A Long Fall

“Golf Zero Thir-teen, prepare for drop!” shouted a Sergeant, waking Greg, G013, out of his musings

The taskforce’s transport flew a few hundred meters over the surface of the enigmatic planet.

“Your orders are to rid the ancient ruins of Space Pirate occupation and attempt to locate and recover useful technology. We have limited knowledge of the ruins layout, however, so we can’t provide support. This is what you have trained for men. Show the GEF what you can do!” briefed the commander of this op. The strike team yelled and ‘oo-rah’d!” this, but Greg looked down at the surfaced.

“I have a bad feeling about this…” he muttered.

“Jumping in three… two… one…” and the team leapt out of the transport, falling towards the surface.

Things started go wrong.

“Tracking several inbound contacts… Surface to air missiles! Look out! Take evasive action…” the transmission was cut off as the missile hit the trooper

“OH GOD!” yelled Greg, as the rest of his team blew up around him. He saw an incoming missile, and tried to move out of it’s path, but it homed on him again.

“Come on… think… THINK!” he thought to himself

“Wait… an Idea!”

He waiting for the missile to come close, then jerked back, activated the magnetic clamps in his suit’s gloves, and stuck himself to the missile. He found the guidance systems, and used his onboard computer to hack it, giving him control of his direction. He sent the missile tumbling down through dense jungle, braches whipping at him, threatening to knock him off his unconventional transport. He saw a building, in his path, getting close very quickly. He deactivated the magnets and jumped at nearly the same time as the missile hit the door, sending him flying, and destroying the door.

Samus Aran, the galaxies top Bounty Hunter, bane of hundreds of space pirates, and Arch Enemy of all jellyfish-like life-force sucking life-forms, was currently being beaten by a door.

“Checked behind the building… on top of it, round the side… There is no way to open that door! Doesn’t anyone ever want to get out of there at all?” She turned at the noise of a rocket engine, and saw a missile approaching her, with, surprisingly, a man clinging onto it.

“Oh Sh…” she began, diving to the ground, the rest of her expletive being drowned out by the missile passing over her, and subsequently exploding.

As she got up, she saw debris flying, and a body flung off into the undergrowth. She noticed that the doors had suddenly become somewhat none existent.

“Well that’s one way to do it…” she muttered, before heading over to the body.


Greg realised he was regaining consciousness, and regretted it. Every part of his body was aching or in pain some way. He lay still a few moments, then attempted to get up. Bad Idea.

“Argh… I’m gonna feel that for a while.” he said, moving to a sitting location.

He heard footsteps approach him, grabbed his rifle, and turned to the direction of the person… or thing.

A humanoid figure stepped through a bush, and his suit began running a friend-or-foe check. But he didn’t need to wait for it to finish. He’d recognise that armour anywhere.

“Samus Aran?” he said, before pain overwhelmed him, and he passed out.

(Note: Yes I have used my name. It's because I'm rubbish at thinking of them, and I thought, What the heck. I don't think it should matter anyway.0

Enter the Ruins…

Greg regained consciousness slowly, as he ran mental checklists on his condition.

“Fingers and toes… check. Arms and legs… check. Major internal organs… check. Eh, everything seems fine.” He thought to himself, and opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed, was that night had fallen. He propped himself onto his elbows, and surveyed the scene around him. A small fire was burning, and he was grateful for the warmth. Apparently this planet got pretty cold at night. His HUD thermometer put the temperature at roughly -15 degrees Celsius, and he was getting chilly, even with his suits environmental controls.

Turning his head, he saw Samus, poking the fire with a stick. She’d taken her arm cannon off, and it lay a few feet from her.

The pair sat in silence a while.

“I see you’re awake.” Stated Samus eventually.

“Yeh… I am…” said Greg cautiously.

“Argh! I’m sitting around a fire with one of the galaxies most famous people! What do I do? What do I say!?” shrieked his thoughts.

Samus took her helmet off, and laid it next to her cannon.

“Get some rest. I’m heading inside those ruins at daybreak, and you need to get off the planet as soon as you can, I think.”

“Hold on a second. I’ve been unconscious for the last umpteen hours. And I think I should go with you. My mission states that I should investigate some ancient ruins. That structure looks rather ancient and ruin-y to me.”

“You’ll slow me down.”

“Will not!”

“Yes, you will. I looked up your combat service record. This is your first actual mission, correct?”

“Well… yes… My squad and I spent months in VR sims though…”

“Sims are no replacement for real life combat experience. Leave this one to the pros, and regroup with you’re squad…”

“I think they’re dead. I reckon I’m the last survivor.”

“What? How?”

“Turns out whoever was on the surface didn’t like a transport full of marines dropping on them. As soon as we left the transport, they fired surface to air missiles. I survived it by hitching a ride on one, as you probably saw.”

There was silence again, broken only by the fire crackling and hissing.

“Fine. You can come with me. Try not to get in the way too much.”

“Thank you.” Greg paused, wondering if he should mention it.

“Erm… one of our training simulations was you’re first mission to Zebes, interestingly.”

“Hmm, really? I suppose it’s become something of a text-book case for small team ops…”

“We were able to make do without any support from the Chozo artifacts. Not wearing Chozo compatible armour, we wouldn’t have been able to, although this combat suit mimics a few abilities. Enhanced jump height, speed… It’s a long list. So yeh, long story short, Ridley ate lots of lead, and we hijacked a few craft, and escaped. A synchronisation of 95%, the highest possible, with our setup.”

“Indeed. And did it give you any sense of peril?”

“What do you mean? Some bits were pretty scary…”
“No, no… did at any time you feel frightened for your life?”

“What? No... it was a sim. You can’t die… oh…”

“My point exactly. When I was one Zebes, one tiny mistake could have led to my death. It was more than about getting paid, it was about survival as well. Your very life handing in the balance on every action. Do you think you can cope with that?”

Silence again.

“Try me.”

Samus sighed.

“Very well. I can’t see any further way to dissuade you, other then pointing a gun at your face. However, I’m not a member of your ‘team’. If you go down, I’m not risking my neck to get you back out. Nothing personal, it just the unwritten rule of bounty hunters. Every person for themselves.”

Greg sighed, stood up slowly, picked up his rifle, and began inspecting it.

“Think everything is in order… I’m ready when you are.”

“Like I said, we go in at dawn. Now get some rest.”

Greg lay down on a log, and watched the night sky

“It’s so beautiful… how can anyone look at that view and not be enchanted by it?”

“I don’t tend to notice it.”

“You don’t?”

“When you travel the stars nearly everyday, in search of scum so bad that other criminals stay away from them, you get used to the view.”

“Huh.”

Greg eventually went to sleep, and the makeshift camp turned silent once again.

Eventually, dawn broke, and Greg was given a rude awakening by Samus.

“My kidneys!” he yelped, as Samus finished kicking him.

“You wouldn’t wake up when I shaked you, or shouted in your ear.” Samus said, trying to conceal her amusement. “I was running out of options...”

“But… argh! They hurt so much!”

“Quit your whining. Come on. We have work to do.” Samus said, pulling him to his feet, and handing him his assault rifle. Together they set off down into the unknown depths…

And lose the light…

The pair descended down a flight of stairs, into darkness.

“Damn... It’s pitch black down here… I wonder if there’s a way to hit the lights?” mused Samus.

There was a small click and a beam of light shone from Greg’s helmet, as he turned on his torch.

“Well, this is something.” Greg said, looking around, “At least we can see somewhat.”

“Hold on. Back there. I thought I saw something.”

“Where?”

“Left… no, you passed it… right… screw it, give me the torch”

Greg reluctantly unclipped his torch from his helmet and handed it to Samus.

“Here we are… a power socket… looks like it requires something spherical to activate though…”

“Well, I guess that’s a dead end, unless we find whatever it is.” Greg sighed, preparing to begin searching again.

“Hold on, take the torch again a second.”

Greg complied, illuminating Samus and the socket. He watched astonished, as she flexed a bit, then began transforming. Her armour began shifting and moving, sometimes rotating, and ended up as a small sphere. The ball hopped into the socket, and power was restored.

Greg was left speechless as Samus morphed back to humanoid form. He’d heard the stories, of course, but the human body shouldn’t be able to do that!

“umm, how… err… what the… oh, nevermind. I’ll call it Chozo technology or something and try not to think too hard about it.” He managed, as the lights came back on.

“Indeed…” said Samus, somewhat glad that her helmet was hiding a smug grin.

The pair proceeded to search the room properly, and despite noticing a few doors, Greg’s interest was occupied by a ventilation duct.

The two bickered a while about what direction they should take.

“But look at the size of that thing!” Samus finally yelled in exasperation, “It’s too small for anything to fit through! Why do you want to investigate it!?”

“Reconnaissance” said Greg, cowering a little.

“Oh for the love of… fine. Try it. I guarantee you won’t get in further than your head.”

“Who said I was going in?”

“I’m not going in there!”

“I wasn’t suggesting that…” Greg said patiently, unclipping what looked like a small disc from his belt. He tapped a button on it, and it unfolded into an observation drone. He flung it into the duct, and began remote controlling it.

“It’s feeding what it sees into a map of this place” Greg explained, “It’s only really just been started becoming standard issue. Military only though, I’m afraid.” Greg finished, still tapping away on his remote.

“What, are you trying to make me jealous, because you have a piece of technology I don’t have?”

“No…” lied Greg, “hmm… interesting…”

“What?”

“I’ve picked up something strange… like a fanged jellyfish, almost…”

Samus turned around quickly.

“What? Give me that!”

Greg complied. Samus took the remote, looked at the screen, and growled.

“Metroids…”