Security Breaches and Countermeasures

Getting past the security ships patrolling the sector of space around the planet turned out to be the tough part. Fortunately her knowledge of the Federation's standard patrol patterns, as well as the cloaking device she paid quite a hefty sum for managed to get her past them and on a landing approach on the planet beyond. Of course she would have preferred to not spend so much of her savings on such a sketchy piece of equipment, one she hoped that she wouldn't need to use once her name was cleared, but as things currently stand there's not many places that would take her credits with her currently being Public Enemy Number 1 within the Federation.

Once she had landed and was confident that the base's scanners hadn't picked up on her approach, Samus activated her visor scanner and located the fastest yet least patrolled path to the base. Once she'd arrived she saw a building that looked far too small to be the important Federation base that she had traveled all this way to get to, but Samus wasn't fooled by such appearances. For starters, her visor detected that the base actually expands underground into a vast, labyrinthine complex. She didn't even need her visor to inform her of this place's importance, however, due to the ridiculous number of Federation military personnel stationed around the building's only entrance. Getting past them would be tricky, however. Given the element of surprise she might be able to stun them all before they could put up a fight, but there was still a good chance that they might get off an alarm, which would make her being able to get the information she needed before getting overwhelmed increasingly unlikely.

As she was mulling over the possibilities Samus's visor picked up on something and she smiled. Around the corner from the main entrance was a small ventilation exhaust port that was just large enough for her to fit through in her morph ball form. Even better was that it didn't appear to be ray shielded or have impassible laser grids in its entrance or beyond: just a flimsy grate that a low-yield morph ball bomb could make short work of. Of course to provide adequate ventilation to a complex this size it couldn't have too much to bar the passage without stifling or suffocating those who worked inside, but on this one instance Samus was glad that the Federation didn't take her suggestions on how they could improve their security too seriously.

Using the nearby foliage to hide the approach, the morph ball silently rolled to the grate. With a bomb blast to pop up to optimal height to place a second one on the grate itself, the only barrier to entry was quickly and (due to the bomb's intensity being lowered to the lowest possible yieldage) almost silently dispatched. Samus quickly realized that the ventilation must have had some security dedicated to it, however, when a loud alarm shattered the peaceful jungle night. Almost immediately one of the guards ran around the corner yelling, "Halt, intruder! Stay where you are!" Without waiting for a response, the trooper fired something from his rifle which the morph ball dodged. When the projectile struck the wall above the ventilation outlet, however, it latched on and projected an energy barrier over the opening. Its means of entry into the building blocked, the morph ball took off at high speed. the guard and most of his company following right behind.

Samus, who was watching the spectacle from the foliage near the entrance, smiled quietly to herself. It would seem that the decoy Adam had suggested was working well. When Adam suggested that she use the Varia suit's spare parts, which were no longer compatible with it literally to her biology being different from what it was when this suit was designed for her by her adoptive Chozo guardians, to create a morph ball drone that could be remote-piloted by the etecoons remaining on the ship, Samus initially scoffed at the idea. Having no better idea that wouldn't involve maiming or slaughtering Federation soldiers that were just doing their jobs, however, she went along with Adam's plan. The payoff seemed to be worth it, though, as there was only a couple of soldiers let behind to guard the entrance, and she could easily stun them both before they would be able to alert the others.

Samus refrained from doing so, however. The fact that the decoy worked so well and drew off so many of the guards had her thinking that this could possibly be a trap. Even if it weren't, however, there still was a good chance that the elevator within could be monitored by whoever manned the security station within the base itself, and wherever the elevator stopped she could find herself facing an armed ambush, which would defeat the purpose of the amusing yet effective decoy. So instead she went with her original intention, sneaking close enough to use her grapple beam to short out the forcefield projector before rolling up in morph ball form and into the vent.


Her infiltration into the lower levels of the base went rather smoothly, with Samus not encountering anything more troublesome in the air ducts than a couple of pest control laser gates that were easily circumnavigated. This only deepened Samus's unease, however. The fact that the grate was alarmed and the guards' response to it told her that they had been alerted to expect her coming. That made the lack of additional security countermeasures here geared towards her rather worrisome. When she exited the ventilation and entered a corridor proper and still found the security here lacking Samus' unease grew. the security cameras were sparse and childishly easy to dodge. As for the guards, there practically was none here. Samus used her x-ray visor to be sure, but unlike the floors above which were crawling with them, she only found one guard by the room she was heading to with a couple more in the break room on the other side of this floor. What's more was that the alarm that was raised by her drone popping off the ventilation's grate cover was silenced shortly after she reached this floor. Either they were convinced that they had chased her off, or else they were about to draw the unseen net around her, and Samus didn't believe that they were THAT big of fools.

When Samus came within range of the guard and the room she drew her Paralyzer, thanking her foresight that she had it upgraded to be able to fire stunning shots without charging (of course that voided its warranty, but that was of little concern to her right now.) Holding the Paralyzer in her free hand while thinking to herself that in a future revision to her suit she'd make it so that she can "put away" her arm cannon so she could use her dominant hand for things like this without having to de-armor entirely, Samus came around the corner and took aim at the guard, who happened to look her direction at that moment and said in a quizzical voice, "Samus?"

Samus took a double take as she heard the voice, her finger hovering over the trigger. Her hesitation wasn't because this voice was familiar (even though it was), but rather because Samus was surprised to see her again here of all places. "Medjed?" Samus asked in confusion, "What are you doing here?"

"That should be my line!" Medjed said as she removed her visored helmet and smiled, "I'm not the one who threw away her uniform to become a lone wolf bounty hunter. Well, not yet anyway."


Medjed wasn't really her name, it was just the surname she went by when first they met, and it was the nickname Samus still called her by long after she resigned from the Federation military (much like how the original Adam would call Samus "Lady".) Back in those days Samus discontentment with the rules and restrictions she had to deal with in the Federation's service was approaching her boiling point. To teach her the value of working within their system, and to avoid rubbing her the wrong way by forcing her to constantly operate under a chain of command, Federation officials authorized her commander Adam to send Samus on solo missions with clear-cut objectives. Of course these days she was certain that they just wanted more time to study the powersuit her Chozo guardians had gifted her, but back in those days Samus was grateful for the freedom to do things her way as limited as it was.

One of those missions saw her tasked with tracking down someone who was hacking into secure Federation servers and bringing them in. Of course this proved to be quite the challenge as this hacker was no amateur, covering their tracks by bouncing the signal off several servers across a wide sector, but Samus was a skilled hunter by this point as well. Once she had them cornered, Samus was shocked to find the dangerous hacker was little more than a young woman just barely into her teens. Of course she tried to use her age as proof of her innocence, but the specialized equipment that was where Samus found her was proof enough that this girl was the Medjed hacker.

What did surprise Samus was how similar Medjed's background was to her own once she'd looked it up. Like Samus, Medjed had been orphaned at a very young age. However, while Samus had the good fortune to be taken in by the Chozo until the day she signed up with the Federation military, Medjed instead had bounced from relative to uncaring relative who seemed to want nothing to do with her. That's part of why, after Samus brought Medjed in and the tribunal wanted to throw the book at her, Samus argued that they should put her talents to use for them instead. The tribunal opted for a compromise, offering Medjed the opportunity to serve in the Federation military for 10 years as opposed to going to a youth correctional facility for 5 years followed by prison for an additional 25 years, a deal which Medjed accepted. Samus was glad of that, for it could be the start of a better life for her. When she saw the conditions Medjed's uncle was forcing her to live in, Samus had to make a herculean effort to not put a point blank charged Paralyzer shot through the bastard's eye, though she didn't make as much of an effort to not knock him on his ass as she was escorting Medjed to her ship.

Since then Medjed has looked upon Samus as a mentor/big sister role model, and Samus did her best to guide her along the right path. Even when Samus reached her breaking point 3 years later and resigned from the military Medjed tried to quit along with her, but Samus Samus convinced her to stay with them as doing otherwise would be considered a violation of the brokered deal and would see Medjed being sent to prison for the remainder of the original sentence. Medjed only agreed so long as Samus would accept her as a partner once her tour of service was over, a prospect Samus didn't find all that objectionable.


Back in the present Samus found herself telling Medjed, "I just came by to get some information for a case I'm working on, then I'll be heading out again.

"Then by all means let's go!" Medjed said with a smile as she turned back to the server room she had been guarding. Before she could reach the lock panel, however, Samus reached out to stop her as she said, "No, Medjed, I can't let you risk everything you've been working towards for so long by getting involved."

"Oh, please! It's not like anyone's gonna find out," Medjed said as she looked over her shoulder at her, rolling her eyes, "I mean, who do you think silenced those annoying alarms earlier and turned off the security cameras on this floor?"

Samus was shocked by what she'd heard, so she looked back at the camera she'd dodged the field of vision of. Sure enough, while it was still scanning back and forth, the red light that indicated it was actively recording was turned off. "Right now they're looking at a looped footage of the same boring corridor, so I figure that we've got until the next shift change in less than ten minutes before I have to turn them back on again."

Samus didn't know whether she should be reproachful of Medjed's defiance of her duties or impressed by her resourcefulness considering she didn't see any terminals around Medjed could have used. "That was a terrible risk you took," Samus told her instead, "Those alarms and cameras serve an important purpose, you know."

"The way I see it there are a handful of individuals who could have come in the way you did, and as far as we know your adoptive family are all extinct, which just leaves you," Medjed said with a cocky smile, "Now are you going to let me help you get what you came here for before they manage to find out that you made it inside, or do you want to continue standing there arguing with me until we both get caught and thrown in the brig?" Samus had to admit that Medjed had a point, and even if she had gotten rusty from malpractice chances were that Medjed still stood a better chance of locating the information she was after before she wound up caught, so Samus nodded her go-ahead.

Medjed approached the door and, without coming in contact with it or the lock pad next to it, opened the door and led Samus through it as she sat before a computer console. "You can relax for a sec, as this room has no cameras in it. Probably wanted to make it easier to get rid of any damning evidence when need be by making sure that there's no video evidence as well," Medjed explained as her hands flew over the visual interface, "I guess you're looking for information from the SR388 research station from prior to its destruction?" As Samus nodded yes, Medjed continued, "You might look for a ventilation duct or something to pop off while I'm busy here, give them a believable explanation as to how you got in here without outside help." Samus nodded again at the instruction and went about her search.

After a minute and change Samus found a vent grate directly behind the computer console. The space back there was quite narrow, much too much so for even a child much less a grown woman like herself to fit, but by riding the wall and the sloped surface of the console's back in m]Morph Ball form she was able to maneuver herself directly above it where she could use the grapple beam to cleanly pull off the grate. Then, by using the Spider Ball's grip she was able to squeeze into the vent and pull the crate back into place before using a Morph Ball Bomb to blow it back off again. using a second bomb to pop herself back out of the vent where she could climb back out and into the room proper.

"Okay, well I have bad news and good news, Samus," Medjed announced as Samus got back to where she was working, "Bad news is that the data from the SR388 research station was purged from these systems, like all of it! The good news is that I found where they transmitted it to. It's a planet whose solar system has been erased from Federation records, which if you ask me takes some serious clout to pull off. Apparently it was some advanced Chozo outpost, and the Federation was until recently researching the technology left behind there."

"The Federation found a lost Chozo outpost and didn't tell me about it?" Samus groused aloud, "I wish that I could say that surprises me, but unfortunately that seems to be par for the course for those in charge these days."

"They must have been counting on the site's secrecy to keep you from finding it and the stuff they're hiding there, because there's no way they could secure it as well as this place," Medjed explained as she pulled up all the pertinent information, "Fortunately they left the light-jump coordinates in here. So you could just go there and get what you need to clear your name."

As much as hearing someone support her and state openly that they believed she didn't do what she was being accused of, something about this whole deal didn't sit ringht with Samus. "This doesn't make sense," Samus said almost to herself, "Why would they do that?"

"Maybe they just got careless?" Medjed guessed, "Unless you're a tech expert it's impossible to completely delete everything as some little bits of data remain behind."

"That's not what I meant," Samus clarified, "I came here because I was alerted to the recently high level of security around this place, because I figured that they increased security here because they were trying to protect something here. Why would they have this place guarded to the nines if they already transferred the sensitive data elsewhere?"

"Misdirection, maybe?" Medjed suggested, "Pile enough troops on a rock to make you think something's important there, then when you go to investigate they use that manpower to grab you...?"

"I suppose that's possible, but I would have thought they would use some more specialized troops in that case. Those scrubs up top couldn't catch a cold," Samus mused, then when she saw how pale Medjed had gotten she asked in concern, "Medjed, what's wrong?"

"You know how I said that it was good news that we know where that data was sent? I take it back, there's nothing but bad news here," Medjed said in a tone so soft she might have missed it had her powersuit not amplified it to audible levels, "You shouldn't go there now, possibly ever for that matter. Just go to ground for a year and a half, then I can ditch this uniform and find you and together we can find another way..."

"Medjed?" Samus asked her again, feeling uneasy about how scared Medjed was looking. She didn't act that anxious back when it was looking like she was going to spend the most of her prime in jail.

"Sorry about that," Medjed apologized as she wiped the cold sweat from her brow, "It's just that the Chozo site they sent the station's data to? It turns out that they have E.M.M.I. handling the security there."

"Emmy? Who's that?"

"E.M.M.I., not Emmy," Medjed corrected her with a quiver in her voice, "It's supposed to be the prototype of the newest addition to the Federation's peacekeeping and security arsenal, though it would be more accurate to call it their lethal, relentless mechanical hunter."

"You mean it's some sort of mechanical guard dog?" Samus asked her.

"No! It's not 'some sort of mechanical guard dog'!" Medjed retorted a little too loudly, then she cleared her throat and brought up an animated wireframe as she said more calmly, "Sorry, it's just that the armor rating of these things is off the charts. Even the most formidable of our battle cruisers don't have armor that strong, there's nothing in your arsenal that can make a scratch on them. If that wasn't enough these things are fast, nimble, can scale practically any surface, and their strength? At your best you wouldn't last long against them, but with your armor in its current state they'd rip you to shreds instantly! Even if Ridley or Kraid were still around E.M.M.I. would send them fleeing to the other end of the galaxy if it didn't kill them first!"

"This E.M.M.I. is that dangerous?" Samus asked as she looked on the image on Medjed's screen, feeling a chill in her heart that she hadn't felt since the first or the last time she'd faced Ridley.

"You have no idea," Medjed told her, "I once came across a video file of these things in a mock situation while I was trying to find evidence of the truth of my mother's death. Afterwards I had nightmares for 3 weeks."

"I see, but still..." Samus started to say, then she heard a soft beeping coming from something on Medjed's gauntlet, and after a quick glance at it Medjed put her helmet back on and said, "Time's up, we gotta go." Medjed then made another rapid series of inputs on the visual interface, resetting the console's display and history to what it was prior to their entry, then she held her hands over her head as Samus pulled out her modded Paralyzer and escorted Medjed back out of the room and into the view of the cameras which Medjed had restored to normal operation. As Samus raised the weapon to stun Medjed and make her appear to be an unwilling hostage Medjed said in a voice low enough that it wouldn't carry to the camera's nearby, "You're still going to go, aren't you?"

"Yes," Samus answered her just as softly, "It's not just about clearing my name, it's also about bringing those responsible for the lives lost to justice."

"Then at least promise me this," Medjed pleaded with her, "If you come across any of those E.M.M.I. units there, you don't try to fight them, don't go looking for a weakness to exploit: you just run! Run, hide, and pray that they don't find and catch you!"

"I promise," Samus breathed, then when she saw Medjed smile slightly she squeezed the Paralyzer's trigger, cringing slightly as her friend crumpled to the floor. Samus wanted to check to make sure that Medjed was alright, that her weapon's setting wasn't too high, but when she heard the sounds of boots charging across the floor she knew that she wouldn't be afforded the chance. Trusting that the other soldiers stationed here would get Medjed any medical treatment she needed, if any, Samus raced back to the ventilation she entered from to make her way back outside, Medjed's haunting plea echoing in her head and feeding her anxiety of what she may yet have to face on her quest for justice for herself and the fallen.

Coming up next...DREAD