Chapter 3: Off the Beaten Path

In spite of his new surroundings, Fox slept better than he had in months. He wished he could have slept even longer, but his early morning breakfast "date" with Scarlet forced him to set an early alarm and allow himself enough time to leave the bed and clean himself up. After donning a pair of blue BDU trousers and a light gray t-shirt, he glanced towards the balcony. In the distance, the sun's rays crept over the horizon, although the darkness of night still hung over Yaruit and the surrounding desert.

He opened his door and made his way to the elevators. Pressing the down arrow and waiting for the door to open, he stepped inside. Just before the doors closed, Scarlet appeared and joined him in the elevator. This morning, the red vixen swapped her prior outfit for a short, white sundress with a red lily pattern. As with the previous day, the extra straps from a red swimsuit ran alongside those of her dress.

As the doors closed, she glanced at Fox out of the corner of her eye. "Good morning, handsome."

"Good morning to you too," Fox replied, his tone of voice flat and intentionally disinterested. Noticing her outfit, he asked her, "How much time have you been spending at the beach?"

"Hours," Scarlet answered. "Hey, it's not often that you get to have a private beach. You'd better believe I'm going to make the most of it. In fact, I'll be heading out there after breakfast. You're more than welcome to join me, or you can do whatever you were planning on doing for the rest of the day."

Fox thought for a moment. "Huh. Maybe I will. Let's get the plan for tonight squared away first."

Scarlet's demeanor became more serious, but only momentarily. "Agreed."

After riding the elevator to the lobby floor and making their way to the dining area, Fox and Scarlet assembled their respective breakfasts and took a seat at the most secluded table, positioned in a back corner away from the other hotel guests—although, to be fair, the number of guests apart from them amounted to precisely three, and none of them gave the two foxes anything more than a passing glance.

Fox and Scarlet gave each other a few minutes to eat and make small talk before Scarlet took the lead and put down her utensils. "Okay, time for the important stuff. You saw the receipt for the car rental, right?"

"Yeah," Fox replied, not thinking much of it.

"I rented an offroad SUV for the next three days," Scarlet continued, "I don't think we'll actually need it for that long, but better safe than sorry. We're going to need it tonight for sure."

Fox crossed his arms. "What's the plan?"

Scarlet looked into his eyes and answered, "Tonight is the scouting part of this job. We'll take the 4x4 out to the canyons leading up to that compound you saw in the mission files. There are some trails that will take us to an overlook that will give us a good view of the facility. All we're going to do tonight is see what we're dealing with and make notes for tomorrow."

Fox narrowed his eyes. "And what happens tomorrow?"

A faint grin crossed Scarlet's lips. "We figure out a way to get inside."

"Infiltration and sneaking around isn't my area of expertise," Fox muttered. "Are you sure you made the right call in asking for my help?"

The red vixen gave him a sly grin and replied, "Of course, silly. I'm sure you've done a lot more dangerous things than sneaking into a glorified warehouse."

Fox sighed. "Fair enough. So, we're going to meet up tonight and take the 4x4 out to the canyons, find a lookout point, and just stare at the facility for a while?"

"Don't say it that way!" Scarlet laughed. "This is important work—are you really complaining about Part 1 of this job being easy?"

"No, it just sounds kind of funny, that's all."

"You're not wrong, but just go with it," said Scarlet. "If you don't have a rangefinder, I've got a spare. The more notes we can take, the better off we'll be tomorrow."

"I've got a scope, so your extra one is safe," Fox replied.

"Great. One more thing, though…" Scarlet added, her voice suddenly becoming more serious. "…Bring weapons. You never know if we're going to need them."

"Got it."

Having explained the bulk of the operation, Scarlet exhaled and leaned back in her chair. "Well, we've got 14 hours until the mission starts. This place has some great ways to pass the time. There's the beach, the garden, and they've even got boat rentals for VIP guests like us. I was thinking about taking one of them farther out on the lake and doing some snorkeling. It's a lot more fun with company, you know."

Fox got the hint. "I'll consider it. I was thinking about getting a taxi to take me into the city to see what it's all about, though."

"Unfortunately, that might be a letdown," Scarlet replied, "Yaruit is better known for its casinos and nightlife. It's not nearly as fun during the day. Trust me, I know."

Fox returned a subtle smirk. "Are you just trying to talk me out of my plans so you can keep me around?"

The vixen gave him the same look. "Maybe. Hey—at the very least, I'm going to walk on the beach after we're done here. I'm not going to make you do anything, but hey, it might be a good idea to get to know your new wingman a bit better."

"You're really trying to sell me on this," Fox stated.

"Of course I am. Is it working?"

Fox sighed. "Unfortunately, yes."

A twinkle appeared in Scarlet's eyes. "See you on the beach, then."

- § -

After an entire day spent taking in the resort's niceties and facilities with Scarlet, Fox returned to his room with his fur still bearing traces of his earlier boating and snorkeling expedition on the lake that flanked the resort. Cleaning himself up would have to wait for later, though—at the moment, more important matters demanded his attention. Exchanging his casual beachwear for the clothes he had started the day with, he pulled on a dark gray sleeveless jacket and his boots and glanced at himself in his suite's bathroom mirror.

He had never been the kind of person who was able to put aside high-pressure future commitments and stay focused fully on the present, but Scarlet managed to force him to live in the moment for at least a few hours, if for no other reasons apart from her ravishing appearance and engaging personality distracting him from his concerns about his contract with Felix.

"I still don't know if she's actually into me, or if she's just that shameless with everyone," Fox wondered to himself. "Or…if she's trying to play me for some reason. Felix more or less told me that the entire reason I'm even out here is because she wanted me to help her, even though this isn't my kind of work. She knew who I was and went ahead anyway. I don't know what to make of that. And presumably, if she did the job herself, she'd pocket at least one and a half times the reward that she's taking now. I have to wonder if she's going to try to find a way to stiff me after this job is over. But she's not the one I took the job from, so I'm not even sure she could do that."

His internal monologue came to an end when he heard a knock at the door. "I'll think about this more when I get back."

He approached the door and pulled it open. Scarlet stood outside, although her appearance caused him to freeze on the spot. Instead of the casual warm-weather attire he had seen her in since his arrival at the resort, the vixen wore a slinky, satin black catsuit with red mesh inseam stitching around the garment's most notable stretch points. She wore a black vest overtop of it, but it did little to hide her attire's inherently suggestive nature.

Taken aback by her wardrobe choice, he blurted out, "Uh, whoa. I guess it's time to get going?"

Scarlet chuckled. "Yes, Fox. The rental car is in the parking deck. Do you have everything you need for tonight?"

Fox glanced over his shoulder back into his room. "Everything except my weapons. Those are in my fighter."

His counterpart nodded. "Same here. We'll pick them up on the way out." She exhaled. "Well, no time like now to get started."

Having more experience with the building and its premises, Scarlet led Fox to the elevator, down to the lobby floor, and then to the covered parking garage outside the resort's main building. The entire time, Fox struggled to keep his eyes on anything other than Scarlet's behind as she took him to the rental 4x4. Her tall, black lace-up boots accentuated her already-sultry natural gait and did him no favors in directing his attention to his surroundings.

He realized the full extent of his distraction when Scarlet suddenly stopped in front of a yellow offroad electric SUV with massive, knobby tires and an aftermarket roof rack. Pulling the key fob out of her vest, Scarlet unlocked the SUV and climbed into the driver's seat. Fox followed her lead as she pressed the start button and clipped in her seat belt.

Scarlet waited for Fox to get in and close his door, then gave him a sly grin while looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "You know it's rude to stare, right?"

Fox's face flushed red. On the defensive, he snapped, "Hey—it's not my fault you decided to wear literal fetish gear. How can you even take yourself seriously wearing that?"

The vixen grabbed the SUV's column shifter and put it in drive, pulling out of her parking spot and driving towards the parking deck's exit. "I stopped caring what other people think a long time ago. I started wearing the catsuits a few years back. I can explain my reasons if you really want to know."

"Please," Fox insisted. "I love it when people tie themselves in knots trying to defend the indefensible."

"Challenge accepted," Scarlet replied. "I wear the catsuits because they're the perfect base layer for everything I need when I'm working. I think of them as a second skin, more or less. I can attach equipment to them, I can wear other clothes on top of them without it getting too hot, and they're water-resistant. It feels like wearing nothing at all, but it's better than that because it keeps the elements out. If I'm somewhere where people have problems with me wearing it without anything else, I can just throw on a vest like this one or wrap a jacket around my waist. See? I have my reasons."

Fox frowned. "I'm still not convinced, but whatever makes you feel good. That doesn't explain why it has to look like you vacuum packed yourself inside it, though."

Scarlet blushed for a moment and tried to hide it from Fox. "Okay, fine—I like the way it makes me feel. There? Happy?"

A faint grin appeared on Fox's lips. "Thanks for your honesty."

With a quiet huff, Scarlet stopped the SUV in front of Fox's Arwing and her black and red fighter—confirming Fox's suspicion that the craft belonged to her. While Scarlet climbed out and opened the SUV's rear hatch, Fox opened his door and walked to his Arwing, where he unlocked its fuselage cargo bin. Checking his surroundings to be sure that no one happened to be watching him or Scarlet, he grabbed a medium-sized duffel bag out of the cargo compartment and placed it in the back of the SUV while Scarlet did the same. He knew that the spacecraft parking area had at least one security camera, but he figured that simply moving generic luggage into the SUV would not arouse any suspicion.

While Scarlet locked up her fighter, Fox climbed back into the SUV and refastened his seat belt. Seconds later, his counterpart jumped back into the driver's seat and opened a navigation app on her communicator. After punching in an unmentioned destination, she clipped her device to a holder on the SUV's dashboard and shifted the vehicle back into drive.

Neither of the two spoke until Scarlet cleared the guardhouse at the Oasis Resort's entry point and turned left onto the quiet, empty desert road that ran in front of it. The GPS readout on Scarlet's communicator indicated that 20 miles and 25 minutes separated them from their destination, and that the majority of it required driving on the dark desert highway. The SUV's massive offroad tires created a repetitive, loud drone, but the glassy road surface negated it to some extent.

Fox glanced at Scarlet as she turned on the vehicle's cruise control. "I just thought of something. You might want to keep it in mind," said Fox.

Scarlet's ears perked up. "Oh yeah?"

"If we're out here for a while, we might have a problem getting back into the resort. It's a prestigious place—they've always got a guard posted at the entrance, it seems."

Scarlet bit her lip. "Yeah, I thought about that. But we both have access passes that should get us in easily and let us bypass security."

"We might want to think of what we're going to do if they decide to stop us and check the car," Fox suggested.

The red vixen let out a sharp breath and muttered, "We're screwed no matter how much we plan if they think they need to check the car. Finding a bunch of guns in the back of a car trying to get into the resort is bad news. But, I think we'll still be okay. Yaruit has a huge nightlife scene and it's common for resort guests to be out way past midnight."

Fox nodded and glanced out the window at the passing scenery. The flat beachfront area that contained the Oasis resort and a small number of adjacent tourist stops made way for the rocky canyons and sparse forests that Fox had seen on the way to the resort. The number of twists and turns in the road increased as he and Scarlet entered the canyons, but the road surface remained flawless and the ride stayed quiet.

Propping his head up on his hand, Fox looked at Scarlet out of the corner of his eye and asked, "Do you mind telling me more about Felix? You mentioned a few things about him earlier, but if I'm honest, I'd really like to know more about the guy who's signing our checks."

Scarlet swallowed. Something about Fox's request put her on edge, which struck him as odd, since she had never betrayed any negative emotions about her employer. After a brief silence, she spoke. "Sure. You're definitely entitled to know who you're working for. As I mentioned yesterday, Felix is the CEO and primary shareholder of the Gaia Corporation on Skallis. The company makes most of its money in building and exporting starship parts, weapons, and heavy industrial equipment. It's the largest company of its kind in this entire star system. The public valuation is in the high 14-figure range."

"Holy shit," Fox muttered through clenched teeth. "And you just casually know the guy who calls the shots?"

"We go back a long way. We went to school together, you see."

Fox gave her an unconvinced look. "That's one hell of a coincidence. Is that really all there is to it?"

"Well, no," Scarlet admitted. "We dated during and after high school. We broke it off a long time ago, but it's not my place to talk about his personal life. We were and still are very close, though. He's like a brother to me."

Fox nodded and decided not to press her any further. As the SUV drove deeper into the canyons, he noticed various dirt trails cropping up on the sides of the road. At the same time, he glanced at Scarlet's GPS and realized that only three miles separated them from their next turn—a winding road that supposedly led up to the complex they intended to scope out.

Suddenly, Scarlet hit the brakes and pulled off on the side of the road. Ears on end and heart rate spiking, Fox glared at her and demanded, "What's going on?"

"I'm pulling the plates off the car. We're going to be heading up an industrial access road, and they've probably got cameras. We don't want them tracing the car back to the rental agency. This will only take a second."

Climbing out of the SUV, she opened the rear hatch, unzipped her duffel bag, and produced a screwdriver. She set to work removing the rear license plate followed by the front, then jumped back into the car and pulled back onto the road. Fox took notice of her posture and body language, ascertaining a sudden spike in stress and concentration. Minutes later, the access road appeared on the right. Slowing the car, she turned onto it. From the entry point, the road—flanked by enormous conifers on both sides and illuminated only by an old, faint light on a utility pole—seemed like any other unassuming stretch of asphalt. Fox suspected that as they progressed towards the facility, those details would change.

Scarlet never gave him the chance to find out. Noticing a dirt trail leading up an embankment on the right side of the road, she slowed down, put all four tires on the path, and pulled a trail map out of the vehicle's center console. Turning on the dome light for a moment, she studied the map for ten seconds before she killed the light, shifted the SUV into four wheel drive, and began climbing the embankment trail. The narrow dirt path weaved between trees and around enormous orange boulders, its surface showing no signs of recent foot or vehicle traffic. After navigating the trail for a half mile while keeping an eye on her GPS location relative to the road, she turned off the SUV's headlights and switched to fog lamps only.

Rounding a bend in the trail, the two found themselves in a clearing, roughly twenty meters in diameter with a ten foot tall pile of boulders in the center of it. Scarlet pulled the SUV off to the right edge of the clearing, then shut it off along with the lights. Recognizing that the scouting portion of the job had began, Fox followed Scarlet's lead, climbing out of the vehicle and opening his travel bag after Scarlet opened the hatch. Focusing on his own needs first and foremost, Fox dug out his rangefinding scope and clipped it to his belt, then pulled out his compact blaster pistol, which slid into its holster on his right hip.

Having emptied his bag of everything he felt he needed, he looked at Scarlet as she finished fastening four straps around her legs and began clipping a laser pistol, a ballistic handgun, and various throwable munitions onto them. Closing the hatch, she walked up to the SUV's front door, opened it, and locked it from the inside to prevent it from making a "courtesy honk." She looked at Fox and motioned to the trail ahead. The trees obscured it for the most part, but traces of artificial light could be seen through the branches.

The two traversed the trail, which sloped upward until it reached its end. Near the crest of the hill, Scarlet crouched and motioned for Fox to do the same. Upon reaching the top of the hill that ended in a sheer cliff overlooking a canyon, they were greeted with a distant view of the complex Fox had seen in Scarlet's mission files. Four buildings in total made up the secluded industrial area, but if the intel was to be believed, only the largest of the four belonged to their target. The building in question sported a dull beige exterior, with a weathered white corrugated roof. Its overall size measured 150 meters wide by 100 meters deep—or at least, that was how it looked from the distant overlook.

Dropping into a prone position and pulling out her rangefinder, Scarlet began scanning the facility while Fox mirrored her. Minimal personnel milled about the area outside the building, seemingly confirming her hypothesis that the facility itself operated with a skeleton crew. A pair of dark gray offroad SUVs similar to the rented one sat outside the building's dual roll-up vehicle entry doors, but Fox and Scarlet noticed one piece of machinery that looked explicitly military in nature.

A dark gray space-capable gunship/transport ship sat in the middle of a large concrete pad in front of the complex. Using his scope's zoom function, Fox managed to make out a winged "A" logo on the side. Even with next to no knowledge of the subject matter, he deduced that it belonged to Asgard Industries.

He put down his scope and whispered to Scarlet, "Is there any significance to that thing being here?"

The vixen's voice suggested a high level of excitement. "Oh hell yes—first of all, that confirms this really is an Asgard facility. Second, someone important from the company might be here right now. Make sure your scope's audio recorder is turned on. We might get something important out of this. Make yourself comfortable—we're going to stay here until something interesting happens."

Five…ten…fifteen minutes passed with no movement from anyone or anything on the outside of the complex. However, at minute 17, a small door next to the front roll-up doors swung open, and two vulpine figures stepped out. The first matched the appearance of the man Fox saw in the mission dossier—Antoine Carache. The middle-aged fox struck a humble appearance, with a light blue button-down shirt tucked into a pair of dark blue jeans.

The second figure, however, stood out in a major way.

For one, the second vulpine's blue-green left eye looked different from his right, possessing an eerie, mechanical aura that lodged itself firmly in the uncanny valley. When Scarlet zoomed in on his as far as her scope would allow, she noticed faint stitch lines on the right side of his face, suggesting a high level of reconstructive surgery. The second fox had no hair (not counting his fur) to speak of and wore a form-fitting long sleeved shirt that contrasted with his baggy black trousers, which he wore a long, decorative loincloth overtop of, almost like a hoodie tied around one's waist but with a more intentional appearance.

Unlike Carache's modest, white-collar build, the second man possessed a strong, muscular physique and would have been viewed by many as strongly attractive—if not for his unnerving prosthetic eye and facial scar. He wore a glove on his left hand but not his right, and based on that and his apparent lack of interest in showing off his fur, Scarlet wondered if more reconstructed limbs lay beneath the surface.

But beyond any of those details, his fur color stood out the most. As opposed to Carache's silver pelt, the black-clad vulpine wore his deep sapphire fur like a medal.

"Motherfucker," Scarlet whispered, temporarily pulling her eyes away from her scope.

Fox, having focused on the same details as Scarlet, felt a distinct sense of fear and dread the instant he saw the second man. Flashbacks of the previous day danced through his mind, and with them came memories of the mental phenomenon created by his first encounter with a blue-furred fox.

Looking at Scarlet, he asked her, "Is that a Cerinian?"

The vixen glanced back at him, mildly surprised. "Yeah. You know about them?"

"Not a whole lot. I ran into one yesterday and asked someone about it. They told me a few things, but not much."

Scarlet refocused her attention on Carache and his unsettling cohort. "I'll fill you in on those blue freaks after we're done here. I try to give everyone a fair shake no matter if they've got fur or feathers or scales, but every single one of those blue assholes that I've met has ended up on my shitlist, especially him."

"That's…unsettling. Hey, they're talking."

Both Fox and Scarlet refocused their attention on the distant duo, trying to keep themselves as quiet as possible in hopes of being able to pick up on their conversation. Scarlet's scope managed to capture perfect close-ups of the two, but her audio struggled, cutting in and out and making it impossible for her to understand any of their conversation. Fox's scope, on the other hand, picked up every word. While Fox watched, listened, and recorded, Scarlet put down her scope and sidled up to her counterpart, leaning her right ear up to his tiny speaker.

"You think you'll be able to get a buyer for this place?" the Cerinian asked.

Carache turned and faced him. "I'm sure someone will bite. But that's not really important right now. I'll figure that out after we've liquidated the facility. Good timing, too—I'm almost certain Sparta knows about this place. I doubt he knows what it's for, and with all luck, we'll be done here before he can do anything about it."

Fox and Scarlet locked eyes.

"I respect your concerns, brother," the Cerinian replied, "But perhaps you're a bit too concerned. In the grand scheme of things, I have my doubts that Gaia has the ability to interfere with our ultimate goal."

Carache shook his head. "You may be right, my friend. However, one must never let his guard down. I've made that mistake before. Even the most seemingly insignificant enemy can throw your entire plan into disarray if you don't deal with them appropriately." He paused and added, "I also want to say thanks again for reaching out to Dr. Reige. None of this would have been possible without him. I do wish we could have gotten his assistance without explaining the purpose of the project, however."

"It was a necessity, unfortunately. He was not thrilled with the idea until I explained the purpose of it to him."

"Hmph, it still would have been better if you hadn't told him, even if that meant he needed to be coerced into helping us," Carache grumbled. "The rejuvenation of Cerinia will be a boon to this system and the ones around it, but until all the pieces are in place, the fewer people who know about it, the better. If Gaia learns of this before we're ready to act…"

Before Carache could finish his thought, the Cerinian blurted out, "Hush!" and held up a finger to his lips. "We need to stop talking. Don't ask questions—just get onboard the transport now."

Fox watched as Carache nodded and climbed onboard the gray transport ship parked in front of the facility. The Cerinian followed in his footsteps, but before he grabbed the spacecraft's frame to pull himself in, he turned his head to his right—towards a distant overlook.

Fox's heartbeat doubled in seconds, and complete terror possessed his nerves. As he looked through his scope, the bluefur stared him dead in the eyes, so aware of his presence that he knew exactly where to focus his eyes from a half mile away. Fox's hands shook, and he dropped his scope. It clattered against the rocks in front of him, but Scarlet snatched it up before it had the chance to bounce and possibly fall off the cliff in front of them.

Pulling the rangefinder away from the edge and cradling it like its value had quintupled in the past 60 seconds, she snapped, "What the hell, Fox?"

Fox stared at Scarlet, his eyes wide and fur standing on end. Barely able to form a word, he spat out, "He knows."

Scarlet realized what he meant. In a mere second, a similar sense of fear came over her. She looked over her shoulder at the parked SUV in the clearing behind them, then back at the transport ship as the Cerinian boarded it. The craft's engines roared to life, scattering dust across the ground beneath the ship as it lifted off the ground. The ship ascended slowly, but instead of rotating towards the most obvious exit trajectory over the desert, it turned towards the forest canyons and powered forwards with a slow hover. The ship skimmed the treetops directly over Fox and Scarlet, shredding the airwaves with its engines before it sped off into the distance.

Fox and Scarlet stood up and watched the transport vanish from sight, then looked back at the complex in time to see three soldiers pile into one of the gray SUVs parked outside the facility. The vehicle started, then with lights activated, it pulled onto the road leading back to the desert highway.

The two vulpines stared at each other, both knowing where the vehicle was going.

"Can we get back to the road before they block the trail?" Fox asked, desperation lacing his words.

Scarlet pulled her rental car keys out of her vest pocket and unlocked the SUV. "Not possible. You remember how long it took for us to get up here."

While the red vixen rifled through the SUV's center console and pulled out her trail map, Fox suggested, "Is there another trail we could take out of here?"

"That's what I'm looking at," Scarlet replied, trying to maintain her composure as the Asgard SUV barreled down the access road. "Nope—this is the only one. There's only one way in or out."

Fox took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. "Alright, then. You know what this means."

Scarlet sighed, although it did nothing to relieve her growing tension. "Yeah. Time to see what you're made of."