Chapter 4
Samus ran through the corridor towards the hanger. General Farkus had just recieved a message from her brother asking for assistance. Why Renick had contacted him instead of her was still a mystery. But that could wait, for now she just wanted to see her brother safely at the station, and then reprimand him for doing soething so stupid as to study something so dangerous.
She was in the hanger now sprinting towards her ship, The Massive Metroid, watching as mechanics unhooked power cables, and fuel pipes from it. That was good. They had filled the fuel tanks and recharged the weapons systems just like she'd asked. Still running, she charged up the boarding ramp and closed it behind her. Not wanting to waste any time she did an emergency start so as to skip the preflight checks. But now she had to wait. The hanger doors were still closed. Since the nobody had developed magcon technology yet, Samus had to wait untill everyone cleared out of the hanger before the giant doors could be opened. Which usually took two minutes. Samus couldn't wait that long. It was one thing when she was going on a mission that could wait, but when someone was in real danger, she panicked and felt jittery. Sometimes she became random like when she was angry. Her fingers twitched, threatening to pull the trigger on the flight yoke and fire the weapons. She watched the doors creep open ever so slowly. They were almost a quarter of the way open. Then they stopped. Samus blinked, waiting, and hoping, that they would continue to open, soon.
"Samus to Flight Control, what happened?" She said into the comm system.
"Sorry about that, but the door stopped functioning. We're reading massive power failures over the station as well." Then, as if the station had heard him, the lights in the hanger flickered and died. Samus sat in her ship, in the dark hanger, alone, and bored out of her skull. The comm system was down so she couldn't talk to anyone in flight control. She would occasionally see a mechanic in a vac-suit through the viewport by the running lights on the Metroid. She would also see some strange shapes move past as well. Shapes that didn't resemble any sentient species she was familiar with. But they resembled something she knew very well. Metroids. If that was true then she wouldn't be going to save her brother after all. But if it wasn't true, then she was wasting her time waiting. Samus powered up the ship's weapons and fired a full burst at the doors. A large chunk melted away creating a hole, through which she flew the Metroid out. I hope they understand about the hole.
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While Renick waited for help to arrive, he pulled out a small video recorder and trained it on the Metroids. The first two were no longer feeding off the power conduits, instead they were sitting in a corner resting. Unfortunately their offspring were running loose all over the ship eating everything. Renick now wore a vac-suit because some of them had thought it would be fun to eat one of the viewports. And unlike most Metroids, this species could survive in vacuum. Renick now wished that they hadn't been an undiscovered species. He had measured the rate at which they were eating the ship, along with how much of the ship was left, and determined that they would completely consume the ship in five hours. Five hours before he was flung into vacuum. Five hours until he would die of starvation in space. Or worse, die by being eaten, alive.
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Derek was walking down a corridor when the power went out. earlier he had seen a strange creature latch onto the window in his and Samus' quarters. He had called security about it, but they had never come. He hadn't really thougt much of the creature until the window had started to crack. He had barely made it into the corridor before the window shattered completely, and exposing their quarters to vacuum. Now he stood in darkness. Alone. He heard noises like metal being scraped back and then chewed. The creature was coming after him. Derek felt around in the darkness for a security cache hidden in the walls. There would be weapons and a light in it. After feeling around for a half-hour he found one. After pulling it open he found the light, and several arm-cannons. Quickly he switched on the light and pulled the weapon onto his arm, which was pretty heavy. He had never liked arm-cannons, and generaly avoided using them. They were big and bulky and weren't very easy to swing around in one swift motion. But they were powerful. Perhaps thats why there was one in the security cache. He attatched the light to his arm-cannon, so his other hand would be free, and began walking towards the noise. Or maybe it was coming towards him. Either way it was getting louder. Then, when the sound was at it's loudest, it stopped. Derek pulled the charge weapon trigger, and a sphere of light began growing on the tip of the cannon. He aimed it in the general direction of where the sound had come from and released a bolt of energy. An explosion appeared in front of him, as well as the creature he had seen. It had grown considerably since he had seen it on the window. But how could that be? Perhaps this was a second one? He cocked the cannon into missle mode and pulled of a round. A missle hit square in the belly and detonated, splattering the creature all over the corridor. Derek sighed with relief, then cut it short as a swarm of smaller creatures came through the hole in the wall. a swarm of thousands. He had to get Samus before she left, he couldn't take them all by himself. He ran down the corridor in the direction he had been going. The swarm followed.
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Renick looked out the rapidly expanding hole in the side of his ship, and saw his sister's ship. His hopes rose at the very sight of it. They hadn't been very high ever since the second generation of Metroids started releasing their offspring. The reproduction rate of this new species was off the scale for any life form. At the moment he was sitting in what was left of the cockpit, which wasn't much. Just a chair attatched to a fusalauge via etal beam. And behind him the Metroids were finishing off the engines. He hoped Samus got to him before the they did, they were running out of ship to eat. He realized that he would have to jump into the airlock on Samus's ship. The one on Aran's Pride was gone. Soon the Metroid was within jumping distance. He merely had to wait for Samus to open the airlock, and let him in. Suddenly a etroid jumped on him and attatched itself to his vac-suit at the waist. Renick grabbed the thing and tried to pry it free. Samus appeared at the airlock and jumped over to him, arm-cannon firing. The bolts hit the Metroid, but just like before, it absorbed the bolts and grew. Renick tried to make a motion to make her stop, but a sharp pain paralyzed him. He screamed. He felt his skin disentegrate and be consumed by the beast. It was eating him. In last attempt to free himself he pulled the battery pack from his hold-out pistol, reversed it, and fired the pistol at point-blank range. The gun exploded, puncturing his vac-suit, but not harming the Metroid. Air rushed out of suit through the holes. Samus was nearly upon him and the Metroid, but he knew she would be too late. Then he saw white.
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Samus slammed into the Metroid with the empty vac-suit and bounced off. Tumbling a short distance from it she fired a missle at it. And missed. The Metroid, startled by the missle, ran away at an incredible speed, along with the others. Samus groped for a piece of ship to grab and found one. Not letting go she turned back tot he empty vac-suit. Blood was on the waist and right glove. It had gotten him. Tears flowed from Samus' eyes and floated around her helmet. Her brother, her only brother had been taken from her, by an animal. No, not an animal, a Metroid, that hurt. She had, not too long ago, been part of a group to change Farkus' mind about hunting them down, to give her a break from destroying them. Now she regretted that. Now she wanted to kill them, wanted revenge, wanted to prevent such a tragedy from happening to someone else. Then she remembered that she had left the space station in possible danger. But she hurt too much to move. She had just lost her brother. The station can wait. But the Metroidswill pay, they will pay. Samus jumped back into her ship and flew in the direction of the Metroids.