Chapter 3: A Brutal Lesson

Petrarch Prime: Refinery

Samus Aran found herself violently jolted awake by an explosion, almost cracking her head against the bulkhead above her in the tiny little nook she had sequestered herself into in the interest of keeping well out of the reach of both the orks and Bjorn. The former, because they were singularly vile and their breath alone would rot through tank armor. And the latter because he'd humiliated her, twice over. Beating her, very literally, and then not killing her just because of her sex. If the explosion was what she hoped it was, and not just something the orks had done to themselves, then that big oaf and his goons might soon get their comeuppance.

She slid herself out of her little hole, shoving the stolen bedding back into place, and literally not a second after her heels hit the floor Bjorn came lumbering around the corner. "Dere you iz, I waz lookin fer you." The big brute jabbed a thumb over his shoulder as another explosion went off. "Dere'z finally sum gits datz attakin us. Youz want in on dis?" A great smile spread across Bjorn's face. "I iz sure mistah Wrenchfist'd be mor den appy ta elp ya figure out da inz an outs of ya new kan."

She scowled, ignoring the question completely. "How did you find me? I picked this spot specifically because it was extremely out of the way."

Bjorn just looked at her for a long moment, as if the question was confusing. "Er, Iz just waz finkin dat 'da lady can't be dat ard ta find' and Iz turn da corna an dere ya waz."

She put a hand to her forehead, letting out a long sigh. "Yeah, dumb luck would cover it." She shot a half-glare up at the giant. "I think I'll pass on the invitation."

Bjorn stood there silently for a moment, awkwardly. "Eh, youz want ta watch den? Iz already went ahead an made youz a spot ta sit."

Two more explosions rocked the refinery before she stopped simply glaring at the big buffoon. "Sure, why not?" She added under her breath, at a significantly lower volume than her last muttered comment; "If only to watch you get blown apart."

Bjorn smiled dumbly. "Oh, an one mor fing, Iz really can't take ya to da spot myself. Iz got ta get out to mah boyz and start da fight up." The giant looked left, then right, and then put two fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-numbingly loud whistle. "Lucky? Where you at ya little grot?"

The answer came almost immediately, and a tiny little green thing stepped out from behind Bjorn's pillar of a leg. "Here boss."

The "grot" was the saddest little thing she had ever lay eyes upon. Clearly, "Lucky" was a study in irony. The grot had one hook hand, one entire arm replaced with a crude grabbing tool, two peg legs, one ear severed at the skull, was covered in scars from the head down, was missing most of its teeth, had one mechanical eye, and was hunched over at the shoulders far worse than any of the other orks in the building that she'd seen. It was so pathetic looking that she actually felt a small twinge of sympathy for it, him, whichever it was.

Bjorn laughed, loudly. "Dere you iz, ya sneaky little grot." The oaf looked back to her. "Well, datz dat den, Iz hope youz enjoy da fight wen we getz started."

And with that Bjorn trundled off, completely steady on his feet in utter defiance of the shockwaves reverberating through the building. "Lucky" was barely standing as it was, so it was a mystery to her how the little grot remained erect.

Lucky waved her forward with its hook hand, before speaking with a refreshingly clear diction. "This way."

The grot started "walking" off in the same general direction as Bjorn, but soon took a right turn that led to a set of stairs. Lucky started climbing the stairs almost by flopping up like a fish, one set of limbs moving up after the other. Again, that twinge of sympathy. Her mind shifted from her, likely literally, downtrodden guide when she saw what she assumed to be the "spot" Bjorn had made for her to watch from. It was little more than a slab of steel that had been carved out of the wall on three sides and bent down to a flat balcony. It was shockingly simplistic, but the thing that really drew her attention was that the steel was over a foot thick and it was bent like tin foil. Helpfully though, on a bent piece of steel next to the impromptu balcony there was an extremely crude set of binoculars waiting. Bjorn had apparently half-anticipated she wouldn't want to fight on his side, but that felt like she was giving the giant too much credit. Regardless, perhaps if she could make eye contact with one of the Federation soldiers she could direct them to shoot Bjorn first. Dumb as he was, the orks were much dumber. Removing him would send the orks into complete disarray.

She made a shooing motion towards the grot. "You can go now."

She waited a long while after Lucky had departed, waiting to hear the clatter caused by the thing falling down the stairs, before snatching the binoculars and gazing out. On the far side of a large, dry basin the Federation had deployed a very sturdy looking defensive line. More marines than she had ever seen in one place, ever. And then there were the artillery batteries, massive machines hurling shells towards the refinery. To her considerable disappointment the shells seemed exclusively flak shells, designed to shock but not destroy. Apparently the Federation really wanted this building back intact. As for the guns themselves, she couldn't be sure from here, but they looked like Apollo-model siege engines, very high tech devices. And, there looked to be a handful of Zeus Assault tanks in the line, the highest per shot damage main-gun in the galaxy. Neither machine was pretty, both essentially metal boxes with guns strapped to the sides and roof, but they were nonetheless supposed to be effective.

She turned to look at the ork defenses, or what she assumed amounted to a "defense." All she could clearly make out was a mass or ork bodies, waving melee weapons and crude guns about while bellowing semi-random war cries interspersed with a great deal of gnashing teeth and rude gestures. A few of those cyborg orks were present, though she seriously doubted that they would function all that differently. She didn't see any examples of ork armor, the vehicular designation anyway. As for crude spiked plates, those abounded, though none were particularly that inclusive in terms of coverage. Apart from Bjorn's nearly-full suit of heavy plate of course. Speaking of the Warboss, he was right in the middle, sticking his head and chest up over the mound of dirt that counted as a defensive barricade.

She shook her head and turned her eyes back towards the Federation line, seeking someone on her side that she could make some measure of contact with. "Come on, some over there had better be looking…"

And then she found her man, a sergeant judging by the chevron on his shoulder armor. He was surveying the field just like she was, and their binoculars met. There was a second of awkwardness, likely because the marine simply couldn't quite understand what he was seeing, her out of her armor. But she conveyed her message/command clearly enough. She aggressively mimed shooting Bjorn, and when the sergeant across the way put his hand to his helmet she knew he got the message. One of the Zeus tanks lowered its gun and the large turret slowly tracked around, at which point she found herself holding her breath in anticipation.

The shot came, an incandescent blue laser that hit Bjorn square in the chest, just below the collar of his armor, and exploded brilliantly. From here, she couldn't see if the shot had separated Bjorn's head, but as soon as the cloud of smoke cleared…

A hand attached to a familiar arm stuck up out of the cloud accompanied by a familiar bombastic voice at a yell. "I'z ok!"

She felt her mouth drop open as Bjorn got back up, got back up after getting shot in the chest with a tank shell that would have ripped her suit in half. The Warboss wasted no time, he grabbed something big from one of the cyborg orks and pointed it at the tank. Something, something bizarre happened. There was a flash of light, but there was no projectile. At least not one she could see. The Zeus tank though, it bucked and lurched forward over the Federation defense line, main gun firing a wild shot off into the sky above the refinery before starting forward again at a fairly steady pace. Bjorn fired that odd "gun" again, and again, at the other Zeus tanks, and the phenomenon continued over the space of a few seconds.

She saw a stirring among the Federation lines, confusion, and the start of something she knew would end in disaster. "No, you can't possibly think that…"

The marines climbed over their barricades, advancing in measured steps to keep pace with the Zeus tanks and use them as mobile cover. Suppressing fire from marine rifles peppered the dirt in front of the orks, but only a few hit any of the green skinned monstrosities, and those few hits were laughed off. But the orks didn't shoot back, not yet at least. Which she found incredibly odd.

She muttered to herself. "What are they doing?"

Her answer came in the form of a piercing whistle from Bjorn. Out from behind a large rock formation towards the Federation side of the field came that gargantuan "squiggoth" Bjorn had been so proud of, Lumpy. It was loaded for bear, and crashed into the artillery and artillery crews while the orks on its back vomited out more rounds than she had fired in her entire lifetime.

Bjorn stood up from behind the dirt fortification and raised his sword high. "WAAAGH!"

The other orks echoed the cry and boiled over the ditch they had been hunkered down in to charge the Federation advance. Marine fire, swift and accurate, only managed to bring down a few of the less armored orks, before retaliatory fire from the green beasts turned the marines into fountains of gore. The Zeus tanks remained silent and stopped rolling, only for a few seconds before the tops popped open to reveal an ork per tank that immediately started lobbing explosive ordinance that erased scores of marines at once. How they had gotten inside she had no idea, but the Federation "advantage" in numbers was quickly turned on its head without their armored support. To a man, the advancing marines were destroyed, no that word wasn't strong enough, annihilated by either bullet, blade, or ork teeth. She was singularly appalled, and justifiably distraught. She'd just gotten several thousand men killed for no appreciable gain.

A feeling almost forgotten to her started welling up in her heart, chilling her blood to sludge, fear. The savagery of these orks made the Space Pirates saints, made Dark Samus look the part of a messiah. For god's sake, some of the orks were eating the remains of the marines; peeling the Federation armor off like a sardine can and stripping arms and legs to bone in seconds. If this is what the Admiral had spared her from seeing on the fleet, then she was sincerely grateful, though the gesture was now moot.

And Bjorn, that giant hadn't even had to do anything. But he was still out there in the thick of things, laughing like an overgrown kid in a candy store while human bodies were horribly mutilated around him. The man, if man he really was, was clearly psychotic. At least that was her take, not that she had a doctorate to make that opinion an educated one.

She slumped down and took a seat, legs dangling over the edge of her little perch, resting her chin in her left hand. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

Perhaps due to long, long habit, her mind automatically drifted to her power suit, or what was left of it. She didn't hold out much hope that it would function well, but this battlefield demonstration at least planted the idea in her head that maybe, just maybe these orks knew their way around weaponry enough to have made something she could use. That one gun she had seen demonstrated, whatever it had been, had blown a hole in solid steel with one shot. It might not be enough, not nearly enough given what she'd just seen, to take down Bjorn, but maybe there was something else in the ork arsenal that she could steal or get them to just give her. For whatever reason, Bjorn trusted her. She didn't understand it at all, especially given that she'd tried, no matter how pathetic her attempt had been, to kill him.

She stood up. "I'll figure something out. I haven't failed a job yet, and I don't intend to start now."

A voice spoke. "What job?"

Her spine became an iron bar, and she slowly turned around to see that the little grot, Lucky, was standing right there. How had he snuck up on her? How had he come up those stairs without making an unholy racket? Unless, unless he'd never gone down them. In which case… In which case he'd probably heard everything, seen everything.

A thought occurred to her. "Oh, wait, this problem is easy."

She took three steps to get behind the little green beast, and kicked it off the edge of the crude balcony.

She looked over the edge, saw nothing moving, and a smirk spread across her face. "Well, not so lucky anymore, are we?"

It was hardly a thing to be proud of, killing a mostly helpless thing like that, but it was a step in the right direction. Now, to find her way back to that "mech shop…"

Petrarch Prime: Mech Shop

Samus Aran stood there in silence, a profound melancholy again settling over her as she gazed upon the hulking monstrosity that the orks had turned her power suit into. The damn things had even gone and re-acquired her helmet, slaving that piece to the monstrous whole. The suits profile had been dramatically altered, roughly into the size of a Space Pirate berserker lord and almost as broad. It was so bulky in fact that it had been fitted with hydraulics. She would not be jumping, like, at all. On the plus side, if she were trying to be very optimistic, the thing was bristling with, er, weapons. There was that one gun that had replaced her arm cannon, not that she remembered what Bjorn had called it. It was powerful no question, but, it was completely alien tech. There would doubtlessly be a learning curve. As for the rest of the armaments, she could only make guesses based on the profile. There looked to be some manner of, missile pods perhaps, strapped to the back. There was a large, eh, thing strapped to both shoulders, though she had no idea how she was supposed to aim those, if at all. Of course, perhaps those "guns" she would guess, were linked to the helmet. If so, that would make a measure of sense. If she assumed that she could see out of the blasted thing. The visor had been shaved down to a tiny slit, which was likely a double edged sword. Sure, she might not get shot in the face, but if she couldn't even see where she was walking…

She sighed. "I really wonder how this is supposed to be 'better' than what I had."

A cacophonous clatter in the distance behind her signaled the return of Petrarch's current occupiers. And it was with little surprise that she heard Bjorn among them. He was louder than any six of the other orks combined, which was in no way a good thing by her. She was probably sustaining ear damage just by being around him.

Boots sounded out on the metal floor behind her. "Oy, humie, what you doin in ere? Youz betta not be mukin about wif my gubbins."

She looked over her shoulder and identified the cybernetically enhanced ork that Bjorn had called "Wrenchfist," before speaking. "Bjorn said you might help me…" She swallowed her pride and said the words. "… Help me out with my suit, seeing as how you fixed it."

The ork's face shifted dramatically, looking almost happy. "Oh, so datz why youz ere!" The big brute elbowed by her and climbed up onto a platform next to her suit. "Well don juzt stan dere ya puny git, get on in!"

The ork pressed a button and the metal monstrosity opened up, like a flower if she felt poetic, which she didn't. The lowest, and middle flange of the suit had a set of steps on it, which she gingerly took before turning about and settling backwards into the metal coffin.

Wrenchfist spoke, and she really wished that these orks would stop shouting. "Ok, Iz turnin da fing on now. Watch dat ya don get yer ands pinched off."

Taking the advice dead seriously she folded her arms across her chest and waited for the suit to close. She assumed that she would have room to spare, just judging by the size of the torso of this metal abomination. And indeed, she had more than enough room to move her arms comfortably. Oddly enough, when the suit had closed fully it was rather uncomfortably restrictive to her breasts. Her limbs were fine, but her torso was pinched. She supposed she shouldn't expect more from these orks, but she hoped that they had done a far better job with the weaponry.

The cyborg ork kept talking, mercifully muted slightly by the thickness of the suit's helmet. "Ok, youz should be seein somefing on da inside of dat cap. Put it on da wall ova dere an pull da trigga in da right arm."

She vividly remembered what this "gun" did, and if it worked consistently she might be willing to concede that it could be an acceptable replacement for her power beam. The lack of adaptability could be a problem in the long run, but one step at a time. The trigger in question was completely overlarge for her finger, but it moved smoothly enough and the resultant laser blast vaporized a nice two-foot square section of the metal wall. Amusingly enough, the hole from yesterday was right next to the new one, and it had been patched with a crude, thin slab of metal. She made a mental note of that, sure that it could be useful later to her or the Federation.

Wrenchfist let out a "whoop" when the weapon fired correctly. "Dat'z sum proper orky dakka right dere. I'z right proud of mah beamy deff gunz. Gotz to get moar of da boyz shootin wif dem soona or latah."

Another twinge of fear/unease ran through her. The orks had more of these "beamy death guns?" If so, she was lucky she hadn't been shot by one of them when she first made planetfall. And good god, how devastating would it be against Federation armor when the standard ork bullets ripped through the marine suits like paper?

Her ork handler roared out again. "Ok, next fing on da list." The cyborg pushed a large button. "Try movin da big shootas. Look at da ole in da wall youz juzt made."

She obeyed, assuming that the ork was talking about the weapons mounted on the shoulders of the machine. As she turned her head her suspicion about the shoulder guns being linked to the helmet were confirmed. A low whirring noise reverberated through the suit as she looked toward the hole, though she didn't know at the moment where the trigger was for the both of them. Of course, the cyborg ork was probably going to tell her in short order.

Wrenchfist immediately did so. "Da triggah should be in da left arm, pull it!"

She obeyed once again, and suddenly became very much aware why the visor had been trimmed down so much. The muzzle flash from both thunderously loud guns would have rendered her completely blind otherwise. And the kick, she felt the guns want to climb till their barrels were pointing skyward. Only the sheer bulk of the suit kept that from happening, and forced her to have a grudging measure of respect for the orks that toted these things around as single-user weapons. On the bright side, the solid steel wall was riddled with fist-sized craters. The "big shootas" weren't accurate, at all. But when you threw that many rounds something's way…

A derisive snort escaped her. "Seems that's their whole motto, 'who cares about aiming' they might as well shout."

Wrenchfist either didn't hear her or didn't care to rebuke her statement. "I fink datz all da gubbins wez can test inside. I ain't lettin ya muk about wif explosives next to mah ovah shiny bits."

She cast a wan glare around the whole mech shop. "Nothing in here is shiny."

That, the ork heard that. "Not yet dey ain't. Deyz all gettin nice, shiny coats a paint soon. I iz finkin Iz paintin da lot ov em red. Less da Warboss as any ova ideas."

And she actually started to look, seriously look at the other masses of metal scattered around the workshop. Tires, treads, more spiked plates than was healthy, and really, really big cannons. Now it made sense why the orks hadn't fielded any armor, they hadn't finished building them yet, not that it really would have made a difference out on the battlefield. Although it really made her wonder where these orks had come from in the first place. Wouldn't the vehicles already be assembled if they were an invasion force? And for that matter, where was the ship they had arrived on? Certainly the Federation would have known if they had built their most important fuel refinery on a planet inhabited by green, warlike monstrosities. So, what explanation worked for this scenario?

Wrenchfist clambered down from his platform and stood in front of the suit she was inside. "So, datz dat den. Da boss said dat fings urs, so, ave fun wif it. Watch dat youz don step on any grotz on ya way out da door."

A thought occurred to her, and she voiced it, trying with all her might to not sound at all suspicious. "What about that weapon Bjorn, the Warboss, what about that weapon he used on the tanks outside. What was that?"

The cybernetic ork instantly began radiating pride. "Dat waz mah kustom shokk attack gun. Tellyports boyz instead a grotz. Iz juzt wish I cud a seen da look on dose gitz faces wen an angry boy popped out a da warp right in dere gob."

Wrenchfist started cackling wickedly, with good reason in her mind. A man-portable teleportation device precise enough to completely invalidate enemy armor? That, that was flat-out amazing. How did these brutes come up with something that ingenious? On one hand they used bullets, and on the other they pulled off something even the Chozo hadn't managed. That was an incredible paradox.

She shook her head slowly, momentarily forgetting that she was still inside a metal behemoth. "Just when I think I have them figured out…"

Wrenchfist lumbered past her, ducking under the suit's beamy death gun. "We orks is da best. Datz all ya need ta know."

She found that rather unlikely. But…