Chapter 20: The Approach

I've wondered what the purpose of memories are. Not the ones that remind you how to ride a bike, to speak to someone, to kiss someone. The ones that are of the best experiences of your life. The memories you'll always cherish and remember with a fondness that yearns of wanting to relive them once more. Why do they taunt us? Why do we desire what can never exist again? Why is it that I still have these memories, though they are so close to being tainted by the rest of the world locked inside my mind, begging to be freed from the onset of sure infestation?

I guess we all need something to remind us of our humanity. Of what used to be.

As we approached our destination, I became anxious. Nervous even. I couldn't help but focusing on every little bit of data that whimsically streamed across the numerous monitors around the cockpit. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just for something to keep me from thinking about where we were going. Adam didn't make himself present much at all during the trip. Whether or not that was because of what happened earlier was not of much publicity. I didn't ask if it was and I had no reason to. Even so, I could feel my fingers twitching at the very thought of where we were headed, even when I tried to think about Adam.

The man was unpredictable and he's been getting worse.

"ETA rounds out to about five minutes, Samus." said Adam. For the few moments he had spoken to me since, he hasn't called me by my nickname.

"Alright. Can you bring up any sort of visual? If it's anything more than just nothingness, I want to know about it." I replied.

The main window switched to its screen mode, showing our stolen ship amongst the endless stars of space with the occasional bouts of space dust looming in the distance of light-years away. It was hard to imagine where exactly we were, but I figured that was probably why our contact finds himself here. In such a remote part of space, why bother with intruders? You wouldn't have any.

"The ship isn't visible," Adam began. "It's resting right in the middle of a giant dust cloud. Nothing harmful, but you won't find him unless you want to trade paint."

The stars flew back, our ship forward, but only on the screen. As we traveled at our pace, the screen found itself a large column of space dust not too far away. The coordinates matched: the ship was indeed resting inside of it. The dust wasn't moving either, so neither was he. Resting motionless inside the cover of space was just as he was probably taking another one of his many naps or enjoying the day being absolutely by himself. I could never figure out why he was so capable of doing so.

"When we approach, we'll have to clear some of the dust away. We can open up a channel, but he may not respond if he can't see us," said Adam.

"And, by the way, Samus," he said, cutting off my reply. "Tell me again why exactly we are seeing this guy? You said he's nuts."

I sighed. "He's not crazy. He's broken. But he's our only help as of right now. We can't go anywhere else."

"Of course we can. We just refueled and we're in the middle of nowhere. We have all directions to go in. Plus, if we end up reading the lore, he'll find out. And, again, you said he's crazy. He'll probably think we're crazier than he is."

The lore! I had completely forgotten about it. I couldn't help but shake my head at my stupidity. I mean, I had had it on my mind the entire time, but I was afraid of it not being worth anything at all. But right now, it had completely escaped me. And again I remembered how afraid I was of reading it. It could be a key to our way out or nothing more than a reciting of things lost. The Chozo had to have left me something. This couldn't be the end of our journey. I wasn't ready for that.

"Fine. Then how about this: we read the lore now and if it gives us another option, we won't pursue this one. But if it doesn't, we continue. Agreed?" I asked.

"Negative. You can't read the lore on this ship. This isn't your ship, it's a Federation ship. This thing may not even have a decoder like your suit has and you gunship had. And even if it does have a decoder, then we'd be out of luck. All data usage is streamed right to a Federation array, which is why I have to delete every bit of data we get before it is sent to the array. I can only delete and re-confirm certain kinds of data, like coordinates, so we still have those. I cannot do the same for most other things, like that lore. If we read it, either the Federation gets its hands on it, too, or I delete it permanently." he said.

He continued. "We'll have to find another ship to decode it on or you'll have to download it to your suit. But we can't download it to your suit without the proper transmitter, which this ship also doesn't have. It's pretty much a piece of junk. Thanks for stranding me in it."

"Relax," I said. "We'll just have to figure something out."

Yeah we would. We need the information in the lore, even if it is useless. At least we'd know what exactly it holds. But I cannot let that lore be on that ship. At least, not with the pilot knowing. He'd want in and I can't exactly trust him. I don't know his plans, I don't even know if he has any plans. And I'm sure he's not in the best of shape. He's losing it and that unpredictability does not bode well with my attempts at salvation. This lore cannot get into the wrong hands or my future may not actually exist anymore.

"Do you have a plan, Lady?" He called me Lady...

"I-I...I don't think so," I replied.

"Well," he said. "We could try to send the lore over to his ship without him knowing, then somehow have you download it to your suit from there and then delete the lore from his ship entirely."

"That'll work?" I asked.

"Of course. But if you don't want him knowing about it, you'll have to distract him and I can't go with you to distract him. I have to stay here to send the data over and then delete it immediately. So if this doesn't work, the only person who will have the lore is him, not even us."

Was it worth it to lie to him? He could be of help, maybe he needs to know. But I still can't trust him. I hate this uneasiness about him!

"It's risky,"I said. "However, it may be worth the risk. I just cannot trust him with this information and we need it now."

"Alright then. You'll have only a limited amount of time to do this before I send the data over and you have to be aware of how much time is elapsed to check on it, because I can't notify you when its being sent over from this ship. Damn it do I wish we had the gunship." he said.

I didn't know if I could do this. It was dangerous, both in the fact that we could lose our only way out of the mess and that I could lose my life. I was walking into something worse than a minefield. If we were found out, he could either be perfectly okay with it or not have a problem ripping my heart out. The latter was probably the most plausible.

"We're just outside of the dust cloud," Adam said. My armor was already on. My heart was pounding. So was his, if he had one.

"Get in there, get the lore and get out. Don't do anything rash and do not change the plan unless you have a damn good reason for it. Any objections, Lady?"

I wasn't sure.