Through Unheard Eyes
Author's Note: Well, thank you very much foxbird22 for your glowing review. And while it's the only review I've gotten so far, it's helped greatly. I know the character descriptions are rather lacking, I'll attempt to flesh it out a bit. Maybe mirrors. Heh.
Chapter 3 Lost in the Crowd
Richard Alanaldo was not quite sure whether to be proud or embarrassed. As he looked out at the debris field before him, he weighed the recent events. On the one hand, with five ships, he had fought off an entire Aparoid swarm, whereas his counterparts of seventeen years prior had been destroyed with an entire fleet. On the other hand, the rest of his fleet had already retired to Corneria under their own power, except for one other cruiser, the CSS Halcyon, and this ship's crew was very clearly eager to get home, here only to tow the Verity into the long-overdue gate transmission.
He saw his own thoughts mirrored on the face of others. Revi was a stately otter, usually able to stand aloof and away from company except when with his brother. He was handsome and well-groomed, but his reserve usually kept him from displays of emotion off duty. Yet he looked almost sheepish as he went through his diagnostics and scans, looking up and around at the bridge every few seconds with an "I can't believe it" type of expression stamped on his face.
Alanaldo's gaze next fell on his mechanic. While an infamous flirt and quite a showoff at times, his concern now was not for the situation, but for the ship. Even as the captain watched, Kelmar swore, turned around, and pulled off a wall panel to disappear inside. Loud sparking noises, a bang, and then a loud oath came next.
Gary, while absent, had been most annoyed when he learned of the delay. He did not want to treat his patients here on the Verity when much better medical care was to be had on Corneria. His brown eyes had born a hard glint as he'd left for sickbay. He was not overly fond of work, and while quite willing to put it in when necessary, he favored relaxation.
Quite the opposite of Lionel, who was a happy workaholic. He was rapidly drawing up lists of system diagnostics, highlighted in red and green. At the moment, Alanaldo could tell that there was far more red then green. But of the officers on the bridge, Lionel was clearly the least irritated by their situation, perhaps because of his constantly optimistic nature. Even now, he would crack a joke had the atmosphere been so clearly hostile.
Alanaldo crossed over from his helm station to Lionel's console. The terminal was one of the larger ones on the bridge, dominated by a large, touch-sensitive screen running through its center. This screen was divided into five parts- of these, four of them were arrayed in pairs, with four small sections taking up about two-third of the screen and a larger segment composing the last third. The upper pair was labeled as 'Core Systems,' the other, 'Minor.' Upon these labels, Lionel had childishly scrawled 'important' and 'not important.'
Alanaldo raised an eyebrow- Lionel muttered something and turned away, flushing. With a low chuckle, the captain turned back to analyzing the terminal.
Of the pairs, one section was listing problems aboard the ship, the other, possible fixes. The fifth panel seemed to be serving as a multi-purpose screen, as well as a larger wall screen mounted behind the officer. Alanaldo squinted at the small text running by on the multi-purpose panel.
CENTRAL ENGINE FAILURE
SHIELD GRID FAILURE
AUXILIARY GENERATOR FAILURE
HULL PLATING POLARIZATION OFFLINE
And so on. The list was quite extensive, but as Lionel put it, "it beat being dead." The captain sighed and returned to his central station, tapping a footpaw idly as he waited for the jumpgate to form.
"Finally," he muttered after a time. Everybody looked up, the bridge having been almost completely silent. Ahead of them, space shimmered and bent, slowly taking on a greenish hue. Ripples swept across the undulating surface of the forming gate, color bleaching away from the central gate core. The green border sharpened around the gate disc, and the ripples quieted, becoming intermittent and much less powerful in magnitude. The Verity shuddered as it shimmering blue tractor beam locked onto her, looking for all the world like a suspended sliver of the sea. The ship rocked suddenly as the Halcyon pulled them ahead, and the swirling green and white of the jumpgate slowly consumed the screen until it filled the entire view. Then the ship was taken by a different kind of jolt as the tractor beam failed. The Verity continued to coast on her inertia, and the ship shuddered very slightly as her prow pierced the gate field. The ship sank inwards with what was a sickening feel to Alanaldo, and then disappeared entirely into the vortex.
Within the gate transmission, everything was a swirling, undulating tunnel of white and blue. Side passages branched off to the left and right, a green gate lens visible at the end of each of them. Their destination's lens shot towards them at an alarming rate as space folded in upon itself, and then the Verity was ejected from the gate with great force. With no engine control, the ship's exit was a tumbling one, and damaged and frayed power relays sparked at the disturbance. Maneuvering thrusters fired, and gradually, the ship slowed and came under control.
Alanaldo grimaced as he brought the ship to face the Orbital Gate, the ship responding sluggishly and yawing far enough to make even flying in a straight line a difficult task. They're going to think I'm drunk!
"Perfectly understandable, captain," said Pepper in reference to his painful flight as he disembarked from his bluish flagship shuttle. Well armed for even a military personal cruiser, it filled most of the shuttle hangar, where Alanaldo had also just disembarked. The old hound looked about. "Where's the rest of your crew- not hiding in these transport bins, I hope?"
"No sir," replied Alanaldo, allowing himself a small smile. "But there was severe damage to the airlocks, so for now we're only taking senior personnel off the ship in the shuttles while the techies figure something out."
"That works," replied Pepper. "Brilliant performance, captain. But we will have to have your report to avoid...further losses."
Alanaldo bit his lip. "There wasn't a whole lot I could do with the other ships," he explained, "and the five you upgraded blow up just like the rest of them." Then he turned to face Pepper slowly from his shuttle doors. "But I have something you might just be interested in."
"It's an amazing breakthrough," said Beltino later, "but we still do have the problem of the power grid overload. And the resulting mass system failure."
"Nevertheless," pressed Kelmar, "it's an adequate protection system, and it gives us the ability to turn the ship into a super-weapon. Can't you develop something that can do that without exploding?"
"Not with current resources, I'm afraid," said Beltino, adjusting his glasses. "Funding for the science department is still low- partially, unfortunately, because of you and Star Fox."
"How so?" asked Revi. "If this stuff works-"
"I never said they'd hold off forever," said Beltino, cutting off the other otter. "But it'll be some time in the offing before we can try it. Our military is not the greatest at delivering funds, and the hull polarization technique will take some time to trickle down from flagships to common craft. As for your other question...I think your captain can explain that."
"We defeated them," replied Alanaldo, "with technology that's maybe three years ahead of the current generation of ships. The Arwings of Star Fox and their Great Fox are only about a year and a half ahead of standard models. And as Arwings aren't exactly the most popular mass-produced ship that Arspace makes, no help on that front either. Point being, if we can beat them with technology of today, there's no need to invest in technology of tomorrow right now, where the concern is just building more ships that can win. It doesn't have to be pretty.."
"Government," remarked Gary after a pause, "is not the most efficient thing in the world."
"It sure can be the most bothersome though," admitted Beltino, shaking his head slowly. "Let's get you guys down to the surface. We've got your men off the Verity, and while repair starts, you might as well join the victory party."
"What will happen when I press that button," said Alanaldo warily, eying the innocent-looking control panel, "scares me more then those aparoids."
"Come on, Alan, can't be that bad," pressed Kelmar. "And if you won't do it, I'll do it for you."
"That's insubordination-" began Alanaldo jokingly when Kelmar reached the control and hit the little blue button that opened the doors. The otter crew was nearly bowled backwards by a blast of sound and a roar of cheers. Even as they recoiled from the noise they were being pulled into the middle of it by willing paws.
The massive room was a scene of pure and utter chaos. Crew and officers filled the room nearly up to its vaulted ceiling on the many raised platforms ascending the walls like a vine. A large banquet table was laid out in the center of the room, filled with food and drinks. Many people in the room were drunk. All of them were screaming.
"Cheers now for Commodore Alanaldo!" roared someone over a microphone, "and another for hi screw!"
"Hear, hear!" shouted back the masses, and it was all the Verity's crew could do not to shrink away from the noise and try to find a nice, dark place to hide in.
It was rather late the next morning when Richard Alanaldo woke up, late for duty. He growled upon seeing the timepiece mounted on his bedside table before rolling from his bed and stumbling into the washroom. He left his quarters about five minutes later, emerging onto one of the many access corridors running through the base. He crossed a bridge through a large room with a vaulted ceiling, the walls crafted of tempered glass that was easily capable of turning laser bolts, and into the mess hall.
He found the room playing host to a large compliment of starfleet crewmen and ratings, buzzing angrily and bickering amongst themselves. Indignant voices shouted things like "How dare they," and "Hullo? We're the starfleet here!"
"What's all this about?" asked a bleary-eyed Richard Alanaldo to Gary, who was sitting near him at a table and swirling a mug of coffee. The other otter merely pointed up at a screen displaying the latest news feed. A young raccoon was chattering brightly upon it, a picture of Katina Base Three behind her.
"Star Fox does it again, pulling off a smashing victory at Katina! Fox McCloud single-handedly penetrated the base's defenses, turned against him by the aparoids, a parasitic species that completely demolished Corneria's third fleet seventeen years ago. But what the fleet can't do, McCloud can, and he wiped out much of the invading force..."
"What?" yelled Kelmar, who'd just come into the room. "What did she say?" There were agreeing tones and noises all over the mess hall, and even the hot-headed Kelmar was not the first to hurl something at the monitor. It wasn't long before a bowl was thrown and the news feed disappeared amidst a rain of cereal and juice. Alanaldo merely put his head in his hands.
"What the fleet can't do, eh?" he muttered through hi fingers. Beside him, Gary nodded slowly before he stood up briefly to hurl his own mug at the offending screen. It was joined in the air by several other such vessels, and when they hit the screen, it exploded into a shower of broken glass and sparks amidst to much cheering. Then a firm voice cut through the rowdy yells, the voice of General Pepper.
"This is General Pepper," he boomed. "All men, report to your flight stations immediately and prepare to scramble. A distress signal has been detected from a mining colony at Titania. Pepper, out!"
"So why're we moving, to be ignored and out of the way again?" muttered an ensign, and there were murmurs of agreement. But the flood of men out of the mess hall did not abate, and soon the room was empty and noiseless but for the slow dripping of coffee from a certain mug that was dripping from a broken screen.