Prologue
I don't know how much time passed since then. Days went by in their quiet way, and people's recollections of Metroids and Space Pirates grew nebulous over time, relegated to a past concern of the galactic communities... Nothing more than a faded memory.
An alarm sounded within the transmission and the narrator's voice gasped.
Code name: "Baby's Cry". A common SOS with the urgency of a baby crying... The nickname comes from the fact that the purpose of the signal is to draw attention. The signal was coming from a remote part of space. I altered the course of my ship as if this detour had already been part of my flight plan. Baby's Cry... It was as though it was crying specifically for me...
The transmission ended with a beep and all sound cut off from the system. I lifted the heavy-duty headphones off of my ears and placed them on the desk in front of me. A little box popped up out of nowhere and asked me if I wanted to replay the message or move on to the next. I watched the screen flash in front of me and didn't even realize that someone had entered the little room with me until I felt a hand rest on my shoulder. I whipped around to see who it was and saw one of my very dear friends.
"David! You frightened me." I said as I gave the boy a half-smile. The deep red eyes of the black-haired, chocolate-skinned boy closed as he laughed aloud, filling the small room with sound.
"I didn't mean to scare you, Cam. I just came to tell you that guest hours are almost up." David smiled down at me.
"How much time do I have left?"
"About ten minutes." he shrugged. I nodded. That would be plenty of time to hear the next part of the transmission... I hoped.
"I'm almost done here. I'll meet you in the lobby when I'm finished, alright?" I smiled up at him.
"Sure thing. Just don't stay too long. I'd like to be able to work here when we get older." David chuckled and then left me alone in the small room once again. I swiftly placed the headphones back on my ears and clicked the bright blue button that read 'Next'.
"Galactic Federation... Huh?"
The next voice I heard was loud and very masculine. Not the narrator's voice at all.
"Ahh... Fancy meeting you here, Princess! Remember me?"
"Anthony!"
There's only one person who calls me "Princess". And that person is Anthony Higgs of the Galactic Federation Army.
I quickly scrawled the name down on a piece of paper that had been sitting in front of me for the last hour that had absolutely nothing written on it.
"Haven't seen you since that last mission. Hey, and your buddy's here too!"
Adam Malkovich. A general in the Galactic Federation Army.
More scrawling.
Not only a trusted confidant but also my former superior officer.
"What?" I screamed at the black screen. "Samus Aran had been enlisted in the army?" and then as if to personally answer my question, Samus continued.
Yes, there was a time when I was enrolled in the Galactic Federation Army. And then I... Well, I was young and inexperienced... As the result of a certain incident, I left Adam's command and set out on my path as a solitary bounty hunter.
The next voice I heard was just as masculine as the other strange voice, but much quieter than the last.
"What are you doing here?"
The first words out of his mouth were typical, coming from Adam. To answer his question, I recounted the details of what had brought me to this place, and then I asked what circumstances led the Federation here.
"That information is not for an outsider."
The word he so obviously chose, "outsider", pierced my heart.
Just as another voice came into the transmission, the sound cut off.
"What the-?" I looked around the machine and found a woman in military uniform standing over me.
"Visitation times are up, little miss." her voice was soft, yet stern. And then I knew that more than ten minutes had passed. I nodded and grabbed my little slip of paper before darting out of the room.
When I reached the lobby, I nearly plowed over David, who was still standing there waiting for me. I grabbed a hold of his wrist with my free hand and we took off out of the Galactic Federation Headquarters.
"Did you find anything?" David asked. We were sitting in the park in the middle of town, just inches away from the lake. David picked up a rather flat rock and pitched it across the water, making it skip about three times until it sank.
"I did." I unfolded my scrap of paper and started to read it off. "Your father was a member of the army during that time. He called Samus 'Princess'."
"Let me rephrase that. 'Did you find anything' useful?" David smirked as he tossed another stone. Four times.
"Samus was a member of the Federation army."
The next stone David tossed plunged right into the lake, as did the others he had in his hand.
"Come again?"
"You heard me! And a man by the name of Adam Malkovitch was her commanding officer." I said handing him the paper. David snatched up the paper and his dark red eyes skimmed over it faster than I ever could and shot me a look of total shock.
"Miss Aran said this all in her transmissions?"
I nodded. "It was as if she was telling the story of that mission to me. As though she knew that she was going to go missing..." I thought aloud.
Yes... Samus Aran had gone missing. Two years ago in fact. I was twelve when the army members from the Galactic Federation HQ invaded my eighth-grade class. They told me that they were no longer able to pick up Samus' signals. Neither signals from her Power Suit nor her ship were able to be picked up. And everyone had totally lost all contact with her. There she went... The only member of my family I ever knew...
The Federation members then told me that I would be living with a woman that was close friends with my mother. A woman by the name of Madeline Bergman. She was a scientist for the Federation and she had been the lead scientist on the BOTTLE ship. That was the mission I was digging through back at HQ. Madeline had said that it was my right to know what they were doing on the BOTTLE ship. She said I had every right to know what a threat of bio-weapons she had created. But it was important that no one ever tried anything like that again. That's what she was doing now. Madeline was still head scientist, but now she was working on legal programs, directly for HQ.
But that was all she would ever tell me... Even now, sixteen years after the incident, she would never talk about the details of that project. So, I had turned to my best friend for help. David Higgs. David was the son of Admiral Anthony Higgs, the commander of every unit in the Galactic Federation Army. And David could get me in to just about everywhere in headquarters.
"Why hasn't Father told me about any of this? He knows I'm helping you search for Miss Aran..." David cut into my train of thought, snapping me back into reality.
"Wait a minute... Samus said in her transmission that she was under command of Adam Malkovitch..."
"We know that already, Cam."
"But there was also a time during a transmission before that, that Anthony said something about Samus' 'buddy' being there too... That's when Samus first mentioned Adam." I solved.
"You don't think that Miss Aran and my father were part of the same unit? Do you?"
"That's exactly what I think." I nodded.
"Cameran... You're insane. Get going home. I'll get you back into the Data Room tomorrow." David said as he slapped me on the back.
He never did. In fact, I never saw David again...
"Commander! We're clear for landing." the unit's pilot, Alec, stated as the giant loading door on the floor of the ship made a hissing noise and then lowered to reveal the rust-colored surface of the planet.
"Alright! I want everyone to perform their duties as successfully as possible. We don't have the time to fallback." Commander barked. "Sweep team" Commander Higgs turned to me and the rest of the sweep team. "you know what to do! Now, move out!" I clicked the switch on the side of my helmet and lowered my visor as I, and the rest of my team, made our way out of the ship. As leader of the Sweepers, as I called them, it was my job to lead my team to a place safe enough for all of the unit members to meet up and check in. But most of all, we were to secure a place where Commander Higgs could remain safely behind closed doors, so to speak.
Platoon Seven never moved as one unit. We were always broken up into small groups based on our abilities. That way, Anthony made sure he was able to balance out the brains and the brawn.
"Can't have hot-heads running around getting everyone killed." he would always say. Most of the members of the unit found this offensive, but also found lots of truth in it. We all had to admit that none of the Platoon Seven missions would have been successful if it weren't for those brains. But what would I know?
This was my second year in the Galactic Federation Army, and my first year being a member of Platoon Seven, Admiral Anthony Higgs' personal unit. We were the best of the best. But sadly, there were only about twenty of us left.
We'd been out here in this foreign galaxy exploring the remnants of the lost planet, Phaaze, when we were attacked by monsters we had thought to have been extinct.
Space Pirates.
It turned out that most of a Space Pirate unit managed to genetically enhance their bodies so that they could use all of the phazon within the planet Phaaze to live off of.
During that attack, over half of my comrades had died from phazon burns. I almost did as well.
When we returned to Galactic Federation Headquarters, the medics from every unit possible ran tests on all of us. They didn't find anything strange about anyone that was still alive, other than me. I had suffered extreme damage and exposure to phazon. My suit that the Federation grants all of their members had been completely destroyed and phazon managed to seep into my blood stream, making my blood turn into phazon. My natural green eyes turned a bright and deadly blue, and my veins can be seen extremely clearly on the left side of my face. The phazon that fused with me took months to gain control over, but now that I'm in control of it, I'm one of the strongest members of the Galactic Federation. And the most deadly.
"Cammie! You're in charge of making sure these boys get through the locals in one piece and still be able to function once they're done." Commander Higgs laughed and I simply nodded.
"Move out!" I snapped to my teammates as I waved my left arm, motioning for them to start sweeping.
"Commander. We've found a down gunship. Hunter class." I said into my comms unit. We'd been searching for anything for hours and had finally found a clue to what happened to this desolate planet. "Sydney is scanning it now."
A sweeper member by the name of Kent Sydney was running multiple scans on the foreign gunship with his hand held computer that he kept with him at all times.
"No life-forms indicated inside. It's safe to enter." Kent said standing.
"Alright, Cammie. I want you to explore the ship with Malvin. Everyone else, stand guard around the ship. And keep an eye out for the locals." Anthony's voice came booming over the comms.
I gripped my gun tighter and nodded to Harry. Harry Malvin nodded back and the two of us walked toward the vessel. As soon as we did, all five members of my team took a step back in shock.
"Woah!" Kent's voice.
"Harry! Cam! Get away from there!" Marcos Yayle's voice.
"What's going on?" Justin Taylor.
Out of sheer curiosity, I looked up. The gray belly of the gunship started glowing a bright blue. Phazon blue. I took a step back just as a circular elevator dropped down from the center of the ship's underside. The base of the elevator stopped at the surface of the ground and sent out for locks on each side to hold it into place. I looked back at my comrades and the shock seemed to fade away from them as their body language grew a little more set-in. Each of them stepped closer to the ship and started looking it over in a whole new light.
"Cammie. I want you in there alone. There's obviously only room for one person anyway." Anthony hesitated before saying it, but his message came through loud and clear. It wasn't obvious that there was only room for one. Anthony knew this ship. And I didn't need to ask just who it was that it once belonged to.
I stepped up onto the elevator and turned for one last look at my teammates before the elevator lifted me up into the ship. Upon entering, I could tell that this had been a bounty hunter's gunship. Samus Aran's gunship. I hit the button on my visor and it lifted up over my face. A feeling of nausea swept over me as I ran a Federation suit-covered hand over the top of the pilot's seat. I walked around the arm rest and sat down in the seat and placed my hand on the ball-like steering device.
"Welcome Cameran Aran." an automated voice echoed throughout the ship as a magnetic force seemed to glue me to the seat. I tried to move, to leave the possessed ship, but something was crawling up my legs. I looked down only to find my Federation suit transforming into a black body suit. My Federation suit seemed to vanish into thin air as my body was choked with what felt like a giant leotard. I watched the black suit eat away at my Federation suit as my helmet vanished from the top of my head. Once all seemed peaceful, I lifted my hand from the steering device, curling and uncurling my fingers. To my surprise, the suit was completely flexible and moved with my body as if it was a second layer of skin.
"Cameran! Cameran, everything alright in there?" Justin called. I wanted to respond, but I couldn't seem to find my voice.
"Welcome Cameran. Your presence has been long awaited."