A/n: Writing fanfics has become challenging of late, and this is no exception. It's the first time in 17 years that I've completed a Star Fox fanfic, it's my first story that remotely resembles science fiction, and it takes place on a moon. I've never written scenes like these before, let alone an unusual Christmas-themed story. Couple that with my constant effort to reinvent my writing style (which has proven itself incoherent and unreadable), and this story could wind up a painful read.
Even though people don't need my permission to critique my stories, I still want to spell it out: You have my permission. Whatever will help me become a better writer and storyteller, I would be delighted to hear.
In any event, I'm submitting this as an entry in the 2023 Foxhole Christmas contest. Whether or not it gets accepted, it's been a fun challenge..
Merry Christmas, y'all,
John
UPDATE 12/24/23: Alas, I was much too late for the contest. I'm still glad I wrote this, though. It was a blast returning to an old fandom, and I haven't had this much fun writing a story in a long time.
25 DECEMBER…
3:15 PM, CORNERIAN CONTINENTAL TIME…
Sunset on the Valaatan moon. The air was hot and thick and smelled of dirt. The crescent of a ringed planet hovered low in the western sky, and a golden sun appeared beneath its limb. Fragments of a shuttle lay all around, their mile-long shadows strewn across the sand; its nose was half-sunken in the ground, its hull creaking in the heat.
Fox McCloud ripped a panel off the hull of the cockpit and sighed in relief. A panel of lights and screens blinked at him, fritzing in and out. Not ideal, but an easy fix—the backup power supply needed to be stabilized just enough—and all away teams were given the gear for that sort of thing.
But then he thought of his prisoner, and he glanced over his shoulder and stared into the shadows. The bull was sitting nearby, tied up against a tree. His eyes were half-bleary with consciousness, brawny arms and bulging chest choked by a steel cable. As he got his bearings and wits about him, he wriggled and grunted to life and gave Fox a wary glare.
"You're not going anywhere," Fox said as he stared at the screen.
"Captain...listen..." The bull's voice was creaking back to life, but it was young and deep and strong. "I was trying to get away..."
Fox didn't reply. He plugged a cable into a port, and the panel before him came to life. Falco's livid face was on the screen, and lines of noise and distortion streaked across the display.
"—McCloud, I don't know where the hell you are or what's happened to ya, but if you get this message, finish off that son of a bitch—" (Static.) "Slippy's still unconscious. Krystal's still critical; doctor says she's bleedin' internally, metal rod stickin' outta her chest—" (Static.) "—did a full-spectrum brain scan on her. There's absolutely zero activity in the telecampus. Neurologically, she's about as normal as you and me—" (Static.)
Fox turned to the bull and scowled at him. "You know, I don't care what kind of excuse you make. This is over. You're going to tell us what you did, and then we're going to sentence your ass."
"Please, Sir, just hear me out—"
"I know all I need to know. All I have to do is get you back to our ship and see what else you know." With a sigh, he pushed a button on the console and said, "Falco, it's Fox. Can you read me?" But no reply. "Falco, it's Fox. Are you getting this?" Still reply. "Great Fox, I am on the Valaatan moon. Do you read me?"
"I can help you get out of here," the bull said. "My plane's on the other side of the dune. If I fly out of here, your people can spot me, and they'll know where to look for you."
"You've already done enough damage," Fox muttered. "Those civilians were trying to get off the planet, and you killed them."
"I didn't know who I could trust."
"I don't believe you."
"Captain, listen to me. You don't know my people. Our monarchies are run by lions. They loaf around at home and get fucked out of their minds while me and my people fight their wars. If we do what they want, we live another day. If we disobey them or mess up, they'll hunt us down. And I'm not saying that figuratively: They literally make it a thing. They turn us loose in the pasture, chase us down, and bite us until we bleed to death. And when all is said and done, we wind up on a platter at the emperor's banquet. is that how you'd want to die, Sir?"
A moue of disgust ran across Fox's face, but he shook it away and said, "Twelve people died on that shuttle. My girlfriend's hanging by a thread. My best friend's in a coma. They're an acceptable loss, and you're not?"
"I had to get to the wormhole."
"You were trying to get away from me."
"No, Sir, I'm a deserter."
"And I'm supposed to believe you? Right now it's just you, me, and the memory of what you've done." He snatched a blaster out of its holster and put a claw on the trigger. "I have every right to vaporize your brains and take your plane out of here, just to keep you from going back to your CO. Give me one reason I shouldn't—just one!"
"I'll blow up the wormhole for you, and you'll never see me again."
"That's not good enough!"
The bull wagged his head and shrugged his massive shoulders. "Look, I don't have an excuse. I've done a lot more than kill a handful of civilians. Besides, if you kill me, you'll be doing me a favor. I'd rather have my brains blown out than bleed to death in my emperor's jaws. 'Cause he doesn't like to kill people quickly; he likes to drag it out, so he can feel the heat leaving their bodies and watch the light leaving their eyes. I don't want to die like that, and I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of killing me. So if you're gonna kill me, just do it, 'cause I'm not going back to Valaatan." He gulped down a knot in his throat, and his voice went quaky. "But I just wanna live...I just wanna have a normal life...anything other than the life I had..."
Fox's face twisted and furrowed in agony. His paw shook and wobbled, his finger sitting over the trigger. The bull's face was in his sights, and the laser beam trembled on the bull's forehead, right between the horns. And then he saw Krystal, being blown out of the shuttle, impaled by a flying rod, and Slippy and his helmet getting ripped off his suit, his face going cold and lifeless before the transporter flashed blue...
The blaster flashed and roared in fury, and the bull toppled over in the sand. The cables sprang loose and whipped against the tree. A wisp of vapor and steam rose up from the tree, and the odor of pulverized metal and wood filled the air. And when the cloud faded away, the bull was on his knees, staring at Fox in open-mawed shock.
"Yeah. Merry Christmas, you son of a bitch," the vulpine muttered with a teary voice. "Now get out of here."
The bull wagged his head and went up to his trembling legs, blurting out "Thank you! Thank you!" as he charged across the sand. A minute later, a pair of engines roared awake, and the craft lifted over the dune in a cloud of dust and rose into the rusty sky.
I'm gonna regret this, Fox said to himself as he sank against the hull of the cockpit. I know I will.
With a sigh and a blink of his tears, he lifted his head up to the heavens. There was a streak of light hurtling away, a burst of light in the distance, then nothing.
"Proximity alert," Peppy said as the console warbled a warning sound. "Wormhole at coordinates 113.23.47. Gravity index, neutrino density decreasing. That's a collapse!"
"We're OK," the avian said flatly. "It's not exploding on our end; it's imploding. I pity the planets on the other end of it, though."
With a sigh, Peppy leaned against the armrest of his chair and buried his head in a hand. "Unbelievable," he muttered. "He gets onboard the shuttle without even scoping it out. How the hell could he have been so careless?"
"Hey, look, Krystal and Slippy were on that thing. If Fox hadn't boosted the transporters, they'd be dead. And anyway, he got the bull in there with him in the cockpit. It's a hell of an arrest, amiright?"
With an eye roll, the hare ran his fingers over the panel, and the rusty surface of the moon filled the screen. "Our sensors still can't get through the ionosphere. And if we boost them to maximum power, the Valaatan will find us."
"Let's go down to 1000 miles, do an optical scan. Wherever that plane took off, it's a good place to start."
Peppy considered the idea and weighed the odds, then bobbed his head. "Do it."
Falco's wingtips danced over the console, and the Great Fox's engines began to rumble. "Y'know, I still can't believe he let that kid go."
A pause, and the hare shrugged. "If I was him, I would have done the same thing. We came out here thinking the Kraylar were at war with them, and now we know it's the opposite. And as soon as we start raising hell on Valaatan, this war is going to be a bitch to fight. The more young men get out of this thing, the better. Besides, Christmas is a day of life and mercy, and sometimes you've got to let justice take a holiday...even a minute, if you can spare one. And maybe it's just me growing old, but part of me wonders if there's some grand life force behind it all—someone who wants to give us all a little slack, and someone who wants us to cut people a little slack in return." A pause, and the hare smirked. "I doubt it, though."
The avian didn't reply. He just leaned back in his chair and grew thoughtful. "By the way, what is Christmas?"
"Damned if I know," Peppy sighed. "Let's just find Fox and get this show on the road."
"10-4, chief," Falco said.
THE END