Author's Note: Once again, apologies for the long time between updates. This time I can blame school starting. The good news (or bad news if you look at it that way) is that you won't have to put up with it much longer. This is a relatively short chapter because it's setting up for the final chapter. My plan is one more chapter, then an epilogue. The plan might change, but we'll see. There's also been talk of a sequel, but I'd have to think more on that. Anyway, as always, thank you for reading and sticking with it and enjoy! --Foxmerc

CHAPTER 15
Heroes Reborn
Fortuna orbit
0733 hours

I didn't quite know how to react as Falco sunk into the co-pilot's seat. So I didn't react. I touched a switch on the control board that raised the divider between us and the rest of the dropship and simply stared through the canopy into deep space. We sat in awkward silence for a few moments, my hands folded over my pistol on my lap. I didn't know if Falco saw it and I didn't really care.

"So Gage is still crazy as ever, eh?" he finally said. "And I see he found a girl just as crazy."

I didn't.

"Look, Fox, I—"

"What are you doing here?"

He glanced at me for a moment then joined me in staring out at the stars.

"I couldn't just go," he replied. "I fucked up and I wanted to make things right. You're still in the middle of this mercenary war and that's no time to bail. So I listened in on your radio chatter and tapped the Solar Wind's comm frequency. I didn't put up with Slippy all those years without learning a few things. So I came here ahead of you and posed as a merc in case you needed a hand. Looks like it was a good move."

I shook my head. "So what now? Forgive and forget? Forget that Peppy's still in critical condition, forget that you sold me out and nearly got me killed. I vowed I would never make the same mistake as my father; I made damn sure I fully trusted everyone on my team. It looks like I failed that."

"Fox—"

"How could I even think to trust you again? What makes you any better than Pigma?"

His head snapped in my direction and he looked at me through wide eyes. I was almost relieved to see that I struck a nerve. He didn't have an answer for me, but I saw the answer in how he set his jaw and looked forward again: he was here, remorseful, whereas Pigma had still tried to kill me for years. It didn't change much in my mind. A remorseful traitor still had the potential to betray again. But there was something different about Falco. He always loved to get into arguments because it gave him an excuse to be combative and yell back. But now, his eyes took on a distant depth and he remained silent. It was the kind of look he had back on that God-forsaken island where I first discovered his "alternate allegiance." It was the look of a broken man who knew it.

I thought for a moment. I knew Falco's background. He grew up on the streets, raised by gangs. No matter how much he evolved as a person, that childhood would always be there. Everyone makes mistakes, as they say…his just had the capacity to be a little bigger. I guess my real pain came from being uncertain as to whether I, the team, or StarFox ever truly meant anything to him. Was our friendship or his loyalty ever real?

"Do you remember back towards the end of the war," I said, "when the Great Fox took a missile hit to the wing in Sector Z? We had to stay at that repair station on Macbeth for a week before we could continue to Area 6."

He nodded.

"And I was feeling really down. We had all nearly died and the whole war was starting to wear me down. I got the team together. I was afraid you guys were fed up also and wouldn't want to continue, so I gave you all the option of staying back. Peppy and Slippy wouldn't hear anything of it, but you said something that night that stuck with me all these years. It was probably the first thing that made me realize that we, the team, were a family. Do you remember what it was?"

He nodded without a moment's hesitation, but didn't speak. That took a bit more effort. Finally, he said, "We fly together, we die together."

I felt a little comfort knowing he remembered that. If there was one thing Falco was really terrible at, it was faking emotions. His proud nature would never let him show even false weakness. I dug and rustled through myself to find any sort of kindness that hadn't yet been turned cynical by this war. I remembered how I turned on Gage and he didn't give up on me. I was no saint. Perhaps, after the courage he had showed in the relay station, I at least owed Falco a chance.

"You'll have to make your own case to get Slippy back on your side," I said. "But I'll let you hang around. We'll see if we can salvage something from this whole mess."

He looked at me with a little grin. "Thanks, Fox."

Meanwhile...

There was nothing I would've liked better than a little R and R on the Solar Wind. I was glad Andrea kept to herself most of the flight back; I had a hard enough time hiding my shaking hand from the rest of the guys. I'm not the kind of guy who shrinks and sucks his thumb when things get rough. Don't even begin to think that. I know enough people who can vouch for me the other way. But no matter how hardened years of battle make a soldier, he still has a breaking point. Prisons were my peeve, my secret demon. My real military career started in one. I was a POW back in the first months of the war when I was a little snot-nosed teenage private. Long story short, something triggered my inner toughness and I eventually led a breakout. The whole thing caught the eye of some Special Forces officers and the rest is history. But those months I spent in a Venom military prison…let's just say it's the kind of thing that would haunt you. Having the old memories rush back in the basement of West Relay didn't exactly start my day out right. However, though my hands might shake, they could still grip a gun and get to work.

I couldn't believe Andrea came after me. I couldn't believe even more that she made it that far. Quite a few surprises in her. She might not have the best training or the best precision with a gun, but she proved one thing I always lived by: a true purpose in battle is more of a drive than anything else. I guess that's why she, me, and Fox even survived this long. It's why Lylat eventually won against Andross, that's for sure. What purpose did she have? A thought both troubling and happy came into my head.

Was she falling for me the same way I was falling for her?

I derailed that train of thought. Gage Birse the husband? Love and the job don't mix. Even if it was true, I had to stay focused. Our morning jaunt around West Relay proved that something big was going down. I just hoped those files I managed to transfer showed us something useful.

When we finally began docking procedures, I stood with a groan and asked around the former prisoners until I found the highest ranking one, a Captain Harris. I told him to keep his people together and await orders…after the Admiral found out he suddenly had a few dozen more soldiers to accommodate. He nodded and as I stood to leave, he suddenly grabbed my arm, looked me straight in the eye, and said the most sincere "thank you" I ever heard. I nodded back to him and glanced over at Andrea. She had heard and a big grin was plastered on her gray muzzle. She didn't care that the thanks wasn't directed towards her; Harris was thankful for the rescue, and she knew she pulled it off. She definitely had the humility of a Dagger man…the tolerance to put it all on the line every day and never receive even recognition in return. So goes life in black ops.

Speak of the devil…

The hangar was crowded with crewmen and medics tending to the former prisoners and engineers stabilizing the dropship. And there in the middle of it all, staring up at me and standing like they were posing for a gun nut magazine, unaffected by the hectic atmosphere, was my team, the almighty Dagger, my brothers – and sister – in arms. I felt a wave of happiness at seeing them as if I was meeting my family at the airport. Upon seeing me, they came to attention and saluted. I saluted back and grinned.

"There goes the neighborhood."

I glanced to see Fox beside me, a little smile on his muzzle. If any phrase described Dagger, that was it.

"Was that the note you had me take to the radioman? To tell Dagger to come here?"

I nodded. "I'm glad I did. My hunch about the magnitude of what Arthur has planned was right." I turned and waved to Andrea, who was hanging back in the ship. "You want to meet the team?"

Her eyes widened as if I just asked if she wanted to meet the President. She hesitantly walked up to me and I put my arm around her waist before walking towards them with Fox…just to kept her from bolting away, nothing more.

I cleared my throat and raised my voice above the noise in the hangar. "Gentlemen and gentleman wannabes…"

Ley, our token female member, rolled her eyes.

"…you all know Fox. This is Andrea O'Donnell. She's been a fantastic help to us up here, so treat her like one of the team. Andrea, let's go down the line."

I gestured to the first black-clad member, a young raccoon, my age. "That's Lieutenant Hart, second assault, my right hand man."

I moved on to a large bear with a deep gash over one eye and a surly complexion. "Master Sergeant Braddock, heavy weapon support. I haven't yet seen a large gun this guy can't hit a dime with. He's also the cheeriest one of the team."

Scattered chuckles came from the group. I continued on to a pretty leopardess, slight compared to the other members but standing with her own usual air of confidence. "Sergeant Ley, recon. If you gave her any address in the galaxy, she'd have it painted for an air strike within five minutes without being seen by anyone on the way."

She grinned sarcastically. "I've already tried on Gage's apartment."

"Yeah, cute. Anyway, moving on…" I turned to a wolf with a green headband. "That's Sergeant DeLaine, our sniper. If you thought I was a good shot, watch this guy in action. If you hold out your arms, he can shoot your shirt off and you wouldn't even feel it."

Andrea looked over to see the wolf's half-grin as he said, "True story."

"And hanging out at the end," I continued, gesturing to a burly tiger, "is Sergeant Tienkintensce. Even he doesn't know where the hell that name comes from. We just call him Tien. He's our engineer and explosives man. You know that stereotypical wide-eyed maniac who likes to blow up everything in those action movies? That's him."

"I just like what I do," Tien retorted.

I glanced at Fox, then at the hangar exit. "Well, I really wish we could drop everything and have a beer, but I think we need to get right down to business. Meet in the ops room ASAP and I'll fill you in."

I laid it all out in the ops room; every single second of combat I've been in since I left the Corneria HQ that day that seemed so long ago. Everything from the battle in the streets of the city to Torqinski's betrayal to just that morning. The mood steadily darkened, especially after mention of the Back Scythe. By the end, everyone was staring off with unfocused eyes, but I knew they were listening as intently as I could ask for. A little surprise awaited me as well. The engineers on the Solar Wind had decrypted the information I sent from West Relay and, like the old lizard said, everything was there. Unfortunately, a bit more than I planned for.

"I should get to the point, which is why I called you all up here," I finally said after everything that could be explained had been. "With this new intel from the West Relay files, every fear I had has been proven. Arthur Torqinski and his remnants of Black Scythe are trying to recreate Andross' first plan…the first Dagger mission. With these receptor towers posing as weather stations or comm relays, he's going to launch a single missile towards Solar from Venom. But this isn't an EMP attack. He's not aiming to take down defenses. He's using Andross' last technology before his defeat, an extremely advanced type of nuclear reaction. When that one missile explodes in the dead center of the galaxy, each tower is going to absorb the mass dispersion energy and explode in turn. The effect: a couple dozen of the most powerful nuclear explosions the universe has ever seen. God knows how many will die. And Arthur and his mercenary army will be there to clean up whoever's left.

"This bounty for Fox was a distraction, and it worked. The military was occupied dealing with it and they withdrew forces in case the mercs became too bold. As we all saw in Corneria City on the second day, they were right. And bumping Fox off would be a nice bonus for Arthur. But now, even though we know the exact location the missile will be launched from, we have absolutely no military presence that can react in time. The launch is in thirty-six hours. Slow-ass bureaucrats on Corneria can't sort out a military operation in that time." I sighed and hesitated before adding my final comment. "The only thing available is the Solar Wind. And the only combat personnel available are us."

"Six soldiers assaulting a military installation on Venom?" Tien asked.

"Seven," a voice answered before I could. I looked at Andrea. She stared back with a look I've never seen before, as if I'd shatter her if I contradicted it. I just nodded.

"Seven soldiers, yes. Before I put a plan together, I need to know that everyone's in. This isn't an official military operation, so no one has to go."

There was a moment of silence before the first voice, Braddock, spoke up. "They don't pay us to pick 'em. I go where you go, Cap." His comment was followed by nods of consent by everyone. I didn't doubt for a moment that no one would decline.

I nodded. "In that case, everyone get some rest and we'll meet back here tonight. I'll have something tonight. Fox, you too. I might have a job for you."

"You want me to be the chauffeur again?"

"No, you'll like it."

"If it involves me shooting mercs, count me in."

"In that case, you'll really like it."

I waited until everyone left before turning to the piles of intel on a nearby desk. I had that new feeling again stirring in the pit of my stomach; an unusual type of fear. The fate of the first Dagger wouldn't get out of my head. Sure, they succeeded, but at what cost? Nearly the entire team was wiped out. My men knew that also. I was deeply impressed that they still agreed to go with no more than a blink of hesitation. Now I had my job. I had to find a way to make this operation work and I had to get my team home alive.

I had always idolized the courage and leadership of the first Dagger commander. Now I was in his exact position. Did I have what it takes? Could I live up to the legacy? If I couldn't, then more people would die than just my team. With a deep breath, I opened the first file and focused.

-Chapter 16 coming soon-