Chapter 17: The Battle of Twilight Gap
There is a reason we fight. It's not simply the thrill of battle. There are those who depend on us to stand up, hold the line, and defend what we hold dear. The battle for Twilight Gap remains the hallmark for our fortitude and a prominent reminder that nothing we do is easy."
-Saint-14
The sun was setting over the abandoned defensive batteries at Twilight Gap, reflecting off snowcapped peaks of the mountains between which nestled the defenses, when the last Crucible battle ended. Ghosts scraped the remains of guardians off the concrete, and the combatants quickly shuttled away. The scene fell quiet save for the wind rushing through the mountain pass.
Whisper stood on the battlements, looking out over the scene with a fresh gaze. The fortifications themselves were impressively huge, with hardened armored bunkers built into thick walls and heavy artillery dug in deeply behind them. They demonstrated both a technical skill and a raw scale of production that dwarfed anything the City was capable of today. And it was well placed, making a formidable blocking position through the only reasonable gap in the mountain ranges through which to march a large ground force on the City.
She looked out over the field where other batteries were carefully placed with overlapping fields of fire, distinguished only by huge designation numbers painted in utilitarian white. And these fortifications had been overwhelmed… somehow. She gently rubbed the rusting barrel of a heavy artillery piece and wondered who the last person to touch these guns had been. Well, that was what she was hopefully here to find out.
Whisper looked over at Chester, who'd accompanied her in an (expensively) rented shuttle. He sat silently in his wheelchair, gazing out across the view, entranced. "Is this the right place?"
"What?" The man startled, then turned his head. "Oh, yes. Yes, this is the place. It's… been a long time since I've left the City proper, is all."
"I imagine this is difficult for you, Chester, but I'm trying to understand all of this. Can you help me?" she asked gently.
"Yes. Some things fade, memories growing distant, but this… this is as clear as if it were yesterday." He wheeled himself up to the front of the battlement. "I was a freshly raised guardian then, just a few years old and wet behind the ears when the call went out for everyone to come back to the City. All of the towers were fully manned then, and responsibility for the forward batteries was split between the great orders. Position two, out there," he said, pointing to the looming battery to the left, "was held by the Chain Order, and position four, over there," he said gesturing to the right, "was assigned to the First Pillar Order under Kei-Ying." This was position three, under the Pilgrim Guard, the oldest of the titan orders, commanded by Vell Tarlowe, a great beast of a guardian who seemed invincible. Holborn's Host was our roving reserve between the three. Guardians like me who hadn't had a chance to join any of the great orders yet were divided up. I had just gotten here the day before and was trying to find my way to my position when I almost ran into my fireteam leader, a Pilgrim Guard titan by the name of Kory. I asked him questions about our fields of fire, and…
…
"You're sure we can hold?"
Chester looked up as another new arrival, a nervous warlock who would look more at home with a book than the rifle awkwardly clutched in his hands, asked the question everyone was thinking.
Kory was inscrutable behind a full helmet that looked heavier than Chester's breastplate. The fireteam leader paused from checking the sights of his sniper rifle. Chester couldn't help the surge of envy at the long, blue-and-white striped Scipio-E. Chester would take that rare Häkke-made precision instrument over his mass-produced Daito Hieracon-LR2 any day, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and at least the price had been right.
The titan stared at the warlock.
"Uh," the newcomer backtracked quickly, "I mean, are you sure we can hold, sir?"
"Better," replied Kory with a voice like grated like ground gravel. "We held them at the walls of the City when they attacked from six sides. We can hold them here."
The kid nodded, though he didn't look too convinced, and to be honest, Chester wasn't either. He turned back and looked out over the pass at the reason why. If the Vanguard had gotten their act together after the Battle of Six Fronts, so had the Fallen. Even from all the way up here he could make out tens of thousands of Fallen forming up in the dawn light beneath massive red banners of the House of Devils, readying to assault three separate fortified positions. Far to the left he could see the white and blue House of Winter banners fluttering, and just at the edge of view he could swear those were the dark yellow colors of the House of Kings flying.
The grizzled titan relented for a moment and put a heavy gauntlet on the warlock's shoulder, not quite buckling his knees. "It will be difficult, but we are guardians, and we will prevail. Lord Saladin will see us to victory, and today you fight with the Pilgrim Guard. We have defended the people of the City from the days when it was nothing more than tents and mud streets. And now you fight with us, and take on our first duty, to the people of the City. In this, we cannot fail."
"They're moving!" shouted a sentry, and everyone rushed to the battlements. Chester shielded his eyes from the morning glare, and sure enough, scores of Fallen Walkers were advancing, raising their main cannons to the fortifications. Did the Fallen time this so the light would be directly in their eyes?
"And now," said Kory grimly, "it's time to say hello." He patted the side of the artillery emplacements fondly, then stepped back as a crew of frames loaded the first shell.
Chester swallowed grimly, checked his own rifle for what must have been the hundredth time, and waited. Seconds ticked past, taking forever, and ever, and ever. Then the world exploded as both sides let loose.
…
Chester paused a moment, lost in memory. "The initial bombardment was intense, and we blasted each other for hours, our heavy guns against their Walkers."
…
Chester peaked out through a narrow gap that was all that was left of their fighting battlement. The roof had collapsed under a heavy bombardment, taking Kory and his ghost with it. His rifle hammered a shoulder that had long-since gone numb, and another vandal fell not two hundred feet from the base of the defenses. He leaned back away from the window as the crack of wire rifles hammered the stone, vaporizing some of the wall into a fine mist as counter-sniper fire honed in on his position. One of them caught him in the arm, nearly ripping his arm off, before his ghost put him back together.
He looked through the smoky interior, eyes watering. It was just him and the warlock now, and they were down to a single artillery piece with two damaged frames still trying to man it. He tried to speak, but coughed on the dusty air. What he wouldn't give for a sip of water right now.
His radio buzzed with an incoming signal, staticky with all the interference, and he held it right up to his hear, the volume cranked all the way up, to hear it over the stupendous sound of heavy shellfire. ::This is Saladin. All forward defenses at Twilight Gap, you've bled them, but it's time to fall back. Make your way to the City walls and your secondary positions. Zavala's section will cover you while you move.::
Chester stared at it, stunned. Secondary positions? Maybe Kory had known something about it, but he didn't have the faintest idea what the man was talking about. Didn't matter much, though. He grabbed the warlock's arm and shouted to be heard with his hoarse voice. "Time to go!" The man whose name he still didn't know nodded, face ashen. Chester took one more look around to see if there was anything else they could salvage, then headed for the half-collapsed stairs.
…
"We held them as long as we could, but the Fallen had better guns than we did, and they could move. Saladin pulled us back to the City walls.
…
Chester crawled his way through the remains of communication trench towards the walls of the City. He'd inched his way through the blasted hellscape towards safety while the Fallen lobbed explosives in blanket fire across the entire area. If they had any limit to their ammunition, He'd yet to see it. He dared to peak his head up just over the trench's edge to catch his bearings, and couldn't help but stare. He was surrounded by blasted and churned earth, everything a dull grey and brown of devastation, but there in front him, not ten feet away, the ground was pristine. Grass stretched in a green carpet with delicate flowers fluttering in the wind. The passive shields of the Traveler – they were almost there! Another shell exploded dangerous close and he ducked down hurriedly as shrapnel shrieked past, then awkwardly rolled over in the trench to tell his friend.
He opened his mouth, then paused. The warlock stared back at him with lifeless eyes, a six-inch piece of shrapnel piercing his chest. The shattered frame of his ghost lay in front of him in the mud, light sputtering and then going out.
Chester grimaced, rolled back over, and started inching forwards once again.
…
"The City itself was harder to breach because they couldn't soften us up with the Walkers unless they got in close, within the Traveler's shields, where we could get at them. But that didn't stop them from doing it the hard way. Can't say the Fallen lack for guts."
…
Chester finally reached the fighting step of the wall over one of the City gates. He raced up the interior stairs and rounded a corner to find himself face to face with another young man roughly his own age. Caught off-guard, for a moment Chester just stared at him, spotless in a roughly woven but carefully pressed grey uniform topped by a matching cap. He clutched a brand-new auto rifle, its fresh white-and-black paint barely dry on the bullpup design and sporting the letters FOTC stenciled on.
The young soldier stared right back at his filthy state, battered armor covered in grime and splattered in mud, and his face and hands caked in dust and ash. He collected himself quickly. "You made it. You're with my squad—this way."
Chester followed after him at a jog to another small firing position manned by a platoon of nervous-looking men and women all in that same grey uniform, and not a ghost among them. A tough-as-nails looking woman with thick brown hair coiled up in a tight bun turned and saluted sharply. "Sir, Lieutenant Feldman. We're glad to see you, sir," she said with a glance at his ghost.
The guardian blinked, taken aback. "I'm not… I don't…"
"Guardians are considered captains in the Forces of the City."
He swallowed hard. He had never trained for this, had no idea how to lead. Still… their job wasn't exactly complicated. He nodded, and pointed to the firing slits. "Get in position and shoot any Fallen you see."
"Yes, sir!" The soldiers leapt back to their places. Chester tried to ignore the unsettled feeling of all those admiring eyes, all that hope, directed at him, and fond his own firing position. "Here they come!"
Outside the seemingly limitless tide of Fallen raced forward, finally within the Traveler's overhead. Swarms of dregs charged erratically, while vandals moved with inhuman speed, dropping to scuttle forward on all six limbs before popping up to let off a blast from wire rifles. Captains urged them on, striding boldly forward while their shields shrugged off small-arms fire, and sending back bolts of molten fury form scorch cannons. In the midst of those captains were a few Fallen larger than the others—a towering Baroness clad in heavy black armor with a two-pronged helmet, another with snowy white armor and eight glowing eyes in its helmet, and a third that seemed more machine than Fallen, sporting at least two mechanical arms and one mechanical leg, and laughing maniacally while firing rapid-firing a scorch cannon.
A torrent of firepower poured down from the City, mowing down lines of dregs, cutting apart vandals and captains by the score. But the field was wide and open, not nearly as defensible as the gap, and it wasn't going to be enough. The sea of aliens rushed onwards, leaping over their dead and dying comrades in a desperate rush at the walls.
Chester kept firing even as members of his new squad started to go down as return fire more accurate, or luckier, than the rest started to come through. He registered a lightning bolt of power just before it drilled him between the eyes. Seconds later he was back up. He scooped up his rifle and looked out just as a vandal scurried through the gap, six limbs scrabbling at the stone. Chester shoved hard, sending it tumbling with a screech to crunch into the ground fifty feet below, but a scream to his left meant it hadn't come alone.
Another vandal hissed in a frenzy as it tore a serrated blade back out of Lieutenant Feldman's belly and tackled another soldier. Chester dropped his weapon, drew a hunting knife, and drove it through the Fallen's back. Two more vandals leaped through the windows and Chester turned to face them.
…
"They swarmed the walls. There were just too many of them."
…
Chester peeked through the shattered portcullis and shot down two dregs with short bursts from Feldman's battered Sanctuary No. 2 auto rifle. Another reinforced squad of Devils were rushing forwards. He ducked back down and drew a deep breath. "Now!"
Four warlocks leaped out from cover and wrenched hard on the Light. Working in concert, they created a crackling storm of void energy and hurled it forward. The purple energy enveloped the squad, and those closest to its center disintegrated, while those closer to the edge had a bare half-second to realize what was happening before they, too, were consumed.
He mustered the energy to wave his thanks to the warlocks, who had brought out their ghosts to heal lingering wounds. In that moment a Fallen Walker fired its main cannon straight through the tattered remains of the gate.
…
"Warlocks worked in concert to shatter the enemy. It was not quite enough."
…
"Go, go!" All three surviving members of his squad darted out of the crumbling gatehouse and over into the cover of a ruined apartment building. They hunkered down in the shelter of the building as yet another Fallen warband and their captain stormed through the gaping hole where the main gate had once stood. Chester caught his breath for a moment, trying to think. He squinted out of cover and was startled to find the light was fading, leaving the handful of fires in gutted buildings to illuminate the smoky scene. They needed to fall back, find someone else to link up with. But where? How deeply had they gone?
Still another Fallen squad raced past, and one of his squad members with more courage than sense fired at them. A vandal replied by throwing a shock grenade into the building. Chester cursed and dove for cover. The grenade erupted in a blinding flash and a torrent of rubble crashed down on him. He coughed, trying to move, but couldn't. Adrenaline shot through his exhausted body and he surged, drawing on the Light to strengthen him. The mix of shattered concrete and steel girders didn't budge. He sagged back down and tried to take stock, pushing with each limb in turn.
It wasn't good. His right and both legs were pinned. He heaved again, jaw clenched and free hand scrabbling in the rubble for purchase, then sagged back down again gasping for air.
"Axton," he rasped, "you there?"
"Yes," responded the ghost in a muffled voice. "I'm trapped… somewhere. I'm not sure where. But I'm intact."
"This isn't good." He closed his eyes, fighting a rising panic as he heard the chittering of still more Fallen hunting in the twilight. It was getting harder to breathe. He started probing at the rubble more carefully with his one free hand. The pile stretched beyond his reach. His armor creaked under the strain and he had to gasp for each breath.
The approaching Fallen footsteps paused as the sound of gunfire approached. Somewhere out there, guardians were moving, fighting to retake the walls. The hiccup-crump of a handheld grenade launcher rumbled, and he dared to hope.
His radio scratched to life, trapped on his buried hip. ::Fireteam leaders, do not advance on the Wall. Fall back to the Ridgeback District.:: The thunder of weapons fire slackened outside, and he heard the gasp of a dying vandal. ::I repeat, all teams rally at the Ridgeback District. DO NOT advance. The City is lost.::
Chester listened as hard as he ever had in his life, blind, pinned, his fate, and perhaps the fate of the entire City, in the balance.
::Shaxx! Do you copy?::
In the dark he heard with incredible clarity the distinct sound of an empty clip thudding to the ground, the scratch of a new clip sliding in the well and clicking into place, and the rack of the slide chambering a round. And words, muttered more than spoken. "It's not burning. Not yet."
::Shaxx, your orders are to retreat.::
That same voice spoke again, urgent in the darkness, its strength undercut by exhaustion Chester knew only too well. They were running on fumes of Light and sheer guts. "Nkechi, take Abdi and Truce. Liu Feng, with me. Bray, cover us."
::The battlefield is not your stage, Shaxx! This is not about glory.::
The trample of boots did not hesitate, and once more he heard that unconscious whisper. "It never was."
::Shaxx! For the final time. Fall! Back!::
The connection died as weapons fire erupted once more. The searing glare of a golden gun illuminated in brief flashes a fireteam of six resuming the grinding advance. Darkness gathered at the corners of Chester's eyes as he slowly asphyxiated, but if Shaxx could hold the walls… if they could hold… the walls…
…
"So that's how it happened, how I spent the Battle of Twilight Gap. I fought in the Gap, I fought on the wall, and I lay there suffocating and useless while Shaxx and his fireteam disobeyed orders and retook the position I abandoned and saved the day."
Whisper could taste the bitter shame in Chester's words. "You stayed, you fought until you physically couldn't fight any more. That's something to be proud of."
"Eh," muttered the ex-guardian, waving a dismissive hand. "I supposed I know that, intellectually. But here," he said, tapping his chest over his heart, "I can't forget that I was there. I was right there, Whisper, at the right time and in the right place to make a difference, and I couldn't do it. Heh. And Shaxx certainly wasn't impressed by us. He turned the Crucible from a side show into what it is now so guardians wouldn't be as pathetic as so many of us were that day. He's been working at it ever since."
Whisper shrugged helplessly.
Chester shook his head. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get all mopey on you. I'm proud I was there, Whisper. Proud I fought as hard as I could to protect the City, and deeply impressed by the willingness to fight of those vulnerable, Lightless people. And I don't regret a day since they dug me out until the day my ghost died. And I'm glad I can help young guardians like you remember those who came before."
He fell silent and they watched the sun's last rays fade away behind the mountains.
…
The early morning sun shined brightly in the brisk fall morning. Once more Whisper stood before the mighty Lord Shaxx who was studying a posted Crucible schedule. Does he ever sleep?
"Ah, Whisper! You have returned. There is an opening in—"
"I've learned more about you."
Shaxx crossed his massive arms. "Have you now? Tell me what you have learned."
"You are loyal to the City and its people, those you protect, and you will do what you think is the right thing even if it means going against your superiors… or your friends."
Shaxx considered her closely, then nodded. "No you know what you came to learn. But if you are still curious, you can read my response to the Speaker's inquiry." He pulled out a crumpled paper from his breastplate and tossed it to her carelessly, then turned back to the Crucible schedule.
Whisper snagged it before it could blow away, cast an incredulous glance at the titan, then flattened out the page against the wall to read it. It was not what she expected.
I am no "follower" of anything. I believe thanatology is just an excuse for insomnia and that Ahamkaras are for cheaters. I find the acataleptic belief that Darkness is incomprehensible to be pessimistic nihilism, and its opposite—the Osirian position that Darkness must be understood—to be misanthropic narcissism. But I will also take good ideas where I can find them. And Osiris' belief that guardian minds and bodies can be sharpened as one sharpens a sword is a damn good idea. You've seen the results in the Crucible. Do I really need to say more?
She looked up to admit to Shaxx that she had misjudged him, only to find him already absorbed in the days' first match. "Yes, yes! You're crushing them! Send them home crying!" He accentuated his shouts with a celebratory fist pump. Dumbfounded, Whisper handed the crumpled sheet to a frame wrapped in fur, then shook her head and turned and walked away to look for Ikora.
…
"So?" asked Ikora without preamble looking up from stacks of reports spread across the large desk in the Vanguard's main office.
"I don't know what to make of him. He seems totally loyal to the City and its people, more so than to the Consensus or the Speaker, much less any other guardian. But one moment he's a chest-beating brute and the next a deliberate and thoughtful philosopher."
Ikora smiled. "That's Lord Shaxx. Good work, Whisper." She looked back to her reports.
Whisper blinked. "Uh… that's it?"
The Vanguard leader nodded. "For now, yes. Remember, guardians are their own masters. What you do next is up to you. But as I'm coming to know you, I suspect that whatever you wander into next will be fascinating."
…
Whisper sat in her small apartment once more, unsure of what to do. It was just then that a message pinged on the VanNet server.
You're interesting. Not entirely interesting, but… you have promise. More than most. Enough that you might make a difference, if I can keep you out of trouble this time. So, we'll try this again. There are enemies out here you would not believe. Come find me.
Bizarre. And attached to the message were broken coordinates that led to… Venus?
A/N: Now we're getting into the good stuff! This one took a lot of research.
Item References:
Devil's Ruin
Mark of the Chain
Murvaux Type 0 (boots)
Mark of the Gatekeepers
Ghost Fragment: Titan
Scipio-E
Hieracon-LR2
Mark of the Pilgrim Guard
Zhurong Type 0
Walker: D1 Grimoire
Sanctuary No. 2
Mystic Drain
The Mountaintop
Lore Book References:
The Once Ship-Stealer: V. The Nightmare
Ecdysis: Question After Question
Interaction References:
A Lost Relic (interaction)
Chamber of Night (cut scene)
Note about the Traveler's passive shielding: This used to be well established, but most of the sources seem to be defunct. It was implied in the Welcome to the Frontier promotional material ("For centuries we've huddled under the safety of the Traveler, protected from our enemies"), and apparently it was explicitly stated on the now defunct The City entry on the old Destiny 1 webpage of .
Note about Twilight Gap: There is a little conflict over how events took place. In the A Lost Relic interaction, it's clear that Lightless (presumably FOTC, though we don't know when they were established) participated in the battle. It is most likely that they were stationed in the City itself, not out in the forward positions, though it's possible. We also know that
