Prologue

“Hey Fara, how about dinner this Friday?”
Fara spared a glance upward, and sighed. Since the so-called ‘Eden Incident,’ herself as well as the rest of the leaderless Star Fox team had been working at ArSpace Dynamics, in assorted sections. She was working in flight design and testing.
The person speaking to her was a rather handsome canine/vulpine cross named Nathan, who worked as a flight engineer. He had been flirting and asking her out for a while now, but she had always shrugged it off.
“Afraid not.” She replied, fingering the engagement ring around her finger. “You know I’m out of town the first and third weekends of each month.”
“Yeah but you never have said why.” He perched on the end of her desk. He was twenty-nine, never married, engaged once while in college. A bit of a womanizer, but an ok guy, generally. “Or said anything about that ring.”
“Listen Nathan… I consider myself married, but it’s not official.” She stared off into the distance. “He’s on Eden.”
Nathan startled, then coughed and looked away. “Well you could have told me earlier.”
“I don’t like talking about it. You know how Fox McCloud is on Eden?”
“Oh… I see. I’m sorry.” He stood and backed out of her office, embarrassed.
Fara sighed, rubbing a temple. It had been four years now since the ‘Eden Incident.’ Her little girl was three years old. She was smart, had her father’s sharp perception, but failed to understand why her ‘daddy’ could never come home.
Fox’s evolution was subtle, compared to Scott and Alena. His eyes had taken on the intensely-colored triple iris common to Eden, true, but almost every other change was internal. His eyes, odd or no, blazed with newfound primal-sentient intelligence, and he had talons that he could drop from his fingertips, used for hunting. He was built now, all muscle without being overmuscled. He had once laughingly said he had muscles where most didn’t. She believed it.
Even with time passing and distance between them, their relationship hadn’t dissipated at all. No, it had deepened. The whole team (usually) visited every first and third weekend of the month, and it more then kept the fire between them.
Fara sighed, turning off her computer and slinging her purse over her shoulder. Beltino was in charge of her section; he wouldn’t mind if she left a few minutes early.

General Pepper sighed and sat back, looking at the message on his computer screen. Communication was open on Eden, had been since a month after the incident, and he often got e-mails from Fox. Being that Fox was Eden’s representative and speaker, and that he couldn’t make it to meetings, Pepper had to fill him in on what was going on. Even after all this time, Eden was still a hot political topic.
A year after the incident, Eden had allowed builders to come in and take down the ruined base. The replacement was a sprawling one-story complex, airy and tropical (Eden still didn’t allow environment controls like air conditioning), and it was more self contained then most bases. The name of this complex? Paradise. Fox had shrugged about the name, so Alena had named it.
It really was a beautiful place, clean, natural, and well-run. Fox hadn’t forgotten his military training; in fact he said he still practiced self defense and still flew his arwing.
Pepper’s eyes widened when he got to the last paragraph of the message.

…Eden might allow me to return to Corneria, time period unknown (perhaps six months?), as a speaker to the council. I will be glad if it goes through, I’d like to come home. In the mean time, General, get it cleared, all right?
“My god.” Pepper rubbed his eyes with a shaking hand. “Fox is coming home. God knows this will be interesting but I’m glad… we’ll see…”

PS: Oh, and General, if I do manage to come home, you’re invited to the wedding. Make sure you have a tux on hand :)
Pepper laughed out loud. “About time!” He brought up a reply, fingers flying across the keyboard, grinning the entire time.