Star Fox: Dark Orbit

Chp. 4

The trio made their way single file through the narrow, winding canyons that seemed to be the only geographical feature on this particular section of Nibiru's surface. They proceeded with the utmost caution, painfully aware that enemies could be lurking around the corner of every turn and twist that they encountered. Fox and Falco alternated leading the way and playing rear guard, making sure that Kouna, with his damaged craft, was always in the middle of their formation. The badger wasn't anywhere near as combat-experienced as the two Star Fox members, but he knew his way around the area much better than they did, and both of them knew that they would be hopelessly lost without him.

The work lights of each skiff illuminated the area in front of them, but couldn't pierce through Nibiru's thick atmosphere for any great distance. They served to keep the skiffs from running into the canyon walls, which was certainly necessary, but they couldn't provide much advance warning of approaching foes. At Kouna's suggestion, they kept the sound pickups turned up to maximum gain. Fox had observed that most of the creatures now rampaging across the surface of Nibiru made a fair amount of noise, and the sound would help alert them to the presence of potential enemies, even if they couldn't see them in Nibiru's dark and murky atmosphere. The noise of their enemies wasn't the only thing they could hear, though. Despite the fact that Nibiru had no real weather patterns, wind occasionally blew through the winding canyons, sounding like the moaning of some lost soul. That, plus the occasional rock fall that it triggered, happened on a regular basis – not so often that they grew accustomed to it as background, but often enough that it began to wear on their nerves after the first couple of hours.

They traveled in silence for a long time, until Fox finally thought to ask a question that had been nagging at him for the past few hours. "Kouna, how come these civilian mining corporations have all this military hardware here? I thought that amount of ordinance in non-military hands was illegal."

There was a dry chuckle from the badger as he replied, "The pulse lasers that are mounted on the mining skiffs are modified versions of common mining beams; we've just greatly boosted the power output to turn them into viable weapons. As for the Stingers and such, there are limitations on how much a civilian agency can buy of those items, but no restrictions on how many we can make. Mallidium can be used to make more than just support beams and sheet metal. Oh, turn left up here."

"Wait a second," Falco said from up front, even as he turned to follow the badger's directions. "I didn't see any manufacturing facilities or industrial complexes anywhere. How could you possibly make any weapons at all here?"

There was another laugh from the badger at Falco's bewildered question. "When we get where we're going, Mr. Lombardi, perhaps I can show you. But in the meantime, keep your eyes open in case any more of the Legion happens to cross our paths."

Fox chuckled as he heard the avian grumbling about being ordered around like a grunt in the army. "I wouldn't mind an answer to that question myself, Kouna," he told the badger.

"The actual physics of the phenomenon are a bit beyond my education, Mr. McCloud," the badger answered. "And it really is something that has to be seen to be properly appreciated."

"And now that you mention that," Falco chimed in again, "where exactly are we going?"

"We're headed to a repair outpost that should still be intact… I hope," Kouna answered. "Any survivors of the MineCo base will probably assemble there, and it's the closest safe place to the transit tube that leads to the central mining complex."

"And what happens then?" Falco wanted to know.

"Hopefully, what happens next is we go from there to another transit tube that takes us to the launch facilities at the northern pole, and we all get off this God-forsaken rock," Kouna said a little heatedly. "But right now I have no idea of what to expect once we get there. What I do know is that we can't stay here or we'll eventually get killed." Falco had no reply for that comment, since he felt much the same way. He and Fox changed positions, and the vulpine pilot took point again.

He hadn't been up front for more than five minutes when he heard the ominous sounds of more creatures up ahead of them. "Guys, we've got incoming!" he called back to Falco and Kouna. Fox hit his lateral thrusters and drifted to the left as Falco sidled right, leaving all three of them with clear fields of fire. They moved forward carefully, fingers ready on the firing buttons of their controls and tensely anticipating the appearance of their foes.

They didn't have long to wait. One after another the silhouettes of four Bruisers materialized out of the thick mist that lay heavy in the canyons that crisscrossed this section of Nibiru. As the creatures sensed the lights from the skiffs, they screeched one after the other and accelerated sharply towards the vehicles, arms spread wide and mandibles gaping. Kouna flinched at the noise, the involuntary motion reflected in the sudden sideways twitch that his skiff made. Fox and Falco, on the other hand were a bit calmer in the face of the approaching enemies. Fox waited until the Bruisers had accelerated to their top speed and would be unable to turn very well, and then shouted "Fire!" He and Falco immediately launched a Stinger apiece; Kouna belatedly realized what was happening and fired his own a half-second after the others.

The three rockets zipped across the distance between the skiffs and the monsters in the blink of an eye. Fox's and Falco's hit their intended targets and detonated, ripping open the bodies of the creatures and dropping them to the ground below, dead before they had finished falling. Kouna's rocket missed its initial target but slammed into the creature behind it, tearing open its side and sending it to follow its brethren on the canyon floor. That left just one Bruiser still alive and well, and the three of them wasted no time in training their pulse beams on it and pummeling it with shots. On their own, the jury-rigged weapons would have done little damage, but the concentrated fire from three of them quickly riddled the Bruiser with a dozen burnt holes, and it dropped to the ground to join the other three.

Fox cautiously started forward again, keenly aware that there could easily be more of the monsters lurking just out of sight. As he passed over where the bodies of the four that had been slain lay, however, a hum from the console drew his attention. It took him a moment to find what had changed, but when he did he scratched his head in puzzlement and took a closer look. The cargo hold had been empty before, but now the gauge read as five percent full. Fox stared at the gauge for a couple more seconds, then an idle thought came to him and he inched the skiff sideways several yards to test his hypothesis. He confirmed it immediately afterwards when the gauge ticked up another couple of notches to indicate that the hold was now about eleven percent full. He thought about the possibilities and then clicked on the comm. "Kouna, Falco, I think these things have this Mallidium stuff in their bodies."

"What?!" Falco exclaimed.

"Are you certain, Mr. McCloud?" Kouna asked.

"Pretty darn sure," Fox answered. "You think maybe these things… I dunno, eat the stuff or something?"

"Who knows?" Kouna said softly. "Maybe we should have been a little more thorough in surveying the planet before we set up operations on it, but at the time we were in a hurry to develop a vital resource." He was silent for a moment, and then added, "The outpost should be only a little further up ahead. Let's hurry up and get to it, so we can catch our breath and decide what to do from there."

The trio continued on, moving perhaps a little faster now that the prospect of a safe haven, however temporary, beckoned to them. Even at their greater pace, however, Fox was still keenly aware of the danger that might lurk around each corner or just beyond sight in the dark and thick atmosphere, and he made sure to keep a sharp eye and ear out for any signs of trouble.

The necessity of his caution was soon proved when he picked up the faint chitter of a Hellseed up ahead. Fox immediately started scanning the ground for the creature, and found one nestled in a crevice only a few yards ahead of him. By sheer bad luck, it was located in a narrow pass - too small for the skiffs to pass thorough more than one at a time, leaving him the only one who had a clear shot at the thing. He waited for it to uncurl and float up to his level, then opened fire as soon as he had a clear shot. The Hellseed lunged forward and sent a bolt of energy from its tendrils into the skiff's shields, but curled up again suddenly after only a few energy beams hit it. It sank back down to the bottom of the canyon and stayed there; Fox tried to tilt the skiff so he could try to finish the thing off, but the attitude controls wouldn't allow so steep an angle. He gritted his teeth and resigned himself to waiting for it to unfurl again, and then blasted it with a Stinger once it tried to attack him again. The creature took the rocket squarely in its center of mass and exploded in a mess of flash-frozen fluids and bits of shell, which pattered back down on Nibiru's dusty ground.

Fox checked his remaining loadout and mumbled an epithet. He clicked on the comm and asked, "Hey Falco, how many Stinger's you got left?"

"Three," the avian replied. "You?"

"Two."

"The same for me," Kouna added. "We need to get to that outpost soon, so we can restock our ammunition reserves and repair the skiffs. It should just be up ahead."

"That's what you said before," Falco grumbled.

"But this time I really mean it," Kouna answered. "I worked this area most often, so I'm pretty familiar with it, and the outpost is just around the corner and a little further ahead after that."

"Let's hope so," Fox said into the conversation, to keep Falco from dragging it out into an argument. He eased the throttle forward and started forward in the direction Kouna indicated that the outpost lay in. Just beyond the turn, the area widened out into a small clearing, beyond which Fox could see the welcome running lights of the installation. He breathed a sigh of relief, and started the skiff towards the outpost, and the promise of refuge that it offered. He was halfway across when he heard the sound of a new enemy approaching, and saw that there was a closed blast door blocking access to the base. Swearing under his breath, he spun the skiff around in the direction the sounds were coming from, and started searching for the new threat.

At first he couldn't see anything, but then a creature detached itself from the canyon wall and flew straight towards him, emitting a buzzing screech as it charged. It reminded the vulpine pilot most strongly of a wasp, and that association brought up bad memories of one summer in his youth when he'd been throwing rocks at a papery nest high up on the eaves of his house. Fox lined up a shot and launched a Stinger at it as it charged, but the creature neatly avoided the rocket and retaliated by spitting out pellets of energy at him. Fox put the skiff in a hard lateral drift to get out of the line of fire, but not before several shots splashed against his forward shield. He returned the fire with the skiff's pulse laser, the energy beams striking the flying creature and wounding it, but not killing it. The injuries only seemed to make it angrier, and it charged towards him at full speed as though it intended to ram him. Fox engaged the reverse thrusters and started gliding backwards, firing all the while. Each hit drew a pained squeal from the creature, but it kept coming. Fox waited until it had almost hit him, and then launched his last Stinger. The rocket crossed the distance between the two combatants in the blink of an eye and detonated against the monsters head, splitting it open and spilling gore across the landscape. The lifeless body fell to the ground, and Fox breathed a sigh of relief at the battle's conclusion.

Falco and Kouna made their way into the open area, a second before the blast door at the other end started to open. The comm system beeped for his attention, and Fox hit the button to let the transmission through. "Thanks, pilot," someone from the facility said over the channel. "That monster had us all bottled up in here, and we couldn't get any further. Now that that beast's out of the way, maybe we have a chance at actually getting to safety."

"I hope so," Kouna interjected.

"Boss! You made it out! Is there anyone else left back at the main base?"

"No," Kouna answered. "We were the last ones out, and I wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for the other two with me." The person on the other side of the comm started to ask a question, but Kouna interrupted him before he could ask. "Let us inside and I'll explain everything; we are in need of repairs and ammo."

"Acknowledged, sir," the operator replied. There was a creaking, grinding noise as the blast door opened the rest of the way, revealing an airlock that could easily accommodate something the size of their skiffs. They each entered one by one, and let it cycle to allow them into the interior of the base, where they could exit the skiffs and stretch their legs for a brief bit. As Fox popped the hatch on his and climbed out onto the gantry rigged up next to the landing zone, several of the MineCo survivors recognized him and began to whisper excitedly amongst each other. The susurrus of voices grew in volume as Falco stepped out of his own skiff. Normally, Fox disliked fawning crowds; but in this case, it seemed like people were celebrating less because he was a celebrity and more because they thought they had a solid chance of getting off the planet alive, now that he was there.

Kouna grabbed the shoulder of one of the techs that was rushing towards his own damaged craft. "Who's in charge here?" he asked the ferret.

"You are, now, sir," the tech replied. "Everyone else more senior is already dead, either from the initial attack or while trying to get to the transport tube to Central."

Kouna looked more than a little anxious at that pronouncement, but he gathered his composure back up and began taking charge of the situation. "Right then, the first order of business is to check and see how many people we have left and to see what kinds of supplies are available."

"Already did that sir," another tech, a female rabbit called out from the crowd. She pushed her way forward and handed him a datascreen that had the required information already listed on it. "I took the liberty of making a headcount and inventory checklist once we'd all gotten here. Though…" she paused for a moment to glance over to where Fox and Falco were looking at the interior of the repair bay area and added, "I suppose we'll need to add a few names to the roster."

"Hmm, yes, perhaps," Kouna replied absently.

"If you don't mind me asking, boss," a miner piped up, "what are two members of Star Fox doing here? I thought that they had retired."

"Semi-retired," Fox corrected the canine. "General Hare asked us to investigate an anonymous report of trouble starting on Nibiru, and it looks like we got here just in time." He stepped up next to Kouna and asked the badger, "Is there any way we could get a comm signal up to the Great Fox? I need to contact my wife and let her know we're okay, and also to see if there's any sort of assistance the rest of the team could give us."

"Right this way, sir," called a feline. "The comm station is over here." The cat led Fox over to a large console covered in buttons, lights and screens, most of which were dark at the moment. Fox gave the whole device a long and questioning look; the whole affair looked jury-rigged to the point of instability. The cat must have noticed his doubtful look, because he smiled and said reassuringly, "I know it looks like it's all about to fall apart, but this thing has the power you'll need to reach your ship through all this interference." Fox still had his doubts, but took a seat in front of the main screen and linked his PDA into the console to set up the link.

It took a few minutes for the system to establish a link to the Great Fox, but when it finally made the connection Fox was rewarded with the sight of Krystal's lovely face, staring into the viewer. She blinked as his face coalesced into view in front of her, and exclaimed in joyful relief, "Fox! Thank God you're alive and well! What's going on down there?"

Fox related the tale of what had happened after the transmission was cut off back at the MineCo base, trying to be as brief and to-the-point as he possibly could. While he narrated, he could see Slippy and Amanda appear in the viewer's display as well, listening intently to what he said. When he had finished, Fox concluded, "So it seems that the mission here has changed from investigation to rescue-and-evacuation. We need to get everyone we can out of here and to the polar launch pads so we can get them off the planet before these creatures kill them." He paused for a second and asked, "I don't suppose we have any sort of shuttlecraft or something that we could use to help expedite the evac?"

Krystal shook her head regretfully. "We don't have anything with near enough capacity to handle the task as you've described it. More so if you happen to find other survivors along the way."

"That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure," Fox replied. He leaned back in the rickety chair and said softly, "Note to self; put a transport shuttle on the next purchase list we give to Peppy."

"Right," Krystal added wryly. "With all the money we don't have at the moment. And I thought we were supposed to be retired."

"Semi-retired," Fox said airily. "With a proviso that the ranking Cornerian general can call us up for specialized tasks that the regular military can't handle. But I think the fee for this little side trip is about to go up quite steeply."

"Do you think that's why Peppy called us in the first place?" Krystal asked worriedly. "Do you think he knew that things were about to get really bad?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," Fox told her. "We've got as good a chance as any at pulling this off, and probably better than some. Though a little more in the way of weaponry would likely boost those odds." He was quiet for a moment, and then had an idea. "Do we have any sort of extra munitions in storage on the Great Fox?"

"I know! I've got just the thing!" Slippy exclaimed. He jumped out of the swivel chair he'd sat in to listen and began to rush off to the bridge's exit. Krystal nabbed him by the straps of his coveralls before he had taken more than a couple of steps, and pulled him back towards the main viewscreen. "Hold on, Slippy, let him finish before you go rushing off," she chided him.

"Oh, um… sorry" he mumbled as he slid back into the seat. "Go ahead, Fox."

Fox arched one eyebrow and inquired, "You have something you could send down?"

"Well…" Slippy began a little nervously, "Shortly after the Anglar War ended, I got to thinking about the munitions we carried on the Arwings and the other ships. Now, Nova Bombs are nice and pack a hefty punch, but they're big, expensive and a lot of overkill if used on only a few starfighters. So I started thinking, maybe I could make or find some other munitions that we could use that wouldn't strain the budget quite so much, and might have some other uses besides. I've got a couple of working cluster missiles down in the Great Fox's storage area; I've tentatively nicknamed them Swarmers. If you give me a little time I could have them down to your position shortly." He started to get back to his feet to go to the new weapons, but then a sobering thought occurred to him and he sat back down in his seat again. "Oh, but you'd need much more than just two rounds for what you're facing down there, wouldn't you?"

Fox half-turned to converse with a MineCo tech that had come up to him in excitement after Slippy mentioned the cluster missile. The two of them conversed for a moment in voices too low for the ones on the Great Fox to pick up, but Fox's eyebrows shot up at something the tech said, drawing the interest of all three of the Star Fox members on the orbiting ship. He nodded once after the tech concluded his speech, and then turned back to his wife and the other two members of the team. Fox opened his mouth to speak, but it was a couple of seconds before he could actually form words. "Okay, I'm pretty sure I have no idea how this works, but if you can get one working model, or even just a detailed blueprint, then we can make as many as we need – or at least as many as we have Mallidium for."

"How can you possibly turn raw ore directly into working munitions?" Krystal asked incredulously.

"Apparently there's a device in this place called a fabricator that can take this ore and make anything out of it. All we need is a detailed blueprint, or a working model to scan into the computer," Fox told her.

"I think I heard about something like that," Slippy mused. "My dad was working on a device that could take raw material and turn it into a finished product, but they could never get it to work on elaborate things. The best they could do was sheet metal or girders, though that all on its own was enough to really speed up the reconstruction efforts." He paused for a moment, and then asked, "So these mining companies have a fabricator that can produce fully operational weapons and components from scratch?"

"It's the Mallidium that makes it possible," Fox told him. "Unfortunately, this is the only place in Lylat known to harbor the stuff, and it's gotten far too dangerous to even try to mine the stuff commercially now. Bottom line is, we'll have enough to make the munitions we'll need down here, but once we're out, that's it for the stuff in Lylat."

"It doesn't matter," Krystal said. "All the Mallidium in the universe won't keep me from getting you and everyone else down there off planet."

"Thanks much," Fox said. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

"You have," she said, "but I never get tired of hearing it again. Once you're back up here safe and sound, you can tell me all you want."

"I'll do better than that," he replied with a smirk. "I'll show you." That comment elicited an answering smirk from her, as well as coughs and snickers from most of the techs and crew who were within earshot of the conversation. Fox felt the tension in the room ease a bit, as people's minds were given something to think about other than the fact that they were under siege by a merciless, savage enemy. He let it go for a little longer, and then looked back to his wife and asked, "How's Marcus doing?"

She sobered up a bit at the question. "He's… better," she said cautiously. "Still worried about you, still knows that his Daddy's in danger, but since you're relatively safe for the moment, he seems to have settled down at least a little." She looked him in the eye for a moment, and then said, "Fox, promise me you'll get out of there alive. The last thing I want is to be a single mother or Marcus to lose his father."

Fox opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out for a second. He wanted to reassure Krystal that he'd be alright, but even more than that, he needed to be honest with her. "I can't really promise that," he said, "on the grounds that I have no idea what else maybe waiting for me out there. But I can promise you this: I will never give up, I won't leave anyone behind, and I'll do everything in my power to make it back to you."

Krystal was silent for a moment after that before she nodded in response. "That's good enough for me," she told him. "When you set your mind on a task, there's nothing you can't do."

Fox smiled at her comment. "I think that about wraps everything up. Let's let Slippy go and package up that cluster missile he mentioned, and I'll get this crowd mobilized and ready to evac once the way is clear."

"And I'll see what I can get accomplished on this end," Krystal said. She started to reach for the 'disconnect' button, but stayed her hand just above it and looked back up at the screen. "Fox… I love you," she said softly.

"I love you too," he replied with equal softness. These words were meant for their ears alone, a private affirmation by each of their devotion to the other. An almost imperceptible nod passed between the two of them, and Krystal hit the button that ended the communication. Fox took a deep breath and spun around in the chair to address everyone who was within earshot. "All right people, let's get loaded up and ready to go! We're about to ditch this place for good!" A ragged cheer rose from the assembled crowd, and then the techs and miners moved to their stations and began fixing up the retrofitted skiffs and mining transports for the (hopefully) final journey to freedom. To Central, and then to the polar launch pads to freedom… and try not to think of all the things that could go wrong between here and then.