Disclaimer: Samus Aran belongs to NinTenDo. Master Chief and the other thirty two Spartans belong to Bungie.
Paul's gear had been moved into the corridor that linked the four parts of Samus' ship for the funeral, leaving the airlock bereft of any clutter except for the two women and the dead Spartan's shrouded body. Spartans were rare enough, but the Mjolnir-VI armour he'd been wearing was almost as valuable, and Nicole knew that she'd be in even more trouble than she already was if she flushed it into space with her brother-marine's remains.
"Goodbye, Spartan zero six three. I'll buy you a beer next time I see you." Samus couldn't help but make the joke - it was so obvious that 458 needed it. Though she wasn't crying openly, the Hunter could tell that though Nicole appeared at least ten years younger than the forty-something Paul, it was obvious that they'd been very close.
The two women stepped back from the body and into the corridor, and Samus cycled the lock, flushing him serenely out into space. They stood at the transparent porthole for a minute before a soft click came from the speakers, Adam's equivalent of clearing his throat.
"There's something you should know, Lady. I'm detecting strange patterns in the slipspace matrix surrounding this and another vessel, similar to those observed while we prepared to chase the pirate frigate here." The computers' voice broke the silence with an almost embarrassed tone, as though it could understand the moment. "If we do not plan on transferring to hyperluminal travel in the near future, we need to translocate away from the affected area."
"Thankyou, Adam. Take us down into the atmosphere and prepare to land at the co-ordinates ONI gave us." Samus told him before putting her arm around Nicole and guiding her to sit on the edge of the bed. "Rest here for a moment, there's no..." The ship shook, suddenly, and she looked at the ceiling before demanding; "Adam, what was that?"
"Cause unknown, Lady. I must apologise, Lady. It seems that I was not rapid enough in our subluminal transfer." As the computer spoke, Nicole seemed to come out of her reverie and look at Samus.
"What's happened?" She asked, slowly. "My head hurts... like someone's crawled into it and thrown it through a slipstream tunnel." Blinking, she looked at her hands. "No way. That's impossible..."
"What is?" Samus asked, looking at her with a frown. The shudder would have to wait. The hand looked the same to her - though, looking at 458's face, something had certainly changed.
"Have you got a pin? I need to check something." 458 paused while Samus found a knife and offered it to her.
"Will that do?" She asked, and Nicole nodded before pricking her finger. A small amount of blood welled up before the wound sealed itself.
"I haven't had that hand for five years. It's been a prosthetic since I lost it in a melee on Mars during an assassination attempt."
"That's odd. You look younger, too. Has anything like this ever happened before?" Samus frowned. She already had a sneaking suspicion of what had happened.
"No, I... no, it has, actually. After the Argo incident, when I snapped back to the present. Biologically, I'm ten years younger than the other Spartan-IIs. That would mean..." She looked up at the ceiling as it hit her.
"Lady, I'm receiving a primitive message signal. Should I patch it through to the intercom?" The computers' voice interrupted their thoughts.
"Go ahead. Who's calling?" Samus responded, then asked when the click of the comm indicated it was patched into the main array.
"This is Captain DuMorne of the Terran Dominion. Stand down and depower your shields."
Fin.
A/N: Well, that's it for One Girl In All the World. Waifs and Wanderers 2: Radio Free Zerg should be under progress soon. Thanks for being patient, and thanks for reading!