Part 7
Fox led the team toward the forward hangar and their new ships, Miri followed the group, walking just behind Katt and Falco. As they boarded the tram and began their trip forward Falco turned and asked,
"You part of this too? I thought you didn't fly."
"I don't." she said, "Jack asked me to come down here on your first launch and help you prepare the ships. He said there were some preflight checks I needed to go over with you before you go."
"So are you and him, you know?" Katt asked. Miri looked at the floor of the tram and shuffled her feet.
"No. I don't want to talk about it." she finally answered. "I kind of walked out and left him. I don't know what he has planned for me."
"That's not a bad thing. I mean, he seems nice and all, but furless alien doesn't work for me." Katt started, "You could find a nice guy in Corneria City, I could help you. I know all the best spots, well the ones that have been rebuilt or weren't blown up in the wars. I know lots of people, we'll find you someone normal."
"Every Cornerian I've met outside of my home has beaten, spit on, kicked, punched, cut, choked, starved, whipped, caged me, or tried to force me to do things I'm not going to speak of. The first human I met took me away, gave me a home, and didn't ask for a thing in return. If you can't overlook his appearance, I feel sorry for you." Miri was visibly angry, her hands were shaking. "There is no normal for me, I'm covered in scars that will never go away. I'm constantly reminded of what life was like before he found me."
"Geez, stress out much?" Katt said, "I was just curious. It's weird to me, that's all. I haven't seen one of his kind before. I didn't know all that stuff happened to you."
"You might try a different approach next time." Miri said, stepping out as the tram doors opened, she stormed off down the corridor leaving the group standing in the tram.
"Good move Katt." Falco said, patting her on the shoulder. "Why didn't try a little harder to tick her off?"
"Not my fault she's got a thing for aliens." Katt looked at Falco and grabbed his arm, "Not me though, I have all I need right here." He sighed and pulled his arm out of her grip. The group walked toward Miri who had opened the door and entered the hangar. The hangar lights flickered on as they entered, revealing a half dozen identical ADF fighters, each with a ladder and helmet beside it. Miri had walked over to a console below one of the fighters and started reading the screen.
"Under each ship is a console for selecting weapons loadouts, you can fit the ship any way you prefer. You have access to both Cornerian and HSF weapon systems, for those of you not familiar with HSF weapons, they are mass accelerator based. HSF weapons are accurate to extreme ranges and have excellent armor and shield penetration but a slower rate of fire due to the heat they generate. Just select the loadout you want and press the red button on the console, the drones will fit your ship in a few minutes. You can board you ships in the meantime, the hangar doors will open when all ships signal ready for launch."
"What about colors?" Katt asked, "I really don't want to go out in that."
"It doesn't say anything about paint Katt." Falco said, scrolling through the list of options for his ship. "I think I'm going to like this setup."
"Let's just go, we've got a job to do." Fox said, "It's time."
The group boarded their ships and the hangar doors slowly opened. Fox went first, flying around the Prospect and testing his ship's flight controls, Falco and Krystal followed with Katt right behind them.
"Good to see you getting acquainted with your ships." Jacks voice came over their coms. "You might find the controls are a bit touchy, you can adjust that from inside the ship. I'm opening the jump portal now, remember to stay in the center of the portal, don't go near the edge." A swirling vortex opened infront of the Prospect, Fox could see asteroids on the other side. As they passed through there were red pulses traveling down the tunnel wall. Jack spoke again.
"The red pulses you see are adjustment made to the portal to keep one end in line with the other, the ship does this to keep the portal from collapsing. The more often you see the pulses, the more unstable the portal is, if it's pulsing rapidly, get out, it's about to collapse. You'll also notice your shields are dropping, it shouldn't get below 85% on a trip through, but the amount of radiation inside the portal is enough to deplete your shields if you linger too long."
"Ok everyone, once we get through be ready." Fox said, "They could be waiting for us."
As the team cleared the portal it quickly faded behind them, they were just above the asteroid field in Lylat, thousands of dark colored rocks floated silently below them. There were several flickers of light just to their right, at least a dozen fighters closed on them, lasers firing. The group spread out and raced into the asteroids, hoping to lose their attackers.
"The target should be about 1500km away 20 degrees from your current heading." Jack said over Fox's com.
"We've got fighters, about a dozen of them." He responded back. "We're trying to lose them in the asteroids. We'll make our way there as soon as it's clear."
"If they know you're there, they might move the containers." Jack said, "Go after the containers, don't let them get out of the system. Those ships you have can outrun anything they've got, just push them hard. Don't worry too much about ship to ship combat right now. Can you give me an ID on the ships, who's are they?"
"I didn't get a good look." Fox said, "They're black ships with green canopies."
"Probably Black Venom, they're ex Anglar pilots with an axe to grind against the HSF, and they really don't like Cornerians. They're the ones doing most of the raiding outside Lylat, I'm not surprised they're our smugglers. You should be closing in on the containers."
Sitting in a clearing among the asteroids were ten interplanetary cargo tuggers with three or four containers linked to them, their engines were cold and there didn't appear to be any fighters around, Fox gave the order to group up and tried to take them out in a single pass. They began firing on the ships, only Falco was able to destroy his target, the others took too many shots to take the ships shields down.
"Falco, what did you do?" Fox asked.
"I went with the railguns, I wanted to see if the human weapons lived up to the hype. They do." Falco responded laughing. The Black Venom fighters had cleared the asteroids and engaged the group.
"I need everyone to keep those fighters off Falco so he can make another run at the cargo ships." Fox ordered, "Shoot them down if you have to, they're Anglar pilots."
Katt had banked around and managed to get behind one of the Black Venom fighters, she fired on the ship, hitting it in the right side engine. The engine exploded, showering her ship in debris as the fighter banked hard to the right, bouncing off a nearby asteroid before colliding with another and exploding in a plume of dust and smouldering metal.
"Got one." she yelled.
Fox had taken down several fighters and Falco continued to strafe the cargo ships, one after another exploded, when the last of the cargo ships were destroyed he engaged the fighters to help the rest of the team. The Black Venom fighters had difficulty keeping with the group's ships, the ADFs were capable of turns much faster and much sharper than the Airwings, Fox and Falco had no trouble getting behind the enemy fighters and taking them out. Krystal was reluctant to use the ship's weapons and had been tailed by one of Black Venom ships for most of the fight. She finally managed to weave between asteroids and watched as the Black Venom fighters crashed while trying to follow, only three of the fighters were left now and they broke off their attack.
"We should go after them." Falco said. "They'll go back and tell their buddies we're here."
"Good." Fox said, "They need to know. I think we're done here, we should get back to the ship."
Jack opened the portal and the team returned to the Prospect without incident. Falco, Fox and Katt walked around the hangar talking about the mission and flying the new ships, Krystal made a dash for the bridge. On the bridge, Jack was preparing to make the jump to Cerinia, Miri was sitting in the captain's chair, looking out into space.
"Ok, you said as soon as we got back we'd go to Cerinia." Krystal stormed onto the bridge, walking up to Jack. "Why haven't we left yet?"
"I can't jump just yet, the ship's reactor needs a few minutes to recover from opening the last jump portal. Cerinia is a pretty big jump from here and I'll need all the power the ship can spare. I gave you my word, we will go there. The coordinates are entered and the ship is positioned to make the jump, I'm just waiting on the reactor to recover. By the way, nice work with the containers, you all did very well." Fox, Falco, and Katt had walked onto the bridge as Jack was explaining the situation with the reactor.
"I'll say we did." Falco bragged, "Those guys didn't know what hit them."
"It was an easy mission," Fox told him, "They weren't expecting us."
"Still." Krystal spoke, "We did what we went out there to do, and they know we're looking for them. I like the idea of being able to drop in anywhere, they can't see us coming that way."
"I got one." Katt screamed with delight.
"We should be able to make the jump to Cerinia now." Jack said and began pressing buttons on the navigator's console. The jump portal opened infront of them, Miri who had been staring out into space looked away as the ship crossed into the portal and made it's way through. She returned to looking out as soon as Jack had given the all clear. They approached Cerinia, the planet was covered in frost and snow, it's surface only briefly visible through thick dark clouds. Krystal had caught something just starting to come into view as they orbited the planet.
"There," She said, pointing out the window. "Coreena station, it was a research station we built not too long before I left to go to Lylat. I remember seeing the explosion on the planet and being told to keep going, then just static."
"I'm surprised it's stayed up this long." Jack pointed at the station's damaged hull. "There's no power to maintain it and it's in a very low orbit, I doubt if it will last another year. I guess you want to see the surface. The clouds make it nearly impossible to see it as is, I started running a radar scan as soon as we entered orbit, let's see what it looks like down there now." Jack began working on the control panel infront of the galaxy map, a three dimensional image of the planet appeared. There was a gigantic impact crater near the northern pole, it nearly covered the entire hemisphere. Multi colored streaks branched out from the crater and the remaining surface was covered in blobs of different colors.
"What is all this?" Krystal broke her silence.
"This is a mining ship, the only way I could scan the surface was to use the mineral scanner. What you're looking at is the remains of the asteroid that hit the planet, shown in green. Most asteroids of that size are rich in iridium and this one was no exception. Blue is iron, also found in asteroids. What I'm looking for are the red, yellow, and orange areas. Like the ones on the coast here and here." Jack pointed at the planet map. "These are silicates, calcium, and gypsum deposits, the kind of minerals used in making structures."
"You're looking for the cities." Fox said, "The population centers."
"The ruins." Jack looked at the map again, "That's all that is down there, the teams we sent to the surface to look for survivors reported every structure completely destroyed or in danger of collapsing. The atmosphere is mildly acidic and prone to lightning strikes. Surface temp at the equator is 12K below freezing, I doubt anything survived near the poles. The planet will heal itself in time, but it will be hundreds of years before it's habitable again. There's some life down there, just not much of it."
"I wanted to go to the surface." Krystal turned away from the window. "I wanted to see the towers at Cerex one more time. They were on the southern coast of the largest continent there, just below the equator. From up there, you could see so far, I remember standing on top one of the towers, the salty air blowing in my face. I wondered why I feel so different now, I was so in tune with the world around me back then, but it's gone now. Looking at Cerinia, I know why. It's gone, and there's nothing here to come back to."
"I'm sorry Krystal," Fox hugged her, she put her arms around him, "I had no idea, I feel so terrible."
"I've got friends." She looked at Fox and smiled, tears in her eyes, then she looked at Jack. "Someone told me I shouldn't forget that. I think I've seen enough, unless you know where the survivors went to."
"They're on Alpha III, somewhere. We don't bother them, their community is isolated at their request." Jack told her, "But going there means you can never go back to Lylat, I'm not sure you want to do that."
"I don't know," Krystal responded. "I've got alot to think about. I'd like to look at the footage you took after the impact before I decide."
"It's in your room on the crew deck, along with a data reader." Jack told her, "I'll be setting up for your next mission in the meantime. Something else you need to know, there's a large organic mass isolated near the impact crater. I have no idea what it is but it's not natural. We don't have the equipment to properly examine it and I want the HSF to get down there and investigate."
"If your people want to pick over the corpse of this planet, I guess I can't stop them." Krystal said.
"It's not that." Jack responded. "There's something growing down there and we need to know what it is and where it came from."
"If you think it's the right thing to do. I'd like to see the report on what they find down there, maybe it will answer some questions."
"I'll let Admiral Miller know."
"Hey, what about payment?" Falco asked.
"Oh yes, payment." Jack said. "There were a total of 10 cargo ships, 36 containers of contraband, and 9 enemy fighters. The HSF granted me 120,000 credits for the job. That's 25,000 for each of the pilots, and 20,000 split between Miri, myself, and the ship expenses. Does that sound fair?"
"Are you kidding?" Fox said happily. "The CDF would give us 7,000 credits total for a job like that, I'd say 25,000 each is more than fair."
"The more dangerous missions will pay better I'm sure. But this is how payment will be given out, since the HSF can't be linked to funding you directly, they do appreciate your help and I hope this shows it." Jack looked at the group, "You should get some rest before the next mission, I don't have any details other than it should happen in the next few days. I'll let you know if we need to move up the timetable."
The group made their way to the crew deck and found the rooms Jack had given them, each one was a 3 by 4 meter room furnished with a bed, dresser, a small closet and attached washroom. Falco and Katt went to their rooms leaving Krystal, Fox, and Miri standing in the hall.
"I thought you'd be staying up on the bridge with Jack." Krystal said.
"Like I told Katt," Miri said looking at the floor. "There's nothing there." She walked off to her room and closed the door.
"Fox, it was good to fly with you again." Krystal turned and looked at him as she spoke. "I'm going to look at the files Jack gave me on the destruction of Cerinia, I don't know if you really want to see it."
"I'll give you some time then, just knock if you need me." Fox turned back to Krystal, "It was good to fly with you too."