The three Guardians removed their helmets after the sniper met them on the beach, each of their Ghosts floating beside them. Onikor looked to each of them. Now that he had time to look, he saw that Stelia was taller than both of them. She was probably over two meters tall, about a head taller than Oni. She was light skinned and had long brown hair, similar to himself, except his was short. In contrast, the sniper had mid length black hair. He also had some red face paint streaked under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. Oni couldn't guess why. He was wearing some kind of leather apparel and his helmet looked close to that of a fighter pilot without the breathing apparatus.
"Why are you blue?" Stelia asked to the sniper. The question was blunt and almost out of nowhere. Oni glanced at her and rolled her eyes but even he was curious why the sniper's skin was blue.
"He's an Awoken," Oni's Ghost said. "They're still human, in a way. They've just spent a long time in space. I suppose some occasionally returned to Earth. There are other Awoken Guardians at the Tower."
Oni and Stelia looked back to the sniper and he just shrugged. If he didn't have any memory either, he would know as much as they did.
"Well now that we're all here," Oni's Ghost continued, "This is Onikor and that's Stelia." He nodded at each Guardian while making introductions.
The sniper nodded to them both. "I am Ethanix, but you can call me Ethan I suppose." He turned back inland. "My Ghost says we have to go to the Tower," he nestled the stock of the rifle against his shoulder and looked through the scope. "There's an airfield over this direction. I saw it after I was resurrected. We can probably find some kind of transportation there."
"Probably the best plan we have right now," Oni responded, looking to Stelia. She nodded back in agreement and fit her helmet back on her head. Oni and Ethan followed suit and with nothing more to say, they started walking to the direction of the airfield, their Ghosts floating beside each of them.
"So what exactly are the Fallen?" Stelia asked anyone in particular, but she was probably asking the Ghosts. "Why did they want to kill us so badly?" They were close to the airfield. The air traffic control tower was in sight and they could see the hangars with a few broken down and rusted planes.
"They're vicious scavengers," Stelia's Ghost said. "They'll do anything to steal more parts for their Servitor machines. We need to stay away from them." The Ghost seemed like it was hiding behind Stelia's shoulder.
"Then they're most likely going to be at the airfield," Oni said. "Probably one of the better places to scavenge for machine parts. We need to be careful." He looked to the other two, trying to come up with a plan. "Ethan, you're probably best outside. You can use your rifle to keep an eye out while me and Stelia move in to find an adequate vehicle."
"We probably won't be able to get in there without being noticed," Stelia said. "And who knows if we'll even find anything that's airworthy?"
"I know," Oni replied and looked to the Ghosts. "What else can you three do?"
Oni's and Stelia's Ghosts looked at each other. "We can transmat the parts where they need to be and try to fix it," Oni's Ghost said. "As long as it's in good shape."
"Good enough for me. We need to hold that position until we're able to get airborne then pick up Ethan on the way out," Oni said, giving the awoken a new nickname. If Ethanix had any issue with it, he didn't show it.
Within a few more minutes, the entire airfield was in sight. Ethanix looked through the scope of his rifle, scanning the area for anything potentially hostile or something that could get them out of here. "There's Fallen around most of the hangars," He said, still watching. His rifle was moving from left to right, surveying the whole airfield. "There! The central hangar looks promising."
"You can use us to communicate," Oni's Ghost said before dematerializing to stay with his Guardian. "You can guide us to it, Ethan."
The other Guardians looked to their Ghosts as the others voice talked through them, relaying the information. The rest dematerialized like Oni's.
"I don't like this," Stelia's Ghost said through their comms. "Do we really have to go in there?"
"You want to get back to the Tower, don't you?" Stelia asked. "This is the best way." She nodded to Oni and they started jogging to the airfield.
Ethan lay prone on the ground, looking through his scope. He scanned for the best possible route to the central hangar. "The air strip is mostly free of enemies," He said through the voice comms. "You should have no trouble getting across. From there it would be best if you go to your right. The hangars from then on are the least populated."
"Gotcha," Oni replied, him and Stelia crouching low so they're least likely to be seen. There was a flash of blue energy over their heads but it was quickly followed by a muffled bang from behind them. Both running Guardians looked over and saw a headless dreg fall to the ground. This happened a few more times from the hangar they were moving towards, different Fallen shooting at them and then quickly dropping from Ethan's sniper shot.
When they got close enough, Oni and Stelia started firing their own weapons at the Fallen, removing any live obstacles to get to some cover. They were out in the open right now and they knew they had to keep moving. As Ethan promised, it was only sparsely populated and they were able to clear it pretty quickly.
They both took a short breather after the first few moments of excitement. "How're ya holdin' up?" Stelia asked Oni, both of them breathing a little harder than usual.
"Well, considering I was just resurrected into a post apocalyptic situation," Oni started, "with aliens, space magic and small artificially intelligent….things, I think I'm holding up pretty well." He tried to force a laugh. He couldn't tell because of the helmet, but he knew Stelia was smiling and getting a kick out of his stress. "How about yourself, soldier lady?"
"I could do this all day," Stelia replied. Unlike Oni, who had his hands on his knees and hunched over from exhaustion, she was standing straight up, with only her head stooped slightly as she caught her breath. "We've gotta move fast before the Fallen regroup and surround us."
"But we just got here!" Oni shouted to her as she rounded the hangar opening and started firing her weapon. He could hear louder shots in the distance from Ethan's rifle. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he readied his weapon and followed Stelia back outside.
The Fallen were sparse but still numerous. Stelia took out most of them, aiming her rifle carefully and somehow keeping it steady as she ran at a brisk pace. Oni, on the other hand, was almost all over the place when he ran and took pot shots. Since his rifle fires in burst shots, it recoiled away from his target as soon as he pulled the trigger, only causing one projectile to impact on his target if any at all. He slowly started to get used to the barrel jump, but that didn't improve his aim.
Stelia pointed her rifle to the right and fired into the next hangar down the line. Oni saw blue projectiles fire back at her, some impacting her shield. "Let's try something else," He said, holding out his left hand. He concentrated for a moment and a sphere like energy ball pulsed dark purple in his open palm. Once he was at the hangar door, he tossed it to the largest cluster of Fallen. As soon as the grenade struck the ground, it erupted into glass particles of equal size, which also exploded, causing heavy damage to the Fallen within its radius and killing most at the center.
"That's better control," Oni heard his Ghost speak from the back of his mind. "We don't want you destroying any potential parts for our new ship."
"Yeah, yeah," Oni replied, picking up the pace to catch up to Stelia. She was already at the third and central hangar. She stood at the entrance and fired a few more shots at the remaining Fallen outside before Oni ran around the corner behind her. He stopped and drank in the view. "Well that sure is a sight."
"The ship was rusty and beaten, sheets of metal taken out of parts of the hull, but it was still a beauty to behold. It seemed like a trooper transport, the cockpit at the nose and two sliding doors at each side of the center. Two and a half doors to be more accurate. One door seemed to be cut in two. It was a VTOL like aircraft with a jet engine in the center of each wing for a stable hover mode.
The Ghosts reappeared and floated to the aircraft. Beams of light shot out of their single robotic eyes to make contact with the exposed engine parts of the ship as well as other areas that seemed to need attention.
"It needs some repairs, but we should get it going with some spare parts," Oni's Ghost said. "There should be enough here or in the hangars we passed."
There was a sudden roar from outside and both Guardian's and the Ghosts turned to look. Nothing was in sight yet, but they could tell something was coming.
"We need to fix this quick!" Stelia's Ghost yelled, her shell shaking after the roar. "I don't want to be food for the Fallen!"