Chapter 2
-
A day had passed. The invasion of MacBeth was only a few hours away. Fox had decided to get some firearms practice to hone his aim before the mission, but also to work out some of his aggravation at another sleepless night and being forced to work with someone he had never met. He was in the firing range when Ashe came up to the training floor. Fox had set the simulator on maximum difficulty, and was trying to shoot down the quickly moving holographic targets with some success. Fox looked over his shoulder as the turbolift doors opened, glancing over at Ashe for a moment before returning to the range.
Ashe stayed back at a respectable distance as he watched Fox shoot. He watched Fox's hands move as he held the blaster, looking out over his shoulder at the targets. "Don't lean so far forward," said Ashe. "Try to look for the pattern in the way the targets move."
Fox lowered his blaster and turned to look at Ashe. "What's it to you?" he snapped.
Ashe held out his hands peacefully. "Just trying to help you, Fox."
"Think you can do better, hotshot?" asked Fox.
Ashe smiled at him, clipping his sunglasses to the front of his shirt. "I'm a little out of practice, but I'll give it a try." He picked up a blaster from the charging machine in the corner of the room and and stepped up next to Fox. Fox restarted the simulator, and the targets began to fly again.
Ashe was a bit more tentative on the trigger than Fox, but he was more accurate. He lined up each shot carefully before firing, whereas Fox favored a quicker shot. When the simulation ended both had hit the same number of targets, but Ashe had outdone Fox in accuracy. Ashe looked over at Fox and smiled. Fox narrowed his eyes. "Combat training," said Fox as he started up another program. Ashe just readied his gun again without saying a word.
The combat simulator was a program designed to give training in a mock gunfight with bystanders thrown into the mix for added difficulty. Holograms of criminals armed with guns stepped out from behind corners and doorways of a fake street, and they had to be shot in an allotted amount of time or points would be deducted. Occasionally a hologram would step out with it's hands above it's head to indicate that it was a civilian. Shooting one of them meant an automatic disqualification.
Ashe favored his right side as he shot, his cheek gently leaning on his shoulder as he lined up shot after shot. Fox and Ashe were evenly matched for the first round, but then Ashe began to gradually pull ahead of Fox. Fox gritted his teeth and bore down, relying of reflexes and instinct to beat Ashe to the shot. Ashe just smiled as he kept pace. He twirled his gun behind his back and squeezed off a blast, striking a holographic criminal right in the head before returning the blaster to both hands. Fox growled softly, firing as quickly as he could now, his aim starting to falter. He struck one of the holograms just at it raised its hands over its head. The buzzer sounded, and the program shut down. "Shit!" Fox shouted as he dropped his blaster.
Ashe lowered his gun down to his side. "Hey, it's just a game," he said.
Fox glared at him for a moment before picking up his gun and stuffing it back into the charger. "We're gonna be at MacBeth soon," said Fox. "Better get ready."
Ashe watched Fox enter the turbolift. He put the blaster he had been using away in the charger and looked over at the simulator, where a notice was blinking. "NEW HI SCORE"
-
The sky over MacBeth was amber as the StarFox team descended into the atmosphere. They flew in slowly and in formation, trying to attract attention from the troops in the Vault to draw out the base's air support. As the StarFox team attacked from the north and took out the Vault's air force, the Cornerian tanks would come in from the south and the east.
"Watch yourself, team," said Fox over the radio. "I got three squads of Invaders coming in fast. Split up and take 'em down."
The five ships broke formation as the Invaders came into view. Fox surged ahead to take the point, as he always did. Fox's hand tightened around the control stick, and he began to squeeze off a few shots. The Arwing's high- powered lasers easily tore apart the unshielded Invaders, and one by one they began to drop out of the sky. Fox felt his adrenaline surge as he dove headfirst into the fight.
The rest of the team had spread out to take on the rest of the fighters that had broken off from the main group. Ashe was handling himself surprisingly well in the fight. Even though he was flying a slower ship, he still managed to line up precision shots that knocked the Invaders to the ground.
It was Peppy who was the first to get into trouble. Three Invaders had broken off from the group and had loitered off to the side to try and attack from behind. All three of them concentrated their attack on Peppy, and between the three of them, they were tearing his shields apart. "Can somebody help me out here?" he shouted.
"I'm on it," replied Falco as he turned a somersault. He fired while upside down, sniping two of the three Invaders. The final Invader took one last parting shot as it was scared away, breaking through the last of Peppy's shields to clip him on the wing. Peppy's Arwing wobbled for a moment as he fought to regain control.
"Are you okay, Peppy?" asked Fox.
"I think I lost my G-diffuser, Fox," came Peppy's reply. "I can't stay with you."
"We'll handle it, Peppy, don't worry," said Falco.
"I'm sorry, Fox!" Peppy called as he banked his Arwing to the right, turning away from the battle.
The Vault came into view over the horizon a few minutes later as the remnants of the Invader squadrons broke off the fight, returning to the base and the protection on its large gun batteries. "It's huge!" exclaimed Ashe as he got his first look at the Vault.
'Huge' was something of an understatement. The Vault was the center of the Venomian force on MacBeth, and it had become quite entrenched over the last several months. The thirty-meter high walls encompassed an area the size of eight city blocks. Cornerian intelligence had reported that the Vault housed at least four squadrons of fighters, and that more troops were being shipped in on an almost weekly basis. The walls were lined with anti- aircraft turrets, with the largest guns located at the corners of the walls.
"Alright guys, I've got the tanks coming in on the radar," said Fox. "Falco, you take the left side. Ashe, you take the right. Slippy, see if you can get around to the far side."
"What about you, Fox?" asked Slippy.
Fox smiled. "Well, someone has to go up the middle."
The four fighters gunned their engines. They spread out as the base's guns turned their way and opened fire on them. Fox did a quick barrel roll to deflect the first salvo, then he turned his lasers on the smaller turrets, knocking out two before they could fire again.
Falco dove hard as he steered his Arwing around a corner of the base, the massive turret sending repeated bolts of heavy laser fire over him. "Time for a little payback!" Falco shouted, pulling back on the control stick. He opened fire on the turret, but his lasers only made a scratch. "Damn, those things have a lot of armor on them!"
"Switch to nova bombs!" Slippy suggested as he came into range of another corner turret. He locked on and fired a bomb at the turret, pulling up out of the range of the blast as the turret exploded in a fiery cascade.
Fox was focusing on the smaller targets for the time, being, picking them off one by one. He flashed back momentarily to the firing range earlier in the day. They were just targets to him, waiting to be lined up and shot down. And the fact that they were firing back just made things all the more exciting. Fox felt his adrenaline surge as turned another barrel roll. It felt so exhilarating to be kicking tail like this.
A lone Arwing suddenly pulled up alongside Fox. Fox turned his head to glance down. Who could be flying this close to him. He looked down into the cockpit, and saw a familiar rabbit.
"Peppy? What are you doing?" Fox said as he switched the communicator to Peppy's frequency.
Peppy didn't respond. He leaned further forward in his seat until he was almost hunched over the controls. Although there was heavy fire all around him, he wasn't taking any evasive action. He just flew straight ahead, keeping pace with Fox.
Fox tried the communicator again. "Peppy, what's wrong?" Fox looked up and yanked the controls hard, evading another incoming burst of fire. He eyes were drawn to one of the corner turrets. The turret swung around to aim at him, and it fired a lethal blast. Fox gasped in horror as he watched the bolt fly right in front of him, scoring a direct hit on Peppy's ship.
"PEPPY!!"
Peppy's Arwing was vaporized in less than a second.
"NOOO!!!"
Fox's breath quickened. He felt his muscles grow tense. The cockpit of his Arwing grew hotter than a furnace. A film of crimson fell across his field of vision.
"You... BASTARDS!!"
-
Falco watched on his radar as Fox's Arwing surged on ahead, flying over the walls of the Vault, firing away at anything that moved. "Fox, are you nuts?" he shouted over the radio.
"What's going on?" asked Ashe as banked hard to avoid the incoming fire.
"Fox just flew right over the wall! He must be crazy!"
Ashe jabbed at his radio. "Fox, come in! What are you doing?" Ashe's eyes darted off to the side as he heard a sudden explosion. He saw the battalions of tanks rolling towards the base. One by one, they began to explode as the ground burst into fire underneath them. "Falco, mines!"
"Huh?"
"They've mined the ground around the base! The tanks are getting decimated!"
"Shit!" shouted Falco as he tried to get closer to Fox, who was still flying directly over the base, blasting away at everything in sight and hitting very little. The heavy fire from the base's turrets forced him to turn away.
"Falco, the tanks are retreating. We've got to pull out!" yelled Ashe.
"Not without Fox!" growled Falco. "Fox, wake up! What the hell's the matter with you!?" Fox paid no heed to Falco's voice as he continued his rampage. Fox's engines were going full throttle, and he was barreling towards the inside of one of the walls at a fantastic speed.
"Everyone, together," said Ashe. "One... two..."
-
"FOX!!!"
Fox blinked as his vision cleared. He found himself still in the air over the Vault, flying dangerously close to one of the walls. He pulled back hard on the stick, clearing the wall by mere centimeters as he ascended.
"Fox, we've got to retreat! What the bloody hell's wrong with you?" Falco shouted at him.
Reality came crashing back around Fox. The image was engraved into his memory; the burst of fire as Peppy's Arwing disintegrated right in front of him. He saw it each time he blinked his eyes. Fox leaned back in his chair, his shoulders slumped. "Oh, God..."
"Fox, what is it?" asked Falco.
Fox's hands began to shake as the four of them headed for the upper atmosphere. "Peppy... h-he's gone..." Fox bowed his head, his breath coming in ragged gasps. A few seconds later, the tears began.
-
-
A day had passed. The invasion of MacBeth was only a few hours away. Fox had decided to get some firearms practice to hone his aim before the mission, but also to work out some of his aggravation at another sleepless night and being forced to work with someone he had never met. He was in the firing range when Ashe came up to the training floor. Fox had set the simulator on maximum difficulty, and was trying to shoot down the quickly moving holographic targets with some success. Fox looked over his shoulder as the turbolift doors opened, glancing over at Ashe for a moment before returning to the range.
Ashe stayed back at a respectable distance as he watched Fox shoot. He watched Fox's hands move as he held the blaster, looking out over his shoulder at the targets. "Don't lean so far forward," said Ashe. "Try to look for the pattern in the way the targets move."
Fox lowered his blaster and turned to look at Ashe. "What's it to you?" he snapped.
Ashe held out his hands peacefully. "Just trying to help you, Fox."
"Think you can do better, hotshot?" asked Fox.
Ashe smiled at him, clipping his sunglasses to the front of his shirt. "I'm a little out of practice, but I'll give it a try." He picked up a blaster from the charging machine in the corner of the room and and stepped up next to Fox. Fox restarted the simulator, and the targets began to fly again.
Ashe was a bit more tentative on the trigger than Fox, but he was more accurate. He lined up each shot carefully before firing, whereas Fox favored a quicker shot. When the simulation ended both had hit the same number of targets, but Ashe had outdone Fox in accuracy. Ashe looked over at Fox and smiled. Fox narrowed his eyes. "Combat training," said Fox as he started up another program. Ashe just readied his gun again without saying a word.
The combat simulator was a program designed to give training in a mock gunfight with bystanders thrown into the mix for added difficulty. Holograms of criminals armed with guns stepped out from behind corners and doorways of a fake street, and they had to be shot in an allotted amount of time or points would be deducted. Occasionally a hologram would step out with it's hands above it's head to indicate that it was a civilian. Shooting one of them meant an automatic disqualification.
Ashe favored his right side as he shot, his cheek gently leaning on his shoulder as he lined up shot after shot. Fox and Ashe were evenly matched for the first round, but then Ashe began to gradually pull ahead of Fox. Fox gritted his teeth and bore down, relying of reflexes and instinct to beat Ashe to the shot. Ashe just smiled as he kept pace. He twirled his gun behind his back and squeezed off a blast, striking a holographic criminal right in the head before returning the blaster to both hands. Fox growled softly, firing as quickly as he could now, his aim starting to falter. He struck one of the holograms just at it raised its hands over its head. The buzzer sounded, and the program shut down. "Shit!" Fox shouted as he dropped his blaster.
Ashe lowered his gun down to his side. "Hey, it's just a game," he said.
Fox glared at him for a moment before picking up his gun and stuffing it back into the charger. "We're gonna be at MacBeth soon," said Fox. "Better get ready."
Ashe watched Fox enter the turbolift. He put the blaster he had been using away in the charger and looked over at the simulator, where a notice was blinking. "NEW HI SCORE"
-
The sky over MacBeth was amber as the StarFox team descended into the atmosphere. They flew in slowly and in formation, trying to attract attention from the troops in the Vault to draw out the base's air support. As the StarFox team attacked from the north and took out the Vault's air force, the Cornerian tanks would come in from the south and the east.
"Watch yourself, team," said Fox over the radio. "I got three squads of Invaders coming in fast. Split up and take 'em down."
The five ships broke formation as the Invaders came into view. Fox surged ahead to take the point, as he always did. Fox's hand tightened around the control stick, and he began to squeeze off a few shots. The Arwing's high- powered lasers easily tore apart the unshielded Invaders, and one by one they began to drop out of the sky. Fox felt his adrenaline surge as he dove headfirst into the fight.
The rest of the team had spread out to take on the rest of the fighters that had broken off from the main group. Ashe was handling himself surprisingly well in the fight. Even though he was flying a slower ship, he still managed to line up precision shots that knocked the Invaders to the ground.
It was Peppy who was the first to get into trouble. Three Invaders had broken off from the group and had loitered off to the side to try and attack from behind. All three of them concentrated their attack on Peppy, and between the three of them, they were tearing his shields apart. "Can somebody help me out here?" he shouted.
"I'm on it," replied Falco as he turned a somersault. He fired while upside down, sniping two of the three Invaders. The final Invader took one last parting shot as it was scared away, breaking through the last of Peppy's shields to clip him on the wing. Peppy's Arwing wobbled for a moment as he fought to regain control.
"Are you okay, Peppy?" asked Fox.
"I think I lost my G-diffuser, Fox," came Peppy's reply. "I can't stay with you."
"We'll handle it, Peppy, don't worry," said Falco.
"I'm sorry, Fox!" Peppy called as he banked his Arwing to the right, turning away from the battle.
The Vault came into view over the horizon a few minutes later as the remnants of the Invader squadrons broke off the fight, returning to the base and the protection on its large gun batteries. "It's huge!" exclaimed Ashe as he got his first look at the Vault.
'Huge' was something of an understatement. The Vault was the center of the Venomian force on MacBeth, and it had become quite entrenched over the last several months. The thirty-meter high walls encompassed an area the size of eight city blocks. Cornerian intelligence had reported that the Vault housed at least four squadrons of fighters, and that more troops were being shipped in on an almost weekly basis. The walls were lined with anti- aircraft turrets, with the largest guns located at the corners of the walls.
"Alright guys, I've got the tanks coming in on the radar," said Fox. "Falco, you take the left side. Ashe, you take the right. Slippy, see if you can get around to the far side."
"What about you, Fox?" asked Slippy.
Fox smiled. "Well, someone has to go up the middle."
The four fighters gunned their engines. They spread out as the base's guns turned their way and opened fire on them. Fox did a quick barrel roll to deflect the first salvo, then he turned his lasers on the smaller turrets, knocking out two before they could fire again.
Falco dove hard as he steered his Arwing around a corner of the base, the massive turret sending repeated bolts of heavy laser fire over him. "Time for a little payback!" Falco shouted, pulling back on the control stick. He opened fire on the turret, but his lasers only made a scratch. "Damn, those things have a lot of armor on them!"
"Switch to nova bombs!" Slippy suggested as he came into range of another corner turret. He locked on and fired a bomb at the turret, pulling up out of the range of the blast as the turret exploded in a fiery cascade.
Fox was focusing on the smaller targets for the time, being, picking them off one by one. He flashed back momentarily to the firing range earlier in the day. They were just targets to him, waiting to be lined up and shot down. And the fact that they were firing back just made things all the more exciting. Fox felt his adrenaline surge as turned another barrel roll. It felt so exhilarating to be kicking tail like this.
A lone Arwing suddenly pulled up alongside Fox. Fox turned his head to glance down. Who could be flying this close to him. He looked down into the cockpit, and saw a familiar rabbit.
"Peppy? What are you doing?" Fox said as he switched the communicator to Peppy's frequency.
Peppy didn't respond. He leaned further forward in his seat until he was almost hunched over the controls. Although there was heavy fire all around him, he wasn't taking any evasive action. He just flew straight ahead, keeping pace with Fox.
Fox tried the communicator again. "Peppy, what's wrong?" Fox looked up and yanked the controls hard, evading another incoming burst of fire. He eyes were drawn to one of the corner turrets. The turret swung around to aim at him, and it fired a lethal blast. Fox gasped in horror as he watched the bolt fly right in front of him, scoring a direct hit on Peppy's ship.
"PEPPY!!"
Peppy's Arwing was vaporized in less than a second.
"NOOO!!!"
Fox's breath quickened. He felt his muscles grow tense. The cockpit of his Arwing grew hotter than a furnace. A film of crimson fell across his field of vision.
"You... BASTARDS!!"
-
Falco watched on his radar as Fox's Arwing surged on ahead, flying over the walls of the Vault, firing away at anything that moved. "Fox, are you nuts?" he shouted over the radio.
"What's going on?" asked Ashe as banked hard to avoid the incoming fire.
"Fox just flew right over the wall! He must be crazy!"
Ashe jabbed at his radio. "Fox, come in! What are you doing?" Ashe's eyes darted off to the side as he heard a sudden explosion. He saw the battalions of tanks rolling towards the base. One by one, they began to explode as the ground burst into fire underneath them. "Falco, mines!"
"Huh?"
"They've mined the ground around the base! The tanks are getting decimated!"
"Shit!" shouted Falco as he tried to get closer to Fox, who was still flying directly over the base, blasting away at everything in sight and hitting very little. The heavy fire from the base's turrets forced him to turn away.
"Falco, the tanks are retreating. We've got to pull out!" yelled Ashe.
"Not without Fox!" growled Falco. "Fox, wake up! What the hell's the matter with you!?" Fox paid no heed to Falco's voice as he continued his rampage. Fox's engines were going full throttle, and he was barreling towards the inside of one of the walls at a fantastic speed.
"Everyone, together," said Ashe. "One... two..."
-
"FOX!!!"
Fox blinked as his vision cleared. He found himself still in the air over the Vault, flying dangerously close to one of the walls. He pulled back hard on the stick, clearing the wall by mere centimeters as he ascended.
"Fox, we've got to retreat! What the bloody hell's wrong with you?" Falco shouted at him.
Reality came crashing back around Fox. The image was engraved into his memory; the burst of fire as Peppy's Arwing disintegrated right in front of him. He saw it each time he blinked his eyes. Fox leaned back in his chair, his shoulders slumped. "Oh, God..."
"Fox, what is it?" asked Falco.
Fox's hands began to shake as the four of them headed for the upper atmosphere. "Peppy... h-he's gone..." Fox bowed his head, his breath coming in ragged gasps. A few seconds later, the tears began.
-