Chapter the Second: In which Samus receives Disturbing News which could bring about her downfall.
Five minutes remaining. For some reason there were always blinking lights and obnoxiously screeching alarms accompanying any planet evacuation. Most would think Samus was used to it by now, but the truth was that it never got any easier. Knowing a planet was about to be irrevocably changed, or a space station utterly destroyed because of her was never easy. It meant that in addition to being the great Savior she was also the great Destroyer.
Two minutes remaining. With two minutes there was no way she'd be able to rescue the Daschora, which she regretted, but it was unavoidable. The etecoons she could let rot. Stupid little blue furballs and their fancy wall jumps, giggling at her ineptitude... well, they would see who was wall jumping now, as their incinerated pieces flew out to decorate the far reaches of space...
Time is up. NO! She was so close to her ship—
Samus awoke gasping, feeling her heart beat furiously and relentlessly at her sternum. She couldn't believe the destruction of Zebes still haunted her, and it wasn't just because of the etecoons, or even the daschora. She caught her breath and got her bearings again. She was in her gunship. The baby Metroid, which she'd smuggled off of Zebes, rested comfortably at the foot of her bunk. And the comlink alert was flashing above her, buzzing softly.
Samus stumbled out of bed, irritating the Metroid, who clicked its pincers at her in annoyance, and possibly threat. It was cute, yes, but it was also the ultimate weapon, an engineered predator. She made her way to the cockpit, not even pausing to grimace at the groans of the gunship. They were as threatening as the Metroid, but not as threatening as the constantly buzzing and flashing comlink. She fell into the cockpit seat, still not entirely awake, and slapped the button that brought her to her inbox.
At this, she wished she was back on Zebes, awaiting its imminent destruction. The communique was from the FFF, or Federation Fiscal Facility.
Dear Samus Aran,
Due to questionable information on your tax returns the FFF has opted to perform an audit on your financial situation for the previous fiscal year before it can finish processing your returns and dole out any refund due. A tax agent will arrive at your domicile one week from today. Please have any applicable documentation, including itemized receipts, available to expedite the process.
Sincerely,
Armstrong Huston II
FFF Agent
Samus swore loudly and smashed her fist into the dash, then swore again as pain radiated through her fist and up her arm. Armstrong Huston: what a bastard! He'd been a sell-out in his "bounty hunting days", if they could be called that, since he'd never managed to hunt a single thing. And he was a sell-out now.
Or maybe she was. After all, it was her falsification of information that landed her in this mess. She cast a guilty glace at the Metroid, which had made its way to the cockpit, pincers still clicking, turned toward her in a way that she supposed was assessing her availability as a meal. In the last months, as money dwindled, food did too, and neither of them had been eating very well lately. She thought about making a deal with this creature, a cut of the tax return money, and realized that it would have no use for the money. It would prefer a cut of her.
She sat blankly for an uncertain amount of time. Financial records. She'd need to find those. It wouldn't be hard, because there weren't a lot of them these days, and her domicile, as the communique put it, was her gunship. Piece of crap as it was, she still owned it, and couldn't afford the overinflated rents on the Federation platforms. With peace restored to the galaxy, there weren't many jobs for her these days, and other than bounty hunting, she didn't know what else she could do, so she scrimped and lived off as much of her rewards as she could. She supposed, if peace was restored to the galaxy, she wouldn't really need her Power Suit, and could auction it off, but the truth was that she was attached to it. Not in the literal biological sense, but mentally. Emotionally. The same way she was attached to the Metroid, which, if it had had eyes, would be eyeing her hungrily right now.
Well, there was no way out of the mess now. She would just have to do her best to pull off this ruse, and hope that, A, the audit was just a formality, and B, that her reputation as the galactic savior was enough to keep her safe from paying out the ass.
