The trail of spent casings, footprints and a strange orange fluid led up the staircase to the next floor. This one looked like a command center of some sort, computer stations and holographic projector boards covering the entire space. Samus quickly identified one of the ones closest to the middle as the commander's post, it was the largest of them all and was the only one still with power. Everything else in the room was dead, as was to be expected from severed main power. The backups were only hooked up to emergency lighting, medical equipment, and of course the commander's post.

Samus walked up to it with a bit of trepidation. Whatever had killed that man earlier might still be here. The noise she had made so far may have actually attracted them. Nevertheless, she trained her Scan Visor on the rapidly flashing console and awaited the result.

SCAN VISOR DATA: Official Log, Southbound Outpost Command downloaded. Contents recorded to Logbook.

Again, she called up the data screens in her Visor, accessing the data banks of her Suit. She accessed the text file that had been downloaded from the console, and it read:

"The Main Facility has fallen. As of 0900, everyone within has been infected and the Big One is now rampant. The larger posts with docking facilities have evacuated in whatever spaceships they had. The rest of the spacecraft are in the Main Facility itself, deep inside Infected ground. We cannot regroup quickly enough to hold out against them, for they have destroyed most of the high-speed tram lines in their rapid spread, and supplies dwindle rapidly. We're fucked."

The text faded back into the view of Samus' surroundings as she tried to piece together what was going on. The Big One? Infected? Her mind lurched into high gear at some of her thoughts. Is the Big One a virus or mutagen of some kind? The description of its effects certainly reminded her of the Phazon she had spent a year of her life fighting.

After a few seconds of brainstorming, she managed to get a grip on her own mind. Something about this planet was amiss, and unsettlingly so.

Another staircase led up from this second floor to the roof. The hatch slid open, and the armored heroine strode out onto the upper surface of the tower's summit. Aside from the hatch she had come through, the roof bore little more than a small control panel on a pedestal, four short, stubby antennae arranged in a square pattern...and within those four antennae, a circle of tarmac presumably intended for shuttlecraft.

The Scan Visor made short work of the control panel, and the four antennae revealed themselves. Telescoping out to twice their original length, the Navigation Beacons began transmitting their signals to guide ships in to land.

Through the comm static, Adam chimed in. "I see you've activated a set of beacons. I'm coming to your location now." Sure enough, almost immediately the distinctive purple hull of Samus' gunship launched into the air, flew across the distance, and touched down atop the tower Samus had just visited. The landing gear set down, the hatch up top opened, and she jumped up with her augmented jumping to get inside.

Samus took her seat at the captain's chair of her ship, surprised at the rapidly flickering displays on all screens. Usually Adam was considerate enough to wait until she had filled him in on everything (and eaten something) before the infodumps and technobabble. But, then again, Adam normally didn't immediately fly to every landing zone she had discovered. "I take it something big has happened?" she asked the AI.

The voice of Adam came back loud and clear, starkly contrasting the static that had pervaded their radio conversations. "Yes. Very big. I don't know exactly what, though."

"But I thought you said your sensors were jammed by the atmosphere?"

"Yes, that is true, but I can still measure the disturbances within the atmosphere itself, such as those generated as objects move through it. Though you're probably not interested in such technical matters.

"The size, speed and direction of these disturbances tell me that something big entered atmosphere somewhere right around here." The frontal display showed a rudimentary map pointing out the relative locations of the first landing point and their current location, with a third, more northerly point marked in red. "I don't have a terrain map of this planet, so I can't plot a route. But what I can do is calculate the radius within which it probably landed." A red circle wrapped around the corresponding red point.

"I wonder if they're Federation investigators or evacuation personnel," replied Samus as she studied the map and downloaded the marked waypoints into her suit. "Or, if it's just a meteorite."

"I wonder, too. That's why you need to go out there and make sure of their intentions, and render assistance if necessary."

"Alright, then," finished Samus as she rose from her chair to disembark. But then she remembered something. "Oh, and Adam? I found these in the tower." She queued up, then transferred, the two Logbook entries she had obtained into Adam's memory banks.

"Okay. I'll see about what's going on. You go out there and investigate the space object."

It was about forty-five minutes of traveling, trial, and error, but finally Samus figured out the path through the forest to the red point on her map. It must have been where the ship or whatever entered, it may have flown off to find somewhere else to land. It had to have, too. This spot, just like most of the rest of the forest, was thickly lined with trees. There were no scorch marks or craters to speak of, either, not even a single visible fire! Samus deduced that it had to have been a ship, and continued her search.

Eventually, a ship revealed itself. Parked in a clearing just barely big enough for it, the gunmetal spacecraft sported quite a few familiar markings. The black and gold striping along the wing edges signified a special military vehicle. The numbers emblazoned on the side identified it among its bretheren among the hordes of space traffic. Finally, near the nose viewport, a Galactic Federation insignia had been boldly marked on both sides. Samus made these observations from deep in the woods, hiding behind the trees to remain unseen.

SCAN VISOR DATA: The GFS Kyoto is a Nord-class dropship that serves as the living quarters, adaptable cargo space and battle insertion vehicle of its assigned cadre of soldiers. The Kyoto's particular assignment as of three days ago is the fledgling 501st Infantry Division. Due to this unit's relatively small roster, the majority of this ship has been converted into extra munitions and supplies storage, allowing the 501st to venture out further than other, larger units.

Several people in what appeared to be Federation Power Armor were flitting around at the landing site, placing crates all over the place, unboxing supplies, and various other tasks presumably to prepare for their ground exploration. Samus calmly strode in, knowing that Federation personnel by and large knew who she was and why she was a good person to have around.

But much to her surprise, as she approached, a dozen Federation soldiers, all with bizarre variants of the standard armor, surrounded her. Before she could even utter a single word, they formed a circle around her and raised their weapons.

"Samus Aran. By order of the Federation High Council, you are under arrest."