World Tree MUSH

     The great expanse of space holds a whole lot of stuff, but mostly a whole lot of nothing. Some space pilots and travelers feel a certain twinge when leaving a planet or station behind to enter the void once more. It's not anxiety. It's something far deeper and altogether more moving. A sensation. A state of being. 

     Therein, in the Lylat System -- or, more precisely, a mirror reality of the same star system some years in the future than his own -- Fox McCloud no doubt has his own internal processes while navigating the great black sea. At that moment in time, there's nothing of particular note nearby. Sensors ping a small squadron of vessels a medium distance away, but they IDF as Cornerian Units. It's not uncommon for Cornerian patrols to keep an eye on the main space lanes between major POIs and this is likely no different. 

     Just then, however, Fox's comms receive a data file: it's a list of potential jobs and bounties that he might find of interest, although the signal is encoded on one of Star Wolf's known transmission frequencies. If the effects of space bring about states of mind, what then does a reminder that a parallel universe version of your nemesis is helping you bring about in thought? 

     Wolf is a terrible person. Right? 

     Perhaps noticed and perhaps not, the timing couldn't be any more perfect. The moment that transmission is complete and the digital dossiers are received, that squadron of Cornerian fighters change course to intercept the course of the Arwing McCloud pilots. If that goes unnoticed, the hailing beep from them over communications certainly cannot be missed. 

     "McCloud?!" plays the initial hailing message, a voice that might be quite familiar to Fox as William Grey, but the initial surprise turns into something much more serious. "Fox, we just intercepted a pretty serious transmission. Respond." Katina isn't that far away, as orbital path takes it, so it's probably no surprise to see the commander leading the Husky Squadron through the area.

Indeed it seems that Fox, who has been quietly trying to rebuild everything lost when he didn't bring it through with him into this strange-yet-similar world has been running missions from anywhere he can get contracts from. He still has his morals and his rules, but the Wolf here is..Tempered. More so than the one he knew back home. It's a nice change of pace.

He slows his ship down once the transmission comes through, reading through some of the posts. Most of these seem easy enough, he can probably get through two or three of them today alone. A tinge of annoyance does go through his mind thinking about the fact that Wolf will probably gloat the next time they talk about Fox taking these jobs, but work is work. 

The second transmission catches him off guard, and he keys on his radio after he hears Bill's voice. He's about to respond but stops for a moment when he remembers it's not the Bill he knows, it's the one that knows this world's more ruthless Fox. He'll have to play this carefully, "Hey Bill." Comes Fox's reply, trying to act casual for the moment.

     It doesn't take long for the image of the approaching ships to draw into visible range as the glow of their propulsion provides a backlit glow where the light from Lylat doesn't already illuminate. The accepted communication allows Fox to see video feed of the one talking. That's definitely Bill, but he's also clearly a bit older. Much like most any of the other surviving troops, the Aparoid invasion and the stress behind nearly losing everything put some wear and age on them, especially with those in command. 

     "I had no idea you were even out this way, but I'm glad to see you." What is spoken is genuine. "Look, I'm not authorized to hire you and your team or anything, but I just thought you should know that a local comms buoy managed to pick up a transmission when it was used to piggyback Cornerian traffic. You know, trying to not get noticed, and we probably wouldn't have if it weren't for the fact that we already had the cipher for their encryption! This stuff is a decade old, Fox." 

     Something about the way he says it foreshadows something very grim, and a decade ago in this universe would place events right around the time of the Great War, but there isn't much time to linger on the suspense. "We don't have time to waste, Fox. A mysterious ship has appeared, it seems to be well guarded, and it's- It's transmitting messages trying to rally allies for an attack on Corneria! We're heading that way, but we have to wait for reinforcements before advancing much further." 

     "But you and Slip could go scout it out and see if this is just some big hoax or if it's real, couldn't you?" The look on Bill's face, even through the Cornerian Pilot's helmet he wears, shows a glimmer of worry in his eyes. There's something he's not saying.

"Afraid it's just me today, Bill. But you don't need to hire me. Consider it a favor to an old friend." He replies to the other pilot. The way he's talking about it, it might be that same threat that Wolf has told him about before. But he thought those things were wiped out.

Back where he came from, Andross was still the biggest threat to the safety of the system, there was no knowing that some greater threat was waiting just outside of detection range. He's never fought these things, but he's confident enough in his own abilities that he should be able to do so.

"Send me over the coordinates for where this ship is. I'll go take a look, and we'll figure out how to proceed from there. Sound good, Bill?" He's not even too sure about it himself, but he's not going to let Bill and his team take that risk. A single ship has way less chance of getting spotted.

     "You're the best, Fox. I'm sending you an invitation to the next pub crawl on Katina with me, the Huskies, and the Bulldogs. And Fox? Be careful." Simple. Honest. To the point. It's a quick conversation, but nothing of what Bill says or how he speaks implies anything remotely terrible about the nature of the Fox that he knows. 

     The icing on the cake is that Fox does, indeed, get a transmission of a datafile from Bill Grey. It is not, however, a set of spacial coordinates. What it is...is an invitation to the next Pub Crawl with the Huskies and Bulldogs on Katina. A cursory glance shows that it is very informal, yet written with the orderliness one might expect from somebody in Cornerian Command. It has locations of each pub, estimated times, potential costs, and a list of those already agreeing to attend. Only, no. No, those coordinates don't point to places on Katina. They're nonsense. It's...coded? 

     It's coded in a very simple encryption. The same simple encryption that the domestic Fox, Falco, Slippy, and William used for their personal messages back and forth back in their Academy days. How similar is the past with the Fox now receiving it? It doesn't really matter. It doesn't take a master analyst to see through it. They are coordinates. In space. And Bill is covering his tracks about it, too. 

     Husky Squadron breaks away and makes a course correction to continue the way they were going. The last image of Bill on comms is a friendly thumbs-up before it cuts out.

Fox gives a nod to Bill before he ends the communication and sits back in his cockpit a bit, looking over the note. Sure they used a similar coding system when he was in the academy, but this is slightly different.

Still, he punches in the coordinates and sets the warp drive to go. He can work on decoding this during the trip. It's not going to be instantaneous after all, so he'll have time to try to figure out exactly what Bill is trying to tell him, and more importantly, why he has to do it coded.

Is the Fox from this world really in such a bad way that even his old friends can't really communicate with him normally? Fox, that is to say the one that just received the message, realizes that he hasn't tried to communicate with Cornerian Command since his arrival here. From the sounds of things it might not go over well, either.

     'Shadow. Shadows. Shadows no, near, never.' 

     The destination isn't too far away, but the fact remains that something has Bill scared, yet he clearly entertained the idea of this being some kind of hoax potentially? Who would try to pull a prank on the Cornerian Alliance regarding an attack on the most populated planet in the system? The past fifteen years has seen multiple intances of broken peace and shattered lives, so a joke on that scale would be in poor taste. Why the disbelief? 

     'Shadows never dream, draw... Delve. Dip.' 

     The message is a mess, clearly constructed in a hurry, and the cypher needed is just different enough that some of the meaning has to be inferred. All the same, this encryption would fool nobody in Cornerian Command if ever directly presented. Was the act a means to try to obfuscate total action? Is there something more familiar to it? Or- 

     'Shadows never- Shadows Never Die' Shadows never die? A shadow from what? The nature might be a mystery if pasts aren't the most aligning. Bill, however, is referencing one of General Pepper's favorite poems: 

     My ship at sea alight, astray, 
     too many leagues from port or bay, 
     that limps more than it swims as true 
     as all aboard that man the crew. 
     The battle-worn and clamor-torn, 
     the risks from which all war is born, 
     look up to me; I cannot cry. 
     Our enemies' shadows never die.

It's not that Fox doesn't trust Bill. It's just that even in the face of overwhelming forces from Andross, including a city destroying mothership, Fox has never seen Bill blink. But this threat from the past has him scared, and that in turn has Fox maybe a bit worried.

He hasn't quite been able to determine everything from the letter, but enough of it is clear that he thinks he can work with it. He pulls the ship out of hyperspace a little short of the objective, so as to not warp in directly on top of this ship. He then takes it into dark mode, the lights in the cockpit going out or dimming and the ship slowing down.

It's not quite a full cloaking device but it should help him get closer without being detected, he hopes. For now this is strictly an observe and report mission, to determine how legitimate of a threat this may be.

     The deceleration into space at the coordinates input reveals an instantly frightening display. A shadow, perhaps twice the size of the Great Fox, is the silhouette of a massive flagship. The position of the flagship relative to the twin suns, much like the Husky Squadron's ships, has a minor halo from the light striking behind it, but the detail of it, aside from its massive size, goes unseen. 

     This is no joke. This is no hoax. Strangely, though, there seems to be little activity at the moment. Almost derelict, it floats with nearly no activity. Although hard to see against the backdrop of space, there is other debris floating around, as well. One could scan such stuff to determine its composition and, therein, its origin, but that would be giving oneself away. 

     If that thing is transmitting using decade old encryption methods, it sure doesn't show. Overall, it's very creepy, but it doesn't appear to be anything worth that much stress. All is still. All is silent.

Well the ship was there, that much is certain. Fox does kinda wish the Great Fox was around for him to use its longer range scanners, but that's not an option. Instead he uses the Arwing's low power mode to try to get as close as he can, using any passive scans to try to pick up on that transmission or anything.

The ship looks dead, a lost relic of a war he wasn't a part of, but yet could there be something going on inside? Things are not always what they seem, after all. If one was building a new invasion, looking like a derelict would be a good way to avoid detection. However getting caught would ruin their plans before they began. Could there be more to this, Fox wonders.

He dares not risk sending a transmission of his own yet, not until he was sure this thing was well and truly dead. He may have to try to get on board to shut down the transmission and find out what's really going on.

     It's exactly then that Fox's comms signal an incoming hail. The tone beeps, and, if unanswered, doesn't seem to stop. Perhaps the Arwing's communications system is registering something as direct transmission, because there doesn't appear to be anybody else in the area. It couldn't possibly be from the large ship, because it doesn't seem very active at all. At the very least, it couldn't possibly know that somebody was there, could it? 

     Ultimately, one can either answer it or not. Still, there's something altogether unnerving about this vessel. It's alien -- the design, from what can be seen, is not something from this star system. On the other hand, there's something horrifically familiar about it. Bill couldn't have reacted from seeing the ship if he didn't know it was there or not. He could only have reacted... 

     ...from something he heard via transmission.

"I don't like this at all." Fox says to himself, frowning and looking over the transmission. It doesn't seem to be coming from the ship, but he can't pinpoint it with the equipment he has on board. Maybe he'll have to do something a little risky to try to find out who's behind all of this.

He powers the Arwing back up to full and sends out a wide-range scan, trying to home in on the exact source of the transmission. It's going to mean giving himself away, but in that same moment he may also be able to find out where the potential threat is coming from. It's probably pirates, he thinks. It's always pirates.

     'Zzznkshjkalalanazhzzz...' 

     A mix of what must be some kind of white noise mixed with a garbled mass of messages blended and faded can be heard, but it's one of those things that requires some brainpower and creativity to understand anything that might be a pattern or make sense. 

     'Zzahraklnanackzshgaranteeddofailhzzz...' 

     There's almost a sense of one voice behind it all, but it's near impossible without a full transmission processing outpost to get a clear read or separate what might be different channels from one another all overlain and combined. 

     'Zzhzharandupanhnnnnforhallovihdobuhrnaweh...' 

     There are words in there. And if half of what is said is what might be thought to be said, it's pretty damning. But, nothing... Nothing can prepare for the sudden change in transmission that follows. 

     '...zzzhsaiwillhroolahnbeehhhhhhhhhhshshshshshSHHHHHKKT!' 

     Silence reigns in those few next seconds as Fox ends his stealth scouting to risk a more powerful sensor scan of the area, but then one word is clearly heard. It is spoken by a voice that is still garbled, mostly hard to distinguish, but with a spooky clarity that ends with a note of familiarity. And anger. 

     '........Fox........' 

     The massive ship's lights begin to flicker on, spotlights begin to sweep the area nearby, scans begin to come from the flagship to search the area, it slowly begins to move, and a small swarm of fighter vessels begin to pour from the main hangar's door as it opens up. Bombardment cannons mounted on the sides of the ship power up with a mild glow and swivel direction as if searching for a target. 

     This is not a derelict vessel used as a trap. This truly is a carrier flagship designed for planetary assault. Something isn't right here! There's no way something like this could sneak into the Lylat System without being detected sooner.

To say that's bad is to put it mildly. This thing is not as inactive as Fox thought it might be. Thankfully he put his ship in full power mode, because he brings his shields and weapons up quickly, turning the Arwing around to give himself some space between his ship and the swarm of fighters that are coming his way.

Normally he'd radio for backup, have one of the others come in and help pick some of them off, but there's nobody around. And this thing knows who he is. Or at least it knows of him. Could it be looking for the OTHER Fox instead of him? That would be some sheer irony. This came to kill the Fox from this world and finds the doppelganger from another world instead.

No time to worry about it now, Fox thinks to himself. Gotta be faster than those fighters. He pulls a high-G turn and brings his weapons to bear on the approaching alien fighters, opening up with the dual lasers in a rapid series of shots.

     A relentless stream of small fighters face the destructive power of Space Dynamics, Co.'s masterpiece craft: the Arwing. They aren't completely offenseless, however; they are all armed with their own laser cannons, and groupings of these hostile ships masterfully join in various formations. Staggered V, line, diamond: each group provides a different pattern of incoming fire. 

     In return, however, the formations are easily broken with well-placed shots, but the fighters clearly aim to corral the Arwing pilot into the line of fire from other groups with their blasts before they go down. It is a very fierce and sudden melee. 

     !!! WARNING !!! 

     Sensors on the Arwing pick up a massive energy discharge just as a flash of bright light from one of the cannons on the ship gives minuscule heads-up to the INTENSE column of beam energy fired in a sweeping path across Fox's flight path.

There's not a lot of time to try to avoid that cannon blast. And from the looks of it they don't seem to care if they catch their own fighters in it, wihch means they're drones or just cannon fodder. Either way Fox doesn't want to get caught in it. 

He tries to pull a U-Turn by yanking back as hard on the stick as he can to try to get away from that beam before it melts his ship with him inside of it. That would not be a good thing for anyone in the ship.

     Of major note, although it may be hard to take note in the heat of the moment as the glare from that burst illuminates Fox's maneuverability, but the moment the beam ceases a rather large hatch opens near the ship's orbital cannon to vent an immense amount of heat. True enough through observation, but the fighters are so precise and unrelenting that they must be drones of some sort. Whatever gets caught in that blast is washed away and remaining fighters are not demoralized by the losses. 

     The ship is no longer static, however, as it slowly turns to bring about its starboard side...and starboard cannon. It'll take some time to swing into position for another eruption of sheer power, but chances are those thermal vents lead to the ship's core. Wait- 

     This ship doesn't look it, but it seems to be built rather Venomian! Venomian ships have power cores that, if overloaded, detonate in massive explosions. The mini-fighters won't make it easy. Those not blown out of formation regroup to take up other formations altogether. Crossfire could get deadly, but there's no way Bill and his squadron, on the way with enough reinforcements to simply scout the potential threat, could expect such armaments. Bill is an ace pilot, much like Fox, so he'd likely make it through, but losing his wingmen would be devastating.

"Well hell." What is this an automated ship? Wouldn't be the only Venomian drone he's faced, but he needs to destroy this before anyone gets hurt. So Fox makes a decision, albeit a terrible one that may well get him killed. He wheels his Arwing around again, and fires a bomb ahead to clear as many of the drones out of his way as possible

He throws the ship into full power and shoots towards that vent. He's going to have to fly down the vent, not crash into anything, and then drop a bomb right in the power core to make sure that this ship gets destroyed before it can hurt anybody.

     The expended smart bomb, a massively powerful explosive device, accelerates ahead of the ship and triggers. The force of the blast compounds with each fighter it envelops. One after another, seeming micro-explosions in the wake of the bomb sparkle outward from the center. Anything in its radius is utterly destroyed. The void it creates won't last long against the swarm, but that doesn't matter. A path is cleared, crossfire is avoided, and the pilotless ships have to eat afterburner and play catch up. That leaves the matter of timing. Indeed, that ship brings its starboard side to face the Arwing's assault, and- 

     !!! WARNING !!! 

     Again, an automated tell-tale sound from the console, but it grants the Ace with knowledge he already knows and expects. When the next beam fires, a flash of light extending from the cannon's barrel to beyond, it behaves in a similar fashion. It attempts to track the Arwing in its flight, but it's a weapon made for planetary attack, not against single-pilot fighter craft. It's clumsy, but insanely dangerous. 

     Following, without fail, an exhaust vent opens up. While very hot inside, it's nothing Fox's ship can't handle. And, while a tight fit, intrusion into the ship should be possible, if only just.

He probably ends up scratching the paint a bit as he enters the vent, but he's in. The Arwing is sailing along rapidly through the claustrophobic corridor, hurtling towards the power core. This was not what he had planned for today when he woke up. Still it should just be a straight shot, unless this one is designed weird. No crazy 90 degree turns or anything like that. He just has to keep it level and steady.

Fox does his best to keep calm, controlled breaths, as he arms another bomb. He only has a few of these things so this one better work, because he has a feeling he may need the last one to get back out of the vent once he reaches the power core.

He goes over the plan one more time in his head. Fly in, put a bomb in the core, fly back out the same vent, if the door is closed, use a bomb to open it, and then try to get away before the whole ship goes up.

     The heat dissipates after the initial exhaustion and, as per automation, the hatch on the outer hull closes shut behind the daring pilot. The ship is large and the corridor is not perfectly straight beyond the entrance segment -- it winds a little, but there are no sudden turns -- so it won't take much time to complete the infiltration and make it to the core and deal with the closed massively-armored door blocking the path at the very end between the vent and- 

     Wait, it's a dead end? It's a dead end. It's a dead end! 

     No need to panic, though. The thermal shaft is larger in this area by quite a bit and is designed for maintenance access and it's easy to see a control room to the left of the massive gate. It won't be as easy as flying in and out, but using a bomb to blow open THAT door, this close to the core, would give one very little time to turn around and get out again if things destabilized. But, that control room would likely allow one to override the gates, yet that would take manual effort in landing, disembarking, and fussing over the controls. If the ship is Venomian, though, then it should still use a known language. 

     The deeper question is: is the ship fully automated or does it have a crew? Anti-personnel measures? Sensors, if consulted show nothing. Everything about this situation is...wrong.

Nope. Fox doesn't like this one bit. One of these days if he ever finds Slippy again he's going to lock the frog n a room until he figures out how to turn an Arwing into a Landmaster. There's a spot that looks like it'll function as a landing pad, so Fox pulls around over top of it and lands the Arwing.

Assuming he isn't immediately overwhelmed by guards, he'll jump out with his blaster at the ready. He'll need to make this as quick as possible, head for the control room and force open every door and hatch that he can. Then probably smash the controls so they can't revert. 

He hates every aspect of this. It almost feels like some weird test that Wolf has decided to put him through for the lupine's own sick amusement. But no way he'd waste all these resources on a game.

     No guards. No automated turrets. Just an area for machinery that can function as a landing spot and a clear path to the control room. Inside? It's exactly as one would expect for a control room. The are computer consoles, keyboards, monitors, levers, pipes, cables... It's unmanned. The central seat has access to everything important and, beyond the consoles and monitors, one can see through the shielded windowed wall the massive size of the power core. 

     One console shows internal temperatures, pressurization, charge and power flow, along with places on the ship where power can be routed. Everything looks rather minimal, overall. A warning scribbled on note paper on the desk mentions that you should always keep a certain amount of power flowing from the core and that you should never route more than 8 percent of the output back into the core itself. 

     The computers require no authorization. Anything tinkered with seems to respond just fine. Yes, it's too easy. But the amount of firepower that was thrown at Fox just moments ago proves that this isn't some joke. Then, for a brief moment, the monitors flicker like a glitch in the display. Just one, then others follow, just once, and then...again. 

     If the hairs on the scruff of Fox's neck stand on end, he'd be fully justified. The solution to the problem is right in front of him, but- Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched and nobody is there? 

     Somebody is there. Just not there. The monitors flicker again before popping to an image, first one and then the others all follow, until the same image shows on all of them. Only it's not just an image. It's a face. A primate's face. It's HIS face. 

     Andross. Only, this Andross has a heavily damaged face replaced with cybernetics, including an eye. It's not the same Andross that this Fox knows. It's not the same Andross that the other Fox knows. And, it's not video, either! It's...flickering? Glitchy? A virtual disembodied head in the display, this Andross stares and speaks. When it speaks, all speak, and all are just enough out of synch to sound like a legion. The voice even comes from elsewhere in the ship. 

     "Corneria will burn! Nothing can stop me."

>> SUMMARY[Wolf O'Donnell] >> Cue https://youtu.be/7BzXc7vnZvM because you thought this couldn't get any stranger.

Things are seeming simple. Too simple. Fox doesn't like it. He moves to the control panel, and begins to try to decipher the Venomian language so he can open the gates to get to the core.

That's when he sees it. The screens flickering on. The face, the one that still occasionally haunts his dreams. The one who killed his father.

"Andross!"

Fox steps back from the panel and aims his blaster, but stops before he fires, the screens areIt's not a recording, no. It's something else. A projection? An AI? Could he have copied his mind over to this ship before he died? Or is this another alternate version of him.

"I've stopped you before, Andross. And I'll stop you again." Fox seems determined now, more than he was a few minutes prior. Now that he knows what's really at stake, he has to finish this mission. He moves back to the panel and begins to work, moving levers and hitting buttons as needed to open his path to the core, "I'll destroy this ship, and it'll take you with it. And this time you better stay dead."

     It's strange. It's genuinely hard to tell if it really is Andross as a ghost in the machine or if it's just an AI based on the mad doctor himself. Either way, the origin of the ship is clear, but it doesn't answer the question of where it came from. Or when. 

     "And what would Miyu think, McCloud?" speaks the many-but-the-same voices of a name that may mean little to Fox. "You are nothing to me. Insec-c-c-ct." A visual glitching out causes the vocalizations to also stutter. Somehow, it almost makes the encounter more sinister than amusing. "You will die. Your Cornerian friends will die. You cannot stop every one of my warships and IPBMs." 

     Interplanetary Ballistic Missiles are extremely bad news. Even a single warship with the amount of firepower this one has would do significant damage to planet Corneria before it could be stopped if it ever reached its destination. 

     "Here, Fox McC-c-c-cloud. Let me h-help you!! Gah ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA ha ha!"" 

     The multitude of evil laughs echoes deafening around the control room as the lights suddenly shift red, the display on the control desk shows power output from the core being rerouted back into the core itself in rapidly increasing amounts. The glow from the core itself gets ever brighter. An emergency alarm siren whoop-whooooops over and over in the background. This is bad news, but what's to stop this virtual threat from simply restoring power to normal levels if one simply runs away? There's only one way to deal with a tyrant's threats.

"You talk too much." Fox says to the flickering screens, before firing a pair of shots into them, and then a couple more into the console. After that he turns and books it towards his Arwing. This is so dumb he's going to die. But this Andross clearly thinks he has more ships and it's way earlier in this particular version of the world's timeline than it is. That means Fox has to stop him before he gets to Corneria.

Once back in his ship, he takes off, heading for that rapidly increasing glow from the core. The plan is still the same. He's going to blow it up, and if he dies in the process, well he hopes it's enough to keep Corneria safe. That's all he's ever hoped for whenever he goes out on a mission.

It's a tight fit to get to where the core proper is, but it's hard to miss with the rapidly growing power surge. Once he's inside the core itself, he does a quick lap around it to plot his exit, and then turns to make his attack run.

     Laughter follows Fox all the way out to his ship from...around. The system malfunctioning, the inner gate begins to open and close over and over again. It's easy enough to go through if your timing is good, but the side of the gate inside the core containment room is almost lost to the blinding light as the core glows brighter and hotter. Each time it opens shows as but a blackish-grey blob amongst the rounded walls. The hum of the core grows so loud through the power feedback bluff(?) that it can likely even be heard within Fox's cockpit. And, to add annoyance to the matter, Fox's comms trigger an incoming hail once more; there's only one 'person' that could be and is clearly trying to be a distraction. All one has to do is guarantee a core destabilization and then escape. Easy. So... 

     It all comes down to the next twenty seconds, doesn't it?

"I'm about to shut you up for good." Fox says to the picture on his receiver, as he begins the attack run. He fires the bomb with very little time before he passes the core, aiming to stick is straight into that glowing mass, and then goes full throttle towards the exit.

The bomb had a small delay timer, so it may give him a couple of extra seconds before the core melts through to the bomb's insides and detonates it, or the bomb's timer goes off. Either way he knows he doesn't have a lot of time.

Every ounce of his training, his skill, and his intuition has to go into this escape. He knows he can do it, but it's going to be close. Way closer than he would like. But he can't allow Andross to win, no matter the risk, and no matter the cost. His eyes narrow as he tries to predict every turn, every slight change in angle and elevation. He has to make it. He has to succeed.

     Around the core, through the blinding light, into the hard to see exhaust port, blazing past the control room, and zooming through the corridor toward the exit at unsafe speeds that only allow hypothetical outside observers to see naught but an afterimage blue of the intense light from those Arwing thrusters, Fox McCloud aims for a very dangerous escape. 

     The path narrows the further along it goes. The intense shake of the core causes the ship itself to start vibrating. Squares of thermal plating shake free of the sides of the tunnel and threaten to collide with the ship within the shrinking confines. Only just reaching the straightaway, the exhaust hatch at the end potentially not open, there is an indication on an Arwing panel that the deployed bomb triggers. What happens next seems to take place in slow motion. 

     The core itself seems to 'burp', it grows in size by almost fifty percent, then it collapses in on itself before exploding in a cataclysmic fashion. The core containment room is filled with pure energy and the control room is vaporized along with a huge chunk of the innards of the warship. Heat spikes to a crazy level comparable to the surface of a star and then the ship shudders from one end to the other. 

     The massive carrier snaps in half almost instantly from the released force. The fore of the ship spirals out of control while being consumed by micro-explosions. The body of the ship, however, heaves. Despite the crazy speed Fox is going, the shockwave from behind easily outpaces his vessel barely one second after the core's rupture. While no doubt causing his ship to take a hard shielding hit, the tunnel has it far worse. Cracking spiderwebs through the material as instant disintegration sets in. It isn't until the pressure hits the outer hull that problems truly arise; the resonance snap causes the very end of the exhaust port to bend inward. Total blockage. 

     There's no time to slow or stop. Things might seem dire, but then it truly happens: The ship completely breaks apart into tiny pieces and blows outward in a swirl. Like a blossoming flower, so too does the thermal exhaust shaft. Everything around Fox billows in an invisible wind as where there was ship, there no longer is; where he was inside cramped confines, now he is in pure open space. The brightness from behind grows immense as multiple explosions take place quickly at the center of this damage. 

     Fox seems to suddenly go faster, then. He's not. It is merely an illusion as the massive quantities of debris start to get sucked back into where the core was in a follow-up implosion. This horrifying effect might be felt in the ship itself, but is short-lived. 

     Then, all goes quiet. Whatever remains of those fighters are no longer active or have been sucked into whatever doom awaited things at the very end. 

     Then...that damn communications beep signals another hail. It couldn't be...

Everything unfolds really fast, and yet extremely slow at the same time. Fox can't explain it, he doesn't know. He just continues doing what he was trying to do. When he realizes he may crash into that blocked passage, he closes his eyes and braces for it, as everything around him shakes, the Arwing feeling like it's going to shatter to pieces in a moment.

Then silence. Deathly silence. Fox opens one of his eyes, and then the other, looking around, trying to see what the hell happened. He glances around the cockpit, trying to see if he's alive. He appears to still be alive. Then the hailing frequency kicks on. He turns to look at the screen. No way.

But he has to know. He reaches down and presses the receiver. If it's Andross still, then that may have been for nothing.

     "Fox! Are you okay? What happened?!" 

     That is, decidedly, a voice and face that belongs more to a William than it does to an Andross. Sure enough, the Cornerian cavalry arrives just in time to see everything explode magnificently with only a well-shielded Arwing left over. It's not just the Huskies. The Bulldogs are there, too! "Everybody spread out. If there are survivors, mark them for rescue and detainment." 

     Bill sighs a little, then grimace-smiles at the comms camera. "Wow, Fox, I just expected you to do some recon, not do...this. I felt bad for not being more direct with you, but you know how it goes. Can't share details of military investigation with civilians or private mercenary contractors unless directed. Heh! Are you hurt? What did you do?" In other words, Bill is going to have a lot of paperwork and explaining to do. Probably. "I'm not getting readings of anything else in the area. Man, I'm sure glad I told a hero like you when I did."

Fox shakes his head a bit, relieved that it's Bill and the Cornerian military that have arrived and not something far worse, "It was Andross." Fox says, simply, in reply to Bill.

 "But it wasn't the one I know. There was something off about him. He referenced someone named Miyu who I've never heard of.." He rubs his muzzle a little bit, "I'll let your guys handle clean up, Bill. Just..That ship won't be a threat anymore, but you may want to scan near Venom for any more of them...Just in case."

He needs a nap. For like a day or two. This has been more stress than he's put himself under in a while now. And now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off, he realizes how crazy that was.

     "Wait, I mean, we had suspicions that it was a relic of the Great War, Fox. But it was really Andross? He was here? On that...ship?" Bill sounds to have a bit of disbelief to his voice and for good reason. "Look. Fox. I don't know what you found, but there's nothing else like it around here. Command went into full alert when those transmissions were detected. Venom is quiet as it has been for nearly twelve years." 

     The Huskies and Bulldogs are hard at work scouring the area, but between all of them nothing seems to come up. Whatever explosion was triggered really quite thoroughly destroyed everything. There's no way answers are going to be found now, but perhaps it was a greater danger to know? 

     "Don't worry, we'll handle this. We were going to, anyway. But why don't you come back to Katina with me. I'd like to debrief you, and, hey, we could catch up. It's been at least a year since we last had our usual meet up. The, uh..." The Aparoid Invasion. "...really messed with us, I know. But we're best buds. And you, seriously, I'm glad I have a friend like you that I can count on, Fox. So, drinks on me?"

"Yeah, that sounds good Bill." Fox replies. He'll have to explain to Bill that he's not the Fox that Bill knows, but he also still IS in a way. It's complicated, but a few drinks should make explaining it, and accepting it, easier for both of them, "I'll follow you. Lead the way."