Mission Failed
Pyralis has long stood as an independent planet, and the towering glass spires of its capital city, Pyralua, a proud testament of of its people's individuality. The night ambience of the capital makes Samus' gunship unremarkable amidst the many vehicles and mile-long buildings.
The gunship separates from the rest of traffic and drops into the long cut of a sluiceway like a violet phantom. Inside the cockpit, Samus brings the ship to a smooth landing in front of an energy-barred gateway someone else has already shut off.
"He's here," she says to her passengers. She's armored up, her suit sporting the recently reclaimed golden-hued orange of her Varia Suit.
The rest of her team gets up from the emergency seating behind her, preparing their equipment. Chowa secures their armored vest while Arrande adjusts the lethality settings on his rifle. He doesn't intend to let this one get away.
"What did the commissioner say?" Adrian asks, hoisting her rifle over her shoulder and checking her wrist computer.
"He sent some officers to evacuate everyone, but our target doesn't know that. We don't know how long he's been on site already. We have to assume he's setting the bomb," Samus answers. There's the faintest hint of tension in her tone. She's far more used to runningawayfrom bombs thantowardthem.
Arrande chuffs as he adjusts the scope on his rifle. "I still think we should stick to evacuating the area. If Xal'zar already set it, we're charging to our deaths."
"I'm not fond of it either," Samus replies, heading for the boarding elevator. "But even with advance warning, the local GFP can't evacuate everyone in a city block fast enough. Our best bet at saving lives here is to stop the bomb before it goes off. Adrian, do you have the security codes and map of the sewers?"
"Yes. I have the quickest route to the cross-section under the city center. Synching now." She deftly presses a few buttons on her wrist computer and a map appears on everyone's HUD, highlighting the indicated route.
One by one, each of them descends from the elevator and marches up to the already deactivated security gate. Samus addresses them one last time before they enter. "There are two main chambers under the city center ideal for the bomb's position. We'll split into two groups. Chowa, you and I will take the west channel, Adrian, you and Arrande will take the east. Once we find the bomb, comm in and I can handle deactivating it. The rest of you subdue Xal'zar and make sure he doesn't escape. Questions?"
Adrian clicks her heels and gives an affirmative thumbs-up. Chowa appraises the gesture and mimics it, while Arrande rolls his eyes and matches them.
"Move out."
000
As Adrian and Arrande navigate the dim sewers beneath Pyralis, the pungent stench of waste permeates the air, some of it seeping through their helmets despite their filtration system's best efforts. Dim safety lights flank the paths astride channels of liquid waste, guiding their route. Adrian leads the way with the illusion of determination. In reality, all she can do is force herself forward. Her heart races with a mix of nerves and adrenaline as they delve deeper into the maze-like tunnels.
Arrande walks behind her, his usual cocky demeanor replaced by grave sobriety. That doesn't stop him from trying to cut the tension. "Have you ever been on a mission like this before?" he asks, his whisper so low it's only heard because of the comms link between them.
She turns to him, hesitates for a second, then offers a small, tight-lipped smile and nod in response. Her grip tightens on her rifle; at this point she's lied to him about her experience several times. At first, she reasoned that if Samus hadn't told him, it wasn't important. But she knows that's just how she justifies the lie. She knows he wouldn't like the real answer.
As they turn a corner, she spots something out of the ordinary. "What is that?" she asks, pointing her rifle at a steel cylinder tied to some pipes on the wall.
Arrande takes one glance at it and curses. "Shit,I think that's part of the bomb."
"Partof it?" Adrian doesn't like the sound of that.
"There's a wire strung across the tunnels. We follow it, we find him."
As they proceed, Adrian contacts Samus' part of the team. "Captain, we've found part of the bomb. We're following the wire to its source."
Her captain's voice comes in somewhat frazzled through the shadowband, its strength affected by the sprawling tunnels. "On-*chhhh*-way. We haven't -*bz*-nd anything he-"
"Should we wait for you to rendezvous with us?"Please say yes, please say yes, please say-
"Nega-*sh*-ive. We-*chhhh*-every second we-*zzt*-get. Find-*tss*-target."
Adrian grips her rifle tighter, her trigger finger shakily hovering over the guard as she leads Arrande further in.
The weight of their mission hangs heavy in the air, each step reinforcing their pressing need to find Xal'Zar before his mad plan can come to fruition. Pyralis' recent shift to a committed Federation planet had ignited unrest among certain factions, Xal'Zar among them. The team only just uncovered his plans; to destroy the city center above them as the Federation senator responsible for this change hosts an official event welcoming Federation officers onto Pyralis. An anonymous tip pointed the GFP toward Xal'Zar; they didn't take it as seriously as they should have, and only set a bounty for his capture instead of sending their own to deal with him. Now the situation is far more dire.
Adrian stops short. Up ahead, the tunnel opens up to a large chamber. She can see the hunched over form of their target, Xal'Zar. His and pale blue-gray skin is unmistakably Pyralian. He tinkers away at a large pallet of banded-together canisters teeming with wires while a nearby portable datapad plays news coverage of the event happening just above their heads at this very moment. The newscasters fill time, unaware the reason they've lost direct footage is because of police intervention.
The wires snake around the myriad pipes of the sewer chamber, attaching to other canisters bound in place around the room at different heights. Adrian can see dozens of them. She hears her pulse pounding in her head, threatening to drown out everything else. She didn't want to be the group to find him. Now what happens next is on her.
A rifle lowers itself into position just on her periphery. She twists to see Arrande already scoped in on Xal'Zar. He points at the target, then makes some hand gestures at her she doesn't recognize. Adrian doesn't ask for clarification; she doesn't want to give away their position. She thinks he's telling her to secure an enfilade position. Adrian takes careful steps into the chamber, trying to close the distance.
Arrande's reaction is immediate. "What are you-stop!"he hisses, but he's too late.
Adrian turns to look at him just as her foot tugs on an unseen wire stretched across the mouth of the tunnel. A metal pin flies up into the air on her left. Arrande is already mid-movement, springing up from his position, grabbing Adrian and tugging her around him, away from the hidden explosive at her feet.
The shrapnel blast throws him into her. The sound of the explosion alerts Xal'Zar, who looks over his shoulder, spotting the two. His four-slitted nostrils flare, and he activates the timer on the bomb.
Adrian pushes Arrande off of her and shakes him. "Arrande!" He doesn't respond. Panicking, she contacts Samus over the shadowband. "Captain, the bomb's in the east chamber, but Arrande took a hit! He's not responding!"
Samus comes in over comms, clearer than before. "We're closing on your position. Have you secured the target?"
She looks up just in time to see Xal'Zar jump onto a small levi-scooter nearby and turn it on, speeding away down an alternate route. "Negative, he's taking another route to escape! He's activated the bomb, what do I do?!"
There's a brief pause before Samus' voice comes back in. "Okay, Adrian, I need you to listen carefully. How much time is on the timer?"
She glances over at the timer, her mind not quite processing what she's seeing as she panics.
"Adrian?!"
"Four minutes! A little more that four!"
"Okay, I can make that with plenty of time, so don't worry about the bomb. Tell me how Arrande got hurt and check if he's is bleeding."
"I... I think it was a shrapnel explosive." Adrian checks him over, running her hands across his body. Her gloves catch on pieces of shrapnel stuck in his armor, but don't pick up blood. "I don't see any blood!"
"Sit him up and get his helmet off.Carefully. If you feel a tug, stop. If there's shrapnel in it, you could cut him."
She obeys, focusing on Samus' voice, unable to think coherently as her mind races. As she pulls off his helmet, his eyes flicker open. "Wha... what... the target!" He struggles to get up, scrambling to grab his rifle.
"Oh thank god, he's conscious," Adrian says with relief, letting out the breath she was holding in a big, whooshing gust.
"Don't let him move. I'm almost there," Samus replies before the comms cut out.
Arrande tries to get back up, but Adrian holds him down. "Don't move! You got hit pretty badly."
He grabs her hands and throws them off. "And whose fault was that?! Where is he?!" He staggers to his feet and checks the entryway for more booby-traps.
"He's gone, you need to-"
"What we need to do is pay attention! The bomb's active!" he shouts, pointing to the countdown timer. He dashes toward it with Adrian hot on his tail, trying to stop him.
Just then, Samus, in morph ball form, slips into the room through a sluice channel in the western wall and unfurls. She only glances at her teammates for a moment before directing her attention at the bomb. She kneels down in front of the timer and a few panels on her arm cannon open. Small mechanical arms extend from the end, delicately maneuvering the intricate mechanisms of the timer. She doesn't turn as she speaks to her subordinates. "I've instructed Chowa to pursue the target. You two get as far away as you can."
"What about you?" Arrande asks.
"Either I've got this or I don't. If it goes off, the entire block goes with it. You need to be further than that."
"Captain-" Adrian starts.
"Now, Lieutenant Vespen!" Samus barks, invoking her rank to underscore how serious she is.
Adrian grabs Arrande's arm, and the two lock eyes in grim understanding. They give one last solemn glance at Samus, then run the way they came.
They make it all the way to the gunship outside, where they encounter Chowa. "Did you get him?" Arrande demands.
Chowa's long neck droops their head low. "I could not capture our target. You've taken some damage, crewmate Arrande."
"Forget that. You!" he turns on Adrian, throwing his helmet to the ground, spitting with rage, "You had better hope she gets out of there in one piece, because so help me-!"
He's interrupted by Samus' voice over the shadowband. "It's done. I've disarmed the bomb."
The relief of that statement doesn't completely diffuse the tension. Arrande glares at Adrian. "We're not done."
000
Samus sits at her station, looking up at the figure speaking to her through the ship's holographic display. The man on the other end, an older local law enforcement officer, doesn't hide his dissatisfaction with the outcome of their mission. "We've put out an APB on Xal'Zar. If he pokes his head out again, we'll find him, but he's probably gone to ground now."
Samus is pensive, her tone level, but her brow pinched together in frustration. "So what does this mean for Senator Rinlor?"
The officer sighs and adjusts himself in his seat, bringing a hand up to massage one of his temples to soothe himself. "Well, not much difference. She's still going everywhere with an increased security detail until we find him. The evidence you turned up at his hideaway points to him having a genuine hatred for her decision to make Pyralis a full Federation member, so he'll probably try again."
Samus takes a deep, steadying breath. "He couldn't have set all that up on his own. Has the investigation turned up any other suspects?"
"Well, you didn't hear it from me, but our best working guesses right now are that Xal'Zar had this in the works for a while, or the Pyralis Liberation Movement supplied him. They're also not too happy about coming under Federation jurisdiction."
"But there's nothing concrete to prove it."
"Nothing yet. I expect this debacle is going to end up as the next hot topic for the news cycle. The quick evacuation by the GFP makes them look good, but dissenters are already pointing out how convenient that is for them. Anyway, I shouldn't be telling you any of this. It should go without saying that your part in this is over."
Samus shuts her eyes and frowns, but nods. "Yes, commissioner."
He sighs and folds his hands in front of himself to deliver the last blow of this uncomfortable conversation. "Unfortunately, we have to address the elephant in the room. While it is commendable that you warned us about the bomb threat, and saved hundreds of lives and billions in property damage, your bounty was to capture or neutralize Xal'Zar. Since you failed to do that, it is the decision of the Central Pyralis Bounty Commission to declare this mission failed. Sorry, Samus." With that, he reaches just off the view of the display and the communication cuts out.
Samus falls quiet, gently grasping her temples with one hand and rubbing back and forth. Below her, Arrande's voice breaks the silence. "This isbullshit!" Samus looks down at the crew stations in time to watch Arrande punch the headrest of his seat hard enough to send it spinning. Adrian sits at her seat, head hung low.
Samus tries to deflect Arrande's anger. "We still received ten percent of the bounty for disarming the bomb. It's not a total loss."
"Ten percent?! That will barely cover the fuel it took to get here!" He turns his ire on Adrian. "SoLieutenant,want to explain what went wrong?" He stops his chair's spin, sitting in it backwards and glaring daggers at her.
"I'm sorry," Adrian mumbles, feeling his eyes burn holes in the back of her head. "I messed up."
"I was telling you to hold position and let me take the shot!" he snips. "How do you not understand basic GFA hand signals?"
Samus injects herself into the conversation, trying to diffuse it. "Arrande, this wasn't all her fault. I should have made nonverbal communication part of our training drills."
He scoffs. "I can understandyouneglecting that, you're not used to working with a team!" He turns back on Adrian. "What's your excuse? What unit doesn't drill stuff like that into your head?!"
She doesn't respond.
Arrande jumps up from his chair, staring her down. "I took a bomb for you! You owe me an explanation!"
Adrian stammers under his verbal assault. "I... wasn't in a unit."
"What then, intelligence? A ship tech?"
Samus tries to intervene. "Arrande-"
"I wasn't in the GFA."
That stuns him for a moment. He tries to make sense of what she's saying. "Wait... so, what, you're a bounty hunter?"
"No... I was a private security officer before this."
That revelation hits him in a wave. He transitions from abject shock back to rage, pointing at Adrian while looking up at Samus. "She's a fuckingcivvie?!You have someone with no field experience leadingme?!What are you think-"
"Arrande! That's enough!" Samus barks. "You're on inventory. Go cool off!"
He snorts and stomps up the bridge and out the door, leaving Samus and Adrian alone. Samus evaluates her subordinate. Shoulders slumped, lip curled inward, head hanging low; if Adrian were a less put-together woman, she looks like she'd be crying.
Samus shifts uncomfortably in her seat, debating her next move. She's had sessions with Dr. Jha preparing her for just this moment, but she still has to psych herself up to seize it.
At a certain point, your crew is going to need you beyond the boundaries of a mission.As a leader, you will eventually have to reach past your own comfort zone to help them.
Samus takes a deep breath and comes down to Adrian's station, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. "Why don't we grab a drink in the lounge?"
000
Arrande moves to the rear of the ship, transferring from crew quarters to storage. The soft hum of the engines provides a steady backdrop to his churning, tumultuous thoughts. So close to the engines, the cargo hold smells of metal and ionic charge - a far more welcome scent than the stink of the sewers and their recent failure.
Chowa's towering form stands amid the tables rigged in the corner, scattered with equipment. Among the various items assembled, Arrande's armor lays out before them, rife with small metal shards. Thankfully, the specialized plating and padding absorbed it. The armor is a loss no matter what, but it can still be recycled. Chowa's long, black fingers pluck the shards out with a precision that contrasts their brutish strength. Their eyes lift to meet Arrande's approach, a silent inquiry in their gaze.
"Crewman Arrande. Your steps are heavy. Are you upset?" Chowa's straightforward tone slices through the quiet, their formal speech intruding into Arrande's private indignation.
Arrande's expression flickers with irritation. "No kidding, Chowa. You are as astute as ever."
"Thank you," Chowa replies obliviously. "Is this about our failure to capture our target?"
Arrande doesn't answer, picking a secured datapad off the wall and opening the inventory catalogue.
Chowa stares at him for a moment before returning their focus to their own task. They comment further with their back turned. "You seem to take it personally. Is this a matter of personal pride for you?"
"Not about pride," Arrande mutters back. His hands move on autopilot to check inventory, scanning for items and stock that haven't changed a bit since he last did this minor busywork.
"Then what is it? You were perfectly competent in your role. You were even heroic in your protection of the Lieutenant. You have nothing to be ashamed of," Chowa presses, their head tilting as they seek to understand the human nuances that still elude them.
Arrande lets the datapad fall at his side, huffing with frustration. "Thelieutenantis a glorified rent-a-cop. She worked in private security before this.Private security!She was never a solider to begin with! And she's supposed to leadus?!I thought Samus had a few screws loose when she agreed to hire me, but this takes the cake!"
"You should not question Captain Aran's motivations for establishing her chain of command," Chowa states. "She knows each of our aptitudes."
"I don't think she does. It's feeling more and more like she's flying by the seat of her cushy captain's chair."
"You seem especially upset that the Lieutenant has taken your cake. I am sure Captain Aran will suitably punish her for that indiscretion."
"What?"
"You stated the Lieutenant took your cake, did you not?"
Arrande huffs in exasperation, choosing not to explain the idiom. Talking to Chowa is pointless; they won't question Samus and won't see the significance of just how screwed they are. He returns to his task, his thoughts drifting to the other side of the galaxy. "As if losing our credits isn't enough..." he mumbles under his breath.
000
"What's your drink of choice?" Samus asks, poised in front of the fabricator for Adrian's order.
"Um... rum and cola," Adrian anxiously responds.
"How strong?"
"Not very. I don't like to taste the rum."
Samus has a decanter made along with two glasses, then brings it over to Adrian, already sitting in the booth seat. Samus sits opposite her, not quite comfortable enough to close that distance. The older woman's hand is steady as she pours amber liquid from the decanter into their glasses, the sound a soft chime in the hush that envelops them. She slides one over to her, and places the decanter between them.
Adrian sips hers, then lowers it back down to the table, staring a hole through its swirling contents, trapped in a microcosm of stormy thoughts. Samus takes a sip. She's not very fond of the simple cocktail; too sugary-sweet for her. But drinking the same thing as the person you're trying to bond with is supposed to help you connect. Or so she's read. Tonight she's trying a lot of new concepts.
However, the barren silence between them is pervasive. Adrian looks up at her captain. She's stone-faced, unreadable. Adrian can't tell if she's angry, disappointed, sad, or what. Samus is just too nebulous.
Meanwhile, Samus desperately searches for the right words to break the ice. They both sit in complete silence for a good three minutes before she finally speaks.
"Talk to me," she says, calm and authoritative. Even now her attempt at comradery comes off more like an order.
Adrian glances at her sidelong, not quite raising her head. "I... screwed up."
Samus nods. "You did screw up, but everyone is okay."
The lieutenant slumps forward onto the table, covering her head with her arms. "We failed the mission because of me."
Samus elects to be honest with her. "Well... yes. But not just because of that. We failed the mission because of multiple factors. You had one slip-up. It happens. You can learn from it and get better."
Adrian peeks up at her from under her arms. "You're not mad?"
"I'm not happy about losing a dangerous target, or money for that matter, but we're not hurting for funds and he's going to be looking over his shoulder for a while now."
Adrian rises back up and takes another swig. "What if this happens again? What if I cost us another bounty?"
"Don't do that. If you're always worrying about how you'll fail, you'll only push yourself toward those outcomes."
"I know... it's just... he was right there in front of me. I could have just sat back and let Arrande do his thing, mission complete, but I over thought it."
Samus swirls her drink, watching the ice spin in her glass. "I would call choosing to act an improvement. According to other members of the crew, you locked up when my ship got shot down on Giran," Samus notes.
Adrian tries to search her captain's face for an inkling of what she's thinking, but gleans nothing from her stone-cold exterior. "I'm sorry. I don't want to let you down."
The space between them grows stagnant as silence once again infiltrates their conversation. Samus doesn't know how to respond to that. Adrian hangs on her icy stoicism, unsure whether she wants to run or hide. Then, finally...
"Adrian." Samus's use of her name is a lifeline, pulling her out of her self-loathing spiral. "Do you believe you can do this job?"
"W-what?"
Samus leans forward, making direct eye contact. "Everything I read about you praised you for your leadership abilities. I saw confidence and talent in those words. But you're sitting here practically trembling in front of me like a child after one mistake."
Adrian slowly drops her hand to the table, gaze faltering under Samus' sharp, crystalline stare. "I... I don't know." She wrings her hands above the table. "I'm used to this kind of position, but it's different... saving lives, hunting bad guys. It feels like there's so much pressure. I... I don't know why I'm your second, and not Arrande, or even Chowa. Sometimes I think they'd be better for this than me."
"Do you want me to give them the position, then?"
Samus' swift response cuts right to the bone. Adrian is left without response. This is the best opportunity ever given to her, but the specter of her anxiety has tainted her performance on every mission so far. It's gotten hard for her to justify her station, and it feels like saying otherwise would be tantamount to a lie. So she says nothing.
Samus sits back up and takes a sip from her drink. "I choseyouto lead the fireteam." Adrian glances up at her, then away again. "You did everything you could in that moment. I don't want you to doubt that. You're just not as used to leading in a field role. Your responses will sharpen once you've adjusted to the change, and you'll be able to pull on the experience Iknowyou have. We can go over some drills together to help you."
"Ma'am, I don't think they'll listen to me after this."
"Don't project that onto both of them. Chowa will follow the chain of command to the letter. They'll respect your word as if it's my own. My only concern about them is that they're from a different culture. I can't have them making calls for you that reflect the Stratocracy's mission philosophy. Now Arrande..." Samus taps her glass with her index finger in contemplation. "He is a trained soldier with far more combat experience than you. He's competent, but arrogant and cocksure. And I don't entirely trust him."
That's surprising to hear. Adrian witnessed the tension between the two of them, but didn't realize it extended into distrust. It feels wrong to hear that, though. Adrian knows he's thrown himself between her and death at least twice now. He may be brash, but... yes. She trusts him.
Samus continues. "You remember the parasite attack back on XT3? I told you if anything happened while I was in the high-security lab, you needed to drop it. And you did."
"Yeah, and you told me afterward that choice almost killed you and I didn't have to do it."
Samus shrugs. "That's true. But I gave you a hard order to follow through on, and you did it. And at outpost Hera, when I told you to leave us behind if we got brainwashed, you didn't blink, even though it would have meant calling the GFA tobombus.
"Arrande is capable, but he'd hesitate to fulfill an order that might hurt me. Chowa is experienced, but might misinterpret critical instructions. That is why I choseyou. Not because you were the most experienced, or the most decorated. But because I trust you to keep a clear head and make thehardchoices. You're the one who gives me confidence that this team can work. I don't need a perfect soldier as my second in command. I need someone I can trust. So shed the act. You don't need to beat yourself up every time something goes wrong. Just know that I trust you to make the call. So... make it."
Adrian breathes harder in the moment, biting her lip. She gives Samus a jerky thumbs-up, which makes her chuckle.
"That's unnecessary. We're officially off-duty right now."
"Right... sorry, Captain." Adrian tips back her glass, finishing her drink. She reaches for the decanter, pouring herself another.
Samus swishes her own drink in her hand and raises an eyebrow, concerned. "You should pace yourself. I haven't even finished my first one. This is supposed to be a sipping conversation, not a drowning conversation."
Adrian sets the decanter back on the table and nods. "Right, sorry. Self control kind of..." She makes a sweeping motion with her hand, blowing out air, and takes another nervous sip.
000
As the evening continues, the two women work their way through the decanter together. They sit in the well of a nearby simulated panoramic viewport, projecting a lifelike view of the starry expanse just outside the ship.
Adrian looks out into the immensity of the cosmos, watching it stretch out beyond like an unending sea. She can't hold her drink nearly as well as Samus does, and her anxiety-ridden filters lower as the night goes on. "How do you deal with it? All that... mad unknown out there. How are you not afraid?"
Samus shakes her head. "I'm always afraid. That never leaves, not really. There's always that itching fear in the back of my mind that some new terrifying monster might be the last one I encounter, or might have some unseen ability I'm not ready for. All you can really do is keep your training sharp, so it's stronger than your instincts. No... more like it becomes your instinct. Overrides it when every muscle in your body wants to run and hide."
"So train until it's all reflex? A push up a day keeps the cosmic horror away?" Adrian jokes.
"Heh. That, and try to stay grounded. You'll go crazy thinking too much about how small we are. Focus on what matters most to you." Samus turns away from the vista to assess her lieutenant. "What is that for you?"
Adrian shrugs. "There are my folks. Older brother and sister, little brother. Mom and dad. But they'd probably be mad at me if they knew what I was doing."
"Why?"
"Well, I haven't told them about this job. They wouldn't exactly be happy about me signing on with you."
"They have a problem with me?" Samus asks, taking another sip.
"Not you specifically, but the Federation Police, Army, Marines, pretty much all the armed forces. The one thing that kept me from enlisting was their staunch opposition to what they callfascist oversight."
"Ah. Colonials then."
Adrian lifts her glass, pointing at Samus and nodding. "Yyyep. And the way they see it, you're the Federation's favorite lapdog. They set a target and you fetch."
Samus chuckles. "If only they knew."
"What's that mean?"
The hunter swallows the rest of her drink and reaches over for the decanter. "Maybe another time. It's good you have a big family. I'm jealous. Anyone else who misses you?"
Adrian sucks on her lips and shrugs. "My friends, I guess. But we didn't see each other much when I was planet-bound, anyway. No S.O., romance is really not my thing. Too much energy dedicated to one person, at least if you're a traditionalist. How some people deal with more than that, I don't know." She winces. "And god, the expectations.Do this, do that, live the way I want you to. Don't even get the benefit of a paycheck for it all. And sex is such a chore to deal with. So much pageantry and mind reading only to end up uncomfortable, sticky, and unsatisfied. You get that, right?"
Samus shakes her head and smiles at Adrian's impropriety. "I realize we're having a heart-to-heart, but that's not an appropriate question to ask your captain."
Adrian stammers. "R-right. Sorry, Captain. How about family and friends then? Do you have a far-off planet filled with loved ones waiting for you, or do you just jet-set around the galaxy kicking ass?" she asks, smiling over her drink.
Samus pauses and stares into her glass. "More the latter. Don't have a lot of friends, and the ones I do are scattered."
Adrian notices the shift in tone, and the distinct lack of any mention of family. Her smile falls. "Oh... uh, sorry, didn't mean to push a button."
"Mm." Samus briefly wonders to herself how much she should open up to Adrian. She decides to take a chance. "... my parents died when I was young. Pirate attack."
The lieutenant awkwardly lowers her glass. "Oh."
"They were both their families' only child, no siblings, and their parents were long gone so... it's just me now." She stares into the liquor in her hand, deeper than the glass goes. "Like I said. Jealous of you."
"I'm sorry." Adrian is lost. The mood just took a noticeable turn downward. Without a clear segue, she says the first thing that pops into her mind. "I'm your friend."
Samus pulls her mind out of her glass and squints at Adrian. "What?"
"Well... you said all your friends were scattered. But I'm right here. So we can hang out whenever you like. Ah," she adjusts her posture, straightening her back. "Off the clock, of course. Ma'am."
Samus stares at her second in command with a cold stoicism that makes Adrian squirm. Then she cracks a small smile. "Sounds good. I'll hold you to that, Lieutenant," she replies, raising her glass. Adrian clinks hers to it.
00000
Chapter notes
If you have a moment, please consider answering one or both of these questions for me in a comment!
1. Do the character's struggles in this chapter feel compelling?
2. Does Samus' conversation with Adrian feel natural?