Chapter the Third: In which the Bobs, FFF Tax Agents Extraordinaire, arrive at Samus Aran's domicile, prepared to Audit her finances from the previous fiscal year.
Bob the First glanced at Bob the Second as they approached the landing lot on Federation Platform Beta. "This is her domicile?" he asked.
Bob the Second appraised the ship. "I suppose so. Those bounty hunters... they don't make what they used to, you know."
"Apparently. But a place to raise a dependent?"
"Who knows. Single motherhood was never easy, regardless of the era or planet, you know. Perhaps this is the best she can do. What with her career pretty much over."
"I suppose, Bob. You usually do have a good point."
"Thanks, Bob."
"You're welcome, Bob."
The Bobs approached the ship, unable to miss the rust patches on the underside of the hunter-class gunship, or the way the paint job had started chipping away at the edges of plates. The ingress/egress ramp leading up to the entrance creaked ominously as they marched up in unison, and rapped in unison on the door.
There was a slight hiss of the airlock releasing, and then they stood face to face with Samus Aran. As per usual she was clothed in her foreboding power suit, the golds and reds of the mysterious metal plates gleaming in contrast to the dull ship around them. "Gentlemen," said the mechanized voice. A metal-encased hand gestured to allow them in. "Let's make this quick, I have a job in another system."
The Bobs nodded sagely, again in unison, as Samus cringed beneath her visor. When conducting official business she always wore her suit, as it made her far more imposing, which, she supposed, was one reason she couldn't bring herself to auction it off. But beneath the helmet and visor, face barely visible, she was able to use the barrier to bend the truth to suit her needs.
The truth was that she wanted these tax agents out of her ship as quickly as possible. And she did want to get to another system, but there was no job waiting. There never was. And she cringed, because in that sage, unison nod of the identically dressed Bobs, it seemed they saw directly through her lie.
"Don't worry, this is just routine."
"It shouldn't take long."
"Provided you have the proper documents."
"Do you?"
Samus's hard metal feet marched over to a box sitting on the table, and her gloved hand shoved it toward the Bobs. One of them, she didn't know which, flew toward it with lightning quick reflexes and caught it before it tumbled off the table, scattering its contents everywhere. "Thank you," he said cordially, automatically.
For a fleeting moment Samus hoped they were cyborgs; they'd be easy to take out, and blame a circuitry malfunction. Her wave beam was still functional, barely, but enough to cause such a "malfunction".
She surreptitiously switched to her scan visor, which, while running low on juice, had enough to identify something already in the system: human. She sighed and pushed ideas of further fraud out of her mind. "Thank you," she replied, retreating to a corner of the main compartment of the ship, and watching as the Bobs sifted through her paperwork and began determining her fate.
"Well, we believe we're almost done," Bob the First, or was it the Second? said genially, primly placing the last of the paperwork into the box. "Everything here seems in order," the other one said in the same tone of voice.
Samus was about to heave a sigh of relief behind her visor, which was starting to develop condensation on it (the suit's cooling systems were failing slowly), when Bobs said, "But."
"But... what?" she said in her even, business tone of voice. "Everything seems in order."
"Yes. But... where is your dependent?"
"My... my dependent?" she asked, faltering for the first time.
"Yes. That is the real reason we're here." Bobs smiled in unison, folding their hands primly in their laps. "You checked that you had a dependent on your forms."
"Oh. Yes, yes I did."
"What is its name?"
Name? Samus thought furiously. "Its name? Hatch," she said, thinking of the first thing that came to mind. "Hatch. Male. Young. Taking a nap, would not like to be disturbed." However, Samus thought, if they were to disturb "Hatch"... that could put an end to some of her problems. But then she'd face an audit for having a dangerous, supposed-eradicated alien life form in her possession...
"Do you have documentation for Hatch?"
"Like a birth certificate."
"Or certificate of adoption."
"Anything will do, really."
"Yes, just a formality."
"I... I should... just give me a moment to look. The communique asked for financial documentation, not familial," she added, hoping they'd buy the excuse.
"It's alright."
"We have the time."
"Haha, yes, we do. This is our job, after all."
"And this audit's taken far less time than they usually do, wouldn't you agree, Bob?"
"Yes, I certainly would, Bob."
Samus backed away from the room, and into the cockpit, where "Hatch" started and chirped angrily at seeing her in her suit. It screeched violently and attached itself to her helmet, draining the already low power reserves. Samus folded into her morph ball form and let off a pitifully weak bomb, but it was enough to dislodge the Metroid, yet blessedly not enough to further damage her ship.
She paced the cramped confines a bit, the Metroid watching her and her arm cannon nervously. "We have two choices," she said, more to herself than to the Metroid, who was still recovering from the blast. "We can tell them we lost the documents. That could work. Or... or you could come out with me..." she watched the Metroid carefully, wondering just how she could pull this off.
A quarter of an hour later the Bobs still sat in the main compartment with their hands folded primly in their laps, watching the door to the cockpit with cordial smiles plastered on their faces. Slowly the cockpit door slid open, and Samus Aran stepped out, suitless. But it was not the sight of suitless Samus that made them lose their smiles and drop their jaws, and reach for their comlinks and say, in unison, "Huston... we have a problem."
