Rogu idly slid open the revolver chamber of his blaster-pistol, the seventy-second time he had done so tonight.  Six pearly-green spheres awaited his reflexive inspection, all handpicked and painstakingly examined from crates of contraband.  He plucked one out with his slender, leathery yellow fingers.  Rogu held the sphere up to one eye, then to his second, then to the third on the back of his toad-like head.  The panoramic view those three unblinking, crimson orbs gave him were only one of the reasons of his notoriety as a Hunter-Killer.  Satisfied, both with the impeccable maintenance of his favorite weapon and with his flawless eyesight, the slender creature replaced the sphere and relaxed into the groove of the cavern's circular entrance.

The moment one of my eyes goes a bit fuzzy, the Rephillian thought, watching over the moon-lit mesa landscape, I'm out of this gig.  Collecting every last seguru and disappearing to somewhere moist.  Ruktull would be nice.

Rogu shifted his attention to the soft blue glow of the many computer consoles behind him as his employer quietly hummed.  'Zole' was the creature's presumed name, a being more machine than…whatever it once was.  The creature was squat and showed little of itself under piles of cloaks and robes.  The only part currently visible was a single yellow eye, which looked digital to Rogu and stared unblinkingly at the scrolling screens.  He assumed that's how Zole interfaced with his computers, as there were no input-boards or retina-screens Rogu could recognize.  Rogu had yet to hazard a guess to the creature's race and had yet to care.  Zole spoke little, gave no details, paid well, and picked the most barren planets to do whatever kind of network criminal activities it pursued.

Just the way Rogu liked it.  

The Rephillian resumed his earlier pass-time of counting the shadows cast by the many crags of the barren world.  The pair's cavern was fairly high up and offered an unobstructed view for miles.  Maseria was an empty rock devoid of any worthwhile minerals or habitable atmosphere and was just close enough to the high traffic trade worlds to allow one to quickly disappear should the unplanned occur.  Rogu couldn't have picked a better planet himself.

He flared his heavy nostrils and sucked in a long gulp of the atmosphere that smelled curiously like the spice that Human's favored, cinnamon.  He resisted the urge to cough as the silent buzzing in his chest grew frantically, the nanites in his single lung picking out the chemicals he needed from the toxic air.

I guess a quiet job was a good idea, Rogu thought, nice to work for someone who acknowledges the 'risk' part of the risk/reward schematic for once.  Maybe I'll retire early and-

"Danger," whispered Zole's flat voice from the communicator deep in Rogu's ear canal.

Rogu didn't move.  His right hand had never left his blaster the week he had spent on Maseria and his position against the cave wall camouflaged him well.  Behind him Zole was already quietly packing away his computers, three spidery machine limbs reaching out from underneath its robes and dissecting the computers with graceful efficiency.

"Where?" Rogu whispered without actually using his voice and barely moving his lips.

"Climbing.  Quickly."

Rogu did not acknowledge the confusion he felt.  He had already scouted the tunnel networks that surrounded their cavern, leaving explosive mines and various sensors in all of them.  The parts of the landscape that were blocked from Rogu's vantage point were covered by thermal and x-ray equipped drones.

"Leaving. You?" asked Zole, the last screen disappearing under his robes.

"I'll cover the entrance," Rogu replied, "I'll meet you on Dal tomorrow.  Kulu apartments.  Room thirty-eight."

Zole hummed briefly, a sound Rogu had learned was simple acknowledgement.  Zole's huddled form lifted slightly and slid across the floor with the skittering sound of many thin metal legs.  It disappeared down a tunnel, the only entrance to where it had hidden its modified stealth-shuttle.

Rogu eased himself outside, having no difficulty with the sheer vertical surface due to his race' ability to interact with matter at a molecular level.  His crimson eyes bulged, allowing him multiple magnifications.  His breathing slowed and his body temperature dropped, masking him from thermal imaging.  He lay still.  He waited.

This would not be the first bounty-hunter to fall to Rogu's blaster and their own impatience.

Minutes crawled by, the only movement on the mesa world's surface being Rogu's eyes.  He watched for the cliffside below him to silently disintegrate so that Zole's shuttle could escape.

Thirty more seconds than what Rogu knew it would take Zole to leave passed without incident.

"Zole?" Rogu mouthed.

No answer.

Rogu darted back inside and crossed the cavern in seconds, his lithe form low to the floor.  The tunnel to Zole's shuttle was as dark as smoke in space, but this did not hinder Rogu as his eyes shifted from red to violet.

The Rephillian paused at the tunnel's exit.  Zole's form was splayed out across the grit of the floor, its spidery limbs limp and its eye dark.  Zole's shuttle, a slender silver thorn with long, angled fins, lay untouched.  Rogu slipped into the cavern, seeing nothing but the stillness of the air.

They chose the 'dead' option, Rogu thought, stepping over Zole, How lazy.

"Typically the Galactic Federation pays better when the bounty is alive," Rogu said, abandoning any pretense of stealth.  He dared not fool himself into thinking the hunter was unaware of him.

"My name is Rogu," he continued, lacing conceit into his voice purposely barbed to nettle the weak willed, "If you're of any importance, you know that this is your chance to stand down and leave.  I do not kill hunters that admit they've been matched."  Rogu slowly walked deeper into the cavern.  Surrounding Zole's shuttle were naturally curved columns, behind any of which could hide any number of deadly alien hunters.

There is only the one tunnel, Rogu thought, How did they get in?

"So what justifies you?  Is it the thrill?  The money?" Rogu suddenly darted forward and around a column, his blaster preceding him.

Nothing.

"Or are you one of those noble types?  Is that why you killed him?  Are you ridding the galaxy of its violent and cruel?"
Another column hid only dust and air.

"Violence only begets violence.  There would have been no pain here today had you not come.  My blaster isn't called the Shield without cause."

There.  The dust swirled, filling the absence of something that was had been just there.

"I was once like you," Rogu tactfully admitted, "A gun, pointed and paid by the Federation.  Now I protect those with different interests.  What kind of peace does your Federation see when a bodyguard like me is forced to kill dozens of hunters?"

Nothing, Rogu thought, intrigued, I can think of only a few hunters that wouldn't have struck by now.  Who is this-?

Rogu finally saw it.  A small tunnel, not even a meter in diameter at the base of a column.  It had been too small for Rogu to think it needed trapping.  Now he saw his mistake.

Rogu's theory was only confirmed when the softest of sounds played through the cavern.  The unique melody of matter materializing from pure energy.  He had never heard it in person, nor did he ever want to.

A strange feeling stirred within Rogu.  It took him a brief moment to realize what the feeling was and after he did he found that he was incapable of refusing it.

Fear.

They hadn't sent a hunter.  They had sent the Hunter.

"What a hefty sum must be on mine and my benefactor's heads," said Rogu, forcefully ignoring the fear, "For you to pause in your genocide.  Otherwise you would have no interest; I know it was not my race that butchered your parents."

Rogu waited, but was surprised by silence.

Maybe the rumors are true, Rogu thought with gnawing doubt, maybe she is a cyborg.  For a moment, Rogu thought of throwing aside his gun.  His predator did not harm the unarmed.  Zole had been incapable of being unarmed.

Then an idea struck him.  He turned the grin he felt into a disapproving frown.

"So how would your parents think of you now?  Exhorting the police of the galaxy so that you can satisfy your bloodlust?  Come to think of it…you and your Space Pirates have a lot in common…"

There it was, the sound of an armored fist clenching.  Rogu whipped around and squeezed his blaster's bulky trigger.  The column he aimed at exploded in a green flash, disintegrating both it and a large chunk of the wall behind it.

In all his years as a Hunter-Killer, Rogu had never fired his Shield more than once in succession.  Now he fired two more blasts, just to be sure, each shot straining the recoilless mechanic in its stock.

Rogu caught movement to his right, but wasn't given a chance to correct his blaster' aim.  A burst of bright yellow bolts lanced out at him.  Rogu didn't move, as none of the bolts included him in their trajectory.  They splashed into the stony floor around him, sending up a plume of heavy dust and grit.

Rogu immediately dropped his body heat again and held his breath, unsure whether his nanites could handle the heavy dust.  He was blind, the dust obscuring his sight and smell, the hissing of his blaster's acidic after-effects masking other sounds.

She's fast, Rogu thought, then saw the dust behind him swirl as his predator rushed forward.  Rogu swung his blaster back and discharged it twice more. The corrosive green of his weapon flashed onto something just beyond his reach, but only for a moment.  The destructive green blast was swept to either side by a harsh blue light, like flames being fanned aside.  A hand, gloved in orange armor, darted out from the dust and struck Rogu's wrist.  Rogu felt and heard the bones break, his blaster flying out of his hand.  When it struck the ground it discharged its last shot, erasing most of the shuttle's left side in a green flash.

Disregarding the pain, Rogu wheeled backwards and turned to flee.  His predator may be fast, but she would not be able to track him amongst the craggy landscape to prevent him from escaping in his hidden ship.

The dust lit up with an icy blue flash and Rogu tripped, feeling his three-toed feet go cold.  He glanced down to see them frozen to the floor.

Guess I'm retiring early after all, Rogu thought, straining once against his icy shackles helplessly.

The dust began to settle, its sandy cloak falling from his captor.  She was garbed from head to toe in a suit of armor, its design completely alien to Rogu.  He didn't recognize the suit's material, its plates curved across her form as though it were organic.  Great spheres encased her shoulders, their plating an ochre color along with her arms and sides.  Her slender stomach and the inside of her legs were a golden sheen, while a wine red encompassed her wide angular chest and curved helmet.  Green glowed from her v-shaped visor and from the slits in her armor, lights that were previously subdued to hide her in the shadows.

Rogu's eyes, however, was for the long, sleek cannon that was her right forearm.  Parts of its black barrel had slid back and open, revealing the icy glow within.  As it was pointed levelly at Rogu's nose, he decided that further attempts at escape were unwise.

Rogu attempted to get to his feet, but the awkward position at which they were frozen only caused him to fall back down.  The bounty hunter jabbed her left fist at him.  An arc of white, crackling energy jumped from the green crystal on the back of her hand and encircled itself around Rogu's thin wrists, cuffing them together.  She pointed her weapon at his feet, the cannon's icy glow disappearing as its dislocated sections slid themselves back into place.  A yellow light flashed through the room as she fired a single bolt at the ground, breaking the ice.  She then yanked Rogu to his feet by the white energy that tethered him to her. His broken hand screamed under the strain, but Rogu had long opted out of the sensation of pain

"I suppose I should be grateful," Rogu said, deciding to add a patronizing tone to his voice, "I would be ashamed to be captured by anyone less than the legendary Samus Aran herself."

The armored figure replied by yanking Rogu in front of her by his tether.  He felt Samus' weapon press into the small of his back.

Cyborg, Rogu thought, what won't a hunter do get ahead?

"To the Federation, then," Rogu said with a smile, "My, they will be so pleased with what their pet brings to their door."


Metroid: Relic - Prologue
By Andrew Suzanne
All characters/places/events that are related to Metroid are copyrighted to Nintendo