Chapter 2:
Samus's ship emerged from warp a couple hundred kilometers away from Earth. Just as soon as she had exited from warp, she gazed outside her cockpit towards the sparkling blue jewel that was the human homeworld, Earth. She was struck by the large number of warships, defense platforms, and space-based turrets that surrounded the planet. She also noted that there were relatively few civilian starships and transports around the planet. It was as if Earth had been transformed into a fortress world, rather than the civilized world that it was known as. Forget Daiban, it was clear that Earth had far more formidable defenses. Samus tallied at least three hundred defense platforms, each armed with an obscenely powerful complement of lasers, mass drivers, and missile launchers surrounding the planet. These defense platforms were smaller than the ones surrounding Daiban, but they were noticeably more powerful in their armaments, as well as their defensive shielding. These unmanned defense platforms sported defensive shielding strong enough to shrug off even the strongest conventional anti-starship/space station weapons of the Galactic Federation, Space Pirates, and the Kriken Empire. The Space Pirates had learned this the hard way when they had launched a Leviathan Seed towards Earth, escorted by a dozen of their strongest Phazon warships, only to watch the defense platforms vaporize the Seed with a single blast. A few seconds later, the Space Pirate warships had met the same fate. As if these defenses were not enough, the platforms were supplemented by one thousand orbital defense energy cannons similar to the one that protected Norion, each of which had the firepower to knock down the shields of all but the strongest of enemy warships with one shot. In addition to the stationary defenses, there were over one hundred starships protecting the planet, as well as multiple surface missile silos containing multiple large fusion missiles, for the Earth did not want to risk housing any matter/antimatter missiles or weapons on world due to the devastating destructive power of uncontrolled antimatter. In addition to the missiles, defense platforms, and turrets, there were also squadrons of fighters and bombers on patrol around the planet, and even the solar system as well. Each of the bombers was equipped with matter-antimatter missiles and space bombs designed for use against capital ships. Any mission to take Earth by any force save for the Galactic Federation fleet would be a suicide mission; and even the Galactic Federation fleet, itself, would not be able to take Earth without taking extreme losses in the process.
Just as Samus's ship had exited warp, her ship was immediately targeted by the hundreds of defense platforms and defense lasers. A transmission then sounded over her radio. "We have you on our sensors. Please identify yourself immediately," a voice requested. The voice sounded stern to Samus's ears.
"My name is Samus Aran," she spoke confidently into her radio.
After a few seconds, the voice crackled in over the comm once more, "We do not list you as a citizen of Earth. Please provide your authorization code and passport information for permission to enter Earth airspace."
Samus smiled. She took the CD-like object and placed it inside her computer. She then pushed a button and a series of symbols that looked to be alien writing appeared on her screen. She looked for the symbols on her own console and pushed each one in the correct sequence. She then sent the transmission to the source of the transmission. After a few seconds, the voice sounded once more, saying, "Authorization code and passport information accepted. Welcome to Earth, Samus Aran."
Samus breathed a sigh of relief when she read that the stations and turrets were no longer locking onto her ship. The platforms could destroy enemy warships in little more than single shots of their main weapons. Her small gunship would have been instantly vaporized if even their secondary weapons had hit her ship. She continued past the massive gauntlet of defenses. Several squadrons of fighters passed by her ship in order to scan it to ensure that she carried no illegal cargo. The fact that the fighters had not shot her down indicated that they did not detect anything illegal on her ship. Her ship was shielded against the more passive sensors of older starfighters and gunships, but these new fighters that had scanned her were the new SFA-4 Katana fighter/attack air-and-spacecraft. These ships had powerful sensors that even her own ship should not have been able to block. She saw that one of the fighters was beginning to lock onto her gunship when her early warning alarm sounded. Just as suddenly, the alarm stopped and she found that there was no longer an alert to an enemy fighter locking onto her. She heaved another sigh of relief. She did not want to have to fight her way to Earth to capture this Commander General Cutter. Evidently, she had friends in high places. She figured that Cyrus must have had some sway over the defenses over Earth. She just hoped that the rumors of Earth hating his guts were just that.
Her ship sailed into the atmosphere, her shields flaring as the ship entered the atmosphere due to the friction between her ship and the air. After a few seconds, she broke through the cloud layer and began to make her way towards Maryvale, a small town in North America. She checked her map and set her ship on an automatic course for the town. She looked out the cockpit and stared in wonder at the marvelously beautiful planet below her. Despite being one of the most advanced planets in the Federation, Earth still had a lot of woodland and farmland. It was self-sufficient and even able to supply a great deal of food to the rest of the inhabited planets and moons in the Sol solar system. Earth also exported foodstuffs and other items to other planetary systems outside of Sol that could not be grown on other worlds. This was in addition to the starship designs and other items and materiel that Earth exported. As a result, Earth was one of the most prosperous planets in the Galactic Federation, another reason why some other worlds were not all that crazy about Earth. There was a feeling that Earth did not need the Galactic Federation, while some felt that the Galactic Federation needed Earth in order to be as powerful a political and economic entity as it was.
As Samus flew through the atmosphere over the lands, she noticed that Earth had far less ship and air traffic, both in space and in atmosphere, than Daiban. Many Earth towns were still relatively simple, with electric and/or fusion battery powered ground cars as the primary means of transportation between home and work for Earth's nearly six billion people, as well as a power grid that was based on a series of fusion reactors supplemented by numerous wind turbines, solar collectors and geothermal generators. The grid also had multiple redundancies so it would be highly difficult to strike at one point and take out the entire grid. Another thing, besides the space and air defenses that made Earth a nightmare to conquer was the fact that almost two-thirds of its citizenry was confirmed to be armed with advanced personal defense energy weapons. And many who did not have energy pistols or rifles were still armed with projectile weapons that were even more dangerous to unarmored opponents due the physical slugs that they fired, some of which were expanding, frangible, or even explosive in rare cases. Despite all of the weaponry that humans of Earth carried, they were generally quite peaceful. Crime on Earth was low, and while they were wary of outsiders, if the outsider, human or alien, was non-hostile, Earth humans were generally welcoming of them. Also, Earth also had a wide variety of non-sentient and semi-sentient bioforms that was far more diverse than any other known world in the galaxy. The most formidable of the lifeforms on Earth was a species called Pokémon that were highly varied in morphology. Some were pathetically weak, yet others could take out all of Earth's defenses with a single thought should the thought cross said Pokémon's mind. Some were considered mammalian, while others were more lizard-like in origin. Others were closer to fish in their design and structure. Even without Pokémon, though, Earth had a large variety of other plant and animal life that was both beautiful and terrifying to behold.
A chime interrupted Samus's musing as she looked at the map. She was approaching Maryvale and her target, General Cutter. She pushed a button on her display console and the map of the United States, with a red dot noting the small town of Maryvale and General Cutter's location disappeared and a map of Maryvale appeared in its place. Samus saw a red dot on the right hand side of the map, but suddenly, the screen flickered and several other dots appeared on the map. Samus pushed a series of buttons, but the screen kept on flickering. "Damn," she muttered. "He's jamming my sensors. I'll have to go down there and flush him out the hard way." Samus did not want to leave the ship on the edge of town and have to go in to apprehend Cutter. She knew that Earth would see her actions as being illegal, especially if Cutter had any clout with the representatives of Earth in the Galactic Federation Council, or even within the political confines of Earth, and she would likely be facing retaliation fairly quickly. This would especially be the case if the mission became violent before reaching Cutter and she had to injure or kill any Earth police or military troopers in the process. And chances were that if Cutter had set up a jamming field, then he was already expecting her and had already set up some defenses.
Samus approached the town, slowing down as it neared the town. She scanned the map that had been on her screen and, switching off her tracking sensors, studied it to see if there was a place where she could land her vessel with only a minimal chance of being discovered. She quickly found a small forest on the outskirts of town. She knew that the chances of encountering some of the local wildlife was greater the farther in she got, but she decided that it was worth the risk in order to prevent her ship from being discovered. She quickly glanced at her sensors to see if there were any ships or fighters following her. According to short-range sensors, she was clear. The only ships behind her looked to be headed in a different direction, and were traveling at a higher speed. Since she was flying well below the atmospheric speed limit, she felt as if the behavior of the small transport, only slightly larger than her own gunship, was normal as it flew by without any incident. It made no attempts to slow down as it continued on its own journey. Once the ship was out of sight, and off her short-range sensor screens, she dove down towards the canopy of the forest. She took in the sights as she lowered her ship. She thought back to the underground jungles of Brinstar on Zebes before its destruction. She had spent a lot of time training in upper Brinstar, since it was one of the two locations that were relatively hospitable to humans. Even unaugmented humans could have survived in that area for a time. With her infused Chozo DNA, she had no problems whatsoever surviving in Brinstar.
Her ship descended and she saw all sorts of animals scurrying away from her landing area, as well as birds fleeing from her path as she gently lowered her starship to the surface. A cloud of dust issued from the ground as the thrusters pushed against the ground, slowing her descent until she gently touched the ground, a small shudder ensuing upon touching down. Samus then cut off the engines of the ship, putting them in standby mode. She had a feeling that she might need to evacuate the planet fairly quickly. She rose from her seat and immediately several blocks formed around her, quickly transforming into plates of armor that surrounded her body. After a second, Samus's suit had completely materialized around her body. She then stepped onto a small pad the center of the ship and stood. Several beams of energy emerged from the wall and scoured her suit, fully supplying the suit its energy and fully equipping Samus with a full loadout of missiles and Power Bombs. She checked her inventory and found that she had full access to both her Super Missiles and Seeker Missiles, as well as her Diffusion Beam, a weapon she had gained on the Bottle Ship. Next, she checked to see the number of Energy Tanks she had. She currently had nine full Energy Tanks. She also checked her own beam inventory and noticed that all of her beams were functioning, providing a stacked effect. She deactivated the Wave and Plasma Beams, leaving only her Ice and Diffusion Beams activated. She hoped that by restricting herself to the Ice Beam that she would be free to fight off any resistance with a much lower risk of killing any of Cutter's troops. After all, she had the feeling that only Cutter was the enemy here, and that his troops were in the dark as to his actions. Besides, she felt that General Cutter was not exactly going to be a difficult opponent to defeat. Before leaving the ship, Samus checked the chronometer and set it to Earth time. It was about six o'clock in the evening, local time. Samus looked up at the sky and saw that it was dark out. She checked the external temperature and found that it was around thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. She then sighed as she went over to the bottom hatch so she could exit her ship without making too much of an entrance on Earth.
The bottom hatch opened and Samus was lowered onto the ground. She stepped off the small platform and proceeded to make her way forward. Several small animals, called squirrels and chipmunks by the humans of Earth, fled before her returning to their trees or holes. Samus strode on by, barely aware of the creatures that were fleeing her footfalls. After a couple minutes of hiking, she emerged from the small forest and entered the small town of Maryvale.
Upon entering the town, she saw that there were only few people on the street, so she would not likely draw a lot of attention to herself. She checked her map and still found that there were several red dots that were supposed to be representing the location of General Cutter. Samus scowled. It seemed as if her map was next to useless at the moment. She would have to do this the old fashioned way. Since she had left her ship at around six o'clock in the evening, chances were that General Cutter may have been at his house, and not at the base, wherever that was. Samus wondered if she could go and ask one of the few bystanders that were still outside where the base was. She began to approach one of the bystanders, a male whose skin tone indicated that he was either Latino or Hispanic. He looked to be in his early thirties and looked to be finishing decorating some of the bushes surrounding his house. Samus then remembered that this was the holiday season on Earth, where several of their religions had important holidays around this time of year. As Samus approached the man, he quickly retreated into his house. Samus considered trying to use her sensors to see if she could scan what he was doing inside, but decided against it. She decided to merely start with the base first. Maybe she would get lucky and find Cutter working overtime at the base or in the process of leaving the base. It was the best idea that she could come up with at the moment, so without wasting any time, she made her way through the town, searching for the base.
As she made her way through the town, she looked at all of the festive displays of lights. She looked at decorative scenes depicting a husband and wife kneeling near a baby boy with a halo over his head. Other displays depicted a fat man with gray hair and a beard, wearing a red suit. This man was sometimes accompanied by representations of Earth lifeforms known as reindeer. This was the holiday season on Earth. Adam had always loved this time of season. By his experience, it was a time of family gatherings and of giving. Adam, she mused. A melancholy feeling came over her as she continued through the town. Adam would have loved these displays. She then noticed that she had stopped to admire the displays while in full armor. As such, her presence had attracted some attention from the residents. She noticed a police officer coming towards her. She turned to face him as he came. None of his weapons were drawn, but the holster that housed his pistol was unsnapped and an energy rifle was slung over his shoulder. The officer stopped a few meters away and looked at her suspiciously. He eventually called over to her, saying, "Samus Aran, I notice that you are in full armor. May I ask why you are in full armor?"
"I'm on a mission here," the bounty hunter replied. "I am not in any violation of any laws, here, am I?"
The officer did not give his answer immediately. "No, but I have received several reports of an armored soldier walking through this town. You're not a Galactic Federation soldier or an Earth soldier so others were quite suspicious. My partner and I instantly recognized you by the shape of your armor and your distinctive arm cannon. Carry on."
His partner, Samus thought, shocked at the revelation. Her sensors had not picked up any other people besides the officer and some of the other civilians. None of them had any uniforms or weapons that she could see. She then noticed a man in the distance step out of a hovercar. This man had the same police uniform that the officer that was talking with Samus wore. Underneath her armor, she gritted her teeth. How could she have missed him? If the officer had been a Space Pirate or other bounty hunter rather than a police officer, Samus could have been ambushed and taken out relatively quickly if they had been equipped with the correct weapons. The officer then let Samus pass and continue on her quest.
It did not take long for Samus to reach her destination. On the other side of the small town, she found what looked to be an armory. The building was only a couple stories tall and looked to not be all that large, relatively speaking. There was a parking lot for ground cars and a fence surrounding the perimeter of the small base. The parking lot was deserted. She did not know whether this was a good thing or bad. The sign outside read Maryvale Armory and Research Base. It was written in multiple languages, human and non-human, so Samus knew that this base belonged to the Galactic Federation. She tried to get a scan of the area, but her scanners were being jammed. She scowled. This would not be as easy as she thought. She walked the perimeter of the base until she found the entrance gate to the base. She found a panel on the fence next to the gate and she scanned the panel. Instantly, the symbols that were the combination to the lock appeared on her visor. Samus proceeded to enter the code and a creak sounded as the gate slowly opened for her. Samus stepped forward and proceeded to enter.
Once inside the base grounds, she approached the building, hoping that everyone was gone for the evening…everyone save for General Cutter. She doubted the possibility of General Cutter having remained behind if no one else had. She scanned the premises for any signs of activity. So far, the building was dark and her scanners found no sign of activity. She was cautiously optimistic that even if General Cutter was not at the base, that there may be some useful information that she could take back to Cyrus and the others. With that hope, she approached the door to the main building and gripped its knob. She turned the knob and heard, and felt, a click. She pushed the door open and proceeded to make her way inside the base.
Inside the base, she found herself in a large, empty room with a desk in the back. She focused her scanners on the desk and scanned to see if there were any troopers or officers hiding behind the desk waiting in ambush. She raised her arm cannon and pointed at the desk. A single charged shot from her Ice Beam would be sufficient to freeze anyone behind the desk if there was anyone there. After a few seconds, her scans came back negative. She breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her arm cannon and approached the desk. Once there, she turned on the computer. The screen immediately sprang to life and a layout of the base appeared, along with a search directory. She immediately entered a search for General Cutter. The search returned the following information: General Cutter is located on SL-28. Samus grinned. This was excellent. The Commander General was still here. She was going to be able to capture him quickly yet. Before continuing with her mission, she used her suit's data recorders to record all of the data on the computer and download it to her suit. She would read the data once she got back to her ship, where she could download it to the computer. Once that was finished, she brought up the map that had been downloaded to her suit. She activated it and a small mini-map of the room appeared in the corner of her visor. She then brought up the remainder of the map and had it bring up the shortest route that would take her to the General. A line went from an elevator down to sub-level twenty-eight and directed her to the General's current location. She grinned. She had him now. The hunter proceeded to make her way out of the main lobby of the base and through a door, into the main hallway. A few meters away, she found an elevator on the right wall. She checked her map and found that this was the elevator that she desired.
As she approached the elevator, though, several bullets bounced off of the shields of her suit. Her shields flared with each hit and the gauge on her visor that indicated her shield strength flashed red. However, despite the strikes, the display indicated that all of her Energy Tanks were still full and the number of energy units still read '99'. The bullets were inflicting no damage to her suit. She scanned the dark hallway and found two Galactic Federation Army soldiers firing at her. She knew that their basic weapons, a rifle that fired solid bullets at high supersonic speeds, were not a threat to her. The large pistols that they carried as a sidearm, however, were quite dangerous, for they fired a blast of intense freezing energy. A single shot fired at the correct spot on her back could disrupt and disable her entire suit, as Adam Malkovich had demonstrated on the Bottle Ship just before he went to make his heroic sacrifice to destroy the unfreezable Metroids and save her, over her protestations. The Galactic Federation soldiers quickly got the idea to use those pistols, for two shots came at Samus. They were fast for Ice Beam shots, but not too fast for her to dodge. Her rear rockets fired as she "sense-moved" out of the path of the two freeze bolts. The sense-move attribute increased her maneuverability and allowed her to avoid enemy fire that she normally would not have been able to. She had not had that ability before recovering from her second mission to Zebes, but she had used it to great effect on the Bottle Ship. She then took aim at the two Federation soldiers and snapped off two shots from her own Ice Beam. The two uncharged shots streaked towards the soldiers relatively slowly, compared to their shots towards her. The first shot struck one of the soldiers and encased him in a block of ice. Unlike Galactic Federation Freeze Guns, though, this would not be fatal to the soldier, for reasons Samus did not know. There, the Federation soldier remained, motionless. He would eventually thaw out, but she would be long gone by the time he did.
The second soldier fired another shot at Samus as she snapped off her first two shots. She was too busy trying to hit them that she did not notice the other ice shot until it was too late. Samus's rear rockets fired as she tried to sense-move out of the way of the bolt, only for her legs to be tagged by the blast. Due to Samus's shields, the blast did not freeze her, though her shields did flare as her suit sustained the hit and she noticed that the 99 on her display showing the current energy level of her energy tank dropped down to 49. Damn, she swore to herself. A single ice blast took out half an Energy Tank with an indirect hit? This was even more startling due to the fact that she was wearing the Gravity Suit, which increased her resistance to heat, but also to damage inflicted by enemy weaponry. Samus shook her head and snapped off another shot at the remaining unfrozen soldier. The soldier ducked behind a wall and the blast of energy sailed by, striking the wall at the other end of the hall, splashing outward, leaving a round circle of ice about two meters in radius. Samus waited for the soldier to emerge from his cover and fire again, so she could take a shot at him. She could not allow him to remain unfrozen and alert the General and anyone else in the base to her presence. As he emerged and took a quick shot towards Samus, she fired on him. His shot went wide of Samus, but her shot managed to hit true. It struck the blue and black armored soldier squarely in the chest and encased him in ice.
Once the fight appeared to be over, Samus waited for a few moments to make sure that no backup was forthcoming. Once she was confident those were the only two soldiers in the area, she immediately called up the elevator. There she waited, scanning the hallway for any signs of more soldiers. She also peeked back into the main lobby, just in case anyone had come into the base through the open door. She was beginning to get very suspicious of that open door to the base, but she shook off those feelings. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it. This bounty could not be all that difficult. It was not long before the elevator arrived and the doors slid open. Samus proceeded to board the elevator and pushed the button for sub-level twenty-eight. After she had boarded the elevator, the doors slid closed and she rode it down to the level that she hoped housed General Cutter.
While riding the elevator down to sub-level twenty-eight, memories of her last encounter with Ridley on the Bottle Ship came back to her. She could scarcely believe that she had had a complete meltdown after facing him, despite having faced him six times before, "finally killing him" four of those times. She had already gotten her revenge and much, much more. During this time of quiet, it gave Samus time to think about why she had completely broken down against Ridley on the Bottle Ship. And the thing was, that this was not even the real Ridley. It had been a clone created by the Galactic Federation, and even then it was not really intentional. They had wanted to center the new special forces program around the Space Pirates, and while Ridley had been a Space Pirate General, even the leader of the Space Pirates before landing on Zebes and having Mother Brain take command of the organization while she was alive, the Federation, or rather its rogue elements in charge of the project, created the army around MB, the artificial intelligence based on Mother Brain, not Ridley. Not only that, but that Ridley was bestial, even more so than normal. The Ridley she had killed on Zebes was quite intelligent and was even able to speak.
She shrugged and her thoughts drifted elsewhere. This time, Adam was the focus. She thought about how she had frozen the two army soldiers, rather than killed them, and hoped that Adam was looking down at her, approving of her actions. Despite being a military General and having a perfect military mind, Adam did not relish killing. Neither did Samus. As Samus continued her musing, she gave a short chuckle and a smile. Aside from his gruffness, she realized that the two of them were not all that much different than one another. Adam had a great respect for life in all of its stages, as did she. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered why she had taken the job to exterminate the Metroids. She knew why, though. Heck, even Adam said that their extermination was the right decision. The Metroids were uncontrollable and nigh-indestructible lifeforms that preyed on anything they could find. Size did not matter in the slightest. The Space Pirates had demonstrated the danger posed by Metroids. Her first mission to Zebes, where she killed Kraid, Ridley, and Mother Brain for the first time, and where she had first encountered the Metroids, had put her on the galactic map as a dangerous bounty hunter. She had been known before then, but she had only gotten really famous after that first mission.
The elevator soon reached sub-level twenty-eight of the base and a small chime sounded, snapping Samus out of her reverie. The elevator doors slid open and Samus emerged from the elevator. She was immediately met by half a dozen Galactic Federation Army soldiers. These soldiers did not waste time equipping themselves with their ineffective standard armaments. These soldiers were equipped with Freeze Guns and even possessed plasma cannons. Samus grimaced as the soldiers took aim at her. She used her sense-move ability to dodge the shots fired at her from the Freeze Guns and the two plasma cannons utilized by the heavy weapons troopers. She managed to dodge all but one of the blasts. As she was skipping around the room, dodging each of the soldiers' energy blasts, she accidentally jumped into an oncoming plasma blast shot from a fully charged plasma cannon. The blue plasma bolt struck her in the chest and sent her flying backwards a few feet. She instantly noticed an Energy Tank go dark. She swore. This was bad. She had already lost an Energy Tank and a half to the soldiers. If these soldiers were merely Army troopers, then Samus shuddered to think what other defenses that General Cutter might have.
Samus decided that she had no choice now. She could not afford to take the easy way out in dealing with these Federation soldiers. She immediately began charging her Ice Beam as more freeze and plasma blasts streaked towards her. She immediately sense-moved out of the way of the oncoming blasts, instantly charging her arm cannon in the process, another nice addition that had somehow been granted to her suit during her stay in the hospital after her mission to Zebes. She then unleashed the charged blast of freezing energy upon the soldiers. The bluish-white burst of energy hit the lead soldier and detonated like a missile. Four other soldiers were encased in ice after the detonation. Samus hoped that the explosive icy blast would not be fatal to the soldiers, but she did not know one way or the other what their final fates would be. That left two soldiers. The impact of two more energy blasts, with the disappearance of two more Energy Tanks with the meter on the next one holding steady at 99 units of energy told Samus that she had just been one-two punched by an ice burst and a plasma bolt. She targeted the final two soldiers and quickly unleashed a volley of icy blue bolts of energy. The soldier with merely the freeze gun was hit while the soldier with the plasma cannon was able to take cover behind a wall. Samus waited for him, or just his cannon, to emerge from cover and take a final shot at her. Her wish was granted when the large, bulky barrel of a plasma cannon emerged. Samus immediately targeted the weapon and fired a series of icy bursts from her arm cannon. The bursts streaked towards the cannon and managed to strike the cannon in the barrel, encasing the barrel in ice. Unfortunately, for the soldier, the barrel had been frozen just as he had pulled the trigger on the cannon. Due to the damage suffered by the barrel, the cannon was about to explode. Seeing no other option, he removed the cannon from his suit and tossed it towards Samus. Samus dodged the incoming cannon. Realizing that if it exploded that the frozen soldiers might be killed, she quickly jumped onto the cannon and covered it as it exploded.
The force of the explosion was incredible. Despite her shields, two more Energy Tanks were drained by the explosion alone. Samus was also propelled into the air, where she collided with the ceiling, cracking the surface and falling to the floor, where she landed on two legs. Unfortunately, the explosion and landing caused her back to be turned to the soldier and, seemingly knowing about Samus's weak spot in her armor, he pulled out his freeze gun and fired a blast of energy right into the center of Samus's back near the suit's thrusters. Samus cried out as she was hit and began to feel her suit destabilizing. The pain was even worse than it had been when Adam had disabled her suit on the Bottle Ship. She slowly turned and pointed her arm cannon towards the soldier, who had emerged from cover. She knew she had scant seconds to freeze him before her suit would disappear for at least a few minutes. If she were lucky, she might still be able to fight, though given the after effects of Adam's firing on her, she doubted that. It was do or die for her. She targeted the trooper and shot a single blast of ice the instant before her suit dematerialized. Her aim was true. The ice blast managed to freeze the trooper before he had managed to fire a second blast and likely either freeze or kill her. It was then that her suit vanished; the armored figure being replaced by a tall, athletically built woman dressed in a blue skintight suit with a single pistol at her side. After her suit disappeared, Samus collapsed onto the ground, writhing. Her pain was even worse now than it had been before on the Bottle Ship. There she remained, playing dead until she felt strong enough to continue her mission. There, she hoped and prayed that there were no more soldiers in the vicinity, for she was in no condition to engage anyone in battle right now.
It was a few minutes before Samus felt well enough to continue. When she did, she activated her Power Suit and immediately, the suit materialized over her body. As soon as the suit was fully functional once more, she checked the amount of energy she had in her Energy Tanks. She grimaced at what she found. She had only one spare Energy Tank still full. This would not be enough for taking down General Cutter if he had defenses more formidable than a few Galactic Federation Army soldiers. Heck, given the firepower these soldiers were packing, as well as their knowledge of her suit's weaknesses, chances were that she would not be able to defeat a similarly sized force of soldiers that she had just barely managed to escape by the skin of her teeth. And there was also the issue of her suit's newfound fragility. She had always remembered her suit having strong combat shields. Yet both on the Bottle Ship and here, her suit was notably more fragile than it had been on Zebes or during any of her other countless missions. She banished the thought for the moment and focused on finding any recharge stations that could restore her lost energy. She activated her map and prayed that this base was equipped with a recharge station of some sort. She was in luck, there was a recharge station, and it was only a few doors down the hall to the right.
Samus raced down the hall and into the recharge room. Inside was the standard recharging pad. She stepped onto the pad and a series of beams quickly surrounded her, rising from the floor to the ceiling. She then felt a refreshing sensation come over her as healing and restorative energy washed over her. Her display promptly showed that her energy tanks were full and her missile capacity was at full. Once she was fully restored, she entered the hallway once more and made her way past the frozen Federation Army troops. She followed her map and made her way down the first corridor, taking a right at the fork and entering a second corridor.
Inside the second corridor, she was met by two more Galactic Federation Army troops. Before the troops could raise their weapons on her, Samus fired two blasts from her Ice Beam and froze the troops solid. She proceeded to make her way past the troops and continued on her search for General Cutter. She passed the troops and followed the map to General Cutter's office. She turned at the next fork and encountered a quartet of troops that looked to be Galactic Federation Marines. Samus knew that these troops were more formidable than their army counterparts so she took no chances against them. The dark gray armor was also protected by shields, just as she and Space Pirate Troopers were. She charged her Ice Beam as the Marines opened fire on her. They did not have the Freeze Guns or plasma cannons of the Army troops, but instead of having slugthrowers as their primary weapons, they had arm-mounted energy cannons that were a match for the weapons of Space Pirate Troopers. They fired at Samus using three round bursts. Samus quickly retreated back around the corner, firing her Ice Beam at the lead trooper. The pulse of freezing energy crossed the distance and struck the trooper, encasing him in ice despite his defensive shielding. The explosion upon the energy burst striking him also scattered to the rest of the unit, but their shields managed to hold against the explosion. Samus quickly charged another Ice Beam blast and unleashed it upon the troopers. The second blast managed to freeze a second trooper, but not before a series of three round bursts of energy managed to tag Samus in the process, taking down almost two-thirds of an Energy Tank in the process. Samus responded by charging another blast of her Ice Beam, dodging fire from the two remaining troopers, managing to avoid all but a few bursts of energy. However, the few that did hit managed to deplete the rest of her Energy Tank. Fortunately, she still had eight Energy Tanks left, with her initial supply of energy unaffected. She fired the burst of freezing energy at the troopers and the detonation encased both of them in a solid block of ice. Samus took one last look at the map and determined that she was standing just outside of General Cutter's office. She walked past the frozen troopers and, deciding to not be diplomatic and kicking the door open, she walked into General Cutter's office.
The interior of General Cutter's office was well furnished, with a desk by the far wall and bookcases lining the walls around the room. Samus did not care what books or other types of information that the cases contained. All she cared about was the figure that rose from the desk. She knew from the dossier that Cyrus had given her that she was staring into the eyes of Commander General Cutter of the Galactic Federation Army. He was clad in metallic armor that made him look much like the bounty hunter Sylux, who she had encountered in the Alimbic Cluster in the Tetra Galaxy. His armor covered his entire body. Only his head was exposed, and then only because of the helmet that was sitting on his desk. The blue armor also had two shoulder structures protruding from it. The only difference was that while Sylux had green glowing lines at various points of the armor, General Cutter had lightning blue glowing lines. On his right arm was another illegal weapon that Sylux had access to: the Shock Coil. Samus hesitated before moving towards him, showing her surprise at the potential prospect that one of the deadliest bounty hunters that also hated the Galactic Federation was, indeed, a high-ranking officer inside the very organization that said hunter despised. General Cutter looked at Samus and smiled. "It's nice to finally see you. I take it you recognize the armor. It is of the same design as the armor and Shock Coil that Sylux stole, but both my armor and Shock Coil are superior to the one that Sylux stole.
"My mission is to take you in, Cutter, dead or alive," Samus declared. "You have been discovered to have been part of a project to develop bioweapons that were to be used as part of a coup against the Galactic Federation Council."
"Part of the project?" Cutter laughed. "Hell, I was the designer of the project! And it went farther than you think, bounty hunter Samus Aran!"
That did not matter to Samus. She merely raised her arm cannon to General Cutter and held it on him. General Cutter shrugged and put on his helmet. "So this is how it's gonna be, eh?"
Samus made no move.
"Fine then, Samus. Defend yourself!" he cried as he took aim and began to power his Shock Coil. The battle between Samus Aran and Commander General Leroy Cutter had begun.
