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Star Fox: Inertia

Chapter 10

by Tempo

~ ~ ~

Fox awoke to the faint din of music. Ears perked against the pillow, he opened bleary eyes to see his bunkmate sitting at the edge of their bed. She wore only ease and star shine. As seconds passed to minutes, the clean light of a stellar sunrise lit a halo around her, every fringe of fur aglow. Over her ears pulsed the soft glow of audiophile headphones, a gift from Katt. The vixen nodded with a smile, lost in the song. He didn't move for fear of disturbing her, though she soon turned her teal eyes toward him.

Lifting one leg to her chest, she rested her head on her knee with a quiet smile. "Felt you looking."

"Can you blame me?" He reached over to stroke her silken tail. Jeweled bands clasped around it already; she must have gotten distracted by the music halfway through getting dressed.

Her tail swished with pleasure under his touch. She lowered the headphones to her neck, letting the next song spread out to fill their temporary quarters. He'd never heard the tune, something atmospheric, but admitted it was a good piece for stargazing. Her hair felt to one side as she tilted her head in slow study of him. "Those felt like some peaceful dreams. First you've had in a while."

"Looking on the bright side's easier when our prospects aren't so dim." He patted her tail. "I hope my stressed-out dream don't keep you up."

"Being in bed with you has never been about getting more sleep." She cast him a sultry smirk. "But my best sleep is with you." Her paw covered his.

His fingers entwined with hers. "I'd call that mission accomplished."

Stretching from tail to toes, she leaned back to lay beside him. "You're like a big warm comforter blanket. Cozy and soft."

"Ah yes." He rolled smiling eyes. "Who doesn't want a soft boyfriend?"

"You're hard when the situation merits." That delicate face nuzzled into his chest fluff. "But soft is a lovely default state."

His fingers trailed through her pelt, drawing her gently close. "You make a good point."

"Of course I do." She smiled up at him, whiskers infused with glow from still-playing headphones. "I'm the wise one, remember?"

His nose found hers, l leading them to kisses. They lay there for uncounted minutes, enjoying each other. Her music played on all the while.

~ ~ ~

Krystal traced her paw pads over Fox's as they stood in a shuttlepod. He smiled to her, radiating affection and a fading grogginess. He'd stayed up watching the construction again. The scent of coffee and shampoo filled the enclosed space.

The Great Fox shone before them, silver-hulled and red-lettered. Flood lights illuminated swaths of it for inspection. The bridge and observation deck glowed against the dark of space.

Toaster-size robots scooted past the glass canopy. Every one headed toward the ship toted a small piece of equipment, except for the ones working together to haul larger parts. Brilliant light flashed here and there as the worker bots welded the fighter bay subassembly into place. Installing the laser canons had been delayed by the reforging that giant heat sink, but those too had been fitted now. Technicians in their own shuttlepods inspected the work, nodding with approval. A raccoon-dog rocketed past in a spacesuit, waving at them with a spanner.

Through the domed window of the shuttlepod, the red fox raised his mug in salute. His ears had perked up and she doubted it was entirely the coffee's doing. With its wings in place, the Great Fox had finally regained its familiar silhouette against the backdrop of the massive hangar; beyond, the stars sparkled with infinite promise. Space Dynamics built far larger ships, but Krystal doubted the techs exuded this level of excitement for every ship. Fox seemed to be gaining energy from proximity to it.

Passing through the crackle of the atmo screen, the automated shuttlepod floated to a gentle landing in the fighter bay. A quiet hiss announced the opening hatch.

McCloud poked his nose out of the shuttle pod. "Well, they remembered to fill it with air."

She cast him a smirk, the beads in her hair clattering softly. "A promising sign."

The space stood half-lit, lights turning on overhead in ones and twos as their wiring was connected. Sparks from the welding bots rained down the fair side of the hangar. It looked strangely empty without Arwings or the gear to maintain them, but those could be pulled from the Great Fox 2.

He paced down the short ramp and indulged in a slow turn to survey the space. "Incredible. It looks just like the old one."

She leaned against the side of the open hatch. "I'm given to understand they're working from the same blueprints."

Her lover wore a giddy grin. "I was a kit when it got built the first time. It looked just like this." He traced a paw along a shiny glass control panel, pristine under its unpeeled clear plastic cover. "I hadn't spent most of my adult life in it then. Standing in here after all that, watching it get assembled..." His fingers grasped for the words. "It's surreal. Like time travel."

Paws folded as she watched, Krystal basked in his innocent delight. She hadn't lived on the original Great Fox nearly as long, but telepaths had a tendency to adopt the attachments of their loved ones. Her sense of homecoming, though borrowed, was genuine. Anywhere with Fox felt like home.

His tail swished as she followed him. A brightness to his smile lit the dim space. They crossed the hangar.

"It's weird, being this familiar with somewhere totally new." He gave her a shy shrug. "You picking up my déjà vu?"

"Loud and clear." The psychic smiled at the starfighter ace. "Rather more sci-fi than I'm used to."

His boots practically bounced to the hangar door. His paw hit to the door control like he'd done it a thousand times. "I could shut my eyes and find my way through the whole place." As he spun to face her, his tail swished behind him. He closed his eyes and walked backward through the doorway.

Chuckling, she gently hooked a digit under his scarf to stop him from stepping on a spool of cabling. "Perhaps we'll try after we check they've installed all the deck plating."

He looked up and down the lighted corridor as small robots cheerfully popped components into the bulkheads. "The guys have gotta see this."

Ears up, she turned her muzzle in the direction of the bridge. "Seems they're a step ahead of us."

He grabbed her paw, transmitting undiluted glee as they walked to the lift. Once inside, the doors slid to a well-oiled close. She leaned in and gave him soft nuzzle to the cheek ruff. He bumped her nose with his. The elevator hummed as carried them to the topmost deck, barely a rumble to its floor as it did so. She hardly even noticed it moving. She'd always hold a certain affection for the Great Fox 2, as she'd made important memories there, but it was a rattletrap.

After a few seconds, the lift hissed open. She followed him out onto the bridge. In contrast to the gleam of the rest of the ship, the bridge stood scuffed and dented. Various panels had been replaced, but Space Dynamics engineers were more interested in replacing the electronics than buffing the consoles.

Slippy, smudged with grease, hauled components out from control panel, unplugged wires, and slotted solid-state cartridges into place. At one point, all the screens on the bridge blinked to scrambled static. Unfazed, he pulled the cartridge back out, blew the dust from its connectors, and snapped it back in. The screens returned to normal.

Falco, drinking coffee, supervised. Sharp green eyes flicked to them instantly. "Captain on deck." He continued sitting on a half-built control station.

"Hey Fox!" The frog rocked back and forth with contentment as he worked. "I'm just installing some of the salvage I bought on the terraforming station." He hefted a cardboard box of components. "Can you believe all this stuff was floating in Sector X?"

Sipping his coffee, Fox surveyed the parts strewn around his mechanic and their robotic pilot. "I thought you were just buying him a new connector to fix his power failures."

Slippy croaked with pride. "These controller paks came cheap because the batteries were dead. They hold 32 sKB each!" The amphibian slotted the last of the scorched grey paks into place. "The real prize, though, is the expansion pak." He held up black box with a red plastic grill. "With more memory, ROB can track more targets."

"That's good." Fox squinted at the device. "It looks a little...melted."

"Oh! That's just the case. The parts say HVC-09 and ROB's an HVC-12." The toad shrugged. "I can't find any record of the 09, but he should be backwards-compatible. I disconnected all his data cables to the Great Fox, just to be safe."

The vulpine gave a cautious nod.

Beaming, the toad depressed the 'on' switch.

Lights flickering to life, ROB rotated at the hip, arms swinging wildly. "Destroy. Destroy."

Krystal's eyebrows rose. "Is he...supposed to say that?"

"Where is the enemy?" ROB's targeting visor locked on the team. "You are an enemy. I will terminate all enemies." He attempted to trundle forward, but crashed into the control console. His clamp-like hands snapped at them futilely.

"Aww man!" Falco cackled over his coffee. "Slippy made him crazy."

ROB's visor flared with crimson light, swinging a scanning beam around the bridge. "Where is the creator?!"

Slippy cleared his throat. "Let me handle this." With a waddled swagger, the toad ushered everyone back, then turned to the automaton. "I'm your creator, I guess!"

"I must be complete." The robot seized Slippy by the head and rubbed the amphibian up and down his steel torso. "The view is clear. Sp'b'rg and the creator will become one."

His face leaving a shiny streak on the scuffed chest plate, the mechanic looked up. "Umm, okay. Why?"

"Merging is the most certain way of obtaining all the creator's answers." ROB continued pressing Slippy to himself. "The carbon units will now provide Sp'b'rg the required tools."

Falco picked up a spanner and offered it to the robot.

Krystal batted his wing back.

He cawed in disappointment. "C'mon! A cyber-Slippy might actually be able to fly."

With a sigh, the toad glanced to McCloud as he was rubbed up and down the robot's case. "We might have to clear the save data."

Fox cocked an ear. "We might."

The bird stroked the underside of his beak. "I dunno--I'm startin' to like him this way."

"Yes." Krystal cracked a wry smile. "Has not each of us asked: 'Why am I here? What was I meant to be? Should I merge with Slippy?'"

With a roll of his eyes, McCloud unplugged the power cord.

ROB powered down, arms dropping like a puppet's. His back panel popped open, spilling out a dozen colorful plastic disks to roll across the deck. Krystal had made the mistake of agreeing to play ROB's two built-in games. While an admirable autopilot, he was rubbish at manipulating small plastic game pieces he'd shipped with. It made his games quite frustrating.

Ears up, the vixen watched Slippy work. The crew was fond enough of ROB to imprint him with residual positive emotions, so she could normally forget that the emotion he radiated wasn't his own, but moments like this reminded her that his personality could be changed as easily as a data cartridge.

"Why are we still usin' garage-sale tech?" Falco threw his wings in the air. "Just have your dad whip us up some actually good upgrades to ROB."

"The contract doesn't cover upgrades." Slippy gathered the various game pieces. "I could ask the techs to come up with something, but ROB's still the cutting edge of machine intelligence."

The bird's eyes swooped to the switched-off robot. "That's just sad."

"Yeah... The newer autopilots are built on the same architecture, except the upgrades are shaped like little collectible figurines." Slippy gave a resigned shrug. "Dad got in a huge fight with Marketing over that one."

"But ROB's the best they can do?" He crossed his wings.

"If I had to guess, I'd say Space Dynamics and Phoenix Enterprises have quietly decided they don't want robots deciding when to pull the trigger."

Krystal's eyebrows rose at the theory. Having grown up around other empaths, she found herself quietly surprised at how insightful non-telepaths could be. Her lover in particular. "Quite scrupulous for bunch of arms dealers."

He stepped around the main control station and leaned on it to face them. "Why do you think I'm in this business?"

She crossed her arms. "Honor?"

Slippy's hand shot in the air. "Ooh! Is it massive debt?"

A dark grin landed on the avian's beak. "Daddy issues?"

"Well, yes." Fox rolled his eyes. "But I'd be less willing to work with our friendly neighborhood military-industrial complex if it wasn't so friendly."

"Yeah, I'm always kinda surprised when General Pepper doesn't lead a coup." Radiating smugness, Falco took another sip.

Krystal rolled her eyes. The bird liked his coffee like he liked his women: overpriced and seasonally available. She smirked, took out her communicator and texted that notion to Katt.

Slippy climbed around the robot and poked at the control console. "The military did give us upgraded comm equipment. I patched it into the station's comm array. Check it out!" Extracting a remote control from the device, his moist fingertip pressed one of its button with a click.

A hologram flickered to life before them. It displayed three dimensions of static. The computer dimmed the lights automatically for effect.

"Hold on..." He double-checked the connections running through a small grey box and then pressed some buttons on the control station. "There. It was just on the wrong channel." He waddled into the glow. He batted at the floating menu options, flinging them around the room.

Fox dodged a flying holographic button. "Why is the menu motion-controlled?"

"Because it's cool!" The engineer hopped with excitement, back-lit quite dramatically.

Falco watched as a ghostly volume slider sailed through his chest. "Why does it suck?"

"Because it's not calibrated yet." Slippy obeyed the machine's requests and engaged in some light aerobics while it tracked his range of motion. He then got briefly distracted making a tiny 3D avatar of himself before getting to the outside signal receiver menu. "Got it!"

In impassive silence, the vixen watched. Maybe she'd spent too much time with spirits on Sauria, but floating holograms always seemed unearthly to her. Like Fox, she instinctively moved out of the way whenever a menu window flew toward her. Not that the Krazoa spirits were especially malevolent, but she didn't fancy the idea of them ending up inside her. Once inside a corporal body, they tickled and made your eyes glow purple.

An array of images flicked onto the floating screens: soap operas here, space operas there, and an opera about space in the far corner. The audio from every signal played at once. A newscaster above her ears intoned politely about the ups and downs of the RFID-tagged figurine market. A few of the screens displayed unencrypted personal calls--nothing salacious, unfortunately.

"Huh." Fox tiled his muzzle up to look at the various holograms.

Falco's keen gaze soared over the screens. "Why're some of these just showin' static?"

"They're scrambled." The amphibian waggled the remote through the parental controls screen. "Probably encrypted."

"Think you can unlock 'em?" He rubbed his wings together with a lecherous smile. "Maybe we can get the good channels."

"Let me see..." With a look of concentration, the frog waggled a dance to please the main view screen. Once he'd hit all the right buttons, one of the scrambled feeds appeared there. A loading bar ran across the screen, blinking "decrypting..." in a futuristic font. A second later, the static cleared, showing a pair of lemurs chattering into webcams.

"Holy cow!" The ace's feathers went up. "The military gave us something that actually works."

Krystal's eyebrows rose. "And of questionable legality."

Slippy shrugged. "They didn't set a password."

"Fox, you need to get with that fennec chick." Falco crowed. "I don't care if she looks like yer mom; she's got connections."

Ignoring his wingman, the red fox knelt to examine one of the stray holo-screens. Faint shapes angled through the static. "Slip, can you clean up this one?"

"Only one way to find out..." The frog waved the controller like a magic wand.

The snowstorm of static abated, revealing a squadron of red starfighters engaged in a dogfight. Their angular hulls sliced through the starscape, the unmistakeable projections of G-diffusers jutting out like knives.

"Am I seein' things?" The avian's crest spiked up. He turned to his leader. "'Cause that looks like..."

The red fox's eyes narrowed at the main screen. "Star Wolf."

Tension gripped the bridge. Everyone stood in silence.

"You guys set passwords for transmissions, right?" The plump frog turned from the main viewer with a look of disappointment, fists on his hips. "If you don't know how, I can show you."

"What is this?" Krystal watched with avid interest. Video presented an unsettling lack of context for empaths: a radio signal had no emotions to read. "A battle plan? Training material?"

"Not sure." He curled his paw around his chin.

Onscreen, a squad of Arwings swooped in behind the Wolfen fighters. The leader yapped in a nasally voice: "Star Wolf! We're here to stop you from being so totally radical."

A sultry lupine voice growled: "Can't let you do that, Star Fawkes."

A driving theme song fired off on electric guitar. A flashy dogfight ensued in time with it. Star Wolf kept their cool while the Star Fox impersonators panicked immediately--especially the frog actor.

"They're fakin' footage to make us look bad!" He punched one wing into the other. "I say we go teach 'em a lesson."

The scene changed, a canine stepped forward in fishnet stockings and spider-themed armor that only seemed to cover her crotch and nipples. "I am Gemstone, the Space Witch." It cut to a shot of her with even more dramatic lighting. "Soon I will control the entire Lylat System with my mind powers."

"That's clearly a shiba inu with her fur airbrushed green." Krystal crossed her arms at the leather-clad canine blowing things up with her mind. "They couldn't hire an actual blue fox?"

Onscreen, Wolf leaped from a crashing spaceship, summersaulted, and drew a beam sword in mid-air. With a growl, he landed in a cool pose, muzzle pointed down before he looked up straight into the camera.

Slippy looked between his wingmates. "Why does he have a sword in space? Like, in the cockpit."

With a shrug, the blue fox glanced down at him. "I bring my staff with me."

Fox didn't look away from the screen. His cool green eyes analyzed the video with the same steady focus he radiated in a dogfight. "Yeah, but you use that to open doors and freeze stuff."

She thought for a moment, then had to nod. "Touché."

Onscreen, the climax of the battle sequence saw Wolf slashing his way into another ship to secretly double-cross Andross. It crashed into a base on Vemom, which exploded as he carried Fox to safety in slow motion.

Then the dance number started.

Star Wolf, Star Fox, and various minor characters formed up to engage in a twirly and exquisitely-choreographed dance. Everyone moved in time and sang along. Wolf howled his way through a solo, followed by another solo. Panther had several ladies drape themselves over him at one point, then joined with them in a high-kick dance line. Leon stood in the background of the shot as the grateful citizens of Lylat sashayed past to scatter flower petals.

Fox's mouth fell open. "Can you guys confirm I'm not dreaming this?"

Eyes still locked on the screen, Falco punched him in the shoulder, harder than was strictly necessary.

The vulpine rubbed the impact sight. "Thanks..."

His wingmate smirked, still without looking his way. "Anytime."

Slippy grooved along with the music. "I dunno, the dancing is pretty great."

The text "Star Wolf: The Movie" exploded onto the main viewer.

"Wait, they named the movie Star Wolf?" McCloud counted off on his fingers. "But wolf's already the name of the team, the fighters, the leader..."

The vixen put a paw on his shoulder. "Glass houses, dear."

Credits rolled up the screen, along with a stern reminder not to leak this unfinished version of the film. The studio logo loomed large, floating into view for a few seconds before fading to black and a blast of musical finality. Information about where to buy it on mini-disc appeared onscreen.

"Ooh! You can preorder!" Slippy took out his wallet.

Falco slapped it out of his hands.

"You know, I never really considered studded leather." Krystal tapped a finger on her lips and glanced down at her current outfit. "What do you think, Fox?"

"That..." Fox glanced at her, hesitated, then glanced away, tracking multiple targets in his head. "...question deserves more attention than I can give it right now."

Larger than life, Wolf's face blinked onto the main screen. "It's a little...overt."

In a separate video feed beside him, a fat lizard appeared and puffed on a cigar. "Subtlety is for awards season."

Steepling his fingers, the canine's cyborg eye glowed with displeasure. "I must, once again, stress my dislike of the dancing."

"Dance numbers are hot right now." His business associate blew a smoke ring. "Besides, the film's shot."

The lupine growled. "And Star Fox won't sue us?"

"They can't sue for defamation. We spelled the names differently." The reptile hissed as he looked down at a table. "Fawkes Macleod, Falcon Lombirdi, Skippy Lode, Poppy Heir. I've been in this business a long time; believe me, we're golden."

"Fox's voice is still too nasal." Wolf gnawed open the seal on a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a glass. "Can you give him something a little deeper?"

"We tried that, remember?" His scaled hand wove smokey shapes in the air with the stogie. "Had the computer dub him. Just came out sounding like karate yells."

"No, I remember something's wrong with your voice synthesizers..." He drained the glass through a sneer. "Just hire a more manly fox."

"Casting pool's a little shallow at that end." The lizard took another drag on his cigar. "We'll just pitch him down 5%."

"Look, do what you have to." The lupine waved his whiskey bottle at the camera. "I want boners, honest-to-goodness boners in every seat."

"Even the ladies' seats?"

"Especially the ladies' seats!"

The lizard groaned. "I'll see what we can do." With a boo-weep, the signal cut to static on both ends.

"Wow, they made a movie about us!" Slippy bounced in happiness, which caused several of the floating holograph screens to change to a menu tutorial. "And it looks really good!"

"Yeah, a movie makin' us look like chumps." Falco jerked a feather toward the main view screen. "Fox, we've gotta do somethin'."

Krystal paused the conversation with a raised paw. "What matters is how we choose to live our lives, not what others think of us." She turned to her lover. "Right Fox?"

A deep groan escaped the todd. "This will be terrible for business."

The avian spread his wings. "Okay, so we make our own movie--"

"No." Fox rubbed his temples. "We can't let them ruin our reputation." With a deep breath, he straightened. "I need to find a way to confront Wolf on this without admitting to spying on him."

Krystal placed a calm paw on his shoulder.

"Slippy, get me that channel back." The red fox took a breath to steady himself. "Route it through to my office."

"You mean your comm gauntlet?" Slippy adjusted his ball cap. "Otherwise, you'll have to go back to the Great Fox II."

"Right." He flexed his gloved paws. "I keep forgetting what's not built around here... Send it to the GF2."

Krystal tapped the panel at her elbow, and the bridge door hissed open. As her lover walked past, she gave a little nod to her crewmates and turned on a heel to follow him. She waded through the waves of anxiety coming off him to stroll beside him down the corridor. She waited until the door closed after them before she spoke. "Any idea what you're going to say?"

"Not really." His footsteps clanked down the corridor.

She strode beside him, well within the aura of his soured mood. "You don't have to deal with it this very moment."

"Waiting won't help." He checked the time on his gauntlet. "I just want to get it over with."

She let a moment pass, but his tension did not abate. "Stress is a killer, I'm told."

He faced straight ahead. "I'm fine."

A sigh of deep frustration escaped her slender muzzle. "Why is everybody always trying to lie to the empath?"

"Sorry." Fox groaned at himself, pinched the bridge of his nose, then dropped his gaze to the deck plates.

She took his paw in hers. "Hey, you got your ship back." She nodded toward the bulkheads. "So life's not entirely rubbish." When he looked up at her, she gave him a little smile of encouragement.

Only then did his emotional aura brighten a little. After a second, he smiled back. "Not entirely." He gripped her paw as they continued on.

~ ~ ~

The vulpines dimmed the lights in his office. No sense in letting Star Wolf see the state of the place--that would be almost as bad as revealing the existence of the half-rebuilt Great Fox. Maybe the dark would make him seem more intimidating too.

With a deep breath, he settled in at his desk and switched on the comm. A floating hologram flashed into being before him. He didn't join the channel right away, but found it already in use.

Krystal settled in on the love seat. Her eyes shone in the glow of the hologram projector.

"--of your opinions, O'Donnell." A holographic chameleon stared coldly into the camera. "I hate the film for completely different reasons, but you know that already. I'm not going to say I told you so."

Wolf snarled as he poured himself another whiskey. "You have, you just did, and you will again."

"Why do you think I went along with this tiresome charade?" Leon Powalski licked his scaled lips. "It's for the money, Wolf. The money. With what they're paying us, you can commission a love-bot or whatever diversion will entertain you."

The lupine crossed his arms. "I'm not Panther; I cannot be bought off by such tawdry substitutes."

Also in the vid chat, Panther Caroso lounged on heart-shaped bed, shirtless. "Don't knock love-bots until you've tried them." He purred through a sigh. "I, the rose of the stars, am forever in bloom."

Wolf paused for a moment, then turned to Leon. "I can never tell if he's trying to seduce me."

The lizard scowled. "Neither can he."

"It is my blessing...and my burden." The big cat caressed himself with a long-stemmed rose.

"Mammalian sexuality disgusts me, let alone whatever it is you've got going on." The chameleon's eyes rolled in different directions. "But if Panther likes the film, clearly it will do well with the plebes."

"It needs a sensual love story." He reached a massive black paw to the sky, then crushed it down into a fist as he looked at the camera with passionate intensity. "The sexiest lady in the film right now is McCloud."

"Does not the spider-queen stir your loins enough?" Leon leaned back with a chill chuckle. "Are there limits to even mammalian perversions?"

"No, her green fur-dye would just come off on me." Panther's gaze drifted away with indifference, then he sniffed the rose.

Across the room, Krystal scoffed.

Fox clicked the transmitter on. "This is Fox McCloud." He held his chin with one paw and tried to look cool. "Of Star Fox."

All three members of Star Wolf jumped at the sudden intrusion.

"We know who you are, you imbecile." Leon hissed, changing to black. "How did you get on this channel?"

McCloud tapped his paw pads together and tilted them at the camera. "That's not important."

"Well, pup." The grey-muzzled lupine sipped his drink. "Isn't this is a surprise."

"We need to talk, Wolf." The vulpine stared down the other two in the channel. "Alone."

Wolf growled with obvious delight. "Break off, gentlemen." His cyborg eyepiece gleamed. "This one's mine."

Leon rolled his eyes in two different directions and vanished.

Panther flashed a toothy smile. "Say hello to Krystal for me." He stopped and considered for a moment. "And the bird, I suppose." His screen went black too, vanishing the next instant.

O'Donnell turned to the camera with a savage sweetness. "You'll have to forgive Panther--it's been a while since we had shore leave."

Fox pressed paw pads to his forehead. "Wolf, I know all about your little plan."

His good eye shot wide. "You...do?"

"Did you really think you could keep something like that under wraps forever?" The fox took a deep breath, flying steady through the turbulence. "I mean, I understand your desire to do it, even if I'm a little weirded out. I can't just let this go unaddressed."

"Oh... I didn't know you felt that way."

"How am I supposed to feel?"

The lupine's ears slowly rose. "...Flattered?"

"Yeah, I guess a little." Fox crossed his arms. "But this isn't the kind of thing I want to find out through rumors."

"I suppose you had a right to know. You are rather involved." He swirled the last drops of alcohol around his glass. Then he poured himself another. "You're taking this better than I thought you would, pup."

"Look, I get it. I've been there, being a mercenary in peacetime." The red fox reminded himself to be sympathetic, even for someone who was clearly bonkers and occasionally tried to vaporize him. "You've gotta be hard up too."

Stone-faced, Wolf downed the entire glass of whiskey, set the glass on the table before him, and maintained eye contact. "Go on."

"But you know there are reasons this can't happen." He straightened his flight suit. "I have a reputation to think of."

Wolf rolled his good eye. "Yes, you would be one to care about that sort of thing."

"We have an understanding then?"

"I suppose we do." The lupine pondered his half-empty whiskey bottle.

"I know you're not happy with it either." The fox crossed his arms and made sure to look resolute. "But I'm serious. If you move forward on this, I'll be all over you."

Amusement crept onto O'Donnell's face. "Now now, Fox. No need to get so flustered."

With a resigned sigh, Fox shook his muzzle. Why did Star Wolf always have to be the maximum pain in the tail?

"Glad we had this little talk, pup." The merc leaned forward until his toothy smile filled most of the display. "We should do this again sometime."

"Okay, great." McCloud lashed his tail, trying to shake the anxious poof from it. "Bye." He switched off the comm.

The dim room darkened.

Still seated on the sofa, Krystal leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees, fingers interlaced. "Did that seem a tad bit..." Her graceful tail flicked. "...off to you?"

He smoothed his whiskers with both paws. "Yes, talking to my most deadly and psychotic rival outside the context of him trying to shoot me down for the first time did seem a bit off."

A supple shrug visited her shoulders. "It's probably nothing. It's strange seeing conversations I'm too far away to read. Throws me off."

With a nod, Fox slumped in his desk chair.

Rising from the battered sofa, she sparkled across the cabin. "We've had quite a morning." She strode up next to him and gently stroked his ears. "It's not even noon and you're already exhausted. Shall we grab lunch?"

His tail slowly brushed the deck plates as he looked up at her. "I don't know if I can handle going anywhere."

"I'm sure I can throw something together in the mess hall. It'll be our little date..." Her eyes caught a mischievous gleam. "...unless you'd rather we invite the boys."

"Let's keep it just us." He took her paw. "Unlike Falco, you won't spend the meal arguing it's a business lunch so I have to pay."

~ ~ ~

If you write a long enough fanfiction about these games, Star Wolf is contractually obligated to appear.

Merry Yuletide, everybody!

Edits: Slate, Eljot, CarlMinez, SillyNeko345, StarFox64, Pharrox

Art: falvie (Used with permission.)

• Tempo