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CHAPTER 41
Red Goo
Slippy landed his Arwing amongst the sand dunes, grit kicking up as his ship came to a stop. An intense wave of heat and sunlight hit him as the cockpit opened up. It didn't help that the sand reflected even more sunlight into his eyes. Rustling his flight suit to try to get at least a little cooler, he descended the ship's automatic lander, boots hitting the sand below. It was as hot as it was back at the airfield, just replacing an endless field of gray with an endless field of yellow. And the lack of humidity didn't help. This dry climate was horrible for his amphibian skin. He'd need to take a trip to the Great Fox II's hot tub in the physical therapy room after this. It would no doubt get extensive use the longer they were here.
He turned around towards the wrecked crimson fighter, only seeing a part of it behind the next sand dune. But even from here, it didn't look like your typical crashed fighter. For one thing, your average fighter didn't leave droplets of blood everywhere when it hit the ground. Small crimson splotches marred the perfect yellow uniformity of the sandy hills, rolling downwards to make small red rivers. Of course, he doubted it was actual blood, but he found it difficult to think of it as anything else with that color. Slippy trudged up the hill, taking a closer look at one of the small streams of red in the sand. It moved slowly, collecting little grains as it went along. He sniffed, sensing a slight metallic smell too. Again, like blood.
Plunging his hand into the sand under the red liquid, he pulled up several globules of the stuff along with the grit. It rolled around in his hand, the droplets attempting to recombine into a bigger whole.
Someone walked up behind him.
"Umm…you sure you want to be touching that stuff?" Fara asked him.
"This looks like the same substance used to make Nail's glove." He rolled it around in his fingers. "A glove has to be in contact with your skin in order to use it, right? So I think it should be safe. We need to learn more about these fighters, before it's too late."
She couldn't fault him for that logic. They were lucky the red fighters only seemed to want to play around instead of shoot back, but next time their luck might run out.
What a strange means of propulsion those ships had. Most Lylatian fighters were propelled by means of a thruster, with avionics for in-atmosphere combat and smaller thrusters for movement in zero-G environments, but he hadn't seen a hint of anything like that from the red fighters. They moved more like an invisible hand controlled them through the air rather than by any visible means of propulsion. Perhaps some kind of advanced repulsor technology that wasn't around in Lylat?
They ascended the dune to the top, looking out over the wreckage of the fighter proper. If those tiny red drops of 'blood' looked creepy, it was nothing compared to this. Thousands of gallons of the crimson stuff covered the sand around the whole area, more of it concentrated in front of the wreck. Even more of it rolled off of the fighter's remaining structure, moving like thick red slime. Slippy could see what looked like a kind of wire frame structure poking out of the metallic goo in places, probably what the liquid coalesced around when the ship was intact. Too bad they had to bring this fighter down. He would have loved to get an up-close look at this ship in its complete form.
The pod-like cockpit was split into pieces between the explosion and the crash. He couldn't see much other than some jagged bits of metal at the base of where the pod had been attached to the rest of the frame, little else but scrap metal panels and wires sticking out of where the console would have been.
Slippy wanted to take a closer look, but that would've meant walking through all of that thick red goo to get to it. Though he hesitated at first, he stepped right on in. Slippy's feet sunk into the red goo up to his boots. Whatever this stuff was, it was like walking through thick mud and clung hard to his footwear.
"You're gonna walk in that crap?" Fara called out to him, staying at the edge of the giant puddle of red.
"I want to know more about how these things tick!" He called back, taking careful steps in the muck. "It could save our lives later, you know!"
Once he reached the fighter itself, he realized the only way to get up to what was left of the cockpit would be to climb on what was left of the fighter's wing. He looked at the ooze leaking off the structure, then looked at his hands and clothes. Letting out a sigh, he put his hands on the nearest bar and pulled himself up as best as he could, getting his entire outfit covered with the red goo. It was hard to walk on top of the fighter's structure too, considering underneath the goo it was just thin rails holding the structure together. There was less available space to walk on than it appeared, since droplets kept slipping off the rails wherever he stepped. He held his small arms out for balance, which didn't help much on keeping his center of gravity.
It just occurred to him though…the pilot hadn't ejected. Was he about to get an up-close look at the corpse? Gulping, he climbed up towards the smashed-in cockpit window and looked inside. However, there was no trace of a body. It was probably nothing but atoms in the breeze now, considering he could only see the base of the chair where the pilot would have sat, plus most of the control console was gone as well. While glad he did not have to see a body, he was also disappointed. Learning more about those mysterious pilots would've been useful intel.
"Hey, Slippy?" Fara's voice came over his comms device.
"Yeah, what?" He was too busy looking around the cockpit to pay close attention.
"I hear ships approaching."
"Probably just Separatists coming to check on us." He studied the central control console for the pilot intently. "I'm busy in here."
"Umm…all right. Just thought you'd want to know. Say, speaking of that, don't you think it's weird Filmore didn't land with us? He's still circling overhead and not answering my comms."
That was strange, come to think of it. Slippy looked up into the sky through the shattered window, hearing the faint roar of the eagle's fighter.
Ah well, the investigation of this fighter was more important right now. He turned back to his study of the goo-covered console. Numerous wires and circuit boards stuck out of what looked like more electronic machinery under the floor, although it was hard to make out with the ship's liquid metal in the way. He dunked his hands in to move it aside.
What was underneath made for a strange sight. He recognized circuit boards you'd probably see within a typical fighter's flight computers. Looked like knockoffs of Lylatian tech, to be truthful. Yet he also spotted a bunch of wires and connections hooked up to things he didn't recognize. What were these strange-looking pyramid-shaped devices with these orange pulsing lines on them? It almost looked like the same color as the energy source that glowed underneath the fighter's liquid body.
He needed to get this ship back to base for further study. If only he had the equipment on hand to plug into this ship's computers. He wanted to learn all of its secrets. But how to haul this whole wreck back to the Great Fox II? Sure, they'd had to recover wrecked Arwings before (mostly thanks to himself) but none of those fighters were dripping parts of themselves everywhere…
Oh well, best to just call ROB and figure things out later.
Fara called him first, though. "Hey Slippy, a Separatist transport ship has landed. Got a bunch of Separatist troops headed my way, and they don't look happy to see me."
He turned around, looking through the cockpit window. Armed soldiers in desert camouflage rushed straight for her. The first one to reach her, a large black bull, grabbed her shoulder and stared pulling her away from the wreck.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" he could hear her over the comms. She tried to resist, but a second and third soldier grabbed her, overpowering her and pulling her back. "We're on your side!"
The comms picked up the voice of the bear. "Sorry ma'am, we must cordon off this area. Please come this way."
Oh crap! Slippy's eyes widened, ducking inside the cockpit. He wanted to bring at least something back to the Great Fox II for study, but how? Making a snap decision, he crawled over to what was left of the electronic internals and yanked a few out…some of the ordinary circuit boards and some of the strange pyramid ones, before sticking them within his gooey jacket. He crawled out of the cockpit through a hole in its armor in the rear of the compartment, to where he could not be seen by the approaching soldiers.
He fell to the sand below, the strange goo all over him picking up the sand particles. Carrying his folded jacket in his hands, he hurried down the hill behind the wreck, dashing behind the next sand dune for cover. Burying his bundled jacket in the sand, he stuck his comms device inside with the rest of the items. The device's signal would lead him back here later.
Hurrying back up the hill, Slippy stepped out from behind the fighter, letting the Separatist soldiers see him.
"You there, come here!" the lead bull soldier rushed towards him. He towered over Slippy like a giant brick wall covered with black fur.
"Hey, Ooveh!" The bull turned around. "He's been mucking around in the wreck. What should we do with this guy?"
A massive bear—almost as big as the bull himself—approached and towered over Slippy as well, casting him in shadow. Strangely, the bear froze in surprise for a moment when he looked Slippy in the face, but soon turned his attention to the red goo, his expression hardening. "Your clothes," he spoke in a weird accent. "Give them to me. Now."
"What?!"
"Your clothing is contaminated." The bear reached for Slippy's shirt, along with other soldiers reaching for his boots and pants.
"Hey, stop it!" Slippy tried to push them away, but too many hands came upon him.
"Wash him off. Someone get him something to cover up," the bear said as he dumped the clothing into a plastic bag being held by a soldier. "Just use the emergency blanket from our medical kit. He must take a decontamination shower once we return back to base."
Within a few moments, Slippy had been stripped stark naked to his green skin, the rest of his clothes dumped into the same bag. Separatist soldiers doused with water from canteens and water bottles to remove any of the stray red particles, before he was handed a mundane gray blanket. He barely had time to wrap it around himself before the soldiers grabbed him again to take him to a waiting transport ship. It all happened so fast, and Slippy was so shocked and confused by the entire situation, he couldn't do much to resist.
The bear looked away, observing the gooey red fighter as other soldiers set up a perimeter.
"Hey, what'd you do with Fara?!" Slippy yelled to him. "Where's the rest of my team?!"
~X~
Fara had her own pair of soldiers escorting her into the back of a waiting troop transport ship, where Falco and Katt were already seated inside.
"Oh, they grabbed you too, huh?" Falco scowled at the troops hauling her in, folding his arms together. "Didn't like you looking too close at the red ships?"
"I guess so." Fara frowned.
The two soldiers moved to the base of the exit ramp, one of them keeping an eye on the three of them while the other watched the exterior.
"The nerve of these guys!" Falco pointed at them. "They seized our Arwings too!"
"It was for your protection, Herr Lombardi."
Everybody turned towards the rear exit ramp, where the voice with the peculiar accent came from. The bear walked into the compartment, his head coming close to grazing the ceiling. He needed to duck slightly to avoid bumping his head on a pipe, his muscled body blocking most of the rear ramp from view.
The rest of the view was blocked off by the large black bull stepping in beside the bear, both of them forming a solid wall. "I am Tor, and I am in command of this op," the bull said. He gestured towards the bear. "This is Ooveh, a scientist and researcher with our military's R&D division. He'll explain why we seized your ships."
Ooveh had a strange, amused expression as he appraised Falco, Fara, and Katt. "What a peculiar turn my career has taken. I never expected I would be working alongside Star Fox."
"N-no…" Katt tried to correct him, albeit with her tone of voice she didn't sound convincing. "We're Nine Lives."
"Oh please, I am originally from Lylat. I know all about you." Ooveh chuckled, although he stopped as he looked at all of their faces again. "Where is Fox, though?"
Katt shared uncomfortable glances with Fara and Falco, before she decided to speak up, repeating the lie she'd told Filmore earlier. "He wasn't with us for this mission. He had some mechanical trouble with his Arwing and needed to take it for a test flight to verify everything was OK."
"Strange to see you operating without him leading, but oh well. Your anger is justified, but we are only doing what we are required to do. The area needs to be cordoned off immediately, and we have to ensure there are no traces of contamination on you or any of your ships."
"Excuse me, pal…" Falco glared at Ooveh. "Nobody touches my Arwing but me. Besides, didn't we just protect the city from those red fighters?"
"That is true, but that red goo gets everywhere. Stray particles may have landed on your ships during the dogfight, or when you landed too close to the wreckage. Your toad friend can attest to that. We must clean him and your ships to remove contamination before we return them to you."
"Wait…is Slippy going to be okay?" Fara asked. "Is that red stuff toxic?"
"He will be fine, rest assured, but I am not at liberty to discuss any other details with you." Ooveh frowned at the three of them. "We may be allies, but you are outside contractors. I will not answer any questions about that red substance, so please do not ask anymore about it."
"I'd kind of like to know, pal!" Falco stood up from his seat, marching over towards Ooveh and craning his head up to scowl. Even though Falco was the tallest member of Star Fox, he still only went up to about the bear's chest. "Do the Royalists have any more of those fighters? What if those two fighters were just the start of an invasion force? We can't protect you if you've got our ships!"
"If there is anything you need to know or if we need your help," Tor said, stepping between Ooveh and Falco. "We will tell you, but only when it is required and not a moment before."
The troop transport's engines hummed to life, the craft vibrating around them.
"Anyway," Ooveh said, "we have a lot of work to do and must get as much done as we can before nightfall. Have a safe flight back to Kinnor. I'll try to get your fighters back to you before evening. Auf wiedersehen!" He waved them goodbye as he and Tor departed. The ramp rose up as they stepped off.
"Hey, I'm not done talking to you!" Falco tried to follow after him.
One of the soldiers turned around and barred the way, not shy about showing off the assault rifle in his hands. His glaring face was the last thing they saw before the ramp sealed shut.
"Damn it!" Falco shook his head. "Corneria never jerked us around like this!"
"Just cool it Falco." Katt stood up, guiding him back to his seat. "These guys are our hosts remember? We can't be butting heads with them."
"But if they don't tell us more about those red fighters or whatever else the Royalists have, it could get us killed next time! We can't even protect the city right now without our fighters!"
"I know it sucks," Katt said, as the two of them sat back down. "But having an attitude's not going to fix anything right now. Let's wait till we get back to the Great Fox II, okay? We can talk more about it then."
Falco grunted in acknowledgment rather than speaking, leaning back into his seat with his arms crossed.
Fara settled back into her own seat, doing her best to relax as the ship lifted off with a smooth hum. At least Katt had the same talent as Fox at keeping Falco's hotheadedness in check.
Where was Slippy right now, though?
~X~
Several hours later—and wearing a spare flight jumpsuit the Separatists had given him—Slippy was shoved out the door of some generic-looking office building, carrying a plastic trash bag containing his wet Star Fox uniform. They didn't even bother drying it off after cleaning it. He glared back at the door, but it was already shut.
Felt like all the questions he'd gone through inside were never going to end. As soon as he was done with one Separatist military interrogator asking him technical questions about the fighter, another one came into the room to ask him even more. What did you see in the control console? You saw a circuit board? Describe it in detail. What numbers did it have on it? What components were on the board? And so on and so forth. The whole time he'd been scared for his life too, not knowing what they were going to do with him once all the interviews were over with.
But all of a sudden, his final interrogator got a call on his phone, and then he just turned to Slippy and said, 'you're free to go now.' And here he was.
While glad to be outside, how was he going to get back to the Great Fox II? It was late in the evening, the streets were deserted, and he couldn't see anything around him but more of the same anonymous-looking office buildings. The buildings seemed to stretch on forever in every direction in perfect uniformity, not unlike some of the government districts of Corneria City.
And he'd left his communicator buried in the desert, so no way to call the rest of the team to come get him…assuming they also didn't get locked up too.
Sighing, he supposed it couldn't be helped, and set off in search of a way to get back. It would be a long walk, considering there were no signs of a monorail or bus stop anywhere. He walked a few blocks, finding himself on more streets with more office buildings just like the one he had left. With all of the structures looking the same, it didn't even feel like he'd left the place where he'd started. How much longer was this going to go on for?
But even as he was thinking about it, a military jeep with a cloth top pulled up to the sidewalk next to him. He couldn't see the driver's face with the cloth top in the way, but they wore a Separatist military uniform.
"You need a ride? Get in," the driver said.
Though grateful for the generosity, that voice sounded awfully familiar.
The driver leaned in forward, revealing the face of a chimp. It was Quint.
Suddenly Slippy didn't mind walking anymore. "Uh, no…that's fine." He put on a nervous smile and looked away from the jeep, shoving his hands in his pockets and picking up his pace.
Quint sped up in his jeep to stay alongside, keeping pace with the toad's walking speed. "That wasn't an offer. It was an order."
Grimacing, he turned back to the chimp.
"Come on, don't be so glum." Quint was giving him a wry half smile. "You could at least say 'Hey Quint, thanks for getting me out of that interrogation room!'"
Slippy blinked. "Wait, that was you doing that?"
"Of course!" the chimp pushed the passenger door open. "Got to look after my assets. You're no good to me locked up in a Separatist military prison."
The toads heart began to race. "T-they would've taken me there if you hadn't—?"
"Eh, probably." He shrugged like it was no big deal. "You should feel privileged. Wouldn't have looked good on my record if you wound up there."
Slippy on the other hand though did not feel reassured by the gesture. So if it was someone else besides a member of Star Fox, they would've been left to rot? He wanted to say that, but thought better to mention it.
"Anyway, you owe me one." Quint pat the seat. "So do what I say and get in the car."
Shaking his head, Slippy slid into the passenger's seat and shut the door. He hadn't noticed until now, but there was somebody sitting in the back. They also wore Separatist desert camouflage, but to Slippy's surprise this other person was a cute white cocker spaniel wearing a pink bow tie in her hair, which clashed heavily with the clothes.
"Hi there!" she smiled at him. She extended a hand, which Slippy shook. Her bubbly voice helped put him a little more at ease, although he found it weird she was with Quint of all people. "Fay Spaniel. I'm with the Separatist military R&D."
"And also our OIC plant in there," Quint added on, as they pulled away from the curb.
Slippy blinked. He needed a moment to process that. "…you, really?" He chuckled. "A spy? Don't you think you stand out a little for that?"
"It's worked out for me so far." She giggled. "Do you think anyone would suspect me of being a secret agent?"
Considering he was surprised by the mention of it, she had a point.
"She's done a lot of good work." Quint turned the jeep out of the government district, returning them back to a civilian neighborhood with more homes and shops. "Brought us back a lot of valuable intel that'll go towards keeping Corneria as the dominant superpower in Lylat and beyond for decades to come. Not enough though. I might have connections, but I haven't been able to get Fay assigned to researching that crashed red fighter just yet." He gave a sideways glance to Slippy as they turned a corner towards the highway. "That's where you come in, Slip. I didn't get you out of there just cause I'm a nice guy. Oh no. I need you to tell me everything you told the Separatists."
Slippy could feel his face falling. So he'd been taken out of one interrogation just to be put into another one? This day just got better and better.
"I'll just take us on a little scenic drive." Quint smiled, as they got onto the highway and started heading out of town, palm trees lining the road as they headed in the direction of the Nivev River from earlier in the day. After a while, the desert turned from yellow to green as they drove past verdant fields of crops, with the waters of the Nivev River twinkling in the distance from the light of the setting sun, the blue water tinged purple. "A little more relaxing than that small white cube with the magic mirror, don't you think? Also pretty easy to see if we're being followed. Not much driving out here but supply trucks going to and from the farms."
Suppose Quint had a point about moving somewhere where they were harder to monitor. Slippy sighed. "I didn't get much time to look around inside. Probably about ten or fifteen minutes, until this bear with a weird accent grabbed me and took my clothes." He shook the trashbag.
"Sorry about Ooveh." Fay smiled. "He's blunt, direct, and focused on efficiency. Great for getting research and development done fast, but not so much for interacting with other people. If I can get in his team, I'll do my best to make up for him, though." She giggled a little. "Brilliant guy. He kind of just showed up one day out of nowhere and asked for a job with us, and he's been rising in the ranks fast ever since."
Slippy was about to bring up how he'd taken a stash of circuit boards from the fighter and then hidden them near the wreck, but then thought twice about telling Quint. What if Quint just ran out to the desert, grabbed the stash, and didn't bother sharing anything? Slippy wouldn't put that beyond him. From what he'd heard so far, Quint seemed far more interested in getting more intel versus helping Star Fox.
"Were you going to say something?" Quint asked, when he noticed words on the tip of Slippy's tongue.
Slippy wrung his hands. Going behind the backs of their hosts, and now the OIC? But what else could be done? He didn't know who he could trust on this planet outside of his friends, and Star Fox's very survival was at stake.
"Umm…I was just going to say it had the strangest looking circuitry I've ever seen. Technology appeared of alien origin, or at least of no origin I know of. I did notice some more conventional-looking circuit boards though, like you could probably find in Lylatian computers. They were hooked up together, as if the existing tech were used to interface with this strange alien hardware. They looked like small glowing pyramids. Don't know if these pyramids were manufactured or if they were scavenged from some other source. I'd guess the latter, because if the Royalists knew how to manufacture those things themselves, they wouldn't have bothered having a go-between solution with existing technology."
"So some of the technology going into those red fighters must still be unknown to them. Like they still haven't figured out how to completely take apart the black box yet." Quint stroked his chin. "That's somewhat encouraging then. Means that whatever the Royalists are building, it must be at least partly retrofitted from another source and they haven't fully mastered manufacture of it yet, and it means they probably can't field too many more of those red fighters. They may not be as far along in development as we thought. That's good. Gives us time to catch up. We need to figure out where they're getting this stuff from. Fay, I'll see what strings I can pull to expedite you getting a closer look at the fighters. Help fill in the blanks that Slippy is providing."
"I'm on it, if you can get me closer," Fay said. "Ooveh's likely going to be taking charge though. He's got a small group of scientists he prefers to work with. Might be hard to convince him to let me on his team."
"Speaking of the fighters," Slippy asked. "I was so worried about those interrogations I didn't have time to think about how the Royalists just invaded Separatist territory. Do you think the war's about to start up again? Everything around here looks awful calm, all things considered."
"Ah, it'll be fine. Neither side really wants a fight right now." Quint smirked. "Not yet, anyway. Given that the Royalists fired on the red fighters before they crossed the border, and the fact that the red fighters never actually fired any weapons, the Separatists want to do a more thorough investigation before deciding on a response. I also hear that Royalist diplomats were in a hurry to get in contact with their Separatist counterparts to calm things down. The calls were coming in right as the fighters crossed the border. Don't worry about anything just yet. I've got something else for you to do right now anyway." Quint looked in his rearview mirror. "Think you could show Slippy that thing, Fay?"
Fay's ears perked up, as she smiled and picked up a large bag she had on the backseat next to her. "Here. This might help you if any more of those fighters show up." She held out the bag to him. "Take a look."
That got Slippy's attention. He pulled the canvas bag from the back seat, bringing it into his lap. A series of loud clanking noises came from the bag as he moved it. He unzipped it, showing a strange mangled mess of metal, wires, and other curious components.
"What's this?" Slippy opened it up wider. Looked like nothing but a giant mess of parts to him.
"You know how those red ships lost cohesion in their liquid metal bodies after you shot them down? What if I told you this device could potentially do that, but without the need to shoot them at all? With just a signal fed to the nanobots?"
Slippy's eyes widened. "Well, that would change things. But why is it all smashed up?" He reached into the bag, holding up a random component.
Fay's smile disappeared when he asked. "I presume you know about the Retinue?"
"Yes, we were briefed on them by Stan."
Fay got a faraway look in her eyes, and hesitated to speak at first. "I was with a Separatist unit that got into a battle with them not too long ago. We were trying to rescue Giichi after he'd been handed over to the Royalists. The device was able to stop the Retinue's metallic gloves from working, but…" She trembled, rubbing a finger across her eyes as if to brush away a tear. "Th-they figured out what I was doing, and then they tried to kill me. I'm lucky they only destroyed this instead." She paused, rocking back and forth in her seat, looking at the green fields alongside the road. "But a lot of other people died though."
"Oh…" Slippy put the component back. He felt like he'd made a mistake. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to remind you of that."
She sniffled, looking back to him. "I-it's fine. I knew something like this would happen eventually when I decided to go undercover here." She sure didn't sound fine though, as she brushed a hand across her eyes again. Looking Slippy in the face again, she said, "Um, anyway, I'm too busy with other projects right now to fix this, and I've been having trouble duplicating my old work. Maybe you could take a look at it in the meantime? I think you need it a lot more than me right now."
Though sad for her loss, if he could figure out how to miniaturize this and fit it to their Arwings, then next time maybe they'd be able to cause the fighters to melt into pieces before a dogfight even started. It sounded too easy. He smiled at her. "I will, thanks."
Before he could ponder the possibilities, Quint brought up something else. "So last night at the restaurant…" He looked over the grassy farm fields around the road. "You told me that Fox had to run back to the Great Fox II to check on something. Yet I'm hearing from my sources he didn't fly with you this morning. I also heard around the same time we spoke, an Arwing took off from the Great Fox II and headed off somewhere to the northwest of the city. Was Fox flying that ship?"
Slippy gulped. "So far as we know."
"Unbelievable." Quint shook his head. "Never thought I'd see the day when Fox McCloud would go AWOL like that. He's gone looking for Krystal, hasn't he?" The chimp glared at him. "No wonder Fox put Katt in charge without telling us."
Quint more or less had it all figured out. Slippy dreaded what the chimp might say next.
"He's going to have a lot to answer for once we catch up to him." Quint glared at Slippy. "I'll send some people out in the desert to search for him. You just focus on defending the capital and gathering more intelligence." He hit the turn signal and pulled off onto the next offramp, turning the jeep back around on the overpass. "I think I've heard enough for now. I'll drop you off at the spaceport."
Slippy nodded silently, too afraid to say anything else and glad the conversation was over. It was good that Quint would have people looking for Fox, but what sort of punishment would come once he was found?
This first day had been quite the crazy turn of events. Fox missing, mysterious red fighters with capabilities far beyond anything they'd seen in Lylat, not to mention Star Fox was sneaking around the backs of the nation they were supposed to be allied with. And hiding things from their boss too, couldn't forget that.
Why couldn't things be more like they were back during the Lylat Wars, where all you had to do was shoot the enemy in front of you? He hated to say it, but he kind of missed the simple clarity and morals of those days…
~X~
Back on Corneria, Stan slumped in his padded office chair, looking at the words on his computer monitor but not really seeing them. The goat's tie hung loose around his neck, his white fur was disheveled, and his horns were unwaxed. Couldn't have been bothered to do it on a Friday. He kept glancing through the window blinders at the wooded OIC HQ campus outside his building, thinking about what he might do this weekend. Clock out time was less than twenty minutes away, so focusing on work was out of the question right now. That hiking trip he'd been thinking about all week was calling his name. Given his species, he always felt contentment and peace up amongst the clouds on the tops of mountains.
Maybe with how his supervisor was on vacation today, nobody would know or mind if he slipped out a few minutes early? He looked at his suit jacket on a hook by the door, and smirked. Well, why not? He was about to log off when his computer pinged him about a new email arriving.
"Oh of all the—" Stan groaned, until he saw the recipient. "Oh, Quint!" His eyes lit up. Ever since he'd heard Star Fox had finally made it to Thaljista, Stan had been eager for an update.
He clicked on the message, leaning forward in interest as he read about the red fighters. Those ships being in Separatist hands sounded just like the intelligence-gathering opportunity they were after. It was good news that the war probably wouldn't be restarted over this, but only because peace would work better insofar as completing OIC's mission.
The next part of the report intrigued him as well:
Found out that Fox abandoned his team to look for Krystal. Of course, we anticipated he'd do this based on how he behaved in your briefing at Beltino station, so everything is still operating within expected parameters. We'll keep an eye on his progress. Hopefully he leads us right to what we're looking for. It's always good to have a backup plan, isn't it?
"Indeed it is." Stan smiled.