Sarah Aran held her beloved daughter tight to her chest, running through the large house that had once belonged to a good friend of the family. Amongst many other innocents, the owner of the house was now dead, crushed by the leader's massive tail. She'd heard tales of the Space Pirates, fragmented though the information was, but she'd never heard of anything even remotely like that… that monster that led them. Twenty feet tall, with a tail almost as long, and with a wingspan so wide it could carry its massive bulk through the air, it looked like a mindless beast… but Sarah had looked directly into it's eyes after it had killed her husband, and seen an intelligence that frightened her. It truly was a monster if it was as smart as she feared. Samus cried out "Mommy, I'm scared!" Sarah ran her hands through her daughter's hair and tried to soothe her, though it was futile, since she herself had never been more terrified. She could her the noises those creatures made getting louder, could still hear the screaming. Sarah was thanking whatever deity might be listening, however, that Samus had not witnessed the way her father had died. He'd grabbed the emergency pistol, but it was futile. Fully charged, it could only stun the pirates, and it was utterly useless against that winged monstrosity. Sarah herself knew that even if she survived the night, she would wake up screaming for years afterward from what she had seen. She had no idea why they had attacked, but she knew they didn't take prisoners. She finally found herself at a dead end. The bedroom. There was a gaping hole in the wall, and a busted steam pipe next to a large wardrobe. That gave her an idea. If they were using thermal imaging, (Considering what she'd heard of previous colony massacres, it seemed likely that they did, so as to avoid leaving survivors.) a human heat signature could be masked by the steam pipe. But a large signature could still give them away. She knew what she had to do to ensure her daughter's survival.
"Samus, climb in here." Thank the stars her daughter did as she was told. "Samus, I'm going to find another place to hide, so don't worry about me. But I need you to promise me something. Promise me that you won't – you won't make a sound. Promise me that you won't leave this closet. You must hide here until you hear human voices, okay? Until you hear the soldiers that are on their way, you must hide here from the monsters!" Samus' eyes were full of tears, but she nodded. "O-okay. I love you, mommy." Sarah, trying hard herself not to cry, gave her daughter a big hug. "I love you too, Samus." She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a necklace. "Samus, keep this with you. It will make you safe. I promise. Now, remember to stay quiet!" She smiled, the most forced smile she had ever done, and closed the door. She turned to the hole in the wall, took a deep breath, and ran out into the street, running as far as she could, looking for something. There. The monster. The leader. She picked up a broken piece of brick and threw it at him. It turned, surprisingly fast. "Hey, you big freak! Come get me!" It leaned back its head and roared, a sound that chilled her heart. Then, almost faster than her eyes could follow, it took flight, and soared towards her, mouth open, full of razor-sharp teeth…
Sarah Aran gave her daughter a second gift then. She didn't make a sound as she died. Samus never had to hear her mother's screams.
Samus was terrified. Mommy had told her that there were no such things as monsters, but now they were here. She didn't know how long she'd been here, she couldn't quite tell time yet even if she could find a watch. She had clamped her hands over her mouth to keep from crying. Several times she had heard the monsters outside the closet, making awful noises. Was that how they talked? She was so scared. She hadn't heard anything at all, though, for the last while. All she could hear was the steam coming out of the pipe. Finally she thought she heard something, but, while it wasn't the noise the monsters had made, it definitely wasn't human speech. Then… she did hear it. "It's all right, child. You can come out. They're gone." Slowly, she opened the door. And while the creature standing there wasn't human, she couldn't imagine it hurting her. It looked sort of like a bird, but she'd never seen a bird as tall as Daddy. It reached out for her with a three-fingered hand, and finally crying, she ran into its arms. And then there was a strange buzzing sound…
Samus blinked a few times. For a few seconds, she was still confused. What happened to the creature? Where was Mommy? Then she remembered. She was lying in her bunk on her ship. The only place she felt truly at home anymore. It had been many years since she'd last actually seen a Chozo, and her mother had been dead far longer than that. She sat up, sighing. She'd been having the dream more and more often recently. The parts where her mother died were embellished, fabricated by her imagination, but she did know that Ridley had been the one who ended Sarah Aran's life. That sort of detail wasn't exactly common knowledge, but Samus had ways of making computers divulge information she needed. The being that had been most responsible for ruining Samus' life, the winged terror known as Ridley, had been her constant nemesis. He somehow found a way to be where she had to go. The fact that she had killed him three times didn't stop the pain any. Her heart had nearly stopped the first time she had seen him alive again, resurrected, on that freighter in orbit around Tallon IV. But that had been a long time ago, and she actually went into missions expecting to find Ridley along the way.
The buzzing wasn't ordered. She would often set the computer to wake her when the ship reached its destination, or if she simply wanted to be awake at a certain time. This one wasn't planned, so it meant one two things. Either the ship was under attack, which seemed unlikely, considering the attack alarm was more of a klaxon, or someone was trying to contact her. She walked up to her command seat, and pushed a few buttons. Galactic Federation Headquarters. "Damnit." If it had been any of her other customers, she'd merely have sent the automatic "Time not convenient" response. It never failed to piss off the sender, but at least she'd get some shut-eye. And that was one thing she needed. She had just gotten back from a particularly rough job. Not exactly as harrowing as the Zebes job, but then, jobs which require you to escape a planet before it explodes aren't exactly common. No, this was from Federation HQ. That meant it was a biggie. If she didn't answer, or if she send the inconvenient reply, they'd come up with some law she'd broken and offer to drop the charges if she did this job. She shook her head and pushed the receiver button. At least this way she could make some money.
A man appeared on screen, with a tired grin and a somewhat dopey look in his eyes, which was of course on purpose, to get people to underestimate him. "Ahh, Ms. Aran. A pleasure, as always." It was a senator, the one with the annoyingly nasal voice, the one who's name she could never remember. "I sincerely doubt that, senator. Why did you call me? I'm not exactly the sort who likes to chat." The smile dropped from his face. "Cutting right to the chase, as usual. Fine. I'll put it briefly. We've got a job for you to do." Samus just looked at him. "I kind of figured that. I need details, senator." The man rolled his eyes. "Samus, I know you're not exactly the type to use titles, so I'm going to guess that, once again, you've forgotten my name. What do I have to do, write 'Billings' on my forehead every time we have a job?" Samus just crossed her arms and said nothing. Billings shrugged. "Fine. We have a research team going to be collecting samples on an ecosystem we know very little about. We need someone-" Samus cut him off. "To escort the scientists? Billings, I'm not a babysitter. Get your soldiers to do it." Billings' smile returned. "Ah, but my dear Samus, we want you in particular. You see, no one knows more about this specific ecosystem than you." Samus frowned for a second then froze as realization hit. "SR388." Billings once again looked like the Cheshire cat. "Exactly."
It was now two weeks later, and Samus found herself standing in almost exactly the same place she had years earlier when she had come to the planet to wipe out the Metroids. The biggest differences were two in number. First, she was fully equipped this time. Missiles, both regular and super, bombs, power bombs, both the varia and gravity suits, and a fully upgraded beam, with the wave, spazer, ice, plasma, and charge attachments. She was a walking arsenal. She waited where she was, doing routine system maintenance on her power suit, and watched the scientist's landing craft touch down not far from her own, a small gunship that actually bore somewhat of a resemblance to the helmet of Samus' power suit. The letters "B.S.L." were stencilled into the sides. This was a contracted work from a small part of the Federation, the Biologic research division. It amused her when the people who exited the craft were wearing battle suits somewhat similar to her own. Looks like after the Metroid fiasco, they weren't taking any chances. Of course, the technology of her suit was hundreds, if not thousands of years more advanced than that of the scientist's. The Chozo were once the most powerful force in the galaxy, and yet they never used their technology to conquer. As the group made their way towards her, Samus pushed all thought of the Chozo from her mind. She had a job to do.
It had all been pretty routine so far. Routine, and mind-numbingly dull. She had pretty much tuned out the scientist's chatter, having come to the conclusion that she had no idea what they were talking about with all the references to textbooks that were probably thicker than her arms, or specific details about the geologic samples. So far, her job had been easy. The only time she'd had to fire was when one of the scientists had wandered too close to a hidden gawron nest, and the flying nuisances started trying to kill her. Now she led them down a tunnel, which she knew, thanks to her old maps, led to a dead end. The only thing in the room, sitting on a large rock, was a small, frog-like critter she knew to be called a hornoad. She'd killed dozens of them before, it wasn't exactly like they were her greatest enemy. Truth be told, she tended to ignore them after a while. But this one leapt straight for the scientists, so Samus was forced to blow it away. It jumped over her first missile, which, while unusual, was not impossible. The missile's light explosive charge sent bits of stone flying in all directions, but it wasn't powerful enough to really damage the wall. The hornoad ducked under her second shot, which was disconcerting. But she plastered it all over the wall with her third. If she had been in a more focused state of mind, she might have noticed that its remains were all one colour, and remained in a single lump. But in the microseconds it took for her to glance at her missile readout, the lump had fallen off the wall, and landed on her. This was hardly new, when it's your job to kill various creatures, a little splatter is inevitable. But the blood and gore usually doesn't seek out the cracks in your armour and seep into them. Samus clawed at her armour, but it was over so quickly she thought she must have imagined it. There was no trace of the former hornoad on her chestplate at all. A little shaken, she turned around and told the lead scientist it would be a good idea to call it a day.
A few hours later, Samus was escorting the BSL ship back to the space station they had set up in the sector, and things were going smoothly. Until something odd happened. As Samus watched the screen on her ship, the lines designating various spatial routes and objects of note began blurring. The bounty hunter frowned. She kept her ship operating at 110 efficiency. The computer had never malfunctioned before, so even a small thing like a flawed image was something to worry about. She meant to reach over and knock on the side of the unit a few times, see if it was just a misaligned circuit, but her arm just flopped over and dropped, like it weighed a ton. Now, Samus realized, everything she could see was blurry, and she began to feel light-headed. The problem wasn't with the computer, it was with her. She reached over for the communications panel, but her hand dropped again, hitting one of the manoeuvring controls on its way down to her side. Samus' head tilted back as the galaxy's most famous bounty hunter lost consciousness. Following the manoeuvring order it had received, the gunship began listing to starboard. Not that anyone was able to see it, but the screen changed to a view of an asteroid field, with a small representation of Samus' gunship heading for it. "Warning." The computer's mellow voice stated. "Current trajectory results in collision course with object number 622-C. Please adjust trajectory." The little gunship on the screen kept going closer and closer to the asteroid belt, one of the space rocks in particular flashing, next to an expanded view showing a live feed of the asteroid in question. A timer in the corner of the screen was counting down both the time remaining to adjust the course, and the rapidly shrinking distance between the gunship and the hard, unforgiving rock.
The ship's timing system was accurate to the millisecond. True to its word, exactly as the timer reached 00:00:00, Samus Aran's famous gunship ploughed into the surface of the asteroid, exploded, and was utterly destroyed.
