Chapter 18

The Truth of Time

Voidwalker Maximus

Something brushed against my hand, something deft and agile, a fly perhaps. Impossible, there were no flies in space. Whatever it was tapped my hand again, my left hand and closer to the palm, the one that wasn't supposed to be there. Eyes still closed, I flexed my fingers, then my hand, I the entire arm , disbelief taking over. The last I knew, this arm was supposedly to be floating off in space attached to the wreckage of my ship, but...it was here, on my shoulder just as it should be. Had I been revived? No. Arla couldn't have, and Charli was back at the Tower. Heksis could have if he hadn't been spaced, but I think he had been the first of us to perish, a shame really.

I peeked open my eyes and saw...my room. How I was back in the Tower? Of the questions racing through my mind, the foremost had to be that "How?" We were in space, lost in space for that matter, killed in the Reef at the worst. The ship was destroyed and Starco along with it. But unlike Arla, I didn't feel like there was a part of me missing. Maybe I'd already gone through that period of discomfort, or perhaps that was due to just how short of a time I'd been a Guardian. I'd like to think it'd been less than a year, but the days had all blended together at this point, become one congealed mess of mostly Vex, Fallen, guns, and the Black Garden. Once again, we were lost in that labyrinth, but now we were hunting the Fallen, their House of Illusion, and a Kell we couldn't detect. Who knows what he's been doing right under our noses, what plans he's put in place, the traps he has laid. Day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute, he had to be adding to his numbers in the City, maybe even the Tower.

If the latter were true, there had to be a traitor within our midst. Someone who had been replaced and gained access to the Tower, brought more of them in, and done the same thing, rotting the Guardians from the inside, out. Arla had been right back in the Reef; this was most definitely a different type of war, however Variks had some merit as well, saying that there were different rules to the same kind of war that had always existed.

No, Variks was right. War never changes, merely the sides and what they fight for. He was far more experienced than the rest of us, seen how the Fallen operate, seen how the Awoken fought, witnessed how the Guardians worked. Could religion be the sole reason they fought us? Thinking they are avenging a god taken captive by aliens? Or perhaps, part of their intentions are less than holy. Those had been sons, daughters, COs, grunts, mothers, fathers, and who knows what else. Thinking of them that way almost made them...human, relatable. In one of my isolated conversations with Heksis, he'd asked me something along the lines of my opinion of the Fallen. I'd called them a threat to the City, a threat to those I cared for, and so they would be dealt with thusly. That was an arrogant statement, but it was no less true. They were minions of a darkness we couldn't comprehend. And that brings up another question: what are we fighting for?

The Traveler had released more Ghosts after the destruction of the Garden, but it hadn't done anything since. It still lay dormant, a broken machine in need of repairs that we were unequipped to give it. Again, what are we fighting for? Why would we fight for a broken machine that some Fallen hail as a God? Is it just the curse of man, the greed that corrupts us all, even if slightly? Is this light simply that greed incarnate, or are we the disillusioned ones? Do we fight simply to keep away those who want to use the Traveler's technologies for themselves, much as we did? Is man really that arrogant to think that we are being hunted simply for access, that we are the sole reason for a war that has lasted centuries? Perhaps. We'd seen it in years past. Countries long ago fell because of that same arrogance. Was it simply our time? The Illusion to humanity as an asteroid was to the dinosaurs? Have we caged ourselves in this City, huddling over what little of our treasure remains in hopes that it will suddenly replenish itself?

Something grabbed my arm and yanked me from my stupor with a violent shake. A white, metal face with piercing blue eyes stared back at me from the edge of my bed. She still wore her usual hood and blank expression, but there was something different swimming in her body language. Instead of her usual swagger, hand on her hip and confident glare, there was something empty behind those eyes like she'd seen a ghost, a phantom. Her gaze was more pointed downward than it was at me, her words seemed to do the same. "Are you alright?" she asked, her voice hollow.

I flexed my arm again and sat up against the back of the bed, feeling some resistance from my right as I did. "I think so," I managed to mutter. Two things clicked into place as I adjusted my seated position. She'd been watching us the entire time we were in the Reef, probably watching me and especially those I've interacted with personally since she pulled me aside at the baseball stadium. Two things that didn't make sense at first. "Why?" I looked to my right and saw Arla asleep next to me on the bed. Heksis was hunched over in the corner, unconscious. "Why did you save us? How did you get us back here?" Dea shook her head solemnly and tapped at something on her wrist. Suddenly, the room disintegrated into a dull gray cell with lights slowly cooling off and becoming invisible again. The bed was real, but the once-colored walls and door had turned out to be gray, padded sheets over metal. Suddenly trying to piece things together again, I asked, "Where are we?"

"You're on my ship, The Expanse," she declared quietly, her head still down. "My home, and now yours. As for the why, it's not so simple. "

I was puzzled. "Well, start from the beginning then."

"Starting there isn't necessarily a good idea, not yet at least."

"Well then, how about you start with how you found us?" I prompted.

Dea looked away for a second as if she were seriously considering not telling us, pondering whether or not to get rid of us. "Tracking beacon to keep it simple, and that's about as simple as it's going to be from here on out."

"So you've had eyes on us the entire time." I concluded flatly. I wasn't entirely pleased she placed a tracker on us, but it was scarcely the first time, and I was almost sure that would ultimately be the last.

Dea nodded slowly. "I'm not proud of it. Not proud of the lies, and that's why I hope this will make up for it."

I tossed a glance at Arla and Heksis. "By saving us?"

She, too, looked at the sleeping Guardians. "That's the first step yes. The second is telling the truth." I squinted suspiciously at her. The fact she conceded this, implying she'd lied to me yet again, was unsurprising and expected, but that still disturbed me. "How can I trust that you're not going to lie to me again?"

"All you have to do is watch." She raised her hand, a white-blue light beginning to spawn from her fingertips, lacing themselves around her fingers and spreading into the air around her, around us. Non-baryonic streams, those same ones we saw with the Vex, enveloped us both, tied us together, and mixed us with the ever-speeding flow of time. The laces grew taut, holding my arms and legs hostage against the rest of my body while Dea continued her conjuring dance. Lights continued to flare and spark and fizzle from her fingertips as the room faded away in a haze of white. Suddenly, the streams darkened, some of them turning a sickly green, while others a steely gray. In the distance, a dusty haze gathered at the horizon, sending a ghostly glow across the base of a starless sky. A sense of dread and hopelessness settled with the stagnant breeze. I spun around, trying not to believe my eyes, believe that they were deceiving me, but I quickly realized...they weren't.

This was the Black Garden…

...in all of its mechanical and twisted glory.

I turned to Dea and swallowed the anxiety that began to well up. "Why are we here?" I demanded, the fear I felt from my first time here returning despite its conclusion. She said nothing, choosing to point downward at the sanctuary below us, a scene all too familiar. Three stone statues stood, praising a pulsating, black enigma while a throng of overgrown, cone-headed robots knelt in silent, robotic prayer. Three figures in dusty, white armor dashed towards the sanctuary through a metallic, maze-like canyon. They paused just outside of the gate for but a moment and awaited for a signal from the one nearest the door. A loud, metallic thud echoed through the canyon they stood in as the door to the sanctuary hissed and groaned as it opened, and suddenly, all of the praying Vex were on guard and taking up positions above and below the moss-covered catwalks, weapons pointed at the opening door.

With a deft flick of the fingers, the three soldiers turned the corner, marking targets but finding themselves outnumbered four or five to one. Angry red glows emitted from the Vex's weapons as they marked the intruders, but neither side fired. Just as the first minute of the stalemate passed, three orbs of energy shot out of the enigma above them, slowly arcing onto the statues and absorbing into their stony skin. A bronze light cracked through the stone as they twisted off their pedestal and leapt onto the ground below, like the stony undead. The ground shook beneath us, but neither Dea or me felt anything, like we were phantoms watching over the living. Each statue looked towards the intruders with unseeing eyes full of a fiery rage.

In unison, their gravelly voices boomed, "We are the Progeny, and you are an infection. Why do you desecrate our Garden?" None of them moved, but one of them seemed to grip his or her rifle tighter.

Dea stood on the edge of the cliff, watching expressionlessly at the three figures. "This is when everything changed for me," she stated softly. I looked at her eyes, her face and saw no feeling in them whatsoever. It was disconcerting, but as I watched, I understood why. One of the three quickly reached for a large weapon on his/her back, a rocket launcher, and without any hesitation, opened fire to the central soldier's dismay. All watched in horror as the rocket sped towards the pulsating heart, reversed direction, and careened directly into its origin before any of them could react. The soldier in the middle had reached his/her arm out fruitlessly in an effort to somehow save the now-dead comrade. All of the Vex fired at once, the one in charge of them all, Dea from the past, ducked beneath many of the lasers and let loose some sort of grenade in the middle of the pack of Vex and sprinted into cover just as a purple explosion enveloped several of the robots. I turned my attention from her just in time to see her other comrade fall. Dea dodged a few more bolts before one hit the back of her knee, sending her sprawling onto the ground as yet more caught her torso and shoulders. A towering Minotaur glowered over her and put its gun in her face, but just before it pulled the trigger, the statues boomed, "Leave her!" Silence ruled for a moment. "Such wills the Heart." The Minotaur suddenly lost the light in its eye and fell over in a crumpled heap.

I thought she was dead as I could see a gathering puddle of fluids, but then I looked at her present being standing stoically just feet from me and saw her past self trying to crawl towards her weapon. One of the massive progenies leaned down and snatched her up in one hand before she was anywhere near the gun. It looked at her, a grain of sand upon the barren beach of its palm, and stated, "The Heart shows mercy upon you. This shall be your punishment." With a gesture of its other hand, another of those pillars of non-baryonic streams rose from the ground. Limp from the loss of fluids, Dea squeezed easily into the pillar, the streams turning blue, then red, then orange, disappearing after the latter. Slowly, Dea's form become nothing but a shadow, and then that disappeared as well.

The Martian scene returned to the white of the streams as I stood there, confused at what had just transpired. "That was the day the Vex truly became a threat, the day they cursed me and doubled their efforts to conquer Mars, Venus, Mercury, and set their sights on Earth," she curled a fist. "They doomed me to immortality, leaving me to witness over and over again the death of humanity. I've seen the rise of the Guardians, but I've also seen them never get far off the ground. I've seen them triumph over nearly all enemies and ultimately succumb to their own greed." The scene shifted to a City covered in mossy metal, an endless landscape of machines. A large spire shot directly through the bottom of the Traveler, and everything was noticeably darker. "Then again, I've seen humanity not even stand a chance, seen the Vex invade…" The scene shifted to a mostly destroyed and scorched City with large ships patrolling the sky. "...the Cabal raid…" Now, the City turned into a grotesque mound of chitin and insect-like horror. "...the Hive victorious…" Finally, the City became unrecognizable, alien architecture built into the frame of the City itself. Skiffs and Ketches soared overhead. "...and the Fallen under one banner." She shook her head. "Hundreds of times I've seen the City fall. I've met and interacted with thousands of Guardians, resurrected this off shoot of The Agents of the Nine in this area hundreds of times. I've met you and Arla and Lee and Cayde and Charli many, many times. I've seen you relegated to an underling, dead, or a Vanguard. Seen the same with Arla, Charli and so many other Guardians. I seen relationships blossom or die, but never have I directly interfered. At the same time, never have I seen something like what has transpired."

"You're avoiding something," I inserted, growing slightly impatient. The experience had disoriented me and confused me. She wouldn't be doing this if she wasn't trying to cover up something. "What is it?"

Our white room became a series of screens running nothing but static. She gestured to the screens, only a handful of them showed any sort of picture. As the numbers on the top left of each screen cycled every couple of seconds, indicating another feed, I only counted ten, two being of this room at different angles. "This." she responded, pointing to the multitude of screens. "Guardians and their Ghosts aren't hard to track, especially since they seem to leave a wake of bodies and destruction in their path, not to mention the unique data signature the ghosts always give off. What you're seeing is a feed from each of the Guardians we could track, which is essentially everyone from before the Black Garden. It wasn't unusual for the techs we have watching these to see one go dark in the middle of a firefight, but just after everything with the Wall, we started to see these go dark without any warning. For the past couple months, they've gone down at an alarming rate." She stood steadfast yet somewhat defeated. "We tried what we could, but the Illusion Skiffs and Ketches seem to escape our scanners or bolt to some untrackable coordinates beyond the solar system we haven't been able to intercept yet. We think it's their base of operations or main Ketch, maybe both. Thought we had it when we tracked it to the Reef, but that's when we found you three."

I cut her off. "What about the Guardians' feeds disappearing?" The fact that a massive amount of Guardians were dead in one fell swoop raised my suspicions. I'll deal with the deus, or rather Dea, ex machina later.

Dea teetered on her feet for a moment and then gestured to the screens. "When the feed cuts out, that means their Ghost was destroyed." She pointed back towards the satellite image of the City. She changed a few settings to something that covered several screens in dark blue with a few patches of green, yellow, and red. It reminded me of a thermal display, but as she forwarded the footage, it became apparent that wasn't a thermal image. Instead, it was measuring energy spikes. The energy readings spread out from dozens of points all around the City, below the City. "Multiple EMPs all across the City and a several across the main AOs on the Moon, Venus, and Mars. The Ghosts were destroyed on contact, and any Guardians are most likely as well. It'd take several miracles for them to survive."

"What about the Speaker and the Vanguard?" They had to have a way out of the Tower before everything collapsed.

"There were a certain few that we couldn't track. The Vanguard, the Speaker, and yours to be specific. We also have very few from this new wave of Ghosts. One reason I would ask you for direct feeds, use others' to find you, or simply wait until I happened upon you."

I threw off the blanket and stepped onto the cold floor. "Sounds inefficient," I commented.

Dea shrugged. "You had your opportunity to make that simpler..." she snapped. "...but you pointed a gun in my face." I almost cut in, but Dea stopped me. "I know you had no reason to. I just hope you found my job back then...eye opening." She was referring to when she sent Starco and I to watch Arla with some experimental technology. Failed in Traveler Square when Arla pulled us out of the shadows in an ironic twist of time. I stayed silent and let her keep talking. "Either way, I have people running the numbers from the attack, and it's not looking good."

"Then why aren't we acting?" I demanded, beginning to feel the guilt and pressure for being taken out of the picture while the Illusion began their endgame. Chief Cosay must have been with them and set the whole trap up.

I made a move toward the walls and reared back to punch my way through, but Dea put a stern hand on my chest and gently set my arm back at my side. "Maximus, I admire what you're trying to do, but the City is a lost cause at this point, a suicide mission. Even if you pull it from the ashes, it'll take decades, even centuries to rebuild it. Which is why I have a pair of choices for you." She moved towards one wall and set her hand on it. The screens changed back to a picture of the City, the Tower still standing heroically over an untouched City. "My curse may be broken, but I still have function over time. This is a version of the world that I have discovered has no immediate threat from the Illusion. Perhaps they were completely destroyed there. If you go, then everything you know and see from here will disappear, become a distant nightmare, and you'll take over the Maximus that is there. I don't know what he knows or his role, but the world isn't ending there."

"You're kidding me right? You know I won't do that." I asked, shocked at such a suggestion.

"You'd be surprised," she hinted. "But I understand. Then that means you default to the second option."

"Which is?"

"I'm coming with you." I wanted to deny it, but I held my mouth shut, my denial implicit in the look I gave her. "Never have I directly interacted. It's time to put my money where my mouth is. It's time that humanity wins for once."

I agreed. I don't know what exactly she's experienced over and over again, but the sheer amount of times she's seen alternate versions of Arla, of Charli, of the Vanguard, of me die was staggering, and I was sure she was just low-balling it. Why hadn't she run to those alternate realities when things went south? Why did she want to fight now? If anything, this conversation had brought up more questions than it had answered, and...I accepted it. That's just how Dea operated. Her being an Agent of the Nine had to come with its own gray areas, knowledge that I would never be able to obtain or, if I could obtain it, understand. Her curse from the Heart must have run deeper than what her words referenced, maybe consolidate all of the different versions of herself into one version, one with unlimited knowledge of the other worlds her copies had experienced, absorb their abilities, their knowledge, and watch the world burn over and over again. The more I thought about what situation the City was in, a possibly vast and unseen army staging a coup d'etat with only one side being aware of it, the more I realized the astronomical odds we faced. Dea, like Arla and Variks, was right. This was beginning to look like a suicide mission, and I'm willing to die. The question was how many more besides myself would have to in order to save the City, one way or another.

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About a half hour later, Dea rushed me to the Strategic Operations room aboard her ship. The hallways were a stark white, contrasting with the dark grey, nearly black, grated metal of the hallway. Despite my weight and the material of the floor, I couldn't hear a single step that I made. The door to the room hissed open vertically and revealed a dark-skinned man with grayish-white hair standing over a detailed satellite map of the City.

The City itself was divided into sections, something I didn't know existed outside of financial districts versus residential and the likes, of which I still didn't know all of the details. As I got closer to the map, I realized that every now and again it would flash, revealing the most current data on the area. Some buildings would be there in one iteration and, suddenly, be gone in the next. Near the palace, a makeshift wall made out of the rubble cemented together in a surprisingly sturdy fashion began to come together. However, it was what was slowly climbing upward around the palace that caught my eye. Large cannons, anti-air most likely, were under construction and steadily finding themselves climbing upward and reaching for the sky.

Dea went on to the console with the map, grabbing the edge of it with her hands and leaning over the latest situation while speaking softly to the older man while I stood just inside the doorway. Around me, there were people at various chest-level stations with different screens. Most of them wore opaque helmets or a headset as they tapped away, but the room was silent despite my being able to see Dea's mouth glowing as she spoke. The aging man in a black and white uniform, pressed and important-looking, glanced in my direction before turning back to who I assumed was his superior. Dea stopped talking for a moment and let the man respond. She nodded a couple times and then continued talking, this time using one of her hands as she spoke. She then pointed to something near the crumbled remains of the Tower lying across a fair amount of the City's central section, covering up several of the separated districts altogether and encroaching several parts of others.

The air had a tense feel to it, a mix of nervousness, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and a general sense of being on-edge. Both of them continued to shoot their gazes in my direction, making me feel as though I should have moved out of the doorway, but I couldn't find the strength to do it. Instead, I held my ground until Dea, without looking away from the man, signaled me to come there. They straightened their postures as I approached. Dea gestured politely to her comrade and introduced him. "Maximus this is Saul Mueller, chief of tactical operations and my eye in the sky."

Saul extended a hand and a plastered smile, saying in a shockingly smooth voice, "An honor it is to meet you, sir." I shot Dea a confused expression that she promptly ignored. I lightly shook his hand, feeling his frail bones as I did and saying, "Honor's all mine, sir." For someone in a military position, he more closely resembled a pencil with skin, tough but delicate when compared to most of the men, women, and Exos in the room. I gestured toward the map and the markers on it. "So, what's the plan?" I asked.

Dea resumed her leaned-over position over the map, and Chief Mueller crossed his arms, encasing himself in an analytical gaze. He moved a hand to his chin and began speaking through its cupped position. "So far, we've been able to confirm that around thirty Guardians are still alive out there according to the latest bioscan of the area. All of them are unconscious as we predicted, but at least two-thirds of them will be dead if they try to move." He gestured to a grouping of dots around the rubble of the Tower. All of the dots were placed on top of the rubble, but they were most likely beneath. The image refreshed again and some of the dots had moved slightly. An analyst at a nearby station stood and announced, "Madam, we've detected movement at the Tower site. Satellite hasn't picked up anything, but I think one of the sections is about to collapse."

"Adamas, can I get a highlight?" Dea requested.

"Yes ma'am," the analyst called back, tapping away at his screen. A red marker appeared over a long section that used to be the storage for the ships on the Tower. A current image from the satellite popped up on it, showing the cracked structure and slightly torched pieces of the Tower. The image turned thermal and showed a steadily growing patch of red around that section of the Tower.

"That's not rubble shifting." Mueller realized. "Some of the ships in there are about to explode." His head dipped and mouth moved, the words in audible. With his hand, he made a cross, connecting his head, shoulders, and chest. Audibly, he prayed, "May God bless their souls." Within the next few seconds, the satellites picked up a large fireball as the ships and stored fuel ignited in a blaze of glory. Shards of the already-blown-up Tower flew into the air, crushing numerous buildings and destroying others. Some of the smaller bits of debris were detected all close to Traveler Square in the center of the City. Mumbled curses and silence permeated the air. I looked around the room and saw shocked faces renewed with surprise.

The image refreshed heartlessly, showing the debris of the Tower spread even further out, more buildings missing. "All Guardian contacts near the Tower have stopped transmitting. They're KIA."

"We know what that means Adamas!" Chief blurted, leaning down over the map. He cursed under his breath. With a cry, he banged a fist on the map, causing the entire image to blur with the surprising amount of strength behind that frail arm. I looked back towards the map and noticed the the destroyed Tower had actually shifted slightly from the force of the impact. The rubble was a little more disjointed now, but it was no less devastating. After the Chief's outburst, not a muscle moved for several minutes.

Dea broke it. "Alright everyone, if we're going to save the City, we gotta move as quick as possible. We need boots on the ground in the next twelve hours."

Another analyst piped up, the sole Awoken in the room as far as I could tell. "Chief, we're picking up a signal on all channels."

"Origin?" Mueller barked.

"It's the City, sir."

"Bring it up!" Dea ordered. Someone tapped me on the shoulder, a small-faced woman, and handed me a small tablet with the feed on it. I thanked her and immediately turned my attention, nearly dropping it when the video started.

On it, the Speaker stood stoically behind a podium, flanked by the Queen at a separate podium and each of the Vanguard standing between them. The Speaker took a deep breath and a long look at the gathered crowd of those displaced by the attack. "Ladies, gentlemen, Guardians, men, women, children, Exos, and citizens of this glorious City. Today marks one that will forever live in our hearts and memories as the last day anything in the City was normal. As of a few hours ago, we suffered a deliberate attack on our fair City and Tower in an attempt to neutralize both in the process. As you can no doubt tell, our losses are many. To the Guardians who perished, including those who care for them, we are truly sorrowful for their loss and proud of their service to this City, regardless of the length. Currently, we have been unable to contact our Reef allies or Guardians abroad, but I assure you that we will reach them and bring upon these perpetrators a wrath the likes of which they've never seen.

"'What enemy would do this?' you might ask. This enemy is far different and far more intelligent than anything our City and Guardians have ever faced. They are Fallen, but are capable of disguising themselves as anyone, including Guardians. They care not for families, only the Traveler, our Great Machine. They seek to end humanity's reign, but we shall not fail. None shall penetrate our walls and live to tell the tale. Our Vanguard know their second wave is coming, we've located some of their agents, and I promise you they shall be dealt with swiftly. This City has stood for centuries, and it shall stand for several more. That much I can promise you.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, the Queen and I must begin our talks to ensure our City is fortified against whatever the enemy will throw our way." the Speaker and Queen left their respective podiums. I immediately assumed the Queen was either there simply to show she was there or had previously spoken. Now, some stage hands removed a podium and moved the other to the center, allowing Commander Zavala to take his place.

"If you are a Guardian, please return to your defensive posts. Our enemies draw near. If you are not, then please lend me your ears." He cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, as our Queen and Speaker have since mentioned, the time for peace in the City must take a momentary pause with these invaders. While I can assure you that we are preparing impregnable defenses to keep reinforcements out of the City, we cannot guarantee those already inside the City don't pose a threat. While a great many of you are helping construct these defenses, our Guardians will be spread rather thin after the today's tragic loss. That is why the Vanguard are sponsoring a City militia, open to anyone over the age of eighteen. We promise you state-of-the-art weapons and armor to help us combat these invaders, but I will warn you that we cannot guarantee your safety. These enemies are crafty, looking just like you and me, but I can assure you that you will be fully trained and equipped to combat these savages. We will not force you to do it, but it is your duty to protect your home and your loved ones, so I implore you to sign on. Any interested parties should see the palace guards." Wordlessly, Zavala turned on his heel, flanked by the other members of the Vanguard.

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Conference Room inside the Palace

2 hours later…

Each of the Illusion leadership sat in a rather plain conference room. Instead of expensive, lavish decorations across the windows and walls, only the red-painted walls revealed the edges of the room with a singular long table with eight chairs, five of them occupied. Gilmis, Kell of the Illusion, sat at the head of the table in front of a large screen with a map of the City on it. To his right sat Thuzia, dressed in Ikora Rey's robes, and, opposite her was Klim as Zavala. Dressed in a hood and sitting adjacent to Thuzia was Dreko, twirling a knife in his hand, and, at the rear of the table, sat Vulkra as the Queen. A new form swept through the doorway and sat across from Dreko. This newcomer was dressed in tight fitting armor with metal protruding out of his bottom pair of arms and a couple of screens put a sizable indent top pair of forearms. "Commander Gilmis," he saluted as he pulled the chair out and settled in.

"Captain Trivak, an unexpected surprise, welcome to the table," Gilmis said expressionlessly. "I trust the Ketch is in good repair."

"Indeed, Commander," he said, out of breath. "We found it Commander. We found the Black Garden and are prepared to depart effective immediately."

Gilmis stood up. "Then we must depart immediately."

Thuzia also rose. "Sir!" she said incredulously. "The Nine are about to stage an offensive!"

"That faux organization you've been tracking is nothing, has nothing, other than a reject robot with commitment issues. If you can't handle them, then I'm sure Klim would gladly taking your place as acting leader." Klim sat in his chair a little taller.

"Sir, you know I can handle it. It just becomes a question of intelligence. We don't know what they're bringing. Our agents aboard their ship have been unable to access the meetings."

Gilmis growled. "Then, that's your problem, Vulkra. They're your troops, so figure it out. I would hope you trained them for a little...adversity." Vulkra sat down with her head hung low, contemplating something. Gilmis couldn't help but think that Vulkra had been rather reckless as of late. First was the Cabal. Second was their taking out the Speaker. This apparent lack of preparation for the coming battle, one prophesied years ago, was concerning. Three mistakes was usually enough for Gilmis to get rid of the offending officer, but he kept his weapons holstered and sheathed; she hadn't messed up yet, but he was going to keep her on a short leash, especially if those agents got anywhere near their wall, especially if there are any miraculous survivors... "Thuzia!" Gilmis barked after several seconds of silence. Everyone's heads snapped towards Gilmis' direction, finally tearing away from Vulkra's direction. "How close are the guns being ready to fire?"

"Just over an hour, sir. Our engineers are ahead of schedule as we discussed."

"Tell them to work as if they were behind schedule."

"Sir…" Thuzia began.

Gilmis interrupted immediately. "Don't question it. Just get it done. Triviak, we're leaving now!" Without further delay, Gilmis marched out of the room, leaving behind him a myriad of confused looks and guesses. Triviak, still silent, rose a few seconds later and followed his Kell outside the room.

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Note from the SFR:

Hey all! Sorry about the extended wait for this chapter. This one was...a process to say the least. Rewrote the entire chapter twice, rewrote another part a third time, and then proceeded to add on to it (believe you me it was all over the place those other times). Regardless, it's here. You made it. If you've read from the beginning to this point, thank you so very much. If you haven't, thank you all the same. If this is the first chapter you've seen of mine, I hope it was good. Probably not the most exciting stuff, but I think things will get a little more...action-packed. Without further ado...

Welcome to Act III.