WX-956,742,3
Planetoid Cluster Formerly Known as Zebes
Dome of the Hunter

The group of Chozo entered the domed chamber, shuffling forward peacefully in nothing more than simple, uniform cloth robes as the manicured talons on their feet tapped the floor softly. Their beaks curved cruelly down from beneath their hoods, but there was menace in them now, and the giants hid their massive, feathered strength under the long tunics in the same way they disguised their great technological prowess with simple austerity. Humble beyond all humility, the procession was lead by a scholar who had once adopted a young girl turned would-be savior, but the Chozo considered themselves equals and as there were no distinguishing qualities in how they adorned themselves, Old Bird's status of first among equals was exactly that.

Approaching the chair in the room's center, they found the bounty hunter lying limply across her chair, even now, still in the powered suit they had given her, although even the most charitable among them noticed she had not taken as good care of it as she might. As one and as if with silent signal they all removed their hoods, but it was only her father who spoke.

"Greetings Hatchling. I apologize that we were forced to meet again under such circumstances however I admit I am glad that I am able to see you after so long," began the Chozo scholar in his race's native speech, a language as smooth and elegant as the speaker himself. "Times and circumstances are dire everywhere. The Chiro are coming, Hatchling. All of them, from every corner of this galaxy and any other. We believe them to have a relatively small population nevertheless even a few thousand or less would be more than enough to destroy this 'Galactic Federation.' Your personal experiences with them on planet Tüm and Zeta Platform let you know that well enough. The truth of the matter is that we have no idea about the upper limits of their abilities and technologies, only that their lowest far exceeds anything the Federation is currently capable of dealing with. The Space Pirate clans have been ravaged by nothing more than scouting squadrons of Chiro. A group of four such warriors destroyed the Vortrini Pirate clan's leadership and took control. They killed the Vortrini's Mother Brain and Kraid and forced the Ridley to become their subservient pawn before bringing them to capture the Meroids. The Space Pirates were nothing more than puppets on Tüm, do you understand? Four Chiro wielded the power of an entire race as well as any puppet master possibly could.

"Other Pirate clans have suffered, though their hierarchies have remained intact. We have summoned them here to regroup and regain their strength, for the time being. Yet, even in the weakened state they are in now, the 30 Space Pirate clans in this coalition could easily wipe out the Galactic Federation. It would not matter much if they did. They could not stem the Chiro.

"The state of affairs seems hopeless but it need not be so. Separately the Space Pirates and Galactic Federation are no match for our former brethren. If they stand without one another, they will fall as surely as the planets turn and the stars burn. But should they stand together, there is indeed a prospect of success, no matter how small. The Space Pirates bring their mastery of genetics and cybernetic technology as well as their great brute strength. The Galactic Federation brings its superior technological firepower, industry, population and its already large, standing military. We will do what we can to assist with both of these. Our own numbers are few however we can improve efficiency and share our own technology where it will help.

"Ah, and the Metroids we salvaged from planet Tüm can be used as valuable weapons as well. The abilities of the mindless predators are indeed dangerous to all, but with our help they can be controlled. Mutual cooperation is the only way we will not all die now.

"Hatchling, we need you with us as well. You have great celebrity and influence with the Federation. Though you may be as infamous as you are renown, we know you to be greatly respected by all and you will be listened to. Once the Federation discovers just how dangerous the invading force is, they will surely join us," Old Bird concluded.

A wheezing grunt emanated from the exoskeleton in the chair, and the woman inside shifted to sit more upright, resting metal elbows on the armored knees.

"You have made pacts with devils and yet you have no idea what you have done," she finally responded, in her own true voice. "Chiro or no Chiro, your compromises will end badly. In a moment of carelessness or bad luck Metroids will get out of control and be unleashed upon the galaxy as a threat once again. The Space Pirates will go along with you until it serves their best interests not to, then we will find a knife in our spines. They cannot be trusted to do anything but evil; it is their nature. There are better ways to save the Federation than conspiring with such creatures, if indeed the Federation even deserves saving."

"Can you honestly believe that? Can you sincerely believe that we did not exhaust every other possible option before coming to this one?" Old Bird asked, spreading his arms open wide as if pointing out each individual rock that was once an entire planet. "Do not presume to think that your parents were the only ones who were lost to Space Pirates. Zebes was our planet for thousands of years at the time the Space Pirates arrived. We lost everything and everyone that did not escape with us. Do you think we are so blind that we do not know what Space Pirates are capable of? We know all too well. However, we also know what the Chiro can and will do once they arrive, and we know it to be far worse. Allying ourselves with the Space Pirates has not been something we have enjoyed however it has been necessary if we wish to save lives. Our predecessors stood by and watched tragedies happen and yet they did nothing to stop them. We have chosen not make the same mistakes."

"No, it appears you have chosen to make new ones…" Samus growled. "I will not be a part of something so ill thought out that will cost the lives of so many, no matter what role I might play."

"We have spent more time thinking about our decision than you could possibly imagine. If you do not aid us, deaths will be on your hands," another Chozo in the front of the group warned.

"You warn me that deaths will be on my hands? I, who have waylaid armies, who have ended species and planets, and who have an armor that even now stinks of corpses — to whom do you think you address, Nestling?" she snapped. The stoic Chozo questioner flinched, and then melted into the second row. "Do not confuse the deference I give my once-father with blushing naiveté." Samus turned her attention back to Old Bird. "What would I possibly gain from become the Space Pirate's whore or the graciously condescending Chozo's pet? You will have to do better than that. You will have to do much better than that."

"What would you have us do, Hatchling?" her father asked.

"I would have you turn back time, and I would have you rescue my birth parents rather than arriving too late to do any good. And then I would have you poison yourself so the vermin who ate you on Zebes would perish as well. Perhaps you can do one of these things? Any will do."

"They are impossible; you know that."

"Until you can bring back to life those who are dead, my answer is the same."

They stared at one another in silence as a minute went by. Then another. Then another. Though her eyes were behind the visor, the group could feel her nigh-unblinking eyes on them, and the Chozo realized that for the time being, they could not change her mind. Almost lazily, they turned and walked back out of the room, but her father remained behind. When they were alone he began speaking to her again.

"What has happened to you, Hatchling?" Old Bird said, cocking his head to the side as if to get a better look at her. "Where is the young creature that cried when she saw the pain of others, and would bend down to move insects out of her path? The young creature that would laugh out loud and not know why, only because she was happy. Where is the Hatchling that scrunched up her face when her father said something she did not understand and came running into my arms when she was afraid?"

"That Hatchling grew up to be the Raging Devil she was trained so expertly to be."

"We trained you to protect life. We knew that to do that many times you would be forced to kill, but it was always to preserve life."

"You gave me ever-marketable skills that have stayed true and spoke chatter that I have long since discovered to be empty drivel. I do not bring life; I bring death, to those in my way and even to they near me. I have lost the few I would venture call comrades, often due only to association with me. Perhaps you have seen the Policeman floating in my re-generation tank? He saved my life, yet I could not save his, and I am unable now to repay the debt I owe him, unless I manage to find some way to raise his corpse from the grave. I should be dead now, instead he is, and I sit here with paltry wounds that mock me with every throb to remind me of my deficiencies."

"You were not at fault…"

"I am the best there is! If I cannot even take care of myself, what good am I? What good am I to the Chozo, what good am I to the Federation or its citizens, and what good am I to myself?"

Silence came again but this time it was Samus who broke it first.

"It appears you failed in convincing me by yourself as well," she taunted. "Why not leave and follow the others in their failure?"

"This discussion is not over," the Chozo warned as he began to walk away.

Her laughter followed him out of her dome and into the adjacent corridor.

"Hee hee hee hee – oh, what a good substitute father you have always made!" she cackled before the doors closed after him.

Left alone again finally, for once Samus found herself unable to appreciate the quality of Chozo craftsmanship. Her suit still held power poorly, so the servomotors were no longer amplifying her movements meaning she had to shift the full weight of the suit each time she moved to do anything. But at least she was in a semi-comfortable position. She praised all that was holy for the painkillers still flowing through her veins and blocking out her back and still-healing arm. She had shot up just before leaving her ship but they would probably run out within the day. Stuck where she was, she had nothing else to do but think and mull over the previous conversation, so she did just that.

The Chozo were right, in their way. If indeed the Chiro were coming, they were going to destroy everything and everyone they possibly could, hundreds of billions. Compared to that, it was petty to hold a grudge against the Pirates for a few hundred colonists, including her parents. Logic told her that but it wasn't right at all. It wasn't so much what the Space Pirates had done or could do, it was what they represented. For almost all of her life, the pirates had been her ultimate standard of evil. Sometimes, she could still hear her mother's screams in the silence… Though the Chiro seemed to have a much larger capacity to do more evil, it didn't necessarily mean they were more evil. The pirates served no valuable purpose, yet in the here and now they were devils she knew. Devils, devils everywhere…

She laughed aloud. "Samus Aran" was a devil, and a raging one. That the Chozo would even consider coming to her showed the depths of their desperation. But what could she do? She had refused them and that was answer they would never accept, not from her. They had never accepted "no" as an answer from her. Her refusal had stalled them and put her in a slightly better bargaining position, but little else. Weighing the lives of so many was not something any mortal creature should do, yet the Chozo seemed to think that their sole reason for existence was to make such decisions. One would have though the destruction of their planet and the near extinction of their species would have corrected such thinking and knocked them down a peg or two but that was the Chozo for you, wasn't it?

Her hand would be forced into their service, one way or another. It would be best to agree now and get as much out of it as possible. The cause was worthy, but the means were still unacceptable. She would be making pacts with devils but she would know what she was doing and accept what it might cost her. The Space Pirates would betray them, somewhere, somehow. If indeed she cast her lot with the pirates she would need to know when that treachery would be coming and be prepared for it. She would need to watch them closely but she would not be allowed to do that as long as they knew she hated them. She would have to make it seem as if working with them was a large and unpleasant concession, but needed. All true, and yet not killing every pirate that crossed her path would still be quite difficult. Habits were always tough to break. Subtlety had never been a virtue she possessed, but perhaps she could rise to the occasion now.

She heard someone or something approaching her but was too tired at the moment to move. She could tell by the footsteps that it wasn't a Chozo, but what it was exactly, she didn't know. Due to the shape of the dome and the echoes, she found it difficult to tell the location of the intruder by just the noise.

"Hunter, you say it is the Pirates who will betray you, but in truth it is the Chozo," came a voice from behind her.

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"I am a but a mere messenger of the Sag'hîr Pirate Clan. My Mother Brain wishes to inform you that the Chozo do indeed have the technology to bring the dead back to life."

"How do you know this?"

"If we're not entirely trusted, neither do we trust entirely. We have kept some eyes and ears on the Chozo as well. Though you are obviously not so fond of us, we would not be opposed to bringing this 'Roger Lee' back to you."

"It is not a matter of bringing him back to me. I hate being indebted to anyone, and this will clear me of that debt. I live my life owing no one anything."

"As you say, Hunter. But the fact remains that the Chozo are lying to you, or if we may be more generous, at the very least omitting important truths. They actually have the 'ability to make the impossible, possible' as you put it. There were many opportune times at which they could have informed of this fact, yet they chose not to."

"What are you intending to say, Pirate?"

"Nothing, nothing. The facts speak for themselves. But maybe we were jumping to conclusions when we decided that they were deliberately deceiving you. Perhaps they are waiting to tell of you this later for a better bargaining position. When they come back in, just see for yourself and I'm sure you will see who you can really trust."

She heard the footsteps begin to walk away and get increasingly faint until she knew she was alone once again.

"Goddamn it all."

A great deal of time passed before the Chozo re-entered the room, or it felt so when she woke again from sleep. The drugs in her system had already begun to wear out, and the sensations in her back and arm came at her hard and fast as if some incorporeal sadist were driving needles into her from the inside out. Painkillers: another thing to add to the list of her terms.

Old Bird was among the first row of the group, but made no move to speak, and it was another near him, gaunt and grey, who engaged in the negotiation.

"Have you re-considered, Samus?"

"At the present terms, of course not. I have been twice outclassed by otherwise-nondescript Chiro warriors, and am badly mangled now. Thus, I wish for my current suit to be repaired and all improvements that can be made to it be made presently."

"That is fine."

"Next, when all of these matters are concluded, I wish to be given territory of my own choice which I will have total dominion over. You will find such a place for me, and then make oath to meddle not in my affairs afterward."

"We cannot guarantee you that in full," the Chozo spokesman said, "however we do swear on our honor that we will do everything in our power to make it so. Is there anything else?"

"Yes. I must to be in full control — generalissimo — of any joint military endeavor that is formed and be notified of any and all decisions regarding more than one Space Pirate clan or involving the Federation in any way." She saw the shift in their postures. "If I am as crucial as you say I am, I wish to be treated as such."

"That we will not do—"

"If you do not, then I depart myself from this farce. My demands are not unreasonable, and your previous entreaty with all its dripping flattery was truer than you meant. Without me, you will die or need flee once again, and this time your dark brothers may catch up to you. So in addition to the previous terms, I need painkillers as quickly as possible. And for my final term, I wish for you to take the Space Policeman from my ship and-"

"No! That is abominable," a nondescript black Chozo cut in, surprising her. "We will not bring anyone back to life."

"Will not?" she asked as an eyebrow under her helmet slowly rose. "I was merely wishing for a burial with full rites, however your choice of words betrays you. If indeed you have the ability to re-animate the dead, why did you not tell me of this before?"

"We do not speak of that which is anathema," Old Bird finally said, quietly.

"I see. For all of this talk about saving lives, you refuse to do it yourself."

"We will neither confirm nor deny whether we have to ability to breathe life back into the dead, for it does not matter," the gray Chozo cut in, taking control of the conversation again. "There is an order to the nature of the universe and upsetting that nature can only lead to misery. It was your comrade's fate to die when he did. Undoing that will cause only harm. I know you humans are often ruled by your hormones—"

"This is not a matter of sex or love. It is a matter of honor."

"There is no denying the inherent weaknesses of your species. We have studied humans for quite some time. The other terms we accept," he continued, "but not the last. If you still require more time to think, then we shall grant you it."

They turned, and as they left, and she strained to move her suit again. Samus managed to stand and point her cannon at them, but none turned to acknowledge her, and the charging blast died in her cannon and she sank down in waves of agony, ripping her helmet off as she cursed in multiple languages into the open air.

Samus sat in the dark, staring from the floor at the top of the dome and the few stars that appeared overhead. Her helmet still lay nearby on the ground.

Such was the way of the Chozo. Egotist and cowardice. They still thought they had special rules that applied to them and no one else. Thought that they had the authority to decide who lived and who died, who was worth dying for and who should be forgotten, who should be the enemy and who should befriend whom.

And they had chosen the Space Pirates, all 30 clans, even the three without leaders. The Myrnai were almost all dead by now, and the Kihunters had much the same fate ahead of them, as did the Vortrini. Samus almost smiled at the thought of that. At one time her goal in life had been to kill every Space Pirate in the galaxy. Of course she had also thought that only a few hundred million existed. A high goal but one she had almost reached with the destruction of Zebes. Mopping up of the other outposts was all that she thought she had left. Now to find out there were likely hundreds of billions… Heh, well she'd have to get started soon if she wanted to get them all.

She heard something skitter near her and aimed her gun arm on it immediately. She activated the flashlight on the end of the barrel and the light revealed a short green creature with two large eyes that blinked and then swiveled back and forth on their stalks trying to find an area out of the light.

A Zeela. Harmless.

Samus fired and watched as its body burst apart and disappeared. A greasy stain on the floor smoked for a moment then stopped. This time she did smile.

"Now that wasn't very nice, was it Hunter?" came a voice from somewhere in the shadows.

"The only reason you are still alive," she said, "is because your footsteps were loud enough to wake the dead, making it painfully clear you are no warrior and no threat."

A Space Pirate stepped out of the shadows and bowed before her. It had a humanoid appearance different from the other Space Pirates she had come into contact with, but it was undeniably of the same vein as the others.

"It is true; I am but a mere messenger, Hunter."

"Yet not the same as before. Your walking patterns were not the same."

"True, I come on behalf of the Alqu'or. However we were aware of the Sag'hîr messenger who came to you before and we agree with him wholeheartedly."

"What do you want of me, pirate?"

"We couldn't help but overhear your… difference of opinion with the Chozo about the deceased human male. The Chozo are thoughtless, irrational creatures at times. Their code of honor is baffling. At least with the Chiro you knew where they stood but with these—"

"That is more than enough, pirate. Say something of value and leave me alone lest my patience wane beyond its ability to restrain my trigger finger."

"We agree with you, Hunter," he said hurriedly, though attempting poorly to hide it. "Debts should be paid whenever possible and the Policeman is an accomplished fighter, anyway. It makes sense to bring him back into the world of the living. The Chozo may be too timid to act and do what's right but we are not. If you wish it, we could revive the human… as a favor to you, of course, Hunter."

Samus looked at the pirate, as if trying to judge his thoughts.

"What do you gain from this?"

"Why nothing other than a chance to better our relationship, Hunter. Between you and all Space Pirates, assuredly, but you and the Alqu'or, especially."

She stared at him and his yellow eyes blinked. She began charging up her blaster.

"You are neither so convincing nor so clever as you imagine."

"Perhaps, perhaps not…" he replied, calmer than she would have thought, "but I ask you, as long as our goals are the same, what does the motivation matter?"

"There is some treachery in this, of that I am sure. I merely do not know wherein it lies." She thought for a moment. "Will I ever called upon to return this favor?"

"Of course not. You're already saving our race."

"I am being called on to save you; there is a difference. I know your kind, pirate. There is always a catch. What is the catch in this?"

"Only one: we have the right to do whatever is in our power to bring him back to life. As you know, he's been dead for some time. There may be complications that can only be corrected through gene therapy or cybernetic augmentation."

"You plan on making a monster is what you mean."

"We plan on doing what is necessary. A nice benefit would be improving the human but that isn't our goal. We have more than enough of our own Alqu'or warriors better suited and better able for 'turning into monsters.' "

"Fine. You have my blessing. Do what you must to bring Roger Lee back to life."

"As you wish, Hunter. As you wish."