CHAPTER 9: "UP THE DOWN CORRIDOR"

Hunter Log 3846
Wow, what a nap...

I'm not really sure how long I was out, but I suppose I needed the rest, whether it was forced on me or not.

The metroids have seemingly watched over me the entire time. This is very strange. I didn't know that metroids could be "tame" in a sense.

Regardless, I've got to get back to the top of this place...back to the Escape Deck.

Samus out...
Samus sat up, and immediately felt a pounding inside her skull. The last thing she could recall was falling down the corridor and firing at Ridley.

After a few minutes of gathering her thoughts, Samus stood up. Her head still pulsed somewhat, but not as badly as before.

The metroids around her cooed and floated closely.

Samus slowly began to climb back toward the top of the room. With each pull and with each jump, Samus felt her head throb with pain.

She finally reached the still open door to the Escape Deck corridor. She noticed a substantial scrape on part of the door. She reached back and felt the contour of the back of her helmet. It was slightly dented. That's why she felt like she got hit by a star cruiser...she had been.

She continued upward into the tunnel as the metroids halted at the doorway once again.

She very carefully scanned the Escape Deck before she entered. There was no trace of Ridley except for a small crusted piece of flesh lying on the floor. One side actually had a scaly texture, which was a problem. Ridley didn't have scales before...

Samus continued to climb to the top of the room, where Ridley had smashed the windows. Once she managed to get there, she pulled herself outside and sat on the end of the ship. What she now saw astounded her.

A valley reached for miles. Inside the valley was lucrative farmland with crops and livestock. None of this was native to Zebes. All of what she saw had come from a colony, no doubt about it. Samus then turned and faced her left...

A blue rock plateau, reaching for miles itself...covered in legions of space pirates. They were lined up in rank about as far as the eye could see. At the front of the rank were hundreds of bounty hunters, all standing at attention. Who was their leader?

This was very bad, aside from who was leading them. There's no way she could win taking on a force like that head-on. She had to figure out a way to fight such a force. Whatever that way was, it wasn't going to be on the top of the ship.

Samus slid back into the Escape Deck and reentered the reactor room. She made her way back down to the bottom and looked around. There was a door on the opposite side of the room where none of the metroids had built nests around.

That was a good indication to Samus that that would be the place to go next.

She approached the door. Behind her, metroids cooed as if to tell her that she shouldn't go in there. She ignored the sounds and kept on.

When she got close enough, the door opened automatically. Inside was a dimly lit tunnel. Lights strobed here and there as sparks trickled down the inverted corridor.

Samus eased into the tunnel and reached the door at the other end. She listened closely. She heard what sounded like rushing water beneath the door...the it suddenly opened under her.

She plunged into the torrent and it swept her away. Samus fought to keep her head toward the top of the water, but eventually gave up...Her gravity adaptor would allow her to function underwater, but the current was too powerful for her to keep footing on the ground.

She looked forward downstream and saw what looked like turbines spinning in the flow. If she were caught in those, it would all be over.

She began looking around frantically as she approached the massive turbines. There was a grate located directly to the right of the first turbine.

Samus swam over to that side of the tunnel and waited patiently to reach the grate. She launched a missile down the stream and connected with the grate, giving her access to the drainage flow.

She reached out toward the hole and the suction pulled her in. In a split second, she was being crushed against another grate. Pressure began to build up behind her and finally blasted her out of the tunnel, sending the grate flying against a wall.

Samus landed on a stone floor. She gathered herself and stood up. The water flowed out of the drainage tunnel across this room and into a hole in the floor.

Lining the walls of the room were capacitors and many machines that stored and conducted electricity. At the top of the room was a massive electromagnetic emitter. Its aim was focused on a small hole at the base of the wall.

Samus decided to put her morphing ball to the test. It would be the first time she had used it since the last time she was on Zebes. Hopefully that system had not been damaged in her encounters so far.

She engaged the system. Samus felt a familiar warmth within her body as it began to contract inward toward her waist. She clutched closer and closer, then her view flashed to white. After a few minutes of intense light, her view returned to normal, albeit much lower than before. She now looked directly into the small hole.

She proceeded forward and began spinning downward. She weaved through snake-like winding tunnels and then plummeted straight down. She was in a freefall for what seemed like minutes. She finally emerged at the top of a room and landed on a massive structure.

When she landed, she disengaged the morphing ball and sprawled onto her back. She turned over and then got up on her knees to examine the room.

It was the dome structure from the dream...and the massive piles of Chozo bodies...an unspectacular mausoleum of the magnificent race.

After she looked around more, she found the ramp leading to the exit. She crawled across the carcasses and finally reached the platform.

She turned once again to face the evidence of genocide. There was no decay...no smell of death. All of the bodies lay in waste, but were ageless and preserved. This made no sense.

Not much had made sense lately...

She reached to open the door, but it began to open before she could touch it. She now stood face to face with a pirate.

It reached and grabbed Samus' arm. Samus jerked it inside and met its face with the tip of her arm cannon. The pirate fell to one knee and released Samus.

She fired a single plasma shot into the head of the pirate and it collapsed to the ground.

"They must be preparing for another sacrifice..." thought Samus.

She had to stop them from killing any more Chozo.