Star Fox: The Next Generation Chapter 1

[Falcory]

Logan flew toward Fichina in his father's old Arwing. Today was it! He was finally joining the Starfox team! His parents had trained him for this for years-particularly his father. Speaking of his father....

"You make sure to show em what your made of! Don't get soft out there!" Falco barked over a radio transmisson.

Logan: "I know dad. You've told me to do that six times since I've left." Logan sighed.

"Don't hassle the boy. I'm sure he'll do fine." Katt said breaking in. "Take care of yourself sweetie. And try not to get into too much trouble like your father."

"Exscuse ME? I seem to remember a young kitty who ALSO got into a lot of trouble!" Falco sneered at the feline.

"He doesn't need to hear about that!" Katt snapped.

Logan sighed.

Logan: "Bye mom! Bye Dad! See you, when I see you!"

"See now that's my-" Logan quickly cut the transmission before his father finished the sentence.

He relaxed in his seat and laid back a little. Fichina was coming up. Only a short while, and he would be going on adventures like his dad talked about having.....

[Asper Sarnoff]

(I was a bit stumped to see you join us Falcory. But you'll be most welcome, at least on my part.

As I guess you will go for a spot on Starfox, we'll unfortunatly have the problem that the scales are tipping in their favor again, but that is just something we'll have to deal with.)

"Okay, listen carefully, and I'll lay out the course for you." Freya spoke over their channel. "I'll be jumping straight for the harder stuff. None of you are newbies any more." She started heading into the thicker parts of the asteroid field. "We have put out several automated gun turrets floating around the asteroid field. They are shielded, and mobile, but most importtantly, their  targeting computers are now programmed to attack any craft withing range, with lethal fire. See where this is going? You will attempt to outmanouver me and get a missile lock on my fighter as I go trough the asteroid field. I'll advice you to direct most power to your shields, it might save your life if you bump into one of the smaller rocks. If you hit a larger one, you'll die, if the turrets can hit you enough to deplete your shields and pierce your armor, you'll die.

Due to the electromagnetic disturbance in this region, most auto-targeting systems will be useless, and target lock will have to be achieved manually. If you shot down a turret, it's cost will be detracted from your first pay. They're bloody expensive. Trust me on that.

You all got that?" Freya finished. The others signaled that they had heard and understood.

"Good. Catch me if you can!" She said as she gunned the fighter into the asteroid field.

The G-diffusers protected her from the imense acceleration, but her vision almost got blurred in the series of high speed manouvers to avoid the deadly rocks. Then, she encountered the first of the turrets, its guns immediatly swiveled around and started to open fire against her. She rolled out of the stream of fire just in time, rolled back again to avoid an incoming asteroid.

The slightest mistake here would be fatal. But nothing less would do to discover her new wingmates absolute limits.

[Tiberius]

(Dont worry. I have a second character in the works. and Odin needs to be on the Great Fox. lol)

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Cliff and Attila followed Silver and Freya through the field, powering their shields as best they could.

Upon hearing Freya's directions, Cliff muttered "Yeah, yeah, 'If you get hit, you die!  If you get shot down, you die! If you die, you die!'..." Cliff was being a smartass, again.

As Cliff flew through, he put on a sound cube to play the song "Ride of the Valkyries",

but partway through the song, the music file in the song was in suddenly cut to this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLHEB-2r2oc

(Waterloo by ABBA).

"Ah, dammit!  One of my butthead sisters must'a recorded over this!" Cliff complained.

Attila, hearing Cliff over the comm channel, laughed.

The two of them still managed to successfully avoid the large and small asteroids, as well as the shooting turrets.

[Asper Sarnoff]

A laser shot from one of the turrets glanced the Huntress, but was defelcted by it's shield, taking away from it's power reserve. Freya cursed slighty. She had hoped for a faultfree run this time, with the veteran watching her and everything. It was as she feelt a wish to impress veteran pilots like him, probably because no matter how hard she tried, could not impress her father.

The asteroid field was unusually busy today. She guessed two of the larger ones had collided and shattered into thousands of smaller ones, which were now ricocheting all around the area. It was as if a wall of the rocks formed around her, blocking her flightpath, she barely managed to roll over to the side and slip between some of them right before they closed.

She wondered how Cliff was faring. He had by far the biggest and most unwieldly fighter here. She couldn't see any of them behind her anymore. The cold grasp of worry started to creep in to her as she tought that they might have both been killed. Just because she needed to show of in front of that old fart.

Her worries turned out to be nothing as the asteroids behind her opened up again and revealed that they were both still on her tail. She feelt a sting of pride a she saw how well they handled the terrible conditions. Attila dodged asteroids as if he had done nothing else his whole life, and Cliff blasted the smaller ones out of his way with his hefty firepower, steering slowly and gently around the larger ones.

"Come on boys, that all you got?" She teased them as she gunned the fighter up to speed again.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Cliff zeroed in of Freya, and used his manual targeting on his Missile/Bomb launch. He missed.

"Damn!" he shouted over the ABBA Music.

Attila used his ships targeting system.  Sure enough, his auto targeting didn't work in this region.

He tried for manual, and just missed Freya.  "Dammit." he grumbled.

Cliff changed the music from that taped over "Vaugner" to ABBA music file, and now played this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6q9nBusrq8

[Falcory]

(I was a bit stumped to see you join us Falcory. But you'll be most welcome, at least on my part.

As I guess you will go for a spot on Starfox, we'll unfortunatly have the problem that the scales are tipping in their favor again, but that is just something we'll have to deal with.)

(Lol, yeah Red (Tiberius) invited me to the RP. And thanks for the welcome!)

Logan eased the throttle as he came in on Fichina's atomosphere. According to his dad, unless you knew what you were doing it was best to take it as slowly as you could.

But that's going to be pretty boring. Logan thought.

Without a second thought, Logan gunned the throttle. He sped foward in an instant, and flew into the atomosphere at high speeds.

Logan: "WHOOOOOOOOOO!" He yelled in excitement. 

[Asper Sarnoff]

Freya wasn't laughing anymore. She had to keep her full atention on dodging the heavy laser fire as she manovered the field. As she had predicted, Attila and Cliff hadn't managed to get a target lock on her yet, but they had managed to keep up trough thse conditions, which was very impressive. An entire CDF squadron would have been detroyed in a matter of seconds had they dared enter a hell like this.

"That's some good flying guys!"She said over the communications channel, hiding how proud she feelt for actually hitting the nail on the head for once, and picking the right pilots to be her wingmen.

"Now, we'll see how well we can work in a team."

She broke of into a tight righthander and broke out of the asteroid field. They were now outside the range of the droid turrets as well. Ahead of them were nothing but open space, except for one single object which grew larger and larger as they closed with it.

"My dad bought the wreckage from the governement of Fortuna, fixed it up to use for training. Fully automated now of course."

As they got closer, Cliff and Attila could clearly recognise the mechanical contraption from the history books.

Freya typed in a couple of commands on the touchscreen in her figther, and slowly, Andrew Oikonnis ship hummed to life and transformed into the form of an apes head with two massive hands hovering at its side.

"Make no mistake guys. He's a tough guy, and we'll need our combined firepower to take down the shield, which will shut it down." Freya said as she placed her fighter at the front of the spearhead formed by her teammates.

Meanwhile, abord the Great Fox en-route to Fichinia, Odin was sitting alone in his quarters. He had taken up an electric guitar, a Fender Stratocaster to be precise, from his baggage. One of the few personal items he owned.

He sat there and plucked at the strings. When he had some times to spare, that was what he did. Learn himself to play by trial and failure.

Slowly and tedious, he started on the famous rif from "Smoke on the water". It went quite well, untill he got a sour note again and he stopped up, letting out a loud sigh.

"That should be enough for today." He grumbled, annoyed that after all the time he had put into it over the years, he was still not very good. He had been thinking of signing up for a few courses while he was still on Corneria, but the risk of leaving behind any personal information was to big that he went for that.

He leaned the guitar up against the wall before he decided he would go out and see if he could find any company from the rest of the team on board. He had seen little from the "newcoomer", Krystal, but he was also sort of glad for that too. She was a telepath, no matter how noble and friendly she was supposed to be, she was still to powerfull that he could rest easy with her onboard.

[Tiberius]

Tiberius announced on the intercom: "Team, report to your stations. We're heading out." he said.

[Kursed]

Serena appered in Odins room "I could help you with that if you wanted." The holgram vixen offered.

Krystal sat at the Navigations chair and prepared to set course."Why am I doing this when Serena can?"She asked.

[Tiberius]

"Because it raises awareness." said Fox. "Serena is for if we can't manage." said Fox.

[Kursed]

"Because it raises awareness." said Fox. "Serena is for if we can't manage." said Fox.

"Oh so I'm that usless?"Serena asked appearing on the bridge next to Fox.

[Tiberius]

"I never said that. I was explaining your use for autopilot. It's a just in case thing. All of your other functions are also useful. I just like to have the team at the consoles to learn on the job and raise awareness." said Fox. 

[Showtime 1-1]

(About Falcory's joining here, you could always double-team Silver. I'm sure he could handle it )

The asteroid field was as much fun as Silver had remembered. With the G-diffusers off, the threw the big StarCat from one turn to another. Since his ship had no energy shields, the smaller asteroids were ricocheting off the heavy leading edge armor, combining with the deafening noise from the engines. The resulting sound was more beautiful then any music, at least to the cat in the pilot's seat.

Coming around a larger rock, the RWR it up a stationary cannon appeared, locking on and firing at the StarCat. Silver saw it on an asteroid straight ahead. he pulled up, around and over a full barrel roll, kicking in opposite rudder to keep the StarCat rolling on it's displaced axis. The G-diffusers were still off, and Silver was being thrown against his seat and straps as he executed his evasion.

now THIS is flying...

The cannon fire passed, and Silver selected a Predator missile to take out the shielded turret.

wait... oh yeah, she said not do blow these up, didn't she...

Rather then firing, he blasted past the rock.

He eased off his flying and continued to watch his teammates. They were impressive, with Atilla's nimble maneuvers and Cliff's firepower. One thing worried him, though. Freya was paying too much attention to her flight and not enough to her own flying; she had taken a hit from a stationary cannon, and she seemed surprised by some of the asteroids.

well, I suppose it's better then having her ignore them all... but I should still mention it. Later, though. I don't want Cliff and Atilla to lose trust in their leader.

He grinned as he heard Freya brief Atilla and Cliff on the next target.

These kids and their giant flying monkeys...

kicked back in his seat, Silver pulled off the throttle and entered a circuit to watch the fun.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Cliff fired several rounds at the first hand as it charged up.

He dodged its grab attack, and then fired more rounds at

it as it charged again, this time crippling the hand..

The Andrew-bot had only one hand. 

It threw its trademark pounding tantrum, then tried to punch with the left hand. 

Cliff moved aside to let Attila take over.

 

Attila attacked that hand, avoiding the punch from the

left hand, and then attacking it as it charged. 

He damaged it, avoided the grab attack, and attacked it

as it charged up again, this time disabling the left hand.

They had beaten it!

"No wonder your dad kicked that butthead Andrew off your team."

said Cliff.

[Showtime 1-1]

Silver wasn't impressed.

Okay, these guys were good on their own, but a team should be more then the sum of it's members. They needed to learn teamwork.

"All right. Freya, Atilla, Cliff, it's time for a real challenge." he said over the comm link. "Most of our battles will be in open space against a superior number of opponents. Let's see what you've got in the way of dogfighting skill."

They all seemed eager, and Freya didn't protest.

"I'll be the target. Let's see how long it takes you three to take me out. DON'T go easy, and remember your team."

Pulling his straps tight, he pushed the throttles full and rocketed past the other three, then pulling straight up. He didn't switch the G-diffusers on, yet.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

"Let's get this butthead!" shout Cliff.

"Bring it on, you old fart!  And I don't mean in your pants!"

Attila joked, as he and Cliff zeroed in as best they could on Silver.

[Showtime 1-1]

Silver looked over his shoulder at the two who had engaged him. He eased off the throttle to let them catch up. The RWR started to light up as they both got locks on him. He chopped the throttle and let them get a little closer.

At the second that they fired, he reefed the StarCat into the tightest hammerhead he could with no G-diffusers and sped up in the dive, away from his pursuers and back towards Freya. The 'Cat was approaching it's top speed as Silver pulled it out of the power-dive and rolled off.

"You'll have to try harder then that, pups."

[Falcory]

Logan's Arwing shot down to the surface like a missile. He pulled up just as the nose of his Arwing was going to hit icy water and sped across the surface. His heart was beating pretty fast. MAN was that a thrill!

Logan sat back in the seat of his Arwing, and looked at the coordinates of the rendezvous site. Seems like it was less than a mile off from his location. He gunned his throttle again and sped forward.

[Kursed]

"I never said that. I was explaining your use for autopilot. It's a just in case thing. All of your other functions are also useful. I just like to have the team at the consoles to learn on the job and raise awareness." said Fox.

"With all due respect Fox your offspring and wife can run this ship with a arm tied behind their back."Serena replied

[Tiberius]

(do we really have to do this, Kursed?) "Is this really necessary, Serena?" said Fox, starting to get ticked off.

[Kursed]

"Yes quite necasarry fox I don't think you should underestimate your family what would Peppy hare say?"Serena replied putting her arms to her hips.

[Tiberius]

"Im not underestimating them. I'm giving them something to do. It doesn't hurt to still do some things manually. Not everything has to be done with computers." said Fox.

[Falcory]

Logan flew up to a snowy base. He checked the coordinates again to make sure he had the right place, landed his Arwing and hopped out onto the snowy ground.

He shivered slightly and looked around. Was he the only one here? Was he early? Or perhaps he got the coordinates wrong....

Logan dismissed the last thought. He was pretty sure the coordinates was right, he was taught better than to make careless mistakes like that. Maybe he was early. Man would that be a first. Usually everyone said he was always late, if it wasn't for his teachers at flight school, or his mom. Strangely people would seem to get an understanding look on their face when he told them his father was Falco Lombardi.

Wonder what that's about? Logan thought to himself.

A cold wind picked up.

Crud it! I'm going in where it's nice an warm. Maybe some sort of team member is there waiting for me to arrive anyways.... Huddling his wings together, Logan started his way towards the base. He took three steps and stopped. He had the feeling he was forgetting something....

*Flash back*

"Don't ever forget your Blaster on a planet you don't know Logan! There are all sorts of creeps who are waiting to jump at the chance of catching you unarmed. You don't give them that chance! EVER."

*Flash Back ended*

Logan looked at his Arwing cockpit.

"Oh right..." He muttered. He hopped up on the wing and dug under the seat and found his fathers old blaster. Something else was under there too. It was an odd shaped hexagon type thing. Logan had seen them before. There were supposed to be standard issue for all CA personal and high level mercs. His dad had called them "Reflectors".

Logan looked at it curiously and examined it. On the back was a sticky note that said:

"Make sure to always have this along with your blaster. It's called a "Reflector" and it'll be useful if you get in some sort of scrap. Now don't just dismiss this piece of paper Logan! This reflector can help you deflect blaster fire back at foes for a short while before the battery runs out and needs to recharge. Hit the center button to activate, and just hold the blue looking shield in front of you when it a tight spot. Plus if you wanna school some bad guys like your old man back in the day, you can kick it at foes when activated to knock a little sense into em! It'll take some practice, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it!

                                            Signed, Dad

"Pop....you're always gonna be giving me advice no matter where I go aren't ya? " Logan muttered.

Something caught Logan's eye in the Arwing. It was another note. This one looked like it had been placed under the Reflector. Logan read it:

Your father was against it since he said you needed "Survival" training, but I managed to sneak you some cookies behind the seat of the Arwing. Try to stay alive sweetie!

                        Love, Mom

Logan put a paw to his face.

Aww mom! Seriously!? Cookies?! He thought.

Logan got ready to jump off the wing, when he hesitated. He looked at the Arwing for two seconds, then scrambled behind the seat looking for a paper bag. He pulled it out,  put in his beak, and jumped off the wing.

Down at the bottom Logan closed the Arwing shutter door by wristwatch, and holstered his Blaster and Reflector. He put the cookies in his paw, and looked back at the base again.

"Good to go!" he said briskly and walked toward the entrance.

[Asper Sarnoff]

(Will be gone for the rest of the day. Class trip. Have fun in the meantime!)