Chapter 9: "Tick, tock," said the clock...
It was a nice, quiet night inside the Radon Pirate's base in the Phendrana Drifts region. After the recent raid with the ship, the Pirates and their "guest" had been drinking and eating till their hearts were content. An initiation rite had even occurred, when Epsillius had given Samus Aran another upgrade made by the Science Team: a blade almost exactly like that of the Tallonian Pirates'. She had accepted it, which surprised most of the pirates. That meant she was one of their own.
Soon after, the party died down, and the drunk and exhausted Raid Team went to their quarters for a well-earned rest, and the drunk and exhausted personnel that made up the night shift moved lazily to their work stations.
And so it was that N'Ricaa found himself slumping in his chair before a set of computer terminals. His eyes idly swept across the screens, tracking the movement of Shegoths outside the base. They hadn't made any recent move to enter, though they rarely did anymore. High-power plasma turrets had been installed at the cargo entrances to the base, the only ways in that were big enough for the massive creatures to fit through. They tried to squeeze in and BAM! They were toast in a matter of seconds.
He wasn't the only one in the Central Command spire. A few more on night duty dotted the several levels that extended upwards. Occasionally, a patrol would pass by, but they weren't paying any attention. They were busy laughing and telling stories. He glanced at them, smiled at any jokes he could hear, and then looked back at the screen.
BLIP!
What the hell?
BLIP!
N'Ricaa rubbed at his eyes with the edge of a claw, then stared harder at the screen. His training told him what that sound was: a proximity alarm, but of something mechanical, not biological. But he didn't believe it. Nothing ever landed on this planet. A few days ago, he picked something up, but it was so small, and it disappeared not a second after it was detected. He had suspected the system was on the fritz.
But just yesterday, they ran a check and cleaned out the system. And this reading was too strong to be just a glitch.
Reaching out, he tapped a button and pulled a microphone from the console before him. "Attention, attention," he spoke into it, his voice repeating back to him with a 2-second delay. "All essential Command personnel please report to station Zero-Zero-Three in Central Command spire. I repeat, all essential Command Personnel to CC Station 3." He replaced the microphone, automatically turning off the intercom, and began scanning not only the mechanical source, but their own defenses as well.
After all, the computer reported the main body of the Pirates had just landed on the surface. And that meant problems for all.
All the ships entered the atmosphere and, following Kraid's direction, landed in a large, open space outside of an enclosing mountain range. First, the massive ship touched down, followed by the others in succession of size, the last to come down being the individual fighters.
The hatches on all of them opened simultaneously as Ridley stepped forward. Zebesian Space Pirates poured out and began setting up a base camp. They trucked out parts of buildings and attached them with flimsy halls made on-site, all the while Ridley watched. Finally, Kraid came forth from the massive ship and approached Ridley, whom he dwarfed by a good 10 meters.
"Ah, Brother Ridley," Kraid bellowed merrily to his comrade. "How goes things? I haven't seen or heard of you since the Old Brain bought it."
"Brother Kraid," Ridley responded in his trademark sly voice, "It is improper to speak of the Great Mother in such a manner, especially since we are trying to revive her."
"Yes, yes," the massive lizard waved his hand to dismiss the issue, "I'm aware of our efforts." His smile disappeared as he looked to the mountains. Standing on his tip-toes (Ridley was still unsure of how he could do that while his feet supported such a great amount of girth), Kraid could see the top of the central spire. "Is that where our enemy lies?"
"Yes," Ridley spat, "this is where the bastard Renegades have made their home. Radon Pirates... hah!" He spat again, striking a passing Pirate with his loogie. The creature immediately burst into flame and began running around, screaming, before diving into a snow bank for relief.
"I don't recall ever hearing of this base in the data logs on the Phazon operations from the old Command logs," Kraid said.
"You wouldn't have; it was only partly completed before the Hunter appeared and began tearing our forces apart while unaided." Ridley looked beyond the mountains, observing the base from afar. "I still cannot believe the fierce skill of that woman..."
Kraid's eyes opened wide. "She's a... a woman?!"
Ridley decided an eye-roll would be appropriate. "Yes, fool, she is a woman. I remember you being smarter before you died again."
"How long has she been like that?"
The Space Dragon face-palmed. Dumb ass... he thought. He released his face, collected himself, and then turned to Kraid.
"We have much to discuss about tactics," Ridley said. He looked at the mob of Pirates assembling a makeshift base at the base of the mountain. "How soon can we expect another division?"
Now it was Kraid's turn to face-palm. "Never," he said meekly, "This is all that's left."
"This is ALL?!" Ridley roared. "How can we be so few?"
"These damn Radon Pirates have recruited 88 of our Pirates. Apparently, these are the only ones still sympathetic to our cause. We had three times this amount, but the Federation caught us by surprise in the Hector system. We were outnumbered and outgunned." He looked out from behind his hand. "But I could swear that they'd have a bigger base if they had so great a following..."
"This is only a small division..." Ridley muttered.
"What?!"
"I lied too!" The Space Dragon snapped back at his "brother".
"Then we do have much to discuss," Kraid said.
Epsillius took only one look at the monitor before allowing himself to begin swearing up and down. It was in his native language, but some of the Tallonian Pirate command crew that had assembled knew enough of that particular tongue to keep quiet. The red commander began to pace back and forth, muttering curses under his breath. For a minute, he grew quiet, stopped pacing, and became contemplative.
Finally, he looked up, a flash of ingenuity crossing his eyes. "This won't be easy," he said aloud, "But I have an idea. The remainders of the Brain Loyalists are probably all here. This operation of theirs is a dead or alive: they either win this and regain a foothold, or the cause dies on the battlefield. We just need to fend them off, and we will win this for sure."
"B-But Epsillius," one of the command crew stammered, "What about Kraid and Ridley? The Great Eater and the Space Dragon of Death?" He was shaken to his very soul: he remembered vividly the tenacity and ferociousness of Meta-Ridley when he still part of the Pirate main forces. He had also heard of Kraid, but those that saw him were almost always killed during their visit, so a description with a lot of detail was hard to come across.
"That's true..." Epsillius muttered, "They wont' be taken out easily. And I doubt that Samus could fight them without learning the truth." He grew silent for another moment, then spoke up once more. "We'll call for reinforcements. A bombardment from space on Kraid and Ridley. Both are excellent warriors, but neither can withstand that. But to pull it off, we'll need probably a quarter of the fleet."
He turned to N'Ricaa, who maintained his post before the monitor. "Send the call for help. Tell them that this will be the final battle, and that the Loyalists will fall." The young Pirate nodded and turned to the monitor and began readying the transmission. "Oh," the red warrior added, "Send for Samus. I'll need to send her on a diversionary mission."
Samus yawned under her helmet, and futilely tried to rub sleep from her eyes with her visor in the way. It was obscenely early, and she had just drunk about five bottles of Pirate ale. She could handle the alcohol; she wasn't the best bounty hunter in the galaxy just for bounties. She was well skilled in other things as well, especially when it came to drinking.
Come to think of it, she thought numbly, I think that was the first time I've taken my helmet off around the Pirates...
"Samus!" Epsillius yelled, "Are you paying attention?"
"Yes," Samus replied, straightening up.
"Good," the red Pirate said, "then I'll continue." He pointed his mechanical claw at the large screen in front of her. It reminded her of the terminals back on the B.S.L. station, though much more massive. "We have reason to believe that the Torizo are using up the supplies at the old crash site." He tapped on the location of the screen which showed the old frigate, the one Samus was responsible for bringing down during her previous mission here.
Epsillius turned to face Samus. "You are to go to the site, eliminate all Torizo, and open up the old maintenance access ways. We've already dug a tunnel leading up to them, but we couldn't risk entering without knowing it was secure. You'll be assigned two Plasma Troopers to assist you in removing the Torizo threat. Any questions?"
Samus would have scratched her head if she could get to it through the helmet. Something didn't add up in what Epsillius had told her. He never mentioned a tunnel before, and why would the Torizo use up supplies?
Instead of asking, she just shrugged. After all, Epsillius hadn't steered her wrong, and she felt he never will.
When Samus shook her head, Epsillius smiled. "Good. Now get on your way, we have a schedule to keep." Samus nodded, caught herself when she was about to salute, and made her way out of Central Command, the two Plasma Troopers following close behind. But once again, she felt in the back of her mind that all was not well...
Dash crouched outside his ship parked up on the ledge of the mountains. He was wearing a snug heavy coat, hat, pants, and scarf to protect him from the cold. He peered through a pair of binoculars, and pushed up the zoom. He was observing the expeditionary force the main Pirate body had sent, except...
Well, why did they send Ridley and Kraid along for just a small base takeover? It didn't make any sense. They had been rumored to have been focusing on Mother Brain's third revival, so why come all the way out here for something that mere grunts could handle? Was it more important than it seemed?
The bounty hunter mumbled to himself. He hated being out of the loop. He was about to get back inside his nice, safe ship when his binocs reported an energy surge. He analyzed it with their internal scanner, and determined it was yet another charge up en route to the Phazon Mines. What were they keeping down there?
Grumbling, the crimson-haired hunter trudged up the ramp into the belly of his ship, the slope shutting with a hiss behind him.
God, he hated being out of the loop.
Epsillius had said that taking her ship to the crash site was a bad idea, and she had faithfully followed his advice. He said that the tunnel to the access ways was useless until the access ways were open. Despite her powerful weapons which could probably open the hatches from either side, she again agreed. So now, she found herself taking a Pirate elevator to a different portion of the Phendrana Drifts, to then get access to the lush forests that would then lead her to the site.
In retrospect, her agreement had made no sense, but there was that voice, that sensitive and lovely voice that just told her to go along with it. It was quite compelling.
Contrasting that wonderful voice were the two Plasma Troopers that accompanied her. They never spoke, and always seemed to be on edge. Though Samus felt it wasn't about being around her; it seemed to be something far away that was agitating them. She had attempted conversation twice before on the long elevator ride, but to no avail. They remained silent, almost monolithic in their quiet states.
Finally, a resounding clang signaled that they had arrived. Samus looked around, recognizing the area from her last trudge through this section. She had spent so long on Tallon IV, making sure all the Metroids and Pirates were dead. Kind of ironic that she'd return after complete genocide of the former, and as a comrade of the latter.
Stepping off the elevator, she found herself strangely tense. The memory of what exactly happened here came rushing back: she had just arrived on the elevator when she was attacked by a Pirate patrol. After a long, drawn-out firefight, the last one was dead. Now, in the darkened room, the glowing red designs on the armor of the Plasma Troopers looked like big targets.
NO! cried out that voice in her head. Suddenly, that feeling of her brain being taken apart like a puzzle returned, and less than a nanosecond later it came back together, but in the wrong order. But she never realized this. Her mind felt changed, but she relaxed once more. In the presence of the Troopers, she suddenly felt quite safe.
They continued through the old winding corridors of the headquarters. Whenever they entered a room with stasis tubes and monitors, she was always wary for floating organisms that could suck her life force right out of her. But, to her delight, they were empty. She had previously been suspecting the Pirates of trying to create new Metroids, or even worse: the X. Samus shivered at the thought.
Finally, they emerged into a small valley, covered in vivid white snow. As soon as they stepped from the irising door hatch, a fully grown Shegoth jumped up from its hiding place in the snow. The razor sharp icicles that grew out from its back glowed and crackled with a purple energy. The six eyes that adorned its face stared menacingly at the trio and its mouth opened up, revealing rows upon rows of long, impossibly sharp teeth. It lunged to get a mouthful of flesh, but instead received a mouthful of concentrated plasma. Three beams of crimson light erupted from three separate gun barrels and struck the Shegoth with unerring accuracy. It roared and whined before finally being incinerated into ashes that now decorated the snow. The mournful cry of baby Shegoths were heard as they scampered away from the scene of their mother's death. Samus almost felt sorry for them, remembering her own mother's obliteration.
She quickly banished the thought from her mind. The bounty hunter didn't have the time, or the want, to reminisce about such painful memories.
It took a long time for them to reach another elevator, then another long wait for them to get to the lush jungles of Tallon IV. Though, when she emerged, she found they weren't so lush anymore.
The ground was scorched, burnt, and simply wiped out of existence in many spots. No grass survived, replaced by patches of rough sand. Trees were either burnt black, their vines shriveled and their flowers wilted, or simply burnt down to the stumps, occasionally further. At first, Samus was shocked by all the destruction. Then she remembered: crashing a large, floating temple into a pit of active Phazon would have some drawbacks to the environment.
But this looked less like Phazon-induced destruction, and more like laser scoring.
"When we first arrived," one of the Plasma Troopers spoke up at last, "We had to raze the forest area, to ensure that no Phazon or Phazon-maddened creatures survived. Especially the Great Destroyer." Samus was unsure whether or not that last comment was directed at her or Metroid Prime. After all, Epsillius had called her by that exact name when they first met in person.
The rest of the trip was made in silence. Samus was awed and deeply saddened by the amount of destruction that she had caused, whether it was directly or indirectly. She tried to avoid thinking of the Chozo Ruins that were probably affected too. Despite her experience with blowing things up, it pained her to think of wiping out the last ruins of a once spectacular race, since to her knowledge, the only other planets with Chozo ruins on them were Zebes and SR388. And she had destroyed them.
Finally, after crossing the familiar clearing in which she had landed her old ship so long ago, they found the wreckage of the old frigate. The wreck had hardly changed: maybe it was scorched a little more, a few holes in its hull here and there, but it was the landscape that suffered the most. The lake that used to separate Samus from the ship had been completely evaporated, along with any life that used to occupy it. The vines that had criss-crossed from tree to tree were only ashes, and said trees only memory. All in all, this place was more like a desert now.
The three crossed through the dry lake bed, making their way over rocks and pits. After a few minutes, they climbed up the steep incline that led to the front of the ship. As they reached the only entrance that was accessible from this side, one of the Plasma Troopers reached out with his scythe and punched in a nine-digit security code. The door irised open, and the darkness of the Pirate space platform seemed to reach out and grab them...