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Star Fox Odium

Chapter 5 - Encounter

A moment of distortion, an eerie feeling of disconnection, streams of strange images - silvery mists lit by cold distant starlight, vast alien shapes stirring in the depths - and then, a jolt as the Great Fox translated itself back into realspace - and right underneath a Xechek dreadnought.

"Evasive action!" Fox didn't have to think about it - it came as an instinct, a command and warning, his hands gripping the manual guidance controls on his command chair and twisting - the Great Fox was responding so slowly, rerouting power from their FTL core back into other systems - Proximity alarms blared to frantic, noisome life, their shrill whooooop and ROB's electronic chatter while he hooked up to local flight control not quite drowning Falco's startled curse under themselves.

What looked like a mountain of scalloped, curved, yellow-green-brown armor plate, studded with flaring thrusters and proudly jutting gunports - some of them were really damn big, a part of Fox's mind distantly noted - glided its way past the main bridge viewport, close enough that Fox was fairly sure he could've chucked a rock at them and had it go 'ping!' off their plating. Under his paws, the deck shook and rumbled - the Great Fox rocking as maneuvering thrusters finally came online, Fox struggling with the yokes to angle them just barely off a collision course.

"Holy stars above," Peppy breathed out as they slowly slid out of the dreadnought's shadow, "Look at the size of that thing.."

"Estimated length tops out at about seven hundred meters," Slippy chimed in from his station, the glare of multiple monitors reflected off moist amphibian skin, "And the readings I'm getting off their armor, just whoa.."

"Are we scanning them?" Fox snapped, ears perking up as he glanced again at the warship above them.

"Just a little low-level peek," the toad muttered somewhat defensively. "Not enough to penetrate most of their shielding, anyhow. And.. they're having a look at us, too."

"Let them. We're not here to fight." Fox eyed the hulking vessel and the sizeable weapons mounted on it somewhat apprehensively. Gauss drivers - slugspitters, he recalled from the tactical briefing he'd browsed through as part of the 'orientation package'. Their accuracy would be plain garbage at long ranges, but up this close? All the Great Fox's armor and hull superstructure probably wouldn't even noticeably slow down a tungsten superalloy slug traveling at a considerable fraction of c if some jumpy gunner decided to take a potshot at them..

Slippy's response drowned in a hollow hiss of hydraulics as the bridge doors slid open. Fox looked up, craning his head to take a look - and felt his jaw drop.

"I.. don't sense any malice from them," Krystal announced, a soft smile on her face as she padded onto the bridge.

Her cerulean fur was well-groomed, looking soft and silky, a healthy lustrous gleam suffusing it and her hair - the latter brushed back into a braided pony-tail snaking its way down over one shapely shoulder. A radiant off-white, almost opalescent dress shifted over supple limbs and pleasantly rounded shapes as she walked right past the command seat, leaning her hands on the bridge railing and looking up at the dreadnought with a look Fox had long-since learned to connect with her reaching out with her talents - focused, while still oddly hazy, as if trying to peer over miles and miles of distance..

"I can feel them all the way from here," Krystal whispered softly, rich, lush tail flicking - Fox couldn't help the way the limb drew his eye, a pearl-decorated sash wrapped around the middle of it. Gold shone softly - she was wearing her armor over her dress, the engraved metal's luster shining against the pearly white of her dress and her cerulean fur. "All those minds.. they're like tiny jewels.."

The first time Fox had laid eyes on her, she'd been a savage - fierce, proud, exotic. With them, she'd become a teammate - skilled, confident, competent. Now - now she was a Lady, capital letter completely deserved. Refined, serene, graceful - a little smile on her muzzle as she peered up at the alien vessel outside, eyes shining, a look of joyful awe of sorts on her face - and, a little part of Fox couldn't help but think, about the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen..

Suddenly, Fox realized the shift in the general atmosphere of the bridge - sure, ROB was still chattering away in binary at his booth, the dreadnought dominating the viewscreen - but, glancing around, he could see that Peppy was giving him that sly, near-paternal look of his, clearly amused - Slippy was a little bit too focused on his readings, and Falco - the avian was grinning around his beak, Fox was sure of it, a faint mutter of what sounded suspiciously like 'Lucky sod' drifting into his ears. Even Krystal, feeling the change she'd caused, paused to glance over her shoulder - a little knowing smile growing on her muzzle, a twinkle in her eye as she looked back at Fox. Of course she knew what she did to him, she was an empath after all.

I don't have wingmen, Fox thought with a low growl, I have lunatics.

He got a blink for that from Krystal - as close as they were, he knew she must've 'heard' that - before being rewarded with an amused smile that made her whole face light up, the hand that rose to cover her muzzle not quite hiding the soft snicker drifting into his ears. Fighting a smile of his own, Fox coughed, resolutely trying to ignore her scent - just a little whiff of perfume, accenting her own natural, sweet feminine fragrance.. and did it smell good today- opening his muzzle-

Whatever retort he was about to make died with a surprisingly melodic chime from ROB's corner of the bridge.

"Receiving hail from Xechek dreadnought, designation Bloodied Petals." ROB, of course, was blissfully ignorant of the byplay - either that, or ignoring it like only an AI lacking any concept of hormones could. "Respond?"

"Pipe them through, ROB," Fox rumbled, reclining back into his seat. At least one of them could focus when they needed to..

Fox wasn't quite sure what he should've expected - perhaps insectoid chirping? A buzz like a beehive? Clacking mandibles and hissing? Instead, the sound that came through the open comms - it sounded suspiciously like an oddly modulated organ solo, a resonant, melodic series of flute-like whistles and hums - overlaid with strange warbling, clicking croon.

"Her Majesty's imperial warship Bloodied Petals, hailing unidentified Lylat cruiser."_The translation matrix, of course, couldn't convey emotion - but somehow the simulated voice managed to sound peeved. _"Submit identification code and state your intent in-sector. Maintain your current heading and acceleration. Fail to comply and you may be fired upon."

With that - he could feel the bridge falling back into focus, Peppy at his tactical database, Slippy at his sensor station - Falco, gunnery controls active but not primed.. Krystal at the center of it all, their metaphysical seeing eye, lovely features focused as she did her best to peer straight through the other ship's plating.

Stars, Fox loved it when the team came together like this. They might've been a bunch of basket cases, the lot of them, but they were his misfits and lunatics.

"Cheerful guy," Fox muttered to himself, careful to keep his voice low enough to not trigger their transmitter, ears twitching at the soft roll of chuckles through their bridge - eying Krystal, focused on a question, and getting a little shake of her head back. No active threat - either a standard challenge, then, or someone was venting some.

Not that Fox could blame the poor sucker at the other end of the link. They'd come literally tens of meters away from giving Petals an interesting new hull ornament. On a capital ship scale, that was a paint-scraping margin.

"Bloodied Petals, this is Lylat carrier-cruiser Great Fox, designation code Theta-Gamma-Phi-Zero-Zero-Two. Carrying Lylat mercenary unit Team Star Fox on diplomatic mission." Fox's fingers found the memory chip General Pepper had sent them via courier -plugging it into a socket on the arm of his command chair and hitting the 'transmit' key. "Transmitting credentials now."

Lights played over the crystalline chip, ROB's binary chatter resuming as the data-file was decoded and sent over - where it went through a similar process on the Xechek computers. Fox found himself tensing unconsciously, fingering the helm controls - of course their credentials were legit, but a little bit of interference or a systems incompatibility at the right point, and they might find themselves neck-deep in the middle of a bout of 'aggressive diplomacy'..

He could see Krystal relaxing a heartbeat before he saw it on the viewscreen, a shift of muted gray and green metal - the dreadnought's guns were still active and revealed, but they were no longer actively tracking them.

"Credentials successfully verified, Great Fox. Welcome to the sector." There was a pause from the other end of the link, and then - the tones of the piping sounds from the comms changed some - what emotion might've been behind them, Fox had no idea. Sometimes, he envied Krystal a little.

"Great Fox, be advised. Bloodied Petals commander suggests exercising more caution when entering the jump point perimeter."

Translation, Fox thought wryly, Watch where you jump in.

"Wait one, Bloodied Petals.." Fox paused long enough to call up the navigation logs on his console, browsing through the relevant numbers briefly. "Bloodied Petals, we show our jump point entry formation being within normal scatter radius for a vessel of our mass and the distance traveled." At the extreme edges of it, but still, that was within norms. Fox paused for a moment, mulling over his words.

"Bloodied Petals, we respectfully suggest advising the commander to move your vessel further away from the jump point perimeter. Core failsafes guarantee Lylat vessels a safe entry point, but not necessary a safe trajectory window."

Translation, even though the Great Fox wouldn't drop back into realspace in a spot already occupied by another solid object, she wouldn't necessarily not translate into a point right next to something else. And pointed at it. There was a reason other vessels were required to keep a safe distance from designated jump points - especially if the incoming vessel was particularly big or doing an especially long jump. Or might be running on maneuver thrusters while triggering their jump core - inertia was constant, after all, suddenly displaced across the cluster or not.

And, Fox noted but didn't bother pointing out - no sense pointing fingers - their jump had been scheduled. Any Lylat captain wouldn't have gone anywhere near their calculated entry point unless they had to.

"...Your advice has been noted, Great Fox," the channel finally hummed. "New vector locked. Bloodied Petals, out."

"Well now," Fox murmured as the line went quiet - making use of the time to release control over to the autopilot, queueing up local Flight Control and plotting in an approach course for the diplomatic skydock. "That didn't go too badly."

"We're still in one piece, you mean" Falco muttered. "Must be something in the water there, to make them build so damn big."

On the tactical screen, the big yellow triangle marking the Petals was finally settling into a more safe distance, the blue-green orb of an inhabitable planet filling most of the primary viewscreen.. Fox couldn't honestly remember the name of the place. It was one of the many smaller, uncivilized worlds on the rim of the Lylat cluster - in this case, it wasn't the planet itself that interested them, but the diplomatic station built into its orbit, vaguely visible as a spiderlike construction of steel against the backdrop of clouds.

It wasn't the only thing visible, either. Catching a flicker of motion, Fox made a gesture that had the main viewscreen zoom in and focus on them-

More Xechek ships, hanging in neat formation like rows of sleeping insects - sweeping, scalloped shapes of extra armor like wings folded over their segmented shapes, clusters of sensors giving the impression of compound eyes. Rows of maneuvering thrusters and gunports were like legs tucked in close against their forms and spikes protruding from their carapace, gleaming abdomens bulged over and around the shapes of massive primary thrusters and fusion furnaces. Smaller shuttles and escort fighters darted and buzzed around and between them, glittering like a flight of mechanical wasps. And above it all...

"Holy-" Falco breathed out, eyes wide. "They brought their own 'Gate?"

A Xechek ship easily twice as big as the rest of them loomed over them - void-kissed plating faded and scarred, pitted by micrometeorites - old, but no less impressive for it. A row of heavily armored lumps - extra fusion reactors, judging from the readings - gave it the distinct impression of being hunchbacked. A pair of long, reinforced pylons sprouted from its 'shoulders' like wings, reaching up and over its back - a matrix of immaterial, translucent red-orange hexagons playing between them, energy arching between them and the forks. As Fox watched, the field flared, shifted - and spat out a fuel tanker, resembling a giant, fat metal bumblebee as it angled itself to join the fleet.

"They didn't bring it," Slippy chirped, "It was here already-"

The amphibian paused as the rest of the bridge focused on him, green skin darkening momentarily.

"What I mean is," Slippy continued, shaking his head, "It arrived first. Xechek ships," his tongue stumbled a little over the clicking sounds of the name, "They don't have faster-than-light drives, did you know? So they build these huge ships that they stick a hypergate on, and send that out. That ship there, judging from the radiation readings on the hull, it's been traveling here for at least.."

"From before since any of us were born," Krystal finished for Slippy, a little smile on her muzzle. "And now that they got here, they found us. I can't wait to meet them."

"It figures that the two of you would memorize the briefings they sent us," Falco chuckled. He wasn't far off the mark, either, from what Fox had seen. Krystal'd happily spent hours with her nose buried in the datafiles, and he hadn't even seen Slippy for days - except when he made a trip to the mess hall.

"I find it fascinating," Krystal smiled, white-bobbed tail flicking softly. "They're a new people to me, Falco - so different from us, but people. I think we could learn much from them."

"I don't know about you lot, but I for one think I'd enjoy meeting new folks without being shot at," Peppy pointed out, much to the amusement of the rest of them.

Fox, however, found himself eying the frost-scarred behemoth hanging in orbit. He couldn't imagine it - sure, Fox was a spacer himself, spending more time on-ship than on-planet, but.. he always knew that Corneria was only a few days worth of jumps away. These folks had been in that can for decades - it was a sobering thought.

A diplomatic mission, yes, a mission of peace - they wouldn't even need their blasters for anything but show, Pepper had told them. So why were Fox's old instincts screaming at him - instincts that told him to keep their Arwings fueled up and power cells topped off?

<<<<<>>>>>

In retrospect, Katt thought, this might not have been the best of her plans.

On paper, it was a solid concept. One of her search daemons had finally gotten a hit, after weeks of processing - a pattern in shipping manifests and supply routes all over the cluster fringes. A crate that just dropped off the routes here, a mislabeled shipment there, somewhere a freighter rejoined its supply convoy with a fraction of its supplies missing - with as much traffic as the Lylat cluster saw regularly, it was expected - unless you knew better. It all added up. Specifically, most of those supplies that were 'misplaced' would end up as contraband merchandise - Temminck had a finger in quite a many pies.

Once she'd figured out which shipments were going to be 'unfortunately misplaced', it was simple enough to find a breaching point - slip in an alteration of her own into the manifests. If supply crates could go randomly missing, it'd be equally reasonable for one extra to pop up - a clerical error, sorry guys, we thought you'd ordered two. Just sign here, OK? I've got a break coming up, you figure it out.

And that was how Katt had ended up stuffed into a reinforced, shielded cargo crate - ostensibly to protect delicate electronics, but in actuality to mask the sensor signature of living bodies and active devices - with nothing for company but a bunch of supplies, a miniature air recycler.. and an increasingly claustrophobic fox.

That was, actually, part of the plan. Use the smugglers' own supply lines to penetrate into their base - their crate was labeled high enough priority that they'd likely end up fairly high along the totem pole - then sneak out. Hack their files to dowload any evidence she could get her paws on - so much that it wouldn't, couldn't be swept under the carpet, no matter how many dirty lawyers the crook had in his pocket - free any of the.. ugh, how she hated the thought.. 'living merchandise' in the area. Last, she'd plant a locator beacon for the authorities to home in on - in the confusion of a surprise crackdown, she could have the Big Kitty do a remote-controlled jump into their coordinates for extraction. Risky, hell yes, but the best shot they'd have..

In fact, the plan had been so perfect, she'd failed to see one glaring flaw in it - shaped suspiciously like a tall, well-built vulpine male. When she'd done the original planning, she'd intended to do it all by herself - recruiting the outworlder had been a moment's impulse. She'd had a gut feeling, she'd followed it - so far, she didn't regret it, either.

What Katt did regret was not considering that when she'd picked the crate to shield and mask, she'd figured it was big enough for herself and some supplies. Not herself, the supplies, and a big fox. A big fox who was already leery of confined spaces. Oh, they fit - if barely. Had had the situation been different Katt would've happily entertained herself by teasing the male, seeing as she was almost curled up in his lap - but..

"If we walk out of this," Katt muttered to herself, ears folded back, "I'm taking you someplace where the streets are wide enough to fly the Kitty through."

It was hot and stuffy in the crate, unlit save for the little screen of her padd and the status lights on their miniature atmospheric recycler - the piece of kit alone took nearly a quarter of the space inside their fancy metal box, another quarter dedicated to a box of supplies - well, honestly, most people would've called it 'ordinance', but eh! Details.

Katt herself was curled up to take as little space as she could, flightsuit-clad tush firmly in Skye's lap - the male seated on what little padding they'd managed to fit in there. His fur was lush and warm where bare fur met - though, as Katt had found out, he needed to learn about the wonders of the fur conditioner. His pelt was so dry it was static-y against hers - she was fairly sure that if she poked him in the muzzle, she'd get a snap of discharge for her troubles. He'd also been snooping through Engineering on the Kitty, she thought - his warm, masculine musk (the best natural perfume, in her opinion) overlaid with a faint but noticeable tang of ozone and grit clinging to his fur - sort of like burnt sand and an upcoming thunderstorm. Not really unpleasant per say, but.. definitely not high on her list of likes, either.

Katt, of course, had to crane herself around a little to watch the fox - wincing a little at the look on his face. Eyes squeezed shut, the todd's face was like stone - ears folded flat against his head, the shadows of their little nook giving his features an alien cast -handsome, yes, but sleek and predatory. Every breath made that broad chest hum with a soft rumble. Clearly wound up like a spring..

"How're you feeling, hunk?" Katt whispered, keeping her voice low - craning one of her arms around to try and give him a comforting pat - tail flicking softly as she felt the muscles of his back clench and squeeze rhythmically under her touch. Tense, yeah - people just weren't meant to move like that.

Golden eyes cracked open a tad - making Katt wince again. The look in them - just like cats, foxes could see in the dark - but the discolored light from the recycler's status screens - for a few heartbeats, that faint luminescence in the depths of his eyes had looked scarlet, not pale green.

"Rrrnrrr. Like I've been crammed into an egg," Skye finally rumbled - making Katt blink. No matter what he smelled like, she liked his voice - masculine, deep in the sense that only a few men could pull off. Little bit deeper than usual for a male his size, in fact, but that wasn't a bad thing - couple that with his accent, and she could pretty much feel his voice vibrate in her chest and hum along her bones. Especially as close as they were.

"Funny," she finally purred at him, a little sly, slanted smile on her muzzle. "What does that make us then, hmn? Twins?"

Even in the shadow, Katt could see his eyebrow rising - giving herself a little inwards cheer. If the male had the energy to joke around, he wouldn't be snapping. Yet.

"...I suppose I have seen stranger things," Skye finally rumbled. "Having a clan-sister as yourself, I think, would make sure none of us were bored again.."

Katt couldn't help herself, the little snicker that bubbled to her lips. He'd been so perfectly deadpan - she could appreciate the right sort of a dry wit. Least he had his sense of humor left.

"Just hang in there, alright?" she murmured, checking her padd and patting his shoulder again - feeling that swell and ripple of muscle before it settled back down. "We should be getting there in.. three hours. More than halfway through." She paused for a moment, nibbling on her lower lip.. "Tell me about your home?"

"My home?" Black-tipped ears shifted in surprise, a curious look in his golden eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Hey, I shared before," Katt pointed out, voice dropping into a little teasing purr. "C'mon. I'm curious. A pretty kitty's asking you - I showed you mine, now show me yours?"

Skye probably didn't get the joke, but judging from the flat look she was getting Katt was pretty sure he knew she was pulling his tail somehow.

"I'm serious," Katt murmured, rolling her eyes a little. "Doesn't have to be anything personal. It'll help if you think of something that's not in this can, you know."

For a long while, Skye was quiet - almost making Katt think she'd have to tolerate silence for the rest of the trip.. until finally, he opened his muzzle. Katt smiled and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against his shoulder - feeling that warm chest pulse and hum against her back, the soft, deep rasping rumbles of Skye's accent painting her a picture of a little house built on the slopes of a mountain - where a little brook babbled its way past the house, where the winters were cold, summers cool and the stars bright in the sky.. where the wind blew clean and free, playfully tugging at the long, silky mane of a silver-furred vixen as she cared for her little herbal garden.