Chapter 7: The Last Array
At last the lunar complex of Skywatch came back into view and Blabber finally stopped bouncing. The journey was more chaotic this time—Hive thralls had spilled out of the formerly sealed complex and were trying to swarm Fallen patrols. Not a good sign for the guardians inside the Skywatch that were supposed to be wiping them out.
The guardians assaulted the complex there at the entrance we unlocked, and I'm picking up traces from their ghosts… wait, they're moving now. Quick, that way!
Whisper grimaced, but reset her grip on the SMG and charged forwards in a blind chase across open ground. Wonderful.
She rounded the corner of a wreck stumbled right on top of a Fallen patrol and spat bullet fire at them while scrambling to cover. Bullets and arc energy ripped back and forth until the scream of thralls overwhelmed the sound, drawn to the ruckus. The Fallen turned to engage them and Whisper took off running.
They're moving faster now, I think they're on sparrows.
Whisper skid to a stop as Blabber transmatted her sparrow and jumped on it, gunning the throttle. They tore onwards recklessly, weaving through hillsides and debris. There, two o'clock!
Whisper saw them, a trio of Fallen on pikes. They weren't as fast the sparrow, but they were armed. Fortunately, their cannons only faced forwards. She pulled out her SMG one-handed and closed in quickly.
She got within a few sparrow-lengths before they noticed her, and she opened fire before they could scatter. The SMG bucked wildly, its recoil more challenging to deal with one-handed. Most of the shots went wide, but at least three connected with a dreg who slumped over the controls and fell off.
Whisper slammed the air-breaks and leapt off the sparrow, swapping her SMG for the sniper rifle mid-jump. She lined up a shot on the second pike and fired, missing wide right, then shot again and connected with another dreg, wounding it, but knocking it sidewise where it slammed its bike into a long-dead tree. The last sped out of sight before she could adjust her aim.
Whisper moved quickly to the closest Fallen, mindful that the sound of a sniper rifle was going to draw unwanted attention very soon.
There's the ghost. It's dead, and… nothing relevant. Let's check the other one.
Whisper sped over to the other while Blabber transmatted the ghost's remains and followed.
Yes! This one still holds the codes. Hang on, I'm transmitting to the Tower on the Vanguard's secure frequency. Done—let's go find the array!
Whisper hesitated a moment, then nodded. If the Fallen had the codes they may well have copied them. Give them enough time with access and they could break in and change the acceptance codes, giving them sole control over the biggest communication net in the solar system. Definitely not a good idea.
She turned back to reclaim the sparrow and accelerated rapidly back towards the array just as Blabber pinged with an incoming communication.
"Guardian, this is Zavala. Excellent work recovering those codes. Losing the fireteam hurts, but there's no time to dwell on that. Unfortunately, you need to get in there and activate the array yourself before the Fallen can take control of the system."
"I know, I'm already on my way. Can I… ask you something?"
"What is it, guardian?"
"Well… securing communications is one of the highest priorities for any effective defense. Why wasn't this done, well, centuries ago?"
Zavala paused a moment before answering. "A valid question. There are lots of reasons, and the number of guardians and logistics are among them. But the single most important reason is that there remains some fragment of the warmind Rasputin echoing through the network. The last run-in the City had with Rasputin… it didn't end well. Allowing Rasputin access to the solar communication network was a risk we weren't prepared to take."
"And now?"
"The warmind is a wildcard, but even in its diminished state it has great power. Even a rogue Rasputin, enemy to all, is better than a tool in the hands of the Fallen."
Another question occurred to her. "Why is the array still standing at all? Why wasn't it destroyed during the Great Collapse?"
"You'll have to ask Cayde. But from what I've seen, the Darkness never destroyed communications systems. Whatever it did… it wanted us to see it happening. Enough talk, guardian. Activate that code before the Fallen do. We're counting on you. Zavala out."
Whisper frowned. The ramifications of that thought were mindboggling, but Zavala was right—she needed to focus. The sparrow eased to a halt and Blabber efficiently transmatted it back into storage. The entrance to the Terrestrial Facility remained much as she'd left it, except that the door had been blown open with high explosives.
"Subtle."
Scans seem to match City weaponry.
Blabber disappeared as she pulled out her SMG and moved into the darkness. As before, the strange black substance that seemed to be both organic and crystalline jutted out from the walls marking the presence of the Hive. And yet... no Hive. No screaming thralls charging from every direction.
The Dead Orbit guardians must have cleared them out. But then… how did the Fallen wind up with their ghosts?
Whisper advanced cautiously, analyzing the scene as she went. Hive bodies might be consumed by green fire upon their death, but that didn't mean they left no trace. Thrall bones sharpened to razor points left scratches in the stone floor where they had charged en-masse at the Guardians. Holes in the wall where the Guardians had met the charge with heavy caliber bullets, cutting their way through.
There, rounding a bend, scorches where they had fired some sort of energy weapon. Human blood on the ground—they must have seriously harmed a Guardian, who was revived by her ghost. More bullet holes, more fighting. The Guardians continued to force their way through, but they were facing tougher resistance now. And then Fallen bodies? Three vandals down, but backed against the wall, almost like they'd snuck up from—
She spun to the side as a half-dozen vandals flanked by a full squad of dregs and two captains flooded the room behind her.
No chance. She turned and ran deeper into the facility, firing blindly over her shoulder as she went. Yet as fast as she ran, her mind was moving even faster. The Fallen had waited for the guardians to engage the Hive and then ambushed them from behind, pummeling them from all directions until someone got their ghosts and finished them off.
This was very bad. If the ambush had wiped out three guardians who were good in a fight, she would have exactly zero chance of pulling it off herself. It was time to try something desperate.
She kept moving, but slower now, firing at the Fallen as they followed her relentlessly deeper into the facility, closing the trap around her. And then she turned one more corner and a Hive scream erupted. She turned and blasted away at the thrall as they stormed forwards. Behind them larger Hive wielded energy weapons, their forms distinguished by three glowing green eyes.
She was well and truly pinned now. Any second the Fallen would hit her on her exposed flank…there. The dregs moved in first, charging to absorb fire while shooting wildly.
It was now or never. Whisper broke cover and bolted straight at the Hive's lines, dodging between bodies and trusting her shields to deflect stary fire. She almost ran straight into a Hive monster almost twice her height wielding a humongous sword. She dropped to the floor, skidding between its legs, while something floating above let loose a piercing banshee shriek that made the thralls' cries seem downright friendly, and then she was past them, through a small doorway and diving to the side and out of sight.
The cacophony behind her escalated as the Fallen captains let loose with their cannons. It wouldn't take them long to realize they'd lost her and withdrew—she needed to be quick or she'd be facing the entire swarm of Hive on her own, backed into a corner.
The control room should be just ahead. She moved forward as quickly as she dared. The control room door was unlocked and slipped open quietly. Inside was dark, with illumination provided only by the blinking standby lights of computer systems. The room itself was almost totally overwhelmed by Hive material, and some of it seemed to be… wriggling, like worms the size of her arm.
Blabber emerged from hiding and began communicating with the network. I'll see if these codes still work. Okay, negotiating cryptosystems. Shor-resistant security lattice verified. Ending the lockdown.
Whisper jerked her weapon up as the walls started moving, then relaxed a little as she saw that large, thick metal shutters were retracting to reveal cracked and broken windows. Sunlight poured in, illuminating the room.
Wait, I'm not… uh, it's working! Outside, the Array! It's opening!
Outside a colossal metal object ground upwards, slowly spinning to unfold into a huge broadcast array aimed towards the stars, far larger than the dish on top of Skywatch. Still, the more she thought about this communication array the less it made sense. The Darkness never destroyed it, and yet it was shutdown, locked down by the humans here, not the Fallen or the Hive. I wonder why they would shut down their own communications?
Blabber, meanwhile, bounced excitedly. It's activating, reaching out to connect with what's left of the network. Wait, new signal! Hive tombships cutting through!
Outside a large, jet-black ship seemed to be warping in, almost like it was ripping through reality itself in a burst of green energy and a pained sound like screeching metal. Then two orange lights crackled down from the sky and detonated on the tombship, vaporizing half of it and sending smoking debris flying. Howls of rage sounded as Hive charged out from the building to see what had happened to their ship.
"Now's our chance, let's go!"
Blabber retreated to her once more as they quietly made their way back through the facility while Blabber ruminated in her head. The Array… it's controlled by Rasputin, the last warmind. It wouldn't let me in. But it's connecting to defense constructs all across the system. There could be something out there to help us survive the Darkness.
…
The City, it turned out, did not share Blabber's enthusiasm at the prospect of a returned Rasputin and went on high alert, keeping most fireteams close to the tower on standby, and watching anxiously as thunderbolts rained from the sky.
…
Mars
She hunts the Valus named Ta'aurc by the grunting radio traffic of his bodyguards. Cayde sent her to Mars to track and so track she will even if it kills her a hundred times. For him she will hunt forever.
When Ta'aurc goes down into Meridian Bay she follows him in the night and finds herself caught up in the war like this—
Something's happening, her Ghost says, something's wrong. She leaps from the Sparrow and gets cover between slabs of ancient stone haunted by quiet firefly light.
Harvesters sweep overhead, cautious, prowling. On the Cabal command network a low voice mutters in their tongue, saying: Stand by to fire. They are coming. Stand by to fire.
Hearing this she climbs a stone obelisk and perches on its point to watch the night sky. She wonders whether she will ever stand in the Tower courtyard and look up at the stars waiting for ruin.
The Vex erupt from nothingness and crash down over the Cabal in formations of golden light. Lightning arcs and snaps and gives birth to marching ranks of bronze warrior hulls. Gun positions thunder back. Tracers sweep the sky and she can feel on her skin the electromagnetic howl of Cabal munitions seeking targets and the prickle of stranger signals that whisper of broken space and bent time. A Harvester spins down burning to shatter itself on the sand and now the command network drums with grim Cabal war-speak, a centurion somewhere crying Black Shield, Black Shield, Firebase Thuria, perimeter compromised, request terminal protective fire, zero six zero, one three eight, immediate effect—
Something else is watching too.
Do you feel that? Her ghost whispers, awestruck.
Yes, she says, yes, what is it?
A third song, a stealthy regard, something high above them not Vex nor Cabal narrowing its great eye to measure the battle with instruments of light and gravity. Does she—remember it? Does it remember her? It feels like she should…
She has the sense of something old lifting a long spear. Testing its heft.
Then dawn light, a terrible dawn—the sky opens up to admit devastation, thrown down from orbit: Minotaurs fall burnt and broken with their fluids boiling out. Cabal guns detonate in thunderous chains as tiny piercing flechettes fall out of the sky and find their ammunition bunkers.
The battle stops. The Vex wink out. On the Cabal network the voice of Valus Ta'aurc roars: find the source! Rouse the Flayers and find the source!
She remembers word from Earth: the Array opened. A ghost of the cosmodrome set loose. And she wonders who won this battle, who learned the most, the Vex baiting out this new power, or the Cabal hunting it. Or the Warmind itself, testing its reborn strength.
When someone kills Ta'aurc and the Flayers, as they killed Draksis, whose purpose will they serve?
But this is not for her. Her purpose is the hunt.
A/N: A shorter chapter this week, sorry. But I've been doing a ton of research, compiling an updated master timeline of the entire Destiny universe. There is a ton of backstory, lore books, and item descriptions out there to parse through. Making good progress though, and I have a lot of ideas of where to take things moving forwards. Hope you like it!
