...

White light permeated the world and it was the color of agony.

Samus staggered through stone and metal hallways. She could barely see. The suit was the only thing keeping her upright and it was only just functioning. All the biological components had been hit as hard as Samus' own cells. To a force like that light, shields and armor were nothing, just another illusion around the inner truth. The Last Chozo had unleashed an unrestrained reaper system, harvesting raw life energy from anything within its radius with a field that stabbed straight at the heart of her physical existence. It hurt.

The Pirates who served The Last had collapsed at the first brush of the light, screaming in terrified ecstasy. They were probably dead, Samus couldn't remember, she'd lost some short term memory as a blood vessel ruptured inside her brain for a bit before the nanobots could triage it. As she stumbled through the dark halls her thoughts were wavering but she could still remember The Last standing in the eye of that searing storm, looking down at all his buckling sacrifices like a sad and disinterested god. But Samus had failed to fall and then his eyes grew wide. Sound echoed before action and she fired her weapon again and again. He ducked, or withstood it, or she simply missed; she couldn't tell. Hallucinations or blood filled her eyes. So she fled, stumbling out of the chamber, over Pirate bodies that were dissolving down to fine grey dust between her feet.

The Last hadn't followed her. Evidently he'd expected the life-drain system to kill her instantly, and once it didn't he had no desire to face a dying woman in an armed battlesuit. That thought drifted back through her mind; she was probably dying. If she wasn't, she was certainly very close since she could only remember a time or two she'd felt worse than this. But why wasn't she dead already? Why had she been less affected by the field? Her feet were unsteady and her head swam in swirly visions of dark hallways. Was she already dead?

Was this just another memory?

Her ankle buckled and she fell sideways, catching her hand against the dusty wall. Then that slipped too and her shoulder's pauldron clanged on the stone instead. The metal scraped as her knees tried to lift her back up. The suit's readouts were blurry in front of her eyes, but she thought it was telling her that there were still living Pirates in the area who hadn't caught in the reaper field. Those Pirates had obeyed the Chozo, betraying Ridley. Were they coming after her? Well, whatever the case, they would just have to see to their own affairs. If they wanted to shoot Samus in the head right now she was in no shape to argue.

Had they already pulled the trigger? No, not them. She had, right?

Samus' hand grasped her face, but touched only smooth metal.

No footsteps followed her but her own, and Samus managed to stagger through the door to the Library of the Winnowers. In the soft yellow gloom she saw a few pieces of Pirate tech lying scattered on the ground outside, likely what they'd used to crack to the door's security. In her current state, Samus was almost impressed with the lucidity of that thought. There were also two Space Pirate soldiers standing in the corner who looked very surprised to see Samus stumble out next to them.

One of them held a little foil packet in his claw's tentacles, a snack of some sort during a boring rear-guard activity. For a moment all three of them froze in place. Then one of the Pirates abruptly slumped over as if he was trying to play dead. Samus decided that she didn't have time for these two to make up their minds if they wanted to kill her so she just kept walking, pain slowly blurring into distance. They did not follow.

Time faded and then she was outside of the temple, walking along the narrow canyon floor in the dark night. How had she gotten here? Belatedly she realized where she was walking to, Aurora's shielded complex stood near the point where this canyon fork opened up into the wider colony valley. She had to tell them, tell someone what had happened. They were up there too, in the black with the stars.

Blurry blue letters floated in her visor, "You are in great pain. But you are strong."

She couldn't focus on that; her thoughts were wandering. That unnamed Chozo said he had written the Heart of the Chozo, that fundamental equation of life and power. He'd said the life drain technology was his. No that was impossible, the Heart was ancient. But the Chozo were immortal. But they still aged and The Last looked hale. He'd been imprisoned. The Chozo didn't imprison people. But they might have once, long ago when their selves were different. They might have considered a stasis capsule hidden at the edge of space to be a gentle punishment. A kindness.

But they had left and forgotten their prisoner. Or they'd intended him to get out, now that the others had abandoned a galaxy they no longer cared about. All the cells were thrown open. Or it was just another meaningless tragedy.

Samus slipped and her foot kicked a loose rock to go skittering down the sloping access road that traced the narrow canyon floor. No hunting metroids descended from the night, not that she could even bring herself to even look up. All her will was focused on continuing to walk, even as the suit did nearly all of the work. For a moment she couldn't remember where she was going, then she caught sight of the electric lights in the distant head of the narrow canyon. The Research Compound; that was where Aurora 926 was stationed. The AI had held off the entire Pirate assault crew in her heavily shielded fortress, last refuge for the five thousand human charges she'd managed to get inside before the attack hit. Samus had to get there. She had to tell someone. Nakamura had to know about the Last.

She had to...

Then her helmet clonked on a wall and Samus stepped back, disoriented. Time had skipped again somewhere along the way. She was at the Research Compound and there was a locked and shielded door right in front of her.

"Aurora, open the door," she said. Or at least she intended to say that. She wasn't sure what the sounds actually came out as, since her breathing felt uncomfortably wet. It was probably blood in her lungs. That wasn't good. Open broadcasts giving away her position were hardly the biggest concern right now.

A voice spoke in her ear, "Right away, Ms Aran."

The energy field popped and the door slid apart. Samus stumbled forward as she realized she's propped her weapon arm against that same door, somehow forgetting it was there in the second between question and answer. She was not in good shape. But she had to keep moving, she had to get to...Where was she going? Where could help her? These hallways were dark.

Oh, Aurora was talking.

"...suit is limiting my scans for injuries. Commander Nakamura will be upset about you disregarding his order, but fortunately the repairs to the Diomedes are almost complete. The Commander is confidant Diomedes will recover orbital supremacy shortly. In the mean time you must-"

"Chozo," Samus said, pushing the words out as bubbles of blood popped in her mouth. Things were getting worse not better. That meant her nanite colonies had failed in their repair job. She was light headed. At least the suit's painkiller manufactory was unaffected. Or that was just the shock. Or the brain damage.

She mumbled, "...The Chozo survived. The Pirates were getting through that door anyway. They found him, out in...He's there, he's...they're worshiping him. Two factions. Ridley and the Last. He invented the heart... Energy is matter, matter is life, life is-"

She stumbled and reached out for the edge of a nearby desk. The desk, unfortunately, was not rated for powered armor and then she was looking up from the floor amid broken plastic shards. At least now she didn't need to focus on walking and talking at the same time.

Samus breathed in and out, staring at the ceiling. "Report to Nakamura: Pirate resource is a living Chozo individual, possibly recovered from long term stasis. Individual has seized control of a faction of the hostile landing party. Has gained entrance to temple grounds and is gathering equipment. Unknown goal." A cough triggered spasms. For some reason the pain made her smile. "You were right, human transmission was a trap. I sprung it. Report end: queue for delivery."

Aurora's invisible voice was soft and filled with concern. "Ms Aran, I believe you are in need of urgent medical care. Unfortunately I do not posses any drones who can reach your position current. I am afraid you must relocate yourself to the nearest care facility."

That sounded difficult. Samus was tired. She whispered into the comfort of her helmet. "No cure. Chozo life energy absorption field, without limiters. I was ten feet away. Total organic system failure soon." She was still lying amid the plastic shards of the cheap desk. She decided to keep lying there. "Aurora, I'll give you a full black box data download from my suit. Should help Nakamura's team. Might save-"

"Ms Aran, I've completed ten thousand simulations and I believe I may have an experimental treatment for your condition!" An AI mind had a characteristically precise way of speaking when it was trying to convey time sensitive information to poor meatspace creatures that existed on timeframes longer than picoseconds. It was a conversational experience rather like being politely trampled. "The required equipment is downstairs, but you must hurry. My scans cannot penetrate your armor so I have no idea how severe the damage is."

"Shut up."

"Ms Ar-?"

"No. Sorry. The other thing." Samus grunted as she slowly rose to unsteady feet. Her thoughts were muddled and she could not longer feel her extremities. Random and pervasive pain signals made up most of her feedback now, and she was relying of the suit's neural link more than her own flesh. Which didn't make sense, a lot of her nerve fibers were no longer cellular but maybe the organic crystalline stuff had still suffered from the field or...

She was standing in that same hall, not moving. She hoped it hadn't been for too long, but she couldn't clearly read the numbers on her visor overlay anymore. Luckily Aurora seemed to understand and was pushing over her virtual instructions as a series of large floating arrows. That was about the limit of Samus' problem solving skills at the moment. She eventually stumbled into an elevator lit only by soft white under-lighting. The elevator was nice and dim, like the hallways.

Aurora was talking again as the floor slowly fell away, carrying Samus with it. "...the discovery of those early development reaper systems in the temple of course spearheaded this branch of the research. Luckily, your existing augmentations make this procedure uniquely possible to succeed."

"Lucky. Possible." The pain of speaking was worth underlining that bit of overstatement. There was no luck, only the future interacting with the present. Her parents had always said that. Which ones had said that?

"Do not worry, Ms Aran. I have calculated excellent odds of survival. We will keep you safe. You are important to all of us."

The elevator door opened to another dimly lit corridor, much larger this time. She was deep in the bowels of Aurora's bastion. Somewhere here Aurora's true body was hidden, along with the five thousand colonists. Samus mumbled, "You keep them safe." This time the pain surprised her. She'd already forgotten that speaking hurt. She was failing fast. Or she thought she was. She couldn't remember. At least some people were safe.

Something moved nearby and Samus raised her weapon. However, that movement took her off balance and she began to fall, vision swirling into incomprehension. Then metal arms caught her and lifted her up. To her dissolving mind, staring at that high ceiling of pipes and vents sliding by above her was like flying. There was sound, wheels on flooring and the sliding of solenoids echoing in the silent halls. It was some sort of robot, a drone Aurora had sent to collect her. That was nice. It carried her like a child and she could feel it on her metal skin.

Then the lights were bright and all around her. White light had returned but it didn't hurt this time. No, this was a different place. This was a new room, sterile white with human machinery all around her. Something held her in place, levitating the suit up into the middle of this space. Things like glowing eyes were focused on her as metal arms moved closer. Samus spun and staggered in her own head. Her senses were confused, somehow she heard the taste of food. She smelled beasts in the forest. She felt hunger blush her skin with its fingertips.

A voice said something.

Then she heard a crackling screech and she blacked out.

...

Samus awoke.

She blinked and saw the white wall in front of her, neat blue stenciling tracing out this laboratory designation in the adaptive technology wing of the Research compound. She was standing upright in the middle of this white room, panels to each side of her slowly closing as the instruments inside folded away. Nothing was supporting her but her own limbs and suit.

A little bit of text floated in her visor, Adam warmly welcoming her back to the land of the living. "Your body has been fully healed. Well done, lady."

After what she'd just been through that sounded like it was more delusional gibberish. But the heads-up displays cheerfully reported that the suit was now at full operative capacity, and in fact was a fully charged state that matched Samus' own perfect physical health. Samus breathed in and out, and felt no pain or numbness, only the normal sensation of her lungs within her ribcage. She looked down at her gauntleted hand, flexing smoothly in perfect unison of flesh and mechanics. She was healed.

That was completely impossible.

"Ah, Ms Aran, it seems you've regained full consciousness." It was Aurora. Inside the compound, the biocomputer could easily establish any transmission link. "That is excellent! I was worried for a bit, as you know my scans can't penetrate your suit so I was afraid there was a chance the procedure had failed."

The suit readouts confirmed it. All power cores were recharged but the onboard medical systems now found themselves without anything to do. The damage Samus had sustained, whatever it had been, was gone now. Her body had regenerated, and if the clock was to be trusted, no time had passed.

Correction, thirty-eight seconds had passed since she lost consciousness. Thirty-eight seconds to do work that the best medical facility in the galaxy would struggle to do in five weeks.

Samus clenched her gauntlet into a fist. "The procedure. What is it?"

"Of course, Ms Aran. Research Station J-4M has, among other things, made great strides in analyzing the precursors of Chozo life energy manipulation technology. Many systems have been reverse engineered, including this technique of, quite simply, reversing it."

So, that was it. Aurora had inverted the attack the Last had landed on Samus, bathing her and the suit with pure life energy. The federation had been here pawing through the temple for years so it figured that they had figured some things out. However, Samus still frowned. That energy flood technique would have been reasonable for the suit, the reaper systems could easily recharge power from such a transmission, but living creatures didn't work like that. Shoving that much pure energy at a live cell should have been like throwing a photosynthesizing plant into the sun; drowning useless plenty. But for some reason instead of burning off her bones, she was mysteriously alive. Again.

Evidently Aurora deduced her objections because she spoke up. "Of course this laboratory was not designed with any medical use in mind, merely experimentation. Your precise procedure has never been attempted on any human before precisely because you are currently the only known individual to whom it would not be immediately fatal. The aftereffect of the metroid infusion therapy are the only thing that made this possible, but luckily it worked."

Samus breathed in. The metroid. That made sense. Their entire artificial biology relied on quickly absorbing that kind of energy. So, she owned her life to that hatchling once again, dead for years but still touching wavering thread her life. The edge of Samus' mouth twitched in a sad smile. Her second parents were right, existence continued long past the bounds of life.

But then she looked up, eyes locking on the concealed camera mounted in the corner of the room. She felt a thread of ice begin to work though her tensing muscles. On her way into the facility her mind had been jumbled, weak and unobservant. But the memories were still there and now she was awake enough to analyze them. To notice what she should have noticed before.

It felt like Aurora was lying.

Samus turned to look outside the laboratory. This lower floor was more open than the office-like floor plan upstairs, having felt safe to sprawl out underground. But it was still dark; dark and quiet.

"Where are the people you have sheltered here?" There were five thousand colonists in this building, but instead of noise and crowds the lights were dim and the halls were empty.

The bio-computer's voice was as smooth and conversational as always. "Deeper within. This facility is much larger than you have seen. In accordance with Commander Nakamura's orders I have dedicated my full efforts to protecting my remaining charges. I will keep them safe and whole, which in part includes separating them from areas easily accessed from the outside."

That was a reasonable explanation. If fact, common sense said that it was obvious and that any other thoughts were the shaky memories of a brain damaged radiation victim. Still, Samus felt the tug of prediction, that suggestion of intention and motion in the universe behind the curtain of time. Or she was chasing deluded memories. The Last had said she was incapable of truly seeing the prophecies of the Chozo. True, he'd tried to kill her but Samus had gone through the same thoughts many times over the decades and-

No. These suspicions were ridiculous. She was letting personal feeling cloud her thoughts. Bio-computers thought in ways that mapped so closely to evolved creatures that modeling their behavior sometimes tripped the wrong reflexes. It was easy to misinterpret their intentions if your emotions were out of balance. Samus had learned that lesson long ago. Now she was letting experience with Mother Brian cloud her reasoning.

Samus stepped out of the life-energy lab, footsteps echoing though a long, wide hall populated by tanks, pipes, and assorted wheeled drone robots. She looked left and right. Her memories were hazy and she couldn't remember which way she had entered from. "Time to next Diomedes contact?"

"Two minutes. Commander Nakamura will be so glad to hear from you."

Samus took another step and marveled at the lack of pain. And it was not just a lack of pain, she felt better than she had in years. She looked down at her flexing hand again. Her muscles surged in rapid response to the slightest intention, over-clocked in a manner similar to adrenaline but with none of the vibrating twitchiness. She was steady; racing along at peak performance. Aurora's treatment had certainly worked.

It had worked very well. Samus glanced around again, tapping her helmet's temple as she cycled through scan modes as she examined her surroundings. Aurora had made clear that this procedure had no chance of success on any human but as Samus checked the suit's records she saw that the energy had all been delivered at almost a constant frequency. There had been no modulated escalation from zero, trying to tune in on the analogue application of a new theory. No, Aurora had started nearly exactly on target. That indicated previous tests, previous calibration. And if no humans had been subjected to this machine then-

"Diomedes to Aurora 926." Nakamura's voice suddenly filled Samus' ears. Aurora had evidently opened up the encrypted call to anyone within this building, letting the suit easily grab hold. "Ship repair status is blue. What is your ground report?"

Aurora chimed back. "No damage sustained. Asset Zeta recovered and repaired on Crashdome site. Data stream is now uploaded to your computers."

Well, at least the federation had figured out that the Chozo had given the Pirates full decrypting capabilities, even if they didn't yet know who was responsible. The Federation was competent enough to have backup arbitrary cyphers pre arranged for key information. Of coarse it didn't take much to guess that Samus herself was Zeta, though she could only hope what "blue" status meant.

Nakamura's sharp inhalation was cut from the transmission but the sign was still there when he spoke again. "Zeta?" The transmission went quiet for another second before returning. "That's good. Good. Zeta deployment is desired under the timetable. Counterattack will be conducted jointly."

Samus waved in the air, signaling to Aurora, "Connect me."

Instantly little icon appeared on her visor, showing her new access to the facility's transmission power. Trying to talk in code was commendable, but there were some things that she wanted the enemy to hear. She was sick of people thinking she was dead.

Samus began her own version of the report to Nakamura, "The Pirates have a living Chozo collaborator. However, he just went rogue in the temple and has claimed control over an unknown percentage of the Pirate forces. The Chozo's motivations are unclear but Ridley may not be the biggest threat anymore. He is collecting life drain technology and has some measure of control over the deployed metroids."

Silence followed this. Samus could almost imagine hearing the distant sound of Ridley smashing his code-breaking equipment in fury. The corner of her mouth twitched in a smirk. Quickly exposing The Last's double cross weakened both him and Ridley, so there was no reason to play coy here, no matter what their true plans. That calculation was obvious, so the question on Nakamura's mind should be why did Aurora fail to mention that.

"Er," a confused female voice crept onto the line. "Samus Aran? I think there may have been another mistake in the communications channels."

Samus felt the need to slam her head into a wall. That joke she'd left in Diomedes' programing was now starting to look like a very stupid idea. Well, she was certainly fulfilling the reporting requirement of her parol.

She sighed, "Hello, Officer Yin."

"Ms Aran, was...was all that really true?" The young Federation operative sounded worried and stressed. But there was determination under that weariness. "Only I've been found some things here in the documentation that-"

"Aran, I hope you're happy with yourself." Nakamura broke back in, sending Yin's coms back to whatever she'd been doing before. "Your little prank seems to have infected up to thirty percent of our systems by now. It's setting repair times back as they scrub the banks one by one." That probably wasn't true, just more disinformation for the listening ears, but Samus still winced. She deserved that at least.

But right now she had greater concerns than her self chastisement.

At least Nakamura seemed to recognize that too because he continued, "Right, so evidently the Pirate command is already aware that one of their own assets has gone rogue. Well, an enemy divided. Hmm, if it went straight for the life energy tech then I can guess what its next goal is."

Samus broke into Nakamura's authoritative muttering. "The colony. There needs to be an evacuation contingency. The danger has grown."

"What? Damn it, Aran, we can't let that be our focus." He was afraid. "You don't have any idea what's in that Temple. The consequences of letting either hostile alien force get access to that are beyond questioning. It wouldn't just be this planet at danger, but the entire federation! All that's immaterial any way, since any plan we came up with to evacuate whatever surviving colonists there may be would expose the Diomedes to unacceptable danger. Everyone would die."

Samus' breath caught. There it was, the unconscious wording, the blade of the knife, the idea she had been sensing. Her voice was flat and without affect, "Whatever colonists there may be."

"You know what I mean. Aran, you're more knowledgeable on Chozo psychology than anyone we have. You need to get back out there and stop the Pirate's rogue asset. I'm increasing your security clearance a level. Aurora, give her a batch of files on the Temple."

"Of course, Commander."

The digital information began to blink in the corner of Samus' vision but she was not paying attention to it. The Chozo had taught her that the identity of self was more important than most beings imagined. It created it's own private reality with it's own laws as constant as gravity. But if you watched, and listened closely, you could feel that universe brushing your own and so understand the self that created it.

In Nakamura's reality the colonists were all already dead.

Samus felt the world waver in it's orientation as the web of probability shifted. Nakamura was still talking to Aurora and her but Samus was no longer fully listening, even as the Commander's signal began to fade away behind the planet's horizon. She walked away down the hallway, into the dark. She could hear it now in Aurora's actions too, the computer did not behave like it was protecting the last of it's precious charges.

Nakamura's voice sprang back one last time, crackling with static. "Aran, what are you doing?"

Samus kept walking, descending into the facility as Aurora's eternally calm voice belied an increasing level of anxiety. Samus did not reply. However increasing lockdown only served to lead Samus by the path of least resistance. Then she met a thick security door.

"I am sorry, Ms Aran, your clearance still does not give you access to this area."

Samus tapped her temple and the heavy metal door slid open, digital walls crumpling to Chozo tech.

The next door was a lot larger and heavily shielded, scan could get nothing from behind it.

Aurora's voice returned, echoing faintly on the armored walls deep underground. "I am very sorry, but I have standing orders heavily restricting outside personnel from entering this part of the compound."

A few super missile explosions settled the matter of clearance rather definitively. Samus climbed through the hole, gauntlet pressing briefly on on the twisted edges of superheated metal. Inside she exited out into a high walkway above large circular room. In the very center sat the huge vertical tank filled with liquid and housing the pulsing dark mass of Aurora's true body. The biocomputer's heart-like shape was the only visible organism but as Samus stepped into the room, her suit scan suddenly lit up with life signatures from every direction, in chambers branching off from the main sanctum. There were five thousand of them.

Breath hissed past Samus' teeth. The colonists, they were actually here. She froze mid step, shaken and unsure how to proceed. Had she actually gotten it this wrong? Every suggestion and hint had indicated that the Federation was lying. But the suit said-

"Ms Aran, I strenuously object to your forced entry. You have compromised the physical security of my housing and the safety of my charges. In compliance with the terms of your sentencing I must issue a Federation order for you to vacate this part of the facility."

Samus slowly walked around the gantry. Soon she got a better look through the dark at all those secondary chambers sprouting the central room's cylindrical walls. The energy fields that walled them off disrupted precise scan, but they did nothing to hide the thermal signatures within. Samus could see the shapes moving around inside.

In that moment one of those shapes reached forward to touch blindly touch the transparent wall. It cautiously probed the field with a long fang as it's bulbous body levitated several feet off the floor. They were metroids. Five thousand juvenile metroids. That was who Aurora chose to protect.

Samus' voice was low and soft. Any more than that would be useless expenditure when Aurora could listen to her radio broadcast easily enough. "Your charges here in safety were never the colonists. You lied to me directly, despite your programing."

"Of course I did," Aurora said gently into Samus' ear. "However, I was in perfect compliance with programing. Commander Nakamura ordered me to lie on this matter. I am sorry for any harm this revelation might have done to your psychological welfare."

AI didn't feel guilt. They couldn't; they didn't experience the dualistic battling of minds within minds shared by non-designed creatures. AI codes of conduct were absolute and without second guessing, carved in perfect efficiency. They only did the things they intended to do, and once they decided to do them the thought of reconsidering that decision without any new information was ludicrous. An AI might experience regret if later discoveries revealed that the chosen action was actually inferior to another option but they were always perfectly confidant that their thoughts at all times are the absolute best they were capable of.

The frustrating thing is that they were right. However, "right" was rarely the best way to do things. Ten thousand stellar systems had burned on what was "right", and yet time and time again species turned over their protection to the hard vice of logic. Now, here, the eleven thousand colonists of J4M had felt that choice once more. Samus didn't bother speaking again. She tasted blood in her mouth.

"Ms Aran, you must know that I deeply morn what happened to the two colonist shelters we have heard from. I timed the emergency countermeasure release of metroid subjects on the Pirate forces to allow for the maximum 86% of the colony population to reach one of the five shelters. The equipment failures you discovered were in violation of my predictive simulations. However, be comforted that the other three shelters should still be operational and safe for up to four weeks of total quarantine. My observation of Pirate communications indicates that they have not been located."

Samus turned on the massive technological pillar that held Aurora's tank in the center of the huge room. Inside that bubbling liquid, Aurora's true for loomed, periodically pulsing around the cables that connected it to the systems. That body had no eyes but right now Aurora could seen Samus ten thousand times over. She saw her raise her weapon.

"Please, Ms Aran, do not act rashly. Commander Nakamura's standing orders were the optimum choice in an unfortunate circumstance. The research contained in my files will benefit trillions of federation citizens in ways beyond precise prediction. That is a great benefit to weigh against yesterday's losses. Total survival is not always an option."

Text appeared in Samus' visor, a new message from Adam. "That is correct. The loss is an illusion of possibility."

Samus felt the pit of her stomach open up in a new wave of dread. She had served with Adam in many incarnations under many suns. She knew him, She knew that right now his scrambled memories were floating around in the suit's computers, trying to integrate into a cohesive whole. She also now knew that the one leaving text in her visor was not any form of Adam. It had never been Adam.

She flexed her fingers in a pattern, quieting suit communications and taking active manual control. No time for that. The suit scan lit up, and Samus' aim shifted to a precise component of Aurora's command pillar. It was heavily shielded, like the rest of Aurora's housing, but all shields gave out eventually. No, survival was not always an option.

Computers didn't feel fear, but they could worry. This one should certainly be worried, but instead it just sounded sad. "Ms Aran, I am afraid I have standing orders to treat my own survival as top priority. Unless you immediately desist and leave this room I will have no option but to resort to top level countermeasures. This is the final warning I am permitted to give."

Samus looked around, checking for any weapons deploying from the walls or ceiling. However, that quick glance was a clear enough signal she was not about to leave. Well, that and the beam charging up in her weapon barrel.

Aurora pulsed in her huge tank. "I am very sorry Ms Aran. I will clear an escape path for you to the surface. Please follow the dotted line if you can."

Then the biocomputer opened every door and let loose five thousand metroids into the world.

...