Chapter 4:
The Great Fox II emerged from warp ten thousand kilometers from the location of the fighter they had been tracking. Once the ship had emerged from warp, ROB activated the long range sensors to see what the team would be facing off against. As he did so, he contacted Fox and told him, "We have emerged ten thousand kilometers from the location of the tracking device. Scan of this sector of space commencing. Recommend holding off on launching until scans are complete."
"Got it," Fox answered. While he had initially intended to rocket out of the Great Fox II the moment they had emerged from warp, he saw the wisdom in ROB's recommendation. As he waited, he checked his ship's loadout once more. His Arwing was fully fueled and he was fully armed with both his Twin Hyper Laser cannons as well as nine Smart Bombs. He almost smiled upon seeing the Smart Bomb loadout. It had been a long time since his Arwing had been fully armed, fueled, and ready for battle. He was happy to not have to worry about conserving fuel and arms on a mission like this. The only issue was that Slippy was reduced to having a Cornerian Fighter for this mission since they had not had time to build a new Arwing for him just yet. Still, Fox was thankful that Slippy was getting a fighter at all since he felt that he would need every available team member in a fighter if this mission was to end successfully without his team suffering any casualties.
A part of him hoped that they found the main enemy force here since his entire team had a full loadout. Even the Great Fox II had been fully refueled and rearmed. He felt that he would need all of the weapons he had at his disposal if the main Venomian force was located here and they needed to go into a shooting battle.
Back on the bridge, a hologram appeared in front of ROB and a layout of the sector appeared on a three dimensional display right in front of him. While ROB did not have any real emotions, even he was surprised at what he found, though thinking back on it, he felt that he should not have been surprised. Once he had gotten all the data, he immediately transmitted the data to the Arwings and the Cornerian Fighter Slippy would be flying, giving them a heads up on what they would be facing. As the data appeared on their maps and computers, the eyes of each Star Fox team member went wide at what they saw. The data that the initial scans reported back indicated that there was a massive series of space factories and bases surrounded by a massive fleet of Venomian starships. There were well over five hundred capital ships surrounding the factories and bases while scans indicated that there were dozens of keels laid for building more warships.
"Is this for real?" Fox queried with a gasp.
"Scans confirmed," ROB answered. "More than two dozen factories and bases along with five hundred Venomian capital ships are present. Large numbers of fighter wings have also been detected."
"Forget the ship numbers for a moment. How are they crewing all those ships?" Peppy asked. "Given the numbers we're seeing here, there aren't enough ruffians or criminals to crew those ships, to say nothing of those who were actually loyal to Andross to begin with. I mean the fleet that attacked Corneria was large enough. But this?"
"Who cares?" Falco answered. "We've gotta stop this force right here and now before they can launch another assault on Corneria. There's no way Corneria will hold out against this many ships. They're outnumbered more than twelve to one."
"Yeah, but how?" Slippy asked. "There's too many of them, even for us. Even with all of our armaments, we'll never take them all out without a lot of help."
"ROB, scan the factories and bases," Fox directed, not worrying about his teammates' concerns at the moment, since he had them too. "See if there's a central base that could be the hub area. If there is, then there may be a target for us to take out that could hopefully cause a chain reaction that could damage the rest of the massive force out there."
"Scanning now," ROB answered. The team waited for ROB to perform his scan, hoping that there would, indeed, be a central area for them to target. "Scans are unclear. Indications are that there is a jamming field up around the area. Targeting any structures in the area has become impossible."
"So we'll have to go out there, ourselves, to see if there's a central area that we can destroy," Fox answered. Opening the channel to the rest of the team, he said, "Okay everyone, once we launch, head straight for that structures and try to see if there's any central structure that could be a weakness. Also, keep your sensors tuned. There's a jamming field up and if we find its source and take it out, we'll possibly be able to get help from the Great Fox."
"Right," the others said.
One moment later, the hangar bay doors opened and the fighters rocketed from the hangar bay and into the void of space, their destination: the factories and bases ahead.
As the Arwings and the Cornerian Fighter rocketed towards the factories and bases, the pilots performed final checks on their fighters to make sure that everything was still running smoothly. While there was no real reason to do so since they had performed final checks moments earlier, it managed to put their minds at ease. The group then focused on their sensor screens and maps to see if any enemy contacts were coming towards them. So far, nothing seemed to be headed their way. Either they had not been detected, or the enemy force was laughing at how horrifyingly outnumbered the Star Fox Team was at the moment.
As the factories and bases came into view, they could see that the factories and bases seemed to form a ring around a large area of what looked to be empty space.
"Scan for any large power sources. If there's a jamming or cloaking field over something, it'll have to be powered by something," Fox told the rest of the team.
"Right," the team answered as they proceeded to scan for any large power sources.
As they began to scan the base for any strong power sources, the Venomian fighters that were patrolling the area immediately banked towards them and accelerated. They had had enough of allowing the Star Fox Team to snoop around the base and they decided that it was time to finish off the Star Fox Team once and for all. At the lead was a squadron of five Butterfly Fighters.
"Looks like they've noticed us," Falco stated as he charged a Homing Laser blast, ready to take the fight to the Venomian forces. Locking onto the lead Butterfly Fighter, he unleashed the Charged Homing shot on the fighter and the rest of his squadron. The emerald ball of plasma rocketed towards the Butterfly and struck it, detonating and utterly disintegrating the fighter while destroying the four fighters that had formed up around him, the other fighters spinning out of control for a few seconds before their cores detonated and the fighters exploded. Five fighters were down, but hundreds more were approaching, hoping to end this fight quickly.
"We'll keep these guys busy, Fox," Falco volunteered for the rest of the team as he rocketed forward to face the onslaught of Venomian fighters. "You go find the source of that jamming and take it out."
"Right," Fox answered as he looked down at his sensor map and input a series of commands, telling the computer to zero in on the strongest power source since a jamming field like this would require an astronomical amount of power.
After a few moments, a cone formed on his map, indicating that a strong power source had been detected. Banking his Arwing so it would point in the direction that the cone was opening, he rocketed forward, wanting to find the source of the jamming quickly so he could assist his team in dealing with the Venomian fighters, which were currently tangling with the rest of the Star Fox Team. His path took him towards a large factory that looked to have been producing capital ships for the enemy, for two partially completed Venomian Battlecruisers were laid in slips ahead of him. However, he did not go unnoticed by the fighters that had been patrolling the area, for several Venomian Space Fighters, and even two Killer Bees approached. Fox grunted at the sight of the Killer Bees, for they oftentimes released a series of rainbow-colored plasma beams that would inflict significant damage to his fighter's shields.
Focusing on the Killer Bees first, he fired a series of Twin Hyper Laser blasts at the lead Killer Bee and took it down before it could fire. The second one, however, managed to get off a shot, forcing Fox to fly towards the center of the circular formation of plasma beams that were rocketing towards him to avoid taking damage. By staying in the center, he was not only able to avoid damage, but also line up a shot on the Killer Bee, which he took advantage of when he fired a volley of Hyper Laser blasts on the fighter, blowing it apart after scoring several direct hits. He then focused on the other fighters, raking them with laser fire, managing to take down several of them while causing the others to break off from their attack, for the moment.
Fox then accelerated forward towards what he figured was the source of the jamming. As he did so, though, he came across the factory's defenses, themselves, as laser cannons and blasters swiveled towards him and unleashed a series of scarlet rapid-fire laser blasts. Fox performed a series of barrel rolls to deflect the incoming laser fire while returning fire to take out the cannons. The laser blasts that struck the hull of the stations only inflicted minor cosmetic damage to the stations while those the struck the laser cannons shattered the emplacements with single hits.
Not too far ahead, he found a series of what looked to be radar dishes. Seeing them as a threat, he fired on them and shattered them with single hits, something that surprised him since he figured the dishes would be more heavily armored against attack. Either way, he was thankful that the radar dishes had been taken out since he may have still had his approach towards the jamming field concealed.
Continuing his path forward, he checked his map and saw the cone becoming wider, indicating that he was approaching his target. Looking ahead, he saw what looked like a large power core. This had to be the source of the jamming field; either that, or the power source for this entire factory. A quick scan told Fox that his Arwing's laser cannons would not be of any use against the containment field over the core. However, his Smart Bombs might be able to inflict some damage.
Wasting no time, he lined up his Arwing with the power generator and fired a Smart Bomb at it. He did not expect the scarlet munition to actually destroy the generator, but using his sensors, he would be able to see just how much damage, if any, the Smart Bomb would inflict. The Smart Bomb struck the generator's containment field and detonated, a massive blast wave emanating from the center of the detonation, forcing Fox to remain a noticeable distance away from the generator. Using his scanners, he found that the Smart Bomb had inflicted noticeable damage to the shield over the generator. Seeing about a quarter of its shield deplete, he figured that it would take three more Smart Bombs to destroy the generator. Smiling, he unleashed three more Smart Bombs, one right after the previous one had detonated. With each Smart Bomb, a quarter of the total shield over the generator was depleted. With the fourth Smart Bomb, the generator's shield was completely depleted and the containment field began to become unstable. One more bomb should do the trick.
Targeting a structure above the containment field, Fox fired one final Smart Bomb at the structure. When the bomb struck the structure, it detonated and a massive blast of fire erupted from the structure. The containment field flickered some more, indicating that it was time for Fox to evacuate the area. Performing an Immelmann turn, he then rocketed away from the generator as it exploded, a massive wave of fire following after him. Kicking his engines into overdrive, he managed to outrun the blast as it consumed the entire factory, as well as the two half-finished Venomian Battlecruisers.
He exited the factory area as the blast consumed it and flung debris past his Arwing. Checking his sensors, he saw that each of his team members was a safe distance away from the factory so they were in no danger of getting caught up in the blast. Even better was the fact that he only detected a handful of Venomian fighters in the area, indicating that his team had finished off the rest of the fighters that had been coming at them.
Once he was a safe distance away from the factory, he turned around to take a look and see just how much damage the destruction of that power generator had actually caused. Shockingly, it had inflicted far more damage than he had expected. Not only was the factory he had flown past to get to the generator destroyed, several more factories had also been either destroyed or suffered extreme damage, with the ships protecting said factories having been completely destroyed. More ship surrounding the factory had been crippled. When all was said and done, more than sixteen functional capital ships had been destroyed, with thirty more having suffered significant damage with three factories having been destroyed and two more having suffered severe enough damage that they had to shut down most operations. However, the destruction of the power generator did not just eliminate the jamming field around the massive complex. It also revealed a large planetoid at the center of the complex that looked to be the size of a small moon. Fox's eyes went wide with shock at the sight of the planetoid at the center of the complex. While it was no larger than a small moon, it was still shocking that something that size would be found this far out of the Lylat System.
"Are you guys seeing this?" Fox blurted over his comm.
"Seeing it, yeah," Falco answered. "Believing it; that's a different story. How could a planetoid that size have been cloaked? That looks to be at least a hundred kilometers in diameter."
"Slippy, are your scans picking up anything on that planetoid?" Fox asked.
"Not yet," Slippy answered. "I'd have to get closer to get anything concrete."
"Oh, I can give you one very good reason to approach, Star Fox," an ominous and familiar voice broke in over the comm, causing everyone's eyes to go wide with shock. Looking at the comm screen, he could see the all too familiar face of Andross, the long thought dead emperor of Venom and the Androssian Empire filling it. Each member of the Star Fox Team's eyes went wide with shock.
"Andross?" Fox gasped in shock. How could he be alive? He had been destroyed, twice; once on Venom and once again, for the final time, over Sauria, or so he had believed. However, here he was, his own face appearing over the comm window on the HUD.
"Are you really all that surprised, Fox McCloud?" Andross responded sarcastically. "You should know it would be more difficult to kill me and keep me dead than just blasting my face a bit. Still, I must say I'm surprised you managed to find me so quickly. I had hoped that the fleet I had built would have been enough to conquer Corneria, but alas. Ruffians and criminals don't make the best soldiers. However, that is of little consequence now. That fleet was just the first wave of my attack and was designed to take over Corneria. I've built all the weapons and ships I need to destroy Corneria and bring Lylat to its knees. And I think I'll test them by using them on you before I destroy Corneria and any other planet that does not capitulate to my rule. Goodbye, Star Fox."
With that, the channel closed. As it closed, Fox could see a large round ship approaching, leaving him no time to wonder how Andross had managed to survive being destroyed twice. As the ship approached, he recognized it as not a ship, but a space station called a Gorgon, a ship/space station that had a main weapon that was powerful enough to pierce the crust of a planet, with repeated shots being able to destroy said planet. It was also equipped with a dimensional transport system that allowed it to teleport and phase into and out of reality. It had been one of Andross' most dangerous weapons during the Lylat Wars. If Andross had managed to build another one, then the Star Fox team had to destroy I right here, right now.
"Everyone on me," Fox commanded. "We've gotta take out this Gorgon so it can't be used against Corneria or any other planet in the Lylat System."
"Right," the rest of the team answered without hesitation as they formed up on Fox.
Once the Gorgon arrived, it opened itself up revealing a blue core and three pink energy balls orbiting the core, connected by several energy tethers. As it opened itself up, it extended three metal tentacles as well. Remembering how he defeated the Gorgon the first time, Fox began the fight by opening fire on the three energy balls, with the rest of the team joining in to make the job go faster. The teamwork utilized by the Star Fox Team allowed the three energy balls to be destroyed in less than five seconds.
After the energy balls were destroyed, the Gorgon's core flashed and it became yellow while it closed, the three tentacles still swinging around, preparing to target the Star Fox Team while it unleashed a wave of missiles towards the fighters. The rest of the team covered Fox as he fired on the tentacles, managing to destroy one of them before the Gorgon teleported away, leaving the missiles to finish off the team. Once it teleported away, Fox assisted the rest of the team in destroying the missiles as they homed in on the fighters. Still, the missiles were not durable and went down to single hits. Eventually, the team managed to destroy all of the missiles without taking a single hit.
The Gorgon then reappeared, prompting Fox to shoot another tentacles. A few shots was all that was needed to destroy the tentacle. As he did so, the Gorgon released another wave of missiles, prompting the rest of the team to open fire on them. After destroying the second tentacle, the Gorgon vanished once more, leaving the Star Fox Team to deal with its missile volley. The team had no problem dealing with the missiles, though, and soon, the missiles were all destroyed.
Once the missiles were destroyed, the Gorgon reappeared once more. Again, Fox was ready and the moment the station reappeared, Fox opened fire on the remaining tentacle, destroying it in short order. Once the third tentacles was destroyed, the Gorgon vanished once more.
A couple seconds later, the Gorgon reappeared at a distance and began to spin around, firing barrages of missiles at the Star Fox Team. Again, the Star Fox team opened fire on the missiles, but the repeated barrages of missiles were too many for the team to shoot down and they had to go evasive in order to avoid them, which they were able to do without taking any damage. Eventually, the station stopped firing and vanished once more.
When it reappeared, it opened itself up again, while extending three more tentacles from its body as well as generating three more energy balls that were feeding power to the core. Again, Fox fired on the three energy balls, destroying them in short order, not even needing any help from his wingmen. As soon as the energy balls were destroyed, the core sparked and the station closed again. As it did so, though, Fox noticed the core getting darker until it was a deep red. After the station closed, though, it did not immediately vanish, allowing Fox to open fire on the tentacles while the station unleashed a barrage of missiles along with deploying four Venomian Viper-class starfighters, twin-finned fighters with dorsal fins. The fighters zoomed towards the Star Fox Team as Fox focused on shooting the tentacles while the others focused on shooting down the missiles and attacking Vipers. Fox managed to destroy two of the tentacles before the Gorgon vanished again.
When it reappeared, the Gorgon did not immediately attack, allowing Fox to focus on the sole remaining tentacle. He destroyed the tentacle in short order and the station vanished once more.
After a second, it reappeared right in front of Fox and opened up. This time, though, there were no energy balls tethered to the core. Instead, a multitude of clear balls of energy were being gathered into the core, a clear prelude to the Gorgon firing its primary weapon.
"Watch out, Fox!" Falco called out in warning, knowing what would come next.
Fox immediately went evasive as the Gorgon then fired its planet-killing beam. By flying in a circle, he made it difficult for the station to follow his flight path since the beam was designed for use against capital ships, space stations, and planets, rather than starfighters. After a few seconds, the beam dissipated and the core closed once more, prompting the Gorgon to vanish.
It reappeared a second later and opened up once more, while also deploying the three energy balls and three more tentacles. This time, the three energy balls that were tethered to the core were spinning around it, making themselves more difficult targets. Still, they were not difficult for Fox to target and destroy, which he did in short order. After he did so, the core flashed, sparked, and turned yellow once more. However, Fox knew that he shield over the core was gone, especially since Peppy cried out, "The shield is gone, Fox. Shoot the core!"
Fox did so with extreme prejudice, firing his Twin Hyper Lasers on the core so fast that he almost overheated his laser cannons. As he was doing so, the core began to close once more. Fox kept blasting, though, wanting to destroy the core before it closed and the process would start all over again. Sure enough, he managed to destroy the core before core closed and would force him to repeat the process all over again. Once the core had had enough, an explosion erupted from the core, itself, and the station began to spin as numerous explosions and flames shot forth from the station as it spun out of control, and away from Star Fox. The station continued to spin out of control while ejecting flames and debris before a light shown forth and the station detonated, a planar shockwave erupting from the center of the station that traveled beneath the Star Fox Team's fighters, the team being smart enough to not have their ships lined up with the doomed station as it exploded.
Once the station was destroyed, Fox called out over the comm, "All aircraft report!"
"Falco here, I'm fine," Falco answered.
"This is Peppy, all systems are go. No damage," Peppy answered.
"Slippy here. I'm fine," Slippy answered.
Once he was sure that his team was ready, he pointed his fighter towards the planetoid ahead of them and said, "Hold on everyone, we're going to that planetoid right now. Be ready for anything."
"Roger," the rest of the team answered. And with that, they rocketed towards the planetoid.
As they went to approach the planetoid, Fox noticed that the defense fleet that had not been damaged by the explosion was beginning to close ranks and deploy fighters to chase the Star Fox Team. That was when ROB broke in over the comm.
"Great Fox will cover you."
With that, the Great Fox II unleashed a massive barrage of missiles, both anti-capital ship as well as anti-starfighter. The anti-starfighter missiles were cluster missiles, some of which broke off into smaller missiles to track down enemy fighters, while others had cluster munitions that would magnetically attach themselves to the nearest metallic hull, in this case, the hulls of enemy starfighters. Dozens of explosions later, the first wave of enemy fighters had been destroyed.
As for the capital ships that had deployed said fighters, they fared no better. The anti-capital starship missiles were more than sufficient to take down the capital ships with single hits for the smaller frigates and freighters, and two or three hits at most for the larger vessels. When all was said and done, over thirty capital ships had been destroyed. However, in doing so, the Great Fox II had expended all of its ordnance.
"Thanks for the help, ROB. Now, get the Great Fox clear of the engagement area," Fox told the robot piloting the Great Fox II. "Andross will need his forces to remain close to the factories and bases to protect them. Once we're finished here, we'll contact you."
"Understood," ROB answered.
With that, the robot had the Great Fox II back away from the engagement area. Several fighters and capital ships wanted to give chase but Andross must have ordered them back into their defensive position, for they quickly turned back and took up defensive positions around the base, doing their best to close the holes that had been created by the destruction of the jamming field and cloaking device's power generator, as well as the assault by the Great Fox II on the ships that were giving chase to Fox. As the Great Fox II backed off, though, Fox and the rest of the Star Fox Team rocketed towards the planetoid, Fox hoping that he would get another shot at Andross, and this time, finish him off once and for all.