General Pepper began to pace as he listened to the reports of casualties suffered during the campaign on Dinosaur Planet and the subsequent retreat of all ground and space forces. The general drew a small pipe from his pocket and lit it not really giving a damn at the moment for the military regulations forbidding smoking inside or near any important command area. He inhaled a puff of smoke and tried to savor its calming effect. The invasions from Andross' Venomian armies, the narrowly averted crisis on Dinosaur Planet, and now yet another army bent on taking over this blasted system had decided to rear its ugly head. Pepper sighed, if the direct effects of some war or another didn't kill him then the sheer stress eventually would. With another sigh he turned to Whitcomb.
" Enough, file the rest of the casualties in a report or something, what is the overall status of the hostile invasion right now?"
"Dinosaur Planet, Titania, and Macbeth have fallen, Fortuna and Venom are under heavy attack, and I'm afraid that all of our listening post on the outer rim of the system have gone silent. Unfortunately this isn't the bad news, our listening outpost have detected multiple energy signatures and comm. chatter at the edge of Sector X to suggest that a Brotherhood fleet is massing, we believe that their target is Katina.
General Pepper's pacing seemed to quicken just a little.
"Hmmm, we must withdraw our troops from Fortuna."
"Sir… with all do respect is it wise to surrender Fortuna to the enemy?"
"We have no choice, if a Brotherhood fleet is massing for another major push then we have to fall back and dig in. We will pull the remaining four hundred or so troops, two hundred will be sent to Katina, the remaining two hundred will be pulled back to Corneria to supplement the ground forces we already have here."
Whitcomb nodded, but as soon as Pepper's back was to him again grimaced. Pulling back to the very gates, this war had been going on a little more than a month and it had already come to this. Whitcomb shook his head and began to issue the necessary orders.
The mess hall was nearly empty, only one group of anthros sat around a table in a corner. It was the first time the old crew had been together since the beginning of the war, Fox thought as he chewed on a piece of some kind of steak. Krystal sat beside and was presently gnawing on a roasted leg of some domesticated herd animal or another. With the vast majority of the species enlisted in the Cornerian army being carnivorous it should come as no surprise that ninety percent of what they served was an equally diverse assortment of meats. Across from her Falco and Katt were deep in conversation. Well almost together, Bill was in a hospital after taking a particularly nasty blast of radiation when one of his Arwing's wings had been blown of by a narrowly avoided pair of missiles and he'd gotten a little too close to the engine exhaust ports of a Brotherhood cruiser. Peppy was watching over the Great Fox, while Slippy was probably to busy tinkering with something to come. Even if it would be over all too soon and even though not everyone was here, it felt good to have the old group together for a little while. The next time they all got a chance to just sit down and swap stories about various battles over a sit down meal might be a while.
Sergeant Stevenson stood on a balcony staring out over Cornerian City, the place he loved so much and had fought so hard for over the years. Sometimes in his nightmares he could still see the horror of the Venomian invasion, the destruction of so much he had loved, the deaths of many of his comrades, the death of his brother. His brother had become one of the countless other soldiers who fought the unrelenting Venomian war machine and had made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of his people, and like many others his only funeral pyre had been a Venomian carpet-bombing. Sure they were allies now but the bastards might turn on them any moment for all he knew or cared. Not many surviving people knew just how much he had sacrificed for the cause, during one of the battles for Cornerian during the war with Venomians he'd been hit with an Ion beam and most of his nervous system had been completely fried. A fellow soldier had dragged his limp and paralyzed body from the battlefield only to be killed by a sniper, another debt Stevenson would someday pay. He still didn't know how the medics had been able to save him, but they said a big part of it had been his sheer will to live. He looked up at the stars and with a practiced eye could pick out Fortuna and Katina, Aquas glowed with a gentle blue, almost like a serpents eye, Venom was visible, glowing crimson with its volcanic activity. Many planets had already been engulfed in fierce battles and waves of bloodshed, the flood of violence that swept through the Lylat System in a great tide of doom and threatened to eclipse everything he and others like him stood for. Gentle breeze began to blow past the balcony, soon the Brotherhood would come for them here, he could feel it. It was already too late for his life to ever be salvaged and he knew it, but it was not too late for others. Stevenson turned and headed for the winding path of stair and streets that would eventually take him back to the Cornerian military base.
Another crate landed in the on the stack with a satisfying thud.
"Hey watch it buddy, that stuff's fragile."
Wolf O'Donnell turned and fixed the unfortunate worker with a stare that would've melted concrete until he turned away.
Whatever happened to the days of soaring through space in his old Wolfen 3, getting into furious dogfights and the occasional good old fashioned bar fight. What had happened, ha he'd taken that cursed job from that giant deranged monkey head, gotten himself into an unfavorable position, and then gotten shot down and almost killed above the volcanic wastelands of that god forsaken planet Venom. As much as he felt he should he didn't really blame McCloud, he blamed Andross. He'd let himself be lured in by a few too many zeros in the reward and look where it had gotten him, a lowly freight handler at a Cornerian spaceport. Pigma hadn't survived the crash, Andrew was probably dead even though he had never gone back to check for sure, he'd never liked that whining little monkey. Leon had been alive and had been critical to getting off of Venom. An impressive array of scars and a biomechanical hand bore testament to how well that went. Wherever Leon was though Wolf was sure he was doing fine, probably better than him at the moment. Wolf hefted another crate and tossed it into the pile, not quite smiling at the sound of glass breaking inside or the resigned look on his fellow worker's face, awww one of the few pleasures left in life.
The sound of warning alarms blaring startled General Pepper from where he'd dozed of in a command chair.
"What was that!"
"Sir our listening post report the Brotherhood fleet has is moving out, they have just passed the through the former Vulgarian shipping lane and are passing through Fortunan space. They should arrive at Katina in… wait they're changing course!"
General Pepper sighed, knew he wasn't going to like this but asked the question anyway.
"What is their new course?"
"They're coming about onto course One-Five-Zero-Seven, they're headed here, ETA seven minutes!"
By this time alarms began to sound but the command crew remained quiet and relatively calm, they'd seen all this before.
"Sound a planet wide alert, tell all personnel to prepare for combat, get fighters in the air, and warm up the anti-orbital batteries."
Here they were, once again an enemy at his doorstep, he was about to roll out the welcome mat.