Chapter One: "Under Siege"
She was sprinting as quickly as her short legs would carry her, her petit feet in their lavender running shoes kicking up clouds of red-brown dirt as she ran. The other kids had already given up the chase, prefering their games of laser tag and hide-and-seek, but she was detirmined to keep up the pursuit until she had at last become the first child of their group to actually touch it before it got away. Her little black braids bounced about her shoulders, framing a pale-complected face set with a wide pair of faint blue eyes, pupils that reflected excitement and mounting anxiety.
The horn sounded, a shrill sound that cut through her bones. She lunged for it, reaching, and grunted when her outstretched hands felt only cool damp air and she collapsed to the dirt. It puffed away, steadily gaining speed, giving another high-pitched call that seemed to mock her failure. She huffed quietly and scrambled to her feet, waving as it chugged over a final cresting hill.
Celestra Marquette had been mere inches from the gleaming steam engine! It was the Forever Train, the heart and soul of her home planet, Macbeth, sixth planet of the Lylat system.
"Hey, Celest! Did you touch it?"
A couple of the boys ran up to her, rattling away questions as she struggled to catch her breath. "Nah. But one of these days I'm gonna be so fast that I'll ride the Forever Train home!"
"Only because you're too lazy to walk!" one of them exclaimed, and they ran off, howling with laughter.
Celestra, already seven years of age and stronger than any boy she knew, walked the quarter mile back to her flat stoically, holding her chin high. None of them had come so close to catching it, she knew, and she was therefore very proud of herself. Macbeth got around on that train, traded goods and technology by way of steam engine, and it was common knowledge that the train never slept. It was a means of transportation, yet so much more, for it connected its inhabitants in distant towns in many ways. They sent messengers to other towns on the Forever Train, foods of all kinds to buyers in diverse companies, even supplied the Macbethian Air Base with a steady stream of spaceship parts and futuristic weaponry. For the citizens of Macbeth, the train was an essential part of life that ensured their survival; for Celestra, it was an adventure.
The sun was midway through the sky when Celestra toddled home to the flat she shared with her middle-aged parents. As she scaled the steps in their untidy front yard and slipped past the screen door, she met her mother, waiting impatiently for her daughters' return.
Olivia Marquette was a short, stocky woman, built thickly in the shoulders and hips with a skinny waist and legs. The fingers of her hands, though, were unnaturally long and slender, and her unkempt black hair shot with gray masked the intensity of her dark green eyes. Celestra did her best to smile sweetly as her mother scrutinized the new holes in the knees of her jeans.
"As sure as Corneria is good in this galaxy, child, you are filthy!" her mother shrieked, now studying the scrapes on the palms of Celestra's hands. "You been chasin' that train again?"
Celestra lowered her gaze in mock shame. "Yes, mama."
Olivia threw up her hands and raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Lord, child! One of these days you'll be screamin' from under that thing, then I'll have somethin' to worry about!" She shuffled her daughter into the kitchen and called for the water to warm; without further prompting, the faucet flowed and a basin filled with soapy water. "Now you get yourself cleaned up and get out to the hangar, understand? Your daddy's got somethin' new to teach you today."
Celestra quickened her pace at the mention of her father. The hangar behind their flat was the resting place of an Arwing, the special one-man spacecraft used exclusively by fighters of the Cornerian army. Several years ago, Jarius Marquette had served at a base on the third planet of the Lylat system, Fortuna. A few weeks after the Cornerian army (led by General Aronius Pepper) exiled the evil emperor Andross to Lylat's first planet, Venom, Jarius had returned home--with his Arwing only relatively intact. Since his triumphant return, Jarius had been tinkering with the spacecraft, step-by-step fixing it and teaching his only daughter how to fly. Celestra was already quite an impressive pilot--better than many Jarius had served with!--and he knew that as soon as the Arwing was in top working order again, the young girl would pilot it with ease and a natural talent.
"Now, mind you, if you tear another pair of jeans, you won't so much as see that train for a week, you hear?!" Olivia called after her daughter, but Celestra was already long gone.
Behind the unremarkable flat Celestra found her father, shy, quiet, benevolent Jarius Marquette. The man was silently at work at the helm of his magnificent old Arwing, an interstellar ship he had named Legacy. His light brown hair was flecked with more than a few strands of silever, and the unruly patch at the back of his head always brought a grin to the young girls' face. He hadn't yet seen her entrance; his thin yet lithely muscled frame was positioned in the ships' helm in such a way that he was awkwardly sideways. His cool blue eyes focused keenly on the task at his nimble fingers; clearly he had begun a new stage in the reconstruction.
"Hey, daddy," Celestra called warmly up at her father, walking over to stand on the platform balance that would mechanically ascend to the cockpit of the craft. "Whatcha doin' today? Can I help? Sorry I'm late; I had to go--"
"Catch the train today?" her father interjected with an amused grin. Unlike Celestra's mother, who always seemed quite annoyed with her child's many excursions, Jarius took an interest in the little adventures in the girls' life, seeing much of his boyhood in his daughter.
"Not today!" she exclaimed, and her spirits had not dampened in the slightest. "But I was so close I felt the heat comin' off of it!"
Jarius's grin widened considerably and her motioned for the girl to join him in the cockpit for another lesson. She noticed that he had already installed a small viewing screen about six-by-eight inches in dimension, and was in the process of wiring a small command board beneath it.
"You see this contraption?" he began as he twiddled with a pair of wires in the console. "It's called a G-Diffuser system. It's like a two-way communication device with a viewing screen for visual clarity. Pretty neat, huh?"
Celestra nodded, genuinely impressed. For the next half of the day, father and daughter worked in tandem on the wonderful vessel, completely installing the G-Diffuser and the rest of the helm's controls and weapons. The Arwing neared completion.
~~*~~
In the early hours of the evening, when the sun had long passed its zenith and the Solar nebula had finished traversing Macbeth's southern horizon, Celestra wandered back to the hangar to marvel at her father's most equisite work. The Legacy was, in effect, complete, and the only factor that kept Jarius on the ground was the matter of a successful test flight, which would commence the next morning as long as the pleasant weather held out. In the meantime, though, inquisitive Celestra couldn't help but admire the remarkable beauty of the mighty Arwing, so she climbed slowly into the cockpit and took up the controls, even going so far as to fasten the restraints of the craft.
How she longed to switch on the Arwin's main thrusters and give the fighter a go! For hours she sat at the helm, guiding the controls with an almost expert pair of pilot hands and play-shouting at imaginary comrades displayed in the G-Diffuser screen. She could see the asteroid field before her, could clearly distinguish the other Cornerian forces from the evil Venomian pilots from the planet furthest north in the Lylat system. She took aim, shouting orders, repeatedly firing at any enemy craft in her path--
--And Celestra Marquette's surprise was complete when actual laser fire met her ears.
The girl paused a moment, hands trembling slightly, and ceased her mock laser sounds. No, she decided, she wasn't just hearing things--there truly was a laser barrage going on, just outside the safety of the isolated hangar!
Fumbling with the safety restraints of the Legacy, Celestra re-opened the freshly painted cockpit and scrambled out, confusion apparent on her childlike face. She had nearly clambered down to the ground when Jarius, her courageous father, burst in, clutching his arm and moaning loudly.
"Daddy?!" Celestra gasped, wide, icy eyes fixated on his mangled arm in horror.
Jarius eyed his daughter curiously through the pain in his laser-scorched appendage. Beyond any illusions he held for his own survival, Jarius loved his daughter deeply and was willing to sacrifice everything--even his own life--to protect her. But how? he wondered. How could the battered ex-pilot spare his only child from the wrath of Andross?
The injured man stumbled, groaned, and, quite unintentionally, his gaze settled on the specter of his life's work, the Legacy.
A life's work that suddenly seemed to glow with a heavenly light.
Jarius scooped his daughter up with his remaining arm and strode defiantly to the platform balance wired to one side of the Arwing. With a strength that almost frightened his daughter, Jarius Marquette easily swung Celestra into the cockpit of the Legary and swiftly began strapping her in.
"What are you doing?!" Celestra implored desperately, tears welling in her bright eyes, but Jarius didn't answer directly.
"Now listen carefully, sweetheart," Jarius began frantically. "If you shift the controls twice in a particular direction, you'll barrel roll. Up twice will send you into a U-turn, down twice and you'll somersault. With me so far?"
Celestra nodded, not quite understanding why he was telling her this now, of all times.
"Good. Now, sweetie, take off and head southwest at a thirty-five degree angle, and in about three days you'll make it to Corneria. Demand to see General Aronius Pepper; do not let anyone sway your course, Celest! Tell him Andross has come for Macbeth. Promise me you'll do just that, Celestra!"
"Daddy . . . please . . ." Celestra's voice cracked and she swallowed a cry. "What . . . ?"
"Andross has risen again," Jarius explained gravely, another wave of pain causing him to grimace. "Live, my beautiful daughter, and always use that courage and detirmination of yours against Andross. I love you."
Without another word (it would have been lost amidst the drone of constant, rapid laser fire), Jarius Marquette booted up the Arwing's main thrusters, forced the cockpit shut, and blew his daughteer the last kiss she would ever see from her family.
"DADDY!" Celestra howled, pounding at the glass in desperate abandon. "Don't leave me!"
With a resounding roar, the Legacy came to life, crashing through the hangar wall and taking to the fiery southwestern sky of Macbeth. Mere seconds later, the entire area about the house and hangar was pummeled ceaselessly with lethal nuclear bombs, a testimony of the strength of Andross.
~~*~~
For resilient Celestra, manuevering the brilliant Arwing through the scattered Venomian ranks and out of Macbeth's atmosphere was barely a challenge. Half a minute later her trepidation grew considerably when she realized that three Venomian fighter pilots were hot on her tail.
Although swallowing repeatedly to force the petrified lump from her throat and blinking through a face drenched with tears, Celestra's eyes burned with a hatred for the evil Venomians. She had lost everything she truly loved, and she intended to be the biggest problem they had before she died. As she tested the controls, sending the Legacy through a series of manuevers that dodged every laser, Celestra continued to chant her father's last words of Arwing wisdom aloud to herself.
"Barrel roll . . ." Celestra muttered, and her hands worked in tandem, forcing both controls left quickly. The effect was dazzling; her craft went into a tight corkscrew, dizzying the young girl but just in time to deflect the fire of all three assailants.
Wasting no time, the brave girl shifted her controls down as quickly as she could and executed a magnificent somersault. As she turned, all three enemies blew right past her, and with reflexes that would shame many of the Cornerian pilots, dispatched each with on shot.
An even greater concentration of multicolored lasers bombarded the Arwing from all sides, and looking back, Celestra realized that she was being pursued by at least twenty unshakable Venomians. Weighing her options (and she had precious few indeed), Celestra cut hard right, heading for an area of concentrated space debris even as her ship shuddered under multiple enemy fire. The Legacy's shield gauge dropped rapidly as she struggle to remain in control, to shake off her deadly pursuers.
Burying her craft in space debris, Celestra executed one final, brilliant manuever, a U-turn that sent her spiraling back into the wake of her dangerous enemies. Sucking in perhaps that last breath she'd ever take, the last inhabitant of Macbeth squeezed a tiny red button, loosing one of only three bombs her father had equipped the Arwing with.
The radical weapon exploded with the force of ten bombs, right in the midst of the Venomians, destroying every single one of them.
Celestra's head spun uncontrollably, and she pressed on last button as she lurched into blackness.
Autopilot.
She was sprinting as quickly as her short legs would carry her, her petit feet in their lavender running shoes kicking up clouds of red-brown dirt as she ran. The other kids had already given up the chase, prefering their games of laser tag and hide-and-seek, but she was detirmined to keep up the pursuit until she had at last become the first child of their group to actually touch it before it got away. Her little black braids bounced about her shoulders, framing a pale-complected face set with a wide pair of faint blue eyes, pupils that reflected excitement and mounting anxiety.
The horn sounded, a shrill sound that cut through her bones. She lunged for it, reaching, and grunted when her outstretched hands felt only cool damp air and she collapsed to the dirt. It puffed away, steadily gaining speed, giving another high-pitched call that seemed to mock her failure. She huffed quietly and scrambled to her feet, waving as it chugged over a final cresting hill.
Celestra Marquette had been mere inches from the gleaming steam engine! It was the Forever Train, the heart and soul of her home planet, Macbeth, sixth planet of the Lylat system.
"Hey, Celest! Did you touch it?"
A couple of the boys ran up to her, rattling away questions as she struggled to catch her breath. "Nah. But one of these days I'm gonna be so fast that I'll ride the Forever Train home!"
"Only because you're too lazy to walk!" one of them exclaimed, and they ran off, howling with laughter.
Celestra, already seven years of age and stronger than any boy she knew, walked the quarter mile back to her flat stoically, holding her chin high. None of them had come so close to catching it, she knew, and she was therefore very proud of herself. Macbeth got around on that train, traded goods and technology by way of steam engine, and it was common knowledge that the train never slept. It was a means of transportation, yet so much more, for it connected its inhabitants in distant towns in many ways. They sent messengers to other towns on the Forever Train, foods of all kinds to buyers in diverse companies, even supplied the Macbethian Air Base with a steady stream of spaceship parts and futuristic weaponry. For the citizens of Macbeth, the train was an essential part of life that ensured their survival; for Celestra, it was an adventure.
The sun was midway through the sky when Celestra toddled home to the flat she shared with her middle-aged parents. As she scaled the steps in their untidy front yard and slipped past the screen door, she met her mother, waiting impatiently for her daughters' return.
Olivia Marquette was a short, stocky woman, built thickly in the shoulders and hips with a skinny waist and legs. The fingers of her hands, though, were unnaturally long and slender, and her unkempt black hair shot with gray masked the intensity of her dark green eyes. Celestra did her best to smile sweetly as her mother scrutinized the new holes in the knees of her jeans.
"As sure as Corneria is good in this galaxy, child, you are filthy!" her mother shrieked, now studying the scrapes on the palms of Celestra's hands. "You been chasin' that train again?"
Celestra lowered her gaze in mock shame. "Yes, mama."
Olivia threw up her hands and raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Lord, child! One of these days you'll be screamin' from under that thing, then I'll have somethin' to worry about!" She shuffled her daughter into the kitchen and called for the water to warm; without further prompting, the faucet flowed and a basin filled with soapy water. "Now you get yourself cleaned up and get out to the hangar, understand? Your daddy's got somethin' new to teach you today."
Celestra quickened her pace at the mention of her father. The hangar behind their flat was the resting place of an Arwing, the special one-man spacecraft used exclusively by fighters of the Cornerian army. Several years ago, Jarius Marquette had served at a base on the third planet of the Lylat system, Fortuna. A few weeks after the Cornerian army (led by General Aronius Pepper) exiled the evil emperor Andross to Lylat's first planet, Venom, Jarius had returned home--with his Arwing only relatively intact. Since his triumphant return, Jarius had been tinkering with the spacecraft, step-by-step fixing it and teaching his only daughter how to fly. Celestra was already quite an impressive pilot--better than many Jarius had served with!--and he knew that as soon as the Arwing was in top working order again, the young girl would pilot it with ease and a natural talent.
"Now, mind you, if you tear another pair of jeans, you won't so much as see that train for a week, you hear?!" Olivia called after her daughter, but Celestra was already long gone.
Behind the unremarkable flat Celestra found her father, shy, quiet, benevolent Jarius Marquette. The man was silently at work at the helm of his magnificent old Arwing, an interstellar ship he had named Legacy. His light brown hair was flecked with more than a few strands of silever, and the unruly patch at the back of his head always brought a grin to the young girls' face. He hadn't yet seen her entrance; his thin yet lithely muscled frame was positioned in the ships' helm in such a way that he was awkwardly sideways. His cool blue eyes focused keenly on the task at his nimble fingers; clearly he had begun a new stage in the reconstruction.
"Hey, daddy," Celestra called warmly up at her father, walking over to stand on the platform balance that would mechanically ascend to the cockpit of the craft. "Whatcha doin' today? Can I help? Sorry I'm late; I had to go--"
"Catch the train today?" her father interjected with an amused grin. Unlike Celestra's mother, who always seemed quite annoyed with her child's many excursions, Jarius took an interest in the little adventures in the girls' life, seeing much of his boyhood in his daughter.
"Not today!" she exclaimed, and her spirits had not dampened in the slightest. "But I was so close I felt the heat comin' off of it!"
Jarius's grin widened considerably and her motioned for the girl to join him in the cockpit for another lesson. She noticed that he had already installed a small viewing screen about six-by-eight inches in dimension, and was in the process of wiring a small command board beneath it.
"You see this contraption?" he began as he twiddled with a pair of wires in the console. "It's called a G-Diffuser system. It's like a two-way communication device with a viewing screen for visual clarity. Pretty neat, huh?"
Celestra nodded, genuinely impressed. For the next half of the day, father and daughter worked in tandem on the wonderful vessel, completely installing the G-Diffuser and the rest of the helm's controls and weapons. The Arwing neared completion.
~~*~~
In the early hours of the evening, when the sun had long passed its zenith and the Solar nebula had finished traversing Macbeth's southern horizon, Celestra wandered back to the hangar to marvel at her father's most equisite work. The Legacy was, in effect, complete, and the only factor that kept Jarius on the ground was the matter of a successful test flight, which would commence the next morning as long as the pleasant weather held out. In the meantime, though, inquisitive Celestra couldn't help but admire the remarkable beauty of the mighty Arwing, so she climbed slowly into the cockpit and took up the controls, even going so far as to fasten the restraints of the craft.
How she longed to switch on the Arwin's main thrusters and give the fighter a go! For hours she sat at the helm, guiding the controls with an almost expert pair of pilot hands and play-shouting at imaginary comrades displayed in the G-Diffuser screen. She could see the asteroid field before her, could clearly distinguish the other Cornerian forces from the evil Venomian pilots from the planet furthest north in the Lylat system. She took aim, shouting orders, repeatedly firing at any enemy craft in her path--
--And Celestra Marquette's surprise was complete when actual laser fire met her ears.
The girl paused a moment, hands trembling slightly, and ceased her mock laser sounds. No, she decided, she wasn't just hearing things--there truly was a laser barrage going on, just outside the safety of the isolated hangar!
Fumbling with the safety restraints of the Legacy, Celestra re-opened the freshly painted cockpit and scrambled out, confusion apparent on her childlike face. She had nearly clambered down to the ground when Jarius, her courageous father, burst in, clutching his arm and moaning loudly.
"Daddy?!" Celestra gasped, wide, icy eyes fixated on his mangled arm in horror.
Jarius eyed his daughter curiously through the pain in his laser-scorched appendage. Beyond any illusions he held for his own survival, Jarius loved his daughter deeply and was willing to sacrifice everything--even his own life--to protect her. But how? he wondered. How could the battered ex-pilot spare his only child from the wrath of Andross?
The injured man stumbled, groaned, and, quite unintentionally, his gaze settled on the specter of his life's work, the Legacy.
A life's work that suddenly seemed to glow with a heavenly light.
Jarius scooped his daughter up with his remaining arm and strode defiantly to the platform balance wired to one side of the Arwing. With a strength that almost frightened his daughter, Jarius Marquette easily swung Celestra into the cockpit of the Legary and swiftly began strapping her in.
"What are you doing?!" Celestra implored desperately, tears welling in her bright eyes, but Jarius didn't answer directly.
"Now listen carefully, sweetheart," Jarius began frantically. "If you shift the controls twice in a particular direction, you'll barrel roll. Up twice will send you into a U-turn, down twice and you'll somersault. With me so far?"
Celestra nodded, not quite understanding why he was telling her this now, of all times.
"Good. Now, sweetie, take off and head southwest at a thirty-five degree angle, and in about three days you'll make it to Corneria. Demand to see General Aronius Pepper; do not let anyone sway your course, Celest! Tell him Andross has come for Macbeth. Promise me you'll do just that, Celestra!"
"Daddy . . . please . . ." Celestra's voice cracked and she swallowed a cry. "What . . . ?"
"Andross has risen again," Jarius explained gravely, another wave of pain causing him to grimace. "Live, my beautiful daughter, and always use that courage and detirmination of yours against Andross. I love you."
Without another word (it would have been lost amidst the drone of constant, rapid laser fire), Jarius Marquette booted up the Arwing's main thrusters, forced the cockpit shut, and blew his daughteer the last kiss she would ever see from her family.
"DADDY!" Celestra howled, pounding at the glass in desperate abandon. "Don't leave me!"
With a resounding roar, the Legacy came to life, crashing through the hangar wall and taking to the fiery southwestern sky of Macbeth. Mere seconds later, the entire area about the house and hangar was pummeled ceaselessly with lethal nuclear bombs, a testimony of the strength of Andross.
~~*~~
For resilient Celestra, manuevering the brilliant Arwing through the scattered Venomian ranks and out of Macbeth's atmosphere was barely a challenge. Half a minute later her trepidation grew considerably when she realized that three Venomian fighter pilots were hot on her tail.
Although swallowing repeatedly to force the petrified lump from her throat and blinking through a face drenched with tears, Celestra's eyes burned with a hatred for the evil Venomians. She had lost everything she truly loved, and she intended to be the biggest problem they had before she died. As she tested the controls, sending the Legacy through a series of manuevers that dodged every laser, Celestra continued to chant her father's last words of Arwing wisdom aloud to herself.
"Barrel roll . . ." Celestra muttered, and her hands worked in tandem, forcing both controls left quickly. The effect was dazzling; her craft went into a tight corkscrew, dizzying the young girl but just in time to deflect the fire of all three assailants.
Wasting no time, the brave girl shifted her controls down as quickly as she could and executed a magnificent somersault. As she turned, all three enemies blew right past her, and with reflexes that would shame many of the Cornerian pilots, dispatched each with on shot.
An even greater concentration of multicolored lasers bombarded the Arwing from all sides, and looking back, Celestra realized that she was being pursued by at least twenty unshakable Venomians. Weighing her options (and she had precious few indeed), Celestra cut hard right, heading for an area of concentrated space debris even as her ship shuddered under multiple enemy fire. The Legacy's shield gauge dropped rapidly as she struggle to remain in control, to shake off her deadly pursuers.
Burying her craft in space debris, Celestra executed one final, brilliant manuever, a U-turn that sent her spiraling back into the wake of her dangerous enemies. Sucking in perhaps that last breath she'd ever take, the last inhabitant of Macbeth squeezed a tiny red button, loosing one of only three bombs her father had equipped the Arwing with.
The radical weapon exploded with the force of ten bombs, right in the midst of the Venomians, destroying every single one of them.
Celestra's head spun uncontrollably, and she pressed on last button as she lurched into blackness.
Autopilot.