Chapter Fifteen: As the Crow Flies

The iris door closed behind them. They were standing in the middle of a corridor. Looking to the left, Samus could see the main iris to the outside world. Sitting on a chair near to it was an aging Space Pirate in slumber. So much for high security she thought.

Opposite the door to chapter fourteen was another, similar door. Samus fired another power beam blast infused with the access codes and this new door also opened. Telling Link to stay here, she entered.

In the room she found a few standard Zebestian storage crates, one of which was open. Looking inside Samus could see that it contained several stolen GF weapons such as a few standard issue Colt 29mm Plasma Revolvers (codenamed Python), a zero-point energy device (codenamed Gravity Gun) and several λ45 explosives (codenamed λ45 explosives).

She removed the Gravity Gun and fused it with her grapple beam, thinking it would be fun to play with after this was over. She also removed all the Pythons and λ45s and put them in one of the many holdalls on the side of the room.

Putting the holdall over her shoulder, she saw that there was a computer terminal in the corner of the room with what could be used as a data port to download any information onto her suits computer. Surprised to find that it wasn't locked, she found a map of the building and downloaded it to her suit.

"Hold this," she said as she gave him the holdall. Link looked like he was about to protest and then like he wasn't.

Samus had superimposed the quickest route to the summit onto the map and they started to follow it. They walked down the surprisingly empty corridor for about a hundred metres until they came to another iris door. Samus opened it in the same way as before and they entered the lift. When she found out that the lift needed a code to go anywhere, she scanned it to find that the best way of overriding the code was my messing around with the wires behind the code panel.

Link pried it off with his sword and cut the wires that Samus said to. Samus then connected two wires together and the other panel, that was showing the available floors, lit up. She pressed the button for the top floor and the lift started to ascend.

It was about three floors from the top when Samus disconnected the wires that she had connected earlier. When Link asked her what she was doing she informed him that there was a ventilation shaft above the corridor at the top which they were going to go through. She blasted a hole in the roof and they climbed through it.

"Oh, very clever," snided Link, "how were you planning to get us up their then?" Samus was going to enjoy this.

She switched to her newly added Gravity Gun and used it to pick Link up and lift him to the top, where he grabbed onto the nearest thing he could, which happened to be the vent. Samus casually grappled up there and looked at Link.

"Don't ever do that again." he whimpered.

They were now at the top of the south tower. The corridor they were above was the bridge that was this tower's only connection with the central column of the colossus. About half way across the bridge the vent opened into it. As the only other option was to carry on through a moving fan, Samus pulled up the vent hatch and hung from the roof to see if there was anyone in the bridge. The only life in there was a rather large beetle, about the size of a rugby ball, walking in circles by the door. This door was a very dark grey, so if the Space Pirates hadn't changed their colour coding, they had to kill the beetle to open it. Samus told this to Link who pretended he knew this already.

They dropped down through the hatch to the floor. Samus was surprised that they had seen no Space Pirates so far. Link however, having almost being killed by one, was thankful.

On scanning the beetle, Samus found that it had a weak underbelly that was susceptible to any form of weapon. Its blood was also a good chemical to use if you wanted to burn through the skin of a Space Pirate.

Link was swiping away at the beetle's shell, which didn't seem concerned about it. After a few seconds, Link gave up.

"Try turning it over," jeered Samus. She walked up and kicked it onto its back and it started squirming. Link gave Samus an evil look and stabbed the beetle in the stomach. A thick, sticky, green slime came oozing out of the wound.

"Give me your arrows," she ordered Link, who didn't object. She dipped them into the blood and handed them back. "It'll make them penetrate the Pirates easier."

Link pulled an empty bottle out of his bag and filled it with the beetle blood.

Samus burned the carcass to dust with a blast from her flamethrower and the door lit up blue. She fired a power beam shot at it and it reluctantly opened, as if it hadn't done so for years. According to her scans, this door hadn't been opened in over half a standard galactic century (about 58 Earth years) and was maybe three times that old.

"You said this place was only a year or so old," she pointed out to Link.

"It is. If we were standing here last year, we would be falling."

Samus' scanners did not detect any obvious signs of a lie.

If she had not thought to turn the lie detector on however, this chapter would have about two more paragraphs of them arguing about it.

Before entering through the newly opened door, or even looking through it, Samus looked up through the skylight and saw that this tower was the one with the green sphere of light above it.

She scanned it:

Green Sphere of light. Your guess is as good as mine.

She also scanned the satellite dish below it:

It appears that this mechanism is trying to get its power from that green thing above it. However, there does not appear to be any form of energy being relayed to it.

She got it to scan the other two dishes and spheres. The first pair she tried were out of range so she tried the other pair:

This mechanism is receiving power from the unknown energy source hovering above it. The beam it is emitting seems to be a purification of the energy it is receiving.

By now the door had closed. She opened it again and they entered.

The room they were in was dark. Link couldn't see anything whilst Samus had switched to her night vision visor. Now she could add another two adjectives to the description: empty and huge. There appeared to be bits of broken desk scattered about the floor. Computer terminals had been ripped off the walls and there was a smashed hole in the wall, leading to another similar room. There was blood splattered about the walls and in puddles on the floor. There was what appeared to be a huge dead creature in one corner of the room.

She lit the bits of desk with her flamethrower and used the gravity gun to suspend them in mid-air.

"What the hell is that thing?" asked Link, pointing at the corpse now the room was lit.

"Oh, just some dead, big thing. You may remove the comma if you want."

They carried on along the route for about five seconds before they heard a quiet eructation from the corner in which the body was laid. Samus scanned it and found out that it was not actually dead. Once again, the doors locked.