For the last hour, Samus had been working to repair the damage to her ship. Having contained the drive plasma leak from her engine core, she was working diligently to patch the hole, waiting for Adam's system to reboot to correct the computer core's problems.
She focused the beam from her gun-arm into a tight stream, soldering a temporary metal plate over the damaged hull in order to get back into space for permanent repairs at a Galactic Federation outpost. Then, Samus heard, "Lady, all systems operational."
Samus wiped her sweaty brow and said, "Glad to have you back Adam. I was getting lonely." She picked up her helmet from the soft grass and walked back to the ship's hatch.
Adam responded, getting down to business, "This habitat ring's structure does not appear in either the pirate's journal or Federation star logs. The closest approximation to compare self-sustaining environments would be a Dyson Sphere."
"A Dyson Sphere, huh?" Samus quizzed, viewing the readings from the ship's HUD. "Send out a distress beacon to the Galactic Federation. Let them know I've found a new research entry. Any life found on the ring?"
Adam's system whirred and buzzed as a small thunk shook the ship, sending the subspace buoy outward from the ring. "No Lady, no fauna detected, however, many species of arboreal and coniferous flora, consistent with Terran specie are found in different physiographic and climatic regions."
"Terran," Samus mumbled, wondering why plants from Earth would be on a ring on the other side of the galaxy.
"Yes, Lady," Adam responded, "Further scans report the…"
The ship's proximity sensors began to wail, alerting Samus to an approaching object.
"What is it, Adam?" Samus asked, triggering the ship's ventral camera to see the object.
"Unknown, but configuration appears to be humanoid," Adam replied.
Shoving the helmet back on her head, the suit's air seal pressurized her inside the suit as she jumped through the ship's air lock, charging the beam in her gun arm.
"Identify yourself!" Samus screamed at the approaching bogey, vocalizing through the suit's speaker.
The green invader stopped around ten feet in front of her, pointed his assault rifle at Samus and said, "You first! Discharge your weapon and confirm your rank and serial number, Spartan!"
Confused, Samus said, "Spartan? What the hell are you talking about? Who are you? Lower your weapon!"
Inside the Chief's head, he heard Cortana say, "Hold on, Chief, her armor configuration doesn't match any suit design from Dr. Halsey's Spartan II program."
"Not Covenant based, either, Cortana?" the Chief asked, still on his guard at the intruder in front of him.
"Hmm," Cortana said. "Not that I can tell. It's not like any armor Elites or Brutes wore during the war."
Hoping to end the standoff, Samus said, "If you lower your weapon, I'll lower mine."
The Chief shrugged his shoulders and lowered his weapon. Samus also discharged her weapon's charge. "Now identify yourself," Samus said.
Walking closer to Samus, the Chief said, "I am Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command."
Confused, Samus jumped from the top of her ship and said, "United Nations Space Command? You're not with the Galactic Federation?"
"Galactic Federation?" The Chief was confused.
"Space pirates?" Samus further asked.
"What the hell are you talking about?" He was still confused.
Inside his head, Cortana said, "It's OK Spartan. The Galactic Federation was Earth's first attempt to establish good relations with other worlds in the early 21st century. It's what alerted the Covenant to Earth's development and social progression almost 400 years ago. It's why they wanted Earth to join before the war started, but waited another 350 years to observe human development before offering candidacy into the Covenant. You really need to learn your history, John."
The Chief crossed his arms and said, "Four hundred years ago? Tell me, what year is it?" the Chief asked.
"Galactic year 2042."
The Chief laughed. "I believe you're mistaken. It's Terran year 2561."
"2561…" Samus muttered defensively.
Samus pulled off her helmet, still lingering over the Chief's last statement. She mouthed the year.
The Chief was taken aback at Samus. He was surprised to see she was not only human, but a woman as well. And a beautiful one to boot. "What's your name?" he asked.
Still working to regain her composure, Samus said, "Err, I'm Samus Aran. Bounty hunter for the Galactic Federation of Planets."
Cortana, having identified Samus' transponder frequency, said to the both of them, "Bounty hunting was outlawed with the Qo'noS Peace Accords of 2237."
"Who the hell was that?" Samus said, pulling the earpiece from her ear. "What happened to Adam?"
"Easy there," the Chief said. "That was Cortana. An AI construct who's been with me for years."
With both parties thoroughly confused and getting nowhere talking in circles, a silence grew between them. Samus was lost in her thoughts of how she'd ended up over 400 years in the future, while Master Chief was lost in other thoughts—thoughts concerning the Flood and what being on another Halo meant. The war may have been over, but there were still four Halos that needed to be destroyed, in case another alien race decided to fire them.
Although she didn't say it, Cortana was monitoring the rise in Master Chief's endorphin levels. It made her jealous. She thought there was something between them, considering he mounted a suicide mission by boarding the Flood-infested Covenant capitol city High Charity to retrieve her. Perhaps it was all the time they spent together, after she chose him as her Spartan before helping him with his mission on Chi Ceti 4 to retrieve his first armor suit, the MJOLNIR Mark IV armor. In all their years together, even before the excursion to Delta Halo, she'd felt an intense connection with him. It could have been Dr. Halsey's programming, causing her to extrapolate scenarios to an almost infinite degree, giving her hope deep down in her base algorithms that one day something could work between them, but her rationale subroutines told her otherwise, coming into conflict with her emotion protocols.
Samus finally broke the silence and said, "What's your name? It can't be 'Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command' like you said," she said, mocking his earlier statement.
"You can call me Chief. Or Spartan, if you prefer," the Chief said.
Flustered, Samus effused, not knowing his name, but inside she felt a connection with this man. It wasn't anything serious (or so she thought), but it seemed to be camaraderie—a battlefield kinship she felt deep down inside—and knew they had been cut from the same mold.
"Right. Chief. Nice suit," Samus said. "Now can you tell me where we are? I've never seen technology like this before. Not even from the Chozo. It's amazing."
"The suit is standard military issue," the Chief said. "And we're on Halo. A weapons facility built by the Forerunners, used to eliminate the food source of the Flood—the most dangerous parasite threat in the galaxy."
In Samus' mind, she was recalling her experience with the X Parasite, which almost killed her on Planet SR-388, home of the devilish Metroids, created by the Chozo to destroy the X Parasite.
"The Flood…" Samus muttered, sticking her helmet back on her head. "If it's anything as bad as the Metroids, then we need to eliminate it."
Without question, and liking the go-get 'em-ness of this new woman in his life, Master Chief lifted his battle rifle and said, "I like your style. Let's go Samus."
