The smile was the final touch.
After lifting up her cheeks with her hands and pulling them sideways in front of a mirror, Samus decided that a tight-lipped smile was the least feral of her facial expressions. Her lips were red and moist, as if it had a coat of lipstick, but was actually the product of excessive chewing and sucking. Having no mascara or foundation, the bounty hunter's creamy skin and generous lashes would have to do for her what an application of makeup did for several of the human women Samus had seen aboard the Rebenada. A pair of stolen glasses sat low on her nose allowing her to peer over it without obstruction. She turned her head to one side, then the other, regarding with satisfaction the tight knot of hair held together by a pair of chopsticks found in the mess hall. A scientist's overcoat adorned her frame, pressed and immaculate, and smelling heavily of the antiseptic soap permeating the entire station.
She pushed back on her chair and examined herself at full length. She appeared very unSamus-like, at least from a distance, which was exactly the effect she was going for. Would this disguise be enough to fool the residents of the Rebenada?
Samus swiveled around on her chair and flung her arms out. "What do you think, Warrior?" She asked of her offspring. The metroid dropped out of the ceiling corner and swooped once around its mother, squeaking passively before returning to its hiding place. Samus looked up at her child and the child observed its mother with its own alien senses, but otherwise showed no further response. The human frowned ever so slightly. She missed the days when Warrior would snuggle up to her at the slightest provocation, a child perpetually thirsting for attention. But recently, it spent most of its time hiding in that corner.
And Warrior excelled at hiding. Its flesh, when dimmed, was transparent enough so that only its nuclei, fangs, and a faint contour of its body could be seen. The nuclei would turn anywhere from a dark red or purple to a brownish orange to a bright pink depending on what color would best disguise it in its environment. It would be practically invisible in the acid and brimstone world of SR388. Here, flattened against the burnished metal walls, it was somewhat conspicuous only if you looked right at it. More than once, Samus had panicked briefly when she couldn't find Warrior before she thought to call it out of hiding.
The metroid was lying in wait for potential prey. Not too long ago, it would mew pitifully at Samus to beg for a meal, but now it was either trying out its own hunting prowess or dissatisfied with its mother's recent lack of feeding.
Samus had been feeding her child with a small rechargeable energy cell since she's unable to sneak back onto her ship to secure Warrior's live food. It was clearly not the best substitute for a metroid at this critical stage of its growth. The last time she pressed upon Warrior's body, it no longer felt firm and tough, but more like a deflated sack half-full of organs. It seemed as if its internal components were absorbed to provide nutrients for its ballooning epidermis.
Despite the insubstantial food, Warrior had grown alarmingly since they first arrived on the space station. Samus could no longer wrap her arms around the metroid without squeezing it out of shape. Warrior was even too big to pass for a baby-bulged stomach anymore. The huntress confined herself to her room for the past week, claiming fatigue, nausea, headaches, hallucinations, or whatever excuse worked. Her meals were delivered to her and she used a pillow to simulate the pregnancy whenever people saw her. The pillow worked fine while she was sitting or lying down, but walking with it strapped to her torso would appear decidedly unlike flesh.
This act won't last forever. The more time she spent idle in her room, the more her frustration and desperation manifested itself into an almost physical discomfort, like an acid burn beneath her skin. She still needed to discover whether or not the X were involved on the Rebenada and to somehow remove the research station from SR388 so that the planet would be safe for her child. That, plus the urgent need to feed Warrior, plus being guest to the Federation's dubious hospitality, finally pressured her to pursue this new risky venture. Samus peered at her reflection one last time and glanced at Warrior, who remained unmoving. She commanded the metroid to stay frozen in it's current position and took her leave of the cramped little quarters.
The halls echoed with the curt clicking of her heels. A stolen key card bounced on a string around her neck, its original owner probably having replaced it by now. Holding her chin at a resolute angle, the tail of her coat trailing quietly behind her, the huntress was every bit the professional, self-confident researcher she pretended to be. Her eyes stared only forward, although her peripheral vision detected the occasional passerby. None of them paid her any attention. Nothing to see here, just a generic Federation employee. Samus? No, she doesn't have free access to these areas. And besides, she's pregnant.
Samus had already memorized as much of the Rebenada's layout as she could when Ferdinaz gave her a brief tour. Even if she didn't, navigating the station was easy enough due to its straightforward design. Consisting of one ridiculously long level compared to its height and to a lesser degree its width, no elevators were necessary on it. When people had to travel quickly from one sector to another, they made use of the coveyer floors or of small shuttles which linked the major areas. It seemed like an extremely inefficient design.
Or, perhaps, an overly cautious one.
Samus noted the frequent hatches she had to pass through, each with varying levels of encryption (which, fortunately, the keycard could access). These features would prove to be obstacles if Samus had to get to her suit in a hurry, for the docking bay and her quarters were some distance from the main research facility.
If these people thought that blocking access to her suit would deter the bounty hunter, then they had something else coming. She could always use the remote device attached to her thigh to summon her ship to retrieve her, and then her suit. Of course, if she could not make it to the docking bay, then a simple hole to any wall would function just as well for an exit. Last time she checked, she could survive for three minutes unprotected in cold, airless space, which was ample time for her to board her ship. Then those damned hatches would come in handy as airlocks.
She was musing this last thought when she abruptly arrived at her destination. The moment the door irised open, she squinted and raised a hand against the intense light, although her eyes adjusted quickly enough. The hydroponics garden was a disorientingly spacious chamber compared to the narrow corridors and certainly a welcome change from Samus's living quarters. Its height must be nearing the limits of the station's capabilities. The ceiling consisted of tinted polyethylene and lamps hung at regular intervals to emulate sunlight. The plants were placed just as neatly in grids or rows, all of them meticulously engineered for maximum productivity of air or food. For some, that meant growing to thicknesses as wide as Samus's ship and for others to heights that would scrape the stars if it wasn't for the barrier of a ceiling. A lush carpet of lumpy, spongy moss covered the floor, maintaining atmospheric moisture and making walking somewhat trecherous.
Samus considered herself fortunate that only five Karraries were currently on duty in the garden. Like many xenoforms, the Karrarie have difficulty recognizing human individuals. However, with their ability to sense life in all creatures, they were adept as gardeners and doctors. When Samus first met one on the Rebenada, she feared it would instantly realize that Warrior was attached to her instead of a human baby. It sniffed her over but apparently could not tell the difference between a human's life from a metroid's. It could only confirm that Samus's child was alive, which in turn helped the credibility of her pregnancy farce.
Samus did not deign to glance at the aliens as she passed by. Only one of the Karraries looked up at her briefly before returning to its work, using its long nose to sniff out parasites from plant roots. The human was free to pick out a sizable container with a screw-on lid and forage for the beetle-like crustaceans which fed off of decaying plant matter. It didn't take long; several of them were gathered around a withered tree marked for removal. Each of them were about the size of her fist and she soon had all she could carry without giving away her inhuman strength. She hefted the container in front of her, grunting a bit for extra plausibility, turned around, and became aware of another human working on a patch of vegetation in the distance.
At the same time, the man became aware of Samus. He called out something to her, waving his hand. She yelled back something urgent, apologetic, and deliberately incomprehensible before scuttling off, after which the man shrugged and returned to his work.
After another uneventful trip through the Rebenada's corridors, Samus finally reached her cabin. The hatch irised open and shut allowing the Hunter safely inside. She pressed her back against the door so quickly that her back slammed audibly against it. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, a bloodcurdling shriek filled the room of its own accord.
Warrior materialized out of nowhere and lunged at the container she was still holding. It seized it in its fangs before she could react and easily crushed the glass walls, spilling blue crustaceans everywhere.
"No! Warrior! Freeze!" Samus rapidly called out all the commands that might make the metroid stop. But for the first time she could remember, Warrior refused to listen to her. She scrambled for a handhold on Warrior's slippery body in a futile effort to pry it away. The metroid screamed its defiance and bloodlust, completely ignoring its mother and intent on capturing as many crustaceans as it could. It didn't even bother to completely drain its current quarry before lunging for the next, fresher victim.
Samus had never seen Warrior behave like this before. It took her a moment to realize that she herself had once acted this way, before the Chozo fixed her rampant metroid DNA. She remembered very well the uncontrollable instinct to feed when deprived of energy for a long period of time. So she gave up wrestling with Warrior and flopped onto the bed, hands supporting her chin, watching the metroid devour its prey.
As the metroid grew more satiated, its body visibly firmed and glowed with health and it became less voracious, more playful even. The last crustacean had scrambled under the bed and Warrior hovered back and forth at ankle level waiting for it to come out. It squeezed its body as far as it could comfortably go under the bed, its fangs clawing at the floor for extra distance, then popped itself back out. Then Warrior did something which both surprised and pleased Samus. It started singing. Specifically, it was humming a tune which Samus used to calm the metroid and coax it towards her. The human was amazed that her metroid had made the intellectual leap from receiving and understanding commands to giving them. Of course, the crustacean didn't speak music and therefore remained safely in hiding.
Samus leaned over the bed to see what the critter was up to, then immediatley lifted her head as it zoomed out past where her nose was an instant ago. Warrior gave chase, shrieking gleefully, and plucked the morsel off the ground with its hind fangs. Then another surprise: Warrior gingerly, almost reverently, deposited the animal into its mother's hands, an offering to its parent.
"Um, thanks." Samus stared at the struggling creature, unsure about what to do with it. But it would be rude to refuse her child's generosity. She gently clamped her teeth where the joints in the crustacean's exoskeleton exposed the flesh, took a breath, and sucked out the bond between body and ghost. As she fed, she wrapped her free arm around Warrior while the metroid snuggled close to her and squealed its delight at the acceptance of its offering. Like finishing off a jolt of something tangy and tropical, Samus tossed her head back and gasped loudly after draining the life force. It refreshed her and stimulated her sixth sense, her sense of energy. As she looked upon the floor, she could see among the corpses the few crustaceans that were still alive but comatose. Warrior picked those out as easily as she did and continued to eat at its leisure.
"You've made quite a mess, Warrior." Samus remarked.
"Squrrr?" The accused inquired, its 'mouth' full of exoskeleton. It spat out the corpse and flew behind its mother. A pair of fangs lovingly wrapped around Samus's upper torso from behind and another pair hooked onto her collarbone. Warrior had outgrown its previous favorite perch on Samus's belly and now enjoyed being carried around like a backpack. Its mother was immensely pleased that Warrior was again in a snuggly mood after a week of reclusiveness.
Samus dumped the remnants of her meal, broken glass, and remaining corpses out the waste chute. Suddenly throwing up her arms, shaking Warrior loose in the process, she leisurely stretched her full length and in one fluid motion removed the chopsticks in her hair and overcoat with a shrug of her shoulders. In removing the glasses, she accidentally smacked her baby and sent it careening across the room.
She paused and gave the metroid a puzzled look. "Warrior, come." She said, beaconing it with a gesture. It squeaked once and obeyed without hesitation. Samus stroked the epidermis of her child and confirmed her suspicions that its shell was even harder than it used to be. She rapped on the skin with her knuckles and instead of being wholly absorbed by the protoplasm, a dull clicking sound could be heard.
Samus realized, quite belatedly, that Warrior was almost as large as the shells which Alpha metroids discarded after their metamorphosis. Perhaps the time for its own transformation was drawing near. The thought of her precious Warrior evolving brought about an inexplicable wave of sadness in the bounty hunter. It was less her metroid's physical transformation she was worried about and more the mental ones. How would the change affect its memories or its nature? Would Warrior become untamed and independent? Would it even need her as a mother anymore? She wished she had spent more time studying the metroids' behavior when she first ventured onto SR388.
Samus squeezed Warrior tightly in a moment of wistfulness, treasuring this sliver of time with her child and wishing it would last forever. Warrior relaxed in its mother's arms, slowly retarding its hovering ability until the huntress held its full weight. It was heavier than it looked, but the human was stronger than she looked.
Samus suddenly felt massively sleepy and hauled herself to bed with Warrior still attached to her stomach. She collapsed into an almost coma-like slumber which, although she didn't know it, was caused by her body digesting the unexpected energy she had acquired. She slept so soundly that she didn't even stir when a series of klaxons blared through the entire station. Warrior's light glowed for a moment in alarm, then settled down again. If its mother ignored the piercing sound, then it must not be a danger.
The rest of the Rebenada heard the warning and knew what it meant. Ferdinaz was at his desk when the klaxons started and his first thought was, "Oh no, not again." while his second was, "This is the third time in three cycles. The scientists will be too afraid to stay on board if this continues." He called up a holographic map of the Rebenada to see where the breach was. Thankfully, the damage was not serious. They would not have to jettison a sector like they did in the last two accidents, but he sent in a team to neutralize the contaminated area. As a further precaution, he ordered the technicians to cut the third and fourth lines of power, effectively locking all hatches in the sector and several others. It also shut off most of the artificial light, which would be what woke Samus Aran from her slumber.
The bounty hunter immediately sat up and put a hand to the laser strapped to her leg. She quickly scanned the room, finding it pitch black except where Warrior's warm glow reached. The metroid was more bothered by its mother's sudden awakening than by the darkness. Samus concentrated harder, reaching out with her energy senses, and felt that it was the lack of power which caused the blackout. The klaxon finally registered in her mind and she chided herself for not noticing earlier.
Was this just a simple power failure, and the klaxon just a warning for it? Samus tried to open the door out her room and found it unresponsive. She knew that the hatches and lighting were on separate power lines and it was unlikely that both of them would be knocked out at the same time. It didn't seem like she was being deliberately locked in her room either; there's no reason for the klaxon or the lights.
"Warrior," She said, drawing the metroid closer so she could use its light to see. With the laser, she cut away the thin metal of the door's controls until she reached the inner wiring. She meticulously picked through the cables until she found the one she wanted and twisted it in two. Then she opened the energy cell of her laser and pressed the exposed wires against it. With her other hand, she held one of Warrior's fangs and tried to make the child focus on what she was doing.
"Jumpstart." She said, and transferred some energy from the laser to the door. Warrior didn't move. "Jumpstart" Samus said again, and again she transferred some energy, although it was not nearly enough to open the hatch. She did this again, then sheathed her laser and replaced it with the metroid. "Jumpstart" She commanded, but Warrior only wiggled its fangs. She could see that no energy was being passed to the door so she put the metroid down and demonstrated again with the laser. A part of her didn't expect this trick would work, but she had been led to believe that metroid energy was like blood type O in its compatibility with everything.
It took a few more trails before Warrior understood "Jumpstart" to mean 'give energy'. The next time Samus pressed the wires against its front mandibles, it regurgitated a wave of energy strong enough to open the hatch.
"Yes! Good Warrior!" Samus commended her child in a pleased, but subdued voice. With the door stuck on open, anyone passing by could hear her or see the metroid. "Seru. Diaora." And instantly the metroid dimmed down and stopped chirping.
Samus wondered what she would do next now that the door was open and she felt less like a trapped animal. Actually, she had felt slightly hunted during her entire stay on the Rebenada, as if unseen eyes perpetually drilled through her shoulder blades. This state of emergency might be the best time for her to retrieve her suit and explore more of the research station. The darkness and confusion would aid her well in espionage. She would not get another opportunity this fortunate any time soon. It was time for the hunted to again become the hunter.
Before she left, she slipped the black dress over her undergarments and grabbed the keycard. Warrior followed her just a step behind her ankles, still silent and barely visible in its faint luminescence.
Samus 'jumpstarted' a few more doors before Ferdinaz finally noticed her activities. He couldn't see her with cameras due to the lack of light, but his sensors indicated that a trail of hatches were being left open, starting from Aran's chambers and leading up to the 5th research sector where her suit was being held. It would bring her dangerously close to the contaminated sector. The Commander holstered his Federation issue hand beam, gathered a small group of armed guards, and set off with them to personally greet the rogue bounty hunter.