METROID: SEEDS OF INNOCENCE
PROLOGUE
Behind the fierce melee, Ridley had reached Samus. He landed in front of the small cliff she was on, and she somersaulted down to his level. Just as good and evil met on this field, storied rivals now met. Each showed a mutual respect for the other's abilities...as well as an intense hatred that burned like the hottest plasma.
Samus began circling Ridley, and he kept a watch on her. It was like a game hunter stalking a lion. The lion was the stronger of the two, yet the hunter had the right equipment to dispatch the wild beast.
Ridley struck at Samus, but she jumped to the side, avoiding the gnashing teeth. His quick tail however, caught Samus in the side, knocking her down. Ridley tried to take advantage by raising his foot to step on her. His mistake was bearing his chest. Samus unleashed the spirit blast. Ridley shrieked as the beam burned through his hide and boiled it. He slyly rolled off of the beam and clutched his chest with his large claw as he breathed desperate breaths glancing at Samus.
She pulled herself off of the ground and began walking toward the beast. When she approached the injured pirate, she once again watched the wrong thing. His tail whipped through the air and knocked Samus airborne. Ridley followed up by hurling two meson bombs at Samus. The first one connected with her back and knocked her out of the air. The second bomb whizzed by. Propelled by incredible force, it kept going.
Samus bellyflopped on the ground with a small bounce. The bomb had melted away her Chozo armor in one section. Her burn proof undersuit was unburned, but her skin had boiled to blisters underneath, the bumpy texture showing through.
Samus tried to lift herself. She managed to straighten her arms, but the pain consumed her. It felt like she was engulfed in fire. The meson bombs also contained a nerve toxin. She must have absorbed the residue after the heat had melted her suit.
Instead of flopping back on her stomach, she managed to fall onto her side and look at her predator. Ridley still clutched his chest, strips of charred skin hanging from between his digits. He now stood over her.
She could see his breath...even smell it.
He tried to sense her fear...he found none.
Ridley raised his free arm to administer the death strike, but a noise paused him.
A massive explosion was heard in the distance. Samus turned her head to see.
Smoke was rising from the side of the wrecked ship. Some black, some a strange grey color. After a minute of scrutiny, the grey smoke seemed to be moving toward the valley instead of rising into the air. Samus would continue to watch, but a gut feeling told her otherwise. She turned back toward Ridley.
He had changed his focus back to Samus as well. He smiled with his saurian teeth. Samus could nearly feel his sadistic glee. He once again raised his claw.
As soon as he began his downswing, Samus closed her eyes and raised her arm.
Then she felt a rush...
...
...but no pain...
She opened her eyes, fully expecting to see an omniscient deity telling her that she was dead, but that wasn't exactly the case.
Ridley had a metroid attached to his arm. He was swinging it wildly, trying to remove the creature. As he raised his claw to strike it, another metroid latched onto his other claw. The dactylian shrieked in terror and pain as he was rendered helpless by the energy sapping creatures. One after another, the metroids locked onto Ridley. At first, he fiercely fought them, but the injured pirate lost his energy quickly. Soon, he shrunk to the ground, then crumbled into a pile of dust.
The metroids cooed and floated around Samus.
She rolled to her other side and gazed upon the field of battle. The metroids had attacked the pirates and ultimates. Piles of dust were blowing away in the wind as the metroids floated above the now quiet battlefield.
Samus gathered her strength and forced herself to get up. She made her way slowly to a very still mass of Chozo. They had surrounded a group of hunters.
Inside the circle were four hunters standing back to back, prepped for conflict.
One by one, the Chozo turned and acknowledged Samus, allowing her to enter the ring.
When the hunters saw her, they stood up straight and faced her.
"Samus Aran?" one of them asked.
"I am Samus," she responded.
"Samus, we were ordered to dispatch you. I assure you the rewards are high," the hunter said.
"I'm sure you are, but as you can see, I'm in no shape to fight, of course, neither are you," Samus said.
"Well, ma'am. You can't very well get paid if you're dead," the hunter replied.
"So that means..." Samus started.
"By your leave, ma'am. We'll be on our way back to the combine," stated the hunter.
"Oh, by all means. And hunter..." Samus remarked.
"Ma'am?"
"Don't screw up again. I'll get better," Samus said as she removed her helmet, glancing directly into the facemask of the hunter.
"Understood," acknowledged the hunter as he and his troupe filed through the Chozo and disappeared into the mountains.
Samus looked around bodies of fallen Chozo, hunters, pirates, and ultimates seemed to line the valley. The mountains had acted like the sides of a bowl, containing the bloodshed in a trough, not allowing the destruction to flood over into the rest of the planet.
The Chozo chief and his remaining warriors celebrated in triumph.
The mission was complete. The threat had been eliminated.
Samus sent out a communiqué to her ship.
"It's time to go," she said through the comm channel.
"Yes, ma'am, however, there's a message for you that might suggest otherwise..." responded her ship AI.
"Wonderful..." Samus sighed.
The ship descended on the recently defiled valley, kicking up
dust and debris as the Chozo all shielded their eyes. After a moment
the dust settled as the ship maintained a serene hover three feet
from the ground, not even making the tiny blades of grass quiver.
Samus hopped up on the ship and grabbed the com responder.
"This is Samus,"
"Ms. Aran, this is President Magnusson,"
"Is it dinnertime already? Come on, I just finished the mission. The pirates' influence here is gone," said Samus.
"Your job isn't completely finished," replied the President.
"I must be missing something," Samus remarked.
"We've added a directive to your mission," Magnusson said.
"A little late for that, isn't it? You can't really add a directive to a completed mission...can you?" asked Samus, confused.
"If you wish to be paid and not to be released from the combine, you will follow the orders as they are given," demanded the President.
"Well in that case, what do you have for me this time?" asked Samus bitingly.
"You are to eliminate all metroids on the Planet Zebes," stated the President.
"...Now wait...the metroids I encountered here were peaceful and isolated. They pose no threat and would do fine just to be left alone where they were found," Samus reasoned.
"They are to be destroyed with no question. Their demise has been planned for long enough, and it's time for them to be eliminated. I expect the objective to be completed upon your return. Magnusson out..."
Samus dropped the com responder and looked around. Metroids hovered silently around the battlefield. All of them must have come when the hole was blown in the hull of the wrecked ship.
Something was already wrong...
The metroids began glowing and undulating from side to side and up and down. One by one they 'popped' and the entrails fell to the ground in a pile of sludge. After a few moments, there were only a handful of metroids left...the ones that had fed upon Ridley.
The metroids, over the time they had spent inside the wrecked ship's reactor core, had developed a dependence upon the radioactivity that still pulsed within the chamber. Instead of feeding off of life-force, they used radioactivity to sustain themselves. Outside the confines of the reactor chamber, they didn't stand a chance unless they chose to feed. It was as if a domesticated wolf were released into the wild; they had no instincts for survival.
Most of the objective had been completed in the matter of a few minutes...so Samus assumed that she needed to finish the job.
She looked at the Chozo. As if already knowing her intentions, they all turned and walked back into the mountains on the path they had used to launch their assault.
Only Samus now remained with the seven remaining metroids. She never saw herself as an exterminator, but now that seemed to be her means to an end.
Against the will of her heart, she raised her arm cannon to aim at the metroids. One cooed, and the noise sent Samus into furious thought...
...the girl hunter...
...why did she kill her...
...she stood in the way of her objective...
...but she was just a child...
...she had attacked her with intent to kill...
...but she was an innocent...
...acceptable losses...
...the primary directive is to complete the mission...
When Samus snapped back to reality, only an echo could be heard bouncing off of the mountains and cliffs encasing the valley. A dark circle was etched in the side of the rock facing.
No metroids were in sight...there were none left living.
She had resorted to killing without thinking...organisms that had shown nothing but care for her, she had wrested their lives contemptuously from them, only to assure that no more would exist...upon the command of a man who knew nothing of a grand design of any sort...a man who considered loss of life for a cause 'acceptable'...
It was now time to go...
Samus reached inside of her ship and removed an item.
She walked into the rubble and scooped the remains of a metroid into the canister, sealing it upon completion. She could afford to risk taking one 'in the name of science'. Now that none were left alive, there should be no problems with a corpse...surely...
CHAPTER 1
Hunter Log 3852
The metroid remains
are still glowing. It must be the residual radiation from being in
the reactor core. I've got an idea for what to do with it, however.
It needs to be studied. I'll have to make a side trip on the way back
to the combine, but that doesn't matter much, it's a long trip
anyway. Besides, that president really has a way of getting under my
skin...
Samus out
"Grady, take us to Planet SR-388."
"Ma'am?"
"You heard me. Plot a course for orbit. There's something I've got to take care of." said Samus.
"Well, ma'am, I would, but there's a slight problem. Remember that starship from before?"
"Yes...why?" asked Samus.
"It's in the way, ma'am."
"Pull up a visual, Grady."
"Yes, ma'am."
A panoramic image swept across the front visor of Samus' ship. After flickering a few times, the image became stable.
"It's not even in synchronous orbit...it's just floating there..."
"I'm not picking up any signals from the ship, and shields are down, ma'am."
"Let's dock with it; I want to check it out." Samus said.
"Yes, ma'am..."
The ship turned and flew toward the massive star cruiser. It entered the docking bay and landed as quietly as it had on Zebes. Samus exited, sure to have her oxygen working for the open bay.
As she approached the pressurization chamber, she noticed that the door was still open. There was no sign of forced entry, however.
She entered the chamber and shut the door. Hisses escaped from the vents as Samus felt pressure relieve from her eardrums. She turned her oxygen off to conserve it, and opened the door to the inside of the ship.
The first corridor was impeccable. The lights were bright, the floors and walls were clean, and not a particle of anything was out of place. In other words, too perfect.
Samus continued until she reached another door, which opened from her proximity. It revealed, once again, a perfect hallway stretching from her left to her right. Perfectly clean, perfectly silent.
She wasn't sure which way to go, but before long, she got her answer.
Far to her right, Samus heard a small tap. In the midst of the silence, it resounded off the walls and grew in intensity by the time it reached her ears.
She walked slowly down the hallway with her arm cannon ready. She heard another tap.
Her pace sped slightly. She heard another tap, higher in intensity, lower in pitch.
She began to round a turn. Another tap, this time almost with a liquid quality.
Around the turn she saw the end of the corridor. At first glance, it appeared perfect like the previous two, but something was wrong.
From down the way, Samus noticed there was a room to the left of the door at the end of the corridor. As she approached, she noticed that part of the door framing had been dented. The impression was that of a five fingered fist...a human fist. It was slender...either an effeminate male, or a female left this imprint. Samus figured it was the latter.
When she placed her hand upon the door, it slid freely with the motion of her hand. A feature she was sure wasn't available on this ship. She studied the frame and saw that the punch had disabled both the lock and the drive train on the door. The pieces of the latching mechanism on the floor supported that theory. There was her forced entry.
She then saw the result of the forced entry. A space pirate lie on the floor with its head splattered on the corner of a metal box. From the looks of the box, it had suffered repeated strikes from the space pirate's skull. The corner was completely blunted. The pirate evidently didn't provide the answers its assailant required.
Another noise brought Samus back to attention. It was through the door of the corridor.
Samus dashed out and went through the automatic door, revealing the bridge. Immediately to her left, she heard running footsteps as she caught the glimpse of a foot just before it exited through another door. Her focus then turned to the equipment of the bridge. Every console either had a bomb attached or had already been destroyed by a blast of some kind. Space pirates littered the ground. This was not good.
Samus turned and dashed back into the hallway towards the docking bay. She had no time to pursue the one responsible. She had to save herself on this one.
She rounded the curve and continued to dash toward the door to the docking bay. She readied her oxygen. As she reached the door, she unleashed a Chozo beam blast that incinerated the inside and the outside doors to the pressurization.
The vacuum didn't matter to Samus, as she was running with the flow. As she hopped on top of her ship, a blast rocked the star cruiser and caused it to list immediately, almost knocking Samus from her ship. As she slid, she managed to hang on with her left hand.
Samus pulled herself up and fell inside her ship.
"Grady, get us out now," Samus ordered as she righted herself in her seat.
"One step ahead of you, ma'am.
The ship blasted out of the docking back and back into space.
"Reverse visual of the ship, Grady."
"Yes ma'am."
The display came up once again, showing the massive ship falling into the atmosphere of Zebes. The image seemed strange to Samus... Had that been what happened to CV-10962 before it crashed into the planet? Was the same person responsible?
She didn't have time for this. It was not in her plans.
"Grady, I assume our course is now clear for SR-388?"
"Starting on course for orbit, ma'am."
"Take over for me; I've got to sort some things out." Samus sighed.
"Yes, ma'am."