Chapter V
-
Four days. Four long days of posing as a mercenary on Titania, Lylat's perpetual slum. A wretched hive of scum and villainy, as someone once said. Four days of buying people drinks and listening to every rumor. Those four days had led Ashe to a small bomb shelter located a few kilometers outside of an outpost called Privateer's Haven.
Ashe has arrived late in the day, when the sun was almost down and the baking heat of Titania's desert had subsided. Wind had partially obscured the plain metal door, but there were signs that it had been recently excavated. At least the wind was calm for now. Ashe stepped forward and banged his knuckles against the door. A moment later the door's spyhole slid open, and a beady eye poked out of it, along with the business end of a blaster.
"Who the hell're you?" snapped a voice from the other side of the door.
Ashe stepped back fearfully as the blaster pointed in his direction. "Easy there... I'm just here to talk."
The lone eye looked him up and down. "You look like a bounty hunter."
"I'm a priest, actually," replied Ashe.
"That's even worse. Fuck off."
"Wolf, please listen. I just want to talk."
"Yeah, like talking about how you'll spend the money you'll make bringing me in," accused the voice. "Now you've got two seconds to get the hell out of here before I put a hole in your head." There was a faint electric whine as the blaster charged up. "One..."
"I came here because of Haley!" shouted Ashe.
The voice paused, and the blaster powered back down. It didn't move from where it was aiming at the preacher. "So you did your homework, I see," said the gruff voice. "Why should I listen to you?"
"Because your friend Fox is being driven insane by what happened."
The voice gave a derisive snort. "Good. Tell him to enjoy the trip."
Ashe sighed softly. "So you don't trust me then?"
"Not seeing any reason why I should."
"Alright. Name your price."
"Huh?"
"What must I do to earn your trust?"
The eye in the spyhole narrowed a bit, as if in thought. "Okay, preacher. You wanna do a good deed? Go kill Pigma."
Ashe's brow shot up in surprise. "Pigma Dengar? I thought he was your fr-"
"He's NOT my friend!" shouted the voice. "He's a fat traitor who cheats at cards and would stab his own mother in the back if someone paid him."
"Alright... Do you know where I can find him?" asked Ashe.
"He's got a little office up on Oberon, Titania's moon. Good luck getting past his bodyguards. I don't think they'll listen to your sermon."
Ashe nodded. "Very well. I'll return soon." He turned and walked away. The spyhole snapped shut behind him.
-
Fox yawned as he walked down the stairs to the main room of the Great Fox. The other members of the team were already up, huddled around the TV. "Morning," Fox mumbled as he instinctively reached for the coffee pot.
"Hey Fox, check out the news," said Falco. Fox walked over to where the other three pilots were sitting, leaving his coffee mug on the countertop. Explosions were rocking a city on the television. After a brief moment of confusion, Fox realized that it was Corneria City. Swarms of Invaders and other Venomian craft were flying overhead, destroying everything in their path. The camera cut away to another city, which was being likewise bombed. This time it was a city on Katina. Then a research outpost on Fortuna was being bombed. Then back to Corneria again.
"It's a full-scale invasion," said Peppy. "Andross is hitting every major city and military outpost we've got." Fox could only stare at the flickering images in shock.
"What do we do, Fox?" asked Slippy.
"Yeah Fox," added Falco. "What do we do?"
Fox felt all of them staring at him, expecting some sort of master plan to save the Lylat system from annihilation. "I... I don't know."
"James always knew what to do," Peppy said.
"Well, I'm not James!" Fox protested.
"You got that right," commented Falco. "He'd never let things get this bad."
Fox was about to respond when General Pepper came onto the television screen. "StarFox, where are you?" shouted the general over the roar of explosions behind him. "We need your he-" One of the bombers streaked towards the building that Pepper was standing in front of. There was an enormous explosion, and the image on the TV was replaced with static.
Fox felt his mouth go dry. His teammates got up from the couch and began to encircle him.
"Failure!" Slippy accused him.
Panic began to rise inside of Fox. He tried to break away, but Peppy and Slippy had grabbed his arms in a surprisingly strong grip, pinning them behind his back. Falco stood in front of him, pulling a switchblade out of his jacket pocket. "Let me go!" shouted Fox.
Falco loomed over him menacingly, staring down at him like a judge about to sentence a criminal. He opened the switchblade in his hand. "You're a failure," announced Falco in a cold, matter-of-fact tone. Emotionlessly, the falcon drove the sharp blade towards Fox's left eye.
-
The ground fell out from underneath Fox as he tried to twist himself away from the knife. After a few moments of disorientation, Fox took a look around where he was. He was in his room again on the Great Fox, the bedsheets wrapped around his lower body. He was sitting on the floor next to his bed. With a gasp Fox touched his left eye, blinking it a few times. It appeared undamaged.
Fox let his body sink back against the floor as he breathed deeply, trying to recover. The nightmares were getting worse. He had experienced nightmares before on many occasions, but they were never this vivid, or this frequent. What was it now, four nights in a row? Ever since that damn priest had showed up and yanked the rug out from underneath Fox. Well, at least he was gone, and hopefully, he wouldn't come back.
Sleep was definitely out of the question now. Fox pulled the sheets off from around his legs and dropped them back on the bed. He hit the light switch on the wall, squinting for a moment as his eyes got used to the brightness. He picked up a shirt off of the floor and left the room. At first, Fox had intended to go grab a soda and watch a few movies until he passed out on the couch, but he changed his mind as he stared at the door across the hallway from him. He took a deep breath, and knocked on the metal door.
"Hrm? What?" came Peppy's mumbled reply from within the room. "What's going on?"
"It's me," Fox said. "Could I talk to you for a moment?"
There was a loud yawn. "Of course, Fox. Be right up." A few seconds later a pajama-clad Peppy opened his door and invited Fox into his neat bedroom. "Having nightmares again?" asked the elderly hare.
Fox nodded, taking a seat on the edge of Peppy's bed. Peppy sat down next to him. "It's getting worse," Fox said in a shaky voice. "Damnit, why won't it just go away?"
Peppy placed his hand on Fox's shoulder. "Fox... I know you have a lot on your mind. Right now the best thing to do is to try and relax, and let out whatever you've been keeping bottled inside of you for so long."
Fox let his gaze drop down to the floor. "Well, I've been wondering..."
"About what, Fox?" said Peppy.
Fox paused for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh. "Do you think he was ever... proud of me?" He looked back up into Peppy's eyes.
"Of course. He loved you." replied Peppy.
"Never showed it," Fox muttered as he looked back down at the floor.
"Fox... James was in shock for a while after your mother died. We all were. But he repressed his emotions, and he never dealt with it. Ever since that day, he never wanted to talk about Vixy or what happened to her."
Fox remembered it all too well. He was only about ten meters away when the bomb went off in his mother's car, her forgotten purse in his hands. He remembered the heat of the explosion, then the pain of the shockwave as it knocked him over, then his screaming in horror and disbelief. He felt himself begin to tremble a bit, and he fought back the tears that came to him instinctively.
Peppy continued, pushing his glasses back up his short muzzle. "Maybe he just didn't know how to deal with it. Or maybe he was just afraid of what would happen if he tried to."
Fox closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. He felt Peppy rubbing his shoulder in a comforting gesture. "But you are dealing with it, Fox," said Peppy. "It hurts, I know. But you need to let the hurt out to get over it."
"I know," whispered Fox. "But why does it still hurt?"
-
Ashe had checked himself into the cleanest motel that he could find in Privateer's Haven. It certainly wasn't the Corneria City Royale, but at least he didn't discover any vermin when he inspected the room. He had been searching through cybernet for a few hours, gathering clues and trying to brainstorm how he was going to make it past a few dozen heavily armed guards all by himself.
What he had come up with was a few intel reports from covert ops teams who had tried to assassinate Pigma on two prior occasions. He was able to get the report from the contacts he still had in the marine corps. Apparently, Pigma had several quick means of escape from his hideouts, and he had always slipped away at the first hint of trouble, leaving an explosive for the team to find instead. Ashe was also able to retrieve a few basic dossiers of each of StarWolf's members, so at least he would know who he was looking for and have a clue what to expect.
Ashe got up from the rickety desk in his motel room and rubbed his hands over his tired eyes. He had been at this task for hours, and was so far no closer to forming a workable plan. It was getting close to midnight, and he was starting to get tired. He walked into the bathroom and splashed his face with water. He looked at himself hard in the mirror, studying the way the water dripped off of his reflection's muzzle.
Ashe blinked once. So did his reflection.
A terribly stupid idea began to form in Ashe's mind.
He continued to stare at himself for another half hour, and when no other ideas presented themselves, he decided that this was probably the best he could come up with.
-
The only city on Oberon was contained in an environment dome, since the moon had no atmosphere of it's own. It wasn't much of a city; it housed mostly office building for people who were managing various businesses on the planet below and wanted some sense of security from the riff-raff who lived on the planet or a respite from the desert heat.
Wolf O'Donnell strode resolutely up to the door of the short office building that Venomian intelligence had made into their headquarters. He didn't even pause as the two lizard soldiers in full combat armor stepped in front of the doorway.
"Halt!" announced one of the soldiers, lifting his blaster rifle. "This building is under the command of the Venomian Intelligence Agen... Oh, Commander O'Donnell! Is that you?" he said as he noticed Wolf's eyepatch.
Wolf growled in annoyance. "No, it's Santa Claws. Now how about stepping aside before I blow your stupid brains out?" The soldiers both saluted and stepped aside quickly. Wolf continued his fast, purposeful walk into the building. Without hesitation he entered the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor.
After the brief elevator ride, he continued past the small group of armed guards who had made the executive lobby into their own personal lounge. He shouted a few condescending remarks at them about their slovenly disclipine, then he yanked open the door to the president's office. Behind the large mahogany desk sat Pigma Dengar, all one hundred and fifty kilograms of him.
"Wolf!" Pigma shouted in surprise, "What are you doing here?"
"Checking up on you," replied Wolf. "Andross wants an update on what you've been up to."
"What, he's too lazy to read my reports now?" Pigma said.
"No, he just wants one from someone competent," Wolf snapped. "So, what's going on?"
Pigma rolled his beady eyes in annoyance and opened a drawer in the desk, taking out a small plastic box and tossing it over the desk at Wolf. Wolf caught the object in mid air. "What's this?" he asked as he walked forward into the large office. It was a featureless device, painted green and about the size of a deck of cards.
"That," Pigma said proudly, "Is the downfall of the Katinan air force. It's a remote kill-switch hack. Just attach it to the hull of a ship and you can override the ship's engine control."
Wolf smiled. "Bet that could do a lot of damage to an airborne fleet, eh?" he asked, slowly walking around Pigma's desk.
Pigma cackled mirthfully. "Oh yes. I've got an agent who is posing as a mechanic on Katina. I just sent him a few dozen of these devices. Bill Grey will never know what hit him!" The fat pilot let out a high-pitched giggle. He was so delighted with hiw own cleverness that he had failed to notice that Wolf was now standing just behind him.
Wolf's hand blurred as he reached into his overcoat and drew out a small, silenced blaster. Before Pigma could turn around or shout an alarm, Wolf fired on him. The shot hit Pigma on the back of the neck, and he collapsed forward onto the desk. Wolf put away his blaster and pocketed the hacking device.
"Amen."
-
-
Four days. Four long days of posing as a mercenary on Titania, Lylat's perpetual slum. A wretched hive of scum and villainy, as someone once said. Four days of buying people drinks and listening to every rumor. Those four days had led Ashe to a small bomb shelter located a few kilometers outside of an outpost called Privateer's Haven.
Ashe has arrived late in the day, when the sun was almost down and the baking heat of Titania's desert had subsided. Wind had partially obscured the plain metal door, but there were signs that it had been recently excavated. At least the wind was calm for now. Ashe stepped forward and banged his knuckles against the door. A moment later the door's spyhole slid open, and a beady eye poked out of it, along with the business end of a blaster.
"Who the hell're you?" snapped a voice from the other side of the door.
Ashe stepped back fearfully as the blaster pointed in his direction. "Easy there... I'm just here to talk."
The lone eye looked him up and down. "You look like a bounty hunter."
"I'm a priest, actually," replied Ashe.
"That's even worse. Fuck off."
"Wolf, please listen. I just want to talk."
"Yeah, like talking about how you'll spend the money you'll make bringing me in," accused the voice. "Now you've got two seconds to get the hell out of here before I put a hole in your head." There was a faint electric whine as the blaster charged up. "One..."
"I came here because of Haley!" shouted Ashe.
The voice paused, and the blaster powered back down. It didn't move from where it was aiming at the preacher. "So you did your homework, I see," said the gruff voice. "Why should I listen to you?"
"Because your friend Fox is being driven insane by what happened."
The voice gave a derisive snort. "Good. Tell him to enjoy the trip."
Ashe sighed softly. "So you don't trust me then?"
"Not seeing any reason why I should."
"Alright. Name your price."
"Huh?"
"What must I do to earn your trust?"
The eye in the spyhole narrowed a bit, as if in thought. "Okay, preacher. You wanna do a good deed? Go kill Pigma."
Ashe's brow shot up in surprise. "Pigma Dengar? I thought he was your fr-"
"He's NOT my friend!" shouted the voice. "He's a fat traitor who cheats at cards and would stab his own mother in the back if someone paid him."
"Alright... Do you know where I can find him?" asked Ashe.
"He's got a little office up on Oberon, Titania's moon. Good luck getting past his bodyguards. I don't think they'll listen to your sermon."
Ashe nodded. "Very well. I'll return soon." He turned and walked away. The spyhole snapped shut behind him.
-
Fox yawned as he walked down the stairs to the main room of the Great Fox. The other members of the team were already up, huddled around the TV. "Morning," Fox mumbled as he instinctively reached for the coffee pot.
"Hey Fox, check out the news," said Falco. Fox walked over to where the other three pilots were sitting, leaving his coffee mug on the countertop. Explosions were rocking a city on the television. After a brief moment of confusion, Fox realized that it was Corneria City. Swarms of Invaders and other Venomian craft were flying overhead, destroying everything in their path. The camera cut away to another city, which was being likewise bombed. This time it was a city on Katina. Then a research outpost on Fortuna was being bombed. Then back to Corneria again.
"It's a full-scale invasion," said Peppy. "Andross is hitting every major city and military outpost we've got." Fox could only stare at the flickering images in shock.
"What do we do, Fox?" asked Slippy.
"Yeah Fox," added Falco. "What do we do?"
Fox felt all of them staring at him, expecting some sort of master plan to save the Lylat system from annihilation. "I... I don't know."
"James always knew what to do," Peppy said.
"Well, I'm not James!" Fox protested.
"You got that right," commented Falco. "He'd never let things get this bad."
Fox was about to respond when General Pepper came onto the television screen. "StarFox, where are you?" shouted the general over the roar of explosions behind him. "We need your he-" One of the bombers streaked towards the building that Pepper was standing in front of. There was an enormous explosion, and the image on the TV was replaced with static.
Fox felt his mouth go dry. His teammates got up from the couch and began to encircle him.
"Failure!" Slippy accused him.
Panic began to rise inside of Fox. He tried to break away, but Peppy and Slippy had grabbed his arms in a surprisingly strong grip, pinning them behind his back. Falco stood in front of him, pulling a switchblade out of his jacket pocket. "Let me go!" shouted Fox.
Falco loomed over him menacingly, staring down at him like a judge about to sentence a criminal. He opened the switchblade in his hand. "You're a failure," announced Falco in a cold, matter-of-fact tone. Emotionlessly, the falcon drove the sharp blade towards Fox's left eye.
-
The ground fell out from underneath Fox as he tried to twist himself away from the knife. After a few moments of disorientation, Fox took a look around where he was. He was in his room again on the Great Fox, the bedsheets wrapped around his lower body. He was sitting on the floor next to his bed. With a gasp Fox touched his left eye, blinking it a few times. It appeared undamaged.
Fox let his body sink back against the floor as he breathed deeply, trying to recover. The nightmares were getting worse. He had experienced nightmares before on many occasions, but they were never this vivid, or this frequent. What was it now, four nights in a row? Ever since that damn priest had showed up and yanked the rug out from underneath Fox. Well, at least he was gone, and hopefully, he wouldn't come back.
Sleep was definitely out of the question now. Fox pulled the sheets off from around his legs and dropped them back on the bed. He hit the light switch on the wall, squinting for a moment as his eyes got used to the brightness. He picked up a shirt off of the floor and left the room. At first, Fox had intended to go grab a soda and watch a few movies until he passed out on the couch, but he changed his mind as he stared at the door across the hallway from him. He took a deep breath, and knocked on the metal door.
"Hrm? What?" came Peppy's mumbled reply from within the room. "What's going on?"
"It's me," Fox said. "Could I talk to you for a moment?"
There was a loud yawn. "Of course, Fox. Be right up." A few seconds later a pajama-clad Peppy opened his door and invited Fox into his neat bedroom. "Having nightmares again?" asked the elderly hare.
Fox nodded, taking a seat on the edge of Peppy's bed. Peppy sat down next to him. "It's getting worse," Fox said in a shaky voice. "Damnit, why won't it just go away?"
Peppy placed his hand on Fox's shoulder. "Fox... I know you have a lot on your mind. Right now the best thing to do is to try and relax, and let out whatever you've been keeping bottled inside of you for so long."
Fox let his gaze drop down to the floor. "Well, I've been wondering..."
"About what, Fox?" said Peppy.
Fox paused for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh. "Do you think he was ever... proud of me?" He looked back up into Peppy's eyes.
"Of course. He loved you." replied Peppy.
"Never showed it," Fox muttered as he looked back down at the floor.
"Fox... James was in shock for a while after your mother died. We all were. But he repressed his emotions, and he never dealt with it. Ever since that day, he never wanted to talk about Vixy or what happened to her."
Fox remembered it all too well. He was only about ten meters away when the bomb went off in his mother's car, her forgotten purse in his hands. He remembered the heat of the explosion, then the pain of the shockwave as it knocked him over, then his screaming in horror and disbelief. He felt himself begin to tremble a bit, and he fought back the tears that came to him instinctively.
Peppy continued, pushing his glasses back up his short muzzle. "Maybe he just didn't know how to deal with it. Or maybe he was just afraid of what would happen if he tried to."
Fox closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. He felt Peppy rubbing his shoulder in a comforting gesture. "But you are dealing with it, Fox," said Peppy. "It hurts, I know. But you need to let the hurt out to get over it."
"I know," whispered Fox. "But why does it still hurt?"
-
Ashe had checked himself into the cleanest motel that he could find in Privateer's Haven. It certainly wasn't the Corneria City Royale, but at least he didn't discover any vermin when he inspected the room. He had been searching through cybernet for a few hours, gathering clues and trying to brainstorm how he was going to make it past a few dozen heavily armed guards all by himself.
What he had come up with was a few intel reports from covert ops teams who had tried to assassinate Pigma on two prior occasions. He was able to get the report from the contacts he still had in the marine corps. Apparently, Pigma had several quick means of escape from his hideouts, and he had always slipped away at the first hint of trouble, leaving an explosive for the team to find instead. Ashe was also able to retrieve a few basic dossiers of each of StarWolf's members, so at least he would know who he was looking for and have a clue what to expect.
Ashe got up from the rickety desk in his motel room and rubbed his hands over his tired eyes. He had been at this task for hours, and was so far no closer to forming a workable plan. It was getting close to midnight, and he was starting to get tired. He walked into the bathroom and splashed his face with water. He looked at himself hard in the mirror, studying the way the water dripped off of his reflection's muzzle.
Ashe blinked once. So did his reflection.
A terribly stupid idea began to form in Ashe's mind.
He continued to stare at himself for another half hour, and when no other ideas presented themselves, he decided that this was probably the best he could come up with.
-
The only city on Oberon was contained in an environment dome, since the moon had no atmosphere of it's own. It wasn't much of a city; it housed mostly office building for people who were managing various businesses on the planet below and wanted some sense of security from the riff-raff who lived on the planet or a respite from the desert heat.
Wolf O'Donnell strode resolutely up to the door of the short office building that Venomian intelligence had made into their headquarters. He didn't even pause as the two lizard soldiers in full combat armor stepped in front of the doorway.
"Halt!" announced one of the soldiers, lifting his blaster rifle. "This building is under the command of the Venomian Intelligence Agen... Oh, Commander O'Donnell! Is that you?" he said as he noticed Wolf's eyepatch.
Wolf growled in annoyance. "No, it's Santa Claws. Now how about stepping aside before I blow your stupid brains out?" The soldiers both saluted and stepped aside quickly. Wolf continued his fast, purposeful walk into the building. Without hesitation he entered the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor.
After the brief elevator ride, he continued past the small group of armed guards who had made the executive lobby into their own personal lounge. He shouted a few condescending remarks at them about their slovenly disclipine, then he yanked open the door to the president's office. Behind the large mahogany desk sat Pigma Dengar, all one hundred and fifty kilograms of him.
"Wolf!" Pigma shouted in surprise, "What are you doing here?"
"Checking up on you," replied Wolf. "Andross wants an update on what you've been up to."
"What, he's too lazy to read my reports now?" Pigma said.
"No, he just wants one from someone competent," Wolf snapped. "So, what's going on?"
Pigma rolled his beady eyes in annoyance and opened a drawer in the desk, taking out a small plastic box and tossing it over the desk at Wolf. Wolf caught the object in mid air. "What's this?" he asked as he walked forward into the large office. It was a featureless device, painted green and about the size of a deck of cards.
"That," Pigma said proudly, "Is the downfall of the Katinan air force. It's a remote kill-switch hack. Just attach it to the hull of a ship and you can override the ship's engine control."
Wolf smiled. "Bet that could do a lot of damage to an airborne fleet, eh?" he asked, slowly walking around Pigma's desk.
Pigma cackled mirthfully. "Oh yes. I've got an agent who is posing as a mechanic on Katina. I just sent him a few dozen of these devices. Bill Grey will never know what hit him!" The fat pilot let out a high-pitched giggle. He was so delighted with hiw own cleverness that he had failed to notice that Wolf was now standing just behind him.
Wolf's hand blurred as he reached into his overcoat and drew out a small, silenced blaster. Before Pigma could turn around or shout an alarm, Wolf fired on him. The shot hit Pigma on the back of the neck, and he collapsed forward onto the desk. Wolf put away his blaster and pocketed the hacking device.
"Amen."
-