Fox dashed out of the lift and ran to his Arwing, Falco and Krystal right behind him. Slippy's voice came over the intercom.
"One minute to arrival."
Fox climbed the ladder in one step and jumped into the cockpit. Even before he hit the seat his hands were flying over the controls, screens came to life and control panels lit up. He closed the canopy and warmed up the engine. The hanger filled with a high pitched whining as the trio of Arwings powered up their engines.
"Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, reverting to realspace.
Hydraulics whirred as the massive hangers doors opened, and the containment field hummed to life. Fox paused for a moment to observe the area before he hurled himself into it. In the distance Dinosaur Planet hung in the void, just as it had been during his mission to it about a year ago. But this time a hoard of large warships floated in the void around it, pummeling each other, while all manner of smaller ships swarmed around them. The Arwings rose from the deck and their landing gear retracted, then in unison Fox, Krystal, and Falco ignited their engines and screamed out of the docking bay and towards the battle. Fox keyed his comm. to Cornerian battle frequencies.
"This is Fox McCloud of the Starfox team, if you copy please send orders."
"This is Captain Whitcomb of the cruiser Defender, good to see you Starfox team, we have the situation under control up here, you'll do the most good down on the planet, very few of our fighters have been able to make it through the blockade and our ground forces are pinned down, and need air support."
"Yes sir, Starfox out. You heard him guys we've got to break through that blockade."
"Woohooo, just like the trip to Aquas." Falco shouted.
The trio of Arwings accelerated to full speed and dove into the battle, dodging green, red and blue energy blasts, blazing past dogfights and dodging capitol ships. Fox keyed his comm.
"Heads up Falco, you've picked up a bogey."
"I see him Fox, you've got one too."
Shit. He dodged left as a flurry of red laser blasts shot by. Fox brought his Arwing into a hard left turn and then a quick dive, shaking the fighter off his tail long enough to come up on Falco. He was trying furiously to shake the fighter, no make that two fighters on his tail. Fox dropped in and squeezed the trigger, putting a burst of emerald laser fire into the lead starfighter, the second one dove to the left, executed a high gee turn, and came right at Fox. He shield rolled to the left and hit the brakes. The fighter screamed by and then burst into flames.
"We've got you covered Starfox, go!"
"Bill?"
"Hey McCloud, good to see you again, we'll talk later."
Fox turned and hit the turbo boosters, he blazed out of the battle and of the battle and entered Dinosaur Planet's atmosphere, his team was right behind him and had been joined by Bill's squadron. Heat simmered around the fighters and their noses glowed red as the came in steep and fast. Fox looked at his sensor board, it showed a swarm of red and green triangle symbols to represent fighters, and hoards of squares, circles and heat masses to show ground forces.
"Looks like the party started without us guys, but there's still targets for everyone."
They came in fast and blazed over a serious of fields and forests as the group of fighters entered the battle.
Fox fired a charge shot at one of those strange new fighters, and without waiting to see it hit, came around and fired a burst of laser fire, blowing apart a second fighter. Falco fired a bomb and obliterated a trio of some kind of atmospheric gunship. Laser fire arced from Krystal's fighter and hit one of the starfighters, causing it to spin and collide with another.
The element of surprise wore off as a squadron of fighters broke off from the main battle and angled right at the Fox and Bill's squadron. Green and red laser bolts flashed between the two groups as they sped right at each other. Then at the last second the two squadrons broke into pairs and scattered in all direction to avoid collision, dispersing into individual, four man dogfights.
Colonel Bromley dove and avoided a pair of enemy fighters as his squadron and the squad of newcomers broke up and began to duel. Miles took up a position on his wing as they dove into the fray. Bromley launched a pair of scimitar air-to-air missiles at one of the hostile fighters, dove and came up on another's tail blowing him apart before the pilot even realized he had a bogey. The lasers on Mile's Wraith flashed as he shot down another fighter. Then a pair Wraiths near him shattered and a trio of fighters screamed around the explosions. They were different then the other fighters but obviously just as dangerous. Bromley dove as laser fire arced towards him. He took a quick look behind him and saw the trio of new fighters had settled squarely on his and Mile's tail. Bromley dove and weaved, trying to clear his six but the fighters stayed on his tail. A hail of laser bolts flashed by, one narrowly missing his starboard wing. Something caught his eye to his right and he turned just in time to see a laser bolt tear through Mile's port wing, a second hit the engine and a third tore through the part of the hull.
"I'm hit! Engines have been shot to hell, aaggghhhhh!"
Mile's fighter spun out of control fire and smoke spewing from its aft section and then shattered in a brilliant explosion. For a moment Bromley stared in disbelief, then he felt cold rage build in him. It wasn't enough that he'd had to lose his wife, now he had to lose his childhood friend!
"Hrrrrhhhhh!"
He spun around and flew right at the trio of fighters, his finger holding down the trigger. The fighters scattered as he tore through were they'd just been. He came up behind one the arrowhead shaped fighters. He squeezed the trigger and his plasma cannon hurled a mass of superheated matter at the fighter and his lasers followed it up with a burst of laser fire. The fighter dodged the plasma, but was caught in the barrage of laser fire, one shot tore through one of the dorsal fins and another hit the aft fuselage. The fighter trailed smoke but stayed kept flying and dove hard, then spun into a lateral spiral, trying to shake him.
"I'm hit!" Falco screamed.
Krystal broke off from the dogfight she was in and came around, coming up on the tail of Falco's attacker. She sent laser blasts hurtling at the sleek fighter, but it was no use, the pilot was to good. Suddenly a pair of Cornerian fighters screamed in and began unloading on the fighter. Realizing what they were trying to do Krystal added her own fire to the barrage. The fighter juking and jinking, dodging most of the incoming fire, but there was too many laser bolts, and the fighter took several hits and began to trail smoke, but suddenly the pilot hit the afterburners and streaked away. Krystal wanted to pursue but another hostile dropped onto her six and she decided to engage this new threat.
Colonel Bromley quickly got control of himself, there was no place for emotion in combat. He turned and looked to make sure none of the fighters were still on his tail. After making sure it was clear he hazarded a quick look at his damage board. His starboard stabalizer had been destroyed and his gee diffuser and engines had taken minor damage, nothing serious but he had no choice but to leave the battle and head back to base for repairs before he overstressed his damaged Wraith and caused some fatal damage.
Fox looked checked his sensor board. The enemy fighters seemed to retreating, while their ground forces fell back to regroup.
"Looks like they're retreating Bill, do we have a place to land?"
"Yeah, the Cornerian field base is less than half a kilometer away, we can head there to refuel, rearm, and grab get some rest."
"Right."
The squadron turned and headed west. Fox scanned the series of forests and saw a huge clearing where a group of squat prefabricated buildings stood. The area was a buzz of activity as dropships brought in more troops and prefab buildings. From his vantage point Fox could see groups of workers scurrying about the perimeter, setting up walls using quick-drying cement and stringing in razor wire along the tops of the walls. Others were busy setting up guard towers or pillboxes along the half constructed walls or helping piece together some of the prefab buildings to large for one dropship to carry. He saw Bill's squadron head for an open area of the field where ships of all shapes and sizes stood until a hanger could be built. Fox and his group followed suite. Sure hope I can snatch a few hours of sleep. Even while he thought it Fox knew it wasn't likely to happen.
High Chancellor Grandeur stood on the heavily armored and heavily shielded observation deck of his flagship the "Righteous Fist". He stared out the viewport past the battle at the planet that hung in the void like a small gem. Reports had indicated that the planet had a wealth of natural resources as well as large deposits of many kinds of precious gems, but neither the metal, nor the diamonds, was the most precious resource on that planet. No the most precious resource was something much older and much rarer, something unique. He was a politician to the core and cared little for the militaries opinion of things, nor did he care about the cost of taking that planet. Of course being High Chancellor had its privileges. Because of his position he was the first to know of Intel's findings on the library world of Tobraski in the Dertrillion system. Ancient texts found in the records described a substance of vast power on the moon of Tolow. The moon had been torn apart in a supernova and most of the pieces obliterated. But one piece had been hurled out of the system. The records also contained it's course, and as soon as the system was completely under Brotherhood control he had used his influence to make sure the next fleet was sent along the course the asteroid had taken. It had been a gamble but it had paid off. Here they were in a system rich with resources and theirs for the taking, here was the planet the asteroid had crashed on centuries ago, yes his decision had been correct. He turned away from the viewport and headed for the entrance to the meeting room there was a lot of work to do and this was only the start.