pacofajita
01-03-2008, 10:59 PM
Can also be found at fanfiction.net, but I'm reposting here.
Halo/Metroid crossover. Samus and Master Chief explore Beta Halo. Post events from entire Metroid series and Halo 3. I'm thinking it will eventually turn into a Samus/Chief love story.
Suggested shipper name?
---
She shivered a bit in the cool of her ship. The suit was bulky and she only wore it when necessary. Now was not the time. Goose pimples formed on her forearm, making the fine, blonde hairs on her arm stand on end. She rubbed her arm to fend off the chill.
“Adam,” she said, though she was the only person in the confines of the small, yellow ship drifting through random celestial particles.
A disembodied voice answered happily, “Yes, Lady?”
“Please increase ship’s temperature by two degrees,” she said.
The console flickered. “Yes, Lady. Ambient ship’s temperature now 26 degrees Celsius.”
Sighing, happy the temperature was warming the ship, she said, “Thank you Adam,” then sipped her tea.
Samus Aran, the pilot of the vessel, was enjoying a moment of solitude, usually interrupted by excursions to alien worlds, fending off Phazon beasts and devilish Metroids. Standing at six feet even, Samus was a tall, stout woman, but still enjoyed the softer things in life when not running from the space pirates threatening the galaxy. “Adam, play Bach.”
“Yes, Lady,” the console responded, and then started playing Cello Suite No. 1.
Samus sighed, turned of the heads up display on the dash and said, “I’m going to take a bath.”
The system acknowledged her as she got up from the pilot’s seat of her ship and walked to the back room.
She stood over the tub and twisted a red knob, then a blue knob. The tub began to fill. Pulling the broach from her hair, she ran her fingers through her hair, then pulled off the red tank top she’d been wearing. After removing her shorts, she dipped her toe into the now-filled tub and lowered herself into the warm water. Reveling in her moment of relaxation, she sighed hard and reached out, thinking of pouring herself a glass of wine, but the food storage unit was out of reach. She sighed and closed her eyes.
The music had gone through the prelude and into the second movement, Allemande when the ship jolted suddenly, sloshing some of the water from the tub onto the hard, metal floor. The ship’s internal alarm began blaring, startling Samus from her daze. She jumped from the tub, grabbed a towel and ran into the ship’s control room.
“Adam, what is it?” she asked the computer.
A series of lights on the console flickered and a readout displayed on the ship’s access panel. Finally answered, Adam replied, “Space pirates, coordinates 141 mark 243.”
“Evasive maneuvers!” Samus cried, jumping into the pilot’s seat.
The ship’s thrusters threw the ship to the left, responding to the fire from the approaching enemy ship.
Pounding the console, Samus cried, “Return fire, Adam!”
The ship jerked, recoiling from the plasma cannon blast directly under the cockpit.
“Hit, Lady!” Adam cried.
The pirate ship fired on Samus’ ship, striking the left engine core. The explosion sent the ship careening away from the approaching pirate ship, directly into a piece of interstellar junk covered in a strange blue material.
The firing stopped.
Samus pulled the towel back around herself—which had fallen off during the course of the battle—and said, “Status report.”
Adam flickered and whirred, showing a display of the ship’s hull and said, “Pirate ship fleeing on course 223 mark 435, unable to pursue. Right engine heavily damaged and leaking drive plasma.”
Samus read the readout on the display and said, “How far are we from the nearest Galactic Federation outpost?”
Adam showed a map on the screen and said, “Five point two light years. Shall I send a distress beacon, Lady?”
Before Samus could reply, the internal sensors flickered again. “Is it the space pirates?”
“No, Lady,” Adam said. “The unknown matter on the debris is infiltrating the hull through the tear in the engine coil and reacting…” Adam’s voice faded and the lights went out. Immediately, the reserve system kicked in and Adam continued, “… with the drive plasma from the engine.”
Samus pressed a button on the console, opening a drawer full of clothing. “I guess I’ll have to check it out,” she said, grabbing a new top and shorts from it.
She opened the door to the cabinet holding her Varia suit and began integrating herself with it.
Fully dressed, she turned on the suit's self-sustaining life support system and walked to the air lock to see the problem with the ship. She pressed the button, sealing the chamber and opening the hatch. Free floating in space, Samus maneuvered herself to the dorsal area of the ship to inspect the damage, still wary of the previous space pirate threat.
With her suit’s internal sensors, she ran her hand over the hole in the ship trying to determine the composition of the new metal compound forming, rendering a readout on her visor’s HUD.
In the helmet, Adam’s voice said, “PLUTONIUM 15.08 percent, TANTALUM 18.0 percent, XENON 27.71 percent, PROMETHIUM 24.02 percent, DIALUM 10.62 percent, MERCURY 4.0 percent...” the readout stopped. “UNKNOWN 0.57 percent.”
“Hmm,” Samus said. “Unknown…”
The display in her visor faded away, once again showing the hole in the ship and the open chasm of space around her. Suddenly, the compound began to react, creating a small, blue hole around the ship.
The sensors in Samus’ helmet began blinking and Adam said, “Lady, please return to the ship. A subspace fracture is forming.”
Alarmed, Samus clambered up the side of the ship and back through the hatch. She threw herself back through it and pressed the button resealing the air lock and reinstating the artificial gravity. “Adam, get us out of here!” she cried, stumbling back through the air lock and into the cockpit.
A jolt rocked the ship and the window into space was consumed in the blue hole, shaking the ship into it.
Samus screamed, tumbling through the ship, shearing itself apart from the tear in space.
Then suddenly, it stopped. The internal sensors in her visor showed the atmosphere was stable in her ship. She pulled off her helmet and said, “Adam, status!”
Static. “Skreet… schhh… 25 percent to dor screech… blip… approaching large circular structure. Screech… habitable atmosphere.”
“Adam’s down,” Samus mumbled to herself. She approached the console and pressed a small button, causing a small control stick to emerge from the dash. “Firing maneuvering thrusters,” Samus said, moving the ship slowly down to the surface of the ring.
---
“Chief.”
The chamber holding the large, green-suited man whirred to life. “Cortana,” he said.
“John, the ship’s battery is almost dead. I’ve been rerouting all the major systems to turn off as much as possible to keep the stasis chamber intact and my own system. A subspace rupture triggered an energy leak. And…” Cortana stopped.
“Yes?” Master Chief replied, jumping from the pod, then testing his orientation in the chasm of space.
“There’s bad news and worse news. Which do you want to hear first?” the female computer construct said, looking disparaged.
“The worse news. But first, any word from ONI or UNSC?” Chief asked, taking Cortana’s program from the console and inserting it into his helmet.
Cortana sighed and said, “None, and we’re approaching another Halo. Coordinates show this is Halo Beta. We’re approximately 15,000 light years away from the remains of the Ark.”
Chief walked over to a weapons locker, retrieved a battle rifle and said, “Then we’ve gone through a slipstream to the other side of the galaxy. How long have I been out?”
“Five and a half years,” Cortana replied, internally configuring the Chief’s armor and temperature systems.
“Then that means…” the Chief started, stretching his arm, limbering the gel coating inside his suit.
“The worse news,” she diffused.
Chief sighed, his arms showing his depression. “Your program’s lifespan is almost over.”
Cortana didn’t reply.
Resolute, Master Chief walked to the edge of the hangar bay open to space and looked at the Halo in his visor. He grabbed a thrust pack from the side of the bay and said, “We’re leaving.”
He stepped into space, using the thruster to approach Beta Halo. “What do we know,” the Chief asked?
“Not much,” Cortana replied. “A small, yellow craft of unknown origin landed in sector 8 about 15 minutes ago. My calculations show the ship is the source of the anomaly that drained the Forward Unto Dawn’s power supply.”
Firing the thruster again, accelerating into the Halo’s gravity, Chief said, “Covenant remnant?”
“I can’t be sure,” Cortana replied. “At our current trajectory, we’ll land in sector 7, five klicks from the ship’s landing site.”
Still gaining speed and draining the MJOLNIR Mark VI armor’s heat shield, Master Chief landed with a hard thump in a snowy region, melting the snow around him into a big puddle of water.
Dripping wet with steam pouring off him, Master Chief got to his feet, inspecting his armor for damage, then grabbed his weapon. “Saddle up...” he started. “...lock and load.”
Cortana laughed and said, “Let’s go Clint Eastwood.”
“Who?” the Chief asked, curious as to her reference.
“Nevermind,” Cortana sighed. “If we get back to Earth…”
The Chief interrupted her, saying, “When…”
Cortana sighed again and said, “When we get back to Earth, you’re going to read a history book.”
---
For the last hour, Samus had been working to repair the damage to her ship. Having contained the drive plasma leak from her engine core, she was working diligently to patch the hole, waiting for Adam’s system to reboot to correct the computer core’s problems.
She focused the beam from her gun-arm into a tight stream, soldering a temporary metal plate over the damaged hull in order to get back into space for permanent repairs at a Galactic Federation outpost. Then, Samus heard, “Lady, all systems operational.”
Samus wiped her sweaty brow and said, “Glad to have you back Adam. I was getting lonely.” She picked up her helmet from the soft grass and walked back to the ship’s hatch.
Adam responded, getting down to business, “This habitat ring’s structure does not appear in either the pirate’s journal or Federation star logs. The closest approximation to compare self-sustaining environments would be a Dyson Sphere.”
“A Dyson Sphere, huh?” Samus quizzed, viewing the readings from the ship’s HUD. “Send out a distress beacon to the Galactic Federation. Let them know I’ve found a new research entry. Any life found on the ring?”
Adam’s system whirred and buzzed as a small thunk shook the ship, sending the subspace buoy outward from the ring. “No Lady, no fauna detected, however, many species of arboreal and coniferous flora, consistent with Terran specie are found in different physiographic and climatic regions.”
“Terran,” Samus mumbled, wondering why plants from Earth would be on a ring on the other side of the galaxy.
“Yes, Lady,” Adam responded, “Further scans report the…”
The ship’s proximity sensors began to wail, alerting Samus to an approaching object.
“What is it, Adam?” Samus asked, triggering the ship’s ventral camera to see the object.
“Unknown, but configuration appears to be humanoid,” Adam replied.
Shoving the helmet back on her head, the suit’s air seal pressurized her inside the suit as she jumped through the ship’s air lock, charging the beam in her gun arm.
“Identify yourself!” Samus screamed at the approaching bogey, vocalizing through the suit’s speaker.
The green invader stopped around ten feet in front of her, pointed his assault rifle at Samus and said, “You first! Discharge your weapon and confirm your rank and serial number, Spartan!”
Confused, Samus said, “Spartan? What the hell are you talking about? Who are you? Lower your weapon!”
Inside the Chief’s head, he heard Cortana say, “Hold on, Chief, her armor configuration doesn’t match any suit design from Dr. Halsey’s Spartan II program.”
“Not Covenant based, either, Cortana?” the Chief asked, still on his guard at the intruder in front of him.
“Hmm,” Cortana said. “Not that I can tell. It’s not like any armor Elites or Brutes wore during the war.”
Hoping to end the standoff, Samus said, “If you lower your weapon, I’ll lower mine.”
The Chief shrugged his shoulders and lowered his weapon. Samus also discharged her weapon’s charge. “Now identify yourself,” Samus said.
Walking closer to Samus, the Chief said, “I am Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command.”
Confused, Samus jumped from the top of her ship and said, “United Nations Space Command? You’re not with the Galactic Federation?”
“Galactic Federation?” The Chief was confused.
“Space pirates?” Samus further asked.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He was still confused.
Inside his head, Cortana said, “It’s OK Spartan. The Galactic Federation was Earth’s first attempt to establish good relations with other worlds in the early 21st century. It’s what alerted the Covenant to Earth’s development and social progression almost 400 years ago. It’s why they wanted Earth to join before the war started, but waited another 350 years to observe human development before offering candidacy into the Covenant. You really need to learn your history, John.”
The Chief crossed his arms and said, “Four hundred years ago? Tell me, what year is it?” the Chief asked.
“Galactic year 2042.”
The Chief laughed. “I believe you’re mistaken. It’s Terran year 2561.”
“2561…” Samus muttered defensively.
Samus pulled off her helmet, still lingering over the Chief’s last statement. She mouthed the year.
The Chief was taken aback at Samus. He was surprised to see she was not only human, but a woman as well. And a beautiful one to boot. “What’s your name?” he asked.
Still working to regain her composure, Samus said, “Err, I’m Samus Aran. Bounty hunter for the Galactic Federation of Planets.”
Cortana, having identified Samus’ transponder frequency, said to the both of them, “Bounty hunting was outlawed with the Qo'noS Peace Accords of 2237.”
“Who the hell was that?” Samus said, pulling the earpiece from her ear. “What happened to Adam?”
“Easy there,” the Chief said. “That was Cortana. An AI construct who’s been with me for years.”
With both parties thoroughly confused and getting nowhere talking in circles, a silence grew between them. Samus was lost in her thoughts of how she’d ended up over 400 years in the future, while Master Chief was lost in other thoughts—thoughts concerning the Flood and what being on another Halo meant. The war may have been over, but there were still four Halos that needed to be destroyed, in case another alien race decided to fire them.
Although she didn’t say it, Cortana was monitoring the rise in Master Chief’s endorphin levels. It made her jealous. She thought there was something between them, considering he mounted a suicide mission by boarding the Flood-infested Covenant capitol city High Charity to retrieve her. Perhaps it was all the time they spent together, after she chose him as her Spartan before helping him with his mission on Chi Ceti 4 to retrieve his first armor suit, the MJOLNIR Mark IV armor. In all their years together, even before the excursion to Delta Halo, she’d felt an intense connection with him. It could have been Dr. Halsey’s programming, causing her to extrapolate scenarios to an almost infinite degree, giving her hope deep down in her base algorithms that one day something could work between them, but her rationale subroutines told her otherwise, coming into conflict with her emotion protocols.
Samus finally broke the silence and said, “What’s your name? It can’t be ‘Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command’ like you said,” she said, mocking his earlier statement.
“You can call me Chief. Or Spartan, if you prefer,” the Chief said.
Flustered, Samus effused, not knowing his name, but inside she felt a connection with this man. It wasn’t anything serious (or so she thought), but it seemed to be camaraderie—a battlefield kinship she felt deep down inside—and knew they had been cut from the same mold.
“Right. Chief. Nice suit,” Samus said. “Now can you tell me where we are? I’ve never seen technology like this before. Not even from the Chozo. It’s amazing.”
“The suit is standard military issue,” the Chief said. “And we’re on Halo. A weapons facility built by the Forerunners, used to eliminate the food source of the Flood—the most dangerous parasite threat in the galaxy.”
In Samus’ mind, she was recalling her experience with the X Parasite, which almost killed her on Planet SR-388, home of the devilish Metroids, created by the Chozo to destroy the X Parasite.
“The Flood…” Samus muttered, sticking her helmet back on her head. “If it’s anything as bad as the Metroids, then we need to eliminate it.”
Without question, and liking the go-get ‘em-ness of this new woman in his life, Master Chief lifted his battle rifle and said, “I like your style. Let’s go Samus.”
---
In the span of an hour, Samus and Master Chief had hardly spoken. Each of them wanting to ask the other questions, but Cortana was keeping the Chief in check by reminding him that by telling Samus anything about the future risked the integrity of the timeline. Samus, on the other hand, had spent so much time investigating planets on her own didn’t know what to say to a partner on this most recent journey.
On several occasions, she’d open her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. Luckily for her, the helmet hid her facial expressions, not hinting to the Chief she wanted to say something.
Finally breaking the silence, the Chief said to her, “I think I should tell you about our enemy.”
Without waiting for Samus to respond, the Chief went into his response about the deadliness of the Flood. “The Flood is a parasitic entity, assimilating all bio-organic life forms into its own collective, originating from a hive mind known as the Gravemind. Its sole purpose is to destroy all life in the universe. That’s why the Halos were constructed by the Forerunners—to eliminate its food source to keep it from feeding. Ergo: us.”
Samus responded, “Resistance is futile, eh?”
The Chief scoffed. “You have no idea.”
“Sounds a bit like the Metroids,” Samus said.
“Metroids?” the Chief asked quizzically.
“It means ‘ultimate warrior’ in the Chozo language,” Samus answered truthfully. “They’re energy-based life forms originally created to destroy the X Parasite on Planet SR-388, but the ecosystem went rampant, causing the Metroids to multiply at an exponential rate.”
The Chief looked at her. “All that for one germ?”
“You have no idea. Because of the space pirates, Metroids almost destroyed the planet Zebes and Tallon 4—even though Zebes did end up being destroyed in the long run. The Metroids drain your very soul from your body,” Samus said angrily, yet defensively, even though she knew the Chief had no clue about the destructiveness of her greatest foe.
“In fact,” Samus started. “I carry a hybrid DNA of human and Metroid, protecting me from the effects of the X Parasite, which almost killed me.”
Unable to respond with anything but a reply, the Chief said, “I… I’m sorry.” He was at a loss for words for the first time in his career. He had no clue what was coming over him.
Changing the subject, the Chief went back to the Flood and the Forerunners. “The Flood is no laughing matter. I lost a lot of good Marines to the Flood. It destroys everything in its path and lives for nothing but destruction.”
Approaching the gate to Beta Halo’s massive library, the Chief said, “Be prepared. We never know what we’ll find in here.”
The Chief reached out, pointing to the reinforced bulkhead and said to Samus, “Can your beam cut through this metal shielding?”
Samus configured her beam arm to fire a continuous burst. “I don’t know, but I can try.”
Aiming her arm to the wall, she began cutting a large hole, big enough for the two of them to pass through easily, when from above them defensive sentinels poured from an open hatch, attacking the Chief and Samus.
“Samus!” the Chief cried. “Sentinels! Shoot!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Samus said, charging her beam, then releasing the energy onto one of the sentinels, causing it to fall to the snowy surface of the ring.
The Chief rolled right and began firing his battle rifle at the closest sentinels, narrowly missing it’s fiery energy cannon.
“Chief!” Cortana cried. “Look, it’s a Monitor!”
Above them, a Monitor, similar to Delta Halo’s 343 Guilty Spark was observing the fight, laughing manically to itself, sending two new sentinels out to dispatch Samus and Master Chief.
Samus space jumped up to one of the sentinels, then coiled into the morphing ball, deploying two morph ball bombs, one destroying the sentinels and the second sending her into the air, landing on another sentinel. She set off one more bomb, destroying another sentinels before falling back to the surface.
“You’ll have to teach me that bomb trick sometime,” the Chief said, taking out a sentinel of his own with the last of the ammo in his battle rifle. “I’m out!” he cried, slamming the butt of the weapon into another sentinels, destroying the optical camera governing the sentinel’s aim.
From above them, there was a cry of, “Enough!” Instantly, the sentinels stopped moving and the Monitor lowered itself to them.
“Monitor,” Cortana said from the Chief’s helmet.
With a green glow, the Monitor replied in a female voice, “Yes. I am 249 Vindicated Pandemic—construct of Forerunner facility 02. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Reclaimers.”
“Reclaimers?” Samus questioned, still not sure what this new and scary future held for her.
“Yes, Reclaimers. You are a descendent of the Forerunners. It is obvious you are here in response to the aborted firing sequence five and a half Terran years ago. I am glad you are here. The time is at hand. Please, come inside,” the Monitor said.
“Hold on,” the Chief said, knowing full-well the purpose of the Halos. “We aren’t activating anything. We’re here to destroy this installation.”
Changing from green to red, 249 Vindicated Pandemic said, “I’m afraid that will not be possible. Now please, Reclaimers, come inside to the Silent Cartographer.”
“Wait!” Samus started, but was unable to finish her sentence when the Monitor transported her and the Chief inside the large structure.
The Chief turned to Samus, the shadow from the large obelisk in the center of the room cast over his helmet and said, “We have to find a way to destroy this place, but obviously we can’t do it now. I have no ammo and we need to secure your ship for an escape route. Let’s find the Index and get out of here.”
---
Back outside, the Monitor said to what seemingly was itself, saying, “They are in. Shall I continue?”
As only the Monitor could hear, a response was heard.
Two shall enter, for never to return
Your fealty to me, thou have justly learned
Sentence over, thou must burn
Crashing hard to the metal walkway to the library, 249 Vindicated Pandemic’s green light slowly faded, saying, “Thank… you… master… The Flood… released…” Then the light was gone.
---
Back at Samus’ ship, Adam was compiling information on the attack which sent the ship into the future, starting with the attack from the space pirate ship. With a molecular configuration readout on the ship’s HUD, Adam calculated the contents of the blue liquid on the piece of space junk, then said, “Calculating frequency, contacting Samus. Lady, unknown substance positively identified as Gemini Phazon. Substance highly reactive to DNA strands, recompiling from the genome an organism’s entire physical structure. Highly dangerous, return to the ship immediately.”
The internal sensors began wailing, with Adam crying, “Intruder alert!” as the blue substance puddled across the floor of the ship and up the wall to a cabinet containing a vial labeled Metroid DNA. Slated for destruction at Galactic Federation Science Station 12.
Oozing across the surface of the glass vial, the Gemini Phazon immersed itself with the Metroid DNA, reforming into the creature. The larger the Metroid got, the glass began to crack, then break. Free floating in Samus’ ship, the Metroid performed cellular division and split into two Metroids. Then four. Eight. Sixteen.
The klaxon of the internal sensors still wailing, one of the Metroids smashed through the hull of the ship and onto the surface of Beta Halo. The rest of its daughter cells followed.
---
Inside the library, the Chief and Samus were trying to make their way to the Silent Cartographer to retrieve the Index when Samus received a garbled, static-filled transmission from Adam.
“Skkkkkt… unknown substance… screech… Phazon,” the message read, then faded.
“Dammit,” Samus cried, worried with the word ‘Phazon’ coming through loud and clear, yet worried about the rest of the transmission. “Adam? Adam, are you there? Please respond.”
Worried, the Chief looked to her and said, “Is something the matter?”
Samus looked back at the Chief with a look that gazed at him through her helmet and right into his own helmet-hidden eyes. “Yeah. All hell just broke loose.”
---
“We need to get the Index and get out of here, if the Phazon is as dangerous as you say,” Cortana said to both the Chief and Samus.
Cortana had been fairly quiet since meeting Samus. Sure, she’d given the Chief her opinion on the situation. It was her rationale subroutines keeping her level-headed, even though there was a murmuring inside of her that was too obvious for her ego to realize: it was jealousy.
She’d scoffed inside at all the jokes the Chief had cracked to Samus, aggravated it wasn’t like their other excursions to deadly battlefields. But what bothered her even more was how the Chief wasn’t business-as-usual as he normally was. Perhaps it was because the war was over. This incursion was just to keep a new war over the rings from starting. Kind of like how the Battle of New Orleans still happened after the peace accords for the War of 1812 was signed.
There she was again, letting her mind wander. It was the reason why her program only had a lifespan of seven years. She rambled. If allowed to, she’d calculate Pi to a googolplex. Her thoughts were her years. Each thought counted down the years of her life, so she tried to stick to the subject. And that was the problem—a lot of her thoughts were about Master Chief. She’d said there was more to picking the Chief as her Spartan—his luck—but what she had spent these years denying herself was she was in love with the Chief. She cursed her emotion protocols.
“If the Flood is here…” Samus started, wary of finishing her statement. “If they merge with the Phazon, then we’ve got problems.”
Samus believed the solitary lifestyle of a bounty hunter was getting to her. Sure, she had her clients, but they weren’t her friends. Her whole life was ripped from under her when her parents were killed on the K-2L colony. But then there were the Chozo. She was happy growing up. She was taken care of, but that didn’t change the fact she was a human in a non-human community. There was camaraderie, but no friendship.
That’s what she felt she had in common with the Chief, though. He seemed to be cut from the same mold. She didn’t know much about him, but his demeanor convinced her they’d been raised in a similar crucible.
What was coming over her? Was it the longing for human interaction she was enjoying, or was it something more? She’d heard the stories of battlefield romance, but she quickly discounted that, not due to the apparent lack of battles on this ring, but because of her solitary nature. “No,” she thought, chastising herself—refusing to accept the idea she could be falling for a man she hardly knew. Not only that, but she didn’t even know his name or even how he looked. There was nothing to base a relationship on, other than her own misplaced feelings. But what if... what if those feelings were coming from the right place after all?
The Chief turned around, listening to the silence in the library, hoping they were alone on the installation.
What bothered him the most about meeting Samus was how it was in total contradiction to every bit of his training in the Spartan II program. Never question orders. Follow them to the letter. Your CO is the final word. You are an instrument of war.
It bothered him that some of his own feelings were re-emerging. He’d never been in love. Sure, there was the one time he went to Okinawa, Japan on liberty with two other Spartans when he was younger where he learned the physical aspects of love, but there was something inside of him stirring. Samus wasn’t a superior officer like Cortana and Commander Keyes were. She was an equal and that struck him as something he’d never encountered before. Well, not since Nicole-458 disappeared. He had spent his life following orders. Now that was betraying him.
There was a howl in the library. It made Samus and the Chief stop in their path. The Chief was hoping it was just air stuck in a pipe, echoing in the large, empty facility.
“Be on your guard,” Master Chief said.
Samus sighed, agreeing with him without saying a word.
“How long ago did you say the last weapons firing was? You know, the one that destroyed all life in the galaxy?” Samus asked.
“From what 343 Guilty Spark told us on the Halo we destroyed,” the Chief paused. “About 100,000 years ago.”
“Then that would make the Chozo one of the first sentient species in the galaxy after the calamity,” Samus replied, presupposing.
The Chief turned to her. “You keep talking about these Chozo, but we’ve never encountered them.”
Cutting him off, Samus replied, “That’s because they’re an extinct species. The Phazon killed them off. Drove them insane. I owe my life to them. They raised me after my parents were killed by space pirates at Earth Colony K-2L. My suit is of Chozo creation, also.”
“Then they possibly could have rivaled the Forerunners in technological advancement,” Cortana said.
Still confused about these terms Master Chief and Cortana were saying, Samus asked, “Who are these ‘Forerunners’ anyway? That Monitor said we were Reclaimers, descendents of the Forerunners. Were they humans?”
“Yes,” Cortana replied. They were killed during the first firing of the weapons. Other than a few scant logs by four Forerunners: Mendicant Bias, Offensive Bias, The Librarian and Didact, not much is really known about them outside the Ark.”
Samus was still trying to take it all in. “Then humanity didn’t originate on Earth.”
“Probably not,” the Chief said.
That made Samus feel better in a strange way. Knowing that her own solitary life wasn’t tied to a planet she felt no connection to. Rarely, if ever, did she go to Earth. Sure, she’d been to a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston, but that was at the behest of a Federation psychologist to try and reconnect her to her humanity.
Because of this, she felt even more connected to the Chief. She felt they were both walking on the paths presented before them, dictated by their childhoods. Besides, Earth in the 21st century was a grimy place anyway. She preferred to be outside.
Avoiding stewing in her own feelings any longer, Samus was desperate to change the subject. “So, your armor. It’s nice. It’s not as sophisticated as mine, but it’s nice.”
The Chief grunted cheerfully. It was also the first time anyone was interested in him, even if it was about his suit. “It’s called MJOLNIR Mark VI. It’s reinforced heavy-duty polytanium. I’m insulated by a thin layer of gel coating, which insulates me from intense heat and cold. And it weighs over 900 lbs.”
“Not to mention hard impacts,” Cortana interjected.
“Yeah, that too,” the Chief said. “What about yours?”
“It’s Chozo armor. It was given to me before I left,” Samus said. “There was a story the Chozo told me about a woman in green armor fell from the sky, half dead. It was the first human the Chozo had ever seen. She had no memory of who she was, other than being called ‘458.’ The Chozo studied the armor and improved upon it with skills they possessed naturally—like curling into a ball.”
“So that’s where it came from,” the Chief responded.
Inside the Chief’s helmet, Cortana asked him, “Could she be talking about Jessica-458?”
“Who knows,” the Chief whispered. “She did disappear in a slipstream, and from the readings went back to the early 21st century.”
“Then Samus' suit is a product of a cause-effect paradox,” Cortana said.
The Chief grunted. “Then how come mine isn’t as advanced as hers?”
Cortana sighed. “Probably because we weren’t advanced enough as these ‘Chozo,’ she keeps talking about.”
The Chief could sense the bitterness in Cortana’s voice. “Don’t be like that,” he said.
Walking through the library, the two of them were lost in conversation. What they didn’t realize is they were approaching the center of the Silent Cartographer and the Index.
“This is it,” the Chief said. He pulled Cortana from his helmet and inserted her into the console.
Cortana appeared in front of them in her 20-feet-tall glory and it made Samus a little queasy. She was jealous of her. Cortana had been with the Chief for years. Years she wished she’d been with him.
“Ok,” I have the Index,” Cortana said. “Now let’s get out of here and take care of this Phazon.”
The Chief pulled her from the console and reinserted her into his helmet. As they were turning around to leave, out of the corner of the Chief’s eye, he noticed a bit of movement. “Huh?” he grunted.
“What is it, Chief?” Samus asked, looking in the same direction.
He walked a little closer to whatever it was and said, “Hold on.”
From out of nowhere two small Flood infections flew down from the ceiling at Samus. The first knocked off her helmet, sending it to the floor with a crash. The second grabbed her by the hair and injected its flagella into her ear.
“AAAAAAAH!” Samus screamed, trying to swat away the strange parasite attached to her head.
She fell to the floor with a hard thump, still writhing in agony.
More to come!
Halo/Metroid crossover. Samus and Master Chief explore Beta Halo. Post events from entire Metroid series and Halo 3. I'm thinking it will eventually turn into a Samus/Chief love story.
Suggested shipper name?
---
She shivered a bit in the cool of her ship. The suit was bulky and she only wore it when necessary. Now was not the time. Goose pimples formed on her forearm, making the fine, blonde hairs on her arm stand on end. She rubbed her arm to fend off the chill.
“Adam,” she said, though she was the only person in the confines of the small, yellow ship drifting through random celestial particles.
A disembodied voice answered happily, “Yes, Lady?”
“Please increase ship’s temperature by two degrees,” she said.
The console flickered. “Yes, Lady. Ambient ship’s temperature now 26 degrees Celsius.”
Sighing, happy the temperature was warming the ship, she said, “Thank you Adam,” then sipped her tea.
Samus Aran, the pilot of the vessel, was enjoying a moment of solitude, usually interrupted by excursions to alien worlds, fending off Phazon beasts and devilish Metroids. Standing at six feet even, Samus was a tall, stout woman, but still enjoyed the softer things in life when not running from the space pirates threatening the galaxy. “Adam, play Bach.”
“Yes, Lady,” the console responded, and then started playing Cello Suite No. 1.
Samus sighed, turned of the heads up display on the dash and said, “I’m going to take a bath.”
The system acknowledged her as she got up from the pilot’s seat of her ship and walked to the back room.
She stood over the tub and twisted a red knob, then a blue knob. The tub began to fill. Pulling the broach from her hair, she ran her fingers through her hair, then pulled off the red tank top she’d been wearing. After removing her shorts, she dipped her toe into the now-filled tub and lowered herself into the warm water. Reveling in her moment of relaxation, she sighed hard and reached out, thinking of pouring herself a glass of wine, but the food storage unit was out of reach. She sighed and closed her eyes.
The music had gone through the prelude and into the second movement, Allemande when the ship jolted suddenly, sloshing some of the water from the tub onto the hard, metal floor. The ship’s internal alarm began blaring, startling Samus from her daze. She jumped from the tub, grabbed a towel and ran into the ship’s control room.
“Adam, what is it?” she asked the computer.
A series of lights on the console flickered and a readout displayed on the ship’s access panel. Finally answered, Adam replied, “Space pirates, coordinates 141 mark 243.”
“Evasive maneuvers!” Samus cried, jumping into the pilot’s seat.
The ship’s thrusters threw the ship to the left, responding to the fire from the approaching enemy ship.
Pounding the console, Samus cried, “Return fire, Adam!”
The ship jerked, recoiling from the plasma cannon blast directly under the cockpit.
“Hit, Lady!” Adam cried.
The pirate ship fired on Samus’ ship, striking the left engine core. The explosion sent the ship careening away from the approaching pirate ship, directly into a piece of interstellar junk covered in a strange blue material.
The firing stopped.
Samus pulled the towel back around herself—which had fallen off during the course of the battle—and said, “Status report.”
Adam flickered and whirred, showing a display of the ship’s hull and said, “Pirate ship fleeing on course 223 mark 435, unable to pursue. Right engine heavily damaged and leaking drive plasma.”
Samus read the readout on the display and said, “How far are we from the nearest Galactic Federation outpost?”
Adam showed a map on the screen and said, “Five point two light years. Shall I send a distress beacon, Lady?”
Before Samus could reply, the internal sensors flickered again. “Is it the space pirates?”
“No, Lady,” Adam said. “The unknown matter on the debris is infiltrating the hull through the tear in the engine coil and reacting…” Adam’s voice faded and the lights went out. Immediately, the reserve system kicked in and Adam continued, “… with the drive plasma from the engine.”
Samus pressed a button on the console, opening a drawer full of clothing. “I guess I’ll have to check it out,” she said, grabbing a new top and shorts from it.
She opened the door to the cabinet holding her Varia suit and began integrating herself with it.
Fully dressed, she turned on the suit's self-sustaining life support system and walked to the air lock to see the problem with the ship. She pressed the button, sealing the chamber and opening the hatch. Free floating in space, Samus maneuvered herself to the dorsal area of the ship to inspect the damage, still wary of the previous space pirate threat.
With her suit’s internal sensors, she ran her hand over the hole in the ship trying to determine the composition of the new metal compound forming, rendering a readout on her visor’s HUD.
In the helmet, Adam’s voice said, “PLUTONIUM 15.08 percent, TANTALUM 18.0 percent, XENON 27.71 percent, PROMETHIUM 24.02 percent, DIALUM 10.62 percent, MERCURY 4.0 percent...” the readout stopped. “UNKNOWN 0.57 percent.”
“Hmm,” Samus said. “Unknown…”
The display in her visor faded away, once again showing the hole in the ship and the open chasm of space around her. Suddenly, the compound began to react, creating a small, blue hole around the ship.
The sensors in Samus’ helmet began blinking and Adam said, “Lady, please return to the ship. A subspace fracture is forming.”
Alarmed, Samus clambered up the side of the ship and back through the hatch. She threw herself back through it and pressed the button resealing the air lock and reinstating the artificial gravity. “Adam, get us out of here!” she cried, stumbling back through the air lock and into the cockpit.
A jolt rocked the ship and the window into space was consumed in the blue hole, shaking the ship into it.
Samus screamed, tumbling through the ship, shearing itself apart from the tear in space.
Then suddenly, it stopped. The internal sensors in her visor showed the atmosphere was stable in her ship. She pulled off her helmet and said, “Adam, status!”
Static. “Skreet… schhh… 25 percent to dor screech… blip… approaching large circular structure. Screech… habitable atmosphere.”
“Adam’s down,” Samus mumbled to herself. She approached the console and pressed a small button, causing a small control stick to emerge from the dash. “Firing maneuvering thrusters,” Samus said, moving the ship slowly down to the surface of the ring.
---
“Chief.”
The chamber holding the large, green-suited man whirred to life. “Cortana,” he said.
“John, the ship’s battery is almost dead. I’ve been rerouting all the major systems to turn off as much as possible to keep the stasis chamber intact and my own system. A subspace rupture triggered an energy leak. And…” Cortana stopped.
“Yes?” Master Chief replied, jumping from the pod, then testing his orientation in the chasm of space.
“There’s bad news and worse news. Which do you want to hear first?” the female computer construct said, looking disparaged.
“The worse news. But first, any word from ONI or UNSC?” Chief asked, taking Cortana’s program from the console and inserting it into his helmet.
Cortana sighed and said, “None, and we’re approaching another Halo. Coordinates show this is Halo Beta. We’re approximately 15,000 light years away from the remains of the Ark.”
Chief walked over to a weapons locker, retrieved a battle rifle and said, “Then we’ve gone through a slipstream to the other side of the galaxy. How long have I been out?”
“Five and a half years,” Cortana replied, internally configuring the Chief’s armor and temperature systems.
“Then that means…” the Chief started, stretching his arm, limbering the gel coating inside his suit.
“The worse news,” she diffused.
Chief sighed, his arms showing his depression. “Your program’s lifespan is almost over.”
Cortana didn’t reply.
Resolute, Master Chief walked to the edge of the hangar bay open to space and looked at the Halo in his visor. He grabbed a thrust pack from the side of the bay and said, “We’re leaving.”
He stepped into space, using the thruster to approach Beta Halo. “What do we know,” the Chief asked?
“Not much,” Cortana replied. “A small, yellow craft of unknown origin landed in sector 8 about 15 minutes ago. My calculations show the ship is the source of the anomaly that drained the Forward Unto Dawn’s power supply.”
Firing the thruster again, accelerating into the Halo’s gravity, Chief said, “Covenant remnant?”
“I can’t be sure,” Cortana replied. “At our current trajectory, we’ll land in sector 7, five klicks from the ship’s landing site.”
Still gaining speed and draining the MJOLNIR Mark VI armor’s heat shield, Master Chief landed with a hard thump in a snowy region, melting the snow around him into a big puddle of water.
Dripping wet with steam pouring off him, Master Chief got to his feet, inspecting his armor for damage, then grabbed his weapon. “Saddle up...” he started. “...lock and load.”
Cortana laughed and said, “Let’s go Clint Eastwood.”
“Who?” the Chief asked, curious as to her reference.
“Nevermind,” Cortana sighed. “If we get back to Earth…”
The Chief interrupted her, saying, “When…”
Cortana sighed again and said, “When we get back to Earth, you’re going to read a history book.”
---
For the last hour, Samus had been working to repair the damage to her ship. Having contained the drive plasma leak from her engine core, she was working diligently to patch the hole, waiting for Adam’s system to reboot to correct the computer core’s problems.
She focused the beam from her gun-arm into a tight stream, soldering a temporary metal plate over the damaged hull in order to get back into space for permanent repairs at a Galactic Federation outpost. Then, Samus heard, “Lady, all systems operational.”
Samus wiped her sweaty brow and said, “Glad to have you back Adam. I was getting lonely.” She picked up her helmet from the soft grass and walked back to the ship’s hatch.
Adam responded, getting down to business, “This habitat ring’s structure does not appear in either the pirate’s journal or Federation star logs. The closest approximation to compare self-sustaining environments would be a Dyson Sphere.”
“A Dyson Sphere, huh?” Samus quizzed, viewing the readings from the ship’s HUD. “Send out a distress beacon to the Galactic Federation. Let them know I’ve found a new research entry. Any life found on the ring?”
Adam’s system whirred and buzzed as a small thunk shook the ship, sending the subspace buoy outward from the ring. “No Lady, no fauna detected, however, many species of arboreal and coniferous flora, consistent with Terran specie are found in different physiographic and climatic regions.”
“Terran,” Samus mumbled, wondering why plants from Earth would be on a ring on the other side of the galaxy.
“Yes, Lady,” Adam responded, “Further scans report the…”
The ship’s proximity sensors began to wail, alerting Samus to an approaching object.
“What is it, Adam?” Samus asked, triggering the ship’s ventral camera to see the object.
“Unknown, but configuration appears to be humanoid,” Adam replied.
Shoving the helmet back on her head, the suit’s air seal pressurized her inside the suit as she jumped through the ship’s air lock, charging the beam in her gun arm.
“Identify yourself!” Samus screamed at the approaching bogey, vocalizing through the suit’s speaker.
The green invader stopped around ten feet in front of her, pointed his assault rifle at Samus and said, “You first! Discharge your weapon and confirm your rank and serial number, Spartan!”
Confused, Samus said, “Spartan? What the hell are you talking about? Who are you? Lower your weapon!”
Inside the Chief’s head, he heard Cortana say, “Hold on, Chief, her armor configuration doesn’t match any suit design from Dr. Halsey’s Spartan II program.”
“Not Covenant based, either, Cortana?” the Chief asked, still on his guard at the intruder in front of him.
“Hmm,” Cortana said. “Not that I can tell. It’s not like any armor Elites or Brutes wore during the war.”
Hoping to end the standoff, Samus said, “If you lower your weapon, I’ll lower mine.”
The Chief shrugged his shoulders and lowered his weapon. Samus also discharged her weapon’s charge. “Now identify yourself,” Samus said.
Walking closer to Samus, the Chief said, “I am Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command.”
Confused, Samus jumped from the top of her ship and said, “United Nations Space Command? You’re not with the Galactic Federation?”
“Galactic Federation?” The Chief was confused.
“Space pirates?” Samus further asked.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He was still confused.
Inside his head, Cortana said, “It’s OK Spartan. The Galactic Federation was Earth’s first attempt to establish good relations with other worlds in the early 21st century. It’s what alerted the Covenant to Earth’s development and social progression almost 400 years ago. It’s why they wanted Earth to join before the war started, but waited another 350 years to observe human development before offering candidacy into the Covenant. You really need to learn your history, John.”
The Chief crossed his arms and said, “Four hundred years ago? Tell me, what year is it?” the Chief asked.
“Galactic year 2042.”
The Chief laughed. “I believe you’re mistaken. It’s Terran year 2561.”
“2561…” Samus muttered defensively.
Samus pulled off her helmet, still lingering over the Chief’s last statement. She mouthed the year.
The Chief was taken aback at Samus. He was surprised to see she was not only human, but a woman as well. And a beautiful one to boot. “What’s your name?” he asked.
Still working to regain her composure, Samus said, “Err, I’m Samus Aran. Bounty hunter for the Galactic Federation of Planets.”
Cortana, having identified Samus’ transponder frequency, said to the both of them, “Bounty hunting was outlawed with the Qo'noS Peace Accords of 2237.”
“Who the hell was that?” Samus said, pulling the earpiece from her ear. “What happened to Adam?”
“Easy there,” the Chief said. “That was Cortana. An AI construct who’s been with me for years.”
With both parties thoroughly confused and getting nowhere talking in circles, a silence grew between them. Samus was lost in her thoughts of how she’d ended up over 400 years in the future, while Master Chief was lost in other thoughts—thoughts concerning the Flood and what being on another Halo meant. The war may have been over, but there were still four Halos that needed to be destroyed, in case another alien race decided to fire them.
Although she didn’t say it, Cortana was monitoring the rise in Master Chief’s endorphin levels. It made her jealous. She thought there was something between them, considering he mounted a suicide mission by boarding the Flood-infested Covenant capitol city High Charity to retrieve her. Perhaps it was all the time they spent together, after she chose him as her Spartan before helping him with his mission on Chi Ceti 4 to retrieve his first armor suit, the MJOLNIR Mark IV armor. In all their years together, even before the excursion to Delta Halo, she’d felt an intense connection with him. It could have been Dr. Halsey’s programming, causing her to extrapolate scenarios to an almost infinite degree, giving her hope deep down in her base algorithms that one day something could work between them, but her rationale subroutines told her otherwise, coming into conflict with her emotion protocols.
Samus finally broke the silence and said, “What’s your name? It can’t be ‘Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command’ like you said,” she said, mocking his earlier statement.
“You can call me Chief. Or Spartan, if you prefer,” the Chief said.
Flustered, Samus effused, not knowing his name, but inside she felt a connection with this man. It wasn’t anything serious (or so she thought), but it seemed to be camaraderie—a battlefield kinship she felt deep down inside—and knew they had been cut from the same mold.
“Right. Chief. Nice suit,” Samus said. “Now can you tell me where we are? I’ve never seen technology like this before. Not even from the Chozo. It’s amazing.”
“The suit is standard military issue,” the Chief said. “And we’re on Halo. A weapons facility built by the Forerunners, used to eliminate the food source of the Flood—the most dangerous parasite threat in the galaxy.”
In Samus’ mind, she was recalling her experience with the X Parasite, which almost killed her on Planet SR-388, home of the devilish Metroids, created by the Chozo to destroy the X Parasite.
“The Flood…” Samus muttered, sticking her helmet back on her head. “If it’s anything as bad as the Metroids, then we need to eliminate it.”
Without question, and liking the go-get ‘em-ness of this new woman in his life, Master Chief lifted his battle rifle and said, “I like your style. Let’s go Samus.”
---
In the span of an hour, Samus and Master Chief had hardly spoken. Each of them wanting to ask the other questions, but Cortana was keeping the Chief in check by reminding him that by telling Samus anything about the future risked the integrity of the timeline. Samus, on the other hand, had spent so much time investigating planets on her own didn’t know what to say to a partner on this most recent journey.
On several occasions, she’d open her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. Luckily for her, the helmet hid her facial expressions, not hinting to the Chief she wanted to say something.
Finally breaking the silence, the Chief said to her, “I think I should tell you about our enemy.”
Without waiting for Samus to respond, the Chief went into his response about the deadliness of the Flood. “The Flood is a parasitic entity, assimilating all bio-organic life forms into its own collective, originating from a hive mind known as the Gravemind. Its sole purpose is to destroy all life in the universe. That’s why the Halos were constructed by the Forerunners—to eliminate its food source to keep it from feeding. Ergo: us.”
Samus responded, “Resistance is futile, eh?”
The Chief scoffed. “You have no idea.”
“Sounds a bit like the Metroids,” Samus said.
“Metroids?” the Chief asked quizzically.
“It means ‘ultimate warrior’ in the Chozo language,” Samus answered truthfully. “They’re energy-based life forms originally created to destroy the X Parasite on Planet SR-388, but the ecosystem went rampant, causing the Metroids to multiply at an exponential rate.”
The Chief looked at her. “All that for one germ?”
“You have no idea. Because of the space pirates, Metroids almost destroyed the planet Zebes and Tallon 4—even though Zebes did end up being destroyed in the long run. The Metroids drain your very soul from your body,” Samus said angrily, yet defensively, even though she knew the Chief had no clue about the destructiveness of her greatest foe.
“In fact,” Samus started. “I carry a hybrid DNA of human and Metroid, protecting me from the effects of the X Parasite, which almost killed me.”
Unable to respond with anything but a reply, the Chief said, “I… I’m sorry.” He was at a loss for words for the first time in his career. He had no clue what was coming over him.
Changing the subject, the Chief went back to the Flood and the Forerunners. “The Flood is no laughing matter. I lost a lot of good Marines to the Flood. It destroys everything in its path and lives for nothing but destruction.”
Approaching the gate to Beta Halo’s massive library, the Chief said, “Be prepared. We never know what we’ll find in here.”
The Chief reached out, pointing to the reinforced bulkhead and said to Samus, “Can your beam cut through this metal shielding?”
Samus configured her beam arm to fire a continuous burst. “I don’t know, but I can try.”
Aiming her arm to the wall, she began cutting a large hole, big enough for the two of them to pass through easily, when from above them defensive sentinels poured from an open hatch, attacking the Chief and Samus.
“Samus!” the Chief cried. “Sentinels! Shoot!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Samus said, charging her beam, then releasing the energy onto one of the sentinels, causing it to fall to the snowy surface of the ring.
The Chief rolled right and began firing his battle rifle at the closest sentinels, narrowly missing it’s fiery energy cannon.
“Chief!” Cortana cried. “Look, it’s a Monitor!”
Above them, a Monitor, similar to Delta Halo’s 343 Guilty Spark was observing the fight, laughing manically to itself, sending two new sentinels out to dispatch Samus and Master Chief.
Samus space jumped up to one of the sentinels, then coiled into the morphing ball, deploying two morph ball bombs, one destroying the sentinels and the second sending her into the air, landing on another sentinel. She set off one more bomb, destroying another sentinels before falling back to the surface.
“You’ll have to teach me that bomb trick sometime,” the Chief said, taking out a sentinel of his own with the last of the ammo in his battle rifle. “I’m out!” he cried, slamming the butt of the weapon into another sentinels, destroying the optical camera governing the sentinel’s aim.
From above them, there was a cry of, “Enough!” Instantly, the sentinels stopped moving and the Monitor lowered itself to them.
“Monitor,” Cortana said from the Chief’s helmet.
With a green glow, the Monitor replied in a female voice, “Yes. I am 249 Vindicated Pandemic—construct of Forerunner facility 02. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Reclaimers.”
“Reclaimers?” Samus questioned, still not sure what this new and scary future held for her.
“Yes, Reclaimers. You are a descendent of the Forerunners. It is obvious you are here in response to the aborted firing sequence five and a half Terran years ago. I am glad you are here. The time is at hand. Please, come inside,” the Monitor said.
“Hold on,” the Chief said, knowing full-well the purpose of the Halos. “We aren’t activating anything. We’re here to destroy this installation.”
Changing from green to red, 249 Vindicated Pandemic said, “I’m afraid that will not be possible. Now please, Reclaimers, come inside to the Silent Cartographer.”
“Wait!” Samus started, but was unable to finish her sentence when the Monitor transported her and the Chief inside the large structure.
The Chief turned to Samus, the shadow from the large obelisk in the center of the room cast over his helmet and said, “We have to find a way to destroy this place, but obviously we can’t do it now. I have no ammo and we need to secure your ship for an escape route. Let’s find the Index and get out of here.”
---
Back outside, the Monitor said to what seemingly was itself, saying, “They are in. Shall I continue?”
As only the Monitor could hear, a response was heard.
Two shall enter, for never to return
Your fealty to me, thou have justly learned
Sentence over, thou must burn
Crashing hard to the metal walkway to the library, 249 Vindicated Pandemic’s green light slowly faded, saying, “Thank… you… master… The Flood… released…” Then the light was gone.
---
Back at Samus’ ship, Adam was compiling information on the attack which sent the ship into the future, starting with the attack from the space pirate ship. With a molecular configuration readout on the ship’s HUD, Adam calculated the contents of the blue liquid on the piece of space junk, then said, “Calculating frequency, contacting Samus. Lady, unknown substance positively identified as Gemini Phazon. Substance highly reactive to DNA strands, recompiling from the genome an organism’s entire physical structure. Highly dangerous, return to the ship immediately.”
The internal sensors began wailing, with Adam crying, “Intruder alert!” as the blue substance puddled across the floor of the ship and up the wall to a cabinet containing a vial labeled Metroid DNA. Slated for destruction at Galactic Federation Science Station 12.
Oozing across the surface of the glass vial, the Gemini Phazon immersed itself with the Metroid DNA, reforming into the creature. The larger the Metroid got, the glass began to crack, then break. Free floating in Samus’ ship, the Metroid performed cellular division and split into two Metroids. Then four. Eight. Sixteen.
The klaxon of the internal sensors still wailing, one of the Metroids smashed through the hull of the ship and onto the surface of Beta Halo. The rest of its daughter cells followed.
---
Inside the library, the Chief and Samus were trying to make their way to the Silent Cartographer to retrieve the Index when Samus received a garbled, static-filled transmission from Adam.
“Skkkkkt… unknown substance… screech… Phazon,” the message read, then faded.
“Dammit,” Samus cried, worried with the word ‘Phazon’ coming through loud and clear, yet worried about the rest of the transmission. “Adam? Adam, are you there? Please respond.”
Worried, the Chief looked to her and said, “Is something the matter?”
Samus looked back at the Chief with a look that gazed at him through her helmet and right into his own helmet-hidden eyes. “Yeah. All hell just broke loose.”
---
“We need to get the Index and get out of here, if the Phazon is as dangerous as you say,” Cortana said to both the Chief and Samus.
Cortana had been fairly quiet since meeting Samus. Sure, she’d given the Chief her opinion on the situation. It was her rationale subroutines keeping her level-headed, even though there was a murmuring inside of her that was too obvious for her ego to realize: it was jealousy.
She’d scoffed inside at all the jokes the Chief had cracked to Samus, aggravated it wasn’t like their other excursions to deadly battlefields. But what bothered her even more was how the Chief wasn’t business-as-usual as he normally was. Perhaps it was because the war was over. This incursion was just to keep a new war over the rings from starting. Kind of like how the Battle of New Orleans still happened after the peace accords for the War of 1812 was signed.
There she was again, letting her mind wander. It was the reason why her program only had a lifespan of seven years. She rambled. If allowed to, she’d calculate Pi to a googolplex. Her thoughts were her years. Each thought counted down the years of her life, so she tried to stick to the subject. And that was the problem—a lot of her thoughts were about Master Chief. She’d said there was more to picking the Chief as her Spartan—his luck—but what she had spent these years denying herself was she was in love with the Chief. She cursed her emotion protocols.
“If the Flood is here…” Samus started, wary of finishing her statement. “If they merge with the Phazon, then we’ve got problems.”
Samus believed the solitary lifestyle of a bounty hunter was getting to her. Sure, she had her clients, but they weren’t her friends. Her whole life was ripped from under her when her parents were killed on the K-2L colony. But then there were the Chozo. She was happy growing up. She was taken care of, but that didn’t change the fact she was a human in a non-human community. There was camaraderie, but no friendship.
That’s what she felt she had in common with the Chief, though. He seemed to be cut from the same mold. She didn’t know much about him, but his demeanor convinced her they’d been raised in a similar crucible.
What was coming over her? Was it the longing for human interaction she was enjoying, or was it something more? She’d heard the stories of battlefield romance, but she quickly discounted that, not due to the apparent lack of battles on this ring, but because of her solitary nature. “No,” she thought, chastising herself—refusing to accept the idea she could be falling for a man she hardly knew. Not only that, but she didn’t even know his name or even how he looked. There was nothing to base a relationship on, other than her own misplaced feelings. But what if... what if those feelings were coming from the right place after all?
The Chief turned around, listening to the silence in the library, hoping they were alone on the installation.
What bothered him the most about meeting Samus was how it was in total contradiction to every bit of his training in the Spartan II program. Never question orders. Follow them to the letter. Your CO is the final word. You are an instrument of war.
It bothered him that some of his own feelings were re-emerging. He’d never been in love. Sure, there was the one time he went to Okinawa, Japan on liberty with two other Spartans when he was younger where he learned the physical aspects of love, but there was something inside of him stirring. Samus wasn’t a superior officer like Cortana and Commander Keyes were. She was an equal and that struck him as something he’d never encountered before. Well, not since Nicole-458 disappeared. He had spent his life following orders. Now that was betraying him.
There was a howl in the library. It made Samus and the Chief stop in their path. The Chief was hoping it was just air stuck in a pipe, echoing in the large, empty facility.
“Be on your guard,” Master Chief said.
Samus sighed, agreeing with him without saying a word.
“How long ago did you say the last weapons firing was? You know, the one that destroyed all life in the galaxy?” Samus asked.
“From what 343 Guilty Spark told us on the Halo we destroyed,” the Chief paused. “About 100,000 years ago.”
“Then that would make the Chozo one of the first sentient species in the galaxy after the calamity,” Samus replied, presupposing.
The Chief turned to her. “You keep talking about these Chozo, but we’ve never encountered them.”
Cutting him off, Samus replied, “That’s because they’re an extinct species. The Phazon killed them off. Drove them insane. I owe my life to them. They raised me after my parents were killed by space pirates at Earth Colony K-2L. My suit is of Chozo creation, also.”
“Then they possibly could have rivaled the Forerunners in technological advancement,” Cortana said.
Still confused about these terms Master Chief and Cortana were saying, Samus asked, “Who are these ‘Forerunners’ anyway? That Monitor said we were Reclaimers, descendents of the Forerunners. Were they humans?”
“Yes,” Cortana replied. They were killed during the first firing of the weapons. Other than a few scant logs by four Forerunners: Mendicant Bias, Offensive Bias, The Librarian and Didact, not much is really known about them outside the Ark.”
Samus was still trying to take it all in. “Then humanity didn’t originate on Earth.”
“Probably not,” the Chief said.
That made Samus feel better in a strange way. Knowing that her own solitary life wasn’t tied to a planet she felt no connection to. Rarely, if ever, did she go to Earth. Sure, she’d been to a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston, but that was at the behest of a Federation psychologist to try and reconnect her to her humanity.
Because of this, she felt even more connected to the Chief. She felt they were both walking on the paths presented before them, dictated by their childhoods. Besides, Earth in the 21st century was a grimy place anyway. She preferred to be outside.
Avoiding stewing in her own feelings any longer, Samus was desperate to change the subject. “So, your armor. It’s nice. It’s not as sophisticated as mine, but it’s nice.”
The Chief grunted cheerfully. It was also the first time anyone was interested in him, even if it was about his suit. “It’s called MJOLNIR Mark VI. It’s reinforced heavy-duty polytanium. I’m insulated by a thin layer of gel coating, which insulates me from intense heat and cold. And it weighs over 900 lbs.”
“Not to mention hard impacts,” Cortana interjected.
“Yeah, that too,” the Chief said. “What about yours?”
“It’s Chozo armor. It was given to me before I left,” Samus said. “There was a story the Chozo told me about a woman in green armor fell from the sky, half dead. It was the first human the Chozo had ever seen. She had no memory of who she was, other than being called ‘458.’ The Chozo studied the armor and improved upon it with skills they possessed naturally—like curling into a ball.”
“So that’s where it came from,” the Chief responded.
Inside the Chief’s helmet, Cortana asked him, “Could she be talking about Jessica-458?”
“Who knows,” the Chief whispered. “She did disappear in a slipstream, and from the readings went back to the early 21st century.”
“Then Samus' suit is a product of a cause-effect paradox,” Cortana said.
The Chief grunted. “Then how come mine isn’t as advanced as hers?”
Cortana sighed. “Probably because we weren’t advanced enough as these ‘Chozo,’ she keeps talking about.”
The Chief could sense the bitterness in Cortana’s voice. “Don’t be like that,” he said.
Walking through the library, the two of them were lost in conversation. What they didn’t realize is they were approaching the center of the Silent Cartographer and the Index.
“This is it,” the Chief said. He pulled Cortana from his helmet and inserted her into the console.
Cortana appeared in front of them in her 20-feet-tall glory and it made Samus a little queasy. She was jealous of her. Cortana had been with the Chief for years. Years she wished she’d been with him.
“Ok,” I have the Index,” Cortana said. “Now let’s get out of here and take care of this Phazon.”
The Chief pulled her from the console and reinserted her into his helmet. As they were turning around to leave, out of the corner of the Chief’s eye, he noticed a bit of movement. “Huh?” he grunted.
“What is it, Chief?” Samus asked, looking in the same direction.
He walked a little closer to whatever it was and said, “Hold on.”
From out of nowhere two small Flood infections flew down from the ceiling at Samus. The first knocked off her helmet, sending it to the floor with a crash. The second grabbed her by the hair and injected its flagella into her ear.
“AAAAAAAH!” Samus screamed, trying to swat away the strange parasite attached to her head.
She fell to the floor with a hard thump, still writhing in agony.
More to come!