The tower, nestled perfectly on the border between the lush forest and the expansive grassland, rose three stories into the air. While not quite as tall as the massive trees around it, it still was rather large, being wide and stout. The scenes of nature surrounding it starkly contrasted the static, lifeless gray facility. Near the top of the tower, distinctly marking it, a symbol had been painted, but had since faded. The trademark star surrounded by a swirl of red, green and blue was still recognizable, though. It was the symbolic flag of the Galactic Federation.
Judging by its size, Samus guessed it was an outpost. A lone tower like this doesn't even stand a remote chance of sustaining an entire terraforming operation, she thought to herself as she found the entrance: a large blast door embedded on the grassland side of the lowest level. To its left glowed a control panel of sorts, a numerical keypad displayed across its touch surface.
Being a Bounty Hunter, she entered her identity code into the pad and then rested her armored palm on it. As they usually were, the pad switched to a yellow glow, meaning that while her passcode and palm reading were correct, she still had to be let in by command personnel. After all, Bounty Hunters still weren't allowed into sensitive areas without permission. This was a good thing if it were a populated installation, as it allowed tighter security to the juicy secrets sure to be within. But after a few minutes of waiting, she knew something was amiss.
Quickly, she hailed Adam. "Are you up for some hacking? I entered my codes, but it seems no one's home."
To her disappointment, he replied, "The interference is too overpowering, Samus. Data transmissions are out of the question unless we can get better comm systems. I barely have enough bandwidth to send you my voice reliably, and I can tell you don't, either." Samus had to agree with this, Adam's voice was quite scrambled by the effective barrage jamming from the atmosphere.
Samus looked up at the top of the tower, and an idea came into her head. "Well then, what about landing on top of it? It looks like the ship can fit on its roof."
"I probably couldn't locate the roof without crashing into it unless I had Navigation Beacons to guide me in. You'll have to find another way in. But if you make it to the roof, and it has those beacons, feel free to activate them. Adam out."
Samus took one last look at the seemingly impassible door. She knew demolishing it wouldn't be a problem.
SCAN VISOR DATA: This door is locked by a high-security system requiring hand scan as well as passcode entry. The lock assembly is made of Talloric Alloy and is intended to stop most intruding wildlife from entering uninvited.
Samus grinned as she realized what she needed to do. At the thought, her suit began to curl up, and she could feel herself crumple into a ball as her armor reformed around her. The end result of the transformation was an object about the same size as a basketball rolling up to the door, seemingly on its own, laying a glowing blue packet of energy underneath itself. It detonated, and its knockback sent the autonomous orb flying upward, where it left another one of those blue packets right in front of the lock mechanism itself.
As the orb landed, the second Bomb detonated, shattering the lock in front of which it had been set. Samus exited her Morph Ball alternate form, resuming bipedal travel as she placed her free hand inside the hole of the destroyed lock and pulled. She labored as hard as she could, straining to peel the door open. Eventually, with her suit's augmented strength aiding her, she managed to budge the door open wide enough for her to get through.
Inside the tower itself, the light came from what few ambient lights remained. It reminded Samus of some of her earlier missions, how the enemy had taken advantage of the dark, gloomy environments to take her by surprise. It was these conditions that really made her wish she still had her Thermal Visor that she'd gotten back on Tallon IV. She treaded carefully, taking each step with deliberation, Arm Cannon held at the ready.
With nary a sound except for each of Samus' footfalls and the flickering lights, she knew that it was too quiet around here. She could not see any signs of movement, of life, of anything aside from the lingering aura of death. Papers and broken electronics crunched under her boots; with metallic ringing sounds, spent ammo casings scattered with some of the armored heroine's ironclad steps. A battle had happened here, but how? Everything was sealed up tight, with the highest of security, and there were no dead bodies to speak of. So why did this appear to be a battleground, Samus wondered to herself.
Near the stairs leading off the first floor onto the second, Samus located a body clad in Federation Power Armor. From what she could see, this person hadn't had a very good death. The armor's finish had been scratched up, dinged and dented and more than a few pieces of the plating had been pried off. The nearby staircase had a few of the missing pieces on it, as well as more of those ammo casings. Several meters away from the body lay a very large rifle, complete with large magazine, that upon closer inspection revealed itself to be the correct caliber for the scattered casings.
"So this man was fighting. But what?" Samus thought aloud to herself she moved to inspect the corpse. It lay face up, and she could actually see through the shattered visor into the face within, all blood-soaked and with a face petrified with horror. Those eyes were locked wide open, as was the mouth as if it was crying out in fear. It nearly made Samus Aran herself, the seasoned veteran of bounty hunting, flinch away.
SCAN VISOR DATA: Galactic Federation Trooper identified as Ssgt. V. Cortez. Retrieving surviving helmet-cam footage and recording to Logbook.
The Logbook was how Samus kept track of the data stored within her Suit's memory systems. Calling up its interface, she browsed through it until she found the helmet-cam footage she had just downloaded. Maybe it could shed some light on what's going on here, Samus thought as she opened the file.
Immediately the Visor displayed the film viewer, and the film was a grisly sight. Creatures that looked suspiciously human kept lunging at the camera, which was itself jerking around as its operator was brandishing a rifle, identical to the one found on the ground, against them. The trooper could be heard yelling over the automatic gunfire and the screeches of the monsters, "FUCKING DIE ALREADY!" Samus watched further as the creatures sustained multiple gunshot wounds to their chests at the hands of the trooper, but kept getting back up and attacking with seemingly superhuman strength and durability. They were leaping insane distances, leaping off of walls and slashing, grabbing, and striking with unfettered raw power. The film finally ended in a burst of static as a flat palm struck the camera, while the audio track played a shattering sound and what Samus assumed was the trooper's cry of death shortly after.
Samus exited her Logbook and turned back to the deceased. Kneeling down on one knee beside the body, she reached over to the frozen face, and paid respects to the fallen as she closed the eyes and mouth of his face through the broken faceplate of the helmet.