Bleep bleep.

A puzzled look appeared on Samus' face. If her computer was translating this correctly, that signal is a distress signal.

"This can't be right." She muttered to herself. "There is nothing out here for mega parsecs."

It was true, and in part why she was there in the first place. After the run in with the Parasite X on the Biological Space Labs, Samus had been hard up on cash.

With all the money she spent repairing and upgrading her Varia suit, so it would protect her from the cold. A side effect she would now have to deal with. Everything

comes at a cost, the ultimate immune system, based off the Metroid's DNA, had its one minor draw back. Being so low on cash, Samus was taking about any job

offered by the Galactic Federation. Even stooping so low as to scouting out new regions of space. New wouldn't be the correct term, just unexplored space. The star

density in this area was low, maybe two systems in the 60 mega parsec area she was sent to start mapping.

She only convinced herself to do the job, by holding on to the hope that there was a Space Pirate station operating out here. She new those odds would be low,

resources at the Fringe, as it was know, were rare, and with only maybe a dozen planets in the area, less than a fourth of them would have favorable harvesting

conditions for any type of supplies. The signal came from a rather small system, containing a Yellow dwarf. With all the space dust, the light was blocked.

"Well, perhaps the Fringe contains more than I had given it credit for." She mused

If more star systems were hidden as this one was, who knows what else would be lurking in the shadows.

She altered her Hunter-class gunship, on an intercept course for the mysterious signal. What she found was a surprise, system containing four habitable planets, as

well as some various gas giants, with promising mining outposts on their moons. But the most shocking was the ship she encountered. Or part of a ship. It was in a

degenerate orbit around a planet, one of the habitable ones. The odd thing about the ship was it was missing its front half. Stranger even was the fact that none of

it was due to weapons fire, it was simply as if never existed. Like a child cut a paper ship down the center with scissors. The cut was that uniform. The gunship slid

alongside where the front half of the ship should have been, Samus parked the gunship inside, telling the computer to keep its automated defense systems on, as

well as the engines running. She didn't know what was on the ship, and sure didn't want to stick around to meet whatever caused this damage.

Stepping on to the mystery ship, Samus noted how the place was deserted. This signal could have been going off for ages.

"Well at least on the plus side, no one will miss anything that I take." One of the perks of finding an abandon ship is the abundance of wealth one can procure in a

short period. Walking deeper into the ship, Samus picked up some strange glyphs, the likes of which she had never seen before, and nothing the Galactic Federation

had seen either. It read "Forward Unto Dawn." She had no idea what the characters said, but soon she would.

A small purple human appeared on one of the near by computer interfaces Samus was scrolling through.

"Can I help you?" The construct asked rudely.

"I didn't realize a ship this size could carry such a sophisticated AI program. Let alone still have it operational after whatever hit you"

The construct wasn't impressed, nor did it waste any more time with pleasantries.

"Are you all of the rescue team? Seems kind of pitiful, and I must say wow the UNSC moves fast another new MJOLNIR class armor, according to my chronometer not

that much time has passed, they must be keeping busy."

All this talk just confused Samus, what was the UNSC, what did she mean about being surprised about the early arrival?

"How did you get here so fast anyways?" She asked, interrupting Samus train of thought.

"It should have taken many years to get here using conventional hyper drive, and here you are only after 2 months, and I wasn't even getting sick of solitaire yet."

She added sarcastically.

"Sorry I don't have a clue of what you're saying, my name is Samus Aran, I am currently being employed by the Galactic Federation, I have never heard of the UNSC."

"Galactic Federation, well isn't that the cheesiest name I ever heard of. Well no use sitting here, we might as well head down to the storage bay. Seeing how you

thought it was impressive that the ship could contain me, I doubt your armor has a docking port for me" the AI sighed "I guess I'll have to walk, I'm just so used to

being carried."

Somehow that statement didn't surprise Samus.

As they wondered through the ship, Cortana would jump from terminal to terminal, while Samus followed. To break the silence eventually Samus spoke up "So are

there any others aboard the ship or is it just you?"

"Sort of," replied Cortana.

"I was planning on scavenging the ship if you don't mind, there is no way my gunship can tow thing anywhere."

"That's fine with me, though there is one item we must bring along."

Cortana never said what they had to bring along. As they opened the door to the storage bay, she could see what it was.