Amanda Holliday sat on her toolbox, face in her hands as she listened to the sirens and fire alarms around her. A trail of fuel extended from Hangar One all the way to the edge of the docking port. Flames emanated from the fluid as frames either crumpled in the fire or ran around in confusion, disoriented from the massive explosion.
How did this happen? She thought as hours of work perished in the form of Guardians' jumpships exploding in succession, each one taking it's neighbor with it in a chain of carnage. A billion Glimmer falling in a morbid game of dominoes. She rubbed her injured leg - the shockwave from the explosion had knocked her back and her knee was swollen.
Hundreds of hours. No, thousands of hours. This will take me and my team… a month? Two months? She felt exhausted already.
She tried to piece together the horrific accident as she wiped soot from her face. One of the ships in Hangar One hadn't initiated launch procedures, that much was certain. It had taken the power couplings keeping it grounded, and half the fuel station with it. A good old fashioned gas-rip, but on a scale that could bankrupt dozens of Guardians in the Tower. She was sure the insurance payout would take years at best, and that was for those who had insurance. Many of the Guardians parked here were rookies, just starting out with a loaner jumpship with nothing but a hope, a Ghost and a dream. They weren't insured.
When push came to shove, and new Guardians were in debt, they had only one real option. High risk Hive missions. She'd seen it before. How many fresh faces down on their luck had left the spaceport, hitchhiking to the Moon, never to return?
She shuddered.
Whatever MORON pulled that stunt just cost a lot of lives. She was shaking with anger, thinking about one Guardian in particular she'd taken a liking to. The new Hunter, his ship was in Hangar One. It was almost certainly a pile of ash. He had so much potential. She teared up, thinking about the odd newbie, only a kid really, being devoured over and over again in a Hive nest in search of Glimmer to pay for a new ship.
If we could find out who did this, maybe they could pay some of it off… There was a chance, just a chance, that the Guardian who ruined the spaceport was one of the high earners. The new Hunter might be able to seek remediation.
She limped over to the security cams, only to find the whole system shorted. Dammit no! The fire had burned through the wiring, causing a surge of electricity that knocked down the whole server. There was almost no chance of recovering the footage. Holliday slammed her fist on the roasted terminal. At least… at least I didn't charge him for the repairs. It was the only thing that she could find solace in.
…...
"WHAT IN THE TRAVELER'S NAME DID YOU JUST DO?!" The Ghost squealed, his eye shown red with rage as the bits of metal which composed his carapace spun.
"Whoops". Langston said, as his ship floated dead in space, it's fuel carriage and bilge were torn free. Parts trailed all the way back to the Tower on earth. He spanked the dashboard. "Work dammit!"
"THE WHOLE JUMPSHIP IS TOTALLED! NOT TO MENTION THAT FIREBALL BACK AT THE SPACEPORT! Holliday… I hope she's ok."
"Ugh… I'll need to call Jabes for a tow, god this is embarrassing."
"EMBARRASSING?!" The Ghost's tiny roar bounced off Langston's helmet as if it were nothing but a kitten's mewl.
Langston keyed the intercom.
"Glorious Fire Wolf, praise be his almighty name." He said. A voice on the other end of the microphone slurped in satisfaction.
"It is I, what do you need, Examinee 1B?"
"There was a mishap, you know. My ship is a tad damaged—-"
"DESTROYED IS WHAT IT IS!" The Ghost yelled.
Langston ignored the machine. "It wasn't my fault." Then fibs poured from his mouth before he could even think. They were perfectly designed for their target. Like a gift that could only have been given from a husband to a wife married sixty years or more. "Peasants were involved. Back at the spaceport— "
"Say no more," Jabes said. Langston smiled as Jabes unwrapped the present with palpable joy, ready to savor the sweet elitism the hunter had served him. "I am familiar with the underclass," Jabes continued. "I will send Examinee 2 to rescue your becalmed vessel." They heard Jabes intake a large breath.
"EXAMINEE 2!" He bellowed.
"Yes, great and powerful Jabes." The examinee's voice could barely be heard over the microphone.
"You will tow your fellow's jumpship to our destination. He has had the misfortune of coming into contact with the slum-folk"
"Yes, sire." The Examinee's voice conveyed no emotion. The words evoked the image of a man waiting at the gallows.
"Peasants you say..." Jabes asked Langston. "Was it a revolt? I've been warning Zavala about how much the poor like a good revolution. I told him of their fetish for the guillotine and the dangers of a growing middle class, but he would not listen. It's clear that we should've acted preemptively. This is what I get for considering 'human rights' above my own instincts." Another massive intake of breath. "KNIGHT COMMANDER SNOWBALL!"
"Yes Boss!" The long-island Ghost responded immediately.
"Send a note to members of the Fuzz clan, they will find details of the plan in the filing cabinet marked Purge, under the folder marked Phase 1. They'll want the documents Instilling Fear, Well and Bread Poisoning for Beginners, and Group Punishment for starters—"
Langston's Ghost panicked "No, No! It wasn't a revolt, Langston forgot— OOF!" the Ghost was forcibly returned to his sock. Langston spun him, counterclockwise this time. He didn't want his Ghost to find comfort in a pattern.
"A mass starvening then? Please let it be a famine!" Jabes said, heart in his throat. "What did you forget, Langston? To toss them their allotment of scraps?"
Ghost's intervention forced Langston to pivot, but he did so before even his own brain could parse the words. "Yes. I accidentally ate the crust on my sandwich in front of them, one thing just led to another and well, here I am."
"Ah, I see," Jabes said. "A beginners mistake. Just as we are entitled to the poor's belongings, their sense of dignity and their blood, so too are the poor entitled to our orange peels. It is the concept of Noblesse Oblige, our obligation as gods to provide the carrot." He smiled, his voice massaged the words the way an exhibitionist would before cupping himself on a public trolley. "And the stick. If you are truly wise, the carrot can even be used as a stick."
"I remember that Boss," Knight Commander Snowball said over the radio, "that carrot knocked the cripple straight to the floor!"
"His cracking bones were like maracas of the heavens," Jabes said in nostalgia. He continued, "I actually meant metaphorically, sweet Snowball. But yes, once you become the wisest of all, you too can convert metaphor directly into reality."
All the while Examinee 2 had coupled a tether to Langston's vessel and began accelerating them towards the red planet. Langston turned off the intercom, stopped swinging the sock around as he leaned back and twiddled a bobblehead he had made from the remains of Maeve's Ghost. Langston was crafty, in both mind and with literal arts and crafts. He had not given all the Ghost's pieces to the creature that once was Shaw Han. It looked loosely like Shaxx.
"That problem's solved then," he said, more to himself than his robotic companion. "Now we just need to get a new Jumpship."
"That's the least of our problems Langston," The Ghost said after regaining its equilibrium. "We'll never be able to pay for all the damages in the Tower. What will we even do?" The Ghost looked down worried.
"Not to worry my little mechanical…." Langston digested the next word, thinking carefully about it before speaking,
The Ghost perked up, waiting for him to finish the phrase. Friend? Friend? That's what people normally say, right? Just say it! Just say Friend!
"... Lugnut."
Close enough! The Ghost squealed with joy now knew the value and utility of the humble lugnut.
"We can't pay for that destruction, god no. But Jabes can."
"Oh god no please stop this."
"All it takes is one swipe of the wallet." Langston narrowed his eyes and steepled his fingers together. "And all our problems are solved." He spun in his chair to face the Ghost. "And now, you're roped in with me. You're responsible, legally and morally."
"How?!"
"You got me this ship, thumbtack. I would never have been able to destroy a spaceport if I was still stuck in the Cosmodrome." The logic was twisting and corrupting. The Ghost knew this was not his fault, but at this point he was so confused. Everything Langston said was a half-truth. All buttered up strings of silvery words that wormed their way into your heart whilst striking like the back of a ring-hand. The Ghost felt guilt as the tendrils of ontological corruption wrapped themselves deeper into his psyche.
"Ok, the wallet." The Ghost gulped.
"For the greater good," Langston said.
"... For the greater good." The time passed in near silence, only the random 'twang' of Langston's bobblehead pierced the quiet.
The microphone exploded in volume. "EXAMINEES! It has come to my attention that I am in need of vittles most tender!" Both Langston and the Ghost jumped. Langston noticed that Examinee 2 had started to turn their crafts around, he already knew where they needed to go. "There is only one place in the solar system which serves feasts that can satisfy me," Jabes said.
Zavala, ever present and judgmental like a Mormom mother, called in over the intercoms "No, Jabes. This mission is time-sensitive. Rasputin's core is already— " Jabes silenced the intercoms across all of the spaceships. Langston saw earth slowly come back into view as they docked into a small space-station.
And thus, they arrived at the only corporate remains of the Golden Age. The only business in continual operation since the earliest years of human space exploration. Jabes threw the children out of line with one hand and their parents yelped and ran to fetch them like dogs after a chew toy. Soon they were at the front of the line, as god intended.
"Welcome to Space Arby's, may I take your order?" Asked a scraggly robot, replete with a baseball cap that, in turn, had a logo of a cowboy hat on the center.
"Bring me the Ham and Swiss Melt, peasant frame. And a number 3. Don't forget the toy." Jabes said. In a thousand years, the Number 3 had never changed. It was a near constant in the universe, as humanity gained and lost super-technology, as they had acquired magic and began to fight gods, the Number 3 at Arby's was the only facet of human culture left unchanged.
"I would like a number 1, with a Rootbeer." Langston said. Examinee 2 ordered nothing. The taste of food had been lost with his sense of self a long time ago.
"That'll be 650 Glimmer, 20 Legendary Shards, 30 Helium Fragments, and 3 enhancement cores,." the frame said.
Jabes turned to the two examinees. "PAY YOUR TITHES."
Examinee 2 opened his inventory, although Langston narrowed his eyes. The Hunter cracked his knuckles and prepared to go to work.
"Yes, Examinee 2, pay the tithe,." hHe said.
"And why must the simpleton pay for your order?" Jabes replied instead of the broken Gguardian. His hands were on his hips. The obvious answer was that Langston had no money. But saying so was unthinkable. Langston knew how to work people's angles, and he knew what Jabes thought of the impoverished.
"You're a savvy, financially capable man, correct?"
Jabes' hands came from his hips and he crossed his arms, unsure if this was a challenge to his wealth. "Resources fill my pockets like ants fill Cabal corpses."
"You would accept an alternative business model if it streamlined your prospects?"
"Of course, I welcome the new."
Langston was aware that this was a lie. Jabes was a man who did not cope well with change. But an appeal to his pride should make him willing to try new things.
"I present to you, a model of vertical integration."
"Yes, vertical integration… I am very familiar," Jabes had not heard the term before. Langston could tell, yet another point to his advantage. The order was already his. In the end it would not come from Jabes' own pocket, and Langston doubted he cared about the second examinee's finances. This was just a matter of framing.
"In a normal market, you vertically integrate businesses to streamline your supply chain. A coal mine would purchase a delivery company, and the overhead for delivery decreases."
"Yes. Elementary."
"To a man of your excellency, workers are of course not dissimilar from commodities, we are to be bought and traded at our market value."
Jabes raised his little mechanical eyebrows, impressed. "An astute observation, it seems you have learned your place."
"And the buying, trading, and consuming of your workers is a venture you engage in for profit, yes?"
"For profit and pleasure."
"Thus, your employees… no, your servants can be thought not only as commodities, but as business ventures themselves. In the same way that a wise, practiced entrepreneur vertically integrates his businesses, we should be integrated as well."
Jabes tapped his foot, thinking, "I... see." He did not. But he wasn't about to admit it. "So your reluctance to pay is due to...?"
"Delegation. It's clear that Examinee 2 is quite experienced in paying his tithes, and I am quite experienced in not paying my tithes. If Examinee 2 pays for both our tithes, then this is a more streamlined process. Afterall, your margins are not impacted, in fact, the time savings could net you big."
"So by making Examinee 2 pay for your meal, it saves me money?"
"Indubitably. You wouldn't want to have your delivery drivers contract black lung in the coal mine would you? It would impact -" Jabes zoned out, already satisfied with the thought of saving money in some obscure roundabout way he didn't understand while at the same time grinding down what little will to live Examinee 2 had left into a fine snortable powder.
By this point Examinee 2 had already paid for the meals, and those waiting in line were becoming restless, though their bruised and wailing children reminded them to stay silent.
"Order's up."
Jabes rifled through the bags, and pulled a small cowboy hat from the children's order. He summoned Knight Commander Snowball, and placed the small hat snuggly over his horned snowman frame.
"Adorable!" He squealed. If a machine could blush, then Snowball was blushing. Langston's own Ghost watched with complete envy. He began to subconsciously run simulations of his own death, interspersed with simulations of how such a wonderful hat would feel on his own carapace.
Jabes checked his HUD.
"Ah, it is time we go, it appears that Zavala has called thirty three times in our quest for sustenance."
They arrived at the red planet in style. Langston's ship could not power itself and fell from the atmosphere, tethered to poor Examinee 2's spacecraft. The Examinee yelled over the intercom as he struggled with the controls, performing a miracle of pilotry which barely managed to save his life, but as a Guardian, most importantly, his ship. Langston had no working ship, and cared little for his life.
So he jettisoned from the spacecraft tens of miles up in the sky and plummeted to the ground.
Far below the falling spacecrafts, and directly towards Langston's destination, a giant worm roared. As Langston fell, and he had quite a long time to fall, he heard someone he did not know over the intercoms as he burned and revived repeatedly in the atmosphere.
"Xol is tearing apart Rasputin's Neural Network, and if he does enough damage, he could trigger a chain reaction that will devastate Mars. All I know is we have one advantage left… the Valkyrie." She said.
"Who is this clown?" Langston asked Jabes over the roaring wind.
"That clown is none other than Ana Bray, hero of the Twilight Gap and nanny of Rasputin. We call upon her when the machine becomes cranky." The Fire Wolf said over the intercom.
"Who is Rasputin? Is it some form of cyber-baby?" Langston asked. It was clear to Jabes that this series of trivial questions would go on for quite some time. A full explanation would do nothing more than confuse the examinee's simple, assuredly smooth brain.
"Not quite true, not quite false Examinee 1B. It would be best for your plebeian mind to think of Rasputin as a continent sized mechanical baby of the poorest disposition, and Ms. Bray as the one who must wipe him after he has shite himself."
Langston opened his mouth and barely got the words out as the wind whisked them away. "So we're just paracausal toilet paper?" Jabes' eye twitched far away in his own jumpship. "NO MORE QUESTIONS!" He seethed, making a mental note to kick Rasputin's neural lace. Toilet paper…. He ground his mechanical jaw together, realizing how apt the metaphor was. He needed to adjust the mental image in order to maintain his perceived status as god emperor. The thought of a roll of sandpaper in a bathroom stall. A cheese grater perhaps. Jabes smiled.
From high in the sky, Langston saw the whole facility shake, as if from an earthquake. Langston's Ghost spoke up, worried. "Mars is geologically stable, that was no earthquake!"
Jabes replied over the coms. "You allow your Ghost to state the obvious, Langston? How very undisciplined of you."
Langston fumed, shamed again by his Ghost's "autonomy". He tried to spit in the little robot's eye but the wind launched the gob back into his own face.
"Worry not, Thumbtack was it?" Jabes asked.
"It's not…." The Ghost murmured at the lowest possible volume.
"Never mind, your name too matters not. It is indeed no earthquake, but instead the roar of the Hive God Xol!" Jabes cackled. "He thinks to challenge me! ME! Jabes, the Fire Wolf, greatest Guardian of all time, throttler of peasants! I who killed Oryx, who in turn killed his God, the strongest of the Worms, Akka!"
"You tell em' boss!" Snowball said.
"And by the transitive property, this makes me Xol's superior!" Xol roared again, and Jabes veered to park his ship a safe distance away from the God.
Langston hit the ground far from the designated landing zone
The Ghost picked up his splattered remains and put them back together. Langston instinctively dusted himself off and leaned backwards to stretch. The Ghost stared at the sky and shivered. Towering over them, was Xol Will of the Thousands.
"Oh shoot." The Ghost said. They weren't getting out of this.
"Hold your horses examinee 1B! I don't mind a little vigor in Fuzz clan candidates, but there's an order to these things you know!" Jabes was zooming towards them on his sparrow, not worried for Langston's life, limb or sanity. He was simply upset that the well-structured order of his mission went haywire.
Xol stared deep into Langston's soul. Whatever it found there gave it pause, for Xol did not immediately destroy the Guardian. They stood off for but a moment, and then Langston raised his bow. It was merely a rare item drop. He quivered in pleasure as he stared at the giant Hive. He loved the Hive.
The sound of Examinee 2's screaming filled the intercom and Langston's Ghost noticed that the examinee was dangerously close to impacting the surface of Mars. Langston's shaking arm steadied as the screaming calmed him.
The Ghost began to panic, the spacecrafts were coming straight towards them! The Ghost watched the pair of intertwined ships dropping through the atmosphere.
Ghost called over the intercom. "We're not on it! Save yourself!"
At the last minute, Examinee 2 managed to decouple from the wrecked jumpship, and bumped down on the planet's surface, alive, the only casualty being a scratched paint job.
"He wouldn't detach the ship until… he would have died to save us." The Ghost said.
"Death means nothing," Langston responded.
He took careful aim, with his tongue slightly outside of his mouth, and fired.
The arrow of course did no damage to Xol. Although it was the weakest of the God Worms, Xol was still a deity. It would take tens of thousands, millions, of shots from this low light level Guardian to put the beast down.
Or one spaceship.
The remains of Langston's craft rocketed towards Xol at hundreds of miles an hour, lagging behind Examinee 2's ship by a hairsbreadth. The worm had no time to think before it was splattered on the platform like an earthworm stomped upon by a child after a rainy day.
The Hive God was dead. Langston raised his hands in the air, showboating. He swung his arms to an invisible crowd, signaling the wave.
"I… I can't believe it." The Ghost said. "You killed Xol. Three hundred light levels below cap. Your first Strike." He was unsure how to feel. Relieved obviously. But the little Ghost had been through so much the past week, confusion, emotional torment, fear, more emotional torment, existential dread… but here he felt something warm, and full of light. It bubbled to the surface of his mechanical consciousness. Despite how little his Guardian actually had to do with killing the god, it was a fact that within days of waking, Langston had technically slain Xol. The feeling, unwarranted as it was, was Pride.
Langston continued showboating, he pointed and laughed at the shredded carcass.
"Amazing work Examinee 1B." Jabes had finally made it to the platform and was dismounting his Sparrow. "Killing Hive gods is my specialty. I give you 8 points. 10 full points for killing it within thirty seconds of touchdown. Minus two points for causing a quick, painless death." Jabes smiled. "But in time, you too will learn to slaughter with proper panache." He turned to the second Examinee, who had also just stepped off his Sparrow. "Where were you, swine?"
The examinee stared at the wrecked ship that stuck out of Xol's head, "I was wrangling the controls Sire, I nearly crashed and died. I would have lost everything… my Jumpship is all I have left."
"Pure cowardice. Your fellow examinee held no regard for his own life or possessions, like a suitable pawn. If you truly deserved a rank amongst the Fuzz Clan Ubermensch, you would have plunged head first into the gaping maw to earn but a hint of praise, but as I suspected, once again you have earned only my contempt."
The examinee tried to point to the enormous ship in the carcass, tears in his eyes, his last bit of sanity breaking, "But my liege I—"
"There is still work to do. Grunt work, which I'm beginning to doubt you can even handle." He slapped the trainee, as he was wont to do. Jabes wiped his gauntlet on Langston's shoulder. "Filthy." The Fire Wolf grimaced.
"I can do it Sire! Believe in me, I've overcome so much pain!" It was the most emotion Langston had seen come from the Guardian. His fear of Jabes and last shred of dignity burned like a fire within him.
"Alright then, lesser Examinee. Purge the facility of the Hive." Hive Thralls burst from the doorway leading to Rasputin. The examinee panicked, and as they approached, in his desperation he committed a capital sin. He asked Jabes a question.
"What heavy weapons should I equip, Hive, so... bring a sword right? What about close quarters optio— "
Jabes leapt 8 meters in a single bound, hand outstretched and torqued his hips with such fury and power that when the back of his hand made contact with his target's face, the poor lad spun to the ground like a professional ice skater.
"NO. QUESTIONS. You should already know the answers, like a true member of Fuzz!"
"... yes, Fire Wolf." The Examinee said, as he marched slowly towards the enemy. It was like watching a beetle swarmed by ants. He began taking hits quickly, but the enemy around him also fell. Unfortunately it wasn't long before he was covered in a pile of flailing or dead Hive. Langston could no longer see Examinee 2 amongst the flesh.
He looked upon the giant worm's corpse, no longer interested as the Examinee had stopped weeping and screaming.
"Shame." Langston said, pointing to the smoldering craft. "Shaw Han gave me that ship you know, one of his only actions of human decency. "
"Truly, the singular act of competence in a lifetime of intellectual squalor," Jabes concurred.
"I nearly saved it from impact, but it turned out that nothing short of a miracle could save that ship from Examinee 2's debilitating incompetence. I only managed to kill Xol through sheer talent and dogged determination."
"Commendable indeed. Now if only your peer could match your prowess…" Jabes looked back at the other Guardian, who'd just finished killing the Hive. He'd heard what they said and had begun to hit his own head on the ground as his mind finally crumbled.
"Back into the facility! Rasputin isn't going to save himself!"
The examinee crawled towards the darkness on his hands and knees.
Langston saw his opportunity and pounced. He organized a full presentation on meritocracy and the value of rewards in his head. "It's too bad that I'm without a ship. Do you remember what I was talking about, vertical integration?"
"It's yours my boy. Let's be off."
"You see, in order to conserve expenditure… wait, really?"
"Strip him of his keys."
Langston skipped over to the Guardian, who had not made it far. He kicked him down to the floor, pinned him with a boot to the back and plucked the jangling trophy from his waistline. The examinee impotently reached for the keys to no avail. Whatever miniscule spec of sanity within him finally collapsed like a dying star. He'd lasted far longer than most 'candidates' Jabes oversaw.
Ana Bray came on the mic. "Finally! We're mission critical! Where the HELL were you guys! If we overload Rasputin's core, we can use the excess energy to overcharge the— "
"Silence nanny woman," Jabes said. "The deed is done, Xol is dead. I would take full credit, and I should, but I would be remiss not to mention that we have a promising new recruit! … And one more for the asylum."
Examinee 2 hadn't moved from the floor and foam dribbled from his mouth as his eyes stared at nothing. Zavala spoke up on the shared frequency.
"Dear god no… not again…"
Ana Bray screamed. "But… but the Valkyrie! And there are more Hive in the facility!"
"Are we the only Guardians on Mars, wench?! My men are tired! And we again require sustenance."
Jabes cut off the frequency and dragged Examinee 2 by the ankle as he and Langston left the facility as heroes. "Next stop, The Jabes Fire Wolf Home for the Mentally Ruined!" He smiled. "We have a delivery to make."