[Author's Note: One Death Away is a fanfic by Foxmerc, one of my personal favorites, and one which inspired me to begin writing here myself. I wrote this piece a while ago as an exercise, just to get some things out of my head. If you haven't read Foxmerc's One Death Away, then this whole thing here will make absolutely no sense to you; even if you have read it, I still recommend refreshing your memory with the last several chapters at least. This blurb here would fit into the story if inserted between the 35th and 36th chapters of One Death Away. It is in no way apart of the original story's official cannon, and Foxmerc himself had no hand in creating any part of this story. This is published here with his approval. Thanks, and enjoy! ~chaos_Leader]

One Death Away:
The Unsung Heroes

chaos_Leader

Alternate Ending
The Unsung Heroes, by chaos_Leader
Fortuna, McMarthen Military Base ruins, rec-room observation deck.
Approx. 1630 hours local.

The wind howled and whistled against the decrepit concrete and steel structure, rising from a melancholy moan to an agonized screech and fluctuating through every tortured tone in between as the air tore against every hard edge it hit. Without the adrenaline rush of combat to keep his blood pumping, the whirling freezing full-force of a Fortuna style blizzard began to sap the very life out of Gage Birse. Already he could feel the warmth leave his hands and feet, his arms and legs seemed to set into stone, his heartbeat slowed to a crawl, and even his mind began to relax. At last, as everything gradually came to a halt, Gage finally found some comfort in this one single certainty: that of his own death. The SEC-29 under his jaw was simply the logical conclusion; the end of the beaten path he chose to be dragged down knowing full-well what the risks were. As far as Gage Birse was concerned, he was already dead…

One last shot…and we both know who gets it…

"Don't you dare pull that trigger."

Gage heard the intruder's voice, and the soldier's reflexes took over. In one movement, the startled fox whipped around and brought Fara's SEC-29 to bear on the room's empty door frame. Sure enough, there was someone there, partially obscured by the poor lighting. He appeared vulpine, and his dark silhouette seemed all too familiar...

"Fox?" Gage asked, somewhat relieved, but still keeping his weapon trained.

The intruder stepped into the ruined room, into better light. Though he did indeed bear an uncanny resemblance to Fox McCloud, his fur tone was more of a cinnamon brown than Fox's bright copper, and his face bore the weight of an untold burden. He crossed the open room toward Gage in grim silence, punctuated only by the dull footsteps of heavy pilot's boots against the hard floor.

The clearly older fox came to a stop face-to-face with Birse, with barely more than a foot between them. He looked the tortured soldier up and down, his tired eyes wandering around Gage's figure...
"Not quite."

In a quick whip-like motion, the intruder clasped the barrel of the SEC-29 in Gage's fist with his left hand and wrenched it aside. In the same instant, he flipped his own blaster handgun out of a hip holster gunslinger style, pointed its muzzle squarely into Birse's chest. He would've resisted and fought the intruder off, but the older fox gave Gage a wink, and Birse felt a small nudge against his foot. When he glanced down, he saw it was the scavenged blaster he'd used and discarded earlier.

Gage looked up again to the older fox's face, still cool and grim as it was. The intruder wasn't going to kill him, or he would've done that already. All he needed from the troubled soldier was his trust, and apparently his firearm, both of which Gage reluctantly gave with the release of his hold on Fara's SEC-29.

The intruder simply nodded in silent acknowledgement, and crossed to where Aries sat. The tiger was still slumped and unconscious in the folding metal chair next to his slain twin, bound there by the handcuffs Birse had secured to his wrists.

"What are you doing?" Gage asked, scooping up the other blaster at his feet. "Who are you?"

The mysterious vulpine intruder ignored both of the questions, and simply continued in his task. At point-blank range from the motionless Aries, the older fox aimed and fired his blaster, severing the handcuffs's chain with the shot, jarring the tiger from his stupor with the sudden noise.

Aries sat there for several seconds, heaving and panting his lungs out like he'd just woken from a terrible nightmare. His breathing eventually slowed up, and managed to spit out a question directed to nowhere in particular.
"Am I d... dead?"
His speech stalled and stuttered pathetically, and there may have even been tears welling up in the tiger's feline slit eyes.

"On you feet Ernie."
The intruder holstered his blaster and clasped Aries by his shoulders to help him up from the chair.

"You!"
The tiger reeled back and away when he saw the older fox's face, nearly tripping over the chair he just stood from.
"But you... you're supposed to be... I mean... I watched you die!"

The older fox just shrugged and patted Aries on the shoulder as if he were just a long-time friend.
"Sorry about that, old habits you know."

The tiger spotted Gage over the intruder's shoulder, and nearly ed at the sight.
"Birse is still here?... What the fuck is happening?..."

"It's a game Ernie, here are the rules..."
The newcomer pressed the grip of Fara's SEC-29 into the troubled feline's hand.
"You've only got one shot in that blaster, just one, but you can do anything you want with it."

"An... anything?"

"The possibilities are endless, and the choice is yours to make."
The older fox stepped back next to Gage, and waited.

The tiger backed away from the two foxes, holding Fara's SEC-29 in a trembling hand. He jerked the muzzle toward Gage, the intruder, back to Birse again, somewhere in between – all the while backing away from them one uneasy step at a time. The expression in his face flickered between the maniacal bloodlust he was familiar with, and the newfound despair of loss he barely knew. It was hard to imagine that this whimpering babbling simpleton was a leader of the Hellion Pirates not two hours earlier, who held sway over more lives and more deaths at the tips of his fingers than many military generals. The tables were now suddenly turned against him: Aries -or Ernie- was given the power of choice, but without any satisfying options to choose from...

He went too far.

After taking step after wobbling step away from Gage and the intruder, the tiger's leg caught against the low edge of one of the observation deck's great blown out windows, but the rest of his body kept going. And so another new expression found a place on Arie's face, that of panic. He flailed his arms, leaned away, and tried with every desperate effort to regain his balance, but to no avail. The troubled tiger fell away, and disappeared behind the windowsill with little more than a gasp. But he'd flung Fara's SEC-29 loose from his efforts, and the weapon landed with a metallic clack on the hard floor. Seconds later another noise was heard from below: a dull thump, like a heavy bag of cement dropped from a rooftop...

Gage walked slowly to the edge of the window and looked out. The ground far below was hidden by swirling snowfall and darkness beyond, but he knew the fall was too far for anyone to have survived. Aires of Hellion, or Ernie as the older vulpine intruder called him, was dead. Birse stepped back from the window, and spotted Fara's SEC-29 off the floor. He bent down and carefully picked the weapon up, and ran a pair of fingers over the engraved phoenix on its barrel.

A dull set of footsteps beat against the floor and stopped about two feet behind Birse. He didn't bother looking behind or looking up, he knew exactly who was there.
"What the hell do you want?"

Only silence, and the chilling lament of the blizzard's wind.

"Say something!"
Gage's grip tightened on Fara's Venomian handgun.

After a few seconds and what might've been a sigh, he finally replied.
"It hurts, doesn't it?"

"You too?" Gage shot back before rising to his feet, still with his back turned, "I don't want your god damned pity, not from anyone! Not your son, not his sleazy beatnik buddy, and least of all from a fucking traitor!"
He whipped around and aimed Fara's SEC-29 straight into the forehead of James McCloud.
"I could do Lylat a huge favor right now, and kill you for all the shit you've caused her. Hell knows you deserve it a hundred times over at least."

"And I won't stop you, just hear me out first."
The older fox didn't seem the least bit phased, despite being held at gunpoint.

"What could you possibly have to say to me?"

A gust of freezing wind pierced through, dragging a flock of snowflakes into the room from outside.

When the air stilled, James answered.
"I met with Fox, and against every expectation I had going into it, he found a way to forgive me. My son was able to save me–"

"Well good for Fox. I'm sure he had such a swell time reuniting with his long-lost Daddy, and you with your precious baby boy. It's all flowers, rainbows, and happy endings for the McClouds, isn't it? You all get to dodge every bullet life shoots at you, and you don't ever have to know the agony of losing the one you love..."
Gage lowered his weapon's muzzle against McCloud's chest, and leaned in to within a few inches of his face.
"I hope you and your son are happy."

"I'm not finished yet..."
The older fox reached inside his open jacket and produced a sealed medical preservation vial filled with an almost transparent liquid, which he offered to Gage.
"This used to belong to Fara, and it just might save you."

Birse took the vial and looked at it carefully. The liquid inside was slightly viscous, and didn't flow as easily as water. On even closer inspection, there appeared to be a tiny particulate speck floating in the liquid, smaller even than a grain of sand.
"Why should I believe anything you're saying?"

McCloud had turned away, and was now staring out the window into the dark starless sky outside.
"Because now, you and I are more alike than you'd ever know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gage asked, coming alongside him as he held out the vial, "What the hell is this?"

For the first time in their conversation, James cocked his head to the side and drew his lips to the hint of a smile.
"What do your instincts tell you?"

Before Birse could ask another question, James McCloud leapt out the observation deck window and fell through the freezing air for a moment before landing with a dull metallic clonk on... nothing. He was standing on what looked like nothing more than thin air. There were a few crackles of static under the older fox's feet and the dark shape of his arwing revealed itself underneath, which still blended easily into the background. The fighter's cockpit canopy swung open, and James McCloud disappeared beneath its tinted veil as it closed over him. The arwing's thrusters whirred and hummed to life, and the dark fighter vanished into the night...

Gage followed it as far as he could, then looked down at his hands. In one, he held Fara's SEC-29 blaster handgun. In his other was a medical vial of unknown contents said to belong to Fara. One was the certainty of death, the other a mystery that was supposed to 'save' him. He looked back and forth from one hand to the other, between the choices given to him...

LDC Vanguard, Forward Medical Station
The Battle of Macbeth.

To say the medical bay was bustling with activity would've been a gross understatement.

The staff were all either hustling between the treatment beds, or elbows deep in their current patients trying to save their lives. The sound was a cacophony, thick with the painful cries of the patients, the orders barked from doctors, all the racket of medical equipment imaginable and more. Every now and then the entire place would tremble like an earthquake, and a heavy groan would accompany it to remind everyone that they were still on a space vessel in a heated battle.

Among the dozens of other medical personnel scurrying about was one particular black plumed avian. He wore a traditional labcoat over his official LDC naval service uniform, and a compact half-HUD headset with the display over one eye. He headed straight for the main entrance, where a medical team just arrived with several badly burned crewmen in tow.

"Does someone want to tell me why the plasma-burns from engineering are all the way up here, instead of in the aft med-station where they're supposed to be?" The doctor asked to no one in particular.

"They're full up back there, this is the only place left to go."
He didn't see who's voice that was, but it didn't matter.

"Alright, fine, bring them in..."
The black avian gestured for the new arrivals to enter, and issued commands over his headset.
"Chandler, put your people to work on these newcomers. Fleming, take your crew around and make some space in here, get everyone out who can survive being alone for five minutes. We've got lives to save here!"

He received acknowledgement of his orders just as another blast rocked the medical station, jostling gear and personnel alike.

"Doctor Bennett, Lieutenant Yates reporting. We've got a situation down here Doc."

"And I have an entire ship's worth of situations flooding sick-bay right now Lieutenant! I'll have a medical team sent your way if that's what–"

"She's gone! Fara's broken out of her containment cell!"

For a moment Bennett stood stock still, a single unmoving individual among frantic dozens.
"Stay right there Yates, I'm on my way..." He started out of the crowded med station and into the ship's corridors. "Chandler, I need you to take over CMO duties temporarily."

The avian doctor jogged through as quickly as he dared. The whole environment was constantly shifting the Vanguard's maneuvers, and it'd be easy to lose one's balance. He passed technicians, mechanics, medical teams, and hosts of other crewmen. As the blood of the warship, everyone was either going somewhere or doing something to keep the great beast alive and fighting.

He cycled the comm channels on his headset as he ran, and spoke once he had the right one.
"Bridge, this is Bennett. Get me McGarret this instant, it's an emergency."

After a few moments, the admiral's grizzled voice came through.
"This better be good."

"Fara's loose aboard the ship sir, and I have no idea where she is now. Request you–"

"I'll alert security."
Just as quickly as it was established, the channel closed.

Bennett arrived at the exterior of the explosive containment and found the door had been kept open. Thee people were inside: the guard assigned to watch Fara, one of the nurses -the annoying one as he recalled- and someone else that must've been Yates. The avian doctor paid them little attention, striding past them all toward the makeshift examination setup he arranged down here...

"Doctor Bennett!..."
The nurse trailed after him, and continued on and on in a frenzied voice almost too fast to comprehend.
"She's gone! That crazy bitch locked Hal and I in the cell and–"

The frantic nurse was interrupted -almost thankfully- by another blast that sent the floors trembling.

Bennett regained his balance, and spoke to the nurse before she could start up again.
"Get back to the forward med station, they need you up there. Go!"

She got the idea, and left with Yates and the guard following close behind, leaving the black avian alone in the explosive containment unit. It was all an absolute mess now. The portable cabinets were knocked over, their varied contents strewn about the floor. Sample dishes, syringes, IV lines, bottles, and an assortment medical instruments were among only a few. The doctor searched the mess for something, but couldn't find whatever it was he was looking for among the jumble...

"Where is it?" he asked to no one in particular.

"Hangar Control to Bennett... Bennett?" The voice in the headset asked.

"Chandler's the CMO at the moment." Bennett answered, still picking through the mess, "Talk to him if something happened."

"I think we've found where Fara got to."

"Oh?"

"The Darklight fighter's not accounted for, so she might've used it to jump ship."

"That's... unfortunate." the doctor replied with some disappointment, "Did she take anything with her?"

"Impossible to know, it's been raging like a storm down here."

"It's the same story all over the damned ship, thanks anyway."

He cut the link almost the same instant another blast struck the Vanguard, nearly tossing the doctor off his feet. Painfully reminded of his duties by the jolt, Bennett gathered himself up and left the explosive containment unit to whatever fate. There were people who needed him, and he wasn't about to shirk his duty.

TDE Station Alpha

Gage walked through the sterile corridor of the station in a bizarre state of mind. It has been only a day or so since the troubled vulpine soldier nearly took his own life, and he had no regrets about it. Fara had been everything, and when one looses everything the natural thing to do was to punish those responsible in kind. Dianus was dead, Eris was also dead, and Aries made to endure his agony – the fall hadn't quite killed him as Birse first suspected. That left only one responsible party for Fara's death: Gage himself. He put her in the situation, he fell for Hellion's trap, and he was the one who allowed Fara to taste the joys of life only to have that life taken away.

The strange encounter at McMarthen left Gage more confused than hopeful. How could McCloud know where to find him? The mission was completely under wraps from TDE. Was he really James McCloud, or an impostor? Does it matter? What could possibly be in that vial he gave him? And how could it possibly relieve the anguish so unlike anything he'd ever felt before? His bitter grief and pain were all still there in full force, but they were put on hold by this development until he could get his bearings straight.

The fox came to a receptionist's desk at the end of the hall, where he was greeted by another one of those androids, probably.
"May I help you sir?"

"Beltino sent for me, Birse."

"Yes, he's been expecting you..."
She -it- entered a command into the terminal on the desk, and the door behind her slid open.
"Have a nice day sir."

Beltiono's expansive office was just that: expansive. The space was dominated by a number of wide, nearly panoramic windows that felt like they could bring space inside. Outside these windows was the blue, cloud frosted planet of Corneria at a moment of twilight. It wasn't clear if it was sunrise or sunset with the sun's bright light barely creeping over the planet's horizon, but time would clarify that easily enough.

Beltino himself sat quietly behind his desk, oddly devoid of his characteristic upbeat demeanor. The desk was clean and empty, save for a single small case laid to one side. It must've held the vial McCloud gave Gage, and that he brought to Beltino for him to examine. The entire office seemed quiet, unnaturally so. Such a large space should've carried the fox's echoing footsteps like a cathedral, but they too were muffled. TDE's engineers probably figured out something with the acoustics to give Beltino's office that intimate small-room feel while keeping the grandeur of the space intact.

Gage made it to the desk, and Beltino barely glanced up to greet him.
"Sit down."

"What? No drinks?" Gage asked as he took another look around the spacious room.

"I want my head clear for this Birse, and yours too..."
It seemed Birse's run-in with the enigmatic James McCloud may have troubled Beltino even more than it did Gage. Never before had he seen him so uneasy, or so uncertain.
"I... imagine you have quite a few questions. Please, take a seat."

"And I wouldn't mind some straight answers for a change."
Gage took a seat opposite the aging amphibian.

The toad gave a careful nod.
"I'll do my best, but truth be told I simply don't have all the answers here, and no one ever will."

"Then I'll take whatever you can give..."
Gage leaned in over the desk, his voice and expression both intent.
"James McCloud has been working for you all throughout this campaign in secret. Who else other than TDE could construct a functioning arwing equipped with that kind of stealth tech? How else could he know my exact whereabouts and track me down?"

Beltino took a moment before answering, his large protruding eyes looking somewhere distant and beyond the room.
"Well... James was working under TDE for quite a long time, right up until this whole mess with Dianus anyway. We first found him on Venom's surface a few days after Andross' demise, long after anyone should be able to survive there. I swear, the man has the most uncanny talent for staring certain Death in the face and giving him the finger."

"So I've noticed." Gage interjected.

"Believe me, you don't even know the half of it..." the toad replied, shaking his head. "To make a long story short: I had McCloud put to good use quietly rebuilding Lylat these past years, just as he wanted. He was fairly handy to have around the place while it lasted."

"Then what made him quit?"

"What do you think, lover-boy?" Beltino snapped back, only barely stopping himself "No, I'm sorry, it wasn't like that, even though I thought it was at the time..."
The toad took a deep breath to gather himself.
"When Dianus and the sirens resurfaced, James was rearing to go more than ever to get back in the fight, but I suspected him. I already knew some of the facts behind the Sirens that James told me earlier, and I feared the worst for him. You have to understand, James loved his wife very much and she him. I was afraid his feelings for Vixy would overpower him and drive him to betrayal the way it did before. So I told him to lay low and not get involved, believing I had some control over him."

"Seems like he got away from you."

"James McCloud..."
Beltino spoke the the name in a voice heavily inflected with years of personal experience, good and bad.
"He is the most stubborn, reckless, bone-headed sentient being I have ever met in all Lylat, but the worst part is that he's also resourceful enough to back it up. I told him he couldn't go out to fight the good fight against Dianus and the sirens, and you know what he does? He somehow manages to steal the Eclipse prototype right out from under my nose and goes vigilante with it!"

"And you didn't go after him?"

"As if I could, not with that blasted Laren fellow breathing down my neck. I think a skilled agent of Intelligence would notice if my company were to start its own private manhunt. The best I could do was prepare some sort of damage control, because I was absolutely sure he'd betray us all again..."
Beltino paused, again with that distant stare of his.
"Though oddly enough, James kept the Eclipse's tracking beacon active all this time – he could've turned off at any moment, yet chose not to. I thought at first he was taunting me while my hands were tied-up with Laren, mocking me. But now after it's all over, I believe he simply wanted me to still trust him, and to think it took me having to lose my own son to finally realize just what that crazy fool was fighting for..."

"So how do I figure into all this?" Gage asked, "What does James McCloud want with me?"

"That I'm sure has everything to do with the item he gave you."
Beltino patted the case on his desk

"It'd help if I knew what it was..."

"Well... Hmm... How can I explain?..."
The toad rubbed beneath his chin, trying to find the right words.
"You and Fara did hit it off aboard the Vanguard as I recall."

"Yeah, just once."

"Sometimes once is all it takes..."
Beltino opened the case and extracted the mysterious vial.
"This little speck, in a specialized enzyme-nutrient solution formulated to preserve its present state, is a zygote formed between the fusion of one of Fara's ova and one of your sperm cells. It is in-fact the absolute beginning of a new life, crated by you and Fara."
He set the little container down exactly between Gage and himself.

"No, that's impossible. There's no way she could've been... I mean, could we?"
The fox's eyes fixed themselves on the vial, but he shook his head in utter disbelief.

"I don't blame your skepticism Birse, but when it comes to dealing with a McCloud you learn very quickly that 'impossible' isn't in their vocabulary..."
He picked the vial up in one hand and held it up.
"I wouldn't have believed it for a second if I didn't examine it for myself, and I almost didn't believe it even when I did. I know what James is capable of, and if he wanted to steal this vial from aboard the Vanguard in the middle of a heated battle, I'm sure he would've found a way to do it."

"How do you know it came off the Vanguard?"

A hint of smug self-satisfaction crept across Beltino's smooth face, but only subtly.
"It took a few carefully deployed bribes find out, but it seems Dr. Bennett was onto something with Fara. More specifically, he was working to develop an antibody that Fara's own immune system could use to combat the nanite infection. One of his experiments called for an activated ovum from which he could replicate, develop, and adapt its natural defense mechanisms to fight off the nanites. Since you had awfully strong feelings for Fara, Bennett decided to induce an ovulation in her, put the two of you together alone, and let nature take its course..."

Gage was speechless, and simply stared out with a dumb look.

"Oh don't look so surprised Birse. Did you really think Bennett would simply let you two go for a romp together out of the goodness of his heart? He was doing his job as a doctor, and your copulating with Fara simply served his purposes."

"So this thing really is for real then."
The fox blinked a few times, and spoke softly.
"...Holy shit."
He dropped his head down into his hands, finally realizing the implications of it all.

Beltino simply gave a nod of acknowledgement, and set the vial back down on his desk.
"All this little zygote needs to fully develop into living, breathing, thinking person is for it to be implanted in a compatible surrogate mother, and biology will take care of the rest. Don't you understand what this means Birse? Fara can live on with you, as the fully legitimate child between you and her."

"I don't know... I just don't know..."
Gage looked up, breathing in steady gasps with a racing heart and trembling hands.
"Look at me, Beltino. How could a mangled wreck of a guy like me ever make a decent father figure?"

"You seemed to make a perfectly fine lover."

"Sure, and just look how great that turned out."

The amphibian reached across the desk and laid a hand on Birse's shoulder, almost in a kind grandfatherly fashion.
"Gage dear boy, when are you going to stop beating yourself senseless with guilt? James simply gave you a choice, which is far more than you've ever given yourself. On the one hand, you can choose piss your life away in this miserable self-loathing you've insisted on. Or on the other, you can choose to pick yourself up off the ground, and rekindle this little torch of life you've been trusted with..."
He offered the vial to gage.
"Which do you think would better honor the memories of Fara Phoenix?"

The fox took the small liquid-filled cylinder and held it for a long time, just staring at the tiny floating speck that was his and Fara's child. He began to feel something he hadn't felt since Fara's death, something he never thought he'd ever feel again: a sense of responsibility. And he at last understood what James meant when he said they were alike...

Gage replaced the vial in the case on Beltino's desk, and took the case for himself.
"I... I need some time alone... to think about this."
He got up and started for the exit, with his precious payload in-hand.

"That's probably for the best. These things shouldn't be rushed after all."
Beltino Toad swiveled his chair around to look out the observation window over Corneria, and it was a sunrise.

The End