TRIAL BY FIRE

CHAPTER 2 - …AND INTO THE FIRE

Hunter Rundas is a Phrygisian who turned his talents from ice mining to bounty hunting. Rumour has it he's kept the head of each target he's ever hunted, and has never failed.

My original squad left quickly, leaving me with the PED's. I feel like a small child who's being ganged up on when three of them eye me up. The man in the middle stows his rifle before crossing his arms and saying through his microphone; "That was some cool stuff, hand to hand combat with an aero pirate." He says it almost cockily, as if he could one up me.

I reply instantly, not wanting to give this marine any satisfaction from mocking me. "I took the only action I saw possible, my job is assault and that is what I did."

The officer this time takes a step forward, sharply inputting "Horny stop taking the piss, corporal you'd best clear your rifle, you're no use to us with it in that state. There will be no reckless close quarters engagements while you're under my command. Hop to it, rest of you start throwing these bastards over the side."

I doubt that "Horny" is the actual marines name, more likely a nickname formed within such a close-knit unit. I drop to one knee and attempt to pull the damned collarbone off the end of the blade. It takes several painstaking minutes before I wriggle it off, and by then the adrenaline has mainly worn off and I'm sweating like a pig.

I stow my rifle before picking up bits of pirate armour and weapons just strewn about before throwing them over as well. I don't even attempt to lift any pirates, as its taking 4 marines just to drag a single one.

At that moment, a red siren above the door leading to the Plasma Generator started to spin, with and initial audible warning before being silent. The internal mirror however kept spinning. Seems like the generator B is back up?

The other marines also pick up on the siren and look at each other, a couple of them shrugging their shoulders. It's not too long before Rundas himself flies from above the sides of the valley (so he got in via the air vents) and drops in front of us. It's a strange sight, seeing him freeze nothing into a platform he rides on before it almost instantly evaporates back into nothing.

He talks with a rough voice, as if his throat is made from sandpaper. "Captain! I need one of your marines to see the other hunters and activate the generators, I had to use a dead fleet trooper's hand to reactivate it."

The captain look about his 4 marines. Is it too much to hope to go and meet some other bounty hunters? Apparently it is as capt nods to horny and says "take the sergeant here, he'll survive anything thrown at him."

"Which is exactly why he should stay here and defend against any counter attacks. I'll take the assault marine, may need him for surprising."

"I can't let you do that, he has a dead radio so he must stay here."

Rundas' voice drops low. Barely audible over the background. He takes a step towards the captain, who holds his ground. "Don't be the one who looses us this battle. Ground command has been destroyed so there's no way to reassign units. I am taking the initiative and I am taking this marine. He can take care of himself, I don't know any marines who can hold their own in an air to air engagement against an aerotrooper. Yes I did see that while on my way to the generator. I also know about his radio, I just tried pinging him."

The captain doesn't say anything for a few seconds before asking "Can you guarantee his safety?"

Rundas gives a Phrygisian equivalent of a snort, "I can guarantee his life no more than you could those men back in the generator room. I will give him a radio so he can communicate with us, however."

Wow. So not only am I going to fight alongside a bounty hunter but I get to join their radio net?

Rundas talks to me, "What is your name marine?" I come to attention, "Lance Corporal Forrest, Sir!"

"Ready for some action?" He asks, his voice still like rough sandpaper.

I look at the captain, who shrugs his shoulders and, defeated, says "go with him, I'm not about to win an argument with an adamant Phrygisian."

I turn back to Rundas and give a nod, "I'm ready."

"Right then, Ghor is struggling to interface with some systems, he's not tasked with reactivating any generators but you can help him. We'll meet up with Gandrayda along the way, she has a spare radio. Lets go!" And with that, he jumped off the side of the platform and flew off. I grin wildly under my helmet and take a couple of steps back before taking a running jump off the platform too and fly after him, in the direction of generator C.

We land on a multiturret pad, some distance from C.

"Gandrayda is through there. She knows theres a marine covered in blood and bone coming for a radio. Theres pirates on the other side of that door, though after earlier I'd say that they are more fragile than they appear." And with that, he took off after some pirate ATCs, no questions asked.

I check my sensors, and there is a large orange blotch to the left of the door. Well I'm not getting any younger, so I open the door and run through…into the path of some advancing pirates. Great.

I hide behind a storage crate as a hail of fire falls upon me, and suddenly ceases, and a pirate body flies over my head. Seriously, what has that kind of strength!?

I take a risk and roll out from behind my cover, then quickly raise my rifle in the direction of the pirates before nearly dropping it in surprise. Right here in front of me was a single pirate utterly destroying all the others in seconds. It then points its arm cannon at me, before retracting it's pincers and lowering it. Is this pirate defecting? Has that ever happened before?

Then, it emanates a dark pink cloud with purple static discharges flying off, before morphing into Gandrayda and letting loose a giggle. I realise that I hadn't actually moved from my crouched position while she was shape-shifting.

I stand and she walks over, throwing a small chip at me (which I barely manage to catch) and walking past me.

"I want that back when we're done, couldn't have you listening in on all our private chats now could we marine?" To my surprise, she morphs into an assault marine before kicking off down the corridor toward C. I then look at radio, a small black rectangle which I put on the side of my helmet. My radio crackles for a moment before I hear Rundas speak; "You're online, now Ghor requires assistance in the Cargo Hub, go!"

The radio appears to be an open net for all the bounty hunters, as I then hear a voice who I presume to be Ghor come on. "You might want to hurry marine, there's a squad here getting slaughtered!" It was said very aggressively and that breaks me into a run.

Cargo Hub…my squad, damn!

The hub is a couple minutes run away. Less if I boost through the long corridors. All around me the battle rages and I ignore most of the engagements. I'm sure several people tried to hail me as I passed them to ask for a hand, but I never received them. Thats not to say I didn't ignore pirates in my way, several fell before my weapons sights and another was knocked down a power shaft to its death.

It is virtually no time before I am on the hub's doorstep. I open the door and a whole new scene appears before me. It's a whole new level of violence, marines missing parts of their armour suits, two or three pirates ganging up on a single marine and…this makes me gag.

A pair of dead marines. I run past them fast enough so that I can't identify their service numbers. My concern is quickly pushed aside by a level of anger and rage I have not felt before. Ghor in a massive armour suit is savagely attacking a Berserker Lord, which is holding up surprising well under the onslaught. Right in front of me there is a man pinned beneath a pirate who appears to be having fun scaring him to death. Fuelled with rage, I use my apparent trademark strike: rugby tackle them with jetpack on maximum thrust.

I shoot past several people, one of them being Campbell. He is completely livid, bellowing at me. I take no notice however, in the heat of battle with blood pumping through my veins, blotting out all other noise.

I reach them just in time, the pirate appears ready to deliver its ultimatum. I however have other plans for the pirate, impacting it on the left side of its ribcage with such force I can feel several of it's ribs snapping. It lets loose a massive roar of pain as we hit the floor and roll into a wall. I however, cannot get complacent. As badly wounded as this foe is, it is still a formidable enemy and can still easily best me if I'm not careful. Thus I drop my rifle, and pound it on its bad side, immobilising it in pain. I then grab one of my energy grenades and place it next to the pirate so it can't see the impending doom. Quickly grabbing my rifle I jump back 20 or so meters outside the blast radius, and watch as bits of pirate rain down on us.

I turn around, in search of another enemy to dual. Ghor has been pinned to a wall by the Berserker Lord, and what marines are left of my squad are mopping up the pirates. I take aim at one, missile resistant trooper and fire my first rounds of the battle. Other marines have the same idea and in seconds the final pirate is neutralised, sent to whatever place they call Hell.

"Marine! Get out of the way, I'm ending this!" comes Ghor's raw shout.

Thankfully no-one was close to the wall Ghor pinned against, we all kept well away from their private battle. I watched as Ghor kicked the overgrown pirate away from him and then launched a devastating alpha strike; missiles, lasers, beams, everything conceivable he used in one go. The result was the toughest ground troop the pirates could offer, except this one now had several holes in it.

This is when I notice Campbell storming over to me. He rips his helmet off and starts shouting at the top of his voice, something about disobeying a direct order and insubordination. I don't really pay much attention as I'm still cooling off and watching Ghor lumber over. He dismounts his battlemech and speaks to the sergeant directly. He sounds much calmer and now that he isn't attached to his suit.

"Do not blame the trooper, I was struggling to interface with some systems and requested help. Bounty Hunter Rundas took him and sent him here to assist me. I heard you shout something about a lack of a working radio, he has an external one so he is in communication with us. Is that satisfactory?"

The sergeant glares at him, before saying, "No. It is not, but the situation is better than I originally guessed. I supposed it is good that you turned up because we would have lost at least one more man before subduing that pirate. However, don't think this will just be forgotten about, we will discuss this later."

I nod to him before questioning the Bounty Hunter who was now tending to his armour suit, which is exhausting massive quantities of steam from it's back.

"What problems were you having?"

"Oh right," he begins climbing back into the cockpit, "I need access…"

Bring on the personality shift

"to the control panel to the orbital cannon so we don't get vaporised!"

Thats right, something I've been ignoring thats been over the base-wide speakers is Aurora Unit 242 saying that there's going to be a meteor strike in 3 minutes. I'd best unlock that door.

I sprint to the massive door, noting that all three generator signs are lit green, before accessing the panel to the left. Normally, I wouldn't have clearance to open the door to the most powerful weapon on the planet, but I can send a request to the planet's Aurora Unit - 486 - to unlock it for me. Ghor likely hasn't been given clearance for this door otherwise he wouldn't have a problem. I put my service number in and verify that it is me, before getting an almost instant response: the access to the orbital cannon lift is open.

I move to the side to let Ghor's massive suit past, and he walks onto a lift where Rundas and Gandrayda are already waiting.

"Do not let anyone past, the fate of the planet depends on it", Ghor growls at me. Though not a second later I get a message on my HUD (so this radio supports texts too?) saying "Except me. S.A."

The lift is about to go, when an orange and red blur passes in front of my visor. On a normal day I would be going crazy in that 4 of the most famous Bounty Hunters in the galaxy were here in front of me, including the Samus Aran, the most famous of them all.

I hit the emergency lockdown, sealing them in. Nothing short of an orbital strike now is getting through this way, several Jovian Steel blast doors now blocking the way.

Before I can relax though, an explosion happens behind me and I spin round.

I almost shit myself, right there and then.

Dark Samus.

I figure that she came to stop the hunters from activating the cannon, and arrived seconds late.

In her anger, she unleashes an energy wave and blows away every single marine over there. Now in my anger I let loose my rifle on fully automatic, to no avail. They simply bounce right off her.

My attempted bravery has backfired. I just made myself her primary target. Regardless I keep my finger on the trigger and advance. I think that she will just leave if I lay down enough fire. I think wrong. She's properly mad now.

She raises her arm cannon and fires a blast at me, throwing me back to where I started; by the cannon control. It's knocked the wind out of me, and my HUD reports to me that I have less than one energy tank left. I stand back up and resume firing, Dark Samus slowly floating over, arm cannon raised and my shots ricocheting all over the place. She begins charging her cannon for the final blow. However before she releases it, she cocks her head to her right and hesitates for a second before…manic laughter?

*Click*. Dead man's click. I'm out of ammunition. Before I warn the hunters about the threat, her cannon stops charging and dissipates. My relief however, is short lived. I am sprayed with hundreds of blue pellets and I am re-thrown against the wall, before seeing a deep blue and blacking out, only hearing Dark Samus' laughter as she leaves for the hunters above me.

I have as good as killed us all.

XXXXXXXXXX

I changed the order of events from the game a little here, Ghor enters the lift from the same side as Samus, and there is no blue-shielded door between the Cargo Hub and lift, otherwise Ghor wouldn't be able to get through.

I also have given the hunters up in the control room a little more time so Forrest and Dark Samus can have their little scene. After that, she leaves and infects the hunters just like in the game.

Thanks for reading