As the jumpship flew through the upper atmosphere, the clouds slowly passing beneath the metal hull, I began wondering what had become of my family. I was so lost in my thoughts, I nearly missed the approach to one of the most beautiful things I would ever see.

"We're here," said Ghost solemnly. "Welcome to the Last City, Ace. Welcome home."

I gaped at the viewscreen as the jumpship banked on autopilot over the city. It was quite large, with a massive wall surrounding the perimeter. As I zoomed in with the jumpship's sensors, I could see hundreds of people milling around in the various marketplaces and traversing the streets. As we banked towards a massive tower in the centre of the city, I saw the Traveller, a massive white orb hovering over the centre of the city. Beneath it, many people kneeled in prayer, clad in robes and wearing masks.

"Who are those people beneath the Traveller?"

"Ghost bleeped a bit, and then responded.

"They are the disciples of the Speaker. He is the one who speaks for the Traveller. Think of him as a spiritual leader of sorts. He leads us in our fight, and he alone interprets the Traveller's wishes for humanity. You'll meet him soon enough."

The jumpship banked, and I transmatted out. Ghost piloted the jumpship into what I assumed was the hangar for the massive structure I now stood on top of. Ghost reappeared beside me as I looked at the various Guardians milling around. It was…serene.

"Welcome to the Tower, Ace." Said Ghost. "You'll want to speak with the Vanguard."

I frowned. "Who are the Vanguard?"

Ghost spun a bit in mid air. "They are our greatest representatives, one from each class of Guardian. Each of them has chosen to remain out of the field to act as commanders and leaders of each group of Guardians. As a result, some of them can get a little…antsy."

I nodded, and walked in the direction Ghost pointed me in. I passed several other Guardians, some of whom I noticed were simply just dancing.

"Why the hell are those Guardians dancing like that?" I asked, very confused.

Ghost sighed. "Some of the first guardians to come to the tower were Dance aficionados in their previous life. Some of them passed on a tradition of dancing everywhere humanly possible. Including in the middle of battle. I've heard rumours of Guardians who have danced in the middle of a battle, simply because they think they're invincible."

I sighed, and walked down the stairs. I passed a strange woman holding a glowing green rock and muttering about a person called Crota. Whatever the case, she seemed to hold a massive grudge.

"That's Eris Morn. She's the resident expert on the Hive. You better hope you don't run into them."

I reached the end of the hall, and looked into what appeared to be a command centre for the entire tower. Frames, Exo and humans stood at holographic consoles lining the room. Several wall-mounted screens displayed weapon schematics with Guardians scrolling through the images. At the far end of the room was a large window, overlooking a large mountain range in the distance. A pair of long cannons poked out from beneath the window, pointing towards the sky. In the centre of the room was a map table, with three Guardians standing round it. A the far end of the table stood a large Guardian wearing heavy, bulky armour. His skin was blue, something I made a note of to ask Ghost about later. At the end of the table closest to me stood a female guardian with dark skin. She wore robes over her armour, and had a ghost floating over her shoulder. She was examining a large leather-bound tome, something I had not seem in a long time. When I died, books were going out of fashion more that ever. So I was quite surprised to see she also had another five or six books in varying conditions. Finally, standing over a digital map that had been customised to resemble a parchment map. He was a human man wearing the clothes of a hunter, and he looked unhappy to be standing there. He looked up, and saw me standing there. He awkwardly excused himself from the other two, and came over.

"I assume you're a new Guardian?"

I nodded, and saw he was wearing a name tag. It read: 'Arthur Solas- Deputy to the Hunter Vanguard'. He also had a smiley face spray painted onto his chestplate, which had glowing green lines crisscrossing it. I didn't recognise the make, but I recognised the glowing green lines as shield boosters. They had started to install those on combat frames, but I didn't know of any armour that used such technology. Then I remembered I had been dead for a long, long time. I made a note to pick up a few history books if I could. Preferably ones written for people who had been out of the world for a while.

"I'm Arthur Solas. I'm filling in for Cayde-6 while he…spends some time relaxing. In the meantime, I can help you with whatever you need to familiarize yourself with the world you have come into. Now, if you wouldn't mind, take these engrams and go. The engrams contain ghost-decodable armour patterns that we issue standard to new Hunters. Now, I have to go back an continue reading the latest field reports. Cayde never seems to read them…"

He walked off without giving me a chance to 'familiarize myself with the world I had come into'. I looked round at the various people and robots working on the console, shrugged, and left. I needed to get changed.

About ten minutes later, I walked into the hangar wearing my new clothes. The engrams had given me some old Sinaa Jaguar 2.1 armour, standard recon stuff that I remembered seeing in the cosmodrome museum back home. For something that was apparently standard issue, it had little comfort value, and had been stripped of almost all non-vital components. The helmet sensor array was glitch, and the life support filters were better than my old junkyard armour, but still lacking. The only good part were the gloves, which featured reflex enhancer systems for higher precision. After leaving the Vanguard headquarters, I had wandered for a bit, managing to barter with a gun dealer (they apparently called them 'gunsmiths around here) called Banshee-44 for a decent pulse rifle called the SUROS JPS-32. I assumed that SUROS was a contemporary manufacturer, as I didn't recognise the name. Despite the sights being slightly off, and the trigger being a bit sticky (I assumed the plastics were decaying, and ghost didn't have the materials available to fix it), it was a decent gun. I climbed up the staircase, and found a blond woman wearing a sleeveless green coverall standing in front of a digital display.

"Are you the Tower shipwright?" I asked. "I was told you had fixed up my jumpship."

She turned around, and grinned.

"You're the one with the old Arcadia Class right?"

I nodded. Her grin widened.

"That ship has been the most cooperative ship I've worked on all day. The avionics were more intact than you'd expect for a vessel that's been lying around for five centuries, and the engines were in almost perfect condition when you docked her. I've fixed her up fully, and I've tuned the thrusters. She'll need a spot of paint, and a new warp drive though. I've also uploaded the standard mapping software to her flight computer. You'll be able to access it through the Director function. I had to remove the weapons packages though. We need them for our combat dropships, and SUROS is dropping off a large shipment of brand new ones tomorrow. Sorry about that."

She motioned to a nearby frame to mop some oil off the floor, before turning back to me, and wishing me luck. I nodded, and walked down to the hangar floor. Once there, I quickly located my jumpship sitting in it's berth. A lot of the dented metal plating had been replaced, and the last of the dust and grime had been cleaned off by the hangar team. I hopped up onto the top, and slid open the hatch to peer inside. The leather seat had been refurbished, and now had less stuffing pouring out of the sides. The control panels had been replaced with all new holographic panels, with the few remaining hard controls moved to the sides. I noticed with some mirth that a pair of fuzzy ghosts had been hung from the ceiling. I hopped down into the seat, and placed my hands on the flight controls. Ghost buzzed in after me, and began hovering over my shoulder. I presses the button to close the canopy, and fired up the engines. Ghost looked at me and rotated his case round quizzically.

"Ready to go, Ace?"

"Yes," I replied confidently. "Let's find that engine. Engaging engines now."

The jumpship rose from the floor of the hangar, the landing gear retracting with a clunk. The viewscreen in front of me blinked on, the correct navigational path forwarded from the hangar bay traffic control room to my navigational systems. I pushed forwards on the joystick, and the ship roared out into the early evening sky. We ascended to low earth orbit, and I activated the new navigational system. A stylised display showing the various planets of the solar system popped up. A few were marked as 'Out Of Range'. I pulled the holographic map of the earth our of the frame, and spun it on top of my thumb. I selected the cosmodrome on the map, and pressed the select icon. The holographic map disappeared, and the ship's gyros whined as it spun head over tails to point to a new heading. The engines fired, and rocketed me and Ghost towards the cosmodrome, where (hopefully) I would find a functioning warp drive. My adventure had begun.

Author's note: OMG. I never expected so many people to favourite this story in the first 20 hours it was up. To name my current subscribers (and my current supporters), I would like to give thanks to DragonWarrior74, KnightsKing, Nactick, and SuperedX for subscribing so early in the run. I would also like to note that KnightsKing also made a compelling message on his/her profile about bullying, and would like to give him/her congrats on making such a fantastic show of good will towards those who are bullied. I myself have been bullied, and would like to say that I utterly despise those who do such things to others. I have copied/pasted the prose they posted on their profile to my profile, and would like to encourage others to do the same. Bullying is never OK, and those who do it should feel ashamed for picking on others.

In other, more relevant news, I would like to say that the situation with Star Trek: Dumpster Fire has grown worse. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the new series of Star Trek, ST: Discovery has been…well a failiure to the fans. I know that a lot of people (especially the critics for some reason) like the new show, and you are entitled to your own opinion. But to be honest, it doesn't represent the optimism and forward-looking progressiveness of the previous live-action series. Star Trek: Discovery feels like it tries to copy the previous shows, but fails due to appalling writing, a confusing and muddled plot and a title sequence that the makes of Game of Thrones should be suing for IP violation. The show DOES feature the first openly gay character in the history of Trek (not counting the god-awful Jar Jar Abrams movies), and it does try to make a weak political commentary by making Klingons into Trump supporters (look it up: actually true). But the show lacks the feel of the future that the other series (including TOS) made. It makes a darker, edgier and less connected series part of Star Trek, and that is the reason why it absolutely sucks. HOWEVER, there is a show, a truly awesome and intrinsically Trek show, that (while being set in a completely different setting and having no connection to actual Trek) does the trick at providing a spiritual successor to Trek (like the 1999 movie Galaxy Quest) that many fans (including myself) feel is better that STD. It is…The Orville. Seth McFarlane, I know you'll probably never read this, but DON'T let your show be cancelled by Fox like they did with Firefly. Let your show live on, even if it ends up in syndication. Cause at this point, I'd say that Trekkies should Abandon Ship and go to watch a true vision of the future: The Orville. Thank you.