Star Fox Reborn Chapter Two
Dax's team investigates the "search and rescue" request on Sauria, with some ...complications.
Star Fox: Reborn
Chapter Two: The Dinosaur Planet
Gray yawned and threw off the thin blue blanket that was standard-issue in the Cornerian Army. His eyes darted around the room and he sighed. He felt stuck--stuck in this tiny, cold room in the Barracks of an underused, under-requested, under-funded Mothership. The First and Second Divisions always saw action--the Second actually put down a rebellion on Venom mere years before. The Third was lucky to get reconnaissance jobs. His guts twisted with anger and jealousy. He looked at the beat-up guitar in the corner of the room. It served as his main "distraction" from Division life. His father had signed him up for lessons when he was six in the hopes that at least one McCloud could find a life outside the military. That ultimately failed, and now Gray played it sparingly, when he wasn't training or filling out another request to lead his own Team and finally be released from his brother's shadow. But the War Council kept denying him, driving him deeper into self-loathing and a nagging feeling of inadequacy. He sat on the edge of the poorly-padded mattress and rubbed his eyes groggily.
"Big day today," he mumbled sleepily. He glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand. "Two hours. We leave in two hours."
He stood up and stretched his back, wincing as it cracked. He bent over and touched his toes, wincing again.
"Haven't been flying in forever...Forgot how stiff I get," he thought aloud.
The bathroom lights hit him like a ton of bricks. He staggered back out of the harsh white light and shook his head. "Wake up, Gray, wake up," he muttered. He tried again, this time with more success. He showered in the frigid water and got dressed for battle. Combat pants, hiking boots, a beige muscle shirt, his jacket, and his communications headset. He turned it on, rather enjoying the feel of it on his head. It felt good to be back in action, especially for this sort of mission. Search and rescues were common enough--but nothing like this.
He grimaced. That sense of foreboding was back; it weighed on him now more than ever.
"I hope this goes well..."
A floor above, Dax and Milani were getting dressed as well.
"I wonder if the rest of the team is up," Milani thought aloud.
Dax chuckled and rubbed her back. "I doubt it. My little brother probably won't be up for another hour."
Milani purred loudly as Dax continued rubbing her back. "You don't give him enough credit."
"No," Dax sighed. "S'pose I don't," he admitted, letting her go and walking over to his dresser.
"Who told you to stop?" Milani teased, pulling on a white undershirt.
"We've got to move before anybody else wakes up," Dax said hurriedly. He tugged on his boots and pilot's jacket and grabbed his headset. Milani took her time; she saw no reason to rush. She had snuck in the night before with all of her gear and spent the night with Dax. The plan was to wake up early and have a quiet breakfast together before the team woke up. Secretly, Dax was terrified about Milani being seen with him, especially in the Barracks. He knew the rules--and this broke several of them.
Milani giggled. She knew what he was getting at, but decided to play along.
"Oh, right, I forgot they serve all the best food early," she said sarcastically.
Dax chuckled. "The food's always garbage, all the time. I just want to spend some time alone with you."
"Then why not stay here?" she asked, kissing him on the neck.
Dax kissed her on the forehead but pushed her away. "No time for that," he pointed out.
Milani shrugged indifferently. "Whatever you say."
Dax looked up at her from lacing his boots. He smiled to himself.
"What's that smirk for?" Milani asked, standing up and pulling on her own flight jacket.
Dax grabbed her and kissed her passionately on the lips.
She broke away and giggled. "You're such a tease," she said, hurrying out of the room.
"I'm a tease?"
Darco looked up from his plate of gruel at Gray McCloud.
"You're late!" the pheasant called.
"Late for what?" "Gray muttered, taking a seat next to his red-feathered friend.
"Being early," Darco replied sarcastically.
Gray rolled his eyes at him. "Where's everybody else, if I'm so late?"
Darco shrugged. "Later than you."
Gray shook his head and chuckled. He pushed his plate of "food" away and groaned.
"What's the matter?" someone asked from behind him.
"Hey, Marcus," Darco called, raising a mug of coffee to greet the older brown-furred fox.
"You gotta eat," Marcus Strafesk said, pushing Gray's head down toward his plate.
"Geddoff," Gray growled, pushing Marcus away.
"You gotta eat," Marcus replied, throwing his hands up innocently.
"Not hungry," Gray muttered in reply, idly scratching the table with his fork.
"Big mission," Cody Millett said, appearing from nowhere. "You better get hungry, and fast."
Gray simply shook his head and continued scratching.
"Where in the hell did you come from?" Darco asked, at a total loss.
Cody smiled and brushed his black, bushy tail against Darco's head. "Natural camouflage."
Darco shoved Cody's tail away and spat. "I don't need hair in my food."
"There's hair in it anyway," Gray pointed out, chuckling to himself.
"Where the hell's your brother?" Marcus asked Gray, looking around the otherwise-deserted Mess Hall.
Gray looked up. "Probably looking for me, to yell at me for being late."
"Morning, boys!" Katrina Monroe's rich, melodic voice came from across the Mess Hall. She was alone.
"Where's the rest of your team?" Darco called, glancing around the dreary room.
"The whole...'waking up early' thing doesn't agree with them," she said. "That's ok, they need their beauty sleep. I don't."
Dax's team laughed, with the exception of Gray, who stared miserably at his plate.
"Come on, Gray, back your girlfriend up on this! She just called herself beautiful. Get on this," Darco teased quietly, hating to see his former schoolmate and close friend so distant and gloomy.
The steel blue fox simply bowed his head and blushed. He managed a weak smile, but didn't let anyone see it.
"I just have a really bad feeling about this job," he said.
Cody slapped him on the back. "We're right beside you, Gray. Like always. And if we're not, we've got these," he said, tapping his headset.
"When's the last time we tested these? Mine was screeching terribly earlier," Darco muttered, tapping the bulbous part of his headset that sat over his ear.
"Is it doing it now?" Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow. His set had been acting up, too, but now it was functioning fine.
"Nope," Darco answered, scratching his beak.
"Then you're fine!" Cody yelled, clapping Darco on the shoulder.
The team laughed.
"What's all this messing around?" a commanding voice ripped through the Mess Hall.
"You're late, Dax," Darco taunted.
"Typical," Katrina said. "Boys."
Gray looked up at her and laughed.
"Somebody's feeling better," Marcus remarked.
"I still feel off about this," Gray muttered.
Dax nodded as he reached the table. "I do, too, kid. None of this feels right."
"Why is it the McClouds are suspicious, but no one else?" Milani asked teasingly.
"Why is it you and Dax arrived at the same time?" Darco countered, beaming.
Dax bowed his head; Milani blushed but smiled mischievously.
"Coincidence," Milani explained, waving her hand dismissively.
The rest of the team chuckled while Dax and Milani exchanged impish glances.
"So let's just go get this done. The less time we're there, the less can go wrong, right?" Cody suggested, scanning the team's faces for agreement. He found it in all of them.
Marcus nodded. "Let's get to Sauria. And fast."
The team headed to the Hangar and all climbed in their respective spacecraft. Gray and Dax had to share the Arwing II; Katrina took her team's large six-person space jet; everyone else had their own craft. The team headed out in a loose V-formation toward Sauria.
"Gray," Dax said, twisting the microphone of his headset so the rest of the team wouldn't hear him, even if he activated it.
"Yeah?" Gray asked from the co-pilot's seat, hardly able to hear his brother. The headsets had been invented for just this purpose; it was nearly impossible to hear the person next to you over the roar of the engines. Still, he was troubled--his older brother never called him by his name.
"Any particular reason we have half as much fuel as we should?" Dax stabbed harshly. There was an edge of anger in his voice, though he did his best to mask it.
Gray remained silent.
"Answer me you irresponsible--"
"Did you want me to just stand by while they made fun of me? Made of this jet? Made fun of Fox?" Gray asked quietly.
"What did you do?" Dax shouted, furious that his little brother had taken the Arwing II out for any purpose at all.
"Raced Darco and Katrina," Gray answered sincerely and simply.
Dax stared forward, at the Dinosaur Planet in the distance.
"Did you win?" Dax asked curiously, all the previous fury gone.
"Did I what?!" Gray was stunned.
"Win. Did you win?" Dax asked seriously.
"Well, yeah, but--"
"Then shut up," Dax silenced his younger brother. "I don't want to hear anymore. And if you do that again, I'll gut you."
"Fair enough," Gray sighed, feeling a little defeated and maddeningly confused.
The rest of the trip went by entirely silent, even from the other team members. The powerful sense of looming disaster hung even heavier in the air--space, that is. The uneasy silence burned any sense of kinship and joy that they had felt in the Mess Hall and tossed it to the breeze.
It was Darco, who was by now scouting ahead, who broke the silence.
"Closing in on Sauria's outer atmosphere. Everyone ease off on the throttle, it's gonna get bumpy," he reported. The team obeyed; they slowed to a crawl compared to their previous speeds. Caution usually went ignored by Darco Lombardi, but today was different.
"Anybody else feel like this mission is gonna get torn to shreds the second we touch ground?" the bird asked, speaking everyone's mind.
"Let's hope not. I could really use this cash," Cody muttered.
"Agreed," Marcus growled, his craft falling in line behind Darco's as they neared their destination: a small peninsula jutting into one of Sauria's massive blue oceans.
"Is that the temple?" Gray asked, pointing past Dax's face, toward the horizon.
"Looks like it," Dax replied simply. The nagging feeling was tugging them all down, especially Dax. The weight of responsibility was ruining him. "I need a drink," he muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" Gray asked. With the throttle off, hearing each other was much easier.
"Nothing," Dax growled dismissively.
"Sounded like a whole lot of nothing," Gray mumbled to himself.
"Land the jets on the base of this hill," Dax said, shooting ahead of the rest of the team, killing the engines, and rolling the jet to a rough stop. The land slanted up about a hundred meters ahead; from the top of the hill, the temple could be seen roughly a quarter mile away. A valley separated the hill and the temple; the temple seemed to be built with a view of the ocean.
"The scientists' camp should be somewhere in the valley. Can't be too hard to find," Dax informed everyone once they had climbed out of their jets.
"No, finding a couple of tents in a mess of a jungle is always easy as hell," Darco muttered, loading and cocking his blaster.
"No fireworks," Dax commanded. "The locals don't like 'em. And we shouldn't need to be shooting anything."
Darco shook his head uncomprehendingly. "And if we run into something?"
"Fox McCloud made it through the worst on this planet with a staff," Gray pointed out.
Dax nodded his agreement.
"Yeah, well, we're not all McClouds," Katrina pointed out, sheathing a pair of knives on her hips.
"No blades," Dax said threateningly.
"No cats, then," Katrina replied simply.
Dax sighed. "Fine. Fine. But don't go stabbing and killing everything."
Katrina laughed gleefully. "Of course not, silly," she replied, rubbing Gray's exposed neck with a claw as she walked by him.
Gray nervously tugged at his collar but didn't unbutton his jacket.
"It's too damn hot," he muttered.
"Sauria, or Katrina?" Darco teased as he walked by, heading up the hill after the leader of the Star Cats.
The rest of the team filed by, except Dax and Milani.
"Oi. Now's not the time, you two," Gray called, heading up the hill.
Dax watched his brother go.
"I have a horrible feeling about this whole thing," Dax muttered to her.
Milani hugged him. "Something's definitely off," she agreed in a soothing voice. "But we'll be ok. We always have."
Dax kissed her on the snout and prodded her gently with his arm. "Come on, we've gotta find this camp."
The duo met the rest of the team at the top of the hill and surveyed the small valley before them. The jungle lay as thick as could be: they could barely see two feet into the thick tangle of vines, trees, and brush.
"Found the camp," Darco announced.
"How?!" Gray shouted, astonished.
"Smoke. There," Darco said, nodding roughly northeast. Indeed, a thin trail of smoke snaked its way through the blue-green midmorning sky of Sauria.
"Oh," Gray muttered, a little deflated.
"Let's go, then," Dax said, leading the way. He picked up a branch that had fallen from the high-above tree canopy and started clearing a path through the bramble and brush.
"How eco-friendly," Darco chuckled, following Dax. The rest of the team fell into a single-file line. The heat was intensified by the claustrophobic jungle; what little light flitted down from above became trapped by the plant life. Shadows were cast at all angles, but did little to cool them down. The humidity weighed down like a carpet of hot misery on their shoulders.
"Who the hell would want to live here," Cody growled, swiping at a vine with a branch he'd picked up.
Dax wiped his brow and stopped. "CloudRunners. EarthWalkers. HighTops. All the other tribes. Now shut up, we've got to be close to the camp."
As he said that, he burst through a particularly thick bush and into an opening clearing. He tripped over his own feet and tumbled, landing flat on his face. The rest of the team fell on top of and around him.
"This is what they send me?!" a panicky, nasal voice roared from across the clearing.
Dax growled and pushed himself up. Brushing himself off, he defended, "We're the best the Third Division of the Cornerian Army has to offer."
"You can't even storm a bloody clearing! You're supposed to be a top-notch team of elite soldiers!" the scientist hissed.
"We are," Katrina hissed back, with a large amount of malice.
"Wow," Gray whispered to himself as Katrina stalked over to the scientist. He was a dog, by the look of it: brown fur; a short, round snout; a stained, torn lab coat; and broken glasses.
"Who do you think you are?" Katrina shouted in his face, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him up to her face. The scientist stood a good deal shorter than her; he was forced to his tiptoes by her.
"J-James," the scientist griped, pushing Katrina away and staggering backwards, onto one of the olive drab tents. He crushed it and rolled about, whimpering the whole while.
"This is what we're here to help?" Katrina mocked.
Gray, howling with laughter, yanked the scientist, James, up by the arm and dusted him off.
"Enough!" Dax roared, pushing his brother away from James. "Katrina, if you do that again, you're fired, and you can forget getting paid."
Katrina threw up her hands, defeated, and slunk back next to Gray.
"We're here to help him," Dax reminded the group. "Now...Have you got any food?"
"I came here first about two years ago," James explained. "Since then, we've been going around Sauria looking for...ehm..."
"Who do you work for, first?" Dax asked routinely. He took a seat on the log on the north side of the campfire that was now blazing strongly. Some sort of fish roasted over the fire, their juices dripping into the fire. Darco eyed them suspiciously, not entirely sure what they were supposed to be or where they came from. His eyes flitted up and around the surprisingly bare camp. There was a small satellite dish in the northeastern corner, four tents, and the small campfire.
"A company called Technicore," James said simply.
"Never heard of it," Darco muttered to himself.
Dax nodded. "Right. Technicore. Is that how you managed to offer us so much cash?"
"Of course!" James said, turning the fish over and checking them.
"Ten grand a piece," Dax confirmed.
"Ten grand," James nodded.
"So what were you guys doing here in the first place?" Marcus asked, stabbing one of the fish in the skillet and blowing on it.
"We came here, to Sauria, about a year ago to investigate supposed supernatural activities in the area. There were huge electrical outputs all over the planet, causing massive superstorms and disrupting the lives of locals," James explained, leaning back and stretching.
"I don't remember hearing anything about that," Darco said, narrowing his eyes at the scientist.
"How much do you hear going on in Sauria?" Cody pointed out.
Darco shrugged.
"Didn't you say two years ago?" Gray asked, confused.
Darco subconsciously felt for his blaster. The others had left theirs in their jets, but he had feigned it: he simply didn't trust himself without it.
"The days melt into each other on this planet, and when you're traveling...Anyway, we came here two years ago to investigate these storms, with no luck. Now we're back because there were several...electrical anomalies around this area. Specifically, the temple," James elaborated.
"Electrical anomalies?" Dax asked. "Why would Technicore be interested in electrical anomalies?"
"Well, there's massive energy outputs leading to these storms. Technicore wants to harness this energy," James replied in a monotone voice.
Dax nodded. "Right, then. Where were they when you lost contact?"
"Investigating inside the temple. I was supposed to stay here and watch the camp," James said. "Star Wolf was sighted in the area only a few months ago."
"Star Wolf? They're still around?" Gray asked, awestruck.
James nodded. "Flourishing, actually. After Marcus McCloud's Star Fox Team dissolved, there was no one to stop them. All the McClouds chose the military over a mercenary team, and the War Council doesn't approve of just taking people down, nor do they usually pay much attention to any small threats like that. Look at the Anglar terrorist gangs. They function perfectly, with little interruption. The Cornerian military only looks out for the big threats anymore."
Dax nodded. "Unfortunately."
James went on, "So I stayed here to keep watch. Nothing came, of course, but...I tried to contact them over the radio and got nothing but static."
"You didn't bother to go looking for them in the temple?" Gray asked, struck by the scientist's apparent cowardice.
"Even the locals stay away from this area. There's something terribly wrong. They shouldn't have taken more than a few hours," James cried.
"But you didn't even bother to go looking for them?" Katrina asked, taking a greedy bite out of her fish.
"Of course not. I couldn't leave the camp and all the gear unguarded," James said pleadingly.
"What gear?" Gray asked. He looked over at Darco, who was shaking his head.
"It's mostly packed up in the tents. Look, this is a simple thing...Could you just go check out the temple? Please?" James begged.
Dax looked around at the others. They were all eating, except for Gray and Darco, who were murmuring to each other.
"When we've finished this meal, we'll go. We haven't eaten since breakfast," Dax compromised. "That means eat, kid."
Gray looked up at his brother then down at the fish. True, his stomach growled ferociously--but he felt almost sick. He didn't want to eat, but knew if he didn't he'd lack the strength to be of much help later on in the mission, especially in this heat. So he grabbed one of the fish and crammed as much as he could into his mouth, gnawing on it gratefully.
The rest of the meal went by quickly and in silence. When everyone had finished their meals and were wandering about and stretching, Dax called them to attention.
"I know it's a downright horrible idea to eat and then immediately go off like this," he said, "But time is of the utmost importance here. Every second we wait could be a--"
"We know the deal, Dax, let's just go," Milani interrupted, brushing past him, across the camp.
"What she said," Cody agreed, following Milani. The rest of the team fell into a loose, relaxed formation, with Dax jogging ahead to be on point.
The group trekked back into the jungle, this time up the hill opposite the one they'd gone down. The heat, ignored while they were eating, was not at them again. Their clothes stuck to them, weighed them down. Most of the team had ditched their jackets; only Darco and Gray still had theirs--and Darco only to conceal his blaster. They again fought their way through the thick, gnarling, grabbing hands of the jungle with sticks and branches, swatting at insects and vines hanging from above. The jungle was awash in green light, but they failed to see many of the obstacles in front of them.
After what seemed like hours of meaningless stumbling, they emerged at the foot of the temple. The temple itself was tiered and pyramidal, leading to a flat plateau peak about five hundred feet up. The massive bricks used in construction were a deep, rich brown, covered in creepers and vines and worn down by age and weather. The bricks are all inscribed with ancient glyphs whose meaning was completely lost through time.
"Impressive," Dax gasped, leaning on a tree for support. "Oh, wow, I'm dizzy."
"Thirsty?" Gray asked, nearly falling on his face as he stumbled over to his brother.
"I think we're all a little dizzy," Marcus said, laughing obnoxiously. He tripped into Cody, who fell. The two started laughing and rolling on the ground.
"Stupid kids," Dax said, howling with laughter.
Darco stepped back as Gray nearly tackled him.
"Something's going wrong," Gray hissed in Darco's ear.
"I can see that," Darco said calmly. He had an idea of what was happening.
"Get help," Gray managed, clutching Darco's collar.
The bird nodded and fled back into the forest as the team fell into convulsions, laughing all the while. He hid behind a tree, blaster at the ready, as James emerged from the path they'd cleared.
The scientist produced a small radio from his belt and muttered something unintelligible into it. He turned, counted the roiling bodies, and cocked his head.
"Missing one? One, two...three...Yeah. Missing one. Where've you gone?" James said to himself, an odd accent overtaking his voice.
Darco climbed the tree he was hiding behind to get a better view. The scientist shed his torn lab coat, revealing a black muscle shirt with a large purple Star Wolf emblem emblazoned on the back.
"That figures," Darco growled, resting his arms on a branch and steadying his blaster. He stared down the sights, which were focused directly on James's head.
"Just...don't move," Darco hissed.
"James!" a gruff voice roared from the temple.
Darco winced at the shout and growled, "Dammit!"
He jolted back so he was behind the tree, dropping down a few branches. He was still about fifteen above the ground. He felt miserably exposed. Still, he peeked around the tree and eyed the temple, searching for the source of the scream.
"James! Up here you half-wit canine!"
The "scientist" bolted up and stood to attention, saluting a stark white-furred figure crouched on the first tier of the temple.
"We're one short, Sir!" James called nervously.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" the figure howled, hopping down from the tier and rushing over the James.
"One of them probably went back to watch their craft, Sir," James speculated.
"I don't want to hear 'probably' or 'maybe' you imbecile! Find him!" the white figure growled. James scrambled away, back into the jungle.
The figure turned and shook his head angrily.
"I need a closer look," Darco muttered to himself, sliding down the tree. He landed in a neat pile, rolled, and, as stealthily as he could, crawled forward to get a better look at the creature at the base of the temple. Whoever he was, he busied himself with tying up Darco's teammates and making sure that their convulsions were over.
"Paralyzed? Or...unconscious?" Darco fretted, looking around nervously. "Where's that dog?"
He rolled and crawled forward a few more feet.
"Is that...Wolf? No," Darco whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. He scrambled forward, into a bush, and hunkered down. "Gotta keep in cover."
He parted some of the branches of bush to get a better look.
"Sure looks like him," Darco muttered. Indeed, the white figure bore a striking resemblance to Wolf O'Donnell, only he was massive. Far larger than Wolf, and certainly larger than any member of the unconscious team. Wolf's infamy had boomed after Fox retired; indeed, it was hard to open up a Lylat history textbook without seeing a "wanted" poster for the old criminal. He was demonized.
"No Mohawk," Darco chuckled, eyeing the wolf's thin crew cut hair. He sighed. "How the hell am I supposed to take him out? If I shoot, Doggy McTraitor is gonna hear me..."
"Too late for that, birdy," a voice hissed from behind him.
Darco turned in time to see a boot hurtling toward his face.
Everything went black.