Chapter 2:
Samus's gunship exited subspace over a lush, blue verdant world, a far cry from many previous Space Pirate worlds. The planet looked to mostly be covered with oceans, with only small dots of land visible to the naked eye from orbit. At first, Samus wondered if the Space Pirates had dumped the ship and moved the prisoners, but a quick check of her sensors indicated that the ship was present on the planet, as were a large number of lifeforms. In addition, she quickly found a Space Pirate frigate orbiting the planet, along with two heavy freighters and a troop transport. Given the recent losses that the Space Pirates had suffered when they had been found trying to retake Urtraghus, Samus was not all that surprised to find the frigate being the only truly combat capable vessel in orbit. Samus could not help but grin. She finally had them. This was their last holdout. She narrowed her scans and identified a Space Pirate presence on a small island in the northern hemisphere of the planet. It was right on top of the Adventure in the Stars, and the bounty hunter surmised that the Pirates had constructed an underground base nearby. Further scans confirmed what she already suspected: Ridley was here as well. In addition, she found the bio-signs of other known Space Pirate leaders, Phantoon, Kraid, Crocomire, and Draygon. So they finally got around to making clones of Kraid, Phantoon, and Draygon, she thought with a smirk. She also noted Crocomire's cloning and thought, And it looks like Crocomire got a posthumous promotion too. She also detected the presence of a Chozo organic supercomputer and grimaced. So they have managed to either rebuild Mother Brain once more from Aurora Unit Zero's DNA, or they've built a replica of her, the hunter thought darkly as she went to enter the atmosphere and land near the Space Pirates' base. She then took her ship down into the atmosphere relatively slowly, for if she traveled too quickly, the atmospheric disturbances produced by her ship would be detected on the Space Pirate sensors.
After a few minutes of descent, she eventually reached the location of the captured cruise liner, and also the likely entrance to the Space Pirate base. The ship was near a large natural rock structure the jutted up about one hundred meters into the sky. Ignoring the rock structure for the moment, Samus scanned the captured cruise liner. Her initial scans revealed that there were only a few Space Pirates onboard the liner, and they were nearing the ramp, along with a large group of humans. She also detected a number of humans underground, surrounded by Space Pirate Troopers. These were undoubtedly captives taken off of the Adventure. She then looked around the ship and saw large lines of Space Pirates standing around the vessel, along with a large group of humans. There were also small boxes near the Pirates and Samus detected energy fields around the large group of humans. They were undoubtedly makeshift prisons designed for use when large numbers of prisoners had to be transported by small numbers of guards. Still, there were a noticeable number of Space Pirates standing guard outside, at least one hundred by Samus's count. It was clear what the Pirates were doing, though. They were herding the humans out of the ship and using the mobile force field projectors to confine large numbers of them and take them down into the base. She would not allow that to happen, though.
Lowering her ship so that it would block the entrance to the base, she proceeded to power her ship's energy cannons down to minimal yields so that none of the civilians would be harmed. She then charged her weapons and proceeded to decloak her gunship, hoping that the stealth systems would keep her ship undetected by anyone inside the base. Immediately upon decloaking, she fired on the group of Space Pirates closest to what she figured to be the base's entrance with her primary energy cannons. The scarlet energy bolts tore holes into the group of Space Pirate Troopers and blew them apart, also releasing the humans they were transporting from their energy cages. She proceeded to deploy her ship's ventral point defense energy cannons and programmed them to fire on any and all Space Pirate forces, while ensuring that they would not fire on any humans. The ship then proceeded to follow her commands, spraying energy fire into the groups of the Space Pirates, blasting them apart with little more than single hits, all while inflicting no harm to the human captives at all.
The Space Pirates, noticing that the ship was picking them off with ease, decided to make it more difficult for Samus and her starship by lowering the shield that was capturing the humans and using them for cover. As they lowered the shields, the humans all began to scatter and run in all directions that took them away from the Space Pirates and the base. This made it much tougher for Samus's ship to shoot the Pirates, for oftentimes a civilian would run in front of a Pirate, or be too close for a shot to not risk injuring the civilian as well. To solve this problem, Samus set her ship to autopilot and linked it directly with her Command Visor. She then switched to her Plasma Beam and charged a plasma shot. Once that was finished, she pushed a button and the canopy to her ship's cockpit opened. Samus then jumped from her ship's cockpit and to the ground as her ship continued to pick off Space Pirates. As she descended, fired her charged plasma shot at one of the Space Pirate Troopers who was firing into the crowd of civilians. The orange pulse of plasma struck the Pirate and managed to incinerate the Space Pirate before he managed to hit any of the civilians, most of who had been children and families.
She then landed and turned to face down the next Pirate, a basic gray armored Zebesian soldier. A single uncharged blast from her Plasma Beam was more than sufficient to kill the Zebesian. She then proceeded to target the next closest Zebesian, who was taking aim at a child who was fleeing the scene, and fired a single blast of plasma that destroyed the torso of the unfortunate Space Pirate. With deadly speed and precision, she then slew another Zebesian.
After the first few Zebesians that were trying to kill the civilians had been slain, the others decided that it would be better to focus on the clear and present threats rather than try to produce a body count for the civilians. Several groups of Cyborg Zebesians and even the few Urtragian Space Pirate Troopers that were leading them soon formed ranks and went to deal with the two threats. The Urtragian Space Pirates focused much of their attention on Samus, while the Cyborg Zebesians were sent to try to take down her gunship/attack starfighter. The two dozen Cyborg Zebesians formed a line and proceeded to focus their fire onto the gunship. Blue energy bolts and sickly green plasma missiles erupted from their energy rifles and missile launchers respectively. The blue energy bolts merely glanced off the shields, with some of the bolts burning holes into the ground below the ship. The missiles struck the shields of the starship and detonated, causing a lightning blue field of energy to flare with each hit. However, the missiles were anti-personnel weapons and, at best, could only damage or destroy lightly armored vehicles. The shields of the fighter suffered no damage from the missiles, despite the massive volleys that were being poured into them. The Cyborg Zebesians were then slaughtered mercilessly by a single volley of scarlet energy fire from the point defense cannons of Samus's gunship.
As for Samus, she had little difficulty in dealing with the other Zebesians and the few Space Pirate Troopers that were arrayed against her. She targeted the Pirate Troopers first, viewing them to be the greater threat due to their superior defenses. She charged her Plasma Beam and let loose a single pulse of reddish orange energy. The blast incinerated the lead Space Pirate Trooper, who had a massive hole blown into his torso and was set ablaze by the secondary effects of the Plasma Beam. She then repeated the process several more times until the Urtragian Space Pirates were all dead, with many of them nothing more than charred skeletons and/or ashes. Once the Urtragian Space Pirates had been dealt with, Samus proceeded to slaughter the remaining Zebesian Space Pirates. The Zebesians took only a single uncharged plasma shot each before they were dead. They did not go down without a fight though. They poured energy fire into Samus, whose shields could hold off individual weak attacks without suffering any real damage, but the combined attacks were able to weaken Samus's shields. While she still only lost a single point of energy for every two or three energy blasts that hit her shields, with dozens of Zebesians to deal with, the damage from the attacks would begin to mount rapidly. To that end, she stopped using her Plasma Beam and started using her missiles, seeing that the civilians were a safe distance away from the fighting. Missiles then erupted from her arm cannon and targeted groups of Zebesians. For the first few seconds of the new assault, the Zebesians were caught completely off guard as Samus's arm cannon now disgorged missiles capable of destroying unshielded tanks with single hits.
Since the Zebesians were huddled close together, a dozen went down to the first few missiles, each. Bodies, or pieces of bodies, were hurled through the air away from the epicenter of the explosions as the Zebesians tried in vain to find cover from this new assault. Another missile was ejected from Samus's arm cannon and another eight Zebesians met their end. Eventually, they realized that they would last longer the farther apart they were. As such, they began to scurry away from the Hunter, and each other, and continued to pelt Samus's suit with weak blue energy pulses. Samus did not laugh as they tried in vain to stop her. She merely took a breath and proceeded to methodically slaughter each and every one of the remaining Zebesians. In less than half a minute, the battle had ended. One hundred Zebesians, Cyborg Zebesians, and Urtragian Space Pirate Troopers were now dead.
Once the fighting was over, Samus used her Command Visor to set down her starship and have it recloak itself. She suspected that the Pirates had managed to warn High Command inside the base of her presence, but she still wanted to make sure that on the off chance that they had not detected the fighting, that she could still take them by surprise. Once that was finished, she went over to the passengers of the Adventure in the Stars. Looking at the massive group, she thought that there had to be at least a couple thousand passengers here. Once she arrived, she called out to all of them, "Is everyone alright?"
The passengers all nodded. One of the passengers, a Hispanic male in his thirties with black hair and brown eyes came forward and told her, "It looks like we're all fine, thanks to you. All of the Pirates here are dead and there aren't any more stragglers left onboard the Adventure, as far as we can tell. However, most of the ship's crew and some families were taken down into the Pirate base below, one hundred in all."
"Don't worry," Samus assured them. "I'll save them. You just get all of the crew that were not taken and get the ship started. We'll need to leave here as soon as everyone else is back onboard. Do you have a manifest that indicates your current complement?"
The man nodded and produced a small data pad. He handed it to her and said, "This contains a headcount of everyone that was onboard the Adventure, passengers and crew. In addition, this tells us how many are onboard the ship, and if anyone that isn't onboard at the moment is dead or not."
The bounty hunter took the pad and looked at it. She then scanned the pad with her Scan Visor and the information was downloaded to her suit and placed on her HUD. She handed the data pad back to the man and told him, "Hurry and get everyone else back onboard. I don't know how long the rescue will take, but chances are that there could be more Pirates coming or, if they decide to scuttle the base, they could open fire on it from orbit."
The man nodded and began to organize the rescued captives and proceeded to lead them back onto the ship in an orderly fashion.
Once she had made sure that everyone was heading back towards the ship, and that there had been no surviving Space Pirates, she rushed towards a small door with a blue energy field over it. She instantly recognized the door as one that was often used by Space Pirates. Firing a single shot from her Power Beam, she collapsed the shield and approached the door, causing it to open. Once she entered the base, she saw that the cave led deeper into the ground, and into the subterranean caverns. The first thing that came to mind as Samus continued on her trek was the fact that this base's layout greatly resembled the layout of the base on Zebes, minus the Zebesian wildlife. So far, she found no native lifeforms supporting the Space Pirates. She bounded over the small steps and hills as she continued to make her way deeper into the base. She soon came to what looked to be a dead end, with one part leading to a door with what black, burnt looking blast shield above a series suspicious looking rock barrier. She knew better. She leapt towards the stone wall, curling herself and then somersaulted through the air, releasing a field of yellow energy from her suit. Her Screw Attack broke through the wall like it had been made a tissue paper and she continued on her way until she came across another door. She fired a shot from her Power Beam and collapsed the shield over the entrance. Once she did so, the door opened and she charged on through.
Next, she found herself on the top of a long hill with a low ceiling. This hill, however, had bioweapons guarding it in the form of Reos, Mellas, and some Geemers. Not wanting to waste any time dealing with them, she Screw Attacked her way down the hill, plowing through anything and everything that did not get out of her way. Nothing could withstand her onslaught as she continued unabated all the way down the hill, and towards another door. Once she arrived at the door, she fired another Power Beam blast, opened the next door, and surged through.
In the next sector of the base, there was a staircase that led down to the next level. She could already hear the sounds of Space Pirates walking on the levels below her and muttering to themselves. To be on the safe side, she quickly switched to her missiles, prompting the ends of her arm cannon to open, and soon charged down the first stairwell. Once she reached its end, she quickly turned around and found a Zebesian Space Pirate wearing green armor standing before her. Knowing that the green-armored Zebesian was only vulnerable to missile fire, she fired a missile at the Space Pirate. The small missile leapt from her cannon and towards the Pirate. Before he could even react to her presence, the missile struck him and annihilated him. The bounty hunter merely charged by him and went down the next staircase. Once she got down to the next floor, she turned and found another green-armored Zebesian. Once more, she fired a missile towards the Pirate and annihilated him with a single hit. After the second Pirate was dead, she charged down the staircase and prepared to take down another Zebesian. Sure enough, down on the next level, another Zebesian stared back at her as soon as she had turned to face him. This one was a little faster on the draw, though, and managed to get a couple of shots off with an energy rifle that was built into his right claw. The blue bolts of energy sailed wide of the bounty hunter, though, and Samus wasted no time leveling her arm cannon at the Pirate. A missile soon erupted from her cannon and another Zebesian met his end. Once that Space Pirate was killed, the bounty hunter charged past him and went down another flight of stone stairs.
As she neared the bottom, she turned as she found that this Zebesian was taking the initiative and opened fire on her before she managed to reach the bottom. Samus dove to the bottom of the stairs, avoiding the energy bolts and sickly green plasma missiles fired by the Space Pirate and turned to face the Zebesian. She then unleashed another missile at the Zebesian and annihilated him. Once the blast had dissipated and the Space Pirate was nothing more than dust and mist spread throughout the area, the bounty hunter continued down the next set of stairs.
There, she met one final Zebesian. This Zebesian, however, had initially wanted no part of Samus in a battle. However, given the fact that she was charging through the Space Pirates as quickly as possible, he knew that he had no choice but to try to inflict some damage to the bounty hunter before he was slaughtered like the rest of his comrades. Unfortunately, he was unable to do so, for as soon as Samus appeared, she unleashed a missile from her arm cannon that almost instantaneously struck the unfortunate Zebesian and annihilated him. Samus then traveled down one more flight of stairs before coming across a door with a red shield. She remembered from her previous encounters that doors with red blast shields had to be opened by firing missiles at them. She proceeded to fire a single missile at the door and less than a second after the missile erupted from her arm cannon, it struck the shield, detonating. The explosion blew away the red blast shields and the door opened, granting Samus entry. The bounty hunter then ran through the door and proceeded to make her way deeper into the base.
The next room was seemingly barren. Samus held her arm cannon out in front of her and slowed her pace as she moved forward. With the lack of enemies, Space Pirate or bioweapon, she knew that there had to be something coming. Her suspicions were soon confirmed as down the hallway, the ceiling began to crack and pieces of stone fell to the floor. The bounty hunter soon heard the sounds of footsteps coming, along with more dust and pieces of stone falling from the ceiling. Samus pointed her arm cannon up towards the ceiling, and the sound of the footfalls, switched to her Power Beam, and began to charge a Super Missile. After a few more steps, the bounty hunter could tell that the ceiling was about to give way and she backed up a few steps. Sure enough, the ceiling about eighteen feet in front of her soon collapsed and a massive creature came crashing through. The creature landed in front of her and gave a roar of surprise and anger. Samus recognized the being all too well as being Crocomire. Crocomire was a lizard-like being with rough red skin and a tan underbelly. He also had two sets of lower legs and a pair of arms with three claws, along with eight eyes, four on each side of his face. The creature soon focused on the hunter before him and gave a loud roar of rage and hatred.
Before engaging Crocomire, though, Samus activated her Scan Visor and scanned him, wanting to know about any changes that the Space Pirates made to the clone. As she scanned the creature, her HUD formed a square around the roaring beast and various bits of data were showing up in other sections of her HUD. After a few seconds, the scan was complete and it read, Morphology – Crocomire. The rough hide of this creature is impervious to most known personal weapons. Its only known weakness is its mouth. This creature can fire blasts of fire and energy from its mouth and uses its claws in close combat to inflict devastating damage. Samus grimaced. She strongly suspected that Crocomire was much tougher this time around than he was last. The only good thing, for Samus, was that she had a few tools and weapons this time around that she did not have in her last battle against him.
After scanning the beast, a long bluish white life bar appeared on the top of her HUD, with the name "Crocomire" appeared just below the life bar. She charged a Super Missile once more and took aim at the creature's mouth. The creature unleashed a stream of flame towards Samus, something that he had not demonstrated in their last battle. Samus jumped over the stream of energy and launched her Super Missile towards Crocomire's Mouth. The missile erupted from Samus's arm cannon and in less than a second, crossed the distance between the bounty hunter and the reptilian beast. The missile sailed into the monster's mouth and Crocomire closed it, swallowing the missile. As he swallowed the missile, the missile exploded and Crocomire roared in pain. Smoke issued from his mouth as he coughed. The beast took a few steps backwards as Samus proceeded to check her HUD. A small chunk of health had disappeared from the life bar. She smiled. Her attacks were actually damaging the beast. She then proceeded to charge a Power Beam blast and fired it towards the beast's eyes. The blast struck Crocomire in the eyes and caused him to recoil, taking a few steps backwards. One of the beast's eyes had been destroyed and blue blood leaked from the wound. Samus checked the creature's life bar once more and found that it had decreased once again. The bounty hunter smiled to herself. Crocomire had another weakness, one that would be easy for her to exploit. Samus switched to her Plasma Beam and took aim at the beast once more.
Samus targeted the eyes of the monster as he began to charge towards her and charged her Plasma Beam. A ball of orange energy formed at the end of her cannon and when she got a clear shot at the eyes, she opened fire on them. The left front eye was the next eye to be destroyed by the bounty hunter. The plasma shot struck the eye and set it, and part of the creature's head ablaze. Crocomire roared in agony and flailed towards Samus as it was partially blinded. Samus managed to dodge the swipes and the rakes of his claws, and charged a Super Missile, firing it into the mouth of the roaring beast. Again, the creature swallowed the missile and it detonated in Crocomire's stomach, forcing the beast to cough up more smoke. All the while, Crocomire was backing his way towards a large hole in the floor about twelve feet away. This hole was full of a green acid that was so caustic that even Samus's Gravity Suit, and her current Power Suit with the inbuilt Gravity Upgrade was insufficient to protect her for long. If the beast fell into that pit, it would be all over, and Samus knew it.
The bounty hunter switched back to her Plasma Beam and took more shots at Crocomire's eyes. Two more eyes, the right front, and second to the front right eye were destroyed in this volley of shots. The monster continued to backtrack towards the acid pit, unable to comprehend the danger he was putting himself in. Crocomire, however, was not out of the fight yet. He turned and took stock of himself, and faced down Samus as she was charging another blast of plasma. Knowing that his stream of fire would be dodged too easily by the agile warrior, he decided to launch a volley of fireballs from his mouth. Crocomire opened his mouth, knowing the danger of Samus firing her Plasma Beam into his mouth and unleashed a hail of fireballs towards the Hunter.
Samus weaved her way through the massive volley of fireballs, dodging each and every fireball with the grace of a professional dancer. The bounty hunter then retaliated with a Charged Plasma Beam to the mouth of Crocomire. Despite the beast being accustomed to belching out streams of fire and fireballs, his throat was not designed to take the searing temperatures of the plasma of Samus's Plasma Beam. The beam entered the creature's mouth and burned the back of his throat upon impact. The beam burned through the protective membranes that prevented Crocomire's own fire from burning his throat when he would unleash it upon either prey or an enemy and burned its way through the throat entirely, and out the other end of the beast. The beast gave a guttural roar that quickly became quieter as the creature staggered backwards towards the acid pit. Eventually, the beast arrived at the edge of the pit and began to fall. It did not matter, though, for Samus fired another blast of plasma into the creature's mouth. This blast was at an upward angle and, as such, when it burned through the roof of Crocomire's mouth, it bored its way straight through the reptile's brain. The orange blast emerged from the upper rear part of the creature's head and the creature fell backwards into the acid. In the end, it did not matter, though, for Crocomire was already dead. The corpse of the beast staggered backwards, its momentum carrying it over the edge and into the acid pit. The beast then fell into the pool of acid a few feet below the floor and there was a massive splash.
Green acid was thrown up over the edge of the pit and landed on the metal floor, where it promptly ate away at the metal, smoke and steam rising from the various points of impact. Samus made certain to stay a safe distance away from the acid. As she looked into the pool, though, she saw the skin melting off of the dead body of Crocomire, revealing his skeleton, with a portion of his skull missing due to her Plasma Beam. Once the flesh was melted off of Crocomire's bones, the body sank beneath the acid. The battle was over. As soon as Crocomire was defeated, several panels on the wall retracted and a few crates fell to the floor. Behind the walls of the panels were computer consoles. Samus hoped that the computers would give her a more detailed layout of the base than her initial scans had given her. She then looked up at the ceiling and saw a mechanical eye lowering itself and focusing in on her. A yellow light emerged from the eye and washed over her. It did not inflict any damage on her suit, but that did not mean that the light was benign. Samus was being scanned, and she knew exactly who was scanning her. He stared into the light and raised her arm cannon towards it. She then fired a single blast of plasma towards the eye and shattered it. Pieces of metal fell to the floor as all that was left of the eye was a small burnt out stalk and a few shards of metal that littered the floor.
Before continuing into the next room, though, Samus made certain to blast open all of the metallic crates that had appeared on the floor. She sustained no damage from her fight against Crocomire so she did not need any of the purple, yellow, or orange healing energy balls that appeared. However, several of the crates had contained missiles, which she could use to replenish her expended ordnance. Once she had resupplied herself and was back to full capacity, she made her way over to the nearest computer console and used her Scan Visor to hack it. Once the console was hacked, she managed to download all of its information to her logbook. She took the time to read the data logs, though, just in case they held useful information to her. This log detailed the losses that had been sustained during the last Battle of Urtraghus in which the Space Pirates had launched a disastrous attempt to retake their current homeworld. The battle had resulted in the annihilation of most of their fleet and all but a few thousand of their forces. In addition, more than half of High Command had been killed in the attack.
Seeing nothing of value on that console, she went over and hacked the next console. This one contained a map of the entire base, including the locations of each of the Space Pirate commanders, in addition to where the prisoners were located. According to a map, most of the prisoners were being held in an underwater prison that had been lowered into a large pool that was likely a makeshift aquarium for Draygon. Studying the map further, Samus saw that the prisoners were located only a couple of rooms away. In addition, she found that there were several prisoners that were located in small individual cells deeper inside the base. Once she had finished scanning the second console, she went over to the third console. This console was different from the others. It appeared to be more of a lock than anything else.
Samus scanned the console and her scans soon revealed that the console was actually a lock for secret weapons compartments and safes for locking valuables. She went over to the gray console and saw a single green button. Feeling confident that should this be a trap that her suit would be able to protect her, she went over to the console and pushed the button. Immediately, the grinding of gears and engines was heard as several floor panels retracted. Samus turned and saw several structures rising from the retracted panels. Indeed, this room had been a safe for keeping valuables and weapons. Samus saw several racks of weapons: all kinds of energy and physical projectile throwing pistols, rifles, carbines, etcetera. There were also missile launchers, grenade launchers, grenades, and other weapons on various other racks and tables that rose from the floor. Not only that, but there were several crates that were full of energy orbs and missiles for her suit. She quickly blasted them open and charged her beam so she could draw them in and replenish her suit's shields and missile supplies. She also noticed a small structure rise from the center of the room. This structure seemed to be holding a small glowing sphere of light in the middle. She activated her Scan Visor and scanned the object. The scan read, Object – Light Beam. A beam weapon designed by both the Chozo and the Luminoth that uses a special and unknown type of energy. Unlike the previous version of the Light Beam, this one houses a special type of self-sustaining energy that does not require an alternative source of ammunition. It is exceedingly effective against magical and magic-based enemies like the Elvanheim and any magically reanimated enemies. It is also highly effective against evil beings, but does little to no damage to anything that is good. In addition to its damaging properties, it is also able to eliminate magical barriers and spells and reverse magical brainwashing that has been placed over its target. Can also be charged to power up a Light Missile, which has an expanded blast radius is capable of affecting mechanical enemies. Light Missiles are twice as powerful as Super Missiles in base destructive power, which is added to the damage they inflict upon evil beings should they be used against enemies that are truly evil. Light Missiles cost ten normal missiles per use.
After reading the scan, Samus went over to the structure holding the sphere of light and reached out with her arm cannon towards it. Such a weapon would be essential in the upcoming battles against Cyrus and possibly against any Magic Lords that might reveal themselves. As soon as her arm cannon made contact with the sphere, it began to flow over her arm cannon as if it were made of some form of liquid. Her arm cannon glowed a bright gold as the energy penetrated the cannon and integrated itself into her systems. Once the Light Beam was fully integrated into her systems, she test fired a shot towards the door at the other end of the room. A bright yellowish gold burst of light erupted from the cannon and struck the blue shield over the door at the other end of the room. The shield instantly fell and the bounty hunter was granted access to the next room. She proceeded towards the door and as she approached, it opened. Samus ran through and entered the next room.
Meanwhile, down in the bowels of the base, Ridley and a Space Pirate Commander watched the screens as Samus had obliterated the camera. Several Urtragian Space Pirate Troopers were manning several security and sensor consoles and were busy directing the security forces towards Samus's location. Given the heinous losses, they could not afford to send anything other than cloned Zebesians and a few cloned Cyborg Zebesians to face her. Ridley stared at the screens and bellowed, "What is the status of our security forces? Where is Samus?"
One of the Pirates then turned back to him and replied, "We don't know, sir. Samus entered Crocomire's room and she has yet to exit it yet."
A feminine voice from behind Ridley then commanded in a stern, yet calm, mechanical voice, "Send two security teams to the weapons storage room immediately. If nothing else, they will encounter Samus along the way. Also, inform Draygon and Phantoon that they will likely have a guest arriving shortly."
"Understood," the Pirate responded.
Ridley then looked back at the one who issued the order. From a glass enclosed stasis tank, an organic brain with a single eye looked out at the Pirates and the bioweapons that they had developed and gave a shudder of satisfaction. "Are you sure that a couple of security teams will be enough, Mother?" the Space Dragon asked, his tone demonstrating his concern. "This is Samus Aran we're dealing with. Surely you should know this."
"I may be a clone, Ridley, but I have all of Mother Brain's and MB's memories and Mother Brain's personality," the brain retorted. "Remember, Ridley, I am Mother Brain, the true leader of the Space Pirates! I expect my orders to be carried out to the letter and the spirit of said orders."
"On Zebes, perhaps," Ridley snorted. "You were only in charge of the Zebesian Space Pirates. Here, we have Urtragian Space Pirates, the originals. High Command is in charge of them."
"And High Command placed me in charge of all Space Pirates on Shanera," Mother Brain proclaimed.
"Be careful, Mother," Ridley warned. His tone was not threatening in any way, merely calm. "I am a member of High Command too, and its top general, and as such, I have a lot of influence with the rest of the council, and it has final authority over everything; even you. Remember, we brought you online so that you could clone more Metroids, control them, and brainwash the humans we captured and help turn them into Techno Knights and Techno Lords. We're giving you a lot of leeway here. Don't make it so that our faith in you was misplaced."
"I know," Mother Brain retorted indignantly. "I have already completed the cloning of the Metroids and are releasing them as we speak into the middle levels of the base. As for the captives, we already have the first batch undergoing the initial stages of the transformation as we speak. It should be completed within the hour."
"Good," Ridley rumbled in satisfaction.
One of the Pirates then turned back to Ridley and told him, "My lord, our sensors indicate that the Light Sphere has disappeared."
"What?" both Ridley and Mother Brain gasped.
The Space Pirate nodded. "Our sensors are no longer reading the energy signature of the Light Sphere. All of our initial scans showed that it also housed a variation of the Light Beam, a weapon that was used by the Hunter on Aether."
Ridley then began to get concerned. "What did the scans say about the weapon?"
"Not much that we know of," the Pirate responded. "We had only completed initial scans. So far, though, the scans indicated that the weapon was significantly different from the one the Hunter used on Aether. This one was said to be significantly more powerful, at least against organic opponents."
Ridley shifted his weight uncomfortably. He had been against going on the raid that had undoubtedly brought down the wrath of Samus Aran upon the Space Pirates at the moment. They had received an anonymous tip about a powerful weapon and some good candidates for their own Techno Soldier program. His sole reasoning had been that he did not trust anonymous tips like the one that they had received. While this would not have been a problem a few months ago, as things were now, he felt as if the first order of business was to get the Space Pirates back on their feet and replenish their forces. While the Galactic Federation Civil War did give them excellent opportunities to capture some civilians and transform them into their new weapons, he also knew that they had to take things slowly at first. The Galactic Federation in Exile had dealt them a devastating blow when they had attempted to retake Urtraghus. All but one of their capital warships had been destroyed, and their numbers had been whittled down to less than one thousand members, not counting cloned Zebesian cannon fodder soldiers and various bioweapons, and most of them were now in orbit onboard the frigate, Siriacus. And even though they had suffered few losses in the raid that resulted in the capture of the Adventure in the Stars and of several technologies on a Federation heavy freighter, several of the losses had been an Elite Pirate and a few Urtragian Space Pirates. The raid had initially been viewed as a partial success, since they had wanted to capture the freighter, itself, but had to settle for some of its cargo instead. Things had been looking up since they had discovered that they had captured a piece of Chozo and Luminoth weaponry, though. Now, Ridley was concerned once more. If Samus had managed to get a hold of the Light Beam and it was, indeed, significantly more powerful than the Light Beam variant she had used on Aether had been, then things could get worse for the Pirates very quickly.
Soon, another Space Pirate Trooper turned to them and reported, "My lords, we have another problem. The troopers on the surface that were supposed to bring down the prisoners from the captured star liner have not reported in. Our sensors also find no trace of them at all, though there are residual energy signatures around the captured star liner."
"Damn!" both Ridley and Mother Brain swore. "Samus has rescued the captives."
"Not all of them," the Space Pirate corrected. "We still managed to get some of the captives inside the base before the Hunter arrived. We're bringing them down here as we speak."
"Good," Ridley said.
Mother Brain then focused on Ridley. "We must make preparations immediately. We cannot allow Samus to reach our command center and free the prisoners. Too many resources have been put into this operation already. We cannot afford to suffer another significant loss.
Ridley then turned to Mother Brain and requested, "Let me go and intercept Samus."
"No," Mother Brain retorted harshly. "Your record against Samus has been horrendous, especially recently."
Ridley scowled. While he had to admit that she was right about his record against Samus, his last battle against the bounty hunter on Z-1A resulting in his near death, he also knew that he was the best qualified to deal with her. "Let me take her on," the Space Dragon pleaded. "With some backup, I think I can beat her, especially if we use Rodney and Virginia as support."
"Out of the question," Mother Brain snapped. "The loyalty of the Techno Lords is currently uncertain at best. While they have not actively targeted Space Pirate units in tests, they have also not fired on enemy Federation or civilian targets, yet, either. Stay here. We'll let Draygon, the Metroids, and Phantoon deal with Samus. Besides, I think that the Metroids will be a more effective psychological weapon right now, given the Metroid Hatchling's sacrifice of itself to save her against the first clone of Mother Brain."
Ridley then slumped over, defeated, and said, "Understood, Mother." He then turned back towards the screen and watched Samus make her way through the empty room before Draygon's aquarium. While Mother Brain seemed to think that Draygon had a chance against her, Ridley thought otherwise. He subtly glanced back at Mother Brain and could not help but think that Science Team had screwed up on the cloning of Mother Brain when they used Aurora Unit Zero's DNA in the cloning attempt. Either that, or that she was brought online too soon. This Mother Brain was much shorter in temper, and far less careful than the two previous Mother Brains. He shook off the thought, not wanting to dwell on it since Mother Brain was telepathic. He then focused on Samus. If they survived this encounter, then he could have Science Team take a look at Mother Brain later. For now, he would do what was needed to both follow Mother's orders, for now, and to kill his nemesis: Samus Aran.
Samus made her way through the next room in the base. Much to her surprise, there were no Space Pirates or bioweapons waiting for her. In fact, there was nothing in this room at all. It had no furniture or flashing lights at all, only a single line of lights above to provide illumination. Samus quickly activated her Scan Visor and scanned the room to see if there were any secret traps, invisible enemies, or hidden consoles or panels. She swept her gaze across the entire room and the ceiling as well. She found nothing at all. Once her scans were completed, she checked her map and saw that the room just beyond the door at the end of the current room was the last known location of Draygon. Given that Draygon was a water-based enemy, she figured that he had not moved, and that there was likely a trap in the room that would force a battle between her and the beast. It was a trap she would gladly spring, for many of the captives from the Adventure in the Stars were being held in that room as well. Wasting no time, Samus fired another blast from her Light Beam and opened the door to the next room. She then went through the door and to the location of her next battle.
Upon emerging in the other room, the door closed behind her and a black shield rose over the door. She gazed forward and saw a large underground lake. Checking her map, she saw that there were a series of tunnels beneath the lake. Knowing that she was undoubtedly walking towards a battle with one of the Space Pirate generals, she readied herself for battle and stepped closer to the edge of the lake and she soon found a small metallic platform floating in the center of the lake. She paid little heed to the platform and quickly waded out into the middle of the lake. As she continued on her way, the water rose until it was about to her chest, and then there was a large drop off, and soon, she was completely submerged in the water.
As she was fully submerged in the water, the Gravity Feature of her Power Suit activated and a purple glow emanated from her suit. She soon hit the floor of the water and began to walk along the lakebed. She checked her HUD and, sure enough, just as she was beginning to make her way towards the center of the lake, four Pink Zebesians, Zebesians that wore pink armor that simulated the effects of Samus's Gravity Suit, approached her. Samus knew that their suits were impervious to most weaponry save for Plasma Beam shots, but she wanted to test her new Light Beam on the Space Pirates. To that end, she charged her Light Beam and locked onto the leader of the Pink Zebesians. She then unleashed her Light Beam at the Pirates as they got within range of her and opened fire on her. The shotgun-like spread of golden energy pulses erupted from her arm cannon and zeroed in on not only the Pink Zebesian leader, but on the other Pirates in his squadron. The pulses struck the Pirates and exploded, covering the Space Pirates in a golden light. The glow remained for a two seconds before it began to fade. As soon as the light faded, the Pirates disappeared in the golden glow, completely disintegrated by the attack.
After repulsing the attack, Samus continued her trek to the center of the lake. As she approached the center, she saw a single red blip appear on her radar in front of her. She knew that it was likely Draygon. She looked above her and found the massive green skinned crustacean-like being with eight legs and a green fish-like tail with a sharp claw on its end known as Draygon descending towards her. Samus activated her Scan Visor and scanned the creature. The scan read, Morphology – Draygon. This is a clone of the original Draygon defeated by Samus Aran on planet Zebes shortly before its destruction. This Draygon has no remarkable differences compared to its original. Its weaknesses are its underbelly and electricity. It is capable of firing globs of gray mucus from its mouth that can hinder an opponent's movement, making it easier for it to grab and pummel. Samus then grinned. While there were no destroyed underwater turrets for her to take advantage of, she did not need them, for she had her Wavebuster.
She quickly switched to her Wave Beam and quickly charged it as Draygon began the battle by firing globs of sticky mucus towards her. Samus quickly dodged the globs of mucus, but Draygon would not make it so easy for her to kill it. The creature quickly rushed towards Samus and tried to thrust its sharp tail towards her. Samus somersaulted towards the creature, activating her Screw Attack in the process, and barreled into it. The Screw Attack forced Draygon back several meters and put some distance between Samus and the crustacean. The bounty hunter then uncurled herself, locked onto Draygon, and unleashed a steady stream of electricity from her Wavebuster on the crustacean. Draygon cried out in pain as the stream of lightning struck it and electricity arced across its body. In addition to the obscene damage that the Wavebuster was inflicting on the creature, the Charge Combo also paralyzed the creature, rendering it unable to attack or defend itself. Try as it might, the creature was unable to do anything to save itself or harm Samus in any way. It did not take long for the end to come. After ten seconds of abuse, Draygon succumbed to its injuries. Its eyes rolled back into its head and the charred remains of the beast began to float up to the surface.
With the threat of Draygon dealt with, Samus noticed hatch appear on the lakebed a few feet in front of her. Scanning the hatch she found that the hatch was an elevator that led deeper into the base and walked over to it at a brisk pace. Once she arrived, she stood on the metal platform and waited. After a second, there was a clank and a series of bubbles rose from the surface of the lake. Samus soon saw the lakebed rise up all around her and soon, the lakebed turned into a metallic tunnel that was free of water. Upon her emerging from the water, the purple glow of her suit's Gravity Feature disappeared. Once the elevator stopped at the bottom, she stepped off and made her way further into the Space Pirate base.