"This is the easiest mission ever! I thought once we graduated, we were gonna see some action!" came a male voice from the screen. Zack glanced over at the com screen to his left and was met with a blurred image of his teammate.
"Calm down ------, it's only our first mission." Zack heard himself reply, though for some reason, his voice became muffled when he said his teammate's name, and he couldn't make out the name. "Besides, this is really important. If this convoy doesn't reach Zoness Epsilon, the entire colony will die out."
"Yeah, whatever, I just want this to be over with," came the annoyed voice to his left. "What about you, -------, you've been silent this whole time," Zack's teammate directed his comment at the pilot of the ship to his right. A blank com screen appeared to Zack's right, but the face it showed was blurred, just like his other teammate.
"I'm not here to make friends," came a lazy voice, "I'm just here to finish the job and get paid." And with that, his com screen disappeared.
"Nice guy," said the annoyed teammate, as his com screen disappeared as well. Zack stared off into space. He could see the fifth moon of Zoness come into view, light blue air shield of the mining colony barely visible. He glanced up, and saw the cargo ship carrying the precious vaccine to the outbreak that threatened all life on the colony. He decided to go to for one more circle around the ship. He pressed the thruster control gently forward, and then downward, his Cornerian Fighter pulling ahead of the cargo ship and gliding upward to come to rest upside-down above what he and his teammates were charged to defend. As he righted himself and began to bring his ship to face forward once more, he noticed something off in the distance. He looked down at his radar, but it hadn't picked anything up. As he stared off in the direction of the unidentified object, hot plasma shot from whatever it was and grazed his wing. He took evasive action, while flipping the case over the forced alarm, and slammed down on the red button, a com screen for each of his teammates appearing on screen.
"We're under attack! Scramble! Remember, the cargo ship takes priority!" Zack yelled as com screens disappeared and the screen directly in front of him zoomed in and locked on to the three approaching ships. Pirates. Zack pushed forward on his thrusters and fired several shots at the first shim, the first of which took down the pirate fighter's deflector shields, the rest catching the wing. The damaged ship began leaving a trail of smoke behind its wing, and lagged slightly behind the other two ships. As Zack approached the pirates at high speed, they also began to scramble. Zack took a hard right and looped back around to try and lock on to the damaged ship. His targeting computer found the damaged ship off to the right and slightly above him. Zack pulled the thrusters back to slow down so he could fire several more shots at the damaged ship. Zack had hoped the shots would hit the pirate's wing so that he would only force a landing, but the hot plasma landed dead on target and the ship burst into flames in an impressive display of fireworks. Zack felt a pang of guilt, but it disappeared when his friendlier teammate's com screen opened up to his right.
"How did our radar not pick this up? A jammer would have to be decently close to be effective, and they were way off in the distance!" the blurred face shouted at Zack.
Zack looked at blur and barked "I don't know, but there's only two now, let's take 'em down and ask questions later!" After the com screen closed, he saw a bright yellow and red warning message flash on the screen directly in front of him. It read 'WARNING, MISSILE LOCKED ON' "Shit!" Zack spat and took immediate evasive action. Despite his best efforts, Zack couldn't shake the missile that loomed over him. Just when Zack thought it was over, his teammate shot the missile down with three well-placed shots. The missile detonated behind him, and Zack managed to escape unharmed. His teammate's com screen opened once more, and Zack breathed "thanks, ---------"
His blurry teammate began to reply "No prob-" when the sound of plasma against metal could be heard in the background. "What are you….no!" was all Zack heard before he saw his teammate's explosion behind him.
"NOOOOOO!" Zack screamed, as his head darted back and forth, looking for the offending ship. When he found what he thought must've been the dirty bastard who killed his friend, he steered his ship in the direction of the pirate fighter, and just as he locked on, he felt shots from behind him. The screen in front of him showed the rear view, and Zack found his attacker to be, not a pirate ship, but his one remaining anti-social teammate. Before he could take action, he saw the final flash of plasma felt the impact and-

Zack bolted upright and took in is surroundings. He was sitting on a small bed, jutting out of the wall in a bright white room. The Brig of Wolf's team's mothership. That was all he knew about where he was. He was drenched in sweat. The brig of the ship was not as temperature-conditioned as the rest of the ship, and the heat of the room combined with the panic of his dream made him feel as if he were submerged in boiling water. He moved so that he was sitting on the edge of his bed, and removed his boots, socks, hat, and jacket. It was a great relief to be out of his heavier clothes, but he couldn't deny that the he was still burning up in the brig's heat. He gathered up his excess clothing and dumped it on the metal bench opposite the bed. His light, cotton undershirt allowed him to cool off his upper body, but his heavy military pants caused his lower body to bake in the heat. Zack hesitated. He was apprehensive to remove his pants, seeing as he had nothing under them other than the new boxers that had found their way on to him sometime during the previous night (or what seemed like night to him). After a while though, the heat got the best of him, and he peeled them off, placing them with the rest of the clothes he had removed earlier on the metal bench. He returned to the back of the blindingly white room and took a long, drawn-out drink from the water fountain. He returned to his bed and lay back down, his stomach gurgling in the process. He then realized how incredibly hungry he was, and wondered when he had eaten his last meal...

"Alright, so I got all records on this Zack guy" Leon told his teammates as they gathered on the bridge. Wolf dropped into one of the seats and looked up at Leon, who was standing by the controls.
"You know…" Wolf said in a concerned tone, "you shouldn't go digging through Cornerian military records, that's a good way to get our asses caught."
"Oh, calm down dumbass, these are the old-as-hell records that no one even cares about, let alone keeps an eye on. They might as well not even be there for as much as they're used." Leon said sarcastically.
"Guys, let's try not to argue too much here, there are more pressing matters," came the voice of Panther, who was leaning against the wall over by the door to the rest of the ship.
"Panther's right," agreed Leon. "Anyway, the record said this Zack guy graduated the Cornerian Flight Academy at the end of 14355," Leon said, heading over to one of the secondary control consoles and scrolling through the data that was on-screen. "A few months later, he and two teammates were sent on their first official mission for the Cornerain Air Force. The mission was to guard the cargo ship carrying a shipment of vaccine for the pandemic that had infected the entire mining colony on the moon of Zoness Epsilon."
Wolf immediately understood why this news had saddened Zack yesterday, and he couldn't help but feel bad for the poor guy. "That explains why…" Wolf began, when Leon cut him off.
"Explains why what?" the chameleon demanded, an annoyed look on his face as he stared intently at Wolf.
"Oh, nothing…" Wolf's ears flattened and he sank deeper into his seat. Leon would be angry if he found out Wolf had actually been talking to their prisoner.
Leon sighed "Right, whatever. Anyway, the convoy was attacked by pirates, which, according to what little flight records they could recover from the lone survivor of the incident, managed to ambush the convoy completely undetected. Somehow the radar got jammed, even though the pirates were nowhere near close when they were discovered to send a jamming signal, and there were no other ships or space stations in the area during the attack. There were only three pirate fighters, one of which was taken out at the start of the battle, so the military fighters guarding the cargo should've been able to handle them, but somehow the pirates took the upper hand, eliminating two of the three military fighters. I don't think I have to tell you that one of those two was our current prisoner. The third fighter pilot survived the ambush. By the time they had sent out another shipment of the vaccine-this time with double the escorts-it was too late."
Panther stood up straight and looked at Leon. "That's…awful," the feline said with a sad expression. Wolf was completely silent.
"Yeah, but guys get this:" Leon said with a bit of a smirk. "The lone survivor of the convoy…was Pigma."
Wolf sat bolt upright. "That bastard!?" he yelled. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one jamming the radar, that slimy pig."
Leon looked back at the records and scrolled through the data. "It says here that he was hailed as a hero by Air Force officials and allowed an honorable discharge due to 'extreme mental anguish and/or trauma caused by accident or disaster'. Well, we all know what happened to him after that. Anyway, the prisoner hasn't had any food since we unfroze him, he's probably starving. We need him alive. Wolf, since you seem so friendly with the prisoner, you bring it to him." Leon walked over to a counter and picked up a tray of prepared food-if you could call it food. It consisted of stale bread and watered-down soup. Wolf made a mental note that next time, he would have to be the one preparing Zack's meals. Leon handed Wolf the tray, and headed back to review his records. "As soon as we get to our hiding spot, we'll deliver our message to Corneria. This is going to have us set for life!" Leon said with a sinister grin. Wolf sighed and walked through the lone door, and headed out towards the brig.