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 5

The Wolf Pack had just reached the border of the Asteroid Belt, holding position half a mile from the edge of the field of rocks. As the aging battleship hovered in space, a trio of red, black, and silver fighters exited from the hangar bay, seeming to appear out of nowhere since their mother ship was still concealed by the cloaking device. Upon clearing the hangar bay, the three Wolfens joined up in a delta formation before continuing on into the cluttered darkness ahead.

"Alright guys keep it tight and stay alert." Said Wolf from his cockpit in the lead Wolfen, the three craft weaving and banking to avoid colliding with any asteroids, the chunks of rock ranging in size from small pebbles that bounced harmlessly off the crafts' defense shields to gigantic boulders almost as big as the Wolf Pack that could easily crush a hapless fighter that was unlucky enough to get caught between them as they drifted aimlessly in the void of space.

"Looks like this interference is gonna make radar useless. We'll be flying eyes-only from here on in." said Leon, his fighter to the right and behind Wolf's.

"This is peculiar... the interference seems to be stronger in certain areas than others. I don't think this is natural. Might even be some kind of jamming devices to keep whatever's going on here a secret." added Panther from his craft opposite of Leon's on Wolf's left flank.

"Let's check it out. We can't conduct any decent recon with our radar all screwed up like this. If it is jammers, we'll waste 'em." said Wolf, the three fighters taking an intercept course towards the nearest concentration of electromagnetic disturbance. After a few minutes, they reached the heart of the nearest patch of interference, their radar completely blurred out from the intensity of the disruption. "Keep your eyes open, whatever's causing this should be right around here somewhere." warned Wolf as he and the others patrolled the field. A couple moments later, Leon broke the silence as he opened a channel to the other fighters.

"Got 'im, bandit at 2 o'clock high! It's a jammer alright, but not like any I've ever seen before." Sure enough, there was a large device hovering amongst the asteroids, looking like a giant black Starfish with 3 'arms' on each side and a round ball on the back, the device occasionally rotating around to face random directions as electromagnetic pulses emanated from the front of it, it's black color allowing it to blend in so well that they had to close within a few dozen meters before spotting it, several more being barely visible in the distance.

"Roger, targets confirmed, fire at will!" shouted Wolf, all three fighters breaking formation to engage the nearest radar jammers, lighting up the area with streaks of green blaster fire

"What the? I'm not even scratching the damn thing!" said a surprised Panther as his lasers struck the device with no apparent damage at all.

"Go for charged shots! Don't bother with a lock, you won't be able to get one without radar." ordered Wolf, a red glow appearing ahead of the nose of his Wolfen as the targeting reticule in his cockpit changed from a green square to an orange circle, Wolf maneuvering the fighter so the center of the circle rested right over the front of the jammer like a bull's eye. Just as Wolf was about to release the trigger and send the shot at his victim, what looked like a huge orange eye opened up, pink rings of energy coming out heading right for his craft. Reacting instinctively, Wolf let loose the shot and did a barrel roll to the side to avoid the shot, his Wolfen being briefly engulfed by a red glow as the bizarre energy beam sailed harmlessly past him "Watch out boys, these things are armed!" called Wolf as he headed for the next jammer, executing a 90-degree bank to avoid clipping his wings on one of the asteroids.

"Looks like this won't be so boring after all." Joked Panther, dispatching another jammer in the same fashion as his leader had just done.

"Don't get cocky. We've yet to see whatever it is these things are trying to hide." cautioned Leon as he too sent a large red blast of charged blaster energy into the Cyclops-like eye of his victim, this one not even getting a chance to return fire before it was destroyed.

Moments later the last of the radar jammer devices was disappearing in a strange purple fireball, the three Wolfens joining in the same delta formation they had started in when Chino contacted them from the Wolf Pack.

"This is Chino, looks like the last of the interference has cleared up. I've got a huge contact on radar bearing two-eight-five degrees from your current position in the heart of the Asteroid Belt. Seems like some kind of base. Looks like you called it right boss."

"Got it, Chino. Hold position and keep monitoring us. The rest of you, with me." said Wolf as he, Leon, and Panther made a gentle turn to the left and accelerated into the asteroids. About halfway to the base, their radar began to light up with contacts heading their way "Here comes the welcome wagon; bogeys dead ahead." called Wolf, the other two fighters pulling parallel with him so they were arranged in a line abreast formation, allowing them to bring maximum firepower to the front all at once should they need it.

A couple minutes later, the Star Wolf team was embroiled in a massive dogfight among the asteroids, all three of them firing at and being fired on by strange, insect-like craft.

"What the hell are these things? I've never seen fighters like these before!" yelled Leon as he executed a spiraling climb to shake a trio of purple Dragonfly-like bandits that had started blasting at him from behind, what shots that did find their mark being neutralized by well-timed barrel rolls.

"Who cares what they are, just blast the damn things!" replied Wolf as he unleashed a charged shot that vaporized a whole formation in one go.

"I'll say this for them, they certainly are persistent." commented Panther as he let loose a burst of laser fire, striking down another group of alien craft.

No matter how many of the enemy fighters the team obliterated, they still kept on coming, and the defense shields of the three Wolfens were starting to be whittled away to dangerously low levels.

"I hate to admit it, but I think it might be time for us to cut our losses and get out of here while we still can." grumbled Wolf. It aggravated him to no end that someone other than Star Fox was forcing him to withdraw from a fight, but it wasn't worth getting killed over. "All ships, break contact and retreat immediately!" ordered Wolf, pulling a U-turn and punching the boost on his fighter, his wingmen's craft promptly following suit. As they roared away from the combat zone, a swarm of enemy craft gave chase, blasters blazing as streaks of green and purple filled the space between the two groups, the gap steadily closing "Panther, Leon, evasive maneuvers! Try to lose them in the asteroids!" shouted Wolf as he pulled a 90-degree hard left turn, a blaster shot meant for him slamming into an asteroid and shattering the drifting rock into half a dozen pieces. The other two Wolfens pulled a spiraling climb and a loop, respectively. The group of enemies pursuing them split into three groups; each one following after one fighter. Once among the asteroids, the ships began dodging and weaving, trying to trick their pursuers into crashing into the asteroids, a few of them falling for it, but not enough to make a significant impact in the size of the overall enemy force, and even worse, their defense shields were nearly gone now, due to both enemy fire and near-misses with the very asteroids they were trying to seek refuge among. Wolf had nearly cleared his tail of the last of the enemy when one of the worst transmissions he'd heard since Venom came over his com channel.

"Damnit, this is Leon, I've taken critical damage, ejecting!" yelled Powalski, the image of the chameleon on Wolf's dashboard disappearing in a burst of static. Wolf glanced over in his direction just in time to see the cockpit of his wingman's craft be blasted clear of the battered fuselage, just before a blaster shot from one of the oversized insects pursuing him tore the fighter into several pieces. Just as Wolf returned his attention to his own flying, a large asteroid slammed into the lower-left portion of his Wolfen, taking off that wing and sending the craft spinning out of control.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" screamed Wolf, instinctively grabbing for the ejection handle next to his right leg and pulling back hard on it, the inertia from the failing G-diffuser system and the ejection causing him to pass out, just as Panther called out with a mayday of his own, the bandits blasting the wings off his fighter like a child pulling the wings off a Fly, leaving him no way to maneuver effectively in the tight quarters, the last thing the ebony feline saw before punching out being an asteroid steadily filling his view dead ahead of his doomed craft.

Back on the Wolf Pack, Chino monitored the melee in horror, watching as three of the toughest, most ruthless mercenaries in all of Lylat were not only forced to break off from a battle, but were all three shot down as well. He was about to charge in guns blazing to try to rescue them when an alarm beeped on the console in front of him. A large, Dreadnaught-class battleship had just dropped out of warp and was heading in his direction, and there was only one person Chino knew of that operated one of those behemoths.

"Damnit, of all times, why now!?" cursed the Primate under his breath. The ship was too close to his position for him to attempt a rescue, leaving him with no choice but to lie low, watching on the view screen as the angular, X-winged vessel slowed to a stop near his position, the cloaking device the only thing keeping him from being discovered, four of the same silver and blue fighters the team had faced back at Sargasso exiting from the ship and heading towards the Asteroid Belt in formation, just as Wolf and the others had done. Chino glanced over at another display showing the vital signs of the three Star Wolf members; they were alive, but unconscious, the physical stresses of ejection having caused all three of them to black out. He then glanced over to the radar, the enemies that moments ago looked ready to move in to deliver the coup de grace on the hapless Star Wolf team having broken off their attack and retreated into the Asteroid Belt, presumably to ambush this new set of intruders on their territory. "Hold on guys, I'll get you as soon as I can, just hang on." said Chino, looking on into the darkness of space where his comrades drifted silently, frustratingly beyond his reach.

End chapter 5

Original A/N, circa 2006: Yep, I'm still here. Sorry this chapter took so long, life's been giving me all kinds of grief lately. As if the holiday stress wasn't enough, the motherboard on my computer died and I only have limited computer access via a relative's laptop until it's fixed. I decided to take a few more liberties with this chapter and make it look like the Aparoid force in the Asteroid Belt was much larger than what Star Fox encounters in the game, but they were thinned out a bit thanks to Star Wolf (before any of you nitpickers start whining, I know the sniper rifle's the only thing that can destroy the radar jammers, but it's not like they had one on a gun rack in the cockpit with them and could roll down the window to start taking pot shots, so I figured a manually-aimed charged shot would be the next best thing). As always, please read & review so I can start on the next chapter as soon as possible!

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.