Chapter 11: Pretending to be Human
The desolate planet was dark in the aftermath of whatever had passed through. Black smoke still clouded the sky, blocking out the sun as ash and charred debris fell like rainwater onto the thirsty ground. The only sounds were the crackling of distant fires and the rubble landing on what were once buildings. Spilled chemicals mixed with the blood seeping from the corpses beneath the soot, covering the ground in a sort of red pearlescent liquid that never should have existed.
If there had been a threat to stop here, it had long since finished its reign. There was no one left to threaten.
Samus walked silently over the wreckage, occasionally hearing the cracking of bones beneath her heavy boots. She did not even look down or turn back to see who she might have stepped on, and she did not care. The dead did not concern her now, only finding the killer.
Visibility was poor in every direction, but she could see through the smoke and ash with her x-ray visor. Switching to it, she walked through the monochromatic world, looking for anomalies. At least now instead of seeing the half-exposed bones on charred bodies, all she saw were the bones of what were once people.
She walked along for what felt like an eternity until the smoke began to clear. A strange wind blew from up ahead, parting the raining ash as though it were inviting her to come toward it. It was so unnatural, she was certain that whatever was causing it was the source of destruction on the rest of this world. Switching to her combat visor, she found herself running toward it, head on as a massive, shadowed figure came into view. She could not make out what it was, but it had a head and body almost like a space dragon and massive limbs with inverted joints that spidered from around its torso.
She could feel her heart pounding steady and firm in her chest as the two combatants locked eyes with one another, each one ready for the kill. But as she raised her cannon, she felt something reach out and grab her ankle.
Thrown off by the sudden movement, the hunter jerked her leg free and took a step back to see what had grabbed her. She stared down in sickened horror as half of a human girl looked up at her.
"Aunt Sam," the corpse said, looking up at her with empty eyes. "Help us…"
Samus staggered backward, recognizing the face, despite the decay. So disturbed by the sight, she nearly tripped backward over another body. As she turned to look, she realized it was the form of a tall man, shrouded in a General's coat. Beside him lay a woman she recognized well.
"Adam," she whispered, staggering away as her mind drowned out the gurgling growls of the beast, which had obviously been feeding on the bodies.
Her heart was racing as she turned and looked back at the monster, her eyes wide in a combination of rage and terror as she raised her cannon once more and charged for the abominable creature. But she was halfway through her run when she heard someone call out her name in the distance. Though she glanced in the direction of the sound, she continued her attack.
"Samus!" the voice called out again, but this time she recognized it as she froze in place, her eyes glued to the human form appearing through the smoke.
"No!" she called back, suddenly unable to move. "Hector, run! Hec—!"
Before she could finish what she was saying, the creature lunged forward and thrust out one of its long, javelin-like limbs. It ran the clawed structure through her torso in a matter of seconds, cutting through her armor like butter. She could taste the metallic blood in her mouth as the beast pinned her to the ground and stood over her, still a heavily shadowed form she could not quite see. But she could see the whole world going dark as the ash fell around her like snow.
"Samus!" she heard the voice again, coming closer as she could see her son running toward her, completely oblivious to the monstrous alien that impaled her. But she was unable to speak and warn him of its presence. "Samus!"
The beast looked down at her with familiar red-golden eyes as she remained paralyzed and unable to do anything but stare up in horror as it turned to the boy.
Though her vision was fading out, it was like slow-motion high-definition as she watched it tear through him. And she screamed.
She didn't know how she screamed, and she was not even aware she was screaming until she could hear it. And she kept screaming as everything faded to black. She could only feel her ragged breathing and her heart pounding painfully as her whole body was wracked with the screaming.
But distantly, she could hear someone calling her name, although she could not quite register it. There was a terrible pressure on her chest as she felt something restrain her. Or grab her.
Someone was grabbing her arms, and she could hear her name.
"Samus!" a man's voice called to her, sounding like his right in front of her. "Samus, wake up!"
She was still screaming when she opened her eyes, although it was hoarse and painful. She could see the form of the man holding her. She could see his face, and she recognized him, although she was not sure from where.
"Samus," he said very gently, loosening his hold on her as she lay back down against the bed, her body still tense and rigid. "Samus, you're having a nightmare."
She saw another person hand him something and soon felt him wipe her forehead with a cool, damp cloth. Her skin was clammy, and she was drenched in sweat, but the gentle feel of the cloth wiping it from her face calmed her a little. She tried to gather her composure as best as she could, but her whole body was shaking.
"Adam?" she managed in a hoarse whisper as she looked up at the man.
"That's right, Lady," he said softly as he took the cloth away and helped her sit up. "Marza's here too. We heard you yelling from down the hall."
"Where… what are you doing here?" she looked around groggily, still trying to figure out where she was. She could feel some big furry animal curl up beside her and nuzzle its head into her lap. Unconsciously she began petting its head.
Adam knelt bedside the bed and looked up at her. "You're at my house. In my spare bedroom. You've been here over a week. You came here to meet your son."
"Hector…" she choked out, her eyes snapping open wide as she stared at Adam. "He's dead… I watched him die… You're all dead."
Adam stared at her quietly for a moment before taking a seat beside her on the bed and pulling her into his arms. "Hector's alive, Lady," he said quietly as a trembling Samus rested against him. "I'm not dead. See?"
She could hear his heart beating as she pressed an ear to his chest and felt her body relax slightly.
"I'm not dead either," said Marza with a smile, taking a step closer and kneeling where Adam had been on the floor. "Everything's okay, Sam. You just had a bad dream."
Samus closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts. It was not the first time she had woken up like this. No, this sort of thing was a semi-regular occurrence for her. The only difference was that she was always either alone on her ship or in her crappy apartment. She would wake up shaking, and covered in sweat, occasionally in a different spot than she had gone to sleep in. Without anyone around, it frequently took her a long time to try to figure out what was real and what was only a dream. Her nightmares had become frighteningly vivid over the years, and sometimes they were almost impossible to tell from real life. At some point, she had begun keeping a journal so that on those occasions, she could go back and read it to sort out what had actually happened and what hadn't.
It was embarrassing to be seen in this state, even if only Adam and Marza were present. And she had no doubt that if they were in Adam's house, Abby and Evie knew as well.
"Thank you," she whispered as Adam continued to wipe the sweat from her face and neck. She felt something warm and wet run itself along her palm and realized Archer was licking it.
"It's ok, Sam," Marza said, taking the cloth back from Adam. "You know we got you if you need us."
Not long ago, the idea of someone implying she needed them would have flared up her temper. She had survived on her own for so many years; she never needed anyone. But her temper had cooled considerably since then, and even if she knew she never needed anyone to be there to get her through a night terror, she was glad to have them. It was embarrassing to be seen as a shaking, screaming mess, but it felt good to know there were people who loved and cared about her enough that they didn't care and would never hold it against her.
Samus rested like that for a little while until her shaking calmed down. She was exhausted, and there was still a horrible pressure in her chest that made it difficult to breathe, but overall, she was feeling much better than she had been. Eventually she pulled away from Adam and sat up against the headboard. Archer looked up at her as he came forward onto her lap and draped his body over her protectively. She scratched behind his ears and rubbed his neck as she took a moment to appreciate just how attached to her the shaggy dog had become in such a short time.
"I'm all right," Samus said, her voice considerably stronger than it had been a few minutes earlier. "Thank you both for your help, but I'm really all right now."
Adam nodded, but he still looked concerned. Marza, on the other hand, just smiled at her understandingly.
"I'll leave you two alone," she said. "I need to be up early so I'll head back to bed. Sneak back in quietly if you do, Adam." She grinned at her husband coyly as she left Samus's room and closed the door behind her.
"You and Marza have a good night together?" Samus asked, trying to sound playful but not quite able to yet.
"Heh…" Adam looked embarrassed, and Samus was certain she saw the General blush slightly. "Well after dinner and the ballet… It was our first date night in a few years and… it ended like a date night."
Samus smiled at her friend, and though her face clearly displayed her exhaustion, it was a genuine smile. "Good for you, Adam."
He laughed nervously. "I didn't realize what a long time it had been. How long it had been since she and I even just spent an evening together. Tomorrow, we're taking the girls to see some silly looking movie called Sack Lunch and then to the World War IV museum."
"World War IV?" Samus asked, genuinely interested. She had heard of Wars taking place within a single planet, but those were usually referred to as Civil Wars.
Adam glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "You really don't know much about human history before we joined the Galactic Federation, do you?"
The bounty hunter shrugged. "I know what I need. It's never been relevant."
"World War IV was the last major war fought between countries on Earth before we aligned ourselves with the other planets of the Federation. My grandfather fought in it. He was in the Royal Canadian Navy."
Archer picked his head up to nuzzle Samus's hand, and she realized she had stopped petting him and promptly corrected herself.
"I didn't realize you had family in the military outside of Ian."
Adam flinched slightly at his deceased brother's name. Not even Samus usually ever brought him up. "My father was a surgeon, and my mother was an attorney, but both of my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers were high ranking military officials in Canada. And Canada had the largest, most well structured Armed Forces on Earth."
"Canada sounds like a nice place," Samus said with a yawn. "If it ever thaws out, I think I'd like to visit there someday."
Adam chuckled and glanced at Archer, who stared back up at him warily. "Which dream was it this time, Lady?"
Samus closed her eyes, the tightness returning to her chest. "On a mission. Destroyed planet. Charred bodies. Giant vague shadowy alien monster thing. The bodies were… they were you and…" She stopped herself, deciding it best not to mention she had seen his wife and daughter among the dead. "Hector came running toward me. I was impaled by the monster and couldn't move. He kept coming toward me and I couldn't do anything and…"
She didn't have to finish the sentence. Adam knew. He also knew that she had had similar dreams of her son being killed trying to run to her for the past fifteen years. The difference, this time, was that she actually knew what her son looked like, and he was certain she saw him die with excruciating detail.
"I thought I was doing better," she said after a moment. "I hadn't been having nightmares… no flashbacks. I've been feeling good lately, so why…? I have to leave to meet Keaton on Monday." She glanced over to the clock on her nightstand and saw it was well after midnight. "Tomorrow. I have to leave to meet Keaton tomorrow. I can't be falling apart…"
"Lady," Adam said softly, "have you considered that might be why this happened? You spent all evening with Hector, but this assignment is obviously weighing on your mind."
"Perhaps." Samus yawned again and shook her head. "I got too comfortable here, pretending to be a human."
"At the end of the day, Samus, you are, at least for the most part, human. You do need to acknowledge that side of yourself from time to time."
The bounty hunter shook her head. "I just worry I've been letting myself get soft here. Acting human. Being a mom. Staying in warm, comfy places. There's a reason I lived the way I did before coming to Earth."
"And when you came here, you were so on edge you would fly into a rage if anyone said the wrong thing to you. You were staying awake for days and not eating for weeks at a time. You were seeing remnants of the Space Pirate War everywhere you looked, and no one could even say the word 'K-2L' to you. There's such a thing as having too much of an edge, and you were heading for disaster. The Federation thought you were unstable enough that they had me accompany you to Earth. I think you've shown a huge improvement since then."
Samus thought quietly for a few moments, still deeply unsettled by the nightmare. "Perhaps your right. Or do you think that maybe I'm just so fundamentally… damaged I'll fall apart again the moment I step back onto the battlefield?"
"Lady." He looked her in the eyes, his face very serious. "I've seen you come back from much worse. You're a warrior, Samus. I don't know what happened when you destroyed Zebes or why that shook you up so badly. I know you've been dealing with feeling irrelevant since the Space Pirate War ended. You need to stop that. You're stronger than you realize, Samus."
She didn't say anything as she listened to her friend and continued to pet the dog.
"Besides," he continued, his voice a bit more gentle, "you may not have been in any combat lately, but you've amazed me with the things you've faced since we were at Blackacre. Your past, K-2L and your family's murder. Your present, coming to terms with the fact that your mortal enemies have all been conquered. And now your future. Your progeny. I know how much courage you had to get up for that last one." Then he smiled ironically. "And you convinced my stubborn ass to actually take some time out of work and start dealing with my own issues."
Samus nodded solemnly, taking in everything he said. "I guess I'll just have to see how I feel in the morning. It's hard to process anything right now."
The General nodded as he stood up and smoothed the part of the blanket he had been sitting on. "I know it is. Do you think you'll be able to get back to sleep?"
The bounty hunter shrugged as she slowly settled herself back into a sleeping position, careful not to disturb the dog too much. "If I can't, I'll take a sedative. I have to be well rested. I'm introducing Hector to Elisa, letting her know why I've been so distant since the other night. I don't want her to think I'm… well, the love-em-and-leave-em type."
Adam nodded again. "Good night, Lady." He turned off the light as he went out the door.
"Goodnight, Adam." Samus yawned as Archer repositioned himself beside her. She wrapped an arm around the big dog and snuggled into his warm fur. It did not take long for her to fall back to sleep.
