Her ghost's silence and overzealous scanning was finally getting to Neta. They had come a great distance from the City, from Earth, to a forsaken space station orbiting Jupiter's moon, Callisto. Days had gone by without any further instructions from their contact in the Vanguard.
Neta's ghost held that something was wrong and that they should abort the mission, return to Earth, and directly investigate the reason for the silence. Neta tried a few times to establish contact but a close call nearly alerted a Fallen skiff to their position. Since then they had maintained radio silence and Neta's ghost had taken up the habit of scanning the surrounding region for signs of more Fallen.
Day after day...Silence and scans. Silence. Scan. Silence. Scan. If something didn't change soon Neta feared she might snap.
Then, after nearly a week of silence, Neta heard her ghost make a strange sound. It was not a sound she had ever heard it utter before. A high pitched cacophony of clicks and chirps echoed through the hull of their ship.
"Ghost?" The small machine twitched at the sound of her voice. They had not spoken in hours it seemed, maybe more. "Yes Neta, forgive me, I was lost in thought." The ghost chimed. It flitted over to her where she sat at the ship's control panel.
Her combat helmet sat beside her on the paneled floor. She liked to remove it whenever the opportunity presented itself. The dim interior lighting of the ship bathed them in hues of amber and cast shadows across her pale face. In the half light of the control module Neta's eyes seemed to glow green in the shadow of her bangs.
Her hair hung at shoulder length. Onyx strands darted out of place here and there. She liked it that way. She thought it made her look fierce, wild, like an untamed light that brought swift death to the enemies of humanity. Indeed, The Vanguard's mentor of newly revived warlocks, Ikora, had seen fit to assign her the call sign Raven.
Suddenly giving off more light than Neta had seen in a very long time the ghost hovered just more than a foot from her. The amber light of the ship brightened around her and her fierce guise softened. The ghost that had now been her companion for several years didn't have a face like anything humanoid but she could tell it was looking at her with what equated to a grin.
The ghost continued, "I think I may have found something during my scan, A ship." The ghost paused waiting for a reply. "A ship?" Neta asked unsure if this was truly news to be exited about. "Why so giddy over more fallen?" The ghost tilted to a side as if it didn't understand the question.
"It's not Fallen Neta." Her eyes widened and a sensation of twisting filled her gut, whether from excited curiosity or concern she did not know. "It's from Earth!"