(Author's Note 9/24/2024: If anyone is still reading this lol it's been a little while and a lot has happened. Kinda crazy Metroid Dread has been announced, released, and gone by since the last time I updated this. Remastered came out, even Metroid Prime 4 was finally revealed. So much has changed since the last chapter I wrote (almost six whole years wow), not just in Metroid but in my own life lol
Anyway, I've been working on other projects lately. And in working on them in my spare time this week, I thought about this story. And thought, why not write another chapter? Thought it'd be fun to do. No promises on the next time I'll update this, if I even do. Just gonna take it one chapter at a time.
That said, if I do write more beyond this, I'm just gonna keep writing the story from where it is. I know the actual Metroid Dread has come out - I'm just gonna ignore that and will keep going with this. Or not idk lol at the very least, don't really plan to pull much if anything at all from the actual Metroid Dread. I might be subconsciously influenced by it though now that it's out, idk.
Anyway, if you're a new reader, that's that. If you've been reading this for a while, thanks for checking this out again, sorry for never finishing this but who knows maybe one day soon I'll just finish it so it's a complete read. I mean I wanna see what happens too.)
Chapter 35
Map to the Stars
Why would they leave me behind? Or do they simply not care to find me?
Crash Site - Unknown Planet
In the darkness, I heard that voice once more.
"Young child, it's been far too long. It's so nice to see you again."
It was Old Bird. Or maybe Grey Voice. It had been so long, their voices had blended together in the swirling mess of my memory. And it had been ages since I had seen either of them. Or since either of them were alive. Alive in the sense of the word I knew.
But where was everybody else? The Chozo on Zebes were gone. The pirates likely had a hand entirely in that. The Chozo on Tallon IV disappeared in some capacity. No Chozo I ever knew talked about ascension or disappearing for some kind of greater existence. Maybe that was just on Tallon IV. And what of the Chozo that helped start the Federation, and advised humanity?
Maybe most, if not all, of the Chozo were not connected, and most of them probably didn't even know I existed. If any Chozo were alive, of course they wouldn't know me. If any were still alive, they were likely scattered across the galaxy in isolation. Most of the Chozo I knew were dead by then. Maybe they were all dead of old age. Or their crazy experimentation. Maybe all the Chozo had truly died off.
So why did I care what this lore said? Did the Chozo care about me? Old Bird did. Grey Voice did. But the Chozo as a whole? Was I just another Chozo? Or maybe I wasn't a true Chozo warrior. Just a freak of nature.
Yet, the Chozo of Tallon IV...they seemed to know I was coming. They couldn't have been the only ones to have some kind of knowledge of me, or sensed something about me, but maybe they truly were.
It was either my broken ribs or the internal bleeding that jolted me back to consciousness. The pain overloaded my senses, narrowing my vision. All I could hear was the deafening cascade of torrential rain.
It took me several minutes before I could finally muster the energy to sit up and get a hold of my surroundings. The malfunctioning tow line was still attached to my side, but it was twisted and frayed only a foot or so down. Of course, our ship was not on the other end, but eventually I could make out its shape through the dense rain. Rampaging waters surrounded me on either side of the flat ground I was on.
In actuality, I found myself upon an open area of an absolutely massive, hollowed tree trunk. I quickly came to realize I had crashed within a gargantuan swamp. Trees and vines towered over like skyscrapers. I felt like an ant compared to the daunting size of the flora that closed in all around me.
Tree trunks stood tall within the waters, while others were shattered into pieces by the storm, and thankfully still others just intact enough to be a safe haven for an unfortunate soul like myself.
"Samus!" I turned over the best I could. There was Excolo, hopping down from an enormous tree branch that jutted over the fallen trunk I was laid upon. "That wasn't ideal, was it!?"
I couldn't help but cough as I tried to sit up before he could get over to me. I'd be fine, I hoped. I needed to be. Then again, Excolo seemed almost fine. That gave me some confidence - the rest of the ship, and Adam, seemed to have survived to some extent. I was urgently eager to find out what that could be.
"Don't move, don't move," Excolo said as he approached. "The ship looks better than you do." Great, how kind of you.
"Where is it?" I asked. No time for small talk, get that through your head, my only ally at this point. "Have you run any checks yet?"
"Yes and no," Excolo garbles out. "I mean, yes, where is it? That's a good question, and no, I haven't."
That got me sitting up straight. "What do you mean, where is it? Where is the ship?"
Sure enough, Excolo brought me to the crash site. There was indeed the site of an impact, from a ship roughly the size of the ship we had flown with. No sign of the X, but no sign of any other part of the ship either. It was entirely gone.
I shoved Excolo hard, pointing my arm cannon almost up his nostrils. "You're going to tell me what's going on right this second." I wanted to say more but somehow left it at that.
"Woah, Samus, after all we just went through? It's alright, we'll find another ride.
"We can't just find another ride!" I shouted at him. "That has all our data on it, all my stuff on it, the lore, Adam. It has everything. And now someone else has all of it." I wanted to throttle him for not even understanding this. "And how are you all together like this? Were you on the ship or not? Why did they leave you alone?"
Excolo backed up. Now I could tell he was ready to defend himself. "Answer me, Excolo. Is this a trap? Some part of a plan to get me here? What is this?"
I felt like an idiot. That plan sounded like the only one we had. Adam was right, we didn't have the firepower to take out that whole X cloud ourselves. The hyperspace hole jump maneuver made sense.
But now we couldn't even check if any X made it through the wormhole with us or if any were left behind or not killed in the hyperspace jump. And now we had no ship to make it off this place, if it was even the place we needed to be!
I didn't have time for Excolo's sluggish responses. "Why would you give us coordinates that crash us on the planet instead of safely putting us right in orbit?" I ordered an answer out of him immediately.
"Okay, that was definitely not on me," Excolo threw his hands up. "I used those same coordinates last time and had no problem arriving well outside the planet's surface." He pulled a sinking foot out of the mud. "Or swamps."
Maybe Excolo was just a useful idiot. Someone gave him the wrong coordinates, somehow made him think they were correct, and used him to crash me here and take the ship. It felt calculated. Maybe he's in on it.
On the other hand, from what I was told, this was one of the most important locations for bounty hunters almost anywhere. If any place is dangerous, it would be Min Bassa's Hub, and the surrounding area I imagined. And if this place was riddled with bounty hunters around the planet, if that's what was happening, then I wouldn't have put it past someone to take the ship and scrap it.
But if that was the case, why did they leave Excolo behind? Why wouldn't they kill him? Or take him prisoner? Nothing was adding up.
"Talk," I ordered Excolo.
"Come on Samus, I know as much as you do. I woke up, the ship was gone, I was okay. And I went to find you, and did." Excolo claims.
"How did you find me so soon? Why aren't you hurt?"
"I don't know!" Excolo shouts. "I woke up and was fine, but the ship wasn't there. I went down the easier path, climbed a tree, and there you are."
I looked around. "Did you find anything else? Or was it just me?"
"I didn't find anything." Then he starts looking around. "I mean, there's some debris around. Maybe from the ship?"
He started to scout the area, or more like look around at the ground without any help, as I watched him, my arm cannon still trained on his body. At this point, I couldn't trust him. I couldn't before, but now the circumstances vastly outweighed any reasoning I might have still had tol trust him. I couldn't possibly trust anybody given the scenario. But especially not him.
On the other hand, the more time I wasted playing this game with him, the longer I was separated from the ship. The longer I was separated from Adam. Who knows what kind of info they could be extracting? Or destroying?
"What about this?" It was a piece of metal, seemingly from the ship. But I looked closer. It had markings on it. Directions. It was pointing somewhere.
A useful idiot. Or more accurately, useful idiots. Someone took the ship and was trying to tell us something. I decided to cut right to the chase here - whether Excolo is setting me up or someone else is leading both of us into a trap, I wanted to find out for myself and I wanted to find out immediately.
That drove me past Excolo, down a path the markings pointed to. Excolo soon enough was following in tow, with nothing more to say. Either he knew what was coming, or he knew why I was determined to end it.
Hidden Path - Unknown Planet
For a swamp on an alien planet, it was interesting to find such a conveniently placed and maintained walking path through the shrubbery and mud. I kept my arm cannon at the ready.
I also kept Excolo in the front, my eyes always on him. He didn't come across as a physical backstabber, more of a social or psychological one, but nonetheless I wanted him front and center. Plus, If anything was going to jump out at us, it would go after him first.
We eventually arrived at a cave. And the lights were on inside. Of course.
I nudged Excolo in the back. "You first." Excolo shrugs, and moves into the cave, armed with two forearm-slung mini-machine rifles. He crouches through, like he's more likely to pounce or shoot at someone. I try to keep a low profile as well.
Our steps scuffed and scraped against the cave floor. "Let's go already," a voice echoes from down the cave. "Come in."
Excolo straightened up, but I didn't. I was happy to stay at battle ready until we left the cave entirely, let alone answered the voice that called to us. He walked through a bit more through the cavernous entrance, out into a larger section of the cave that was essentially a room in itself.
Lanterns are strong from one side of the room to another. Canvases and blankets were strewn around the floor, and from ceiling to floor, alongside paintings, animal skulls, and rocks adorned on the walls.
Sitting on one of the rugs, laid up against the wall, I could tell it was another bounty hunter, sitting up underneath one of their lanterns, fully clad in armor. The power suit radiated energy, but looked like it was ripped from a book on medieval history on Earth. A helm with grates, stocky build, a cape adorned with a sigil of some kind cascading down from their back to the floor. It was like I found a knight in not-so-shining armor.
The rest of the armor didn't have as much resemblance. There was synthetic musculature up and down their body, but the texture looked more like a sea-bound creature with flowing scales.
The gravelly voice behind the helmet sure sounded human, though. Or at least sentient.
"You look a lot like that ship of yours I took," the hunter said.
I trained my arm cannon on the hunter. As much as I hated pulling away from Excolo. If that's what they wanted me to do.
"Settle down," the hunter says. "It's good in hands."
"Who's hands?" I asked.
"Ours."
"Look, see Samus," Excolo chirps in. "I have no idea what this guy is talking about."
"He's right, he doesn't," the hunter says. "You're not the only one to have crashed here."
I tilted my head at that. I had more questions than I could imagine answers. This individual didn't seem like they were involved, or setting some kind of trap, and maybe now neither does Excolo. Unless we're already in the trap. And it's too late.
"You might have noticed this place has moved a bit. And is now a swamp."
I look at him harder. "Well, this is a swamp–"
"The whole planet's a swamp now. And whatever isn't, is either frozen swamp. Or destroyed swamp. Everything gets sucked in."
"I don't understand." I said. And I meant it.
"I can't blame your friend here," the hunter continues, looking at Excolo. "He got you pulled into the same trap that got me. He had the old coordinates. So did I. Little did most hunters know that Min Bassa's Hub is no more. At least, not how we knew it."
I looked back at Excolo, the useful idiot. "Keep talking," I said to the hunter.
"You said it's no more, you mean it's all gone? Offline, online, everything?" Excolo asked.
I looked at Excolo confused, and the hunter picked up on that. "You've never been here before, have you?" they asked. I shook my head, still focused on him.
He sighs, leans to one side, coughs a bit. "Min Bassa's Hub is an online directory. That's up in the network, the black market, the deep web, whatever. It emanates from this planet. Min Bassa owns the whole planet - the only thing allowed to be built on this planet or live here is what Min Bassa allows. The whole planet was considered Min Bassa's Hub, because the only place that existed on it was the Hub itself."
The hunter continued. "But the real Hub was a physical place - a marketplace, where hunters met and made deals, delivered or executed bounties. And all the other illegal activity associated with that. It was like an undercity built for criminals, a place where they could meet in person if need be. This is where Min Bassa lived, and where Min Bassa's Hub originates from, as far as the directory is concerned."
I tried to keep it all straight. "So Min Bassa lives here, in the Hub, where the online directory is hosted and the actual place existed. What happened to it?"
"Something attacked the planet. The location should be unknown, known only to bounty hunters. It would be convenient if, say, the Federation got this location, where criminals congregate in person. They'd have a field day."
"So it wasn't the Federation that attacked the planet?" I asked. They were already spread thin as it was, but this would be a slam-dunk of an invasion, this kind of place.
"The Federation are too stupid to find this place even if they had the coordinates," the hunter barked. "It's a shield world. The actual surface is hidden beneath the upper crust."
That I hadn't noticed. A shield world?
"The only reason you made it in here is because the invaders moved the planet. So that anyone arriving at those exact coordinates would crash on the surface and be ripe for the picking. Just like you did. Just like I did."
"Okay, okay, shield world, we'll deal with that first. What's the situation of the surface we're on right now?"
"Well," the hunter said. "The directory is still up."
"Which means Min Bassa is still alive in there," Excolo says.
The hunter nodded. "These things breached the shield, invaded the whole planet, and found the physical Hub. They turned the whole planet into a swamp. But they haven't gotten to Min Bassa."
"What things? Space Pirates?" I asked. It didn't sound like their usual way of doing things. But anything was in play at this point.
"They're like insects, but not Space Pirates. They're red, without faces. In a swarm that seems endless."
Kriken. Was he serious? Were the Kriken really on this planet?
"They've been hunting down all the hunters. I've barely been able to survive. That was another reason we had to pull your ship, and a reason we can't leave just yet. That crash landing of yours, it might have attracted them."
"Why haven't they found you yet?" I asked. Callous, but I needed to know. This was no time to walk on eggshells. But it was not the answer I wanted to hear.
"Luck."
The Hunter's Secret Cave - Min Bassa's Planet
I couldn't believe any of this until this individual took me to my ship. And they did. They hadn't given me a name yet, and I didn't ask. This relationship felt rocky as it was. They had no reason to trust me or Excolo, and I was still trying to trust them.
The cave opened up to a larger opening on the other side - it was a pass through a mountain. And on this other side, which almost felt like a real Federation hangar in its size, this guy cave mouth housed our ship, all in one piece.
"I didn't poke and prod around much, but I can't say the same for my friends," the hunter said.
I couldn't believe my eyes. Hundreds of Dachora and Etecoon filled the cave. They tapped around, hung about, and wandered around the ship, like it was their own habitat to fool around in.
A bunch noticed the hunter, Excolo, and I walked in. They began to linger over, smelling and eyeing us both.
They were friendly, but I was still in shock. Even in this hellhole, through everything we've been through, these little critters somehow scampered back into my life. Did they help him carry the ship and hide it here? And how much has the hunter seen? Do they know who we are?
One Etecoon grabbed my hand. It pointed to the ship, like a child asking to bring them to the swings or a slide on the playground. I knew these weren't the animals I had met previously, almost in a previous life. But that thought hadn't even crossed my mind.
It led me towards our ship, up the ramp, into the cockpit area. And then scampered off. The electronics all turned on, whirring to life. Lights blinked on in what seemed like the first time in too long a time. It certainly hadn't been.
A voice echoed into the space. "It's good to see you, Lady."
My ears perked up. "It's good to hear you, Adam."
"It's good to see us both in one piece," Adam said.
I laughed as best I could without it hurting too bad. "More or less."
"I have a feeling I need to be caught up a bit," Adam points out.
I turned to find a pack of animals lingering about. Dachoras ducked and turned their heads, blinking. And a bunch of Etecoons hung from Excolo like he was a walking tree. He shrugged, clearly encouraging their behavior.
I turned back to the control panel, back to Adam. "You're not the only one."
