Fan Fiction ❯ Backdrifts ❯ Discovery ( Chapter 3 )

Part 3

She couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement, adrenaline surging through her veins as her lips turned up in a smile. It was a predatory look, and her steps were quick and stealthy as she entered the Space Pirate base. The darkness was not surprising, a push of a button and her visor switched to night vision. The hues of green and black gave no illusion to this place, instead intensifying the haunting clinical look to everything.

Samus frowned slightly as she took in the architecture of the interior. The walls looked to be a series of interlinking geometric shapes, and with a start, Samus suddenly realized they were moving. It was a subtle pulse that gave an illusion of a gigantic creature taking slow and steady breaths.

This base was not like the others she had visited. The inner workings of potential technological breakthroughs were not spread before her as they had been in the past. The only thing that spoke of Pirate ambition were the breathing walls. This place was strangely empty, but not abandoned. It seemed there had been someone here, maintaining the pristine cleanliness of the entire place. She never thought to associate hygiene with Space Pirates before.

As she took in every hallway and door, it lead to more emptiness. Only cavernous dark rooms devoid of even a speck of dust. She stopped in one, flicking off the night vision before reaching out to press the switch for the lights. The room was illuminated in bright florescent white, and she was somewhat disappointed that nothing felt the need to jump out and attack her.

It seemed almost like a holding cell, a slab jutting out from the far wall that she assumed to be some sort of bed, though entirely uncomfortable looking. Yet as she squinted, amplifying the image through her visor controls, there seemed to be some kind of powdery substance speckled on the surface. Her brow raised in intrigue- before now she had found absolutely nothing that could even suggest a sign of someone having been here.

Reaching down, her metal finger scraped along the edge of the bed, and she brought it up to her face to examine the fine white crystals that clung to the smooth metallic tip. Though her suit gave no indication of temperature change, what she once thought of as powder seemed to be ice crystals. Gathering up some more, she set it in a small vial, placing it safely in her leg casing for further analyses.

As she left the room to continue exploring, the narrow hallway emptied out into a large circular chamber lit from some unseen source. Yet the entire chamber was white, the light reflecting off the walls in almost a painful way, and Samus was forced to raise the tint on her visor to retain any kind of comfort level.

The room was tall, and again she had to crane her neck upward to take in the entirety of it. She guessed she must be in the center, and this room stretched almost as high up as the building itself. Numerous computer terminals were set in groups along the center of the room, and she tried to scan the information, instead finding encrypted data that she couldn't decipher. There were a plethora of locks put on these files, and Samus felt her curiosity go up another notch. There was definitely something going on. It would only be a matter of time before she put an end to it.

She stepped across to each terminal, finding the same sealed data files. Deciding she would have to come back here, she continued across the wide room to the opposite hallway, finding it near identical to the first, pausing to make sure she hadn't turned herself around by accident and wasn't backtracking.

There was a notable difference as Samus stepped into the lift to the second floor. Her suit beeped as the temperature dropped and she exited into another computer room. This time, she happily noted, there were two Pirates overlooking a terminal, communicating in their own screeching language. Whatever it was they were doing was causing an obvious argument between the two. Amused, Samus stood back and let them notice her on their own.

They didn't, the fact becoming more obvious as one of them let out a long angry roar, pointing at the monitor. The other waved its claws wildly in response, and impatience began to tug at Samus.

"Looks like they need a mediator," She muttered, and locked on to the one on the right, charging her beam to let loose a shot that ended the argument quite nicely. The first stared for a moment at the corpse of the other before turning towards Samus in clear surprise. She didn't waste a moment in firing, causing the pirate to drop down onto the floor, flesh still hissing from the blast. Samus looked down at them in satisfaction before reaching down to drag the two corpses off into a corner.

Her eyes returned to the monitor the two pirates had been arguing at, looking down to see an open file. The type was not in the usual Pirate language, instead a numerical code that stretched down into pages of data. She furrowed her brows in confusion, but began the download. Perhaps she could find someone that could understand what it meant.

After the file completed, an obvious video file caught her eye, and she typed the numbers and extension before the screen was filled with file footage of what seemed to be an operating room. Pirates were hunched over something she couldn't see, but she realized it also contained audio when the patient let out a horrible wail of pain. She flinched at the sound.

A blurred object at the edge of the screen moved away before re-appearing near the operating table as the wailing continued. Yet the moment the figure stepped back into view, Samus felt a horrible realization claw at the base of her stomach. The figure was not that of a pirate, it was very human.

The man, dressed in a white lab coat that had his back to the camera gestured for one of the pirates to move away, giving Samus a better view of the patient. It's condition was terrible, whatever distinguishing features it had were marred, blunted by abuse in what she assumed was its capture. Thick viscous fluid pooled in the grooves of its face, bleeding out from long slits on either side. Unsure if they were natural or from the work of the pirates, Samus watched as the human leaned down, taking out a syringe and injecting the creature with something, causing the screams to die down. The man turned, and she could see the pixilated face, mouth stretching into a pleased smile.

Nothing could ever really throw Samus off balance. Yet as she watched the footage with her face tense, she could feel a haunting empathy for that creature, and her mind reeled in the knowledge that someone was helping the space pirates.

So caught up in her own mind, Samus didn't realize she wasn't alone until the computer terminal exploded from the high power shots of a Space Pirate weapon. She spun around to face her adversary, rolling out of the way of another shot that turned the table into a pile of charred electrodes and rubble.

She swore to herself as she tried to scan in the new enemy, her visor not having enough time to give her the specs of the new pirate before she had to turn and evade another attack. The thing was big, and it towered above her, talons looking sharp enough to cut steel. She very much did not want to test that theory with her power suit.

The pirate seemed more brawn than brains, and it destroyed more terminals in its haste to obliterate Samus, no doubt countless information becoming only fried bits of plastic. The rigid steel armor it wore was lined with tubes, pumping god knew what into the creature's body as it let loose another barrage of shots from the weapon strapped to its arm.

Her mind in a state of strange calm, Samus only focused on its pattern of attacks, finding the interchanging habit of shooting at her and charging at her. She dove away from another flurry of claws, rolling to her feet to shoot at its back with a few rockets. The creature howled in pain as the shells exploded, and it turned around with unbridled fury, all knowledge of possessing a weapon gone as it ran towards her at an unfathomable speed.

Samus dove out of its path once again, hitting the ground hard but wasting no time to reflect on the bruises that were surely forming within her suit. Again a round of shots were fired from her cannon, along with another rocket, and this time one of the liquid filled tubes burst, dark and shiny as it spilled out fluid.

The creature gurgled strangely, and clutching at its face, Samus stared in fascination as three long slits on either side of its face stretched open as if gasping for breath. A sudden tightness in her chest formed as realization slowly dawned on her. This was no regular pirate, this was the former patient she had just seen operated on. What she assumed were gills opened and closed slowly, and began to dribble the same black fluid before the creature stumbled, and with a horrendous thud, crashed into the center of the room.

The silence was almost deafening in the aftermath of the short battle, and Samus breathed deeply, slowly coming down from the adrenaline high that usually accompanied. She checked her suit condition and vital signs through the computerized visor, finding minimal damage that could easily be repaired in a short while. Her own flesh was slightly bruised as she had guessed. Her eyes then returned to the victim, for she had to admit to herself, attacking her or not, that's what it was.

Approaching cautiously, she leaned over the large corpse, able to look over the creature in greater detail. Yet she was somewhat confused, for the arms and legs were clearly that of a space pirate, and not of a water dwelling creature. There was no easy way to propel itself through any aqueous solution, for its limbs were blunt and heavy, as was its overall size. Surely larger than the one she had seen operated on.

It must have been a hybrid, the only explanation she could come up with. Perhaps also the reason for its unbridled aggression against her. Yet it must not have been a success, for as she studied it, she realized there were numerous scars across its body. The tubes that had strapped into armor were probably a way to keep its circulation running.

She sighed slightly, standing straighter. No doubt, the pirates would have more of these creatures, and the monsters they created through them. Looking up, Samus found the open door the creature must have come through. The same bright white walls were stretched along the tunnel, and as she followed it, they opened up again into a chamber, this not nearly as large as the former.

The room was a cold blue, the lights tinted it seemed, and the large glass cylinders that lined the walls glowing from the florescent bulbs. Bodies floated in preservation liquid, the same species as she had seen, but these not experimented upon. These were the creatures in their true form.

At the base of each tank, a digital screen read there were no life signs. Merely more corpses, not one of them alive. Only three tanks at the edge of the line were empty.

Now as she looked, she was sure these beings were indeed aquatic, yet still had two arms and two legs, though the skin was not leathery, but scaled. The eyes stared ahead, lifeless, and Samus could feel a shudder unbidden run down her back. Pale blue irises, though they may have seemed such a color in the light, yet almost human.

She turned away, unable to look any further.

~*~

Kowl sat in front of his monitor back at HQ, mouth turned down in a frown as he watched the video footage from the disk he had been given. Mack sat next to him, her face impassive as always, but Kowl could see the slight crinkle around her mouth in a show of disgust.

He had gone through the entire contents of the disk, finding pages and pages of un-coded data. The man who gave it to him had said he had already saved him the trouble of trying to decipher it. They were mission logs, autopsy reports, results from chemical analyses. Mountains of data collected through years of research. And they had thought this group was the equivalent of petty thugs. Kowl snorted.

There were numerous video files of different operations, almost all of them with the same species of alien. A race Kowl had tracked down to a small aquatic planet on the outskirts of the same star system that the pirate base was on. They seemed to have discovered the fluid that the creatures secrete as blood had very exciting tenancies. The properties of the chemical makeup were similar to fuel used to power machinery, yet was completely natural within the bodies of these creatures. But the pirates were apparently on the edge of some kind of breakthrough. Not only could this fluid be used as a fuel, but if integrated with other species, could result in limitless possibilities.

The base report had said they were taking their findings to a better research facility. The base recorded within the federation files was mostly abandoned, though some test subjects were still housed there.

"I knew it. I just knew it." Kowl shook his head as he watched the pirates cut into the patient, the screen having been muted a while ago from the constant screams emitted by each patient. "Didn't I tell you, Mack? I knew it, god damn it all, I knew it!" His voice began to raise and Mack shot him a look for him to shut up.

"Where did you get all this?" The suspicion in his partner's voice was not obvious, but it was there. "And why aren't we taking this to the chief?"

"Protection." Kowl muttered offhand. He didn't want to get into the unique situation that brought him this information. Though he knew Mack would never turn him in, he did know she'd give him hell for offering a very knowledgeable criminal protection from the law. Too knowledgeable actually. Kowl wondered not for the first time, just where the hell he had gotten all this from.

Mack didn't inquire further, but he could tell she wasn't at all satisfied with his answer. "What are we going to do about this?"

Kowl actually had no idea what he was going to do, and was going to tell her that before the screen revealed another party walking into the screen. A man with a syringe and a smile.

"What do we have here?" His brow crawled up into his hairline as he leaned forward to stare at the monitor. The human man turned after administering the shot, but not before Kowl noticed something imprinted on the shoulder of his lab coat. BSL. Biologic Space Labs. "Oh shit." His voice came out a whisper, and he turned to his partner in shock.

Mack nodded. "Shit."

~*~

It felt like such a waste when Samus exited the pirate base. Aside from the data she had downloaded but couldn't understand, she felt she hadn't gained any answers. Just more annoying questions. The greenery of the planet was off putting after the whiteness of the base. She couldn't understand what this meant, what she had to do next. Only a small battle, and the outcome was fruitless.

What had she even expected when she stepped onto this thriving moon? Samus knew that she wanted to feel the exhilaration of wiping out this sorry gang, to finally be able to breathe again. Ever since the Old Bird had told her of her origins, she couldn't stop. She had to keep going, keep fighting, no matter what it did to her. But what happened if she had nothing left to fight?

She had turned the base upside down. Finding mostly empty rooms like the holding cell she had found the white crystals in, there was little else she could discover. There were no more pirates here, and thinking back, she was surprised there were even the few she had killed.

Perhaps they had moved on to somewhere else, taken those Federation base hostages to operate and experiment with like they had the aquatic creatures that now floated dead in tanks. She wondered at why they would do that, Space Pirates never had any interest in humans. But it seemed whoever they were working with did.

She had been walking, making her way through the foliage back to her ship as her mind raced. She needed to find out more, and her hand reached to a com device on the dashboard of her ship. Dialing in a sequence, she waited.

A hum of noise and then a voice. "Yes?"

"Peco... I need information."

~*~

Andrew Price sat idly within a small diner on the outskirts of town, sipping a mug of steaming coffee that was gripped between his hands. A rather frail man, he seemed more like a stiff wind would blow him over, while in truth he was the most hardened Federation Officer that had worked for the better part of his forty seven years. But though he was far from old and quite capable of continuing his work, he had resigned early from duty. There were just some things in his life he didn't want to continue to see.

He was only visiting this planet as he usually did every other month, taking in familiar sights and streets. The office building he would have frequented most days on work, or the dark corners he would be investigating. Of course, life was better now. He had to remind himself this numerous times, but there would be no way he could have continued to work like his close friend. Pat was a bastard, he liked it in some kind of perverted way. Or maybe it was just that he still enjoyed the thrill of his work.

He didn't have much time to ponder over it as he finished off his second cup of liquid caffeine and gestured for a third. Yes, giving up alcohol grated him badly, but his wife insisted. Coffee was the only thing that kept him going.

A thump of someone sitting in front of him knocked him out of his thoughts and a slight grin formed on his face. "Well Pat, punctual as always."

Kowl frowned at his friend's smile and crisp English accent. "And you Andy, as much of an ass as always."

The two men shared a smile, insulting each other as only friends would do. "You seem perky."

"Do I?" Kowl said, looking miles away. "No, not perky really." He shook his head. "You'd never believe this case I'm on, Andy. Shit, I'm still trying to figure it out."

"Oh, so you're out of the grunt work then? Surprising. Chief Hardy hates you more than he hated me." Andrew laughed to himself at the memory of the rather large man yelling obscenities when all the two could notice was the amount of spittle leaving his mouth. They both wore raincoats one time, and needless to say the gesture wasn't appreciated.

"Well, you did say good hygiene and uniform is protocol, Chief." Kowl had reminded. "Can't do to have our suits sopping wet every day."

Andrew shook his head at the memory.

"Not hardly." Kowl replied, bringing his friend back to the present. "More like grunt work that turned out to be something more. I'm still looking into it, but it sure as hell is shaping up." He grinned. "Just like old times."

Andy laughed. "Yeah, right. So how's your partner doing?"

"Mack is almost as much of a bitch as you were."

"Oh you know you loved it." Andy smirked. "Don't deny your sexual urges for me, Pat. I had to keep pushing you away. `Im not like that, old boy.' I'd have to say."

Kowl let a good humored bark of laughter out of his throat. "Melissa would have been most displeased with me."

"Aye." He smiled at the mention of his wife. Wonders never ceased that she still stuck with him. Pat always reminded him he was a lucky bastard to have found her. "So. What's this case then?"

For a moment, the mirth left his friends face. "Its strange, Andy. And I think this is something I have to look into without uh... letting the superiors know. I have a feeling its big."

He raised both his eyebrows. "Is it. Damn Pat, having all the fun without me?"

Kowl chuckled, then looked away in thought. "Actually.. I think I am going to need your help on this one after all."

A moment of silence and a clipped "What?" There was a serious air around them, the joking gone. "Oh no, you can't do this to me. I told you Kowl, I was out of it. I'm not going back, I can't. I'm happy for once, Melissa is happy. Its been almost three months since the last time she threatened to walk out on me. We're getting somewhere... I can't risk that."

"I'm not asking you to come back to the force, Andy." Kowl said patiently, for once understanding in his face. "Its actually the reason I need you- because you're not connected anymore. All I want you to do is look into something for me. Melissa works at BSL stations, I want you to convince her to look into some information there."

"If this risks her, there's no way in hell I'm letting you off." There was a veiled threat in his voice.

"No, it wont. And I'll give you the gun to shoot me myself if it ever happens." He looked at his former friend and partner hard, "Andy. I'm telling you - if this is what I think it is, there's no telling the implications. But for me to understand, I need Melissa to find me information. I can't access that stuff, I don't have the authority and I can't risk revealing my intentions. What if it goes past Hardy? Into the senior offices and partners? Shit Andy... try to understand. Remember how it used to be."

He pursed his lips, silent for a moment while Kowl held his breath. "Okay. Fine. Tell me what you need her to do."

Kowl let out the breath. "Information on any rogue or missing scientists, accused or tried for malpractice. Anything that could imply someone at BSL who was let go and has the knowledge for interspecies experimentation. Or maybe, someone who still works there." The last part was said more as an afterthought, and Andy stared.

"This is big isn't it?"

"Very."