-Telemetry set. Take-off initiated- Samus' ship, the Spear, reported. The slimmer version of the ship seen in the game Corruption lifted off the surface of Dallus 5, and ascended into the starry sky.

Once cleared of the artificial atmosphere, the ship engaged its Akaci engine, and laughed as it passed light beams not riding the wave of a warp bubble. The pirate outpost was only 10 light-years away, so Samus should have gotten there in 5 minutes.

Predictably, there was an unexpected delay. This particular delay came in the form of a jolt to the ship, disengaging the warp field and slowing the Spear to sub-c speeds. Samus immediately engaged the ship's Hull-Integrity-Augmentation-Field, an energy field which would prevent any damage to the ship until it was depleted. The Spear's navigation systems could navigate an asteroid belt at over 200 kc; the only reason it would go 'bump' was because of a deliberate attack.

Samus glanced at her monitor. There were six ships, all Pirate construction. One of the ships opened a hailing frequency. Samus opened the link, and the face of our favorite space dragon appeared on-screen.

"Ridley," Samus groaned, "How many times do I have to kill you before you die?"

"Such cheek, Samus. What happened to the little girl that hugged my leg?" Ridley asked.

"You succeeded in killing her. And thus I was born," Samus replied, "Why the hell are you hailing me, anyway?"

"To tell you that, if I am responsible for our defeats at your hands, I will be responsible for your defeat. You are going to die," Ridley said, "To illustrate this, we are going to sit still for one minute. No evasive action, no return fire. We'll disengage your warp field if you try to run, but otherwise, it will be just one minute of you trying to attack."

"Ah... if you insist..." Samus replied, somewhat puzzled. She didn't know what Ridley had up his sleeve, but she did trust that the pirates wanted her dead. If they were going to give her a head-start, she would be crazy not to take advantage of it. Samus targeted Ridley's ship, and watched as a missle flew towards the craft.

The missile exploded short of its target. No. It's... it's not possible... Samus thought. She targeted another ship, and fired a photo-vortex pulse. Once again, the target was defended; the PVP was simply reflected off by an invisible wall. A force field.

Star Trek-style shielding was impossible with the force-field technology she knew. Force-field generators emitted a peculiar wave, which would disrupt any force fields completely surrounded. Furthermore, no force-field she knew of could reflect a PVP like that. This was remarkable new technology. Too bad it was in Pirate hands.

Samus engaged the ship's scanners, trying to figure out what exactly she was up against – specifically, what kind of weak points it had. The following was the ships report on Ridley's craft:

Andromeda Class pirate ship. Mass: 2000 kilograms, maximal carrying capacity: 50 individuals. Armed with three disruptor beams and a missile launcher.

Blah, blah, blah, Samus thought. She was already familiar with Andromeda class ships. It was this next part which was of interest to her.

The spacetime around the ship has been warped, forming a repulsive field, capable of resisting up to 5.9x1024 kilotons.

It was hardly hand-holding. Akaci engines worked by bending space into a warp bubble – given a week, she was sure a group of scientists would be able to modify the drive to disrupt the pirate shield. Samus, though quite intelligent, was not a scientist, and she didn't have a week.

She was able to conceive another option.

"Ship, I need you to do a little calculus. First off, does the Nebula-class ship to our left have the same shield strength as Ridley's Andromeda-class?" Samus asked. Negative, the ship's computer replied.

"Good. Now, how fast would one of our missiles have to be going to penetrate that ship's shield?" Samus asked. 64.8 thousand times the speed of light, assuming the rockets are being fired was displayed on a terminal.

"Okay. I need you to make some modifications to the missiles..." Samus instructed.

Five seconds later, the Spear engaged its Akaci drive. Unwilling to allow his prey to escape, Ridley fired upon Samus' craft, which would ordinarily disrupt any warp field around the craft and return it to below-c speeds. Unfortunately for the Nebula-class ship, the Spear hadn't used its warp drive on itself – instead, the generated warp bubble propelled the missile to 64.8 thousand times the speed of light. The missile slowed down outside the ship, nearly stopping. It didn't stop, though, and if things had worked the way Samus wanted them to, it would have kept on going, strait into the Nebula-class ship.

Things didn't work the way Samus had wanted them to. The shield became black where the missile penetrated, absorbing its kinetic energy. The ship then fired a black burst at the missile, leading to its destruction.

The minute was up. The six crafts began firing several black pulses at the Spear, a capability the scanners had obviously neglected to mention. Samus watched as the first of the six energy tanks connected to the Spear's HIAF depleted.

"Evasive action!" Samus shouted.

I am trying. The sublight engines are responding, but do not appear to be having any effect, The Spear's computer replied. At that point, the first energy tank lost the last of its power, and the second kicked in. Samus frantically considered her options, while watching the second tank drop at a steady pace of 60 capacity per minute.

In eight minutes, 20 seconds, the last energy tank was depleted. The HIAF failed, and the Spear began to take damage. Sparks flew, sirens blared, lights flickered and failed. A green sphere expanded outside Samus' ship, dissolved, and left behind a blue, arrowhead-shaped ship.

Apparently undettered by the newcommer, the pirate ships continued firing upon the Spear. They were deterred, however, by the fact that their shots were being absorbed. The pirates then turned and fired upon the new ship, which was similarly protected. The new ship began firing upon the pirates, using what appeared to be cyan versions of the pirate shots. This ship was clearly superior to the pirate crafts; the pirates had loosed dozens of shots at the newcommer, while it had needed only five to disable the pirate shields.

It seemed Samus had been saved by the bell. She was fully aware that falling asleep while sustaining severe injury was dangerous, but it seemed unlikely that her rescuers would spend such efforts defending her and not get her medical attention. Thus, she gave in to the sensation of tiredness within her, and drifted into sleep with few qualms.