As usual, the Metroid name, characters, and ideas belong to Nintendo and their respected affiliates. Other Nintendo cameos belong to their rightful copyrighted owners and I claim no ownership over them. This story's conceptual plot and original characters are property of me.
Please note that this is the last story in my Metroid Trilogy, the first two stories being "Rebirth of a Legend" and "Conflict from Within" I hope you enjoy the conclusion to the series. It's been a long time coming and hopefully I can get through the story without boring you to much.
Chapter 1
Arrival on Earth
"The Galactic Federation has begun the court marshal hearings for the three Galactic Federation officers who plotted the demise of their own organization by hiring Space Pirate mercenaries, the long time enemy of the Federation. Speculation still remain that other officers or even some council members may have been involved but no details of those suspected have yet to be released to the public."
Lana changed the monitor back to a weapons screen, tired of listening to the now public accusations of treason surrounding the Federation. She had heard enough of that since her last encounter with the Galactic Federation, a conversation also involving apologies regarding the bounty hunter who, at the time, was suspected of mass murder on the Atlass286 Scientific Research Space Station, a mistake on their part once substantiation of a surviving X parasite imitating the bounty hunter surfaced.
It all seemed to be a nightmare, thankfully now over, to Lana. The SA-X was now dead, as well as the HA-X, a Houston Armstrong imitation; however, both still haunted her dreams with re-occurrences of the space station's final battle, ending with Lana killing the both of them. The bond that Lana had forged with the amnesiac SA-X reminded her of the relationship Lana had with her mother and even though the SA-X was only an impersonator, the loss of the organism had dismayed her still. The ship rocked violently as it entered Earth's atmosphere; Lana could see re-entry flames raging outside the ship's portholes. Adam chimed in, "Lady, we have entered Earth's atmosphere and will be landing in a few minutes."
"Thanks Adam", Lana said, rising from her pilot's chair and walking over to a nearby closet to grab some clothes. Lana threw on a pair of black jean shorts and an olive green shirt with a remark on the reverse reading, "Universal Bounty Hunter…saving the universe one planet at a time." This shirt was one of her favorites; save for the horrifying color it came in. She quickly pulled her black boots from under the console and slipped them on; tying down the laces and tucking them inter her boots. A line of text came up on the screen, "Ship is cleared for landing", and it flashed a few times before disappearing.
"Adam. Have the maintenance crew take a look at those rear thrusters;' I don't think they've been working properly since Mostok. We probably took in some of that polluted air while we were there." The ship shook slightly as the thrusters moved to the underside of the small gun ship, slowing its decent to the surface. A set of hydraulic legs appeared from the underside and planted them into the ground allowing the ship to leisurely settle onto terra firma.
"Yes Lady", Adam replied, text appearing on the screen automatically filling in the maintenance request form before sending it off. The bottom hatch opened and a yellow circular disc of energy emerged from the floor; Lana stepped aboard and it slowly descended down and out of the ship. The disc of energy came to rest just above the ground. Lana stepped off the platform, her feet sinking into the soggy soil.
"Welcome to Earth Lana Aran", a short stocky man in a black suit and tie greeted her, extending a hand toward Lana. "Very sorry to hear about your late mother, I've heard very fascinating and remarkable stories about her. My name is Arthur Harvey, but you may call me Art." His warm smile was welcoming to Lana who was use to the rigid and militaristic mannerisms of dour GFP officers; his short light brown hair was tinged with natural blonde highlights that seemed to shift from side to side as the wind blew by.
"Nice to meet you Art", Lana said accepting the handshake and finding it surprisingly sturdy. Arthur swept his hand back and motioned toward the various cuts and abrasions on Lana's face. "Recent fight", Lana remarked, embarrassed by the unsightly scars that marred her normally fair skin; her last battle left her in bad shape, but according to the Chozo doctors, she would recover with little to no scarring. Art shook his head in understanding before guiding her toward a long dark blue limousine style automobile.
"You will be staying at the Galactic Federation Barracks located on the Camp Titan Marine Corp Base. You'll find the accommodations in the officer's quarters quite pleasant. I've never stayed there myself but I have heard nothing but good things about the place", Art said closing the door behind him as he climbed into the car.
"Thank you, I'm sure I will", Lana responded with a smile, taking the back seat of the long couch that filled the cabin of the car. Lana found the vehicle itself to be peculiar, she had seen cars with wheels, but the wheels this vehicle had, she was not accustomed to. Lana peered out of the dark tinted windows at her surroundings. Most of the ground that Lana could make out was saturated with water shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight; small ripples of water extended from the movement of small fish and insects floating just beneath the surface. Lana also took note that many of the building's themselves were either built on top of cement slabs or submerged in the water, much of the landscape as far as Lana could see resembled a swamped plain, "My ship's computer informed me this was a water covered planet, but from my younger teachings, there use to be plenty of land, what happened here?"
Art motioned to the driver of the car and the vehicle roared to life; the A/C kicking in and cutting through the humidity that had accumulated inside the car, "Well about four years ago, we had a very close extraterrestrial encounter. Scientists, who were interested in studying the inner material of comets, knocked comet Temple-Tuttle the comet responsible for a yearly meteor shower here on Earth, off of its course. The scientists had miss-calculated something or another, and it ended up pushing its orbit much closer to the Earth, the original perihelion of the comet placed it nearly thirteen million miles away; however, the blast from the scientists research probe pushed the comet off course, bringing it into a three hundred and fifty two million mile away flyby. As the comet reached its peak in our orbit, the heat from the comet ended up causing the northern polar ice caps to melt terrifically. In a matter of three days, what once was beach and plains turned into oceans and lakes. About the only thing left above the water are the high mountain foothills and the mountain ranges themselves, hell even many of those are nothing more then small island chains now."
"That explains that, but what about this area here; I mean it's apparent that these buildings and cars aren't sitting on top of the water so how do your buildings stay up and your roads don't even appear to be visible."
"Oh that one's simple. The buildings that are partially submerged are pre-flood era, most of them are still being used, at least those areas not flooded; however, many of the buildings were inhabitable and thus they were demoed and large slabs of concrete were poured to support the buildings above the water. The same goes with the roads, they are just raised highways. Regrettably, the melting of the ice caps had not finished when repair of the city was finished and the water level rose at least a foot if not more in most areas. This inundated the newly built roads but without the resources to rebuild those, we had to adapt our cars to drive on the slightly flooded roads. The cars today are now outfitted with deeper treaded tires; unfortunately, many roads are flooded deeper then the tires can handle, for these, light gravity engines are used to raise the car above the water, but they are only good in up to four feet", Art continued as he rolled down the window for Lana to see the waterlogged road, "We use the lights submerged on the road to guide where we are going, granted it's not a hundred percent effective, it helps get us where we go. It's dangerous walking around in the unmarked water. It's really easy to find yourself swimming in a seven hundred foot deep pond of what once was the edge of a building, so watch your step around here because there use to be some pretty lofty buildings and you'd be surprised where these spots may be."
"I'll keep that in mind", Lana said, slightly impressed that the people of Earth had so quickly adapted to their misfortune.
"I tell you what; one good thing about this whole mess is that production of gas engines was halted due to the lack of oil and oil refineries. This forced us to hasten the production of Hydrogen cars, and now as a result, we have clean drinking water from the bi-product of the cars, and a higher quality of air then before. I tell you it was a Godsend really; compared to how terrible things were going before. Another beni…" Art was cut off as he was flung to the opposite side of the car, the driver jerking the wheel of the vehicle to avoid hitting a young man flying by. Lana grabbed a handle near the roof to keep from being thrown to the floor. The young man turned and smiled as he pulled out a weapon resembling a small firearm. He wore a blue skintight wetsuit with a white bicycle helmet and rode on a circular device akin to a trashcan lid. He surfed along in front of the car and began to fire the weapon. Before the driver could react, water shot from the now obvious toy weapon and he surfed on ahead laughing uncontrollably, a little flame of exhaust escaping from the back of the surfboard type ride as it sped along weaving in and out of traffic.
"Damn hooligans!" Art swore under his breath. "People are normally polite around here but the kids can get unruly at times. As I was saying, the world population was almost cut in half. The world was in complete chaos for a good two years and fights over land possession broke out quickly. That's when the UN, NATO and the US gave in to the Galactic Federation's orders and we've been completely under their control since. Things have really turned around for the better here. I think the best change is what is coming up. Take a look to the east as we come to this break", he said pointing out his window on the right.
The buildings gave way to nothing but water and a horizon. "By Enode. That is gorgeous", Lana said in a quiet awe. Just above the horizon, three moons, two horribly misshapen as if their gravity wasn't strong enough to hold the lunar object together and another yellow surfaced moon. They rose majestically toward the heavens, there large visage's reflecting off of the ocean water, the dark orange and red that preceded twilight flooded the evening sky adding to the mystical magnificence. Each moon was bigger then the one before it and craters were clearly noticeable along each of the moon's surfaces. They were almost in alignment in the sky, the smallest of the three slightly left to the largest one in the middle whose surface had a slightly red tint to it, and the medium sized moon with the same red surface, was slightly higher and to the right of the large one.
"A gift from the comet", Art said, "Scientists found that upon the comets return run from the sun that it would cause even more problems for the Earth. A massive project was deployed to attempt to destroy the comet before it could cause any more damage. The scientists failed in completely destroying it as they thought they would and instead the comet split in two. The explosion had such a massive force on the front end of it that the comet almost stopped completely in its orbit", he said pointing to the larger moon, "that is the biggest piece. When it broke free, the Earth's gravity pulled it into an outer orbit; the same goes for the one at the top. That one is on the same orbit but at a higher plane; the third one is natively ours if you couldn't tell by the difference in surface color. We were lucky neither piece came close enough to hit; otherwise, there may not have been an Earth left."
Lana kept her eyes on the moons until ground began to ascend on her side, casting a shadow over the water between the mountain pass they were entering. The wheels screeched lightly as the road emerged from the water and the rubber caught good traction with the asphalt. After a half hour drive from the landing strip to the mountain pass, a group of buildings rose in the not too far distance, a large chain link fence running from one mountainside cliff to another with watch towers atop each side. The car came up to the guarded gate and was waved through by the marine on post; he quickly slipped back into the small guardhouse to continue watching his small black and white T.V.
"Here we are", Art said following Lana out of the car as it came to a stop.
"Thanks", Lana said, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. The shadows from the mountain created an early night for the base as the sun was already far beneath its peak on the opposite side. A cool breeze winded its way through the mountain valley bringing the aroma of fall on its wings, "Can you have the men at the landing strip send my clothing and power suit over", Lana asked beginning to walk toward the barrack's office.
"I'll have them take care of that immediately, they should have your stuff here within the hour." Art pulled out a communication device and texted a message before placing it back into the pocket from which it came.
After a quick check in with the duty downstairs, Lana followed Art up to her room. They climbed the stairs to the top floor and entered the last room; the windows compared to the nearby rooms were much larger and the corner bay windows were set to create a picturesque view of the stony mountains. Few trees dotted the desolate sides, mostly pine or cedar, the only type of tree that could withstand the harsh rocky environment. Small flying rodents darted about the trees looking for their nightly meals of insects or some other diminutive creatures to feast on. A trumpet blared somewhere amidst the buildings on the base, signifying the end of the day and lowering of the flag.
"This room is reserved for visiting Colonels, Generals, and other important visitors. Please help yourself to what they have here in the room and if you need anything, just dial the duty downstairs, the number is beside the phone. You'll probably receive a call tomorrow morning around nine to make sure you are up and ready to meet with the council members of the GFP. Enjoy your evening", Art said, taking his hat off as he bowed slightly before taking his leave.
"Thanks again", Lana said closing the door behind him.