Part Four

The poetic beauty of open space never failed to make James pause in wonder. Though he had been making test runs all across the Lylatian Star System for close to 20 years now, he never tired of it. It was here he felt at home, and here he longed to be.

As he and his crew approached the brilliant blue and red phosphorescent gases that marked the entrance to the Y Sector, James brought his Gazer off auto-pilot. Flanking him on his right was Peppy; on the left was Cole, whose ship was laden with the multi-million dollar gravity bomb. Insistent that James was the team's best defense against the Sector's infamous pirates, Cole had declared before take off that the team's captain would only be weighed down by the bomb if things got rough. While Peppy and Pigma had stared at the collie as if he had grown a third eye, James had nodded silently before helping him mount the explosive on the underbelly of Cole's ship.

Several generations of O'Donnell's hailed from the lava ravaged planet of MacBeth, whose core continued to collapse beneath it's exhausted and self defeated population. James agreed that the honor of delivering the life-giving gravity bomb should go to his left wingman, who had loaded it with solemn relish. He had changed his sarcastic tune the moment the Professor had explained its purpose, and Cole was hardly ever not sarcastic.

"Alright, I have an ion storm on sensors, baring 2538 by 1263 by 3276." James said calmly. "Looks pretty stationary, but let's keep the horse play to a minimum...the last thing we want is to get caught out here if this decides to spread. Peppy, what've we got on the Ossaia Pass?"

"It looks clear, only a bit of debris...fairly quiet." Came the rabbit's reply, and James nodded in approval.

"Let's hope it stays that way. Pigma, I need a scout--it's been my experience that the Pass is never clear."

"So I'm bait, now, am I?" The pig's grumble made James raise a furred eyebrow, and before he could reply, Cole chuckled back.

"No, you're the entree. Just get your ass out there, Piggy, so I don't get caught in that Pass with my pants down--"

"Yeah, hi--this is your captain speaking..." James shot back informally, watching Cole cringe slightly on his comm screen.

"Point taken. No hard feelings, eh, Pigma?" Cole grinned sheepishly, and James sighed.

"Pigma, I need that scout--"

"Fine, fine. What ever."

As Pigma's ship pulled ahead of the formation, James muttered to Cole.

"You know, one of these days I'm gonna actually be the asshole commanding office I'm supposed to be, and write you up." He led the remainder of the group into a loose holding pattern not far away from the Yaranoi Nebula. The dense pocket of blue gas held three miniature stars; like twinkling sapphires in the folds of a satin elemental curtain. It was one of Lylat's most beautiful spacescapes, and with a smile James recalled each of their names from a high school science class: Ecaleon, Tilyon, and their sister, Lamenae.

"Hey, Jim...you see that?" Peppy's interruption brought James' attention back to his navigation screen, and with a frown, the fox tapped the display with a claw to be sure. "Jim...there's something on radar..."

"Yeah, yeah--I see it." James snapped his gaze back up to the nebula, the source of the reading. "What the hell? Who would be hanging out in that mess?"

"Sergeant...looks like another fighter jet...you should hail them." Cole held formation tightly, very aware that the others would not break from him unless absolutely necessary. He just prayed it wouldn't be necessary.

James put out a general hail as the blip closed in, his brow furrowed, as the ship did not return the greeting.

"--I say again, this is Sergeant James McCloud of the StarFox team. In accordance with the Lylatian Act of Free Space Travel, all ships must identify themselves upon being hailed. Please respond..."

The trio held their breath as the ship approached, and Cole fidgeted at its silence.

"--Please be aware we are authorized to engage any ship not in compliance with this Act--" James continued, and Cole bared his teeth as they circled.

"What the Cap here means is that you'd better be aware we are authorized to kick your ass if you--"

"Cole! I swear to God I'm gonna forget the fact we went through kindergarten together if you don't shut the fuck up!" James shot back after he closed the circuit again. "Peppy--where the hell is Pigma? Get him on the comm while I try to hail this guy again."

"I've been trying to, Jim. He's not responding either."

"What the fuck is going on here?!" Cole panted, and James switched frequencies to call the report into Reyes. Rapidly the pirate vessel rocketed toward them, and finally James gave the order for Cole and Peppy to break toward the opening of the Pass. If only they could reach Pigma, then Peppy could turn back to assist him in keeping the ship off Cole.

"If you don't receive some sort of contact from Dengar, head for the ion storm--you'll be hell to track. Peppy, stay with him!" James came about to face the anonymous ship, charging his laser cannons in a menacing green glow. Not to much surprise, he found the other vessel already fully charged.

With astonishing speed the two skirted each other like knights in a joust, lasers pelting the sides of their ships before they turned to close in on one another again. The phantom ship was well equipped, and twice his size. Too well equipped for a nebula pirate, James thought as he rounded on his foe with another spray of laser. As he caught another ship coming out of the nebula, James knew at once they were mercenaries. They had known where to be, and when.

"O'Donnell! Come in!" James slipped in between the slightly slower fighter ships, heading for the Pass with break neck speed. When he received the team's reply, they were still missing Pigma.

"Shit, maybe they've already gotten to him?" Cole suggested as the three met up once more, but Peppy shook his head.

"I've got him on radar--700 yards out, just past that nitrogen cloud--"

"Make for it!" James ordered, "Those two are hot on our asses, and we're gonna need all the fire power we've got to take 'em."

For once he received no back talk from Cole as what was left of his crew broke through the thick blue cloud to find Pigma's ship facing them with lasers charged fully. For a moment James' heart leapt at the hope that their team was now complete and ready to ward off the mercenaries--until that hope was dashed with the rapid laser burst that erupted from Pigma's cannons. Slicing through his left wing and piercing the hull, the burst lowered his shields to 67. The second round ricocheted off the thick capsule of the gravity bomb, and Cole cursed wildly.

"You fucking moron, shoot them, not us!"

"God damn it, Cole, get out of here!" James boomed, transferring power to the aft shields in anticipation of the mercenaries' attack.

"Oh, he won't be goin' no where, Jimmy, and neither will you--" Pigma grinned as the mercenary ships bore down on the group, targeting Cole and the bomb. Pigma's grin was replaced with a look of shock as his Gazer shook violently, and his hull alarm blared as Peppy engaged his teammate with everything in his arsenal. Pigma snarled hatefully as he realized that Cole was escaping toward the ion storm, and James was facing the two fighters.

"What was it, Pigma? Money?!" Peppy hissed. "You'll screw over an entire planet and you're team mates for what?"

"You're fools! You think that bomb was for MacBeth?! Oh, McCloud--I have a message for you from our dear friend the Professor! He wanted me to remind you of a certain night 15 years ago. He wanted me to tell you that this time, he doesn't plan to miss!"

With Pigma's words, James felt as if he had been plunged into a sweeping ice-cold river. The torrent of rage that arose in him was blinding, and the man who was responsible was half a light year away. It took a moment for James to realize that the piercing howl of despair that rang through out the cockpit was his own, mixed with Pigma's mocking laughter. Vainly he struck the comm screen, but the traitor's visage still haunted him from the display panel. The pain was accute, and yet he felt numb at once; the nearly tangible feeling of hatred was only interrupted by the Gazer's proximity alarms. They were surrounded.

"The ion storm!" Cole's voice was thin yet steady as he broke for the field of rust colored gas clouds several hundred football stadiums wide and half again as high. Shards of what appeared to be lightning glittered from one cloud to another every few seconds, and Cole made for them with all the speed he had. Both mercenary ships veered to track him, and as they began to overtake the smaller Gazer, it was apparent to James his wingman was not going to make it out of this alive without help. But for all his taunting, Pigma would have to wait.

"Peppy!!" James called, and the rabbit responded, heading Pigma off.

"Go get Cole, Jim--this one's mine!" Peppy hissed in an unusual display of agression. But he had loved Vixxy too, and she and James had been like family. He had known that night in the driveway that the bomb in the car had been meant for James, not his wife...but to hear the traitorous swine before him give voice to that was infuriating. To know that the professor had sent them into an ambush was even more so.

With all that was in him, and with all the speed possible, James tracked the two ships attempting to lock on to Cole. Try as he might, he could not line up for a shot--the lasers that had pierced his hull also appeared to have damaged the fuel cells.

"Jim-bo, a little help, here?!" Cole spat as the lead ship peppered him with a volley of liquid-green laserfire. God, how he hated running like a coward! If it wasn't for the gravity bomb, he would have turned and let those bastards have it! At least, this is what he kept telling himself as he dashed for the cover of the ion storm with two mercenaries and James in tow.

"God, these bastards can move!" James dropped all shields, save the one covering the breech in the hull, and rerouted the power to the core. The difference it made was miniscule, and he cursed wildly as Cole began to panic.

"Jim, get the hell outta here, would you?" The collie started. "Just get the hell outta here!"

"No! I'm not leaving you to these assholes! I'm almost there!" James grit his teeth as the gap between the mercenaries and his wingman continued to close, and Cole gave him a stern growl.

"Why the hell do you always have to play the hero?!"

The chill that rippled through the fox's fur at the next burst of laserfire was searing. Ripping through his wingman's hull, the violently green explosion rocked the tiny Gazer, and James braced himself as the visage of Cole on the comm screen flickered before winking out. He could not speak; only sharply draw in breath as the mercenary ships broke off. Time seemed to stall, and the only emotion left to James was shear panic, as his ship would not respond.

The light was blinding when Cole's Gazer erupted, and the Professor's macabre present for the people of MacBeth shattered the silence in the stillness of space.

In fiery hues such as James had never before seen, the epicenter of the blast whirled outward to meet him. Flames licked the hull of his ship, though the numerous blaring alarms seemed a world away, and the jolting of the tiny ship now caught in a firestorm was second place to the wonder James felt. If only for a moment, he thought it beautiful, like the foreboding radiance of a hurricane offshore; like the terrible beauty of white-hot magma. But just as both of those surely ravage a land, so too, did the event-horizon that formed in the heart of the Y sector.

With all the force of its outward explosion, the event collapsed in on itself, bringing with it half the quadrant. A small field of asteroids, and Nitellia, the outermost Bethian moon, swept out of their orbits to join with the tragic loss of the Yaranoi Nebula. In an instant, the three infant stars that had hung in the sky were lost to the Lylatian people. When the newly formed anomaly had finished tearing a hole in the lives of the star system it had invaded, Professor Andross Pigskowski got what he wished for: though Peppy narrowly evaded the outer reaches of the blinding explosion, his life-long best friend, James Fox McCloud, had been taken.

But he was not dead. Though he wished it could be so, and all who knew him would come to mourn this day as the date of his death, James McCloud's life--though about to change--was far from over. As he prayed incoherently for the release of his soul from his body, James and his ship were thrust deep into the belly of the rip in time and space. It was true, as they say, that flashes of his life colored the backs of his eyelids as he shut them against the incandescent blossom of red and orange flame. The breach in the Gazer's hull was perhaps all that allowed the ship to expand and contract rapidly before slipping down into the entrance of a stomach-wrenching wormhole. In all of science, James had never heard any concrete evidence of what lay at the other end of a black hole. Though it was known that the phenomena fed on the light of surrounding space, swallowing all who came near, nothing had ever been presented to say where such things went. Some fancied that for all the width of the event itself, its opposite end would be no larger than a pinhole. But where in all the universe did such things go?

Halfway through his fantastic journey, James lost consciousness; as the wormhole branched, he was not aware of which path his life now took. Like the sinuous coils of electricity stretching from cloud to cloud, the opposite end of the infantile black hole reached out to a great many times and places. As the Gazer broke the atmosphere of an enormous azure planet, James was privy to snippets of the frightening decent, but for the most part, he felt nothing as the auxiliary systems attempted to slow the ship. The blaze of the Gazer's fall from the evening sky was seen for thousands of miles on Caer Ailinne, and when the ship slammed into the southern gulf of Eridania, only the backup retros saved its captain.

Only for a moment did James recapture his awareness of the world around him. Only for a brief moment did he feel the warm water lapping at his body as he clung to the emergency floatation device from the cockpit of the Gazer that he had always made fun of. Only for a moment did his eyes flutter open when the silvery plume of dolphin breath sprayed lightly against his cheek, and his gaze was returned by another.


"Just like the waves down by the shore,
we're gonna keep on coming back for more.
Cause we don't ever wanna stop.
Out in this brave new world we'll see,
Oh, the valleys and the peaks.
And I can see you on the top.

You'll find better love, strong as it ever was,
deep as the river runs, warm as the morning sun...
Please, remember me."

Bolting to sit upright, James glanced around to find himself still laying face down on a rock in an inlet of the atoll. Only it was evening tide, and the great rolling waves that normally touched just the main inlet now threatened to sweep him off his resting place. Serina was nowhere to be seen, and it was just as well; for all the floundering he did on his way to shore, he would have been embarrassed. As he stumbled to lie on the warm sand, James tried his best to wring the salt water out of his fur and clothes. The Annola-Lee was still anchored where he had left her, and with the groan of a man who had drunk too much the night before, James rolled over onto his back to catch his bearings. The evening was clear, and the breeze heavy with the clicks and whistles of the dolphins spinning up from the waves in jubilation near the mouth of the atoll.

The memory of what had just happened was still blessedly clear, and though some parts were still missing, James felt he knew them in his heart. He didn't know what he had thought he was expecting when he had asked Serina for a glimpse of his past--perhaps he had hoped for the yearning to stop, and his world to be right again. Instead he felt as lost as ever, and Pigma's treacherous words echoed painfully in his mind: "Oh, McCloud--I have a message for you from our dear friend the Professor! He wanted me to remind you of a certain night 15 years ago. He wanted me to tell you that this time, he doesn't plan to miss!"

Shielding his eyes from the light of a fading sun, James sighed. He was still alive, although in more ways than one, Andross hadn't missed.


Illustrations: (Cut and paste into your browser)
Serina: http:s92873267.onlinehome.us/starfox/fanart/fara/serinatriqueta2.jpg
Annola Lee: http:s92873267.onlinehome.us/starfox/fanart/fara/annolalee.jpg
The Island: http:s92873267.onlinehome.us/starfox/fanart/fara/islandblurburn.jpg
References
"A Pirate Looks At Fifty" – © Jimmy Buffet
"Remember Me" – © Tim McGraw
"Exile" – © Enya
"No One Like You"- © Sara Brightman
"Honor Him"- © Hans Zimmerman
"Only If..." – © Enya