Starship Trooper

by chief maximus

II

II

The chirping of what he believed were birds woke him. Checking his watch, it appeared this planet rotated about its axis once every twenty four point six hours. He certainly was thankful, recalling other planets his mercenary team had made stops on having nights and winters that lasted years. The temperature was also quite comfortable. One thing that wasn't, however, was the now throbbing pain in his right elbow and forearm. He could practically feel his heartbeat in his injury as he quickly re-routed the remaining bits of opiate painkillers to his arm. Soon his stasis suit would be depleted and out of power. The survival kit had a solar panel for recharging the suit, but depending on the strength of this planet's star, it could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

He squinted at the light, getting to his feet and peered through the window. The red horse from the day before walked beside another one he didn't recognize. It seemed to be wearing a cowboy hat.

This is a weird planet, he thought. He snapped down beneath the windowsill, dodging the stare of the red horse as he looked in his direction.

Before long, he could hear the snorts and whinnies of the two horses beneath his makeshift home. He reached for his earpiece and soon the indecipherable noises became comprehensible speech.

"...Ah dunno, all this talk about aliens has me thinkin' Ah need ta limit her comic book readin' time."

That sounds like a female... Falco thought, staying crouched beneath the windowsill.

"Might be somethin' to consider." That was the red one he recognized. "Say, you seen where I left my tool belt?"

"Ah thought Ah saw Apple Bloom with it. Might want to check in the treehouse."

Falco's eyes shot wide open. Hoofsteps pounded up the ramp as he scrambled for his pistol.

"What the... why's all this junk piled up here?"

In one fell swoop, Falco's barricade was pushed aside.

"AJ... you might want ta have a look at this!"

---

Fox bathed in the light of the bridge inside the Great Fox. He'd been scanning interstellar space for the better part of sixteen hours.

"You need to get some sleep."

The voice brought his ears to attention as he lazily turned around in the captain's chair. He glanced back at the unresponsive monitor that had been laughing at him all that time.

"Yeah, I guess I should," he yawned. He could have kicked himself for telling Falco to blast of blindly into hyperspace without a way to track him. There was nothing else I could have done, he reassured himself. If I hadn't let him jump, we'd both be dead and the Drive would be with Wolf.

Fox stood up from the chair and headed past Peppy toward the chow nook.

"I'll watch the monitors for ya."

"Thanks, I'll get some rest." Fox said over his shoulder. The dim and narrow hallways of the Great Fox did little to comfort him. He also wasn't too fond of lying to his teammates, either. As he stepped into the galley, the stale scent of whatever Slippy had eaten a few hours earlier curled his nose. As an amphibian, Slippy was prone to eating things the rest of the crew wouldn't touch with a two parsec pole.

Fox stepped up to the Foodmotron and looked over the menu, even though he had it memorized by now. Brazed jackelope, that sounds pretty good, he thought to himself, pressing the button.

Sold out flashed across the screen in bold red letters. "Of course," he mumbled, opting instead for the protein noodles.

After preparing his food, he sat at the table and turned on the viewer. Flipping through the frequencies, he came upon the news station covering this quadrant of the galaxy. A very attractive vulpine in a smart blazer with a lion-ish co-host began recapping the days top stories.

"... In other news, a daring robbery at a theoretical science research lab funded by the starship fuel giant, the Altimont corporation, has led to a massive interplanetary search for a top secret research project known only as 'the drive'. Implicated in this plot were the once former employees of the Cornerian armada during their campaign to rid the galaxy of the infamous terrorist Andross. When asked, general Pepper cut all ties to the mercenary group, and condemns their actions."

"Sure he does, he doesn't have to work for a living," Fox sighed.

"The CEO of Altimont, Barrister Arkham, held a press conference to address the concerns of financiers and shareholders."

The camera feed cut to a tiger in a suit, flanked by two rhino body guards. The tiger at the podium cleared his throat, straightened his tie, and began to speak.

"Let me start by assuring you that the drive will not stay missing for long. We have our entire battle fleet out scouring the outer systems for these cowards, and when we find them, we will ensure justice is done. We have even pressed our newest flagship, the ASF Leviathan into service to expedite this process and deal with any trouble these mercenaries might present. Thank you." Fox turned off the viewer, finished his dinner and headed to his neurobed. Sleeping in zero gravity was one of his favorite things about being stuck aboard the Great Fox. He settled in, the additional weight of being chased by a well funded, well armed, and well trained corporations private army, as well as their continent obliterating starship, settled heavily on his shoulders.

As he readied himself for a few hours of shut-eye, the intercom next to his bed sprang to life. "Fox! come to the bridge!!" Peppy's voice came crackled through the speaker. Fox tumbled out of bed and dashed sown the hallway. Once he reached the bridge, he stopped to catch his breath.

"What... what's the matter?" he panted.

"I've located his ELT."

Fox perked up. "You did? Where is it?"

"In his locker."

Fox pounded his fist into the wall. "That idiot!"

"But, I've got some good news. I managed to recalibrate the ion tracers to their maximum sensitivity. I found an ion trail that might be him."

"Might be?"

"Might be, but it's the only thing we've got."

"Alright, let's see where it goes."

"That's going to be a bit of a problem... the trail goes cold near a restricted star system."

"Restricted? For what?" Fox knew it could be any number of reasons. Harmful parasitic alien life, radioactivity, nearly anything unpleasant.

"It's an underdeveloped system."

"Shit..." Fox sighed. It wasn't enough that they were already being hunted across the galaxy, now they had to violate an even stricter galactic law by entering an underdeveloped star system.

"Any known sentient creatures?" he asked, rubbing his fist and stepping beside Peppy to view the monitor.

"None on record, it looks like there's only one planet in the habitable zone."

If the planet was uninhabited, he had a shot at getting down there, rescuing Falco and the Drive, and getting out before anyone was the wiser. The downside was if there was no life, then there'd be very little to sustain him down there. Peppy turned to him, the glow of the bridge casting a shadow over the eldest member of the team.

"What are your orders, Fox?"

He rubbed his eyes.

"Take us there, and tell Slip to ready my Arwing."

---

"Sir, the ship is ready to depart to the Star Fox team's last known location."

Barrister sipped a cocktail as he stared out at the assembled fleet from the bridge. "Good."

"Also... sir? Wolf O'Donnell here to see you," his secretary said meekly.

A snarl crept onto his face, though he kept his gaze out toward the corporate frigates and destroyers floating gracefully in formation outside his own massive flagship. "Send him in."

"Who they hell do you think you are?" Wolf growled, pushing past Barrister's secretary. "You think you can just take our money over one slight miscalculation?"

Barrister crushed his martini glass between his paws before glaring at the defiant mercenary. "You call losing the only thing you had to protect a miscalculation?"

"The deal was we didn't get paid if we failed, not you drain our bank accounts if we failed!" Wolf shouted back.

A calm fell over Barrister's face. "You're still under contract. You will get your original sum, and your payment in full, once you retrieve the Drive." He paused to clean his paws with a nearby towel. "Until then, you work for me. Now go get my Drive back, or you and the rest of your team will find yourselves deposited on a neutron star!"

With nothing but an extended glare, Wolf took his leave. "Maryanne, inform the captain I'm ready to depart."

"Yes, sir," she said, fetching a broom to sweep up the broken glass.

"By chance, do we know where they went?"

Maryanne hurried to her desk and opened the file marked most secret in red ink. "An undiscovered planet, X243."

Barrister hummed. "And we have our full complement of infantry divisions?"

"Yes sir, all battle groups are at ninety-nine percent combat readiness."

"Excellent. I want that planet torn apart until I find that Drive." He turned in his chair. "And dear, would you bring me another martini?"

---

Hat horse followed her companion up the ramp and peered over his shoulder.

"What in tarnation..."

"Stay. Back," Falco said clearly and concisely. Despite his enunciation, both horses looked at each other in confusion.

"What language is that?" Red horse asked.

"Ah dunno." Hat horse took a step forward. The click of his blaster being unholstered stopped her as he pointed it at the two of them.

"What the heck is that thing?" Red horse asked, stepping forward.

Falco fired a warning shot over their heads. The singed wood and bright flash of light was all the warning they needed. "Let's git!" Mac shouted as they both stumbled over each other and down the ramp, galloping toward the house.

He quickly gathered his gear and made a break for the forest. To be seen is to be caught he remembered from his survival training.

---

Applejack and Macintosh burst through the screen door of their home, startling Granny Smith and her houseguest, Princess Twilight Sparkle.

"What on Celestia's green earth's got you two so upset?" the old mare asked, nearly falling out of her rocker.

"Somethin' weird is livin' in Apple Bloom's treehouse!" Mac replied breathlessly.

"Ah can tell ya right now, it ain't of this world!" Applejack added.

"Not of this world?" Twilight asked, setting down her quill and ink. I guess the study into the founding of Ponyville can wait.. she thought.

"Was it Tirek? Discord? Did you guys pass any poison joke on your way here? It's been known to posses hallucinogenic properties—"

"No, t'ain't nothing like that!" Applejack panted, catching her breath behind her brother. "At first Ah thought Apple Bloom had just read too many comic books and drank to much soda, but we saw it with our own two eyes! It shot some kinda crazy magic at us!"

"Magic? From a non-unicorn?" Twilight asked.

Mac's pupils shrank to the size of dimes. "Applejack, remember when Apple Bloom told us she thought she found an alien?"

"That must'a been it! There's an alien on our farm!"

Twilight held up a hoof to contain her laughter. "Applejack, there is no scientific proof that aliens exist! And even if they did, what would they want with us?"

"Apple Bloom said he crashed here," Mac added. "She took me to a crater in the woods, but there weren't nothin' there."

"Twilight, ya gotta believe us! You know I wouldn't make up a tale for no reason!" Applejack insisted.

Twilight thought for a moment. She knew the element of honesty wouldn't lie to her, so they had to have seen something.

"Okay, take me to where you last saw this 'alien' of yours."

Macintosh led the way as they galloped back to the treehouse, intent on finding the alien of sweet apple acres.

---

Falco had made short work of packing his belongings, and hustled down the ramp. He had to make it into the forest before those horses come back with more horses. Once he made his way to the forest, he hid carefully in the treelike. His broken arm was quick to remind him that he couldn't move too fast.

Before long, he heard the hoofbeats of more horses. He turned back toward his former home to see yet another horse, this one purple with what appeared to be a horn and a set of wings. He had heard of unicorns, but had no idea what to make of a flying unicorn.

"All this proves is that Apple Bloom and her friends are in serious need of a maid." Twilight said, examining the scattered furniture he'd used for his makeshift barricade.

"Well what about this, huh?" That was hat horse. Falco slapped his hand against his forehead. The burn mark where his blaster had struck the wood! Leaving evidence was a major violation of tactics in an evasion situation.

As he drug his hand down his face, he realized the conversation had stopped.

"Did you hear something?"

I gotta stop making noise! he admonished himself, freezing in place. As if on queue, the communicator in his pocked beeped loudly, indicating it had finally received a working signal.

No way they didn't hear that! he thought, getting up to make a break for the shelter of the deep forest. Just as he turned to sprint, he found himself paralyzed. He frantically looked around him. It seemed there was a violet glow surrounding his body.

Slowly, he found himself floating out of the woods, his hand on his blaster, which was still stuck in his holster.

He was turned around to face the horses he'd met briefly before.

"What in Celestia's name..."

Author's Note:

I wanted to get something updated. I swear I've been working on other fics, but FanNotANerd just had to go and rekindle my love of sic-fi with that new fic he wrote. Blame him.

Comments

[Jake The Army Guy]

Guh... I love Star Fox. I love ponies! I love this story!

I'm an egghead...

[chief maximus]

4927125 so am I, Jake. So am I.

[TheWanderingPikachuPony]

IT LIVES! Haven't seen you update anything in a while, even if I know you've maybe still been busy with your Army duties and relationship, etc. And I'm not checking feed messages as often as I used to or tracking/read everything you've written as of yet, at least that's STILL going on.

Re-read the first two chapters again, though I hadn't really read them before.. well, in their current state anyways. Is Farnsworth named after the same one from Futurama? Though not the same as that one obviously, if not from the same story that Agent Bentgrass was borrowed from, but I doubt it (since you didn't say). Since that name just makes me think of him being named after that character (even if it's not very pony-ish). The first chapter was different in its execution I remember (since I did comment on that one way back then), but not sure how much, other than all of the members slipping away from Star Wolf in different directions during a fight. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Emoticons/shrug_Twilight_Sparkle.png

Anyway, as for my reaction to this chapter: DUN DUN DUN!

Well, this chapter definitely seems to be putting the plot in mind, a war that the Equestrians aren't gonna be prepared to face... well, other than the Royal Guard and the Princesses, etc. Not sure which team the news report was referring to: Star Fox or Star Wolf? Probably Star Wolf if I had to guess. And Falco's reaction to being found did seem a little extreme, when they weren't doing anything to him (even if he didn't know what they were capable of) but another story I read by a friend of the Star Fox variety did mention (if it was canon) Falco used to be a criminal, so maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch? Or at least, if he is used to fighting and being shot at.

Well, hopefully we have some kind of resolution coming up, where Twilight (or Celestia/Luna) can turn his language into one they can understand (without affecting his normally, with the later reuniting of him and Fox) or make him understand them without his translator, if not for the spare one he has. Or heal his arm, at least before his stasis suit runs out. Though I am not sure if it'll pick up right after the discovery, but probably so rather than taking him to the Princesses or locking him up for now, etc. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Emoticons/shrug_Twilight_Sparkle.png And hopefully, without being discovered/taken captive by Agent Bentgrass and his team, and without Apple Bloom and the others being questioned and blabbing. But they probably already have the ion drive he took (and lost ), if not also his ship, despite being camouflaged.

Anyway, I hope this story continues more in the near future, I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes!