Where the hell do you think you're going?!
Kendrix refused Proxima's implicit request to turn his ass around and kept walking.
You're kidding, right? There's no way I'm facing all those strangers!
They're not strangers, they're Guardians! Like you! You should be greeting them like family, not running away!
Look, I just- I'm not ready, ok? Besides, you said that guy Riksis they're talking about killed other Guardians, right? As in properly killed? What the hell am I supposed to tell them when they ask how I took down a monster like that less than an hour after I was born? That my ship stood up and shot him?
Proxima didn't seem to have a counterpoint, so Kendrix continued talking.
Besides, we should go check up on our friend before anything else, and I get the feeling that if I got into a conversation with the crowd back there I wouldn't be walking away for a while.
You'd be surprised. Most Guardians' have an attention span somewhere on the Planck scale. They'd probably get bored of you pretty quick. An electronic sigh echoed through Kendrix's mind for a moment. ...but maybe you do have a point.
With the matter settled, Kendrix refocused on his walk towards the hangar.
They arrived a few seconds later. Kendrix entered just as a jumpship roared out of the structure, shortly followed by two other vehicles. The ships he could see were just as varied in size, shape, and color as the Guardians moving in and out of them. He could hardly find a constant among them all, besides a general commitment to basic symmetry and functionality. Despite his prior urgency to get as far from the bounty board as possible, Kendrix couldn't help but pause for a few moments and drink it all in. He couldn't imagine himself ever getting used to the sheer, unfettered diversity of the Tower's inhabitants and their possessions.
"Beautiful, ain't it?" a familiar voice said as Kendrix stared. He didn't even have to look at Holliday to see the smug grin on her face; the tone of her greeting gave it away.
"It is," he replied, turning his head to nod her a hello. "I can see why you like working here"
Holliday gave him a nod in return, seemingly pleased with his answer.
"So where you headed on this fine morning, greenhorn?" Kendrix gave her a small shrug.
"Not sure, exactly. Figured I'd fly around the Earth for a while, see the sights. I can go pretty much anywhere with my jumpship, right?."
Holliday gave a slight chuckle. "Well, don't enjoy yourself too much. The ol' girl's a helluva planet, but she's got a lot of nasties living on her these days."
Kendrix was fairly certain Holliday was a normal human, so he wasn't sure she'd been around long enough to see anything besides 'these days', but he decided not to question it. Instead, he wished her a good day and waved as he started to walk towards his bay. And that's when he spotted his ship.
Uh, Proxima…?
I see it. What the hell does it think it's doing?
The jumpship was right where they'd left it the previous night. However, it seemed to be sporting a new coat of paint. Rather than the dull oranges and greys of its previous look, the ship was now deep red in color, with a number of places covered in white or black plating to accentuate the new look.
So uh… it can change its look, apparently?
Or hack the hangar's systems to change it for him. Either way, it's not exactly a subtle thing to do. Traveller above, if it wasted some of the Glimmer we gave it on a paint job…
Kendrix reached the platform which the jumpship rested on and prepared to climb up and into it. But Proxima stopped him.
Wait, here, this'll be quicker.
Kendrix didn't have a chance to ask what she was talking about before his body dissolved into data. He didn't even have time to think, as a mere microsecond later he reappeared inside the jumpship's cockpit. A series of blaring sounds and lights emanated from the ship's console as the consciousness inside was startled by their sudden appearance.
"Dammit, Proxima!" Kendrix cried out as he felt his stomach heave in protest of the unnatural ordeal it had just been forced through. "A little warning next time?!" A series of long, irritated whirs hummed out from the ship around him, apparently sharing in his discomfort.
"Oh grow up, both of you," Proxima chided over Kendrix's commlink.
The ship let out a low rumble in reply.
"I hear ya, buddy. She's the worst sometimes." Kendrix could feel Proxima's digital glare scorching his synapses. It was a strange sensation.
"If you two are finished underappreciating my vast expanse of capability, we've got other things to attend to. What's our status on repairs?"
Switching to this subject seemed to brighten the ship's mood significantly. A series of joyful whistles echoed around Kendrix as the console displayed the same abstraction of the ship's layout from the previous night. However, no areas were flagged as damaged this time, and as far as Kendrix could tell all the jumpship's systems were nominal.
"Looks like you've made a fairly full recovery. Good to know you weren't too beaten up." Kendrix said with a smile. Then he thought of something else. "I don't really know how your mind works, but did you happen to restore any of the corrupted memories? Like maybe your name?"
At this, the ship let out long, dejected whine. That meant no, he presumed.
"Well, don't worry about that. I'm sure we'll find a way to get you fixed up soon. We really should come up with something to call you in the meantime, though. If I have to keep calling you 'my friend' or 'my ship', I'm going to go insane."
Kendrix thought for a moment, but nothing especially pleasing came to. Something like Rusty or Buckets just felt insensitive, and a normal human name just didn't feel right; Dave the shapeshifting robot didn't have a great ring to it. When he came up empty, Kendrix gave Proxima a mental nudge.
What? I thought naming people was your shtick?
And I thought you wanted us to value your skills more?
Ugh, fine.
Kendrix felt Proxima ruminate for a moment, before she spoke up on the comms again.
"How about Nova? It's simple without being too generic, plus it keeps with the astronomy theme." Kendrix shrugged.
"Sounds fine to me. What about you?" he asked the console in front of him. The ship didn't respond for a moment, apparently weighing the name in its head. Then it let out a series of confirmatory beeps, evidently indicating its satisfaction with the moniker. "Alright then. Are you feeling up to fly again, Nova?"
Kendrix felt the jumpship's engines flare to life in response.
"So where do you want to go first?" Proxima asked, evidently preparing to give their pilot coordinates. "Everest? Grand Canyon? Niagara Falls?"
"Actually, I was fibbing about the sightseeing back there. I'd love to go see the world some day, but I think we have more pressing matters. I was hoping we could go back to where we found Nova and investigate. See if we can find anything that will tell us how it- I mean, uh, he… she…they…?"
G-E-N-D-E-R- -C-O-N-C-E-P-T- -N/A. M-A-L-E- -A-P-P-R-O-X-I-M-A-T-E- -V-A-L-I-D.
"...ok, he. How he ended up there."
"Sounds good to me." Proxima replied. "Nova, do you need the coords or do you remember where to go?"
Kendrix felt a sudden jerk as Nova's form rose off of the bay platform and began to align itself with the hangar's exit.
"I'll take that as a no." Proxima said matter-of-factly.
A moment later, Nova's engines roared and Kendrix was pulled against his seat as they went rocketing out into the morning sunlight.
A minute or two later, they arrived above the hangar where they'd battled Riksis the night prior. After hovering a few thousands feet up for a handful of moments while Proxima ran some long-range scans for Fallen activity. When the checks came up clean, Nova pulled into a shallow dive, spiraling down before softly pulling up as he passed through the hangar's open roof.
"You're getting better at this flying thing," Kendrix said aloud, grateful that his stomach hadn't been mistreated nearly as much as his previous flight with Nova. Unfortunately, Proxima decided to pick up the slack. Kendrix felt himself disappear again, his body reconstituting on the hangar's floor with a flash of transmat; he had to fight the urge to heave up his breakfast. Then again, he realised as his stomach slowly quieted, he hadn't actually eaten back at the Tower. And yet he didn't feel hungry. One of the benefits of immortality, he supposed.
Realising that his passengers had exited the cockpit, Nova took the opportunity to change, once again reformatting into the shape of a towering metal humanoid. He looked slightly different now, with his body keeping the new colors he'd adopted for his jumpship form. His 'skin', for lack of a better term, was a pale white, including his arms, legs, and face. His torso and forearms were encased in thick red plating, shaped like blocky armor, while his head, waist, and feet were covered in a similar material, only in black.
Despite Nova's most basic anatomy being almost biological in its complexity and design, his macroscopic body was much more robotic, on the whole feeling rather blocky and mechanical. It was a somewhat confusing contrast. However, now that Kendrix had gotten over his fight-or-flight response to the mechanical being's very existence, he found the look not all that unpleasant.
Forcing himself to refocus, Kendrix took a look around the hangar. It appeared much the same as it had during their departure the previous night, rusted, rundown, and littered with Fallen corpses, including the conspicuously headless body of one Devil Archon.
"Well that's a good sign," Proxima said as she flashed into existence at Kendrix's shoulder.
"Sorry?" he replied, confused.
"Fallen may be scavengers and pirates, but they've still got culture," the Ghost explained. "Riksis was the head of the entire House's religious community. A normal Fallen might not get a funeral, depending on how well liked they were or how many resources the House could spare, but tradition would call for a full ceremony in Riksis' case regardless of those things. They've almost certainly figured out he's dead by now, what with him not having called in for a whole night. But the fact that they haven't retrieved his body implies they don't know where he died, which also means they probably aren't sure how he died, either."
"As in… they might not know about Nova?"
"Exactly. And we'd better do our best to keep it that way. The Vanguard might have him detained or destroyed, but the Fallen? Their splicers would rip him apart to try and see what makes him tick. And if there was even the smallest chance they could replicate some of his tech, that would be a very bad thing."
"Ah. Well, good to know we dodged that bullet."
"Yeah. But that means no combat duty for you, got it?" Proxima said as she spun around to glare at Nova. The giant robot gave a nod and a disappointed rumble of affirmation.
"Right, well, I guess we'd better take a look around."
The three of them split up to search for clues. Kendrix went with Proxima as she scanned the area for Glimmer signatures or any unusual tech, while Nova used his own array of surveillance tech to search for traces of his presence. When, after about twenty minutes, they came up empty handed, the three regrouped and Proxima suggested they take a look around outside. Nova attempted to follow, but Proxima reminded the robot that him staying out of sight would do the most good for all of them. When he still seemed hesitant to remain in the hangar for what could end up being hours of searching, Proxima offered him a pastime. She flew up to Nova's face and interfaced with him using the same white beam of light she always did.
"There," she said after a few moments, dropping the beam. "I've uploaded a basic diagnostic program to your processor. See if you can interface with it and get to work on your memories. It should be able to help you restore and defragment the less damaged ones. Maybe you'll be able to uncover something useful while we're gone."
Nova still seemed somewhat frustrated, but seemingly decided to relent. He returned to jumpship form and went to work while Kendrix and Proxima went out of the hangar and into the desolation of the Cosmodrome.
It wasn't even noon yet and Kendrix could already feel the sun beating down on him through his armor.
"Immortal or no, I don't think I'm going to like trudging around out here for the whole day."
"Well, seeing as you asked so nicely," Proxima said with unveiled sarcasm, "I might be able to provide alternate transport. See that outpost?" Kendrix looked to the crumbling structure on a nearby ridge as Proxima guided his attention there, then nodded confirmation. "There's a transmitter I can access if you get us there."
"Can't you just fly over there and do it?"
"Not if you want your get out of death free card getting shanked by a dreg."
Kendrix let out a sigh and started walking towards the building. It only took him a few minutes to get there, fortunately, and with Proxima's help he quickly located the transmitter. She interfaced with it for a few moments, then directed Kendrix to return outside. He did so, and then waited.
"So what happens now?" he asked.
"Now, I access the vehicle grid, snag the right file, and trasmat our wheels here."
A moment later, and the familiar flash of transmat lit up the space next to Kendrix. Only this time it wasn't armor or ammo that appeared. It was something else entirely.
The object almost looked like a motorcycle at first glance. Kendrix spotted handlebars, a long seat, and footrests. But the form was much too sleek and pointed to be a bike. Not to mention the complete lack of wheels. Instead, the machine was seemingly held aloft by some sort of thrumming engine. Kendrix walked over, eyes wide with wonder, and ran his hand along the leather-like material of the vehicle's seat.
"This is a Sparrow," Proxima said, sensing Kendrix's brimming question. "It's a single-occupant scout vehicle, mostly used by Guardians for getting into and out of sticky situations. It can carry us a lot faster than your feet ever could, and now that we've gained access to this one, we should be able to keep it stored in the jumpship for use at our leisure. That is, assuming Nova is willing to carry it around."
Kendrix wordlessly climbed onto the vehicle. With a slight push of the handlebars, the Sparrow darted off over the ground, racing a foot or two above the ancient road winding through the landscape. Kendrix let out a laugh of surprise as the wind buffeted his body. The vehicle rode far smoother than anything he had otherwise experienced, though he supposed levitating above each and every pothole or piece of debris helped. After about a minute of racing through the Cosmodrome, Proxima spoke up in Kendrix's mind.
Try the throttle.
Without hesitation, Kendrix twisted the handlebars forward. Responding in what felt like an instant, the Sparrow's engine erupted, sending it and its rider blasting forward. Kendrix was almost thrown off by the force of the acceleration, but he quickly regained his balance as he lessened the boost a little.
Then, on the side of the road just up ahead, he saw a large stretch of old, rust-brown metal curving up into the sky. It was likely a collapsed piece of an ancient wall, or perhaps the plating of one of the many ships scattered around the Cosmodrome. But to Kendrix it looked like something else entirely. It looked like a ramp.
Kendrix swerved off of the road, angling the Sparrow's pointed front towards the metal construct. By the time Proxima realized what he was doing, he was already racing up the structure, pushing the throttle to the maximum, and sailing off the top.
For a moment, Kendrix flew. His only thoughts were exhilaration and wonder. Though his memories were gone, he was almost certain he had never known this feeling before. He could have stayed that way forever.
Unfortunately, gravity had other plans, and, deciding it had indulged him long enough, opted to bring Kendrix back to reality. The Sparrow's stern began to tilt downwards, setting its sights on a nearby mound of wrecked cars. Kendrix's mind slowly broke free of its euphoria to recognize the impending disaster, but there was nothing to be done. The Sparrow plunged towards the wreckage, and whatever antigravity generator kept it aloft couldn't cope with the intense acceleration gravity had forced on it. The vehicle's stern plunged deep into the heart of one of the cars, sending Kendrix flying off and crashing to the ground, just before the engine detonated.
Kendrix could barely sit up through the pain to watch the flaming wreckage rain down around him. He groaned in pain and despair as the wonderful machine evaporated in front of him. His view was soon filled by a blue eye filled with disapproval. Proxima washed Kendrix in soft white rays of light, knitting his flesh over his scratches, recoloring his bruises, and inverting the countless dents on his armor.
"Taking a dangerous risk with technology you don't understand, without consulting logic, reason, or your Ghost, all with the grand design of achieving a few seconds of fun? Maybe you really are a Guardian after all," she said aloud, her voice drying than the dust filling Kendrix's boots.
"Worth it," he spluttered out in between gasping breaths and grunts of pain. Proxima just rotated back and forth as if shaking her head.
"Fortunately, I am very good at what I do, and can get that Sparrow working again in a few minutes. On the one condition that you don't try a stunt like that again unless it's life or death. Promise?"
Kendrix nodded. "Pinky swear," he said, holding out his little finger to Proxima. She didn't seem to find his attempt at humor even remotely amusing, and he had the strange suspicion that if she had possessed hands in that moment, she would have been sharing a very particular gesture with him.
True to her word, a few minutes later Proxima had transmatted in a freshly repaired version of the Sparrow. With his daredevil antics behind him for the moment, Kendrix set out to comb the area, Proxima scanning the region for anything that might have been connected to Nova. They encountered Fallen patrols every once in a while, but the Sparrow's speed and agility was something the underequipped aliens couldn't really counter, and Kendrix shot most of them down easily. He eventually fell into a rhythm of sorts, and even started to enjoy himself. However, when he realized that snuffing out the lives of a half-dozen sentient organisms every half-hour or so was starting to feel routine, his anxiety came back with a vengeance, and he opted to simply swerve around patrols from then on out.
Nova would occasionally radio in to check on their progress in between bouts of maintenance on his damaged mind. Unfortunately, they hadn't found anything of note besides a Glimmer cache or two, and thus had little to report to the bored machine.
After a few hours of the fruitless search, however, Nova flipped the script, sending a transmission to the Ghost and her Guardian.
O-R-I-G-I-N- -F-I-L-E- -R-E-C-O-V-E-R-E-D.
"Wait, you remembered where you come from?"
Y-E-S.
"Well don't leave us in suspense! What've you got?"
C-Y-B-E-R-T-R-O-N.
"Cybertron?" Kendrix repeated, tasting the unfamiliar word. He threw a mental glance at Proxima. "Is that a research facility or something?"
"Not that I've ever heard of."
N-O. N-O-T- -F-A-C-I-L-I-T-Y.
P-L-A-N-E-T.
"You mean… you're not from Earth?"
Y-E-S.
"Well then… what does that mean for us?"
"Nothing good," Proxima said with a sigh. "For one thing, if Nova's alien then our chances of finding anything out here basically dropped to zero. If his species has any sort of significant presence on Earth, it either would have been found ages ago, or is so well hidden we won't be able to find it by just snooping around like this. For another, our chances of the Vanguard being cool with him if we get found out probably just dropped to zero too; if he was human-made, like something Exo-adjacent, or even an advanced frame, the Vanguard might have permitted him access to the city. But an alien machine, and one this complex? That smells too much like Vex for them to risk it: a radiolaria outbreak in the city would make the Collapse look like a bad dream."
"But Nova isn't a threat, certainly not like that! Surely they'd understand that."
Proxima shook herself negatively. "I don't think so. A lot of people in the city despise anything and everything alien; the Fallen made sure of that at Twilight Gap. And even those members of city leadership who are logical enough to look past that prejudice won't be willing to take a chance on a completely unknown and highly capable sentient war machine, at least not enough of them to win a majority."
"Well, then I guess we'll just have to keep staying hidden however we can. At least until we find a way to get Nova back to his people."
"Guess so. But we don't exactly have FTL tech just lying around, so who knows when that will be."
The commlink was silent for a moment, as the three companions pondered the implications of their discovery.
Kendrix was the first to break the tension.
"Well, if we aren't going to find anything out here, we might as well go back to the hangar and decide what we're doing next."
Proxima mumbled her agreement, and Kendrix swung the Sparrow around towards Nova's hiding place. They got back in a matter of minutes, and Kendrix dismounted to walk inside while the Sparrow disappeared into transmat.
He found Nova waiting inside in robot form, sitting on the ground with his hands on his knees, looking almost wistful.
"Hey bud. How you holding up?"
A series of melancholy beeps was his only reply. Kendrix slumped down next to him and let out an exhausted sigh.
"I guess we should go back to the Tower. But I still really don't want to face all those people."
"Quit your grouching," Proxima said in a huff. "All you need is to get your story straight and find a little confidence." She looked him up and down from where she'd appeared beside him. "A new look might be able to help with that, actually."
"What's wrong with my current stuff?" Kendrix said, a little defensively. Proxima just rolled her eye.
"Please. Your armor is little more than a pile of Glimmer held together by spit and desperation. I should know, I made it. Fortunately, it makes an excellent base to work off of. All we need is some parts…"
Proxima flew to one of the nearby dead Fallen and began to scan it, transmitting a piece of cloth or metal away every now and then.
"Hey! Are you looting their corpses?!" Kendrix said indignantly.
Proxima turned to him and raised her top fin in disbelief.
"You killed most of them, and theft is what you're worried about?"
"Well, I-"
"If we left this stuff here, it would just end up in the hands of more Fallen, which would end up causing more problems for us and the City down the line. Besides, Fallen tech may not be pretty, but it's made of the sternest stuff a scavenger species can manage."
"Well sorry that I'm not thrilled at the idea of wearing some dead thing's clothes." Kendrix said with a degree of irritation.
"Oh please. Turning battle trophies into weapons and armor is one of the oldest Guardian traditions. 'Wearing your battles' and all that. Now gimme your gear."
Not bothering to wait for permission, Proxima's eye flashed, and Kendrix's armor transmatted off of his body and into a neatly organized spread on the floor, leaving him in nothing but his undersuit. Kendrix almost protested, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Besides, he was supposed to trust his Ghost with stuff like this, right?
Proxima worked away on the armor for a fair while, occasionally darting off to receive some choice piece from another corpse. Kendrix and Nova watch in morbid fascination as she worked, using the same technology she used to repair his armor to fuse it together with the harvested Fallen tech. It took upwards of an hour, but eventually it was done. Proxima transmatted the final product back onto Kendrix's body for his considering.
"Well, how'd I do?"
The new gear was completely different from what Kendrix had worn before. His gloves were still white, but they were now the white of a Vandal's armor, with black fingertips dancing in the air. His boots were black, save for a bit of the bronze-like metal used in Fallen tech on each toe. The robes were similarly black, woven with the fabric of Fallen flightsuits. The helmet was bronze in full, save for the tinted black viewplate, with spines of grey and eye-like red lights protruding from it in various places. Finally was the long, trench coat-like cloak, blood red and covered in white Fallen glyphs.
Kendrix glanced across his body, surprised at how well the armor fit, and how satisfied he was with its design. He tried to keep the approval off of his face, but Proxima could feel it in his head, and he in turn could feel the smug pride that responded to it.
Then he noticed one thing that hadn't changed. The band of material on his left arm was still the same white metallic circlet that he'd been wearing when Proxima woke him up.
"Why no upgrade here?" he asked quizzically, gesturing to his left arm with his right.
"That's your bond," Proxima explained. "It's a device used by Warlocks; think of it like a lens, focusing your Light into more potent and specific forms. It's a very important piece of your arsenal; unfortunately, it's solidly paracausal in function, meaning it requires more… esoteric materials to be upgraded in any meaningful way."
"Well, I suppose I can't complain," Kendrix replied, giving in to sincerity. "This is very well made, Proxima. Thank you."
The Ghost bobbed in acknowledgement of his gratitude.
"Now, about going back to the Tower…"
AN: Kendrix's new look is the Kellbreaker armor set, though perhaps this version would be better termed Archonbreaker. It was selected from a list of reccommendations provided by my personal Destiny fashionista, Keltoi. Much thanks to him for the suggestion, and for helping motivate me to write another chapter.