Chapter 10: Krystal's Dilemma
Krystal woke up in a space station's capsule dorm, her mind calm and focused on her family. For their sake, she would obliterate the remnants of the pirate leadership left behind after the death of their master, Wolf O'Donnel. With the money she had sent home from nabbing escaped convicts from Fortuna, which had become a penal colony after the Anglar Blitz had rendered Venom useless, Fox had finally been able to buy Marcus some grander playthings.
She remembered helping Marcus put together a miniature G-Zero racecourse while Fox had been sick in bed. Fox had bought it for Unification Day, the holiday commemorating the C.E.R's final conquest of Corneria, whereupon the planet's leaders had been "gifted" with the resolve and technology to stop the planet's environmental decay. After she had cut open the box with a letter opener, Krystal and her son spread across the floor alongside the parts of his new toy. She didn't want him to accidentally break it and throw a fit.
This part goes here, the boy had confidently asserted while attempting to force two mismatched segments of track to align. The tempered lime green bioplastic had strained under his grip, but he hadn't seen the difference between the connecting tabs and slots.
Little one, Krystal remembered advising him, those parts don't go together.
This is the curve that comes out of the booster. Marcus was assembling the track based on the image on the front of the box, and an explosion accentuating a product feature had obscured part of the track. Meanwhile, Krystal looked at the directions, unable to read her family's thoughts while doing so.
There's a straight piece between the booster and the curve, she informed her son, You just didn't see it.
No, Marcus believed he was stating the obvious, there's no straight piece there.
It was hiding, Krystal cheekily explained, behind the explosion.
Huh?
Come look at this. Krystal beckoned Marcus to her side and opened the instruction manual to its second page. A short straight piece of orange track connected the booster to the first half of the figure eight the track would ultimately form with a loop in its center.
Why was it behind the explosion? Marcus was puzzled.
To make little boys excited to play with their toys, Krystal smiled, but I think they could have chosen a different design. A lightning bolt, perhaps. It was still difficult for her to see an image of an expanding fireball without conflating it with some form of mortal injury.
Ok. Let's put this together. The soft clicks and pops of the raceway's formation hadn't bothered Fox despite his headache. Marcus, excited to hear the lights and sounds the booster would emit as its motors propelled the tiny racer along its course, had prepared to switch the track on.
Krystal remembered tapping him on the shoulder, It will be too noisy for daddy. I'm sorry. We can play with it when daddy feels better. The racer can drive on the bedroom floor for now if you want.
Ok. Marcus had dashed across the carpet on all fours, pushing the tiny vehicle ahead of him. Seeking the noise of the G-Diffusers, Marcus readied himself to force air past his lips, like the cones of plasma that flared from the racers' exhaust in the Arrow Racers cartoon. Krystal gently reminded him to keep quiet.
The racer needs to have quiet engines, she'd integrated her advice into Marcus' frame of reference, otherwise the Goras will wake up and eat him. The Goras was an extinct creature native to the desert world of Titania. Back in the present, Krystal opened her eyes, surveying the slate gray walls of her deep-space accommodations.
Over a breakfast of rehydrated Pukpuk eggs, she recalled running afoul of two Zeram-class Cruisers in a single pirate flotilla last week. The Zeram was exceedingly rare and expensive to maintain, as most had been destroyed or rendered obsolete over time. The only people with the money to afford to maintain a Zeram-class were mining barons. She remembered a name that had appeared many times in her interrogations, and a hypothesis formed in her mind.
Julius James Teargully, she thought to herself, closing the image of her frolicking son that filled her phone's screen. She remembered the memories she'd pulled from the last pirate captain she'd dragged off to Fortuna. The monitor lizard named Gerry Filberson had been involved in an information smuggling ring, and his retrofitted transport ship had been stuffed to the brim with server banks for holding his product. However, these had suffered damage as shots meant for the Cloudrunner had missed their mark and collided with Gerry's craft. Krystal had brought her fighter around and destroyed the inaccurate mercenary fighters that had given her chase along the transport's hull. Landing in the hangar of Gerry's vessel, she'd quickly tracked him to the bridge using her telepathy and burned a pair of holes in his shin with her laser pistol.
"Look," Gerry had shuddered under Krystal's icy gaze, falling to one knee, "I'm just a mail courier-". He'd reached for his own sidearm behind his back, but Krystal had already pounced, punching his sidearm away with her right hand and knocking him flat with a second blow to the jaw. Two of Gerry's subordinates had leaped from their workstations to his defense, but were wounded as they thought to draw their weapons. More of the same crimson beams that had crippled Gerry lanced out to slay his employees. With the ship in an uncontrolled drift, Krystal had turned to leave the bridge for the server room once she'd cuffed her target.
"Hey," Gerry agonizingly called after his assailant, "You'll get more if you bring me in alive."
"Do you know who's maintaining Lylat's Zeram-class cruisers?" Krystal pressed Gerry for an answer.
"N… I mean…," Gerry tripped over his speech when he realized he could not fool the callous bounty hunter, "Your answers are in the server room. Help me right the ship and I'll show you where to get the info you're looking for." Krystal nodded, sensing he did not wish to die on the outskirts of the Meteo Belt as an asteroid dismembered his ship.
"Is there an autopilot system?" Krystal wondered.
"No," Gerry confessed, "I removed it to expand my cargo hold."
"That's another mark against you," Krystal dryly sighed, "A Dreadnought-class with no autopilot."
Gerry cursed his misfortune before pleading into the intercom, "All hands to the bridge, the ship is out of control!"
Several underlings headed to the bridge, and upon seeing the chaos seared into the room's tapestry of maroon walls and metal control consoles blinking with lights and glyphs, drew their weapons against Krystal. She ordered them to surrender and take command of the navigation systems. They did so, running their hands desperately over the controls, causing thrusters to fire erratically. Jerry barked some orders to the panicked crew, "Steady her out! Apply our two o'clock XY at 90% and fire retros! Divert all thruster power to shields once we stop!" The ship yawed to the right and pitched upward slightly, the silent scream of its thrusters leaving it hanging delicately in the star riddled void. A meteorite drifted past its ventral port hull.
"Alright," Krystal nodded towards the bridge's exit, "Show me where the server room is." She brandished a datastick given to her by Space Dynamics for file retrieval.
"Or what?" Gerry was unfazed.
"I could see you booked for threatening a paralegal," Krystal promised, "and make it so you could never hold a weapon again."
As Gerry guided Krystal to the server room while she helped him limp after her, the transport's shields shuddered under intermittent barrages of rock. The soft thuds mingled with the gentle rumble of the ship's reactor in a harmony like a Saurian spring rain. Surrounded by rows of metal boxes twinkling with verdant constellations, Krystal plugged her datastick into the console Gerry indicated, extracting the data on the Zeram cruisers' financeer before recovering the company files Space Dynamics had asked her to retrieve. Gerry was hauled aboard the Cloudrunner before Krystal contacted the Cornerian Fleet so they could retake the vessel. She'd turned the name Gerry's information had given over in her head many times, realizing it had featured prominently in the minds of some other pirate warlords: Julius Teargulley, head of Macbeth's premiere silver and platinum mines. Gerry had also recorded Julius' lobbying heavily for upper class tax breaks, intending to blackmail his client if the mining baron had let word of their correspondence slip.
Krystal had made a private copy of the information regarding Julius on her phone before cleanly removing it from the datastick's records.
Back on the space station, Krystal turned her attention back to her family after letting the memory run its course. The rest station near Fichina was much farther from Sauria than the one in the Meteo Belt, so any telepathic message she did send would be hazy and difficult to understand. She opted for the holodisk in her pocket instead, dialing her husband.
He responded lethargically, as he was recovering from a migraine. He sat upright in bed, holding an ice pack to his head with one hand while cradling the holodisk in the other. "Hello," Krystal spoke to her husband, "I hope you're feeling better." Her five year old looked up from his picture and word matching puzzles and rushed to his father's side.
"Hi, mommy," the boy greeted her with his usual ecstasy.
"Hello," Krystal returned her son's smile with saccharine gusto, "How is my big boy?" Marcus closed his eyes, trying to send his mother a telepathic communique. It didn't work. "You can talk with your mouth, too," Krystal explained, "It is very hard to speak without talking, and you should not worry if you can't."
"I wuv you, mommy," Marcus replied.
"Of course, Marcus," Krystal playfully shook her head side to side, "Is Raxis helping you with your school puzzles?"
"Yes," Marcus proudly declared.
Marcus cupped the image of his mother between his palms, like he was cradling her or warming his hands by a candle. His mother realized he wanted to give her a hug, and telepathically sent him the sensation of warmth. Such a simple message was largely unaffected by the distance between her and her son. She tapped into his memories of being wrapped in a safe environment, whether it was his parents' arms or a sleeping bag. Marcus closed his eyes.
"I am safe," Krystal informed him, "I will see you later this month, my sweet boy." Krystal spoke to her husband, "How are things?"
"Well," Fox shrugged, "I'm here, so yeah, I'm fine. I'm getting knocked out three times a week now." His wife hung her head, saddened that his injuries were worsening, impairing his judgment. Fox naively asked her if she enjoyed her work. Krystal's jaw clenched as she squeezed her eyes tight. Marcus eyed the projection of her face worriedly, and tugged at Raxis' arm. Raxis led the boy out to the balcony and let him roll his toy cars around on the deck surface.
The stress of Krystal's life's workload overwhelmed her, "Do you think I wanted to do this job?"
"No," Fox exclaimed, "I didn't want you to do it either, but you did!"
"We were financially desperate," Krystal emphatically recalled, "and I did look for other options!"
"I was four when I lost my mom," Fox angrily reminded her, "Marcus shouldn't lose you, too!" Tears welled up in Krystal's eyes, and she ran her left forearm across her face.
"I understand," Krystal struggled to speak as sobs threatened to pass her lips, "I do this to let you know I am safe!"
"You've been doing this for two whole years now!"
"I wanted to secure our family's future!" Krystal breathed heartily, struggling to soften her tone, "I have made a point of returning home every month to be with you both, but if that is not enough, I will reduce my hours."
"Quit," Fox insisted, "we have enough to send him to college. Hell, we could even take a vacation or two." Krystal gritted her teeth, and tears of regret ran down her face.
"Don't hang up," Krystal requested as she slowly steadied herself, "Let me compose myself so I can give you both a goodbye kiss." Fox sighed and laid the holodisk on the comforter next to him, staggering upright to let his son know that Krystal wanted to wish him a gentle goodbye.
Due to the visual noise of the holodisk, Marcus did not see the wakes left by his mother's tears. "Bye, mommy," he exclaimed innocently, "I love you!" Krystal disappeared, leaving empty air behind as an alarm chimed on her wristwatch.
Aboard the space station, Krystal returned to her coffin dormitory and closed the door, spreading out across the rumpled bed sheets before dialing her therapist, a French Bulldog named Kira Pomfett. Kira's squashed face and pointed ears shone above the holodisk in a transparent blue light.
"Hello, Krystal," Kira's soothing, deeply accented tones cut through the air like razors. Krystal merely smiled in response while Kira narrowed her eyes. "Have you been crying?" Kira wondered aloud.
"I just…," Krystal nodded hesitantly, her words coming in fits and starts, "miss… my boys…"
"I thought you only had one child?" Kira was briefly confused before Krystal explained that she was referring to Fox.
"Fox… and I…," Krystal continued, "just… had a dispute…"
"About what?"
"My job," Krystal explained, "I needed to take it so we could afford to provide for Marcus… but… Fox…" She trailed off.
"Yes?" Kira pointedly inquired, "Is he upset with your career choice?"
"He's been scared for my life for two years," Krystal sullenly explained, "Much like he was when we broke up." Kira nodded silently.
"More importantly," Kira wondered, "How do you feel about your job?"
"It's… complicated," Krystal hesitantly admitted, "We were desperate for money after Fox was let go, and bounty hunting was not my first choice." "However," she continued, "the travel time between home and my job sites has given me much needed space to myself." Kira nodded her understanding as Krystal elaborated, "I have been catching up on my sleep and taking my time to look between the stars from the observation deck. Nonetheless, I do occasionally dream about how Marcus and Fox miss me, and it tends to happen more often after I use my powers to visit Marcus in his dreams when I'm operating in the inner orbits."
"What do your dreams look like?"
"I'm floating in space," Krystal sadly recalled, "and Marcus reaches for me from a pod… before… ignoring my requests that he stay… and throwing himself into the vacuum." She shook her head, "I reach back to him, but my body… stretches from where I am… and I feel… pain… as my… outstretched arm… detaches… and then wake up before the next step of the process. It's like… a black hole."
"So," Kira was puzzled, "Is the black hole centered on your son, or your job?"
"Perhaps both," Krystal shrugged, "I suppose it's just this sense I'm being torn apart, and Marcus…" Krystal's teeth flashed a tormented grimace, "will be hurt as well because of this." Krystal choked on a sob.
"Have you considered limiting your psychic contact with Marcus?" Kira wondered, "It seems to be aggravating your own stress."
"No," Krystal replied with barely subdued fury before collecting herself to explain further, "I'm his mother. It would be wrong of me to abandon him or make him think he cannot trust those who sincerely profess their love." She paused briefly, reflecting on the conversation she'd had with Fox before taking up her perilous occupation, "Fox advised me to limit how I use my powers with him, but… Marcus… still looks to me for comfort. I need to be close to him."
"How else have you comforted him?"
"The usual," Krystal explained, "Hugs, reading, shared play, kissing his wounds. Nonetheless, Fox is struggling to bond, and I suppose I think I should fill that void." Kira nodded her understanding.
"Have you considered a new occupation to make your bond with Marcus less reliant on telepathy?"
"I'm…," Krystal forced the sentence out, "worried that my… skill set… is too narrow to do well in another job that pays more than minimum wage. I lived on Sauria for the majority of my childhood, and that was before it was developed. I struggled through the Flight Academy, had to go to continuation school, and never received any specialized education beyond the military. Any other jobs that would have kept me close to my family were already filled, too."
"You did tell me about the trauma you had growing up," Kira nodded, "There are programs that can help soldiers transfer back into civilian life and acquire new skills, but I can understand your hesitation." Krystal's lack of a Cornerian birth certificate or other identifying documents had made it impossible to find work beyond a paramilitary career or the Army. Star Fox and Star Wolf had been the wealthiest PMC contractors before the Elysian Assault, and Krystal had discussed her career choices with Kira extensively. University tuition costs would also have drained the McClouds' finances to nothing.
"Thank you," Krystal blinked slowly, and a deep happiness suffused her being, "What can I do now? I have enough money to pay for a few semesters, but I don't think I'll be able to quit for a few more years."
"I understand," Kira nodded, "I think you should try enrolling in the Cornerian University's Saurian branch. The campus was finished five years ago." An idea popped into Krystal's head, and joy flashed across her face.
"I do have a deep history with the Saurian tribes," Krystal recalled, "and Senator Alcard is growing older by the day." Alcard was Tricky's representative to the Cornerian government. The octogenarian Pomeranian had signed the deal that had allowed for the rebuilding of Sauria City and the construction of Thorntail Memorial Park. "I should probably try law school and become his aide," Krystal suggested.
"Then," Kira wryly smirked as she hastily researched the average law school tuition cost on a laptop she kept nearby, "you should up your fee. You'll likely spend 200,000 credits over your three years of education." Krystal was giddy over Kira's approval.
"I'm sure my boys will be happy to hear the news," Krystal confidently smiled. She slowly turned serious, and Kira leaned into her client's facial expression. The smile was gone, replaced by a tight-lipped nervousness. Krystal's brow was agonizingly crushed against her forehead.
"Is there something worrying you about this change? Lost customers?"
"No," Krystal fearfully explained, "Marcus is turning six next year and… the Elysians… Adolfo… he…"
"I know," Kira sighed, "you told me before. I'm sorry… that… you had to see such things… before Marcus came…"
"I…," Krystal struggled with the invisible hands of turmoil strangling her throat, "just wanted… to… put it behind me… with my son… I… don't know if I can do that anymore…" Tears began to run down Krystal's face. "Please…," she begged, "Help me…" Her desperate call for aid went past the physical medium, and scenarios created by fear ripped through her mind. She saw and heard her son scream with anger at her denial of his simple pleasures, violently stamping his foot on the carpet in his apartment bedroom and slamming his fists against the wall, but the voice exiting his throat belonged to Adolfo. The vision crashed against Kira's awareness, and she saw Krystal fighting the urge to wrap her fingers around Marcus' neck before things went dark.
"Is… this…," Kira wiped the tears from her eyes, "a common nightmare?"
"Yes…," Krystal choked on the air at the back of her throat, "it is…"
"I…," Kira painfully recalled, "saw that you didn't want to hurt him." Tears of relief rushed down Krystal's face.
"Of course not," Krystal shook her head as she dried her tears, "He is my son. I… need your help…" The lump in Krystal's throat dissipated.
"Whenever Marcus has a tantrum," Kira advised, "You need to ask yourself: 'What's different between an Elysian and my son?' Keeping track of those differences will help you manage the situation and help you both calm down. Can you think of any now?"
"He was conceived willingly," Krystal arduously recalled, "and not… forcibly bred." There was a long silence before she continued, "His thoughts… are… his own, and… no one else's. His… feelings… are his own, and… not… the product… of… someone else… forcing their pain through him as a means of control. He has… beautiful… blue fur, and the Elysians… did not. He… does not carry a weapon. He… does not want to kill me… He loves me."
"That's a good list," Kira smiled warmly, "You should write it down. By hand." Krystal typed the list she had made into her phone, intending to reference it later. Her session concluded with some idle chit chat.
She walked through the space station corridors, opening her mind in the hope that her next person of interest was aboard. She sensed Cornerians worrying about their destinations, families, finances, and sometimes nothing at all. As she reached her ship, she noticed a cutpurse devising a plan of attack and prowled his way, making an about face in the process.
Staying just out of sight, she waited until the thief had drawn his blaster against a family minding their own business. She brought her weapon up and audibly ordered the assailant to drop his. The thug panicked, whirled around to face her, and bolted off down the metal hallway. Krystal holstered her pistol and let him go. He wasn't worth the chase. She headed back to her fighter but sensed the robber's former targets seeking to express their gratitude. She turned their way, allowing a smile to flicker across her face, and disappeared from their view, heading back to the hangar. After settling into the Cloudrunner's cockpit, she penned the distinctions she had made between her son and an Elysian soldier into the margins of the drawing she kept on her ship's control console.