"What happened to you, lady?" one man sitting on an adjacent bed. "You looked like you've been through hell."

Samus shrugged. "Something like it, anyway."

A doctor hunching over the man cleared his throat. Samus wasn't sure whether the doctor just wanted the patient to focus on the treatment or whether the doctor was reminding the man that he shouldn't be talking with the bounty hunter. Whatever the case, Samus thought the casual discussion, however brief, had provided a needed alternative to listening to trivial medical complaints.

The Chozo did not teach her to be introverted, but personal problems were just that: personal. And for her, medical issues had never been anything but personal. Her caretakers had known so little of human physiology; she wasn't the only one who thought she was going to die when she had her first period. The infusion of Chozo blood had been a desperate shot-in-the-dark at saving her life, not a calculated medical decision -- aside from that, they had stayed well away from trying to treat her for anything, leaving her, even as a seven-year-old girl, to tend to her own scrapes and bruises. As a bounty hunter, most of the time she got by with gauze, bandages, and her regenerative lifeblood.

But there were some wounds that not even Chozo blood cells could heal. Lying for hours on a bed in the medical bay, she finally found time to think. Why had she hesitated to kill Re-Kuluk after the damned brute attacked her? If she could not find the answer within herself, the price she would ultimately pay for such hesitation, should it happen again, would be her life – and, considering her profession, she would pay that price soon. The question, then, was essential: when had the screams of her parents lose the power to spur her on, to do what must be done?

Perhaps, she thought morosely, it was when the screams of her victims had become so voluminous that they drowned them out.

Truth be told, the Zebesians undoubtedly remained the same heartless creatures to her, more like the demons of human mythology than real-world animals that they were. Their directive was discord. Their method was violence. Though they had minds sufficient to adapt human technology to their own malevolent purposes and souls sufficient to cry out to the scorch of Samus' cannon, they had no hearts. Not that Samus had seen, anyway.

Perhaps not all sentient species are meant to have hearts. She recalled Dark Samus. And the way she -- it -- had reached out to her in its dying moments on Aether. Reached out, in the dark world that was its home, to the light spilling from Samus' light suit. What had spurred the creature's hand then? Had it reached out to destroy her with its remaining energy? Or had it reached out futilely to grasp the light, like a child reaches out to grasp the wind?

It was then, Samus realized, it was watching that creature engaged in such a imperceptive, functionless gesture that had ignited the cascade of doubts that culminated in her present state. She begun to question herself, had begun to believe that the woman the Federation hailed as a hero was no more than a killer who, in a fit of rage, picked sides in a war she never took the time to understand – indeed, that no one understood.

"You," somebody said. "What's your name?"

Despite her reverie, Samus' muscles flexed in readiness. She pacified them quickly, though, after examining the newcomer: a graying and unkempt doctor, looking vapidly at her and grasping a datapad.

"Well?" he said impatiently.

"I don't need treatment," Samus said, harshly but almost to herself, as though still lost in her own contemplations.

"If you're going to take up space in my medical bay, you can at least be fodder for my medical students to practice on," the doctor said, gesturing to three young students who followed inconspicuously behind him.

"Go away," Samus said, inexorably vexed.

The doctor nodded, as if confirming a diagnosis. "Ill temper," he said, turning to the students. "One of the most important lessons in any medical education. Now, who wants to learn it?"

"I will," one youngish, dark-haired student said.

The doctor squinted as if trying to discern the young man's face. "Are you new, or something?"

"Hopped on board at Altessa Prime."

"Ah! I see," the doctor said. "This is a warship, and we can use all the hands we can get. Well, good luck...Ben," he said, eying the student's ID badge.

"Thank you, sir," the student said.

The doctor hurried off to another patient, his two remaining medical students in tow.

"What's your name?" the student said.

"Go away," Samus said.

Ben licked his lips confidently. "You have burns all over your body, including your face," he said.

Samus' eyebrows furrowed. "I don't care," she said.

Ben sighed. "Will somebody please get this woman a mirror? She needs to know how ugly she is before she'll let me treat her."

Samus glared at him as she took a mirror from him. "I said I don't--" she began, but upon seeing the blisters that splotched her face, she fell silent.

"You could catch an infection with those burns," Ben said.

"I don't get infections," Samus mumbled, still engrossed in the image in the mirror.

Ben looked at her quizzically. "What's your name?" he said.

"I'm Sam--" Samus hesitated, then quickly scanned the bay. She found no nervous glances from the fifty or so occupants. Clearly, nobody on the ship but the admiral knew who she was. But why was the admiral keeping her a secret? But the admiral seemed her only ally, and Samus could do nothing but trust the woman's judgment.

"Samantha Burns," she said coolly.

Then, she winced at her own foolishness.

"Burns, huh?" the doctor said, smiling. "That's imaginative."

Samus gave a shrug. "I'm not a good liar," she said. "What do you want from me?"

He fished a small flashlight out of his pocket and began examining the burns on her face. "Were you the one we picked up?" he said. "The woman swimming in space?"

"Does it matter?" Samus said.

"Is that a yes?" he said, flashing the light briefly in her eyes.

"I guess it is," she said, biting back the urge to plant a fist into his enticingly exposed abdomen .

"We didn't ever find your space suit," Ben said. "What happened to it?"

"I passed out," Samus said. "I don't remember what happened."

"And these burns? Blaster fire?"

"Warp core leak."

"Of course." Ben clicked the light off and pocketed it. "Please lie down."

It made her feel vulnerable, but she complied. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"I may be just a student," he said, opening and shutting several drawers. "But, yes, I know what I'm doing."

"Yeah? How long have you been a medical student?"

"Two years," he said flatly. "Had an accident with your ship, then?"

"Like I said, we had a core breach."

"Right," Ben said, finally finding a small bin and filling it with water. He handed it and a piece of gauze to her.

"Put your arm in here, and wipe your face with this gauze," he said. "So what happened?"

"Does it matter?" Samus said, dipping the gauze in the cool water and wiping her face with it.

"In this accident -- if that's what it was -- you could have sustained a concussion, twisted an ankle."

"I didn't hit my head or twist my ankle," Samus said. "There's nothing else wrong with me."

Ben laughed forcefully. "That coming from the woman who didn't realize she had burns all over her body until I gave her the mirror."

"You know, even a second-year medical student wouldn't have had to ask if those were blaster burns," Samus said quietly, letting the gauze drop into the tub with a resounding plop!

Ben looked dumbfounded.

"And cool water was pretty pointless," the bounty hunter continued. It's been hours after the incident. The burns cooled long ago."

Samus hadn't seen many physicians in her time, but she knew the right way to treat wounds, especially burns. And she knew the wrong way. "She already knows who I am and where I came from," she said. "So why did she send you to interrogate me?"

The "medical student" smiled nervously as the scorched woman told him off.

"Okay, Ms. Burns," he said, his voice dropping down to an aggressive whisper. "I'm not a good liar either. But the admiral didn't send me. I sent myself."

"For what?"

"I've seen the kind of security they've put around this place. You're either a fugitive or an enemy of the state, and seeing how the queen bee has us flying all the way back to Kratosa Prime, something tells me the Senate doesn't have a standard cell picked out for you."

"You know what, Ben?" Samus said, running a hand through her long, dirty hair. "Something tells me I'll escape this ship long before it makes it reaches its destination."

"I can arrange that."

Samus looked at him incredulously.

"I can help you get out of here," he repeated.

"And why would you do that?"

"Because you're not the only enemy of the state – this state."

The medical bay door swished open. Ben looked back at the door and cursed. "She's here," he whispered. Behind him, the admiral marched stiffly into the room, nodding down the salutes she received from some patients.

" I can help you get off this ship if you'll help me," Ben whispered hurriedly.

"Your name?"

"Benson."

Samus raised an eyebrow. "Imaginative."

Benson stepped swiftly to the sink, hunching over and feverishly washing his hands.

"Doctor" Petronus said, demanding his attention.

Benson ignored her.

"Doctor!" the admiral repeated impatiently.

When Benson finally turned, a white surgical mask concealed half his face and a surgical cap concealed his hair.

"Yes, sir?" he said, his voice muffled by the mask, and then some.

"My instructions were for Doctor Reikkan alone to inspect this patient."

"Of course, admiral," Benson said. "I will find him," he said, beginning to walk away.

"Wait," Petronus said. Benson halted. "Tell me her condition."

"What?" Benson said, refusing to turn.

"You're the one who checked on her, right? Tell me her condition."

"Please, admiral," Benson said. "I am due for surgery." He snapped on a pair of latex gloves as if to emphasize the point.

"You will tell me the patient's condition," the admiral returned with the tone of an official order. "Immediately."

Benson nodded quickly and turned, brushed closely and quickly past the admiral to hide his features. He made his way to Samus and exchanged a secret, anxious glance with her.

In any other instance, the bounty hunter would have found the whole situation amusing, but now she stared back at him solemnly and helplessly. He could be her only ticket off this ship short of brute violence, and so far he'd done a shoddy job impersonating a doctor. If Samus' scrutiny had unraveled his persona, how could it possibly withstand Petronus' well-trained eye?

"First and second degree burns over much of her face," Benson said. He cleared his throat. "Clearly caused by proximity to an antimatter reaction, likely a warp core breach. Recovery will be far from swell, but I'll tell the doctor to prescribe painkillers."

"Did she say specifically where she got the burns?"

"No, she hasn't told me anything," he said, still pretending to inspect Samus' wounds.

The admiral smiled faintly. "Okay," she said. "You may go."

Benson clenched his jaw and shut his eyes, as though thanking God that he had dodged the admiral this time.

"After you bandage her up," Petronus added.