Chapter 3:
The Star Fox team entered Corneria's atmosphere, keeping an eye on their sensors and their status gauges, wanting to make sure that all their systems were functioning properly. Fox was not worried about fuel since they had fully refueled before they had been alerted to the assault by Venom. As they entered the atmosphere, they went through a layer of thick white clouds and relied on their sensors to guide them safely through, as well as to alert them to any Venomian forces that may have been coming towards them. So far, though, there seemed to be no one coming, which partially surprised Fox since they hole in Corneria's defense grid had been so large before the Venomian fleet's retreat.
"Keep your eyes open guys. There's no way we won't be detected by Venom's forces," Fox warned.
"Right," the other two pilots responded.
Fox thought back to the first battle of the Lylat Wars that he had participated in. It had started much like this entry into Corneria's atmosphere. They had not encountered any Venomian fighters until they had reached the surface, but once they had reached the surface, the Venomian onslaught against them had begun. He did not expect to face as many Venomian forces this time as he had before since Venom had no orbital superiority at the moment and Corneria's own army had been fighting them, but he did not expect Corneria's army to hold out for long since the losses and later mass resignation had cut the army to only about half of what it had been before the Galactic Federation Civil War. Still, the soldiers that remained were combat veterans and there were others who would not hesitate to fight the invading Venomian forces so he did not expect Venom to have taken Corneria City or any other city by the time he had arrived.
The only real complicating factor in this battle would be the fact that he only had three Arwings at the moment, with Slippy remaining onboard the Great Fox II since he had lost his Bullfrog fighter and Arwing during the Galactic Federation Civil War. Still, he had Falco and Peppy at his side and he knew that with their skills, Star Fox had not lost too much in terms of its fighting ability.
It did not take long for them to get through the cloud layer and reach the planet's surface. They found themselves over the familiar ocean where they had begun the first real battle of the Lylat Wars so many years ago. This time, though, it took some time for the first Venomian fighter to appear. After several seconds, though, an Invader III Fighter made a foolish approach towards the Star Fox team, prompting Fox to shoot it down with a well-timed burst of Hyper Laser fire. After the first fighter met its end and crashed into the ocean, two more fighters came towards the team, only to meet the same fate as their comrade as Falco and Peppy shot them down.
"Looks like they know we're coming," Falco commented nonchalantly as he found another fighter approaching and shot it down, too.
"Cut the chatter, Falco, and focus on the battle," Peppy admonished. "If any of these fighters are veterans of the first Lylat Wars, then they'll know our tactics and have planned for them."
"Incoming fighters from the rear!" Fox called as a volley of scarlet laser blasts came streaking towards them from behind. Sure enough, a squadron of Dragon Fighters were bearing down on them.
Fox performed a loop and allowed the Dragons to fly underneath him before he fell in behind what amounted to the flying laser blasters. He then took them all down with single shots from his Hyper Laser cannons, destroying all of them quickly and efficiently.
As soon as he had downed the Dragons, the group saw the shoreline as well as the familiar series of canyons that would lead to Corneria City. Keeping low and flying towards the canyons, the team hoped that they would be too low for the sensors of any Venomian scouts or prefabricated listening posts to pick up. This time, as they went through the canyons, they did not encounter any Venomian fighters of any kind, something that gave Fox hope that they could surprise some of the Venomian forces in the city. However, it would only be a few more moments before they would enter the city and engage the bulk of Venom's surface forces attacking Corneria.
As the team saw the opening in the canyons in front of them, and the signs of the battle playing out in the city, Fox alerted everyone, "Now entering Corneria City. Stay alert and make sure you don't accidentally shoot any Cornerian forces."
"Got it," Falco and Peppy answered.
When they entered the city, they saw that, indeed, Corneria was not nearly as beaten as it had been during the first Lylat Wars as Cornerian tanks engaged their Venomian counterparts, green laser fire being exchanged with scarlet energy bolts. Explosions erupted from the forces on both sides as tanks exploded and laser blasts landed among gatherings of troops, vaporizing and charring numerous troops per blast. Despite the fact that the Cornerian forces were holding out against Venom, though, the damage to the city seemed to have been greater than it had been during the first Lylat Wars. Several buildings were on fire and there were several that had had numerous holes blasted into them during the fighting. In addition, there looked to be remains of several other buildings on the ground that had likely been leveled during the battle. In addition, the monorail tracks that connected various parts of the city looked to have taken damage in several places and other places looked to have Venomian tanks situated on them.
Fox found a formation of three Venomian tanks situated on a monorail and raked them with blue Hyper Laser fire, destroying all three of them. He then spotted a Dragon Fighter making an attack run on a gathering of Cornerian troopers and shot it down just as it was firing off another rapid-fire volley of laser blasts. As the fighter fell to the ground and crashed among a group of Venomian ground troops, the Cornerian ground troops waved at Fox, who tipped the wings of his Arwing towards them in response. The humanoid fox smiled. He had missed these fights, fighting for something he knew was right. This was his purpose, to defend the innocent. He had vowed many times since the Galactic Federation Civil War that he would never risk taking on unjust missions again, and he reaffirmed this vow silently as he targeted an Invader III fighter that was chasing a Cornerian Fighter and took it down with a well-timed burst of Hyper Laser fire.
As he studied the battle more closely, he noticed that there seemed to be large concentrations of Venomian tanks in the city but he had not found any Garuda mech tanks or other mechs like those Andrew Oikonny had used on Fortuna during his rebellion. He continued to fly around the city, picking off groups of Venomian tanks and the occasional fighter as he went, before he spotted several Garudas near some buildings. Knowing that the Garudas could use their claws to topple buildings, he quickly rushed towards them, unleashing his full fury on them, hoping to take them down before they could topple the buildings. Several Hyper Laser blasts was all it took to take down a Garuda and the first Garuda he fired on quickly went up in flames before it could topple its targeted building.
Fox quickly made his way over to take down a second Garuda, who had drawn back its claw arm to ram into a building in order to topple it. Before it could thrust its arm forward, though, Fox unleashed a volley of Hyper Laser fire on it that completely blew apart the top half of the mech, leaving nothing but a flaming set of treads. Fox then banked towards another Garuda but saw that Peppy was already on it. He was just in time to see its top half explode, its targeted building safe from its destructive plans. Fox then banked towards the fourth Garuda that was just rolling up to a building to topple. Not wanting to give it even a slight chance of toppling the building, he charged it and unleashed another volley of Hyper Laser fire on it, destroying it before it even reached the building.
Fox continued to study the battlefield as he banked his Arwing to look for more targets and found a great number. Despite the damage he and his team had been inflicting, Venom's forces still looked to hold a significant numerical advantage. They would need to thin out the numbers if they were going to save the city, especially with Venom seeming to have air superiority over the Cornerian forces. There were still a few Cornerian fighters trying to contest the Venomian air forces, but they were too few in number to make a difference without help. It was then that Fox formulated a plan for his team's counterattack.
"Falco, you focus on assisting the remaining Cornerian Fighters in taking down Venom's air forces," he directed. "Peppy, you focus on the ground forces. Corneria is badly outnumbered and any heat you can take off of them will be greatly appreciated. Like in space, I'll be swing. I'll also deal with any approaching Venomian forces once the city's either clear or the situation is under control. Okay everyone, let's go!"
"Roger," Falco and Peppy answered as they banked their fighters towards their respective targets.
As for Fox, he quickly saw a flight of four Dragon Fighters descending towards the city, firing volleys of laser fire towards a building, inflicting noticeable damage to it as windows were blown out and fires erupted from the top floors of the building. Fox charged a Homing Laser shot and unleashed said shot at the Dragons. The fighters did not bank away from the blast, instead countering by firing their own lasers at the approaching ball of plasma. The lasers did not affect the ball of plasma, though, and the fighters were not fast enough to bank out of the blast range of the Charged Homing shot's detonation. When it collided with its target, its detonation caught all four Dragons in its blast, causing all four doomed fighters to hurtle to the planet's surface and crash well away from any buildings or gathering of Cornerian forces.
Fox then banked his Arwing to the left and found several Venomian tanks that had pinned down a gathering of Cornerian tanks and infantry soldiers. One strafing run later, the tanks were reduced to flaming rubble and the Cornerian forces were safe, for the time being. Ascending so he could have a better view of the battlefield, he saw large gathering of Venomian tanks being taken out by a Charged Homing Laser shot by Peppy while Falco was chasing, and downing, a flight of Invader IIIs. While Peppy was busy with the tanks in his current sector, Fox found another group of tanks off in the distance that were attacking a damaged building. Charging a Homing Laser shot, he let loose with the blast and watched as it homed in on the Venomian tanks. When it collided with its target, it detonated and vaporized its target while also destroying the rest of the tanks, vaporizing those close to the center of the blast.
As Fox flew around the city, he managed to spot several landed dropships and transports on the outskirts of the city. Wanting the Venomian forces to have nowhere to retreat to, as well as wanting to make sure that the ships did not decide to join the fight, he went over to the ships and raked them with laser fire. One of the ships immediately went up in flames while a second one merely suffered noticeable hull damage and had required a second volley of laser fire to finish off. A third ship was beginning to rise to confront the Arwing fighter, but Fox charged a Homing Laser shot and unleashed it on the ship. The shot collided with the ship and detonated with the force of a heavy torpedo and immediately felled the ship, blowing out its engines and causing it to crash to the surface once more. It was not high enough for the crash to cause it to explode but the ship was still reduced to a complete wreck. As for the fourth ship, this transport had managed to get some height on it and had fired a series of laser shots at Fox that caused the humanoid fox to have his Arwing perform a barrel roll. The shield generated by the barrel roll deflected the laser fire and Fox then charged a single Homing Laser blast. Once he locked onto the transport, he let fly with the Charged Shot and watched as it homed in on the transport. It struck the transport in the center of the ship and practically split the ship in two upon its detonation. The two halves of the ship then fell back to the planet's surface, where they crashed and crumpled into unrecognizable wrecks. With the transports and dropships having been destroyed, Fox's focus returned to the city, where his forces had already inflicted severe casualties to the Venomian forces.
Looking back in the city, the assistance of his team had allowed for the Cornerian forces to catch their breath and buckle down before reengaging the Venomian forces. Currently, it looked as if the Venomian ground forces had been cut in half and without the close dropships and transports, they did not have any place to refuel, repair, or rearm should they suffer damage. However, that would not matter to the Venomian ground forces, since they were too busy trying not to get annihilated by the Star Fox Team and a rejuvenated Cornerian army. Eventually, they had little choice but to either surrender or die fighting. Most chose to surrender while the few that chose to continue the fight were quickly taken out by the combined might of the Star Fox Team and the Cornerian army.
Once the Venomian forces inside the city had been dealt with, Fox heard General Pepper come in over the comm.
"Thank you for the save, Star Fox. We are in your debt. However, we cannot celebrate yet. We have detected new contacts outside the city to the north and approaching relatively fast. A couple of the contacts are pretty large. One of them looks to be an Attack Carrier."
"We're on it, General," Fox answered. He then opened a channel to the rest of his team and said, "You heard the general. Peppy, you stay here in Corneria City to help cover the Cornerian forces and deal with any Venomian forces that manage to get past us."
"I copy," Peppy answered.
"Falco, you're with me. We're gonna meet the Venomian forces outside the city and break through that line.
"Got it, Fox," Falco answered as the two banked their Arwings and headed north while Peppy flew a holding pattern over Corneria City.
Fox and Falco flew out of the city and saw the familiar mountain range off in the distance. As they approached the mountain range, they saw another Venomian army spread out before them consisting of numerous Garudas, many of who were carrying steel beams, Venomian tanks, vehicles that looked like Venomian Armored Personnel Carriers, and more dropships. In addition, the ground forces were being escorted by numerous squadrons of Venomian Fighters. Both Fox and Falco looked at the approaching forces and their eyes went wide.
"You know, it's not too late to call in Peppy," Falco suggested.
"No," Fox answered. "He needs to stay back should any of these forces make it past us."
"Okay," Falco said hesitantly. "So, how do you want to do this? Do you want me to focus on the fighters?"
"Yeah," Fox answered. "You focus on the fighters and dropships while I deal with the ground forces, themselves."
"What about that Attack Carrier, though?" Falco asked.
"All General Pepper told us was that there were two large contacts. We may get lucky and not have to deal with an Attack Carrier."
Falco made no response. In actuality, he would not have minded facing off against an Attack Carrier. He would rather be facing the carrier than facing the massive forces arrayed against them at the moment.
As Falco accelerated to engage the Venomian fighters, Fox charged a Homing Laser shot and targeted the lead Garuda. The emerald green ball of plasma streaked towards the Garuda mech and scored a direct hit, blowing the mech apart. Charging another Homing Laser blast, he targeted a second Garuda and once the target lock had been achieved, he let loose with the second Homing Laser blast. Less than two seconds later, another Garuda was destroyed. Focusing on a third Garuda, Fox decided to deal with this one simply by using concentrated laser fire. A volley of Twin Hyper Laser blasts was all that was required to blow apart the Garuda. As Fox approached the ground force, though, the tanks swiveled their cannons upwards and began pelting him with barrages of laser blast, forcing him to barrel roll in order to deflect their blasts. He managed to deflect most of the laser blasts, but the small cooldown time between barrel roll shields allowed a few blasts to get through and inflict some shield damage to his Arwing. Fox grunted as the Arwing shook from the hits.
The Star Fox Team leader proceeded to strafe the tanks and APCs on the ground, managing to take out four tanks, two APCs, and another Garuda before having to turn around and face down the tanks again. Again, though, the tanks raised their cannons and continued to fire on him, forcing him to go defensive by performing numerous barrel rolls, one right after the other. While the barrel roll shields deflected most of the blasts, a few managed to get through and inflict more shield damage to the Arwing. While a few blasts were not much of a problem, Fox knew that the damage would mount with each attack run he made, which became increasingly difficult as he had to barrel roll in order to protect his Arwing, making it more difficult to score solid hits on the tanks. Eventually, Fox had had enough and decided to use his final Smart Bomb to deal with the ground forces, especially when he another wave of tanks and Garudas coming from behind the first wave.
"Falco, get clear," Fox called, opening his channel to Falco.
"Fox, what are you doing?" Falco gasped in answer as he launched a Charged Homing Laser blast on a squadron of Invader IIIs, destroying the whole squadron, figuring that he was about to use his only remaining Smart Bomb on scrubs like Venomian Tanks and Garudas. "You've only got one bomb left. What if we have to deal with more starships or a stronger enemy warps into Corneria's orbit?""
"I know," Fox answered. "That's why you have to hold onto yours. There are just so many forces down here that the only real way to deal with them quickly will be to use a Smart Bomb."
"Okay Fox," Falco answered hesitantly. He hoped that Fox was not just wasting the bomb, though. Still, taking a quick look at what Fox was facing convinced him that his leader was right and that the Smart Bomb was the way to go, especially since those Venomian tanks seemed to be a little too accurate in their fire on Fox's Arwing.
As Falco flew away from the area, Fox made one last attack run on the first wave of tanks, Garudas, and even dropships as the second wave was joining up with the first wave. Once the two waves had joined and went to target Fox, the humanoid fox banked his Arwing towards the Venomian lines and proceeded to fire his Smart Bomb into the center of the Venomian lines. The firing of his Smart Bomb caught the Venomian forces completely off guard and they attempted to swivel their cannons towards the Smart Bomb but it was too quick and the bomb landed in the center of the Venomian lines and detonated.
The Smart Bomb's detonation utterly vaporized the central ranks of the Venomian ground forces. The blast wave emanated from the center and shook the ground, leveling trees and breaking apart small hills, as well as Venomian tanks, APCs, and Garuda mechs. The blast wave even managed to catch some of the dropships and take them down, the ships crashing into the ground and exploding, taking out more Venomian ground forces.
The bomb's detonation had destroyed almost eighty percent of the Venomian ground forces, with only the edges of the ground forces still remaining. Their greatly reduced numbers, however, made them far easier for Fox to deal with, which he did. A few more strafing runs later, barrel rolling to avoid the laser fire from the tanks, the rest of the Venomian ground forces from the current assault were destroyed. However, the ground assault was not finished yet.
Checking his sensors, Fox soon found a large contact moving towards him at a relatively slow pace, indicating that it was not a starship. Looking ahead, he saw a large bipedal walker approach that he recognized as a Granga Mech. A part of him expected the Granga Mech's pilot to break in over the comm to mock him and he was relieved when no enemy voice crackled in over the comm. What did not relieve him, though, was the fact that the mech immediately opened fire on him with everything it had. Laser blasts targeted his fighters, as did numerous missiles.
Fox banked his Arwing towards the missiles, barrel rolling to deflect the laser fire while shooting down the missiles with his lasers. Remembering the weakness of the walker from the Lylat Wars, he rocketed towards the walker and opened fire on the walker's thin legs. The walker's leg could not take much fire before breaking apart and causing the walker to fall and a single volley of laser fire was all it took to take out the leg and cause the walker to fall. The fall of the walker did more than merely disable it's movement abilities, though. It also exposed its vulnerable backpack-like device on its back to laser fire as well as disabling the laser cannons that fired forward. It only took Fox a few seconds for him to finish off the walker as he fired on the backpack-like device. A single volley of laser fire was all it took to destroy the walker's power supply as well as utterly destroy the walker. Fox rocketed away from the walker as it detonated into a massive fireball.
Once the walker was destroyed, Fox checked his sensors to see how Falco was doing. Looking at his sensors, he saw Falco dealing with the last of the Venomian fighters and dropships and grinned. It looked as if Venom's forces had been beaten so far. All that was left was to find the final contact that General Pepper had mentioned. That contact soon came into view, though as a large contact was spotted near the ocean and coming in towards the shore.
"Falco, I've picked up the Attack Carrier over the ocean, follow me!" Fox proclaimed as he rocketed towards the ocean.
Falco followed and as the two approached the ocean, the Attack Carrier came into view as it descended towards them. Again, just as with the walker, the captain of the Attack Carrier did not engage the Star Fox Team in any idle conversation and, instead, merely opened its hangar bay in order to launch fighters towards Fox and Falco. Fox retaliated by firing a barrage of laser blasts into the hangar bay, destroying the fighters that attempted to emerge and inflicting damage to the bay as well.
The hangar soon closed and the next to open were two missile launchers that fired missiles at Fox and Falco. Again, Fox retaliated by unleashing Twin Hyper Laser fire on the missile launchers, inflicting more damage to the carrier. Once the missile launchers closed, the hangar bay opened once more. This time, both Fox and Falco fired into the hangar bay, annihilating any fighter that attempted to escape and eventually, they inflicted enough damage to cause the hangar bay to break off the carrier. The carrier lurched to the side before recovering and turning the missile launchers towards the two Arwings.
The missile launchers opened once more and more missiles were disgorged towards the Arwings, only to be shot down by the two Arwings and more damage being inflicted to the missile launchers as both Fox and Falco opened fire on the launchers. The launchers closed again for a second before opening again but before they could fire more missiles, the combined fire of Fox and Falco destroyed the missile launchers, causing them to break off from the ship and causing it to lurch once more. Now, though, the Attack Carrier was at its most dangerous.
The moment it lost its missile launchers, the carrier turned to face Fox and Falco and proceeded to unleash a stream of Plasma Ovals towards them, forcing Fox and Falco to barrel roll to avoid taking damage. As they did so, though, they opened fire on the carrier, whose main body was now vulnerable to starfighter laser fire. Blue and green laser blasts lashed out at the carrier as the carrier fired more Plasma Ovals at the Arwings. As the damage mounted on the Attack Carrier, the ship began to smoke more and more. Eventually, the carrier could take no more and it stopped firing on the Arwings. An explosion could be seen as pieces of hull fell off of the ship as flames erupted from the numerous holes in the ship. Another explosion soon rocked the ship and it listed downwards towards the ocean as it fell to the water and crashed before detonating in a massive explosion. Fox and Falco rocketed away from the fallen ship as it exploded, ending the Venomian assault on Corneria once and for all and sending a large tidal wave onto shore, which fortunately did not affect anyone since there were no settlements on the shore.
Once the Attack Carrier was destroyed, Fox and Falco returned to Corneria City to join back up with Peppy in mopping up any stragglers and keeping Corneria City protected. Once he returned, he saw Peppy still flying the holding pattern over the city.
"I take it you had no problems with the Venomian forces," Peppy surmised upon seeing Fox and Falco's return.
"None," Fox answered. "All of the Venomian forces we saw were destroyed, including their dropships, the Granga Mech and the Attack Carrier. You have any problems while we were gone?"
"No," Peppy answered. "None of the surrendering Venomian forces went back on their word."
"Good," Fox said. He then opened a channel to the Great Fox II and said, "ROB, Slippy, how are things up there? Anything new?"
"Nothing new yet," Slippy answered. "How are things looking down there?"
"We've cleared Corneria City of invaders," Fox answered. "And we dealt with the second wave as well. We should be heading back up once everything is fully cleared down here."
After Fox closed the channel, General Pepper crackled in over the comm, "Star Fox, our listening posts have just reported detecting several new contacts appearing over Venom. So far, though, only a few capital ships have appeared over Venom but I think it's worth investigating. Before you go, though, come in for refueling and rearming. If Venom is, indeed, attacking once more, it's likely that Andrew Oikonny or some other former lieutenant of Andross could be located there."
"Got it, and thanks. I think we will take you up on that offer," Fox answered. He then opened a channel to the rest of the team and the Great Fox II and asked, "You get all that?"
"Yeah," the rest of the team answered in unison.
"There may be a problem, though," Slippy added. "The fighter we were tracking is nowhere close to Venom. It's out of the Lylat system entirely. It's not too far out of the system and can be reached with a simple warp jump but it's still much farther out than Fortuna, Sauria, or even Venom."
"So Fox, what do you wanna do?" the humanoid Fox heard Falco ask over the comm.
Fox considered his options. He could go and investigate Venom but potentially lose track of the fighter they were tracking and risk losing the chance to find out where the true source of the Venomian fleet was, but on the other hand, if several ships were appearing over Venom, then Venom still held some importance to the fleet and investigating it could shed some light on their plans and how such a large fleet could have been built and crewed without anyone else noticing. Still, the fact that the fighter they were tracking was nowhere near Venom indicated that Venom might not be the source of the activity. And if worse came to worst, they still knew exactly where Venom was. They did not know where the fighter was save for the tracker and if that was discovered, then the fleet would be in the wind. Eventually, Fox made up his mind.
"We're tracking down that fighter," he answered. "We can go to Venom after we track that fighter down and if it leads nowhere, at least we know where Venom is so it would only be a short detour. In addition, General Pepper has also offered to help refuel and rearm our fighters for the fight ahead, and offer I accepted."
"Good," Peppy said, relieved. "We'll need more fuel and arms if we're to pursue that fighter and come across a large Venomiann fleet, and especially for when we go to Venom after finding that fighter."
"I hear you, Peppy," Fox answered with a nod. With that, the three Arwing pilots banked their ships towards the main capitol building and proceeded to land so they could be refueled and rearmed.