Chapter 5:
It did not take long for them to reach the planetoid. As they approached it, though, they could not help but notice that there was little resistance to their approach, especially considering how large the complex was and how many ships had been orbiting it. There had to have been dozens of fighter wings patrolling the area, yet even outside, they had only faced minimal resistance compared to how large the complex was, even with the Great Fox II covering them. Indeed, only one squadron of five Vipers had come up from the planetoid to engage them, and the Vipers barely lasted a second before they were unceremoniously annihilated by the Star Fox Team. Still, the team took a chance and looked over their shoulders, but they could not see any Venomian fighters pursuing them.
"What's going on, here?" Falco asked as they approached the planet. "Why aren't there more fighters coming after us?"
"I don't know," Peppy answered. "Just be thankful that the fighters from the base's defense fleet aren't coming after us."
"That's part of what has me worried," Falco responded.
"Yeah," Slippy echoed. "Me too."
"Cut down on the chatter, guys," Fox told the others. "If there aren't many fighters, then either Andross doesn't think he can afford to waste them, their pilots aren't combat trained, or he's got other defenses on that planetoid. As such, I'd be worried about what we're gonna face down there."
"I copy," the others answered.
After a while of not facing any meaningful resistance, they eventually encountered another ship. The ship was not large, merely the size of a heavy starfighter that looked like a bird's head with two antennae sticking out of its cockpit area that the Star Fox Team did not know was named Phantron. Phantron had been an experimental fighter that was intended to see action in the Lylat Wars, but its holographic system, incredible speed, maneuverability, and heavy seeker missile had proven too energy and resource intensive to make it a practical combat unit. As it approached, Fox and the others could not help but think that there was something strange about the fighter.
"Geez laweez, what is that?" Falco blurted.
"I don't know," Peppy answered. Still, as he thought back, he could not help but think he may have seen that fighter chassis before. But from where?
"That fighter gives me the creeps," Slippy added with trepidation.
"Calm down, guys, and be ready for anything," Fox told the others evenly. While he was not creeped out by the fighter the way the others were, he could not help but think that there was more to the fighter than met the eye.
He was soon proven correct as the Phantron darted to the side while simultaneously launching a missile and a barrage of lasers at the Arwings and Cornerian Fighter arrayed against it, forcing Fox and the others to perform a barrel roll while Fox opened fire with his own lasers to shoot down the missile, which he did when it was scant meters away from his starfighter. As the missile exploded, Fox's Arwing was pelted with debris from the missile and still suffered shield damage. As the fighter had darted, though, Fox could not help but notice that the fighter seemed to leave a series of after images as it seemed to almost warp, as if the fighter would make micro warp jumps almost as if it appeared in two places at once or close to it.
Focusing his attention on the fighter, he fired on Phantron once more, managing to score another hit before it rocketed off in another direction as it fired another missile and barrage of lasers, along with leaving more after images for a second. Fox barrel rolled in order to deflect the laser fire and fired again on the fighter, scoring another hit, causing a puff of smoke to emerge from the point of impact. The fighter then spun around and flew in vertical circles, leaving more after images behind it before it did something that took the team completely off guard. It seemingly split into three fighters, forming a triangle before them.
"There's three of them now?" Slippy blurted almost in disbelief.
"Don't worry about that, just destroy them!" Falco retorted as he and the rest of the team opened fire on the fighters. However, as they did so, they noticed that on two of the fighters, there seemed to be no effect. It was almost as if they were firing into emptiness. Fox, however, managed to fire on a third fighter, this one on the lower right of the triangle by the Phantron's reckoning. This time, when Fox fired on it, the fighter's shield seemed to flare with each it, indicating that he was shooting the real Phantron.
"Guys, two of the fighters are holograms," Fox alerted the others. "One of them is, indeed, real."
"So this is the rumored Phantron," Peppy said distantly.
"What's Phantron?" Slippy asked.
"An experimental fighter that was developed over a decade and a half ago, before the beginning of the Lylat Wars, at around the same time the Star Fox Team under Fox's dad made their fateful trip to Venom," Peppy answered. "From what little our scans could glean, it was designed as a close orbital defense starfighter with quick warp jump capability, holographic projection, as well as a single heavy instant-kill missile that could destroy anything short of a capital ship in one shot. Be careful of that. It never saw action in the Lylat Wars, though."
"Why didn't they deploy it or build more of them?" Fox asked, as he barrel rolled to deflect more laser fire and shoot at the real fighter, which had just dispelled its first set of holographic phantoms and created another group, forcing Fox to determine which one was the real one once more. "It seems like just the type of ship Andross would build."
"Probably because they were too resource intensive to build in any real quantity," Slippy surmised. "It probably just wasn't worth it, especially when he was able to build fighters similar to Arwings in the form of Star Wolf's Wolfens."
Slippy had a point. The Wolfen-class starfighter had repeatedly proven itself to be a match for an Arwing with comparable pilots. While the Wolfens used by Star Wolf were just as unique as the Arwings used by Star Fox, it was likely that several of them could be made for what it cost to make one Phantron. And while the Phantron, used correctly, could be powerful in a defensive role, it would have trouble in a major space battle since it would quickly be overwhelmed by the volume of fire and a few lucky shots from a capital ship could destroy it, something Fox was hoping to do quickly as he fired on the Phantron again, managing to find the real one and inflict more damage.
After a second, though, Phantron's holographic phantoms vanished once more and it remained still. Fox fired on it but his lasers did not seem to be doing much of anything. The reason for that, though, was because the fighter seemed to open up and unleash a massive missile that looked a bit like a miniature version of the original Great Fox towards Fox's Arwing. Fox was about to try to evade the missile but Peppy soon broke in to stop him.
"Don't move!" Peppy warned. "I've seen that missile design before. That missile's a motion-detecting missile. Just stay still and it'll miss you entirely. If it hits, though, it can destroy even an Arwing in one hit."
"Are you sure?" Fox asked.
As he saw the missile approach, he knew that he would not receive an answer in time and simply decided to take Peppy's advice. As the missile approached, though, its targeting systems seemed to get confused and it dipped beneath the Arwing, sailing under it and missing entirely. As soon as the missile missed the fighter, Phantron formed another two holographic phantoms, prompting Fox to search for the real one while avoiding the missiles and lasers it fired at him and his team. He quickly found the real one, though, this time being situated at the top of the triangle. Another few volleys of laser fire was all the Phantron could take before it fell.
After the final shot, there was an explosion on Phantron's hull and the holographic phantoms vanished entirely. Smoke poured out of the hole that had formed in its hull. It appeared to turn so it could head back down to the planetoid's surface for repairs but Fox had other ideas. Unleashing another volley of laser fire on Phantron, he burned more holes into the fighter as it retreated, not wanting it to reveal any more surprises. A few more shots was all the damaged fighter could take before it exploded into thousands of pieces of shrapnel. With Phantron having been destroyed, the Star Fox Team made their way down to the planetoid with little further resistance.
As they got closer to the planetoid, the Star Fox Team would occasionally look back to see if they were being pursued by any Venomian fighters. While Andross almost certainly wanted to protect his factories and bases, he also knew the threat of Arwings and Fox was surprised that there were no fighters in pursuit since even if they were low on numbers, destroying the Star Fox Team would almost certainly be of paramount importance for Andross and his forces.
Soon, Andross broke in over the comm once more. "So, you got through both Gorgon and Phantron. I must say, I'm impressed. But those were only the first line of defense of New Venom."
"New Venom?" Fox asked.
"The planetoid you see before you," Andross answered. "I'll be waiting for you in the center should you manage to make it, that is."
With that, the channel closed. As they got a look at the surface, though, they got a good idea of why there were no starfighters pursuing them. The entire surface of the planetoid was covered in surface emplacement laser cannons and likely some Turbo Laser cannons as well. Fox would not have been surprised if there had also been several Gorgon-type beam weapons as well.
"Guys, be careful," Fox warned. "There's an arsenal of defenses down there. Scan for any entrance to the planetoid, itself. That's likely going to be our path to Andross."
"Right," the others answered.
As they approached the planetoid's surface, the surface cannons began tracking the Arwings and opening fire. Not worrying about keeping their Smart Bombs in reserve, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy fired the bombs onto the surface. The nuclear weapon-level detonations took out dozens of defensive cannons, shaking the ground and damaging dozens more, giving the Arwings a chance to charge their Homing Lasers for a run on the next group of surface batteries.
After several moments of scanning, Peppy broke in over the comm, alerting Fox, "Fox, We've detected a structure several dozen kilometers to our west."
"There is an unusually large concentration of defensive batteries there as well," Slippy added. "It's almost certainly someplace important."
"Then let's get going," Fox stated as he banked his Arwing towards the west.
As they headed west, they knew that they would have to brave dozens, if not hundreds, of anti-aircraft guns. Performing a barrel roll, Fox managed to deflect most of the laser fire from the batteries while the others let loose with Smart Bombs, each bomb destroying over a dozen guns as they made their way towards the structure. All along their trek, they had to brave more batteries, each team member charging their Homing Laser and letting it loose towards the surface after locking onto the defensive batteries, each blast destroying four guns or more, with some managing to destroy six batteries in one shot. As they continued, though, each of the team members checked their scanners and occasionally looked over their shoulders to make sure that they were not being pursued by enemy starfighters since with so many guns being destroyed, it would relatively safe for enemy starfighters to go down towards the planetoid's surface and engage the Star Fox Team.
The team continued its destructive trek towards the structure Peppy had detected, firing Charged Homing Laser blasts at regular intervals, destroying dozens more surface laser cannons.
"I must say, I'm impressed, Star Fox," the team heard Andross break in over their comms. "I had expected the laser cannons to cause you more problems than this. However, don't think you'll have such an easy time getting to me. I have more than just laser cannons defending New Venom."
As if to accentuate their point, numerous holes opened in the ground. A second later, missiles erupted from the holes and homed in on the Arwings and Slippy's Cornerian Fighter. The fighters opened fire on the missiles, managing to shoot them all down while more surface defense batteries unleashed torrents of laser fire on them, forcing them to continue to barrel roll in order to avoid the laser fire.
As they got closer to the structure, they noticed that the surface defenses were getting stronger. In addition to the static laser defenses, there were now tanks and missile-equipped fighting vehicles that were opening fire on the Arwings. More Smart Bombs were unleashed upon the defenses, resulting in the loss of more defenses and missiles. As they continued to fight, Fox could not help but think that many of these defenses were automated since Andross did not seem too concerned about their destruction.
Eventually, they saw a series of structures off in the distance that resembled Andross's palace on Venom as well as the entrance to the planet's core. Numerous towers and surface defense cannons surrounded the entrance to the plaentoid's interior. In addition, the towers had defenses as well, most of them being laser cannons while a few of them had missile launchers with a few even launching plasma balls. All of the defenses opened fire on the Star Fox Team but Star Fox performed barrel rolls to deflect the energy fire and the few missiles that soared towards them were shot down in quick order. The Star Fox Team launched some more Smart Bombs on the surface to take down some of the towers and shatter the surface defense batteries. The explosions did just as they expected and several towers collapsed while the shockwaves of the detonations sheared off the defensive batteries from some of the towers farther away from the point of impact for the bombs. Fox also unleashed a few Charged Shots at the towers and destroyed the tops of the towers, leaving what was left just smoldering wreckage.
Fox soon approached the entrance to the planetoid's interior and found that it was closed. However, entrance doors did not look to be made of the same material as the rest of the building and Fox decided to test a hypothesis that his lasers could force the entrance to open. Lining up his Arwing, he fired a volley of laser fire on the entrance and the doors immediately retracted.
"The entrance is open!" Fox alerted the others.
"Great!" Falco exclaimed. "Now we can go get Andross!"
As soon as Falco had uttered those fateful words, though, dozens of new contacts appeared on the fighters' sensors and appeared to be approaching fast. Turning around, the Arwings and Slippy's Cornerian Fighter saw dozens, if not hundreds, of Venomian fighters of all classes descending towards them. Slippy's eyes went wide at the number of incoming fighters, a part of him wondering why they had not appeared sooner, especially since they had been clearing the anti-aircraft batteries on their path to the entrance to the planetoid's interior.
"Looks like those fighters are finally coming," Peppy said ominously as memories of his mission to Venom with James McCloud where Peppy had betrayed them came to mind. This would be a tough battle, possibly the toughest battle they had ever fought.
"I'll go take on Andross alone," Fox declared.
"We'll cover you, Fox," Falco answered. "You go take out Andross while we deal with the fighters up here and keep them from following you."
"Right," Fox answered.
He then rocketed towards the entrance to the planetoid as the rest of the team banked upwards to intercept the incoming Venomian fighters, the team already launching Smart Bombs at the waves of fighters in order to take out as many of them as possible in order to make their numbers more manageable. Fox flew over the entrance before flying a bit into the air before turning around and flying straight towards the entrance, unleashing a volley of laser fire to make sure that the entrance remained open. He then gunned the throttle forward and accelerated down the tunnel.
As he entered the tunnel and surged forward down a tunnel lined by metal walls, Andross broke in over his comm once more. "I've been looking forward to this, Fox McCloud."
Fox ignored him as he continued to fly. As he flew, there were some electrical arcs that blocked his way, prompting him to the charge his Homing Laser and fire on one of the emitters, the green ball of plasma striking the emitted and vaporizing it in an emerald explosion.
"You know that I control the galaxy," Andross continued, prompting Fox to smirk.
"Then why did you die twice? Why are you hiding beyond the Lylat System? And why did you lose a fleet attacking Corneria?" Fox retorted.
Andross did not give an immediate answer as Fox continued further into the planetoid, coming across more electrical arcs, which he destroyed with more Charged Homing Laser blasts. He also came across some closed entrances that he blasted open with more Charged Homing shots.
"It's foolish to come against me," Andross declared, prompting Fox to smirk again. Apparently, Andross had forgotten the outcomes of his previous battles against the Star Fox team, particularly Fox, himself. Fox could also not help but notice that, save for the first statement upon entering the tunnel, the other statements were the same, word for word, as the ones he had made in the last battle of the Lylat Wars where Andross had been killed the first time.
"You will die just like your father," Andross finished as Fox approached the entrance to a large cavern beyond. Something rang hollow in Andross's threat, especially since Fox was not certain that his father was as dead as Andross and the others had thought.
Eventually, Fox entered the cavern beyond the tunnel and as he entered, Andross approached him and gave an ominous and maniacal laugh. Andross looked just as he had at the end of the Lylat Wars, a disembodied head with two hands. Andross then eyed Fox for a second before he took action against the leader of the Star Fox Team.
As Fox approached Andross pointed his right hand forward and unleashed a blast of lightning towards Fox's Arwing forcing the humanoid fox to bank his fighter to avoid the lightning blast. Fox retaliated by firing on Andross hand as Andross drew back his left hand and wound up to punch his fighter. After a few seconds, he thrust his fist at Fox's Arwing, prompting Fox to barrel roll out of the way to his left. Andross then withdrew his hand and brought it back to his head before having his other hand unleash another lightning blast, prompting Fox to barrel roll to his right to avoid the lightning blast.
Andross then drew his hand back to attempt to perform another punch with it. As he did so, Fox avoided the hit and opened fire on Andross's eyes, causing them to glow red with each it. Eventually, Andross's eyes took enough of a beating that he gave a grunt and shook his head, as he used one of his hands to cover the eyes to protect them from Fox's assault while revealing the other hand and its glowing square on it, the weak spot that Fox had been waiting for. Targeting the hand, he unleashed a barrage of Twin Hyper Laser fire on the squares on the palm. As he scored direct hits on the palms, the hands began to smoke, indicating that he was inflicting damage to the hands. After a while, though, Andross recovered and was ready to fight once more.
Andross proceeded to draw back his other hand to thrust towards Fox. His punch missed, though, and Fox was able to repeat his firing on Andross's eyes. After a few shots, Andross gave a groan and covered his eyes with his left hand, while revealing the square on the right hand, and prompting Fox to fire on it. As he did so, fire and smoke emerged from the hand, indicating that he was inflicting damage to the hand. Eventually, Andross closed his hand and went to fire a lightning bolt on Fox once more. Fox ascended and fired on Andross's eyes again, stunning him and causing him to cover his eyes with his right hand, leaving his left hand open to attack. Indeed, Fox opened fire on the exposed hand and after a few shots, the hand exploded, leaving Andross with only one hand remaining.
Andross gave no reaction as his left hand exploded. He merely extended his remaining hand and fired off another stream of lightning towards Fox. Fox banked to his right and avoided the lightning once more. Seeing his chance, Fox targeted Andross's eyes once more. After a while, Andross was stunned but he did not cover his eyes, only opening his hand and revealing the square on the palm, prompting Fox to open fire on it with everything he had. As Fox scored direct hits on the hand, smoke and flame erupted from the hand until it eventually exploded, leaving Andross as nothing more than a disembodied head.
Andross backed off a bit as he then tried to inhale Fox's Arwing into his mouth. Debris flew past the Arwing as the fighter was being pulled into Andross's maw. Fox fired the craft's retro rockets but it was not enough and he was still being pulled in. Fox had experienced this trick before, though, and he was not concerned. He countered by immediately releasing a Smart Bomb into Andross's maw. Andross tried to close his mouth and stop sucking up debris in order to avoid the bomb but it was too late. The bomb entered his mouth and detonated, stunning the disembodied head. With the head stunned, Fox immediately lined up his Arwing with Andross's eyes. Fox then unloaded everything he had from his Twin Hyper Laser cannons into Andross's eyes. The lasers caused smoke and flame to erupt from the eyes and it was not long before Andross had had enough. The mad scientist gave a cry began to convulse as he shook side by side and explosions began erupting from his face. Eventually, the face exploded entirely, revealing nothing more than a robotic head.
The head throbbed back and forth, its mouth chomping as it floated towards Fox. Fox was a little surprised to see this Andross be nothing more than a robotic duplicate, but upon thinking about it, he felt as if he should not have been all that shocked. Andross had died too many times for him to be brought back like this without being detected. Someone had produced a very convincing fabrication, though. Either that, or this was some left over decoy that Andross had constructed in order to avoid being found. And now, it was time for Fox to finish off this last legacy of the evil Andross.
As the robotic head rocketed towards Fox, he fired off another Smart Bomb as well as unleashing everything he had with his Twin Hyper Laser cannons on the robot's eyes. As single volley of laser fire and the Smart Bomb was all that the robot could take before it fell. It gave one last cry before it exploded in a massive explosion. For his part, though, Fox was well on his way out of the cavern before the robot exploded.
Just like it had been during the Lylat Wars with the real Andross, the blast wave of this robotic decoy kept expanding, almost as if it had been connected to the planetoid's core. Fox kicked his Arwing's throttle to full, not worrying about any of the safety protocols that he was violating by going full throttle inside a planet's atmosphere. As he rocketed ahead, he opened his channel and called out to the other team members, "All craft, get out of here! New Venom's about to explode!"
As he rocketed forward, he was able to see the opening before him and he gunned his Arwing's throttle beyond its normal limits as the flames from the explosion were catching up to his fighter. After a few seconds, he had emerged from the palace and was rocketing into space, his wingmen already warping away from the planetoid. The moment he was clear and saw no fighters ahead of him, he made a micro jump to warp a hundred thousand kilometers away from the doomed planetoid, not noticing a small ship emerging from another point on the planetoid and jumping to warp as well.
When he emerged from warp, he and the rest of his team continued to flee the doomed planetoid. Risking a glance back, he noticed that the fleet was in no position to turn to be able to get a clear path to jump to warp. Fires were erupting from the planetoid as the core had already gone past critical and the planetoid was seconds away from exploding. A few capital ships managed to jump to warp and escape the destruction of New Venom but that did the factories and bases no good as when the planet exploded, not only did the explosion send out tons of debris and shrapnel that shredded the bases and factories, along with the ships that were too close to the planetoid, the blast wave made certain to shatter what had somehow survived the ejected debris. The bases and factories broke apart under the withering weight of the explosion and the debris and once all was said and done, less than a dozen capital ships escaped the destruction. The threat of New Venom's forces was all but eliminated and their leader, whoever he actually was, was likely dead.
"Yes! Slippy cried in celebration. "You did it, Fox!"
"No," Fox countered, shaking his head. "We did it."
"It's over," Peppy said, his relief evident over the comm. "New Venom's s forces have been destroyed."
"And hopefully, this is the last Venomian force we'll ever have to face," Falco echoed.
"This is ROB Sixty-Four," the robotic pilot of the Great Fox II chimed in over the comms. "Scanners indicate that the entire factory complex has been completely destroyed. Only ten capital ships and one light transport managed to escape the destruction of New Venom."
Fox grimaced. The fact that a single light transport escaped indicated that Andross may well have still been alive and have been on New Venom and controlling the robotic duplicate. "Could you trace where they were going?" Fox asked.
"Negative," ROB answered. "Only that they were traveling away from the Lylat System."
"What's outside of Lylat that would help them?" Falco asked.
"I don't know," Fox answered. "Any known force that would want to help them is either already destroyed or having problems of their own."
"So let's just hope that they're just hiding and not planning anything," Slippy finished.
"Let's hope," Fox echoed. "Either way, our mission here is finished. Let's head back to Corneria and make our report."
"Right," the rest of the team answered.
And with that, the Star Fox Team returned to the Great Fox II. Once all of the fighters were safely onboard, the hangar bay doors closed and the ship jumped to warp, heading back to Corneria.