FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Swarm War

Chapter 4

"Well..." Falco said "that was interesting." Then he proceeded to walk into one of the rooms "I'll take this one."

"Alright guys grab your rooms and then put any thing from the great fox you wanna keep with you there." Fox said as he walked towards the first room which was next to Falco's.

The rest of the team took the rooms of their choice Krystal took the very last in the line of rooms, Slippy was next to Falco and Peppy chose the middle one.

Right before Fox went into his room he looked back towards his team "Hurry up and get settled in I'll see you guys at the briefing room."

While they all set up there new rooms Krystal couldn't help but wonder who these rooms were originally for and what happened to them. She made up her mind to ask the strange man as soon as she could.

Fox was the first one ready to go as he didn't want anything from the great fox except some clothes. So he left his new room and was about to head towards the meeting room when he remembered something important. "Where is the briefing room?" He wondered aloud and was startled by a feminine voice coming from all around him.

The place your going to is located down a set of corridors to your left." He spun around but couldn't pinpoint where it was originating from.

"Who are you?" He asked when he heard the voice once more.

"It's me Lupa the ships A.I remember." The voice said.

"Where's your hologram?"

"I can only manifest on holo projectors which are scattered around in key portions of the ship, unsurprisingly enough the corridors are not these places."

"Right" Fox said.

"Anyways head towards the corridors I have told you and you will arrive at the room within a few minutes."

So after he thanked her Fox begun the short walk to his destination upon his arrival he saw the room in question was fairly large and had a long rectangular table lined with chairs. It also appeared that there was a holo emitter built into said table and with that took a seat near the head and awaited Varrus and his team.

He didn't have to wait long as Varrus arrived only a minute after Fox had sat down. He was still in his armor and Fox was beginning to suspect the man never took it off. He seemed surprised to see fox sitting down. Which could be told by the way his helmet tilted to the side a little upon spotting the orange vulpine. "You're here already?" Varrus asked quizzically.

"Yeah I didn't bring much to my room" he replied.

"Packing light eh, no need to bring unnecessary items, considering your ship is inboard?"

"Indeed"

"Alright then considering your here early why don't you tell me about yourself while we wait for your slower companions."

"What do you want to know?"

"For now just some relevant information like how long you've been a merc,training,experience, and thing like that."

"Ok well I've been a mercenary since I graduated from the cornerian academy, after my father died when I was little and my mother earlier before then, so Peppy raised me, he was a close friend of my family and took me under his wing. I restarted starfox so that my fathers legacy could continue."

"A noble pursuit indeed, i can respect you choice although I dislike mercenaries myself as all the ones I've worked with have been untrustworthy." Varrus replied.

"Yeah, well I have been in business for a few years now and have done a number of high risk jobs and defeated the monster responsible for my fathers death."

"Ah yes Andross" Varrus said "I heard a lot things from Fleet Comm about that particular piece of work."

"Fleet Comm?" Fox asked

"Yes Fleet Comm or command they are the ruling military body for our navy, and the ones who assigned me this posting."

"Oh so basically like our Fleet HQ."

"Precisely"

And with that the other members if star fox arrived Slippy,Falco,Peppy, and finally Krystal. They then took seats around fox while Varrus stayed standing by the front of the table.

Varrus cleared his throat and began to speak in his rough voice "alright now that everyone's here we can begin this meeting, as you know I am from the Terran Empire and in a gesture of goodwill myself and my ship have been donated to the CDF until the threat of The Parasite has been eliminated in this system, any question?"

Peppy was the first to speak up "yes, I have been wondering what exactly are these things?"

"To truly understand you must first be told a story." This seemed to grab their attention. "Fifteen years ago there was a beautiful garden world on the outskirts of our empire it was called Arcadia." As he talked about the planet the team could hear his usually loud voice soften to take an almost melancholy tone. "That world was the crown jewel of all of our planets and one of the most desirable locations to live. It was home to billions of people all living happily on this grand world...." His voice got even softer "until one fateful day."

"What happened?" Krystal asked.

"They did" Varrus replied vehemently "The parasite, there was no warning they simply came from the black depths of space like a virulent plague upon the galaxy and swarmed toward that beautiful world.....my home."

Needless to say the team was surprised to hear this. "That was your home they attacked?" Falco asked.

With that said Varrus's tone took a darker turn. "They didn't attack, they consumed, their vast and corpulent armada ravaged the meager defensive fleet and then covered the planet in a whirlwind of chitin, claw, and fang. I would not be here now if weren't for my father, my father" he said voice full of emotion "was a good honest man, a member of the Arcadian defense force and a corporal, my mother was a nurse."

"W-w-what happened to them?" Slippy asked.

"My mother never got out of the hospital my father abandoned his friends as they were being slaughtered by the abominations, completely unprepared for such a brutal and overwhelming foe, and rushed me toward an evac transport. He died" Varrus chocked out. "Defending the transport as it took off I escaped, on the only transport to make it out of the atmosphere and watched my home-world burn from orbit. I was the only survivor, out of a planet of billions I was Five years old." He said in a hollow voice.

The room was quieter then a grave as the information soaked in. "My god" Krystal said.

"After that I was taken in to foster care but soon afterwards The Terran Intelligence Office kidnapped me."

"What you were kidnapped!" Fox cried outraged.

"Yes they took me and many other orphans, because by that time many more worlds had fallen under the relentless wave of monsters and more often then not kids were they only ones that could be saved. They threw us into a training facility called "hells gate" by the more religious kids. For ten years they trained us in both body and mind. In the beginning there was a thousand of us. The training was brutal and by the time it was complete there were only eight hundred of us left. The others had been killed or driven to suicide." His calm tone of voice took them by surprise.

"What the Fuck!" exclaimed Falco "how can you be so calm that shit is unbelievable!"

"Yeah" Fox barked backing him up "how could they do that."

Varrus growled "you don't understand we were losing! Half of the eastern portion of our empire was consumed and millions were sacrificed every day just to halt the swarm. My people did what was needed to survive, our morale was flagging, Humanity needed heroes.... so we made them.

Peppy was confused "what do you mean made?"

"Myself and the rest of the surviving children, now teenagers were put into an augmentation program to make super soldiers. During which a further 50 percent of the remaining teens were either disfigured or killed by the dangerous process."

"Why" Slippy butted in.

"The process strengthens our bones increased our bodies regenerative qualities, enhanced our senses. and made our muscles stronger and denser. The side effect is that in some cases the process went wrong causing catastrophic damage to the subjects nervous system and bodies."

The almost clinical tone he used to describe the horrors he went through baffled them to no end. Krystal decided to peer into his mind to see his real emotions and was surprised to realize she could not penetrate his mental defenses. This stunned her she had never met and individual who's mind she could not read. So she was forced to ask him "what did you feel about that?"

He seemed confused "what do you mean feel?"

She was even more baffled "what did you think about what they did to you and your friends."

"They did what was vital to humanities continued survival, I can't blame them for that, and gave me the ability to fight back at the things that had destroyed my life and exact my vengeance. In any case the survivors formed a order of warriors called the pretorians. Then they sent us into battle."

"Wait" fox said "if you were five when you were abducted and trained for ten years.... You were fifteen when they sent you into your first engagement!"

"Yes the war was going badly we could not afford to wait any longer."

"They sent kids!" Peppy said clearly upset

"Yes"

"Who did those rooms belong to" Krystal asked rembering what she promised herself earlier.

"We're getting of topic" Varrus said suddenly "the point of this is that I am here to train you and later a select few on how to properly fight these bugs and how to teach others before these things get here." I have been told to plot a course back to Corneria which I will do after this meeting because your leaders wish to speak with me, you all are free to explore the ship today, training will begin tomorrow." Then Varrus turned on his heals suddenly and strode out of the room.

They sat there in silence "Well that ended abruptly" Fox said curiously.

"It appears that he doesn't wish to talk about that." Krystal stated.

"Why not" Falco muttered.

Slippy chimed in "remember when he gave us the rooms he said something about them being for others but..."

" they were no longer with us" Krystal finished.

"What does that" mean Falco asked

Peppy and Fix looked knowingly at each other before Fox said "it means that their dead" That shut them up for a little while before Fox got up and said "alright then guys let's explore the ship."