Chapter 3: Restoration
Despite the finality of her decision, she wasn't able to just charge out into the field and discover. She wasn't supposed to meet with Relkis for another few hours, and there was a lot to go over. Her ghost explained more about the Fallen, about the City, and what seemed like everything else.
"Okay, so the titans are the biggest guardians and mostly man the walls of the City or take part in strikes against hardened targets. They're the assault troops. Warlocks are the fire support, since they're apparently as effective as tanks, and the hunters are scouts and spies."
And I still say that that's a weird way to look at it. Maybe don't bring that up with others?
Whisper sighed. "Fine, fine, but go back to what you were saying before. Humans I somehow remember enough about to understand, and exos I at least have a vague idea about, but what on earth is an awoken?"
The ghost bobbed up and down in the air. We don't know much about them, despite how long they have existed. The ones you will meet are descendants of humans that were fleeing from the darkness when the Collapse happened. Something happened to them out there in the black. We know that in the Reef, a large debris cloud from the destruction of the human fleet, they have some sort of permanent settlement. Some of them returned to earth, and their descendants are found throughout the City. They seem to live longer than normal, and I've heard rumors that they have strange dreams, but other than that they seem to be like other humans.
"Other than having glowing eyes and, say, their blue, purple, or green skin?"
Well, yes. Other than that.
"And go back to that part about para-causal beings. What was that all about?"
Oh, look, it's about time to meet with Relkis, isn't it?
The ghost bobbed up and down anxiously, eager to escape the interrogation. Whisper sighed once more. Was that a habit of mine? "All right, I supposed you're right. Let's go."
It didn't take them long to find Relkis, who was standing in front of the Vanguard's room of the Tower waiting for her. He was a human male, maybe thirty-five or so. He examined her briefly, matching her to her description, then approached confidently and shook her hand.
Whisper wondered what he made of her. She didn't have much of a basis for comparison, but she seemed small for an exo, barely over average human height with a slight figure. If what Cayde said was true, then it probably reflected what she'd looked like as a human centuries ago. She probably hadn't had glowing white eyes, sunken into an armored skull, however. And if her black coloration, with white and teal accents, meant anything, it was a mystery to her.
For his part, Relkis seemed unphased to be speaking with a resurrected robot. "Welcome, guardian, my name is Relkis, and I'll be supervising your initial training. Now for most guardians that means weeks of learning about weapons, small unit tactics, threat assessments, blah blah blah and so on. Fortunately for both of us, exos are an exception—you guys come pre-loaded with all that stuff. So instead, we'll be skipping ahead to finding out which type of guardian you are."
Whisper watched the human carefully. "Which types are there? And why do I need to be one?"
"Huh. Nobody's ever asked me why before." Relkis shrugged. "Anyway, it's not so much about making you into something as much as it is figuring out where you best fit in, where you'll be most comfortable. As for which there are, there are titans, hunters, and warlocks. So, follow me out of the City, and we'll get started."
Whisper nodded both in acknowledgement and at the confirmation of Cayde's information and followed the human cautiously as they wound their way down the Tower and into the City proper. They took an elevator to get down most of the way, and it was… well, it was overwhelming. Buildings were crammed together taking up all available space, then stacked haphazardly on top of each other. And in their cramped shadows were narrow, winding streets filled to the brim with hundreds and hundreds of people milling about, mostly human but with the occasional exo or awoken flashing past.
Whisper kept her focus on her guide's back and stuck right behind him as he skillfully navigated the crowd. A seemingly interminable amount of time later they stepped into an opening and Whisper looked up from the small of the man's back and took a startled step backwards. They were in the shadow of the City wall, which for all its impressive size from the Tower had not at all prepared her to see it up close. It was stupendously big, nearly one hundred meters high, and littered with weapon emplacements. But as her gaze continued upwards, she saw the Traveler dwarfing even the Wall in size and realized for the first time just how staggeringly huge it was.
"Pretty impressive, right?" The human grinned. "I always give new guardians a moment here to soak it all in. But no time to lose, so let's get on to it." Relkis turned and moved towards the colossal gate under the watchful eyes of intimidating guardians who stood with menacing weapons at the ready. They were… big, physically imposing, heavily muscled, and even more heavily armored. Each was like a walking tank. She hurried past them uncomfortably and out through the wall.
The transition from densely packed City to total wilderness was jarringly abrupt. One moment they were surrounded by noise and people, and the next they were alone, surrounded only by trees heavy laden with snow rustling in the quiet breeze.
It was quite cold, she could tell, but it didn't seem to reach her. They continued walking for another ten minutes.
"Alright, we're here—don't want to get too far from the City until you're ready. I've set up some targets out there in that bunch of trees. Your objective is to reach me in the middle."
Whisper blinked. "That's it? Just… go there?"
"Well, the target drones will try to stop you, of course. You've got a weapon, right? Just… do what comes naturally."
"I don't understand."
Relkis sighed. "Alright, let me see if I can explain. Guardians use guns, a frankly startling variety of them, actually, but guardians are… let's just say guardians are weird. You are para-causal beings, they say. Now, I don't have the foggiest idea of what that means, just being your average human as I am, but I'm told that means that when you shoot a bullet, you're not just shooting a bullet, but sorta… willing yourself to defeat your enemies. Or something. Look, you'll need to ask another guardian about that, alright? So let's stick with the practical. Every guardian uses the Traveler's light, but everyone uses it a little differently. A few guardians can use light directly, those are the warlocks. Most of you, though, need some kind of focus to help you use it. Titans tend to concentrate the light into familiar martial forms like shields and hammers. Hunters, in turn, tend to use the light to infuse their weapons, some into their guns, some into their blades. So we've set up this little obstacle course to give you a safe environment to spread your wings a little bit, practice drawing on the light and see what works best for you."
"I… see."
"Good!" He clapped her on the shoulder. "I'll head into the forest. The target drones will attack on sight, but they'll be using low-powered shock blasts, so you won't be in real danger. So, good luck!" And with that he turned and jogged into the woods, his boots crunching in the thin layer of snow with each step.
…
Relkis frowned as the fifteen-minute mark passed and Whisper still hadn't engaged the drones. As best he could tell, she hadn't even entered the woods yet. That was… worrying. Despite the ghosts' track record, they did occasionally resurrect a guardian that wasn't able to handle combat and was stuck in the City indefinitely, but it didn't happen that often. But it was starting to happen more. Maybe the ghosts that hadn't found a guardian were getting desperate? Or maybe it was—
An ice-cold finger tapped him on the arm and he jumped about a foot in the air. "Gah!" He whirled to see Whisper standing behind him, metal face expressionless. "Don't scare me like that!" Then his brain caught up with him. "Wow. You snuck up on me, got past the drones without them seeing even a hint of you. That's… impressive. You've definitely got hunter written all over you. Okay. Let's get back to the Tower and check in with Amanda about your ship, then you can be on your way."
…
Relkis bid her farewell at the foot of the Tower, excusing himself by saying that non-guardians like him generally weren't welcome in the Tower unless they had business there. Whisper frowned at that, but let it go and made her own way back up.
It didn't take long to find the hangar – she just had to look up and watch the jumpships come in whenever she needed to get her bearings. The hangar itself was relatively large, given the premium on space on top of the walls, and filled to bursting with jumpships, no two of which seemed to be alike. That said a lot, both good and bad. It meant that they were well looked-after to be that modified and personalized, but it also said that there wasn't any standardization, no mass construction project – each of these would be difficult to replace, and if she lost her ship, she probably wouldn't get a new one any time soon.
She asked around for Amanda until she was pointed to a youngish woman, maybe thirty-five, with pale skin, green eyes, and bright blonde hair. She wore stained pants with a gray tank-top shirt revealing a tattooed shoulder and arm. She looked up at the ship Holliday had just slid off, and took a moment to recognize it as her own.
Amanda wiped her hands on a red bandana then settled it around her neck and popped off a pair of thick welding goggles. "Well there, you must be the new guardian. The name's Amanda, but everyone around her calls me Holliday." She offered a hand and Whisper took it.
"Whisper."
"Good to meet you. To get the official stuff out of the way, I'm the Chief Shipwright around here." Then she turned back to the jumpship an affectionate pat. "The Arcadia Class ships always were resilient. Shame about that warp drive, though. Still, lucky you didn't explode on takeoff! I've gone through it and straightened things out in there for you, so you won't fall out of the sky, but you'll need a new warp drive."
"Any ideas where I can find one?"
Amanda glanced her way, eyeing her up and down. "Honestly? Not really. I'd say the Cosmodrome, since that's probably the biggest collection of ships around, but it's been picked pretty clean by guardians and the Fallen over the centuries. Sorry, but you're on your own for that one."
Whisper nodded. "Well then, we'll get on our way."
…
Whisper managed to keep her feet as the transmat dropped her outside the battered jumpship to crunch in the thin layer of snow in the early fall of what had once been Russia. The ghost triggered the ship's auto-pilot, sending it zooming up safely into low orbit, practically invisible on sensors, to wait for them to call it back. And once again she found herself within the broken walls of the Cosmodrome, surrounded by the husks of starships and the bones of the Golden Age. And my bones. This is where I died.
The ghost scanned the area cautiously. There is so little left out here. We were lucky to even find our ship. But Cayde was right—a guardian is very limited without a warp drive, and the Cosmodrome is the only place I know where we might still find one. We survived the Fallen once… we can do it again.
Whisper, too, scanned the area, her sniper rifle held closely, searching for signs of Fallen among the wreckage. "You heard Amanda – we're not likely to find one just tucked away somewhere. Why are you so sure there's one here?"
A guardian's ship was shot down here recently. I'm picking up a faint signal from it. If the Fallen haven't gotten to it, there might be parts we can salvage.
"I'm hoping it didn't crash too near."
I dropped us a safe distance away. I think.
"Fair enough. Have search and rescue forces secured the scene yet?"
Er… no. Guardians go missing all the time, and they usually find their way back. Sometimes they just need some time away. There just aren't enough guardians to go out to respond to every distress call.
"Well… that's good to know, I guess. Point the way and let's get moving."
A marker popped up in her vision, a white diamond, and Whisper shrugged. That worked. She set off cautiously, keeping low to the ground and flowing with the terrain. A rumble in the sky signaled an incoming ketch de-cloaking and she dropped behind cover, keeping unnaturally still until it had passed. The ship deployed a handful of skiffs which scattered widely before deploying their troops.
"Search parties. They must be looking for the jumpship."
The ghost shimmered into existence beside her. I think you're right. Where did you learn to move like that?
She shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think about it, it just happens."
Interesting.
She ignored the comment and watched the Fallen closely. "Those are different. They don't have the red cloaks – they have yellow cloaks with three points on them. I can' t make out the sigil, though."
Really? The ghost looked out over them. Uh oh. Those are from the House of Kings. They must really want this ship if they're this deep into House of Devils territory.
"Do they not work together?"
They have, on occasion,the ghost conceded. They worked together during the Battle of Twilight Gap. But usually they're friendly rivals, at best. Fighting between houses is not unheard of.
"Well, we won't learn any more from here. Come on, do your disappearing thing and let's go."
They continued, carefully skirting around House of Kings patrols and making their way to the intermittent signal from the jumpship. At last they arrived and took a closer look at it. The front end of the ship was totally crumpled from slamming into the dirt. The impact had completed destroyed the cockpit in the burned-out crater it had made in the frozen dirt as it crashed in the shadow of one of the many structures in the Cosmodrome.
Whisper dropped to a knee to keep watch as her ghost scanned the ruined jumpship's still partially intact tail section.
No sign of the warp drive. It looks like someone else got here first. I'll see what I can find… the ship's avionics are completely catatonic, but I can cull their last transmission. Hmm… it seems like the guardian managed to get out and set up a relay to the jumpship's communication systems. I'm detecting an encrypted signal coming from the tunnels below. Let's see if we can help.
Whisper slung her sniper rifle, trading it for the auto-rifle. "Point the way."
Together they wound their way into the nearby building. Whisper paused to consider the structure just inside the entrance. Like the rest of the Cosmodrome, it was old, with dust coating every surface. The steel door had been blown off its hinges centuries ago, and the walls still bore faded energy burns and bullet holes.
"Ghost, what was it, exactly, that caused the Collapse of the Golden Age? Everyone talks about it like an event, but this looks like a battle."
The ghost materialized and spun slowly, scanning the room and taking in the ancient signs of battle. Like most things from that time, we don't know. The few records that exist mention battles, though it's not clear against what. But they also mention something else, a darkness they could not describe or fight, that destroyed them.
"So we don't know. Do we at least know what this building was?"
We don't know. The first five layers down were cleared of Fallen once in the last two months by a small fireteam, but that's all the information I have.
A distant rumbled marked the arrival of another Ketch, and Whisper moved deeper into the building to avoid them. It was a surreal journey, quietly creeping step by step through the old battle. To her eyes it was as clear as if it were happening right in front of her, impact angles showing each moment. A barricade here, pouring a hurricane of fire that drove back the attackers, until the carbon scoring of an energy grenade killed the defenders and cracked the barricade. Then scattered bullet holes as the surviving defenders broke and retreated in a chaotic, running firefight.
The main tunnel continued down to the right, following the large faded-red piping, but the white diamond marking the signal was off to the left. She turned, keeping the auto-rifle leveled, and stepped into a small side passage.
Here the signs of battle were fresh, not ancient. Pierced pipes still dripped out congealed fluids, and the remains of shock grenades still smoked. And then there were the remains. Shanks blown to pieces, dregs with holes punched clean through them, and vandals collapsed with vicious blade wounds slumped over pools of blood.
She saw a ghost. Or rather, what was left of one. Its shell was split in half, the light of its core gone dim. It lay still where it had clattered to the floor. And next to it, arms still outstretched towards it, was a guardian with a shockblade lodged in his back, still clutched in the death-grip of a Fallen captain.
The story was clear in Whisper's mind. The guardian had retreated before the Fallen in desperation. Backed into a dead-end, his ghost had emerged from its hiding place, transmatted within the guardian, to heal his grievous injuries only to be destroyed by the shock pistol of the captain at close range. The guardian had finished off the captain with three shots from a heavy revolver and turned towards his ghost, only for the mortally wounded captain to take his revenge.
Whisper's ghost emerged, and she felt a suddenly vulnerable as he scanned the fallen guardian. Another guardian lost. Let me see… he matches the records for Ellis Ren, a good hunter. To think, he survived the Battle of Twilight Gap only to end up like this.
A sudden cry behind them whipped Whisper around to see a dreg calling out in alarm. The cry cut off as a shock knife seemed to sprout from the Fallen's throat; only then did she realize she'd thrown it.
"Time to go."
You're right, but Ellis had a fusion rifle that could be useful. I'll grab the rest of his ghost.
Whisper turned and scooped up the weapon, not wasting any time to ask exactly what a fusion rifle was. It vanished as the ghost transmatted the other ghost's remains and she took off running back into the primary shaft and further from the entrance.
Whisper felt a growing sense of unease as the Fallen chased her deeper into the underground facility. She occasionally stumbled upon unsuspecting House of Devils patrols of dregs led by a vandal. She shot her way through them aggressively, pausing only to claim a pair of shock blades. She needed to hurry—their bodies would be as good as a neon arrow pointing out her direction for the pursuing Fallen.
She burst through another corridor and skid to a stop at the sight of a huge open space. The ghost spun in place and began to glow like a flashlight, illuminating the cavernous room. At its center, on an elevated platform, was a large dais that mounted a single massive booster engine at least as big as her jumpship.
A rocket test site! I guess they put it underground to limit the damage if it malfunctioned.
"Or to keep the tests secret. Come on, let's find a spot to hide." Whisper stepped off the main hallway and walked along the edge of the room inspecting the ancient soundproofing material draped across the walls. Many of the panels were cracked and peeling—it didn't take long to find a spot a gap and slip inside, pulling the paneling back upright behind her.
The ghost extinguished its light and she fell into pitch black, with nothing but the sounds of her breathing and the clatter of oncoming pursuers. Then the Fallen burst out of the corridor, and through the cracks Whisper could see shanks shining spotlights for their fellows. She held her breath and discovered she didn't actually need to breathe.
The Fallen, under the direction and shouts of a captain, began to spread out and search the room. Whisper didn't move, maintaining the absolute stillness only possible for a machine. And as she stood there, silent and motionless, she could observe living Fallen for the first time.
They were… different, yet strangely familiar. The dregs moved cautiously, even hesitantly, doing their best to stay squarely within the shank's light. They were afraid. Afraid of her.
It hit her in that moment—they should be afraid. They were grunts, merely mortal foot soldiers in a strange new galaxy, ordered to hunt down an immortal, resurrecting killing machine. Whisper pondered this as the Fallen searched half-heartedly for her, spurred on only by their captain's increasingly angry shouts. But as the minutes slipped past the captain's patience finally ran out, and with a last shout it recalled its troops, sending the dregs scurrying back to the well-lit corridor and out of sight.
Whisper remained still for several more minutes, taking in this strange change of perspective. Or at least, it felt like a change. Her instincts seemed to indicate she was far more accustomed to fleeing than pursuing.
"These Fallen… tell me more about them. Where did they come from? Why are they here?"
I'm afraid there's not much to say. They come from beyond the solar system, but the records we've been able to decipher don't offer a lot of detail. Physically they have two rows of incisor and canine teeth without molars, indicating that they are carnivores, so they didn't originally need ether to survive. Their vocal apparatus appears capable of reproducing human speech, but I'm not aware of successful efforts to communicate with them.
Culturally, they are somewhat contradictory. They are nomadic, living only in their massive ketch starships and occupying territory with the sole aim of slaughtering its inhabitants and stealing everything they can. They maintain the harsh, brutal discipline common to nomadic cultures, as well as maintaining redundant houses with at least some inter-house rivalry. Yet the Kells appear to maintain a claim to leadership based on something more akin to royal lineage, the mark of a sedentary culture.
Technologically they are an even greater contradiction. The shock technology powering most of their arsenal appears to be their own, but other portions of their tech base come from other sources entirely. Their wire rifle, for example, seems to have been developed based on entirely different design philosophies suggesting that it, and much of their technology, has been looted from other civilizations prior to their arrival in the Sol system.
"And religiously?"
Insufficient data to form an over-arching theory. They do seem to have a pseudo-religious view towards machines in general, and their servitors in particular, possibly derived from their reliance on ether.
Whisper considered this. "You say they're scavengers, yet they've been here what seems like a long time."
Correct. They appear to have arrived near the end of, or shortly after, the Collapse approximately five hundred years ago.
"Why haven't they moved on? Why stay here, and why keep attacking the fortified City? Nomadic cultures are strongest in running fights, hitting and fading, not attacking fixed fortifications."
Insufficient data. The most likely answer is because there remains much from the Golden Age they haven't managed to ransack yet throughout the system. As for attacking the City, we don't know. They seem to have a great hatred of guardians, possibly based on the casualties they've inflicted.
"Even more mysteries. Let's go." She clambered back out of her hiding space as ghost once again provided illumination. "Just how deep have the Fallen gone here?"
Unknown. No guardian on record has ventured this deep in this part of the Cosmodrome.
That brought her up short, and she paused to consider why she was surprised. It seemed natural to her, obvious—the Golden Age had superior technology, so one of the highest priorities was to secure that technology. Or was that assumption on her part because, well, she was Golden Age technology?
"Why not?"
Several reasons. Most guardians are actively involved in operations countering threats to the City, particularly fighting off House of Devils raids. Not many guardians are available to explore. And those that do tend to stay nearer the surface—the deeper into enemy territory, the more likely you are to encounter areas where the darkness is strong, where I can't resurrect you. And, perhaps most importantly, there aren't enough guardians. The City has semi-autonomous combat frames patrolling the walls and fixed defenses, but even so a significant number of guardians must be stationed there to man the defenses. The guardian's numbers approached ten thousand at their height, but after recent major battles, most notably the Great Disaster on the moon, current active guardians number slightly over six thousand, which numbers must cover the entire Sol system. Most guardians are fortunate if there are more than two or three other guardians on the same continent.
Whisper blinked. That made sense, in a coldly logical sense, but it also felt wrong in a strange, unconscious way she couldn't put words to. They needed to be out there, seeing, learning, understanding. Well, no one else was here, so that meant the job fell to her, at least for the moment.
"If no one else has been here, then I guess we should take a look around." Without waiting for a response, she leveled here auto-rifle and marched forward, across the test chamber of ages past, and into the dark.
