Adam was already prepared by the time she had returned home. It was almost irritating how quickly he worked. It reminded her of the fact that the Adam she knew was gone, even if his mind was still by her side, and despite the complete stripping of Federation components from her ship, he still seemed to be harboring something against her. There was something deeper than circuitry going on, and, though she would never let on, it frightened her. There was too much at stake for her to be forced to wonder at Adam's motivations. She could not afford to risk her ship suddenly disobeying her input and veering off into a Federation dock. She needed to know for certain whether Adam's decision to stay by her was that of duty or that of loyalty, but she could never let him know that she doubted him. If his motivations truly were pure, she could not afford to lose such a valuable ally and such an old friend.

"How did the briefing go?" he pressed. Samus shrugged nonchalantly as she entered the house and deactivated her Omega Suit. She noticed a floating metal sphere following her. Clearly, Adam had finally gotten around to constructing his mobile shell. He had been complaining about cramped conditions lately. No doubt, he was enjoying being able to stretch his legs, despite his lack thereof.

"It went as expected," she replied. "They want me to do a job that they're too chicken to do themselves, and they're willing to pay me a considerable fee."

"That seems adequate for your first mission with these people. When do we leave?" This question shot a cold shock of realization up Samus' spine. They had never told her when they wanted her to get started on the mission. Maybe they had sent her something in a short mail. She quickly rushed to the Mail Board, a cleverly designed touchscreen that was embedded into the eastern wall of the living room. If a short mail was sent to her, it would almost immediately appear on the board, ready to be read. The aesthetics of the device were pleasing too, nothing like the utilitarian control panels of the Federation. Whomever designed this knew it was going to be looked at multiple times per day and had clearly put some effort into making such a frequent activity as easy on the eyes as possible. It even made scrolling through scores of junk mail almost bearable. At the moment, however, Samus' attention was not on the craftsmanship of the tool, but the content of the short mails within it. After searching desperately through all of her mailboxes, she found nothing from the UNSC, save a few "enlist now" messages, or the admiral.

"Samus, I believe we are about to receive-" The comm alert blared, interrupting Adam mid-sentence. Samus whipped around and strode to the comm panel, which read "Live Video Chat Requested: Cmdr. Jones" and offered her the choice of accepting his request or denying it. She quickly accepted, and she suddenly found herself looking at the perspiring face of the young commander.

"Hello, Samus. Can I call you Samus?" he asked nervously.

"Miss Aran will do fine, Commander," she replied coolly, possibly too coolly. In truth, she was as nervous as he, but as long as the UNSC thought they were in the wrong, she was in the clear.

"Right, Miss, uh, Miss Aran. I'm terribly sorry about this, but we seem to have neglected to send you a timetable, extremely unprofessional, I know. It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Samus commanded calmly. "Do you have one for me now?"

"Yes, uh. Yes, ma'am, Miss Aran, ma'am. It's uh right, uh-" The poor commander fumbled about his station for a good two minutes before the technician finally took pity on him and located the file. "-right here, ma'am!" With that, he pressed a button and a file transfer request dialogue appeared on her screen. She accepted and saw the mission timetable pop up in the "collaboration window" directly to the right of the "chat window".

"As you can see, we should be ready to go in a few days. We still have to get a few more authorizations signed off, and a mobilization permit has yet to be approved by Fleet Admiral Lord Hood, but things seem to be going smoothly. You may want to use this time to-"

"Hold on," Samus interrupted him. "You're saying you hadn't already taken care of this?" Now, she was legitimately irritated. Even the Federation, with all of its secret projects and questionable motives, had the professionalism to do all of the paperwork before calling her in.

"Well, uh, ma'am, we wanted to make sure we had you lined up before we greenlit the whole thing," Commander Jones explained, having lost much of his slowly regained composure. "Someone with your reputation and skill set is hard to come by."

"What about the big guy?"

"Pardon?"

"The space cowboy in the super suit." Even as she said it, Samus knew she was throwing stones from her own glass house.

"Oh, the Master Chief, you mean. I was actually just about to suggest you meet up with him, get to know him. After all, the two of you are going to be working together on this."

"Something tells me he's not the 'get to know' type." Then again, neither was she.

"I wouldn't know. I never tried." There was sad honesty in Jones' voice.

"All right, well, I'm going to disconnect now. I'll take another look at the briefing and the timetable, and I'm going to be charging you for the extra time you all are costing me. Sound good?"

"Yeah sure, wait WHA-" Samus cut off the connection before he could properly react. Doing so was, of course, completely unprofessional, but she was beginning to feel less and less obligated to show courtesy to these buffoons by the second.

"I take it we will not be needing the ship today," Adam stated, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"No, Adam, we won't be needing the ship today," Samus confirmed. "Have you been charging up the bike?"

"Planning a quick spa trip, are we?" Adam asked, a playful suspicion in his tone.

"Actually," Samus answered, "I was thinking of visiting this 'Master Chief' guy, see how tough he is without his armor."

"You're not going to fight him, are you?" Now, his tone was genuine, genuinely concerned. Samus ignored him, however, and simply walked out to her HoverCycle, but Adam followed right after her.

"Samus, please tell me you're not going to start something... unpleasant," he begged. Samus simply revved up her engine and replied without so much as looking back.

"That all depends on him."