“Oh man…” Falco slowly stabilized his ship from the nearby explosion that sent it reeling. Krystal had unwittingly crashed right into Fox, and now the bird strained with his flightstick, panning around to get his bearings and find them. “Oh…. Geez…” He’d found them. There was part or Krystal’s Arwing; just a single wing remained, embedded in the front of Fox’s ship. The vixen was gone. Her ship was nowhere to be seen amongst the sea of space borne debris that orbited the planet; presumably it had been what exploded in the collision. “N…no way… No way…” Fox was unconscious or dead in his cockpit; head slumped forward with a bloody gash from the shrapnel. His ship was devastated, the nose was gone, and his controls looked to be fried; smoke was filling the cockpit.
Most worrisome was that smoke was leaving the cockpit. There was a pinpoint hole in the glass, venting the thick gray gas in a pressurized plume along with the fox’s breathable air. It was getting worse, slowly. Falco watched, horrified, as the glass around the hole chipped and sent tiny, faint cracks outward from the pressure change. It was going to explosively decompress, and soon; if it did, there would be no more need for guesswork as to whether he was dead or not. “J-just hang in there buddy… I’ll get you…”
“Hey! Anybody out there?” Slippy chimed in on the blue bird’s comm. “What was that big flash out there!?”
“Slippy!” Falco fairly shouted back. “We just… we just had a crash! I… I think Krystal is… dead, and Fox is in big trouble, we have to get him back to the ship, right now! I don’t think I can just shove him back with my Arwing!”
There was silence on the comm. Finally, after a moment of nerve-wracking quiet, the toad spoke up, obviously upset as well. “…Okay, nudge his Arwing over towards the bow of the Vissago… I’ll try and catch him with the cargo loader arm!”
“That thing!? That thing isn’t made for delicate work, if it crushes his…” There was no time for Falco to argue. A tiny fleck of the cockpit glass popped out near the first hole in his friend’s ship, venting like the other hole. “Okay. I’m moving around him right now… hang in there buddy…” Falco carefully dug the pointed nose of his ship into a gash in the fuselage of Fox’s broken Arwing, almost face to face with the unconscious vulpine as he slowly lurched forward, pushing it along, hands gripping the controls a little tighter for each time he saw a crack snake across the cockpit glass. “I’m coming right for it, Slippy… you better know how to use that arm…”
The paddle-like grippers of the Vissago’s loading arm slowly opened, and it began to lurch out towards the two interlocked ships. It was a tool meant to grab special hooks on unmanned cargo skiffs and drag them into the hangar, not for delicate work like pulling a crippled starfighter back to safety. Falco watched until the grippers began to slowly close on them, he closed his eyes for that, and broke a sweat. “If I were the praying type of guy…”
“I’ve got you! I’m pulling you in now.” Slippy’s voice made the bird jump, but he opened his eyes and sighed in relief. Fox’s Arwing was still holding together. Slippy painstakingly pulled the two into the hangar and closed the doors. “Give it a moment; the vents are pressurizing the hangar now.”
Falco waited for the green light on his pressure gauge with nervous anticipation, finally bailing out and sliding down the wing to the hangar floor once the atmosphere returned. Slippy was in the hangar moments later with speed surprising for a member of his species. Falco was closest and beat him to the mutilated Arwing; the cockpit glass shattered to powder the moment he touched it, momentarily stunning the bird in a state of awe. “Whoa… It just…”
Slippy pulled their companion out of the wreckage, dragging him back from the smoking ship. “He’s still breathing!”
“Yeah, good work, Slip, move his spine around some more while you’re at it!” Falco took the fox from him and picked him up, trying to keep his back flat. “Get the doors for me, he needs to get to the medical bay!”
“Falco, his eyes are…”
“I see that, come on, Slippy!”
“R-right, come on!” The toad bounded off, opening doors and clearing boxes out of the way en route to the Vissago’s modest medical center.
--- --- ---
Fox woke up to darkness. He could faintly perceive a bright light in his face, but he couldn’t see. His arms and legs were bound to some sort of cushion that he was laying on, and there were faint voices speaking with one another. ‘Unhh… where am I? Am I dead?’ He thought silently, and sharp pains in his face answered him. He was most certainly alive, but as the pains in his face and chest returned, part of him wished he wasn’t. The fox shuddered from the piercing pains in his body, straining in his restraints and letting out a long groan.
There was a quiet commotion nearby. A moment later, the sound of a sliding door and two sets of footsteps quietly entering the room with him. Hushed voices. “I saw him move, I tell ya.”
'Falco.'
“I know, I think I saw him shake a little.”
'Slippy.'
Fox could faintly perceive his blue-feathered co-pilot lean in close to him. He whispered to him quietly. “Hey… you awake?”
“F… Falco?” Fox muttered back. “That you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me, Fox. Slippy’s here with us too.” Falco put a hand out to his injured friend and halted, his hand hovering over the fox as he struggled internally with whether or not he should touch him, and whether or not it was going to hurt if he did in the first place. Finally he simply took the fox’s hand and held it.
“Wha… what happened, Falco? Where are we?” Fox stammered slightly, the pain making it difficult to talk or think.
“You’re in the Vissago’s medical bay, Fox.” Falco sighed to him. “…There was a crash.”
“A crash?” Fox repeated back, in a dazed slur. “What’d… I hit?”
“Well…” Falco stammered. “You got a right to know… There was some kind of… trouble with Krystal’s navigation systems…”
“No…” It was coming back to him now.
“She hit you right across the nose…” Falco’s voice trailed off, and Slippy was equally silent.
“Where is she?” Fox asked, weakly. “Is she… hurt?”
“…she’s dead, Fox. I’m sorry.” Falco patted him on the shoulder, awkwardly. I… looked for her, out there, but in all that powdered debris… there’s just no way she could make it. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t find her!?” Fox tried to shoot out of bed, but was painfully reminded of his restraints. “Y-you have to make sure! She could be out there waiting for me to save her! You can’t just stop!!” Pain suddenly wracked his face and upper body as he strained and struggled on the bed. “Augh!!!! AAAAHHH!!!”
Falco held his shoulders down and Slippy grabbed the fox’s feet to stop his violent flailing. “Give him something already, ROB, geez!”
Fox heard a whirr and a click to his side; then felt a sharp prick. Cool comfort radiated from the spot with surprising speed and his mind clouded over. “I have administered a strong painkiller. It will last many hours, but his mind may suffer temporary side effects.”
“Great…” The bird sighed loudly. “Just what he needs right n…” The bright light in Fox’s eyes faded, and he could hear the groan of the ship as it lost power again. “Slippy!”
“It’s not my fault!” Slippy shouted back. “Everything was working fine when we left! ROB, run a diagnostic on… ROB?”
“Looks like ROB’s out until the power comes back. Come on, Slip, we better go take a look in the engine room.”
“What about Fox?”
There was a pause, in silence. “..I think he’s out. He’ll be okay until we get back.” Two sets of footsteps, and the soft hiss of the door as they pulled it open and shut it back.
… … …
“Uuurrrgh!” Falco grunted and groaned against a heavy blast door, his back pressed against it with his fingers behind him. He’d been working on prying it open for a good five minutes, and it showed in his expression. “You could help here, you know!”
“Well… I mean I..” Slippy stammered, watching his companion strain against the engine room door. “I have to get through when you open it and all… if I’m pulling, I might not have time.”
After a long, strained groan, Falco shouted back, “I have hollow bones! I’m not built for prying open this door! Gaahh… Who puts a blast door in front of the engine room and… uuuugh… Doesn’t put it on the backup power supply??”
“Maybe I can run down to the shop and get a powered set of clamps or something…” Slippy turned to head to his workshop, but Falco caught his attention.
“I…. Got it! Grrraaagh!” With one last heave, he pulled, then slid under and pushed the door all the way up, he stood under it and strained to hold it open. “Go, Slippy!”
Slippy gasped, looking past the blue bird into the room beyond. “Th-th-the engine room is-”
“Slippy! I can’t hold it! Come ON!”
“But… the engine room… how can that be possible?”
Falco could wait no longer; letting go of the door, he leapt backwards blindly into the engine room. After the loud clang of the door returning to the floor, Slippy heard the bird’s screaming as he fell, and landed with a loud thud into what sounded like cardboard boxes. Silence, then a muffled “Ow… What the he… oh, tell me I'm not seeing this!”
Slippy took a step back, shaking his head and trying to comprehend what he’d seen when the door was opened. “The whole engine room… is gone?” It was as if everything within a certain radius of the engine, walls, floors, ceilings… had vanished.
… … …
Alone in the dark, Fox sighed, still in disbelief. “She can’t be gone…” He whispered to himself, quietly. 'She can’t be… I know she must still be out there, waiting for me! I know it!' He slammed his fist on the table in frustration. 'Wait…' He slammed it down again, then both arms, then a leg. 'The restraints unlocked? Of course, they're not on the backup power...' Carefully, Fox blindly stumbled out of the bed, the pain in his chest and face spiking when he moved from his rested position.
“Help me…”
Fox’s ears perked suddenly. Was he not alone? “Who’s there?”
“Please… someone help me…”
“Krystal!?” Fox spun around to face where he thought it had come from and fell over, groaning. He was sure he’d heard her. “I’ll help you! Where are you?”
“Anyone, please, if you can hear me…”
Fox shakily stood back up. He couldn’t be imagining it… but the voice was distant, not coming from the room, not even coming from anywhere, it seemed like. It almost came from… “My head.” Realization dawned on him. Krystal was calling for help, telepathically. 'She's alive, but where? How is she reaching me on the Vissago if she's somewhere outside?'
“Please help…”
'The Aparoid spire, of course!' It had been amplifying her psychic abilities ever since they came into planetary orbit. If he could hear her now, so plainly, she must be on the planet, near the spire.
Fox crashed into a cart of medical supplies, toppling over with it and crashing to the floor, and it was there, on the smooth, sterile floor that he realized the scope of his predicament. If he couldn’t see, then how could he search for someone, let alone pilot a ship down to the planet? For that he was going to need help, he was going to need-
“ROB?” Nothing. No one answered from the darkness all around him. 'Main power’s really out, then… okay, okay, new plan. Think, Fox.' He felt slowly for a wall, and pulled himself up it, to get his bearings. 'From the bed to here, now from here to find a door.' He was in the medical bay; that much he knew. There was only one door out. Or was there a second door on the other side? He cursed himself for not walking his ship, not memorizing every detail in all the time he’d had idle on board. He’d always considered the Vissago disposable, a temporary thing until he could work his way back to a proper command ship, something forgettable and to be discarded. Now he was realizing how much he’d taken it and so many other things for granted. He never stopped to learn the ship, never stopped to tell Krystal how he felt… if she was dead, now, he couldn’t live with himself.
But that couldn’t be right. He’d heard her voice moments before, hadn’t he? Or was it the painkillers messing with his senses? ROB had said something about hallucinations… He slumped against the wall, only to be deposited on the floor when the door opened and dumped him into the hall.
'Ugh… the backup power must have turned some of the doors back on… okay, I’m in a hall, now. Which hall? I can’t remember…' He shuddered with pain as he dragged himself up to his feet, only to trip over a box and fall again. Damned boxes! They were in every hall and every room. How could he navigate through the cluttered ship, find the hangar, and pilot an Arwing in his condition?
But wait, that was right. They were in literally every hall, and he’d spent so long dodging them that he knew where the vast majority of them were sitting, since no one bothered with them or moved them once they were piled along the sides of the halls. 'What was that story dad used to tell about how people navigated the seas in ancient times? By the stars?' He would navigate by box.
'Two high… three sets.' The blinded, delirious fox felt his way past a set of boxes, nodding to himself slowly. Things were hazy, but if he kept focused, he could think his way through a mental map of sorts. 'Three high, two wide. Turn right here.' The soft swish of an automatic door opening in front of him confirmed his position. 'Good, good… I can do this.' Now he just had to avoid being caught, a feat perhaps made easier by the current darkness throughout the ship.
Vaguely injured, at this point. He can sort of see the difference between very bright light and pitch blackness, evidently, but he's effectively totally blind at the moment.
Vaguely injured, at this point. He can sort of see the difference between very bright light and pitc
