"...Uh...so you're...uh..."
"A bounty hunter." Samus finished the woman's question. "If you are wondering, yes, I do kill and capture other sentient beings for monetary gain. No, I don't have a problem with it." Samus turned her head back to face the poor guard.
"I was gonna ask if you were 'independent', not if you had no problems with shooting and killing things."
"Well, yes to the first, no to the second." Samus said, quickly. "Now...let's ask about you." She said. "How long have you been a security guard on this vessel, Mrs. Sullivan?"
The woman stared. "How did you-"
"My visor scanned your personal computer." Samus said, and the woman immediately looked at the small device that was hooked to her belt. "Though the fact that you're a guard that isn't completely familiar with the GF here tells me you weren't supposed to be here for too long."
The woman took a breath. "...I started shift here three weeks ago. I was supposed to get off three months from now."
"Wrong time, wrong place." Samus said. "...You're lucky. Most of the time, when I run into ships like these, the crew is either dead, missing, or spread around the cabin."
The woman gulped. "And...uh...how many ships?"
"One in orbit around Zebes, one pirate station orbiting Tallon IV, one station on Aether, one surrounded by a cloud of Metroids, which have since been extinguished..." Samus sighed. "One close to the fringes of the Sol system, attacked by a particular ambitious pirate group. Also near-destroyed. I managed to destroy the pirates' ship, but had to land on Earth to recover. That's the most recent incident."
"Uh...oh." Sullivan nodded. "...Oh! Is that a suiting station?"
Samus turned her head. "Oh, so you can read." She said.
She looked offended. "No need to be snarky."
"I wasn't being snarky." Samus said.
"...What."
"But that does seem to be a suiting station." Samus adjusted her visor, and the woman just looked offended. She scanned the opening lock, and without hesitation, the thing popped open. She slid the door,and as soon as it she did, the room inside lit up with a flicker.
"Five bodies." Samus said. "...There were a lot of humans on this ship."
"I don't even know what they were doing." Sullivan said. "...But...uh..."
"Here." Samus cut her off, and held up a chestpiece. "This is one of the more advanced suits. I hacked it so that it could be worn by you."
"...huh?"
"I linked your Personal Computer to the suit here, so that when you place it on your chest, will fit your size perfectly, fitting you like a glove. It will transform seamlessly over your body, thanks to the digital link, and will be made for your specifications perfectly. It will take approximately 2.502 seconds for the transformation to be complete, and will also allow you access to a piece of weapon-"
"Okay, okay,
okay!" Sullivan said, before she yanked the chestpiece out of Samus' left hand. "I don't need that bullshithogwash nonsense."
"It doesn't hurt to explain its function and process."
"Yes it does. It hurts my soul."
Samus looked confused. "The metaphysical human soul doesn't exist-"
"You get what I meant."
"No, I really don't."
The woman just glared back at Samus. "...You really don't understand how this 'proper human interaction' thing works, do you?"
"It involves words and talking."
"...That's about the extent of your knowledge, am I right?"
"It also involves frivolous social cues."
"...Yeah, that's really the extent of your knowledge."
"I have interacted with other people many times."
"Yeah okay whatever you say."
[=]
Several minutes later, the pair was back to the hallway. The guard had herself a plasma rifle, and Samus cradled her gun close by, always on the ready, with her plasma beam on. As a bonus, it lit the room up in front of them with a slight orange glow. "There should be a door close by." Samus said. "Fifteen meters."
The woman nodded, before she quietly took out a small key, before Samus interrupted the thought with a blast of her power beam. The field over the door faded away, and the door itself quickly slid open. Samus stepped through, followed closely by the woman, before they both heard an echoing tap.
"...did you hear that?" Sullivan asked. Her voice wavered a little, and her legs started to shake. She held her gun to her chest, while Samus silently nodded.
"I did." Samus said, before she switched her cannon's modes. First wave, then ice, then plasma. She adjusted her sights to X-Ray, before she paused.
"...Get down."
"Wha-" She didn't have to to react as Samus
shoved her down, before a large creature, much bigger than the both of them combined,
slammed a claw into Samus. She took the hit without hesitation, but quickly noticed that a full energy tank had been used by the impact.
Whatever it was, it hit with the force of a
truck, and sent her hurtling across the ground. Sullivan stood up, dazed, before she quickly pulled up her gun and started firing at the creature's back.
Samus was quickly pinned down by the monster, and she immediately caught a glimpse of it in the dim light. Its abdomen was thick, armored and heavy, with hairs lined up upon its back. Its front two legs had only one claw each on their ends, and its single back leg bent unnaturally, making sure that its movement was kept light and fast. Its front end was covered entirely with sharp, uneven teeth, all around a circular mouth, with its blink, yellow eyes lining the "neck" as though they were blisters. Samus raised her cannon, aiming right for its "Blind spot" in the center of the mouth, before it roared, revealing a larger, human-like eye. Samus's eyes widened, before she shoved her grapple beam right into its pupil.
The creature
screamed in newfound agony, before Samus yanked its eye out of its mouth, The thing hung on a stalk, stretching horribly as Samus
stomped on it. The creature quickly
yanked its eye back, pulling the thing back into its mouth, before it quickly turned its head to look over at Samus. The eyes glared at her, glowing a blank yellow, before it turned its third leg, right in the center of its rear, towards her in an attempted swipe.
Samus dodged it, the claw scraping against her suit before she quickly fired a missile at its hide. It was deflected,
exploding against a nearby doorway with a shower of debris. The creature turned towards Samus again, the hairs on its back standing on edge as it let out another scream.
She charged towards it, grapple beam ready again, before she fired at the teeth with a charged plasma shot. The creature howled in pain, absent-mindedly opening its mouth, before she grabbed it with her grapple and
pulled. The central eye was pulled out again, but this time, Samus had already charged her plasma beam.
With bright flash of red light, the entire room grew several degrees hotter. The creature's eye was blown open, and the brain underneath was cooked to a fine crisp. The creature let out a dying cry, before its functions ceased, and it slumped onto the ground, dead.
Samus panted, her cannon still smoking from the shot. She checked her missile count, before she grimaced. "...Two-fifty left." She said. "If I keep making shots like that, I could run out of missiles very quickly."
"What the
fuck." Sullivan stared at Samus, then at the creature lying dead on the ground. "...What the
fuck-"
"I believe that this is the creature that killed your teammates." Samus said. "...Though it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep exploring the facility."
"It just kept
killing people, and you just...!" The woman shook her head. "...Jesus."
"I did say that I have been doing my job for a good number of years." Samus said. "Let's keep exploring the facility. Again, we should be able to find some more people...and maybe more monsters."
"What, you're saying that there's
more?!"
"I'd rather not take chances, ma'am."
[=]
In a distant part of the ship, an officer in a Galactic Federation uniform stared at his screen. He kept tapping it fruitlessly, trying to get something out of it, while another man was sorting through the nearby wires. "I can't get
shit outta this. Lightspeed comms are dead for good, sir."
"That's the end of that." The man murmured. "...Do we have any access to outside of this room? Communications-wise, that is."
"As far as we're concerned? We're trapped in the middle of black nothingness." The other man said.
The officer frowned, as a woman beside him lit up a cigarette. "So...how long 'til we die?"
"We aren't going to die, Nova." The man said.
"Kinda hard to say otherwise." Another man said, towering above the group at seven feet. "We have about a month's worth of rations. If nothing gets through that door-"
"Don't say 'if'." The officer said. "Nothing will get through that door."
"Dude, you got the team optimist to say we're all gonna die." The man stopped fiddling with the wires. "...At least we can have a fun last few weeks. Who wants to play Monopoly?"
[=]
A/N: Nobody wants to play Monopoly. Monopoly is
shit. Everything is shit. Video games are shit. I fucking hate video games.
