I

Outside, the four cadets were still scrubbing the concrete. Downstairs, in the main building, Tank Reynolds was arguing with the director of the school board about having another graduation ceremony to replace the disaster that was the first ceremony. Across the establishment, the graduate cadets were finishing up their big lunches in the mess hall. In the park, a restoration expert was painstakingly repairing the damage done to the statue by Alyssa's Arwing. It was a calm, lazy, summer afternoon on Katina.

In the skies above, unseen by those going about their business in the air force base and air force academy below, small ships began to appear. They were scarce at first, but they quickly became a seething swarm, like a colony of angry wasps preparing to strike. Once organized, the first wave began its descent. Its destination: the academy.

"What the hell?" Tom said, standing up. He shielded his eyes from the sun. "What's all that?"

"Looks like those ships are coming back from wherever they went," Tiger said, after a quick glance at the sky.

Tom continued to stare. He was soon joined by Alyssa, who looked equally concerned. "Something's not right," he said. "It looks like they're in attack formation…"

The foremost ship suddenly swooped away and began climbing. Below, as Tom watched, the dormitories exploded in a bright orange cloud of fire. The remains of the building crumbled to the ground.

"Holy shit!" Tiger cried.

A missile screamed overhead. "Look out!" Tom shouted. He tackled Alyssa and brought her to the ground just as the missile struck Fox's transport and detonated. The four cadets were showered with shrapnel and ash.

The academy was suddenly alive. Cadets rushed from the mess hall, only to be thrown to the ground as the building behind them was destroyed. Interceptors began to descend upon the doomed cadets, firing endless barrages of laser blasts at them. When the interceptors pulled out and the smoke cleared, Tom saw a pockmarked lawn covered with the bodies of eight cadets. The others ran like mad.

Bombs exploded all around them. Tom and his friends tried desperately to find somewhere to hide, but it seemed that every possible shelter was being torn to shreds by bombs and laser blasts. Black smoke swirled around them.

"To the main building!" Tom shouted. "Go! Run!"

They ran as fast as they could, ducking as nearby ships exploded. They were still a good twenty yards from the building, and an interceptor noticed them. It circled in the air until the four cadets were in its sights. It screamed through the air, firing streams of hot laser blasts.

"Get down!"

Tom and the others hit the concrete hard as they were instantly smothered by laser blasts, tearing up the concrete around them. When he opened his eyes, Tom saw fire. He looked at the sky to see whether the interceptor was coming back for a second run. When it was clear that it was not, Tom got to his feet.

"Is everyone all right?" he asked. He was answered by groans.

"I've been hit!" Bobo shrieked. Tom rushed over and looked for a wound. He saw two; one had cut off the tip of Bobo's tail, and another had put a giant, sizzling hole in his thigh. Tom guessed the leg would have to be amputated.

He and Tiger helped Bobo walk as they crossed that final stretch to the doors. The cadets made it inside, just as another bomber flew over the landing platform and dropped a final bomb. This one struck and destroyed the final surviving ship, while blowing the doors away. Tom shielded his face, getting a gash in his arm as on of the door flew into him.

"You're hurt!" Alyssa cried.

"Never mind that!" Tom shouted. "Get him to the bomb shelter, now!"

On the other side of the building, Fox and Peppy had just entered the laboratory and placed the eye patch on a microscope when the building rocked like a ship.

"What was that?" Peppy wondered.

Fox saw it before Peppy did. Through the windows across the lab, he saw a fighter swoop down, release a missile, and pull out. The missile came through the glass windows and hit the floor. Fox barely opened his mouth before he and Peppy were blown away. The laboratory became an instant inferno as gas lines exploded and chemical-filled flasks burst, and the missile's powerful ammo sent a wave of destruction through the entire room. Fox and Peppy were thrown through the back wall into the hallway, along with molten pieces of metal and gnarled pipes and whistling pieces of glass.

When Fox recovered, he found his head bleeding, and his fur singed. The lab was completely destroyed, with only the floor, covered with debris and fire, intact. Another explosion rocked the building, sending sparks and chunks of drywall to the ground.

What the hell is going on? Fox said to himself. As he did so, his attention was suddenly averted. Peppy still lay on the ground, and Fox saw why. The hare's vest was soaked with blood, and a piece of metal the size of his head was sticking out of his lung.

"Peppy!"

Peppy turned his head to look at him. Blood was streaked from his mouth, staining the white fur red. "Fox," he whispered. "I…"

Another explosion. This time, the ceiling collapsed entirely, showering Fox in pipes, wires, and hot glass from the lights. Objects from the second floor began to fall through, and it looked to Fox like they wouldn't stop.

"It's gonna collapse!" Fox cried. He grabbed hold of Peppy's coat and dragged him down the debris-covered hallway. The old hare resisted.

"Don't, Fox," he whispered. "I… I won't make it…"

"No!" Fox screamed. He shook Peppy angrily.

"Fox," Peppy said with a smile. "I don't want to die… alone at my desk…" And he was gone.

Fox was overcome with shock at the sight of his old friend's motionless body. A metal strut hitting him in the head brought him back. With a final glance at Peppy, Fox ran.

Alyssa and Tiger placed Bobo on a table in the bomb shelter below the building, just as another tremor rocked them. Bits of concrete fell from the ceiling. Alyssa and Tiger exchanged glances.

"We'll come back for you," Alyssa said to Bobo, and she fled up the stairs.

They met Tom at the top. "This place is collapsing!" he said. "We gotta get out of here!"

Alyssa put her hands to her face and looked down towards the bomb shelter. "But Bobo…"

"No time!" Tom shouted. He grabbed her by the arm and ran.

As they reached the main lobby, clouds of gray smoke came pouring from the stairwell. The walls began to crack. There were very few seconds to spare.

"Dad!" Tom cried. Fox had come running from the opposite side of the lobby, where the hallway was already caving in on itself.

"Go, Tom!" Fox waved his arms at his son and ran for the main doors. Outside, a couple of professors were running down the path away from the building. An explosion from above consumed them, leaving nothing but a morose stream of black smoke.

"Now," Tom said, and they ran, leaping over fallen struts and through the shattered glass doors. They ran through the smoke, where they were all but concealed. Once the smoke dissipated, they found themselves exposed and unprotected on a vast battlefield, where many already lay slain.

Fox looked to the sky, expecting a barrage of bombs to be dropped squarely on his head, but none came. The bombers, it seemed, were gone.

"Where are they…" But his question was quickly answered. The academy, with all its buildings, ships and landing platforms, was destroyed. Now, the attackers were going for the air force base.

Behind them, the main building came crashing to the ground, expelling tons of debris and clouds of smoke outwards, stifling Fox and the cadets. Alyssa cried out. Fox hid a tear. Tom closed his eyes.

"What's that?" Tiger cried. Everyone looked to where he was pointing, and saw an alien transport, landing on the lawn a hundred or so yards away. When it had landed, the hatches opened on its underside and heavily armed soldiers began pouring out.

"Ah, hell," Tiger said.

"Shield your eyes," Fox commanded, and he took a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and hurled it at the transport. It landed underneath and when it detonated, it took with it the entire ship. Unfortunately, most of the troops had disembarked by that time.

"C'mon, into the park," Fox said.

The troops started chasing them, but because the collapsed building had given off so much dust and smoke, it was difficult for them to see their targets. Fox knew this, of course, because he found it hard to see himself. His eyes were stinging, and his lungs burned.

A laser blast streaked past them. Fox turned and fired his own blaster, twice to create the impression of multiple blasters. He continued running until the towering branches of the trees covered them.

"Where now?" Tiger wailed. "They'll just pick us off in…"

"Not if we can pick them off first," Fox said. "Keep moving. I'll try and get them at intervals." He turned and dove behind a statue.

Fox soon realized that he was not dealing with ordinary soldiers. As soon as the cadets dispersed and he was alone, hiding behind a statue, the troops fanned out, intending to flank him in his general position. They all had blasters. Before Fox could make a guess as to how they compared to his own, an officer hidden behind a clump of trees made a break for it, but was cut down by a single blast. The gun recoiled fiercely, and the blast punched through the officer's chest without losing any velocity. The flight of the laser blast ended with a sizzle on a cobblestone path beyond the officer's body.

Fox took another grenade, his last, and pulled the pin. After a few seconds, he dropped it by the statue and took off. Before the troops could notice and fill him full of holes, the grenade exploded, taking with it a large portion of the statue. The soldiers were forced to protect themselves from the falling chunks of rock.

Tom appeared out of the trees ahead. Fox motioned for him to keep moving.

"Where are we going?" Tom said.

"Make for the emergency radio tower near the base," Fox said between heavy breaths.

"Are you kidding? That radio tower's huge! They'll surely have bombed it by now!"

"No, no, the emergency radio tower. It's much smaller, and if we're lucky, it's still intact."

The troops began to gain on them. Fox fired again, this time hitting a soldier in the abdomen, causing it to double over. There were at least a dozen left. Fox weaved between trees to off their aim, which he suspected was very good.

"Get down!"

Fox stopped and turned to see the soldiers fall to the ground, and then explode into a million pieces. From their smoking remains came a Katina officer, holding a grenade in one hand and a blaster in another.

"Tank!" Tom cried. "Tank Reynolds!"

"You don't have time to thank me, cadet," Tank said gruffly. "They need backup at the base. I intend to give them whatever help I can."

"You can't help them," Fox said, putting his hand on Tank's shoulder. "Those bombers could kill you in a heartbeat. We must go to the radio tower and get help."

Tank shook off Fox's grip and ran for the base. Tom and Alyssa followed him.

"What…?"

"Sorry, Dad," Tom said. "I don't think radioing for help is gonna do anything."

Fox shook his head. With Tiger in tow, Fox continued making for the radio tower.

II

When they burst out of the park into the open, they finally got a good look at the absolute destruction under way at the base. Unlike the academy, the base was chock-full of supplies, buildings, and, under normal circumstances, ships. Now that most of the air force was out defending Macbeth, the base was only occupied by a few ships and officers; and it was virtually defenseless.

Tank, Tom, and Alyssa dashed through a hole in the fence and into the base, where they found themselves surrounded by fire and debris. Tank motioned for them to follow. They followed for about two hundred yards when an explosion nearby sent them all to their feet.

"Get up!" Tank roared. "There's no time to lose!"

The cadets got to their feet and followed the captain, until they reached an intact storage shed. Inside were four Arwings and a hoverbike.

"All right, listen," Tank whispered. "Most of the interceptors seem to have gone away. If you can bring down a good number of bombers, you could save what's left of the base, and maybe even a few lives. Be quick getting off the ground, all right? Go!"

Tom made his selection, as did Alyssa. They went through the liftoff cycle with record timing, but as they began to lift off, a bomb exploded in close vicinity with the shed, knocking down the roof and three of the walls.

"Shit," Tank shouted. "Go! Go!"

The two Arwings cut on repulsorlifts, went into all-range mode, and were off. Tank escaped the shed just as another bomb fell, destroying the building and the Arwings within.

Fox saw the Arwings lift off from across the compound. Good luck, kids, he thought, and continued running toward the tiny radio tower hidden at the edge of the base. It looked intact.

"Mr. McCloud, sir!" Tiger shouted. "Look!"

A few hundred yards away, a transport had just lifted off, leaving twenty more armed soldiers on the ground. Fox swore under his breath.

The two made it into the radio tower. Fox shut the door and tossed his blaster to Tiger.

"Here," he said. "Hold 'em off as best you can."

Tiger nodded. Fox turned and began tuning the antique equipment. "Ah, Corneria," he said. "Come in, Corneria. Come in, Fortuna. Macbeth? Hello? Can anybody hear me? Hello?" Fox swiftly adjusted the equipment with frustration. He looked to the sky in desperation, and suddenly, saw why the radio wouldn't work, and would never work again. Katina, it seemed, had a new ring. Frigates, large and small, orbited the planet, creating a blockade impenetrable by anything.

And because of their collective jamming signals, not even an emergency beacon would go through.

An explosion from behind sprayed acrid clouds of smoke and hot sparks into Fox's face. Turning around, he saw that the door had been blown in by a grenade, and that five of the soldiers were now firing into the small radio tower. One bright red streak barely missed his ear, hitting the only computer console in the tower. Flames jumped from the dead monitor.

"I can't hold them off!" Tiger shouted from his shelter at the side of the door. He exposed himself for a moment, fired, and returned, just as a torrent of return fire came.

Fox overturned the table, completely disregarding the radio equipment that once sat on it, and used it as his own barrier. Within moments, the repeated blaster shots began to tear the table apart.

Fox said, "That's my only blaster!" just as a beam struck a piece of equipment on the ground before the table, blowing it to pieces with a clatter.

"This is a military base! They should have some guns laying around here!"

A bomb landed particularly close to the radio tower, and although the soldiers noticed it and began to scramble, they weren't early enough. The two closest to the explosion were blown to bits, while the others were knocked flat on their backs, stunned or unconscious.

Fox, meanwhile, found himself sudden exposed as the explosion ripped the walls off the old radio tower. Blinded by smoke, momentarily (or so he hoped) deaf from the explosion, and with a right hand bleeding profusely, he was sure that he was doomed.

Fox bent down into the rubble and pulled Tiger to his feet. "Come on!" he shouted. "Let's go!"

Tiger looked at him in confusion. He said something, but Fox heard nothing but a faint ringing in his ears. He shook his head and grabbed Tiger by the arm, pulling him along. It was then that he noticed his thumb was missing.

He didn't notice the pain, as his body had automatically shifted its priorities from "protect from injury" to "protect from death," but when he tried to grab at the boy's arm, the lack of an opposable thumb left his hand to slip away, leaving a giant spot of blood on Tiger's shirt. Fox looked down and stared at the hand, dumbfounded.

Now Tiger was pulling him along, and when Fox looked up from his hand, he saw that the smoke had begun to clear. Behind them, the soldiers were beginning to stir. Fox turned away and ran; his fear and faintness due to loss of blood changed him from a courageous leader to a stumbling, drunken moron, barely able to walk towards a definitive goal even with Tiger leading him by both shoulders. Streaks of red began to sweep past them, and Tiger was shouting again, although Fox could still make nothing out. His guide was going for a pile of rubble as temporary protection from the blasts, which were becoming increasingly frequent. Fox could no longer tell how many were shooting at him, his vision was so skewered and his balance so unchecked.

Another bomb, again unbearably close, went off. Fox was thrown forward into the unwelcoming pile of rubble. His head struck some hard object, and even with useless ears, Fox could hear the unmistakable crunch of bone. A hole in his head was opened; and his mind, a hapless passenger of a spaceship with a breached wall, was sucked out, leaving his body cold and lifeless.

III

"All right Alyssa. Break up, and take it to them!"

Tom pulled his craft into a barrel roll to the left, making a turn that took the bombers into his sights, while Alyssa did the same in the opposite direction. Tom narrowed his eyes, and rocketed forward.

The first wave of bombers pulling away from the destruction to come around for another pass looked genuinely surprised. Halfway up, the five bombers began to try turning around, going into a tailspin and making them all the more vulnerable to Tom's attack. He squeezed the trigger five times, sending a fatal shot through each craft's innards. All five went spiraling into the ground.

"We caught them napping," Alyssa boasted. Across the base, she had already destroyed four bombers.

"Don't dwell on it!" Tom warned, although also proud. "Hit them fast and hard!"

He flew straight into the fray, hitting retreating and attacking craft alike, even destroying ships with their backs to him. These he hit especially hard, feeling a dark sense of justice as he gave himself as much of an unfair advantage as they had in attacking a mostly vacant base in the first place.

"What the hell? Tom, look down there!"

Tom leaned over, and at the edge of the base, saw a group of huddled soldiers firing into the base. "They're not friendly, whatever they are," he said. "Give 'em a few warning shots so they scatter."

Alyssa did so. She killed one troop and knocked down several others, but the rest of them persisted in attacking. A few even shot at Alyssa's Arwing.

"What's wrong with those guys?" Alyssa cried. "They're not moving!"

Tom frowned. "Let me handle them." He swooped down, charged up a shot, locked onto the group, and fired. This vaporized over half the troops instantly. The rest, three or four at the most, turned around and retreated. "That did the trick," he said with a grin.

The bombers were in attack formation now. They still didn't pose a threat to the two Arwings, since the bombers had most of their power in their shields and bombs, and very little in melee combat power. Tom and Alyssa continued to shoot them down with ease.

"Uh, oh, Tom," Alyssa's voice crackled on the radio. "Trouble up above."

Tom glanced into the sky, and saw what appeared to be a giant flock of birds diving towards the base. His experience taught him better, though; these were interceptor fighters. Now, the strengths were matched, and Tom and Alyssa were outnumbered one thousand to one.

"Head for the wilderness," Tom ordered. "Draw them away from the base!"

Tom shot away into the east, while Alyssa flew towards the west. But these efforts seemed useless pretty quickly. The waves of interceptors, it seemed, were a bluff; the attacking force was retreating.

Within moments, the sky of Katina was empty, and before a minute had passed, so was the space above the planet.

Tom and Alyssa both turned their eyes from the sky and stared down at the Air Force Academy and Air Force Base of Katina, and the complete destruction that had befallen both within a single hour.

IV

From the War Room of Corneria, Pepper watched intently as monitors began to show numbers concerning the attack on Macbeth. The first thing he noticed was that the death toll and damage costs were both very low. He wouldn't have expected such low numbers, especially over the course of several hours.

"Come in, Corneria," crackled a newly lit hologram. "Come in…"

"This is Corneria," Pepper shouted. "General Pepper speaking." Although the War Room had quieted down since the beginning of the invasion, it was still loud, and he had gotten used to shouting.

"This is Commodore Jerry Python," the hologram said. "I'm in Macbeth right now. May I speak with Admiral Fox McCloud, General Pepper?"

"He's not here right now, so I'll have to do," Pepper growled.

"Very well, then, pass my reports on to the Admiral," Jerry said. With a pause, he continued, "The combined forces of the Air Force and the Navy managed to bring down a good number of their craft. Considering the numbers in that short duration, we probably could have eliminated them completely, if they hadn't retreated so quickly."

"So, it's a victory then?"

"Yes, sir. A very good first victory for the Navy, I might add."

Pepper looked pleased. Just then, a nearby hologram unit began to flicker. No one else looked like they were going to take it.

"Just a moment," Pepper said.

The hologram faded away, and Pepper walked over to the other one. At first, he began to think that it was a false message, perhaps an error in the confusion of the battle at Macbeth. But the image began to get clearer, until Pepper was sure that he could see a fox's face.

"Come… Corner… in… hel…"

The reception was poor, full of holes and static, but it sounded urgent. "This is Corneria," Pepper said. "Pepper…"

"Corne… ple… in… Hel…"

"This is Corneria," Pepper yelled. "Pepper speaking!"

"Oh… Pe… this…om… Cloud…"

"What?" Pepper cried. "Please repeat that last message."

"Fou… nother… adio tow… tryi… hours… ntact…"

"What was that? I didn't copy. Please repeat."

"This…om Mc… oud… ling from… atina… we… been atta…"

"Repeat your last message, please!"

"Repea… Katin… wa… attacked."

"Oh, my dear God." Pepper stared with jaw dropped and shoulders sagged, a frozen and desperately forlorn figure staring at a fuzzy hologram in a busy War Room on Corneria.