Chapter Text

I

A periwinkle arc of light streaked through the void of space, screaming with a whistling sound no one would hear.  It moved like a dazzling, high-speed serpent: undulating, sidewinding, yet moving with a violent hunter’s precision.  It struck its target with all the lightning viciousness of a snake striking its prey, piercing the shields of the battleship like a diamond-hardened fang, slicing through the alloy muscle of the ship’s exterior, and embedding itself deep into the craft’s G-diffusing beating heart – killing it instantly.

It was followed by a hundred more exactly like it.

Admiral Ravina took in the display as he leaned forward in the command seat of his Triumphant-Class Capital Cruiser – one of the largest flagships in the entire Cornerian Navy.  The fossa had started his career as a simple logistics officer, and had resigned himself to a simple life of planning the movement of troops and materiel.  But the betrayal of Andross and subsequent secession of Venom left a vacuum of reliable leaders in its wake – one General Pepper had filled by placing Ravina in a captain’s chair out of desperation, one of many soldiers suddenly facing unexpected upward mobility.  Against all odds, he’d managed to survive his first battle.  Then his second, and his third, and his fourth – he’d eventually lost count.  He’d also lost count of how many promotions he’d received, only letting it sink in when he woke up one day to find himself a fleet admiral.  Andross, the Aparoids, the Anglars: he’d led sorties against all of them.

So it was with plenty of experience that he realized something was wrong.  It was that sixth sense all good tacticians developed (if, God willing, they managed to survive that long).  The display showed the laser batteries of his battle group wreaking utter havoc on the enemy, his own cruiser’s bolts the brightest of them all.  But even as the enemy’s ships crumpled like paper mâché and his crew members’ expressions broke into excited grins at the unexpected success of their volley, he knew more was coming.

“Steady”, he ordered solemnly, trying not to feel like too much of a party-pooper as his words fell on the bridge like a pall.  He’d accidentally cultivated a reputation as a scrupulous strategist who brooked no room for unprofessional behavior over the years.  “Full scan”, he added.  “Increase the boundaries by 200%.”

“Yes, sir”, a young vixen acknowledged, brought back to earth by his somber demeanor.  He had no idea what she was called – he’d had so many crewmen over the years he’d lost track of their names.

The fossa split his attention between the viewport and radar screen as he awaited the results of her scan.  His own command, Shepherd Unit, appeared as a collection of blue dots hanging in the aether, while Bloodhound Unit was further off to their relative ‘right’, apparently positioning themselves to flank the ragtag enemy contingent.

He took another look at said contingent.  It was made up of a variety of vessels, most of them modified freighters and tankers – perhaps a little imposing, based on sheer size, but the vehicles were so poorly-outfitted they could barely be considered an army.  It went against all the information they’d so far gathered about the Octovarian mercenary fleet and their activities within Lylat.

No, there was a ploy here.  Ravina was sure of it.  If he had to guess…

“Warp gate transmission!”  The vixen shouted a little too loudly.  “Just beyond the original sensor range”, she added in a more measured tone of voice.

And there it is, the fossa thought, showing no surprise or displeasure on his face.  The enemy had callously used a fleet of easily-destroyed fodder to bait them into flying further into empty space without support.  One gate here, another near Bloodhound Unit.  He was about to comm his fellow admiral when his cruiser rocked to the side, bombarded with a graceless chunk of orange-red plasma that scattered and spread over their shields like a lob of gelatinous magma.

A tightly packed formation of dark, sleek battleships flew through the wreckage of their own sacrificial pawns to bear down on them, each making sure to face towards the Cornerian ships to reduce their profiles.  Large cannons affixed to their bows continued the plasma bombardment.

Ravina didn’t need to look at the radar to know Bloodhound Unit was facing the same barrage.

“Change trajectory to face them”, he ordered calmly, intending to reduce his own fleet’s profiles to match.  He tuned out the manic energy on his bridge to focus on the enemy: their ships having central batteries protruding from their front-facing bows like that was a very good design for fast, hard-hitting maneuvers – but it meant said cannons would be easily severable from the side, jutting out as they were.  “Scramble starfighters”, he added.  “Tell them to focus their efforts on the mid-barrels of the enemy cannons.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

He waited as the two fleets exchanged fire.  Precise lilac lances and shapeless orange blobs tossed back and forth to minimal effect – for now.  As their ships got closer to each other, the damage ratio would start to increase, and it didn’t take much of an educated guess to realize the enemies’ projectiles would yield more devastation than their own.

He needn’t have worried though, as formations of Cornerian starfighters flew forth from the hangar bays of their battleships to engage the enemy.  The Octovarians’ strategy was ruthless, but also too arrogant – they hadn’t thought to let loose their own close-range fighters until his own were already swarming over their fleet like gnats.  At this point, it was too late: already one of the enemy ship’s front-facing cannons was cut from the rest of its hull by the quick and focused work of his fighter squadrons, debilitating its greatest capacity to deal damage.

A rare ghost of a smile formed on his lips as he let himself savor his success – the enemy had set a trap, and he’d forged through regardless.

His relative happiness was short-lived as the vixen started speaking urgently.  “Sir!  Bloodhound Unit…”

She didn’t have to finish her statement as he witnessed Bloodhount Unit’s capital cruiser disappear on the radar.  Apparently, his fellow admiral hadn’t had the foresight to scramble his own fighters, and the enemy’s plasma cannons melted half his ship away.

Ravina stroked his chin.  He was making solid work of the portion of the Octovarian fleet which had engaged him… but now the other half was headed in his direction, Bloodhound Unit left scattered and defeated in their wake.  He froze as he realized he had no way out of this one.  It didn’t matter how well they flew when they were outnumbered two-to-one.  He was about to order a retreat to the planet to regroup with Dingo Unit when another warp gate signature appeared – this one well behind their lines.

A swift moment of horror rose and subsequently passed as he realized the reinforcements weren’t there to bolster their enemy, but rather them.  A group of Cornerian cruisers had arrived, with a very welcome and familiar battleship among them.

“This is Fox McCloud”, a transmission from the Great Fox rang out.  “Looks like you guys could use some help.”

Ravina grinned again, getting some surreptitiously surprised looks from his crew.  “I agree”, he responded genteelly.

This was one of the things he’d learned about fighting for so many years: the tide could always be turned.

……….

Fox sprinted down the length of the hallway towards the hangar, warning lights strobing along the corners and alarm bells ringing in his ears.  He tried not to get too excited at the prospect of jumping into the cockpit of his Arwing and flying into the fray, but it was a losing battle.  He was made for this, and it’d been too long since he’d last fully engaged his raison d'être and led a fearless, no-holds-barred charge into an enemy.  He would gladly stake his life for Lylat on any mission Peppy asked of him – but he knew his talents were wasted on small-scale skirmishes and security ops.  His father might have been a renowned mercenary with a talent for that sort of thing, but Fox wasn’t James McCloud.  He didn’t have an aptitude for reconnaissance and subterfuge.  He was built for battle.

His teammates kept pace alongside him, and he wondered what each of them was carrying into the coming conflict.  Was Falco really as much of a money-minded playboy as he projected, doing this all for the paycheck?  Did Krystal actually enjoy her work, or was it just a job she performed to protect her friends?

Was Slippy really up for this, right now?

Fox didn’t want to think about what it meant that he did enjoy his work, so he put the thought aside, back into the box he always stored it in and promised to open at some point.

Tomorrow.  There was always a tomorrow.

The four of them almost collided into Wolf and his team as the trio casually ambled around the corner.  “Jesus, Fox.  Where’s the fucking fire?”, the lupine loudly complained as they ran past.

“Shredding our fleet to bits if we don’t put it out”, Fox shot back as he continued to jog towards the hangar.  He saw Wolf roll his eyes in his peripheral vision and grinned a little manically at the gesture.  Wolf and his team were going to have to get used to house rules on mission readiness if they wanted to keep up.

They arrived at the hangar and broke off to their individual Arwings.  Fox climbed and leapt into his own, beginning the activation sequence through pure muscle memory.  Adrenaline pumped through his veins as the starfighter’s engines primed and its cockpit vacuum-sealed.  His Arwing started to lift and turn in place as he saw Wolf, Panther and Fay enter the hangar bay.  He shot Wolf a half-mocking salute as the larger canine climbed into his new Wolfen – he responded with a middle finger.

Fox laughed to himself, but swiftly assumed the demeanor of a captain as the hangar doors began to open.  “Star Fox”, he opened a wide comm with his team.  “Report in.”

“I’m ready”, Krystal responded evenly.

“Prepped and ready to go”, Slippy said.

“Why do you even gotta do this?”, Falco whined.  “You already know we’re ready.”

“Just gotta make sure, Falco.  Don’t want your tailfeathers getting burned off by your own engine.”  Fox cut off Falco’s crude response midway, taking rein of his Arwing and angling it towards the inky expanse of space visible outside the hangar.  A momentary glimpse of Venom looming in the distance fouled his humor somewhat.

“I’m not going to do a countdown thing”, Wolf grumbled as his Wolfen prepped and primed.  “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Agreed”, Panther said darkly.

“Aye-aye, cap’n!”, Fay shouted much too loudly, neutralizing all of Panther’s grimness.

One last burst of initial G-diffused energy shot from his Arwing’s engine, and he knew it was time.  “Let’s rock and roll, people.”  He punched the thruster and flew out of the hangar, pilot’s intent and vehicle’s motions syncretized to the point it didn’t even feel like he was controlling a piece of machinery anymore.  He let himself be sublimated into the starfighter and shot towards the fray like a rocket.

There were supposed to be two contingents of Cornerian battleships engaged with the enemy, but one of them had lost their flagship and wound up scattered and broken out of formation.  He opened a comm channel with the Capital Cruiser hanging behind them, sitting smack dab in the center of a large contingent of battleships that’d arrived alongside the Great Fox.  “Peppy.  I think Ravina’s mostly got his side under control.  Intercept the other enemy force?”

“Sounds like a plan”, the old hare answered.  Fox knew Peppy’d be keeping his own flagship far from the front for security reasons, and he also knew how much this would bother him.  The lagomorph would be living somewhat vicariously through his own fleet.  “I’m sending the bulk of my forces that way.  Keep the enemy off of Ravina’s flank as long as you can.”

“You got it”, Fox agreed, ending the commline and angling his Arwing towards the oncoming formation of Octovarian ships slowly making their way towards Shepherd Unit.  “Alright, team.  We’ve got orders to keep the enemy busy until the big guns get here.”

“I don’t”, Wolf grunted.  “The faster the admiral cleans up his side, the faster he engages the other group – and the faster we wrap this shit up.”  He broke his Wolfen off from their formation.  “Star Wolf: on me.”

The trio of crimson-lined starfighters split away and rocketed towards the other portion of the fleet.  Fox let out a vexed smile – of course Wolf would immediately leave to do his own thing.  The lupine’s logic was sound, and it was a genuinely good idea, but Fox knew damn well the real reason he did it was just to live up to his contrarian reputation.

That drive to do whatever he willed was a large part of what drew him to the larger canine in the first place though, so he couldn’t begrudge Wolf for following his own nature.

“The admiral said their cannons are a weak spot”, Krystal brought his mind back on-target.  “We should concentrate our fire there.”

“Just give me something to shoot and I’m happy”, Falco said as his Arwing shot ahead of the rest of them, sweeping in a wide arc that started to draw fire from the enemy turrets.  All of their shots fell short as Falco changed his acceleration in unpredictable ways, setting himself on one parabola and then wildly veering off into another.  It seemed haphazard, but Fox knew it was a carefully practiced dance – he’d never known a pilot to frustrate and distract an enemy quite like Falco.

Fox flew head-on towards one of the battleships in a slow-motion pirouette, bright green lasers flickering from the twin cannons on his Arwing and peppering the large starhip’s shields to minimal effect.  He suddenly dove down as several turrets embedded in its side trained their cannons on him and began raining down bolts of their own, building up speed until just the right moment – when he suddenly pulled back up in a reverse-dive and refocused his aim on the narrowest portion of its front-facing cannon.  He lined his shot up right until he was certain it was perfect before pressing the conspicuous crimson button on the side of his joystick and subsequently darting away at top speed – he’d been caught in the radius of one of his own smartbombs before, and once was enough.  He only saw the explosion reflected in the hull of the enemy ship and in the glass casing of his cockpit, but he knew his aim had been true.

“That’s one down!”, Slippy said excitedly over the comms.

“Yeah – only eight more to go”, Falco cut in sarcastically.

“We won’t have to disable all of them”, Krystal supplied.  “Just keep them tied up till the fleet gets here.”

“Which won’t be much longer…”, Fox added as he noticed the Cornerian starships were already halfway to their position on radar.  “Let’s focus on taking them out one-at-a-time for now, the more we–”  He was interrupted by bolts of low-grade laserfire striking his Arwing, causing him to roll away on pure instinct.  “Dammit.  They’ve scrambled fighters.”

“I see ‘em”, Falco drawled.  “About time the cavalry arrived.”  His Arwing swooped down on an unsuspecting enemy fighter like one of his prehistoric ancestors, striking close enough to draw blood before letting loose a barrage of fire directly into its cockpit and blowing it up.  “What was that about ‘taking them out one-at-a-time’ again?”

Fox shook his head.  “Belay that order.  Star Fox: fire at will.”

“That’s more like it”, Falco said as he peeled off again to stalk his own prey.  Fox kept a tighter formation with his other two teammates, weaving in and out and within the loose net of enemy starfighters that was now swarming the battlefield, all the while Falco flew around them in lazy circles, picking off the enemies they couldn’t.

A searingly-bright orange light ahead of him caused Fox to momentarily panic.  “Evasive actions!”, he shouted as he barrel-rolled in an unwieldy, diagonal arc, barely dodging the absolutely massive lob of superheated plasma that flew by close enough to make him feel the heat from within his Arwing.

“Everyone, report”, he asked urgently as he righted himself, trying to figure out everyone’s positions after being scattered like that.

“I’m fine”, Krystal said a little shakily

“Did they seriously aim one of their big guns at us!?”, Falco asked exasperatedly.

“I’ve got an enemy on my tail!”, Slippy yelped.

Fox sighed and spun his way towards Slippy, managing to take out one of the enemy fighters on his way.  He got there just in time to watch Slippy aggressively perform a spinning flip with his Arwing and destroy the starfighter that he couldn’t shake.

“Never mind – I’m good”, the amphibian added, sounding relieved.

The vulpine just hovered there for a few seconds, stunned at the display.

“Earth to Fox!”, Falco yelled, sounds of laser fire narrowly missing him audible over comms.  “The giant cannon that’s still aiming at us!?”

Fox’s ears perked up.  “Right.  The cannon.”  He twisted his Arwing around and redoubled his efforts to reach the enemy battleship, diving past enemy fighters, slipping through their formations, and shooting them when the opportunity arose.  He primed his second, remaining smartbomb while only loosely aiming at the enemy ship, hoping his intuition would cover for his lack of precision as he let it go.  “Bombs away”, he warned his team before flipping and flying the other direction.  Once more the bright explosion shone reflected and refracted on the glass of his cockpit.

“Nice shot”, Krystal said, confirming that he’d managed to hit it.  He turned to the side to see the results of his handiwork: another cannon severed down the middle, its edges glowing crimson and cauterized by the heat of the explosive.

The trademark shimmering lance of a Cornerian laser battery arced through the vacuum and struck the denuded battleship, followed by several more.  Fox veered his Arwing out of the line of fire, grinning at the group of silver cruisers as they blindsided the enemy ships and let loose havoc upon their hulls.  Peppy’s backup was here, but they’d need plenty of help.

“Good work, team”, he commended them.  “Let’s finish the job.”

……….

“We’re slamming the bastards, but they keep coming!”

Peppy surveyed the three-dimensional holo-display of the battlefield from his seat, paws steepled, brow taught.  Captain Grey’s status update validated the truth of the situation wrought in lines of cyan light in front of him: the Octovarian forces were better-outfitted than they had any right to be, and were clearly talented fighters to boot.  That latter part didn’t come as a surprise, since Octovarian mercenary forces were some of the most battle-hardened in known space due to the violent nature of their system – but that was the thing, wasn’t it?  Mercenary forces, in plural.

The disparate warrior bands of Octovar were always a nebulous threat to Lylat in the sense that they could hypothetically be dangerous, but they were fractious by nature.  There was no central government in Octovar.  The status quo of the system was a flux of interstellar ronin warlords: warrior clans who climbed to the top only to be thrown off the mountain, just to climb to the top all over again.  They had different subcultures, different ships, different weapons, different livery, different tactics – this unified front of top-of-the-line battle cruisers of similar make and model they were facing now upended everything they knew about how politics in Octovar worked.  Clearly, they hadn’t been paying enough attention to their cosmic neighbors.

Peppy resolved to correct that deadly mistake – later, when they weren’t in the midst of trying to make it less deadly.

“Bring your squadron back around to the line again”, he ordered Grey.  They needed to break the enemy front before this turned into a war of attrition, and they weren’t going to do it by hanging back and letting the smaller corvettes and starfighters handle it.

“Sir?”, Grey asked, obviously understanding Peppy’s intent, but doubting whether it was a good idea to risk that much.  What the captain didn’t know is that they risked even more by not committing now.  The sooner this was over, the sooner they could recollect themselves and prevent further incursions – and nothing was going to end this sooner than Peppy’s own dreadnought entering the fray.

“Don’t worry, Bill”, Peppy said with what he hoped was a warm, disarming tone.  He dropped that mien and resumed the role of a seasoned commander.  “Helmsman: bring us forward and make for Ravina’s contingent.  We’re going to break their line.”

“Yes, sir”, the reptile responded without question.  Peppy idly wondered if his willingness to follow orders was born of respect for his strategy, or rote military traditionalism.  He hoped it was more of the former than the latter.  He let that distraction keep his mind at ease as the flagship ran over and through the swarms of enemy starfighters, batting them away like motes of dust.

“Fire at will”, he commanded easily, trusting his crew to decide when and how to launch barrages of laser-fire and missiles at the enemy’s starships as they encroached on them.  A chaotic blitz of destruction flew from the cannons of the capital ship, drawing the attention of several of the enemy battleships.  Good, Peppy thought as the enemy ships turned to face them.  Let them try.

Misshapen orange lobs of plasma catapulted across the distance between the enemy ships and their own, scattering on their shields to minimal effect.  Peppy let out a quiet sigh of relief.  The shields on his own dreadnought were quite a bit stronger than that of the other Cornerian battleships, and he’d made an educated guess they’d better withstand the enemy’s plasma cannons, but he hadn’t been a hundred percent certain until he saw the superheated, glorified cannonballs of energy dissipate across the bow with his own eyes.

Fortified by the sight, he issued another command.  “Increase speed.  Draw the enemy’s eyes on us.”  He opened a channel with the other, smaller capital cruiser in his vicinity.  “Admiral Ravina, I have the enemy’s attention – now is the time to strike.”

“Understood, General”, he replied evenly.  Peppy knew Ravina well enough to know the fossa knew exactly what to do.  With the enemy’s cannons turning to face his dreadnought, it’d be the best time for the other Cornerian starships and one-man fighters to tear those cannons right off.

“Grey, focus on the cannons.  Our corvettes and cruisers have you covered.”

“You got it, boss man!”, the canine answered excitedly.  A small smile played across Peppy’s face at his enthusiasm.  After they handled this enemy contingent, they’d be able to double back to focus on the other.  They’d lost a sizable chunk of people, Peppy knew – but all in all, this could’ve been much worse.

Perhaps it was that thought that jinxed it, he wondered, as a new warp signature emerged behind the enemy lines.  An unmistakable capital ship emerged, and it looked nothing like the rest of the Octovarian fleet.  It was a dark, heavily greebled mass, taller than it was long, thorny where the rest of the Octovarian ships were bulbous: a concave, inverted crescent with needle-sharp antennae emerging haphazardly from every surface.

Its core started to glow an iridescent color that wavered from bright teal to violet, and a familiar, pit-like feeling of absolute danger settled in Peppy’s core.  “All ships: pull back”, he ordered quietly.  The glow increased in strength, and Peppy knew the best-case scenario was that it focused on his own ship for long enough to allow the rest of their forces to escape.

“Negative, General”, Ravina’s even voice echoed.  Peppy’s battlefield display showed a swarm of escape pods bursting from the Admiral’s cruiser like spores.  “Your death would be disastrous for Lylat.”  As the ferocity of the glow peaked, Ravina’s capital ship floated between the enemy and Peppy’s own.

Peppy’s paw twitched.  He knew what was happening, that it was the best tactical decision, and there was nothing that he could do about it.  It felt like he was speared right through the middle regardless.

“You’re a good man, Lorn”, he said solemnly.

“You as well, Peppy.”

The unworldly glow grew a brilliant white for a split-second, and then let loose.  A solid, unbroken jet of painfully bright green energy was unleashed from the enemy capital ship, and it held for several seconds on Ravina’s cruiser, superheating it from the inside and cracking it like an egg – the explosion was possibly the brightest Peppy had ever seen, a violet-teal fractal flower that continued to froth and bubble for a few seconds, jets of molten metal and streams of G-diffusion forces scattered across the screaming void in every conceivable direction.

But Peppy looked past that blooming flower of destruction, eyes drawn towards it cause.  The enemy flagship lurked behind the rest of the line, laying dormant, almost certainly recharging its main cannon.

Peppy knew without a doubt: they had to destroy that ship.

……….

Wolf tried to close his eyes to no avail.

That was the thing about having a cybernetic implant: you couldn’t spare yourself from certain sights.  Even as he kept his biological eye shut tight, the continuing explosion of the (presumably now late) admiral’s ship played out as an incomprehensible show of infrared and ultraviolet in the other.  He slowly winked his good eye open just to reestablish a visual – the explosion was such a mess of energy flying in every direction that it’d take a few seconds more for his implant to readjust, and he didn’t have that time.

“Update”, he huffed out over the comms.

“Peachy”, Panther snipped.

“That is a big, big ship!”  Fay’s voice wasn’t quite trembling, but it wasn’t stable either.

Wolf was just happy they were all alive, relatively close to the obliterated capital cruiser as they had been.  He knew their old Wolfens wouldn’t have made it through something like that – just another thing he had to thank the monkey for, now.

The immense newcomer to the battlefield lingered beyond the rest of the enemy armada, and Wolf felt his stomach flip a little at the sight of it.  Fay was right: it was a big ship.  Something about it pricked at the back of Wolf’s mind, triggering a vague sense of familiarity; which made no sense, since he definitely would’ve remembered seeing a ship as massive and strange-looking as this one.

He ignored the mild déjà vu and pinged Fox as he drew his Wolfen into a wider arc around the battlefield, now resuming in ferocity after the momentary stunned silence of the destructive display.

“Wolf!”, Fox responded, his voice like a parent calling for a child carried away by a riptide.  “Thank God.  When we saw that explosion–”

“Save your worried lover routine for later and get your ass over here.  Enemy flagship just arrived – that’s why you saw an explosion.”  A slight but noticeable glow started to emanate from that dark mass lingering in the distance again.  “And unless we do something fast, there’s going to be another one.”

“Dammit”, the vulpine cursed under his breath.  “If we fly over there, we might lose this side of the battle.”

Wolf sighed forcefully through his nose.  “And I’m telling you: if you don’t fly over here, we’re going to lose every side of this battle.”  He gritted his teeth as he waited for a response.

“Goddammit.  Fine.  We’re on our way.  Try to survive.”

“I always do.”  He ended the commline and spun into a dive, taking out another enemy fighter on the way.  “Alright, Star Wolf.  Ready to get a little reckless?”

“Always!”, Fay responded instantly, spinning into a position at his left flank.

A deep sigh came across the line before Panther fell in at his right.  “No, but do we ever have a choice?”

“Not even a little bit.”  Wolf gunned the throttle and flew straight forward, heading for the enemy flagship.  He honestly had no idea what he was doing – taking out giant ships was Fox’s specialty, not his.  But if the vulpine could do it, why couldn’t he?

Wolf grinned a little maniacally at the thought of outdoing Fox as he flew into the maw.

……….

Fox flew through the wreckage of the enemy fighter without a second glance.  He’d long become inured to the sight of the twisted, molten metal he left behind him, focusing instead on whatever goal he was trying to achieve.

Which in this instance was keeping his closest confidantes alive.

“Approaching enemy flagship!”, Slippy loudly stated the obvious.

“Daaaamn”, Falco drawled.  “That ship is ug-ly.”

Krystal pulled her Arwing alongside Fox’s.  “I’m reading Star Wolf’s signatures, but they’re not responding – they’re probably too involved.”

Fox narrowed his eyes as he took in the sight.  The enemy flagship was a looming, nightmarish morass of vaguely iridescent spikes, lazily hanging behind the loose net of smaller frigates still firing off their plasma cannons.  Ungainly as the capital ship was, he couldn’t even tell where its command deck was located.  He watched as a few stray lasers lanced across the battlefield from behind them and into the shields of the thorny mass to minimal effect.

He chewed his lip – if high-band Cornerian starship-fire couldn’t pierce the flagship’s hide, what could they do about it?  He tried to focus.  There had to be a way.  There was always a way.

He rolled his Arwing out of the path of incoming turretfire from the massive ship and swiftly re-angled himself for a straight shot towards its hull. “Alright, team – let’s see what we can do.”

A chorus of agreement rang out, and he rocketed forward, spinning in and out of the line of fire.  Krystal was right: he could make out Wolf’s signature on his radar, weaving and bobbing closer to the capital ship’s surface.  His silence could only mean one thing: that he was fighting for his life.  Fox tried not to let that thought puncture his focus.  He kept a commline open, trusting Wolf to check in when he was able to.

“Fighters incoming”, Falco said tersely.

“I see them”, Fox acknowledged, taking a few potshots here and there as he continued to fly towards the flagship.  He’d figure out what to do once he got there.

Hopefully.

He turned his Arwing ninety degrees as he made the final approach, allowing is narrow profile to pass between the tangled forest of spires jutting from the capital ship’s surface.  They were even eerier up close, some with a slight curvature to them, like dark alloy whiskers.  His cursory guess was that they must have served some sensory purpose, but he didn’t think trying to destroy them was a good use of time.

“Fox…”, Krystal sounded worried.

“Give me a few”, he responded, assuming her fear was rooted in his lack of a plan.  He needed to think, but it was hard when so much of his mental processing power was dedicated to dodging bursts of laserfire while flying through what was effectively a labyrinth of thorns.  It didn’t even feel like he was flying through space anymore – it looked like his Arwing was bounding through a thick canopy of jet-dark steel punctuated by occasional arcs of deadly fire.

He shuddered with nervous tension as he tried to figure out a plan to at least weaken the capital ship, if not incapacitate it.  If he could just get a second to think.

“Fox!”, Wolf’s voice rang out loudly, shaking him from his focus.  “The cannon!”

Fox was torn between relief at hearing Wolf’s voice and worry at how tense it sounded.  “Wolf – what do you mean?”

“The cannon!”, he yelled again.  “The cannon, you dipshit!  Blow it up!”

Fox’s ears perked up even as Slippy’s voice filled his ears.  “I’m detecting an energy surge coming from the flagship’s core!”

“On me!”, Fox yelled excitedly, pulling his Arwing into an about-face turn and heading towards the massive ship’s relative center, skating around more spires on the way.  As he flew past Wolf and his team, they converged on his Arwing.

“We’ll cover you”, Panther provided as he blew up a turret that was aiming for Fox.

“Much obliged”, the vulpine replied automatically as he escaped the forest of spires, crested a ridge, and came face-to-face with what had to be the flagship’s cannon.  It was a silvery tumor jutting out from the deepest concave aspect of the crescent-shaped hull, noteworthy in its lack of spiked appendages.  An aperture at its center was opening slowly, bright green energy laced with flashes of violet accumulating from within.  The spiked protrusions beyond the cannon’s circumference started to take on a shimmer themselves: thin waves of foggy energy coalescing from across the surface and rippling towards the center.

“That doesn’t look good”, Falco supplied.

“Fox, take the shot!”, Slippy yelled as the cannon’s aperture grew larger, revealing concentric rings pulsing with energy within.

Fox lined up his Arwing with the growing opening: a smartbomb aimed just right could trash the entire cannon from the inside, and they all knew it.

He was about to let loose when he suddenly realized something.

“…Uh oh.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, pup”, Wolf gritted after a second’s pause.

“I’m out of bombs”, he stated matter-of-factly, ignoring Krystal’s intake of breath.  “Laserfire isn’t going to cut it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake”, the lupine borderline whined.

Fox eyed the aperture, noticing how it started to glow brighter.  He could make out Peppy’s ship on his radar in the distance, directly in the line of fire of the enemy’s cannon.

“Shit, shit, shit!”, Falco cursed as enemy fighters encroached.  “I’m getting hammered over here, I can’t make the shot!”

Krystal and Slippy were talking, but he tuned out their frantic comms chatter, trying to center himself.  He took a deep breath and considered his options.

Peppy was vital to Corneria’s survival – none of the other generals and admirals could come close to his leadership, and he didn’t think Lylat could handle losing both its civilian and military leadership in a single 24-hour period.  He was out of bombs, and he wasn’t sure if his teammates were capable of making the shot.

There was a very obvious solution to this dilemma.  His Arwing was even perfectly lined-up already.  He struggled with whether or not he should say something as his paw twitched on his thruster.  They’d try to talk him out of it – he knew they would – and he didn’t think they had the time to argue, not judging by the way the cannon glowed.

He vaguely heard Krystal say his name, voice quavering.  She had to have known what he was thinking, what he was considering.  He licked his lips anxiously as he opened a broad comms channel, but his paw still hovered over the thruster.  He needed to push it.  He had to push it.

But he hesitated – and a crimson blur streaked past him.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE!”, Wolf bellowed.  “COVER ME!”

Fox startled out of his trance, automatically following Wolf’s order and gunning down the fighters who’d been on the lupine’s tail as his Wolfen arced towards the cannon.  He only barely noticed as Wolf fired a smartbomb directly into the cannon’s aperture, mind still adrift.

“EVERYONE GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE”, Wolf yelled again as he pulled away, deposit made.  As Fox pulled his Arwing around to follow Wolf out, he noticed the green glow and coalescing mist of energy around the cannon had dissipated, replaced by a burning orange, the cannon’s surface starting to ripple and liquify like molten magma.

The sight only further brought his mind back to earth and spurned on his speed as he kept pace with Wolf.  A quick glance at his radar showed they’d all made it out, and he let the exhilaration of the escape take over him and wash away the remnants of what came before.  The energy of the charging cannon started to backfire into the ship itself, and he knew a big chunk of that energy would explode outward. 

Death was at his heels, and it felt like he never flew faster.  It was the same terrifying, awful, exuberant rush of escaping Venom, of escaping the Aparoid homeworld.

It was the rush of being alive.

A telltale bright flash blossomed from behind him, but they were all well far away at that point.  He couldn’t have kept the grin off his face as he tried.  “Good job, people!”

Fay whooped, and he clearly heard Krystal sigh in relief.  Slippy, Falco and Panther started adding to the chatter – but Wolf was silent.  He was about to start a private comm when he noticed two things:

Firstly, that the enemy flagship was still flying – although at least there was a smoking, smoldering hole where that night terror of a cannon used to be.

And second, that he was receiving an urgent message from Peppy.  He patched the lagomorph through without a thought.  “What’s up?”

The sounds of his own teammates’ post-battle cheer still rang over the comms as Peppy quietly and somberly told him the news.  He closed the line with a frown.

“…I’ve got some bad news”, he finally interrupted their celebratory banter.  At their silence, he continued.  “The other battle group failed, and the enemy broke through.”

A few seconds of confused silence passed before Wolf finally spoke up.  “And?”

Fox shook his head automatically, despite no one being able to see.  “They flew off and started warping as soon as they got within the bounds of the system.  Peppy says they had at least six battleships left, and who knows how many gunships and fighters.”  He scratched his ear – a nervous tic.  “It’s only a matter of time before they start attacking… well, everywhere, I suppose.”

The dark silhouette of the enemy flagship was illuminated by the still-burning heart at its core.  Mortally wounded as it was, it started to retreat from the front, skulking back into the shadows of wild space as stray spears of Cornerian laserfire struck its hull.

“So… what now?”, Falco asked.

Fox sighed.  “Now, we regroup.”  He turned away from the sight of the dark flagship sinking into the night and towards the remnants of the Cornerian forces… and the sallow, green planet beyond.

“And figure out what to do next.”