Starfox Generations - Part 2

Chapter 4: Escape

4:42 am
Planet Corneria

“Oh hell, tell me that’s not a tank,” Lisa sighed as she peered around a corner near the motor pool. The tank was roughly twelve feet tall, rising upwards instead of outwards like a Landmaster MBT. Its treads bit into the dirt and cracked concrete as it patrolled nearby, obviously on the watch for any cadets making a break for the motor pool. On the right side of the cylindrical body was a dual beam cannon, a powerful weapon by itself, this particular model could fire both cannons at once, annihilating anything in its path.

“Pick your poison; we’ve got troops closing the distance behind us!” James shouted, firing through the hole they had made as troops poured into the armory, only to be pinned down by James and several other recruits.

“I’m open to suggestions James! I think it just noticed us!” Lisa replied, dodging away from the corner as it was melted to slag by the tank’s main cannon.

“Ugh, do I have to do everything myself?” He asked, pulling out his staff again as Leo boosted him up the side of the building. James clung to a ledge along the second floor and quickly swung himself up and made his way to where the tank was waiting, daring Lisa to poke her head out again. Unseen, James leapt out and over the tank, triggering the Super Ground Quake in his staff as he fell. The force of the powerful magic weapon alone crushed the tank like a beer can and the ensuing blast of energy ripped what was left of the tank and its crew apart, scattering the once fearsome machine over several yards of open ground.

“Let’s go already! I doubt no one heard that!” James shouted, as he ran to the motor pool. Only two of the vehicles in the motor pool were still operational, an old halftrack transport and an even older lightly armed APC.

“How bad is it?” Leo asked as he approached James from behind.

“Well, in the halftrack we’ll be cramped, but in the APC…we’ll be dead.” James replied, turning to face his friend. Leo realized James was having a premonition when he stared into the fox’s light blue eyes.

“Halftrack it is, at least it’s a nice model.” Leo said as the others came running into the motor pool. Leo ushered them into the back of the halftrack and then took his place behind the controls of the dual-laser turret mounted on top of the vehicle.

“C’mon bud, you’re the driver! I’ve got your back!” Leo shouted as he tested the turret and began warming up the systems. James leapt into the cockpit, finding the driver’s tactical helmet resting on the seat.

“Hey Leo, I recognize this make now,” He said into the transmitter built into the right side of the tactical helmet as he slipped it on and adjusted it so his ears popped out the ear holes on top.

“By all means, do share.”

“It’s a Toad Military Corp. transport, though an older version. They took a bunch of specs from the Landmaster series of battle tanks and tried to incorporate them into transports.”

“And success was…”

“Limited, the project was too expensive; before they canned it they produced two models, the one we’re in and the one that is commonly used by the Venomian army.”

“Which is the better of the two?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Shut up and punch it already, its not getting any less cramped back here,” Camilla shouted over the intercom. James nodded and closed the cockpit hatch, revving the engine of the halftrack before slamming his foot down on the accelerator. The halftrack slammed through the steel slide door of the motor pool and took off down the road that led out of the base and into the city beyond.

“We’ve got company, twelve o’clock high!” Leo’s earpiece crackled, and the panther spun the turret in response, taking aim at two small close support gunships that were flying steadily down the road towards the halftrack. Leo thumbed the trigger as soon as his crosshairs aligned with the first of the sleek black airships. The effect was instantaneous, instead of one heavy laser bolt from each cannon, several blasts poured from the dual cannons and ripped into the first gunship, causing it to spin wildly before slamming into the road in the path of the halftrack. The vehicle roared around the flaming wreckage and just past the other gunship, which had swerved and lost its opportunity to attack when Leo had opened fire.

“Damn! You forgot to mention that this bad boy was rapid fire!” Leo shouted into his helmet as the other gunship swung around behind them and began pursuit. Several lighter ground vehicles also joined the chase, swinging in behind the halftrack and peppering it with small laser fire.

“My bad! Take out that other gunship before he locks on with those missiles!” James’s voice crackled over the head set. It was obvious to Leo that James was completely concentrated on what he was doing, a time when he did his best work.

“Leo? Where are we?” It was Camilla again, obviously unable to see the terrain around them.

“Hold please,” He said calmly as he squeezed the trigger and blew the second gunship out of the sky. The wreckage crashed down, crushing a few of their earth bound pursuers as it slammed into the ground.

“Oh shit…” James said, more to himself than the others as a Venomian Combat Mech rounded the corner ahead of them. The squat machine was little more than a missile and laser turret set upon two spindly legs, but it was more than enough to smear the small vehicle and all of its occupants.

“Oh shit…” Leo parroted as he spun the turret to see what had caused James pause. Without another thought Leo pulled the trigger. Laser bursts lanced across the early morning streets of Corneria City and slammed into the walker. The beastly machine shuddered for a second before regaining its balance and opening fire at the halftrack. A barrage of laser fire slammed into the halftrack, missing the cockpit by less than two feet. James gritted his teeth as the force of the blast knocked his head against the cockpit hatch and left a small smear of blood across the cockpit. He shook off the dizziness and wiped away the blood before returning to the problem at hand.

“For Corneria!” A familiar voice shouted before two blue lances of laser fire slammed into the walker and blasted it to pieces. Four silver and blue Arwing III’s flew past overhead, blasting any and all Venomian units that crossed their path.

“He has good timing,” Lisa said over the intercom, a hint of admiration in her voice.

“Of course he does, he’s Starfox,” James replied, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice. No one but Lisa noticed, but she didn’t say anything.

“So, James, where are we exactly?”

“On the boarding ramp to Great Wolf, now would be a very good time to get out, we’ve still got pursuers.”

Chapter 5: Farewell, Corneria

5:37 am
Corneria

“Marcus, the academy, its…it’s gone.” Penny said sadly over the comm. as her fighter swooped low and surveyed the blasted landscape below.

“Do you think he got out okay?” Marcus asked solemnly, not wanting to look at the blasted ruins that might contain his brother’s dead body.

“I’m a McCloud, we don’t die that easily!” James replied over the comm. as a black dreadnought class battleship burst from the spaceport and headed for freedom. Marcus sighed in relief and shook his head; it was just like his brother to do something reckless and flashy.

“Great Wolf headed from orbit, we could use some cover,” The blue cat said at the helm of the dreadnought. The Starwolf team had already left the bridge and was in the process of launching their powerful Wolfen III fighters. Unlike the Arwing III’s, the Wolfen III’s sported five G-diffusion blades instead of the two blades the Arwings used, two straight out from the body and forward swept, two aimed downwards at an angle, and a single, smaller blade that came straight down from the body, known as a keel wing. The advantage being that the Wolfen could create a much more powerful deflection when it rolled, the downside being the larger body size. Other than that the Wolfen series and the Arwing series were basically identical, with no hugely respectable difference in ability. The only thing that separated the two models was the skills of the pilots.

“O’Donnell, ready to launch!” Lisa shouted over the comm. system of her new fighter craft.

“McCloud, ready to launch!” James parroted, heating up the twin laser cannons and checking his store of nova bombs. Camilla and Leo both signaled that they were ready and held on as the Dreadnought-class battleship’s launch bay jettisoned them into the early morning sky. James clenched his teeth and fell in behind a close support fighter belonging to the Venomian Army. He squeezed the trigger quickly and was rewarded with several lances of bright red laser fire that shredded the enemy fighter and sent it spiraling towards the ground several hundred feet below.

“James, we’ve got anti-air fire from the ground, think you can back us up?” Marcus shouted through the comm. system, static crackling in the background from a near miss.

“Of course, we need to buy time for people to get out of the city anyways,” James replied, swinging his fighter towards the location Marcus had indicated. He swung in low, flying mere feet from the ground as he set up for his attack run. Laser fire flew at him from the mobile AA unit, but he was too low for it to get a good lock, and he used this to his advantage, pouring fire into the tracked vehicle as it tried to do the same to him. It exploded in a hail of shrapnel as a laser bolt struck something vital in the rear of the vehicle.

“Target down, who’s next?” Marcus McCloud heard his brother shout as he lined up a shot on an enemy dropship that was headed for the center of the city. He triggered his lasers and watched with grim satisfaction as the craft spiraled out of the air and slammed into a building. He continued his flight towards the center of the city, blasting target of opportunity and occasionally catching glimpses of one of the others, whether it be a Wolfen or an Arwing.

“Marcus, Its Penny, the city is lost, we have to fall back to the defense platform and regroup,” Marcus heard over his comm. system after several minutes of intense fighting. He scowled, but understood that she was right; if they stayed any longer they ran the risk of being overrun.

“Alright fine, all Starfox fighters break off and fall back to the GreatFox. I advise Starwolf to do the same.” He said quickly and with an air of command that was hard to refuse.

“Marcus, they already bugged out. Their ship just jumped out of the system before you said anything,” John Toad replied quickly, his fighter executing a roll before striking down an enemy fighter.

“Any idea where they were headed?”

“My guess is they bugged out to Fichina and then from there to Sargasso.”

“That’s not good; Fichina is a Venomian world now.”

“Sir, the only free worlds left are Fortuna, Aquas, Katina, and Sauria. Where should we head?”

“Sauria.”

“Alright, you heard the man, get to the Great Fox and prepare for jump!” Penny Hare shouted over her comm. her own voice almost as commanding as Marcus’s.

“GreatFox will cover you,” The cold robotic voice of ROB-64 stated two seconds before a volley of heavy missiles fell from the sky and obliterated the better portion of half a block.

“Negative Rob, you might hit civilians, regroup with the fleet and prepare for jump,” Marcus shouted as fire and destruction engulfed the rapidly shrinking city behind him.

“The Cornerian Defense Fleet is gone sir,” Aries noted solemnly as the Arwings broke atmosphere and were engulfed in the twinkling darkness of space. All around Starfox, the shattered hulls of both Cornerian Frigates and Venomian destroyers drifted silently in what had quickly become a mass grave floating above Corneria. In the distance, Marcus could see the red and white form of the GreatFox II, floating near what had once been Corneria’s Orbital Defense Platform.

“Open channel to any survivors, repeat, this is Starfox looking for any Cornerian Defense Fleet survivors,” Marcus said calmly into his headset. Somehow, he knew there would be no answer. He repeated the message several more times as his team docked with their home base, before docking with the GreatFox and shutting down his own fighter.

“Where does Bowman get off?” Aries was shouting as Marcus entered the debriefing room of the large ship, “Attacking Corneria like that, we haven’t done anything to him. Hell, our parents trained the sorry son of a bitch!”

“Aries, calm down, yelling won’t bring back the dead,” Marcus said as the ship jumped into hyperspace en-route to Sauria, the Dinosaur Planet and Marcus’s birthplace.

Chapter 6: In the Storm

11:49 pm
Warp Rift, Destination: Fichina

James McCloud lay across a couch in the lounge of the Great Wolf, lost deep in thought as the ship cruised through the warp rift that would deposit the crew near Fichina, the Ice Planet. He was wondering about his brother, where Starfox had gone after escaping Corneria, and the rapidly dwindling supplies on the Great Wolf. He had checked the store room nearly an hour ago and found barely enough fuel to get them to Fichina, they wouldn’t make it to the Sargasso Pirate Base without fuel for their ship, and without fuel for the Wolfen they would be hard pressed to defend their ship as it drifted aimlessly through space. James was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he failed to notice Lisa sneaking up on him. A sudden flare in his mind alerted him to her presence. His psychic powers had been getting stronger recently, which gave him an almost constant headache.

“Hey Lisa, nice try,” He said when she was less than a foot from him.

“Damn, I was sure I had you, how’d you know I was coming?” Lisa asked, he had never gotten the better of her before; she could be sneaky when she wanted to be.

“I could sense you coming, my abilities have been acting up lately, and I’ve got a throbbing headache right now.”

“Then you probably don’t want to hear about our supply situation.”

“I already know, I checked the stores about an hour ago, we’re going to have to make landfall on Fichina.” Lisa could sense the irritation and tension in James’s voice, and decide now was as good a time as any to make a forward move. She placed her hands on his shoulders and rubbed gently with her fingers, pressing lightly into his neck and massaging with her thumbs.

“That’s not going to be easy; the Venomian forces accidentally destroyed the Climate Control Center when they hit Fichina. It was abandoned by all but a single military detachment,” She stated as she felt him relax under her careful ministration.

“As long as we aren’t noticed we should be able to slip in and raid one of the abandoned city centers for supplies, should be easy to get what we need with the halftrack we stole.”

“The halftrack is no good; we wouldn’t be able to get three feet through the storms there.”

“So what’re you suggesting?”

“There’s a Lander in the hanger bay, the two of us could pilot it down to a city, get what we need, and return to the Great Wolf.”

“Simple enough, what if the Great Wolf is noticed while the two of us are gone? Leo and Cammie are going to be hard pressed to defend against attackers with just two Wolfen and the Ultra Lasers on the Great Wolf.”

“There are plenty of hulks floating around Fichina since the fighting died down and they haven’t cleaned it up yet. We’ll hide the Great Wolf in the debris and leave it in power down mode.”

“I don’t like it, one of us should stay here incase something happens.”

“That’s just your way of saying you and Leo should do it.”

“Yea, but it’s a good idea, you may be our best sneak, but you’re also our leader. The others look up to you, if anything happened, at least you could get the others to safety, and your dad wouldn’t eat my head.”

“James, shut up. I’m going, so are you, deal with it.”

“Fine, but I’m going to bitch about it the whole time.”

“Of course you are.”

Lisa smiled at James and slapped him softly across the head, truth be told, she wouldn’t be comfortable unless he was her back up and she his. They were the best duo back at the academy, and he was her dearest friend, even if they didn’t always agree on tactics. The thought of him running off to have an adventure with anyone else didn’t feel right to either one of them, though Lisa knew James was right.

“Alright, get some sleep, it’s nearly midnight by Cornerian Standard Time, and we’ll be launching tomorrow,” Lisa said with a sigh as she walked out of the lounge, taking one last look at James before the door closed behind her and he was alone with his thoughts once again.

*          *          *

10:22 am
Great Wolf in Orbit over Fichina

“This sucks out loud,” Leo said for probably the fifth time as he and Camilla checked the exterior of the Lander as James and Lisa strapped in and prepared to launch. Camilla didn’t respond until the two had cleared the hangar and sealed it as it opened to the vast emptiness of space and launched the Lander towards the Venomian held world of Fichina.

“Who would you rather go? You and James?” Camilla asked coldly, she knew Lisa’s reasoning behind taking James instead of her, but it still annoyed her slightly. Camilla was damn good at stealth, and being a chameleon, she had an obvious advantage over James.

“Yes, Lisa is too damn valuable a target to have her running around on a stealth mission.”

“So you’d rather she be on the ship that’s in low power mode, unable to defend itself, and quickly running out of fuel?”

“Yes, at least up here we have only a slightly high chance of getting killed; down there it’s almost a guarantee.”

“So you have a death wish?”

“No! I just don’t agree with putting our leader on the front lines like this, military strategy has always deemed that leaders be held back, away from the majority of enemy fire, James should know this.”

“He does, he argued with her about her going.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a chameleon. I can intrude on people’s private conversations a lot better than you can.”

“If you two are done bickering like my parents,” The blue cat, Thomas, said over the ship’s loudspeakers, “Please come to the bridge so we can effectively coordinate with the others.”

On the Lander, James sat in the copilot seat, planting navigation beacons in the ship’s computer to provide them a route through a vicious storm and into a hopefully abandoned city site. Lisa sat in front of him, completely concentrated on preparations for entry into the planet’s atmosphere. Both wore heavy jackets and pants, designed to fight off the bitter freezing cold of Fichina for a little while whilst also providing only minimal restrictions to their movement. The entry through the atmosphere was uneventful, and Lisa swung the Lander low, following James’s beacons through the blinding snowfall.

“I hate to backseat pilot, but you’re going to need more altitude, the geography of Fichina is too varied to allow for such low and fast flight,” Camilla stated simply over the ships comm. system as she read flight data being sent to the Great Wolf from the Lander.

“Too much higher and we risk hitting the radar ceiling, I don’t want to be shot down personally,” James replied, causing Lisa to smile. She knew damn well he agreed with Camilla, but he trusted her, which she would rely upon heavily in the next couple of hours.

“Uh, James, I think you just hit it,” Leo said quickly, “You’ve got two inbounds on your rear, moving too fast to be fighters.”

“Interceptors?” James asked quickly, bringing up his own passive radar scans. Registering in at just under two hundred meters behind their craft were two unidentified blips, moving too fast to be even interceptors. James felt his blood run cold as he realized what the two unidentified inbounds were.

“That’s bad, Liz we’ve got missiles!” James yelled as he unbuckled himself from the copilot’s chair and made his way to the lone turret on the spine of the Lander. Unfortunately, the Lander was so old the warm up time on its weapon system was too long to be of use.

“Understood, taking evasives. Hold on tight fox boy!” Lisa shouted as she executed a sharp turn and dove into a narrow ice canyon. One of the missiles slammed into the side of the canyon and detonated, but the other flew perfectly, headed straight for the Lander, which was moving far too slow to outrun the missile.

“James, the other one is still on us! I can’t shake it in this canyon; I hope you have another…” The transmission was cut off as Leo and Camilla crowded in close to the Lander’s monitoring system. The system registered the impact to the rear, then another in the nose, and then one final impact before all contact was lost with the Lander, and its crew.

James picked himself carefully from the wreckage, trying not to disturb anything that could make noise or hurt him, though he was already battered and bleeding. He worked his way to the shattered remains of the cockpit and found Lisa still strapped in to the pilot’s chair, blood flowing from a nasty gash on her forehead. He could tell that her leg was pinned, and a piece of shrapnel had punched through her body armor and heavy jacket, leaving dark bloodstains on her jacket. He cursed to himself as he carefully reached down and grabbed the protruding piece of warped metal that had punctured Lisa’s shoulder. Lisa moaned and her eyes fluttered open just as James was preparing to yank the shrapnel free.

“Wha…what’re you doing?” She asked quietly, obviously in enormous amounts of pain.

“Try not to panic; you’re pinned down by the flight panel, and a piece of shrapnel from the nose that pinned you to your chair. I have to get you free and dress your wounds, or you could bleed out and die, now try not to scream,” James replied as he pulled with all of his strength on the piece of shrapnel. It came free with a disgusting wet sound that was quickly drowned out by Lisa’s anguished scream of pain. James ignored her sobs and pulled out his staff, which had some how miraculously survived the crash, and, using the fire blaster aimed at a peculiar angle, he carefully cauterized the wound before using the staff as a lever to lift the smashed flight panel from Lisa’s legs. She hissed in pain as he pulled her free, and instantly collapsed in his arms when he tried to stand her up.

“I…I think my leg is broken,” Lisa said with a wince as she tried to stand once again and fell back into James’s arms.

“I wouldn’t be surprised it they both are considering we hit the canyon wall nose first, which is where you were,” James replied as he set her down in a sitting position and sifted through the wreckage, scrounging for anything useful. He came back with a small medical kit and what looked like a bent piece of the hull, just large enough for an adult to lie on.

“What’s with the sled?” Lisa asked as James popped open the med kit and pulled out several rolls of bandages, some emergency bio sealant, and a syringe filled with an unknown liquid, presumable a muscle relaxant and painkiller.

“You can’t walk and I can’t carry us both through the storm, you’re going to have to be dragged behind me along with whatever other supplies I can find. Now, I need you to remove you jacket and under armor and lay back. This bio sealant stings, but it’ll stitch up that wound quickly and prevent infection,” James replied, shaking the can of sealant as he took a step towards her and kneeled beside her.

“Alright, fine, but swear you’ll never tell Leo about this, he’d have a field day,” Lisa replied as she unzipped her jacket and slid it off before unbuckling her under armor and doing the same. She self-consciously crossed her arms over her fur covered breasts before James could administer the sealant. Unfortunately the action caused pain to shoot through her left shoulder, and she was forced to put her arm down as James ignored her body and concentrated all his attention on her wound.

“There, all set, just don’t strain it,” He said as he turned away without glancing at her exposed body once.

“James?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for not looking, it means a lot to me that I can trust you like that.”

“You can trust me, and I can trust you. Now, c’mon, we have to leave before they send a squad to investigate.”

“Where’ll we go?”

“Well, luckily while I was studying the route we were taking, I noticed the old Climate Control Center was near here, it may be damaged, but it’ll still provide shelter, and if we’re lucky, a beam transmitter radio we can use to hail the others.”

“Alright, let’s get going then; I really don’t wanna be shot at anymore today.”
James smiled at Lisa reassuringly as he picked her up gently and placed her on the makeshift sled, strapping her down with two lengths of rope before attaching the sled to himself by a third rope. After checking to make sure the rope would hold he pulled out an extra jacket from the emergency supply kit he had found and draped it over Lisa, providing her with some extra protection from the cold. What he had failed to tell Lisa was the fact that her evasive maneuvers had taken them off course, they were at least five miles from the Climate Control Center, and the storm outside was only getting worse as time passed. Securing a small piece of cloth over his mouth and nose as a guard he trudged out into the storm, slowly disappearing into the storm with Lisa in tow.