Chapter 9
Unlucky Stars
“My lucky ship is lost, comin’ in too late...”
Another day, another explosive.
Being blown up by Radley McCoy was starting to irk Jimmy, although Gerdendrul couldn’t really care enough about anything to be irked. Jimmy had a few seconds of manifestation every time Gerdendrul was hurt by anything; it was part of Andross’s defence that Gerdendrul itself should feel no pain, so every time it looked like old Gerdy was very likely going to, Jimmy’s awareness was pulled out and set on top so that he would take the brunt of the pain. Then, as soon as it was over, Gerdendrul sort of snatched it back and shoved it down again. It was inhumane and brutal; another typical Andross enhancement. Anyway, Jimmy was once again back in the damp corner of the brain that had once been entirely his own, rotting.
Once it had put itself back together, Gerdendrul had carefully searched the entire sector of Fortuna that the animals might have gotten to. It found no sign of them, but it did come upon Radley McCoy, who had blown it up again.
Then, after it had sufficiently recovered from that, it decided that the Star Fox team had really left, so it returned to the spot Andross had planted it in when it was first completed. Most of the ape’s bio-weapons could only survive on one planet, such as Vulcain, who had met its untimely demise at the hands of Star Fox one year ago that day. But Andross was the type who learned from his mistakes, and now he made his horrible distortions of creation on Venom itself and then deployed them to the planet he wanted them on. As such, all of his new bio-weapons could survive on any number of planets. Gerdendrul had been completed a month back and then sent to Fortuna by way of a carrier craft that still rested on the planet’s dark side. Gerdendrul made its way there now, a journey that took it about two days. A crew of three monkeys manned the pseudo-base, ready to shuttle Gerdendrul to any number of planets it needed to go to.
Gerdendrul did not thrive in Fortuna’s freezing temperatures; it had been easier for it to liquefy and shape-shift when it was enjoying Venom’s sickly climate. But Andross had sent it to Fortuna because the Ice Eye base was becoming a little too powerful, and he knew Corneria would be watching the base like a hawk. Now that Fortuna was taken care of and Star Fox had left the area, Gerdendrul had nothing to do and nowhere to go.
It arrived at the smallish craft and seeped through the cracks in the doors, drawn to his holding chamber by design. Bio-weapons were kept in cells whenever they were kept on ships at all, so Andross had ways of drawing them there and keeping them from wanting to leave (which most of them could very easily have done) until they were at their destination. An alarm sounded on the bridge as soon as Gerdendrul had gotten into his cell and it had locked itself in. The sound awakened all three monkeys, who were startled half to death and spilt their coffee.
“Hachi!” shrieked one, wiping the scalding liquid off himself as best he could. “Yow! Let’s split!”
“We don’t know where we’re supposed to go,” shrugged the second.
“Let’s stay here until Andross tells us where to go,” chimed in the last, a sadistic wretch of a primate. Those qualities did not keep him from sucking up to Andross as much as possible.
The other two agreed with the third’s judgment, so they sat tight, jumping at every sound because they were as terrified of the bio-weapon as the Star Fox team had been.
* * *
Fox utilised his stoic ability to endure pain after his surgery had finished. Well, he’d always liked to think that he had a stoic ability to endure pain, but now he was finding out he was a wimp when it came down to it. At least I haven’t started crying, he thought to brighten himself up.
Katt’s leg was healing nicely; it had actually become infected while she had been on Fortuna, but the cold climate kept the bacteria at bay for the most part, so it was easily dealt with.
Everyone except Peppy and Bill had had to undergo a special treatment to remove the large amount of sedatives from their bloodstream, but once that was over their only business would be recovering from Grangese fever. Bill, who had only had to deal with the flu, had healed up in two days and borrowed a jet from the Cornerian army to fly out to the Great Fox. ROB had been up there alone for weeks and hadn’t heard anything about the situation, so Bill was heading there to hold down the fort and deliver the news.
Peppy didn’t recover as quickly as Bill had, even though he had also only had influenza. His traumas were not all physical. More than two weeks of being the only one around with no one to talk to, nothing to do, not much to eat, and not very warm temperatures will take its psychological toll on anyone, so Peppy remained in the hospital until everyone else was better.
The Light-Bearers told someone official about the Star Fox team’s Arwings, and they were recovered in a few days and brought to Corneria’s army headquarters. They had also gotten Bill’s jet, but they thought Katt’s ship was really an Invader ship, so they had left it there. When she heard about this she was furious, but couldn’t very well go out to get it herself. She didn’t really want to go back to Fortuna, ever, not after the memories she had of it now. First Zoness, now Fortuna, she thought to herself. I wonder how long it’ll be before I don’t want to go to any planets in Lylat because of painful memories? Anyway, once she had run into Fox and Slippy in the hospital cafeteria and made them promise they would get it as soon as everyone was out of the hospital.
Two weeks passed before they were well enough to leave the hospital. All four of them put on the tattered clothing they had worn on Fortuna because they had nothing else with them and took a bus to the Cornerian Army’s HQ, where Fox, Slippy, and Peppy claimed their Arwings and Katt sweet-talked someone into letting her borrow a jet until further notice.
Bill had taken Great Fox into Corneria’s atmosphere so it would be easier to find, and Fox called it up as soon as he was back in the familiar leather seat of his Arwing. I’ve been too long without radar, he sighed happily to himself as he swooped as extravagantly as any flight-starved pilot would in the direction his advanced tracking mechanism indicated.
Fifteen minutes later, the hulking silhouette of the Great Fox came into view. It was only a matter of minutes before they’d all flown aboard and hopped out of their ships. Katt looked around with interest at her surroundings.
“All the comforts of home,” Slippy said brightly, noticing her wandering eye.
“Your home, shotgun, not mine.” Katt had never visited the interior of the Great Fox before, and she viewed the quaint furnishings with disgust. She’d never been able to stand things that looked so bare and efficient. She turned back to Slippy. “I want you to know that I find your abode quaint, rustic, beautyless and ugly.”
Slippy did not know what to say.
“Ha! Joke! Funny! Get it?” she lied. Slippy laughed heartily. What a loony, she thought, grinning on the outside and the inside. He’s not such a bad kid in his own way, but he really is a little nutty in the head.
They agreed to fly to Fortuna with the Great Fox’s superior speed drives and hyperdrive, retrieve the Cat’s Paw, and then sit tight until the bio-weapon struck again.
“After all,” Fox had explained. “We haven’t accomplished the mission objective, and I’m not about to let us stop working on it until we do.” His words bound them into this no matter how much they all hated the thought of facing Gerdendrul again.
* * *
Orders come and orders go.
Now the orders had to do with Katina and not Fortuna. The planet had been snatched, maimed, and dropped in a matter of weeks, and Andross had set his sights on Katina now. It would be a bigger job because the planet was full of life and peppered all over with Cornerian bases and hulking cities; however, a bigger job does not mean an impossible one, at least not for Andross.
Monkey #1 had gotten his orders in just three minutes after Gerdendrul had arrived on the scene; apparently Andross had something set up to notify him when Gerdendrul was back, or something that sent back automated orders because the ape had programmed every last one of his domination plans into Venom’s massive computer system.
Send Gerdendrul to Planet #ABA76, sector 34t, 13 by 586, as soon as possible. Leave Gerdendrul and report back to Kelvis Base ASAP, they had read. That was all.
Such stupid orders Andross always sent. Always trying to sound official. It took the monkeys three hours of flipping madly through their handbooks to discover that “Planet #ABA76” was Katina and “sector 341” was somewhere by Kamilton. The further coordinates proved that the selected location was four kilometers outside said town. So they had a three hour setback. Determined to please Andross, they set off immediately without another delay.
A vast distance away, Kamilton slept.
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