Hunter's Labor 2 (Patreon)

Well… at least the place wasn’t on fire.

Samus found what had become of The Nostradamus’ lone shuttle. Like The Nostradamus itself, the shuttle was of exceptionally odd make, too boxy and with too many hard edges compared to the usual slopes and rounded surfaces of Federation starships. It was as if it had been designed for some other purpose, like a terrain vehicle that had simply been upscaled, with a pair of thrusters strapped on its back.

One of which now lay against the wall of the shuttle bay, torn free from the shuttle and causing the body to fall lopsided onto its starboard side.

Several large indents marked the shuttle near the torn-open doors, with a crimson-brown trail of what could only be dried blood stretching away from the opening, left behind by the poor bastard who must have tried hiding inside.

A minor vibration trembled the chub throughout Samus’ left arm before the hunter’s wristwatch glowed purple and Eva announced, “Scan complete. No nearby signs of life have been detected.”

“Gonna disagree with you there…” Samus replied softly, holding her blaster in a resting position. She’d withdrawn it before even descending the ramp from her gunship, not intending to give whatever had attacked the shuttle a free shot.

It would have a harder time with her gunship than the shuttle, with its rounded edges being much harder to grip than the easily identifiable joints of the smaller ship’s thrusters. A quiet, more cynical part of Samus’ mind whispered that maybe the same would apply to herself.

The first real benefit to having an eighty-inch waist…

Even with her lifetime of experience having control, Samus was aware of the small mental slips. She felt unfocused, ill-prepared for the mission, but knew she had little choice in the matter.

Before she’d left the gunship, she’d used her coms to broadcast their location along with the distress signal using her own long-range transmitters, which would reach much further than The Nostradamus’ emergency backups.

But there was a lot of empty space between here and the nearest Federation station.

Five hours at light speed for the message to arrive, maybe an hour to prep, and then another three before a rescue ship could arrive. Nearly half a day, and Kelig had already been drifting for at least a week.

She needed to get moving.

Samus switched the pistol to her left hand, not immediately concerned thanks to Eva’s scan, and tried to adjust the chord of the satchel that she wore over her shoulder with the strap uncomfortably pinching between her breasts.

The orange-gold bag was as close to a purse as Samus was willing to get, and she’d marked the satchel with a stylized S after a similar one had been stolen a few years back. Too busy stuffing her face to notice when it, and her gym clothes, had been lifted right out from under her, leaving her to waddle back to her ship in a two-piece swimsuit with the brand name ‘Juicy’ written across the fatty bottoms.

That was back when Samus was only just fat. She’d since doubled in size. Though, she still had the swimsuit.

The satchel contained two canteens of purified water alongside a first aid kit with a scalpel, pocketknife, some painkillers, and a tube of bio-gel to clot open wounds. It also held a splint which she could use to help set any broken bones, a pair of gloves that were too clumsy to wear normally but which would be needed if she had to make physical contact with any survivors, a large wallet containing her bounty hunting license as well as several other identifiers, and lastly, a spare pair of slippers because her boots weren’t comfortable, and she wasn’t about to walk around someone else’s ship shoeless.

Although the blood made her wonder why she had even bothered with that.

It wasn’t a lot, but even such meager supplies were more than what Samus was used to. She usually only had to prepare for herself.

That’s not true. She usually didn’t have to prepare anything at all, considering her daily routine now carried her all of sixty feet from her bed, with the odd station trip to refuel, restock, and stop by the Marshall’s office to look over a bounty sheet that was smaller than her underwear before sighing and accepting her stipend from increasingly bewildered secretaries.

She couldn’t tell if she was supposed to loosen or tighten the strap, so instead left it as it was, pinched between her boobs and making the tight fabric feel even tighter, squishing her shoulders and forearms and her far-too-fat chest.

Behind her, Samus heard the ramp of her gunship lift back up to the hull, closing with a near-silent but very poignant *click.*

It made her wandering mind all the more irritating, and she allowed herself a quiet avian hiss of frustration before switching the pistol back to her right and moving towards the destroyed shuttle against the rear wall.

Samus scanned the damage. No claw marks, no noticeable bites, just the impact craters and the wrenched apart thruster. It made her picture blunt limbs, fists like boulders, or maybe a hardened skull… but there was just too much blood.

It had saved its claws or its fangs for the person inside, and when Samus reached the largest stain, from where the body must have impacted the deck after being torn out of the cabin, she noticed several bright marks in the dried pool where fingers had scrambled to try and hold onto the flooring.

They’d been alive when the creature pulled them away.

Her touch flexed on the trigger guard of her pistol, self-consciously making sure that the weapon still fit in her fat sausage fingers before a simple thought had her adjusting the intensity up several degrees.

Then, with another glance at the shuttle, she turned it up several degrees more, past the dangerous rating and up to its maximum output.

She followed the trail, walking alongside to where it curved around the back of the shuttle, and as she did, a very strange sensation began to come over Samus Aran.

The lights cast the bay in the same blue-gray glow that was familiar to almost every spaceport, but the scene should have unnerved her. The gore, the small scratch marks leading away from the shuttle. She could almost see the figure’s panic as the beast pulled them through the puddle of their own gushing blood.

It should have chilled her spine, or at least filled her stomach with a hollowing dread.

Instead, Samus felt silence.

The ever-present aches became softened pangs, the strain on her muscles melting into pure absence. It would have been a void of sensation, but instead her awareness was forced to all of the tactile signals she’d gained since her last real mission.

Every pound, every inch, every fold of fat and pinch of fabric, Samus’ felt every rippling jiggle from her immense stomach, every vibration that wobbled from her waddling thighs, and was even cognizant of how the air changed, disturbed by the dangerous swing from her immense bottom.

It was like walking into a strong headwind, slow and heavy, with every nerve conscious of how big she’d become. How the threads of her shorts strained to contain her, how the heft of her breasts were gripped by her top with the strap of the satchel curved down her center. The holster for her pistol pinched around the fat of her knee, the weight in her cankles caused her footfall to stomp, and she could feel her long length of hair tickling the folds on her back.

But, most of all, Samus’ body was informed by the wind. The saunter of her waddle, the small gait of her hefty-girl’s stride. It was cold on the ship, far too cold for Samus’ liking, and the chill of the air made her aware that her bombshell-shaped body was boiling.

Friction from fabric, friction from folds, but these were little compared to the inferno that her body required to keep up the motion. Glucose, carbs, the digestion of calories, her obesity had turned Samus into a six-hundred-pound furnace of pale, buttery blubber, burning with effort just to make the very next step.

She almost felt thankful that her gut couldn’t fit into her shorts, but was just a bit miffed that the garment couldn’t even really fit over her ass. Her thighs were too thick, her hips too soft, her breasts too big, her biceps too hammy, her chins too chubby, her belly too fat, and worst of all, Samus was aware of how hungry she really was.

A hole had formed inside of the stomach of Samus Aran. Ice cream, chocolates, cream pies, and sweets, all atop of a pile of so many meats, yet still she could feel the oncoming rumble before her belly flexed and purred, and the blonde released a sad breath.

If she’d only just had the good sense to stay in her bed.

She felt her wrist vibrate once more before Eva spoke up, “Miss Aran?”

“Go ahead.”

“I have detected an AI Port up ahead. Perhaps you will be able to register me with the ship’s system, as you indicated previously?”

Samus nodded, if only to herself, coming around the back of the destroyed shuttle. “Alright, Eva, let’s hope that-”

She moved without thinking, her finger snapping to the trigger of her blaster as the space ten feet away sizzled and, suddenly, something popped into existence.

A girl no taller than the blonde’s hip appeared out of absolutely nowhere, looking straight at Samus and excitedly waving. “‘Allo, ‘Oomie!” it called.

Samus kept her finger on the trigger, watching the girl, the creature, as it came down from a hopping greeting to give her a smile that was almost as wide as she was tall.

It wasn’t human, whatever it was. Two legs, two arms, wearing clothing on its body and a long sweeping mane of black hair that came all the way down to its ankles, Samus’ eyes quickly processed dozens of details, several of which were in complete conflict.

Her first instinct had been correct. It was female, but it was as if someone had taken a fully grown woman, shrank her body, but not her head! A width in the creature’s hips showed clear maturity, as well as a chubby nature that was squeezed by her two-piece outfit, further annunciated by the sight her relatively large breasts pinched by the top into a deep and fat cleavage.

Even so, there was a mischievous and coy look to the creature, reminding Samus of the Elfen race, but only then did she realize that the creature was green!

Its skin was the soft color of a shamrock, with big pointy ears from which several earrings hung with glimmering jewelry. Large hoop earrings made an audible jingle as the girl bounced again, “Come on, ya grotz! I’ve gotta scan ya into me systoom!”

Samus blinked at her, saying nothing, but slowly turned, looking to her left and to her right before lifting the pistol to point upwards.

“Come on, ya grotz!” the girl repeated in the exact same tone and repeating the exact same motion, “I’ve gotta scan ya into me systoom!”

Samus’ eyes lifted behind the creature to a small black orb that hung on the wall near a square divot that cut into the bulkhead, and a sinking feeling quickly began to form inside of her very large stomach.

“Oh, no…” Samus groaned, stepping forward.

“‘Ere ya iz!” the tiny creature chirped as Samus passed an identifiable line on the deck. Then the creature’s eyes went up, up, up, and finally looked up into Samus’ eyes. “‘Oly, Gork. You’z a big slugga, eh?”

Another long blink passed before Samus lifted her watch.

“Eva, what the hell am I looking at?”

“Oi! Ai’z talkin’ o’ya, ya dusta!”

Samus’ watch glowed purple. “You are looking at a holographic projection, Miss Aran.”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “A projection of what, Eva?”

“Wotyoua fink I iz?” the projection tapped a thumb to her chest. “Imma Gobbo! ‘N ur a ‘Oomie, aintcha?”

Samus recognized one of those words, turning from the projection to the square divot that was looking more and more like a very tiny door, and uncomfortably aware that it maybereached up to the bottom of her ribs.

“The projection seems to depict a female Gobelinus Koboloid,” Eva spoke, “also known as-”

“It’s a Gobbo,” Samus closed her eyes, abruptly aware of the returned ache in her knees and feeling her limbs shudder briefly as they realized how much worse things were about to get. “This is a Gobbo ship.”

“Yer zoggin’ rif we iz!” the Gobbo giggled, a surprisingly bright sound from a voice that was too gruff and too chubby for a girl so small. She put her hands on her hips, wearing her wide grin as she looked over Samus’ body with unrestrained delight. “And we’z been waitin’ fur a big slugga ‘ike you, Boss!”

******************************************************************************

The Gobbo race doesn’t exist.

Technically.

At least, as far as much of the Federation is concerned. In the grand scheme of intergalactic society, a Gobbo mattered about as much as an Etecoon, and you were just as likely to run into one in most reaches of the galaxy.

But Etecoons didn’t pilot starships.

Most Gobbos didn’t either, but they were certainly capable, even though they weren’t supposed to. Clearly, nobody had bothered telling them that. Though, to be fair, if they did tell them, the Gobbo would just as likely forget the message instantaneously as it would be to tell the deliverer to go ‘Krump ur’elf.’ whatever that meant.

These strict restrictions were due to the fact that Gobbos had, again technically, never achieved interstellar travel. Never has a Gobbo produced, manufactured, and utilized an engine that was capable of achieving warp, and as such, Federation law dictated that the race shouldn’t ever be contacted, nor associated with, and that they should be left alone on their tiny green planet.

Unfortunately for the Federation, the same rules had once applied to the Elfen, who had only achieved warp travel after already making contact with the Gobbo home planet.

The Federation had clearly not expected multiple intelligent species to come from a single solar system, and had certainly not anticipated for one of them to be brilliant space travelers while the others…

“Fur da luv ov me skrappa,” the creature rolled her head on her neck. Then she stood straight, tapping her temple with a pair of claw-like fingers. ““Leematid… intellagance!”

Samus frowned, watching as the purple sphere that Eva manifested tried to communicate with the Gobbo AI, not knowing if it was referring to Eva, or more likely, itself.

Eva’s sphere swirled to face Samus, who stood with a small black wire attaching her watch to the AI Port that was next to what, unfortunately, was indeed a waist-high door.

“I believe that the Gobbo’s network is fractured,” Eva reported. “Rather than having one AI, this ship seems to have several, which have been made from brain scans of multiple Gobbos like Tessa, here.”

“Tessa?” Samus asked. “Is that its name?”

“Zakly!! Spo’on, Boss!” the Gobbo beamed. “Aiz a docker, ya see?” Tessa puffed out her chest before tapping herself, causing a green jiggle to wobble through her soft figure. “Ain’t go’ no ackces too none outsida ‘ere, ey?”

Samus looked from the AI back to Eva. “What’s she saying?”

“O fur Gork’s shake…”

“I believe she’s saying we can’t access the ship’s primary systems from here, Miss Aran.”

The blonde woman closed her eyes, lifting her touch to rub at them in a vain attempt to stall the oncoming headache. She’d met one Gobbo in all her years of travel, and she was pretty sure he was the bastard who had stolen her gym bag. She barely remembered his features anymore, having been far more interested in her large dinner and her even larger dessert, only recalling that he had a far sharper look to his structure than this girl, with pointier ears and an elongated chin.

This one looked like an Elfen pole dancer that’s spent most of her life inside a jar, with a stunted vertical height not factoring for a considerable width.

Glass starships, Samus…

She did remember one other thing. The creature had spoken a lot like Tessa did, but she’d assumed that it had been because it was near blackout drunk. It had to be given how it tried to make a pass at her, despite only coming up to Samus’ knee.

A memory played out in Samus’ mind. She remembered the voice of the man telling the Gobbo to get lost, then remembered his joke when she told him she didn’t need his help.

‘I know you didn’t. I was helping him. Thought you might shoot the poor guy.’

Samus missed her plush doll.

The Gobbo, Tessa, was talking more with Eva in its indecipherable tongue.

Multiple AI in a single starship. It was a big ship, sure, but that shouldn’t matter to a scanned AI.

Commercial AI, like Eva, were assembled purely from code. It had minimal learning capabilities, moreso serving as a general tool. Hardly more intelligent than Samus’ microwave, and not nearly as helpful when the blonde was feeling moody, like she was now.

Whereas brain scanned AI were programs that helped to run settlements, space stations, or Military starships. They were made only from the minds of great leaders, or scientists, or people like…

Samus shook her head, leaning back against the wall and listened as the AI conversed, mind lethargically returning on her untiring hunger.

She was surprised when the little green girl threw up her hands in a way that was all too ‘alive’ for Samus’ comfort, hobbling through Eva’s sphere and coming to stop only a few inches from the blonde’s stomach. She looked up towards Samus, her large green eyes blinking innocently, though the blush she wore as those same eyes flicked to Samus’ exposed stomach was anything but.

“I’z been a roight big ruk over ‘ere, Boss. Buncha rubbish wif alla dem slugga boiz getten ‘emselves krumped by da Morker. Thouht we wuz gonna slam intada roks ‘fore youz come wompin’ along.”

Samus watched the creature before shaking her head and looking past her to Eva.

“Tessa describes a big fight between a group she calls ‘slugga boys’ and an entity she refers to as the ‘Morker.’ I’ve been unable to discern what this ‘Morker’ is, but I believe the ‘slugga boys’ is referring to the crew.”

Tessa’s fanged smile brightened, and she flashed Eva’s sphere two thumbs up before turning back to Samus.

“Iz all a bit o’ a zoggin’ storm, innit?” she asked. “But now ur ‘ere and, zoggin’ ‘ell if you ain’t one o’ the biggest blastas Iz ever seen.”

Samus squinted at the creature, turning to look at her holstered weapon before realizing that Tessa was NOT referring to her blaster, and her expression shifted to a very sour frown.

“Miss Aran?”

Both the big blonde and the tiny Gobbo turned to face Eva.

“I believe I’ve found something of note.”

Samus felt her watch rumble and lifted it to see Eva’s purple glow fade into an empty black before a large yellow dot appeared towards the bottom. Gray lines began to spread outward like vines until they constructed a long scrolling parallel, and The Nostradamus began taking shape.

“I’ve been able to construct a map of The Nostradamus’ bottom deck,” Eva reported. “Records indicate four other AI Ports located in Containment, Engineering, Security, and Administration.”

Samus felt herself rise from her lean, more out of surprise than any excitement. Before she could speak up, Eva continued.

“I’ve also managed to locate a vitals station down here, towards the front of the ship near one of several Medical areas.” Samus’ watch traced a line from the large yellow dot towards the bow of the ship. “If you are able to access the station, you may be able to determine Kelig’s condition.”

A fresh breath of air came into Samus’ lungs. She squinted at the sphere, looking from it down to her watch. “When did you get so smart…?” she asked.

She didn’t expect a reply, which made a shock hit her system when Eva responded, “I believe paring with the Gobbo’s system may have heightened my capabilities, Miss Aran.”

Tessa beamed, pounding her chest. “Limitedless dakka ov da Gobbo intellagance!”

“Indeed,” Eva replied, and Samus thought she saw a hint of green enter into the purple.

The small gal turned back to Samus, throwing her arms wide and leaning forward, as if to give Samus a hug. The bounty hunter had only a second to react, immediately dismissing the projection as just a projection, not realizing that her body stood directly between the projector and the small green AI.

The Gobbo girl smacked into Samus’ stomach. That alone was enough to make Samus practically leap out of her skin, but the sensation of electricity that cascaded throughout her body made the blonde hair on her neck stand straight up, and Samus Aran made a noise that she hadn’t made since she was just a girl.

Samus chirped.

She felt the girl’s arms and her fingers squeeze the pale dough-boulder that Samus’ belly had become. Shock waves of jiggles spread throughout her whole body as she felt the soft flesh of a cheek stroking over her gut.

She couldn’t even see Tessa, whose little form was hidden beneath the mattress-sized pillow of her torso and hips, but could hear the girl’s laugh spike into an electrified giggle, and a squeeze on her stomach brought forth another bright chirp before Samus folded at the waist, her left hand impacting upon the projection’s dark head.

“Aieee!” Tessa screamed as Samus pushed her back. “Dat tiggles, Boss!”

Beat red, wearing the first real blush that the woman had worn in years, Samus stared at the Gobbo, whose long black hair was now poofy and frizzy and standing up on its ends.

“Ai knowz wotz wot ‘bout youz ‘Oomies,” Tessa grinned. “Knowz it frum da momentz ai sawz ya! Ai sayz, ‘Ow dares an ‘Oomie datz a reel… Big Boss!’”

Samus’ mouth had shut down, her head spinning too rapidly to understand what it was even trying to think. A rapid collection of English interspersed with the deep, breathy gasps of her native Chozo tongue fired through her head before coming back to one single word.

Metroid.

She realized how heavy she was breathing, her heart pounding all the way up in her ears. Samus swallowed, tried to steady herself, and tore her watch plug from the AI Port.

Eva winked out immediately, leaving the grinning green Gobbo all on her lonesome as she blinked up at Samus with her large, honest eyes.

“Yoz gonna save us, roight Big Boss?”

Samus watched her. She didn’t know what to say.

So she said nothing.

She turned away, moving to the small Gobbo door.

It opened, pulling up into the wall and revealing that not only was the doorway even shorter than the woman had thought, but it was far skinnier. A small square hole.

And Samus Aran was an overweight sphere.