The weather hadn't gotten much better since Fox rejoined his team; an overhead storm system threatened to roll over the entire region and dump more rain on everything in the coming hours. A bit of water wouldn't bother Fox and his team though, not while they were airborne anyways; if their Arwings could brave flying just over the surface of the dwarf star that was Solar, rain over the wings wouldn't do anything meaningful.
It wasn't the first thing in Fox's mind though, not as he climbed up his Arwing's boarding ladder in the cold morning air, carefully swinging his body into the cockpit along with the rest of his team. His Arwing brought a sense of comfort that the base hangar or the Great Fox 2 didn't. This was their element, after all, each fully in control of the state-of-the-art space superiority fighter the team was known for.
"Hey Slip, we all ready to go?" Fox called out, seeing the toad in question climb into the cockpit of his own Arwing parked in the maintenance bay on the right.
"Yup, didn't have much time for preflight checks after I got our ECM's fitted, but everyone should be airworthy. Got everyone's wings refueled yesterday too; Falco and Peppy's were almost dry."
"Good, thanks Slip."
Pulling the four-point seat harness over his chest and shoulders, Fox began his Arwing's startup procedure, reaching underneath the main control and instrument panel and flicking a series of switches in a motion he could do subconsciously at this point; first getting the fuel cells warmed up, followed by the fuel pump, sensors, and weapons.
The hangar roared to life with a deafening roar as the four fighters warmed up, the team closing their cockpits before risking hearing damage. Fox brought his engines to idle, feeling the repulsor system slowly pick the ship a few meters off the ground and into a hover. Data readouts and flight info flashed across the screens on the control panel, allowing him to set up a radio channel between his team and Peppy, the hare staying behind to help coordinate everything that the control tower couldn't.
"Everything looks good on my end, everyone else good to go?"
Falco's reply came first, the comms screen showing a low-resolution portrait of the bird and a pixelated line, visualizing the waveform of whatever he'd start blabbing about mid-mission.
-"Yeah, looks like Slippy's got everything lookin' nice and peachy, green across the board. Seein' a bit more power draw than normal, but I'm guessin' that's the new shield system or whateva'."-
"Guessing it's not really a problem?"
-"Nah, shouldn't fly any different."-
"Good… Slip? Krystal?"
-"Everything looks alright… Slippy's done his good work as usual."-
-"Gonna make me blush here! Everything's reading nominal, Fox!"-
Giving a content nod with a smile, Fox grabbed his headset from its storage slot behind the seat, putting it on and adjusting his microphone. Using it to connect to the radio frequency Peppy and the base's control tower was on with a few button presses, making sure his team did the same with theirs before contacting Peppy. "Alright Pep, we're all ready and waiting down here, what's the word from the tower?"
-"Few issues clearing the runway, but… No, looks like you're all cleared to stack up on the taxiway, lights should guide ya' all the way."- Peppy's voice wasn't as clean as the rest of the team, probably using decades-old equipment from his old leather seat in the tower. Fox was able to convince Vanessa earlier in the week to get Peppy a spot up there, mainly because Fox didn't know who was stationed there normally."
"Roger that, we'll stack up. Is she up there with you, by chance?"
There was a long pause, before he got a reply, if a little quieter than before. -"Yup, you know it."-
"Alright, guess I'll keep that in mind." Fox bit his lip, holding back a chuckle
Flicking a few more switches in his cockpit, Fox gently pushed his joystick forward, slightly nosing his fighter down by a few degrees so it would start to creep forward out of the hangar. Everyone else knew what to do, following behind the lead Arwing as Fox pushed his stick left, following the aging and flickering taxiway lights towards their assigned VTOL pad..
Everything was relatively quiet from within the cockpit as the four fighters floated along, giving Fox more time to think with nothing else to do until reaching the launch pads. Most of what came to mind was the mission ahead; going over what hastily-made plans he'd gotten down just after breakfast. The thought of bugging out the second the mission went south was always there, sitting in a corner of his brain like a flame he couldn't stamp out until this was over.
"Guess I'm really gonna do this, huh?"
-"Hey Fox, you uh, you goin' a little fast there?"-
Snapping out of his short daydream, Fox eased back on the stick, seeing Falco and his instruments were right; he was unconsciously doing a good few kilometers over the base's ground speed limit.
"Damn, guess I got lost in my thoughts a little." He shrugged with a yawn, watching his speed ease down a little bit.
-"You gotta focus Fox, trust me, that shit'll eat at you."-
"Right." Trying to clear his head as the team reached the pad, Fox pulled back on the stick and brought his craft to a stop on the corner of the painted concrete square, giving his team space so they would all fit on.
-"How long are we going to wait here?"- Slippy asked, bringing up the rear of the squadron, behind Krystal and then Falco.
"Shouldn't be too long. You really wanna test those new shields, huh?"
His friend laughed, getting a small smile out of Fox and the rest of the team joined in. "I think you know me too well!"
Returning the laugh, Fox kept waiting in his corner, looking left and right like watching for traffic on a busy road. The wall dominated his view on the left, despite being a good few hundred feet from the end of the runway. He wondered if it'd done anything to hold off Andross's forces during the war, and if it had worked the other way if the mad ape's troops had captured the place at some point or not.
On the right, the thousand feet of flat concrete stretched out as far as he could see to the other wall; complete overkill in terms of distance for the Arwing, but necessary for landing larger planet-bound transport aircraft or older spacecraft that couldn't land vertically. Standing up like a massive tree on a flat field, the control tower and the rest of the base's supporting buildings were a grim reminder of who was really in charge here.
"Good luck up there, Pep." Fox nodded up at the tower, knowing his mentor couldn't make out the gesture from where he sat, but just the thought alone helped ease his mind. He took a deep breath in and gripped his flight stick, thumbing the few buttons and triggers that adorned it, counting by the seconds as he waited for Peppy's announcement they were free to launch.
-"Hey, Fox."- Peppy's voice came through, quieter than usual.
"What's up?"
-"You watch yourself out there, okay? Not sure what it is, but I think I'm startin' to pick up on Krystal's bad feeling about this whole operation. I feel like we're waiting to launch for too long here."-
"Starting to feel the same… Anything you can do up there?"
-"I'll see, she ain't gonna like what I'm gonna have to do, but… Feelin's mutual."-
"Thanks, Pep."
Going radio silent again, Fox tried to peer into the tower with the zoom function on his visor. Letting his eyes adjust, he could barely make out a few silhouettes through the thick, tinted windows, catching some movement every now and again. Where anyone was or what Peppy was trying to do was impossible to tell from here, but Peppy's voice eventually came through again, His voice tense.
-"Welp, almost thought I had to draw on a few of em', but you got your clearance. Go Fox! Before someone realizes!"-
Fox chuckled a bit, wrapping his right hand around the throttle. "You gotta tell me what you did Pep, one day."
-"Yeah yeah, I will! Just go! Hurry!"-
Still smiling, Fox prepared his Arwing for a rapid vertical takeoff, feeling something within the hull shift through his seat padding. "Looks like Peppy's cleared us, guys! We gotta launch quick, I don't think we're technically allowed to do this yet!"
-"Ohho, it's gonna be like this then?"- Falco teased, getting ready to line up behind Fox.
"Yeah, we gotta get airborne before we get shut down!" Not wasting another moment, Fox slammed his throttle forward, being shoved back into his seat as his entire fighter lurched upwards despite preparing himself for it. Even with the G-diffuser system active Fox felt like his stomach had just jumped out of his body, almost forgetting he needed to pull back on his stick once again to let the wings catch air at the right angle.
-"Wow Fox, you're sure in a hurry!"- Slippy commented over the radio, catching up to Fox and pulling up alongside once Fox had shifted into level flight.
"Uh, yeah, I guess I am." He replied, looking around his cockpit with a shrug. "Guess I did that subconsciously."
Still climbing, Fox pushed the stick to the left, adjusting his heading to fly roughly Southeast as he remembered from the maps earlier, knowing his team would catch him and form up once they all reached cruising altitude.
-"How did Peppy manage this?"- Krystal asked, her Arwing barely visible underneath as the team passed through the low-hanging cloud layer. The white fluff was laying over the surface like a massive blanket, with only the tips of the tallest mountains and the orbital tether able to peek through.
"I dunno." Fox shrugged, pushing his stick forward to level out his craft after reaching cruising altitude. "I don't think it was anything too crazy though; pushing things too far, especially with the CDF, doesn't sound like something he'd do."
"Hmm, well, as long as it doesn't land us in a cell somewhere I can't say I mind, honestly."-
Krystal agreed, bringing her Arwing into a loose formation around Fox, with the rest of the team forming up soon after into a lazy diamond shape. Sitting in the cockpit was nice, but actually getting to fly was another thing entirely; Fox didn't feel constrained by Vanessa's red tape and crazy attitude anymore. Up here, they were in control. The soft rumble of his Arwing's main engine felt like just another part of what he considered his second home, and Fox took a moment admiring the view that he hadn't caught since they touched down with their carrier earlier in the week.
"Guessing nothing fell apart?" he joked after a few minutes of cloud watching, addressing his team as they got more settled for the flight over. A little over 20 minutes at supersonic speeds was hardly the longest they'd been stuck inside the relatively cramped Arwing's interior, but it still always took a small amount of mental prep.
-"Nothin' yet. Still seein' that extra power draw from Slip's new gizmo, but, eh…"-
"Alright, doesn't sound too bad. Krystal, Slip?"
-"Looks like everything's still in the green over here."-
-"All systems nominal, Fox. I even packed an extra sandwich!"- The sounds of crinkling wrapping paper flooded the team's channel, followed up with Slippy taking a massive bite out of whatever he'd brought along.
"Alright, but you're cleaning up all those crumbs off the floor."
Slippy's laughing-while-chewing came back as his only response, Fox rolled his eyes. Setting his autopilot up to hold his current course, Fox took his hands off of the controls and leaned his head back, confident he wouldn't need to do much of anything for the next hour.
—-
-"Hey Fox… You uh… You check the forecast before we took off? I swear that storm's been followin' us since yesterday."-
Fox turned his head to look to the right out of his cockpit, getting a good view of the distant collection of gray storm clouds Falco was talking about. It did look like it had been getting closer since they left the base, but exact distances were hard to tell from his seat. "Damnit." Fox groaned, itching the back of his neck. "Yeah, looks like you might be right."
-"Man, this whole region just sucks. Why couldn't they have started fighting back on Aquas or Papetoon or something?"-
"Aquas has hurricanes, Falco."
There was a long pause before Falco replied, Krystal getting a chuckle in before he did. -"Oh. Right. I, uh… Hey, I think I see the road!"-
Fox craned his neck forward, leaning out and nearly pressing his forehead against the cockpit canopy to look down. Sure enough, he spotted the road that Falco did; a twisting, four-lane ribbon of concrete that cut through the forest below. A quick glance at his console's small map told him it was the right one, too.
"Looks like we've reached the highway; let's tighten up our formation and find that convoy." He ordered over the radio, pushing his flight stick forward and left for a shallow dive that lined up with the road. Fox's team followed behind, and formed up into a tight diamond to the right of his Arwing.
It wasn't long before one of them spotted the lead vehicle; a tiny dot of black slowly moving towards them, currently crossing a bridge that brought the highway over a marshy river delta. Fox switched his radio to broadcast over a wider range of frequencies, hoping whoever was in charge of all the vehicles would pick up. Instead, they beat Fox to it.
-"Ah, if it isn't Lylat's favorite mercs, saw you fly in on radar, we were all starting to wonder when you would show up."- A younger, female voice came through his Arwing's radio, sounding only a tiny bit older than he was. Trying not to think about what the owner of the voice looked like, Fox finally replied.
"Yup, in the flesh." He nodded, looping around with his team to head in the same direction the vehicle was. With a few more maneuvers, Fox and his squadron flew alongside the bridge's deck, getting a better look at the convoy's lead vehicle; an older model of Cornerian APC with fading camouflage paint. "We're all set to cover you with some close air support and recon, if it comes to that."
-"Fingers crossed it doesn't, McCloud… My CO doesn't expect much, but just between you and me? I don't think we're gonna get halfway through the pass without running into trouble."- The voice on the radio quieted down, Fox understanding why.
"Fox?" Krystal's projected voice in his head almost made him jump, bumping his flight stick slightly and forced him to correct his heading.
"Uh, yeah?"
"It looks like this driver's not completely okay with Vanessa's orders; this might be our only chance to talk with someone who's on the inside. I'd press her with a few questions."
"What do you- Oh, I see…"
Fox let himself think for a moment, figuring the rest of the vehicles were still a few minutes behind; there was a good chance not everyone that overheard this would be so open-minded.
"Long enough." He thought, turning his head to look at the vehicle.
"Hey, uh…"
-"Stella, just call me Stella."- the driver replied, Fox shook the strange feeling he got from already being on a first-name basis, but he still went ahead.
"Alright, I need to make this quick; me and my entire team keeps getting the feeling that Vanessa's not everything she's cracked up to be. We can't tell if she's hiding something, but she just feels… Off, I guess. Why are you already giving me your first name, too?"
-"Because I respect you, McCloud, and you're not military. Anyways I hate to say it, but I'm afraid you're sorta right; that's not just you."- Stella sounded almost relieved over the radio, probably finally happy someone else had noticed. -"Whole bunch of the people in my unit noticed too. She always seems jumpy and on edge a lot of the time she's around other people."-
Fox nodded again. "Yeah, just going over the briefing with her earlier was tense. She was yelling some pretty damning stuff at someone over the radio before we walked in, too."
The voice on the other end of the radio sighed. -"Heard something about that, and that's she's the main reason we're struggling to get support from the civvies. I'd watch yourselves around her, if I were you."- Stella's APC rolled into a gentle stop on the highway, the road turning from four lanes to two with the markings of temporary lines and construction barriers, all probably related to the unfinished tunnel a few miles ahead Fox assumed, and it would've been hell trying to squeeze through here if traffic hadn't been blocked hours earlier.
-"Rest of the convoy is just a minute behind, I can't keep talking much for now. If I get through I'll let you know everything I do, though. Just keep them off of us."-
It wasn't long before the rest of the convoy caught up along the bridge. They all lined up behind Stella as she shifted into gear soon afterwards, leading the rest of the vehicles along the temporary exit off the main highway, hitting the worn pavement of the smaller well-traveled road soon afterwards.
"Alright guys." Fox raised his voice, speaking into the radio again and addressing his team. "I want us covering as much ground around the convoy as we can. Not liking how our visibility's looking, especially with the woods like this. Krystal, I want you at a few thousand feet above everything, let us know if you sense anyone in the trees that we don't know about."
-"Got it, Fox. I won't be able to get an exact location from up there, though. Especially if it's only one person,"- the vixen replied, keeping her spot in the formation for the moment.
"That's all we need, Falco and Slippy's smart bomb payloads should do the rest."
-"Works for me… Just be careful, Fox."-
Krystal's Arwing rocketed upwards into the clouds, the glow of her craft's afterburners in full gear lighting up the dim morning sky like a second star for a moment before she was out of view. Fox knew the mixture of her flight instruments and telepathy would keep his teammate from getting lost or separated even without line of sight, and he let himself focus on his other aircraft.
"Falco, Slip, we're gonna be orbiting the vehicles in single-file. We'll be harder to hit or lock onto with just about anything, but the second we start getting shot at we'll split up. If Krystal spots or senses anyone hiding out in the bush, I want you guys to start dropping some ordnance and I'll follow up behind with my cannons. Any questions?"
-"Nah, just a statement, I'm gonna be honest here Fox; I'm expecting we'll run into some shit down here. Dunno' when, just between here and wherever the hell that spaceport we're goin' to is."- Falco spoke, positioning his Arwing a few hundred meters in front of Fox, with Slippy getting in between without a word.
Fox couldn't help but agree, shifting his posture in the seat for a moment. "I'm starting to think so too; I've had a weird gut feeling since we took off. We just gotta do what we do best and we'll all make it home."
The avian chuckled on the other end of the line. -"Heh, easy for us ta' say. Sure glad I didn't join the military and get stuffed into one a' those rolling coffins' during the war."-
"Yeah, I think I remember hearing about those…" Fox trailed off, memories of the war threatening to surface that he'd rather keep buried until the day he died. "Just keep your eyes peeled, and failing that we've got Krystal."
With a gentle nudge of his flight stick to the left, the team's leader followed behind Falco and Slippy, keeping a fair distance of a few hundred meters between each craft as the three of them circled the convoy in relative quiet. It wasn't long before any of them could only just catch sporadic glimpses of the long train of armor weaving their way through the forest like some massive venomous jungle snake more worthy of Fortuna.
—-
Fox yawned, taking his hand off the throttle and flexed his sore gloved fingers by making a fist, repeating the motion a few times until he felt the blood flowing slightly better again. With a few more practiced arm stretches he felt a little more awake, slightly confused as to why he was already so tired when it wasn't even past noon yet, according to local MacBethian time provided by his HUD.
The slightly inviting morning sky Fox had woken up to had long since been replaced with ugly gray pillows of storm clouds, still slowly rolling overhead and blanketing the entire region. He could already see the telltale flash of lightning hidden inside, popping off periodically like a broken streetlight in some Venomian ghetto. Curiosity getting the better of him, Fox keyed his radio.
"Hey, Krystal, you still up there?"
The vixen took a few seconds to reply, her voice unsteady when she spoke. -"Still here, Fox. Any news from the convoy?"-
"Nothing from them yet, but we're just about to hit Laqua pass if the map is anything to go by. What's the storm looking like from your position?"
-"There's more sunlight up here, I'm just enjoying it best I can before something happens. It's towering over the usual cloud layer behind us though, we won't be able to get above it."-
Fox sighed at the news, internally cursing his luckt. There wasn't much they could've done about it regardless, but letting Slippy know beforehand might've given the amphibian time to tweak something that would've made flying in such chaotic conditions easier.
"...Alright, thanks. You pick up anything else in the meantime? Nobody hiding in the woods along the road?"
-"No, just wildlife the vehicles down there are scaring away."-
Fox nodded, adjusting his flight stick for another course correction. "Okay, keep me posted." Sitting up more in the pilot's seat, he rolled his Arwing further to the left than his constant turning needed for a better look at the ground and the precious convoy still twisting through the woods below. They'd all passed through the wide mouth of the narrowing canyon the road followed just a few minutes earlier, and Fox could already make out the chilly river that flanked the two lanes of traffic without most of the damp tree cover that blocked his view before.
His expression soured seeing what little he could make out of the road ahead; the canyon seemed to get deeper the further it went, getting to a point it looked only barely wide enough for the road and river to squeeze through. Fox and his team had experience flying down tunnels at breakneck speeds thanks to Venom and the Aparoid homeworld, but it wasn't something he was still keen on doing. A strange feeling of unease drowned Fox like a crashing wave, and he quickly tuned his radio back to the frequency Stella had contacted him on earlier.
He spoke almost frantically into the microphone, wanting to get his thoughts in as quickly as possible. "Stella, are you guys sure this is the only route? My team's not liking this and the weather is only gonna-"
"Fox! T-There's people bloody everywhere in the trees! The-!"
Krystal's panicked voice stabbed into Fox's brain like a knife, confirming his worst fears and pulling his attention completely away from Stella's vehicle to the sunken meadow sitting in the middle of the canyon like an oasis. He didn't even let Krystal finish before screaming into the radio, already knowing full well it was likely too late.
"STELLA! IT'S-" Fox's screams were cut off by a blinding flash of light coming from a bermed treeline at the edge of the meadow. He never saw a projectile, only the intense shockwave ripping through the pines in all directions, and followed by the convoy's lead vehicle being explosively and instantaneously split into molten chunks of burning metal that were scattered across the road. The fireball was late to the party, but came soon after with fuel and power cells violently cooking off what energy they still held.
The berm and ridgelines lit up with gunfire as the rest of the trap was sprung all at once, hammering the convoy with blaster bolts and kinetic rounds from hidden positions. Fox pulled his stick back to gain altitude, firing his afterburners and barking orders to the rest of his team into the microphone.
"F-Falco! Slippy! Get some altitude and dive bomb whatever targets you can see on the ridgeline! Me and Krystal will follow up with our cannons! GO!"
Slippy took the initiative without a word, getting ahead of him and Falco and rolling his Arwing over, pulling back on his own stick until the nose of his craft was pointed almost straight down. With a thunderous roar of engine power, Sippy broke into a near-vertical dive towards whatever poor target caught his sight below. Falco followed the same high-G maneuver behind, trailing in Slippy's thruster wake downwards like a rollercoaster on its rails.
Taking a sharp breath in, Fox twisted his controls and rolled over at the apex of his, feeling his airframe shudder and twist beneath the seat from the forces he was putting it through. Pulling back, he brought his own nose down before slamming the throttle forward again. Keeping the thought of his Arwing not surviving pulling out of the dive well away from his head, Fox looked forward as he rocketed towards the battlefield.
The rebels had spaced themselves well apart for the best coverage of the road, with both sides violently exchanging weapons fire all along the length of the convoy. Columns of dark smoke and dots of burning vehicles and equipment were littered seemingly everywhere across the canyon; he couldn't tell what belonged to either side.
-"STARFOX! Where's our Creator-damned air support!? We're being torn apart!"-
Frantic screaming from someone over the radio in the convoy broke Fox's concentration as he continued to rapidly lose altitude, his airspeed surpassing 700 kilometers an hour from a quick look at the digital speedometer.
"Just a few seconds!" he almost growled back, wishing his teammates would go faster. Answering everyone's question, Fox spotted Slippy and Falco pull out of their dives ahead, with the crimson fireballs of smart bomb impacts less than a hundered meters below them. Tiny shapes in the trees could be spotted running away from each; infantry and a handful of vehicles who had survived the blast, probably repositioning to another hidden shooting spot.
-"Gottem! Three bombs left, Fox!"-
-"Nailed the bastards! Better make those guns count you two!"-
Fox nodded, getting solid target locks on the vehicles as he reached two kilometers; he wouldn't have time to power up and fire a charge shot with the short time window. With gritted teeth, he held down the trigger on the flight stick, letting loose with cannon fire. Rapid ruby-red blasts of volatile energy lept from the barrels of his primary weapons, closing the distance with the offending rebels within the blink of an eye.
Most of the aiming was done by his targeting computer, steering each shot and turning most of what he fired off into a hit. More fireballs erupted from his targets as Fox torched and vaporized vehicles, people, and pine trees alike before pulling out of his dive. With G-diffusers working overtime to prevent the Arwing and its pilot from being ripped apart, the team's leader felt himself being shoved back into the padding of the cockpit's flight seat as he climbed again and mentally prepared himself for another roll-over.
-"Looks like I got the rest of that group, Fox!"- Krystal's words echoed over the radio, confirming she'd cleaned up whatever targets had survived the first three attack runs. -"I'm picking up on more targets all along the edges of this bloody canyon!"-
Fox quickly nodded, deciding to level out. "Good call! Team, we gotta split up and cover more ground! Make sure we can cover each other in case they get any ideas with missiles!"
Slippy and Falco's Arwings split left and right with the command, circling back towards the road. Fox did the same, bleeding off airspeed to keep a few seconds behind his teammates and letting Krystal catch up. Once satisfied with their spacing, he punched his throttle forward again and let the afterburner kick in after seeing the two ahead do the same.
A wild flurry of tracers opened up on Falco's fighter, having now caught the full attention of rebel vehicle crews that didn't have a shot on the convoy. A single well-placed smart bomb released by the avian silenced their guns as the team's leader watched a brilliant tree-spiltting fireball erupt from the point of impact, with Slippy doing the same afterwards on another unseen postion.
Eyes darting around for targets, Fox's keen eyesight picked up on another cluster of lightly-armored hostile vehicles firing from an entrenched position above the road. Both sides were still hastily exchanging gunfire with a lightshow of blaster rounds that drew Fox's attention further. Pulling the stick left and nosing down, Fox lined up the muzzles of his cannons and held down the trigger again, lighting up the rebels' firing line with more energized fury.
Despite not getting full target locks this time, the leader didn't miss; raking the row of vehicles and popping each like a water balloon full of burning shrapnel. These things weren't the ugly Venomian tanks he'd strafed time and time again during the war, and stood little chance of surviving a direct hit. Seeing infantry scatter and knowing Krystal would finish the job, Fox pulled up again for another gun run on a different target.
His attack didn't go without a counter; the underside of his hull was lit up with more fruitless gunfire, small-arms blaster shots splashing harmlessly against his shield. Fox winced as a handful of kinetic rounds slammed into his fuselage, bypassing the magnetic field that kept energy at bay and burying themselves in the alloy plating. Instinctively, Fox tapped another button on his flight stick, slamming it left at the same time to throw his Arwing into a rapid barrel roll out of the line of fire before gaining altitude.
"Slippy, how's that new shield working out? Just took some rounds on my last run!" he yelled into the radio, looping back around for a better view and another gun run.
-"Good so far! They haven't even scratched the paint!"- his friend replied, depositing another smart bomb into the treeline on his own and rocketing away before return fire could effectively do anything. With the team's combined firepower and ability to deliver it wherever it was needed, it looked like they might've been starting to turn the tide.
Small brush fires danced among the rocky landscape, burning wrecks of vehicles from either side joining them along the road and the plateaus on either side of the canyon. Fox could still see the two sides exchanging tracers, just barely spotting the few remaining vehicles of the convoy huddled around the limo holding the VIP, unable to escape with the torched husks of friendly armor blocking both directions.
"Damnit, looks like our VIP's been boxed in! We gotta clear a pa-"
Fox's radio callout was interrupted by what he thought was a violent lighting strike, quickly remembering hearing the same ear-splitting and blinding flash before Stella's lead vehicle was atomized. He tilted his Arwing, desperately trying to spot the source among the trees; whatever was carrying such a weapon had likely held fire to keep its position hidden until now.
-"STARFOX! ENEMY HEAVY ARMOR, DUE WEST! WE CAN'T-"-
Fox's eyes were drawn back towards the convoy- or what was left of it. His heart sank as the team's leader saw why the panicked voice over the radio was cut off; the glowing remains of two more light armored vehicles quickly caught his attention, the last of roughly five remaining from what he could see.
"Guys! Find that tank! We can't let it get another shot off!" he yelled, desperately looking around in the general direction he thought the shot might've come from.
-"F-Fox! I think I know where it is! I'm sensing two people in the treeline down the road! Just direct your fire where I'm shooting!"- Krystal almost instantly replied, like she'd been sitting on the answer this entire time. Afterburners firing, the vixen's Arwing blazed a trail through the mist ahead of him. Fox silently thanked her before spotting Krystal nose down and start lighting up the treeline with cannon fire; it wasn't a spot they'd hit until now, likely intentional on whoever was controlling the thing's part.
"Falco! Slippy! Unload everything you have on that target once you see it! We need this thing dead!"
With another order called out, the last three of the team's aircraft raced behind Krystal, the toad and the avian having just gotten back from more smart bomb runs to take the pressure off the convoy further.
-"Any idea what this thing is? My money's on something Venomian,"- Falco asked as the three neared the target area at breakneck speed. The two ground-attackers each had one smart bomb left held underneath their wings, warheads seemingly hungry for a kill.
"I don't know, I don't think I care anymore," Fox replied, bluntly. "We'll kill this thing and pick off the rest of the rebels, and we'll airlift our VIP out of here if we have to afterwards."
-"Eh, no argument there I gu- Hey! Got movement in the trees! On the right, looks like our guy!"-
None of them needed an order from Fox now, with Krystal's semi-erratic shots having given the offending vehicle's position away. The vulpine didn't think, just acting on pure reflex after seeing a pine tree being bowled over below; he simply nosed down and fired wildly in its rough area with his cannons again. Most missed anything of note; splitting tree trunks and igniting leaves as he poured volley after volley of blaster fire with narrowed eyes and barred teeth.
A lucky shot seemed to ricochet off something below, Fox catching a glimpse of a sphere of fuzzy, rippling light of a deflector bubble. It was all he needed to see before yelling more orders over the radio; the rest of his team had probably seen it now, all knowing where to direct their aim.
"Looks like it's got shields! Drop everything we have on this asshole!"
Fox sent his Arwing into another vertical climb, adjusting his hands on the flight stick to prepare a charged shot as a finisher, should their target survive however many bombs the team had left. His vision ahead was filled with a growing orb of unstable energy building up just ahead of the craft's nose, held in place with a magnetic field and ready to spit forward at a moment's notice.
-"Dropping my last two!"-
-"Last one's on the way!"-
Gritting his teeth again, Fox rolled over and nosed down just in time to catch the three impacts of Star Fox's last warheads slamming home one after the other. The red fireballs seemed to mirror each other; testament to Slippy and Falco's accuracy. Fox squinted his eyes to look past his hungry charged shot, cutting his airspeed and waiting for the dust to clear from the impact zone; the computer never found their priority target in the first place.
His eyes went wide, spotting a tiny shape sitting in the middle of the massive, rocky crater the triple strike had left, seemingly intact. Without a second thought, the vulpine released the throbbing grip he didn't realize he had off the trigger, letting the volatile marble of energy loose on its target below.
Fox's aim was dead-on, white-hot plasma splashing and scattering like a fluid around the vehicle's shield, still having little effect and failing to stop the thing's driver from starting to reverse out of the crater.
-"You seein' this thing, Fox? No fuckin' way that surives three goddamn smart bombs!"- Falco's voice stating the obvious was drowned out by the screaming rush of Fox's afterburners, propelling the leader's Arwing directly towards the ground and his target.
Star Fox's leader narrowed his eyes as the landscape drew closer, the numbers on his altimeter rushing by wildly. Fox squeezed the trigger again, letting out a long burst of cannon fire in anger at his target's refusal to simply die like the hundreds of other vehicles he'd killed before.
Both cannons glowed red under the thermal buildup, vaporizing the moisture in the air into steam as the first warning of overheating yelled at him in the cockpit, practically begging Fox to let off the trigger. His iron grip and shaky hands ignored the system's protests, dumping more erratic firepower into the unaffected target. It had reached the edge of the crater now, pulling a hard turn to avoid cannon fire, reflector bubble still holding strong despite Fox's efforts.
The cockpit and his target became Fox's entire world; not even the thought of becoming an expensive stain on the ground bothered him now. He'd blasted away countless ground targets during his career; the ugly Venomian tanks, walkers and Aparoid insects had usually been nothing but fodder for his cannons. This thing had stubbornly broken that routine he cherished, and in that moment somehow nothing had felt so threatening.
-"Fox! Pull up! You're goin' way too damn fast!"-
Falco's panicked voice stabbed into Fox's tunnel visioned world, eyes going wide and yanking the stick back after seeing just how close he really was to slamming into the ground.
The team's leader was pressed into his seat as the nose pitched up, feeling faint even with diffusers working overtime to keep the pilot from completely losing consciousness.
Fox felt a loud bang rumble through the hull, and was twisted in the chair before more warnings yelled throughout his cockpit. The Arwing immediately felt sluggish responding to his controls as Fox pulled up further, hands still shaking.
The central monitor in his cockpit, holding flight system readouts and a digital visualization of his fighter flashed an error, the entire left wing shifting from the healthy white it usually displayed to a cold black.
"System error; left wing not responding. Maneuverability compromised," the flight computer bluntly droned in confirmation as Fox slowly leveled off, the team following closely behind.
-"FOX!"-
-"Shit! Fox, you okay?"-
-"Fox!"-
Waiting for his ears to stop ringing before he responded, Fox adjusted his position in his flight seat and leveled off. Ignoring the burning pain in his knee, the commander could finally hear himself think again. "I-I'm alright… My Arwing's not gonna stay in the air for much longer though."
-"No kiddin'! Fox, you're missing half of your left wing, trailin' smoke too!"- Falco's better view confirmed his fears; Fox's Arwing was mission-dead, only good now for limping back to the airbase. -"Dunno' how you're even still flyin'!"-
He sighed, letting his body slump back in the seat. Fox hadn't remembered if he'd ever smashed up his Arwing this badly before, especially not from his own pointless mistakes. The vulpine balled his fist and punched the interior of his canopy in frustration, trying to let his pent-up anger out in any way he could.
"...Gonna get yourself killed doing that, idiot."
Gathering up what little focus he had left, Fox brought his Arwing back into a slow turn, heading back to the battlefield. It handled more like a loaded freight shuttle now, completely lacking the snappy responsiveness he had grown accustomed to over years.
-"The hell you doin' Fox? You got another death wish or somethin'?"-
-"Fox! You can't fight anyone flying that!"-
The words of Falco and Krystal didn't deter him, not completely. "I-I hate to say this guys, but we've still got a job to finish. We'd be letting everyone down if we just bailed out now! Come on! We're not just any old band of mercs that'd fly off the second things got bad!"
-"Oh, I can't agree more, Fox, but you saw what we're dealin' with!"- Falco countered, pulling up alongside the leader's struggling aircraft. -"Our smartbombs didn't crack that tank's shield! What do you think another cannon run's gonna do?! We've got zero heavy weapons left, Fox! Dyin' for some Cornerian suit you've never met and probably won't ever again ain't worth it!"-
"I know Falco! I'm not planning on fighting it at all!"
The avian seemed dumbstruck by Fox's words, his expression on the comms panel displayed in another monitor in the Arwing's cockpit growing concerned, mouth slightly open.
"...I know it sounds insane, but one of you needs to land on the road next to our VIP's vehicle, squeeze him into the cockpit, and we all RTB. If we can't fight that tank, we'll just need to get into position faster than it can."
-"You're kidding!? Sounds like a really good way to get some rounds lodged in the fuselage, and, ya' know, our HEADS!"- The ribbons of projectile tracers still burning over either side of the canyon only made Falco's point have more weight. Fox's plan was either going to happen now, or never.
-"I'll do it, Fox,"- Krystal added, voice with a kind of blunt confidence Fox could recognize as genuine. -"I'll need cover from Slippy and Falco, otherwise we've got no chance of pulling this off."-
Fox felt his heart stop for a moment; he fully expected Falco to be more willing to pull a stunt like this instead. Slippy was capable enough of landing on the road too, just maybe not under fire. "A-Alright." He stuttered, partly feeling the need to stop her from going into a storm of blaster fire and turning into a priority target. "The second you get anything like a missile lock, you get the hell out with afterburners. I hate this plan but we're out of options."
-"I understand, Fox."-
-"We could always, you know, get the hell outta here! That's another option!"-
Fox glared, not entertaining Falco's statement with an answer. He couldn't deny his friend had a valid point, and if the circumstances were any different they'd be halfway back to base by now. "That's enough, Falco. Just keep her covered. Slippy, watch our feathered friend's tail."
Getting a hum from Slippy as a good-enough acknowledgement, Fox gloomily watched as Krystal's Arwing took point, with the other two falling in closely behind in a tight triangle of a formation. He already knew this was a mistake, and his team's blood would be on his hands here should someone get shot down. Still, they'd pulled off stunts like this before.
Rolling over slightly and looking down, Fox could barely make out the few surviving vehicles that once made up the proud convoy, all surrounding the comparatively small limousine in the center of the road. It hadn't moved far since the shooting started, and he wondered what the VIP inside must've been thinking about now.
Watching a small group of rebel vehicles being silenced by Falco's cannons, the team's leader brought his Arwing into a wide, slow turn still well above the warzone below. It felt like his craft was dying beneath him, but thankfully the engine hadn't been hit by anything yet.
-"Krystal! You're clear! They're all too busy shootin' each other! You've got a minute at most!"-
-"Thanks Falco, I'm going in!"-
Fox's eyes darted around the canyon after spotting Krystal's Arwing slow down for a hot landing, only catching the attention of a few bursts of small-arms fire as she got closer. Just when she was less than a hundred meters away, he spotted it.
The vulpine cursed himself for losing track of the vehicle he'd almost lost his Arwing too, now seeing it parked out in the open of a burned meadow. Its massive weapon and turret were easy enough to make out, and the intensifying glow at the far end could only mean one thing.
"KRYSTAL!"
Even from his height above everything, Fox still found himself deafened by the thunderous roar of the tank's weapon, instantly delivering its superheated payload downrange into whatever poor target found itself in the gunner's sights. He dared a look down at the road, spotting to his expected horror a bubbling fireball erupting from the rough center of the group of friendly vehicles.
-"Shit! Krystal!"-
-"Nnnnno!"-
Silence seemed to drown out the cries of the team over the radio while Fox was unable to pry his eyes from the blast area. He couldn't even spot the VIP's vehicle anymore; it was only a carbon stain on the road.
THis heart stopped as Krystal's Arwing flew directly out of the fireball; but its upward pitch and flaring afterburners confirmed she was still in control, and Fox was able to breathe again.
-"I-I'm fine, I think. Whatever that thing fired stripped my shields, but everything else seems okay."- she replied through panicked breaths, still trying to keep up her calm demeanor. -"Fox, this is over! There's nothing left of the convoy! Please, we need to get out of here!"-
Fox sat in silence for a moment, letting the realization stab into him. The only thing he felt for a while seemed to be the rumbling of his aircraft beneath the flight seat; even the voices of his team yelling over the radio felt muffled.
The team's leader couldn't remember the last time they'd failed, especially this spectacularly. Part of his consciousness that'd been silently nagging him all this time about not taking on the job in the first place screamed louder than ever, no longer content to be ignored. How would General Pepper react? Peppy? It wasn't a feeling he'd been too accustomed with.
"Why? Why would I fail now?" Everyone knew he'd beaten the odds time and time again, always managing to slip death the middle finger each and every time; where Andross's armadas, Star Wolf, and the Aparioids failed to snuff out Fox and his team. Yet despite everything, a single tank hand managed to pull off what an entire nation, and then later species couldn't achieve.
His team's voices slowly came back to him, growing louder and louder along with the rest of the real world, all yelling about one thing that snapped Fox back into reality for the time being.
-"Hey! Lylat to Fox! We've got a missile in the air! Hel-loooo! Fox! Wake up you idiot!"-
Instinctively, Fox fired up his Arwing's afterburners again, pulling back on the stick and feeling the damaged fuselage rattle beneath as the fighter struggled to respond, gaining altitude nowhere near as fast as he'd liked it to. The missile lock alarm had yet to start screaming at him yet, meaning whatever had been fired was after someone else.
"Who's it after? I've got no lock alarm!" Pulling the stick to the side, Fox forced the Arwing into another turn, trying to spot the missile among the poor visibility and his teammates.
-"L-looks like it's on my tail. Don't worry about me, Fox."- Krystal's voice came through this time, her calm and collected demeanor she'd held onto most of the mission starting to crack now that this whole operation had turned into a matter of survival.
Fox watched as the vixen's Arwing slowed down, finally spotting the white trail and thruster plume of the offending warhead catch up; the thing was small, likely fired from a shouldered launcher somewhere from the forest below.
As it got closer, Krystal threw her Arwing into a tight barrel roll, standard practice for confusing guided weapons like this. Venomian-made missiles historically struggled to keep up with the fighter's maneuverability, and if intel suggested this was one, this would be the last thing they'd do before heading back to the airbase.
Getting back into formation and approaching Krystal's Arwing, everyone watched as the azure vixen forced her Arwing into the team's signature maneuver seconds before impact, the missile harmlessly sailing past where her fighter once was and losing sight of whatever target lock it once had.
"...Alright, we're getting the hell outta' here. I don't care what-"
-"Uh, guys? It's coming back!"- Slippy croaked, flight radar picking up on the same object now blazing towards the tail end of Star Fox's formation. -"Get those ECM pods powered up! Should confuse it!"-
Fox reached down to a secondary panel in the cockpit, flicking a series of analog switches to divert power to the electronic countermeasure pod Slippy had affixed before take-off, finally glad he'd taken the precaution despite the extra weight. Everyone else did the same without Fox's orders, each ECM pod designed to drown out radar-guidance by spitting out false signals.
The vulpine looked over his shoulder, craning his neck to try and spot the missile, still seeing it blaze towards the team head-first thanks to the larger exhaust trail; whatever guidance it was fitted with now decided it was time to pick up speed.
"ECM's no good! Team, break up!"
On Fox's command, each of the four Arwings broke formation, all heading in separate directions to single out whatever target the inbound warhead had picked as its best target, ideally letting everyone else shoot it down.
"Slippy! Any idea what this thing is?! Heat seeker?!"
-"Uhhh, no idea! Scanner isn't recognizing it!"- Fox could hear his friend doing his best to rapidly reconfigure the custom sensor package he'd always had fitted to his Arwing, fingers flying over a touchscreen in the cockpit. -"This is what I get for not fitting our Arwings with flares! Uh, our standard shoot-down tactic should still work, at least! Who's getting a target lock warning? It's not on me!"-
-"Got nothin' here, Slip, Krystal?"-
-"No, not on my end… I can feel a weird energy coming from it, though. Almost like- No, no that can't be right."- Krystal's expression on the screen twisted, pressing her lips together in a strange look of confusion. It was an expression Fox hadn't seen since the Apariod campaign.
-"I'll try and explain it later! Let's just shoot it down and get out of here!"-
For the moment, Fox couldn't agree more. With the team flying well out of reach of the warzone, the missile was the only thing left any of them had to immediately worry about. Unable to look directly behind without turning around, the pilot eyed the radar's readout screen, watching the incoming muntion close the distance and steer itself in his direction.
"Looks like it's on me! Take it down guys!" He yelled into the comms, lacking the usual confidence the tactic the team came up with normally gave him; being effectively a sitting duck for this thing didn't help any, though.
Being the closest this time, Slippy banked into a hard turn towards the team's leader, the other two fighters following behind as backup. -"I'm on it! Just keep er' straight!"-
Slippy's Arwing opened up with cannon fire, blaster shots converging where the targeting computer thought would be best. Instead of mindlessly chasing Fox and being blasted to slag, the missile itself seemingly noticed, reacting by breaking off Fox's tail and rocketing upwards towards the cloud layer.
The mechanic's shots went wide, his own Arwing screaming past Fox's before leveling out and turning back.
"Slippy? What happened? It's still on radar!"
-"T-The thing dodged, Fox! Missiles aren't s-supposed to do that!"-
Looking up, Fox saw the burning exhaust contrail of the missile pull back around from its intense climb, now heading directly back towards them again. Knowing if it went for him again, there was zero chance Fox would be able to get out of the way. Left arm coming off the throttle and reaching down next to the seat for the eject lever, he watched with bated breath to see who this thing had decided was a better target.
It only took a few seconds to see it change course, thruster burning bright with whatever fuel mixture the damned thing burned as it plunged towards Star Fox faster.
"Falco, it's going for you!"
-"Shit, right, yeah!"-
The avian's Arwing pulled a sharp, flat turn, getting ready for a defensive roll. Looking up again, Fox caught the missile changing its course again, rolling and pitching wildly to intercept and bleed off speed, almost as if it was preparing for what Falco was about to do.
Falco barrel-rolled the fighter to the right as soon as he came out of his turn, wingtips generating the powerful electromagnetic shield that would've otherwise thrown off just about anything. Being the exception to the rule, the missile slowed itself down just enough to avoid blazing past its target, falling into another sharp turn and slamming into the rear of Falco's Arwing before anyone could react.
A/N: Still alive here, life kinda hit me like a freight train after I posted chapter seven.