This does not bold well… Photoshopping is fun…

Chapter 3

Sporadic Fighting

A group of Cornerian soldiers ran desperately through thick woods with some blaster fire flowing suit. Almost several kilometers separated them from the safety of their camp and the overwhelming Cerinians. "Move it, move it, move it!" The squad leader rallied his men. He looked back and was able to see the perusing cerulean vulpine. A low metal thud went off; Fox instantly recognized it as a mortar shell going off. "Tree bursts! Get down!" The soldiers instinctively laid down, some even activating personal shields, and attempted to wait out the mortar barrage. Some near by trees burst into lethal shrapnel, but luckily, it was too far off. "Go, go, go!"

The squad continued running through the woods will under the pressure of tree bursts and mortar fire. They continued forth, but the trees began to be less dense and grass was becoming visible…

Fate had dealt cruel hand. Fox's squad arrived in an open field. Following suite was a Cerinian gunship. Its weapons were fixed on them but instead, it hovered down and opened its cargo bay doors. And out stepped the same cerulean vixen from the colony. Behind her were some Cerinian warriors, the elites of the Cerinian Army if one would say. All of them were armed with strange staffs with a spear-like end and a blue crystal in each end. Luckily, the mortar shelling stopped and the gunship and its occupants may be in friendly fire. The vixen held out her hand and a warrior immediately put a device in it.

A booming voice echoed across the plain, apparently, it was loud speaker. "Attention Cornerian scum, surrender now and we may show mercy," the blue vulpine said. She waited for a response.

"Over my dead carcass, you blue bastard," Fox cursed. He gave a thumbs up and a bazooka firing crew revealed themselves behind a tree and fired they're Homing Launcher. Its distinctive contrail of orange rings blasted right towards the grounded gunship.

But none of the Cerinians took notice except for their leader. She stepped out of the gunship and faced the incoming missile. In one fell swoop of her arm, the missile began to lose power and altitude as it plummeted into thud near the gunship. "Yeah right," Fox said sarcastically. He gave another signal and the operator flipped a switch and the dud cracked open. A small antenna with a small bulb at the end began to emit a high pitched noise that reached 200dB and 2 million candelas! It even affected the Cerinians inside the ship.

"They're gonna be pissed off now, I suggest we move!" Fox yelled. The batteries inside the stun bomb were only capable of emitting the sound and light for only about 2 minutes at best, if the crew fully charged it… "Can we patch a line through the gunship?"

"We already did sir," one of the dog soldiers said. Slowly hovering above them was the drop-ship ready to air lift them. The doors opened up and the troops from the camp were already inside.

"What, I thought gave you specific orders to stay at the camp?" Fox asked.

"Yeah sir, we're gonna have a great tea party with the Cerinians…" one of the soldiers said. "Jib broke his leg fighting 'em!"

"They took the camp?" Fox said, almost sounding sarcastic.

"No, we let them borrow it from us…"

"Pepper is not going to be pleased…" Fox said uneasily. His company and he just started a full scale war. He didn't care about his reputation now… Not even the General can cover for him! When ever he did something wrong, Pepper always had his back all the way through. But this time, he failed miserably. "Pilot, take us to the nearest Cornerian space zone."

-Drop-ship, Cornerian Space Territory-

"Yes sir," the pilot replied. He activated the ship's main hyper-drive and sped towards the nearest Conerian territory. It took several hours. It wouldn't take years at least, but was still a lot slower and more dangerous than warp ring traveling. But since they had no orbital space gates around, they resorted to the old fashion way of space travel. "… Uhh commander… commander… OH S! Damn it, wake up! We got incoming boogies!" Several distinct fighters flew right past. They were streamlined in shape, swept back wings, and barrels located on both sides of the fuselage. All of them bore the Cerinian Army emblem.

"Gosh dang it! Man the guns, we can't let them land a hit!" the vulpine commander barked. Several soldiers went towards the designated seats labeled 'turret.' But strangely, the fighters weren't interested and continued on a straight path along with the drop-ship. "What are they doing?" Fox's question was answered.

Large explosions could be herd and seen. Small dots darted about thou and fro. Streams of light shot back and forth. As they continued closer, Cornerian capital ships and Cerinian battleships were seen engaging each other. "I've logged onto the main Cornerian battle net… I'm streaming it in." Holographic images of ship captains, fighter pilots, and admirals lined up and flowed like an old movie projector. "'They're everywhere!' were did that explosion come from?' 'Was it a tactical nuke?'" Chatter between the Cornerian fleet could be herd. Most likely, the Cerinians were in the same situation… "We're getting a transmission from the commander of this fleet."

"Patch it through." A grizzled old looking eagle appeared; his body was cut off from head to shoulders on the screen. From the looks of it, he was probably just as old as Pepper.

"Aw, it's the young hero, McCloud. What brings you to this old bird of prey's battle?" the eagled asked.

"I want to know exactly know how this battle started," McCloud said, he was very annoyed that this old man may have started a full scale war, but who was he to say…

"I will at least introduce myself… I am Commander Bonsig, commanding the 6th and 7th armada and 101st assault carrier fleet. I was leading a routine patrol through this quadrant until one of my assault carriers was hit by a huge thermal explosion… Possibly a tactical nuke," Bonsig answered. He seemed calm in the thick of battle, maybe just senile.

"Cerinians still using nukes? How primitive… I thought they grew out of that type of technology," Fox said to himself. He began to think if anything else like this erupted. "Get me a line on the GBNS (Grand Battle Net Stream)." Another stream of pictures flowed in front of him, but with smaller articles and with descriptions.

"You got to be kidding me?" Fox murmured. 'Cornerians launch unwarranted attack on Cerinian colony; Cerinian armada found firing upon clustered orbital research stations…' The orange fox began to grind his canines. "Commander Bonsig, I want to pull back all your forces and head deeper into Cornerian space."

"I guess I have no choice," the veteran obeyed. He gave the main retreat signal and all fighters returned to their respective carriers and began to form up, ready to make a jump to Corneria air space.

To Be Continued…

Haven't much time to write much stuff. If I did, there would be fewer but longer chapters, but alas. I've been playing with photoshop lately… CS version for free. Been making a lot of cool banners for forums and stuff. I'll try to update ASAP.

Oh yea, R&R! XD