Star Fox Assault: Star Wolf Edition
Disclaimers: Rated T for depictions of violence and mildly strong language. Star Fox and all names and characters (save for the Wolf Pack) are copyright Nintendo, Rare, and Namco.
Chapter 2:
Wolf looked on at the massive vessel sitting in the docking bay before him; the mother ship of the Star Wolf team, the Wolf Pack. It wasn't really anything fancy, basically one of the small fleet of battleships left over from the war that had been modified to carry the Wolfens and equipped with a cloaking device to conceal the vessel from Cornerian patrols and from the teams' victims until the last moment before they attacked. Wolf could see several members of the gang he and the team shared the hideout with making final preparations for the ship to launch, this time wearing red and white spacesuits instead of their normal Venomian uniforms in case of an accident. Wolf could also see Panther and Leon supervising them and called up to Leon "How's it coming Leon? We ready to go yet?"
The Chameleon looked down to the Wolf before replying, "Just about done, should be ready in under a minute."
"Good, I'll meet you inside." replied Wolf as he boarded the ship, making a quick stop in his quarters to drop off a small pack containing a few personal items before heading to the bridge, taking a seat in the Captain's chair and propping his feet up on the console in front of him as he waited for the others.
True to his word, Leon and Panther arrived on the bridge a few moments later, accompanied by one of the apes from before, who had just removed the helmet portion of his spacesuit, his black, almost Gorilla-like face showing him to have a degree of seniority amongst the other Primates that composed the gang that would be running the hideout while Star Wolf was away.
"Everything's ready to go, boss." said the ape, walking over to one of the four seats on the bridge as Leon and Panther took the others.
"Good Chino, let's get going." said Wolf, taking his feet off the console as he and the others initiated the launch sequence, the ship humming to life as the consoles lit up and the engines rumbled to life.
"All systems green, ready for launch." said Panther as he looked over his console.
"Docking bay clear, launching now." Leon said as the ship began to move slowly out of the docking bay and into space beyond, the ship maneuvering through the many asteroids surrounding the colony.
"Asteroid field perimeter ETA thirty seconds, cloaking device and warp system standing by." said Chino as the remaining asteroids slipped past the ship.
"Engage cloak and set course for Fortuna, maximum speed." ordered Wolf, the sound of the commands being entered into the control panels was heard as the ship rippled and disappeared from sight to anyone outside the vessel, the engines roaring as they propelled the ship into warp, the ship disappearing into the distance in an instant, a bright flash showing the ship having successfully entered warp.
A few days later, the Wolf Pack arrived at Fortuna, the only sign of its arrival being a brief flash of the ship coming out of warp, though the ship itself couldn't be seen due to the cloaking device. Onboard the ship, Wolf was just arriving on the bridge, looking on at the planet before them. There was evidence of a major battle having occurred recently, wreckage and debris of ships and craft of all kinds drifting in orbit around the planet.
"Hmm, this is strange. What's left of those ships out there register as Cornerian and Venomian, I'm not picking up any signs of any strange aliens like the communication indicated." said Leon, hunched over his console.
"Looks like we'll have to go down and take a look for ourselves." Wolf commented, getting up from his seat. "Chino, keep the ship at a safe distance, the rest of you are with me." said Wolf, the others nodding as Panther and Leon got up to follow their leader, leaving Chino alone on the bridge. A few moments later they were in the hangar deck, climbing into their Wolfens and going over the preflight checks. Wolf was the first to complete the checks and opened a channel to the rest of the team "This is Wolf, all ships check in." "Leon here, all green." "This is Panther, ready for launch." "Alright then, let's go!" shouted Wolf, hitting the launch button on his Wolfens' control panel as the boarding platform swung out of the way, the fighter being hurled out of the ship by the catapult as the other two Wolfens followed behind it, their wings, which had been folded up against the sides of the hull, folding out like four switchblades as the engines roared to life, the ships speeding away in a V formation towards the planet below with Wolf in the lead.
Meanwhile, back at the hideout, the gang had just finished making the final defense preparations for the base, using the transfer devices to teleport in a group of laser gun turrets and arraying them throughout the facility; four on the lower level, three on the middle level, eight on the upper level, and seven on the top level where the command room was located, two of them in the command room itself positioned to give any interloper who walked through the doors a nasty surprise. The gang had also teleported in several power armors and positioned them around the base on all the levels, with even more waiting to be teleported in at a moments' notice. There were also numerous machines that had been positioned at the top of the ramps leading to each level that when activated, would roll out large barrels filled with explosives to greet anyone trying to make their way up the ramp. Currently, one of the members of the gang was sitting in the command room, leaning back in his chair, his goggles obscuring his eyes, though the sound of snoring clearly revealed him to be asleep on the job. Not surprisingly, it was the same ape that Leon had chewed out about the transfer devices the other day. As he snored, one of the monitors started beeping, the screen showing a proximity alert as a ship entered sensor range, rousing the primate from his nap as he muttered, squinting at the console. "Stupid idiot, who does he think he is barging in here like this?" he muttered, opening a channel to the approaching ship. "Hey you, who the hell are you and what're you doing here? This is Lord O'Donnell's territory!" shouted the Ape, not at all in the mood to deal with this trespasser.
"This is Pigma Dengar, former member of Star Wolf. I need a place to hide for a while, lemme in!"
"Pigma, huh? The boss said you might show your fat ass around here, and he said he wants nothing to do with a greedy scumbag like you, so get outta here before we turn you into space dust!" with that, the Ape pressed a few buttons on the console in front of him, bringing the automated blaster turrets mounted on some of the asteroids outside online, the turrets whirring as they locked onto Pigma's ship.
"Alright, alright, I'm going! Sheesh, some way to treat an old friend." snorted Pigma as he throttled up the engines of his ship, the yellow craft rumbling out of the area, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
Back at Fortuna, Wolf and the others had finished scouting the battleground turned graveyard above the planet and were now streaking through the skies above the lush forests, occasionally finding traces of wreckage that used to be military hardware, mostly leftover Venomian equipment, ranging from small tanks to large mech-like battle robots. Eventually they came upon a demolished base of some sort.
"Whew, someone sure got their butts handed to them." observed Panther, glancing at the destruction below.
"Probably Oikonny and his group by the looks of it." added Leon.
"Looks like Fox's handiwork. He may be hell on wings, but he's hardly an 'unidentified alien'. Guess whoever sent that signal was probably half-dead and scared out of his mind so much he wasn't thinking clearly." thought Wolf. He was just about to order the group to leave when Leon spoke up. "Hey wait, I'm picking up something on radar at the end of that canyon ahead, bearing zero-niner-zero."
"Can you identify it?" asked wolf, checking his own radar as well. "Negative. Whatever it is, it's not matching any kind of ID in the computer's records." replied Leon.
"Looks like we just found our alien. Let's go boys." said wolf, making a hard right turn as he hit the boost on his Wolfen, Panther and Leon following suit in close formation.
A few moments later, the team had found the source of the radar contact; a huge, moth-like creature lying dead at the bottom of the canyon, it's wings reduced to shreds as smoke and flames billowed from its lifeless carcass.
"What the hell is that thing?" asked Panther, his Wolfen, identified by the red rose emblazoned on the right side below the canopy, hovering over the macabre scene with the other two.
"If I had to guess, I'd say that's an Aparoid like the one that wiped out the Cornerian fleet all those years ago. Though it seems it picked the wrong person to mess with this time." said Wolf.
"Looks like we came all this way for nothing then." commented Leon, a trace of disappointment in his voice. "Sure looks that way. No sense in wasting time around here anymore. Chino, we're on our way back. Prepare to return to the hideout once we're aboard." said Wolf as he and the others boosted away and made a U-turn heading out of the planet's atmosphere as Chino acknowledged them, preparing the Wolf Pack for their arrival.
Back at the hideout, the Ape who had sent Pigma packing was rudely awakened from his sleep by yet another proximity alert, swearing under his breath as he opened a channel to the incoming vessel. "Don't you idiots know? This is part of Lord O'Donnell's territory!"
"This is the Star Fox team, we're here for a hog named Pigma, we don't want any trouble." replied a male Fox with brownish-orange fur on the other end. This immediately caught the ape's attention, as he and the others had very specific instructions regarding what to do if they showed up.
"We don't know nothing about no Pigma or any other fool, and now that we know you're Star Fox, you ain't going anywhere!" He then keyed the intercom to the entire hideout as he hit the battle stations alarm "Come on you lazy scum, let's skin this Fox and his whole crew! Get more guys up here, come on!" With that, the gang manning the hideout immediately swung into action as gunners and crews manned the turrets and power armors, other soldiers grabbing laser rifles and taking up positions on all the levels, a security force field being raised on the top level to hinder access to the command room from the elevator, forcing any intruders that made it up that far to have to run a gauntlet of laser gun turrets, power armors, and armed ruffians, the elevator itself being deactivated to prevent access to the top level, the platform's light blue color replaced by yellow as it was locked down. In addition to this, an emergency signal was broadcast summoning all the gangs battleships to report for battle at the hideout immediately, the first one arriving as a group of four fighters left the enemy ship, two of them making a beeline for the hideout as the other two flew to intercept the incoming battleship.
End chapter 2.
Original A/N, circa 2005: Woohoo! Things are starting to pick up now, huh? Hope you like it so far. Please read & review so I can get to work on chapter 3!
New A/N: Just when you thought this story was dead, it rises from the abyss! Sorry for the lack of updates on this, been dealing with all nature of RL issues, not the least of which include my Game Cube dying and denying me access to the game which was my main reference material. I just recently got a Wii though, so I plan to bring this story out of hiatus and complete it. In preparation, I went through and revised what I had with the existing chapters (nothing major, mostly fixed grammar and paragraph structure to clean things up). I'm already working on chapter six, and will post it once I get a chance to complete it between college and other responsibilities.
