Disclaimer: I own Utoxia. And Stealth Arwings. Other than that.... nothing.
We are huddling down in a cold, musty bunker. It is the last place any of us want to be, yet it is the only place we wanted to be. For the most miserable place on earth was protecting us from death--to a point. Food had been running low for the last few days, and everyone is slowly starving. There is a choice. We may die by the havoc being wreaked above, or we may starve down here. It seems that all chance of living is gone. Therefore I am preserving my thoughts in this journal, so that if it is not destroyed someone may eventually learn of our fate. Gaze upon these words carefully, reader. You may be our last hope.
April 17, 2536
And so my story begins. My name is Fox McCloud. This slippery slope of terrible events began on the simple planet of Corneria. I lead--no, I led the mercenary team known as Star Fox. We were given jobs that we were able to accept or decline, with cash rewards for successful missions. It was a good life, one I enjoyed. But on April 17th, roughly five years after the terrors of the Lylat war, I got a mission that eventually brought the whole Lylat system into another war with even greater stakes than the first.
I sat in my chair inside my captain's quarters. A voice came over the intercom. "Fox, General Pepper's on the hologram. He wishes to speak to you."
"Ok, Slippy," I yelled.
"What?" he replied.
"OK!"
"What?"
I rolled my eyes in annoyance. Slippy Frog was our techno-geek. Although he had certainly made some great innovations for our ship, the speaker phone intercom was not one of them. He was still yelling into that stupid radio when I showed up on the bridge. It took him a while to notice me.
"Fox, General--"
"Slippy," I said.
"Yeah?"
"GET THAT STUPID RADIO FIXED!"
"Um, yes, sir," Slippy answered.
I turned around to face General Pepper on the hologram port in the center of the bridge. ROB the robot (another Slippy invention that worked out loads better) was busy turning a knob to focus his image better. Pepper was our main job-giver. He was the head of the Cornerian Military and therefore knew much about what problems there were throughout the world.
"Fox!" he barked. Which was easy, considering he was a dog.
"Yes, sir?" I replied.
"There's a new mission for you. Seems to be relatively easy, but a good reward will be in store for succeeding." I remember thinking about how much we needed the money. Little did I know just how important this mission would be.
"What's the mission?" I asked.
"A little data gathering. Rumors are that a small planet called Utoxia is working on a secret project. They are neutral in alliance, so we need to figure out first, what this project is, second, who they are allied with, and third, although this answer is pretty obvious, whether they plan to use it for any war they might be planning to start."
"Any blasting?" I had to ask.
"No!" Pepper's face was stern. "No one knows you enter, no one knows you leave."
"But if I kill 'em, they won't--"
"NO! That's final! Meet me at military headquarters at 1800 hours. We're outfitting you with relatively new technology. Stealth Arwings."
"Yes, sir," I nodded.
The screen went blank and I turned around. "Time?" I inquired.
"1700 hours," ROB replied.
"To your stations," I ordered. "We leave now!"
Slippy climbed into his chair. Peppy Hare, our oldest member and navigator, was already in his. He almost never left it due to his age. Falco Lombardi, our final member, emerged from his quarters where he had obviously just awakened. He rubbed his eyes and said, "Aw, come on, where're we goin' now?"
"Corneria. Military headquarters. General Pepper will probably repeat it a thousand times when we get there. You'll figure it out," I replied curtly.
"Whatever," he groaned and sat down in his chair. "Oh, one more thing," he said. "Any blasting?" He grinned.
"Nope," I said.
"Crap. We never have any fun."
Slippy interrupted. "Hyperspace commencing. Peppy, enter coordinates."
"Got it." He shifted in his chair, pressed a few buttons, then counted down the rest. "Prepare for hyperspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, z--" The zero was choked off by the incredible blast of speed followed by semi-normalcy. The only indications that we were going at over 1,000,000 mph were the cockpit readings and the blurs of the objects outside.
Roughly fifteen minutes and 250,000 miles later, we could see Corneria. While Peppy gave me short commands such as "Starboard 15 degrees," and "Decrease speed," I piloted the ship down toward the atmosphere. When we were lined up I activated the reentry rockets and down we went.
I've always loved reentry. We don't have to deal with lack of gravity like the ancient astronauts did due to our gravity machines, so reentry was a giant roller-coaster drop down to the ground. I couldn't help myself. Like a seven or eight year old instead of a twenty-five year old I raised my hands in the air.
Finally, after most of the drop was over, I put my hands back on the controls and pulled us in for a landing. The time read 1730 hours.
When we came to a stop, I got out of my chair. Everyone else followed suit. We all disembarked and headed for military headquarters. I was thinking about the money, how I was disappointed that we couldn't bring blasters, how weird it felt walking on solid ground. But it never entered my head about what I was getting myself into. It was a happy moment then. It was also one of my final ones.
"Two minutes late, Fox McCloud!" Pepper was ticked off. The crowd of organized military men and eager tourists wishing to see the biggest base in the entire Lylat system was thicker than we thought it would be. Explaining our being two minutes late.
"1800 hours means EIGHTEEN HUNDRED HOURS! Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes,sir," we all chorused. I bowed my head, really thinking that it was rather stupid to pay attention to two minutes. Was it that important?
Yes, it was. Two minutes turned out to be all the time in the world. So important that lacking them would be the different between life... and death.
But that precious two minutes will come later.
We took our seats in the briefing room. It seemed so empty, being made for thousands and only holding us four. We sat near the front as Pepper walked off the briefing platform to activate something. Suddenly the main screen turned on, and the General stepped back onto the platform.
"Listen up, Star Fox!" Pepper yelled. "Utoxia is located roughly four hours away by hyperspace. You will be departing at 0300 hours--"
"What?!" We all began protesting loudly.
"Yes, 0300 hours. At 0700 hours, your estimated landing time, the side of Utoxia you will be infiltrating will be in darkness. You leave at three," Pepper finished that little segment and waited for our response.
"Yes, sir," we all responded.
"Good. Now, the mission should be simple as Utoxian security is quite lax. However, keep on your guard at all times. There's no telling what might happen." We all nodded to show we were following. He then pointed at the main screen, which I had just noticed was displaying a 3D blueprint of the building we were infiltrating.
"Look here," Pepper said as he pointed to an area which turned red on the map. "Intelligence shows that this is the main file room. If there is any secret as intelligence thinks, it'll be here. Your mission is simple. Get in, find the files, copy them, get out. Oh, and anything that might lead to whom this is going to would be helpful. Reward will be about five hundred thousand dollars. Now, Star Fox..." He smiled. "Go get some sleep."
Our "Yes, sir" trailed off as we walked out of the room and back toward the Great Fox for some rest. We chatted along the way.
"Finally, a mission," I started, looking at the others.
"Yeah, and five hundred thousand dollars! We can repair the Great Fox. And I can get a stereo!" This was Falco putting in his two cents. "And a new blaster, and a new mattress, and a godforsaken lamp. I can't see in there. And a....." Maybe more than two cents.
This conversation, mainly driven by Falco's stupid desires, continued all the way back to the Great Fox. He was still going when the ship came into view. I startled him out of talking about how he wanted a robot to clean his weapons by opening the bridge ramp about two inches from his talons. He jumped, and we all laughed.
It felt great to laugh. It would be great to laugh now. But alas, all laughter is gone. Smiles no longer cross the faces of the ones still living. It's amazing how our lives would all take such a dive in such a short time.
In the Great Fox, we all headed to our separate quarters. All except me. I stayed behind, managing the controls and shutting the Great Fox down into sleep mode. ROB the robot helped me until the very end, when I allowed him to sleep too. Finally, I dragged my weary body into bed, anticipating the mission at hand.
It was amazing how little I thought of it. It was little more than a day job, it seemed. A job worth five hundred thousand dollars. A job that almost ended my life.
In fact, it may anyway.