"I'm saying that there are humans on that terrestrial planet." Samus explained. "The scans confirmed it both times."
"More traitors?" The Chief enquired.
"No, that doesn't make any sense; the pirates for the most part are Insectoids, who hate humans."
"So the humans are probably hostages."
Samus didn't respond right away, her mind drifted back to the two crewmen. Could these Terran life signatures be their family?
"Possibly, but we don't want to go around alerting the pirates to our presence by attacking their base." Samus said harshly.
She wanted to save them; it was why she started fighting the Pirates in the first place, so no one else would ever be hurt by them. It was why the Chozo gave her the Varian armor, they knew she had a pure heart and would use it for good. She also knew if she wasn't harsh all they would do is cause more deaths, and more suffering. Like all those people whose families work at the Aliehs III shipyards. No, she wouldn't risk endangering more lives.
"No we don't" The Chief agreed, "That's why I'll go in alone."
"Whoa, Chief, I like you I do, but I have to agree with Samus on this one, and you know that is a rare thing." Cortana pointed out. "But we will compromise the mission if you're caught, and they are bound to notice a few prisoners missing."
"Look we have gone over the Ring's schematics; it is just a platform for focusing the Stars energy. It won't take both of us to sabotage it."
"Yes but we don't know long it takes to initiate the firing sequence." Samus said, "They could even shut it down."
"True enough, but we know that the Ring is controlled planet side. Therefore we need to go down there anyways to make sure our plan goes off with out a hitch. I will go down their with Cortana, she will make sure no one can shut down the Ring's initiation sequence, you can even have Adam drop us off, after your Ring side."
Samus didn't like this at all, there were still risks. The Pirates were not stupid; they probably had Bio-sensors, not unlike the Hunter. They easily could spare the extra computing power to keep tabs on the captive Terrans. How long would it take them to notice an extra one wondering around?
"Look," Samus said, scrunching up her face. "I didn't say I didn't want to rescue them, I said we can't. The Hunter is a small enough ship that it could go unnoticed if it approached the planet. The main reason we jumped in behind the star was to conceal our arrival from hyperspace. But their sensor could still pick us up, that's why were hanging back here, no unnecessary risks."
"What about landing on the Ring itself," the Chief stated, "That is when we are at the biggest risk for being exposed. They probably have that under constant surveillance."
Samus decided to humor him. "Fine, let's say we do this, what about yourself, you'll be planet side facing down the majority of the Space Pirates in the sector, with out me watching your back. How well do you think that'll work?"
"Don't worry about me, I've go that covered." John said producing a small object. It was about hand sized, pyramid shaped and clear. It glowed with electricity and in the center of the pyramid floated a blue orb. Samus had never seen this before. "What is it? Some sort of bomb?" She asked
"It's a piece of Covenant technology that the crew of the Dawn, must have intercepted. Once I infuse it with my armor, it will render me temporarily cloaked. It's mobile tech, so it isn't as fancy as the cloaking devices they have in their armor, but it'll last for 20 or so minutes. Our scientists are trying to reverse engineer these things, but so far we haven't come up with anything."
This point seemed to sway Samus at least a little. They spent the rest of the day hashing out a plan of attack. They would wait until the planetary base was night side, and then launch their attack simultaneously.
"It will be 7 hours before the terminator reaches the Pirates base." Adam informed the crew.
"Well I am glad he is not completely useless." Cortana said sarcastically.
They ignored Cortana's comment; they had a big day in front of them and their plan still wasn't finalized. It was finally decided upon that Samus would be dropped off on the ring first, with the theory that the Star's radiation would overload any sensors keeping her arrival secret. She would wait 90 minutes, giving The Hunter enough time to land on the planet, with Master Chief. This way if she alerts the Pirates with her presence, her ship will be headed back to retrieve her. The other reason for the wait would be the duality of the attack, by the time she started interfering with the Ring's mechanics, John should be close to the Pirate's base. Allowing him to create another distraction, hopefully buying Samus any time she may need.
Adam revived Samus from her nap, she knew she needed to be fully alert for this plan to work, and would need as much sleep as possible prior to the raid. She eyed her Varian armor and told Adam to let the Chief know it was time to go. Light from the cockpit's canopy reflected off the orange armor clad warrior as she set herself in the pilot's chair. She guided The Hunter within a few klicks of the Ring, and then gave the controls over to Adam. "I'd better find this ship exactly the way I left it, when it comes back." Samus said, as John crossed over into the captain's seat.
"Yeah, you be careful too," He called over his shoulder.
Samus entered the storage bay of the ship. She drained the air from the section of the ship, and then opened the bay doors. She pushed herself out into the void.
She fired her jet pack to stabilize her decent towards the Ring. Her jet pack wasn't designed for long range flight, there was no air resistance in space and gravity
was pretty much negligible so they should be able to meet her demands. She only needed to keep them lit when she was close to the Ring's surface so when she
landed she wouldn't be a smear on the Ring. The orange figure finally set down on the Ring, she set the black cylinder she carried in her left hand on its metallic
surface. "Now we wait." She told no one in particular. The digital timer in her helmets HUD counted down the minutes. When it had counted down about ten minutes,
something caught her eye. It was a structure on the ring, like a squat rectangular building, with a spire rising up from its middle. Samus cursed under her breath "An
observation tower." Hopefully it didn't see her land; it wasn't very large, housing a skeleton crew of a dozen. They probably stayed Ring side running routine
maintenance until it started up. This was somewhat good news, it means that the video they saw was a time lapse. The Ring must take a while to warm up before
the focusing starts; this would allow the Custodians of the Ring ample time to escape, before being vaporized. It was one of the main fears that plagued Samus
since she landed, it was likely they would be able to get out of the blast radius before the Ring discharged, but there always was a lingering doubt. Her visor located
zoomed in on the transmitter, she would have to take that out to avoid being found out. It was unlikely that they kept an open channel between the Ring and the
base. Samus lifted her right arm, her cannon changed configuration and sent a missile screaming towards the transmitter. Samus broke into a sprint, it would be
seconds before the missile hit, and she wanted to cover as much ground as possible before it connected with the transmitter. Thanks to the small gravity of the Ring,
she knew that she would be able to cut her transportation time down significantly by firing her jet pack. She lit her jet pack, jettisoning herself towards the
compound; she was over half way there when the structure was rocked by the missile impact. Several of the crustacean-like Space Pirates immerged from the
compound to inspect the damage. Samus configured her cannon to its wave beam setting; she wanted to sweep the area as she came down on it. In mid arch the
sapphire orb resting on the back of her hand glowed brightly as she extended her grappler. It attached to a pole acting as a shielding device from the light of the
star. She used the pole to pull herself towards the un-expecting pirates. She unleashed her wave beam decimating the pirates below. She landed hard, she used
her left hand to help brace her body from the impact, she bounced a bit after hitting the surface of the Ring, landing like a sprinter in the their starting blocks. She
sprinted off towards the blast doors of the compound; which the pirates were already starting to seal. As she ran her arm cannon changed configuration yet again,
shooting a missile threw the ever closing blast doors. The opening of the doors had grown impossibly small. She dove, reconfiguring her Varia suit into a Morph Ball.
She dropped a mine as she rolled towards the door. The mine's explosion lifted her through the chest level opening of the blast door. She landed in the middle of the
room containing the blast door, she was about to reconfigure back into the Varia suit, when enemy fire started to rain down on her. Her power tanks were holding,
but she didn't want to sit around letting the pirates take pot shots at her. She rolled away at top speed, having to roll up a wall to avoid some mortar fire directed at
her. Using the cover from the blast she was able to emerge from the Morph Ball. She used her flamethrower to keep the Pirates at bay, while she took cover in the
next room. She dodged into the adjacent room, backing into a large growling creature. She turned to find herself facing down several Zeta Metroids.