"There's nothing here," Linvana said.
She stared at the view screen, watching as the rocky Claritas mountains raced past underneath. The Martian highlands were a broken and barren landscape, a series of valleys and canyons carved in to the unforgiving red stone.
"The hideout's there," Telysa insisted, leaning over Linvana's shoulder. "You just have to trust me."
"We shouldn't have come here," Linvana continued. "We should be back on Earth, looking for survivors. Helping."
"We don't know how much of Earth the Cabal control now," Telysa said. "With a fleet that size, they could lock down the entire planet. We need to know more before we make a move. Otherwise, we'll just get ourselves killed."
Linvana shook her head. Even though Telysa was right, her words still felt like a hollow excuse. Retreating was the right choice. That didn't make her feel any less of a coward for abandoning the City. Elva was somewhere back there. If Linvana and Telysa had survived the fall, couldn't she be alive as well?
If Linvana had it her way, she would still be searching through the rubble, and probably would have been cut down by Cabal foot soldiers by now. She was still alive because Telysa had dragged her away.
For the hundredth time, she reached for the Solar source in her chest, trying to summon some hint of warmth, the faintest flicker of flame. Nothing came. Somehow, the Cabal had stolen her Light. Everyone's Light. How was that possible?
She glanced down at the Ghost sitting in her lap. Polaris, her friend and companion of the last three years. He had occasional flashes of lucidity, like when he healed her concussion, but for the most part, he just sat on her lap, shivering and muttering incoherently. The cage around the Traveler had stolen more than his Light.
The Cabal had attacked the Last City. The City she had fought her entire life to protect. In less than a day, the Cabal had swept it away. How many were dead? Thousands? Millions? A few months ago, a Warlock had shown her a vision of the future. It started with the Cabal attacking the City, and ended with humanity's extinction. Was this then the beginning of the end?
So many questions, and not enough answers. For as long as she could remember, her friends had looked to her as a leader. They followed her into battle countless times, against all manner of monsters. Now, when someone needed to take control more than ever, she felt lost and adrift.
"Set us down there," Telysa said, interrupting her thoughts. She was pointing to a break in the landscape. A small plain between two ridges, at the mouth of a narrow canyon. Linvana adjusted the controls of her jumpship, easing up on the engine power as she did. Actually piloting the Arcadia was an unfamiliar experience; she was used to Polaris doing most of the navigation.
Telysa sat back down on the cot in the ship's small cabin. The Hunter's slender frame was hunched and deflated. Her left arm hung useless in a sling. They had already set her dislocated shoulder, but they suspected she might have a hairline fracture somewhere as well. One didn't simply didn't get kicked off a flying warship and walk away unscathed. Polaris had healed Linvana. Azul, Telysa's Ghost, remained worryingly unresponsive.
Linvana pulled up on the controls to slow their horizontal movement. She leveled the ship out, then carefully eased towards the ground. Right as the ship neared the surface, she cut power to the lift thrusters.
The ship fell the last four feet and slammed into the ground. Linvana cringed as the interior rocked violently back and forth.
Not exactly a smooth landing.
She flicked off the controls for the ship's various systems, powered down the engines, then undid the flight harness and slipped into the cabin. Telysa was struggling to tie her hair up in a ponytail with her single free hand.
"Here, let me," Linvana offered. Telysa handed her the tie and turned around. Linvana gathered up the Awoken woman's silky dark blue hair and knotted the tie around the base.
"Do we need to take supplies?" Linvana asked as she finished.
"No, I should have more enough for tonight," Telysa said, "We'll have to carry anything we bring though. Transmat won't be able to breach the shielding."
"What kind of shielding?"
"Vex shielding I think. Yes, I know that sounds weird. It will make more sense if I show you."
"Huh. You ready then?"
Telysa nodded.
Linvana reached past her and flicked the transmat control on the wall. A moment later the jumpship dissolved around them. It was replaced by the dusty red rocks of Mars.
She shook tingling from the transmat out of her arms and took in the landscape, breathing the fresh, dry desert air. The valley they stood in was long and narrow, bordered on either side by low ridges. The ground was composed of loose orange gravel. It was late afternoon in this region of Mars, and the thin sunlight warmed the equally thin air.
"Which way?" she asked.
"Up the canyon," Telysa said, pointing at the narrow opening at the head of the valley. She drew her battered gray hand-cannon from the small of her back and held it loosely by her side as she started walking.
Linvana fell into step beside the Hunter. "I thought you said it was safe here," she said, nodding at the pistol.
"It is, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. I'm never getting caught with my pants down again."
Considering recent events, that was a convincing argument. Linvana pulled her own broken Khvostov over her shoulder. The wooden stock had shattered from the fall, but the firing mechanism worked just fine. Which was good, since she didn't have any other weapons. She had lost her sidearm somewhere along the way, and had given Raze-Lighter to Shaxx the day before, for some repairs. She dearly hoped the Crucible handler was alive somewhere, and put the sword to good use slaughtering droves of Cabal.
Between the two of them, the only other weapons they had were Telysa's knife and auto-rifle. The knife was fine, but Telysa currently wore the broken parts of the auto-rifle across her back.
They wound their way up the canyon. The walls were smooth and sculpted, evidence that the slot had been carved by torrents of gushing water. That was during Mars' wetter days before the Collapse.
"This is a pretty remote corner of the planet," Linvana observed as they walked. "Nothing noteworthy for kilometers around. What inspired you to make a hideout here?"
"Well, to be honest, I crashed," Telysa replied. "I was chasing a bounty on some Cabal Bracus a while back. Things went south pretty fast, had to make a quick getaway. The Cabal followed me back to my ship, hit me as I was taking off. Flew as far as we could until the engines gave out, landed in these badlands. I stumbled on this canyon while Azul repaired the ship."
"Huh. How many other secret hideouts do you got lying around?" There was no accusation in Linvana's voice. She knew Hunters had their secrets and their stashes. She had accepted that when she started dating Telysa nearly three years ago.
"Three or four," Telysa answered. "Most of them I haven't visited in years."
"Huh," Linvana muttered.
As they continued up the canyon, Linvana became aware of a distant whooshing noise. It gradually grew louder, until she finally realized what it was.
"Is that water?" she asked.
Telysa simply nodded and holstered her gun. She grabbed Linvana's hand and led the Titan towards the bend in the canyon.
They rounded the corner and the ground opened up before them.
The entire canyon floor was collapsed into a sinkhole. A thin skein of water rushed over the far edge and crashed against the broken rocks at the bottom. Green plant life clung to the sides, flourishing in the moisture.
"This is amazing," Linvana muttered. "There's so little water left on Mars…where is it coming from? And why didn't we see this from the air?"
"Well, there are some things that do not want to be found," Telysa answered. "Come on, it gets better. "
She led Linvana along a narrow ledge around the edge of the sinkhole. The canyon past it was full of life. Spiky shrubs, spindly gum trees, and clumps of tall grass grew along the banks of the stream. The crystal clear water was only a few inches deep, but it was more than enough to give vital life to the canyon.
A few twists and turns later, the canyon opened into a narrow valley. Craggy ridges framed a thick forest of desert trees and bushes. The stream cut through the middle of the woods, flowing on a bed of coarse red sand. A bird chirped somewhere in the leaves - a sound Linvana had never heard on Mars before.
It was a little slice of paradise, hidden between two shoulders of unyielding stone.
Despite the utter hell she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, Linvana allowed herself a thin smile. "It's beautiful," she said quietly.
"I knew you'd like it. I've wanted to bring you here for years, but we were always so busy. I never got the chance. Now…" Telysa trailed off, her expression hardening. "Now we have nowhere else to go."
Linvana shook her head. "It must be one hell of a hideout," she said, deliberately changing the subject, "How didn't we see it on the flyover? Mars is so dry, this much green should stick out like a Warlock on a bench-press."
"Remember that shielding I mentioned?" Telysa asked.
"Yeah. You said something about Vex?"
"There's some ruins on the other side. They project a field that conceals the whole valley from above. Azul says it's some kind of temporal manipulation. Something about phasing in an image of the past or future."
"I don't like the sound of that. My last experience with time-shifting Vex structures didn't go so well…"
"Don't worry, it's safe," Telysa insisted, "Azul says we're still firmly locked in our own timeline. Come on."
The valley wasn't very large, maybe a quarter mile long, but it was worlds away from the barren badlands that permeated so much of Mars's surface. The trees had once grown much larger, during the early days of Mars's terraformation. Those had long since died and rotted away, leaving hollowed out stumps of gray, crumbling wood. The new forest had grown in around them, clinging to the nourishment of the decomposing remains. Clumps of bushes and coarse grass grew between the stands, filling in the valley floor.
Bushes weren't the only things standing between the trees though. As they walked along the stream, she noticed short stacks of Vex stone and metal dotting the forest. The structures, which usually seemed unnatural to her, felt oddly at home here. The plants grew on and around them, indifferent to their alien nature.
The forest ended, and they stepped into a clearing at the head of the valley. The near side was filled by a shimmering pool of blue water. A waterfall splashed out of a ravine in the back wall, arcing gracefully into the pond. The pool wasn't very deep, no more than six feet in the middle.
The other side of the dell was filled with Vex ruins. A few square pillars stood in front of a larger structure, which extended out of the valley wall. It was typical Vex architecture, with a broad slab of stone across the top and a lopsided façade beneath. There was no apparent design to the stone and metal slabs, yet it was strangely satisfying to look at.
"So where exactly is your hideout?" Linvana asked, confused.
"Right in here," Telysa said, walking towards the Vex structure.
Linvana started. "You made your camp in the ruins?"
"Yep. They haven't attacked me, if that's what you're wondering." She paused. "Actually, a single hobgoblin showed up the first day. It didn't shoot, just stared at me for several minutes, then just turned around and left. Haven't seen any sign of them since."
"That's…odd," Linvana muttered uncomfortably. Reluctantly, she followed Telysa.
"You don't have to tell me. I'm not complaining though. Shielded as it is, this place is the perfect hideout. You can only find it if you know where to look."
A short flight of steps led up to the entrance of the ruins, which was nothing more than a wide gap in the metal and stone. Linvana's eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom.
She found herself in a broad, low chamber. A few stacks of crates stood in both corners near the door. A small cot sat in the back right corner, along with a table and chair. A dark red tarp hung on the wall behind the bed, and a doorway on the left side led deeper into the ruins.
"Well isn't this cozy," Linvana noted as Telysa crossed to the table in and lit the electric lamp sitting on it. The space filled with a warm glow.
"My own little ranger's den," Telysa said absently. "There should be another chair in the crate to your left, and a bed somewhere in that stack too."
Linvana lifted the lid on the nearest crate and pulled out the folding metal chair resting on the top. "So what else do you have stashed here?" she asked as she opened up the chair and set it down at the table. "Big guns we can use to beat some Cabals' ass?"
"Unfortunately not," Telysa lamented as she dropped her broken rifle on the table and sat down across from Linvana, "There's some weapon parts, but no actual weapons. All of it's just extra supplies I left here over the years. There's some glimmer in the next room that our Ghosts would be able to make use of, but, well…"
"Ah," Linvana said quietly. For a moment, neither of them talked.
"So just how big is this place anyway?" Linvana asked, mostly to distract Telysa from thinking about Azul.
"Bigger than it looks," Telysa said, "It goes some ways back into the mountainside. There's also some more ruins further up the canyon. And there are some caves nearby where we can park the Arcadia."
"We shouldn't need to do that. We won't be staying here long anyways."
Telysa met Linvana's gaze. "Why not? We don't exactly have anywhere else to go. The City is gone, Lin. They stole the Traveler, stole our Light. Waltzed right through our defenses like they were tissue paper. There's nothing left. We don't even know if our friends are alive!"
She slammed her fist down on the table with the last statement, making Linvana jump. "Sorry," she muttered, and slumped back in her chair.
Linvana released her breath and fixed Telysa with what she hoped was a hardened stare. "Telysa," she said, "you know there's got to be other survivors. People who need us to protect them, now more than ever. Even without our Light, we're still Guardians."
Telysa didn't reply. She just stared at the table and drummed the fingers of her free hand.
"Come on Tel, what are you thinking?" Linvana prodded softening her voice. "You gotta give me something here."
"I'm thinking," Telysa said quietly, "That right now, I really want to take a shower and wash up. Then when we're done, we can figure out our next move."
Linvana opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. Whatever survivors were out there, they needed the Guardians' help now. But at the same time, she was angry, tired, sore, and stretched thin in every way possible. Her armor and weapons were cracked and shattered. Not only that, she felt fundamentally broken inside, like a piece of her had been torn out. She didn't want to admit it, but wouldn't be able to help anyone in her current state.
"Okay," she conceded, "A shower sounds nice."
Back outside, she helped Telysa undress, since the Hunter could only use one arm. She stripped off her own charred armor and waded into the water after Telysa. Before she entered, she set Polaris down on a low rock, right next to Azul's darkened shell. They always used to joke about what their Ghosts thought whenever they had a private moment. Now she just wondered if the little mechanical creatures would ever recover.
The water was cool and refreshing. It sent a shock up Linvana's body as she lay back and closed her eyes. The chill soothed her aching muscles.
She helped Telysa wash up under the waterfall, scrubbing where the Hunter couldn't reach with her single hand. Then she washed herself, wiping away the dust, soot, and blood caked on her hands and face.
As she finished, Telysa stepped close to Linvana and kissed her. Linvana resisted for a moment, then realized she needed this, to hold close the woman she loved, so that she knew she hadn't lost everything.
She wrapped her arms across Telysa's back and felt her warm, smooth lavender skin. They pressed together against the red stone of the cliff, and didn't release each other for a long and familiar time.
After she got dressed, she found Telysa sitting on top of the Vex ruins, watching the sunset. The Hunter had disappeared after, and Linvana wandered the structure until she found an uneven stairway that led to the roof.
The ruins had a good view of the valley. The spindly leaves of the forest lay before them like a floating carpet. Beyond that, the broad orange plateaus of the valley's sides stretched to the distant horizon. Behind the ruins, the ridges of the landscape rose into low stony mountains.
A single broad slab of stone formed the front section of the roof. Telysa sat on the edge, her knees folded up against her chest and injured arm.
"Hey," Linvana said as she sat down next to her. The sun was only a few inches from setting, and it painted the red landscape with warm hues. The sky around the sun was soaked pale blue, and above them the stars were already peaking through the thin Martian atmosphere.
"Hey," Telysa muttered back. For a precious moment, neither spoke. They just sat side by side with the setting sun. They could almost pretend that nothing had happened, that everything would be okay.
"Do you remember what you asked me in the lounge, right before the Cabal arrived?" Telysa finally asked, breaking the silence.
"You mean when I asked you if you had any good ideas for a hobby?" Linvana said, confused.
"No, right after that. You asked me if I really believed we would really be fighting for centuries to come, and I said we would just have to see. Well, I think I know the answer now. We won't be fighting for that long, because we'll be dead long before that."
Linvana sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought. "Come on Tel, you know that's not a good way to be thinking. If you let yourself believe that, then we've already lost."
"And do you honestly think we haven't already?" Telysa cried. She met Linvana's eyes, and Linvana realized she truly believed it was hopeless. There was a hollowness behind her eyes, a yawning void of despair.
"Did we ever really have a chance in the first place?" Telysa continued when Linvana didn't. "Did we ever think we could really win? A single city, with barely ten thousand warriors to defend it, up against countless millions of enemies. Everything we ever accomplished is gone. Four hundred years to build the City, less than four hours to wipe it all away."
Linvana cautiously rested her hand on Telysa's shoulder, then reached down and threaded her fingers through hers. Telysa's hand was bony and strong, covered with callouses. A hand that worked and fought for a living.
"Oh Telysa, do you really think I don't ask myself those questions every day?" she said quietly, "Because I do. Every time I wake up, every time I pull the trigger on my gun, every time I fall asleep with you in my arms, I ask myself what we're doing. I'm supposed to be the captain of Dawnstar, you know. Our friends look to me as their leader. Some days, I just wish I could tell them the truth; that I don't know, that they're wrong to trust me, that we should be running as far and fast from the Darkness as we can.
"But I don't say that, because when I see their faces, and when I see the faces of everyone else we fight for, I don't see fear, I see hope. They believe in us, even if we don't. And maybe it's a lie, maybe we are all doomed to extinction, but if that's the case, then that hope is all we have. And that at least is worth fighting for."
Telysa shook her head. "Is it really worth it though? Is it worth prolonging the inevitable? Isn't that just making everyone suffer?"
Linvana sighed. "Do you remember what I told you about Mercury?" she asked.
"Yeah," Telysa replied, "You got teleported through time by some time-lost Warlock so you could fight some big nasty Vex mind. Sounds like you had way too much fun without me."
Linvana smiled as the woman she loved began to shine through again.
"Well," she continued, "That isn't the whole story. Praedyth, that time-lost Warlock, he also showed me a vision, a simulation of one of the Vex's futures. In that vision, the City was attacked, and humanity went on the run, and we died on Mercury as we tried to hide from our enemies. Things were truly hopeless.
"But one thing was different. In that future, we were separated, and you died. Alone, without me. Now, everything else in that vision has come true, except you're still alive. You're here with me right now. And for me, that means the future can change. And if that can change, maybe everything else can too.
"So yeah, I guess maybe it is hopeless. And that's why we need to keep going, because we'll never know if we had a chance if we just take it lying down. We gotta keep fighting, all the way to the cold, bitter end."
Telysa sighed and turned back to the sunset, the warm light making her lavender skin glow. "You seeing me dead, is that the reason you proposed to me when you got back?"
"Yes."
She smiled. "Lin, you know that one death or a thousand, with or without the Light, I'll always follow you. If you want to scuicidally throw yourself at the Cabal, then I'll be right by your side, flashing them a rude gesture as they blow us to bits."
Linvana smiled too. "I know."
The Hunter wrapped her arm around Linvana and drew her close. They kissed a long, lingering kiss, as the last sliver of the sun slipped behind the distant horizon.
They eventually released, but close close, with their arms wrapped around each other.
"So what do we do now?" Telysa asked.
"Now? We need to figure out where we stand. Who are the survivors, and how many? See if any of the Vanguard is still alive…try to find the rest of Dawnstar. Only Elva was in the City with us, but we have no idea what's going on in the rest of the system. They could be in a worse situation, for all we know."
"Brontis, Cannard, and Ulaina, you said they were still here on Mars, near Meridian, right?" Telysa said.
"Yeah." Linvana bit her lip. "They should be the easiest to find. Dellander was on Earth, in Africa, and Damien and Mariel, they're…they're on the Dreadnaught. Once we regroup, If we regroup, we won't be strong enough to fight the Cabal directly. We'll have to try to get past their defenses and go straight for their leader, that monster Ghaul. It's not going to be easy without our Light though."
"Actually," Telysa said, "I might be able to help with that."