Chapter Nineteen

Here's Where the Story Ends

The elevator doors rattled shut, and the lift started down. Vixy took a deep breath, calming her nerves. She gave the grip of her pistol a reassuring squeeze. She could handle whatever they were about to come up against. She'd handled herself just fine in that gunfight on BR-558, and this couldn't be that much different. Except that they were going underground. Far underground, judging by how long this was taking. "Have I ever told you I don't like underground spaces?"

"Really?" James looked at her, worry in his expression.

"Yeah." Vixy nodded. "You remember that high school trip we took to the mountain caves in Dakor province?"

"Sure. Oh."

Vixy could tell he was replaying the memory in his mind. She'd gotten about twenty feet into the cave system, one with overhead lights, guard rails, and a gift shop, before she had to sit out the rest of the trip. It was claustrophobia. She did fine in other enclosed spaces, but underground, with all that weight and rock and metal on top of her... "I'll be fine."

"Okay." James put a hand on her shoulder. "I trust you. You'll do fine. Just focus on getting to that Arwing, and flying out of here."

"Right." Vixy made a conscious effort not to watch the sublevels ticking down. "What makes you think I'm going to be able to fly out of here?"

James frowned. "Because I think we're being led to the Arwing. Because I think whoever has it right now has some agenda that's best served by having us get it back."

"And what makes you think that?" Vixy probed, distracting herself as they passed the tenth sublevel.

"Because," James sighed. "It's all been too damn easy."

"Easy? We've had to chase this thing halfway across the system. Asteroid mining colonies, and now a hostile planet," Vixy said. "What in the world makes you think this was easy?"

"Gwen and Janice for one thing," James answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on. They just happen to be here with exactly what we need to find the thing? I don't doubt their orders were legitimate, and I don't think there's a huge conspiracy here," James went on. "But someone arranged for them to be here, and I'd say it's probably the exact same person who arranged those dots in a spider web, and left a claw mark on the elevator doors for us to find. We're being toyed with, and we're being offered just what we're looking for."

"Okay." Vixy flicked her tail. "Then what's our move?"

"Like I said," James responded. "Spring the trap."

The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened. James and Vixy both raised their weapons and activated the night vision on their suits. A long, empty corridor stretched out in front of them, cast in a gloomy, green glow. They moved forward, James taking point. The walls down here weren't metal or concrete. Instead they were carved stone. Vixy ran a hand across the stone, and picked up a cold condensation. And then her hand landed on something smooth and round. Her eyes widened. "Is that..."

"A skull." James nodded. "Yeah. We're in the catacombs."

"Uh huh." A shiver ran down Vixy's spine. So, she was underground, with millions of metric tons of rock, concrete, and steel hanging over her head, and now she was going to have to deal with being surrounded by dead things. And... "What is that?" She pointed downwards at a long, crackly looking thing.

"That'd be a shed epidermal layer," James replied. "Eladard's natives are reptiles."

"Oh. God." Vixy stepped gingerly over it, keeping her eyes forward. So, millions of tons of all sorts of heavy things, skulls, ribs, leg bones, and all that, plus the shed epidermal layers of a thousand generations of native Eladardians. "I want a raise."

James snorted. "Me too." He pulled out his hand scanner. "We're close. Few hundred meters. We're coming to a turn, so keep your eyes up."

"Right."

As they closed in on the turn, Vixy felt her hackles rising. This was definitely too easy. No resistance. They were in a straight, narrow corridor, with no cover. If the Arwing was being guarded, then whoever was doing it was utterly incompetent. If they weren't, they would have been watching that corridor, filled it with motion sensors, and then filled the entire place with laser fire the moment one of them tripped up. Instead...nothing.

It was possible that they did have sensors, and that they'd been tripping them the whole time, but then that might have been part of the plan too. None of this made any sense to Vixy. Why steal the Arwing only to let someone steal it back? If you didn't want it for yourself, or you didn't want to sell it, why take it in the first place?

James stopped, and Vixy stacked up behind him. They'd come to the turn. James looked down at his scanner and said, "It's right in there. Large room. And I'm detecting a shaft leading all the way up to the surface."

"Did they gift wrap it?" Vixy asked, cracking a joke to try and ignore the reminder that they were underground. She'd managed to forget about that for a few minutes earlier.

"Nah. I don't think so," James replied. She could see him smiling behind his visor.

"Rude. Shall we?"

"Sure." James stuck his head around the corner, and then jerked back as a plasma bolt seared past and splattered onto the wall behind him. "Shit."

"Did your scanner not pick up anything?"

James shook his head. "Probably stealth suited, just like us."

"Okay. Plan?"

James reached behind him and pulled a cylindrical object from his belt. "Stun grenade. Special make, it'll fry their suit systems too."

"Gwen?"

"Janice actually." James primed the grenade.

"I feel like this has been done," Vixy pointed out.

"Nah." James tossed the grenade. "Not a stun grenade."

"Okay."

"Cover your ears," James warned her.

Blam!

"Go!"

Vixy pushed off the wall and followed James into the room. She spotted three hostiles. Each of them in stealth suits and armed with plasma rifles. She aimed and fired, center of mass. The plasma bolts from her pistol impacted with wet popping noises. Screams filled her ears, and then nothing.

"Clear!" James called.

"Clear," Vixy echoed. She noticed something then. "Hey, these guys are Harcots."

"Are they?" James asked, stepping beside her.

"Four arms and..." she peeled the mask off of one. "Yup. Three jaws. Squid head."

James shrugged. "Mercs. Harcots are known for that sort of thing. Any House markings?"

"Where would they be?"

"Neck."

Vixy checked. Harcots were formed into Houses. Mostly. Rex, Shadow, Dread, and about a dozen other major ones. She checked the neck, looking for one of the recognizable symbols. "Nope."

"Alright. Probably just freelance or exiles." James breathed a sigh of relief. "No blood debt then."

"Right." Vixy stood up and looked over at the Arwing. It shone, even in the dim, barely present light of a few lanterns, it shone. There was nothing subtle about the prototype. It was meant to be seen. A signal to Lylat of Space Dynamics's new approach to engineering. A sign that the last era of space travel was ending, and another one was beginning. Vixy found it extraordinarily egotistical on the part of both Argus Phoenix and Beltino Toad, but then she could be extraordinarily egotistical about her own skills, so she couldn't really fault them for wanting to show off. "Well, I guess I better get this thing out of here. And James?"

"Yeah?" James looked up at her as he gave the area another sweep with his scanner.

"You were right. This is way too easy."

"Keep alert. Go straight to the carrier. Coordinates are in your scanner," James said.

"I will. Try not to get lost on your way back to the elevator."

James smirked. "I'll do my best. Think there's demons down here?"

James meant it as a joke, but as Vixy looked around the walls, with their smooth stone and, even in here, shed epidermal layers and mounted skulls, she gave it a moment's actual consideration. "Yes."

"Great. Maybe I'll luck out and it'll be a sex demon," James replied, not missing a beat.

Vixy scanned her palm print on the cockpit to the Arwing. The canopy opened. Just like that. No one had bothered to erase the authorized list. "Son of a bitch. And also, you better hope so, cuz your balls are bluer than that Cerinian we saw back on Corneria by now, aren't they?"

"Little bit." James had a smarmy little grin on his face as he said it. "Meet you in orbit."

"Meet you there." The canopy closed and James headed out of the room, weapon up and scanner in hand. Vixy powered up the engines and started going through her preflight checks. There had to be something wrong here. There had to be. But, as she went through her checks, nothing came up. Everything was green across the board. And that put a sick feeling in her stomach. Whatever the problem was, and there had to be a problem, she wouldn't know about it until it reared its ugly, possibly fatal head. Or maybe there isn't a problem. Yeah. Right.

Then she looked up. "Oh shit." There was one thing that whoever was behind this had decided not to hand them. And that was an open door. The shaft, according to the Arwing's sensors, did in fact lead all the way to the surface. However, whatever the door was, it was locked. Opening a comm line to James she said, "Hey McCloud. Someone forgot to open the garage door."

A huff came back as static. "Then blow it open. We don't have time for this."

"You could have Archer try and finesse it," Vixy suggested as she linked her scanner to the Arwing's navigational computer. A waypoint was displayed showing the position of the civilian carrier they'd be rendezvousing with.

"I could. But that'd take time. And I don't like you being all alone down there. Could be more mercs."

"You worried about me?" A little smile tugged at the corners of Vixy's lips.

"A little. I mean, Gwen's apparently not interested so..."

"Dick."

"Kinda."

"Alright. I'm gonna blow this thing. See you on that carrier." Vixy powered up the VTOL engines and started hovering her way up. Once she'd gotten about halfway to the top she tilted the stick and turned her nose to the exit. She tapped a button on her stick to switch lasers from rapid fire to charge, and built up a glowing ball of spun plasma from her nose cannon. "Suck it door." She let the charge shot go, then boosted forward. The plasma impacted, melted the door and Vixy and the Arwing shot straight through, trailing smoke and molten rock. "Wooooo!"

She sent a ping back to James and the team to tell them she was clear, then headed for space. Before she could relax however her proximity alarms started beeping. She checked her scanners and saw two ships pulling in behind her. Her warning system flashed an "Enemy Lock" warning. Vixy swore and went evasive, shunting power to her shields at the same time. The cockpit shuddered with the impact of laser fire. "Bastards!"

Vixy had two choices, she could turn and fight, and create a spectacle over Eladard City that would be broadcast system wide, and quite possibly turn into an interplanetary incident, or she could try to outrun them, make it to the carrier, and then call for help. After all, she'd been shot at first. Every instinct in Vixy told her to take the first option. She was a fighter, and the idea of tucking tail between her legs and running filled her with a feeling of shame. But the mission came first, and she knew that if Star Fox caused a major incident on their first mission, aside from the one on BR-558 which hadn't been entirely their fault, it'd be the end of anyone wanting to hire the team. "Fuck, let's see what these G-diffusers can really do."

Checking her straps Vixy pushed the throttle forward. Her speed increased, and the harassing ships started to fall behind. She could feel the gs pushing against her as she accelerated past the point that the I-diffuser equipped ships could match. She flew out of Eladard's atmosphere followed by a series of sonic booms, and within moments the brown and orange planet was growing smaller and smaller at her back.

She checked her scanners. She could see the carrier up ahead, and her comm system registered a friendly transmission from someone named Rob providing her with docking instructions and a surprisingly sedate request to reduce speed. The pursuing fighters seemed to have backed off. With that in mind, along with a flashing light indicating a critical buildup of pressure in the fuel cell's antimatter injectors, Vixy complied with the request. She pulled back on the throttle and...

Vixy opened her eyes. They shut again of their own accord. She growled. The damn things were supposed to do what she told them to do. She forced them open and the room she was in started to spin. When she felt like she might throw up she closed them again, and this time let her nose do the work for her.

Antiseptics. Plastic. Tile flooring. There were also some familiar scents. Male. A fox, like her. Cologne. Gross. Whoever it was had no taste. A rabbit too. No. A hare. Hare's and rabbits got pissy if you confused them. This one had better taste in body scents. And finally a lynx. A little bit of machine lubricant followed him. She smiled, that made everything else fall into place. "James?"

"Yeah Vixy?"

The familiar voice was music to her ears. "I'm in hell, aren't I?" Chuckles. She heard the beeping then. Nice and steady. She opened her eyes again, and this time the room didn't spin.

"No, you're in Corneria City General Hospital." Peppy this time.

"Who's paying?" Vixy asked.

"What do you mean?" Archer looked confused.

"Oh." Vixy remembered then. "Corneria. They have free healthcare don't they?"

"I hope so," James said, grinning. "Otherwise this is definitely going under expenses for Argus to deal with."

Vixy laughed, then coughed. "Water?" James was on it. Vixy got a hold of the straw and sucked down about half the glass. "Bedpan?" Everyone's eyes went wide. "Kidding." Relieved expressions all around. "What the hell happened?"

James pursed his lips and said, "We're still waiting for confirmation from Argus, from the black box and the wreck they recovered."

Vixy sat up in bed. Her ass felt sore. How long had she been lying here? "Do we know what happened though? At least provisionally? And how long have I been here?"

"About a day. Since we picked you up over Eladard and got you here. You can thank ROB for that, by the way," Peppy supplied.

"Who's Rob?" Vixy asked.

"A robot. The pilot aboard the carrier," Archer said. "Oh, and his full name is ROB 64, all capitals. He gives you a look when you spell it wrong."

"The robot gives you a look?" Vixy stared at the lynx incredulously. She got the feeling he was anthropomorphizing technology again.

"Okay, so he stares blankly, but I think he can actually be quite expressive," Archer said, holding his hands up defensively.

"Sure." Vixy turned back to James. "Did the Arwing explode?"

"The G-diffusers did," James responded. "You lost consciousness. ROB picked you up, and we all boarded and headed straight here."

"Ah." Vixy sighed. All of that for nothing. Then she had a thought. "Sabotage."

"What?" James's ears perked up. Archer and Peppy moved closer.

"It had to be sabotage," Vixy explained. "You said it was too easy. That it felt like whoever had stolen the Arwing wanted us to have it back. Well, maybe you were right, and they sabotaged it."

"Maybe."

None of them looked all that convinced. "What?"

Archer looked pained as everyone turned to him to explain. "There's no confirmation yet, and sabotage is being considered but..." He trailed off and looked down at his feet. When he looked back up he said, "It looks like a design flaw."

"A design flaw?" Vixy shook her head, then regretted it as everything started to spin again. She shut her eyes and held still for a few moments. Things settled. "What kind of design flaw?"

"It looks like in the process of compensating for especially high g-forces, like when you max out your speed, the Arwing's G-diffusers put a massive amount of pressure on the antimatter injectors in the propulsion system." Archer said.

"So reduce speed," Vixy suggested. "That just means it's redlining. Even I-diffusers do that."

Archer shook his head. "It's different. It's hard to explain but...with the G-diffuser, it looks like it builds up into a feedback loop. Going slower actually increases the pressure, rather than relieves it."

Vixy stared at him. She knew the basics of how space propulsion worked. But she'd never heard of anything like this. "Okay. How do you reduce pressure?"

"Increase speed." Archer bit his lip. "I know. It's counter-intuitive. But, do you see the problem?"

Vixy nodded, a sinking feeling in her stomach. "If slowing down means the thing blows up, you can't stop. Ever. Damn."

"Space Dynamics is trying to suppress the conclusion until they can figure it out definitively, but it looks like it's already leaked," Peppy added. "Space Dynamics stock has fallen off a cliff. Argus says they'll just barely remain solvent, and he's still holding on as owner but...it could be years, or even decades before he's in a position to do anything more than build custom ships based on existing technology."

She should have felt a sense of satisfaction at that. He'd fired her, and then she'd saved his Arwing only for his own stupidity to blow up in her face. That he was now suffering the consequences right along with her...it didn't help. At heart, she just couldn't be that vindictive. Argus was brilliant. A genius in aerospace engineering. "I say it's sabotage."

"Argus thinks so too..." James frowned. "But he can't prove it. And he doubts he'll find the evidence."

Silence fell on the group for a few minutes, then James took something out of his pocket. "What's that?" Vixy asked.

James smiled and held it out to her. It was a patch with a winged, red kitsune on it. "It's the team insignia. Go ahead, put it on."

Vixy looked down at it, turned it over in her hands a few times. Then, with a devilish little smile she said, "The wings make it look like a tail is growing out of its back." She slapped it on, enjoying the crestfallen face that James briefly displayed. "But I love it anyway."

"I told you," muttered Peppy.

"Shut up Peppy," James groused. "They're wings."

Vixy laughed and said, "So, I guess it's official now, huh?"

"What is?" James turned back to her.

With a bright, energetic smile, and a thump of her tail beneath the hospital bed covers, Vixy said, "We're Star Fox."

Epilogue

It hadn't all gone according to plan. The Arwing yes. What had been an artful job of sabotage was being swallowed by every Cornerian as a critical design flaw. Space Dynamics was bleeding shares and Argus would spend the next ten or fifteen years trying to keep his company from going under. And probably another ten trying to get it back to a position of any real relevance in the Lylat System. Edgar Marcross was ecstatic, and Vesper felt his usual satisfaction from a job well done.

The other bit of business though, with the Interdimensional Warp Gate, had gone less according to plan. Cadman was dead. Killed in the escape. Apparently he'd let his libido overrule his mind in threatening Talia Swift. Vesper found the threat of sexual assault quite distasteful, as had the members of the newly christened Star Wolf team. They'd stabbed Cadman, then made off with the datacard. If they'd tried to sell it to someone else Vesper would have avenged Cadman. They did not however. Instead they brought it to him, and demanded nothing more than the original agreed upon price. Vesper had given it to them, along with a promise that he'd keep an eye on them in the future, in case he needed them.

Cadman's death had meant he had to reshuffle a few of his organizations and projects, but nothing that had taken more than a sleepless night's work. Now, six months later, he was preparing to meet the man he would be selling the Warp Gate schematics to.

Vesper looked out the shuttle viewport at his destination. Cold Station 34, located in the Meteo asteroid belt. A secret research lab for the Federation government. It doubled as a storage facility, keeping thousands of dangerous diseases and alien technologies that had to be kept from the public eye, but also merited study. He was here to meet the head of the facility. A brilliant scientist whose name had managed to escape even Vesper's expansive knowledge. The idea of someone he didn't know and couldn't find out about on his own had so intrigued Vesper that he'd agreed to the man's price, despite it being considerably lower than several other offers.

The shuttle docked, and Vesper was cleared through security in an instant. He held his briefcase which contained the card, and passed it through the scanner. It detected nothing but papers and a few innocent odds and ends. He was ushered through a decon room where he was scanned for harmful bacteria or anything else that might corrupt nearby cleanrooms. They found nothing. Vesper had decontaminated before he arrived. A courtesy.

Once that was done he was brought to a lift. He stepped in, and the doors shut and whisked him not up, but down, towards the center of Cold Station 34's iron and nickel core. When the doors opened again he stepped into a well lit office. He took stock of the surroundings. Comfortable furniture, a hologram displaying Meteo outside, and an odd black flag with a skull and crossbones. The skull was primate, and judging by the condition of the artifact it dated from Fortuna's early sea voyaging period. An eccentricity. Vesper liked those. He filed it away.

Behind the wood desk at the opposite end of the room a man stood up. He was tall, wearing a black jumpsuit and a white labcoat. His face was bearded, and his hair was dark, though displaying the first signs of graying. He was also primate. An ape. Vesper stepped forward and set the briefcase on the desk. "Vesper."

The ape nodded. "You have it?"

"Yes." Vesper held up a hand to forestall the man as he reached for it. "Before I give it to you, I was wondering if you might enlighten me as to why you want it? Do you not have access to something like this here?"

The ape chuckled, a deep rumble in his chest. "My fields of study are biology and nanotechnology. Therefore, this is something they would keep from me."

"Then why do you want it?" Vesper inquired.

The ape considered him for a moment, and Vesper realize with excitement he was in the presence of a superior mind. Someone who could likely match him thought for thought, move for move. "I seek to peer into the space between spaces. What we call Interdimensional space, but what the Cerinians would call the Ascended Realm."

"And that's all? You wish only to peer into it?" Vesper narrowed his eyes at the ape.

"No. Once I have found it, I intend to take it. Enlightenment and Ascension are the only two paths open to beings such as us, Darius Vesper." The ape used his full name, which he shouldn't have known, then held out a hand. "My name is Andross. And I would ask you if you wish to join me? If you wish to surpass Kilik-Thulu in your plotting? With this," he set his hand on the briefcase, "You very well could."

Darius considered the offer. A superior mind indeed. With a grim smile he looked into Andross's eyes, and he saw in them the fire to remake the universe. He took the hand and said, "I will."

All Ends Are Beginnings...

A/N: And so we have reached the end. 80+ thousand words. This is now officially the longest story I've ever written (for now). It's not perfect, it has a lot of flaws. I'm personally of the opinion that the pacing was a bit off, and that at times it went to greater pains to establish the universe it inhabits rather than remaining laser focused on the story.

At the same time though, this is a story whose detail I'm pretty damn proud of. Some of it might have been unnecessary, but ultimately, I kept it because I thought, hey, I wanna see the garden for the roses too.

Where do we go from here? What is ol' FurFur gonna be posting next? For now it's a secret, but the project is well underway, and hopefully I'll have it ready to start posting before the month is out! As for what it'll be, I'll leave you with one hint that I'm most excited about "Fox and Krystal." It'll also be inhabiting a separate universe from this story, for those who are concerned with that sort of thing.

What's next for this AU though? Well, someone is gonna have to deal with our bad guys here, and we'll have to see just what the villainous ol' ape is up to. And we're gonna have to get those Arwings flying again. I've got the next story planned out, but I'm gonna be taking a little break from the adventures of James and Vixy over the next few months to focus back on the OTP Fox/Krystal. I've got several stories planned and I've even started working on most of them. Suffice it to say there's a lot more on its way.

Before I go I also want to say a thank you to Groundis Ground Pound Ground, who might as well be my co-author at this point. None of this story would have been possible without him. And, I'd be willing to go so far as to say 99% of the good stuff would never have been thought of without him there to bounce ideas off of. Go read his stuff!

I'd also like to thank those of you who left reviews. I've kept your thoughts in mind, and I'd like to think that I've integrated a lot of the critiques of this story into the next one. Writing is an ever evolving beast, and hopefully I'll be hitting the next level soon.

Thank you one and all! FurFur Out!