Varia Suit: ONLINE

Morph Ball: ONLINE

Life Support Systems: ONLINE

ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE. READY FOR ZERO SUIT INTERFACE

She sighed. Was it really though? Then why did it keep rejecting her?

It started about a month ago. It had become increasingly difficult to summon her armor, until finally it stopped responding altogether. It wouldn't give her a reason, as all diagnostics came back fine. And here she had gone through the painstaking process of removing the physical suit from her body, and still she had no answers.

She had thought through a litany of possibilities, yet none seemed to fit the circumstance. The consequence was clear; she couldn't use her armor. And there was no one left alive, save for her, who even knew how it worked.

"Uhf," she groaned, wiping her face. She had a headache, and felt a bit queasy. She wasn't prone to stress, but this feeling of powerlessness was starting to get to her.

Or, it could be something else. Since the destruction of Phaaze, the Admiral had assured her that Phazon itself had ceased to be. It had lost its power and degenerated, including from her.

Yet that anxiety lingered. Samus supposed it wouldn't hurt just to make sure. So she took her place in the pilot's deck and initiated a bioscan.

STATUS: CLEAN

CORRUPTION LEVEL: 0.2%

242 had told her that there may be a lingering residue that wouldn't be enough to create a problem. It would go away completely with time, but maybe that wasn't good enough.

"Computer, do you still have the AU vaccine in your datafiles?"

"Affirmative, it was extracted from your suit and stored during your last interface."

"Good."

No...no.. no.

"Calculate a human dosage and administer it to me in the med bay."

No!

She heard it. She had an inkling what it was, but refused to dwell on it. It didn't matter, it would be purged soon anyway.

She took her place in the ship's surgical unit and relaxed. A deep breath, not a single flinch as the ship's automated systems finished their work and hovered above her arm with a needle.

"Administering modified AU vaccine."

Stop!

A sudden wave of intense nausea hit her and she nearly fell over. But she held in place, determined.

STOP!

Another wave, this time it brought something up with it. Samus found herself unable to resist it. She toppled out of the vestibule and onto her knees, retching. One heave, two. She gagged, mouth dribbling as something living squirmed its way out of her.

It landed with a splat. Something black and blue and oozing.

"Quarantine! Now!" The Hunter commanded. She stumbled backwards, eager to put distance between herself and the thing that had crawled out of her throat. The ship made quick work of it, ever-ready for the possibility of unwanted company. Within seconds a turret flared from the ceiling and fired a containment field. The liquid slime squealed, throwing itself at the sides of its tiny, hardlight prison.

The doors to the med bay slid closed behind the Hunter.

"Dammit. Dammit, dammit." No, it was fine. It was out now. It was contained. Everything was fine. She wasn't very good at lying to herself.

At least now she had a reasonable explanation for why her suit was malfunctioning. With the PED gone, it was having a hard time reconciling with the entity that had been within her. A security measure to keep anyone but her from using the suit.

"0.2%" she scoffed. Yeah, definitely more than that.

The bioscan now returned a comforting 0%. It was relieving, of course. But the question remained of what to do with the creature now dwelling in the quarantine bay.

Phazon would survive in space, so she couldn't simply jettison it. As attractive as the prospect was of dumping the invader into the vacuum, Samus knew it would simply become a problem somewhere else. No, she had to dispose of it.

She could bottle it up. Give it to the Federation for research. If this little bit had survived, why couldn't others like it? If Phazon became a threat again, wouldn't it be better to even the playing field with whoever else managed to get their hands on it?

Maybe she was overthinking it. After all there was no proof yet that it was even a threat. Maybe she should at least take a look at it, before deciding what to do.

She made her way to the back of the ship, past the flight deck, the med bay, and finally to quarantine. The ship had sealed the specimen in a container of hyper-tempered glass. It was thick like tar, runny black with flecks of luminous blue. It froze as she entered the room, as though it were aware. How much could it see, anyway?

As it stood in place, the bits of color began to coalesce in its center. A bulbous black offshoot formed as the luminous blue began to form a shape. An unmistakable, pointed 'T'.

Any doubts Samus had about killing the thing quickly evaporated. Her thoughts suddenly turned to all the possible things she could do to it before it died. Burn it, electrocute it. See how long it could go without oxygen or light. She went through her head, of all the nearest systems with white hot stars, and contemplated how easy it would be to get something through to their surfaces.

She didn't have long to think before the ship began to blare with an alert.