An armada of ships of all shapes and sizes silently orbited Corneria, some boxy, some organic looking, others sleek and knife-like. On closer inspection however it did not appear silent at all, instead it was barely organized chaos. Several hundred small ships buzzed around the warships, carriers and troopships. Shuttles, troop transports, freighters, starfighters, and maintenance craft, swarming around the larger ships bringing troops and equipment to the ships, or personnel who had been on shore leave. Freighters scurried back and forth from the planet bringing up supplies and parts, maintenance craft made last minute checks to make sure the ships were ready. But the chaos was beginning to die down, General Pepper noticed as he stared out the bridge view port. He turned to Captain Whitcomb.

"How long until we're ready to leave, we've wasted too much time already."

"About another hour sir. All maintenance checks are complete; supply runs should be completed in less than ten minutes, and all crew and ops personnel are on board. Also ninety-five percent of the troops and equipment are on board, but are only sixty-five percent secured."

General Pepper pondered this for a minute.

"That's still too long. Once all supplies and troops are on board tell all fighters to dock and all freighters and transports to clear the area."

Whitcomb stiffened

"Yes sir."

He didn't like this one bit, the General had a point but you couldn't just rush into battle. You had to plan; you had to get a reconnaissance. You had to be well supplied and equipped especially when dealing with a new and unknown adversary. But General Pepper had fought many wars, so it wasn't his place to question the General.

He watched as the technicians around him hurried about, furiously typing commands at their stations, giving or taking orders, and otherwise hurrying to get the ship ready in time. Whitcomb turned to the display screen showing the hangers. One screen showed a fighter bay, with lines of Broadsword fighters with fuel or maintenance lines attached to their hulls and ladders attached to their cockpits. Broadswords were sleek and deadly, greatly resembling Arings but with their hulls more slender and knife-like. They incorporated the same swing-back wing design as the Arwings and had two dorsal mounted near the cockpit, much like an Arwing except that they were a little more angled. They were not quite as fast as Arwings but just as agile. They did however, have more firepower with each one packing four wing mounted laser cannons, two mounted at the base of the ventral fins, and two at the base of the dorsal fins. They also had a pair of nose-mounted bomb/missile launchers. Another squadron fighters entering the docking bay brought him out of his reverie as he turned to one of the drop ship bays. He could see tanks entering drop ships, looking very similar to the earlier Landmaster but without the two fins, and with larger turrets. They looked much more rugged and were far superior to their predecessor. There were also rugged, wheeled vehicles and APC's entering the ships, along with various other pieces of equipment. Platoons of troops marched up into slightly smaller and sleeker drop ships, carrying all manner of weapons and equipment.

A comm. beeped, informing the bridge that all fighters were docked, all launch bay doors closed, and all transports clear of the fleet.

"Ensign plot a course to Dinosaur Planet and relay the coordinates to all other ships."

"Yes sir."

A few moments later, coordinates streamed onto one of the main view screens signaling the completion of the task.

"Jump to hyperspace in three, two, one, engage."

It was an impressive site as the ship rocketed forward, dazzling lights appeared and flickered, as the ship tore through the dimensional barrier and entered hyperspace, the rest of the fleet right behind them, leaving Corneria far behind.

Krystal adjusted the integrated display goggles as she raised her staff. A small targeting sight appeared on her display along with targeting data. She aimed the sight over one of the targets at the other side of the gym and fired a three shot burst of small fireballs. The target shattered and the fragments melted. She adjusted to infrared imaging aimed, and blew apart the next target in line. She removed the goggles and looked across the gym to where Fox was taking his new energy sword through a complex series of slashes, thrusts and combos. She watched as it cleaved a thick metal target in two. Slippy pressed a button and a slender dueling droid whirred to life, wielding a dull sword, it began to fence with Fox. Further down the gym Falco was "showing his bravery" by testing the personal shield generator, a small boxy device that could be attached to belts or clothing. He stood near the wall while a multi-barreled tripod mounted gun aimed at him. The gun fired a blaster bolt and the force knocked Falco against the wall. A shimmering energy field was now visible surrounding him. It shimmered for a moment before fading from view again. The gun rotated, bringing another barrel to bear on the avian. It fired three small needle shaped shards of some sort of crystal. The shards hit the shield and exploded but did no damage. Next the gun fired a burst of metal bullets, all of which pinged off the shield. Finally the gun's camera shut down and it slumped a little on its tripod.

"See nothing to it."

Despite his confident attitude he seemed a bit rattled and a feint smell of sweat reached Krystal's nose. Fox powered down his energy sword and walked over to Slippy.

"Nice sword. So Rob says that Bill hasn't contacted us yet."

"That's right Fox, he's three hours late and hasn't sent any transmissions to tell us he'd be late."

Fox rubbed his hand on his chin.

"Hmmm, if they're not here yet then they're probably not coming. We'd better head back to Corneria and find out what's up."

A few minutes later the band of mercenaries were on the bridge.

"Peppy plot us a course to Corneria…. Peppy!"

Peppy lurched half up out of his seat were he had dozed off.

"Right Fox."

As he was entering in the coordinates a light blinked showing an incoming transmission. Slippy hit the play button and a terse male voice came over the bridge speaker.

"Attention this is Captain Whitcomb of the cruiser Defender, all ships within seven light years of Dinosaur Planet are to converge on the planet immediately, I repeat, all ships within seven light years of Dinosaur Planet are to converge on the planet immediately."

"What the hell."

Fox and Falco both said in unison.

"Slippy how long would it take us to reach Dinosaur Planet."

"I'd say about thirty minutes Fox."

"Good, Peppy plot us a course to Dinosaur Planet."

"Course plotted Fox, entering hyperspace in five, four, three, two, one."

The stars outside the view port turned to white lines and space blurred as the Great Fox jumped to hyperspace.

Colonel Bromley brought his Wraith in for another strafing run, his lasers vaporizing half a dozen of those short, armored dinosaurs that seemed to make up most of the enemies army. They used mostly swords, maces, axes, and crossbows, but a few had been seen throwing large, explosive, metal barrels at Brotherhood forces. The enemy also had armored triceratopses and pterodactyls, as well as modern jet bikes and artillery cannons. He brought his fighter around again and this time fired his plasma cannon, killing a triceratops. In the distance he could see Brotherhood tanks, APC's, LAV's, and infantry slaughtering a large portion of the dinosaur army. A swarm of drop ships flew by; their side doors open, spewing legions of paratroopers and jump jet troopers until the sky was full of them.

"Heads up Alpha group, watch those paratroopers."

"Colonel Bromley, this is Commander Stevens, we need you to take down those enemy artillery batteries at coordinates zero-three-seven."

"Yes sir, you heard him boys."

Bromley's squadron changed course and came screaming in at high speed over the enemy position. Bromley fired two bombs, and watched as they streaked out and shattered three squat artillery turrets. Another flurry of explosions followed as his wing mates launched their own bombs. They came around again and made another pass with lasers and plasma cannons, just to make sure. Bromley saw another squadron coming to help, this one made up of Banshee atmospheric gun ships. Banshees had a forward mounted cockpit, a long slender fuselage that ended in a three finned "tail", and a pair of hover jets mounted midship, one on the left side and one on the right side. They packed heavy machine guns and powerful rocket pods. Suddenly a flak shell exploded in the middle of the squadron and one Banshee went down, the rest scattered as a hail of flak shells filled the sky with deadly artificial clouds.

"This is Alpha three, I'm hit, aaaaggghhhh!"

Bromely's own squadron scattered. In the confusion two Banshees formed up on him and together they made a strafing run on a group of hidden flak guns. Turrets shattered, and bodies were ripped apart as a hail of rockets exploded in their midst. Bromley came up to find his squadron regrouping, but the flak had stopped. He looked around; all over the battle appeared to be winding down. Dinosaur planet was theirs. Suddenly a voice came over the speaker.

"Attention all units, an unknown, hostile fleet has just dropped out of hyperspace, stay alert."

Bromley keyed the comm.

"Alright Alpha group, let's give em a hand."

Bromley and his squadron turned and headed for orbit to join the space battle.