The Lost House

by SurefireReadingFF

The Black Garden is dead. Two Guardians, battered and bruised, walked in and stopped the heart once and for all. However, an ancient evil thought to be long dead stirs again, this time posing a direct threat to the City and the Traveler itself. Time is of the essence. Precision is key. Don't believe everything you see.

2. Gravity

Destiny: The Lost House

Chapter 1

Gravity

Lieutenant Charli Hendricks

The lights suddenly flashed on, awaking anyone asleep and blinding those who were not . Alarms activated, their shrill sirens deafening anyone throughout the ship. Charli Hendricks, lying on her uncomfortable and worn bunk, somehow remained asleep despite the noise. Still within her own dreamland that was far away from the nightmares of her tour of duty, she continued sleeping soundly if not even deeper than before. Shouts to wake and suit up called out over the intercoms and replaced the sirens for only a few split seconds before resuming the shrill noises.

Charli stirred but only because her dream shifted to something a little more unpleasant, dark green shapes with two separate but indistinct facing skulking about the darkness, one side human and the other Fallen. Each one of these phantoms spoke in shrieked syllables that Charli could not begin to understand, but they stayed away from her, deciding only to watch her and speak their unintelligible tongue.

Unexpectedly, she felt as though she were falling, slamming into cold and hard tiles only moments later. Charli opened her eyes and saw a pair of heavy boots standing only inches from her face. Her ribs and head hurt from the fall from her bed. Strong arms hauled her to her feet as she struggled to open her groggy eyes. The strong hands took hold of her shoulders and shook her harshly, wiping away any sleep that remained. "Charli let's go!" her squadmate Chad Roundtree yelled as he shook her.

"I'm up, I'm up," she replied with an upheld hand. Men and women of varying humanity, ethnicity, size, and state of dress rushed from the beds that sat on the outline of the room to their respective locker in the center, grabbing any and all things they could need for whatever was happening. Charli listened to the siren as she dashed to her locker and threw it open. Two long shrieks followed by two much shorter ones, the boarding alarm. As if on cue, a husky male voice, slightly panicked, yelled over the intercom, "Attention all hands, attention all hands! We have been boarded! Grab your gear and proceed to the nearest armory. I repeat, we have been boarded!"

Without any hesitation, Charli changed into her flight suit, a form-fitting yet comfortable article capable of providing protection during assaults and maneuverability in the cockpit, and activated the nano armor that quickly rose from the surface of the suit, coating her arms, legs, and torso in a suit of thin but durable armor. Disregarding her hair, she quickly slipped the flight helmet on and activated its HUD. She grabbed her pistol and slipped the ammunition cartridges into the magnetic holds in the gaps in the utility belt she had clipped about her waist. In it were two frag grenades, a flashbang, and a portable ion cutter. Prepared, Charli turned to her right and saw Brent Simmons, her other squadmate, placing his helmet on his dark-skinned and bearded head, hitting it a couple times to ensure that it was securely fastened. "Ready?" he asked in his husky voice. Charli simply nodded and joined her brothers-in-arms in the crowd rushing helter skelter to find a defensible position close enough to the fray.

She followed them through the blinding white hallways and through a door on her right. Inside, the armory was basically stripped clean of any weapons and ammunition. Brent let out a choice word. "We're gonna have to get to the one in Sector 8." Sector 8, the flight deck, wasn't all that far, but who knows how long it would take in the wake of this sudden attack. After all, she didn't know where their attackers had breached and where they had spread. She could only assume the worst as the bridge had no doubt scrambled every possible unit that was not in the medical bay. They had to get weapons and fast.

Brent charged out of the room with both Charli and Chad in tow, their pistols drawn and safeties off. The closer they drew to the flight deck, the more and more sparsely populated the hallways grew, so much so that they quickly became the only ones in the hallway. The group turned a final corner and found themselves blocked in by a sealed off door. Abandoned crates decorating the path up the door.

"I'll try to get it open!" Chad called out, holstering his pistol and beginning to fiddle with the manual override.

Suddenly, the ship shook violently beneath their feet, knocking each of the to the ground and causing Charli's pistol to fly out of her hand and skitter away. The lights flickered, and the intercom and alarms shut off. The ship still shaking, Charli somehow got to her feet and slowly shuffled forward with a hand against the wall to keep her on her feet. Her pistol was just about at her feet now, and she quickly snatched it up in her hands, resisting the increasing urge to succumb to the shaking. Chad yelled through the comms, "The door's been disabled by the bridge! I'm gonna try and cut our way in."

Out of nowhere, an explosion rocked the hallway in front of her, shrieks of metal-on-metal scrapes echoing unpleasantly down the hallway. She could hear several more impacts all around her with shouts coming up from floors above her. Four Fallen Dregs and two Vandals dressed in pitch black armor clamored out of the pod and immediately noticed Charli trying to run around the corner for cover. The Vandals shouted and pointed in their unintelligible language as plasma bolts suddenly streaked past Charli as she took cover around the corner. "We've got company!" She shouted. "Six Fallen around the corner!" The shaking subsided to a noticeable vibration as she backtracked.

Chad was at the door, using his ion cutter to slice cut a human-sized hole in the door; he looked to be about halfway done. "Little busy!" he called back. Brett took cover behind some crates and readied himself whilst Charli retreated by a similar stack of crates a few feet from Brett's. "Cover me while I try to get this door opened!"

The Fallen ran up the hall to follow Charli, ultimately coming up to the turn she took. Two Dregs and a Vandal continued down the hall while the remaining half took up cover on the wall and behind other stacks of crates to take out her squad. Seconds later, the plasma started flying in all directions, forcing Chad to abandon his efforts on opening the door just short of finishing.

She leaned her head out to get off a shot, but nearly got it ripped off by the Vandal's Line Rifle. Several shots rang out behind her, clear indications that the other two had found at least a few milliseconds to take some errant shots at the encroaching Fallen. Charli leaned out again and landed a couple of shots in a Dreg's torso, wounding him severely and taking him out of action as he bled out on the floor. "Nice shot!" Chad called out from behind her. Charli reloaded and nearly got her head ripped off by the Vandal again. "Cover me!" she called out to the others.

After each confirmed the request, Charli steeled her nerves and moved up to the next crate, weaving between plasma bolts as she ducked behind a singular crate closer to the Fallen at the end of the hall. From there, she could see the remaining Dreg just as one of the others pumped a few bullets into his torso and head.

Chad and Brett immediately took the opportunity to move up a few crates and get clearer shots at the Vandal. Using constant pistol fire to suppress the Vandal, Charli moved from cover and rushed the Vandal. Just as she moved, she spotted something blue in the Vandal's hand. It threw whatever it was at her head but missed as if it wasn't even trying. For only a moment, she turned her head and watched its trajectory, planting itself in the middle of the floor between Chad and Brett.

"Grenade!" one of them managed to call out just as it exploded, killing both of them instantly as Charli could only watch in abject horror. Their bodies tossed like ragdolls against the sectioned metal of the walls. Suddenly, Charli's vision flashed black as she too was knocked into a wall, the Vandal slowly advancing on her helpless form. Rage and sadness swirled in her head as tears streamed down her eyes.

Charli, disoriented and enraged, tried to scramble back to her pistol on her hands and knees, reaching out with her hand in one last desperate attempt to save her own skin as the Vandal slowly advanced toward her. Her grip fumbled the pistol for a moment as she could almost feel the Fallen's heavy weight disabling her ability to move and function properly. Then the foot actually came, pinning her to the ground as she stretched to grab the pistol. Human shouts echoed distantly down the halls as Charli struggled to grab the pistol while the Vandal was distracted. After a pair of failed attempts, she finally got a decent grip on the gun. She suddenly twisted, forcing more of the crushing weight on her ribs, and let loose a single bullet through the Vandal's head as it slid down on top of her, its dead weight now pinning her to the ground even more.

Charli was considerably strong, but she could not budge the dead weight on top of her. Heavy footfalls came from both sides now, and shouts, both friendly and not very, echoed down the hallways that flanked her. The Fallen turned the corner first and immediately began peppering the ground all around her. Friendlies turned the corner and immediately returned fire at the Fallen mysteriously shooting at a "dead" body. From beneath the Vandal, Charli watched them exchange fire for several seconds before one of her allies pulled the pin on a grenade and started to throw it. Before he could finish the motion though, a Vandal scored a perfect headshot, causing the grenade to go nowhere close to its intended targets and landing only a few feet from Charli.

Pushed only by the will to survive, Charli gave the Vandal one last heave and successfully tossed it on top of the grenade, scrambling to her feet and sprinting towards the partially-cut door just as it exploded. The explosion rocked the corridor and pierced the air. The shock wave sent Charli careening into the door and painfully busting it open.

Ignoring the pain pulsating throughout her body, Charli got back onto her unsteady feet and found herself in the hangar. In short, it was in shambles. Fires and destroyed ship parts scattered across the floor as frequently as the dead bodies. Smoke threatened to suffocate her as she stood unable to move for several precious seconds. She looked around for any ship that looked to be somewhat space worthy. All she had to do was fly it to the adjacent ship and flee with them to safety.

Charli ran across the dead hangar, praying for any sort of ship. She then spotted a gray fighter with the hatch open. Blast marks covered the sides, and the pilot was slumped over dead, but it would certainly do. She quickly climbed the ladder and tossed the pilot out of the seat, pushing several buttons and flipping a few switches to activate the fighter and close the thick glass hatch. She fastened the belts and felt it start shuttling over to the launch pad. The comms were jammed or knocked out according to the ship, but they would probably be muted by an all call to abandon ship.

It stopped in front of a large metal bulkhead. A message suddenly flashed up in red: "The launch bay you are attempting to use has been obstructed or disabled." Charli threw her head back against the seat. She needed to get out of here, and this launch bay was the only feasible way to get off unless she wanted to fight through more Fallen without a weapon. "Think Char, think," she said quietly to herself. A risky idea popped into her head.

Using the manual controls that overrode any automatic input, Charli backed up the fighter and prepped two of the scatter missile onboard. If she backed up and unleashed those, they would blow open the bulkhead and the self-destruction of the fragments would away any debris in her way. At a safe distance, she fingered the launch button, hesitating to fire because of how back it could bite her in the butt. "Death or death," she whispered to herself. She squeezed the trigger and sent two missiles screeching towards the thick bulkhead. The explosions worked as expected, but something was wrong. Gases were violently blowing by her escape craft and trying to push it down the track prematurely. 'The airlock!' she realized. 'I didn't seal the airlock!' All the air that had been in the hangar was now rushing out by the hole into space she created, fruitlessly trying to create an equilibrium with the endless vacuum of space. Undeterred by the new tailwind, Charli primed the engines and released the locks on the fighter, shooting her forward at incredible speed into space.

Powerful laser and plasma cannons exchanged fire in the emptiness of space as a Fallen battleship pummeled what remained of her ship and started focusing fire on her target. Once out, she pushed down on the stick, pointing the nose at Mars and then turning it back towards her one hope of survival.

Suddenly, streaks of plasma streamed past her fighter, causing her to take evasive maneuvers as a Fallen starfighter tried to shoot her down. Acting out of pure adrenaline and instinct, Charli pulled up on the stick and rolled back to level, placing her above and going the opposite way of her attacker. Not wasting the opportunity, Charli increased the engine's' thrust and charged back toward her assailant, unleashing a barrage of her own laser fire and destroying the craft quickly. Something rocked the fighter violently not a moment afterwards. The controls froze up as Charli fought to regain control of her ship. It was only then that an explosion blinded her, the explosion originating from her ship as the anti-matter fields destabilized and detonated. Debris and shockwaves from the onslaught of energy bursting from the ship ripped apart the adjacent ship and any in the immediate area.

Thankfully, Charli was far enough away that the shockwave wouldn't tear her apart, but she didn't see the large piece of metal slam into her ship from behind, tossing her head sharply forward into the glass hatch and turning everything black as she plummeted towards Mars.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Sirens blared as Charli slowly regained consciousness. Mars was slowly growing before her very eyes as it spun wildly. She immediately seized the controls, trying to assess her situation, but nothing would work no matter what she tried. The computer was damaged and frozen on a diagram of her small fighter, shaped very similarly to an F-45 assault fighter from the 2120s, showed that her right wing was missing, and the left was severely damaged. Charli quickly realized the futility of anything she tried to do. Mars' gravity had already gotten ahold of her ship, and without functional engines, there was absolutely nothing she could do.

Charli channeled her growing anger into destroying the speaker squealing that horrid alarm. It took several punches, but eventually it finally stopped making that dreadful noise. She fought back tears as she tried to flip a few more switches, trying to find some miraculous way out of her situation. Friction quickly heated up the nose of her fighter, coating the front in angry reds and yellows as the temperature rose. Tears mixed with sweat as Charli accepted the outcome.

She just waited for the sudden impact of the sand…

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Charli inhaled sharply, sucking in as much air as possible and continuing to take in breath after breath after that. Her heartbeat thumped fast and loud; she almost thought that anyone could hear it. 'I'm alive?!' was her first thought. Followed by, 'Now where the heck am I…' Charli tried to move a little, but immediately was stopped by something hard and metal, the clang echoing slighlty in her confined space. She moved her hands about the immediate area, making sure she was in one piece as well as determining what she was contained in.

Whatever she was in, it was made of metal, that much she was sure of, but anything beyond that she knew not. She tried to push up against the walls and looked for any sign of a budge, but instead of a give, multiple joints in her body popped loudly. It was then that she noticed a distinct lack of pain anywhere. In fact, she felt cured, as if all of the wear and tear combat put on her body had never been present at all. It was relieving, freeing even now that she didn't have to deal with the back pain she always felt even after short stints in starfighters.

Done reveling in her miraculous healing, she once again found the edges and soon discovered that if she scooted into the metal seat a little, she could sit up. 'Wait a minute,' she thought upon discovering this. 'This chair wasn't made of metal…' Something wasn't right here. Using her elbow, she bashed the right side of her fighter, feeling the once durable alloy basically disintegrate with each hit. Upon the metal's disappearance, a gritty something started to flow into the cockpit.

Sand. Crap. Charli started bashing away more parts of the ship and scooping handfuls of the gathering sand to the side as she tried to dig her way out of the underground. She continued to dig, but more sand kept replacing it. Somewhere above her, she heard heavy footsteps and muffled voices. "Help!" she called out, continuing to dig through the encroaching sand. The footfalls stopped and the voices hushed only for a moment. Two heavy thuds from above sent more sand into her dark bubble of air. Two more thuds flooded more sand into her, negating much of Charli's progress. "Cut it out!" she yelled, desperately hoping that whatever was above her could hear her and help dig her out.

Charli pulled one leg and arm out of the sand that had collapsed on top of it and fell back into the "chair." She felt around her waist for the utility belt and ion cutter that should have been there, but there was no belt to be found. She found several raised sections that had snapping flaps, but they were definitely not from the belt. What Charli really needed was a light or at least something to shed some light on her situation. Charli chuckled softly at her mental pun.

There should have been one on the right side of her helmet. Using her hand, she felt around the right side of it, but couldn't find the button that activated her helmet light. Maybe she forgot which side it was on. She then used her other hand and checked the left side for any sign of a button. Searching in the dark for a few seconds, her fingers touched something that pushed down slightly whenever they passed by it. Charli pressed the button and a dim circle of light pooled wherever she turned. "Ok," she said to herself. "Now I've got light. Just need to find a way out of here." The sound of her own voice almost scared her. It was hoarse at first, but as her sentence went on, her voice seemed to go back to its authoritative yet silky self.

She felt around her tomb. This was definitely the ship she "escaped" in, but now it was rusted in pretty much every place imaginable. The side she'd been digging on was distinctly lacking large pieces of metal that would have been there under normal circumstances. But instead, rusted and jagged edges cut through the opening with most of the it actually being plugged up by red sand. 'Mars?' she questioned in her mind. 'Am I on Mars?'

Finding that answer was not her most pressing matter, and she ultimately pushed the thought out of her mind. She looked around at the rusted confines of her ship and noticed that her armor was now white instead of the blue she was accustomed to. Questions raced through her mind as to what happened. It was made of defined plates like the armor of the flight suit, but after rubbing what she originally thought was ash, she discovered that this armor was actually white and rather smooth at that. She moved each of her limbs. It was definitely lighter than any usable armor she'd used in the past, but after tapping on a plate on each of her arms, it felt stronger than anything she'd used previously. Did her flight suit calcify during the crash? It would explain the durable nature and white color, but it would also be rough and uneven.

Once again, she pushed any theories out of her mind. Charli just wanted out of the ship. She momentarily pondered taking out the other side of the cockpit, but with all the sand on top of her, it would just push the ceiling down and crush her quicker than she could say "Oops." Then again, the ship's frame looked like it would collapse any second; it was a good thing that the ship and the remains of the chair landed upside down and stayed mostly intact.

Now guided by a small light, Charli restarted her digging efforts and started making progress much faster than before. The voices above her continued (possibly they heard something), but she didn't think they were digging or really even trying to find what made a noise that they may or may not have heard. After what felt like hours of struggling with the sands, the voices drifted off without Charli even noticing. She was too focused on getting out of the sand that continued to shift back towards where she was digging, covering her light or her face every now and again. Her arms burned from the effort and sweat dripped onto the front part of her helmet, but she knew that if she took a rest now, the sand would only come back and trap her again. The longer she dug and the more her muscles burned, the looser and less packed in the sand got. Each handful grew easier to push away but also easier to collapse. Despite the pending danger of this, the thoughts of finally getting out exhilarated her. Charli pushed even harder, trying to move fast despite the battle of attrition that was quickly wearing her down.

Finally, she felt her hand shoot through the surface of the sand. She planted her knees in the sand where she was at and focused her efforts on digging a hole big enough to pull herself out. Some sort of pale light pushed through the growing hole as Charli knocked away more sand on her way up. Eventually, her other hand busted a much larger hole, and Charli hauled herself up and out of the sand.

This was definitely Mars. Phobos cast pale light on the otherwise dark sand that surrounded her as she pulled her legs from the hole. Red dunes surrounded the one she had just pulled herself out of with no sign of life in any direction.

Her suit was starting to get stuffy from all the body heat she expelled and heavy breathing that was quickly steadying. She could hear her quick heartbeat thumping inside her head. Charli knew that at least a couple hours had passed as she struggled to dig herself out, and now her arms felt like jelly and her body as though she had just run a marathon. She placed her hands on the sides of her helmet, but stopped just short of pulling it off. If she did, then she would either freeze in Mars' freezing temperatures or suffocate in its carbon dioxide throat was parched, but she had absolutely no provisions on her at all. There had to be some sort of settlement or colony around here somewhere. If only she had a map…Despite the growing pressures, Charli tossed them out of her mind and tried to stand up. She needed to get to the top of the dune and see if there was anything in the distance.

The main difference between moving in the hole and moving on top of the sand was that she was basically crawling up the hole and not walking, meaning that she had her arms' assistance. When she tried to stand up unabated, her legs immediately collapsed under the sudden weight, causing her to roll helplessly down the dune. "Crap!" she shouted as she started tumbling. She couldn't see where she was rolling as any glimpse into the world was quickly smothered by the red sand. Suddenly she was flying uncontrollably and awkwardly through the air, slamming the back of her head on a large rock at the base of the next dune and losing consciousness on impact.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Charli's head hurt. Almost like she'd taken a bag of bricks and smacked herself with them a few times, that's how much it hurt, thumping every few seconds as she felt something gently nudge her shoulder.

"You think she's alive?" a rough robotic voice asked distantly.

"Her vitals are fine," another voice reassured. Charli didn't recognize either of these voices and didn't know if they were hostile or not. The last thing she wanted to do is wake up to the barrel of a rifle and be led at gunpoint.

"What about other parts of her anatomy? People are more than just brains and organs."

A blue flash of light permeated her closed eyelids. "Looks like she whacked her head pretty hard and is suffering from some slight dehydration and hunger, but otherwise, she's fine. Just asleep."

"Should we wake her up? The Cabal are going to be here any second, and I doubt they're going to take us prisoner a second time."

"That's why you have a gun. Y'know, to shoot at them."

"I get that. Look, I'm waking her up. None of us are safe out here until we get back to the ship. Need I remind you that this isn't a transmat zone." Charli heard cloth bend and rub against other cloth followed by a hand shaking her shoulder. "Miss. Miss, you need to wake up," the voice said gently. "We're not safe out here."

Charli opened her eyes and saw a heavy black boot. She followed the shape of the leg and spotted a white pistol holstered at this person's thigh. It was risky, but she thought she could snag it away and use it as leverage to get some answers. Charli pushed herself to her knees and started to get up. "Very good," the robotic voice said. "Take it easy. You look like you took quite a hit…" Charli quickly found the stranger's head and sent an elbow right into his cranium. Grabbing the pistol, she aimed it right at his head and put a knee in his chest, knocking him back. "Who are you? What do you want?" Charli shouted.

The stranger fell onto his back and saw the gun. He tried to reach for the pistol. "Shh! You're going to alert the Cabal."

Charli slapped away the hand, her heart beating wildly. The stranger immediately grabbed a large yellow rifle strapped to his back. She kept her composure and her aim, refusing to back down. "Drop the weapon and answer the questions or I'll blow your brains out!" Charli yelled.

The stranger wore armor that was mostly red but had swooping stripes of black and a similar coloration down the leg and onto the black boot. The red helmet had a wide black visor and what looked like metal feathers or spikes on the sides bearing the same colors as the uniform. "Keep your voice down, or we're all going to be dead. Look," the stranger said, placing his hands on the sides of his helmet and pulling it off as the air hissed out of it. Charli didn't care if he suffocated himself in the Martian atmosphere. "I'm a Guardian too," he said as if the words were supposed to mean something to her. He laid the helmet on the sand next to him and opening his hands to show he was unarmed. This person was actually a blue exo with glowing yellow eyes, something she wasn't used to seeing. "My name is Maximus. We were sent to pick you up." A small and spiked black orb with white dots hovered by Maximus' head, a blue light glowing prominently against his black shell. It almost looked like the night sky and probably accounted for the second voice she heard.

"Too? Pick me up?" Charli questioned. "I'm a lieutenant in the MFN. I'd suggest you grab your helmet and back away before I shoot you."

She had heard of Guardians, but only knew that they were crazies protecting a dead piece of technology on Earth. Word was that it had been on Mars long ago but had moved to Earth as things like the Fallen and Cabal resisted against humanity's, on civilization's, expanding borders.

"The MFN?" the 'guardian' laughed. "The Martian Federation was killed off centuries ago…" Something seemed to click in its brain. "That ghost was right," he whispered.

"Of course I was!" a feminine voice yelled following a whoosh and a small flash of light. Charli turned towards this light and redirected the pistol at a small white orb with a light blue eye and four white spikes hovering a few feet from her face. "A Ghost knows when its found its Guardian. That much I would hope you knew."

Charli put both hands on the pistol and continued pointing at it. "I don't know what you are, and I really don't care. Fact is, I'm about to pull this trigger on the both of you if you don't explain what's going on right now!"

Silence ensued. The 'ghost' floated forward and looked Charli up and down. "Charli Hendricks back in the flesh. You're a little worse for wear, but when we get you back to the Tower, everything will be alright."

Charli backed up a few steps from all three of them. "I'm not going anywhere with either of you! Tower? Guardian? You're nothing but a bunch of loons." She tightened her grip on the pistol and put a finger on the trigger, ready to pull it back.

Maximus put his helmet back on and stood up slowly, Charli immediately spinning on her heel and pointing it back at his head. He raised his hands again. "We're not here to harm you, but the Cabal are, and if you keep shouting, they're going to find us, and then nobody wins." Maximus took a step forward.

CRACK! Charli squeezed the trigger, but Maximus fluidly ducked beneath the shot and wrenched the pistol away from her, pointing it back at her face. "I'm not messing around anymore," he said, sounding much more threatening this time. "Come quietly or I'm going to have to restrain you, and I seriously don't want to do that."

She could see that the threat was not empty. The pistol in her face was, but he would take her down in a hurry, or at least he looked like he could. "Alright," the voice behind her shouted. "Maximus, put the gun down. The most this girl could to you now would be taking a swing at you and missing horribly. If you were going to restrain her, you should have done that while she was asleep. In all honesty, you ought to just give her the gun, so she can at least protect herself.

"Fine," Maximus spat at the Ghost behind Charli. He suddenly spun the pistol around in his hand, holding it out by the barrel. "Take it."

Slowly but surely, Charli felt the threat around her diminish, but the air still remained somewhat tense likely due to the Cabal's presence. While stationed on Mars about a year ago, the Cabal tried to fight their way past the wall of their base near a city called Ares' Haven. Brutes, that was the only way Charli could describe them. They tried to barge their way through their defenses, boasting superior weapons and thick armor, but ultimately, they failed to smash through due to a bombing run led by Charli and a few friends she lost only a month later. In her line of work, death was almost part of the job description.

Charli grabbed the pistol and tried to put it in a holster that did not exist, ending up dropping it in the sand. Once more, she retrieved it quickly and shook any sand out of it but kept it in her hand and started following this Maximus fellow only because she didn't have any other viable options.