Author's Note: Hey everyone, hope you are doing well. I feel like I should take a moment to mention the tragic effects of Hurricane Harvey and what it's doing to Texas. As someone who lived in New Orleans for nine years, this is an issue very near and personal to me. I started volunteering in cleanup efforts back in 2008 for the damage done by Hurricane Katrina. As recently as this year, I've been helping people try to get home again after more than a decade. Hurricanes ave long term and disastrous effects. Please help the survivors of this disaster if you are able, whether you choose to donate blood, money, or time. And if you can't do any of that, please just be mindful of the effects this has had on people whose lives have been turned upside down and remember that everyone's fighting a battle that you can't see. Now is the time to put differences aside and come together as human beings. I've lived through both the post-Katrina and post-Sandy recovery efforts and multiple family members who had 4+ feet of water in their houses, and it takes more of a toll than people realize if they've never been through it.

So I apologize for the tangent, but it's been heavy on my mind this past week as I wait to find out how this will ultimately turn out for family members of mine who still live in Louisiana. Thank you for being so patient.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and are enjoying this story so far. If you haven't done so already, I suggest checking out my little Samus story "Reflection" and DoctorSupernova's short story "White Winged Dove," both written for a Metroid art and short story swap.

Hope you enjoy this chapter, and please take time to leave review!

Chapter 35: Freedom's Just Another Word

Hector could see his breath in the air as he loaded the last suitcase into the back of Maggie's hovercar. It had been dark for several hours now, and it was starting to snow. Clouds obscured the light from the stars and moon, and the only way he could see at all was from the car's headlights as he made his way cautiously to the passenger side door and climbed inside. Abby's knuckles were white as she clutched the steering wheel, staring straight ahead as Hector closed and locked the door.

Windshield wipers slapped time like a metronome as they sat in silence watching the snowfall. No one knew they were out here. Morrigan and the others were fast asleep in the house. After a minute, Hector looked over to Abby as she continued to stare straight ahead.

"We really doing this?" he asked.

"What other choice do we have?" she replied. She turned to look down and shift into drive. "If we stay here, they'll find us eventually, and then what've we got?"

"Samus said to—"

"Samus said a lot of things." The car began to lift off the ground and glide as Abby watched the road ahead. "She doesn't know everything. We've got Chance and Calline's testimony. We made contact with the Dreamboat Annie, and they're spreading the word as best they can. So best case scenario, they sway public opinion. But if there's one thing I learned from my father it's that most folks won't listen to the truth even if you show them proof. Not if it interferes with their view of the world."

Hector paused for a moment. "I thought your father said the human heart would always search for the truth?"

"He did." Abby didn't bat an eye or look his way as she drove down the long driveway and through the gates of Blackacre. "He believed that. That's why he's dead."

"Abby, that's not—"

"Look where we are. Zero Host is real. No one believed him. Now look where we are."

Hector took a deep breath. He felt like he should have been comforting her or something, but she was so focused on driving on the pitch-dark road that he didn't know what to say. "Samus believed him."

"She did." She nodded slightly as she kept her eyes glued to the snowflakes flying into the windshield. "That's how she ended up getting arrested, nearly dying from heat stroke and then becoming an alcoholic."

"Ouch." Hector frowned.

"I'm sorry. I'm just… this is important. I can't question myself now because it's taking all I've got in me not to turn around and go back to Morrigan's house."

"So no looking back," Hector said, looking out through the windshield at the icy road ahead of them. "We're going to Admiral Dane and the Marines. We're going to commit treason."

"We've already committed treason."

"Right. We're going to commit more treason."

The ghost of a smile flickered past Abby's lips. "That's the spirit."

"At this point, why not? We've got nothing left to lose."

"Exactly. No homes to go back to. Can't go back to school."

"We can do whatever we want."

"Absolute freedom."

They drove in silence for a while, save for the sound of the wiper blades struggling to cut through the ice as it started to accumulate. Abby hit a button on the dash, and the windshield began to heat up and melt it.

"Except not really," Hector said after a minute. "I've still got my dad, and you've still got your mom and sister."

"You've still got a mom, too, Hector."

"Heh. Samus? Yeah, but I mean… she's already neck deep in this mess. There's nothing I can do to shield her from it. Dad's innocent though. I'd hate to think the Feds would drag him into this just to get at me."

"If they haven't already."

They didn't speak much for the rest of the drive. Occasionally one or the other would try to break the silence, but the attempts were short lived. There was nothing to say that could ease either of their anxieties. Day broke but the storm didn't. The snow got higher and higher below the floating car, and visibility barely improved even when it was close to noon. For most of the way, they were the only ones on the road.

It was nearly night again when they finally arrived at the Marine base, and it seemed like no one was surprised to see them. Several armed Marines stepped aside and opened the gate the compound to let them drive through. No one stopped them as they headed for Admiral Dane's house.

Even as Abby parked the car and they stepped out, no one said anything to them. There was a heavier air around the base than there had been last time. The Marines had been preparing for something. As Abby and Hector walked toward Dane's front door, it opened and he beckoned them inside his dated living room.

"So I take it you've spoken to Samus," Dane said simply as Hector and Abby came in out of the cold.

"We have," Abby replied. "I take it you know what we've come here to propose?"

The Admiral nodded. "I do. And I know you're fully aware of the consequences if we go through with this."

"Civil War," Hector said, looking between Dane and Abby. "We attack the Army, and the whole galaxy takes sides and tries to destroy itself."

"Bingo." Dane didn't smile, but his expression softened slightly as his one eye looked the young man up and down. "You know there's been a video starting to circulate some of the back channels of the web. It's been growing. People keep adding footage to it of the destruction done to the outer planets, the ones the Federation has been colonizing. I can't help but think someone is purposefully trying to sow the seeds of doubt in the Federation's leadership now that the woman who was once hailed as their greatest hero is now being called public enemy number one."

Abby raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that Samus's treason has destabilized public opinion that much? There are people siding with her?"

"You two really have been out of touch with the rest of the galaxy, haven't you?" The Admiral laughed. "Her sigil, that lightning bolt thing she wears around her neck, has been popping up all over the place. In graffiti. In banners held by the rebels on the colonized planets. A lot of people saw her actions, her insubordination, as a signal. Time to take up arms and fight for real. If we attack Harper's troops and try to stage a coup to overthrow Chairman McKinnon, we're not starting a civil war. We're already in one."

"My mother started a civil war?" Hector asked, completely bewildered by the revelation. "I don't think she's even aware of that."

"That makes sense. I imagine if she had been, she would have made an appearance by now." Dane frowned. "There were rumors that she had been killed in the explosion of SR-388."

"She's very much alive," Abby said. "At least, she was last time we saw her. She left a few days ago. She's gone after something called the Zero Host."

The Admiral's remaining eye searched Abby's face. "And what does she know about it? Where did she go to find it?"

"A ship called the G.F.S. Arcadia. It's where she was taken when she suffered the X infection and had the surgery to alter her power suit."

"Damn." The Admiral furrowed his brows. "That's where Harper is. We've been tracking her forces. They were responding to a distress call from the Arcadia and are likely out there by now. This doesn't bode well for Samus if she's out there fighting the Host."

"What do you think we should do?" Hector asked as he felt the blood running cold in his veins. For the first time since she had left, he realized that he was truly frightened by the prospect that Samus might not survive, that she might be defeated with the odds stacked so high against her.

Dane's face was grim as he opened the front door and gestured to the Marines hurrying about on the snow-covered base. "All I have to do is give the word, and they'll mobilize. We all know what's going on, and there are other fleets that will join if we lead. Now that we have a target, we fly out at 21:00, and we make our first strike at the forces surrounding the Arcadia."

"And what should we do then?" Hector asked.

The Admiral stared down at him with his commanding, no-nonsense stare. "Suit up and prepare for war. You're not a civilian anymore, kid."

"What happened here?" Harper asked as she looked around at the bloodstained walls and mangled bodies that littered the corridors of the G.F.S. Arcadia. She was dressed in a full combat suit. Though its navy blue armor matched that of her troops, she wore a large symbol of the Federation on the left side of her chest plate. "What kind of creature did this?"

Around her, Federation troops swarmed the vicinity, looking into every room, alcove, nook, and cranny they could find, guns raised and blazing. Harper watched in dismay. She knew they were responding to a distress signal, but he had not expected to find anything like this.

"Madame Secretary," one of the soldiers said as they came back to report to her. "It seems that the causes of death for many of the bodies in this area may have been alien in nature. All of the bodies show signs of something having emerged from within their chest cavities. Most show other signs of dismemberment and even… well some of the bodies look like something was eating them."

Harper's eyes narrowed as she looked down at the fully armored soldier. "Xenomorphs. Where's Calvin Renpo?"

"He's still on the ship, Ma'am. I can get him if you would like."

"Do it."

She waited impatiently for Renpo to appear. This was not the sort of damage she had expected to walk into on the Arcadia. If anything, she was expecting to find that Samus Aran had been here and attempted to wreak havoc upon their experiments. She had not counted on the experiments going rogue and apparently killing their creators.

"You wanted to see me, General Harper?" Renpo's voice asked, and she turned around to see him coming toward her, escorted by two guards. Unlike the troops, he did not wear an armored suit, just his lab coat.

"What the hell did this?" she demanded, gesturing to the bodies that lined the corridor. "What were your scientists working on and how the hell did it escape?"

Renpo frowned as he gazed disinterestedly at the bodies on the ground. "Our security system must have malfunctioned. Idiots."

"You call this a security system malfunction?"

Renpo looked up at Harper. "Not a regular security system. There was one creature we engineered to act as a guard dog of sorts in case our fair mercenary showed up before we were ready for her. XR-13 was a fusion of xenomorph and space dragon DNA, cloned from the cells of old Ridley himself. It was supposed to be male." He frowned. "I guess life finds a way."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harper snapped.

"Look at the bodies. Chestbursters came out of these. Something must have happened to cause XR-13 to mutate into a female, more specifically, a queen. It got loose and the rest is history."

"And given that you engineered this creature to be of a caliber capable of facing down Aran," Harper replied, "your scientists never stood a chance."

"That's putting it lightly. One of these things was supposed to be enough to take Aran or at least hold her off for a while. I can't imagine what a whole swarm of them would do."

Harper frowned, and as several of the troops looked to her for guidance, she gestured for them to continue down the dark corridor. As they went, she followed along, looking for anything else out of the ordinary. Renpo reluctantly stayed by her side, despite his look of disgust as he saw drying blood caking on the bottom of his shoes.

The deeper they traveled into the ship, the more bodies they found and the thicker the blood was that sat in puddles on the ground. The soldiers seemed uneasy, keeping their rifles raised and ready as they cautiously explored the surrounding rooms before giving the Secretary of Defense and the Chief Science Officer the all clear to walk past them. Though she didn't say anything out loud, Harper found it odd that they had not seen even a single one of the xenomorph dragons that supposedly infested the labs.

As they came to a large set of heavy double doors that had been ripped from their hinges, two of the troops entered an absolutely massive room before coming back out to get Harper's attention.

"General Harper," one of them called. "You need to see what's in here."

Harper could feel her blood chill in her veins as she walked toward the room. She didn't know what she expected to find, but somehow she imagined it was worse than a xeno-dragon.

Unfortunately for her, that hunch had been correct, and as several of the troops shone their rifle lights into the room, Harper looked upon the massive bodies of no fewer than seven slaughtered xeno-dragons. The largest corpse was in the center of the room, most likely XR-13 itself given its gargantuan size and the way its head crested into a crown reminiscent of the xenomorph queens.

"Cause of death?" she asked, already dreading the answers.

"Concussive ice blasts on some of the smaller ones," on of the soldiers replied. "Internal injuries consistent with explosives. Whatever did this was packing some serious weaponry."

"Is that all?" Renpo asked, sounding annoyed as he looked over his work that now lay dead and rotting on the ground.

"No, Sir," the soldier said with a shake of their head. "The largest one, the one we think might be their queen, it seems to have been killed by… by something that syphoned the life energy right out of it. I know it sounds ridiculous since the species is extinct, but it's almost like a Metroid got to it."

Renpo raised an eyebrow. "It seems our Host might have beaten us here after all."

Harper glared at the scientist. "And a damn lousy job your 'security system' did, killing our people and then getting killed by the one person they were created to fight."

"Hm, ironic, don't you think?"

Harper huffed in anger with a glare that dared Renpo to make another smart-ass remark.

More interested in self-preservation than pride, the scientist didn't say anything further as the group traveled on past the dragon corpses and out into another corridor. The whole ship stank of blood and death, and Harper practically held her breath as they approached the Zero Lab. As they entered, she felt a bit more able to breathe when she saw that the infant Metroid tank was still intact. Perhaps, she mused, Samus had not come this way after all.

Her relief was short lived, however, because it was not long before they found a slaughtered experiment, a deformed sort of human-Chozo hybrid. Analysis showed it had been terminated by an electrical beam weapon that was capable of traveling through solid walls without damaging them. Harper just looked at Renpo as they exchanged a silent understanding.

"What do you think has become of SA-One?" she asked Renpo as they began to move again, heading into the next room.

"Honestly?" The scientist shook his head. "Samus doesn't have a great history with clones. I suspect—"

Harper held up a hand to silence him as they entered the final room. This time, she could feel her pulse quicken as she looked over at a door labeled "Control". It had been left open, its occupant likely dead inside.

The General lowered her weapon and approached slowly, bracing herself for what she expected to find in the small room. However, as she looked in, she saw that the room was empty. Its occupant had likely fled.

Renpo raised his eyebrows as he joined Harper and surveyed the empty room. "Guess SA-One actually had the sense to get out before things went south."

"Where is she, Renpo?"

"General Harper," another armored trooper called, showing her a map display. "There are live biosigns coming from a room a way's back. It's a bit off the way we came, but I think something is alive over there."

Harper's breath caught in her throat as she thought of the missing clone girl. "Proceed then, full speed."

The troops filed out in a light run as Harper and Renpo followed close behind. She cursed herself for not thinking to look for biosigns earlier as most of the ground she now covered was almost like retracing their steps. At a certain point, however, the path diverged, and as they came up on the area that has given the reading, she slowed to a walk.

"Ruth…" she whispered to herself, too softly for anyone to hear as a small group of soldiers led the charge into the room.

She was about to run in behind them when a sudden explosion flashed before her eyes, taking out three of her troops as a mighty roar boomed in the distance.

"DRAGON!" one of them yelled as all of the troopers raised their rifles and began to fire at some unseen being.

As the soldiers rushed at it, Harper followed behind, staring in awe as the xeno-dragon came into view. It was smaller than the dead ones they had seen, but it was still massive. Something must have gotten to it already because its face was badly burned. As a pulse rifle blast hit it directly in the eye, the young dragon reared up with a sound that was almost like a scream. Taking the opportunity, the rest of the troops began firing at its exposed chest as its limbs flailed wildly in the air.

Harper thought that they might have actually stood a change at defeating it, but before the battle could progress, the beast took to the air, spreading its massive wings as it blasted a hole high above them and used it to flee into another room.

It was pointless to try and follow, but several troops ran out to another room, trying to cut it off before it could get away. But Harper knew it was futile. The dragon was far faster than a human, and it was gone for now.

She was about to turn back when something in the distance caught her eye, something the dragon must have been guarding when they came in. As she walked toward it, she recognized it as the form of a woman. Her heart threatened to stop in her chest as she recognized the long blonde hair and ran toward her. Renpo and several of the others were shouting things, but Harper was too focused on her target to hear any of them. As she knelt beside the slain woman, Harper gently pushed a lock of hair out of her face and looked into her lifeless blue eyes. Blood stained the chest of her gown, but the exit wound was not large enough to have been caused by any type of xenomorph.

"Ruth," she whispered softly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

"Is that SA-One?" Renpo asked over her shoulder.

Harper jumped slightly as she turned to face him. "What do you think, asshole? That it's the real Samus Fucking Aran?"

"Of course not." Renpo gave her a questioning look as he pointed a few meters away from where Ruth lay. "But check that out."

Harper got up as stared at what he had been pointing at. It was the form of another woman, one very similar looking to SA-One. As Harper approached her body, she saw the troops had all of their rifles trained on the crumpled form. At first, the General thought the other woman was dead as well. Her skin was ghastly white, and she looked battered and burned as she lay in a shallow pool of her own blood. But as Harper got closer, she saw that the woman was still breathing, but only barely.

The dying woman's hand still clutched a small gun, but Harper stepped heavily on her wrist as she took the gun from her hand and gave it to one of the soldiers to hold. Then, very slowly, she bent down beside the body and rolled it onto its back to reveal the unmistakable face of the real Samus Aran.

Slowly, the bounty hunter's eyes began to open as she stared up at Harper. Rage seething through her, the General stepped heavily on Samus's chest as she lowered herself down and mouthed the words "You killed her" before rearing back and kicking Samus in the side and then stepping on her again.

The bounty hunter's face contorted with pain, but all she could do was whimper weakly. She tried to struggle against the weigh of Harper's boot, but she barely had the strength left to bat pathetically at her before the effort left her panting with exhaustion.

"I didn't think this was how we'd end up meeting again," Harper sneered at the badly weakened hunter. As she stared down at Samus, one of the soldiers handed her something that appeared to be a large white ring.

"You see this?" Harper asked as she pulled the ring apart to show small bolts of the green and blue energy jumping between the separated points. "This collar is made with the same energy as the Zero Beam."

She reached down and roughly grabbed Samus by the hair, jerking her head up as she snapped the collar around her neck and let her go. Samus whimpered as her head hit the floor, and she fell unconscious once again.

Harper stared at Samus, seething with fury as she stepped off of her chest and nodded to the troops waiting beside her. "Take her away."

As four of the soldiers rushed to pick up the unconscious Samus, a fifth turned to Harper. "Scans show that the holding block in Sector E was unaffected by the power outage and still sealed off behind level 5 doors. Permission to access the sector and keep the criminal in one of the maximum security cells?"

Harper nodded. "Permission granted. Get her out of my face."

She watched with disdain as the troops carried off Samus and the rest followed behind, heading in the direction of Sector E. In truth, she had not planned on finding the ship in this state of disarray or capturing Samus this easily. The ships they had arrived in did not have any prisoner holding cells.

When at last the soldiers were out of sight and only Harper and Renpo remained, the General allowed herself to turn back to where Ruth lay. She knelt beside her once more and gently took the dead girl into her arms. She closed her eyes with two fingers so she looked like she was simply sleeping, save for the blood staining her gown.

"Bring her back," Harper said to Renpo, never taking her eyes off of Ruth's face.

"We can just make another one," Renpo replied, staring at the bizarre display of affection. "It'll take a while, but I don't think Samus is going to get up and go anywhere any time soon."

Harper shot the scientist a nasty glare as she stood up with Ruth in her arms. "No. It has to be this one. This one is loyal to us. She'll do what I say."

Renpo stared curiously at Harper as she handed him the dead girl, and he staggered under her weight as he tried to hold her. "You've got to be kidding me. You want me to bring her back from the dead? After she's been shot?"

"She's still warm, Calvin. Fix her body with your robotics, and as far as any damage to her brain goes, fill in the blanks with the uploaded AI mind we used when we made her the first time."

Renpo shook his head as he looked at the dead body in his arms. "All right. I'll see what I can do. I still don't understand your… attachment to this one. She's a weapon, Adele."

"Just shut the fuck up and do it, Calvin, or I'll make sure you never get the chance to do anything in a lab again for the rest of your miserable life."

The scientist frowned, but he didn't say anything as the General turned and followed where her troops had gone. Not sure what else to do with himself, Renpo followed behind her, awkwardly carrying the limb body.