Peppy guided his Arwing towards the idle Great Fox and it's launch tunnel in a relaxed straight line. Lrin's custom fighter was in front of his Arwing's nose, it's weapons and shields powered down as was part of the terms of his unexpected surrender to the team earlier. Peppy used the time with being right behind Lrin's fighter to take a deeper and relaxed look. Now, the hare was no expert when it came to assembling custom ships, but a few exterior parts were recognizable; it's fuselage seemed to be salvaged from an older Venomain Invader II as indicated by the triangular hull and exposed wiring and fuel conduits—they were left uncovered to cut costs when the Invader was still being mass-produced during the war, something that reduced the cheap ship's already short lifespan even more.
The wings appeared to be taken from an older model of Conerian fighter, it's old white paint job still partly intact in some places and faded away in favor of gun mettle gray in others. Two unknown models of blaster cannons were wired up under the wings, heat radiators still glowing a faint orange from the fight before, still dumping excess heat into space.
Peppy silently marveled at the cobbled-together mixture of old and new tech on Lrin's fighter as it entered the Great Fox's tunnel. It could work two ways; it's electromagnetic catapult could be reversed and function as a long brake rail. The rail traveler caught Lrin's ship as it flew through the atmospheric shield holding back the lethal vacuum of the void, slowing down the custom ship and bringing it into the hangar proper. Peppy opened up a private comm channel straight to ROB while he waited for the rail to reset.
"ROB, think you could get those interior turrets online in the hangar?"
"-Affirmative, directing power to the hangar security sentry turrets…-"
"Thanks ROB, he'll think twice before trying anything with those guns pointed at im'. Well, theoretically anyways…"
Peppy flew his Arwing into the launch tunnel, the rail traveler catching his fighter and slowing him down into the hangar. Lrin's fighter sat in the spare fighter bay, usually reserved to store the Landmaster assault tank, the hodgepodge custom fighter contrasting greatly with the relatively clean interior of the Great Fox's hangar bay. The monkey still sat in the ship's cockpit; likely waiting for being told what to do.
Peppy shuddered at the sight; nobody was this cooperative, especially pirates. So, the fact that Lrin had so far been completely willing to turn himself in was rather unsettling.
What the hell is he planning?…
Peppy popped open his cockpit canopy as the overhead repuslor crane maneuvered his Arwing into it's dedicated vehicle bay. The ladder built into a compartment on the hull opened up and extended down, Peppy undoing his flight harness and stepping down the ladder to the deck. Slippy was nearby the doorway connecting the hangar to the rest of the ship, a small blaster pistol in his hands and with a worried look across his face.
"Uh, hey Peppy… Brought that old gun of yours." Slippy did indeed have the old shotgun in his other hand. He tried to 'be cool' and toss the large gun to Peppy as he walked up, but wasn't exactly able to throw it very far…
"Slippy!" Peppy ran forward, catching the antique firearm before it hit the hard deck plating; an impact that would no doubt have ruined its value and functionally.
"S-sorry…" Slippy croaked weakly, utterly embarrassed at his rather pathetic toss. He looked down at the floor in shame.
Peppy sighed, pitying the toad. "It's fine, just don't… don't try and do that again." He checked the gun for any damage, "No harm done, don't worry bout' it."
Peppy rubbed his hand along the metal of the old weapon, it being cold to the touch. It was an old pump shotgun of unknown make, probably a model made before the age of spaceflight Peppy figured. Its black steel body had a hint of rust in some areas from weathering and heavy use, the grooved slide marked with hundreds of tally marks adding up to a little over 100. Kills? Shots fired? Peppy didn't need to guess very hard, it was pretty clear. The body was marked with some old text, scratched on years ago in some unknown, probably forgotten language.
Peppy racked the slide, chambering a fresh shell. "Huh, you loaded it?"
"Y-yeah, it's pretty simple I guess…"
"Hmm…" Peppy nodded, "Thanks."
Peppy and Slippy walked over to Lrin's ship, the monkey still sitting idle in his fighter's cockpit. His eyes slightly widened at the sight of Peppy's old gun.
"Alright, not-Andrew… climb out of that ship a' yours, and keep your hands where I can see em', or else…" Peppy racked the slide of his gun for dramatic effect, an unfired shell popping out and rolling away. Despite the unneeded gesture, Lrin seemed to get the message clear enough, despite not hearing Peppy though the glass.
Lrin opened the canopy, it sliding forward instead of opening upwards. "Shit, alright old man, just don't blow my leg off with that thing…" The snow monkey climbed out of his cockpit and hopped to the ground, his hands in the air and still eyeing the shotgun.
"Slippy?"
"Oh, uh, right…"
Slippy passed Peppy a pair of handcuffs, the hare walking up and slapping them on Lrin's wrists in a quick, practiced motion.
"Guess I belong to you now, huh?" Lrin said, his tone woven with sarcasm.
The hell? He was pretty calm a minute ago…
"Oh quit yer' blabbern'…"
Peppy gestured with his gun to Lrin to follow him. The monkey was in no position to argue, so complying would have to do for now. Peppy marched towards the door, Lrin in the middle and Slippy trailing behind. The monkey glanced back to the toad, Slippy fiddling with his blaster pistol in his hands. The toad noticed Lrin staring and did his best to glare back at him, thumbing a switch on the grip of his pistol.
Heh, kid keeps the safety on; he ain't taking this too seriously…
Lrin did his best to play off the glare and rolled his eyes, turning his gaze away; Slippy might have noticed—
"Damn, almost forgot…" Peppy stopped and turned around, looking Lrin right in the eye. "We better search you, don't want any surprises, do we?"
"Really old man? My word not good enough for you?"
"Oh shut up, your word's worth less then sand on Papetoon!" Peppy taunted, "Now, you Andrew wannabe; arms out in front of ya'."
"I told you old man—OOF"
Lrin's speech was interrupted by a swift elbow to his stomach.
"You call me old man again, and I'll have ta' have ROB clean your innards off the floor! I only put up with Falco because he's part of the team, you on the other hand…!"
"Fark, Fark, alright…" Lrin wheezed, his cuffed hands on his chest; peppy hand knocked the wind out of him with his surprisingly hard blow, "Alright old—Uh, Peppy…"
"Good… Now, arms forward."
Lrin did as he was told, putting his arms forward with a bored expression across his face.
"Slippy? You wouldn't happen ta' have that scanner on you? The one you usually carry around?"
Slippy fiddled around his toolbelt he usually wore, it being lined with various mechanical wrenches, screwdrivers, as well as a few electronic tools for any sort of repair work one could imagine. Peppy had no idea how the toad kept track of what he had on his belt.
"Oh, here it is."
The toad pulled a gray box from behind his back and handed to Peppy, it fitting rather well in his hands. It resembled a smaller laptop with its screen folded inwards and a few collapsible antennas.
"Alright, let's see if I remember how ta' use this thing…"
Peppy folded open the block screen, the device powering on as he did so, the screen flickering to life and a loading bar appearing.
"What's this thing called again Slippy?"
"Uh, M-molecular wavelength scanner… It's an older model, but it still checks out."
"Ah, I remember now."
Peppy thought back to whenever he used it last, the scanner could 'see into' solid matter itself up close, allowing the user to find something hidden within. Namely internal cracks and cavities deep within structures and equipment. Peppy pulled out the antenna to its full length and walked up to Lrin, the monkey still standing idle.
"Seems like a ton of effort just to search me and all… Even the Conerinan Navy just did the ol' pat me down…"
"Nah, I disagree. If it means I don't have ta' touch you, plus there's no way in hell I'm gonna do a, well… Deeper search…"
The monkey snickered. Heh, even the most green of Cornerian grunts know to do full body pat-downs… But peppy here…
Lrin rolled his eyes again as Peppy waved the device over the monkey, Peppy watching the screen of the scanner and looking ridiculous while walking around. From the hare's point of view, the device projected a green, pixelized overlay over Lrin's body, anything made of a metal would stand out like a sore thumb, appearing as an entirely different color as Peppy had tuned it.
"Hmm, I'm surprised; usually jerks like you have at least three different knifes stashed somewhere. Haven't found any on you…" Peppy commented, still walking around Lrin for the second time. The monkey's old Venomian flight suit was completely void of metal weapons as far as the scanner was concerned.
"You almost done with that stupid thing? It's making my fur stand on end here…"
"Not quite…" Peppy turned his gaze to Slippy, the toad fiddling with one of his various wrenches. "Slippy? Can this thing look for those new composites? The types that slip past the detectors a few years back at one of the labs on Corneria?"
"The one with those Venomian remnant guys trying to steal antimatter? They got their guns past the scanners because of those new materials?"
Peppy nodded, thinking back to the incident. One of the Navy's private contractors had set up a lab on Corneria to try and manufacture antimatter via a giant, expensive particle accelerator. Word leaked what the lab was attempting to make, and with antimatter being unfathomably expensive and dangerous, it seemed almost guaranteed that someone desperate might hit the lab. Officially, the raid on the lab ultimately failed with the Venomian remnant's men being killed or captured. Peppy wasn't entirely sure if the story was to be believed though.
"Sorry Peppy, I'd have to update the software for that; it was a gift from my dad before the war, before those new composites were even around so the scanner wouldn't know what to look for."
Peppy rubbed his chin, still looking at Lrin, "I see…"
"Well? You done with that thing?" Lrin asked again, still bored.
"Yeah, I guess so…" Peppy powered down the device and handed it back to the toad. "Well, looks like you're, uh, clean…" He sneered back at the monkey, narrowing his eyes into a glare.
"Alright smartass, walk."
Peppy gestured with his shotgun for Lrin to follow him, still glaring best he could.
"Guess I don't have much a choice, do I?"
"Will you just shut up already?"
Lrin gave a mocking smirk, following the hare to the hangar's door that connected into the rest of the ship. The trio walked along the hallway to the elevator shaft, Lrin glancing around at the walls of the hall; he was almost surprised at the patches of rust, exposed wires along the ceiling and the occasional missing wall panel, exposing thick insulated power conduits that most like connected to the Great Fox's primary reactor.
Hmm, for being paid by the general himself, you guys don't seem too good at taking care of this place, missing panels and all…
An idea silently formed in his head, a small smile forming on Lrin's face as the three reached the elevator at the far end of the hall, the platform already waiting for them.
"Ladies first…" Peppy sneered, giving Lrin a small shove forward. The monkey rolled his eyes and walked onto the platform, leaning on the railing. Peppy and Slippy walked on board behind him, the rabbit pressing the touchpad mounted to the railing to command the elevator to go down a floor. It did as it was told, crawling slowly down the shaft. Lrin eyed the service ladder mounted to the side of the shaft, the gears in his mind turning.
Yeah, that'll work…
"Slippy, why is this damn thing so slow?"
"I-I don't know, software might be old I guess…"
"Should of painted it red…" Lrin chimed in with his attempt of a joke, but it flew right over the toad's head. Or If it didn't, Slippy decided not to react.
The elevator platform grinded to a halt in the middle of the shaft, sparks emitting from the rails. Slippy groaned.
"Oh… Not again… I thought I fixed this a week ago…"
"Hey, at least Falco isn't here; he'd be teasing you for hours about this!"
"Yeah, good point."
"How's it look from your end Falco?"
"Well, I'd say the ship's FUBAR from ere'."
Fox flew his Arwing along the right side of the shattered Pathfinder, taking it slow with his flightpath.
"Damn, this thing got hit pretty hard…" Fox briefly thought of the crew, but immediately put his feelings away; nothing he could do about it now, or ever.
Focus Fox…
Falco's Arwing appeared in front of him, the bird having flown over the wreck after he finished checking the left side of the ship.
"Find anywhere we can land over there? The hangar's sealed from this side, looks like it collapsed."
"Yeah, otha' side's kinda open, but don't expect any atmo' though." Falco remarked rather casually, scratching the back of his head around his headset.
"Well, unless we borrow one of Slippy's cutting torches, that might be our best option then."
Falco mumbled something in acknowledgement, throttling forwards to do another loop around the Pathfinder for a second look. Fox opened up a comm channel to the Great Fox in the meantime to report the news back to the other two, placing his Arwing in a static position next to the wreck. Fox keyed his headset, connecting straight to Peppy.
"Peppy, we've found an access point in the hangar on the Pathfinder, we'll be on our way back in a bit."
"-Good work Fox, we're stuck in the elevator with… Uh, what's his name again…-" A short pause, Fox assumed he was asking the monkey, even Fox had forgotten at the moment as well.
"-Uh, right… Lrin… Anyways, you finish up out there; don't want our heat sig's attracting anybody else out here…-"
"Roger that Peppy, Fox out."
Fox killed the channel, but before he could really do anything Falco's voice broke the few seconds of silence.
"Hey Fox, uh, something's kinda strange here… You wanna take a look at this?"
"Yeah, on the way."
Fox pushed his throttle forwards, giding his Arwing slowly around and above the wreckage, small bits of scrap and other various bit of debris bumping off the Arwing's shields. The vulpine took another glimpse at the side of the ruined ship.
What did all this? More pirates? The corvette from earlier didn't look like it carried enough heavy ordinance to bring down a Navy ship…
Fox reached Falco's Arwing near the rear of the Pathfinder, the bird having put his fighter in a static position near the six large cylindrical fuel tanks that once supplied the Pathfinder's main engines. One of the fuel tanks had been split down the middle, as if someone had taken a giant zipper and undid it halfway.
"Alright Falco, what did you say I need to see?" Fox asked, not finding anything unusual; wrecks and derelicts were hardly new to him.
"This big ol' fuel tank, it's been split open."
"So? That's not exactly unusual for a wreck, Falco."
"Well duh…" Falco rolled his eyes. "Alright, but what did it?"
Fox took a glance at the split fuel tank through his canopy, looking up and down it's full length. Not seeing anything odd here… He narrowed his eyes along the jagged metal, and then it hit him. A black piece of material, roughly triangular in shape, was embedded at the far edge of the fuel tank. Fox moved his Arwing closer, using the reaction control thrusters his fighter was equipped with for minor adjustments. The object seemed to almost absorb Lylus's faint sunlight, producing a bizarre effect of the object being unable to be illuminated.
"See what I mean? Can't say I've seen anything like that before…"
"Yeah…" Fox continued to peer at the object, but couldn't make out much detail from the fact that the thing absorbed light. He shook his head, pulling himself out of the intense staring contest with the object.
"ROB might know more about this…" Fox opened a channel to the robot, talking before ROB could ask what he needed, like he always seemed to.
"Hey ROB, you know anything about this thing we're looking at?" After a few seconds, the robot had an answer.
"-I would require a deeper and closer analysis to provide conclusive data. However, from visual scans alone, the object appears to absorb roughly 80% of all light projected upon it. Retrieving a physical sample of the material in question will provide more absolute results.-"
"Thanks ROB, we're on our way back." Fox let out a sigh after the channel disconnected.
"You alright, foxey?" Falco asked, having heard Fox.
"Yeah, I just don't what to make of all this…"
"Heh, you could say that again!"
Lylat outer rim, Cornerian Navy shuttle
"Lieutenant, fuel check."
The female vulpine tapped the small electronic counter in the shuttle's cockpit; it had stopped registering the ship's fuel reserves a few hours ago. The numbers didn't respond to her paw tapping the counter's frame.
"Damn thing still isn't saying anything new, still stuck at quarter-full, sir."
"So, we have no idea how long we'll last out here?"
"Yeah…"
Captain Richard shook his head, letting out a long sigh. The shuttle had been cruising along for what had felt like days now, it's small thrusters not being designed for long excursions through deep space. He took a bite out of the energy bar he found in a crate abord the shuttle's cargo/troop bay, the dry fruity flavor being rather bland for his taste as he swallowed another chunk of the bar. He took a reluctant breath through his nose, the repulsive musk of the shuttle's recycled air pouring into his nostrils. The filter had probably clogged up, or just broke entirely.
Just another thing to worry about, better check for a connection before that system shuts down too...
Richard turned his head to the cockpit, Nora leaning back in the pilot seat almost half-asleep. If these were normal circumstances she'd be appropriately reprimanded for being almost asleep at the wheel, but the two were out of options and creating a potential argument between the two wouldn't solve anything.
"Anything on radar? Or comms?"
"Checking…"
Richard could hear Nora fiddling with something in the cockpit for a minute or two, a quiet swear being muttered after the console beeped back at her, failing to find anything of note.
"No..." Nora sighed from the cockpit. "Nothing..."
Looks like we're still drifting then... in no direction ...without a real plan...
Shit...
As if she heard his inner thoughts, Nora's voice piped in from the cockpit.
"Sir... I-I think I might have an idea. It's not exactly... conventional, but it might be our only chance here."
Richard reached up to the top of the troop bay, pulling himself out of his jump seat with a handle on the ceiling. He walked into the small cockpit, poking his head in.
"I'm listening."
Nora leaned back in the pilot's chair, the seat's cushion conforming to her new posture. "Well... If I'm right... Port Arknez's orbit is out here somewhere... If we can pick up it's signal, we could try and head there..." The fox looked out the canopy into the black, almost to try and spot the port with her eyes alone. "But that's banking on the fact the the port's even around here, in it's orbit."
"Port Arknez, huh?" Richard rubbed the fur under his muzzle, letting out a sigh. Nora could still smell the dry fruit bar from before in his breath. "Well... Not my first—or any Cornerian's first choice of port, but..." He shook his head slightly, closing his eyes briefly in frustration. "We don't have any other options, do we?"
Nora gave a slight nod, worry plastered across her expression. "No, Arknez is the closest settlement with an orbit this far out, sir. Unless there's a ship nearby, that port's our best bet." She stared down at the floor, then to the cockpit's instrument panel; specifically the malfunctioning fuel indicator. "If we miss the rendezvous... We're dead..."
Richard nodded somberly; realistically, the shuttle had no hope of catching up to the port should they miss the meetup. They certainly didn't have enough supplies to wait out another full orbit from Arknez; the station was far out enough that a complete orbital cycle took months for a full rotation around Lylus.
"Well... Looks like we're waiting for that signal then..."
The Star Fox team's small shuttle flew along, closing the distance between the idle Great Fox and the wreckage of the former Pathfinder. Fox sat in the two-man cockpit, gripping the joystick and throttle loosely in his gloved paws, only making slight adjustments to the shuttle's flightpath. Behind Fox, in the shuttle's tiny passenger bay sat Falco, the bird checking his blaster rifle for the umpteenth time.
"Oh man, glad I got this new model here..." The bird mumbled to nobody but himself, trying to justify the purchase of the gun.
"How much did that cost us again?"
"Eh... Bout' 30k in creds'..."
Damnit Falco...
"You know that's almost one full month of pay, right? For our smaller jobs?" Fox shot back from the cockpit, shaking his head and exhaling in frustration.
"Yeah yeah yeah..." The bird rolled his eyes. "Thermal optics don't come cheap... Besides..." He patted the larger-bore tube mounted under the barrel. "We run inta' anything nasty, I got a little somethin' special for em'..." Falco darkly chuckled, loading a large 40 millimeter grenade into the rear end of the tube and sliding it back into place.
"Alright, well, you know what happened last time you got some explosives..." Fox taunted, tilting his head to look back at the bird who rolled his eyes again back in return.
Fox turned his attention back to piloting, banking the ship slightly left to pull up alongside the wreckage where Falco had found the remains of the Pathfinder's hangar. The hole they planned to use was just big enough to fly the shuttle through at the cost of the paint job. "Alright, check your suit seals; we don't wanna suffocate if the shuttle gets breached out here."
Falco nodded, pulling up his left arm clad with the armored pressure suit rated for vacuum. The suit consisted of a flexible form-fitting undersuit with lightweight composite armor plates covering vital areas of whoever was wearing it, the plates would stop small-arms well enough, but it was hardly military-grade in other aspects. The helmet was nearly all glass, good for visibility, but if it cracked... The wrist had a small computer terminal; little more then what Fox would find on his smartphone. He waited a few seconds after tapping the screen, followed by a small beep.
"Nope, looks like I won't die..." He mumbled, slipping the helmet over his head and giving it a slight twist to lock it into place.
Fox did the same, making sure his furry ears fit into the helmet properly; getting them flattened against his head for long periods of time would be uncomfortable. He tapped the side of his helmet, indicating for a comms check between the two. Falco's voice came through moments later.
"Man, I forgot how stuffy this thing is!"
"Well, we could've bought better suits if you hadn't blown 30k on that gun of yours..."
"Hey!" Falco shot back, voice slightly muffled. "Thing things' gonna save our asses! You just watch!"
Fox sighed. "I look forward to it." He mocked, grabbing his own blaster carbine and checking the power cell. Satisfied with the level of charge, he nodded and slid the cell back in.
"Alright, hold on; we're going to have to push through to get inside."
"Heh, just don't wake up whatever's here..."
Fox decided to ignore the comment, spinning the shuttle in-place with the reaction control system and inched the throttle forward. The shuttle creeped forward, approaching the opening in the hangar. With a jolt, the ship impacted the edges of the hole, parting metal and chipping off paint as Fox opened up with more thrust-It was just enough to push through into the Pathfinder's hangar.
"Hey, uh, Fox? Are those bodies?" Falco asked, pointing his gloved finger at the shuttle's canopy.
"Yeah... Looks like it..." The vulpine gritted his teeth, taking in the sights of the hangar's gravity-less interior. The sight of the dead wasn't something he wasn't used to seeing, but something about this time felt off. Two things stood, or floated out to him; some of the corpses were clearly Navy personal, while others were clad in blood-red combat armor, all in various states of damage.
"Looks like some boarding action..." Fox mumbled, trying to think of any pirate group that had the resources and manpower to stage an attack on a Navy ship; few did, and even fewer could actually pull it off.
Falco, now having joined Fox in the cockpit, pointed to a large object floating among the pirates. "There, big grenade launcher, whole bunch a' spent cells. Looks like they met some resistance from the crew."
The shuttled touched down on the deck, a metallic thud of metal-on-metal could be heard reverberating in the small ship's interior.
"Okay, remember; we head up to the bridge, pull the drive and get out. I don't want you running off and looting things again. Anything else is secondary."
Falco smirked behind his helmet. "Yeah... sure thing, Foxy."
Fox ignored him again, walking over to a small touchpad mounted on the wall by the shuttle's door; it was too small to have a proper airlock. "Okay, I'm venting the shuttle." He pressed a single button on the pad, bringing up a confirmation prompt. Fox hesitated for a moment, but pressed "Vent" anyways. A second later, with the rush of air the shuttle vented the interior's pressure, letting in the unforgiving vacuum from outside to equalize the pressure of the shuttle's interior and the outside hangar, or lack thereof. Fox grabbed a latch on the shuttle's rear door, sliding it into position upwards to break the seal. The only sounds being produced being a dull thunk. He turned to Falco one last time.
"You ready?"
"Yeah..." He checked his rifle one last time. "Yeah, I'm good. Let's get Pepper's little box back."
Fox nodded, slinging his own carbine over his back and placing both paws on the door. The zero-g environment allowed Fox to simply slide it open without the door being powered. The armored vulpine shouldered his carbine and stepped into the hangar, magnetic boots activating to prevent him from floating away towards something hazardous. Lylus's blue light beamed in through the tears in the wall of the hangar, providing partial illumination of the area with blue sun shafts. It would be enough in the hangar in terms of light, but Fox doubted they'd last deeper into the ship. He panned his view across the carnage that took place however many hours ago, still the same eerie sight from the shuttle. Falco followed behind him, pointing his large rifle around the hangar; almost as if the bird was eager to shoot something.
"I'll take point, we'll head for that door." Fox said, pointing to a doorway on one end of the hangar, it being elevated off the deck connecting to a trussed platform.
"Gotcha; they'll kill you first, and then I run back to the shuttle, sounds like a plan."
Fox rolled his eyes, beginning to walk across the hangar. Only the two's footsteps could be heard, it being nothing more then a muffled clunk clunk clunk of their boots touching down on the deck with each step.
Better check in with Peppy...
Fox brought up his wristpad, tapping through it to reach a menu for the suit's close range radio transmitter. He tapped it once more, connecting to the Great Fox.
"Peppy, Fox here; we've landed in the hangar without any issues. We're going to head deeper into the wreck." Fox wasn't sure how long the connection to the Great Fox would last; the hull might block the relatively weak signal once they were deeper into the ship. After a few seconds, Peppy's voice came through, the connection was solid for the moment.
"-Good work so far, Fox. We got Lrin secured in the brig in the meantime, bounty should give us some extra creds' when we get back.-"
Fox smirked; the more money the better for the team, it'd help pay off Falco's fancy gun, too.
"-How's the ship look from the inside? Any systems still runnin'?-" The hare asked, genuinely curious. Part of it was concern for Fox's safety, but it wasn't like the situation was safe to begin with.
"Hangar's still intact for the most part, at least the interior. Looks like the ship was boarded at some point, crew fought back. Pretty messy in here." Fox took another glance upwards at the zero-g carnage before his conscious forced him to look away. He gritted his teeth, pressing onward to the door. Falco brought up the rear, still scanning the silence with his rifle. Fox hoped the length wouldn't hinder moving it around in tight, ship corridors.
Knowing our luck though...
"-Yeah... Should've expected pirates, especially out here. Still doesn't explain that thing wedged in the fuel tank though.-"
Fox thought back to earlier, finding the black sheet of whatever, it was still outside. "Yeah..." He mumbled, the single word being all he could get out as the image of the object still stained his memory, almost like it was drawing him in. He considered holding the mission for a moment, just to take a closer look in pers—"Fox? You okay?" Falco's voice snapped Fox out of his trance, he stared back at the bird idly.
"Uh..." Fox shook his best he could, the helmet hindering his efforts. "Yeah, just distracted." He gave a quick nod. "Yep, just distracted." The thought from before threatened to reemerge, Fox had to put in conscious effort to keep it at bay.
"Yeah, uh, no." Falco didn't buy it. "'Distracted' doesn't usually cause that glazed look you gave me for a solid minute." He shook his head, pointing at him.
"Alright, that thing we found outside- it's almost like the thought of it is trying to force it's way inside my head, like those songs you just can't get out of your head." Fox briefly looked back to the shuttle , then back to his friend. "It's worse then that though, almost like it wants me to remember."
"Well, can't say I've seen a shipwreck do THAT before. Let's keep movin' though, might make ya' think about somethin' else."
"Yeah..." Fox took a deep breath. "Good point."
The two advanced across the hangar, walking up the stairs to the platform that connected to the doorway; it was already open. Fox had a flashlight mounted on his carbine, turning it on and shining the white beam down the hallway beyond. Bits of debris and dust particles floated around the dark corridor ahead, ruined piping and power conduit once mounted to the ceiling having become disconnected and now providing more junk to walk around.
"Watch the pipes here..." Fox mumbled, the two slowly advancing down the hallway. Sunlight had no hope of getting though this deep into the ship, the only lights coming from dim glowing fibers on the edges of the hall, intended to mark the emergency exit should the power go out.
"That thermal scope of yours work? Or did the sketchy website you buy it off scam you again?" Fox asked, remembering the fancy-looking scope on top of Falco's rifle.
"You betcha' it works!" Falco shot back, still trying to justify his purchase. "Scope was worth 20k just by itself! Even the army don't spend this much on—"
"...Thanks, I think I get it..." Fox cut in, silently wished his friend would just shut up for 10 minutes. "Just... Just use it please, down the hall..." Fox pointed into the darkness ahead down the corridor, further then their rifle flashlights could cleave away the dark. Better vacuum suits had thermals built into the helmet, but with the price tag on the bird's gun...
Falco raised his large rifle, pointing it down the shadowy corridor. A small switch built into the side of the optic, which the blue avian happily flicked on. "Alright... let's see what this spooky ship has on offer..." The bird angled his head to look down the optic, the device casting the entire hallway in Falco's narrow line of sight in a murky, pixelated gray. Anything the was even remotely giving off heat would glow bright-white in the scope. Falco swept the large rifle's aim around down the hallway, narrowing his already good avian eyesight for a better look.
"No..." Falco trailed off. "Got nothin'. Either we're alone, or this thing's busted."
"Let's just hope it's us, then..."
Falco kept his scope's image in his peripheral vision; anything hot would be instantly clear in the optic. The two teammates advanced forward, still scanning with flashlights. The ship was completely silent, apart from the steady and quiet thump-thump-thump of the two's magnetic boots impacting the floor. Fox's flashlight panned over more floating debris in the form of supply crates drifted about in the hallway ahead; each labeled with what they supposedly held within.
"...These shouldn't be here..." Fox commented, walking to the right side of the hallway to get around the obstacles. While bumping into one wouldn't be a problem, he still rather wouldn't take the chance of puncturing his suit. "If the schematic Pepper gave us is right, the cargo bay is two decks down."
"So? We keep our stuff in in crates all around the Great Fox, not exactly uncommon..."
"Yeah..." Fox slowly pushed a small ammunition crate away with a gloved paw, the army-green box floating up and out of the way. "...Think about it though; we're hardly professionals, we don't have any real restrictions or military regulations to follow, these guys do. They can't exactly leave stuff out of place, especially in the hall. .." Fox pushed away another crate, it being labeled 'Type-8 thermobaric charges', along with information on how to safely store them.
Fox raised a furry eyebrow, looking at the box. "Alright, riddle me this, Falco; why is an 'exploration' ship carrying these? Explosives?"
Falco shined his light on the floating munitions, taking particular interest in a large crate labeled, 'M-119 Portable Infantry auto-mortar system'. A small smile formed on his beak at the sight of the thing and he briefly considered the damage he could do with the thing, but he kept the thought of the boxed weapon in the back of his mind for the time being.
"I dunno... Where was this thing headed to again?"
"The Vega System, closest Star to Lylat. Guess they found something habitable there to settle."
Falco shook his head. "Yeah... Still don't explain all this lovely firepower they were packin', Less' they were expectin' trouble."
Fox simply grunted in acknowledgment, and continued to push away another gunmetal-gray munitions crate and advanced further down the hallway. Falco took one more good look at the crates for anything else he'd want to snag on their way out. There were a few boxes of blaster powercells, but nothing as significant as the mortar. He still needed a way to convince Fox to even take the thing, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.
Falco caught up to Fox, sticking to the right and slightly behind the vulpine. Just as before, the hallway stretched into the dark ahead, and the bird's optic had found nothing ahead. Fox had kept himself focused forwards and ahead, only panning his carbine's light left and right at the occasional doorway-open or otherwise, along the sides of the hallway. Falco would check behind every few seconds, almost as if he knew that something would be following them. The scope however, had yet to find anything.
"Man, this is getting' reaaaaaal creepy..." Falco mumbled, the fact that they had heard or seen nothing was beginning to become unsettling. "Usually we'd be shot at by now, but this is just... Nothin'."
"Not going to lie, I'm gonna have to agree with you on that. But at the same time, you want to get shot at?" Fox teased.
Falco rolled his eyes. "No... I'd just like to actually know what we're dealin' with here... Not just silence."
"...Yeah..."
Fox stopped in his tracks, his light shining straight on a heavy bulkhead door blocking the path to the bridge, it having been closed automatically from the ship's internal sensors back when they had power. Fox panned his light over the metal, looking for any way it could be opened manually. Nothing stood out, no manual release latch or lever, just flat durasteel painted red with white caution stripes along the bottom.
"Odd..."
"Huh?"
"These doors always have manual releases, gives anyone trapped on one end a way to get it open. This one doesn't have anything like that."
"So... Anyone trapped by this thing is screwed?"
"...Yeah... Looks like we're going to have and find a way around, no way we're getting this open without one of Slippy's plasma cutters." Fox brought up his suit's wristpad, tapping on the keyboard to try and connect to the Great Fox; the Pathfinder's schematics wouldn't download to the suit's computer, so contacting the ship was the only reasonable way of finding a way around the bulkhead.
"Peppy, Fox here; we've ran into a bulkhead that's sealed on the main corridor. We're going to need a way around."
Fox waited a few seconds for the rabbit to respond; the hull of the wreck would most likely interfere with his suit's short-ranger transmitter and antenna. Although the signal quality was spotty, Fox could still partially make out Peppy's voice.
"-I'll p-ll up the ship -matics here... One sec...-"
"Connection's pretty spotty Peppy, just a heads-up"
"-Rodg- that F-"
Peppy jogged down the hallway to the bridge of the Great Fox; he wasn't in a huge hurry, but he'd prefer getting Fox on his way around the bulkhead sooner then later. Him and Slippy had finally gotten the elevator moving and locked up Lrin down in the brig a few decks below, he knew that Slippy would be a terrible guard so they both elected for ROB to keep an eye on the monkey through the ship's cameras remotely; it wasn't like keeping eye on someone in a locked room would be difficult for the robot anyways. Lrin probably wouldn't get too far even if he managed to escape his cell, anyways.
Peppy reached the bridge, slowing down his jog. Through the front window, in the distance, sat the wreck of the Pathfinder only 10 kilometers away. It would be fairly hard to spot with just the eyes at this distance; only a holographic projection on the front window centered around the small, distant shape told Peppy where the ship even was. Hare approached the holographic display table in the center of the room, it powering back on as he walked up to the device.
"Alright... let's see here..." Peppy mumbled to himself as the table automatically brought up the Pathfinder's internal ship schematics from where he had left off, before Fox and Falco had departed. Peppy brought up his communicator; he'd need more details from Fox about the two's current position.
"Okay Fox, I'm lookin' at the schematics here... Your're in the main hall, connecting to the hangar, right?"
"-Y-"
"Say again?" Peppy sighed; without a reliable form of communication between Fox and the Ship, things would only take longer.
"-Yeah, we're in t-e main h-"
Eh, good enough...
Peppy glanced at the three-dimensional projected image floating above the table, only showing the exterior of the ship of when it was operational; he'd need an internal view. "One moment here..." Peppy said back, flipping through the different layers of schematics using a keyboard on the holo-table.
Electrical systems... Plumbing... Ventilation... Point-defense turrets... Ah!
Peppy flicked to a tab on small selection screen next to the keyboard labeled 'Access corridor layout' He pressed enter, the holographic image almost immediately changing fore and color. An incredibly faint and transparent blue took over the color of the hull and exterior, while green shapes inside the image popped up; hallways. From here, Peppy was able to easily spot the hallway the two were in after tracing it back to the hangar.
"Okay Fox, I've figured out your current position."
Peppy's comments were spotty in terms of signal quality, but Fox was able to mentally piece together what he was saying. Falco meanwhile, was just leaning against the wall, bored. He checked his equipment just to pass the time, pulling out a spare power cell for his rifle and looking it over. Just as he had brought it along, the cell was in perfect working order.
"Good, think you can find a bulkhead door? One leading to the bridge?" Fox asked, in response to what Peppy said.
"-Hold on... -eah, I got a door marked on the m-p...-" A few moments passed by, Fox glanced over at his friend across the metal hallway, Falco tapping a gloved hand on his gun while looking down to the floor, thinking about something that probably wasn't the mission to occupy himself.
"-Al-ight, I g-t somethin' here... Falco ain't go-na like it, though...-"
Fox lowered his tone of voice; if Peppy said that Falco wouldn't like it, he really wouldn't like it.
"What you got for us, then?
Peppy sighed over the radio. "-Only w-y I can fin- is through th- ship's ventilation syst-m...-"
Fox groaned under his breath; he'd been inside vents before, they were always cramped and an absolute pain in the tail to crawl through. He'd heard stories of other mercs' getting stuck in the fun houses of air ducts that some of the old orbital colonies had, with some never getting out.
"That the best you can do?"
"-I'm afraid so, F-x. That d-or is the only -ay to the bridge, minus the v-nts, of course.-"
"Damn..." he sighed. "Okay, thanks Peppy..." Fox mumbled, killing the connection back to the Great Fox. Reluctantly, he relayed the news to his friend.
"Hey, Falco."
The bird perked up his head, snapping out of his thoughts.
"Huh?"
"Peppy found us a way through to the bridge... Problem is, we're gonna need to head through the vents."
"You gotta me shittin' me!"