"What are we doing, Kari?" Jayesh said.
He and Kari lay in bed that night, cuddled together under the blankets. Jayesh stared at the ceiling, and Kari could feel his tension. They'd only been married three months.
"What do you mean?" Kari said, running her fingers through his hair.
He sighed. "Heading to the Reef like this. Taking a greenhorn Guardian we don't know. Hunting down these Barons to murder them. We might as well serve ourselves to the Darkness on a platter."
"What else can we do, lovelight?" Kari said. "Cayde was murdered, first. The Vanguard doesn't want to risk anyone else, after these last two awful winters."
"Last winter wasn't as bad as the one before," Jayesh said. "At least there was no plague. But still. I know Cayde's killers need to be brought to justice. But randomly killing them isn't just."
"Ask the Fallen how their legal system works," Kari said. "It's quick and painful. They understand this, Jay. They expect Cayde to have avengers, and they'll be waiting for us. If they can kill us, too, then in their eyes, they are the ones in the right."
Jayesh clenched his jaw.
Kari studied the outline of his face. "I know this won't be easy. But our team needs you. Madrid needs you. Awoken already have one foot in the Darkness, and Madrid's in danger of losing himself out there. I've been to the Reef. It's an awful place."
They lay there in silence for a while. Jayesh was thinking this through. "So, you're saying that I'm the conscience of our fireteam?"
"Pretty much."
He heaved a sigh. "Leave it to the crazy warlock to preach justice to people obsessed with revenge. Yeah, that's a fun role. I'm headed to the Reef to bring Cayde's killers to justice, whatever form that takes. But if you expect me to keep all of you from falling to the Darkness ... Kari, I'm not strong enough for that. I'm afraid that I'll get out there, and I'll fall to the Darkness. I read about what the Taken King did to the Awoken. Traces of that still linger."
"That's why we need you," Kari replied. "Your connection to the Traveler is so much stronger than ours."
"Kari ... heartspark ..." He pulled her close and kissed her. "If you fall ... I will, too. I'm not ... strong enough to watch you die."
"We're Guardians," she whispered. "We don't die."
"Tell that to Cayde," Jayesh said with sudden bitterness. "Tell that to all the Guardians lost in the Red War. This Prince Uldren is something more evil than I've ever dealt with. Ghaul at least wanted the Traveler's approval. He committed atrocities, but that was the theater of war. Uldren shot an unarmed, wounded man. That's a different kind of evil, Kari. And we're diving into it, completely unprepared."
"It's what we do," Kari said. "We had no intel on the Dreadnaught when we went in. We knew nothing about the Vault of Glass and the Black Garden. But we went anyway. And we figured it out and kicked ass. With the Reef, at least we know the territory."
Jayesh didn't answer for a while. The awful, grieving sense of injustice inside him warred with his educated terror of the Darkness. He'd nearly been Taken, once, himself. While the sheer horror of the experience had cauterized his dread of fighting Taken in battle, the thought of seeing his friends and wife devoured that way sickened him.
And for some reason, his ghost, Phoenix, was pouring love into his soul from the other direction.
Both their ghosts remained in phase while the Guardians were in bed together, giving them the illusion of privacy. Jayesh always knew Phoenix was there, his spark a constant, familiar presence. But tonight, as Jayesh voiced his fears, it affected his ghost deeply.
"What?" he thought.
"You," Phoenix replied. "I swear, no other Guardian in the Vanguard worries about these things. And it's just ... so beautiful."
"It's beautiful that I'm scared out of my mind over encountering the Darkness again?" Jayesh thought in bewilderment.
"It's that it matters to you," Phoenix replied. "And that you're so desperate to protect your team. That's the essence of Guardianhood." His spark brightened, warming Jayesh's heart.
"You're talking to Phoenix, aren't you?" Kari said.
Jayesh grinned ruefully. "You caught me."
"What's he saying?"
"He's getting all sentimental about me worrying about you. Ghost mush."
Kari laughed a little. "Neko does that, too. You should have heard him when we visited Cayde. He wanted to hug me so badly."
Jayesh didn't voice the observation that Kari's ghost had been in love with her for years. "Come on, ghosts, we're trying to have adult time, here."
"No, you're not," Phoenix said in his head. "You're sitting here worrying."
Kari's arms tightened around Jayesh. "Maybe that's what you need."
He kissed her and pulled her closer. "Maybe so."
Nell peered out the window of the space ship, straining against her harness. A vague mist against the stars had spread into a vast, dust-filled field of asteroids and the remains of ancient space ships. In some places, the ships and stone had been so jumbled together that they resembled a jagged, deadly coral reef.
But then, there was a reason for the name.
"That's where most of Earth's population died," Kari said, working the ship's controls. "The ones who survived were caught in the blast as Light and Darkness collided, and they became the Awoken."
"That's why they're blue?" Nell exclaimed. "That's so weird! If I get all lit up and hit Darkness, will I turn blue, too?"
Kari laughed. "No, it's not the same. It was a huge accident and unlikely to ever happen again."
Another ship flew in position just aft of their starboard wing - a beat-up, junker of a ship that belonged to Jayesh.
"Why does he fly that thing?" Nell asked. "You two are married, right? What, do you keep all the money?"
"No," Kari snapped, color rising in her cheeks. "He won't let me buy him a new ship."
"Why?" Nell asked, sorry for making Kari angry all of a sudden.
"Because Jayesh is ... proud." Kari concentrated on making a long, gradual turn to the left. More asteroids crept into view. "He's saving up for a new ship with his bounty earnings. He almost has enough."
Nell opened her mouth to ask why Kari didn't help him, then changed her mind. Obviously, their relationship was complicated. She returned to staring at the scenery.
After a while, Kari steered straight into the ships and asteroids, making for a tiny, shadowed gap about the size of Nell's thumb. But as they drew closer, it expanded into chasm hundreds of miles wide. Beyond it was another collection of ships and asteroids, fused together into giant concentric rings. These were surrounded by blue mist and white clouds.
"That looks like atmosphere," Nell said.
"It is," Kari replied. "Don't ask me how the Awoken managed it, but they somehow terraformed the Reef into semi-inhabitability."
"But ..." Nell struggled to understand this. "Doesn't atmosphere require certain amounts of gravity? And rotation? And magnetic fields?"
"All of which can be simulated," Kari replied. "Like I said, don't ask. I have no idea how they do it. Mind you, it's a poor, thin atmosphere on the outer reaches. You can only hope to breathe at the lower elevations."
Nell touched the clamps that attached her helmet to her suit, making sure they were airtight. She carried four hours worth of oxygen in a slim tank under her cloak, but now she worried if it would be enough.
"What happens if we run out of air?" Nell asked.
"Have your ghost transmat you another tank from the ship," Kari replied. "My cargo compartment has nothing but food, water, and oxygen. I've been out here before."
This soothed Nell a little. She mentally reached for her ghost Hadrian, reassuring herself that he was there. His spark touched hers, close by and nervous.
As they descended through the clouds and atmosphere of the oblong land mass, the ship shuddered and bucked as the winds hit it. Nell clung to her harness. Kari gripped the flight stick, concentrating on her instruments.
Something cold brushed Nell's consciousness, like a slimy, chilled slug creeping across her fingers. She jumped and flinched. At the same time, Hadrian phased into sight in front of her, spinning in a circle, looking for enemies. Kari's ghost, Neko, did the same.
"It's outside," Neko said.
"Get back in phase, you two," Kari snapped. As the ghosts vanished, she added, "I don't know what that was, but we don't need it targeting our ghosts."
Nell craned her neck to peer out the windows, but all she could see was racing clouds. "Hadrian," she thought, "was that an alien?"
"It was Darkness," Hadrian replied with a shudder she could feel.
Nell blinked in confusion. "People keep talking about light and darkness. I just thought people hated night time."
"Darkness!" Hadrian exclaimed. "With a capital D! It's an evil force that consumes and destroys. We have Light from the Traveler, and the Darkness hates us."
"Oh," thought Nell in sudden comprehension. "And Light gives us our powers, right? And lets ghosts heal and resurrect and stuff?"
"Correct," Hadrian replied. "Problem is, the Darkness is very active in this place, and it made note of our arrival. Keep your weapons close to hand."
The clouds vanished and the turbulence subsided. A broad, rocky plain spread beneath them, riddled with cracks, studded with mountains in the distance.
"Last stop, Tangled Shore," Kari said, throttling back and circling. Jayesh's ship was still with them, accompanying them down to the ground.
"More ships," Nell said, peering out. The moth-shaped outlines of various Guardian ships sprinkled the landscape, some docked in groups, others alone, in the shelter of a crater or rock outcropping.
"We're not the first Guardians out here," Kari said. "And probably not the last."
She set them down a safe distance from the other ships. Jayesh's ship landed a short distance away.
Over the radio frequency shared by their ghosts, Jayesh said, "Don't disembark yet."
"What's wrong?" Kari asked.
"A consciousness noticed us," Jayesh said, as if this happened every day. "Keep your engines going. We may need to lift off in a hurry."
Nell and Kari sat in the ship, tense, engines idling. Nothing happened. A whirlwind spun by the ship's nose, tossing dust in the air.
Something moved at the crest of the nearest hill. Before Nell could identify it, energy bolts flashed from the nose of Jayesh's ship, blasting it to cinders.
"That was a scout," Kari said. "Some kind of Fallen on a pike."
"Right," Jayesh said. "It's clear to disembark. Eyes up, Guardians."
"How does he know?" Nell asked, unbuckling her harness.
Kari smiled behind her helmet's faceplate. "He ... senses things. You'll see."
Mystified, Nell climbed out of the cockpit and dropped to the dusty ground outside. Cold wind whipped her cloak against her legs, and the sun seemed faint and distant.
"Hadrian, hand cannon."
Her ghost transmatted the weapon into her hands. Nell loaded it from her ammo belt.
Nearby, Jayesh emerged from his own ship, a pulse rifle under one arm. He climbed the hill and surveyed the remains of the alien he had killed. Nell and Kari joined him.
The pike had been reduced to charred parts spread in a half-circle around the point of impact. The Fallen had been torn in half by the explosion. Nell gagged and had to face the other way, or risk throwing up in her helmet.
Jayesh and Kari examined the body. "What is this insignia?" Jayesh asked. "I thought I knew the major House signs."
"I've never seen it before," Kari replied. "And look at the coloring of the skin. It looks ill."
"And the armor! Just bits of metal patched together with chain."
Hadrian said in Nell's head, "I know Fallen. Take us closer."
"I can't look, Hadrian," Nell thought, swallowing hard.
"You don't have to look," Hadrian replied with a note of urgency. "Just move closer."
Nell did, keeping her gaze on her boots. After a long moment, Hadrian said over their team radio frequency, "This Fallen reeks of a bad batch of ether."
"A bad batch?" Kari said, looking at Nell, since she couldn't see the ghost. "What, they loaded it with recreational drugs?"
"No, nothing like that," Hadrian replied. "That's called Spiced Ether and only the Archons are allowed to have it."
Jayesh tried, unsuccessfully, to smother a laugh. Kari smacked the back of his helmet.
Hadrian ignored them. "This ether has been altered in some other way. The formulation is wrong. Maybe they've been trying to breed super weapons. If we meet more of these Fallen, treat them with extreme caution."
"Thanks for the warning," Kari replied. "Let's go. Instruments detected a settlement in that direction." She pointed toward the distant mountains.
As the three Guardians set out across the barren landscape, Jayesh asked, "Nell, how does your ghost know all that?"
Hadrian whispered in her mind, "Don't tell them I'm part Servitor. Please."
Nell drew a slow breath to give herself time to think. "Well, when he was looking for me, he spent a lot of time observing Fallen in the EDZ."
"Ah." This seemed to satisfy Jayesh.
