A distant nightbird mocks the sun....

General Pepper cleared his throat and surveyed all his officers. “So what’s the news, gentlemen?” Pepper inquired, sounding like he really didn’t want to know.

“News...of course he knows there’s news, he’s practically all-knowing,” commented a captain.

Lt. Comdr. Ferdinand Shalwast fidgeted. The thin, reedy mockingbird shuffled some papers for no apparent reason and answered the general tentatively. “Well, you see, sir, it’s like this. We were talking strategy the other day in the war room...”

“Without me?” Pepper raised an eyebrow. Shalwast blushed and gulped.

“No, never...you’re the Cornerian army’s right arm,” responded a kiss-up major quickly.

“Left arm too!”

“We’d collapse without you,” squeaked another.

“Well...yes, sir, but that’s not the point....the point is that we received a hail from our base on Fortuna, and.....word is that Andross has a new and better bio-weapon capable of incredible feats. We’ve heard some amazing things about it, General, and quite frankly, we’re terrified.”

“Oh yes, terrified....it frightened us awfully!”

“We were horrified, even!”

“Shaking in our boots!”

Pepper grunted. “Don’t listen to rumors, flakes! The communicator you spoke with was probably just a puppet...a frightened officer, forced to lie to keep his own life.  I’m sure he was lured into saying things by Venomian scumbags.”

“Oooh...scumbags....good word, sir,” chimed in another commander.

“Of course he was, sir! You’re absolutely clairvoyant, sir....seeing that he was forced..”

“Wow! The man’s a genius!”

“How could we be so blind?”

“But General.....,” Shalwast sputtered. “You didn’t see the things that were done to the base.....an ordinary attack....not even Invader class....even the Star Wolf team couldn’t have done some of the things we saw. And there was...well, we saw it, sir......” Shalwast voiced miserably.

“WHAAAAAAAT?!”

“Oh yes, we were shocked too!”

“Can’t blame you one bit!”

“It’s just a shocking piece of information!”

“I think you took it rather well!”

“What a level head!”

“SHUT UP!” yelled Pepper over the din of the yes-man officers.

They did so.

“Go on, Mr. Shalwast?” beseeched Pepper, pulling a lollipop out of his pocket and licking it nervously.

Shalwast swallowed hard. “It was the bio-weapon, sir. It looked kind of like a large rottweiler.”

“Well, maybe it WAS a rottweiler, you dingleberries!” roared Pepper.

Shalwast flinched. “No......no, sir.....it showed us things....it wasn’t just a dog. It was made of stone, and it was monstrous.”

“Gigantic.”

“Enormous.”

“Gargantuan!”

Pepper silenced the officers again with a look, then turned back to Shalwast. “Stone, you say?”

“Yes sir, gray stone. And it turned itself into liquid. Its fist was huge.  It.....punched through a wall and didn’t even flinch.”

Pepper paled. “Wait, what you said before...it...turned itself into....liquid?”

“Yes. Yes, sir. We saw someone run in and shoot it with a blaster; it was no small blaster either, sir, and the thing....a chunk of its face flew off....but it just sort of filled back in.”

Now it was Pepper’s turn to fidget. “What happened then, lieutenant?”

It was actually lieutenant commander, but Shalwast didn’t correct the general.  “Well....the one....who shot at it.....the thing threw him out the window. Right through the glass. We could hear him screaming all the way down. He must have landed in snow, but there’s no guarantee he lived....of course, it’s only one soldier......but still, the bio-weapon picked him up like he weighed nothing. We don’t know what to do, sir...”

Pepper frowned. “I don’t know either, Shalwast. Call in the Star Fox team and anyone else you can find who might be able to handle the job.”

“But sir.....blasters have no effect on him......”

“I said CALL IN THE STAR FOX TEAM!” Pepper barked, slamming his fist on the table. Shalwast jumped a full four inches and then fled the room to comply with the general’s orders with half the Cornerian fleet’s commanding officers hot on his trail.

*  *  *

Fox sipped a new cup of tea out of another teacup, but didn’t like this one nearly as much. I liked the blue flowers, Fox thought crankily to himself. This one is ugly. Aargh! Slippy is so annoying sometimes. He better buy me a new cup, Fox decided, annoyed.

Falco paraded into the room. “Hey, there’s a call for you. Peppy says it’s important.”

“Who is it?” Fox bolted from his seat, secretly hoping it would be Fara. He hadn’t heard from her in months.

“Don’t ask me,” Falco shrugged. “Some Cornerian joker. It wasn’t Fara, if that’s what you wanted to know. But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was trying to have some breakfast, actually. Anyway, I’d better get back to my peanut butter and honey sandwich. Gab your head off, okay?” Falco left the rec room with Fox behind him.

Sitting across the room chewing on his sandwich, Falco watched Fox speak with Lt. Comdr. Shalwast. “It’s an emergency,” wailed the mockingbird.  Fox was profoundly disappointed. He thought he and his team would finally get a break from defending the galaxy, but no such luck. “Tell Slippy and Peppy to get their Arwings ready,” Fox told his friend, walking quickly out of the room.

Falco ran after him. “Hey, what’s this all about??”

“There’s some bio-weapon.”

“Yeah? And what else is new? Bio-weaponry is Andross’s thing. So he made one. Big whoop. Why do WE have to take care of it?”

“This one’s different,” Fox muttered cryptically and trotted briskly into his chamber. Falco grumbled a little and went off to notify Slippy and Peppy of their situation.

*  *  *

Ten minutes later, Falco entered the main recreation hall, where everyone else was chilling out before they left and gathering supplies. Falco noticed Peppy making a call to someone. “You’re calling in people to help us?”

“Yeah,” Fox answered. Peppy motioned for them to be quieter. Fox lowered his voice. “We’re calling mainly friends, but mostly just people we know who have skill. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

“You haven’t called....Have you?”

Fox sighed heavily and put on his I’m-the-leader-of-this-team-so-you-just-better-do-what-I-say face. “Like I said, Falco, we’re going to need all the help we can get. Now you may not get along so well with Katt, but she’s got as much skill as you or I do, so you’re just going to have to get over it.”

“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” Falco shrugged and started packing supplies into a small bag. It’s not so much that we don’t get along with each other--maybe that we used to get along a little too well. But I haven’t had an actual, normal, real-person conversation with her in years. And our last one didn’t go too well. Falco always felt a little uncomfortable when she was around, even though it had only happened three or four times since he’d last seen her all those years ago on Corneria. He usually didn’t have a problem with making up for that by making snide comments, though.

Soon the Star Fox team was packed up and ready to head to Corneria for their mission briefing. Slippy set the coordinates on Great Fox as they hopped into their Arwings and made their way towards Corneria City.

*  *  *

“An audience, Pepper?” Capt. Navarro, a stout beaver, made a sort of sideways pucker with his mouth that made him appear rather disrespectful. He looked incredibly bored as he shuffled some papers around, mostly just for the sake of making some noise.

“What’s the matter, Captain?” Pepper was a tad touchy, and he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible; Star Fox would be here any minute.

“Call me crazy, Pepper, but I don’t think the Star Fox team is going to accept a suicide mission. We have no known weaknesses on this thing. Fox doesn’t strike me as the temperamental type who’d rush into an almost hopeless situation. Especially when he’s not actually under your command. What are you planning on telling the poor dumb clod to make him accept this?”

"I.....er....hadn’t really thought about it.” Pepper stroked his chin.

“Well, maybe you better start thinking,” Navarro made a sort of half sneer.  “Going to tell him that this is a liquifying concrete canine who laid waste to an entire Fortunese base single-handedly? Something that any known physical weapon has no effect on? It’s time to wake up and smell the liquid paper, my friend,” Navarro carried on. “We gotta get this mission accomplished but you’re going about it all wrong. Trust me. Maybe these are just rumours, Pepper,” Navarro finished with a wink. “Only rumours. Rumours you want him to check out.”

Pepper grunted. “You’ve got a point, Captain. I’ll do that. As for you, you’d better learn to be more respectful before it gets you into trouble. You can call me General just like everyone else in this army does.”

Navarro smirked. “I’ll take that into account.....General.” He appeared so utterly nonchalant as he made a lazy salute and exited the war room that it seemed as if he must practise it. Just as he left, Fox walked in. Peppy, Falco, and Slippy stood a little outside the doorway.

Fox took a seat. “What’s this all about, General?”

Pepper smiled, showing his teeth. “We’ve noticed some strange activity on Fortuna near a former base.”

“Former?”

“Oh, yes...it was attacked by a large squadron of Invader-class Venomian starfighters last week. Since then we’ve monitored odd happenings. We believe there may just be a bio-weapon. Do you think your team could check it out?”

“I don’t see why not, General.” Fox frowned. “But why us? If they’re just rumours of a bio-weapon that you don’t know anything about, why send us? It seems like a job a rookie squad could handle. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me. The commander we spoke to on the com-link seemed to think this was rather urgent.”

“I didn’t ask you to analyse this, McCloud,” Pepper narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to do it or not?”

Fox was a bit surprised, but he nodded. “Yes, sir. We’ll do it.” He left the room, puzzled.

The rest of the Star Fox team trotted after him down the hallway. “Hey, so what’s the deal, Fox?” Peppy inquired.

“I’m not entirely sure, Peppy. Pepper says it’s only some rumors of a bio-weapon. But you saw that guy we talked to. He was frantic. He was almost in hysterics. Something’s not right here.”

“Yeah, whatever. Well, let’s hope it’s something good wrong and not something that could potentially kill us wrong. Let’s get this over with before anything else happens.” Falco jogged slowly down the long corridor.

“Falco’s right,” chimed in Slippy. “Let’s wait until we see how bad this is before we start painting pictures of nightmare monsters, huh?”

“If you guys say so,” Fox shrugged. “I’m just going with my gut instinct.”

Meanwhile, the Star Fox team had arrived on the sunny landing pad of the Cornerian Army’s headquarters.

“Uh-huh. Let’s just get over there, okay? I’m getting bored.” Falco used the remote control locks they’d been given for their Arwings by the Army a few months ago to open the top of his jet. “Heh heh,” Falco said to himself. “I love these little remote control thingies.” He climbed into his Arwing and used the remote control again to close the top. The others did likewise, and soon all four swirled straight upwards and cleared Corneria’s atmosphere.

*  *  *

Space flights get boring after a while, and Fox felt sleepy. Slippy sent him a message on the com-link. “Hey, Fox, Katt and Bill are going to be waiting for us on Fortuna, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Slippy forgot to make it a private message, so Peppy and Falco overheard. “The only people you got in touch with were Katt and Bill?!” Falco queried incredulously.

“We asked Bill about the units he controls, but he had a hard enough time getting off himself, much less 60 soldiers,” Fox massaged his temples. “We tried at least 30 other squadrons, but they couldn’t help, either. We were lucky to get any help at all.”

“Great,” Falco rolled his eyes. “We’re fighting something Pepper’s afraid to tell you about and we only have two other people to help?”

“I thought you were the one who said we should look on the bright side of this until we know for sure it’s gonna be bad.”

“You’re mistaking me for that painfully optimistic amphiboid in the next Arwing. I was the one who said we should look on the bright side until we find out we have six people against something Pepper lied to us about so you would accept the mission.”

“You think that’s what he did?” Fox worried.

“Why else would he not tell you about what was up with that Shalwast character you talked to, Fox? It makes sense,” Peppy shrugged.

“Just peachy,” Fox growled.

“Why did we elect him leader?” Falco murmured.

“Now approaching Fortuna,” Slippy announced cheerfully. “Shall we go on?  I’ve got a lock on the location of the former base.”

“Former base...destroyed by Venomian Invaders.....” Fox muttered to himself. Or a former base destroyed by the bio-weapon? He curbed the clashing instincts he was getting and nosed down, spiraling downwards through the different layers of the atmosphere. It wasn’t a cakewalk, entering an atmosphere; it took a little knowledge to keep from becoming just another brightly coloured smudge on the sky’s canvas, but you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist. However, Fox was tired and worried, so it was maybe just a bit more difficult than it ought to have been.

They reached a cruising altitude and skimmed across the land. Within minutes, they came upon the still-smoking remains of the Fortunese Ice Eye base. Slippy gasped. “WOW! What did THAT? It’s awful!!”

“You’re telling me! My gosh...” Fox gawked at the terrible destruction. “Let’s get in closer.”

They flew around in slow circles around what was left of Ice Eye, taking in what little information they could gather from the damage. “Whatever did that is something I wish I wasn’t facing with only six people,” Falco voiced grimly.

“Do I hafta say ditto?” Peppy gritted his teeth.

“No, okay, you don’t have to, but why don’t you anyway, because it might make me feel better.” Listening to Falco, Fox wondered if he was out of his bird. Out of his bird, Fox snickered to himself. Heh, I made a pun. Heh heh heh...heehee!

“Ditto,” said Peppy dutifully.

“I think I see Katt and Bill a little ways from here. Let’s take ‘em down, boys.”  Fox gazed into the distance.

“Katt and Bill?!” Slippy shrieked.

“No, dummy, the Arwings!” Falco assuaged the toad’s worries, somewhat rudely.

“Oooohhhh, good,” Slippy sighed in relief.

Soon they were on the ground. The impossibly bright sunlight was bouncing off the snow and making everything too bright to look at. Bill was the only one not in considerable pain, as he had sunglasses. The others weren’t so lucky.

Katt waved merrily as they trooped over. “There’s no need to look so happy about this,” Falco frowned.

“Oh, you’re so GRUMPY! What’s with that base, anyway?” she responded cheerfully.

“You know the thing that did all that?” Fox indicated the smoldering, pyramid-shaped casualty of war. “That’s the thing we’re fighting.”

Rather bemused, Katt raised her eyebrows. “No one told me we were going against a whole army.”

“We’re not,” Fox answered darkly. “We’re going up against one person.”

Bill did not look happy. “Aw, man! You gotta be kidding me!”

Peppy turned to look at him. “Afraid not. Well, you two haven’t seen any traces of it, have you?”

“I just got here,” Katt answered. “I was buying this new outfit for Fortuna. Ain’t it nice?” She showed off her shiny purple fur-lined parka.

“Oh sure, it’s great,” Falco rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re talking about a new outfit instead of this bio-weapon??”

“Glad you like it,” she answered, not at all fazed. “So it’s a bio-weapon? This should be fun.”

“If you say so,” Bill looked a bit worried.

“Maybe we should get a better look at the damage,” suggested Peppy. “We couldn’t really see much from the air.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Fox consented, and they trooped dutifully over the half kilometer or so to the base to inspect the fine lines of destruction.

Slippy folded his arms behind his back and craned his stubby neck to look at the whole building. “I wonder if anybody in there is still alive?”

“I seriously doubt it,” Fox rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess we could look, though.”

“You’ll be wasting your time, man,” Bill said. “It looks like the inside is completely burned out.”

“Oooohhhh.....”

“Eh...?” Peppy swiveled around and jumped. “Fox, there’s someone over there!”

All six ran over to a lone pine marten in a private’s uniform. “Are you okay, mister?” Slippy’s mouth hung open.

“Does he look okay, Slippy??” Falco yelled incredulously.

“Don’t worry....’bout me....’m not important,” the furry creature raised a paw weakly, which immediately fell limply back into the snow. “It’s the....the....bio...” his speech slurred as he tried to communicate successfully.

“Bio-weapon?” coached Fox.

The soldier managed a nod. “It’ll....kill....us all....you have to....stop it.”

“How?” Fox urged.

“Fox, please,” Peppy said distastefully. “The man’s in pain. We have to do something for him.”

“You’re right, of course,” Fox sighed. “Do any of you know anything about medicine?”

Slowly, they all shook their heads. Bill meekly raised a paw. “I have a first-aid kit and a booklet I got in the mail.”

“It’ll have to do,” Peppy frowned.

They set up their biggest tent and fixed a cot for the pine marten. Falco and Fox carefully lifted him onto it while Bill searched frantically through the pamphlet.  “Dudes, maybe we should just take him to a hospital,” he said hopelessly, tossing the booklet up in the air.

“You’re....probably right. Well, who wants to take him?” Fox made an unhappy face.

“My ship’s too small,” Katt dismissed the possibility that she could possibly be helpful in this situation with a wave of her hand.

“Mine too,” seconded Bill.

Falco gave Katt a curious look. “Your ship is not too small. What are you trying to pull?” Katt ignored him, as did everyone else.

“I can’t go! You need me here!” Slippy commented self-righteously.

“I don’t want to leave you guys here by yourselves,” Peppy chewed his lower lip.

“I do,” Falco grinned. “Nah, just kidding. But as usual, it looks like it’s up to me to save the day. You can thank me later...”

“Well, okay,” conceded Fox. “I guess you’d better hurry.”

Katt’s expression was somewhat reminiscent of a little girl who’s dropped her ice cream in the dirt.

*  *  *

A few short moments later, Falco waved a goodbye as his Arwing, loaded down with an extra passenger, soared off the ground and off Fortuna.

This seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago, Fox thought. Why does it feel so....I don’t know, final?

Peppy nudged him. “It’s gonna be okay, Fox.”

“What is?”

“This. Everything. We’ll pull through.”

“It sounds nice, I’ll give you that. But how can you be so sure?”

“I can’t.”

“Gee, that’s encouraging.” Fox sighed.

As Falco’s ship exited the atmosphere and disappeared from view, Bill turned around and folded his hands behind his back. “So what happens now?”

Nobody really knew, so they just sort of stood around staring at each other for a few minutes. After a few suggestions including “How about we go looking for the bio-weapon?”, “How about we forget the bio-weapon and go out for ice cream?”, and “How about if we find the bio-weapon and offer him ice cream to see if he’ll be nice to us?”, they were jolted out of their strange conversation by an odd sound coming from the innards of the wrecked Ice Eye base.

“What’s that?” Katt cocked her head.

“It sure sounds...erm...interesting,” Slippy made a thoughtful face.

“Sort of a weird humming. And what’s that?” Bill’s mouth hung open.

“It couldn’t be...splashing?” Fox inquired, surprised.

“Uhmm...guys?” Katt spoke up.

“What?” Peppy was trying to listen to the noises from inside the base.

“Do you have any evidence that the bio-weapon has left this area?”

“Oh, SHOOT...” Fox muttered under his breath.

And with that, the top of the base just popped off, filling the air with the smell of smoke and fire.

“AAAHHH!!!” Katt shrieked as they all dove out of the way of the large chunk of building, which crashed into the ground right where they had been standing. Smoke billowed from the cavity that had formerly been covered by the pointed top, and the few windows that were still intact on the lower part of the base began spontaneously shattering and popping out. Flying glass flew in all directions like poison darts. The shaken five managed to avoid most of them, but Bill cried out in pain as a shard of glass made a large gash in the edge of his finger. He popped the bleeding appendage into his mouth and cursed loudly but unintelligibly.

Then there was an extremely loud explosion that shook the ground as Ice Eye ceased to exist altogether. Katt, Bill, Fox, Slippy and Peppy were all thrown clear by the blast and landed none too pleasantly in snowbanks sixty feet away. The momentum of the blast carried all of them deep into the side, and the snow quickly filled the holes back in. Trapped in the snowbank with a sparse amount of air, Fox kicked wildy and tried to dig out. Feeling something odd on his back foot, he lashed out with a strong kick.

Slippy gasped and stuck his head out of the top of the snowbank, rubbing his nose. “OUCH! It’s only me! What’d you go and do that for??!”

“Ooops....I’m sorry. Where’s everyone else?”

“MMBTLTHptooey!” Bill’s snout appeared, but the rest of him was still firmly planted in the snow. Soon they were all reasonably safe, from the snow at least. Fox and Slippy freed themselves and pulled Bill out by his nose. He didn’t enjoy that too much, but it was necessary. Next they had to yank Katt out by her tail, which also wasn’t very enjoyable. Peppy brought  up the rear with the lovely experience of being tugged out by one of his long ears. Sitting on the hill rubbing any sore body parts, they looked at the blackened crater in the spot where Ice Eye had formerly been. The scorched earth surrounding the ghost of the base smoked and gave off a distinct odour of sulphur. Fox plugged his nose.

“Hey, how did that boulder get there? I didn’t see that before,” Katt massaged her tail with one hand and shaded her eyes with the other. She peered at a large rock lying near the smoldering hole.

“Me either,” Bill concurred. “Maybe it was thrown there by the explosion.”

“Wait a minute....the rock is rolling,” Fox looked hard at it. “Wind, maybe?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Fox.”

“You and me both, Peppy.”

The rock came to a stop a few meters in front of the snowbank. Worried, they began climbing to their feet and making their way down the other side of the large hill. The boulder made a strange sound and started shifting and flattening.

“Let’s...uhmm...get out of here a little faster...” Slippy suggested.

“YEEEAAGH!!!!”

Chapter 3