Chapter 3: The Abandoned Base

After hearing what Falco had to say, Fox led the rest of the team to his location. Could there really be a base in the middle of this asteroid field?, Fox wondered. After looking for several minutes for Falco's location, he immediately saw what Falco was talking about: there was a small base located in a clearing where no asteroids were present.

"Wow! Look at that!" Slippy remarked. "I would have never guessed that a base was located in here! Let's go check it out, Fox!"

Fox couldn't believe what he was seeing, either. "Alright team; let's take a closer look inside. Falco, Slippy and I will go into the base and see if we can find anything. Katt and Bill, you two stay out here and look for that ship that we saw."

Fox moved toward that base and looked for a place to land, Falco right behind him. They found an entrance that looked like a place where ships would pass through and decided to enter. Fox, expecting to find a lot of activity going on in the interior, was surprised when he saw that there was just a large, lifeless room waiting for them when they landed their ships.

"This is…odd", said Falco. "I don't see anything. What about you guys?"

"Looks empty to me", replied Slippy.

All three of them got out of the ships and began to look around. There were no ships, no computers, and no weapons inside of this base, but Fox couldn't help but think that this base could give them answers. Fox walked down a flight of stairs, looking for the main control room, when he saw a tiny figure run away from him in the distance.

"Hey, you!" Fox screamed, "Come back here! Slippy, Falco, I've found something!" Fox didn't wait for them to meet up with him. He began to chase after the tiny life form, and Fox noticed that he was a lot faster than him. He had entered a large, empty room with a large window that gave him a view of the large asteroid field as well as Bill's and Katt's ships. The running figure wasn't too far from Fox now, and he could not tell that he was a robot, small, and moving on wheels, not feet.

"Hey, wait!" Fox screamed again. "We just want to talk to you! Who are you?" Fox was glad to see that the robot was stopping and turned around, as if he was going to answer Fox after all.

"Do not go to Cerinia", the robot said in the usual monotone voice. "There is nothing there. You will find nothing."

"How did you know…who are you? What is going on on Cerinia?"

The robot didn't answer him. Instead, he picked up a large metal desk and threw it at the window in front of them. Fox, realizing he was going to do this before it happened, grabbed on to the closest object that was built into the wall, which was a rickety old pipe. The huge gigantic window shattered, sucking the robot into the asteroid field and leaving Fox hanging onto the pipe for his life. Fox, knowing that this pipe wouldn't hold him forever, followed the pipe out of the room and sealed the only door into the room he was just in.

"Fox, are you alright?" Slippy asked, finally catching up to Fox. What was that thing?"

Fox, still panting from what he just went through, took a couple of breaths before replying. "It was just a robot. It told me not to go to Cerinia, and that there was nothing there."

Falco laughed after hearing this. "Well that confirms it; there's definitely something there, but why would somebody want to hide it? This just keeps getting weirder."

"Anyway", continued Slippy, "Fox, Falco, I found something that I think you might want to see. Follow me, it's upstairs."

Falco and Fox followed Slippy back up the flight of stairs and then up another flight of stairs, and what they saw completely shocked Fox.

"Is that who I think it is…?" asked Falco, sounding completely surprised.

"That's an Andross statue!" exclaimed Fox. "I guess Andross did have something to do with the destruction of this planet, just like Krystal said." Fox couldn't help but wonder if she was alright…

"Which means that whatever is going on now could have to do with Andross as well", said Slippy. "I think we need to contact Peppy and tell him what we found.

"I agree" said Fox. "I think this mission is going to be harder than we though."