Chapter III: Strange Happenings
James set down the welding torch and flipped up his mask, he looked at all he had done so far. It was nearly three in the morning, and he had taken no breaks. So far he had the frame of the ship completed, the next step was to put on the hull. As James was about to do that, he felt a wave of tiredness wash up over his body, he hadn't pushed himself to the limit, but building the frame had taken a lot of time and energy. So most likely, he wouldn't have any nightmares tonight. James's philosophy was that if he pushed himself hard enough during the day and evening, he would be so tired that he would have a dreamless sleep.
James set down the tools and staggered to his feet, then began to make his way towards his cabin. James's mind wandered as he did so, and he found himself thinking about Kat. Which was an odd thing, but he began to suspect he was beginning to be attracted to her. James stopped for a moment, now that he thought about, she did remind him of Lara in small ways. Same build, medium height and lithely muscular, like himself. The same species, feline. And, as far as he could tell, the same attitude, if not toned down a little. James opened the door to his cabin and stepped in, then crawled into bed and quickly drifted into a deep sleep.
James awoke to the sound of a loud, rapid beeping noise. He had to inclination to simply smash whatever device was emitting the noise, but quickly realized that it was coming from his comm unit. James picked it up and put it into his right ear, he cleared his throat. "What's with the friggin beeping?" He asked.
"Just a wakeup call." Fox replied briskly.
"What do you want?"
"Team meeting, Pepper just gave us a call. Be in the bridge in twenty minutes." The comm fell silent. James moaned and got to his feet, he went into the bathroom, went through his usual morning routines and then headed out of his cabin to the bridge.
A few moments later, the entire team, Fox, Fara, Kat, Falco and James. They were all crowded around the Audio/Video screen in the bridge of the Darkcloud. It showed General Pepper's head and neck. "So, what's going on?" Fox asked.
"Well, there's been some strange things going on around Venom. Power surges, garbled radio transmissions, strange things like that. We can't pinpoint where exactly these anomalies are coming from. And recent storms have prevented satellite imagery. I know you guys must be pretty bored, so I thought a scouting mission might be nice. We've narrowed it down to a five square mile area, I'll transmit the information to you." Pepper explained.
"Alright General, thanks, see ya." Fox replied.
James noticed something wrong, he had caught it during his time on the bridge. It was Kat, she wasn't her usual cherry self, a normal person couldn't interpret that within five minutes, but James was anything but normal. There was something wrong with her, she seemed depressed and Falco seemed unusually tense.
The screen went dead and Fox stood up. "So, who wants to do it? I can't, I've got stuff to do." He said.
"Yeah, me to." Fara said.
"I ain't goin." Falco replied.
"Fine, I'll go." James said.
"Yeah, so will I." Kat said, James noted a certain undertone of sadness in her voice.
"Alright, I'll bring the Darkcloud as close to Venom as possible. Then you guys get going." Fox said, he activated his comm unit.
"Jamie, plot a course for Venom, full speed." Fox said.
"Alright on it, commander." The ships AI said in it's light, female voice.
James turned and began heading towards the docking bay, Kat not far behind him.
James looked at Slippy Toads ship, it was the only available to him. No one else would let him use theirs, they had all seen his record and how he worked while in combat. Chances are, they wouldn't run into anything, but, just in case James clambered up the side and opened the canopy, he climbed into the cockpit. As he closed the bulletproof shielding that covered the cockpit, he saw Kat climbing into her ship. It was almost the same design as the Arwing, painted a deep shade of blue. James began powering up the systems of the Arwing, he could pretty much fly anything whether it be air, space, sea or land. Soon, the systems were all lit up and the ship was prepared for flight.
James opened a channel between the two ships, "Ready?" He asked.
"Yeah." Kat replied, the engines powered up and they headed out of the docking bay down towards the massive poison planet of Venom.
The two ships raced through the raging storms in the atmosphere, the massive, swelling yellow clouds whipping around them as they did. James checked a digital clock on the control panel of the cockpit, 5 minutes until they were out of the atmosphere and heading for the area they were supposed to check. James sat back in his chair, letting the autopilot take control of the ship, he relaxed.
This would be an easy mission, anything to get off that ship. He was going nuts, no action happening, business or otherwise, it was boring. He was about ready to pick a fight with Fox or Falco, most likely Falco. He never really liked that guy, from what he heard about Lombardi, the guy was damn lucky. He had a knack for flying and was friends with Fox, that's how he was on the team.
James had done some checking up on the guy, he had always skipped class during middle and high school, just barely graduated because he met Kat during his sophomore year and she had cleaned him up. He didn't deserve a girl like that. The two ships broke through the atmosphere when James's comm crackled to life.
"Hey, since we don't have to do anything but have the computers scan, you wanna talk?" Kat asked.
James was silent for a moment, then replied, "Sure, what do you want to talk about?" James replied.
"Well, why don't you tell me about yourself."
"You want the whole story?"
"Sure."
"Alright, I was born and spent most my life on Katina, Quartz City. The first thirteen years of my life were pretty normal, got good grades, made friends, then my dad died. He was a cop and got killed during a drug bust. To make matters worse, my mother killed herself. So, I was left all alone, at thirteen. I had no grandparents, no brothers or sisters, no cousins, just one uncle. He was all the way over on Corneria, so I went to live with him. He was okay, a little strict. I finished out high school, and then my uncle died of a heart attack. That's when the war started, two years ago. I had just turned eighteen and a month later, I got drafted to the Marines. For the first six months of the war I was with the Marines, fighting on the frontlines on Katina, Titania and Macbeth."
"I became very skilled and found I had a knack for doing this sort of work. So, I applied for the Special Forces, after a month of rigorous training, I passed. For five more months, I lead missions to assassinate important Venomians, destroy bases and lead attacks. Well, again I got bored and went to the SEALS, normally, I couldn't do that, but with all my experience and expertise, I could pretty much do whatever the hell I wanted. So, for another seven months, I worked with the SEALS, the best of the best, then, three months ago, I went back to the Special Forces and then ended up being captured on Venom." James fell silent, Kat didn't say a thing.
She was about to speak up when their computers beeped, indicating that they found something. James focused on the radar, they had picked up an anomaly.
There was a large antenna sticking up out of the ground and the area around it was cleared, it was sending a message. James hit the record button, gathering up all the data. The message lasted for ten more seconds, then cut off. Shortly after, a reply was sent, it lasted for nearly a minute. The data would be broken down and decoded later by technicians. The two ships circled around the area, scanning it.
"I think I've got something." James said.
"What?" Kat replied. "Something underground, I'm recording it." James replied, a blip sounded and the data was finished being recorded.
"Let's get out of here." James said. The ships turned around and headed back towards the atmosphere.
"You think we were picked up on radar?" Kat asked.
"Probably." James replied.
For the first five minutes of the trip back to the Darkcloud, they both remained silent. Finally, James spoke up, "What's wrong?" He asked, his voice entirely neutral.
"What do you mean?" Kat replied, somewhat surprised.
"I'm not stupid, I know when something is wrong, the signs are easy to spot." James explained.
After a long moment, James thought she wasn't going to say anything, but finally she spoke. "Is it that obvious?" She asked.
James said nothing. "Well, if you have to know, I just found out that Falco is cheating on me." Kat said.
James was surprised, he would have expected her to be bursting out in tears. But, you can't judge a book by its cover. "Sorry." James curtly replied.
They cleared the atmosphere. The rest of the trip was made in silence. James guided his ship into the docking bay, Kat not far behind. The ships landed gently on the metallic floor and Kat exited her ship. James lingered for a moment, sending all the information he had gotten to General Pepper himself. After that, James exited from the space jet and jumped down onto the floor. Kat stood still for a moment, watching to see what James was doing.
He gathered up various tools and supplies from around the bay, put on a protective mask, picked up a welding torch and got to work installing the inner hull of his custom built ship. It was looking pretty good so far, but was to early on to tell if it was going to be space worthy. Kat sighed and left, ignoring her growing suspicion that she was falling for James.
Three hours later, James was still in the bay, he had half finished putting on the inner hull when Falco came into the docking bay. He shouted James's name, James turned off the torch, took the mask off and stood up.
"Yeah?" He asked.
"Come on, something's up." Falco replied.
"What?"
"They decoded that data you guys got." James said nothing more and followed the falcon out of the bay.
Again, James found himself in a small crowd around the A/V communications screen. Kat was standing next to him and Falco was standing as far away from her as possible without making it seem like there was something wrong.
"How bad is it?" Fox asked. "Bad." Pepper replied.
Everyone waited.
"In fact, it's very bad. It seems that Wolf O'Donnel survived and he's been out in space, gathering an army of Venomian survivors, mercenaries, pirates, everything he could scrounge up. It's remarkable that he's been able to do all this in such a little amount of time. They've been building another base underground, and there's some more bad news." Pepper said.
Again everyone waited.
"For the past few weeks, there's been strange interference around Area 6, and we're unable to penetrate it with radar."
"We didn't really try to since it wasn't all that important, and we just sent a small reconnaissance team to investigate the situation. Well it seems that they've been rebuilding that for quiet some time. Now, I've sent a small military force to deal with it, but there's still O'Donnel's army. It's big, very big." Pepper fell silent for a second.
"How big?" Fox asked.
"One million, strong. It can match our army easily."
"God." Fox whispered.
"And, it seems that they're heading here."
"How long?"
"Just over a week."
"Damn!"
"Yes, that pretty much explains it. Now, we've been combing ever planet and sector thoroughly for the past two weeks, trying to find any Venomian 'Nests', as they call them. Survivors or loyalists, so far, we're sure that Corneria, Katina and Fortuna are clear. Aquas and Sectors X and Y should be checked within a couple of days. Other then that, there's no more news. We've got the situation under control still, so you guys will have to stay there for a while."
James mentally cursed, he'd kill for some action around here. Pepper still hadn't called for any of his 'special assignments', yet. Fox and Pepper wrapped up the meeting.
"Out here." Fox said, the screen went blank. James was already heading out of the bridge as the group began to disperse.
