FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and warnings

_ Star Fox Odium _

_ Chapter 4 - Preparations _

For the third time this night, Krystal stopped to check the calender in her day planner, willing the markings to change.

As usual, the glowing numbers - in particular, the row of days marked a bright red on her personal schedule - refused to budge.

Can't be helped, she finally sighed, shaking her head and putting the thing away - lifting a paw to press the command panel for the bulkhead ahead. Poor timing, but we all have to make sacrifices..

Biometric identification required

The hum of the ship was a quiet, soothing background drone around her, ROB's synthetized voice echoing from a tiny speaker.

"Krystal of Cerinia, voice authorization Krystal-Alpha-Seven-Three-Zero-Zero-Gamma."

The little palm reader hummed, a soft green-white glow playing over the outline of her pawprint. Status lights flickered for a moment, then flashed an uniform green.

Biometric analysis - match. Voiceprint authorization - granted. Armory - unlocked.

A series of loud, metallic clunks rang out, multiple locks opening themselves somewhere deep within the thickly plated blast door, before it finally slid aside with a low whoosh of equalizing pressure. Dry air rushed at her, tickling at Krystal's fur as she padded inside, ceiling lights lighting one by one with soft crackling noises.

It'd been a while since Krystal'd been in the second-most heavily secured room in the Great Fox - the most secure being the Arwing launch/maintenance bays a deck below. She hadn't really seen the need - and a little part of her, once again, found herself wondering just what did a handful of people need so many guns for.

Neatly organized ranks of blaster pistols, helmets, flightsuits and light body armor, in various sizes and makes in the latter case, spanned the length of the room, sealed crates of charge packs, grenades, and slug clips stacked close by. As she padded among the racks, the guns turned bigger - machine guns, seeker launchers, and others. A row of heavily-armored windows - battleship-grade transparencies, closer to transparent steel than glass - gave a view of the hangar bays down below, sleek arrowhead Arwings sitting in their holding berths, the bulky shape of the Land Master looming a little further away. Little flashes of metallic motion flickered occasionally between the vehicles - a number of ROB's maintenance drones, never ceasing in their duties.

Krystal ignored it all, her sandal-clad paws nearly silent on the deckplates as she headed to her own little corner of the armory. It wasn't big - but then again, it didn't need to be. An old-fashioned weapons rack, amounting to little more than a pair of padded hooks mounted on the wall, a familiar long, gold-gleaming shape waiting in it. Beside it, a mannequin (she wasn't sure just which one of the boys had had the bright idea of painting the thing a blue to near-perfectly match her own fur, and to be fair she didn't really care, either, they all had insane senses of humor when they felt like it) stood silently, engraved metal shining on its legs, lower arms, and shoulders. A familiar tiara and necklace winked and shone upon its breast and brow.

Smiling softly, the vixen reached out a hand, gently running her fingers over the smooth curve of a pauldron - it felt warm to her touch, like she'd taken it off only just a moment ago.

"Where did you come from?" she murmured softly, her tail flicking, dextrous fingers working the buckles loose from the mannequin. The armor pieces and her staff were the only tangible remnants of her past she had left - a part of an occasionally frustrating mystery. A little shiver worked its way down her spine when she remembered seeing the original Great Fox shatter against the Aparoid world-shield - if she hadn't forgotten to unpack them from her Arwing's cargo pod before that mission, if they'd been in the armory then - she'd have lost them, too.

Shaking her head, Krystal pulled up a seat before finding herself a few soft cloths, some oil, and polish - a soft hum under her breath as she let her hands set to work, gently, carefully working glistening oil into every nook and cranny on the metal plating, letting the leather straps soften a little by seeping it up. She'd neglected doing this for long enough, too long, in fact - in her defense, she hadn't used either her staff or her armor for a long, long time, either. Civilized Cornerians tended to give people carrying or wearing big hunks of steel around odd looks. Or whatever they were made of, in this case - the alloy wasn't gold, but shone almost like it, much lighter and stronger than steel..

Slippy'd been positively stymied by the stuff, she recalled. And when one took account to what her staff could do - he'd almost seemed to take it personally that what should, to all intents and purposes, be inert metal seemed to treat the laws of physics more like guidelines at times.

It was almost frustrating, Krystal thought, sliding her fingers along the intricate carvings. Just as large a mystery to her as to Slippy. How did she know how to maintain them? How did they work? And where, most importantly, had she gotten them? Closing her eyes, she could almost feel it, a warm set of arms around her, guiding her hands in their motions.. had her father taught her? Or her mother? Or both? The metal felt old to her, so very old - a faint psychic impression, for lack of a better term, on them, a sensation of dozens of hands before hers that'd held them and cared for them before, just like she did now. Veritable heirlooms, passed from bearer to bearer.. Had some of those hands belonged to her parents? There was no way to tell.. but she liked to think so. It made her feel like they were still with her, in a way.. still protecting her.

Shaking her head, a wistful smile on her muzzle, Krystal wiped off the last of the oil, the metal shining with a warm, lustrous gleam, showing her reflection among the carvings.. before slowly, methodically, she began to fit them over herself once more.

It felt a little like coming home.

<<<<<>>>>>

"Go! Go! Go!"

Screams, roars and groans filled the air, the clash of metal on metal, the wet smack of flesh on flesh and the crack of breaking bone. Smoke, blood, and ozone, thick in his nose. Smoke stung in his eyes. And above it all, a mad chorus of whooping, chirping, screaming and wailing klaxons, alarms and bells - including some every spacer learned to fear. Reactor breach. Radiation leak. Critical loss of atmosphere in-progress.

And the most frightening thing about that was that only they seemed to care. Beside him, Leon grunted with effort, half-supporting, half-dragging Panther's weight - the latter groaning in pain every few motions. And Wolf himself - he heard a sound approaching them and spun with instinct, the rapid crack!-crack!-crack! of his blaster drowning out other sounds for a moment.

By principle - technically, they'd done nothing wrong, and there was no sense in racking up a bounty if they could avoid it - they'd initially avoided the use of lethal force, just working their way past (and occasionally through) the brawls, heading for the docking bays and the Wolfen. The first part had flown right out of the airlock when a supposed salvage tech had damn near gutted Panther with a hull slicer. Kill or be killed - and none of them intended to die in a floating pile of junk!

For the umpteenth time that night, Wolf wondered at ust what point had his life turned into a B-grade horror flick. All over the station people were fighting, mostly each other - but they weren't picky. Once, they'd slipped past a bear, screaming incoherently at his reflection in a polished bulkhead - the metal smeared with blood from his broken knuckles. He hadn't seemed to notice them, thankfully. Friends and lovers were turning on one another, rivals turning into screaming berserkers, clustering up in little groups that charged anyone who got too close - Security'd tried stomping down on them, in the beginning. A lot of them had gotten killed by the ensuing bloodthirsty mobs. And some.. some'd started screaming and joined in.

"How far.. to the bays?" Leon grunted again with effort, shifting, almost stumbling - Panther made a low yowling noise of pain, the black-furred feline's tail puffing up. The makeshift bandages wrapped around his side were already stained with blood - they needed to get out of there, and fast.

"Down the corridor, second blast door to the left!" Another noise, a scream, the sound of many footsteps heading their way - Wolf's blaster rose again and spoke thrice, crack!-crack!-crack!, spitting plasma bolts into the mob that rounded the corner. Three figures stumbled, went down - still twitching as the rest trampled over them.

Security, civilian, medic, rescue tech, thug, damage control - it didn't matter. It was.. it was like somebody'd flipped a switch and turned everyone into a psychopath. As soon as they lay eyes on you, or each other - they'd drop everything else and just scream and charge. At first, dazzlers had worked to a point, but it just kept getting worse - it was like they stopped feeling pain at a point, keeping at it until physically unable to.

At least, when they went down, they stayed down.. so far. Zombies, Wolf felt, growling as he tried to keep the mob at bay, would've been just the perfect cap to an already cruddy week. They were burning through his charge packs faster than they could recharge, already!

Clunk-clunk-clunk-hiss-whhhooooooo

The sound of an opening bulkhead had never been so beautiful. Nor had the view beyond - the shimmer of the atmo-shield blocking away the cold, star-studded void of space, the flicker and flare of emergency lights gleaming on the pointed arcs and curves of their Wolfens.

"Honey, we're home," Wolf muttered under his breath, hitting the toggle for the door with his palm - and then swearing when the mechanism emitted an unpleasant grinding noise and a shower of sparks, sticking halfway through the closing cycle. No shutting the door, then, not without heavy tools and time they didn't have, the mob not too far behind -

"Leon, your ride's the closest. I'll get Panther to his 'pit while you get ready to burn dust."

Panther groaned as Leon shouldered the feline over to Wolf, and again when the lupine got a good grip on him. Through the wail of klaxons and alarms and the rising whine of the Wolfen's power plant warming up behind them, it took Wolf a few moments and about as many steps to realize there were words in the sound. Half-lidded feline yellow eyes, hazed with pain, flashed at him from among the panther's blue-black fur.

"What?" Alright, it wasn't the most intelligent of retorts but damned if he'd caught the feline's words.

"Got t' leave me, Boss," Panther rasped at him, punctuating it with a grunt of pain as a distant explosion shook the deck under their feet, making them sway with it. "Go, while.. nh! While you.. can.."

Wolf blinked his good eye, stopping for a brief moment. Then, he growled. "We," he pointed out, a soft warning rumble in his voice, "dragged your tail through half the damned hab-block to get you here. And you want me.. to leave you here? Out of the question, soldier." Behind them, he could hear wordless shouting, growls and grunts - getting closer. If the blast door had just shut like it was supposed to..!

"We're a damned team, Caroso," Wolf snarled, trying to pick up the pace. "And I'm not leaving one of mine.. to be torn apart by these psychos. So suck it up.. and move your ass.. or I'm going to kick it from here to Corneria as soon as you get out of the hospital..!"

Panther groaned again, trying to get his feet more under himself instead of Wolf having to pretty much bodily haul him - but the lupine was pretty much sure the noise he'd made between groans was laughter. At least, Wolf thought to himself dryly as he shouldered the feline towards his fighter - why did it have to be the one furthest from the entry? - he had his spirits left. Pushing him up to the bubble canopy and from there into the cockpit was interesting, of course - the noises the feline made when his side was jarred were painful - but finally, Panther was safe in his fighter, the canopy sealing, a low, resonant hum starting in the heart of the Wolfen as systems began to warm up.

"Leon, Panther's strapped in," Wolf muttered into his comlink, heading for his own ride. "Let me get to the Wolfen. I'll slave his controls to mine and we'll blow this-" A flash of motion at the door caught his eye, a figure standing in the gap of the door. Feral eyes flashed at him, right before it threw its head back and screamed.

A chorus of hoarse shrieks and calls answered the sound.

"Oh, crap."

Wolf broke into a run towards his ride - and towards the blast doors. The figure - fur and outfit so matted with dust, grime, blood and unrecognizable stuff, Wolf didn't even try and recognize the species - took off his way. His friends, rounding the corner with bloodthirsty glee, screaming and hissing at each other as they tried to squeeze in through the gap in the doors, followed a few steps behind him. And Wolf.. almost made it.

Wolf's Wolfen was sitting about midpoint the way from Panther's to the door - so Wolf and the mob met pretty much at the nose of his ride. The first one, the one who'd drawn the mob to them, met the brunt of Wolf's reinforced gloves and went down, hard. The rest of them, unfortunately, weren't as obliging. Fists, boots, the butt of his blaster, his combat knife - Wolf held back no punches, and for a good reason. He could almost feel it, a raging nervous energy that suffused the mob, egging them on, filling the air with a scent like burnt metal - blows that would've winded most people, or had them more interested in counting their remaining teeth than fighting, hardly even phased them. And Wolf - Wolf'd spent the last hour running for dear life with the rest of his team. He was tough as old boots, sure, but there was only so much pure adrenaline could do.

He kicked out, feeling a kneecap crunch under his combat boot, fist smashing in a screaming muzzle. He fought, clawed, kicked, headbutted, bit - pulled on every dirty, underhanded, painful trick he could think of and made up a few on the fly - called on every bit of adrenaline and energy and pure sheer stubborn will not die here -

A heavy impact at the back of his skull, purple-green stars and blotches filling his eyes. Darkness.

He came to with his back against the cold metal floor, the taste of blood on his lips, a heavy weight on his chest. His bionic chirred and whined, struggling before snapping to focus, letting him look up at his executioner.

She shouldn't have been there. Not this slip of an unassuming, fuzzy-furred slip of a mixed-canine girl - she should've been home, with her parents, worrying about school or boys or whatever kids her age worried about these days. Not straddling his chest, clothes torn and soiled, a crazed light in her eyes - blood oozing down from a cut on her cheek, that wild, savage snarl revealing red pits where something had knocked teeth out. Not here, anywhere but at the head of a bloodthirsty feral mob.

"Odium reigns," she hissed, lifting a jagged shard of deck plating, both ends stained with blood - from where it cut into her palm and far more ominous, extensive smears on its more pointy end.

"Get bent," Wolf spat -winking his good eye three times.

Somantic feedbacks built into synthetic nerve uplinks triggered. Power cells discharged. A whine built in his skull, the view of his bionic going dark. A spark, as capacitors charged and released - and the holdout laser pulsar built into it went off. In less than the a heartbeat, there was a brief flash as a short laser pulse flashed against her chest, right under the swell of her breasts, vaporizing a minute volume of fabric, fur and skin into plasma - barely enough to qualify as sunburn-

A microsecond later a second, more powerful pulse flashed, energizing the still-expanding plasma puff, and detonated the whole thing with a rippling 'crack!'. She jerked, eyes widening in surprise, the shard clattering from her hand to the deckplates. A little whimpering gasp of surprise slipped from her muzzle.

Kill or be killed, Wolf thought.. but couldn't quite muster the vehemence for it, pushing her away from himself - thankfully to the left, his bionic dark, its power spent, making it easier to not look at the crumpled form, now mostly blind on that side. The implant was whining softly as it struggled to build a charge, uncomfortably hot in its socket inside his skull.

An angry, feral, bloodthirsty moan rose from a dozen throats around him as Wolf struggled to his feet, spitting out a wad of blood.

"Who's next?"

A fist rose. A second, third, fourth - here a club, another clutching a jagged shard of metal, a fire axe there..

There was a rapid warning click-click-click in his comms earpiece, a rising hum building into a resonating roar to the side. Somehow, Wolf found the energy to toss himself to the side, hugging the deckplates -

The world became emerald thunder.

<<<<<>>>>>

Her new friend, Katt soon discovered, came with a set of issues all his own.

She'd known he wasn't from around central Lylat - but she hadn't expected him to be primitive.. or well, from a less-developed world, either way. 'Primitive' implied that he'd be dressed in animal pelts and go 'grunt, rrrr' - though honestly, pseudo-medieval wasn't that big of a stretch from there. He had guts, that much she had to give him credit for- she wasn't sure if she would've dared to step on a ship and head off into the great unknown when the thing with most moving parts he'd seen on his homeworld had, in his words, been.. a windmill. A little part of her wondered how, exactly, he'd persuaded the captain of the Wayfarer to pick him up in the first place - but he got.. evasive, when questioned there.

At least, she found herself thinking, a wry smile on her muzzle as she clacked her way through the Katt's Paw's support corvette, at least Skye had a healthy dose of common sense when it came to high tech - namely, he didn't go poking around where he shouldn't. The light came on or the door opened or whatever when he pushed the button, and that was enough for him - she'd been half afraid that the fox would think the Katt's Paw was a metal monster or something. He was learning fast, too, clearly putting himself to it - far from a dumb savage.

That was the good news. The bad news.. Katt sighed a little as she peered through the door into the Big Kitty's 'mess hall'. The Katt's Paw was far, far too small to hold an FTL core - the base Invader III design was intended to function with a support carrier, after all. So, to get around the system she'd either need to hitch a ride on a carrier of some sort - which were way too conspicuous for her needs, especially on the fringes of the cluster - or use a support ship of her own.

Enter the Big Kitty, a retrofitted corvette-class tug - as big an engine and drive core as she could physically jam into as small a hull as possible, automated as heavily as she could get away with. It handled like a pregnant rhino and was about as pretty, but it got the job done, letting her do quick FTL hops without going through official channels.. with one problem. All the shielding and support systems for the reactor, FTL core and maneuver drives took up a hefty chunk of the superstructure, let alone the docking point and maintenance hold for the Katt's Paw - leaving very little room for things like crew quarters.

In short, it was cramped at the best of times, with just herself - and now, with two people occupying the Kitty? It felt downright crowded. Normally Katt would've relished the excuse to be in close quarters with a strong, handsome todd like him - and quite likely spent a good time teasing the hell out of the poor man, kitty needed her entertainment after all - but for one detail.

Skye, she soon discovered, was used to having the wide-open sky above him - feeling the wind in his fur, as he put it, and wasn't that an interesting image? And now, they ended up spending hours, if not days, at a time in a glorified tin can. Bigger habitats with wider areas weren't as much a problem, but the Kitty..

Katt sighed a little again, shaking her head, eying the todd. He'd seated himself at the 'mess hall' - really more like a closet with a couple of seats, a small table, and a little cooking niche - his eyes closed, and body sort of tucked into the seat, a little curled up like trying to give himself as much room as possible - it looked like he'd found the widest-open spot in the ship actual to try and doze in, fully clothed. Poor guy - if he wasn't claustrophobic before, these between-stations trips were doing a good job of making him that way.

At least, she allowed herself smile as she padded in a little closer, footfalls quiet on the plates like only a feline could be, at least he was flexible for a guy. She was a cat and she wasn't ashamed to admit that if she'd fallen asleep in that particular position, she'd be waking up with all sorts of stiff spots..

The male's lips shifted in his sleep, a low rumbling noise slipping from his lips. Katt halted in her tracks, ears perking up as his hands moved - fingers opening, then curling halfway as if holding something in his arms. Soft rumbled words slipped from his lips - in a language she didn't recognize, but the sleepy warmth in his tone was unmistakeable. Without even meaning to, Katt found a smile growing on her muzzle, cocking her curved hip to lean it against the doorway as she watched - for such a tough guy, he looked plain adorable.

She must've made some sound without intending to, or maybe the hum of the ship changed enough - but as quickly as it'd started, those motions changed a little, a flash of gold as the todd's eyes opened, a drowsy look In them - like he was looking somewhere miles beyond the bulkhead Katt was leaning on, before swimming into sharper focus on her.

"Morning, stud," Katt purred, flicking her tail with a smile. "Had a nice dream?"

"Morning.. nrrrrrrr.." Skye flexed, strong muscles shifting under his azure pelt and dark leather in ways that Katt very much appreciated. Sharp teeth flashed, long canid tongue curling between them as he yawned. "Of better times," he confessed with a nod, ears tilting a little at her words - Katt enjoyed finding new words to tease him with. Like 'stud', in this case.

"Better times, or better people?" the feline smirked slyly, swaying her way from the wall to a free seat and reclining in it like only a kitty could. "Looked like you were thinking of someone special to me," she teased. "Must be very special, with a man like you. Did you leave a sweetheart back home? A girlfriend, maybe?"

"A mate.. wife, is the word?," Skye rumbled, shifting in his seat a little, then paused for a moment. Something on her face must've shown - she sternly told herself she wasn't disappointed - because the male's ears shifted, those golden eyes sharpening a little as he looked at her. "Sorry to disappoint," he finally churred - and damned if there wasn't a teasing tone in that deep rumble. "I think she likes - would like you, for what it's worth.."

"Oh, it's alright," she waved a paw, smiling at the tease - like any cat, she landed right back on her feet. "Should've known someone would've nabbed a man like you already.. lucky, lucky girl. Whoever she is." Her eyes sparked a little as she leaned back in her seat, curiosity sufficiently piqued. "How're you telling me about her only now?" she teased. "I didn't take you for a family man. Got any more surprises in store for me? A litter of kits waiting for Daddy to come back home?"

Skey'd had a wistful smile of sorts on his muzzle, softening his features - but the moment those last words left her muzzle, those ears folded right back from their relaxed position, his muzzle tightening up, a little rough grwrf-noise resonating in his chest. Immediately, Katt knew she'd found a sore spot without even trying.

"A time and place for everything," Skye rumbled lowly, "And now.. we have more important things to speak of." he paused a little, lush tail twitching beside the foot of his seat. "Tell me of this man you hunt for.. this.. 'Temminck'?"

As far as changes of subject went, it wasn't subtle - but Katt knew better than to push. The relaxed atmosphere they'd sat in was gone - here was Serious Skye again, all angled and tense. Katt was reminded of a hunting dog waiting for the 'Go!' command - she so much wanted to ask more, but knew better than keep poking at him. Later, she promised herself. Later.

"Machelys Temminck," she murmured, shaking her head - the name tasted bitter on her tongue, as memories popped up. "He was.. How much do you know about the Venom Wars, Skye?"

"Not much," the male admitted with a rumble, leaning forwards in his seat. Golden eyes had fixed on her - intense, laser-sharp, attentive. Katt fought to supres a little shiver racing down her spine. "I did not have the time to study history on the Wayfarer. And most of the language, the words, were.. beyond me."

"..Alright." Her ears drooped a little - she'd hoped that she wouldn't have to explain things too in-depth, but.. Shaking her head, she pushed the thought away and fished up a padd from her pocket, setting the little device on the table.

"This.. is Zoness." A flick of her fingers had an image turn up on the screen as Skye leaned in for a look - the blue sphere of an ocean planet, fans and whirls of clouds shifting slowly across the sapphire orb.

"It's got very little land mass - the superocean is so deep, all the land is broken up in islands and some larger island chains. Nine tenths of the surface is water. It orbits Solar just close enough to keep the climate at a pretty much permanent tropical state - there's no winter at all. It's always summer on Zoness." Pictures of lush, green-gleaming islands, silver-white sands and deep blue waves came up, dotted with the occasional gleaming silver spire of a resort or hotel. Brightly colored songbirds and flocks of gleaming, multicolored fish played in the air and the sea.

"I used to live there, actually, before the War," Katt smiled, letting herself slip into more fond memories. "It was beautiful. It.. It was a resort planet back then. People from all over the system would come there to relax - my father ran a hotel. I loved it there." She sighed a little, shaking her head. "Didn't get much studying done. A young woman like me, in a year-round resort city? I went to my classes just enough to pass my grades, then headed out to the beach.. any beach, there were lots. Hot sand under my paws, the scent of sea in my nose.. I'd swim and dive and surf, and when the evening came I'd find a party-house. Find a cute guy to tease, dance until the sun came up.. crash into bed, happy and sore, and sleep way past noon. Just to do it again the next day."

"You? I would not ever have imagined," Skye put in with a soft snort, eyes gleaming with a faint teasing gleam.

"Hush, you," Katt giggled, shaking her head. "I was young and stupid back then - but I had the time of my life.." She paused, then sighed. "Pity it didn't last."

Her fingers found the controls again - pausing for a moment, before she sighed and depressed the button. The paradise pictures faded away - replaced by a sickly-colored orb hanging in the black of space, looking for all the world like a swollen, infected tumor. Oceans the color of spoiled pea-soup roiled under clouds of rust-red and sulphur-yellow. A pustule in free-fall - a planet-sized boil.

"And this.. is Zoness after the War," Katt whispered - Skye stiffened opposite her, golden eyes blinking in surprise. "Corneria Enviromental Foundation classifies it as a class-B deathworld - incapable of supporting life on its own, and actively hazardous to most forms of life," she clarified at the male's questioning look. Between them, the images shifted - islands covered in ruins of rusting metal and hacked-down forests. The skeleton of some great fish, washed up on a shore steaming with poison, rusted barrels bobbing up and down in the surf.

"Zoness, most of its year, spends its orbit relatively close to Venom," she explained, voice low. "It's.. it used to be, a resort planet. Very little defenses - what need was there? It was just resorts. No military targets or anything.. but then, the Venom Wars started." She sighed. "My parents packed us all on a shuttle out to Katina so fast I thought I'd left my tail behind. Good thing they did, too."

"I.. can tell." There was a look on Skye's face she hadn't seen before - eyes so sharp as they flicked over the images of rust and ruin on the little viewscreen. All this time, there'd been little that could surprise him - like he'd seen it all - but now.. if the memories weren't so raw, she might've found a measure of victory in finally finding something to hit home."How did.. how can this happen to a..?"

"A planet? An entire world? Because Andross," she rolled the name flatly off her tongue. "All those armies of his - hundreds, thousands of troops, fighters, battleships - they all needed fuel and weapons and resources. Zoness was very, very rich in undersea resources - ores, oil, geothermal vents - but we couldn't access it. Wouldn't because of the Cornerian Treaty - Zoness was paradise world, and we intended to keep it that way. One of the richest, most diverse ecosystems in the whole cluster. And Andross.. he wanted it. Took it. Used it."

"His first move in the War," she explained, "Was to take Zoness. We.. weren't prepared. They came out of nowhere. So many ships, so many troops - there just wasn't a chance. And then his machines got to work." A disgusted looks twisted her muzzle, her tail half-fluffed up. "He stripmined the whole planet, Skye. Undersea mining complexes. Oil rig clusters the size of small continents. Geothermal taps, belching smoke and sulfur and - the cheapest, most effective machines. Pouring all that poison and filth and waste right into the ocean. Poisoning a whole planet to churn out machines and weapons to attack the rest of the system with."

"Zoness was Paradise," she whispered, remembering the days of her youth. "And now it's Hell. The air - the air is toxic. Breathe it without a filter mask, you'll be crippled for life. Just a minute without a totally bio-sealed suit, your fur's going to shed right off. A dip in the ocean will eat the flesh off your bones. Whole currents are so full of nuclear waste, you can see the glow from orbit in nighttime. There's practically zero life at all - whatever's left are mutated monsters, tough enough to withstand the poisons. Society's pouring millions every year into undoing the damage, but it'll never be the planet it used to. And Machelys Temminck.. is the man who made it all happen."

Sky's eyes shifted up from the padd to hers, a little uncertain rumble in the back of his throat. Katt could feel a familiar lump in her throat, the tingle in her eyes, but shook her head and stiffened her lip. You're a big girl by now. It's long past.

"Temminck," Katt clarified, "was the man Andross put in charge of planetary infrastructure. Every factory, every mine, every rig - he approved and directed it all. He turned out to be a master of squeezing out every little bit of worth he could from the whole planet - and wiping out the rest. There.." She shivered. "Some people didn't get off the planet before the War started," she whispered. "Near as we can tell, he worked them to death, building all that. Cheaper and more efficient than ransoming them off, or imprisoning them - just a resource he burned off along with the rest."

"This.. Andross, was defeated," Skye rumbled, tail flicking, ears canted thoughtfully. "But Temminck remained?"

"I spent most of the War fighting on Zoness - I actually snuck onto one of their factory-bases and stole one of their prototype fighters," Katt smirked. Fond memories of that fight popped up, of the feeling of victory surging though her veins as she let what'd later become the Katt's Paw zip and flick and weave through laser and flak, jammers screaming their electronic battlecall on all channels, thrusters howling - it'd been a rush like no dancefloor had ever given her. And she owed all that to a certain avian renegade ace who'd taught her the skills she'd needed. Getting into bad company had never been so good for her. "I tried, Skye. I got out as many people as I could, wrecked and burned all I got my paws on - but he slipped away from me. And prospered."

"I told you all that," she whispered, closing the padd, "So you know what kind of a man he is. He's ruthless, with no morals or scruples - everything is a resource, a tool, or an obstacle to him. After the war - he used the money and influence he managed to get from Zoness to make himself a crime-lord, one of the largest in the system. Extortion, murder, narcotics, smuggling, slavery -" Skye snarled lowly at that word, fur fluffing up, "Yes, slavery, it's well-hidden but happens - he's like a parasite on the rest of Lylat. He's hiding somewhere on the Rim, I think, no-one but his closest men knows exactly where. Police won't help - he's got an army of thugs and ex-military, and there's no telling who's in his pocket and who's not."

Without meaning to, she found her paws reaching out, looking Skye straight in the eye and giving a squeeze - tail flicking happily as she saw the gleam in his eyes, felt him squeezing right back. His heart might've been someone else's - but she'd stoked his warrior spirit, she thought, and that was all she really needed.

"We're hunting a man who ravaged and killed an entire planet," she told him, her eyes caught by the gleam in his fierce golden ones. "Help me, Skye - help me bring him to justice, help me hurt him, make him bleed for me, for my home, for all those people - and I'll do everything I can to help you."