1Hi All! New chapter time! Now, before we begin, I think that I should clear up something that I have said before. I am currently in a state of chaos in my personal life, so that is why I do not possess the ability to crank out so many updates at one time as I used to. Eventually, my life shall calm down again, but until then, I have decided to work on only one fic at a time. And guess what? This is the fic that I chose first. I will be working on my FFCC fic next, followed by my four swords fic, then my Sonic/Inuyasha crossover. After that, new fics will soon follow, but I must ask you to please be patient with me. Thank you.

P.S. Please do not use the review function as an email function. It is against the rules of to use it for message board purposes or to make demands that are not related to the story. If you are going to demand that I update other fics other than this one, please either send a review to the appropriate fic about it, or use my new email address at . Thank you. Now, with all that said, I think that we can get on with the fic.

Chapter 10: The journey

Samus sighed of boredom as they flew through hyperspace. It had only been one hour out of ten before they reached the home world of the space pirates. She was still seething from what they had done, destroying an entire planet like that.

Ridley sat next to her, watching her as she stayed still. He wanted to say something, to make her better, but what to say? How could he make her feel better after she had witnessed the entire human race go up in flames like that? He opened his mouth to try and speak, but a beeping from the control panel interrupted him. "ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS! HYPER DRIVE ENGINE IS OVERHEATING! IF HYPER DRIVE IS NOT ABORTED IMMEDIATELY, ENGINE SHALL ERUPT!"

"Damn it!" Ridley cursed, quickly pressing some buttons, easing the ship out of hyperspace. There was a small explosion in the back of the ship. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

The computer beeped helpfully. "THE HYPER DRIVE ENGINE HAS OVERHEATED AND EXPLODED. WARNING: DUE TO EXPLOSION, NORMAL ENGINES ARE NOW ONLY FUNCTIONING AT HALF CAPACITY."

Ridley hit the controls in anger. "Aw, fuck it! As if it could get any..."

Before he could finish his statement, Samus put a hand over his mouth. "Don't say it, Ridley. Every time anyone says that, it always get's worse."

Ridley nodded, glad that she was at least talking again. Samus removed her hand from his mouth and stood up. "I'll go and take a look at the engines. I might be able to fix them a bit, but I doubt that I can bring them back up to full capacity."

Ridley nodded and tossed her some earmuffs. "You're gonna want those. Even at half capacity, it can get pretty loud down there."

Samus smiled and put on the earmuffs. "Thanks a lot. I'll be back soon." She blew him a kiss before heading down into the engine room.

Ridley smiled a bit as she went to the engine room. He turned back to the computer. "Computer, keep our current coordinates and analyze how long it will take us to reach our destination in conventional space."

The computer whirred a beeped a few times before presenting it's answer. "CALCULATION COMPLETE. IN CONVENTIONAL SPACE, IT WILL TAKE APPROXIMATELY THIRTEEN DAYS, SEVEN HOURS, EIGHT MINUTES, AND THIRTY-SEVEN SECONDS TO REACH THE INPUT DESTINATION."

Ridley's eyes widened. "Two whole weeks!?" he shouted. "What the hell? We only have enough rations for three days and who knows how many other planets are going to suffer the same fate as earth by the time we get there?"

The computer took this as a question directed at it, so it provided an answer. "APPROXIMATELY NINETEEN OTHER PLANETS."

Ridley growled. "Great, no pressure!" he said sarcastically. He sighed and slunk back into the captain's seat. "Damn it! Now what?" he asked himself.

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Samus was now in the engine room, assessing the damage. It was loud in there, so she was grateful that Ridley had given her the earmuffs. She sighed as she looked over the engines. She hadn't dealt with repairing to much space pirate technology before. Bit it was bad. The hyper drive engine was, just as the computer had said, overheated and out of order. She checked the conventional engines. They were only at half capacity, but were still going strong.

She grew thoughtful for a second before going over the engine controls and pressing a few buttons. "If I'm not mistaken, added power in the engine can be gained by reconnecting the circuit breakers..." She tapped a few keys on the keyboard, trying to reroute the energy output from the circuit breakers.

It worked. The energy started to flow to the engines, quickly increasing their power. It suddenly got even louder in there, so Samus needed to adjust her earmuffs a bit. She smiled as the energy output for the engines now read seventy-five percent.

Satisfied, she went back up to where Ridley was now. "Ridley, I managed to get the engine output up to seventy-five percent."

Ridley smiled up at her. "That's good news... better than what I have."

Samus tilted her head a bit. "What's wrong?"

Ridley sighed. "According to the computer, it's going to take us... two weeks to reach our destination without the hyper drive engine."

Samus paled. "But... the space pirates are still at large, Ridley! Who knows how many planets will be destroyed while we're just trying to get there!"

Ridley pointed to the computer. "According to Mr. Know-it-all here, nineteen."

Samus clenched her fists and punched the side of the ship in anger. "Damn it! What the hell are we gonna do?"

Ridley got up and walked over to her, enveloping her in a hug. "For starters, we need to find a place where we can get more supplies. I only brought enough food and water for three days."

Samus nodded, composing herself. She kissed Ridley on the cheek. "Understood, love. We'd better locate it soon."

Ridley nodded. He took a seat at the wheel again. "Computer, scan area for any planet within a three day range of the ship that can support life and seems to have a large abundance of resources."

The computer whirred again, searching. It beeped triumphantly. "PLANET FOUND. NAME OMOCRON. RICH IN ALL FORMS OF NATURAL RESOURCES. SCANS DETECT NO SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET."

Ridley nodded. "Distance?" he asked.

"APPROXIMATELY THREE DAYS."

Samus smiled. "Looks like we'll make it." Her expression changed to sadness. "But what about all those other planets?" she asked, sitting next to Ridley.

Ridley sighed. "I know... but we just need to keep moving. The longer we take, the more planets will be destroyed."

Samus nodded. "You're right, Ridley. We can't let all those people's deaths be in vain. We need to avenge them."

Ridley nodded. "Yes... and I need to repent for everything that I've done."

Samus frowned. "Ridley... you don't need to repent. You..." she stopped, unsure of the right phrase to use. She knew that he had done some pretty terrible things, but that was when he was a dragon. The only thing he had really done that was bad when he was in his human form was when he came after her. "Ridley..."

Ridley shook his head. "Please, don't act like I haven't done anything wrong, Samus. Some of the things that I did when I was still a space pirate were just unforgivable and... I need to make up for them, one way or another." A single tear slipped down his face.

Samus reached over and brushed the tear away. "Oh Ridley." she said gently, hugging him close to her.

Ridley smiled a bit, but the computer interjected. "SCANNERS INDICATE EXTREME INCREASE IN BODILY TEMPERATURE."

Ridley blushed lightly and shot the computer a glare, even though it couldn't tell that he was shooting him a glare.

Samus just shook her head. "Ignore him, Ridley." She giggled a bit and kissed him again.

Ridley grinned. "I won't have a very bad problem with that." He kissed her again.

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The space pirate command laughed loudly as they watched a replay of the second and third planet's explosions. They had originally intended to just make the planets uninhabitable for the local nature, but this was even better!

The pirate's laughter was interrupted by someone knocking at the door. "Enter."

A lone elite pirate came in. "Forgive my interjection, sirs... but we have readouts that show that Samus Aran and Ridley have plotted a course for our homeworld."

The pirate command frowned. Ridley and Samus would definately be a problem if they managed to get to their base. "Set a course for our home world. It will take them a while to get there by conventional space. When they do arrive, we shall deal with them personally."

The pirate saluted and walked off, shivering. Being in the presence of the command was enough to make anyone shiver.

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There's your new chapter folks! Hope you like it! And please heed what I wrote in the beginning in my author's note, I'm trying my best to keep up with you, but it's really hard with everything going on in my life. I barely have free weekends now! Well, that aside, please enjoy my new chapter and tell me what you think!