Fox leaned back in the chair in front of Pepper’s desk and rubbed his eyes. The long meeting was taking its toll and he was glad he had slept the whole night for a change. “Alright, one more time,” he said, hoping that it actually would be the last time. “Our job is simply to investigate any locations given to us by scouts and relay the information to you. Birse will live on the Great Fox until this whole thing is taken care of. Payment is fifty-thousand up front and an additional ten for each site we look at.” His eyes snapped open. “Birse doesn’t get a cut, does he?”
     Pepper looked confused then laughed. “Of course not, he still gets paid by the military. This is just considered a transfer.”
      “Good,” Fox mumbled. He was getting more irritable from the uncertainty of working with someone who openly hated him, but over fifty-thousand was too good an opportunity to pass up for something that might turn out to be nothing. “So can I meet him and get it over with?”
     Pepper looked at the clock on his wall and stood. “Sure. The army officers and Special Forces guys have a separate cafeteria, closer to their wing of the base. And of course, somehow my office ended up all the way over here.” He scoffed and led the way into the hall, his two guards following a few steps behind. “He’ll probably be there, his team always eats together. They do everything together.”
     Fox walked silently next to him, fiddling with the crease of his rolled-up sleeves and thinking of what to say to Birse. He decided it would probably be best to wait for him to say the first word and to go from there. If there was one thing Fox had learned from experience, it was how to talk to people who didn’t think too highly of him. Even Vixy had hated mercenaries the first time they met, and they ended up being engaged.
     The bright metallic corridor finally ended at a swinging door marked “Cafeteria B, security clearance required for service”. Pepper pushed it open and stepped through, Fox hesitantly following. He heard a voice shout out, “General on deck!” and the thirty or so soldiers in the room snapped to attention.
     “At ease,” Pepper said, and the soldiers relaxed back into their seats at the long tables lining the room. He was looking around for Birse when a string of static emitted from one of the guards’ headsets. The guard looked down for a second, listening intently, then said, “Sir, General Penick needs to see you immediately, he says it’s urgent.”
     Pepper sighed and turned to Fox. “I’ll be back in a minute, just stay here. They’re a little rough around the edges, so don’t get provoked into anything.”
     “What?! Wait, you can’t leave me here alone!”
     Pepper rolled his eyes. “Fox, they’re not going to kill you. Just stay there, don’t even talk to anyone until I get back. Most of them know Birse, and most of them only know his side of the story.” He turned and left the cafeteria.
     “Wait!” Fox said in a loud whisper, but the general was already gone. He slowly turned around and faced the small cafeteria, only big enough for six long tables and a food line. It was much cleaner and homely than a normal cafeteria though, Fox noticed as he leaned on the wall, trying not to make eye contact as he looked around.
     One of the tables had six soldiers in army fatigues with identical patches on their breast pockets. Fox had seen the patch before, over a year ago, Dagger’s insignia. He nervously scanned the soldiers at the table and let out his breath in relief when none of them turned out to be a red fox. At least the meeting would hold off until the general came back.
     Just as Fox thought this, a young looking raccoon at the table looked up and saw him. He looked at Fox suspiciously and called out, “Hey, cap! Look who it is!”
     Confused, Fox looked around the room and saw two more soldiers with the patch, dumping their trays at the garbage disposal, a gray wolf and a red fox. They both turned, and Fox could see captain’s ranks on the fox’s collar and the nametape above his left breast pocket, “Birse”. The wolf had lieutenant’s ranks and the nametape “Forte”.
     “Oh, shit,” Fox muttered as they both glared at him. He glanced around and noticed that conversation in the room had stopped and just about everybody was looking back and forth between Fox and Gage, like a tennis match. The Dagger soldiers slowly stood up, keeping their eyes on Fox as if he was going to pull out a gun at any time and start shooting.
     Gage definitely had resemblance to his brother, from what Fox could remember. He stood up straight, arms folded, glaring at Fox as if daring him to make the first move. The tenseness hung in the air as Fox thought about what to do, his heart racing. No matter how good Fox was, he knew there was no way he could take on more than one Special Forces soldier in a fight. The other soldiers occupying the table watched on eagerly, like the best part of the movie was coming up.
     After another minute of the tense stare-down, Fox decided that Gage wasn’t going to make the first move, so he better do something. Slowly he walked forward, as if not wanting to wake a sleeping monster, and stopped two feet from Birse and his team. His mouth felt like sandpaper, so he worked up some wetness and managed to say in a near whisper, “Captain Birse?”
     Fox didn’t expect a response, and he didn’t receive one except the piercing glare, so he continued. “I’m, uh…well, you obviously know who I am…listen…”
      Fox didn’t even see the fist coming. He felt an explosion of pain on the left side of his muzzle and the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees almost kissing the floor, shocked gasps echoing around the cafeteria. His mouth throbbed and his head was spinning as he heard Birse speak.
     “No, you listen, McCloud. I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time. I know about my little assignment to work with you, but let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want to do this, and I bet you don’t either, but orders are orders. So we just stay out of each others’ way until it’s over. I’m not giving you the opportunity to get me killed over some whore, like you did to my brother.”
     The pain in Fox’s head was forgotten as it was replaced with a surge of anger. He whipped his foot around, kicking Birse’s legs out from under him. The room was again filled with shocked gasps as Fox kneeled over the prone captain, grabbing his lapels and shrugging off his teammates.
     “Now you listen to me,” Fox growled at him, his comrades backing off. “That ‘whore’ died in my arms of a laser wound an hour after I proposed to her. Her blood was all over me while I held her, helpless to do anything. Hate me all you want, but the next time you say anything against her, I won’t be this nice.”
     “Now, I’m sorry about your brother, I know what it’s like to lose a family member. But there was nothing I could do about it. How was I supposed to know? You think I planned for it to happen like that? These things just happen, so let it go. Nothing you can do about it now.” Fox couldn’t think of anything to say, so the cafeteria hung in dead silence for a few moments.
     “Get the fuck off me,” Gage said, his expression changing from shocked back to the cold glare. Fox returned the glare for a few seconds then released his grip. As his anger faded, he noticed that everyone else in the cafeteria was standing at attention and he heard someone loudly clear his throat.
     The two foxes stood up and faced General Pepper, Birse snapping to attention and Fox looking down at the floor like a child that got caught stealing candy. Pepper slowly began sauntering across the cafeteria as if he had all the time in the galaxy. Everyone was completely still as he finished his jaunt and stood in front of Fox and Gage. He stared for a few seconds at the captain, who looked straight ahead, then at Fox, who was trying to avoid his eyes.
     Pepper took a napkin off a nearby table and held it up. Fox was confused for a second until he realized his muzzle was bleeding, so he took the napkin and dabbed at the cut.
     “Come with me,” Pepper said sternly, turning to face the door. Fox and Gage followed, and as soon as the door closed behind them, Pepper let them have it.
     “What the hell was that?!” he shouted, turning to face Gage. “I knew there would be a little hostility, but a fist fight in front of half the officers in this base?! They just saw the vanguard of our operation against Overlord at each other’s throats! I expected better conduct from you, Captain Birse. We’ll discuss this more later, and I don’t want any more physical incidents with you two, is that clear?”
     “Yes sir.”
     Pepper shifted his eyes to Fox. “And I told you to wait until I got back to do anything.”
     “General, they were staring at me, I had to say something. I tried to be nice, but this crazy asshole snapped on me.”
     “I’m crazy?” Gage cut in, facing Fox. “You’re the one who snapped after I was done talking!”
     Fox didn’t back down. “You called my dead fiancé a whore, what the hell did you expect?!”
     Gage didn’t answer immediately. There was silence as Fox and Pepper, who was about to step in and stop the argument, waited for an answer. Gage’s hard expression began to soften slightly as he searched for an answer. Finally he managed, “I didn’t know.”
     Fox cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
     “I didn’t know she was your fiancé, and I didn’t know she died like that.”
     An awkward silence ensued as the two foxes stared at each other. Soldiers and workers passed them in the hall, glancing over curiously at the duo.
     “But that doesn’t mean I like you any better,” Gage added. “Hangar, fifteen minutes.” He then turned and stormed off down the hall, the other workers stepping quickly out of his way.
     Fox shook his head. “Who needs enemies when you have allies like that?”
 
 
 

     * * *
 
 
 

Cornerian orbit
1413 hours
 
 
 

     Not a word had been exchanged during the long flight back to the Great Fox in StarFox’s two-seater leisure ship. Fox would glance behind him every once in a while and find Gage staring out the canopy with a distant look in his eyes. He was somewhat thankful for the silence; at least it couldn’t start another fight. But as the silhouette of the Great Fox appeared in the distance, Fox felt the need to try conversation again. He had initially met Falco under similar circumstances, and look how they turned out.
     “So…” he started, grasping for any topic that would do. “Pepper tells me you know a lot about Overlord.”
     There was silence for a few seconds, then Gage replied in an even voice, “I guess you could say that. Not just about Overlord, about you too.”
     Fox didn’t quite know how to take that. “Me? How so?”
     “People always used to compare me with you. They said that I was on the ground what you are in the air, ‘the Fox McCloud of ground combat’, as they put it.” There was a brief silence, as if Gage expected Fox to pull a one-liner or something, then he continued. “We’ve actually met before, McCloud, a few times. I watched like everyone else the day Corneria City was attacked as you fought in the sky. I was fascinated, and, believe it or not, you were kind of my inspiration to join the army. I figured I could avenge my mother by doing what you were doing.”
     Fox nodded, again not sure how to respond. This was more of a response than he had first expected and he didn’t know where it was going.
     “Of course, that all ended over a year ago. After my brother’s death, I did all the research I could on Overlord and on you. I know your whole history. The next time we met was a few months after Overlord, just outside Pepper’s office at the base. Of course, you wouldn’t remember me, you were too engaged with your little outburst at Pepper. You wouldn’t believe how much self control it took not to shoot you right there.”
     “Wait, when?” Fox asked, a little taken back by part about shooting him. He then remembered, Gage must’ve been talking about his standoff with Pepper when he had infiltrated the base during his framing. Gage was one of the soldiers. “Oh, ok, I see. So you were there? Well, thanks for holding off on shooting me.”
     Gage gave him a mean glance then continued in a somewhat annoyed tone. “To make it worse, it happened again days later, when you attacked that IceStorm-controlled hotel. I was thinking I’d finally get my chance, but there you were, standing over Stefan with that recorder, innocence proven. Of course, I was disappointed as hell.”
     So Gage had also been with the team that came in behind Fox at the Corneria Grand hotel. Twice, Fox’s worst enemy on the allied side had a gun pointed at him. The whole conversation made him uneasy. “We’re on the same side, Birse.”
     “Calm down, I’m not going to kill you. Just don’t expect us to be best friends.”
     “Good enough,” Fox replied. There was something that had been nagging him since his fight with Birse, something he had wanted to say, and it finally came to him as they neared the Great Fox’s hangar. “You know, they’re right to compare us. We both lost everything to Venom. But the difference is that I actually blame Venom. I don’t blame Peppy for my father’s death just because he was there and didn’t get killed also. He didn’t kill my father, Andross did… and I didn’t kill your brother, a Venom pilot did.”
     Fox braced himself for an outburst or comeback, but the humming of the engine was the only sound heard. He glanced back quickly and saw Gage staring out into space again. Maybe he had finally broken through.
 
 
     Five minutes later, the ship touched down in the hangar. Gage hopped out after Fox and scanned the length of the hangar, as if analyzing it, then picked up his bags. Still trying to salvage some form of camaraderie, Fox made a move to help, but was waved away.
     “Few ground rules for the Great Fox,” Fox said, leading his guest through the corridor towards the rec room. “First of all, consider this your home until the mission is over. Feel free to use any facilities, the target range and all that, and help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Make a mess, clean it, you break it, you bought it. Ok?”
     “Fair enough,” Gage replied in a neutral tone.
     The door to the rec room slid open, revealing Falco leaning on a couch, apparently waiting for them. He gave his trademark untrusting look at Gage, which made Fox grin slightly, then walked over. Gage was giving the same analytical scan to the rec room that he gave to the hangar. His gaze stopped on Falco and he returned the untrusting stare.
     Fox cleared his throat. “Gage Birse, this is---“
     “Falco Lombardi, I know,” he cut in, eyes still locked on Falco’s. Neither made a move to offer a handshake or any other form of civilized greeting, which was pretty much what Fox had expected. He was pretty sure that they would stand there until one dropped dead from hunger unless he stepped in, which was what he did.
     “Peppy and Slippy are on vacation for another week or two, so you might meet them if this drags out that long. Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
     He made a move towards the door and Gage finally tore his stare away and followed him. When the door slid shut behind them, Fox said, “He’s not the most trusting guy in the galaxy, but he’s great when you get him on your good side.”
     After a twenty second trip down the corridor, Fox stopped and held is hand out in front of the guest room. Gage slowly walked in and looked around the room, which was identical to the other rooms in the living quarters.
     Fox absently rubbed his aching muzzle and said, “Make yourself at home, then come to the rec room when your ready and we’ll see what we’re supposed to do next. Any questions?”
     “No.”
     He turned to leave when he heard Gage’s voice again. “McCloud.”
     Fox stopped and glanced over his shoulder to see Gage’s back to him as he unpacked his bag. After a few seconds, he said in a low voice, “Sorry I hit you.”
     Fox stared at his back for a few moments, wondering if he had heard right. He had used that speech he had given in the ship before. It always made perfect sense to him, but Gage didn't seem like a guy who listened to reason. Maybe he was. Maybe it would all work out after all.
    "Forget about it."