Chapter 17: Metastasize

It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. Everyone only looks out for themselves. That's why I do the same. I'm only human. I cannot trust anyone or anything in this life. Not one. They have their own agendas and, thus, so do I. And if they get in the way, my agenda still takes priority.

But...

I...I have Adam.

"Samus, I truthfully and honestly hate to break your moment of gazing into the waters hoping to find some lost quarters or a new species of coral, but you must return to the ship."

How could anyone have known we were here? It isn't possible. There is absolutely no way that anyone could have found out that fast. Was someone trailing us? Did these grease monkeys spill the beans as we pulled in? So much for a welcome mat! Traitors, all of them. At least it seemed like they were at the very least concerned. Who would sound an alarm for something they know is coming?

I moved so quickly into the ship that my feet never felt like they touched the ground. The whereabouts of the innocents and whatever they were doing was of no concern to me. I'm sure Adam cringed in some way when I knocked over a small child in my dash across the platform. Probably because I had no idea it had happened and he was the first to make me aware of it. At least I'm still concerned about my own well-being.

As soon as I landed on the control seat, Adam had already made his way back into the mainframe of of the vessel and was running millions of calculations. The ship still wasn't moving, however.

I slammed my fist on the armrest. "Adam, get her up in the air, now!"

The ship clumsily pushed out of the barricades of the refuel station, knocking away the contraptions that had just finished with the full refuel of the ship. No one shook their fists in lack of payment, however. The object barreling towards the surface of the waterworld was far more important.

The stolen GF ship finally straightened itself out and began to hug the waters of Elex before rising towards the outer skies of the planet, just as the object hurtling in the other direction came into view.

"Lady," Adam said as his voice came over the intercom. "That's not Federation. Or Space Pirate."

"Well, what is it then? People don't just leave ships lying around in orbit of a refueling planet. And we were just out there less than an hour ago!"

The deep blue skies of Elex began to fade away as the GF Ranger vessel pushed its way into space, completely disregarding the heavy clouds of space dust that commonly appear around the planet every few cycles.

Wait, dust clouds? These are way too heavy to be just of space dust. What in the hell are we flying into?

"Engaging evasive maneuvers," Adam said. "I'm not waiting for an invitation to move out of the asteroid's path."

But that wasn't an asteroid either. That too was a ship. They were all ships. All eleven of them. Broken into millions of pieces and all headed indefinitely to the waters of Elex.

Just as I start to enjoy something, it has to be taken away.

"Adam, are you getting any active visuals? Something had to have had caused this," I said.

I tried to scan the huge mess above the water planet as we swerved around the mass of debris and materials to gain a better view. But there was nothing more than busted ships and busted parts. Some looked like they had collided into each other, but others seemed to have been literally torn apart in one fell swoop.

"Well, seems like they won't be launching that mining expedition today," Adam reported. "The identification tags on these ships, or what's left of them for that matter, suggest that they were part of a large mining caravan, possibly heading to the Galaor asteroid chain. All of this is extremely recent. That ship that sounded the alarms must have been destroyed only moments before it entered orbit. They were very, very close. Almost too close."

That just didn't make any sense. Why would any of those ships get so close to Elex for its orbit to take their destroyed vessels hostage?

"What about those tears," I asked.

"I have no idea. Whatever it was, it seemed like it had absolutely no trouble running through those ships. None whatsoever."

And as we tried to get a better view, it landed on one of the main cameras of the ship. It was miniscule. Bulging, but ever so slightly. Barely alive, if it had the capacity to live at all. But it stuck to the camera lens.

It was an X.