Chapter Six: Descensusin Utero

For a moment, Samus panicked. She looked to the expanding horizon beneath her, as beneath a thing could be in space, and spun in her seat to face the emergency controls of her vessel. Levers and buttons lay before her in perfect array – emergency breaks, forced ablation shielding, ejection and landing controls – and Samus could hardly think on what to do. The ship's turbulence reminded her of how little time there was to act. She was already in the planet's upper atmosphere.

She changed the direction of her thrusters, angling them to be parallel to the planet's surface. The ship was too close and had too little power to nullify the planet's gravitational pull completely. Next, the ablation shield. A thin blue shield of plasma faded in around the ship, both deflecting the friction of free fall and helping stabilize the ship. Finally, she charted her course. In order to minimize damage to the ship, she would need to crash somewhere flat, preferably where the planet's rocky crust had softened. She passed through thick clouds as she entered the planet's mesosphere. When Samus had last been here, they were dark and gray; now they appeared almost perfectly white.

Her ship pierced the clouds and the world below came into view. The planet's surface was much the same as the clouds. Perfectly white – a snow-shod and glacial surface unlike anything Samus had seen on Zebes in her youth. The shock from her initial discovery of the planet had waned, and as her ship descended it was replaced by an intense curiosity. But her ship was still falling. With her newfound knowledge of the planet's ecological state, Samus aimed her ship for a large snow bank situated on the western side of a mountain range she almost recognized from her childhood.

The ship shook ferociously, with Samus pulling on the thrusters at the last possible moment to ensure she wouldn't bury herself beneath the snow. There was a thud and a sudden jerk as the ship came to a halt. Samus held herself to her seat as the ship became situated in a winter wonderland. It doesn't snow on Zebes, Samus repeated to herself. Yet here it was.

Samus could remember asking Old Bird when she was training as a fledgling why it never snowed on Zebes. He said that the planet's atmosphere was too warm for snowfall, but that occasionally snow crystals would form in the upper atmosphere. The rain here was acidic, dangerous to anyone unprepared. Would the snow be the same way? There was only one way to find out.

The topside of the ship opened, and Samus rose from it to meet her old friend. Scanning the scenery, it was apparent that, whether it snowed or rained, the planet's crust was doomed to be barren. There was a strong wind, and the thick canopy of clouds above blocked out most of the star's light, lending itself to the dreary and desolate climate. If the planet had miraculously survived the explosion, it had certainly not done so unscathed. Samus wondered if this had been part of the Space Pirate's plan. Perhaps it was a contingency created by Mother Brain. Fool the Federation into thinking their base was destroyed, then operate in secrecy.

It wasn't a far-fetched theory. The Space Pirates had more than dabbled in cloaking technology. Their shadow pirate division was a well-regarded threat, and they had even managed to cloak a battleship, the Doomseye, once. There was a difference of several factors between cloaking a battleship and a planet, however.

Samus' HUD overlayed her position with maps of Zebes from her last several visits, attempting to generate an approximate location. With any luck, she would locate some form of suspicious activity. If the planet were hosting a Space Pirate fortress once again, there would be seismic activity, unusual trace radiation, and higher than usual thermal scans. Her suit's scans found little of interest nearby, though. Samus grimaced.

"Old Bird, Gray Voice: lend me your patience," she spoke under her breath. It wasn't unusual for her to ask her foster parents for aid. Even if they no longer lived, their spirit surely lived on through her.

Samus limited her scans to known Chozo temples and structures. There were three within a ten mile radius. The closest was three miles to the south. The Chozo had designed their society as completely interwoven and interconnected. If you entered one temple, there was an intricate highway of tunnels and pathways to every other structure adjacent, which was connected in turn to every structure adjacent to it, and so on. This would not only simplify travel, but increase her likelihood of confronting those responsible for her predicament. Whoever – or whatever – they were, they would almost certainly use this system for ease of movement.

The snow beneath appeared tightly packed, but to be safe Samus fired off a shot of her ice beam at the area beneath, leaving thick ice to cover snow as she jumped down from the ship. Her power suit was much lighter than it used to be, and so the ice didn't even crack. Marking her destination on her HUD, Samus crouched before leaping into motion. Even without using her speed booster, this would only be a few minutes of travel. Samus' top speed was well beyond that of an unaltered human's, clocking in at just under 92 kilometers an hour. Her speed booster could, so long as she was moving in a straight line, allow her to move at supersonic speeds. Three miles was nothing.

The site was nestled in a ravine in the mountainside. Though several feet of snow blanketed the temple, Samus could make out the elaborate carved head of a Chozo priest hanging from an enormous pillar as she came to a stop. It was a chilling reminder of what once was. It looked down into the ravine, where Samus presumed the temple once stood, almost as if it too despaired over the fall of its people. There was naught but snow now. Samus pushed those forlorn feelings down. She was on a mission. Preliminary scans suggested an underground pathway would be underneath the snow. Samus wasted no time in unleashing her plasma beam on the snow, treating it like it were an enemy rather than an obstacle. An unintended side-effect of the Metroid vaccine, she humored.

Steam hissed from below as the snow melted, and water pooled up at the bottom of the bank. It quickly drained away, as if it seeped further into the ground. Samus scanned the area once more, tracing the direction of the water flow. Indeed, it seemed the pathway was here. Samus continued to blast away at the snow, revealing an opening in the ground. It appeared natural, with trace amounts of urthic ore and bendezium in the soil, giving it Zebes' gray-blue luster. Samus could make out a long and narrow path leading down into the planet. It wasn't even a question. She descended the path, rocky and dim, with her arm cannon raised in a battle-ready position. If the planet had survived, then perhaps its flora and fauna underground had as well. If so, she had to be ready. Zebes was a dangerous planet to wander alone.

The path led to the inner workings of what once would have been a Chozo Sanctuary. Beneath the temple, the sanctuary would have been for religious rites, and as such the walls of the seemingly earthen cave soon smoothed out into a clean rectangular cut. The walls were adorned with Chozo glyphs. Samus studied these as a child. These all were religious. Some telling stories and parables. Others portraying important historical and religious figures for the Chozo. Samus hadn't had the time to learn them all.

The hallway came to a four-way intersection and Samus stopped. Unless she found one of the Chozo's own map centers, she would be blind wandering these halls. Blind like a...

Samus had an idea.

She activated her echo visor. Her screen's display became black, with only a few sparse outlines of her most immediate surroundings visible. Then, she activated her map. Lastly, she stomped her foot on the ground as hard as she could muster. There was a loud smack as her heel hit the floor. Her visor picked up the vibrations as they bounced around, and her map filled in what was previously unknown. She would fill out her map the old-fashioned way. With a second smack, enough sound was generated for her visor to pick up the vibrations as they bounced down two sides of the intersection. One went a short ways before turning, the other continued on long enough for the sound to dissipate. This would take a while.

It went on for some time. This was the busy work few rarely heard about her missions. Mundane problems with mundane solutions. But it was necessary. All Chozo sanctuaries had a similar build. The narrow entryway, leading to a main hall that split into several sections. There would be a meditations chamber, a Memoriam Hall for the fallen dead, a chamber to prepare the dead for burial, and at least two different exit pathways. She had to find the exits.

Samus came upon the Memoriam Hall and her stomps desisted. Deactivating her echo visor, she realized how dark it had gotten and how little her eyes had adjusted. She could see that there was an exit on the other side of the hall, but what it led to she couldn't discern. She walked cautiously, not out of fear for the wilds of Zebes, but out of respect for the Chozo entombed. Along the edges of the hall, the Torizo sarcophagi sat in a contemplative manner. Samus counted twelve of them, six on each side. There was a sadness to them, as monuments to the dead left by a dead species. They were emblematic of the Chozo. When a Chozo died, their bodies underwent both religious and technological rituals. Their flesh was replaced with metal. Their body became a sentinel. They were a part of the ever-present surveillance of their home, guarding their tombs. Now, all of Zebes was theirs to guard. Samus re-activated her echo-visor and began to move through the hall.

Her soft foot steps reverberated through the dead silent hall, lighting up several feet in front of her with a dim outline of her surroundings. Again she found herself thinking of them when she was to focus on her mission. She had to find the exit. Once she was deeper, she could scan for irregularities. Any pirate activity would show up once she had entered the Brinstar, Maridia, or Norfair regions.

Smack.

Smack.

Vibrations filled Samus screen as something appeared on her visor at the far end of the hall. With the echo visor, she could only see an outline of the humanoid figure. She wasn't alone, after all. She stopped moving and switched to her thermal visor. It wasn't a Space Pirate. It's body was shaped vaguely like a humans. The heat signature was especially strong in its chest, its wrists, and its head. Possible weak points. Samus wasn't ready to fire just yet, however. First, she needed to know if this creature was aware of her presence. She returned to her combat visor, and lamented that her eyes had yet to fully adjust to the total darkness of the sanctuary. While she could see the figure's silhouette, she couldn't make out any details. She readied her arm cannon, pointing to the figure, and spoke.

"Don't move. I'm Samus Aran. Let's make this easy on the both of us. I want to know what's going on. How is this planet not chunked, and what are you planning?" She asked the two most important questions first, but she had more at the ready. For starters, if this person isn't a Space Pirate, who are they? The person didn't speak. Samus had to strain her eyes to keep track of her target. If they decided to run, that would be a problem. So, of course, Samus noted the twitchy movement as its body began to turn. She had a runner.

Samus fired her base power beam. She didn't want to kill the target if she could help it, but the ice beam fired slowly. The target deftly dodged, jumping and twisting with an inhuman agility as it leapt for the exit. Samus dashed forward, intent on catching whoever this was.

Between the darkness and the target's speed, Samus had trouble keeping up. Her eyes were quickly adjusting, but when the target ducked around a corner Samus barely had time to turn and tail them. In the background of her suit's processes, her map was filling out. She kept track of it as the two moved. It dawned on her that this was perhaps more useful than simply catching them. They would lead her to their base of operations.

Amateur! she mused to herself.

As the chase dragged on, it was apparent that the two had exited the sanctuary. The walls opened up into a naturalistic cave-like structure, with stalagmites and stalactites dotting the pathway, which itself became increasingly complex. Samus' eyes had adjusted by now and she was more than capable of keeping up, but the darkness precluded any identification. The fast-paced movement also deterred her from using her scan visor.

The two had delved deep into Crateria, she was sure, but how much further would they need to go? Her suit still had not picked up on any irregular activity. The figure seemed to know that they couldn't hide, so perhaps they were attempting to lead her into an ambush. The thought crossed Samus' mind, and her excitement grew. It had been a while since she was in a firefight.

The target stopped as it came upon a large hole. Samus fired her power beam, aiming above their head; it was a warning that she was gaining on them. They seemed to turn back to her, as if they were ready to fight. Samus began charging her power beam.

The figure then jumped. Their arms stretched out as they performed a backwards somersault into the pit. Shadows darker than Samus' vision could cut through swallowed the figure, and Samus cursed.

She came upon the pit and activated her thermal scan. She watched as the creature descended, then landed on its feet some thirty meters below. She couldn't make out the thermal signature beyond that, and so she did the only thing she could. She jumped, too.

Samus landed with a thud, but quickly began the chase with renewed energy. In the distance, she could hear the loud slapping of her mark's footsteps. Then, the distinct chime of a Chozo energy door opening. They were near the end of this chase.

Samus ran towards the direction of the sound, and soon came upon the blue, bulbous door. It still worked, she presumed, due to the influence of whoever the target was working with. She fired her power beam, and the door's plasma shielding vanished, leaving Samus to gasp at what she saw.

Glass. A sea of glass.

The pieces began to fall into place within her mind as she took this view in. Rivers of magma carved their way through the enormous caverns where once sand had ruled. This was what was left of Maridia. Volcanic activity must have displaced the aquifer, Samus reasoned as she looked into the distance and found several metal structures. Even as far away as they were, Samus recognized the architecture, and she both felt vindicated and furious as her worst fear had come true. The Space Pirates were here.

Without a second thought, she headed off in the direction of the pirate fortress, cognizant of the fact she was ignoring her quarry from earlier. If she were to find them, they would be there.