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The Swarm War

Chapter 14

The next morning Varrus awoke in his bed. He recalled having a pleasant dream where he and Krystal were talking at a nice restaurant. The specifics were hazy but it was an all around nice dream. Sadly he could not donate any more of his time to think about it because he had to prepare for the upcoming engagement. He shifted out of the bed into a standing position and readied himself for the day in the lavatory. Once he was finished he came out in a fresh crisp armored uniform and headed out of his cabin. Exiting his room he set his path to the bridge after a time he found himself at his destination. He walked in to find Lupa's visage already waiting for him.

"Hey Varrus good morning." She said happily virtual tail wagging and with a broad smile adorning her muzzle.

"Hello Lupa good morning to you too." He replied with an equally large smile. "So how fares my ship?" He asked her trying to gauge its combat effectiveness. For they would need to be ready when they arrived.

"The ship is running at peak efficiency. I have been maintaining it thus since we came to the Lylat system." She told him with well earned smugness.

"Good, now how are the shield systems?" He asked as he sat down on the captains chair. It gave off a small groan in protest of his considerable weight but was made to hold him so it held.

"All shield emitters are functioning properly at full strength."

"Alright shields are good how fair are weapons batteries?"

"All rail guns are ready, lance batteries are ready except for the forward lances as they are slightly misaligned but will be adjusted shortly, pilum missile pods are fully armed, the ballista and onager launchers are operational, and last but not least the Armageddon cannons are locked and loaded."

"Excellent work Lupa is there anything you can't do?" He said with another of his grins.

"Thank you Varrus and no I can do everything." She said smugly causing them both to laugh.

"Now" he began "what is the status of our fighter and bomber drone flights?"

"All gladius fighters are fueled and ready for launch and the scutum bombers are being tended to as we speak. In other words the VENGEANCE is at maximum combat effectiveness." She finished.

"That's more good news, since we are so well prepared can you tell me when we will arrive in system?" He asked.

"Yes Varrus we will be exiting slipspace in approximately one hour." She answered. While they were talking the heavily armored bridge doors opened to reveal Fox and his crew as they walked into the room.

Varrus turned in his chair to face them with a "Good morning." He shared a quick smile with Krystal before turning to Fox.

"Hey Varrus." Fox said in response. "I take it we are close to arriving?"

"Indeed we are only an hour away." He told the orange furred vulpine.

"Sounds great, I was also wondering if you wanted us to get ready to pilot our Arwings?"

"I'm afraid not, you guys are going to have to sit out this naval battle.

"Why?" Falco indignantly replied much to Fox and Krystal's annoyance.

"Well Falco," Varrus began calmly "the enemy will have a huge battle group where as we will only have the meager colonial garrison and whatever they managed to scrape up. The garrison will most likely consist of only a few dozen ships. With a couple hundred fighters so if you went out in your Arwings you would almost certainly be overwhelmed."

"Oh" he said dumbly eliciting a smile from everyone.

Slippy decided to change the subject. He knew they were going to fight later as Fox had filed him in on the way up to the bridge. "I've seen your ship and I have to say its amazing!" He said enthusiastically.

"Thanks." Varrus said with a smile. "I spent along time designing it to my satisfaction."

"You must have because it's a marvel of engineering!" Slippy exclaimed with a ongoing excited tone.

"If you really like the ship so much I can give you some of the schematics for some of the systems, if are alliance pulls through." He told the quivering frog. At the thought of getting to see the way this ship was built and having access to parts of the design he almost had a heart attack.

"Really!" He squeaked which was in Varrus's opinion very unfrog like.

"Why certainly." After hearing that the poor frog fainted. After seeing this Varrus voiced his concern "will he be alright?"

"He'll be fine" Peppy explained with a chuckle "he just needs time to calm down." He said while looking at the almost comatose amphibian.

They could faintly hear him muttering about schematics and ship design as they moved him to one of the seats close to the captains chair before taking the other ones.

"So," Fox said "what can we do?"

"You can stay here on the bridge while I contact the naval garrison and organize a static defense." Varrus offered.

"That sounds like a plan." Fox said acceptingly.

"With that settled is there anything you wish to discuss before we return to real space?" Varrus questioned.

"Yes" Falco spoke up getting a warning glance from Fox "I wanted to know that when we went to the ground side portion of this battle if I could use that lovely looking weapon in your armory?" Upon hearing this Fox looked at Falco with a sigh.

"Your relentless."

"Yep" Falco replied before returning his gaze back to Varrus.

"What gun are you talking about because there are many weapons with even more variants that I have stored there?"

Falco took a couple seconds to describe it "it's the one you have near the back it is a long barreled weapon with a interesting looking scope and I think it used ballistics." He explained.

"Ah" Varrus said understandingly "you must be talking about the X-57 MALICE rail gun. I suppose you can use it but you will have to be trained to fire it. It has more recoil then you could probably handle."

"I could handle it!" Falco indignantly cried out.

"The man who tested the prototype had to get his arm reattached." Varrus deadpaned.

"I guess you could teach me." Falco muttered.

After that short conversation Varrus began to speak.

"Ok now since we have some time I'm going to go over the enemy types and classification with you. They all agreed as they were interested in finally seeing the face of their enemy.

Varrus activated the huge holotable in the center of the bridge and selected the button that would bring up all the relevant information pertaining to the parasite. The first image he summoned forth was of a small ugly quadrupedal beast with strange blade arms. It was covered in white and red chitin. It's head was huge and it had a terrifying maw filled with sharp dagger like teeth. The arms of the creature were little more then razor bladed weapons. "This is what we call a blade spinner. It is one of the most common monsters they field. It may look small but it's average height is at around three feet. It will go into a berserker rage when in range of its target and will not be easily brought down. It's weaknesses are in the points that connect the blades to its limb which can be severed with relative ease. Typically they make up fourty percent of any invasion force they are in."

"Those sound pretty lethal." Fox gulped.

"Unfortunately if you guys think they are bad I'm sorry to say they are the least dangerous of all the beasts." Varrus regretfully informed them. They all let out a sad breath of air as they listened intently as Varrus named the beasts and told them of the weakness they would have to memorize

"Blade spinners come in a ranged variant called toxin casters" Varrus pulled up another picture, this time of a type of creature similar in appearance to the last one but sported what looked like a ranged weapon grafted to its arm. "They are not as numerous as their blade wielding cousins but are much more dangerous. There weapons shoot out bio plasm that can eat through most types of armor and can even effect heavy armored vehicles. Luckily it has the same weakness as it's close relative the blade spinner and another one which is on the weapon appendage. If you are accurate enough to hit that spot." He motioned towards a place on the monsters weapon highlighted in red. "The gun arm will either explode or leak the heavily acidic toxin back on to the creature."

He changed the image again to this time show a towering monstrosity that even in its picture struck fear into their hearts.

"The most dangerous of the all the infantry class is the juggernaut" Varrus said ominously. "This particular entity stands at nine feet tall and had blades as well as a heavy bio plasm launcher. It is often seen leading packs of the lesser breeds into battle. It has almost no weaknesses due of its heavy chitin armor and the ones it does have can only be reached with a lucky shot, with a precise sword stroke,or long periods of sustained fire. The other infantry types will not be in this battle as they are more suited to stealth and as such we will not need to go over them. That being said we will now focus on the beasts equivalent of armor support."

Varrus then pulled up an additional set of images the first one of a long centipede like bug. "The behemoth is the largest of their heavy armor. It can be anywhere from fifty to sixty feet long and will have a bio plasma cannon on its back. The cannon is strong enough to take damage the shields of a scout Titan."

"Scout Titan?" Slippy wondered, it seemed that he woke up from his unexpected nap at the sound of more interesting tech.

"Correct in order to combat the larger parasites, which luckily will not be fielded here, we built massive bipedal walkers called titans. The bad news is that the Titan garrison has not arrived and so we will not be able to call on their help." Varrus explained.

"Those sound cool!" Slippy said with his trade mark technological enthusiasm.

"They are a sight to behold." Varrus said with reverence. "I have had the honor of being stationed on a Overlord class Titan for a few months. Titans are the epitome of humanities engineering and are the most important asset in our continued survival. But we can talk later about titans for now we must finish going over the enemies we will face." Varrus said as he tried to rein them back on to the relevant topic and changed the image to another bug. This time it was a tall spider thing with humongous forelimbs. The creature sent a wave of revulsion through Fox and the others.

"This is a ravager. Standing at about twenty feet tall they are more suited to combating armored vehicles and light infantry. These are the backbone of their anti armor capabilities. Yet they do have one easily exploitable vulnerability, their thorax. If hit enough it will ignite the poison sacks stored inside and cause a very local explosion sending heated venom to all its closest allies."

His lecture was interrupted by Lupa "Captain, we will be entering real space shortly."

He frowned "it appears we will have to go over the rest another time in detail. For now I assume you all have some sort of tac pad?"

"We do." Krystal replied showing him her wrist device.

"Good I'll have Lupa download all the information directly to them."

"We are thirty seconds out." The Female AI cut in shortly after.

Upon hearing this Fox made sure his team was seated and ready as the captain prepared for their arrival.

Varrus readied himself for the upcoming fight and talked to his holographic companion. "Lupa activate shield emitters, warm up all weapons batteries, and prepare to launch drones."

"Yes sir." Lupa gave an unnecessary salute. The swirling purple blue colors outside the bridge were replaced by the blackness of normal space. Everyone's attention was centered on the blue and green marble that was there objective.

Fox was looking at the planet in awe. It looked to be a garden world a veritable Eden. He decided them and there that he would do everything in his power to prevent the monsters from ravaging it.

Varrus meanwhile thankfully noticed that the enemy had yet to arrive. Hoping to expand on that advantage he had Lupa set course to the planet as he tried to raise the defenders on the holo projector.

"Arcadian defense fleet this is the IDF VENGEANCE we are responding to your request for assistance please respond." Varrus said with authority.

Shortly after a image of a sharply dressed aged human with what Fox could only guess were symbols of high rank adorning his uniform appeared on the holo display. "Vengeance this is admiral Terrance Hood of the IDF command carrier Retribution. It's a good to see you again Pretor and I must ask who your...interesting friends are?" He asked after looking around the bridge and seeing Fox, Krystal and the rest.

"It's always a pleasure admiral." Varrus replied with a small smile. "And the people your referring to are emissaries from a newly discovers system I was tasked with helping when I heard of your plight and with their offer of assistance came here post haste." He enlightened the old admiral.

"Interesting." The man mused aloud. "In any case if they want to help they are alright in my book." He said with a youthful grin.

"In any case let's skip the pleasantries we must prepare for the enemies arrival."

"Indeed Pretor."

"Tell me what have you managed to scrounge up to defend this world." At this time Varrus's ship arrived over the planet and they all could see the fleet arrayed before them and it left everyone but Varrus breathless.

"With only a short notice I only managed to call upon eight defiance heavy frigates, ten fury cruisers, two annihilator battleships, five requiem carriers, twelve Olympus destroyers, five shortfang anti-fighter corvettes, seven dawn-breaker long range siege ships, and my personal command carrier."

As the admiral was talking to Varrus Fox and his friends were staring with awe at the fleet of massive ships as theres glided in among them.

"Jeez overkill much!" Falco muttered.

"The smallest ships are the same size as a cornerian dreadnought!" Slippy exclaimed.

Fox got up and walked over to the bridges window with Krystal and Peppy. "This is quite something." He quietly said to his friends.

"Your right Fox these ships are much bigger then our own." Peppy replied.

"How can we hope to beat an enemy that has ships this big?" Fox asked worriedly.

Peppy put a paw on Foxes shoulder "we have Varrus remember he will help us." Peppy answered with confidence. Krystal supported Fox to by giving him a small hug for comfort. This eased his fears somewhat as he held on to his friend. After a little while they separated and made their way back to where Varrus was. By that time he was standing out of his chair and close to the holotable talking with the admiral. They stood near by and listened in.

"This is quite the quickly assembled force. The enemy might not get to land." Varrus said to the admiral.

The admiral sighed sadly "I'm afraid they still will."

"Why?"

"The deep space scanners picked up a sizable increase in the mass of the incoming swarm." The admiral answered heavily.

"They been reinforced." Varrus figured out. This was troubling to Fox and his compatriots.

"Correct intel says they have increased about thirty percent more then they were previously."

"So they will land." Varrus sighed with resignation.

"Without a doubt." Hood confirmed."the good news is your ship is a game changed now we can actually contest their right to control the skies above Arcadia. You also have your Arcani battle droids."

"Sorry admiral they are currently...not operational." Varrus told him with reluctance.

"That is indeed unfortunate but we can work around that it won't be a disastrous loss."

"Either way we have to prepare for their emergence."

"Right pretor what's the plan?" The admiral asked.

"Seeing as we have more ships then I previously considered I will have to change my plans." Varrus stated "I want you to maneuver the annihilators to either flank of my ship in a standard guard position, we will be the heart of the defense. Put the five requiem cruisers behind us and reinforce their location with the dawn-breakers. Situate the Olympus destroyers at even intervals in a semicircle around the main battle line. I want half the fury cruisers and defiance frigates to be placed on standby the remaining are to plug any holes in our lines and launch all of our fightercraft." When he finished speaking the assembly of ships moved into their designated locations and the carriers and Varrus's ship launched their contingents of fighters. "When will the swarm get here?"

"Scanners show that at their current speed they will be in system in anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour....wait sensors just detected another incoming approach vector, only sixty seconds out!" The admiral shouted grabbing everyone's attention on the bridge. The admiral turned off screen. "Ensign get me a reading on this new development now!"

Everyone was worried that the attack had already started. Slippy gave voice to all of their inner fears "are they hear already?" No one replied as they were hooked on the holotable waiting for the answer. "Another human walked into their view this time a young man he was holding a data slate.

"Admiral I'm detecting a slipspace signature it's one of ours!" He said excitedly.

At this revaluation they all breathed a collective sigh of relief and elation. Soon after hearing that a familiar portal opened a few hundred thousand kilometers in front of the fleet disgorging twelve new ships. "Ensign," the admiral ordered another person this time a young women who was sitting at one of the consoles. "establish connection with our new arrivals."

"Yes sir...connection established."

"This is captain Grimaldus of task force Orion." A grizzled middle aged man said after his holo image materialized next to the admirals. "We heard a call for assistance and made great speed to get here before the enemy and it appears our efforts were not in vain."

"Indeed Grimaldus your timing is impeccable the enemy are only about thirty minutes out." The admiral replied.

"That's good news it's good to hear we will be able to help. My task force consists of my battleship, four destroyers, three heavy frigates, and a detachment of legionary carriers."

"Superb news those men will be welcome in the city below." Varrus said grabbing the captains attention.

"Ah Pretor I had a feeling you'd be here these last stands usually have you in them and I thought I saw your ship leading the defense. The captain said with a good natured laugh. His chuckling was ended prematurely when he spotted the strange beings that were on the Pretor's bridge. "Pretor..," he said slowly "you appear to have some of the aliens we contacted on your bridge do mine eyes deceive me?"

"They do not Grimaldus these are the delegates that I was supposed to head back to their home system with when I got the call to turn around and head back here. How do you know about them?"

"Most of the officers in the fleet know and some of the rank and file too it's almost common knowledge now." The older man replied before turning to look at them. "Might I inquire as to what your names are good fellows and lady?" He addressed to the starfox team.

Fox was the one to speak "sure the names Fox Mccloud."

"Peppy Hare" the old hare said.

"Slippy Toad" the amphibian squeaked.

"Falco Lombardi" the avian said with his usual arrogance.

"Krystal" the vixen answered with a demure wave and a flick of her tail.

"A pleasure to meet you all." The captain said before turning back to Varrus. "I have to ask Pretor why are they hear this is not exactly a place for politics?" He questioned

"They are also mercenaries and have pledged their assistance in this battle." Varrus said looking back to Fox briefly where he gave a short nod of thanks which was returned.

"In that case I'll say the more the merrier!" The captain jovially chuckled.

"Yes well I want you to form up on the battle line and land those carriers and unload those soldiers inside the city we are running out of time." Varrus brought their focus back to the upcoming battle.

"Of course Pretor I'll set course immediately." Grimaldus saluted with his fist to his chest before he left the holotable. Shortly after his ships moved to reinforce the defensive line and the carriers moved to enter atmosphere. The annihilator joined its brothers although it was below the Vengeance. The other ships moved to key location around the other points of defense.

The admiral looked to the Pretor and gave of a tired smile "it seems that we lucked out today."

Suddenly Lupa gave out a warning "Commander the sensors showed a drastic increase of acceleration for the incoming swarm, they will be here in seconds!" She cried out.

"Damn!" Varrus growled and turned to the admiral "prepare the fleet now!" He saluted quickly and cut the connection without a word. Varrus then turned to Lupa "quick I want firing solutions ready for when they arrive and get the drones in a testudo formation around our ships." He called out in rapid fire.

She quickly complied when in a flash of green light the enemy fleet emerged. Aboard every ship every person looked out upon the swarm. It was massive there was over a hundred bio ships to there sixty and thousands of little drone fighters.

"So it begins." Varrus said stoically. "Lupa prepare to fire."