~Chapter 3: The Frozen Pass~
Samus awoke the next morning feeling somewhat chilly. She pulled on the bulky Gravity Suit and activated all of her gear. She hopped out of the ship. Samus turned around to do a last-minute inspection, when suddenly she screamed. She threw off her helmet and looked into the gleam of her gunship. Her hair was gray, and her skin was rough and wrinkly.
The Hunter fell to her knees, and looked around. The snow had ceased to move. Something terrible was going on. Then she remembered the voice… the voice in the Lair… seek out the Frozen Pass…
Samus slid down an icy hill and landed on both feet, looking into an intimidating cave. As the Hunter walked in, she felt the cold air suddenly become colder. She looked down and saw a deep black abyss. As the Newborn tapped a button on her helmet to switch to scan mode, she suddenly wheeled around. Looming above her was the biggest Sheegoth ever. Samus didn't hesitate to throw herself into the abyss, preferring NOT to find out what the beast was.
As Samus fell, she suddenly felt like she was floating. But she wasn't. Samus had landed on a soft pad of snow. As she pondered where she was, she looked up and found herself facing yet another gargantuan Sheegoth. The Hunter switched to scan mode. The sensors went over his body like a ripple, and returned some bad news:
"Morphology: Alpha Sheegoth. This beast is invulnerable except for a small chip in his thick ice armor somewhere on his underbelly. Extreme caution should be taken when approached." Samus groaned and turned around. Without required Morph Ball technology, she would NEVER defeat the creature. So she confused it with a series of jumps and random beam blasts, then made a dash for the exit. Her escape failed when she slammed into solid ice.
Samus swung around and looked straight into the eyes of the beast. She knew that to survive, the Sheegoth must die. But then she took a second look at the ice wall. It wasn't a full block of ice. Hoping for the best, Samus charged her Power Beam and got ready to blast the ice away. But right at the firing time, the Alpha Sheegoth swung his giant claw at Samus and she was thrown into the ice wall. She jumped around the monster and led it into a small cave on the far side of the landing spot. Then she confused it again and ran away. The monstrous Sheegoth, being sluggish, could not catch her before she blew away the ice. Samus jumped down a small ledge and fled. It wasn't long before she stumbled into a giant room of glittering icicles and small Ice Parasites.
The Hunter looked below and saw a single Space Pirate who looked quite lost. She finished him before he could do any serious harm, and moved into the cavern. Samus crossed the room where there were two doors. One looked obviously un-powered, and to her dismay thermal tracking was not included in the tech she had found so far. She opened the other door and fell into a tunnel patrolled by two Sentry Drones. The drones went haywire and activated the security lockdown. She finished the drones and continued on. It wasn't long until she was in yet another tunnel, but this one was most peculiar. Two Space Pirates stood around a small mechanical device. Suddenly, the device started beeping and the Space Pirates backed away. The device unfolded into a particularly large Sentry Drone. The Space Pirates fired their beams at it, but the machine killed them both by gunning at a fuel tank behind it. The Drone engaged Samus, who found out very fast that a simple charged shot from the Wave Beam would not finish it. She repeatedly struck it, and finally after what seemed like 10 minutes of fighting she dropped it.
The Newborn proceeded into the next room where she found a shocking discovery. Dozens of these souped-up Sentry Drones were being processed on a conveyor belt, monitored by six Space Pirates and a Power Trooper on the command platform. Samus had no desire to fight them, but then she found some inspiration. On the command platform was some equipment, which, after a quick scan, she revealed as the Missile Launcher, Super Missile, and the Thermal Visor. The Hunter, eager to gain this new equipment, jumped over a series of platforms to the command platform. The pirates spotted her and bashed her with shots that, for the most part, missed. She finished the Power Trooper and grabbed her gear. Just then, two of the strange Sentry Drones rose up.
Equipped with her new stuff, Samus hit them with Super Missiles. They didn't drop, so she used her Wave Beam to finish them. Still under fire from the pirates below, she scanned the mainframes in the command platform. She learned horrific facts: the Space Pirates were amassing an army of souped-up drones called Military Drones. They were armed with machine guns that can scramble your combat visor and missiles that inflict heavy amounts of damage. They do not have the ability to lockdown the area, but instead they are armed with a small flamethrower for close-range combat. The pirates were creating an army of drones! With the power of Kraid at their expense and a whole battalion of mechanical nightmares, they would be unstoppable. Samus knew that she could not return to her ship, so she had to move forward.
Samus hacked her way through Military Drone patrols, and a few space pirates, until she came to another shocking room. There were more conveyor belts, but this time there were actual Space Pirates on the conveyor belt. The next thing the Hunter learned was more horrifying then the Military Drones. Her Morph Ball was on a high platform where another conveyor belt was. Several pirates were rolling in and out of Morph Ball form.
They had tapped into its secrets.
It was at this time that she knew she might be fighting a losing battle. She climbed up several ice formations until she reached her Morph Ball. She bashed in the conveyor belt controls, and snatched her Morph Ball. As she fled from the room, several pirates rolled out of their morph ball form to attack Samus. She did a quick scan and identified them as "Destroyer Pirates." She also learned that their armor was considerably light because of morph ball adjustments. She dropped them in a couple of shots before moving forward. Samus knew that now if the pirates would be able to retrofit their Morph Ball prototypes with bombs, they would be unstoppable.
The next room, to the Hunter's relief, was a large elevator shaft with nothing but a Military Drone guarding it. She hit the drone with a pair of Super Missiles and got on the elevator. It took her into the most beautiful mountain range she had ever seen. Samus tapped some buttons on her beam and within two minutes her Gunship had landed right next to the entrance. The nightmarish Frozen Pass had been passed by the Newborn for the first time, but her later adventures would bring her their again…
She made a diagram of the area and her on-board computer mainframe identified the region as the Phendrana Backdrop, a giant sloping backside to the Phendrana Mountains that was icy and uninhabited. Samus knew that if any place, this would lead to wherever the voice had told her. She looked at her reflection again. Her face was normal, but there was something strange. She took off her helmet and blinked. Her reflection did not blink. She said 'hello,' to her reflection, but in the picture of her on the Gunship would not budge. She moved away from the ship, and the reflection stayed there. Samus knelt down and started crying. She had not cried since the day when her mother and father had been slain by pirates…
She crawled into her ship and closed the hatch. For the first time in years, she felt hopeless. How could she fight time itself? There is no physical weapon that can correct time. Samus knew a long day was ahead of her, so she fell asleep and awaited the nightmares of tomorrow morning… but her dreams were nightmares as well… while she was asleep, she had a vision:
You have done well, Newborn, the voice said. You have cut a swath through a powerful pirate installation, but your work here is not complete. Before Samus could react to the voice, she was viewing the Phendrana Backdrop, and the view went lower and lower until finally it hit rock bottom. There were two paths: one to the west and one eastward. A metal gate melded together with a bluish-black material blocked the one to the west… Phazon! Samus thought. The one to the east led to a bog-like land of fog and mud. She awoke with a start.