Chapter One : A Grand Demise
The night on Eternus VII was a fickle thing, given to swift, brutal changes. Near the coast it was often cool, a gentle sea breeze wafting through to caress soft, undulating beaches. Yet every now and then, just often enough to make people wary, it would be hot and humid, ragged gales dragging moisture from a suddenly turbulent sea. Further inland, it was little better. While nights in the forests were temperate enough, in the deserts they were bitterly cold, as though the night sought to freeze what the day could not burn.
In one of their few momentary lapses of rationality, the Galactic Federation had urged its scientists and other personnel to take care after dusk. Indeed, most of them preferred to stay in their carefully modulated, environmentally perfect living quarters. Most, that is, except for one particular space marine.
He wasn't much to look at, being of average height with mottled brown skin and a shaven head of black hair. His brown eyes weren't particularly interesting, being perennially focused either on the floor or on some other, insignificant thing. But it was his smile, and his odour, that distinguished him most. For he was a smoker, and in an age that glorified genetic and mechanical enhancement, he was part of a dying breed. Having been banned from indulging his habit inside, he was, as his Earthly brethren had been many years ago, relegated outside.
So, focused firmly on his cigarette and the dancing flame of his lighter, he paid little attention to his surroundings. Perhaps if he had, he may well have noticed the small, but swiftly growing, light in the northern sky.
====
The Ophidian was an old, five hundred tonne transport. In its long life it had carried everything from dignitaries to illegal weapons shipments. It had been the latter which had caused its demise. Its owner had been a fairly rich merchant, but not rich enough to buy off the Space Pirates who had boarded the vessel, killing him and the crew.
But the battle had not been completely one sided. The vessel's hull was a patchwork of holes, dents and melted armour which testified to the merchant's final brave, but altogether, useless stand. With no further use for the ship, the Space Pirates had at first been determined to scrap the ship, melting it down and recycling its cordite hull. However, Eternus VII had presented the ship with the chance to avoid the scrap heap - albeit in a manner of speaking only.
On board, the Ophidian's sensors were alive, casting vast electromagnetic shadows across the planet's surface as the ship's orbit continued to deteriorate. Five minutes, that was how long the ship's computer had been given to complete its task and with a steady, electrical hum it continued to work.
====
Down on the surface, other computers were also at work. Mounted on hilltops, mountains and other vantage points, the Federation's sensors fired back their own salvo of electromagnetism. Perpetually trained at the sky, they had been built to watch the stars through Eternus VII's remarkably clear atmosphere.
This time though, they picked up something other than the occasion comet or quasar. Instead they detected a single large body, mass approximately five hundred tonnes in a rapidly deteriorating orbit. Seamlessly, in a testament to their fine craftsmanship, they began to calculate the body's trajectory. Almost as quickly as they had begun they had finished, noting with mechanical calm that it was headed straight for the main research facility.
However they were astronomical sensors only, so instead of broadcasting their results, they merely continued to record and chart the body's descent, preparing the data for a scientist who would be gone in less than sixty seconds.
Meanwhile at the research facility, the smoker continued his prolonged suicide, contenting himself by taking slow, soul killing breaths of the vibrant smoke. Letting out a happy sigh, he watched a cloud of grey pass his lips, dancing upwards towards the sky to caress a star that seemed too bright to belong.
Dimly a thought occurred to the smoker, taking its time as it passed through nerves made slow and insensate by nicotine, that perhaps something was wrong. Though he had never taken much time to study the sky, like all space marines he knew a star when he saw one and the bright, unblinking light to his north was no star. His fears were confirmed when a wave of orange bloomed in the darkness, a thunderous roar shattering the night - the shock wave of a large body tearing through the atmosphere.
His cigarette dropped from suddenly slack lips as he mentally calculated the object's trajectory and came to the conclusion that he was it. Run, the hopeful part of him suggested, surely the facility itself can withstand the impact. Yet by now pitiless logic had taken hold and it told him only one thing : he was a dead man. That realised he simply reached into his pockets, pulled out another smoke and calmly waited for the sky to fall. He wouldn't have to wait long, and at least those nicotine hating techies would die with him.
====
The Ophidian was travelling at approximately seventeen thousand kilometres per hour when it struck the research facility. Roughly speaking that equated to some four point seven kilometres per second. The instant it hit the ground, the facility vaporised, expanding in a vast bubble of molten metal before the downed vessel struck the hardened rock beneath.
In less than a second it blasted a crater more than four kilometres in diameter and hurled more than eighty thousand tonnes of rock into the air. In the rapidly expanding dust cloud, the Ophidian itself was gone, its reinforced hull like so much paper in a firestorm.
Hitting the upper atmosphere, the rock hurled up began to slow before gravity inevitably took control, accelerating lumps as large as houses straight down. Falling rapidly, the rocks ignited, friction setting them alight. Had the smoker been alive he may well have enjoyed one of the most beautiful sights imaginable, a valley of translucence where heat had forged sand into glass which captured the heady light of the stone rain that fell, burning onto the crater.
====
'Five minutes till total structural integrity loss, please begin evacuating immediately.' The grim warning was punctuated by a staccato of harsh, piercing klaxons.
Aware, seemingly for the first time of the danger, she turned, breaking into a sprint for the door on the other side of the room. Behind her she left a scene of carnage, the bodies of the SA-X and Omega Metroid almost entwined, as though in death they been lovers rather than enemies.
Smashing the door open with a missile, she ran through a hail of sparks and shrapnel as the whole space station began to shudder. Designed for research in zero gravity, little effort had been put into make it defensible and now, as it tumbled downwards into the atmosphere, it was coming apart.
Before her the hallway seemed to stretch into infinity, its length pulled still further by the chaotic blinking of the hall lights as power began to fail in one sector after the other. Halfway down the hall the lights finally died, casting her into shadow.
Disoriented for a moment she stumbled, her arms going before her to take the impact as she fell. Getting to her feet she put a hand to wall, feeling its heat even through the metal of her suit, she didn't have much time. The space stationed was doomed, she had seen to that, and she was determined not to share its fate.
Spurred on by adrenaline she continued to run, sprinting down the corridor till she stopped, skidding to a shocked halt at a fork in the road. Inside her visor, sweat traced a salty path down her temple as she tried to remember, frantically digging her mind for some clue as to which way to turn.
The space station shuddered again and began to list, the floor tilting to her right. Yet her mind was focused on her problem, turning it over and over in search of the solution. When she had last come this way in pursuit of the SA-X she had not taken note of which path she'd come from. Instead, she'd been busy trying to kill it, rage and fury for once overwhelming her steely control. And now she was paying the price.
'Two and a half minutes till total structural integrity failure.'
One hundred and fifty seconds she thought, trying to stymy the growing panic that rose, serpent like from her belly and uncurled to hold all her suddenly trembling limbs in its grasp. All she had to do was think, think back to her pursuit and then the answer would come.
'Two minutes till total structural integrity failure.'
Left, she thought, I have to go left and with that she broke into a run. Speeding down the corridors with a speed no normal human could ever hope to match, she ignored the pain that spread through her. The dimness at the edge of her vision, the harsh guttural rasp that was her breathing, even the tingling in her head, all of it was pushed aside as she focused. Run, turn left, jump, run, turn right, jump, jump, run, every single iota of her being was devoted to this single task, this one last hurdle before safety.
And then she was there, the final corridor, and with an almost giddy glee she vaulted across the final gap and stopped, shocked. There was no door. Switching visors with alarm she scanned the wall in first thermal then x- ray mode, but there was no door.
No, no, no, no, she thought, her hands scrabbling at the wall futilely. There was a door here, I know there was, it led to the main elevator which led to the...
'One minute till total structural integrity failure.'
There must be a mistake, she thought, eyeing the rest of the room, surely that's it, I can't have chosen the wrong path, I can't... and then she saw it. Outside the window SR-388 loomed like a great leviathan, the curve of the planet's surface beckoning. For its part the space station replied, its exterior glowing as it struck the atmosphere, lighting up like a christmas tree from a demented fairy tale.
'Ten seconds till total structural integrity failure.'
Horrified she could do little but stand there as the sheer weight of her failure fell upon her slender shoulders. A moment later she slumped to her knees, and remained that way till the space station exploded in a shimmering sphere of cinnamon flame.
====
Samus woke with a cry, a sob tearing itself from her lips as she clawed the darkness around her. But suddenly there was no fire, no wall of unbreakable metal, instead there was silence, a deep, edifying silence broken only by the solitary beeping of an alarm.
Muttering a command, she activated the lights, their odd sodium fuelled brightness casting the room in pallid off-white shadows. With a sigh she sat up, pulling her knees to her chest and hugged herself, just once as she banished the dream from her mind, or tried to. Unable to do that she rose, tying a soft silk robe around herself before she stalked into the command area of her ship.
As always the display console awaited her, a large plane of neutral blue. This time though, it displayed an image of a system unfamiliar to her. She took a seat at the console and her fingers danced with easy grace across the keyboard, calling up the specifics of the alert. Unbidden a memory came to her, soft as a feather and just as ephemeral, of her father's hands on hers, guiding her fingers onto the unfamiliar keys of a piano. She didn't play piano anymore though, she hadn't for a while.
On screen the specifics came up. Approximately seven hours ago a remote signalling device on Eternus VII had ceased functioning. Designed to emit a burst of energy every hour, the signallers were capable of withstanding anything up to, and including the use of tactical nuclear weapons. They were placed in all the Federation's facilities, ostensibly to ensure personnel safety, but mainly to give the Federation forewarning of any large scale attack. That one had been eliminated indicated a substantial amount of force had been used, most likely the whole facility around the signaller had been destroyed.
But yet, her own scanners, powerful as they were, had not picked up any large changes in spacecraft traffic. Apart from the occasional merchant vessel or pleasure yacht, she had space all to herself.
'Computer,' she said, relinquishing the keyboard in favour of voice control. 'What do you know about Eternus VII.'
Immediately the AI complied. 'Eternus VII is the fifth of ten planets orbiting the mid range, yellow star, Pinnacle. Its composition, weather and atmosphere, are all highly favourable for industry and eventual colonisation by humans. However, the research facility located on Eternus VII exists mainly to study the native fauna and flora, neither of which have been well catalogued despite a unique, and varied ecosystem.'
Samus barely managed to stop her laugh, allowing herself a quiet chuckle instead. If there was one thing she could count on, it was that the Federation would never research anything unless it benefited them. Somehow studying plants and animals didn't suit them, and more to the point, the fact that the facility was now gone stirred her curiosity. At the very least she would she would have a chance to stretch her legs, to leave her ship for a while and clear her mind.
'How far are we from Eternus VII, computer?'
'Given our current speed and the prevailing conditions between us and the planet, we could reach it in roughly seven Earth days.'
'Set our course then, computer, for Eternus VII,' she said, her fingers unconsciously tapping the console in a soft, but steady rhythm.
====
Author's Notes And Legal Disclaimer
All the material that preceded this legally belongs to Nintendo. I can claim nothing here, except the situation that I have put Samus in :). So, please don't sue me - besides I don't have any money :).
Once again here I am to answer any questions you may have about this part of the fic. As you can see, this chapter does have multiple points of view and I hope I haven't irritated anyone doing this. Also, some people seem to maintain that Adam has become Samus' computer. Now, while I like that particular notion, I honestly cannot get a handle on his personality and as she spends little time in the ship saw little reason in trying.
Finally, please, please, please, please ( well you get the picture ) review. There is nothing that makes me writes faster ( except maybe too much coffee ) than reviews. Heck, feel free to email me at phantom_typist@yahoo.com.au.
Yeah, and to all those people who have reviewed : THANKS!!!!
The night on Eternus VII was a fickle thing, given to swift, brutal changes. Near the coast it was often cool, a gentle sea breeze wafting through to caress soft, undulating beaches. Yet every now and then, just often enough to make people wary, it would be hot and humid, ragged gales dragging moisture from a suddenly turbulent sea. Further inland, it was little better. While nights in the forests were temperate enough, in the deserts they were bitterly cold, as though the night sought to freeze what the day could not burn.
In one of their few momentary lapses of rationality, the Galactic Federation had urged its scientists and other personnel to take care after dusk. Indeed, most of them preferred to stay in their carefully modulated, environmentally perfect living quarters. Most, that is, except for one particular space marine.
He wasn't much to look at, being of average height with mottled brown skin and a shaven head of black hair. His brown eyes weren't particularly interesting, being perennially focused either on the floor or on some other, insignificant thing. But it was his smile, and his odour, that distinguished him most. For he was a smoker, and in an age that glorified genetic and mechanical enhancement, he was part of a dying breed. Having been banned from indulging his habit inside, he was, as his Earthly brethren had been many years ago, relegated outside.
So, focused firmly on his cigarette and the dancing flame of his lighter, he paid little attention to his surroundings. Perhaps if he had, he may well have noticed the small, but swiftly growing, light in the northern sky.
====
The Ophidian was an old, five hundred tonne transport. In its long life it had carried everything from dignitaries to illegal weapons shipments. It had been the latter which had caused its demise. Its owner had been a fairly rich merchant, but not rich enough to buy off the Space Pirates who had boarded the vessel, killing him and the crew.
But the battle had not been completely one sided. The vessel's hull was a patchwork of holes, dents and melted armour which testified to the merchant's final brave, but altogether, useless stand. With no further use for the ship, the Space Pirates had at first been determined to scrap the ship, melting it down and recycling its cordite hull. However, Eternus VII had presented the ship with the chance to avoid the scrap heap - albeit in a manner of speaking only.
On board, the Ophidian's sensors were alive, casting vast electromagnetic shadows across the planet's surface as the ship's orbit continued to deteriorate. Five minutes, that was how long the ship's computer had been given to complete its task and with a steady, electrical hum it continued to work.
====
Down on the surface, other computers were also at work. Mounted on hilltops, mountains and other vantage points, the Federation's sensors fired back their own salvo of electromagnetism. Perpetually trained at the sky, they had been built to watch the stars through Eternus VII's remarkably clear atmosphere.
This time though, they picked up something other than the occasion comet or quasar. Instead they detected a single large body, mass approximately five hundred tonnes in a rapidly deteriorating orbit. Seamlessly, in a testament to their fine craftsmanship, they began to calculate the body's trajectory. Almost as quickly as they had begun they had finished, noting with mechanical calm that it was headed straight for the main research facility.
However they were astronomical sensors only, so instead of broadcasting their results, they merely continued to record and chart the body's descent, preparing the data for a scientist who would be gone in less than sixty seconds.
Meanwhile at the research facility, the smoker continued his prolonged suicide, contenting himself by taking slow, soul killing breaths of the vibrant smoke. Letting out a happy sigh, he watched a cloud of grey pass his lips, dancing upwards towards the sky to caress a star that seemed too bright to belong.
Dimly a thought occurred to the smoker, taking its time as it passed through nerves made slow and insensate by nicotine, that perhaps something was wrong. Though he had never taken much time to study the sky, like all space marines he knew a star when he saw one and the bright, unblinking light to his north was no star. His fears were confirmed when a wave of orange bloomed in the darkness, a thunderous roar shattering the night - the shock wave of a large body tearing through the atmosphere.
His cigarette dropped from suddenly slack lips as he mentally calculated the object's trajectory and came to the conclusion that he was it. Run, the hopeful part of him suggested, surely the facility itself can withstand the impact. Yet by now pitiless logic had taken hold and it told him only one thing : he was a dead man. That realised he simply reached into his pockets, pulled out another smoke and calmly waited for the sky to fall. He wouldn't have to wait long, and at least those nicotine hating techies would die with him.
====
The Ophidian was travelling at approximately seventeen thousand kilometres per hour when it struck the research facility. Roughly speaking that equated to some four point seven kilometres per second. The instant it hit the ground, the facility vaporised, expanding in a vast bubble of molten metal before the downed vessel struck the hardened rock beneath.
In less than a second it blasted a crater more than four kilometres in diameter and hurled more than eighty thousand tonnes of rock into the air. In the rapidly expanding dust cloud, the Ophidian itself was gone, its reinforced hull like so much paper in a firestorm.
Hitting the upper atmosphere, the rock hurled up began to slow before gravity inevitably took control, accelerating lumps as large as houses straight down. Falling rapidly, the rocks ignited, friction setting them alight. Had the smoker been alive he may well have enjoyed one of the most beautiful sights imaginable, a valley of translucence where heat had forged sand into glass which captured the heady light of the stone rain that fell, burning onto the crater.
====
'Five minutes till total structural integrity loss, please begin evacuating immediately.' The grim warning was punctuated by a staccato of harsh, piercing klaxons.
Aware, seemingly for the first time of the danger, she turned, breaking into a sprint for the door on the other side of the room. Behind her she left a scene of carnage, the bodies of the SA-X and Omega Metroid almost entwined, as though in death they been lovers rather than enemies.
Smashing the door open with a missile, she ran through a hail of sparks and shrapnel as the whole space station began to shudder. Designed for research in zero gravity, little effort had been put into make it defensible and now, as it tumbled downwards into the atmosphere, it was coming apart.
Before her the hallway seemed to stretch into infinity, its length pulled still further by the chaotic blinking of the hall lights as power began to fail in one sector after the other. Halfway down the hall the lights finally died, casting her into shadow.
Disoriented for a moment she stumbled, her arms going before her to take the impact as she fell. Getting to her feet she put a hand to wall, feeling its heat even through the metal of her suit, she didn't have much time. The space stationed was doomed, she had seen to that, and she was determined not to share its fate.
Spurred on by adrenaline she continued to run, sprinting down the corridor till she stopped, skidding to a shocked halt at a fork in the road. Inside her visor, sweat traced a salty path down her temple as she tried to remember, frantically digging her mind for some clue as to which way to turn.
The space station shuddered again and began to list, the floor tilting to her right. Yet her mind was focused on her problem, turning it over and over in search of the solution. When she had last come this way in pursuit of the SA-X she had not taken note of which path she'd come from. Instead, she'd been busy trying to kill it, rage and fury for once overwhelming her steely control. And now she was paying the price.
'Two and a half minutes till total structural integrity failure.'
One hundred and fifty seconds she thought, trying to stymy the growing panic that rose, serpent like from her belly and uncurled to hold all her suddenly trembling limbs in its grasp. All she had to do was think, think back to her pursuit and then the answer would come.
'Two minutes till total structural integrity failure.'
Left, she thought, I have to go left and with that she broke into a run. Speeding down the corridors with a speed no normal human could ever hope to match, she ignored the pain that spread through her. The dimness at the edge of her vision, the harsh guttural rasp that was her breathing, even the tingling in her head, all of it was pushed aside as she focused. Run, turn left, jump, run, turn right, jump, jump, run, every single iota of her being was devoted to this single task, this one last hurdle before safety.
And then she was there, the final corridor, and with an almost giddy glee she vaulted across the final gap and stopped, shocked. There was no door. Switching visors with alarm she scanned the wall in first thermal then x- ray mode, but there was no door.
No, no, no, no, she thought, her hands scrabbling at the wall futilely. There was a door here, I know there was, it led to the main elevator which led to the...
'One minute till total structural integrity failure.'
There must be a mistake, she thought, eyeing the rest of the room, surely that's it, I can't have chosen the wrong path, I can't... and then she saw it. Outside the window SR-388 loomed like a great leviathan, the curve of the planet's surface beckoning. For its part the space station replied, its exterior glowing as it struck the atmosphere, lighting up like a christmas tree from a demented fairy tale.
'Ten seconds till total structural integrity failure.'
Horrified she could do little but stand there as the sheer weight of her failure fell upon her slender shoulders. A moment later she slumped to her knees, and remained that way till the space station exploded in a shimmering sphere of cinnamon flame.
====
Samus woke with a cry, a sob tearing itself from her lips as she clawed the darkness around her. But suddenly there was no fire, no wall of unbreakable metal, instead there was silence, a deep, edifying silence broken only by the solitary beeping of an alarm.
Muttering a command, she activated the lights, their odd sodium fuelled brightness casting the room in pallid off-white shadows. With a sigh she sat up, pulling her knees to her chest and hugged herself, just once as she banished the dream from her mind, or tried to. Unable to do that she rose, tying a soft silk robe around herself before she stalked into the command area of her ship.
As always the display console awaited her, a large plane of neutral blue. This time though, it displayed an image of a system unfamiliar to her. She took a seat at the console and her fingers danced with easy grace across the keyboard, calling up the specifics of the alert. Unbidden a memory came to her, soft as a feather and just as ephemeral, of her father's hands on hers, guiding her fingers onto the unfamiliar keys of a piano. She didn't play piano anymore though, she hadn't for a while.
On screen the specifics came up. Approximately seven hours ago a remote signalling device on Eternus VII had ceased functioning. Designed to emit a burst of energy every hour, the signallers were capable of withstanding anything up to, and including the use of tactical nuclear weapons. They were placed in all the Federation's facilities, ostensibly to ensure personnel safety, but mainly to give the Federation forewarning of any large scale attack. That one had been eliminated indicated a substantial amount of force had been used, most likely the whole facility around the signaller had been destroyed.
But yet, her own scanners, powerful as they were, had not picked up any large changes in spacecraft traffic. Apart from the occasional merchant vessel or pleasure yacht, she had space all to herself.
'Computer,' she said, relinquishing the keyboard in favour of voice control. 'What do you know about Eternus VII.'
Immediately the AI complied. 'Eternus VII is the fifth of ten planets orbiting the mid range, yellow star, Pinnacle. Its composition, weather and atmosphere, are all highly favourable for industry and eventual colonisation by humans. However, the research facility located on Eternus VII exists mainly to study the native fauna and flora, neither of which have been well catalogued despite a unique, and varied ecosystem.'
Samus barely managed to stop her laugh, allowing herself a quiet chuckle instead. If there was one thing she could count on, it was that the Federation would never research anything unless it benefited them. Somehow studying plants and animals didn't suit them, and more to the point, the fact that the facility was now gone stirred her curiosity. At the very least she would she would have a chance to stretch her legs, to leave her ship for a while and clear her mind.
'How far are we from Eternus VII, computer?'
'Given our current speed and the prevailing conditions between us and the planet, we could reach it in roughly seven Earth days.'
'Set our course then, computer, for Eternus VII,' she said, her fingers unconsciously tapping the console in a soft, but steady rhythm.
====
Author's Notes And Legal Disclaimer
All the material that preceded this legally belongs to Nintendo. I can claim nothing here, except the situation that I have put Samus in :). So, please don't sue me - besides I don't have any money :).
Once again here I am to answer any questions you may have about this part of the fic. As you can see, this chapter does have multiple points of view and I hope I haven't irritated anyone doing this. Also, some people seem to maintain that Adam has become Samus' computer. Now, while I like that particular notion, I honestly cannot get a handle on his personality and as she spends little time in the ship saw little reason in trying.
Finally, please, please, please, please ( well you get the picture ) review. There is nothing that makes me writes faster ( except maybe too much coffee ) than reviews. Heck, feel free to email me at phantom_typist@yahoo.com.au.
Yeah, and to all those people who have reviewed : THANKS!!!!