Chapter 7

Panther looked through a pile of discarded trash on the edge of the camp's clearing, as the relentless rain pounded down on his poncho. He didn't know what the hell they were doing this far out in the jungle. They didn't even know if the people who made this camp had anything to do with the case. A crashing sound reached Panther's ears. He spun around to see Wolf scrambling out of the lean-to. What got him so excited?

"Panther! Tadao! Over here!" Wolf held out a shiny piece of metal as he strode over. "This is the case's handle. No question about it."

Panther felt his heart pounding as he took the handle, looking back and forth between it and Wolf. "So these people did take the case?" The cat closed his eyes, running a hand down the back of his head. "Oh…this is terrible… What am I going to do?"

"What do you mean you?" Wolf narrowed his eye, taking back the handle. "I think we're all in deep shit here."

"Oh… Right." Panther glanced away, pulling the hood of his poncho further down over his face. He hoped Wolf didn't notice his fear.

It was his Hyoodin. He'd borrowed so much of Star Wolf's money to buy it, thinking this job's payday would cover up the transaction before anyone noticed. But now they knew for sure someone else had the case, and was who knows where at this point. Panther felt like he was slipping into a black hole with no escape. If they didn't find the case thief and fast, Wolf would find out about Panther's little purchase. What would Wolf do then? Panther served as the number three member of Star Wolf, but that used to be Pigma's title too. And Panther just realized he'd embezzled money, exactly the same way Pigma did…

"First it was Harry and Franco…" Wolf looked up at the sky. "Now we know they've got friends here on Fortuna… Just how many of these people are there? Why do they want the case?!" He snarled the last few words, his tail thrashing behind him.

"Wolf, are you saying this is someone else besides the Cornerians?" Tadao raised an eyebrow.

Wolf snapped his head back to Tadao, caught off guard by the question. "Uh…"

Panther forgot. Due to his ten-year isolation, Tadao still lived in a warped version of his own reality here, where the Lylat Wars were still ongoing. The cat winced as Wolf struggled to come up with an explanation.

Finally Wolf just sighed and said, "Well, we just don't know yet. We need to find out."

Tadao blinked, a frown on his face. However, he wiped it away with a smile after a second or two. "How about we keep following the ATV tracks? We might find something else at the end."

Wolf looked off into the distance, pondering it for a moment before nodding. "All right. I guess it's all we can do. But it's getting too dark. Panther, Tadao…go back to our ship and get some flashlights. I'm going to get the search parties to head over this way." He pulled a communicator out of his pocket, and began barking orders into it.

Panther sighed, looking up at the dark night sky with the storm clouds overhead. While calmer than before, the raindrops continued to come down at a steady pace, pelting him on the cheeks and eyes. Every part of his body felt cold and wet, the inside of his boots soggy and squishing. This long night just got longer. Still though, he couldn't do anything except press on. His future with Star Wolf, and possibly his life, depended on them getting that case back now.

The cat turned over to his new traveling companion. Tadao stood there waiting for a command, as still as a statue despite the rain pelting down on his frilly head. He only wore that faded, tattered Venomian military uniform, having refused a poncho so he could draw his machete faster if he needed to. Speaking of…Panther couldn't help but look at that blade. Amazing how something so primitive and crude terrified Panther a lot more than a blaster.

"Shall we go, Panther?" Tadao asked, offering a polite smile.

Even if Tadao seemed eager to please, Panther just didn't feel safe being alone with him. What would Tadao do if he found out they lied to him about the Lylat Wars? But it was either this or face Wolf over his Hyoodin, so Panther reluctantly nodded for them to go. They started their trek back to the drop ship. Panther hoped they'd just go back in silence, but Tadao wanted to talk.

"How long have you been with Star Wolf, Panther?"

The cat's tail twitched at the question. "A few years…" Panther didn't want to say anything more than necessary.

"You know, I'm envious of you." Tadao smiled at Panther, pulling aside a branch to let him through. "How does it feel to work under the greatest pilot in the Venomian military?"

Venomian military. That would be funny at some other time, but it reminded Panther that he walked a delicate tightrope here to keep Tadao in the dark. "It pays quite well… I'm able to get plenty of women and eat at nice cafes."

"Nani?" Tadao's face darkened, the slit eye on the side of his head narrowing. "You speak as though the money is all you care about."

Panther tensed up, sensing he'd made a mistake. "Well…uh… We've also done some very great things in the service of..of our emperor." The words came out in stammers, sounding weaker and flabbier than he wanted them to.

Tadao frowned at Panther, scrutinizing him. "What planets does Andross currently hold in Lylat? Last I heard only Corneria itself was left."

Panther felt as though he were getting pushed on thin ice. He didn't know much of anything about Andross and the Venomians, not having signed onto Star Wolf until after the war. He could easily get caught in a lie if Tadao kept digging deeper. Good thing it was dark and raining, or Tadao might get a good look at Panther's nervous face. "We…have about half now, I guess? Venom, Macbeth, Titania, and Zoness."

"Wait…" Tadao stopped, putting a hand on Panther's shoulder. "You're telling me things are worse now? I thought our war machine was invincible…"

Panther did not like the leathery feel of that reptile hand on his shoulder. It felt stiff and cold, like that of a dead man. The cat's mind raced, but being so close to Tadao and the machete made it difficult to think straight. Eventually Panther came up with something he hoped would end the conversation. "Things have gotten worse, but whatever's in the case may turn the tide of the war. We can finish the Cornerians for good if we can just find the case." Gathering his courage, Panther grasped Tadao's shoulders, putting on his best determined look. Eyes narrowed and focused. "The best thing we can do right now is keep searching for it. Now let's hurry up. Wolf's waiting for us."

Tadao's eyes widened in awe. Panther could see the shift in the lizard's emotional state. In Tadao's mind, this was no longer just a walk in the woods to find a case. It was a mission…a vital one that could decide the future of the empire he loved so much. What more motivation did he need?

"I…I didn't know it was that important. I'm terribly sorry!" Tadao stepped back and gave a bow. "Wakarimasu…I'll stop asking questions. Ikuzo!"

Tadao took off at a sprint, Panther surprised by the change in pace. The cat felt relieved but also terrified, like he'd just dodged a bullet. They completed the rest of the trip in record time, hurrying back to the drop ship and then running the rest of the way back to the camp. Panther found himself tired and out of breath by the time they made it back. Tadao still looked in top form, like he could run several more miles with no problem.

Wolf looked somewhat surprised to see them. "That was quick."

"I didn't know how urgent your mission was!" Tadao handed Wolf a flashlight. "Why didn't you tell me how urgent this all is? Panther filled me in on the details."

Still wheezing from the surprise sprint, Panther looked over to see Wolf giving him a weird look. Panther looked at the ground, wondering what Wolf might have to say to him after this was all done.

But for now, Wolf focused on the job at hand. "Okay… Let's hurry up and see where this ATV went."

All of them lit their flashlights, Tadao once again taking the lead. After about twenty more minutes of hiking, the tracks led them into a wide clearing in the trees, with waist high grass covering most of the area. The ATV left flattened grass in its wake, forming a pathway through the vegetation. At the center of the clearing they spotted a wider area with all of the grass pushed downwards. However, the tracks ended here. Panther felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"What is this?!" Wolf snarled, waving his flashlight around. His pointed ears flipped backwards in anger, hardened almost enough to cut. A lump formed in Panther's throat as he watched. If Wolf was angry now, Panther wondered what he would do once he learned about the Hyoodin. It seemed inevitable at this point. Their best lead just went cold. How the hell would they find the case in time now?

Tadao's resolve appeared unbroken, however. The iguana crouched in the flattened grass, running his hand along something on the ground. "I can see different markings here…" He traced his finger along a small trench-like depression in the smashed grass and mud, the marking a few inches deep. "Looks like landing skids. They landed a ship here, took the ATV out of it, drove out to get the case, drove back here, reloaded the ATV, and flew away…"

"Well that's just fantastic!" Wolf fumed, throwing his hands up. "How do we find them now?"

"Wolf… Calm down." Tadao looked up. "You're letting your emotions get to you."

"I don't see how calming down could help right now!" Wolf turned away from Tadao, shouting at the jungle around them. "You assholes! Where the hell are you?! Give me back my damn case!"

Tadao shook his head in irritation. "If you don't calm down, you won't see things right in front of you."

"Like what?!" Wolf spun around, purple eye ablaze in fury.

Tadao pointed at the landing skid marks again. "We can still get information from what's here. Everybody leaves traces about who they are. It's just a matter of spotting it. Now…the size of these marks shows that whatever ship they brought here, it was small. Maybe about the size of a truck. I'd imagine it's slow and probably not suitable for long-distance space travel, assuming it's capable of even leaving the atmosphere. They'd have to stop somewhere close by for fuel or transfer to a bigger ship. They may still be in the vicinity…"

Despite being afraid of being close to Tadao before, Panther almost found the iguana's calm, rational matter soothing. It looked like despite being crazy patriotic for Andross, Tadao could be level-headed and logical when he needed to. It probably came from surviving in the jungle for so long, all alone. You either dealt with that somehow or died.

"Even if our mystery case thieves are still on Fortuna," Wolf waved at the clearing around them. "How are we going to figure out where they went? They could be tens of thousands of miles away by now, and the distance is only getting bigger the longer we stand here!"

"Not necessarily." Tadao shook his head. "I never got to explore Fortuna much beyond my cave, but it's still mostly uninhabited right?"

Wolf paused, as the rain dripped down around him. "Yes… There's only a few small settlements here and there. Only places you could refuel around here."

"Okay." Tadao nodded. "It's been about eight or nine hours since you went down, right? What if you dispatched some ships to ask around nearby settlements for our case thieves? I'd think outsiders would stand out here, with how out of the way this planet is."

Wolf blinked, going over the idea in his head. "Well…I guess it's worth a try." He didn't sound like he believed it would help though.

Tadao still kept that polite smile on regardless.

The mention of settlements reminded Panther of something. "Didn't Andrew used to have a base somewhere close by here too?"

Tadao looked over towards Panther, confused. "I thought you said he was killed?"

"Oh!" Panther backed up, catching his error. "Well…he got promoted out of our unit, then he built the base, and all that was before he died, so…yeah…"

Wolf glared at Panther, obviously wanting to tongue lash him but also not wanting to raise Tadao's suspicions. Panther looked away again, closing his eyes in embarrassment.

Wolf scanned the clearing one more time with his flashlight, before shaking his head and looking defeated. "I don't think there's much more me and Panther can do down here," he said. "Tadao, when the search teams make it here, could you lead them? You've been a big help so far."

"Hai, Okami-san." Tadao grinned, saluting. "This is the most excitement I've had ever since I got down here. All of my friends will be so jealous when they find out I helped the famous Wolf O'Donnell finish a mission!" The iguana laughed at that, Wolf sharing a nervous chuckle.

Panther almost felt bad about them lying to Tadao, but held his tongue.

Wolf gave Tadao a hearty pat on the shoulder. "All right, we're going back to the Retribution to see how Leon's doing. Good luck with your search."

"You too Wolf! Ganbatte!"

As they started their hike back to the drop ship, Panther thought he would feel relieved to be leaving Tadao behind and headed back to the Retribution. Instead, it filled him with dread. Their best lead had gone cold, leaving Panther with little to do to fix the mess he created. The rain continued to pound on their heads, yet Panther didn't even notice anymore. The walk through the jungle had a dreamlike quality, like he wasn't actually awake. It didn't help he really was tired, exhausted after a long day of hunting for Wolf and then a long night in the jungle. Even ignoring that, how could he keep his balance, with his life turning upside down? Earlier today he'd been on top of the world, getting to see his precious Hyoodin and showing it to Giichi. But now his entire future appeared to be in jeopardy. Why didn't he just wait to buy an expensive car? Why? Why'd he been so goddamn stupid?

"Are you doing all right, Panther?" Wolf asked.

The fur on Panther's back stood up at that question. "Why…you ask?"

"Well, you're just walking like you're drunk or something."

Panther made an effort to correct his stride. "It's been a long day, I guess."

"Amen to that," Wolf nodded. "How'd it all go so bad, so fast?"

Oh Wolf…if only you knew about my situation…

They arrived back at the drop ship, Wolf taking the pilot controls while Panther strapped into the passenger seat. Another drop ship landed nearby, releasing a team of Star Wolf grunts into the forest.

That gave Panther a spot of hope. "You think the search team will find anything?"

"I doubt it." Wolf sighed, as he punched buttons and checked the readouts. "Mostly I just did that to keep Tadao occupied, so he won't want to come back to the Retribution."

"Wha…really?" Panther could feel the color draining from his face.

"Yeah…" Wolf frowned, glancing over at Panther. "Speaking of Tadao, you almost blew it back there."

"What?"

"Andrew. Tadao's getting suspicious of the things we're telling him."

"Sorry…" Panther hoped Wolf wouldn't ask about-

"You didn't say anything else to him, did you?" The engines began to spool up on their drop ship.

Damn it… Panther pursed his lips. "Uh…"

Wolf gritting his teeth. "Oh, don't tell me you told him more than that."

"Uh…I'm afraid so." The cat spoke in a whisper, afraid to speak up.

Wolf rolled his eyes, as he guided the ship up into the sky. "Wonderful… What did you say?"

"Andross is losing the war and we really need what's in the case to win it."

"Why the hell did you have to spin a tale like that?" They left the cloud cover behind, heading off into the starry sky. "It's gonna get harder to keep him under control the more he learns things. Tadao may not want to help us anymore if he finds out he's being played. He might even get violent. We really can't afford that right now."

Panther just looked out the window as the atmosphere gave way to space.

Wolf sighed. "Anyway, I told the search team to just help him find the case. No answering his questions about the Lylat Wars or anything else." They approached Genma, Fortuna's moon. "I'm gonna go check on Leon's progress once we get back. I hope he's doing better than we are…"

Music – Resident Evil Remake – Vacant Room

A couple hours earlier…

Leon hurried down the corridors of the Retribution, entering the crew quarters section. Everyone who saw the chameleon gave him a wide berth, not wanting to get on his bad side. Leon didn't notice though, his mind focused on the task ahead.

Harry Hutch the husky…Franco Fawkes the jackal. Alliterative names… Now that he thought about it, the names did sound awful fake. Leon cursed himself for not catching onto that earlier. Both of them claimed to be ex-Cornerian soldiers turned mercenaries, disgruntled with their home planet. It was how their military couldn't protect Corneria against anything, and always needed Star Fox's help. They said they felt worthless and underpaid as a result. They also said they had intimate knowledge of the inside of the Corneria City base, having worked there before. The chameleon did background research of all this, and it appeared to check out. Leon inspected some leaked Cornerian personnel files that Star Wolf's cyber unit managed to acquire. Could the records have been planted for them to find? Whoever they worked for, Leon didn't think Harry and Franco were Cornerian spies. If they were, why let Wolf take that case out of the base? Hell, why not just lead Wolf into a trap to capture him?

In any case, Leon soon arrived at the pair's cabin, opening it up with his master keycard. As the door slid aside, he swept his eyes across the room. Leon put on a small smirk. "Hmm…interesting."

Both sides of the two-man cabin matched, with each having a desk, a bunk, a set of drawers, and a small closet, all done in a cheap gray metal. The alloy shone with a glossy sheen, the fluorescent ceiling light reflecting back at him from multiple angles. Only the most stubborn dents and scratches remained. Crisp, clean, neatly-folded sheets covered the beds, with spare blankets sitting on top. Leon opened Harry's closet. All of the clothes looked like they'd just been washed and hung up, none of the hangars or articles askew. Leon had never seen such a clean room on this ship.

The chameleon nodded as he took in the surroundings. Everything looked far too perfect, especially for the average crew member on the Retribution. The two cleaned out their room beforehand to cover their tracks. But no one was perfect, and Leon intended to go over this room with a fine-toothed comb. Somehow, someway, he would find clues about who Harry and Franco really were, and who their friends were. Harry and Franco cheated him out of a fun interrogation session by dying, so Leon supposed their friends would have to pay him back double when he found them.

Setting to work, Leon yanked open the drawers on Harry's desk and rifled through them. But except for office supplies and other knickknacks, the desk turned up nothing of interest. No computers, no electronic storage, no personal papers, nothing. Leon checked the desk on Franco's side as well. Same thing. Leon nodded with respect. They hadn't missed anything important…not yet anyway. He went to one of the closets, snatching open the door. Articles of clothing got flung onto the floor. Searching through the pockets of the scattered garments, Leon found little else but lint, some gum, and some more spare coins. Perhaps he could learn Harry's and Franco's planet of origin by examining the currency, but he'd worry about analyzing the random objects later. Under Harry's bed came next. Leon dragged out a number of small plastic boxes, going through each of them in turn. Comic books, erotic magazines, a chocolate stash long past its expiration date…

Leon sighed. Nothing identifying about Harry and Franco's true past had turned up yet. He went back over Franco's side of the room next, tearing it apart as well. But that only yielded more miscellaneous objects of little interest. All the obvious places were out now, leaving only nooks and crannies. The chameleon moved the furniture around as best as he could, trying to see if he could find something in one of the cracks. However, not much turned up besides dust bunnies and crumbs of old food.

Flipping over the mattress on Franco's bed, Leon's eyes lit up. "Hello…what's this?"

Someone had wedged a photograph into the bed springs. Leon pried the picture free, bringing it into better light. Three canines stood in a row, all of them dressed in winter camouflage uniforms and wielding kinetic assault rifles. Snowflakes fell past them in the foreground, their boots partially buried in the white. A white mountain range rose above them in the background. The canines on the left and right appeared to be Harry and Franco respectively, albeit looking a few years younger.

Leon didn't recognize the one in the middle though. White fur, golden eyes, fluffy feather duster tail swinging in the wind, and triangular, pointed ears. The eye and fur color made for an eerie contrast. However, Leon couldn't distinguish an exact species of canine. Perhaps Wolf could help figure that out, being a canine himself. Leon would show him the picture later. Whoever he was, this mystery canine didn't look like someone to mess with. Leon felt those golden eyes staring right through him.

Were there any identifying marks on the three's uniforms though? A shoulder patch on Harry's uniform stood out. It looked like a bear's face, the mouth open and roaring. Words framed the patch, but Leon couldn't read them with his naked eye. The photographer took the picture from too far away. Leon flipped over the photograph to see if a date or names were written there, but found the back side blank.

Sighing, Leon continued his search. The next half hour flew by as he scoured the room, but not much else turned up after the picture. Leon crossed his arms, tapping his foot as he looked at the pile of junk he made on the floor. He thought about examining all the items in detail, to put together a picture of Harry and Franco's past from the pieces. Yet the photograph still bothered him, especially that white canine in the middle. Could there be something in Star Wolf's databases on him? With help from Star Wolf's computer techs, Leon kept an extensive data warehouse pertaining to various persons of interest, from clients, to enemies, to informants… He found the idea of research too intriguing to resist, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Leon rushed back to his own cabin to begin. Within minutes, he reached his door, stepping into a small cabin with a spartan, metallic interior. It didn't look very different from Franco's and Harry's cabin. Wolf sometimes told Leon to move into a larger, more luxurious cabin like his and Panther's, but the chameleon always rejected the idea. For the most part, Leon just found luxuries like bigger rooms and more stuff to be a distraction. He preferred experiences to possessions, like the thrill of hunting an assassination target or interrogating in his own special way. So consequently Leon mostly made do with only what he considered essentials.

However, his fast computer linkup with the Retribution's systems was one of the few luxuries he permitted. Leon slid into the chair in front of the monitor. After keying in his password, he drew up a database program. Leon typed so fast his fingers looked like blurs, query code appearing on the screen at a breakneck pace. He wanted to check Star Wolf's personnel tables on Harry and Franco one more time.

Finishing up, he punched the F5 key to run the query…and no results came back. Leon raised an eyebrow. Maybe he'd made a typo? Leon double-checked himself, and pressed F5 again. No results. Curious, Leon decided to rewrite the query to pull back all records, regardless of who was on them. Still no results. Something was not right here. Frowning, Leon called up a video conferencing program on his machine. When the contacts list popped up, the chameleon clicked on the name 'Suneel Kombethula.'

A live video image popped up, showing a brown porcupine seated at a terminal in a computer room elsewhere in the Retribution. Suneel wore wire-frame glasses, the lenses making his eyes look bigger than they should have been. In contrast to most crew members of Star Wolf, he wore a blue button-down dress shirt with a tie, like he worked in a standard IT shop at some mega corp. Despite the professional-looking appearance, right now the porcupine's body sagged forward, the eyes shut behind the lenses.

"Suneel…Suneel!" Leon called out.

Suneel stirred, his quills waving all over the place as he rose from his unplanned nap. Blinking, he looked over at the web camera over his monitor. His jaw dropped, seeing Leon. Immediately the porcupine straightened back up again, doing his best to look alert and attentive despite the sudden waking up. However, Leon still noticed a conspicuous drool stain down the front of the dress shirt.

"Oh, Leon!" Suneel gave a nervous laugh. "Good to see you again! Is there something I can do for you?" While appearing cheerful, the porcupine's eyes darted about, a bead of sweat running down the frame of his glasses.

Normally he'd berate Suneel for sleeping on the job, but Leon didn't have time for that right now. "Something is wrong with the personnel database. Get a backup going."

"I understand." Suneel beamed a forced smile. "I will get going on it right away and let you know when it's done!" Suneel turned back to his monitor and began typing away.

Leon killed the video feed without bothering to say goodbye, although he figured Suneel probably didn't mind that. While he waited, the chameleon slipped the photograph he found into a scanner next to his machine. After digitizing the picture, he opened up a photo-editing program, blowing up the picture so it filled the entire screen. Leon gave the image a closer look, examining every detail he could spot. The snowy mountains suggested they could be on Fichina somewhere, although it could be a whole other planet in a different system for all he knew. If he could identify the mountain range, he could figure out the planet.

Also, Leon didn't recognize those uniforms from any official military forces in Lylat. The matching set of BDUs implied they belonged to some sort of organization, be it a PMC or a military outside the system. Leon took a closer look at the patch on Harry's shoulder, now that he could see better with the zoom. But the patch didn't face the camera directly, so the letters on the left appeared squished and illegible compared to the letters on the right. He could only read:

_AR

_INEL

The bullet-based firearms got his attention too. Nowadays, people only used kinetic weapons in special circumstances. Either they just couldn't afford blasters, or the environment was too inhospitable to keep blasters well maintained. Although kinetic weapons did have uses when it came to stealth. Unlike blasters, you could suppress them, and they typically didn't create a visible projectile when fired. In any case, the weapons pictured could be useful in narrowing down the potential outfits Harry and Franco belonged to as well…

The cabin door slid open behind Leon. Only two people in Star Wolf were allowed to enter his room unannounced, and only one of those paid regular visits, so he didn't need to look. "You're back now, Wolf?"

"Sure am…" Wolf strode into the room, sitting down on Leon's bed.

Leon turned to face him. "You find anything down there on Fortuna?"

Wolf looked grim. "Bad news I'm afraid. Someone down there took our case."

Leon blinked a few times. He wasn't surprised by the news, especially with the suspicious state of Harry's and Franco's cabin. Wolf filled Leon in on his findings, between spotting the ATV trail, discovering the case's handle at the encampment, and finding the trail dead ended at a spot where a small aircraft appeared to have launched.

"Sounds like we're up a creek right now…" Leon said.

"That's the polite way of putting it," Wolf rolled his eye, his pointed ears drooping. The lupine turned his attention to the photograph on the screen. "So what's this?"

Leon moved aside to give Wolf a better view. "I found this in Harry and Franco's room."

"I can see that's Harry and Franco there…assuming those are their real names. Who's the third guy?"

"I don't know yet." Leon looked at the white canine again. "I don't even know what kind of canine he is. What do you think?"

"Umm…" Wolf tilted his head, looking puzzled by the picture. Even he seemed to struggle with it. "I…I don't know either. I was going to say wolf at first, but the tail, ears, and muzzle look wrong. The tail is too long and fluffy, more like a fox's. The muzzle is too small. And he looks a bit small for a wolf too. It's like he's a mix of a bunch of different canines…" Wolf turned back to Leon. "Did you find any other things like this in Harry's and Franco's room?"

"No," Leon shook his head. "They cleaned their room out. All of their papers, computers, and things are gone."

Wolf's eye widened at the mention of that. "What?"

Leon nodded. "That's right."

"I met Franco and Harry in their cabin right before we left for Corneria." Wolf leaned closer to the picture, placing a hand on the bottom of his muzzle and stroking it. "They definitely still had all their papers and computers around then. Someone cleaned up after we left…"

"So we really do have spies on board the ship? They didn't clean it themselves?" Leon spun around, furiously typing away at something on the screen, the windows and programs changing on the program at breakneck speed. Wolf found himself dizzy just trying to keep up with all of the information flying across the monitor. After a few minutes Leon pulled up a video surveillance program, allowing access to cameras all over the ship. He selected the camera in the hall outside Harry's and Franco's cabin.

"All right…" Leon said, clicking around with the mouse. "We'll just review the footage from the hallway from after you left for Corneria. Whoever went into the room to get their stuff will show up on video."

Leon chose the appropriate time in the archives. But instead of seeing a hallway, "[ NO SIGNAL ]" appeared on the screen in red text, against a black background.

"What now?" Wolf narrowed his eyes, looking at Leon.

"Something was wrong with the video feed then…" Leon skipped around on the timeline, hoping to find actual footage. But no matter where he checked, the camera curiously appeared to have been offline ever since Wolf left with Harry and Franco to go to Corneria.

"Shit…" Wolf shook his head. "Whoever this mystery guy is…he's good. I wonder if it's that white guy in the picture."

"I guess we'll find out," Leon said. "I was working with our personnel database just now. But there was a problem, so I've got Suneel working on a backup and—"

"Who's Suneel?"

"Oh…just someone in our cyber unit. He is good at what he does…but from what I understand he got caught changing grades for classmates back in his college days, charging five hundred credits a class. That blackballed him from a legit career in computer work, so he ended up with us. Let's go check on him now."

Leon brought the video conferencing program back up, clicking on Suneel's name.

The porcupine's bespectacled face appeared on camera again. He glanced over at the camera, huge eyes going wide at the sight of both Leon and Wolf now.

"Suneel, what is your progress?" Leon asked.

"I am almost there." Suneel smiled again. It seemed to be his default way of hiding sheer terror. "Try typing in a query on your machine now and let me know how it goes."

Leon zapped back over to the database program, rapidly typing in a query. He pressed F5, but all he got was a box with an error message.

Table is encrypted. Please speak to your database administrator for access.

"Whaaaaat?" Leon rapid-fire typed some more.

Suneel's face fell for a moment at Leon's voice, although he put on a small smile again to keep up the façade.

"Suneel…why is this table encrypted?" Leon asked, glaring at the camera.

"Ah…ah…" Suneel's mouth hung open, as he looked around his desk, avoiding staring back at his web cam.

"Suneel!" Leon shouted. "Answer me!"

"Uh…well…" The porcupine raised up a finger, turning towards his monitor as he started typing again. "Let…let me go and check the backups. Hold on."

A few minutes passed by as the clacking of keys came over Leon's speakers, Suneel not saying anything as he worked. More beads of sweat rolled down the side of his glasses, the silence feeling deafening for all around. All of a sudden, Suneel's jaw dropped. "No…no no. That's not right!"

"What's wrong?" Wolf growled.

"Uhhh…. The…the backups. They're…encrypted. I just see a mess of text when I open them."

"So unencrypt them?" Wolf suggested, sounding unsure about that. He didn't know much of anything about computers.

Suneel gulped at the suggestion. "Wolf…this is STB encryption with a 65536-bit key."

The lupine rolled his eyes. "In plain Lylatian, please."

"Well….I could try to unencrypt it—"

Wolf shrugged, waving a hand. "So do it."

"Wolf, it's not that simple. In theory the encryption could be cracked, but—"

"But what?" Wolf narrowed his eyes, getting impatient with all this.

"65536-bit is a ridiculously big key. Even if I used the computing power of every machine on the Retribution to work on finding the key, it would take over a century to crack. We would be long dead before it cracked the code. If we had kids, our great grandchildren would be dead before the code was cracked. We're never getting our data back without whatever STB key was used to do this."

Leon cast a glare over at the porcupine. "Suneel…" he hissed. "It's your job to make sure things like this don't happen."

The porcupine's false smile vanished at last, replaced by abject terror.

"I don't have time to deal with you right now…" The chameleon pointed at the video monitor. "But we're going to talk about it later. I assure you of that."

The quills all over Suneel's body expanded, making him look like a terrified, quivering pincushion as Leon stared him down.

"Just fix what you can for now. Find out how this happened. Don't call me back until you've got good news." And then Leon cut the feed, shaking his head and glancing over at Wolf.

Meanwhile, Wolf wondered if he felt worse than Suneel right now, the weight of all the day's problems feeling like it was slowly crushing him into a pancake. He kept seeing a disappointed, angry Sable in the back of his head, the thought tearing away at his sanity. Regardless, Wolf did his best to stay focused on the problems at hand. "Okay then…someone's in our computers and breaking shit now. Just great. Well…I guess all of this answers our questions about having spies on the ship… Let's hope they haven't gotten to anything el-" As if on cue, Wolf's communicator rang. He rolled his eyes, snatching the device up. "Okay…who's this and what the hell do you want?"

"Oh…I'm sorry," the voice apologized on the other end. "Wolf, it's uh…it's Captain Jamal on the bridge. There's something I thought you'd want to know about."

Wolf grumbled under his breath. "What is it?"

"Well… Remember what you said about keeping ship-to-ship communications to a minimum while we're here?" Jamal gulped. "This may just be a computer glitch, but my communications officer reported that his machine sent out a message somewhere all on its own. It wasn't to any of our own ships."

Wolf's face darkened. "So what the hell was in the message? Who'd it get sent to?"

"W-we don't know…" Jamal stammered. "The communications log got wiped right after it was sent. The tech didn't get a chance to look at it."

Wolf didn't like the sound of that, especially with the other computer problems they were starting to have. He sighed, rubbing a hand on his forehead. "Okay Jamal. Let me know if there's any other problems." And Wolf cut the line, continuing to rub his forehead. "Goddamn…this just keeps getting worse and worse and worse…"

Leon raised an eyebrow. "Why would somebody want to send a communication like that and then wipe the log? Who'd they send the message to?"

"I don't know Leon." Wolf looked up, staring as though he were trying to look through the walls. "But with everything else that's happening, I'd say it's bad news for us…"

A/N: My apologies for taking so long getting out a new chapter on Hazardous Contents. Writing Shoot the Tubes took a lot out of me, and I didn't feel like writing for a couple weeks after that.

You know, it also doesn't help we're close to the point where I gave up on my beta. The reason is I had a lot of trouble deciding how I wanted this particular part of the story to go. Originally, I wanted to make this part more mystery-like, and just dwell on the Sherlock Holmes-type stuff for a while. However...I thought this would slow the story down too much, plus I realized during the beta I didn't know how to write mysteries XD So I think this chapter is the closest we'll get to my original idea. Hope everyone's OK with that.

Also, reaching the end of my beta is a pretty important milestone for me. I'm excited to finally be conquering this fear of mine about this part of the story.

EDIT: Elarix made some suggestions about things I should change in this chapter, particularly Leon's skill level with computers. In the old draft, Suneel was nowhere to be seen and Leon did all the computer work on his own. Both Elarix and I agreed that Leon probably wouldn't be this skilled with computers, so I brought Suneel back in. I was actually thinking of having Suneel in the chapter before I posted it, but I thought his presence might ruin the tense mood I wanted to set. However, I'm not worried about that aspect of the story anymore, now that I've got this new draft done.