Chapter 3: Investigation

Samus was shocked when she saw the damage done to Ceres. Even at the distance she was at, multiple hull breaches were discernable, and debris was floating around. Samus punched the engines to 120% and sped towards the docking bay. The only thoughts in her mind were "Please let Adam be alright" and "If those idiots let the metroid out I'll kill them." Her ship lurched into the docking bay, however no automatic tractor beams came to grab her ship this time, so she set down using the magnetic clamps that extended like feet from her ship. Emerging from the hatch of her ship, her yellowish armor glinted from that particular solar systems sun. She aimed around with her arm cannon, surveying the area for hostiles, however the only things moving were the corpses floating around. Apparently there was no gravity in this section

Samus: What the hell happened here?

She leapt off the ship, allowing the magnetic boots of her suit to cling to what was left of an access catwalk. Slowly making her way along, she came to what was left of one of the elevators that lead to the station itself. The shaft was collapsed and totally inaccesible.

Samus: Damn, so much for the easy way

With that she began looking around for another way into the ship. Her eyes glazed across fields of debris, broken glass, some bodies, and finally set on the life support maintence hatch that lead to the environmental control center. Samus charged her weapon and fired, blowing the hinges off the hatch. It peacefully floated away, bouncing off the walls of the docking bay. Samus began making her way inside.

Samus: I wasn't gone that long, what could have done that much damage in such a short time

After a few minutes she set down out of the hatch at the top of a shaft leading down. Since gravity was somewhat normal here she didn't bother following the catwalks down, she just leapt off the side and fell down, as her suit was equipped with thrusters that could ease any landing or whiplash she might incur. She opened the door and emerged in the main environmental pump room. All of the pumps were offline, and the only lights in the room were blue and orange... the emergancy lights. She heard footsteps behind her and began charging her cannon, before spinning around to greet Adam limping up behind her. She fired, but Adam managed to knock her gun away from his face, so instead of shooting him she shot the wall.

Adam: ... careful with that thing Samus, you almost did it that time

Samus: Adam!!.. serves you right for sneaking up on me

Adam: Listen, Samus, I'm glad your here, the station got attacked by this big.. bird like ..thing, I don't know what you would call it. We didn't have a chance

Samus's eyes flashed wide open underneath her suit. She remembered something like that before.

Samus: By any chance did it have a sort of long spikey tail

Adam: Yes.. it did actually

Samus begins walking down the corridor, the sound of a charging cannon echoing through the halls

Samus: I killed something like that back on my first visit to Zebes. Ridley...

Adam is busy checking a console with a little emergancy power battery rigged up to it

Adam: Damnit!! We need to get down to metroid containment!!!!!

Samus: ... you have got to be kidding... Adam.. please say you have at least 50 inches of steel between our friend and the metroid

Adam: ... We "did", it didn't like that too much so it reduced it to about one inch, which it clawed through

Samus begins taking off down the corridor, blasting the next door off its hinges

Samus: Which way to metroid containment?

Adam: Well.. let me think.. corridor 3 is blocked, 5 is destroyed, we could use access four, thats below where the alien made the hole

Samus: And how do we get there

Adam brought up a map of the facility on the console

Adam: You go ahead, I'll guide you from here

Samus: Fine

With that Samus now heads down the corridor, Adam turns on the communications system on his suit.

Adam: Alright now, your going to have to look for some stairs... they should be three sections to your right

Samus began heading down that way, she passed by numerous crew quarters with bodies in them. If they weren't dead from either impalement by something large, burning, or just plain crushing, it was from the now hostile atmosphere. She finally got to the stairs and began heading up

Adam: Alright Access four is one level up

Samus raced to the top of the stairs, aiming her cannon around to make sure the alien wasn't there. Greeting her at the top was a long passage, at the end of which was a sign that said "Access four" and had a heavy blast door closed around it.

Samus: Adam theres a huge door blocking the way, I can't blow through something like that

Adam: Right, those idiots must have sealed the Quarintine bay up trying to stop the intruder.

Samus: Any other ways in?

Adam: Actually yes, head up another level, theres a hole in the floor leading into that room

Samus began making her way back to the staircase then up to the next level. She could see the massive holes ripped in the wall, and in the floor. Metal support beams lay across the hall, but nothing Samus couldn't climb around. She lept down into the hole in the floor, only to find the containment unit with broken glass shards around it, and no metroid.

Samus: Adam.. wheres the metroid

Adam: ... don't tell me...

Samus: Adam.. find it!

Adam: Umm.. tracking.. ok got it, its in the auditorium, thats just the next sector ahead.

Samus pried open the emergancy blast door and stepped into the auditorium she had given her address in. The area was deserted, and it looked different with only blue and orange lights running on it. On top of the podium, sure enough was the metroid, still in its container.

Samus began walking up to it, Ice beam armed

Samus: How the heck did you get over here now

Adam: Samus.. something isn't right.. I'm not reading anything...

Samus: Duh, the only thing in here is the Metroid

Adam: No I mean your not even showing up, its like the room has absolutely NOTHING in .. BEHIND YOU!!!

While Samus's attention was on the metroid, a large tail had appeared behind her and swiped her in the back. Samus was flung across the room and smashed through the monitor behind the stage. She landed on the floor, and began rising up. On her visor, the words "Ice Beam Malfunction" and "Charge beam - Malfunction" appeared. Samus stood there in awe of what stood before her. The massive dragon like creature spread its massive wings, and made a loud sound as if to laugh at samus.

Samus: Well, my haven't you grown Ridley...

Ridleys noise turned to an audible laugh, in a dark synthesized voice, it spoke

Ridley: Well well well, if it isn't Samus Aran

Samus: When the hell did you learn how to talk

Ridley: Oh I've learned quite a few things since our last encounter. I've grown up now Samus, and I have you to thank. My hatred for you, drove me to push myself to the limit, to grow larger, and stronger, until finally I would surpass even your ability.

Samus took the time during ridleys monologue to fire a shot right at his head. He took it and laughed it off

Ridley: Your pea shooter is no match for me, Samus. Let me show you how its done

With that ridley opened his mouth and spat rapid fire fireballs at Samus. Samus was again hit by surprise from the shear speed and size of the attack, and was blown through the wall of the chamber, into the inner most section, the reactor core.

Ridley: It's time for me to repay your kindness to me for the last time.

Ridley picked up the metroid, and crashed through the wall into the reactor core room himself. The room was circular, with a large arc of electricity flowing between two pointed objects in the center. Ridley picked up the wounded samus with his tail and began moving her closer and closer to the energy. The occaisional arc of electricity ran down Samus's suit, and her suit was beginning to heat up from it. Samus winced in pain but ridley continued

Ridley: Now you know what I felt all those years ago

With that Ridley chucked samus into the core, where she was caught in the stream of energy, hovering there with electricity flowing through her. Samus watched the power meter on her suit go down.. and down.. and down. Her vision was getting blurry, and she could barely make out ridley escaping with the metroid, and then a figure entering the room.

Adam: Samus!!!!

Adam made his way over to the reactors controls.. no good, ridley had fried them.

Adam: ... damnit...

Adam looked over towards the breakers.. they were arcing with energy from the overload of samus being in the reactor. But he could probably managed to pull them if he tried. He made his way over across the piles of debris.

Samus: Adam.... don't... do it.......

Adam put his hands on the breakers. Electricity flowed through ever bone in his body, but he managed to start to pull them down at a painstakingly slow rate. Finally he cut the breakers and samus fell to the floor, as did Adam. Samus got up, weakly and rushed over to Adam.

Samus: Adam!! Adam are you alright????

Adams voice was hoarse and it was obvious that he had suffered more through his thin suit them samus had in her armor.

Adam: .. listen.....samus...

He coughed for a moment, before continuing, practically forcing out the words

Adam: ... stop.... ridley and.. the.. Metroid

Samus: Adam.. we have to get you to a doctor first

Adam: No..... Samus... please.. you need.. to do this... for me...

He paused for a moment, before adding

Adam: .... any.... objections...... lady?

Samus shook her head, as Adam reached out, using her hand he pulled himself up to kiss her hand, before falling limply to the floor.

Samus: A-Adam... come on speak to me!! Adam!! Don't do this!!!!!!!!!11

He was dead.. a cry of NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! echoed throughout the hallways

Ridley was presently making his way back through the metroid containment bay, and was just leaving, when one of the scientists grabbed onto a console and began pulling himself up. He began entering in keystrokes, one by one into the system.

Scientist: Computer... engage...self... destruct.. auth code James 29 zulu alpha 4

The computer began echoing through the halls

Computer: Warning.. Auto Destruct sequence engaged... all personell report to registered evacuation centers immediately.. timed charges set to...

At that the computer garbled.. something had gone wrong, the main computer core was unable to load the self destruct files

Computer: Auto Destruct failure, can not load timer.. loading default... 1 minute to Auto destruct

Samus heard this, and stood up. Looking back down to Adam she ran down the hallway she came through as fast as she could, dodging exploding pipes and falling debris. She got to the hole in the floor and leapt up, grabbing onto the edge and pulling herself up to hear..

Computer: 45 seconds to auto destruct

Samus did a kick flip up to the ledge and lept down the stairs, then headed down the crew passage, ignoring the fact that the floor behind here was being engulfed in fire. At this point the lights were being drowned out by the orange of the flames occuring everywhere. Samus was just entering the environment pump room at the 30 second mark. She quickly made her way back into the docking room shaft, and began crawling through. She had just made it through when...

Computer: 15 seconds to auto destruct

Samus was now having a bit of a problem, the stations gravity was now completely off from all the explosions, and was set up so that the wall was the floor. She leapt down to the wall and began using the hand rails on the catwalks leading to the top of her ship as a ladder. Dangling precariously above the now enflamed elevator shaft she pulled herself up the vertical railing and to her ship. She got in, closed the hatch and with her foot kicked the reverse engines online. The magnetic feet literally tore a section of the hull out before she got free. The entire docking bay was exploding behind her now and with mere seconds to spare she jetted out the docking bay.

Computer: 3.....2.......1.....

Where the count of 0 would be there was a tremendous explosion as the Ceres station crashed into the asteroid belt that is in a very high orbit of Zebes. Samus was now hot in pursuit of ridley, but got a message from Federation HQ after about 10 minutes of travel.

Officer: Miss Aran, shut down your engines and await our fleet. You are hereby under arrest for events revolving around the destruction of Ceres colony.

Samus: Sorry, I don't take orders from you, and I have my own agenda.

With that the ship sped off towards Zebes.

Back at Fed HQ, in a conference room, the events were being discussed. The meeting consisted of two generals with plenty of rank and medals, and a man in a business suit.

General 1: Do you really believe Samus caused the destruction of Ceres?

General 2: No, but it will give her reason to keep out of the way of the teams on Zebes.. she will think they are there to hunt her.

Suit: Gentlemen, Need I remind you of your quota, If the program is to succeed we need at least twenty five metroids in the next three weeks. Miss Aran must not be allowed to eradicate the reminaing metroids or else we just sent our money down the crapper. You have your orders gentlemen, find those metroids, and stop Miss Aran at all costs.

Both generals salute and walk out, the man in the suit opens a communications frequency.

Suit: Get me the commander of the B.S.L. Space station, priority one

What ominious dark plot is in the works here? What does the galactic federation want with 25 metroids? Why is Ridley back? Keep reading to find out!

Please R&R, and I hope your enjoying this as much as I am enjoying writing it

Hal_emmerich