Metroid: Initializing - Chapter 9: Counterattack

"Are you happy now?" demanded Gray Voice, stoic as ever.

"Very," said Ridley. "Now let's head to surveillance and locate those two fools who wandered down here."

They uttered a few more words back and forth as Kreatz and Mauk puzzled over what to do next. The prisoners were not yet secured, and Samus had just climbed above them on Kreatz and Mauk's list of priorities. After that they all could rescue the Chozo, show Malkovich what was going on, and bring hell down upon the pirates who took Zebes. To do so, the two had to act quickly.

Mauk sprinted to the nearest control console, unconcerned by that point of being spotted by the technicians ambling about.

"What are you doing?" Kreatz yelled. "We can't take these guys on by ourselves!"

"Not directly," said Mauk as he punched keys and slid icons. "But we need to do more than watch. I'm going to turn this place into a pock-marked hive of chaos."

"Hey," said Kreatz, glancing the screen above Mauk, "that's our cruiser's HUD!"

Outside of Tourian, the golden shell-shaped craft stirred. From four panels at each quadrant grew matching missile launchers pointed straight up. The holographic display inside busily cycled through maps and calculations faster than a pair of eyes could keep track. It located the biolab, synced with Kreatz's binoculars, and sent additional distress calls to Commander Malkovich. The missiles shot up and branched out, zeroing in on targets in Tourian, Crateria, and the ground above Brinstar. With the pirates sufficiently distracted, Mauk and Kreatz could get Samus, Pyonchi, and possibly Gray Voice out of the area and to a safe location.

Meanwhile as Ridley and Gray Voice sat examining the video surveillance in search of the intruders, prejudged to thinking they were nowhere near the biolab, Samus sat tied to a chair watching her captors...when her wrist beeped.

"What was that?" Ridley asked, turning to Samus.

"How should I know?" she snapped. "My wrists are tied."

Without a word, Ridley picked her up, chair and all, and flipped her over to examine the message on her wrist, poking the icons onscreen randomly. A few touches revealed the voices of her friends.

"...saw them go this way. What was that?" said Kreatz, noticing an incoming call.

"I'm in the surveillance room!" cried Samus.

---

"Well where's that?" yelled Kreatz into his wristpad. "Hello? Hello? This just can't get any worse."

"Give me a few seconds," Mauk growled. "These missiles have to have an EMP function."

"A what?"

"Damn it Kreatz! Don't you pay attention at the meetings? We can use electromagnetism to disable every electronic device in here. That'll unlock doors and shut off cameras. Found it!" Mauk pressed a final key. "Now follow me."

Using his arms and legs in coordinated apelike movements, he vaulted the console and pushed past the cloning vats to the last place he saw Ridley and Gray Voice. This led him down a hallway that suddenly flickered into darkness. The electromagnetic pulse had taken effect. Mauk's attentive hearing and Pyonchi's sense of smell brought them closer to Samus, and further from the sounds of splashing liquid and shattering glass, which Kreatz surmised was the result of prematurely shutting down the bioreactors they had left behind.

Hearing Ridley and Gray Voice was easy, as the two could not stop bickering over Mother Brain's plans, the importance of the genetically modified Zebesians, or what to do with Samus, who looked as pitiful as ever, suffering from an apparent post-traumatic stress reaction and, despite her efforts, fully unable to summon the power suit. Mother Brain's telepathic block and Gray Voice's betrayal had her thinking of nothing more than just giving up.

Samus shook off such thoughts. Was this a test? Was Mother Brain playing some game as a convoluted means of steeling her resolve? By that point Samus had no idea what she was thinking, or if her thoughts were truly her own.

"...leadership?" Ridley continued. "How can you say you're providing leadership when you can't even keep the lights on in this place?"

"We could if your pirates had enough afloraltite!" retorted Gray Voice. To each, everything was the other's fault.

Then Samus spoke up.

"EMP," she moaned.

Ridley and Gray Voice simultaneously turned to face her, each wondering if they had heard her correctly. Both felt a sudden distress at the thought of Federation involvement, though each was motivated by a markedly different goal.

"Well I say bring it!" screeched Ridley in a show of false bravado. "They could not have mustered enough reinforcements by now anyway!"

"Samus," said Gray Voice, trying to appear on her side, "is back-up coming?"

"Probably," she rasped, head hung. "Or not. Can't say."

"Who's coming, Samus?" he pressed.

"No one. It came automatically from my ship." She saw no further need to play games. Her mission was over.

Just then the lights came up. Every screen and projector in the cramped surveillance room came to life with images of sparks flying, hoses leaking, and technicians running around in a frantic bid to clean up the now perfectly visible mess. And lying among the steamy, sludgy ruin were the twitching bodies of Zebesians, Space Pirates who volunteered for a genetic upgrade, or some biological enhancement they didn't fully understand. Samus could feel Mother Brain's turbulent psychic waves of instruction directed at the downed pirates to rise, and force the Chozo prisoners to repair the damaged equipment.

"I knew you couldn't be trusted!" Ridley shouted, noting the decimated lab.

"This wasn't our doing," protested Gray Voice. "It was Samus, but consider it good news; she acted alone. Besides, your numbers are sufficient. We can always get more Zebesians. No need to get flustered."

"This...human has brought us nothing but trouble. Your willingness to let her live is a rather troubling sign, Gray Voice."

"There will be no further discussion of killing her," said the Chozo flatly. "We'll turn her around."

Instantly, Ridley froze, but not in response to anything Gray Voice had said. He detected something...amiss beyond their obvious troubles at hand. With no time for Ridley to think about it, Kreatz and Mauk suddenly burst in to attempt to strong-arm the beast and recover Samus - a desperate gambit, to be sure, but both concluded that they had run out of options after the EMP wore off.

Mauk made the first move. Shoving Gray Voice aside, he made his orders clear. "Interfere, and you die." Ridley didn't perceive them as much of a threat, but kept on his guard in anticipation of the right time to strike.

"Hold still now," Kreatz commanded, mostly at Ridley. The two guns the young officer held would have done little lasting damage to such a massive foe, but they were certain to stun him momentarily.

"You know," said the immense dragon, "with a flick of my tail I could knock off those face masks."

"Sorry," said Kreatz amid the rising pitch of his charging pistols, "couldn't understand that. I don't speak lizard."

With little else to think about, Mauk punched Gray Voice hard across the beak, prompting Kreatz to fire two fully charged rounds right into Ridley's cervicomandibular fossa, the soft spot under his beak and luckily one of his few weaknesses, leaving the pterosaur to writhe on the floor, cursing and spewing fiery coughs. Mauk then bent Samus over his shoulder and the two men ran as fast as the adrenaline rush could carry them, chasing Pyonchi in the direction of the liberated, but by then confused and wandering Chozo elders.

"We need to get her back to the ship," said Mauk.

"You kidding?" blurted Kreatz. "We were doing so well! Let's go for the money and save these birds!"

"Agreed, Sam?" Mauk asked tenderly, slowing his gait.

"Whatever," she sighed. "I'm done." She was reacting to the instability caused by Mother Brain's attempts to control her mind, yet there was still so much more ravaging the young warrior's nervous and endocrine systems.

"We're almost out of here," Mauk said encouragingly.

"No," she sobbed. "I want you to kill me...right here."

"What?" gasped Mauk.

"Please...end this. Hurts so much...kill me."

They slowed to a walk, Kreatz heading up with his guns at right angles to ward off any Zebesians strong enough to try anything. Mauk cradled Samus in his arms, the better to see her face and remove the pressure from her stomach. He was very concerned over her mentation. Samus had always been serious and low-key, but never openly sad - and certainly never suicidal. Now however, she was rambling incoherently about how she "let him kill them both," and it was unclear at times whether she was laughing or crying. On top of that, Kreatz and Mauk knew nothing of Mother Brain's telepathic capabilities, which were strongly contributing to their friend's psychosis.

Their progress was slow, and they kept to the shadows so as to remain invisible. Yet they were eventually spotted.

"We are over here!" shouted Platinum Chest.