The next series of beeps that came on the ship's detector upon the dashboard five minutes later indicated that the not so mysterious Alphatron system was coming up, Samus sat back down in her seat and started pressing multi-colored buttons.
Before she knew it, her ship had dropped out of sub-light speed and the planet was now in view just meters away. It was round like all planets and its color was a shade of dark-brown with patches of gray and dark gray along with a few lightning flashes in the clouds.
Feeling a sense of curiosity, Samus started running a scan of the planet, even going as far as to navigate her spacecraft around the planet to help with the scan. After her last Metroid adventure on Xema 12, Samus had started taking precautions.
No longer would she instantly head for an uncharted planet and land there immediately before she made planetary scans, when she came across a planet next time, the heroic bounty hunter would rotate the planet and give it a scan.
Orange lights came up on the console scanner, indicating that the scan was complete, there were very little life signs and slight indication that the whole world was hospitable until it was suddenly deserted just days earlier.
Almost assuming the scan had backfired, Samus activated the ship's com and started attempting to make contact with anyone. "Alphatron system, do you read me?" She asked, "This is Samus Aran, Alphatron system, please come in."
She waited, no response, just static.
"Alphatron, this is Samus Aran, formerly of the Galactic Federation, do you copy?"
More waiting, still no response.
Nobody there, I suppose I'll have to investigate. Preparing landers. Deactivating the coms, Samus steered her ship towards the planet slowly, further practicing caution and going slow so she wouldn't get struck by lightning if she went near a lightning storm.
As she entered the gravitational pull of the planet and descended through the cloudy sky, haze and lightning flashes surrounded the ship, the sounds of booming thunder and occasional lighting strikes close by shook the spacecraft, giving Samus nervous chills.
Remaining calm and confident, she steered hard to avoid getting hit by the lightning, cautiously raising her ship's shields if she had to. Flying through the cloudy haze felt like a nightmare, but it all settled once she finally broke through towards the surface below.
Samus activated her landing gear and tilted the ship in the upright position as she turned on the landing thrusters, slowly descending until she landed. Flipping a switch, the bounty hunter had the fog-spray device get rid of the mist clouding the windows.
Once the clean up was taken care of, Samus finally caught her first glimpse of the planet's surface, seening a baren wasteland full of craters and burnt plants with the ruins of a village settlement not too far from where she'd just landed.
Ready to investigate, she turned off the engines, but left the ship's defense mechanisms powered up just in case somebody tried to make off with it, before heading for the elevator and stood still as it rose up towards the opening hatch.
Standing atop the ship, Samus felt like some kind of deity of high power despite not having authority over anyone. She was just a lone wolf hero who did her own thing, often helping people wherever she went and hardly taking orders from anyone.
Not bothering to remove her helmet, the blonde jumped down from her ship and set foot on Alphatron's surface, her weapons ready. Pressing a button on the side of her helmet, Samus looked around and began scanning as she searched for life.
Her helmet's air filtration systems beeped and lights turned green, indicating that the air was breathable and hazy at the same time. The ground felt rough beneath Samus' feet and she could smell her own breathing as well as hear it at the same time.
Samus walked through the ruins, discovering a few skinny and almost skeletal corpses here and there, terrified and curious as to who would do this. Some of the houses looked as though they'd been bombed while some looked like they'd been burned to the ground.
Kicking aside some nasty-looking decapitated heads, Samus walked on, energy gun ready, even as her heart pounded wildly in her ribcage and sweat beaded her forehead as her instincts warned her of danger close by.
She wheeled around, thinking she'd spotted something moving in the shadows of the ruins, watching her with glowing yellow eyes. Beneath her armor and her Zero Suit, Samus felt as though her whole body was crawling with chilly goosebumps.
A low rumble sounded from overhead and the bounty hunter looked up, watching a dark shape forming in the clouds and wondering what was going on, was an intense storm about to happen or was she about to come under attack?
The shape got closer and clearer until a transport ship broke through the clouds and began its descent, landing right near where Samus was standing. She took several steps back to avoid the possibility of being under the ship when it landed.
Beneath her feet, the ground shook and debris flew everywhere, Samus turned down her hearing sensors in her helmet as the engines were loud. She stood still, hearing proection on and watched as the transport ship landed...
Whomever had come here had apparently picked up the signal too, to judge by the markings on the side of the ship, Samus' heart pounded as she recognized the symbol of the Galactic Federation in a heartbeat and worried about the different possibilities.
The ship creaked and machinery whirred as the doors began to open, slightly preparing herself for the worse, Samus patiently waited to see if the newcomers were friendly or if they were hostile and possibly intended to capture her...
