The landing on Tallon One was so bumpy that even Strokanov's sure-footing was shaken. "Nice piloting," Strokanov muttered after he noticed that his forehead had come within inches of smashing upon the wall from the jolt.
"Well, I didn't go flying this ship into an asteroid belt," Lana shot back.
Strokanov rolled his eyes. "Are we really going to argue about this again?"
Lana muttered. "Nevermind."
Lana stood up from the pilot's seat and picked up her helmet from the floor. "Where are you going?" Strokanov asked as Lana walked by him to the opening of the cockpit.
"To find Chozo statues," Lana said.
Strokanov snorted a skeptical laugh. "Just so you know," he said, "Samus didn't find any on Tallon Four."
Lana quickly turned her head to Strokanov. "How do you know?"
"I'm a pirate, remember?"
Lana muttered as she slid her helmet onto her head. "Well, since you don't know how to use this ship," she said, "over there is a radar console, there's it's controls, and there's the radio," said said, pointing to various parts of the dashboard.
Strokanov blinked, glanced at the various switched and buttons, and then glanced back at Lana, who had already stepped into the hallway. "Why are you telling me this?"
Instantly, Lana jabbed her thumb into a panel on the wall, and immediately a barrier of clear blue energy spread itself inside the opening to the cockpit, sealing Strokanov inside the cockpit. "You're going to help me find them," Lana said firmly.
"You don't like to be pleasant, do you?" Strokanov muttered.
"Only I know the override password for the barrier," said Lana, "And it's in a different Earth-language. So you can't hack it." Just as Strokanov opened his mandibles to speak, Lana cut him off. "And if you even think of trying to fly away without me, don't. This ship won't start without the keys," she said, patting her armored hip with the barrel of her cannon. "So if you want to get out, you help me."
"Can't you just ask me nicely?" Strokanov asked. When he recieved a glare from behind Lana's visor, he said, "What is it with you humans and being in control?"
"Shut up and wait for me to contact you," Lana said, opening the hatch to the outside world.
When Lana disappeared onto the surface of Tallon One and the hatch sealed behind her, Strokanov sighed as he plopped himself down in the pilot's seat. "Bitch..."
******
The field that she landed on was ripe with bluish-green grass as far as the eye could see. The sun of Tallon One filled the sky with an oddly faint warmth, making Lana shiver whenever she thought about it. Stepping a few paces towards a deep valley faraway in the distance, Lana tapped on the side of her helmet with her finger. "Strokanov?" she asked.
"Yeah, what do you want?" Came the grumpy voice of the Isnekt inside her ears.
"There's a valley not far from where I am. Any life signs in there?"
"Depends," Strokanov hummed from the other side of the transmission. "You never told me how to read this stupid radar screen."
Lana roared in frustration. "Shit!" She screamed. "Are you as fucking useless as you look?"
"Well, pardon me, miss dinner," Strokanov snarled back, "When I grew up I never knew I'd be kept hostage by my entree and be forced to read its language."
"You speak English perfectly," Lana muttered.
"Speak, yes," Strokanov said, "Read, no."
"Oh, for the love of Christ," Lana moaned. "And I suppose I'm going to have to teach you how to read?"
Lana heard Strokanov hum on the other end of the radio. "I'm a fast learner."
Lana sighed heavily. Picking off her helmet and sitting down on a nearby rock, Lana took out the radio component of her helmet and attached it to her ear. "For starters," she said, "a little dot called a period comes at the end of every sentence..."
****
After a maze of hours of education, Strokanov was one language more literate. "There, that's it," said Lana, putting her helmet back on.
"Thank you," Strokanov said, trying his best to sound grateful.
"Now, that valley," Lana said. "Are there life signs?"
"Yes," Strokanov said, "But knowing how much the Chozo used bio-technology, I'd say looking for life signs is useless."
Lana hummed to herself. "Is there anything else in there?"
A long hum came from Strokanov. "Just life signs," he said.
"I'm setting the radar to pick up objects around my location, Lana said, tapping on the side of her helmet. "It'll reduce the range, but it'll pick up more stuff."
"Whatever you want," Strokanov muttered.
Lana ignored Strokanov as she walked to the edge of the valley. Looking around the planet's surface as she walked, Lana willed the scanning mode of her visor to activate. Immediately, a digital magnifying lens stuck to the middle of her visor, letting her examine anything of interest that fell under the scrutiny of the lens to astonishing detail. From fronds, mushrooms, and even trees, small captions popped up onto Lana's visor, describing anything the scan visor looked upon at Lana's whim. Knowing the many stories her mother told her about Samus' adventures, Lana thought that, if there was Chozo technology on Tallon One, then her Chozo suit would readily accept any upgrades. Even thinking of all the imaginable abilities Lana's suit could harbor made Lana quake with anticipation. She wondered how long it would be until she could find some missiles...
Soon, Lana came to the cliff overlooking the wide and long canyon. "Anything?" Lana asked Strokanov.
"Same," Strokanov muttered in disappointment. "What do you see down there?"
Lana peered into the canyon with her scan visor. "There's a totem pole-like structure straight in front of me," she said. "A life sign?"
"Yes, that would be it," Strokanov asked.
"Are there any more life signs?"
"Nope."
Lana took a deep breath before she dropped into the center of the valley. Where she would have surely broken both legs if she landed from such a fall, her armor braced and broke her fall with hardly any trouble. Now looking at the large statue, dwarfing her by three times her size, Lana scanned the totem.
"So what is that thing?" Strokanov asked.
"It's Chozo-made all right," Lana replied. "It's made of a Brickstine compound. Strokanov, I programmed an element database on the ship's computer. What's it say about Brickstine?"
"Just a sec," Strokanov said, leaving the connection silent for a minute. "It's highly combustible, and has a light mass."
Lana aimed her arm cannon at eye level at the totem, and let a blast of energy smash into the totem. The statue did not even so much as squeak.
"Brickstine, was it?" Lana asked.
"Brickstine."
Lana bit her lip as she glared at the totem. Her mother's stories of Samus always involved Samus solving incredibly complex puzzles to get upgrades. Lana began to wonder if this totem was just one of them. Looking around the valley some more, Lana found a large, purple mound lodged into teh floor of the valley. Scanning it, Lana found that it was composed of pure Argonium. "Strokanov, look up Argonium," Lana ordered.
"Found it," Strokanov said almost immediately. "It's a natural energy-absorbing substance- very unstable, too."
Lana pointed her cannon at the purple heap. "Anything else?" Lana asked.
"It's largely found underground, running along in veins," he said. "The source is a large lump of a purple rock-like formation underground, sticking up onto the surface."
As soon as Lana fired a blast at the purple boulder, it detonated in a brilliant flash. Lana lay on the ground, dazed and shaken a few minutes later. Her visor was scrambled with electrical interference, and what she thought was the sound of garbled energy surges at first was Strokanov's voice when she recovered her senses. "Lana! Are you okay? What happened?"
Lana shook off her dizziness and got back to her feet as her visor cleared. "It's unstable alright," she muttered.
Suddenly, Strokanov said, "Lana, the life sign is gone, but I'm reading intense energy levels."
Lana looked over her shoulder to see the totem, once standing high and proudly above her was now lying in shambles, with a glowing blue ball floating inches above the ground at its former station. Curious, Lana walked over to the orb, and when she was within an arm's reach of the blue ball, her scan visor activated. And when the scan caption read, "Morph Ball," Lana nearly squealed with joy.
"Lana, what is that?" Strokanov asked as Lana reached out and grabbed the orb.
Suddenly, Lana felt her armor become alarmingly dense. In a sudden jolt, the armor collapsed into a tiny ball, leaving Lana fearing that she had been crushed. Suddenly able to breathe again once she calmed down, Lana became aware of Strokanov's persistant voice in her head. "Lana? Lana! What happened? I'm not picking you up on the radar anywhere!"
Ignoring Strokanov, Lana thought of moving. At the instant she thought about it, she felt her curled body suddenly tumble over, rolling steadily. Her travel was rudley cut short when she rammed into something. She could not see anything at all, much less where she was going. As Strokanov began to lose hope of grabbing her attention, Lana wondered how Samus was able to use the Morph Ball. Trying her best to recall her surroundings, Lana managed to maneuver around the rubble of the totem for a minute until she collided with something else. When she wanted to unfurl back into her normal form, Lana stretched out her arms, wherever they were, and in a fast yet fluid pop, she immediately found herself standing beside a large chunk of debris with her arms outstretched.
"Lana?" Strokanov's attempts to contact her suddenly registered in her mind again.
"Yeah?" Lana asked, exhilerated with her new ability.
"Lana! What happened? You just... vanished!"
"Vanished?" Lana murmured. "What do you mean?"
"You just vanished right off of the radar!"
Lana grinned. She quickly curled back up into her Morph Ball, and Strokanov began his frantic calls again. "Lana? Lana?"
Popping back out of the ball, Lana tried her best to restrain a cruel, knowing giggle from Strokanov. "Lana, it happened again," Strokanov's confused voice said.
"Hey Strokanov," Lana asked, "What do you pirates know about the Morph Ball?"
"Morph Ball?" Strokanov's voice suddenly shivered. "We tried to duplicate it after we saw Samus use it a few decades back. The first, last, and only test group were crushed." Lana could hear a tone of bitter resentent in Strokanov's voice. "Why?"
"Because I just found it," Lana said. "When I morph, I must be cloaked from radar."
Lana could hear Strokanov in bewilderment. "Well, that makes sense. Tell me, Lana, are you having fun playing games with me?"
"Maybe," Lana hummed.
"Yes, well, now that you've found the new toy that you were looking for," Strokanov said, "can you come back to the ship so we can go?"
Lana snorted. "No. I've got more stuff to find."
Lana grinned when she heard Strokanov groan in frustration.
"Well, I didn't go flying this ship into an asteroid belt," Lana shot back.
Strokanov rolled his eyes. "Are we really going to argue about this again?"
Lana muttered. "Nevermind."
Lana stood up from the pilot's seat and picked up her helmet from the floor. "Where are you going?" Strokanov asked as Lana walked by him to the opening of the cockpit.
"To find Chozo statues," Lana said.
Strokanov snorted a skeptical laugh. "Just so you know," he said, "Samus didn't find any on Tallon Four."
Lana quickly turned her head to Strokanov. "How do you know?"
"I'm a pirate, remember?"
Lana muttered as she slid her helmet onto her head. "Well, since you don't know how to use this ship," she said, "over there is a radar console, there's it's controls, and there's the radio," said said, pointing to various parts of the dashboard.
Strokanov blinked, glanced at the various switched and buttons, and then glanced back at Lana, who had already stepped into the hallway. "Why are you telling me this?"
Instantly, Lana jabbed her thumb into a panel on the wall, and immediately a barrier of clear blue energy spread itself inside the opening to the cockpit, sealing Strokanov inside the cockpit. "You're going to help me find them," Lana said firmly.
"You don't like to be pleasant, do you?" Strokanov muttered.
"Only I know the override password for the barrier," said Lana, "And it's in a different Earth-language. So you can't hack it." Just as Strokanov opened his mandibles to speak, Lana cut him off. "And if you even think of trying to fly away without me, don't. This ship won't start without the keys," she said, patting her armored hip with the barrel of her cannon. "So if you want to get out, you help me."
"Can't you just ask me nicely?" Strokanov asked. When he recieved a glare from behind Lana's visor, he said, "What is it with you humans and being in control?"
"Shut up and wait for me to contact you," Lana said, opening the hatch to the outside world.
When Lana disappeared onto the surface of Tallon One and the hatch sealed behind her, Strokanov sighed as he plopped himself down in the pilot's seat. "Bitch..."
******
The field that she landed on was ripe with bluish-green grass as far as the eye could see. The sun of Tallon One filled the sky with an oddly faint warmth, making Lana shiver whenever she thought about it. Stepping a few paces towards a deep valley faraway in the distance, Lana tapped on the side of her helmet with her finger. "Strokanov?" she asked.
"Yeah, what do you want?" Came the grumpy voice of the Isnekt inside her ears.
"There's a valley not far from where I am. Any life signs in there?"
"Depends," Strokanov hummed from the other side of the transmission. "You never told me how to read this stupid radar screen."
Lana roared in frustration. "Shit!" She screamed. "Are you as fucking useless as you look?"
"Well, pardon me, miss dinner," Strokanov snarled back, "When I grew up I never knew I'd be kept hostage by my entree and be forced to read its language."
"You speak English perfectly," Lana muttered.
"Speak, yes," Strokanov said, "Read, no."
"Oh, for the love of Christ," Lana moaned. "And I suppose I'm going to have to teach you how to read?"
Lana heard Strokanov hum on the other end of the radio. "I'm a fast learner."
Lana sighed heavily. Picking off her helmet and sitting down on a nearby rock, Lana took out the radio component of her helmet and attached it to her ear. "For starters," she said, "a little dot called a period comes at the end of every sentence..."
****
After a maze of hours of education, Strokanov was one language more literate. "There, that's it," said Lana, putting her helmet back on.
"Thank you," Strokanov said, trying his best to sound grateful.
"Now, that valley," Lana said. "Are there life signs?"
"Yes," Strokanov said, "But knowing how much the Chozo used bio-technology, I'd say looking for life signs is useless."
Lana hummed to herself. "Is there anything else in there?"
A long hum came from Strokanov. "Just life signs," he said.
"I'm setting the radar to pick up objects around my location, Lana said, tapping on the side of her helmet. "It'll reduce the range, but it'll pick up more stuff."
"Whatever you want," Strokanov muttered.
Lana ignored Strokanov as she walked to the edge of the valley. Looking around the planet's surface as she walked, Lana willed the scanning mode of her visor to activate. Immediately, a digital magnifying lens stuck to the middle of her visor, letting her examine anything of interest that fell under the scrutiny of the lens to astonishing detail. From fronds, mushrooms, and even trees, small captions popped up onto Lana's visor, describing anything the scan visor looked upon at Lana's whim. Knowing the many stories her mother told her about Samus' adventures, Lana thought that, if there was Chozo technology on Tallon One, then her Chozo suit would readily accept any upgrades. Even thinking of all the imaginable abilities Lana's suit could harbor made Lana quake with anticipation. She wondered how long it would be until she could find some missiles...
Soon, Lana came to the cliff overlooking the wide and long canyon. "Anything?" Lana asked Strokanov.
"Same," Strokanov muttered in disappointment. "What do you see down there?"
Lana peered into the canyon with her scan visor. "There's a totem pole-like structure straight in front of me," she said. "A life sign?"
"Yes, that would be it," Strokanov asked.
"Are there any more life signs?"
"Nope."
Lana took a deep breath before she dropped into the center of the valley. Where she would have surely broken both legs if she landed from such a fall, her armor braced and broke her fall with hardly any trouble. Now looking at the large statue, dwarfing her by three times her size, Lana scanned the totem.
"So what is that thing?" Strokanov asked.
"It's Chozo-made all right," Lana replied. "It's made of a Brickstine compound. Strokanov, I programmed an element database on the ship's computer. What's it say about Brickstine?"
"Just a sec," Strokanov said, leaving the connection silent for a minute. "It's highly combustible, and has a light mass."
Lana aimed her arm cannon at eye level at the totem, and let a blast of energy smash into the totem. The statue did not even so much as squeak.
"Brickstine, was it?" Lana asked.
"Brickstine."
Lana bit her lip as she glared at the totem. Her mother's stories of Samus always involved Samus solving incredibly complex puzzles to get upgrades. Lana began to wonder if this totem was just one of them. Looking around the valley some more, Lana found a large, purple mound lodged into teh floor of the valley. Scanning it, Lana found that it was composed of pure Argonium. "Strokanov, look up Argonium," Lana ordered.
"Found it," Strokanov said almost immediately. "It's a natural energy-absorbing substance- very unstable, too."
Lana pointed her cannon at the purple heap. "Anything else?" Lana asked.
"It's largely found underground, running along in veins," he said. "The source is a large lump of a purple rock-like formation underground, sticking up onto the surface."
As soon as Lana fired a blast at the purple boulder, it detonated in a brilliant flash. Lana lay on the ground, dazed and shaken a few minutes later. Her visor was scrambled with electrical interference, and what she thought was the sound of garbled energy surges at first was Strokanov's voice when she recovered her senses. "Lana! Are you okay? What happened?"
Lana shook off her dizziness and got back to her feet as her visor cleared. "It's unstable alright," she muttered.
Suddenly, Strokanov said, "Lana, the life sign is gone, but I'm reading intense energy levels."
Lana looked over her shoulder to see the totem, once standing high and proudly above her was now lying in shambles, with a glowing blue ball floating inches above the ground at its former station. Curious, Lana walked over to the orb, and when she was within an arm's reach of the blue ball, her scan visor activated. And when the scan caption read, "Morph Ball," Lana nearly squealed with joy.
"Lana, what is that?" Strokanov asked as Lana reached out and grabbed the orb.
Suddenly, Lana felt her armor become alarmingly dense. In a sudden jolt, the armor collapsed into a tiny ball, leaving Lana fearing that she had been crushed. Suddenly able to breathe again once she calmed down, Lana became aware of Strokanov's persistant voice in her head. "Lana? Lana! What happened? I'm not picking you up on the radar anywhere!"
Ignoring Strokanov, Lana thought of moving. At the instant she thought about it, she felt her curled body suddenly tumble over, rolling steadily. Her travel was rudley cut short when she rammed into something. She could not see anything at all, much less where she was going. As Strokanov began to lose hope of grabbing her attention, Lana wondered how Samus was able to use the Morph Ball. Trying her best to recall her surroundings, Lana managed to maneuver around the rubble of the totem for a minute until she collided with something else. When she wanted to unfurl back into her normal form, Lana stretched out her arms, wherever they were, and in a fast yet fluid pop, she immediately found herself standing beside a large chunk of debris with her arms outstretched.
"Lana?" Strokanov's attempts to contact her suddenly registered in her mind again.
"Yeah?" Lana asked, exhilerated with her new ability.
"Lana! What happened? You just... vanished!"
"Vanished?" Lana murmured. "What do you mean?"
"You just vanished right off of the radar!"
Lana grinned. She quickly curled back up into her Morph Ball, and Strokanov began his frantic calls again. "Lana? Lana?"
Popping back out of the ball, Lana tried her best to restrain a cruel, knowing giggle from Strokanov. "Lana, it happened again," Strokanov's confused voice said.
"Hey Strokanov," Lana asked, "What do you pirates know about the Morph Ball?"
"Morph Ball?" Strokanov's voice suddenly shivered. "We tried to duplicate it after we saw Samus use it a few decades back. The first, last, and only test group were crushed." Lana could hear a tone of bitter resentent in Strokanov's voice. "Why?"
"Because I just found it," Lana said. "When I morph, I must be cloaked from radar."
Lana could hear Strokanov in bewilderment. "Well, that makes sense. Tell me, Lana, are you having fun playing games with me?"
"Maybe," Lana hummed.
"Yes, well, now that you've found the new toy that you were looking for," Strokanov said, "can you come back to the ship so we can go?"
Lana snorted. "No. I've got more stuff to find."
Lana grinned when she heard Strokanov groan in frustration.