Chapter 8
Aftermath
"The Battle for the City" the Cryptarchs began calling it. By far, it was the bloodiest one-day battle of what they were calling the Vanguard Counter-Offensive. The official count of troops deployed showed that 2160 Fallen infantry units were deployed along with 25 Walkers (5 were destroyed before my involvement) meanwhile 351 Guardians were dispatched in 117 three-G fireteams. Of those deployed, there were 1800 Fallen bodies present not counting those that had died via energy streams from Fusion Rifles, grenades, and other energy-centered weapons that essentially turned their targets into a wispy outline and disappear shortly thereafter. 97 Guardians fell and never returned as their Ghosts were destroyed as well. 200 Guardians (not counting the forever deceased) reported being downed at one point or another during the battle as well.
A very large portion of the damaged part of the Wall had to be torn down and rebuilt. Two dozen Guardians were to be posted at the opening at any given time over the next three months. These assigned troops would be rotated out as individual fireteams to swap out with the other after 8 hour shifts.
I powered back online around 7 a.m. back in my room. I sat up in my bed and stared at the green wall and insignia made of yellow triangles. I now understood it as the mark of the Warlocks and my current personal emblem. Lee said that I could change this by purchasing an emblem from the Outfitter, but that could come later. I had a shift at the Wall in 2 hours and had quite a bit of errands, per say, to do beforehand. I stood up on the left side of the bed and grabbed the silver metal ring (called a bond) and slid it up my left arm, allowing the armor to reappear from the Ghost's inventory and cover me. As is usual, the helmet stayed in the inventory until I needed. For the errands, I wouldn't need it so I began to walk towards the door.
"Wait a minute," the voice of my Ghost said behind me. "We need to take care of something before you set out any farther."
I turned around. "What would that be? Make it quick, you of all things should know that we have a shift at the Wall in two hours and things to get before that happens," I said harshly.
"It's just that. The harshness that we've shown each other ever since I revived you in the cosmodrome. It's been a little over a week and little progress has been made in terms of our working relationship. I don't mean this to sound rude, but I'm the only Ghost you'll ever have. If I am destroyed, you are as well, so I believe that we need to fix this right now."
"And how would we do that?" I said sarcastically while stepping on the hidden pressure plate to open the door to the hall. Just as I made a step, it slammed in my face and almost on my boot.
"I think that in order for our relationship to grow we should have a more personal charm with one another, so sit." Ghost said. I pulled up a chair from beneath the desk in the room and sat in it. I sat slightly hunched over with my elbows touching my knees and the forearms hanging freely below almost touching at the hands. Suddenly, an unexpected weight fell on my hands, nearly taking me out of the seat.
I looked down and saw my helmet in my hands. "What is this for? There's no battle here."
"Just put it on, " Ghost ordered. I pulled it over my head, but the normal HUD did not appear; in fact, nothing did. My Ghost floated over in front of the helmet and faced it with its light blue "eye" facing dead center. The helmet scanned it and immediately became a white screen that replaced the view of everything around me. I squirmed in the chair to make sure I was still seated, and figured out that I was. This was just something put on by the suit.
Suddenly, a line of black text appeared in the top center of the helmet. "Welcome to the Ghost Customization." I didn't immediately realize what he meant by a "personal charm" earlier, but now I understood it. Just as Lee had said, Ghosts could transform when they wanted to and if they so decided, you could change their color scheme*. The text faded away and was replaced by a microphone shaped icon. More text centered itself on the top of the screen. "Please say the new name of your Ghost. Please note that this cannot be changed again." The last phrase was in small print just underneath the first line.
I thought for a moment, taken slightly off guard. I then settled on the name "Starco" for no apparent reason other than to give it a name. It accessed a registry and put the name in the database successfully after making sure there were no duplicates.
A moment later, a new screen popped up showing various colors and shapes as well as a layer count numbering to 50. A new line of text showed: "Please design your Ghost however you may like. This can be done over at a later time should you change your mind."
I colored the entire shell black and put white dots on random places over the original black coating, giving him (I guessed) the illusion of the night sky. When the system noticed my pause, it assumed I was finished and the white screen faded away, returning the normal HUD that popped up this time.
I took off the helmet and stared at the Ghost, now named Starco, with his shining black layer and white dots. Aside from the light blue eye and dim reflection of the room at certain angles, Starco actually looked like the night sky. "Happy?" I asked.
"Much better. Alright let's get these tasks underway," Starco responded. I left the room and took the lift to the central plaza of the Tower. I casually made my way over to Banshee to obtain more boxes of ammunition for my weaponry.
"How are you doing Maximus?" he said as I approached.
"Not bad. A little low on munitions though. You still got any hand cannon capsules and sniper rounds?"
"You got it." He reached down and and placed 6 boxes on the cluttered counter in front of him. 4 boxes of capsules and 2 boxes of three magazines per box. "That'll be 1200 Glimmer," Banshee said flatly. Starco spawned in the money from the inventory, and I unloaded the boxes into their respective pockets. I started to walk away when he spoke once again.
"Wait up a second," I turned around. "I heard that Ikora was looking for you in the Vanguard room. You may want to head that way."
"Got it," I responded. I walked to the stairs and made my way to the wide hallway. I turned the corner to take the second set of stairs and ran into someone rushing up the stairs. I instinctively grabbed the hand of the person I bumped into. I immediately recognized who it was.
"Excuse me Ikora…" I said.
"It's no problem," she responded cooly. "I actually have a couple of things for you. The first is an apology for the harshness I showed you during the battle. My only excuse is that it was the Wall the Fallen were attacking, and all of the Vanguard were under a lot of stress. For all that, I am extremely sorry."
"Don't mention it. I completely understand that sort of thing. You forget that I was a soldier all those years ago, so I'm used to harsh attitudes from my superiors," I responded sincerely.
"Well, as a sort of consolation, I want to show you something that you could apply in combat."
"Right here?"
"It'll only take a moment," Ikora said assuredly. "Now, hold up your right fist so that the knuckles of the glove face me." I did so. "Now partially open your hand and allow that orb of light to form. Keep your hand steady and don't allow it to grow; at least, not yet.
I opened my hand so that from the side it would look similar to a "C." The orb appeared a second or two later and grew just a bit to the size of golf ball or thereabouts. Ikora did these exact movements with her own hand. She then stood beside me at the top of the stairs. "Now, throw the arm forward at a pretend enemy in front of you and expand your hand quickly, allowing the orb to expand rapidly." I did so and as I thrust out my arm, the orb lost stability and dissipated with a loud cracking sound when my arm was completely extended.
Ikora's followed and produced a similar sound. "Just like that," she said. "Now do that as quick as possible and you have a what we like to call a 'Warlock Melee' under your belt."
"Thanks," I said.
"One more thing before you leave for your shift. I actually have a physical gift for you to take with you into battle," the Vanguard turned to her Ghost nearby. "Evora, if you will. Maximus hold out your hands." The Ghost nodded and sent forth streams of light blue light on my hands.
A black and extremely heavy object dropped into my hands. It had a long cylinder at the right end which extended through to a wider end protruding from the larger body of the weapon. A trigger was attached to the bottom of the curved body of the weapon. It also had a red-tinted and rectangular scope with a circle in the middle that contained a smaller dot in its center. It looked like some sort of rocket launcher. It also had a sling attached that went the opposite direction of the sniper rifle's.
Ikora spoke, interrupting my thoughts, "That's a Void element rocket launcher by the name of 'Unfriendly Giant.' I haven't explored many of the modifications that the Gunsmith can help you apply but I'm pretty sure that they're pretty good. To load it: pull the top part back, a slanted cylinder will pop up. Put the explosive rocket round in there, slam the part down and slide that top piece back." She demonstrated.
Seemed easy enough. I slung the rocket launcher and crossed Civilian Applications. I never heard the metal on metal clang and found that the business end of the launcher actually stopped short of hitting the extended barrel of the rifle.
Ikora added, "The rounds come in pinkish-purple boxes like this one," she dug in one of the pockets of her cloak and produced one. She opened it and pulled out a rounded cylinder with a flat end no larger than a hand cannon capsule. It seemed a bit small for the large cylinder of the rocket launcher. She turned the object in her hand so that the flat end faced up in her fist. She touched the center of it and it suddenly grew to about the size of a fist in thickness and the length of her hands to her wrist. "Touch the center of the bottom of the round to grow its size to activate the round."
She tapped the center of the bottom again and it shrank back to its original size. She emptied the box into her hand, allowing two more of the objects to fall into her hand and handed them to me. I placed them in a pouch on the left side of my cloak next to the sniper magazines. "Thank you again, Ikora," I said.
"No problem Maximus. Now, go catch your transport." I left her and went to the hangar where I was supposed to meet the team.
I reached the Tower Hangar and took the stairwell to the bottom. I saw the black transport ship that would take the us to the Wall once again. It was the same one from a couple days ago but with newly installed seats due to Arla's hidden injury.
I climbed aboard and took a seat in the center of the left bench. Lee took a seat directly opposite me and high-fived me just before he sat down. Now, we awaited the last person in our team. Lee and I made casual conversation while we waited. After all, we still had 15 minutes before our official departure time.
"How have you been this last couple days Maximus?" Lee asked lightheartedly.
"I've been a little preoccupied with trying to recover my energy levels. I was using reserves apparently after the fight."
"I hear ya. Sleep isn't such a bad thing. I've been doing a lot of that too as well as getting in a little time on the firing range. Otherwise, I've just been milling about the Tower with no destination." We were silent for a moment. Then Lee spoke again, "Any news on Arla?"
"I didn't get to check today, but I predict that she's still in that medical stasis. The doctors said yesterday that they didn't want her moving around until the operations were finished and they could trust that she wouldn't escape again. I'll check back after our shift."
"Yeah, who helped her with that? I had a couple of buddies that were in the infirmary then from a training accident and said they saw someone helping her out."
I raised my hands as if surrendering. "Guilty as charged."
"You did that?!" Marshall said with surprise.
"I was only doing what you told me to."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked with curiosity.
"You said not to make her angry. I was going to refuse and tell her to rest, but then I recalled what you said about her attitude. Then she said something along the lines of 'no honor sitting in a bed while their were enemies to fight' or something like that," I explained.
Lee laughed. "Sounds like her. You took what I said a tad too literally, but she's not going anywhere this time." The Marshall then peeled a glove partially off and checked a watch that he apparently kept there. "It's 8:53. That replacement ought to get here soon or we'll all be hearing it from Zavala and the team we're replacing."
As if on cue, a heavily armored Awoken Titan in green and gold stepped into the transport and settled in next to Marshall Lee, setting his helmet beside him. Lee extended a hand and shook it. "Roald Hendricks," he said.
"Lee Thompson, but people really just refer to me as 'Marshall.'"
"Why's that?" Roald asked.
"I was a Marshall in the City when my Ghost found me. The title just stuck."
"Hmm." There was silence for a few minutes. Roald broke the silence. "How have you been since the battle Maximus?"
Before I could answer, Lee piped up, "Wait you two met before?"
"It's a long story," I responded. "To answer your question Roald, I've been ok. Just recharging the energy tanks and being abducted by my Ghost."
Lee and Roald looked very confused. "I was essentially forced to customize him when I got out of bed this morning," I clarified.
"I wouldn't say forced," Starco said rather indignantly as he appeared just in front of me. "You could've taken off the helmet."
"Alright," I said raising my hands in surrender.
"Not a bad design," Lee said. "It reminds me of the night sky from the Tower. What'd you call it?"
"You actually got what I designed him as. I called it Starco for obvious reasons; that and I couldn't think of another name."
Lee and Roald laughed at the last comment, and Starco disappeared.
Everybody grew silent for a moment as the transport shuttle lifted off and accelerated out of the hangar. I took the time to study Hendricks' features. He was clean shaven compared to Lee's stubble on his chin and cheeks. Hendricks was also bald with a pale blue stern-looking face betrayed by his personality. He reminded me of Commander Zavala in color, but the face was different and he wasn't completely bald, just shaved.
Lee spoke again, "So, uh, Roald right?" The green and gold Titan nodded. "Not to sound too judgemental, but that doesn't quite sound like an Awoken name. It sounds more human."
"You're not the first one to say that Lee," he said understandingly. "You could say I'm three-quarters Awoken. My mother was half Awoken but kept the skin color."
"Can't say I've ever heard of that mix," I said flatly. "You haven't taken too much flak for that have you?"
"Nah," Roald replied, brushing off the comment. "Aside from my family and previous fireteam and you guys, nobody else knows."
"If you don't mind my asking," Lee started. "Where is your fireteam? We're happy to have a fresh face while our comrade is in the infirmary, but I'm sure Maximus is curious as well."
I wasn't too concerned on the matter to be truthful. I just wanted to get this guard thing over with. Fireteams who have come back have reported that not much happens. Sometimes the stray Fallen comes out of the nearby forest, but that happens once every several hours. It seemed like more of a drag than a duty to the City.
"They're in the same place. The infirmary, I mean. One broke an arm and needed it casted. The other broke a femur in her left leg. I'll just be doing a lot of filling in for a few weeks while my teams heals. They say that the leg will take about 3 weeks to heal and a week of rehab. I'm pretty sure my time at the Wall isn't over after today."
"Neither ours," I said. "But who knows what the future holds."
"The murder of Fallen, that's what," said Marshall Lee. That brought a chuckle from Roald.
The transport stopped abruptly. Shortly after, the door opened up, revealing the partially. I walked to the edge of the ramp and looked down; we were much higher than previously. When I looked up, I realized that the shuttle was just under the flat stratus clouds that seemed to be dumping a light mist of rain over the area. A half mile section of the Wall was either in the process of being torn down or being rebuilt in various stages; the latest stage was just over three stories high. "I guess this is our stop," Starco said, reappearing.
"Guess so," I said.
Lee knocked on the pilot's door. The co-pilot opened it, and Lee practically yelled over the noise of the engines outside, "Why are we so high up? I thought we were going to land on the ground."
"Scout teams have reported two Fallen Walkers are nearby. They also suspect a Skiff judging by the burn marks of one that landed. I'm sorry, but you three will have to jump down and land using Glide or Lift or whatever you got. This came from Amanda, so I'm not about to question it."
Lee sighed and put on his helmet; Roald followed promptly. I suddenly felt the weight of my own helmet in my right hand and slipped it on over my head. Starco disappeared as the HUD came online.
I stepped into the middle of the aisle and went back to the pilot's door and turned to face the open rear of the shuttle. I broke into a sprint towards the open door and jumped , spreading my arms horizontally as I reached the height of my jump, and then threw them back inward and started my dive to the ground.
*This is not actually something from the game. I wish it was, but sadly it isn't. I think that Bungie should put in a way to get new Shells for the Ghosts or a way to design a shell for 5000 glimmer or something, making Glimmer actually do something other than buy weapons before the game ends as well as upgrades. Ok my small rant with Bungie is over.
