生存者の苦労
A Survivor's Pain

James was strapped in at the controls of the Caius Company sleek Tapatra-27 fightercaft, hurtling though space in pursuit of his prey: a sturdy Katinan built Sokol-7, painted completely in a matte black that would've disappeared in the background if not for the HUD's targeting brackets. Few blazes of cannon-fire saw the shadowy bogey dispatched, tumbling away as an internal explosion rocked the craft off to one side, all eerily silent in the emptiness of space. The only sounds heard by the vulpine pilot were the roaring engine and spatter of cannon-fire that came from inside his own fighter, or the voices over his headset speakers...

"Took one down." he said in a practiced rhythm, "Looking for action."

"I got one on me over here," Malloy called out over the squad's comm channel. "Persistent little bastard."

James checked his scanner readout, and found a hostile trailing behind Malloy's blip while the two scissored back and forth.

"On it!"

The fox maneuvered toward the hostile blip, lining up to cut into the scissors with a cross-weave counterattack. He identified his target by the streaks of laserfire trying to tag Malloy in the scarlet painted Tapatra-27. James opened fire on the bogey's location as the weave crossed, gunning for his target's flank. After a few hits, the black, nearly invisible fighter suddenly burst in a flash of light, illuminating itself for just a brief moment before James and Malloy streaked past side-by-side.

"That's another one I owe–"

Malloy's voice was cut short by the hiss and crackle of static, and a bright flash to Jame's side caught his attention. There were flames inside his wingman's cockpit, quickly filling the tiny space with fiery amber tongues and gray smoke. The canid's figure inside flailed and waived, desperate to stave off the inferno swallowing him whole. In a few seconds, the cockpit canopy was completely obscured with smoke, engulfing the cockpit in a gray, then inky black shroud until all that could be seen inside was Malloy's frantic fist pounding against the outside surface, slowing down, slower, and ever more slowly, and then ceased entirely as the canid's tattered hand slid down into the darkness. Then suddenly all at once, the canopy of Malloy's Tapatra-27 burst from the fighter's hull, shattering under the excess interior pressure, while a black, charred corpse tumbled out into space with the final puff of smoke–

* Crack! *

Something failed inside Jame's fighter, clattering and grinding in an agonized metallic screech, joined quickly by squealing alarms and wailing warning sirens. He tried to eject the cockpit free from the dying fighter, but the release mechanism didn't budge; trapping him inside. And then the flames flared to life, right at his feet, and climbed up around the fox's body, heating up until a torrent of scorching needles jabbed at every single point on his body. He didn't even register the amber veil dancing all around him, or the smoke choking his lungs, or the synthetic fabric of his flightsuit melting onto his skin. He couldn't hold on any longer, and a horrible, guttural scream escaped his boiling lungs as he finally gave up against the complete and utter agony from the inferno of pain–

And then there was nothing at all...

...

Hold that thought.

The first thing he felt was the rapid in-and-out heaving of his lungs– they still worked, good. The next thing he felt was his heart, bouncing in his chest with a rumbling rum-roll that only just began to slow down. Then was the cold, clammy sweat that he was partly doused with, making the covers cling to him– He was sitting bolt upright in a narrow bed, wearing light shorts and an undershirt, in a small, cramped room; ship's quarters. That's right, he was aboard Cerberus. He, along with the Amity's passengers and crew evacuated here about a day ago. How long had he been asleep?...

"D'ye have tae be so loud?"
The voice came from another person in the room, hunched over a desk with his back turned to James as he worked on something. He was a dark-furred terrier named Scott. The two shared his quarters aboard Cerberus for the trip back to Lylat, each sleeping in shifts. The rest of the crew and passengers from the Amity were given sleeping cots and basic living needs aboard Cerberus, prepared by the mercenary crew who knew they'd need it for this mission. James on the other hand was offered to share Scott's quarters, and he'd accepted.

The dark terrier took a look over his shoulder, and saw Jame's haunted, ghastly expression as he sat there catching his wits.
"Sorry– didn't mean nothin' by it if I irked ye." Scott apologized, and turned back to his work.

"It's nothing..." the fox lied, forcing himself to breathe easier, trying to calm back down to reality.

A little more stable, James swung out of the narrow bed, and retrieved his flight suit. It was going to need a wash soon, the smell of stale sweat was wafting from it, but the Caius Company flight suit was the only set of clothes he had during the evacuation; some of the escapees had even less when the call came.

"Ye talk in your sleep," Scott said over his shoulder while the fox dressed himself, "about the squad you came out with."

"What's it matter to you?" James asked flatly as he fished out a pair of heavy pilot's boots, and clamped them to his feet.

"Well, how long have ye been with them?" the terrier asked quite casually.

The vulpine pilot got up and crossed over behind Scott's shoulder, curious as to what he was working on so intently. On the desk was a sword, with a long thin panel removed from the flat side of the wide blade, revealing the impact claymore's inner workings. It was little more than a pair of parallel rails running the length of the blade, and a small weight nestled in a track between them: a simple linear electric motor. With the right blade, rail and hammer material though, it'd give the sword a staggering amount of power behind its strikes, especially a thrust...

"A few weeks, just for this run mostly." James finally answered, gazing blankly at the disassembled sword below. "I've been with the company a while longer, but this was my first major–"

He choked up a moment, and changed. He saw the faces of his squadmates; Commander Agamemnon's knowing gaze, Malloy's jovial smirk, Dodge's eager ogling, Su's warm smile, and even Rudy's twitching leer. They were his squad, his wingmen, as much apart of him as the organs of a body, or the components of a machine. They were also gone, killed, dead, slain, and without even the simple warrior's dignity of a true fight. They deserved better–

"We could've stopped them..." the fox growled, "We could've stopped the attack, saved the ship and everyone else–"

He choked up again, barely containing his boiling anger, and saw another face. It was a stark white face of a pale wolf, sneering back at James through a pair of vicious violet eyes. He killed them, planted the bombs that took the lives of the squad, poisoning the guardians with nothing more than small packets of high explosives–

James said nothing, but the steely glare in his eyes told all, and the singular purpose in his movements belied the calculated fury that now drove him. He scoped up the handgun on the table, checked that it was usable, and slipped it into his belt before punching the door controls. The cabin door split apart, and allowed McCloud to step through unhindered.

"Wait lad!" Scott called out as the fox left, "Where d'ye think you're goin'?"

But he was already gone...

/

/

Cerberus was a strange vessel, stranger than most he'd been aboard...

The crew numbered only five, which was sub-skeletal for a frigate sized vessel like Cerberus. Only a heavily automated vessel could function this way. Because of this, the extra space aboard easily accommodated the Amity's refugees, most of whom were spread about the ship's empty cargo bay. They stood or sat quietly in small groups, the same groups that stuck together when aboard the Amity. Mostly they were shocked, still recovering from the brutal attack less than twenty-four hours behind them. Some were just relieved to be alive, some were still frightened for more to possibly come, and others bore the haunted, thousand-yard stare that comes from trauma the likes of which nobody should ever be forced to endure. James picked his way through them all as he lurked through the bay, searching for one in particular–

He stopped.

At one side of the cluttered cargo bay was a small group James recognized as the Lylat Tribune news crew. She was with them, the younger copper furred vixen who'd supposedly been ogling at him before. She siting mostly alone there, huddled down with her arms wrapped around her knees while she stared blankly off in the distance, trying to muffle the shock still ringing in her system it seemed. for a moment, James considered calling the whole thing off. The entire incident was still too fresh, and the blaster felt so awkward jammed inside his pants–

There he was.

Not to much further down was that same harsh white wolf, leaning up against the wall by himself with arms folded, glaring around the room with a look of contempt. He killed them –the squad– putting everyone in this cargo bay and more at mortal risk from his actions, and he was allowed to roam free at his leisure. On top of everything this bastard was responsible for, seeing him there like this was too much.

The wolf hadn't seen James, so the fox went up to the wall and came toward him along the edge of the cargo bay, at the wolf's left. When he closed in, the fox flipped the handgun out of his belt and armed it, holding it low close to his hip so it stayed hidden. Another instant later, he jammed the weapon into the wolf's lower back.

The other flinched at the sudden pressure, and saw James as he glanced back over his shoulder, but didn't do or say anything.

"Just, walk." the vulpine pilot growled quietly, patting the wolf on his shoulder.

The other turned silently forward, and allowed McCloud to lead him out of Cerberus's cargo bay. A few heads turned on the way out, but not enough for anyone to speak up, or in any way try to stop it. Few others, if any, realized that James had the white wolf at gunpont.

In a few moments, the two had gone to a secluded, narrow corridor in Cerberus's underbelly; a passage used mainly for system access, mainly to the artificial gravity generators for the rear portion of the vessel. The constant, low rumbling electric hum of the graviton generators, permeated everything at the bottom here, where the gravity tugged harder, closest to the source, harder than anywhere else on the ship, making each step feel heavy and every movement sluggish. It even seemed to weigh down Jame's voice when he finally spoke.

"We trusted you." the fox's voice ground, like verbal gravel, "We allowed you into our lives and livelihood, and then you stabbed each and every one of us in the back."

He waited for the wolf's response, but there wasn't much. Possibly he exhaled what might've been a sigh, and there was a movement that could've been a rolling of the eyes. Then he finally spoke; an arrogant voice that could care less about what was going on, about his predicament.

"Blow me–"

"–away? Sure..."
James jammed his handgun against the lupine saboteur's head, keeping him an arm's length away
"Murdering, cowardly filth like you aren't ever missed, so you'd better come up with a really good reason for me not to kill you right here, right now–"

"How's this!" the wolf whirled around, twisting away from the blaster's line-of-fire and knocking Jame's weapon hand to the side at the same time. He continued into a spinning left hook, but the fox ducked below the careening fist, lunging forward under his arms.

The pale wolf acted fast, slipping his right arm down between Jame's neck and shoulder while grabbing hold of the fox's weapon arm with his other hand, and then used his elbow to bring pressure down on the vulpine pilot's neck. This should end the fight–

James reacted by twisting his entire body with the pressure, cranking his weapon arm out of the lock to wrap around the wolf's neck into a laying clinch against the floor. The pale lupine tried to reach behind and grab at Jame's blaster again, but the fox jammed a knee into his sternum, knocking him off his feet and off-balance.

An opening presented itself, and the wolf shot his fingertips forward in a spear-hand strike to Jame's throat. The blow connected, hard, and the fox gasped and wheezed through his badly bruised, while hils lupine opponent swung down to initiate an arm bar on Jame's weapon arm. He got one leg over the fox's neck and chest, but James rolled backward out of it and onto his feet before the wolf could get his other leg to lock him in. However, McCloud's desperate maneuver sacrificed control of his blaster, and the wolf kicked up onto his feet with Jame's handgun in-hand.

He brought the weapon up to bear, and–

* Blam! *

The wolf staggered, and fell face-down to the metal floor, firing off a blaster shot harmlessly into nothing as he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

A few meters down the corridor, behind the incapacitated wolf, was Scott Aberdeen, holding his heavy blaster pistol pointed where the lupine attacker stood just a moment ago. The dark terrier stepped forward, eyes smoldering with a hot glare of irritation, which he brought to full-bear on James as he trudged closer.

"Scott..." the fox scratched out, struggling through his swollen throat, "I–"

* Blam! *

And there was a bright flash, obliterating everything in a wash of pale gray, an infinite misty fog, and a high-pitched ping that rang out, hanging on until there was nothing but cold, dead silence.

Just the silence...

"McCloud!" a harsh, authoritative voice barked from the pale silence, ringing and lingering in the mists.

A figure strode out of the gray nothing toward James, his footfalls pounding like a steady drumbeat. The figure soon came into clear view: Captain Sobak Soyuz, dressed in a Cornerian combat uniform with stiff-brimmed hat secured to his head. As he came closer, the firm husky drilled into James with his electric blue eyes, controlling every movement and sound of his voice.

"Why have you failed here, McCloud?" Soyuz demanded, "Answer me."

"I..." James tried to look back at the uniformed, black-and-white husky, but couldn't, "I don't know."

"No." Soyuz retorted, his voice sharp and jagged like the blade of a saw,"You know precisely why you failed, but you are too ashamed and too proud to admit this legitimate defeat..."
Soyuz slowly paced back and forth in front of the fox, always keeping him locked tight under his unrelenting gaze.

"According to the Art of War, there are five dangerous faults, each and every one of which you have succumbed to here," he counted off on the fingers of one hand, "One: over-solicitude for your comrades, which exposes one to worry and trouble. Two: a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame. Three: a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insult. Four: recklessness, which leads to destruction. Five: cowardice, which leads to–"

"I am no coward!" James shot back.

"Perhaps not, but you have proven my point nonetheless." Captain Soyuz sneered down with contempt, "Your reckless impulsiveness is driven by a hair-trigger temper, which is in-turn fueled by the broken pieces of shattered honor: self-pitying shame you bear for those lost. You wish you could have done something to stop it, to alter events so the outcome would not have been what it is."

"He killed them." James asked the husky, rising up to the officer enraged, "He's a goddamn backstabbing saboteur who didn't even have the guts to stand and fight! If it wasn't for him, none of this would've ever happened!"

"But he stood and fought against you, then defeated you when you had every tangible advantage pressed against him. He saw your weak points, your faults, your enraged blundering clumsiness, and exploited it against you. He understood the Art of War, this is why he utilized sabotage, subterfuge, and guile."

"I wasn't just going to stand by while that... murderer roamed free!" the fox fumed, "He deserves to be cut down, and buried in a shallow, unmarked grave!"

"Then dig another grave: your own..."
Captan Sobak Soyuz began circling around James, always close, bearing down on the fox with every ounce of unbridled unapologetic disdain in his stores.
"The dead are dead– gone– there is nothing you can do for them now. To act with stupidity does not honor them, it is disgraceful; you are a disgrace, you would rather bitch and moan instead of acting with the keen discipline required of you, then you ought to retire from the life of soldiery, because your kind have no place in it."

With one last disgusted huff, the husky canid turned his back to James, and marched off back into the infinite misty grayness, leaving the fox to himself.

And the colorless, stifling silence returned once more...

...

Some immeasurable length of time later, the silence gave way to a low grumbling hum, and the infinite gray fog began to wash away. His vision showed simple metal paneling, a ceiling he realized; he was looking straight up. James was on his back, on a hard and uncomfortable excuse of a mattress, with his head on top of a deflated pillow.

The fox hoisted himself up, head buzzing and ringing with every motion he made. He recognized this pain; it was the kind caused by blaster shot loaded with an EM charge, fired at the head, and this one felt especially brutal. Through this disorientation though, James found himself in a tiny room –smaller even than where he slept before– with only three walls, and the fourth wall replaced by a set of steel bars and metal mesh overlay. A prison cell?

"Rise and shine, McCloud." a gruff voice greeted in a singsong tone. He'd heard it before somewhere...

James found am older ram standing outside, leaning casually against the bars and mesh of the opposite cell. He remembered now; this was Malcolm Aries, the one he heard aboard the Aminty, Cpatain of this ship.

"What the hell am I doing here?" the fox asked, his voice slurred either from tiredness, or the effects of the EM shot, but likely both

"You attacked someone aboard this ship, and there are witnesses to support it."

"but he..." James started to defend himself, then came more to his senses, remembering how stupidly he acted, "I screwed up there, didn't I?"

"You sure did, but I can't say I blame you." the ram answered with a knowing nod. "It's rough what happened back there, I'd plumb near go insane if it was me. Normally I'd cut you some major slack for it, but there are an extra dozen or so frightened, scared, easily spooked refugees aboard, and we're trying to keep calm. I need to make sure they're reassured and everything that it's gonna be okay."

"So when do I get out?" the fox asked offhand,

"Hard to say." Malcolm began as he rubbed one of his thick horns, thinking. "Thing is, I can't let you out of here until I decide you're no longer a threat, either to the people aboard this ship and their well-being, or to yourself. Understand?"

"Yeah." James replied, eyes downcast in shame as he sat on the bed's edge.

Malcolm's words made sense. An entire cargo bay full of those refugees just saw James haul off that white wolf, and he he didn't have any authority to do so aboard Cerberus. From their prospective, there was no telling what he was doing. He hated himself for it, and in all honesty, probably wouldn't have shown his to them, even if he was allowed to.

"Alright then." The older ram said quietly, "I'm sorry it has to be this way, I really am..."

Malcolm Aries stepped away, and exited the cramped cell block, revealing the white wolf laying sprawled out in the opposite cell, still unconscious. A flash of rage washed over James when he saw the other, reminding the fox of everything that went wrong over the last few days, including his own foolhardy acts. He wanted nothing more than to hurt that bastard, to make him suffer for the lives he'd taken or ruined. However, James also knew he couldn't let that urge take over; the only reason he was still alive was because Scott was smart enough to realize what was happening, and intervened in the nick of time.

When the wolf awoke a few minutes later, nothing all that exciting happened.

The pale lupine saboteur paid James little attention, and laid back in the cot of his cell, quietly gazing up at the ceiling, displaying little if any discernible emotions. James made no attempt to speak or communicate in any way, as if pretending he wasn't there would somehow cool off his incessant hate, prevent it from boiling over. It was almost as if the two of them had agreed to some unwritten pact to not acknowledge each other's existence, and allow them to simply stew and brood in silence, with only the ever-present mechanical hum and grumble of the ship's systems to keep them company.

The time in Cerberus's tiny brig became governed by a steady routine. Scott and Chakori would come in early and take the white wolf away, for questioning James figured. A few minutes afterward Pigma would come in with a meal, and would always try to strike up some conversation with the silent fox, while most of the time he'd simply tune out the young swine's babble. He meant well, but James just didn't want to talk to anyone, and simply wanted time alone, which he got for several hours at a time each day, until the wolf would be led back into his cell.

Sometime after that is when James ended up sleeping, and it would start again the next day. It all became very dull, very fast, and threatened to remain so indefinitely. Then something different happened.

It was one of the quiet stretches of time after the meal, after Pigma had scurried off and left James to be alone for several hours. The door to the outside corridor slid open, and Chakori's exotically accented voice came wafting into the small space, but it was far more lighthearted than he'd normally heard from her.

"... and this is the brig, where we keep people who–" The leopardess said as she walked in, and there was another set of footsteps following close behind.

It was her again, that same copper furred vixen who'd been ogling James for goodness only knows how long at this point. She came in with Chakori, but ground to a halt the instant she and James saw each other, and realized who the other was. McCloud felt his face suddenly flush red hot, while the rest of his body froze solid, and it seemed like her reaction was similar.

After an unbearably long few seconds, the vixen slunk backward out of Cerberus's brig, leaving James and Chakori alone.

"What the hell were you thinking?" the flustered fox burst out, "That's the girl who was stalking me back aboard the Amity!"

"Ah, so you do know of her." she confirmed, enjoying every moment of Jame's utter embarrassment.

"Did she–"

"No, I arranged it myself." the leopardess interrupted, "She was just as surprised as you, more so I think."

"How did you–"

"I was raised in a very large, tight-knit family, with many brothers and sisters." Chakori explained, "I know the face of a young woman secretly thinking about a young man, it was on her plain as day when she looked at you with those lovely green eyes of hers."

"You can't just arrange these things!"

"Whole marriages are arranged where I come from, this is nothing." she dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"This isn't a game..." James was coming down off his state of shock, and assumed a more frustrated stance with Chakori, "You can't just play matchmaker like this."

"Oh, but you seem so bored in here, and so did she out there all alone." the leopardess implored in a teasing, over-dramatic way, "A game is precisely what you, she and everyone needs at times like this to ease weary minds. And be honest: what else would you have done with your great surplus of time?"

"I'm in your goddamn brig." he grumbled, not really answering the question.

"It makes you very convenient to keep track of."

"What the hell kind of first-impression is this to give?" James snapped back, throwing his arms up as his irritation burst, "This isn't how I'd want to meet her!"

Chakori just stood there on the other side of the cell door, arms crossed and a knowing, satisfied smirk gracing her normally cold features.
"So, you think about her as well then?"

"I... um... " he trailed off, and that sudden hotness flooded his face again.

The leopardess chuckled quietly at this, and decided to finally ease the fox's awkwardness.
"Her name is Vicenzia Reinard, but she prefers to be referred to simply as 'Vixy'. If after that she still thinks well of you, then she passes the test."

"The test?"

"That is: she cares more about you as you than about your sense of vanity, which means she's a good woman, and worth pursuing..."
She waited, and when she saw that James understood, Chakori bowed her head forward and uttered a greeting.
"Namaste."

Though he didn't understand it, she spoke with an earnest tone of respect, and the fox imitated the head-bow gesture in response. The leopardess smiled back, then turned away and began to leave Just as she came to the doorway though, Jame's voice cut through and held her back.

"Hey, thanks." the fox said, far more calm than he'd been for a very long time, and glad for it. If nothing else, Chakori's antics could keep his mind off everything that'd gone wrong; keep him looking forward and up, instead of back and down.

"Of course." she nodded back solemnly, very aware of Jame's gratitude, and more aware of how badly he needed something– anything to distract him from himself. The girl just happened to be a convenient and happy accident.

The leopardess then left James alone in Cerberus's brig. He had a lot to think about now, and didn't need her in the way.

/

/

Author notes:

I was going to make this just the first part of a much larger chapter, but this came so nicely to a sort-of conclusion right here, that to drag it on longer would've diminished it greatly and not been as effective, at least that's my thought. And yes, I'm finally starting to reintroduce romance into the story. Hopefully I can get it to work well this time around.

As always, your feedback is most welcome.