Summary: One shot. Samus of METROID series fame plus Dead Space's Isaac Clarke. Necromorphs and two bad ass space heroes (one's a lowly engineer and the other is a formidable bounty hunter). 'Cause it hasn't been done yet.

Mortuus Tractus

-0.1 Transport-

Samus Aran, feared bounty hunter, former member of Zebes society, and former member of the Galactic Federation Police was completely daunted by where she was. It wasn't the fact that she was still very much in Space that bothered her so much as it was the fact that the ship she was currently crouching on was completely unrecognizable to her. Overhead there were lights flickering about and the occasional hum of cool air whistling through the vent system. Air circulation. Air flow. But other than that . . . there was nothing. She had no idea where she was and her Scanner was offline, dead, completely static. She could hear the stutter of white noise before she used her arm cannon to lightly tap the machinery on her forearm.

Gritting her teeth, Samus stood up and surveyed the rest of the ship, moving in a deliberate slowness in case she ran into anything . . . strange. And strange things she did invariably run into, as she maneuvered around the claustrophobic tight halls, the floor awash with the dimmed glow of sulphurous lighting.

"Christ, I need to get this scanner to work, come on, come on," she gnawed on her lower lip and bit back a growl of frustration. She couldn't even accurately recall just how she had been unceremoniously dropped unto the desecration of this ship. Her mind was fuzzy, flashing with images blurred and hazed in bright white. At one point she was piloting her gunship smoothly through the deep bowels of space, on her way to complete a necessary mission involving some particularly nasty space pirates, and now . . .

"I'm here," her voice was tinged with the lacing of something mechnical, a result of speaking through her visored helmet. Just then an inhuman roar echoed off of the walls as Samus came aross a large metal door. It was far too heavy for her to even consider lifting, even if her body was enhanced with the far more advanced blood of the Chozo race, there were still very human limitations she faced. The door weighed a little more than a tonne, no thanks. Glancing around worriedly as the roaring of something possibly undead, an abomination of man, judging by the throaty gurgle this creature emitted became more audible; Samus started to panic. She placed her hand on the crown of her helmet and breathed through the tube supplying fresh oxygen into her lips, inhaling the streamed current of air almost greedily.

"Alright," she almost screamed in joy as her scanner suddenly buzzed back to life just as the scuttling, scraping sound of some . . . legged thing rounded the corner behind her. She could hear the spittle spraying from its blown off lower bloodied jaw before it even lunged at her, readying its bladed limbs to rend into her flesh.

"Son of a Metroid Queen, what the hell is that?" She charged up her power beam quickly, barely blinking as the blinding light of radiant photon-loaded energy loaded up. A tingling sensation shot through her arm as the energy jettisoned out, blasting the creature's arms before it had a chance to rip her head off. Samus backed up against the door, the collision resulting in it hissing open with a mechanical hum, before she fired up another power beam and shot it out at the other arm of the disparaged creature.

Blood splattered against her visor and the creature dropped to the floor once she effectively decapitated it. Luck had been on her side because within that small window of time her scanner had been able to assess the enemy's weakness and ultimately identify the freak of nature. That scanner, like it had done so many times before, had saved her ass.

She glanced at the entry and grimaced at the results: "Slasher: a basic Necromorph variant with bladed limbs and a distended torso with protruding organs. Can move quite rapidly if agitated. Limb dismemberment, starting with the arms and then the legs effectively destroys the creature. Do not fire at the torso."

"What is a necromor-?"

"Watch out!" A voice rang out and a glimmering electric blue light illuminated Samus' power suit in a bright neon glow. The woman curled herself into a ball and braced herself for impact as she sprang off, using her momentum, to somersault through the air, landing at the opposite wall. Having taken the time to walk through the doorway, Samus had just walked into another odd creature, this one seemingly able to detach its limbs at will. It was a slimy crawling thing, the limbs looking to be composed of bloodied tree resin and gnarled, twisted ligaments. But that "resin" was just tissue, muscle, and bone. A shudder tingled along Samus's spine and she felt the need to remove her helmet because the heat of it was killing her.

"What is that thing!"

"Leaper," the suited man in question huffed back to her, sidestepping as the legless thing screeched at him, swiping at his legs with its bladed "tail," if the appendage could be called that. He grunted, his luminous blue tinted visor casting the small barely lit compartment in a bright electric blue hue, as he took out a strange weapon. Loading some rounds into it he took aim and the crosshairs, a bright blue as well, locked on the adversary's arm, and rotated to a vertical 90 degree angle. The unnamed man of about 6 feet or so fired a bullet, shattering the bone and muscle of the creature's twisted sinewy appendage. It roared and attempted to come dangerously close to his head, clicking its incisor-lined maw, before Samus recharged her arm cannon and fired.

The air smelled of smoke and heated electrical particles, making the air tingle and sizzle in the aftermath of the encounter. Innards splattered the wall as the creature made its last strangled gurgled cry and expired.

"Ugh," Samus moved over to the man, grateful for his assistance. But still . . . he could be a pirate or another bounty hunter . . . maybe he was out to kill her. Maybe everything on this ship was cursed and masked in a facade of friendliness. Maybe . . .

"Who are you?" The man (she assumed he was one judging by the deepness of his baritone) inquired, checking his gun. The holographic image of his remaining ammunition flickered a bright blue: 7. He had 7 rounds left. He didn't wait for a response, crouching to pick up what Samus assumed was loot the creature had been lugging around. He snatched up some more ammunition and reloaded his weapon with three clips, flicking a switch on it, and nodding in satisfaction.

"Well . . .," and then his unsettling impatience was lacing his voice and Samus had no choice but to answer him. He was the only humanoid thing on this ship so far that didn't want to kill her, to maim her to bits, and suck out her lifeblood as part of a three course meal.

"Samus Aran of the planet Zebes, I'm a bounty hunter and a former member of the Federation Police. Now you," she huffed, sliding down against the opposite wall. There was the glorious cacophony of the damned: chirrups, chirping, clicking, scuttling, scurrying, clawed feet (or what were assumed to be such), and the smell of fetid flesh and congealed blood.

"Isaac Clarke, systems engineer for the CEC," he chuckled almost bitterly at Samus' tilt of the head and defined the acronym for his area of employment, ". . . it stands for the Concordance Extraction Corporation. You're not from Earth . . . are you?"

"I was . . .," Samus slid her left foot out, letting the metal plating of her heavily armoured space boots slide soundlessly against the metal grid of the flooring.

"And . . .?"

"It was destroyed . . . by space pirates. I was ta-"

"Shit! Fire up that thing! NOW!"

A roar interruped their peaceful chattering time and a holographic image projected out of Isaac's suit, seemingly out of no where. Samus couldn't and didn't want to waste time trying to catch a glimpse of it. Readying her gun she furrowed her ashen blonde brows, blinking a bead of perspiration away as the voice of a trembling distraught man broke out from the image. A transmission, Samus noted and relaxed visibly, tensing her legs, to back up against the wall opposite of Isaac as they walked towards the screaming source of anger.

"Isaac, you gotta cut their limbs off, Smith just killed on of 'em. Use a cutter or anything like that, you gotta chop their limbs off, cut 'em off!"

Isaac was breathless, almost winded as another Slasher headed toward him. It gurgled and screeched menacingly, brandishing its bladed limbs, the swiping on which narrowly avoided Isaac's head as Samus aimed for one of its arms. Isaac cut off another limb with the bladed edge of his plasma cutter and stomped on its head with the metal plating of his boot, grunting withthe exerted effort. Samus recoiled in horror as the blood splashed against his leg like thick paint. He collected what he told her was a power node, a glimmering orb of pure electrical power, and told her that they weren't alone.

"What do you mean?"

"I have other companions . . . people . . . people that are trying to get off this fucking godforsaken place."

"And where exactly are we? My scanner can't identify the name of this vessel at all," Samus was terrified. If this ship was just teeming with more of these strange undead deadly things then she wasn't sure WHAT she was going to do. She only had so much resources, so much energy to expend . . . only so much . . .

"The USG Ishimura . . . a planet-cracking starship, first of its kind. And yes, there are tons more of those necropmorph creatures . . . a lot more. We've got to keep moving, Samus," and that was that.

-Author's Notes-

I tried to make it all tense and "oh my GOD!" but still badass by coupling the two together, I know they seem rushed and all OOC, but trust me, if I do make this oneshot into a multi-chaptered fic then like they'll shit their pants more . . . their galactic space pants. Ohoho. But yeah I'll make it scarier and tense-r just tell me if you want me to continue with this or leave it as is, a oneshot. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. ^_^

- TBP