Last spark from the ashes

//We've seen the technology before. I think the Vanguards may be withholding authorization on installing our own.//

//Too bad- this would be handy out on the Wall.// Blaze pauses. //Okay, that's interesting. Looks like the Citadel goes up a lot further than I thought.//

Nothing attacks Samus on her way in, and the ride accelerates her smoothly up past indistinguishable levels of metal and stone, higher and higher - and then clear past the top of the Citadel as seen from below. Even from within it looks dead, but the entire structure is swarming with signals, many of them individual Vex signatures. The grav lift sends them hurtling up through the heavy cloud cover, its fields keeping out the volcanic dust and acids of the atmosphere. Above, a dark mass becomes visible - or rather, a complex of them, mushrooming above the relatively compact fortress below.