Well then it turns out the show must go on even without the main character! Here is a little look at the mission's aftermath but it delivers anything but closure... (insert mad laugh)

"Colonel. The bodies are ready to be commemorated sir."

He glanced round with a growing sense of irritation as the over-helpful Corporal Bard addressed him. As if he needed reminding of the post-mission procedures. He'd been in the army longer than this scrawny upstart had been alive!

"Yes I know Bard, do I look like a snot nosed whelp to you?" He watched as his subordinate immediately began blustering in an attempt to apologise but this only irritated him more.

"Go make yourself useful!" he barked.

"How sir?"

"By leaving me alone."

Bard flinched, "yes sir, my apologies Colonel Morgan, I'll check how the specimen transfer is going sir." The corporal walked away leaving Morgan to his thoughts.

It had been a frustrating mission. While his official mission, that of securing and overseeing the destruction of the Bottle Ship had gone according to plan, and in a couple of days the station would be nothing but drifting debris, his illegal mission on behalf of those who were responsible for the Bottle Ship had not gone as well. They had succeeded in recovering numerous specimens and the greatest thorn in their side Adam Malkovich was no more but even so they could hardly call it a victory.

The metroids had been lost and this would have set them back at least three months. While they could acquire enough metroid cells to begin the cloning process again, it would take a great deal of time and effort. To compound the metroid problem they now needed a suitable interface to interact with and control them.

Morgan had personally ordered his troops to kill the last attempt at successfully controlling them, the defective robot MB. Its interactions with the creatures had led to disastrous consequences that he was still cleaning up. The android had had a colossal emotional malfunction and had ravaged the Bottle Ship through its command of the bioweapons. One lesson they would take away was that they would be more careful to whom they gave control over the bioweapons in the future.

The situation was made more aggravating by the arrival and survival of Samus Aran and Anthony Higgs. While Deleter Pierce had succeeded in eliminating most of the Platoon, the survival of these two had the potential to be ruinous. Had Anthony died, the entirety of 07th Platoon would have been lost which meant that Morgan's recovery mission would overrule Malkovich's as, under the laws passed by the current Galactic Federation's Justice Minister, should all squad members assigned to a mission perish, any subsequent recovery teams are free to act in any way they deem fit regardless of the first squad's orders.

As it was, Anthony had been able to fulfil his mission which had been to search for survivors and had had the chief witness to the Bottle Ship's atrocities; Dr Madeline Bergman whisked from under Morgan's nose. No doubt she would now be placed under extreme protection by Aran and Higgs until she could give evidence against the other members of the conspiracy. Still that was a problem for another day and Morgan knew the organisations plans were far from finished. There was no going back for any of them.

Morgan knew Samus would continue to interfere in their plans and attempt to thwart them now she knew of the conspiracy. However, she had no idea just how deep the organisation ran in the Federation. Morgan could not imagine how much the famed "galactic saviour" would end up regretting answering that damned Baby's Cry.

The tentative sound of approaching footsteps alerted Morgan to the fact Corporal Bard was returning to pester him.

"Colonel Morgan sir, there are some flaws and omissions with the specimen transfer data forms, sir. You appear to have filled in every form saying that the specimen could not be salvaged. But we have several dozen specimens all ready for transportation to the Galactic Federation. You can't mean to withhold these specimens from the Galactic Federation?"

Morgan took a deep breath before he put his arm round Bard and led him away. "Now Bard, I am quite fond of you-" He wasn't. "-and I see a lot of potential in you-" He didn't. "-but you will have to accept that in the army your commanding officer knows best and who is your commanding officer, Corporal?"

"You sir." Bard piped up, "I merely thought-"

"Don't think Bard. Too much thinking led to the freakish weapons held in those crates. You are a soldier not a scientist and as you can see-" he gestured towards the row of coffins, "-science has cost enough people's lives already." Bard looked long and hard at the coffins perhaps envisaging it could just as easily have been him who hadn't made it back.

It was true that Morgan personally despised bioweapons but that didn't mean he objected to the conspiracy using them. The end justified the means and if using the bioweapons would end the Federation then he could easily put aside his personal reservations.

Morgan coughed and Bard turned his attention back to him, "As commanding officer on this mission I have deemed these specimens too dangerous to be allowed to exist and so will take them from here to destroy them. I do this for the greater good of the Federation and if the Supreme council disapproves of my actions then so be it. Think of the calamity that could be unleashed if the Space Pirates raided the Federation and got hold of those bioweapons. We have Ridley's corpse for god's sake! They won't just let us hang on to it if they find out. No it is far safer to erase these abominations from the galaxy."

Bard saluted, "Sir truly it is an honour to serve with such an upstanding GF commander as you." Bard moved off and Morgan decided to take his initial advice and commemorate the coffins of those who had fallen.

Morgan reached the line of coffins and moved down them performing the commemoration on each one. Each coffin was a simple black cuboid and had a small blue screen located on their front which displayed who the occupant was, when and where they had died, any medals and honours they had received and the name of the person who had commemorated their service and death in the name of the Federation. In this way the families would be able to feel the deceased had been valued by the Federation and their deeds had not gone unrecognised. Normally the commemorator was the individual's commanding officer but numerous commentators were allowed. The most exceptional soldiers were often commemorated by the Galactic Federation Chairman himself. For now though it fell to Morgan to do this and place a sticker on each coffin showing the commemoration job had been done.

Most of his unit's casualties had been from bioweapons but those whose bodies they couldn't recover, like the trio of unfortunate souls who had been sucked out a faulty airlock, had empty coffins that could never be filled. He'd lost several good men today.

Then he reached Malkovich's Platoon.

Lyle Smithsonian, Maurice Favreau and KG Misawa's coffins lay before him. Officially the cause of their deaths was unknown and Morgan would keep it that way. They had not found KG's body but, while it gave hope for his survival to some, Morgan knew it was much more likely that James had been good at disposing of evidence.

Adam Malkovich's empty box was next and Morgan slapped the sticker on his coffin with badly concealed contempt for the man who had so done so much to interfere in their plans. He glared at the huge list of medals and honours the illustrious man had possessed and no doubt would receive more of now he was a martyr.

Finally he reached James Pierce's coffin. "Stupid fool," Morgan muttered while he placed the sticker. "Still you did a reasonable job I guess, could have hoped for better though." He sarcastically patted the coffin and announced loudly to his men that they were ready to clear out.

Two GF frigates, the Agamemnon and the Menelaus waited in space ready to receive them. The Menelaus would fly the troops back to their base and then deliver the corpses to the GF memorial planet of Requiem. The Agamemnon, captained by Morgan, would then take the specimens straight to the conspirators under the pretence of a training mission.

The soldiers, equipment, specimens and coffins started to be loaded onto the correct transports that would fly them to the frigates. Morgan stood by the coffins as they were loaded one by one. Malkovich's was taken and then it was Pierce's turn.

As the bearers began to lift James' coffin Morgan put his hand on it. "This one's not for Requiem. We still have our uses for James Pierce." The bearers nodded and Morgan paced away to stand alone.

Colonel Morgan lit a cigarette and mused to himself, "There is a storm approaching and against its wrath Aran will inevitably fall. Nothing shall ever stand in our way again."

He snubbed the cigarette out on James's coffin. "You too still have your part left to play. It's not over. It's far from over. It's never over until we have victory."

Is this a cliffhanger I smell before me? Yes I guess it is. Will I follow it up? Well wait and see and all your dreams (or nightmares depending on what you thought of this story) may just come true! Hope you enjoyed "Deleted". It was a pleasure to write it.