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Shattered: Redux

Chapter II: What Has Been Done, Can Not Be Undone...

Once you have made a decision and there is no turning back, acceptance is the only comfort...

-Lucinda Riley

_ _

The cornerians aboard the station gazed at the gigantic alien ship with fear and excitement in equal measure. This was something that had not been predicted. After conferring the scientist assumed that to answer the request for certain resources, the machine had pulled a ship, (created from those resources) into their reality.

It would seem that they had taken something from another plain of existence. And now they had to deal with the consequences. Beltino was pacing the observation theatre, muttering to himself. Thing's had quickly fallen apart, the device had been destroyed due to an overload, and now they had to deal with this vessel.

Yet the most disturbing thing was the silence. The ship neither moved nor even seemed to be under any power, perhaps it was a derelict? If that was true, then the situation might not be that bad. At least that's what they hoped.

But as usual, when you began to hope for something, fate seemed to want to dash it away.

"Uh Doctor Toad, Prime Minister Daala, and the uh, rest..." A young voice called out. They all turned to see a female weasel at the comms console. "There is an audio communications signal emitting from the ship...on all channels."

They all exchanged looks and Pepper spoke. "Play the communication."

The weasel nodded and pressed a series of buttons on the console. Moments later a male voice came over the intercom, and they were surprised to hear that it was in the same language.

"This is Sargent Alexander Jäger of the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces. I implore whoever you are, to not try and board this ship. It is under an extraordinarily lethal quarantine. I repeat do not attempt to dock or even close with this ship, there is a monstrous plague. Everyone on this ship has been killed, I am the only survivor. Please, do not try to get on this ship...."

At that condemning news, they heard an ominous bang over the line and a shuffle. The harsh whine of automatic weapons fire carried over and they heard what seemed to be some sort howling, as if from animals, but it was heavily distorted. Nevertheless it sent chills down all of their spines. Then there was a cry of pain and a brief explosion before it went dead.

"That's it." The lab assistant announced quietly.

Peppy nodded. "Get me in contact with the 1st defense fleet; tell them that they have been ordered to stand down. Nothing gets close to that ship until we have a better understanding of what's going on."

Fox, who had been listing to all of this with a worried grimace, felt Falco nudge him. The vulpine looked over to his friend and made an inquisitive face.

"Looks like we might be in over our heads....again." The avian muttered.

Fox had to agree with his friend's assessment.

"Absolutely fascinating...." Beltino exclaimed. "It would appear that whoever these people may be, they speak the same language. Perhaps they even have the same alphabet classification." The amphibian began to mummer theories to himself and jotting things down on an electronic pad.

Major General Leers was not as enthused. "That's all and well doctor, but we should focus more on the message itself." The canine turned to face the hovering vessel. "This Jäger fellow mentioned some sort of epidemic. Not only that but he said he was the last one left alive. If this is true, then why was there gunfire?" Leers voiced a very significant question. Indeed, why was there gunfire?

"Maybe there are some sort of automated drones on the ship; they may have gone rouge to contain an outbreak." Beltino hypothesized.

"I have never heard a robot make such noises." Pepper interjected. "That sounded more like some sort of creature rather than a machine."

"Maybe we're dealing with space zombies. I've seen quite a few movies that start of like this, strange alien derelict ship and swarms of undead monsters." Falco suggested, but even though he said it he sounded skeptical and had a joking tone.

"That's crazy.....right?" Slippy asked uncertainly. "I mean there can't be an alien zombie, that's just insane!"

"I wouldn't rule anything out son." Beltino replied. "This ship is not from our reality, there just might be something like that on the ship."

Before any more theories could be tossed on the table and debunked, one of the lab aides spotted something outside the viewport. "Doctor Beltino, there's someone outside!" The black and white dappled male canine pointed out into space, and indeed they could make out a figure floating in space.

They could see some sort of jet system on the figure's suit and they were slowly making their way to the station. A feeling of wonder and dread pervaded them as they studied the unknown figure nearing the station.

"What in the hell...." Leers muttered.

"Could that be the survivor?" Daala asked hesitantly.

"It must be, quickly, to the airlock!" Beltino ordered excitedly. "This could be a first contact situation. I always wanted to be there when it happened!" The toad blabbered as he hastily donned his lab coat and rushed out of the room.

"Wait, what about the pandemic?" Daala warned, rushing after the enthusiastic toad.

Fox looked to his friends and shrugged before following after Beltino, the others in quick pursuit. The party, and several guards donned in hazmat gear, rushed to the closest airlock.

Beltino was already there, practically giddy as he stared at the large rectangular viewport that peered into the pressure chamber. "I insist that you step back Dr. Toad." Leers commanded as he walked over and pulled the amphibian backwards. "We have no idea what may be coming through that room. The canine waved at the guard detail and they stepped forward, leveling their lethal black carbines at the doors.

They all were waiting for something to happen, and as the time dragged on, Falco got grumpy. "I bet that the guy isn't even at this airlock. Wouldn't it be great if we were all squished around this one, only for him to be at the opposite end of the station?"

Yet before his idea could take root, there was a soft and ominous pounding at the large steel doors. "Guess not..." Fox deadpanned.

"Should we open the doors?" Slippy asked fearfully.

It was at this time that Krystal spoke. "I think that it would be wise to open the doors."

Peppy looked to her and nodded. "If Krystal thinks we should, we probably should. She always seems to be right about these things."

The vixen always seemed to know when to do something, and they attributed it to her mysterious powers. She had yet to be wrong in any advice she has given, so it was safe to say that they could take her word for it.

One of the suited guards pressed the activation switch on the panel next to the doors, and they watched as the large steel portals slowly grinded open revealing the blackness of space.

Suddenly, a figure stumbled into the chamber, clutching at their torso. The lights in the chamber made it hard to see, and so they had to wait until the doors sealed and flushed the room with oxygen. Once it had stabilized, the lights flickered on and the artificial gravity asserted itself.

The newly lit room exposed a lone bipedal figure in a dark blue bodysuit plated in bulky black armor. They could tell by the person's physique that they were in fact, a he. His head was encased in a helmet with four slanted slits angling down like an elongated V, each glowing with a soft blue light. But the male collapsed almost immediately after the gravity flicked on, and they saw that he had been impaled by what looked like pieces of bone.

It was a gruesome sight.

"Open the doors!" Beltino ordered. "Good God that man is dying!"

"Sorry Doctor, not until we know that the room is free of any contagion." Leers refuted grimly. The man, (They could assume that he was this Alexander.), had warned about an epidemic. And they could not risk it spreading onto the station.

Beltino grunted and walked over to the airlock, reading the monitor. "The scrubber's are not reporting any known contagions. It looks safe." He turned to Leers knowingly.

The canine thought it over briefly before nodding. "Very well, open the airlock."

One of the guards nodded and input the command. Moments later the doors hissed open and a few of the hazmat soldiers walked in. "Get a stretcher!" One of them called out as they kneeled beside the man, the frozen crimson fluid splattered over the suit began to slowly thaw, the reheated blood cascaded down the man's armor, pooling on the deck.

Fox noticed that the man's helmet lifted marginally before it fell dropped; presumably he was too weak to keep it raised. Within seconds a stretcher team rushed in and they elevated him onto the pallet. It took several men to lift the heavily armored body.

Carrying the man, they rushed to down the hallways to the medical clinic, which was thankfully on the same level. Pepper, Fox, and the rest followed the stretcher team, flanked by the guards. It took little to no time for the team to barge into the clinic and to one of the operating tables.

They transferred the wounded man to the table and walked away, replaced by a team of doctors. "What's going on here? Who is this and what happened?" The lead doctor demanded; she was a female badger. Doctor Milah had seen many things in her days, but this topped them all.

The Prime Minister was quick to explain, the basics, that a strange ship had appeared and that he was one of the people from it. The badger looked at the man and grumbled. "If that's true, he might very well not be a cornerian, and I don't know how to treat aliens, but I'll do what I can."

She ushered them away from the table and turned to her two assistants, ordering them to restrain the patient. They complied, clamping down the steel cuffs built into the table. Once it was certain that he could no longer move, the badger began to feel around his body with her paws, looking for a seam or anything that could get him out of the armor. It would cost valuable time to have to cut it off.

As her paws manipulated around the back of the man's helmet, there was a hiss of air that made her flinch. Following that release of contained oxygen, a loud clatter was heard and the plates that formed the helmet peeled away to unveil a very alien face.

The man was covered in pale white skin, and was furless everywhere but on top of his head; where a small thin patch of black covered the top. He had a rather flat nose and mouth, and his eyes were closed, hiding their color. His cheeks and chin were also covered in a sparse coat of hairs. He had a strong square jaw and high cheek bones. Yet his skin was a sallow color, due to his injured condition.

"Strange..." The badger muttered to herself as she gazed at his face. But her attention was soon transferred to the odd barbs that seemed to be piercing him. The smallest one was pinned in the man's shoulder, and would be fairly easy to remove. The other however would prove to be a challenge. It was larger by quite a few inches, and it was precariously lodged in his lower torso where his armor was thinnest, just below where she felt his ribs. If it had not damaged any vital organs, (assuming that she guessed correctly where they were), it would still be difficult to remove without further exasperating the wound.

The female badger tapped at her muzzle and looked down at the man, trying to puzzle out a course of action. Eventually it looked like she found it as she signaled for her colleges to grab a few pieces of equipment, slipping on a pair of disposable gloves as they did so. They quickly complied and brought them over. The doctor nodded and gently wrapped her paws around the shoulder spike, and slowly; she eased it out of the man's body. The hole was not that bad, a few centimeters in diameter, the problem was the deep tissue damage it caused. She signaled for the doctor on her left to hand her the device he held.

She grabbed the tubular device and brought it to the hole, plugging it with a dark blue gel-like substance. Once it had been filled, she handed it back and placed gauze on the table to dress it up later. "I hope this stuff works on you." She murmured at the unconscious man.

Then Milah turned to the biggest problem, the large spike in his torso. She hesitantly wrapped her paws around it, and tugged softly, hoping that it would be just as simple.

But the man cried out in pain and tensed at the steel bonds. Immediately, she pulled her paws away and snarled a she looked at her torn gloves. "The damn thing's barbed."

The spike in his body was covered in microscopic hooks that seemed designed to stay buried in whatever they were stuffed in. That only deteriorated the situation. No doubt having a large barbed shaft sticking out of your torso was not only painful but detrimental to your health.

The badger growled quietly and she returned to thinking a she switched out the ruined pair of gloves for a new one. The only solution was to cut it out, and that would not at all be pleasant in any way. With a sigh she motioned for her other comrade to hand her a small handle. Once it was in her paws she activated it and a thin blue scalpel blade erupted from it. She brought the blade close to the man's torso and whispered. "Sorry, but this is going to hurt...a lot."

Then she slowly and with great precision, began to cut around the barbs. Almost as soon as her blade touched flesh, the man began to thrash in the restraints and cry out in agony. His eyes shot open, revealing a pair of burnished gold orbs, and he began to look around crazily. But if he planned on speaking, he didn't, just drinking in the room with wild eyes. The only sounds he made were pained as he tried to writhe away from the source of the pain. But the steel restraints were more than adequate in constraining his already enfeebled body.

Some moments after the operation began he must have been reduced to unconsciousness, unable to bear the pain any longer. His body soon stopped thrashing as well and they could have concluded that he was dead if not for the erratic movement of his chest as it jumped up and down.

Milah finished the gruesome task and removed the barb, dropping it on the small stand beside the operation's table and its smaller brother. It had taken a solid half hour to make sure that she removed it without nicking anything important. Usually it would have been finished much sooner, but she was running blind with the body she was working with. Thankfully it seemed that she didn't kill him and she slipped off her bloody gloves.

The doctor then spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to remove the rest of the armor. It was actually easier then it seemed. She found a small thing near the back of his spine and the plates separated, making it easy for them to be removed. It left the man in only his blue bodysuit, which covered everything but his head. She then filled the torso wound with the same blue gel and wrapped both in a thick layer of gauze soaked in antibiotics and manufactured enzymes that would promote healing, if they effected his body as they did to cornerians.

Once that was done, she washed her paws in the sink and walked over to the people who had been watching the procedure closely. "He should be fine, whoever he is. I would like to keep him in a quarantine room until he awakens. It should hopefully minimize any panic he might have. Also, I would like to run his blood and tissue in the machines. We should find out more about him."

Peppy deferred to Daala on the matter as he was only responsible for military matters, the old Hare turned to the cheetah to hear her response.

Daala thought it over before nodding. "That would seem to be the best solution for this matter. We can hopefully find out more after he wakes up."

"Alright then, I'll start running tests right away." Milah walked away, gathering the plentiful amount of samples already available.

The Prime Minister turned to Beltino with a sigh. 'No doubt you know that this means your project is canceled."

The toad nodded gravely. "I understand and agree. It would probably be best to keep it shut down until we have a better understanding of it all. We should have waited longer before doing tests."

"It's okay Dad, we know you were just trying to help out." Slippy added helpfully.

"That may be true son, but look what it has done. What exactly have we brought to our world?" He muttered quietly as he watched the strange alien get wheeled away to another room.

"So....are we still getting paid?" Falco asked bluntly.

Fox shook his head in amazement. "Really Falco...? An alien ship appears and we encounter an alien in the flesh, and you're worried about payment?"

"What?" The avian demanded. "We still need money."

The vulpine rubbed the bridge of his muzzle in exasperation. "Some things will never change, no matter what."

Krystal had stayed quiet throughout the exchange. The vixen had been busy studying the stranger. His mind was a cloud of blackness, filled with strange headache inducing symbols and nightmarish visions. But under that was a diminutive bright light shined brightly, enveloped and shackled by the darkness yet remaining unbroken, It was curious, she had never seen it's like before.

She hummed to herself and rubbed her fuzzy chin. Something about that tickled the back of her mind, she was certain that she had heard of something like that, but could not recall where. It was on the tip of her tongue, and irritated her to no end. Perhaps if she were to speak with this stranger, it could dredge up what she was missing. But for now, she would bide her time and wait.

*********

Alex ran down the loud hallway, passing the panicked populace of the ark as he rushed towards his cabin. The roar of gunfire and frightened screams increased in volume as he switched corridors and continued his dogged pace. He clutched a pulse rifle in his sturdy gauntlets with grim determination.

He finally reached his hall, and the epicenter of the conflict.

He instantaneously spotted four men in armor as they fired down a corridor at a huge mass of bladed limbs and mandibled faces. He could tell that they were barely keeping it together against the terrifying foe they were trying to slow down. People continuously streamed out of the many rows of rooms as the soldiers covered their retreat.

He joined the battle line and added his gun to their ranks. The two men standing beside him gave him appreciate nods, faces concealed behind their black and blue highlighted helms. He returned them as he emptied his clip into a particularly large variation of necromorph.

The creature gurgled as it collapsed without its sword-like limbs that it had been using to propel itself forward. He quickly reloaded and finished it off with a riposte. Eventually the creatures petered off until the corridor was silent, a colossal pile of corpses stopping scant inches from the five soldiers. The four men began to retreat but Alex advanced, climbing over the mound of corpses. They implored him to fallback but he ignored their pleas, hell-bent on his objective.

He jumped down from the top of the hill of necrotic death and rushed down the corridor with reckless abandon. He skidded to a stop in front of a room labeled D-870.

_ He booted the door down and sprinted inside._

"SARAH! SARAH! WHERE ARE YOU?" He shouted, hoping for a response. He searched around the trashed quarters, desperately pining for her. "Sarah please...you have to be here." The soldier whispered softly and slumped to the floor in defeat.

She wasn't there.

But as he was about to give up, he heard shuffling movement in the deep recess of the living room he had called home not so long ago. "Sarah?" He asked hopefully, standing up to walk over there.

He shined the light of his rifle and illuminated the opposite end of the room. "Sarah..."

The figure stumbled out of the dark and into the dim light the low powered flashlight. "No....no..." The man stumbled backwards, dropping his rifle in numb hands and crawling backwards, moaning in agony. "No not you too....Sarah please listen to me. I...I-I can help you. I can fix this somehow. Please....don't make me do this. God, please Sarah. I can't...I can't."

_The figure continued to lethargically advance upon the man as he pleaded in tears. Ignorant or uncaring off his appeals for reason. The monster that had once been Sarah McAllister shrieked and leaped on the man, trying to rip his throat out with its mandibles. _

**********

" SARAH!" Alex roared, shooting up and breathing heavily. The man groaned and clutched his head, moaning softly. "God, these fucking nightmares are gonna kill me." It took him a long time to settle his breath and return to what he could perceive as normal. Then, the past events began to resurface in his mind and he looked around the chamber he was in.

Last he remembered he was in an airlock and had been taken away somewhere. He tilted his head to look at his body and saw that his armor had been removed and he was in his bodysuit. His left shoulder had been treated, as had his torso. So he could assume that whoever or whatever had fixed him wanted him alive.

It was a nice change of pace.

Sighing, he gave the room a more in depth observation. It would seem that he was in some sort of hospital room, except that it was sealed and the doors were made of heavy steel. Instinctively he looked for any vents or other methods of entrance into his room. There was a vent, but thankfully it was too small for any creature to enter, at least that he had encountered so far.

With his safety assured for the moment, he focused on the room once more. The walls were a soft white and the light in the room was bright but not unbearably so. The chamber had only a bed, a steel table bolted into the floor, and a chair, similarly secured. The only other features were a small room with a door, presumably a bathroom, and a large window near the main doors.

He sat up on the bed and began to think.

Obviously he was no longer on the ship, as he was sure that his escape was not a hallucination. So that meant that he was aboard that orbital. And it looks like they had quarantined him, so maybe they got his message. So that left one thing, what was he to do now?

Originally he was trying to reach the bridge of the ark so that he could find a way past the majority of the hoards to residential. There was something on that ship that he needed, and he would not destroy it before he got it.

He had to find a way to get back.

Alex supposed that he would just wait until something happened, that was all he could really do anyways. As he sat there waiting, he noticed a thin tablet sitting on the table. Curious, he walked over and picked it up, reading the title.

"Fur Magazine.....what the fuck?"

**********

Peppy, Beltino, Daala, Leers, and the Starfox team stood on the other side of the observation window. It had been two days since they recovered the strange alien; the fleet had erected a quarantine zone around the alien ship and waited. Everyone waited, until the alien awoke.

They had walked into the room a few minutes ago, and were waiting as usual when he had his violent awakening. Peppy considered the stranger in the room thoughtfully. The test results had come in, and despite a few differences in DNA, he was practically a cornerian. He even spoke the same language. And apparently he could read it to.

Peppy watched with a small amount of amusement as the man flicked through the small electronic tablet, muttering quietly to himself. He seemed to have a permeant grimace of disbelief on his face, if the Hare could read him right. He supposed it was understandable giving the fact he was from a different dimension.

"What do you think Doctor?" Peppy asked, turning to Beltino.

The old toad brushed his glasses before slipping them on. "It is quite amazing. This man seems to be, in all intents and purposes, a cornerian with a few physical differences. The implications are staggering. Imagine...all the dimensions out there, each probably inhabited with a race, much like us."

"That's cool and all Doctor." Leers jumped in. "But what are we going to do with him now? It would seem that for the meantime he is stuck here. And there is still the matter of that ship he was on, and the fact he said he was the last survivor. Factoring in his wounds, and there are a ton of things we are missing here. We need more intel."

"I agree with Leers." Daala gave her input. "My first concern is the safety of our people. And if that ship is a danger, we need to know as soon as possible."

Peppy agreed. "They are right doctor; we need to get some answers."

"That may be so." The amphibian acceded. "But who is going to get them?"

"I could do it sir." Fox suggested. "I might be able to get him to talk. And it's not like we have any professionals on hand."

"Are you sure Fox? He might be dangerous."

"I think I could take him, he's still injured after all." The vulpine said confidently.

"He will not hurt you, although I think we may not like his answers." Krystal suddenly spoke up from her seat.

"How do you know that?" Falco demanded. "He's an alien, which makes him unpredictable."

The vixen shrugged slowly. "I have a feeling."

Falco scoffed and folded his arms. "A feeling she says."

"Hey! She hasn't been wrong yet!" Slippy defended her.

Krystal smiled at his efforts.

"Whatever." Falco muttered. "She could at least tell me the winning numbers sometime."

Fox chuckled as he turned to Peppy. "So, can I do it?"

"Go ahead Fox, but remember, he's an alien. Be careful." Peppy warned.

The vulpine nodded and turned to walk out of the observation room. He slipped out and turned to the door next to it, leading into the room. He put in the code and it clicked open, letting him enter.

**********

Alex pored over the strange magazine with a pervading sense of wonder and skepticism. "Fox Mccloud voted number one hunk....huh." It looked like a normal gossip mag, the kind you downloaded for a few bucks at the store. The only difference was that all the humans had been replaced with animals. And not the kind that walked on four legs.

No, these were bipedal and looked almost human. He sneered as he read from the tablet. What kind of shit was this? Where the hell was he now?

When he thought of finding living aliens, he expected little grey men with huge freaking eyes. Instead they seemed to be humanized animals that spoke English nonetheless!

Alex tossed the paper onto the table and turned to sit back on the bed to think. But as he was, he heard the large doors to his room click. He rotated to see who was entering, half expecting it to be an elaborate ruse, and that some humans were pulling one over. But then he was reminded of a morbid thought. There were no more humans.

Everything ended with the fall of the ark.....everything.

When he saw a fox enter the room he knew that none of this was a game, or some sick twisted pervasive hallucination. It was real, and he was stuck here, how remained to be discovered. But at the very least things could begin to move along now. He hated being stuck in one place for too long, that's when the memories came back.

Alex sat on the bed calmly and watched the vulpine approach. And for the first time in six long months...he laughed, and he laughed hard. His entire muscular frame was wracked with a fit of snickers that confused and startled Fox.

The vulpine had no idea that the man had spent the last six months trapped on a derelict ship, fighting the horrific and warped remnants of humanity. And that after finally survive it all, he encountered a race of alien animals. It had dangerously clawed at his already strained sanity.

"Fox...Mccloud...Right?" He asked over his fit of dark mirth.

"What...how?" The vulpine asked. His voice was not as deep as his, but it still held the ring of command that he heard in his old lieutenant.

The man gestured to the table after his laughter subsided.

Fox turned to the table and saw his muzzle plastered all over the front. Alex swore that he saw the vulpine go red as he scratched at the back of his furred head. 'Oh yeah right...that."

Even as the laughter hurt, it had also stabilized him somewhat, allowing him to deal with his current situation with a little more tact then he would have before.

After that brief little back and forth, they lapsed into an awkward silence, as both parties tried to figure out how to start a conversation with an alien. "Take me to your leaders." Alex suddenly announced, sparking an odd look from the vulpine.

"What?"

Alex sighed wistfully. "Never mind, it was a...huh...joke...I suppose it makes sense that you won't understand it."

"Oh...ok." Fox replied weakly before the deadening silence resumed. A few moments and he tried something. "So....you're a soldier?"

The other man nodded. "Yeah, I wanted to be one for as long as I can remember. And you....you're a merc right?"

"Yeah, just following in my father's footsteps, that's what he was."

Alex made a little noise. "Alright, I suppose we should get down to business huh? You probably want to know everything don't you?"

"You got me there." Fox conceded with a chuckle. "Although I'm sure that it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out."

The soldier nodded knowingly. "What do you want to know first?"

"Why did you say your ship was quarantined?" Fox asked.

At that the man's feature twisted into a grimace. "I think that all you need to know is that it would spell the death of your civilization if you stepped aboard it."

Fox blanched at that. "How could that be?"

The human shifted his gauze to the floor, his expression shifted from a variety of forms, sadness, rage, melancholy, and hate. When he tilted his head back up he was back to normal, a blank face. "How about you change your questions? I think that would be for the best."

The vulpine nodded uncertainly and switched gears. "What race are you?"

"I...am a human." He said that with a deep seated sense of pride, but it also had a tinge of overbearing sorrow to it.

"Human....interesting, never heard of them before."

"It's likely you never will." Alex muttered darkly.

Fox picked up on that but let it go. "What was the purpose of your ship?"

"It was a....you could say shelter. But it failed."

"Failed?"

"Correct, what we were running from followed us. And we died...or at least all the others did. I was the only one that remained." Alex lay down on the bed and stared up at the bland white ceiling. "I was stuck on that ship for a long...long time."

"How long is a long time?" Fox inquired curiously.

"Six months...six months of being hunted, scavenging and trying to live that one extra day to spite the enemy."

"Who was the enemy?"

The human turned on the bed to face Fox. "I pray that you never have to find out."

That was all he could get out of the human on that subject, so he decided to talk about something else. Fox spoke of the Lylat system, describing it to the human. After a few hours he stopped. "Thank you for your time Alex."

"Sure, not much else I can do now. I have nowhere to go." The man replied with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Fox grimaced at that as he stood up to leave. As he headed towards the doors, the human had one last thing to say. "Oh and Fox...."

The vulpine looked over his shoulder.

"Don't board that ship." The human finished seriously before turning away on the bed.

Fox nodded and turned to leave the room, heading towards the observation chamber.