Chapter Two : Descent Into Darkness
Eternus VII loomed before the Hunter class gunship, a seemingly cloudless sphere of blue, green and sandy yellow. Slowing down to prepare itself for landing, the gunship was suddenly caught, tossed about like a fish in a net as the very fabric of space began to groan.
Inside it, equipment, books, anything that wasn't bolted down began to quiver. Several glasses that hadn't broken in the initial jolt, sang and then exploded, the vibrations overloading their atomic structure. Iridescent fragments of glass filtered through the gunship as Samus struggled towards her command console through the suddenly zero gravity environment of the ship.
The normally azure blue of the sensory display was gone, replace instead by a miasma of static whites and blacks. Wildly, the gunship's sensors arced about the surrounding space, desperately seeking the source of the disturbance.
Then it appeared. Sleek and dangerous, the Galactic Federation Epsilon Class Cruiser, slipped through a gaping hole in space. Behind it, the darkness was taut, bent into impossible shapes and lightning flickered over the cruiser's flawless bendezium hull. As yet more the of the cruiser re- entered normal space from the seething aether of hyper-space, the gunship fired its thrusters, trying to put some distance between the two vessels.
Space, already overloaded screamed and time answered its cry, each single second stretching out into eternity. Inside her ship Samus moved in slow motion, her fingers tapping out the commands with painful laziness. Abruptly though, the temporal and spacial disruptions vanished, the rest of the cruiser dropping into normal space.
Startled by the sudden change, she did little but watch as the graceful bulk of the cruiser passed before her. Considered the mainstay of the Federation's forces, the Epsilon Class Cruisers had enough weaponry to turn a lush, verdant planet into a smoking crater in a few minutes.
Shaking her head once to clear her nausea she initiated standard communications protocol. After two minutes though, she still had not received a response. A quick scan of the cruiser revealed the reason. On a cruiser that should have had a crew of five thousand, there were only twenty five life signals. Further more all nonessential systems such as shields, anti-scanning fields, weapons and lights were down. Something, or someone had commandeered the cruiser.
Quietly, she contemplated the streamlined cruiser for a few moments before she made her decision. Grasping the controls of her gunship, she fired a few bursts from thrusters, taking her closer to the silent monolith floating almost beside her. That done, she programmed the computer, forcing it to stay as close to the cruiser as possible before she rose and stalked towards the gunship's armoury.
At the armoury door, a two feet slab of solid bendezium, she stopped and entered a fifteen digit sequence that she had long ago burnt into her mind. This was followed by a retinal and palm scan before at last the massive door swung open, revealing little more than an empty chamber and a pool of bright, phosphorescent liquid.
When first she had begun her life as a bounty hunter, Samus had stocked this armoury with everything from concealable pistols to plasma mortars. But now, now there was only one weapon she needed and already she could hear it, feel its metallic voice beckoning to her.
Gingerly as always, she stepped up to the pool of liquid, studying it for a few moments. Inside her head she heard it whisper, promises of power and glory, flame and thunder ringing in her ears. The first time she'd heard its voice, she'd almost fainted from the shock, thinking that she managed to leave that aspect of her suit behind on the doomed space station around SR-388.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, she stepped onto the pool. At the once the lights shifting within it flared, an inner radiance springing up around her and bathing the dark chamber in an unnatural light. The liquid rose from the floor, arching up to cover first her feet and then snaking up her calves. When it reached her waist she tossed aside her silk robe, remembering all to well what the liquid thought of her clothes. In a few moments it had slid up her thighs and hips, moulding to her belly before rising still further to slide up past her chest and coat her arms. As always she felt a small surge of panic as the liquid closed over her face, sealing her in darkness, left with nothing buts its icy touch and its cold, steel voice.
As soon as it had covered her, the liquid's shimmering surface began to solidify. Colour appeared, the familiar orange sweeping across the liquid as it hardened into almost impenetrable metal. Beneath the metal surface, countless bio-metallic nerves sprang up, binding Samus' eyes to the visor, her right arm to the arm cannon and her whole body to the suit. Then it was done, and instead of liquid there was only metal, and instead of second skin of silver, the suit had taken on its familiar form.
Striding back into the command area, she smiled, feeling the pulsing strength of the suit as every cell in her body sang with power. Lazily she made her way over to the transport elevator and rode it all the way up, coming to a rest on top of her gunship. Fifty feet across from her the cruiser maintained a steady course, unaware of her, a testament to the cloaking abilities of her gunship.
One graceful leap and she was sailing across the gap, twisting as she fell to land solidly on the hardened armour of the cruiser. Carefully, she made her way along the massive vessel's hull until she came to one of several emergency exit hatches. A second later the hatch swung open, its twenty digit encryption code little more than child's play for her.
Silently, she swung herself through the hatch, shutting it behind her. There was a faint hiss as the corridor repressurised then she was alone, the darkened hallways seeming to reach for some distant, black horizon.
====
'Our sensors have detected another life form entering the vessel.' The words were spoken in a harsh guttural tongue, that of the Space Pirates.
'Show me.' The command was almost whispered but it carried a quiet menace, as well as a thinly veiled threat. 'Put it on screen now.'
At the centre of the cruiser's bridge, a vast holographic projection sprang into life. For a moment there was static before the picture sharpened, shifting from an overview of the whole cruiser before narrowing down to a single corridor. Abruptly the image changed again, switching from the scanners to a security camera. The hologram shimmered to reveal a darkened corridor before a flash of orange passed the camera and was gone.
'What was that?' The pirate in control of the display console asked.
'That,' the quiet voice said, 'Was the Hunter.' A silence fell over the room.
'The Hunter, here- urk!' The pirates question was cut off when he was grabbed round the throat and hurled across the room with astonishing speed. Groaning he picked himself up off the floor to find himself staring down the length of one, glowing thermal scythe. The scythe of his commander to be precise.
'You will take ten others with you down to the data core, which is where the Hunter must be heading. I do not care what you do, or how you do, simply stop her from retrieving any data. Destroy the core if you must, we already have what we need.'
For a moment the pirate contemplated refusing but then he remembered exactly what it was he'd heard about his commander. They called him 'Silver' for the brilliant streaks of silver material that he'd adorned his black armour with, but his name was Zanoth. Considered brutal even among the pirates, he had long been a favourite of Mother Brain's when it came to extortion and general piracy. Despite this though, he'd never been promoted very far, his natural propensity for violence far too excessive to entrust him with anything but the most basic of assignments. But with the events on Talon IV, the loss of Mother Brain and countless other losses, he had risen swiftly in the last few months. More to the point, he had once had a merchant who'd refused delivery of plasma weaponry killed by placing him in the barrel of a plasma artillery cannon.
'Yes... immediately...' the pirate stuttered, sighing with relief as the scythe pulled back just enough to let him stand.
'Do not fail,' Zanoth said, his voice quiet as ever, though each word wreaked of barely restrained rage. 'Else I shall have to kill you.'
====
Samus leapt to the side, her nose crinkling behind the visor as the acrid scent of ozone filled the air. With cold mechanical fury, the two turrets blocking her path continued to fire, tracking her even as she rolled behind the safety of a wall.
A second later she stepped out and fired off a single missile, the blast of concussive energy reducing the steel turrets to melted slag. Then she was off again, running down the corridor towards the data core. Up ahead another turret loomed up and this one was the recipient of a finely aimed missile as well. Perhaps a solid minute of running later, she reached the core, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the bright light.
Roughly octagonal in shape, the data core complied with the standard Federation design almost exactly. At the centre of the chamber was the tall central processing column, and on the walls were arrays of terminals. However something else caught her attention. Bending down to the floor she looked closely at a small, shining patch of blue so dark it was almost purple. Phazon.
Startled she thought back to the corridor and the peculiar stains she'd seen on the wall. They must have been phazon as well. That would explain how the pirates had managed to seize such a well armed vessel. Introduce even a small amount of phazon to the ventilation shafts and anyone breathing it in would die, the pain centres of their brain literally exploding from over stimulation.
Slowly she rose and swallowed nervously. She'd had more than one bad experience with phazon. But back to the task at hand, she had to start downloading as much information from the data core as she could and hopefully whatever reasons the pirates had for taking over this vessel and coming to Eternus VII would be revealed.
As she began the download, her metal sheathed hand pressed up against the central processing unit, she considered one of the other benefits, if you could call it one, of her new suit. Biologically fused to her, her suit passed on sensations, touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing with crystal clarity and so she shouldn't have been surprised that she could actually see and read the information as it was decrypted rather than waiting for a full translation. Sparing a moment to shut the doors, she closed her eyes as the information began to appear, filling the inky darkness behind her lids with glittering white lettering.
====
Data Entry FK-22ZT-EKA1
Eternus VII remains as much a mystery today as it has when I began my research. Despite numerous attempts to understand what kind of material could possibly cause the mutations we have seen in the native wildlife, little has been achieved.
However geological scans of the entire planet's surface have proved interesting. The planet's surface shows signs of major terraformation on a scale which we have never before encountered. Indeed the central plain which dominates the largest of the planet's continents sits atop a layer of what seems to be solid iron which is completely flat. This layer is perhaps seven hundred or more metres deep and has remained impervious to drilling and scanning attempts.
How such a layer was formed is beyond my understanding, as is its purpose. Perhaps when the plasma drilling team arrives I will be able to uncover more.
Data Entry DZ-54AF-EKA1
The plasma drilling team have provided a revelation. The material we thought to be iron, or iron ferrite was something entirely different. This material, of unknown composition and origin, shows remarkable resilience to physical and chemical attack. In fact, I estimate its physical toughness to be roughly ten times of bendezium's.
However the regularity with which this material was distributed, in an almost spherical shell beneath the planet's surface, leads me to believe it is being used to protect something. Much as we build our bunkers beneath layers of bendezium, I believe that someone, or something has constructed something of some importance beneath the rock and earth of Eternus VII.
Furthermore we have uncovered other things, relics, if you will from a forgotten past. Little more than tablets of language, we have successfully decoded around thirty percent of the symbols and are not far from a complete translation. Frequent references to 'Sanctuary' seem to occur in almost every tablet we have yet discovered. The significance of this remains unclear at this time though.
Data Entry TR-17DL-EKA1
We have found another strange material on Eternus VII. Great lodes of this material, one which the tablets refer to as 'Siravin' are located underneath several mountains on the main continent. This material though, demonstrates not physical strength, but energy absorption. Communication with colleagues involved with the metroid studies, has shown disturbing parallels. Much like metroids, this 'Siravin' consumes any energy it comes into contact with.
While others believe the lodes to be of natural origin, I myself disagree. To me, the distribution is too regular, as though the lodes were spokes in a wheel who's centre we cannot see. They remind me of batteries, storing vast amounts of thermal and solar energy to power some device we have not yet encountered. However, this is still but speculation and I may well be wrong but there is something here that reminds me not of nature's wonderful but haphazard hand, but of the cunning ways of man.
====
Samus broke the connection as soon as she realised the doors of the data core were being pried open. A fraction of a second later the doors actually blew apart, the bendezium plates bending obscenely before flying to opposite sides of the room.
Emerging from the smoking wreck of the door, eleven pirates streamed into the room, galvanic accelerators firing a wave of crimson energy bolts at her. Too late she realised her error in diving to the side as the data core died a screaming death, spewing its lifeblood of electricity around the room in gouts of white hot lightning.
Rolling onto her feet she returned fire, letting loose a missile into the tightly packed mass of pirates. They were ready for it though, and scattered, several taking up positions behind computer consoles while others moved closer, preparing to engage in melee combat.
The first reached her in less than a second, its scythe a glowing arc of tempered metal. With one hand she reached up, catching the pirates forearm and hurling him to the side as she activated her power beam and riddled his sprawling body with its lethal energy.
She turned to find the next one already in the air, leaping straight for her. Lacking the time to fire at him she side-stepped, moving smoothly to the left before she buried a fist into its gut. Satisfied she heard it gag, retching as her augmented strength cracked armour and shattered bone. A thrill surged through her veins, this she thought as she speared it with a stream of power beam energy, is power.
Bolder now, she strode forward, ignoring the somewhat inaccurate fire of the pirates hiding behind the consoles, evidently too scared by the silent, metal hunter that was killing them one by one, to aim accurately.
A harsh smile came to her lips as she lashed out with one foot, snapping a pirate's head around before she grabbed it and hurled it across the room to crash into its comrades. Growling she peppered the downed pirates with power beam fire, watching the energy send up fountains of gore.
Behind her the remaining pirates had formed a crude phalanx, their accelerators aimed squarely at her. She heard nothing but the distant hum of energy discharge before searing agony erupted along her back and she was jerked heavily from side to side. She whirled around almost immediately, blocking out the pain as more shots struck her chest, the organic linkages between her and her suit relaying every single sensation.
Stunned the pirates could only gape in horror as she knelt and fired off a missile again. This time they didn't dodge, their phalanx too tight to allow swift mobility. Instead they were caught in the blast, their armour disintegrating as their bodies were tossed about the room like rag dolls.
After the echo of the explosion had cleared, the data core was eerily silent. Indeed, except for her own harsh breathing, she could hear nothing. But just to be sure she scanned the bodies and found that one still lived. Grimly she walked over to it and hauled it off the floor to slam it into one of the walls.
It groaned and struggled, trying to bat her away with arms that were obviously broken. To quieten it she shoved her arm cannon in its face, almost relishing the fear that rolled off it in waves.
'Why are you on this ship?' She asked the question softly, letting her arm cannon do the threatening.
Instead of replying though the pirate made as if to escape, its feet scrabbling uselessly on the floor. So she punched it. Again it wouldn't stop moving, its eyes bulging from the sockets as it tried to flee. So she punched it again, and again, and again until it stopped moving.
It was the splatter of blood on her visor that stopped her. She could feel it, green and viscous flowing down the visor's shiny surface. Absently she dropped the pirate to the ground and stared at her blood covered hand. From nowhere came the urge to lick it, to bring the hand up to her face and smear it all over her cheek.
What's happening she thought, shaking as she suppressed the urge. Damn it, I always killed the pirates but I've never been like... like... An animal, a helpful part of her mind suggested, or perhaps like the SA-X?
Her contemplation was torn from her though, when the alarms in the room started to go off, one by one. A quick glance at the few remaining monitors confirmed her fears. The pirates were sealing off this part of the ship.
Automatically she broke into a run, making her way back through the now utterly silent corridors until she was at the hatch again. Swinging herself back up onto the cruiser's hull she realised she'd have to find another hatch to access the bridge. She had just started to move when she heard a noise to her left accompanied by a low hum.
To her left a laser turret had turned in her direction. Its four heavy laser cannons were indexing jerkily, targeting sensors sending out invisible rays of guidance in all directions. Almost instantly they found her and she was left standing on the hull with no cover staring down the barrel of a laser turret strong enough to take out a starfighter.
====
With childlike, delight, Zanoth watched the Hunter on the display screen, his right hand dancing across the guidance controls. On screen the Hunter had broken into a run, briskly turning this way and that in an attempt to avoid the laser turret's fire. But, wait, what was this?
Suddenly the Hunter leapt seemingly into empty space and landed on something that shimmered against the blackness of space. A cloaked ship, of course. Feeling his blood lust rise, Zanoth swung the laser turret around, turning its four cannons on the ship that he knew occupied the space beneath the Hunter.
The result was immediate and devastating. Fire blossomed and consumed the Hunter and a gunship materialised, its hill pitted and burning. Grinning, Zanoth opened fire again and watched, with no small degree of satisfaction, as the gunship fell towards Eternus VII, its engines dead and flames licking at its hull. He was even more pleased when he saw it strike the atmosphere, sending up a plume of bright orange. Nothing could possibly survive that.
====
On board her gunship, Samus suppressed a cry of agony. The inferno raging in her ship had eaten away parts of her armour, leaving bare skin exposed. Moreover her whole body was sore, the blasts had slammed her into the walls of her ship, hard, and she was almost certain she'd broken her right arm.
Blindly she crawled towards the command console, vainly trying to restore some semblance of order to her ship. But her body, bruised and burned refused to co-operate and the last thing she saw was the great sphere that was Eternus VII leering up at her like an enormous, judgemental eye.
====
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 :).
Now to answer any questions you might have about this part of the fic. The first thing I have to say is : yes, this chapter is longer than any of the others, but no, I am happy with it. Frankly, I did contemplate splitting it up into two parts but after writing it realised how bad that would be. Another thing, the way Samus dons her suit is something of my invention and is how I perceive the various corruptions to the original suit would interact. As for Zanoth, you can bet we'll be seeing more of him in the future :).
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!!!!
Eternus VII loomed before the Hunter class gunship, a seemingly cloudless sphere of blue, green and sandy yellow. Slowing down to prepare itself for landing, the gunship was suddenly caught, tossed about like a fish in a net as the very fabric of space began to groan.
Inside it, equipment, books, anything that wasn't bolted down began to quiver. Several glasses that hadn't broken in the initial jolt, sang and then exploded, the vibrations overloading their atomic structure. Iridescent fragments of glass filtered through the gunship as Samus struggled towards her command console through the suddenly zero gravity environment of the ship.
The normally azure blue of the sensory display was gone, replace instead by a miasma of static whites and blacks. Wildly, the gunship's sensors arced about the surrounding space, desperately seeking the source of the disturbance.
Then it appeared. Sleek and dangerous, the Galactic Federation Epsilon Class Cruiser, slipped through a gaping hole in space. Behind it, the darkness was taut, bent into impossible shapes and lightning flickered over the cruiser's flawless bendezium hull. As yet more the of the cruiser re- entered normal space from the seething aether of hyper-space, the gunship fired its thrusters, trying to put some distance between the two vessels.
Space, already overloaded screamed and time answered its cry, each single second stretching out into eternity. Inside her ship Samus moved in slow motion, her fingers tapping out the commands with painful laziness. Abruptly though, the temporal and spacial disruptions vanished, the rest of the cruiser dropping into normal space.
Startled by the sudden change, she did little but watch as the graceful bulk of the cruiser passed before her. Considered the mainstay of the Federation's forces, the Epsilon Class Cruisers had enough weaponry to turn a lush, verdant planet into a smoking crater in a few minutes.
Shaking her head once to clear her nausea she initiated standard communications protocol. After two minutes though, she still had not received a response. A quick scan of the cruiser revealed the reason. On a cruiser that should have had a crew of five thousand, there were only twenty five life signals. Further more all nonessential systems such as shields, anti-scanning fields, weapons and lights were down. Something, or someone had commandeered the cruiser.
Quietly, she contemplated the streamlined cruiser for a few moments before she made her decision. Grasping the controls of her gunship, she fired a few bursts from thrusters, taking her closer to the silent monolith floating almost beside her. That done, she programmed the computer, forcing it to stay as close to the cruiser as possible before she rose and stalked towards the gunship's armoury.
At the armoury door, a two feet slab of solid bendezium, she stopped and entered a fifteen digit sequence that she had long ago burnt into her mind. This was followed by a retinal and palm scan before at last the massive door swung open, revealing little more than an empty chamber and a pool of bright, phosphorescent liquid.
When first she had begun her life as a bounty hunter, Samus had stocked this armoury with everything from concealable pistols to plasma mortars. But now, now there was only one weapon she needed and already she could hear it, feel its metallic voice beckoning to her.
Gingerly as always, she stepped up to the pool of liquid, studying it for a few moments. Inside her head she heard it whisper, promises of power and glory, flame and thunder ringing in her ears. The first time she'd heard its voice, she'd almost fainted from the shock, thinking that she managed to leave that aspect of her suit behind on the doomed space station around SR-388.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, she stepped onto the pool. At the once the lights shifting within it flared, an inner radiance springing up around her and bathing the dark chamber in an unnatural light. The liquid rose from the floor, arching up to cover first her feet and then snaking up her calves. When it reached her waist she tossed aside her silk robe, remembering all to well what the liquid thought of her clothes. In a few moments it had slid up her thighs and hips, moulding to her belly before rising still further to slide up past her chest and coat her arms. As always she felt a small surge of panic as the liquid closed over her face, sealing her in darkness, left with nothing buts its icy touch and its cold, steel voice.
As soon as it had covered her, the liquid's shimmering surface began to solidify. Colour appeared, the familiar orange sweeping across the liquid as it hardened into almost impenetrable metal. Beneath the metal surface, countless bio-metallic nerves sprang up, binding Samus' eyes to the visor, her right arm to the arm cannon and her whole body to the suit. Then it was done, and instead of liquid there was only metal, and instead of second skin of silver, the suit had taken on its familiar form.
Striding back into the command area, she smiled, feeling the pulsing strength of the suit as every cell in her body sang with power. Lazily she made her way over to the transport elevator and rode it all the way up, coming to a rest on top of her gunship. Fifty feet across from her the cruiser maintained a steady course, unaware of her, a testament to the cloaking abilities of her gunship.
One graceful leap and she was sailing across the gap, twisting as she fell to land solidly on the hardened armour of the cruiser. Carefully, she made her way along the massive vessel's hull until she came to one of several emergency exit hatches. A second later the hatch swung open, its twenty digit encryption code little more than child's play for her.
Silently, she swung herself through the hatch, shutting it behind her. There was a faint hiss as the corridor repressurised then she was alone, the darkened hallways seeming to reach for some distant, black horizon.
====
'Our sensors have detected another life form entering the vessel.' The words were spoken in a harsh guttural tongue, that of the Space Pirates.
'Show me.' The command was almost whispered but it carried a quiet menace, as well as a thinly veiled threat. 'Put it on screen now.'
At the centre of the cruiser's bridge, a vast holographic projection sprang into life. For a moment there was static before the picture sharpened, shifting from an overview of the whole cruiser before narrowing down to a single corridor. Abruptly the image changed again, switching from the scanners to a security camera. The hologram shimmered to reveal a darkened corridor before a flash of orange passed the camera and was gone.
'What was that?' The pirate in control of the display console asked.
'That,' the quiet voice said, 'Was the Hunter.' A silence fell over the room.
'The Hunter, here- urk!' The pirates question was cut off when he was grabbed round the throat and hurled across the room with astonishing speed. Groaning he picked himself up off the floor to find himself staring down the length of one, glowing thermal scythe. The scythe of his commander to be precise.
'You will take ten others with you down to the data core, which is where the Hunter must be heading. I do not care what you do, or how you do, simply stop her from retrieving any data. Destroy the core if you must, we already have what we need.'
For a moment the pirate contemplated refusing but then he remembered exactly what it was he'd heard about his commander. They called him 'Silver' for the brilliant streaks of silver material that he'd adorned his black armour with, but his name was Zanoth. Considered brutal even among the pirates, he had long been a favourite of Mother Brain's when it came to extortion and general piracy. Despite this though, he'd never been promoted very far, his natural propensity for violence far too excessive to entrust him with anything but the most basic of assignments. But with the events on Talon IV, the loss of Mother Brain and countless other losses, he had risen swiftly in the last few months. More to the point, he had once had a merchant who'd refused delivery of plasma weaponry killed by placing him in the barrel of a plasma artillery cannon.
'Yes... immediately...' the pirate stuttered, sighing with relief as the scythe pulled back just enough to let him stand.
'Do not fail,' Zanoth said, his voice quiet as ever, though each word wreaked of barely restrained rage. 'Else I shall have to kill you.'
====
Samus leapt to the side, her nose crinkling behind the visor as the acrid scent of ozone filled the air. With cold mechanical fury, the two turrets blocking her path continued to fire, tracking her even as she rolled behind the safety of a wall.
A second later she stepped out and fired off a single missile, the blast of concussive energy reducing the steel turrets to melted slag. Then she was off again, running down the corridor towards the data core. Up ahead another turret loomed up and this one was the recipient of a finely aimed missile as well. Perhaps a solid minute of running later, she reached the core, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the bright light.
Roughly octagonal in shape, the data core complied with the standard Federation design almost exactly. At the centre of the chamber was the tall central processing column, and on the walls were arrays of terminals. However something else caught her attention. Bending down to the floor she looked closely at a small, shining patch of blue so dark it was almost purple. Phazon.
Startled she thought back to the corridor and the peculiar stains she'd seen on the wall. They must have been phazon as well. That would explain how the pirates had managed to seize such a well armed vessel. Introduce even a small amount of phazon to the ventilation shafts and anyone breathing it in would die, the pain centres of their brain literally exploding from over stimulation.
Slowly she rose and swallowed nervously. She'd had more than one bad experience with phazon. But back to the task at hand, she had to start downloading as much information from the data core as she could and hopefully whatever reasons the pirates had for taking over this vessel and coming to Eternus VII would be revealed.
As she began the download, her metal sheathed hand pressed up against the central processing unit, she considered one of the other benefits, if you could call it one, of her new suit. Biologically fused to her, her suit passed on sensations, touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing with crystal clarity and so she shouldn't have been surprised that she could actually see and read the information as it was decrypted rather than waiting for a full translation. Sparing a moment to shut the doors, she closed her eyes as the information began to appear, filling the inky darkness behind her lids with glittering white lettering.
====
Data Entry FK-22ZT-EKA1
Eternus VII remains as much a mystery today as it has when I began my research. Despite numerous attempts to understand what kind of material could possibly cause the mutations we have seen in the native wildlife, little has been achieved.
However geological scans of the entire planet's surface have proved interesting. The planet's surface shows signs of major terraformation on a scale which we have never before encountered. Indeed the central plain which dominates the largest of the planet's continents sits atop a layer of what seems to be solid iron which is completely flat. This layer is perhaps seven hundred or more metres deep and has remained impervious to drilling and scanning attempts.
How such a layer was formed is beyond my understanding, as is its purpose. Perhaps when the plasma drilling team arrives I will be able to uncover more.
Data Entry DZ-54AF-EKA1
The plasma drilling team have provided a revelation. The material we thought to be iron, or iron ferrite was something entirely different. This material, of unknown composition and origin, shows remarkable resilience to physical and chemical attack. In fact, I estimate its physical toughness to be roughly ten times of bendezium's.
However the regularity with which this material was distributed, in an almost spherical shell beneath the planet's surface, leads me to believe it is being used to protect something. Much as we build our bunkers beneath layers of bendezium, I believe that someone, or something has constructed something of some importance beneath the rock and earth of Eternus VII.
Furthermore we have uncovered other things, relics, if you will from a forgotten past. Little more than tablets of language, we have successfully decoded around thirty percent of the symbols and are not far from a complete translation. Frequent references to 'Sanctuary' seem to occur in almost every tablet we have yet discovered. The significance of this remains unclear at this time though.
Data Entry TR-17DL-EKA1
We have found another strange material on Eternus VII. Great lodes of this material, one which the tablets refer to as 'Siravin' are located underneath several mountains on the main continent. This material though, demonstrates not physical strength, but energy absorption. Communication with colleagues involved with the metroid studies, has shown disturbing parallels. Much like metroids, this 'Siravin' consumes any energy it comes into contact with.
While others believe the lodes to be of natural origin, I myself disagree. To me, the distribution is too regular, as though the lodes were spokes in a wheel who's centre we cannot see. They remind me of batteries, storing vast amounts of thermal and solar energy to power some device we have not yet encountered. However, this is still but speculation and I may well be wrong but there is something here that reminds me not of nature's wonderful but haphazard hand, but of the cunning ways of man.
====
Samus broke the connection as soon as she realised the doors of the data core were being pried open. A fraction of a second later the doors actually blew apart, the bendezium plates bending obscenely before flying to opposite sides of the room.
Emerging from the smoking wreck of the door, eleven pirates streamed into the room, galvanic accelerators firing a wave of crimson energy bolts at her. Too late she realised her error in diving to the side as the data core died a screaming death, spewing its lifeblood of electricity around the room in gouts of white hot lightning.
Rolling onto her feet she returned fire, letting loose a missile into the tightly packed mass of pirates. They were ready for it though, and scattered, several taking up positions behind computer consoles while others moved closer, preparing to engage in melee combat.
The first reached her in less than a second, its scythe a glowing arc of tempered metal. With one hand she reached up, catching the pirates forearm and hurling him to the side as she activated her power beam and riddled his sprawling body with its lethal energy.
She turned to find the next one already in the air, leaping straight for her. Lacking the time to fire at him she side-stepped, moving smoothly to the left before she buried a fist into its gut. Satisfied she heard it gag, retching as her augmented strength cracked armour and shattered bone. A thrill surged through her veins, this she thought as she speared it with a stream of power beam energy, is power.
Bolder now, she strode forward, ignoring the somewhat inaccurate fire of the pirates hiding behind the consoles, evidently too scared by the silent, metal hunter that was killing them one by one, to aim accurately.
A harsh smile came to her lips as she lashed out with one foot, snapping a pirate's head around before she grabbed it and hurled it across the room to crash into its comrades. Growling she peppered the downed pirates with power beam fire, watching the energy send up fountains of gore.
Behind her the remaining pirates had formed a crude phalanx, their accelerators aimed squarely at her. She heard nothing but the distant hum of energy discharge before searing agony erupted along her back and she was jerked heavily from side to side. She whirled around almost immediately, blocking out the pain as more shots struck her chest, the organic linkages between her and her suit relaying every single sensation.
Stunned the pirates could only gape in horror as she knelt and fired off a missile again. This time they didn't dodge, their phalanx too tight to allow swift mobility. Instead they were caught in the blast, their armour disintegrating as their bodies were tossed about the room like rag dolls.
After the echo of the explosion had cleared, the data core was eerily silent. Indeed, except for her own harsh breathing, she could hear nothing. But just to be sure she scanned the bodies and found that one still lived. Grimly she walked over to it and hauled it off the floor to slam it into one of the walls.
It groaned and struggled, trying to bat her away with arms that were obviously broken. To quieten it she shoved her arm cannon in its face, almost relishing the fear that rolled off it in waves.
'Why are you on this ship?' She asked the question softly, letting her arm cannon do the threatening.
Instead of replying though the pirate made as if to escape, its feet scrabbling uselessly on the floor. So she punched it. Again it wouldn't stop moving, its eyes bulging from the sockets as it tried to flee. So she punched it again, and again, and again until it stopped moving.
It was the splatter of blood on her visor that stopped her. She could feel it, green and viscous flowing down the visor's shiny surface. Absently she dropped the pirate to the ground and stared at her blood covered hand. From nowhere came the urge to lick it, to bring the hand up to her face and smear it all over her cheek.
What's happening she thought, shaking as she suppressed the urge. Damn it, I always killed the pirates but I've never been like... like... An animal, a helpful part of her mind suggested, or perhaps like the SA-X?
Her contemplation was torn from her though, when the alarms in the room started to go off, one by one. A quick glance at the few remaining monitors confirmed her fears. The pirates were sealing off this part of the ship.
Automatically she broke into a run, making her way back through the now utterly silent corridors until she was at the hatch again. Swinging herself back up onto the cruiser's hull she realised she'd have to find another hatch to access the bridge. She had just started to move when she heard a noise to her left accompanied by a low hum.
To her left a laser turret had turned in her direction. Its four heavy laser cannons were indexing jerkily, targeting sensors sending out invisible rays of guidance in all directions. Almost instantly they found her and she was left standing on the hull with no cover staring down the barrel of a laser turret strong enough to take out a starfighter.
====
With childlike, delight, Zanoth watched the Hunter on the display screen, his right hand dancing across the guidance controls. On screen the Hunter had broken into a run, briskly turning this way and that in an attempt to avoid the laser turret's fire. But, wait, what was this?
Suddenly the Hunter leapt seemingly into empty space and landed on something that shimmered against the blackness of space. A cloaked ship, of course. Feeling his blood lust rise, Zanoth swung the laser turret around, turning its four cannons on the ship that he knew occupied the space beneath the Hunter.
The result was immediate and devastating. Fire blossomed and consumed the Hunter and a gunship materialised, its hill pitted and burning. Grinning, Zanoth opened fire again and watched, with no small degree of satisfaction, as the gunship fell towards Eternus VII, its engines dead and flames licking at its hull. He was even more pleased when he saw it strike the atmosphere, sending up a plume of bright orange. Nothing could possibly survive that.
====
On board her gunship, Samus suppressed a cry of agony. The inferno raging in her ship had eaten away parts of her armour, leaving bare skin exposed. Moreover her whole body was sore, the blasts had slammed her into the walls of her ship, hard, and she was almost certain she'd broken her right arm.
Blindly she crawled towards the command console, vainly trying to restore some semblance of order to her ship. But her body, bruised and burned refused to co-operate and the last thing she saw was the great sphere that was Eternus VII leering up at her like an enormous, judgemental eye.
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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 :).
Now to answer any questions you might have about this part of the fic. The first thing I have to say is : yes, this chapter is longer than any of the others, but no, I am happy with it. Frankly, I did contemplate splitting it up into two parts but after writing it realised how bad that would be. Another thing, the way Samus dons her suit is something of my invention and is how I perceive the various corruptions to the original suit would interact. As for Zanoth, you can bet we'll be seeing more of him in the future :).
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!!!!