A Trace of Curiosity

[Ridley]

A trio of insectoid wasps floated through the rocky canyons of La Tirania with a loud hum singing through the canyons in tune with their wing beats. The creatures were known as silithids - Overgrown insects made in the Qiraji’s image. The little bugs were flying through the thin canyon with a mission in mind, though the insects themselves likely had no idea. Silithid wasps were non-sentient insects, with only enough intelligence to follow basic orders.

Because of this, while the trio of flyers were following direct orders to head to a specific Qiraji outpost, with orders to kill anyone on the way - Which, as evidenced by the severed, bloody Spine one of the wasps carried, they had followed to the letter - they had no idea of why their mission was important. To a Silithid, this was unimportant. Orders were followed to the letter, with no question given to the higher ranks. All that mattered was obeying the hive.

Buzzing, the trio of wasps continued along their mission, wary of any giant vultures or the giant, helicopter-like plants known as Peahats that regularly stalked the region. The desert was a terrifying, dominating mistress, but the silithids had long since adapted to the region and it’s natural dangers - what could not be converted into nutrients for the hive could be easily avoided with minimal delay for the small flyers.

The lead wasp made a small chittering signal to the other two, a scroll bound in human skin wrapped tightly around it’s arm, to move to the other sides of the canyon as the area widened out, allowing the trio to cover every angle.

The buzzing intensified as the two split off, each taking a different side of the canyon. One of the bugs veered upwards and out of the canyon, checking on if there were any other interlopers in this area-

and a lance of red light blossomed through the bug’s thorax, shattering it. A thundering crack was soon accompanied by a high-pitched whine and the lovely smell of burning insect as the Silithid fell out of the sky. A trio of rough thuds echoed through the canyon as the little wasp bounced off the jagged rocks that made up the canyon, before falling into a distant river below.

The other two insects did an immediate about-face, scanning for their killer. The silithids weren’t smart enough to try to guess where the sniper fire was coming from, especially when neither of them were looking, and the silithids could see nothing.
With an irritated series of Chirps and hisses, the larger wasp flew out of the canyon in an anger-fuelled panic, searching for the creature that killed it’s fellow.

A second shot ran out, that same whine, that same crackle, and a hole beginning in the big wasp’s forehead and erupting through it’s abdomen erupted in a shower of melted guts and burnt carapace that fell to the valley floor below.

The third wasp, in blind panic, scrambled through the canyon in the opposite direction, hoping to avoid detection. The little creature buzzed for it’s finite life as it zoomed through the valley and hid behind every rock face and pillar the canyone had to offer, every natural safe zone found.
Finally, the silithid found itself on the other side of the canyon. It’s panic had abated by now - it had to have crossed almost a kilometer. It would never have to worry about whatever that was if it just kept going. Once more focused on it’s mission, the little wasp scaled from the cliff, and prepared for a low-to-the-ground finishing leg on it’s journay home, once again focusing on the directive it was given.

Suddenly, the silithid found itself seeing red, streaking through the air in front of it. The Silithid was curious about this, it’s terror growing as it realized it was still being hunted, and it’s hunter had only just missed.

At least, it had seemed like the hunter had just missed, until a stabbing pain through the little wasp’s wings sent it plummeting to the ground, spinning out and smacking into the dirt as the silithid lost all concentration from the maddening pain of severed blood vessel and fragile tissue.

Then, a fourth shot rang out, and this time the silithid’s last thoughts were a happy sigh that it was over, the only remaining sign of life in the wasp as it fell from the sky being a constantly twitching leg.

 

[Ridley]

One red eye peered across the night sands of Mesa Roja. The cold winds of the desert world slid across and in some places through the carapace, creating an almost inaudible whistle as the alien stepped forward.

The Kriken scout looked from side to side as he walked forward on his insectoid, heel-like legs, scoping out the area. The Dunes of Mesa Roja had been less than hospitable in his time working for Plainview.


The Veteran bounty hunter immediately understood the considerable pay, benefits, and opportunity to acquire rare technology that his benefactor had given him now that he’d had time to survey the desert: There was no world filled with more hostile life that Trace had ever worked on in his life. Not only that, many of the more dangerous organisms worked in coordinated groups that Trace unfortunately had to cross if he was to do his own damn job. Far from the neutral party that he preferred to be.

It almost made Trace miss the oubliette, until the memory of just how much pain a single charged blast from Chozo weaponry could inflict on his nervous system.

No howling desert, no volcanic plain of ash, no 60-foot tall invincible acid-spitting murderbeast, was remotely as daunting as the prospect of squaring up against Samus Aran.

Never again.

Maybe when he had an army at his back and a shot at a more stable ‘ultimate power’ than the stupid Alimbic’s fools gold…

Nah. That hadn’t worked well for the god-thing Gorea. Trace liked his continuing mortality.

The Kriken continued walking through the desert, looking around for the wasp body. He’d seen the little creatures through the lens of his Imperialist, and the zoom scope had happened to catch something interesting on it’s lens. A stack of parchment, bound to this particular little guy’s legs. If it happened to be orders or scouting information, his new boss would be mighty happy with the little Kriken. And if it was something else…

Well, the poor little bounty hunter was being left all alone in the desert sands of Mesa Roja. He was doing a thankless job all on his lonesome and without surveillance. He’d basically been asked to take a share of any enemy spoils, really. That’s how Trace saw it.

And as the Kriken justified that to himself, a glint of brown paper caught the corner of his eye as he kicked the dead bug over like a soccer ball.

What he saw excited him.

Trace undid an old, leather knot with one stab of his pincers, and then switched to a scooping motion as he pushed the papers aside. He was happy that (for once) the desert winds seemed to be unusually calm, but he made sure to place the imperialist on the main stack of parchment all the same as he perused the contents of the tapestry with only a little effort.

What he found elated him. Messages about hidden pathways, secret retreats, new troop movements, and more than one mention of different supply lines the bugs were using to prepare for some new assault. Trace’s large eye narrowed as he went through the list, looking at all the different bits of information. A lot of it was promising, and definitely promised a bonus on his paycheck. Still, most of it was very ordinary, as he flipped through and speared every page in turn, looking it over closely as he spun his head 180 degrees and looked the print up and down. The Kriken youth never could figure out how the other races could stand having their head affixed on such a sturdy neck, instead of a free-floating magnetically attached dome like those of his own race.

Then again, most races found gamma radiation harmful, while Kriken used them to transfer mental information. Most races were weird!

Trace continued reading through order after tedious order, and was just about to pocket this and bring it back to the base when his eye caught something interesting, and a crimson glow of excitement reverberated across his body in delight.

A Map. Instructions. Discussions of lost relics. A message to hurry and excavate in order to unlock the powers within!

And a large, three-sided pyramid, broken down into sections, with notes of a massive, underground complex within, along with plenty of notes on how to get there…

Trace let out a reverberating chuckle as he looked over the notes. He’d just hit jackpot! Only…

The instructions on the map were loose. And they warned of a high amount of danger. Most importantly…

The desolate region was harsh. Getting there required a trek through deadly environments. And Trace didn’t have the equipment to get there in one piece. But… he knew someone who actually did. a fellow insect with which Trace would have no problem pulling a proper relationship with.

A long, wheezing whistle escaped Trace’s carapace. He wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the Braggart, but it was time he went to see him.

“Big time” Brannigan. What a pain in the ass this treasure hunt was gonna be.

 

[Ridley]

At first, Trace had found himself at a loss for how to track down Big time. The old bug generally didn’t give out his comms information, and he knew the man was just as knocked out of the sky as Trace himself. He didn’t exactly have the ability to post a bounty worth his time and if you came to his vidfeed with anything that didn’t come with a bag of cash, he wasn’t giving it a second glance.

Then, Trace thought about it for a couple minutes, and realized the simple fact of the matter:

If he was off-duty - and Trace knew he was, Big time Brannigan was going to be anywhere he could find enough liquor to let him pretend he was better than Samus Aran.


With that realization in mind, Trace checked the nearby bars, searched high and low for the dingiest one, and finally found the Whispering Peat.

Personally, Trace didn’t think peats could whisper.

A routine check by the bouncer at the door for ID was quickly met with the Imperialist being jammed roughly into the man’s stomach, which thankfully worked wonders, as Trace’s identification would correctly place him at the youthful age of ten. Inside, after searching through a few different areas filled with mostly mammalian races drowning their sorrows, he followed some weirded out looks to Big Time Brannigan’s stool.

Brannigan was an imposing figure, two arms larger than some men’s torsos - though, as a species with only 2 limbs and a head, that was far less imposing than it could have been- and hardened blue carapace underneath a red metallic power-suit, the hunter stood out in a crowd. Beady yellow eyes stared into his mug of alcohol like he could will more to appear if he added enough hate to his gaze, and his mouth-proboscis flicked out to the disgusted stares of several of the patrons as he drank it down. Trace understood the disgust of the humans perfectly - Brannigan was taking the tiniest sips he’d ever seen! For a problem alcoholic, he’d thought he at least wouldn’t be a wuss about it!

“I thought I’d find you here, Big time.” Trace’s voice crackled through the bar, and the insectoid slowly turned to look at the Kriken.

“And so ya’ve found me small-time! Explain to me’s once why I should even listen to you! You wanna know how goods I am!? Cause I’ll fucking well prove it when I send your blasted head swirling like a swivel chair!”

This was going to be harder than Trace had thought.

“Listen! Do you know, I used to have a hundred percent efficiency rating? I was the king. No one was better than I was.”

“Other than Samus!” Trace added helpfully.

That was a mistake, Trace realized as the words left his audio-hole, and his shoulder was suddenly grabbed by one very strong arm as he was pulled down to Brannigan’s level.

“Don’chu! That little bitch... that double-crossing whore! That sly little minx tricked me into driving into an asteroid field! She didn’t even fight me face to face! That’s how scared she was of me!”

Trace, of course, remembered it differently. He’d hoped to catch samus in her gunship, in space, since the Chozo-designed federation starship was powerful but nothing compared to the power suit or skills of the woman behind it. After a badly-timed ambush, Brannigan had found himself neatly maneuvered into an asteroid field, crashed, and was forced at gun-point to surrender without even trying to fight the hunter personally.

But somehow, Trace was pretty sure that Big-time wasn’t really all that interested in hearing about what Trace remembered of the story. He tried a different tactic, instead.

“Okay, yeah! Samus did this and that! We’ve all been screwed over by Samus!” Trace replied, deciding to leave out the part where she also saved his life. It was a thought that still made the Kriken violently uncomfortable, and probably not a thought that should make it back to his race lest he be exiled in shame.

“But buddy, you need to think about this rationally! Samus isn’t here! You’re sitting here drinking for nothing!. You haven’t failed a mission since you been here, have ya, Big-time?”

The Bug-man’s golden-capped eyes glimmered with reflected light at the thought, and his antennae stood up a little straighter at the statement.

“That sounds like a hundred-percent rating to me! And you have a great opportunity, right before you, to get on a big score with me! One that might make you tops!” Trace continued, looking into Brannigan’s eyes - or, looking alternately between each one, at least.He really didn’t get why everyone else seemed to need two of the damn things.


“I dunno…” Brannigan slurred. “I was actually thinking to get in on that score with the halfling. Jamboy--”

Trace put up a clawed hand to his face, the appendage rubbing and making a scraping sound like cleaning ice off a windshield. It was the kriken way of telling someone to cease talking, and Brannigan knew enough to stop right away.

“Turns out, someone else might be after that score. Someone we want no part of.”

Brannigan glared as his antenna turned inward. “Well if I wants to be the top hunter-”

“Someone with wings, teeth, a purple exo-skeleton, and the willingness to eat anyone who gets in his way do we understand eachother?”

That turned them all the way out again and Brannigan released his grip finally.

There wasn’t a hunter in the galaxy who wanted any part of that if they could help it. Except for Samus Aran, anyways. And she was crazy!

“So tell me about this score, small-time!”

“First off, my name is Trace!” The Kriken snapped.

“Small-time Trace? I like it. Rolls off the tongue.” Brannigan continued with a pleasant tone.

“I--Whatever. I have a map. It goes into a bad area. I need your ship and your map-reading skills to get there.” Trace added.

“What kinda symbols are there?”

“Nerubian. Leporidian. I think even a bit of chozo. It’s an ancient find, and people other than us are looking for it this very second. Do we have a deal, or do you want to continue drinking yourself into a stupor?!” Trace asked, getting irritated. This was already more time than he wanted to spend in this stupid bar.

“Alright, alright, I get it!” Brannigan snapped. “Tell you what. We’ll go to my ship, look over these passages. Assemble some kinda plan while I wait to sober up enough to drive.”

Trace’s eye half-closed as he looked over the other hunter with curiosity.

“I have two strikes for drunk driving while piloting a spacecraft! I am not getting a third!”[/I]

 

[Ridley]

The inside of Big Time’s gunship was a lot more aesthetically pleasing than the outside of the ship, that was for sure. Then again, a gigantic ant-like head was a pretty stupid design for a gunship, so that probably explained a lot.

Big Time had the papers set across the center table in the ‘sitting’ area of the ship. It was a pretty cozy space for the two of them, but Trace was just thankful this wasn’t the time he had to sit with a crew of rockmen and found himself unable to stretch his legs.

More specifically, he couldn’t stretch his legs without putting himself in a rockman or two’s lap. They were very encouraging of the notion, which was very discouraging to Trace and led to the only time he ever quit on a bounty halfway.

Big Time pointed to a part of the map for a moment and muttered to himself for a little while, and Trace figured if he was muttering, despite the rudeness that it involved, he should probably let big time figure out what he was reading.

Then the big ant looked up at him with shocked eyes, and grinned. “Trace… do you know how big a find this is?”

Trace’s one eye would blink. “Lots of treasure. Enough for the twin emperors to--”

“Twin emperors nothing! Alright, better question! What languages can you speak?”

Trace rattled off a handful of insectoid, galactic common, english (which always struck trace as the real galactic common) kihunter, kriken, and a couple other languages popular among the space pirates.

Big time nodded as he brought a hand up to stroke his antennae in thought, and as Trace got to the end of the list actually seemed to be clacking his mandibles in approval.

“That’s a lot more than I expected, Small-time.”

“You keep saying that nickname and I guarantee you won’t find the maximum range of my imperialist before I get a headshot!”

“Geez, alright, alright. Christ, you’re the pushiest bounty hunter I’ve ever had to work with, and I’ve had to do security detail with Kanden!”

“What’s Christ?”

“No idea but the humans here use his name for swearing a lot.”

Trace slowly nodded to that. “Alright, get to your point.”

Brannigan put one spiked finger directly on the center of the page before continuing. “This map is really detailed. Very accurate. But it was made by people visiting, not by people who lived there. As a result, they inscribed language they probably thought was just wall artwork.”

“In other words, there’s one language on here they didn’t realize they were inscribing.”
Trace’s head spun into a corkscrew in surprise as Brannigan continued.
“I’m talking, of course, about the Chozo.

Brannigan’s mandibles clicked together in excitement. “Chozo.”

Trace’s eye half-closed in concentration.

The Chozo were a race of beings that were once common throughout the galaxy, but only existed as a scattered few dozen nowadays - if any still existed at all. They had once been a mighty, warlike race, and their technological advancements were still unmatched in that field, but they made the mistake of opting for a peaceful approach, throwing off their violent ways, as they continued to grow spiritually.

Between long lives, a low rate of birth, and a lack of the warlike pressures that forced their required reproduction rates so high, though, most people didn’t see many Chozo around these days: they really were a dying breed. But really, most modern day materialists could care less about the bird people themselves. No, for Trace, there were really only two things he really cared about when it came to the bird people:

The Chozo had extremely valuable gear in the form of advanced technology and beautiful sculptures ready for the taking, but…

The Chozo also had some of the most ridiculous and hard-to-predict types of traps and security littered around anything they made. He still had nightmares about the living statue that had nearly killed him just a few years earlier. So, that left the question…

“What do the writings they left say?”

BIg time Brannigan harrumphed. “It’s been a few years since I’ve read these, so my memory’s a little spotty. I only really learned Chozo to try and snipe some artifacts on a few of Samus Arans hunts, but it’s not possible. That guy knows Chozo better than anyone who’s not one of the fat old birds themselves.”

Trace waited for the “but”.

“But.” Brannigan would continue, tapping one finger on a place near the base of the pyramid. “It mentions artifacts. It mentions treasure. And most importantly, it mentions a morph ball tunnel right here.”

Trace’s head floated just a little higher at the statement. “A morph ball tunnel?”

“It looks like, if someone were to go in there, they can open a back entrance. It’ll only be open for about a minute or two… but it’ll allow people to sneak in the back entrance. Seems like it was used in times of trouble so that they could get reinforcements. Of course, now the dang ruins have been connected into something way bigger, but the principle is the same.”

Trace nodded in excitement. “Then that means, if I use the Triskelion technology the glorious Kriken empire bestowed upon me…”

Brannigan’s antennae raised as he nodded to the statement. “Then you can let me in the back, and we can go where no treasure hunter’s gone before! Pick up some treasure, report back to the authorities for a finder’s fee on the pyramid location afterwards, and earn some extra money for information on the Twin emperor’s activities! We get to kill three skree with one stone!”

Trace’s excitement mounted. “Then what are we waiting for? Get the ship moving already!”

Brannigan cocked his head. “...It’s been moving… did you not notice we’ve been on auto-pilot to the base this entire time?”

Trace looked up, blinked a few times, and then crossed his legs as he looked down at the space-ship’s floor. “...I just assumed the swaying was because I drank too much at the bar earlier.”

Brannigan opened up his mouth with an angry clacking as he went to admonish the younger hunter, but both were interrupted by a shake that went through the gunship.

“The hell was that!” Brannigan swore.

The two were quick to look out the window, and at first, all they saw was… sand. A full storm that Big Time’s gunship, the good times roll, should’ve been able to handle easily.

Then, before Brannigan even had time to check the sensors, the creature slammed into the front of the gunship with a loud thump. Trace recognized the features - giant horns, big teeth, in-grown face like a pit-bull, giant wings, tail like a club, and armor all over.

The locals had called it Diablos, but it wasn’t supposed to be able to fly very high for very long. Trace would have to assume they were lucky enough to be special.

“Ship’s going into may-day mode.” Brannigan grunted. “We need to do something before it comes up for ramming speed. I’ll grab my cannon-”

“No.”

Brannigan turned to scowl, but the youth had already shouldered his rifle. “Open up the top. Assassination is my specialty. Only you can fly the ship. Let me worry about the monster.”

Big time’s antennae turned inward. “We have weapons all over the gunship-”

“The Diablos is well-armoured. It can shrug off those hits. This time, we’ll need precision. And precision is exactly what I excel at.” Trace replied.

Brannigan raised a clawed finger to his mandible. “..Alright then. You wanna try and be a hero? Get up there and try it. But if you don’t come back, I’m taking your share!”

Trace’s long, raspy laugh cut through the gunship interior. “All I have to do is hit! And I never miss!”