I do not own Star Fox or its characters only my own OC's
Chapter 19: Graduation V
: Corneria Orbit:
(Captain Anderson's POV)
"How long until the battleship is at the assigned point?" Anderson called out as another score of shots impacted the CMS Normandy rocking the ship and its crew around. Outside the bridges view port he could see the bow of the Normandy crumble under the enemy barrage as small secondary explosions plumed out of the armor leaving it riddle with craters and fissures.
"Sir another 3 minutes!" Lawson answered from her station where she carefully watched the enemy's progress.
The fight around them had turned into a brawl with the Normandy, Twilight, Daemon, Kilo, and the Archangel fighting an enemy heavy cruiser and its five strong frigate escort. Despite the Archangels lack of main gun its secondary weapons appeared to be a series of rapid fire anti-fighter guns that cleared the space around them and allowing John Shepard's flight to attack the enemy frigates critical systems. Overall their battle was going well with two enemy frigates sunk and also having depleted the shields of the enemy heavy cruiser. They had paid for it however with the Normandy and the Daemon having taken the brunt of the damage. The Normandy was operating with only one of its two main engines. The other being taken out by enemy fire.
"What's the status of the Bastila and Regal?" Anderson shouted as he saw the Daemon move forward and engage one of the three remaining frigates at point blank range with its broadside lasers.
"Captain the Bastila reports that the enemy battleship is within the targeted area!" Kelly replied from her post.
Anderson nodded "Alert the Rolth, tell them to start their burn and evacuate!" he ordered before looking out toward the Orbital Defense Platform.
The platform resembled a large cross with a large circular body in the middle that Anderson knew housed its main laser cannon along with its crew quarters and other livable areas of the station. Now however it resembled a burnt piece of tinder with its outer armor blackened by numerous laser hits and small angry red lines dotting its left and lower fins, the tell-tale sign of fires behind windows. Still while its main gun was no longer operational the stations thrusters where still operating normal having been at the back of the ship and thus sheltered from enemy fire.
As Anderson watched those same thrusters ignited pushing the station forward toward the approaching fleet who were too busy attempting to destroy the Bastila and Regal as they moved throughout the debris field to notice the giant construct of metal heading toward them. As Anderson gazed on the Rolth struck the enemy battleship's stern overwhelming its shields before plunging into the superstructure. The battleship took the crash like a champ and while many of its decks where now punctured and it had the crumpled form of a space station jutting out its frame it continued to fire at the forms of the Bastila and Regal. However the Rolth's last attack was not done as soon a large explosion ripped apart the station sending large chunks of metal flying through space and into the battleship. For the battleship it was like taking a shotgun round directly into its insides as the shards ripped through systems and lightly armored areas of the battleships interior. Soon in no time at all the battleship shut down likely due to power loss, and the entire ship became dead in space.
"Scans confirm enemy battleship has gone dark! She's had it!" The captain of the Bastila reported as it and the Regal moved in to engage the three escorting frigate who were still stunned by the sudden loss of one of the largest ships in their fleet.
The crew of the Normandy and likely all the Cornerian ships rang out in cheers at the news of the battleships demise. That good feeling however was put on hold when their sensors station started to register activity. "This is CMS Daemon we are detecting a large warp signature near the enemy fleet!" the captain of the Daemon reported as Anderson looked out over the expanse of space toward the enemy fleet's position.
"Damn they have reinforcements?!" Anderson exclaimed before turning to his sensors station and ordering "What's coming through?!"
Miranda Lawson fiddled with the instruments to her station a bit, the brow of the feline furrowing in confusion for a second before her face lite up in joy. "Sir it's friendly! IT'S THE FIRST FLEET!" she exclaimed.
No sooner where the words out of her mouth than ships began to appear from the warp and fire upon the enemy fleet as a new voice broke over the comm net. "This is Admiral Hood of the Cornerian First Fleet to all remaining Cornerian defenders. Hold your ground! We'll purge the enemy from our planet!"
Anderson soon fell back to his ship in relief as he watched the Cornerian First Fleet appear above the enemy and swarm them life a swarm of vengeful bees. Around him he saw many of his officers collapsing into their stations in relief and fatigue. Normally Anderson would have frowned upon such negligence in the midst of a battle but decided to let it slide as what few enemy ships where left where pulling away from the flotillas ships in an attempt to help protect their two battleships.
Anderson felt his own eyes begin to drop as wariness over took him. "Just this once, damn officer decorum we deserve this." Anderson thought and indeed they had.
: CMS Grisdal's Bridge:
(Admiral Hood's POV)
As soon as his ships had exited warp Hood began to relay attack orders. "Launch all strike craft! Bombers are to target the enemy frigates and cruisers! Fighters cover our bombers and sanitize space of all enemy strike craft! Battleships Hammer and Arrow target the left most enemy battleship! Battleships Rattler and Veltic target the right Battleship!" He bellowed as the bridge crew around him began to frantically comply with his orders while also dealing with the ensuing chaos that came with warping into knife fighting range with an enemy fleet.
"Sir, sensors have detected an enemy heavy carrier over the ocean planet side! Its shields are seemingly down or offline!" The sensors officer replied and indeed Hood could make out the large ship hovering over the ocean even from orbit.
"Then don't let them raise it! Target the carrier with our main guns, full volley!" Hood ordered and soon saw the Grisdal's three large laser cannon's rotated toward the Cornerian Ocean before each lining up their target. "FIRE!" Hood ordered.
One by one each cannon wined as they belt up energy before releasing three deadly beams of green death shot planet side which was followed by a flicker of light on the planet's surface a couple seconds later. "We got her! Catastrophic hit on the enemy carrier's ammo bay! She's sunk sir!" his sensors officer relayed.
Hood nodded in acceptance as he glanced out into space seeing one of the enemy battleships wither away from the combined fire of the Arrow and Hammer. While the admiral knew her would win this day he also realized that overall this attack may have been a success of for the enemy. Indeed as he looked out into space he saw the many wrecks of the Cornerian Flotilla and defense platforms littering space. In his heart the admiral knew that this war was just beginning.
: Citadel Control:
(Lily's POV)
"Blizzard to all allied aircraft. The remaining enemy aircraft are converging on the Space port, intercept immediately!" Lily ordered over the communications area as she desperately tried to send more aircraft into the area of the space port. Everything had been going well so far in the battle with their combined airpower pushing back all of the enemies attacks. This was until the flight of three unknown aircraft practically wiped out Eagle squadron allowing a group of bombers to destroy one of the civilian transports and damage the port facilities themselves.
Lily did her best to ignore the welling grief at the knowledge that Lucas was likely dead and Wraith's status was unknown. All because of a certain arrogant lion that was also a traitor. Soon Lily felt her grief turn to rage as she looked again at her radar. It showed the area around the space port was now a hornet's nest of aircraft as Cornerian and the remaining enemy air forces engaged each other in a last desperate bid for survival. Lily was attempting to get reinforcements over to the area but most where returning to base to rearm and refuel after their own battles.
"This is Blizzard to any allied aircraft outside of the star port area can anyone lend assistance to the star port?!" Lily asked in desperation as she saw more and more allied signatures fall around the star port. The silence that greeted her was defining and left her feeling helpless as she sat there from her control station.
"..a..e…d…ou copy blizzard?" a voice came back amongst heavy background static.
Lily immediately increased the signal strength with fine-tuned reflexes achieved with years of experience and training as a control officer and soon she was getting a much better signal. "This is Blizzard to last calling station please repeat your last!" she shouted over the consol.
"Calm down Lily, keep your cool." The voice replied back in a reassuring tone before continuing "This is Shadow Leader, I have a flight of four ready to assist immediately. The battle in space is now under control and the First fleet has arrived in orbit. More reinforcements will be available soon. Where do you need me?"
Lily sighed in relief at the sound of Reaper's voice never being so glad to hear a familiar officer's voice. "Reaper the Star port is under intense enemy attack. Fang is… he's down, Wraith has ejected too. I think there are three human aircraft engaging us at the port." Lily replied with a calm tone.
Reaper paused for a bit before answering her "Understood… Shadow team in route, eta forty seconds."
Lily nodded to herself before deciding to say one last thing. "Roger, make them bleed Shadow Team."
If Reaper was surprised by the venom in her tone he didn't show it but replied with as zeal as she had. "With pleasure."
: Over Cornerian Star Port:
(Fate's POV)
Fate used all the strength she could muster to pull up on the Arwings control stick in a desperate bid to pull up in time to not smash into the ground below. Thankfully the Arwing-X was more than up to the task and soon Fate found herself flying level only twenty or so feet above the ground. Beneath her was the tarmac of the Star Port which was now littered with debris, rubble, maintenance equipment, and what was left of the ground defenses. Standing like large buildings where large cargo haulers meant for transporting large goods into orbit and across the galaxy. Many where damaged but those that weren't stood a good 12 stories tall with their large landing gears allowing a good 40 feet of clearance below them, enough for Fate's Arwing-X to soar beneath in an attempt to shake off the enemy aircraft on her tail.
As she dove beneath a line of haulers the Arwing on her tail followed, its pilot skilled enough to follow her into the maneuver but unable to line up a shot on the maneuvering vixens aircraft. Seeing this Fate maneuvered around a landing gear with a little rudder then she pulled up on the flight stick after clearing the hauler and ascending into the sky. This made her an easy target for the fighter on her tail who quickly followed her and strained out to line up a shot. It was there for an easy target for the mobile AA gun and its crew that Fate had noticed parked on the tarmac. The crew seeing the Arwing-X in some trouble expertly lined up the enemy craft before releasing a burst of heavy laser beams that ripped the enemy aircraft apart and freed Fate of her pursuer. Fate wiggled her wings in thanks before joining the dogfight in the sky and allowing the crew to pick their next target.
After gaining some altitude Fate glanced at the battle around her and withheld a grimace. Around her was the swirling mass of fighters with a noticeably large amount of hostile contacts if her radar was anything to go by. The reason for the lopsided battle was obvious, even though many of the enemies present had only just arrived from wherever they were over the city the defenders should have been able to deal with them relatively easily. However the defenders had their hands full with seven aircraft who had destroyed the last civilian transport.
The three human aircraft had proven to be too much for the Arwing or Arwing-X's to cope with as they were outmaneuvered by the fast and agile craft. The bombers were also a factor to deal with as after dropping their main payload the proved to be rather fast and used their speed to pounce on unaware prey and escape before their victims allies could retaliate. These two different factors had occupied their attention and allowed for more and more enemies to join the fight unnoticed by the distracted Cornerian pilots.
Fate scanned the skies for the human aircraft and soon found them. Two of their aircraft where attempting to corral Rook however the human was proving his skill by strategically out maneuvering the two enemy craft. The third she saw was maneuvering high above the battle picking off any aircraft that attempted to ascend to its altitude.
As she looked toward the enemy aircraft out of the corner of her eyes she noticed a blip on her radar rapidly approaching her six. Realizing the implication Fate pulled a hard left bank forcing the enemy aircraft to overshoot. A quick look showed it to be one of the four enemy bombers that had been plaguing her allies.
Deciding that this was an enemy she could fight Fate pulled hard right on the enemies tail and pushed her throttle to max in order to keep the enemy within weapons range. Priming her last missile Fate heard the high pitched whine indicating a missile lock and quickly squeezed the trigger and propelling a missile to bellow forth from her missile bay and race down the enemy craft. The missile impacted the left wing of the enemy bomber sending it careening in a counter clockwise corkscrew toward the ground where it impacted just off the tarmac.
"Bulldog 4 just got shot down!" one of the enemies called out.
"This is Bulldog 1, I see the little bastard. I'll deal with him." Another voice answered as a new enemy streaked in from Fates nine o'clock. Fate waited till the last moment before pulling the stick up and left and giving a little right rudder allowing her to soar over the enemy aircraft before diving down and around to the enemies tail and giving her the necessary air speed to keep up.
"You have to do better than that to get me!" Fate shouted as she squeezed the trigger and shot a series of laser blasts at the enemy bomber. The bomber rolled left and dodged the shots however before diving to only a sixty feet above the ground with Fate following close behind.
"That voice…" The enemy pilot stated before chuckling "Is that you little Fate?" he said in a sickening sweet tone that instantly struck a chord with Fate's memory.
"D-dad?!" Fate exclaimed in shock.
"Hahahaha! It is you!" her father laughed. "I've wondered where you ran off to you little bitch. Now look at you a part of the Cornerian military and still not strong enough to hurt me!" he chided as if talking to a child.
Fate let out an uncharacteristically threatening ground before replying "We'll see about that bastard!"
"Indeed we will right about now!" the canine announced before two small bombs dropped from his aircraft before impacting the tarmac and exploding sending shrapnel up into the air just as Fate passed over.
"Ah!" Exclaimed in pain as shrapnel impacted her aircraft with a large piece piercing through her aircraft and lodging into her right thigh.
Fate pulled up with great difficulty and leveled off allowing her to check the injury which she could tell was not life threatening but sever all the same. Her aircraft was in worse shape though. Her wigs and engines had taken damage with the aircraft wanting to coast to the left slightly and the engines operating at only 40% effectively making her a slow and un-maneuverable target. "I've been hit!" Fate called out in desperation.
"Hang on Fate I'm here!" Bryan called out as his Arwing-X pulled alongside hers.
"You think I'll let you get away bitch!" her father shouted as his bomber began to turn around to come back at them. However before he could get closer to engage them a sudden bright light sprang into existence out to see and after a few seconds turbulence hit them nearly sending Fate's already crippled aircraft down. "What the hell!"
"This is Vulture to all aircraft, our carrier just got magazine from orbit. We are leaving now!" Vulture reported.
"Damn, well I guess I can finish you off real quick and follow them." Fate's father Curt stated before his attention was captured by the disappearance of ten of his allies exploding.
From the west four aircraft suddenly streaked into the battle area before quickly beginning to blow enemy aircraft out of the sky with unbelievable maneuvers and speed. "This is Shadow Leader call sign Reaper to all allied aircraft. The First Fleet has arrived in orbit and are sending reinforcements. We have them outgunned and outnumbered now so push them hard! Send them all straight to hell!"
"Reaper!" Fate exclaimed with relief as she saw the four aircraft quickly begin to turn the tide with the now emboldened Cornerian pilots.
"Reaper… This is Vulture to all aircraft we are retreating NOW! If you fall behind you will be left behind!" The leader of the human squadron announced before he and his two wingman hit their afterburners and rocketed away from the battle.
"Damn… well there is always next time. Until then bitch just remember I will find you again." Curt stated before he and the remaining bombers retreated with any remaining enemy fighters. Those that where to slow quickly fell to the pursuing Cornerians and Shadow Team members.
"Fate bank left. We have to get you on the ground. Your aircraft is badly banged up." Bryan announced over the comm net brining Fate's attention back to the fact that she was injured.
"Y-yeah, I'm RTB." Fate announced as she carefully maneuvered her Arwing-X through the sky while trailering a small line of smoke with Bryan close behind her protectively.
(Corneria City 1 hour later, General POV)
Corneria City was in shambles, everywhere there was death and destruction. Nobody knew the exact body count but all knew it was high as the sounds of sirens screamed from all directions and rescue personnel helped anyone they could. Amongst this destruction standing like a testament to the city and its people stood the Lylat Flight Academy apparently only lightly damaged. Rescue crews had picked this spot as its main assembling point with its large airstrip brining in supplies, personnel, and evacuating wounded to hospitals located elsewhere on the planet. The buildings classrooms now housed what refugees and wounded they could with the rest being moved to tents near the runway.
It was here that a familiar reporter now made her last broadcast of the day. "This is Kimberly Sands of the Cornerian News Network, coming to you live from the Lylat Flight Academy. As you can see behind me the academy has only suffered superficial damage miraculously, making it one of the few large buildings to survive this battle relatively unscathed. We are getting reports that the remaining enemy forces in and around Corneria are either surrendering or have been routed from the area. All around the city police and rescue personnel are continuing to help anyone they can with the support of the CDF who are maintaining Martial Law at this time and for the foreseeable future. However at this time it appears the fighting is over thanks to the valent efforts of the Corneria Defense Flotilla, the First Fleet, and the various Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel. However our affiliate stations are reporting similar attacks around the galaxy at various planets and General Peppy Hare has declared that Corneria is at War with a faction calling itself the Exiles. Military officials are calling this conflict the beginnings of a civil war as the attackers have no unifying planet or past military affiliation and instead is seemingly composed of various ex-military, pirate, and mercenary groups. We ask all citizens to comply with any demands of the Cornerian military in this dire time and wish all those listening good luck and may this war come to a swift and victorious end. This is Kimberly Sands of Cornerian News Network signing off."
Aaannnd Chapter! Holy F this took forever to do! Anyway there will be one more chapter after this before this first instalment of the series is over and I will take a break before making a sequel. So till then look forward to Chapter 20: Aftermath.
Anyway until next time remember to Stay Frosty and don't forget to review!