Chapter 7: A Diversion

"And we have skies overcast in the Cornerian atmosphere, and along with the stormy sky comes bad news, folks. In the recent planetary news, the well-known Ando Ageanesis had his mechanical arm ripped off by a crazy fan who questioned 'Aren't you the guy who melted my arm off?'. The fan was recently arrested and Ando is currently in stable con-"

Skye uncouthly shoved the alarm off the end table and watched it smash against the ground, completely uninterested.

"Whoops. Guess I'll have Slippy fix that. Well, to work, away!"

He grinned and struck a heroic pose before putting on a bathrobe and dashing off to the HQ hangar to ready his arwing. A smaller male fox of about the age of 16 watched him bizarrely, clearly a new recruit.

"Hello, citizen!" Skye grinned eerily with his statement and finished his preparations. "Good to see you. But I must go, really." Skye, as predicted, dashed again out into the halls of the bedrooms. A new day for Skye had come and he was in another bizarre mood.

"C'mon, c'mon, guys! We're gonna be late! If we don't hurry up! HURRY UP!" Skye screamed at the top of his lungs. Falco tapped him in the shoulder and flicked him in the back of his head from behind, angrily scratching his forehead with his other hand.

"Uh… hey… Skye… would you mind if you would keep it the heck down? Some of us aren't quite awake. Namely everyone except me, huh?"

"I would guess so, but you'd think that my team would be a bit more disciplined…" The overly energetic Skye shook his head mock sadly with a 'Tsk, tsk, tsk' noise and poked Falco in the forehead. "That's what I like about you, recruit! You have the guts! You have the stuff it takes!"

Falco simply responded with a quick "Shh" and a slightly painful kick to Skye's left side, watching him wince.

"Well, if you're so intent on us going, then let's go. I'll get Slippy. Trust me, you don't wanna have to go in there and pry him away from his stuffed animals. It's painful to see. And not 'cause you pity him, trust me on that."

"Yeah…" Skye trailed off. "You get… on that. I'm gonna go make sure… everything's… working." He skipped off, exuding his odd disposition and climbed into his arwing, blasting the arwing speakers at the first radio station on the dial. Meanwhile, Fox peeked out from his room and watched him exit the hall, half-awake.

"Weird… hard to believe he's our leader." He snickered, half-sincere.

"Well…" Fara watched over his shoulder. "I guess he's earned it. He's had to do a lot of hard work to get there, I bet. I'm sure he deserves to be a weird guy from time to time." She smiled.

"Time to…? He's like that all of the time, Far."

"True. True." She jumped off the bed and got dressed quickly, for fear of further (and notably loud) reprimand from her leader.

"Nng…" Krystal rolled to the side and hit the floor with a thump, holding the side of her head. "What a night…"

"Morning to ya, sunflower!" A familiar voice sounded quite loudly through her entire room from a speaker in the wall, skipping her heart a beat and making her jump, almost to the height of hitting the ceiling.

"Sk- Skye? What the heck? How'd you get that hooked up? When?" She badgered. "Ugh…"

"Turns out it was there all along. I just never knew it was there! Nor did I know that I can use it… wait for it… from my arwing. Oh yeah. Casual conversation from long distances. Hi-tech stuff." He muted his music and tapped his foot on the hard flooring of his cockpit, his tail swishing against the back of his seat.

"Ugh…" she shook her head and spent a few minutes to get dressed in a comfortable blue flight suit, the last one out to the arwings.

"Well, see you in a minute, sunflower. Skye out-"

"How do you stay so energetic?" She interrupted with a polite but serious tone, staring at the small intercom box in the wall with an eyebrow pointed upward. "What makes you like that? What makes you so immune to the haphazard problems of life?"

He snickered and turned up the music slightly. "Well, you just get used to it. And you learn to ignore. That's your problem, Krys, you gotta learn to roll with the punches. Just relax. It's another mission, the sun is shining, and it's a new day ahead of us."

"We're in the middle of space, Skye, the sun is always shi-"

"Tch. Realist."

He cut her off and snickered again, his music on full blast a second time, waiting a moment to see her standing outside. He grinned largely and waved to her, his ear twitching eagerly. His hand slid up the side of the window and found the button the pull it down.

"C'mon, Krys! We're all waitin' on you! You want money, right? Buy the team a hot tub or something? Yeah, I'd like that, too. Not gonna happen, though. Way too much crap to deal with as of now. But c'mon anyway! We'll get a new Great Fox, we'll-"

It was her turn to ignore him, and she avidly did so with a forceful shut of his window on the way to her newly polished ship. She climbed in and sat on her tail for a moment, yanking it out with small unkind utterances in dino language. Another habit she'd yet to lose.

"Well, Skye?" She tinkered with her intercom until she had the volume and frequency set perfectly. "For a guy who talks a lot, I don't see a lot of flying…" She tilted her head a bit to the side and waited for his rash response.

"Hmph. You just wait, Miss Sunny, I'll show you a little bit about flying. Just keep your eye on me, quite assuming you don't need all your attention to avoid crashing into Slippy."

"Hmph back it you, fancy pants."

The team listened to the grudge-like competition of the arrogant fox and the azure vixen as they boosted off into space.

"G-diffusers are go. And… blah, blah, blah, everything else. You guys ready?"

"Yeah, yeah, let's get on with it." Falco watched out the window.

"Sure am, Skye. Ready to teach you your tail from a hole in the ground. You appear to continue to have trouble with that one-"

"Children!" Peppy interrupted, back at the headquarters. "Please! You make me sound like an old geezer… though I'm sure I make a reputable one as is. Let's stop the bickering and-"

"Get to the flying…" Skye grinned once more with his comment and flew his ship next to Krystal's and as close as he could until he could tell she was nervous. Her hands were locked on the controls and she started to shake a bit with the view of Skye's wing barely in front of hers. If he were to brake, or her to speed up, he could easily take it off. As reckless as it may have been for Skye to do as leader, he still knew his place and she knew that it was all a test. Skye held his position as commander with high regard and was quite the excellent pilot, though not well known.

"Okay, guys." Skye nodded and tapping some keys into his onboard computer. "Coordinates are in. But just for a little fun, you're not going to have the luxury of autopilot. Stay sharp, boys. And irritating belligerent female. You, too."

"Hmph."

Slowly, they drifted around, Skye challenging Krystal and Krystal challenging Skye, as they all admired the never-changing beauty of silent space. It was most evident, of course, with Skye. He was very lax and limp, staring at the distant stars and at Krystal's ship, watching to see if she had taken any sudden movements or sneak attacks. But, of course, all was peaceful and she was too busy doing the same… watching him for any tricks. He stretched slightly and stiffened his tail, focusing now on the odd feeling of the space around him. It was odd… the arwing had its own perfect personal environment, but sometimes he felt the oddest feeling out in the black reaches of space. He would look out the window and look down, realizing that there was little between him but a single layer of metal. It made him feel weak, it made him feel woozy from time to time… he'd been in space countless times, but had still never quite gotten over it. He began to nod off, his caffeine powered biorhythm getting the best of him once more…

"Hey… Skye. Something the matter?"

"Nah. Just not feeling too well today… stomach… mind."

"Mind? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Sometimes… I look into space and I feel empty. Lonely-like… what is it?"

"Hmm… space can make you feel lonely, I know what you mean. Maybe you just need a girl. A nice vixen."

"You think? Possible, but… me? A girl?"

"Ha. I see where you're comin' from. I know you don't seem like the type, but I don't think you'd do TOO badly."

"Yeah, yeah, enough with the ribbin'. Come on. Let's go. We're gonna miss the meeting."

He opened his eyes again to perfectly awaken with a large brown obstruction in his way, a small meteorite. In a split moment, his reflexes kicked in before his hands could and his eyes shot open, alert.

"Aah! What the heck?" He swerved to the side and back to the center, his stomach beginning to feel worse.

"Skye? You okay? What happened?" Krystal sighed worriedly. "For a commander, you sure are reckless."

"But honest. Reckless, but honest." He shook his head and rubbed his left temple. "I fell asleep."

"You fell asleep in the middle of flying through an asteroid field?" Fox exclaimed with confusion. "Geez… how did you get to be our leader again?"

"I…" He looked down. "I- hey! What's goin' on?" He clicked his on-board screen and was greeted with a message, happy to change the subject.

"Message received. Now displaying."

Skye read through it quickly and sighed yet again. "We got trouble. Turns out that we've been hit with another unexpected twist, team. Small outpost in Titania was attacked by bandits. Tough guys, I've had run-ins with them before. Get your weapons ready, we're gonna have to play 'Peacekeepers' for the time being. At least it means more pay, hm?"

The rest of the team growled under their breath and turned off to the side, heading roughly southeast from their destination and toward the dry grasp of Titania. And more specifically… The Kyouro Sand Tiger Gang, known not only for their brutality, but for their large size. Another day in peril, but another chance as well. A chance to earn back the lost vitality of the Star Fox team, diminished by war, much as Titania was diminished by heat and time.

"Keep your wits about you guys, we're almost there. And knowing them, I'm sure they have at least a few traps in wait."

"Skye, why do you know these guys?" Krystal leaned forward and cracked her neck.

"Well… you could say we've known each other in the past..." He shrugged and went silent, staring at his computer screen.