Fortuna is also known as the Dinosaur Planet and is prowled by untamed and brutal creatures. Andross has fed and gained control of these brutes and plans the turn them into living weapons.

Mission briefing, First Lylat War

Enslaved

Fox had seen pictures of Fortuna before. But here, above the planet in a Cornerian light carrier...the pictures didn't do it justice.

It was like a second Corneria. Colder, yes. No jungles to speak of, but a mix of biomes from grasslands to deserts to emerald seas. It was smaller than Corneria as well, which, according to the papers he'd read, had allowed its native fauna to grow to tremendous sizes. Over the years, Corneria had only treated the world with scientific curiosity. Titania and Macbeth had been closer. Both of those worlds had been able to serve its resource needs, and neither of them had a native ecosystem to disrupt. But thanks to Andross, that had changed. Thanks to Andross and the Venomians, Fortuna had become yet another battleground that the Star Fox Team had to take out. Which meant that as soon as he and his fellow pilots headed down to the surface, he'd have to do something horrible. Probably the most horrible thing he'd done his entire life. And having spent the last few years of it on Papetoon...well, even if 90% of the time he'd only robbed from Imperial forces, the remaining 10% allowed for some shady stuff.

"Ah, there he is. Mister Mopey."

Stuff that Falco would know all about, since he'd been his wingman for quite a lot of them. First at the Academy, when he'd plucked the buzzard off the streets of Corneria City, and then in the wastelands of Papetoon.

"So, er, you ready to deploy or what?" Falco asked. He came up to the steel-glass that separated the interior of the carrier from the vacuum. He let out a whistle. "Is that Fortuna?"

Fox nodded.

"Well what you waiting for? Sooner we deploy, sooner we get to see it for ourselves."

Fox looked at him. "You really don't care, do you?"

Falco remained silent.

"By the time the day is over, there's going to be a stream of charred corpses a mile long."

"Given how fast the Arwings can travel, probably more." Falco shrugged. "What of it? We've been shooting down space lizards by the dozen ever since we launched from Corneria."

"That...that's not the same."

"Yeah? How?"

Fox had an answer, but no words escaped his mouth. He suspected that Falco knew what the answer was already. Question was, did Falco not care? Or was he pretending not to care?

He supposed that made Falco's character more charitable than Andross's at least. Whatever Andross may possess, it hadn't stopped him from launching an invasion of the Lylat system. It hadn't stopped him from ordering his forces to carve their way through Corneria, adding to the death toll that was already in the millions. And in the case of Fortuna, it hadn't stopped him from enslaving the native creatures there. Creatures that the Star Fox Team would have to fight their way through to reach their objective.

"Look at it this way," Falco said. "Scuttlebutt is that there's only one creature controlling the rest of them. We take that out, whatever mind control shit Andross has got going on should disappear."

Fox scowled. "Never knew you to be one to trust intelligence."

"Yeah, well, what other choice we got? Pepper says fly, we ask where. If the answer's Fortuna, can't really say no, can we?"

Fox looked at him. "We could."

Falco crossed his arms, a shadow passing over his face. "I'll pretend you didn't say that."

Despite everything, Fox smirked. Falco would rather die in a fight than flee from one. As they got closer to Venom, the chances of such an outcome increased for all of them. But today, at least...today they were going to slaughter some of the most amazing creatures the Lylat system had ever seen. And while Andross may have been the one to put the blaster in their hands, they were still pulling the trigger.

"Y'know, for what it's worth," Falco said. "This whole mind control thing may have extended to the Venomians as well."

Fox frowned. "Where's you hear that?"

"Oh, a bit here, a bit there. Like, none of them have surrendered, and they've been happy to deploy en masse, even when their ships are sub-standard. Scuttlebutt is that Andross is mind controlling them."

Fox opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out of it. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the window. Not to the beauty of Fortuna, but the darkness of space.

Truth of the matter was, he'd heard the same rumours. Little was known about Venom, since its dense cloud cover had made surveys difficult, and while those surveys told Corneria it had been a habitable world, there'd been no move to settle there. Corneria could provide a home for Cornerians, and asteroid and planetary mining could provide them with the resources they required. Venom had been a curiosity until Andross had emerged from there. At the head of a space armada, commanding legions of space lizards. Venom's native species, and one that had followed his orders without question. It had already been confirmed that Andross could control the native life of Fortuna. Who was to say he couldn't do the same for sapients?

If that was the case though...Fox winced. How many Venomians had Andross made their enemies? Andross had been the brightest mind Corneria had produced in generations, and they'd dumped him on an innocent people. Millions had paid for that mistake with their lives. How many more would perish before it was all done?

He didn't know. And looking at Falco, who was also taking an interest in vacuum, he suspected that Falco didn't either. And despite his efforts to hide it, he'd given it the same thought. It was actually a relief when his communicator beeped.

"Fox here."

"Hey Fox, where are ya? Me and Peppy are cooling our jets here."

Fox smiled sadly. "Peppy and I."

"What?"

"It's Peppy and I, not Peppy and me."

"Um, okay. But are you and Falco coming down here?"

"Yeah." Fox looked at Falco. "We're coming..."

He cut off the link. Falco looked at him. "Guess we should get down to the hanger," Fox said.

"That an order?" Falco murmured.

Fox said nothing. But let out an "ow, what the heck?" when Falco whacked his head.

"Keep your head in the game," he said. "Because however many ships we down, however many Fortunan animals we blow up, it has to count for something. We destroy what we have to, we get to Andross, we end the war."

"Cold hard math, is that it?"

"Want to add up the numbers of the latest casualty reports?" Falco asked. "No?" Then let's get down there."

Down there. To the hanger, or the planet, Fox wondered? Or both? Silently, he gave Fortuna one last look at the window. Its creatures unaware that in a few minutes from now, four space superiority fighters would come screaming into its atmosphere, and take out anything that got in their way. And after that, they've move onto the next battle, and the next, and the next, to do the same thing over and over again.

Simple, right?

As the pair of pilots headed for the hanger, Fox wished he could believe that was the case.