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Star Fox: These Wolves Still Prowl 1
Meteo Work Camp
One Month After Andross’ defeat
Wolf O’Donnell knew when they fled, they’d empty out into Corneria City, into the waiting arms of law enforcement. Every Venomian with half a brain knew that.
He knew their prison arrangement would be a slapdash operation. With its usual dumping ground having recently been the site of a war, the Lylatian government would have to make arrangements, and fast. Every Venomian with half a brain knew that.
The smartest brain alive could not have imagined how bad things would be. High-risk prisoners were kept in shipping containers connected to two generators with a door from a decommissioned jail bolted onto it, a wafer-thin alloy bubble keeping each door away from the vacuum of space. The slit didn’t provide any light, but it was just small enough to slip a meager tray of food through. Gravity dampeners made sure the prisoners could safely use the floor, at least when the crummy second generator used during sleep hours wasn’t on the fritz.
With a timid whir, the power kicked back on.
“Speaking of,” snarled Wolf
Gravity returned to him, causing him to fall from the roof to the floor. By Wolf’s mental count, the generators flickered between life and death every half hour. Wolf popped his shoulder back into place, the third time he’d had to do so tonight, and lay still. His ear twitched. The whirring was consistent, there were no sputters. Work hours had begun.
“Allllll right you maggots,” an unfamiliar voice announced, “Be at the front of your pod for breakfast and to be shown to your worksite.”
Wolf did as commanded. Into his waiting hands through the other side of the slit slid a plate of indeterminable grey gruel. As Wolf began to dig in, he got a good look at the man, a young dog humanoid.
“Where’s Haener?” Wolf asked.
“Otherwise occupied, he’ll be by to take you to your worksite. Not that it’s any of your concern inmates.”
Wolf stepped back, continuing to greedily shovel the sludge into his mouth. The sound of a plastic spork ripping through paper caught his ears on one shovelful.
“Hey,” Wolf shouted.
Nothing, the young dog had likely continued his rounds.
He dug through the gruel pulling out a hastily folded rectangle of paper. He unfolded it. He recognized the big, lumbering handwriting immediately as Pigma’s.
Your new guard’ll get lost in a transport ship on patrol at some point today. There’s a Wolfen II freighter stashed in Sector Omega. Head due Southeast to the Atlas Galaxy, we’ve got sympathizers there. We’ll join you soon.
Wolf chopped up the letter, eating it amongst his gruel.
“I hope you enjoyed your nice leisurely breakfast, Mister O’Donnell,”
Wolf winced. His usual supervisor, Haener, was back.
“Yes,”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
He could envision the smug smile on the other side of the door. That was the only time the old man ever smiled, to be a dick. Wolf sneered
“Yes sir,”
“Get that booboo face off your face Mister O’Donnell and be ready.”
Wolf stepped forward, presenting his wrists to be shackled. They were eye to eye now, Wolf and the old, brown-furred dog, a veteran of the Space Pirate Wars who got off on power too much to quit, stood before him. The suffocating lack of oxygen on one side of the door and the abundance of oxygen on the other lead Wolf to keep a neutral face
“There’s that happy face I like,” hissed Haener, chuckling at his own joke, “Open,”
Wolf opened his maw wide. Haener pressed a mouthguard into Wolf’s upper row of teeth, and he could breathe normally. The door opened, and Haener grabbed him by the shackle, pulling him into the throng of other prisoners, whose cuffs linked together automatically.
“Your work area today is Epsilon-R-3.”
This is how every day here began, with the inane ramblings of Corporal Labrador Haener, a man who treated this nothing job like the most important job in the galaxy, regaling the prisoners with the history of mineral mining on Meteo, down to the way each sector of the never-ending expanse of rock was named. On his first day, Wolf had asked Haener who could possibly care, and that had gotten him an all-night work detail, so while the temptation stirred in him every morning, he kept his mouth shut.
Eventually, they made their way to their sector, and the work began. A younger Wolf O’Donnell might have pondered why exactly they were mining rocks with pickaxes when asteroid crusher ships existed, but those days were long behind him. At the very least, Wolf was so used to physical labor he could turn his brain off and just work.
He didn’t know how much time had passed by the time a transport vehicle had wandered into their section, the dog from earlier looking frazzled in the driver’s seat. Haener could only let out a long, confused grunt as he drifted in front of them, intent on speaking to the young dog. Wolf lunged, biting down on the old man’s jugular. The unforgiving zero gravity of space expelled him of his life force quickly. Wolf fumbled through the corpse’s pockets and found the key, unlocking himself from the chain gain.
“Great jackass,” whined a barely pubescent tiger, “How’re we gonna-“
Wolf lurched onto Haener’s back, grabbing both throttles of the jet pack and moving towards the transport ship. Meanwhile, the dog had drawn his service weapon, blasting the other prisoners as they clamored for freedom. Wolf pulled open a hatch on the transport, booting his unwitting ride into the empty blackness of space, and scooting himself into the passenger seat.
“Good move, with the jetpack,” the dog huffed.
Wolf eyed the kid up and down. If he’d ever seen action, he could count the number of times on one paw, and likely wouldn’t need every claw. He wheezed from exhilaration, his heart beating loud enough to be audible.
“I said-“
“I heard ya,” Wolf snapped, “Why was it a good move?”
“Cause that’s where the field agents’ trackers are. Far as the powers that be know, he went up to check on me just like I called it in.”
Wolf eyed the man’s name tag, Walsh.
“You loyal to the cause Walsh?”
“Yeah, figured I’d be important behind enemy lines if it ever came to this.”
Wolf nodded. Just as Walsh began to drum his fingers on the console as he drove, Wolf grabbed at Walsh’s service revolver, pumping his head full of the laser before the kid could blink.
“Thanks for your service kid,”
Pushing Walsh’s body out of the hatch, Wolf headed for Sector Beta.
Sector Beta
Hours later
The sight of Corneria’s first strategic victory in the Lylat Wars was littered with junk from battles long past, and a lone paddy wagon zipped through it.
What the hell am I lookin’ for? Wolf growled to himself.
Luckily, someone had the forethought to top this thing off on fuel, so he could fly for hours if he had to. Cornerian patrol vehicles weren’t a problem either. They were all reserve men, and he could avoid them by weaving in and out of debris.
An hour more passed, the debris going thicker with every moment. Wolf spied a strange formation of junk. Tons of metal had been compacted into a sphere, an easy access point welded out through the metal. Flying as carefully as he could, Wolf orbited the sphere. Then again. The more he looked at it, the more something occurred to him.
It’s too perfect.
When metal fused in these parts, it was often the after-effect of being pelted by lasers, jagged and uneven. This was sculpted together with an artist’s hand.
Sighing, Wolf flew into the hole. A Venomian freighter craft stood at the junk sphere’s center. It was small, likely just enough space for four ships and facilities for the four pilots therein. Flying towards the freighter, he pivoted in his seat, leaning over the back to look in the back. A fanged smile curved at his maw. Walsh had left him a jetpack. Strapping it on, Wolf flew to the underside of the freighter, groaning with all his might as he pulled the latch to release the boarding stairs. Trotting up the stairs and closing them behind him, Wolf’s eyes immediately fixated on the one light in the place, a computer.
Wolf was never particularly confident in his ability to understand the schematics of a freighter like this. Luckily Venom’s system of measurement was kept simple so that the average criminal could understand with little training.
Pressing a few buttons, the lights flickered to life. Nodding approvingly, Wolf took a lap around his new temporary home. The tiny bridge had all the accouterments of a much larger flagship, lush chairs for command, helmsman, communications, and tactical. Moving past the bridge, he could see Wolfen IIs in the hangar but would have to run a detailed systems check on each.
Real pain without Leon here
As he wandered to the cabinet between the bridge and the hangar, he thought of his team. Leon and Pigma could handle their escapes eventually, but one of them would have to drag Andrew with them. Wolf riffled through the small fridge, finding a can of Iron Stock, his favorite. Throwing open another cabinet revealed enough rations to last four people a month, and enough smokes to last four people a month. Wolf popped open a beer. This would last him a week, tops.
Here's to you Leon, Pigma, you poor bastards
Chugging the beer, he headed back to the captain’s chair, flipping the switches he needed to activate the ship. Wolf quickly scanned the schematics as the ship rumbled to life. He shrugged.
Not good, not bad either, he concluded.
Wolf drummed the console.
“What was the name of that outlaw planet?” he thought allowed.
Suddenly, the name came to him.
The Crimson Moon.
Remembering a Venomian soldier with the coordinates tattooed across his arm, Wolf set the autopilot to it. The estimated travel time was 24 hours.
“Looks like I have to put off my smokes for yet another day. The ship lurched forward right away, shattering its shield of junk and knocking the transport vehicle he’d come in out of the way. Wolf laughed. How long would it take the Cornerian idiots to put the pieces together? Days? Weeks?
Wolf reclined in his captain’s seat, knowing that no matter what, he’d be out of Lylat before then.
A day later
“You have arrived at your destination,” barked the onboard computer.
Wolf jolted awake. Rubbing his good eye, and calebrating his cybernetic one, Wolf shook himself awake. The disbelief that he’d slept for an entire day gave way to being thankful that the gravity hadn’t conked out on him here.
Gazing out the starboard window, he saw that he was dutifully parked in a crowd of other ships that had seen their fair share of battles. Tapping a few buttons, he accessed the public channel.
“The hell is that? A Venom ship? I thought they all got wiped out.”
“You don’t think that’s…?”
“Star Wolf!”
Wolf gritted his teeth. Now he knew how Fox felt.
The chair’s gears creaked as he reclined back once again.
Can’t remember the last time I was talk of the town like this. Can’t say it don’t feel good either.
Suddenly, a blindingly red planet materialized into existence in front of them, a holographic picture of a lupine leering down at them.
“Welcome to the Crimson Moon,” the hologram purred, “I am Fortune, and remember, Fortune favors the bold. Welcome to the Outlaw Games.”
In a rush that resembled a holiday scramble at a shopping mall, all the ships shot forward at once, entering the suffocatingly red atmosphere. The same lupine appeared on the ship’s holographic projector.
“You, Venomian,” snarled Fortune, “State your purpose.”
“I am Wolf O’Donnell,”
Fortune’s perpetual smile somehow grew wider, his eyes even more aglow.
“Gloria in excelsis Andross my friend,” Fortune declared over the hologram.
Wolf winced. Only Andross’ most devout followers used that kind of language.
“I require a favor of you Wolf,” Fortune explained, “Everyone in these parts seeks what is called Warden technology. A cult called The Legion seeks it for their ends, and some Milky Wayers may be getting involved soon.”
“Must be important if a bunch of naked monkeys are coming all the way out here for it,” Wolf sneered.
“Our intelligence tells us that they’re here for one of their own. A science type made the journey on his own and got abducted.”
“But that doesn’t mean they won’t stir things up when they get here.”
Fortune’s laugh was silky and shot a blast of cold up Wolf’s spine.
“Correct. Which is why I need you to unify The Outlaws. I’m as close to a ruler as they have, but I need a field commander, and they’ll follow you.”
“Follow?” was all Wolf could manage in response
“You are the closest to a second-in-command Andross has. You will take control of men and weapons to carry on the will of the Venom empire, and I will help.”
Wolf’s stomach stirred.
“Sure.,” Wolf snarled.
“Great,” cheered Fortune. Please come to the arena. I have a group of people you should meet.”
The projector snapped off, leaving Wolf to follow a new set of coordinates his ship had just been given. As soon as he departed, Wolf was led to a meeting room above an arena. Already, lasers blasted and metal crunched beneath them, but that was of no interest to the outlaws at the table who were already plotting their next move.
What did I get myself into? Wolf grumbled.
Clearing his throat, the other outlaws turned to look at him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “We have some work to do.”