The Chief doesn't smile, exactly, but there's a little quirk at one corner of his mouth at York's assessment of Wash.

"Then we'll go with 'normal'," he says. They agree. It's... not ideal, but functional.

It's weird to be in a place with the time and resources available to aspire to better than just "functional".

"Clear cut objectives. Solid support base. No orbital plasma," the Chief agrees. The change for him has been less in moral ambiguity and more in stakes. While it's true they're faced with Chronoblivion and it's unclear how they're going to stop that, their missions in the meantime can't even touch how dire things were for the Chief during the war. They're peacekeepers cleaning up trouble as it arises, not the failing defensive line trying to hold back the implacable advance of the Covenant.

It's nice to be on the winning side.

"This was unusual as far as our ops go."

But given the ambush at Talokk IV, he's starting to wonder if things like this will start happening more often. That's a worry there.