in Bill and Wolf, whatever their plan is."
"Right...Wolf..." grumbled Falco.
Peppy squinted his eyes a bit adjusting his glasses, "I thought we were past this whole
trust issue after he saved our lives?"
Falco plucked a deep blue feather from his arm, twirling it around with his other hand,
"Sometimes...I just don't know about him..."
Slippy entered the bridge, "Hey guys, whatsup!"
"Hey Slip, How's Rob coming along?"
"Alright I guess, hopefully soon he'll be up and running and this time he won't be going
schizophrenic on us."
Peppy chuckled for a moment before a beep emanated from the control console, "Looks
like Fox and the group he's with are approaching the fleet."
Falco sulked away "Yea GOOD luck to them."
Slippy glanced at Peppy confused, "What's eating him?"
"Oh just the usual spitefulness, angst, and envy."
"Ah that's our Falco," said Slippy with a grin.
****************************************************
"Alright Fox and Elena, prepare to break off, we're nearing the fleet," said Bill in a
hushed voice.
"Acknowledged, I'm turning back now," spoke Elena as Fox watched her ship arc back
around, gracefully flying past them in the opposite direction.
"Wolf, engage the invisibility device by pressing the blue button on the left side of the
instrument panel. It's above the engine boost button, you can't miss it.
"Got it, I'm engaging it now."
Fox watched as Wolf's ship shimmered for a brief moment before fading into the stars
behind him.
"Now we can only hope and wait," spoke Bill almost in a whisper.
***************************************************
Wolf could see the hundreds of ships dotting the distance near the proverbial horizon on
the stars as he leveled his craft, zooming towards the immensely large battle fleet.
Wolf's mind flooded with thoughts as he tried to focus on what he was about to do, "This
is crazy...what am I doing...how did I land up here?"
"Proximity alert, heading 232," spoke the computer.
Wolf couldn't contain a small gasp as he saw hundreds of Cornerian fighters pepper the
space around him as he flew deeper into the fleet, invisible to the naked eye. The
translucence gave Wolf a sense of security, but the emotion was only skin deep as Wolf
pondered his chances of being detected.
Soon Wolf approached closer to the ship that was at the front of the fleet as it moved
slowly through space inching toward its destination. It was not the largest ship, but its
importance was obvious as every other vessel straggled behind it in a bubbled group.
"Initiating landing procedure, please stand by," beeped the computer as Wolf pressed the
auto-dock button.
The ship began to fly closer to the Pepper's vessel as Wolf's anticipation grew. His paws
went clammy and cold as he fidgeted around in his seat adjusting his tail ever so often.
After the ship landed gently in the pristine hangar, which was suprisingly empty, Wolf opened
the canopy of the small fighter taking notice of how the hull was still invisible. Wolf grabbed
the locater device Bill told him to use in the process of getting out. The gray wolf hopped
onto the hangar's floor, his boots making a soft click as he tried to stay as quiet as possible,
but even that seemed loud in the silence of the room.
Wolf quickly trotted over against the wall, there were large cargo boxes dotting the floor
everywhere. Wolf looked around some more until his eyes rested on a small door. He
pulled out his locater device and pressed a button which told it to lock onto the largest
energy source.
'Target found' appeared on the small screen, showing a radar display with a blinking dot.
"The engineering section must be only a few rooms away," thought Wolf in his mind.
Wolf walked through the door trying to keep a stealthy state of mind; the corridors
seemed empty which made Wolf feel much better. He jogged swiftly down the brightly
lit hallway coming to another door. The door opened quickly with a small whoosh
showing yet another long corridor to Wolf's disappointment.
He glanced at the locater and saw that the blinking dot was coming from straight ahead.
He shrugged and continued to jog until he could hear two pairs of boots clicking against
the floor from around the corner.
"Oh hell!" thought Wolf as he frantically searched for a place to hide. He opened a small
door off to the side marked "storage" and threw himself through it. He waited against the
shut door listening until the guards passed.
"Control, this is guard 31 and 32, we're checking out that strange sensor reading from the
docking bay now."
"Confirmed 31, don't screw around, just check it out and get back up to the barracks deck.
Pepper wants everyone ready when we arrive at Zoness."
"It's going to be quite hard for those dogs to find an invisible ship," chuckled Wolf to
himself.
Wolf waited until he could no longer hear the clicking of the military boots before exiting
the small room.
The stealthy wolf quickly ran towards the door at the end of the corridor and pressed the
open button as swiftly as possible.
The door spread apart revealing a large room with three gigantic columns in the center.
The columns were filled with pulsing electricity that bathed a pale flickering light on the
control panels surrounding the engine core. Again, no one in sight, not even a
maintenance crew.
"Alright this is it," said Wolf double checking his locater. He unzipped one of the
pockets in his cargo pants pulling out the small spherical device. Wolf stared at the
engine core for a moment while thinking of his plan of action for getting off the ship.
"Once I activate the bomb. I'm going to run back to the fighter I came in and get
out...yes...that seems simple enough." Wolf nodded his head as though saying the words
out loud would make it more possible in the future. "Hopefully not encountering any
resistance..."
Wolf looked down at the bomb, he placed his fingers on the three triangular buttons that
were colored red, blue and yellow.
"Here it goes," whispered Wolf.
Wolf pressed all three buttons which caused the device to emit a small set of beeps. Soon
the timer appeared which showed 10:00 on its small tiny display.
"Freeze." *click*
Wolf felt the barrel of a gun press against the back of his head.
"Turn around...slowly." said the deep billowing voice.
Wolf's heart began to race as it came to his thoughts that he had just been caught. He did
not know what to do, his mind went a blur. As he turned around his eyes met the figure
holding the gun.
It was General Pepper.
"Ah...the insufferable Wolf O'Donnell. I had a feeling I'd be meeting you face to face
eventually. It's unfortunate it has to be on such bad terms."
Pepper glanced at the bomb. "Give that to me."
Wolf looked down at the device, which he was holding in his palm like a toy ball then
looked up again, his body still frozen.
"GIVE ME IT NOW!" shouted Pepper, sharply raising his voice at Wolf making him
cringe.
Wolf could hear the laser blaster charge with energy as it emitted a low hum. He had no
choice except to give Pepper the device.
Pepper took the device swiftly and lowered his gun for a brief moment to press a
sequence of buttons on the device. The bomb emitted a long sustained beep and three
short beeps signaling that it had been de-activated.
Wolf looked at Pepper wide eyed; shocked that he had known how to disable it with such
ease and agility. The General raised his blaster again and looked at Wolf while holding
the device in his free hand. He began to laugh softly to himself.
"Oh that would have surely killed me. Bravo Wolf, I must congratulate you. Oh bravo
indeed."
Pepper stepped forward and was now pressing the blaster directly against Wolf's
forehead.
"But I'm going to take an exceptionally wild guess here, and say that Fox sent you, am I
right?"
"Y...Ye..."
"Speak up soldier, I can't hear you!"
"Yes."
Pepper's face turned to disgust as though he had just tasted something horribly sour.
"What a wonderful little plan of his. I'm sure he got his good for nothing friend William
Grey to help him out with that one."
Wolf finally swallowed his fear and spoke up, "I'm not afraid of death Pepper, and I'm
not afraid of you." Wolf clenched his one good eye shut as the blaster pressed even
harder against his head.
Pepper laughed as though he found Wolf's comment somehow funny, "Oh I'm not going
to kill you Wolf."
Wolf opened his eye, looking at Pepper, "You...you're not?"
"No, of course not, I need you Wolf."
"...How?"
"Oh well it's quite obvious. Fox will refuse to believe you're dead, he will then attempt
to valiantly rescue you from the clutches of evil, restoring happiness to everyone again."
Pepper clenched his heart in mocking glory.
"When he attempts to do that, I'll finally have my chance to eliminate him, and then there
will be no one in my way to taking Lylat."
"You're a fool Pepper, Fox does not care if I'm dead, he will continue on without me.
You're wasting your time."
"Oh we'll see about that."
Pepper swiftly backhanded Wolf across the face, knocking him unconscious. The
incapacitated wolf collapsed to the floor with a stumbling thud as he was out cold.
"There are so many more things to fear than death Wolf O'Donnell."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check up later for Chapter 9! Hope you liked this one.