Author's Note:
I'm just taking a brief break from my Gravity Falls stuff to post a one-shot from my other favorite fandom: Metroid. For all of my followers who are wondering what the heck is going on with the Forest of Daggers, FEAR NOT! I am working tirelessly on that story, and it is literally SO close to being finished. I'm 80% sure it will be updated within the month.
From behind the veil of the cloaking device, and beyond the sealed bulletproof window, bright little eyes peered out of the cockpit down at the dusty grey moon.
It was an insignificant little planetoid, featureless and unnotable, save for the vast pockets of deuterium (a common fusion fuel) which nature had deposited beneath its icy crust. An automated mining colony had been erected over these deposits in ages long past, and a rudimentary space elevator stretched upwards above it, equipped to pump the gas into orbit. At the top of this elevator sat a small space station, where passing ships could stop, link, and refuel for a small toll.
Today, one ship was doing just that.
It was a great, hulking cargo cruiser, over 3 kilometers in length, large enough to dwarf the colony below it. Large enough to hold a dozen such colonies within its bays. In fact, circumstances allowing, it probably could have winched down an elevator of its own, and refueled without needing to bother paying any toll at all.
But it didn't do that. That would take time, and time was something her Captain couldn't spare. People always seemed to be in a hurry when passing through these remote areas of the galaxy.
No kidding.
There were pirates about these parts.
The eyes turned away from the window. "Lower the cloaking device." He growled at the pilot. "And begin approach maneuvers."
Five hundred kilometers above the cargo cruiser, rays of light which had been bent off their course flickered and snapped back into place, revealing the hidden destroyer.
The warship's hull rocked as its main engines fired, pushing it into a lower orbit on the thrust of a bright red drive plume. Sensors and antennae extended in all direction from its flanks, projecting its deflector shields, jamming the target's communications, and filling in tactical data in all directions.
The artificial gravity momentarily stalled, prompting him to reach a claw out to steady himself on his console. He glanced at their speed readouts. "Hey, watch the velocity!" He barked at the pilot. "We want to board these mucks, not ram 'em in half."
"I heard ye', Captain. Our velocity's fine; we'll reach them at 10 meters per second, enough for the hooks to pierce, but not deep enough to harm anything crucial."
"You be sure, 'cause you're the one's gonna be flying it home, and if you break it, you'll be getting lonely awful quick."
The pilot scoffed. "You'll see I make it home before you do, damage and all."
"Run the ship and not your mouth, how about? Just gimme a holler when we're about to hit." He stepped off the bridge, past a pair of rusty, grinding doors, and into the troop bay.
"ALL RIGHTY BOYS! We've got a 6.7 million tonne heavy freighter sitting duck right beneath us. Tethered in place to the elevator, so even if they could ignite the engines in time, there's not a chance they could undock and get underway by the time we impact. Civilian vessel by the looks of it, freight registered as colonial supplies."
"Unarmed?" One of the men asked the crucial question.
"Aint nothing on the scopes." He shrugged. "But don't get cocky. They've gotten wise in recent years, so we could have a mercenary or two aboard." (They'd dealt with mercenaries before, so his warning wasn't much of a warning.)
"It's too easy!" One of the troops laughed.
"What won't be easy is the hide-and-seek!" The Captain waved a claw at the man. "This ship is 30 times the size of ours, crew of over 40 and, in case you ain't noticed, there's only 32 of us. So unless you want to chase scared astronauts from here to hell for days on end, you're gonna have to corner them all, or else let their air out pretty quick. You maggotheads got all that?"
They got all that.
"So yeah." He continued. "Should be a pretty simple operation, all told. Help yourself to whatever you fancy, but keep in mind we want to fly the whole entire ship back home, so don't damage anything crucial, and don't let any of the crew scuttle it either. Humans would rather be taken prisoner than killed though, so if they think we're only going to enslave them, they probably won't entertain notions of heroism."
They got all that too.
"And one last thing." The Captain added. "Do the rest of us all a favor, and none of you go die, all right? …You know how chewy you are."
They laughed.
"Captain!" The tactics officer announced, leaning out the door to the computer room. "Thermal imaging shows the freighter is commencing ignition."
"Still tethered to the elevator, correct?"
"Yep. Don't know what it plans to accomplish until it undocks, but I suppose it could fly away and rip off the cable entirely."
"And they think we're savages!" He laughed. "Well, keep me posted. If they bring out any hidden weapons, then we'll have an actual situation."
"Will do, sir." The technician ducked back inside the computer room.
"Pilot, what's our ETA?" He hollered toward the bridge.
"21 minutes, Captain. Including deceleration."
"Great."
To pass these last tense minutes before battle began, the Captain bent down over a nearby terminal, and pulled up an image of the target ship.
He'd led over a dozen raids in his day, and each one worked slightly differently. The target ship would be so big or so small, and they'd enter it through here or through there. The crew would react in one way or react another; try to fight, try to flee, only once did they try to scuttle, and that had been a close shave.
But in many ways, every raid was the same. Their battleship would physically ram into the target vessel, using the enormous trio of hardened, finger-like prongs built into the prow. If the pilot aimed the strike correctly, one or more of the prongs would penetrate past the armor and frame elements of the larger ship, to secure a grip in the fragile systems within. Each of the prongs was equipped with explosives, an airlock, and a passage equipped with self-sealing foam, meaning that they could enter the ship no matter how they contacted, through the wound they had opened.
There was also their main laser, mounted in the center of the 3 prongs. If things went sideways, it was powerful enough to burn right the reactor block of most ships; this mainly used as a threat, since intact spoils were usually priority.
The whole forced-boarding procedure also meant that the hapless crew would have no way of knowing where the pirates would enter, and thus would have no way of setting up a viable defense. The attack was always sudden, unexpected, and unpredictable. The targets were invariably scared senseless. And terrified targets are easy targets.
"Captain!" The tactics officer called his attention back to the present.
"What now?"
"The freighter just sent out a distress signal."
"And that concerns me why?" He growled. "You were supposed to be jamming them."
"I am. And it's not a problem sir, it's just interesting that they sent it out by radio, rather than by ansible."
The Captain frowned. A slower-than-light transmission? In order to respond to that, help would need to be literally this same orbit. Any further, and the message wouldn't reach in time. "So, they're expecting help from nearby, are they?" The Captain frowned.
"Apparently."
"Hmm." He grunted.
"Or maybe they're just bluffing, 'cause I sure don't see any other ships."
"Possibly… But we can't rule out the possibility. They might have a mercenary escort cloaked somewhere nearby."
"They couldn't keep a large escort hidden from our sensors…" The tactics officer checked again to make sure. "So it would have to be somebody underequipped, just for show. All bark and no bite, as they say…"
"How much do we have to offer in bribes?"
"Ten thousand maybe?"
"…Promise a hundred thousand. We're just gonna kill him anyway."
"Or we could just kill him straight away. That's nice too."
He nodded. "Yep. Yep. Though not as funny."
"Yes, I—OH! OH! Speak of the devil, there he is!" The officer yelped.
"A ship?"
"YEAH! He cloaked his can off to our starboard, and looks like he's coming in fast!"
An image appeared on the Captain's console; a live camera feed showing the small, yellow, saucer-shaped vessel accelerating toward them on a greenish drive plume.
"Not in the mood for bribes, then. Well, he could have at least asked. Would've saved himself a bad time." The Captain barked back in the direction of the cockpit. "Evasive maneuvers! We've got a bounty hunter or something coming in hot!"
"You think I don't see him?! He's headed right for us!"
"ETA?"
"Like, a minute and a half!"
"Then why aren't we moving?"
"He's got a faster engine than us; ask tactics!"
"It's true." The tactical officer said. "We've got 23 meter/second/second maneuvering engines, but ships his size usually have at least 40."
"Is he trying to ram us or something…?"
"Dangerously close to it."
"Give him a couple missiles for the trouble, you can't outrun those."
"Already on it!"
"Go easy on them, though; it only takes one…"
A panel in the rear of the destroyer slid open, and a few small ballistic rockets set off from the cache beneath. They located the enemy ship quickly, and turned in for the attack. The hunter's ship released flares, and then accelerated towards them. It was a surprisingly fast little ship, and managed to duck past the missiles before they could rotate to follow. Most of the missiles detonated on the flares, but the others spun around and once again gave chase.
"ETA 40 seconds, and—Oh! Those weren't flares! Those were its own missiles! We're under fire!"
"Raise the EM shields, and release our own flares!"
"Shut it, Captain, what do you think I'm even doing up here?!"
"Don't you smart off to me, I will sew you shut!"
"Brace for impact!"
The captain felt several blasts echo through the destroyer's frame, as the hunter's missiles exploded on the EM shields, or on a close enough flare. On the tactical officer's screen, the captain watched the hunter's ship pass right below them, missing their ventral hull by a hair's breadth, with their missiles still hot on its tail. The missiles were just about to contact, when suddenly, the hunter's ship disappeared.
It must have reactivated its cloaking device. The missiles, having misplaced their target, shut off their rockets and went into a holding pattern, scanning carefully for any trace of it.
Well.
That was it then.
The foolish, overeager mercenary could do nothing more now except hide in place and stay still. If he tried to move or escape, the thrust from his engines would make a heat signature, which the missiles would easily find and pick up the chase again. He would have to just drift away passively, until he was at a great enough range to outrun the missiles with his hyper drive… If he even had a hyper drive.
Yep. The captain didn't envy the mercenary his position. He'd have to sit back and watch, as the ship he had been protecting was boarded and its crew was mercilessly-
CLANG!
A sudden sound, from the destroyer's outer hull.
"What was that?" The Captain asked the tactical officer.
"What was that?" The tactical officer asked the Captain.
"What in the brain's worm is wrong now?" The pilot asked.
The men were making confused noises too.
"Waitaminute! Shut up!" The captain roared, raising a claw toward the men. They obeyed. "And kill the engines for a second, would you?" He snapped at the pilot.
The entire ship went silent. The captain turned his head and listened.
And he heard footsteps.
Walking above his head, on the outside of the hull, they echoed in… Clank clank clank clank clank clank clank… Heavy, deliberate, steady.
"Ah." He nodded slowly, looking up at the ceiling. He gave a little chuckle. The mercenary must have gotten free of his ship sometime during the flyby, adjusted his own trajectory to impact them, and then somehow managed to slow himself down. Their man must have some sort of jetpack, then, or else be quite a jumper. And either way, quite good at sticking a landing.
Anyway, regardless of how it was done, this mercenary had now affixed himself to the outside of their ship, and was walking around just as happy as you please. The Captain gave a louder chuckle. "Very clever. Very clever." He said. "HA! Imagine that, boys!" He laughed heartily now. "Today, it's we who've been boarded!"
They all thought it was quite an amusing twist, and even laughed with brief pity for the mercenary, who clearly didn't know what he'd just gotten himself into.
"What's our ETA on the freighter?" The Captain asked over his shoulder.
"13 minutes, sir!" The pilot reported.
"We'll be back inside before then. Hold the course."
About 10 of the men scrambled for helmets and thruster packs, the Captain among them. Much as he would like to sit back and let the problem handle itself, he felt responsible to make sure things went smoothly. An excited rabble of pirates wasn't the most reliable task force, and they were going up against a mercenary who was obviously quite confident in his ability to dispatch them. The Captain wasn't afraid for that alone, but it made him concerned enough to want to ensure the job was done right.
He fitted his helmet over his head, and a gasket on its bottom snugged up to a metal ring embedded in his neck. His natural exoskeleton was sufficient to contain pressure over the rest of his body, so it was only his eyes and lungs which required the service of the life support. The oxygen tanks were contained in the thruster pack, which he now slipped on his back and locked into place around his torso. He plugged the oxygen supply line into the back of his helmet, and boosted the pressure to test for leaks. A hissing sound filled the helmet, and the pressure held steady. No leaks. Good. Now he grabbed a couple energy packs from a nearby rack, and plugged them into the blasters on his arms. A slight stimulus through his nerves indicated they were ready to fire.
He followed the men into the airlock, and the inner door slid twisted closed behind him, locking them in place until the air could be vented from the room. One of the men, (a little too excited) let of a jet of thrust from his pack. The superheated gas blew across one of his comrade's arms, which earned him a punch in the face and several derisive comments from the other men.
The Captain kept his eye on the airlock's outer door, waiting for its opening. Shouldn't be long now.
It opened. The first man fired his jets and coasted out.
He was shot.
An energy beam tore through the space from somewhere nearby, impacting him in the chest and sending him spinning. The Captain blinked, and the wisdom of fear dawned on him. But by now, all the rest of the men had begun to rush out. They were too excited, too adrenaline-filled and eager, and the attack of the first man had only served to challenge them further.
The Captain watched, dumbstruck, as they were one by one picked out of the blackness by the mercenary's beams, even as they left the door. Some of them made it out of the Captain's sight before they were hit, but not even half. By the time the Captain was the last one in the airlock, he was watching 5 bodies drift away.
Well.
He would have to exit anyway, but he, at least, would do so smarter. He could start at the back of the airlock, get a running boost, then grab one of the handrails as he exited the door, and so come out close to the hull, at a great speed. He would be harder to hit, and he would hopefully be able to get around to the other side of the ship before he was targeted.
He backed up, fired his thrusters, kicked off the airlock's inner door, and was doing a good 6 meters per second by the time he reached the outer door.
His claw hooked around the handrail, and he flicked himself out into space parallel to the hull's curve. It worked just as he hoped. He saw the hunter's beams flashing around him, but none of them hit him. Before he was around the hull and out of sight, he turned himself around backwards to get a glance at the source of the deadly beams. And that was when he saw it.
The mercenary.
It was a vaguely humanoid creature, of slightly smaller stature than the average pirate, and encased all over in thick mechanical armor. A human? No, too wide across the shoulders, and taller. A Chozo; or whatever they were called? No, too small, and Chozo weren't warriors anyway. Reptilicus? No, it hadn't a tail, and only two arms. Vhozon? They were known for zealous stunts like this, but this one's legs were all wrong. Could it be a rogue pirate? No, too upright in stance, and the proportions were quite different. A robot? …Perhaps, though he'd never heard of a machine that would do this. Machines don't get up and personal; machines don't pull great feats of skill; machines don't… They just don't, not like this.
Whatever it was, this… Thing looked quite muscular, and the armor looked highly durable.
But the Captain's panicked, racing mind didn't commit all these details to memory all at once. As he passed rapidly out of the enemy's sight, firing his blasters clumsily and tugging at his jetpack thruster control, only 2 details really stood out to him: firstly, that the hunter's helmet was glowing a bright and spooky green. Secondly, that it had a gun for an arm.
And then, for just a second, and although they were both wearing rather opaque helmets, it seemed to him like his eyes met those of the hunter's. They saw each other, and saw into each other, and shared a brief, queer moment of understanding.
And he found himself scared beyond all reason.
Now he had rounded to the other side of the destroyer's hull, was slowing himself down out of his maneuver, and was trying to bring his own unexpected surge of panic under control.
He glanced around him. The other men were over here too: the four that had made it past the massacre at the airlock. The radio chatter between their huddled helmets was chaotic and terrified.
"What in Kraid's muck is that thing?!"
"I don't know! It hit us hard!"
"It's a ghost, I tell you! A ghost! It's some rotter we've killed before, and it's come to take us down to hell with it!"
"Shut your stupid face!"
"Is that you, Captain?"
"Y-y-yes… Yes, it's me…"
"What do we do, Cap? How do we get over and gut this guy?"
"Uh…"
"Gotta hit him hard!" Someone yelled. "From all directions, immediately!"
"Stow your claspers." The Captain barked. "No! We've got to think, got to…"
"Ya can't kill a ghost! He's probably inside already, doing away with the rest of the-"
"YOU WANT ME TO SEW YOU SHUT?!"
Then the Captain noticed something in his peripheral vision.
It was the mercenary again, flying through space. It must have been using a tractor beam like a grappling hook, to swing across the circumference of the hull at high speeds. It was upon them before he could even yelp a warning. Its foot connected with one of the men's head, shattering both his helmet and skull in one broad stroke. Then the energy beams were flying about again, and the Captain wondered, just for a moment, whether this mercenary was, indeed, some kind of vengeful wraith.
The rest was over quickly enough.
The bodies of 10 pirates drifted off toward infinity, and the hunter was blasting the outer airlock open with some assistance from a rocket propelled grenade. Behind that door, 20 more armed pirates stood ready, completely unaware as to what caliber of enemy now approached. And the Captain, as he started his journey to hell, wondered if anybody on the ship would live to tell of this startling little tale.
The pilot heard fighting from the crew chamber, and smelled ozone. He heard the discharging of countless energy weapons, and the howling of those mortally wounded, the growling and roaring of those too stupid to fear. There were blows landing, and metallic clangs, as large objects impacted each other and the walls. It was truly deafening, but much, much too soon, the sound decreased. The sounds of fighting became less intense, and he stopped hearing the discharge of weapons. Now there were only blows, repeated blows, and little whines from injured lungs, and gurgling from flooded throats, and the cracks of bending, breaking bones.
Now there was one last crushing sound, and the dull noise of a body let drop to the floor.
Then there was no sound.
Then, the smell. The reek of flesh, and organs, and blood, as well as the diseases; diseases accumulated on an unsanitary and crowded ship, now released from their bodily prisons. These were the unmistakable smells of fresh death.
Then, the footsteps again… Clank clank clank clank clank clank clank clank clank… Torturously slow.
The pilot closed the door, as quietly as he dared. He looked back at the pilot's seat. Should he sit back down? Keep flying the ship? Or should he… Just hide?
He looked around. There was… Was… Nowhere to hide… And whatever that thing was in the crew chamber, it was currently between him and the escape pods… Numbly, he sat back down his seat, and rested his claws around the controls. What else could he do? He looked back out the forward window. The freighter was still right there; still tethered to the orbital station. They were still headed right for it, with an ETA of only 4 minutes now. The destroyer's prongs would still penetrate, but now… For what? They had lost. Lost before they began.
…Clank clank clank clank.
The footsteps stopped, just outside the cockpit door. The pilot glanced back at it, hoping against hope that it wouldn't open.
There was the crackling, electrical sound of a tractor beam, a groan of bending metal, and the door was ripped off its hinges. The pilot stared past the bare frame at the mercenary.
A glowing green faceplate started back at him, soullessly. The helmet around the faceplate was short and domed, and looked like it had no neck, but was instead more of a turret, on top of the bulky, armored torso. Beneath the torso was a strangely thin waist, and then long legs, plated in curves and spikes. To either side of the torso were large, rounded shoulders, and thick forearms. Well. Actually, there was only one forearm. In its place on the right side, there was instead an energy weapon, of a size usually improbable for infantry to wield. Smoke curled gently from the tip of the weapon, and a smell of burning accompanied it.
What creature lay beneath the armor, the pilot couldn't guess. But one thing was certain: the armor had sustained zero damage during the fight. Besides for some blood splattered on its fist, gun, and sharp parts, it was still as shiny and smooth as a new bullet.
The pilot raised his claws upward in surrender. He was shaking, though he tried to hide it. The hunter stared at him for a second or two, then stepped into the cockpit. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the hunter was standing at the controls barely a meter from him, and was looked out the forward window at the freighter they were approaching. The hunter looked at him, and he met its gaze.
It raised its hand, the one that wasn't a gun, and gestured toward the freighter out the window. He looked where it was pointing, then nodded. Then the hunter gestured down toward the controls, and cocked its head.
The pilot nodded. Oh, he understood all right. He understood perfectly. He gripped the throttle, and fired the retroactive thrusters. The destroyer began slowing down, and banked off to one side. They wouldn't hit the original target now; they would hit the moon instead, in about 4 hours.
Then the hunter waved a few fingers at the moon, and pointed to the throttle lever. It wanted him to accelerate.
He complied. What did he have to lose? The throttle was pushed all the way forward now, the floor beneath them was rumbling with the exertion of the reactor and main engines, and a few alarms began blaring at him. If the throttle stayed where he had put it, they would hit the moon in an hour only, at a safe distance from the mining colony, and at a velocity sufficient to obliterate the ship beyond trace.
He left the throttle lever where it was, and looked up at the hunter, terrified. The hunter was simply watching out the window, almost passively watching the moon grow larger.
They passed the freighter, and the elevator, by a few kilometers. Untouched and unfelt; as if nothing had ever happened.
The hunter waited for it to pass out of sight, then turned and walked out of the cockpit. Though he wasn't sure what the hunter wanted, the pilot followed compliantly, with his claws still raised in surrender.
They passed through the crew bay.
The pilot stared, aghast, for everyone was dead.
Some were cut, some were shot, some were broken, some were burned, and some were dismembered. In any way one could imagine a body being rapidly, brutally destroyed, his comrades had been just now.
The hunter didn't head for the airlock, or the escape pods. Instead it made its way, almost leisurely, down to the galley. The pilot followed, willing to do anything to the appearance of submission. (So he was a coward. So what?)
The hunter's head swept the things they had left out after dinner, and the devices they had used for preparing the food. Finally, it opened the freezer and had a look at the food itself.
Well. Let's just say that they had run out of rations a few weeks ago, about the same time they had boarded a human shuttle.
The 'prisoners' hung like meat, naked and gutted, in long frozen lines.
The hunter just stood there, looking at them. And the pilot realized how bad this must look, too somebody from a more civilized quarter of the galaxy. He swallowed. But the hunter didn't kill him, even after a sight like that. It shut the freezer, and turned to exit the galley.
Next it went to the computer room, and threw the tactical officer's headless body aside. Taking his seat, it searched through all their files. Then, apparently impatient, it placed its hand on the interface terminal, and downloaded every scrap. The pilot's gut turned as he saw the files disappearing into the hunter's computer. That stuff was… Rather important…
Then it left the computer room, and examined a recharge terminal. It placed its hand on the interface there. The terminal beeped, and the hunter recharged. The pilot frowned as he looked at the readouts on the wall. It took a ridiculous amount of energy to recharge it. He couldn't imagine what it was all for, or where, on such a small person, such energy could be stored.
Its next stop was their cargo bay. Upon entering, the hunter slowed down, and began looking methodically through all their stolen wares. Its head swept back and forth slowly, from box, to tank, to capsule, to heap. Its gaze passed right over a container full of gold and platinum, without stopping. This confused the pilot, because now it was clear that the hunter wasn't looking for money. Rather, it was as if it were scanning, reading deeply into each of their crimes, learning to know them. Was it collecting evidence? Was it just curious? Did it find it all amusing? Or was it researching them, in preparation for doing all this again?
The hunter went down to the armory after that, and kicked through their crates and lockers, spilling their weapons and ammo all over the floor. Apparently finding nothing of interest, it continued back up to the airlock, and gestured dismissively toward the pressure helmets.
The pirate let out a shaky breath, relieved. So he was to live. It didn't really matter where he went at this point, to slavery or imprisonment, he didn't care; anything was better than this ubiquitous death.
He obeyed the hunter all too gratefully, and slipped into a helmet. But when he reached for a thruster pack, needed for the oxygen tanks, the hunter stopped him and took the pack from him. He jumped as the hunter ripped off the rocket thrusters. Its hand was phenomenally strong, able to crush and twist the metal nozzles like so much paper. When it was done, it handed him the thoroughly mutilated pack. He donned it in numb acceptance.
Then the hunter led him to the airlock, and (neglecting the control terminal) shot a beam at the center of the door. The door opened automatically to save itself from further damage, and the air began to rush out of the cabin, for the airlock's outer door was quite missing. Then the hunter hooked an arm firmly around the pilot's body, and jumped out into the blackness. He closed his eyes.
The hunter's ship, having somehow evaded the missiles they left it with earlier, now approached to rendezvous with them, with its cloaking device off, and its own airlock open. It aligned this airlock perfectly with their trajectory, and they glided towards the opening.
The pilot looked back over his shoulder, at the destroyer bound for the moon below. Its engines still engaged to full, it sped ever more rapidly toward its fiery grave. All his comrades were dead inside, without a memory, or a burial. And everything he had ever worked for in his life was wasted too. In 30 minutes now, only one thing would remain of all their years of adventures, and that was himself… How humbling.
Soon he found himself sprawled flat on the floor of the hunter's ship, looking around. There wasn't much to see; a bed, a few storage lockers, an ejection seat. He looked up at the hunter, who surveyed him silently.
The green glow from the hunter's visor suddenly faded, and there was a series of clicking noise from its neck joint. Then the hunter reached up, stuck a thumb beneath its chin, and lifted the helmet off.
Beneath it was something he didn't expect.
A human woman.
His gut turned again. He had done so many cruel and perverted things to human women. They all had. Humans were soft, and weak… Easy… Scared. They had loved it when they ran across ships filled with helpless passengers. Some of which had looked exactly like this woman here. They had enjoyed it so much, their pain, their fear… Enjoyed it…
The woman bent down to a squat, and met his eye.
"I'm coming for the rest of you soon." She said. Her voice was gentle, cold, and very quiet. "And there won't be any survivors." She sounded confident. Utterly confident. As if it was a fact and not a threat. "I don't know if you people ever repent or pray… But I think it would be nice if they all had the chance… So that's why you're the only one I'll ever spare. You will return to your people, you will tell them what happened, and you will tell them that Samus Aran will be there soon… Can you do that?"
He nodded.
"Thank you." She said.
Then she lowered the helmet back over her face, and it locked into place.