Three Strikes & Black Skies (Ace Combat x Star Fox)

[Fuggmann]

This one was in my incomplete idea thread on SB and was posted after bothering me for months. The damn broke, and now the flow won't stop. I'll put the next chapter up tomorrow, and within a few days, the 3rd one should be ready.

I guess I've been craving some sci-fi something fierce, and using my favorite Ace Combat protag in a universe with plenty of blanks for me to fill was too good to pass up.

If anything sexually explicit pops up, it'll get its own thread in the NSFW section.

---

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---

"What do you think, Captain?"

Trigger doesn't answer the man at his side right away, still taking in the beautiful sight before him with an appraising eye.

In the spacious hangar is a new, immaculate X-02 Wyvern multi-role fighter jet, the same model of plane that nearly killed him in the skies above Castle Shilage during the war.

"Captain?"

Trigger's feet move on their own, his boots lightly scuffing the floor as he walks around the jet.

The profile of the machine is the same as he remembers, but during his duel with Mihaly, the infamous "Mister X", every detail of the menacing bird was burned into his brain. This isn't the same plane. Not by a long shot.

It still has the angular, inward-swept wings, and Trigger spies the seams on the inner edges that allow the wings to fold in, turning the jet into a nightmarishly fast delta shape. It still has the upward canards along the cockpit, like the whiskers of a tiger. It still has its two underbelly intakes, to feed a pair of twin ERG-1000 thrust vectoring engines.

The similarities make the new additions stick out like sore thumbs.

All along the plane and nearly invisible in its radar-absorbent hide are what look like reaction control systems, tiny maneuvering thrusters, far too small to make much of a realistic performance difference. Just behind the front canards, the two most visible thrusters are set facing downward in the frame.

The engine nozzles are likewise unusual, with beefed up actuators that look as if they can turn the nozzles ninety degrees upward as well as downward. The engines, upon a second look, aren't the usual ERG-1000s. They're too large. It's not much, but there is more mass, as if there is more than meets the eye.

Ah, that explains the thrusters by the canards. A VTOL conversion.

Around the canopy of the cockpit, the edges and sealing are thicker to better shut out the outside world, and the canopy itself is thicker.

Trigger's hand reaches out, and he lightly presses a finger to the plane.

The feel of the plating isn't quite right, and it stubbornly rejects the warmth of his touch.

"You made this plane space-worthy," Trigger finally says, not asks.

There is a sharp intake of breath from the man beside him. "...You pieced that together just by looking?"

Trigger finally turns and looks at his companion.

His glasses glinting in the light of the hanger and a tablet computer clutched to his side, one Doctor Schroeder stares uneasily back.

Schroeder… During the war, the scientist played a key role in making Trigger's life difficult. Schroeder was a star in the now defunct Grunder Industries, having several PhDs in everything from biology to robotics, and it showed in his work producing the AI used to pilot the drone fighters Erusea is so fond of.

Huginn and Muninn, the most advanced drones deployed in the final days of the war, were Schroeder's masterpieces. Armed with AI based off of the Ace of Aces, Mihaly Shilage, and the most advanced airframes to ever see the sky, the pair of drones killed dozens of Trigger's fellow airmen.

Trigger downed them both in his F22 without a scratch, even chasing one into the cramped bowels of Harling's Space Elevator as it desperately tried to relay the data it gathered from him to the nearest drone factory.

As his types often do, Schroeder escaped prosecution for his actions in the Lighthouse War by instead offering his services to the Osean government. Now living under constant scrutiny, the Belkan scientist who nearly turned the Lighthouse War into a world-wide disaster puts his mind to use for the Osean military, building things like the fighter before Trigger.

'At least he seemed remorseful for nearly starting a never-ending robot war.' Trigger allows himself a thin smile, then he holds out a hand to Schroeder. "The specs, please."

Schroeder hesitates, then gives his tablet to Trigger, who begins to read.

Long used to reading tech manuals for planes, the Osean Ace homes in on all the relevant info.

He was right. This X-02 was built from the ground up for high atmosphere and even space missions. Life support, zero-G maneuvering surfaces, a secondary ion-based propulsion system for in-vacuum burns, everything.

He reads further, into the nitty-gritty.

The fuel system was totally reworked with bleeding edge tech, likely Belkan in origin. Low-Orbit Magnetoscooping sounds Belkan at least. The idea of collecting particles in low-orbit with an electromagnetic ramscoop, ionizing them and compressing it into fuel seems wild, but drones outflying humans was equally wild a few years ago, so Trigger moves on.

The pulse-laser weapons of Huginn and Muninn have replaced the cannon of the X-02S, and upon further reading, it looks like 'pulse laser' was just dressing for the less tech-minded brass. The actual weapon uses charged muon pulses. The now more-matured assembly should be good for hundreds of thousands of shots, and can re-arm with the plane's Magnetoscoop.

The final huge change actually forces a blink from Trigger.

X-03S "Stratos Wyvern"
Advanced Multi-Environment Fighter | Orbital Mission Profile Approved
Mission Ready Armament:

XMC-2A Muon Cannon
AIM-9Z Multipurpose Vacuum-Ready Missile 00
AGM-88X/A "8AAMS" Multi Lock Vacuum-Ready Missile x125
Gen 2 EML x100

Support Systems:
Directed infrared countermeasures (DIRCM)
Integrated radar jamming
Microflare/chaff multiplex launcher (zero-g compatible)
Early Warning and Predictive Threat AI

Trigger reads it once more just to ensure he got everything right, then he slowly turns his head to Schroeder. "How did you fit all of this in one jet?"

The scientist fidgets under Trigger's stare. "A breakthrough in Armament Displacement. It's still off the record."

For the second time today, surprise flashes across Trigger's face.

Armament Displacement, the name given to the space-bending tech that allows fighters to carry far more munitions than they should be able to, has been a black-boxed mystery for years. It was too power hungry for small scale applications, and rapidly hit diminishing returns when scaled up, but found its sweet spot in machines the size of jet fighters. Armand Yusef, the Belkan scientist who pioneered the tech, was killed in the Belkan war of 1995, and his discovery remained in its infancy ever since.

"You really are something, aren't you, doctor?" Trigger asks with a tilt of his head.

"That's not all," Schroeder says with a small frown, accepting the tablet back from Trigger. "We've been experimenting with Yusef's technology now that we've cracked it, and the results are promising. So promising that the Osean military wants to make a display of another prototype."

Trigger gestures for Schroeder to continue.

The doctor looks down at this tablet, swiping to a new page. "How familiar are you with Einstein-Rosen Bridges, Captain?"

"You're joking" are nearly the first words from Trigger's mouth, but he thinks better of it. "Space bent and connected in two places is the general idea; a wormhole, correct?"

Schroeder nods, eyes flicking between Trigger and the tablet. "That's the general idea, yes. But we're not talking about theoretical physics anymore. We're past that."

He swipes again and turns his tablet around. The screen shows a glowing ring encasing a fighter silhouette, trailing lines of telemetry data. "Yusef didn't just theorize about wormholes. He left behind a fragment of something else. A way to open them, in very controlled, very short-lived bursts. Until recently, it was too unstable to use outside of lab conditions. But with the miniaturized field regulators we've developed, that's changed."

Trigger's eyes cut over to the jet, then back to Schroeder. "You're saying this tech doesn't just store weapons anymore."

"Correct." Schroeder looks up. "We've figured out how to project a localized displacement event—a short-lived, traversable bridge between two points on Earth. Think tactical-scale teleportation. Not orbit-to-surface. Not orbital insertion. I'm talking real-time redeployment of strike craft mid-air, anywhere on the globe."

He turns the tablet back around, types an input, and turns it back toward Trigger. On the screen, simulation runs: the X-03S vanishing into a swirling distortion above Osea, then reappearing over Eursea less than a second later, engines flaring.

"Three seconds of stable transfer time," Schroeder continues. "One-time use. Each jump costs millions of credits and burns out a superconductive core the size of a soda can, but it's enough. You could launch from Oured and be over Farbanti before they even pick you up on radar. No warning. No flight time. Just—arrival."

"We're calling it Stratos Deployment," Schroeder adds. "The Osean top brass wants to show it off at full scale. You'll be the first."

Trigger is silent for a moment, pondering all the things shown to him. Once more he looks upon the jet, his stare locking into the tail of the plane.

There, his personal insignia, a wolf clutching a revolver in its jaws, stares back with its usual frenzied gaze.

Only after the war did the insignia feel fitting, for its how every Eursean pilot looked at him: an animal lunging for their throats with teeth bared.

A jet that must have cost billions of credits to produce, a proud, trumpeting military display of wormhole asset deployment, and all with him, Osea's Ace of Aces, at the helm.

Someone else might take it at face value, but after all his time in war and the ugly politics therein, it's clear what this all means.

Foes of Osea, you have nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Not even space is safe.

Trigger nods slowly, crossing his arms. "Impressive stuff, doctor. Impressive stuff."

---

The city of Oured gleams under a clear, sapphire sky. Flags ripple along rooftops, children weave between legs holding toy planes, and the streets pulse with fanfare. Brass bands march in lockstep with tanks and APCs, their music reverberating between government buildings like triumphant thunder. It's been a year since the Lighthouse War ended, and Osea is determined to celebrate the peace.

Dr. Schroeder shifts his weight under the formal OADF uniform, watching from the command platform near the plaza's edge. His eyes, however, are fixed not on the parade, but on the slate-gray tablet in his hands. The device feeds him a live stream of telemetry, its interface a dance of colored bars and fluctuating readouts. To anyone else, it's gibberish. To him, it's everything.

Stratos Deployment is online.

This is the moment. If this works, then he'll have redeemed himself, both in his own eyes and in the eyes of the Osean brass.

He watches as the LRSSG prepares to jump—eight fighters on standby at an airbase several hours away. The cores are charged. The bridge is stabilized. Phase distortion readings stay well within safety margins. Everything is green.

The parade announcer crackles to life through the plaza loudspeakers:

"Citizens of Osea, please direct your attention to the skies… presenting the heroes of the Lighthouse War—the Long Range Strategic Strike Group!"

Schroeder sucks in a breath.

A visual ripple distorts the air high above. It lasts less than a second—just a shimmer, like heat haze bending light—and then seven jets streak across the Oured skyline in perfect formation.

The crowd erupts. A wave of awe and applause surges through the plaza like a living force.

Schroeder frowns.

He counts again.

Seven jets.

Not eight.

The lead position—Trigger's position—is empty.

A subtle shift passes through the crowd. It's slow, but the ones who notice the problem whisper to their neighbors, who whisper to their own neighbors. The applause continues, but the energy warps, confused. Everyone is smiling, but it's with uncertainty.

High above, Count, Trigger's 2nd, moves his Flanker-D to the lead position in the formation, then guides the rest of the team in a long holding pattern, circling the parade like a flock of uneasy birds.

Schroeder's tablet lights up with alerts. His phone vibrates in his coat pocket. Messages from upper brass begin flooding in: "Where is Trigger?" "Explain the deviation." "Is this intentional?"

Count's voice cuts through the radio static from the holding pattern above, crackling through the radio on Schroeder's belt.

"Hey, uh, command? Where's Trigger? Don't tell me this is some last-minute stunt."

A pause. Then again:

"Command, I'm not playing around. Where the hell is Trigger?!"

"He didn't get left behind, did he?" Jaeger, another LRSSG pilot asks. "I hope not. My son's down in the crowd. It would be kinda embarrassing for us if he saw a flub…"

"That's assuming Trigger didn't get turned into paste by whatever quack-tech the Belkan cooked up…" Húxiān mumbles.

"Don't say that!" Count shouts her down.

"I knew this was a bad idea." Húxiān speaks again, heedless of Count.

Schroeder answers none of it. He taps in a call to the control room at the LRSSG staging base. It picks up immediately, too fast, and a voice on the other end is panicked.

"Doctor! W-we saw them off, sir! They all deployed clean, the whole squadron, just like the model said except-!"

"Except what?" Schroeder growls.

"There was a decimal, small one… One of the bridge field parameters drifted. We caught it after ignition, but Trigger's plane… we're not getting a return signal. No transponder. No pingback. He's just… He's not here."

Schroeder's hand tightens around the tablet. His stomach drops out. The data doesn't lie, and the absence on the readout is worse than failure—it's silence.

No error flags. No crash report.

No wreckage.

Just nothing.

Trigger is gone.

---

To say Mila is having a bad time is a bit of an understatement. Honestly, this entire mission has been a disaster.

Inside her junky V-16 Sparrowhawk fighter, the mink woman pulls a hard roll that makes the entire frame groan, and just in time, as a bolt of plasma flies so close it sears the paint off of her left wing. Another bolt steaks by overhead, and she curses when the bright light makes spots dance in her vision.

God damn this cheap hunk of shit and all of the cost cutting. Who doesn't polarize a cockpit canopy in this day and age?! Ugh, how did she even get into this mess?

It seemed like a simple gig for a fledgling freelancer like herself. Escort a merchant transport ship filled with drinking water to a station a few sectors away. Pays like crap, but even the modest amount of money will keep Mila's stomach full and her ship fueled for a few more days. The route was easy, so the merchant, a duck lady named Deb, was willing to take her and a few other freelancers loitering around a nearby shipyard for work.

Then a pirate frigate with eight fighters trailing it ambushed them, demanding everything they had.

When they were told that "everything they had" was just regular water, the pirates decided to space them instead.

Mila downed two, and her three, one-time teammates managed to take down two more pirates between them before they met their gristly ends. The merchant ship, totally unarmed, has been of no help, leaving Mila in a desperate 4-on-1.

'Even if I do shoot down these guys…' Mila casts a look of despair at the pirate frigate, a swooping 120 meter thing with wing-mounted engines and point-defense turrets trained on her. 'I'm not getting away from this one…'

It seemed like a great idea at the time, joining her planetary militia for training, then leaving with just enough cash for a down-payment on a 2nd hand fighter. She dreamed big unlike other girls. She grew up alongside her brothers listening to stories about James McCloud and team Star Fox, and the second generation of Star Fox helmed by Fox McCloud has already surpassed the first, so how hard could it be for her to be a rich and famous star pilot?

Mila's HUD flashes in alarm as a plasma bolt nicks her wingtip. She looks down at her radar, resignation making her stomach cold.

There are two blips behind her and one each coming from her sides to box her in. Mila shudders and grips her flight stick so hard that her claws cut into her palm.

'I'm going to die.'

Her radio crackles, and a comm feed opens on her HUD, showing her the smirk of a self-satisfied bulldog with a cracked, yellowed tooth poking out from his underbite. "Its nothing personal, girly." He says with a smoker's laugh. "Its a, uh, whadua call it? A policy! A no witness policy."

His smirk falls into a snarl. "'specially after you smoked Rodney and-!"

Without warning, the feed cuts out in an explosion, and one of the blips vanishes from Mila's radar.

The other pirates flail for a moment. "What happened?! Frank just got spaced!" One of them exclaims over open radio.

Mila checks her radar again, and she sees it.

Something faint, with the radar footprint of a gnat, is coming in fast. If not for its speed, she would have missed it.

A flash of white flies by at impossible speed, turning and missing Mila's flank so closely that her Sparrowhawk actually shakes from the engine wash. A flash of pink reflects off her canopy, and another pirate is turned into space debris.

"Jacky!" One pirate laments.

"You no-good bastard! You're fucking dead!" The other remaining pirate screams in fury.

Both of them break off from Mila to chase the white flash.

Or they try.

The pirates are flying HR-G11 fighters, sometimes called "Hurg!"s from their vomit-inducing lack of inertial dampeners. Cheap, fast, decently maneuverable at the expense of any safety or comfort, they're more than a match for any Sparrowhawk, and an ace pilot can be a menace in one.

Despite their speed and agility, neither can get a bead on Mila's mysterious savior.

The white blur zips through space with the speed of a comet, pulling turns that would make even a military grade inertial dampener scream. The pirates groan in pain over the radio with each harsh maneuver they fail to match, and the white fighter never lingers for a moment, not letting them line up a shot. That doesn't stop the furious pirates from holding their triggers down, sending plasma bolts flying out into the expanse of space.

Mila turns wide, angling her ship to watch with wide, disbelieving eyes.

The unknown fighter pulls into a steep ascent, baiting the pirates with a textbook feint. They chase, guns blazing, too eager. Then, without warning, the craft flips, not just pitch rotation, but a full vectoring reversal. Its engines swing forward, thrust-vectoring nozzles flaring as they counter the ship's momentum with precision that only comes from practice.

In atmosphere, that move would be called a post-stall maneuver, the kind of thing only the best can pull off. In space, it's harder. There's no drag, no lift, no natural stall to exploit, but this pilot pulls it off with maneuvering thrusters and engines alone.

For one impossible moment, the fighter flies backwards, nose-to-nose with its own velocity vector, before the main engines flare in an afterburner pulse, hammering the ship to a dead halt.

The pirates scream past him, their inertia betraying them, and for a moment, Mila can finally see the ship.

Angular is the first word she thinks of. The white fighter is flanked by two inward-swept wings made of harsh angles, like a raptor forged from steel. Its rear is taken up by a pair of massive cylindrical engines with equally air massive intakes on its belly, harkening to the pre-spaceflight days.

'Must have some crazy in-atmo moves,' Mila thinks to herself, looking at the cockpit.

Inside the fighter, a figure clad in a dark flight suit and full helmet sits easily, too easily, like this is routine.

The figure's head turns to her, and Mila shivers, swearing she feels eyes lock with her own.

The moment, which is in reality only a second, passes. The unknown pilot then calmly rolls back into pursuit, now behind the pirates, right where he wants to be.

Both of the pirates curse and split up, with the unknown fighter remaining glued to the tail of one of them.

The pirate fighter banks hard, weaving in jagged, desperate bursts as its pilot tries every evasive trick in the book, but it's like the white raptor is stuck to him. No weapons fire. No comms. Just presence.

Mila narrows her eyes.

Why isn't he shooting?

The pirate's panicked voice crackles over open comms, half-choked with fear. "I-I'm breaking off, pulling away! Someone get him off me!"

No one answers. The other pirate hesitates and doesn't pursue.

Still the white fighter doesn't fire.

It dances instead, every adjustment calculated, graceful, pacing just outside striking range. The pirate jinks left, hard, and the white fighter follows. He yaws right, cuts thrust for a stutter brake, and the white fighter follows. Every move mirrored half a beat behind.

Not just chasing. Studying.

A chill runs down Mila's spine.

She's seen plenty of pilots. Drunks, hotshots, burnouts with death wishes, but this… this is different. It's almost clinical.

Or instinctual.

Like a cat watching a mouse before the pounce.

She doesn't realize she's been holding her breath until the pirate's voice cracks again, rising in pitch. "Fuck this! I'm out!"

The pirate hits his main thrusters, trying to break away on raw speed.

The white fighter responds in kind, one fluid push of engine bloom, and it closes the distance effortlessly. It slips under the pirate's belly, rotates on a yaw-axis spin, and plants itself directly in front of the enemy's nose.

"Help me! Someone help-!"

Then, and only then, it fires.

One burst from a cannon Mila doesn't recognize, one with sharp, pink light, and the pirate ship blossoms into a brief, silent explosion.

The last pirate fighter says nothing, he just turns and flares his engines into full-burn.

Turning on a dime, the white fighter goes to rush the fleeing HR-G11 down, only to juke into a roll and dodge a barrage of fire from behind.

'Shit! The frigate!'

Mila looks back towards the pirate vessel, which is firing every gun it can angle at the mystery fighter, filling the space around them with multicolored flashes. With only one fighter left, it looks like they've given up any reservations about accidentally striking one of their own.

However, Mila's savior refuses to be denied his prey. A weapons bay opens on the fighter, and a missile streaks out towards the fleeing pirate even as the fighter wildy weaves between energy bolts. Then he turns and beelines for the large ship trying to swat him down.

The final pirate fighter fails to dodge the missile silently screaming towards him, and in a blast of debris and a truncated sound of pain over the radio, is no more.

Although the pirate frigate's comms aren't open, their panic is plain to see with how frantically they fire on the white fighter.

The white fighter closes in, directly from the front where incoming fire is thinned out to a single turret.

Flash!

Or it was a single turret. One blast of the fighter's pink energy cannon reduces the hardpoint to slag.

The sleek fighter slows to a casual cruise, then its underbelly bay splits open, revealing a long, cylindrical weapon that begins to glow.

A moment later, every screen on Mila's panel screams with a warning.

EM Spike Detected!
WARNING: Systems Disrupted!

"What the hell?"

She winces, shielding her eyes as her HUD glitches and momentarily whites out, blotted by a hard bloom of electromagnetic static. Through the dazzle, she catches sight of the weapon now fully extended from the fighter's belly, glowing with an ominous, pink-white corona of charging energy.

The noise over comms cuts to static for a second, as if reality itself hiccups.

Then the shot fires.

A horizontal pillar of energy lances forward. Mila doesn't even see it strike, not truly. One second, the pirate frigate is intact. The next, there's a smoking hole bored clean through its spine, from bow to stern. Inside, internal bulkheads split like paper as air, fire, and corpses spill out into the void.

One shot is all it takes for the frigate to die. Its lights flicker out in silence, and its engines go dim, shuddering to a halt. Without any power for its control surfaces, the frigate begins to drift away aimlessly.

Mila stares, unblinking.

"...Was that a railgun?" she asks herself. "On a fighter? Who puts a railgun on a fighter!?"

Out in the void, the white fighter begins a slow roll, as if searching for more targets. Finding none, it banks away from the wreckage without a sound as its railgun retracts. Not a word over comms, not a boast, nothing.

Mila exhales shakily, realizing she'd stopped breathing. Just her own breath sounds like thunder in the silence that follows.

"Who are you?"

Then her comms crackle back to life, and a message on all bands goes out.

"Thank you, thank you so much!" The voice of Mila's client blasts from the merchant entirely too loudly. A moment later, a video feed of the dramatic duck also pops up on Mila's HUD. "That was dreadful! Horrible! I can't believe our escort failed so utterly! I knew I should have hired those anteater fellows at the docks!" She says pressing a feathered hand to her forehead dramatically.

Mila frowns mightily. "I did shoot down two of them, you know!" she snarks. "All for pretty lousy pay, I might add!"

"Goodness, one of you made it?" Deb's sounds surprised and annoyingly put out. She looks over at Mila, finally seeing that her vid feed is up. "Well, you have my thanks, dear," Deb sniffs dismissively. "Now, may I meet my dashing savior?" She says, obviously talking to the white fighter.

For a long moment, there is no answer, and Mila begins to fidget. She stares down at one of her blank side monitors, the glossy blank surface showing only her own reflection. Her nervous face, with her red eyes, sweaty yellow fur, and disheveled blond hair is all she sees in return. 'I could really use a shower after all this.' The mink thinks to herself. 'Who knew fearing for your life would make you sweat so much?'

Then a new video feed opens up.

On the other side, a vaguely simian face unlike any species Mila has ever seen stares back with flinty eyes. The mystery person's skin is pale, and his hair is hidden under his helmet. His mouth is set into a severe frown as he flicks his eyes between Mila and something else, likely Deb's video feed.

The man takes a deep breath, then pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "God-damned Belkans…" He mutters.

…What's a Belkan?

---

Below are the names of some patrons who got to view this chapter early and felt like signing it. A huge thanks to them and everyone else who supports this story and everything else I write.

Spice_King, speedyzman13, OmegaEntertainment, GordianVapCat, AMeek, Wing Shot, Emeraldleafeon, Rinzoro, Ninjadanimo, Derpydude9001, Nithalys, Planetace, BrokenOlive,

 

[materialalternative7]

>Trigger IN SPAAAAAACE

Hell yeah. And some hmofa romance, too? You spoil us readers, man. Watched just as hard as BoC.

 

[Alduin904]

Trigger you damn LEGEND YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ampharos_Lord]

Trigger is going to fucking sweep through this universe, maybe count could accidentally find him too

 

[Fuggmann]

Take a look here!

I'm reader-funded, and need your help to keep writing indefinitely. If you like what you're reading and want to help out, see

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at the place of patrons. Patrons get to see 2 chapters early, suggest edits to final drafts before they go live, and participate in polls to choose what gets updated next during my moments of indecisiveness.

If you want to keep up-to-date on releases, use discord code

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As always, thank you for reading.

(As of this post, this story currently has no backlog. Backlogging will begin once there is 5-7 public chapters)

---

Trigger, even from a tender age, was never normal, and perhaps he was never meant to be, either in deed or in life.

The pilot's earliest memories were of the orphanage in the small town of Gaul, a few hours south of Oured. No one is quite sure who his parents were, as a kind soldier extracted his swaddled form from a building flattened by the Ulysses meteor fall. His parents were assumed dead, and after a few days in the care of some Osean soldiers, Trigger was surrendered to Gaul's orphanage.

There, he grew up amid other children. Some were torn from their parents by tragedy, either from Ulysses or the shortly following Continental War. Others, more cruelly, were simply unwanted.

It quickly became apparent that Trigger wasn't like the rest of the kids. The matron said he rarely cried as a baby, and stopped shedding tears entirely as a toddler. In his roughhousing with the other boys, Trigger almost always came out on top, either through will or through skill. Scrapes, bruises, and the like, he ignored. He picked up the lessons taught by the matron faster, retained the info more thoroughly, and drew connections that never crossed other children's minds.

The most profound skill he developed, though, was his spacial sense.

The orphanage had a small playground, and on that playground, was a basketball hoop. It was old, with peeling paint and the net long since gone, but it worked just fine and was a fixture in the kid's lives.

It only took a week before none of the kids wanted to play games with him anymore.

From anywhere on the court, from awkward positions or even with his back turned, Trigger could sink any shot. He himself couldn't rightly explain how he did what he did. It's like the position of the hoop was burned into his memory, and the memory adjusted itself perfectly with how he moved. Once he had the mass of the ball and how it moved through air figured out, he stopped missing.

The older kids were allowed to play dodgeball, and once Trigger was old enough, he made himself hated there, too. No jukes, dips, dives, or dodges worked, and his throws always found their mark. Trigger saw how their muscles tensed, the little tells and micro movements they made as soon as he set his sights on them, and he led his shots for fun-ruining effect.

One day, they ganged up on him.

Trigger had to keep moving, keep dodging. His own team stayed out of it and even fed balls back to the other side, wanting tough-guy Trigger to finally feel the sting of defeat.

Not that it mattered. By then, keeping track of everything moving around him and predicting flight paths was child's play. He wove through the barrage, catching some, and using balls to deflect throws that were inconvenient to dodge, all while remaining on the offensive and giving as good as he got. Even fifteen on one, he won.

As luck would have it, an Air Force recruiter was visiting that day to talk about military careers, and the astounded man saw Trigger in action. A conversation and a handshake later, Trigger was left with a card with a number to call if he decided the air force suited him.

Years came and went. More children arrived, some were adopted, but many just aged out like Trigger. Over those years, he tried to find something to do with his life, something that called to him, but every summer job and internship just wasn't right; it didn't fill the yawning void inside of him, one that grew larger and more hollow the closer adulthood got.

Young and lacking direction, he fished the old recruiter card from his things and gave the number a call. Later that day, he was in a taxi headed for Oured.

The physicals and tests were a breeze, so was bootcamp and the following stint in officer school. The instructors took notice of him, and he skipped flight screening entirely to pilot training.

That was the day. The day he finally felt it. The T-38 trainer jet he flew with his instructor, it felt a second body. His wings, his engines, his nose-tip, his flightstick fed him so much input from touch alone.

When they left the ground, Trigger banked the plane so he could peer down at the ground.

The land and sea below, and the sky above. It was beautiful, and the sight began to close the empty cavity in his chest.

The exercises his instructor gave him were too damn easy. A little yaw, a gentle roll, and the world's slowest loop. He asked for more, and his instructor went silent, before radioing down to command. "Alright then, Trigger," the man eventually said. "If you wanna be a hotshot, I'll put you through your paces."

The instructor had chuckled at first, thinking Trigger was just another overeager cadet. But that changed the moment Trigger executed a perfect Split-S into a tight half-Cuban, then leveled out without a single wobble or over-correction.

"Alright, bucko," the instructor had muttered, half amused, half wary. "Let's see what you've got. Try these on for size."

What followed wasn't just skill, it was raw instinct. Trigger handled the T-38 like it was a part of him, throwing it into maneuvers most pilots didn't dare attempt until months later. Barrel rolls, high-G turns, stall recovery, a full vertical climb, then a dive towards the ocean that had his instructor cursing and near-ready to rip control away from Trigger. Or he would have, if the man's body would respond under the G load. The radio lit up, the control tower was in a panic. Words like "suicidal" where thrown around. The plane's HUD was screaming with a terrain warning.

The adrenaline flowed and his blood sang.

Trigger pulled out of the dive with meters to spare, putting so many Gs on the plane that his instructor nearly blacked out, and cutting a white line through the water with his airwash.

The edges of his vision barely even went dark.

By the time they touched down, the tower was already buzzing. He'd only flown once, but Trigger knew they'd seen it. And more importantly, so had he.

Finally, he had found what he was missing.

---

Beep-beep!

Trigger opens his eyes and returns from his trip down memory lane. Looking down at the X-03's HUD, he finds that he's being hailed by his temporary wingmate, the yellow creature named Mila.

Following his intervention with the pirates, the duck lady captaining the merchant vessel Ladybug begged him to escort them the rest of the way to the station they were to sell their cargo to. Without any other direction to go upon, Trigger reluctantly agreed.

It was easy enough to plot an autopilot route that was slaved to the beetle-like merchant ship. The Wyvern's AI's managed it, and even established an uplink to the Ladybug's systems and longer-range radar. How it managed to interface with alien tech, he hasn't any idea. The AI even asked if he wanted to change the IFF tags of the Ladybug and Mila's fighter to 'friendly' without prompting. Trigger gave the okay, then resolved to keep an eye on the program.

After all the drones he's splashed, anything AI is getting the side-eye from him.

Once everyone was situated, the Ladybug took off at a clipped pace, her escorts on her wings and the last leg of the journey at subluminal speeds. It was a good thing that without gravity or air resistance, Trigger only needed to get the Wyvern up to speed then could cut the engines and coast indefinitely. "Subluminal" is slow in space, but the Ladybug's cruising speed would be screaming fast in atmosphere, and screaming fast speeds means fast fuel burn.

Trigger managed to forestall any conversations from Deb the duck merchant and Mila by saying they should stay focused on getting to the station safe, giving him some time to think over this great fucking mess he's stuck in. Four hours later, and he still has no idea what could have happened.

He got the brief. He listened to Count complain. He was told it would tingle a little. He got in his plane. He flew with his squad. Then with a flash that made him see stars, he was in space literally seeing stars, just a few klicks from a space pirate raid.

God damned Belkans…

His HUD beeps with another hail attempt, and Trigger blows out a sigh before tapping a button and opening the channel. "Yes?"

A video feed opens up, projected onto his cockpit canopy (Why did Schroder add this feature? What other nonsense is stuffed in this plane?). On the other side is Mila, the only survivor of the Ladybug's hired escorts.

Trigger really takes a moment to inspect her, still having some trouble believing what he's seeing. Animal people? He's tempted to blame Belka again. Genetic experimentation would be right up their alley if they quit trying to ruin Strangereal out of spite.

The video feed doesn't show much, just Mila's upper body and weathered bits of cockpit behind her. Yellow fur, red eyes, blonde hair, a short muzzle with a pink nose, and two rounded ears on top of her head. Her flight suit looks to be a blue color, and said flight suit is partially unzipped, showing off the choker around her neck and a bold amount of chest. If Trigger has to guess, he'd say she's a weasel of some sort.

Maybe it's just a virtual avatar?

"Hey, just wanted to talk a bit now that we're back in hi-sec space," she smiles. "I don't think we actually got to do any intros. Mila Minks is the name, and thank you for the save! I was nearly mincemeat there."

Trigger raises an eyebrow and files the 'hi-sec space' tidbit away for later. "Is that M-I-N-K-S minks, or M-I-N-X minx?"

The presumed mink girl flushes. Much of the color is in her ears, where the fur is thinner. "The former. You don't know how many lower tech ports and stuff mess that up when they ask via radio, so I have to spell it out often. Half my documentation is wrong and getting it fixed takes forever, So I just give up when they get it wrong…" She shakes her head and her smile returns. "I never caught your name, did I?"

"Trigger."

"Trigger? Is that your real name or a callsign?"

The pilot shrugs. "It's the name that matters to me."

"Oooohhh, mysterious!" Mila's smile widens into a grin. "Hey. How about we get a drink or something once we're in port? I owe you one for saving both my tush and my paycheck, and I gotta know where you learned those moves! You were like lightning out there!" She waves a hand with her pinky and thumb spread, miming the Wyvern flying. "You were all woosh! Bang! Seeya bastard!"

Small talk? Not Trigger's cup of tea. He is in need of info, but he's sure he can find out what he needs to without getting tangled up in anything else.

Despite that, though…

"Sure."

Mila reminds him of someone. He can't put his finger on who, but that niggling in the back of his head pushes him into accepting.

"Not much of a talker, are you?" Mila asks, amused. "That's okay. I'll still get those sweet, sweet secrets from you!"

Trigger's radar, still wired to the Ladybug's pings, showing him a massive signature with a number of smaller blips buzzing around it.

Looks like they're arriving.

Before long, the space station where the Ladybug is due to drop its delivery off comes into visual range. To Trigger, it's an impressive installation. A great, tower-like structure that must be nearly five kilometers from top to bottom and close to three kilometers the widest point in its center, with a number of platforms branching off into smaller sections. All around, ships of all sizes and shapes swirl around it like bees. With its pink nebula backdrop to complete the look, it's like something out of a sci-fi movie.

The radio crackles. "CVF Ladybug and escorts, this is STN-Kalibo III traffic control. We read you. Right on time." A pause. "CVF Ladybug, one escort is not transmitting valid IFF data. Unknown escort, respond."

Shit.

Before Trigger can begin to formulate a deflection, Mila chimes in. "STN-Kalibo III, this is MVF Slinky. The escort in question is MVF…"

"Stratos Wyvern," Trigger provides, hoping she's fishing for his plane's name.

"MVF Stratos Wyvern. His craft is damaged and that's why you aren't reading his transponder. We were in an altercation with pirates one sector back. Transmitting logs as proof."

The station traffic controller is quiet for a moment, then: "MVF Slinky, logs verified. A recovery team will be sent to the site within twenty-four hours, and you'll be contacted if applicable bounties are confirmed. MVF Stratos Wyvern, have your craft repaired before leaving Kalibo III."

"Acknowledged, control," Trigger says back, grateful for the quick save.

"CVF Ladybug and escort fighters, civil dock four is open and waiting." The traffic controller sends. "Sending vectors now. MVF Stratos Wyvern, do not deviate. If we lose track of you, station security will not be pleased."

The radio goes silent as traffic control disconnects. A loading circle on his HUD turns before the X-03's AI parses the incoming route data and displays a path.

Trigger takes his flight stick and follows on the Ladybug's wing. The dock they're flying towards is a great rectangular opening in the side of the station, and from the people visibly milling about inside, there must be something invisible over the open bay door keeping the station's atmosphere isolated from the harsh vacuum outside. As they fly closer, he can make out a faint blue-ish shimmer on the bay threshold, similar to the energy shielding of the Arsenal Bird.

The Ladybug breaks off, turning towards a side of the dock that looks to be segregated for larger, cargo-carrying vessels. Trigger's HUD points him to the opposite side, where a number of circular pads for smaller ships reside. Only a handful are occupied.

"Here we go. First time flying VTOL…" Trigger murmurs as the Ladybug slips through the atmosphere shielding first. He flips a dedicated mode shift switch on his controls and watches his instrument panel closely.

The X-03's mechanicals shudder, the engines angling down, the wings folding in, and the canard thrusters burning to life. As the plane passes the shielding into the station, there is suddenly air and gravity again, making the plane's previously mute engines roar as the craft wobbles and almost falls before Trigger ups the power.

From there, Trigger drops his landing gear and brings the jet down gently, right in the center of a landing spot, before killing the engines and silencing the plane.

'Sloppy. I'll do better next time.' Trigger frowns. Reaching under him, he pulls out an injection molded box made just for fitting under the Wyvern's seat. 'Bet this one-off thing cost way more than it should have.'

He pops the latches on the emergency kit and runs a quick visual inventory. Everything's there. 9mm pistol in its retention-holster, two spare mags, flare gun, sealed ration bars, water purification capsules, survival knife, first aid kit. No surprises, but also nothing particularly helpful.

The plane itself is fine. No alerts, fuel still plenty high, and only a single missile and EML slug expended so far. The situation with his invalid IFF is going to need to be addressed, though, and he's not sure how difficult that's going to be.

Taking a look out the cockpit, Trigger zeros in on the belts of the various… animal people around the dock, noting how many rough-looking individuals openly sport guns. Good enough for him. Taking the pistol from the box, Trigger belts it on and slips the spare magazines into his pocket before hitting the cockpit release.

With a faint hiss and a hydraulic clunk, the canopy begins to lift. Warm, filtered station air rushes into the cockpit, carrying with it a metallic tang and the faint smell of grease, ozone, and too many people living in too small a space. Not pleasant, but not wholly unfamiliar, either.

He stands slowly in the cockpit, taking off his helmet and pausing for a moment to look over the interior hangar from this new angle. The inside of the dock is less impressive than the outside. Patchwork steel, big gantries, overhead cranes, forklifts, boxes of cargo, and goddamned robots operating forklifts to move boxes of cargo.

Then there are the people.

Dogs, cats, birds, frogs, foxes, pigs, squirrels, rats, and others all clothed and human-shaped. If he wasn't looking at it with his own eyes, he wouldn't believe it.

'I suppose the virtual avatar theory is a bust. For aliens, they look eerily human.'

Most don't pay Trigger much mind, but there are still a few people in mismatched uniforms and tool harnesses glancing at him from a cautious distance. A few point at the Wyvern. One, a coyote lady in overalls and a crop-top, raises a handheld device — scanning it, probably. Others look like they're trying to figure out what kind of ship just landed in their port.

Trigger pays them the appropriate amount of attention, which is none, and jumps down from the Wyvern's cockpit, bending his knees on landing to soften the jolt of the drop. Walking over to the front landing strut, he feels around in its storage bay.

'C'mon, where is it? The manual said it would be - Gotcha.'

His finger hits a button, and the cockpit closes, hissing slightly as it seals shut. Now to-

"Afternoon, spacer."

Turning, Trigger finds the coyote who scanned his plane standing before him, a tablet computer held under one skinny arm. She's looking not at him, but at the Wyvern.

"She's a loud one, eh?" The coyote states with a nod, more to herself than him, then she turns her gaze to Trigger. "I'm your service lady for the day. You need fuel or maintenance for your ride? A muffler, maybe?"

Trigger waves her off. "I'll let you know after I discuss payment with my client," he deflects.

"Heh, same old story," she shakes her head with a smile and walks off, headed to another fighter further down the way. "Just ask someone to page Jodie!"

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Trigger makes his way over to the Ladybug, weaving between mechanics pushing tool carts and space-suit clad animals.

Only minutes after landing, the Ladybug's rear hatch is already open and a ramp has been lowered, letting forklifts start the process of unloading pallets holding large, plastic tanks of water. Off to the side of the hatch, the duck ship captain and Mila are in a heated argument. As Trigger gets closer, he can start to make out words over the din of the busy dock.

"Bullshit!" Mila points an indignant finger down at the shorter duck woman. "We got shot at and lost three fourths of the escort! I was nearly killed! If you're going to pocket my dead teammate's money, then I want a combat multiplier at bare minimum!"

Deb, who is all of four-feet tall, doesn't at all seem intimidated by the clawed finger inches away from her bill. "Dear, the contracts stated that all members of the team would be paid out after the mission, and the amount was fixed," she turns her nose up and fingers the pearl necklace around her thin neck with a feathered hand. "The intention was for an even split, and with only one to collect…"

Mila growls, then she takes notice of Trigger's approach and smirks. "So you're not going to give Trigger his fair due, then?"

"Beg pardon?" Deb blinks.

"Don't be like that!" The mink exclaims. She grabs the sleeve of Trigger's flight suit, making him frown, and literally pulling him into the conversation.

"You were swooning over the mysterious hero who burst in and wiped out the assholes threatening to space you, but now when it comes time for repayment, you suddenly get amnesia?" Mila gapes with bombastic exaggeration. "What would people say if I… Gave out the recordings of that daring rescue, then told people the victim was too cheap to slide a bit of cash her savior's way?"

Now the duck looks decidedly uncomfortable. "L-Lets not go that far. I assure you, I have my reasons for wishing to adhere so strongly to the spirit of our contract over the written word. Times are tough here in the frontier," she says, apparently missing the irony in her own words as she fiddles with her necklace.

Trigger crosses his arms, standing silent beside Mila. He doesn't glare, doesn't puff himself up or say anything clever. He just stares down at Deb. He keeps a slight forward angle to his stance that somehow makes the space between them feel very small, a little trick he picked up during his time in the penal unit.

The duck shifts her weight and shrinks on herself. "Now, now, let's not be uncivil…"

Trigger lifts a brow. "Those pirates were aiming to kill. Your ship would be floating in chunks if I hadn't intervened. Might have still been floating chunks if Mila didn't preempt two bogeys for me."

"I was going to negotiate," Deb says quickly. "They'd have backed down—"

"Sure," Mila says, voice sickly sweet. "They were definitely going to back down after saying 'we're mad your cargo isn't worth stealing so we're just gonna kill you'."

Trigger doesn't budge. "Your security team's dead. She's not. Pay her. I'm getting a cut as well," he says, daring the merchant to argue.

A beat of silence. Then the duck cracks under Trigger's stare. "Fine. Gods above and below. Eleven thousand credits each, including a hazard bonus, and not a credit more!" She says, taking a small datapad hanging from her generous beltline and handing it off.

"Imagine that," Mila smirks, taking the pad and tapping the transfer fields with practiced speed. "Suddenly we can all read fine print."

Hmm. With no bank account, collecting his pay is going to be awkward, and Trigger is under no illusions about how long returning home might take. This neck of the woods clearly isn't post-scarcity like so many sci-fi stories he's read, so not having money isn't an option. He's going to need food, a place to stay, clothes, hygiene products, and the like. Depending on how long Schroder and the rest of Osea's best minds drag their feet, he might even need plane parts, ammo, or some sort of official ID, problems that only a lot of money fixes.

Hell, there's a chance he never returns.

The realization sends a rare spike of dread through the pilot, and it's just as quickly replaced by resentment. Of course this happens less than a year after he exits a war where he was the fulcrum. His rotten luck wouldn't allow anything less.

For a brief moment, the lost Osean considers trying to find a legitimate government and beseeching them for aid, but his memories of his time in the 444th penial unit halts that dead.

His own government failed him and would have let him rot if he wasn't useful. For months he flew outdated aircraft on suicide missions, and only after dragging Spare Squadron kicking and screaming through successful mission after successful mission did they even consider reopening the investigation around Harling's assassination.

Trigger's hands clench into fists in his pocket. That mission is burned into his memory.

President Harling's Osprey hounded by Erusian drones. A simply impossible number that he had to shoot down himself. The rest of this squad felt like they were flying through molasses.

AWACS Sky Keeper screaming in his ear to do something as if that would help.

The unknown "friendly" loitering in his blindspot, one that Trigger foolishly discounted because the IFF tag was friendly.

And the missile that same "friendly" fired. It came from behind him and blew the president's transport to pieces, at an angle perfect for hasty conclusions around who fired it. Just like the transport, Trigger's career crashed and burned.

The first finger was pointed at Trigger, and the rest joined in unthinkingly to damn him. The Osean brass weren't interested in proof, because a scapegoat made the humongous circus that was a dead president go away faster. One court martial later, and he was forced into the 444th penal unit, "Spare Squadron", where he lived as a pawn with a proverbial gun to his head for months.

The whole plot was a smashing success for Erusia. Proof that their IFF spoofing worked, and they even removed Osea's most promising pilot from the war, all in one fell swoop.

Trigger takes a deep breath and calms himself.

No, Trigger's own government failed him and would have let him rot if he wasn't useful. If not for the innocent lives on the line, if his ability to fly didn't hinge on playing nice with the military, Trigger might have gone AWOL the moment he was out of the 444th. They never even apologized when the conspiracy used to frame him came to light.

So why would an alien state, likely one with concerns greater than anything Osea could worry about, bother with a total unknown? Considering the myriad of species he's seen, one more is nothing special.

Going it alone is the answer, at least for now.

Trigger looks away, to a far corner of the docks hoping to confirm a way out of the payment predicament he's in. There, he sees a pig man in almost stereotypical biker clothes pass a handful of metallic silver tabs to a short, coat-wearing raccoon in exchange for a plastic baggie, answering a few questions.

'So, they still have physical money here, or something used in its place. Osea was trying so hard to become cashless, and that went nowhere. I guess some things are just timeless.'

By now, Mila is done with the datapad handed to her and goes to give it to Trigger, only for the man to hold up his hand and halt her.

"I want mine in cash," he tells Deb.

Both look at him with surprise. "Cash?" Mila questions, glancing over her shoulder to the same corner Trigger previously looked at, where another drug deal is underway. "On a station like this? Doesn't that seem…" She twirls her wrist, searching for a word. "Risky?"

"I can handle risk," Trigger responds evenly.

Deb's lips draw themselves into a thin line, which is a feat considering she has a duck bill. "You have some nerve, mister! Demanding money from me, then deciding to be difficult about it! I've half a mind to say no and give you nothing!"

Trigger stares down at her, eyes narrow. "Reconsider."

No threats, no gestures, nothing she can act on. Just a single word to get her imagination turning. It's yet another tool Trigger picked up during his prison stint. Bandog and the other guards actively looked for reasons to punish him and the other inmates, including aggression towards each other, sometimes. Getting your point across in as few words as possible and without raising your voice comes in handy.

Once again, Deb doesn't last long before giving in, and hurriedly waddles back to her ship with a "wait here!" over her shoulder. A moment later, she returns with a full envelope that she shoves into Trigger's hands with a scowl.

"Eleven thousand in frontier barter notes," she says tersely. "If you're a scoundrel that was hoping for venomian marks, then tough luck. A reputable lady like myself doesn't keep dirty money."

Credits, frontier barter notes, venomian marks. Three money systems already. Fun…

Trigger slips the envelope into his flight suit and turns on his heel. "Safe travels," he mutters, walking back to his plane.

"Hey, Trigger, hold on!"

Mila quickly catches up and halts him with a hand on his arm. "Where are you going? I promised you a drink, didn't I?"

The man casts a distrustful look around the dock. "Will my fighter be fine alone?"

"Kalibo III isn't a fancy Lylat core station, but it's not… a total slum, either," the mink answers, looking him up and down. Her eyes linger on the Osean flag patch on the breast of his suit. "The guards won't let anyone mess with your stuff. How would the station suck the money out of everyone's pockets over and over if every ship that docks ends up on blocks?"

Fair. Trigger hums. "Is there a fee for docking?"

"First two days are paid for, courtesy of Deb," Mila raises an eyebrow. "Standard stuff even a cheapskate like her can't wiggle out of without looking bad."

Oops. Suspicious question. Trigger nods along and gestures towards the innards of the station. "Lead. I'll follow."

The other pilot grins, her suspicion apparently forgotten. She takes his hand and pulls him along, away from the dock and further into the station.

The hallways in the space station are cramped, even the ones intended for high-throughput. Mila takes him down a path labeled "Dining / Recreation" with a holographic, neon-colored sign, and the hall is just barely wide enough for three people shoulder-to-shoulder. Likewise, doors are narrow where practical and the only stairs to be found are steep fire escapes. The floors are merely unpainted grates with pipes and wires visible underneath, with access hatches here and there. The whole installation seems to be designed with the philosophy of being frugal and functional to Trigger's eye, which makes sense considering the hard limit on space.

As they go, they of course pass other people of all shapes, sizes, and species busy with their own affairs. It's a chore to not stare at them all.

There is a tired looking rat man in a bulky safety-orange EVA suit with his helmet, shaped for his snout, under his arm. In the fur around his eyes is some sleep crust, and he walks around everyone else absently, looking down at an urgently flashing device in his free hand. The airman can't help but sympathize.

A pair of cat girls deep in the bottle, one with purple fur, the other black with stripes, and both in risque outfits, nearly collide with him as they stumble down the way. "Sorry!" The purple one giggles as she and her friend turn down a hall labeled "Elevator - Lodging".

A tall, thin, and quite official looking woman resembling an ocelot in a suit speedwalks by, her eyes focused on something only she can see. Judging from the glowing, metallic implants jutting a few millimeters from her temples, that might actually be the case.

Trigger sighs, overwhelmed for the first time in what feels like forever. A part of him had hoped the Stratos Deployment went haywire, resulting in a crash with his concussed brain having a wild dream as help came his way. Then he'd wake up in a hospital, tell the brass and their pet Belkan Schroder off, then take up the flight instructor position the air force had been holding for him.

The more he sees, however, the more wild that hope becomes. He runs his hand through his short hair.

'Hair is almost too long for regs,' he thinks, unbidden.

His eyes fall to his impromptu escort's tail.

The appendage is covered in yellow fur that's a little matted, and almost long enough to drag on the ground. He can count each strand, and it sways a bit with each step. It looks real, too real.

Some way, somehow, this is all real.

Mila peeks over her shoulder and follows his gaze down to her rear, a flirty smirk rising to her lips. "See something you like?" she asks, putting more bounce in her step.

Trigger pulls himself out of his thoughts and doesn't rise to the tease. "Just thinking how tails would be a pain with sealed suits," he says, looking away.

The mink lets out a mock gasp of affront and takes her own tail, hugging it to her chest. "Rude!"

"Am I wrong, though?" He shoots back, his lips upturning just a touch.

Mila sniffs and refuses to answer.

The hallway eventually opens to a largeish, mall-like mezzanine with two levels, and if Trigger's mental map is correct, this must be just above the core of the station. The lower one looks to be mostly entertainment, as Trigger spies a small theater showing "Biteforce 3: Return of Justin Barker", a small casino because of course there is a casino, a few booth-like installations in a corner labeled "VR SIMS", and several other places to waste time.

After an elevator ride to the upper level, the two pilots peruse the various eateries and bars, before Mila goes "Here we are!" and pulls Trigger into the cheapest looking cantina of the lot.

The metal door slides open with a sound like a dying compressor, letting out the low murmur of half-hearted conversation and the vague reek of old oil, stronger liquor, and damp carpet that hadn't been cleaned since the station was assembled.

The inside is long and narrow, with a small handful of battered booths and the bar where a few patrons sit, one slumped over. Behind it, a pelican in a stained apron is polishing a glass with a rag, not bothering to look up at them. The shelf behind him boasts a full display of bottles, some labeled, some not, and at least one glowing faintly.

Only one of the booths is unoccupied, and it's swiftly claimed by Trigger and Mila. Before too long, a horse waitress with a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth walks by.

"What'll it be today?" She asks, pen and notepad in hand.

"A Cornerian Sunrise, please!" Mila smiles.

"Surprise me," Trigger says simply.

The waitress jots both down and walks back off. Once she's out of earshot, Mila turns and levels Trigger with a curious stare.

"Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how lost are you?" The mink girl asks.

Trigger raises an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm lost?"

"Puh-leeze," She bats her hand in the air. "No transponder, asking for cash, and asking about standard practices like docking fees? There is no way you're a newbie with your moves and that crazy fighter, so you're obviously not from around here."

She pauses as the waitress returns, setting down a pink and yellow drink in a tall glass for her, and a tumbler of dark green liquor in front of Trigger.

Mila takes a pull from her glass before resuming. "I don't think I've seen your kind around, either. You're a little ape-ish, but like, one step left of how they usually look," she says, lifting a finger off her glass to point at him. "So are you from a low-tech backwater, or a hero with amnesia, or… Oh!" The mink grins widely. "Maybe you're a super secret Venomian bioweapon made to cull pirates and silence anyone who crosses the crazies who still follow Andross? Well? Which is it? C'mon, the suspense is killing me!"

Rather than answer right away, Trigger instead lifts his own drink and takes a sip. The taste is similar to battery acid and it's strong enough to double as jet fuel, but it's not his dime paying for it, so he downs another mouthful before setting it back on the table. "You watch too many movies," he finally says.

The mink girl groans. "Okay, but talking seriously for a second," she wipes the humor from her face, taking a firm expression. "You saved my life out there, with the pirates. I was seconds away from being spaced, and I legitimately saw my life flash before my eyes. I didn't know how many regrets I had until then, like not telling my family I loved them one last time, never making up with my best friend after we had a falling out, never visiting the Minks home village…" She looks down solemnly at the table. "And those are just the big ones."

Chewing her lip, she returns her attention to Trigger. "I owe you. I owe you a lot."

Finally, Trigger realizes who Mila reminds him of, and with the realization surfaces a bitter memory.

She reminds him of Brownie, AKA Golem 2. An up-and-coming pilot with the potential to be an Ace, and Trigger's self-proclaimed rival in the opening days of the Lighthouse War.

A rival that never got to see the end of the war.

Trigger's fingers tighten around his drink, his knuckles white.

"I can't shake him!"

Trigger turned and pushed his afterburners to max, swatting down every drone in his way.

"Someone! Support!

The speedometer climbed, and the sound barrier broke, but it wasn't fast enough. More drones harried him, but went ignored.

"Mage 2! Support!"

His F-16 was groaning, fighting him as he pushed it to its absolute limit.

"Trigger! Help-!"

Then with one missile, her plane was fire and debris. When he got there, Shilage, her murderer, was already long gone.

Taking a deep breath, the man banishes the static-stained screams echoing in his skull and drains the rest of his drink, the sting and horrid taste good distractions.

Regrets, huh? He knows a thing or two about that.

"This idea of yours," Trigger begins softly, almost too softly to be heard over the bar chatter. "What is it?"

Mila starts. "What makes you think I've got some kind of idea?"

Trigger looks up from his empty glass, giving her the tiniest of smirks. "You're not the only one who can read others well. You're leading into something."

She huffs and crosses her arms. "You're just throwing points into the 'mysterious hero origin' bucket, you know," she says with a roll of her eyes. "But yeah, I guess I did have an idea. How about we team up?"

Trigger blinks, genuinely surprised. "Team up?"

"Yeah!" The mink girl is all-smiles again. "You kick some serious ass. Like, Star Fox levels of ass, but being a solo spacer out here in frontier space can be pretty demanding, so how about we partner up? I'm not a veteran, but I can show you the ropes as we go, and I'm pretty good in a dogfight, but clearly there's tons to learn from you. We can work together, learn a bit from each other, and I think we'd have the start of a dream team! Sounds fun, right? What do you say?"

"Trigger! Help-!"

Trigger looks away, focusing on a dent in the dingy wall.

If Brownie had known a bit more, had been a bit more skilled, would she have gotten away? Would she have lived to be the ace Trigger knew she could become?

What about Mila? Would she have gotten out of that scrape with the pirates if she had more skill to draw on?

"Trigger?"

He sniffs and swings his gaze back to the woman across from him. "I do have some things I can teach you, so…"

"So…" Mila leads him on, leaning forward.

Trigger leans forward too, his hand reaching out and fingers grabbing the zipper of Mila's flight suit.

Mila jumps, eyes dropping to his hand with a blush. "Uh…"

Then Trigger pulls and zips the suit all the way up to her neck, hiding her cleavage.

"Ack! Hey!" The mink paws at her neck as Trigger sits back down.

"I like being professional," Trigger starts, signaling the waitress for another drink. "If we're partners, then you should look the part, too."

"Every team needs sex appeal!" Mila shoots back, returning her zipper back to where it was. She takes her fruity drink grumpily and sips on it.

Trigger nods slowly in agreement, surprising her. "I know. But we already have me."

Mila laughs between coughs as her Cornerian Sunrise goes down the wrong pipe.

---

Below are the names of some patrons who got to view this chapter early and felt like signing it. A huge thanks to them and everyone else who supports this story and everything else I write.

Planetace, speedyzman13, Rinzoro, OmegaEntertainment, AMeek, ncskeeter56, Kaledux87, Emeraldleafeon, Ninjadanimo, EmpressKoyan/IdiotRaiju, Wing Shot, GordianVapCat, Papito12495, Derpydude9001, Spice_King, Moonlit Chaser, Iskierka,

 

[Azrel_Razgriz]

Thank you for, i love this story and i'm already waiting for the next chapter.

Also an Extra thread for images and technical data would be great in helping visualize what you are writing about.

 

[Fuggmann]

Also an Extra thread for images and technical data would be great in helping visualize what you are writing about.

Click to shrink...

Should it be a full thread? The only things I have at this stage are a picture of Mila and a rough map.

 

[Azrel_Razgriz]

Should it be a full thread? The only things I have at this stage are a picture of Mila and a rough map.

Click to shrink...

Yes, an Info/Index Thread for Data and Images of important characters, planes/starfighters, non-fighter/capital ships, space stations and star maps would be perfect.

You could also make an Extra Thread for Omakes and other canon,semi-canon or non-canon side-stories while trying to keep the Main Thread to Trigger's POV only as, while i don't dislike it when a there is another character POV to introduce them and/or their situation to the story, i prefer if the focus remains on the MC of the story i'm reading and not on other characters unless strictly necessary.

 

[TheFabulousCustodes]

Looks interesting, I'm in!

 

[William Seymour]

Looking forward to more chapters of this story, it is very well written and I am excited to see Trigger dive into the world of Star Fox. Keep up the amazing work and cannot wait to see more!

 

[Fuggmann]

Take a look here!

I'm reader-funded, and need your help to keep writing indefinitely. If you like what you're reading and want to help out, see

https://www.patreon.com/fuggmann

at the place of patrons. Patrons get to see 2 chapters early, suggest edits to final drafts before they go live, and participate in polls to choose what gets updated next during my moments of indecisiveness.

If you want to keep up-to-date on releases, use discord code

Join the Hive of Degeneracy Discord Server!

Check out the Hive of Degeneracy community on Discord - hang out with 4541 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

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and opt in to the fic-updates role for a ping.

(As of this post, this story has no backlog. Backlogging begins after chapter 7)

As always, thank you for reading.

---

Trigger snaps awake in only a second, a dream of tearing a drone in half with machine gun fire in the skies over Farbanti already fading from his memory. He blinks, mentally taking stock of himself.

The bare-metal wall inches from his face is dark, the bed under him is less of a bed and more of a slab with a mattress, and his hand is clutching his pistol under his thin pillow. Turning over silently, he looks over to the other bed in the small room, finding a blanket-covered form, back facing him, with only blonde hair and a pair of round ears visible.

Right. Yesterday wasn't a dream. Space, animal people, pirates, and all that.

The day prior, after drinks and some overpriced bar food, he and Mila went and secured lodging for the night. Renting a room on the station was simple enough, but the ever-fluxing price due to the station keeping track of vacancy in real-time added an unfortunate element of randomness.

They could have rented a small sleeping pod each for four-hundred credits, but two-bed rooms happened to be hovering at seven-hundred creds and some change, so both decided sharing a room was the way to go in the name of stretching their money.

Well, "room" is a generous word to describe their temporary quarters. "Large closet with two beds bolted to the walls" fits much better. Besides the beds, there is a AC vent on the ceiling, a holo projector in place of a TV, a single ceiling light, a steel footlocker at the base of each bed, and a touchscreen panel in the wall acting as a thermostat, projector remote, light switch, and phone all in one.

Not the most comfortable, but a single bed room with any standard hotel amenities started at an eye-watering seventeen-hundred creds a day, so Trigger dealt with the spartan space, even if it reminded him of his time in prison.

Standing silently, Trigger pulls on his flight suit from yesterday, belts his gun on, and makes his bed, making sure the covers are straight with neat ninety-degree angles. Satisfied, he opens his footlocker, taking a set of civie clothes from within.

Turning the pants around, he frowns at the sewn-shut tail hole in them.

After they made sure they had a place to sleep, Mila then took him shopping once she learned Trigger had the clothes on his back and nothing else. The official station market was closer than the port bazaar, and although Mila warned him that the prices were steep, he still wanted to see what was there for reference.

Since Kalibo III isn't part of any major trade routes, everything in the supermarket-like station store was marked up a heinous sum. The standard currency around here, Cornerian credits, seem to be a rough 1:1 with Osean credits with a few exceptions.

That's why when Trigger saw a single t-shirt in the station store was fifty credits, he turned on a heel and left.

They didn't get to explore the sprawling bazaar, which had its own entire station floor, as a dour-looking goat woman selling clothes and textiles from the back of her box truck-like ship was one of the first stalls. She had clothes for pretty much every body plan, but only a few sets that would fit Trigger's tall form, and no pants without openings in the rear for tails to slip through. After sliding her a bit of cash, the proprietor closed up the tail holes.

'Once funds allow, I should look into seeing a proper tailor,' he folds his clothes under his arm and checks the wall panel, looking to see if any shower stalls are open and the current price of entry tokens.

Twenty credits for five minutes of hot water. Guh. "Mila was right. They really do nickel and dime you," he mutters, tapping the button for a much more agreeable five cred cold water token.

Please see reception to collect token(s)! The panel flashes in cheery colors.

The walk to reception, getting the token, the walk to the men's showers, and the shower itself take all of fifteen minutes. When Trigger returns, his new partner is sitting up in her bed, her hair a mess and her groggy eyes focused on the wall, where the holo projector is playing the news.

"…rising tensions in Libret territory," the anchor is saying as Trigger closes the door behind him. The sound is low, but clear enough to catch. Mila doesn't turn to acknowledge him, still blinking slowly at the screen.

On the wall, a prim cougar news anchor sits at a desk with a projected starmap behind her, certain regions glowing red or yellow depending on some criteria. "- With supply convoys between Tantalus Transport Hub and the Outrim Spindle hit three times this week alone. The treaty brokered between the Libret Confederation and Lylat Outer System Authority is growing strained as convoys along their borders are ransacked, according to sources in LOSA. Pirate activity is expected to escalate in these regions in response to growing instability."

Trigger folds his towel and sets it aside with the rest of his dirty laundry, then pulls open the footlocker by his bunk. Mila grunts a tired greeting.

The news feed cuts to a shaky video: a long, train-like freighter limping through a starfield, its hull peppered with scorch marks and one engine sputtering. A clipped voiceover continues, "LOSA command says they are stretched thin. Captain Jora Vex of the LOSA 8th Interdiction Fleet stated, quote, 'We need more men, more ships, more everything! We're being asked to police eight sectors with one battlegroup! We urge travelers to stick to safe, well patrolled lanes and to exercise caution even then.'"

The scene returns to the anchor, who swipes a clawed finger across the screen in her desk before continuing. "For our major story this morning, the Free Sector Accord has filed a formal complaint to the Trade Union over what they claim is predatory toll pricing on the gate corridor near the Griath system. With only one viable gate in the region, smaller merchants say they're being squeezed out of the market. Likewise, colonies in the Griath system claim they're suffering from a lack of fairly priced goods. Governor Kai Lao of the colony of Killigan had this to say."

"It's outrageous," the feed cuts to a tiger with a rumpled suit, tired eyes, and gray fur dotting his muzzle. "The Trade Union knows what they're doing. By pricing out unsponsored merchants, they're inflating prices in Griath and every system behind us in the star lanes to the detriment of our citizens. The price of basic naonite CPUs is up almost forty percent this year, and our colonies simply don't have the facilities or capacity to produce our own on a proper scale, hobbling our ability to produce and repair everything from datapads to entire ships. Is this the thanks we get for braving the frontier and taming planets for the people of tomorrow?"

The feed cuts back to the anchor for a second. "Oliver Yelsav, representative of the Trade Union, had this to say in reply."

"It's not our intention to cause unrest in Griath," A, fittingly enough, vulture on the holo screen says, adjusting his tie. Behind him is a fountain made of a silvery metal inlaid with circuit-like lines of brilliant yellow, and behind that, a large, glittering skyscraper, whose sign is partially cut off by the camera angle. "Nor is the Trade Union 'pricing out' non-affiliates. The toll increases are part of a joint fundraising initiative with AstroNet Assembly intended to fund the building of another set of gates and the clearing of a new star lane. We understand that the good people of Griath are experiencing moderate financial distress, and the Trade Union extended its sympathies with attempted aid, but the brokering of relief deals with system leadership has been stubbornly refused time and again. We with the Trade Union urge the peoples of Griath to pen your governors and local leaders to express your dissatisfaction with their inaction."

Slipping off the shower sandals the reception desk provided and putting them neatly in the corner for the housekeeper, Trigger keeps an eye on the news. The vulture, Yelsav, speaks so smoothly that he's almost tempted to believe the words at face value.

Almost.

"Meanwhile, representatives from the Lylat Diplomatic Corps have reiterated their intent to maintain neutrality in all frontier disputes, despite calls from several outlying colonies for LOSA intervention. Senator Carith of Corneria spoke before the Planetary Assembly yesterday, saying, quote, 'We cannot afford to extend our patrol net or step into disputes without the cooperation of regional players.' No official statement yet from General Pepper or Fleet High Command. The full story, at seven."

Mila finally speaks, voice rough. "Same as always," she mutters. "Talk big, act small."

Trigger gives a noncommittal grunt, but he's dedicating everything he hears to memory. Many of the names and terms mean little right now, however.

The anchor continues, unfazed. "And finally, a spike in high-tech thefts across several sectors in Sovereign Reach space has prompted a formal investigation. According to reports, unknown parties have been stealing warpdrive cores, advanced reactor parts, and even weapons systems from salvage yards and under-guarded depots. The unknown parties have made use of advanced surveillance countermeasures during their raids, leaving security footage corrupted. Experts fear a buildup of power somewhere off-grid and suspect Andross loyalists as possible culprits, but no group has claimed responsibility. That story, at nine. Lylat Yonder News eXpress will return after these messages."

Mila turns to Trigger as a commercial takes over the screen. "Guess it's shaping up to be another fun week in the outer lanes." She runs a hand through her fur, then squints at him. "You sleep alright?"

"Well enough," He says simply.

"You sure? You're up way early. It's only…" She rubs her eyes and looks at the clock in the corner of the holo screen. "Six-thirty Cornerian standard."

He nods again, sitting on his bunk and raising an eyebrow at the commercial on-screen, showing an ad for a 'nano-vibration' brush that claims to be good for any fur type. "I usually get up early."

The mink girl groans and throws her blanket off, standing. "Of course I join up with a morning guy. I want to sleep in on the weekends, you hear?" she declares, straightening her shorts and sleeping top.

A frown flashes past Trigger's face. "When operations allow," he shoots back, before flipping a little blue coin Mila's way.

She fumbles the catch and almost drops it, but once it's in her hand, she holds it up to the light with a smile. "A shower token? For me? Maybe I judged you too quickly Tri-" She cuts herself off and squints at the coin. "Trigger? This is for five minutes of cold water."

"Overestimated. I didn't need two."

The mink's shoulders slump. "Fuck me. What have I gotten myself into?"

---

"What do you mean there isn't any shielding!?!"

"Were my words unclear?"

Jodie, the mechanic assigned to Trigger's landing pad, looks at him as if he's lost his mind. Her brown eyes switch between Trigger's blank face and the datapad in her hand, as if one of them will change with enough incredulous, uncomfortable stares.

Trigger, however, isn't really sure what the big deal is.

The coyote woman licks her lips, trying to find the words she wants. "Mister Trigger, I… I don't…" She sighs in exasperation and spreads her arms in a 'fucking really?' gesture. "None of the things I encountered during my inspection for your transponder repair make any sense. Let's go down the line."

She turns her datapad around and shows the man the screen, pointing at the top line with a gloved finger. "I checked your weapons and fuel core first thing. Standard safety stuff, making sure you didn't park a time bomb in the station. What do I find in the nose gun? A god-damned charged particle cannon!"

"Muon cannon, to be precise."

Trigger's interjection is ignored as the mechanic continues, slowly picking up steam. "How did you miniaturize a charged particle cannon? These things need a dedicated proton accelerator, and you need a full battleship with a secondary reactor at minimum to fit all the fixings onto one ship and power it all!"

"I didn't miniaturize it," Trigger answers back calmly.

"Then who did?"

"The fighter's designer."

The coyote's eyes bore into him with a glare. "Oh, you're real cute. Fine, be a smart ass. Answer me this, though. Why is there a railgun in that bird's belly? I can tell you've fired it from the oxide on the inside of the assembly. How are you powering an energy hog like that? And how is the ship still in one piece? The recoil should have sheared the whole thing in half, or blown the railgun off after the first shot!"

"Powered by large capacitors that charge between shots. EML sits on a sled with a gel piston. Handles recoil well. Didn't feel much," Trigger waves his hand dismissively.

Jodie's hands tighten around her datapad, the leather of her gloves making a creaking sound. "Gel? Not anti-grav? How big is the slug it's tossing?"

Trigger rubs his chin, thinking. "Tungsten. About fifty-five kilograms."

"And the muzzle velocity?"

"Seventeen thousand meters per second in standard atmosphere. Probably faster in space."

The mechanic looks down at her datapad, punching in the numbers and shaking her head. She regards the output pensively, and enters her calculations again. "That… That's not possible. You're telling me a gel piston is handling almost two-hundred meganewtons of force? And you can actually control it and not instantly explode?"

"Yes," Trigger answers back, deadpan as ever.

Mila, who is watching the exchange off to the side, gives her two cents. "It's nutty, but I watched Trigger absolutely gut a frigate with one shot of his railgun, so it seems legit to me."

Jodie lets out a ragged sigh and rubs her forehead. "You know what? I'm not even going to ask why the munitions bay is ten-times bigger than it should be. Something tells me I won't get a real answer. That ain't even the most egregious thing, so let's move on to the bad shit. Why are there no shields, Mister Trigger? Don't you dare tell me a bird this pretty wasn't designed with them."

When Trigger says nothing, Jodie drums her fingers on her arm quietly for a moment before losing patience "Well?"

"You clearly said not to tell you my fighter was designed without shields, so I didn't," he replies, his lips twitching.

The coyote woman's palm slaps across her face, and a brown eye glares at him through her fingers. "Are you going to take this seriously, or do I need to get another mechanic for you?"

Trigger wipes any humor from his face and regards the mechanic evenly. "You don't need to worry about my pla - ship," he corrects himself at the last moment. "All I need is a valid IFF. Everything else is inconsequential."

"It's not inconsequential!" Jodie hollers back, drawing a few eyes that just as quickly look away, though some ears around remain perked. "No shields! No armor! No inertial dampeners! Glass canopy! Alloy construction! Hydrocarbon fuel! And a life support system so piss-poor that it would be outlawed in even the lowest, most rundown parts of the galactic arm!"

She whirls around to face the Wyvern, her tail whipping. Then she spreads her arms. "It's a beautiful, unreal bird. Such fine lines, painstaking fit and finish, every wire straight and every weld neat…"

Then she throws her head back and claws at her hair. "And it's a god-damned deathtrap! Catch one bolt, one burst of flak, a single sweep from a laser, and you'd be dead! That's if one of the weapons doesn't fail, or the spacial imposition hazard in the belly doesn't go off!" She turns back around, eyes wild. "Do you understand what kind of flying clusterfuck this thing is?!? How easily you could be killed?!"

Trigger doesn't reply right away, instead giving the coyote time to catch her breath. "Every time I take hold of a flight stick," he begins. "I'm reminded."

The wind falls from Jodie's sails, and her shoulders slump. Still, she looks between him and the Wyvern, biting her lip. "It's not safe. Not officially spaceworthy and not cleared for take-off as it is, and an IFF refit won't change that. That's my stance as a mechanic of Kalibo-III."

Disappointing, but Trigger nods. "Will I need to fight my way out?"

Beside him, Mila stiffens and gives him a pensive, uncomfortable stare.

Unease passes Jodie's face so briefly, that Trigger nearly misses it. "No," she shakes her head. "No. You won't. I can't clear this thing to leave in the state it's in. Libret Confederation law won't let me, but I'm sure I can get it in a proper minimum-legal spec before the end of the day. You need more life support than just a CO2 scrubber and a rubber gasket to seal the cockpit."

A sigh escapes the human's mouth. "My funds are limited."

"I'll do it pro bono," the mechanic says back, a hint of desperation in her voice. She takes a step towards him, both her hands gripping her datapad. "I'll source the parts, do the install, and you can be on your way. Simple as that."

Trigger's eyes narrow.

"I don't mean to sound… well, mean, but why go that far for a stranger?" Mila asks what Trigger is thinking, a confused frown on her face.

"It's…" Jodie sets her jaw, conflict in her eyes. She looks away briefly. "I don't want you getting spaced to blowback on me, is all," she replies flatly.

Mila's red eyes settle into a glare. "There's more to it than that. C'mon, spill!"

"How long will this take?" Trigger asks calmly, raising a hand to forestall any further interrogation from Mila.

Jodie looks down at her datapad, pressing a few buttons. "Three or four hours, give or take."

Nodding, Trigger makes himself comfortable on a nearby crate forgotten by one of the robot-driven forklifts. "Go on," he waves a hand.

Her muzzle rising into a small smile, the woman jogs off, dodging between a laughing group of mercs and a forklift moving a small engine.

Once she's out of earshot, Mila hops up on the crate where Trigger is and sits at his side. "Are you sure that was a good idea? Just trusting her like that?"

"I don't trust her. It's why I'm staying and watching," he says back, watching a distant ship that looks like a space-version of a tugboat make its landing, its outer hull covered in cylindrical containers. "Can you find us a job while I'm here? Don't care what we do, so long as the pay is worthwhile."

The mink nods, her frown easing. "I bet with Griath getting starved out, we can probably get a job as escorts headed that way easy, and for some half-decent creds, too," she muses aloud. "I'll ask around. Don't have too much fun without me!" She hops off the crate and waves over her shoulder.

In a few minutes, Jodie returns with a toolbox slung under one arm and a hovering cart piled high with parts balanced in front of her. Coils of tubing, a sealed canister labeled O₂ Reclaimer Type 3, and several matte-black life support modules are strapped to the top. She looks slightly winded but determined, with a stylus clenched between her teeth and her grimy datapad cradled in one elbow.

"I had to twist a few arms, but we're set," she huffs, easing the cart to a stop beside the Wyvern. "The new seal's a maglock ring—guaranteed to hold come hell or high water. The scrubber's military surplus, Solana shipyards model, about two generations back. It ain't pretty, but it's double redundant."

She sets the toolbox down and taps on her pad, then frowns and taps it again, only for nothing to happen.

"Hey!" She calls over her shoulder to Trigger. "Why's your ship so finicky with maintenance commands? It took me an hour to find one that would open the weapon bay yesterday, then it freaked out and wouldn't open the canopy until I brute forced it. Now it's not responding at all!"

Maintenance commands? He's not sure he likes the idea of anyone being able to give commands to his fighter, but he's also wondering why it stopped. Just incompatible software?

A thought crosses him, and Trigger frowns, hoping what he's thinking isn't the case. "Stratos Wyvern!" he barks. "Allow external interfacing for maintenance!"

This time when Jodie taps her pad, the Wyvern's cockpit canopy opens with a hydraulic hiss.

God damn it. The AI in the Wyvern is making his blood boil. The airman expected a slightly more useful missile alert, and instead the machine was making its own calls.

Like a Eursean drone.

"No shields, but a voice-activated standalone mode?" Jodie mutters, clipping her datapad to her overalls. "Not my first choice in options."

Jodie climbs up the wing, and the cart filled with parts hovers up with her, then she gets to work.

Trigger stays quiet as she goes, only glancing over occasionally. It's clear she knows her way around ship guts. He watches her remove tubing, disconnect the existing gel-ring from the canopy lip with what looks like a heated prybar, and carefully install a modular magseal kit in its place. It looks more or less the same as the rubber seal, but with a pair of wires to power it hanging off the end.

Then she installs the second set of seals along the edge where the canopy comes down to seal the cockpit, taking care to make allowance for the latches. After she wires everything, the coyote lowers and raises the canopy several times before she's satisfied.

After half an hour of quiet work, Jodie speaks again.

"This bird's got weird bones," she says, tapping something Trigger can't see from his position. "Parts of it look modular, almost like they were swapped out or repurposed. The scrubber was a travesty, and your whole avionics housing looks… transplanted."

Trigger crosses his arms. "It's a prototype."

"Explains a lot," she mutters, then slides back out of the cockpit.

As she climbs down, she wipes her hands on a rag and squints up at him.

"I'm gonna run pressure and integrity checks once I finish routing the secondary lines. Then you'll be good for vacuum, jumps, and any other spacer shit you get into. Just… don't take this crate through a radiation belt or anything. The shielding's about as thick as a tortilla."

Trigger cracks a faint smile. "I'll keep that in mind."

She grins back—just for a second—then turns serious again and reaches for the next tool.

"Two more hours. Then she's yours."

---

As Mila expected, finding a merchant headed southward towards the Griath system doesn't take long at all. The LYNX broadcast this morning must have lit a fire under the more daring traders, because the station's bulletin board was suddenly filled with requests for escort fighters.

Mila picks a few, then sets out to the port to meet the clients in question. Most end up being busts, but the last one…

Rolling up her sleeve and gazing down at her wrist-pad, she gives it a tap and brings up the profile of the last client, dodging around people as she walks. "Okay, freighter 'Haul-o-Rex' in spot O-2 and O-3? Which should be right…" She looks up. "Aha!"

Parked precariously close to its neighbors and almost spilling out of its spot is a huge freighter ship, two-hundred meters long easily. The massive industrial thing looks a little like a pre-spaceflight semi truck, with the raised bridge in the rear, a long body with slots for cargo containers, and a reverse thruster on the nose that looks like a truck grill.

It's a wonder the station let it land inside. It takes up two oversize landing pads and getting it through the atmo-shielding without smacking the threshold must have taken some piloting talent. Idly, she wonders if Trigger could pilot a larger ship with the same grace he does his Wyvern.

A giggle escapes her as she imagines the hulk before her pirouetting through the void with Trigger's sour mug at the helm, then she makes her way closer.

The freighter's final few cargo pods are being loaded and slotted in by the gantry cranes above, which whine and grind in their rails, dropping flakes of rust on anyone below. Crew from both the station and the freighter help the process, with a hard hat-clad dog directing the crane with orange light batons. Others shine lights into the crevices where the pods latch to the ship, inspecting the seals, and one man walking along the spine of the ship steps out onto the topmost pods, stomping on them to make sure they're on tight. A stunt like that would instantly materialize the dock safety authority behind him on a core world.

Not just one agent. The whole damn authority.

It doesn't take much searching to find the captain. Off in the corner of landing spot O-3 and busy typing in a laptop on a fold-up desk, an older badger sits, glancing up at the workers around him from time to time. If his ship doesn't give away his wealth, then the desert Katianan finery he's wrapped in does. By his side, an armored doberman with a comlink in his ear and a PDW in his hands stands, looking bored. The bored look morphs into something much more alert as Mila approaches.

She's gotta hand it to the guard. He focuses far more on the blaster strapped to her leg than her chest.

As she approaches, the guard (or lieutenant. It's hard to tell sometimes) takes a step forward. "Got business?" He asks gruffly.

"That I do," she smiles. "I saw the bulletin for escort fighters, and I'd like to speak with Mister Farworth," she winks at the badger behind the desk.

The inside of the old guy's ears turn pink, and Mila smiles a little wider.

Jackpot.

"If you want to apply," the lieutenant begins, frowning. "Then I'm the one you-"

"I'll handle this one!" The captain interjects, stopping his crewman short. "Of course my dear! You heard correctly. I'm on my way to the hub in the Tantalus system for an offload!" Farworth says, closing his laptop terminal and giving Mila his full attention. "I have a few more spots I'd like to fill for two full teams of escorts."

"That's wonderful, Mister Farworth!" Mila gushes, really playing it up. "I was hoping you could find space for me and my teammate in your escort. See, we're independent spacers and we're really hitting our stride. Why, just in our last mission, we saw our client through an ambush! Eight pirate fighters and even a frigate!"

Trigger did most of the work fixing that clusterfuck, but it's better to let imaginations fill the blanks here.

"Eight fighters and a frigate?" Farworth echoes, clearly impressed as his eyes widen. "My, that's no small feat! And you came out unscathed?"

"Not a scratch," Mila says with a laugh, brushing a lock of hair from her face and not mentioning her dead wingmates. "Our client didn't have a single scorch on her hull, and not a single quality seal broken on her cargo."

Farworth gives a low whistle. "Sounds like you're the kind of pilots who could keep my crew out of a lot of trouble."

"We absolutely are," she replies, resting one hand lightly on the desk and leaning in just enough to push her bust out, drawing the old badger's attention fully. "We have another job lined up," she fibs, "but if I'm being honest, we'd rather join on with someone…" She casts an eye to his hauler and bites her lip cutely, forcing a blush to shine through her fur. "Larger."

The lieutenant clears his throat loudly. "Captain, I do need to verify crew claims. Her transponder codes, loadout logs—"

"Lieutenant, please," Farworth says with a sharp glance. "I believe I'm capable of evaluating candidates. You're here to keep the riffraff away, not grill guests."

The doberman stiffens but holds his tongue, his eyes flicking from Mila to his captain and back again with clear disapproval.

Mila's smile never falters. "I'd be more than happy to transmit our registry and current loadouts. Everything's above board. Even installed some new life support this morning. Kalibo-III certified." She gives a theatrical little sigh of relief, pulling open her flight suit just a tiny bit more, like she was airing out her fur. "Before that, it got so hot in the cockpit."

Farworth gulps, the inside of his ears red once more. "Too true, my dear. Nothing worse than stale, warm air." He tries, keyword being tries, to compose himself. "If your paperwork's in order, and you've handled live combat before, I've no reason to doubt your ability."

"I'll get you those credentials in just a tick," Mila says with a giggle and another wink, making Farworth pull at his collar.

The lieutenant leans in toward Farworth, voice low but clearly annoyed. "Sir, she's giving a sales pitch. I've heard half a dozen like it this week. At least let me check—"

"She's confident. She's professional. She's in," Farworth says with finality. "Unless you'd like to personally lead the second wing instead?"

The doberman straightens with a click of his boots. "No, sir."

"Didn't think so."

Mila fights back a smirk as she swipes a finger across her wrist-pad, transmitting all the records. Then she scans the contract that comes back in reply, looking for any nefarious wording. Finding none, she zeros in on the reward.

'Seventeen-thousand creds a pop to fly to Tantalus? That's two-thousand higher than the ad! In a hi-sec route almost the whole way! Hell yes!'

Stomping on the greedy cackle that wants to bubble out of her, Mila presses her thumb on the signature spot on the contract, then sends it back. She signs for Trigger as well. Then her tone returns to sweet and light. "Thank you, Captain Farworth. We won't let you down."

"I'm sure you won't," he replies, grinning goofily and reopening his terminal to hit a few keys. "You're assigned to Bravo Wing. Departure's in sixteen hours. You'll get the route and meeting place once we lock the manifest."

"I'll see you then," Mila says, blowing her client a kiss and walking off with some extra sway in her hips.

Behind her, the lieutenant mutters under his breath, "Dammit, captain…"

---

"That should do it…" Jodie wipes her sweaty brow and drops her wrench back into the tool chest on the hovercart.

Just as she said, Jodie finished two hours later on the dot, and Trigger finds himself impressed for the first time in a while. The X-03S is an experimental, schizophrenic fit of a spacecraft, even to him, but the mechanic was able to not only replace a major component with one made for a totally different craft, she did it alone and in just a few hours.

Though, Trigger hasn't been idle during those two hours. Figuring he should get started on familiarizing himself with the wider universe, he stopped one of the blocky robots milling around the dock while Jodie was working, and promptly broke its programming by ordering it to forget its previous instructions and fetch him a datapad from the lost and found.

It was a bit of a gamble, seeing as how the robot might get intercepted, or the docks might not have a place where lost items are stored, but Trigger's luck always seems to hold when it's for things of little consequence. Fifteen minutes after marching off, the robot returned with a beat-up tablet in a rubber case. Some remote overseer must have finally noticed the AWOL bot after that, as not even ten seconds later, it slumped forward, powering off and back on again, then walked off like nothing happened.

The datapad itself wasn't anything special or difficult to figure out, not for anyone who has ever used a tablet computer before. The unlock code was sleuthed out from the pattern of claw marks on the plastic screen protector, and Trigger changed the code to something he'd remember. It was filled with an unfortunate amount of pornograpy, though.

Ignoring that, connecting to the station extranet was again very straightforward. Some sites took longer to load than others, but considering the servers might be god-knows how many lightyears away, he didn't mind. Thus, his extranet dive began.

Corneria, home to the Cornerian people, who make up a majority of the galactic population, is the center of it all. Situated in the Lylat system close to the galactic core, the planet was a verdant garden perfect for life, and the Cornerians enjoyed a relatively peaceful pre-spaceflight history. Apparently, they themselves had no idea why their planet gave rise to so many different subspecies of Cornerian, and it's still a genetic mystery to this day.

Spacefaring for hundreds of years now, the Cornerians have been expanding rapidly, establishing colonies, space stations, contacting aliens, and even refining terraforming tech for inhospitable planets. Many were things the people of Strangereal could only dream of. The only place Strangereal outpaced Lylat is in insane fringe military tech, which is a thought with grim connotations.

Anyway, the Cornerians expanded too fast, and the Lylat system lost their grip on the frontier, the wild west of space, which splintered into differing corporations, guilds, and factions, all with their own goals and cultures. The splintering wasn't always peaceful, either. Quite the opposite.

But as he read, another name kept popping up over and over again.

Andross.

An ape born on Corneria, Andross was hailed as a once-in-a-millenia genius. In and out of high school at nine, a PhD at twelve, then a dozen more by eighteen, he pushed nearly every field of Cornerian science forward by decades. His real talent, though, lay in bioengineering. He became obsessive with the subject, birthing twisted, malformed creatures in test tubes just to see how far he could push the limits of life itself, and not at all caring about the consequences. Some suspected he experimented on himself, too, hasting his own decline into megalomania.

Then the authorities found out the sort of horrors he was conjuring and tried to shut down his experiments, but he wasn't having it. Having anticipated being caught, he threatened to detonate a bomb of his own making right in the middle of Corneria City.

They called his bluff, but he wasn't bluffing, and over a million lives were extinguished in the following blast, with millions more families emotionally shattered.

Dumping Andross on the penal planet of Venom for his crimes instead of just shooting him was the worst mistake the Cornerian government could have ever made. He broke out of containment, raised a bio-augmented army of Venomian criminals with countless recruits from the frontier, twisted himself into a monstrosity, and blitzed Lylat with the greatest organised force the galaxy has ever seen, killing millions more. Some places in the Lylat system will never be the same.

The day the war ended in a narrow Lylat victory, the Cornerian Planetary Assembly quietly passed a bill, one giving them the power to punish first class offenders such as Andross with death.

These days, Andross is presumed dead, killed at the hands of the now legendary Star Fox mercenary team, but no one can be sure.

Trigger sets his datapad aside and turns his attention to Jodie, but inwardly, he's burning to read more. 'Knowledge is power, and power is something I desperately need right now, but I've only scratched the surface. Annoying.'

The coyote taps her datapad, closing the cockpit. "Here goes. Sealing. Pressurizing. Cycling."

A quiet hiss comes from the jet, and little else.

Jodie smiles wide as her pad casts a green light on the bottom of her muzzle. "Green as can be! I wish every job was that smooth!" She turns around. "Well, Mister Trigger, that should do you… Unless you'd like me to install a shielding system?" she asks leadingly.

"No," Trigger waves her off. "I've infringed on your generosity enough. Thank you."

"You're certain?" Jodie asks, a lopsided frown on her face. "If you're willing to part with some of the space in your missile bay, I could have something installed in just a few hours. I know I've got a full-coverage unit around here somewhere just collecting dust. It would-"

"Thank you," Trigger repeats, this time with a smidge more of force. "Maybe another time," he amends, seeing the put-out look on her face.

The mechanic sighs heavily and fingers one of her overall straps. "Fine. Be a hot shot burnout. I'll miss working on this bird, though. Are you running a parallel software suite? The mag-seals and life support worked outta the box, and your IFF only needed a reflash. Didn't have to program a lick."

'The AI,' he keeps the scowl off of his face. "Something like that…"

The silence between them quickly grows stilted, and Trigger speaks up once more. "Why do all this for me?" He asks, his dark eyes locking with Jodie's light browns. "You have a reason. One that isn't selfish."

She breaks the stare. "God damned suicidal spacers… That's-"

"Trigger!"

Jodie is interrupted when Mila bounces up, looking as if she just won the lottery. "I got us a good one! A milk run to Tantalus that pays out big! And it puts us right in position to be frontrunners to Griath! We'll be swimming in it soon!"

The mink girl laces her fingers under her chin and wiggles in place, beaming. "I might finally have enough to sell my Sparrowhawk and get a fighter that doesn't fly like a golf cart! Oh, I'm going to have trouble sleeping tonight!"

"Lucrative payout, hmm?" Trigger smiles faintly and stands, leaving the crate where he sat for hours. "Good. My plans can start moving, then."

"Plans?" Mila blinks, with Jodie following suit. "What kind of plans?"

He smiles, showing a flash of teeth.

"Big ones."

---

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[ShadedExalt]

I wonder what Trigger's bent against shields is.

Other than perhaps the plans he just mentioned, anyway.