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[b][u][center]The Lylat Wars: XXX

Part 8

Sponsored by GlynWolf

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

It was one thing to be on the bridge planning the assault. It was something else to be in the Arwing waiting to be launched into it.

Fox didn’t know what the rest of the team was doing to pass the time while the Great Fox maneuvered itself into position, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the hole at the end of the hangar tube. The humming of the machinery beneath his ship left him anticipating the rush of being flung out of the ship and into open space, the thud of that much pressure hitting him before the G-Diffusers kicked in, and the adrenaline that always followed. He couldn’t help but imagine himself out there already, and more than that, he wanted to be in the air.

His skin itched as the Great Fox swung around. He could see the pinpricks of the destroyers and carriers gathered around Corneria and could just make out the sparks of light that was the bombardment shooting down toward the planet. His hand clenched tighter around the joystick as he waited, each breath a struggle to pull in.

[i]It’s time…it’s time…[/i]

He’d waited for this moment for two whole years. No more bandits, no more raiders, no more petty thieves that needed to be brought in and taught a lesson. This was the real war. This was the [i]real[/i] fight.

It was time to take the battle to Andross.

Fox grunted as the Great Fox rocked from bow to stern, the whole ship shaking as it fired its massive guns. Two great blue streaks arced across space before slamming home into the engines of one of the carriers, blowing it up instantly.

As the fire spread through space, expanding and contracting almost instantly, the Great Fox fired a second, then a third time, taking out a second carrier and a destroyer before the orbital fleet could respond. The scanners on the Arwing picked up the hole left behind, and Fox punched the communicator.

“Everybody, launch!”

Four thumps went off in near-unison. Fox at the head, Falco just behind, Slippy and Peppy bringing up the rear: the four Arwings shot toward the far end of the hangar at something just short of hyper-sonic speed, bursting free one after the other. He slammed the booster, feeling the crushing weight of three, four, five times gravity before the G-Diffusers kicked in and let him do anything other than lie pinned to his seat.

The stars stretched, becoming ovals as they shot toward the planet. More lasers and bombs went off in the distance as Andross’s fleet began their maneuvers, but it was too late. Their Arwings were already at the gap and shooting through, and Fox grinned as he felt the first quivers of air resistance shaving off some of their speed.

“Breaking atmosphere, maintain formation,” Fox called out.

“Heh, until we get planetside, at least,” Falco called back. “Let’s see who gets the high score this time around.”

“This ain’t like the sims, Falco,” Peppy said. “You go down out here –”

“C’mon, gramps, let us have a little fun. We could have died to those raiders, too.”

“Um, not without making a lot more mistakes,” Slippy said.

“Come on. Live a little.”

“Alright, guys, cut the chatter,” Fox said, shaking his head as Corneria loomed ever larger. “Keep it quiet until we’re past the drop. No need to let them know we’re coming.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Fox cut the channel, taking a deep breath as the planet below finally grew close enough to fill his whole view. Scorch marks where population centers used to be scarred the once-green planet, and a sobering chill dripped down his back. Nobody else had the firepower to bring that kind of devastation to a planet. Nobody else could rip through cities – real cities, not just colony settlements – like that.

As they broke the upper layers of atmosphere and the air pressure equalized around them, Fox gunned his engine. The rest of the team followed, and they roared through the sky to the planet’s surface. The clouds shattered as they pierced through them, and the wind ripped through rain and smoke at their backs.

A thousand feet above the surface, he pulled back, and the rest of the team did the same. He checked the local channels, flicked around to an empty one, and opened comms again.

“Everyone keep to this channel for now. What do we got, Slip?”

“Uh, I – I got a couple dozen recon vehicles between us and Corneria City. Looks like they’re picking over Lakeside.”

“Heh, what do you say we have a little fun on the way?” Falco chimed in.

“Might as well take them out on the way. Gun the engines; we’ve got distance to cover.”

#

They arrived at the outskirts of Lakeside ten minutes later, and Fox was all too aware of the timer ticking down until the enemy column would reach Corneria City. Twenty minutes left, the console in front of him said. Twenty minutes until an overwhelming ground and air force would hit the shielded city.

But despite that timer, it was impossible not to stare at the devastation that had been wrought on the former resort town.

He remembered coming to Lakeside as a kid, during one of his dad’s times away from the team. He remembered renting a bungalow on the beach with his dad, going swimming in the crystal clear water, remembered the aquarium and the long piers. He remembered the high-rise hotels, and the rows upon rows of shops and restaurants. It had been like an entire city built into a theme park, minus rides, and it had been an amazing time, a treasured memory.

Lakeside had been reduced to nothing more than a fractured shadow of itself. The spires of crystal luxury had been thrown down, their gems nothing more than fragments of glass upon blasted craters. The sides of the lake were gray and ashy with debris and worse, and the air was filled with smoke that ranged from gray to purest black. There was nothing of the beauty that had once dominated the coastal skyline.

“This is horrible,” Falco muttered under his breath.

“Keep your eyes peeled, everybody,” Peppy said. “They might have hit this place from orbit, but Slip picked up some scouts. They might be busy looting, but –”

Falco’s Arwing suddenly picked up speed, shooting ahead of the rest of the formation. Before anyone could say anything, the bird veered sharply down and to the left, flying sideways through the streets and firing away.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Fox shouted.

“If they’re still around, they’re going down.”

“…Okay. Five minutes, everyone,” Fox said. “Slippy, set a good wavelength for the scanner and everyone take that from him. Five minutes, take out everything you can find, then form up on the north side.”

They had a few minutes. Not much, but a few.

Fox veered east, looking down at the scanner read-outs. Almost nothing in the air this way, but he was picking up small ground vehicles. A couple of light tanks, a few scouting bikes, but nothing more than that. No heavy mechs, nothing like the ground forces that they’d see later. Just enough to make sure that any surviving civilians wouldn’t stand a fucking chance if they ended up getting in a fight.

[i]And just enough radar and comm range to be able to call in a warning if anyone came close…[/i]

He smiled. That would be the case for most vehicles, at least. But Arwings were a special case. Far more heavily armed than something with their speed tended to be, they could get in and out and do more damage than a bomber squadron could while maintaining scout-interceptor speed. There was a reason that the ships were as expensive as they were, and why they didn’t tend to go very far outside of professional military wings. Even the CDF didn’t have many ships that could equal what they had.

Fox took a deep breath, feeling a strong sense of relaxation suddenly settle over him. There was finally a sense of purpose to what he was doing, and it felt…good.

Flicking the stick, he swung his Arwing over a toppled skyscraper and pulled the trigger. The tanks on the other side – two light vehicles with eight apes spilling out and looting the fallen structure – had no chance. As they exploded into twin balls of fire, Fox pulled up, dodging the next row of blasted buildings, and began his hunt.

He had taken out a total of six different patrols when comms lit up. Falco’s frustrated screams filled his ears.

“Shit, he’s right behind me!”

“Falco! What’s going on?”

“I picked up bogeys. Get off my ass, you fucking – gah!”

It was like an icepick through his heart, and for a split-second, Fox was back in the nightmare. He saw the world burning around him, heard the screams of every teammate as they were shot down –

Fox shook his head, yanking the stick back. Up, over, around. For a moment, he was upside-down as he pulled a Immelmann Turn, flipping over as he boosted hard to fly in the opposite direction.

[i]Scanner, scanner, where the fuck are you, Falco?![/i]

Of all the pilots that he thought he’d have to worry about on this mission, the bird wasn’t supposed to be one of them. Falco was as good as he was, or damn close. They scored almost the same on the sims. They traded the lead on different missions for kill-counts. They were supposed to be just as good as the other.

[i]You’re not supposed to be the one in trouble, dammit![/i]

“I can’t shake this guy!”

“I’m almost there!” Fox grunted.

“He’s really starting to piss me off here!”

There. Just on the far side of the lake, north-side. Fox swung his ship in line, pushing its engines as hard as he could as he looked from scanner to window and back again. Where, where, where –

There. He caught sight of the red laser bolts that Andross’s ships tended to favor and turned right for it. He corrected himself, adjusting for an intercept course. Falco’s frustrated cursing faded away as he narrowed his eyes, staring through the targeting reticle for the first sign of something, anything.

“Shields are almost fucking gone!”

“Almost…there…”

The red lights were his only clue to the enemy’s location, and they were too sporadic to be sure of their origin. He’d see them, then lose them, then see them again.

The Arwing felt like it was rattling around him as he pushed it right up to its outer limits. The light got brighter, and he could just make out the glow of Falco’s engine lights. Almost there, almost –

He had a flicker of movement. He took the shot.

BOOM!

For a split-second, he was sure that he’d hit Falco by mistake. There was nothing on the line, not even a squawk of shock. Fox panted, staring at the debris raining down…and then he saw the blast of the other Arwing engine again.

“Heh…I guess I should be thankful,” Falco muttered.

“…Yeah, you should be…”

[i]Asshole…[/i]

But at least they were all still flying. That was the important part. They were all still in the air. So long as that part was true, they’d be fine.

The timer ran out. Getting confirmation from Peppy and Slippy that they were coming to meet them on the northside, Fox looked back at the scanner. Falco’s ship was damaged, though not seriously; he must have lost shields before Fox could take the shot. That meant that he’d be a liability if he got hit any further.

[i]Should send him back to the Great Fox…should get him out of here…[/i]

But that would mean fighting him for it. They didn’t have time to get into an argument while they were still in battle-space. He’d have to deal with it later and hope for the best right now.

Once they’d all assembled, they boosted north. Fuel wasn’t a concern; either they were going to finish their mission before they burned their tanks, or they were going to die before the fuel ran out. One way or the other, that was one concern Fox didn’t have to think about.

#

After soaring over three other burned-out chunks of the landscape, Fox knew that they were all simmering with suppressed anger and more emotions that they didn’t want to think about. He was shoving it all down, focusing all his energy on the fight that was coming up. They were just south of the Corneria City shield, now, and were slowly coming around the side of it.

“Slippy –”

“Already sent Pepper the transmission, and all the scans I’ve taken.”

“Good. Anything on the column?”

“I got, um, two possibilities for the commander.”

“What are they?”

“Uh, one aircraft, one ground vehicle,” Slippy said.

“It’s gotta be the aircraft,” Falco said, the blue-feathered bird shaking his head. “Nobody worth their salt’s going to be on the ground for something like this. You need a better view than that.”

“Sonny, you need to stop thinking like a pilot and start thinking like a soldier,” Peppy said. “You got advantages in both, but ain’t much point in sticking with that much ground forces if you can fly off.”

“Heh, you think any of those assholes are brave enough to be on the ground when we’re around?”

“They were afraid of me, James, and Pigma, Falco; they don’t know anything about [i]you[/i] yet.”

“Stop arguing,” Fox said, shaking his head. “Slippy, anything to narrow it down?”

“Uh, well, um – maybe. If we get closer.”

That was the downside. They had almost reached the east side of the shield already. Once they took off at full speed, there’d be no way for the enemy to avoid them on the scanners. They’d show up like four bright red dots, each one a perfect target for the air defenses screening the column. If they took too long to pick the right target, enemy leadership would be right on their asses.

But if they didn’t…

“Alright, everyone,” Fox said. “Let’s take it to ‘em. Give Slippy enough time to figure out where the commander is, and as soon as we have confirmation, let loose everything you got. Hold onto anything stronger than lasers for as long as you can.”

“Got it, Fox,” Peppy said.

“Hmmph. Let’s see them try and take me down…”

“Thanks, Fox,” Slippy said.

“Just don’t leave us high and dry, Slip. Alright…let’s go.”

Reaching the eastern edge of the shield, Fox veered right, and the rest of the formation followed. Their engines burned bright behind them as they shot down the road in a diamond formation, Fox in front, Peppy at the back. He kept the nose of his craft down, flying low to the ground, barely twenty feet off it. He could feel the vibrations through the bottom of the aircraft as the air pressure followed him, nearly forcing him back up again.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

It took less than a minute for the scanner to fill to the brim with bogeys. There were hundreds of heavy tanks, mechas, and other ground vehicles trundling along down the road, and in the air, just as many fighter-craft surrounding three floating heavy weapons platforms and two floating gunnery medium-sized ships. It was a lot of firepower, particularly for their little team to go up against.

But this was why they were supposed to be paid the big bucks. They did the impossible. Or at least, they were supposed to.

“Break on my signal,” Fox said, looking at the swarm of fighters just ahead. “Three…two…one…[i]break![/i]”

Slippy and Falco broke sideways, and Peppy went up. Fox went through, holding the trigger down and firing his lasers as fast as they would go.

The enemy fired back. His Arwing rocked side to side as he took the hits, his shield falling rapidly, but he just kept shooting. Something forced its way up his throat and came out as a scream, one that only got louder with each confirmed kill he got as the enemy blew up before him.

One.

Two.

Four.

Eight.

Ten.

Thirteen.

He broke through a hole in the enemy ships, coming through the other side with his shield all but blasted through, and he was still screaming as he veered around. He saw red as the lasers of the enemy blasted around him, but as he spun and deflected them across his wings, that red got deeper.

[i]One of them might have been at Venom,[/i] he thought as he spun his ship around. [i]One of them might have been the one to make the shot that killed my dad. They might actually be here.[/i]

He pulled the trigger again.

And again.

And again.

All around him, he could hear the explosions on the intercom, the screams, the shouts of surprise and victory. Adrenaline was running high and the world almost seemed to stand still as he flew from one target to another.

Ping.

Pong.

Ping.

Tang.

The sounds of weapons clanging off the hull, either reflected during an Aileron Roll or coming through and smashing the metal, continued to fill his ears. He didn’t care. As long as the ship held together a little bit longer – as long as he could take a few more of them down –

“I got him!”

Slippy’s voice cut through the angry haze, and though had to force himself to focus on it, he was thankful for it.

“I got him! He’s on the ground, Heavy Mech 4130,” Slippy said. “Repeat, Heavy Mech 4130.”

“Get a lock on him!” Fox ordered.

Slippy must have, because the scanner changed. The battlefield of red remained, but one of the enemies turned a brilliant gold, had a name slapped on it, and he was able to pick it out easily. He tilted his ship around, spotting a two-legged walker that was making its way to the edge of the battle zone.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Fox muttered. “Everyone, arm your bombs and drop everything you got on him.”

“Weapons armed,” Peppy said.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” Falco huffed.

“R-ready,” Slippy said.

“Aim and fire when ready!”

He’d lost track of where the rest of his team was, but as he forced his fighter upward, he could just [i]tell[/i] that they were all in-sync with one another. They soared into the sky, screaming away from the swarm that had gathered all around them, and twisted about. He spotted them out of the corners of his eyes, seeing them coming from the other three compass points toward the commander.

Fox wondered if the asshole in Heavy Mech 4130 knew what was coming. He wondered if he took a long time to die.

Probably not; four heavy bombs loosed at the same time was enough to put a hole in a heavy cruiser outside atmosphere, after all. In atmosphere, it was far more destructive.

The explosion turned the world white, and the few fighters that had gathered around the mech were obliterated on contact with the bombs going off. Fox and the rest of the team veered off, avoiding the shockwave of the bombs going off, but the chunk of the ground forces near it weren’t so lucky; the earth cracked and the shockwaves spread far enough to damage the road, throwing some of the other mechas off-balance and throwing still others right off the ground and onto their sides.

It wasn’t enough to stop them. The rest of the air defense swarmed, gathering up behind them. Fox looked at the scanner, counted the numbers –

“Not good…not good,” he muttered.

The enemy formed up, creating a crescent shape of fighters behind them. He opened his mouth to give his own orders –

Then the red dots were shredded from behind. More laser-fire – green and blue – broke through their ranks, shooting a huge chunk of them from the sky in one pass. Fox grinned as he saw them on the scanner; Academy vessels shot through the sky, spinning around for a second pass, while another wave followed the first.

Pepper had delivered.

They’d won.

#

Four hours later, CDF forces and Academy pilots were still performing clean-up on the ground and stranded air forces. The destroyers in orbit, according to all the deep-space scans that they had access to, had fled once the ground forces had been destroyed. Apparently, the space commander didn’t want to pursue a fight without the ground forces to occupy the planet, or maybe they were just under orders not to glass the surface with a full-on bombardment. Either way, the battle was won, at least for now.

Fox and the others landed their ships on the rooftop of a hotel in the middle of Corneria City. General Pepper had sent them there as a thank-you for their service – or at least, the start of his thanks – and had promised that their stay would be covered for the night, as well as all food, fueling, and transportation. It was not much to start a campaign off with, but Fox had some faith in the general to follow through with a decent reward as things went on.

As he hopped out of his ship, though, he could tell things were already off to a rocky start. He had barely gotten his feet under him when Falco started cursing under his breath.

“Look at my baby. She’s all dented up,” the bird said. “Fuck that trash. Slippy, did you fuck up my scanners or something? There’s no way that they could have snuck up on me.”

“I – I had everything in perfect order.”

“Bullshit. I bet you missed something. I’m not like –”

“Falco.”

Fox looked over his shoulder, glaring at the bird.

“Give it a fucking rest.”

“But that –”

“You almost got shot down. I [i]should[/i] have sent you back to the Great Fox as soon as that was over, because your shields were shot to shit, and you were damaged, too. Much more and you could have been blown to bits. I [i]should[/i] have sent you back.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you?”

“Because you were going to do this. You fucking asshole.”

“You think I can’t handle myself?!”

“Who was the one that almost got shot down today?”

“Oh, ho, you want to talk about that? Look at your ship, buddy!”

Fox did. There were holes all along the wings, down the fuselage, and dangerously close to the engines. His shields must have failed at some point without him noticing; no matter how many Aileron Rolls he pulled, there was a limit to the amount of firepower that the Arwing could deflect, and he’d taken it right to the edge.

“I’m not the one with a death wish here,” the bird said. “And I still think that –”

“Oh, sure, the great Falco can’t make one fucking mistake.”

“I don’t make mistakes that bad!”

“Yeah? Well maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”

“And maybe you aren’t as good as your –”

Fox threw a punch before he could stop himself. Falco ducked it, barely, and threw one of his own. It slammed against Fox’s ship, and Falco hissed as he pulled his hand back, nursing the damaged knuckles.

“Don’t you say anything about my dad,” Fox said, shaking his head as his breath came in short huffs. “Don’t you fucking [i]dare[/i] say anything about my dad.”

“Alright, alright, let’s stop this before it goes any further.”

Peppy stepped between them, and the rabbit’s grip on Fox’s shoulder was so painfully tight that he knew that he wouldn’t be able to just break free. It was a good grounding force, too; they were all that they had, and the last thing that he needed was for Falco to go flying off the handle and leaving the team when the war was just starting. They needed each other, and more, he needed them. He had precious little else in the universe, anymore.

“…Sorry,” he muttered. “But don’t take what happened out on Slippy.”

“…Shouldn’t have done that,” Falco muttered, rubbing the back of his head. “But I still don’t get how the fuck that happened. That doesn’t happen. It’s never happened.”

“That’s because you’ve never been to war before, son,” Peppy said, slowly pulling his hands back from both of them. “It’s one thing to fight off desperate thieves, raiders, pirates. They’re dangerous, yeah, but they don’t have training most of the time. They don’t have very good weapons, either. But Andross’s soldiers? Hoo, boy. He’s been training them, arming them, researching them for years, now. He’s going to give them weapons that’ll punch right through anything that the CDF has, and he’ll have a lot of it, too.”

“…But I’m me. I’m…”

“You’re good, Falco. You really are. But you’ve only fought people that weren’t so far. Now, you gotta fight other folks that know what they’re doing. Not gonna be impossible, but it’s going to be a lot harder.”

Fox could tell that wasn’t sitting well with his old friend. Probably wouldn’t for a while, either.

He looked back at his ship. The more pock-marks that he saw on the sides of his ship, the more he realized how close to death he’d come during the mission. And how little he’d cared at the time. There had been a hundred times where he could have been a better pilot, could have pulled back and gotten a better, more defensive run on his targets, but living hadn’t been his priority. Killing, burning, making sure that none of the Venomian pilots could ever get in the air again: that was all that mattered, even if he burned to make it happen.

He rested his hand on the ship for a moment longer, a little tremor going down his hand before he pulled it back.

“Well, I think we have cause to celebrate,” Peppy said.

“Celebrate…what? The war’s not over,” Slippy said.

“Yeah, that’s true. But we’re alive, and that’s good enough for me. But, uh…I’d suggest that we all go somewhere else. Let all those tempers cool down, make sure that we don’t end up getting drunk and putting each other’s lights out,” the rabbit said, eyeing him and Falco specifically. “Ain’t a good thing to start a contract with one of us in the hospital, you get what I’m saying?”

“…Yeah, I get you,” Falco said. “Think I’ll look around and see if Katt made it out alive…”

Fox hadn’t even thought of that yet. With the number of other cities that had been leveled across the planet, the civilian casualties had to be high. The evacuation orders to Corneria City would have gotten a large number of people to the protection of the shields, but inevitably, there would have been some that didn’t make it.

[i]How many died while we were making our way here?[/i] he wondered. [i]How many did we not save?[/i]

It was a question that lingered in the back of his mind as he watched Peppy head down to the hotel, and Falco joined him a moment later. In short order, only he and Slippy were left on the rooftop, and the frog looked at him with a hesitant smile.

“So, uh…”

“Peppy said we should probably do things separately, and I think that’s probably a good idea,” Fox said, shaking his head.

“But –”

“Look. Just…take a break from being the ‘morale officer’ for the team, and go do something that you like for the night, huh? Do something for you, instead of us. You deserve it, Slip. You won the day for us.”

He patted the frog’s back, only to get the most offended look that he had ever seen from the tech. Slippy all but glared at him, then turned on his heel, making his way to the stairs down from the rooftop. Fox watched him go, shaking his head in disbelief.

[i]What did I do this time? What the hell did I do this time?[/i]

Slumping back against the ship, he turned his eyes to the heavens. The stars had yet to come out, and with all the lights here in the city, he doubted that they’d see much of them when the moon finally did rise. But at the very least, he could look up and imagine them.

They wouldn’t be planetside long. He imagined that they’d be here for maybe a week before they were back in space, chasing down other dangers, fighting off other advances from Andross. One way or another, they would be back in the fight and into the thick of it to take the pressure off the CDF and let them regroup.

[i]You out there, Bill?[/i] he wondered. [i]You out there, or did you stick around Corneria for a little while longer?[/i]

Shaking his head, he stood up straight, brushed off his vest, and looked out at the city. He had a night off. He could at least get some of the tension off, and if he couldn’t find Bill…well, there would probably be a number of other people that’d be happy to get with him for a night of fun. It’d be a good way to blow off some steam, and it would remind him what it was like to be with people other than Slippy.

He still didn’t know what he felt with the frog. There was…something there, but it was weird. So weird.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Fox and the crew hit Corneria for their first real battle, and get a heavy education toward some of the reality of war.

Tags: No Sex, Impending Shore Leave, Battle, Fighting, Air Battle, Near Misses, Danger, Starfox 64, Campaign, Drama, Freak-Out, Falco, Fox, Slippy, Peppy, Series,