Two months later…
Bagpipes played a melancholy tune; a large procession marched through the capital of Corneria. Cornerian Marines marched in rank, clothed in black led by Fox, Falco and Slippy. Behind them four men carried a coffin, painted in glimmering black.
Inside was Krystal Mcloud, behind the coffin group two Cornerian Acolyte walkers, the footfall their large three legs thundered through the city. Fighters flew overhead, a sad crowd gathered at the street. Fox stared ahead, at the Cornerian Capitol Building, it's high white spire shot up through the city, and four smaller gray spires with jagged edges surrounded it. All held together by a marble dome.
Fox looked behind for a brief moment, seeing the marines in their full dress uniforms. Sabers hanging from their hips, black officers hats and black perfectly ironed pants.
A tear escaped his eye, and he thought to himself, "And this is what I fight for, what Krystal fought for. What she died for, what I would die for."
The procession stopped at the capitol gates, General Pepper stood out on the front steps. "We come here to honor, one of the war's greatest heroes. Krystal Mcloud, from the once beautiful planet Cerinia, She fought long and hard for us. Sacrificing many things along the way, giving up things that we take for granted. In a selfless manner, striking down those who try to harm us and the civilization we've worked so hard to build."
General Pepper continued his speech, for another twenty minutes. And when his speech was over the Imperial band played "Taps" and Krystal was laid to rest in the titan's cemetery behind the capitol…
Fox walked slowly through the Corneria state park, ten feet ahead of him. Falco and Slippy walked, Fox continued walking taking in the beauty of Corneria city's tall spires. Skyscrapers and the glistening ocean in the distance, the tree's around him bore bright green leaves it was spring, "I'd forgotten, how this world looked in the spring." Fox mumbled.
He hadn't been back to Corneria in two years; he barely remembered his house and where it was. He checked his pda and came up with an address, "Falco, Slippy we're leaving." Falco and Slippy turned as Fox called a taxi from the streets.
The trio got in the car and headed for Fox's, almost mansion-sized house.
The taxi dropped them off at the front gate; Fox entered a code in one of the side panels. The gates creaked open, and Falco and Slippy followed Fox into the building.
The talked through the night and into the day, about the adventures over the past years but most of the talk centered on their fallen comrade.
Around 9:00 am a knock came on Fox's door he got up and opened it. To reveal a young panther, in Cornerian air uniform, "Uh, hello. You're Fox Mcloud." The panther asked.
Fox replied, "Yeah."
The panther said, "Good, I'm Rhys Thastus. I lead alpha group, in Krystal's fighter squad."
Fox sighed, "Come on in,"
A week later…
Fox stepped up the ramp on the Antares, Falco, Slippy and Rhys behind him. Fox walked down the halls and to his quarters, on the way he passed by Krystal's old room. No one had been in it since she'd been killed, so he decided to look around.
He looked through her personal affects, finding her blaster; he took it and strapped it to the other side of his belt. Fox found Krystal's staff, the on he fought the sharp claw with on Sauria, he took it.
Fox continued to look around; he saw a picture on a small table beside Krystal's bed. It was of her and the team, when they gave her the 'initiation'.
He left the room and proceeded on to his room.
A voice blared of the Antares Com system, "Attention all crew, liftoff commencing brace yourselves."
Rhys stared out his window aboard the Antares watching as the battle cruiser left the atmosphere. The stars shone brightly, Rhys looked back on Corneria seeing the blue oceans and the white clouds above them. "My god it is beautiful." Rhys said to himself.
He reached out and picked up a datapad from his nightstand, he began typing on it. Journal entry 1: We're off again; the Antares is en route to Macbeth. Aparoid forces have been seen in the neighborhood. I wish Dad was here, but he's not. I wish he'd come riding in on the Osiris, and obliterate the aparoid fleet.
But, when the aparoids attacked Valeri Prime the Osiris got sacked…
Falco sighed as he sat down on his cot, staring out his window at the glistening stars. He thought long and hard, about the month's events. "Damnit!" He slammed his fist down on his nightstand. "I failed, Fox. I let Krystal die; I should've been there. But because of my failure, he'll suffer for all eternity."
Falco got up, and opened the small closet he picked a small wooden case inside it was a flute like instrument engraved with the words in Latin, Nunc et in aeternam it means from now into eternity. The motto of the elite, Cornerian navy Falco graduated from Corneria's elite naval school in the western hemisphere on the Ratou peninsula.
Slippy, sat in his room fiddling with a deck of cards mumbling and grunting occasionally. "Why? First Peppy and now, Krystal? Not even a year after Fox married her? Why couldn't I have died instead of her? No one here cares about me anyway, I bet in a month people would stop missing me."
"I wish I could talk to dad, but those punks killed him too." Slippy frowned and choked back tears.
Fox sat in quarters, rage and sorrow flowing through him; tears fought their way to the surface. "Why the hell did you have to die? Why not me!" Fox shouted as he threw the picture of Krystal he kept at the wall. "How could you leave me like this?" He said to himself softer. Slowly breaking down, sobbing, defeated.
Fox took a deep breath and let the thoughts of his wife flow through his mind, as he mourned in the cold quiet of space.
And a river of tears fell from his eyes.
Three days later…
The Antares dropped out of hyperspace, and pulled into high orbit over Macbeth. The gray planet looked dead from space, but upon closer inspection was teeming with life. It was a small border world, mostly industrial were they mined various ores and provided supplies to nearby cruisers.
Aparoids had been seen in the area and it was the Antares job to protect Macbeth from them.
It was 1:00 pm when they arrived, and a voice blared on the com, "Mess call! Lunch is now being served, deck twelve section fourteen."
Fox groaned awakening from a short nap, he pushed himself up and opened his door and walked through the halls. Towards the mess hall, around the same time Falco left his room headed toward the mess hall.
Fox arrived at the mess hall, and the automatic door opened and he stepped in walked up to the lunch line and picked up a tray. He looked upon the choices before him; there were a whole sort of foods each meal had labels on it. There were a variety of salads and meats. Fox picked pizza with crisp pepperonis; he read the food label pepperonis imported from terra.
Fox sat at his usual table, no one else but he and his team ever sat there and sure enough Falco and Slippy were sitting there. Fox sighed and walked to sit down beside them, "Hey guys, how's the grub?" Fox asked lightly
Falco shrugged, "It's good but not five stars." Falco paused, "Fox eh uh How you holding up?"
Fox strained to hold back emotion, "I don't wanna talk about it." Fox sat at the open chair, there were exactly four chairs, and Krystal always sat next to Fox.
Rhys walked down the hall to mess his stomach growling, it seemed like he was the only one not mourning. Rhys opened the mess hall door and walked in he grabbed a sandwich and looked for a table it was packed save for seat, right with the StarFox team or what was left of it. Rhys approached slowly not sure if he welcome amongst Corneria's most revered heroes.
Just as he prepared to take a seat Falco brought a sensitive subject, "Look, Fox I know you don't want to talk about this but we need a replacement. StarFox is not complete; we can't fight like we need to without that fourth pilot."
Fox swallowed a large bite of pizza and responded, "No we don't, and I don't wanna talk about so drop it know."
Before Falco could answer Rhys came in, "Hey can I sit here? There's nowhere else to sit."
Fox rolled his eyes, "Sit down."
Falco looked at Fox questioningly, motioning with heads leaning it slightly in Rhys' direction. "How about…"
Fox responded, "No."
Rhys shook his head in confusion, "What? Does he want me to leave or something? I think I see an open table in the back."
Fox replied, "No. Just shut up and eat."
Rhys didn't take it personally; he felt almost the same way when his dad was killed.
Fox shot a rocket hot glare at Falco; his eyes pierced Falco like blade. Fox got up quickly and left leaving his tray behind him
Fox stepped down the flight ramp into the hangar aboard Antares he had his flight helmet with him, and was in his flight suit. He moved onto the catwalk and walked slowly by the rack of fighters suspended from the ceiling. He stepped down into the cockpit of his Ar-wing; he sat in the seat and closed the canopy. And then quickly slammed the ignition; his fighter flew out of the hangar's plasma shield.
Fox's emotions were out of control, the only thing he new was that Krystal was dead. And that he still had to fight, "I don't want this anymore, why can't the aparoids just die. You kill my mentor and now my wife." Fox mumbled angrily. And then he saw above the planet, a warp field beginning to form. "Aw hell." Fox switched on his com, "Attention all crew aboard Antares man your battle stations."
"We have an aparoid warp field stabilizing over Macbeth,"
The captain of the Antares quickly responded, "Man your battle stations! All men to your fighters!" The captain paused, "Mcloud! Fall back and wait for back up!"
Fox scoffed and turned off his com and stayed on course, "Go to hell!" Fox shouted, as the first aparoids materialized. He locked on to the first raider and fired a charged beam from his Ar-wing; it slammed into the raider vaporizing it.
In short order the other aparoids diverted from their planetary course to engage him, "Here we go." Fox pulled a reverse snap turn, facing his enemies he pulled the trigger on his joystick firing several quick bursts of fire taking out two aparoid raiders. "Three down, seventeen more to go."
But now Fox would not be on his own, the Antares began releasing lethal antiaircraft fire down on the aparoids, and the fighter squadrons began pouring out of the cruiser.
Falco took a deep breath as his Ar-wing slammed forward out of the hangar, he saw Fox's Ar-wing dancing through space slapping down aparoids at an incredible speed.
But they kept coming, warp fields kept opening and the mechanic bugs kept swarming.
"It's payback time." Falco thought, as he joined the dogfight striking down an aparoid right off the bat.
The other fighters joined the melee bringing down aparoids; Fox saw quickly what was going on. The fighters were a diversion; drop ships were heading for the surface. "Falco, Slippy with me!" Fox shouted, Falco and Slippy quickly joined up. "We've got a drop ship convoy headed for the surface take em out."
They held tight formation, careening at full speed into the slow moving hatcher filled drop ships. Fox targeted the drop ship out in the front and Falco took the one behind it, Slippy just provided fire support. "Fox, your cannon's aren't working! The shields are too thick!" Slippy warned
Fox growled, "Will rockets work?"
Slippy scanned further, "Uh yeah but it will take all our rockets combine to kill one."
Rhys, flew his fighter straight towards the drop ship column he flipped a switch in his HE-72 and the Bombay doors on the bottom of his fighter. Releasing plasma bombs all over the drop ships in a shotgun spread.
Fox watched as the bombs destroyed three-drop ships and seriously damaged four others. He locked onto a damaged ship were it's plating was cracked and fired a rocket inside it.
The rocket blew up inside blasting the ship to dust, "Take that, and shove it."
The battle raged for a little longer, until the Antares cleared the area with it's various gun batteries.
Fox patrolled for additional enemy fighter for fifteen minutes before returning to the Antares.
Fox landed, in the hangar and exited his vehicle he entered the elevator to the left of his landing and took it to the bridge. The elevator hissed open and he stepped out, and approached the captain. A tall hound black fur almost wolf like, "Captain Raynor, we need back up. Now that the aparoids know where here we need more cruisers.""
Capt. Raynor nodded, "I know, I'll call the Epmitheus and the Titan in for support."
Fox nodded approvingly, "Good."