o

Immediate familiarity with the exact smooth contours and antiseptic feel of a medical bay's bio bed had ceased to be a concern for a Samus some time ago. The lights were slightly more problematic, at first dazzling her eyes as she tried to open them and shocking them back shut at first.

Opening them slowly worked better, letting her take in the details of the room around her... and feel her blue-clad fists clench involuntarily at those details.

This is not the BHG's medical bay.

This is not the BHG.

The slouchy tan-skinned fejari wearing a BHG engineer's uniform wasn't one she recognized either. "You're up", he observed. "Good. One less thing for me to deal with."

"Wher-"

That one syllable tasted like pure hurt, punishment from a strained, dry throat. She tried again. "Where?"

"The surface installation on CR3827. You know, the land entertainment forgot. Along with everyone else."

Ignoring the sarcasm, she stared up into the bright ceiling light. That at least made sense. She'd seen the signs of the surface installation coming in, but she'd read the reports; the place was considerably more spartan than the BHG station, designed for a handful of techs to monitor the shield and not much else. Automated defenses combined with the planet's conditions made it an unlikely target, but until yesterday the same could be said for the Guild.

"...Station?"

The ferjari was certainly no doctor- there was no sympathetic hesitation in his manner, no inner debate as to whether she could bear the news during a recovery. "Gone. Damn pirates blasted it all to hell. The hunters- the ones left- evacuated as many as they could, brought everyone down here."

While not a doctor, he certainly had some patience- he waited until she was finished cursing to continue, even looking a bit pleased with his patient. "Yes, that's pretty much how I felt when I heard the news. We devote our whole lives to protecting that place and this happens. Stars burn 'em all."

Failure. The thought wouldn't let up, wouldn't leave her head. The more she dwelt on it, the worse it became. Failure. You abandoned your mission to chase after Ridley. You failed to save the station. You failed to kill him.

Failure.

Guildmaster Zillic dead. Yivayo dead. Shiel dead.

Worthless failure.

The fejari crewer seemed to sense her mood, melting away and leaving her alone for an unknown amount of time.

Guildmaster Zillic dead. Yivayo dead. Shiel dead. Station destroyed. Worthless failure.

Guildmaster Zillic dead. Yivayo dead. Shiel dead. Station destroyed. Gunship lost. Worthless failure.

Guildmaster Zillic dead. Yivayo dead. Shiel dead. Station destroyed. Gunship lost. Ridley escaped. Worthless failure.

At some distant point at the end of the loop, a deliberate clanging sound drew Samus back to the world. Seeing the new guest, she groaned in anguish, yanked the bed's covers back protectively. "Okay, no. Not now. Go away."

Her mirror image raised an eyebrow, carefully closing the entry hatch behind her. "Sorry Sammy. Not so much elbow room in this place. The pavillion's way too crowded for me. Besides... I still had to thank you."

She pulled the sheets higher, trying to mask her eyes. "Thank me by leaving then."

"Well that doesn't sound very grateful." A strong hand grabbed the sheets, gradually pulling them back. "And I'm a certified expert at being ungrateful."

"Go away!" Despite her condition, it came out as a hoarse shout. "If you really want to thank me, maybe you could strangle me. You'd enjoy that."

"Wow. Maybe I'm not as good with basic as I thought... 'cause that sounds even less like gratitude. Come on, Sammy. I thought you were built tough. Or was that really all just an act?"

She could take no more. One moment she was stifling a scream, then the next she was out of her bed, grabbing the changeling by the neck and pressing her against the wall. Despite the initial revulsion, she forced it down and scowled. "Was that an act?"

"N-nope", Gandrayda coughed. Despite the shock on her copied face, with her natural resilience it would take much more than having her throat crushed to put her in danger. "You're the real deal."

The knee that came flying up into Samus' gut however, felt like the aforementioned hydraulic press, nearly blacking her out before her duplicate established her own grip and forced her back into the bed. "Which makes me wonder why you're still here. I checked the equipment- you're not that hurt."

"Maybe if there was a point to getting up!", the human growled back. "But the BHG is gone! And... I...I...!" Zillic dead. Yivayo dead. Shiel dead. Station destroyed. Gunship lost. Ridley escaped. Worthless fail-

The hand flying at her looked like a slap, but it crushed her cheek like a punch from a burly tholidian, knocking her to the floor.

"Got that right." Without her usual teasing tone, the voice sounded like a near perfect copy of her own. "There's nothing left of the BHG station. Over half the hunters died, the pirates got away. Yeah. They burned us real good. But you're still alive. So am I. So are over a dozen other hunter. Are we really going to just sit here and cry about it all solar cycle?"

Gritting her teeth until she heard jawbones clack, Samus replied, sending a sweep kick to knock her double over. "Then let one of the graduated hunters decide what we do next. They're better qualified." Anyone else. Anyone would be better than me.

Flawless copies of her eyes rose up to the ceiling in annoyance as she stood. "Y'see, that's the problem. Xan-Fei has seniority, and Ghor's not interested in leading. Xan-Fei wants to just disband us."

That brought her follow-up punch to a halt, dropping her attack. "What? Disband?! What about Geras?"

"...He's dead. The pirate cruiser opened up on his ship when they left, blew it up. He didn't eject in time."

Failure.

Pain surged through her, pain like she hadn't felt since she was a child. Geras dead. Failure.

"...Rundas?"

"Still alive", she sounded relieved. "But he's a cadet still. The guy won't go against Xan-Fei. He won't show it, but he's almost as hurt as you're pretending to be."

"We can't just...!"

"No." Finally, she could see her replica's eyes up close. "No, we can't. So what you need to do now is drop your damn pity party, get the hell out there, and tell everyone how we're going to be taking revenge on those bastards who blew up our home."

Guildmaster Zillic dead. Yivayo dead. Shiel dead. Station destroyed. Gunship lost. Ridley escaped. Geras dead. Worthless failure.

"Like they'd listen to me." Leaning up against the bed, she sighed, listening now despite all instincts to the contrary. "A human. A cadet, like Rundas and you. I've barely been here for a month."

"So?", Gandrayda shrugged. "Didn't stop those guards from listening to you, did it? When you told them that I wasn't the traitor?"

Her pause could have swallowed galaxies whole, but amazingly the young changeling didn't lose her patience. Finally, Samus gave in, staring back into the ceiling. "Stars, I can't believe you were the one to do this. I hate you. You're the most annoying, immature excuse for a hunter I've ever seen."

Then her bed tilted, and she realized that her clone was seated next to her. For once, her expression wasn't one of mockery. Her borrowed eyes seemed to shine anew.

"But you stood up for me. Even though you had every reason to hate my guts and want me dead, like you said. And you proved that I wasn't the traitor. We pulled the records of your mission to Aengea Minor from our backup servers. Nice job whacking that pirate boss."

"Too late to stop them." Amazingly, the other hunter's earlier words actually struck a chord, and she stopped the internal litany of her failure before it started this time. "But yes, I knew you weren't the traitor."

"You had every right to suspect me", Gandrayda pointed out, actually sounding remorseful for the first time in eternity. "I would have suspected me."

Sensing another galaxy-sized silence coming on, she stepped back. As Samus watched, neon pink energy surrounded her copy, and the body shifted back to its default state; an energy being, the only solid flesh being an expressive humanoid head, living tendrils of pink acting as the 'hair'. Still female. For the first time ever, she saw the changeling's true body, and that sight was enough to catch her attention, if only for a moment.

"Fleshbags... are toys", Gandrayda spoke the words without any real conviction. "Just playthings for us more evolved beings to play around with, watch their funny reactions and laugh at how stupid and primitive they all are. That's how the majority of my people think. For a while, that was how I thought of solid beings. But you?"

She shifted again, easily returning to Samus' form and voice. "You don't see yourself for what you are. I've met loads of humans in my time. Most of them are either hormone-addled idiots or dead men walking, killing their emotions 'cause they think that'll make them tough. But you're different, Sam. You're... something else."

Another pause... but then the hunter released an amused grunt, pushing herself off the bed. "You're right. I am different. I was... designed, I guess you could say."

Miracle of miracles, Gandrayda suddenly went quiet, her words hushed. "Wait, what? Are you seriously saying that you're genetically enhanced? I thought that was like, totally, super-illegal in the Federation! All the genetic augments they made went completely psycho and attacked-"

"Not that way", Samus cut her off irritably. "That's just picking and choosing the 'best' human genomes for whatever they wanted the enhanced person to be good at. And you're right, it doesn't always work the way they want. But this was a more... direct example. Ever hear about the colony K2L?"

"Nope."

She snorted. That was hardly a surprise. The colony she'd been born on had hardly been unique in being attacked and devastated by the space pirates. "I lived there. I was happy. Not a care in the world. My mom and dad loved me. Then the pirates came- Ridley came- and destroyed everything. Everything. I can still remember exactly how the smoke from the fires smelled."

The changeling, for once, said nothing. As she'd explained before, her species didn't really do pity or sympathy.

"But I survived, somehow. I was buried in the rubble, crying my eyes out. Damn good thing I did too, because the Chozo might not have heard me, and saved me."

Awe, however, she did know. "The Chozo", she repeated dully, like one hearing a ghost story from a drunken friend that had just taken a turn into the bizarre. "Like, the Chozo who ruled the stars before humans or changelings built their first rocket. Those Chozo."

"The very same", Samus nodded, feeling amusement for the first time since waking. "They brought me to their home world, their hidden sanctuary... and I guess they must have taken my survival as an omen or something, or maybe they just saw my future ahead of me. They do that sometimes. Either way, they trained me up good. Helped me become a fighter. They even injected me with some of their blood, so that I'd be stronger. They made my suit. All so I could become a great warrior, and eliminate the space pirates."

"The Chozo needed a human to wipe out the space pirates", Gandrayda scoffed back. "What, they didn't want to get any of their galaxy-destroying superweapons dirty?"

"You're wrong", Samus shook her head vehemently. "Most people are completely, absolutely wrong about what the Chozo are, or were. They might have ruled the stars once, but they saw where that would lead. They gave up violence, took apart all the weapons they had, and settled down on just one planet to live out their days." Standing again, she sighed heavily. "Or they would have... but the planet they chose to exile themselves on was Zebes."

"...Oh. Stars."

"Yeah. The pirates destroyed my home twice. I was a teenager then, and I knew I wasn't ready to start the destiny they'd given me yet, even with my power suit. So I signed up with the Federation star marines, trying to get some more real combat experience under my belt first before I tried anything solo."

"Then you came to us", Gandrayda nodded, finally understanding. "Because you'd figured out by then that it's actually us hunters who do the real fighting against the pirates."

"Yeah", she repeated. "And I have to admit, it's been fun. I'm sure they don't intend it that way, but the BHG felt like a melting pot to me. More different species than I'd ever seen on Federation worlds. I liked them. Most of them."

"Yes, you hate me, I know", the changeling snickered. "You sure didn't seem like you were having fun, Sammy. I thought humans smiled when they have fun. I haven't seen you smile once."

"Don't call me Sammy. And I couldn't smile. Not while you were borrowing my face and smiling all the time like a loon."

"Excuses", she countered, and they both knew it was true. Reverting back to her default state again, she observed the human's face closely. "See? You're still not smiling. That's your problem."

"No", she waved it away, the earlier sorrow returning with the memories of the BHG and Zebes. "My problem is that I'm a failure. My destiny..."

"Destiny?" She could hear the mockery in that one word.

"Yes. My destiny. That's what I was trained for. That's what I've been building my entire life towards, to restore justice to the galaxy... and I still failed. The pirates win again."

For once, the changeling chose her words more carefully, considering the best approach before reverting back to her standard one. Once again she changed, becoming a copy of Samus before shifting the borrowed features into some approximate caricature of some noblewoman's snoot, raising one hand limply to her lips as she spoke. "'Ooh, look at me I'm Samus Aran. I've got a special destiny, and so I can't ever smile or be happy, ooooh look at me, I'm just sooo tragic'."

"I take it all back", Samus slid back, eyes narrowing. "I should have just let the Guild kill you. This isn't a joke."

"I already told you", she replied patiently. "To my people, everything involving fleshbags is a joke. It's just a question of whether it's a good joke or a bad joke. And this? This feels like a bad one. It was Balkovich, wasn't it? Your old Fed commander? Is he the one who gave you the fun-ectomy, or was that the birdies?"

"Commander Malkovich", Samus corrected irritably. "And he knows that a moment's distraction can be fatal. But go ahead. Keep on about how I should be able to make funny jokes about dead people."

"Balkovich is dead?", Gandrayda put both hands to her cheeks in mock shock. "Of course he is. His body keeps walking around doing 'his duty', but he's dead on the inside. You're just lucky you got out before you turned out the same as him."

"Shut up. You don't know him."

"But I know Federation commanders", the changeling smirked triumphantly. "They're all the same. Stiff humans in uniforms who think if they smile or have fun for a moment, something will explode. Possibly them."

As if suddenly remembering who she was speaking to, Samus hauled herself back into the bed. "I can't believe I've shared all this stuff with you, of all people. I really must be going nuts."

"And how do you think I feel-", the other hunter challenged, "-to find out that the only fleshbag who's ever caught my interest is such a whiny little bitch? Destiny? Yeah. Sure. And I'm the queen of the Federation. Destiny. Really. That's what holding you back?"

Seemingly lacking the energy to resume their fight, she merely regarded Gandrayda with an acid glare. "Be as disappointed as you want to. I don't care. I never gave a damn about your expectations. Just the ones my family had for me."

She had to leave. Now, more than anything, Samus just wanted this infantile excuse of a changeling to give up and leave her alone with her misery. Then maybe she could go back to sleep. Maybe forever.

So of course, as always, Gandrayda did the exact opposite of what she wanted.

Dropping the earlier disdain, she shifted again, this time taking on the familiar shape and red and orange coloring of her power suit. "Are you sure? My expectations are much easier to fulfill than 'bringing justice to the galaxy' or whatever. Really, it's easy. All you have to do is walk out there and hit Xan-Fei the way you hit me. Then tell the other hunters how we're going to kill those pirates in revenge."

"Sure", the human snorted, for once in gentle humor. "Easy. Xan-Fei is a niritanian. Stronger and faster than tholidians and covered in carapace. I punch her, I break my hand."

"Not if you hit the right spot", Gandrayda insisted. "Look, I've been around both of you for a while now. You're a natural leader. She's not. It's that simple."

"If it's so simple, why don't you do it? You can do it while disguised as me if it gets you off so much."

As if taking her advice, she did shift again... but not into Samus. She went back to her default state, and for once the look on her face was devoid of mockery or teasing.

"Because I'm not a leader, Sammy. You said it yourself. I'm just a childish troublemaker. It's fun most of the time, but no one ever listens to you. No one trusts you, and you can't blame them for that."

"You only have yourself to blame for that", Samus agreed. "Besides, niritanian, remember? I've read up on them. They're not a hive-insectoid species like Yivayo's, but they're damn close. Their population is only 5 percent female, but the trade for that is their insane strength and aggressive instincts. Their planet is a matriarchy."

"Exactly", Gandrayda made a disgusted face. "So she's used to expecting people to fall in line for her, just because she can lay eggs and pick up gunships. Not because she's a good leader, but because she was bred for it. Don't worry, it'll be easy. If it goes bad, just pretend to be me in disguise. I saw the recording; you're better at doing that than either of us want to admit."

The annoyed grunt that earned was delightful in its illegibility. But Samus still didn't move.

"Zillic always said", the changeling went on, "that there's no real justice in this cold galaxy. That justice is an imaginary human concept."

"Justice", Samus countered harshly as she rose, "isn't imaginary. Not as long as we follow it."

"Then follow it", Gandrayda urged, her true face finally admitting to desperation. "Do what you have to do to bring justice to those bastards who blew up our home. Because, if you don't... then I will. Alone."

"Don't threaten me with a good time!"

She would never know exactly why, but that line made them both explode into laughter, ringing off the walls for minutes before they both dropped into awkward silence.

"You see? You can still laugh. Though I didn't see you smile."

"Maybe later", Samus suggested, pushing herself up off the bed, her old strength, the strength that had made her a legend of the guild in a month's time, returned to her. "Or not. I still hate you, you know."

"Yeah I know", the other hunter shrugged casually. "I'm easy to hate. But, uh, look... All that stuff I did earlier... You interested me, that's all. You interested me more than any hunter I've seen. More than any human fleshbag. And then you went and saved my life. Cleared my name. And..."

"You're a hunter", Samus cut her off angrily. "A loyal hunter. Anyone who's willing to pick up a blaster and risk their lives to stop space pirates or other criminals from hurting innocent people? That makes you a hero in my book. You didn't deserve what they were doing to you, back there. In the Federation legal system, we call that the 'assured accusation'."

The technical words mostly flew over her head; the spell that had brought her to the final limits of her people's sentimentality felt like it had been broken. And every day you just get more interesting to me. Every day, I see more of what you're hiding inside.

"...Right. Thanks, Sammy."

"Don't call me that."

"Make me."

"Fuck you."

"Promise?"

Their shared laughter was shorter and quieter this time, but still there.

The installation was just about as Samus had pictured it, basically a smaller, less well-provisioned version of the large public spaces that had existed on each primary deck of the BHG station. While a pair of large sweeping viewports spanned along the back of the room, they came across as a waste since most of the planet's surface past ten meters lay shrouded in a thick acid fog hat reminded her of soup.

She wondered how long it would be before large vaulted chambers of this size stopped reminding her of her humiliation at Ridley's claws. No time for that now, she cut off the memory before it could start on her. The faster I get this done, the better chance we have to catch him.

There were more beings there than she'd feared. Gandrayda's earlier appraisal had made her think she would be speaking to a scant room of survivors, all of them too traumatized by what they'd just witnessed to take revenge on anyone, much less space pirates. But she saw several comfortingly familiar faces there, many of them graduated hunters who had returned 'home' when they'd heard the awful news. Torrask seemed even larger among the crowd, seeming like he might step on one of the crewers at any moment. The two Phrygisian hunters Rundas and Rygda spoke near one of the entry hatches, showing little signs of sorrow at losing their adoptive father. While Ghor hadn't brought his equally enormous power suit, she recognized his spindly metal form among the more anxious cadets, trying to calm them down.

Then, there was Xan-Fei. She stood atop a raised portion of floor surrounded by thin rail, large tri-digit claws gripping it, a quartet of flexible muscled legs placing her large centurion body a full head above most of the others. As Samus had surmised, thick gray carapace shrouded most of her form, but despite that protection the niritanian hunter still wore a power suit for her missions, a bloated metal monstrosity that looked like some kind of mangled hover vehicle whenever she wasn't using it. Fortunately, she wasn't wearing it here, comfortable in the presence of her colleagues... or perhaps comfortable in the belief that they had accepted her leadership?

Her eyes lacked sclera or irises, mere tightly honeycombed voids of purple-tinged black, a predator's fanged mouth curling into a smile when she saw the new arrivals. "Ah. It is Samus Aran correct? The human hunter. I am glad to see you up and about."

Caught slightly off guard by how welcoming the veteran was being, she nodded back. Most of the hunters on the BHG were never so polite to her, but in this case apparently her reputation had preceded her for once. "Hunter Xan-Fei. I understand that you've been chosen to lead following the death of the Guildmaster."

"In a fashion, yes", she admitted, tilting her large head so that the 'crown' of horned carapace atop it reflected some of the artificial ceiling light, a large scorpion tail bobbing up and down behind her like a streamer as she walked. According to what Samus had read about their biology, the niritanians actually stored their large brains in their prominent stomachs, while everything behind that was devoted to laying eggs and using the tail for defense if needed. "I chose to claim the position. None dared challenge me. It is the natural choice."

"Natural", she agreed distantly. "I'm just glad it wasn't Torrask."

"That thug", Xan-Fei clasped the bladed tips of her claws together, apparently not even caring if he overheard. "Could not lead a parade. This truly is an unprecedented disaster for the hunter guild. I shall dearly miss Zillic."

"So will I", Samus admitted, casting her hair back. While she had no doubt that a lot of the late Guildmaster's affection towards her came from wanting to be able to cash in on her bounties, that trait was desirable in the manager of a business, and in that field he'd had few equals. In a way, all the good the hunters did was because of his financial skills providing them with what they needed until they were ready to go independent. "What's the plan then?"

"Our home, our lovely station, is lost", Xan-Fei lamented, her rear legs and tail unfurling further to raise herself up higher above the others. "Over half our number have been slain. It seems to have been a tactical error. Concentrating all hunter activity in a single spot. Practically inviting an attack. While it is true that the pirates were unable to succeed until a traitor sold us out, I always considered that to be a poor decision by Zillic. Such a loss has crippled us."

"We can't give up yet", Samus maintained firmly. "The Federation needs us."

"They do", the veteran hunter agreed, smiling back. "We are their foreclaw. Their best defense against space pirate raids. The foreclaw has been smashed. Yet... even the fragments of a destroyed claw can kill. A crippled brood needs time to replace its losses."

"This is the time for us to strike back then", Saus tried to clarify, hoping she wouldn't have to do as Gandrayda had suggested. "We need to let the pirates know we're still out there."

"We will", Xan-Fei promised, fangs sliding into a hungry snarl. "In our own way."

"In our own way?" Not good. That wasn't what she'd wanted to hear.

"As I said. The guild's institutional apparatus is completely demolished. All licensed hunters are free to continue taking jobs independently from the Federation, but we have no way of legally certifying cadets with licenses any more. Thus, all cadets are relieved of their duties."

Really not good, Samus clenched one fist on the rail, forcing herself not to scowl. "You can't do this without us."

"Do what?", Xan-Fei feigned confusion. "We do not require cadets to assist us in our missions. I will be hiring a transport from the guild funds to bring the staff here to a civilized planet. You are welcome to join them. I will begin the lengthy process of decommissioning this installation over the next few days."

"Meaning the end of the bounty hunter's guild", Samus confirmed grimly. "Seriously? That's it? You're just going to end it here? No more guild?"

The niritanian hunter hardly missed a beat, her eyes veiling in a thin violet cover. "As the duly appointed leader, that is my decision to make, Samus Aran. The guild was little but a drain on our profits. Without it, we are free to operate as we please."

"That's leaving the rest of us cadets unable to take missions", she pointed out angrily. "It means that no other new hunters can ever get trained or certified."

"Less competition is not an undesirable circumstance", Xan-Fei remarked wryly. "Though if you wish to travel with me back to Niritia Prime, I could perhaps make a request to have you certified before the guild's affairs are settled."

And you'll just take the rest of the money for yourself then, Samus realized, her pulse freezing up like she was back on the phrygisian gunship. All of those millions of credits that Zillic carefully saved up over the years to maintain the station, maintain support for hunters everywhere ends up in your pocket.

She blinked in surprise at the brazenness of it all. No wonder Gandrayda wanted me to deal with this. I can't let it happen.

"I appreciate your offer, Xan-Fei", Samus carefully lied, trying to generate the kind of shy smile that suggested she really was deeply honored that the matriarch was willing to bring her, a human and a total stranger, back to her own homeworld. From there, she would be able to secure transport back to any major civilized world in the Federation, or even remain living as a regular citizen on Niritia Prime if she so desired... "But no thanks. If it comes down to it, I'll hitch a ride with Rundas."

"I had thought that you would find my gunship more comfortable", Xan-Fei suggested amicably. "But-"

She had no time to finish speaking before something bit hard into the first joint of her left forward leg, knocking her forward and down directly into a rising uppercut that left her dizzy. She hardly had any time to recover from that when she felt the slender metal barrel of a disruptor pistol being forced into her gut until it penetrated her skin there.

She didn't get to hear the sound of the shot before her world exploded into fragments, disconnected snippets of sensory input that struggled to align. She could only tell that she was being assaulted, more powerful blows carefully aimed at the few vulnerable spots on her body such as her face, gut and abdomen. Something heavy came down on her back and her tail began to thrash out of instinct, but that only lasted for a short time until her senses recovered enough to feel the pressure of two strong hands vised around her neck.

Samus wasn't surprised to find that her little display had stolen the attention of every single hunter in the pavillion. They were all watching her now, most with varying degrees of shocked amazement that she would randomly snap and attack a nirtianian- a species which, on paper, was far stronger and more durable than a tholidian and certainly leagues beyond what was expected of any human.

Taking no time to dwell on it, she dug her hands in further, bringing one leg down on the other hunter's abdomen to spur her into a blind charge into a platform railing, the impact not drawing blood but further disorienting her. Tightening her grip weakened her prey until she could kick down and dislodge the left rear leg, causing her to splay over on her side, only intensifying Samus' grip.

"Yield!", she hissed into the large outlet-shaped viaducts that she had learned were the niritanian equivalent of earlobes. "Say I've beaten you. Say that I'm the guild leader now."

"How... dare... you...!"

Carefully maintaining her grip to avoid slipping, she brought one arm out in front of her target's bewildered eyes. Even in her dazed state, she could recognize the simple laser dagger clenched in that hand, and suggestive way it was being lowered towards her gut.

"You... wouldn't. Hunter... Laws...!"

"You said it yourself", Samus pointed out in mock innocence. "If the guild is dead, then there's no laws preventing this, right? So say it!"

Xan-Fei continued to struggle regardless of how near she knew death to be, but before her bluff could be called her attacker released and kicked down again, knocking the other rear leg out as well. Another hit to the back of her head nearly knocked her onto the blunt end of the dagger, another disruptor shot compounded the damage further until she could barely see straight.

"Say it."

Still her target remained silent, instead scanning the room, expecting one of the other hunters to intervene and pry this insane human off her back. None of them moved, most merely watching the fight with various expressions. Gandrayda had drawn the closest, but she was no ally. If anything, she looked eager to step in and help if she managed to turn the fight around and hit Samus with her tail, but quite satisfied that it wasn't necessary.

The arm gripping her head smashed it into the deck again, harder this time. "Say it! SAY IT!"

"Y... yyy..."

It surprised her when Ghor, of all beings, called her out on it. "That is quite enough, Samus", he barked in his grating machine-like tones. "If you wished to lead us so badly, all you needed to do was ask."

"She wouldn't have accepted it", Samus argued back, sounding a bit guilty despite her words and the relentless grip she still maintained. "I'm just a 'cadet' after all, and a 'weak human'. You all heard her talk. She expected me to join her and become her handmaiden or something. Not anymore, I'm guessing."

"Let her go, Aran", Rygda stepped forward, past his brother. "You've made your point."

"Sorry." She was surprised to find that she actually meant it. In the marines, such a treasonous attack would have certainly terminated her career then and there, and doing it had required her to push aside those military instincts and become absolutely ruthless, closer to a feral animal... But this wasn't the Federation. This was different. They weren't an army. They were a band of rogues, used to playing by their own rules. "I just knew that she would take a lot to go down, and if I let up for a moment, she would've gotten me."

"Xan-Fei is strong", Torrask agreed, for once sounding more thoughtful than disdainful of others. "But she let her guard down. Underestimated the human."

Checking one last time to make sure Xan-Fei wouldn't be rising back up for a second round any time soon, Samus set her suit's vocoder to broadcast across the entire room, to reach every hunter there. "You heard her. She was going to disband the guild right here", she announced. "She was going to cut the roots. She thought that the licensed hunters can handle things, completely ignoring the fact that even the best hunter doesn't live forever. Is that what you wanted?"

There was some contention there, but the obvious majority of the hunters gathered here hadn't been very happy with Xan-Fei's decision. That was why none of them had protested her attack much, or her grabbing leadership. Most of them wanted to continue on, even if they were only cadets.

"Never!", Gandrayda stage-called happily, remaining in her default form for once. "We all came here to burn some pirate bastards and earn bucketloads of credits! That's what we want to do!"

Smirking behind her helmet, Samus continued. "We need every capable hand. Everyone who's willing to risk their lives, whether it's for justice, or money, or whatever satisfaction you get out of it. Not just against the space pirates, but against any threat to galactic civilization that might crawl out of the darkness in the future!"

Sensing some uncertainty, as if some of them hadn't even considered threats outside the pirates, she spoke louder. "The Guildmaster once told me that this galaxy is a harsh, cold place. It's filled with deadly creatures that could devour any civilization, not just the Federation. The only justice in this galaxy is what we create for ourselves. To fight that, we needed a union. A group of beings dedicated to training the next generation of hunters, and the next generation after that. That's a tradition older than most of us, that's been carried on for centuries... and I'll be damned if I'd let it die here!"

It felt like a speech, maybe the longest one she'd ever given in her life, but only a few of the cadets had spent enough time among human culture to know that they were supposed to applaud Samus' words. "The pirates blasted our home out from under us", one of the tholidian cadets challenged. "If they can hit us here, they can hit us anywhere. We're not safe, and it'll take months to rebuild those training facilities."

Far from being annoyed, she welcomed the challenge. It meant that these assorted beings in front of her were actually thinking, not just going with the flow and kowtowing to the fiercest one among them. "I thought about that. We still have our embassies on various major Federation worlds. They're all small, but with the funds we have gathered here, we can remake them into training facilities similar to what we had before. That way, the space pirates will have to destroy multiple heavily-guarded targets to threaten our operations, not just one."

"So confident!", another power-suited hunter she didn't know called her out, sneering. "The Guildmaster never attempted such an expansion. You think that you know better than him, human?"

"Zillic", Samus continued reverently, "inherited a long-standing tradition of us having our own private base, separate from the Federation. It worked just fine... until now. Clearly, the pirates have taken notice of the fact that we're the Federation's best weapon against them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have tried so hard to destroy us. That's yet another reason why we have to continue on, no matter what... and why we have to strike back. Now."

"Strike back?", Rygda scoffed. "Look around you, human! We've lost over half our best fighters. Ridley's cruiser warped out of here cycles ago, while you were still in bed. We have no way to catch him."

"But we do", Samus countered, turning to Gandrayda, who had clearly been eagerly awaiting her moment. "Tell 'em what you saw."

"You got it, Sammy!", the changeling joked, giving her a mockery of a Federation military salute.

"And don't call me Sammy."

Ignoring her, she turned to the others. "Zillic fought Ridley when he came aboard. He lost... but not before he got him with his daggers."

Several of the older hunters began to nod and whisper at that. "The weapon is a leftover from back when he was a revered hunter", Ghor explained patiently to the others who didn't understand. "Zillic infused special metal particles into his daggers, all of it given a unique theta radiation signature. Harmless, but nearly undetectable. That way, it was impossible for any target to escape him for long. According to my calculations, the particles should last for at least six more cycles. No matter where this Ridley may travel, we will know his location."

"He probably just went back to Zebes", another cadet in sleek white armor protested. "Off to get congratulated by the Mother Brain for a successful mission wiping us out."

"Possibly", Samus allowed. "That's why we need you, Locus. You need to calibrate this place's scanners to work with the Federation communications satellites, and detect the highest spike of that radiation type that's not a star."

The order made him take an involuntary step back, trying to rejoin the crowd. "Um... tap into the Fed satellite network? Really?"

Samus' green visor hid the way she was rolling her eyes. "Yes, tap the network. Everyone here knows you can do it. You've done things like that before, just for fun. Sometimes I wonder if Zillic brought you on just so that the Federation wouldn't be able to grab you and lock you up, because your tech skills are just that much of a danger to them. Lucky for them, you're not that kind of slicer."

That earned an amused snicker from more than a few of the cadets, but Locus seemed too stricken to move at first. When he continued to hesitate, Gandrayda folded her thin arms. "Hey Locus. You do realize that Sammy wasn't even mad at Xan-Fei, right? What do you think she'll do if you keep on pissing her off? Or what I'll do to you?"

The young cadet looked back at the two hunters, his gaze shifting between Samus and Gandrayda's faces several times, his reaction hidden by his ornate helmet but obvious all the same. Finally, he sighed and threw up his hands. "I swear, this organization has the scariest fems in the entire galaxy. Fine. I'll do it. Stars."

"Good", Samus nodded, hardly offended by his comment. "The crewers here can help you to calibrate the long range sensors properly."

"Samus", Ghor called again, this time more concerned than angry. "You must know that this attack is insignificant. Striking back at the pirates will not restore the BHG to us, nor all those who have died."

"And it won't get us any credits either", Rygda followed up. "This isn't a Federation contract. The payout is zero. Zillic never authorized revenge jobs for that reason."

"True", she admitted, her attention drawn by Xan-Fei beginning to slowly recover from the earlier beating but continuing to speak as if she hadn't noticed. "Though if you want payment, I can definitely authorize a transfer from the Guild funds, once Locus unlocks them for me."

The slicer cadet made a noise somewhere between a sneeze and a scream, but he kept working on the installation's main computer.

"This... this is much more than a revenge job, everyone. You can think of it as us making a statement; some badly-needed advertising. Right now, the pirates think that they've beaten us. That they've broken the Federation's best weapon against them, and that we'll be too scared or disorganized to continue fighting. Without us, the galaxy is theirs. A single, coordinated attack from us will make it clear how wrong they are. After that, we'll continue to take Federation missions- as many as we can. Make it absolutely clear to everyone in the galaxy that we're not beaten, and what they've done here only strengthened our resolve to stop them."

"And we can raise our prices too!", one of the other cadets pointed out eagerly. "We're the only game in town."

"Maybe", Samus allowed, already knowing they would do no such thing as long as she was in charge of things. Federations bounties were already very generous, and while there was no doubt that they would raise them further if forced to, such a request would cost the hunters a fair bit of goodwill as well, and likely force the planetary governors to raise taxes on their people. That wasn't something she wanted to be responsible for.

Xan-Fei stirred finally, groaning as she tried to muster the coordination needed to get all four legs upright. Angry, violet-limned eyes burned into her and she took a single step forward, barbed tail clattering noisily along the deck... but seeing the way Samus refused to step back or even hesitate made the niritanian halt before striking. "A cowardly sneak attack", she accused, her tail rattling like a bad stabilizer. "Against me you would have no chance!"

"Yes. That's why I did a sneak attack", Samus replied evenly. "I thought that years spent in the guild would've taught you that much."

Hissing, Xan-Fei's claws curled up into vicious knots, her fangs grinding together. "I should..."

Trying not to sound too satisfied, Samus regarded her carefully. "Do what? Take me on? Rip me into bits? Not without your power suit, you won't. You can go back to your ship and get it now, but you won't be leaving this room without a declaration of allegiance."

The other hunter's eyes swelled, her husky voice descending into an animal growl as her legs tapped the deck. "You are not the Guildmaster, human."

"No", she agreed easily. "I'm not. That title's for someone who doesn't hunt any more, who devotes all their time to organizing the guild. That's not my thing. For now, I'm just the 'pack leader'. Once we're done here, I'll hand the job to someone else. Maybe Ghor. Maybe you. I haven't decided yet."

"That is not your decision to make!", Xan-Fei screamed, her tail smashing into the deck in an instinctual attempt to frighten her. "The others already agreed that I was to be the leader!"

"And now they've agreed that I'm the leader", Samus countered, tilting her head to address the others again. "Right?"

There were several dozen noises of assent, ranging from grunts to shouts to laughter, but all easy enough to comprehend. "A few abstaining, it sounds like", she remarked, visor hiding a slightly superior smile on her lips. "But the difference is clear. I think it's because they like my plan better than 'give up and run home'."

"Your attack plan is suicide, Samus Aran! More of us will die for it!"

"Possibly", she admitted. "That's the point. Anyone who isn't willing to risk their lives doesn't belong here." She risked turning to the others for a moment. "Got that? Anyone who wants out is welcome to go... but don't come back."

Xan-Fei took the bait, rushing up and stopping only when she saw the raised arm cannon pointed at her, a full charge already present. The veteran hunter's tail quivered, went limp, and she stared.

"Why did you join, Xan-Fei?" Samus made the question sound nonchalant, idle. "You're a niritanian matriarch. Your people expect absolutely nothing of you except that you sit on your ass in your cushy palace and lay eggs all the time. The money you just tried to take from the guild would definitely help your standing there, but-"

"Silence!"

She raised the arm cannon slightly. "Well? I'm actually curious, really. It certainly isn't for 'justice'. Right?"

The following signs of struggle were something Samus had only seen a handful of times in her life; a sentient being's vaunted pride fighting against their instincts for self-preservation. It took a moment to resolve, but in the end, self-preservation won out.

"There are...", Xan-Fei began reluctantly, her long eyes drooping, claws and tail lowering, "...there are more lifeforms in this galaxy than just my people. Other... cultures."

She lowered the arm cannon. That was all she needed to hear. Casually vaulting over the rail beside her, Gandrayda cackled. "Can't blame you there! I've been on missions to Niritia Prime. It's so damn boring there! There aren't even any bar fights!"

Samus considered that for the best, considering just how large and powerful Xan-Fei's people were. "Whether it was just curiosity or a real desire to protect other beings from evil, you chose to discard your comforts and work to become a licensed bounty hunter. And if you want out now, then go right ahead. But you can't just dismantle the guild, take all Zillic's money and run for it. I won't allow that. So... are we clear?"

Eyes narrowed, Xan-Fei reared back on her hind legs. Her claws remained clenched, her tail arched as if to strike... but then she relaxed, at ease. "...Most impressive. Ferocity and insight. Ruthlessness worthy of a matriarch. You are truly an exceptional human, Samus Aran. Perhaps you can be permitted to take the reins of power for now."

"Only for now", Samus promised her. "I told you, no way am I going to be the Guildmaster permanently. Just until we finish this mission." Until I see Ridley again, and wipe that disgusting grin off his face.

"Then for now", the other hunter slowly lowered down on her wide legs, her tails going flat in a gesture it took Samus a second to recognize as a subservient bow, "you shall be our matriarch, Samus Aran."

The applause and rallying cries were honestly more than she expected, not exactly filling the pavilion with their volume but enough to draw her attention back to the others, opening her up to an enthusiastic pat on the shoulder from Gandrayda. "See? Easy! You've got 'em eating out of your hand now, Sammy!"

"For my first command", she replied without looking up, "if Gandrayda calls me 'Sammy' one more time, shooting her is permitted."

A smattering of hearty laughter followed, and no matter she tried to focus, she felt a smile creeping onto her face, only hidden by her helmet.

It felt good. More than anything she could remember. Certainly, there had been a few emotional highs here and there during her time with the star marines, usually regarding a genuine compliment from a fellow soldier or from Adam... but even those times had always been carefully tempered by what felt like a lifetime of military discipline that had grown around her like an armored shell, afraid to enjoy herself.

And only now, after over a month outside of it, had that shell begun to break and flake away, if only a little. And is that really so bad? Not that I'll ever admit it, but... maybe Gandrayda had a point. About that, at least. Being the savior of the galaxy sucks.

A lot of hunters preferred mainly to keep to themselves like she had of course, but there were a few extroverts. Certainly, no hunter with a traditional digestive system could deny that when Ghor was making staktata stew, they always turned out in droves to enjoy it.

Some of them would never forgive her the so-called 'crime' of being a human, the intruder in the one place they considered to be free of the Federation's often stifling pro-human authority. But the ones who did... those, Samus could consider to be her comrades.

Allies in her destiny.

The cargo hauler's mass ballooned out at the back end in a way that suggested acquiescence to increasing demand mid-creation, the ship's bridge a mere needle stretching out at the front of the round bulges.

Like all the other vessels plying this trade lane, it never knew what hit it. An opening volley from the Slayer's forward batteries was enough to disable its warp engines, the pirate support ships eagerly jumping out to chew away at the sublights until they were useless drifting wreckage too. The captain of the ship hailed them with desperate pleas for mercy, emphasizing that the ship was carrying medical supplies until the repetition had become enough of an annoyance to blast the comms station as well.

They were calling for help, Ridley knew with certainty. Calling for any ship close enough to respond. We can't have that.

...Well, they could. The chance of a Federation force large enough to threaten them arriving in time was slim to none. If a few stray patrol ships showed up, they could be destroyed too, but there would be no real point. That wasn't the kind of combat that he was interested in.

Even the sights of this raid only had his attention because it was his assigned mission; the most common type. Jump a supply convoy in transition between worlds, disable and loot every vessel, warp jump out again before anything dangerous showed up. Basic and routine, and it rarely took longer than fifteen, twenty minutes.

Things would pick up a little once they managed to rip open the reinforced bay doors running along the side of the main hauler, he knew. Sometimes they had guards aboard, sometimes they didn't, but either way a personal visit would be much more interesting than just waiting here on the ship for his crew to return. "Not just medicines, remember", Ridley hissed between his broad fangs. "These fools are running supply duty for a military base in the Tindrei sector. Look for any crates on the lower deck that might contain missiles, explosives or beam weaponry. We've got time."

"As you command, my God", his current head officer- he had yet to assign a name to him- nodded, already standing at the ready with a handpicked crew of fifty troopers. "Will you not be accompanying us then?"

"No, I will", Ridley grinned back at him eagerly. "I discussed it with Mother. The time where my secrecy creates an advantage is now over. The hunters who survived our attack will certainly talk, and the more the Federation sees of me now, the greater their fear." Seeing several of the support ships speed past the viewport to block their prey's passage, he let out a dark rattle of a laugh that made a few of the newer crew flinch. "I wonder how high the bounty on me will be? Will they actually be foolish enough to include an 'alive' price? How much can they really afford? Are there any hunters still willing to try it, after what I did to them?"

To say he'd been looking forward to it was an understatement. It made it all those previous missions he'd undertaken in secret all the more worthwhile. More, it banished his initial reluctance to take orders from any being who wasn't a drakkari clan leader. The Mother Brain could certainly be frustratingly conservative at times- all artificial minds tended to be that way, he'd found- but the corrupted Aurora unit that the space pirates had picked to serve as their war coordinator always knew how best to use the resources it had.

Certainly, the Mother Brain was a far better supervisor than his old clan leader had been. A pity it would never consent to an invasion of Drakkar. An inefficient plan, it would say in that strange stilted mechanical voice that nonetheless managed to convey a high degree of malice for their victims. Not enough resources there to be worth seizing control.

The rich core worlds that it did deem fit to be worth taking would fall soon, though. He could practically taste it on his tongue. Destruction. Conquest. Blood. Death. Everything I desire, all wrapped up in a big, bright, beautiful package, and I no longer need to worry about hunting down survivors. In fact, it's better now if I do leave a few, so the Federation may hear their stories about the drakkari who singe-handedly devastated their pathetic excuses for warriors.

And if one of those survivors just so happened to end up like young Samus Aran, devoting their miserable lives to a vendetta against him? Bonus.

Indeed, Ridley could see a bright future ahead of him, now that the need for pretense was finally gone. So enraptured was he with visions of that glorious future that he took a moment to recognize that the new warp signature popping into existence nearby wasn't actually another friendly support ship late to the party.

It lacked the signature spindly tail engine, instead bearing a closer resemblance to a custom hunter gunship, all sleek curves and gleaming blue plating around a triangular viewport. He always got a good laugh out of the hunter's habit of making their gunships look like deluxe-size versions of the helmets of their power suits, as though they were all giants that had been beheaded, but this one didn't remind him of any particular one.

The second one coming in just behind it though, he did recognize. The third one as well. "Ghor", he grumbled, seeing the muted grays of the larger second ship. "And Geras. I guess we didn't blow him up enough last time."

His crew, naturally, waited entirely on his command. Their lives were his, as they should be. "All minnows break off and engage", he ordered swiftly. "That crumbling tub isn't going anywhere for a while. Lock onto Geras' ship first with the forward batteries- he's only had a few days to patch it up, it can't be back to full strength yet."

As if interpreting his analysis as a dare, the phrygisian ship chose that moment to eject two hunters from its belly hatches, both of them immediately using their natural-born abilities to generate ice slides that made them almost as fast as gunships, and infinitely more maneuverable. Meanwhile, Ghor's ship had already begun to fire back at its attackers with more traditional anti-ship beam weaponry, just as powerful and heavy as its owner.

"Just a few cycles and they're already back for revenge", Ridley clasped his claws eagerly. "Hm... I approve! But just three ships isn't enough." Looking back at his XO's bland features and expression, he briefly considered stopping to drop the attack force off on their initial target before continuing the fight, only to dismiss the idea. "Launch all our reserve minnows, just in case."

"As you command."

Vorn was better, he recognized as the pirate force scattered to grab their smaller ships and launch. He worshiped me like all the others, if not more, but he was smarter. I'll miss him.

That had been the one negative result of the BHG mission; learning that his favorite officer was dead, requiring him to train up a new one. In fact, the few reports they had indicated that the one who had done it wasn't another boring phrygisian or Gandrayda who they'd hoped to recruit, but a hunter in armor resembling the colorful orange getup of Samus Aran.

Not that he would hold a grudge against her over that. Vorn had died in battle, serving his cause. There was no greater honor. It was simply an annoyance, having to retrain another pirate grunt into something approaching his level of intellect- most of them had the brains of Zoomers on a good day.

Still, they knew how to fly and how to shoot things, and here that was all that was needed of them. Before long an entire squad of the tail ships were chasing Geras' frozen ship. It weaved, spun and and dodged around with a remarkable degree of energy for something that had been halfway destroyed cycles earlier, and it made him wonder if perhaps the phrygisian hunters had hired an ace pilot to take care of the ship while they fought.

That tactic was about to cost them dearly. The two of them had been making a nuisance of themselves, freezing the occasional ship, but now they were within range of the Slayer's point defense guns, which opened up from beneath the bridge in a spread of lethal plasma bolts. "The ice cubes were never exactly good thinkers either", he gloated, seeing one of the two of them caught up in the barrage, his ice slide being smashed apart before a support ship blasted him into atoms.

Geras' gunship came around again, this time trying for a direct run at the bridge. The minnows trailing it were backing off, reluctant to continue firing since every miss would go on to hit the Slayer... and in this case, that was the correct choice. The cruiser's own batteries opened up without any such concerns, chewing into the target's limited reserve of shields and forcing it to back off.

"Nice try, fool", he snorted, idly wondering for a moment if the pilot had been trying for a kamikaze run before the blue gunship plunked down in front of the main viewport, so close he could practically see the purple nova engine fumes, just above the imaginary line where the point-defense guns would be able to hit. Accelerating ahead quickly to prevent a missile lock, it tilted upwards slightly before a hatch at the rear of the ship slid open, permitting the escape of some kind of amorphous gray shape that quickly billowed out to a stiflingly large size.

He didn't have the time to order a course change before the strange cloak touched the viewport, clinging to it like a parasite. The lights flickered wildly as electrical systems and sensors all over the ship began to fritz out, and Ridley gave his first curse of the day.

"Shock web", he announced. His crew would obey him regardless, but it was important to maintain confidence anyway. "Not big enough to cover and immobilize us completely like it's designed to do, but annoying enough. Connect the cap drains so we can bleed off these power surges, and order some of the minnows to burn it."

Not a job many of his pilots would relish, he knew. Just like before, any miss would damage their own ship, even if the web covering their entire front end meant it would be impossible to tell who had done it. Dumb move, he considered silently. That blue one must be another rookie hunter, trying to play in the big leagues now that we destroyed his home. Shock webs were a common hunter's tool that could be used to quickly disable small gunships, but they were only a minor inconvenience to a cruiser of this size that had proper cap drains to prevent serious electronics damage. It would have been better used to entrap several of the minnow ships, taking them out of the fight instead.

Unless he has more than one web in there, the pirate lord considered. Unlikely, but possible. "Order the others to focus on the blue one. He's earned a painful death." Seeing the lights flicker and the stations glitch out again, he hissed. "Repeat that order to them for the next three minutes to make sure they hear it through these blackouts."

It took about the same amount of time to burn the web away, small shots from the support ships easily enough to destroy the flexteel skeleton that held the thing together. Without that, it was just a big gray tarpaulin that no longer jammed their sensors, easily falling free from the viewport-

And revealing the truth. He cursed.

The view outside was utter chaos now. Half the minnows were burning wrecks, being chased and shot down by over a dozen newly-arrived hunter gunships. The closest one he recognized right away- a rounded, ebon-black monstrosity almost too big to be properly called a gunship, but with enough heavy weapons and shielding to compensate. That's Xan-Fei's ship. And all the others are here too. How? How did they get here so quickly? The distress signal went out only fifteen minutes ago, there's no way anyone could respond that fast-

Unless this has nothing to do with the distress signal. Unless they have some other way of tracking us.

He didn't need to order all his ship's forward weapons batteries to open up, desperate to score some kills before the minnows were completely overwhelmed. One hunter ship in eye-straining gold and teal swirls took the full force of a barrage, the viewport shattering as it drafted off, but the rest were being flown by much more competent pilots, never putting themselves close enough that they could be hit that way.

In fact, none of them seemed interested in attacking the Slayer at all. No... that wasn't quite true. It took him a moment to recognize the flight pattern of the various ships, but when he did, he cursed again.

"Interception pattern", he called out. One of our own favorite tricks. So long as at least one ship is directly in our path, we can't warp jump without risking a crash. We can blast them, but they just switch out, recharging their shields while another ship takes the hits for them.

Sure enough, the second repetition of the pattern confirmed his hypothesis. Geras' dark ship would move out in front and block the Slayer until it got too close, only to abandon the position once the bright blue gunship from earlier was out several kilometers ahead on the same vector. It would be replaced shortly by Ghor's massive ship, followed by the more nimble garish pink flier he'd been told was Gandrayda's, followed by Xan-Fei's ship, and then Geras' was back in their way again. The rest of the hunter gunships could devote themselves entirely to hunting down the minnows, which they did with an impressive zeal.

The minnows themselves were often used for the suicidal tactic, since the loss of one didn't really matter, and the number of times a ship had actually called his bluff and risked jumping to warp with a ship blocking them could be counted on one claw. But in this case, apparently the hunters now considered their revenge to be more important than their own lives.

Which meant that he had a problem. "Adjust 0800 degrees", he commanded, the order coming out as more of a screech now, but still instantly obeyed. "Fire all batteries directly ahead at all times to clear the path. Prepare a warp jump."

No one protested either. Everyone knew that this would leave all the minnow ships behind to die, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that if they didn't leave now, they would be picked apart as soon as the support ships were dealt with. He would die, not in a glorious battle as he had always desired, but as the result of an exploding ship.

Unacceptable. Unacceptable. His mind reeled, desperate to come up with a way to escape this hunter trap. As he'd ordered, the batteries were filling up the space in front of him with plasma bolts, but each gunship was far enough ahead to safely dodge. "Not that one", he ordered his gunners, his seething fury growing with each setback, "the black one, as it's arriving. It's not as fast. Take out the engines, leave it adrift."

The pirates redoubled their fire at their target, but by the time it started showing serious damage he only saw two minnows left on the board. The chase had taken them far enough ahead of the freighters that they were nearly out of sensor range now, but his pursuers had been relentless, always switching when one of the 'interceptors' was in danger of losing engine power and breaking the trap.

Beam fire from several hunter gunships began to hammer at the Slayer's engines.

"Change course!", he ordered frantically. "1100 degrees! Redirect all remaining power to rear shields!"

The orders went off without a hitch, the shield power being redistributed as requested, the view suddenly shifting to let the largest object there dominate it. No one dared question the fact that he'd just ordered them to set course directly through a planet.

GY4192, the nav computer called it. A large, high-gravity world whose frigid gravel gray sheen did nothing to hide the lack of life upon its surface. Foggy and strewn with jagged mountains and small rock formations, it would have made an excellent place to make a new pirate base if it hadn't been so big and obvious. Now, he needed it for something else entirely.

Thirty seconds and about two hundred shots to the aft later, the hunters caught on to what he was doing too, Ghor's sleek flowmetal behemoth peeling off instead of retaking his intercept position from the smaller blue one. If they stayed there, they would be caught up in the planet's gravitational pull and drawn into a dangerous reentry. Instead the interceptors had positioned themselves in a circle around his cruiser, waiting for him to vector off his current course and attempt a warp jump. But they were only five ships- four, now that Xan-Fei's vessel was so badly damaged that it could no longer keep pace with the others or fire its weapons. Four ships couldn't possibly guard the dozens of escape vectors that existed in three-dimensional space.

His earlier panic was gone, replaced with a grimace of triumph, a bone-chilling laugh. You hunters thought you could destroy me, the Cunning God of Death, so easily? Think again! "Shift 0500 degrees and begin jump! Any hunter gets in our path, vaporize them!"

As predicted, it wasn't long before the last order was acted on too, the batteries blazing out against Geras' ship as it tried to get back into intercept position to prevent them from escaping. The resulting barrage was so bright he couldn't look at it initially, streams of light enough to rival the system's star at this distance blasting through until the weapons systems finally yielded to the need for a moment's recharge-

And Ridley saw it. The dour phrygisian gunship wasn't on an intercept course. It was facing the wrong way for that, speeding towards them instead of matching their pace, and at a clip that suggested all weapon power had been diverted to the engines and shields.

Whoever is piloting that thing is crazier than I am. It can't possibly be a phrygisian.

And by the time he realized this, tried to give the order to change course to avoid it, the gunship was already less than five seconds away from impact with the front viewport.

"REDIRECT ALL SHIELD POWER TO FRONT! TRANSMIT A DISTRESS SIGNAL TO ALL PIRATE VESSEL-"

Then the ship's mass struck home and everything was gone.

o