Chapter 6: Integrating Nicely.
Though darkness all around me,
I shall not be afraid.
Though light be in absense,
I shall not fear,
For all that time for I know
That you are near. . .
Danielle thought she was at Sean's house for some reason. . . she didn't remember going there, though. Was she still at her own house? Last she knew she was playing Starfox 64. . . but maybe she had some sort of temporary amnesia. She sould remember what happened anytime now.
She didn't. All she remembered was playing that game. And she was not in her living room. Danielle opened her eyes.
She was in a bedroom, of some sort. It wasn't hers, or her parent's, or that of anyone she knew. It was a lovely bedroom, the walls having intricate designs and patterns.
She panned the room until she saw the mirror, then gasped at what she saw in it.
It wasn't her at all. . . instead it was an anthromorphic raccoon. . . like someone from the Starfox series. She still looked like herself, though, if it wasn't for the raccoon feaures. But still, very much like a raccoon.
What am I thinking? Danielle asked herself, Why am I here? There's a few questions that need to be answered right now. . . or not. I've dreamed myself like this times before, why throw it away? I should be cautious, though. . .
Danielle stepped out of her bed. She had on a green nightgown, which she found a replacement for in the closet. An Arwing pilot uniform. Arwing pilot? This must be too good to be true. . .
There was a sudden knock on the door. "Ms. Danielle, wake-up call." Danielle stepped out of the door right then.
"Oh, I didn't know you were up, Ms. Danielle." The steward badger said, turning to her arrival, "There's a meeting going on for the arwing pilots in the main foyer in about six hours. General Pelaufin wants all arwing pilots to be there."
"Thank you. . ." Danielle quickly glanced at his name tag, "Thomas."
"My pleasure, Ms. Danielle." Thomas turned down the hallway to the bedrooms farther down the corridor.
Danielle was hungry. Just a little down the hall, she caught a glimpse of the Directory. 'The Great Fox, Floor Directory' It said on the top. There were bedrooms for barely 20 pilots in this hallway, as Danielle saw. There were other rooms for the crew members and others. The mess hall was three floors down, next to the docking bay. It was amazing how much fit into the ship, on the game Danielle always thought it wasn't this big. But it didn't seem THAT big. There was room to kick your feet.
In about twenty minutes Danielle was down in the mess hall of the spaceship, where about seven people were in total. The cooks were serving up breakfast, and Danielle was hungry right now. . .
Danielle took her tray of food and sat down at an empty table. Then one of the people in the room noticed her. "Danielle!" The wolf called to her, "I have something to tell you." Danielle picked up her tray and moved to the table where Geston Snarl, as Danielle read on his name tag, sat. He also happened to be an arwing pilot.
"About the meeting that'll take place in five and a hlaf hours," Geston said to Danielle, "The current mission has been delayed. We now have orders from H-Q to search the giant planet we've come upon."
Danielle hesitated to ask what the first mission was, because she wanted to intigrate, so she continued listening.
"Fox McCloud will be leading the search party, and Peppy Hare along with him. But Slippy and Falco can't go for. . . other reasons."
"Other reasons?" Danielle asked.
"KP duty. Both of them. Falco's really mad at the General now. More mad that he was for the trouble that he got into."
"What trouble?"
"He yelled a General Pelaufin. And badly. Falco clamed that Pelaufin was nothing like what General Pepper was. I'm surprised that he held it in these ten years since General Pepper went missing."
"What about Slippy?"
"He was accused of 'backing up' Falco's story, although he told me he was innocent."
"Poor guys."
"Good news is, now we actually have a chance of going down with the search team. And since I'm the fifth best pilot, and you're the sixth best, I was thinking that we would be the most likely candidates."
Danielle raised an eyebrow at this. Only sixth best? I thought I was better at the game than that. Fox must be really good.
"You listening?" Geston asked Danielle, seeing her slight spacing out, "Or are you just daydreaming about promotion?"
"Um. . . yes, I was." Danielle sort-of admitted.
"Don't forget to go to the meeting or we won't have any chance." Geston said as he stood up from the table..
And yet, no one can tell me how to act
In the face of darkness, as a fact
And no one can say when
I'll step into the light again.
Five and a half hours later, Danielle stood in front of the meeting room.
"Here goes nothing," Danielle said as she stepped into the room.
As luck would have it, she was just on time. "Pilot Danielle Fisk. Come in, we we're just starting." The general said in her direction.
There were sixteen pilots sitting around a meeting table, with General Pelaufin sitting at the head. Oddly enough, he was a King Penguin. Dannielle quickly moved and sat in the seat near Geston.
"Let's get this meeting started." the General said. "You may have seen the giant planet just outside." Everyone nodded their heads. "We've been reading some strange phenomena from this planet, including regular Cornerian gravity, which is odd since the planet is so large. We've gathered readings of intellegent and civilized life all over the globe, and not in any particular fashon. There's an abundance of alien creatures of thousands of varieties. How many are hostile still is left unsaid.
"Another strange feature," The general said as he brought up a holographic view of the currently scanned areas, "Is the geological formations. They make no logic whatsoever, noticably here." He pointed to a mountain range which cut off right in the middle and dropped into the sea. "Head Quarters was intrigued by this, and wanted us to check this out immidiately. Operation: New Flight is hereby cancelled until further notice."
There were some murmers from the crew. "But what will we do with the beta Arwing 2's until then, General?"
"They will remain onboard."
"Unless. . ." a leapord said to him, "Can't we test them out landing on the planet?"
"No. The Beta Version is untested still, and we can't test them until we have the O.K. from HQ."
"Why's that?"
"Because," The General said, "They are still looking over any potential dangers back on Corneria. We can use them if we get the OK from them."
"Any questions?" The general asked finally. "Since Falco and Slippy have been assigned to KP duty, Geston Snarl and Danielle Fisk have been chosen as the remaining two pilots. Good luck."
"I knew it was inevitible." Geston said as he climbed into his arwing in the docking bay. "The general doesn't like to take any chances."
The controls to the Arwing looked very simple. The control pad looked almost like a Nintendo 64 controller, only with two prongs and the joypad at the left. The buttons were uncolored and unlabled.
The communications screen turned on. Fox McCloud appeared on it. "Danielle, You'll be flying fourth position, formation Sigma. Our orders are to land on the planet at any avaliable position since there's no telling if the life on the planet has seen spaceships before, and we don't want to scare any of the locals. This is a ground mission. You ok with that?"
Danielle pressed the Comm-Link button for Fox's Arwing. "Copy that. Yeah, I'm cool with it." But what was formation Sigma? Danielle found the control monitor and turned it on. The instruction were remarkably clear, and in no time Danielle found the Flight Fromations Guide. Formation Sigma was a wide spread daimond, position 4 being in the back behind 1.
"All ships ready for liftoff." Fox intercomed to everyone. "T minus five and counting. Five."
The Arwing's engine turned on automatically.
"Four. Three. Two. One. Ignition."
Danielle turned on the thruster and the four Arwings made their way out the bay door.
Flying the Arwing was easy enough, it was almost like the Nintendo 64 controls themselves. The only problem she foresaw was making the landing. Danielle searched through the database, looking for Landing Procedures.
She didn't have enough time, as Peppy Hare came on the main communication screen. "We have the landing position from base. We are to land on the plains in the middle of the forest circle. It's on your map."
Danielle quickly looked at the Mission Data map. In one area of it, there was a forest with a small, bare ring in the middle of it. It was perfectly flat, so it looked good for landing.
There were some lables on points of the map, mostly possible townships or cities. Danielle scrolled through the terrain until she came upon what looked like a castle. But it wasn't labled.
"Peppy, come in." Danielle said into the Comm-link.
"What is it, Danielle?" was Peppy's response.
"On area 46/92, there's a formation that looks almost exactly like a medival castle. Why wasn't it labled?"
"The general said it was probably a rock formation."
Danielle scrolled thropugh more landscape. "But there's so many of them." She said, noticing the abundance in castles and fortresses on the map.
"You're right." Peppy said. "Whatever life is down there, it's probably in a heap of war."
"Or was." Danielle said, "Danielle out."
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