Remnant Base of Operations

Southern Sandstorm Regions / Titania / Lylat System

0734 Hours

As soon as the blast ended, Starfox charged its way into the Imperial base firing away at the Militia. Sure enough, stunned at how aggressive their enemy was and with how much ease their weapons eliminated Imperial personnel, the Remnant was caught off balance and unable to counter attack immediately.

The first attempt the Remnant made to shift the odds back in its favor was simply to throw more militia at the intruders. Essentially a ragtag team of thugs and looters, The militia had access to military grade blasters, but that was about it, their only tactic being to overwhelm the enemy in sheer numbers and take anything of value.

Great against civilian targets and Cornarian Law Enforcement, not such a good pick against a war-hardened fire team armed with a Hellstorm LMG.

Wolf quickly went prone and set up the bipod as Panther launched a smoke grenade partway down a corridor. As soon as his thermal scope picked the militia's charging forms through the smoke, Wolf let loose stopping the counterattack in its tracks at the Militia began to fall to the ground at an alarming rate.

As soon as the smoke cleared and Wolf replaced the empty drum magazine, both he and Panther stood astounded at the number of dead militia in the corridor. Far too many to count, the full metal jacketed bullets had passed through the unarmored militiamen and probably the two behind him with ease. The glorified pirates never had a chance.

"Oh for the love of- THERE'S ONLY SIX OF THEM, KILL THEM ALREADY!" The PA roared across the base as the commanding officer began to lose his temper. Almost immediately the Remanent stopped throwing the ash and trash defenses against Starfox and began to mobilize their armor and Mechs.

Kyle pushed his way through a set of doors and managed to catch a few remanent personnel off guard, eliminating them before they could pick up their weapon: A Space Dynamics manufactured Anti-Armor Missile launcher. The enemy certainly was willing to resort to anything to take the team out now.

As if on cue, Kyle felt the ground vibrating underneath his feet as one of the old Striders rolled close by, one of the huge bipedal mechs Andross's forces used to attack cities and spread fear, looking like a giant ape standing on a small platform with treads. Intimidating, but quite fragile. Kyle didn't waste any time picking up the missile launcher and retracing his steps back outside the armory.

The Stryder towered over him like a skyscraper, which worked to his advantage since the pyramid shield had a lower ceiling at this position and the Stryder couldn't look down at its feet. Whoever designed these things obviously didn't take the fact that they'd be shot at into consideration.

"I've got a smart launcher, locking onto the Stryder," Kyle reported as he flipped open the targeting window and began to take aim, the targeting reticle danced across the mech until it stopped at the Stryder's waist.

"Solid lock, Firing" Kyle reported again as he pulled the trigger and let the missile loose, the smart warhead winding it's way before hitting the giant in the hip. The Stryder's metal groaned as it began to lean, having lost its center of balance the giant war machine collapsed on its side demolishing some of the Reamnet Base as it fell.

"Looks like they're starting to fall back, nope scratch that they're deserting!" Slippy began to cheer as the remaining personnel began to abandon the fight and try to flee the base. As soon as a tank column rolled out, they were immediately struck down by missiles.

"'Bout time we get some action!" Falco commented as the Thunderfurys made their presence known, destroying any sort of Remnant weaponry that tried to escape.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING YOU COWARDS? YOU DARE BETRAY OUR GREAT EMPEROR ANDROSS? STAND AND FIGHT!" The PA roared again insulting his own troops as they continued to fall to Starfox's advance.

"I'm starting to doubt that Andrew is involved with this operation." Wolf admitted as he continued to sprint towards the tower, "It's all Andross this or Andross that, not the new emperor Andrew Oikonny, That little runt would have his name all over the place."

"Not to mention that their whole operation here with the Cerinians isn't something that would interest Andrew assuming he could even come up with something like this." Slippy added, "Sounds more like one of Andross's bioweapon programs, trying to reverse engineer Telepathy or something."

"Slippy, Cerinian on the Battlenet." Falco reminded over the radio. "Try to be a bit more sensitive."

"We'll find out soon enough, keep pushing for the tower!" Fox ordered after taking cover behind some rubble, hiding from a Remnant Tank, "Can anyone get this tank's attention so I can destroy it?"

"Working on it," Panther reported, and soon enough the tank was getting hailed by bullets. Turning to face the threat the tank presented it's profile to Fox who quickly rushed the armored vehicle. Fox ripped the gunner door open and fired a burst inside the cabin before throwing a grenade inside and closing the door. After a few seconds, the grenade went off destroying all the controls and putting the vehicle out of commission. Fox gave Panter an OK sign to show he was fine before the two began to move on.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM!" The PA demanded, "FOUR YEARS PAY AND FREEDOM TO DO AS YOU PLEASE IN THE SLAVE PENS FOR ANYONE WHO KILLS THESE MERCENARIES!"

"Four years pay isn't enough to face Starfox! To Solar with this! I'm out!" Another voice spoke up in the background on the PA, soon followed by the sound of a heavy blaster firing full auto.

"I sure don't envy the guys stuck up there with him," Kyle admitted as he reloaded his rifle from behind cover. "I've got eyes on the tower, mostly automated defense blaster turrets. Can't get close until that grid is down."

"Slippy here, I think I've found the tower's main power conduit." The engineer reported, "I can cut power to the tower from here, but the backup lines will kick in and restore power in about ten seconds."

"Enough time to slip past the automated defenses and turn them off from the inside." Fox reasoned as he joined Kyle behind cover. "Alright Slip, cut the power on my mark."

"3. . . 2. . . 1. . . Mark!"

Fox tore from cover and ran straight at the tower's entrance, ignoring the fact that the turrets tracked him immediately, one getting as far as getting a shot off until the whole tower suffered a blackout, and all the blasters went limp.

By the time the tower's power was restored, Fox was already inside making quick work of the blasters, ripping no small amount of wires out of a terminal. Shutting the grid down permanently. With the threat neutralized, the rest of the ground team filed into the tower.

"Wait, is this tower military or some sort of museum?"

The lobby was elegantly designed with rich carpets and paintings hung on the walls with plaques all over the place. The gold elevator doors simply added to how out of place the lobby seemed.

"None of this makes sense," Wolf thought out loud, "When we worked here, they were desperately looking for more credits to get more weapons and supplies. Why wouldn't they have torn all this fancy stuff out and trade it for some creds?"

"Maybe because it's sacred to them because Andross was here somehow?" Kyle suggested pointing out one of the framed pictures that showed the infamous scientist during the early days of the base's construction.

"So this place had a direct link to Andross. I don't like where this is going." Slippy shuddered, he already had enough reason to hate this planet as it is.

"All the more reason to shut it down. Command center should be on the second to top floor." Fox growled, this entire tower made the fur on the back of his neck stand straight. "Problem is elevator is the only way in, and we all heard the blaster the CO's got. So the elevator would be a deathtrap."

"You sure sir?" Kyle asked, "Cause I have a Detcharge here we can use to make our own way in from the top floor. Drop in from above."

"Civilian elevator, it's got an emergency hatch on top." Slippy reported after having summoned the elevator, "We can climb out through the hatch as it goes up and then toss a flashbang."

"Both." Fox decided, "Krystal, Wolf and I will breach from the top floor, Slippy, you Panther and Kyle will use the hatch and flashbangs."

"Attacking from two separate angles, I like it," Wolf admitted as the six operators filed into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, Kyle boosted Fox up so he could open the hatch and help pull everyone on top the moving elevator.

As planned, Fox's team climbed their way to the top floor and managed to force their way through the elevator doors, scrambling to the far side of the room to plant the charge.

The elevator opened and was almost instantly filled with blaster fire. Even Kyle who was dressed in the latest armor and a high-grade blaster shield projector would have instantly been killed had he've stayed in the cabin.

"Stop Firing you morons!" The commanding officer ordered the last remaining Remnant personal. As soon as the dust settled, he was horrified to find the cabin empty of bodies.

"Flashbang," Kyle called out as he gently tossed the nonlethal weapon through the hatch, letting it bounce out into the command center. The Commanding Officer didn't even have time to finish his swearing before the grenade detonated, blinding the defenders with a migraine-inducing flash of light.

"Now!" Panther roared as he dropped in and immediately killed two guards with his Warden, another unlucky guard was actually killed by the detonation of the Detcharge above him. Right away Fox dropped through the new hole, catching the remaining defenders in a deadly crossfire.

The commanding Officer was the last one standing, still stumbling about due to the flashbang. As soon as his vision recovered enough to see a rough figure in front of him he dropped his blaster and drew his sword.

"FOR ANDROSS!" The ape declared as he charged, only to be killed by a shotgun blast point blank.

"An Imperial Grand Officer's saber?" Wolf asked out loud as he picked up to examine the sword. "Andross would only commission these to Imperial Grand Officers he trusted with safeguarding his most valuable assets as a badge of honor. That's the rumor anyway. They say that less than a dozen of them were made and that Andross himself was involved in their construction. If so, this is one of the most valuable weapons in the Lylat System."

"How much?" Fox asked, he had grown out of the whiny "do it for the money" mindset years ago, but that didn't mean he turned away a chance to get a nice bonus.

"A lot." Wolf deadpanned.

"Wasn't the only collectible that guy had!" Kyle called out from behind a console, "Let's see, some sort of blaster with an ivory stock, a lot of miscellaneous gold and gemmed stuff and. . .

Oh Lord."

"What?" Slippy asked before he covered his mouth in horror. When Krystal caught sight of it, she immediately looked away and wept.

A pelt,

A blue pelt,

A Cerinian pelt,