Chapter 7:
Samus first targeted the Team Galactic psychic, Mari, with her Ice Beam and promptly froze her solid. The blue energy blast that erupted from her arm cannon struck the young woman and formed a small circle of ice, which rapidly expanded until the woman was completely encased in said ice. The twenty Galactic Federation Army Troopers than proceeded to open fire on Samus once again with their useless assault rifles. The energy-coated bullets merely bounced off of her shields, and were deflected into the walls and some of the computer consoles in the room. A number of bullets were also deflected into the frozen Mari, who was promptly shattered upon being struck. Upon seeing that their own fire had killed Mari, the leader of the troopers cried, "Watch your fire, you idiots! You just fragged Mari!"
The soldiers turned to him and nodded. However, as they were doing so, Samus counterattacked by firing blasts of her uncharged Ice Beam at the troopers. One shot was more than sufficient to freeze each trooper. With each shot she fired, another trooper was frozen. Once their numbers were cut in half, the troopers got the bright idea to try to take cover. They quickly retreated from Samus. As they sought consoles and crates to hide behind, the bounty hunter managed to freeze two more soldiers, leaving only eight remaining. She knew that she had to hurry, for she did not know how long the frozen soldiers would remain frozen. As the other soldiers were diving behind cover, she shot the frozen soldiers again just to make sure that they would remain frozen for the remainder of the firefight.
After taking cover, the remaining soldiers switched to their freeze guns, realizing that their assault rifles were useless against Samus's armor and shields. They sporadically emerged from cover and took shots at Samus with their freeze guns. The blasts of energy, however, traveled relatively slowly to the bounty hunter's enhanced perceptions and reflexes and she was quickly able to dance out of the way of the blasts of freezing energy. She returned fire with her Ice Beam and froze two more soldiers. The other soldiers took more shots at her, but their aim was off and she emerged from the hail of freezing energy fire unscathed. She then picked off two more soldiers with another burst of shots. This left four soldiers. While three of the remaining Army Troopers emerged from cover and took aim at Samus with both their freeze guns and assault rifles, one remained behind to call in reinforcements and to alert everyone to the situation. He activated his communicator and cried, "Ring security, this is Corporal Lasing. We have an intruder onboard trying to hack the computers! It's…" but the trooper was silenced when Samus froze him solid with a blast of energy from her Ice Beam.
Before being completely frozen, the unfortunate corporal happened to drop the communicator. A voice on the other end of the line kept yelling, "Corporal, corporal, what's going on? Who's the intruder?"
The voice would never get his answer, for Samus quickly switched to her Power Beam and fired a single shot at the communicator. A single blast of orange energy struck the communicator and vaporized it, leaving a noticeable hole and burn mark in the floor as well. The bounty hunter then switched back to her Ice Beam and continued to deal with the other troopers.
The three remaining Army Troopers, seeing that they had nothing left to lose, charged directly at Samus and opened fire with all of their weapons, hoping to strike her with a few ice blasts, hopefully freezing her solid, and then shatter her with the bullets from their assault rifles. They never stood a chance. Moving faster than they could track, she moved behind the troopers and quickly fired a trio of Ice blasts into their backs. The three Army Troopers were instantly frozen solid by her blasts and the battle, if it could actually be considered a battle, was over.
After the battle had concluded, she fired several more ice shots at the frozen troopers to make sure that they would remain so. She then made her way over to the control console for Ring One's main computer core. Inputting a series of commands, the screen on top of the console came alive. Samus input several more commands into the console so as to try to link all of the computers on the Orbital Defense Ring Network to the main computer for Ring One. The computers for the other rings were not accepting her commands. She typed in another series of commands, trying to hack into the other computers from her current terminal, but found that she was unable to do so. Figuring that she had likely been detected and the computers currently had all of their firewalls and other security measures enhanced, she decided that she would have to take down the Orbital Defense Ring Network down the old fashioned way. Forgoing any further attempt to interface with the computer using her normal skills, she decided to let her Scan Visor do the work.
She scanned the computer with her visor and the display screen suddenly came alive with a series of flashing images. Some of the images merely showed the schematics for Techno Power Suits and Techno Soldiers, while others contained maps for all of the Orbital Defense Rings, as well as important locations for each ring, such as teleporters, the main computer cores, the main energy cores, control centers, and various restricted areas. It did not provide any access codes that would be necessary to get to restricted areas, but she was not worried about that. Her Scan Visor would allow her access to those areas should she need it. She then downloaded the map and information to her logbook for later use. She quickly took a look at the map and found that there was a teleporter a few hundred meters outside the door on the other side of the corridor. According to the map, the teleporter would take her to Orbital Ring Two, close to its own main computer core. She suppressed a grin. This may have been easier than she initially believed it would be.
Once everything was ready, she used her Scan Visor to gain access to the autodestruct program of Orbital Ring One. The red autodestruct screen appeared on the main display, the red background broken by white letters. A query came for the type of destruct sequence that the user wished for. Samus selected the two-minute countdown and full detachment sequence. This would allow the various sections of the Orbital Ring to separate and fly a safe distance away from the planet before the power cores detonated. Before initiating the autodestruct sequence, though, she locked out the computer from any other form of interference and then input the final commands for the autodestruct sequence. After the bounty hunter input the final commands for the ring's destruction, the computer's voice, a feminine sounding voice then said, "Autodestruct sequence has been initiated. You have two minutes to evacuate before ring destruction."
Samus wasted no time shooting numerous large holes into the console with her Power Beam so no one would be able to try to hack the computer and deactivate the autodestruct sequence. Once that was completed, she around and leaving the chamber as lines of red lights appeared on the walls and ceiling and began to flash. A voice then came in over the loudspeakers, saying, "One minute, fifty seconds until ring destruction." As she ran out the door, she quickly glanced over at the frozen troopers and noticed that they were beginning to thaw. A part of her hoped that they would manage to make it to either a teleporter or to an escape pod before the ring's destruction despite the fact that they likely were either a part of Team Galactic or knew of Cyrus's nefarious goals and merely did not care.
She entered the corridor and saw numerous Army Troopers, Marines, security personnel, and other members of the Galactic Federation military running to the nearest escape pod or personal teleporter. She turned to her right and proceeded down the corridor. She looked out into space and found escape pods already being jettisoned from the ring. She had a feeling that after Ring Two, unless the other main computers for the remaining Orbital Rings were pretty close to the entry and evacuation teleporters, that she would be in for a difficult mission. She continued down the corridor and as she ran, several humanoid-looking security robots, who were not concerned with their own safety, noticed the unauthorized person running towards the teleporter that would take her to Ring Two and proceeded to open fire. Scarlet bolts of energy erupted from small guns mounted on their arms and streaked towards Samus. She was too fast for the robots to be able to keep up with, though, so their shots went wide.
After a few seconds of running, the bounty hunter's Speed Booster activated and a field of energy surrounded her as she began to run at incredible speeds down the corridor. Several security robots were in her way in the corridor and she barreled through them, utterly annihilating the robots. Time slowed for her as a single tick of the clock felt more like twenty seconds. It took only ten of her seconds to reach the teleporter.
As she arrived at the teleporter, she heard the computerized voice blare, "One minute, thirty seconds until autodestruct. Unable to abort."
She activated her Scan Visor once more to hack into the controls of the teleporter. This turned out to be surprisingly easy, and unnecessary since there were no security controls on the teleporter. Confirming with both the map in her logbook and the directory on the side of the pad, she found that this teleporter would take her to Orbital Ring Two, somewhere close to its own main computer core. Wasting no more time, she stepped onto the teleporter pad and vanished from the ring.
Samus reappeared on a teleporter pad on Orbital Ring Two. The corridor she found herself in was completely abandoned, something that surprised her greatly, save for two security robots, which she took care of with a couple of energy blasts from her Power Beam. The robots fell over onto the floor with a clatter, each with a single massive hole burned into its torso. After felling the robots, she saw a window across from her that showed Orbital Ring One. She rushed over to the window in order to make sure that her autodestruct sequence was not stopped. She checked her timer and found that there was still one whole minute left on the clock. She watched as more and more escape pods were jettisoned from the ring, along with many escape shuttles fleeing the doomed ring. A part of her was concerned that her sabotage would be discovered and that as a result, the "long" time that she gave the crew to evacuate the ring would allow them to tighten the security procedures of the other rings. However, she felt as if it was worth the risk, for she did not want to be stuck on the ring being bogged down in the fighting only for it to explode with her still onboard. And even before that, she also knew that there were a lot of people that did not know about Cyrus's treachery. They did not deserve to suffer the same fate as the members of Team Galactic and those who were in on Cyrus's secrets.
The bounty hunter watched as each second ticked off the clock. At around twenty seconds left, she noticed the stream of escape pods and shuttles slow, and eventually come to a stop when only ten seconds remained on the countdown. She then waited as the clock counted down to the final second.
When the clock finally reached zero, she saw the various sections of the ring begin to break apart. Scuttling charges went off and pieces of metal were flung away from the ring as each sector broke off. Once each sector broke off, thrusters fired that carried each sector away from the planet. She watched as each visible section of Ring One flew out into space, colliding with several unsuspecting fighters, and even a couple of destroyer-class capital ships. While the shields of the destroyers managed to hold against the initial impacts, the detonations of the power cores in each section upon impact doomed the ships to death. As the various sections of Orbital Ring One exploded, debris was flung into the shields produced by the subsequent rings. She felt a faint shudder with the impact of the shockwave and the larger pieces of debris, which shattered against the exceedingly powerful shields produced by the rings. With the threat of Orbital Ring One neutralized, Samus turned away from the window and continued on her journey to the main computer core of Orbital Ring Two.
Meanwhile, onboard his helicopter taking him to the forward command center on the beachhead that had been established in Japan, Cyrus sat in his seat with an open laptop computer, reading the reports that were coming in from various fronts. So far, most of the six thousand additional ships that comprised the main battle fleet over Earth had arrived. In addition, inroads had been made into the Unova region of America. Looking over the dossier on the Unova League, he read that the champion's name was Alder. He was not familiar with him, but he had a feeling that Alder was not quite as formidable as Cynthia had been. While he had not engaged Cynthia directly, his lieutenants had, and they had been soundly defeated by the Sinnoh League Champion.
He continued to read that his forces had taken control of most of the European Union, with only the British Isles still holding out. He was not concerned about them, though. Their conquest was not important in the slightest. His only concern was Sinnoh, Johto, and Unova. Once he had control of them, then he could systematically send his forces to take over the other countries and regions of the world. And that would only be so that the threat to those regions would distract the rest of the world from his true goals and keep them from amassing troops in Japan. He looked over at the report of Mount Coronet and still seethed. He had not liked giving Mount Coronet to Ridley and the Space Pirates, but he had had little choice. His forces had not gotten far enough into Japan to risk letting angering Ridley and allowing him to spill all of his dirty little secrets. Even if Ridley had been making up some of the secrets, he still did not want to be associated with Elric any more than he had already been. Being seen as the same as Elric would draw undue scrutiny on him; and then he would have problems.
He was about to close his computer and rest before arriving in Japan when the face of General Korro appeared on the screen. "Chairman Cyrus," Korro blurted in a worried tone, his fear evident on his face. "We have just received word from the fleet. Orbital Ring One has been destroyed! Our ground sensors also confirm its destruction."
Cyrus's eyes went wide with shock and anger. "Destroyed? How?"
"According to reports, it appears as if the autodestruct sequence had been initiated," Korro answered.
"The autodestruct?" Cyrus inquired loudly. "But how? The computers have redundant security protocols that prevent tampering! And what happened with the other security protocols? I have some top of the line computer security officers onboard those rings? What were they doing?"
"I don't know sir," Korro told him. "What makes this even more troubling is that the computers are of both N'Kren and Ylla technology, much like the Aurora Units are both Chozo and Galactic Federation technology. Hacking them should be impossible if the intruder was using Galactic Federation or Space Pirate technology."
"But not if they were using technology of one of the four ancient races," Cyrus said in a dark tone.
"No, technology from the Chozo, Luminoth, N'Kren, or Ylla could breach it."
"Then we either have a traitor or a spy," Cyrus concluded. "Send the bounty hunters we hired to the Orbital Rings now. Have them find and kill this enemy, at once."
"Yes, sir," Korro responded. Cyrus then closed the channel. After closing the channel, she folded down the screen of his computer and sat back in his chair, a scowl plastered on his face. His forces needed to snap it up in Japan. If the Orbital Defense Ring Network fell, then Admiral Dane would be able to land troops on Earth and disrupt, if not stop, his plans.
Samus continued down the corridor, quickly switching to her Wave Beam, a weapon that was highly effective against mechanicals and would be highly useful if she were ambushed by any Techno Soldiers or Techno Power Suits. It would also be useful in disabling the armor and energy weapons of any Galactic Federation Marines or Army Troopers that she came across, too. As she was walking, she brought up the map for Ring Two. The map indicated that she was at least a kilometer away from her destination. She only hoped that she did not run into any real resistance before she arrived at the main computer core for the ring.
She continued down the corridor and soon came across a quartet of mobile turrets that looked like floating guns. Samus was not familiar with this type of robot and, thus, activated her Scan Visor, scanning the closest robot. The scan soon came up on her HUD, reading, Morphology – FG II-Graham. This mobile turret can fire powerful bolts of energy at enemies. Pairs of these robots can form Wave Beam barriers across narrow corridors. These barriers are immune to many missile and beam weapons, being vulnerable only to the electrical variant of the Wave Beam.
The robots floated towards her and she saw a bulge of pinkish white energy form at the end of the guns. She immediately charged a shot from her Wave Beam and fired on the lead robot. The charged trio of undulating purple energy pulses erupted from her arm cannon and instantaneously crossed the distance to the mobile turret. The charged shot breached the shield of the robot and struck the robot directly. The pulse of energy the robot was preparing dispersed and electricity arced across the robot. It promptly fell to the floor and ceased to function. While it was falling, Samus quickly targeted its twin and took it down in the same fashion. Once they had been dealt with, she switched back to her Power Beam and fired a few shots into the downed robots in order to make sure that they were destroyed. She then focused on the two remaining mobile turrets.
Noticing some differences between these robots from the ones that she had just taken down, she activated her Scan Visor once more and scanned the next two robots. The scan read, Morphology – FG-1000. This mass-produced mobile turret can fire concentrated bolts of electricity at enemies. It also has a penchant for ramming opponents as well. It is vulnerable to weapons fire when charging, though the Wave Beam and Plasma Beams are capable of penetrating its armor.
Samus took no chances with these robots and switched back to her Wave Beam. She charged her Wave Beam and shot it at the lead robot. One charged shot was all it took to take down the robot. Electricity arced across its body as it fell to the ground. The same fate soon awaited the final FG-1000. Samus then switched back to her Power Beam and made certain that they were destroyed beyond repair by firing a few shots into each of the fallen robots, shattering them. With the robots having been dealt with, she continued down the corridor.
Checking her map, she found that she still had a ways to go before reaching the main computer chamber. She knew that she would not be able to get in via deception, so she steeled herself for combat. It would not be long before people investigated the destruction of Orbital Ring One and she suspected that the security and military forces onboard the remaining rings would be on high alert. She had been surprised that she had only found a mere pair of security robots and quartet of mobile turrets protecting the corridor leading to the main computer core chamber.
She checked her map once more and found that the chamber that housed the computer core for Orbital Defense Ring Two was merely a few hundred meters away. However, her sensors also picked up some enemies up ahead as well, as the borders of her map turned red. A light flashed in the distance and Samus dove to the ground as a pulse of scarlet energy sailed over her head. She scanned the area ahead of her with the telescopic ability that had been built into her new visor. Sure enough, she found two Galactic Federation Marines in the distance. She hugged the edge of the wall as more scarlet bolts sailed down the corridor. She soon extended her arm cannon and took a series of shots from her Wave Beam towards the troopers. Trios of small undulating purple orbs streaked towards the Marines at nearly the speed of light, leaving them no chance of dodging. The Marine on the right was hit by three Wave Beam blasts, which shorted out the Marine's shields and energy rifle, causing its power to fluctuate. She then followed up with the Charged Wave Beam blast to the trooper on the left, which had already taken cover behind a support column. The column did little to protect the Marine from the Wave Beam blast as it struck him squarely in the chest and electricity arced across his body. The Marine's body spasmed and he gave a muffled cry as he fell to the floor, hurting and with his armor now completely deactivated and useless, but alive. Samus then neutralized the Marine on the right with a few more uncharged Wave Beam blasts. Like his companion he, too, fell to the floor with electricity arcing across his suit. In addition, he also survived the fight, albeit with a useless energy gun and suit of power armor. She then rushed past the fallen troopers, scanning them to make sure that they were still alive. Despite being a part of the enemy force, she took no pleasure in killing Galactic Federation soldiers, especially if she did not know whether or not they were evil. Besides, she had the ability to complete the mission without having to kill them, so their deaths would not have been necessary. With that thought in mind, she continued down the corridor.
She did not meet any further resistance until coming to the door that led to the main computer core. Standing guard beside the door were four Federation Army Troopers, with one of the troopers carrying a massive plasma cannon. She approached the troopers, who were waiting for the bounty hunter and opened fire on them just as they were drawing their freeze guns and readying the plasma cannon. Two uncharged Wave Beam blasts struck the two Army Troopers on the left side of the door and felled them, electricity arcing across their bodies. The other trooper and the Plasma Cannon Trooper, however, managed to get off a few shots before Samus took them down. While the icy freeze gun blast sailed wide the plasma cannon shot managed to strike Samus's suit and took off ten units of energy from her Energy Tank. That was all of the shots that the two troopers would manage to get off before being felled by Samus, though.
After the brief exchange, Samus approached the door. As she did so, she examined each of the Army Troopers to see if they were still alive. They were. She then looked at their helmets to see which platoon they belonged to, if any. She found that these soldiers belonged to the Eighth Platoon of Division Twenty of the Fourth Army. They were, in essence, grunt troopers that had been assigned to the Orbital Ring because they were not skilled enough to be expected to survive on the ground. Once she was certain that they would be out of action for some time, she went through the door and to the main computer core of Ring Two.
Inside the main computer core chamber, Samus was met by over a dozen FG-1000 mobile turrets, as well as an Army Trooper that had a stylized "G" on his helmet. Turning to Samus, and seeing who she was, he swore, "Oh, crap, it's you!" He then yelled at the robots, "Kill the intruder!"
The robots then proceeded to open fire on Samus and charge red pulses of energy while streaking towards the bounty hunter in an attempt to ram her. While the robots were engaging Samus, the Team Galactic Army Trooper went to the communications console and, after inputting a series of commands, cried, "This is TG Agent Zero-One-Five-Seven to Executive Charon of Team Galactic. Patch me through to Chairman Cyrus at once! I've identified the intruder, it's…" but he never got a chance to finish his sentence, for Samus promptly shot him with a single uncharged blast of her Light Beam. The beam struck him and bathed him in a golden light, which promptly disintegrated the human's body. She had used the Light Beam, feeling that the trooper was, indeed evil and, thus, the Light Beam would be effective against him. She had known the risk, though, since the Light Beam would not harm a truly good person in the slightest and had he been good, he would have exposed her to the rest of the defenses of the Orbital Ring Network. The voice of an elderly sounding man came in over the channel, calling, "Agent Zero-One-Five-Seven, this is Charon; what's going on? Zero-One-Five-Seven, do you copy?" Samus then put an end to the transmission by shooting the console with her Plasma Beam, burning a huge hole into it, instantly closing the channel.
She then focused her attention back on the more than one dozen FG-1000 mobile turrets. As they were approaching her, she opened fire on the robots with uncharged Plasma Beam shots. The shots managed to burn through the armor and fry the inner workings of the robots, taking them down quickly. The robots that she had shot fell apart and their wreckage fell to the ground with a clatter. However, Samus had only managed to shoot down two of the robots when the other eleven had either arrived near her or had finished charging their energy blasts. Samus dove out of the way of two of the turrets that were charging her while five others fired their blasts at her. She managed to avoid three of the blasts relatively easily. A fourth blast missed her entirely, but a fifth blast managed to strike her in the chest, taking off eight units of energy from her Energy Tank. Samus retaliated with several uncharged blasts from her Plasma Beam. The reddish-orange blasts of energy erupted from her arm cannon at a rapid clip and obliterated two of the robots, leaving behind nothing more than small shards of metal. A third and fourth robot were about to ram her, but the bounty hunter swung her left arm in a wide arc and managed to strike one of the robots, scrambling its circuits in the process, and send it careening into the fourth. Both robots then crashed to the ground for a moment. Samus then jumped into the air and landed on both robots, crushing them. Gears and wires emerged from underneath the soles of her feet. She then turned and focused on the remaining robots, who were once again charging their cannons. However, she got the first shots off and managed to shoot down three of the robots before they managed to charge their cannons. Upon charging their cannons, though, the four remaining robots unleashed a torrent of energy fire towards the bounty hunter. She proceeded to dive out of the way of the oncoming energy blasts and managed to avoid the volley. She then took aim at the other four and quickly shattered them with two shots from her Plasma Beam, each, before they were able to charge their next attack.
After the robots had been destroyed, Samus made her way over to the main computer core's primary control console. She did not care about wasting time ensuring that she was not seen. She merely activated her Scan Visor and hacked the computer the quick and easy way. The first thing she did was to disable all security protocols throughout the ring, save for the security protocols that allowed access to the main computer and to its chamber. Next, she used her visor to call up the primary control systems. Soon, she managed to call up the autodestruct sequence. She typed in the command prompts that appeared on the screen. Before going any further in the process, she pulled up her map on her HUD and studied it. She searched for the closest teleporter that would take her to Orbital Ring Three. Surprisingly, the next pad took her to within a few dozen meters of the next main computer core. Whoever had designed this series of rings must have been a fool, for intruders seemed to have easy access to each of the rings' main computer cores. As she studied the map further, she found that the ease of gaining quick access to the computer cores stopped at Ring Four. Rings Five through Eight had their computer cores all over the place, and many of them were likely under heavy guard. Still, she knew that she could deal with this Ring, as well as Rings Three and Four.
Once she was ready, she put in all of the information necessary to program Orbital Ring Two's autodestruct sequence. Once she entered the codes, the screen on top of the console turned blood red with white letters and numbers signifying the countdown to destruction. As soon as the screen changed, a feminine-sounding voice identical to that of the computer of Orbital Ring One said, "Awaiting final authorization code for two minute countdown."
Samus used her Scan Visor to glean the code from the computer, which was, 14257, and entered the code into the computer. Once she was finished and pushed, Enter, the computer said, "Autodestruct sequence has been initiated. Two minutes until Ring destruction." The clock then began to count down from two minutes.
Samus was already heading out the door while the computer was still speaking and was making her way to her right and continuing down the corridor to the teleporter that would take her to Ring Three. She began to sprint down the corridor, for the teleporter was quite far away from the main computer core this time. After a few seconds of running, her Speed Booster activated. As it did so, she heard a sound that seemed to resemble a voice being played back on a recorder at incredibly slow speed, likely due to the fact that her perceptions while the Speed Booster was activated were so much clearer than they normally were.
As she was running, she took a quick glance at her surroundings. Just as with the personnel of Orbital Ring One, people were exiting their quarters and fleeing to the closest of the escape pods to get them off the Ring. There were fewer people fleeing here than there were on Orbital Ring One. She figured that this section did not have a lot of organic security officers and that most of the people were in other sections of the Ring.
She continued on her sprint towards the teleporter, running into no real resistance. The only resistance that had come out to meet her was more FG-1000 mobile turrets, FG II-Grahams, and some humanoid security robots. Samus plowed through the robots with the energy field produced by her Speed Booster and continued unabated to her destination.
After a while, Samus finally arrived at the teleporter. When she arrived, she heard the computer say, "Thirty seconds until Ring destruction." That was her cue to hack the teleporter with her Scan Visor and get her to Orbital Ring Three. She did so and after a few seconds, the teleporter finally came to life. The pad lit up and the data screens flashed on. Once the command console had fully powered up and was ready to go, she quickly programmed the pad to take her to Orbital Ring Three. Once this was done, the bounty hunter quickly got onto the pad and immediately vanished from Orbital Ring Two.
Samus reappeared on Orbital Ring Three. Checking her map, she found that, indeed, the main computer core for this Ring was only a few dozen meters away. Just as with the other rings, though, there was also a window that opened out into space. Samus could see Orbital Ring Two floating out in the void, the last of the escape pods launching from the ring, as well as several other ships leaving. There were fewer ships than she had expected. She checked the countdown clock and found that there were only a few seconds left on the countdown. She looked out the window as the last few seconds on the timer ticked down and once the clock reached zero, the Ring broke apart into various sections which then rocketed away from Earth and the other Orbital Rings. Once they were a hundred kilometers away or so, each section exploded. Samus did not remain to watch the explosions tear the sections apart and spray debris throughout the area between the Earth and its moon. She merely walked over towards the main computer core's chamber, which was completely unprotected, and walked on in.
The interior of the chamber was also unguarded, which caused the bounty hunter to become suspicious. There was no way that Cyrus would leave an Orbital Ring unprotected. She remained in the shadows and used her Scan Visor to scan the surrounding areas. Her findings astounded her, for there were no security precautions to speak of whatsoever. Stepping out of the shadows, she approached the console and used her Scan Visor to bring up its command interface. The command interface immediately jumped right to the autodestruct sequence, as if it were reading her mind. She proceeded to set the autodestruct sequence to two minutes. Once that was finished, the computer said, "Autodestruct sequence activated. In two minutes, this Ring will be obliterated." She proceeded to exit the chamber and make her way to her right.
Samus charged down the corridor as lines red lights flashed and computer gave an audible countdown to the Ring's destruction. Much to her surprise, there seemed to be no one onboard this Ring, for as she looked out the window, she saw no escape pods or evacuation ships being launched. The seconds ticked away as Samus rushed down the corridor and eventually reached the teleporter. Checking her map and directory, she confirmed that this teleporter would take her to Ring Four and that it, too, would take her very close to her desired destination. She knew that Ring Four, though, would be the last of the relatively easy rings to take down. Once she had confirmed that this was the correct teleporter, she used her Scan Visor to activate it. The teleported lit up and the bounty hunter stepped onto the pad. Once she did so, she stood still and vanished from Orbital Ring Three in the shortest leg of this mission yet.
Samus appeared on Orbital Ring Four and promptly began following her map down the corridor and to her next destination. As she did so, she glanced out at Orbital Ring Three in its final moments as she saw no escape vehicles leave the ring. After a few seconds, she saw the Ring break apart and looked away, for she knew exactly what would come next. The pieces of the Ring rocketed off into space where they exploded in a magnificent display of light. She did not stop to see whether or not the debris struck any ships and damaged or destroyed them. She merely continued down the corridor towards the computer core of Orbital Ring Four.
As she ran down the corridor, she came across the first real trouble that she had been warned of, for standing in front of her was a Techno Power Suit that was flanked by four FG-1000 mobile turrets. The Techno Power Suit was massive, easily at least twice the height of Samus, and was armed with large energy cannons mounted onto both of its arms. Samus switched to her Plasma Beam and quickly dealt with the guardbots felling them with single uncharged Plasma Beam shots. The problem came when the Techno Power Suit took aim at Samus. The bounty hunter made herself as difficult a target as she could and the suit seemed to have trouble keeping up with her. That did Samus little good, though, as when she charged her Plasma Beam and unleashed the subsequent charged blast, the beam splashed across the suit's armor, inflicting no damage at all. She then decided that it would be a good idea to scan the enemy, and thus, she activated her Scan Visor and scanned him. The scan read, Morphology – Techno Power Suit. The Techno Power Suit is an incredibly powerful suit of heavy power armor designed for use by ground troops and is based on the design of the Techno Soldier line of armored suits worn by some N'Kren soldiers. Its design is based upon the armor worn by N'Kren Techno Soldiers. While its armor is virtually impervious all but the strongest man-portable weapons, it is not nearly as powerful as the armor of a Techno Soldier of any class, despite being significantly bulkier. As such, the N'Kren are not at all concerned about sharing the designs with those they call "younger" races. However, like the Techno Soldier, the suit is vulnerable to electrical and energy disruptive weapons.
After reading the scan, Samus's eyes lit up with hope. She had a weapon, besides possibly the Super Missile and/or Power Bomb, that was able to destroy this suit. She immediately switched to her Wave Beam and proceeded to charge it. As she was charging her Wave Beam, though, the Techno Power Suit took aim at Samus and opened fire. A pulsing green blast of energy leapt from the barrel of the energy cannon on the suit's right arm and streaked towards Samus. The bounty hunter managed to avoid the blast, having moved to her right just as the suit opened fire, and the blast sailed past her. The blast struck the ground several dozen meters away and detonated much like a Power Bomb would. A field of destructive energy expanded from the center of the blast and continued to spread out to about twelve meters in diameter. The amount of energy contained in the blast was staggering, for the floor beneath the blast was completely disintegrated, while anything outside of the blast's range was untouched.
The suit was about to fire the cannon on its left arm when Samus fired her Charged Wave Beam at the suit's cannon. The trio of purple undulating pulses leapt from her arm cannon and almost instantaneously struck the suit's cannon. Upon the beam's impact, the electricity arced along the cannon and the left half of the suit. The suit staggered backwards, barely able to maintain its balance as its left side was now either immobilized completely or malfunctioning terribly. Samus quickly charged another Wave Beam blast and unleashed it upon the armored suit. This blast struck the Techno Power Suit on the right side of its armor. Again, electricity arced across the armor and Samus's scans indicated that the suit was losing power. The suit staggered backwards again for a few steps before falling to the ground. Once it fell, it opened, revealing a young human woman, or girl, for she looked to be no older than fourteen Earth years old, with brown hair and blue eyes.
The girl crawled out of the suit and turned back around to look and see if her enemy was still in front of her. As she did so, she saw Samus taking aim at the deactivated Techno Power Suit. She scampered away as Samus then fired a Super Missile at the suit. The Super Missile struck the armored torso of the suit and detonated. The explosion inflicted minor to moderate damage to the suit, but Samus quickly realized that it would take numerous Super Missiles to destroy a Techno Power Suit. She then curled into her Morph Ball mode and rolled towards the deactivated suit. Once she was there, she laid down a Power Bomb and rolled away. After a few seconds, the Power Bomb detonated. The field of destructive energy erupted from the center of the bomb, much in the same way that the field of energy from the energy blast of the Techno Power Suit had erupted from its center upon striking a target, and vaporized the Techno Power Suit. Samus then returned to her normal form and continued on her mission.
Meanwhile, the girl fled towards the nearest radio and frantically activated it. Once it was finally active, she cried, "This is former Techno Power Suit Trooper Beta Five of Beta Squadron, to anyone who can hear me. I've identified the intruder; it's Samus Aran! I repeat, Samus Aran is destroying the Orbital…" but she was cut off when a pulse of plasma burned the radio console. The girl stiffly turned to see where the blast had come from, fearing that the bounty hunter had found her. Her fears were confirmed as she saw the bounty hunter standing right over her. Her eyes went wide with horror as she cried, "Please don't kill me! I didn't join this freaking army voluntarily!"
"What do you mean?" Samus asked, not at all surprised by the recent revelation. She had heard of children being conscripted into the military, at least in terms of piloting fighters and maybe driving tanks, but having them as foot soldiers was news to her, even if they were being given powerful suits of armor to wear.
"I was taken from my home in the Unova Region of America," the girl answered. "I was told that either I would be piloting those suits of armor, or my parents would be arrested. Everyone on Earth has been commanded to become a member of the military against Admiral Dane and his allies by the orders of both Charon and General Korro."
Samus gritted her teeth in anger. This was definitely something new to her. Child soldiers had never been used by the Federation before. When she had wished to join at fourteen years of age, she had been forced to go through the academy first, even though it had not been necessary for her, and was not allowed to join a fighting unit for either the Police or the Army until she was at least sixteen; and that was only because her test and performance scores were so much greater than many adults in the army. Still, there was one thing that was bothering her. Why did the girl alert the others as to who she was. And she was not going to let the girl go without getting an answer. "So, miss, I just heard that you alerted everyone else that I was onboard. If you hate Cyrus so much, why did you just do that?" the bounty hunter asked. "Why not just run?" She had a feeling that she knew the answer.
The girl's eyes merely twisted in delight as she replied, "Because…I lied!" She then pulled out a bomb that strongly resembled a Power Bomb and activated it. Samus could barely believe her eyes. This girl was going to kill herself on the off chance that this bomb would kill her as well. Faster than the girl could react, Samus grabbed the bomb and tossed it down the corridor behind her. Looking back, she watched as the bomb detonated and expanded into a massive field of energy even larger than a field made by a Power Bomb. She then noticed her suit's indicators of her shield and missile status turn red but the numbers not decrease. She was being fired upon by the girl. She turned and stared at the girl, who was shooting a mere energy pistol at her. Something was not right here. This girl was clearly mentally unstable. Before moving on and leaving the girl, though, another thought came to Samus. What if the girl was under some form of mind control? She scanned the girl with her Scan Visor. The scan read, Morphology – Human female, approximately fourteen Earth years of age. This human is showing signs of having undergone brainwashing. A low-level shot from the Wave Beam should neutralize the brainwashing.
She decided to see if that was the case by switching to her Wave Beam and powering it down to its minimal level. She then fired her Wave Beam pulse at the girl and watched as the pulses struck the girl and electricity arced across the girl's body. She cried out as she endured the attack and fell to the floor. Samus then scanned the girl again and the scan read, "Morphology – Human female, approximately fourteen Earth years of age. Subject has taken minor electrical damage which has neutralized the brainwashing she had undergone. The bounty hunter then bent down and asked, "Are you alright now?"
The girl slowly opened her eyes and looked up at Samus. She nodded. "I'm fine, now. How do I get out of here?"
"There should be some escape pods around here," Samus told her. "One of them should allow you to escape."
"What will you do?" the girl asked.
Samus gave her a kind smile. "I'm going to destroy the Orbital Defense Rings. And then I'm going to stop Cyrus. Hurry, you should get out of here quickly. I'm on the clock and there may be more security officers or robots that will appear if we dally."
The girl smiled and then proceeded to run towards the nearest escape pod. Samus watched as she entered the escape pod and as the door closed behind her. She did not proceed with her mission until she saw that the girl's escape pod was safely away and had safely entered the Earth's atmosphere. Once she was certain of the girl's safety, she proceeded to make her way down the corridor and towards the computer core's control room.
Adhering to the directions on her map, Samus followed the corridor all the way down to the main computer core's chamber at the end of the long corridor. However, there were other sources of resistance besides the Techno Power Suit that she had to deal with as well. A quartet of humanoid security robots stepped out into the corridor to meet her. These were different from the other security robots in the fact that they had shield generators on them. The moment they stepped out into the corridor, they deployed their energy shields and sprayed scarlet bolts of energy towards Samus. Samus did not bother to dodge the shots and merely started firing plasma blasts from her arm cannon. Orange-red bolts of energy leapt reached out and blew massive holes into the robots, felling them with single hits. While each single hit was fatal to the robots, each energy bolt the robots managed to fire on Samus merely cost her one unit of energy. In addition, once each robot had fallen, small purple floating energy units emerged from the robots. The bounty hunter left the energy units to float until she had felled each and every one of the robots. Once they were all destroyed, she charged her Plasma Beam and drew them into her suit, replenishing her Energy Tank in the process. Once that was complete, she made her way to the main computer's control room.
Upon arriving at the control room for the main computer of the Orbital Ring, she found two Galactic Federation Marines guarding the door. When they spotted the bounty hunter, they proceeded to open fire with their energy assault rifles. Scarlet bolts of energy erupted from their guns and lashed out at Samus. Samus managed to take cover behind a large crate that was close to the far wall and avoided damage. She quickly switched to her Ice Beam and charged a single ice shot. Once her ice shot was charged, she emerged from her cover and unleashed it upon one of the Marines. The blast of ice struck the Marine squarely in the chest and froze him solid. Samus quickly ducked behind the crate once more as the Federation Marine fired on her again. Several bolts of energy struck the crate and she knew that its structural integrity was weakening. She charged another Ice Beam blast and fired at the Marine. Her aim was true and the Marine was frozen solid by the blast. With the two Marines having temporarily been dealt with, Samus walked on by and entered the main computer's control room.
The interior of the computer control room was, just like in Orbital Ring Three, completely deserted. Samus activated her Scan Visor to see if there were any other security measures that were in place that would either slow her down or actually stop her. Her sensors could find no evidence of any countermeasures and she proceeded to the computer, which she easily hacked with her visor. The screen above the console came to life and images flashed before the hunter's eyes. Eventually, the image of the autodestruct sequence countdown appeared on the screen. Samus then input the necessary code that appeared on the screen to begin the two-minute countdown. Right after she pressed, Enter, the computer voice said, "Autodestruct sequence activated. You have two minutes to evacuate the Ring."
As the screen began its countdown towards zero and the red alert lights and klaxons sounded, Samus input another series of commands to the computer in order to lock out any attempt to deactivate the autodestruct sequence. She had noted that she had forgotten to do this with Orbital Ring Three. The fact that its self-destruct protocol had managed to go off without a hitch had been miraculous. She did not make the same mistake here. After she input the necessary codes, she turned and exited the room.
Outside the chamber, she saw that the two Federation Marines were already beginning to thaw, and would thaw completely within a few seconds. In that time, she fired a single bolt of plasma at the controls to the door to the computer core, as well as at the sensors for the door. Now she felt as if no one would have access to the main computer for the Ring. Once that was finished, she made her way over to the teleporter, which was not far away. On her way, she noticed several people making their way to the closest of the escape pods. She did not pay any attention to them and merely made her way over to the teleporter.
Once she arrived, she scanned the teleporter using her Scan Visor and activated the pad. The pad sprang to life as it lit up and a wall of light was seen emanating from the ring surrounding the pad. Samus stepped into the center of the pad and waited for a second for the teleporter to activate. After a second, the pad flashed and she vanished in a burst of light.
The bounty hunter reappeared on Orbital Ring Five and found that she was surprisingly close to the next main computer core. She was beginning to wonder if she had a secret benefactor onboard the Orbital Rings. As she had before, she looked out the window at Orbital Ring Four and waited for the inevitable. She looked at her own countdown clock and watched as the final seconds ticked away. Once the clock reached zero, the various sections of the Orbital Ring began to break apart and from each other. Once they broke apart, thrusters on the sides facing the Earth fired and propelled each section away from the planet so that it would not be hit by the debris. Some of the sectors even managed to strike a troop transport or even a frigate or two before detonating. Once they were a safe distance away, each of the sectors exploded in a magnificent display of light and fire. As with all of the other Rings, the destruction of Orbital Ring Four sprayed shrapnel against the shields that were being produced by the four remaining Orbital Defense Rings. With Orbital Ring Four having been destroyed, she turned to continue on her trek. As she turned, she came face to face with the one thing that she did not want to see on this mission, for staring her in the face was none other than a Techno Soldier; and given his appearance, it appeared as if he was at least a Techno Knight.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Cyrus was nearing the landing zone for his helicopter on the beaches of Japan. When he noticed that he was landing on its shore, rather than going farther in, he blurted, "Hey, why are we stopping here? Why not take us farther inland?"
"Because this beachhead is all we've been able to secure in Japan," the pilot responded. "Many of Earth's troops have been stationed here in Japan given its importance with regards to the Creation Trio and Arceus."
The Chairman grunted, as he had to admit that that was a good enough reason. He did not like having to wait, especially with problems up in orbit and the imminent attack by Admiral Dane and his fleet about to come, but he knew that it would be suicide to try to get into Japan by just forcing his way in at the moment. That was when an idea came to him. He activated his computer and opened a channel to General Korro. The face of the general soon appeared on his computer screen, and the general gasped at the sight of Cyrus. "Chairman Cyrus, I was just about to call you." He paused before continuing, "I take it you've heard, then."
"Heard what?" Cyrus asked, an uneasy feeling beginning to well up in his body.
"That Orbital Defense Rings Two, Three, and Four have been destroyed in a matter of half-an-hour," the general responded with trepidation.
Cyrus's eyes went wide. "What? Half of the Rings are already gone?"
"Yes, s…s…s…sir," the general stammered.
"What the hell are our forces on those Rings doing?" Cyrus roared in question.
"According to reports, evacuating the Rings once the autodestruct sequence activates."
"So no one has even tried to deactivate an autodestruct sequence once it has activated?"
"It certainly looks that way," the general lamented. "So, what were you going to call me about?"
"How many of those Techno Knights do you have ready for battle right now?" the Chairman asked.
"About a dozen," Korro replied. "Why?"
"I need them all down on Earth coming to assist in the takeover of Japan, immediately."
"But that will only leave the N'Kren loyal human Techno Knights onboard the stations to deal with the intruders; them and the other Techno Power Suits and Techno Serfs and Squires."
"What about the Technobles that you were making?"
"They're still undergoing the final stages of the transformation under the supervision of the N'Kren," Korro answered. "As per your orders, they have been outfitted with the best weapons the N'Kren and Ylla are allowing us to put on them, and they are not undergoing any brainwashing of any kind. These are all loyal to you from the beginning through and through."
Cyrus smiled. "Good. Now, just bring down those dozen Techno Knights to my forward command center in Japan and everything will be fine."
"Yes, sir," Korro answered. Cyrus then closed his computer and placed it at his side as the helicopter descended towards the landing zone on the beaches of Japan. With the Techno Knights at his disposal, he would have complete control of Japan within a matter of hours. And then, he would have all the time he needed to search for the Sinjoh Ruins and secure Mount Coronet and take it from the Space Pirates if his lead in the Sinjoh Ruins did not pan out.
Meanwhile, over Mars, a fleet of thirty Galactic Federation cruisers, along with a single Gehenna-class dreadnaught, sat over the planet, turning towards the surface. They had received numerous distress signals from the bases that were under attack by Martian Resistance forces and a squadron of Galactic Federation in Exile starfighters. They had since sent down a wing of starfighters to the planet in order to take out the Federation in Exile starfighters, but by the time they had reached the base, it had been too late. The attack squadron had all but destroyed the base, leaving nothing but smoking ruins. The Federation in Exile fighters, Stilettos and Katanas, were leading the Federation fighters on a wild goose chase, which was made worse by the fact that the Federation fighters had requested reinforcements, which the fleet commander had been very willing to provide. As such, the fleet was caught flat-footed when the Federation in Exile's attack fleet, lead by Admiral Cooper, jumped in right on top of them and opened fire. Scarlet lances of energy erupted from the Olympus and Archangel-class battleships and tore into the shields, and in some cases, the armor, of the Federation warships. The warships tried to return fire, but they were outflanked by the squadron of Griffin-class frigates that were escorting the larger battleships and they soon opened up on the larger cruisers as well. This was in addition to the starfighter squadrons, half of which had already been deployed, opening up with their salvos of missiles on the Federation fighters that had been deployed and were within combat range. The Federation fleet was missing the two wings of fighters that they had sent after the attacking Katanas and other Resistance forces on the surface of Mars. They were already grossly outnumbered by the Federation in Exile forces. This only made thing worse. The battle, itself, lasted only a half hour. It ended with the Archangel-class battleship, Michael, tore open the Gehenna-class dreadnaught, Tartarus with its main energy cannons. Once the battle was over, Admiral Cooper sent a message to Admiral Dane and General Adam Malkovich, saying, "It's finished. The fleet at Mars has been destroyed."
"Good work, Cooper," Admiral Dane congratulated. "Keep the fleet there until Cyrus sends in reinforcements, should he do so. If not and we arrive at Earth, join us there."
"Understood, sir," Admiral Cooper responded. Admiral Cooper and his fleet then waited until Admiral Dane and General Malkovich came to launch their attack on Earth.