Chapter 18
The Great Fox II loomed ahead of Fox's Arwing, the sight filling him with anger. His tail thrashed on the seat next to him. This was not the way he expected to arrive back here. He was supposed to have that damn case in his hands, already counting up the zeroes in his head and how he would spend his money, knowing Star Fox would firmly be back in the black again. Now he wanted to call up the shuttle flying next to him, lash out at Slippy about how he'd probably ended the team with his stupid attempt to avenge his father, succeeding where the Aparoids, the Venomians, Star Wolf, and even Andross himself had failed. The shuttle's frequency rested on the comms panel before him, one button press away from linking them up…yet Fox reined in his temper. He was still the leader of the team, and had to set the example. Raging at Slippy over the comms would not help things right now. What was done was done. Discipline would have to wait.
And unfortunately…so would sleep. They'd been up a pretty long time getting ready to attack the Retribution, Fox hoping they could relax once they had the case back, but that plan was shot to hell now, along with a number of other things.
He let out a long sigh, the weight of the day's events and failures weighing heavily on him: Slippy's and Fara's ships out of commission, Star Wolf off to who knows where with the case, and even Peppy breathing down his neck. He supposed Slippy's punishment could be getting those fighters operational again ASAP. They couldn't pursue Star Wolf like this, not when they were down two pilots. Slippy would be pulling an all-nighter along with R.O.B. to get them fixed up. It'd be a lot to ask of him after what he'd been through, although Fox wasn't feeling forgiving right now.
Meanwhile, Fox and the others would most likely be spending the next few hours interrogating the three strangers they'd picked up off of Fortuna. The only hope of tracking Star Wolf now rested in the shuttle to Fox's starboard: Nail, Canma, and Tadao, they all called themselves. While Tadao had been happy to give his life story, Fox had no clue who the hell Nail and Canma were. Their gray bodysuits didn't have any insignias or markings on them. Where did they come from? Fox had no clue about any of that, and he suspected he wouldn't like the answers he was about to get from them.
He passed through the docking port into the Great Fox II's portside hangar. HisArwing settled to the floor, Falco's Arwing and the shuttle landing with him in formation. With a hiss, the shuttle's door opened up, a ramp descending to the floor. Slippy and Fara were already undoing the restraints keeping Nail's stretcher secure to the floor, pushing him down the ramp. Canma helped as well, her eyes never leaving the broken canine. The vulpine undid his harness as the canopy came up, jumping down the ladder and running over to help.
Still handcuffed to the floor brackets, Tadao watched them leave. The lizard gazed around the hangar bay like he'd never seen the inside of a spaceship before. Why so curious? Then again, since he's ex-Venomian, my ship is probably the last place he expected to end up. Fox didn't care about him too much at the moment, but he would still need to do something with him.
Fox looked at Falco, and pointed at Tadao. "You watch him. I'll help the others with Nail."
Falco glared at the iguana. "I don't like bein' alone with creepy lizard boy scout, but okay." He stood near the exit of the shuttle, eyes fixed on Tadao.
Fox joined the rest of the team in pushing the stretcher, taking the lead position on the left side so he could guide them towards the medical bay. He moved with earnestness, knowing time was of the essence to save Nail's life (and another potential lead on Star Wolf's location, he cynically noted), but Canma behind him was in another league. She ran so fast her legs batted against his tail, almost stepping on it a few times.
Fox turned around, about to shout at her, but he noticed the way she looked at Nail as they ran along. She wasn't only rescuing a fellow soldier. She looked at Nail the same way…well…
The way Krystal looks at me, when I get hurt.
In between the Saurian crisis and the Aparoid invasion, Fox himself had a few close scrapes too. Krystal always watched over him while he recovered. Felt like she'd always been on the team, standing by his side whenever he was in the medical bay. He'd always insist he was fine and she needed to focus on other things, like her training or even just R&R, but she'd refuse. His safety meant everything to her. He took one hand off of the stretcher to wipe his eyes. Damn it… Why did I let her leave for the Diaspora system by herself?
Nail let out a loud groan, turning to face Canma as they entered the corridor. His golden eyes, clouded before on Fortuna, now had an intense focus, aimed squarely at her. The ventilator hissed, his breaths becoming a little steadier. While he couldn't speak, he gestured to her, raising his right hand.
"Don't move!" she pushed his hand down. "Save your strength."
As they kept running and pushing, Nail moaned again under the mask, nodding his head downwards and indicating towards a particular pouch attached to his utility belt. Frowning, Canma reached towards it, unbuckling it as she ran. She extracted a small gray box, about the size and shape of a smartphone. Fox didn't recognize the object, whatever it was.
"You want me to use this?" She held it where he could see, the item bouncing up and down as she ran. "You're sure?"
He nodded, grunting as he lifted his head.
"Are you going to be all right? I don't want to—"
Nail grasped his hand around Canma's wrist, indicating with his head towards Fox. The gray vixen kept glancing back and forth between Nail and him, as if unsure of herself.
"What—What is it?" Fox asked in between breaths, winded from running along while pushing this stretcher.
"Fox…" She was breathing hard herself. "I need to go to your bridge."
The bridge? What suddenly made that more important to her than Nail?
"W-why?" Fox breathed out, as they wheeled the stretcher round a corner, getting it back up to speed as fast as they could.
"I need to…" She paused again, this time longer than before. There was that unsure look again. She wasn't stopping to catch her breath, but instead to choose her words with care. At last she replied, "I need to send a message."
"To who?"
She chewed her lip, again like she was trying to come up with some sort of reply that would answer his question while giving out as little information as possible.
"To…to my people."
Fox narrowed his eyes. Why were her responses so vague? It pissed him off. The least he could do for them helping her out was—
"Fox, look out!" Slippy cried, pointing ahead.
A box haphazardly left in the corridor was coming up, blocking half of its width. Fox gasped, jerking the stretcher around it in time to avoid a collision. He turned his feet sideways, using them like a car's brakes to them to a stop. All of them rested for a moment, hands over their chests as they caught their breath.
"Please, Fox," Canma clasped her hands together, the device in the middle of them. "I know you're upset about losing the case. But if you let me send this message, we might be able to get it back."
Fox's heart thudded in his chest, looking at her. What was this now? He hadn't said a word about the case to her. Had Slippy or Fara mentioned why Star Fox was here during the shuttle ride? But they wouldn't do that, would they? They knew better. Why give details about their mission to someone they didn't know or trust? Also… Fox took a good look at Nail on the stretcher, the canine staring up at him with those golden eyes. He could have sworn he'd seen this guy somewhere before. But when and where?
"Slippy…Fara…" Fox wheezed out, his eyes on Canma. "Take Nail on and get him secure. Get the Auto Doc going."
Fara and Slippy spared a glance at each other.
"Hurry it up!" he shouted at them.
Jumping in chorus, the two of them pushed the stretcher onwards. As the two of them disappeared round another corner, Fox folding his arms together, returning his gaze to Canma
"So you want to send a message to these 'people' of yours?"
She hesitated, but nodded. "Yes."
"Who are they?"
Canma's ears curled back, eyes downturned to the floor. A few times her mouth opened, but she couldn't seem to get any words out.
"Lady, I only just met you." Fox's voice took on a harsh edge. "I don't know anything about you or who you're working for. If you want me to help you, I need more information. Who are your people? Why do you want that case? Heck, how do you even know I'm looking for the case?" By the time he was done speaking Fox almost shouted the words.
"It's not important."
"Bullshit it's not important!" Fox snarled at her, reaching out and nearly grabbing her by the arms.
She stumbled backwards, almost falling to the floor.
He stood up straight, emphasizing his slight height advantage on her. "Spill the beans already. You, Nail, and Tadao are in my custody now. I—" Fox took a deep breath. "Peppy needs that case back, and you're not getting off this ship until you tell me what I want to know. Understand?"
Canma's face scrunched up, but she didn't reply back.
"Why don't you quit with all the smoke and mirrors?" He waited for her answer, but an idea struck him. Something that might up the stakes a bit and get her to fess up. "Or should I hand you and Nail over to the Cornerians? They won't be as gentle as I'll be, I assure you."
She'd backed against the wall now, Fox now noticing he had walked after her, pushing her into a corner. She was in a guarded stance, as though getting ready to strike him or run past him. It hurt him to see her this way. He hated he'd resorted to using threats like this. It wasn't his style at all. He was better than this. But even so, he was at his wits' end after failing to stop Star Wolf and then having Peppy put the pressure on him. There weren't any other ways out of his predicament right now, aside from what information he could get from his new passengers. Fox stopped for a moment, focusing on his breathing, taking a step back so Canma wouldn't feel trapped.
She seemed to pick up on the gesture, letting herself relax. "Look, you don't need to threaten me. You've already got enough leverage. Nail's not going anywhere, not in his state, and I'm not leaving the ship without him. Everyone else on our team… They either escaped, or…" Her green eyes reddened, tears forming in them. "They're dead. We're the only members of Sentinel left here, in Lylat." The tears poured forth in earnest now. "Shuro…he's gone. I heard his screams before Star Wolf killed him. Nail almost joined him. Harry and Franco are gone too, and so are a lot of others."
Did I really scream at her? Fox's ears drooped back, embarrassed at himself. Whatever he'd lost, she seemed to have lost in far greater volume today. He'd forgotten Star Fox was not the only victim of Star Wolf today.
Collecting herself, she wiped her tears away. "Please, let me send my message. I'll even let you listen in and record it. Then I'll talk. It can't make things any worse than they already are. I have no one left to turn to but you now, Fox. We both want the same thing here, I promise. I don't want the Royalists to have that case. It might be better if the Separatists don't have it either."
While Fox didn't like what he'd done to her, at least she was name dropping now. Sentinel, Separatists, Royalists… Not much, but it's a start. He'd need to have Peppy to look into any organizations going by those names, because offhand Fox didn't know of any groups called those things in Lylat.
"So who are these people?" Fox asked. "Where are you all from?"
Canma sniffled again. "Thaljista, in the Diaspora system."
Fox's eyes widened. "Did you say Diaspora?"
She nodded.
His pulse quickened. Krystal. She said she was going there to look for that Cerinian colony.
"Is there something important about that place to you?" she asked, almost sounding innocent the way she said it.
More than you know… Fox got a thousand-yard stare in his eyes, his heartache for Krystal welling up to the surface again. If he let Canma send the message, she said she'd tell him more about this Thaljista place, and what was going on there...
Looking at her, he said, "Okay, follow me."
"Thank you, Fox." She smiled, bowing to him.
The corridors flew past in a blur, and before Fox knew it they were entering the bridge, Fortuna still looming large in the viewport on the starboard side. In his slot at the front of the room, R.O.B. spun around, his mechanical arms waving around. Fox was about to show him where the comms station was, but he realized something. He'd been so caught up in the moment the thought hadn't even occurred to him until now.
"Hang on a minute." He turned a skeptical eye to her. "How exactly do you plan to send a message all the way to the Diaspora system? Even the Cornerian military has trouble doing that."
Fox knew this firsthand, considering he himself had been trying to get a message there in an effort to locate Krystal. Reliable technology that could instantly transmit a message to a system weeks away by warp didn't exist yet. You could send your messages along with couriers, or have it transmitted via tachyon projection, but he'd discovered it could easily still take a month for his messages to make it to the Diaspora system, and yet another month for a reply to come back. When Krystal didn't show up in that café when she promised he'd sent a few messages along those avenues, but he'd received no replies back. It had been three months since then, more than enough time to reply even with the time lag.
If this gray vixen before him had a solution to his problem, he was curious to see what it was. Fortunately, she was ready to show it off.
She held up the strange metal device Nail had given to her. "Let me plug this into your comms system, and it'll do the rest."
"Wh-wh-wha?! That's it?" Fox's mouth went agape, staring at it. One little box could do what the Cornerian government couldn't do with billions of credits of investment and infrastructure?! He hardened his eyes. "You're lying."
"Let me hook it up, and you'll soon find out if I am."
Fox still didn't believe her. "Let me see it."
She put it into his hand. It was a simple metal box, made of some kind of silvery metal, with two cable connectors running out of it. Rather innocuous-looking. But he didn't feel good about plugging this thing into the Great Fox II. Even if it did what she said it did, what if it had some sort of virus program on it? What if it was a trick to hand over control of the ship? Fox tapped some commands into his wrist comm.
"Hey Slippy, could you get up here to the bridge? Oh, and bring your software diagnostics kit."
"Sure Fox, but why?" the toad replied.
"Got something I need you to look at. Come on up."
A few minutes later, the toad arrived with a small laptop and connectors in tow, looking confused about why he'd been summoned.
Fox handed him Canma's metal box. "What can you tell me about this, Slippy?"
"Umm…" Slippy looked at it from all sides, his expression confused. "I don't know. Looks like some kind of portable hard drive to me."
"Could you hook it up to your machine? Analyze it?"
"Sure." Slippy connected it to his laptop. As he did so, several windows appeared across his screen. Fox didn't know what to make of it, but the toad had a puzzled look on his face. He turned back to Fox, shrugging. "Well, I don't know what this is Fox. Most of the code can't be read by my machine. And I always keep up to date on Lylatian computer languages, frameworks, and whatnot. There is a small piece I can read though…" He zoomed into a series of files. "This part's designed to translate the unreadable code into something understandable by most ship operating systems in Lylat. Umm…I could try to reverse engineer what it's doing, figure out how it's translating the unknown code—"
"Great, how long would that take?" Fox asked.
"Uh…" Slippy hit some more commands on his machine. He sighed, taking off his hat to rub his bare head. "Gosh, I don't know. You could lock me in a room for several months doing nothing but studying this, and I still might not be able to figure it out. Could be anything in here."
Fox frowned, looking over at Canma for an explanation.
"I'm sorry. I didn't make that box." She shook her head. "It might drain some power from the rest of the ship though. Giichi and some of our other tech boys built it back on Thaljista. All I know is you just plug it in and it does its thing."
Giichi? Fox raised an eyebrow. Giichi is a pretty distinctive name. Could it be the same Giichi I know from that time in the academy? He shook his head. Nah, couldn't be. What are the odds? But there were a lot of other strange coincidences popping up lately, like this whole thing with Thaljista, him thinking he'd seen Nail before, and now this Giichi person… What did all of this mean?
Fox sighed, looking at Slippy. "Hey, Slip?"
"Yeah Fox?" Slippy slid back in his chair.
"Let's say we plug that box into the comms system… How much of a risk would that be?"
"Hard to say. I don't know what's in the code. Could be anything." Slippy's eyes narrowed, the wheels in his head turning as he thought up a solution. "Maybe instead of the main comms system, I could take the backup comms system, disconnect it from the rest of the ship's computers, and hook the device up to that. If there is a virus and it starts infecting things, it'll be limited to one part of the system and we can isolate it."
"Hmm…" Fox drummed his fingers on a nearby console. It sounded reasonable. "Okay. Let's give it a try, but keep a close eye on what that box is doing."
About half an hour later, after Slippy had opened up some control panels in the bridge and fiddled around with some things underneath the comms console (Fox wasn't technically inclined enough to know what), they had both the box and his laptop hooked up to connections leading inside the machine's guts.
"Here we go." Slippy pushed the Enter key on his laptop.
The bridge's lights flickered on and off before settling to a lower level. The ventilation system shut down as well, the omnipresent hum of fans going silent. Monitors around the bridge flickered on and off, but one of the monitors showing the Great Fox II's engines failing on an engineering diagnostic problem. Alarms blared around the ship, red lights in the ceiling flashing on and off. What the hell was all this?!
"Slippy! Turn it off!" Fox cried out.
"No! Stop!" Canma grabbed Slippy's mouse arm, stopping him from clicking to cancel the program. She turned to Fox. "Look, this is normal. I told you, some power's gonna get drained from the rest of the ship to run it."
"Some power?!" Fox shouted over the alarms. "That's like saying the ocean has some water in it!"
"I'll make this as quick as I can. I don't wanna damage your ship or anything…"
Wait, damage to his ship? She was talking about it like it was no big deal! That was it. He reached over to hit the Cancel button, but Canma stepped in his way.
"No, please!" she cried out. "Fox, if I don't make this call, the Royalists win!"
"Why should I care? You could be making this all up, for all I know."
"Because you're Fox McCloud! The hero of Lylat! If what was happening on Thaljista was happening in Lylat right now, you would let me make this damn call! You'd be saving millions of lives!"
Fox's ears curled back, as the alarms continued to blare around them. What if she was lying? She didn't have any proof this conflict even existed. But…what if she was telling the truth? Would he be okay with condemning all those people to death merely to avoid some damage to his ship? He clenched his teeth, weighing the two choices. Were you afraid to fight in the Lylat Wars because your Arwing might pick up some dings? How about the Aparoid invasion?
Fox rolled his eyes, suppressing his inner snark. Nonetheless it was a good point. Ships could be replaced. People could not be. Sighing, he waved his hands in the air. "Fine. Hurry up and make your call, already!" In for a chad, in for a credit he supposed.
Canma nodded, stepping up to the holographic projector at the front of the bridge. Bursts of random pixels and static thrashed about like an angry storm above it, struggling to piece themselves together, but a coherent hologram took shape at last. The image was not perfect, with pixels flickering random colors on parts of the figure's body. Sometimes the entire image flashed a rainbow of colors while warping in and out of focus. Pixel snow buzzed around the figure, as if it were standing in the middle of a swarm of insects.
When the picture was complete, the face came together to reveal a gray wolf, with bright yellow eyes, and dark gray hair running down the back of his head. He wore a green officer's jacket and cap, not unlike Pepper's uniform. Captains in the Cornerian military also had green uniforms, so at first he thought Canma was calling one of them. But the wolf had patches and badges that weren't Cornerian, and a patch on his front indicated he was of the 'FPA Army', whatever FPA meant. The dimmed bridge lighting gave the picture an eerie appearance.
"Canma?" the wolf leaned in closer to the camera, his voice difficult to make out through the static. "-can barely see—you."
"Gail, it's Canma."
"Where a— you?" The wolf was looking around the bridge, trying to place her.
"The Great Fox II. We've linked up with Star Fox."
"What?!" Gail shouted so hard there was a big burst of static, making Fox wince, his ears curling back.
The wolf's image turned to face him, those yellow eyes studying him. Like so many other things over the past couple hours, Fox could have sworn this reminded him of something. And similar to Canma, he appeared to be thinking carefully about what words he would say next. More secrecy. More of only showing him the bare minimum of information. He didn't like this. What the hell was he stepping into here?
"Canma." Gail turned back to her. "Why are you w— Star Fox?" He kept shooting glances at Fox. The wolf's voice seemed to be getting clearer now, the connection becoming more stable. "I'm guessing you don't have good news, or we wouldn't be talking now…"
Canma fell silent, her tail drooping and eyelids becoming heavy, as she stared at the floor. Gosh…it was like him having to give the bad news to Peppy all over again.
"We failed…" She shut her eyes, wringing her hands together. "Star Wolf got away with the case, and Giichi too…" She had to rub a hand over her eyes again. "Sentinel… Our main ship escaped, but a lot of people died along the way. Me and Nail…we're the only ones left here." The words came easier this time, since she'd already told them to Fox, although he hated she had to say them in the first place.
Gail fell quiet, settling back into his chair. He removed his officer's cap from his head, rubbing the rim with his finger. "So… We've only got one chance left now."
"You mean attacking Sable once she arrives back with the case?"
Gail nodded, a grim look crossing his features. "This will be a costly battle." He clenched his fist around the cap's fabric, bending it. "The Retinue will be with her. I have no doubt."
Retinue? While Fox didn't know what they were talking about, Canma froze in place when that word came up.
"But… That's suicide!" she shouted. "We've never been able to kill one of them before!"
"If we don't do this, we have no future." The wolf placed the cap back on his head, affixing it back in place. He leaned back in his chair, staring off into space. Fox could tell his mind was working overtime, as if calculating up the cost of the decisions he was about to make. He looked at Canma once more. "You said Aug's alive. How is he doing? I gave him the transmitter, not you. So something happened to him, didn't it?"
Aug? But she said she and Nail were the only ones who survived… So Aug is Nail? And Aug…I think I remember that too.
Canma sniffled a little, looking at the floor. "He…he's been shot. Tortured. Thrown in a river. Part of his tail was cut off by those damn pirates even!" She clenched her fist, shaking her head. "And…and he—" Canma jerked a finger at Fox. "He let one of those pirates on board this ship! He should have killed him! Shot him on the spot! It'd be a thousand times more merciful than what that lizard did to Nail!"
Startled, Fox took a step back from her outburst. He remembered how she'd shouted at him before about this. Recovering, Fox was about to chew her out, but then Gail stepped in.
"Canma—" The wolf's image buzzed out of focus, becoming a mass of pixels before reforming itself again. "Time is short. Your ship can't maintain connection— much longer. Tell me how Aug's doing!"
Canma shook her head. "I don't know. It's up in the air right now. I wish there was more I could say. I know it'll be a long time before I get to talk to you again…"
The wolf shut his eyes, doing that long stare again. But this time, even through the distorted pixels, Fox thought he saw a tear forming in one of his eyes. The lupine brushed it away quickly. "Okay… Thank you." His image warped again, becoming a small tornado of dots before it reformed once more. "No time left. Good b—"
A small explosion—more like a pop—blasted through the room. Slippy cried out, Fox looking over to see what had happened. The little silver box was black and smoking on the floor now, the remains on the inside fried beyond repair. At the same time, the lights in the room went back to full strength, blinding Fox for an instant as the ventilation came back on, all of the monitors flicking back to life. Canma stared at where the image had been before, ears curled back, tail still drooped behind her, flicking back and forth.
Fox took some gentle steps forward, sliding up next to her. "So…" He felt awkward talking to her when she was like this, but continued. "Who was that? A general?"
Canma couldn't speak for a moment, but eventually returned a nod. "Head general of the Free People of Azer's military. General Gail Strafer."
"Strafer…" Fox's eyes narrowed. Nail. Aug. Giichi. Thaljista. A memory from over a decade ago boiled up to the front of his thoughts, back from his academy days, as his mind connected the dots. He remembered now. They were in the mess hall at the time…
~X~
The yellow cat stood there, holding a tray of food. His skinny tail idly swished back and forth, the yellow and brown alternating in stripes. He wore a white dress shirt with a red tie. Plaid trousers in crimson and purple completed the out-of-place prep school look. He was a short little dude, even comparable to Slippy. The cat's big pointed ears and bright green eyes made him look so young too, like he was twelve.
However, he had someone with him, almost someone who was his complete opposite. The gray canine towered over the table, especially with everyone sitting down. Even though he was a canine himself Fox, couldn't tell his exact species, but this guy had a blocky muzzle and pointed ears. Lighter gray fur accented the muzzle and the inside of the ears. The canine glared at both Falco and Fox with golden yellow eyes, looking vaguely pissed off and bored. He wore a dark suit over a white dress shirt, although Fox could tell underneath he was athletic and well-muscled.
The cat ran around to Fox's side of the table and sat down. Fox was grateful, as the gray canine slid into the seat next to Falco. While he didn't bother saying anything to Falco, he could tell the avian was uncomfortable with his presence.
The cat raised a hand to Fox. "My name is Giichi. What's yours?"
"Fox McCloud," he smiled as he returned the handshake. "That's…an unusual first name."
"I know!" Giichi laughed. "You can probably tell from my clothes, but I'm not a student here. Just visiting for the day. I want to study abroad, so I'm looking at schools to go to."
"Where are you from?"
"The planet Thaljista."
Fox's face went blank, his mind coming up empty even though he got good scores in the navigation classes. "Never heard of that place."
"It's OK," Giichi shrugged. "It's far away from here, in another system. I wanted to come to Corneria since it's kind of like the center of the galaxy."
"So you want to be a military pilot?"
"I don't know. Haven't decided what kind of career I want yet. Been checking out a few different schools over the past week. I thought this school might be interesting, so I had Aug here set aside a day for it." He gestured towards the unknown canine.
Up until this point, the gray canine had sat there silently, his pointed ears lying almost flat against his head. However, they immediately shot up at mention of his name. The hard expression melted away from his face, settling into a blank look. Fox supposed this was as close as Aug got to smiling. In any case, the canine spoke before Falco.
"My name is Augustine. I'm Giichi's chaperone. Just keeping him safe while he's off world."
~X~
"No way…" It was like a lightning bolt had struck Fox. "Nail was him? No wonder he was so familiar!"
Canma raised an eyebrow, looking at him.
He stared back at her, still stunned by the revelation. "Giichi, you said? Giichi…Twinkieland?"
A confused look crossed her face. "Y-yes? I think?"
"Small galaxy…" Fox looked up at the ceiling. "And Nail…or Aug, whatever. He's related to Gail?"
"It's not hard to tell, is it? Gail is Nail's father." She didn't seem surprised by his revelation. "The eyes, and the fur color, right?" She did look surprised by Fox already knowing who Nail and Giichi were though. "B-but…you've met those two before? How?"
"Hang on a minute…" Fox raised a hand, leaning against a console. This was so bizarre he needed a second to recover. "Okay… Tell you what. You tell me about how the three of you ended up here, and I'll tell you about how I met them. And then maybe we can work together on coming up with a plan to get that case back. Sound fair?"
"I'd like that…" Canma smiled, although it was a bitter one. "But I think it's too late for you to help now."
"Why? Does it have something to do with that Retinue thing you mentioned?"
"I may as well tell you everything I know…" She laughed. "You probably won't make a difference either way though."
The words were grim, but in a twist of irony Fox found himself invigorated by them. "You know what? People told me that before I helped win the Lylat Wars." It was like a challenge to him instead of a discouragement. He put on a big smile. "I proved them all wrong. Maybe I can do the same for you."
"Can't hurt for you to try I guess." She tossed her head back, stirring up her fur, still chuckling a bit. "Okay, hotshot, let's talk."
~X~
A/N: All right! First chapter of Act 2! I don't think the next chapter will be far behind. Originally this chapter was two scenes and I have both of them written out, but the two scenes got so big I figured they'd work better standing alone as separate chapters. So yeah, hopefully before long you'll be seeing Chapter 19 as well. I'll try to update Love is Blind next but I can always work towards posting the next Hazardous Contents chapter if I get stuck.
Also, for those of you who haven't read it, the flashback is to my other story Just Gotta Ride, in case you're curious.