Chapter Four: Revolutions

Wolf woke up with a start, muscles seizing up, exposing his fangs briefly as nightmare images fluttered through his mind and disappeared, arms tightening around the smaller form snuggled into his chest. He had absolutely refused to leave the sick bay, and had ended up sleeping beside Jesse. At some point they had cuddled into each other, because his jaw was resting on top of Jesse's head, arms around each other. Jesse was still asleep, wounds bandaged and muscles relaxed, apparently able to finally find peace in sleep.

Feeling something tickling his ear, Wolf jerked and turned his head, eyebrows lifting when he saw one of the Entity's vines, apparently unwrapped from around Jesse and investigating him, not hopping a ride, just looking. Somehow noticing him eyeing it, it tickled his nose, and he snorted at it in annoyance. "A lot of help you were when Jesse had some sorta seizure." He remarked to it quietly, slowly untangling himself from Jesse and sitting up and yawning widely, running his fingers through the thick fur between his ears, noticing he needed to get it cut before he started looking like a surfer.

"Getting up?"

He jumped and looked down. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was." Jesse opened one eye, which was bloodshot and weary. "You woke me up."

"Sorry."

"No, don't worry about it. I wasn't getting much rest." He sighed, sitting up, combing his fingers through his hair. Wolf dug a comb out of one of his pockets and started running it through the mongoose's long hair, moving to sit behind Jesse. "You carry a comb?"

"If you shed as much as I do, you would too, trust me. So why weren't you getting any rest?"

Jesse sighed. "I got caught up in the network again. The Entity's really scared."

"… Oh." Wolf shifted. "When I asked what happened to you, you said 'the beast.' Is that the thing that morphed the GalFed cruisers?"

"Yes. Yes it is."

"What is it, exactly? It looks kind of like the Entity, but…" He trailed off.

"It looks more like flesh then vines." Jesse said, voice distant, leaning back into Wolf. "Right?"

"Yeah. Exactly. And it somehow latches onto machines as well as living things." Wolf rocked him back and forth, nuzzling Jesse's neck absently, dropping the comb onto the bed.

They sat like that for a while, then Jesse slowly stood. "Come on. I need to fill in everyone else on what we know."

Fox leaned on the front view port of the Great Fox, staring out at what he could see of the frame to the new wing. This new, uncharted planet had a very interesting society which didn't understand a word he said, but fixed the Great Fox anyways, building the new wing from the molecular level up.

"So we think this planet's in the grip of the Entity too?" He asked, glancing at Peppy.

"Part of it, at least. Weirdest god damn thing, floating energy fluffs with vines wrapped around them."

"Energy fluffs?"

"That's what Falco calls them."

"… Oh."

"I'd tell you what they're really called, but I can't pronounce it. I don't have two mouths." Jesse's voice said. Turning, they saw the mongoose in the doorway, leaning heavily into Wolf's side and looking exhausted. "Hi, Fox. Hi Peppy."

"Hey, Jesse. Feeling any better?" Peppy said.

"No. Not really." Jesse sighed when Wolf gave up and picked him up, finding a seat and holding him cradled in his lap. "Has the GalFed convoy made any moves?"

"Not recently. They did take another planet though." Fox sighed. "Dammit, I said I'd protect the colonies, and now what am I doing? Hiding." He kicked the wall, snarling. "I'm freaking hiding! I've never run away from a fight in my entire life!"

"Be glad I made us run." Jesse said very calmly and coldly. "Or Hope would be dead right now."

"What?"

"The Beast. That thing that took over the GalFed ships. Really young children can't handle it, Fox. A bunch of Vun children died when the Beast took over that colony. If I hadn't made ROB jump the ship, the Beast would have basically killed Hope from information overload." He rubbed his eyes, ignoring Fox's shock. "Look, we can't fight the Beast. The best we can do is make sure it doesn't take over any others that are connected to the Entity."

"What do you mean? Is it impossible to hurt?"

"I don't know. But I do know it's trying to expand, so anything that fights it is in danger." He rubbed his chin. "Um… Did the GalFed admit anything? Like if they made this thing?"

"No. Is that what you think is going on?" Peppy lifted his eyebrows. "Makes sense, we've already concluded that they released it willingly. But why would they create something like this?"

"Supreme idiocy." Fox said, going to the intercom and calling everyone up to the bridge. "Might as well tell everyone about this. Do you have any solid facts, Jesse?"

The mongoose downcast his eyes. "No… no I don't…"

"That's ok. You've got the sources. We'll listen."

"So they ran?" Commander Pejim sat back, smiling. "That's the first smart move they've made so far. They couldn't have gotten far missing a stabilizer, though."

"On the contrary, it seems that it was able to jump completely out of our radar nets. We can assume that the Great Fox is now in uncharted territory." Representative Brogt shook his head, feelers slicking back. "Probably guided by the corrupt individual they have aboard."

"Are all of the test results clean, though?"

"Yes, and we've found out some very interesting information. You'll need to come to the Chamber for details, though."

"Lead the way, Representative."

The pair wove their way through the halls of the ground base, past guard station after guard station, eventually ending up in the guts of the building, three levels underground. Brogt let the machine scan his eye, then entered the low, circular room. As always, it was very quiet except for the soft whispers of a respirator, and the muffled drip-drip-drip of an IV feed.

Pejim wasn't fond of this room, but he understood the vast importance of it, the reason it was buried under such a large military base. Treasure had to be protected, and in a way, the lone inhabitant of the circular room was one of the greatest treasures they had. He and Brogt came to a halt in front of the bony figure, which hung listlessly against the restraints, once-muscular back legs emaciated, four eyes closed. The alien looked dead, and they would probably have thought it was if not for the slow lifting of its ribcage, as well as the monitors on the wall.

"Good afternoon, Representative Brogt." The voice mumbled, the alien lifting its heavy head and looking at the pair with tired, hopeless eyes. "Commander Pejim? I didn't think you liked it here."

"I don't. But I was told you found out something of interest." Pejim crossed his arms, refusing to meet the unnamed alien's eyes. "How old are you now?"

"I don't know. Old." Was the dull, uninterested reply. "What year is it? What century?"

"You are not that absent-minded."

"… one thousand, three hundred twenty-eight years, ninety days." The alien looked to Brogt, seeking protection from its tormentor.

"What did you find out?" Brogt asked, quietly, firmly.

"The Entity is soft because of its unwillingness to loose ay people, and is therefore easily dominated." The alien's voice got even duller, eyes fluttering partway closed, remembering, drifting toward a time it was happy, then a little jolt traveled through its system, and it was yanked into reality. Frustrated, it let the Beast growl in its veins, reaching out to the growing network. "It was easy, taking the planet. We didn't get much information, there were no central minds on the planets we took, but we know enough to hypothesize. The Entity is no more natural then the Beast, something or someone we have never encountered made it."

"Indeed." Pejim lifted an eyebrow slowly. "So what do you predict is going to happen?"

"You are going to lose."

"What? How can we lose?"

"If the fight with Lylat continues, you will lose." The alien let its head drop, ignoring the pair in front of it once again.

They left, stopping once the door had closed, looking at each other.

"It can't lie, can it?"

"No, it can't. But it can be wrong, and that's what I think it is. Wrong. It's just trying to get someone to rescue it. Let's make sure that doesn't happen."

"So this 'Beast' thing is another Entity, more or less?" Falco scratched beside his beak absently, frowning. "Why would someone go to the trouble to create one?"

"Control. The GalFed can't control the Entity, so they genetically engineered a copy that not only was controllable, but carnivorous in a way. The Beast can take over someone in the Entity because it consumes the Entity." Jesse worked his hands against each other, shivering uncontrollably.

"How are the controlling it though?" Slippy frowned. "Drugs? Conditioning?"

"Who knows, and I'm not sure it matters. What does matter is that the Beast spreads like a virus because it can forcefully take people into its network. The Entity can't do that."

"I meant to ask about that. Why can't it do that? Force people, I mean." Fara said, tilting her head to one side. "What difference does it make if the person's willing or not?"

"Frame of mind. The Entity has to interface with the host's nervous system. An unwilling mind defends itself. Sure, the Entity has the capacity to force its way through, but it would hurt the host, and it doesn't find much point in causing a host damage."

"So it's not altruistic, just sensible."

"Yeah, I suppose so, in a way. But it depends on how you look at it, I mean, it doesn't want to hurt the host in the first place." Jesse looked oddly distressed for a moment. "The Entity usually takes a person in because it likes that person. Why hurt someone you like?"

"So, if we use that logic, we can assume that the Beast doesn't care about the people it takes." Peppy said, sitting back and rubbing his chin, deep in thought. "Which means it'll take what it needs and keep moving."

"The thing is, where will it stop? When the Entity's been wiped out? Do you suppose the GalFed has good enough control over the Beast to make it stop?" Katt asked. "I'm not sure we can make that gamble."

There was another long silence, then Drax spoke up, leaning on the view ports and staring out. "Maybe I'm the first to see this possible link, but… we were forced from our homes because of a weapon that could destroy a planet. Recently, we have seen the GalFed wreck a planet, release an intelligent virus, and forcefully take over a planet, killing a bunch of children in the process." He turned to look at everyone. "Correlation?"

"We know that our race was possibly involved in the planet-wreckers, Drax." Jirest finally said. "Is that what you're hinting at? It isn't like the Rekuva run the GalFed, not hardly."

"No, what I'm saying is that things haven't gotten better since your ancestors carved some ugly, hateful words in stone pillars. Looks to me like they've gotten a lot worse." The mouse sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Not that I'm saying anything about you and Wrin, Jirest, I'm thinking maybe it's all been behind the backs of everyone."

"Corrupt government. Yay." Slippy said. "Which means we do what?"

"Hey, I'm a reporter. You guys are the heroes, here."

"We go back to Alpha." Fox suddenly said, bringing up the nav charts. "From there, we talk to Andross, get him working on a cure for the Beast." He held up a finger. "Not a dissembler, a cure, to get those trapped free. Politics is all in the wording."

"And if he can't find something out?" Falco lifted an eyebrow.

"That's why we'll be hitting the GalFed to find out everything we can about the Beast." Fox looked around at everyone for approval. "If the GalFed's gone corrupt, then I have no problem with going underhanded to help those we said we'd protect at all costs."

There was a long silence, during which everyone nodded in agreement, one after the other. ROB took this as a cue, notified the fluffs, and put the ship into warp.

"Ok, so what's the first move?" Wolf asked, spreading star charts on the kitchen table, moving bowls out of the way to do so. Knowing this talk would probably last most of the warp, everyone had grabbed their favorite snacks.

"Well, I'm willing to bet all these political boundaries are nixed." Peppy said, tapping the color streaks. "The FAKK order is basically cancelled… so now, the Fringe belongs to the Beast. The Rinaldi have shut their doors to anyone except Lylatians, and the GalFed are saying that if things don't calm down soon…"

"Namely us, I assume?" Fara said, rolling her eyes and helping herself to some chips.

"… they're going to start military law." He finished, accepting a carrot stick from Slippy. "Which Alpha would be pressed under, because the GalFed is claiming we don't have an effective government yet."

"Odd, considering your government seems a lot more effective then the GalFed ever was." Wrin slicked her antennae back. "Look, um… don't we have to stop once to cool down somewhere in the middle of this trip?"

"Yeah, true enough. Lylatian engines need a break every now and then, and this is one hell of a long warp." Jesse said. "Which is an interesting problem, considering we're warping through what could be considered hostile territory… but once we're off the Fringe, we should be reasonably safe."

"I've been meaning to ask. Is the GalFed still officially trying to wipe us out?" Fox asked, looking at Wrin and Jirest.

"If they are, it's covert." Jirest replied. "We haven't heard anything like that."

"Considering their most recent moves, I would not be surprised if they did to try to take us out without anyone noticing." Falco grumbled.

"Which would screw their relationship for good with Lylat." Fara pointed out. "Though that's more a problem for us then them right now, but the loss of an ally is the loss of an ally."

"And if they stopped trying to support our colonies and suddenly started fighting with us, the Rinaldi would jump on them because we're an endangered species, et cetera, et cetera." Drax sighed. "So where are we going to stop to cool down?"

Jirest looked at the map, where a line of candy showed the current flight trajectory. The line was diminishing, as Katt was snagging pieces one at a time. He traced the line with a finger, glancing at each of the colored dots that represented systems, then finally pressed his fingertips down next to one. "We should be able to stop here without trouble."

"Colonization planet or core planet?" Wolf asked, setting a bowl of popcorn in the center of the table, which Jesse snagged.

"Colonization planet that became a core planet for the Vun, pretty much only them there." He hemmed and hawed for a second, then said, "I guess the closest translation for the name is Party Circle."

Falco snickered. "Why call a planet that?"

"The Vun classically set their cities up in a circular formation." Wrin shrugged. "Party Circle was set up by a bunch of rich Vun children wanting to start their own cities, and somehow managed to pull it off without much help."

"A frat world. Groovy, as Bill would say."

The intercom beeped softly, then ROB's voice remarked. "Fara, Hope just woke up."

"Thanks ROB. Be right back guys." Fara slipped out of the room, and came back a few minutes later with Hope, sitting back down and trading the little girl off to her father, who put his bowl of popcorn on the table and out of reach.

"Ok, so we've got a spot to cool down, what's our move once we get to Alpha?" Jesse asked. "I understand about bringing Andross in, that's a great idea, but how are we going to go about digging around for information ourselves? It's not like the diplomats are going to know a bloody thing."

"Politically, we probably won't be able to find anything out." Peppy said.

Fox sighed and sat back, rocking Hope in his arms, staring down at his daughter, who reached up and grabbed his nose, babbling happily. That just made him feel worse. He knew what was right and was fairly sure about what they'd have to do to stop the GalFed, but it wasn't going to be pretty. At all. Something he had figured out before the war was that corrupt governments couldn't fix themselves. Generally, you had to go remove most of the problem and let appropriate people fill in as needed. The problem was, the GalFed was huge.

He sighed and pushed that back in his mind. Beat the GalFed into shape later, he decided, the current problem was the Beast. "Well, if we want to deal with the Beast, we'll have to find out who made it. That said, I'm not sure where to start."

"We'll dig around." Jirest said, Wrin nodding agreement. "But the chances of us finding anything…"

Fox held up a hand. "If two or more planets get sucked in by the Beast, I'll track down the closest high-ranking GalFed official, put the end of my gun between his eyes, and demand to know. I said I'd try to protect the colonies, and now I'm being forced to let them down. I'm through being nice."

Falco grinned, thumping his fist down on the table lightly. "Amen to that."

"So, they're on the way back, eh?" Bill said, lifting an eyebrow at General Pepper, who gazed back. Pepper, for all the stress in his life, looked relaxed.

"So it seems. Fox said they couldn't face what they had run up against, and had given up for the time being." He hesitated. "Listen, Bill, we have reason to believe that we may loose the support of the GalFed very soon. How well do you think we could defend Alpha, Beta, and the Hub?"

Bill blanched. "Well, uh. I'm not sure. Given the population of Lylat has only about one thousand five hundred awake, the chances of us being able to defend aren't all that high… at least from a large force. General, why would the GalFed dump us? They've been pretty nice so far. Why turn against us now?"

"Well, you know they've barred us from Talar'Dan'i'. Now Fox is constantly locking horns with them out on the fringe, and it sounds like the Great Fox is pretty much outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched in general. They've already had to run once." He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Fox is struggling against the wipe-out of the colonies, and in the process he pretty much got the Great Fox in the number one spot for being wiped out by the GalFed. I don't know many details. The most recent problem is that they've apparently run into some genetically engineered virus that can attack ships." He rubbed his hands through the fur between his ears, looking tired. "Bill, I feel old. I remember when we didn't have to worry about all this genetic crap. Bioweapons used to mean diseases, not something with too many arms that would storm across the lines and eat you alive."

Bill laughed at this. "So, how sure are we that we'll end up attacked?"

"We have no idea, but things are probably going to go to hell pretty damn soon."

The Great Fox snapped into normal space in orbit around Party Circle, engines winding down. Peppy saw ROB nod and started broadcasting a message the team had decided on earlier, explaining that they had come into orbit to cool their engines and that they would be gone within an hour's time. There was a pause, then the planet's main communications tower answered.

"Greetings Lylatian cruiser, welcome to Party Circle. Take as much time as you need. There isn't anyone following you, is there?"

"Not that we are aware of." Peppy replied, blinking.

"Good. We've heard about the problems on the Fringe. Party Circle supports you."

Fox tilted his head to one side, turning on his headset. "This is the Commander of the Great Fox. Why is that? We're in it deep with the GalFed, I doubt they'll be all that nice to any supporters we have."

"You are not the one taking our colonies away from us, Commander." Replied the Vun voice very quietly. "We'll send up some maintenance crews to check your ship, if you like."

"No, no. We just had everything fixed. Thank you, though."

"It's an honor."

"GalFed sounds like it's ready to come down." Falco remarked around his coffee mug as he took a drink. "They've lost the Rinaldi, and now it sounds like the Vun is getting ready to bug out too. If that happens, what does that leave, the Rekuva?"

"And the Melkoson." Wrin said. "Don't worry if you've never heard of them, they're pretty rare. They only have two planets to call their own, deep in the GalFed territories."

"Falco, I don't care how much you were into anarchy when you were younger, we're not going to take down the GalFed right now." Fox frowned. "The first order of business is the Beast."

Falco sighed, rolling his eyes. "God, it is so obvious you didn't read the books I gave you… Look, we don't need to do the take down. We just need to get everyone else up-at-arms enough to do it themselves." Seeing everyone looking at him, he threw his hands up. "Is it so strange that I read political books?"

"Um. Yes?" Jesse said, eyebrows lifted.

"Screw you."

"No thanks."

"I'm not sure starting a massive system-wide rebellion would be the best idea right now." Slippy protested. "I mean, everything's a big enough mess as it is…"

"It'll become a bigger mess if something isn't done." Jirest said. "Not that I'm sure I agree with Falco, but this isn't going to get better, it's going to get worse before it's done."

"That's how it always goes." Wolf said, rubbing along the bottom of his muzzle thoughtfully, looking at Fox. "What say you, boss?"

Fox was deep in thought, fingertips pressed together, frowning to himself. "I admit that removing the GalFed from power was on my agenda of things to do, and if I don't have to lead that move, hey, less stress on me. I'm trying not to hate the GalFed, I really am, but if the deployment of the Beast caused the death of children…" He trailed off, eyes closing, and sighed. "Let's test the waters first. Peppy? Can you see if whoever-the-hell is in charge of Party Circle would be willing to have a brief face-to-face meeting?"

The Vun, a middle-aged male, glanced around the sharp-edged docking bay uneasy, but managed a smile when a pair of Rekuva arrived. "What's the occasion? Why would a Lylatian Commander want to speak to us?"

"It's political. Follow us."

The Vun did, smoothing its feathers and clothing absently. "I've never met a Lylatian before… only heard about them on the news and such."

"They're a widely diverse people." Jirest replied, smiling a bit as he walked. "Don't worry. They're not dangerous, generally."

"Generally?" The Vun, named Gerak, echoed.

"Don't threaten their home, friends, or family, and they aren't dangerous."

"Makes perfect sense…"

Fox, who had been standing at the window of the observation deck, smiled when the trio came in. "Thank you Wrin, Jirest. You must be Gerak, I take it?"

"Yes, yes I am. You're Commander McCloud?"

"Call me Fox." Fox sat and gestured for Gerak to. "Pardon our lack of formality, we don't have a formal meeting room. It was either this, or the bridge."

"No. That's fine." Gerak assured him, looking out at Party Circle, then back at the Lylatian, studying this new creature. Fur like rusted steel, clear intelligent eyes, a slender muzzle full of sharp teeth that showed just slightly during speech. Five slender fingers, and a long fluffy tail that moved slightly, apparently a form of body language. "Now, what's the occasion? What's so important that we couldn't talk about it on the radio?"

"How much do you know about what's happening on the Fringe?" Fox asked very quietly.

He blanched. "Not much. Only what's been broadcasted, which as I understand is what you've broadcasted."

"All right, well, this might be hard to believe, but this is all true as far as we know."

The Vun listened, stunned, as Fox filled him on the recent events in the Fringe. The death of the children hit the hardest, Gerak turning a few shades lighter and shivering. He wanted to believe that this new alien was lying, but knew that Fox wasn't. The honesty he spoke with was plain, in his voice, in his eyes. Not ten hours before, a GalFed representative had arrived to assure them their colonies were fine, and even though all of Party Circle knew it was a lie, they hadn't been able to prove it in any way. Now they had proof. Toward the end of the explanation, Fox had ROB pull up the tape they had of the Beast consuming the wing of the Great Fox before it was jettisoned, and the Vun had pressed back from the screen, all six eyes wide.

"The thing is, we've been seeing evidence of a corrupt government for a while now." Fox said, closing up the explanation. "We don't have the muscle or the political influence to force any large changes, and we've got a target to hit before we can even try to do so. We've got to try to get rid of the beast before anything else happens."

Gerak nodded, rubbing at water dripping from his many tear ducts. "What do you want from me, Fox? I'm at your command."

Fox looked away. "Spread the word. Shut the GalFed down by sheer force of the public. The slower they can move, the faster we can."

The Vun nodded, standing. "All right. I'll put in a word to the other core planets, announce to Party Circle that we're closing to GalFed forces for the time being. They've been lying through their teeth for a while..." He sighed. "I'm sorry we can't support you in fights."

"No, that's all right. We don't expect you to fight our battles. We only expect you to fight your own." Fox stood, escorting Gerak to his shuttle. "Thank you. We're probably going to need all the support we can get."

Gerak smiled grimly. "I'll get you as much support as I can."

"Thanks, again."

The Great Fox's arrival back at the Hub was quiet, mostly due to the fact that the High Command covered for them immediately, having them dock in the highest security hanger that could handle the Great Fox, apparently they were still telling the GalFed that they had no idea where the trouble-making Lylatian cruiser was.

Fox sighed in relief once the cruiser had docked, going limp in his command seat. The second half of the journey had been tense, passing through a bunch of dangerous territory, very possibly saved only because of the fact that they had been in warp, impossible to catch. Before they had left orbit around Party Circle, Gerak had been nice enough to tell them that they'd been announced as a red alert in the GalFed—IE, search and destroy. What had tipped off the GalFed off, they didn't know, but the GalFed was now telling everyone they were a renegade military group, creating trouble for no good reason.

"You look exhausted, Fox." Wolf perched on the arm of his command seat, tilting his head to one side as he looked at his leader. Fox had marks under his eyes now, showing through the fur, like purple bruises. It was obvious he hadn't gotten sleep in a while, but no one had.

"I am. I'm glad I'm going to be able to sleep the next half-day or so. If I had to be subject to any of these high-IQ discussions I'd probably fall asleep immediately." He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "So what are you going to do while we wait?"

"I'm going to be in a medtank most of the time." Wolf replied dryly, smiling when Fox looked at him. "I'm going to get my cybernetics finished up. They're not supposed to be bare metal like this, I'm supposed to have synfur covering it so you can't tell it ever happened. I'll have one eye that'll look like I'm in the borg, because the iris will be silver, but what the hell…"

Fox grinned. "Sounds like a plan to me. Looking forward to seeing you done then."

Wolf nodded, sliding off the arm of the chair after nuzzling one of Fox's ears absently. "Don't get too tangled into politics. You need sleep."

"Do you ever give up?" Fox asked dryly as Wolf walked to the door.

Wolf glanced over his shoulder. "Hell, Fox. I never even started. Hug Fara for me." And with that he was gone, closing the door behind himself.

Fox sighed, whacking his head into the seat, staring at the ceiling. "Jesse, please get out of the Entity soon. For his sake…"

"New map's out." ROB commented, voice echoing through the intercom, and everyone perked up, sitting around the kitchen table, shuffling through an avalanche in paper. As allegiances shifted, suddenly documentation was turning up, most of it printed and boxed, handed to them by Hub personnel who clearly hadn't much a clue what was going on. The grand majority was useless, but they had a slowly growing stack that was to their advantage, documentation of genetic experiments and other underhanded business conducted by the GalFed. Wolf was still absentee, and Jesse was as well, waiting for Wolf to wake up. No one argued, and in the mean time Bill was often around.

"Anything of interest?" Katt asked, swirling cocoa in her mug absently, watching marshmallows dissolve.

"Interesting doesn't cut it. Get up here now." The tense tone of ROB's voice made the intercom crackle, and Fox stood, nodding toward the door as he did. ROB wasn't kidding, but he almost never did.

By the time they arrived, the map was already hanging in the darkened bridge. All of the colors had been rearranged. The Fringe was closed GalFed territory, no traffic allowed in or out. The Rinaldi's planets were an odd shade of flashing silver, neutral and not talking to anyone. And a new color, growing in a wide swath and some spots, encompassing Alpha and many other planets. The color of danger, of what the GalFed considered a threat to their existence. No flashing colors to signify declared war or a FAKK territory, just a threatening color.

"I thought we were an endangered species." Bill remarked, lifting an eyebrow and taking a drink of his mocha.

"Apparently, too dangerous for their liking." Drax said. "Do they know we're rallying others against them?"

"They must." Fox said, reaching out to touch the insubstantial dot that was Alpha, hand shivering. He had seen what the GalFed could do to a planet when pissed, and it scared him. He shook those thoughts from his mind, he had lost one home already, he would not loose another.

"Eavesdropping on our radio, maybe?" Falco hazarded.

"Who knows. I just hope they don't know we're here. ROB, any idea how many planets have been taken by the Beast?"

"Four for certain, Fox." ROB replied very softly.

He curled his hands into fists, turning his face away from the map, away from the accusing dots of color that he had sworn to protect, only to fail. "Be ready to go as soon as Wolf gets back. I don't think we can delay any longer."