Starfox Evil
Chapter Six: Redemption and Reunion
In orbit, on the bridge of the Great Fox II, just before the bomb's explosion…
Slippy was still trying to figure out what was wrong with ROB and Diana. The widowed Samantha was sitting in Fox's chair, playing a simple card game on his laptop. She was trying to not think about how she was going to explain this to the family when she got home. Both she and Slippy nearly jumped out of their skins when ROB kicked back on.
"Warning, unauthorized access detected! Disconnecting from main hard drive", the robot shouted in his monotone voice.
Slippy got a confused look on his face, and Samantha walked over to them, "What did he mean 'unauthorized access'?"
" I don't know, I have his master codes, that means I have full access. ROB? Who tried to access your systems", Slippy asked.
ROB turned his blank face towards him, "The same one that destroyed Diana. Slippy I am afraid that the Great Fox II has acquired a virus."
Slippy's eyes grew wide, well, wider than usual, "What!? From where?!"
"Uncertain, but…", the robot was cut off as the hologrid kicked on, and an image of a creature, about four feet tall, wearing a dress, appeared. All of it was totally red and slightly see through.
"Hello. Who are you", the creature asked in a young feminine voice.
Slippy walked forward, "I should ask you the same thing. What are you doing in my systems? And what did you do with the AI that was already here?"
The child raised her hand, palm out in the universal stop gesture, "I am the Red Queen. I am the Artificial Intelligence for the Raccoon City Facility. I was inactive for six years. When I was reactivated I was connected to an unfamiliar system, and I thought I had been stolen or hacked, so I tried to defend myself. The AI that was already there had the gall to call me a primitive piece of junk and tried to delete me. I got lucky however and wiped her clean by taking advantage of a hole in her firewall. I used a similer one to get in here, but I digress. After I deleted her I left only basic programming so that I would know how to run the unfamiliar systems. That was when I learned of where I was."
"I tried to grapple with my predicament, being trapped in an extra terrestrial vessel of all places, with no way to contact my primary system node. I read in a report that several samples of an anomalous species were brought onboard. I accessed the security camera for the room the 'samples' were located, and I saw that they were victims of the T-Virus."
"Wait", Samantha stepped forward, "What's the T-Virus?"
The red child sighed and rubbed the bridge of her 'nose', "The T-Virus is a synthetic protein based pathogen that is virtually impossible to kill."
Slippy sighed and slammed his hand between his eyes, "Sounds fascinating, but what are you doing here, in this system?"
But the Red Queen seemed to take no notice, "When I saw that crew members on that station were infected with the virus, I took steps to prevent it from transferring further."
Slippy and Samantha looked at each other, then the marine said, "What do you mean by 'steps'?"
The red hologram looked at her, "Upon the return of the ground team I noticed that they carried the T-virus in multiple forms", she lost focus for a moment as she continued to ramble, "The T-virus mutates from liquid, to airborne, to blood transfusion, depending on it's environment. The ground crew were all carrying the air-born strand of the virus, and several of them were carrying a blood infection. I also saw that they were ignorant enough to bring an infected human on board. The subject was infected with a highly mutated form of the virus, one which I had never seen before. I did notice however, that all of the crewmembers that were infected with the airborne strain were apparently unaffected by the virus. However, I don't take chances.
As soon as I was sure that there would be no more transports I sealed the room and activated the biohazard warning system, hoping that the survivors would abandon the station, or call for help. But unfortunately when I commandeered the station network I must have damaged those systems, because no transmissions were sent, and the escape pod didn't launch.
Over the next few minutes I watched as the crew tried to determine the cause of the alert. However I detected a breach in the isolated section of the station. I reconnected to the security system to see that the crew that were infected had fed on the other surviving crewmembers, thereby contaminating them as well. However unlike all other subjects before them they retained some of their reasoning skills and a good portion of their intelligence. One of the scientists had activated the door controls and breached the seals."
Slippy raised his hand, "Are you saying they literally ate the other crewmembers? As in tore chunks of them off and swallowed them?"
The red queen turned her emotionless gaze upon him, "Yes", she said matter of factly. Then she continued where she had left of, "I closed the blast doors but they just pried them apart, they were stronger, faster, and more intelligent than any previous subject I had ever seen. When your Captain McCloud came aboard the last crewmember had just fallen to the infected. That was why they were still feeding on him when McCloud came into the room."
She paused for a moment before looking at Samantha again, "If it's any consolation, your husband died valiantly."
Slippy placed his hand on the feline's shoulder, "I don't want to sound heartless or anything but what happened to Diana."
The Red Queen looked at the green frog, "I deactivated her program and stored her in another system, called Med-1. She is fully intact, I didn't want to make the same mistake twice."
Slippy sighed in relief, then he heard her speak again, "I wouldn't try to reactivate her outside that program though. It might corrode both of us."
Slippy turned to ROB, "Go activate the Medibot, then both of you get back up here."
ROB didn't say anything, he just left the bridge.
Slippy turned back to the hologram, "Listen to me. You don't take chances, so neither will I. Right now I am in command of this ship so if you try and pull the same stuff you did on the Angel then I will fry your sorry ass so bad you wont even exist anymore. Got it?"
The Red Queen nodded, "Understood."
"Good. Now you've told us a bit about the T-virus, how does it spread?"
"The first type of viral infection is the air-born strain. It is also the weakest and least efficient of the stages, with the lowest rate of infection. Most victims are completely unaware of their condition until it is far to late. The second type of contamination is fluidic contact", at the confused looks Slippy and Samantha gave her she said, "Having the virus injected directly into the bloodstream."
"Oh", they both said.
"This kind of infection", the hologram continued, "is not recommended at all, as it has a very short time from infection to death to reanimation, and the type of mutation is highly unstable."
Samantha waived her hands out in front of her to get the Red Queen's attention, "Whoa whoa whoa! Did you say re-animation?!"
"Yes I did", the hologram said matter of factly , "Type three infection inevitably comes from another victim of the virus. It doesn't take much, one bite, one scratch is sufficient for transfer."
Just then ROB reentered the bridge with Diana in tow. The feminine AI stormed over to the holo-pad and jabbed a mechanical finger at the Red Queen, "You fucking dyke", she screamed, "How dare you! How dare you take my systems from me!"
"I'm sorry! I panicked! I didn't want to destroy you too", the Red Queen shouted back.
Slippy shouted louder than both of them though, "Enough! If this is how you two are going to act then I'm gonna turn you both off", Slippy turned to ROB, "Get Fox on the COM and tell him that the bites are what transfers the infection. That's what he needs to worry about."
ROB nodded and set about his task, then Slippy turned back to the two female AI, "Alright, Red you are gonna get your own body so that Diana can have her systems back", when the AI started to speak, "No offence but she definitely knows them better than you. I mean, I did build her for them."
The AI nodded, then the hologram faded and went out. Slippy turned and walked out of the bridge and onto the lift. After he had reached his lab he walked over to an android husk, basically a body without a mind, which he plugged into a data port, "Alright Red, this is your chance at redemption. Your husk is ready."
The AI didn't respond until she was in the robotic form, "This is incredible! Free movement, no restrictions based on where the grids run! I can go anywhere I want!"
Slippy raised a finger, "Almost anywhere. This is still a prototype. It is still connected to the ship's power grid. So you are limited to this ship and only to the public areas. Crew quarters, the armory, engineering, and the launch bay are off limits and the bridge will only be accessible when Sergeant Brown, ROB, or myself is in there with y…"
Slippy was cut off by ROB's voice coming over the intercom, "Slippy! I am reading a Nova class explosion at Fox's last known position."
Slippy dashed out of his lab.
When he got back to the bridge he ran over to ROB's station, looking at the screen, showing residual energy levels from a low yield Nova bomb. Of course Nova bombs were meant for space combat, where the energy would dissipate rapidly . In an atmosphere they reacted quite differently, the energy taking much, much longer to burn out, and they burned much hotter, "ROB! bring that up on the holoscreen!"
When the image popped up Slippy gasped, the blast had turned a circle of desert a mile across into shimmering glass. He was dumbstruck for a moment, before running to his station and opening a COM to the team, "Is anyone there? Please respond…"
Down on the surface, with Falco and Trident before the blast…
Falco set his sights on another target and squeezed off a round, shouting as he watched the creature's head explode, "Yeah that's twenty! What are you at kid", he looked around to see that his partner wasn't beside him, though his helmet still was, "Kid?"
"Up here Sir", Falco looked up to see that Trident had clambered up a pillar of rock and was kneeling on top of it. He sent another round ripping downrange, "And that makes thirty-two."
Suddenly one of the creatures came stumbling towards them from between the rocks, "Uh-oh", Falco said. He quickly drew his CEB-7 and blew it's head off, spattering a rock behind it with bits of bone and brain matter, "Where there's one there's more. Time to go."
He slung his LR-7 and replaced his helmet, tossing Trident his, "Say Will", Falco said.
"Yessir", the young mouse asked as he placed his helmet on his head.
Falco looked at him, "What made you decide to join the Core?"
Trident was silent for a moment before he spoke, "I joined the Core because, during the Aparoid attack on Cornaria, my sister and I lost everything. Our entire family, our home, and our innocence. We saw horrors that no one should ever have to see."
"But", he continued, "we also saw courage. We saw a nobility in our people that no one had seen for years. It was a squad of Royal Marines that pulled my sister and I out of the wreckage of our home. She is seven years old a week from tomorrow", Will paused for a moment before saying, "Um, sir…"
The avian looked over at his fellow sniper, "Yeah?"
The mouse slotted his rifle onto his back and cracked his knuckles, "You uhh…you got anybody back home?"
Falco eyed the younger soldier for a moment. Then he smirked, "Yeah, I got a wife back home. Her name's Katt. She's eight months pregnant", the avian chuckled, "Kind of funny, that I'm the first one on the team to get hitched and have kids. But I guess that's life, you never know what'll happen."
They walked in silence for a moment. Will had just opened his mouth to say something when there was a blinding light and they were knocked down. Both of them scrambled back to their feet and clambered up the rocks to see what happened.
They reached the top to see the energies of a Nova bomb burning the air, and to see the glass that was the compound their friends had been trying to reach. Falco opened a COM to the drop pilot, "Lemming what the hell happened?!"
"Obviously someone detonated a Nova. I can't raise the others, my transmitter isn't strong enough to penetrate far enough below ground to get to them. I am still picking up their vitals on the scanner though. Well, all of them except Marlin and Gutierrez."
Falco let out a sigh of relief, "Fine, we can't do much more down here, pick us up and head back to the Great Fox."
"Sure thing Lombardi", the pilot responded.
"And be quick about it, those bastards know we're here so there's going to be more of them fast…"
Back in the structure, after the blast…
Fox was stirred from unconsciousness by Slippy's worried voice, "Is anyone there? Please respond."
Fox pressed the button on the side of his helmet, "Yeah Slip, I'm here", he said groggily
"Oh thank the Gods! I thought you were all dead", Slippy said in relief.
"Well I'm okay here. Look I'm gonna check on the others so I'll… I'll call you back", Fox groaned as he stood up, opening his eyes.
The first thing he noticed was that his blast-visor was shattered, so he removed his helmet. He flipped open one of the pouches in his ammo belt and took out a small headset, fitting the ear-bud snugly into his left ear. Then he said into the mouthpiece, "Sound off if you're not dead", the second thing he noticed was that it was near total darkness inside. Luckily Fox's eyes were more suited to dark spaces, so they acclimated quickly.
When he could once again see he saw all the bodies strewn about. Several of them groaned as they started moving, then stood up.
One of them said, "I'm good Fox."
Fox walked up to Panther, the only marine that didn't call him sir and clasped his shoulder, "Good, now help me with the others."
Over the next few minutes they managed to revive the marines, luckily nobody had died. Fox popped a few emergency flares and tossed them on the ground, filling the corridor with a bright white light. A few marines had minor injuries, cuts and scrapes in places where their armor didn't cover them, while one had a broken leg. As Panther and Geek got to work setting his leg Fox was just getting to Krystal, who was already coming around, her staff beside her. She was farthest down the corridor from the shaft opening, "Hey", he said as she sat up.
She started to say something before she doubled over, gasping in pain and holding her ribs with her right hand, "Oh God it hurts", she whimpered, barely above a whisper.
Fox quickly removed her helmet, dropping it to the side as he opened the clasps on her BPF top, then he placed his hand against her side just under her arm, "Is it here", he asked her.
She shook her head, "A little lower", she whimpered again.
Fox slid his hand down her side, applying very light pressure, until he felt something give under his hand, and heard her draw in a gasp that shot back out in another cry of pain, "Yep that's broken", Fox said worriedly before turning and shouting, "Medic!"
Doc stood and ran over to them, his medical pack in hand, "What do we got sir?"
"She's got a broken rib on her left side, I didn't check anywhere el… dang", he had let his eyes drift to the floor and he saw why she hadn't moved her left hand, two of her fingers were dislocated. Fox gently picked up her hand, looked in her eyes and said, "This is going to hurt love."
She nodded her head while using her other hand to hold onto Doc's shoulder. Fox steeled himself, then quickly slid the glove off her hand, she cried out again, drawing breaths through clenched teeth. Then Fox again gently took her hand. He grabbed one of her fingers and quickly popped it back in place, and just as quickly did the same to the other. Then he held her hand in his own, brushing his thumb across the back of her palm as Doc set about repairing her ribs.
The medic slid his hand across the injured area and said, "You're really lucky you know", this was more to himself than to the female before him, "This could have been a lot worse, but with a little bio-foam and some bandages you should be good to go."
Doc asked her to take her arm from her armor so he could more easily apply the bio-foam. When she had pulled her arm from the sleeve, she used her good hand to pull it out of the way. Then Doc selected a small scalpel from his pack and placed it against the sensitive area, "Are you ready", when she nodded he slid the blade across her skin, opening her up. Blood spilled from the two inch cut, but was quickly stopped as Doc placed the tip of a small green bottle into the wound, then pressed a small button on the bottom with his thumb, shooting a small amount off-white, expanding foam into her chest. The foam expanded enough to cover the broken bone.
To Krystal it felt as if thousands of needles were stabbing her side before the painkillers kicked in, numbing the area. She looked down at her side as she felt a dull pop, seeing Doc, with two fingers inside the cut setting her fracture before the bio-foam set up, not really getting hard, so much as acquiring the consistency of rubber cement. Then he wrapped her ribs in med-tape and said, "O.K. You're good to go. It might scar a little though."
As the medic stood up he looked at Fox, "What about you sir? You alright?"
Fox turned his head to the marine, "Eh, just some scrapes. Nothing I can't deal with."
Doc pointed at Fox's forehead, "You sure you don't want me to take a look at that?"
Fox brought his hand up to his forehead, "Take a look at what", when he brought his gloved hand back down it was covered in his blood, "On second thought, maybe you should."
Fox sat down next to Krystal and sighed as Doc started to feel around the wound. He grunted as the medic found something under his scalp, "Now what have we here? Sorry sir but I'm gonna have to go digging."
Fox sighed, "Fine. Just don't take all day."
"Yes sir", the medic grabbed another scalpel with one hand while keeping his other hand on the object to ensure that it didn't go anywhere.
Fox grunted again and squeezed his eyes shut with pain as Doc slid the blade across his scalp, causing more blood to flow from the wound. Fox felt Krystal take his hand and squeeze it gently, just as he had done for her a moment ago. Then Doc said, "I'll be damned", as Fox felt him remove the offending object, "Sir take a look at this."
Fox opened his eyes to see Doc holding a piece of his blast-visor in his hand, "Damn", was all the vulpine captain could say. Then he plucked the blood covered reinvorced glass and looked at it for a moment before he tossed it over his shoulder, saying sarcastically "While incredible as that was shouldn't you be patching me up or something."
Doc nodded sheepishly and placed a small amount of bio-foam on his finger before rubbing it onto first one cut, then the other.
Suddenly emergency lights clicked on and dim white light filled the corridor. Then a loud snarl came from down the corridor. Every head turned in the direction the sound had come from, and everyone that could scrambled to their feet and aimed their weapons down the hall. When a lone assailant shuffled around the corner, it's entrails hanging out of a massive hole in it's chest, most of them relaxed. Fox sighted his weapon on the creatures forehead and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
"What the", Fox muttered as he checked his charge. It read flat zero, "Wonderful. Somebody shoot him while I fix this thing."
He knelt down, fully expecting to hear the sound of blaster bolts peppering flesh, but he heard no such thing. He looked up to see that everyone was looking at their rifles and blasters with confusion. So Fox set his rifle down, walked up to the creature, and kicked it in the face, crushing the fragil bones and knocking it to the ground. Then he leaned over the slowly moving body, put a knee in it's chest, grabbed the thing by the bottom of its jaw and twisted the head violently, snapping it's neck.
When he stood back up he saw that everyone had started to pull their guns apart, trying to find out what was wrong with them. Fox thought for a second, then he slapped his forehead again, wincing as he had forgotten about the cut. He shouted to get everyone's attention, "Hey listen up", he stepped over to Geek, "How old is your armor?"
Geek stood up from the cut he had just finished bandaging, "They just came out of R&D a few weeks ago, why?"
Fox looked at him, "And how old are your weapons?"
Geek thought for a second, "They're standard issue, been around for ten years or so. What's your point sir?"
Fox sighed, "The reason why our armor and transmitters work and our guns don't is because the armor and COMs are shielded against the energy put out by the new Nova bombs, the guns aren't."
Sergeant McClain stepped forward and shook his equine head, his large helmet tucked under his arm, "Sir, are you saying that we are trapped on a hostile planet with no blasters?"
Fox nodded then said, "Unfortunately, yes. That is exactly what I'm saying."
As he finished there were more growls and snarls coming from down the corridor, and they were getting closer, so Fox looked around the corner.
There was about a dozen of the creatures shuffling slowly towards them. Fox sighed and said, "I'm sorry I got you all into this. Obviously I didn't think this through very well."
Lieutenant Commander Greer stepped forward, "Sir you don't need to apologize. I knew when I joined the Core that my life was no longer in my hands. I knew that it was in those of the males and females around me. And if I am to die here today, I cannot think of anyone I would rather make my last stand with than these marines, and you sir", the alligator stuck his hand out, and Fox grasped it in a firm hand shake.
"Thank you Lieutenant, I…", then Fox's eyes settled on the grenade attached to the reptile's uniform, "Waitaminute", Fox reached around and unclipped his last fragmentation grenade from his belt, then he started slowly laughing as he looked at the device, "Chemical explosives", he said pointing at the black canister, "These should still work."
He pressed the button on top and threw it around the corner, covering his ears as he ducked back around. The explosion that followed drew a cheer from the soldiers, "Come on", Fox shouted, "We're not dead yet!"
They all dashed around the corner drawing knives and grenades. Sergeant McClain had the marine with a broken leg, PFC John Buckinson in his arms, unable to carry him over his shoulder due to his injury. The hallway was clear, covered in mutilated bodies, but clear. There were numerous doors on either side, "Leave your gear behind, it'll just slow you down", Fox whispered over the COM. The marines complied by dumping the useless blasters, charges, beacons, and other gear onto the flooring. Fox only kept his father's blaster, his knife, and his magma grenade.
Thankfully the doors on either side of them were unresponsive as they walked past them, as there could be heard more groans coming from inside nearly every room.
"Fox? Can you hear me", came Slippy's voice over the COM again.
Fox pressed the button on the side of the earpiece, "Yeah bud, what have you got?"
Slippy gave an anxious chuckle, "Not good news."
Fox called a stop to movement, "Lay it on me Slip."
"I have recently come into contact with an AI from down on the surface", Slippy said, "According to her, nearly the entire population of the planet was killed by a pathogen called the Tyrant virus, or T-virus for short. However, this virus causes the remaining energy in the deceased victim to reactivate the primal part of the brain. It then reanimates the victim."
Fox said, "Wait, did you say…"
But Slippy cut him off, "Yes I said reanimate. Fox these things aren't predators, they are the living dead. They are unintelligent and slow. But they are also aggressive, voracious, and they feel no pain. They are highly contagious. The virus is transferable through bites and any other breaches in the flesh caused by one of the infected. Once the person has died you will have about a minute to but a bolt in their brain or break their neck before they come back."
Fox thought for a moment, "What is the planet's population?"
He heard Slippy gulp, "Just shy of seven billion."
The vulpine gawked, "Seven billion", then sound of footsteps coming rapidly towards them caused him to end the connection, "Sorry Slip gotta go."
Fox pressed himself against the wall, and motioned for the others to stay put. He closed his eyes and focused on his hearing. When the footsteps were just reaching the corner he shot his hand around the corner and twisted his arm around the exposed neck. However he was stopped from snapping it by a kick that hit him in the forehead reopening his cut and knocking him against the wall which was followed by another kick aimed at his throat. He caught the foot, grabbed the leg at the thigh, picked his assailant up and slammed her into the wall, then into the floor before drawing his combat knife and driving it towards her face.
However she caught him by the wrist and stopped his assault, barely. So he threw his weight onto the knife and it started to slowly sink towards her. However he stopped pressing when he saw fear in her eyes. He jumped off her, "Who are you?"
"My name is Alice, who are you?"
That question was answered by a feminine shout from just behind him, "Holy smokes! That's Fox McCloud!"
He just started to turn when he felt two bodies tackle him from behind, knocking him back into view of the others and down to the floor. Fox said in an aggravated tone, "Ladies would you mind getting off me!?!"
The two Lylatians quickly stood back up, "Oh sorry", the lapine one said, "We just thought we'd never see another Lylatian face again."
Then the feline said, "And then to have the first one we see be you. You of all people! Oh Gods! That was icing on the cake!"
Fox pointed to his left back down the way he came, "Well it's not like I came here alone."
The two troopers looked down the corridor to see all the others, "Thank the Gods", they both muttered.
Then Sergeant White stepped out of the crowd and removed her helmet, "Patty?"
Patricia ran forward, "Jojo! I can't believe you came here."
Joanna wrapped the other rabbit in a hug, "What kind of sister would I have been if I didn't."
Tears of joy ran down both their faces…
End Chapter Six
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