Author's note: I'm loving the feedback I've gotten from this story, and I'd like to thank all my reviewers for their helpful, insightful opinions and comments.

Badlander

Chapter 4: Detection

The two men stared at each other from across the cold, metal control room. Around them, the officers and enlisted men stationed at the CADA Control Center moved frantically at their individual stations. The white room which had stood so long in sterilized peace was now choked by chaos.

"Well, what would you have me do, General?" The greying hare spoke. His long ears pointed stiffly toward the polished ceiling above in spite of the chaos around him. His deep brown eyes, hardened by conflict, regarded the hound-general before him with an impenetrable gaze.

"With yesterday's attack, we're expecting a declaration of war from the DRC within the week. It was total chaos up there; if it hadn't of been for Star Fox and that human pilot, we would've lost a hell of a lot more than five pilots," the hound paused to allow a feline subordinate to hand him a handheld computer. He pushed the screen a few times and handed the computer back to the feline, who promptly whisked the crystalline machine from the room.

"I thought training our pilots more adequately would prevent things like this from happening, but… Peppy, my old friend, it's my fault those kids are dead," The hound-general's gaze sunk toward the tile floor below. "Training isn't going to amount to shit if I can't give my soldiers operable intelligence and organization. We need an eye in the sky to make sure those kids stand a fighting chance."

"And that's where I come in," the old hare surmised, smiling sadly. The hound nodded.

Peppy continued, "Are you sure I'm the right hare for the job? I had my hands full just overseeing the reconstruction of the Great Fox, and we're still not even half-way done resurrecting the damned thing."

"If I weren't sure, you wouldn't be here," the General stated matter-of-factly, "Can I count on you?"

The graying hare sighed. "If you couldn't, I wouldn't be here," Peppy slightly mocked, earning a low chuckle from the General.

Peppy turned to leave.

"And Peppy," the general continued as Peppy walked away, "Keep em' alive."

Gideon Waller worked uncomfortably on the colors of his parked P-51 Mustang. The darkness of the night had not prevented him from working on new coat of paint for the American fighter.

"No American colors!" The personal memo from his own President had echoed through his brain from the moment he had returned from the procession for the soldiers killed in the skies of the day before. Outwardly, he merely saluted and acknowledged the order, but inwardly he felt mildly offended. He had served his country with distinction, at least he preferred to believe, and now his own nation had traded him off to some foreign military power to be used like some inanimate commodity.

He paused to consider the weight of the President's decision to assign him into the ranks of the Cornerian Air Force.

Am I still American? Gideon thought doubtfully at the stars which gleamed so distantly above. Their alien white lights danced like specters that twinkled just beyond his reach. What am I now?

Such thoughts drove him to work through the blank hollowness of the night. He painted and plastered new colors onto the gleaming silver metal of his plane with inexhaustible fervor until the thoughts dulled. He no longer cared about what he was. He no longer cared about the stars.

Gideon sighed and found his way into the cockpit which had housed him through hundreds of conflicts and encounters. The warm brown leather seat drew him in as his cold eyes slowly closed shut. The comfortable material of the pilot seat automatically adjusted to the contours of his back. His head slumped down onto the metal shell of the cockpit with a dull thud. His eyes remained closed.

Sleep took him soundlessly as it always had, but it was not a peaceful soundlessness. Images of brutal warfare and death played in a silent perpetuity behind his tired eyelids. And he felt an empty, incomprehensible pain that sent shivers down his spine. He felt pain in the quiet chaos, twisting in agony as he was silently tortured by the horrifying soundlessness of his dreams.

"Reports have just come in that the unidentified craft that engaged the CADA squadrons did in fact originate from the Democratic Republic of Corneria, or the DRC-"

Throughout the room, Fox's team looked on in horror as the local Corneria City news station replayed captured footage of the battle fought the day before.

"Can you believe this?" Falco asked no one in particular. Around him, the Krystal and Slippy sat haphazardly throughout the room.

Fox clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder. Oftentimes, Falco could be stubborn and hotheaded, but he was very good at putting into words what the whole team felt. It helped ease the tension in the room, for which Fox was instantly grateful.

Falco looked up at him, his eyes questioning him, searching for a reason to hope. Fox hadn't seen his good friend worried so much since the Aparoids first began attacking Lylat.

Fox looked around at the irreplaceable pilots that made up his team. Falco had plopped down on the couch and was back to watching the news, Slippy sat off in a corner where his green, amphibious hands tinkered with some unknown piece of technology. Krystal, the blue vixen, sat on a windowsill on the far side of the common room.

"Buddy," Falco spoke softly, "Do you think there's gonna be a war?"

Fox looked back at his teammate, deeply considering what he should say. He felt the gaze of his teammates suddenly on him once again as he spoke. "I don't know," he answered truthfully, and a sudden silence fell over the group.

Movement from outside the room broke the team from its collective brooding. The grey, metallic door opened to reveal the reddish vixen that Fox recognized from when he first arrived at CADA.

The vixen's amber eyes surveyed the room studiously until her eyes settled on the blue avian perched on the room's comfortable grey couch.

"Hey Falco," the vixen said. When Falco responded with a soft "Hey" and didn't look up, the vixen glanced toward the rest of the group. "You guys too eh? Look, Command wants us in the briefing room in an hour." She didn't have to add This is going to be all about yesterday.

"Thanks for the info. And yeah, we're pretty down under the weather," Fox admitted, "You're Hazel, right? Falco's friend?"

"That's right," Hazel voiced. She surveyed the room again. "I take it none of you happen to know where the human might be? He disappeared right after the funeral service yesterday and no one's seen him since."

"I have no idea where he is," Fox answered truthfully. After the human Captain had played his strange bronze instrument at the Cornerian military funeral service, he had seemingly vanished from the base. Fox wondered what it was that had caused the human to play music so beautifully one moment and shun other people the next.

"He'll probably show up for whatever Command wants to say about the damned Reds at the briefing. The stiff looked like he wouldn't disobey an order if his life depended on it," Falco emphasized, suddenly joining the conversation.

"Sounds familiar," Krystal softly teased, looking at Fox.

Fox shot Krystal an accusatory look, at which Krystal smiled defiantly.

Noticing the sudden exchange between Fox and Krystal, Hazel started to withdraw from the room. "Yeah, you're probably right about that Falco. Well, I'll get outta your hair. Or fur, rather," she amended and clapped her hands together, "Gotta give you two lovebirds some space!" Hazel quickly left the room before Fox could retort.

Falco and Slippy chuckled and followed Hazel from the room, leaving Fox alone with Krystal. They gazed at one another uncomfortably, unwilling to meet each other's eyes.

Fox broke the silence, "I think we should-"

"Y-yeah. We probably should-" Krystal stammered, gesturing toward the open door.

"Yeah," Fox followed her out the door, his face burning bright crimson.

Hazel paused to fix her dark red hair before entering the crowded briefing room. Around her, numerous pilots chattered enthusiastically despite the events the day before. Hazel took in a sigh of relief. It was easier for her to pull herself together when she saw that others were capable of the same.

She checked her watch. The sharp, light-blue digits read 0809. Great! Twenty-one solid minutes to kill before the brass give us the bad news. She thought silently and began to filter through the crowd of uniforms and flight jumpsuits.

One conversation caught her off guard.

"So you really fought the Nazis and the Japanese?" a young, nervous voice spoke, "I-is it true that the whole Second Great War started because the Japanese bombed Pearl Starport above the Hawaiian Planetary Rim?"

"For America, it did," a cool, familiar voice answered, "But the Second Great War started about two years before we got involved in 1941 when Hitler and his cronies invaded the Polish Star System in 1939."

Hazel turned towards the sound of the voice, searching for the speaker.

"T-that's really interesting!" the young voice spoke. "A lot of people here think that the war was fought just between America and the Axis."

"Back when I first enlisted as a kid," the cool voice sympathized, "I had no idea what started the war or why we were even fighting it."

Hazel turned and found the source of the voice. The pale, blue-eyed human Captain stood next to a young beige ferret.

"I can't imagine you as a kid, Waller," she made her presence known.

The Captain turned toward her and looked down upon her with his gleaming ice-blue eyes. The human himself stood a few inches taller than her. She involuntarily gazed down at his body. He wore a dark blue Cornerian flight suit that traveled down into a cuff above his black pilot's boots. Other than the absence of fur or scales, the human's physique was astonishingly similar to that of most male Cornerians. Hazel gazed back into his eyes. Somehow the human's eyes looked warmer and less hostile than they had when the Captain first landed.

"Neither can I," Waller answered whimsically and Hazel blinked in surprise. "Lieutenant Bartlett, this is Second Lieutenant Sam Carson," he gestured toward the young ferret who regarded her with nervous, uncertain brown eyes.

"Nice to meet you, Ma'am," Carson extended his right paw, which Hazel shook.

"Just call me Bartlett," the vixen answered. "Titles make my skin crawl."

"Y-yes Ma- sorry, Lieutenant Bartlett." Carson answered, grinning sheepishly as he made for a hasty exit. "Captain Waller," he acknowledged, and was absorbed by the crowd.

For a moment they gazed at each other, enjoying the crowded silence of the moment.

Waller broke the silence, "So I heard you were looking for me."

Hazel nodded and pursed her lips, "Yeah, Command said they wanted you to hear this briefing. Where the hell were you anyway? We had guys looking everywhere and we couldn't find you."

Hazel thought she saw a sudden grimace of pain stretch across the human's face when she asked him where he'd been, but it was gone so quickly that she shrugged it off as her imagination.

"I was painting," he said seriously, his cool blue eyes remained locked on her ambers.

Hazel looked at him disbelievingly. "You? Painting?" She exclaimed. When the human made no vocal retort she narrowed her eyes. "You're serious?"

He nodded.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Hazel amended, "Before yesterday, I'd have never thought you'd be the instrument-playing type with your fierce Let's kill all Cornerians! look that you have whenever Slippy happens to be around." When he made a sour face she continued, "Yes, I've seen you make that face so there's no point denying it." She sighed, "Are all you humans this strange?"

"If we all were, would any of us really be strange?" Waller countered, smiling slightly.

Hazel grinned appreciatively. Not such a dummie after all. "Well, to us Cornerians you're all certifiable wackos, but yeah, I see your point. Um, no offense by the way."

"None taken," Waller offered, "Given what's happened over the past few years with the War and now this Cold War we're supposed to be fighting with the Russians; sometimes I think everyone's gone batshit."

Hazel opened her mouth wide in mock surprise. "Oo, a swear word," she exclaimed, "I think I like you already."

What the hell did I just say? "I think I like you?" God, how embarrassingly corny, She chastised herself in a silent panic. Her warm amber eyes widened with a luminous intensity.

Hurriedly, before the human could respond, Hazel changed the subject.

"So, um, speaking of strange – what's the story behind your call-sign? Why 'Badlander'?"

Whew.

The human shook his head in confusion at the sudden change of subject.

"It's where I'm from, Hazel," he stated softly, surprising her by using her first name.

Personal questions call for personal answers, she reasoned. She suddenly regretted not knowing Waller's first name and wanted inexplicably to ask him what it was, but she waited for the rest of his explanation.

"New York is a massive moon-city of over one hundred million people," he paused, registering the visible shock on her face before she nodded, urging him to keep talking. He continued, "The skyscrapers that cover the moon's surface stretch well into the atmosphere. Most of the well-off people live up there in their penthouses and apartments. Me? I grew up down on the moon's surface where it's dark, cold, violent and most of the poor people live, or try to. The rich New Yorkers call that trash-heap 'The Badlands'. Heh, when I was there, I called it 'Hell'."

Hazel simply stared at him. Her warm amber eyes opened wide in shock and disbelief.

Great, now she feels sorry for me, Gideon silently chastised himself for sharing parts of his past that even he himself would rather forget. No matter what he said to people, after people knew about parts of his past they always treated him differently; like he was a different person. And he hated it.

Hazel regained her composure and nodded to herself. "We all have our shitty childhoods," she stated sympathetically. She continued, "Most of the people who grew up in my neighborhood turned into druggies or thieves by the time they were out of high school. As far as I can tell, you came out alright, Mr. Stone-cold pilot and all," Hazel gestured playfully toward Gideon's Captain's insignias that rested his shoulders.

Gideon chuckled, "Well I'm glad you're open-minded about it."

Hazel smiled. For a second, she looked like she was about to ask him something when the grizzled military dog Gideon recognized from his arrival announced that the briefing was about to begin.

Instantly the room was a chaotic whirlpool of uniforms and flight suits searching desperately for a seat.

Navy Captain Jim Reynolds sighed as he gazed at the blue-green orb that occupied his view screen. An agrarian world, Corneria was covered in greenery, forests, and temperate zones. Save for the rainforests that dotted the equator and the deep blue oceans which dominated the surface, much of Corneria's environment would have been perfect for suburban development. At least that was what he had been told to believe, he considered silently.

Before the goddamned Communist uprising, his job overseeing the suburban development of the Cornerian populace had been so simple, he thought nostalgically. Now that those furry beatnik hicks on the surface had decided to go pinko and revolt, he and his ship had been reassigned to system-wide reconnaissance. He grumbled with distain.

It was a job that had gotten increasingly difficult once the DRC had managed to slip over five squadrons of fighters undetected across the border. The sheer ramming he had received from Naval Central Command at the Pentagon drove the notion home that he was hanging on to his own job by the skin of his teeth.

So when his tactical officer had suggested specific upgrades to the cruiser's detection grid, he'd given it the vehement go-ahead.

Since then, he'd done nothing else but sit down and observe the underdeveloped world before him. Nothing else at all.

"Captain! We've got contacts on the detection grid, Sector CC1!" An urgent voice rang about the cluttered gray bridge.

The Captain swiveled in his command chair to look at his scrawny, butterbar, supposedly prodigal tactical officer.

"Sector CC1? That's within two hundred kilometers of Corneria City. Can you verify the contacts?" he ordered seriously, his training and experience taking over.

"Uh, sir, I'm-" the new tactical officer stammered.

"If you've got information about the contacts, spit it out!" Captain Reynolds interrupted angrily. He silently cursed himself for his impatience, but his outburst had already traveled to all the listening ears on the bridge. His impatience hung in the air like the choking gas clouds of Los Angeles.

"I'm detecting several DRC ships on intercept course with Corneria City. From this distance, I make out fifty-seven fighters, ten urban bombers, and twenty-three multirole strike craft." The tactical officer indicated nervously.

He turned to his communications officer. A dark-skinned man with sharp, graying hair and chiseled features, the man radiated an aura of sheer experience.

"Notify the Cornerian Military right away," The Captain ordered. The man nodded and immediately got to work.

The Captain turned back to his tactical officer, "Scan the rest of the planet for more contacts!"

The young man simply gazed at the screen before reluctantly looking up again.

The Captain threw him a questioning look. Now fucking what? Did Joseph Stalin just get nominated for sexiest man alive?

"Sir, you're going to want to take a look at this…" the young officer mumbled nervously.

Irritated, the Captain left his chair and bounded across the room until he was face-to-face with the USS Saratoga's detection grid. His mouth dropped open.

"Notify Washington," he said to no one in particular.

A/N: I have relatives who served in the Navy who told me countless stories about their adventures oversees, but I still feel pretty rusty on my military jargon and terms. I tried to make it as realistic as possible given the circumstances.

P.S. The term "butterbar" is usually condescending military jargon for a new officer with the rank of Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Armed Forces, most often the Marines (Or Ensign in the Navy, which is the U.S. Navy's lowest Commissioned Officer rank) because of the gold ("butter") bars they wear on each shoulder to signify their rank.